Tag Archives: Easter

It’s all in how you say it…

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I entered my local library twice yesterday, and each time met a mother. The first was crowding up against her preschool daughter, trying to get her to walk faster. Come on! she said, her words full of exasperation as she physically pushed her daughter. The second was standing a few feet from the library door, keeping an eye on a sleeping toddler in her car just a few feet away while observing her two sons as they checked out books for school projects. Come on! she said, her face lighting up with a smile and her words full of encouragement. The same words, different actions, and a whole different experience for the children.

As I left the library, it crossed my mind that every single sentence in this Every school day series can be turned from a positive to a negative meaning – it’s all in how it’s said.

The power to wound and the power to strengthen are held by everyone who uses words to connect with others. Which will I wrap my words around today? Which will you?

Make Your Bed

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You made your bed, now lay in it…

I’ve never heard it used in a positive sense. It’s often said by someone who wants to reinforce the feeling of guilt or failure already haunting the person it’s aimed at – an additional prick for someone hemmed in by thorns.

I’m not opposed to someone accepting the consequences of bad, destructive, or unwise actions. Sometimes the best thing friends and family can do is to refuse to fix things. Mistakes faced and damage repaired require taking responsibility, and that is a necessary step in growing up. But it’s hard enough to take that step into maturity without adding an extra little bit of weight to the burden. Is it really worth a moment’s satisfaction to make such a remark? Best to keep silent.

But make your bed isn’t the same thing, is it? Make your bed means leave the place in good shape. Make your bed means take the time to create a place that welcomes you when you return. Value yourself highly enough to put in the time and effort to create a hospitable resting place, just as you would for an honored guest. When you flatten out the sheets, as you straighten out the blankets and fluff the pillows, you are doing more than making a bed: you are loving yourself as you would a neighbor.

Dear God, help me to love you this day. In acts big and small, help me love myself as my neighbor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Get Dressed

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I’m not doing this today. I’m staying in pajamas, doing my best to get over a nasty cold that started sometime yesterday afternoon. With luck and rest, it will be on its way out tomorrow.

Getting dressed signals my move from solitary or family only time to time spent in the larger world. I am ready to invite people in, and I’m ready to walk out the door into the world of friends, neighbors, and strangers alike. It changes, depending on what will fill my hours – sweats or old jeans for yard and garden work, skirts or blazer for board meetings, black jeans and a colorful top for dinner with my husband. Getting dressed is an outward sign of what’s happening in my life; how my body is clothed is affected by my actions in this world. I think that’s true for most other people as well.

I wonder: if I had to choose an outfit to reflect the inner workings of my soul, the inner agenda of my spiritual life, what would it be? Sitting here in my pj’s, soothing a scratchy throat and headache with herbal tea, in no shape or mood to go out or invite others in, perhaps it’s a good time to take a peek in that inner closet…

Wash your face, brush your hair and teeth…

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When I was a baby, my parents did them for me. When I was able, they taught me to do them for myself. When I had my two sons, I repeated the pattern. They are signs of the love others have for us, and they are signs of our self-regard. They require touch and glance, time and effort. When done with intention, they wake us up with a loving touch and give us a joyful start to the coming day. Such simple tasks, such monumental acts.

My niece and her husband will welcome their first child into the world this October. They will do these things for him, offering their love in these practical tasks. It’s a legacy worth more than any trust fund: a welcome to the day, the world, and the family.

When you rise tomorrow to wash your face, brush your hair and teeth, remember how much you are loved.

 

Rise and Shine!

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I’m a morning person, so this is a happy sentence for me. For my husband and sons, not so much. They do not bound out of bed, ready to engage the world. They prefer waking slowly, staying in place until the world comes into focus, then getting out of bed. They rise and they shine, but not right after opening their eyes. They more than make up for it on the other end, though – late night comes, and they are going strong long after I’ve run out of energy.

Rise and Shine doesn’t have to be limited to this kind of interpretation – the clock bound, literal kind. In the larger sense, I think it means something like this:

RISE     You are a unique gift from God to the world. Stand up and  claim your space. Offer your gifts, your insight, and all the love you have to a time and place that desperately needs them (every time and place needs them!)

AND      There’s a whole world out there that you haven’t seen. Don’t settle for what has already been, resting on laurels or living in the past. The story of your life continues: make every chapter the adventure it’s meant to be, and…

SHINE     You are a beloved child of this universe and the God who continues to create life. Trust that love and fearlessly grow in grace, wisdom, and holiness. The light you shed can illuminate the world in ways you never realize or expect.

Rise and Shine!

sunburst by Margaret Hill.

Every School Day: Eastertide 2019

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Rise and Shine! Wash your face, brush your hair and teeth. Get dressed. Make your bed. Have some breakfast. Put your coat on. 

I love you! See you after school (work)!

Let me know you are here when I call your name. Open your books. Take one and pass the rest on. Check your answers. Use your inside voices. Time for recess! Lunchtime!

Gather your things. Write down your homework assignments. Any questions? That’s the bell. Good-bye!

Come on in; tell me about your day. What did you learn? Are you hungry? Go out and get some fresh air. Homework time.

Time for dinner. Anything new and exciting happen today? Did you get enough? Time to do the dishes.

Bath time! What book would you like to read tonight? Jump in bed. Say your prayers. I love you! Sleep well, see you in the morning. 

I heard these words, or something like them, most weekdays when I was growing up; I’ve spoken these words, or something like them, most weekdays as my children grew up. I thought I’d take a look at them. I hope you join me – and tell me some of the things you heard and said every school day…

Looking for God in all the wrong places…

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But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Luke 24:1-5a, NRSV

When you were a child, did you ever run into your teacher somewhere unexpected- the market, a fall fair, gas station, or restaurant? If you are like me, it made you feel really uncomfortable. Teachers are supposed to be in school, not picking out cold medicine and birthday cards at the drugstore in downtown Farmington, New Hampshire. That teachers have a life beyond their roles in the classroom, that they might be living and breathing people just like me – what a strange thought! That they might not live in the limited, school-shaped box I assumed they did was a shocking idea: that meant they were more than what I knew of them and how I experienced them.

The disciples who loved Jesus, who followed him and put their hopes in him, had expected to find Jesus in a tomb-shaped box among the dead. When he wasn’t confined to their limited understanding of him, when he wasn’t where they placed him in the grand scheme of things, it must have been the shock of a lifetime.

I hope I learn this lesson well enough to stop putting God in a box of specific shape and size – no matter how lovely the box, it won’t be big enough to contain the creator of the whole universe. Even church-shaped, denominationally decorated boxes will not contain a living Christ.

[The Deer’s Cry, Rita Connolly, from Shaun Davey, The Pilgrim, released 1983, recorded at Festival Interceltique de Loriant, Glasgow royal concert hall, Tara Music]

A Waste of Precious Time

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Yesterday was Pentecost, the celebration of the Holy Spirit alive and moving in this world. I arrived early to set up for the high school class I lead, only to find that a fundraising car wash and the need for extra acolytes had reduced my class to just me. Several hours of preparation and a twenty mile drive for nothing more than a few minutes in an empty room and a return trip home. My thought on the drive home: what a waste of time.

And I was right, it was a waste of time: just in a way I didn’t appreciate until I was more than halfway home. I was so focused on the time I spent prepping for something that didn’t happen that I disregarded the celebration of the Spirit who always moves in unexpected and mysterious ways. I ignored the grace of so many youth and adults scrubbing cars to fund the mission trip to Puerto Rico. While I wasn’t rude, I certainly wasn’t gracious about the whole thing.

In truth, preparation for learning in faith is never a waste of time; I had the chance to pray for my class and learn something new. It’s a testament to my own lack of perspective that I forgot this. The real waste of time: I had the chance to see the Spirit moving in surprising and wonderful ways and I turned a blind eye to it. Not a waste of my precious time, but a rejection of the gift of sacred time the Spirit offered me.

O Lord, open my eyes to see your grace and my heart to love the gifts you give. In Christ’s name I pray, Amen.

Prudence and Excess…the final couple

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Where there is Mercy and Prudence,

There is neither Excess nor Harshness. St. Francis,  The Admonitions XXVII

[The Message of St. Francis, New York: Penguin Studio, 1999, p. 9]

Prudence: 1. The ability to govern oneself by the use of reason; 2. sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs. 3. Skill and good judgment in the use of resources; 4. Caution or circumspection as to danger or risk [Merriam-Webster online dictionary www.merriam-webster.com]

Being prudent isn’t the same thing as being a prude (a person who is excessively or priggishly attentive to propriety or decorum, Merriam-Webster). A prude fulfills the letter of the law for its own sake, or to feel morally superior to those who don’t. He or she may feel a smug sense of satisfaction by avoiding mistakes or pointing out the transgressions of others, but there’s no real life or love involved. Ironically, excessive focus on doing things properly in all times and places is also blindness to the rest of this life-giving world – the very opposite of prudence.

The virtue of prudence is sound judgment, a grasp on the bigger issues involved in daily actions, respectful and effective use of resources, and the good sense to stay out of danger. Self control isn’t for its own sake, nor is it a means of shaming others. The whole point is to live in a way that brings good things to self and others, to bring self and neighbor together.

I rarely think about the word prudence, but I do my best to practice it in my daily living. I don’t want to judge others harshly to feel good about myself and I don’t want to use more than my share of the world’s resources. I want to live a good, rich life with a minimum of worldly goods; I want to help others do the same. I can’t be prudent and a prude at the same time – if I can remember that simple truth, my blessings won’t be at the expense of others.

Harshness and Mercy

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Where there is Mercy and Prudence, there is neither Excess nor Harshness.

St. Francis  (The Admonitions, XXVII)

[The Message of St. Francis; New York: Penguin Studio, 1999, p. 9]

Here’s another cross pattern, Prudence matching Excess and Mercy a foil for Harshness. One of these pairs is enough for today…

Years ago, I had a daily calendar/notepad – sticky notes with the date and a short saying. Most of them I’d use for this or that purpose, then toss them away. A few struck such a chord that I stuck them to my desk. One of these sayings:

There’s brutality and there’s honesty: there’s no such thing as brutally honest.

Words can be the an ocean wind in Winter – cutting, cold, penetrating muscle and bone. They whistle in our ears and bend our backs. We shrink before them, turning in upon ourselves to avoid exposure. Long after the words are spoken, our teeth still chatter and the shivers remain. In our frostbitten souls we hold a question and we fear its answer: Could such words be true?

In a small sense, cutting words shine a light. Faults and imperfections come with being human. A careless tongue or sharp wit can highlight such things. We are reduced to a collection of blemishes and incompetence. But this isn’t really the truth – it’s a keyhole version of reality, allowing only one small look at an unseen whole.

The big lie such words tell isn’t so much what is said but what is implied: if we aren’t perfect, we are worthless. The lie lies in believing the implication. Truth be told, the words would be something like this: You aren’t perfect, and you never will be. I’m not perfect, and I never will be. But we are precious, and a unique gift to this world. We are loved, and anyone who tells us different is sadly mistaken.

If I use words to cut down, I have a keyhole’s view; when I stand up and open the door, only words of love can describe what I see.

Love for the whole and mercy for the imperfections – true words always offer a glimpse of these.