LAUGHING

They are six and nine. Riding in the back seat of my car on the way to hike at the park, these two “all boys” decided to try to meditate.  I heard them say to each other, “Now, close your eyes and clear your minds.”  It got quiet.  But in a few seconds, they burst out laughing.  Again, “Close your eyes and clear your minds.”  Again, silence—then uproarious laughter. 

I thought, “This is the way to do it.”  When I meditate, I too have trouble quieting my mind for any length of time.  I too lose concentration. But, my response is not so much laughter as condemnation.  I think, “What’s wrong with me?”  “Why can’t I do this?”  I often get critical of myself and wonder if I can do anything right. 

And then I think of what one of the saints of the past said about life: “The purpose of life is to love God and enjoy God forever.”

And I think, “If I am to enjoy God, why not break out in laughter?” What is it about religion in general and prayer in particular that has to be so serious?  What if God desires our delight, not just our service?  What if love has as much to do with laughter and delight as it does with commitment and faithfulness? What if loving has as much to do with joy as it does getting things right? 

So, I resolve, “Laugh” instead of “judge.”  Laugh when I lose concentration rather than judge myself as inadequate. After all, I suspect God is laughing at how seriously I am taking myself.  And if God is laughing, maybe I can laugh with and in that same spirit.

TWO STORIES

Sitting in the stillness of a rainy morning, Deb and I were reading. She read a story of the conflict in in our country between Democrats, Republicans and the Tea Party.  The paper seemed to suggest the Tea Party wanted to turn over the whole establishment where as the Democrats and Republicans wanted to govern. 

Across the coffee table, I was reading about the devastation of the civil war in Syria.  Images of a city virtually destroyed stared out at me. 160,000 people have died in this protracted war. (In the midst of a statistical culture, I have to remind myself that each 1 represents a soul, a heart-beat, a loved one.) 

As we sat in our dry little bungalow, I had a deep sense of gratitude for our ancestors in this country who had the wisdom to design a governing process which allowed freedom of speech. While I often weary of the speech that I sometimes hear (when I find it hard to comprehend how people could actually believe such things), I think it really is better to allow the anger and frustration to be expressed verbally than with guns and bombs. 

 And sometimes I get tired of all the propaganda that is spread by media biased in multiple directions, I can’t help but think the right to express ourselves is far better than to restrict speech and drive it deep underground. For long buried anger and frustration can explode in destructive  violence. It seems better to allow the steam to escape from the pressure cooker than to allow it to build up and explode. 

So, I swallow hard as I read and listen. And I express my own frustration and prejudice, grateful that I can wrestle with those with whom I disagree in a verbal battle rather than pulling out weapons of destruction that spread mayhem and death far beyond the bounds of the initial controversy. 

SLEEP

I thought I would “grab a nap.”  I pushed my  brown, soft recliner back and turned off my phone. Took off my glasses, closed my eyes, and  . . . . .  You guessed it—awake. I had been sleepy, but then when I positioned myself to sleep, I couldn’t. 

So, I got up and read a brief essay, “Sleeping it Off” by Adam Phillips in his book, On Balance. He reflects on how sleeping is the only thing we desire that we can’t describe when we get it.  It is a desire that no one else can satisfy for us, but it is something that others can keep us from getting. (Especially when they are living in our heads and are causing anxiety because we can’t resolve our issues with them).

So, I began to see that sleep was something that I could not grab, take hold of, possess, but sleep is something that comes over me. I can’t go get it. I have to submit myself to not trying, not working at it, for it to come to me.   

Mr. Phillips then suggests that our relationship to sleep and our desiring it may say something about how we find satisfactions for many of our desires.  “If we took sleep as our preferred picture of an object of desire, began to see desiring as more like desiring sleep, we would be doing things very differently.  We would, for example, see satisfaction as something we had to relinquish ourselves for, and we would relish anticipation and longing. And we would never think that reporting back was possible or the point.” (84) 

And so, instead of a nap, I am here with a new way of thinking about desire and satisfaction. I can now see that anticipation and longing are what life is made of, seldom satisfaction. And I can relax into my hopes as I look forward to what will be. And it is liberating to know that I don’t have to try to explain it to myself. Relinquishing control might just help me relax enough that I can give into the gifts of life that overtake me.

PRAYER

We sat around a primitive wood table, embraced by the late spring evening.  The deck was littered with life, potting soil, herb pots, bird feeders. We held hands and bowed our heads. The aroma of a quiche filled with fresh kale from her garden teased our senses. He prayed a simple prayer of thanks for food, for friendship, for time together. 

This tender act is repeated time and time again throughout the world as people gather to break bread and share soulful conversation together.  But this time it seemed special.  He is stable after a long battle with a blood cancer.  He had months of chemo therapy and a stem cell transplant. He struggled with life and death and now feels strong and able to live a full life each day. 

I don’t know how often I race by these moments, but this time I paused and felt the spirit of life hold the four of us as we shared the stories of life and family, of hopes and disappointments. And I want to rest in that memory. Thanks for that time, those hands, that food, that evening of awareness and appreciation.  These moments in life are precious.

REVENGE

I have been thinking a lot about revenge and retribution these past days. A young man who felt rejected decided to take our his revenge on people and went on a killing spree, killing 6 people. 

What is it that drives this feeling? Retribution and revenge are both attempts to right wrongs by making someone pay for the damage that was done. It seems to grow out of an impulse not uncommon to most people that when someone is hurt, someone else needs to hurt to make it right. When someone is wronged, it can only be made right by making them pay with some kind of suffering. 

Something in us seems to have an impulse for people to suffer if they have caused others to suffer.

A couple of things have crossed  my mind as I have thought about this. When does attack and counter-attack stop? Most of the time when we feel like we want retribution, we assume that another has wronged us.  But, do we normally act to wrong another?  They may take our actions as wrong, but do most people intentionally act to wrong someone else? 

Or do we often take out our wronged feelings on other people rather than the one who has hurt us? Sometimes when we are wounded by some behavior at work or in the world, we don’t take our our feelings on the boss (that could result in our losing our job), but we take our our revenge on the dog or on people we love with whom we live. And sometimes we may take our our hurt  on ourselves, subverting the our very life spirit while we carry around the hurt in our heart. 

So, how do we stop the violence that grows out of a sense of being wronged? Do we give up our passion for justice when we see what we believe is an injustice?

A couple of thoughts—and maybe you have some to share.  Share your hurt with someone you trust who can listen to your pain.  Maybe the shared hurt won’t longer so long in the fiber of your being.  And pray. Maybe the God who resides deep inside you can help you forgive the pain so you are free to live without it’s eating away like a cancer. 

These are tough issues. Have any ideas?