Kurt Vonnegut used to have a number of go to phrases. One of them that was particularly prominent in his book "Slaughterhouse Five" was "So it goes." Since I don't think he ever wrote a sentence that was absent irony, usually that phrase was tossed off as a response to some amazingly horrible event that had just happened to one of his characters.
Vonnegut is my favorite author on the subject of funny. He was often (mis)labeled a science fiction author, as he often included extraterrestrial beings in his stories. His favorite invented alien beings were the Tralfamadorians. Tralfamadorians were not located in time the same way we are. At any particular moment they would un-stick in time and wind up at some other particular moment. Here's how he explained it in "Slaughterhouse Five" in the words of his lead character, Billy Pilgrim:
"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead
person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same
person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear
that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians
say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"
Interestingly, Tralfamadorians would use exactly the same language when encountering a really great condition as well. According to Kurt and the Tralfamadorians, when there's no such thing as waiting for the next thing to happen, everything starts to look vaguely similar and eternal.
I think that's true as far as it goes. However, whether you're dealing with the eternity of "So it goes" or the stuck in the place in time perspective of "Every Now and Then," you're still there...after all, wherever you go, there you are.
You're going to have a reaction to everything you encounter. If you return to the same location in space hoping to recapture a good time you might have had there once, you might be bored or disappointed with that particular location. Still, boredom is a reaction. Reactions can be good, as in our reaction to surprise party in our honor. And reactions can be bad as in a scary medical diagnosis.
Often, we don't let the word "reaction" hang around by itself. We frequently stick a word in front of reaction and create the idea of "involuntary reaction." When talking about someone getting bad news, we'll often ask out of concern, "How did he react?" That's because emotions don't have the same cause and effect that our knees do when someone taps them with a mallet. However, unlike our knees we're pretty sure there will be a reaction. We just don't know what it might be. In turn, all of us will then react to the report of the reaction if not the reaction itself.
There is both beauty and pain in the "every now and then" of passing through time. "Every now and then," we experience a sunset or a sunrise, a windfall or a look on a face or any number of other things that make us catch our breath or even tear up with joy. Of course, "Every now and then" we have very similar physiological reactions to bad things that happen as well. Since we move in a straight line through time, every now and then we experience the highs and lows that we use as building blocks to define our lives.
If we were meant for a living eternity, consider how this time spent living time in straight line time might teach us about how to live like a Tralfamadorian, or even a little beyond that. Since eternity is all they've ever known, Tralfamadorians have the reaction of "So it goes." However, if there's one thing that living at an actual place in time teaches us, it's that every now and then something beautiful happens.
And what if the beautiful part of the "every now and then" of this world, through the work of one man, could be transformed and completed into a fulfilled eternity of "so it goes"? I think we might call that heaven.
And even more, if we fully realized the value of the work of that one man (Jesus), if we really believed what he said about the Kingdom of God, maybe then we'd start to become a little un-stuck in time ourselves. Maybe we'd see past both our "here and nows" and our "every now and thens," and into a "so it goes" that is completed peace, fulfillment, transformation and joy.
We might even go beyond calling that heaven. We might call it the Kingdom of God.
People have argued for two thousand years about whether the kingdom of heaven (or "Kingdom of God" - the New Testament uses the ideas pretty much interchangeably) is in the future or starts now. I can't decide if we have these kinds of arguments because theologians want to be lawyers or lawyers want to be theologians or if both have become vocationally un-stuck. All I can think to say about that is, so it goes.
I think when we decide to follow Christ, what really happens is that we become aware of a future that's much more beautiful and full than our now; this even extends to us being more beautiful and complete than we ever imagined. This is a case where "then" is actually a lot better than "now."
However, I think we also become a little un-stuck from our now. Sometimes we get carried forward and backward and we see that the entire time we've been part of a beautiful and divine "so it goes" that's really more of a "And God said." We call our images of the past memory, and our images of the future imagination or visions, but really when you're part of "And God said," they're all now...and then. And so it goes, in peace, love, joy and completion in the creation that God long ago spoke for us. Anybody feel like un-sticking a little?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Sarcasm
I read a good many news and feature stories from major media outlets. Virtually all of them are on-line. Most allow for the digital equivalent of letters to the editor. I am (too) often drawn to these comments as much or more than the original story. I think the reason is that opinions are usually more interesting than facts. Facts are usually of binary form, being either correct or incorrect. Opinions can run the gamut from compelling to stark raving insane; they cover more human geography.
Worse yet (for me at least), the comment sections often allow you respond to the commenters. Thus, when someone says something particularly egregious, and these sites are magnets for egregious, it's possible to respond. Generally, the response posts are not what one would call profound. Something along the lines of, "Your mother wears military style footwear" would be seen a both erudite and refrained in the context of response posts. I'm not sure how many words I've typed so far as either a commenter or respondent but it's probably roughly equivalent to what I wrote as formal papers during at least a year or two of college...and I was a philosophy and English major.
For those of you who don't know me well, I have what is a sometimes unfortunate talent for argumentation. The talent extends to formal logical constructs of fact and argument as well as back and forth human conversation. Within that overall talent lives a subset of the "back and forth human conversation" part. That subset is sarcasm and sometimes it might even be accurately described as biting sarcasm.
Sarcasm can be funny, illustrative and fun if used carefully. It's much easier for some people to "get" sarcasm than it is for others. Understanding which people are which is part of using sarcasm carefully. I will appeal to George Will for a fit example of sarcasm. Once in what was a bit of a hostile interview, the interviewer continually interrupted George in the middle of his sentences. Eventually Mr. Will had enough and at the end of one such interruption he paused, looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "I'm sure there are many things on which we disagree. However, I think we can both agree beyond doubt that I am the world's foremost authority on the end of my own sentences." And that ladies and gentlemen is the correct application of world class sarcasm.
There have been and still are too many times in my life when I don't use sarcasm carefully at all. Sometimes that's in response to commenters or articles. Even though these are sometimes biting, I usually receive digital validation from small numbers of people, rooting for my position and in some cases, maybe even my biting tone. (...Maybe it's really "numbers of small people.") It's usual for me to get several "thumbs ups." Occasionally, I'll get ten or twenty thumbs ups...Rah.
There's a reason I'm explaining the ad hoc digital commentary community. The other day I read an article on a book that's recently been published in Great Britain. The book is "Mum's List." It's the story of St. John (Sinjin) and Kathleen Greene and their 2 boys. The very very short version of the story is that Kathleen Greene passed away a couple years ago of cancer, leaving her husband and two small boys. She had been doing well with her disease and then suddenly relapsed. From the time of her relapse to her passing was about three weeks.
Once when she was sick at home during her last three weeks, her husband brought her in some tea. She took off her oxygen mask and looked him in the eye for a quite awhile and then she spoke. She told him that she wanted him to take their boys to Belize. The two of them had planned to retire there. She said that at least in that way, a small "bit" (her word) of her would get there. After that, a flood of other things followed, including urging her husband to fall in love again and re-marry, to kiss their boys good night twice each night, once for him and once for her and a host of similar thoughts and wishes. Eventually there were 200 items in all. Sinjin and his boys are now learning to continue to enjoy life with mum as they work through her list. Kathleen did a beautiful and sacrificial thing as she used her last days to plan with her soul mate for their family's life without her.
I was moved after reading the article and I will likely buy the book at some point. I breezed through the comments and thankfully there was nothing...egregious. Some people used their favorite, "sorry for your loss" language and others spoke Hallmark sentiments. It didn't really matter though. Everyone was looking for a place to put the tremendous, staggering beauty that existed in the telling of the story of family Greene.
It occurred to me that maybe I could help a couple people who were posting comments see this for what it is. Toward that end, I wrote this: "That's what love looks like." This comment was not the first by any stretch. (First comments usually get a lot of reads and responses.) In fact my comment was a thousand or so removed from being the first. Typical in this scenario might be a few thumbs ups and maybe a comment. Those five words have received well over 500 thumbs ups to date. When I last looked, there were 17 comments including one woman who accused me of being Shakespeare (note sarcastic use of "accused"), another who slightly confused the issue by offering me condolences on my loss. However, they were all beautiful and represented hearts that groan for the love that Sinjin and Kathleen had for each other and that they were kind enough to share with the rest of us.
I would have to conclude that love spoken in five words or five thousand can crush the impact of all clever, sarcastic argumentation and flood the people who read it with the overflow of the response of their own hearts. Put another way, better is one word spoken in love than all clever arguments spoken and written throughout all time. Without love, I am nothing.
Worse yet (for me at least), the comment sections often allow you respond to the commenters. Thus, when someone says something particularly egregious, and these sites are magnets for egregious, it's possible to respond. Generally, the response posts are not what one would call profound. Something along the lines of, "Your mother wears military style footwear" would be seen a both erudite and refrained in the context of response posts. I'm not sure how many words I've typed so far as either a commenter or respondent but it's probably roughly equivalent to what I wrote as formal papers during at least a year or two of college...and I was a philosophy and English major.
For those of you who don't know me well, I have what is a sometimes unfortunate talent for argumentation. The talent extends to formal logical constructs of fact and argument as well as back and forth human conversation. Within that overall talent lives a subset of the "back and forth human conversation" part. That subset is sarcasm and sometimes it might even be accurately described as biting sarcasm.
Sarcasm can be funny, illustrative and fun if used carefully. It's much easier for some people to "get" sarcasm than it is for others. Understanding which people are which is part of using sarcasm carefully. I will appeal to George Will for a fit example of sarcasm. Once in what was a bit of a hostile interview, the interviewer continually interrupted George in the middle of his sentences. Eventually Mr. Will had enough and at the end of one such interruption he paused, looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "I'm sure there are many things on which we disagree. However, I think we can both agree beyond doubt that I am the world's foremost authority on the end of my own sentences." And that ladies and gentlemen is the correct application of world class sarcasm.
There have been and still are too many times in my life when I don't use sarcasm carefully at all. Sometimes that's in response to commenters or articles. Even though these are sometimes biting, I usually receive digital validation from small numbers of people, rooting for my position and in some cases, maybe even my biting tone. (...Maybe it's really "numbers of small people.") It's usual for me to get several "thumbs ups." Occasionally, I'll get ten or twenty thumbs ups...Rah.
There's a reason I'm explaining the ad hoc digital commentary community. The other day I read an article on a book that's recently been published in Great Britain. The book is "Mum's List." It's the story of St. John (Sinjin) and Kathleen Greene and their 2 boys. The very very short version of the story is that Kathleen Greene passed away a couple years ago of cancer, leaving her husband and two small boys. She had been doing well with her disease and then suddenly relapsed. From the time of her relapse to her passing was about three weeks.
Once when she was sick at home during her last three weeks, her husband brought her in some tea. She took off her oxygen mask and looked him in the eye for a quite awhile and then she spoke. She told him that she wanted him to take their boys to Belize. The two of them had planned to retire there. She said that at least in that way, a small "bit" (her word) of her would get there. After that, a flood of other things followed, including urging her husband to fall in love again and re-marry, to kiss their boys good night twice each night, once for him and once for her and a host of similar thoughts and wishes. Eventually there were 200 items in all. Sinjin and his boys are now learning to continue to enjoy life with mum as they work through her list. Kathleen did a beautiful and sacrificial thing as she used her last days to plan with her soul mate for their family's life without her.
I was moved after reading the article and I will likely buy the book at some point. I breezed through the comments and thankfully there was nothing...egregious. Some people used their favorite, "sorry for your loss" language and others spoke Hallmark sentiments. It didn't really matter though. Everyone was looking for a place to put the tremendous, staggering beauty that existed in the telling of the story of family Greene.
It occurred to me that maybe I could help a couple people who were posting comments see this for what it is. Toward that end, I wrote this: "That's what love looks like." This comment was not the first by any stretch. (First comments usually get a lot of reads and responses.) In fact my comment was a thousand or so removed from being the first. Typical in this scenario might be a few thumbs ups and maybe a comment. Those five words have received well over 500 thumbs ups to date. When I last looked, there were 17 comments including one woman who accused me of being Shakespeare (note sarcastic use of "accused"), another who slightly confused the issue by offering me condolences on my loss. However, they were all beautiful and represented hearts that groan for the love that Sinjin and Kathleen had for each other and that they were kind enough to share with the rest of us.
I would have to conclude that love spoken in five words or five thousand can crush the impact of all clever, sarcastic argumentation and flood the people who read it with the overflow of the response of their own hearts. Put another way, better is one word spoken in love than all clever arguments spoken and written throughout all time. Without love, I am nothing.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Very Last Thing I Learned
I read a Wayne Dyer book once a long time ago. It was the original book that put him on the map, "Your Erroneous Zones." I was taking a college psychology course and for an assignment I had to select a pop psychology book to read, present and review. The short version of my review went along the lines of, "He has some very nice thoughts if you happen to be living by alone by yourself in the universe." I'm very happy that his book wasn't the last thing I ever learned.
In fairness to Dr. Dyer, the sum of that particular book probably isn't the last thing he learned. He's been through three divorces and a couple of serious health episodes over the years. Adversity, whether it's of your own making or happens to fall on you out of the sky has a way of teaching you unexpected new things.
Dr. Dyer talks some about Christ. Here's a quote of his, "I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace." Certainly Jesus was teaching those things. He taught a few other things as well. He was for example teaching the Pharisees that they were white washed tombs. I don't think that fits with Dr. Dyers listing of Christ's curriculum. What Dr. Dyer says isn't a problem. The problem is that he stops. It seems like his list is the very last thing he learned about Christ.
I am blessed with a number of quality relationships. I love all my children. I love my wife. I love my extended family. I have very good friends. I haven't yet learned the last thing about any of those relationships. They keep teaching me new things, both about others and about myself.
It's interesting to me is that I'm still learning things about my mother who's been gone for ten years this year. I don't have any new facts. However I have started to reexamine some things about her that I'd glossed over or even ignored completely. She climbed Mt. Whitney in the early 1950's. There weren't a lot of women running around at that time who could say that. In turn, she let me go up the Western slope of the mountain, after having crossed the Sierra from Sequoia when I was 13. I was with a group and she wasn't along and I know she worried a bit. She was a member of a folk dance troop that performed in Southern California. There are a number of other things as well. I can be a bit slow and it's only recently that I've come to realized that these weren't the kinds of things everyone did.
I think I've been able to keep learning about my mother because some deep part of me recognizes that I haven't learned the last thing about her yet. The reason that's true now and will always be true as long as I'm alive is because she was (and is) a real human being and I'm still be completed. I'm starting to believe that real people can never be summed completely. It makes sense if you believe that humanity was intended for eternity. It's a bit like the bumper sticker that says "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet." If God can wait the span of our life times to complete in us what he has for us, I think it makes sense that we should strive to be at least that patient.
I can no longer imagine myself being able to make a statement about Christ of the kind that Dr. Dyer makes above. How could I? I can't say I know what Christ taught in totality any more than I completely know and understand my mother. Both are real and Christ is more present with me just now than my mother is. How could I have any idea of the totality of Christ's teaching? I haven't learned it all yet.
We will always argue about what Christ meant when he said this or that. Some of us will even lie about what Christ said, misrepresent it or turn it into what we feel like he should have said. It's real easy to understand why people do that sort of thing. It's because they don't think Christ is real or at least they don't really believe he still lives in the present reality. If they did believe he was present and real, why would they try to tell him what he thinks? Christ is fully capable of speaking for himself. For my part, I find it a lot harder to be patient with that sort of projection than I do to understand it.
I'm deriving great value from dropping my idea that I knew my mother completely. I don't think I ever did. I knew she was very good and that she loved me very much. As I embrace what some of this new revelation might mean about her, I'm learning more about her all the time. And really, it all just makes me love and appreciate her more.
With Jesus it is even more so. He's a lot bigger than our ideas of love and peace. He's bigger than any of our formulas for relating to him. He will tolerate our lack of love, faith and patience even to the point of delivering things to us that we don't deserve. You know, I'll bet he'd even climb Mt. Whitney if I asked him.
In fairness to Dr. Dyer, the sum of that particular book probably isn't the last thing he learned. He's been through three divorces and a couple of serious health episodes over the years. Adversity, whether it's of your own making or happens to fall on you out of the sky has a way of teaching you unexpected new things.
Dr. Dyer talks some about Christ. Here's a quote of his, "I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace." Certainly Jesus was teaching those things. He taught a few other things as well. He was for example teaching the Pharisees that they were white washed tombs. I don't think that fits with Dr. Dyers listing of Christ's curriculum. What Dr. Dyer says isn't a problem. The problem is that he stops. It seems like his list is the very last thing he learned about Christ.
I am blessed with a number of quality relationships. I love all my children. I love my wife. I love my extended family. I have very good friends. I haven't yet learned the last thing about any of those relationships. They keep teaching me new things, both about others and about myself.
It's interesting to me is that I'm still learning things about my mother who's been gone for ten years this year. I don't have any new facts. However I have started to reexamine some things about her that I'd glossed over or even ignored completely. She climbed Mt. Whitney in the early 1950's. There weren't a lot of women running around at that time who could say that. In turn, she let me go up the Western slope of the mountain, after having crossed the Sierra from Sequoia when I was 13. I was with a group and she wasn't along and I know she worried a bit. She was a member of a folk dance troop that performed in Southern California. There are a number of other things as well. I can be a bit slow and it's only recently that I've come to realized that these weren't the kinds of things everyone did.
I think I've been able to keep learning about my mother because some deep part of me recognizes that I haven't learned the last thing about her yet. The reason that's true now and will always be true as long as I'm alive is because she was (and is) a real human being and I'm still be completed. I'm starting to believe that real people can never be summed completely. It makes sense if you believe that humanity was intended for eternity. It's a bit like the bumper sticker that says "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet." If God can wait the span of our life times to complete in us what he has for us, I think it makes sense that we should strive to be at least that patient.
I can no longer imagine myself being able to make a statement about Christ of the kind that Dr. Dyer makes above. How could I? I can't say I know what Christ taught in totality any more than I completely know and understand my mother. Both are real and Christ is more present with me just now than my mother is. How could I have any idea of the totality of Christ's teaching? I haven't learned it all yet.
We will always argue about what Christ meant when he said this or that. Some of us will even lie about what Christ said, misrepresent it or turn it into what we feel like he should have said. It's real easy to understand why people do that sort of thing. It's because they don't think Christ is real or at least they don't really believe he still lives in the present reality. If they did believe he was present and real, why would they try to tell him what he thinks? Christ is fully capable of speaking for himself. For my part, I find it a lot harder to be patient with that sort of projection than I do to understand it.
I'm deriving great value from dropping my idea that I knew my mother completely. I don't think I ever did. I knew she was very good and that she loved me very much. As I embrace what some of this new revelation might mean about her, I'm learning more about her all the time. And really, it all just makes me love and appreciate her more.
With Jesus it is even more so. He's a lot bigger than our ideas of love and peace. He's bigger than any of our formulas for relating to him. He will tolerate our lack of love, faith and patience even to the point of delivering things to us that we don't deserve. You know, I'll bet he'd even climb Mt. Whitney if I asked him.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Sickness
I've probably had more than my fair share of interesting friends and acquaintances over the years. This was particularly true in high school and college. In high school I had a friend Dave, that went on an "expedition" (his words) to the Salton Sea. He was going with some of his family's friends. Dave told me he was taking his new shotgun and that they were going hunting. I asked him what they were going to be hunting. Dave said that when he asked that question of the guy that was taking him he was told, "Anything that moves."
He sent me a post card while on his expedition. It opened with this line: "I hope you're healthy. That might seem like an odd greeting but if you're sick, you'll know what I mean." The last ten or so days, I've known what he meant...again. I don't have anything seriously wrong but I've had a nasty, persistent and constantly morphing cold for way too long now. I won't go into the specific symptoms (you're welcome) but suffice to say this particular ailment has manifested every possible cold related physiological process.
There are a few possible categories of human response to sickness of all kinds. Among these are denial, fear, being stoic and the ever popular whining. There are more of course and as is the case with most of us most of the time, we don't like to limit ourselves to just one. Particularly when we don't feel well for more than say, fifteen minutes.
I haven't really had fear with this cold. However, I have had frustration, impatience, definitely denial and yea verily even a little bit of whining.
Thanks to the current biological onslaught, I find myself now settling into something I first learned around the time that I received that post card from the Salton Sea. It's taken longer this time than it usually does. It's a lesson I always manage to completely forget when I'm healthy and feeling good. Sometimes when denial works it's evil magic and I get well sooner rather than later, I miss it all together. This of course means that I miss the hidden (sometimes well hidden) value in sickness, discomfort and even misery.
One of the flavors of whining you hear when people have colds is to the effect that the brain of the afflicted is not firing on all cylinders. Even the memory of what cylinders actually are may seem a bit distant. Taken together with the more obvious difficulties, the whole sick package becomes a wonderful invitation to take a seat and be quiet for awhile. Quiet is a step on the way to the lesson.
The lesson I've learned from sickness and have forgotten too many times over the years is this, wait. While that seems simple here's what our reaction virtually always is to being made to wait: "And while I'm waiting, I can read a book, watch movies, feel sorry for myself..." and on and on. Here's another way to communicate what wait means in this context: "Shhhhhhh. Just be still."
Illness is an invitation to acknowledge our limitations and weaknesses. Weakness is an invitation to faith. Faith is an invitation to everything good about being created human. And the most important good thing about being created human is love.
Here I sit typing with an upper respiratory tract chocked full of that which shall not be named. I'm not waiting right now exactly but I have remembered the intrinsic beauty of the place which I've fallen into. For example, there's music playing and for the first time in years, I can hear each note the band strikes on their instruments, even the drummer's feet. At the same time, I can hear them all playing together. I'm not there yet but after ten days of this garbage (note how hard the whining dies) I'm finally becoming still.
God's here. He's no more here of course than he is when I'm busy working, rushing and worrying. However, as I fall into forced stillness born out of weakness, I can see a little more clearly through the veil. I can hear his whispering without leaning quite so far forward. I'm a little closer and he's beautiful.
After a few decades I can say, "Yes Dave. I do know what you mean."
He sent me a post card while on his expedition. It opened with this line: "I hope you're healthy. That might seem like an odd greeting but if you're sick, you'll know what I mean." The last ten or so days, I've known what he meant...again. I don't have anything seriously wrong but I've had a nasty, persistent and constantly morphing cold for way too long now. I won't go into the specific symptoms (you're welcome) but suffice to say this particular ailment has manifested every possible cold related physiological process.
There are a few possible categories of human response to sickness of all kinds. Among these are denial, fear, being stoic and the ever popular whining. There are more of course and as is the case with most of us most of the time, we don't like to limit ourselves to just one. Particularly when we don't feel well for more than say, fifteen minutes.
I haven't really had fear with this cold. However, I have had frustration, impatience, definitely denial and yea verily even a little bit of whining.
Thanks to the current biological onslaught, I find myself now settling into something I first learned around the time that I received that post card from the Salton Sea. It's taken longer this time than it usually does. It's a lesson I always manage to completely forget when I'm healthy and feeling good. Sometimes when denial works it's evil magic and I get well sooner rather than later, I miss it all together. This of course means that I miss the hidden (sometimes well hidden) value in sickness, discomfort and even misery.
One of the flavors of whining you hear when people have colds is to the effect that the brain of the afflicted is not firing on all cylinders. Even the memory of what cylinders actually are may seem a bit distant. Taken together with the more obvious difficulties, the whole sick package becomes a wonderful invitation to take a seat and be quiet for awhile. Quiet is a step on the way to the lesson.
The lesson I've learned from sickness and have forgotten too many times over the years is this, wait. While that seems simple here's what our reaction virtually always is to being made to wait: "And while I'm waiting, I can read a book, watch movies, feel sorry for myself..." and on and on. Here's another way to communicate what wait means in this context: "Shhhhhhh. Just be still."
Illness is an invitation to acknowledge our limitations and weaknesses. Weakness is an invitation to faith. Faith is an invitation to everything good about being created human. And the most important good thing about being created human is love.
Here I sit typing with an upper respiratory tract chocked full of that which shall not be named. I'm not waiting right now exactly but I have remembered the intrinsic beauty of the place which I've fallen into. For example, there's music playing and for the first time in years, I can hear each note the band strikes on their instruments, even the drummer's feet. At the same time, I can hear them all playing together. I'm not there yet but after ten days of this garbage (note how hard the whining dies) I'm finally becoming still.
God's here. He's no more here of course than he is when I'm busy working, rushing and worrying. However, as I fall into forced stillness born out of weakness, I can see a little more clearly through the veil. I can hear his whispering without leaning quite so far forward. I'm a little closer and he's beautiful.
After a few decades I can say, "Yes Dave. I do know what you mean."
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Ancient Fire
It's easy to get confused about time. We run late, show up early and forget to set our clocks ahead or behind. I keep the clock in my truck running fast so I'm a little more likely to be places on time...or or maybe feel guiltier about being late.
I can't count the times when I've been running behind and thought, "I wasn't made for this." I've been wrong about a lot of things, but I'm right about that.
When I say "I wasn't made for this," I don't mean that I'm not made for schedules or that there's too much to do. My problem's a lot bigger. Time is broken and our idea of it is even more broken. I'm not made for broken time. Not a second of it.
The love of money might be the root of all evil but it's really time that commands our deepest lust. We want more time so that we can do what we want, feel relaxed, not have to rush, work to get more money so we can buy more time to do more of what we want with the time we "have." Having a lot of time also makes us feel safe, like we're going to live forever.
Conversely, we may want time to pass faster so we can put the unpleasant thing that's making time seem to crawl go away. We'd could do everything we wanted if we just had the time...to do what we want. Time's a great spinning pain that causes the hands on our clocks to bear an unpleasant resemblance to the blades in a blender spinning set on high.
A few years ago I was paying attention to the time as I barbequed outside after dark. Our family likes the meat done but not too done...gotta watch the time. Around that time of my life, I'd been studying some constellations and the stars that compose them. To pass the time until I needed to turn over the steak, I was looking at Orion. Orion is my favorite constellation. I miss him in the summer when he runs off and hides below the night horizon, hunting after something I can't see.
Orion has a great many stars that compose his form. I could try and show off and tell you how many stars make up that particular constellation. However, virtually any number I'd pick would be wrong. That's because at least one of the "stars" that typically define the constellation is actually a nebula, containing a lot of gas and likely hundreds of thousands of stars. There's a globular cluster or two in the general vicinity as well, so you could pop the count up into the millions (possibly hundreds of millions) and be a lot closer to being right than if you said eight or so. Orion is tricky that way; he isn't what he looks like at all...even if you're an ancient Greek making things up.
The light from Orion that arrives in the Northern hemisphere of earth every winter represents a wild variety of age. Some of the light is arriving a scant 240 years after the reaction that created it. The light from the close edge of the Great Nebula that defines part of Orion's sword is about 1500 years old.
Of course, there's light in both the summer and winter skies that's much older than anything from Orion. Every night sky is a bath in ancient fire that was created at virtually all possible moments between everlasting and everlasting. At night we can step outside, look up and see the most distant possible moments of history.
We were created for seeing such things, wondering over them and eventually discovering our place in a context that includes the edges of forever hiding in the night sky.
I'm writing this on Easter Sunday. A little less than 2000 years ago, about a 100 or so years before the oldest light you'll see tonight from Orion, just before he runs off and hides from summer, Jesus created a God-human super nova that fundamentally changed our realities forever. God invites us back to him with the vast wonder of all creation, including Orion and much more. This particularly includes the wonder of our own creation. Each of us is created and intended for timeless love and friendship with God and each other. Each of us is a complement to the beautiful and eternal whole.
Christ lives. He's not just in the night sky. He's not just for 2000 years ago and he's not just for a feeling we have right now. Because of the way he made us, we're not for any of that either. We were created as part of the ancient fire. We wandered off into darkness. Two thousand years ago, Christ left the fire to go and find us and give us a direction back. He made that sacrifice so we'd know love and not have to worry about whether we're early or late or if we have enough time left. He invites us to learn that the past and future through and with him is all a great, complete, beautiful now. Happy Easter.
I can't count the times when I've been running behind and thought, "I wasn't made for this." I've been wrong about a lot of things, but I'm right about that.
When I say "I wasn't made for this," I don't mean that I'm not made for schedules or that there's too much to do. My problem's a lot bigger. Time is broken and our idea of it is even more broken. I'm not made for broken time. Not a second of it.
The love of money might be the root of all evil but it's really time that commands our deepest lust. We want more time so that we can do what we want, feel relaxed, not have to rush, work to get more money so we can buy more time to do more of what we want with the time we "have." Having a lot of time also makes us feel safe, like we're going to live forever.
Conversely, we may want time to pass faster so we can put the unpleasant thing that's making time seem to crawl go away. We'd could do everything we wanted if we just had the time...to do what we want. Time's a great spinning pain that causes the hands on our clocks to bear an unpleasant resemblance to the blades in a blender spinning set on high.
A few years ago I was paying attention to the time as I barbequed outside after dark. Our family likes the meat done but not too done...gotta watch the time. Around that time of my life, I'd been studying some constellations and the stars that compose them. To pass the time until I needed to turn over the steak, I was looking at Orion. Orion is my favorite constellation. I miss him in the summer when he runs off and hides below the night horizon, hunting after something I can't see.
Orion has a great many stars that compose his form. I could try and show off and tell you how many stars make up that particular constellation. However, virtually any number I'd pick would be wrong. That's because at least one of the "stars" that typically define the constellation is actually a nebula, containing a lot of gas and likely hundreds of thousands of stars. There's a globular cluster or two in the general vicinity as well, so you could pop the count up into the millions (possibly hundreds of millions) and be a lot closer to being right than if you said eight or so. Orion is tricky that way; he isn't what he looks like at all...even if you're an ancient Greek making things up.
The light from Orion that arrives in the Northern hemisphere of earth every winter represents a wild variety of age. Some of the light is arriving a scant 240 years after the reaction that created it. The light from the close edge of the Great Nebula that defines part of Orion's sword is about 1500 years old.
Of course, there's light in both the summer and winter skies that's much older than anything from Orion. Every night sky is a bath in ancient fire that was created at virtually all possible moments between everlasting and everlasting. At night we can step outside, look up and see the most distant possible moments of history.
We were created for seeing such things, wondering over them and eventually discovering our place in a context that includes the edges of forever hiding in the night sky.
I'm writing this on Easter Sunday. A little less than 2000 years ago, about a 100 or so years before the oldest light you'll see tonight from Orion, just before he runs off and hides from summer, Jesus created a God-human super nova that fundamentally changed our realities forever. God invites us back to him with the vast wonder of all creation, including Orion and much more. This particularly includes the wonder of our own creation. Each of us is created and intended for timeless love and friendship with God and each other. Each of us is a complement to the beautiful and eternal whole.
Christ lives. He's not just in the night sky. He's not just for 2000 years ago and he's not just for a feeling we have right now. Because of the way he made us, we're not for any of that either. We were created as part of the ancient fire. We wandered off into darkness. Two thousand years ago, Christ left the fire to go and find us and give us a direction back. He made that sacrifice so we'd know love and not have to worry about whether we're early or late or if we have enough time left. He invites us to learn that the past and future through and with him is all a great, complete, beautiful now. Happy Easter.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Vanishing Point
There's a great phrase in the bible that's translated in the King James as "from everlasting to everlasting." The concept is as if you're standing in the middle of the desert, squinting off to the horizon trying to see where the line is between reality and mirage. The best you can make of reality while squinting into the shimmering heat is the "from" part of the phrase. The "to" part is turning around one hundred and eighty degrees and doing the same thing in the opposite direction.
Much of our life's energy is spent searching out some point on the horizon, just past the distance at which things can be easily seen. The range of possibilities associated with our relentless squinting and straining is infinite. We might be trying to anticipate something fun (e.g. "What am I going to get for Christmas?") or trying to adapt to a changing challenge, a threat or even a potentially horrible circumstance. All these exercises depend on our imagination for their existence.
The distant dancing shadows can be our biggest invitation to worry. It's an invitation we usually grab with both hands and hang on to like grim death. When someone is kind enough to point out that we're wrestling with shadows, we usually respond with a self justification that sounds like, "But they're my shadows." Somehow we imagine that because they're ours they're more real or at least more legitimate than everyone else's.
Of course, we give birth these shadows. We give them life, dress them up and sometimes even build our entire lives around them. Even though we work hard at ignoring, despising or at least managing them. we return to them every chance we get.
Shadow's lack normal perspective. As they grow closer due to the passing of time or our gravitating toward them, they grow in size out of proportion to everything else. They get big fast and as shadows do, they darken everything they touch.
Oddly though, once we pass them they shrink quickly or even vanish completely. In the end, the only purpose they've served is to distort the view that extends between everlasting and everlasting.
All shadows are cast by something; they never have a life of their own. In keeping with the theme of broken perspective, it is the universal characteristic of our invented shadows that they cast darkness out of all reasonable proportion to the object that creates them. Even when the originating object is what we might all agree to as being serious, our creation of the corresponding shadow creeps over everything, obscuring the original subject so much that it can barely be seen at all. This makes it all the harder to engage the issue itself as we're off flailing in the darkness, wrestling with nothing.
To oversimplify some, here's a simple layout of the course all lives follow: Birth, living, death, the thing that's next. Over arching the "birth, living, death" phases is the idea that the world is not perfect. In turn, we're asked during the "living" phase to respond to the present reality of imperfection with our power of choice. We can choose to rail against it, ignore it (still a choice), run away from it or accept it. While all these choices exist within the realm of the possible, accepting reality is the only option that makes sense. In the end, our choices are a necessary causal component of "the thing that's next." This is an area where it's important to be within the generous boundaries of right.
That brings the next question, what is reality? The clearest place to find the answer to this isn't in propositional logic. That's because human logic exists only in the narrative context of human life and society. It's shaded by everyone's respective shadows. My vote for a solid take on reality is the narrative found in the bible. I've written before about the book of Job. The book of Job is the best condensed expression of human state and of man's relationship to God I know of. Here's the short version of what God says there: "To understand reality, you must accept that I am who I say I am. You must accept that you are who I spoke you to be. Physical reality is the product of my creation and your broken choices."
That perspective is the yardstick by which all shadows should be measured. And in fact, shadows of proper proportion may be ignored completely because all we ever cared about was the object anyway.
I'll end this with a writer's confession. I find myself wanting to say more here, to address again the reflexive, "But you don't understand how tragic and scary my situation is." Any such reflex on my part is bound to fail. We must each find our own perspective and with God's help, force our shadows to submit. As we move between our vanishing points, we need, deeply need, to accept who and what God is, who we are and where we live. Everything else is distortion, darkness and shadow.
Much of our life's energy is spent searching out some point on the horizon, just past the distance at which things can be easily seen. The range of possibilities associated with our relentless squinting and straining is infinite. We might be trying to anticipate something fun (e.g. "What am I going to get for Christmas?") or trying to adapt to a changing challenge, a threat or even a potentially horrible circumstance. All these exercises depend on our imagination for their existence.
The distant dancing shadows can be our biggest invitation to worry. It's an invitation we usually grab with both hands and hang on to like grim death. When someone is kind enough to point out that we're wrestling with shadows, we usually respond with a self justification that sounds like, "But they're my shadows." Somehow we imagine that because they're ours they're more real or at least more legitimate than everyone else's.
Of course, we give birth these shadows. We give them life, dress them up and sometimes even build our entire lives around them. Even though we work hard at ignoring, despising or at least managing them. we return to them every chance we get.
Shadow's lack normal perspective. As they grow closer due to the passing of time or our gravitating toward them, they grow in size out of proportion to everything else. They get big fast and as shadows do, they darken everything they touch.
Oddly though, once we pass them they shrink quickly or even vanish completely. In the end, the only purpose they've served is to distort the view that extends between everlasting and everlasting.
All shadows are cast by something; they never have a life of their own. In keeping with the theme of broken perspective, it is the universal characteristic of our invented shadows that they cast darkness out of all reasonable proportion to the object that creates them. Even when the originating object is what we might all agree to as being serious, our creation of the corresponding shadow creeps over everything, obscuring the original subject so much that it can barely be seen at all. This makes it all the harder to engage the issue itself as we're off flailing in the darkness, wrestling with nothing.
To oversimplify some, here's a simple layout of the course all lives follow: Birth, living, death, the thing that's next. Over arching the "birth, living, death" phases is the idea that the world is not perfect. In turn, we're asked during the "living" phase to respond to the present reality of imperfection with our power of choice. We can choose to rail against it, ignore it (still a choice), run away from it or accept it. While all these choices exist within the realm of the possible, accepting reality is the only option that makes sense. In the end, our choices are a necessary causal component of "the thing that's next." This is an area where it's important to be within the generous boundaries of right.
That brings the next question, what is reality? The clearest place to find the answer to this isn't in propositional logic. That's because human logic exists only in the narrative context of human life and society. It's shaded by everyone's respective shadows. My vote for a solid take on reality is the narrative found in the bible. I've written before about the book of Job. The book of Job is the best condensed expression of human state and of man's relationship to God I know of. Here's the short version of what God says there: "To understand reality, you must accept that I am who I say I am. You must accept that you are who I spoke you to be. Physical reality is the product of my creation and your broken choices."
That perspective is the yardstick by which all shadows should be measured. And in fact, shadows of proper proportion may be ignored completely because all we ever cared about was the object anyway.
I'll end this with a writer's confession. I find myself wanting to say more here, to address again the reflexive, "But you don't understand how tragic and scary my situation is." Any such reflex on my part is bound to fail. We must each find our own perspective and with God's help, force our shadows to submit. As we move between our vanishing points, we need, deeply need, to accept who and what God is, who we are and where we live. Everything else is distortion, darkness and shadow.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
How Much More
It's a wonder to me that any of us survive to adulthood. When you consider the entire catalog of accidents, coincidences and sibling conspiracies, it starts to seem like Shakespeare understated the case by quite a bit in Hamlet's "To Be, or Not To Be" speech when he summed it as, "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." Really, only a thousand?
The only things I remember from my own childhood had to do with me provoking a cat when I was 3 or so and driving my tricycle into a rose bush. Well, now that I'm writing this, I remember crashing my bike and smashing my mouth on a street curb; my front tooth is still broken off at the bottom...and oh yeah, I had a couple of my baby teeth knocked out...and then there was the time... You know, I think I'll stop now.
I pinned all of our children to the emergency room table at one time or another. Our oldest nearly died on a mountain in Wyoming. He was run over by a log that was being dragged behind a truck . For reasons to do with remoteness and terrain, it took us a couple hours to get him to the nearest doctor. Turned out that in addition to the couple of broken bones we were pretty sure he had, he also had a major laceration. It had severed an artery near the back of his knee. That particular artery did not bleed until the doctor touched it with a pair of forceps. At that point, in the doctor's office something like two and a half hours after the accident, it began pulsing blood. I know that happened because I was there and saw the artery clearly as well as the blood. It is an image that remains very clear in my mind.
Our son begged me to just please not let the doctor give him a shot and stitch him. The doctor offered to have one of his staff pin our son down so that he would not thrash while he was repairing the wound. I declined. I was not going to abandon the little one to his wounds and his fear. I laid across him gently to hold him still, and told him quietly that he would be alright over and over. It was very difficult not to cry at that point but to do so would not have been helpful.
When we finally got back to the cabin that night, my mother-in-law met me with a question. She said, "Would you like ice in it?" She was referring to the quite stiff drink she was going to pour me. This was the moment in our relationship when she liberated herself from all mother-in-law jokes ever after as far as I was concerned.
As traumatic as that day was, it wasn't the only such time. There was another morning that probably served as training for the event above, when our other son managed to pull a chair over to a counter, climb up on the counter, find the children's vitamins (with iron) hidden at the back, open the child proof lid and consume the entire bottle minus 2 pills. We presume he left the two pills there to throw us off track. He probably wasn't aware of all the purply goo surrounding his mouth.
After some quality phone time with poison control, we hurried off to the emergency room. There it was determined that stomach pumping was required. That was the first time I was offered a ticket out of the emergency room. The nurse who was to perform the operation was visibly shaken at the prospect of having to perform the rather traumatic procedure on a 2.5 year old and assumed that I'd be even worse off. I assured him that I would in fact be much worse off. However, that would come later after we were done with what needed doing.
I also laid gently across this boy, pinning his arms as gently as circumstances allowed to keep him from hurting himself still more. I carried him out after the procedure and held him the rest of that morning while he slept. I remember very much not wanting to put him down.
Our daughter was not quite as rambunctious as her brothers. Of course, she didn't have to be because she had them. One of them, who shall remain unidentified here, introduced her to the concept of broken bones. Another time though and all on her own, she managed to fall and open a cut nearly all the way down to her cheek bone, just below her eye.
By this time, we pretty much had our own express line at the local medical clinic, so we were taken in immediately. It was determined that several stitches about 3/8 of an inch under her eye would be required. I pinned this little bug as well. The doctor knew all our family and he wasn't just shaken, he was actually shaking a bit himself. I trusted him though as he'd stitched me up a bit a couple times...Of course one time, by the time he got around to the stitches the anesthetic had worn off. He joked that he could give me another shot but that he'd have to charge me double. I actually remember thinking that was pretty funny at the time.
This time though, he wasn't joking. There were a couple slight complications with the procedure due to the proximity to the girl's eye. That further upset the doctor and he steadied himself a couple times during the work. (He was a good doc, heading a short list I have of lifetime favorites.) Historically, our daughter has passed out at the sight of blood and/or mayhem. This time however, she remained fully conscious and screamed at the top of her lungs for the entire event. While we did eventually finish, I think the girl quit crying about 3 days later.
As a result of the slight scar (practically speaking, invisible now), we called her Franken Baby for quite awhile.
I started down this path after hearing someone quote one of Jesus' multiple statements of the form "...how much more does your heavenly father..." You likely have a response to that phrase that calls up a particular verse and context. If that's the case, consider looking again. Jesus actually uses it multiple times, applying it to different contexts. It seems that God and his love are much too big to be limited by a single "how much more."
Of course, the broken reality of where we live invites us to believe that God's waiting outside with our family and friends, or maybe even that he didn't come at all. On really really bad days, we might even think that he doesn't even know where we are.
The truth is though that he always knows, always cares and always loves. And that makes the fact that he's always present the most important thing in our lives.
He doesn't get us to the emergency room and then leave us. He takes us there, stays with us, comforts us. He even holds us gently in place while difficult and perhaps painful things necessary to cure and complete us are performed. All the time, his voice whispers, "It's okay child. It's going to fine." He knows we're already saved but he also knows that we don't quite believe it. That's okay too though because he's there to remind us and reassure us. "It's okay child. It really is going to be fine."
Of course, we cry out "Please daddy, don't let him give me a shot. Please dad, I'm just asking for this one thing." But still he won't let go. He won't leave us to our broken wounds or let us be crippled because of our fear. And in the end, when he carries us out and everyone goes out to eat to celebrate it all being over, he holds us all through the meal so we never forget how real he his and how much he loves us.
The only things I remember from my own childhood had to do with me provoking a cat when I was 3 or so and driving my tricycle into a rose bush. Well, now that I'm writing this, I remember crashing my bike and smashing my mouth on a street curb; my front tooth is still broken off at the bottom...and oh yeah, I had a couple of my baby teeth knocked out...and then there was the time... You know, I think I'll stop now.
I pinned all of our children to the emergency room table at one time or another. Our oldest nearly died on a mountain in Wyoming. He was run over by a log that was being dragged behind a truck . For reasons to do with remoteness and terrain, it took us a couple hours to get him to the nearest doctor. Turned out that in addition to the couple of broken bones we were pretty sure he had, he also had a major laceration. It had severed an artery near the back of his knee. That particular artery did not bleed until the doctor touched it with a pair of forceps. At that point, in the doctor's office something like two and a half hours after the accident, it began pulsing blood. I know that happened because I was there and saw the artery clearly as well as the blood. It is an image that remains very clear in my mind.
Our son begged me to just please not let the doctor give him a shot and stitch him. The doctor offered to have one of his staff pin our son down so that he would not thrash while he was repairing the wound. I declined. I was not going to abandon the little one to his wounds and his fear. I laid across him gently to hold him still, and told him quietly that he would be alright over and over. It was very difficult not to cry at that point but to do so would not have been helpful.
When we finally got back to the cabin that night, my mother-in-law met me with a question. She said, "Would you like ice in it?" She was referring to the quite stiff drink she was going to pour me. This was the moment in our relationship when she liberated herself from all mother-in-law jokes ever after as far as I was concerned.
As traumatic as that day was, it wasn't the only such time. There was another morning that probably served as training for the event above, when our other son managed to pull a chair over to a counter, climb up on the counter, find the children's vitamins (with iron) hidden at the back, open the child proof lid and consume the entire bottle minus 2 pills. We presume he left the two pills there to throw us off track. He probably wasn't aware of all the purply goo surrounding his mouth.
After some quality phone time with poison control, we hurried off to the emergency room. There it was determined that stomach pumping was required. That was the first time I was offered a ticket out of the emergency room. The nurse who was to perform the operation was visibly shaken at the prospect of having to perform the rather traumatic procedure on a 2.5 year old and assumed that I'd be even worse off. I assured him that I would in fact be much worse off. However, that would come later after we were done with what needed doing.
I also laid gently across this boy, pinning his arms as gently as circumstances allowed to keep him from hurting himself still more. I carried him out after the procedure and held him the rest of that morning while he slept. I remember very much not wanting to put him down.
Our daughter was not quite as rambunctious as her brothers. Of course, she didn't have to be because she had them. One of them, who shall remain unidentified here, introduced her to the concept of broken bones. Another time though and all on her own, she managed to fall and open a cut nearly all the way down to her cheek bone, just below her eye.
By this time, we pretty much had our own express line at the local medical clinic, so we were taken in immediately. It was determined that several stitches about 3/8 of an inch under her eye would be required. I pinned this little bug as well. The doctor knew all our family and he wasn't just shaken, he was actually shaking a bit himself. I trusted him though as he'd stitched me up a bit a couple times...Of course one time, by the time he got around to the stitches the anesthetic had worn off. He joked that he could give me another shot but that he'd have to charge me double. I actually remember thinking that was pretty funny at the time.
This time though, he wasn't joking. There were a couple slight complications with the procedure due to the proximity to the girl's eye. That further upset the doctor and he steadied himself a couple times during the work. (He was a good doc, heading a short list I have of lifetime favorites.) Historically, our daughter has passed out at the sight of blood and/or mayhem. This time however, she remained fully conscious and screamed at the top of her lungs for the entire event. While we did eventually finish, I think the girl quit crying about 3 days later.
As a result of the slight scar (practically speaking, invisible now), we called her Franken Baby for quite awhile.
I started down this path after hearing someone quote one of Jesus' multiple statements of the form "...how much more does your heavenly father..." You likely have a response to that phrase that calls up a particular verse and context. If that's the case, consider looking again. Jesus actually uses it multiple times, applying it to different contexts. It seems that God and his love are much too big to be limited by a single "how much more."
Of course, the broken reality of where we live invites us to believe that God's waiting outside with our family and friends, or maybe even that he didn't come at all. On really really bad days, we might even think that he doesn't even know where we are.
The truth is though that he always knows, always cares and always loves. And that makes the fact that he's always present the most important thing in our lives.
He doesn't get us to the emergency room and then leave us. He takes us there, stays with us, comforts us. He even holds us gently in place while difficult and perhaps painful things necessary to cure and complete us are performed. All the time, his voice whispers, "It's okay child. It's going to fine." He knows we're already saved but he also knows that we don't quite believe it. That's okay too though because he's there to remind us and reassure us. "It's okay child. It really is going to be fine."
Of course, we cry out "Please daddy, don't let him give me a shot. Please dad, I'm just asking for this one thing." But still he won't let go. He won't leave us to our broken wounds or let us be crippled because of our fear. And in the end, when he carries us out and everyone goes out to eat to celebrate it all being over, he holds us all through the meal so we never forget how real he his and how much he loves us.
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