Losing My Playfulness As a preschooler, I drove my mother wild with my irrepressible energy and curiosity about life. I was into everything, and I never stopped. Life was a delightful surprise, and I was going to taste, touch, see, learn about all of it. My mother tells me I was a happy kid, and I do remember joy. Exuberant, loud joy. Then somewhere along the way that changed. Maybe it was the losses, like my parents’ divorce and my grandmother’s death. Or maybe I started feeling uncomfortable when I went to school and the kids teased me for being short. And there were the other dysfunctions often found in…
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Keep on Keepin’ On
One morning recently I lay in bed, not wanting to get up because then I would have to face so many responsibilities. I felt a tightness in my chest and an emptiness in my gut, which is how I feel if I don’t have enough time to myself. I was so worn out, I felt like giving up. But I knew that wasn’t a good idea, so I prayed a bit and meditated, but that didn’t do it, and I knew my mom needed me, so I got up and gave my mom her medicine, made her breakfast, did the other things I do in the mornings. I tried to…
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In the Name of Love
I take the title of this column from the song by U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love).” About Martin Luther King, Jr., he sings: “In the name of love. One more in the name of love.” One more crying; one more speaking out; one more reaching out; one more marching; one more dying. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the first to insist on justice, equity, and compassionate treatment for all human beings. He has not been the last. Nor has he been the first to die for resisting those who hate, who condemn, who use their power and money to enslave and imprison others. Unfortunately, he has not…
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The Gift of Generosity
To Give When We Have Little Years ago, when my boys were small, our bank put up a Christmas tree with paper ornaments on which were written children’s names, ages, and the gift they wished for. Each year, I would take one of those ornaments. Money was tight back then, so I looked for a small gift, one I could get for under ten dollars. One year, my son told me I shouldn’t do that. “If you leave it for someone with more money, they’ll buy a better gift.” I hesitated. What he said made sense to me, and I was aware of a hint of shame and unworthiness poking…
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Bringing in the Harvest
Hope In the Garden In the garden, one cabbage, some kale, and some turnips are left to be harvested. The raspberries are gone, and soon I will pick the kiwis and the green tomatoes. Other crops are growing: garlic, winter lettuce, spinach, broccoli, but they won’t be ready to pick for a while. So most of the harvest is in. We’ve eaten all but a few of the delicata squash, and spring garlic is in a basket in the dining room. Living in the city as we do, we don’t really have much of a fall harvest. At least not of food. But day by day, we harvest love, hope,…
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The Light of Enlightenment
An Experience of Enlightenment Years ago, as I was listening to my spiritual director talk about the universe, I suddenly saw the universe inside her heart. Like Wordsworth, who saw the world in a grain of sand, I saw the universe as the size of a fist. In that moment, I understood that time and space don’t really exist, that the universe is immensely vast, but incredibly small at the same time. If we could comprehend this and learn to work with the energies that existed, we could cross to where star number 090423 exploded. In 2009, the light from this star reached the space-based Swift satellite. Using redshift analysis,…
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The Darker Side of Acceptance
One of my main sources of insight for this month’s topic of acceptance is the book Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. In her book, she describes how our country’s culture of shame instills in us self-hatred, overweening egos, addictions, and an inability to face the reality of life. Brach offers a way of healing, a way to forgive and learn to love ourselves. This way of healing is important, and in my sermon on Sunday, I’ll talk more about this. In this column, however, I want to explore the possibility that this idea of forgiveness, self-love, and acceptance can allow us to avoid. We can avoid taking responsibility for our…
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Trust and My Father
When we came up with the topic for this month, we weren’t thinking that Sunday was Father’s Day. We came up with “trust,” which is big enough we could take a month of Sundays to talk about it without exhausting it. I mean, we could ask how we trust ourselves, or friends, or higher power? We could realize that some people are worthy of our trust; others not so much. But how do we know? Well, one person who taught us about trust was our father. In my chaplain work with addicts, I’ve found that if you had a good relationship with your father, you are more likely to have…
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Mercy and Insanity
Mercy and Economics As people in recovery, living in a world that should be in recovery, we need mercy. This society we live in, and most societies in the world, are insane. You know, “insane” as in doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For instance, we keep thinking trickle-down economics will someday solve our economic problems, and we make all kinds of mistakes our ancestors made because we don’t pay attention to history. For instance, some people think the New Deal was a bad idea that actually extended the Great Depression and actually hurt the people who benefited from the social supports by making them weak…
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On Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day, God, Love, and Superstition Given that this is the month of Valentine’s Day, we on the Worship Team decided to make love our theme this month. So love is what I’ll talk about in this column and at our upcoming worship service, but as I was trying to decide what I might say in this column about this vast topic, I happened to read the beginning of The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan. The book is a collection of lectures about searching for God and Truth through the scientific method. He liked the quote by William James about superstition, which was that superstition was believing in…
