Baby, It’s Spring Outside.

Ah, my good friends, do you remember the feeling that first very warm day of the year? This year it will be celebrated extensively, the onset of spring. It’s been a fun winter, but also a trying one for many people, in many ways. Being snowed in a few times has led us to a little bit of cabin fever. And the sun feels good on my face. The kids all got new bikes from grandpa Bob, and they cannot wait to get on them. I think I’m going to get a bike, being the only member of the family without one. I enjoy biking, still, even at my old age.

That last bit was a joke. I am turning 35 this year, though, and my life is changing dramatically. I’m a firm believer in the seven year cycle. I think every seven years we experience a ‘level up’. I’m speaking to the Gen X’ers there, I think. Video game terminology. That’s something that people over the age of 45 don’t usually get, excepting those guys. You know who they are. They fight with their  wives about their video game playing, or they live in their parents’ basement. Still.

I feel it. I feel the slipping away of the things that don’t really matter, I feel myself not giving a wooden nickel what anyone but my family thinks of me. And there’s a very limited amount of caring going on there. What other people think of me is none of my business. I love everyone just a little bit more, and I judge myself just a little bit less. I hold myself a bit more accountable, but not in the ‘I shoulda….’ way, rather in the Buddhist way. The Buddhists say the more responsibility you take the more power you have, or something akin to that. I feel it. I love that feeling now, whereas before I was terrified of it. It’s not like the bad genie in Aladdin kind of power, but rather the ‘I just finished my whole to-do list, and it’s only 2:30, so I can (fill in the blanks with something pleasurable)’ variety.

I see and hear things that used to depress me, frighten me, or at the very least, rain on my parade. I felt I had to just avert my eyes. That if I ignored it, didn’t give the sickness of our world my attention that I was sparing myself something. I see now that I was denying myself something. I now recognize that the way we achieve joy is by allowing ourselves to be hollowed out by grief, therefore becoming vessels. Some of us fill that hollow with more misery, for sure. Out of fear, in pain, we throw drink, drug, food, bad relationships, PTA, exercise, shopping, cigarettes, and anything else that’s not nailed down in there to try and feel whole again. But it’s in resting in the emptiness, listening and waiting for that small, still voice of God to speak to us, that we are filled with joy, with peace.

Joy means something totally different to me now than it did in my twenties. In my addled state of being I let other people state my reality, I measured myself against their yardsticks and always felt that I was falling short.

Joy isn’t another word describing happiness. It’s living wonderful and full of the spirit, the spark of life realized and fed accordingly. Hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism speaks to a set of favorable circumstances, chips falling in our favor. Hope is the idea that no matter what happens, we’ll all be OK. Whatever the hell OK is. It’s being equipped to deal with whatever comes along. An earthquake or an earthworm. The long straw or the long road. Whatever it is, we’ll have all the tools, all the strength, all the support, the means. That we believe we’re worthy, we’re protected, we’re to be provided for. Totally.

As a parent this makes sense to me. I love my kids. I’d do anything for them, to provide them with hope, and with a real sense of themselves. I want them to have a clear understanding of the difference between right and wrong. Blah blah blah. I have no control over any of that. Really. I can lead a good life, set a good example. What does that mean, really? If what I said about grief and joy is true, then in trying to shield them from pain I actually steal their opportunity for joy. To make myself more comfortable.

Now don’t get me wrong. We’re not keeping them in the basement and feeding them moldy scraps. They’re living a good life. We try to be fair and honest. We spoil them just enough, we lecture, we put them to the test at times with our baggage. But in truth, when I see one of them is pursuing someone who will likely reject them and hurt them like a blister on a long walk, I have to let it go. Rejection rubs at us, irritates and sometimes ulcerates. It has us questioning ourselves. Questioning our very self! Why didn’t I get the love, the favor, that I sought? Why doesn’t she want to be my friend? It often has us jumping through hoops. Sometimes flaming ones. But without that feeling of discord, how would we ever feel the rush of (key up Ray LaMontagne singing You Are The Best Thing) exhilaration when the right one shows up? The one who gets you. Who accepts you, salutes you, rejoices in your you-ness.

And that’s where faith comes in. Love, love, love. Wherever you go, there’ll be love, love, love. I’m on shuffle, but my writing has a soundtrack tonight. First Noah and the Whale, singing ‘love, love, love’ as I write this, then Van Morrison sings about Crazy Love. How can we not see that there is only love waiting for us, if we can brave the journey. Baptized by fire, we find our way.  Grace abounds.

In fact, it’s all there is. As humans, it can be hard to see it for many of us. Try to imagine explaining a hot air balloon in flight to an ant on the ground. The ant, if it could speak, would probably declare you mad. ‘Madness!,’ he’d proclaim, and off he’d go on his pheromone trail.

But no one will ever convince me we don’t yearn. I feel it. The thirst for knowledge, the need for connection. The slamming feeling of isolation, the bitter, grinding edge of a stone ledge on the soft palm of your hand as you hang on, wanting, but not receiving something. At the time, it seems literally unbearable.

What a perfect word. Yearning. It reminds me of earnest, and needy, with a side of keening. It is the feeling of one’s soul being kneaded. Like dough, the substance of our soul is worked. Allowed to rise. Put into an oven. Some would say by the Lord. Others aren’t sure who or what they think is doing it, but we all feel it. Standing on the beach, staring out into the ocean. On the bank of a clear trout stream in northern Michigan, looking at a young child being berated by someone they obviously adore, seeing true economic poverty, the glory of a mountain range, viewed at a distance. I could go on and on, the things that I’ve encountered in this brief and sheltered existence I’ve led, that I feel that yearning because of. I used to be fearful. As a child I fretted. I was overcome with anxiety. I remember clearly the feeling that at any given second, the world could open up and swallow me like Jonah was swallowed by that whale.

Now, as an adult, I know it wasn’t a whale, but rather a large fish. Furthermore, I believe it was a parable. That it was the blunt tool with which my ancestors painted a picture. In addition I believe that the same God who I thank constantly for everything has given me the ability to discern a story from a fact. Also, to see, without judging, that there will always be people who cannot let go of the whale.

I tell you now, none of that changes my truth. The real story is love. Unconditional love. Wasteful love, as Spong put it, in his talk, Jesus for the Non-Religious. He said to think of it as water. Living water. If you plug up the drain in a laundry tub in a basement, and turn the taps full on, the water will overflow, pouring out onto the floor. That water will fill every crevice, ever filthy crack in the cement. No question about whether that floor is dirty or clean, whether that floor is worthy of the water. It just is, it abounds. That is how we should love. Carelessly, wantonly love one another and ourselves. It’s what Jesus teaches. His primary message. Love. I strive to make it mine, too.