vitalwholeness

On a recent flight I struck up a conversation with my seat mate, a young very pregnant woman who was heading off to be with her husband, a medical student in his residency. Her home state was Texas and this temporary change of address for the residency was just that, temporary. After the required time away they would be heading back home, understandably.

Somewhere along the way the conversation took an interesting turn, I believe  as a result of the interesting political climate of the current campaign year. This young woman, scarcely thirty, I would guess, pronounced her loyalties: “I’m a Republican, but I’ve got some reservations about all this.”  So, tell me, what are they?

It soon became clear that she was affiliated by family tradition. And yes, she was a fiscal, free-market conservative. But after that the waters became muddier.

Immigration issues? Ridiculous, said she, our economy is bound up with immigrant labor, legal or otherwise. Find a way to legitimize those here and fast track ways to legally make it possible. Our economy is bound up with that and it’s silly to think otherwise.

Drug trade, drug wars and enforcement? It’s all a supply side problem, and we in the U.S. are the supply. Not with the heavy drugs, but with marijuana legalize it, decriminalize it, tax it, regulate it. Take the market away. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Same sex marriage? For God’s sake keep the government out of people’s bedrooms. And give equal rights under law to all citizens regardless. I want that for my many gay friends and their families. This is nature, not nurture. Time to wake up.

And then the flight was over and she was heading to the baby shower. And it occurred to me: Most Americans, most, are much more complexly layered – politically, ideologically, socially, religiously – than we simply portray them with convenient labels. And if we only recognized this diversity of perspective within the mainstream we might actually be able to find solutions to our many challenges.

As it is the extremity pulls us apart, polarizes us, casts us into dark and light, good and bad, friend and foe. I don’t believe that has to be the case, as my soon-to-be-mother seat mate reminded me. There’s hope. But we have to actually talk.

Yes, at last, the unavoidable phenomenon: Sunday morning messages hit the electronic streets. Broadway has opened a new YouTube channel and our morning messages may be accessed there. Enjoy, pass on, post on social media!

I used to think life was long, but know I know it is short

I used to think I might change the world, but now I hope the world doesn’t change me

I used to think that everything was in the plan, but now I try to fly with less of one

I used to think that the outside was the measure of success, but now I know the outside illusion

I used to think that rational mind could take us anywhere, but now I know its poverty absent spirit

I used to think that time doing nothing was wasteful, but now I know that doing nothing accepts our creaturehood

I used to think that love was a choice, but now I know that it is a surging sea with its own rules

I used to think we could organize peace, but now I know that peace is a gift received and shared

I used to divide life into material and spiritual, but now I know that spiritual is in the material

I used to think it was my responsibility to turn others to God, but now I know the harder path of loving them

I used to think that criticism by others was about me, but now I know that it is always and only about them

I used to think that loving people meant rescuing them, but now I know that loving them is helping them to be free of all rescuing

I used to think that this slice of civilization is somehow special, but now I know it simply takes its place in the long sludge of history

I used to think that prayer was a sending a message from one to another, and now I know it is simply being with the other

I used to think that people were getting better every day, but now I know that the darkness of human nature continues to persist

I used to think that we should only appeal to the highest motives of people, but now I know we are moved by many motives

I used to think that the church was holy by virtue of its own nature, but now I know it is holy only by virtue of what it points to

I used to think that we could trust individual virtue to protect us from social sin, but now I know that we must protect ourselves from ourselves when it comes to greed and power

I used to trust explanations from those in power, but now I know them all to be self-serving, an attempt to create an illusion

I used to think that helping people meant providing for them what they did not have, but now I know that provision comes from God and I may help remove obstacles to its flow to all people

I used to think that creativity was employing a technical skill set, but now I know that it arises as an inner vision that employs a skill set

I used to think I could make a list and capture all important things on it, but now I know that any list, especially mine, is incomplete, filled and completed only by a communion of saints, living and dead

Max Lucado:

The one who wants to lead the orchestra has to turn his back on the crowd

For not being able to pray, this prayer of Edward Hirsch is one of the finest:

I Was Never Able To Pray

Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.

Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.

I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves

and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends
and see my voice sail into the night.

It was my periodic turn on the rotation at the half-way house. Ever so often I show up to bring some devotional time to our rag-tag bunch. We’re comprised of ex-cons, those just out of drug rehab, homeless guys, and some on hospice. And the staff, several who need the spiritual focus perhaps more than anyone. And Frank the dog, a plump mutt who once roamed the streets of Fulton, redirected to Columbia by some turn of canine fate. Frank used to be all bones. Now he eats scraps of pizza that fall off the table even though there are big signs all around that say, “Don’t feed the dog.” Frank is fat. People have been feeding the dog.

I’m early. I thought for sure they were to start gathering at 7:00 p.m. But no, it’s at 8. So they’ll start early, maybe 7:30. We wait. But as we wait, one guy comes in and asks if we’re really watching the basketball game on the tube. No, we’re not. Good, says he, because I bought a cheap DVD just today and want to try it out. He puts it on and I am soon to discover that it’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Movie. The guys wander through the living room and start guessing the names of all of them. Of course, there’s Alvin, that’s obvious. And Simon and, let’s see, what’s the other one? Theodore, that’s it. And Dave is the human. Pretty soon we’re all staring at Alvin and the Chipmunks, even Frank is glancing away from his vigilant watch of the table. Everytime Dave screams, “Alvin!” Frank the dog looks up like maybe Dave is calling his name.

One fellow, Mr. Blanket, darts back and forth into the living room to watch Alvin. Mr. Blanket talks to people we can’t see. He says things like, “NOW we’re getting ridiculous!” But he’s really preoccupied with a very neat stack of blankets. He is very protective of his blankets. In fact, he finds a cardboard box that is too small to hold them and tries to force them in. Over and over, he tries different approaches, trying to make the blankets conform to a box that is much too small. Until one of the other guys says in ear-shot of one of the staff, “I probably shouldn’t say anything.” What he shouldn’t say is that Mr. Blanket has been hoarding blankets from all over the house. When the staff brings it up to him he just frames it as a justice issue. But it doesn’t seem to be justice for everyone, just him. Someone has to be about the community with some fashion, with plenty of blankets, says he.

So we’re finally in a circle. And it’s my turn and I start by telling a story on myself that illustrates the truth, “You can’t get there from here.” In other words, all the detours we encounter along the way are essential, for unknown reasons at the time, because you have to go through them to find where you really need to go. And the Magi were like that, I said, seeking by a star and then returning home by another way, the past ways of travel barred from them. What courage and trust that takes. And every place in-between here and there is as important as the final destination; it all matters.

Mr. Blanket is packing his box the whole time. But the happy new owner of Alvin and the Chipmunks says, “Maybe you can’t know the good until you’ve passed through the bad.” And the guy with his eyes closed on the couch you thought wasn’t listening says, “Each place tells us something we need to know for the next place.”

And Frank the dog watches with his patient eye. He knows about waiting. He waited a long time in Fulton on the streets. And now he’s here with pizza on the floor and a log on the fire, people hugging on him.

Sometimes you just can’t get there from here.

When the first few notes are sounded
the tune recognized, recalled
memory stands its post
then transports the listener
to the first place heard

And the words, if there are any
point elsewhere, to storehouses
where ideas are locked in the keep
cataloged and sorted
by title, date and author

The tune or the words
travel corridors of mind
bumping neurons
touching familiar edges:
Ah, that!

Until one day
the same sound that once captivated
becomes its own distraction
and we gasp for freedom
from such pleasure become master