The status quo is just another word for complacency or resignation in my book, it stinks of the stocks. For me, hope is tied to change, so when progress is blocked I despond. I don’t go down easily–I have always been a fighter–but I crippled my emotional resources fighting for the wrong end with the wrong means, and since I crawled from the field of battle, my rehabilitation seems to have no end. I’ve been working on my recovery for over a decade. At this rate, my convalescent home will become my retirement home; my life’s purpose has drained off like water from a cracked barrel. How do I celebrate Christmas on crutch and braces? What gift can I bring to God? I have nothing, nothing but a broken heart. What I have, I give.
“A broken and contrite heart you will not despise.”
“Hope for the moment. There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow.”
~ Ardis Whitman
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.
For November I posted daily a thanksgiving on Facebook, usually tongue in cheek, and I found the daily practice was good both for my writing and my outlook. Keeping a habit is a good bit easier than creating one from scratch, so here’s my carryover: daily advent reflections, starting inevitably with simplicity to which Kimberly and I are forced by our meager resources.
Dec. 1 (yes, I realize it is Dec. 2… I’ll catch up tonight)
So, Thanksgiving’s out of the way, barely. Friday and Saturday I put up half our Christmas decorations, a little here, a little there… the rest is not going up. Kimberly and I scale our life investments to our energy levels, which is one of the secrets not only of keeping the spirit (and Spirit) in Christmas, but of surviving all year.
I could say we are forced into simplicity, and it sometimes feels that way, but truly it is a life choice. We have discovered that our hearts are fuller, healthier, more alive when we spend within our means emotionally, financially, socially, and in every other way. I have to continually remind myself that my lifestyle is a choice. It doesn’t feel that way because our personal poverty level is not a choice–it has been thrust upon us–and though we do what we can to increase our reserves without depleting our souls, we seem to make little headway. But how we choose to live within such a tight emotional budget is in our hands, and I believe we do well with what we have, better than many who have far more in their personal accounts.
Many approach Christmas with a determination to squeeze out of it every ounce of happiness they can–after all it only comes once a year. They decorate lavishly and bake incessantly and shop feverishly. They bribe or cajole all the relatives into coming for this great gala, then spend large amounts of energy keeping everyone to task fulfilling THE PLAN. “Quiet night, holy night” gets swallowed up in the Magnificent Christmas Celebration. Sometimes the spirit of Christmas seeps into our souls more easily when we settle into simplicity.
As Christian fads go, “30 days of thanks” seems to have some potential for good. If you’ve missed it, it’s the practice of giving thanks for something each day of November (often posted on social media). Hopefully it makes us all happier. Gratitude is seen in church as well as in our society at large as a foundation stone of mental health. On a TED talk last week the positive psychology guru Shawn Achor listed thanksgiving as his first choice to improve life’s outlook: find 3 things daily for which to be grateful. On the surface, I think this is a good idea. On the surface. But like most things, the real story is under the surface.
My first question is about motivation, which can sour so many good practices. I remember as a child being ordered to write thank-you notes for gifts I hated. It did not improve my life’s outlook! Legislating gratitude spoils it. But following cultural norms, my parents shamed my “ungrateful attitude” as a child… and it seemed to fix my attitude, but it damaged my spirit. In compliance, I trained myself to “feel” grateful, not as a natural response of delight, but as a way to avoid shame. On the surface, it’s hard to tell the difference, but natural gratitude gives life and forced gratitude suffocates life and relationships. Based on how I react to ungrateful people, I’d say I need more of the natural kind. When I choose thanksgiving as a “discipline,” my spiritual growth may only be in pride or resentment.
But even if my motivation is healthy, I can still misuse thankfulness. Both pop psychology and pop Christianity suppose we can fix hard events and feelings with positive thinking (often labeled “faith”). On the surface, that might be a good idea. On the surface. That is to say, if the bad feelings are superficial, then I can easily “shake it off” with some uplifting thoughts. But for anything deeper, positive thinking will only mask the problem, like taking ibuprofen for a ruptured appendix. The real solution for difficult feelings is to recognize and accept them in a spirit of compassion, try to understand them and find a means to truly support the needs that my soul is expressing. Using thankfulness to resolve significant pain just minimizes and belittles our true feelings and fosters false lives and relationships.
If you are lonely, for instance, not just this particular evening, but in life generally, you cannot rectify it by reminding yourself of all the people who love you and so talk yourself into being okay. If you are hurt by rejection, by loss, by trauma, you cannot find healing by “counter-balancing” it with happy thoughts or smothering it with praise music. Massages are nice, but they don’t cure ear infections. Paul tells us in Romans to “weep with those who weep,” not “cheer up those who weep.” Some of us need to learn to weep for ourselves in compassion. I never use thanksgiving to shout down my feelings. Joy is most truly experienced when I genuinely embrace my sorrows. So any takers for “30 days of pain”?
Yeah, I know I haven’t been around for a while. I’m trying to figure life out… still. At least my own life. But there are no bread crumbs for me to follow. Why post about a meaningless life? Who does that help? My days have devolved into an endless round of getting up, walking the dog, reading, chatting up my wife, and going to work. I have nothing to share about truths I’m stretching into or dreams I’m sketching out or even struggles I am surviving. Life has dumped me in a DMV waiting room with no one behind the counter. I’ve been sitting here for a year now.
I no longer wake up miserable every morning, and there is something to be said for that, but can someone please remind me the point of waking up each morning? It is like Groundhog Day but with an endlessly repeating script. Didn’t we just do this yesterday… and the day before… and…. MacBeth mutters the truth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
I’ve been missing here for a month, not from depression or busyness or low energy as in the past, but from fence sitting.
Not by choice. I’m too weak to jump out of the yard and do anything useful–I’ve glanced at projects countless times, even started some, only to realize they would drain my soul. in the other direction, the emotional gravity dragging me back down hasn’t found a grip as long as I’ve kept my shaky equilibrium. I’m in a holding pattern on a narrow platform, and I sense that it is my task to wait and gather strength.
This is not easy for me. My internal voices are always shouting for me to get busy, and ignoring them has always led me into a place of shame. They drove me into more and more Christian service until it broke me. When I discovered the potholes this pounded into my soul, I thought I had turned onto the road to recovery, but the voices just switched goals, whipping me towards personal development, “figure out NOW what is holding you back and FIX it!” I feel ashamed for not healing faster. Patience with myself is rarely an item in stock.
I have lived all my life on the principle that rest must be earned. After all, God worked six days and rested on the seventh. I thought the Sabbath was simply a concession to our weaknesses: “Okay, you’ve worked hard enough, so now you get to rest.” In fact, there was no command to work six days… that was simply a necessity for survival and advancement. The duty, the order, the commandment (one of the Big Ten), was not to stay busy, but to stop busy. The Sabbath is not a reward for working all week. The reward for working all week is the material benefits we reap. The Sabbath was certainly a blessing, but it was a command, not a reward. It had its own justification and importance quite independent of the other six.
The Fourth Commandment was also not a prohibition (“thou shalt not work”) but a prescription: “Remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy.” It offered positive power and creative purpose for our lives, the one day to focus care on our spirits instead of our bodies (for food, shelter, etc.). If anything, it was not the work week that justified the Sabbath, but the Sabbath that justified and gave meaning to the work week. I was raised on the “Protestant Work Ethic,” but what I really need is a strong dose of the “Protestant Rest Ethic.” The first has often pulled me from faith in God to dependence on myself, but the second forces me back to faith… and though it is shaky and insecure, it is a faith I am committed to.
Today was a mildly good day emotionally, and I thought it should be noted since I haven’t been on the positive side of the ledger in a long time. It was not exciting or fulfilling or memorable, but pleasant in a blue-hazy way. In the past I tried desperately to decode the secret of a day like this–what did I do right or avoid doing wrong? How can I keep this going? Like a capsize-victim scrambling to straddle a rolling barrel, I soon tipped over again, even more tired and discouraged from all my scraping and clawing.
Now I have a better appreciation for the staid Buddhists who let the feelings pass through like vapors across a room. If God or the universe or my beleaguered soul is sending a message, it needs to be less cryptic. I keep my eyes open, but when fog settles in, patience is the better part of wisdom. Insight often takes the slow train, and pacing the platform doesn’t get it here any faster. As Erwin Schrodinger says, “In an honest search for knowledge, you quite often have to abide by ignorance for an indefinite period” (a quantum physicist validating my confusion!). I have learned to enjoy the good while it lingers, not weighing it down with questions or trying to finagle an extension. It is what it is for as long as it is, and when it smiles, I am grateful.
I wonder what it’s like to be normal, to feel the weight of life’s stresses and hardships balanced out by its joys and pleasures. I wonder what it’s like not to fight against deep misery every day. not feel crushed by the brokenness of the world. I expect that when the bumps in the road seem small, the catch phrase verses and bumper sticker encouragements have enough lift to clear your axle. For the average guy, commonsense advice for tackling problems probably works.
My Facebook friends cheer one another on with links to meditations and quotes that inspire them, and I hear one more rousing verse of Kumbaya as their bus pulls away from the stop where I am left standing. Unfortunately, I can’t even force myself to see my world from this positive perspective. I cannot “choose” to be happy. I’ve tried. I would have to live in denial of my actual emotional experiences, and I seem constitutionally incapable of that. I can choose to follow God, to trust Him as best I can, and I do, each day in the face of emotional riptides, but it has led to only tidbits and crumbs of peace and joy.
What is it like to feel life is good, expectations and hopes are often satisfied, and goals motivate rather than burden? What is it like to have all that extra energy, to have room for creativity and exploration and a wide range of possibilities? I wonder how it changes a person’s perspective, spirituality, approach to the day’s happenings, understanding of others. Do those folks use that big supply of emotional resources to understand and face into their fears? At the expense of their own comfort, do they embrace those who are different and disagree. Do they strip back their layers of self-protection and dig deep into who they really are? I wonder.
Janathan Grace Reflections 