Watching life pass by

While reading an online article about handicap accessible cruise ships that aren't truly handicap accessible, it set my mind wandering about the very nature of our lives.

The ability to do for one's self and to be self-determinant in activity is a privilege and blessing that we totally take for granted. Even a cane added to the life of an otherwise normal person means 'slow down' in unmistakable language.

Sometimes it isn't handicaps of a physical nature that limit our scope. There are times the circumstances of the ebb and flow of our lives takes care of our accessibility to life fairly well.

It's hard to see the movement of everyone and everything around you and know that for whatever reason, that flow doesn't apply to you.

Frustration is a permanent issue then.

I remember when Jared was just a little shaver and we would devote hours of time to going to baseball practices, baseball games and baseball tournaments that Thomas was participating in while we sat elsewhere. At first, Jared enjoyed being out and about but then the sense of deep and painful frustration set in.

He wanted to play, too.

That wasn't possible then and, even with the Challenger league, it truly isn't possible now. He can't do for himself what he sees other players doing. Jared can't grip the bat by himself or take a couple of whacks at his cleats with the fat end of the bat. Jared can't take a well seasoned glove onto his hand and know that satisfying smack of catching a ball that could have gotten away - but it didn't.

There is no running of the bases and hugging up close to the bag as the defensive player sweeps you with his glove long after you have been called safe before the dust could completely settle.

Sometimes, there just isn't a substitute for living life as a 'normal person'. And that just sucks.


In those times where I am personally overcome by my own shallow and petty concerns of what I might be missing, I try to diligently remember that someone much more pure, worthy and most certainly more humble and gentle than I suffers under a much greater burden than I carry or ever will.

Not only does Jared see most of life from the sidelines and just watch the parade as it passes by him, he does so cheerfully.

I don't think I can honestly say that about myself in anything. I am a whiner by nature. I want things my way and I want them now, if not sooner. It is something that sickens me in my character and which I am trying to correct.

But Jared doesn't spend hours agonizing over things he can't control. He doesn't try to analyze all of the ramifications of why something didn't go his way. He accepts. And, when things become too stressful for him to absorb and deal with, he just takes a nap until the bedlam in his mind is quiet once again.

By contrast, I stew, fret, worry and generally make everyone around me miserable because I am miserable. Satan couldn't do a much better (or is that worse?) job of making everyone "feel my pain", real or imagined.

The sad reality of it all is that Jared's only need for patience is in putting up with the rest of us who are so filled with our own sense of what is important that we forget WHO is important.

I just hope that someday, when the situation is reversed, as I am all too afraid that it will be, that Jared is kinder than I have been.

He deserves so much more than I have given him. And he most certainly deserves to be called up from the bench to join the game of life while I sit and take a few of the splinters he has endured for so very long.

Just a few thoughts as I try to sort things out tonight.

Religious Bribery

I came across an ad in the newspaper the other day that gave me cause to pause and reflect.

The boxed advertisement indicated that a church function was being held and that everyone was invited to register to attend and also to register for fabulous prizes to be given away for those who attended.

Hmmm.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but I was a bit disturbed. The ad indicated that a wide variety of electronic "me time" devices were to be awarded and that the requisite for participation in the drawing was to sign up and attend whatever religious services or classes were being held.

Isn't that a lot like bait and switch? I sign up for loot and instead get a sermon from a long-winded but sincere teacher?

By default, not everyone will win one of the prizes and won't that sort of sour them on the whole idea of a religious experience when they see their friend shrieking in what could be misconstrued as speaking in tongues when they discover that they are the winner of a brand new iPod?

I don't think that is the medium of communication for our Father in Heaven.

I have no right to judge, I'm not trying to, I'm making an observation here. When we mix the sacred with the profane, we run the risk of making that which is sacred commonplace and therefore useless to us as individual children of God.

And if we have made something holy useless, we have profaned the purpose for that which is sacred in our lives.

There was a comment recently about NOT texting our friends during Church and instead actually listening to the speakers. No problem there for me. I can't spell worth a darn any time I have tried to do so on those miniscule cell phone keys that have multiple letters and numbers on them. And I don't want a phone that is also a computer. I already have a computer on my desk, thank you very much.

So I have to ask, is the promotional agenda a way to, as Whoopie Goldberg's character in "Sister Act" so profanely suggests "get some butts in the seats"? And if the sensational is the medium in which we try to get people into church at all, it begs the question - what happens when gifts and premiums are no longer being offered?

Is an iPod equated to conversion? Can you truly be dedicated to the Lord if you are simply there for the snack tray?

I know there are times we offer 'encentives' or BRIBES to help children in particular to become accustomed to the routine of attending church. We bring toys and coloring books in an attempt to have them be semi-quiet in the chapel. We offer fruit, Cheerios and sippy cups so they will at least be quiet during the sacrament.

But eventually, we hope they will graduate from this infantile expectance of temporal and temporary reward to a personal seeking of something everlasting and eternal.

And frankly, I don't think you can get there from here with an iPod, cell phone, GameCube or other worldly prize. Those items have their place in life, but I don't believe that they can offer conversion to anything holy or eternal.

I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me. And that's just fine. The road is broad enough for all interpretations to weather the storms of life and see who is right in the final judgement.

I'm just real grateful that I'm not the judge...I fear my own shallowness and imperfections might have me blind to what might be a good idea. Or that my self-interest might blind me to what should be avoided because I fear man more than God.

In any event, it's something to think upon today while I get up and about my chores.