Body and Soul

Sunday 12/2/18 4:58 AM

I have been exercising at the gym three or four times a week for the last few weeks, running on an elliptical trainer. At first the lights and noise of the music distracted me. The past few times I have been listening to the music I am trying to learn for Lightshine, a group with whom I sing. I close my eyes and focus on the words of the songs, all of which point me to God and his goodness. I find my gym time to be more enjoyable and I’ve been running two and half to three miles each time at a pace of about 9:30 per mile, much faster than the rate I have been running previously. When I work out, the first thing I do when I get back home is have my devotions, so my early morning routine is starting to return to normal.

Friday night Jaci and I went for dinner to one of our favorite Lebanese restaurants, Open Sesame, in Long Beach, and then walked the canals of Naples looking at the Christmas lights. We were early enough in the season that the crowds were not too bad, and we had a nice, leisurely stroll while holding hands and talking. On the way home Jaci said that I seemed happier than I have been recently. I think she’s right. Earlier this year when the doctor told me I could no longer run I was shocked. I think I have been mourning that loss for the past six months. Now that I have found a different exercise routine, and I have restarted my routine of morning devotions, I feel like my spirits have been lifted and I have more joy.

One would think that having a relationship with God would be enough to buoy one’s spirits but, for me, it seems my exercise routine is also a part of that relationship. God loves me, body and soul, and apparently, I need to experience that love of God with both body and soul.

No Winners

Wednesday 11/21/18 3:02 AM

My assigned reading today includes an excerpt from Thomas Kelly’s book, A Testament of Devotion, in which he describes the work of God in our lives to make our soul more tender. He writes, “There is a tendering of the soul, toward everything in creation, from the sparrow’s fall to the slave under the lash. The hardlined face of a money-bitten financier is as deeply touching to the tendered soul as are the burned-out eyes of miners’ children, remote and unseen victims of his so-called success. There is a sense in which, in this terrible tenderness, we become one with God and bear in our quivering souls the sins and burdens, the benightedness and the tragedy of the creatures of the whole world, and suffer in their suffering, and die in their death.”

This writing made me stop to consider the current political climate in our society and my own reactions to those I meet. Our politics have become more and more divisive, contrasting the more progressive left with the conservative right. The right side of the political spectrum latches on to issues like abortion, expressing a tenderness for the unborn while, at the same time, having little tenderness toward those who live in poverty because of their decision to keep their baby. Unwed mothers or single parents are belittled and told to get a job to support their child while social programs like welfare and SNAP, designed to care for the vulnerable, are eliminated or funded at a much lower level. There is tenderness expressed toward one group and anger toward another. Similarly, the left side of the spectrum expresses tenderness toward the victims of corporate greed and unjust social institutions, but has only anger for, what Kelly calls, “the hardlined face of a money-bitten financier.” These political opposites slug it out in the public forum, bloodying the opposition with derogatory words, castigating them in the court of public opinion, and shunning anyone who would dare suggest a compromise or finding middle ground for the good of society.

In his book, Deep is the Hunger, Howard Thurman relates a childhood story of the words his grandmother said to him after he had been involved in a knock-down, drag-out fight with a bully. “No one ever wins a fight.” Thurman writes, “This suggests that there is always some other way; or does it mean that man can always choose the weapons he shall use? Not to fight at all is to choose a weapon by which one fights. Perhaps the authentic moral stature of a man is determined by his choice of weapons which he uses in his fight against the adversary. Of all weapons, love is the most deadly and devastating, and few there be who dare trust their fate in its hands.” If one uses Thurman’s litmus test of the moral stature of a man, neither the progressive left or the conservative right has the moral high ground.

I need to live my life wielding the weapon of love, love for the oppressed and love for the oppressor. If the people of God lived similarly, perhaps our society as a whole would become more civil toward one another and we could work together for the good of all.

Beauty From Ashes

Saturday 9/1/18 4:39 AM

Today I read this quote from the book Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood. “When you meditate or abide in your quiet times of communion, you do not charge in and do something, like saying, ‘I will now be good and move mountains by my act of faith.’ No, you water your garden, knowing that these ideas are growing into a heavenly garden; the indwelling spirit does the work, not you: you merely water it. do you not see the comfort there is in that? I can tell you in primer language that a very gentle, calm, unemotional, selfless, and patient attitude toward your spiritual growth is essential – such as all old gardeners know. They know that patience, hoeing, watering, and a certain order, a quiet rhythm, bring to birth a heavenly beauty.”

Over the course of the past year I have not had an order or a quiet rhythm to my time of meditation. The hoeing and watering of my garden has been sporadic at best and my spiritual garden seems to reflect my yard and flower beds, which have also received only periodic care. A month ago, we left for our annual trip to Michigan. We were gone for a little over two weeks and I watered the lawn and flower beds liberally before we left. I didn’t ask anyone to water while we were gone. The temperatures hovered in the nineties the entire two weeks we were gone and when we returned the lawn was brown and the plants in the flower beds were wilted, with browning and bug-eaten leaves. I went out to water the first evening we were home and discovered that a bromeliad in the back flowerbed was blooming under the brown-leaved plumeria and the bug-eaten flowers. I’ve spent years tending to the plant, making sure it had the proper amount of water and care, but it had never bloomed. I was completely surprised that it was doing so well in spite of the extreme temperatures we had when we were gone and the neglect it had experienced. It bloomed in spite of my failure as a gardener.

I wonder, can God do the same thing with my heavenly garden? Can God birth heavenly beauty in the midst of my neglected spiritual life and my browning, bug-eaten, spirit? If I believe Isaiah 61, the answer is a resounding yes! “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to … comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. … For the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”

Make a Joyful Noise

Saturday 6/23/18 4:05 AM

I have always enjoyed singing and have been in choirs since high school. Sometimes people will complement me on how the choir has sung and I will invite them to join the choir. They often deflect the invitation by saying something to the effect of, “I can’t sing very well, but I make a joyful noise.” Today I read Psalm 33, my psalm for the week. It begins, “Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.” That command covers everyone, those who can sing and those who can’t. Verse 3 of the same psalm reads, “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.” The implication is that playing skillfully is desirable along with the joy.

I am somewhat of a perfectionist. When I do something, I want to do it well. Today I plan to paint the doors and the door frames of the recently remodeled bathrooms in our house. I will do the best I can but I’m also certain that when I finish I will see blemishes in my work that will bother me. I have the same feeling in almost everything I undertake, from teaching my classes to caring for the lawn and flowerbeds at my house. The desire to do things skillfully sometimes can be crippling. I find that at times I will put off doing a task or I will refuse to do it entirely because I do not feel I can perform to a certain standard of excellence.

Over the course of the past year I feel like God is calling me to do something to address the injustices that are within our society. I am paralyzed because I don’t know what it is I can do, and I feel inadequate to do anything of substance that would make a meaningful difference. I wonder if part of the problem of overcoming the inertia of my inaction is my desire to do things skillfully. Maybe I’m afraid of trying something and not performing up to a certain standard so I simply refuse to even try.

 Part of my reading today were these words by Ernest Boyer, Jr. in his book, A Way in the World. “Life at the center lives the reality of the presence of God in the now of every moment of every act that is done. It is a life that sees the greatness of the smallest of tasks, since these, as all others, are of God’s work. Life lived at the center is an expression of God’s immediate presence. It is not a life of imitation; nor one of anticipation; it is instead a life of participation, participation in the truth of its own full reality. But in saying this, no one should think that life at the center seeks some special mode of existence, some level of being somehow above the mundane toil of day to day. Just the opposite – it is life at its most human. It is not a life that ignores or avoids the ordinary, but one that lives it fully, since it knows that in so doing it expresses the profoundest of the profound. It is a life that may know pain and trouble; it certainly knows routine. It lives this as it lives everything – moment to moment – and in doing so touches the eternal.”

I think I have an expectation that the work God calls me to has to be what Boyer calls a special mode of existence, a level above the mundane. Perhaps God’s desire is that I do exactly what I am doing now in my day to day teaching. Most of my students are people of color who experience the injustices that are so prevalent within our society. In many cases, my awareness of the injustices is due to having relationships with my students in which I see the things that they deal with on a daily basis. Maybe my simple listening ear, the writing of a letter of recommendation, the filling out of a scholarship application in their behalf, and the other mundane parts of my job in which I have the opportunity to share my life and my experiences with my students is my way of addressing the injustices, a way to give them a leg up in a world that wants to throw them down. I want to perform skillfully in addressing the injustices; perhaps God simply wants me to make a joyful noise.