Playing On

This is a week when I know I need to be “all prayed up,” as they say in AA. Fathers’ Day kicked it off, then conducting the funeral of a dear friend before heading to Vermont to officiate at the wedding of a childhood friend’s son. All three are reasons to celebrate, but all three carried the potential to shroud the joy if I let them. My relationships with my children are not as good as I would like them to be. I’ve hurt many who will be assembled for the funeral, and each time I speak about marriage I’m reminded how far from it’s wonders I’ve strayed. After a brunch with two of my children, I was given the day to watch the US Open golf tournament and that gave me all I needed to carry on.

For those of you who do not follow golf, the US Open is a particularly challenging tournament. They choose the hardest courses and make the conditions almost unbearable. This year was no exception and the best golfers in the world struggled to survive. One golfer stood above the rest, but with each shot over four days the crowd booed and harassed him because of something he did a year ago. I don’t know how he did it, but the golfer kept playing on. In the end, he was victorious, but as I watched him hoist the trophy I couldn’t help but think his victory was over more than a difficult golf course.

Making our way through life is never easy, and some seem to have a steeper climb than others. The crowd, however, awaits us all to lpoint out our imperfections, remind us of all our mistakes. We are faced with the same choice the golfer had: to crumble or play on. While it sounds simple, it’s grueling to play on when the crowds (the ones surrounding us and the ones inside our heads) are so loud.

Even if we don’t hoist a trophy at the end, at least we’ll have chosen the more difficult, more excellent, way and that’s a trophy in its own way.

Dust

It’s hadn’t been that long. In fact, it had only been a few days, or at least that’s what I thought, but when I entered my studio dust rested on every flat surface. Because all the doors and windows had been shut, I expected everything to be as I left it. “I guess I’ve been gone longer than I thought,” I said to myself as I got out the Endust. With each swipe of the dust rag, I realized there was a lesson to be had, one that speaks to many areas of my life.

Being a human, at least being the kind of human I long to be, takes work. It requires constant care and effort, and yet so often I fall asleep or think I’ve been more attentive than I have been. Whether in my marriage, friendships, physical or spiritual intentions, I create intentions that fill me with as much excitement as creating physical spaces like my studio. I devote much of my time getting things “just so” before heading off to other interests. I shut the doors and windows and think things will remain as I left them, but dust somehow finds its way onto every flat surface in less time than I can believe, and I’m left with no choice but to get the rag out and get dusting.

I have a friend I love dearly. The last time we were together was magical and yet it has been months since we were in touch and the phone gets dustier every day.

My wife and I had a moment when we were completely in sync. “This is what marriage is supposed to feel like,” I thought before a challenge swept across the surface revealing a layer of dust.

Before COVID, I bought an exercise bike I used every other day. Now it sits in the corner of the room gathering dust.

I have a spiritual practice of reading two devotionals and writing 30 minutes each morning. I’m successful most days, but recently things have come up and, looking at my journal, I saw it’s been over a week since I last wrote. I was certain it had only been a day or two, but the dust facing me this morning revealed it had been longer than that. The pen was heavier than I remember, and the 30 minutes seemed longer than ever, but that’s the price of letting dust settle.

As we enter the summer months, my hope is that we will all get out our rags and get dusting and not find ourselves in September with the most important parts of our lives covered in dust.

Whispered Wounds

The small diamond P hung from her neck like a whisper. Subtle, almost private, it rested above her heart. It was a tribute to her son, Patrick, who died, and every time I see it, I think not only of him but the truth that we all carry wounds, or deep sadnesses, wherever we go. Some hide their wounds, others give them voice, but the fact that we have them is a profound truth that could transform the way we live.

There was a time when I tried to have it all together. I locked my insecurities and fears away thinking no one would ever find them. I begrudgingly accepted my losses and failures and tried to move on as if they were things of the past, but I now know that they were with me regardless of how hard I hid or denied them. When I finally gave up and lifted my hands in surrender, I came to know a new freedom and a more stable happiness. Like the woman with the neckless, I let my wounds show. It has caused some to walk away and others to draw closer, which, I’ve learned, is the way it is with wounds. What surprised me most was how alive I felt.

As a person with a sapling faith, however, I’ve come to see that wounds are not only a gateway to intimacy with others, but also with the one who created me in the first place. Whether whispered or shouted, those things that have hurt me, embarrassed me, or broken my heart, are the very things that make me human. They scrape away the Teflon on my heart and make me knowable. They also make it possible for God to enter in like water finding cracks in the earth. For the longest time I tried to build an impressive spiritual resume so God would be proud of me, but that put me on a performance hamster wheel that all but killed my soul.

Now I see the holes in my tattered resume as the very things that lets light, others, and God, in. I wish there was another way. Maybe for others there is, but for me I have no choice but to wear my wounds around my neck and let the world do with me what it will. My worth comes from somewhere (someone) else. When I remind myself of that, the wounds I tried to hide become the very things that make me knowable - to others and God.