“By your endurance you will gain your souls.” - Luke 21:19

Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14) • Psalm 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
Isa. 4:2-6 • 1 Thess. 4:13-18 • Luke 21:5-19

Life is a long race: “To strive, to seek, to find—and not to yield” in the words of Tennyson. I have long pondered the difference between doing and being. There is a doing implied in the Tennyson quote. In the passage from Luke “enduring” suggests more of a being state. My early life lesson was to “earn my keep.” What have you done today to justify your existence? I remember questioning the words of Milton with great consternation, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” What's with that?

We are being asked in the midst of this pandemic to endure not being with family and friends for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Perhaps we have lost friends or relatives to the virus. Our nation's democratic foundations are being threatened by dysfunctional, even malevolent, leadership. Are we being called to action—to DO something? Or can we minister by our presence?

My dad used to say when frustrated at someone's (usually my mother's) indecisiveness, “Do something if you do it wrong!” Whatever is done under that kind of admonition often makes the situation worse. A famous surgeon once stated, “It is not the complication in surgery that is the main problem—the most damaging act is our first reaction to whatever is going awry.” Witness these ancient words from Hippocrates: “Primum non nocere”—first do no harm.

Often the first reaction to any situation comes from the ego, and therefore is not going to be effective or life-giving. When confronted with problems of great magnitude (or even mundane daily conundrums), the first response is best given to some period of contemplation—of “sitting in the fire” as the Buddha might counsel. One of Thomas Keating's foundational teachings was/is: “The best Doing comes from Being.”

I will conclude with this story about a young girl walking along a beach and noticing a myriad of starfish lying on the sand. She would pick one up and throw it back into the ocean; and then another and another.... A man walking behind her caught up and said, “Young lady, look at all these hundreds, even thousands of starfish—how can you possibly make a difference?” She quietly picked up another starfish and threw it far out into the water. “Made a difference to that one.”

Cowabunga!

Written by Nick Cole

...who is glad to be surrendering to the Holy Spirit...on the good days!