It occurs to me…

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.

I keep having this recurring thought that we in the United States seem to have a lot of collective angst right now.  It is as if everyone is leaning forward, listening intently, ready, waiting, and perhaps in a strange way, relishing the next opportunity to pounce on someone, something, something done or said.  Maybe I overstate this.  Maybe I am just imposing my own thoughts and feelings on the rest of my fellow Americans.  But in any event, that comes to mind as I read the beginning of Max Ehrmann’s Desidrata this morning.

“Go placidly among the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.  As far as possible, be on good terms with all persons.”

That opening line “go placidly among the noise and haste,” is such a great line to start off with.  There is always, it seems, “noise and haste” to “go placidly” through if one chose to react that way, but it seems that these days I share with many others the inclination to jump into the fray and add to the din.  Here, Ehrmann posits that perhaps the better response is to hold the comment, the criticism, the sarcasm I have in my head and on the tip of my tongue, and choose instead to “be on good terms” with those around me.  It is not like Ehrmann is suggesting saint-like effort on my part – he gives me the “as far as possible” out.  It occurs to me that much in my life and in my relationships is governed how far “as far as possible” is at any given moment.

I have seen it enough times that it ought to be (pun intended) burned into my mind, but each time I see it I am amazed and inspired all over again.  You have been there.  A bunch of people in a darkened room, everyone holds a candle but there is only one lit candle.  Another candle is lit from that one, then another from that one, until the whole room is well lit by all the candles.  That process is usually accompanied by music.  But whatever music is playing I always hear Pass It On by Kurt Kaiser:

“It only takes a spark, to get a fire going, and soon those all around can warm up to its glowing.  That’s how it is with God’s love, once you experience it.  You spread His love to everyone.  You want to pass it on.”

Be the candle.  Protect the flame.  Pass it on.

Photo taken on Galveston beach a while back.  Song in my head this morning.

I attended a service last night and had this from Thomas Merton laid in front of me: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”  This reminds me of a C. S. Lewis quote I can’t locate right now.  The gist of the Lewis quote is that when we are standing on a dock holding a lifesaver (not the candy, the floating ring) and see a man drowning in the water in front of us, we don’t, prior to tossing out the lifesaver, demand a reasonable explanation as to why or how the man got in the water in the first place if he couldn’t swim.

Toss the lifesaver, damn it!

My reading today is from James Martin’s The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything.  In writing on the various paths to God, he writes of the path of exploration.  The benefits of this path are readily apparent – an explorer has a lot to choose from.  There is truly a buffet line of faiths out there, each with its own beliefs to pick and choose.  Yet Martin notes that the path of exploration has some pitfalls.  We can become overwhelmed with choices, and thus never choose.  That is, the exploration never ends.  Also, in the exploration mode it is easy to develop what Martin refers to as a “pocket-sized God,” a personal God that is small enough to pull out as needed, but put back in my pocket when personal God doesn’t suit me or isn’t needed.  This is, I suppose, creating God in my own image, or at least to my own liking.  I am reminded of the quote I like so much from Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies — “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

It occurs to me that this is like treating God as a screwdriver or some other tool.  I get the tool I want/like and then I pull it out as needed.  I have this Craftsman screwdriver set.  Do I need a straight blade or a Phillips, and what size?  But of course no one ever (at least I hope not) develops a relationship with a screwdriver.

“I do believe; help me in my unbelief.”  Mark 9:24

In Bible study yesterday someone pointed out this verse was, well, challenging.  To provide context, the speaker is the father of the son who has, “from childhood” been afflicted with what we would generally think of today a seizures.  The father has brought the son to Jesus for healing as Jesus is passing through town.  Jesus tells the man: “Everything is possible for him who believes.”  The father replies: “I do believe; help me in my unbelief.”

One can, I suppose, look at this cynically, and think that the father is willing to say anything to have his son healed, so saying “I do believe” seems a small price to pay, even if it is a “white lie.”  That said, an alternative consideration here is to think that perhaps the father believes about like I do, and is simply, just like I should, owning up to his doubt.

In my on-line dictionary, “belief” is defined as “an acceptance that a statement is true,” and alternatively as “trust, faith, confidence in something.”  It occurs to me that “belief” and “faith” necessarily involve some doubt or uncertainty, otherwise they would be, well certainty.  If I put a 2×4 on the floor I am certain (assuming sobriety) I can step onto it, walk the length of it, and step off it, all without falling.  If however, that 2×4 is suspended, firmly fixed, 20 feet in the air, then I would likely say that I “believe” or “have faith” that I can walk across it — not to say I would do it, because I have my doubts and fears, and the stakes in being wrong seem fairly high

Sometimes when I am called on to have faith, the 2×4 is on solid, level ground.  No brainer.  But sometimes it is suspended up in the air, at a few inches, a few feet, and sometimes at what seems to me to be a mile high.  Which brings me full circle to the father, and to me — “I do believe; help me overcome my disbelief.”.

This morning, out of respect for Phil Connors (Bill Murray’s character) I listened to Sonny and Cher sing I Got You Babe.  It is, after all, Groundhog Day.  The movie (Groundhog Day) is one of my favorites, and I am sure that today my head will be filled with some of my favorite lines.  Among the many that come to mind this morning. This one rises to the top.  To set the stage, Phil (who seems to be destined to repeat the same crappy day over again, starting with the Sonny & Cher tune blaring on his alarm clock) is speeding down a railroad track in a car, looking into the headlight of an oncoming train.  His line is simple and direct.  “I’m betting he is going to swerve first.”

I like that line because it exemplifies the “bad bet.”  Bad bets are, well, bad bets.  That said, betting on the train to swerve in a game of chicken is a REALLY bad bet (you see, the train…).  Phil’s situation aside (no risk, he was gonna wake up again to a crappy tomorrow and Sonny & Cher, or not), it occurs to me that it is easy to make bad bets in life – at least it is easy for me.  Some bad bets are quickly laughable, others take a bit more time to recover from.  To name a few, I bet on (purchased) the blue leisure suit.  (I am told that was a bad bet.)  I bet that people and/or circumstances won’t change (bad bet).  I bet that worrying is the appropriate response and will somehow change things (I guess I do.  Why else would I do it?)

Here’s the worst, though.  I bet that I am always right.  Or is it I always bet that I am right?  Same difference!  And when I place that bet is when my alarm clock needs to cue up Sonny & Cher and Phil’s line needs to ring in my head —  “I’m betting he is going to swerve first.”