What is your perfect day?
A few months ago, I had someone ask me once what my perfect day was, and I felt a bit uncomfortable with the question and didn’t really know how to answer and so I turned the question back to them. But it kept coming back to me afterwards… I’ve done a bit of thinking about happiness, what it takes to feel “happy”, how much happiness is in my own control and what it would take for when someone asks me the question “How are you?” for my answer to be “I’m happy today!”
As it turns out, my perfect day isn’t strolling the Champs de Mars under the Eiffel Tower in Paris eating pain au chocolat; or even walking along the beach with my headphones in, then sitting out on the rocks and eating ice cream while the waves roll in round me; if that were a perfect day for me then I would only be happy very rarely! Although that is the kind of answer I felt ‘supposed’ to give – it didn’t feel honest.
On reflection, my perfect day contains a mix of a few things:
– crossing a good number of things off on my list of “things to do”
– a social engagement with someone I’m close to over a coffee or similar that makes a good connection between us, and
– having what I call a “kingdom moment” which is where I have one of those interactions with someone, anyone, whether you know them or not, but at some point in the conversation you know you are changed for having known the other person because you saw something of God in them and it transforms you
When I get that mix right – I have a really profound sense of the work I do and the vocation or work I’m called to being the same thing, an alignment between who I am called to be and who I am, I understand, just for a moment, why God made me and why I am here.
That moment is what makes me happy, that moment of knowing is what makes me glad to be alive.
On any given d
ay, I may only get one or even none of those things. And it is easy to feel dissatisfied. It’s a precarious thing to find happiness – a whole lot hangs in the balance and we just have to take life one day at a time. It helps to remember at those times I’m most frustrated that its God’s purpose not mine that matters and that those things which come up may have a value for Him that I will ever know.
I have secretly loved the person tagging Melbourne “happy” – it makes me smile everytime I see it (which is not usual of most words tagged) and it makes me think someone else is pursuing happiness too and hopefully leaving a trail where they’ve found it…
In a song Michael Franti’s written called “Gloria”: one of the lines talks about how “I know each day in life with you gets better than the last, so today I’m just glad to be alive”
I thought we could frame our prayers today in the sentiment of that grace. Even though we have things in our day that might feel bad or worrying or frustrating or overwhelming, and the end of the day, in balance, we’re glad to be alive and to have experienced those things as well as the ones which bring us joy.
I’ve been reading Binding the Strong Man by Ched Myers, it’s a much more challenging way of reading the bible than I’ve ever been exposed to before, and not just because I needed a dictionary beside me to understand it, it’s really grounded in something real and therefore relevant – for the first time the bible isn’t some collection of myths and legends or a problem solving oracle. Basically I can’t read it and not help feeling moved to respond and called to discern what this looks like for my own context… is that not what a bible study should be?
In Ched’s words (p.11) Mark’s gospel originally was written to help imperial subjects learn the hard truth about the world and themselves. He does not pretend torepresent the Word of God dispassionately or impartially, as if that word were innocuously universal in its appeal to rich and poor alike. His is a story by, about, and for those committed to God’s work of justice, compasison and liberation in the world. To modern theologians, like the Pharisees, Mark offers no “signs from heaven” (Mark 8:11). To scholars, who, like the cheif priests, refuse to ideologically commit themselves, he offers no answer (Mark 11:30-33). But to those willing to raise the wrath of the empire, Mark offers a way of discipleship (Mark 8:34)
Here are some questions I pondered on my way to work one day – what are you discussing as you walk along? what things?
As I board the tram this morning, jostling for position and validating my ticket I become aware of a man who is obviously upset. His voice loud but incoherent, I can only catch occasional words and phrases; openly weeping he says something about the Japanese and Americans, numbers of people who had died, lamenting “the children… the children…” Some people openly stare, others deliberately looked away, avoiding eye contact. A child wearing a pink backpack, pink hat and pink scarf burrows her heads into her mother’s side, covering her other ear to block out his voice. We are all afraid of him; at the very least he makes us uncomfortable. Why doesn’t he sit quietly and mind his business like everyone else? There is a hush on the tram and only this elderly mans querulous and confused voice asking “Why?”
I consider engaging him in conversation but a young woman beats me to it… “Hi, I’m here to help you. Can you lower your voice? Ssh. You’re scaring people. I am your friend. What is your name? Where are you going?” The man does not know. The tram has halted and everyone now openly watches the scene unfold. An older man comes up behind her, backup against the unexpected. The lights change to red twice, three times, and the elderly man cannot answer the questions. A police vehicle pulls up at the lights beside us. The older man jumps out and taps on their window, and they pull over. The woman, his new friend, tells the elderly man some more friends have arrived, they’re going to give him a ride to the city, to come with her. He is assisted from the tram and led away.
The aberrant element removed, the lights change and our tram moves off, a relieved babbling fills the hush “…must be dementia”, “I know, my grandfather…” But some are silent witnesses, beginning to end and I wonder whether, like me, they think of how they could or should have responded. Internally, I have a querulous and confused voice that joins in asking “Why?”
itellyouarise 