Phil 4:8 Finally,
brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
My last post resulted in a number of people checking in with
me to make sure I was okay. There were a
number of e-mails, two phone calls, and a reminder from my brother that fucked
up is often the norm. I did not mean to
cause such a stir, and for the most part I wanted the post to be
inspirational. For we all, let me repeat
that, WE ALL have days like that and we get through them.
I think my
cousin put it the most succinctly, “If you remain unaffected by some of the
shit we are exposed to, then you are indeed cold blooded.” Most of you know what I do for a living, and
the odd, and sometimes heartbreaking situations I am exposed to on a regular
basis. But we all are in the same boat.
Christ calls
us to have a level and nature of involvement in the lives of others that exposes us to the ugly and traumatic. We are not called to remain insulated from
the world while we work on our personal righteousness. We are called to be involved with those
around us, even those people we don’t like.
So, on that
day, I had had enough. Enough of the
pain and misery. There had been much too
much death around me. I was tired of the
stressful shit with work. And it was one
of those days that God seemed absent.
But as I wrote, as I sought out God, he was there.
Wanna is back, and life is back to normal. That “two shall become as one” crap has some
legitimacy to it. The various crises
have sorted themselves out, or have been sorted out. Life has returned to normal – less messed up.
It would be
easy to simply pick myself up, shake off the dust, and carry on. It is what I usually do. But as I have written, there is opportunity
to in the darkness of spirit that visits us.
That opportunity is to see what is of value in our lives.
Substantially
not much will change. I did seriously
suggest to Wanna that she simply stay in Thailand as I came home and cashed in
our chips and moved us back to Baan Pha Tai.
There would be a certain comfort in being a pig farmer. And you just have to respect a country where
pork rinds are served with dinner. But
here we are, still living in Canada.
Tomorrow I
will get up, and start in with the work I have been called to do.
So, what are the lessons to be had? First and foremost, and it is a lesson I have
learned previously, is that my life is living in the relationships with those
in my life. It is made more obvious as
my work is with people. But the
qualities that I seek to have, that kinder and gentler person, can only be
experienced in the context of the exchanges that I have with the other people
in my life.
With Wanna,
and I think we lapsed into doing this, I want life to not be simply about being
focused on what will come. There is an
awareness that there really are no ordinary moments, but she and I need to
grasp some of those moments. In those
spaces created in the busyness of life, to stop and recognize just how
extraordinary our relationship is.
That also
extends to myself, and how I am with me.
To recognize that what I do is not for the faint of heart. That hidden in between the struggles,
successes and errors, and the frenetic energy of work, is the success that what
I do, I do well. More often I need to
pause and acknowledge that I am successful.
Lastly, I am
called to recognize the love that God has for me. For those of you who understand, you know the
significant difference, when what we do, is done from a place of love and
gratitude rather than a place of appeasement of God. It is the difference between living in
victory and living an apology. And thus,
God beckons for me to simply stay put and bask in his love and grace.
There is always the temptation when having experienced
crisis to live life differently. To quit
our jobs, and live like beach bums. Not only is this not sustainable, but it
misses the point. It is not what we do,
but how we do it. So I leave you with
that.
Oh, and am I glad to be a Christian. My cohort at work told me last night that her daughter
was approached by a religious person telling the daughter that people who eat
bacon do not enter heaven. Sheesh. If there is no bacon it is not heaven.
