The Renovating Reverend

One of the perks of living in an old downtown area is being close to little cafes and shops.  We’re lucky to have a small, old diner downtown that is still going strong.  During the winter, we found ourselves walking over there on most Sundays, the day of the week on which they make biscuits and gravy.  The owner is quite a character.  If two people sit down at a big booth on a busy day, he’ll strongly suggest they move to the counter, to make room for a larger party.  And he’ll holler a warning at patrons about the syrup bottles that can shoot the homemade syrup out at high velocity.  He makes large, orange-colored pancakes that are, apparently, mentioned in travel literature as something not to be missed.  Although you can find all kinds of people in the diner on any given day, folks who are obviously tourists will occasionally show up for the pancake.  Some tourists are from town, and some are from out of town.
 
What makes a tourist?  I’ve traveled the world just enough to confidently form the opinion that there is a big difference between a traveler and a tourist.  Travelers are out to experience a place and, sometimes, participate in local life.  Tourists, wherever they go, seem to be observing a place and its people as though they are completely outside of the tourist’s experience.  For example, last Sunday, a woman and a man sat down at the counter next to us, and proceeded to comment on the place as though none of the rest of us could hear or understand them — it was as if they were sitting at home in front of the TV, commenting on a show.  This lasted until shortly after the cook dished up their order, at which time they settled down and focused on their food, engaging in quiet conversation and watching other patrons come and go.  After we’d packed away our biscuits and gravy, and were walking back home, I couldn’t help but think that, if the couple had continued to hold themselves apart from the environment, they would have completely missed experiencing the place as the regulars do, and it’s likely that they would have been evaluating the food rather than really tasting and enjoying it.
 
You can probably guess where I’m going with this.  I wonder if there are ways in which all of us might be acting like tourists in our everyday lives.  Could we be be missing out on a slice of life because we’re using the tourist strategy to keep ourselves aloof, apart from people and places we’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable with?  Could we be judging people or things without even trying to get to know them, perhaps to, again, keep ourselves at a “safe” distance? The Christian Bible says that perfect love drives away fear, and Jesus of Nazareth is certainly depicted in scripture as a traveler who displayed a fearless love, while encouraging others to follow his example. So many other revered spiritual leaders have done the same. So, in all of our daily travels, may we have the courage and love to move beyond tourism. May we be fully present, participate fully in life, wherever it takes us.

We’ve turned a corner. The work on the house has now reached a point at which we can see that progress is obviously being made, most notably in the front parlor – it is now all finished, complete with curtains, picture rail moulding, artwork hanging from the picture rail moulding…and a Christmas tree. It’s like an oasis of completion in a desert of disorder. However, so much work is still in progress, or has yet to be started. For example, mere inches away from the front parlor oasis of done-ness, the back parlor still features crackled paint on the woodwork, sagging plaster, and peeling wallpaper. Depending on which way you turn, you get a different feeling about the place.

If you’re looking at the outside of the house, you’d get a similar effect. Steve finished painting the house last month. The other day, he put up icicle lights, and set up a few inflatable characters in the yard. A woman who lived in our house in the 40s and 50s stopped by while Steve was hanging the lights, and he invited her in to see the progress we’ve made. She laughed about the various states that different parts of the house are in, both inside and out—that casual passersby would see the outdoor paint job and the decorations, and would never guess there was so much work going on inside.

As we begin the holiday “season of light,” when many hopeful celebrations take place during the darkest time of year, may we remember that what we see with our eyes does not necessarily reflect the full reality of the situation. Keep looking for the light, and, if you see it burning brightly, share your love, hope, and help with others.

Last month, completely unexpected, out of the blue, someone sent me a laundry list of grievances for which I was deemed either forgivable or unforgivable. I was called names that I’ve never been called before, which, for a military veteran in middle age, is saying something! Seriously, though, after re-reading the message, and after a long period of reflection, I realized that this correspondence told me quite a bit about the sender’s life, and about the motivations for writing to me. It set me to thinking about regret, pain, anger, and the nature of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is one of those topics that can be oh-so-difficult to get our heads around. I think that just about everyone, whatever their ethical, spiritual, or religious persuasion, agrees that forgiveness is a good thing, even though we don’t all view forgiveness exactly the same way. However, the questions commonly arise, “How do I forgive?” and “If I forgive someone, doesn’t that make what they did OK?” The best answers that I’ve ever heard to these questions have come from four very different sources.

I don’t remember the name of the speaker I heard back in the early 1990s, or which member of his immediate family was killed by an erratic driver, but I do remember the core message he gave about forgiveness. He was an intense speaker, and his pain and anger were very apparent—he wore them on his sleeve. He said that he viewed forgiveness as a multi-stage process, and that each person would have to determine the stages himself. In his own experience, the first stage was to decide not seek revenge, to not go looking for the man who had been driving the car. Another stage was to leave the man alone if he happened to see him while going about his business, instead of attacking him on sight. As he became comfortable with a stage, he would determine what the next stage would be. He worked through the stages with the understanding that his forgiveness did not let the driver off the hook, but did release himself from pain and anger. If he held onto his pain and rage, he felt that he was actually allowing the driver to steal even more from his life than the driver already had. Forgiveness was about the forgiver letting go, so that he could go on with a life that’s not warped by transgressions, that’s not full of negativity.

The Forgiveness Institute has a great description of what forgiveness is (and isn’t) on their website. For example, they view forgiveness as something that is freely given, even when the other person does not deserve it, and that it is not about excusing the other person, or being superior to the other person. They also make the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. http://www.forgiveness-institute.org/html/about_forgiveness.htm

I’ve come to view forgiveness through the lenses of a quote from “The Road Less Traveled,” by M. Scott Peck, and a quote from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Peck said that life is a difficult thing, and that, once we’d come to understand that, life would be a much better experience. The Big Book says that acceptance is the right answer for everything. I see the wisdom of these two statements, because, until we come to accept life as it happens, we’ll be operating from a warped life view, rather than from a realistic view of things. We’ll be so tied up in how we think things should be, that we won’t be able to see them as they really are. Besides, there is nothing I can do to reverse what just happened. I can choose how I will respond to what happened, and I can try to influence what happens afterward, but I can’t reverse the event itself. Why not accept what happened, and move forward with a positive response that’s rooted in my core beliefs? After all, God’s forgiveness, as it was taught to me, really boils down to acceptance, acceptance of me as I am. The old Christian hymn “Just As I Am” was frequently sung in the churches that I grew up in. Whether or not I personally deserve it is not even in God’s forgiveness equation. Knowing everything about me, and accepting me as I am, is God’s radical forgiveness.

So, this leads me to the question, in light of God’s acceptance of me and the self-destructive nature of judgment and resentment, why would I not forgive? Why would I hang onto pain and anger that eat away at my heart and mind? Is the negative energy of resentment really worth what it costs me in my health and relationships with others? If the Creator has forgiven/accepted me, then how in the world could I withhold forgiveness from others? How would I even have the right to withhold forgiveness from myself?

This week, as I continue the never ending process of refinishing woodwork in the house, I’ll be taking a fresh personal inventory, looking for any unforgiven resentments that I hold against myself or others, and asking myself why in the world I’m still holding onto them.

We’ve begun to paint the house. It’s been various shades of green for many years. Most recently, it has been the green color of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We’d rather that it be a different color, so it is now in the process of becoming a chocolate brown, with the trim in beige, and some accents of a rusty red. The porch ceiling is a sky blue, as tradition and practicality dictate (Victorian home owners learned that wasps like to build their nests on white surfaces, but will avoid blue ones). The painting process is going slowly, as we paint whenever we have time and the rain holds off. While we’ve been out in the front yard, we’ve heard favorable comments from passersby. A couple of people have thanked us rather enthusiastically for painting. The other day, however, there was a slightly different experience. Steve had climbed up and stepped onto the porch roof to begin painting the second story. He hadn’t been up there long before a woman who was driving by stopped to yell from her car, “Hey! The green looked better!” Although we’d previously heard nothing but positive comments, this negative comment felt momentarily discouraging…until we just had to laugh about it, because it was so odd and out of the blue. Some of our neighbors have much more astonishing house painting stories that they can recount in vivid detail. One couple actually had angry people knocking on their door after a lavender tinted primer had been applied (and before the final two coats of a light brown were sprayed).

For some reason, this all made me think of the saying that it takes three “atta boys” to equal one “you idiot.” Negative comments can often seem to carry more weight, while positive ones don’t sink in as easily, even when the feedback we receive is overwhelmingly positive. This is yet another reminder for me to watch my words, so I’m paying attention and putting renewed effort into doing just that. And, in that vein, I will offer some encouragement to focus on the “atta boys” in life, and to give as many as possible to others. As Paul of Tarsus wrote in the New Testament book of Ephesians, “Watch the way you talk… Say only what helps, each word a gift.”

May the gifts of graceful words sink deeply into your heart…and may you choose your colors carefully!

Following a very rainy spring and early summer, more rain fell, and unprecedented flooding is now taking place in our area. We’ve been using a shop vac all day, off and on, to keep the water level in our basement as low as possible. With no tile system or sump pump, water has to be removed in a somewhat old fashioned way. Bucket after bucket, the wet stuff just keeps coming as we vac it up. It’s amazing to think that we haven’t had flooding like this since well over a century ago. Some folks are much worse off than we are. Down in the lower-lying parts of town, businesses and homes are taking on water. Steve’s mother was evacuated from her apartment as the water rose. The water plant is now out of commission, there’s very little water pressure, and the water is not safe to drink or bathe in. Toilets can’t even be flushed by the usual method. We were able to purchase drinking water, but we wondered about the other basic necessity…how would we use the toilet? Where would we get the water to flush? Oh, the water from the basement! I never thought I’d be glad to have a watery old basement, but I am, today. Love every back-breaking bucket!

Renovating a house gives a person lots of opportunities to drive to a home improvement or hardware store, so I have plenty of opportunities to encounter fellow drivers who do annoying or dangerous things. On just one trip out to the store, I experienced a person who cut me off, another who rode my bumper for blocks (although I was going faster than the speed limit), one in front of me who suddenly slammed on the brakes for a garage sale (on a busy, four-lane street), and yet another who barreled through a stop sign and nearly hit me. By the time I arrived at the store, I was no longer annoyed—I was just glad that I had escaped injury. I was reminded of the guy who once told me how he was kicking the habit of road rage. He was taught to focus on getting the car and everyone in it safely to the destination. “The focus isn’t on me,” he explained, “but on a purpose, a goal. When I’m driving, I have to realize that it’s not all about me. It’s about my family, about safety, about being responsible for what I do, not for what someone else is doing.”

After the week I’ve had, I think the anti-road-rage strategy might be a really good one for all of us to apply to our everyday lives. I’ve heard and read more enraged name calling and discriminatory comments this week than I have in a long time. It seems we all feel that everything is about us, as individuals, and what we are doing, and how we feel—and we really need to let everyone know we’re unhappy when we don’t get what we want or don’t get what we think is due us. I’m all for setting healthy boundaries, for speaking up and taking care of ourselves, and for having a respectful dialogue with people who don’t believe the same things we do. However, spouting off and putting other people down doesn’t really accomplish anything. It doesn’t encourage the other person to seriously consider our situation or opinion, it doesn’t further spiritual or religious values (like the Golden Rule and loving our neighbor, to name just two), it doesn’t really build us up or help us grow in any way. As I remember the old Baptist ministers saying, it doesn’t “edify.” Name calling and ranting only leaves us looking like people who have very little love and even less self control. It hurts others. And it can raise our blood pressure to unhealthy levels, to boot. So why do we do it? I think we are grasping for a quick way to feel powerful, and we forget that hollering doesn’t give us any power at all to change the situations that concern us.

So how do I think we can counteract this destructive behavior with the anti-road-rage strategy? We can focus on a real purpose, a goal, by getting involved in problem solving or service, right in our own neighborhoods and communities. We can remember that everything isn’t always about us, and that we will always share our space with people who don’t act, look, or believe as we do. We can take responsibility for our actions, rather than focus solely on what someone else is doing. If we put our energy into more positive, cooperative pursuits, we can build community, get rid of some of our frustration, and make real, lasting changes. It might not be easy—for centuries, wise people have said that the way of love is not an easy way—but it will help us arrive at our target destination. We will be closer to living as though we are already in our spiritual home.

Specific examples? People who are for and against abortion can work together on something they do agree about – fostering children who have no parents, running programs for children aging out of foster care, or reforming ineffective adoption processes. People who disagree on particular religious issues can work together to ensure that religious freedom is maintained for everyone, and that no one in their community is treated badly because of their religion. People of all sorts can get involved in groups like Habitat for Humanity or United Way events like a Day of Caring, and work with each other toward the shared goal of building up ourselves and our communities. As we work together, we just might increase our chances of coming to some agreement on the things that aren’t as closely shared.

Philosophy, as an academic study, has not interested me too much over the years, despite my appreciation for the writings of philosophers and humorists (who are often philosophers in disguise). Of the more well-known philosophers, Albert Camus is on my “top 5 favorite” list. Even when his work has an air of frustration or hopelessness, it’s clear that life goes absurdly on, and it is worthwhile for people to work together and attempt to do things that are good and meaningful. Just as we might say the cynic is a deeply wounded romantic, it seems as though the absurdist was actually hopeful at heart, and I think that’s why I liked reading Camus’s work when I was young.

Recently, I happened to run across a quote from Camus that I don’t remember seeing before: “I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.” To me, this means that all we’ve got is the present moment. We can only live one day at a time, and our actions have consequences today.

To be sure, there are times when we are powerless to influence anything except our own attitude, but even at those times, indeed in all moments, we do have the opportunity to influence life in positive or negative ways. Most ethical and religious systems agree that it is good to help those who don’t have enough to eat, no place to live, or no decent clothing—we are to care about our neighbor’s welfare. Most also agree that we do the work of God in the world, that we are “the hands of God.” No person can prove there will be a judgment day, or reincarnation, or any life after death. Different people from various religions can’t always agree on what is right and wrong. We can, however, learn to love and care for others daily. So, this being the case, why would we wait for some unknown future date on which God will set everything right? Perhaps because relying on a future judgment, or sternly warning others about impending judgment, might excuse us from any responsibility to examine our own lives or to love our neighbor? It’s so much easier to point a finger than to extend a hand.

Our actions have consequences today, and we can do our best to live this day, this moment, in love–or waste the opportunity to love on a game of blame and shame. May we always choose to let the love the Creator gives us flow through us to others. In so doing, we will push away the darkness of judgment, and bring a little bit of heaven to earth.

For centuries, the spring equinox has been a time for sowing seeds and celebrating a time of regeneration, new growth. In some places and religions, it has also been a time of purification with an intention of starting life anew. We had a few inches of snow last night, which covered up the crocus that had just started to bloom, and could seem to delay the arrival of more spring growth, but I’ve learned that even a late snow can be a helpful part of spring and hint at the hope of warmth and growth to come.

A good part of our yard was torn up when the dead trees and broken down chain link fence were removed last fall. Then the guys who did the work on the fascia and trim last month left some ruts behind, from positioning their large, diesel powered lift. I spent some time over the past few days attempting to rake those ruts out of the damp soil before the snow flew. We’d like to grow grass over that area of the yard until we’re ready to landscape it, a few years from now. I had thought we’d need hold off on the grass seed, at least until we approached the last frost date, which, for us, is the first week of May. Turns out we didn’t really have to wait that long. My husband remembers hearing old farmers talk about scattering grass seed on top of the last spring snow. In this way, the seed would “melt” down into the soil, make good contact with it, and have some moisture to help it germinate. Especially since the temperature is going to go back up into the fifties this week, this made good sense. This morning, Steve pulled on his rubber boots and slopped through the melting mess, scattering the grass seed. It is seed that will eventually help bring grassy cohesion and growth to the bare landscape.

Feeling as though a fresh start, warmth, and growth are just out of reach? They might be much closer than you think.

I’m sure you’ve heard the very old saying, “A thing worth doing is worth doing well.” I often think of this saying as I’m stripping woodwork in preparation for refinishing it. A person can strip just enough to make the wood smooth and ready for sanding, primer, and paint (as we will do in our bathrooms and kitchen), or go further and remove every last bit for staining and sealing (which is what we’ll do everywhere else). Some folks go so far as using dental tools to pick wood completely clean. You will find one dental pick in my tool bucket, but most of our wood trim has gotten rather dinged up over the past 112 years, and maybe even had a bit of water damage here and there, so it will never look anything like it did the day it was installed, no matter what amount of effort I put into the job of refinishing it. This could make the job seem futile, as in, “Why bother. Just paint it all.” That’s certainly a valid option. However, if you like stained woodwork, because of the warmth or the look of the wood grain, a different mindset is needed.

The English writer G.K. Chesterton once said, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.” This twist on the older saying is one that I have lived by since the day I read it. Chesterton made an important point, in his trademark paradoxical fashion: If something is worth doing, then it’s worth doing, no matter the quality of the end product. If we allow ourselves to freeze up because we’re worried the end result will not be perfect, the thing worth doing will never get started. If we endlessly toil at a project because it just isn’t good enough yet, the thing worth doing might not happen.

Are there times when precision is called for? I know there are. Do we sometimes look at things we’ve accomplished and see how we might have done better or differently? Surely. Are there times when we need to let someone else do a thing? Absolutely. Am I going to let perfectionism prevent me from digging into the things-worth-doing that I can tackle, or keep me from appreciating the things-worth-doing that I’ve done? I certainly hope not!

Extending Chesterton’s philosophy, I can try to appreciate the efforts of others with a less perfectionistic eye.

Today, I’ve got the day off so that I can spend a good chunk of time stripping paint and varnish from the parlor wood work. I’d better get back to it, with an updated version of Chesterton’s saying in mind: “Do your best, and git ‘er done.”

I’m blogging during my lunch hour, today. It’s cold and flu season in cubicle land, here at work. With sneezing going on all around, I often hear people say “Bless you!” Sure, it’s meant as anything from an expression of goodwill to a full blown religious statement, but the concept has always seemed just a little odd to me, nonetheless. It sounds as though we feel God won’t bless someone unless we wish it, or as if God’s blessing hasn’t already been poured out on a person. Odd, when viewed this way, isn’t it?

When I first heard the Wiccan or Neo-Pagan parting expression “Blessed be”, it made me think–not just because of the old English word order in the expression, but because of the slightly different shade of meaning this word order can convey. Just as the Christian scripture encourages followers of Jesus to “pray without ceasing,” to be aware of our constant connection to the Divine, I find the traditional Pagan expression “Blessed be” to be a reminder that God is in us, with us, and for us. In other words, it is a reminder to behave as if we are blessed, as if we are in God’s presence. After all, if we know that we are already blessed by God, already welcome to a constant, loving connection with the Divine, then we should let that fact sink deeply into our hearts and minds, so deeply that we live out the blessing in our daily lives.

The next time you hear someone say, “God bless you,” may you be reminded that you don’t have to wait for the blessing. You are already blessed, already welcome to live each moment in the loving presence of the Creator.

Blessed be.