When You Worry You Make It Double

for several days now, we've had repairmen working at our home.  we discovered that an area around our garage doors had been attacked by termites, so we've been having the damaged wood removed, the area treated for termites, and new wood put back.  inside the house, we've been having some improvements made that we've been wanting to do since buying our home.  the men who have been doing the work on both jobs have been very agreeable, and they've done fine work, so we're quite pleased.  the inside work has been completed, and the work on the garage is almost finished.

despite the professionalism of the men we employed and their care to make certain that we are pleased with their work, it has been incredibly stressful for my wife and i.  whenever anything like this is going on, it seems as if the whole house is turned topsy-turvy, and to have both the garage and the house in disorder at the same time was almost more than we could handle.  we're both cleanliness and order freaks, and we were on edge the whole time the work was being done.  we spent the entire day after the work in the house was completed putting things back in order and cleaning every room in the house.  now that is done, we feel at ease once more.  in a few days, i'll be able to get the garage back in order and do some cleaning up out there, so all will be just as we want it to be, at least until the next time we need to have some home repairs or improvements done.

as i sit and think about how stressed we were, i wonder what it is that puts us on edge about a situation like this.  those doing the work couldn't have been more pleasant or more concerned with doing work that was just what we wanted.  the repairs and improvements were done well and left our home in much better shape than before.  i suppose that we were concerned that some aspect of the work might be subpar, leading to a potential confrontation with one of the workers, that there might be some dispute about the cost of the completed work, or that some unforeseen difficulties might arise that would make the work more difficult and more costly.  none of those things happened, so our stress and worry were completely unnecessary.  the root cause of our anxiety was that the orderliness of our home was disturbed for a protracted length of time.  as always, we were resistant to changes that disturbed the flow of our lives.  that, in addition to the changes mandated by the virus outbreak and our country's many mistakes in dealing with it, made us miserable.  i wonder, now that the home repairs are done for the time being, how we could better have dealt with the disturbances to our daily routine.

may we learn to accept that change is a part of life, that everything cannot always be just as we want it to be.  may we look to the results that beneficial changes bring, rather than the disruptions that are passing and transitory.  may we be grateful for those who are the agents of change that make our lives better.  may we accept that we are humans who feel stress and worry instead of feeling guilty for having those very human traits.  shalom.

She Has Her Grief and Care

it puzzles me that we often are most hurtful to those we love, to the members of our own families.  several days ago, a close relative of my wife called her.  my wife could tell her relative was angry when she began talking.  almost immediately in the conversation, this person began lashing out at my wife over a perceived slight.  as my wife tried to explain the circumstances, the relative kept interrupting, refusing to hear my wife.  i heard my wife say to her caller that she ought to just calm down so they could talk more rationally.  her request to let go of the anger was ignored.  at the end of the conversation, the relative told my wife that she would just call back another time when "they were both calmer," as if my wife had  initiated the anger.

soon after, my wife had occasion to visit with another close relative who reported getting a call from the same relative who was angry with my wife.  she, too, reported that this person was angry and "chewed her out," accusing her of having listened in on the earlier call to my wife, though she was not with my wife when the first call took place.  the two recipients of their common relative's tirades handled them very differently.  my wife had tried to explain why her relative's anger was unwarranted, while the second victim of her ire just listened until the angry caller had finished venting.  i'm not sure which approach was best--my wife let her disagreeable relation know that she wasn't going to be intimidated by her, while the patient listener left the impression that the abusive relative's anger was justified, but she at least got the anger out of her system for a brief period of time.

she reported that this caller went on to complain that no one ever called her, that no one suffered as she did, that her life was a miserable round of taking her ailing, elderly husband from one doctor's appointment to another.  both my wife and her patient relative bemoaned this woman's unhappiness and wished they could help her.  i pointed out that it was she who had to fix what was wrong in her life, that her suffering stemmed from her own refusal to let go of her victimhood.  she believes that her suffering stems from her treatment by an abusive father and first husband, from her abandonment by her only child though they have since reconciled, from her "crazy" neighbor, from her aging husband, from the failure of her relations to call or visit her, while in the end it is she who pushes others away and makes time spent with her a misery.  it is true that she was abused by her father and first husband but her refusal to let go of her bitterness and anger towards them and her failure to forgive or come to terms with her history has made her someone who is angry at the world and all who want to love and care for her.  she pushes others away as if she believes she is unworthy of love and suspicious of those who try to show her compassion.  in the end, her actions towards others cause them to behave towards her as she expects them to, further confirming her belief that all her problems are caused by those around her rather than by herself.

may we understand that we often get what we expect.  maybe this is part of the truth in jesus' words when he said, "ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find."  if we act with kindness and compassion and believe that others will respond to us in the same way, that is usually what we receive from them.  may we see the hurting child in those who treat us with contempt, thus changing our attitudes toward them and perhaps in the process changing them as well.  shalom.

I Am Old But I'm Happy

we were talking with another couple our age a few days ago about how our views of our parents have changed as we've gotten older.  this came up when one of us made a remark about one of our children never coming to help us with anything.  we all remembered that as our fathers aged, we never thought of them as getting old.  in our younger days, we seemed to think that our fathers would be with us forever, that they were just as capable of handling all their responsibilities like mowing the yard and trimming the shrubs as they had been when we were growing up.  now that we are up in years, we see that they could have used our help.  their stamina made it more difficult for them to take care of everything around their homes, but we couldn't see that until we ourselves were at the same point in our lives.

our attitudes towards our mothers were different, though.  as our mothers aged, we felt the need to help them and made many trips to do things for them that we didn't do for our fathers.  i was the only participant in the conversation whose father had outlived his wife.  my wife and i did many things for her mother after my wife's father died, but we didn't do any of those things for my father after my mother died.  it wasn't that i didn't love my father.  i just had a different attitude about him and his needs than i did about my wife's mother.  as i look back, i can see that much of that had to do with sexism.  in my mind, my wife's mother was weaker and needed help; my father, being a male, was stronger and, because he was a man, was able to look after himself without my help.  i know now that i was wrong.  he could have used my help but i failed to see it.

now i am in the same position.  i don't blame my son for not coming over to help me with chores that are difficult for me.  i'm sure he feels as i did--that his father is indestructible, forever young.  if i were to die, he would probably come to his mother's aid to see that physically demanding chores around the house were taken care of.  one day, he will see, as i do now, that as we get older we can't get things done as quickly as we used to and some things must be left for others to do because we can't do them for ourselves.  i don't regret not helping my dad.  he probably would have resented me "taking over" those tasks that had become difficult for him, just as i resist asking my own son for help.  i'm simply amazed that i see through different eyes now than i did not so many years ago.  in many ways i have become my dad and my son has become me.

may we understand how we are all related, how each of us changes with the passage of time.  may we see that the vantage point of youth is different from that of old age and have compassion for one another no matter at what stage of life we find ourselves.  may we know that we are all sons and fathers, daughters and mothers, each of us part of the same family.  may we be slow to condemn and quick to love.  shalom.

Try to Love One Another Right Now

the other day i went into a local pizza shop to pick up a pizza i had ordered.  as i walked along the side of the shop to the entrance, i noticed several signs posted that said masks were required inside the building.  at the door, the same sign was posted, and just inside the door was a large chalkboard with "masks required" written on it in large letters.  as i waited at the counter, another customer came in without a mask on.  i pointed to the sign, and she smiled back at me, obviously not intending to return to her car and put on a mask.  i pointed to the sign once more and got the same reaction.

as i left the shop with my pizza, a group of older folks were getting out of their car.  noticing the sign, one of them asked, "do you really have to wear a mask inside?"  i pointed to one of the signs, and said, "that's what the sign says."  one of the women in the group turned to the driver of the car and asked him to retrieve their masks, while she and the rest of the group proceeded to the door.  the driver followed behind with several masks in his hand, but none of them stopped to put the masks on.  as i got in my car, i wondered if they ever donned their masks.

i don't understand the attitudes of people who refuse to wear masks in public.  do they believe that the masks are of no use in spreading the virus?  do they have no regard for those around them?  do they think that the reports about the virus and its ease of transmission are "fake news?"  are they making a political statement in support of a president who ignores the advice of health experts, encourages risky behavior on the part of the population by presiding over large gatherings that make social distancing impossible, and refuses to wear a mask himself?  maybe all of these reasons apply.

as i meditated this morning, i repeated the phrase, "may i be filled with lovingkindness and compassion, may i be well."  as the words went through my mind, i thought of the unmasked woman in the pizza place, and the group of older people who entered without wearing their masks.  a sense of lovingkindness and compassion for those who worked in the restaurant would compel its patrons to wear masks.  if we wish to be well and to help others to be well, then we will wear a mask when we are among others outside our own homes.  our own health and the health of others are inextricably wed.  wearing a mask is a simple way of protecting one another as virus infections increase in so many places.

may we all be filled with lovingkindness and compassion so that we may be well.  may we tolerate some inconvenience and discomfort if, in doing so, we can make life better for others.  may our interconnectedness lead us to see that we must not think only of ourselves, that indeed we are all part of one great Self.  shalom.