How to Use it Wisely

Hi! Good morning. I’m sixty!

I’m not a pastor anymore. It’s gonna take a while for that to sink in, I think. But next Sunday morning I’m getting on a train to NYC to see some art with my kids, so I feel like everything’s going to be OK.

I love the questions people have been asking.
Will you miss it?
Will you go to church on Sundays?

Parts of it, no doubt.
Probably not.

Mostly I’m looking forward to just having quiet weekends. I’m looking forward to not having to put a service together every week, to not having to write something designed to inspire, every week. I’m looking forward to using that creative energy for other projects.

Yesterday, on my 60th birthday, I was thinking about the slow burn power accumulation that happens with age. This might be more of a female thing, or maybe it’s just an individual thing, but I have definitely felt the slow motion creep of power building up in my life over the decades. I recognize today that anything is possible and I’m going to put that to the test in the coming days.

One of the things that emerges at this stage of life is the clear awareness that time is running out. I love how some people guffaw when I say I’m sixty, with an oh you’re just a kid!

I feel pretty confident that I might have ten good years of mental and physical capacities left in me. And ten years is a big fat nothing in the scheme of things. Our friends are dying of cancer and heart attack and loneliness and regret. There’s no time to waste.

I kind of love that pressure. I always operated well with a deadline. It started young: I was the editor of our high school newspaper; I went to college three times; I was the editor of a community newspaper, and for the last ten years I had a sermon due every week. I find it very helpful to have time constraints.

I know that a lot of us spend a lot of time complaining about the things in our lives that we don’t like. We complain a lot about our partner or spouse. We complain about our job, about the people we work with. For some reason the vast majority of us end up in situations that we don’t like all that much. And we want things to change. But people and institutions don’t change much. You might have noticed this. People generally tend to repeat behaviors and prefer the comfort of familiarity over the unknown of change. Institutions are often deeply entrenched in habits and protocols for no other reason than this is how we have always done this.

The only thing you have the power to control in your life is your response to situations that you don’t like.

Here is my formula for the best approach to life:

Take stock of the situation. Give it a good chance. Observe, ask questions. See how it feels. Then decide, knowing full well that people and institutions don’t change all that much: Is this for me? Do I want this for myself?

And if the answer is no, then move on. Don’t spend years wringing your hands and complaining. Be respectful, grateful that the person or situation has taught you something you need to know: this is not for me.

A classic example of this is marriage and divorce. We still live in a society that frowns upon divorce, believing that it harms children, etc. But divorce is a concept, an idea. It can’t inflict harm on anyone. People harm people, not ideas.

I’ve been divorced twice and I adore both of my former husbands, and the three kids we all created adore each other. The other night one of my former husbands and his wife and two kids came to a party at our home. We do this all the time, yet some people at the party were amazed.

Everything in life comes down to how you act, how you treat people, the choices you make. Marriage is as harmful a concept as divorce, depending on how the married people or divorced people behave. Some married people fight all the time. Some married people live in a silent war with one another. Some divorced people are friends.

People harm people, not ideas.

That was a long-winded way of saying something simple: don’t waste your precious life energy and time stewing about the behavior of other people or your toxic work environment or the job you hate because of xyz. Take stock of the situation, give it a fair shot and then decide, is this for me, or not?

I have wasted a lot, lot, lot of time in my life giving people the benefit of the doubt, willing them to change, hoping I’ll wake up tomorrow and the situation will be different. Wishing I could inspire someone to change their ways. It just doesn’t work that way. People have to really want to change (institutions, too), and most people simply do not want to modify their behavior. When was the last time someone asked you, please tell me how I can do this better … ?

How can I be a better partner, friend, co-worker, parent?

Never, right?

Life is a holy pilgrimage through many landscapes. You shouldn’t sit in one place, miserable and blaming others for your dissatisfaction. I’d like to believe that people can change and want to change, but I’ve seen too many people repeat the same habits day after day, year after year. People go to church and sit in the same place, week after week. They drive the same roads and ski the same trails. People love familiarity.

I don’t. I’m not interested in experiencing the same version of life over and over. I fear we will all look back from the perch of after-death one day and see the great smörgâsbord of life and wonder why the hell we ate toast for breakfast every day, kept it small, let the infinite curiosity of our childhood fade to nothing over time.

I have always loved this piece by Hermann Hesse, which gives a kind of breathtaking joy to the idea of staying open and in curious motion.

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.

In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.

The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.

We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

Time is the most precious commodity we have. I hope you are paying attention as life teaches you how to use it wisely.

xo,mo