Grateful

 “Have you considered using lipstick?, my well meaning and loving relative asked me., “I think it would add a bit of cheerful color to your face” she said. “Your lips are pale and thin and it would probably look good on you.”

My relative isn’t proud or judgmental.  She loves me. And I happen to know that she was raised with the adage that “it behooves us all to make the environment of others pleasant, and one way to do that is to look well put together”.  I get where she’s coming from and how she’s trying to be helpful.

Perhaps lipstick would make me “look better”.  I did wear it, and blush, and mascara when I was in my twenties. But I am not interested in using them now.

When I look at my face in the mirror and I see my thin, pale lips, I am grateful that I have lips! And that they work!  I am also grateful for my eyes that need glasses, my long straight nose, my unremarkable, undecorated ears, and my skin with its rows of wrinkles around my face and down my neck.  What a blessing lips, eyes, noses, ears and skin are!  The are complex, amazing, physiological structures.  They bless my life every single day.  The blow me away when I think about them and how much they do for me.  

Some might say, that wearing lipstick is a way of making a good thing “better”.  But color and style are not in my definition of “better”.  They are in my definitions of colorful and stylish. I like color, and I think style is an interesting topic to briefly peruse when it shows up in my reading, but they are qualities that are way down my list of valued characteristics.  

And so I find that it feels kind of odd to consider adding a quality that is way down my list of valued qualities to an object that is, in and of itself, already absolutely amazing and for which I am extremely grateful.

I don’t mind at all when others wear lipstick, or make up.  I find it interesting to see what they have created on their faces.  Some of them are real artists with it and I appreciate the art.

But, I am okay with my face just the way it is. And I am over-the-moon grateful for it just the way it is.  

The blessing of hearing and turning away. Acts 3:26

"to you first, God, having raised up His child Jesus, did send him, blessing you, in the turning away of each one from your evil ways."
Acts 3:26

The lessons we teach here often focus on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, speaking reverently and gratefully for his gift of taking the punishment for our sins, paying the price for them, so that we may repent and stand, redeemed and "justified", before God at the last day. 

There is another profound blessing that comes as we learn the teachings Jesus taught when God sent him to earth and he lived here and as, a result of that learning, repent,  turning away from our evil ways.  And that blessing is every day, not just at the last day.

I realize how much freer and meaningful and profound our daily lives are when we turn from "evil ways" and follow the teachings of Christ (whether or not we realize they are the things he taught). And also, I am aware of how many unhappy natural and logical consequences we avoid that would otherwise arise from our own personal choices to indulge in "evil ways".  

We do not usually speak of this because doing so causes us to sound too much like the pharisee praying in the temple "Oh Lord, I am grateful that I am not like so and so...."  (Luke 18:10-12) And that's a pit to avoid like the plague.

But this verse at the end of Peter's remarks to the crowd at the temple reminds me that it is good to stop and recognize privately, to God, the daily, freeing, blessing it is to have been made aware of the wise principles and practices that Jesus taught while on earth, and the blessing of being able to choose them, and that I should be humbly grateful for the logical and natural consequences that result when we incorporate them daily into our lives.

"We thank thee for every blessing, bestowed by thy bounteous hand".

I Am Way Blessed

"surrounded by all the things many people would literally die to give their families. Clean water. An abundance of food. Good health. Access to doctors, hospitals, medicine. Security. Safety. A support network. The ability to vote. The freedom to have a different opinion and not fear for her life.”
Brooke McAlary
http://www.slowyourhome.com/humanity/

When Things Don't Come Together As Planned

Our lease is ending where we've been staying and cannot be renewed.  Our damaged home, which the contractor has been saying for MONTHS will be "surely done by the end of this month", is far from ready for occupation.  I arranged for another short-term rental but now our insurance company says they are betting that it will be done in the next 4 weeks and wants us in a motel for the duration.  I wouldn't bet on it being done by then, given the track record.  But I might be wrong. But it is what it is and I've been packing boxes which will be all put in storage for however much longer the work takes and packing suitcases to live out of for the next month.  Tomorrow we hand the keys back to the landlord.

L. asked me how I avoid feeling frustrated and annoyed by the continual promises of work being done that is not yet done and will likely be delayed.  I've thought about that.  I think it's due to three things.

First it has to do with being consciously grateful.  For a job, for a place to stay, for a table to sit at, a bed to sleep in, enough food to eat, for construction workers with skills, for a book to read.  Gratitude refocuses my view to include not only the challenges but also the blessings.  That fosters peace within me.

Second, it has to do with the old scout adage "be prepared".  I realize that I tend to almost always prepare contingency plans.  I tend to think about what I will do if such and such happens, or what we should do if things don't happen as planned.  And then I lay the groundwork for that as I continue to work towards what I hope will happen.  It isn't a negative expression of distrust or pessimism.  It's just that I know life and work doesn't always come together the way we want it too, and it's good to have prepared, in your back pocket, a constructive response to that when it happens.  Because in spite of everyone's best efforts, sometimes you need that helpful contingency plan.  Sometimes you need a whole string of them.  It's just part of life.

Third, it has to do with keeping the current challenge in perspective.  That's related to gratitude, but it has more to do with priorities and brotherhood.  My hope for my house to be made habitable is real and good, but in the prioritized list of hopes I see in the lives of people around me it is not way up on the list.  I am aware of the very real other hopes that are being addressed in my community, hopes for healing from injury and illness, hopes for reuniting of hearts in families, hope for help for those dealing with abuse, hope for help cleaning and rebuilding after the recent tornadoes, hope for shelter and hope and light, hope for young people just starting out in life, hope for people dealing with the challenges that come as one approaches the end of it, the list goes on and on.  This awareness does two things.  It makes me put my own current need in perspective.  And it gets me to work on helping others and their hopes and needs while I wait for mine to be fulfilled, which in turn reduces my focus on and impatience about my own situation.

I think these three things are things I heard about doing when I was young.  It's kind of interesting to me to realize that as an old person, they've become just another part of how I approach life.  I guess teaching young people good things that they only understand in theory when they are young can bring about good change down the road.  For those teachers and relatives who taught me, I am grateful.

Many are called....

Reading through the Book of Matthew, I encountered again the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.  You know, the one where the householder hires day laborers who are seeking employment throughout the day, some in the morning, some in the afternoon and others just before evening, to help him with his work.  And then, at the end of the day pays the first ones, as they had agreed, a day's wages and also pays all the other workers the same. And the ones who have been working all day protest at the unfairness of that arrangement.  And the householder's response is, "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?  Take that thine is, and go they way:  I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?  Is thine eye evil, because I am good?  So the last shall be first and the first last: for many be called but few chosen."

The commentary I was reading along with the text didn't discuss that last phrase.  So, of course, I started mulling over it.

The same phrase appears in the Doctrine and Covenants:

"Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men..."

Often the "few are chosen" phrase is used in discussions about magnifying callings, or being faithful and and not a slacker in the work of God's kingdom: being a valiant worker as opposed to a slothful servant.  Those discussions may even focus on the hard work of those early morning laborers and lead one to erroneously believe that chosen is what they are.  But such discussions can lead us to miss the main point of the parable.

Last week A. and I talked about the role of personal motivations in our peace of mind or lack thereof.  I told her about an epiphany I had about a decade ago while listening to Kathy Goodness speak in a sacrament meeting.  She said, “The motivation for our work in our church callings should be love of God and love for our fellow men.” 

That sentence struck home for me that day.  As Christ taught, all else hangs on these two principles.  It was a catalyst for me to review my motivations in all the various kinds of work I did, and to change them.

And here, again, in this passage, I am reminded.  The householder is speaking to those early morning workers about their focus on justice and receiving recognition ( "they murmured...saying, "These last have wrought but one hour, and thou has made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.") instead of gratitude for the blessing of being employed that day and able to feed their families.  They focused on comparing their worth and on what they thought was just rather than on the blessing for them and for their fellow workers of having a day with work and good pay.   Which is why the householder asks them,  "Is thine eye evil because I am good?"

Many were called.  They were called throughout the day.  But only some resisted the temptation to measure the experience as fully satisfying only if they were recognized and rewarded for the fact that their labors were longer and harder than that of others; only if their extra efforts were noticed and commended, only if things were "fair".

Diligence doesn't make you chosen.  Working longer and harder than others under more difficult circumstances and harvesting more doesn't make you chosen.  Doing God's work with and wanting recognition or validation, verbal, mental or otherwise, from yourself or from others, for how well and long you've done it actually sabotages choseness. 

Being willing to work, keeping your promises to God ("he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day"), and NOT comparing your work with that of others or needing to be recognized ("aspire to the honors of men") for what you've done above and beyond the work of any others who have been called to work as well is the chosenness that God is calling us to.   

It IS being grateful to work for God and simply happy that your fellow workers are as well.   It is another version of having love and gratitude towards God and a love for your fellow men which unreservedly rejoices in their blessings too.  That, I think, is what being chosen means.