It occurs to me…

Nothing Twice – Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing can happen twice.  In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here impoverished and leave without the 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 is only offered once.

I read this a while back and saved it.  I particularly like the line – “we leave without the chance to practice.”  Given that, and given that “the course is offered only once,” it brings home the thought that there is little time or attention to be given to things like anger, jealousy, pettiness,  and things of that ilk that have little value in life, including spending a second in thought about the Kardashians.

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”   Elie Wiesel – Night

I came across this quote recently and it reminded me that my constant quest to have things make sense to this pea-brained human is driven by the desire to have answers – answers to questions I posit and which may not even be the right questions.  Having the right answer is great, yes, but it is equally, if not more important, to have the right question.  I recently queried my phone on how to get from Point A to Point B and it promptly gave me directions and told me that it would take me about an hour.  Since it was only thirty minutes to my appointed meeting time, that did not make me happy – but then I realized my phone was giving me walking directions, not driving directions.  I had the right answer to the wrong question.  I might know that three is the square root of nine, but if I am hungry and my question is “Where can I get a quick breakfast?” that answer is of little use to me.  Thinking down this path, when someone upsets or disappoints me in some way, perhaps trying to discern the perfect way to get even is not as useful as the more compassionate question of “I wonder what has __ upset today?” or perhaps the more appropriate one “I wonder what I just did to piss __ off?”

Questions, not answers?

 

Photo taken on the beach in Galveston.

I listened recently to a podcast that attempted to explain the current divisiveness of the country.  One of the commentators attributed it, at least in part, to the abundance of news sources and commentary on them.  The Information Age we are in doesn’t just allow us to have easy access to information, but to information of our liking.  Just as I could in past years turn the knob (remember those) to a radio station of my liking (rock, country, easy listening) I can now tune in to news and commentary of my liking, to what is comfortable to me — so I do.  Guilty as charged.

Because of my selective tuning the only media “dissonance” I hear is when someone sets up “the other point of view” as a straw man to expose, ridicule, and topple.  So, when I do finally hear someone expressing (God forbid) an opposing view, my reaction is exaggerated.  So what to do?

I am reminded of this from a favorite source, Anne Lamott from Traveling Mercies:

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out He hates all the same people you do.”

This parallel occurs to me – when I agree with all the news and commentary I listen to, it might just be time to try at least season my search for the truth by sprinkling in some other sources.

All of this was prompted by this today from C. S. Lewis:

“If you look for truth you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”

God help me as I listen to Rush and Sean!

“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”  Luke 15:20

This passage from the Prodigal Son parable jumped out at me this morning.  The prodigal son has run off with a portion of his father’s estate, “wasted his substance on riotous living,” run out of money, nearly perished with hunger, and then come to his senses – all except the running off with the money presumably unbeknownst to the father (though the father may likely have had an inkling as to the future).  I think it reasonable to assume that this passage comes some months, perhaps years, after the prodigal son headed the opposite way down that same road, leaving  his family behind.

Still, the father is looking down the road.  In those months/years that passed I can imagine that there wasn’t a day, perhaps an hour, that went by that the father didn’t look down the road with some form of pain, some form of regret, a wish for reconciliation welling up inside him.  He looked down the road hoping to see what he eventually saw – his son had come to his senses and was headed home.

 I am reminded of something I read once to this effect – if you feel distant from God, guess who moved!  I am of course not breaking new ground here, but today in this passage it occurs to me that any time I stray God is always looking down that road for me, waiting for me to return.

Seeking some peace of mind in all the talk and speeches of yesterday’s inaugural events, two things rolled into my head.  I touched base with this from the lyrics of a recent Kacey Musgraves song, because at least to me, life seems to play out and make sense in the form of a country and western song.   This from Kacey Musgraves: “It is what it is, ‘til it ain’t anymore.”  I also  returned to this from a November interview of former President Obama in Rolling Stone: “There’s no benefit that’s derived from pulling into a fetal position. We go out there, and we work. And we slog through challenges, and over time things get better.”

Each of us has or should have a view of what truth, justice, equality looks like.  Each of us has or should have a sense of what “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” looks like.  Those still exist no matter if you “won” or “lost.”

Indeed:

“There’s no benefit that’s derived from pulling into a fetal position. We go out there, and we work. And we slog through challenges, and over time things get better.”

“It is what it is, ‘til it ain’t any more.”

From Mary Oliver’s Upstream:

“And whoever thinks these words are worthy, breathy words I am writing down is kind.  Writing is neither vibrant lie nor docile artifact bur a test that would upt all its money on the hope of suggestion.  Come with me into the field of sunflowers is a better line than any of you will find here, and the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them.”

Indeed.  I’ll stop there and go look for some sunflowers.

I ran across this today from Mary Oliver in Upstream and it seemed like a perfect prayer:

“May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.”

This speaks to me of the balance that is required in life, particularly in a life of faith. It occurs to me that a life of faith must include the desire to be “useful,” but also includes the recognition of the need for, the usefulness of, others (and/or The Other).  It is alarmingly easy for me to unilaterally decide just what the universe needs and just what I (and others/the Other) can do to best accomplish that.  But that nail, that “tiny but useful” nail, can’t forge or drive itself.