Archive for the ‘thoughts’ Category
By this afternoon the snow had mostly melted at our house, and it didn’t feel that cold, so I pulled on my tattered loafers sans socks and drove to the park with Mazie to walk. The asphalt path was mostly free of snow, but by the time I reached the end, my toes were stinging. When I turned onto the wooded dirt trail, I found half an inch of unmelted snow, and I started waddling with my feet splayed to keep from scooping snow into the gaping holes on the out-sides of my shoes. As I walked, something strange happened–my toes began to warm. I was surprised enough to pull out one foot and check that it wasn’t just going numb. It was cool to the touch, but not icy, in spite of the snow that was clinging to the edge of the open splits. Even on cold days my bare feet in loose shoes rub themselves warm against the leather as I walk, and now the broken trail made my feet slide around even more, increasing the friction. There is an upside to friction… even in relationships.
Berly uses her lunch break to stretch her legs, and since I walk Mazie at the same time, we phone-walk together. Today we chatted about yesterday’s blog post and how grace plays such a big role in our relationship. My sketch was true in its broad strokes, but don’t suppose that Berly is always trusting and I am never selfish. We screw up regularly. But we make room for that in our relationship. Our family values are framed by grace–we structure our lives to make space for one another’s weaknesses, fears, needs and the like. Grace designs the principles by which we live but also the manner in which we live these principles, or rather fail to live these principles. In other words, we give ourselves grace for failing to live by grace.
In my last post I said Berly trusts “that I am doing all that I can within the sphere of my emotional strength.” But sometimes I shortchange Kimberly by doing less than I can, intentionally or not (that is, sometimes I am lazy and at other times I simply underestimate my own energy level). We are deeply committed to one another, to mutual understanding, acceptance, and support and we live this consistently, but not perfectly. We have expectations… our expectations are that we will fall short of our ideals on a fairly regular basis. We trust one another not because we live flawlessly, but because we live in grace towards one another’s flaws.
In other words, we live with friction, and we think that’s good. It’s possible to smooth over all interactions, but the cost of such a tightly controlled “peace” is shallow and inauthentic relationships. Nothing is more lonely than a friendship where we cannot be ourselves. If we are unique individuals with our own histories, views, personalities, and preferences, then doing real life together at any depth is going to bring tension. Real life and growth comes from rubbing up against the rough grain of those we love and discovering that our flaws are the basis for our bonding. It is not fixing faults but embracing grace that strengthens relationships and deepens trust.
I burned my bagel in the toaster this morning, but I ate it anyway. “Waste not, want not” as my mother used to say. She was constantly tossing out snippets of received wisdom from the past, shaping her life by principles she never stopped to evaluate. “If the shoe fits, wear it.” Like Tigger, she bounced through her days with little self-reflection, driven to stay busy without knowing why, making up her mind and changing it again in a flash: “Don’t let the grass grow between your toes!” Her hands never stopped or paused. “Make hay while the sun shines,” she’d declare with gusto, and she pulled us into her vortex: “Many hands make light work.”
Whether or not we use ready proverbs to frame our worldview, it is still a cliche we’ve settled into, the unseen backdrop of our lives, relationships, and decisions… unless dissonance interrupts. So my introspective personality, as it found no footing in my family, was forced to forge itself a different path, but my mother’s frugality stuck fast to me, unnoticed, and it is very tenacious even now that I’ve spied it. It makes me scrimp, snap judge those my mother would consider wasteful, and economize to a silly extent. I don’t realize how it undermines other far more important values, robs my time and thoughts, and hurts my relationships. It seems we are all in the salvage business with a lifetime of self-discovery and recovery, of unlearning our many false or skewed or damaging assumptions. As a start, maybe I should toss my burnt toast.
As I wrote yesterday, I intend to chronicle my daily smiles, but let’s not confuse that with thanksgiving. My focus is joie de vivre for me and those who share life with me, while thanksgiving, by contrast, is often seen as moral obligation. So it is driven by duty rather than delight, aimed at someone else’s benefit rather than my own (except to exercise my virtue). As a default response, giving thanks will actually weaken relationships rather than enhance them if it pulls us from gracious into legalistic connections.
At a human level, when I share my joy with the one who gifts me, she is drawn into my life and experience. She connects with me and delights in my joy. The focus is on a shared enjoyment of the gift rather than a shared esteem of the giver and her virtue. When I approach thanks as duty, it distances me from the generous one and devalues her generosity down to a trade. Then my gratitude becomes her due, even though paying it doesn’t reduce my debt for her favors. And with big favors, she becomes the benefactor, and I turn into the charity case. Her virtue and strength is showcased, but only my lack and dependence. Mutuality devolves into hierarchy.
Even when God is the munificent one, I think it far better to share with Him my joy and invite Him into it rather than try to pay Him with gratitude, as though His presents come with price tags. Of course, I can be self-absorbed, focused only on the gift and ignoring the one who gave it, a childish mistake (although God is not offended or hurt by this as we are). The real misfortune in such a response is not the unfairness of it, but the loneliness that results. We were created for community, for connection, for sharing our hearts, so isolating our attention on the gift desiccates our relationships. The greatest good and core purpose of giving and receiving is to draw us into close communion through mutual care.
For a perfect illustration of the joy of shared celebration, see Susan’s comment.
Today is epiphany, when the Eastern church once originally celebrated Jesus’ birth. So we might say it is second Christmas. Our lights are still up inside and out. And our tree’s up. We are still munching seasonal chocolates. I continue to play Christmas music in my car. I’m not ready yet to bid these days adieu, especially in place of the dark, cold months of winter that stifle the year’s last hurrah. I want to hold onto some of the good this holiday brings: a cheerfulness and warmth toward strangers, a celebratory cadence in my steps, a lift in my heart’s song above the daily drudge.
Why does the mundane always drag us back from our festivals, tugging like gravity till our balloons lie all deflated and cheerless. How might I bring some of this rhythm and light, some of this forgetfulness and memory back with me into the daily round of chores and schedules? I don’t want or need more obligation by adding to my diligence an imposed cheerfulness, a forced smile, and so make my grinding tasks even more burdensome. No, I rather want to lighten the driving duties of the day, bring some sunlight into the shadowed spaces. Any thoughts my friends?
Before realizing what I had done, I started a post with the title “Holding onto the Good,” and the good referred to Christmas spirits. I was falling into the American error of confusing the good with good feelings, when truly the good often comes with the worst feelings possible. One of my fundamental life commitments is this: embrace the hard to gain the good, regardless of how it feels. But culture sucks me back into assuming that good feelings are the reward for good choices, that I can measure my spiritual pulse by how positive I feel, and negative feelings are a mark that I’ve slipped up somewhere. No wonder I want to leave up the tinsel and lights and stretch out this season to push back the bleak winter. That, and it just feels better. Who doesn’t want to feel good?!
For my LOTR friends
I affirm that desire: feeling good is not all bad. A sense of well-being gives me more energy to make the world a better place. It is a great blessing and resource. Like all resources, however, it can be turned to self interest. It can make me balk at choosing the hard or painful or costly. It can make me less patient, understanding, and sympathetic towards those who are struggling… even wanting to shove them away to insulate and save my positive vibes. Good feelings are emotional cash, which can be spent well or poorly. I’d like to have a big stash, but that’s not necessarily what’s best for my soul. In my experience, suffering has much more potential power in shaping me for good, true good.
Still I instinctively avoid it and wish it away. Pushing ahead through pain is like walking up to my knees in mud–it takes all my energy, gives no pleasure, and progress seems dismally slow. Perhaps my New Year’s resolution should be: learn to slog, which no doubt means adjusting my goals, expectations, and evaluations. Sometimes the measure of triumph is simply taking one more step.
For centuries before Jesus’ birth, the Jewish people waited for the coming Messiah… and for centuries after His birth, they waited still. As a whole, they found no hope in Christ because he brought no hope, not of the kind they wanted–a Savior who would deliver their nation. They expected the Messiah to save them from their enemies, not to save them from themselves. I think many of today’s religious people have the same mix-up.
To speak faith into current issues, I started another blog (here). I took that conversation elsewhere to keep this blog safe for readers because controversy often creates anger, especially among the religiously committed, increasingly so in our polarized country. This Christian acrimony is deeply disturbing to me because it feels contrary to the Spirit of Christ. Many believe that the great danger in our world today is the moral drift of society and that we must take a stand against the enemy that assaults us with godlessness.
But Christ did not come to save me from the moral decay outside myself, to place me in a safer world. He came to save me from the moral rot inside myself, from spiritual distortion and blindness, from self-loathing and self-worship, from the pride that would perseverate on the sins of others rather than my own. Let us put Christ back in Christmas by focusing on our own drift away from Him rather than on the drift of our society. His second advent will heal the world as a whole, but my present hope is in His promise to start that redemptive work in me.
It is Christmas eve morning and I have not followed through with my intention to post regularly through the season. Then again, perhaps it is not too late as the 12 days of Christmas still lie ahead to carry us to the Epiphany–if you follow the old calendar. This was not a tradition my childhood family kept, so the day after Christmas was a huge letdown, all the magic and sparkle wrung out with only the empty winter days dragging on, drabness taken to a new low. But of course the first Christmas was not an ending, but a new beginning of the most dramatic and transformative kind, not only from the human perspective of a first child’s birth, but of the entrance of God himself into our dark world with His presence and goodness. The light of the world burst on us that night, so let the celebration begin, and don’t be too quick to take down and box up the strings of blinking laughter.
Dec. 9 Is It Me or Christmas That’s Broken?
Did I seem morose in yesterday’s post? I found it soothing. When I trust God’s acceptance of me, mess and all, it gives me a sense of release, of lightness, even sometimes joy. This evening Kimberly and I lit some scented candles, turned off the lights, and celebrated Christmas by meditating on the words so reflective of our experience:
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!
I was suddenly struck by the appropriateness of our experience and feelings in this season. It was to such as us that Jesus came. He came to “preach the gospel to the poor.” In December our whole society rises up to call the cheerful blessed. I feel out of place. It is the biggest holiday of the whole year, filled with happiness and laughter and peppy greetings to random strangers. “Holiday” is a linguistic child of “Holy day,” but it is the prodigal son that hollowed out his father’s meaning and ended up with all the froth and little of the substance. Berly and I listened to a popular Youtube rendition of “It Came Upon a Midnight, Clear,” but it had elided this middle verse. No one wants to hear about life’s crushing load at Christmas! No one but Jesus. That’s exactly what He came to hear… and to heal. Although the healing hope of this chorus is the next life (according to verse 3). Today’s joy then, muted as it may be, does not flow from our present success and comfort for “in this world you will have tribulation,” a promise of Jesus we’d like to leave unclaimed under the tree. The birth of Mary’s child rather opens the door for us into a world to come where all tears will be wiped away, and that is our hope, our future hope. Relief for my pain does not come here and now, but comfort comes into my pain because Jesus sees it and is moved by it, and his heart bleeds with mine. He does not need me to be cheerful, even on His birthday! Tonight that verse clenched my heart till the tears came in realization of a loving Savior who sees and knows and embraces me in my misery.
Dec. 3
Simplicity is no synonym for asceticism. Reduction has no inherent value or virtue. Subtraction must be creative and purposeful so that each decrement enhances the beauty, strengthens the good, focuses the impact. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” said Michelangelo, but our work is as much greater as the pumping heart surpasses cold stone. Simplicity trims the superfluous and distills the quality until the vital, vibrant spirit of a thing emerges to ignite our passions and light our way.
Dec. 2: Simplicity: Spirituality on Rations
Kimberly and I are boxed in by limited resources, especially emotional resources. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” Jesus said, and though it doesn’t feel blessed, I find it carries a spiritual wealth that others miss. In fact, the really hard part of our experience is not from our personal limits, but from our society’s values and judgments. Our daily choices must break through a constant barrage that threatens to swamp us. Our society has traded in Jesus’ version of abundant life for the American version of abundant life. It is now measured by success above faithfulness, impact above humility, drive above being, power above brokenness. How can we grasp in today’s world any sense of the blessedness of poverty?
Here are a few of the riches we found in our own experience of poverty.
1) Focused orientation: Excess breeds a casual spirit. With few resources comes a focused life. Superficiality is stripped away, and the things that really matter really matter. If you have one true friend, for example, you learn a depth of friendship that a crowd of pals won’t teach.
2) True values: Someone with a folder of opportunities and a stash of resources has a wide range of choices. Those of us with few resources must guard our priorities or suffer dearly for it. Since my spirit falters under criticism, for instance, I choose carefully the issues on which I take a public stand. I have not always been this way–I used to voice every disagreement with relish, aggressively. That was not good for me or my relationships, or even good for the truth. It was a potent defense mechanism, which I have laid aside, making myself much more vulnerable, but also more authentic, a high value for me now.
3) Enhanced growth: I expected in theory that more resources would create more potential and freedom, but I found in experience that suffering and stringency are much more fertile soils for self-discovery and growth. When life is smooth, I have little need or motivation to go plowing up my soul, but daily struggle demands attention. Patience and courage and perseverance and faith are strengthened by the obstacles we face.
4) Deepened empathy: Recent studies have shown that those who have more care less about others. Statistically, the poor are more generous than the rich. Those of us who feel threatened and battered by life can better understand and feel compassion for others like us, and we feel safer with someone whose soul has been deeply cut. The tender are tender.
5) Healing relationships: Deep connection doesn’t come through sharing our strengths and abilities, but rather, like grafted branches, our exposed wounds bind us together in a living, vital way. It is in shared weakness and want that we create strong community. When the window dressing is stripped off–all our efforts to look good and capable and successful–then the real me can connect with the real you, and acceptance of my true self has astounding power to heal.
I can resent my poverty or scrabble to escape it or pretend it isn’t there, but when I embrace my poverty, the true spirit of Christmas is released.
By this afternoon the snow had mostly melted at our house, and it didn’t feel that cold, so I pulled on my tattered loafers sans socks and drove to the park with Mazie to walk. The asphalt path was mostly free of snow, but by the time I reached the end, my toes were stinging. When I turned onto the wooded dirt trail, I found half an inch of unmelted snow, and I started waddling with my feet splayed to keep from scooping snow into the gaping holes on the out-sides of my shoes. As I walked, something strange happened–my toes began to warm. I was surprised enough to pull out one foot and check that it wasn’t just going numb. It was cool to the touch, but not icy, in spite of the snow that was clinging to the edge of the open splits. Even on cold days my bare feet in loose shoes rub themselves warm against the leather as I walk, and now the broken trail made my feet slide around even more, increasing the friction. There is an upside to friction… even in relationships.
Janathan Grace Reflections 