“Discipline and Mercy.”

 

D/Z,

 

 

I never quite got the balance of discipline and mercy, in the early days. I was too emotive, focusing on the way I felt about how you guys acted. That will always be the wrong approach. The only reason for discipline is to show the right path. It is not punishment. When you are younger, it may have a more demonstrative effect, but it must always be more about mercy than punishment. All discipline must come from love or it will have no lasting effect. We know when a blow is just hurtful, and we know when it is just a lesson.

 

I hope I show the mercy at the root of discipline. Yet, you must understand that I am human, and I need discipline and mercy too. I will not always live up to the things I say. My words and actions will not always end in love. I am learning to be human, just like you. Yes, to be human. Part of being that is learning through failure how to live in the light.

 

So, I hope you grant me both discipline and mercy from my various flaws.

 

 

 

 

“Answers.”

 

E,

 

 

Life will test you. This is the way it goes. It will ask you questions and throw up difficulties. I hate to be so general, but this is true. It will come in specific colours and will speak to your specific flaws and strengths from time to time. It will demand you have answers. You will not. Do not be sad about this. No one has the answers. Everyone has to make them up as they go along.

 

The true answer to things is usually in character and not in action or words. These two might feature but they must always come from a position of character. It is not simply what you say or do that matters but the things behind both. Who you are and why you are that way.

 

The answers will come from being not from acting good.  No one can act long enough to not let their true character show. And we do not stand on our own character in this. We are fallen and flawed creatures. We belong to the Christ and we stand on who he is. From fall to fall. We rise up in his glory. That character, of love above all and in its true form, is the answer to everything.

“The Joy will last forever.”

 

Z,

 

It may not seem like it many times but there is joy in the world. There are things that lift the heart out of the dark and into hope. They exist, side by side, with the pain we see and feel and try to avoid as best as we can. It is not a coincidence that the spirit is broken and then the body fails or the other way around. We need to feel a physical sense of safety in the world as well as a spiritual sense of worth. Joy is both.

 

For many around the world, this is elusive. Physical conflict, high crime rates, poverty and political instability, the big hot button issues of our day, can place the body in harm and the mind in terror. The joy in the world can be fleeting, in moments that pass and make the pain even worse, a mockery of the light and lightness of things. This world is often the dreadful long night of the soul.

 

I promise you that this is not the end of the story. The joy to come will last forever. This trembling is the last throes of the pain of all the world. Nothing is cured until all are cured. There is no world peace, equality or well being without every single soul living in these hallowed states. This is the promise that God makes. The light is here. Things are winding up. The pain has been intense, but it is passing.  The joy will last forever.

“This time will be different.”

 

D,

I need to tell you about failure. The fear of this naturally occurring phenomenon has been the bane to joy for many a human mind. It is the thing we are meant to tell you to avoid. This is, of course, a stupid plan. You will try to avoid it, but you will fail.  Life is a series of failures interrupted by a spurt of pyrrhic victories in-between.

 

This does not mean that life is failure. I know it sounds like it. It means that our definitions of failure are wrong. Failure, in the real sense, is a lifelong trajectory and not isolated events or not getting what you want. Failure is about character not economics. It is about sportsmanship not about trophies and awards. It is about the meaning of life not making meaning out of mountaintops created in your mind.

 

Of course, every generation will tell you this: this time it will be different. It will not be. The world has been the way it is from the dawn of our time. The light has been this bright and overwhelming since it was called out from the dark. Eternity has been stable and unflinching forever. Your life is an eternal thing. It is bigger than failure. It is more serious that fleeting success. But any isolated stab at winning is futile. Your life as a whole, crafted in character and doing what is right, is already a success.

“All Stories Matter.”

 

E,

 

It is sad that we have to still push the idea that people are of equal value. That one life does not and cannot matter more than another. It is a hard thing to comprehend but you cannot live in ignorance of the world you live in. If you are going to be a relentless do-gooder or a person of faith, or some sort of light in the world, then you must be well aware of the dark.

 

A person of colour in the western world, is more aware of these racial differences than those of us born on the African continent. We know it in tribes, and they know it more in race. Both offer the same unhelpful delusion: there is something inherent that makes one-person superior to the other, from made up language and culture, because all culture and all language is basically made up to carry group values, to the way your pigmentation works out. It is sad but true.

 

The best wat to look at it lies in the idea that all stories matter. We ought to listen to each other and learn where the other comes from. We cannot erase thousands of years of cultural mishaps and racial crimes. What we can do is acknowledge that there is nuance in the world, no human being is the bastion of good or the epoch of evil. We are started in our prejudices and preferences, but we do not have to die there. We can listen to each other. And learn other stories.

“Work”

 

H,

 

 

We face Mondays with a certain trepidation. It reminds us that most of our life is made up of work. Only very few people on earth get to do what they love or like, what they call their “passion” or “calling” as their vocation. Most do not earn enough to make the things they love into a career. The world calls anything that you do not make money from a “hobby”.

 

I do not mean to go on another anti-capitalist rant. Work can be good and challenging and fruitful for all. I have grown through work and found muscles I did not know I had by lifting weights I did not want to. We do not know enough about our own souls to limit ourselves to do only the things we love; in work or in anything else. The discipline will help us, always.

 

The more pertinent point is to seek wholeness. To make everything you do part of the joy you seek. To learn all the disciplines you need to do your work well and in joy is the aim of all who live in the light. We must drop the complaints. The hand to the plough is always sacred. To be in the creative process of making something or delivering a service can be a powerful thing. We must adjust our minds and heart. We live in holiness now. Everything should fall into that.

“These bones are fading.”

 

M,

 

Forever and ever and all that, but these bones are fading. I am older than I have ever been. Middle life is creeping in, for me and not for you. I am already on medications I would not have imagined a decade before; I have had my heart checked and my weight nodded at and my blood pressure frowned at. I am not even forty, but the bones are telling me their brittle tale. Some of it is lifestyle, some of it is genes and some of it is just growing old.

 

I know this is not sounding romantic, but I intend it to be. My fatalistic worldview is challenged by our deep and ongoing love story. The bone and marrow I intend to suck out of life all exists in your eyes and in your arms. Everything comes down to facing life together and pushing that eternity away for the exclusive sense of loving you on earth. It does not just make life bearable; it makes it enjoyable, full, desirable, and beautiful all at once.

 

I know it often does not feel this way. We are fed that love is incredible stories. Love is just lying in bed. Love is just drinking tea. Love is trying to express love quietly, so the baby does not wake up. Love is working on budgets and going to the market to break them. Love is arguing, veins bulging and being afraid that you have gone too far. Love is forgetting that the bones are going because, in these moments, only eternity is on my mind.

 

“Newness.”

Z,

 

It is important to always lean into the newness of things. You have to enjoy the idea that you don’t know what you are doing but you will in time. Do not let the necessary nervous energy of a new day, a new school, a new job, a new page, or a new environment go to waste. There is no shame in learning, certainly none in making mistakes and being honest in doing so is where all the fun is.

 

I know we are expected to be perfect. This is a lie. We are expected to pick things up quickly. This is often a lie. We will learn at our own pace; sometimes it will be slow, sometimes it will be quick. The thing to remember is that we do it well. Our own pace is always good enough, eventually.

 

One day, everything new will become old or will pass into custom. Remember this, as you go through the process. First, as earlier stated, so you enjoy the moments. And second, when it is hard, remember that novelty will become better by practice. The second part is hope in hard times and the first part is just the pure joy of life and experiences.

“Something Beautiful.”

 

D,

 

The competition in the world has robbed us of the great beauty of being ourselves. It has the effect of making all of us line up in the same way and present with the same false efficiency. The chaos of the universe makes us long for perfect lines and concise explanations. The seeming randomness of the universe makes us find order in petty achievements and empty epochs. We summarize life too much.

 

It does not have to be this way for you. Or for any of us, anymore. You are young enough to avoid this great pitfall of being too small or building the big things into puffs of gas and air. There is nothing the human mind can conceive as vast and beautiful as the universe itself. You are made of the same stuff. There is something beautiful in you and in everything else. You are made of eternal stuff.

 

This should trickle down into everything you do. You must not dismiss the drudgery of everyday life. You must not look down at a single soul or a single moment. There is something beautiful in you and in everyone else.