Moments of rest, glimpses of laughter are treasured along the road.
"Cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless nights forbode."
In Dan Fogelberg's song those two lines are reversed. But I am so taken by the gifts of laughter and rest, I have to use that as the title for this post.
I take risks. I drive through blizzards. I get up when I should stay down. I persevere when I should get the hell out of Dodge. So it may not surprise you that I left on this long trip without all of the necessary funds in place. The proverbial check was in the mail. It really was.
But it wasn't. And it isn't. That was not the motivation for staying with people. The people, these very ones, were the motivation for staying with these people, to learn from them more about the gifts of grace and graciousness. These wonderfully gracious hosts and friends were the point and the impetus for the trip.
I did not, however, have arrangements for every night. I wanted it that way. Indecision is the key to flexibility. A lack of planning creates open space.
Flexibility, I've got it! Open space, open indeed.
This is a good thing and a bad thing. I couldn't live with it all the time. But I'm living with it some of the time and it is reminding me of the power of synchronicity -- of recognizing the magical mystical quality in an unexpected moment, a new friendship, chaos. The power of putting two unpredicted people or qualities or moments together and seeing something totally new, absolutely brand new! come to life and grow.
My life has been changed irrevocably already in these two and a half weeks. And not in the ways I might have anticipated. I have cursed the quest: the empty wallet, the skipped meal, spending the night in a Service Plaza/truck stop and my car. And I have courted disaster: driving in Boston! taking all the roads not taken, normally.
What have I learned? It's more fun if you have the money to play mini-golf, or watch the whales, or sleep in a bed (or sofa) every night. But I've also learned that it is survivable to just sit on the bench and watch the golf, to anticipate whale-watching on the next trip, and to become one with my car.
And most important, I've learned that people are kind. Generous. A guy just gave me three quarters yesterday to park in Harvard Square instead of trading me for my times. I left Nantucket with one mongo cinnamon roll to last for days. Friends missed work, drove across town, complicated their own lives in order to enrich mine.
After experiencing great evil, this is no small thing: to learn that people are kind, more than kind, generous. That people will go far out of their way for you. That even though you learned to not be trusting, there are more trustworthy people in the world that you ever dreamed.
When one encounters great mercy, gutsy generosity, and pure grace, one relaxes, leans into life in a more trusting way, gives away more because more is coming in. And then, it is simply inspiring.
Pretty cool.
This is an advanced degree program, if you want to put it that way.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
We have to know these stories
Memory is a fickle partner in the keeping of our life's book.
Certain facts can be observed, verified, written down. What time it was. What was said (and that is not always reliable memory). But history messes with us. And we mess with it.
I spent September 11, 2001 in a room that I remember being dark, with a revolving group of sometimes only three, sometimes a crowd of fifteen, two of whom were, I believe, in official uniforms but maybe they weren't and maybe it was three not two. I remember parts of conversation, whole bits at times, and I remember spending time walking around in a fenced back yard trying to comprehend what was going on.
That is a part of the history I remember. But what is more important is not what I remember -- though it is not unimportant either -- but how this history is connected to larger history, ancient history, future history. And what is that?
Stories. Always we are connected by stories. Stories that remind us and join us to other actions, stories that link our lives to those of women and men who paid a similar price or responded in a likewise courageous manner or assessed reality so quickly and with such devastating precision that they, too, could and did act to change history. Stories that teach, inspire, challenge, light a way.
Matthew, if I were your pastor today as I was ten years ago, I would affirm your quickness to link your father's story to that of other heroes who struggled against evil and, in their own way, won. You knew already on that morning what was at stake in your father's death and in the last moments of his life. You know what he did, what he chose.
His life is linked to that of others who, as the poet said, "choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
To choose what is difficult -- as if it were easy -- that is our common test. And our common task.
But our story is not just our own, or Jason's or Mark Bingham's or the others on Flight 93 whose courage inspires us. Their acts are almost, if not entirely without precedent in this country but they are not unprecedented in human history. In fact, one of the waves that washes over all of us is this call to "incalculable" acts of sacrifice and salvation. We are part of a long story of giving and giving it all, and in so doing, saving. It is a rich and deep part of who we are as humans and who we are always being called to be.
"To choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
And so we live on.
(W.H. Auden's poetry)
Certain facts can be observed, verified, written down. What time it was. What was said (and that is not always reliable memory). But history messes with us. And we mess with it.
I spent September 11, 2001 in a room that I remember being dark, with a revolving group of sometimes only three, sometimes a crowd of fifteen, two of whom were, I believe, in official uniforms but maybe they weren't and maybe it was three not two. I remember parts of conversation, whole bits at times, and I remember spending time walking around in a fenced back yard trying to comprehend what was going on.
That is a part of the history I remember. But what is more important is not what I remember -- though it is not unimportant either -- but how this history is connected to larger history, ancient history, future history. And what is that?
Stories. Always we are connected by stories. Stories that remind us and join us to other actions, stories that link our lives to those of women and men who paid a similar price or responded in a likewise courageous manner or assessed reality so quickly and with such devastating precision that they, too, could and did act to change history. Stories that teach, inspire, challenge, light a way.
Matthew, if I were your pastor today as I was ten years ago, I would affirm your quickness to link your father's story to that of other heroes who struggled against evil and, in their own way, won. You knew already on that morning what was at stake in your father's death and in the last moments of his life. You know what he did, what he chose.
His life is linked to that of others who, as the poet said, "choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
To choose what is difficult -- as if it were easy -- that is our common test. And our common task.
But our story is not just our own, or Jason's or Mark Bingham's or the others on Flight 93 whose courage inspires us. Their acts are almost, if not entirely without precedent in this country but they are not unprecedented in human history. In fact, one of the waves that washes over all of us is this call to "incalculable" acts of sacrifice and salvation. We are part of a long story of giving and giving it all, and in so doing, saving. It is a rich and deep part of who we are as humans and who we are always being called to be.
"To choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
And so we live on.
(W.H. Auden's poetry)
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