The magical elixir.

Poor me,

Poor me,

Pour me . . . another drink!

An AA Refrain

One of the things I love most about the church I attend every morning I’m able is the valuable truth passed along through seemingly simple expressions. We gather like travelers huddled around a table gazing down at a map as we prepare for another day’s trek. Experienced travelers pass along what they’ve learned about the terrain, while novices ask all sorts of questions. There’s great wisdom around the table, wisdom that’s come at a great cost, and it’s often disguised in short expressions - Let go and let God, One day at a time, Fake it ‘till you make it, I’m not much but I’m all I think about, Do the next right thing.

Early in my travels, when I was surrounded by darkness and feasting on guilt and shame, someone taught me the importance of gratitude. I was at one of my lowest points, and he made me write a gratitude list. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I protested.

“No,” he replied like the wise sage he was. “Write 25 things for which you’re grateful, and don’t just say ‘my kids.’ Be specific!” 

I complied and proudly brought the list to him, only to be told to go add another 25. It took work, but, in the end, I learned how therapeutic gratitude can be. 

Gratitude fills one’s heart, pushing fear and sadness, insecurity and greed, guilt and shame to the curb. It brings new life and allows our souls to breath. It empowers us to look up and see beyond our small world – to our neighbors, our country, and world. Wallowing in sadness causes us to look down and focus only on ourselves. Like the saying above, if we find ourselves in a pity-party, a drink (which, for us, is death) begins to look dangerously appealing. 

I wanted to share the power of gratitude with you given all that is going on around us. In no way am I discounting the hardship and the brutal realities that face us each day, but I’m suggesting there are still many things for which to be grateful. Writing a (specific) list of 25 things will work wonders and allow our souls to breath. If we go and write an additional 25, who knows, we might find ourselves looking up and seeing the struggles of others with a more compassionate heart and generous spirit. 

Silo Building

I once heard a story about a farmer who was good at what he did. His harvests were plentiful, so he needed to build bigger silos. Soon, they were filled, and he built more. Then, as the story goes, he learns that his time was up, and all he had to show for his life was a bunch of filled silos.

I try to recall this story whenever I find myself clinging to things that don’t matter. It’s a story that’s particularly relevant today as we swim though some peculiar waters. A virus has altered our day-to-day living. We’re told to stay away from others, to work from home, if we still have jobs, and it seems so strange to live this way. We walk down the barren aisles of the grocery stores and avoid eye contact with the other customers as if the virus could be spread by simply looking at each other. 

Fear distorts us in so many ways. 

Economic interdependence has revealed itself like a dew-covered spider web. We look out our windows to make sure our silos are still standing, and I wonder if we aren’t somehow being asked the same question as the farmer: On what are our lives truly based?

I have no doubt this troubled time will alter the way we live our lives. What I wonder is, will it alter us for good or ill? When it’s over, and it will be over, will we go back to business as usual? Will we clench our first more tightly, or open our hands? Will we return with greater vehemency to silo-building, or will we focus on something beyond our silos? When we return to work, will we still take walks around the neighborhood with our families and wave to neighbors? Will we continue to play board games, or go back to eating dinner in front of the television while clinging to our phones?

Like everyone, I can’t wait until this is over, but I pray that, when it is, I remember the important lesson it’s been trying to teach us, the same one that was taught to a farmer long ago.

Lent 2020: Entangled Yarn

The young girl came up to her teacher with tears in her eyes. She held something behind her back, and when the teacher asked what was wrong the girl brought forth a tangled ball of yarn. Reluctantly, she placed it in her teacher’s waiting hand. 

Just minutes before, the girl had received the yarn as if it were a sacred gift, but in her excitement made it a wound-up mess. She went to another student for help, but they were only able to do so much. With nowhere else to go, she returned to the teacher for help. Sitting in the chair made for her students, the teacher placed the yarn on her knees and went to work. Strand by strand she worked like a surgeon until the yarn was as it had once been. Looking up, the tears remained on the little girl’s face, but now there was a smile as well. The teacher didn’t chastise the girl, nor prohibit her from ever playing with yarn. Instead, she held it out for the girl and said: “Let’s try this again.”

I’m afraid we’ve made the season of Lent too complicated, too churchy. With ash on our foreheads, and our fingers tightly gripping what’s left of our resolutions, it might be helpful to think of our lives as the yarn in the story. They were given to us as sacred gifts, and hopefully we received them with great excitement. Like yarn, however, we often get our lives entangled and, left to our own devises, probably make things worse if we don’t ask for help. 

Lent is a season to return to the teacher. It’s a time to place our entangled lives into the hands of the one who gave them to us in the first place. Mourn the mess, yes, but don’t despair. In the hands of the teacher the most stubborn knots can be undone. Obsessions can be lifted, habits transformed, and impossible situations resolved. Light can be found in darkness, dead relationships can be resurrected, and hope found within despair. 

But first, we have to see the knotted yarn for what it is. Then, we need to find the faith to go to the one who’s hand is out, waiting - the one who, in love, will whisper, “Let’s try this again.”