It occurs to me…

Today from Oswald Chambers:

“Beware of ‘the cares of this world,’ because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul.  It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God.  Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.”

I so want to fight back on this.  It sounds haughty, unrealistic, and Pollyannaish – reactions  which likely makes it even more worthy of my attention.  Of course, that this is exactly what I need to hear going into Advent as I “prepare the way” for Christmas.  I can get solace, if I need it, from the verbiage.  Chambers does not suggest that I “ignore” the “cares of this life,” only that I “refuse to be swamped” by them.  But I must acknowledge the truth in his statement.  Whatever “cares of this life” I let in, no matter how simple they are, they have the ability to distract my attention from God just as a small hole in a boat hull has the ability to sink it.

It occurs to me that Chambers has delivered a good mantra as I head into Christmas.  As I move toward, contemplate and celebrate Christmas – “Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.”

Okay.  Now comes the hard part.

One of the fine things about holidays is that there is a license to meander a bit with less of an eye on the clock – which explains how I could find myself today reading JFK’s Presidential Proclamation 3560 issued in November 1963, shortly before his assassination.

“Yet, as our power has grown, so has our peril. Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers–for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings–let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals–and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.”

These are fine words indeed, but as stated, the challenge is not simply to “utter words” but to “live by them.”  As JFK noted in the Proclamation, we are called to share our blessings and ideals.  Note the choice of “share” instead of “covet” or “flout” or “impose” or other such words that might replace “share.”

In declaring November 28, 1963 a national day of thanksgiving, JFK challenged us all:

“On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist.”

It occurs to me that more than 50 years later, that prayer should remain on our lips, and that those are not only words to utter, but to live by.

Oswald Chambers offers this advice today:

“Be careful of the production of contempt in yourself, [it] causes you to go about as a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than you are.  Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a baby.”

Ouch!  It occurs to me that phrases I utter and hear these days – “how could anyone” or “I just don’t understand how” or worse – are signs of the very contempt Chambers warns of.  Indeed, it seems quite easy these days to “go about as a walking rebuke to other people.”  We have turned it around and become quick to speak and slow to listen.

On my current playlist is Most People, a song by the group Dawes – a song my kids beat me to.  Anyway, the line in the chorus that grabs me is this: “Most people don’t think enough about how lucky they are.”  I suppose I could quibble and replace “lucky” with “blessed” or some other word, but I will resist the urge and simply agree with them.  It is easy to bitch and moan about what is wrong, about what should be but isn’t – so easy that I forget to think enough about how lucky I am.

Photo taken of Painted Church near LaGrange, Texas

In my meanderings today I read this from Omid Safi:

“I fail often. We fail often.
I fail in moving towards the kind of human being that I want to become.
I fail in getting to the gym.
I fail in living the true meaning of these very words here.

Life has detours
And along the detours I have met wondrous friends,
Unanticipated experiences.

The breaking of the heart along the way
has brought a healing
and I am the combination of the wound and the healing.”

Two lines struck me here.

That last line resounded with me – “I am the combination of the wound and the healing.”  Encompassed in that is the thought, the reality, that I am the combination of my success and the failure, my wins and my losses, my joy and sadness, my “good,” my “not so good” and my “bad.”  Try as I may, desire as I might, they are me, they make me.  I of course have some say over just how they make me.  What happens to and around me is the raw material I have to work with in creating me.

The other line, however, is more subtle but seems even more powerful – “unanticipated experiences.”  I may seem like wordsmithing, but it occurs to me that “unanticipated experience” reflects an attitude, a desire, as Samuel Beckett said, to “fail better,” a desire to see things that don’t go my way, don’t go as I planned, not as failures but as opportunities.  That is, perhaps the bumper sticker should not be “Shit Happens” but “Unexpected Experiences Happen.”  When an election does not go as I had planned, I could move to Canada, but I could also sit tight and “fail better” right here – plus, I am not a huge fan of snowbound winters.

In his sermon today our priest spoke of beginnings and endings, and of the recent election.  In doing so he said something that I’ll paraphrase here, but I believe I have the gist correct.

Regardless of what you think of Hillary or Trump, remember that the people who voted for each are neither Hillary of Trump.  Each voter casted a vote for his or her own reasons.

It occurs to me that this is a good place to start the healing process.  Yes, one could move to Canada, and while it might address individual concerns, it does not resolve the issue – besides, it gets really cold there.  No, the starting point, and perhaps this can be done now that “win or lose” of the election is over, is to try to listen and understand what those individual concerns were and are that cause(d) people to support Trump or Hillary, or neither.

In still coming to grips with the recent election results I revisited an old favorite —  Show the Way by David Wilcox:

“Look – if someone wrote the play, just to glorify what’s stronger than hate,

Would they not arrange the stage, to look as if the hero came too late

Almost in defeat, looking like the evil side will win

So on the edge of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins

It is love the mixed the mortar, it is love that stacked these stones

It is love that built the stage here, though it looks like we’re alone

In this dream set in shadows, like the night is here to stay

There is evil cast around us, but its love that wrote the play

And in this darkness, love will show the way”

Indeed, love will show the way.  It is not always apparent when, or how, nor does love show the way on my time schedule — but it will show the way.