Tomorrow's Bread

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It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:

repetitive, loveless, cheap sex;
a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;
frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;
trinket gods;
magic-show religion;
paranoid loneliness;
cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants;
a brutal temper;
an impotence to love or be loved;
divided homes and divided lives;
small-minded and lopsided pursuits;
the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival;
uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions;
ugly parodies of community.

I could go on.

THOSE AREN’T MY WORDS. Are they my thoughts, sentiments, tendencies? Is it self-indicting to say, “Yes, maybe so.”

Do the words seem disturbingly descriptive of our divided world?

I’m sure of this: life is not either-or, black-or-white. Despite cultural pressure to reduce everything to absolutes we all know that’s ridiculous. Life happens in degrees, in shades, and at the risk of losing what small audience I might have: it’s relative too. It’s nuanced.

That doesn’t take away from the power of the picture, the validity of the argument, the truth of the message: as we move toward selfishness—trying to get our own way all the time—a kind of life develops that is fertile ground for all that crap the passage describes.

I’m not one for fatalistic, bleak, this-is-the-end worldviews. But, for some reason this lyric from the song “Lola” by The Kinks comes to mind (which I’m taking out of context to serve my own purposes [like we do sometimes]):

It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola
La-la-la-la Lola

I don’t claim to know why Lola’s world was more clear, more categorized. It seems his/her world was most mixed and muddled. It’s nuanced.

[By the way, let me recommend clicking here to check out a superb, modern version of the song by Mona Lisa Twins]

Let’s go back to the very first sentence of the passage and the phrase: “…life develops out of trying…”

The good thing about realizing that life is a process, that it develops, is that it is NOT a matter of throwing switches. Each of us can make choices, we get to become more selfless, moment by moment, step by step, shade by shade. And if we mess up, there is grace. We get to try again. We can count on having tomorrow’s bread. We have a blueprint and a model. There are footprints along a path we can follow. It a path that leads to self-giving, serving, and loving others as we ought to love ourselves.

Some will say I’m stretching the facts, twisting the “truth”, bending ethics and playing with fire. I’m aware of Carl Sagan’s epigram: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

We are all human after all, created by the Creator in that image. From first breath to last we live by degrees and shades, sometimes understanding, many times not.

To borrow more words, these are from Simon & Garfunkel:

I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

Guilty?

Those words? The ones from the passage I used to begin this essay? Those are from the Bible, from a letter of Paul the apostle, Galations 5:19-21 (The Message).

I’m aware that by sourcing The Message there will be those who dismiss it as invalid and maybe even heretical. I understand the love and allegiance of many old saints to the King James Version of scripture. I grew up hearing and reading from KJV. But, during my first coming-of-age, a version came along called The Living Bible. I became a fan. And when hardcore KJV folks dismissed it as a “paraphrase,” as if that were something the devil or the methodists might create, I dug in even more.

My teenage rebellion pretty much consisted of choosing The Living Bible over The King James, having long hair, playing drums in a rock and roll band, chewing gum in class, flashig a peace sign in the youth camp picture… I’ll wrap up this confessional with: and etc.

IMG_2995.jpg

I’ll admit it now, that at times, I missed the feeling of the familiar words of the KJV when hearing passages like the 23rd Psalm. But this paraphrase called The Living Bible felt, well, alive somehow. In more recent years, The Message version has been the one I read most. I can picture Jesus and those with him talking in words that seem natural and genuine and unpretentious. I realize, it’s all nuanced.

I was reading an article this week and found this worth pondering:

“It is an open question how much Greek of any kind Jesus’s own circle understood or used. Nearly all of the words attributed to them are thus in a language they may never have voluntarily uttered, belonging to a cosmopolitan civilization they may well have despised.”

The author of the article, Casey Cep was quoting Sarah Ruden who has written a carefully translated take on the four Gospels simply titled “The Gospels: A New Translation.”

Cep observes, “Sacred literature is rightfully loved and cherished, but too often that love can creep toward idolatry, shaping the text into something fixed and static, when ideally it is shaping us every time we encounter it.”*

To this day, if asked to quote The Lord’s Prayer, I would do it in the King James Version, just as I learned it so many years ago. It is beautiful. But what if, just maybe, Jesus used a different word or phrase? What if, for example, he said:

Give us day by day tomorrow’s loaf of bread…

Can you feel how powerful that is?! I know it doesn’t seem that different from “Give us this day our daily bread…” But it is!

From her studies of Greek, Aramic and Hebrew and context, that is how Sarah Ruden believes Jesus might have said it. I hope she is right.

Consider it: while it is amazing to be able to ask for our daily bread, how life-changing is it to be able to ask for tomorrow’s loaf of bread today? Imagine being a hungry beggar or child, it’s night and time for bed and you go there with the knowledge that tomorrow’s loaf of bread will be on the table.

It’s nuanced. It’s a glimpse at the possibilities of how we might find fresh perspective and inspiration along the way as our lives develop. Open mind, open hearts, open eyes, open ears. Take a risk. Tomorrow’s bread will be on the table.

*Cep, Casey (April 28, 2021). What We Can and Can’t Learn from a New Translation of the Gospels: Sarah Ruden aims to return familiar texts to the fresh clay from which they were made. The New Yorker. www.newyorker.com

ALPHA & OMEGA

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YOU KNOW HOW WHEN YOU’RE BORN, everything that happens is your FIRST? First smile, first word, first tooth, first step…

Malachi (as in it’s Me Against The Grand-Girls; that Malachi) just had his first haircut. It’s one of those FIRSTS that seems to cause a giant step in Growing Up. Like the first day of school, first sleepover, first dance, first kiss…

All of this is a part of what I understand to be a “coming-of-age”. Some say that coming-of-age means reaching a certain milestone like getting a driver’s license, graduating from high school, being able to vote, etc. Some say it defines the process of maturity, particularly emotional maturity.

When does it end? Is there a point where we can say, “I’ve come of age!” I don’t know. Some seem to remain eternally toddler-like, spoiled brats—you know the ones that people judge as needing to grow up. Some just seem to be blessed with a youthful curiosity, and sense of wonder.

Could it be that at some point our LASTS outnumber our FIRSTS? Is that a sign that we have come-of-age? Our last day of school, our last child to leave the nest, our last day on the job, our last time to drive a car… Stopping now. This could get morbid in a hurry. But, maybe not.

Several years ago, September 2013, to be exact, I started this blog called About Pops . It was a part of a process in my life that I came to call my “second-coming-of-age”, because I’ve discovered this life is loaded with opportunities for FIRSTS and do-overs.

My Amazing-Missus and I have taken adventures in our Airstream Travel Trailer I never thought we would have. Being a Pops is fraught with FIRSTS, because we get to celebrate all of those with each of our grands. I was able to reconnect with a friend from high school days, which may not sound like a big deal, but it was for me. Somehow I found myself becoming a part of a group of young artists in New York City and then around the world—a group called International Arts Movement. I even got to serve on their board which meant making numerous trips to NYC, and then helping cultivate seeds of that arts movement back here in OKC.

So, I’m seeking FIRSTS and finding new joy in the repetitive things of life: road trips to Shawnee and Alva, Seinfeld reruns, eating “Chinese” food with Mom & Dad, going to work. When I kiss my Amazing-Missus goodnight when I go to bed and she settles in to watch the ten o’clock news, I want to do it with the passion of my 20 year-old self. Well… maybe not that passionate (there was a good deal of lust in that passion). You get the idea.

Pretend your opening a fortune cookie and inside the little paper says, “Go do something you’ve done a thousand times and enjoy it like it was the FIRST.”

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Sgt. Pepper & Other Memories

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THIS IS THE 50th ANNIVERSARY of the release of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club, the album that made a huge mark on the music and recording industries and provided a sound track of sorts for my first coming-of-age.

Months ago, I read a book by Mary Karr called The Art of the Memoir. While reading, I took her challenge to give it a try—writing a memoir, not for publication or anything like that, in fact, not even for anyone ever to read, but as an exercise in remembering stories. Mary Karr warns in her book that it is not an easy thing to do and in fact can be dangerous.

“I’ve said it’s hard. Here’s how hard: everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little.”
— Mary Karr, The Art of the Memoir

Still, I highly recommend you give it a try. Maybe go back in your life, grab an experience and write a few paragraphs. It is eye-opening, soul-searching, and scary.

She also warns that remembering and writing it all down can be hurtful to yourself and others and that being honest is hard to do. She’s right. I do want to be honest in my recollection of the past, but my memories are hazy and sketchy. I’ve apparently edited those memories over the years.

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. ”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

As I started on the challenge I knew I didn’t want to write my whole life’s story so I chose to focus on three summers, the first, 1967. Because, in the past few days, my mind has been drawn back to that time with of all the news of the Sgt. Pepper anniversary and re-release of the album, and these lyrics running through my head:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

I’ve decided to share just a snippet of the memoir project here.

THREE SUMMERS; THREE FALLS

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, —Ecclesiastes 3:1

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
—from the lyrics of Turn! Turn! Turn! by The Byrds

The First: The Summer of 1967

Coming of age in the 1960s, fascinated by the Hippie lifestyle (or my perception of it), raised in the home of a Southern Baptist preacher, the horizon loomed large, and I didn't realize it.

On January 8, 1967, Elvis turned 32 and I turned 16. Although we shared a birthday, I was never drawn to his music to the point that I would have bought one of his albums. My music budget demanded careful curating of my vinyl library. Early in the Summer of 67, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club was released. I was smitten and ready for stardom on the rock and roll stage. Ringo Starr and I both played Ludwig drums, all I needed now was long hair, despite the edict of The Beatles that "All You Need Is Love". The first fall was into adolescent angst, triggered in part by things like the battle over hair.

The summers of youth make for a good season for ad lib in the sense that they tend to be more unfocused. The rhythm of the school routine pauses, along with a requisite amount of self-discipline. Summers as a teen felt natural to me. I didn't have to ease in. I was ready for the freeform of it all on the first day of the break.

The summer of ’67 though, had a cadence to it; figuratively and literally. I was playing drums in a band that was headed for the World's Fair, "Expo '67", in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. So the days between the end of school and boarding the tour bus, were spent in long rehersals.

I had no idea that “Expo ’67” was such a big deal until we arrived there. I had no idea how big the world outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma really was. I had no idea how much I would be changed after that summer baptism of worldliness.

(to be continued)

So there it is. Probably the only part of the memoir exercise that I will ever share with anyone.

Let’s close with Ringo singing…

What would you think if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends