Last Sunday afternoon I drove to Big Sur, to spend five days immersed in a painting workshop at Esalen. Beginning with my frenzied packing on Sunday afternoon and extending to Friday afternoon, when I drove back out onto Highway 1, I felt continually met with choices. There were the small choices like what to take with me and which bed to claim in my shared room—the one under the skylight or the one in the cozy loft? There were the fun choices—trying to select a reasonable amount of food from the enormous array of delicious stuff provided at each meal. There were the sometimes frustrating choices—selecting a focus for my painting—choosing the colors for my palette and for each step of the way. These were choices that took most of my time, but there were other choices that were more important. How did I want to spend my time? How did I want to approach my painting? How did I want to be in relationship with the people around me—the people in my group, the other guests and the staff? How did I want to experience the holy during these five days of Sabbath time?
My experience last year at Esalen gave me some help in choosing what I absolutely needed to pack and the best way to manage the food choices. Attending to where my eye was drawn helped me decide what to paint, and my teacher and the other students were helpful with color mixing. Help for the more important decisions about time, focus and relationships came from several places, and the first source was given to me shortly after I arrived at Esalen. There is a tiny wooden hut at the bottom of the steep drive leading from the highway to the conference center. It’s staffed 24 hours a day by a person who gives information, checks people in and generally serves as both guardian and resource. After I settled in my room, I stopped by the hut with a question. As I spoke with the person in the hut, I was able to see a small sign that isn’t usually visible from the outside. It was straightforward and to the point:
This is a very nice day.
Don’t mess it up.
As I walked away from the hut, I thought about that sign, and the ways we manage to mess up a very nice day. I remembered Bishop Mary’s story about the time her car was broken into and her purse stolen. A wise woman told her, “They’ve stolen your purse. Don’t let them take your joy.” That reminder helped Bishop Mary move back into her joy—back into her awareness of God’s presence with her. As I walked, I realized that no one needs to take our joy away from us. In fact, I’m not even sure anyone can take our joy. The truth is, we simply hand it over or throw it away. An event or a feeling or even a thought brings us to a fork in the road, and we choose the path that leads away from our joy. We humans are attracted to high energy, and we sometimes don’t stop to consider what kind of energy we’re inviting into our being—what kind of energy we’re inviting into our day. Something happens, and we head straight into the drama. The quiet joy of a very nice day can seem tame in comparison to the excitement of really good gossip. The quiet joy of a very nice day has trouble standing up to the adrenaline rush of righteous indignation. The quiet joy of a very nice day doesn’t hold a candle to a really good pity-party.
We’ve all been there. Everything’s going along just fine until something happens to shift our attention. In that moment, everything changes, and we’re moving down the path toward the drama that’s grabbed us. We’ve all been there, and the chances of going there again are pretty good. The good news is that we have a choice about how far down the path we’ll go. We even have a choice about whether we’ll step onto the path at all.
As Moses looked out across Jordan into the land he would never enter, he gave the people instructions about the road ahead. He told them there were choices and that the choices belonged to them. He set before them a blessing and a curse: the blessing if they followed God’s commandments and the curse if they turned away from God to follow other gods. The choice Moses gave to the people is still ours to make today. We can choose to keep our faces turned to God and live mindfully into God’s blessing or we can choose to turn toward the gods of pride, jealousy, fear, and anger. We can live in blessing or we can immerse ourselves in those feelings that keep us from living in awareness of God’s blessing.
Today’s gospel portion is the last segment of Jesus’ long Sermon on the Mount. That long teaching begins with the Beatitudes, which remind us that in the beginning of all that we are and all that we do, we are blessed. In this long, long sermon, Jesus calls us to live in the realm of God. He ends this sermon with a warning and the choice of blessing or curse. He tells us that if we build on the rock of his teaching—to love God with all our hearts and minds and souls and to love our neighbors as ourselves—we will be on firm foundation, and no matter what happens, we will stand in his truth. He tells us that if we build on the shifting sand, no matter what we do, no matter how exciting the drama becomes, we will surely perish. You’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t promise clear weather when we build our houses on the ground of his teaching. Our choice to live in awareness of God’s blessing doesn’t keep tragedy from our lives. Our choice does keep us in touch with the glory of God even when our lives are battered by the storm.
The choice is ours. Do we live from drama to drama or from glory to glory?
The choice is ours.
Thanks be to God.