More than fair

Since members of our parish read William Young's The Shack together, many parts of that surprising and sometimes frustrating book have stayed with me. One that stand's out is Young's explanation of rights and relationships. His Creator figure tells us that we humans insist on protecting our rights because we don't know how to get what we need any other way. We're so bad at relationships that we need the structure of rights to keep us from hurting each other. If we really learned how to share in God's love, all those rules would fall away.

Even here in Massachusetts, home to a driving culture that borders on insanity, I notice that drivers do not always take the right of way. We have the rules to keep us safe, the many regulations that tell us who gets to drive on and who has to yield the way. But if heavy traffic or a tricky intersection keeps a person waiting a long time, eventually someone else stops and signals for them to go ahead. Just this morning, three people relinquished the right of way in order to help me, a total stranger, get where I needed to go.

Our relationships thrive when we are willing to be more than fair, to give up what is rightfully ours for the sake of our neighbors.

Peace and the sword

The ancient hymn goes, "The strife is over, the battle done, the victory of life is won." There is a long tradition in our faith of seeing Jesus as a warrior locked in battle with sin and death. On Easter morning he emerges victorious, winning the war for the side of grace and life.

There is good reason to be cautious about this image. Over the centuries, many people have wrapped it around their own self-interest and their own hatreds, justifying terrible violence by claiming they fight on the side of Christ.

At the same time, I'm not ready to throw it out entirely. Every time I encounter suffering, I become more convinced that evil is a real and powerful force in our world. People struggle constantly to turn away from choices that cause pain and turn towards God's healing. When I feel unable to help, I find strength in the image of Jesus the peaceful warrior, facing down the forces of evil with courage and love. I want him to teach me to stay centered in the midst of chaos, skillfully turning aside every attempt to break the human spirit.

A little gift

While we were out shopping today, it turned out there were all sorts of restrictions on the coupon I wanted to use. The cashier helpfully explained what to do, but it still took a while to check out. My son played patiently at my feet while we got it sorted out. As we headed out the door, a clerk caught up to us. My boy's eyes widened as he noticed the big rainbow superball in her outstretched hand. "She gave me a present!" he cried.

The cashier's face grew tense as she managed the store's rules, but the floor clerk who was allowed to give toys to children did her work with a beaming smile. For her book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich took low-paying jobs to see whether people can really survive on our minimum wage. When she worked in a chain restaurant, she noticed that the waitresses rebelled against their highly regulated company by adding little extras to the food - a pat of butter, a swirl of whipped cream. These little acts of generosity allowed them to feel like the customers' friends rather than like faceless cogs in a food-serving machine. They needed to have something to give in order to feel truly human.

One of the most basic things we know about God is that God is generous, constantly pouring out unexpected beauty, power and love. Made in God's image, we all have this spirit of generosity imprinted in our hearts. To be fully ourselves, we need to find some way to give.

Sweet expectation

Waiting can be so delicious. When we're hoping for something wonderful - a birth, a wedding, a new home, an adventure - we're full to the brim with the excitement of it.

It's easy to let the waiting of Lent turn into dread. We know we have a journey to take with Jesus. Palm Sunday and Good Friday are coming, and we will be called to bear witness to the the grief and outrage of the Passion story. The messages of sin and mortality weigh upon us. Sometimes in our faith journey that's where we need to be, walking the hard roads with Jesus so we can remember that he walks the hard parts of our lives with us.

This year, I'm finding that the waiting is sweeter. As I mark each day of this forty-day journey, I feel that much closer to the promise of Easter. Jesus is rising! Soon!

A new day

We caught a little bit of the Simpsons the other night. After seeing an ad for a ballet school on TV, Marge turns to Lisa and asks cheerfully, "Did I ever show you my Box of Shattered Dreams? It's upstairs in my Closet of Disappointments."

From the cross, with his dying breath, Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He says this not just for the soldiers or the jeering crowd. He says it for us. He teaches us that his story is not about the people who hurt him and the way his vision of peace was shattered. His story moves forward, accepting what has passed and creating something new.

If one of the kids has a hard day, a preschool teacher we know makes a point of saying goodbye carefully when it's time to go home. She gets down low, looks in the child's eyes, and says, "Today is all done. We'll try again tomorrow." They leave whatever has happened behind and finish the day with a hug or a high-five. Sometimes I think of her as I go to bed, hoping to completely let go of this day and try it all again tomorrow.

Ups and downs

The sun came out this week and suddenly everyone has more energy. We think of ourselves as constants, but it's amazing how little it takes to alter our outlook on life. I notice the effect of being early or late by just a few minutes, losing or gaining a few dollars, hearing one positive or negative remark. Psychologists have discovered that it only takes a few subtle cues to make us more anxious or more confident.

We are so changeable, and we have a habit of confusing our emotions with God's. We feel open and energized one day, and so we believe that God is a positive force in our lives. We feel tired and irritable another day, so we decide that God is distant and judgmental.

This is why we need the discipline of regular worship and prayer. If we come to God over and over, in our good moods and our bad ones, we can begin to see past our own ups and downs. We can start to experience the true constancy of God, whose love is patient and abiding. As we swoop up and down the roller coaster of life, God forms the track underneath, never letting us go.

Unexpected teachers

There is a wonderful moment that comes sometimes during the process of preparing for a funeral. I ask the family to tell me about the person who has died, and they usually start out by telling me her best qualities. And someone in the circle will pause, and smile, and say, "Well, she was certainly her own person..." and proceed to tell me some outlandish or maddening thing she liked to do. Then the deceased person suddenly feels alive again, like her spirit is right there in the room with us.

We are each blessed with a few people in our lives who are very much themselves, with unique personalities that delight us and drive us crazy. In my experience, these are some of our best teachers.

God's greatest desire, I believe, is for each of us to be whole. We were imprinted in creation with the glorious image of God, but each of our personalities can only express a small part of who God is. We encounter new aspects of God in each other, in the gifts that challenge or complement our own. If we let them, the people who are most different from us are the ones who can help our spirits stretch and open to whole new ways of knowing God.