Author: itoccurstocp

Oswald Chambers writes today (My Utmost for His Highest) of John 7:38 (streams of living water”), of persistence and rivers.  Among other qualities, he notes that a river “is victoriously persistent, it overcomes all barriers.”  Chambers writes:

“You can see God using some lives, but into your life an obstacle has come and you do not seem to be of any use.  Keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you round the obstacle or remove it….  Never get your eyes on the obstacle or on the difficulty.  The obstacle is a matter of indifference to the river which will flow steadily through you if you remember to keep right at the Source.”

When a wall arises, some barrier, I tend to be inclined to simply push against the wall.  Granted, I might possibly, eventually push/knock the wall down (picture that occurring by me repeatedly beating my head against it) but there is a lesson from the river – one can be “victoriously persistent” by less direct approaches that are not as egocentric.

It occurs to me that perhaps the best example of this in my lifetime was the ultimate destruction of the Berlin Wall.  Despite countries and armies being supremely able to directly and immediately tear down the wall for nearly thirty years since its creation, despite President Regan’s Brandenburg Gate speech where he urged Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was ultimately the forces of freedom that were “victoriously persistent.”

Be “indifferent to the obstacle” and “keep right at the Source.”

There are  days when no matter how much I stare and ponder, the thoughts do not come and the characters do not assemble on the screen to make me sound/feel wise.  Most days I fight that and slog on.  Today, I consider the thought that perhaps I currently have nothing meaningful to commit to a page, and accept that.

I keep running into grace, literally, and literately, in things I pick up and read.  Or does grace run into me?  In either event, there are worse things in life.

Today, Anne Lamott writes on grace in Traveling Mercies and I am not sure anyone explains it better – to the extent grace can be explained.  Grace is:

“the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook.  It is unearned love – love that goes before, that greets us on the way.  It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking an most charming charm have failed you.  Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

Later, she writes: “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

All of this can best be summed up in Lamott’s reference to Auden: “I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”

It occurs to me that grace takes us from Thoreau’s “lives of quiet desperation” and “does not leave us where it found us.”  It drops us into a room full of similarly (but differently) imperfect people with the music blasting loudly.  There, then, we should dance.

Listening to an On Being interview of Michelle Alexander recently I heard this and it stuck:

“We have become a nation of stone-throwers, and it is not enough to simply put down our own stone.”

My mind immediately went to Acts 8 and the account of Stephen’s stoning.  As people began to stone Stephen for his beliefs they “laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58) and it is later reported that Saul “was there giving approval to his [Stephen’s] death.” (Acts 8:1).  There is no indication that Saul (later, Paul) ever picked up a stone, no report that he actually tossed one.  Still, Stephen was stoned to death.

It occurs to me, and I think occurred to Paul, that the injustice is/was the stoning.  Putting my stone down does not make the stones thrown by others that hit their mark hurt any less, nor does it somehow excuse those that miss their mark. Yes, putting my stone down is good.  My never picking one up is even better.  But there is more to do.  Paul spent the rest of his days trying to prevent the “stonings” and encouraging others to do the same.  Me?

Photo looking out from the Pacific Coast in Oregon earlier this year.  I enjoyed the humor in the thought enough to stick it on the photo.

From Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

These lyrics popped into my head today.  Often it is easy to lose sight, to lose perspective.  These lyrics help in that battle.

Today, a convergence of two sources lights the way:

From Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: “Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to fix itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.  Now … I understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything.”

It occurs to me that, like Anne Lamott, “do not understand much of anything,” and that thought becomes even stronger any time I sit and fret about tomorrow, which caused me to cue up one of my favorite old hymns: “Today, I’ll walk beside him, for He knows what is ahead.  Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.”

Understanding is SO overrated.

Often, when I read C. S. Lewis, I get a good laugh, but a serious laugh.  He has this ability to create laughter by hitting hard points with a heavy dose of sarcasm.  (I am, of course, jealous!)  Today’s reading from Mere Christianity is an example:

“For there are two thing inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become.  They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self.  The Diabolical self is the worse of the two.  That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.  But of course, it is better to be neither.”

It occurs to me that often I justify my shortcomings by pointing to a worse example of the same.  One could call that the “better than” syndrome.  By way of example – “I am not very compassionate, but I am better than ______.”  This is, of course, where Lewis’ statement fits in: “But of course, it is better to be neither.”  Indeed!

I get troubled lately about things, well, more troubled than usual.  Thankfully, incidents of relief occur out of the blue, things which could (likely, should) be interpreted as God sprinkling grace abundantly.  One such moment occurred recently at, of all places (those are the sprinkles of grace we appreciate the most, the surprising ones) –a Jackson Browne concert.  After playing a string of upbeat songs he started this one, just him at a piano singing a song I had not heard before – Walls and Doors:

“Ever since the world existed

There’s one thing that is certain

There are those who build walls

And those who open doors

Ah, but this my love, I’m thinking you already know

For some its always winter

While others have the spring

Some people find good fortune

While others never find a thing

Ah, but this my love, I’m thinking you already know.”

(I’ll skip right over the obvious relevance/application here, but note it was not lost on the crowd even though the song itself is at least thirty years old)

Well, I do already know those things, but it is good to be reminded of it before my walls get too high and the chill of winter overtakes me.  Here’s to open doors, spring, good fortune, and, as with this string of words, finding things.  Things I already know, but tend to lose sight of.