All At Once…A Mix

Tags

God's work, gratitude, heartbreak, James, John, kindness of God, lessons of life, Matthew, miracle, multiple emotions, Peter, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Transfiguration of Christ

As I read Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration in today’s lectionary readings (MT 17: 1-9) I was struck by the reported mix of emotions that the “lucky” three disciples (Peter, James and John) felt in that experience. I always wonder how the disciples were changed in their everyday life after that day on the mountain with Jesus.

This morning I was gratified to read something that I have come to hold as a deep truth in life experience but have never before seen in print. (Perhaps I have come late to this reality and everyone else takes it for granted by now, but I’ll recount it anyway…)

Tami Simon of Sounds True speaks today on the internet of her encounter with Lance Allred, the first legally deaf basketball player in the U.S. National Basketball League. In answer to her question about what he was feeling as they spoke, Allred says, “A mix of heartbreak and gratitude…A new alpha* is someone who is unafraid of heartbreak because he knows that as he works through it, he will have so much gratitude for the lessons learned. What makes us human is not our ability to think and analyze. It is our ability to feel multiple emotions at once.”

Life is certainly complicated these days. We feel so conflicted with personal experiences as well as what we hear and see in events around our country and the world. Sometimes we find ourselves wondering “How can we go on?” The miracle is that we do. I am often amazed, when everything seems so bleak, that I can go outside and stand under a glorious full moon and feel a rejoicing in my heart. (I just looked out my back bedroom window and saw that the sky had become overcast while I was writing. A turn of my head to my side window sees only lovely blue…All part of the same sky.)

What do you make of all this? For me it is the kindness and inexplicable work of God in me and all around. May you find the same today.

*Alpha male or female = “In studies of social animals, the highest ranking individual is sometimes designated as the alpha…”(Wikipedia)

A Day to Remember

Tags

Advent, All Souls Day, Christmas, eternity, guardian angels, Hallmark Channel, hearts, lessons of life, love, movies, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

Yesterday the Hallmark Channel began airing their Christmas movies! Normally I tend to avoid the practice of watching and resist even the notion that we should be thinking that far ahead until at least after Thanksgiving. (For my family, Advent was always the main event until December 24th!) On the other hand there is never any violence or other unacceptable behavior in Hallmark movies; they are always all about love. So yesterday I took a knitting break for a half-hour, sitting in the living room where a familiar, sweet climax was unfolding. It was the story of 6-year old girl whose single mother had died and of her new life with her three extraordinarily loving uncles. In a discussion of Christmas, she told her uncles that she wanted to go to her house to celebrate in case her mother should come. Her uncle told her gently that her mother couldn’t be with her now like they were together, “but,” he said, “every time you think of her you can be sure she’s thinking of you.” She replied, “Well, then, she’s thinking of me all the time.”

Today we celebrate the feast of All Souls as we remember our loved ones who have died. The overriding theme for this day is hope, the virtue that allows us to believe among other things that those we love are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. (WIS 3:1) The little girl in the movie, perhaps unbeknownst to her, touched on a deep truth of the spiritual life. We cannot grasp the totality of the workings of the universe but we can have inklings about our connections beyond this physical realm. To believe that we are protected (guardian angels, perhaps?) and loved unceasingly can bring comfort and peace in times of grief and loss as well as in the days when we’d just like one more conversation with our Moms…I say, “GO AHEAD! Have a conversation.” Perhaps you’ll see a familiar sign – or just feel a presence that tells you that “for the faithful life is changed, not ended” and that death cannot break the bonds of those whose core connection is love.

This is a feast of thanksgiving for all those wonderful people who have taught us the lessons of life, for those who have challenged us to be more than we ever thought we could be and for those whose love remains in our hearts for all eternity. A blessed day indeed!