Silly Putty

I listened to a sermon the other day, from a real preacher in a real church.  That's kinda unusual for me, but we drove by it a couple of weeks ago and Carolyn had been talking about it ever since.  I'm not sure we'll be back, that's up to her, but the guy said a couple of things that have floated around between my ears  awhile.

One was an analogy he used.  Something about silly putty in the hand of God.  He said to trust God, become silly putty in his hand and let him mold you.  I had never thought of myself as something to be molded, like silly putty, in anyone else's hand.  But you know what?  That's exactly what I have been all my life, and I continue to be that way.  This little insight has left me in a mess.

My parents, school teachers and yes, clergymen, took the silly putty that was me as a child, and molded me into what they thought I should be.  It happens to all of us, and life becomes a battle between what we are taught to be and who we want to be.  I am of the opinion who we want to be usually wins, but my Goodness, what a battle it is.  And, after thinking about it a little more, another question pops into my head. .  If "who we want to be" wins, how the devil can we know we weren't taught to be "who we want to be" by someone who molded us? 

Also, if God is doing the molding, just how is it He acts upon us?  By using the parents and teachers he chose for us?  It really doesn't matter where you are in the world nor what the prevailing religious beliefs are in that part of the world, it's a really interesting question, and at this time, I'm lost.  Can't figure it out.  If I'm lucky, it'll come to me one of these days.

The other thought he presented is summed up by an old Alfred E. Newman quote, "What, me worry?"  The preacher stated it as "do not fret," but Alfred's version is the same, and more easily understood.

We actually are our own worse enemies, and it all occurs between our very own ears.  Someone says something,  in an offhand way, that offends us.  Never mind the other person meant nothing by it, we are offended, and we did that to ourselves.  Someone else may have a differing point of view than ours.  Friendships are lost and wars are fought because of this one.  Tolerance and an open mind  are some of the easiest of virtues to acquire, but few are capable of even this first step.  This is my thought, not the preacher's.

 Or, something happens in our lives that troubles us.  My ears perked up as this thought flew from his mouth to my brain - Carolyn and I are troubled souls these days, me more than her.  His message was it does not matter, it is what it is.  Accept what is and continue the journey.

The message was so very, very, simple.  Life Happens.  Deal with it, and take the next breath.  And then the next one.  Don't let the facts of your life worry and confuse you.  Let God handle it for you.  Put the next foot down, one step ahead of the other.  He made it sound SO easy, and I wish it were.  There's a part of me that wants it to be that way, and I wish I could turn loose and just BE.

Long ago, in a golden state far away, it was possible for me to do this.  As long as I was the only one affected by my actions and no one else depended on me for support, it's was easy to just live in the moment and have not one care for the future, nor relive the past except for the good memories.  It seems that I must try harder, plan more, and do fewer crazy things when another person depends on the things I do.  Bipolar - that's me.  Do other guys feel this way?  Is this the reason we refer to ourselves as happy and carefree while single?  The Good Lord, whom we have been discussing, knows I've been happier with Carolyn by my side than at any other time in my life.  I have not been carefree.  That seems to be the challenge.

I was taught to plan for the future, to set aside a little for a rainy day, to care for my family.  I'm of mixed emotions about the way I have lived my life, all that was set aside could have been used to make Carolyn laugh a little more.  I worry that I have not been as good a partner as I could have been.   The "prudent" use of our treasure may have been better used by letting more of it slip through our fingers.  She always asked for so little, and is worth so much.  We'll not have the ability to use the "set aside" joy of the past in our future.

Is his message a cop out?  An excuse to take the easy way out and just let it all slide by?   Don't worry?  About anything?  Or is a carefree existence in fact a better way to live the only life we have?  Should we just let the future take care of itself, and not concern ourselves that we may starve in the streets in our old age?   

These are tough questions, and ones that have concerned the greatest minds of our Western Civilization throughout our history.  But only when the greatest minds had idle time.  Maybe, life is just too darned easy now.  Hard work and struggling just to eat used to kill us off at a very early age, and none of this was important to the majority of folks even one hundred years ago.  Actually, the majority of the folks in the world today do not have the time to worry about these things.  They are still starving.

We, who have all the comforts and the time, are all SO hard on ourselves, and it should be so simple.