WORK AND TIME

Three months ago I received a book and was asked to review it for a journal.  I started reading it.  It was on the roots of suffering and I found it engaging. But, then I put the book down and somehow it got overshadowed by other reading and doing.  Occasionally I would clear off my desk and it would emerge from under the rubble of daily life.  I would read some more. 

The book review is NOW due.  And I am busy reading the rest of it so I can send in my thoughts.  

I am reminded of what I learned in time management courses some years ago as I tried to manage the constant confusion and demands of ministry.  “Work expands to fill time.”  The purpose of that wisdom statement was to encourage me to set time limits on tasks and when I did that, I got more done.  When I thought I had lots of time, I took lots of time to do the task. 

This is a lesson I have to learn over and over. And it is especially hard to learn at this stage of life when I am not serving a church or a seminary and other people are not setting limits on my time or defining my tasks.  I have to set my own time limits or I won’t get much done at all. 

So, I have run out of time on writing this blog. I best end it here.  I have to meet my deadline on the book review.  Next time I will set more time to write the blog so it doesn’t end so abruptly. 

NOT ENOUGH

She was holding her 10 month old, trying to settle her down. She was feeding this little girl but the girl would not be soothed. The mother was sitting on the bleachers watching her 6 year old play baseball. 

Finally after trying a bottle, the mother got up and began to walk the child.  She went behind the bleachers, humming and trying to calm the child.  Then she walked back to cheer her son on. 

Back and forth she want, between addressing the demands of one child and cheering for her other.  There was simply not enough of her to go around—to be in 2 places at once.  She couldn’t give to each everything they wanted or even what she wanted to give to them. 

Being a parent is living in the constant tension between what she would to give and what she can actually give. 

This tension is then inherited by children.  Most children never get all the attention that they long for.  And at a very early age they begin to live with the anxiety that there might not be enough to go around.  There is not enough mother to fill the child with all her or his desires or needs. 

And is it possible that children then internalize that “not-enoghness” and think the reason they don’t get all they want is because they are not enough? 

How do we break that pattern?  Is it possible for parents to feel they are “good enough” when they know that their efforts are never perfect, never achieve what they want to achieve? 

I guess at some point, the breaking of this pattern will require our overcoming our fears of the empty space that comes when do don’t have all that we want or desire.  When our anxiety about not having or being enough drives us, we simply pass on our tension.  But, when we break that pattern, when we accept the limits of our own humanity we can pass on to others that they are indeed enough.  What a gift to give to another person.

LEFT BEHIND

He is now famous.  Known only as JR, this man has traveled the world taking pictures of people who are invisible to the dominate culture.  He began photographing immigrants and minority residences in a suburban town of Paris. He then enlarged the photos and put them on the sides of dilapidated buildings they inhabited. When riots broke out the following year, the world came to see and discovered his work. Now his work is in 140 countries and he has created a collage of selfies that have been sent to him and it covers the floor of the nave in Pantheon in Paris.

Aside from the pop-up art that he inspired around the world, what fascinated me in the article in the June 23, 2014 issue of Time Magazine was how JR got started. He had been a graffiti artist.  But, one day he found a camera on the Metro that someone had left behind. That discovery changed his life. Something lost by someone else became a door for a life of celebrity and art. 

I guess we never know what impact we have.  Things that we may have outgrown or left behind may become something that changes the life of another person. We often think that the way to make it in this world is to have a dream or vision and then work hard to fulfill that vision.  And certainly there is evidence that such action can result in achieving our goals.

But, don’t under estimate the power of surprise. We never know what our actions might produce.  What we leave behind in our life, the love or compassion, the kindness or tender touch, might just be the gift that opens the door for someone else to discover their future. I doubt that the person who left behind the camera on the Metro on Paris even realizes what an impact he has had on the world of art.

MIND BREEZE

He was standing beside the trail.  Fifteen feet away, on a long leash, the little white poodle stood and stared.  I hiked by—greeting the old man and acknowledging the dog. Not moving, the dog just stared.  The man spoke, “Her get up and go has got up and went.” 

And for a moment, I felt, like a gentle breeze,the spirit of my Daddy.  He used to say, “My get up and go has got up and went.”  And then, In the brief passing, the aroma of my Daddy infiltrated my body. 

Father’s day comes around every year.  Someone said that we need to acknowledge our fathers.  And so we have a ritualized time to think, to thank, to talk about those men who might have blessed our lives.  We remember their all to human qualities through which we might have glimpsed divine love. 

But, I think I prefer my Dad moments like I had on the trail—breezes of memory that tousle my hair and tickle the senses. They sneak up on me like the smell of the old Model T exhaust that puts me back on the wooden knee of my Granddad who took me and my sibs over to the gas station in southern Oklahoma and gave us a penny to put in the gum-ball machine where two or three trinkets were dispenses with each piece of gum.  

They bring tears to my eyes as I smell the aroma of machine oil that impregnated the overalls as I ran to hug “Daddy-Buggin” as he came home from the machine shop where he worked to provide a living for his wife and five children. 

Or, the scrub of a man’s beard on my cheek and I am right back in my Daddy’s lap being rubbed by his Saturday unshaved chin.  Oh, how I long to tell him how much those times meant to me. 

These are the moments of memory I love.  They surprise me, reminding me of the presence that is so deeply woven into my soul that it takes an unguarded word, smell or touch to open my mind and heart to the gifts that have blessed me. This way, father’s day comes here and there, now and then, more like the reality of deep love than in just on a calendar date once a year.

THE LONG VIEW

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.” These words have been attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero who was shot and killed while saying Mass in San Salvador in 1980.  It is be beginning of a prayer in which we are reminded that life is greater than ourselves and that we are merely seed planters in the grand scheme of things.

I find this a helpful thought not only to keep a perspective on what I am able to do with my life, but also what might shape my response to the current activities of my life. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my feelings about the present that I lose perspective on what I want my life to represent.  Sometimes I allow the feelings of the moment to control my response to a challenging situation. 

When I take a step back and look at the long view, the emotions of the present may not be as important as they feel. When I think about my family and friends, I alway try to not only respond to the moment but to imagine how my response will impact the long term relationship. Of course, we never know that the long term will be, but being human we can’t avoid paying attention to it.

And, I think this long view comes from my being formed by the religious community of which I am a part.  All my life, I have been reminded week after week that God has a vision of what the world would be like when it lives according to divine insight.  I have been challenged and invited to live into that vision of a world where peace and love are a reality for all.  I have been directed to consider what others are going through as I consider my actions.  

So, I pray with the Archbishop, “It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.”