The Courage to Be

(Just a point of personal amusement: I have to chuckle at how many of those old Paul Tillich texts-- or at least their titles!-- come back to be important now, personally, even if they are of only "historic" significance theologically...)

These days I'm reading for my morning devotional from a book given to me by a friend, Julia Cameron' s Transitions: Prayers and Declarations for a Changing Life. Ms Cameron is better known as the author of The Artist's Way. The prayer and/or declaration for this AM spoke to me, so I am going to share it here.

First this, from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: "It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security."

Then this from Julia: "I nurture a faithful heart. When difficulties, sorrows, and trials beset me, I consciously choose faith in the face of despair. Like the mountain climber who reaches the summit a step at a time, I hold an ideal in my heart. Despite the temptation to bitterness, despite the seduction of rage, I choose a path of temperate endurance, grounding my daily life in the small joys yet available to me. Learning from the natural world, I harbor the seeds of hope against the long winter. I count the small stirrings of beauty and delight still present in my barren time. My heart is a seasoned traveler. Moving through hostile and unfamiliar terrain it remains alert to encounter unexpected beauty blossoming despite the odds. In the arms of adversity, I yet find the comfort of tenderness to myself and others. I refuse to harbor a hardened heart. Decisively and deliberately, I expand rather than contract."

As I took this in, I realized that one of its truths for me is that it took little courage to experience the change(s) of last year, and much more courage to persist: to endure, to adjust my life, to re-discover my ground, to trust that God would provide for me, both substantially, and in a vision showing me God's own direction for my life-- the way out of the Pit, and back up the mountain! One step at a time; one day at a time.

I felt no loss of faith. I must say, though I lost much, and some more losses may still come, I felt no loss of faith. What I felt was a realization of a nearly daily demand to find the courage to live that day. Then, coming to the end of that day, assessing: what made living this day worthwhile? Yes, it was often the little things, incidents more than events, the tiny or quiet revelations of God's ever-Presence with me.

Now, as this year is unfolding, and more challenges are to be faced, there is also more clarity about what God's Vision for me might be. And there are indications that incrementally, God's Promise to me is being fulfilled. While still very much in the wilderness, the in-between, the "barren" time, in Cameron's words, even the hostile and unfamiliar and adverse space, yet my faith is secure, all the more because I've been allowed to see a little bit further down the road.

You might remember the experience that Lewis and Clark had in exploring the Great Northwest. So hungry were they to see the ocean and thus the end of their travels and travails, that when they reached their first summit, they were aghast at how many more mountains they were going to have to climb before they reached the Pacific! Moses might have felt that way, too, along his way. But when L&C finally saw the ocean, and Moses, the land across the Jordan, they were elated.

Well, I am nowhere near the ocean that way, and very far from God's Promising Land. But I have climbed a foothill or a even a mountain or two, and though there be more to climb, I keep going, faith-fueled, Spirit-sustained.

As Tillich knew, there simply are certain times in life when it takes real courage just to "be." But it is precisely these times when we learn that truthfully, it takes a courage to be ALL of the time!

Cameron concludes: "Today, I choose the softening grace of forgiveness. I allow the sunlight of the spirit to reach my shadowed heart."

May it be for me. May it be for you, as well.

New Streets

One of the gifts of my friendships is that my friends attend many different churches-- and other places of worship. From one of their church's newsletters come the following. It is a kind of a parable I'd heard before but was told it was by "Anonymous." Following that old expression from the '60's that "Anonymous was a woman" (to which I add: "and Unknown, a man..."), I was not surprised to find out that Portia Nelson wrote this. She called it, "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters."

Chapter One: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost... I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place. but it isn't my fault.

Chapter Three: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in... it's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter Four: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter Five: I walk down another street.

Ah, yes, there is wisdom in this! And I readily admit: one of my problems has been finding "another street" to walk down! Oh, the pitfalls on my well-worn paths!

The best I can do today is pray: "I am ready! Lord, show me another way!"

May you, too, be blessed to be one of the People of The Way.

Three Wise Men

Without apology for not having blogged, and with no shame for what I am anticipating might threaten to become one of those blogs that will seem to be an overcompensation for lack of consistent blogging output, I want to seize on this season of the church year (Epiphany, if I've not completely lost touch), to talk about three men, and to see what wisdom might be gained from them. For as the Magi certainly must have known, whatever wisdom we accrue in life does ourselves and others little good unless it is somehow shared, or simply given away. Our three wise men in this space are: Charles Schulz, Carl Karcher, and my Dad.

--I've been meaning to write about Charles Schulz for some time, ever since his biography came out last Fall. David Michaelis' "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography," raised some eyebrows at the time because it detailed certain aspects of Schulz's life, principally his rather chilly relationship with his own children and his altogether too warm relationship with a woman not his wife. At the time the book was published I was steeping in realizations of my own humanity's mixture of darkness and light, and I took some consolation from reading that a biographer had taken an unflinching yet caring look at Schulz's life, with all of its faults and foibles, and everything had more or less come out all right in the end. Craig Schulz, Charles' oldest son, was quoted in Newsweek as saying of the book, "I guess we were expecting vanilla, but we got rocky road." I thought that maybe that comment could apply to Schulz's own expectation of his own life. I know that, for myself, while I never have really expected vanilla, I have had my share of rocky road!

Anyway, I'd like to mention two other comments from the Newsweek review. One is: "Like most artists, Schulz found grief more inspiring than happiness...". Hmmmm... This about the man who gave us both: "Good grief!" and "Happiness is a warm puppy!" Yet Michaelis documents how Schulz kept himself in a certain perpetual state of, well, creative resentment: "He knew that hurt, and the anger that sprang from it... was the taproot of his life's work." I don't think I have the "genius" to live that way...

Yet, as Schulz's sufferings, real and imagined, made their way through him onto the page, and into the lives of his characters, and from his characters into our lives, adversity and suffering itself became more than refined, almost redeemed. From what I've read of him, Schulz's attachments were not so much to other people, but rather to the redemptive relationships he had with his Peanuts characters. Newsweek said, "As it happened, he died on Feb. 13, 2000, the day before the final Sunday 'Peanuts' strip. As soon as 'Peanuts' ended, so did his life."

I have to say that Charles Schulz was the Wise Man who brings us Frankincense, not just because he was a devout evangelical Christian (who can forget "The Gospel According to Peanuts"?), but more because he wrestled with things spiritual, in his work, in his life.

--I happened to be thinking about Carl Karcher around the time of his recent death. Driving by a Carl's Jr., I remembered the time I met him. And then, in his obituary in the Times, there was a line that simply leaped out at me: "The boss ate several meals a week at his restaurants, and, wherever he went, he handed out coupons for free hamburgers, wrapped in a Scripture verse." This was certainly my experience of him.

I met Carl Karcher at the home of a couple of people who were my parishioners. The couple was having their 60th wedding anniversary party, as I recall, and since their family was large but their home quite, shall we say, modest, my family and I were among only a few friends who'd been invited. It was a privilege to be there! The host family was loving, and kind, and humble-- truly gentle people.

Into this mix Carl was invited. Into this mix he came, with his wife. He was warmly received, but he did not make himself at home. Instead, he worked the home like a politician works a room. He went from room to room, introducing himself, and shaking hands. AND: he gave everyone a coupon for a free hamburger and a Catholic devotional card!

I looked at him at the time, and thought him to be a man of extraordinary pomposity. I tried to balance this take with just the fact that there we were together, at the home of mutual friends... I did my best to let him make a good impression on me, but I was not very successful within myself.

The reason why Carl Karcher was there in my friend's home on that special day was omitted from him obituary. The obituary tells that he began his business in 1941, with a little cash and money he borrowed against his car. He bought a hot dog push cart that he set up near a Goodyear plant in South Central. He enjoyed some success, working hard, and invested in other hot dog carts.

What the obituary omits to say is that while he served in the Army in WWII, someone or someones else were pushing those carts. My friend, Louie, I was told, was asked by Carl, in effect to keep his business alive during the war years while he was away. This Louie did! So, when Carl came back after the war, he had the wherewithal waiting for him so he could open his first full-service restaurant in 1945. My friend, Louie, had held his place. My friend, Louie, had kept things going.

Carl Karcher's visit to Louie's house that night was because he hadn't forgotten what Louie had done for him. So it was that Louie felt graced to have this successful man in his home.

Why then was I so... hesitant to feel the same sense of gratitude? I've thought about it over the years and I've wondered, perhaps something that is as equally unfair as my initial judgment of him. And that is: I've wondered whether Carl ever was truly thankful for what Louie had done. I know. It seems unfair of me, maybe, even to suspect this of a man who hadn't forgotten what my friend had done, maybe almost 50 years earlier. All I know is that it is what I've wondered. And how I've based it on that one, only, first impression. And how Carl Karcher never sat down in Louie's house that night... How he "Karcher-ed" us-- and then left...

So Carl Karcher, I think, brings the gift of Gold. In contrast, my friend, Louie, along with his whole family, always brought the gift of love.

--Finally, a gift of Myrrh from my father:

Since my mother died, we have talked more often and more meaningfully, and I am enjoying my relationship with my father. I am going to tell this little story on him.

As many who know me--and him!-- know, my mother was in uncertain health for many years following ovarian cancer surgery in 2000. Over those years, my mother and father engaged in a nightly tug of war with God over her life. My mother would pray for God to take her; my father would pray for God to let her stay with him because he needed her so.

Now that she has indeed had her prayer answered, my Dad sometimes falls into fits of regret that he prayed as he did for as long as he did. It wasn't until her hospitalization last June that my Dad changed his prayers and asked God not to listen to him but to her. Sometimes my Dad punishes himself with thoughts of his selfishness-- he, who was beyond devoted to her for more than the 64 years they were married.

I have trouble listening to my Dad when he gets to feeling this way. So this is what I told him: I said, Dad, yes, you held onto Mom for a long time, and you would not let her go, even when she wanted to go. But then, you changed, and you worked to be ready for the day when God would take her home, away from you. And sure enough, that day came. And when it did, suddenly, really, you held her hand as she died-- and you let her go! You did not ask her not to go. You did not ask her to come back. You were ready, AND you were true: you let her go. Dad, I said, that was a very courageous thing to do, and you did it with integrity.

So we cried a little together and hugged each other over the phone... And I believe he was comforted.

And I am comforted to know that of wise men who bring frankincense and wise men who bring gold, the wise man who brought myrrh is my father. In acceptance of our mortality is the fountain of our vitality. And I am blessed.

New Year, New Resolve

"My resolution for the coming year is so to live that I keep God’s attention and invite God’s participation and discover God’s interest in participating in this little Story of this Life that is mine."

This is what I wrote at the end of 2006-- and look at what happened to me in 2007! If mine is not a tale of "be careful what you pray for," I don't know what is!

I cannot remember another year in my life in which there was so much change and thus so very many transitions to endure. I would name them, but they are already well chronicled in this space.

And the main thing I want to comment on at this point is what I would want to call the "continuous discovery of the Presence of God." Something like that... I wouldn't for the world minimalize the challenges both spiritual and emotional that I faced during 2007. Even now, I sometimes find myself in the Book of Job, searching for language or a framework in which to understand myself and where I am in relationship to God.

I have not felt abandoned-- I want to say that. I have not found myself shaking my fist at the heavens, cursing my bad luck or God's seeming cruelty. Nothing like that. I have felt the weight of the sad realization of how much I have brought upon myself. I have discerned the consequences of my actions, and have seen what and how things have come about that have. And in the depths of those confessional moments, I have found words from Job that have helped me: I know that my Redeemer liveth... I know... And have have found evidence of God's mercy and grace-- and thus been left to face my self, and my own penchant for self-punishment over self-forgiveness.

I have been through no "dark night of the soul" that I am aware of... Not in that sweeping sense wherein one's relationship with God is completely shaken and requires re-establishing. No, if anything, I have been forced to find comfort in how I had come to speak of God; I've had to rely on the Reality of God to me, in a way and with a consistency that I might otherwise have escaped had I not had so much happen in such a short time. Thus what I said above about God's participation and interest? I have felt both last year, in poignant and occasionally eye-opening ways.

And I hope I have not failed to count the blessings along with number the losses. My youngest's establishing of himself as an adult. My first grandchild. Yes, even my mother's death... Is it strange to speak of it as more gain than loss, when it was what she wanted, and when her dying has led to a renaissance in my relationship with my father? I've been told that these occurances were different because they were "natural," as in "occurring in the course of the natural order of things." Perhaps. But then does that mean that the Hand of God was not in them, but only in the events around my loss of job and professional identity? No, for me, either way, God was "interested participant," not necessarily bringing to pass what did, as in standing with me to pick up the pieces. God has been my Comfort and my Peace.

Which brings me to this year. Two hymns play in my spirit. One is "Be Thou My Vision." I have always loved this hymn, its melody and its words. But now more maybe than ever before, it is my prayer. I can see more clearly now than back in July where God might be leading me, but I am as unsure as ever as to how to travel the path. I pray daily to see God's Vision for me now!

The other hymn comes from the Roman Catholic missal, "Be Not Afraid." I was first introduced to this song by a Dominican Nun, Sr Marcella, from whom I learned bereavement arts in the course of my initial service with a hospice. She was a saint! And the lyrics of this song have seldom had as much meaning to me as they do now: Be not afraid!/ I go before you always./ Come, follow me,/ and I will give you rest. And then, in one other line: You shall see the Face of God-- and live!

Yes, these are my resolutions for this year: God as my Vision. Being not afraid! And looking always for, perhaps to find, the Face of God.

Let's see whether this year is as spiritually deepening as the last one has been!

Blessings to you and yours!