MAINTENANCE

As individuals and not simply as individual Christians each of us has a responsibility to maintain ourselves materially, physically and spiritually. We are all aware of this fact especially if we our out of shape in any one or in all of these areas. Perhaps it is at the beginning of a new year that we are even more aware of this responsibility, New Year’s Resolutions seemingly being the order of the day as the calendar changes from one year to the next.

Resolutions to do something are always in order when that which we deem to be resolved is quite pressing. We don’t make such resolutions only at the beginning of a year. When we are finally grasped by the importance of the issue at hand, we stand back and decide that we had better do something about it before the problem gets totally out of hand and we will be in over our heads.

Of course, resolutions without a plan are meaningless. Perhaps that is the reason why so many of the resolutions we make, no matter when we make them, are never fulfilled. The issue that we want and need to deal with is no simple matter. It is quite complex even if we can name it in one short sentence. “I need to lose weight.” “I need to get a job.” “I need to get my spiritual life in order.”

The problem becomes even more complex when there are multiple issues that demand our attention. If we are overweight, out of work and have little or no spiritual life, we are in for a long and difficult journey just to get ourselves to a maintenance level. That is the first step in getting our lives in order. In fact, most of us would be content simply maintaining our life on an even keel. Any growth would be a blessing.

Yet, simple maintenance is not easy as we know from daily living. When one part of our life starts to go haywire, it affects the rest of it. When we are physically ill, our spiritual life ebbs and our ability to take care of our material responsibilities is weakened. When our spirits our low, so is our resistance to any temptation to do not do what needs to be done on the job.

So how do we formulate a Plan that will help us not only get our life back on an even keel and then maintain it for a long enough time that will then allow us to plan for some growth? Would there were a simple answer, a simple one- or two-step formula for success. But there is not. The only road to maintenance is the one-step-at-a-time, one-day-at-a-time method.

Growth will only be measured in increments and any recognition of progress will be noted perhaps six months to a year later. That may not seem very encouraging but it is the truth.  Life today, in this world of ours of instant communication and constant change, is never simple. Nevertheless, change, growth is possible, if we want to make those changes necessary to maintain a sound mental, physical and spiritual life. Such change and such growth will never come easily, but it won’t come at all if we are not willing to resolve to make the effort and then do what is necessary to make that resolution a reality.

THE SEASON OF HOPE

If it is anything, Christmas is the season of hope; and isn’t that the way it should be? Those of us who are parents can remember holding our newborn in our arms and thinking and dreaming about what would be in store for this little tyke in the years to come. Our hearts and minds were filled with nothing but hope. We only wanted the best for the baby and silently promised we would do whatever would be needed to make those hopes and dreams come true.

Whether those hopes and dreams came true or whether we fulfilled our promise to do our best to help make them so is, in truth, water over the dam. We cannot go back in time and undo or redo what we should or should not have done. What is is what is. If we had more than one child, the second child benefited from the mistakes we make with the first. The more practiced a parent we were, the better parent we became.

Much in the same way, albeit it in a very different way, every year we become new parents of the Christ Child. On Christmas we hold that Child in our hands, hold our faith in that Child in our hands, and hope and pray that the coming year and years will be filled with what faith in that Child means.

Unlike our own children’s lives whose lives will be very much in their control and not ours, (even as much at times as we wish they could be – for their own good and our peace of mind), we are in control of this Child’s life as it has bearing on our own personal lives. We make and live out the decisions our faith in this Child presents to us day in and day out. Each day we are to ask ourselves if what we are saying and thinking and doing reflect what faith in this Child truly means.

As it is with our own children, so it is with the Christ Child: we don’t simply rejoice in the birth, literally or figuratively hold the C/child in our hands, hope and pray for the best, then put the C/child down and walk away. Rather, we stay intimately involved and stay involved for the long run – or at least that is what we are supposed to be doing. We cannot or should not be an absentee parent of our own children any more than we should be an absentee parent to the Christ Child.

We teach our children by our very lives, by the example of our lives. They learn both good and bad, love and hate, selflessness and selfishness from us, their parents. In the same way, we teach our faith in the Christ Child by the way we live our lives – or at least that is what we are supposed to be doing. How well we do it or how poorly is a reflection of what Christmas truly means to us.

As we gather to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child once again this Christmas, may we be filled with hope, hope that the coming year will be better than this past, hope that dreams that were dashed because of our own sinfulness or that of others or simply because of circumstances beyond our control be fulfilled this year, hope that we will do our best to model our lives on the life of that Child grown to full stature, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is my hope for you and for me. Merry Christmas.

DO WE GET THE YOKE?

Following Jesus is not always easy. But, then, we have never expected it to be. Nor did Jesus ever say or promise that it would be. In fact, he said that if we wanted to be a follower of his, we would have to carry some crosses – about which, as we have all discovered, he was not whistling Dixie, as they say. Sometimes it has been a really tough road to hoe and more often than we would like it to be.

Even so, Jesus also said that in following him “the yoke would be easy and the burden light” (Mt 11:30). My guess is that that has not always been true for anyone of us over the years. My other guess is that many, at this moment in time, find the burden of being a Christian anything but light and what seems a yoke around our necks to almost be choaking us to death. And it isn’t fun; not in the least!

If you are like me, what makes the burden, if not light, at least a whole lot easier to carry, is when we understand what Jesus meant by the yoke. When I think of a yoke in agricultural terms (and as I think Jesus was certainly alluding to), it is an instrument that fits around the next of the ox pulling a plow, but not one neck or one ox but two. When two are pulling the plow together, the row (and the road) being hoed is much easier. It doesn’t mean that it will be a piece of cake, but only that it will be easier.

And isn’t that what we have found over the course of trying, as best we could, to live out our faith? When we tried to hoe the road all by ourselves, it was always much more difficult than when we allowed someone else, some others, to, as it were, share the yoke with us. What does not need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway, Jesus has always been on the yoke with us, not to pull the load for us, but to help make it less burdensome.

That is what a Christian community is all about: each one of us pulling our share of the responsibilities of doing what our faith calls us to do, but doing it together, yoked together. Again, that does not mean the task will be very easy but it will be easier. For if we think that the task ahead is impossible, we will never even begin to tackle it. But if we know that we will have help, we will do what we are able to do.

There will always be difficult times in our lives, the result of our own selfishness and that of others. In fact, we are living in these times right now. When we stand back and look at what is demanded of us to love one another as God loves us, it almost seems overwhelming, if not impossible, a yoke too difficult to pull and a burden that is too heavy to bear. But if we pull together, as difficult as that task is, the field will be plowed and the seeds will be planted and with the grace of God and the strength of the Holy Spirit to help and support us along the way, the harvest will come. That is God’s promise and that it the truth. Believe it!

BECAUSE I SAID SO

A story, probably not true: A Presbyterian (let's pick on them for a while) minister was walking along the beach one day and stumbled upon a lamp. Picking it up and wiping it off caused the lamp to shake and smoke and a genie came out. The genie thanked the minister for freeing him from years of captivity and offered him one wish.

The minister immediately said, "You know, I've always wanted to visit the Holy Land but I'm afraid of flying. And I get seasick just thinking about boats. So could you build a highway across the Atlantic Ocean so I could drive to the Holy Land?"

The genie looked at him in shock and replied, "You've got to be kidding. Do you realize the engineering challenges that would have to be overcome to achieve that feat? Even I have limitations. Can't you think of anything else to wish for?"

The minister thought for a moment and then said, "Okay. I know what I want. I wish that all the members of the congregation I serve become tithers.”

To that the genie replied, "Did you want that to be a two-lane or four-lane highway?"

Thought you might enjoy that this being the time of the year when churches begin planning on next year’s budget. It's probably easier to make fun of tithing that to be serious about it because when the word tithe is mentioned, we tend to flinch. Or we get a little testy. We know what the word means. We also know that tithing is rather basic, rather biblical, in fact. And since our faith is biblically based, we really can't avoid the fact that we can't avoid the word and can't avoid dealing with the reality of that word. And that makes us a might bit testy.

We get testy because we do not like or want anyone telling us what we have to do with our money – have to do if we believe scripture to be the word of God. We don't mind scripture telling us that we aren't allowed to lie or cheat or steal or murder. We don't seem to mind being told what not to do. Telling us what to do, especially with our money, is another matter.

I don't know if that has always been the case. I don't know if years ago people were more willing to tithe than today. Probably not, probably because we have always been material people, judging our self-worth on the amount of possessions we have or do not have, including the amount of money in our bank accounts and not about our generosity to others. It may simply be human nature.

But we are not simply human beings. We are God's children. Everything we have has been given to us by God. Even if we believe we have earned it, we have been able to do so because God has given us the gifts and talents to do so. So, I think God does at least have some say in how God expects us to use the gifts we have been given as best we can and to share them, whether we like it or not. But then, as with our children, we adults never like to hear, "Because I said so."

A SEASON FOR REASONING

Advent is the time when we are given the time to think about the event we will celebrate at the end of this time: Christmas. If you are like me, sometimes we spend so much time doing everything we think we need to do to celebrate Christmas that we spend little or no time thinking about the meaning of the Christmas event. And then when Christmas arrives, it is quickly celebrated and just as quickly forgotten as we move on with life – and getting ready for New Year’s Day.

What we sometimes forget in our forgetting to reflect on the meaning of Christmas during this Advent season is that the real meaning of Christmas is to pervade all of life and not simply the spiritual part. Jesus was born into a very real world that is much like ours, in fact is ours, with the very same problems. The issues Jesus came to address are still with us, much to our condemnation as a people of faith. For had we and those who came before us took Jesus’ message seriously, we would not be dealing with these problems today.

But we are. Unfortunately, they have become even more compounded because we have made them into political issues rather than moral issues: problems like hunger, disease, health care, sexual issues of every kind, to name just a few for starters. These issues are not Red vs. Blue, Right vs. Left, Democrat vs. Republican, or any other category we use to decide how they should be addressed. For in debating how we should address them we almost always forget that we are taking about people and not about politics.

Jesus’ concern was first, last and always about people. It was not about political correctness or even about the Law. If there was a person in need, a person who was hungry or thirsty or who was discriminated against for any reason, that person was of immediate concern for Jesus – and, of course, should be for us. Debating how to address issues is needed just as long as we don’t forget the reason for the debate, the discussion, in the first place: meeting the needs of the people.

Jesus came among us to remind us that our life of faith is to be about a life of service one to another. No one is to be exempt from our ministry. No one. Jack Harberer, editor of Presbyterian Outlook, writes this: “Wisdom should at least teach us two things. First, in order to bear Christ’s purposes to the world, we need to advocate policies with both eyes open. While our left eye focuses on woman’s equality, the right eye needs to focus on minimizing abortions. While our left eye focuses on economic injustice, the right eye needs to focus on free enterprise. As the left eye would defend the rights of sexual minorities, the right eye needs to warn against sexual promiscuity. As the left eye attends to welcoming strangers and defending the rights of imprisoned enemy combatants, the right eye needs to sustain the rule of law and to protect against terrorism.”

Advent is the season for seeing with both eyes, for seeing as Jesus saw, for reasoning as Jesus reasoned, for refusing to allow politics or anything else to deter us from being about what Jesus was about: seeking and serving all people, respecting the dignity of every human being, loving everyone as Jesus loved. That’s not the easy way. It’s the only way.

WHAT IF?

There’s a story told about Pastor Teefer, a good Lutheran (is that redundant?), who found himself wondering whether there were any golf courses in heaven. He even began to ask the question in his prayers. One day, blessed man that he was, he received a direct answer from on high. “Yes,” said the heavenly messenger, “there are many excellent golf courses in heaven. The greens are always in first-class condition, the weather is always perfect, and you always play with the nicest people. Oh, by the way, we’ve got you down for a foursome on Saturday.”

It’s an apocryphal story, to be sure; or is it? God being God, there is always the possibility that God can and perhaps even will at times speak directly to someone who asks a direct question. What if this were a true story? What if God did speak directly to Pastor Teefer and he knew that come Saturday he would be playing golf in heaven and not getting ready to preach a sermon to his congregation the next day?

What if you or I knew the day, even the hour, when we would meet our Maker? What if that day were this coming Saturday? While the golf addicts among us might want to know if there are golf courses in heaven, (I have always envisioned heaven as something like Pebble Beach or Oakmont, two courses I have played only in my wildest and fondest dreams but will only be able to play in heaven), there is an even more immediate issue on the table.

That issue, of course, is what would I do between now and then. Are there some words I need to say to someone, something I have been putting off for all too long now that needs to be attended to and attended to immediately because the time is too short? Knowing the day and time of our death would change everything, both whether that day was this Saturday or some Saturday off in the distant future.

Or would it? Would we do anything differently if we knew that day as a certitude? Perhaps at first thought, we would respond in the affirmative; “Yes, most certainly!” If that day were in a few days, we might hasten to clear up loose ends, to call those whom we need to forgive or ask forgiveness, to call those we love for one final “I love you,” to mend a fence or two.

Or, even more, should we have to? Should we have to do anything differently? In the sacristy of my home parish there used to be a sign that read: “Celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass.” On a more mundane level you and I could be reminded to live this day as if it were the first day of our life, the last day of our life, the only day of our life.”

Living each day to the fullest is what we are called to do. What that means is the question. If we live each day as Jesus lived each day in love and service to one another and thus to our God, we need not be concerned about when we will meet God in eternity nor will we worry about whether there is anything for which we need to make amends or ask forgives or make known our love. We will have done so already.

THE ANSWER IS: “I AM”

The story is told about the great writer and thinker G. K. Chesterton that when a local newspaper posed the question, “What’s wrong with the world?”, he reputedly wrote a brief letter in response. “Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.”

That same question could be posed today. In fact, we have all asked that question numerous times in our lives. We read the newspaper, watch the news on television, surf the web even casually and read one story after another of, as we used to say, “man’s inhumanity to man”. Killings, wars, poverty, disease abound the world over. It was not supposed to be like this. It is not supposed to be like this. But it is and we wonder what’s wrong with the world.

This world of ours is so vast, so huge, even if, due to our ability to communicate instantly, our world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. A tornado happens in Kansas, a tsunami occurs in Japan, a bombing takes place in London and we know about it almost in seconds, if we happen to be tuned in. The problems, the evils, are often beyond our imagination and certainly beyond our personal ability to resolve.

We even have to wonder if anybody or any body is strong enough, has enough resources, even if there is a will, to do something, anything, about the mess except to lament what is happening and the try to find someone or something where the blame can be laid. Unlike Chesterton, however, we are likely to find scapegoats other than ourselves. We can find innumerable people to blame, perhaps even God, were we brave enough to do so, but we are reluctant to take any responsibility ourselves.

Yet, Chesterton was absolutely correct. He hit the proverbial nail on the head. The problems in the world are the result of millions, billions, of individual sinful and selfish acts. Granted, one less selfish action on our personal part will be insignificant in reducing the pain and suffering. No one will notice except, perhaps, the one towards whom our action was to be directed. But in the grand scheme of things, it will be like a drop of water in a huge ocean.

Nevertheless, to discount even one small act, to not take any blame for the situation the world is in, is the main reason why there are so many problems in the world. We do sinful things, you and I, because we convince ourselves that our actions won’t hurt anyone or at least not hurt everyone. We never, or hardly ever, look at the bigger picture because we see only one little part of it. Or is it that we freely choose to close our eyes to the truth?

The first step in making this world a better place, the first step in removing the problems that surround us and that cause so much unjust pain and suffering to so many people, is for each of us to do as Chesterton did and that is to own up to our own complicity in creating the mess the world is now in. The second step is to do something about it, and that is to be personally less sinful, less selfish. Again, that will not make a significant difference, but it is a start. As the song about peace says, let it begin with me.

STEREOTYPES

If the truth were told, most, if not all, of us are guilty of stereotyping both individuals and institutions, at least occasionally. A stereotype begins with the assumed word “all”, as in “all Italians are,” “all businesses are,” “all lawyers are,” and then we add our conclusion to what all these people or institutions are even though we know that not all, or even most, Italians or businesses or lawyers are what we just said they are.

Of course, there are also times when our stereotypes do not denigrate others but, in fact, praise them. Even then, again, while our praises may be well-received by the particular group, they and we know that not everyone in that group can be so praised. Not all Italians like wine, opera and garlic. I am full-blooded Italian and don’t like any of them even those most Italians I know, even those in my own family, do.

Or as someone else put it this way: Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are Italian, the mechanics are German, the lovers are French and it’s all organized by the Swiss. On the other hand, Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and it’s all organized by the Italians. Wonderful stereotypes to be sure.

To be sure, also, those stereotypes are rather close to the truth, if the truth were told. Yes, some British police are brutal, some Italians can’t cook their way out of a skillet, some Germans don’t know a wrench from a screwdriver, some French are cold fish and some Swiss can’t keep their checkbooks balanced. But in general whoever described heaven that way came close to a fair stereotype…and of hell, too!

Stereotypes may be fine as far as they go and they only go so far. They serve as an introduction, if you will, but only as a tentative one. If we want to go deeper into a subject or get to know another on anything but a superficial level, then we had better hold loose with that initial stereotype we have of that person otherwise it will only color our impression but also make it almost, if not, impossible to truly get to know who that person is and what makes him or her tick.

Stereotypes are generalizations and generalizations are nothing upon which we can build any relationship. In fact, they impede the making of relationships, which, to be honest again, may be one reason why we sometimes cling to them. If all fill-in-the-blanks think or act that way and we don’t like that way, we don’t have to deal with this particular person we have lumped in with that group.

Think what a time Jesus would have had had he allowed local stereotyping determine whom he called as disciples: all fisherman are dull, all tax collectors are thieves, all, well, the list goes on. Jesus never lumped anyone into any category. He met each person as an individual; and instead of pre-judging him or her, he allowed that person’s persona to manifest itself on its own. That was not easy for him, being human, and it is not easy for humans either. But it is the only way to get to know another. It is also the only way to live in community one with another.

TEACHER, POLICEMAN, SERVANT

There are many ways to get a point across, to make known what should be done in this or that instance. The first way and the most obvious way is to be a teacher. A teacher stands in front of the class prepared to teach a lesson. She has prepared herself to use words and examples on how best to get across the lesson, is ready to answer questions if she hasn’t been clear enough. At the end of the class she hopes that the lesson she taught was understood by one and all.

What she cannot be certain of, even if she is certain everyone clearly understood the lesson, is that each student would incorporate that lesson into his or her life, never forget what was taught and then live the lesson fully and faithfully. That is the dream of every teacher and the goal of every lesson taught but it is not always the lesson learned nor the lesson lived. A teacher can only teach; she cannot do anything to make certain that the lesson is lived.

Thus, is would seem, that another person is needed to make certain that the lesson taught is the lesson lived and that is the policeman who enforces the lesson. His message is that unless we do what we have been taught to do, there will be a penalty to be paid, a punishment to be enforced. The student may not want to do what has been taught because he has been taught and he knows that it is the right thing to do but will do it because he does not want to pay the penalty for disobeying and disregarding the lesson.

Teachers can teach a lesson in words and policeman can enforce that lesson though fear but the only real way to get the lesson across is to live it. That is the role of the servant. The servant teaches by lived example and can only hope that the example of his or her life is sufficient to keep the student who has truly learned that living lesson from going astray. It is a hope but is also no guarantee.

Our goal as Christians, as followers of Jesus, is to teach as Jesus taught: in words, for certain. The only police tactics Jesus employed were to remind his students that the only thing they had to fear from not following the lesson he was teaching was the pain they would bring upon themselves if they did not. Selfishness always catches up to us. But Jesus taught mostly by the example of his life but even that was no guarantee that the lessons taught would be lessons followed.

There is a story about a mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kyle 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.’” Kyle turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!”

The truth is that no matter how well the lesson has been taught to us, and no matter how deeply ingrained into the our being the lesson is, and no matter how terrible and painful the punishment is for not following that lesson, and no matter how great the example we have observed, there is still no guarantee that we will live the lesson. See above: Kyle.

PURGATORY AND HELL

When I was growing up, purgatory was assumed to be my first destination when I died. After all, being human and being a sinner I was going to die in some state of sin, hopefully not in a state of mortal sin, which would consign me to hell for eternity. There was that fear, of course, fear that if I indeed did commit a mortal sin and did not get to confession before I died, hellfire and brimstone waited my unfortunate soul.

Purgatory was the place – or at least the state of being because I had no idea what type of being I would be in death – where I would first go in order to be purgated, if that is a word, cleansed of my sins before I would be allowed into heaven. What that purgation consisted of and how long it would last and, even more, how painful it might be, was left to my imagination. But no matter how long or how painful, it would certainly be better than hell.

Purgatory is no longer of concern. It hasn’t been for a long time because purgatory is, frankly, not theological. If we believe Jesus died to save us, to free us from our sins, to forgive our sins, then our sins are forgiven. Period. If, however, we believe that when we die, we die in sin, and we do, but those sins still need to be cleansed, then what we are saying is that Jesus’ death on the cross was insufficient. I have not found anyone who would dare maintain that it wasn’t.

On the other hand, if we do not hold that Jesus died for our sins, we have to hold that God is, as we believe, love, Love Itself. And love, certainly Love, always forgives. Period. No ands, ifs or buts; no exceptions. So whether Jesus died for our sins or our sins are forgiven because God loves us unconditionally and forgives us unconditionally, there is thus no need for purgatory.

Purgatory in the life to come, that is. I still believe in purgatory and I still believe in hell. I believe that I – all of us – go through our purgatory in this life. We know, certainly believe, that our sins are forgiven. And they are. They are wiped away. But what remains and what God cannot do and will not do is wipe away the effects of our sins, the pain our selfishness causes to those we love and even to ourselves.

Going through purgatory, for me at least, is that journey from sinning, through realizing what I have done and the pain my selfishness has caused to others, especially to those I love most, coming to terms with that selfishness, doing all I can to redress the harm I have caused and resolving, to the best of my ability and with God’s grace, to not to it again. There is no guarantee, however, that I will not sin again and that I will go through another bout of purgatory, but hopefully it will be less painful the next time.

I believe in the purgatory of the here-and-now, not of the hereafter. I also believe in a hell in the hereafter, but not a hell I may be consigned to because of my sins but a hell I have freely chosen. God does not send us to hell. We freely choose to be without God for all eternity in death. Is such a choice possible?  Yes, unless we willingly and freely choose to go through the many purgatories of this life. But the choice is ours and not God’s.

BEING ON THE WAY IS THE WAY

Every parent has heard more than once the plaint from the back seat, “Are we there yet?” Children by their very nature are impatient. They have no concept of time or distance. When my sister was teaching school, on her birthday she always used to ask her first-graders how old they thought she was. Their answers ranged from 10 years to 100. They had no idea. She always appreciated the “25” response and choked on any response well past her real age at the time.

To children ten minutes is no different than ten hours, three miles no different than three hundred. What they care about is the moment. They want what they want right now, not ten minutes from now. They want grandma’s house to be right around the next bend and now twenty miles down the road. That is their way. They do not want to be on the way; they want to be there…and now.

As adults we are really no different. We want to get where we are going, wherever it is we are going, and we want to be there now. We may enjoy being on the way, but we would rather already be there: at the office, at the beach, at church, wherever. We would prefer not to have to wait fifteen minutes for our prescription to be filled, two months for the surgery just to be scheduled, six years to retirement. Right now would be best.

Our impatience with time and distance notwithstanding, the fact is that being on the way is the way, the way of life. While there will always be a destination towards which we are headed – grandma’s, retirement, even heaven – what is important is what is happening on the way. What is important is what we are doing on the way to wherever it is we are heading. What is also important is what God is doing along our way, both with us and for us on this journey.

What is also important to remember is that the road we are on is not the road to perfection: the perfect visit, the perfect day at work, the perfect life. Nothing we ever do will ever be done perfectly. We can always do something better even if it is only infinitesimally better. We will never be the perfect child, the perfect spouse, the perfect Christian. We will always fall short.

None of this means that we need not try to be better or to do better simply because we will never be perfect. It does mean that we don’t beat ourselves up over the fact that we were less than perfect, that somehow God is going to judge us harshly because we came up short, or because we come up short again and again and again. God knows our imperfections. That is why God is always with us on our journey.

That is also why we must be more attentive to what we are doing on the way rather than what is at the end of the path. We are always on the way even in death. For in death we are on the way to new life. My suspicion is that even in death, even in the resurrected life to come, we will still be on the way. We will still be growing, learning something new, experiencing something we never experienced before. Always being on the way, no matter how long it takes, is the way of life. We need to enjoy the trip.

THE BETTER CHOICE

Some of my best friends are lawyers. That is no joke even though for every lawyer there is at least one lawyer joke that, while close to the truth, misses the mark. Next to clergy lawyers are the most ridiculed and maligned professionals. For every ten clergy depicted on television, nine are absolute idiots or complete fools. Lawyers, at least on television, get a better break. Lucky them.

All that notwithstanding, someone once observed – and not in any way slandering or maligning lawyers – that as Christians we are called to be witnesses, not lawyers. And that we are. The problem, of course, is that too many of us who profess to be Christians and far too many of us who are in positions of leadership, namely we clergy (and bishops, too), spend an inordinate amount of time and energy in being lawyers than in being a witness to our faith.

Playing lawyer (and, of course, judge and jury), is the easier way. One does not have to be a lawyer to stand in judgment of another, to call someone to task for not living out her faith as she is supposed to do, to proclaim certain actions to be sinful and those who commit them to be sinners. One does not have to stand in the pulpit to be a bully. All one has to do is open one’s mouth in critique and criticism.

That is not to say that we should be uncritical or, even worse, ignore wrongs when we see them being done, when we observe sin being committed. Silence in the face of wrong is just as sinful as the wrong being committed. It takes courage to call a spade a spade, to confront the guilty party.

Most of us fail mightily in this regard. We excuse ourselves by claiming another person’s sin or misdeed is none of our business. Jesus was never silent in the face of sin and wrongdoing. He got himself nailed because of his honesty and outspokenness, but he knew he had no other choice. He had to speak no matter how difficult that would be and no matter the consequences to his personal wellbeing. So do we.

However, the point at hand is that is all to easy to take another person or a group of people to task, to name them as sinners while taking the high ground and proclaiming oneself to be free of that particular sin. It is much more difficult to plug away at our faith, living it as best we can from day to day, failing often, asking for forgiveness even more often, and letting our loving actions speak to those who may be less so.

We are indeed called to be witnesses and are instructed to leave the judging to God. If we want to take anyone to task, if we want to put anyone on the witness stand and grill that person with a skillful lawyerly cross exanimation, the first person who should take the stand is ourself. If we held ourselves to the same standards as we hold others, both we and they might be better off and better people.

We are called to be witnesses to our faith in Jesus, first, last and always. If we have any time left over, we might use it to rest rather than pretend we are the prosecuting attorney.

FORGIVENESS: THE FINAL FORM OF LOVE

Reinhold Niebuhr, in his The Irony of American History, opined: “Nothing worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love: forgiveness.”

The cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance are extensions of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Practicing them enables us to be more faithful, more hopeful and more loving. Both sets of virtues take work, hard work and we never, ever, at least not in this lifetime, ever become proficient in practicing any one of them. We are always learning how to be more of whatever that virtue is at the moment on which we are focusing our attention.

Thus, as Niebuhr observed years ago, because we have learned that being virtuous is a reward in and of itself, that it benefits us; and because we have also learned that we will never be an expert in any one virtue, in any virtue, in our lifetime, we are saved from despair by hope. Hope reminds us that while we will never be perfect, we can always get better. That is all God asks of us and all that we can ask of ourselves. We must not ever give up on trying to be more virtuous.

Even more, even though the truly beautiful or the humblest of the holiest stand out as examples of what perfection may be like, there is too much imperfection around us, even cheek-by-jowl to the beautiful and living next door to the saint that we are left to wonder why we should try to so hard to be so good. The world today does not seem to be any better, any more beautiful, any more anything than it was in Jesus’ time or at any time. It may not be worse, but it is a test of our faith to hang in there to do whatever we can to make some semblance of a difference in our little corner of this world.

The task is so great that no one can do it alone, not even Jesus, which is why he gathered disciples around him and them left them the task to continue the completion of his work. But that work cannot be done alone. It must be done with and in and through community. Doing so demands that those who are part of that community, that church, that congregation, however large or small it is, must love one another and not be at enmity with others.

That work is still incomplete because they and we and everyone in between have failed at least in some way to do his or her or our part. We have not been as virtuous as we know we could have been or should have been and the road ahead, given our past unfaithfulness, does not look any better. What allows us to move on is the knowledge that we have been forgiven by God for our failures. The task that lies before each and every one of us to accept that forgiveness, to forgive one another and to live more faithfully, more hopefully and more lovingly every single day.

CROSSES AND THORNS

In Second Corinthians Paul reflected on what he called his thorn in the flesh that constantly bugged him. It got so bad that he finally had to ask God to do something, that something being to rid him of this ailment. That God would not do. Instead, God simply reminded Paul that God’s grace would suffice. It would be all he needed to endure the pain and go on. And so it was.

We’ve all been there, perhaps, in fact, are there. We all endure those thorns in the flesh, pains in the neck, or whatever we happened to call them at the moment. They are real. They hurt. And they are not going to go away. Paul had to live with his thorn in the flesh and so do we. God reminded Paul and God reminds us that even though the pain remains, God’s grace and our cooperation with that grace will keep us going.

There are times when we confuse those thorns in the flesh by calling them crosses we have to bear. They are not. There is a real distinction between crosses and thorns. Those thorns that pain us come with the territory of being human. They can range from dealing with teenage daughters who not only think you are an idiot but tell you so on a regular basis, to a boss who thinks everyone should sell his soul to the company, to the muscle aches and pains that kick in when we try to get up from bed or a chair.

Those thorns in the flesh come from without and from within and are part and parcel of human existence. We may be able to lessen the pain with exercise and vitamins. It may go away with time as the teenagers grow into adults and eventually apologize for the pain they caused and thank you for not killing them when you had every right to do so. It may resolve itself when we get a new boss. The point is that we do not freely choose to endure the pain, the thorn. It arises and we have no choice but to deal with it as best we can and with God’s grace.

Crosses, on the other hand are also painful but quite different. We never, ever have to carry a cross, and cross of any size or shape. We freely choose to carry that cross. Jesus did not have to carry his. He could have walked away. He could have ceased upsetting those who were so angry about his words and deeds. But Jesus freely chose to continue his ministry of love and concern and service to all knowing that in the end he would have to pay for it and pay dearly. A cross, a very real one, awaited him. He knew it but he did what he had to do. He chose to carry that cross.

And so do we. We can refuse to do so as well. No one forces us to do that which is painful: to help the person in need, to walk the extra mile or give the shirt off our back wherever those miles might take us and however much of a sacrifice we might have to make. Yet, as we soon discover when freely giving of ourselves, those crosses are really not all that burdensome and they are often very good for us.

So, too, are those thorns whether realize it at the time or not. When my daughters were teenagers they seemed like heavy crosses to bear. We endured one another, often painfully. Now? Who cares? They love me.  I love them and we have all moved on.

OUR UNUNDERSTANDABLE GOD

One of the givens of having faith in God is that the more we think we understand our God, the less we do. Even more and perhaps more frightening is that the stronger our faith becomes, the stronger our doubts. On the other hand, the more we have our God locked into a box, clearly understood and clearly defined, the less likely we are to be correct. Having faith does not mean we have all the answers any more than it means that we understand the God in whom we place our faith.

Rabbi Daniel F. Polish in an article in America put it this way – “This is a most challenging kind of faith: to live with a God we cannot fully understand, whose actions we explain at our own peril. This God is at the center of our lives. This may be a rockier path to walk than that of either simplistic absolutism or of atheism, but it is the faith of honest men and women, a faith defined by spiritual humility.”

The opposite of spiritual humility, of humility in general, is pride. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and determine who is the one who is humble enough to admit uncertainty about God and God’s will and God’s ways and who is the one so wrapped in his or her own sense of certainty that pride has come to the fore. The truth is that pride often masquerades as humility just as the desire for power wraps itself in fine theological clothing – on any side of any issue, especially about God.

One of the glories of the Episcopal Church, of true Anglicanism, is its theological and sociological breadth. Our sign says “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” Notice, there is no asterisk on the sign and no small print at the bottom naming those who are not welcomed. Liberals and conservatives and everyone in between, high church and low church and those of no church are welcomed to become part of us. We are all sorts and conditions of people, which is how God created us.

None of us, I repeat, none of us, no one of us, has a lock on the truth or a lock on God. And as much as we sometimes think we come close to understanding God, in reality we haven’t a clue. We make our God into our personal image and likeness and then determine that those who have a different image and understanding to be heretics and to not be welcomed among us. We even encourage them to go their separate ways or we deliberately (and sometimes officially) separate ourselves from them.

That may sound harsh but how else do we explain why there are so many denominations even in Christendom? None of this is pretty and all of it is sad. But it all stems both from our trying to get a handle on the God we worship and profess to follow and obey and the insidious nature of pride that drives us to either deny God exists or claims to understand what God thinks and wants.

As Rabbi Polish asserts, having faith in God often, if not always, means walking a rocky road. We trip over ourselves, over our certainties and uncertainties, over our pride, even over one another. It means being humble enough to admit that we’ll never get everything right and never, ever understand our God and that that’s okay with God.

GOD DOES NOT KNOW THE FUTURE

It seems heretical, I know, to say that God does not know what tomorrow will bring, or even this afternoon. For if God already knows what anyone of us is going to think or say or do at any time in the future (from this moment on), then it means that we have no free will. It means that God has already determined all our thoughts, words and actions –and has since the day we were conceived.

But, no pun intended, that is inconceivable. We are not robots doing what God has programmed us to do. We are human beings with free will who do what we want to do and accept the consequences of those words and actions. God may be pleased or saddened by them, but God does not interfere with our choices. But that does not mean God is absent from our lives.

Our God is God of the present. For God the past is the past and can’t be undone, only to be forgiven or to be thankful – for which God is. God is, if you will, an ever-present IS. God is and always is at every moment in time. What the future, even this afternoon, will be is determined by each one of us. God’s will is that whatever we think, say or do is out of love for God, others and self. But we determine that, not God.

But that does not mean God is not involved, that God sort of stands off on the side and watches creation and take care of itself. God is intimately involved in creation and in each one of us but only in so far as we let God. Climate change, for instance, is as much in our hands as it is in God’s, maybe even more so. Our life is more in our hands than in God’s, but God is involved if we allow God to be.

Isn’t that why we pray? Yes, we pray that God’s will will be done in our lives here on earth, but we have to be willing to do our part: to do what we believe is God’s will even if we are not always sure what that will is. And when we do not know what God’s will might be, we pray that our will will be God’s will.

Let me give you a very personal example. I have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The treatment calls for two years of hormone therapy and 44 radiation blasts, five days a week until completed. I don’t have to undergo treatment. The choice is mine. I’ve lived a great life for 82+years, totally blessed beyond anything I deserve. But I’m not done living. So I will do my part. My doctor will do her part. The rest is in God’s hands.

Does God want my treatment to be successful so that I can live many more years or is God satisfied that I have lived long enough? I don’t know. That’s why I pray daily that it is God’s will that my treatment is successful. In this matter, I want my will to be God’s will. If it is, I will be thankful. If it is not, I will be thankful for the life God has allowed me to live. What the future brings, no one knows, not even God, but that’s okay. What is important is the present and living it to the fullest, which I intend to do, God willing.

FOCUSING ON OUR GIFTS

When our daughters were growing up, there was a natural rivalry among them. Each wanted to vie for our undivided attention, to be thought of as the “favorite”, with whatever perks that designation might have brought with it. They may have truly understood and even knew that we loved each of them equally, but that never stopped them from at least wanting to be Number One in our eyes.

All that goes, no doubt, with not being an only child. Not only was there a sense of rivalry among them for our love and attention, there was also a little but of jealousy present as well, an envy of the other. Each of the girls had her own gifts – physical, mental and spiritual. The problem was that they seemed to under-appreciate their own gifts and talents while envying those of one or more of their sisters’. I suspect that during those times when they were at each other’s throats or could not stand to be in the same room with a particular sister it was because of this sense of inferiority, of not possessing what the other had.

Three of our daughters could roll out of bed and do cartwheels. The other two were lucky if they didn’t fall out of bed. The two non-athletes, however, had their own gifts which made the other three jealous. As parents all we could do was stand back and watch – and pray that the envy did not progress into more than jealous outbursts. We often made valiant attempts trying to get them to focus on their own gifts rather than those of a sister, but mostly it was a waste of words and a waste of time. They saw what they wanted to see and blinded themselves to what they should truly have focused on.

But, then, don’t we all? Who of us has not found ourselves envying what another has? I’m not talking about material possessions even though such envy does also come to the fore more often than we would like to admit. Rather, there are too many occasions when we envy the gifts and talents of others while either totally overlooking or totally taking for granted those with which we are blessed.

This, too, probably goes along with being human. Whenever we recognize the gifts and talents another possesses, we, at the same time, realize that we are somehow less than we could be, or think we could be. Those of us who sing mostly off-key and who couldn’t play a musical instrument if our life depended on it believe we would be a better person and certainly more fulfilled if we could do one or both.

What we forget when we focus on another’s gifts rather than those of our own is that we are gifted in the way we are, with some gifts and not others, because that is the way God created us. It was God’s choice not to give us a voice likely Sinatra or a musical talent like even a person who sits in the third row of the high school band.

What God expects of us and what we should demand of ourselves is that we be thankful for the gifts with which we have been blessed, focus on them and then use them to the best of our ability. If we do that, we will have enough on our plate and won’t have time to be envious of anyone else.

LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Every morning a close friend of mine sends out a “Thought for the Day” to a few friends. Thankfully, I am one of them. For example: “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.” Or, “You never look good trying to make someone else look bad.” Or, from Charlotte Bronte: “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth it has always been a sign that you are alive.”

My favorite: “The world needs more people who light up a room with hope instead of filling it with complaints about the darkness.” There are so many who will not let the sunshine in because they believe that focusing on the bad around us is what everyone wants to hear. When we read the paper, when we listen to the news, all we seem to read and hear is about the bad news, when, in reality, there is so much more good news than bad; so much more.

All we have to do to acknowledge this truth us to examine our own lives. We have so much more to be thankful for than to complain about. Yes, we all have complaints, sometimes, it seems, even more than our fair share, or so we believe. We also have more to be thankful for than, perhaps, our fair share, even though we are often reluctant to admit to that truth. But it is only when we let the sunshine in do we perceive this truth.

Sometimes that is not easy, is it? Why? Because somehow the bad always seems worse than the good. As I age, my body tells me in no uncertain terms that the aches and pains I am now feeling, aches and pains I never felt before, are not going to go away. I can moan and groan and complain, but that will not do any good. They are here to stay. But I am here: blessed to have lived this long, blessed beyond anything I have deserved. Amid my aches and pains the sun shines every day. And I thank God every day for that.

The blessings of my life make any complaints seem trivial and, in all honesty, selfish. My guess this is true for so many of us, perhaps all who read these words. Yes, there are problems in this world, mostly of our own making and mostly because those of us who are so blessed hoard our blessings instead of sharing them with those less blessed. We even strive for more at their expense.

As Christians we are to be a people of hope, a people who will do all we can to let the sun shine in on those for whom there is so much darkness for whatever reason there is. We can stand around and complain about the bad, blame others for it and forget about the good. But that serves no one. When we focus on the bad, forget about the good, we only make everything worse. We cover hope with darkness.

We are called to light up whatever room we are in with the light of hope. That was Jesus’ message. It is what the Kingdom of God is all about. When we live as a people of hope, when we let the sunshine in, we give light to the darkness. So we must.

PRAYER (AGAIN)

 In her book An Altar in the World Barbara Brown Taylor has a chapter on prayer she titles “The Practice of Being Present to God.” She begins her essay by stating that she dreads writing about it and that she is also a failure at it. Reading that was a great consolation for me because I often feel the same way. Clergy, after all, are supposed to be experts on prayer just as we are also expected to be great practitioners of it.

Supposed expert practitioner notwithstanding, prayer often eludes me and even leaves me high and dry. I have more questions about prayer than answers and the answers I have are hardly ever satisfying enough to allow me to be at peace. More often than not when I pray, words are spoken but it also seems as if I am only going through the motions of praying than really praying. But I dare not not pray.

Why not? If prayer seems so empty so often, why bother? Even more, since I know God hears my prayers and since I know God knows my thoughts and wants and needs before I ever open my mouth, why bother? Why bother God and just save my breath? After all, when I pray that God’s will be done, I am actually praying, if I am honest enough to admit it, that my will becomes God’s will.

God will or will not answer my prayers or most certainly God will answer them as God deems best for me and not as I deem best for myself. Because I know all that, understand all that, accept all that, all that is why I have a difficult time with prayer. All that is a reminder, as Taylor’s chapter title attests, why I/we pray: prayer is that practice of being present to God, realizing we are in God’s presence whenever we pray.

In the end it does not matter if we ever get the words right or feel at peace with our prayer. Whenever we pray, we learn more about ourselves than we learn about God, providing, of course, that we take some time to reflect on our prayer life in general and not on any prayer or prayer practice in particular. The greatest of saints had off-days when it came to prayer but they never ceased praying even when they felt nothing and their words seemed quite empty.

They continued praying because they knew those words kept them close to their God. It was a reminder that they needed God more than God needed them even though they also knew that God needed them as much as they needed God. They were – and each and every one of us is – created by God for a very specific purpose. We will only fully understand that purpose when we arrive in eternity.

In the meantime we continue to pray in words, in silence, in gestures, in simply trying to be present to ourselves so that we can come into closer presence with our God. As Taylor suggests, what we are doing is practicing being present with our God, knowing we will never get it perfectly right because that only comes when we arrive into the fullness of that presence in eternity. If there is any consolation in all this, it is, at least for me, that I should not care how I pray or when I pray or where I pray or how I feel afterwards and that God does not care either. All that matters is that I pray.

 

SKIP SUNDAY AT OUR OWN PERIL

One of the main excuses for skipping church on Sunday is that we claim we don’t get anything out of it. We don’t like the music. The Sunday School is too small. There are too many old people and not enough young ones. The list is endless or at least long enough for us to justify why we would rather either stay home in bed or be somewhere else Sunday morning other than at church.

The fact, the truth, is that when we skip church on Sunday, we do so at our own peril, whether we realize it or not. We don’t come to church on Sunday primarily because of what we can get out of being there even though we get more out of it than we realize and often more than we put into it. We come to give something of ourselves. We come primarily to worship God. No matter what hymns we sing, no matter how mundane the sermon, no matter how we feel, God is pleased and God is worshiped and that, in the grand scheme of things, is all that matters.

We come to church to tune into God. It’s not that we cannot do so somewhere else and perhaps do so much better somewhere else. We are supposed to be able to find God, see God, worship God anywhere we happen to be because everywhere and everyone and everything is God’s creation, is of God and should speak to us of God. Yes, there are often better places, more worshipful places to be on any Sunday morning than in the church building that is our parish home.

All that being undeniable, the fact is that we also come to church to tune into one another. Church is where we not only worship God but where we come to take care of one another. As others care for us, so we care for them, however that care happens to take place: a kind word, a smile, or simple just checking in. We take so much of this for granted, I think, that we often miss just how important it is that we do all of this, that we indeed need all of this.

The world is full of lonely people, people seeking someone, some ones, to care for them, to listen to them, to be there for them. They are looking for what we have but so often either overlook or assume that everyone has what we have. They don’t. Having a community that cares about us, truly cares about us, about our needs and our wants and is willing to help us fulfill them, all that is a blessing of inestimable value. That is why it is so important that we gather together regularly.

None of this is to denigrate the importance of worship and our being present to worship both individually and as a community of faith. It is to say, however, that community is the key word. God created us to be in community. Almost the first words out of God’s mouth in the Genesis story of creation is that God deemed it not good for wo/man to be alone. In order to be the person God created us to be, we need one another.

Whenever we become lax in our participation in our faith community, whenever we begin to take it for granted, whenever we make excuses why being somewhere else or doing something else is more fulfilling, we do so at our own peril and loss.

THE WORD AND WORDS

We communicate mostly in words. Yes, we get in touch with one another by a touch or a glance or a nod. We are able to communicate in non-verbal ways and sometimes words are simply inadequate to convey what is in our heart and mind. And when we attempt to put into words that cannot ever express what we mean, we can be heading for a heap of trouble. We know from experience whenever we try to tell the person we love how much we love that person, our words always come up short.

The same hold true about the words we use when we talk about the Word, Jesus, the Word of God. The Gospel and Epistle writers, theologians from Irenaeus to Augustine to Aquinas to Luther to Barth and Rahner have written volumes about the Word, about Jesus. They have come close in trying to explain him but, in the end, their words all fail.

Even worse, perhaps they as theologians and we as readers of their writings have become so seduced by the written word, by the depth of their thoughts and the soaring vocabulary they employ that we miss the Word from all the words. The person of Jesus, who he is and what he means for us as believers, is lost because the words themselves have become and are so impersonal.

The words we use to speak about Jesus may bring us close to understanding the Word but, in reality, we have it all backwards. Eugene Petersen in his Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (p. 103), says “Jesus is the dictionary in which we look up the meaning of words.” We don’t need a dictionary to explain Jesus as much as we need Jesus to be the dictionary to help us explain and understand what some words truly mean, words like love, forgiveness, compassion, service and many others.

Any dictionary can help explain these words; but for us as Christians, Jesus’ living explanation is all we need and what we need. If we want to know what it means to love another person, we do not need to read Rahner or Bultmann, we need to read the Gospels and read how Jesus loved. If we want to know what it means to forgive, we do not need to look up that word in a theological dictionary; we need to read the Gospels.

The same is true for any word that we might use to describe and explain what it means to be a follower of the Word. Jesus was and is that living dictionary that nails the meaning of that word for us. Jesus’ definition is always quite simple even if living out the meaning Jesus’ life conveys is not all that easy. In fact, sometimes we would rather have a neat theological definition of love, for instance, than Jesus’ living definition.

None of this is to denigrate the works of all the great theologians who, over the years, have tried to help us understand the Word of God in words that express the truth. It is only a reminder that we can get so lost in words that the deeds that are to be the fulfillment of those words never get done or not get done as well as they could. It’s like engaging in a bible study that helps us understand exactly what is expected of us and then having cake and coffee afterwards and doing nothing about it. Jesus is the word that is the way, our way, the only way.

PRAYER IS PAINFUL

Most of us would have to confess that our spiritual life is not what we want it to be nor what we know it should be. We wish we had more time to give to prayer and spiritual reading. The Bible may even have a prominent place in our homes but it barely gets opened or certainly not opened and read enough. Our self-discipline, as far as our spiritual life is concerned, leaves much to be desired.

But we do not give up. Every once in a while we make a concerted effort to spend as much time on the spiritual part of our lives as we do the physical in an effort to lead a balanced life. A spiritual life, spirituality, begins with prayer, setting aside certain times during the day when we actually do pray, whether from a book of prayer or use words we have memorized over the years or simply utter words that come from the heart.

Herein is the problem. Sister Joan Chittister, in her In a High Spiritual Season, writes this: “Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.”

Isn’t that the truth? We pray because we find something missing in our lives; we find a staleness there, a same-old same-old that craves for something new or at least something refreshing. But when we pray, really pray, when we are in tuned to the words we utter, we find ourselves dealing with the nitty-gritty, with so much of what we don’t like about ourselves and our lives and the reason we felt moved to pray in the first place.

As Sister Joan says, prayer unmasks. It forces us to see the real person and not the person we pretend to be or others think us to be. We’re not that bad but have too many faults that cannot be overlooked and certainly not excused. Prayer forces us to speak the truth about ourselves. If and when we listen to that truth and take in seriously, we begin a conversion process. In fact, the more serious we become about our prayer life, the more we are impelled to making those changes in our lives our prayer recognizes need to be made.

Once we head down that road, once we begin that journey, it is prayer that “sustains us on the way.” Yet, as we know from experience, that road so often quickly comes to an end. Our prayer exposes too much of us, demands too much of us, wants to make changes we are not ready or even willing to make, and so we stop praying.

Prayer is painful because it demands that we take our spiritual lives seriously. When we do, that will demand that we make changes in the rest of our lives, changes that will discomfit us and perhaps even make the lives of those we love uncomfortable.

Jesus is our example. His deep-seated prayer life governed what he said and did. That made everyone else uncomfortable because they saw in him the life they were to live. It took God’s grace for Jesus always to be a person of prayer and never quit even when the going got rough. It takes that same grace for us as well. Pray for that grace.

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST GARDEN OF EDEN

Ever since Adam and Eve got thrown out of the Garden of Eden because of their disobedience, humanity has been trying to get back in, searching, if you will, for the lost Garden of Eden. The belief is that were we able find that place, all would be well. It would, once again, be heaven on earth. That is assuming that the first Garden was actually that place of bliss and enjoyment.

We don’t know. We may only think, or wish, it to be so. The story of the Garden of Eden, of course, is only a parable that reminds us over and over again, each time we read or hear it, that all of creation is good including, and most importantly, the highlight of creation, namely we human beings. The fact that humanity, from the very beginning, has not taken care of creation, has used an abused it, does not lessen the command to respect and love all of it and everyone and everything in it.

Even more, it does not mean that the Garden of Eden no longer exists or that we have to go looking for it or recreating it somewhere here on earth. The Garden is still here. It is everywhere we look. It is all around us. It is this earth and not a specific and special place on this earth even though whenever we think about the Garden of Eden we may have visions of some place that looks like Hawaii.

All of creation is good. There is nothing bad. We are to love creation in no less a way than we are to love our God and love our neighbor: with all our heart and mind and strength. We are to love it and to love them not because in doing so there is some reward in it for us, but simply because as part of creation, we are to love ourselves in no less a way than we love anything and everything else. Or as Wendell Barry once observed, “It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools.”

But we don’t and that is why this world, this created order, is in such a mess. That is why we dream of and desire a place like the Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve in the biblical story, so often we use and abuse creation for our own selfish purposes and not for the purposes for which they were intended by God. God’s command not to eat the fruit of a certain tree was not to  rules and regulations or to see if Adam and Eve would be obedient. It was simply a reminder that God had another purpose in mind for that tree and that purpose had nothing to do with them. So leave it alone.

As the story goes, they could not. Neither, it seems, can we. Even though there are moments and places where we think we have found the lost Garden of Eden, times and places where it seems that we are experiencing heaven on earth, where we feel totally loved and love totally in return, those times and those places seem too few and too far between and away.

They are not. They are everywhere. There is no need to go searching for the Lost Garden of Eden. It was never lost and finding it does not demand a search. It only demands that we open our eyes and love and respect everything and everyone we see.

SINNERS AND THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS

The sign says very simply that “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” There is no asterisk anywhere on the sign or words in smaller print listing exceptions to the welcome. Everyone is welcome, sinners included, which would be redundant because we are all sinners, every last one of us.

Granted some of us may be more sinful than others, and probably are, but it is only a matter of degree. And when it comes to degree as far as sins are concerned, difference in degree really makes no difference. A sin is a sin is a sin, to sort of paraphrase Gertrude Stein. Stealing a dime or stealing a million dollars is still stealing; both actions are sins. The fact that one sin may be the lesser as far as civil law is concerned is of no concern when the issue at hand is that of morality. Little sinner meet big sinner.

This does not hold, of course, when our self-righteous gene kicks in, and it kicks in regularly. It is so easy to measure our own self-worth or self-loathing if we compare our sins to those of others. When doing so, we can always pick a more notorious sinner than we so that we come off, if not smelling like a rose, at least not as stinky as that other person, horrible sinner that he is.

But the sign says that everyone is welcome, even the notorious sinners among us, even us. Let’s face it, we’re all notorious, all known in God’s eyes. And we are all, in fact, forgiven. The problem the self-righteous have (or we, when that gene is in full bore) is that we won’t forgive those whom we deem to be worse sinners than we deem ourselves to be. We set the standards, the measuring stick and, in the process, proclaim that’s how God sees it as well.

We do well not to play God, however. The old dictum that we should not judge lest we be judged holds true even though we all tend to ignore it on a regular basis. We instinctively make judgments about the actions of others almost immediately upon becoming aware of them. And when we are convinced that that action is beyond the pale, certainly something we would never do, it makes it that much easier for us to justify our sins. When self-righteousness rears its justifying head, look out.

None of this is to make light of sin or to think or act as if it is no big deal. It is. Sin is selfishness and any act of selfishness not only demeans those whom our sins hurt but it also demeans us in the process. Self-righteousness, however, allows us to take our own sinfulness less seriously because we are, at least in our own estimation, not as bad, not as sinful as someone else. Even if we are not, that does not lessen our guilt.

Jesus always seemed to hang out with those whom proper society and the church of his time considered sinners, even notorious sinners. Jesus never condoned their sins nor did he either demean them or deliberately avoid them. And he did not judge them either. What he did do was forgive them just as he forgives us so that they and we can acknowledge our sinfulness, do our best to be less sinful in the future and move on. Unfortunately, the self-righteous sinner can or will not do any of this.

POSSESSIONS CAN SOMETIMES LEAVE US EMPTYHANDED

Sometimes we all have a difficulty with sharing our possessions. We are like the little child who grabs the ball from his younger brother and says, “That’s mine!” and will not, under any circumstances, share it. Even when Mom of Dad tries to explain why he should share his ball with his brother, he resists. He can neither understand why he has to nor will he give in even under parental orders.

Again, such selfishness is not the sole prerogative of children. Adults are just as susceptible to holding on to what they have and being unwilling to share it with anyone, even a sibling or parent, as are children. There has to be some specific possessive gene within each of us that makes us so. Yes, some people are less prone to hoarding possessions than others, but even the greatest of saints is tempted to do so and even gives in on occasion.

When we find ourselves doing such hoarding, what we will also discover, if we stop to think about what we are doing and why, is that we are preventing ourselves from gaining something more and something even more valuable. For when we close our hands, literally and figuratively around something, some possession, we are then unable to open those same hands to receive anything from another, from others.

When we unclasp those hands to let loose of something, they are then opened to receive back from another thanks and love, friendship and support. It is so true that it is only in giving that we receive because it is only in opening our hands that they can reach out and receive something from another. What is received, we soon learn, or if we have learned and are again reminded, is always more valuable than that which we have let go.

Over the years I have saved over 200 lives having donated over twenty-five gallons of blood. I did not hoard my blood but shared it. What I have received in return is the knowledge that I have indeed saved that many lives, but even more, I benefited from giving. My blood and blood pressure got tested every two months. The truth is that even in my generosity I have been somewhat selfish.

The point is that even in totally selfless giving, there is always a modicum of selfishness. Thus, that is why it is also true that there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving because, again, we always get back more than we give, even if what we get back seems at first glance to be so much less. We give gifts because doing so gives us pleasure, makes us feel good in the process and even makes us feel good about ourselves.

The saddest people in the world are not those who have nothing but those who seem to have everything but are unwilling and even unable to share something, even some small piece of their abundance, with anyone. They hold their hands so tightly around their possessions that they literally squeeze the life out of them, the life those possessions could be giving to those in need and, at the same time, squeeze the life out of themselves. It is sad but it happens and it can happen to us. That possessive gene can rear its ugly head and grab us by the neck when we least expect it. Beware!

 

WATCHING THE ANTS GO BY

We’ve all been told, move often that we would like to admit to, that we need to stop and smell the roses. We live in a hurry-up society where we are pressed to get the task at hand finished as quickly as possible so that we can get to the next task at hand. As a result, we hardly get to appreciate what we are doing or what we have done. It’s a loss for us and for those who would benefit from our taking our time and not being in such a hurry.

Sometimes, however, stopping to smell the roses is only for a starter. The other day my wife and I went for a long walk. It was a very hot and humid day and we may have overdone the distance. We stopped at a local convenience store, bought something cold to drink and then sat on the bench next to our church’s outside columbarium. I was beat and could only hang my head in exhaustion. (I deserved the agony as it was self-inflicted!)

As my head hung low, I spotted this tiny little creature, no more than a 16^th of an inch, if that long, scurrying all over the place. I suppose it was looking for food, but who knows. For some reason, and it was not because we were in a churchyard, I thought about God the Creator. It’s easy to think about the beauty of the created order when looking closely at a rose or watching the sun set on the beach: God in a thousand places!

But in that ant at that moment I truly saw God at work. The beauty of creation in a part of creation that I often wish never existed. I can do without pesky ants and stinging mosquitoes and nasty gnats and all of their ilk. They’re pests and not things of beauty and certainly not a reason to thank God for their creation. But at that moment on that bench, dripping with sweat, that’s all I could do.

Yes, God boggles my mind. Whenever I try to get a grip on God, God slips out of my hands. And I cannot ever hope to understand God and know I never will in this life and probably not in the life to come. But that ant said everything I need to know about God. And what is that? It is simply to stand, or in this case sit, in awe of the fact that every creature and everything and everyone is God’s personal creation. And for that, I should be very thankful.

Why God creates ants is none of my business. Why God created me is none of my business. What is important is that that ant and this Bill go about our businesses as God created us to do and not ask why. As we do, we will discover why God created us. Will that ant discover its purpose in life? Not my business. It’s its. But what I discovered, or certainly, maybe finally, realized, is that God has a purpose for everything God creates, even that ant – and especially me.

I wonder if God was behind our taking that walk when any sane person would have stayed inside so that I was forced to sit on that bench and then contemplate about my life as seen through that little ant. Probably so. Such is God!

 

 

GROWING OLDER

The parish my wife and I attend has a gift shop that raises funds for the parish’s outreach ministries. The Shoppe (their spelling) sells “antiques, eclectics and practicalities” according to the business cars they had out. We volunteer to manage the Shoppe for a few hours the first Saturday of each month. The business so far for us has not been great as knowledge about the Shoppe only comes from word of mouth. But they raise several thousand dollars or more each year.

To be honest, I would not be a customer so much as I would be a donator, giving the Shoppe “practicalities” we no longer want or need. That said, I did come across a mug that caught my eye only because of what was painted on it: “70 is when your body gives your brain a list of things it’s not going to do any more.” Words of wisdom from someone else’s donates practicality.

Those of us who are 70 and beyond know from experience the truth of those words of wisdom. As my Mom used to say, “When I get up in the morning and look at the person in the mirror, I wonder who that old person is.” For whatever reason our brains seem to think we are younger than we really are, and sometimes very much younger. And when we listen to our brains and not our bodies, we pay the price; and it often a very steep and painful one.

Of course, it is often a struggle to ignore what our brains are saying to us because we do not want to admit that, yes, we are growing older; and, yes, we cannot do what we once were able to do. A while back I was putting together a computer desk for my wife and I could not get it together even as I was following the directions. My son-in-law came over, picked up my screwdriver and tightened the screws that I had thought I had tightened. Halleluia! He had what I had lost because of my growing older: the physical strength to do what I used to be able to do.

The truth is, I still try to do everything I can because my brain tells me that I can. But I am learning, even if it has taken me 80 years to get the message. Growing older is a part of life. Learning what we can and what we cannot do as we age is also a part of life. Sometimes the hardest part is simply admitting we cannot do what we once could because we see it as a blow to our pride. I’ve seen all-star athletes hold on for one more year because of their pride when they were actually way past their prime.

Learning is a life-long project. Mostly we learn the hard way: not so much from our successes as from our failures. We learn what we can do and what we cannot.

On the other hand, is it not better to think we are younger that we are? I’ve seen too many old young people and not enough young old people. I think I am still of the mind to listen to my brain and pay the price of my foolishness, the coffee cup’s advice notwithstanding.

SAYING “THANK YOU”

The words flow easily and readily from our lips, most of the time: “Thank you”. Someone had done something for us, given something to us, said a kind word about us and we say to them, “Thank you”. We are not merely responding in a rote sort of way. We are sincere. We are truly thankful and so we tell the one who had blessed us in whatever way that blessing has taken place that we are indeed thankful.

There are also times in our lives when those two words almost choke us. We know they need to be said because we are almost loathe to utter them, especially to that person. A teenager angry with is parents because they said “no” to his demands only to realize later, perhaps much, much later, they were right in denying his request finds it quite difficult to say thank you: human nature and teenage rebellion rolled into one being the cause.

A co-worker who tends to drive us up the wall helps us out of a mess of our own making and words of thanks must be said; yet we find it difficult to say those words because of the person involved. Both when we are sincere in our thanks and when we sincerely wish we did not have to give thanks, the issues at hand are pride and humility.

Our pride often holds us back from saying thank you because it is an admission that we needed whatever the other has given us, blessed us with – her time, his talent, her financial resources. We would like to believe that we can do it all on our own, whatever it is that we want to do. Having to admit that we cannot and having to rely on others to help us, all of that or some of that wounds our pride and we do not like it, human nature, again, being what it is. Humility comes hard, sometimes very, very hard.

Yet even when our pride is not at stake, when we are quite thankful for what has been given us, when we are overjoyed and enthusiastically and loudly proclaim our honest thanks, humility is still front and center, whether we realize it our not. For humility is the admission that, in this life, anyway, we cannot go it alone, that we need others for us to make it through this life, for us to be the person God created us to be and the person we want to be.

There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, there is everything right. Sometimes is takes a simple act of kindness and a very simple “thank you” for us to realize just how much we need one another, how important relationships are, whatever those relationships may be. We were never meant to be alone or to go it alone. In fact, according to Genesis, God’s first observation about the creature God had created was that it was not good for this person to be alone.

Our “thank you”, no matter how willingly or how grudgingly those words come from our lips, are a reminder that we are in this together – this life, this world, even in this faith community. Our pride holds us back from full participation. It is only when we are humble enough to say “thank you” and begin to understand just what staying those two words really say that we can begin to realize just how important it is to be in communion and community with one another.

NO REGRETS

In her novel, Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson tells the story of two siblings who come back home to Gilead to spend some time with their aged and dying father, a retired pastor. Gloria, who is single, is a teacher who gives up her career to tend to her father because, it seems, none of her seven siblings is willing to help share the duty and, in all honesty, the burden.

Jack, the black sheep of the family, returns home unexpectedly, seemingly from out of nowhere because everyone in the family has lost track of Jack and Jack has done nothing to keep in touch. Throughout the course of the novel Robinson has Jack and Gloria reflect on what was and what might have been had they each taken different roads. It is a fascinating read and further evidence of Robinson’s skills as a writer.

During one of their conversations Jack says to Gloria, “There’s a lot I could regret….If there was any point to it.” And isn’t that the truth? The further truth is that we are all like Jack to one degree or another. We have all done things over the years that we now regret, said words that we wish we had not, not taken roads we could have and taken others we should have avoided like the plague.

We all have regrets, loads of them. Yet, as Jack opines, what’s the use in spending time regretting the mistakes we have made over the years? We cannot go back and undo what we did, reverse our course and then take the roads that would have been best for us. Life, our life has moved on. Regretting the past only keeps us riveted in the past so much so that it is difficult to live in the present.

Whenever we reflect on the past, what we are to do is learn from the past, both from the good and the bad. Regret for mistakes made and roads not taken should not be part of the reflection for, as Jack says, there is no point to it other than to replay the guilt feelings we had already put to rest as life forced us to move on, knowing that in order to live in the present, we have to let go of the past.

But we do, don’t we? We often allow regret for things done and left undone to hold us back from moving on with life. Sometimes we can become so overcome with remorse or guilt that we cease living and simply vegetate our way through the present. It is only when we come to our senses and realize that if no one else understands us and no one else forgives us for our mistakes, at least God does. And that should be enough for us to forgive ourselves. Jack, for all his waywardness, understood that.

Not only do we often allow regret to bog us down before we move on with our lives, we often demand that others show a modicum of regret for their past sinful, selfish or foolish actions before we will allow them to move on with their lives. In the process no one moves ahead.

The past is passed. It is what it was. We have learned from it. What is now and what will be is our only concern. No regrets.

EXPERIENCE IS THE KEY

If you are like me, you have strong opinions on a variety of subjects both secular and sacred. There are times when we voice those opinions loudly and clearly and there are times when we keep them to ourselves, discretion being the better part of valor. We have learned when to keep our mouths shut and our opinions to ourselves, but we do not always do so.

We are told that we should not get into arguments over religion or politics, both subjects for which we tend to have very strong opinions, but we do. We hardly ever win these arguments because we seldom convince the other that we are right and s/he is wrong because s/he is just as convinced as we about the correctness of the opinion being put forth and defended. Of course, given the strength of our convictions, we always seem to believe that we have won the argument and the other person, stubborn fool that he or she is, has lost.

In truth there is nothing wrong with debating the issues. Often that is how we learn even if it is begrudgingly. When we allow ourselves to be open to hearing what another thinks and why s/he thinks that way, we may not end up changing our minds; but at least we can understand both why there are those who disagree with us and why they do so. If it were so easy to convince people to vote Democratic, for instance, we’d all be Democrats.

In order to arrive at the truth, whatever the truth is, we have to be able to look at it from every angle. Because of innate and unrecognized (and often unadmitted) prejudices, it is often quite difficult for us to arrive at the truth. We see the truth from where we are standing and then end up standing convinced that we are right or in the right and those who disagree with us are wrong or in the wrong.

Flannery O’Conner once observed that “conviction without experience makes for harshness.” I would add that it also makes for judgment and persecution. Having been there and done that, wherever it is we have been and whatever it is we have done, always tends either to temper our opinions and convictions or make them stronger. When we know of what we speak, we are less prone to judge those who have not walked in our shoes and thus do not understand.

We have all been on both ends – judging harshly on the one hand and being the victim of another’s mean words and judgment and even persecution on the other and in either case not knowing what we or they were talking about because we both spoke from inexperience and a true lack of understanding. When we only see things from our viewpoint, we do not see the whole picture and that’s what gets us into trouble.

Experience is the key. Thus, given our inability or unwillingness to see and understand the other side, the truth seems to be that it is that only those who have walked the walk are those who can honestly talk the talk. The rest of us need to shut up and listen and learn and not be harsh, critical or judgmental. We ask that courtesy of others and others ask that of us.