...and often, that is all we remember, and tragically, all we can manage to bring into our relationships.
"Because I was hurt, I cannot forgive that sin."
"Because you laughed at me, I only feel sorrow when I see you."
"Because I think I am better, you will always seem worse in my eyes."
We humans can become extremely adept at these games.
After all, when our concept of God hews more closely to the Japanese anime figure Uchuu Keiji Shaider ("Space Sheriff Shaider") than, say, Jehovah Roi ("The LORD is my Shepherd"), there can be an inordinate discomfort at the sheer thought of His 24/7 surveillance in the background, and our 24/7 sinfulness in the foreground.
And, as a balm to relieve that, there is the inescapable temptation to commit some kind of spiritual prestidigitation...Voila! The sinner is gone; lo and behold, in his place now stands a Little Sheriff.
And where is the sinner? Naturally, any man, woman or child unfortunate enought to be in the proximity of the Little Sheriff.
The truth is, though, that Max Lucado's complete statement includes a disclaimer of sorts: "...Yet because God is loving, He cannot dismiss you."
Now this is the part many of us fail to understand. Indeed, if only doctorate degrees could be conferred upon those who fail to understand this, I believe I shall be among the ranks of the most erudite and eminent. For alas, the only degrees I now have in my hand are degrees of intellectual unbelief and degrees of relational unkindness.
How can God really love...me? I don't even like myself half the time. Okay, most of the time. But then again, as many wise men have quietly whispered to our performance-weary, pretense-numbed hearts: He does not take into account our performance. Our mere existence is validation enough for him.
It's as if His hand were a weighing scale, and our weight, our calculated value is forever fixed: somewhere in a depth we cannot fathom, a height we cannot scale, a veritable continuum we cannot begin to see the end of either way.
Whether we choose to stay in His hands, or scamper off to some darknesses, the weight is constant. The moment we return to the scale, the weight is the same as when we were there, as when we left, and as when we run off again.
Because God is loving, I can imitate Him. Where gaps exist to make me an imitation of the most inferior kind, He can step in to bridge the divides. Where I am ready to give up, He gives more grace. Where I feel I have been dealt humanity's most colossal injustice, He kneels down low beside me and quietly opens His hand to show me where the nails went through, once upon a time, to become God's tool for humanity's justification.
He looks into my eyes and says,
"Because I am loving, and I am in you, then so are you:
capable of loving."
Nothing here of the galactic Sheriff.
But everything of the genuine Shepherd.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Lessons from a little rolled-up plastic bag...
Tied neatly, compactly with a nondescript rubber band.
The kind of rolled-up bags I often saw my Mom, Lulu Molina,
put in the deep pockets of her thick A-line skirts,
the kind she always wore as we went to the public market
to buy produce.
There was a time I would shake my head at her incomprehensible
to me, at least) thoroughness in rolling up those used
plastic bags. And wonder why she always seemed to regard them
as palm-sized treasures.
Then as I began to come with her to the market more often,
I got to see more and more of her wisdom, and the unassuming
kindness that underpinned her wisdom; as women laden with bags
would panic whenever a flimsy bag handle would break,
spilling rolling potatoes, bouncing onions and other
unruly vegetables all over the jeepney floor, or across
the crowded sidewalks.
Mommy would immediately set down her own bags, help the women
gather their goods, and offer those precious little rolls
to replace their tattered bags.
There were other lessons, as well.
How, contrary to some conventional wisdom on social hierarchies,
she would invite our house helpers, or the occasional laundry woman,
to dine with us. Or attend birthday parties and weddings and
Christmases and every conceivable celebration with us.
How her dear friend's packages and parcels from the US would be
opened excitedly in the middle of the living or dining room,
and she would be in the midst of all our hubbub, dividing each bag
of chocolates, each bundle of clothes, each set of soap bars
between siblings, or relatives. in other households.
She defied economic theories as traditionally finite resources--
think Mars candy bars, old Levis jeans and so-pure-it-floats-on-water
Ivory Soap bars--could mysteriously multiply and assume
seemingly unlimited proportions as she managed, somehow, some way,
always, to ensure that no one was ever left empty-handed.
But most profound are the lessons she taught by not teaching.
She did not teach us to lie. She never taught us to covet.
Or to be vain. Or ungrateful.
She did not teach us to forget one another, or to distance
ourselves from friends.
Decades before Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, etc., she was busily
logging entries in her thick, nubby-edged notebook--her hard copy
version of a database. It was (and still is) a marketer's dream list--
names of old/newfound/rediscovered relatives, friends, their spouses
and children and parents and siblings; wedding anniversaries,
Catholic patron saints/feast days, birthdays, death anniversaries,
and sundry other data.
She faithfully updated that; and long before Facebook's friend suggestions functionality, she would find ways to link up friends with some
common denominators that she always managed to dig up.
A network marketer par excellance, without any help from Randy Gage,
Zig Ziglar, et al. (If she ever chooses to make them into downlines,
she could give MLMIA veterans a run for their dollars.)
And, oh, how Al Gore would love to have a chat with her!
I remember distinctly, in the late 70s and early 80s, part of her
daily refrains were admonitions about conserving water ("Time will
come when you will have to pay more for water to drink," decades
before the bottled water industry took off), energy, and caring,
not just for environmental sanitation, but the frontliners as well:
garbage collectors.
Shards of broken glass, cut-off tin can tops were always carefully
wrapped in scrap cardboard, "so the garbage collector doesn't get hurt
from handling them."
Scrap paper, bits of thread, empty jars, tin cans, beverage bottles,
used boxes: there was always just room for a little more in the house.
Even flour sacks would be cut up and re-sewn into blankets for us.
If I didn't know any better, I would have thought myself to be adopted,
and her real surname to be Recycle.
Now into her 80s, Mommy is alive and well.
Not as active in her social pursuits as she would like--grappling with
the realities of frail bones and lifestyle diseases--but despite
forgetting to take her cardio or diabetes medicines, she never forgets
a birthday in the family, the extended rosters of relatives,
or her still-growing network of friends.
And so we learn from her, still.
And in her thoughtful silences, it is her voice, her outstretched
helping hand, her faithful greeting cards that continue to
speak volumes about kindness, friendliness, thoughtfulness,
frugality, stewardship of resources...
And the kindness and wisdom of always having a spare little
rolled-up plastic bag in your pocket.
The kind of rolled-up bags I often saw my Mom, Lulu Molina,
put in the deep pockets of her thick A-line skirts,
the kind she always wore as we went to the public market
to buy produce.
There was a time I would shake my head at her incomprehensible
to me, at least) thoroughness in rolling up those used
plastic bags. And wonder why she always seemed to regard them
as palm-sized treasures.
Then as I began to come with her to the market more often,
I got to see more and more of her wisdom, and the unassuming
kindness that underpinned her wisdom; as women laden with bags
would panic whenever a flimsy bag handle would break,
spilling rolling potatoes, bouncing onions and other
unruly vegetables all over the jeepney floor, or across
the crowded sidewalks.
Mommy would immediately set down her own bags, help the women
gather their goods, and offer those precious little rolls
to replace their tattered bags.
There were other lessons, as well.
How, contrary to some conventional wisdom on social hierarchies,
she would invite our house helpers, or the occasional laundry woman,
to dine with us. Or attend birthday parties and weddings and
Christmases and every conceivable celebration with us.
How her dear friend's packages and parcels from the US would be
opened excitedly in the middle of the living or dining room,
and she would be in the midst of all our hubbub, dividing each bag
of chocolates, each bundle of clothes, each set of soap bars
between siblings, or relatives. in other households.
She defied economic theories as traditionally finite resources--
think Mars candy bars, old Levis jeans and so-pure-it-floats-on-water
Ivory Soap bars--could mysteriously multiply and assume
seemingly unlimited proportions as she managed, somehow, some way,
always, to ensure that no one was ever left empty-handed.
But most profound are the lessons she taught by not teaching.
She did not teach us to lie. She never taught us to covet.
Or to be vain. Or ungrateful.
She did not teach us to forget one another, or to distance
ourselves from friends.
Decades before Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, etc., she was busily
logging entries in her thick, nubby-edged notebook--her hard copy
version of a database. It was (and still is) a marketer's dream list--
names of old/newfound/rediscovered relatives, friends, their spouses
and children and parents and siblings; wedding anniversaries,
Catholic patron saints/feast days, birthdays, death anniversaries,
and sundry other data.
She faithfully updated that; and long before Facebook's friend suggestions functionality, she would find ways to link up friends with some
common denominators that she always managed to dig up.
A network marketer par excellance, without any help from Randy Gage,
Zig Ziglar, et al. (If she ever chooses to make them into downlines,
she could give MLMIA veterans a run for their dollars.)
And, oh, how Al Gore would love to have a chat with her!
I remember distinctly, in the late 70s and early 80s, part of her
daily refrains were admonitions about conserving water ("Time will
come when you will have to pay more for water to drink," decades
before the bottled water industry took off), energy, and caring,
not just for environmental sanitation, but the frontliners as well:
garbage collectors.
Shards of broken glass, cut-off tin can tops were always carefully
wrapped in scrap cardboard, "so the garbage collector doesn't get hurt
from handling them."
Scrap paper, bits of thread, empty jars, tin cans, beverage bottles,
used boxes: there was always just room for a little more in the house.
Even flour sacks would be cut up and re-sewn into blankets for us.
If I didn't know any better, I would have thought myself to be adopted,
and her real surname to be Recycle.
Now into her 80s, Mommy is alive and well.
Not as active in her social pursuits as she would like--grappling with
the realities of frail bones and lifestyle diseases--but despite
forgetting to take her cardio or diabetes medicines, she never forgets
a birthday in the family, the extended rosters of relatives,
or her still-growing network of friends.
And so we learn from her, still.
And in her thoughtful silences, it is her voice, her outstretched
helping hand, her faithful greeting cards that continue to
speak volumes about kindness, friendliness, thoughtfulness,
frugality, stewardship of resources...
And the kindness and wisdom of always having a spare little
rolled-up plastic bag in your pocket.
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