Everyone who has kids or even grandchildren knows there are
teachable moments when they are the teacher and you are the student. Sometimes you are a willing student. And other times you did not want to be a
student at all! I recently had one of
the former moments. I was not looking
for it, but I was taught and was fine with it.
I was not unwilling.
To set the scene, you have to imagine a room half full of
boxes. A house project led to the
accumulation of many boxes. Of course, a
scene like this is irresistible to any young soul. My granddaughter was sucked right into the
middle of the boxes. You can use them as
forts or a maze. Some of them were so
big you get into it and seemingly be lost to the world---or, at least, a
parent. Quite a bit of time went by in
the wonderful world of box land. Then
she was finished and wanted to escape.
At one point, a young voice plaintively appealed for outside
advice. She asked a simple
question. “How do I get through this crap?” The room was no longer filled with
boxes. They had become a problem. They had been re-labeled as crap! They were not entertaining any more. They had become obstacles and the issue now
was how to surmount the problem?
My granddaughter’s life had gone through a
metamorphosis. The boxes that had lured
her into the space now turned out to be complex. Added to this, they had become nothing but
trouble. The only question was how to
deal with these complexities and troubles?
She realized fairly quickly that she needed help. So she made the appeal. And with good parents around, help came
fairly quickly and her troubles were over.
That could have been the end of the story.
In some ways it was the end of the story. But in my mind the story also took a
different form. I realized that it could
serve as a metaphor for life. Most of
our lives have their ups and downs. As
we go through life, we go into “rooms” that can be like phases of life. Sometimes the rooms have things that lure us
to settle in and play. The “boxes” can
be any number of things. Remember, it is
just a metaphor.
There come times, however, when the room---when a particular
phase of life---changes on us. The phase
of life may come to be nothing but complexity and trouble. We can sometimes feel trapped. We are certainly not having any fun. We would opt out, if we could only figure out
how to do it. Sometimes it is ignorance
that stops us. Sometimes we are
impotent---we don’t have the power to change things.
I have been in these kinds of situations. They can be of our own making. I have done a few of those. We get into trouble and then we can’t get
out---at least, we can’t get out of trouble on our own. We need help.
Sometimes our complexities and troubles come to us and we did nothing to
cause or provoke it. Again, we need
help.
I would like to think about this metaphor in a spiritual
sense. Life does put us into troubles
and complexities. These always have a
spiritual side. As I reflect back on my
own life, two such periods come to mind that I can share. One came at that transitional time when I
went to college. The other one came more
at mid-life.
Dutifully, I went to college. At some point during that initial year, I
realized I actually did not know who I was or where I was headed. College made no sense. So I finally mustered up enough courage to
leave and go back home. Of course, that
solved no problem, but it did give me time and a context to think about
things. And to learn to pray. An older friend came into my life and became
a spiritual mentor. He solved no
complexity and did not get me out of trouble.
But he helped me learn how to have faith at a deeper level and to grow into
the person I was to become. I went back
to college and then some! He helped me
get out of a room of “boxes.”
The second time I will share came when I was diagnosed with
cancer. My girls were still young---one
in diapers. I did not feel particularly
unlucky or that God owed me something better.
People get sick at all ages. And
my theology would say God does not give us bad things to test us. Once again, I cried out for help and God came
in the form of many friends and family.
Physically, I survived and have thrived for decades
now. For that I am grateful. But even more grateful am I for all those
folks who were there for me. They would
have been just as graceful and helpful had my fate been different. Life or death---they would have been friends
of the Spirit. They helped me at a time
when I really wanted to ask, “How do I get through this crap?”
We do not live in a perfect world. We may enter phases of life that deliver
obstacles and troubles and we ask, “How do I get through this crap?” Very often, it is someone else who comes to
our aid. Often, it is a community. Always I think it is the Holy One. It is my experience that this Holy One
typically uses others. And I am always
grateful.
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