Monthly Archives: December 2017
The Gift of Laughter with Tears
by Sean Dietrich
It’s the day before my birthday and it’s cold in Coosa County, Alabama. Lake Martin never looked so good.
You won’t care about this, but fifteen years ago I didn’t know my purpose on this planet. Today, I’m middle-aged, and I still don’t know—only, now I have a bad back.
This morning, I ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel, it should be noted, doesn’t have the greatest biscuits, but in a pinch they’ll keep you alive.
An old woman and her daughter sat at the table beside mine. The woman was in a wheelchair, with messy hair. And talkative.
“That man needs to shave!” she hollered.
Several people in the room giggled.
Cute, I was thinking, looking around for an abominable snowman.
“He needs to SHAVE!” she shouted again, this time in my general direction.
“Mama,” gasped her daughter. “Be nice.”
I smiled at the old woman. And that’s when it hit me. This lady was yelling about me.
I am the Bigfoot.
And I became a middle-schooler again. It was like a bad dream, only without the corduroy pants and the Barry Manilow music.
The woman’s daughter apologized. But I told her it wasn’t necessary.
The old lady went on, “Your face looks like a big, fat bear!”
Precious memories. How they linger.
Eventually, she calmed and I finished breakfast in peace. She, more or less, forgot about me—until I stood to leave. Then, she noticed me again.
Her old passions reignited.
“Go shave your dumb face!” she hollered.
The daughter whispered to me, “I’m SO sorry, my mother has no filter.”
I got into my truck and took a few breaths. I looked into the rearview mirror.
I don’t know what that woman might be going through. Maybe she’s not in control of her mind. Maybe she’s had a traumatic experience involving too much hair.
Either way, all I could see in my mirror was a chubby middle-schooler who looked like Cousin It. I saw a boy I’d almost forgotten. A mediocre athlete, a redhead, a C-student, a face like a Pilsbury ad.
My birthday is on the horizon, I’m thinking, and some woman just called me ugly. In public. Repeatedly.
It started in my belly and went to my throat. I laughed. Hard. I don’t know why. The universe has a sense of humor, I guess.
Funny, what words can do to a man. Simple, little words. They can make you feel good. Or bad. Or they can make you feel like the mascot for U.S. forest fire prevention.
So my purpose in life. I still don’t know what it is. But I can tell you my aspiration: to be nice.
That’s it.
I don’t have any grand plan. No big ideas. I just want to be the fella who smiles more than he doesn’t.
If you ask me—which you didn’t—the world has enough people who have figured life out. They’re smart, prudent, with four-car garages.
That’s not me. I can’t even remember how to play Bingo. But I do know the person I want to be. I want to be the man who hugs strangers, pets stray dogs, and uses nice words. A man you might pass on the street, then say to yourself:
“Look, there goes a nice guy…
“Who just happens to look like Sasquatch.”
(I get Sean Dietrich’s posts on face book. They are all right out of his life and ours, simple, touching, funny, and inspiring. Not sure how to re blog so you can follow him also. I copied this. Hope you can find his site from his name. Believe me, I know my day is going to get better when I see a post of his show up on my face book.)
You Are Forgiven. Pass It On.
by Henri Nouwen
It is hard for me to forgive someone who has really offended me, especially when it happens more than once. I begin to doubt the sincerity of the one who asks forgiveness for a second, third, or fourth time. But God does not keep count. God just waits for our return, without resentment or desire for revenge. God wants us home. ‘The love of the Lord is everlasting.’
Maybe the reason it seems so hard for me to forgive others is that I do not fully believe that I am a forgiven person. If I could fully accept the truth that I am forgiven and do not have to live in guilt or shame, I would really be free. My freedom would allow me to forgive others seventy times seven times. By not forgiving, I chain myself to a desire to get even, thereby losing my freedom. A forgiven person forgives. This is what we proclaim when we pray, ‘and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’
This lifelong struggle lies at the heart of the Christian life.”
#HenriNouwen THE ROAD TO DAYBREAK
http://www.henrinouwen.org
The Transforming Joy of Christmas
Joy to the world for Love has come. Let us rejoice and open our hearts to receive it. Come, Lord Jesus, fill our hearts with your love so that we can pass it on.
The Transforming Joy of Christmas is the perfect Love for all of us, that came as a vulnerable human baby. A life that not only offers us the unconditional love that can set us free to grow from needing to loving, but also gives us illustrated instructions on how to do it.
My favorite Christmas Picture with permission of the artist, Morgan Weistling
Licensed by the Greenwich Workshop, Inc.
Julian
“Tuffy”
Young, tender, vulnerable.
Funny and fun loving.
A crooked boyish smile.
Blue eyes with a Christmas morning sparkle.
Slow dancing, holding me gently, like I was fragile and precious.
Love poems before we ever even kissed.
Dozens of roses and one time a black orchid.
Cutting in at dances when I went with someone else.
Dancing, I only come up to his chin. I often ask: “Are you still up there?”
And every time he answers: “Always.”
And he meant it.
Humor and Hope
Only when we have experienced humanity in its range and complexity is our humor at its deepest and truest. Redemptive humor is more than the ability to enjoy the isolated humorous situation. It is an attitude toward all of life. Not only is humor a gift of the later years; it is indispensable to hope and healing during that time. Humor recognizes that limitations and failures are not final and unredeemable tragedies. Like a ray of sunshine piercing a dark and overcast sky, humor suggests God’s abiding presence and brightens our human prospects. Humor recognizes the tragedy of the human condition, the finitude which in one way imprisons us. But by laughing at this condition, we declare that it is not final. It can be overcome. Humor is a gentle reminder of the reality of redemption……..Humor is social because the joke is finally on all of us……We are laughing not simply at our own condition but at the shared human condition…………………..A mixture of good and evil is inevitable in this life. Our successes are mixed with failures, our joys contain sadness, love can coexist with hate, health is marred by illness, and possessions are threatened by loss. Excerpt from Winter Grace by Kathleen Fischer.
The rest are my reflections:
Often midlife is the crisis time of recognizing that we have used up as much time as we are likely to have left. So often, it is a time of admitting we have not achieved all we had expected and that there not only may be too little time left, but we may also have to recognize that we do not have all the attributes or resources needed to accomplish our dreams.
There are four roads out of mid-life. 1: Become obsessed and abandon everything and everyone that doesn’t contribute to your goals. 2: Become disillusioned, cynical and angry at life. 3: Choose an addiction to dull the pain. 4: Or adjust our goals to fit a more realistic assessment of our chances to reach them.
Only when we have survived enough of life’s contradictions and made some adjustments to our assumptions can we laugh in the middle of the mix. By then we know that the only thing permanent in this life is change. Often there is a greater freedom to live by our own values and priorities, rather than for an image that pleases others. Hope becomes open ended. We gain a wider perspective for all our limited hopes. And as our lives narrow, we can begin to find true joy in the small things. Happily there are many more small things than large.
Sometimes, as we age we find fulfillment in passing on our hopes and dreams to the next generation, who may be able to take the next step in working toward them. But often, we find more than enough meaning in simple kindness or creating pockets of beauty to be shared with others. Either way, the focus becomes others, instead of our “self.”