It occurs to me…

I got a laugh out of reading C. S. Lewis today:

“Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd.  It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect….  Reality, in fact, is usually something that you could not have guessed….  It just has that queer twist about it….”

I am not sure why that makes me laugh, unless it is a laugh of relief that my reality and Lewis’, while not the same, seem to have similar characteristics.  Reality — you just can’t make this #%&! up. 

Seems to me that if I take that as a basic premise of life, the stochastic nature of reality, it somehow lightens the load.  Perhaps that is the source of the laugh.

Hank Aaron

That he did as a baseball player is an accomplishment.

That he did what he did under the circumstances he faced was nothing short of heroic.

The he did what he did, under the circumstances he faced, with the grace he exhibited speaks to his greatness not only as a baseball player, but also as a human being and a role model.

Rest in peace, Hank.

In what ultimately becomes a roadmap to a life of prayer, Howard Thurman, in Meditations of the Heart, notes:

“The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;

Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,

While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.”

Thurman penned this at least 70 years ago, and I think it is fair to say that the “endless traffic, the “clashings” and “noisy silences” of life have only intensified in that time.  As such, his suggestion for respite remains appropriate.  He calls for “a lull in the rhythm of daily doing.”  I am drawn to that phrase – “a lull in the rhythm of daily doing.”  First, it suggests that there is in fact a “rhythm of daily doing.”  My daily doings seem (at least at times) to more appropriately be classified as a “cacophonous din,” so the suggestion that they are or might be something else is encouraging.  His use of “daily doing” seems so much nicer a term than the four letter expletive I might suggest/often use in its place.  Finally, I appreciate the practicality in “lull” as opposed to the more absolute “cessation.”  Sometimes, cessation does seem like too big of an ask, whereas seeking a “lull” seems more attainable.  All that to say that “a lull in the rhythm of daily doing” sounds so much nicer than a frustrated “Can’t we just stop all this #%&*” — and is probably more effective.

Text from yesterday’s inauguration poem by Amanda Gorman – The Hills We Climb. Do yourself a favor and read/watch/listen to the whole thing. Galveston Photo

Photo taken this weekend while working in the yard.

“The efficacy of prayer is often measured by the degree to which the individual is willing to become involved in actually working in the world to meet these needs.  A man may share in his prayer his concern for peace in the world and yet, in his own little world, be unwilling to change his private attitude of antagonism or prejudice toward his fellows.”  Howard Thurman

It’s not like God needs my help on that world peace thing, but still, I suspect he would appreciate me handling some of my own conflicts, or maybe even heading them off before they arise.

Reading today I came across this written by George Fox (the founder of the Quaker movement) in 1658.  It still  has application some 363 years later, reckon it always will:

“Be still and cool in Thy own mind and spirit, from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive God’s strength and power from whence life comes, to allay all blusterings, storms, and tempests.”

This one has been sitting in my “Ready” box for a bit and seemed ready to “bloom” this week. The photo was taken outside my home office window this summer. This hibiscus (formally the Hibiscus Moscheutos), produces large flowers as shown, but the catch is that each blooms one day and drops the next. Somehow, looking outside my office in the midst of the pandemic, that seemed reassuring. Still does even though winter is upon us.

January 13, 2021

“Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  Habakkuk 1:3-5

Sounds like it could have been written today, right?  Nope, about 2,700 years ago.  And still, we are searching for the answer to why God allows bad stuff to occur.  Still!  Howard Thurman, in his book Meditations of the Heart, takes a good swing at an answer, maybe the best I have seen – at least it settled well within me.

He writes: “All events in life take place, somehow, within the divine context.”  The “somehow” there is at the center of the “why bad things happen” question.  That is, I seek to understand why they happen, why God allows them to happen.  I seek to understand.  Thurman notes that we need to develop “the profound confidence that a structure of moral integrity undergirds all of life; that such a structure is basic to the totality of all experience.  Things do not happen merely; they are part of some kind of rationale.  If this can be tracked down and understood, then the living experience, however terrible, makes sense.”

There is the key, in that last sentence, I want to track down and understand things, to know what happened and why it happened.  The problem is, damn it, that I am just not that smart.  I can track down the facts, understand and figure out some things, but only some things.  Here is where Thurman works his magic. 

“Even though one is never able to accomplish this tracking down, one cannot destroy the confidence that the logic of all ills is knowable.  A man traces them down as far as he can, until, at last, he seeks no longer to understand the ills but rather to understand God’s understanding.”  Lacking this, he rests himself in the assurance of God’s Presence in him and in life about him.  He sees the travail of his own would and is satisfied.”

Indeed, satisfied.

Today, this from Anthony DeMelllo:

“The trouble with people is that they’re busy fixing things they don’t even understand.” 

DeMello goes on to explain that our “shortcut” to understanding is often to label.  It occurs to me that this explains a lot about current events.  Rather than try to understand “the other” I slap a label on them/it and move forward under the mistaken belief that because I labelled them/it I now understand them/it.  But, as DeMello notes:

“Understanding has stopped at that moment.  You slapped a label on her, and if the label carries undertones of approval or disapproval [and it usually does], so much the worse.  How are you going to understand what you disapprove of, or what you approve of, for that matter?”