Post Birthday Blog...

61 and counting...

and the people keep on coming and the train done gone...

Lessons I’ve learned way, way after Kindergarten…like say, the last three years.

    1)   Being willing to listen rather than talk is a far underrated skill.   I’ve learned over the last few years that I’m a lousy listener…which is painful, because I have come to learn that it is one of the greatest gifts one can give.  The older I get the more I am convinced that we each want to tell our life stories.   Fisher (the Narrative Paradigm) and McAdams  & McLean each suggest that we see ourselves through the stories in our lives.  Let people tell their stories without interjecting your own.   (I’m working hard to take on this task…does not come naturally to me.)

2    2)   Everyone is vulnerable.  Yes, we like to laud our accomplishments on FACEBOOK or SNAPCHAT, but inside each of us, there is typically a lot of hurt that most of us never share.   We learn not to share, believing that exposing our vulnerability is a sign of weakness.   We often find that people are willing to ask for prayers and concern in times of severe physical illness, but when we are feeling depressed or overly anxious, we feel more inhibited.  

Sometimes it takes great courage to ask for help in these circumstances, but they are every bit as painful…many times much more so than physical pain… And when you do find the courage, you may be surprised.  Many will step up their game to support you. You may feel you have no support system, but you won’t really know unless you reach out.

3   3) While we all feel indispensable at work and in our private circles; we are not.  So, living in the NOW is important.   Today counts just as much as tomorrow.  That’s a big part of the MINDFULNESS movement…learning to appreciate the joy of just being…not always in Doing.  I believe God loves us just as we are-- whether we are devoting every moment of our lives to enacting social justice or sitting on our butts.  That’s what makes grace so powerful…and we are called to be just a graceful with each other as we are with ourselves.

     My parents were Lutheran missionaries in Japan, and I learned “Jesus Loves Me,” in both English and in Japanese. But the lesson that shaped my life more than any other in my Lutheran elementary school was that there is a tiny road to heaven…but make one slip, and you are well on your way to the big FAT road to HELL, with scorching goals of fire that will last for eternity.  In his powerful book. Love Wins:  A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell outlines a new vision based on the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible.   He concludes, “Eternal Life doesn’t start when we die, it starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.”  If God is truly a God of grace, my guess is that life and death is not something to be feared, but wholeheartedly embraced.

     BTW, check out his short NOOMA videos.   they will make you smile.

   4.)We are always far too tempted to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  There   are many folks I don’t naturally like and with whom I always seem to disagree.  And undoubtedly, there are lots who don’t care for me.   Yet I do believe that people are the greatest gifts of God’s creation.       
     So, I going to try to listen more, embrace the now, and be awed by a graceful image of God’s world.   Undoubtedly, religion and Christianity, in particular, has done a number on many of us.  But it also has done enormous good.  Yes, churches are filled with hypocrites, but so is the rest of the world.    So, I’ll continue to attend church, listen to others and look for grace in all of life’s experiences. 

Just think what I might be able to learn in the in the next three years if I really do some genuine listening.  I may even turn into someone who is able to see the glass half full!