RANDOMLY DIVINE?

     I wrote a blog entry the other day and was about to publish it, but I inadvertently did something and it disappeared. I couldn't recover it no matter how I tried. I started to rewrite it, but it just wasn't coming back--at least not as clearly as the first one. So, my only conclusion is that it wasn't meant to be, which is a very thought-provoking idea. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember the gist of it.
     In preaching class in seminary, various professors would tell us that we should always carry a small pocket-size notebook around with us, and at night, keep it on our nightstand because when sermon ideas come to us, if we don't write them down immediately, they'll be gone forever. I've had that happen several times during my career, so I guess I never learned that lesson very well. As a matter of fact, the same thing has been true for me in my writing. I will be on a walk on a beautiful day, thinking about what I imagine to be some great life theme, and I will say to myself, I need to write that down as soon as I get back to the car. Then I go on to other thoughts, leaving the one I just had to disappear into the vast universe of forgotten ideas.
     To carry that thought a little bit further, it leads me to say that maybe some things are meant to be and some are not. Some are the result of simply being human and some are, perhaps, the result of some divine filter at work in our lives to protect or guide us lest we get ourselves into an awkward, even troubling, situation that puts us in over our heads. I may be making too much of this, but I like to think that we are not altogether left to our own devices in navigating our way through the maze of life. 
     Sometimes along the way in my life journey, I have wondered how did I end up wherever I was at the time or in whatever situation I found myself. Was it the result of some random series of events or was it by unknowingly following a divinely intended course? It's not that easy to determine unless you are of a particular mindset or another, say, that the universe is totally random or that everything is the result of the hand of God.
     What I do know is that I believed I was suppose to go into the ministry, but I entered Princeton Theological Seminary with no financial backing, except with a few meager dollars in my checking account. It seemed like a decision made on very shaky ground, but then, PTS came through with some grants and a scholarship in preaching. One moment deeply questioning my decision; the next feeling affirmed that that's exactly where I was supposed to be.
     I think that many of us wonder about various scenarios of our lives--sometimes with regrets, sometimes with great celebration. What do they mean? What is the source of their origin? The truth is that we all mostly have to take responsibility for our lives; but in my own thinking, there is a divine hand that often is at work behind the scenes, quietly influencing the course we are on in order to help us live the reality we are meant to live. We probably aren't that good at following directions.
     What do you think?  
    

YOU NEVER KNOW...

          Yesterday, on the first day of spring, our dog, Faye, and I walked on the towpath along the D&R Canal from Fireman’s Eddy up toward town to the wing dam and back. It’s a 2 mile walk on which Faye likes to stop every so often to sniff and leave her mark which interpreted in dog world is “Hi, everybody. Faye was here.” I don’t mind that she does because it gives me a chance to pause for a few seconds and briefly meditate to the sound and flow of the river.

          Ever since we moved here, ten years ago now, I have felt extremely grateful for the way things worked out in finding the place where we live. While I was still the pastor in Cranbury and about two years before I retired, Chris and I were starting to think about where we might move when that happened. Neither of us owned a home of our own. We lived in the parsonage, which was the case for me in the various churches I served, so that was the only living situation I had had for all those years.

          Years ago when I was on the staff of St. Andrew’s UM Church in Cherry Hill, a woman of the congregation came in to see me one day. She was a very spiritual woman for whom I had a great deal of respect. And in our conversation, she asked me, “Do you ever use “picture praying?” I told her that I didn’t know what that was, so she explained it to me.

          In essence, it is using your imagination to think of whatever kind of situation you desire to manifest in your life—a new job, healing and good health, a place to live, etc. You picture that scenario in your mind in a way that includes you being completely happy and fulfilled in whatever life situation you wish to change or have happen. Every so often, throughout your day, you let that picture run through your mind. And if you can’t come up with an exact picture, just imagine yourself being surrounded by a white light.

          Now I realize for some people that that will sound completely like a bit of New Age thinking. I understand that. However, I have used it throughout my adult life since she shared that with me, and whatever anyone else thinks of it, that’s fine. But I will tell you this: it has definitely worked for me in various times and ways.

          Case in point: As I said earlier, Chris and I were wondering where we might live. We both had ideas of what area we wanted live in and the kind of house we would like. In the meantime, someone sent me a wonderful Christmas card with a picture of a house on the front. It was a country house in a very inviting winter scene, and I thought to myself that that was exactly the kind place that would be perfect. So I cut the picture off the front and pasted it up on the wall across from my computer. Every so often for those two years, I would look up at it and imagine us living there.

          Well, time was getting short—a couple of months away from having to move, and we hadn’t found a place to move to. One of our kids—I honestly don’t know which one—told us to look on Craig’s List. So we did and found a great farm house in the Lambertville area. We contacted the owners and went to see it and made up our minds that that was just the right place for us and it very much remains so.

          But I have included two pictures: one is of the card that I posted on the wall of my office and the other is of the place where we have lived for the last ten years. All I can say is, I highly recommend “picture praying” as something that is worth trying, even if you’re skeptical.

 

IT ALL WORKS OUT IN THE END

Just thinking

     (excerpt from my memoir)

      I was never much of an athlete. My mind simply wasn’t quick enough to respond to the instantaneous reactions needed for sports. It hasn’t improved as I’ve gotten older, by the way. All through grade school a common phrase that got repeated like a mantra on the playground was, “You guys get Foster. We had him yesterday.”

     Needless to say, I dreaded “play period” because not being good at sports was shameful in those days. I don’t know if it’s any better today. I hope it is. In fact, I had a Sunday School teacher, who shall remain nameless, who said in class one time that if you didn’t like sports, then you were not a good Christian. I swear that that’s true! That pretty much took care of any hopes I had in my young preteen life of being in favor with God. Guilt and rejection rose in my psyche like a thermometer on a hot summer day.

     Of course, the athletes were the cool kids—the admired kids—the popular kids. I used to daydream that one day I would wake up suddenly and be a super athlete. I even prayed about that, making promises to God to be especially good if God would just make that happen. It was a true test of faith when that didn’t materialize. (That would join the list of my other requests, one being that I would go out to the garage/barn one morning and find a pony there, just waiting for me to ride it. I won’t go into detail about my other requests.)

     At any rate, technically, I never really had to wait to find out what position I was going to play—right field—where kids seldom hit the ball. I just needed to know for which team.

     One day during a softball game on the playground of the Milton H. Allen elementary school—I’m guessing the year was 1955 or thereabouts—the usual routine of team selection took place by the “captains,” and I made my way to my appointed position.

     The game dragged on. I daydreamed my way through most of it. Then suddenly I heard some commotion up toward home plate. Kids were looking in my direction and I couldn’t figure out why. They were yelling something that I couldn’t make out. I took off my hat (as if that were going to help), and lo and behold, much to my surprise, a ball landed it!

     Kids were ecstatic!  “Do you see that?”  “Whoa, Foster! Way to go!”  For one brief moment of my life, I was a sports hero of sorts.

     The next day when the teams were being chosen, I was certain somebody would mention my name first. They didn’t. The mantra was familiar: “You guys get Foster. We had him yesterday.”

     Years later, listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary (one of my favorite groups of all time), Paul Stokey sang a song he had written called “Right Field.” It blew me away. The story of the lyrics sounded almost identical to my big moment in softball.

     Hearing that was both amusing and enlightening at the same time. What seemed like such a big deal years ago, was really little more than the growing pains of finding out who I am and who I am not. It’s true for all of us I think. Those moments when we feel awkward or out of place are really part of the self-discovery process. They are in no way a judgment against our self-worth nor as signs of failure. They merely correct our course in the direction of where we are meant to go.

IN THE BEGINNING

"DOWN FROM THE DOOR 
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN"*
 [Excerpt from my memoir with apologies]

     

I was born in the upstairs back bedroom of 77 South Main Street, Medford, New Jersey on February 26, 1943. My birth room also later became my childhood bedroom for a while. When it was, I never gave a thought about its significance to the beginning of my life—in fact, I didn’t become aware of that fact until later when my parents finally got around to telling me.

       It was a nice room, slightly sunken (two steps down from the rest of the upstairs), a back stairway leading down into the kitchen area, and three nice windows. The attic door was just up the aforementioned two steps—a two room place that was great for snooping around, exploring, and pretending, of which I did plenty.

       FDR was president when I was born and died when I was two years old, so, obviously, I have no memory of that. Therefore Harry Truman was the first president of which I knew anything about at all.  I remember seeing him on TV a few times, but I don’t remember the circumstances.

       Speaking of TV, the main source of entertainment at the very beginning of my life was radio. We had a small console style radio which was in the living room. My parents sometimes had friends over, and they would sit around listening to programs on a Friday or Saturday night. I would sit on the floor listening until I got bored or too tired.

       The radio also had a frequency for listening to short wave, seemingly from around the world—I always thought it did anyway. I remember listening to it in the dark, imagining who was talking and where they were. The sound was often scratchy and would fade in and out, but that added to the mystery.  

       It all seems so quaint now, but the truth is that life was what it was as it is today. The present moments projected on the future screen of our memories often edit out the pains, the frustrations, and the discomforts of the past so that they sometimes seem idyllic. Of course, even though we know better, there is comfort and joy in allowing ourselves to think and feel that way and, and at this stage of my life I think it's quite okay that we do.

       In one of my favorite plays, Our Town, a young woman, Emily, who has died, is allowed to go back and relive a day of her life. She chooses the day of her 12^th birthday, but she finds it to be a very disheartening experience because everyone in her house is so caught up with their busyness that they never notice her or even give notice that it’s her birthday. She says, “Doesn’t anyone ever realize life while they live it?”

       That line is worthy of being either a bumper sticker or a poster or both. 

*The Hobbit