Getting Ready

I've told you that I buy my music in fits, having heard of possible cds, and tucked their titles and artist's name in various places around my home, the way our local squirrels plant peanuts among my geraniums. Another of the cds I got in my most recent blitz was Big Old Life, by Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem, the former being a female folksinger with a voice as clear as mountain air and the latter evidently being these three guys! I think they're from Washington State, but we shouldn't hold that against 'em.

Anyway, they sing this folksy gospel-ly stuff that makes your foot tap and your heart light. It is good for me right now to listen to this sort of thing. Every day seems to need its own encouragement, and since I'm all too aware of the limitations of what I can provide for myself, I turn to outside sources, to keep "oil in my lamp," as it were.

Big Old Life has been more than a mood-lifter for me. The first song has articulated a purpose for my living in this "in-between." The song is titled, "Joy Comes Back," and it was written by Sean Staples, who I have to believe is part of the singing "Staples Singers" family and not connected with the office supply chain. The lyrics go something like this:

I wanna be ready, when Joy comes back to me.// I've been downhearted, but I won't be down too long.// I've been too long cryin'; I ain't gonna cry no more.// I was tied to the ground, but I'm getting lighter every day.// I've been surrounded by midnight, but the sun's gonna shine today.// I wanna be ready, when joy comes back to me.

As I said, I find the song encouraging-- it points me in the right direction! Yet it also poses a challenge: Just how do I "get ready" for joy to come back to me?

Well, like I said, I do what I can with what I've got inside. And I look to things I've read and things I've learned to reinforce my preparations.

Along the lines of the first, I return to William Bridges' Transitions. Let me just post this series of quotes:

"[T]he natural developmental pattern is not for people to keep the same dreams but to relinquish old dreams and generate new ones throughout their life times."

"The emphasis on success often stands in the way of people's doing what really interests them and makes them happy."

"People who have discounted or blocked out the inner callings from the future have cut themselves off from the very signals that really vital people use to stay on the paths of their own development." And:

"During your time in the neutral zone, you are receiving signals and cues-- if only you could decipher them!-- as to what you need to become for the next stage of your work life. And, unless you disrupt it by trying to rush through the neutral zone quickly, you are slowly being transformed into the person you need to be to move forward in your life."

Well, let me say, the very slowness of this transformation is part of what tempts one (me!) to "rush" through this "neutral zone" I'm in! So how do I slow down, and let this transformation come about? Or better, more in my own self-understanding, how do I relax and let God be God, and give God time enough to bring about this transformation in and of me?

Well, by focusing on what I've learned! And here is where Scripture is its own constant reminder. I'll just post these two verses from Philippians 4 (8&9):

"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you."

And so it is... May it also be for you... Blessings!

Addiction in Cinema

It has been my pleasure recently to have seen several very fine movies-- what a good time of year it is for that! Two of them have especially stood out, not just because they were good movies, but because of the ways they so frankly dealt with addicts and addiction.

One was George Clooney's Michael Clayton. The plot of the movie had to do with the extent to which Big Business is willing to go in order to cover up the harm it does. But what I found interesting was this contrast: the hero was an addict (gambling) from a family of addicts (drugs, alcohol) while the villain was not an addict and was portrayed as having no family. What I found interesting was that addiction was not demonized. The addicts in fact were the more morally reliable characters than the non-addicts. Ultimately, they were the ones counted on to do the right thing.

The other movie I'd recommend, and was kind of amazed at, was Things We Lost in the Fire, a title whose prescience perhaps adds to its current appeal. Anyway, I went for the story, of grief and mourning and how love works. Halle Berry and Benecio del Toro play the principles, but there is some fine acting by the children in this movie, too. One impression I left the theater with had to do with del Toro's character's addiction to heroin and how it was portrayed-- both rather straightforwardly, and with a sense of compassion. The last scene of the movie was particularly compelling, for it made plain that sobriety is no easy road and recovery always precarious. Yet, there was hope... And again, the addict was no bad man, no ne'er-do-well, but had a loving kindness about him that made us admire and pull for him.

Maybe I don't get out much, or maybe my memory is short, but I don't recall such sympathetic treatments of addicts in movies. It made me wonder: has addiction gone mainstream? Do we now have so many 12 Step programs for so many behaviors that we could reasonably say, as one of my friends claims, "we are all addicts; we are all addicted to something"? Or is Hollywood, which could easily itself be described as a community of addicts, simply trying to mainstream itself-- tell us that we are all like them? Where is the line between "normal" and "addict" these days? Or is "addict" the "new normal?"

You might know that I have a high regard for 12 Step programs, not just for their track records in returning people to sanity and life, but more importantly for their spiritual core and purpose. The 12 Steps make for an excellent spiritual discipline, and recommend themselves on that basis to addicts and non-addicts (if there is such a thing) alike.

Which gets to what I felt was missing from Michael Clayton and Things We Lost in the Fire, namely a sense of the spiritually redemptive power of the 12 Steps. Now, not everything can be included in every movie, but I can hold out this hope for how addiction is portrayed in the future, can't I: that as long as we are being sympathetic, let's also appreciate the spiritual nature of recovering, and the spiritual toll addiction takes?

Even short of that, one thing was clear to me: We have come a long way since Days of Wine and Roses!

For All the Saints

Ah, my favorite hymn (even if it is a little "martial" in its rhythm): For all the saints, who from their labors rest...

This is a curious time of year, isn't it? A time for opening up the gates to the afterlife, and seeing what comes out! So we get Halloween on one day, and All Saints Day on the other.

There was a story on NPR to the effect that Halloween has become the fourth most celebrated holiday in our country, after Christmas, the Super Bowl, and New Years-- in that order! (Do you mean to tell me that more money is spent on Super Bowl Sunday than on New Years?) Anyway, as cultures go, it is curious group isn't it? And all occurring in the "dark" months of the year...

The NPR reporter mused on how the popularity of Halloween has increased over the years that he had been alive, and said that it is especially popular these days among college age folks. It has been said that Halloween's main spiritual function is to help us get over our fear of death by making fun of it, turning the whole prospect into "play." When I was in college, the prospect of dying young was real enough because the Vietnam War was not only taking us away to die, it was bringing soldiers to our campuses to shoot at us. I don't remember us taking death lightly, even at Halloween. But evidently our children want to, and I have to wonder why. Maybe they've seen the numbers about social security and have begun to wonder who is gonna help them pay for our retirements. Maybe they are hoping to get some help from zombies!

That's the thing about Halloween in this country: mostly, we display our fascination with the undead. There's all kinds of ways death is dealt with around the world, but in our culture, we favor denial, and we play with all kinds of ideas connected with immortality, be it of the soul or the body. As we've become more secular, we tend to prefer the "immortality" of the body, and vampires, witches, and zombies rule our imaginations. How this helps us actually die escapes me...

I much prefer the Mexican Dios de los Muertos (forgive, please, my poor Spanish), in which the dead are invited back for a day so that they might be appreciated--fed and feted in death as perhaps they were not in life. Of course, in this case, we only invite back the dead we know! I mean, we don't want a lot of unfamiliar spirits at our table, even on Dios de los Muertos. But I see the "point" in this sort of holiday. I mean, it makes transparent the "presence" of the next world, and maybe makes us more comfortable with it. Maybe we die more peacefully if we can have some sense that we will be invited back once a year to visit-- and to feast!

And maybe then the contrast between 10/31 an 11/1 is not as great. In our culture, the shift from Halloween to All Saints Day is like that between Hell and Heaven-- all darkness and ghoulishness one day, and light and beneficence the next. Maybe in this way, we still live with vestiges of the Platonic "three story" universe, even with its secular collapse over the last century or so. (Is it any wonder that ever since our Civil War introduced a level of carnage in conflict beyond imagination, but to which we have become adjusted in the name of "modern warfare," that our spiritual imaginations have correspondingly become more materialistic and secular? Talk about a level of horror to which even our collective religious imagination cannot rise...)

Anyway, on this All Saints Day, I want to celebrate the influence that certain saints personal to me have had on my life! This is meant to be a day for remembering that Good actually has been accomplished in this world, and that some of that Good has been visited upon each of us, quite outside of and apart from any capacities or qualities we might have had in ourselves. Good people have come into our lives-- and then gone. Good things have been wrought in us and Good has been brought out in us because of these saints.

Even more remarkably, most were "saints unawares"-- that is, they were just being themselves with us. And yet, the holy happened. And our lives were better for it.

On this All Saints Day, I honor the saints in my life, and I hope you will honor yours. May we all realize that we are forever blessed...