“JOE COOL” NOT “JOE COLD”

Charles Schultz always had a way of getting to the heart of the matter, and in four cartoon panels at that. The message was clear and not always subtle but certainly with a tinge of humor, which is why Peanuts has lasted so long and is now into being a “Classic” as far as the comic strips are concerned.

We’ve all had (and, perhaps, still have) a security blanket like Linus. There are times when we have been the odd-(wo)man-out like Charlie Brown. We’ve all encountered, or seen reflected in our mirror, the loud-mouthed Lucy who needs to shout to hide the inferiority complex deep inside. Peanuts’ little people speak large truths about all people, including Big People.

My favorite is Snoopy as Joe Cool. Joe Cool, sunglass-clad, hip, above the fray, calm and collected: my hero, especially when I am anything but, certainly feel anything but. Joe Cool trumps the insecure Linus in me, the “why-am-I-such-a-loser?” feeling I sometimes get, the belief I need to shout, or at least raise my voice, because I think no one wants to hear my opinion. Wouldn’t it be great to be Joe Cool all the time?

Perhaps. However, if we can remain cool while everyone around us is losing their heads, it may simply mean that we do not understand the situation. Being Joe Cool among chaos has its advantages if we understand that there is chaos and that someone has to remain calm in order to help resolve the situation. If we all lose our heads, the matter at hand, whatever that matter, only gets worse.

We need the Joe Cools among us. We also need to be Joe Cool ourselves, to be that calming factor, the level head, the one who can say to others, “Follow me and we will get through this.” That requires faith, of course, faith in ourselves and, even more, faith in God’s grace, knowing that God will give us, working together, the strength we need to get through. The resources are already there, of course. We simply need to be calm enough, collected enough, to discover them.

On the other hand, Joe Cool can easily become Joe Cold, the one who not only stays above the fray but who stays away as well, even walks away because s/he does not want to get involved, because “it’s not my problem”. Joe Cold is not willing to make sacrifices for others because “I’ve earned what I have and I deserve what I have.” Joe Cold is so cold that he has become frozen. The suffering of others does not faze him in the least.

Not so with Joe Cool, calm and collected, who is still vulnerable. He feels the hurt, the suffering, the insecurities and uncertainties of others. That’s why he gets involved. That’s why he cannot look away and pretend that this is someone else’s problem. For underneath that calm exterior beats a heart that is going a hundred miles a minute out of love and care and concern.

There is always that temptation to become Joe Cold so as not to be hurt, to remain invulnerable. But that’s why Joe Cool wears the sunglasses. It’s to hide the tears.

ONE WISE MAN

Many years ago two of our daughters, Tracy and Autumn who were sharing an apartment in Baltimore, were driving together to go shopping. Autumn was driving Tracy’s car when they were stopped by a Maryland State Policeman. He pulled them over because the windows on Tracy’s car were too darkly tinted. [A father’s disclaimer: she purchased the car used and they were already so tinted.]

When the Officer approached the car and Autumn rolled down her window, both she and Tracy were at a loss for why they had been pulled over. Since Autumn knew she was not speeding or driving errantly, she asked the Officer what she had done wrong. He explained to her that the tint on the windows was too dark according to Maryland Law and he would have to cite her.

Before Autumn said anything to the officer, she turned to Tracy and said, I’m not paying this fine, you are. It’s your car.” Tracy replied, “Oh yes you are. Remember when we lived in Spokane and you used my library card and got a large fine and I had to pay it? Well, you’re going to pay this fine.” “No, I am not,” replied Autumn.

The Officer standing by the window heard this conversation, bent over, looked inside the car at Tracy and Autumn and said, “Have a nice day, ladies,” and walked back to his car, got in and drove away. No ticket issued. Wise man; one wise man. Or as Kenny Rogers sings in “The Gambler”: “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”

Sometimes we don’t. That particular officer did. Discretion is often the better part of valor. Sometimes even being in the right is not worth the effort of pointing out or even enforcing what is right. No use trying to get into the middle of an argument between two sisters on a hot summer day. There are always better fish to fry, as they say, better tickets to issue and enforce.

Again, there are times in our lives when we simply need to back off even when we are in the right. The policeman at least had warned Tracy. If she did not do something about her tinted windows and soon, there would be another officer who would pull her over and who would not be so forgiving this time around.

It is not always easy to know when to throw in your hand and wait for another and hopefully better deal or to take your chance that you will prevail with the cards you are holding. Would that we could always know when it is the best time to say or to do something that needs to be said or done. But we don’t, not always. Sometimes we speak too soon or jump into the fray too late. Even saying a sincere and heart-felt prayer is no guarantee that we will make the right decision.

In Tracy’s and Autumn’s case, the Officer probably did make the right and wise decision. He even had a funny story to tell his fellow officers. Yet, he may have made an unwise decision the next time several miles down the Interstate. Such is life – his and ours.

FILLING THE GAP

Palmer, a gifted writer and thinker and one of my favorites, once observed that there is a gap between the way our life is and the way it should be. Isn’t that the truth? Of course, making that observation is not rocket science and does take the intellect or the insight of a deep theological thinker and writer. We know that truth deep within the recesses of our very being.

We all have desires of what we want our life to be like, of how we want to and know we should live our lives on a daily basis. We are not even hesitant to publicly acknowledge, if asked, to admit that we fall short, often very short, in the way we live out our faith. There is that gap between the life our faith in Jesus calls us to live and the way we actually live. That gap may not be large. But it is there and it is real and we know it and would certainly like to close it.

This is the time of year that we are encouraged, at least by some, to make resolutions for the new year, resolutions that we hope to fulfill that will fill some of those gaps in our life. If we have poor eating habits, we can resolve to work on making them better. If we do not spend enough time in spiritual reflection, we can resolve to work diligently to both make and take that time. If we do not get enough physical exercise to keep both body and mind in shape, we can resolve to do something about that.

The truth is that there is no one of us who does not have a few significant gaps in our physical, mental, spiritual lives. We may have too many to count. The problem is not so much that those gaps exist as it is the truth that filling them, even filling one, is very, very difficult. That is why they exist in the first place: they take so much time and so much energy and so deep a commitment to resolve.

It is not enough to go on a diet and lose the weight necessary for good health. It means changing our eating habits forever. It is not enough to gather some spiritual reading materials and sit quietly some place and begin to reflect and pray. We have to do it all the time on a regular basis. It has to become a part of our daily lives or else we will soon go back to the old ways of thinking we should do something but, in fact, doing nothing.

The same is true for every gap in our lives, whatever the gap. No gap will be filled without a firm commitment and much hard work. That is only for starters, but we must start. Once we start, then and only then can that change in our life begin to become permanent. The change will not be easy because no real change ever is. We’ve become too accustomed to the way our life is, and the way it is is quite comfortable even if we know we need to make a change in our lives.

The other truth is that while we may and do have many gaps in our lives that need to be filled, gaps between the way our life is and the way it should be, we can only work on one gap at a time: only one. If we try on two, no matter how strong we think we are, we will fail at both. Pick one. Resolve to truly work on it knowing it will take the whole year to fill. But come 2027 all the hard work will have been worth it.

MORE THAN ENOUGH

The season of giving and receiving of gifts is well upon us. It is the time of year to take stock of all the blessings for which we have been graced by God to receive even though we have done nothing to merit them and much that would disqualify us from ever being considered to be a recipient. But grateful we are for what we have been given and for what we are able to give in return.

The most important and most valuable gifts that we give and receive, however, cannot be placed in a box and wrapped with colorful paper and then secured with fancy ribbon, topped with a bow. Those gifts are the gifts of love, the giving of ourselves in one way or another to an other, to others, freely and without any expectation of a similar gift in return. Even though to love and to be loved in return is the greatest gift we can give, all too often we forget this truth.

Why? Perhaps it is because we live in a world driven by consumerism. We are material people more than spiritual people, or so it seems. The Christmas season of material gift giving is one only example. It pervades our entire existence. One of my biggest gripes is that when I am invited to dinner, for instance, or invite another, a gift has to be brought as a way of saying “Thank you”, as if an honest and sincere “Thank you” is not enough. Drives me crazy!

Philosopher Ivan Illich observed that in a consumer society such as ours, “there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.” It seems that we have become slaves to consumerism, materialism. We have too much but don’t think we have enough. We are addicted to getting more and more, bigger and better and we envy those who have what we don’t have.

We have more than enough of the material gifts, the material blessings. What we lack sorely as individuals and as a world are the spiritual gifts that can only be given and received in loving relationships. At Christmas we celebrate God’s giving of God’s self in Jesus. God could give us no greater gift and could give us no more. The giving of a material gift would have paled into insignificance.

Yes, it is fun and exciting to give and receive gifts any time, material gifts. Only a Scrooge would find fault, and we’re no Scrooge. Yet, the greatest joy we receive at Christmas family gatherings, at any gift-giving-receiving gathering, is what takes place in and around the opening of the gifts: the spirit – and I would add the Holy Spirit (God) – present in that gathering.

We do not have to give or receive material gifts to be blessed. We only have to be with those who love and care about us and we them. That is enough. That is more than enough. It doesn’t get any better than that. That’s what Christmas is all about. That’s what Jesus came to teach us and remind us. That’s what a parish family is all about as well.  Sometimes we take for granted and even forget what is most important in our lives. Christmas, even the gift giving and receiving, is a reminder that we should not, must not.

GROWING OLDER

We all grow older. That is a given in this life. What the life to come is like, no one knows for sure, nor does it matter. The only life we have any control over and the only life we need be concerned about, truthfully, is this life. The life to come is out of our hands even though we think we are somehow in some control over it. We really do not even as much as some preachers would like us to believe we do. It is all in God’s loving and forgiving hands – all of it.

As we grow older in this life, we experience good and bad, happiness and sorrow, health and sickness, strength and frailty and everything in between. There is more good than bad, more health than sickness, more strength than weakness in our lives to be sure even though when we are going through the down and hard times, we often think we are more cursed than blessed. But that is human nature thinking and not reality.

Edith Wharton wrote this as she contemplated her own growing older: “In spite of illness, in spite of even the arch-enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things and happy in small ones.” What Wharton says is true, however, no matter how old or even how young one is.

Sorrow, our arch enemy, can stifle any growth because it allows us to wallow in the bad, the pain, the suffering rather than dealing with it, working through it and allowing us to move on. It is often easier to let sorrow control us rather than to deal with that which is causing us to grieve at that moment in time. How we deal with that which brings us sorrow will determine whether we move on in life or not.

None of this is to deny that we are sorrowful or that we should not be so. It is a human emotion that is a reaction to pain and suffering, to loss, whatever that loss may be – physical, emotional, relational. If we did not grieve the loss, we would not be human. It is how we deal with the loss, just as how we deal with growing older that is what is important and what allows us to be alive and even grow.

Wharton’s way of not only coping with aging, illness, sorrow and the like is certainly medicinal. But like every kind of medicine, if we do not take it, nothing will happen and we will not get better, or at least not deal with that which is causing pain and sorrow in our lives. And the most difficult pill to swallow, if you will, is that of change, whatever the change: the disintegrating body, the move to another residence, retirement and loss of identity: the list can be and is long. “Be not afraid of change” is easier to say than to do, as we all know no matter how old or how young we are.

Keeping the mind active, alive and alert is, of course, a no-brainer even as it entails using the brain which truly craves stimulation. Keeping the brain cells active, being happy with little pleasures takes thought and effort. When we reflect back upon our lives, whenever we have engaged in such, we have always felt better. Remembering that truth and acting upon it makes growing older easier and even, believe it or not, pleasurable.

THREADS OF GRACE

Our lives are made up of stories, countless stories, hundreds of thousands of them. The older we get, the more stories we have to tell. Most of them are truly mundane and quite uninteresting even to the main actor in that story: our self. Even the minutest detail in our life is a story. I always kid our youngest daughter, Tracy, because when Tracy tells a story, she tells a story. When she lived at home, it would take her five minutes to tell us that someone was at the front door.

Yes, that is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. The point is that there is a story behind every decision we make, every move we take. We do not make that decision out of the clear blue sky. We do not make that move, take that step, however short or long it is, without something preceding it; and, whether we realize it or not, whether we are cognizant of it or not, that something entails a story.

We are a people of the story. Whenever we gather, however small or large that gathering, whether at a family dinner, a Sunday worship, a class in school, at work, at play or at the local coffee shop for a chat with a friend, we each bring our personal stories with us and make that gathering into a larger story. The truth is that were we more aware of that truth, perhaps there would be less conflict and more cooperation in this world. For the further truth is that in one way or another we all have similar stories to tell. Only the names and places and circumstances are changed, but not the basic story.

That basic story is about a life lived with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, wins and losses. No one is exempt and no one is immune. It does us no good to complain that others have it better than we do because we have it better than others. And, yes, some people seem to suffer more than others and others seem to be more blessed than others. But we never know.

The only life we truly know about is our own, and often we do not truly know much about that life. Why? A simple answer is to say that we tend to go from one story to the next without much reflection on that last story. Yet it is only when we take the time to think about our life and the stories we have to tell that we can come to grips with what our life is all about and where we should be going next.

What we will discover in the process is that what has held us together when we thought our world was falling apart, what has kept us moving when we wanted to shrivel up and hide, have been those threads of grace that has kept us together, God’s grace and the grace that comes from those who are walking this journey of life with us. That said, it is also true that the many blessings of life that have come our way are more because God’s grace has been present and not because we have been someone special. Often we are unaware of those threads; but when we take the time to reflect on our life’s story, they become quite evident.

The tapestry of life – our personal life, the lives of those around us, the life of the world –is, if you will, woven together by those threads of God’s grace.

IT IS ABOUT ME

Each one of us has an ego whether we are willing to admit it or not. We are all selfish. That’s the way we were created. We came out of the womb thinking we were Number One, that the self always comes first. That belief was reinforced during our infancy when our every whim and need was attended to and as quickly as possible but certainly not as quickly as we felt we deserved.

All that notwithstanding, the truth is that when are we involved in something, whatever that something is, it is about us. It is about us, about me, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is essential that we realize that what is happening is about us and we must somehow in some way respond.

What we also have to realize is that it is also more than just about us. It is about everyone else as well. And sometimes, perhaps more often that we realize and certainly more often than we are willing to admit, it is more about others than it is about us. It is really and truly about them. Their problem, their issue, becomes our issue because we are now aware of it.

That is especially true when it comes to the living out of our faith, which, of course is to be done 24/7, every minute of every hour of every day. Every second of our life we are called through our baptism – and the promises made for us when we were baptized and which we renew each year – to seek and see and serve Jesus Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. In other words, it is as much about our neighbor, whoever that neighbor is and wherever that neighbor lives, as it is about me, whatever that “it” is at the moment.

As baptized Christians we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being. Not some. Not just those we love, but each and every one of them. Again, it is all about them as much as it is all about us. But in order for it to be all about them/him/her, it also has to be all about us/me first. Each one of us is vitally important in doing God’s work in resisting evil and in proclaiming the Good News. We cannot do any or all of that if we do not realize just how important we are, each one of us, in God’s grand scheme.

It is all about me because if I fail, others are hurt. If we fail, many are hurt. Yes, too many people – and sometimes we are one of them – lose sight of this truth and think that they are more important than others, that the world or at least their corner of the world, no matter how small that corner is, revolves about them and is only about them. It does not, never did and never will.

When we finally allow our ego to take back seat, or at least step aside for a moment, it is humbling to realize just how important we are in God’s ordering of creation. It is even more humbling to admit that we are not as important as we sometimes think we are. It is about us; but in being about us, it is also about how we full the responsibilities God has entrusted to us.