“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy in your days of abundance.” Kahlil Gibran
It is so easy to take good for granted. To pray to get well, yet not in gratitude for wellness. To pray for more, not in thanks for what I have.
Pray when you are up shit creek, sure, but also “in the fullness of your joy in your days of abundance.” (Cue the “I coulda had a V-8” slap on the forehead.) I knew I was forgetting something!
Related to the sermon at church today, I got to thinking about how strong the human inclination (at least my human inclination, but I generally feel comfortable speaking for at least most of humanity) is toward certainty and order (at least order as we/I see it). I want things to be easy to label — good or bad, singular not multifarious, like me or not like me, for me or against me. We want our roses to be beautiful, fragrant, yes, but also thornnless, please. As it relates to the sermon, we want our God to be OUR God, a “this” God, not a “this” and “that” God. Oh, and we want God to be on OUR side of any issue. We want God to not only bless America, but to make it great again – as we define “bless” and “great,” of course. (I am reminded of one of my favorite Anne Lamott quotes: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”)
It occurs to me that I want to order my world to my own liking, not just live in it and do my part to help it along.
Now that is going to take some doing!
In My Grandfather’s Blessings Rachel Remen relays the story of Jacob’s wrestling with an angel (or God, or a man, or Jesus – there is a good deal of Biblical debate on this). Genesis 32:22-32 Recall that the wrestling occurred through the night, and in the morning, apparently at an impasse, Jacob’s opponent said “Let me go, for it is daybreak” to which Jacob replied “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Jacob got his blessing and the opponent was set free.
Remen’s underlying theme in her analysis on this is that “everything has its blessing.” That is, of course, a tough pill to swallow. Some uninvited, undesirable things happen in life that are, in varying degrees, bad, awful, terrible, atrocious, even unspeakable. When those things happen my inclination, seemingly a natural one, is to want leave them as quickly as possible, to put as much distance between me and bad as I can. Jacob took the other course. Given the opportunity to let go, he did not, would not, and insisted on getting his blessing from his opponent this undesired wrestling match in which his hip was injured. It is on this point that Remen delivers her punchline:
“How tempting to let the enemy go and flee. To put the struggle behind you as quickly as possible and get on with your life. Life might be easier then but far less genuine. Perhaps the wisdom lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything.”
That – “perhaps the wisdom lies in engaging the live you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything” – that is going to take some thought, and might just be a wrestling match in and of itself. That is, an “easier” life, even if “far less genuine” is awfully tempting.
“Long lay the world, in sin and error pining, ‘til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”
This is from another of my Christmas favorites, O Holy Night. There is so much in the song, but one tiny jewel of a phrase – “’til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth” – always grabs me. In that phrase I am reminded that my soul, every soul, has worth, and that that worth comes to be known, fully known, not simply by my/our own efforts, but through grace. Yet another reminder (I need them constantly) that it ain’t all about me.
Photo taken on a recent walk
More Christmas Music
“May Santa fill your stocking, and Jesus fill your heart, with peace and joy this season, and when the new year starts. …. May His love lead and guide you, every step of the way, so every day, of every year, becomes thanksgiving day.”
I love this Christmas song for many reasons, including the fiddle intro and exit and Ray Benson’s deep baritone voice, but mostly I like how it successfully manages to weave together Santa and Jesus into one song – and pull it off quite nicely.
December 1 is a great day for me as I get to “unwrap” my Christmas music. Yes, it is a self-imposed deadline, but still, it is an exciting day for one who likes music and Christmas as it opens my Christmas music feast for the next 31 days (Yes, I go 31 days as I have to wean myself off in the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
I held out until about 8:30 this morning, when I cued up “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (I favor the Harry Connick Jr. version). Granted, a lot of Christmas music is pure schlock. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, and personal my favorite, Santa Lost a Ho.” Fun schlock, yes, and I listen to it more than I care to admit, but there is a lot of the Christmas message and sentiment of the season buried amongst all the music. It is like the quest for that favorite Christmas gift, you just have to keep looking. Take It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. A lot of stuff about shopping and commercialism, yes, but also this gem buried in all that:
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Soon the bells will start
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart
And of course, that gets to the point of it doesn’t it? For all the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about the commercialism of Christmas, Christmas, and Christmas music is and will always be what we, each of us, makes it out to be — “the carol that you sing right within your heart.”
Now, onto Santa Lost a Ho!
This from a prayer by Thomas Merton caught my attention today:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am really doing so.”
This is so strong in its surrender that it is startling. Still, it rings true in a “let’s get the obvious out of the way. You are God and I am not” kind of way. And that seems like a good start to any prayer, one better stated than not lest I fall quickly into the trap of making prayer my magnanimously choosing to serving God in an advisory capacity by giving God my list of what I think he ought to do.
Photo taken outside Hyde Park Bar & Grille in Austin
More from Rachel Remen – My Grandfather’s Blessings.
“Most of us have been given more blessings than we have received. We do not take time to be blessed or make the space for it. We have filled our lives so full of other things that we have no room to receive our blessings.”
Yikes! Initially, I wanted to quibble. How can I have been given more blessings than I have received? (That is, in fact, a complex legal issue – when does an offer become accepted and create a contract.) And how can I not have room to receive my blessings? My troubles, okay, but my blessings? Yet it quickly becomes apparent that I am on the losing side of this argument and Remen delivers the kill shot with the text that follows.
“One of my patients once told me that she has an image of us all being circled by our blessings, sometimes for years, like airplanes in a holding pattern at an airport, stacked up with no place to land, waiting for a moment of our time, our attention.”
What blessings do I have still up in the air? Which ones have I had circling for years? So here I am, in the air traffic control tower, computer screen in front of me, headset on. To which of those circling blessings do I give the okay to land?
It occurs to me... 