DISAPPOINTMENT

I read this quote recently on Facebook: "What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be."  I agree.  One way not to be disappointed is to not have any image of the way things are supposed to be.

But, I wonder how much we miss if we give up our imagination about what we would like life to be. Desire is vital to life. It is what makes the difference between existing and living. Desire is the driving force for activity.  The desire for the well-being of our family drives us to get to work and earn money. The desire for a better world drives us to work for laws that make a more just world.  The desire to live well in our family motivates us to be graceful and forgiving.  Desire is what gives shape and form to our daily decisions.

So, if we are to be alive, and if we are to desire life to be a certain way, what do we do when it doesn't turn out the way it's "supposed to be"?  How do we live with being disappointed when people don't do what we think they should do?  

One way to look at disappointment is as a loss.  When things don't work out as we want, we lose something. We lose confidence in our ability to make things happen the way we want.  (Maybe that is something like the loss of the illusion that we are God.) We may lose our belief that everyone else sees the world the way we do. We lose the illusion that others desire life just as we do.

And with any loss, we have to grieve it.  Grieving loss is at it's core an act of forgiveness.  One person has said that forgiving is forgrieving.  Our inability to forgive the world for disappointing us will destine us to live in the prison of past pain.  Forgiving others for disappointing us frees us to live a new way, maybe with the grace to accept that which we can't change.  It makes it possible to move forward in a world that isn't the way we think the "world is supposed to be."

What do you have to grieve during this holiday season?  Will you forgive those who disappoint you and open to the surprises of a world that is new and filled with different possibilities?

VITALITY

Holidays are times when vitality can be deeply experienced.  But for that to happen, we have to watch that frozen moments don't steal the energy.

Holidays are such opportunities because vitality is intensified when three ways of experiencing life merge.

Memory is central to living.  Memories are experiences we hang on to and use to make meaning in life.  What we remember and how we weave together those remembrances help us know where we came from and who we are.  Memories are fluid and constantly flow along, collecting new experiences to reshape our self-understanding.  Holidays are filled with memories.

But, sometimes memories get frozen.  Sometimes we cling so desperately to the faded summer that memories can become a prison.  We get locked into the past that we created in our minds and can't be open to the present that is our life now.

Presence is also a powerful force in a vital life.  Holidays are filled with presence.  They are filled with food and music, with parties and people. Holiday experiences are focused occasions when we embrace the physical things around us,  We are sometimes overwhelmed.  All these come together to create experiences that help us know where we are and who we are.

But, sometimes we can be so immersed in the present that we lose track of yesterday's gifts.  We lose touch with the rich soil of the past that make the present possible.  Prayer is a pause that invites us to keep in touch with the long-view--to not be so absorbed by the moment that we lose its meaning for our lives. 

Vitality in life is also enhanced when anticipation is present.  Each moment leans forward.  The future and how we imagine it gives energy to our lives.  Holidays are times when we prepare and anticipate, dreaming of what is possible and working to make our dreams come true.

But, sometimes we are so driven by our need to fill that future with our vision that we miss the gifts that come as a surprise.  We don't see gifts of grace because we are frozen by our image of what grace ought to be.  We are so busy making the future look like what we think it should that we don't allow ourselves to experience the presence of love in the moment.  We are so consumed by activity to fill the future that the soil of our past can't hold us and give us a place of rest and peace.

Memory, presence and anticipation--all important parts of being alive.  Allow them to flow together during the holiday time.  Rest in good memories, embrace present moments, anticipate gifts of tomorrow.  Let them all flow together to enrich your holiday.

TRADITIONS WERE ONCE NOT

Holidays are filled with traditions.  They populate our seasons of remembrances.  They may be around the stories that granddad spins each Christmas.  They may be foods  we eat that represent the season. They may be decorations, ornaments, songs, games.  Somehow, they come to be what we remember and look forward to.

And traditions are important for they give us a sense of comfort and safety.  They help us define what the holiday means.  They remind us of our connection to communities and they bind us to people of the past.  They help us know that there is some continuity in life and that we can count on somethings to be constant.

But, traditons haven't always been what they are.  They started somewhere, sometime, with someone. Most of the time we don't remember when they started.  They have just always been present.

But, life that moves us forward erases some of our practices.  Family members move away.  Children grow up and are not enchanted with the same things.  People die and are represented by empty chairs or are felt in the empty spaces of our hearts.  People make new commitments to new people and all of a sudden there are more people to include in family gatherings.  Things that "we have always done" no longer seem to be possible.

So, remembering that traditions were once not present lures us forward to trying new things.  The absence of some of the people or practices leaves empty space for interesting experiments.  Some of them will stick and we will do them again (isn't a traditon something that we did more than once?).  Others will not be remembered and we will try something new.

I miss some of the things that I used to do at holiday times when my children were growing up, but to discover joy in my life during these days, I grieve what is no longer and embrace the excitement of trying new things with those who share my days and my geographical space.  And I find a quiet and contented joy in the creation of new habits and patterns of celebration.

THANKSGIVING MUSIC?

It was the afternoon before Thanksgiving.  My wife, Deborah, had been cooking in preparation for a holiday dinner at the family gathering.  I joined her to add my hand in the cutting and cleaning.

"How about some music?"

I checked and found some Christmas music on Itunes Radio.  After a couple of Christmas Rock, we said, "What about thanksgiving music?  Is there even such a thing as secular thanksgiving music?"

I checked Pandora and picked Thanksgiving Music Radio.  And sure enough, all Christmas music.

Is there such a thing as secular thanksgiving music?  I know there are hymns of gratitude, but what about the secular holiday of Thanksgiving?  Is there no music to sing our thanks for the gifts of our life?

I am aware that those who grieve well the loss of the world the once knew are grateful people.  They are grateful for the gifts that they had for a season.  They see and acknowledge the daily sustaining resources that keep them living and loving.  As they look at what came to them in the past they are open to seeing the future as a gift as well.  They are even able to see the gift in the losses that made room for the life they are living now.

So, while I can't find much thanksgiving music on my computer, I do find songs of gratitude in my heart for each person who has been part of my blessed life.  I can name some and fill in lots of details about their gifts to me.  There are hundreds of others whose presence has sustained and nurtured me.  

Tomorrow on Thanksgiving,  music will be drumming in my heart as I share a day with some of my family and friends.  And I will be singing gratitude for all those who are not with me. And who knows, I may even write a Thanksgiving carol for next year! 

FALLING FORWARD

I was hiking at the state park near my home.  The naked trees reached their boney fingers to the sky as the icy wind swirled.  Here and there a lingering leaf clung to a limb.  It shuttered in the winter cold.

I looked and thought of how often we try to hang onto that which is already gone.  The life sap has been swallowed in the roots and the leaf desires to delay its falling.

But, underneath, beaconing it, are millions of other kin who have begun their destiny of decay.  The aroma of wet brown humus rises from the soil as the ground is enriched by the summer life of the leaves.  The roots welcome the life of the leaves back into the cycle of renewal and help prepare for new life to emerge in the spring.

So often we desparately hang on to life the way it was, hoping that we can avoid the letting go--hoping we can delay the inevitable. But, when life has moved on, space is created for new life even as the memories of the old nourish our hearts and soften our souls.  We are enriched to welcome new life and discover that love awaits us when we make room for that which we have not yet known.

Holidays are times of tension between the longing for the way things were and the discoveries of the way things will become.  Can your memories fall and become nourishment for your new life?