EBB & FLOW

 The seasons change.  The clocks wind back and forth.  The things that bloom and grow do so according to their time and place.

There is an ebb and flow in time and tide.

Life is a constantly changing, circular motion until it stops.

One of the things that keeps life going on is the work of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing ordinary work.

Just regular.

Increasingly, it seems that our culture is becoming one of extremes where a very small percentage of the population is holding sway on the world at large.  They seem bigger than they are and more than they are because they are so strident in their behavior.

I've noticed a growing distinction within the group.  They view themselves as one of two things...A) Heroic or B) Victims.

Exactly when did it fall out of favor to just be a regular person trying hard.....failing some, succeeding more and happy in the exercise of being a part of the human race as a whole?

Deciding you are a victim will run you straight into a box canyon from which there is no escape.  The more you feel victimized, the more you allow yourself to be so.  It is a mindset that is poison to free thinking and personal responsibility and it will kill your desire to ever be anything else.  Because let's face it, there is all kinds of help and pretty words for victims offered by people who don't give two flying figs about you as a person.

I rarely see a true victim ever paint themselves with that brush.  I know some people who could easily succumb to victimhood of their situation but they do not.  They choose to persevere, they choose to be more than their circumstance, they endure.  

Heroes.

First of all, I've come to hate that word.  We have neutralized it down to water by hanging it on every body who simply did the right thing every day by going to work, living their lives, taking care of their families.  I will accept some of them were indeed brave....but heroic....I'm not so sure.  Words of power lose their force when they are over used.  When everything is heroic....nothing really is.  When everything is AMAZING...not much really applies.  And, when everyone and everything is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-female, blah, blah, blah.....somewhere there is someone that is going to lose a true and righteous fight who has truly suffered from those situations.

I've also known some true heroes in my life (they didn't wear capes or have super powers.)   Some of them sacrificed themselves for a country and people only to be spat on and maligned for what they were willing to give.  Everyday heroes have a talent for "seeing" other people in their moments of unrest and giving of themselves all  they could.  They don't leap from buildings, or fly through the air.  My heroes are hand holders, people with wise words and open hearts.  They are givers, not takers.  They are listeners, not talkers.  They are lovers, not haters.

If whatever group you classify yourself with does not subscribe to giving, listening and loving....you are in the wrong group.  If your first response to someone with an opinion different from your own is to label them with words designed to sting....you are not being open to anyone.  If you cannot step away from your own feelings of misuse and hurt little feelers, you will never ever be the person we are called upon to be.  And if you simply cannot see, recognize or care about the "stuff" other people have gone through...there will always be that hard little black knot of spite inside you.

If you view the entire world through a lens of your own distinction you will never learn anything.  Learning and listening doesn't mean you must embrace a different ideology it merely enhances your own knowledge that might serve you well on down the road.

There is freedom and peace in forgiveness.  I hear people say everyday "I can forgive them but I will never forget."  So, really.....have you really been in a place of genuine forgiveness?  Or are you simply checking a box thinking that is going to get you through to the other side?

Where will we all be on that glorious day with the Lord weighs our lives in the balance?  What if HE were to look at us and say "Meh, I forgive you but I will never forget and because I cannot forget, you will forever be outside my fellowship."  Wow!

Because life is the ultimate ebb and flow we will all have moments of great joy and devastating pain.  Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean that every single person you encounter isn't struggling with something that seems insurmountable.  And, I cannot say this enough.....people process things differently.  Grief is experienced differently, rejection takes many forms, anger can be paralyzing for some and so can love.  Every human being is dealing with a problem and it might be something that you could help with if you stepped outside your own righteousness and simply said "come here with me....join us...be part of us....we love you and we've missed you."  Now that just might classify you as an honest to goodness modern day H E R O.

I wish you all joy, love, contentment, peace and fulfillment...and on the days they are not present, I wish you strength.  And, know this.......if I know you, I love you and I want you to take comfort in it.  But, most of all....God loves you....He loves the Victims, the Heroes AND the Regulars all the same.  It is God that makes the EBB and FLOW and so we must embrace it all.