A Little About Yesterday

I have a secret to confess.

Michelle and I watch, “So you think you can dance.”

I know, I am filled with as much shame as you are just reading that. I honestly don’t know how it happened. I never got sucked into any of the American Idol shows (or wanna-be shows). We never did any of the bachelor or bachelorette shows, but somehow this one found a crack in our screening process.

I think we were just watching FOX one Wednesday night and Seinfeld ended and blam, there it was. At first I think we found it hilariously funny, and then next thing we know, we had an opinion about dancing. Who knew? I mean a Wednesday hasn’t gone by when during dinner I haven’t asked, “So you think you can dance?”

Well, about two weeks one of the contestants in jeopardy used a clip of the song, “Storm” in their final performance.

I was hooked.

I had to hear the whole song. Well you can imagine my surprise when I actually found the words to it. It spoke to my situation. I felt the waves. I stood, swallowed by the storm. The words were moving, heart felt, and sounded like they were written by Peter.

One of the struggles that anyone who writes in a public forum has to wrestle with is the issue of what can be shared and what cannot.

When it comes to disclosing my personal life, I’ve made some large leaps in my ability to bare more of my short comings and frustrations then I ever used. It is a rare occasion that I hold back what I am thinking or feeling in this regard. However, the one area that I have been holding back in has been in my work life.

With all these issues of liability, employees getting fired for what they write and all that nonsense, I’m always cautious about the conflicts that I may face.

This is huge source of angst for me.

Everything I do effects who I am. If I am dealing with something at work, I cannot help but bring it home. It influences my entire being even the simple things I fill my blog with.

One of my biggest weaknesses in my spiritual life is my reliance on my own strength. I have a hard time asking for help, sharing my problems, and even turning to God.

I’ve been discussing this with a rediscovered friend of mine and I’ve found encouragement in the things that he has to share and write. I’ve retreated now and again, but he hasn’t given up and still sends me emails now and then to keep that lines open, prompting me to pull away from my own selfishness with my issues.

John Donne wrote:

XVII. MEDITATION.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

We are one body.

When I look at my problems I am almost ashamed at them when I consider what some people in the world are facing. I am not burdened with cancer (that I know of), my kids are healthy, and I’m employed. My house is still standing, and God has blessed me beyond what I deserve. This is part of the excuse I build for not sharing them with others. That they are not worthy of someone else’s attention. God has given me skills and talents and I should use them first and solve them on my own. People don’t need to waste their prayers on my account.

But this is how God planned on his people to live. Even if you aren’t a Christian or into all that religion stuff, we are all members of the human race; we are brothers; we are friends.

Our problems are not our own to carry.

No man is an island entire to himself. What affects one, affects all.

This surprisingly leads me to Batman, Thor, and comic books in general. But that’ll have to wait until later.

For now, thanks for listening.