SOMETIME

I think we are “sometimes” people.  At least I am.  Sometimes I say the right thing, sometimes not. Sometimes I do the right thing, sometimes not.  Sometimes I am generous and kind and sometimes not. Sometimes I get the right answer and sometimes not.

This is why I believe that one of the primary resources for living well is grace.  Grace is the capacity to accept the sometime nature of human existence. It is the way I am able to live with myself when it turns out that I make mistakes. 

It is also the way others are able to live with me. Others who know me well know that I am a “sometime” person. Without grace, most of us would live alone.   We would not be able to overcome the disappointment we feel when we or others are sometimes not what we need them to be. Grace is the gift we offer to ourselves and to others to heal the fracture caused by our being “sometime” people.

So, if we are struggling with ourselves when we have violated our better selves, or if we are trying to figure out how to relate to others who have been sometimes wrong, let’s find a cup of mercy to share with the hope that we might survive our conflicted nature and build a more human and humane community.

FACE

Each time I leave the house, I put on my face. When I meet someone, I put on my meeting face. When I lead a workshop, I put on my "workshop leader" face. When I pick up my grandchild, I put on my grandparent face. When I meet a stranger, I put on my "do I want to get to know you?" face.  

Our face is what we want others to see in us. Integrity is having all our face reflect something of our essential character. When someone represents themselves one way in one setting and another way in another setting, they are called "two-faced". We get embarrassed when more of us is revealed than we want our face to reveal. When that happens, we become "red-faced".

Face is important. It has to do with our reputation or our dignity. That's why "loss of face" is a very significant loss. When we have known ourselves to be a certain kind of person and something happens to make others see us differently than we have been seen, we feel naked. We feel exposed. We lose standing among our peers. Loss of face can be one of the hardest losses we suffer.

Many conficts in our lives are the result of our fear of losing face. Many arguments are intensified when one or both parties are trying to save face. Some conflicts become heated and aggressive when we feel our reputation, our value, our worth is being threatened.

In the midst of such "face-losing" situations, it is important to help people save face. It is important to figure out how to build up the other. Our self-worth is central to our stability and sense of security. When that is threatened, we will be defensive. When we are more secure and our value is not undermined, we are able to engage issues with more reason and grace.

SMALL WORLD

I was reminded recently how small one's world can become.  She has been ill and in the hospital for weeks. The world has shrunk to being about her and her body. The attention is on the disease and the doctors and nurses focus on her and the bacteria that will not respond to the treatment.

When I have visited, I want to know all that is going on. (When we get anxious we seek more and more data,  hoping that if we can just understand what is happening we might be able to do something about it). I am tempted to keep the attention on her and her disease, her care, her pain, her energy, her prognosis.

But, then she asked me "How are YOU ALL doing."  The emphasis was on "YOU ALL".  And I was reminded of what I have always known: When we are sick our world can shrink and smother us. We need to know what else is going on.  There is so much of our time when the pain and fear of our own suffering can't be avoided that we long for something that takes us outside of ourselves.

So, when you are with people who are suffering disease or caught in the slog of sadness over loss, share with them their suffering. Be open to walking with them in their pain.  But, also bring your own life into them and give them a taste of the rest of the world.  Help open them up to the reality of life as they have known it so that they can feed off the hope for a life that is large enough that they don’t suffocate. 

OOPS!

Some years ago a new Interstate loop was added to the highway system where I lived.  The first time I drove on it, I saw a sign beside the highway that said, "This Lane Does Not Exist."

"What?"  What do they mean, "This Lane Does Not Exist"?  It does exist.  I am driving in it.

Each time I drove that highway, I had an argument with the sign makers.  I kept telling myself and which ever ghost was riding with me in the car at the time, "I know the lane exists. I am driving in it.  I just don't understand."

One day, after the highway had been opened for a couple of years, I drove the route and the sign said, "This Lane Does Not Exit."  Really, that is what it said.  The lane does not exit.  "When did they change the sign?"   

Well, I doubt that they changed the sign. I think I changed my glasses.  Somehow my first impression, which was wrong, got stuck in my mind. I looked hard at the sign every time I passed it and never saw the absence of the "S". I was so convinced that it said, "This Lane Does Not Exist" that I couldn't see what it really said.

I wonder how many other wrong perceptions I get stuck on? I wonder how many first impressions I have that do not really represent reality? 

I don't know, but I have been thinking about it lately. I guess sometimes it is important to "unlearn" what we "know" so we can discover what is real.

GOD'S EYES

“Do you know what those round balls are?” Michael asked me as we were standing at the hotel door beside the 12th century city hall which made up the front of the hotel.

He was referring to 2 beach ball sized spheres which each had blood shot looking eyes on the circumference.  The balls were hanging from the railing on one side of the kidney shaped crystal pool.  

“To keep the birds away?” 

“Right.  They think they are the eyes of a predator.  It scares them away from the pool.”

I wondered.  “How many times have I been scared away from something that I wanted to do because of the manufactured eyes of a predator?”

It doesn’t seem to matter if the eyes are blind or not.  It they appear to be watching, do I run from something that is potential nurturing?

And, I wondered, “How much of my early childhood was spent worrying about God’s eyes watching me as some predator who might do me harm?”  

I was raised in a family where the eyes of the divine were used to scare us into good behavior.  Did I believe God was a predator who could do me harm if I didn’t stay on the straight and narrow?  Or, were they simply dead eyes who were filled with power because of the imagination of a scared little boy who projected onto them the power to see and the strength to harm?

And how many times do I fail to act with bold brashness or courage because I believe there are eyes watching me and might do me harm if I act?  How many times do I fail to speak because someone might judge me or hurt me if they didn’t like what they saw or heard?

If God is our ultimate concern, then the sighted or blind eyes of what we care about most take on power to control our behavior.  And they keep us from trying the new, the risky, the unusual, the bazaar.   

So, I guess the theological question is, “Are God’s eyes just round beach balls with blood-shot pupils painted on the circumference which are designed to scare us away from an interesting and exciting life, or do they live with a sensing sensation, observing us with tender tears, feeling with us the ache and pain of mistakes and the delight and joy of love?”

I don’t know, but I wonder.