Misunderstanding

“What’s on TV tonight?” I asked my nearly 14-year-old daughter Maria. “Kid’s Choice Awards,” she said. I didn’t hear her correctly, so I replied, “Yes, I always try to use a good choice of words.” Then I turned to see Maria doubled over in laughter so hard that no sound was emanating from her mouth. That’s when I put 2 and 2 together and realized she had said, “Kid’s Choice Awards.”

No matter how close two people are and no matter how well they understand one another, communication can break down. Sometimes, the communication breakdown has humorous results, as in the current circumstance. Other times, a communication breakdown results in conflict, fighting, genocide, or war.

As we make a “good choice of words,” let’s not assume that the listener actually hears what we say. Let’s verify. And verify again. And give others the benefit of the doubt. And not jump to conclusions. Misunderstanding is easy. Ending a war is hard.

-- Pat Jones

Anne Welsh Salon, Wi-Fi, Fiddler on the Roof

I used free wi-fi at Anne Welsh Salon this morning and learned that I am the very first customer of this service. So, if you're in the area of Mt. Vernon Avenue and need to get a haircut and surf the web, try out Anne Welsh Salon, 2100 Mt. Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22301.

By the way, my son Sam who received the haircut today is performing in T.C. Williams' High School production of Fiddler on the Roof on May 1, 2, 8, and 9. Visit the T.C. Williams High School website for further details.

-- Pat Jones

The Giver

What would a world without pain be like? What about a world without color, passion, or the ability to choose your livelihood? That’s the premise of The Giver by Lois Lowry, a book my daughter Maria suggested I read. In this fictional society, the elders from long ago – from back and back and back – decided that the world would be more livable if they removed pain from people’s lives. In the process, they also removed the things that make life complex and interesting like individuality, competition, challenge, physical intimacy, romance, and love. To make this world work, the elders embodied all of these difficult feelings and emotions in one person: “the giver” who is also the receiver of memory, the person who remembers what the world was like before pain was removed from people’s lives. I think The Giver is an excellent Lenten read. It suggests that it’s possible to live a life without pain. But that also demands that you live without the things that make life most meaningful: choice, passion, joy, and love. The giver I know, Jesus the Lord, is the one who through his passion, death and resurrection, redeems our pain and gives us a glimpse of God’s great joy.

-- Pat Jones

The Shack (2)

I just read William P. Young’s The Shack. It’s an extraordinary book. In it, Young paints a portrait of the three persons of the Trinity through the conversations that God has with a man who is mourning the death of his young daughter and has been on a difficult and painful journey to find meaning in his life once again. There were several big epiphanies for me. One is God’s ability to be bound by self-imposed limits. God’s ability to experience “limits” does not suggest any lessening of God’s power and omnipotence. The limits are simply another expression of God’s love for humanity and the desire to better experience humanity through these limits. Another epiphany relates to the intimate relationship among the three persons of the Trinity as, for instance, when “Papa,” a female figure who portrays the person of God the Father, reveals deep scars on her wrists, a result of “Papa’s” immediate and intimate connectedness with Jesus and the crucifixion. Perhaps the most amazing epiphany for me is the portrayal of the Holy Spirit though the character known as “Sarayu,” a twinkling, sparkling, almost wave-based being who speaks to the protagonist as easily as “Papa” or Jesus does.

This book helped to explode the fairy tale images I may have had about God. It revealed to me a God who is not involved in changing the outcomes that happen as a result of human actions but who definitely IS fully engaged in trying to establish a relationship with every human being so that each person can experience God’s love and manifest that love in relationship with others. Read The Shack. It will be a revelation no matter what your current beliefs.

-- Pat Jones

Unique like us

I've discovered lots of beautiful things here in Jervis Bay, Australia. Seeing myriad seashells on these white sandy beaches, it occurred to me that the beaches themselves represent millions of years of shells being pulverized by the surf and one another. And yet individual seashells are still here. Ribbed white clamshells and spiral shaped nautiluses and multicolored keyhole shells. Millions of shells in every shape, size, color, and texture. Whole shells and broken shells. Each one unique. And beautiful. Like us.

-- Pat Jones

Attentive

I’m in Australia. Driving on the left side of the road, I find I’m much more attentive than when I’m back home in the U.S. I’m more attentive to everything connected with driving: my mirrors, turn signal, position of the steering wheel (on the right), and, of course, other vehicles. Driving over here is serious business. Don’t get distracted or you might go left when you should go right.

Lent is a time for being attentive. Lent makes me much more attentive to all the things I’m thankful for: family, friends, relationships, having a great job. Love.

-- Pat Jones

Saying "Yes"

In today’s gospel, Jesus says to the crowd and his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” These are hard, challenging words. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. Not an easy road.

An article by Layng Martine, Jr., in today’s New York Times describes the journey of one couple that embraces both “denying yourself” and “saying yes.”

Layng relates how his wife Linda was involved in a terrible automobile accident that left her a paraplegic. Now her body works only from the chest up. As a result of the accident, Linda can no longer engage in many of the physical activities that once defined her life, like hiking mountains, riding waves, and running marathons. Layng and Linda have discovered that their journey together requires much more effort, creativity and forethought than ever before just to get from one place to the next.

“We know that most people — strangers, anywhere — will knock themselves out to help us if we explain what we need,” Martine explains. “We know to say ‘Yes’ to nearly everything because there is probably a way to do it. We know there is happiness available every day, most of it requiring more effort than money. And effort seems like a small price to pay for a day at the beach, a trip to New York or for dinner up eight steps to a friend’s home.”

Following the accident, Layng and Linda discovered they have a new cross to bear. But they also discovered that saying “yes,” even to strangers, can make the cross easier to bear and permit them to live a life of fullness.

-- Pat Jones

Sunny and Serene

My good friend Sally celebrates a big birthday today. I won’t tell you the exact number, but she’s now 10 years eligible for AARP membership. You get the idea.

Sally and I have worked together for the last two years, but we’ve been friends more than twenty. When I was considering hiring Sally, the first issue we discussed was our friendship. Both of us felt that our friendship was important and we didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. So, we proceeded cautiously, gingerly, hopeful that we could work together and still remain good friends. I think we’ve succeeded. In fact, I think we’re even better friends now because we spend more time together and know more things about each other’s lives.

I describe Sally to others as “sunny and serene.” She has a beautiful smile, a generous heart, and a young face that belies her chronological age by at least ten years. Sally’s family members laugh at the thought that she’s sunny and serene; they know a different Sally than I do.

I also know a different Sally, one with an edge that complements sunny and serene. We recently painted and redecorated our offices. In the planning stage before the work began, a group of our staff gathered to talk about options. A couple of staff members said they would like to have one wall of their individual offices painted with an accent color. Sally listened very patiently and, mindful of budget constraints and the vagaries of egalitarianism and vanity, declared, “There will be NO accent walls in this office.” That was the end of it.

I love Sally. She reminds me of our Saint Clement community. We’re sunny and serene. We have a beautiful smile and a generous heart. But we also have an edge; an edge that is mindful of what’s most important in life and in the world. That’s why we’re engaged in so many efforts that reach beyond the boundaries of our small community: a hypothermia shelter for men in winter; bag lunches for the soup kitchen; thrift shop; work with ALIVE (Alexandrians Involved Ecumenically), and so many other external ministries that look out into the world.

Here at Saint Clement, we are sunny and serene; and we have an edge. Happy Birthday, Sally! Thanks for helping me appreciate this place that I love so much.

-- Pat Jones