Who Am I?

Who Am I?

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who was killed in a Nazi death camp the day before it was liberated.  Some believe in faith that Bonhoeffer was “liberated” when he was killed.  Throughout his imprisonment, his faith grew through periods of doubt which came through savage experiences.  Time and again, he climbed out of the pit of despair within himself and affirmed his faith.  

What is there in this one extreme experience that speaks to us?  For the Jew, the covenant holds the believer in the palm of Yahweh’s hand.  For the Christian, Baptism marks the believer as Christ’s own forever.  Theologians from every faith seem to have this one belief in common.  Adversity can grow our faith.  It opens the believer to God’s grace.  The extremity of human spirit is the opportunity for divine spirit. 

The Baptismal Shell

By the way, I am celebrating the anniversary of my baptism today.  What date do you use for your birth-day? 

Men will be Boys!

Some Men will be Boys!
What's It Really Werth?  

Jayson Werth gave the world a lesson in how we act out the child in each of us--that is, the bad kid.  The former Philly went into Philadelphia to raise hell, my my subtle view, because of his "get even" attitude.  First he stole the keys to the Philly Phanatic Mascot's cart--only flipping the keys in the other direction in disrespect to the poor guy.  Then in the decisive 9th inning, he took a ball and teased some kids in the fans with it before flipping it into the Nationals' dugout--low rent down and out jerk to tease a bunch of kids like that.  Werth hit bottom worth. 

Let's hear his side of the story: 

“So in the ninth when I got the ball, I was going to flip the ball. There was a group of kids. Behind the kids there were these unruly middle-aged men that to me appeared to be snarling. It’s the ninth. Who knows. I kind of got the sense that maybe they were intoxicated. I was going to flip it to the kids, and then I thought, maybe I shouldn’t, because of the people right behind the innocent little children there. “So I just flipped it in the dugout. Evidently, that rubbed some people the wrong. After the events in right field, I felt it was better to maybe not throw it in the stands.”

Sorry Jayson.  No benefit of the doubt because a professional does not act that way--period.   Oh, you aren't a professional, you say, you are right that you have plenty of company in big league sports.  

What do we draw from this story?  The outward behavior is the face of the soul?  The bad child in us always acts on impulse?  How about this:  this one story was writ large in media because it was a baseball player.  Maybe we should not expect more.  Maybe when we see this kind of thing, we can "repay" those kids by the way we go into the world and find a way to treat kids and others differently--so that when this story is history, the real worth remains with those we care for.  Play ball! 

Laughter is Grace

Laughter is GRACE!  

I caught these gulls sitting on the pier enjoying the morning.  First, one would lift the head and cackle pure laughter.  Then the other would do the same.  On and on the chorus went!  Yes, seagulls do laugh.

And exactly what does that have to do with grace?  When we laugh, out comes the carbon dioxide and in goes the fresh air--our and in--so that when we are done, there is something in us that relaxes, breathes easier, takes life as it is--that's grace!

When we start laughing, we don't think about that side-effect, do we?  None of us says, "I think I will go ahead and laugh so that I can relax.  Take a good breath of grace."  But don't all of us know it when we are done? 

Grace makes us lighter, lifts us up, sets us to fly.  Take a look at the sequence picture below.

Joy in one's heart,

and some laughter 

on one's lips,

is a sign that the person 

down deep,

has a pretty good grasp 
on life.
                  Hugh Sidey
 
 What soap is to the body, 
laughter is to the soul. 
~Yiddish Proverb 

Garbage in & Out

Garbage In!  Garbage Out!  

How do you feed your Soul?  

Sometimes diagrams just say it all--garbage in and garbage out!  Do you remember that saying originating with the birth of computers?  Whatever the program, that's what you get back.  If you input junk, you only get junk.  God help us if we are not more than walking computers!  In fact, God does help us when we date our birthdays from him and not just a random date of arriving on the planet.  If God is not our origin, then it is a matter of making sure that what we ingest into our minds feeds our true selves.  Not bad.  That works for many.

However, if God is our origin, then how do we feed our souls?     I use the word "soul" as the meeting place of our minds--thoughts and emotions, joined in our bodies. I do not think of the soul in the Greek sense of a disembodied property that rises out of our bodies when we die--like the scenes in the movie Ghost.

Whatever feeds your soul---remember, you are what you eat--or rather, eat to feed who you are.  St. Paul answered it this way in Philippians 4.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

(and then he concludes...

 Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

If on the other hand, you view yourself as meeting only a hierarchy of needs --  then have at it!  Your diet and life style could be the Epicurean delight of gluttony and pleasure in the illusion that safety is under your control.  That's extreme alright!  But your sense of identity--who you think you are--ought to have a lot to say about what you feed yourself. 

Mixed Signals

Touchdown!  No, Interception!  

Talk about Mixed Signals! 

It happened in the Greenbay/Seatle football game and will never be forgotten.  Time ran out on the clock, Seattle threw a bomb into the endzone, and 4 Packers and 1 Seahawk jumped for the fall.  When they came down with it--one ref immediately signaled TD and the other interception.  Look at the picture above.  Talk about mixed or rather mixed up signals.

A little more background.  On review, the ref in the box with the replay could not tell who had the ball and gave Seattle the TD.  However, the TV replay showed that Greenbay had possession first.   So, it should have been an interception and Greenbay won the game.  The real story is that with the NFL referees on walk-out, the second string refs did the best they could with an impossible call.

The real story took place in the clubhouse.  The Greenbay coach said that he was not there to discuss the refs but the game.  Period. He did not let his emotions get the best of him.  He was mixed up like the call.  He was the real pro. 

The Best Advice Ever...
Get to the Balcony!

Several posts ago, I wrote about "the best advice ever." The best advice is to be true to yourself.  But you cannot do that when your emotions take over you--or should I say, TALK over you?  When your emotions do your talking--you are done, you cannot do your best, better not to have spoken.


So how do you manage your emotions and keep them in appropriate boundaries?  The advice is: "get to the balcony."  Martin Linsky and Ronald Heifetz, in Leadership on the Line, recommend " conditioning oneself so that in emotional "strikes" that come out of nowhere--you tell yourself to "step back and go to the balcony."  Look down on yourself in the situation.  Disengage.  Then, with some detachment, frame your response.  The skill is to let the wave of emotion wash over you.

How exactly does one do that?  The coach had time to think before he acted in the interview. He immediately began the interview with what is called "a buffer statement"--"I am not going to talk about the refereeing tonight."  Similarly, we can develop our own buffer statement to use automatically in emotional times.  Try one of these--but develop one for your "buffer statement." In the order of my preference---

May I think about that for a moment?

Or
You have given me something to think about.
Or
Let me think about that.  

These statements acknowledge what has been said, but create a space to respond.  The use of the question is particularly effective.

Once on the balcony, you can assess where you want to go with the response.  Remember the coach who set a definite boundary for what he would not comment on.  He won the real game. 

Chalices

Chalices

The places of the past,

are like chalices,

To pour the blood

of lives that left us.

We drink deeply and

taste their death 

with one wild prayer,

to taste the Life

that holds them,

and us together

forever. 

Only a few years ago, I went to a fall seminar in western North Carolina. I arrived to find that the conference had been cancelled, and I just never got the word. I turned the experience into a good one by getting a motel room and traveling around some very familiar places -- which I had not seen for some time. 


Our family had vacationed there for several summers.  I went back to the cottage and just sat on the porch.  I imagined the family darting over the hillside, scavenging for raspberries and avoiding the snakes.  in the fall season of dying, I knew that I had entered the world of memory and the past. I saw faces of people I have loved but see no more. It was like a chalice for me, however, inasmuch as I experience communion as the Life of Jesus in which everything holds together. 

Aye, Calyspso!

Aye, Calypso!  

To live on the land we must learn from the sea,
To be true as the tide
And free as the wind-swell,
Joyful and loving in letting it be. 

What have I learned from the sea?

About 12 years ago, I took my boys several miles out to a deserted island off Cape Newagen.  We towed a rowboat so that we could land on it.  Facing the outward ocean, this spot gathered incredible flotsom and jetsom treasures.  And we made it!  And it was a great find!  And the boat would not start when we tried to leave.  There we were, miles out, the fog descending and rain on the horizon.  What would you do?  (and no cell phones worked out there!)

I can tell you that no boat was coming out that way late in the afternoon. We'd have a very long wait before anyone would ever find us out there.  We were safely tied to a mooring.  So, I tied the 30 ft power boat to the stern of the 8 ft. rowboat--and rowed, and rowed and oh my aching back rowed!  It took hours in the fog, drizzle--even with the tide with us.  At one point, the oar lock broke and my son had to hold his foot on it.  My other two sons alternated between fishing and sleeping in the power boat! 

 

 

 The Cuckholds Lighthouse

Cape Newagen, Maine

  Oh, we made it home alright.  But I had to ask myself what would have happened if we did not have that rowboat with us.  Mind you, we took it not for plan B rescue but to land on the island.  What I learned from the sea was just plain respect.  The destination you think you have crossed an expanse which must be respected.  

Of course, there is making sure you are prepared for every eventuality.  After all, we were safe! There is something about going with the flow, the ebb of the current which you feel guiding and taking you where you need to be.

I wonder.  Is that the stuff of faith?  Cooperating with the flow of life and lives, seeking that harmony or equilibrium?  The mission of Calypso was engaging the world of the ocean to understand and improve who we are in the natural order....how we fit in, who we are and what we do as stewards.


 

The Best Advice Ever

What is the Best Advice You Ever Got? 

And Where Do You Go to Get It?  

Advice--Outside In

There's a lot of stuff out there!  Almost all of it is prescriptive.  It tells you what worked for them and offers it to you.  As you read, you can just see the prescription pad being written on.  Take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning...and then you can get another prescription.

We are all too familiar with this model.  Here are two great resources. Get the Katie Couric book, The Best Advice I Ever Got.  Through the voices of celebrities, you can hear how some of the most elementary changes in behavior paid off.  Or, just persevering, such as author Kathryn Stocket's book "The Help"--61 rejections before hitting pay dirt. (We take it she was ready to try #63 until #62 panned out!)  Or, another resource:  take the latest issue of the Oprah Magazine (October 2012)--"101 of the best advice."  And alot of it is good!  But understand this much--this is "advice outside in." 

Advice--Inside Out 

Then there is a whole different approach to advice--finding your own within yourself.  Rather than an RX of things to do that worked for others, what can you find in your heart, mind and soul that is authentic to you?  I found this direction helpful.  I do not need more things to memorize!  Shakespeare said it loud and clear in Hamlet:

                                     

                                     This above all: to thine own self be true,
                                     And it must follow, as the night the day,
                                    Thou canst not then be false to any man.
                                     Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Polonius lays it on the line for son Laeretes—“do what is true to your real self—make it your code for the road just as day follows night.  He is telling him to look inside himself and weigh his options—“Inside Out.”  

I found this same direction in the Harvard Business Review—“The Best Advice I Ever Got.”  Take time for reflection.  Sure, get all opinions, data, options—but reflect on them and go with the choice which is an extension of your real self.

Of course,  there always Jesus.  (There is even a book written called Jesus CEO. )  He tells people to look within for the Kingdom of God—that is where you will find it.  He points the way.  And then he says,  Seek first the Kingdom and all thing shall be added to you.  Matthew 6:33   (Watch out!  Jesus’ definition of “all things” just may not be what you really want!) 

There you have it.  The best advice I can give you.  Two choices.  Outside-In with a never-ending RX of things you can try out.  Or, Inside-Out--start with your own self and be true to it.  Jesus said that was pretty close to the Kingdom--at least the place to start! 

                                        

Mama's Boy

Mother to Son

                  by:  Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

 Son to Mother

I knows that, Mama….

I really do.

Because I’ve been watch’n,

Look’n real careful like.  

I’s come to see that where

You’s a going, is the same place,

That I want to be,

Because you’re my Mama, and

There ain’t place you’s a going,

That I won’t be right behind you.  

Life’s tough, no questioning that.

But Mama, there ain’t no life without

You, yes’m—you. 

The Swag's Life in a Moment

The Swag Country Inn
Waynesville, North Carolina

An Invitation to Living

It is hard to see that where we stand right now is Holy Ground.

We are a people so caught up in the process of living that we find it

nearly impossible to enjoy the present moment.

Almost everything in our society lures us to dream of the future.

Everything I will be better we think when things are different

than they are right now.

The very best we can do what God is giving us today.

Not only is the ground we stand on Holy—reach day is a gift.

Look where you sit as you read this and honor that spot as Holy

and give thanks to God for the present moment just as it is.

The Rev. Daniel Paul Matthews, D.D.

(Rector emeritus—Trinity Parish, Wall Street)

The Swag, Waynesville, North Carolina

October 6, 1985

The Swag is a registered Country Inn in Waynesville, North Carolina.  It stands right on the very boundary of the Smokey Mountains National Park.  On the map it looks like it rests on the sway back of a horse.  Fr. Dan directed its construction, a gift for the eye of what could be done and the real potential for living in that solitude, the freshness of the moment in the mountains.  Check it out at www.theswag.com

Sharpen the Soul

  The Dialogue

Question:

Hey Mister, what’s wrong with that saw….

It’s not cutting.

Answer:

No, I guess it isn’t, is it?  

Response:

Have you tried sharpening the blade?  

Answer:

Oh no, I am much too busy to do that. 

For some reason, I have never forgotten this trite dialogue from a magazine over 20 years ago.  It tells me in simplest, straightforward language that my spirit needs to be revitalized regularly.  Kathleen Norris, the author, says that no matter what time of the year, we need to turn over the soil in the soul for new planting—or it hardens and resists both seed and water.  

Goethe Joins the Dialogue

A person should hear a little music, 

read a little poetry,

 and see a fine picture everyday,

in order that worldly cares,

may not obliterate 

the sense of the beautiful,

which God has implanted 

in the human soul. - 

                                                   Goethe

So What do You do to Sharpen the Soul?   

Whatever you can do to step out of the box of your routine which refreshes your life--you ought to plan intentionally to do just that--daily.  For me, it is some kind of creative act--like sitting at this keyboard, writing these reflections for myself--and if somebody else gains from it, great!  But what we do, do for the soul.  So that is your question of the day--how you answer is everything and nothing. 

Begin the Day to Live

Southport Sunrise, Boothbay Harbor, Maine


Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
Like the sunrise, 
     remember the One 
                    who gave the day,
                            for you to live in a new way. 

The Positive Gift of the Negative

"I Have Loved Hours at Sea"

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;

First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.

I have loved much and been loved deeply --
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.

 

by:  Sarah Teasdale

 

Southport Island, Maine

The Creative Gift of Negative Space

This picture captured me before I snapped it.  I stepped out into the evening and felt the tranquility settle on the coast.  Through the camera lens, we catch the special gift which gave me that feeling before I took the picture--negative space.  It's the darkness of the shoreline and of the outer islands that sets off the deep, soft blue and holds it as a pool. The white sailboat directs the eye to the center of the pool--and for some, grasps you at that point.  That's the use of negative space for setting off and holding up the tranquility and peace of the night.  

Now look at the picture again.  What would the effect be if I had focused solely on the blue ocean and left out the dark shoreline and islands?  Then what?  Surely, the blue ocean with the white sailboat is striking--but look how much effect is lost without the negative space.

 

Or, should I ask:  how much of our experience in living would be lost without that negative space?   I am not talking about taking pictures, but about the day by day negative experiences which hold up in relief what really matters to us.  Examples--all those times when we hear ourselves say the following: "I would never, ever want to go through that again," BUT! having coming through it, and what I found, well--that is another story completely."    We get drenched in a storm and the rainbow finds us. 

Go back to the poem.  How does the poet know the gift of the flower's scent, the stars that fill the sky, and the joy of meeting by the eye--sometimes the absence of these thinks indeed makes the heart grow fonder and thankful.  I can tell you first hand of the gift of grief, the loss that frames our lives and hold it holds up in relief the priceless gifts which we never knew were even there. 

The Gift of the Mind's EYE

The Gift of the Mind's EYE
 
Where do you go for peace and quiet? 

What calms your storms and rough seas?

Is it a place you must literally go to?

Or, a place in your mind's eye? 


The Mind's EYE looks out from the world of your imagination.  It is more than thinking about something.  It is actually seeing it, feeling it, smelling it--all the senses help you to visualize it.  So when you need peace, quiet, the blessing of tranquility can you visualize such a place and experience it? 

William Butler Yeats wrote of just such a place.  Writing in Ireland in the 1880's, his poem "The Cabin on the Isle of Lake Innisfree," gained immediate popularity.  Even the title tells you where he is going "to a cabin" that is located on "an isle"--not just the country, but set apart from the country.
The title, "Innisfree," while an actual place, also conveys being set free from his urban environment.  No matter where he is, even back in the city, he still can say:

"I hear it in the deep heart's core." 

The Mind’s Eye can use all the senses and visualize the 

place.   You can place yourself there, at rest, filling your 

soul from its connection to nature—since we were not 

created for concrete!  

In fact—try it yourself.   

Ease back in a not so comfortable chair that you fall asleep.   

Take yourself to a place and use your senses to feel it.   

Breathe deeply, breathe in the place, and rest.  

At any time of day you can go to your place and drink to 

your soul’s content.   

You can hear it “in the deep heart’s core.”  

                      For those who wish to read the whole poem….

 The Lake Isle at Innisfree

                            William Butler Yeats  

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Find the Way Forward

What a Lesson Learned for

Finding the Way Forward!

For countless summers, the family took boat rides out to Ram Island Lighthouse just off Boothbay Harbor, Maine.  It gets its name from the sheep herders who have put herds of sheep on the island to graze—needless to say, it has natural fences!  Now, going to Ram Island can be a very tricky event if you go at the wrong tide. At high tide, it is an easy tie up and a short climb.  Go at low tide, and you have to navigate rocks to tie up and the ladder is about 8 feet longer and covered with slippery sea moss.  Of course, you can do it, provided you know what to expect and are careful.  Then again, for those who think again, and count on the tide, it can make all the difference in the world. 

Shakespeare tells it straight with Butus.  Plan carefully, go with events, and you will find the way forward.  We ought to toss in—and have a little luck!  Sounds a lot like timing the market.  Go with the flow!  

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.               

                              Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

Then, there is another option for the person of faith. What if we believed that we were not the principle actors, but God is, and that our purpose is to follow that God?  This would mean that we would pray for guidance, look for new options, and ask God to bless our choices for God’s sake.  

In other words, we might not expect it because we never looked for it.  For example, what if you went to Ram Island only at low tide—there would always be the same circumstances to challenge you, right?  Then one day, you decide to go at high tide.  What a difference!  And what a difference if we believe that God is the tide for us to go with, and through God, we find our way.  

After all, it was the Hebrews who discovered that God made the way in the wilderness and opened the Red Sea waters.  Then Jesus stepped into people’s lives and said “Seek the Kingdom first,” and you will find the way to all others.  

I guess it comes down to how you journey through life.  Who is the central actor?  We can do it ourselves OR for God’s sake! 

Honor thy Questions

 “Next time, I would come to this shrine of trout more prepared ,

or at least bearing fewer expectations that couldn’t be met.  

This was the lesson I seemed destined to learn repeatedly

in every aspect of life.”  

James Dodson

Faithful Travelers

 Great book!  New divorcee starts out to tour the country with his young daughter, and the travel across the land is really the landscape of his heart.  Two thumbs up for this book’s narration and story telling.  I especially like the fact that he leaves a lot of questions hanging. In Walker Percy’s words, he does not screw up the ending by saying “they went home and lived happily ever after.”  

What exactly do you do with the questions that hang in the air—with no real direction?  Literally?  With a book?  Turn the page.  That’s what you do, keep reading.  Perhaps that is wisdom for us who must live with questions—keep reading, moving ahead, holding onto the questions and no settling for easy answers.  They come in “fullness of time” as Paul writes in Galatians.  

Okay, I’ll “bite” even if the fish didn’t in the book. Here’s another way to look at it,.  After a lot of living, I like to think that open ended questions, when answers elude us—really are important as the first chapter.  The questions set up what you look for as the story moves on.  You just have to be prepared for answers that do not conform to expectations either. 

Oh My, My Prince Harry!

"Hurrah! Hurrah" said Corin. "I shan't have to be King! 

I shan't have to be King! I'll always be a prince.

It's princes that have all the fun."

C.S. Lewis   The Horse and his Boy

This is not about Harry as much as it is about you and me.  Maybe C.S. Lewis hits the point of conformity for the prince not born to be king.  Let’s leave him to his grandmother—and good luck lad!  

The point is contrast.  Do you want to be English Royal blood, really?  You have a role to play and expectations to meet. Forget who you really are—the fundamentally human who can screw up and heaven help you!  So with that pressure, why not just go out and “uncover” who you really are?”  

Or, contrast that with St. John’s declaration—you are “children of God.”  John 1  Heaven will help you when you screw up.  You start life with the riches of God’s grace and your only purpose is to give them away—and by so doing, discover your soul’s true worth.  

Conformity versus Grace?  What do you want flowing in your veins? 

Have you watched that movie The Cider House Rules?  It stars Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire.  Michael Caine plays a doctor in an orphanage. Every night, he puts the orphans to bed by saying,  “Good night you kings and queens of Maine!”   He has also “adopted” an older orphan, played by Tobey Maguire, as a self-trained medical tech.  He raises him so that knows medicine so well, he does not have to conform to med school standards—he’s learned them, been given them as a gift. You guessed it.  Maguire eventually takes Caine’s place as the doctor at the orphanage…and he says goodnight every night—“You kings and queens of Maine!” 

I am not blaming Harry.  The guy is trapped in royalty that is tough to wear.  But what about us, our pure nakedness before God, in which he says “you are mine, yes really mine, my children.”