It occurs to me…

Today’s reading in my Daily Reflections for Advent points to Luke 1.  So much occurs in that chapter I can only hit the high points.  Elizabeth (Mary’s sister), who was barren and, along with her mute husband, Zechariah, was “well along in years,” (Luke 1:7) gives birth to a son.  Rather than, as is tradition, name the child after Zechariah or a family member, Elizabeth wants to name the child John, fulfilling the direction of an angel who appeared to Zechariah.  Luke 1:11-14  (Zechariah had been struck mute when he doubted an angel about the prophecy told him of his son, having the audacity to ask: “How can I be sure of this?”  Luke 1:18-20)  Others are not happy with Elizabeth’s choice of names, so they go to Zechariah, who, writes “His name is John” on a tablet, and immediately regains the ability to speak.

I love the next verse: “The neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.”  (NIV)   You bet they did!  I particularly like the King James rendition of the “talking about all these things” – that with regard to these events, people “noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judaea.”  While I am no Biblical scholar, my translation of that would read: “People’s tongues started waggin’ with gossip about all these things.”  How could they not!

Zechariah doubted the angelic prophecy about John the Baptist.  Mary doubted the angelic prophecy about Jesus – “How can this be….”  Luke 1:34  Amidst their doubt, people started talking.  Hang on here — It is almost as if Bonnie Raitt has this all in mind when she wrote in Something To Talk About:

People are talkin’, talkin’ ’bout people
I hear them whisper, you won’t believe it.

Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary, of course, tamp their doubt and concern down and find enough faith to allow the rest of the story to occur.  Which channels the chorus from the same song:

Let’s give them something to talk about
Let’s give them something to talk about
Let’s give them something to talk about
How about love?

And indeed, they delivered on that promise.  Christmas.

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”  Steve Maraboli

Wait, that sounds a whole lot harder than lamenting about having fewer public nativity scenes and people not saying “Merry Christmas” any more.

“Don’t look for miracles.  You yourself are a miracle.”  Henry Miller

I admit to the following:

Looking for keys that were in my pocket.

Looking for a phone that was hand.

Looking for my glasses I had on….

Some might think this is a sign of a memory problem, and it might be, but it is certainly an awareness problem.  The same concept applies to miracles.  They surround me.  They ARE me (and everyone else).

“’But’ is a fence over which few leap.”  German Proverb

I thought of this proverb today when reading the Christmas Story (not the one with the BB gun) in Matthew’s Gospel in the Bible.  Matthew 1 & 2  In the midst of all that is going on in Joseph’s life, an angel appears to Joseph and tells him “do not be afraid” (“fear not” in many translations.  (Though I have not personally counted them, I am told that there are more than 365 instances in the Bible where “fear not” or the like appears.  I know it is in there a lot.)

The angel’s imperative notwithstanding, Joseph of course has every reason to be afraid, not the least of which is having an angel appear to him and tell him what he should and should not do in response to all that craziness that is happening or is predicted to soon be happening around him.  It is, of course, the perfect opportunity for Joseph to walk away, or to stand his ground and “’but’ the angel/God to death,” a tradition that started with Moses and continues today (I’ve heard about people who do that!)  Had it been written yet, Joseph could have sung Kristofferson’s “Why Me, Lord” here with relish.  Yet Joseph, against all reason, yet for some reason, takes it all in and “did what the angel of the Lord commanded him….”  Matthew 1:24

Which returns me to the start: ’But’ is a fence over which few leap.”  Joseph, of course, leaped.  Yes, Jesus has the lead role in the Christmas Story, Mary’s role is of course significant, but let’s not forget Joseph.

There is probably no time of year we hear/think more of angels than the Christmas season.  Angels We Have Heard On High (listen to the Indigo Girls version) and Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing (the classic Nat King Cole) surround us, as do manger scenes and Bible readings about the nativity.  Thus I guess it is no wonder my mind (and iTunes) went to an old favorite of mine – Angels Among Us by Alabama, though it is not necessarily a Christmas tune.  The chorus:

“I believe there are, angels among us

Sent down to us, form somewhere up above

They come to you, and me, in our darkest hour

To show us how to live, teach us how to give

And guide us with a light of love.”

My only complaint with the chorus is that it can leave us with the thought that those angels show up only “in our darkest hour.”  In my experience, those angels are ever present, and more properly described in a later verse:

“They were so many faces, show up in the strangest places

To grace us with their mercy, in our time of need.”

And of course, our time of need, at least my time of need, is almost always.  Indeed, “I believe there are angels among us” and if I put that nasty pride thing aside, I can look back and see how they have helped me in life.  Whether I asked for or admitted I needed their help or not, they have been/are there to “show [me] how to live, teach [me] how to give, and guide [me] with a light of love.”

Beware, free and random thought ahead:

In both my office at work and at home, I have a clock, the “old -timey” clock you have to wind up with a key every several days in order to keep it running.  Both are a bit noisy, and the audible results of the pendulum’s travels can be heard anywhere in the room – if I am listening.  I add the “if I am listening” part because more often than not, though the pendulums are swinging (and in their noise-making mode) I don’t hear them.  They have become “white noise” to me.  Yet, when others walk into my office I often see them respond to the “tick-tick-tick” with a glance around the room in an effort to see where the noise is coming from – the noise I don’t hear.

All of that in reaction to the reading in my Advent meditation book today:

“He who has ears, let him hear.”  Matthew 11:15

The noise from the clocks, and my ability to tune them out, reminds me how easily I can be tune out that which is occurring around me.  I have the ability to shut out all “noise,” and do at times, but perhaps more often I engage in selective hearing.  As Simon & Garfunkel sing in the The Boxer “a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”

That (of course, as my mind works) points me to another song by Steve Goodman – My Old Man.  In that homage to his father, Goodman writes:

“And oh, the fights that we had, when my brother and I got him mad.  He’d get all boiled up, and start to shout, and I knew what was comin’ so I tuned him out.  But now the old man’s gone, and I’d give all I own, to hear what he said when I wasn’t listening, to my old man.”

All that to say that while selective hearing has its benefits, it causes me to lose a lot.  Let’s just say that my selection process as to what to tune in and out is imperfect.  While I may miss the sound of my clocks, I might also miss that “still small voice” pointing me this way or that.  Which is perhaps where Jesus was going with — “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Photo taken at Cannon Beach, Oregon last year.

Pondering on the Prodigal Son parable this morning, Luke 15:11-32:

We aren’t really told anything about the characters in this parable either before or after the facts recounted.  That is, I think, one of the magical things about parables – I get to fill in the details with my own thoughts, and in that way, make the story my story, or at least more meaningful to me.  In that regard, it does seem odd, doesn’t it, that the younger son would be so bold as to think he could just take off with his inheritance and make it in the world?  Of course, as he leaves we have no evidence to support he is incapable of that, but look at what we have filled in later.  We know he is the younger son, so we imply inexperience.  We know the older son later talks of his dutiful actions on the return of his younger brother (“Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment….”), which at least gives us the opportunity to imply that the younger son was not as dutiful.  And of course, we have the reality that the younger son “wasted his substance with riotous living” once he left and was left to “perish with hunger.”

Using my license to fill in details and come to make my own story, it occurs to me that what happened here is that the younger son, having much, came to the erroneous conclusion that what he had was of his own making, and had little to do with the father and brother, or just plain, dumb luck.  Being full of himself, prideful, and certain that his good fortune was of his own making, he “gathered it all together, and took his journey into a far country.”  That is, becoming full of himself, he distanced himself from those who helped him create his bounty, thinking he didn’t need them and could make it on his own, thank you.

That story, well, it starts to sound a bit too familiar for comfort.  Indeed, I have made his story, my story more times than I care to recount.  Thankfully, and true to the lesson in the parable, the Father is always there to meet me with open arms on the road home.

“Stay away from negative people.  They have a problem for every solution.”  Albert Einstein

There are those people in life who seem to have a talent for seeing clouds as clouds – to hell with the silver lining.  (Clearing throat sound)  I’ve read about these people somewhere.

Reading today from Joan Chittister’s The Rule of Benedict, she caught my attention in her urging to listen not only for the voice of God but also to “listen to one another, to sit silently in the presence of God, to give sober heed, and to ponder….”

It is that last word, “ponder,” that caught my attention.  “Ponder” is a favorite word of mine, but it is one that seems out of favor.  I come up to the verge of it with some regularity and almost always choose another even though “ponder” is likely the more appropriate word.  I think I pull back on using “ponder” because it seems to be one extreme or the other.  That is, it either sounds to me like something that Jed Clampett would say on The Beverly Hillbillies Something he would be before going to the “cement pond” or eating “vittles.”, or it brings up the mental image of the gravitas of Rodin’s statue – The Thinker.

I should, however, follow Chittister’s lead and not give up on “ponder” as a respectable word.  Webster provides the following in the definition of “ponder” – to “weigh in the mind,” to “think about,” or to “reflect on.”  Those are, of course, good things to do, particularly before making decisions and opening one’s mouth to speak.  In fact, that may well be a one word solution for much that is wrong in the world right now – ponder.  Or perhaps two words.  First, ponder!