Doorways that Lead to Who Knows Where...

I can still remember the doorway in the house I grew up in..."that" doorway...the one right in front of you as you entered the hallway that led to either the dining room or the living room..."the" doorway that led to the basement!

I did go down into the basement many times...but the stairway was steep and narrow, and the lighting "down there" consisted on one bare 100-watt bulb that, when it burned out, you would need to replace using a flashlight to see what you were doing.

If there were windows in that basement, I do not remember them.

There have been other doorways..."those" doorways...in my life.  And they have been there in your life, too.

Doorways that lead to who knows where. 
-The first day of school is probably one those doorways.
-Most likely your first love is one of those doorways.
-The first time you decide for yourself to do something you know is wrong, and it just might have some fairly bad consequences, is one of those doorways.
-First job...finding your career...retirement:  Each is one of those doorways.
-The birth of your child(ren) is the kind of doorway we are talking about.
-A bad diagnosis from the doctor...approaching death: yup.

Where do doorways like these lead to?  They lead to "who knows where."  They lead to "heaven only knows."  They lead to "I'll be danged if I know."

And what to do?  What to do?  Walk through that doorway...or turn around and walk back the way you came?  What to do?

I remember a line from the Eagles' "Hotel California," when the singer is standing at the doorway and thinks to himself, "This could be heaven or this could be hell."  Doorways that lead to who knows where.

Here are some words from actress Gilda Radner that are very instructive about doorways in life:
"I wanted a perfect ending.  Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity."

So yeah, it could be heaven or it could be hell.  Or, it could be that you are at the intersection of mercy and grace...and that doorway in front of you could lead not to the dark scary basement, but the next best thing on your path through life.  Delicious Ambiguity.

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for.  The world is always just what it is now, and its up to you how you respond to it.  (-that, from Isaac Marion)

So, what door do you want...number 1, number 2, or number 3?  They all lead to who knows where.

Lessons Learned Late...

I would like to believe that I am adequately wise enough to negotiate most of the perplexities and complications of life.  If you live sixty-eight years on this planet, some of the wisdom of the world oughta take root, wouldn't you think?  Some.

Don't play with fire.

Oil and water don't mix.

Its not where you stand, but what direction you are headed.

If you don't know where you are you won't be able to get where you want to be.

Some journeys take a lot of courage.

Its almost always a good thing to travel with others.

Never ignore the elephant in the room.

Yeah, especially that one.

But there are some life-lessons that too often are learned late in the game;  when one is up in years rather than when one is younger...and could really, really benefit from the learning.

At least it seems that way to me.  Here are just a few:

-No trial, no error...nothing learned.

-No risk, no failure...nothing gained.

-The status quo is never, ever, the way forward.

-Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses.

-More often than not it is important, even essential, to love your neighbor.  And if there are some you just can't love...fake it.

-Know what is essential...and that's not a long list.

And, from Rumi, this:  "Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation."

Yup, wish I had learned those things earlier in life than I did.

Welcome to the In-Between Time...Its Where We Will Do Most of Our Living

I get really tired of folks suggesting they know a whole lot about God.  And all the answers to life’s questions…the solutions to life’s problems. 

 Part of my paycheck depends on me standing in front of no small number of people on Sunday mornings and talking about the Christian view of God, and the Christian way of living in this world.  I try hard not to sound like too much of an authority on those subjects…because I am not.

 A couple quotes that keep from getting too full of myself in the knowing-all-the-answers-about-life-and-about-God areas are these:

~”My formula for living is quite simple.  I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night.  In-between, I occupy myself as best I can.”   -Cary Grant

 ~”It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in-between.”        -Diane Ackerman

So that is to say: In between birth and death we would do well to stick with things we can actually know, rather than speculate too much on the things (or beings) we cannot actually know.

 

 

Welcome to the in-between time…its where we will do most of our living.

In-Between:
Time is too slow for those who wait.
In-Between:
Time is too swift for those who fear.
In-Between:
Time is too long for those who grieve.
In-Between:
Time is too short for those who rejoice.

 In-Between…is one of the most gnarly, dark places in life because you aren’t fully here, and you aren’t fully there.

 The good news is that during the In-Between times:
-There is time to leave behind judging others.
-There is time to leave behind an emphasis on differences.
-There is time to leave behind the darkness.
-There is time to leave behind words that pollute.
-There is time to leave behind discontent.
-There is time to leave behind anger.
-There is time to leave behind pessimism.
-There is time to leave behind complaining.
-There is time to leave behind negatives.
-There is time to leave behind hostility.
-There is time to leave behind bitterness.
-There is time to leave behind too much self-concern.

-There is time to leave behind lies.
-There is time to leave behind the shadows of sorrow.

 But perhaps deep within the in-between times we can more clearly hear the Creative Force whispering to us:
I am not in some far-off place
I am not waiting for you to seek me enough…to need me enough…or to get desperate enough
I am in you, and you are in me…and that is enough.

 That’s about all I really think I know about God…and life…and maybe even that is too much for me to know fully.

Happy, Smiling Faces...

What do you think the Creator had in mind when the Creator created us, we human beings?

All the mythology of creation stories aside, I wonder what was up with the whole creation/evolution thing.

The faith tradition I am a part of believes that the Creator created us in the Creator's own image.

I wonder if this is something of what the Creator intended:

No matter our skin color.

No matter our gender.

No matter our age.

No matter our station in life.

No matter our financial worth.

No matter our religion or philosophy.

No matter our politics.

No matter our state of health.

No matter our sexual orientation.

No matter our country of origin.

No matter our ethnicity.

No matter our real or artificial boundaries.

No matter what we have or have not done in the past.

We are supposed to try real hard and real often to share happy, smiling faces with each other.

Could be.

Centipede...and All Things Since

Life was different back in the early 1980s.  Not so much easier, or harder; more stressful, or less stressful...just different.

I mean, all this came after the time period I am writing about:
-the CD-ROM was introduced in 1984
-the Apple Macintosh and the Windows Operating System were both sprung on us in '84 and '85
-disposable cameras were introduced in 1986
-the World Wide Web and GPS technology would not be available for about another decade
-although I eventually purchased a bag-phone later in the '80s, there were not millions of folks walking around with cell phones in the different days of the early 1980s.

In the early 1980s, as I served a church near the Indiana State Fair grounds, I had more disposable time that I would have in the years just ahead.  (There is a very good chance that this extra amount of disposable time available to me came as a direct result of a not-so-good work ethic...which would be somewhat corrected in years-yet-to-come.)

Back in those different times, I would often head over to the Glendale Mall to play video games in a rather large area set aside for just that purpose.  One quarter = one exciting play!

I wasn't very good at playing most video games...my main gripe with them was that there were no clear written instructions on how to play the game, and it took a few quarters worth of play-time to figure each new game out.  And so, I stuck with games I knew...and could play sorta well.  Centipede.  Centipede was the game I spent a whole lotta quarters, and time, playing.

Atari developed the game in 1981.  The object was to defend against swarms of insects, and the occasional mushroom, spider, and scorpion...all while a giant centipede worked its way down the video screen.

So much has come, gone, and changed since those early 80s. Not all of it good.  Not all of it bad.  Much of it, I do not understand fully.  There are no clear written instructions that come with the passing of years, and with the changes that take place over any span of time.

Maybe some truths we all know (or, should know), but perhaps have not yet employed, would serve us well as we try to master...or at least survive...the passing of time, and the changes time brings our way:
-Change happens (like it or not)...
-Get ready, you are about to learn something...
-To see new things, new eyes are required...
-No ideal world is waiting to be discovered, only ideal responses to the world we already know...
-Everything we do today is preparation for what's coming tomorrow.

Oh, and you can play Centipede on-line these days.  (But its not near as much fun as it was back in the day at the Glendale Mall.)

This One Bothers Me...

I post stuff on FaceBook...and I read a lot of stuff other folks post there, too.  Some of the stuff I post and read is humorous.  Some is about family life or professional pursuits.  Some of the stuff is just "stuff."

I enjoy much of what I read.

Of the 600 or so friends I have on FB, whose postings find their way to my computer screen, two kinds of postings certainly represent a goodly percentage of the stuff I browse, read, or dismiss: Politics and Religion.

 

 

Many of my postings are about religion and politics, too.  I guess that's what we folks who have been told forever, not to discuss religion and politics, think we should do on FaceBook.  We could be wrong.  I could be wrong.

 

However, the mixing of NRA gun-rights sentiments and the Christian religion is, in my opinion, really...really stretching things.

 

This one, for example, from a recent FB posting, bothers me...more than a little.

 

 

 

Yeah...supporting easy access to guns, with little or no background checks being run on many who purchase them...and advocating for the manufacturers of those guns...and mixing it with an attempt at some kinda theology...probably shouldn't be attempted.

 

It bothers me.  Maybe it does you, too.  Maybe not.



The Journey of Just One Soul...

I suspect that you are very much like me.  And I am very much like you.  That is, I suspect that most of us spend most of our time in the company of others.
Spouses, or significant others.
Family.
Friends.
School.
Work.
Day in...day out.

In the normal course of any given day I spend more time in the company of others than I do by myself.  I suspect that is true for you, as well.

There are just over seven billion of we human beings on this earth right now, and its getting more and more crowded every day.  Statistically, about 100 people die worldwide every minute.  And, about 175 babies are born worldwide every minute.

Even though its a really large planet we live on, in the places we inhabit on this earth, it can tend to be rather crowded.  Its not unusual for us to be in the company of others.  In fact, it is hard not to be in the company of others.

And yet the journey of any one of us through this life is pretty much a solitary affair.  No one else can know the path we walk.  Really.  No one else can feel what we feel.  Actually.  No one else can think what we think, experience what we experience, or go where we go. 

Faith in a Creator...in a God...who journeys with us through this life becomes important exactly because no one else can make the journey with us.  Even in this crowded world, we are pretty much on our own.

And so, here are some encouraging words and thoughts for we solitary souls who pass this way but once:

~Real things are given and received in silence.

~To seek and find God is to do so in your heart.

~"Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation." -Rumi.

~"When we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey." -Wendell Berry.

~"A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other." -M.C. Richards.

~"Live for the present moment, which is where life is to be lived and God's presence is to be known.  The future - if indeed we are given a future - will come out of today.  And we will need every moment of today to prepare us for the possibility of tomorrow." -Br. Curtis Almquist.

~Grace trumps Karma.  Every single time.