"A Miserable Soul"

One of the more intriguing notes in my stack of retirement cards had this handwritten sentence: "Thank you for doing all you could to save my miserable soul."  How would you understand this sentence?  I called them 'Mom' and 'Dad' before I really understood I would not be here without them.  I came from them and some of my 'characteristics' (and character!) from physical appearance to gene pool reflect their essence in my life.  I learned to call God 'Daddy' before I really understood I would not be here without God.  If you would allow me (and I am going to say it anyway) my soul is from God.  How then could it be miserable?  That is not a characteristic of God!
Synonyms for miserable are helpful to my comments: bleak and forlorn-not too exciting a way to talk about oneself; wretched and godforsaken-now that's a little grim.  These words may describe how I feel at times BUT they do not describe my soul.  My soul may be affected by my behavior and choices which leave me feeling miserable, even godforsaken.  BUT my soul was not infected at my birthing by wretchedness (allow me to blog another day about 'original sin').
My soul, your soul, is part of the gift of life, part of all that we are.  I suspect we in the church have talked so long about our miserable souls that we have left any number of people feeling wretched and godforsaken. How could that which is God given be miserable?
I think I understand what my dear friend was saying to me and I deeply appreciate his compliment about the effect of my ministry in his life.  However, I have not seen my role as 'saving' anyone's miserable soul.  I have sought to help others celebrate the soulfulness of God that was, is, and always will be part of their lives.  And, for me, that soul is described, not by synonyms, but by antonyms for miserable: cheerful, joyful, encouraged.  These are characteristics of God and I pray you have discovered this 'gene pool' of God in your life.  A chorus from one of our old hymns has always been important to me: "It is well with my soul."

Training The Eye

For the past month I have had to deal with 'floaters' in my left eye.  They became very noticeable following a laser procedure.  My doctor says it often comes with 'older people', especially those with lens implants.  I have lens implants but I am still getting used to being one of the 'older people'!  Anyway, they are so annoying.  Much of the time I do not even know they are there.  Then I am reading and suddenly a black dot with ragged edges slides into the center of my vision turning printed words fuzzy.  Or I get ready to hit the tennis ball and a tangled black string slips into view and my eye follows its movement instead of the yellow ball.  Man, these floaters are messing up my vision!  The good news (according to my doctor) is that there is no tear in the retina and the eye can 'learn' not to see these floaters.  While they will always be hanging around, apparently the eye can be trained to ignore them.
All of this has left me wondering if some of the emotional aspects of my life are also affected in a similar way.  Hurtful actions and hateful words by others collect in some inner corner of my brain.  Most days I don't see them but then comes a challenging time or a vulnerable moment and suddenly my inner eye sees the 'floaters'.  My inner eye focuses on yesterday's collection of ragged lines and and black dots-each one a barrier to clearly seeing the day.  I get annoyed as my eye focuses on the floater and not the world in front of me.  Maybe I need to train my inner eye to look through these floaters and keep them from clouding the joy of this day.
My eye doctor tells me it can take months to train my left eye to ignore the floaters and focus on what I am seeing or reading.  I suspect it may take me years to train my inner eye to ignore those emotional floaters and focus on the day I have.  Let the training begin!

Of Fireflies and Fireworks

I sat in the wicker chair with my grandson, Aiden, watching some neighborhood fireworks shower the gray sky with multi-colored bursts just above the tree line.  With each explosion he would comment on how 'cool' that was.  The backdrop for the fireworks was an approaching thunderstorm.  The clouds stacked up, back lit by the remaining rays of sunlight.  Thunder rolled around us like bowling balls careening down polished alleys.  Slashing ribbons of lightening lit up the night sky as gray clouds sealed off the starlight.  Aiden said 'cool.' Fireflies came near us and one flew into a spider web near the concrete porch.  On hands and knees with his nose pressed near the web Aiden asked me: "How do they do that?" "Why do they do that?" "Will the spider kill it?" "Is it already dead?"  Then he used the tip of his finger to flip the firefly free.  He picked up a small stone, prodding the blinking yellow light-a nighttime caution sign.  Without hesitation the stone came down pressing the firefly into the concrete.  Aiden said 'cool.'  And I remembered my childhood moments sitting on the front porch of our home watching storms fall into the Pennsylvania hills.  And I remembered my childhood curiosity and smashing of fireflies.  Then Aiden called to me: "Look, Grandpa!  See all the fireflies."  The field across from us was a dark green blanket with a thousand dancing yellow lanterns, flickering on and off.  Aiden said 'cool.'  Where did I lose sight of how truly cool this gift of life is?  For a moment last night the concerns on my mind, the worries about world issues, and any restlessness they were stirring inside of me were lost in the joy of the moment.  And Grandpa said 'cool.'