Author: itoccurstocp

A Developed Sense of Fancy

Howard Thurman is in deep territory in today’s reading (Deep Is the Hunger).  He writes of a “sense of fancy” and notes that this is “the particular gift of little children” – fairies, Santa Claus, talking with dolls – this is normal in children but (I love this line) “if this sort of thing persists into manhood and womanhood, the individual may be regarded as being somewhat off-balance.”  That said, Thurman notes that as adults we must hold on to a “developed sense of fancy” which he describes as “the ability to envision things in terms of their highest meaning and fulfillment, even as one grapples with them in the present as they are.”  A tall order indeed, to see things as they are, yet also see them as they might be.  But there is method to his madness:

“A developed sense of fancy illumes the dark reaches of the other person until there is brought to light that which makes for wholeness and beauty in him.  This is what God is doing in human life all the time.”

Indeed, it must be, or God would have given up on us long ago.

Quote from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby overheard in a podcast:

“You don’t think about what the right thing to do is. You think about being alongside someone where everything is not right.”

A good reminder for me that it is easy to get so focused on doing the “right thing” that Ifail to do anything, and that the right thing starts with “being there” alongside, in whatever form that may take.

If you have time, I recommend you listen to the whole conversation between Welby and Kate Bowler — an hour, but an hour well spent. I get a kick out of interviews (conversations, really) in which it is difficult to tell who is interviewing whom. This is clearly one of those.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/583447646/everything-happens%60

Cloud photo from who knows where.  The phrase “world of particulars” is one I jotted down some time ago after hearing it, and it has been rolling around in my head — now passed along to you.

Photo taken in Galveston a few months back. Text from Mary Oliver

Photo taken in Galveston a few months back. Emerson channeled through Mary Oliver.

C. S. Lewis’ writing on the subject of pride has always stood out to me, but he has a rival in Howard Thurman. From Thurman:

“Pride and arrogance are always with us seeking to exert their pernicious influence in what we say and how we say it, in what we do and how we do it.  No one of us escapes.  Often we find ourselves most completely influenced by pride when surest that we are most self-effacing and humble.  For the subtlest pose is that of humility and apparent willingness to be considered least of all.”

That last sentence is a masterful use of words, so piercing, so convicting – “For the subtlest pose is that of humility and apparent willingness to be considered least of all.” 

___

Now, a less serious addendum that speaks to how my mind works, or doesn’t:

That said, Lewis and Thurman get a run for their money from the great Austin Lounge Lizards and these lines from their classic, Another Stupid Song About Texas:

“By God we’re so darn proud to be from Texas

Even of our pride we’re proud, and we’re proud of that pride, too

Our pride about our home state  is the proudest pride indeed

And we’re proud to be Americans, until we can secede.”

From C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, this to think on:

“…so we shall then first be true persons when we have suffered ourselves to be fitted into our places.”

Still chewing on that thought.

Provide your own haiku to me for this photo — 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables — and I’ll put them on the photo and post them here.

A zinger today from Howard Thurman:

“It is exceedingly difficult to keep from encouraging in oneself that which one condemns in other people.  Vices are apt to take on the halo of virtues when they are part of one’s own behavior, but seen in others they are regarded as being what in truth they are….  What I would consider a pose or pretense in my neighbor is apt to be called genuine when I do it.”

Arrghhh.  Just when I was starting to feel comfortable around mirrors!

This poem/prayer from Mary Oliver

Thirst

“Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.  I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons.  Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time.  Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart.  Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.”

Regarding the first line, the request to – “wake the thirst for goodness I do not have.”  I might quibble a bit with that and suggest that the “thirst for goodness,” though perhaps latent, is always there, but perhaps that is wishful thinking. Yet what stays with me most, beyond the prayerful nature of this selection, is that last sentence:

 “Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.”

“Who knows what will finally happen…pack nothing….I am slowly learning.” Indeed!