LIVING LARGE

The human spirit is a fickled energy. Sometimes it wants to curl up into a ball and hide from itself and the world. We like to build tiny houses so that the soul doesn’t have too much room to wander around and get lost. We want to play our cards close to the chest. 

And there are other times when we want to run outside and dance in the rain. The spirit feels confined by the predictable and the routine. We are sure that there must be more and our heart will burst if we can’t stretch our souls to embrace the whole world. 

How do we free the spirit to fly?  How do we face our fear of falling and climb to heights we have not experienced before? 

I wish I knew. I am sure it is different for each of us. For me, it helps to accept myself as fickled and learn to embrace the place I am. When I am tired, when there has been too much stimulus and too many changes all at once, I try to give myself permission to draw in. I try to be conscious of the my boundaries and the need to draw them with a darker pencil. I try to accept this is a time to live small, to steward my energy and protect my soul. 

And then when I get restless, when the space begins to feel suffocating, I start testing my spirit. How large does it want to live? What tickles my fancy? Is there a play we can go see?  How about a movie? A concert? Friends to invite over? Day trips to explore unfamiliar places? Longer trips to far away places? Service to provide? 

Since the days we have to live are relatively few, and the world we have been given is excessively large, I want to live large as many days as I can. I need tiny spaces to rest and gain strength, but the fantastic world is my dream.  

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.

DIVING IN

It had rained for a day and a night.  I was in a downtown coffee shop enjoying the gifts of retirement.  It was a slow morning.  The owner's wife and 2 children had come to have breakfast.  As they were leaving mother dressed the kids for rain.  The all walked outside toward home.  Before they went 10 feet out the door, the almost 2 years old boy headed right for the gift to all little boys--an ankle deep puddle of water.  And, ignoring his mother's protestations, he walked right in!    Oh, to be young.

There is something seductive about the abandon with which almost 2 year olds take on the world.  They are curious and when something looks interesting, they explore.  They dive right in.

What is it about getting older that keeps us from divng into life?  What keeps us from tasting and exploring the unknown.  What sucks out our curiosity?  

I think it may be a lack of grace.  It may be fear that we will make a mistake.  It may be that we will become the mistake we make.  It may be that people will not forgive our mistake.  Ankle deep water dries, but some of the consequences of our mistakes don't disappear with a warm dry towel.  

Certainly caution has saved my life more than once.  But, oh to have a small measure of that little almost 2 year old's curiousity and freedom to explore.