Category: gratitude

Song and dance

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.”

e.e. cummings

It’s one of those days – the world is greening up and the birds are singing their spring songs and all I can do is sit and listen and absorb what lessons I can.

Out the front window people whiz by having harnessed the power of the stars, while out the back window squirrels and blackbirds chitter, and cardinals declare the glory of God or at least assert their role in it all.

I sit between these conflicting worlds, in the chair closer to the back yard, and do my best to hear the song.

Where are the words that will lift me out of this chair and into action? Or are the words to be found right here and now while I contemplate things to do? Perhaps the moment needs me to sit and listen and reflect — I sure hope so, because that is precisely what I am doing.

I always fret over the tasks at hand, the deadlines to meet, and what I “should” be doing, while moment by moment passes that could have been spent taking it all in and appreciating.

This is a moment for learning how the birds sing, and there will be time enough to show the stars how to stop dancing — although, come to think of it, why would I ever?

The birds are meant to sing, and the stars are meant to dance, and I am meant to hear and see it all and make some sense of it — and yet the music and the dance are all the meaning they need.

Uncommon favor

The NCAA women’s basketball championship game on Sunday reminded me of the 1979 men’s title game against Magic Johnson and Michigan State against Larry Bird and Indiana State, with a similar result — the more complete team won.

Caitlin Clark had a great supporting cast at Iowa, but South Carolina had nine players who could step up and deliver at any given moment. Late in the game the TV stats showed that the South Carolina non-starters had outscored the Iowa bench 37-0.

So the Gamecocks got their redemption after losing in the semifinals of last year’s Final Four to Iowa. It was as entertaining a game as I have ever seen. Iowa leaped out to a 10-0 lead at the start, and Clark scored 18 points in the first quarter, but South Carolina scrapped back to win 87-75.

As a Midwesterner, I was disappointed that South Carolina won, until I watched the post-game interview when Coach Dawn Staley was so overcome with emotion she couldn’t talk for what probably seemed like hours to the poor interviewer, until Staley finally composed herself enough to say, “We serve an unbelievable God.” 

Then, after being presented with the trophy, Staley was asked one of those questions that coaches get asked about what it took to win the big game, and the coach responded:

“Before I do anything, I gotta give, I gotta give honor to the multi God for allowing us to be back at the same place in which we had sad tears. And I just want you to know that the God I serve, the God I serve, when he closes the door he opens up a door that’s given you unimaginable success. This is uncommon favor.”

And before she relinquished the podium, Staley made a point to say that Caitlin Clark has elevated the popularity of women’s college basketball and predicted that Clark will elevate the Women’s National Basketball Association as this year’s top draft pick.

OK, go Gamecocks!

It’s always fun to see a person of great faith who, finding themselves on a national stage with a chance to speak to an audience of millions, gives the credit and the glory to God. 

You might say God doesn’t care who wins a national championship game, and I would probably agree, although I don’t pretend to know what God cares about. I do know God cared enough to sacrifice an only son, and in comparison the outcome of the game is insignificant. It’s interesting, though, that the coach who won was someone who prioritized giving glory to God. 

W.B.’s Book Report: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse is a beautiful book and full of the kind of peaceful energy the world needs. Be kind — know you are loved — pay attention to good things and, perhaps most important, cake.

It only takes a few minutes to read the whole book if all you do is rush over the words, but if you look at Charlie Mackesy’s drawings and absorb the story, you could go on for days.

It’s a story about friendship and love and living in peace with one another — after all, “It’s never going to be easy meeting a fox if you’re a mole.”

It’s about the need to connect, even for those who prefer a solitary life, and being kind, and being gentle, and working to understand, and all these mighty and complicated themes packed into a simple little picture book oh my goodness.

The friend who introduced me to this book said it was the second most important book ever written, behind the Bible. That’s saying a lot, but I see where she’s coming from.

All this year I have been calling for us to abolish war and violence as legitimate means of resolving differences. You may ask how, then, should we live. My answer is this book.

Chasing woe away

What does it mean, to live? Yesterday I wrote about looking at myself in the mirror and insisting, “Live.” What is it I’m insisting?

Mostly I think I mean, if nothing else, beat inertia. It’s so easy to sit and mope — woe is me. I is woe, and woe is no fun. In fact, woe is downright unpleasant. 

Some folks find themselves so deep in woe that they can’t move. That’s why when I feel woe creeping up and starting to nail me to the chair, I stand up and walk around saying, “Live!” As firmly as I can — unless, of course, Summer is lying in front of me with her snout resting on my foot. Then I just look down and my heart melts, and it’s impossible for woe to take hold when your heart is melting.

That’s why I recommend that you find yourself a puppy, or an appreciative old dog. Some people prefer cats — I used to think of myself as a cat person, but it just turned out that I hadn’t met the right puppy.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. “Woe is me,” but then I got to thinking about puppies, and what do you know? Woe took one look at me and high-tailed out of here looking for a more willing victim. My goodness, I love my doggies.

The pursuit of happiness

(This post may contain minor spoilers for the films Godzilla Minus One and Arrival, if that sort of thing bothers you.)

I keep coming back to a couple of moments in Godzilla Minus One — Noriko’s plea to Shikishima that “Those of us who survived the war are meant to live,” and Tachibana’s plea to Shikishima at the climax: “Live.”

Perhaps I am silly to read so much into a Godzilla movie, but some days I look myself in the eye in the mirror and repeat that command in all seriousness: “Live.”

My other favorite 21st century movie, Arrival, asks the question, if you knew without a doubt it would end sadly, would you make the choice to be happy for a few years — but that is the choice we make every day in the pursuit of happiness. 

Of course if we catch some happiness, it will last for a finite period of time and then end in sadness and loss.

But of course, we make the choice, and if we’re wise we savor that happy time, and those who survive are meant to live.

Relish your happiness.

And if the happy time is over, and you’re coping with the loss, savor those memories, look in the mirror, and command the person you see there: Live.

Surprise, surprise, says the Lord

The next time you feel bad because you think God let you down, consider the most massive misunderstanding of God’s intentions in history.

For centuries people had been waiting for a messiah, a mighty warrior king who would lift them out of slavery and crush their enemies. When the messiah arrived in his true form, most people missed the point entirely.

They greeted him like the conquering hero they expected him to be, throwing palm leaves in his path as he marched into Jerusalem, wait, on a donkey? Oh yeah, look, it’s here in the scriptures: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

They didn’t have much time to look forward to their new king riding into battle, because within days he had been betrayed to the authorities, who ran him through a kangaroo court and had him executed in a most horrible fashion: nailing his hands and feet to a cross and leaving him to hang in the sun.

This guy from Galilee was apparently just another rabble-rousing criminal, and the wait for the conquering messiah king would have to continue. 

But …

On the morning of the third day, the true nature of what a messiah king is began to become clearer. He wasn’t a conqueror of Roman legions or evil tyrants; he was a conqueror of death itself. That wasn’t the execution of a political criminal; it was a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sinners who call on him. And wait a minute, he wasn’t just the Son of God; somehow he was the Great I Am incarnate.

If the people who were there, who saw and heard him speak and heal the sick, didn’t fully understand what he was doing until much later, then you shouldn’t be too dismayed when you ask God for something and he delivers something else, something unexpected, something that’s not really what you wanted. Step back and examine what happened, and you’ll likely find it was what you needed.

Guest of honor

Guy Gilchrist, the talented artist whom I have followed since his memorable run on the comic strip Nancy a few years back, left a message via Facebook Live the other day about the time he was the guest of honor at the White House Easter egg hunt 40 years ago.

Gilchrist was the artist for the Muppets newspaper comic strip at the time, and he created the artwork for that year’s Muppets-themed Easter event at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The Reagans called Jim Henson and invited him to be the guest of honor.

“Oh, no, Guy did that,” Henson replied. “You need to invite Guy.”

That was the kind of person Jim Henson was, said Gilchrist — if the spotlight was pointed in his direction, Henson didn’t hesitate to make sure it shone on the colleague who really deserved it. Not everyone invited to the White House would turn down the honor and deflect attention from himself.

They say true leaders don’t care who gets the credit for their good work. In this case Henson cared that the person who actually did the work got the credit, and that’s the mark of a true leader, too.

The world could use a lot more Jim Hensons.