Just Bloom…

A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.

When I was younger I thought my competitive nature was a strength. It gave me grit and determination. Anytime someone told me I could NOT, I found an inclination to DO IT. There were some benefits to this, although each battle to DO this thing, whatever it was, that went against the grain of cultural norms took its toll. No big deal - this is life.

At my advanced age of 65, my perspective is changing. Maybe that’s developmentally appropriate, I do not know. But I still FEEL that competitive drive. I STILL want to beat my husband at tennis. I can win some games, but I have never won a set off him. I really, really want to beat him. This is not going to happen. I couldn’t do it a couple of years ago when he basically had a right arm that did not function properly - and he’s right-handed. My heart races at the thought of pulling off a victory.

I see a similar drive in my grandson. He wants to run the fastest, jump the highest, win all the games. I get it, I really do. But as I review my life, I have come to the conclusion that this push to do what others tell me I cannot has not always been beneficial. In fact, it has come with a pretty high price tag at times.

Because I am still a science nerd, I came across this perspective on competition from a biological perspective:

Competition is a negative interaction that occurs among organisms whenever two or more organisms require the same limited resource… Therefore, competitors reduce each other’s growth, reproduction, or survival.

(Source: www.biologyreference.com/Ce-Co/Competition.html#ixzz3xK2cfjuj)

Competition is part of the American ethos. I see adults with particular sport team allegiances acting like their friends who cheer for different teams are their arch enemy! I watch people compete for parking spaces (back in the day when we went outside) as if having to walk a few extra feet would kill them. Don’t even get me started on the competitive nature of politics! Our culturally encouraged, often primal urge to compete is reducing us.

What are we going to do about it?

Masterpieces of Inherent Value

You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress. Simultaneously.

I’m told by people who study such things that each of us has a tendency to either focus on the past, the present or the future. I suppose that the ideal scenario is when we can manage to juggle all three. We remember the past to inspire us to change, remind us of God’s gifts, guide our decisions. We live in the present because that is all we have and we should work hard to show up for it without distraction. We look to the future, we see the horizon, we march toward it with dreams and determination.

When we get stuck in only one of the three relationships to time, we miss perspective.

We are masterpieces because of our inherent value - created by God to work with God on bringing his kingdom to earth - fully human in the best possible sense of the word. We are works in progress because we are simultaneously ONLY human. We are fragile, we make mistakes.

Today, consider your orientation to time. Are you distracted by the past? Perhaps it is holding you back from both your present and future. Are you too focused on the present? Do you lose sight of the lessons the past has to offer or the call to the future that inspires hope for change? Do you waste precious moments in the here and how because you eagerly stand on tip toe looking into the future? The future is not real - today is real.

May we all find a way to expand our time continuum, so that we do the work we need to do without losing sight of the masterpiece we already are!

Inherent Worth

I’m coming to believe that my worth isn’t based on my productivity. My worth is inherent - and yours is too.

Author unknown

Inherent worth, when applied to all humanity, requires that we develop the discipline of treating everyone with respect and dignity. And that’s just the starting point.

I keep returning to this principle as I find myself resisting it, looking for exception clauses and ways around this responsibility. But again and again, I return to this idea that I am responsible FOR living out my core values, which makes me responsible TO my fellow humans.

We can treat people with respect and dignity even as consequences are meted out for wrongs committed. This is why we have this thing called “due process”, where people are innocent until proven guilty. But once they are found guilty, there is this accompanying principle called justice.

Even in the handing out of justice, we are still bound to the foundational principle of treating others with dignity and respect.

This requires us to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to be able to appropriately discern when we administer justice and how we do so with respect and dignity for all. This includes the victims and the perpetrators. And it is very, very hard work.

But first, let’s start with ourselves. Because until we do that, it will be impossible for us to figure out how to apply it to others.

You are a person of inherent worth. It is not based on your behavior, beliefs, or your best efforts. You have worth because you are a human, created by God and in his image. This worth is a right and a responsibility. It will necessitate careful and prayerful consideration of the choices you, you inherently worthy person, will make about how you live your “one wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver).

Because you are worthy, you know that you are capable of being a worthwhile person. But you are still worthy of respect and dignity, no matter what you do, or do not do, with your life.

Following Your Inner Compass

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol, some amazing stories are emerging worthy of a Lifetime movie special. A young son calls a government agency to warn them that his dad is planning to go to Washington, D.C. for the express purpose of killing people. His father, sensing that his son was not on board with his political perspective or his plans, threatens his kid. He tells him - if you go to the authorities, I will consider you a traitor. And traitors must be killed. The son makes the call anyway. The father is subsequently arrested and faces many serious charges.

What kind of strength did it take for that boy to make that call? Today he lives in hiding, fearful for his life, dependent on the generosity of friends to provide for his needs.

I wonder what his mom thinks. I wonder how his siblings reacted to the news that he had made this call.

Someone asked him why he did it. He said he just knew it was wrong to hurt other people, no matter what you believed about their politics.

Who knows what else will come out about this story. But it seems to me that anyone who would go to such lengths must have some inner compass, deep within them, to go against the grain of his family system.

For those who find themselves in a position of having to take a stand for lovingkindness that costs them relationships, let’s pray:

I ask you, God, to strengthen all of us by your Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength - that Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly in love, we’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:15-19 The Message (with some pronoun adjustments)

A Meditation on Love…

Intuition is louder when you are still.

Angela Gorringe

Take a few minutes to sit and breathe. Pay attention to the feel of your breath. Take time to remind yourself to trust that all is proceeding along lines planned by God and executed in Jesus. Picture yourself using your freedom to say whatever needs to be said, whatever needs doing to be done, within the boundary of turning your life and will over to the care of God.

Imagine all the free time that will emerge when our decisions are in alignment with our values. Love God? Then we love our neighbor too, right? So we don’t need to complain, critique, criticize, judge, or try to change them.

Love your neighbor? That’s hard to do at times! But it is far more compelling to focus on how to do THAT than it is to spend time trying to make excuses for why you should not have to love them.