Skip to main content

First Things First

Each day I try to be grateful for the many good things that come my way.  I don’t think I have any more good things than the normal person.  Also, I don’t think I am any more lucky than anyone else.  I think we all have some good things come our way in fairly regular fashion.  And luck is a visitor to many people.  I take these as givens.  The real choice is whether to be grateful for life. 

Much of our gratitude is intentional.  I was taught at an early age to say “thanks” when people did something for me.  I have distinct memories of my dad turning to me and saying, “Now, what do you say to the nice lady?”  She may have just given me a piece of candy after our meal at the restaurant.  I am sure I was glad to get the candy, but I am also sure I was thinking, “it’s not that big a deal!”  My dad helped me see it was a big deal.

And I have come to learn on my own that there are a lot of things out there that don’t seem like a very big deal actually are big deals in the sense that they deserve my gratitude.  Again, that is often the only choice I have.  I can be grateful for what I have and have been given.

The scary thing for people in their prime of life is they think they are in control and can make their own good things happen.  In some ways the smart people fall into the same trap.  I do think there is something to the old adage, “self-made men.”  And I am sure there are “self-made women.”  These are the folks who through their own talent, hard work and, maybe, wits have created a very good thing for themselves.  I don’t begrudge them one bit.  But no one ever does it totally on his or her own.

I can get picky and say not one of us caused ourselves to come into being.  Even if the old-fashioned way to conceiving babies goes out the window and everyone becomes a test tube baby, still our lives will not be self-generating.  I live by the conviction that even my life is a gift---a sheer gift.  Again, I have a choice.  I can say “no” to this gift.  Tragically some do say a suicidal “no.”  Others commit to a slow, pointless dying process by not living well.

That is why I try to be as aware as I can of all the reasons why gratitude needs to be a part of my way of living.  I want to enjoy life and you enjoy life by living it as it comes and making the best of every given day.  We easily talk about “life,” that too often is a general, abstract term.  Really life is the sum total of all the days we manage to embrace and execute.  In some ways life is the accumulation of our history so far.  Since I have not yet lived tomorrow, I cannot rightly claim that as my life.

So I get clear with myself.  Life is the past tense for all the days I have lived so far.  I smile because I have accumulated quite a few by now!  And I am grateful.  So life is history.  Living is what I am actually doing today.  Living today will turn it into history tomorrow.  Only in this day can I be grateful.  Of course, I can be grateful for yesterday or for last year.  But I cannot go back to yesterday and be grateful.

That is why it is always a choice---but a choice in this day.  I do not fool myself and think that we all have the same kind of choices or even the same number of choices.  The choices I have come in the context of my own living.  Clearly, highly educated people have some options and choices the dropouts from school will never have.  And people who are born and grow up in this country truly have better choices than someone born to an uneducated couple in a poor country.

I am also aware that young, healthy people have choices that older, sick people do not.  I am also aware that we never think about it the other way.  Older, sick people actually have choices that younger, healthy people do not!  Most folks would not think this is a
good deal and I don’t argue it is a good deal. 

When I think about some of the ultimate choices someone may have, I think about meaning and purpose.  I do not suggest young folks can never figure out meaning and purpose and older folk automatically do.  That is absurd!  But I do think it is difficult to come up with the deep, time-tested meaning and purpose in your life until you live long enough and, perhaps, suffered sufficiently to know what counts and what does not.  I think I am getting closer.

I am at the stage where I know for me, meaning and purpose have to be closely tied into my spiritual life.  Anything less than that is not ultimate.  I know jobs and work are important, but not ultimate.  Kids obviously are of paramount importance for many of us, but if our lives are only defined by kids, we have missed the mark.

It comes down to developing my awareness and my living such that I know myself in the Spirit---that’s how you get to be spiritual.  When I know this to be true today, I am grateful.  And my aim is to be just as aware tomorrow.  That’s my big choice.             

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I-Thou Relationships

Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber.   I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s.   It was already a famous book by then.   I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it.   It has been a while since I looked at the book.             Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks?   I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece.   I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation.   I wish more people read him and took him seriously.             Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election.   He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!”   I think Brooks puts
1 comment
Read more

Spiritual Commitment

I was reading along in a very nice little book and hit these lines about commitment.   The author, Mitch Albom, uses the voice of one of the main characters of his nonfiction book about faith to reflect on commitment.   The voice belongs to Albom’s old rabbi of the Jewish synagogue where he went until his college days.   The old rabbi, Albert Lewis, says “the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning.”    The rabbi continues in a way that surely would have many people saying, “Amen!”   About commitment he says, “I’m old enough when it used to be a positive.   A committed person was someone to be admired.   He was loyal and steady.   Now a commitment is something you avoid.   You don’t want to tie yourself down.”   I also think I am old enough to know that commitment was usually a positive word.   I can think of a range of situations in which commitment would have been seen to be positive.   For example, growing up was full of sports for me.   Commitment would have been presupposed t
6 comments
Read more

Inward Journey and Outward Pilgrimage

There are so many different ways to think about the spiritual life.   And of course, in our country there are so many different variations of religious experiences.   There are liberals and conservatives.   There are fundamentalists and Pentecostals.   Besides the dizzying variety of Christian traditions, there are many different non-Christian traditions.   There are the major traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.   There are the slightly more obscure traditions, such as Sikhism, Jainism, etc.   And then there are more fringe groups and, even, pseudo-religions.   There are defining doctrines and religious practices.   Some of these are specific to a particular tradition or a few traditions, such as the koan , which is used in Zen Buddhism for example.   Other defining doctrines or practices are common across the religious board.   Something like meditation would be a good example.   Christians meditate; Buddhists meditate.   And other groups practice this spiri
3 comments
Read more