Author: Bev

With COVID on the scene, economic uncertainty, political turmoil, and social upheaval, 2020 has undoubtedly been an unusual and challenging year.  There has been widespread complaining about EVERYTHING-2020 from every sector of society, worldwide.

As is customary for me, this is the time when I turn the page on my calendar and begin to schedule various appointments, notable and due dates, as well as reminders for the upcoming year.  There’s a dose of hope associated with this endeavor.

Last year, I started a new tradition wherein I kept a jar on my desk with prepared little pieces of paper to write something good every week.  The contents of that jar will be perused on New Year’s Eve.  I will admit there were a couple of weeks when it was a stretch to think of something particularly good to record, but I managed.  Concomitantly, there were weeks when I had too much to write on such a small slip of paper.

Reading those pieces of paper will be a reminder that with all of the difficult and trying days, hardships, and challenges we faced throughout last year, there was at least something good mined from each week.  You’ve heard the 16^th century phrase, “turn over a new leaf,” which refers to turning the pages of a book, made of parchment leaves; or more colloquially, looking forward to the changes that will come with what’s next.

I wonder if 2021 will be “a real page-turner,” the kind of year where we can’t wait to see what’s next?  I think about the pianist who requires another person to turn pages for her because there are so many notes on the page that she has no time to turn the page herself.

Then, there are some books that you hardly want to turn the page because you like this page so much you want to linger for a while and ponder, study, and absorb this material before you’re ready to move on.  It’s funny that on a calendar we can condense a whole 24-hour day onto a one-inch by one-inch square, and it’s enough for some days, not nearly enough for others.

So, it’s time to leave behind last year’s calendar, in a “what’s done is done,” fashion.  If you’re a visual learner like me, maybe you would find it helpful to visualize yourself leafing through the pages of the book of your life which was 2020.  As you leaf through, perhaps you’d like to mentally tear the pages out and sort them into piles.  For example, a pile for the difficult things, overcome, a pile for the unexpected blessings, and a pile for the lessons gleaned out of the throwaway pile.

I think there’s an art to forgiveness that transforms one from bitterness to fulfillment, from pain to peace.  There’s a fine line between learning the lesson from conflict and holding onto the pain of it. 

Some people find it easy to forgive wrongs done to them.  Others frankly can’t forgive, ever.  It seems to me there should be a happy medium, happy being the operative word because the lack of forgiveness damages your peace and contentment.  Some of us have to make a concerted effort to forgive especially when no apology is forthcoming.  Others let it roll off their backs.

Instead of carrying the whole tree trunk of 2020 on our backs into the new year, maybe we should consider letting go of 2020 leaf by leaf until we’re free to absorb the substance of the year without all of that bark weighing us down.  Let each of those leaves of your year have their effect, but then release them into the wind of tomorrow and next year, setting you free to experience what’s next.

I’ll conclude this missive with a sampling of lyrics from the 1962 Bob Dylan song, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “How many years can some people exist – Before they’re allowed to be free? – How many times can a man turn his head – And pretend that he just doesn’t see? – The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind – The answer is blowin’ in the wind – How many times must a man look up – Before he can see the sky? – How many ears must one man have – Before he can hear people cry? – How many deaths will it take ‘til he knows – That too many people have died? – The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind – The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

May you be blessed with some windy days.  Happy New Year 2021.

The subtitle for this column is, “and the tools we use to outsmart or overcome them.”  Reclosable and easy-open are two word-phrases that I’ve learned aren’t self-fulfilling.

Because this is gift-giving season, there’s a lot of packaging to be dealt with.  This won’t exactly be a PSA, more like a pet peeve or a venting session.

My first question is, for whom are these packages easy to open and/or reclose?  Identify yourselves.  What secret skill is it that you’ve got, that I don’t?

Second question.  Who identified this packaging as easy to open and reclose?  It must have been easy for the creators of the packaging.

Let’s just all assume we received the gift or product inside said packaging with gratitude and joy and move on to my problem with certain types of packaging.  Some of this packaging is from everyday stuff we use from foodstuffs to household appliances, toiletries, and so on.

Everything comes inside some package or another.  The recycling, reuse, or repurposing of this packaging is another whole subject for another time.

As to easy-open packaging, there is a certain frozen food delivery company from whom we buy, well, meatballs.  These are the basis of one of my husband’s Sunday-special meals.  However, he always calls upon me to open the easy-open packaging with my special ninja package-opening skills in just this one instance.  This ability is akin to what I will call the “if mom can’t find it, it can’t be found” skill-set that we moms seem to develop.

Oh, and the other one that really gets my goat, are the easy-open and storage packages of 24 AA batteries from a certain discount store.  Short of using a blow torch, chainsaw, cutting torch, my teeth (don’t tell my dentist or hygienist), or some such “Mission Impossible” move, I find them impenetrable let alone progress far enough to store the batteries in them.

When I’ve finished opening those battery packages, the remains look like a mountain lion has just had lunch from yours or my dumpster.  It’s possible that I may have resorted to my ancestral hunter-gatherer ways of using a big bad rock to pound that package to smithereens.  Or better yet, I’m an ingenious contestant on the television show, Naked and Afraid (where this little lady would be neither naked nor afraid, but determined to work the tools I’ve got to make shoes, as my first priority).

In our household, we resort to the wire cutters pretty frequently when scissors aren’t tough enough and shrub pruners aren’t sharp enough to open stuff like those battery packages.  But even the wire cutters won’t open them.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life and one of them might be that there is some obvious formula for opening those battery packages which is obscure to me and has gone completely over my head, when I’ve made a big deal about it now, publicly.  For example, if I must confess, last week’s column has a grammatical error that a young friend, corrected me on, many years ago, when he was about eight years old and I, a grownup.

The error is between cursive(ly), the written-script, and cursorily, which means flippantly.  Some people never learn, my friend.  I’m sorry.  Maybe this packaging thing is all my problem and doesn’t affect ya’ll.

Reclosable packaging is another problem for me.  Usually, these things are some variation of a Ziploc bag.  Personally, I don’t care for Ziploc because unlike most zippers, they don’t zip, to my liking anyway.  I like slide-lock because they slide generally like a well-oiled machine.  Unless they’re old and have been reused many times and they’re just broken.  It’s time to throw them away then.

But Ziploc whether it’s a single zip or the new-fangled double zip, can rarely be closed, by me anyway.  I just can’t seem to line up the male-female thing, and I know how to do this.

When my husband and I find it truly impossible to close those things, he resorts to his preferred closure, an old-fashioned wooden clothespin.  I fall back on my old standby the twist-tie, some of them four inches long so that they truly close without one having to be a Hemingway kitty with an extra digit to help out.

Having the right tools for any job makes the job easier.  It was the 1950s when labor-saving devices in the household became the thing.  And the 1825 English Bankrupts Act, concept of “tools of the trade,” along with our own contemporary tax expense category, “tools,” have monetized the use of tools in today’s culture.

As a people, we’ve come a long way, or have we?  Haven’t we got a tool for just about anything we must contend with?

I will admit, over the last few weeks, I’ve more than once exclaimed how grateful I am to have obtained some kitchen tools which have made all the difference in my baking tasks.  For decades I’ve turned out some pretty delectable cookie treats using rudimentary tools.  But, what a difference a few particular tools, like silicone baking mats and a tiny cookie scoop, have made, transforming my baking experience into something a little warmer and fuzzier than a job.

But, since I’m no tool engineer, I’ve fallen short of possessing the tools to adequately understand how to reclose those Ziploc bags that my husband can’t even open in the first place.  Who knew when I got that Master’s degree and my husband, his PhD, that what we really needed was to have mastered the tool subject of household engineering so that we could reclose those dumb packages?

Merry Christmas, and like our cats I hope you enjoy your packaging as much as the contents of those boxes and bags, underneath the ribbons and bows and colorful paper.

Do you ever think about your soul?  The part of you that makes you, you, is your soul.  Some people call it your heart, not the physical organ, but the ephemeral inner-youness of yourself.  You can tell that I’m using some seriously technical terms here, right?

The soul has been contemplated by philosophers, theologians, and even scientists.  It is said by some to be the seat of salvation, blessings, damnation, and our life essence.

From The Body Farm, a British forensics crime drama that I’ve watched, an emotionally challenged but brilliant scientist character, not likely a man of faith, said, “you know we weigh the body just before and after death and the difference is just over 21 grams, the weight of the soul.”  He speculates that the soul not only exists, but leaves the body at death.  It passes away.

I wonder, is my soul fat or muscly?  When you’ve worked out a lot and eaten reasonably, yet still gain weight, “they” always try to comfort, placate, or distract you by telling you that muscle weighs more than fat and your efforts have been rewarded with more muscle and less fat.  I personally want a really muscly soul.

Did you all learn that weirdly scary Christian prayer when you were a child, “now I lay me down to sleep…. if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take?”  In retrospect it doesn’t seem a prayer prescribed for the peaceful rest of a young soul.

On the other hand, Christians and our Hebrew predecessors haven’t got it all wrong historically, because there is the 23^rd Psalm with its beautiful and lyrical green pastures, still waters, good and merciful paths, and comfort, all coming together without fear nor evil, to restore our souls.

Everyone can be reduced to our infinite soul – our one and only, highly original core, which is covered over with a readily recognized flesh and blood costume which is known to ourselves and others as “who I am.”  It is this costume that we all recognize as “me,” and “I.”  We muddle through life guided by perceptions that we’ve borrowed from the finite and limited culture into which we landed at birth.

Some of us, continue beyond adolescence to ask such questions as, “Who am I” and “What is my purpose?”  These are a couple of questions that maybe ought to be answered at least cursorily before you reach out for a “soul-mate.”

In the answering of these questions, our philosopher-soul is likely to ask more questions than receive literal answers.  Ever the therapist, our souls are always digging in order to unearth more treasure, all the while ruminating, contemplating, and struggling back and forth.

The perceptions we’re all guided by, are formed by culture, unique life experience, and a pinch of history, or genetic predisposition.  It’s difficult to get past our retinue of perceptions, to bypass cultural dictates, and to reinterpret life experiences that have landed in our laps as defining principles of our character, personality, and agenda.

Would that we could do this, though – and cut easily right to soul.  If we could reduce all the compounding, layers of the onion we call culture, and distill our lives – like when in the kitchen we reduce liquid juice into a thicker but greatly abridged paste, we might be enabled to see the soul more purely and honestly, through a sparkling clean window.  However, most of our soul-windows are cloudy, dirty, dusty, and vague.

However, a few years ago, during a walking-church moment in the woods, I blurted out on Facebook, “’There is a reason for the season.’  It occurs to me that that saying does not apply only to Christmas, from a Christian point of view.  It explains purpose in every spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, and relational season we pass through.  We can give thanks for all things as all things are permitted by God to benefit us in some way.  We can mine each circumstance for the treasure that surely lies beneath.”

This new way of seeing, flung open the panoramic window to my soul, exciting and renewing my vision of how life could be.  The word, re-vision has a whole new meaning when looking out of this window.

Re-vision of my perception led to a rekindled passion for covering the faults, missteps, failures, or my own expectations of how I and my associates should be (i.e., I Peter 4:8 “Love covers sin”).  Rather than choosing anger or judgment when disappointed expectations surface, or taking it personal, as an affront or offense, I’m choosing to just throw a blanket over the fault – cover it over entirely.

My new mantra when I’m tempted to get hurt feelings, is a symbolic, “throw a blanket over it.”  This is a mnemonic device to remind me not to take offense, but to cover that person who might otherwise hurt me or steal my peace, with love.

Re-vision doesn’t happen overnight.  I clearly need practice in this – it hasn’t come naturally and I mess up every day, at least once.  The temptation is to be offended when my ordinary vision is challenged, and my soul’s been hurt.

I think it’s natural to want to direct the course of events that drive us, in life. Everybody wants to steer, to drive.  Not many of us prefer to ride along.  We want to decide our direction, even assert control over the television clicker.

When I delve deep into soul, pitch my tent in that realm beneath the surface of culture, history, experience and perception I’m at liberty to be me.  Black Americans in the early 1960s coined the terms “soul food,” “soul sister/brother,” and “soul music,” to lay claim to their unique contributions to American culture.  Similarly, we can all reclaim our most noble of spirits and temperament, by getting to know our soul, and letting it exhale. 

“Soul music,” epitomizes the window to the soul that I’m talking about in this column.  It emanates from the core, from the heart, from the very essence of the human being.  Although the genre originated in the 1950s in black American culture, I would surmise that given the tools to express themselves, can you say “soul-searching,” every human being on earth could fling open the window to their soul and belt out a song of “who I am.” 

As to that muscly soul I’m longing for, perhaps instead of calories packed on my thighs this holiday season, I could add some heft to my soul instead.  Cheers to some fat souls by the end of 2020.

What’s to hate about the due date?   For most Americans, it’s a target to prepare for, as in a pregnant woman’s due date, or the time a bill must be paid.

But babies are notoriously oblivious of their due date, defying it consistently.  And, although many Americans obsess with or despise the due date of their bills, it’s not such a big deal in some of our subcultures or other countries.

Having lived just off the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico for a few years way back when, we went to several Pow-wows.  Unfamiliar with the Native culture, we arrived to the event just before it was scheduled to start.  Then we waited.  After a considerable time had passed and the Pow-wow didn’t start, we asked a Native friend “what’s up?”  He replied, “oh, it’ll start when they feel it’s time.”  Okay.

“Ritorno Subito,” is a sign found on most shop doors, possibly anytime but usually in the early afternoon, in many Italian towns.  Return soon, supposes a wrinkle in time, with the word soon meaning “any length of time from right now to the twelfth of never,” according to Phil Doran in The Reluctant Tuscan.”  Similarly, Carol Drinkwater, in The Olive Farm, says of Italian custom, “tomorrow does not necessarily mean tomorrow.  It means at some time in the future beyond now.  And the only way to know when that might be is to cheerfully wait and see.”

Time in Europe, even today, is an open-ended, flexible, multi-interpretable commodity.  This conception of time is summed up by the Renaissance concept, festina tarde, or make haste slowly, mature haste.  In other words, calm down.  Contemporary French leader Francois Mitterrand has said, “Il faut donner du temps au temps,” “you have to give time to time.”

But when you think of poor Santa, seriously, how can you argue with the exactitude of the due date?  All of those deliveries to be made by December 25^th, certainly no later, nor earlier.  Talk about, “on the dot!”

I would think we’re dealing with a pretty stressed-out Santa.  How does he stay so jolly under all that pressure of the due date?

Maybe it’s the “reason for the season.”  The Santa Claus tradition has been a multicultural phenomenon for decades and has spread worldwide, with many names and many variations on the theme.  Most of the migration of the Santa story was initiated by the American stories of Washington Irving in his History of New York in 1809 and the publication of the 1823 poem in the Sentinel, “A Visit from St Nicholas” which became ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.

The main takeaway from every Santa Claus tradition around the world is gift-giving or the returning of a kindness received.  The “naughty or nice” criteria are found everywhere in the Santa stories.  Often nice children initiate the kindness by filling their shoes, boots or stockings with fruit, vegetables or whatnot for Santa and his helpers, and he in return fills their boots with gifts.

In many stories around the world surrounding Father Christmas, one of his many names, there are quite a few malevolent characters included.  These characters are intended to frighten the naughty out of us so that Kris Kringle or Babbo Natale can give us gifts for being good.

The whole, precisely German, Saint Nicholas thing is about the original gift to the world, via the birth of Christ.  Speaking of the “reason for the season,” in my lengthy Christian tutelage, I was erroneously taught sometime that using the shortcut Xmas was comparable to leaving Christ out of Christmas.  I’ve since learned that the X in that abbreviation is the Roman letter (chi) X which means Christ(os).  So even though I feel a twinge of historical-guilt when I write the shortcut on my shopping list, i.e., “Xmas gift for ___”, I write it anyway, knowing I’m loyal to my faith.

Papa Noel holds the world record in frequent flier miles, topping out at 218 million miles each December 24^th.  And, lest you think you’ve got issues with too many calories consumed over the holidays, “Nicholas the Wonderworker,” must finesse his intersession and obtain a few miracles in order to burn off the 374 billion calories he consumes at the hands of generous boys and girls leaving cookies for him as their thank you gift for his kindness.

Or, my alternate theory of Christkindl’s after-holiday diet is this.  El Ninito Dios and his travel companions, many of whom are pack animals: reindeer, donkeys, goats, horses, camels, and others, fill themselves and the empty return-sleigh with all those cookies, carrots, vegetables, fruit and other goodies, to share all year long with Mrs. Claus as household steward, many elf-workers, and others in their North Pole neighborhood.  After all, their whole abode is a massive freezer.

Well, I for one am grateful that Saint Nicholas takes the December 25 due date seriously.  Happy Xmas one and all.  May your hearts be blessed.

 

 

So, let me get this out right at the top.  Happy Holidays.  I sincerely mean this.  I wish you the very best of holidays, but I hope to prepare you for what’s most likely to come.

The expectation of most of us for the holiday season is that our experience will mimic Jimmy Stewart’s or Tiny Tim’s “miracle,” without going through the Griswold’s chaotic “family extravaganza” or the Kranks’ hope to avoid holiday tradition gone terribly, terribly wrong.  It’s time for some tough love folks, it ain’t gonna happen.

Our holiday recipe will most certainly include a  dash of miracle, a pinch of disappointment, a teaspoon of joy, and sadly a smidgen of “bah-humbug.”  This is a realistic expectation to have in your pocket.

Some of us are already frustrated with the goings-on of 2020.  Battles continue to brew in politics, our health, society, and the economy.  Fear, uncertainty, intermittent-to-total social isolation, and a general lack of familiarity with this 2020-way of life, is disconcerting.   Add to the 2020-mix, a hefty potential for escalating depression over a normal holiday season, and we need some preventive medicine, pronto.

Most of us are coping, imposing our considerable willpower into the 2020 scene.  Coping and will, are both verbs, implying action – doing, trying, striving, toiling, battling, struggling, managing, and controlling.

Sometimes our efforts are remarkably valiant – but ultimately fruitless.  We occasionally walk away in defeat because we rely on the wrong weapons.

The weapons helpful in countering frustrated expectations are not the tools you first think are needed for battle; but neither was a handful of small, smooth stones and a slingshot, for David in his battle with Goliath – but they proved effective in the end.  This whole battle thing is a metaphor, as are the weapons we must use in our metaphorical war against unrealistic expectations.

Simply put, we may be well-advised to get our heads together rather than polish our swords and knives and clean our guns.  You’ve heard the saying – usually intended to be dismissive, “It’s all in your head?”  As it turns out, our fight with frustrated expectations is all in our heads.

There is a battle in our minds ensuing between will and grace (not the vintage television show).  Thankfully, we’re all possessed with a combination of these traits, and frustrated expectations are resolved with first one coming to the fore then stepping aside for the other one to take over.

Willfulness is useful in accomplishing a concrete goal such as work or any other actionable endeavor.  Can you say baking cookies, wrapping gifts, decorating the house, etc.?  After all, the word, will, implies a correlation between two things: act and outcome, work and product.

Will implies an expectation of outcome.  Having done all of this work, I expect to feel warm, fulfilled, appreciated, relaxed, and finished.  If I eat reasonably and exercise, I expect to lose weight or at least not gain weight.

The caveat is, some of our expectations are simply not within our willpower, to produce the outcome we want.  After all of my holiday preparation and hard work, I may just as likely feel, lukewarm, unfulfilled, unappreciated, uptight, and tired.  Work doesn’t end on a certain calendar square or season of the year.  It’s ongoing and it’s sometimes hard.

Effort expects a reward.  Literally, without will we would all sit around doing nothing – not producing anything, nor serving others.

There is a place for willfulness.  But, trying to exert our will in circumstances over which will has no power to produce an outcome is like the fruitless action of “banging your head against a wall.”

We may come away, having worked hard, expending monumental effort – but may remain unfulfilled.  Our emotions and soul stay soaked in a gnawing and overarching feeling of disappointment.

Unrealistic expectations are like trying to understand a mystery.  Let’s say your unresolved mystery is why a particular individual died at a specific time, a spouse, a child, a baby.  Your expectation to have figured it out, comprehended it, understood it, found a key, or learned the secret of it, may very well go unmet, because it’s a mystery, which is inherently inexplicable and open-ended.

The only way I know of escaping the whirling dervish of willful seeking, in our battle with expectation, is grace.  But, the problem with grace is, like kissing vapor or holding a cloud, it can’t be obtained, procured, learned or bought.  Grace is a gift that is received.

Grammatically, grace is a noun, a concrete thing.  It’s real, but inactive – like a dormant plant that looks dead but is just resting.  Grace, the noun, is the object of action rather than causing action (like the verb – will).

Receiving grace, is to accept ourselves as nouns, the objects of universal action. Grace could be perceived as a person from whom the thoughts, acts, and efforts of a Power greater than herself are directed; not a verb, the actor of her own destiny.  Grace is all about reception – not participating, not reacting, not producing, not manifesting.

Grace possesses a supernatural internet connection at supersonic speed.  She chooses what to pay attention to, what to notice, what to focus on.  In fact, she notices, senses, recognizes, sorts, and appreciates the zillions of impressions from external sources that enter her awareness daily.

Grace greets stimuli with wide awake gentleness, psychological flexibility, relaxed alertness, and thankful awareness.  She accepts mystery and unknowing to be part of life.  Acceptance is key to receiving the gift of grace.  “Thy will be done;” “it is what it is;” and “que sera sera” are her by-words.

Baby steps in the reception of grace include moderation in all things, lightening up, adopting an “it’s no big deal” attitude, offering gentle compassion to yourself by accepting your weaknesses and imperfections, and easing your grasp on the contents of life.

I would like to leave you with this modified holiday greeting with which we often left church services when I was growing up.  “Grace be with you.”  And your reply is, “and also with you.”

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.  I will admit that this meal: turkey, stuffing and all the rest is not the easiest of meals for me to prepare.  It’s a bit too much of a time-crunch in my small kitchen for everything to be hot at the same time, for the table.  But it always works out.

Thanksgiving launches the gift-giving time of year.  As long as we’re dealing with confessions, I will say that one reason I prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas, as far as the commercial side of these holidays goes, is there is less pressure to get, obtain, or procure stuff for others, and more gratitude for all that I’ve received.

I think perhaps Thanksgiving is also the more charitable of holidays because we are reminded of everything we’ve received.  After all, my preferred Thanksgiving décor involves the “Happy Harvest” greeting, pumpkins, gourds, leaves, cornstalks and all things produce, which remind us of harvest of the year’s efforts.

So, I muse this time of year about the blessings of giving and receiving.  I start my musing on the Scripture I Corinthians 13:13, from the “old” King James version of the Bible which goes something like this: “Faith, hope and charity, of these three virtues, the greatest of these is charity.”

I get a kick out of words, and I like this old-fashioned version (KJV) which uses the word charity, rather than newer versions which substitute the word love in this Scripture.  The word, charity means in this sense, social or moral love.  This is different than romantic love, or even Christian love (agape).  It means charity.

Are you aware that when you give to a charitable cause or you give charitably to a person, or group, you are extending love to them?  This type of love is one of the more selfless acts of human-kindness.  In this kind of gift-giving you are reaching out to a person, group, or institution which is supposedly weaker than yourself, and you are extending your hand of strength to lift them up to be your equal.

As circular thinking goes inside my brain, this caused me to wonder about Acts 20:35 where the Apostle Paul tried to mediate some bickering among associates about which spiritual gifts were better.  He concluded that it is more blessed to give than to receive.  I mean, I shouldn’t argue with the canon, but which one feels more blessed?

We raised a daughter who has been an excellent receiver of gifts since early childhood.  This kid was grateful for every gift she ever received from anyone.  She lavished genuine thanks to all for every gift from expensive ones to cheap, cheap, cheap ones, from dollar stores to Saks Fifth Avenue.  In fact, I think she treasures to this day some cheap, free jewelry my dad gave to her, trinkets he received in the mail for free from places he ordered from or places who wanted donations or whatnot.

As an adult, our daughter loves nothing more than gift-giving, proving that it is equally blessed to give and to receive, if both are heartfelt.  You know, some people have a hard time receiving; perhaps they perceive it as weak and they’d rather be the giver who controls the transaction.

Then, I thought, nothing makes you want to give, more, than a good reception.  What is it about the reception, when you give?  I know, that when I give to someone, and it’s often to people I know, and they receive it as a blessing, I feel caressed, cherished, and cared for, all definitions of charity.

It does the heart good to give something to benefit the life of another.  And when that other receives one’s gift with joy and thanksgiving, it does their heart good.  So, in my mind it’s the chicken-egg conundrum.

But what a conundrum to have. Give-receive?  Receive-Give?  Giving and receiving are both good if done with Thanksgiving.

Then there is Christmas, based on the gift of Christ, but it has been extended by the acts of St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus’ charitable gift-giving and to all of us who have followed after him.  And so, the season of giving and receiving begins.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Grace, I learned many years ago, means – unmerited favor, among other things.  The strange cultural paradox we live with, however is that we desperately try to earn God’s grace.  This presents a psychological and social conundrum.

I know in my head that grace is a gift and nothing I do will increase or decrease its presence in my life.  But, in my merit-based, learned culture (American, baby-boom, middle class, Christian), the subtle teaching is that you only get what you earn, what you work for.

In fact, I giggle at most statements that begin with “I deserve…”  My cultural-thinking goes right to, “did you work harder than the next guy, that you deserve it and he or she doesn’t?”

The rule my generation and prior, have lived by is that you reap what you sow.  If you don’t work you don’t reap a reward via a paycheck on payday.  Then there’s payback.  Reaping and sowing laws, unmediated by the whole story, portray God as big on payback, and He does it one of two ways.  The hopeful way is, “give and you shall receive.”  The negative way is, “the wages of sin are death.”

The cultural imperative I grew up with was, if you work hard, you can become anything you want to be.  A burgeoning woman in the time of the feminist movement, it was incumbent on me to do more, be somebody, climb higher than women climbed before.

So, a combination of feminist thinking, the rebellion of the 1960s, and the growth of the gifted/charismatic, Christian church, mingled to engender a mind-set of trying; and unknowingly ushered in a make-it-happen, stressed generation.  I grew up with the children’s book first published in 1930, The Little Engine That Could: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can;” and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952).

These positives are not bad in and of themselves, they even provide hope as well as incentive to work.  However, taken too far – and I don’t know where that line is – these positives created a mind-set that we can make anything we want happen, if we try hard enough, believe for it, stay constantly positive, and turn the magic key in the invisible lock. 

The problem is, it’s never enough.  When your invisible goal persistently looms in front of you, the only thing to be done, is try harder, do more, and work at it.

I think we defined the term, go-getter.  We are the get-er-done or pass out- trying generation. Use it or lose it is our cultural motto.

Some of us have had enough.  Frankly, part of it is, we’re just tired from all the years of work, earning our grace.  I’m done, as in fried, baked, and roasted, trying to get what I want.

Those of you who want to, keep trying, trying, and trying again.  Godspeed, but do it without me.

My “counter”-anthems to all that trying are bits of song lyrics that confirm the stirrings in my spirit, some of which are:  “Stop, Look Around…” (Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth, 1966); “Let It Be” (The Beatles, Lennon & McCartney, 1970); and “Breathe, Just Breathe…” (Anna Nalick, Breathe 2 AM, 2005).

I prefer going back to grace, the un-merited, gift part of the gospel message, the part where Christ did the work and by His graceful gift, I receive the benefits (Ps.103:2).  After all, gospel means good news.  I’ve already done the “work out your own salvation with trepidation” (Phil. 2:12) and the “join in Christ’s suffering” (1 Pet. 4:13) part of Christian stewardship.  I’ve sown, watered, tilled, and fertilized.

Now, like Buffalo Springfield, I’m just looking around, taking it all in: “What’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down. . ..”.  I’m breathing consciously with Anna Nalick, including the exhale; and feeling the sun on my face with The Beatles, positioning myself to reap.

Grace, grace, I cry grace to the mountain, which shall become a molehill (Zech. 4:7).  I’m in a place where I’m observing a whole lot more molehills and fewer mountains. …  Sometimes I let the “I gotta-get-it-done checklist” in the back of my mind, begin to fade into perspective.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta reminds us that trees, flowers and grass grow in silence.  I would add that we humans grow, in rest.

With this column, I’m reaping years of research done and experiences had in my academic, social and spiritual/psychological past.  This outlet through which I share with you every week happened out of the blue, just when I’d let go of what I thought I wanted.

Back in 1979 I experienced the protestant version of deciding to become a nun.  Concluding that marriage wasn’t for me, I started planning my future in youth ministry.  As these things go, the dawn after that decision, I met the guy.  Plans changed.

Soon after my husband’s and my fortuitous meeting, I had occasion to relate to a young friend of a friend who desperately wanted a boyfriend, the wisdom of a precept which I will call: the thing you want will happen only when you stop trying to get it.  Seriously, this is one of the truest things I know, but the hardest thing to experience.

“The best things in life just happen” (LeVan 2016).  To workaholics and control-freaks, this concept is counter-intuitive.  If we didn’t work for it, control it, or make it happen through our own effort, we’re at a loss as to how it can be.  Similar counter-intuitive precepts are: surrender to win; less is more; die to live; decay is fertilizer; give it up, or set it free, to get what you want.

Like a child growing into my new clothes, I’m growing in grace.  Grace doesn’t just mean unmerited favor, the definition extends to agility, balance, elegance, beauty, cultivation, and the effortless fluidity of life from one step to the next. This extended definition is what I’m going for in 2020 and beyond.

I shall leave you with some excerpts from Lennon & McCartney’s 1969 song, Let it Be: “When I find myself in times of trouble… And in my hour of darkness… Whisper words of wisdom, let it be… And when the broken-hearted people… Living in the world agree… There will be an answer, let it be… For though they may be parted… There is still a chance that they will see… There will be an answer, let it be…And when the night is cloudy… There is still a light that shines on me… Shine on until tomorrow, let it be… Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.”