More Detours

I am continuing to read Cam Taylor’s book, Detour. Chapter 15 is called “Attitude” and focusses on the importance of a positive attitude. What I like is that Taylor is not talking about a “Don’t Worry; Be Happy” kind of positivity thinking. He reminds us that

A lot of “positive talk” fails to acknowledge the presence of legitimate loss and the emotional roller coaster that inevitably comes with adversity. If your positivity is a fluffy sentimentalism that says, “Let’s just be happy all the time,” it’s not the positivity I’m talking about. My positivity had room for melancholy and sadness as an unavoidable part of human experience. The positivity I’m talking about is not the absence of adversity but a belief that you’ll get through what you’re going through, that people will show up to help at just the right time, and that there are resources you haven’t yet tapped into (including divine aid). Real positivity believes in growth amidst hardship and fights against the downward pull of the feeling that life will never get better and nobody cares.

Instead, Taylor says that he began to look for ways to help others in difficult circumstances. Even as he still worked at his recovery from a catastrophic motorcycle accident, he states that “Every day, when I woke up, my goal was to do something positive with the time I had and to find a way to add value to others.” He began to invite others to join him (but pressed on even when others did not join him) in a persevering attitude. He chose to “live with true hope that said, ‘Things can and will get better!’” These are good words to live by whether we find ourselves in a difficult detour or on the normal rolling hills of life. Each of us can look for positive ways in which we can help others regardless of where we are at in our journey.

Sully, 2016

I saw the movie Sully when it came out in the theatres and now with the relaxed pace of the Christmas season, I could watch it again with my wife, our daughter, and son-in-law. It is a well-directed movie about an incident in which a plane lands on the Hudson River in New York City. The pilot had just taken off from LaGuardia airport when they struck multiple Canada Geese in the air and lost both engines. Two engine loss was unprecedented at the time. The movie follows the investigation into the crash and flashes back to the incidents that led up to the water-landing and the rescue of the 155 on board. All 155 were saved with only minor injuries, but the pilot, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, was questioned because the aviation safety board was not convinced that the water-landing was the best option for the ill-fated flight. The officials questioned whether Sully should have tried a landing at LaGuardia or Teterboro airport in New Jersey.

Sully is eventually exonerated and praised for his landing of the plane on the Hudson River. At one point in the movie, the woman member of the National Transportation Safety Board (TSB), Elizabeth Davis, praises Sully and says that he is the reason that 155 people are alive. Sully says, "I disagree, it was all of us." He recounts how together as a team, he, his co-pilot, the flight attendants, the passengers, the rescue workers, the ferry workers, and others had managed to work together to save 155 lives. It is an inspiring moment in the film in which the pilot, even after he had been vilified by some at the TSB, could point out the importance of teamwork. I wonder how well I would have done in similar circumstances in which I had been questioned and told that I had done something wrong. When I was finally absolved of any wrong-doing and instead praised, would I have had the presence of mind to tell others that it was a team effort? Or would I have taken all the praise for myself?

In our better moments, most of us do recognize the team. We know that whatever accomplishments we achieve, we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and there are a great many people who help us to accomplish the things we do. Let us pray that, even in the difficult moments, we will always recognize the importance of the team.

Automatic

I have come to appreciate that life is not easy. I know that God has created a world that is hard work, challenging, full of temptation, and sometimes painful. I understand that this is how He prepares us for living in heaven. I know that He is concerned with "soul-building." I do not want an easy life. I see how easy it is to be reckless and inattentive when things are going well. Just yesterday, I'd had a wonderful week at a conference and church meetings and preached a challenging sermon at our church about avoiding anger, arrogance, and dishonesty (Titus 1:5-9); then, I confess, to the Body of Christ on the internet, I promptly got into an argument with my wife in which I was angry, arrogant, and loud. What an awakening from complacency! I need difficulty and challenge in my life to keep me alert to the actions of the Enemy.

Much of life, for many of us in Canada, is relatively easy. If we have a decent job, with decent pay, good relationships with people, and a home to keep us warm, life really goes along pretty well; almost automatic. Therein lies the problem. Life can get too easy because

when everything is handed to you
It's only worth as much as the time put in

Those are some of the words to a song, written by Miranda Lambert, Nicolle Galyon & Natalie Hemby, in which they lament the days when things took a little more work. The song suggests that life really was better before so many things became automatic. The song-writers are correct. God wants life to be less than automatic and wants us to put time into our achievements. Here are the rest of the words to the song.

Automatic by Miranda Lambert, Nicolle Galyon & Natalie Hemby 

 (Listen to the song here.)

Quarter in a payphone
Drying laundry on the line
Watching sun tea in the window
Pocket watch, tellin' time
Seems like only yesterday, I'd get a blank cassette
Record the country countdown, 'cause I couldn't buy it yet 

If we drove all the way to Dallas
Just to buy an Easter dress
We'd take along a Rand McNally, stand in line to pay for gas
God knows that shifting gears ain't what it used to be
I learned to drive that 55, just like a queen three on a tree 

Hey what ever happened to waiting your turn
Doing it all by hand, cause when everything is handed to you
It's only worth as much as the time put in
It all just seems so good the way we had it
Back before everything became automatic 

If you had something to say
You'd write it on a piece of paper
Then you put a stamp on it
And they'd get it three days later
Boys would call the girls
And girls would turn them down
Staying married was the only way to work your problems out 

Hey what ever happened to waiting your turn
Doing it all by hand, cause when everything is handed to you
It's only worth as much as the time put in
It all just seems so good the way we had it
Back before everything became automatic
Automatic 

Let's put the windows down
Windows with the crank
Come on let's take a picture
The kind you gotta shake 

Hey what ever happened to waiting your turn
Doing it all by hand, cause when everything is handed to you
It's only worth as much as the time put in
It all just seems so good the way we had it
Back before everything became automatic

So today, I confess my sins before God and before others and commit myself to once again seeking to live a life faithful to the Lord whom I serve. I embrace the difficulties and the hard-work; I am alert to the temptations and easy paths of life; and I rejoice in the life that God has given me. I will seek to put effort into this life and in this way appreciate the good life I have been given.

Selah

A friend recently introduced me to the spiritual discipline of praying through Psalm 3. It is particularly helpful when we are at a place in life in which we feel that there are many difficulties mounting against us or when the complexities of life seem overwhelming. The word "selah" appears three times in Psalm 3. Selah is a word which has no good English translation but indicates a pause in the Psalm. It may represent a musical interlude (the equivalent of a guitar solo in the middle of a song). Its main purpose is to cause the listener (or reader) to take a few moments to think about what has been said; to stop and listen.

Psalm 3:1, 2 says, "O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, 'God will not deliver him.'" Selah

Take a moment to list some of the "foes" you are facing in life, whatever genuine or imagined fears and difficulties you sense in your life. Pay attention to what is going on inside of you. Don't be afraid to speak these fears no matter how real or ridiculous they may be. Lay them out on the table and have a good look at them. Examples might be concerns about the possibility of losing a job; relationship problems; money issues; health problems. Speak them out loud and say to God, "These feel like the foes that are against me."

Psalm 3:3, 4 goes on to say, "But you are a shield around me, O Lord, my Glorious One, who lifts up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill. Selah."

Make the words of verses three and four your own. Speak these words of affirmation, "God, you are indeed the one who lifts my head. You are a shield that protects me. I cry out and you answer me. You will hear me when I pray." Pray this and allow it to soak into your soul.

Psalm 3:5, 6 says, "I lie down and sleep; I awake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side."

Recognize that we need not fear our enemies. The foes listed are known to God. We do not need to fear them for he is ultimately in control.

Psalm 3:7, 8 says, "Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! For you have struck all my enemies on the jaw; you have broken the teeth of the wicked. From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be upon your people. Selah"

Cry out like this to God. Ask him to deliver you and to save you from your enemies. The fears, worries, difficulties, foes of this life can seem to have teeth that bite into our lives and limit our effectiveness. God can destroy the bite of these things. He can break the teeth that have their grip upon us. Recommit yourself to serving God and trust him to rescue you. Selah.

Disagreement

The other day, I had a challenging conversation with a friend. We disagreed on something. This will happen. It is good and it is right that we disagree with others from time to time. At the end of the conversation we affirmed each other as people and spoke of our respect for each other and the roles we carry. We need to hear other voices and seek to see things through different eyes. Neither of us changed our stance on the particular issue.

Franklin Littell once pointed out the irony that churches have tried to impose certain ideas upon all people. Such issues as prohibition and resistance to evolution would be recent historical examples.

Politicians in the churches attempted to secure by public legislation what they were unable to persuade many of their own members was either wise or desirable. . . . Lacking the authenticity of a genuinely disciplined witness, the Protestant reversion to political action was ultimately discredited, and the churches have not to this day recovered their authority in public life.1

We must not seek to legislate our opinions when a large number of people would not support those opinions; and, another equally important truth lies along side of this one: we cannot affirm everyone else's difference. Despite what some might say, we cannot tolerate evil. As John Stackhouse points out, "The absurdity of such an attitude [that we can tolerate everyone's difference] emerges immediately upon one's refusal to affirm this or that idea, behavior, or group with which one disagrees: one is then condemned (note: not affirmed)."2

This gives us some helpful language for how to speak of such things. We want to listen to one another and learn from other people's perspective even when we know we cannot move to their same conclusions. We must not legislate our morality or ideas when we know that there is broad disagreement with the ideas. A mature version of tolerance must go beyond a fierce judging of all who will not play the same game.


1 As quoted in (Stackhouse 2008, 326, 327)
2 (Stackhouse 2008, 329)

Good Work

When I grew up in Western Canada there was a weekly CBC television show called "Marketplace." The theme song was sung by Stompin' Tom Connors and the lyrics I most remember said,

The Consumer, they call us,
We're the people that buy
While everyone else is out to sell
Some kind of merchandise
Another sale on something,
We'll buy it while it's hot
And save a lot of money spending money we don't got
We'll save a lot of money spending money we don't got

Oh, yes we are the people
Running in the race,
Buying up the bargains in the old marketplace,
Another sale on something,
We'll buy it while it's hot
And save a lot of money spending money we don't got
We'll save a lot of money spending money we don't got

 

It was only a snippet of a longer song that spoke of the difficulties of the working population who were trying to pay their bills, get a good deal, buy quality products, borrow more money, and generally get a fair shake. Stompin' Tom was using his platform as a folk-singer to say some of the same things Dorothy Sayers said in a 1942 essay entitled "Why Work?". She says,

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.

Nearly seventy years later, I wonder if we have learned anything from Dorothy Sayers'  important essay. Indeed, have we learned anything from Connors' folk song? Or are we simply "saving a lot of money spending money we don't got?" As economies of the world plunge to new depths and we wonder how it will affect our country and our jobs, politicians encourage us to see things as "business as usual." We continue to consume more than we can afford and individually and collectively go more and more in debt. We are told that it is just a temporary slowdown in the economy. "It will all get back to normal if we put our nation first. But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse."* We spiral into more debt and consume more to stimulate our flat economy.
Sayers suggests,

Whatever we do, we shall be faced with grave difficulties. That cannot be disguised. But
it will make a great difference to the result if we are genuinely aiming at a real change in
economic thinking. . . . The habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it instead in terms of the work done. To do so would mean taking the attitude of mind we reserve for our unpaid work – our hobbies, our leisure interests, the things we make and do for pleasure – and making that the standard of all our judgments about things and people. We should ask of an enterprise, not “will it pay?” but “is it good?”; of a man, not “what does he make?” but “what is his work worth?”; of goods, not “Can we induce people to buy them?” but “are they useful things well made?”; of employment, not “how much a week?” but “will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?” And shareholders in – let us say – brewing companies, would astonish the directorate by arising at shareholders’ meeting and demanding to know, not merely where the profits go or what dividends are to be paid, not even merely whether the workers’ wages are sufficient and the conditions of labor satisfactory, but loudly and with a proper sense of personal responsibility: “What goes into the beer?”

Sayers is reminding us that our jobs are about more than money; they are about producing a good product. We ought to "clamor to be engaged in work that was worth doing, and in which we could take pride." Work is to be about making a difference in the world. I wonder if we might try that for a while.


*Bruce Cockburn, "The Trouble With Normal."