Seeing Life as a Privilege
Once again recently I have endured the pleasures of standing on the hard-shoulder of the Motorway waiting for the tow-truck to come and rescue me; to rescue me from a situation bought about by the varied experiences of being a motorist.Such situations are hard enough to endure, but when one realises that this break down has the same cause as the previous five break-downs which have occurred in the last twelve months and it is easy to begin to feel a little persecuted.
Indeed, I remember, when seeing the red warning light come on, immediately feeling the rage build-up to such an extent that by the time I had pulled over to the hard-shoulder, I was venting my anger by beating my fist on the steering wheel. Not a very ministerial thing to do, but whoever said ministers are anything other than human!
At that moment it would have been very easy, and perhaps, understandable, to fall into that other very human response to disaster and disappointment and ask, "Why Me?" Luckily, I resisted the temptation, because, deep down, I know the answer: "Why not me?" Why should I be exempt from life's little foibles and afflictions? However, we do respond, don't we, in this fashion when faced with poor health, bereavement, relationship breakdowns, and so on and so on. We feel the need to blame, to find someone or something that has caused our situation, even at time some one upon whom we can exact retribution... sometimes that someone is whatever we understand as God.
This I find worrying for it hankers back to a very primitive understanding of faith and religion, or maybe not when we hear some of the more evangelical preachers. It is a throw back to the days when sacrifices were made to placate the angry God, to facilitate the reward of a good harvest, to guarantee success in battle.
The story of Abraham and Isaac, we could say, is illustrative of this point.
It was not uncommon in the ancient world for parents to sacrifice a son in times of great need or illness to try and appease the gods. The Bible records several examples ranging from Jephthah in the book of Judges, down to Menasseh in 2 Kings.
To modern eyes all these stories are looked upon in horror, however, there is something different in the story of Abraham and Isaac. In the New English Bible, Chapter 32 of the Book of Genesis begins; 'The time came when God put Abraham to the test.' Put better in the St James Bible it says, 'After these things God tested Abraham.'
After what things?
If one follows the story of Abraham there is a succession of crises - there is Abraham's experience of famine; then, having received God's promise, Abraham allows that to be threatened by lying about Sarah, saying she was his sister so that the Egyptians would not kill him; by allowing Lot to choose the promised land; by thinking that Sarah, his wife, was too old to conceive and thereby doubting God's promise he had a child with Hagar, Sarah's servant girl.
All these crises came about before God's test of his faith. How much may he have asked, why me? Ultimately, through this story we can sum up Abraham as a man of faith, no a man who followed the prescribed Law of faith, but a man of faith who, no matter what doubts he had or what life threw at him remained faithful to what he believed God to be and what he understood that God was asking of him. Life or faith is still continually tested today! We may not be asked to sacrifice our children on the altar, but sometimes it seems like it, sometimes when we are at our lowest, or in the heat of the moment, be it disappointment, anger or frustration, we still ask, Why me?.......
How do we continue to have faith?
As Unitarians we make much of relationships, and as that great Presbyterian minister Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote, 'no relationship in human life ever comes to its best until it flowers out into a sense of privilege.' (Twelve Test of Character p71)
What on earth can he mean?
That our best teachers are not those whose daily chore is to set children to the drudge task of work, but the one who feels the privilege of lighting the fire of intellectual curiosity within the minds of our children who will then be eager for their task;
Likewise, the happiest home is not one held together because of some legal arrangement or vow once taken, but where, if all the marriage vows were annulled by government, it would make no difference. They are a family not by legality, but because they love to be.
As with friendships, real friends are not those who speak of duty, obligation or responsibility, but those whose duty, obligation and responsibility is underpinned and lifted by a sense of privilege in being friends. To live with a tremendous sense of privilege, will give a feeling of wellbeing and happiness; and a person who has developed that sense to encompass the whole of life will be as Browning write; 'a happy-tempered bringer of the best out in the world.'
That person is rendering to the world one of the greatest services possible to humankind.
Likewise, if we engender, even in the darkest times, such a sense of privilege and thankfulness for life, then the question 'Why me?' will become superfluous. Because when our lives, at the end, are balanced out, we shall see that what appears a mighty burden, in the fullness of time, weighs little against the immense gift of life.
I know there are times when it is difficult to find the positive in life, for life is a mixture of fortune and disaster, but most people get a fair mixture of both. Happiness is therefore, not a dependence primarily upon the fortunate over the unfortunate circumstances of our lives, although we could all wish for that. No, happiness depends far more on our insight, on the ability to see in any situation that which makes it worthwhile. It is surprising how often what we are inside, suggests what we shall see outside.
The Bible, for example, has meant peace, comfort, illumination, moral power to millions, but because Whistler, the artist, was a man with a bitter soul, writing scathing attacks on his enemies, he came to the Bible with a jaundiced view and found there only what he sought; 'that splendid mine of invective', as he described it.
It is this capacity to find in life what you bring to it that caused much of the world’s unhappiness. There is much in life that is disappointing, and should we wish to concentrate upon that, then life will be so. Such weak spots we all have and are amply demonstrated in literature; Achilles was dipped in the river Styx by his mother Thetis to make him invulnerable, but the heel by which she held him failed to get wet. Seigfried bathes in the Dragon’s blood, but a lime leaf falls upon his back and leaves one unprotected spot. Balder's mother, in the Icelandic Sagas, makes all nature except the mistletoe swear not to harm her son, and it is by the mistletoe that he falls.
All life has its weak spots, its Achilles heel, its lamentable moments and if we insist on emblazing them we can make of life a miserable business. To see life as a privilege; to live life as a privilege, affects all our relationships. It breeds that sense of generosity, appreciativeness and love that is so lacking in the world. It gives us the insight that discovers happiness, that sees the holy, the sacred, in difficult situations, in everyday people and customary tasks.
To see life as a privilege changes our prayer from one of supplication, continually asking, to one of thanksgiving.
It is to live in 'mindfulness', to see the Miracle of the next breath, as Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh would say.
Failure to see beauty in the commonplace of life is only lack of insight within ourselves. In William Gannet's words;
The Poem hangs on the berry-bush
When comes the poet’s eye;
The streets begin to masquerade
When Shakespeare walks by.
When I broke done on the Motorway, I was able to call in the recovery truck for assistance. The man that came was no expert, but he had seen the situation before and knew what to do, knew the ropes and, with calm efficiency, takes control of the situation.
In many respects, in community, the comfort we give each other, is God's recovery truck, it enable us to get over difficult times; none of us are experts but, between us, we have been there before. In community, we recognise that together life is liveable no matter what.
That life is a privilege and a gift and, for that, we give thanks.
© Rev Chris Goacher