Fear and Loafing

How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing? Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

My wife and I flew down to Texas for a wedding a week or so ago. I’d been dreading the trip as I do not like to fly. It isn’t the flying that bothers me, but the pre-boarding ritual one needs to go through for the privilege of sitting in an aluminum tube for several hours, scrunched between two other souls on seats that make the small end of a baseball bat look spacious.

I know modern air travel is far faster and more comfortable than riding an ox-pulled wagon several hundreds or thousands of miles across a true wilderness on trails laughingly called roads. I know that, and yet it isn’t the journey that bothers me. It’s the “thinking” about the journey that sets my teeth on edge.

So you can imagine my amazement when we arrived at the airport and discovered, to our great delight, that having “checked in” online the previous evening, we didn’t need to deal with the kiosk at the entrance. We went directly to the baggage counter with our two over-stuffed suitcases and the friendly clerks took them, weighed them, tagged them, and set them on the conveyer, which took them through a portal toward that twilight zone bags go to play in.

For some reason, our boarding passes noted that we were trustworthy souls entitled to keep our shoes on while we made our way through the security choke point (which wasn’t choked at all), and before you knew it, we were at our gate with a ton of time to spare.

I was amazed (and the return trip was just as quick and orderly as the outbound experience had been). The reality matched up with neither my prior experiences nor the nightmare my imagination had conjured up. The process was – dare I say it – a delight!

One would think that I would know by now that fear and anxiety will always catapult my imagination over the parapet of common sense, but I have seldom let common sense get a toe-hold on the Normandy Beaches of my life. But I have also learned, once past the points of my greatest fears, to let go and move on (which I did), which allowed me to enjoy the rest of the trip.

We got to spend time with the lucky couple and many of the members of their extended families. We got to see parts of the world we’ve never seen before (the WW-II Carrier, Lexington; the Texas State Aquarium; the Alamo; and San Antonio’s famous River Walk). I also managed to discover, to my dismay, that I still have no natural sense of direction south of the Mason Dixon line. Thank goodness for the Map App on my phone. Without it, I would have truly been lost.

There were parts of Texas where even the app I was using couldn’t find a way home. She had me driving in circles on the same roads until I gave up and, looking through my windshield, followed the road signs. What a concept!

Aside from that one glitch in the system, I was bemused by my complete inability to anticipate what direction the app would have me turn as I drove anywhere and everywhere. The sky was overcast, and the land was flat, so I had no sun to guide me or geography with which to align my personal gyroscope. After a week (and I’m not exaggerating), I was finally able to drive the five blocks from where we were staying to where other members of the family were staying without the use of GPS!

Sometimes life is disconcerting and confusing. We lose our bearing, or we lose our landmarks, or we find ourselves trapped in a grayness that makes every option look wrong (or right) whether it truly is or not. It is times like that it’s nice to have an app that points north, or a guide that points us in the direction we need to go to reach our destination.

As we approach Easter once again, let’s pause and give thanks for the One in whom we can trust to always bring us home, and who IS the way, truth, and life in this, our valley.

When Plans Go Awry

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Mae West

The month of March has been pretty much a blur for me, and I haven’t had the benefit of drugs or alcohol to blame for it. I had gotten a call that my father, who is just shy of ninety years old, was in hospital. He lives about ninety minutes away from us, so we drove down as quickly as law and nature would allow.

The nature and details of his illness are immaterial to this story, but suffice it to say that he was in critical condition and, when we had arrived, he was knocking at Death’s door. Due to the excellent work of the ER and ICU doctors, nurses, and assorted medical staff, Death never answered the door (but jiggled the handle just enough to make us nervous).

Life’s that way. We’re moving merrily along doing our own thing; we’re doing chores, paying bills, buying groceries, marking items off our checklist as we prepare to head to Texas for a wedding in early April and, with one phone call, all of that stuff fades into the background as what is truly important jumps to the fore.

Duty calls. Family calls. Nature calls. Love calls. The bugler’s call is loud and clear, and so we answer. There’s no thinking involved.

We are blessed. I know people and families for whom the answer to the trumpet’s song would be, “It’s about darned time; Tough luck!” So many families are estranged. So many family ties have been strained or outright broken.

Two women fly a thousand miles to visit their father – another father, another crisis. He awakens from his sleep in critical condition, looks at his children and mutters, “What the blazes are you doing here?” His words drip with venom. He closes his eyes and turns his head. There will be no Hollywood ending here (and there wasn’t).

Why are people mean? Why are people so toxic? Who knows. They’re easy to hate, a pleasure to avoid. While I like to think reconciliation is always a possibility, I know from experience that people walk the path they have either chosen or that’s been forced upon them, and unless we have walked that path alongside them, we cannot know what forces have warped their souls to such a point there is no return. That too, is life.

While their attitudes and actions may be miserably unconscionable, returning fire for fire is a dubious luxury I cannot afford. I have learned that that which burns up, burns down as well; I have enough wounds of my own to tend without applying anything as toxic as resentments or hatred to those wounds. In the words of the wise, it is enough to let go and let God. They are God’s to deal with, not mine.

I’ve also learned over the years that whenever I focus on the badness of others, I tend to ignore my own contributions to whatever is happening, and I forget to pay attention to what’s important. Like the old proverb puts it, “When you’re up to your rump in alligators, it’s easy to forget your job was to drain the swamp.” So, we focus on the task at hand and hold the reptiles at bay with the same stick we’re using to clear the drain.

In sum, I’m blessed. I love my father, and my siblings and we have been able to rally ‘round to tend to his needs. Each of us has his or her rough edges, to be sure, but each also has a strength and skill that allows us to work together, addressing the physical and emotional needs of the moment. We are all old enough we tire more quickly than we would like to admit or show, but those years have also given us the grace to move along and stay focused on the matters at hand.

I don’t believe there is any great Master Plan unfolding before us, or that our lives are predestined to reach a point where we’ve met or fulfilled our destiny. God has called us each to take care of one another, to be just and merciful, and to let the love of God be our guiding light.

 That’s the plan, anyway, here in this, our valley.

A World of Enemies

Join the Flat Earth Society. We have members all around the globe! Anonymous

Someone asked me the other day, “What have you learned from your worst enemy?”

It wasn’t your normal run-of-the-mill question, of course. It was part of a writing exercise, and it caught me a bit off-guard as, to be honest, I don’t know I have ever considered someone my enemy, let alone whittling the list down to a “worst” enemy.

I have had opponents, of course. I have arrested criminals (each innocent until proven guilty in a court of law). I have been shot at and had the occasional wrestling match in the course of my short career as a cop. But those weren’t enemies or villains. They were people with drug, alcohol, or mental health problems (by and large).

I suppose the word conjures up for me an attitude I prefer to avoid – animosity. While there are certainly people who would never be my cup of tea, I’m not sure there are any for whom I hold a desire to harm. There are those who have no doubt held me in contempt and wished ill to befall me, but what others think of me is none of my business. They are entitled to their opinions and perspectives, and if their lives are made richer by pinching their noses as I walk by or come into view, that is their prerogative.

There are people who are toxic to be around, that’s for sure. There are those who simply suck the life out of a soul like one of the Dementors in the Harry Potter universe. They see and experience life as a dark and scary place. They expect the worst of the people around them. If it wasn’t for bad luck, they believe they’d have no luck at all. No matter what happy thing befalls them, they would see only the detritus. They could win a mega-bucks lottery and only bemoan the taxes withheld from the jackpot.

They may be toxic and noxious, and they may also be antagonists and adversaries in life. But are they enemies? No, like a virus I strive to steer clear of them, but I do not hate them.

Having said all that, I could also look inward and ask if I’m not my own worst enemy. After all, in examining my life, I certainly have said and done things that have proven to be detrimental to my own well-being, or the health and well-being of others around me. I could easily admit I am often my own worst enemy, but I’m not sure that’s true. I’m not sure it is healthy to say that, let alone to believe it.

I don’t mean to engage in a big self-hug, but as soon as one begins to think of him or herself as their own worst enemy, the foundation is set for self-hatred or self-loathing, and that’s not healthy or beneficial in any way. As human beings, we make mistakes. We do things out of greed, fear, anger, or frustration, but we’re also capable of doing much good.

We are commanded to love our neighbor because we are actually capable of loving our neighbor, even when they behave in terribly bad ways.

We pray God to forgive us our sins, debts, or trespasses. Jesus bids us to add a bothersome little caveat: “as we forgive those who sin against us.”

“As we” here means “the way we …” or “to the degree that we …” or “in the same way in which we …” He also tells us to love our enemies, doesn’t he?

God always seems to think we can do more than we may want to do, or feel able to do.

I suppose one of the reasons we fail to live up to God’s standards is plain laziness, or sloth. It’s easier not to. It’s easier to blame others for our problems or misfortunes. If that’s true, then maybe Sloth is my worst enemy, because it inspires me to do the least I can get away with.

What I’ve learned in life is how important it is to keep moving. Sloth drags you down. Faith, like action, reaches up and finds the grace of God reaching down and helping us to reach out in love, and that’s a wonderful thing to discover here in this, our valley.

Ash Wednesday

Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before others (to be seen by them). If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (NIV)

Since this column will be out on Ash Wednesday, I would like to take this opportunity to shift gears and dive a bit more deeply into spiritual matters than is my usual approach, and to give readers who may be unfamiliar with church-life a peek into what we steeple people are up to.

Lent is upon us. I hear the voice of Andy Williams singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” but it isn’t Christmas I’m thinking of, it’s Lent.

Lent. The season of sack-cloth and ashes. The season of fasting and deprivation. The season many Christians seek to improve their relationship with God and the world. They don’t fast because food is bad, but to remember they follow One who said, “I am the bread of life.”

Not all Christians observe the season of Lent, of course, and that’s OK. We each have our own customs and cultures and contribute to the fabric of the Christian Faith that we are, in many ways, like the Technicolor Dream Coat Joseph wore (as I blend the Bible and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical references here).

The Bible says that “in (God’s) house are many rooms …” I interpret that to mean there is a place for all of us; there is a place for each of us. That’s good news. That’s news worth celebrating! Whether we recognize or celebrate the season of Lent (which, by the way, simply refers to springtime as the days grow longer and warmer), our goal is to draw closer to God, and to reflect God’s love more and more in a world that is so sorely in need of love and care. We are invited to set aside our ego (which is often more curtain than window). That’s a tough challenge, isn’t it?

For instance, who doesn’t love applause? Who doesn’t love being appreciated and thanked for doing something nice? How many people – friends – have we lost over the years because we drifted apart, or the relationships seemed one-sided? Our egos may not demand recognition, and yet they can be so easily bruised.

I sit here writing this, realizing I have not sent a thank-you note to some people who put me up during a recent outing. I said “thank you” before I left, of course, but Momma taught me one should always, always, always send a follow-up note – using real pen and paper and a stamp. Even a Thank You card needs a personalized sentence or two. It is the TIME we spend that says Thank you; not the paper or the use of postage, per se. That small effort helps to build the relationship, doesn’t it?

It is nearly impossible to do an act of kindness (or righteousness) that won’t be seen by others, of course. It is also nearly impossible to do it so “ego-free” that only God will notice. I read what Jesus says (“don’t do things to be seen by others”) and I answer, “My God, that’s impossible!”

I suspect Jesus smiles and answers, “Yes, that’s the point.” If we think about it, the story of Lent is simply: I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him.

I find I am happier when I realize I have fallen short of the ideal and have an opportunity to rectify matters. Others may not see it, but God does; that’s rewarding. I am happier when I do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Others may not see it. God does; that’s rewarding. Jesus invites us to let go the ego long enough to realize that (doing) so frees our hands. With hands free, we can place them in God’s, and that’s rewarding – more than enough.

Those who observe the season of Lent are invited to recognize that there are many things that distract us from being the kind of people God wants us to be, and none of us can ever perfectly be the kind of people God wants us to be, but we can do better (Good News!).

We have a season in which to practice these principles in all our affairs, and that’s a good thing in this, our valley.