One of my favorite spiritual authors, Oswald Chambers, says that in disillusionment, we find God. This seems a little off base at first, but after a second and maybe third glance, one can see that it is right on the money.
How much disappointment, hurt, and fear have I experienced when someone I trusted "let me down"? The point is, why did I ever elevate someone to the point of putting my trust in them to begin with? I have always had this very human problem- look for and believe in the good in every person, trust in them and expect them to come through because that is the right thing. There are many things wrong with this plan, and I have suffered for trying to stick to it.
First, is it wrong to look for the best in everyone? No, I don't believe that. Jesus didn't believe that, he knew that there is a little piece of God in all of us. The problem comes in believing that people will be motivated by that little bit of God in them in every situation. After all, I haven't done it, why should I expect others to consistently succeed where I have failed? We are, after all, people. Thus comes heartache.
The second problem in my plan is hanging on to expectation. Expectations are so often destroyed that I try to avoid them whenever I can. How can I expect anyone or anything to be exactly as I wish it? What do I really control in this world outside of my own thoughts and emotions? In a world where the only certainty is that things are uncertain, expectations become nothing more than wasted energy leading to frustration and disillusionment. What then? Where does one go when all has failed? Cynicism? Anger? Revolt?
The last and most important thing wrong with my plan, is that I have trusted first in people to be God-like, without first trusting in God. Elevating anyone to the level of providing anything beyond what is humanly capable is placing trust where it doesn't belong. The ultimate disillusionment in believing that "the world" will provide (fill in the blank) leads to the realization that only God can fill this role, and, only after excluding everything from the picture other than God. Every thought, every need, every desire begins in the present moment, when the thought of whatever that is first appears. God lives in that moment. Placing that thought before God first, and knowing he is there, is enlightenment, and that is the perfect outcome of disillusionment.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Where does the time go...
Here we are again in July, the summer begins and tries to catch up with the heat that has already caused us to melt and shrivel like so many plants thirsting for water. Now, perhaps, the afternoon rains will come and cool things down a bit as the earth begins its laborious wobble back to that place where the sun is not directly above, and the winds from north bring relief.
This weekend's news was startling on so many fronts- political, sports, world events, as it seems to be from day to day now, as it always has been. The most startling and disturbing for me, one of those that leaves me empty and looking for meaning, a local thirteen year old acquaintance of my son, killed in an accident involving an all terrain vehicle. The news barely sinks in before the whys begin to come forth from all directions. But no matter the answers, if they are answered at all, the end result remains, a child, a blossoming flower, is plucked before it fully blooms and someones hopes and dreams, someones heart ache, someones first crush, someones little girl, is dead.
So we may turn to God and ask how can this happen? It is easy, on such occasions, to look to the sky, shake one's fist and demand to know the answer that we ourselves can not give. Oh, we can explain dangerous activities, unsafe conditions, mechanical failure, etc, but only God can, we suppose, answer the most painful of questions. But God is silent. And the questioner walks away, angry, humiliated, perhaps even no longer believing in the existence of this careless thing once followed in better times.
God, the Divine, the omniscient, the all powerful, the creator- does care about these things. Cares, because we are all part of his "fabric", we are part of the soul of time, of light, of God. In the most troubling times, the most confusing, there is always healing. We may not understand why things like this happen, but there is always an opportunity for healing in these events, an opportunity to look beyond what we want, what we expect and try to see how God is shaping those of us still taking up space here in the now. The answer lies there.
This weekend's news was startling on so many fronts- political, sports, world events, as it seems to be from day to day now, as it always has been. The most startling and disturbing for me, one of those that leaves me empty and looking for meaning, a local thirteen year old acquaintance of my son, killed in an accident involving an all terrain vehicle. The news barely sinks in before the whys begin to come forth from all directions. But no matter the answers, if they are answered at all, the end result remains, a child, a blossoming flower, is plucked before it fully blooms and someones hopes and dreams, someones heart ache, someones first crush, someones little girl, is dead.
So we may turn to God and ask how can this happen? It is easy, on such occasions, to look to the sky, shake one's fist and demand to know the answer that we ourselves can not give. Oh, we can explain dangerous activities, unsafe conditions, mechanical failure, etc, but only God can, we suppose, answer the most painful of questions. But God is silent. And the questioner walks away, angry, humiliated, perhaps even no longer believing in the existence of this careless thing once followed in better times.
God, the Divine, the omniscient, the all powerful, the creator- does care about these things. Cares, because we are all part of his "fabric", we are part of the soul of time, of light, of God. In the most troubling times, the most confusing, there is always healing. We may not understand why things like this happen, but there is always an opportunity for healing in these events, an opportunity to look beyond what we want, what we expect and try to see how God is shaping those of us still taking up space here in the now. The answer lies there.
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