Well, it’s the day after Thanksgiving, and the Christmas season has officially come! This Sunday marks the first Sunday in Advent, and to set the season off to a positive and funny note I was thinking about what Tim Hawkins had to say about the song “Do You Hear What I Hear” when he was at SVA last year…too funny.
So, here’s to a season where we focus more on the “why” and the “who” than on all the “wants” out there…
Relax and smile 🙂
Monty
In this season of political attack adds, I ran across a powerful essay that appeared in Readers Digest many years ago, and it breathed some life and important reminders into me.
It reveals the patterns of criticism that we so easily fall into. Father to son, worker to boss, boss to worker, or even neighbor to neighbor. In this piece, it is seen through father and son.
Criticism never changes anything or anybody, it only causes the criticized to become defensive and critical in return. So, why do we expend so much energy criticizing? Why does it seem so much easier to condemn than to encourage?
Imagine the shift that could happen if our world population decided to eliminate judgments, and criticisms, and instead worked to positively effect the change that they were critical about, rather than only pointing the finger at the other guy.
Enjoy this little reality check…may it cause you to slow down and choose to be channels of God's grace.
Monty
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Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped.You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.
– W. Livingston Larned
As I was spending some time praying this morning, I was, as many of you were, thinking about the events that happened on this day 9 years ago. Images were easily retrieved replaying the live news feeds of chaos in New York as two planes were evilly commandeered to become statements of hate when they were forced into the two towers.
Lives were taken…anguish created…questions reverberated…
I prayed today over those who are gone, but mostly for those who remain, and that I would live in such a way that my life might, in some small way, replenish slivers in the vortex of loss, disillusionment, and pain that exists, at least for those I encounter along the way.
Sometimes it just seems to be too much…sometimes the awareness of humanities wickedness or her apathy just seems to be too much…sometimes it just seems as if we have dug to deep a whole for ourselves and will never get out…
This is when we need to realize that we have been graced by God to live an incarnational life. A life where we don't simply "do religious or good things", but a life that becomes a portal to allow God's goodness to flow through…there is a big difference.
Today is a day to choose to love and not to hate, to be honest with God, and to be honest with ourselves.
I read and ruminated on the following prayer today, and it spoke to where my heart had parked on this day of remembrance for 9-11. Pray through it and note the transition to be the answer of what we pray for..
_________________________
Sometimes, Lord,
it just seems to be too
much:
too
much violence, too much fear;
too
much of demands and problems;
too
much of broken dreams and broken lives;
too
much of wars and slums and dying;
too
much of greed and squishy fatness
and
the sounds of people
devouring
each other
and
the earth;
too
much of stale routines and quarrels,
unpaid
bills and dead ends;
too
much of words lobbed in to explode
and
leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
too
much of turned-away backs and yellow silence,
red
rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.
Sometimes the very air seems
scorched
by
threats and rejection and decay
until
there is nothing
but
to inhale pain and exhale confusion.
Too much of darkness, Lord,
too
much of cruelty
and
selfishness
and
indifference…
Too much, Lord
too
much,
too
bloody,
bruising,
brain-washing
much.
Or is it too little,
too
little of compassion,
too little of courage,
of
daring,
of
persistence,
of
sacrifice;
Too little of music
and
laughter
and
celebration?
O God,
make of me some nourishment
for
these starved times,
some food for my brothers
and sisters
who
are hungry for gladness and hope,
that, being bread for them,
I
may also be fed
and
be full.
~Amen
_____________________
Honesty with God leads to a transformation of your soul…when you change, your world changes and you change your world, bit by bit, moment by moment.
This prayer was penned by Ted Loder in one of my favorite books of prayer called "Gorilla's of Grace" If your looking for some great prayers of the heart check it out.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=deigratia-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=0806690542
May the memories of this day in history cause us all to "Remember, Repent, and Return to God" because when we try to run this world separated from the God who made it, we becomes creators of loss instead of recipients of life.
Monty
This is an interesting piece of research…in our culture we joke about "shopping therapy" all the time. There are many people who also struggle with a shopping addiction.
We are trying to "feel good" about ourselves or we are trying to medicate our reality with the various addictions and dysfunctions that assault us…but in the end the things that we feed ourselves never satisfy, they only create a greater hunger or need for more.
In reality, what we really need is to reconnect with God, the only true source of joy regardless of circumstances. In this article they make the connection that our happiness greatly increases as we enter into spiritual experiences in comparison to our cultures remedy of shopping to fill the void…check it out it is pretty interesting.
Monty
__________________
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Can money buy happiness?
No, and neither can spending money, suggest researchers from Ben-Gurion
University in Israel. Their as-yet-unpublished study took a look at
consumer shopping habits over the last three decades and compared it to
participation in religious activities, and found that, among women,
money makes us much less happy than going to church.
THE DETAILS: The authors used data collected by the
University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Council. The Council
conducts a "General Social Survey" annually or biannually, and collects
information from a sample of adults over 18 on their happiness levels.
Looking specifically at adults who lived in states where "blue laws"
(laws prohibiting commercial activity on Sundays) had been repealed
between 1973 and 1998, they compared the happiness levels of adults with
reported church attendance over that 25-year period. (Because
Christians are most likely to attend church on Sundays, while Jews and
Muslims normally attend religious services on Fridays or Saturdays, the
researchers looked specifically at Christians for this study.)
Women, but not men, seemed to experience a steep decline in both
church attendance and their happiness levels over the course of the
25-year post-blue law period. The data showed that blue law repeals
decreased the likelihood of people reporting that they were "pretty
happy" to "not happy" by at least 17 percent. But the authors also noted
that people whose religious participation didn't change after blue laws
were repealed reported no drop in happiness levels. Using other data
collected from the survey, the researchers ruled out the possibility
that the declines could be related to women's increased participation in
the workforce or to family issues.
WHAT IT MEANS: We could all stand to take a "day of
rest" from commercialism to get some perspective on what makes us truly
happy, whether we consider ourselves religious or not. For those who
attend them, religious services provide fellowship and often give people
a greater sense of meaning to life, says Danny Cohen-Zada, PhD,
assistant professor in the department of economics at Ben-Gurion
University and lead author of the study. And he adds that although his
study looked only at people who identified themselves as Christian, the
relationship between religion and happiness would likely hold true for
women of other faiths as well.
But if attending services makes people happier, why don't people go
more regularly, or go back if they've stopped going? Cohen-Zada has a
few theories, he says, foremost among them is simply that shopping
provides more immediate gratification. "Since immediate satisfaction
from shopping is higher than from religious participation, they choose
shopping even if they know that in the long run they would be less
happy," he says. "In addition to this, the addictive nature of shopping
helps them to choose the immediate lower satisfaction over the long-run
higher satisfaction." In the long run, he says, "People derive greater
satisfaction from religious participation than from shopping. Our work
contributes to the idea that money is overrated, and other factors,
including religion, tend to be underrated."
Here are a few ways to avoid falling into the trap of turning
to shopping as a way to derive some immediate gratification and a false
sense of happiness:
• Institute your own "blue laws." Whether you choose
Sunday or some other day of the week that better fits with your
schedule, designate one day of every week as a no shopping day. (And
yes, that includes shopping online.) Instead, use that day to spend more
time with family or to find some other activity you find fulfilling. A
study published earlier this year even suggests that it could make you
more attractive in other people's eyes: The study found that people who
are considered more experiential, meaning they spend money on
experiences rather than things, are more attractive than materialistic people.
• Find religion, whether you're religious or not. In
his study, Cohen-Zada found that for each point increase in
church-service attendance, self-reported happiness increased by 10.7
percent. Even those who don't consider themselves religious can tap into
that happiness factor through prayer or meditation,
says Rodale.com advisor Jeffrey Rossman, PhD. He suggests sharing your
feelings with a higher power—even if that means "the universe" or a
wise, caring part of yourself. Doing so allows you to open up to
something greater than yourself, and eases the feeling that you need to
bear every burden on your own.
• Take a walk. We've all been known to indulge in
"retail therapy" when we're feeling unhappy. But as this study suggests,
buying things, or even engaging in the simple act of shopping, doesn't
provide us with long-term happiness. The next time you're tempted to hit
the mall to relieve stress, imagine yourself late in life looking back
on what you buy, and you'll probably realize that stuff will provide you
with very short-lived satisfaction. Instead, call a friend to chat,
head to your house of worship, or simply go for a walk. Multiple studies
have shown that time in nature makes us happier, anyway.
__________________________________
hhmmm, so I guess I'll see you at church this Sunday 🙂
Monty