Nov 14 – We have forever

I was listening to a sermon by Timothy Keller this morning and this hit me in the most amazing way.  We have forever.

There is no need for frantic-ness

No need to run around making sure we don’t miss out.

We have forever.

But lets go back two lines here – the no need for frantic-ness and no need to run around making sure we don’t miss out.

Missing out – this is something that often drives me, and certainly has driven me.  I don’t want to miss out.  What if THAT experience was the ONE that would lead to all the other important things in my life?  What if I don’t do it all, be it all, pursue it all, accomplish it all?  I will have failed my life, those around me, missed out on my opportunity for real success, for acknowledgement, for fame (i think a desire for fame is more a part of this than we (I) would like to admit).

But part of Keller’s point, is that God’s plan smashes that idea of “missing out” to smithereens.  The death of death in Christ’s resurrection – the actual flesh and bone body of Christ.  Luke 27:37 – “37They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.””

Touch me and see.

The resurrection has a body.  The body of the person who wants to save us, be with us, know us.  Who visits his best friends and says – don’t be afraid (i know this looks crazy), but it’s me.  It’s me.  It’s me.

And he is so patient with their doubt.  We’re only human.  Our minds can only contemplate shadows of the wonders of the truth of the Lord.  We find rapturous delight in the beauty of nature, and yet this nature we see is the decaying groaning version of what God intended.  It is a shadow.  The unrestored version of a master.  The dark, dingy, left in the attic too long version.  But its beauty is so extraordinary that we still stand in front of it and marvel.

And we haven’t even seen the real thing!!!

The other piece of this that hit me – really hit me – is how it changes our relationship with our time and resources in the here and now.

If there is all the time in the world and what we are enjoying now is merely a shadow of what is to come, yet we are still in the world because it is IMPORTANT, because there is work to do, people to love, a purpose and calling to fulfill, we can go whole hog into that purpose and calling and giving and loving without worrying about what we’re going to miss out on – the pleasures, the experiences, the indulgences (because i certainly get caught up in that.  That idea of “what about me???).  All the experiences will come – there is still time – there is all the time – there is forever.

And so what does that mean?

I think it releases us from a bondage to the truncated timeframe of this world and our life in this world – we do not have to worry about doing it all now because there is far beyond the now to come.

It also raises questions for me about how to reorient myself in some ways – how i live and what my priorities are.  If i don’t need to worry about me – because i have forever and everything i have in this life in the here and now is a gift given to me undeservedly, which is a great mercy and love – then this life is for – what? Serving? Reconciling? Loving?  Feeding the hungry.  Giving to those around us.  Meeting needs.  It is for love, love, love, love, crazy love.  That is what it is for.  To love people, to meet them in their pain and indignity, to hold out a hand and love generously.  With abandon.

Because i know i don’t have anything to worry about.

Not that everything comes off without a hitch, without challenges, without heartache and difficulties.  It’s not that there aren’t hard times.

But the real, concrete, iron clad hope of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow gives today a new, vibrant, uncanny luminescence.  It brings light to things we would not see if we lived (as we often do), as though we only had a finite number of days.

I’m really just beginning to wrap my mind around the beginning of these ideas, they are in the infant stage, but doesn’t it also mean that we can dig in with far more rigor to our here and now if we aren’t worried about missing out on what we could be doing?  Should this help me to accept my immediate circumstances all the more and see new opportunities in them?  Shouldn’t this also help me to take more risks of generosity if i am looking for these opportunities, see a need and know that i am here in this place for such a time as this?

Sounds like a whole lot of freedom to me.

And i’m excited.

About the beginning of this new uncovering – like brushing away the dirt to find the top of a box, a treasure, long buried, it will take some work to dig it out, it may take some time to pry it open, but with each step in the unearthing, new discoveries will be made, deeper value realized, and a growing excitement to know what it is, what all it entails.

Now is the time of unearthing.

Day 31 – Why can’t i have what i want?

I sat down to write and the internet wasn’t working.  Then as i tried to transfer a photo for the post from my phone to the computer the airdrop wasn’t working.  My photostream isn’t syncing.  I tried one thing then another.  The internet came in and out.  And all i wanted to do was sit down and write my final post while Ron stepped out to pick up some bread.  It would have been the perfect timing – he’s gone for 15 minutes or so, i sit down with a cup of coffee, look out the window at the ocean and write. (We’re in Manzanita for the weekend – and it is beautiful.)

He came back.  I hadn’t accomplished what i wanted to.  He offered a few helpful solutions and i was basically just a cranky jerk.

Ron (in a very helpful voice): “I found last night that the internet works better over by the desk.”

Me (packing up my computer in irritation at not having gotten anything done): “Yeah, well, the last thing i want to do is write right now.  That’s gonna turn out great – to write when i’m cranky.”

Then the thought came to me – essentially what i was saying is “WHY CAN’T I HAVE WHAT I WANT?”

And it made me laugh a little bit – for the last post of the 31 day challenge to start out with my cranky attitude calling out in all its selfish, pity-party-ness “why can’t i have what i want?”

And i realized it was the perfect time to sit down and write.

I opened up word on my computer (because i thought i might write the post there first while waiting for the internet to get its act together), and here were the three lines on the document that popped up:

“It is too late now for earlier ways

Now there are only some other ways

And only one way to find them – fail”

From Level Light by William Stafford

Ok.

And this is what this month has really been about.  Trying and failing.  Trying some more.  Wrestling and whining and wiping the slate clean and trying again.  There has certainly been failing.  But there are also been moving forward.

So this morning, as i had a mini tantrum about the internet and not being able to do what i wanted to do when i wanted to do it, it is good to return to William Stafford and see 1) my failing and 2) that that fail doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress and 3) all you can do is keep trying moving forward – wrestling off the old ways, trying on the new ways, failing, celebrating, stumbling, running – sometimes dancing – sometimes crying.

i walk as if my face would kiss the wind

a raw tumultuous girl

the still point of the turning world

there is still time

(and in honor of Galway Kinnell, i will post the whole of his poem here)

Galway Kinnell, “The Still Time”

I know there is still time –
time for the hands
to open, for the bones of them
to be filled
by those failed harvests of want,
the bread imagined of the days of not having.

Now that the fear
has been rummaged down to its husk,
and the wind blowing
the flesh away translates itself
into flesh and the flesh
gives itself in its reveries to the wind.

I remember those summer nights
when I was young and empty,
when I lay through the darkness
wanting, wanting,
knowing
I would have nothing of anything I wanted –
that total craving
that hollows the heart out irreversibly.

So it surprises me now to hear
the steps of my life following me –
so much of it gone
it returns, everything that drove me crazy
comes back, blessing the misery
of each step it took me into the world;
as though a prayer had ended
and the bit of changed air
between the palms goes free
to become the glitter
on some common thing that inexplicably shines.

And the old voice,
which once made its broken-off, choked, parrot-incoherences,
speaks again,
this time on the palatum cordis
this time saying there is time, still time,
for one who can groan
to sing,
for one who can sing to be healed.