nothing gold can stay

"Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay." -Robert Frost

-----

My kid recently checked out this interesting book from the library. 

 

It's titled Astonishing and Extinct Professions (89 Jobs You Will Never Do). It gives succinct descriptions of long-forgotten vocations, such as Whalebone Rippers, Armpit-Hair Pluckers (ouchie), Waker-Uppers, and so on (if you're looking for a gift to give a nephew, niece, or young cousin in your life, it's informative and enjoyable to read).

Three of the professions caught my ear as the book was read to me: the roles of 'Wailing Women (Professional Mourners)'/'Mutes' and 'Funeral Jesters.' In many ancient civilizations, these pros were paid to come to a funeral, cry, pull out their hair, spread ashes on themselves. They often didn't know the person who'd died. Their wailing helped the family and loves ones of the deceased grieve more deeply. 

 

The mutes were men hired to stand silently with the mourners, to look somber. They walked with the funeral procession. They wore all black, except if a child had died -- then they wore white.

 

The funeral jesters would imitate the deceased person during the funeral procession (can you imagine??). The jester would re-tell their favorite jokes, act out important life moments. They humorously revived the dead for one last time. This would give the grieving a chance to reminisce about the departed in a playful, loving way.

 

"Wow," I thought when I heard this. This reminded me that past civilizations and customs have a lot to teach me. I'm sure you could learn a lot too. There's such wisdom in these ancient practices. 

 

How often do we truly make purposeful effort for remembering good times, and for celebrating good things? How well do we make purposeful effort -- truly, set time aside -- for thoughtfully mourning sad things? Always in a hurry to move past. Onward and upward. Gotta get to the next task, gotta keep moving. Always something else to do, somewhere else to be.

 

The train almost never makes an extended pit stop.

Maybe it should.

To stop to acknowledge a blessing reminds us we've been blessed. It also helps counter the weight we feel when a blessed thing comes to an end. 

 

To stop to acknowledge a sadness reminds us that, save the love of God, nothing lasts forever. As good things come, good things go, and that is the reality of life. Nothing gold can stay. 

What's a blessing you have that you would do you well to stop, to ponder more, and to thank God for it? Surely there's some blessing.

What's a sadness you have that you would do well to stop, to ponder more, and to ask God for comfort and hope in your time of sorrow? Surely there's some sadness.

 

We rejoice, and we weep. Many sadnesses mourn blessings that were never designed to last forever.

 

A time to mourn, and a time to dance. Many blessings are of sadnesses vanquished.

 

God doesn't ask us to experience any feeling in this life that he hasn't experienced. It fills our hearts with joy to feel the blessings. And it hurts like hell to bear the sorrows.

"We are not infinite
We are not permanent
Nothing's immediate
And we pretend like we're immortal" -Gone (Switchfoot)

Gone - Switchfoot

dance on the teeth of pain

Science re-learned old truths about dancing. I love what this re-reminds us.

In a fresh-off-the-presses study published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), physical exertion was compared for how well it helped people who suffer with depression.

As you've heard before, exercise helps to fight back against depression's tentacles of despair.

But that's not what -- in this study -- caught my attention. 

It was this, from page 8: 

Dancing does the most to ward off depression. Dancing, by itself. 

Dancing! Better than yoga, mindfulness, tai chi.

"We're going out dancin'

Chase our blues away..." 

-Go Out Dancing, Rod Stewart

"Just dance, 

gonna be OK..." 

-Just Dance, Lady Gaga

"You turned my wailing into dancing, 

you removed my sackcloth 

and clothed me with joy..." -Psalm 30:11

I love when super-smart people (scientists, in this instance) reaffirm wisdom that the Bible elaborated upon in ancient times. We should dance. 

How many times has this happened to you: You're supposed to go out. But you're in a cranky, funky,  nothing-fits-right, life-sucks sort of mood. You rather wallow in this vibe, listen to your sad playlists, eat chips, play a video game, and doom-scroll. BUT you already said you'd show up.

"I don't even know if I want to go," you think. "I'm not feeling it."

But you force yourself to get out. You push yourself to be with people enjoying themselves. And voila -- you have a much, much MUCH better time than you would've predicted.

"Here we have a lot of fun,

Putting trouble on the run,

You find the old & young

Twistin' the night away" 

-Twistin' The Night Away, Sam Cooke

I look closer at these songs about dancing I mentioned above, and I see something I missed before. The lyrics all juxtapose dancing with the chasing away of trouble. Psalm 30 also does this. 

It's as though God designed it like this: dancing plays a role in reinforcing to us that, with our Lord, it'll be OK. The specter of doom wilts on the dance floor.

Of course it's natural to sometimes feel depressed. But why should depression get unresisted squatter's rights on our moods and days? Just because we're in that state doesn't mean we should -- without protest -- accede to all it brings. We can try to push back a little bit. We can work to stand up underneath it.

Sometimes we gotta kick pain in the mouth, and then dance on depression's busted teeth and gums.

I say this with supreme confidence: you do not dance as often as you could. Go do something about that, even if you feel self-conscious. Go get after places and times to dance.

"And David danced before the Lord 

with all his might"-2 Samuel 6:14

hoarding happiness

I remember, as a kid, learning how to water ski. 

My grandma, who regularly skied until she was 77 years old, schooled me on skiing's finer points. Crouch in the water. Rope between my legs. Hands holding the handle. Knees bent, skis slightly pointed inward. Give the signal to the boat that we could go. Surge and yank of horsepower. Don't pull the rope, let the rope pull me. Keep my weight slightly forward. Stay within the boat wake. If I wanted to tail left, push more onto my left foot. Go right, lean more on my right foot. 

What my grandma didn't clue me in about, however, was my favorite part. The delicious force of wind in my face; the restful, serene view of the passing shoreline; the soothing, arhythmic beat of the waves thumping under the skis -- THIS is my favorite part of skiing. The sensory revelry. The time on the skis; the act of skiing. It stirs my heart to leap for joy in my chest to ski.

Of course, I gotta keep to the fundamentals of skiing. Skies slightly pointed inward, watching the water, watching for other boats. Watching for when the boat (usually driven by my mischievous older brother) will circle twice and then steer through that wake. This is because my brother loves to see if I can manage skiing through that absurd chop of his stirred-up waves (usually, I fall).

It bothered me that I couldn't fully absorb the thrill of skiing, because I had to work hard to make sure I didn't fall off the skis. "I'm missing the moment!" I'd worriedly berate to myself. It takes a lot of time to fully live in any moment. It starts to feel rushed. I know I'm not taking in as much as I could.

What is this experience for you? What wholesome joy of yours do you fret will slip through your fingers too fast? What good thing tempts your heart to hoard it? 

It's taken time for me to relax about feeling rushed through life's happy times. Most of what motivated my angst was this: I carried an untested belief that a happy time such as this might never come again for me. So I felt like I must maximize how much I treasured THIS happy moment. I had to slow it down, absorb by osmosis as much as possible. I needed to hoard it, seal it in Tupperware, make sure it lasts as long as it can.

But that's folly.

It's possible: the exact same happy time may never come again. Yet different, equally happy, equally glorious moments thump through life at an arhythmic pace. Don't they for you too? A great talk with a friend. A delicious meal. A solid grade on a tough exam. A concert. A time of prayer. 

They show up like a wave to a shore, and then recede right back out. I can't catch the wave and keep it to myself. It'd be folly to try. But another wave always comes in. This helps me refrain from trying to hoard happy times. Like sad times, other happy times will come. I don't know when, or how, or in what way. But they will.

I haven't skied in years. I miss that rush of wind. I would love to feel that pull of a ski rope again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. If I do, I'll probably feel like it went by too fast. But other joys remain, happy times I've yet to imagine or even know existed. It's the same for you.

Grace and peace to you on this day, dearly beloved--

"I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live ... " -Ecclesiastes 3:9-12

RSV to the P

"Say not, 'Why were the former days better than this?' For it is not from wisdom that one asks this." 

-Ecclesiastes 7:10

A best friend of mine's favorite book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. It's a quick read. If you enjoy figuring out song lyrics, you'd like Ecclesiastes. If you're someone who doesn't enjoy it when people try to be naively optimistic, Ecclesiastes is for you.

If you want to skim through it (and you have a Bible nearby), it's about one-third of the way in. Psalms, Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes.

This above verse has clanged around in my brain lately. The hourly deluge of 'What's Catastrophically Wrong Today In the World' (i.e. daily headlines, social media feeds, news of evils and injustices small and large) can make it feel like everything (everywhere, all at once), is uniquely worse than ever before.

And yet. And yet this sage verse -- "Say not, 'Why were the former days better than this?' For it is not from wisdom that one asks this." -- re-grounds my daily perceptions in enduring reality:

a) It helps me resist believing the lie that life will be worse tomorrow. That's crucial. But it doesn't help me resist this by minimizing today's evils, or by turning a blind eye. It widens my view. It reminds me that for so many, this sort of evil and injustice is an old, long reality. Tomorrow won't be worse, because...

b) ...Yesterday wasn't always better. "Why can't it be like it used to be way back when? Used-to-be way back when was so good, and simple." That just isn't true. It helps me to resist giving too much stock to 'the good old days'.

c) It helps me resist a particular shame. You know, the kind of shame that comes when we learn something new, and then feel like we somehow should've known this information all along. We're not the only ones to believe this. Knowing this helps me resist feeling shame for once believing the world was better.

d) It reminds me that there are others who -- while they've fought injustice -- have also lived with and endured with such evils for a long, long time. It's nothing new. Therefore, I can't become impatient when evils and sin don't immediately disappear. That seldom happens. The patience of those who've more directly struggled with evil inspires me to check my impatience to want everything all fixed, right this instant.

Where does that leave me?

It leaves me skeptical, but not (quite as) jaded;
resolute, but not (quite as) naive;
playing catch-up, but resisting shame about needing to do that;
faithful, but not (as) surprised;
distressed, but (more) hopeful that one day, all that's wrong will be made right;
overwhelmed, but not (as) no longer believing there's nothing I can do;
motivated, but not (as) prone to thinking I can fix this through sheer effort.

So thankful this verse is here ... that way, when I need reminding, it's still written down. It's not going anywhere.

"Let's just make this clear: I have no idea what I'm doing. I am stumbling through this like everyone else." -Dr. E. McCaulley

Blessings on your week this week.

new (no, everything isn't awesome)

Some new stuff I like, some new stuff I don't like. 

 

That's true for for most people. New doesn't always mean better, but it does almost always mean different.

New music from your favorite artist? Like.

New food allergy? Don't like.

New, free shirt? We like.

New, free haircut? We might not like.

New life path? We might like.

New anxieties that come with new life path? We might not like.

New razor for shaving? We like.

New skin scrapes because we got used to our dull razor? We don't like.

 

Starting college? We like. 

Figuring out new routine, starting new friendships? We don't like.

No one says their first year of high school is the best. No one says the first weeks at a new job are the best. No one says the first few days of a new workout are the best days. 

 

Quite the opposite. 

The social inertia of keeping up appearances wants you (and I) to pretend that 'new' is only awesome.

But let's be real:

'NEW' can feel wearying. 

 

'NEW' often includes feeling lonely. 'NEW' will leave us feeling behind the curve at times. 

 

'NEW' will interfere with a decent night's sleep. 'NEW' will cause us to doubt we belong. 'NEW' will make us miss what's familiar.

 

'NEW' will feel constricting at times. 'NEW' will tempt us to compare what we feel inside to how others appear on their outsides. 

So, let's remember this: we do like (some) new, but we always like new stuff more once we're more used to it.

 

It takes time. Give it time.