It occurs to me…

Reading more in Rachel Remen’s My Grandfather’s Blessings I had this thrown into my path:  “Is it possible that there may be an unknowable purpose to life itself?”  In the list of deep questions, that one may be among the deepest, right next to “What is the meaning of life?” –but still, it seems worth pondering even if it makes my head hurt.  All that comes to mind now is the old Gospel tune:

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all by and by…

Remen states it this way: “At the moment there was a great silence around that question.  There is a great question around it still.”

Photo taken in Galveston recently.

Now and again I get reintroduced to hold hymns.  I say “reintroduced” because they are often hymns I heard as a kid, and while I am quite familiar with the tune, I never really paid any attention to the words, or no more attention than to be able to recite the opening line or the “tag line” for the song.  So it was recently with this oldie that even predates me – it goes back to the second or third century:

Let all mortal flesh keep silent,

And with fear and trembling stand

Ponder nothing earthly minded,

For with blessing in his hand,

Christ our God to earth, descending,

Our full homage to demand.

This is one of those hymns where the music and lyrics are perfectly matched.  Listening to the chant-like lyrics, the organ rattling the timbers, I can almost smell the incense, and hear the rustling of the nuns’ clothing as they make their way to my pew to force me to kneel erect (i.e. get my ass off the front edge of the pew.)  Ah, memories…!

I stumbled across this quote today from Eugene O’Neill: “Man is born broken.  He lives by mending.  The grace of God is the glue.”

What jumps out at me here is the “he lives by mending” part.  It occurs to me that much of a life story is defined by what broken parts we try to mend, how we try to mend them, and how “successful” we are at doing so.  Thankfully, the “Glue” is readily available and plentiful.

“The purpose underlying life often wears the mask of whatever has our attention at the time.”  Rachel Remen – My Grandfather’s Blessings

“Your choices are half chance.  So are everybody else’s.”  Baz Luhrmann – Sunscreen

“Everybody is wondering why and where they all came from.  Everybody’s worried ‘bout where they’re gonna go when the whole things done.  No one knows for certain and so its all the same to me.  I think I’ll just let the mystery be.”  Iris Dement – Let the Mystery Be

There are many ways to say that we are all more or less just stumbling through life, including “we are all just stumbling through life.”  It occurs to me that how it is said does not matter so much as simply recognizing it as a fact.  This simple thought goes a long way to recognizing God’s existence and presence in our lives and to tamping down pride, ego, and self-absorption, among other things.    On this mystery thing I have always been partial to this statement in 1 Cor. 13:12 as set out in Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”

Or perhaps the chorus from I Know Who Holds Tomorrow: “Many things about tomorrow, I don’t seem to understand.  But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.”

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From My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen:

“The marks life leaves on everything it touches transforms perfection into wholeness.”  Rachel Remen

I recently bought a new pair of shoes, the same brand, style, and size (but a different color) as a pair I have had for years.  (I am not particularly imaginative when it comes to clothing.)  The new shoes of course look perfect coming out of the box, just like the ones in the advertisement for them – a perfect finish with no lines or creases in the leather.  They looked much better than the years old pair I have.  However, on putting the new shoes on it quickly became obvious that the fit on this new pair was quite different from the comfortable, time-worn fit of the older pair.  The new pair was stiff, they squeaked when I walked, they resisted movement in a way that chafed my feet.  Only now, after several months of wear, after a scuff here or there, after some lines appeared where the leather “gives” as I walk, have the “new” shoes become comfortable.  Thankfully, the squeaking has stopped.

But back to this distinction between “perfection” and “wholeness” that Remen is referring to.  It occurs to me that it is easy to confuse “perfection” with “wholeness,” in large part because we are bombarded with the promise of “perfection” if only we buy and use this product or participate (for a fee) in this or that effort.

Indeed, life leaves marks on everything it touches.  Stuff happens.  And when it happens to me I squeak, I resist change, I chafe.  But it is the push here, the pull there that can, if allowed to, transforms me so that, while not perfect, I become whole.

“Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.”  Madeleine L’Engle

The “throwing oneself away” here is startling, but on reflection, it occurs to me that L’Engle has it right.  There is this seemingly innate, or perhaps learned, tendency to focus on me/myself, and I.  Merely considering others’ interests along with mine is not “throwing oneself away,” and there is a seemingly high risk that in doing so my interests (knowingly or unknowingly) bubble to the top of the food chain.  (It is easy to convince myself that others want or like the same things I want or like – I mean, why wouldn’t they!)

So in that sense, humility does require “throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.”  Granted, there is that “but what about me?” voice nagging at me here, but no worries, my experience is that before long, I’ll be back to throwing others away in complete concentration on myself.

More from Rachel Remen on befriending life:

“You do not need money to be a philanthropist.  We all have assets.  You can befriend life with your bare hands.”

I like that thought – “befriend life with your bare hands.”  Yes, I can give money or time to someone, some cause, to some end, but much more often I am presented the opportunity to “be a philanthropist with my bare hands,” to provide an encouraging word or a smile that need not wind its way through some bureaucracy or to some far-away place to impact a life.  Bare-handed, empty wallet, no credit card philanthropy.

 

“I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”  W. H. Auden

Writing on grace, Anne Lamott notes that grace is “the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed.”  Been there, experienced that!

That said, it would seem to follow that “when Grace dances” I would jump up and dance.  Granted, as Lamott notes, in doing so I may look “a little like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein, putting on the Ritz” (she apparently has heard about my dancing).  Still, I find it easy to “sit this one out” even with Grace dancing right beside me.  But here’s the kicker – no matter my response, Grace keeps dancing, inviting me to do the same.  As Lamott writes, Grace “can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or tiny tastes.”  That is, I think, what makes Grace Grace.  It appears unobligingly, uninvited, and does its thing no matter my response.  And I think Lamott defines “its thing” as well as anyone.  Whether we get up and dance with Grace or not, it “meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

“And he divided unto them his living.”  Luke 15:12

It is easy to lose this early text in the Prodigal Son parable amongst the rest of the story.  In a hurry to get to the “riotous living”, the feeding of the swine, the regret, the return, the rest of the story, it becomes easy to forget that in the beginning, the father had to divide unto them his living.  He is called to literally divide his living and hand a portion (apparently 1/3 based on the commentaries I have read) over to the younger son.  So he does.

Perhaps that is the power of this verse, the matter-of-factness of it.  We get no sense of angst from the father.  Indeed, there is, at least implicitly, an acceptance, if not a willingness on the part of the father to provide to his child what he has labored for, worried over, and treasured – no strings attached, no “you’re gonna wish you hadn’t,” no “don’t screw it up,” no side of guilt along with the gift.

That is, of course, how God hands things over to us – freely, no strings attached.  The “you’re gonna wish you hadn’t,” the “don’t screw it up,” if they come at all, have to come from others, or internally.  The parable makes no reference to the younger son, at this point, expressing any gratitude to the father.  Later, yes, but here, no.  When does that gratitude show up in my story?

The song line that echoes in my mind here is from Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band.

“I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go.  I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough.  And papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough.”