Posts Tagged: heaven and hell

“Balancing What I Need to Do and What I Enjoy Doing”

On September 23, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Have you ever said or written something, and then wondered what you meant by that?  I had that experience just now.  I was writing my daily e mail report and affirmation to send them to my sponsor.  Here is my affirmation for today:

“Today, by God’s grace, I am balancing doing what I enjoy doing and what I need to do.  When I do this by God’s grace, I am discovering that what I enjoy doing and what I need to do are the same thing.”

There are things I need to do—lots of them.  They range from cleaning the bathroom, to taking care of the dog, to preparing for a class I’m teaching tomorrow at the university, to helping my wife lead our community group this evening.

And there are things I would enjoy doing.  They range from taking a ride on the Little Miami Bike Trail to taking a nap this afternoon.  (I will try not to do both of these things at the same time.)

In this context, it was the second sentence of my affirmation that struck me, and that I am trying to understand.  Can those two things—what I need to do and what I enjoy doing—really be one?

I think that the short answer is, Yes!  However, as with most short answers, this “Yes!” needs to be unpacked.

Can necessity and enjoyment be one?  Yes, but the word “can” is crucial here.  The unity of “need-to” and “enjoyment of” is possible, but not inevitable.  We all know people (and some of us have been those people) who never enjoy anything—even things they enjoy!  If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, it is.  But we’ve probably all experienced that, either with other people or with our own selves.

In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has one of his characters (who is in hell) say, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”  I do believe that there is hell.  I don’t know if people are that honest and aware in hell.  But sometimes, I do suspect that some of us occasionally visit the suburbs of hell.  Any time when we don’t do what we need to do or what we enjoy doing, we are probably flirting with hell.  And rest assured that hell will always flirt back.

And perhaps, on the other side of the equation, one aspect of Heaven is that those who are there have discovered a way to make necessity and enjoyment one.  Perhaps the last stanza of Robert Frost’s poem, “Two Tamps in Mud Time” strikes the right balance, which is Unity.  Frost pictures a man (himself?) splitting wood when two unemployed lumberjacks walk by.  One of them stands to watch, and the man splitting wood knows only too well that the lumberjack is silently asking for work to make some money.  And the necessity of one man trumps the enjoyment of another man.

But Frost ends with the following observation:

“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”

So, today, by God’s grace—and only by God’s grace can I do this—I will balance and unify what I need to do and what I enjoy doing.  Writing this blog post is a first step.

 

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I am . . .

On October 31, 2016 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.

“Monk!”

He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience.

“Teach me about heaven and hell!”

The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,

“Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb. You’re dirty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”

The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.

Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly,

“That’s hell.”

The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell! He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.

The monk said softly,

“And that’s heaven.”

Excerpted from Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values.”

(The preceding quote is from the site http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-little-monk-and-the-samurai-a-zen-parable/5496, accessed 10-31-2016.)

Of course, the truth is that we are not what we do or feel at any given moment.  And the truth is that we are what we do or feel at any given moment.  We are more than what we do, but we are not less than what we do.

I have been trying a trick suggested by some Buddhist writers.  When I am feeling gluttonous, for example, I say, “I am gluttony.”  For some reason, this seems to help me not be quite so gluttonous.  I’m not sure why.

Of course, I follow up such statements as, “I am gluttony,” with the statement, “I am the awareness of gluttony.”

This approach sometimes has some strangely amusing effects.  For example, I was inclined to engage in sexual fantasy, so I promptly said, “I am sexual fantasy.”  I then said, “I am awareness of sexual fantasy.”

Then, I felt pride that I had arrested my sexual fantasy in mid-lust, so I said, “I am pride.”

That felt rather foolish, so I said, “I am awareness of pride.”

At this point, I laughed, and forgot to say, “I am laughter.”

In any case, this simple trick seems to be helping me not to yield to evil as much as I usually do.

As is often the case, there is an even deeper truth, I believe: I am ultimately not primarily what I think, or feel, or do.  Rather, I am what and who God thinks I am.  And I believe that God thinks of me as his deeply flawed, but also deeply loved and forgiven child of his.  As helpful as I find this Buddhist koan, I find the doctrine of God’s love and Christ’s sacrificial death even more helpful.

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