Category Archives: hope
God is not Finished with Us Yet
Today, the first Scripture reading says: “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.”
In the Gospel reading it says of the twelve year old Jesus who has caused his parents great anxiety, “Then he went down with them and was obedient to them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”
The important words for us here are grow and increase. If Samuel and Jesus had to grow and increase, even in wisdom and in favor with God and man, it’s a pretty safe bet we do too. And the growing doesn’t stop when we are 12, or 21, 78 or 95.
Today’s second reading says to us: “As God’s children, holy and beloved,”(Don’t you just want to wrap that word ‘beloved’ around you like a warm soft comforter?)
But it continues, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”
The word clothe implies that compassion and humility and patience are not necessarily natural human traits. What follows points the way to grow and increase in them: “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Not should or ought, but must.)
The scripture continues “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.”
Oh boy, there’s the rub. I don’t know about you, but I am not very teachable and if you decide to admonish me, you probably should be prepared to run.
Here’s the good news, when we admit our own need to grow and change, accepting forgiveness brings the grace to change. Forgiveness actually has the power to free us from being trapped even in a lifelong destructive response to people or events.
THEN and only then, can we like Jesus be a witness by visibly fleshing out the power of grace through growing and changing. The best way to teach is to show how it’s done. (It’s probably the safest also.)
Listen please with an open heart to the PRAYER OF CONFESSION followed by a time of silent reflection:
God, you call us beloved. Jesus you showed us that we are called and can be freed to grow and change. Let us feel your hand on our shoulder as you gently shake your head at our blindness. As we listen in silence, free us by your tender love to see where we need to grow and change. Then help us to completely accept forgiveness in the depths of our hearts, so we may be living witnesses to God’s saving grace.
………Take time for reflection…………………
We are all God’s children. We are all God’s beloved. Feel that. Cling to it. Rejoice in it. Give thanks for it. And trust God to complete the good work he has begun in you.
Reflections on Scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday, December 27, 2015 NRSV
1 Sam 2:18-20, 26 Col 3:12-17 Luke 2:41-52
Friends, Family, and Countrymen Lend Me Your Ears!
LISTEN TO ONE ANOTHER…BOTH SIDES OF EVERY ISSUE HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
I have much loved relatives and friends that think very differently than I do. That’s works for me.
However, when posts turn vicious and judgmental, I hide them.
If posts are logical explanations of a different view point, I read them, because I’m old enough now to know there are valid points on both sides of any issue.
I have come to believe that progress will be made toward bettering all of our lives, if we find ways to cling to our ideals while using practical solutions to minimize the negative fallout for the innocent everywhere.
To quote my best friend, “Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves.”
It takes the idealists to move us toward better ways of humanity surviving in this world together.
It takes the pragmatists to keep us from getting destroyed while trying to do that.
For the sake of our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren open your minds and hearts to work together.
What Number Spells Success?
Creative people often fall short in the area of persevering. I think we fear if we finish something and put it out there for acceptance and it’s rejected, we will have to face our greatest fear: “We are not good enough.”
The truth is no one is “good” enough for everyone. Flannery O’Conner and Margaret Atwood depress me. But the popular romance novelists bore me.
I’m having to face that I am not a great significant writer, but unfortunately I’m not superficial enough to be popular either. And I don’t have a tiny fraction of the talent of my favorite writer, Anne Lamott.
Although I would certainly love to make some money and I would greatly enjoy feeling successful, the truth is what I mostly want is to share what I’ve learned in seventy-eight years that I value deeply.
And there have been times when I’ve gotten feedback that I blogged or shared something that I’ve written that has spoken to someone else’s condition. It didn’t save them from pain or ever making mistakes or change the direction of their life, but for a moment in time they either didn’t feel alone or they saw something in a new way that was meaningful for them. I do think there are probably others out there that I will never know about that respond to what I share.
The question for me then is: How many people does it take to make it worth the struggle and time spent writing and risking being told that I am not good enough?
Dear fellow writers, the answer both scares and frees me.
I’m pretty sure the person I most try to follow would say. “One.”
The Terrorism of Poetry
Word arrows of’
visceral sensations
piercing intuition
exploding imagination
birthing understanding
inciting revolution.
Let’s Hear it for the Delusion that We Can Bring Order out of Chaos
Well, you know how some cultures take their shoes off at the door? I am starting a new Elder American Custom: Take off your glasses at my door. I don’t wear my glasses at home much. This works for me, because I can’t see the dust bunnies, the odd dead bug or dollop of jelly on the floors. And since most of my friends are also at the stage of life that requires glasses to notice small stuff, this new custom should allow me to maintain my laissez faire attitude toward house work while not having to hide in total silence in a darkened apartment when someone knocks at my door.
But, today, I am doing what I always do when my life feels like it is spinning out of control with disasters lurking around every corner. I am cleaning out the cabinets and the fridge. This is not house work. This is about bringing order out of chaos. This is about restoring some of the delusion that I am in control of something, however unimportant, in my life.
I never learn. I was determined last week to have enough carb free food for us when I was going to be down from my knee surgery. Well, I didn’t take into consideration that when under stress, Julian and I eat only high carb junk food and baked goods or that Julian would be the one running to the store for the one or two things I forgot. So, today I am throwing out week old beautiful chicken salad, cream cheese with olives and pecans mix for sandwiches for Julian, and some leftover chile without beans for me. So sad. So stupid! I have eaten more carbs in the last week than in the last two months! And enjoyed every single crumb, even the ones off the counters.
Well, I am recovered after sitting down for a bit, so back to enforcing law and order in my cabinets. I found some seasonings which expired in 2012. Also, found some things that don’t expire until 2020. I figure that may well be beyond my own expiration date!
All prayers and caring thoughts gratefully appreciated for my husband, Julian, who is having a lung biopsy tomorrow and my youngest son, Tommy, the father of four daughters who is having heart tests today prior to possibly having to get a pace-maker.
Pain Focuses Us on Ourselves, but Also on the Present Moment
Just had knee surgery for a torn meniscus. At the same time, a suspicious spot was discovered in my husband’s lung. And my youngest son, the father of four, discovered that his heart rate has become alarmingly low. Both of them are seeing specialists tomorrow. Yesterday, the pain in my knee finally stopped and I resumed my normal habit of worrying about the future, particularly about those I love. I knew that pain makes us self-centered, but I had never thought about how much it keeps us focused on the present moment. This may seem obvious and not particularly significant, but psychological pain does the same thing. It not only makes us self centered, but may be part of the reason that people get trapped in destructive patterns of behavior. They can’t focus on future consequences when overwhelmed by present pain.
I am not sure where this train of thought is going, but it helps me understand and be a little more patient with those who get trapped in repetitive patterns of poor choices.
Meanwhile, if you are into prayer, please include my husband Julian and my son, Tommy. Thanks so much.
Eileen
Inch Worms on the Plateau of Realism
I feel very sure just about everyone has blind spots or crazy spots in their personality. They come with the territory of being a human. I think they come with everyone’s DNA, but often, if not always, are intensified by experiences or lack of experiences in our impressionable youth.
One of my particular personality type’s blind spots is idealism, which is not bad if balanced with enough common sense. But unfortunately that seems to come to some of us very late in life. So, we develop survival mechanisms to minimize the pain of constant disappointment and frustration with the world, including with ourselves.
Some of us pick an idealistic goal in a particular area and simply focus on it with total tunnel vision while pouring all our energies into it. Unfortunately, eventually most of us either burn out or catch on that we can only inch toward ideals in this flawed and very unfinished world.
Others of us latch on pretty early to the pleasure principle….pleasures block pain…..so we eat, drink and make out with Mary or Harry. Eventually this either kills us, destroys our relationships or gets us run out of town, so we too are challenged to face the pitiful little realities of human existence.
So down deep many of us fear that what is actually driving us is congenital insanity. Naturally, we’d rather cling to an addiction, which we assure ourselves is either a virtue or else something that we could always get over, than face our fear that we are crazy. Because being crazy might not be something we are able to do anything about. Maybe all the world’s pills and all the world’s doctors couldn’t put our tiny cracked selves together again.
If we are lucky enough (or blessed) to find a source of love – just as we are, we can become able to bear the pain of disillusionment about ourselves and thus the rest of the world. Then most of us, after settling only temporarily in the valley of cynicism, will find our way to a reasonably satisfying existence as inch worms on the plateau of realism.
Persevering as an Imperfect Unfinished Person in a Pitifully Flawed Unfinished World
I once was a nauseatingly bubbly, outgoing, optimistic, like and help everyone type of person. I thought I was beautiful, generous, kind, humorous, honest and intelligent. It turned out that I was delusional about myself and criminally naive about other people and the world.
Somewhere in my fifties, I flipped.
I began to realize: that I was often a difficult person for those closest to me, that I was intelligent about theories, but had zero common sense, and that no one is so intelligent that they are right all the time. I found that rescuing people often reinforced their lifelong behavior of making poor choices. I began to notice that my humor usually had a victim. I sadly faced that I was a bottomless pit of needs and wants in my relationship with my husband and that my neediness stunted my ability to love. And I finally admitted that our American ideal of beauty has an expiration date and I was past it.
But other than these, I was an Okay person, because I wasn’t finished yet. 🙂
In the ensuing twenty plus years I have moved toward the middle by accepting being a reasonably tidy looking person, having a sense of humor about getting old and being human, being not only a person who has some valuable flashes of insight, but one who can be practical (at least when it’s absolutely necessary), someone capable of understanding, loving and actually making sacrifices for the people that I find myself unable to like because of totally disagreeing with them. I’m still into helping others – but I have admitted that I can’t save them and that helping others has the perk of making me feel better about myself. I am finally accepting the reality that though most people need a helping hand sometimes, it’s often important to allow others the chance to learn from suffering the consequences of their chronic bad choices. I have quit emotional garbage dumping on my husband and love him enough to now test the dubious leftovers in the fridge on myself, instead of him. And an almost fair amount of the time I do the necessary boring stuff I hate, though sometimes I just say “to hell with it” and stay up all night reading a spy novel and sleep all morning. While, I don’t idealize myself anymore, I both accept and value myself as the imperfect, sometimes downright weird, unfinished human being that I am, while still working to stay open to the challenge of changing when the need becomes obvious.
When my husband and I are watching the news together and it triggers one of those downward spirals of starting to focus on all the terrible people and things in the world, now one or the other of us will bring it to a halt by saying loudly and very irately, “It’s a terrible world, filled with terrible people!” and then we will laugh at ourselves and even at our pitifully flawed unfinished world.
Life is not about perfection. It’s about the life long challenge to develop paradoxical, but reasonable and practical balances between polarities.
But most of all, life is about persevering.
