GRATITUDE AND DISCONTENT

I have often wondered why it is so hard to hang on to gratitude. I mean, why is it that the first response to every minute of our day isn’t, “Wow. Just think of all the gifts of life that I have?” I mean, when we stop and think about it, each breath is an incredible collection of biological gifts. With each breath, the body assimilates the various components of that breath and distributes them to the various parts of the body to keep us going.  And that is just one little thing among the many things that keep us alive each minute.

But, even with these and thousands of incredible gifts of each day, we are sometimes overcome by discontent. We look around us and there are many more things we lack than what we have. We look at those who seem to have life together better than do we. We look at all the gadgets advertised incessantly and think how good life would be if we just had more of them. We look at the lovely people in the media and think how many things would make us look better and have the gifts that they seem to have.

So, maybe because we always lack more than we have, we will always have a level of discontent.  We will always look out and see what else we might be and either work to become more than we are or just be distressed because we do not have all the attributes that we would like to have.

And if this is true, maybe that is why we need to stop and worship regularly. For worship is the regular reminder that we are recipients of grace beyond our own deserving.  It is a reminder that while there is much that we don’t have, what we do have is incredibly amazing. And if we regularly stop to remember that, maybe what we lack won’t be so powerful in shaping our attitude toward the life we live.

TREE GONE

It was the extra noise that first alerted me to something happening. I looked out the front window and there was a large truck with a crane on top and a basket at the end of the crane. A man with a chain saw was high in the tree cutting. Another truck sat near by with a grinding machine on a trailer. Yet another truck was there was a stump grinder.

The machines revved up and before long, the tree began to be dismembered. Limb by limb it was cut apart, thrown into the grinder and was gone. In an hour and a half a tree that was probably 35 years old was gone. The stump was ground out, and the truck and the men vanished. I could not help but wonder about time. What took 35 years to grow and mature took 90 minutes to completely eliminate. 

And I thought about how this works in other parts of life. You can take a life-time to build character and it doesn’t take that long for it to be destroyed. Friendships take a long time to build and just a few minutes to destroy.  Marriages can take years to mature, year after year growing rings of story around a single core of commitment, but they can fall apart in just a few months of destructive behavior.

I am not sure what to make of this, except I know that building an institution of purpose or relationship is a long and arduous process and destroying one can happen in a heartbeat. Therefore, I guess the take-away from the disappearance of the 70 foot tree is that destruction is a lot easier than creation.  And if we are thoughtful and caring people, we will steward well what has been created . We will be careful how we take care of it so as not to destroy the good in precipitous and thoughtless actions.

IT IS GOOD TO REMEMBER

I have been reading people’s response to the gratitude challenge on Facebook. It has caused me to think. And remember.

Monett High School, 1957-1961. I was allowed to play basketball. That is the advantage of going to a school in a small town.  I got to play. I was not very good, but in those days when there were not a lot of good players, I could play. And I learned. Jim Julian, former football star was the coach. And I am grateful to him, even though he fell on me in a scrimmage and broke my back and basically ended my basketball career.

And the Speech Department. I am grateful for it and it’s teacher, Priscilla Bradford. For when I couldn’t play basketball, I could go to Debate Tournaments, I could develop skills at public speaking, I could have leads in High School plays.

And the Jounalism Class. I not only learned to communicate, but I was able to do the 5 minute daily broadcast of the Monett High School news over the local radio station, KRMO. I learned not to be afraid of sharing myself with others.

And the Music Department and BC Bundy. I learned to read music, to sing and to play the trumpet in the marching band. I was in the Jazz band and learned the music of the streets.

And the citizens of Monett who came to the Dairy Queen my daddy and mother owned. I worked in it and i got to see them. But equally as important as my development in interacting with the public was the fact that they spent their hard earned money there and as a result I and all my siblings were able to go to college and to graduate without debt.

I am grateful to Monett and the High School for helping me grow into a person who could contribute as a citizen of the world.

JUST BEING NICE

Photo by DL Moseley

Sometimes it is really hard to do things right. I was in slow traffic and there was a car that was trying to pull out into it. I stopped the car crawl to let the car into the slow traffic. He pulled in. The car behind me started honking impatiently.

“I was just trying to be nice,” I said to  no one in particular. I feel good when I can be nice to another person.

And then I began to wonder about the woman honking behind me.  What was her story? What made her so impatient with my niceness?

Was she already 10 minutes late to the pediatrician? Had she been walking out the door to take her child to the doctor and he pooped his diaper?  So, did she have to go back in and change him, making an already hectic day more stressful.  And late?

Or maybe she is stressed because she just got a call from her 89 year old mother who had just fallen and could not get up.

I realized in thinking thusly that it isn’t always easy to be nice—especially to everyone all at one time. When we are nice to one person, we may be creating a minor inconvenience for another. Or we may be blocking the way for another to address a more significant crisis.

So, not sure that we can always be nice.  Maybe the best we can do is be nice to the person in front of us and hope it doesn’t create too many problems for the one behind us.

IN GENERAL

Recently someone asked me, “What do you think of young people?” I asked, “Which one?” “In general,” he said. I said, “I think they are like they always have been. Each one is different and each one has gifts and challenges.”

One of the things that troubles me is how many of us are tempted to think “in general.” We read about people in the news or hear about people via gossip and we develop opinions about people “in general.” We make broad and sweeping statements about them. “Old people are always. . . . “  “Men always think  . . . “  “English people are  . . . .”

The truth is, no one particular person is “in general.”  Everyone I know is “in particular.” Each person I know is unique and is unlike any other person. My experience with people is that we make some important mistakes in our life when we think about people “in general.” Not all “boomers” are alike. Not all “teen-agers” are alike. What appeals to one doesn’t necessarily appeal to all.

Now, of course, people do studies and discover that a majority of people in a particular category may have a common taste in music or have a certain disposition toward religion. But the fact is, each one of those majority are also inclined toward different nuisances in their response.  And each is also capable of changing in how she/he thinks. Each has a different capacity to respond differently in unique situations. Each has a different history and a different context in which to consider their feelings and responses.

So, I want to be careful when I respond to questions like, “What do you think about young people.” I don’t want to respond i”n general.” To do so disrespects the unique and diverse creation of individual and particular differences. The world is much more interesting and people are much more mysterious if we see them as “in particular.”