Word for the Day

Today’s Word:  Self Esteem.  (Or is that two words?)

            The brain is extraordinary.  Who can understand all the ways our brains work?  However, research is revealing many of the brain’s secrets, as I learned at a workshop sponsored by the Institute for Brain Potential.  Much of the workshop focused on people with high-conflict personalities and strategies to work with them and help them.

            Dr. Dennis Marikis, our presenter, told us up front that the most important interventions are “early interventions.”  As he shared he got to talking about so-called self-esteem.  “When a person receives nothing but praise this actually diminishes self.  Only when a person recognizes their weaknesses can they feel good about themselves.”  Then our speaker put it another way, “Self-esteem is seeing that you ‘suck at’ some things and still feel valued.”

            I got to thinking about the people I have worked with over my life.  It is true.  Some of the folks who were most unreasonable had never had to face their own failings and faults.  In the seminar we learned strategies for working with people like that.  But I’m not going to talk about “other people” here. Something else occurred to me. 

            I wonder if we don’t first need to work with ourselves.

            In my first “unit” of Clinical Pastoral Education I was confronted with my personal shyness and difficulty in saying “no.”  In my second unit I discovered just how much my relationship with my father affected me.  But it wasn’t until my fourth unit that I was shown once again just how much I craved affirmation.  That is totally human and we all need some affirmation.  But seeking for “pats on the back” can get in the way of true self-confidence and even hinder doing good work!  We all need to learn that it’s OK to not be good at everything and normal to mess up once in a while. 

            So think about yourself. 

+Like me, you have some things you just don’t do well.  My spouse doesn’t ever ask me to cook something unless she puts out specific and detailed instructions.  On the other hand I wash a mean load of clothes!

            +Also, you probably have things you know you could do better and should do better.  I listen to folks “on the job” pretty well.  I’m not sure my family always thinks I listen to them as well.  I can improve my listening skills. 

            +And even with some things we do well, we sometimes fail.  I believe I offer good and appropriate spiritual support.  But there have been occasions I failed.  That’s not something I like to admit.  But even after failures I am valued.  Even (some) folks who helped point out my “areas needing improvement” still think I’m a quality person.  Now, that’s true self-esteem.

            We need … we all need … people who can say, “Hey, you messed up, didn’t you?  I’m still glad you are on my team.” 

Death and Laughter

Word for the Day

Today’s Word:  Death.

WARNING:  If you are easily offended, stop reading now.  Really.

            I don’t remember very much from the very first funeral at which I officiated.  The lady was elderly and I was only a pulpit fill preacher.  I hadn’t been to any schooling or training.  Truth is, I really didn’t know what to do.  So … I was nervous.

            The lady was in her 80s and her main relative was an 87 year old brother.  Before the service was to begin at the funeral home I gathered with the small family in a side room for prayer.  When it was about time to start I said to the brother, “Are you ready to go?”  Just like he had been waiting for the chance, he smiled and said, “What, are you already looking for your next funeral?”  He told everyone, “The pastor wants to know if I’m ready to go too!”

            I don’t remember much more, though I know it threw me off for a while.  Death is serious business and as a young guy I thought we should approach it that way.  I wasn’t wrong.  I just wasn’t fully right.

            The best and most healing funerals give us a chance to smile and remember, very often an opportunity to laugh about funny things.  These days I look for the chance to bring a chuckle, appropriately – not with a silly joke, but with the foibles of life shown in a person we love, but have lost.

I recently attended a Broadway musical titled, “The Addams Family” based on the TV show.  If you remember the show, you know it had plenty of humor about death, dying, killing and torture.  In the musical, Morticia, the mother of the family had a fight with her husband and is distraught.  But she remembers the one thing which can help and sings a song “Just Around the Corner.”  What’s around the corner?  Death, and that makes her happy.  She even quips to the audience, “No, you don’t get it – just around the coroner.”  It was funny.  I laughed.

One basic way we handle difficult things in life is to laugh.  One way to cut the big troubles of life down to size is to make fun of them.  I can imagine there are those who would be offended when we laugh at death or make fun of it.  And we certainly have to have some wisdom about when and how. 

Did you hear about the little boy who crawled up on his grandpa’s lap and asked, “Grandpa, when’s the game?”

“What game?” asked grandpa.

“The football game, the one you are playing in,” explained the boy.

“What makes you think I play football?” queried the grandfather.

“Well,” said the boy, “I heard mom and dad talking.  They said when you kick off we’ll be on easy street.”

Funny?  Maybe.  Dumb.  For sure. 

We need to laugh.  We need to make fun of our mortality, even while we face it.  And death, well, there is a time to make light and a time to be serious.  We need both.

One of my earliest experiences was the horrible and tragic death of two-year-old Ryan in a tractor accident.  Nothing funny.  But a few days later when all the farmers came over to put in the family’s crop, there was laughter in the house at something, who knows what?  And mom said, “We haven’t heard laughter here for a while.  It’s good.”

Laughing is good.  Cutting death down to a size we can handle with faith or the funnies or both – well, that’s good too. 

Waiting as a Gift

Word for the Day

Today’s Word:  Wait

            I live a long half hour from my work at Altru’s Hospice and I know how much time to allow.  Usually.  But today I pull up to the town of Thompson just as a train arrived and the arms came down across highway 15.

            So I wait.

            No one likes to wait.  No one.  At no time.

            I have put items back on a shelf when the check-out lines would make me wait.  On a phone call we rarely enjoy the music because it means we are waiting!   We wait impatiently in traffic, at the doctor’s office and for the kitchen timer to announce “dinner time” with a ding. 

            People look at waiting as a necessary evil, at best, and something to avoided whenever possible.  That attitude stretches to other parts of life too.  Youth don’t want to wait for intimacy.  As consumers folks buy now instead of waiting and saving.  Commercials ask us, “Why wait when you can have it now?”

            Remember – I’m waiting for the train at Thompson.  I didn’t have a computer to put these thoughts to words.  But the waiting gave me time to think that we are looking at this all wrong.  Waiting isn’t a problem.  Waiting is a gift. 

            Please don’t misunderstand me.  We shouldn’t think making someone wait for us is a gift.  But when are forced to wait, we are often forced to think and perhaps to think new thoughts. 

            We were buying a new television a few years back.  I saw the and was ready to buy.  But my spouse wanted to wait and look.  I didn’t want to wait, didn’t wait and brought the set home.  We ended up not liking it, and I had to wait in line at the store so I could explain why I was bringing it back.  I only wonder at how many times I would have saved myself problems by simply waiting. 

            Here’s some ideas to make your wait a gift!

            Contain the emotions. 

            Often we don’t gain from waiting because we are upset we have to wait.  Any value of giving thought to a problem or using the time to relax and re-think gets lost in our emotions.  Recognize the feelings, accept your situation and open your mind.

            Ask a Question.

            Questions are your greatest tool for learning.  “What is important to me today?”  or “Who can I help today?” or “How can I learn from this?” or even "Why is waiting bothering me so much?"

            Enjoy the slow-down.

            Frankly most of us are hurrying here and there.  Slowing down for a moment or two during the day should be a good thing.  So enjoy it.  Relax.  Think, pray or meditate.

            … Oh, the train is about through.  I have to get back to focusing on my driving.  But it is amazing what can go through your mind during a short wait. 

Word for the Day

Today's Word: Marathon

            The horrible events in Boston have brought the word “marathon” to everyone’s mind.  For just a moment, let’s think about a marathon, a race of over 26 miles. 

            Perhaps you are a runner and have even run a marathon, or half-marathon or 10k race.  But have you watched a marathon live?  I have.

            My two oldest boys and only daughter-in-law, Emily, run marathons.  Emily hopes to run a marathon in every state in the union and she has a good start.  I went to watch them when they ran the Fargo Marathon last year.

            Of course, you don’t watch a marathon, not live anyway.  My wife, Betty, and I drove to about the mid-point of the marathon course and found some parking near a hospital.  After walking our own little mini-marathon to a good viewing spot, we gave couple of waves and cheers to our marathoners and then walked back to our car.  An hour later we cheered again when our family crossed the finish line. 

            In a race that is 26.2 miles long, we saw the runners for a few hundred feet.  In an event that takes something like three hours, we watched for a minute or two.  It was a single snapshot from a movie, a short glimpse of a longer event.

            Kind of like life, I thought. 

            On our walls are pictures of events.  But, like the marathon, those events are part of a larger picture.  The birth of my grandson is just one stop on a journey which stretched back to when his parents married, and even to when they met.  And the journey heads forward into an adventure yet unknown. 

            This is so important to remember during the less-positive events of life.  In the midst of disaster, or when we face death, or during illness we must remember the marathon.  These things are the focus of life right now, but life is more than just those.  A disaster comes and does damage, but the marathon of life has been proceeding for long before and will go long after. 

            The “pictures” we experience of life, though dramatic, are not the whole story.  Neither the wonderful event or the terrible one can erase what has happened before or prevent meaningful life in the days to come.   That moment is only a glimpse, a peek, a piece of the whole. 

            When we “watched” the marathon, I walked a ways along the course against the flow.  A couple of blocks down I came upon my son and daughter-in-law – walking.  My son said, “We really were running just a minute ago.”  I’m sure they were, and would be again.

            Don’t let the moment in time be the only thing you see.  If it is a good moment, treasure it, remember it and build upon it.  If it is a tough moment, remember all that came before and what will come afterward.  The moment may hurt, and the hurt may last, but there’s more to a marathon than one picture. 

The Trivializing of Death

Word for the Day

Today's Word: Death

Elizabeth Kubler Ross was perhaps the first to point out the American dysfunctional view of death. Westerners simply didn't talk about death. In a certain sense our world today has changed, but not necessarily for the better. Today death is frequently mentioned. Consider all the television shows which routinely have someone, or several someones, die. Death is something even children frequently see.

But there remains a problem. We have gone from ignoring death to trivializing it. Television shows take us from tragedy to happiness all inside an hour. It's as if death were no big thing and grief just a momentary bump on the road.

This made me think of one of the Old Testament "trivializer," Jonah. We might remember Jonah and the great fish which swallowed him. But what got him there? God asked the prophet to go preach to the evil Ninevites. Jonah instead ran away -- right into the belly of the fish.

Why did Jonah run? Simple. He knew God might be merciful and Jonah wanted the Ninevites dead both in this world and perhaps the next.

Once apprehended by the great fish, Jonah did go and preach, "Yet three days and Nineveh will be destroyed." But Nineveh repented, God relented and Jonah watched from outside of town. Jonah not only took the potential death of the Ninevites lightly, he was very upset when the vine which gave him shade was struck by a worm and died. Jonah complained, "I wish I could die."

Consider Jonah's way of thinking. He trivialized the death of the Ninevites, wanting their destruction because he simply didn't like them. He didn't see that he put the human lives of the Ninevite people on a lower place than the "death" of his shade tree. And he further trivialized dying when, simply because he was hot and didn't get his way, he said, "I want to die." Anyone trivialized death this way?

Our world similarly trivializes dying. We see in the news (or on a movie) many people die. Perhaps we think some deserve it, and maybe they do, but we much too quickly accept the deaths of many. Those deaths were human souls with families in pain. When we think the TV dramas are right and the grief is short-lived, we make their death trivial. It is not.

We have two companion truths.

First, death is real, hurts deeply and stays with us. We do not recover when we trivialize or underestimate death's power. When someone we love dies, the hurt comes with the separation. The hurt lasts and might revisit us with powerful and unexpected bouts of grief. Unlike a TV show the pain won't be gone in an hour.

But, second, we can handle death and once again experience joy. Christians see by the Bible that death is a defeated enemy. Though death truly hurts, it is just one part of our life. Perhaps our faith guides us, or we celebrate the life we shared. But we are built with resilience. We can make it.

If you must play "Trivial Pursuit" don't take death as a category. You won't ever come out on top.

Signs of Spring -- Tournaments.

Chaplains at Altru Health System do weekday one-minute devotionals which can be accessed by calling 701-780-3300.  I’m doing mine on “Signs of Spring” during the week of February 25 to March 1.  The third one is below. 

 

Take a moment to pauses and reflect …

            About Spring.  The signs of spring, like the grey snow which will eventually give way to green grass.  Seed catalogs.  And, today, the sign of spring is basketball tournaments.  Yes, basketball.

            Maybe you are a big “March Madness” fan, the college basketball tournament.  But, I am referring to where real basketball is played – in high school, where no one has big contracts and players play because they love the game or their community.  And where fans cheer even if their team is constantly losing. 

            The basketball tournaments point to the end of the indoor season and of winter.  Once the tournaments track and baseball are played in and around the mud of spring.  Many players, or even fans, regret the end of the tournament.  That escitement is hard to beat.  But that joy ending just leaves room for another to start.  Golf, anyone?

            The sports seasons, just like the seasons of the year, remind us of the constant change of life.  One activity is completed, but another begins.  Our children leave home and then we greet grandchildren.  Seasons, all unique, come to each of us.  Though we might have a favorite, each season is special and brings something new to enjoy along with a challenge or two.  Embrace the change; embrace the seasons with joy.

            Let us pray, “God thank-you for spring, but also for summer and winter and fall.  Thank-you for youth and middle age and childhood and retirement.  Help us to discover the joy of each season of life.  In your name.  Amen.”

SIgns of Spring -- Seed Catalogs

                 The Chaplains at Altru Health System record a one minute devotional each weekday which can be accessed at 701-780-3300.  Below is the second of my week’s worth of “Signs of Spring” for the week of February 25-March 1.

 

Take a moment to pause and reflect …

                About  Spring.  About the signs of spring.  What makes us think about spring. 

               That grey snow reminds us winter is ending and the green grass will poke through.  And that reminds me of another sign of spring.  Seed catalogs.  As the snow melts gardener’s minds turn to putting seeds into the ground.  My mom always looked through those catalogs and bought tomato, and other  seeds to plant in her greenhouse long before the snow actually melted or the ground was warm enough to plant. 

                I think that is called expectation.

                So the seed catalogs tell a promise of spring and hope for a harvest.

                No concept is more basic to life than sowing and reaping.  Plant something, and it grows.  To harvest, you must first plant.  And you cannot harvest tomatoes by only planting turnups. 

                As you look forward to spring, or to the next season in your life, what are you picking out to plant?  Azaleas for the flower bed, carrots and tomatoes for the garden, and maybe some gratitude and forgiveness in your personal life?  What you plant, you will harvest.  Pick out something good from the seed catalog.  It is winter, but spring is coming!

                Let us pray: “God, as we look to plant our gardens, we ask you to plant good things in our lives.  Help us to choose good things to plant.  In your name.  Amen.”