People are plotting to do “good”

In an unprecedented move at Northstar Community, last week's blog focused on satan. I personally learned a ton - if you haven't read it, I recommend it. It'll be worth the scroll back! However, I just cannot give satan a day without addressing an idea that for many of us, feels like the opposite of our childish imaginings of satan. Guardian angels. I was first exposed to the concept in the classic movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." Clarence, a hapless angel hoping to earn his wings somehow manages to assist George Bailey and help him find his best life.

The movie itself intrigues me. Although we are all supposed to believe that George Bailey is a good guy, after obsessively watching this movie for decades every Christmas, my adult eyes came to understand George in ways my child's perspective could not comprehend. George is an angry guy. He's resentful. He's depressed and contemplating suicide. His dreams have been thwarted at every turn. In today's world, George's behavior toward his wife would be considered abusive. George Bailey is a guy who the community thinks of as honorable; he does the "right" thing. But George is dragged down by the expectations and obligations of others. He is a reluctant, very resentful servant.

I missed this about George for years because in my mind, George's perspective makes sense. Even when doing his best - heroic, noble actions - he still ends up with negative consequences! Who wouldn't resent this? it took me awhile to see that this movie is as much about the dark as it is the light. Evil lurks. It is not just another feel good Christmas movie. An entire community stands on the precipice of a decision: will we or won't we be a people that look out for one another? Are we a community that believes in the law of scarcity and every man, woman and child must fend for themselves? Or are we a community that believes that for the sake of the whole, the individual sometimes must curb their own personal preferences in deference to the greater good?

How does the world work? Are there teams of good versus evil at war in the world? I do not know. Evil exists. But if I understood last week's blog post, I believe that Scott was suggesting that whether or not evil exists, we will be better served by focusing less on these big, impossible-to answer-questions and turn our attention instead to focusing on how we can support one another in a world that sometimes makes it easier to believe in the darkness than the light.

Can we count on having our own personal guardian angel Clarence to help us sort all this out? Guardian angels are not something I heard much about through my Southern Baptist heritage, so on this matter I turned to the experts. A reliable ex-nun turned Episcopal priest said this, when asked about the existence of guardian angels from the Catholic tradition, "God is present with us; today is no different than the angels in the bible." So yes, angels are a thing. I did some research and found articles that support the existence of guardian angels. They use scriptures to support their position that are...questionable. Most are playing fast and loose with biblical interpretation. But the Catholic Church is not pushing back on the idea either. I like what a friend of mine said when asked about his perspective, "It may not be something the Catholic Church teaches explicitly, it is something they kinda allow people to believe."

I do not know where you land on the subject, but I found a helpful perspective in William R. Miller's book, Lovingkindess. It is not an argument for or against believing in "Clarences", but it does shed some light on how we might want to adjust our world view.

It is in his chapter on hope, a concept he believes includes an anticipation and expectation of the best in others, in life, and in the future that Miller adds, "One pundit quipped that the opposite of paranoia is narapoia: the belief that people are secretly plotting to do you good."

So much of how we think about life is not factual. Our thoughts, ideas, feelings, beliefs...they are not facts. They are preferences. We often argue about our perspective and posit facts to support our claims. But dive deep. Facts are open to interpretation. Hear me on this - a fact is a fact, but the way we use that fact is our interpretation. Tonight it will be in the mid-60's - warm for this time of year; my daughter's in-laws visiting from New Mexico think tonight is going to be cold for this time of year. The temperature is the fact; how we perceive it is based on our personal experiences. We're walking through life interpreting it through our experiences, which leads us to have particular preferences. Maybe it is easier for some of us to see the world as dark and scary; others have a penchant for sunny side up. At the end of the day, we are making a million choices a day that are far less about the facts than they are a reflection of our limited perspective.

I prefer to think about life through the lens of "narapoia: the belief that people are secretly plotting to do you good." This is a choice. I am making a decision. This is a shift for me but I'm old and I've decided - I prefer to pay attention to the ways people and circumstances are secretly plotting to do me good than dwell on my perception of times when I think people have hurt me.

Over the years, as I age, I have grown so bored with the stories of my life that are on the darker side of the human experience. They're still true. They happened. But I am no longer fighting to squeeze meaning out of them. Why? Because I understand that there is so much I will never know. I cannot change the facts but my interpretation of them shifts depending on whether I look through the lens of paranoia or narapoia. And today, I choose narapoia. Which is really saying, I think, that I do believe in angels. And I can name so many of them that have shown up in my life. I have come to realize that even the darkest moments of my life have never been without the presence of narapoia.

Scott couldn't give us much definitive lowdown on satan and evil; I cannot provide you proof of guardian angels. But I can see the light of love that surrounds me and mine. And for that, I am grateful. May your day be filled with increased awareness of narapoia.