Its Own Ease

I'm working on Barber's Hermit Songs, hoping to learn the entire set. As Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music suggests, I've started at the very beginning with "St. Patrick's Purgatory", and it has provided me with food for thought.

"What shall I do with a heart that seeks only its own ease?" is a line that keeps going through my head. I strongly identify with it. Most people seek the easiest path, the shortest way, but that isn't supposed to be the Christian way. Why else were all those ascetics mortifying the flesh by wearing hair shirts and beating themselves with a cat-o-nine-tails? The recent slogans asking "What would Jesus do?" and encouraging people to "Do hard things" sprang out of the desire of modern Christians to surmount their comfortable lives and be purified in the struggle.

I can't help wondering if my current spiritual path feels good because it seems easy. I've been letting go of so many spiritual roadblocks put up years ago when I didn't feel worthy to connect with God. I've also gotten closer to accepting the idea that God has always known me, known who I'd be, and loves me as I am. It feels increasingly right to me, which is why I'm still having a hard time being OK with all of it. I've been trained and have trained myself to be suspicious when things feel good, usually because I have a rather lazy nature and a gift for finding comfort.

"But not a tear can I squeeze from my eye, nor moisten an eye after so much sin...and I with a heart not softer than a stone." I think I'm really going to enjoy performing this song. I'm no saint, but it seems Patrick and I have some things in common.

Urgency vs. Anxiety

Until recently, I wasn't aware that urgency and anxiety were two different things. Although they often occur simultaneously, they are not mutually inclusive. You can experience one without the other. Having just realized the difference, I am taking my first baby steps to live with urgency instead of anxiety.

In the past, urgent situations would present themselves and I would respond to the accompanying anxiety by retreating, refusing to act. I numbed myself with television and music. I distracted myself with household tasks and minutiae.

Unfortunately, these situations don't disappear because they are being ignored. They compound, sooner or later representing themselves in their newly more urgent form.

Deadlines are often involved in these situations, and I think much of the accompanying anxiety comes not in the situation itself but in the requirement to find and execute a resolution in the specified time. I'm not sure how to deal with that yet. Identifying the problem is the first step, but where do I go from here? How do I solve it?

So, here begins my effort to deal differently with the anxiety that accompanies difficult situations in my life. I don't have many answers yet, but I think I am headed in a better direction.

Ringing in My Ears

A lady came into the library yesterday morning with her mother and two small children. The older of the two children was about three years old and could speak quite clearly. I know this because she quite clearly registered her distress that there were earrings in my ears. Her tiny voice projected her anxiety around the otherwise-tranquil second floor, eliciting some embarrassed "shoosh"-ing from her mother and grandmother, as well as some sharply mixed feelings from me.

In that moment, I wanted to comfort the child and let her know the sky wasn't falling. At the same time, I felt a stab of shame and a brief flood of resentment that this small child had already and obviously been taught that boys who wear ear jewelry are to be feared. Finally, I was amused by the mother's chagrin that her daughter had not yet been taught discretion to hide her prejudice.

At one time, I was much like this child. I would often tell people in the supermarket that they shouldn't have beer or cola in their shopping carts because Heavenly Father said those things were bad for us. One evening in the Idaho Falls K-Mart, I loudly registered my surprise when a smoker took pity on my whining and purchased a small toy for me from a vending machine when my parents wouldn't. "He's a nice man...and he smokes!" was my exclamation. My mortified folks thanked the man and later taught me that not all smokers were bad. I tell this story to show that I understand this little girl.

"Careful the things you say. Children will listen. Careful the things you do. Children will see...and learn." These words from Stephen Sondheim's masterwork Into the Woods regularly ring in my ears.

Parents often attempt to protect their children by teaching them things to watch out for in people. These things  frequently have to do with how a person looks. Will there ever come a time when children will be taught to evaluate others based on how those others treat the people around them? 1 Samuel 16:7 says in part: "...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." How else is that heart measured if not by how it motivates us to treat others?

I hope when that little girl grows up, she gets a tattoo and dyes a blue streak in her hair. Then she'll see, as I often do, who people really are. It will ring in her ears, too.

(This blog was concurrently published in From Where I Stand.)

Why I Stay

After initially posting this to my other blog, I decided the words also belong here. Rather than copy and paste the post, I'll just provide the link:

http://allonepiecesoapbox.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-i-stay.html

Verity 2

Happiness is a choice.

Verity 1

Fear is the enemy.

Time and Turning Forty

I was born three weeks past my due date during the hot summer of 1973. As my mother tells it, the only thing on TV was the Watergate hearings and she was miserable wondering why this projected July baby was taking so long. Frankly, I think I was trying to be my dad's 23rd birthday present. I only needed one more week, but the doctors decided I had cooked long enough. They introduced chemicals into my mother's body that started her labor, imposing their timetable on life and violating my own rhythm with theirs. Since then, I have fought time, trying to get my balance before plunging into its swirling currents.

This year I turned forty. Forty. It doesn't seem to fit me well. It's a number, a measurement that carries with it so many connotations and preconceptions. Mouths stand agape when you tell them you're forty. "I didn't know you were that old," they say. I accept the compliment but can't help feeling the change in perception that comes with it. I've been put on the scales, weighed against other forty-somethings and found wanting. I squirm inside and resent my helplessness.

Forty also stands near the apex of the average life span, affording a unique view of the traveled trail and the road ahead. From this perspective I see that whether or not I feel steady on my feet and ready to take the plunge, I need to take better advantage of the time I have left. It's time to stop fighting the current, because it's carrying me along anyway. I am not free from the imperative to swim just because I've always felt thrown in the water. No one is going to pull me out, comfort me, and gently put me back in when I feel I'm ready. It's now or never.

I don't want to get frantic, though. That's what usually happens when I haul up anchor and try to navigate the temporal current. I need to remember to breathe while I glide, and strabismus aside, I need to look ahead so I don't keep hitting rocks and submerged tree limbs. Life will always have its upsets, but looking away doesn't make them disappear.

I don't know how much time I have left, but it's time to stop wasting it.