Ever wonder about the things that rise unbidden from your memory?
Today at breakfast I was humming "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." I haven't thought of that hymn for decades, but it was the closing hymn at a funeral service I led yesterday. And somehow it became the soundtrack for my oatmeal and smoothie this morning.
I remember liking it as a kid. In part because the tune has some life to it, and you can be so dramatic with an elongated "ro-o-o-o-ll" and "yo-o-o-o-o-nder" in the last line of each verse and all the way through the refrain. In part, too, because I really found something comforting in the promise of being part of a company of happily saved souls. And I think it really was the promise of being part of "that company" more than of escaping hell, that attracted me. Overall I was probably more lonely than convicted, even though at the time I would have told you the opposite.
And then there's the other thing I found myself mulling over from yesterday -- an interview on CBC's The Current with Laurie Santos, an evolutionary psychology professor who teaches a wildly -- even insanely, popular course called "Psychology and the Good Life" in which she distils current evolutionary and psychological research about human life and happiness, into practical daily disciplines, understandings and practices that students can learn and commit to, to live good lives. When pressed, Laurie says it comes down to developing three things in your life: time for yourself so you can know your own true needs rather than just what our culture tells you to want; daily practices of mindfulness and gratitude; and a commitment to being nice to, and doing good things for others with whatever resources and assets you have.
The course is so life-changing that thousands enrol in person and on-line, students send materials back to their younger siblings still at home and to their parents, and people from around the world find ways to access it.
I was excited just hearing the interview about it while I drove to the church to prepare for the funeral I was leading. And where we would sing "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder."
I wonder how these two things connect in me.
Maybe for me it really is less about making it into "that happy company" on the other side of the distant shore, and more about being part of that company here and now.
p.s. You can find the interview with Laurie Santos at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-20-2018-1.4542333/the-secret-to-happiness-ask-this-yale-professor-and-the-1-200-students-taking-her-class-1.4542341
And you can hear a youtube version of "When the Roll" with lyrics, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWZbDALuI8.
Really?
Ash Wednesday is February 14?
Valentine's Day is Ash Wednesday?
Really?
So I wonder how your day has gone? Off to church in the morning or at noon to confess your brokenness and receive the sign of ashes ... and then out for a candlelit dinner with your sweetie, hoping the low lights will help keep un-noticed the smudge on your forehead so your partner won't ask what you had to confess?
Can you really do romance and confession on the same day? Can sweet-talking to your honey and honest soul-searching with your priest and your faith community be done in the same 24 hours?
Maybe. Maybe it's even a wonderful gift that the calendar has given us this year. (And just wait till you see when we get to celebrate Easter Sunday this year!)
Anyway ... back to Ash-Valentine's Wednesday.
Roses are good (and yes, I still have to go out and buy some because I forgot on my way home!), and I'm sure Japhia will be glad for them, and I will be glad I got them.
But equally good and gladdening to us, I think, are the messy smudges of dried-out, dusty and even burned-in-the-cauldron-of-hurt-and-anger-and-honesty rose petal ashes we wear as the sign of being compelled to work over the years -- the last few especially, at the parts of life and relationship that lie beyond the first and even second or third blush of the roses.
Snowed again today.
It's stopped now and the sun is shining. But all morning and into early afternoon the air was full of big flakes, and a thick, fluffy fresh blanket of white was being laid upon the earth.
Today I loved it. It looked beautiful. It was easy to shovel. It was such a nice day to be outside. The snow was a wondrous excuse to get some exercise on a gorgeous day.
But I also know it was terrible for commuters; I saw the traffic reports. Bad too for people with mobility issues; not many at the seniors' gym this morning. And not good for people on the streets, the homeless, the vulnerable.
So I wonder about that little voice inside me that feels such an immediate need in most situations to evaluate and judge whether something is good or bad.
It all depends, doesn't it?
And maybe the real question in most situations -- today's snow included, is not whether it's good or bad, but what it calls from me.
Today I loved the snow, so I went out in it, cleaned off the car and drove to the gym, came home and shovelled the sidewalk and street, and loved every minute of it. I felt blessed and gave thanks.
And when I think about the people inconvenienced or even threatened by the snow, what's to stop me from doing something to help them -- from showing love in some way? Like contributing to a mission that brings sandwiches and new socks to people on the street. Or like also shovelling the sidewalk (and it's a corner lot -- a lot of sidewalk) of the woman who lives next door, is older than me, and for the health of her heart should not be shovelling?
So I wonder. Maybe the question in most situations of life is not at all, is it good or bad? Maybe the better question that makes more sense is rather, what does it mean and what are the possibilities in this situation for me to be a person of love -- to feel loved and to show love to others?
The question of good and bad is impossible. The question of how I feel loved and how I can show love to others really does seem much better.
