The Happiness of All
We here we are--almost Summer--and life is blooming all around us. Although I am an infamous plant killer, I do love them and appreciate whatever they can do to make us happier people.
And all this means another Newsletter article from the preacher, as noted by our church secretary (in no uncertain terms, by the way!) Dawn is a blessing to us in many ways and deserves to receive blessing in return--however she has to deal with me. She even hugged me (as she left for Florida) as she reminded me to get busy on this article so it will be on time! (I am usually late.) I took this affection as a sign--Dawn is a crafty woman as well--that I had better “turn to” as we used to say in the Navy. So in the spirit of “turning to” I share this with you from the book, “Essential Native Wisdom:”
“Whatever your occupation while in your physical body, remember it is a form of service. However humble or even humdrum your work may be to you, it is your special appointment, and through your work on Earth you can make your contribution to the happiness of all.” --White Eagle, Ponca Tribe, Oklahoma
Do you think your occupation does, or did contribute to the happiness of all? Does your life?
In life I have been lucky in that I only had one humble, boring job, working in a hospital kitchen washing pots and pans...only. My mother let me quit that job because I told her I thought my finger nails were ready to fall off. (I wore heavy rubber gloves all the time, but I hated the job.) I could make the case today that clean pots and pans made the cooks happy, and the food they prepared made the patients happy--maybe they even healed a bit faster, which would make their loved ones happy. You get the whole idea.
As for work being “your special appointment,” I would say feeling that way about one’s work can make you feel better about what you’re doing. It’s very important, however, to strive to spend work hours doing something satisfying to one’s heart and mind. In the commandment to love yourself and love your neighbor, we fulfill the loving of self by preparing ourselves to find what we really want to do--something more than that paycheck--something which feeds our own spirit along the way. My line of work uses the word “calling.” I’ve never understood that as straight from “the mouth of God,” as once described to me--more like the 5 o’clock call of mothers all over my childhood neighborhood: “Supper time! In the house, kids--NOW!” Everyone heard that call. Maybe your occupation was a calling, too...a blessing from God, because you figured out what you wanted to do, and who you wanted to be. Our “special appointments” are that very thing because God loves us. That makes you and me special...and who could ask for more?
One thing I never learned as a young man was that it was important to have goals in life--to focus me, give me something to strive for, a course to follow. After I had given up my dream of becoming a pro baseball player, I just grabbed any possibility which came along. Somehow I came to realize I had given up two good jobs, grabbing a third because the pay was better and I had been sold a bill of goods about the future of the company. My unhappiness finally allowed me to do some soul-searching. I gave up all my other ideas and left Chicago and showed up at Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine. I confess to thinking that I was surely the worst candidate for ministry at the school, but I had to see if, in some insignificant way, at least, God could use me. All these years later I still have doubts about myself. But God has been good to me, forgiven me often and given me much joy.
Jesus said, “I came so they can have real and eternal life than they ever dreamed of.“--John 10:10, Message Bible
Native American wisdom incorporated the belief that all things work together for a good life. “The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart or a woman’s heart away from nature is hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of espect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.”
If our world needs anything which is better than a softening influence, I cannot imagine what that would be. Some people, sad to say, have become so hard they would not pay any attention, have no use for contributing to the happiness of all. But most of us would welcome and teach this to our loved ones and neighbors. If we become hard, in love they would call us back. And that would make us very happy. God is good.
—Blessings to you all,
Tim
