Despite our best efforts (or maybe because we often withhold our best efforts), we are forced to continually bob and weave, reposition, and adjust in this life. Even if all our own choices were wise (unlikely), we would still be operating in the company of other flawed humans. We all lead workaround lives.
But have you ever stopped to think about who led the ultimate workaround life? Continue reading And I Thought MY Life Was a Workaround
I’ll be the first to admit, I have no idea about Walt Whitman’s faith, whether he was a Christian or not. For all I know he may have been a pantheist, a Universalist, a Buddhist. He died 120 years ago, so it would be pretty hard to have a conversation with him about it now.
I do hope I meet him in Heaven someday so I can talk to him about his poetry and his process. I would enjoy gaining some insight into what it’s like to see through his eyes and hear how he crafted his thoughts into such classics.
That said, when I read his poem “Miracles” through my faith grid and spiritual experience, it’s hard for me not to believe that he had some sort of relationship with the Divine. I read his lovely words about the miracles found in the common and the extraordinary, about the beauty to be found in the streets as well as the fields, and I am inspired to worship.
Somehow, I think that’s what Walt was doing.
Here is his poem, see what you think:
Miracles
By Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim–the rocks–the motion of the waves–the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
If you’re living a “workaround” life like I am (and who among us isn’t, on some level?), recognizing the everyday miracles may often be just what you need to get you through. For me, they include a sweet friend writing me an email at just the right time to tell me what she appreciates about me; the return of green to the grass after a brutal summer drought; the giant chocolate Lab catching my eye from across the room and thumping his tail in greeting; the discovery of shared faith in the unlikeliest of places.
Will you share one or more of your everyday miracles in the comments below?
The Hasidim have a tale about a rabbi named Meir
who used to worry that God would reproach him
in his final days and say, “Meir! Why did you not
become Meir?”
~ Poet David Kirby, “Mr. Dithers Explains It All”
The problem I have – and this is part of leading a “workaround” life – is that I am painfully aware I did not become who I thought I would become. I mean, seriously, this did not work out the way I envisioned it would, on SO many levels.
I’m pretty sure if I had another chance, I would skip over the pesky derailments and embarrassing failures. I would try harder to orchestrate things so that my life was more honorable and certainly more significant – in my mind, I would be a “better” person, if I could do it all over.
Does that mean I have not “become Diane” and that I should expect a divine reproach someday?
I was talking to my brother the other day about how as parents we try so hard to protect our children, to keep them from making the same mistakes we made. We want to spare them the pain and embarrassment we suffered, the setbacks and failures we brought on ourselves. And if we’re honest, there’s a part of us that wants to correct our own screw-ups through our kids which is of course, impossible. Maybe it’s a kind of redemption that we are trying to engineer for ourselves: a do-over through our children.
Wow, that is so NOT Biblical, but it is pretty common. That hovering and overprotecting is where we get the term “helicopter parents”.
I think that desire to protect our sons and daughters comes from a good place, a tender heart-shaped place. But my brother, wise sage that he is, reminded me that kids have to make their own mistakes and learn from them like we did so they can become who they are supposed to be. He pointed out the application in my own life, how if I had done things differently, I wouldn’t be who I am now. And then he observed that my life has turned out pretty well and I’m in a good place, so it’s not all bad. (Thanks, bro.)
Yes, there are many things I would change if I could, but news flash: It’s not going to happen. This is my workaround life and it’s not perfect but, really, is anyone’s?
So about that divine reproach: I don’t think God is going to scold me for not becoming Diane. I think perhaps He will reveal to me the many ways He creatively redeemed all those blunders and made me exactly who He knew I would become all along.
And I think He’s going to tell me again how wildly He loves me, just the way I am.
Are you living a workaround life? Is there a part of you that has ever wondered whether God is going to berate you someday for not “turning out” better? For not using your one and only life a little more wisely? Your thoughts and comments are invited ~
Is Singleness A “Workaround”?
We hear the term “workaround” used a lot these days, especially in the information technology world, where the term usually refers to solving some kind of hardware or programming problem. Once the problem is fixed, the workaround is abandoned. Wikipedia defines a workaround as “a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed.”
I think a lot of people view singleness that way: a temporary fix, a stopgap measure to use until the “problem” is fixed. Many, including singles themselves, consider singleness a life stage to get through, with marriage as the ultimate “solution”.
Have you ever thought of singleness as a workaround?
If you’re married, you may consider your single friends incomplete or unfinished (maybe even broken). You may have “fixed them up” with other singles in an effort to help them find a date and a mate. (And they may have appreciated it!)
If you’re single, you may have put your life on hold until marriage, even without realizing it, and have begun to wonder if you’re ever going to get to live that life you envisioned. If you’ve been married before, you may be hoping for another chance and you, too, have put yourself in a holding pattern “until”…
Many who are single have found themselves there as the result of a death, a divorce, or a painful breakup that they never anticipated. Whatever the circumstances, singleness need not be a fragile kind of “cobbled together” existence to be merely endured.
Looking at singleness through a New Testament lens gives a whole different perspective to the concept of singleness. Jesus himself chose to be single and used it as a particular opportunity for dedicated service to God in this life. His was a life rich in relationships, meaning, and deep intimacy with God. He challenged others to remain single if they could (Matthew 19:12), and set a perfect example of effective ministry and genuine love for others. He enjoyed a mutual companionship with His Father through prayer and meditation that was fully satisfying.
What if singleness is not just a stage to endure but a status of great significance to embrace with joy? What if singles really can enjoy a deeply satisfying intimacy with Christ and a thrilling experience of the true community He experienced?
Singles can be transformed in their Christian faith now – whether or not they eventually marry – and they are uniquely positioned to play a critical role in God’s overall plan to redeem humanity. That’s no workaround.
What is your perspective on singleness? Is it a limitation or a desirable status with potential for meaningful service?
How can we as Christ followers think “outside the box” about singleness?
What are some stereotypes that stand in the way and how can we rethink them?
It happened again. I went on this amazing vacation, expecting excitement and beauty and awe. I was not disappointed; it had all that and more. After a brutal Midwest winter, the Caribbean cruise was a reminder that the White Witch really does not rule Narnia.
For five days, the paralysis of cold and gray gave way to warmth and life. My soul began to thaw.
But as I have found previously after a vacation like this, the real value of the experience was not in the weather or the activities or even in the content of the conference. It was in the community that was built, if only for a few days. A few intense but much-too-brief days.
Then there is the familiar ache I have come to expect, the ache unrelated to being back in the “real” world, but with leaving behind fresh new relationships, connections formed out of shared passions and common interests, and stories of hope and triumph. It felt like I was presented with a tall glass of true Christian community and then had it snatched away before I could drink it in fully.
This thirst for community is a common theme for me. My friend Wendy told me once that the grief I feel at this loss of community is from God; that it is the result of having been given a tiny glimpse of what we will experience in Heaven.
When the preview is over, as it is for me tonight, it makes our longing for Heaven more intense, and living without it that much harder. It is an exquisite thought – unending “fellowship” (as we used to say in the church of my youth) in an atmosphere of pure love.
But for now, I will have to enjoy the drop of cool water on my tongue that these earthly experiences provide. I’ll take the “almost slakes” and be grateful for the memories … and the preview of what is to come.
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