Shining Spirit

Do you think there’s any good reason God made Grackles? Just look at him. Strutting around with his beak up in the air. I’ll bet if he ran for the U.S. Senate he’d get elected. For some reason, we seem to be enamored of people who are out of touch with reality. Maybe Grackles would do as well. But, in all honesty, the Grackle is a pretty smart bird. He knows how to command attention with that big, loud voice. He wears nice shiney feathers and has a sharp eye that sees anything that moves. He knows the value of living in a community because he’s always surrounded by a flock of friends.

I have long been of the opinion that you and I can learn life lessons from just about anything the Lord made. Probably Grackles, too. I think I’ll start a list of all the fine attributes the Grackle brings to the world. Why don’t you do the same thing. After you’re fully awake and in touch with the day, start a list of all the life lessons you can see in a flower or a tree or a mountain or reflections in a pond or just about everything you see today. The exercise will be good for your brain, might even warm your heart, and will certainly make you think about gratitude. There’s a phrase in an old Abba song that says: “I believe in angels; something good in everything I see.” Grackles? Probably.

When I read news reports or stop on a TV news channel, I often feel powerless. I’m one little dot in a universe of complexity. I have no way of influencing the course of human events. Darkness is inevitable. But that’s not right, at least the part about being powerless. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Thank you, Alice Walker. I needed to hear that.

The mistake I make is thinking that my little efforts won’t change anything in the long run. I focus on the outcome and not the effort. “Nothing will change, so why bother.” In other words, my response to danger or evil or threat isn’t enough to make a difference. In that case, I am powerless. Yes, but…

What if you effort joined my effort? What if our effort became part of a bigger collective? My faith reminds me that Jesus wanted to shift the world toward goodness, change the course of human life toward a deeper relationship with The Sacred, which would alter our insatiable need to conquer and control. Could he have done that all by himself; just snapped his fingers and produced the results? What we know is that he chose a different way. He found one person, and then another, and then another, until he had a collection of “I can’t do that” people. Long story short: everybody has the power to affect change when they link arms and walk together.

I am powerless if I believe I am. But, I’m not and you’re not because “greater is He who is in me than He who is in the world.” Because you count in the overall scheme of things, and so do I. Because I believe what He taught long ago. Because I am not alone in the effort: the Spirit is there and you are there. Immediate results? No. Hard road to travel? Yes. Worth the effort? Absolutely.

It has been a few years, but I’ve ridden in cycling groups (Pelatons) like this one in a recent Oro Valley race. It can be just a little scary, elbow to elbow with another rider who wants to get up to the front and who wants to move over into your space. One shouted phrase you’ll often hear in a big group like this one is: “Hold your line!” And that means, don’t swerve or invade someone else’s space because the result would be a catastrophic crash. In a group like this one, when one rider goes down, many riders go down. And just because someone did not hold their line. Hitting the asphalt at 25 miles-per-hour is not something you want to experience.

It occurs to me that “hold your line” is not a bad phrase for the spiritual adventure, too. Be faithful, press on, stay the course, don’t give up…”hold your line.” Faith’s admonition to stay strong is underwritten by the promise: “I will be with you always.” I pray that today, when decisions come or doubt arises, each of us will “hold your line”, stay strong, don’t quit, pedal on!

One of my favorite photos. It is not about a walk through Fall leaves. It is about a walk through life; looking around at wonder after wonder, gasping and laughing and feeling great delight. But, most of all, it is about holding Father’s hand; a strong hand; a gentle hand; one to trust so completely that you forget you’re holding it. A hand, though, that keeps you moving in the right direction: safely and joyfully. A hand that holds a little tighter when you want to wander off or chase falling leaves into potential danger. There is an old hymn of the church that says: “This is my Father’s world…” And it is. And it’s nice to hold hands and walk through it together.

I think they watch us. Not blinking.
Very little motion. Rather nonchalant.
But notice sometime how they follow
human imprints. Maybe they hear us, too.
Much to our shame if they do.
They hear the human vocabulary:
rip and cut and shred and grind.
These delicate watchers are
the guardians of the earth,
witnesses to the heavy hand of
progress, the belching yellow
tractor with the razor-sharp blade,
crushing the tortoise in her den,
inflicting cruel pain on oaks and
pines that stand in the way of
multi-storied apartments
floating in asphalt sea
parking lots.
Pity the poor coyotes, javalinas
that wander into death, lost
in the mayhem not of
their making.

From the mind and heart of Steven Charleston: “Do not read these words unless you are willing to accept them and stand responsible for their meaning. To you, authority has been given to work a wonder in another life. To you, authority has been entrusted to shape a new reality. Be accountable for that gift. Use it with wisdom, aware and intentional, and arise a healer, both born and blessed.” This little paragraph is marked for today’s reading in Charleston’s book Hope As Old As Fire. May I focus just on the first sentence.

In these days of deepening disappointment with the course our nation is taking, there will come a day when even the most hesitant among us will say: Enough. Until then we will read the articles, commentaries, and internet musings of people calling us to hope, to pray, to trust and we will feel an increasing uneasiness about the march of history. But we will continue to search for glimmers of hope,
all the while watching a systematic dismantling take place. I ask you to read Charleston’s first sentence as if the words are addressed to you: “Do not read these words unless you are willing to accept them and stand responsible for their meaning…” Be the prayer you pray. Be the healer you hope for. Be the voice instead of the thought. This is the way of Christ. He became what he was. We can do no less.

I was thumbing through a little book of quotations the other day and found this: “Wherever you go, there you are.” My first reaction was: Ok, so…? I’ve said things as profound as that and to the best of my knowledge, I’m not in print in any quotations collection. I think I must have filed the quote away in the back of my mind as I moved on to more important things, like eating breakfast and stepping on the bathroom scales. The first is decidedly more pleasant than the second. But somewhere in the developing day, a little light came on in my mind: Oh, that’s what he means. “Wherever you go, there you are.” Sure, I get it. The moment! Be in the moment. Be conscious of this special moment. And that’s important, isn’t it.

More than once I’ve been sitting at my desk in Tucson, but my mind is in Dallas or New York. Some people live their lives that way; they are always somewhere else, reliving the past or projecting into the future. But there is so much beauty around me right now, so many needs to address, so many ways to make life better. If I wander in my mind to Dallas or New York, I’m missing opportunities that Christ is giving me right here, right now. Today is a gift. This moment is a gift. Don’t waste it. So, today practice being where you are. And in your recognition of your gift of the moment, make it count. Do something nice for someone; surprise them. Say something that acknowledges your response to this remarkable gift. Be where you are. Make a difference. And be grateful that you can.

Well, it’s Monday.
One more Monday, the start of another week.
Check the calendar: Luncheon tomorrow,
doctor on Wednesday, play bridge Thursday,
Susie visits Friday morning, dog to the Vet,
but nothing much today. Ho! Hum! Just
another Monday. I guess I’ll do my devotions
for the morning. just like every other day.

What if I opened my Bible at random, just held
it in my hand and let it fall open, I wonder what
it would say to me. Don’t know unless you try.
Psalms…humm. Now I’m going to put my
finger on the text…close my eyes and let my
finger fall wherever it wants to.

Well, listen to this: “This is the day the Lord
had made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Rejoice! Be glad! In this day! Yes!! I choose
to be glad! Yes! I might even be happy
about this gift! Funny how a few words
can change everything…I will be glad in it.
I will be glad IN it, not about it. IN it. In
everything that comes my way, I will
choose to be glad, appreciative, thankful.
Thank you, God, for the gift of another
Monday. I’ll watch for you IN it. I know
you’ll be there.

At 4:34 this morning, I sat at my desk wondering what my mind and my heart would agree to produce for the day. Neither my mind nor my heart answered. There was a tedious silence. But, I thought, I will offer a few more minutes to the pair, and then it happened. I looked at my not uncluttered desk, over at the corner near the file folders, and there it was. Just what I had been waiting for. A thought desiring to be developed.

This adventure of writing poems began as a diversion. I was onboard a U.S. Navy ship in the middle of an ocean on a calm, placid day with no immediate responsibilities. For reasons I don’t remember, I picked up a pen and jotted down a simple poem. Something about missing home or “thinking of you” lines. And I enjoyed doing that so much that the next day, in a similarly quiet moment, I put more words on paper and found the same feeling of satisfaction. And so it began. That was in the mid-1980s. That was a few years ago. Over the years the number of three-ring binders has increased and the pleasure has never vanished. So to the present moment.

The three objects living together on the corner of my desk are a candle, a ceramic figure of a woman holding a bowl up to the sky and a glass container filled with writing instruments. The candle is the vehicle of Light, the conveyor of a glow that grows into brightness. The figure of the woman and her bowl is the act of reaching up as an empty vessel to be filled with the gift of thought or insight. There is a small candle in her bowl, perhaps waiting for the fire of heaven to create even more light. The prayer guide draped around her bowl is a late addition to the trio. The final piece of the corner trinity is the collection of pens and markers, my necessary instruments for the creation of word stories.

Light as prayerful gift expressed through words from common, ordinary pens. I am deeply grateful for the personal pleasure of creating and organizing words on a page. I know the Source. We collaborate each morning, as in the special gift of this day: light, a prayer, and a pen. You see, now I have something to write about.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” Perhaps you will recognize that famous line as the 11th verse of chapter 13 in the New Testament writing called 1st Corinthians. Wouldn’t it be a different world if that was true? Maybe it was true for the writer, Paul of Tarsus, but he’s the same man who, in a different letter to a different church, described himself as a “wretched man,” torn between right and wrong, good and evil. He describes the contest within his mind: I do things I don’t want to do and I leave undone the things I should do. Want and should.

“Tommy, when you play in the sandbox with Billy, you should be thoughtful and kind to him.” “I guess so, Mamma, but he has a toy that I want.” Maybe Tommy will develop a higher moral system when he grows up; maybe he will be introduced to something called a “conscience,” that inner voice that someone once called “the representative of God.” Let no one say, though, that it’s easy to live by the “should” and ignore the “want.” When “want” is out of control, power and greed and popularity become delicious poisons whose lethality is not limited to the one person. Many are infected. Many suffer.

When adult human beings insist on acting like childish human beings, when bragging, boasting and bravado become virtues, those who still hear that inner voice of conscience are faced with tough decisions. Moral decisions. Ethical decisions. Spiritual decisions. Paul of Tarsus, probably in despair, threw up his hands and exclaimed: “who will save me from this body of death?” Who will rescue me from the collision of conscience and childishness? And Paul concludes: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” God? Intervening? Solving our problems while we watch? No, but speaking to our hearts, whispering in our minds, calling us to be who we claim to be. The moral imperatives of conscience still exist in good people; they are in the DNA of human beings.

For the welfare of nations and for the benefit of the least among us, we need to listen to the still, small voice. From the integrity of who we are, we need to listen and respond to the highest calling, the welfare of all creation.