What Are You Gonna Do With Your Wild and Precious Life?

photo by Amelieu Bayle / flickr

Since this is the beginning of the year—I thought I might talk to you about rules. I know, I know this sounds like maybe (as My son used to say) “the most boringest thing” we could deal with. But bear with me  and let’s see that I’’m trying to talk about.

In one of the Peanuts cartoons Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patti are seated under a tree. And she asks Charlie Brown: “Do  you know any good rules for living, Charlie?” And so Charlie begins to give her this advice. “Good rules—Hmm. Keep the ball low; don’t leave your crayons in the sun; use dental floss every day; don’t spill the shoe polish. Always knock before entering; don’t let the ants get in the sugar; always get your first serve in.” Patti said, Huh? Will those rules give me a better life, Charlie?”

There are whole lot of rules out there that will not give us a better life. And if you have lived as long as most of us have—we know a whole lot of things we have tried ended us up on a dead end street. 

And yet we can’t forget the rules especially in this day and age. Somebody asked a little boy about rules. He said, “Rules. There are ten kids in our family and one bathroom—you gotta have rules.”

So what are we talking about. Mary Oliver, a very fine poet has written: “Some instructions for life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. She just died this week but this was part of her last will and testament.

First, Pay attention. And you and I know this is not easy. We seem to be covered up  in distractions—and they are about to suffocate was all. Breaking News. 24 hours a day—I doubt it. And if we spend most of our times reacting too all this stuff we hear every day we may just miss it all. 

We’ve got to open our eyes and just look at what is going on around us. Wendell Berry has a poem called: “Look Out Your Window” at what was going on. Not Fox News or MSNBC. Your window. The Hispanic guys building a house across the street—and listening to their music. Having a great time. The couple walking down the street with their dog. I heard a bird sing somewhere out there. The sky was a little cloudy and the weather was nippy—but it was a brand new day to be opened up like a present. The woman battling cancer down the street I see her leaving her house—carefully walking down the steps with her husband. And thought she had the oxygen line in her nose…and she had battled cancer for a long time—she started walking down the street. She looked around and I heard her say: “When are they gonna pick up all these leaves?”

Brooks Adams was once Ambassador to Greet Britain. He kept a diary all his life. And one early entry said: “Went fishing with my father. Most glorious day of my life.” The father kept a diary. And on that day he wrote: “Went fishing with nay son—a day wasted.” 

When you are as old I am I look back and know that most of the fretting and fuming over many things I didn’t seem to have time to look out the window. And I missed so much. 

Every time I hear Fats Domino singing: “It’s  Wonderful World” I get a lump in my throat. Wee all need to stop and look. All that was going on—and we shouldn’t miss it. Mary Oliver’s first point was pay attention.

Her second point: Be astonished. Remember old Moses standing in the desert tending his sheep. And a bush began to burn and a voice spoke and said: “Take off your shoes Moses you stand on holy ground.” He was utterly astonished—and it was a hinge-turning point in his life.

Remember what Gomer Pyle used to say: “Surprise…surprise.” How long has it been since you said: “Wow” over something.  Not very long. 

Last Monday night I sat before the TV with a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Could we possibly win? And when it was over and everybody was turning flips—and that tired black football player had tears running down his face—I said: “Wow.” And you did too. And on Saturday we had a chance to link our wows together. It was something.

But let’s not confine our wows to just sports. Usually when lightning strikes it comes at some ordinary time when we least expect it. One day one of my staff members asked me: “Have you ever heard of a Gravy File?” I said, “What?” “And she answered: “Take this Manila folder—wrote Gravy on the top—and begin to put in it all things that lifted you up and made you glad.” And I did that. And folks—I don’t do it often—but sometimes when I am down in the mouth and I think the world is going hell—I remember that file. It’s full and running over. Funny birthday cards. Little notes from my kids when they were young. Obituary notices about people that helped change your life. The biggest Christmas card I ever received was from a woman in Memphis. She was a Muslim with her hijab on her head. She was a brand new in town. She had come all the way from Iraq. Her son came to one of our great hospitals because he had leukemia. And she knew no one and was terrified. I just listened and made a few phone calls. I didn’t do all that much. But she kept coming back and talking to this Baptist preacher. And two years later I got this huge Christmas card and the only thing she wrote on the inside was: Thanks and her name. I don’t know what happened to her or her son. She went back to Iraq before 9/11. I hope they were safe. We’ve all got a gravy file one way or the other. 

Somebody said there are all kinds of wows. Some are Lower case but some are Upper Case. You know what I am talking about. Those moments when about all you could say is “Wow.” Be astonished, she said. 

Third point.  Mary Oliver said: Tell about it. I remember a friend of mine who was visiting the hospital one night. And down the hall there came this young man running and laughing and saying: “Over and over…I’ve got a boy! I’ve got a boy!” Tell about it.

I have this black buddy in Birmingham that was in my church. His name was Bill. He stood at the door every Sunday and welcomed everybody. "Welcome to Church," he would say, "God loves you and we love you." After I retired later I was serving as Interim Pastor at a nearby church. And Bill heard about me being there. And every Sunday after Bill got through ushering at his church he wold come over to this church where I was working and pass out bulletins. He said the same thing to those coming in the door of this church, too. "Welcome to Church. God loves you and we love you." The members didn't know who this strange black man was giving out bulletins. "Who is he?" And one of the members said: "Oh, he's as friend of Roger's." Bill called me this last week. He is 99 years old and still giving out bulletins at his church. Now he has to sit in a chair but he is there every Sunday. And people would tell me: "I don't remember what you said--but I remember what Bill said when we came to church: 'Welcome to church! God loves you and we love you."

Now we don’t have to do that. But instead of playing this: “Ain’t it awful” game—which we all do. But the people we want to be around are positive people. And we can’t get away fast enough from those people that just moan. That’s not telling about it. Or not telling the right thing. 

But remember we can tell in a whole lot of ways. And just the way we look out at our world—says a whole lot. That’s a telling too. You probably have heard the slogan. “Preach the gospel—when necessary use words.” 

For most of the telling we do is not with our mouths—but with who we are. And we can tell what’s genuine and what’s not.

When I was a green college student from this little cotton mill village in Georgia I had a chance to visit New York for the first time. I’ve got a picture of me that somebody took. I was at the top of the Empire State Building with a smile covering my face. I went to my first Broadway play that week-end. And it was called Inherit the Wind. And it was about the monkey trial in Dayton, Tennessee. And I remember hearing something that I have never forgotten. And I looked up the play and wrote the words down later.

“That was the name of my first long shot. Golden Dancer. She was in the big sided window of the general store in Wakeman, Ohio. I used to stand out in the street and say to myself, ‘If I had Golden Dancer, I’d have everything in the world  I wanted.’ I was seven years old, and a very fine judge of rocking horses. Golden Dancer had a bright red mane, blue eyes, and she was gold all over, with purple spots. When the sun hit her stirrups she was a dazzling sight to see,. But she was a week’s wages for my father . So Golden Dancer land I always had a plate glass window between us. But—let’s see, it wasn’t Christmas; must’ve been my birthday—I woke up in the morning and there was Golden  Dancer at the foot of my bed!  Ma had skimped on the groceries, and my father’s worked nights for a month. I jumped into the saddle and started to rock—and it broke! It split in two! The wood was rotten, the whole thing was put together with spit and sealing wax! All shine, and no substance! Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie—show it up for what it really is!”

And so we’re through. Pay attention Be astonished. Tell about it. I do believe these rules just might change all our lives.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com