NO REGRETS

I have heard people say that we ought to live so that when we die we will have no regrets.  I have thought about that and wondered how that might be possible.  I have concluded that for most humans, it is an impossibility.

Regret is a word that means "a feeling of remorse or sorrow for a fault, act, loss, disappointment, etc." (Dictionary.com). We live with some popular misconceptions that sorrow is somehow a bad thing. Some people think that one ought to live with eyes only on the positive--the gains--the gifts.  

But, who among us has not lost something that we wanted or been disappointed because life didn't work out the way we wanted it to?  Regret is the normal human response to our complex and interesting humanity that dreams of that which is not. Those dreams are our imagination filling in the future with possibilities that have not yet been realized. The greater the imagination, the more dreams one has.  The more dreams one has the more disappointments one will experience.  Not all dreams can be fulfilled.  To fulfill one dream is to lose another dream.  Thus regrets.

So, I don't think we ought to live so as to have  "no regrets" when we die.  To do that is to live a small life. I think we live with dreams, leaning into the unknown future with multiple possibilities, and then learn to grieve the loss of those dreams that don't get fulfilled.  When we do this, we feel excitement of hope and possibility, the disappointment of unfulfilled dreams, the sadness that accompanies loss of possibilities, and in this experience, we discover more about who we are and who we might become.

And then we grieve, we allow our discoveries to form our imagination for our future, and we open up to the limited reality of tomorrow. We learn from our regrets and we create new visions for our future. 

MARKERS

Deb and I are celebrating 10 years of marriage today. We looked at the pictures of our wedding and rejoiced in that event all over again. We loved seeing our friends and family gathered to celebrate our commitment to each other. 

Anniversaries of special events are important times. They are markers that remind us of the giftedness of life. Life, filled with moments like rain drops swallowed and merged into a raging river, often races by. We speed past the people and the events that contribute to who we are and who we are becoming. Routine creates a level of comfort and the clock ticks it's time and the next thing you know, 10 years has gone by. Markers, special celebrations, slow us down to notice.

When we looked at the pictures of ourselves at the wedding, we wondered, "Who are those people?" Neither of us could quite remember who we were 10 years ago. We have shared loss and love, joy and pain. We have worked out the way to enrich each other's life, offering who we have been and who we are becoming. The struggles to make sense of our lives, the bringing together the distinct resources that each has been given and committing them to creating our life of love and blessing, have created new creatures.

On those special days when we mark our memory, when we look back at who we were and quietly assess who we are now, we are humbled by the sheer mystery of life's journey. We rejoice in the miles we have traveled, the tears we have shed, the laughter we have enjoyed. We have held each other in our pain and our love, wrestled with differences till we discovered the blessing in them, and helped each grow into the people we are today. 

Mark the special events of your life. In so doing you will discover the moments on which your life is built.

MYSTERY AND MISERY

Parker Palmer is a writer that blesses me. He shares honestly about his life and faith. In his book, "Let Your Life Speak" he shares his deep and profound struggle with depression. His depression disconnected him from himself, his feelings, his faith, his friends. He felt isolated.

He writes about some of the things that didn't help. One was when someone would say, "I know exactly how you feel. . . ." He said that he didn't hear anything beyond that because he knew that the person was peddling falsehood.  No one can know the mystery of the depth of another person. This desire to over-identify with another just made him feel more isolated.

Then Parker says, "One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person’s pain without trying to ‘fix’ it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery."

How true it is. "Simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery." The deeper in pain a person goes, the more mystery they discover. They can share that mystery only in fragments. We who stand with them can only glimpse the misery, the mystery. We can only receive those glimpses as gifts.

Maybe the best we can do for each other is to stay close and respect the borders between ourselves and them, thus honoring their unique and mysterious experience of life. It may not sound like much, but respecting another person in their misery might be the most important gift they can receive.

HEALTHY POVERTY

I am re-reading Annie Dillard’s wonderful book, “Pilgrim at  Tinker Creek.”  She spent several years exploring the world around her cabin on Tinker Creek in southern Virginia. She shares a story of when she was 6 years old, growing up in Pittsburg.  She used to take a penny of her own and hid it for someone else to find.  She would put it in a crack in the side walk or at the root of a tree.  She would then take a piece of chalk and draw arrows from both directions with words, ‘Surprise ahead", or "Money this way.”  She never stayed around to see if anyone ever picked them up.

As she explored the details of life and death in the world around her little cabin, she thought about that 6 year old little girl.  She said, “I’ve been thinking about seeing.  There are  lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises.  The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.  But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny?  If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple trill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way?  It is dire poverty indeed when a [person] is so malnourished and fatigued that [she or] he won’t stoop to pick up a penny.  But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.  It is that simple.  What you see is what you get.” (14-15)

I have been thinking these days about how to create a healthy poverty of spirit so that I will notice, stop and pick up those shiny pennies and cherish my days.

SIGNS OF HOPE

Sometimes, when we are vulnerable and our eyes see, we discover gifts that opens our heart to hope. Saturday morning Deb and I went to our church in downtown Indianapolis to deliver some invitations to guests of our food bank. The  invitation was for our Easter morning breakfast which many of our friends from the street share with us.

As I stood and chatted with some of our hosts and some of our guests, I was reminded why I believe deeply in the church. There were 75 people shopping at our produce tables which had been supplied by Indianapolis Fruit (thanks to Deb's son, Collin Miller, who helped us connect with that wonderful resource for feeding the hungry). They then went into the market and shopped for canned goods that had been provided by members of Central and the Gleaners Food Bank. People come to the church for all kinds of nourishment.

And gathered with our guests were 20 adults and children who hosted the gathering, helping, visiting, providing coffee and cake while an orderly process of shopping was followed. While some waited, they went into the Thrift Shop where many purchased essential items of clothing for a small fee. Throughout the lower level of the church, ministry and community was happening.

Now I am not naive. I know that this is simply a small bandage on the wounds of our society where more people live on the edge of existence while a few expand their wealth beyond any description of decency. I know that a more just system of sharing the world's resource is absolutely essential not only for the survival of civilization but also for the fulfilling of God's desire for shalom. (And I have to say that I am glad that I am part of a congregation where people are gathering to act for justice for janitors, for those who need reliable public transit, for those who are excluded by laws from marrying the people they love.)

But, in the interim time before a more just society can emerge, I am glad to be part of community who does what we can to keep people from falling off the edge. My heart ached with hope as I shared that Saturday morning communion. I am thankful for small signs of God's love that I get to see.