We're All Pretty Tense Right Now

Regardless of political affiliation, we’re all pretty tense right now, understandably so. News via every medium is a mess of innuendo and accusation. We turn on our television to watch some baseball or a favorite program, and our ears are bludgeoned with ads of grownups calling each other names that we would send our children to timeout for using. Facebook, ordinarily the repository of vacation pics and cat memes, has become the place where “friends” engage in bitter, partisan commentary. Even in the places where we usually try to be honest, like our families and our churches, we are so busy trying to be careful about what we say that we’re not saying much of anything to each other at all. So we’re tense and terse and snapping at people that, under normal circumstances, we like a whole lot.

We’re all holding our breath, praying that it will all be over soon. And praying that we won’t wake up The Morning After to find that our deepest fear is now our elected President.

How do we retain our sanity and our joy in these times? How do we maintain our friendships, even when we may be hoping that our friend’s deeply held hopes and dreams come crashing down around them on Election Day? How do we, who try our best to follow the One who is above all earthly governments, find places of faith and grace in these days as we pray and strive ardently for our own vision for our government?

Breathe. Right now, just pause and take a deep breath. Relax your shoulders.

Be kind to someone today, even if you feel pretty certain they’re voting for the scoundrel that you aren’t. Be especially kind to those folks.

Be kind to yourself. Turn off the television, or watch cable channels for the duration. Feel free to take a Facebook vacation, or unfollow people whose posts you find troubling. Instead, walk outside in this unseasonably warm autumn, look at God’s good creation, and breathe. 

Practice trusting God. I mean that literally. Trusting God is hard work, and it takes practice to get good at it. Sometimes I’m pretty good at it, and sometimes I need to go back to the batting cage or the books or The Book, or wherever it is that I can remind myself whose I am. 

On Election Day, we’re going to practice trusting God by praying. The sanctuary at First UMC will be open for prayer from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Feel free to come by before or after voting. We will also have prayer services at 7:15 a.m. and noon. We’ll gather together with whoever shows up, and we’ll lift our candidates and our concerns for our nation to God. There will likely be people praying side by side who have voted for different people. That will be exactly as it should be in God’s house.

An attorney who spends most of his times in courtrooms said to me a while back, “You know, politics isn’t like a lawsuit. In a lawsuit, there is a winner and a loser, and you never have to see each other again once it’s over. In politics, you still have to live next door to one another even after it’s done.” 

Yep.

So we’ll be together in God’s house on Election Day. And the day after that. And after that, and on and on, we’ll all be together in God’s house until that day comes when we all feast together, Republicans and Democrats and Independents and everyone else, in God’s heavenly kingdom. So we'd better keep practicing our manners for that big heavenly potluck, even now. Especially now.

My Lonely, Shy, (hopefully) Friendly Ghost

Our church offices are in a really cool 1950’s house, built back when Blue Springs only had one doctor in town. My office is in the former den, I’m guessing. It has wood paneling and a nifty built-in television set, with 13 channels  on the dial. Although the television no longer works, I love having my office in such a cozy, quirky space.

There is one other distinct quirk to my office.  I share my office with a ghost. 

He (she?) makes her presence known when I leave my office- sometimes. After I’ve pulled my door shut and walk down the hallway, I will hear a loud “thunk” behind me, as if someone has just flung themselves against my door. On a recent weekend, Jan and I were in the office before worship. She walked out before I did. I closed my office, and there was the noise. I didn’t think much about it and, realizing I had left something behind, I went back into my office. Once again, as soon as I left, there was a really loud “thunk.” “Okay,” I said aloud, “now you’re starting to scare me.”

Except that she isn’t scaring me, exactly. She intrigues me. By making her noise only when I leave, I gather that she is lonely and doesn’t like to be left alone.

Now that I have begun to notice these noises, I have started to ask others to listen with me. They wait, patiently and alertly, while I shut my door and walk down the hall. Nothing. I’ve asked several different people at several different times to listen. Nothing, except for quizzical (and maybe sympathetic) glances from the listeners. (“Gee, Sally, you’ve really been working awfully hard lately. . .”)  Apparently, my ghost is shy and doesn’t like to make her noise when others are around. 

I was the last one to leave the office tonight. My mind was on my shopping list as I walked out, when a loud “thunk” reminded me of the ghost I was leaving behind. 

Who needs Halloween when one has a ghost of one’s own?

If you know me at all, you know that the only ghost I actually believe in is the Holy Ghost. I know, also, that there are many things in this world that defy understanding. I’ve been casting around some for a logical explanation, and none has been forthcoming yet. Maybe something tragic happened in that room, or maybe it’s that the air conditioning creates some weird air pressure thing. Who knows?

I do love a good ghost story, though, because I know they don’t speak fully into reality, only into a human effort to understand that for which there isn’t a clear explanation. So here is my very own ghost story- Happy Halloween!

“Thank you for not having been THAT parent!”

“Thank you for not having been that parent!” My Daughter the Teacher told me those words last night, with some exasperation in her voice. She’s in a position with a couple of her school organizations to make decisions about which kids make the club/team/cut. She understands that some students will be disappointed, and she’s always ready to talk to any student who asks. When her email blew up this weekend after a Friday posting, though, it wasn’t the students who were contacting her. It was the parents who were upset that their budding genius/prodigy hadn’t been chosen.

“Thank you for not having been that parent!” No, I really wasn’t that parent. But I need to confess here and now that there was nothing I would have loved better than being that parent. There were times when I had to fight every bone in my body not to pick up the telephone or go to the school to right a wrong. However, Andy and I decided early on that the best thing that we could do for our kids was to teach them how to move forward though disappointment. Sometimes teacher or coach decisions were made for good reasons, and occasionally they seemed to be downright unfair. Sometimes friends would be unkind to them, accidentally or intentionally. I would console my kids and encourage them to find the best way forward. Internally, though, I would be seething, composing letters and phone calls that were never made nor sent.

“Thank you for not having been that parent!” In retrospect, there were some times that I should have been that parent that I wasn’t. There was a teacher whose dislike for my child seemed to play out in classroom targeting and incongruous grading. I know how those words sound to anyone reading them today, which was partly why I kept silent at the time. I wish I had spoken to the principal, because it turns out that there were other kids in that class having similar issues. 

“Thank you for not having been that parent!” I remember one time that I was that parent. My alma mater had not done an adequate job of recruiting my child, in my opinion. I called the admissions office to discuss my concerns, and the conversation did not go well. By the end of the phone call, the junior admissions officer was openly mocking me. My child ended up in just the right school and has done extremely well, thank you very much. Had my child actually wanted to go to my alma mater as much as I wanted that child to, though, my phone call would have totally sabotaged any chance. 

It turns out that God has placed parenting in the hands of amateurs. We’re all figuring it out as we go along. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, and most of the time we’re not exactly sure which it is. I think that’s why God gave us love. Love will always cover a multitude of errors. If parents and kids can keep loving each other while each is figuring it out, then maybe we’ll be able to help create the next generation who’s going to save the earth. Love holds the answer.

A parent who loves through thick and thin. Yes, that’s the type of parent to be.