Author: itoccurstocp

“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no longer worthy to be called thy son: make me one of thy servants.”  Luke 15:18-19

It is easy to get caught up in the after story, the father’s welcoming the son back, the sandals, the robe, the ring, the killing of the fatted calf, the party, that we can forget that all of that resulted from a realization, then an admission by the younger son (first to himself, then to his father) that he had screwed up.  That can be, is often, such a difficult step.  It is so easy to blame other people, other circumstances, for difficulties in life, and so difficult to admit that the person in the mirror is the one who screwed up.  Yet, as in this parable, it is that step that is often the one required to get to the road back.

Hebrews 13:5, this from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message:

“Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things.  Be relaxed with what you have.”

Or more traditionally, from the NIV:

“Keep your lives free of the love of money, and be content with what you have.”

Two thoughts occurred to me:

Seems like something you’d read in a self-help New York Times best seller.  Oh, wait….

All due respect to Dylan, are the times really a changing?

“Under everything, just another human being.”  Eddie Vedder

In one of those meandering journeys one can make following one bread crumb to another on the internet, I stumbled across this line today.  It occurs to me that the “everything” is the challenge, not the “human being.”  We take on, project on others, a lot of “everything.”

From Max Ehrmannn’s Desiderata:

“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”

I missed, and a friend reminded me (that’s what friends are for) of the connection between this from Ehrmannn and Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12:

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Reflecting on these It occurs to me that while there is some correlation, the “counsel of the years” that allows us to “put the ways of childhood behind [us]” has less to do with chronological age and more to do with the obstacles we put (or allow to creep in) between us and truth.  Thinking of it another way, no age or generation has “cornered the market” on the inability (or, for that matter, the ability) to see clearly – though I think the 70s disco era may deserve some type of award based on music, clothing, and hair styles alone.

From Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata:

“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”

I had previously thought of this as an admonition to accept the wisdom of your elders, or the like, but it occurs to me that in the “counsel of years” Ehrmann is digging deeper, referring to our own internal wisdom, the things, if (big IF) we are open to them, we come to believe over time not because those things have changed, but because we have changed.  As a simple example, my thoughts on salad have changed with time.  Salad hasn’t really changed, still the same lettuce, tomato, dressing, etc.  Instead, the “counsel of years” has caused me to readjust that thinking, and resulted in my “surrendering the things of youth.”  Of course this hopefully happens on a grander stage, and the “counsel of the years” alters how I see people, races, genders, etc.  The “counsel of years” has been busy, and certainly has more work ahead of it.

Song lyrics by Sam Baker.  Give it, him, a listen.

Photo taken on a recent run.

“I have resolved from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly.”  Robert Louis Stevenson

Seems like a good place to start, but I’m glad he found the time to write a few things along the way.

From Rumi’s The Guest House as translated by Coleman Barks:

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice

Meet them at the door laughing,

And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

Because each has been sent

As a guide from beyond.”

I pick this up and read it from time to time.  I regularly need that reminder that: “Being human is a guest house.  Every morning a new arrival.”  Indeed — Sometimes a whole tour bus before the morning passes.

 

From Anthony DeMello’s The Way To Love:

“You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away.”

It’s damn sure more difficult to locate at some times than others, but still, it’s there.  It occurs to me that sometimes, often, we are, to borrow from Johnny Lee’s song, lookin’ for happiness in all the wrong places.