Embrace the Mystery

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick

I think that often we, I’m speaking as humans in general, feel the need to figure things out. We want to have an explanation of why things are the way they are, and how things happened, and what will happen next and who made these things happen, and what we can do about it. If it is beyond our mental capacity to figure something out we take some “expert’s” word for it and may never give it another thought. We feel in control if we have the answers.

It’s been a risky business, but in the last couple of years I’ve dared to question the “right” answers I’ve held on to in matters of faith and discovered that I don’t know half of what I thought I knew.  I’ve had to admit that even the things of which I feel quite sure, may not in reality be quite the way I think they are. Further, I’ve concluded that for many questions there really are no definitive answers, and that it really does not matter.  I trust that God loves not only me, but all of creation, enough to lead us through life and get us where we need to be by the time we’re done.

Living a life of faith in God means trusting enough to give up control and embrace the Mystery. I find that the universe if full of possibilities now that I no longer feel the need to have all the answers.  I am not saying that there are no absolutes in faith; of course there must be. I am finding though, that there are far fewer absolutes that I once thought and that my faith becomes stronger the more I realize this. There is such freedom in embracing the mystery! Alleluia!

It Takes FAITH to Live

I have an unexpected day off tomorrow because a student in the school where I teach was diagnosed with MRSA virus (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus). This is the infection that has been making the news lately because it’s resistant to most antibiotics.  The school must be thoroughly cleaned before classes resume on Friday.

Due to HIPPA laws we were not told who the student is or what class he or she is in. That bothers me. I’m fairly certain it’s no one in my room as no students have been absent the past few days. Even still, it bothers me that if it was someone in my room, I would not have the knowledge to know whose desk interior and materials should be cleaned. (As far as I know only the hard outer surfaces around the building will be cleaned.) I understand a right to privacy, but in cases like this it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Earlier in the week a mumps epidemic was declared in the school. Epidemic of one person. Apparantly epidemic status is given to even one outbreak of a disease that the majority of the population has been immunized against. I had the disease as a child so personally I’ve nothing to worry about, but WHY and HOW did an immunized child contract this disease?What is going on? I have a lot of questions and those “in the know” don’t really have a lot of answers.

The fact is, this kind of thing happens every day, and worse. I have of course been aware of that on one level. But now the dangers “out there” are right here, and that’s unsettling. Bad things, bizzare things even,  can and do happen. Everywhere.

The situation leaves us with choices. We can worry. We can become paranoid of every cough or scrape or bump. We can try at all costs to protect ourselves. We can have faith and trust God to take care of us. There is a balance. We should, I believe, use the wisdom and common sense God has gifted us with to take care of ourselves, but not to the point of paranoia. Fear is useless and obviously not what God wants of us. Why else would the words “do not fear” and “be not afraid” appear so many times in scripture? So the balance is to do what we are able to keep ourselves safe and healthy, and trust God to take care of the rest. 

Money, Money

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.

Edith Wharton
US novelist (1862 – 1937)

 4 Give up trying so hard to get rich. 

 5Your money flies away before you know it,  just like an eagle suddenly taking off.

 Proverbs 23:4-6 (Contemporary English Version)

Scripture verse provided by BibleGateway.com

I think (and worry) about money much more than I’d like to. I don’t like to balance my checkbook and find the whole topic of finances to be confusing at best. I’d rather not think about money at all, but I doubt that I’ll ever have so much as to be able to forget about it! Right now I’m just hoping I can pay all the bills next month.  Any money I have certainly does seem to fly away, in spite of my constant efforts to cut costs and make an extra buck here and there. 

I have no desire to be “rich”,  just “financially secure”. The truth is, I will probably never achieve either of those states. So where does that leave me? Just trusting God, that’s where. I’ll do my best, pray for guidance, and trust that my needs will be met in one way or another. I admit, I can’t handle my life or my money on my own. I need all the help I can get!

 

Balance is Everything

It rained this morning here in Delaware, Ohio. Not a particulary momenteous event perhaps, but it has been quite dry and I’m sure the plants outdoors are somehow thanking their Creator at this moment.

I am mindful though of all the places in the world where there has been too much rain of late. Rain can be good, or it can be bad; it all depends on the timing and the amount. It’s like that with a lot of things. A little wine in the evening can be a very good thing, a lot in the afternoon a very bad thing. Two or three cute little squirrels playing in my yard are nice, but if I had three dozen it would be horrifying. Even the Bible, the good and life-giving Word, can seem like a bad thing when one is being ‘beat over the head’ with it by some overzealous fundamentalist preacher! Several shorter paragraphs in a blog post is a good thing, but I usually stop reading if it the paragraphs are long and there are many of them - so I’ll stop here.

Balance is everything.  Lord, bring balance into my life, I pray. Bring balance to this unbalanced world in which we life. Amen

Tip Your Tour Guide

I feel really blessed today; I got a $5.00 tip from one of my tourists.

For the second summer now, I am working part time as a tour guide at a local cavern that is open to the public. I had wanted to be a tour guide of some sort for many years. A cave/cavern wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it is working out well for me. It’s not always easy work, but it is fun. Last summer I got a dollar tip two times all summer, and honestly I didn’t think too much about it. I figured that if anyone was going to get tips it would be the guides who are young and cute, and I don’t think I’d be considered to be in either of those categories.

It was a nice surprise when last week on my first day back this season, 3 people tipped me! I thanked the Lord for the blessing and thought it to be a sign of a good season ahead. Then this happens today; wow! I had never thought to tip the tour guide on any of the many guided tours that I’ve been on over the years. It just never occurred to me I guess, and I figured that they are getting paid for the job they do. But now that I’m living it, I know that the reality is that while tour guides are paid, it’s not a lot really and the job itself can be harder than it looks. Tour guides must give the same speech multiple times a day, day after day and still be excited about the place they are showing to the tourists. It’s not always easy to remain excited about something under those circumstances. Tour guides meet many really nice and interesting people, but they also have to put up with incredibly rude and inconsiderate people, out of control kids, and other trials that would vary according to the type of tour they are guiding.

I thank God today for so many blessings, including tourists that tip. God, please bless those kind people and remind me to be one of them the next time I take a tour!

Wasting Time

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 4:15-20 NRSV

As part of my own Lenten journey I knew I was to give up playing games on the computer. I say I do it to ‘unwind’, but have had a nagging awareness that often I’m really just wasting time. I have found, of course, that there are other ways to unwind that are more profitable to me and I should probably just forgo the computer games on a permanent basis. (It is addicting….you can’t just play the game once or twice!) Time is precious; I realize that now more than ever having gone through the experience of thinking mine was running out. I do not want to be foolish, but rather want to make the most of the time given me.

I looked up the word debauchery (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=debauchery) wondering if I really knew what the word meant. I found one definition especially meaningful: (Archaic.) seduction from duty, allegiance, or virtue. There are many activities that we may engage in, including the playing of computer games, that could hardly be called “sinful” in and of themselves. It is when these activities begin to seduce us away from the things that we would be better off doing that the activities become problematic.

Prayer: Lord, help me to make wise choices in how I spend my time; that I may live to bring glory to Your Name. Amen.

Restless Walking

The hope of spring is in the air; nearly all the snow melted save the blackened heaps by the roadside. Restless, I went walking at the park, a path along the Olentangy River. As I sucked in the brisk air, I thanked God that my lungs are well and that I can breathe freely. It still seems a sort of miracle to me, that I can breathe, after the experience of severe illness.

There was so much trash along the path I walked. Litter is a sad testimony of the state of our society. Few seem to give a care for the environment or others that occupy it. I began to feel helpless anger well up within me and decided that the next time I go walking I shall have to bring gloves and a trash bag. This path was not a peaceful place to walk, with traffic quite nearby loud enough to drown out the gentler sounds of water or birdsong that I had hoped to hear. I returned to my car a bit disappointed and as restless as I was when I started.

I remain restless and wonder what it is that I am supposed to do, if anything. There can be many reasons for restlessness. Perhaps it is merely a part of this wilderness walk of the Lenten season.

Books

I enjoy reading and I love books. Books have been a sort of comfort food for my soul throughout the years, and while I’ve never had the money to be a fanatic about buying books I still seem to have plenty on my shelves. It’s difficult for me to part with a book, even if I have not read it for years. I did part with quite a few when I moved nearly two years ago, selling them at moving sales or giving them away. Books tend to be heavy and I didn’t care to move all of them. For the most part I haven’t missed a one and am glad that I was able to simplify a bit. My college age daughter sold a few text books on Amazon.com recently and got good money for them. So I have been searching my bookshelves for books to sell myself. I’ve sold a few, but many of the books I happen to have and don’t really want are in abundance in the “for sale” marketplace, so I couldn’t make enough for it to be worth my time selling them.

I’m finding some interesting things sorting through the bookshelves. A good number of the books I own are written on some spiritual or theological topic. As I glance through some of them I find that I don’t agree with what the author is saying, but I know that I did at one time. My beliefs have changed, or perhaps developed is a more accurate way of putting it. Many books deal with “finding God” in one way or another. I don’t feel quite so compelled to read those books anymore because I am so much more secure in my relationship with God that I once was. I do not have to chase God or seek supernatural “miraculous” manifestations; I meet God in a supernatural manner every Sunday in the Eucharist and I’ve learned that if and when anything truely miraculous is going to happen I will have had nothing to do with it. God is so far beyond and above what I ever imagined, and I simply don’t try to figure it all out anymore. I’ve come to value the mystery of The Great Mystery.

Other types of books on my shelves include professional texts, children’s books left over from my own childhood and that of my children, informational volumes on one topic or another, and old books. I hesitate to call the old books antique, most of them are worth little but I like the way they look on the shelf. I have a growing collection of books by my favorite author, Madeleine L’Engle, a few volumes of poetry, and some of those little “memento books” that are fairly useless but were given to me as gifts so I keep them. I also have a small collection of old children’s readers that I keep for no other reason than that I teach children to read. I even have one that I think I remember reading in school as a young child. I have found a number of books that I have never read. I still plan to read them sometime, I think. I keep a small stock of paperback novels purchased at yard sales so I have something to read should the public library burn down, or I get snowed in or something. My least favorite books are the cookbooks, because I’d rather not be bothered with cooking.

Books are so much more than paper and ink; they form an integral thread in the life fabric of their readers. What’s on your bookshelf?

Confusion

I really don’t feel like writing today. Well, maybe it’s that I really don’t feel like thinking deeply, and to think deeply is necessary to write something that is worth writing. I’m making myself do this however, although why is unclear.

I feel like there is a swirling confusion somewhere within me, somewhere beyond my thinking mind; yes, deeper than that. There is much confusion of course in the world, which, since this is where I live, probably affects me even though I may not be aware of the connections. (But I did learn recently that everything is connected…) Take the weather for instance. January in Ohio should be cold and quite possibly snowy. It feels like spring today and I’ve yet to see a snowflake! It’s raining and warm and some of my little bulbs buried in the ground are tired of waiting for the freeze and have started to sprout. The winter birds seem strangely absent lately as well. I don’t know where the cardinals and blue jays could have gone, they usually frequent my yard all year long. This is all weird.

I’ve been doing a bit of research on what to do to improve my general health and immune system. I even had a hair analysis done, which shows specifically what minerals are out of balance in my cells. The lab that does this also then outlines which supplements to take to help with the problems, and makes dietary recommendations. I got the results back today and was feeling rather overwhelmed as I read all this stuff, realizing that I may not even be able to afford to take all the supplements that are suggested. This stuff is all well and good, but even this can’t be the WHOLE solution, as is suggested. More confusion.

Now and then I’ll catch up on the latest in the Episcopal world over at Father Jakes. Talk about confusion! I’m not talking about Fr. Jake’s writing, he’s quite clear. The stuff that’s happening is confusing and I think that some people are getting totally confused about who God is and what Jesus wants his followers to act like. I can’t read too much of this stuff; admittedly, it gets to me.

Well, I could go on about all the confusion in the world at large, but I think I’ll stop here before I become confused about confusion. I remind my self (listen now self!) that whatever it is I read or see or think, it’s only part of the total reality. There are lots of connections that I don’t know about, and I must trust in The Great Connector to hold things together and to work things out.

The Darkness/The Light

I’m depressed. Not too surprising since I have dealt with depression my whole life and I have been through a lot in the past month and a half, but disconcerting just the same. I have a healthy fear of The Darkness, understanding all too well the varied consequences of giving in to it.

I find that the average person has little understanding of depression. Real depression is not just “the blues”, or a bad day, or even mere reaction to some circumstance. It can’t be willed away. It’s cause is a chemical imbalance in the brain, and it may or may not be brought on or worsened by circumstance. I believe that negative spiritual forces also come into play, but I can’t prove that. The Darkness is all pervasive, like a thick black blanket covering the soul and mind; heavy, oppressive, suffocating. The Darkness affects not only the emotions but the whole person.

Today I’m down; the Darkness is trying to close in but it won’t get to me and I know that. Today I’m just kinda sad for no real reason and want to be alone, and I trust that tomorrow will be different. I’ve lived in the suffocating presence of The Darkness and, by the grace of God alone, lived to tell about it. I actually thank God for days like today when I have a taste of that wretched blackness, for I need to ever remember what it was like. I need to remember so that I can recognize it from afar; so that I can fight and pray for Light before it gets too close to me. I need to remember that deep Darkness so that I will always recognize those who live there and treat them with compassion.

To all those who live on the edge of nothingness, who minute by minute struggle to keep from being utterly consumed by The Darkness, I say “don’t give up, don’t give in, the Light is come.”

Prayer

Jesus, Light of the World, Light of Life have mercy on your dear children who dwell in that Dark Place. Shine your light upon them I pray; shine and shine, brighter and brighter! Lord, it is your Light alone that delivers us from Darkness. Help them Lord, to sense your light even though they can see only darkness. Help us all to choose Light, and to be open to your Light. In your mercy Lord, hear my prayer.

amen