Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 9, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Seeking after what is good and true
Rejoice, O daughter Zion, for your king shall come to you, and a just savior is he. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. And my burden is light.”
I have not been still much lately, although I’ve been sitting around as much or more than ever. It’s inside me that I haven’t been taking time for quiet. Yesterday we swam with the boys and went to the new Indiana Jones movie, had a nice afternoon meal at PT Terry’s – chocolate shakes cheeseburgers and fantastic fries. We came home to a nap, and I woke to stomach distress. Surely not. The shake was shivering inside me, and I drank water and tea and water and tea and waited for the shivering to subside.
In that discomfort I took deep breaths. In those deep breaths my soul stilled. I took more deep breaths. I thought of Indy, and how his adventures would not let him just be old, hurting all over until he finally … died. In all his wild, unsatisfying, and never-quite-finished story he acted out of his precariously centered self, he knew who he was, what he wanted. Underneath his uncertainty he moved forward with strange but strong assurance.
My cousin Mike Stebbins has been teaching the art of decision-making around the world for 30 years. In his up-and-coming website he says, about all of us:
We can make effective decisions because we possess a deep-seated desire that’s part of our makeup as human beings – a desire to know what is true and to do what is good. (I’ll refer to this as our “fundamental desire” for short.) We’ve all experienced and acted on this desire, even if we’ve never given it a name. It’s a dynamic state of mind that drives and structures all our efforts to engage effectively with the real world. …
Our desire to know what’s true and do what’s good is a source of power. It’s the ultimate engine of the dynamic process through which we think and decide well about anything and everything.
Surely we recognize this in ourselves. If we have not entirely left the building ethically, we know when we’re heading toward the good, true and beautiful. And when we’re not.
I’m certain – certain! – that the fundamental desire is alive and active in your own mind and heart. Recognizing the fundamental desire in yourself and accepting it as an essential aspect of who you are, a bedrock component of your personal identity, is the most basic of the advanced decision-making skills.
Mostly this experience arrives when I sit alone (ish), with the TV turned down or off, and without the interruptions of friend or foe. The mob is outside, and I don’t hear a thing. The curtains are closed and whatever protesting, brandishing, exaggerating or molesting is going on out there is for the moment, invisible and inaudible.
Of course there is still the un-small matter of managing my own monkey mind, dropping through the flim-flam of today’s woolgathering to settle into what lies beneath. But at least I have a chance to get there. And I recognize this is my responsibility as a child of God, no matter how tempted away I am by the shining mirrors of the world.
Brothers and sisters: You are not in the flesh. On the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells within you.
I admire Heather Cox Richardson’s discipline, to teach history, write history and keep up a daily column, “Letters from an American,” on the interface of history and current events. Yesterday she wrote about Moms for Liberty. Today she will likely make her sabbath, and post a beautiful picture from the coast of Maine. I admire … yes, her discipline, but also her determination to take time to be still, allow what is good and true to rise up inside her, and then describe what happens in there to those of us who want to read what she has to say.
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works. I will praise your name forever, my king and my God.
Zechariah had his own experience with this fundamental desire. Paul did too, of course. And Jesus, and the author of this psalm. Much of our bible is written out of its authors’ decision to seek the good, true and beautiful. We can and should do the same.
Jesus exclaimed, I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones. Come to me all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
(Zechariah 9, Psalm 145, Romans 8, Matthew 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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