Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Love Is the Theme

a friend sent me a text a few days ago containing an announcement that a former student of mine had been named the superintendent of schools for the district in which i taught for over twenty-five years.  this man, now in his forties, was a wonderful student who loved to sing.  he was a born leader and inspired others to want to be in his company.  he was a fine athlete as well, but he dropped out of sports when they interfered with his participation in the school choir.  he was also a brilliant mathematics student, but he refused to take some of the school's advanced math courses because they were scheduled at the same time as choir, such was his devotion to choir.


he went to college on a choir scholarship and majored in math.  he went on to be a math teacher, then a school principal, then a district-wide administrator, before becoming an assistant superintendent in a large urban school district in a neighboring state.  during this time he earned his masters and doctoral degrees.  now he will come back to his hometown as the district's first black superintendent of schools.  when i sent him a congratulatory note, his reply told me how much his association with me, my family, and the choir had meant to him.  he said that without those influences, he would never have been motivated to achieve what he had.  he grew up in a single-family home, and his mother had a meager income.  he was determined to create a better life for himself and his loved ones, and he did.


i wish i could take credit for his accomplishments, but it was his strength of character and determination that made him what he is.  i am better for having known him and being a part of his life.  may we remember that we touch lives without knowing it.  may we see the value in every human being and do all we can to make their lives better.  may our love and compassion encompass everyone with whom we come in contact, and may we be a source of encouragement.  shalom.


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Just the Perfect Blendship

i've never been one to need close friends.  some would say i'm a loner, but my dearest friend is myself.  the time i have to spend with myself is something i treasure.  loneliness and boredom are very foreign to me.  as i've aged, the enjoyment of being with others has grown, though.  we moved to the northern part of our state to be near some close relatives that we've always enjoyed visiting.  after we moved, we spent a great deal of time with them, going on several long trips and getting together often for meals and to play games.  after the first couple of years, though, we didn't get together as often.  their health declined, and they were frequently not well enough to spend time with us, and lengthy trips were out of the question.


to my surprise, i found myself missing our get-togethers and resented their inability to travel and join us for evenings of meals and game-playing.  we've become friends with another couple who are several years older than we are but who are still quite active.  we have much in common, including our political leanings and backgrounds.  i love spending time with them and hope that i can be as vital as they are when i'm their age.  when circumstances prevent our weekly visits, i find myself missing them and looking forward to a time when we can be with one another.


it's so important to have companionship, especially as we age.  the experts tell us that close friendships prolong our lives, and i believe them.  may we all find others with whom we can enjoy ourselves.  may each of us love ourselves and let our love carry over to others.  as we age, may we enlarge our circle of love to embrace as many people as we can.  shalom.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

With Each New Day

each day when i awaken, i have a plan for the day.  in a way, that's good.  it enables me to get things done in an orderly fashion and to have a sense of accomplishment at the end of most days .  the downside of this process is that when things don't go according to plan, i'm frustrated and angry.  i feel as if i've failed.  i am trying to  let go of my need to have everything go as i would wish.  while i may still have goals for the day, i want to learn to let the day take its course without me forcing it to follow a preconceived sequence.


for instance, one day i wanted to get some practicing in for next sunday's service and i needed to pick up some things from the grocery store.  later in the day we had friends coming over to play cards and have dinner.  my usual plan for the day would be quite detailed, with breakfast at a precise time, followed by getting dressed for the day, arriving at the church for practice at a pre-determined time, followed by a trip to the grocery store, with my arrival back home by a set time to prepare for our friends' visit.  my pattern for the day would be rigid, and failure to keep to my timetable would result in trying to hurry through the process to stay on schedule.  


instead, i let go of my timetable.  i had a more leisurely morning, yet everything i hoped to accomplish got done.  without the dictatorship of the clock, i enjoyed my day more and went to bed more relaxed and woke up refreshed and ready for another day.  i hope to make each day follow the same pattern.  may we each let go of the unreasonable demands we make on ourselves.  may we allow each day to be what it wants to be.  may we be grateful for the little joys each day has to offer us.  shalom.


Tuesday, February 27, 2024

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear

we are in the midst of another presidential race in this country.  we watch as donald trump blusters through his rallies and court appearances, spewing venom and encouraging his followers to hate as he hates.  it is easy to sit on my moral high horse and look down with contempt on him and his supporters.  that is not what a follower of jesus and of the buddha should be doing.  each day i say, "may i develop the perfect understanding, may i be filled with lovingkindness and compassion," then i refuse to have those qualities for some people.

this morning, i'm thinking about how to develop understanding, lovingkindness, and compassion for donald trump and those who support him.  i want to see them as human beings with whom i have more in common than i admit.  i want to be accepting of them without embracing their ideology, to love them even when they seem to be filled with anger and hatred.  i have no right to pat myself on the back for my virtues when my heart is filled with contempt for them.

i need to consider what may have happened in the lives of those who are so filled with anger toward others, to seek to understand how they have come to embrace this bitterness and sense of victimhood.  as the song from the musical, "the king and i," says, "before you are six or seven or eight, you've got to be taught to hate all the people your relatives hate."  the prejudices and bigotry that has come to expression in the maga crowd are inherited from past generations.  only the will to look at the world differently can change these vile patterns.

may we turn from those inherited ways of thinking and seeing others.  may we have compassion and love rather than hatred and condemnation.  may we see the humanity in all those around us, even those who do not see our humanity.  shalom.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

In the Sweet By and By

a friend of ours passed away a few days ago.  she had been ill for about a year and was to have a couple of surgeries that might have enabled her to live longer.  before the operations could take place, she had a hemorrhage that brought her life to an end.  my wife and i attended her funeral service in a local funeral home.  she was well-loved in the community, as indicated by the large number who were present.


the minister who officiated at the funeral spoke of the example she had set for others, of her great love for her family, and of her years of teaching young children in church.  the main thrust of his remarks was the "rightness" of her beliefs that would enable her to spend an eternity in heaven where she would be reunited with her husband and other loved ones.  he urged any of those present who had not made a "decision for jesus" to make such a commitment, lest they miss out on heaven.


i left the funeral home troubled by what he had said.  i wanted to hear him tell us how her dedication to the teachings of jesus had made her the beloved person that she was.  i can't share his certainty in what comes after this life ends.  no one can know what happens after death except to know that the person who has died ceases to exist as we know them.  we don't follow jesus out of a selfish desire to live in an eternal heaven after we die.  we follow him because his teachings compel us to live a meaningful life of service to others.


may we live life in the now, not in a pie-in-sky hope of heaven.  may we love, not because doing so will give us a key to paradise, but because it is the best way to live.  may we live the best life we can each moment without worrying about whether we've adopted the right beliefs to get us into heaven. shalom.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Now I Need a Place

yesterday, my wife and i embarked on an outing that we had been looking forward to all week.  as we left, i was excited about the prospect of a day out with my wife.  as we drove toward our destination, i began to feel depressed and lethargic.  this feeling persisted all day long, and i couldn't account for it.  my wife, who was driving, decided along the way to forego our first stop because of the timing.  that was the stop i had been looking forward to most.  at first i was angry and started to tell her how disappointed i was but decided to keep my feelings to myself.


as the day went on, we were both somewhat let down by our trip.  items we had planned to purchase weren't available.  our lunch took an interminable time to arrive.  the day was exhausting, and as we drove home we both expressed our sense of frustration that the trip had not been all we had hoped it would be.  the days leading up to the trip were busy, and perhaps we were just exhausted from all that had gone before.  perhaps we had such high expectations for our outing that we were saddened by the day's inability to live up to them.  


this is a pattern that happens with some frequency in each of our lives.  we build up expectations and are saddened when reality is something different.  when this happens, we shouldn't feel guilty about our disappointment, but instead recognize that this is part of being human.  everything can't always go as we would wish.  there's nothing wrong with feeling angry or sad when things go awry.  what we have to do is accept our humanity and learn from these misadventures, turning disappointment into gratitude.


may we accept our humanness.  may we be grateful when things don't go as we would wish.  may we recognize and embrace our emotions, even those that are negative.  may each experience be an opportunity to grow and learn.  shalom.


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

To Be Sheltered and Safe

why do we wound ourselves over and over with the same arrows?  why can't we let go of our anger and our self-inflicted punishments?  we tell ourselves that we are learning from our mistakes but, in reality, we're giving our minds the power to keep us in a constant state of agitation.  i remember my anger with our former president and my persistent attention to anti-trump commentators on television.  there was nothing i could do to stop trump from holding his hatred-filled rallies or sending out tweets filled with invective and lies.  yet i was perpetually angry that such a person exists and that so many people have become his devotees.  what good did i accomplish with my anger?  trump continues on his destructive path and his loyal followers continue to proclaim what they see as his greatness.


i think, too, of a close friend who had become upset with the church he attends and with its pastor.  every time we got together, he wanted to talk about the latest offense the pastor had committed and to restate all the ways the church caused him to be distressed.  his wife kept telling him to look for positive aspects to his relationship with their church.  my wife and i asked him why he continued to put himself through such torment when there were other churches around that wouldn't affect him in this way.  no solution offered to him would assuage his anger until he finally realized that he couldn't change the way things were at his church.  he either had to accept them and follow his wife's advice or stay angry, since he was unwilling to quit attending this church because of his wife's loyalty to it, even though she agreed with most of his criticisms.  fortunately for him, he was able to let go of his anger and frustration and move on from this fixation with something he couldn't change.


this is a pattern that we often follow.  rather than realizing that our anger changes nothing, we persist in it.  may we stop our minds from filling us with anger.  may we rationally consider our options and choose one that does not cause us to suffer.  may we be at peace with ourselves and with others.  shalom.