Living Water
There’s a woman in the New Testament who encountered Jesus in his travels. She was a Samaritan, the first-century ancestor of a Palestinian, I guess – the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Even then, the Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t quite manage to get along. In fact, even then, they pretty much never even tried. The Children of Israel were the Chosen Ones, the Samaritans were the “red-headed step-children,” and they despised each other for reasons that were essentially flip sides of the same coin. Anyone who’s survived a stiff case of sibling rivalry will get it:
“Dad likes me best.”
“You are so stuck on yourself.”
“Yeah, well, you’re stupid.”
“Yeah, well, you’re stupider, ‘cause you think Dad likes you best.”
“Yeah, well, he does.”
“So? I can still beat you up, and if you tell, I’ll tell Mom you swung first. She likes me best.”
So there they were: Yeshua the Chosen on the road, passing through the back yards of the red-headed step-children, and this woman out doing her daily routine. She went up to the well to get water for her household, and there was this man – this clearly Israeli man – sitting there, apparently waiting for something. “Give me some water?” he asked.
“You’re asking me for water?” she responded. “I’m surprised you’d stoop to speak to me – you and your stuck-up, holier-than-thou Israelite self!”
“Yep,” he said, “I’m asking you for water. Please?” He didn’t have to. She was already drawing the water, and she’d already picked up the little cup to fill for him. But his mama taught him manners, so he did say “please.”
And then he told her some things about herself she’d just as soon keep under the rug, and he offered her living water.
Of all the characters in the Bible – and it’s full of characters, in every sense of the word – this woman is probably the one I most identify with. First, she’s an oddball even among her own townspeople. She doesn’t do things the way everyone else does, and they don’t approve. She’s pretty used to getting odd looks.
She’s been married five times, and she’s currently “living in sin” with some guy. I can’t quite match her there, but I’ll tell you this: as far as the Episcopal Church is concerned, I’ve used up my quota of church weddings. I have to say, I’ve wondered about this woman on that particular count. What happened to her husbands? Did the Samaritans not take quite as dim a view as other folks in those parts of women divorcing and remarrying? Had the husbands been brothers who died one after another and left her childless? If the Samaritans were going by the same rules as the Israelites, each “next brother” would be obligated to marry her upon the passing of his older sibling, in an attempt to keep the gene pool filled. And if that was the case, what was the problem? Why was she coming out in the middle of the day, when it was hot and dusty and no one else was there? Why, for that matter, was Yeshua’s tone a little bit condescending? I mean, when you read how he brings it up, it sounds like he’s calling her on it – zapping her for something she’d rather he not call attention to.
But I digress. It’s one of my favorite things to do, but there’s a point here, and it’s not the Samaritan gene pool.
Basically, this woman is an odd duck at best. She goes about her business while everyone else is taking their siestas. Whether it’s because they’re liable to throw rocks at her if she comes out when they do, or she just prefers her own company to that of her neighbors, she doesn’t hang out with them much. As a lifelong odd duck who has often preferred my own company to that of the jocks and “mean girls,” and who didn’t fit in with the “Pseudo-Intellectuals” I hung around with – yes, we actually called ourselves that, and I didn’t fit because I was shy about voicing my opinion, which is definitely not a Pseudo-Intellectual trait – and who usually felt a little ill at ease with the blue-collar kids because they seemed to think, as a preacher’s kid, I was a cut above everyone else and I knew I wasn’t… Well, you get the idea. I know exactly where this odd duck is coming from.
And we’ve both been married multiple times. Not even twice – multiple. Whether it’s about children or the company of someone with whom we can be on equal footing, intellectually and emotionally, we had to come back and try again more than once. We weren’t willing to settle for less than what we needed, and we bucked the norm in the process of looking for someone to fit the bill. In Samaria or in a small town in North Carolina, that will get you some funny looks, I guarantee. And on occasion, even a rock or two.
The other thing about this woman, though, is that she was looking for something. She thought it was water for her bucket. Yeshua saw past that. He saw someone who was looking for a truth she hadn’t yet defined, might not even know if she saw it, but was looking for it nevertheless.
I’ve been doing that all my life. In trying to fit in and in pretending not to care that I didn’t fit in; in the company of others and of just myself; in the books I’ve read, the music I’ve loved, the jobs I’ve worked at, the friends I’ve cultivated – few of those, but with bonds that, for the most part, are unbreakable – I’ve looked. I’ve known the truth wasn’t as simple as people made it out to be; that sometimes you have to struggle to understand it. And sometimes you can know in your heart it’s the truth, but your gut still just refuses to let you believe it.
So I can relate to this woman. Never mind the centuries and the cultural differences. We both come from the same place.
A few years ago, I was assigned to write a Lenten meditation using this passage. I fought with it for about a month; I couldn’t get my head around it. Everything I thought of was more of the same; the Woman at the Well has been preached to death. Everyone already knew the punch line – the one about “living water,” you know – and there was nothing new to say.
Then, in the week before I was to turn in my essay, we had a hurricane. This was North Carolina, where hurricanes sometimes blow in and retain their hurricane-force winds halfway into the state. And I was living in just about the center.
This particular hurricane hit with a vengeance. It went ‘way past us in Smithfield and Wendell and Zebulon. In fact, by the time it got to us, I don’t think it had even slowed down much. It was a lot of miles up the road before it started winding down. I remember standing in my front door around midnight, watching the rain blow sideways – literally sideways – and wondering whether the 200-year-old oak tree out front would stay vertical through the night.
When the wind died and the rain stopped, there was a whole lot of water in places there hadn’t been any. Dips in the road had become streams, streams were rivers, ponds now were lakes. We couldn’t go anywhere for a few days, because the roads were all flooded.
Late in the week, I finally was able to drive into Raleigh by way of Poole Road, the two-lane “back way” into the city. I made several stops to take pictures of the amazingly alien landscape, and then I came to the bridge at the Neuse River.
The Neuse runs between two ridges that are uncommonly high for that place on the border between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. In fact, Poole Road in general is pretty hilly, but the banks of the Neuse are steep even for Poole Road. The bridge sits a good 20 feet or more above the water as a rule, and that’s if we’ve had regular rain.
Not that day. I had to stop on the other side of the bridge and walk back. I stared, and I trembled. The rushing brown water, stained dark with loam and clay washed from far up the banks and bark from great, dense trees uprooted and swept along, was no more than two or three feet below the bridge where I stood. I was terrified and awestruck. It was like watching the proverbial train wreck: I was scared to death of what I was seeing, but I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t turn and walk away from it.
I knew if I slipped and fell into that wild torrent, I would panic. I would surely struggle, and I would surely drown. There’s no telling where I might wash up.
And I got it.
This is what Yeshua offered that woman. This was living water. It was crazy, it was scary, it was too powerful for words. To accept it was to be swept away, to be changed forever. To dive into the living water meant to understand she might be giving up everything. The Samaritan woman had no way of knowing what would happen after this. She could only hope to ride the current and come out alive.
“Living water,” he said. “You’re giving me water from your well, but I can give you living water, and you’ll never be thirsty again. You’ll be transformed, you may be scared to death – your life will never be the same. You take this living water I’m offering, and all I can promise is that you’ll be thrown off the deep end, right there. No turning back, no matter how terrifying it becomes.
“But you’ll know. You’ll see the truth, and you’ll be able to believe it. Your heart and your gut will meet, and you'll find the answers to your questions. You won’t be thirsty any more – you’ll be swept downstream in the massive, raging current that is the Almighty, and you’ll wash up wherever that current washes you. And you’ll know. You will know.”
It’s a terrible, awful, frightening thing he offers us. If we have any sense at all, we know enough to quake in our boots. This isn’t rowing your boat “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.” Life isn’t “but a dream.” This is stepping out of the boat onto the fiercely choppy water and trusting – hoping, anyway – we won’t drown.
This is real. It’s beyond intimidating. And if we want to know the truth, and we want the truth to make us free, we have to do it. We have to step off the bridge into that living water and let go.
Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy.
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
13 March 2010
01 March 2010
Doing differently
The response to that last comment on my previous blog is, "Okay until..." I got a tad bit cranky when the nice young men minding the door of the KY Center for the Arts wouldn't let me cut through the lobby, even though it's the closest route to my car. And even though I always go that way. And even though I'm old and decrepit and could be their auntie, if not their grandma...
It was a private function, they said. Not that there haven't ever been private functions - but I've never before been stopped at the door and told to "walk around."
My first thought was to argue. I did protest, but I didn't argue. As I went (okay, hobbled - it was 6:15 p.m. and I'd been wearing heels all day) back down the steps out front and circled 'round the long way to the parking garage, I breathed deeply and said to myself over and over, "Face of God. Face of God..."
As I descended the stairwell to the ArtsCenter garage, which is the next shortest route to Riverfront garage where I park, I considered taking the elevator back up to the lobby level and ducking out the back door. I figured it would fit nicely into a "humorously passive-aggressive" kind of response.
Instead, I took the elevator to my level, went to my car, and headed home.
I figure sometimes the "face of God" has to just walk away. What's the point of getting the last word?
And the young men were nice. Their mamas taught them manners. Good for them!
It was a private function, they said. Not that there haven't ever been private functions - but I've never before been stopped at the door and told to "walk around."
My first thought was to argue. I did protest, but I didn't argue. As I went (okay, hobbled - it was 6:15 p.m. and I'd been wearing heels all day) back down the steps out front and circled 'round the long way to the parking garage, I breathed deeply and said to myself over and over, "Face of God. Face of God..."
As I descended the stairwell to the ArtsCenter garage, which is the next shortest route to Riverfront garage where I park, I considered taking the elevator back up to the lobby level and ducking out the back door. I figured it would fit nicely into a "humorously passive-aggressive" kind of response.
Instead, I took the elevator to my level, went to my car, and headed home.
I figure sometimes the "face of God" has to just walk away. What's the point of getting the last word?
And the young men were nice. Their mamas taught them manners. Good for them!
28 February 2010
Lent again
FYI - I don't do "giving up for Lent." My God is not a God of "Don't."
Years ago - 1998 or so - I worked about four steps down the food chain from a man named Tom Vitaglione. He was the director of Women's and Children's Health for the State of North Carolina, and he was loved. Tom personified "servant leadership" before the phrase was coined, let alone became the buzzword it seems to be these days.
The first week of Lent that first year in WCH, I ducked into the breakroom to heat up my lunch, and Tom was sitting at a table alone, eating a PBJ and reading a book. I asked him what it was, and he told me - Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. He said he read it every year during Lent, because it reminded him of his purpose.
Since that time, I've sought out opportunities during Lent to do. Do read something challenging or joyful. Do start seedlings. Do encourage a friend who's never had a garden - and help get one started. Do sing at the top of my lungs while driving down the expressway.
Fast forward to February 28, 2010: The gist of the sermon this morning was seeing the face of God in everyday things. The challenge was to be aware of that face as we go through the week.
It's easy to see God in people like Tom, who are conscious of the fact that there's a reason they're here and who work at fulfilling that purpose. It's not so easy to see God in the faces of harried co-workers, tense executives, or people who are so angry because someone in the world doesn't subscribe to their definition of "right." It's not easy to see God in the idiot who cuts me off as I'm trying to merge onto the highway.
But maybe that's because I'm not aware of the presence of God in my own being at those moments. It's so easy to snap back at someone who's frustrated and short-tempered, to shrug off the high muckety-mucks as being "oblivious," to let my blood pressure go up as I drive. I don't see the face of God because I'm not reflecting the face of God.
This week, here's the #1 "to-do" on my list: I want to be conscious. I want to be aware of the gifts I've been given - the gift of humor, the gift of words, the gift of music - and I want to reflect those gifts out into the world as I walk (or drive) through it. With the help of the Almighty, and in honor of Tom V (who still has - and will always have - my respect and admiration), I will try to see God throughout each day, and reflect the face of God back out to others I encounter.
We'll see how that goes...
Years ago - 1998 or so - I worked about four steps down the food chain from a man named Tom Vitaglione. He was the director of Women's and Children's Health for the State of North Carolina, and he was loved. Tom personified "servant leadership" before the phrase was coined, let alone became the buzzword it seems to be these days.
The first week of Lent that first year in WCH, I ducked into the breakroom to heat up my lunch, and Tom was sitting at a table alone, eating a PBJ and reading a book. I asked him what it was, and he told me - Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. He said he read it every year during Lent, because it reminded him of his purpose.
Since that time, I've sought out opportunities during Lent to do. Do read something challenging or joyful. Do start seedlings. Do encourage a friend who's never had a garden - and help get one started. Do sing at the top of my lungs while driving down the expressway.
Fast forward to February 28, 2010: The gist of the sermon this morning was seeing the face of God in everyday things. The challenge was to be aware of that face as we go through the week.
It's easy to see God in people like Tom, who are conscious of the fact that there's a reason they're here and who work at fulfilling that purpose. It's not so easy to see God in the faces of harried co-workers, tense executives, or people who are so angry because someone in the world doesn't subscribe to their definition of "right." It's not easy to see God in the idiot who cuts me off as I'm trying to merge onto the highway.
But maybe that's because I'm not aware of the presence of God in my own being at those moments. It's so easy to snap back at someone who's frustrated and short-tempered, to shrug off the high muckety-mucks as being "oblivious," to let my blood pressure go up as I drive. I don't see the face of God because I'm not reflecting the face of God.
This week, here's the #1 "to-do" on my list: I want to be conscious. I want to be aware of the gifts I've been given - the gift of humor, the gift of words, the gift of music - and I want to reflect those gifts out into the world as I walk (or drive) through it. With the help of the Almighty, and in honor of Tom V (who still has - and will always have - my respect and admiration), I will try to see God throughout each day, and reflect the face of God back out to others I encounter.
We'll see how that goes...
17 November 2009
Slogging through
It's November, and it's raining.
I haven't written a word of the novel in about a week. I knew all along it wasn't going to get finished in November anyway -- I started it over a year ago and hadn't touched it in months, and it was getting really complicated before October ever got close to ending -- but I really meant to push this month.
Well, water under the bridge and all that. Will write tonight, before I go to bed. (It's not like I haven't done anything. The story is several pages farther along in my head -- it's just a matter of getting it down in black and white.)
Work is strange. I've decided to just put my head down, work my tushie off, and not think about the "what ifs" and "maybes." So far, so good. Except that I keep getting interrupted by anxious people -- and by people who (a) don't know what they want, (b) think they do, and (c) keep missing their own deadlines by a week or two. To date, I have not slapped anyone, although the thought has crossed my mind.
Yoga class today was wonderful. Our little yogi, Ashley-Brooke -- she who appears to be barely out of her teens but with a very old soul and a kooky sense of humor -- reminded us that the rain is the Earth's way of cleansing itself. Reminded me of sister Murial, who used to laugh when I would miss Friday night meditation for weeks, then show up just as the rain started: "Oh, here's Cynthia, and she's brought us a cleansing again!" So I felt connected to Murial from the beginning. But then Ashley-Brooke suggested that, it being the new moon and all, we might want to use this time to cleanse ourselves of something that was weighing us down.
I decided to let go of my crankiness. That's not to say I won't still snap at people who are too dumb to live. Or too mean to die. It just means, if I can do something productive to remove the obstacles in my path, I will do that instead of just sitting at my desk and gritching. So...
Two hours later, I was confronted with a communication from one of those people (never mind which), and I decided to stay calm, be rational, and discuss instead of react. And what happened? This individual got defensive, testy, and actually almost combative.
Geez Louise.
But now, another six hours after, I'm wondering if that's not just a knee-jerk reaction on her part. Or maybe even a perfectly reasonable reaction, if she interpreted my opening remarks as being somehow preachy or smug. So tomorrow, I'll go back and go at it from another direction.
This reminds me of the Lent several years ago, when I decided to give up gossip. It was kind of an amazing transformational experience. You should try it sometime. :-)
Meanwhile, I'm going to keep slogging through the rain, churning out words and looking for the USB connector so I can download the pictures I took last weekend. One of these days, there will be pictures on this blog...
I haven't written a word of the novel in about a week. I knew all along it wasn't going to get finished in November anyway -- I started it over a year ago and hadn't touched it in months, and it was getting really complicated before October ever got close to ending -- but I really meant to push this month.
Well, water under the bridge and all that. Will write tonight, before I go to bed. (It's not like I haven't done anything. The story is several pages farther along in my head -- it's just a matter of getting it down in black and white.)
Work is strange. I've decided to just put my head down, work my tushie off, and not think about the "what ifs" and "maybes." So far, so good. Except that I keep getting interrupted by anxious people -- and by people who (a) don't know what they want, (b) think they do, and (c) keep missing their own deadlines by a week or two. To date, I have not slapped anyone, although the thought has crossed my mind.
Yoga class today was wonderful. Our little yogi, Ashley-Brooke -- she who appears to be barely out of her teens but with a very old soul and a kooky sense of humor -- reminded us that the rain is the Earth's way of cleansing itself. Reminded me of sister Murial, who used to laugh when I would miss Friday night meditation for weeks, then show up just as the rain started: "Oh, here's Cynthia, and she's brought us a cleansing again!" So I felt connected to Murial from the beginning. But then Ashley-Brooke suggested that, it being the new moon and all, we might want to use this time to cleanse ourselves of something that was weighing us down.
I decided to let go of my crankiness. That's not to say I won't still snap at people who are too dumb to live. Or too mean to die. It just means, if I can do something productive to remove the obstacles in my path, I will do that instead of just sitting at my desk and gritching. So...
Two hours later, I was confronted with a communication from one of those people (never mind which), and I decided to stay calm, be rational, and discuss instead of react. And what happened? This individual got defensive, testy, and actually almost combative.
Geez Louise.
But now, another six hours after, I'm wondering if that's not just a knee-jerk reaction on her part. Or maybe even a perfectly reasonable reaction, if she interpreted my opening remarks as being somehow preachy or smug. So tomorrow, I'll go back and go at it from another direction.
This reminds me of the Lent several years ago, when I decided to give up gossip. It was kind of an amazing transformational experience. You should try it sometime. :-)
Meanwhile, I'm going to keep slogging through the rain, churning out words and looking for the USB connector so I can download the pictures I took last weekend. One of these days, there will be pictures on this blog...
16 April 2009
Living Lent
Seems to me the folks who think Lent is all about deprivation and doing penance and gloom and doom and sackcloth and ashes and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth are maybe overdoing it a bit. In fact, it seems to me they might have wandered off the path and got lost in the woods -- the Dark Side of spirituality.
And before you say it, I know Lent is over. It ended last Sunday with ringing bells and waving banners and -- in our congregation, at least -- the Grand Finale of the End of Lent: everyone, and I mean everyone, singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Seriously. We do it every year. The choir comes up to the balcony, and anyone else who wants to sing comes along, at least until there's no more room or we run out of battered, dog-eared scores, and we belt it out. Every time during the service someone says "alleluia," whether it's in a hymn or during the sermon or in the middle of a prayer, everyone who remembered to bring a bell with them rings that bell, and when we sing at the end, all the bells go crazy.
So cool. Otay, Spanky. Lent is over. Kind of.
Here's what I think: Lent is about thoughtfulness and deliberateness. Lent is about paying attention to the health of your soul, which is probably feeling somewhat neglected after a year of being ignored while slogging through this crazy life. And don't tell me you don't ignore your soul. I think the only people who don't are monks and nuns -- and maybe not even all of them.
Someone I deeply respected told me years ago that Lent was a time to take something on, not give something up. This guy was one of the most giving spirits I've ever encountered, but he found even more to give during Lent. We had this particular conversation when I came on him in the breakroom, eating a PBJ and reading Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. I asked him what he was reading, and he told me -- and then he said, "I read it every year during Lent. It reminds me of who I am."
This year, a group of us decided to read a book after Lent, and after Easter -- a post-Lenten study, if you will. The book is called Living the Jesus Creed, and it's basically 50 daily readings -- seven weeks' worth -- focused on the Shema, what Christians often call "The Great Commandment." If you're Jewish, you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. If you're Christian, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus didn't think it up all by himself. When he told that young man the greatest commandment was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might," he didn't just pull that out of a hat. Check out Deuteronomy 6:5.
Then go back and check out verse 4: "Hear, O Israel -- the Lord is One. The Lord thy God is One." That is a sermon all by itself, and one of these blogs, I'll hold forth on what the rabbi at Congregation Sha'arei Israel had to say about that.
The second part, the Gospel addendum, is of course "love thy neighbor as thyself," which most of us are still trying to figure out. Are we assuming "love" is defined as a self-preservation kind of thing? Are we saying we must end every conversation with "I love you," like the goofball in the Arby's commercial? What? Most of us have come back around to the former, I think -- it's safer that way. Means we don't have to be nice to the a--hole next door whose dog gets ours wound up by wandering up our driveway just for fun and whose kid rides his riding lawnmower around the yard at 10 p.m. We don't have to be friendly, we just have to not kill him, because that wouldn't be a loving thing to do.
But I digress. (I love saying that. It puts such polish on the old ADHD!) There's the book, which breaks down the whole commandment (New Testament version) and encourages us to focus on it every day, all day, whenever we think of it -- to make it a part of our lives.
There's also my own quest, which has been going on for years to one degree or another, but finally kicked into gear last year with the diagnosis that changed my whole view of who I am and why I do things the way I do. Once it was confirmed that I've been struggling with ADHD for probably close to five decades, I was able first to get a prescription that would sharpen the ability to focus and keep the synapses from firing off too willy-nilly. Second, once I saw what I'd been missing, I found a life coach who could help me figure out what to do with all that stuff.
So in the past four months, I've made commitments on a weekly basis. I've set goals for each day -- and I've had to learn what a reasonable expectation looks like, because I was previously the Queen of the Eternal To-Do List. You know, the kind where you start one morning with a really great list of 10 things you're going to do that day, and by the end of the day, you've finished four of them, bagged three as being either redundant or obsolete, and bumped the remaining three to the next day's list. Eventually, you have a list 40 items long, 20 of which have daily been bumped to "tomorrow" for months. This month, I've been on my own except for a monthly phone call to report my progress, and things are starting to click. For this month, I've made two hard and fast commitments: to write something every day, and to ride my bike outdoors every day the weather permits. Everything else is pretty general, and it's going to get done. It just doesn't have to be on a tight schedule. I've learned to break the work up into zones, if it's physical, or blocks, if it's more intellectual, and just do it for a few minutes at a time, and it gets done much more efficiently than I'd ever have expected.
The Pogo Stick of Thought has just jumped off the sidewalk again...
So here's the point. It's actually three commitments.
Not sure where it's going to get me, but I feel pretty positive about it.
And before you say it, I know Lent is over. It ended last Sunday with ringing bells and waving banners and -- in our congregation, at least -- the Grand Finale of the End of Lent: everyone, and I mean everyone, singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Seriously. We do it every year. The choir comes up to the balcony, and anyone else who wants to sing comes along, at least until there's no more room or we run out of battered, dog-eared scores, and we belt it out. Every time during the service someone says "alleluia," whether it's in a hymn or during the sermon or in the middle of a prayer, everyone who remembered to bring a bell with them rings that bell, and when we sing at the end, all the bells go crazy.
So cool. Otay, Spanky. Lent is over. Kind of.
Here's what I think: Lent is about thoughtfulness and deliberateness. Lent is about paying attention to the health of your soul, which is probably feeling somewhat neglected after a year of being ignored while slogging through this crazy life. And don't tell me you don't ignore your soul. I think the only people who don't are monks and nuns -- and maybe not even all of them.
Someone I deeply respected told me years ago that Lent was a time to take something on, not give something up. This guy was one of the most giving spirits I've ever encountered, but he found even more to give during Lent. We had this particular conversation when I came on him in the breakroom, eating a PBJ and reading Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. I asked him what he was reading, and he told me -- and then he said, "I read it every year during Lent. It reminds me of who I am."
This year, a group of us decided to read a book after Lent, and after Easter -- a post-Lenten study, if you will. The book is called Living the Jesus Creed, and it's basically 50 daily readings -- seven weeks' worth -- focused on the Shema, what Christians often call "The Great Commandment." If you're Jewish, you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. If you're Christian, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus didn't think it up all by himself. When he told that young man the greatest commandment was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might," he didn't just pull that out of a hat. Check out Deuteronomy 6:5.
Then go back and check out verse 4: "Hear, O Israel -- the Lord is One. The Lord thy God is One." That is a sermon all by itself, and one of these blogs, I'll hold forth on what the rabbi at Congregation Sha'arei Israel had to say about that.
The second part, the Gospel addendum, is of course "love thy neighbor as thyself," which most of us are still trying to figure out. Are we assuming "love" is defined as a self-preservation kind of thing? Are we saying we must end every conversation with "I love you," like the goofball in the Arby's commercial? What? Most of us have come back around to the former, I think -- it's safer that way. Means we don't have to be nice to the a--hole next door whose dog gets ours wound up by wandering up our driveway just for fun and whose kid rides his riding lawnmower around the yard at 10 p.m. We don't have to be friendly, we just have to not kill him, because that wouldn't be a loving thing to do.
But I digress. (I love saying that. It puts such polish on the old ADHD!) There's the book, which breaks down the whole commandment (New Testament version) and encourages us to focus on it every day, all day, whenever we think of it -- to make it a part of our lives.
There's also my own quest, which has been going on for years to one degree or another, but finally kicked into gear last year with the diagnosis that changed my whole view of who I am and why I do things the way I do. Once it was confirmed that I've been struggling with ADHD for probably close to five decades, I was able first to get a prescription that would sharpen the ability to focus and keep the synapses from firing off too willy-nilly. Second, once I saw what I'd been missing, I found a life coach who could help me figure out what to do with all that stuff.
So in the past four months, I've made commitments on a weekly basis. I've set goals for each day -- and I've had to learn what a reasonable expectation looks like, because I was previously the Queen of the Eternal To-Do List. You know, the kind where you start one morning with a really great list of 10 things you're going to do that day, and by the end of the day, you've finished four of them, bagged three as being either redundant or obsolete, and bumped the remaining three to the next day's list. Eventually, you have a list 40 items long, 20 of which have daily been bumped to "tomorrow" for months. This month, I've been on my own except for a monthly phone call to report my progress, and things are starting to click. For this month, I've made two hard and fast commitments: to write something every day, and to ride my bike outdoors every day the weather permits. Everything else is pretty general, and it's going to get done. It just doesn't have to be on a tight schedule. I've learned to break the work up into zones, if it's physical, or blocks, if it's more intellectual, and just do it for a few minutes at a time, and it gets done much more efficiently than I'd ever have expected.
The Pogo Stick of Thought has just jumped off the sidewalk again...
So here's the point. It's actually three commitments.
- I'm getting up early each morning for the next 49 days (we started today) to read a chapter of the book with Ed. I want to do this with someone, to keep myself on task and aware. Part of it's the accountability thing -- I have to finish the study if I'm sharing it. Part of it is the family thing -- Ed and I are the core of this family, and we need to share some core beliefs, or at least understand each other's interpretation of those beliefs.
- Getting up early gives me at least an hour more than I've had before to get ready for work and get out the door. This means I can leave in time to catch the bus. This means that, unless the weather is really ugly, I can ride. I can bike to the bus stop up the hill, take the bus to Crescent Hill, and bike the remaining 4-1/2 miles to work, and then I can bike home. By the end of the summer, I'd like to be able to do the whole 15 miles each way, but I don't have to, at least until I commit to doing it. Right now, it's a "like to."
- I am a writer. Yes, I write all day at the office. But I've committed to writing something each day that is important for me to write. That means either posting a blog entry, or working on a story, or doing an article or other project I've assigned myself.
Not sure where it's going to get me, but I feel pretty positive about it.
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