madavison

Each day we all have choices.

Some of us have more choice than others because of the randomness of birth and the systems that govern our society. What will we do with our choices?  Are your emotions driving or informing your choices?  Do you need more of Mr. Spock’s logic to help you balance your choices?

Yoda tells the wisdom of the cosmos: “Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering.”

We’ve seen this happen.

We are seeing this happen.

It may have happened to you.

Which emotion is ordering your life right now and how does that effect how you interact with your neighbors?

Which emotion is ordering your life right now and how does that effect how you interact with the systems that govern our society?

Which emotion is ordering your life right now and how does that effect your discipleship following Jesus?  That pesky peasant teacher from Galilee reminds us to love God and our neighbor as ourselves.

That’s always prophetic.

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Note
1) If you have not seen the movie, Inside Out (2015), I recommend it.  It is family friendly for grades 6 and older which would provide for some discussion about feelings and memory.
2) I suggest Seth Godin’s blog on “Choices” for another perspective.

“ashes and diamonds
foe and friend
we were all equal in the end.”
(Pink Floyd, The Final Cut, “Two Suns in the Sunset.” 1983.)

While it is true that we all pass from this life into the next equally silent and we come into this life equally crying, that is where the idealized equality of persons created in God’s image begins and ends.  Try as we do to distract ourselves from this truth, we are reminded of it in plain sight, again, and again.  No matter how much TV we binge, Youtube you surf, video games played, or prayers you offer in confession or intercession, this will not just go away nor be solved with ease.  People of goodwill of all races and economic backgrounds will have to decide to change the systems that enable racism and other “isms” that create injustice.  And even then, better as it will become there will still be work to do.  Like the Dragon capsule docking with the International Space Station on Saturday, our personal lives and communal lives are a constant work of repositioning, sometimes in large bursts of energy and sometimes small bursts, to align the trajectory of your life with the source of your being. Tethered to that source, even when you don’t know you are being carried, can help when you are adrift in life.  At some point, we all become adrift during the journey of life and journey in faith.  What’s your source?

The ideals, core values, and principles of our faith statements and our Nation are just that: ideals, values, and principles.  The systems built from those, like some infrastructure around the Nation and the globe, are failing the rainbow of humanity who are all precious in God’s sight. It is not a new problem.  It is exasperated by the speed of information and images.  The open firehose of images and information oxidizes our ability to filter information from entertainment or protest from people who just like to cause problems and watch the world burn.

A couple of years ago we began, ever so gently, intentionally thinking about and talking about reconciliation between human beings at summer camp.  Junior High and High School youth alongside adult volunteers struggled and I know some did not return to camp because it was perceived as becoming political.  I understand.  My toes and my feelings were hurt a bit too, but that is where Jesus meets us.  The First Testament prophets told hard truths about their context.  The parables that Jesus told are not warm fuzzies though we’ve worked to make them more appetizing.  Mirrors show us who we are at any given moment.  They reflect you to you, and the US to us, more clearly than a stylized Instagram or Snapchat selfie.  “It is unimaginably hard to do this–to live consciously, adultly, day in and day out.”(1)

Near the end of the film, “Bruce Almighty,” the city of Buffalo is rioting as Bruce has filled in for God.  Bruce and God are mopping a floor.  As they finish, God remarks, “It’s a wonderful thing.  No matter how filthy something gets you can always clean it right up.”  We’ve got some clean up to do and two lyrics point a direction. “Let it begin with me.”(2)  In our private and public work, “we shall overcome someday.”(3)

Stay centered.

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Notes

1) David Foster Wallace, This is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. Little, Brown and Company (New York) 2009.
2) Jill Jackson and Sy Miller, “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” 1955.
3) Based on a song structure of “I Will Overcome” by Charles Albert Tindley and first published in 1900. “We Shall Overcome” published in an edition of the People’s Songs Bulletin 1947, and said to have been sung by tobacco workers led by Lucille Simmons during a 1945 cigar workers strike in Charleston, South Carolina. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Overcome).

“It is unimaginably hard to do this—to live consciously, adultly, day in and day out.”(1)

This is the time of: end of semester tests, parties, invitations, measurements, proms, formals, special recognitions, special meals, gifts, cards, crowded schedules, and advice.  Little feels “normal.” The meaning of the rituals that mark the passage from one phase of life to another remains important.  Drilling down on that core meaning is not as easy as we think, but we don’t have to make it harder than it already is for you.  Graduates, yours is an experience no one wants for you; and we don’t want for us.  Forgive me if I minimize your reality trying to protect you from the pain or make myself feel better because you are missing the rituals around graduation.

Many people relive their memories, embellished as happens through years of living, as we celebrate your achievement. Forgive me when my nostalgia overshadows your reality.

Some people you know, maybe one particular person, has invested in you and repaid a debt from long ago.  Others are following an example set by someone who invested in us at your age.  I’m trusting you to give me, and the rest of us, a cue about the best way to honor your experience and achievement without the usual trappings of the graduation ritual.  What would be meaningful to you?  I’ve noticed you helping adults deal with our grief about your situation through your occasional Facebook post and Instagram smile.  “Ah, it’s ok.  I understand why it has to be this way.  Sure, it’s disappointing, but I’m ok with it.”  Graduates, you are setting an example for those older than you and younger than you.

Thank you for helping the world adjust to technology that connects.  It has been part of your entire life.  Your ability to form relationships, meaningful connections to others, using texting, snapping, and other portals is making this time more accessible for you.  And, it is helping older adults discover a whole new world.  Given all the required screen time that you have now, I don’t know if those apps are still an experience of subversive independence, but like generations before, you found a way to have your own space.

As you move through adult life, there will be many things you want to believe, or need to believe, to navigate this territory without a GPS enhanced map.  The people that stood alongside you to this point are invested in the adult you will become, but the hard work is yours to do.  To borrow from Yoda, “Remember what you have learned. Save you it can.”  What has always been true, but feels more so now, is that you need a good, working moral compass for life.  Missteps, mishaps, and mistakes will be made. Failure is one of the best teachers.  During the journey through life you will need to recalibrate your moral compass. Sometimes more often than you think.  Be sure the tools you use are made for your moral compass and not something else.  Stay in touch with your experience of faith and religious beliefs.  Proclaiming faith in Jesus is easy.  Practicing Jesus’ way can lead to Truth about living, and give meaning to your life.  But, Jesus’ way will set you against or apart from culture, friends, and family during life.  So, what would Jesus do?

Finally, a pithy quote from a one of my favorite movies.  If nothing else, remember these words, edited for inclusivity, from Hub McCann.

“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a person needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; that love, true love, never dies… No matter if they’re true or not, a person should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”(2)

The world is waiting to see what you do.  Make us proud (no pressure).

Stay centered.

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Notes
1. David Foster Wallace, This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. Little, Brown and Company (New York) 2009.

2. Tim McCanlies, “Secondhand Lions.” New Line Cinema 2003.