| The Second Blessing |
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“The Secret of Life”
Psalm 8 July 22, 2007 Asbury First United Methodist Church W. Mark Ralls This may come as a shock to you, but some people say that I’m absent minded. Now, I don’t usually admit to anything, but today’s sermon is on mindfulness, so I thought why not! It was just yesterday… I’m leaving the church about 1:30 and I realize that I’m hungry (forgot to eat lunch). So I pull into the McDonalds on East Avenue. I order my sandwich and open my wallet. Not a bit of money! (Forgot to go the bank) So I reach for my Mastercard and hand a card to the woman at the drive thru. Well, I’m waiting on my food, not really paying attention, but I kind of notice that the woman from the window is engaged in a long conversation with another woman who appears to be the manager. There’s some head shaking and then finally a nod of agreement. I’m just beginning to wonder what’s up when she opens the window again and hands me my bright blue card back. Smiling patiently she says, “Sir … I believe you have given me …your library card.”Jennifer always puts a positive spin on such experiences. She says that one day senility is going to be a relatively smooth transition for me. I prefer to say that I’m distracted by all those deep thoughts from the books I read. Now whether or not that excuse holds up, one book I read recently and really enjoyed is Calvin Trillin’s lighthearted tribute to his late wife Alice. It topped the best sellers list and I can only imagine that it’s making a lot of husbands like me nervous. By like me. I mean the ordinary kind, the absent-minded kind; the husbands who have little more than a fifty-fifty chance of guessing correctly when their wives pop in the door and say, Do you notice anything different about me?It’s either the shoes or the hair but most of us never know for sure. About Alice was originally published as an extended essay in The New Yorker where Trillin began as a staff writer in 1963. Since then, anecdotes of Alice have regularly appeared in Trillin’s essays. Throughout their thirty-six year marriage, he catalogued Alice’s sense of humor, her sense of style, her childlike sense of wonder. He noticed little things about Alice that most spouses let slide by them like fish over an open dam. This may explain why a young woman once wrote Trillin and confided to him that “Sometimes I look at my boyfriend and think, ‘but will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?’” I’ll bet Calvin Trillin received a lot of letters like that over the years. What seems to have separated him from the rest of the pack of husbands was mindfulness. Calvin was mindful of Alice.While it is overreaching to say that God loves us like Calvin loved Alice, it may be that their marriage provides a small window into the kind of relationship that God chooses to have with humanity. The ancient poet who gave us Psalm Eight suggests as much. What are human beings, he asks, that you O God are mindful of us? He marvels that the Creator whose glory exceeds the heavens -- who set the moon and the stars in their place -- is nevertheless mindful of each and every one of us. And that, according to the Psalmist, is as remarkable as Creation itself! Mindfulness. That’s an attribute of God we don’t talk much about. Maybe that’s because being mindful is so easily absorbed into the broader category of love. The distinction I think is this: Mindfulness is a love that resists distraction. It is focused, sustained attention on the beloved. It is a staunch refusal to fall into absent-mindedness. Devoted spouses, caring parents, dedicated friends are all mindful of the ones they love. Above all else, God is mindful of us. When it comes to you and me, God’s mind never wanders, God’s heart never wavers. We are given God’s full attention. I once served a small congregation in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I was in my office one day when Dorothy knocked on the door. She said, I’m not exactly sure why but I feel I need to tell you something about Bob. (Bob was our lay leader – a quiet, gentle man with a deep, passionate faith). Something happened, she said, years ago between Bob and my husband – something I think you should know. Bob and Tom were very close friends. And when Tom died of cancer, I made the decision that I wanted him home with me. The last few weeks of his life were really rough. Tom couldn’t speak. He barely even moved. And I was completely worn out from taking care of him. That’s when Bob offered to sit with Tom through the night so that I could get some sleep. I want you to know that for two weeks straight, Bob came to our home at 11:00 at night and stayed until 4:00 in the morning. Bob never knew this but sometimes when he was there with Tom I would get up from my bed and tiptoe into the shadows of the hallway. And there, I would watch Bob… as he watched Tom. And all the time I watched him, Bob never turned on the television. He never picked up a magazine or a crossword puzzle. He sat there motionless staring into Tom’s face just to see if he might give some kind of little sign that he needed water.It’s been four years since Dorothy told me that, and I can still picture it. Bob sitting by his friend’s bed with all the patience of a seasoned bird watcher in the field. He never turns away. He gives his full attention ... Just in case he is needed to rub an ice cube across the parched lips of his friend. Whenever I think of this, I think of Psalm 8 and the God watches over each one of us just as intently … the God who pays attention to us even more deeply. Who are we? That God is so mindful of us?The Psalmist considers this question and he finds it remarkable that God has a special love for humanity. Yes, God loves all creation -- the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea. And, yet, somehow it’s different between God and us. We’re made in the image of God. Of all creation, the Psalmist says, we’re the ones whom God crowns with glory and honor. As Julian of Norwich describes it, we are “clothed” in divine love. “Our Lord … is our clothing, for God is that love which wraps and enfolds us, embraces us … surrounds us....” Once when Jennifer and I were vacationing in Canada, I was sitting alone in a coffee shop. A group of young adults entered dressed in sweatshirts and jeans. I quickly noticed that each one was paired with an older woman, all in their sixties and all mentally challenged. The twenty-somethings were obviously the caretakers of these older women. And, it was clear that they had spent a great deal of time preparing them for this outing. They dressed their charges in beautiful summer frocks and straw hats with bands that coordinated perfectly with each dress. Make-up had been carefully applied and just the right jewelry was added to each outfit. As they entered you could see the pride of these challenged women in their glowing eyes and their beaming smiles. Their young caretakers ushered them to a table and then quickly returned with scones and tea. I tried not to stare … but I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Never before, had I seen such a perfect illustration of Psalm 8… These women were literally clothed in love and crowned with glory and honor…. And so, says the Psalmist, are we. Who are we? That God is so mindful of us?Simply by asking the question the Psalmist implies that it didn’t have to be this way. Contrary to our own opinion, we’re not irresistibly loveable. God’s mindfulness is an act of will. God chose to cherish us, to delight in our presence, to keep us forever in mind. To paraphrase Karl Barth, before even the foundation of the world … God chose to be the God for humanity … and God has never wavered from that primal decision. We embrace this remarkable reality only as we make our own choice, only as we choose to be mindful of each other. This may have been where Paul was leading when he wrote, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Now, how on earth are we going to do that!!Well … the peculiar thing about Jesus’ mind was that it always directed toward others. Never self-absorbed or absent-minded. He remembered the forgotten. He cherished the despised. And, He noticed … everyone. In the midst of a crowd pulsing all around him, Jesus noticed the touch of a despairing woman who merely grazed the “hem of his garment.” Writhing in pain on the cross, Jesus noticed a penitent thief beside him making room in his heart for God. In lesser ways, we are called to be mindful of one another. This is our choice to make again and again and when we do we mirror the God who chose to be forever mindful of us. Near the end of About Alice, Calvin Trillin relays an experience his wife had while volunteering at Paul Newman’s camp for terminally ill children. Alice befriended a young girl – “a magical child who was severely disabled” – whom Alice remembered simply as “L.” One day while L. was absorbed in a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, Alice spotted a letter that her parents had written to her. She couldn’t resist reading the first few lines. This is what it said: “If God had given us all the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chosen you.” Alice hurriedly folded the letter, handed it to a fellow counselor and whispered breathlessly, Quick! Read this! It’s the secret of life. The Psalmist suggests that in a similar way God chooses each one of us. God chooses to cherish us, to delight in our presence, to gives us undivided attention. And God never goes back on that decision. God’s mind never wanders. God’s heart never wavers. In a nutshell, I think what Psalm 8 says is this: Our Creator is mindful of each one of us and we who are made in the image of God are called to be mindful of each other.If I’m right about this Psalm 8 may be more than a piece of ancient poetry. It may even be more than a hymn of praise. It might just be … the secret of life. |
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