Musings

Why I'm Here

Standing at a bus stop and watching, instead of waiting.  Seeing the world from that spot, observing the people rushing by on foot, on bicycles, in cars.  Seeing something, if ever so little, of what each of them sees as I catch expressions on their faces, cues from body language.  Snippets of their stories, hints of who they are.   For a while – I don’t know how long - it’s all about them, not about me.  Until the bus surprises me with its arrival, its doors jerking open.

Walking on the pale, crunchy dirt of a mountain trail, and for a moment, experiencing a break from my usual absorption with the inner dialogue that occupies my thought.  Hearing the call of a bird.  Stopping, turning, looking.  Wondering, then giving up on trying to remember the name of the species of the bird.  Just listening, following the notes and tones of its song.  Really paying attention to that song, maybe for the first time? But for a moment the time doesn’t matter.  For me, for then, it was just about the sound.

My tentative conclusion about the meaning and purpose of life is this:  I am here to notice.  To be awake to the living beauty and fascination that surrounds me in everyday life.  I’m here to watch, to listen, to feel, to be, to let be.  To empty myself of my self-absorption, and make room for other things, other people, the divine Other.

And, by contrast, I am not here to be successful, not here to achieve things.  Nor am I here just to put in time – to finish the day or the week or the year, to make it to retirement. I’m here to be and to see, not to do and get through.  

It’s strange to write such a paragraph, focused as I usually am on projects, swept along in the torrent of stuff that runs through my mind.  Mostly, I act as if achieving my goals, and the getting the resulting social approval, is the purpose of my life.  Mostly, I don’t step back to carefully consider the thoughts or urges that motivate me toward these goals.  I don’t notice them any more than a bike notices the road on which it is riding.  Unexamined expectations, assumptions, and desires: these are aiming the bike down the road, not I.  No wonder, then, that when I wake up and take hold of the handlebars, sometimes I’m shocked to see where the bike is headed.

If life indeed is about waking up from the sleep that usually passes for wakefulness, and then paying attention, this is a purpose that can be fulfilled anywhere.  I don’t have to wait to discover the meaning of life.  I don’t have to strive long to find it.  The point of life is right in front of me in each moment.  I can find its meaning in special, satisfying moments of my career, or just as much in the routines of my workday.  I can find it by taking a walk in the neighborhood around our home as much as I can find it on an exotic vacation.  A person unable to rise from bed in a nursing home can still pay attention and experience the purpose of life.  

I worked as a nurse’s aide during my college years.  A memorable few of the people for whom I cleaned bedpans and drained catheter bags were possessed of a serenity that greatly surprised me.  They seemed to have learned the fine art of simply being there, noticing and appreciating what and whomever was around them.  Their example taught me that what worked for them in dying might work for me in living.

Is there any purer form of worship than simply noticing how the Divine is manifested in the everyday miracles that surround us?  Do we not serve others best when we carefully notice who they are and what they are doing and saying?  The first line of the Westminster Catechism is this:  “Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”  I interpret it thusly: my one task above all others is to be in a state of reverent awe as I lovingly appreciate the people and the world around me. 

Application for Membership in the 12 Disciples

(for my "Prayer at Tax Time": http://tcpc.blogs.com/musings/2005/04/a_prayer_at_tax.html)

(I scribbled this about 20 years ago while enduring a long and boring church meeting.  I found it this week in the course of looking for some old tax documents, so I'm copying it and sharing it with you.  I hope it lightens your mood as you fill out your 1040's:)

APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE 12 DISCIPLES

Name:   ________________first _____________nickname     bar ______________(father's name)

Address:  __________hut, shack, tent  ____________village  ____________ province  _________empire

Occupation:  __bass fishing  __catfish fishing  __tilapia fishing  __walleye fishing  __tax-collecting  __banditry  __carpentry (houses, furniture)  __carpentry (crosses)  __farming  _____other

Class:  __desperately poor  __dirt poor __poor  __poor but proud

Ethnicity:   __Jew   __Gentile

Family Status - check or fill all that apply:

__married, one wife   __married, two wives  __married, 3 or more wives  __eldest brother  __2nd or lesser brother  __mother still living and kvetching that you don't come home often enough   __ # of children

Do you keep kosher?  __yes  __ no    If yes, really? __yes  __no

Hobbies:   __fishing   __other

Political Affiliation:   __Pharisee   __Sadducee   __Zealot    If Zealot, which faction?  __People's Front for the Liberation of Israel  __Front for the People's Liberation of Israel  __Revolutionary People's Front for the Liberation of Israel  __Front for the Revolutionary Liberation of Israel  __Peasant's Front for the Salvation of Israel  __Peasant's Party for the Violent Overthrow of the Roman Empire  __other faction

Medical Status:   __lame  __blind  __leper  __resurrected   __demon-possessed   ___________other

Education:  __Bar Mitzvah  __Hanging out in synagogue/temple  __School of hard knocks   _______other

Have you ever been someone else's disciple?  __yes  __no

        If yes, reason for defecting: ___________________________

Have you ever loved your enemies before?  __yes   __no  __are you crazy?  __am willing to try

Have you ever performed any of the following miracles:

__walking on water  __ healing lepers  __healing the blind  __turning water into wine  __multiplying loaves/fishes  __resurrecting dead people  __pulling money out of fishes' mouths __no, but am willing to try any/all of the above

Ever offered forgiveness to someone who harmed you?  __yes  __no  __I still hate that @*!)**[email protected]   __am willing to try to forgive

Have you ever been persecuted for righteousness' sake?  __yes  __no    If yes, describe persecution:______________________  Are you ready for more?  __yes  __no

Do you have transportation:  __sandals  __walking stick __camel  __ox  __ass  __boat

Are you literate? __yes   __no  __kinda

         If not, provide name and address of person who assisted you in filling out this form: ________________________

Please deliver this completed form to: Simon, aka "Peter", Director of Personnel and Recruitment.

Turning the Tables

(I'll be giving this speech at a rally for universal, single-payer health insurance in front of the White House health care reform forum in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, 4/6 - held at the California Endowment building, 1000 Alameda, 9 am - come and join us!)

I have a question for the health insurance industry advocates who are inside this building today.  Whom would Jesus deny health insurance?  I think we all know the answer to this question.  And yet as we speak, the bureaucrats who have been denying people health insurance for decades are now inside this building, trying to convince the government to bail out their business.

Jesus told his followers to do just two things: preach the good news of the gospel, and heal the sick.  You can’t do one without doing the other.  It’s hard to hear the good news when you are sick, and if somebody heals you, that IS the good news.  Jesus practiced what he preached.  He offered health care to every ailing person he met.  Even if, and especially if, they had pre-existing conditions!

Healing the sick doesn’t just mean praying for them, wonderful as prayer is.  We have to back up our prayers with action.  And that is what brings me here today, with other Christians, and with sisters and brothers of other faiths, too.  I’m here to do what Jesus told me to do.  The health care system in this country is sick.  It needs healing.  There’s a cure, and it’s called universal, single-payer health insurance.  HR 676 at a national level.  SB 840 in California.   As a Christian, as a citizen,  I’m here to do my part as a healer, and advocate for real change.

Some people are nervous about the government being our health insurance provider.  But let’s be realistic about this.   Anybody here think it’s a good idea for the government to decide what kind of shoes we should wear, what kind of movies we should watch, what kind of clothes we should buy?  If that’s what you believe, then you are a socialist.  But if you think that public sewers are better than private outhouses, if you think a publicly funded army is better than having a bunch of competing private militias to protect your country, if you think that it is better to pay taxes for public highways than to have a patchwork of private toll roads – and if you think that it is better to have a rational, efficient public health insurance system to cover every American, instead of having 45 million of your fellow citizens without any insurance at all, and tens of millions more with woefully inadequate insurance, that is not socialism – that is just good common sense. 

The health insurance industry bosses see a gravy train coming round the bend as they sit inside this building today.  They want corporate welfare – a system that forces all of us to send them our money, guaranteeing more of the existing inefficiency and waste, continuing to siphon money away from health care and into expensive marketing and bureaucracy.  They want a cash IV, not a cure for the health care crisis.  They want health care de-form, not health care re-form!

The moneychangers who run our deformed health insurance system are inside this building, they are at the table.  We’re outside.  So it is time for us to do what Jesus did, and turn over the tables of the moneychangers, and make things right.  We are done with the present system.  We don’t want the present system to be tweaked, we want it to go away.  We want a lively free enterprise economy, and we want public water mains and public schools and public roads and publicly funded, privately provided health care, and we want it NOW!  Amen….