It occurs to me…

From yesterday’s Easter sermon from Fr. Mike Adams:

“We did not CHOOSE to be here, and realize some day we will NOT be here.”  And while I don’t recall his exact words, the gist of what followed was – So what do we choose to do while we ARE here?

In this I am reminded (as I often am) of the last line in Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Hmm!  That seems like a good question to ask this day after Easter – though it occurs to me it is a good question to ask every day.

“There ain’t nothin’ not affected when two hearts get connected.”                                     Two People Fell In Love – Brad Paisley

I thought I had heard every Brad Paisley song, but this one has somehow escaped my attention until now.  In the context of Paisley’s song, he sings of a couple meeting, falling in love, and having a child.  The child grows up, “cures all sorts of things, wins the Nobel prize, and saves a million different lives.”  The punch line is “It’s funny when you think about the reason he’s alive, is all because two people fell in love.”

It is a bit saccharine, as most all good love songs are.  Still, the line hung with me and it occurred to me that it is a truth.  When two people connect, two hearts connect, the world changes.  The connection need not result in marriage, a child, a Nobel prize, and it need not result in saved lives.  No, lives can and do get changed when “two hearts get connected” by a smile and an encouraging word, by an apology and forgiveness, by dropping money into some receptacle, by just showing up and being there.  Those simple acts, the momentary connection of two hearts, change lives.

“There ain’t nothin’ not affected when two hearts get connected.”  Believe it.  Count on it.

“To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin….”  C. S. Lewis

Reading this, it occurs to me that Lewis has, in one portion of a sentence, gotten to the heart of Christianity.  It is easy, so easy, to fall into the trap of acting as if the world spins around me, to  put value (or not) on people or things based on how they impact me.  In this I am reminded of the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin – “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”

Today, I will endeavor “to take at least one step away from utter spiritual ruin,” maybe two.

C. S. Lewis on pride:

“The Christians are right; it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began….  In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself.  Unless you know God as that…you don’t know God at all.  As long as you are proud you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people, and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

Heck, when I am looking down on people, I can’t even see the people that are on my level.  Wait, aren’t we all on the same level?

“[I]n the things that really matter, life, love, reality, God, no one can teach you a thing….  They can, at most, point in the direction of Reality, they cannot tell you what to see.  You have to walk out there all alone and discover for yourself.”  Anthony DeMello, The Way To Love

What jumped out at me here is DeMello’s last sentence – “You have to walk out there all alone and discover it for yourself.”  This is where the trepidation comes in, the vulnerability.  I can read about experiences from the safety of my home, have others tell me of them over a leisurely dinner, but that is not the Reality DeMello refers to.  He uses the analogy of going on a tour but never leaving the tour bus, and keeping the bus shades down while the tour guide tells the tourists what they would see if they could see, what they would experience if they could exit the bus.

It occurs to me how easy it is, particularly these days, to “experience” things vicariously.  The temptation if there to have someone tell me about the fragrance of the rose rather than me pausing, walking over to the bush, pulling the stem my way (avoiding the thorns as best I can) and inhaling the fragrance.

“How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul?  Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedon and to love.”  Anthony DeMello – The Way To Love

DeMello notes that we spend much, perhaps most, of our lives “people pleasing,” or  in his words, “spending every waking moment of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead.”  We do so in how we dress, how we talk, how we act.  He challenges us to find those activities that “delight and grip your soul,” without regard to how they will be seen or judged by others.

“If you desire this love to exist in your life you must break loose from your inward dependence on people by becoming aware of it and by engaging in activities that you love to do for themselves.”

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front — Wendell Berry

Berry’s exhortation is not be joyful BECAUSE I have considered all the facts.  That would be fine if I could manage it, but sometimes, okay, often, when I consider all the facts, at least the facts that readily come to mind, joy is not the natural byproduct, joy is not the emotion that wins out.  It is far outpaced by angst, trepidation, fear, and downright negativity – “the end is near” (if we’re lucky) negativity.

No, be joyful THOUGH I have considered all the facts.  It need not make sense.  After all, so little does these days – so:

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

“In spite of ourselves, we’ll end up sittin’ on a rainbow.  Against all odds, honey we’re the big door prize.”  In Spite of Ourselves – John Prine

I’ve listened to this song for several years now and had a good laugh each time.  But listening to that line yesterday, it occurred to me that while I can’t put myself in John Prine’s mind (though I’d like to have his song-writing abilities), the song is about grace.  In the context of the song, the grace is that, against all odds, two odd people find each other.

“He ain’t to sharp, but he gets things done.  Drinks his beer like its oxy-jun.”  (phonetic, to help with the forced rhyme)

“She don’t like her eggs all runny.  She thinks crossin’ her legs is funny.”

Somehow, despite the odds, and despite their differences, it works out for them.  They “end up sittin’ on a rainbow.”  Grace.  It occurs to me that life is like that.  While we may not be able to see it with our limited brainpower, with our attention myopically focused on today’s problems/worries, “in spite of ourselves, we’ll end up sittin’ on a rainbow.  Against all odds…we’re the big door prize.”