Category Archives: Soul Care

What Would Jesus Drive?

04 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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Forget world peace.

What are my husband and I going to do about our three-year old Lexus?  It’s time to decide, as our lease runs out next week — do we buy or do we walk away?

Before the “unintended acceleration” problems grew into the latest major recall and President Akio Toyoda was called to Capitol Hill, we had planned to buy our car — or buy a new Lexus if the dealership made us a good deal.

But even without that most recent unsubstantiated report on ABC News —  where sixty owners of ‘fixed’ cars assert a faulty fix — I feared Toyota had not yet identified the source of the problem.  And after reading reports of other Lexus owners, I’m  no longer comfortable driving a car that has a mind of its own.  We like our Lexus, but in this case, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

It was in writing this post that we decided to buy something different.  Funny thing that we’re not crazy about any of the choices  — at least not like we were with the Lexus.  But since we need a car, my not so tongue-in-cheek question comes down to this — What Would Jesus Do? Would Jesus prefer to drive around town in a Ford, an Infiniti or a BMW?

Two years ago I would have put Jesus in a humble Ford.  After all, can anyone really see Jesus driving around in a luxury car?  Something about Jesus and luxury doesn’t quite go together — maybe because he’s known for saying words like, “Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth…”

Yet these days, I’m not so sure.   Buying a humble car can actually end up becoming a source of pride — when its done for the wrong reasons, like when proving ourselves better than those sinners …who’ve succumbed to materialism.  Pity those rich sinners!

Yet…what about that Pharisee who prayed this little prayer, in one of Jesus’ parables?  — “God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector.” Jesus always had a surprise twist in his stories  — and in this one, the sinful (and rich) tax collector was actually judged to be more godly than the Pharisee because of his humility.  Humility rather than exterior appearances always carried weight with Jesus.

Jesus was an equal opportunity sort of guy.  He kept company with sinners, the rich, the poor and even the Pharisaic Religious Right.  Yet, Jesus saw no one good but God alone — least of all himself.  Jesus wasn’t into accumulating earthly treasures because Jesus didn’t want anything to come between God and himself or the rest of the world and himself.    And ideally, neither should we, whether the “stuff” be riches, fame, or pride —  education, houses or cars.

So forget about stuff.  Humility should be my focus — and here’s my favorite take on humility from one who tried to live true to her words:

“If we were humble, nothing would change us –- neither praise nor discouragement.  If someone were to criticize us, we would not feel discouraged.  If someone were to praise us, we also would not be proud.”  — Mother Teresa

Using Mother Teresa ‘s humility yardstick as a  litmus test to car buying, my questions become:  Will owning a Ford (or a luxury car) change me  in some way?  Will it make me feel better about myself in some way?

Who knows but maybe Jesus wouldn’t still surprise us today?  Can you see Jesus driving around town today in an Infiniti  —  preaching the good news with recycled words like, “To infinity and beyond.”  Or maybe Jesus might tool about in a BMW, as even during his days on earth, Jesus was Big Man Walking.  Maybe Jesus would forsake all vehicles and continue to use those Chrevrolegs?

All of this musing helped me recall one of Janis Joplin’s final recordings, written with poet Michael Mcclure and Bob Neuwirth.  According to a few sources, the song Mercedes-Benz was intended as “a critical social commentary on how people relate happiness to money and material possessions.”   Supposedly — “the song heavily reflects Joplin’s view of what she saw as a materialistic world.”  But I’m not so sure.  Like Jesus, Janis apparently appreciated the surprise twist in the story she told.  Janis drove around in a 1965 Porche.

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me ….a Mercedes Benz?

Dreamsicles

02 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care, Writing

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“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.   — Langston Hughes

I wake to a morning sky parfait, though I am unaware of it.

Instead, wrapped in my own private world, I’m focused on my unloaded dreams — where is that new dream journal?  Before I can find the missing journal, I look out the back door to instead find a red-orange horizon resting under dark blue canvas resting under a striped double ribbon of true orange against true blue.  The ribbon fades and swirls until it’s topped with Dreamsicle Orange.  I devour this rare and lovely morning treat.  Soon, the rising sun will melt its beauty.

Dreams melt away just as quickly.  If I don’t record my dreams on paper in those first waking-up minutes, they slip back to wherever dreams live, buried deep under the more comfining thoughts of everyday life.  So most days, even before I get out of bed, I grab my journal to record my freshly minted dreams.  Weighting the strange disjointed images with words keeps dreams alive, so that I can ponder the images and messages under daylight.

What do our dreams tell us?  Why am I investing part of Lenten morning devotion towards dream work?  Oh, I have my reasons — three good ones, in fact.

The first is that my spiritual director invited me to take a look at my dreams for answers I’ve been seeking.

Then there’s this quote I ran across in a book I’m reading   — Clyde H. Reid’s Dreams — Discovering Your Inner Teacher — that’s part of my spiritual direction coursework:

“Our dreams can show us who we are.  In fact, they can sometimes show us ourselves unmercifully.  If we really want to know ourselves in the deepest ways, we need to record and study our dreams carefully.”

Reading Reid’s words reminded me of a final reason, an invitation I heard from Pulitzer prize-winning author, Marilynne Robinson, a couple of years back, when she was here in Oklahoma to speak at one of our local universities.  “Descend into self to write– discover your primary self — the beautiful, the true; it’s preparation for writing words worth saying.”

Though Reid’s book assures that dreams are not terribly hard to interpret — as long as we remember and record them in a sufficient level of detail — the hard part is remembering them.  Every night I go to sleep asking God to help me remember.   About half of the time I do .  And oh, as I spill out dreams on paper, have I noticed some familiar faces  —  Ms. Perfect and Ms. Workaholic and Ms. Low Self-esteem — while comically wrestling with concerns that consume my waking hours.

My dreams are like an old Hollywood movie that jerks along with missing frames and little plot.   Sitting in a darkened theater, I watch my  dreams play out.  I do not direct the scenes in which I am both actor and audience.  Instead, my dream spins off the reel unfiltered, a poor sort of improvisational comedy.  One scene leads to another — personal worlds collide — past, present and future merge and swirl  as the dead and alive keep each other company.

Dreams are a brave new world of unedited truth.  But under the dreams and under the truth, I believe, is a God that lies at the horizon between humus earth and the heavens, a God whose red hot love waits to burn up all the lies, known and unknown, that have become part of who I believe I am — but am not.  Somewhere in my dreams, waits a God with the keys of true blue to set me free… … so that I can soar with childish abandon and joy that comes from keeping company with Dreamsicles.

Humble Quiche

26 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Good Reads, In the Kitchen, Life at Home, Soul Care

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“Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.”  Les Brown — quote from The Artist’s Way

My friends in the workforce are beginning to daydream about their post-retirement lives.  One hopes to volunteer as an overseas English teacher while another plans to serve the elderly in some capacity.

Unlike my friends, I held no lofty goals when I retired eight years ago.  Instead I left a twenty-three year accounting career behind with two humble goals in mind — to read more for the pure pleasure of reading and to learn how to make pie crust.

Coming to know myself as I have during the last three years, it’s no surprise that the goal that required work was the one I accomplished while the one that required play is still blowing in the wind.  I am, after all, a recovering workaholic with perfectionist tendencies, which is to say, I tend to engage in never-ending work when I’m at my worst.  Meanwhile, my stack of unread books continues to grow and gather dust.

I uncovered the seeds of my problem during an Ignatius retreat last year.  But it was three years ago that I came to name perfectionism as the root to my problem.  I was reading a self-help book when I ran across these words in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way:

“To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement.  The perfectionist calls this humility.  In reality, it is egotism.   It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best.  It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again…..

….We deny that in order to do something well we must first be willing to do it badly.  Instead, we opt for setting our limits at the point where we feel assured of success.  Living within these bounds, we may feel stifled, smothered, despairing, bored.  But, yes, we do feel safe.  And safety is a very expensive illusion.  ….Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen.  “If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try….””

How would you complete the rest of that sentence?  My three-year old list included modern dance, learning a foreign language, writing short stories and taking a watercolor class.   But writing was my biggest pie-in-the-sky desire.  In the case of writing, it was better to live with a dream than with the possibility of failure — in other words, it was better to be safe than sorry.

As silly as it now sounds, I once held similar fears about making pie crust.  Now I just get in there and do my best.  And this morning, the pie crust I rolled out was far from perfect.  Yet.  Once it was stuffed with a nice quiche filling, it ended up fulfilling its purpose perfectly with no one noticing its imperfections.

Could this truth apply to the human experience as well?  Could it be… that as imperfect as this human is, that I can fulfill my purpose as long as I remember to remain empty —  that is to remain humble —  so that I can be filled with something good — like God?

To be humble is easier said than done.  To be humble is to realize I can never be perfect.  To be humble is to realize that I am not my work and that my work is not me.  To be a humble is to realize that I must learn to let go — for the entire human experience is an exercise in letting go, as we let go of our stuff and our loved ones until all that we have left at end of our days is to let go of our own lives.

To be human may not be as easy as pie — though I for one, have never found making pie or pie crust easy — but its worth the effort, the time and the risk of failure with a trash can full of rejected pie crust.  To be human means “it’s no better to be safe than sorry.”  Life is full of a-ha moments… and perhaps more than a few servings of humble pie.

Simple Quiche

1 9 inch pie crust, baked to light brown

3 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 1/4 cups light sour cream
Dash of salt, white pepper, garlic powder and Tabasco sauce
1 1/2 cups grated Swiss cheese
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
2 cups of pre-cooked chopped meat and vegetables  e.g.s (broccoli and ham) (spinach and bacon) (sausage and mushroom)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sour cream and seasoning with a wire whip.  Stir in remaining ingredients and pour into pastry shell.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until set and lightly browned on top.  Cool on wire rack for ten minutes before slicing.

Serve with a cup of soup or your favorite green or fruit salad.