Peace on Earth…for twenty-four hours anyway

An angelic chorus is recorded in the Gospel of Luke with having greeted the birth of Jesus singing “glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will toward men.” I sometimes wonder if they were singing of another earth. This earth has known very little of peace. I don’t have an answer for it. No one else does either. So I am just going to try live peace on my little bit of earth for one day. Twenty-four hours. What follows will be my diplomatic strategy.

–Be Quiet. Much of the strife in my world comes from  my propensity to over-appreciate the right of others to hear my obviously well-informed opinions. Though they may suffer some, others will not die from not knowing what’s on my mind for a day.

–Be still. Tranquility is as tranquility does. Modern life is a beehive and we are the busy bees (ironic, since our activities seem to be killing off the actual busy bees that pollinate our crops and share their honey). Being still tends to create a sense of peace naturally. My world calms when I do.

–Read something online I disagree with and not comment. To anyone. Especially in the “Comments” section (otherwise known as “The Pit of Despair”). Just think about what was written. Let it breathe a bit. And then go on with my life. I might just give myself a chance to grow.

–Do something nice…for someone I don’t especially like. It takes nothing to be nice to those who are nice to us. But awe and wonder arise when we give rise to our better selves and just reach out to someone we consider less-than pleasant.  Sometimes we are surprised to find they aren’t as unpleasant as we thought–sometimes our impressions are confirmed. But whatever, for one day I will act peacefully toward someone it doesn’t seem natural to do so. If there is ever to be that elusive peace on earth, it will be because enough people get tired of being enemies and decide to act otherwise.

–Smile and greet everyone I meet today. Some people will return it. Some people will ignore it. Some people will think I have a screw loose and I will see it in their eyes. But I might just cross paths with someone today who desperately needs just one person to acknowledge them in human warmth. I might make their day. Who knows? A made day could change their life.

–Avoid all 24-hour news for at least  twenty-four hours. It will be more effective if I can do so for twenty-four weeks, months or years. I’m guessing my anger level will drop by a minimum of 24%. Minimum.

That’s it. I have to keep it simple. Merry Christmas everyone. May there be peace and goodwill in your little corner of earth.

A Thanksgiving Greeting

Where ever, and who ever you are, I hope this day you can find at least a small sense of blessing. I hope you may a know a little peace and a little fullness. I hope your eyes can be opened to some wonder. I hope a soulful smile will find its way into the world through you.

I hope there’s some music in your life–a favorite song, the sound of your loved one’s laughter, or just the wind whispering through the trees. I hope there’s some good food and drink and even better company. I hope there is much love, and that all the little irritants that seem to slip between loved ones in our daily journey can be set aside so only the love remains.

I am mindful that for some, even the simplest of these hopes seems a fantasy. Some lives are mired in difficulties that make my life seem like a heaven in comparison. I have no savior complex. I’ll likely not change that. Not for every one in every place anyway. I am captain of no ship but my own, and the challenges of that job are quite enough. But if my ship can be a refuge and place of rest for someone else for a bit then I hope to have the wisdom and compassion to provide that refuge.

For who knows? Today’s abundance may become tomorrow’s want. Most all of us are adrift in wild seas from time to time. So we must savor the blessings while we have them. Even if the only blessing is but a breath, breath means life and life means possibility. And what a gift possibility is. Sail sweetly friends. There is a great big horizon out there, and who knows what lies beyond?

The Neighbors (Part 2)

Where were we? Oh yes…we started with a reference to a television show: The Neighbors, ABC’s little comedy about two very different but still very much alike families learning to live together amid the madness of the the modern world. Somehow, from there we ended up thinking about love. Or maybe we should say “inevitably” instead of “somehow”, because when alike-but-different people try to live together we are going to wind up with either love or one of its opposites–apathy or enmity. There really are no other choices.

Have you noticed that there is very little argument about the desirability of love? We may haggle a bit over definition or application but as to the essence of love itself, there seems to be very little debate. I’ve yet to hear anyone say “The problem with the world today is there is just too much love” or anyone complain “My life would be so much better if there wasn’t so much love in it.” No. We love love! We enjoy it and and revel in it and cry over its loss. We don’t need wise ones to tell us without love we have nothing because we intuitively know it in our hearts.

This love of love begs a question though–why is it so hard? Why is love so much work? Why doesn’t it come easier to us? Why do we so easily slide toward apathy and enmity when the fruits of such are so visible in our broken world? I’m fairly confident there is no one-word answer to these questions, but I’m going to offer one anyway–protection. Protection? Isn’t that generally a good thing? The answer to that question is easier–it depends on what you’re protecting, and in the world we live in it is easy to protect the wrong things.  I’m going to use myself as a bad example here.

The other night I was sitting with my wife enjoying the evening when we were interrupted. I didn’t react well. In fact. I acted like a baby. Exactly like a baby. By that, I mean my primary motivator in the moment was my very smallest self–my ego, which didn’t want to share or play well with others. Rationally, I know better. I know that shrinking to my smallest self never brings more happiness or light into the world. But I did it anyway. I literally became, for a short period of time, that little child we have all seen pitching a fit and screaming “Mine, mine, MINE!” at the world.

Now why would I do such a thing? Human weakness? Of course that plays a part. We are all weak. But it’s more than that. We are all wounded by the imperfection of the world, and those wounds play themselves out in our particular circumstances. Above all, we don’t want to be wounded again. Ironically, this usually sub-conscious desire to protect ourselves from the pain of our wounds binds us to them even tighter, assuring their power over us.

This why we can all agree that love is such a wonderful thing but be quite selective about how we apply it. We are protecting ourselves. Not our best selves or our highest selves, but that little wounded person inside. For nothing is quite so scary as love. It opens us to wounds. It might not be returned. It might be taken advantage of.  It surrenders power and possessions and time and money. It surrenders pride. It heals our wounds not by protecting us from them but by daring us to walk right into their gaping maws.

I think this is why when Jesus talked about the neighbors in his day, he not only encouraged loving them as one loves oneself, but he picked some aliens of his own as examples. He encouraged faithful Jews to be more like a Samaritan traveler and to emulate a Roman centurion. He ate with people the “righteous” thought wicked. He was telling people to stop living out of their smallest selves. That by doing so they were not only binding themselves to the misery of their wounds but spreading it to others. That living in such a way was certainly not abundant living, regardless of ones possessions. That in fact living in such a way is not really living at all. So he encouraged people to expand their love, to widen their circles, and to risk even their lives in the attempt. For indeed, what does it profit to gain the world but lose one’s soul, and where is the finding of the soul but in the giving and receiving of love?

Considering this, I really have some work to do.

 

Giving and Receiving

Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. I think I know what he meant. I think he was talking about being able to put oneself in the backseat, share, and meet the needs of others over the needs of self when called for. He was talking about the beauty of a selfless, generous spirit. More than talking though, he was encouraging and exampling that very thing.

Still, on this Christmas morning, I find myself wanting to argue with Jesus a bit. Don’t get me wrong. I was blessed greatly in the gifts I managed to give. My wife and son and daughter are all pleased with the thought and effort I put into their presents and the selections made. But frankly, I find the gifts received to be a greater blessing. A CD of my daughter singing and playing acoustic versions of some of my favorite songs.  An abstract painting from my son. A stack of books to entertain, challenge, and educate me from my wife (why is my wife always trying to educate me?).

So I sit here quietly thinking that while it can be more blessed to give than to receive, it can also be more blessed to receive than to give. In fact, often–even usually–we must receive first to have anything to give. Life, love, material blessings–whatever we seek to give, what have we not received of others first? You see what I really received from my family wasn’t things at all. It was a bit of themselves. It was the grace to share in their lives. It’s the receiving of that which gives me whatever power I possess to give some of it back, because truly one can never give that which one does not possess.

No doubt Jesus spoke truth in its context, but I see it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth is that giving and receiving are partners in a dance of blessing. We need both the generosity of spirit to give ourselves away, and the generosity of spirit to receive others humbly and graciously as they give themselves away. Some days I am better at one than the other, and some days I am not especially good at either. Today though, I know the blessing  of both, so I suppose it doesn’t matter which one is greater. What matters is joining the dance while the music is playing.