It occurs to me…

From Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber:

 “I am not sure I trust myself enough to feel confident in declaring that God is involved in something, especially if it’s my own project.  But I can pretty consistently see God in retrospect.  I mean, in any given moment I am so filled with doubt and self-interest and ambition and neurosis that it’s hard to be tuned into God.  But after something surprising or intensely beautiful happens, usually in spite of me and my machinations, then I begin to suspect God.”

Indeed, it is so much easier to identify God’s involvement looking back “in the rear-view mirror.”  I suppose that is in large part because I was not anticipating/expecting/seeking God’s involvement at the time.   (“Lord, help me” is more often an acknowledgment of being in a mess than it is a true request for God’s assistance.)  Most likely, I was just in a mess and was willing to accept relief from any source.  (A drowning man rarely inquires as to qualification or intent of the source of the lifesaver being thrown his way.)   Having the issue resolved, I have time to (and may) take a deep breath, look back, and contemplate the what just happened.  Often, I can rule out attributing the resolution to my own efforts, and attributing it to “just dumb luck” seems such a poor option.  Then, and only then, does God’s grace start to enter as an option.  I’m just slow on the uptake.

“The rose has a gift that you lack; it is perfectly content to be itself.  It has not been programmed from birth, as you have been, to be dissatisfied with itself, so it has not the slightest urge to be anything other than what it is.  That is why it possesses the artless grace and absence of inner conflict that among humans is only found in little children and mystics.” The Way to Love – Anthony DeMello

As humans, or course, we try to improve the rose.  We create hybrids, thornless roses, roses of different colors, shapes, heights, and tolerances.  Despite all that, the rose simply does what it was meant to do, and becomes what it was meant to become.  It occurs to me that perhaps that is one reason we like roses so much.  A stem sits there, color, form, scent — beautiful, yes, but also thorny (and anyone who has grown roses knows, needy and moody).  Still, with all that, the rose is what it is and through that maintains the “artless grace” and “absence of inner conflict” we strive for by relentless effort and “self-improvement.”  There’s a lesson in here somewhere.

“We are circumference people, with little access to the center.  We live on the boundaries of our own lives.”  Richard Rohr

This is the opening line in Rohr’s book, Everything Belongs.  He notes, (in a warning of sorts) that “we can remain on the circumferences of our lives for quite a long time.  So long, that it starts to feel like the only ‘life’ available.”  I haven’t read the book (yet), but it occurs to me that living on the boundaries makes us awfully busy, and perhaps a bit paranoid.  Living on the boundary, the boundary itself becomes the only thing that separates us from the outside, and there is, then, a constant effort to protect the boundary at all costs, and a tendency toward binary thought — to see things as outside or inside, and judge them based on that.  (Stop me if this starts to sound like an election strategy!)  Inside becomes good.  Outside becomes bad.  Those who look, think, act, and talk like me are inside while those who don’t are outside.

There is, of course, difficulty in the journey to the core, away from the boundary  but it occurs to me that perhaps the hardest part in the journey is coming to grips with the thought that the move is a good and necessary thing, that we no longer need or want to be “circumference people.”

Light rain falling outside,

from my window I watched the squirrel

drinking from the grout lines of the tile floor

where the water collects first.

In a heavy rain, a heavy rain,

she would not have to be so precise

and could quench her thirst on any surface.

Still, she seems satisfied

drinking from the grooves between the tiles,

and perhaps feels some sense of pride

that she has figured this out.

She should, because

(as if this is relevant)

it impresses me!

From “The Best Shitty Feeling In the World” in Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber:

“And the thing about grace, real grace, is that it stings.  It stings because if it’s real, it means we don’t deserve it.  No amount of my own movement or strength could have held up those plates I’d stacked way too high, I tried, and I failed, and [they] suffered for it, and then they extended me kindness, compassion, and forgiveness out of their silo of hurt and grace….  And receiving grace is basically the best shitty feeling in the world.”

It seems an easy trap to fall into, to somehow feel that I deserve grace, or perhaps worse, that I am owed it.  But that is the sting that is pointed out.  My part in the dispensing of grace is only to have screwed up sufficiently to have created the opportunity for it to be dispensed – hardly something that warrants any accolade or reward.  No, the power of grace, the core, is not in the deservedness of the receiver but in the love of the giver.  Grace doesn’t eliminate my screw up.  It still occurred.  So yes, the sting is there, but I think she’s got it right – that receiving of grace is “the best shitty feeling in the world.”

From Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude:

“Be grateful and let it show.  What is due to others who seek the same liberty as ourselves?  Never imagine that anyone is dispensable. Keep the promises you have made and honour the promises of others in the world of human relations. Remember that the security you seek is what all want, and don’t set out to invade. Tell the truth about yourself and others. Don’t imagine that what makes someone else secure and happy is exactly what you need to make you secure and happy if only you could get it from them.”

This all seems like pretty good advice to me, but the one that stuck out in my mind was the “don’t imagine that what makes someone else secure and happy is exactly what you need to make you secure and happy.”  It occurs to me, however, that as problematic is a proclivity, one I have, to think that what makes me secure and happy is (using my keen sense of logic) just bound to be what makes every other sole in the universe secure and happy.  Because I view Fritos and bean dip as a comfort food, everyone (even those who don’t) must see it the same way.

“Consider the possibility that you might actually be lucky when you get rejected from stuff.  Because of this streak of what appeared to be bad luck, I fell into my life as it is today.”

Lisa Yuskavage

It is so hard to see, hard to understand, and even more difficult to have the patience to see this to be true, but experience tells me that dark clouds do have silver linings.  Or as Garth Brooks and Pat Alger wrote, “some of God’s greatest gifts, are unanswered prayers.”

From Summer Storm  by Dana Gioia:

Why does that evening’s memory

Return with this night’s storm –

A party twenty years ago,

Its disappointment warm?

 

There are so many might have beens,

What ifs that won’t stay buried,

Other cities, other jobs,

Strangers we might have married.

 

And memory insists on pining

For places it never went,

As if life would be happier

Just by being different.

I love those last two lines.  It occurs to me that much of life is, or can be, focused on that “as if” and not on what is, here, now — which can lead to a sort of nostalgia for things that never were.