It occurs to me…

C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity:

“I am only trying to call attention to the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from others.  There may be all sorts of excuses for us.  That time you were so unfair to ___ was when you were very tired.  That slightly shady business about the money – the one you have almost forgotten – came when you were very hard up.  And what you promised to do for ___ and have never done – well, you would never have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be.  And as for your behavior to ___ or ___ if I knew how irritating they could be….  For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations.  It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put out good temper down to ourselves.”

A twist on the Golden Rule, a painful one – practice myself the kind of behavior I expect from others; accept their excuses as readily as I proffer and accept my own.  Wait, it occurs to me that practice sounds suspiciously like “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.”

“’Will you give me a drink?’….  ‘Sir’, the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.”  John 4:11

This is such a simple exchange that it is easy to pass over as we read of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.  It occurs to me that the woman has apparently realized that she holds all the cards here.  The scene occurs at a well.  Jesus wants a drink.  He can’t get a drink without a bucket.  The woman has the bucket.  So, he starts a conversation and asks, recognizing he needs her help.

It occurs to me that this scene of course plays out daily in life.  When I need the bucket, how willing am I to ask for help from the one who had the bucket?  What holds me back from starting the conversation and asking?  When I hold the bucket, what is my reaction when someone asks for it?

“The moment you have a self at all there is the possibility of putting yourself first – wanting to be the center – wanting to be God.”  C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Hmm.  Lewis is, true to form, understating the issue.  I think I would replace “possibility” with (at least at times) “certainty” or, on my better days, “likelihood.”   In any event, the quote from today’s Lewis reading stuck out to me because it coincided with a reading last night from Paul Woodruff’s book – Reverence.  In it, Woodruff writes:

“Reverence begins with a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control – God, truth, justice, nature, even death.  The capacity for awe, as it grows, brings with it the capacity for respecting fellow human beings, flaws and all….  Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.”

Lewis and Woodruff are on to something (duh!)  It occurs to me that what troubles us now, self included, is that we are putting ourselves at the center, wanting to be God.  We lack reverence.  Not only do we lack “awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control,” we simply deny anything lies out of our control.

Granted, it was a different time in 1965 when the song came out, but It occurs to me that Burt Bacharach was close, so close.

“What the world needs now, is [reverence] sweet [reverence].  It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”

Of course, “reverence” has too many syllables, and it may not be “the only thing that there’s just too little of,” but it is one of them.

Just like it is difficult to choose between brisket and sausage, it was difficult for me to choose a text — so I choose both.  Photo taken at Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, Texas this past week.

“[W]e brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it.”  1 Timothy 6:6

There it is as cold as truth can be.  I come in with nothing and leave with nothing.  My stuff is, well, just stuff.  I ain’t taking it with me when I leave.  Granted, it may become someone else’s stuff, but it won’t be mine any more, only something that used to be mine.  So if life ain’t about the stuff….

Dreaming and Doing

Today Oswald Chambers writes of dreaming and doing.  “Dreaming about a thing in order to do it is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong.”  A perfectly thought out plan is of little use to anyone unless and until it is put into action.   Well, the plan may impress me, and I may take some pride in my being able to come up with such a clever plan, but that is about all one can squeeze out of it.  The juice is in the execution of the plan.  Suppose, on seeing a drowning man, I think quickly and devise a foolproof plan on saving him.  The plan is of little use unless and until it is executed.  Which takes us to Chambers’ punchline – [A]lways beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once God has spoken.  Leave Him to be the source of all your dreams and joys and delights, and go out and obey what He has said….  Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication we do not trust Him.”

What plans do I have sitting on the shelf that God has led me to, helped me devise?  Perhaps it is time to check the expiration date on them.

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.  Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.”   Desiderata, Max Ehrmann

When I read this I always note the duality that runs throughout.  We are to speak AND listen.  When we speak (implying that we are to make rational choices regarding WHEN to speak) we tell our story “quietly and clearly.”  Lots of duality there.  Which in turn reminds me of the duality of Wilson Mizner’s quote: “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.”

Everyone has a story — Everyone.  We are called to speak ours, and called to listen to others’.  It is in speaking and listening that we connect our stories.  The speaking and the listening are the thread and the needle that help us bind our scraps of cloth together to make this patchwork quilt we call humanity.

On this Valentine’s Day, these song lyrics comes to mind, and if I am lucky, they will stay there:

 

From Darrell Scott and Tim O’Brien:

“More love, I can hear our hearts cryin’, more love, I know that’s all we need, more love, to flow in between us, to take us and hold us and lift us above, if there’s ever an answer it’s more love”

From Kate Wolf:

“Give yourself to love, if love is what you’re after.  Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter.  Just give yourself to love.  Give yourself to love.”

From Burt Bacharach and Hal David:

“What the world needs now, is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing, that there’s just too little of.”

The Joy of Finding

At the recommendation of a friend I read a New Yorker article recently – When Things, Go Missing, by Kathryn Schulz.  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/when-things-go-missing   Give it a read.  In it the author writes on two kinds of loss, loss of things (misplaced keys, jewelry, etc.) and loss of people (death).  While both are, in our language, considered a loss, in this article, the former, loss of things, is labeled as “disappearance,” while the latter, the loss of people, is labeled as “loss.”  The distinction makes both physical and metaphysical sense.  While my keys are “lost” in the sense that I can’t find them, they still exist and are fully functional.  If someone else finds them they can use them to start and drive off in my truck.  My lost cell phone did not vaporize, it exists, I just don’t know WHERE it exists.  If someone finds the $20 bill I dropped, it spends for them as well as it would have for me.  Schulz puts it better than I can:

“With objects, loss implies the possibility of recovery; in theory, at least, nearly every missing possession can be restored to its owner. That’s why the defining emotion of losing things isn’t frustration or panic or sadness but, paradoxically, hope. With people, by contrast, loss is not a transitional state but a terminal one. Outside of an afterlife, for those who believe in one, it leaves us with nothing to hope for and nothing to do. Death is loss without the possibility of being found.” [To set theological arguments aside here, I’ll simply add “…on this earth” after “found” here.]

In the end, and though it would be impossible to do so while I am in the midst of looking for/mourning the “disappearance” of my keys, lost phone, or that $20 bill, Schulz convinces me that “disappearances” can, if I let them, be a blessing, because they can remind me of the transience of life.  These “disappearances” along the way can prepare me for and help diminish (though not prevent) the sting of real “loss.”  The key, she notes, if to recognize that the blessing is in the finding:

“[W]e will lose everything we love in the end. But why should that matter so much? By definition, we do not live in the end: we live all along the way. The smitten lovers who marvel every day at the miracle of having met each other are right; it is finding that is astonishing. You meet a stranger passing through your town and know within days you will marry her. You lose your job at fifty-five and shock yourself by finding a new calling ten years later. You have a thought and find the words. You face a crisis and find your courage.”

Indeed, “it is the finding that is astonishing.”  Schulz notes that if I let it, disappearance reminds me to notice the world around me, to count my blessings.  These “disappearances” can “serve as a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days.”  Schulz closes with these beautiful words: “[O]ur brief crossing is best spent attending to all that we see: honoring what we find noble, denouncing what we cannot abide, recognizing that we are inseparably connected to all of it, including what is not yet upon us, including what is already gone. We are here to keep watch, not to keep “  Amen.