From the new book I am writing Knowing God: Life is not lived in a box. Real life, full orbed in-your-face-life, is a roller coaster ride, a medieval quest on steroids, a full throttle adventure. Real life is not cookie cutter existence. Around every bend there is a surprise waiting. Sometimes surprises are quite fun, like birthday parties. We jump with joy. Sometimes surprises are deadly, like poisonous insects or snakes. We jump in fear. No matter how you slice it or dice it, life is full of surprises. We simply cannot know the future; nor can we control all of the various factors that make up our present. We can try, but just ask any mother how crazy a day can go when one little thing jams up the day and everything else in its wake tumbles into everything else. By nighttime, as the weary body hits the bed and the lights go out, there is barely room to breathe and one is hanging by the last emotional thread only to realize that the alarm has been set so that tomorrow this thing called ‘life’ can be done all over again. And again. And again. Life can feel like an endless repetition of circling dead ends and leave us wondering if we somehow missed the train of ‘meaning and purpose’ at the station. Who are we anyway? Does it matter? Is this thing we do called life, life? Now we all come from somewhere. By this I mean we all have life experiences that have shaped the way we see the world or imagine the future. No two of us are the same in this. Yet we do share some commonalities that allow us to communicate across the vast expanse of our complex and diverse life experiences. I do not know you, or at least I do not yet know you. However, if you are reading this you may already know something about me. You may know some basic facts: I am married to Lorri, have daughters and granddaughters, live in Pennsylvania, have attended seminary, like classic rock and roll and that I enjoy traveling, speaking to groups and meeting new people. I love reading books and listening to music and writing theology. The natural world, birds and trees and rocks and water, sunsets and forests, wind, rain and sun delight me. You can infer from some of these facts certain things but you still wouldn’t know me. Unless I further revealed myself. You then might learn how each night I ‘let go’ of the disastrous surprises of each day. How I think about my family and give thanks for them. Or that I often fall asleep praying. I’m not saying that prayer is boring. Not at all. At least I don’t find my own prayers boring for they are a recital before God of who I am, where I am at, how I feel and what I think. And in turn they are often a reflection of how I understand the presence of God in my everyday, rather routine existence, from waking up and having coffee, to meeting with Lorri, reading, writing, engaging others, taking care of administrative tasks, helping my granddaughters with their homework (except for math or science which I just don’t get at all), to cooking dinner, writing on Facebook, checking e-mails, and maybe watching something interesting on the telly with Lorri. Nothing to see here folks, move along. In other words, I live a life just the same as you do. We all have our routines. For some people routines are a rut. Same old, same old. Boring. Life for them feels like an endless repetition of walking a treadmill to nowhere. For some people routines are a ritual. Rituals can be very meaningful. They can give structure to an otherwise chaotic existence. I have a lot of positive things to say about ritual. Until ritual becomes an OCD thing. Then routines experienced as rituals are fearsome, for unless they are practiced perfectly and correctly life cannot be properly balanced. Finally, for some people routines are a groove. Yes, they bring structure and purpose to ordering the day. However, they are not ends in themselves. Traveling in a groove suggests that life is actually going somewhere, like water flowing in an aqueduct, or a needle playing music off an album. I am so old school I know. But think about it. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s those of us hippie types who were having a most excellent time would say that life was “Groovy.” By this we understood that life just flowed along and sometimes it would go left and sometimes it would go right, sometimes life would speed up and sometimes it would slow down. But it was life and we experienced it as a groove, not a rut. In those days everything was ‘groovy.’ People with grey hair are grinning from ear to ear right now. They know exactly what I am talking about.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 02:34:42 +0000
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