It occurs to me…

Photo taken on a sunrise walk on the beach Thursday in Galveston. The heart had washed up on shore. Sometimes the Spirit is subtle, sometimes not.

“The individual lives his life in the midst of a wide variety of stresses and strains.  There are many tasks in which he is engaged that are not meaningful to him even though they are important in secondary ways.  There are many responsibilities that are his by virtue of training, or family, or position.  Again and again, decisions must be made as to small and large matters; each one involves him in devious ways.  No one is ever free from the peculiar pressures of his own life.  Each one has to deal with the evil aspects of life, with injustices inflicted upon him and injustices which he wittingly or unwittingly inflicts upon others.  We are all deeply involved in the throes of our own weaknesses and strengths, expressed often in the profoundest conflicts within our own souls.  The only hope for surcease, the only possibility of stability for the person, is to establish an Island of Peace within one’s own soul.”  Howard Thurman

An ever-needed, beautifully written acknowledgement that while life is tough on the living, though we are tossed about on life’s sea, respite from the storm is available —   “establish an Island of Peace within one’s own soul.”

“We differ in what we do or don’t do … not in what we are.”  Anthony DeMello

It is particularly easy now (though in fact it is easy any time) to be sanctimonious, to elevate myself by comparing myself to others, to raise my opinion of myself (or at least feel that I am) by lowering my opinion of others.  This quote reminds me that I am more like others, they are more like me, than I am comfortable with – and that it is time to get over that.  We are all humans who differ not in what we are, but in what we do, or don’t do.

This is the rare quote that is, in itself, a haiku. I have been holding this one a while for what seemed the right time. After yesterday this feels like the right time. Pick a song and start singing.

“Always do the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing.”  Bryan Stevenson

I heard this listening to a podcast yesterday.  It hung with me through the day and sent me this morning to that complex passage in Romans 7:7-25 which is enough to make anyone’s head twist off.  (“I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do.  And if I do what I do not want to do….”)  Heck, that passage even leads Paul to declare: “What a wretched man I am.”  He writes persuasively enough that I want to agree with him! 

Still, the sentiment has some value, even if served with a side of angst.  Martin Luther King Jr. (as he is wont to do) takes some of the angst out of it in his statement (written so many ways I am not sure what the actual quote is) that we don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the first step.  That seems to be the best wisdom to me because in the twists and turns of life, while I certainly lay out the staircase ahead in my mind (and in my mind, it is often filled with loose toys, slippery spots, and lots of perils), the reality is I can’t see all of the steps along the way, much less the landing at the end of the staircase. 

So, I am fairly confident that despite its vagaries the “next right thing” may be the best guide there is, if for no other reason than I am more certain that I need to beware of those folks (myself included) when they claim to have certainty about the staircase.

Photo of my slippers. Text is derived from what was identified as an Indian proverb, though I suspect the saying is found in all cultures and traditions.

Yesterday I had to sit through one of those medical interviews where the interviewer rattles off countless maladies, diseases and conditions, asking if I have any of them.  It is a long list.  That part of the interview took about fifteen minutes, and you can rattle off a lot of maladies, diseases and conditions in fifteen minutes.  Hell, many of them inquired about I didn’t even know what they were – but if I had never heard of that disease, condition, or malady I felt comfortable saying I did not have it.  (We’ll skip over the hubris and flawed logic there.)  The fact that each of those diseases, maladies and conditions was on the list indicates that someone suffers from each one, and not just a single someone, but enough someones that the disease, malady, or condition made the list.  Yet here I was, answering “No” in rapid succession to each of them.  Ultimately, after the interview, it occurred to me that I was relatively healthy.  But what followed that thought is, I think, more significant.  It occurred to me that while my responses, when reviewed by an underwriter, would likely earn me a “healthy” label, I tend to focus on the health issues I do have.  My left shoulder hurts off and on, I have seasonal allergies, my hearing and vision are on the downturn….  I could, but won’t, go on.  But I will note that buried in this there is a lesson on perspective.  In focusing on the few diseases, maladies, and conditions I do have, it is easy to ignore the other side of that coin — the ones I don’t (or think I don’t) have. My tendency, perhaps the human tendency, is to focus on, complain about what is wrong, which often causes me to ignore/forget what is right.  And there is a lot that is right.

Here it is almost Christmas, and I am still thinking about thanksgiving.

“On the off chance that you’re not going to live forever, why not take a chance on being happy now?”

Further lending support to that thing about the blind hog and the acorn, while aimlessly wandering through The Newsroom clips on YouTube (How did I get here?) I came upon this one in which the Charlie Skinner character (Sam Waterston) is lecturing the Will McAvoy character (Jeff Daniels).  Skinner’s wisdom in the series often drips with sarcasm (thus, my affinity for his character), but it delivered the point in that scene — and does for us today.

The series is long gone of course, and Waterston (he would, I think, appreciate the irony)  has since passed away, but in this pandemic time where it seems so natural to put off damn near everything but the basics of life “until things get back to normal,” perhaps, just perhaps, there is some room to take Skinner’s advice, throw caution to the wind (but not the mask and social distancing), and, on the “off chance” that we are not immortal, “take a chance on being happy now.”

Photo taken in Galveston last week. Text from the hymn — “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”