Zeal as an Instrument

Today I attended a meeting whose purpose is to help smokers quit.  I am not a smoker myself, but my wife is.  There are six or seven women in the class.  At the conclusion of each class meeting, going around the table each participant states their goal for the following week. Today a participant made an important observation—she didn’t know why, but somehow she could not find the zeal (she stressed the word several times) within her to quit smoking cigarettes.  This I found to be a thought-provoking observation.  I began trying to come up with my own definition and observations regarding zeal.

I began to think of people characterized by positive zeal—in my view a very helpful attribute.  Zeal to me is quite different from being hyper—which is nervous, unfocused energy.  Zeal suggests focused energy, discipline, commitment, a purpose driven life and the energy and drive to carry it out.  When I think of examples of people who display zeal I think of Saint Paul, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King in the church; Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Ronald Reagan in politics; Steve Jobs in business.  It is wrong to think one must be an extrovert to encompass zeal.  There can be a quiet commitment that nevertheless beelines to get things done.

Now I’m on a diet to lose significant weight.  I have been on diets before, but this time I feel zeal to accomplish my goal.  Honestly, I can’t say where the zeal comes from.  I’ve understood during many failed attempts to lose weight that it would be beneficial for my health.  In a sense, and I hope I’m not being overdramatic, this time I feel the Holy Spirit is guiding me—that it is God’s earnest desire that I succeed in my diet and that he is assisting me to do so.

Certainly some other factors help—imaging myself with less weight, a new eating ritual that is working, steady evidence of success, a doctor that provides encouragement and warnings.  Nevertheless, I feel it is something outside myself—something way beyond typical self-motivation and rah-rah pep talks that is different this time.  Beneficial zeal, I have finally come to believe, is divinely inspired and driven.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel

What helps you to see light at the end of the tunnel? (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, p.1295).

The first response to this question probably is:  It all depends on which tunnel you are referring to.  But there is a useful sense in which the question can be addressed generically.  From this perspective there can be several responses.  The first is the regularity in which many things occur cyclically having a high and low point.  If you find yourself in at a low point, just hang on, chances are there will be a turn around. The next thing to observe about this cyclic curve is frequency.  Nearly all things involve process.  It took a process to get us to the low point, and its reversal probably will not be instant but will also require a process.  Yet, to be realistic we must always be mindful that miracles can occur.  What our perspective tells us will take a good bit of time can in actuality take much less.  This is so generally because we lack encyclopedic knowledge and encounter forces acting within the situation that we have discounted or overlooked.  But optimism is warranted even in depressing times because of the human element.  I think of William Faulkner’s comment:

It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. (Speech at the Nobel Banquet)

As a believer in divine providence and in a loving God, I believe in redemption through repentance and faith.  We cannot and do not in the end pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps—earthly enterprise and creativity are not solely or even fundamentally humanity based.  Since divine intervention is continually present, there is hope despite inherent human limitations.  This for the believer is where hope ultimately resides.  This point of view holds that human hubris is the greatest challenge to a realistic perspective and to maintaining genuine optimism, constituting an overwhelming darkness without the light and grace of providence.

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Birthday Afterglow

In many ways this year’s birthday celebration was one of the best I’ve ever had.  In fact, it was so good that the thought occurred to me that maybe this was the last I’ll live to celebrate—in a way a fitting climax.  It began several weeks ago when at work there was a celebration for all January birthdays.  Mark put festive notices on our office door that it was the birthdays of two in our office—Ryan and myself.  People stopping in since have wished us happy birthday.  Then my brother Bob called on Skype and we had a warm visit.  I received a birthday card from Helen (now no longer in Saint Petersburg) though it has been many years since we attended together at Trinity.  Next, cards from my in-laws arrived saying how much they loved me—listing my good qualities—and expressing appreciation for me being part of the family.  Aunt Ginny called from Illinois to give her best wishes.  Kathy’s mom sent me gifts including dinner at Olive Garden.  Kathy presented me with a cross pendant necklace.  My son Alton remembered my birthday and so did Ramon.  Alton in his own hand drew a birthday card and included a moving letter. I received numerous birthday wishes on Facebook some recalling years of friendship.  Kathy and I had lunch at Outback using a gift card.  It was an elevating pleasure to witness friends and families of all races enjoying each other’s company.  My “younger brother” Kunte gifted me with a Kindle, dinner together, and a personalized cake with candles.  I even was warmly greeted by Puff Puff, a well-trained and loving dog.  In short, I came away from the day feeling the love of all and realizing I am truly rich.  This may not be my last birthday, but surely in raw significance none could ever be better.

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My 68th Birthday

Today I ask two self-directed questions.  1) What major project have I completed in the last five years?  2) What major project would I like to accomplish in the next five years?  
1)   In the last five years I have gone from living the single life to married life.  I suppose five years ago I would not have identified this as a project.  Perhaps then marriage was not on my agenda.  But then I met Kathy and everything changed.  For one thing my home was the proverbial “man cave”—cluttered, disorganized, and packed full of books and papers from college days that I was holding on to not to read or review but, deep down I think, to keep time from passing.  To celebrate this change I would like to share the song of Etta James, At Last:

2) At the end of the next five years, I would like to have consistently and faithfully added to this blog.  I like doing this blog for two reasons:  it is an avenue for expression and contemplation helping me to formulate writings reflecting my deepest opinions and beliefs—and, two, it is not simply a journal that is stashed away in some bottom drawer, but a way to potentially communicate with others.  This second element is helpful for it serves to drive me from indiscipline to discipline, from mediocrity to the pursuit of excellence.  In a way this is a marriage too—making me accountable to some potential reader.

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Feeling Needed

John Milton (1608-74)

On His Blindness

(John Milton)

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait."

Commentary:  I believe that this is a poem of encouragement, saying to those who feel themselves useless because of some personal impediment, "God does have a job for you--in HIS time he will reveal it to you. Until then, trust Me and be patient" (Source).

Meaning: We all have a place in this world and we all perform a function, regardless of our ability or disability (Source).

Today I was assisting with a network issue at Frank Pierce Recreation Center.  Roger, the city’s expert in networking, was on site configuring a new router and switch.  It was my role to assist him in whatever way he needed.  Configuring routers and switches can be a time consuming process.  There are literally thousands of lines of code to get right.  So while Roger was doing the programming, I was standing by.  At the conclusion of the job when throughput was successfully raised from 1 to 5 megs, I remarked to Roger attributing Milton: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”  Actually I was only half-way kidding.  There was a sense in which I felt useful even while standing by and assisting only intermittently.  My role today is pretty much a metaphor for my entire life.  It seems I have served my Maker only intermittently.  Yet, for most of that time, I have felt the presence of purpose even during dry spells when patience was wearing thin.  I thank God for this sustaining state of mind that gives a sense of purpose even at times when evidence for one’s significance can seem lacking.  In a way, such assurance is contrary to all immediate evidence especially during lapses in direct engagement.  In such times it is good to remember that God’s understanding is greater than our own, that his timing is not our timing, that desperation and the agony over felt meaninglessness reveals the state of our faith as much as the state of reality, that patience is essential, and that God appreciates our faith especially during those times when feeling sorry for ourselves is most tempting.  The Great Redeemer is a specialist at redeeming time, but our trust is required to benefit from this assurance.   

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Amazing but True

Never in my life did I see my father or mother angry.  Some may question my honesty here, or that I suffer from a very selective memory.  As incredible as it may seem, it remains simply true.  So I ask, how did my parents respond when the natural expectation would be anger?  They would respond with patience, wonderment, concern, and perhaps a little sadness.  Once, as teenagers two friends and I went quail hunting using our family car to travel to the fields.  In route, a shotgun accidentally discharged and the buckshot went through the front floorboard, deflected off the frame, and destroyed the radiator.  Of course, I had to tell dad.  It’s odd, but even then I did not anticipate anger.  What did I expect to see but wonderment, concern, and appreciation that none of us were hurt?  That’s exactly the way he reacted.  I never had to anticipate or fear anger on the part of my father.  My dad never once whipped me.  I asked mother if she ever did.  She said that once when I was a small child she got a small bush branch and swatted my legs when I was running and not looking where I was going—perhaps it involved a street.  Yet, never having seen her angry, I can only presume that even then each swat was directed with love and concern rather than anger.  I have been in public places and seen parents yelling in anger at their children.  I find it impossible to understand how a child would feel being the recipient of intense outbursts of parental anger.  Of course, in life I have had people angry at me.  My response to anger too often is reciprocal anger.  It comes so automatically and naturally, I can only be amazed at the lack of it in my parents.  It strikes me that the ultimate source of their equanimity was humility—something in which I too often suffer profound deficiencies.

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No Facile Answers

If you had to choose between being (a) prosperous and wicked, or (b) poverty-stricken and pure in heart, what would you be?  Why?  (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, 818).  I would like to expand this to related questions.  If you had to choose between being born into a prosperous and wicked country (or family) and one that is poverty-stricken and righteous, which would you choose?   I think it is much too easy to give the “correct” Christian answer to these questions without really imagining the horrors of abject poverty—say that encountered by all citizens in a poverty ridden state or members of a poverty ridden family.  This level of poverty in such a state would include malnourishment, lack of all economic opportunity, lack of health care, persistent disease and affliction, no economic safety nets, no modern conveniences, no educational opportunities, constant hunger—being ill-clothed, ill-housed, ill-fed.  With this stark prospect in view, reconsider the questions again.  Is it so easy to choose the “correct” answer of righteous and purity of heart over the bleak alternative?  Is it so easy to choose true happiness over ever-present misery?  To the extent that there is a hierarchy of needs, which is more fundamental in the end, physical health or spiritual health?  In Luke 12 Jesus utters the following:  “And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.  For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them.  But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”  Does inexorable poverty make a mockery of faith?  Is it so easy to affirm this tenet of the Christian faith when viewing the bloated belly of an infant with eyes covered with flies?   

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