A Cup of Conversation – September 2014

For Father’s Day I received a basket of gifts one of which is a trivia game called Chat Pack, a collection of conversation starters for around the dinner table. One of the questions asked what would be the most common word people use to describe you. Keep in mind these are people who know the real us not just the image we carefully craft. Who wants to hear the honest answer to that question? I think most prefer to look into the skinny mirror even when we know it’s lying. Why is that? Maybe sometimes we’re better served by the squatty mirror with the knowledge we really do stand taller and leaner. Chat Pack should put that question in the deck! One thing’s for certain…please don’t give us a true mirror if truth is the last thing we want to see.

I don’t believe in reincarnation. Cockroach to human is an unreasonable stretch for me although man to cockroach seems more plausible especially after channel surfing cable for any length of time. I do however believe every day we have the opportunity to change into…better. It is a process requiring truth and a decision. The truth is often harder than the decision because we fear truth like we fear an audit, blood test or honest mirror. The decision to change is then just a choice.

If we’re not willing to change, relational wrongs won’t right themselves and humanity is doomed. The most popular words in marriage ceremonies are taken from a letter written to the early Corinthian church in the once great city-state located between Athens and ancient Sparta. The words were penned by a highly-educated and devout rabbi who experienced a world-changing revelation while traveling to Damascus. For two millennia, secular and religious scholars have called the letter a definitive work on the definition of love because everyone agrees virtuous love is not selfish or impatient but kind and sacrificial. When bride and groom gather to exchange vows we continually hear love never fails but what we don’t hear as often is why love never fails.

Waking in search of meaning we find faith, hope and love are the three greatest virtues in human experience. Without faith we face vast emptiness when years turn into decades and dreams fade away. Without faith, natural loss overwhelms because health, strength and time have a shelf life. Hope is a powerful force without which healing of any kind is not sustainable. Without hope we become easy prey to the ravages of physical and emotional gravity. Love, however, is the greatest virtue of them all. Without love there can be no redemption in wrong things spoken or done. Without love there can be no forgiveness, no second or seventieth chances. Without love we’d have to live and die with the harshest reality of our trespass upon those closest and furthest away.

There is not a sane man or woman in all creation who would knowingly choose a life with an inability to change. The irony is many settle for that very thing because looking into the mirror we believe forgiveness is either not available or necessary for our brand of offence (that mirror-mirror on the wall is the biggest liar of them all). We then rationalize our wrongs or cast blame to assuage a pain of regret which never goes away. When this happens the answer to the Chat Pack question is never an attractive one.

Our old skinny mirror fell and shattered the other day so I find myself with little choice but to look into a truer glass. I’m still inclined to look into a skinny mirror yet willing nonetheless to face reality. I have to trust faith, hope and love are all staring back at me. I will however miss the vanishing waistline.

Be good not bitter.