Getting Past it.

Getting Past IT!

“Anything a client says in a lawyer’s office is confidential, so I’ve gotten used to holding on to secrets. They’re usually nothing incriminating, but a lot of people have accounts they haven’t reconciled; things they’re just not ready to share.”
Richard Gere’s character John Clark in “Shall we Dance?”

Isn’t it amazing what can hold a person back. We all have dreams, aspirations, goals, ideas about what the future should be, and yet we allow things to hold us back.. I look back and remember what I wanted to be some day…an architect. It seems like so long ago that my Dad and I drove the 120 miles to the Quincy Technical School to consider enrolling. I took architecture classes at Lincoln Land for two semesters, then something happened.
One day I got a call to go into ministry. Can we go back in time for a minute so I can yell at God about this call? Here we go...get ready..and here we are in 1982. “God, what are you thinking? I am going to make some big money, I am going to be rich, have my dream home, design homes for other people, it is what I want. I have all those house plan books, all the magazines, all the drafting tools, this is what I want.” “I am not ministry material.” “Leave me alone.” “Shut up.” “What a stupid idea.”
And now we return to the present. And I didn’t win the argument with God. He is still the God of the whirlwind, the hummingbird, the big Chief, the head cheese, and I am less than nothing.
There is a popular book series called “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff.” The problem I have with this is not everything is small stuff to the person involved. It is easy for the author to say “Get over it, get past it, let it go, let God” and all those other little catchphrases, but is he standing in my shoes? Is he dealing with the same God that I deal with? Is he hearing this call to ministry? Did he lose his mother recently? Is he stuck in a job he cannot stand, waiting for his house to sell, watching bills accumulate, having things stolen off his porch, dealing with a mortgage company that does not return calls, attempting to help others while your own world crumbles? No. This pompus jackweed is living off the residuals from his best selling book, knowing that he can continue to belch out trite little mini-blessing books and everyone will just love them. "Oh thank you, mister optimism, I feel all shiny and happy now." And then he can spew out more cutesy little books with pithy little sayings that are supposed to help us climb out of this pit of anguish that we live in. Well, it isn’t working Mr. "Don't Sweat It". He can take his books out of the Wal-Marts and Borders tomorrow because I am not buying “pithy” crap again. I need a book called “Sweat it up big boy, because you know you’re going to be doing a lot of it so you might as well get really good at it.”

Do we have something we need to share? Or is that it then? Richard Gere says this is how people end up, when the estate has been settled, and all the paperwork is complete, all they can muster is ""is that it then?" Is our life over with two simple pages of our will? And really, do we want to be remembered for our stuff?
Peter Walsh is probably not well-known, but he is a cleaner, and one of the stars of a show called “Clean Sweep” on TLC. The premise of the show is simple, homeowners ask the show’s team to come in and help them clean, usually two rooms that look like tornadoes have went through them. There are piles made in the backyard, one for keeping items, one for items to sell, and one to throw out. After the couples are done separating their accumulated junk, Peter comes out. He looks at their keep pile and then informs them that it has to be made even smaller. He is annoying, headstrong, and usually gets his way. One of his key points is “Our stuff should never define who we are.” And the keep pile becomes smaller, the sell and throw away piles grow bigger. People begin to notice that they are defined by who they are, not what they own.
After mom died, I really noticed that she was not about her stuff. The china cabinet, her prized possession, was not so important to me after she died. So I sold it, to a dear friend who I knew would care for it. What would be more important is to have my sister back in my life a little less angry, to have my father be happy again, and not so mad at the world, and to have mom back, just so I could talk to her when life starts to bum me out, and it is really starting to bum me out. That is what she was about, her ability to care, to listen, even when her health was not the best, when things were weighing her down, she always had time for anybody.


We come to a place where there is finality. All our past debts need to be zeroed out, we are put in the clear, the books are in the black.. We shall not be mastered, weighed down, by anything. (All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.) 1 Corinthians 6:12

Things can only get better, and I wish I believed that. But for right now, I long for things to get better. I want to get past it, but I cannot. I want life to be a little more debt free, for our house problems to go away, for my "not the junior senator's wife" to be healthy, for my job to be enjoyable again, for the crock to show back up on our porch, for God to be more present in the my life, for the "junior senator's" son to find his center, for bills to go away, and for my friends to all be happy so I have something to aspire to. I want to be more like my mom, I want to care about others and stop worrying so much about my problems, but right now I cannot. I want to get to that place of finality. And soon.