“A Day of Small Kindnesses”
There are two interesting, seemingly unrelated emphases today. First, there is my personal emphasis. Today, my 12-step affirmation is, “Today, by God’s grace, I am being kind to my own self, and kind to all my other selves as well.” So, I prayed that God would help me to live out this affirmation—“to make it real,” as a good friend likes to say.
Second, today is National Wear Red Day. Did you know that? I didn’t, and I found out rather accidentally. Or was it fortuitous?
I went out for a long walk/run with my little dog. We left before sunrise. We walked (and ran a little) down to the bay, and then along the bay. I was soon seeing signs along the promenade, signs with brief facts and warnings about cardiac risks for women. I thought of my own lovely lady, and wondered how her heart was doing.
Remembering my affirmation about kindness, I decided to look for people to encourage all day long. I encountered a couple of young ladies wearing red shirts and carrying signs. “Thanks for what you are doing,” I said. “It makes me think about my lovely wife of forty-six years. I want her with me for a lot longer.”
They thanked me, seemingly touched by my words. “And you’re wearing a red shirt!” one of them said.
“Strictly accidental,” I confessed. “I wasn’t aware of the emphasis today.” I walked on.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about National Wear Red Day:
“It occurs in America on the first Friday in February each year, where people wear red.
The Heart Truth—is a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Designed to warn women of their #1 health threat, The Heart Truth created and introduced the Red Dress as the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness in 2002 to deliver an urgent wakeup call to American women.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Wear_Red_Day, accessed 02-07-2020).
When I turned around to head back toward home, I was starting to cross the street. Traffic was heavy and the walk light was a long time coming on. A bevy of red-shirted ladies was waiting to cross the street from the other side. They were carrying many more signs. A gust of wind blew one of the signs out of a young lady’s hands, and onto and across the street. The now sign-less young lady was heard to say, “Oh no!”
The sign flew across the road and sidewalk, lodging against the concrete railing above the bay. Another gust, and it would be in the bay. I ran back and retrieved it before it could go aquatic, and made it back (just in time) to cross the street. I was loudly cheered and thanked by the ladies, way out of proportion to what my small act was worth. (And no, if another wind gust had taken the sign, I would not have jumped into the bay after it.)
A friend of mine—the same one who likes to “make it real”—gave me another wonderful saying today: “It’s the small things where all the change happens.” That is so.
Thanking someone for doing something worthwhile is such a small kindness. So is rescuing a sign from blowing into the bay. But we all need to begin somewhere. I certainly have to start small.
“No Boundaries to This Promised Land!”
“You are my promised land.” (Zach Williams, “Let the Redeemed of the LORD Say So.”)
I was reading one of the most boring sections of the Bible this past Sunday morning before church. When I went to worship at Hyde Park United Methodist Church, the section of the book of Joshua that records the dividing up of the land that God had promised to Israel suddenly became a lot more interesting.
The praise band was leading us in the song “Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So.” I had heard the song several times on K-Love Radio, but had not paid much attention to the words. May God have mercy on my inattentive soul!
“You are my promised land,” the singers sang.
And I immediately thought of Joshua and the dividing of the land. Boundary lines in the promised land were all over the place. But God is infinite—or so the theologians say. And if God has no limits, then there are no boundary lines in God. And if God is our Promised Land? We have no limits either in exploring this promised land.
I have not yet watched the final show of “The Good Place.” However, I’ve read some analyses of the last show, and if I’m understanding things correctly, the show turns on the fact that Heaven is hellaciously boring. That probably is what a lot of people think. Mark Twain has Huck Finn pretty much say that in one of his books.
However, if God is infinite, if God has no boundaries, we can explore God for eternity, and never reach the boring border. There is no border, and no border lines. No borders; no boring!
“Thankful for Regrets”
I have decided to be thankful for regrets. This probably demands some explanation.
I have lots of deep regrets. I regret the ways in which I’ve treated people in the past. I regret things I’ve done. I regret things I have not done. I regret missed opportunities. Sometimes, I regret me.
But my sweetheart and I had a very thought-provoking conversation the other day. I was saying—not for the first time—how much I was weighed down with regrets. She said something that was like a beautiful sunrise after many grey days. “Maybe the regrets are part of your recovery.”
She pointed out that perhaps I needed these regrets to keep me from repeating the mistakes of the past. “You know,” she added, “it’s not necessarily a good thing to feel no regret for the wrongs you’ve done. You wouldn’t want to be a person who has no conscience, would you?”
Now, admittedly, a lot depends upon what I do with my regrets. Do I allow them to dominate me and drive me to despair? That would obviously be a bad use of regrets. However, the bad use of anything, even regret, does not mean that the thing itself is bad.
A good question to ask is this: Are my regrets riding me, or am I riding them?
The story is told of a man who had never ridden a horse. A friend was trying to teach him to ride. His friend saddled his normally very docile horse, but the horse’s owner failed to cinch up the girth strap properly. The horse had held its breath, so the saddle was loose when the man got on it. The saddle slipped sideways, and the normally docile horse became a bucking bronco. (Lest you think this terribly far-fetched, I had a very similar experience with a Shetland pony when I was in the seventh grade.)
The novice rider didn’t know what to do, so he tried to hang on for dear life. But trying to hang on and get back on a horse’s back when the saddle has slipped would not be an easy task for even an experienced rider.
The last straw came when the bucking horse got its hoof stuck in the stirrup. Just before he hit the ground, the horseman was heard to yell, “If you’re gettin’ on, I’m getting’ off!”
If regrets are riding you, let go. But if you are riding your regrets, ride on, sister or brother! Ride on, and thank God for your horse. Just make sure that your saddle is cinched up good and tight.
“Jesus’ Peace: The Gift that Keeps on Giving”
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, https://accordance.bible/link/read/ESVS#John_14:27)
As Jesus faced his arrest later that same night (and crucifixion the next morning), he is recorded as offering peace to his followers. If this is even close to being correct, it is one of the most astonishing offers ever.
And the verbs in the Greek of John’s Gospel (the original language), are all in the present tense. The Greek present tense does not usually mean “right now.” Rather, the Greek present tense often suggests ongoing or continual action. In other words, Jesus is continually giving his peace to his followers. And therefore, Jesus-followers are not to be continually troubled and afraid.
On the other hand, I am often troubled and afraid. Perhaps Jesus was lying.
No, I doubt that. I think that the problem is that I am not following him very closely.
But I am somewhat comforted by the fact that Jesus had to tell his original followers not to allow their hearts to be trouble and afraid. If Jesus had to say that to them, maybe it was because they were, in fact, troubled and afraid.
When I was little, I was really little. I was one of the shortest kids in my class. Only Terry Crawford was slightly shorter than me. We were the front-row-corner kids in all our class pictures. Also, I grew up in the country, and had almost no kids my own age to play with, so being around other kids my own age was intimidating, to say the least. To say the most, it was terrifying. When kids find out that you are easily intimidated, they tend to become even more intimidating. Those who believe that young children are innocent are seriously out of touch with reality.
But when I was with my dad, I was not intimidated by anyone or anything. My dad worked hard with his arms, and it showed. He looked like the anvil at which I often watched him work. Furthermore, he was a golden gloves boxer with a wicked left hook. I could relax when I was close to my dad.
Maybe I should remember that Jesus has a wicked left hook.
“Intention Deficit Disorder”
” In the second place, many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible. But when a thing has to be attempted, one must never think about possibility or impossibility. Faced with an optional question in an examination paper, one considers whether one can do it or not: faced with a compulsory question, one must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. Not only in examinations but in war, in mountain climbing, in learning to skate, or swim, or ride a bicycle, even in fastening a stiff collar with cold fingers, people quite often do what seemed impossible before they did it. It is wonderful what you can do when you have to.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. Lewis is especially discussing the determination to live a sexually pure life, but his words may be applied to many other human endeavors as well.)
I have been diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder. I wonder if I also have Intention Deficit Disorder.
You’ve never heard of Intention Deficit Disorder, you say? Me too neither.
I am reading a very old book by William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. He says many good, helpful things. I suspect that the book could be boiled down to one succinct statement: Intend to honor God in all areas of your life, and you will.
He makes an important point. Intention does matter. What we truly, deeply, consistently intend to do, we most likely will do.
On the other hand, there is a difference between intention, and I-was-aiming-to-ism. There is an expression which is especially common in the hills where I grew up: “I was aimin’ to.”
“I was aimin’ to do this,” and “I was aimin’ to do that,” and so on. The expression is generally followed by something that we did not, in fact, do. Years ago, a friend of mine got tired of her husband saying that he had aimed to do something. She said, “When are you going to pull the trigger?!” They are divorced now. Apparently, he never pulled the trigger.
Have I pulled the trigger when it comes to loving and serving God? The question answers itself. No, I take William Law’s point about the great importance of intention, but I don’t do anything with Law’s point. Who will save me from this deficit of intentionality?!?
A Catholic friend of mine said to me, many years ago, “Sometimes I think you Protestants make too much of intentionality. There are times when you have to simply do things. And they work because you do them.”
Yes! In my twelve-step meetings, we always conclude with the words, “Keep coming back. It works if you work it, and give a lot of love.” True that!
So, how do I do something about my tendency to intend, coupled with my tendency to do nothing? This morning before Vigils, as I was thinking about what Law wrote, and about my Intention Deficit Disorder, I was having half-a-cup of coffee in the dining room. I noticed a verse of Scripture on the table in front of me. It was 1 John 4:10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
The following verses go on to speak of our need to love one another, and that is very important. But for the moment, I’m going to cling to verse 10. The fact is that I don’t always (often?) have a pure intention to love and serve God. But love is, first and foremost, about God’s love for me and for us. It is not about my love or our love first. We can only risk loving (and love is a risk), when we know that we are already loved. Love was God’s intention. And God has pulled the trigger.
“God’s Got This”
One of the nice things about this retreat has been finding a notebook from other retreatants in the lap drawer of the desk. It was good to read what other pilgrims have written.
So, I decided to add my own words. Here they are, even though you are not in room 201 at Gethsemani. What is true in room 201 is also true wherever you are right now.
“So, you have come to Gethsemani seeking God, seeking direction. Me too.
It is not in finding God that we find Him. Rather, it is in the seeking itself. Those who seek are already blessed (Psalm 119:2).
And of course, God is seeking you and me, isn’t He? The incarnation and the cross both say that pretty clearly.
My frantic seeking is, however, not always helpful. Focusing on the God who is seeking me involves relaxing into God’s love, grace, and my true identity in Christ.
So relax! God’s got this—no matter what your “this” is!”
“Less Talk, More Awareness”
I am on retreat at Gethsemani Abbey. Gethsemani is a Trappist monastery. The monks observe, to the best of their ability, a vow of silence. Retreatants are encouraged to do the same.
I don’t think that I am fully aware of how much I talk until I try to be silent for a while. In fact, a more general awareness is the fruit of silence.
Yesterday, while eating lunch, I was fascinated watching the birds at outside the windows of the dining hall. The monks had several bird feeders set up outside. There were probably at least ten different species taking turns at the feeders. One particularly plump and intensely red male cardinal caught my eye. I had never seen such a bright red on a cardinal before. Or, was it just that I had never seen what was in front of me all along?
Words can be an expression of reality. Words can also be an insulator against reality. Perhaps if I practiced more silence, I would reap a better harvest of awareness.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
“Am I Growing with Age, or Just Aging?”
We are all growing in age, but are we growing with age? That is the question for today.
Consider, for example, the words that conclude the account of the boy Jesus in the temple. Luke sums up over half of Jesus’ life in one verse at the end of Luke, chapter 2.
“Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”
(Luke 2:41–52 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
https://accordance.bible/link/read/ESVS#Ex._12:48, bolding mine).
My “3-Minute Retreat” from Loyola Press reading for this morning was based on parts of this passage from Luke’s Gospel. The retreat master asked a very pertinent question: “In what ways am I being called to grow in wisdom, age, and grace?”
And based on this reading (and the Scripture from Luke upon which it was based), I asked myself an equally pertinent question: Am I growing with age, or am I just aging? Am I still growing with age, or just growing older?
Of course, Luke wrote these words about Jesus when Jesus was just a boy. We tend to think of boys and girls as growing in stature and weight. Think of the statement, “Well of course he eats a lot! He’s a growing boy!”
But what about growing in age? We recognize that, in a sense, this happens automatically. Of course, we are growing older! But that is not the same as growing with age. While growth has an upper limit when it comes to height (but not, unfortunately, when it comes to weight), and while there is an upper limit to the years we get to live, there is no limit to growing with age.
However, there needs to be some intentionality in our growing. Growth in age happens no matter what we do or don’t do. Growth with age is kind of up to us.
A good question for me to ask myself today and every day is this: What will I do today to grow with age?
“An Excessively Orderly Universe? God Can’t Win!”
I heard a snippet of “The TED Radio Hour” on Saturday, January 18, 2020. It’s a good show that Guy Raz hosts. However, sometimes it makes my really angry.
I just caught a little of the show on my way to work, so maybe my irritation is unfair, but here goes anyway. Consider this “venting,” and humor me.
A scientist (a physicist, I think) was being interviewed by Guy Raz, and bits of his TED talk were being aired. The guest was speaking of how orderly the universe is, and the host asked the scientist—with appropriate interviewerly tentativeness—if this order might suggest that there was some intelligent designer behind this order.
The scientist acknowledged that people had made precisely this suggestion. It was called “the teleological argument for the existence of God.” The teleological argument suggests that all this order proves that there was a God who had brought about the order.
However, then the scientist made a statement that was one of the greatest logical blunders that I’ve ever heard anyone make. He stated that there was a lot more order than was necessary. Therefore, the argument for the existence of God was probably not so convincing after all.
What!??? The universe is too orderly to suggest that there was a creator God!!! You’ve got to be kidding me!
Of course, there are many who note the chaos in the universe, on this planet, in their families, and in themselves, and take that to be evidence that there is no God. I get that. Sometimes, that is how I feel as well. But to believe that the universe is more orderly than is necessary, and to think that this suggests that there must be some better explanation for the order than the God-explanation . . . , well, that I just don’t get.
There is something terribly wrong when we take the abundance of order as being a sign that God is not involved in the order. The Bible speaks of a God of abundance. When I’m paying sufficient attention, my own life speaks of the same.
Apparently, God just can’t win.
DTEB, “The Rider or the Horse?”
“Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.”
(Psalm 32:9 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,
I’ve never been much of a horseman—except in my mind. In my early horse-riding days, the horse would decide to go one direction, and I would go the other. It was a mutual decision to part company, I suspect.
However, in my affirmation this morning, I used an equestrian metaphor. Here is my affirmation:
“Today, by God’s grace, I am allowing God to have free rein in my life. God knows what I need to do and be far better than I know.”
Before I sent this affirmation to my sponsors, I decided to make sure that I was using the term correctly. Is it free “rein” or free “reign”, for one thing”
It is often spelled free “reign”, but this is incorrect. It is not a regal expression. It is indeed an equestrian expression.
So far, so good. I haven’t fallen off the semantic horse yet!
But one of my sponsors sent me a reply that caused me to dig a bit deeper. He wrote, “A horse is a very graceful and trustworthy animal. A horse will follow its path home.”
My reply to his email was, “A good horse will. I am slowly becoming a good horse.”
However, the more I’ve thought about it, the more inappropriate my affirmation has become. The horse does not “give free rein” to the rider. No! The rider may (or may not) “give free rein” to the horse. So, in the strictest sense of the expression, “to allow God to have free rein in my life” makes me the rider and God the horse. I’m not so sure that is a good analogy for my relationship with God.
Psalm 32:9 states that God does not want us to be a like a horse that requires a bit and a bridle. Apparently, God wants to be able to direct us without such tack.
Now the very fact that the psalmist—and God—speak to us in this manner suggests that we do often need a bit and bridle. Any time that my wife says to me, “Don’t be like that!” it is because I am, in fact, being “like that.”
But God does not want it to be so. God wants us to be so well trained that God can give us free rein.
Oh God, please love me into the kind of human horse you want me to be!
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