Author: itoccurstocp

“The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  That passage from Galatians 5:14 is familiar, and the same things is said throughout the Bible.  While difficult to do, it is easy to let that settle in, at least as a good idea, something to aspire to.  The next verse, however, came across as I read it today as a pretty stern warning, and certainly more unsettling: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”  Galatians 5:14-15

There it is – and who can argue with that?  All of the animosity, the bad blood, the “us and them” mentality that is so prevalent today makes me think of the line from one of Merle Haggard’s songs – “Are we rollin’ downhill like a snowball headed for hell?”

So what do we do?  Well, as crazy as it sounds, that answer is in the preceding verse: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Today I stumbled across this from poet Billy Collins:

“By the end of a poem, the reader should be in a different place from where he started.  I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.”

It occurs to me that many (?most, all?) of the my great experiences in life – friendship, love, travel, accomplishment – all involved that feeling, that slight sense of disorientation.  As much as I bemoan it at the time, that sense of unease is a harbinger of growth, and all growth stretches me a bit, makes me feel a bit uneasy until I grow into/become accustomed to it.

My task is not simply to tolerate the cornfield, but to accept, even enjoy it!

I don’t know.  This poem just seemed to settle in and fit the day for me:

The First Green of Spring – David Budbill

“Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold

this sweet first green of spring.  Now sauteed in a pan melting

to a deeper green than they ever were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come.  Now we sit at the table munching

on this message from the dawn which says we and the world

are alive again today, and this is the world’s birthday, And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we

will never be young again, we also know we’re still right here

now, today, and oh my! don’t these greens taste good.”

“An another regrettable thing about death

is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,

which took a whole life to develop and market —

the quips, the witticisms, the slant

adjusted to a few, whose loved ones nearest

the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched

in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,

…The whole act.

Who will do it again?  That’s it: no one;

imitators and descendants aren’t the same.”

Photo taken on a recent run

From yesterday’s Easter sermon from Fr. Mike Adams:

“We did not CHOOSE to be here, and realize some day we will NOT be here.”  And while I don’t recall his exact words, the gist of what followed was – So what do we choose to do while we ARE here?

In this I am reminded (as I often am) of the last line in Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Hmm!  That seems like a good question to ask this day after Easter – though it occurs to me it is a good question to ask every day.

“There ain’t nothin’ not affected when two hearts get connected.”                                     Two People Fell In Love – Brad Paisley

I thought I had heard every Brad Paisley song, but this one has somehow escaped my attention until now.  In the context of Paisley’s song, he sings of a couple meeting, falling in love, and having a child.  The child grows up, “cures all sorts of things, wins the Nobel prize, and saves a million different lives.”  The punch line is “It’s funny when you think about the reason he’s alive, is all because two people fell in love.”

It is a bit saccharine, as most all good love songs are.  Still, the line hung with me and it occurred to me that it is a truth.  When two people connect, two hearts connect, the world changes.  The connection need not result in marriage, a child, a Nobel prize, and it need not result in saved lives.  No, lives can and do get changed when “two hearts get connected” by a smile and an encouraging word, by an apology and forgiveness, by dropping money into some receptacle, by just showing up and being there.  Those simple acts, the momentary connection of two hearts, change lives.

“There ain’t nothin’ not affected when two hearts get connected.”  Believe it.  Count on it.

“To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin….”  C. S. Lewis

Reading this, it occurs to me that Lewis has, in one portion of a sentence, gotten to the heart of Christianity.  It is easy, so easy, to fall into the trap of acting as if the world spins around me, to  put value (or not) on people or things based on how they impact me.  In this I am reminded of the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin – “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”

Today, I will endeavor “to take at least one step away from utter spiritual ruin,” maybe two.