It occurs to me…

Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by everything happening at once.”  Paulo Coelho

I’ve been living with this quote for a while, not sure that to do with it.  Thinking on it today, it occurs to me that much of life, my life at least, is spent in the “too much” or “not enough” lanes, so much so that it has become easy to see life as a two-lane road that has only those two options – and I spend my time swerving from one to the other.  Recently, mainly based on discussions with a friend who is focusing on “sufficiency,” I have been contemplating a different construction.  What if the road of life were viewed as a single lane road of “sufficiency,” and I relegated those “too much” and “not enough” thoughts to the shoulders on either side, or even (on a good day) to the borrow ditch on either side.

While I enjoy the song all year, I make it a point on Memorial Day weekend to listen at least a few times to David Wilcox sing John Gorka’s song, Let Them In to help me remember that this holiday weekend is about more than beaches and barbecue.  The words are set out below, or you can listen to it here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCX1cULwal8

Let Them In

Let them in Peter, they are very tired.  Give them couches where the angles sleep.  Light those fires.

Let them wake whole again, a brand new dawn, fired by the sun, not wartime’s bloody guns.

May their peace be deep, remember where the broken bodies lie.  God knows how young they were to have to die.  God knows how young they were to have to die.

Give them things they like.  Let them make some noise.  Give dance hall bands, not golden harps, to these our boys.

Let them love Peter, for they’ve had no time.  They should have trees, and birdsongs, and hills to climb.  The taste of summer, in a ripened pear.  And girls as sweet as summer winds, with flowing hair.

And tell them how they are missed, but say not to fear.  Its gonna be all right, with us down here.

Let then in Peter.  Let them in Peter.  Let them in Peter.

“There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.”  John Stuart Mill

I like that phrase – “assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.”  But still, I spend a lot of time searching for “absolute certainty,” and oddly, thinking I’ll find it.

The Coleman Banks translation of The Guest House  by Rumi – to comment on it would only lessen its power:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor

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.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be brageful for whoever comes,

Because each has been sent

As a guide from beyond.

Today from Oswald Chambers: “We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves and we will find that we can do what we said we could not.  The curse with most of us is that we won’t.  The Christian live is one of incarnate spiritual pluck.”

No sugar coating or sympathy here from Chambers.  In three sentences Chambers conveys a lot.  It occurs to me that Chambers was about 100 year ahead of Nike’s “Just Do It” and about 70 ahead of Yoda’s “Do or do not.  There is no try.”  Still, the message is generally the same.

“Every tomorrow has two handles.  We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.”  Henry Ward Beecher

Thinking about my two-handled tomorrow bucket, I don’t know if I have quite worn out the “handle of anxiety” yet, but I am confident it is the more worn and polished of the two.  It occurs to me that the other handle, while different, will still allow me to carry the bucket, and ought to be used more often.

“More suffering comes into the world by people taking offense than by people intending to give offense.”  Ken Keyes

I ran across this quote recently and it supports the thought I have been having (those are the quotes I like best, the ones that validate my own thoughts!).  My thought is that people, and I am a people, seem to be predisposed to being offended.  That is, our skin seems to be thinning.   I won’t pretend to understand this, but have some thought that it has to do with the fact that our “soapboxes” are both anonymous and so readily available, and our egos are fed by joining in on a landslide of public opinon.  Had a bad meal at a restaurant, a bug in your hotel room, felt cheated by a mechanic – just post something about it anonymously on any one of many sites that provide review opportunities.  Read a ten-word headline about some recent action by some egotistical, bombastic guy elected to public office – form an opinion without knowing the facts.  The exchange of information is not necessarily a bad thing, but taking offense, particularly as the speed of a cell phone grab and type, at the speed of a knee-jerk reaction, may say less about the offender than it does about the offended.  Perhaps all might be better served if I attempted to gather more information before jumping to a conclusion, or noted my disappointment to someone in a position to address the concern and possibly rectify the situation.

I had to change my computer password at work recently, which is always a hassle.  I find myself typing in the old one out of habit, though I know I have a new one.  In fact, it seems like just about the time the “new” password becomes automatic, it is time to change to a different new one.

It occurs to me that this is a good life lesson here.  Change is almost always difficult.  Even when I know intellectually it is good (thwarting hackers), change is still difficult to embrace.  Yet, at some point, and generally without realizing it, the change I had such difficulty embracing becomes the change I have difficulty letting go of.   I am reminded of one of George Carlin’s comedy routines where he makes this astute observation – “Have you ever noticed that after you have a hat on for a while you forget it is there, and then, after you take it off, you still think it is there?”

All that to say – Change, hard to accept, hard to let go of.  Go figure.

“The entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”  John Andrew Holmes

I ran across this quote again today.  With some frequency I need to be reminded that I am but one of the (approximately) 7,500,000,000 who inhabit this clod of dirt orbiting the sun.  Still, I struggle with the word “trifling,” and would have preferred that Holmes would have omitted that word, for my sake, and for the other 7,499,999,999’s sake.

Today from Oswald Chambers:  “we have to work out the salvation God has worked in.”  This is of course reminiscent of what Paul urges the Philippians to do in Philippians 2:13 — “continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

In this I am reminded that God has given me the tools, the resources, the raw material I need for this task of working on my own salvation.  Now I just gotta find out where He put all the pieces, and where did I set down those damn assembly instructions.