I like a common phrase used here in this area of the Smokey's; particular by the older generation. A phrase depicting "rumination." I like to use the phrase when conversing with my elder friends, because there is no room for misunderstanding as to my mental engagement on any particular subject. A good example is when I asked Billy if he had an adze I might use. He said he did but he would have to "puzzle" where he had it put up. I've been puzzling for some weeks; defining and constructing a picture of my past, present and future life.
It seems there are few days I'm not confronted with yesterdays. I often leave my breakfast buddies puzzling on the Beatles song, that says: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday..."
I catch myself in the temptation of living in the "good ole' days" which is captured in their song. For many of my generational friends, yesterday always seems to enamor. Somehow it seems the weather was better, the pressure lesser, the prices lower, the traffic slower, the currency stronger, the trees greener, the air cleaner, the youth better behaved, the music softer, the world safer, and the trousers lasted longer! "Oh, I believe in yesterday," I, too, sigh, as I puzzle on it.
Then, there comes the time when I push the button on Sirius and there, by contrast, is country singer Don Williams singing, "Don't think about tomorrow, it don't matter anymore. We can turn the key and lock the world outside the door." While the Beatles voice the temptation to live in my yesterdays, Don Williams voices the temptation to forget my tomorrows. Between or apart from the wishful romanticizing of my yesterdays and the hasty dismissals of my tomorrows; I puzzle: is there a life worth living?
Ordering the novel, The Namesake, was one of those that I had thought was going to be a "fun" read, only to find that it has become a third piece of the puzzle. Jhumpa Lahiri tells the story of Gogol who is named after his father's favorite author. But growing up in an Indian family in suburban America, the boy starts to hate the awkward name and itches to cast it off. In 1982 on his 14th birthday, his father presents him a specially ordered copy of The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. He tells him how he felt a special kinship with the author and that it had taken four months for the book to arrive from Britain, specially ordered for the occasion. To young Gogol the sentiments were not perceptible. Not puzzled on. Time moves on, like mine. Gogol's life moves on, like mine. His father dies unexpectedly. The story captures his efforts to reinvent his identity by embracing a new name, exploring meaning in relationships, an education, and a career. For all those years his father's gift was set aside. But pain has a way of bringing back more than memory. The story ends in the year 2000 when Gogol is 32, divorced and pondering. It is then that he picks up the gift that his father gave him at age 14 and starts to read.
I'm still puzzling on which things in my life are irreversible. Could Gogol, dramatically tried to start life all over again, there was no way of going back to when he was 14, or spending time with his father once again. Sadly for me or anyone else there will be no replays in real life. No sense puzzling on it. Deal with it, Bill.
I'm do puzzle on if this was an option the day after the crucifixion, the apostles would have certainly requested a replay. I think: O' how much they would have desired to go back! Not only that they might be with Jesus, but that they would set things right with Him. I remember the times I have vowed to live a certain way only to break the promise a few days later? I think that Peter probable felt the same. Thank You, Lord for showing me, when I feel like I'm alone in failure, the gospel writer has a word about the commonness of my humanness: All of the disciples deserted Jesus and fled from Him. The problem with the Christ was not that He had asserted a demand, but that He had gently solicited their support. To think that a king would speak in such a fashion to his subjects is beyond imagination. Returning to His disciples in His hour of anguish, He repeatedly found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with Me for one hour?" He asked.
How much He had likened Himself to me in order to bear my sins. How much He had bent towards humanity, giving visibility to the psalmist's ascription in Psalm 68 of: "God our Savior who daily bears our burdens for us." He has given me so much. He has asked for so little. Yet, I have failed Him in so much. And still, the great hope of the Christian faith is that, even knowing every past denial and every coming failure of humanity, Jesus set His face like flint on the cross before Him and went forward on my behalf.
Father, God, by your grace the puzzle is complete. I can sing with the Beatles, "I believe in yesterday," with Don Williams, "Don't think about tomorrow," but it is only with Jesus the suffering servant, the risen Savior that I take my little red hymnal, this morning and authentically sing, "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow." Amen
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