Friday, March 24, 2017

Operation: "Without Complaint"



Operation:  "Without Complaint"

I found it an odd penance that the priest gave me so many years ago.  I probably had told him that I am guilty of the sin of complaining.  I am sure that all things considered, I am not in a minority in that bad habit.  But the penance was hardly a penance to me.  It wasn’t, “Say three Our Father’s and four Hail Mary’s.”  It was more to the point of my spiritual illness:  “think of three things you are grateful for this week.”  I was in my late 20’s at the time and at least I had the wherewithal to realize I was doing something that was wrong.  Most people get caught in the rut of complaining and don’t realize how destructive it is.

For those of you who may be stumbling over the concept of penance, let me get that out of the way.  Penance doesn’t “make-up” or “un-do” something we’ve done wrong.  The extreme and somewhat frightening monastic practices of the Middle Ages left us with a very distorted view of penance…. And I’m not even sure it was as widely practiced as we were led to believe by secular history textbooks.  I would more readily equate penance with a man who gives his wife flowers after he hurt her feelings.  Flowers don’t make the harsh words un-said.  But they are an important gesture that speaks volumes when presented sincerely.  They say, “I stepped wrongly in the dance of our relationship.  Please let us begin again.” 

When a priest suggests a penance to a person it is with the aim of putting the offense in perspective.  It is well-assigned when it is related to the sin.  For instance, only a fool goes to confession and thinks (as the movies suggest) that he can confess to a murder and somehow get away with it because the priest “can’t reveal what is said under the seal of the confessional.”  You can bet that the penance for murder, the gesture of wanting to make it right, is going to be:  “turn yourself in to the police.”  If the penitent says, “No can do,” then he isn’t trying to make things right, is he?  He’s just trying to make his guilty conscience silent.  Confession isn’t magic – it is helping a life get back on track to someone who sincerely wants to make the change.

Back to complaining.  People complain about a lot of things large and small.  The weather.  The politics of the day.  Families.  Work.  In essence, all the things of our daily lives, including at times the very things that are blessings to us…. like our children and our material things, etc.  So it is very fitting that a person who wants to change should consider what blessings surround them -  “Blessings without number,” as an old hymn says.  Yet, sometimes being asked to do something right doesn’t quite sink-in.  Due to a lack of reflection, which is probably proportional to the speed of life, we often only half-do something we could do better at.  I got my chance.

My family asked me some years after that original scenario in paragraph 1 if I was happy.  And I said, “not really.”  I’m not a glass ½ full person.  Neither am I a glass ½ empty subscriber.  I just think, with all the possibilities, the glass isn’t full enough.  So I was just registering my dissatisfaction.  To be fair, I was dating a miserable, controlling human being that was stressing me out.  I wasn’t feeling like my typical self because I had begun trying to “make things work with us.”  I wasn’t in my zone of fulfillment and I didn’t see anything other than relational (and my emotional) disaster if we made that relationship permanent… as he was pushing for.  He needed a green card.  He kept saying, “It is easy to get married.  Just take the decision.”  I even objected to the word “take” – and insisted it is “make.”  This was very important in that it underscored our worlds-apart perspective:  he wanted me to “take” a decision that would benefit HIM.  I wanted to “make” a decision that would benefit me.  (And I did.  I put him on a bus and sent him back to where he came from.)

Apparently Oprah was on this “Be Thankful” kick for a while too.  So my younger sister, ever eager to straighten me out, said I should make a list of things for which I am thankful.  Sounds familiar to the first story, no?  This time, I intended to turn the tables.  I did not make a list of ten things.  I took a spiral bound notebook and over a period of time made a list of 100+ things for which I was thankful.  And then I began to understand. 

When we realize how great we have it, there is no room for complaining.  When we even look at the unfortunate circumstances or suffering of others, we also realize how profoundly we are blessed.  Even our response of compassion to those who are in lesser straits physically, mentally, or spiritually, can grow good virtues in our own lives.  I like that rendition of the song “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban because it reflects our interdependence so beautifully.  Surely there is pain and suffering of various levels for all of us because we live in a world that is fallen and marred by the sins of humanity (including our own).  It is clear that the spiritual law of the universe mirrors the agricultural law of “sowing and reaping.”  If you plant good things, you will grow good things.  If you plant weeds, you will reap weeds, nothing useful.  My list of 100+ things I was thankful for helped me begin scratching the surface of the basics that I so much took for granted.  I began looking at my life with a broader lens and I liked the view.

I think complaining is a vice of the privileged more than an expression of the underprivileged.  I have met people who have lived so simply and have been so very happy.  You just wanted to be around them and have that happy glow rub off on you.  I have also met people who have the best of all circumstances and they do nothing but make lemons out of apples.  I wonder if Gallup Poll or Pew Research has considered doing a National Complaining Comparison Study.  They could send people to a variety of other countries and have them see if they could determine the general mood of an entire country, or if there were groups of whiners in certain cases that were generic across international lines.  It’d be interesting, wouldn’t it?

One of my friends has been doing missionary work in Zambia, Africa for over 50 years, really almost his whole life.  He came for a visit to the States at one point and we went to the Mall together.  I thought it might be interesting for him to see all the new types of stores.  What caught his eye was a kid in a sneaker store whining that he didn’t “like” the type of shoes he was trying on.  He was shocked at the whining.  I really had thought nothing of it, having seen many examples of the American teenager in its prime over the years.  He pointed out to me:  “In Africa, the children are taught a sense of both respect for their parents and gratefulness for anything that is given to them …” It went without saying that the gratefulness was probably naturally spurred on by a position of want or need:  If you have little and someone is generous, you don’t take it for granted.  His observation made me embarrassed for our culture, and it also made me more aware of my reaction to generosity.
There is so much generosity and blessing in our daily lives that most of us are tripping over it.  

The other day a stranger sat at my lunch table and bowed his head before eating his meal.  I thanked him for saying grace.  Really, as someone who owns dogs that practically run each other over to eat their meals – as if they will never see another meal again – I think people can do a little better to thank the Creator for the gift of food.  What if all we had to eat as human beings was like dog food, every single meal the same?  How boring it would be!  Five years ago I discovered Brussels’ sprouts.  They were done really well as they were fried with olive oil and sesame seeds.  I closed my eyes for a moment to focus on the flavor.  If you have eaten regular iceberg lettuce all your life, do that with arugula greens some time.  Just close your eyes for a few minutes and let all your senses focus on tasting.  Maybe in doing this, we have stumbled onto the secret:  slow down & savor and then we will grasp more of how blessed we are!  Of course, let it not go unsaid, that I don’t have to close my eyes to eat ANY flavor of ice cream – I’m one with the spoon and loving every minute of it!

So this is my challenge to you, take a step forward in the Journey of Gratefulness.  Train yourself to operate without complaint.  Perhaps grab a spiral bound notebook and start taking notice of all the things you just have accepted as if they were your personal due.  They are not.  They are blessings and we should feel so happy.  Then let that “happy” glow out of you and help others.  Shut off the evening news and become yourself.  Filter out the negative.  As the sign says:   “Live the life you love; and love the life you live.”

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I dedicate today's writing to Fr. Bill J.  Thanks for the good "penance."  It took 30 years, but I'm "getting it."

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