I hesitate wanting to know the answer to that. It could be that it is a ninety-ten split in favor of my just being the passive observer. Gifts are given not created. We receive them, and then it is up to us to use or bury them. Therein lies the real responsibility. Do I use properly what I have been given? Another haunting question is: Where did I get the idea that any of this is about me?

I would like to extend this principle on a grand scale: To what level are countries and eras the result of human efforts alone? Are we not merely the expression of something greater? A national ego works like that of any individual. We imagine that we have defined ourselves and resist anything that is not the result of our own efforts.

As my inner sage progressively comes to life, I see my life more as an avenue than the vehicle. The story is about God. We are just the supporting cast — maybe even little more than props. Our “original” lines may not have been originated solely by us at all. The overall script is greater than our little part. The drama is more interesting when I focus on the lead player and not my little lines. It is actually quite a big show spanning eons of time and involving the entire universe.

There is great consolation in realizing it is through rather than because. There is more to see when I get out of the way.

The reason that seems a little grim is that it is based on common myths. One of those myths is that this is the one and only world — the myth that it all begins and ends on planet earth. Another myth is that of progress. Yes, you go through developmental stages. The little girl that makes mud pies eventually makes a German Chocolate Cake. Modern and Postmodern people are forward-looking at the expense of seeing that perfection is at birth. Pure faith is during childhood. Our purest essence is before we go out into the world.

“Unless you become like little children you will not enter the kingdom…” are the haunting words of Jesus, spoken to adults that despised childhood and worshipped adult spiritual demise. We have the process backwards. It is the innocence of the child, not the ways of the world that serve us best. Heaven is more the child inside than the mansion in the sky. Developmental myths are tainted by our technologic world. We do not go from simple to complex as much as we go from pure to corrupt. The body begins to turn on you about half-way through life. Ever notice that there just are not many seventy year old professional football players still on the field?

The progress in process that lasts forever may just be the exact opposite of what you think is happening. It is no accident that those living the longest seem to regress back to childhood. The end is the beginning. The road between is a loop. Perfection is something we have along. It appears to disappear and then reappear. We live from trust to trust. Independence is the illusion between two states of helplessness.

Who you are right now, deep down inside, before you ever learned to read waits patiently while you learn some lessons from life. Don’t be surprised, after you die, that you suddenly feel like a child again. The process in progress is really a progress in process. We are forever children loved by an eternal heavenly parent.

At any given minute, the state can take all church properties, and has done so in the past. It can imprison and even kill church members, and often has through the centuries, but it cannot stop the calling by God of the common person to be light in a dark world. The inevitability of physical death stops all demagogues in their tracks sooner or later. It is not about who controls the masses but whose side you are on in the struggle of good and evil. Positive spirituality cannot be stopped. Light inevitably overcomes darkness.

I live with a certain detachment toward it all. I know I am here for only so many decades. Feathering my nest here is done a bit minimally. The winds of time eventually blow the nest away. Comfort and worldly security are both terribly temporary. I look at political/social agendas and just smile. They have no final control over me. For those that understand the calling, the smile is the same. The people in the trance around us are fighting for a world they cannot ultimately have, while we are receiving a better world that can never be taken away.

Living spiritually underground means having it all by having nothing. It means reigning by serving and winning by losing. Jesus is the epicenter of the paradox and its champion. The smile of spiritual resolve is contagious. The threats and heavy-handedness of institutions are met with a grin. They can take what you have but never who you are. You have gone underground awaiting resurrection.

This is one thing that is not easier said than done. Your essential self is more than happy to unplug from all of the expectations you have placed on it (or allowed others to place on it). You are of infinite worth just as you are. That worth is robbed by our narcissism, greed, fear, competition, social distinctions, and distrust of life. There is a core self that has a value beyond the entire universe (according to Jesus anyway). There is no bargaining chip as big as your eternal self. Do not trade it in for temporary applause.

Self-worth is something you never have to earn. It is more than your ego. In fact, it can be crushed by your our out-of-control ego demands. When you discover that divine core and truly connect with it, you will discover that it is unconditional love in its purest manifestation. It is who you were most as a very small child and what you responded to best before you fell into the world as it is. In all due respect to our institutions, the fall from the Garden of Eden is very much the first day of school. From that day on, we are pitted against ourselves, others, faceless standards, and a world that forever demands more than we can give. Its keynote is performance not love. In the name of competence it settles for marks on paper at the cost of consolation for the heart. Our careers are but extensions of the same tradeoff.

In the cycle of life, if you are fortunate enough to have invested in wisdom, you return to the realization of what you knew and who you were before the world got you. You can finish your years on earth bathed in pure light and more aware of the connection with the source of love — who is perfect love. You can finish taking it all off the line and just be. You can sit and watch the sunset with bills unpaid and errands not run. For you, the world and all of its cares is passing away. You are coming back to your eternal center.

Look around. There is a king and a queen in every kingdom/community. They are often not an elected political entity, but their preferences overrule anything done by local politicians. People seem to go out of their way to keep them happy. There are priests — defenders of the religious status quo. You will also find knights — young ones on the football field and older ones running businesses. There is the town gossip of course and the village idiot. To make it interesting there is a town witch or two and a “Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde” fellow around. The professions are present: medicine and law.

There is an artist or two and a court jester. No town is complete without a clown. Gravediggers, chimney sweeps, shopkeepers, warriors, musicians, social workers, innkeepers, the rich and the poor — all within the city limits fulfilling their respective roles and bringing balance to the land. Farmers with their produce in the town square; harlots, soldiers, actors, pharmacists, teachers, children, the aged, politicians, cooks, bankers, maids, day traders, carpenters, retailers, real estate agents, insurance people — all with a stone’s throw of the town clock that chimes the hour.

A little world is still a world. Familiar faces are consoling. We all know who we are. Some of us fulfill a combination of roles. I rather enjoy the extension of the class clown I once was to the court jester and priest/writer I have become. Throw in college teacher and counselor for the trimmings, and add a touch of wanderer and you pretty much have me. It is a funny/creative combination that I would not trade for anything else. I love it here. Everything we need is right here. We are comfortable and secure. Everyone has everyone else’s number.

Enjoy here for as long as here is here. Some of the greatest people on earth lived and died in a small town. You may be one of them and not even know it.

Spiritual allergies from childhood can create adult aversions. Kids dragged to church often do not go back as adults. Negative school experiences can pretty well inhibit any interests in college. Adulthood is often the balance for an out-of-balance childhood. I know adults that will not eat green beans. They grew up on them. Their physical/emotional green bean bucket is full. They even say that the smell of them makes them nauseas.

My tolerance for negativity, critique, whining, evaluation, and Monday morning quarterbacking has always been a bit low (I don’t even like having to grade students). Lately, it has become a full-blown aversion — an allergy of sorts. I think it has to do with our critical non-affirming culture in general and negative individual habits that get passed off as character traits in particular. I am sure I have done my share of those same things, but one day I awoke with a spiritual rash. The positive part of my soul no longer accepts the negative. The good news is that it is a wake up call in spiritual discernment and maturity. The bad news is that now I can sense it in so many places that I once ignored.

Jesus was one of the most intolerant people in the world when it came to spiritual negativity (note his reaction to the critical Pharisees). Negativity is anti-life, and he was and is life fully embodied. He even warned his immediate followers of the negative. The original critical voice was the snake in the Garden of Eden. The snake is still around. May you too develop a “snake allergy” for your own spiritual protection!

Am I living an enlightened life? Have I settled for too little? Have I sold myself short? Have I conformed out of cowardice? Does my life count? Have I made a difference? Put those questions together and they combine into one: Am I living a truly authentic life?

Questions can question other questions. They can probe beneath any previous inquiry. If you do not believe this, you have never been around a small child that has discovered the “Why?” question. The “unexamined life is not worth living” — at least according to ancient wisdom. Not all questions are equal. Sometimes the simplest question is the most profound.

Who am I?

Questions can lead us in circles or liberate us from the mindless merry-go-rounds of the common life. It is all in the perspective of the person doing the asking. Is what you are doing today connected to the ultimate? Is it even connected to the real you?

Ask a few questions. Find a better life.

In the movie based on Rudyard Kipling’s book, The Man Who Would Be King, there is a scene in which the main characters tried to cross rugged mountains in the winter. They took the wrong turn and ended up in a cave above a canyon too steep to cross. They were out of food, and the fire that kept them warm was about to go out. To pass the time before they would freeze to death, they told funny stories about their adventures. The vibrations from their laughter triggered an avalanche that filled the impassable canyon, and they walked out of what had been a hopeless situation. Their laughter saved them.

I have used that movie scene many times in my life when things begin falling apart. After all, life is two steps forward and one step back. It is never a smooth progression for very long. You have to have a philosophy of falling apart to continue the journey without falling into despair. There is always something falling apart. Sometimes it is your health; other times it is your job, the economy, the social scene, the neighborhood, and eventually all programs and institutions. Grand successes are always temporary.

May I recommend the love and laughter approach. Find a friend and laugh away your cares. Accept the fact that systems are flawed, that it is still a fallen world, and that things that pass were meant only to be temporary. Grieve a little and go forward. Bury the dead past. Be open to what is about to be born anew. Limp toward the finish line if you have to. Learn from but leave behind all of the disasters that have been your teachers. You will know when you have arrived when you begin to laugh about it all, for laughter is transcendent.

The treadmill has become the metaphor. The Alice in Wonderland illusion of “having to run faster just to stay in the same place” has become the life-pace syndrome of this era. Even aging adults, very small children, and people with physical limitations cannot escape the demands of a world in a hurry. Quotas have to be met in an instant gratification society. “Time is money.” (Completely irrational. Time is time. Money is money. If I ever get my hands on the clod that equated them!) The tension levels appear in numerous diagnoses — all of which look a lot like Attention Deficit Disorder. The world merry-go-round has become a blur.

Wait a minute! Stop it! You have the antidote. All you have to do is punctuate your existence with a minute here or there of waiting. Defy the illusion. Make the world wait on you for one minute. Refuse to be rushed. Do one thing at a time. Have the courage to say, “No, it is not ready yet.” Chant with me the mantra: “It will happen when it happens.” Dig up some old sayings that addressed this before: “Rome was not built in a day.” Better yet: “Wait upon the Lord.”

How did we get into the business of trying to hurry God? Are we so insecure that we have to have closure to everything? Remember that, “Anything worth having is worth waiting for.” Relax. Chill out. Take a break. Breathe! In the greater scheme of things it is just another day. Anything that falls apart because you refuse to rush needs to fall apart. Let the whirlwind of life blow around you but not through you. Sixty seconds here and there. That is all you need to apply the brakes to your runaway world.

Predictability dulls you out. Adventures are best sought, but if you do not go after them, they come after you. They cannot be avoided for very long. The most timid recluse still has to face changing weather patterns, invasive people, the plethora of minor and major ailments of being physical, and the sheer probability of it all. No one can hide from life for very long. It brings us just enough predictability to make the unpredictability fun.

Comfort zones are temporary and mostly imaginary. People will seek out pain to end the tedium of the completely predictable that leads to intolerable numbness. To be alive at all is to live between the extremes. Aging cannot be avoided. The mind hungers continually — as does the body. No need can be fully or permanently satisfied. Life beckons us onward with deprivation and fear. It also consoles us with our sensations of satisfaction.

Welcome to “life the unpredictable!” Your car will break or possibly be stolen. The smell from the kitchen is the toast burning. You did not think you would find a snake under the sink did you! Is this the first time you have fallen down the stairs? So, what happened to your bank account? Where did you get such a winning idea? So you thought you were going to have a boy! Sorry to hear about your loss. Congratulations on that expensive degree that is now out of date. Where are you doing your Masters? What are you going to do with your time, now that your last teen has joined the navy? Oops! It looks like you fell in love. You are being transferred where?

Relax, God is just teaching us how to have a little fun.