I was facing several deadlines late on a Friday afternoon when a colleague sent me a document I needed to process. Just sign it and scan it back, he said. I printed and signed it. I put it in my scanner. The scanner wouldn't cooperate. The usual functions weren't showing up on the screen. I tried a workaround. Didn't work. I began to get frustrated. I really don't like it when my machines don't do what I want them to do. I got more and more flustered. Then angry. I would have been more expressive, but I was watching my granddaughter at the time and I didn't want her to see her grandfather blowing up at a scanner. But it wouldn't scan. I was going to take the paper, manually, to my friend. I got into the car, drove a few miles, and gave him the papers. It was such an annoying inconvenience.
There's a routine by comedian Louis CK about people who complain about flying (some language cleaned up):
"Worst day of my life! I had to sit on the runway for 40 minutes!"
"Oh, my God, really! For 40 minutes? That's awful. You should sue them!
"What happened then? Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar through the clouds impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? ... You're flying! You're sitting in a chair in the sky! You're like a Greek myth right now!"
"But it doesn't go back very far, and it's kind of squishing my knee."
"There's always delays when I fly. Too slow."
"Really? New York to California in six hours! That used to take 30 years to do that, and a bunch of you would die on the way there. You'd get shot in the neck with an arrow and you go aaaggghccck, and fall down. And the other passengers would just bury you and put a stick in the ground with your hat on it and keep walking ...
"Now you watch an Adam Sandler movie..., and you're there!"
I couldn't get the scanner to work.
Oh, my God, really? What happened then? Did you get into your own automobile, comfortably air-conditioned, and drive a couple of miles at 40 miles an hour on smooth blacktop streets to deliver the papers that it otherwise would have taken you a couple of hours to walk over in the summer heat?
"There is a new creation!" Paul cried. That was his experience when he was all messed up and suddenly knew himself to be loved, accepted and acceptable. We are accepted, just the way we are. We are loved and accepted even in our whiny, pitiful states. And God overcomes everything, including death itself, to bring us to life. I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly.
Here we are flying through space on a rock that is covered with waters full of fish and land supporting vegetation and animals; enveloped in an atmosphere that gives us breath. We are spinning around a star at just the right distance and angle that we have energy for such abundant life that you and I have evolved enough to be conscious of the divine love who made all things and who urges and calls us forward into union with all humanity and God. Amazing!
It is all grace! It is all mystery! God loves us and grows us, despite ourselves.
But we get so stuck in our blind selfishness that we fail to see the wonder around us.
What if we could just let go of the self-centered chatter that plays its whiny music inside us incessantly? Let go of it just a bit, shift our focus away from our incessant expectations, and instead, look out the window of the spaceship in wonder. We are flying through life in a wonderfully secure, amazing vehicle. We are enveloped by infinite love. We are accepted completely. We are being energized by the divine breath. We are God's beloved. Breathe that in. Let your heart be open and soft.
Then recognize that every other person is a mystery, also full of grace and love.
What if we stopped looking at other people as if they were malfunctioning scanners that should be doing what we expect? What if we loved ourselves as God loves us? What if we loved our neighbor as ourselves? Everyone is a neighbor. What if we recognized my neighbor is my self? We are all one.
Lowell Grisham is an Episcopal priest who lives in Fayetteville. Email him at [email protected].
Commentary on 06/30/2015