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Don’t Blink

Sun, April 7, 2019 Published by

Country Singer Kenny Chesney sings a great song called “Don’t Blink.”  The song’s lyrics tell of a younger man’s encounter with a 102-year-old man who was being interviewed on the news. The interviewer asks the man what’s the secret to life, and the older man looks up from his pipe, laughs, and says, “All I can say is don’t blink”.  I have to share just a couple of the verses:  I was glued to my TV when it looked like he looked at me and said: “Best start putting first things first” Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand You can’t flip it over and start again. Take every breath God gives you for what it’s worth.  Don’t blink, just like that you’re six years old, And you take a nap, And you wake up and you’re twenty-five, And your high school sweetheart becomes your wife.  Don’t blink, you just might miss Your babies growing like mine did, Turning into moms and dads, Next thing you know your better half of fifty years is there in bed, And you’re praying God takes you instead. Trust me friend a hundred years, Goes faster than you think, so don’t blink.  So I’ve been tryin’ to slow it down.  I’ve been tryin’ to take it in, In this here today, gone tomorrow world we’re livin’ in.  Don’t blink.

Chris Wallin was inspired to write the song after he lost three major family members within a two-year period.  There was a line that he wanted to put in the song that never made it in: “We always send flowers to people when they’re gone. We should send them when they’re living.” Don’t blink.  No truer words are there.  I was thinking about this when our daughter Maddie came home from college for Spring Break.  She is just weeks away from finishing her first year at NAU and we were already talking about what she might do after graduation!  How could the years have gone by so fast?!  Maddie wants to speed up time and jump to when she’s 21 and free to do what she wants and I know I’m going to blink and she’ll be walking down the aisle getting married.  Don’t blink.  Time seems to go faster and faster the older you get (the young never believe that).  Sometimes it can be helpful to remember that yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t here, so today is all we’ve got.  The days fly by, but there is only one today so we must rise to each new one determined to make it count.  What will you make of today?  Maybe do something to make life better for someone other than yourself or do something that will make a memory.  Do something you’ve never done before.  Do something fun and funny.  Talk to someone you haven’t talked to in a long time—call them up or write a letter.  Tell them that you love them because you may never get to say it again.  Don’t blink.

 

How I talk to God : How God talks to me.

Sun, March 31, 2019 Published by

This year, as well as fasting from my favorite treats, I have also been accompanied on my Lenten pilgrimage by the poet Malcolm Guite’s book Word in the Wilderness; A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. Poems are an ideal companion for the season of Lent as we seek to reorient ourselves to God, with poetry often providing a call for us to ponder the wonders of the world around us while looking and listening for God at work in us.

One of the poems included in Guite’s collection is entitled How I talk to God, by Kelly Belemonte.

“Coffee in one hand leaning in to share – How I talk to God. ‘Momma, you’re special’, three-year-old touches my cheek – How God talks to me. While driving I make lists: done, do, hope, love, hate, try – How I talk to God. Above the highway hawk: high, alone, free, focused – How God talks to me. Rash, impetuous chatter, followed by silence – How I talk to God. First, second, third, fourth chance to hear, then another – How God talks to me. Fetal position under flannel sheets, weeping – How I talk to God. Moonlight on pillow tending to my open wounds – How God talks to me. Pulling from my heap of words, the ones that mean yes – How I talk to God. Infinite connects with finite, without words – How God talks to me.”

This beautiful work causes us to ask ‘What is prayer?’, and reminds us that a life of prayer is both speaking to God, but also listening, in turn.

In his reflection, Malcolm Guite says this;

“Saint Paul calls on us to pray without ceasing, leading some contemplatives have interpreted that as a call to leave the world with its business and distractions and seek long swathes of uninterrupted time devoted to prayer and prayer alone. Others have seen it as a call to have a continual hidden mantra, wheeling and cycling beneath all we do, providing an undercurrent or ground note of prayer beneath all our daily activities.”

In different ways for different people, both of these approaches are valid and neither exclusive of the other. Perhaps the greatest gift of Belemonte’s poem is to remind us, once again, that each day we find ourselves in conversation with God within the ordinariness of our lives.

May we all spend this season of Lent attuned to that conversation, to both speaking and listening, so that that the very rhythms of our everyday lives are opened up to God, and offered up as our unceasing prayer.*

Long-Lasting Consequences

Sun, February 17, 2019 Published by

Have you noticed how many more people seem to be drinking from reusable water bottles? This is a great step forward in reducing our plastic waste, and in moving us away from being a ‘throwaway society’, although there is clearly much more yet to be accomplished as we seek to become better stewards of God’s creation. To use another example, did you know that according to Eco Age, (an organization which helps companies to focus on sustainable production methods) in the West, new clothes are worn on average for just 5 weeks before being thrown away?! That is the scary truth of the ‘fast fashion’ world in which we live…. read full article here https://wp.me/p7o8lu-gME

A Place for the Tiger

Sun, February 10, 2019 Published by

There’s a story about the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci.  During the time when he was working on his famous painting “The Last Supper,” he became angry with an acquaintance of his. The two men had words and parted from each other on very bad terms. Leonardo returned to the church on whose wall he was painting the fresco.  It was no use. Leonardo could paint nothing he was happy with. He had reached the point in the project where he was doing the face of Jesus. Time and again he tried to render a likeness of the Lord, but he was unable to do so.  Finally the great artist realized that he had work to do, but it was not in the church he had been commissioned to decorate. Leonardo put down his brushes and sought out the man who had been the subject of his wrath. He asked the man’s forgiveness. The man accepted his apology and offered an apology of his own. It was only then that Leonardo was able to return to the church and finish painting the face of Jesus.

St. Paul wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus because he knew that the church was engaged in quarreling that threatened to tear them apart.  He counseled them: “No more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.” Sometimes we feel we should never be angry, we should repress our true feelings.  However, when we do that, our anger continues to simmer within us and ultimately festers or blows up and can be terribly destructive.  Avoidance of conflict makes room for the devil.  Anger is a natural part of our emotional makeup as humans.

Think back on your own life and reflect on what role anger has played in your relationships—was it healthy anger or destructive? Are you a spewer or a stewer?  Anger itself is not a sin. Sometimes we are called to be angry.  The world would have lost much without the blazing anger of William Wilberforce against the slave trade. If Martin Luther King had not been angry at racism, the civil rights movement would not have flourished. If Gandhi had not been angry at oppression, India’s independence might not have happened. Anger, channeled in a positive way, can be a catalyst for change.  The famous writer Dr. Samuel Johnson was once asked to temper the harshness and anger in a book he was about to publish.  His answer to that request was that “he would not cut off his claws, nor make his tiger a cat, to please anybody.”  There is a place for the tiger in life; and when the tiger becomes a tabby cat, something is lost.  How many relationships have been forever destroyed because some small issue was left to fester, grow, and divide the best of friends? Resolution of differences may take a long time but Paul is telling us to put aside our anger quickly.  If we have been in the wrong, pray to God to give us the grace to go and admit that it was so; and even if we have been right, pray to God to give us the graciousness which will enable us to take the first step to put matters right.

 

God is Still Speaking

Sun, January 20, 2019 Published by

During the past few weeks I have been reading various economic, political, environmental and sporting predictions for the coming year. Happily (and especially if you are a D-Backs fan), people are notoriously poor at predicting the future. Time has shown that we tend to construct predictions from our wishes or fears rather than actual data. Those who are paid to make such forecasts are often way off the mark, such as the banker who famously told Henry Ford that the horse was here to stay, or the British weatherman who famously on the eve of the country’s worst ever recorded storm, announced that “it might be a little windy tomorrow.”

There are dangers in putting too much store in what might happen, however prophecy and prediction are not the same thing. When the prophets – like Jeremiah and Isaiah – pointed to events in the future, they were not predictions of what would happen; but rather descriptions of what could happen if the people didn’t change their ways. Their focus was on making things right in the present, rather than being right about the future. They called out uncomfortable truths – sometimes at great personal risk – about the injustices of society, the people’s indifference to poverty, or the environment – urging people to change now in order to avoid future catastrophe. The Jeremiahs are perhaps long gone, but if we listen carefully we can hear the prophets of our day. They could be journalists, or musicians, or perhaps even children. There are no special qualifications required, and the message, doesn’t have to be conventionally religious. The inspiration of their message if it is for the good, can be seen ultimately to have its origin in the divine, but the action is earthly, urgent and rooted in the now. Some believe that part of the supernatural outworking of creation is that God has placed the future inside the present. Are we ready to discern and listen to those speaking the truth about what is necessary this year in order to win a hopeful future for ourselves and the generation to come? May it be, that our hearts and minds may be open to those voices, and to God speaking through them. *

Thinking God’s Thoughts

Sun, January 6, 2019 Published by

It is an exciting time for space exploration. Not only has China successfully landed an exploratory craft on the far side of the Moon, but humanity has been boldly going where we haven’t gone before. NASA’s New Horizons probe, launched in January 2006, has successfully flown by a small snowman shaped object (see the picture included, taken from the probe’s telemetry) named Ultima Thule, meaning ‘beyond the farthest frontiers’. That object is a billion miles further out from Pluto. It is quite incredible to think of how far, both literally and metaphorically, we have come since the advent of space exploration. In 1961, during the first manned spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin, according to some sources, remarked ‘I see no God up here’, although those words were not in the official transcripts.  Those words seem to firmly put the exploration of the cosmos and faith at odds with each other. However, in reality, the historical interaction between theology and outer space has been more subtle and much more fruitful than a simple conflict. Some historians point to the positive influence of belief on the very growth of science. Four hundred years ago, Galileo and other scientists of his generation understood by their faith that God was free to create in whatever way God wanted. Therefore, the only way to understand creation was to observe it, and thus was the real origin of empirical science. A similar argument led to theologians being foremost in the speculation about life on other planets. If God is free to create  not just human life, the only way you would know whether other life was there would be to actively search for it. Rather than religious belief and scientific exploration being at odds with each other, this understanding, in fact, adds a sacred dimension  to that exploration. At times, this exploration will no doubt be puzzling and surprising, but ultimately always awe-inspiring. Fifty years ago, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve, the astronauts took turns reading from the Book of Genesis. The sense that the world is created and good continues to inspire many to look beyond the farthest frontiers, and to see science, as the sixteenth century astronomer, Johannes Kepler, described it as “thinking God’s thoughts after him”. *

 

Entertaining Angels

Sun, October 7, 2018 Published by

Would you think your Chaplain a bit looney if I tell you I believe in angels? I believe that God is an active presence in the world and I am persuaded that angels are not just a figment of an overactive imagination.  Rather than it being an ever-shrinking area, the bounds of spiritual experience continue to expand for me as I get older. I have listened to an increasing number of people who hesitantly shared an other-worldly experience with me so I know those mystical experiences are real. Studies have found that 77% of people believe in angels. It seems like there has always been a fascination with the subject of angels. We have seen countless books, movies, television shows, songs, paintings and a host of other things that emphasize the existence and presence of heavenly beings. The collectibles industry in particular has gotten in on this big time, and there are all kinds of pictures,  statues, ornaments and other likenesses of angels to be found.

Angels are part of almost every religion and generally seem to have the role of messenger. Many traditions believe in guardian angels who serve to protect whichever person God assigns them to and present prayer to God on that person’s behalf. In the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” an angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed. Remember Clarence? Every time a bell rings, an angel gets it’s wings. There are four visitations of angels associated with the birth of Jesus. The great musicians of the world have used angels in their compositions. Most familiar is probably from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, When at Night I Go to Sleep, fourteen angels watch do keep.  Handel includes an aria with these words: “Angels, ever bright and fair, take, oh take me to your care.” And children love the spiritual, All Night, All Day, angels watching over me my Lord.

The book of Hebrews says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” The angels around us may not look like what we expect. We never know to whom we are talking, whom we are welcoming or turning away, to whom we are offering a much needed embrace or a cold shoulder, for the strangers who come into our lives come in many different shapes, sizes, colors, and conditions.*

Forgive Our Foolish Ways

Sun, August 5, 2018 Published by

As you read this I will be away from the Campus and enjoying some time in Britain. I will be making the most of escaping the heat, spending time with family and friends and enjoying the British delicacies not available in Arizona.

For anyone, a journey back home is mixed with nostalgia. I will be driving along the roads on which I first learned to drive and seeing the places and people who helped to shape and influence me. It will be a trip down memory lane. I will also be occupying a new role in one of those familiar places after having been invited to preach at the church I attended throughout my childhood. Rather than being the child sitting in the pew hoping for a short sermon, I shall be the preacher perched aloft in the pulpit looking out over the children probably holding hopes similar to mine when I was in their seat.

I sang in the choir of that church and so, during the summer, was often called upon to sing at weddings. I distinctly remember the wedding where the bride couldn’t stop sneezing. The wedding where the groom fainted also understandably sticks in my mind. But I also remember the wedding ceremony which began with the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways.’ Even as a child at the time, the humor of that beginning was not lost on me. The words to that hymn are taken from a much longer poem written by the American Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. A prolific hymnwriter, almost all of Whittier’s 500 hymns have been consigned to the dusty shelves of choir libraries, with the notable exception of ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’. Perhaps that is because of its prayerful words, the sentiments of which are felt by us still today.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm.

I may not be able to remember all the sermons that I heard while sitting in that church, but I do remember encountering the beauty of God’s peace and presence, and that still small voice of calm.

We all sometimes feel as though we are being shaken in an earthquake of upheaval. The winds of change can sometimes blow fiercely and unwanted around us. The fire of hatred and division can seem at times to burn unabated in the world. And yet, through change and chance, God is with us. May we all hear that still small voice of calm in our lives. May we find our stress and worry relieved, our foolish ways forgiven.*

On Keeping Score

Sun, July 29, 2018 Published by

As human beings we love to keep score.  The first question you want to know when you turn on a game already in progress is, “What’s the score?!”  The first important scorekeepers in our lives are our parents.  As we grow up, we are eager to learn how to win their attention, their smiles, their approval.  Teachers may be next as they keep score with report cards.  Coaches teach us to keep score and, later on, it’s our bosses, co workers, or neighbors.  Our educational system is based on test scores, GPAs, AP, ACT and SAT scores. An online magazine recently posted a list of the 50 most beautiful women in the world ranked from 1 to 50. Honestly, I thought that #50 was just as beautiful as #1 but I wonder if the one at the bottom of the list was upset? Unfortunately, our inner sense of worth and well-being is often tied to the scores that we get.

One of the ways we tend to keep score is by comparisons.  My father used to say, “Comparisons are odious” when any of his girls would play the game of comparisons.  Psychologists say people engage in three types of comparing.  They compare their situation to those who are better off—upward comparison.  They compare themselves to those at the same level—lateral comparison.  And they compare themselves to those who are worse off—downward comparison.  Each type carries dangers: the first incites envy, the second competition, and the third arrogance.  If we define our own value and the value of others in terms of the world scoring system we probably will always be unhappy.

How does God keep score? Thankfully, God doesn’t keep score.  Every morning as the sun rises we have a brand new day to live and to love.  Fresh start.  God works with totally different rules and has a different way of accounting.  There’s a passage of scripture where Paul says: “Your attitude should be the same  as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God  something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.”  Jesus wasn’t somebody who spent his life trying to climb up a ladder even though he was “at the top of the organizational chart of the universe.” Jesus looked like a failure in the world scoring system.  He wasn’t a   success by the standards of efficiency, good management, or outward success and his life ended in what seemed to be a colossal failure.  However, the cross shows us a different way of measuring success, a way that overturns our desire to keep score. Love keeps no record of wrongs.  True happiness starts when there is no need for score keeping anymore.*

Hope is What Makes Us Strong

Mon, March 12, 2018 Published by

Last week, we hosted a special guest, The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, who came to speak about the spiritual insights and lessons she has gained from a life complicated by dementia. Tracey is a newly retired episcopal priest who for the last 17 years served as Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland. On Nov. 8, 2016, Tracey was diagnosed with early stage Frontotemporal Dementia. In what some might consider a cruel twist of fate, the type of FTD Lind has, Primary Progressive Aphasia, affects the neurons in the part of the brain that involves communication and language. The woman who in 2004 wrote and published the book “Interrupted by God,” who wrote and delivered weekly sermons for nearly three decades, who could converse and joke as easily with a homeless woman as with a corporate CEO, was going to be robbed, gradually, of her ability to write, read, speak and understand what others are saying. As she spoke it was clear that the deep and abiding faith that has inspired this gifted preacher and teacher throughout her life continues to sustain her as she meets the challenges of the years ahead supported by her wife of 18 years. Tracey’s message was filled with honesty, courage, faith, and hope.

At lunch Tracey shared with us a blog she is writing using the story of Pandora’s box and how she had found new meaning in it. Of course, Pandora is well recognized as the Greek mythical character, the first woman, created by Zeus. Upon her creation, the gods gave her many gifts – beauty, charm, wit, artistry, and cunning; the last gift was curiosity. Included with the gifts was a box, which she was told to emphatically, “Never open the box.” She even hid the box deep in the ground but the pull of curiosity was too strong. Finally, she could hold back no longer, she lifted the lid, and out flew all the evils of the world, such as toil, illness and despair. That’s how most of us remember the end of the story, but wait, at the bottom of the box, the last creature that she let loose was HOPE. Pandora’s last words were: “HOPE is what makes us strong. It is why we are here. It is what we fight with when all else is lost.” The Very Rev. Tracey has preached about hope for years and now she is living it out in a new way. The diagnosis hasn’t stopped her from fully immersing in what life has to offer — and what she has to give.

A Future Not Our Own

Mon, January 8, 2018 Published by

Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, in El Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital where he lived. He had always been close to his people, preached a prophetic gospel, denouncing the injustice in his country and supporting the development of popular and mass organizations. He became the voice of the Salvadoran people when all other channels of expression had been crushed by the repression.  A prayer was composed by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw for a celebration of departed priests that continues to be used on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Bishop Romero.  I think it is a powerful prayer as we start a new year.  It reminds us that we plant the seeds of future promise but our vision is limited and we cannot do everything but we can do something.

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction

of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of

saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one

day will grow. We water the seeds already planted

knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of

liberation in realizing this.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,

a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s

grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the

difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not

messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

In 2018, may we be about planting seeds and laying foundations trusting that the Lord’s grace will enter and do the rest.

The Gate of the Year

Fri, January 5, 2018 Published by

As the clamor of the holiday season has faded once more into hopefully happy memories of light and joy, we turn now and look to the future, as we step into the New Year of 2018.

There are many special days for us individually which cause us to pause and reflect on what has happened in our lives and what may be yet to come, but as we hang our new calendars on our walls and try to remember to write 2018 in our check books, we have a chance to collectively contemplate as we celebrate.

Looking back over 2017 we can remember both times of celebration and times of sadness and difficulty. Thinking firstly of celebrations, 2017 marked 500 years since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, with events demonstrating unity within the Christian family of faith, while recognizing the contributions of Martin Luther and his fellow reformers. 2017 was also the year during which global measles deaths dropped below 100,000 for the first time – an 84% fall since 2000, and while after starting the season with odds at 15/1, the Houston Astros won the World Series for the first time.

Unfortunately, as well as being able to reflect joyfully on these and many other events, many of us will also be reflecting on how our lives have been touched by sadness this year on a personal level and on a global scale. During 2017 conflicts in the Middle-East continued to add to the largest humanitarian and refugee crisis since WW2, and the people around the world mourned together for the loss of lives in the Las Vegas mass-shooting and as a result of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

As we step in to 2018 we may ponder to ourselves what news the next twelve months will bring both in our own lives and in the wider world. Amid our wonder and our apprehension, perhaps we should greet 2018 with the words of this poem by M. L. Haskins in our hearts and minds;

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.’ So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”

May our New Year bring us closer to God, who walks beside us on our pilgrimage of life, and a Happy New Year to you all.

What’s Your Ikigai?

Mon, June 26, 2017 Published by

Donald F. Fausel
Nov. 22, 1929 – June 12, 2017

For this article, I’d like to share one written by Dr. Don Fausel, one of our residents who passed away last week.  Don was a man of great insight and wisdom which you will find as you read his thoughts on “What’s Your Ikigai?”—Peggy R.

“It’s never been easy to be a human being! We have always had to wrestle with strong and painful fears. Now, if we face ourselves honestly, or if we merely eavesdrop on the secret murmurings of our heart, isn’t this what we discover—that one of our basic fears, the fear beneath many fears, is the dread of being nothing, of having no real importance, no lasting worth, no purpose in life.  It is precisely to this fear of being nobody, having no worth, that our Judeo-Christian-Humanitarian ethic reminds us that our basic value is not something we achieve in competition with everyone else, but something we gratefully accept along with everyone else. We need not become important, we are important. We need not become somebody, we are somebody. No matter what others may say or think about us, or do to us, we are somebody.

As we grow older and become less able to function physically or mentally as we did in our younger years, we need to remind ourselves, that we are still somebody, with the same dignity and worth, with the same God-given inalienable rights. Sometimes, when we’re not able to do a lot of the things we used to do, when our body is failing us and our short term memory is not as good as our long term memory, it’s hard for us to accept the fact that we are somebody worthwhile. That’s why it’s particularly important for us Elders to periodically ask ourselves, what is my purpose in life?

Several years ago, I discovered a Japanese word that captures the importance of having a positive attitude and purpose in our life. The word is Ikigai, (pronounced ee-ki-guy) the Japanese word used to describe why I get up in the morning, what my sense of purpose is. I love the word Ikigai! I like saying it! I like writing it! Ikigai, Ikigai! I think it was the beginning of my interest in happiness. I realized if you don’t have an Ikigai, you’re not going to be happy. I was even more impressed with the origin of the word and its application for us elders. Researchers have identified what they call Blue Zones. These are areas throughout the world with a high percentage of centenarians; places where people enjoy remarkably long full lives. Their lives are not only longer, but physically and mentally, they are more active than elders in other areas of the world. National Geographic’s, Dan Buettner, has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity found in these Blue Zones. One of those areas is the Japanese island of Okinawa. It was there that he discovered that one of the characteristics for a long healthy life was having an Ikigai. To a resident of Okinawa, Ikigai can be anything from tending their vegetable garden, taking care of great grandchildren, to walking and exercising every day. Whatever it is that motivated them to remain involved, they give credit to their Ikigai. After years of research Dan Buettner concludes:

“One of the biggest revolutions in thought in our time is the changing of emphasis from physical health to mental health in connection to longevity. The effects of negative stress and ‘inflammation’ are cited more and more frequently as the cause of early death and lowered quality of life. One of the most important methods for counteracting that is Ikigai, a sense of purpose. … Ikigai is something that brings joy and contentment. It fills a person with resolve and a sense of satisfaction in what they are doing. Most of all, it brings happiness.”

In our own way, we need to seriously consider identifying our own Ikigai. We need to know and follow our values, passions and talents–and to share them by example, on a regular basis. It might be by living our lives, with our physical and mental restrictions, as a legacy for our grandchildren or great grandchildren, or showing compassion for those in need, who are less fortunate than we are. Whatever we choose to do, it’s our Ikigai. So what is it that gives your life a sense of worth? What gets you out of bed in the morning? Since I retired, my major Ikigai for the past five years or so has been writing. To paraphrase the French philosopher, Descartes, “I write, therefore I am!” What’s your Ikigai?

A Place for the Tiger

Mon, March 13, 2017 Published by

While he was in prison, St. Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus because they were quarreling with one another.  They were allowing their lives to be ruled by anger.  Here’s what he said:

Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.   Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life. Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Sometimes we feel we should never be angry, we should repress our true feelings. However, when we do that, our anger continues to simmer within us and ultimately festers or blows up and can be destructive.  Avoidance of conflict makes room for the devil.  Anger is a natural part of our emotional makeup as humans.  The scriptures record God becoming angry 375 times in the Old Testament and we know that Jesus got angry as well.  He was angry when the scribes and Pharisees were watching to see if He would heal the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath day (Mark 3:5).  He was terribly and majestically angry when he made a whip and drove the moneychangers out of the temple. (John 2:13-17).

Paul gives specific and practical guidelines for dealing with anger.  He says, “Be angry!” emphasizing that anger itself is not a sin.  Then Paul adds do not let the sun go down on your anger. Plutarch tells us that the disciples of the philosopher Pythagoras, had a rule of their society, that if during the day, anger had made them speak insultingly to each other, before the sun set they shook hands and kissed each other, and were reconciled.  Sometimes we are called to be angry.  The world would have lost much without the blazing anger of William Wilberforce against the slave trade, and of Anthony Ashley Cooper, later named Lord known as the Great Reformer for his work to end the horrible conditions in which men, women and children worked in the 19th century.   If Martin Luther King had not been angry at racism, the civil rights movement might not have flourished. If Gandhi had not been angry at oppression, India’s independence might not have happened. Anger, channeled in a positive way, can be a catalyst for change.  The famous writer Dr. Samuel Johnson was once asked to temper the harshness and anger in a book he was about to publish.  His answer to that request was that “he would not cut off his claws, nor make his tiger a cat, to please anybody.”  There is a place for the tiger in life; and when the tiger becomes a tabby cat, something is lost.