Thanksgiving?

So another Thanksgiving has passed, and as usual this time of year, I try and take stock of all that I have to be grateful for in my life.

Only, this year, that list is a bit clouded, at least at the moment. Oh, to be sure, having spent the Thanksgiving holiday with my wonderful family, I saw many reasons for which to be thankful. Both mine and my wife’s family are doing pretty well overall.

And yet, this morning, as I write this, I’ve learned that a dear friend of mine’s father has just passed away, having lost his long battle with cancer. And yesterday, one of my nephews fell and broke his arm, leaving his poor mother to deal with both him, and her newborn child. Other family members and friends are facing their own particular battles as well.

Kind of gives one pause for a moment. I mean, I try and be grateful for all that I have in life. And yet, life pays me back for this with more suffering and problems. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t discouraging to be human at times.

Through these clouds I know that eventually, rays of sun will break back through. Today, however, I’ll have to admit I’m struggling to maintain an attitude of gratitude. I guess that comes with being a Minister of the Mundane. There are some days that are just worse than others, and really are mundane. The challenge is to hold on during these times, recognizing that they too will pass, and that God is still there, walking alongside of us all, especially during the gray days.

I have to lean pretty hard on God sometimes, when the clouds have covered up what is otherwise a pretty darn good life. When the “mundaneness” of life has really closed in, and I’m failing to see all that I do have for which to be thankful, I’m really left with no choice but to lean on God, my friend, and ask Him to see me through. As He has so many times, He will see me through the cloudy day, and back into the sunshine.

This is my message to you gentle reader, that there are just days when we need to remember that God is here for us to indeed lean upon. I’ve chosen to call myself a Minister of the Mundane because so often, that’s what life is…seemingly mundane days, with some doses sprinkled in of more than what we think is our fair share of suffering. It can be hard, when we are lost in the mundane details of our lives, to remember we are divine creatures, created by a loving and divine Father with the intention of overcoming the “mundaneness” of life, and letting our divine natures shine forth.

But that is exactly what we are…divine creatures. And, being divine, we can indeed overcome life’s circumstances, and be so much more than what we ever thought we could be. The trick is, on those cloudy days, to call upon God, our heavenly Father and our best friend, to hold us up, and to guide our vision back to where we can see the goodness of life.

I started this chapter with a question, namely that of was it really a Thanksgiving this past holiday? Despite the hard times, yes, I’d have to say it was a time of thanks. I’ve found that, even when I don’t feel like it, when the mundane life has swallowed me whole for a moment, if I can just look to the heavens and utter the simple phrase “thank you”, I’m so much the better for it.

Being thankful may be the hardest when tough times have descended, but its also these moments of gratitude when you don’t feel very grateful that build your soul.

And, that is work worth doing.

-The Minister

Creativity

When we exercise our wonderful ability to be creative, its my opinion that we draw pretty darn close to God.

After all, didn’t the Big Fella exercise the ultimate example of creativity when he created the universe? Yep, I think He knows a thing or two about creativity.

All kidding aside, it stands to reason at least in my feeble mind that if we are created in God’s image, then we have been given the gift of creativity with which to produce some remarkable things. As children, we seem to instinctively know this. Just watch your own children playing sometime; you’ll quickly notice that they are creating all the time.

As kids we used to create almost every day. Whether it was baseball fields out of tennis courts or dirt lots, or new worlds to conquer and explore out of a neighbor’s backyard, there seemingly was nothing that stood in our way in terms of using our imagination. We created a whole, whole lot out of seemingly nothing.

So, what happens to us as we age? Why does it seem that our ability to tap into our creativeness seems to diminish with time? Did we suddenly become shut off from our own internal fountain of imagination, just because we got older?

Well, yes, sometimes we do get shut off from our own ability to create. “Real life”, whatever that is, sometimes discourages us from utilizing our creative abilities. For a variety of reasons, oftentimes the temptation is to tend to shut down our imagination, and focus upon what is real and concrete. If we aren’t told outright, then it is often strongly implied that imagination is the province of children and daydreamers.

So, off we go to live in our inside-the-box lives, cutting ourselves off from a veritable fountain of youth: Our imagination.

I think this is a sad, sad way to live, yet I too at times have fallen victim to what others have perceived I should be doing, namely being “normal”, and keeping my “nose to the grindstone”, leaving that imagination stuff to kids.

What a load of bologna!

There’s nothing written in the great Handbook of Life that says as we get older, we must leave our imaginations behind. Nothing. Not a sentence. Heck, not a word. Imagination is the stuff of dreams, and dreams are the ingredients of creativity, and ultimately, creation. If someone hadn’t imagined as a grown-up how wonderful it would be for man to go the moon, then, well, we wouldn’t have ultimately made it.

I’ll bet that person was pretty much dismissed as a day-dreamer too.

Folks, God wants us to create. God wants us to use our imaginations, or else, why would he have seen to it that humans would ultimately possess this capacity? Our ability to dream, and then follow through on those dreams, is what makes us different from the animals, and all other living creatures. We can imagine possibilities. We can see these possibilities, and then if the desire is strong enough, make them real through creation.

What greater tribute can we give to God then to use our own abilities to create the future?

So go ahead and imagine. Heck, tonight, why not go outside, and just picture yourself standing at the plate with the bases loaded, down 3 runs, in the bottom of the ninth inning, in the last game of the World Series. See yourself in a little play of sorts, a recreation of a potential heroic moment that many warm-blooded American males dream about. Have some fun, and play…the neighbors might think you’re a bit daft, but who cares?

And then, swing for the fences. You just might connect.

-The Minister

Finding God at the Office

Do we see God at the office?

Does He walk in the halls of business, where it seems that all too often there is but one goal, and that goal doesn’t include God?

Good questions these, and they are ones I have wondered about for most of my career. I’m one of those seekers you see, an individual who always wonders just exactly what he is to be doing with his life. For the most part, I’ve always worked at least part of my time in an office environment, even though I have traveled a fair amount for work too. Most offices that I’ve seen are not the types of structures that inspire deep philosophical debate and thought. Oftentimes they seem quite cold and impersonal, devoid of much personality. One would think God really wouldn’t like being cooped up in an office. Heck, we humans struggle enough with it, think God really wants to spend His time in an office too?

Ever since the turn of this century, when Americans experienced both attacks from enemies outside of our borders, and attacks on our very moral fiber from enemies within the office from multiple corporate scandals, we humans have started to really question just exactly what we are doing with our time. For the vast majority of us, we need to work to put bread on our table. Work, however, at least in the modern sense of the word, isn’t exactly full of meaning and joy, especially when its conducted in a drab office environment. So, we, oftentimes joylessly, drive off to our offices each morning in the hopes of finding some small kernel of meaning as we try and earn our “daily bread”.

How then, do we make sense of our workaday lives? How do we find the meaning? How do we see God at the office?

The answers to these questions, like most of life actually, can be found in the fabric of our everyday, mundane lives.

When groups are gathered together working creatively on a project at work, well, seems that could be one great place we’d find God. I’m banking that God, the ultimate Creator, sure does love it when His children get together and create themselves.

When folks are sitting around the break room just having a good laugh at something, seems like God is probably there too. After all, He created laughter, so he darn well probably appreciates a good joke as much as the next guy!

And, when a co-worker takes time out of his or her busy schedule just to listen to a colleague’s problems and life challenges, sure seems like God’s there too, being as compassionate as always. To show love and respect to another human being is something that God has hard-wired into all of us. While sometimes we can forget this, we always get opportunities in life to remind us that life is all about love, and that’s truly it.

We find meaning at the office when we find God. And God it turns out, is in every nook and cranny of every office building. We just need to keep our eyes peeled, and more importantly our hearts open to His touch. While offices are cold and impersonal many times, the people that inhabit them are flesh and blood, people with emotions and feelings, and joy and pain. We don’t have to all be doctors to be healers. Every day, the office presents us all opportunities to help heal one another. When this occurs, work isn’t so bad, and has a lot of meaning after all.

I’m writing this on a Monday, and I’ll admit, getting up to drive to that cold and impersonal office was not high on my list of life’s most enjoyable moments. But, turns out I did manage to laugh a little bit, to exercise my creativity some, and to listen to a fellow co-worker as he needed someone upon which to unload his problems.

All in all, not a bad day.

-The Minister