Translating a World on the Edge

How do you react when relationships are broken?

First–if it’s a relationship you’ve invested in– you probably try to fix it.

But  if that doesn’t work, do you wallow in its fall-out debris?

Do you hold grudges? Do you go for payback?

We know that one day, all things–including us– must end.  And as we grow older, we see that ‘new and shiny’ doesn’t last. We also know that people aren’t perfect, and some are bad for us. We may have to give up on some relationships.

But I think it’s important that we don’t give up on the miracle of life itself.

To let go of life is counterproductive. Because when one door closes, another will open—if  I  don’t get bogged down in my own needs, and if I allow myself to notice it is opening.

Most broken relationships are thought of as negatives. But maybe some of them aren’t. There are some relationships that honestly can’t be fixed, and really shouldn’t be pursued any longer.  In the long run, the breaking may be a positive thing for us.

Yes, we may need to grieve for awhile, but we ought to be careful that grieving isn’t what we spend the rest of our lives doing.  Taking our own eyes off ourselves and shifting them elsewhere—to the need another may have– is what helps us grow in character.

And we should never let go of what will make us a better person, in the eyes of those who love us,  and especially  in the eyes of God.

In yesterday’s post, we thought about how God talks to us. We considered how he often speaks silently to our hearts. He gives us gentle direction, or confidence, or leads us softly where we need to be. But there are times when God does not speak softly. He SHOUTS!

And during these times, His voice is demanding. What He desires to communicate to us may be what we NEED to hear, but what we don’t WANT to hear, because it may require us to change something we’ve grown accustomed to, something not very good for us. How many times do we close our ears to His voice pounding inside us–should I say warning us?–to do what we ought to do? God is SHOUTING then, in order to shine out some action on our part.

Actions or events we wouldn’t chose on our own–and ultimately caused by our own free behavior–may come. We may even have to suffer a loss, or humiliation before we will change. But God’s allows it. It is a loving action because God doesn’t take away our free will.  He SHOUTS a  little bit LOUDER.

There are also times when we cry out to God. He is our parent, after all; our Father. This is not quiet prayer. This is prayer of need, maybe out of sorrow, or fear, or defeat. We NEED God. We don’t want Him to leave us alone. We let Him know it. We ask. We knock. We SHOUT.

God is listening to both our prayers–the quiet ones, and the loud ones.
But are we listening to Him and His will for us? Or do we cover our ears like an impudent child?

God shows He loves us by speaking to us in  different ways, according to our uniqueness as  Human Beings.   For  some, He uses the voice of  silence. Yes, silence absolutely has a voice.

And today, I’m talking about that kind of voice. Tomorrow, we’ll consider  God’s louder voice.

We’ve  all heard about the  “still, small voice” of God and understood it to mean that His instruction  comes within the silence of our hearts.  For me, that silent time is early morning, when I’ve just awakened and  my mind is fresh and open.  It’s my time for listening. Because if we want to hear God speak to our hearts, we must be quiet and  listen.

Will He speak to us audibly?  Of course He could if He wanted to.  Some of the prophets heard the  audible voice of God. But for most of us, it isn’t that.

I think this is how it works: If you’re in love with someone, and he or she is in love with you–are words always necessary? I think not. We can simply sit, or walk with, or just be in the presence of someone we love and not say a word–yet we know and feel their love, just as they know and feel ours. And without any audible word from them, don’t we often know what they’d like us to do?

Another example: The parents of an infant  know what their child wants and needs without words.  They just know. And then they provide whatever it is for the child they love.

In Kings 19,  the Lord says to Elijah:

“Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

So many times, silence is the language of love. And who loves us more that our God?

I’m not certain what causes some marriages to last until death do us part, and others, only a few years or months.  I don’t think one couple is superior to another couple.  But when a marriage does last until the end, that marriage is indeed special.

In 1995, when my parents were celebrating their Fifty-third Anniversary, I gave them a CD of Vince Gill’s, LOOK AT US. Life was difficult for them by then. My father was very ill, and my mother was taking care of him when she wasn’t so well herself. But the song made both of them smile.

Since the day I played it for them, I hadn’t listened to the song until yesterday, eighteen years later. I made my husband listen. And both of us smiled. “Well, look at us!” he said. “I suppose it’s our song now.”

When love lasts, there’s more than a comfortable feeling. When love lasts, there’s something of the divine within it. I saw that something in my parents faces in 1995. And I hope my children will one day see it in ours.

If you’re a sinner, raise your hand.

Okay, mine is the first hand up.
I find comfort in the fact though, that there is no one on earth without sin. Each of us comes from a long line of sinners.

But think about this: How many of us have felt closer to God after repenting of a sin?

Maybe our sin brought us so low that there was no way but up. Or maybe we saw how we’d hurt someone we loved, and promised, “Never again.”

When God gave us Free Will,  He knew we would misuse it and sin. And of course, we did, and do.

Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him – thirsting, hungering, seeking.   And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals!

Pride swells and inflates the ego. Gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless ‘saint’.

Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth. The man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

If we don’t recognize ourselves as real, honest-to-goodness sinners,  our chance of salvation is shaky at best—because we’ll never change what we won’t admit to.

And one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting him to the test, asked him, “Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus said to him, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40)

We want to love others, but loving is hard.  Sometimes, we are devoid of any fluffy feeling. It all comes down to a decision we must make: I will love this person. I will give him, or her, respect. I will see God’s spirit in him. I may not like this person. But I’m called to love them, regardless. Because of my attempt to love, I am following the Greatest Commandment, and I become better, too.

Now, what about those who are trying to love me? Am I hard to love?

Am I sarcastic, vindictive, or mean to someone?  Do I cheat or lie to them? Do I ignore them, and put my own needs ahead of theirs? Does the person who’s trying to  love me have to walk on eggshells so as not to upset my sensitive nature?  How can I expect someone to love me if I have traits like these?

We can make it much easier for those who are trying to love us by taking a good, honest look at ourselves.  If we don’t like what we see, we must change it.

To say that our country is divided today is an understatement. People ask, “What is the right way to go?”

There are times when people disagree so severely that it seems they will never get together. This is sad, but it’s happened before, not only in our country, but in many of our own families–when no one agrees, when every one is rigid in his or her opinions, and each side draws a line in the sand saying, “I will not move.”

What lies beneath this divisiveness?

The conflict between two words: Pride and Arrogance
Pride says, “I am very important. This is what I’d like to do.”
Arrogance says, “But I am more important than you. So, you will do what I say.”

I think of the American Eagle,  the symbol of American Freedom. The Eagle has two wings. One wing cannot be more important than the other–or the bird will never leave the ground.  It’s entire purpose–the reason it was created–will be ruined.

Like the American Eagle, 0ur country can, and should, hold onto pride. But it cannot hold onto  arrogance and continue to fly.

Most of us don’t like the connotation of the word, ‘struggle.’  It evokes thoughts of difficulty. We don’t like difficulties.

We don’t like bumpy roads that cause us to lose equilibrium.

We don’t like to climb mountains that exhaust our strength.

We don’t want to swim a channel that seems much too wide for our meager swimming abilities.

Except struggle increases our balance, our muscle, our talents.

Struggle is the fire that hardens the clay of our lives and turns an earthen vessel into something altogether unearthly.

Struggle can produce  people who are out of the ordinary, simply because they have had to work hard.

As parents, we don’t like to see our children struggle.  We want to relieve them of difficulty.  We like to ‘fix’ them. We want to save them from anything that hurts–even if they’ve concoted their own unsavory  situation.

We should let them know we are there for them. But I think there are times when we shouldn’t be too quick to ‘save’ them. We should allow them to ‘save’ themselves, to strengthen their wings from within. 

The moth in a cocoon struggles to get out of it, and by doing so,  it  grows stronger—strong enough to fly completely away from the cocoon that once tied and bound it.