Chaplain's Corner

What a year!  In some ways it has been down right scary.  Earthquakes, tornados, heat waves, floods, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, injured, killed; it is nothing short of overwhelming.  There have even been news programs doing interviews questioning scientists as to whether we are experiencing global warming or is the apocalypse unfolding.  This is not a time for the faint of heart or those who struggle with paranoia to be watching world events too intently.

Maybe your own life has been radically impacted this year?  Maybe a death changed the entire landscape of your life?  Maybe a diagnosis, altered forever the trajectory of your life?  Maybe you discovered that your partner in life has been unfaithful and you now find yourself alone and unloved and lost in a life you never wanted.  Maybe your internal world has been disrupted by overwhelming feelings of despair, depression and maybe you have even considered ending your life, believing that this is the most sensible thing that you could do, for your family, for the world, for yourself. 

Maybe the weather was more than an irritant in your life.  Maybe your crop was decimated by too much rain and your land so wet that you could hardly get onto it to work it?  Maybe you had land that you never even got seeded because just about the time it seemed to be drying out, another storm soaked it again?  Maybe you had a beautiful crop that was degraded by a sudden storm?  Maybe your herd really suffered because of the soggy ground.  Maybe you still have hay laying in the fields that never got baled because it spoiled before you could get to it.  Maybe you are coming to the end of this year deeper in the debt hole than when you started and you are not even sure you can make it another year.

It may be that this year you have experience a crisis of faith.  Something has so rattled the foundations of your life that you began questioning the very basic beliefs that have sustained you for so long.  Maybe you had something happen that caused your soul to scream, “How can I believe that God loves me after all I have been through this year?”  Or maybe you have watched things happen within your faith community that has led you to wonder if the church is a safe place to belong anymore?

I work with people every week who have had or are having these kinds of experiences.  They look for answers, but so often the ones that are found seem shallow and unsatisfactory.  They look for supports and resources to help but what is available just doesn’t seem to fit their need.  Desperate, feeling alone and helpless; these dear souls feel their way through the mist of each new experience, hoping that when the fog clears that some kind of order, some kind of sense, some kind of meaning will emerge and they will be able to look back and make sense out of what has been happening in their life.

Take a moment to think back over your year, or maybe that is a thought that is too frightening in itself.  But if you can, without digging too deep or laboring too hard, think for a moment about the major themes of your life in 2010.  Take a piece of paper, write them down, look at them and ponder just for a few minutes what 2010 has been like for you.  Have you experienced overwhelming difficulty?  Or are you among those who experienced more good than bad? 

Maybe you got married this year and you enjoyed a wonderful year of planning, anticipating and enjoying being united to a person you love dearly?  Maybe you had your first child this year, and your life is changed forever, but in a wonderful way?  Maybe it was a new job, or a move to a new home, or the excitement of graduating from high school or university and in 2010 you stood on the shores of your future and you looked out with hope and encouragement.

Maybe you achieved some milestones in your life or reached a goal that you have been working towards for some time?  Maybe your business had a great year.  Maybe you feel just a little bit guilty that you have it so good while so many around you are struggling so hard?

Regardless of whether 2010 was a year you want to forget or one you will always remember; if you think about the events of the past year, we really have very little control over most of the things that happen in our lives.  Even if we are tremendously responsible persons, who work hard, plan well, and show prudence in our decisions and relationships, there is still so much that lies beyond our control.  So much that we can take no credit for.

So as we think back over 2010, maybe our focus would best be on what we did have control over – our responses.  How did we respond to the events of 2010?  Did we find ourselves reacting to the events or responding to the events?  There is a significant difference you know. 

Reacting is instinctive; it is something we do without thinking.  Some reactions are good.  When I react to a car coming at me in the wrong lane by swerving onto the shoulder and hitting my breaks, I may avoid a collision.  If I see a child run into the street and I spring into action to move that child out of the path of an oncoming vehicle, I may save a life.  But the vast majority of time, reacting isn’t the best thing to do.  The instinctive flairs in our temper when someone rubs us the wrong way rarely if ever bless anyone.  Those reactions of sarcasm that come without thinking hurt the feelings of those I care about.  The instant “NO!” when our children come to ask us something.  The irritation, the shortness are reactions that push people away instead of valuing them and drawing them into our lives.

Responding on the other hand is thoughtful; it is the learned habit of stopping and thinking before we speak or act.  It is the skill of listening before we speak, so that our words are appropriate and not simply mirrors of our inner irritation.  Responding is what we do when our teenager comes in after curfew and instead of launching into a tirade we listen to their explanation and take time to determine what the best action would be.  Responding is noting when our fuse has been lit, when anger is rising within us and stopping ourselves and choosing to think before we act.

Was 2010 a year in which we primarily reacted to the stuff of life; one knee jerk reaction after another, having our lives drug around by the chain of our emotional reactions to life? Was 2010 a year in which more times than we care to admit was spent being sorry for the way we reacted.  Was 2010 a year in which found a need to apologize for our insensitivity, our anger, our carelessness or the craziness of our over reactions?

Or was 2010 a year in which we faced the unexpected, the misfortunes, the setbacks, the irritations of life thoughtfully, thinking first, and then responding to our experiences?  Was 2010 a year in which we had fewer messes to clean up, because we listened first then responded? 

2011 is just a few days away and you know as well as I do that like 2010, it will be full of unexpected turns of events, uninvited setbacks, uncontrollable experiences in which we are acted upon by some force beyond our control.  2011 will confront us with the impact whether systems, with geo-political events, with natural disasters, and with violence over which we have no control.  But what we do have control over is ourselves.  We can just wing it and react to whatever comes our way and try to clean up the messes our reactions create after the fact.  Or we can be thoughtful, responding to the situations, experiences and people in our lives after carefully considering the most prudent and sensitive way of response.  That choice IS ours.  May 2011 be a year of positive responses as opposed to a year of negative reactions.