WHEN EVEN THE UNDERTAKER IS SORRY

Mark Twain was once asked for his philosophy of life. His response is very enlightening: “Endeavor to live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.” Twain opines that we should live in such a way that even if the only person who will financially profit from our death is the one who is being paid to lay us into the ground is sorry about our demise.

Will everyone miss us when we die? Even more, will anyone miss us when we die? We certainly hope some will even as we know not everyone will. We cannot touch the life of every person but we certainly can touch the lives of a few. We hope that these few will be sad when we pass on. Whether or not any one is is up to us. It depends on how we live our life.

Our goal in life is not simply to live so that people will mourn us when we are gone. We really won’t care because we will be dead. We won’t have an extra feel-good experience in death because the lines at our visitation are long and the eulogies are filled with words singing our praises. God will not be giving us an extra pat in the back either.

Twain’s observation begs the question: What kind of life must we lead that people will truly miss us, miss our presence among them, when we die, when we can no longer be a physical part of their lives? Does it mean that we have to be an integral part of their lives in the present? Does it mean that they will be less of a person because we are no longer around to fill what is missing in their lives? What does it mean?

To find the answer what we need to do is think about the people in our present lives whose death will truly cause much sorrow in our lives. What is it about them, about their lives, about who they are and what they do that is so vital and meaningful and important to us right here and now? What are those qualities that make our life better and will somehow be less once they are gone?

Once we can answer that question, then we have to look at our own life and try to discern what there may be about us that others find important to them. We all like to think, certainly believe, that we are valuable, that we have gifts and talents that are beneficial to others just as those others have gifts and talents that are beneficial to us. And we do have them. That is a certainty.

The issue then becomes even more personal when we are forced to ask ourselves whether or not we are using those gifts to the best of our ability, not so that others will be sorry when we die but because that is what we are supposed to do in the first place. That is the real issue at hand. For the truth is that when we use our gifts as best we can, we impact the lives of others just as those who use their gifts well impact our lives. We are sorry when they die, but thankful that they have been a part of our lives – and vice versa.

THERE’S A MESSAGE THERE SOMEWHERE

We were with my mother-in-law, taking her to lunch. I was driving and mother and daughter were reminiscing. The conversation turned to when Arlena was a little girl and one of her favorite toys was a child’s stove. One day she prepared a meal for her two older brothers who promptly refused to eat it. So she decided to give the meal she had lovingly prepared to the cat. The cat died.

There’s a message in that story somewhere. The obvious one for me is to not tell a very funny story while the driver is going fifty miles an hour down the highway. I laughed so hard I almost drove off the side of the road. Comedy should not be the fare for the open road; rather it should be when all are in a position to, if necessary, fall off our seats in laughter. Better safe than sorry.

It is also obvious that sometimes the best of intentions don’t turn out the way one had anticipated. Arlena at five years of age only wanted to please her brothers and certainly did not want to harm the family cat in any way much less kill the poor thing. But even so, back all those years, there is a lesson: be certain you know what you are doing ahead of time; and, if you are not and the action turns out disastrously, learn from your mistakes.

Arlena to this day loves to cook. She is always aware of the ingredients in everything she serves. Is that awareness somehow the result of her killing the cat back all those years or because she is a nurse and nurses have this innate need to make certain everything they allow us to put into our mouths is somehow beneficial and certainly not deadly? I can’t answer that and for the most part am thankful for her oversight of my personal health even when it means there is no junk food around when my body craves it.

But, then, of course, on the other hand, we often forget the lesson that we have learned, very quickly, too, and go on repeating our mistakes until it’s not the cat who suffers from our foolishness but we ourselves. Sometimes by then it is a little too late because the damage has been done and we cannot reverse what our negligence has caused. Yes, we admit, we should have stopped but did not and now have to live with the inevitable and painful and perhaps tragic consequences.

Life’s lessons come at us often when we least to expect to be taught. We learn those lessons even though, at the time, we neither understood that there was something being taught nor that we were actually absorbing that lesson and making it part of the way we lived. It is only in hindsight that we realized what had happened back than and are simply thankful for a lesson learned while unaware.

On the other hand, when we observe what happened from even a good intention – the cat died – we may learn nothing from it. Life’s lessons come to us in all shapes and forms and circumstances. How we respond can set the course for our life.

THE LACK OF WILL

Victor Marie Hugo, the French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic Movement, once observed that “People do not lack strength. They lack will.”  He was correct. We all have various abilities to do many and varied and wonderful things. Those abilities are our strengths. There are, of course, many actions that are out of our reach because we lack the ability to do them. No one is able to do everything.

What is incumbent upon each one of us is, first, to discover just what those talents, gifts, abilities are. Then, second, we are to develop them as best we can as we grow. For whatever reason there may be, many, many of us do not realize just how talented we are, just how gifted we are in one way or another. As a result, the world loses what we can offer to make this world a better place.

The other side of the coin is that even when we have learned what those gifts are with which God has endowed us, we lack, as Hugo observed, the will to develop them to the very best of our abilities. We have within us the strength to do so. For God does not give us any gift without giving us the strength to make that gift the best it can be. It is up to us to determine to use that strength to make it happen.

Yet, again, it won’t happen if we do not want it to happen, if we lack the will to do what is necessary. We all know very talented athletes, musicians, scholars – the list is endless -- who lack the will do put in the effort to develop that talent to its utmost. We may call them lazy and they probably are. But laziness is the result of one being unwilling to make the effort to do what needs to be done.

Often, of course, we are simply satisfied with the way things are. We claim that the manner in which we are using our talents is good enough. We’re a good enough athlete or teacher or parent or whatever, so what is the problem, we wonder, maybe even ask those who may be criticizing us for our lack of effort to be better. But good enough is not enough if we can truly be better. The strength to do so lies within. But it takes will power to engage that strength.

We know all this. It is not rocket science because we have observed it up close and personal. What parent has not told a child “you can better”? Which one of us has not been told the same? Which one of us – parent, child, employee, whomever – does not know this to be true, does not have to admit that we could do better if we really wanted to do so but at the present moment simply lack the will?

This world, our life, could be so much better if willed it to be so, if we used the gifts we have been given to the best of our ability, if we admitted that it was not for lack of strength that we have not done so but for the lack of will? So what is keeping us from being willing to be at it?

TEMPER AND PRIDE

Someone once observed that temper is what gets us into trouble and it is pride that keeps us there. Most probably so. Temper, it should be noted, is different from anger. We have temper tantrums mainly because we can’t have it our way. Such tantrums know no age limit. Children are not the only ones who have such fits. We adults often lose our temper because things are not going our way or the way we think they should be going. We can excuse children because they don’t know any better. We cannot excuse ourselves because we do know better.

Anger is different. When Jesus encountered people who were not doing what they knew they should be doing, he did not lose his temper. He got angry. He was angry because other people were being hurt and he said so. When we lose our temper, others tell us to calm down and then try to explain why we should and why we were wrong to go off. Righteous anger is something altogether different.

Problems arise, however, when we lose our temper and refuse to calm down because we believe we are justified in being so upset. We have a right, we respond, because we are right even though we are wrong and in the wrong. Again, what keeps us from admitting that we were wrong in flying off the handle is our pride. We do not like to admit that we should have stayed calm.

It is a very humbling experience to have to admit that we did what we knew we should not have done, to admit that we were not in control of our passion, that we allowed ourselves to get out of hand and, in the process, make a fool of ourselves. For that is exactly what we did: we made a fool of ourselves and, in retrospect, had to admit that that is exactly what we had done.

Yet, when we do not allow our pride to get in the way, when we admit, humbly so, that we lost it when we should have stayed calm, we learn some things about ourselves. We learn, first, that we are weak, that we can lose control and that sometimes it is the simplest and most foolish of circumstances that incite that loss of control.

Second, we learn that the humbling experience is painful, especially to our pride. Hopefully, that learning experience will be called to mind the next time we feel a temper tantrum welling up from deep inside. It may not. Human nature being what it is, it often takes several painful learning experience to get the message.

Once we get the message, life becomes a little more pleasant not only for ourselves but also for the people we love. They don’t like to be present when we lose our temper, just as we don’t like to be present when they lose theirs. And when correction is forthcoming, no one wants to be on either end: the one doing the correcting or the recipient of such a correction. There are times when we need to keep pride and temper in check.

THE FINE ART OF CRITICISM

We have our likes and dislikes. We have opinions on almost everything: food, sports, movies, politics, other people. The list, of course, is endless. We are critics. It is part of our human nature. We can’t help but have an opinion on almost everything and everyone crossing our path. Most of the time our thoughts, opinions, critiques are personal. We share them with no one.

That is good. If we had to share our opinions on everything, we would never move on. It is enough that we at least have an opinion. It means that we are both observant about what is going on around us and that we have some semblance of care about all that. When we don’t care about what is happening in our world is when we need to step back and ask ourselves why we do not.

Why should we care? Well, is not that one of the main lessons in the Creation Parable? God gave this world and all that is in it over to our care. We are responsible for this world and what goes on in this world and thus we need to care about what is happening in the world in which we live and move and have our being. To not care is to be irresponsible. It is only in caring and having an opinion about what is happening that we can either make changes on the one hand or give our support on the other.

There is a fine art to being a critic, however. A movie critic, for instance, can praise or condemn. Criticism goes both ways. We all like to hear, “That was a fine talk you gave.” Or “What a wonderful deed you just deed.” That, as opposed to “That talk was awful.” Or “How could you just walk away from the person in need and not do something?” The talk may truly have been bad and the lack of Christian concern over someone in need may have been evident, but there are ways to go about criticizing and certainly there must be a good reason for doing so.

When we criticize someone, for instance, our purpose is to help that person recognize that he could have done better. But, again, there is a fine art when it comes to doing so. All we need to understand that truth is to remember the times when others have been critical of something we said or did and how they came across. Did we see and hear the critique as being given to help us or given to simply put us down and make us feel awful?

No one is perfect. At times we all stand in need of corrective criticism. Just as we want to hear the critique through kind and caring and helpful words so we need to do the same when we are the ones offering the advice. If we cannot say what needs to be said in a  kind and, yes, truthful manner, then we had better not say anything. All we will do is make the other person angry.

There is a fine art to criticism. How we handle it will determine whether we have been helpful or simply made matters worse.

WHY DO WE OFTEN DWELL ON THE BAD?

Bad things happen. That is a fact, a non-debatable fact, of this life. They happen to good people and they happen to bad people. When bad things happen to people whom we, in our humble opinion, consider bad, we get a nefarious delight that they are getting their comeuppance. When bad things happen to us, we wonder what we did to deserve what has happened.

Sometimes we can fully understand why the bad has happened: we placed ourselves in harm’s way; we did something we knew ahead of time was wrong and selfish and sinful; we were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; someone else did something that hurt us and hurt us deeply and affected the rest of our lives.

Each one of us has a list of the bad that has happened to us over the years. Some of us have shorter or longer lists than others. There are parishioners over the years whom I believe have had more than their fair share of bad things happening to them, far more than they deserved. I know, on the other hand, how blessed I have been and do not understand why this has been so. I am thankful, of course.

Bad things happen in this life and no one is exempt from their happening. But the corollary is just as true: good things happen. Good things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people. No exemptions. The further truth is that more good things happen to us than bad, far, far more good things. The problem is that we seem to take the good that happens to us, take our blessings, for granted while we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time remembering and rehashing the bad?

Why? Why do we dwell on the bad much more than we dwell and give thanks for the good? It does not do us any good as the past is passed. We cannot undo the harm that was done to us, the sufferings we endured. All we can do is be thankful that we made it through those painful and difficult times. Those times changed the course of our life. But the good that happened to us also changed the course of our life. Everything that happens in our life, both good and bad, changes our life

So here we are, the product of the life that has passed, both the good and the bad, more of the good than the bad. We have no idea what could have been or might have been had not the bad happened nor have we any idea what could have been or might have been had not the good happened to us. What happened happened. No need to dwell on it.

What is left is to live our lives as fully as we can right here, right now. If we are happy with where we are now, we can even give thanks for the bad that happened because it has led us to the present. If the present is painful because of something bad that has happened to us, our faith tells us that resurrection and new life will come. When it does, we will be able to give thanks even for that because of our new life.

GOD IS OTHER (,) PEOPLE

If you are like me, there are times in your life when you feel close to God and there are other times when God seems so very far away. There are times when we want to feel that closeness and cannot and there are other times when we actually feel that closeness but would like God to move away. The bottom line is that we can never, ever get a handle on God because, people, God is Other.

God is not like us even though we have been created in the image and likeness of God. Our goal in life is to become as like God as we can, given our humanity and God’s divinity. We’ll never get close. Even the greatest of saints came up short, very short. They were saints because they gave it their best, something that I cannot say, unfortunately, about myself.

God is simply other, other than you and me. We cannot reach out and touch God as we can reach out and touch others, especially those we love. Yet there are times when we want to, when we really need to, given what is going on in our lives. We want to reach out and grab hold and not let go so that God will see us through whatever it is that is going on in our lives that needs the assurance that God will help see us through. And it is sometimes those times when we need God the most that God seems so far away, so other, if you will.

Again, it is in those times when it seems as if someone is saying to us, “Don’t you get it? God is Other, people.” We do get it. But, at the same time and in the same sentence, as it were, what we often do not get is that same person reminding us that “God is other people.” God works in others. God is there for us in other people. When other people surround us with their love and care and concern, they are enveloping is with the arms of God, whether we realize it or not.

That is the paradox of our faith. God is both other and other people. We cannot grab hold of God as God but God grabs hold of us in and through other people. That is the way God works for the most part. The sad part in all this is twofold. First, it is usually only after the fact and after thought and reflection that we realize that God was right there through thick and thin in others, in those who stood by us.

Second: we either miss the point or even deny it that we are the other that is God to those who need God’s immediate presence in their lives. We forget that as children of God, as God’s flesh and blood, God is present in us when we are present to others. That truth can be very overwhelming because it means that a tremendous responsibility has been placed on our shoulders, one that we must not shirk or deny.

God is indeed other given who God is, but God is also other people, you and me, when, by our very lives, we make God present to others just as others make God present to us.