This morning, I was writing in my journal… actually writing with my hand, which I need to do every so often just so my body does not forget how to do it. As I was writing, I said something to myself, like, “I am just rolling with the punches.” Where did that come from?
So I looked it up. It is a boxing term referring to when a boxer turns his head and body in the same direction as a punch from his opponent so that the punch becomes more of a glancing blow. It quickly became used when referring to adapting to the difficulties in life.
All of us are having to roll with the punches nowadays. We are all captives being held in a small dinghy out on the ocean. The waves go up and down, and during storms, it is all we can do just to keep from falling out of the boat. Some feel forced to give up and just jump into the sea. The rest of us hold on for dear life and refuse to let go, no matter how violently we are shaken.
“Bad Guys” vs “Good Guys”?
We all tend to look at life through a variety of lenses. My own perspective changes from day to day, but overall, I try to look through a lens of love, common sense, sanity, and human kindness.
But I have those days in which everything feels insurmountable – like those moments in certain movies where you think there are just too many bad guys. How will the hero make it through all that?
I think that is why I admire certain public figures who stand for honesty, respect, kindness, and sanity in the midst of total insanity. They are swimming upstream during a violent flood where the river – full of debris – is a raging torrent heading in the opposite direction. Where does that kind of fortitude come from?
There are older public figures who keep at it, day after day, speaking out on social media, television, podcasts, and elsewhere, even though they know that those in control are having their way with the world right now. They just want to make a difference in any way they can.
A Time of Testing
How much of this is destiny? How much of what is happening right now is meant to be and is set up to teach us? Are we being put through a time of testingin order to see what we choose? Will we all find ourselves in the Biblical sense of becoming either sheep or goats, wheat or chaff?
Not everyone is called to become a political figure. Not everyone can throw themselves into the fray. We all have our place – the situation we were born to live out, and the lessons we have chosen this life to learn.
Those people in our lives who have hurt and betrayed and abandoned us when we most needed them are the very ones we chose to be our teachers. And the officials who are making decisions that will affect our children and grandchildren – what about them? Are we hapless victims to their desires? Are they, too, our teachers?
Everything – absolutely everything we encounter in this reality – can teach us.
The Question of Courage
We can get angry, we can yell and rail and resist, and perhaps that in itself is the test: are you brave enough to resist the status quo and stand up for what you believe to be truth, right, and just?
At the end of the day, when whatever time we have been allotted is drawing to a close, what will our reflections be? How will we feel about our choices? Will there be regret? Will there be shame? Will there be guilt? Or will there be joy?
We humans are all so imperfect. We stumble along, often unable to see past the nose on our face. We often see only what we want to see.
A Perfect Moment
I am sitting here on our 120 acres, in my comfy chair, writing on my favorite device. The sky is blue, the dogs are sleeping, and the love of my life is in the kitchen, reading at the table while he eats his breakfast. I want to bask in the contentment of this perfect moment.
Yet nipping at the edge of my periphery is the awareness that wars are happening all over the world while the planet strains to provide for all of us and while our grandchildren wonder if there will be anything left for the adult versions of themselves.
What is Your Calling?
A niggling of guilt tries to muscle its way in: “Shouldn’t you be out with signs, marching against injustice?” it asks. Shouldn’t you run for office? Shouldn’t you write articles, decrying that which is destroying your world?
And I appease those voices by convincing myself that my destiny is to live the life I have before me right now, teaching my students how to access a part of them they were never taught truly exists. Teaching them to see past the facade of this apparent reality in order to reach beyond to a world of spiritual realities and truths that boggle the mind.
This is one journey perhaps among many our souls will take. The villains in our current lives may be the saviors in the next one. Any good story worth its salt has to have both villains and heroes. If there were no “bad guys” – what would all the good guys do?
My calling is not to rally forces or rush into battle. My calling is to bring a message of love and compassion to the masses… whatever small group of “masses” I can access. In a world full of division and anger, love is the only answer.
Sometimes it feels so small to think about the lessons of each of us individually when thousands are dying or suffering en masse. Isn’t there a bigger reason? Is there some huge thing we should be perceiving that we are failing to see?
In What Season of Life are You Now?
Can I sit here in my comfy chair and ponder how I am in a season of life in which I no longer have to agonize about whether I am failing to meditate enough?
That was my original plan. I was going to write about seasons of life, and how I have moved past the stage of life in which I am always struggling to live up to some lofty expectations of perfection, and am instead enjoying the journey of growth that each day brings, trusting that growth is indeed occurring, even when I cannot see it.
And that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am meant to do.
What joy these thoughts bring! And… I suppose they let me off the hook, in a way, when it comes to setting aside my own comfort so I can rush into the fray and suffer alongside everyone else.
Rolling With the Punches and Staying in the Boat…
Perhaps that is what we are all doing in this life. We are all learning to roll with the punches. Turning slightly when blows come, so that the “hits” we get from life become less impactful… more like glancing blows instead of devastating smashes. Keep holding on to the boat, and don’t let go. No matter how steep the waves get… or how scared you feel. Just hold on, remembering that what seems so real and so permanent right now is really only temporary.
We are here for such a short time. Glean all the lessons you can and make every moment count for something good and loving and kind. I’ll see you on the other side one day!
Much love,
