Author: itoccurstocp

“Any radical shift in consciousness requires the stimulus of crisis.”  Robert & Edward Skidelsky

I came across this quote recently in a book I am reading, picked my pencil up, and put a question mark by it.  My immediate urge was to deny the truth of this, but I have not, in the time since, been successful in convincing myself that it is not true.  The best I could do was convince myself that “crisis” is a relative term, and, in the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” tradition, I have almost convinced myself that it is a good thing that it is true.  I mean, who wants to have a “radical shift in consciousness” occur on a whim.  Still, I haven’t erased the question mark!

“There is a wonderful, mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life – happiness, freedom, and peace – are always attained by giving them to someone else.”

Peyton Conway March

I ran across this quote today and it rings true.  Much time and effort is spent trying to achieve happiness, freedom, and peace through other means, while bypassing the obvious route.  Which reminds me of this quote attributed to Anne Frank: “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

“Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be good for all the people.”  Luke 2:10

That phrase is used often in the Bible – “Do not be afraid.”  In Chapters 1 and 2 of Luke it is used three times, once with shepherds, once with Zecharias, and once with Mary, each at the outset of an angelic appearance.  It is understandable that being confronted by an angel might be alarming, and thus the “Do not be afraid” introduction makes sense, but then any indication of divine presence, from the gentle tug of a “still, small voice” to an angel appearing, can be startling.  In The Jesuit Guide To Almost Everything James Martin notes that “an indication that God is close to you can be alarming,” but goes one step further, noting: “Religious experiences are often dismissed – not out of doubt that they aren’t real, but out of fear that they are real after all.”

That rings true to me – here’s the pattern.   After being startled, after the nudge, some form of reason kicks in, and I start to see that this realization, this awakening, is going to put me on a different path, and that if I listen and respond, things are going to be different.  Once that fear takes over, well, I can “but” God out of the way and that gentle tug (I have no experience with angels appearing) can get lost in the jostling of life.

“Do not be afraid,” or hell, just be less afraid.

“The sun, with all those planets revolving round it and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”  Galileo Galilei

This both provides encouragement and speaks to the wonder of creation.

Photo taken outside the house.  the cats are ours, or we are their humans.

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”

Rumi – The Guest House – translated by Coleman Barks

Some guests are easier to be grateful for than others, what some leave behind is more pleasant than others, but there is no denying that each has an influence on us.  As the poem says ahead of the passage above:

“Welcome and entertain them all, even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably.  He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”

“I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Anne Lamottt, Traveling Mercies

Like Lamott, I also do not understand the mystery of grace, but she has done as good a job as anyone in her efforts to not so much explain it as identify one of its characteristics.  She comments later:

“I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put on pants before they go out for a stroll.   I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them….”

I don’t know either, but I do know that grace “meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Sometimes I am kicking and screaming on the journey, sometimes not.

I recently pulled down from the bookshelf and opened up my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the few novels I have kept after reading.  Though noted to be a twelfth impression, this copy I bought used some time back was printed near the original July 1960 publication date because the handwritten note on the inside cover is dated 1961.  Considering that, the thought occurred to me that reading To Kill a Mockingbird some fifty-eight years ago was likely a different experience than reading it today.  But then when I read it again this year it will be a different experience than my first reading it about fifty years ago.  I guess that is one of the “magic” qualities of books, at least good books.  Whatever the year, wherever the reader is, the book picks the reader up where he or she is and drops him/her off in another place.

Much is said lately about respect, or perhaps more appropriately, lack of respect.  In my reading today I came across what I think is a good explanation of the term (from Robert & Edward Sidelsky’s (How Much Is Enough) that seemingly helps:

“[T]o respect someone is to indicate, by some formality or otherwise, that one regards his views and interests as worthy of consideration, as things not to be ignored or trampled on.  Respect does not imply agreement or liking; one can respect an enemy.  It does not imply any special admiration.  But it does imply a certain recognition or ‘taking account’ of the other’s point of view….”

In this sense, “respect” seems to require a lot of the respecter, in particular, some humility, some willingness to consider the thought, if only a brief thought, that the other is not wearing a “kick me” sign, is not “to be ignored or trampled on.”  That last sentence is, I think, the key ingredient that seems to often be absent in today’s discourse — “a certain recognition or ‘taking into account” of the other’s point of view.”  It is, in this information age, so easy to tune into that which spouts only one point of view, and only uses the other as a punching bag.

But beyond having listened for that moment, having taken into account the other point of view, it occurs to me that we are not then somehow freed to become disrespectful.  Having had a discourse, respect has no place for the use of “whack job” or “total loser” when describing the other.

Photo taken while perusing the meat counter at the local grocery store.