THE BRAIN

My son-in-law shared advice he sometimes gives to others—and has to give himself from time to time as he functions as a stock broker.  It is advice that make sense to me. “Don’t expect other people to think with your brain.”

 I have thought about this a lot the past few days.  We can guarantee that we will spend a lot of our life disappointed if we don’t follow this advice. After all, the way our brain works is what we know to be most familiar. The way we see things is surely the way things really are. Why wouldn’t others think with our brain?

 But, while our brains all operate with the same electrical impulses and pathways, the way they are used is as various as the kinds of circumstances we have lived in and that we live in.  When Deb and I were in Cody, Wyoming a couple of years ago, we stayed in a guest house on a ranch several miles outside the town. The closest neighbor was a couple of miles away. The sky was vast and explosive, roiling with wind swept clouds and crystal clear stars. Silence settled on the night as a warm blanket.

 Spending time in that environment where a person spent a lot of time in their own company, helped me see how different the brain works than it does when I am in a swirling, chaotic, traffic clogged city. My brain feels different in the silence of wide open spaces than it does where the music blares on my neighbor’s deck while they are taking a midnight soak in the hot tub. 

 I understood how the rugged individualistic brain on the prairie was essential for survival. But, it doesn’t seem as virtuous when  I am trying to sleep in a  neighborhood where the actions of each impinge on the sleep of the other.

 Not sure how much I can think with the brain of another, but I think I will be a whole lot happier if I don’t expect others to think with my brain.  

MOVING BEYOND THE PAIN

[This post is the first in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders' devotional booklet, "Disciplines" from The Upper Room. This is based on the parable of the prodigal that is found in Luke 15:1-3 & 11-19]

Parables are pluralistic.  They are like Mexican pinatas.  Filled with treasures, they are prodded and poked.  When they break open, they contain treasures.  The gifts are diverse and appeal to different tastes and interests. Consequently they are always old and ever new because the one who hears is ever changing and is always in a different place.

One of the treasures of this parable is it’s revelation of disappointment and loss.  The father in charge of the family had a plan.  But, the son who asked for his inheritance early (thus implying that his father had already died to him) threw a monkey wrench in that plan.  His son had a different idea about how life was to turn out.  This would be deeply disappointing to the father. 

This disappointment is not unlike our experiences.  Our dreams and plans are good, but often they don’t work out.  Change seems to be stalking the edges of our life’s designs.  Our hard work to secure a future that we want is often rewarded with disappointment and grief.  Change is the one constant that we can count on in life so loss is the consistent reality.

This reality often burdens our moving forward into the future.  The father in the parable was undoubtedly saddened and struggled to stay on an even keel.  His dreams were shattered  as his heart was broken by his son’s leaving.  

We too experience such loss and grief in our lives.  We are disappointed when life doesn’t turn out the way we think it should.  Moving beyond the pain of the losses of the past requires that we open ourselves to the forgiving spirit of God’s love.  If we cannot grieve the losses and accept the freeing forgiveness for the future, the weight of that ungrieved loss will break us.  What loss do you need to name and grieve?

Hear my pain, O God, and give me courage to face my disappointment.

DISAPPOINTMENT

I read this quote recently on Facebook: "What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be."  I agree.  One way not to be disappointed is to not have any image of the way things are supposed to be.

But, I wonder how much we miss if we give up our imagination about what we would like life to be. Desire is vital to life. It is what makes the difference between existing and living. Desire is the driving force for activity.  The desire for the well-being of our family drives us to get to work and earn money. The desire for a better world drives us to work for laws that make a more just world.  The desire to live well in our family motivates us to be graceful and forgiving.  Desire is what gives shape and form to our daily decisions.

So, if we are to be alive, and if we are to desire life to be a certain way, what do we do when it doesn't turn out the way it's "supposed to be"?  How do we live with being disappointed when people don't do what we think they should do?  

One way to look at disappointment is as a loss.  When things don't work out as we want, we lose something. We lose confidence in our ability to make things happen the way we want.  (Maybe that is something like the loss of the illusion that we are God.) We may lose our belief that everyone else sees the world the way we do. We lose the illusion that others desire life just as we do.

And with any loss, we have to grieve it.  Grieving loss is at it's core an act of forgiveness.  One person has said that forgiving is forgrieving.  Our inability to forgive the world for disappointing us will destine us to live in the prison of past pain.  Forgiving others for disappointing us frees us to live a new way, maybe with the grace to accept that which we can't change.  It makes it possible to move forward in a world that isn't the way we think the "world is supposed to be."

What do you have to grieve during this holiday season?  Will you forgive those who disappoint you and open to the surprises of a world that is new and filled with different possibilities?