Author: itoccurstocp

New Year’s Eve is ripe with anticipation, what Webster defines as “the act of looking forward.”  There is, of course, some danger in looking forward as it takes my eyes and mind off now.  In this I am reminded of an exchange I had with my departed (but obviously still with me) friend Jim Mulford.  When, in late December, I started telling him of my new year’s resolutions, he simply replied: “If it is a good resolution, you ought to start doing it (or not doing it) today.”  He had/has a point.

I have long been taken by the lyrics of the Don Goodman and Becky Hobbs song (made popular by the group Alabama) Angels Among Us.  The story song is powerful on so many levels.  There’s the chorus: “I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us, from somewhere up above.  They come to you and me, in our darkest hours.  To show us how to give, teach us how to live, and guide us with the light of love.”  Most powerful to me, the “lump in the throat” line, is this: “Ain’t it kind of funny, at the dark end of the road, someone lights the way with just a single ray of hope.”

The magical thing here is that we can (are called to) be the giver and the receiver there.  Others can light our way, and we can light the way for others.

From Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata:

“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.”

This is an interesting sentence as it juxtaposes two competing thoughts – “discipline” and “gentle.”  Note I said “competing” and not contradictory.  In this I am reminded of Dan Fogelberg’s description of his father in Leader of the Band:

“He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand”

What a phrase – a “gentle means of sculpting souls.”  That is, I think, Ehrmann’s point – you can and should push yourself (who wants to get up every morning and go to work?), but don’t beat yourself (hitting the snooze button is not a punishable offense).  Be gentle with your soul, and those of others.

Back to Thomas Merton’s prayer, one I have written of before.  I picked it up today and the first line jumped out at me: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.”  It occurs to me that at this end of year time, when we are making resolutions, planning out how next year is going to be, and more importantly, how next year is going to be different, that this line from Merton’s prayer should be in the mix also.  For all my planning, my intentions, my resolutioning, the reality is that “I have no idea where I am going.”  If I need proof of that I only need to recognize the path that brought ne to here, now, was only partly of my own making.  I am not suggesting that this should stop me from planning, intending, or making resolutions – only that in doing so I should recognize that it is not all about me.

I was reading Advice to Myself by Louise Endrich recently.  The poem is, as you might expect, full of advice, yet one piece sticks out for me – her admonition to only pay attention to “what strikes at or what shatters the ruse you call necessity.”  Now there are five words full of meaning, begging for thought and introspection – “the ruse you call necessity.”

That said, it doesn’t take much thought or introspection to declare “necessity” a fraud, at least as I commonly use it in the more common form – “need.”

So we get to Christmas and it has all unfolded.   Mary and Joseph fled, they end up in a stable in Bethlehem where she gave birth to Jesus.  There is all this hubbub, the angels, the shepherds, ….  Only one person has really been through this from the beginning – Mary.  Perhaps that is why I like this verse so much:

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Though she has been through it all Mary, it seems, can’t make full sense out of it.  She can’t just wrap it up into a neat package and move on.  No, she has lived through all these events and still “pondered them in her heart.”  Such a great word – “ponder.”  (In my on line dictionary: to “think about something carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion.”  But it occurs to me that if Mary can be in the midst of it and still has to ponder it, then it follows that I am not supposed to have it all figured out.  I, like Mary, am allowed to read and think of these events and ponder them in my heart before reaching a decision or conclusion.  And I do.

Photo taken last year in the Phoenix area.

“Mature prayer always breaks into gratitude.”  Richard Rohr

That settles in well this morning.  It is easy for prayer to be based on needs and desires, most typically MY needs and desires.  But rationale thinking, when that occurs, recognizes that all in life is a gift.  That is worth saying again – rational thinking, when that occurs, recognizes that all in life is a gift.  Somehow, that sends me to the hymnal to a song that somehow seems appropriate for Christmas:

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth’s lamentation,

I hear the sweet, tho’ far-off hymn

That hails a new creation;

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?

 

Indeed!  How can I keep from singing, and why would I?

From Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska:

”Nothing can ever happen twice.

In consequence, the sorry fact is

that we arrive here impoverished

and leave with no chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,

if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,

you can’t repeat the class in summer;

this course if offered only once.”

All the more reason to get it right the first time!

 

 

 

I read this today attributed to Rabbi Rafael, a nineteenth-century Hassidic teacher.  It still hits home:

“When I get to heaven, they’ll ask me, why didn’t you learn more Torah?  I will tell them I was not bright enough.  Then they’ll ask me, why didn’t you do more kind deeds for others?  I will tell them that I was physically weak.  Then they’ll ask me why didn’t you give more to charity?  And I’ll tell them that I didn’t have enough money for that.  And then they’ll ask me, if you were so stupid, weak, and poor, why were you so arrogant?  And for that I won’t have an answer.”

Amen!