Thrive!

Dipping Deeply Into the Bottom of the Jar of Satisfaction

Posted: February 1, 2014 in gratitude
Tags: how to appreciate life, on being thankful, randy hasper, the definition of gratefulness, thriving, what we have

It’s evening.

I like it.

It’s grown dark, but my family is safely at home, and we seize the opportunity to dip to the very bottom of the jar of satisfaction.

If one of us were missing how terrible that would be, but we are not missing, and because of that we are not traumatized.

I am in my warm house; the heater is on; my family is hugging me.

I like the safe, warm, tingle in these cheek-to-cheek encounters, so very different from not being touched, so different from no warm skin-on-skin contact, so different from unsafe and cold and lonely.

We eat chicken stir fry. We have enough, and it fills us up, and it is so not like being hungry, not like the weak, tired, empty, gnawing pain of want and deprivation.

We are deep in the jar. We sigh a satisfaction. We lick our fingers.

I lie on the couch and watch TV; my cat comes and sleeps on me; she purrs. This is so different from nothing to entertain us, from lying on the ground, from having no lights to turn on, from having no pets to snuggle with.

We dip, we lick our lips, we feast on the familiar. These provisions, by which discomfort and dissatisfaction are warded off, surround us now.

There is no medical test tomorrow, no scheduled surgery, no cancer treatment, no soul racking, sobbing loss to wake up to.

We luxuriate within the jar. Satisfaction deepens through the awareness of its opposite.

It won’t always be like this.

I know that, it makes it even sweeter, and so I savor it now.

I savor the deep, rich, delicious, astonishing, provisioned, universal-particular present tense. I dive into it; I suck on it; I down it.

I call to mind the desperate, terrible, dehumanizing opposite of all my mundane and astonishing satisfactions and in doing so turn my jar upside down and pour it down my throat!

Smart Shopping

Posted: January 28, 2014 in money
Tags: consumer wisdom, how to shop wisely, randy hasper, smart buying, thoughts on consumption, wise consumption

Yesterday I bought new tires for my Nissan Juke — 235 50/R17’s.

I had researched this purchase for three weeks. Upon buying, I experienced the thrill of the purchase, and the agony of the bill!

I upgraded to wider, quieter, safer, longer-lasting tires — less roll resistance, better gas mileage, and better traction on water, but afterwards I brooded, “Did I just pay too much for the wrong tires?” They weren’t the most expensive offered me; they were also by far not the cheapest.

Stuff is tough, on me! Then again, later looking at them sitting under the car — wide, stabilizing, sports-car aggressive, more efficient, safer — and feeling the improvement in ride as I drove and turned the car, I knew I’d made the right choice. There is a significant improvement in ride, handling, safety and quality.

I had passed safely through the rugged terrain of the buyer’s high and the buyer’s low. I bought the right shoes for my car.

Consumption takes some gumption, for it exists within our emotions; both anxiety and hope rule the attribution of value.

I venture ahead into the world of consumerism with a bit of nagging uncertainty (that’s weird, but so human) and a bit of loving confidence; I pick my way gingerly through the landscape of consumption.

The ability to purchase wisely — it’s hard!

Smart buying requires accurate knowledge, good judgment, some risk, some caution, the good sense to stay within our means, the equally good sense to sometimes upgrade to better, smarter and safer.

Yesterday I called my cable company. I did that because I had just come from Best Buy where a representative from another TV service offered me a better deal. I didn’t take it. All the reviews on Yelp were negative — lousy costumer service and poor quality.

I’m glad I didn’t jump on that deal.

But the option gave me the idea, the energy and the motivation to negotiate my current bill with my current company, and so I did. It took three phone calls until I got the representative that knew what I could do, and through her I dropped everything I don’t need. I dropped my land line phone. Who needs a home phone when the whole family has smart phones that far surpass the house phones? I dropped some TV stations the family never uses. I kept what my daughter wanted — the ability to see her beloved San Diego Padres.

This all took a change in thinking for me, and a bit of assertiveness with the cable company, but in the end, I think it was a wise financial decision. With less TV and less phone. I’m saving about $500 this year! That helps me feel better about spending so much on tires!

A few thought on wise shopping.

Think, process and plan before you consume. Don’t buy impulsively. The tire purchase; that was my second visit to the tire store to discuss the options. I researched for about three weeks before buying.

Avoid debt if possible. I do have a car payment and a house payment, but no other debt. I put the tires on a card, but I will pay for them out of my savings account when the bill comes. I save, so that when these bigger, less frequent expenses come — the tires, a broken washing machine, the dental bills — I can pay without paying interest. Not everyone can do this at every point in life, but it is something to aim for. Savings lessen stress and allow for the extra expenses to not take from us in interest what we can have for ourselves by some care with spending and some pre=planning.

Rely on the wisdom of the community of shoppers. I read numerous customer reviews on the tires and the cable and TV service providers before I pulled my wallet’s trigger.

Don’t be afraid to risk. It was a risk to buy better tires. It was a risk to drop my home phone line. I’ve had a home phone all my life. No more! No more political and sales calls!

Decide with your head and your heart. Emotions are fine, wanting something is normal, desire can lead to improvement in life, but the heart must team up with the head to make smart decisions. It is with our minds that we can best please our hearts, over the long hall.

Don’t forget that you also want to give back. I make my financial decisions with the constant check that I am reserving something for others. I save, shop, spend, and don’t spend with it in mind that charity is not an option. I will only spend if I also leave something to give. Why? I want to be able to give to others. Last year I bought tires for my daughter’s car. I paid for kids to go to school in Mexico. I gave to my church. I like myself when I give. My goal is to give away at least ten per cent of what we make. That seems fair to me. The good life is not spending all I have on myself.

Lastly, remember that it is a privilege to get to decide. Much of the world does not have the luxury of driving personal cars, upgrading tires, owning cutting-edge technology, having access to consumer information. I won’t always be able to do this either. We should always consume, when we do, with a great sense of thankfulness that we are alive, privileged and resourced enough to consume wisely.

How very cared for we are when we have the power to care for ourselves and others wisely.

A Quiet Heart

Posted: January 25, 2014 in becoming
Tags: how to calm down, how to live more wisely, how to thrive, not trying to control others, Psalm 131, quieting our hearts, randy hasper

The tendency with humans is to force stuff.

We force our spoons into our mouths, our expenses into our budgets, our bodies into our jeans and our ways, our opinions and our solutions onto the people we live with.

Push, push, push. Force, force, force!

But people don’t like it.

Psalm 131 offers a good alternative.

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,
I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.
2 I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.
3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
Hope now; hope always!

Not ruling the roost, not meddling where we aren’t wanted, not fantasizing about what we want that will never happen (and even shouldn’t happen), not flying away from reality — it’s best. We would do well if we attempted to control less.

The child content, with its mother, not with its mother to get something, but just content with her, calm, secure — that is the model of the soothed soul before God.

To just accept people, without trying to control them, would bring more peace to us and them.

And to calm down our discontent by placing our hope in what God will bring in his time and way — that’s what it means to have a quiet heart.

“I’m no sex sheriff.”

Posted: January 13, 2014 in helping
Tags: are you one of us, how to better society, judging others, judgment, mercy, moral doctors or judges, morals, triangulation

People keep asking me the same question, “What do you think about …?”

I don’t love these moments. Why? Well, to often the interlocutors are a bit too tense for my taste. They lean forward, or back. They have anxious hands. The skin above their eyes wrinkles and twitches.

“What do you think about gays? What do you think about marijuana? What do you think about women in church leadership? What do you think about the war? What do you think about politics? What do you think about religion? What do you think about global warming?”

To me these questions sometimes feel like traps. I am being asked to step on the sticky paper, under the spring-loaded metal, into the cage. I am being trapped into giving the “right” answer, or getting the hammer.

More often than not, these discussions also feel like triangulations. “Let’s whisper together for a moment about “those people — you know — that monolithic block of people who who don’t think like we do but aren’t present to defend themselves.”

I am not with it. Too many over-generalities, cliches, biases and harsh judgments for my taste.

I suspect that when we discuss our “positions,” on people, we are often doing damage to good thinking, to ourselves and to those not present. It quickly becomes clear that we are bent on testing each other and them. We want to know if they are a common, correctable enemy or if we are like-minded, mental “friends” who will “like” each other’s posts on Facebook.

The questions we are really asking of each other is, “Are you one of us?” Are you a conservative, are you a liberal, are you Republican, are you a Democrat, are you a Christian, are you a Muslim, are you responsible, or not, are you in favor of being straight or gay, do you hold to the true faith, are you tolerant, or intolerant, after the fashion that we all “should be”?

The questions are usually about a law in question, a particular moral issue, a person or set of people who we think have broken a law, a view of sexuality, a position on gender, a use of money, a politician who is under scrutiny or a political party’s platform.

We get quite exercised over such stuff, we tend in our position-making to stop thinking clearly, we too often lose sight of deeper matters that underlie such discussions.

We lose sight of our callings.

I don’t know what other people’s callings are. I am beginning to discover mine.

I am not called to law. I am not a good law maker, judge, lawyer, police officer, sheriff, soldier, correctional officer or moral sheriff of the world. We need those people. They serve important roles. I’m glad for our protectors, our legal people, our legal teams, when they do what they do well, it’s just that law and enforcement are not my passion, my gifting, my desire, my inclination or most importantly, my calling.

I’m not so good at making laws, even at making rules. I’m not even good at keeping them. I’m not saying we don’t need them. I just find myself drawn to other ways of approaching life, of other motivations, other passions, other delights.

I met some people recently who it seemed, felt that they were called to be the sex sheriffs of the world. They seemed to know what the sex laws and the sex rules should be. I don’t know too much about this area of specialty. I know that harmful decisions can result from poor sexual choices. It’s just that I really don’t feel called to legislate, monitor and punish other people’s sexual behavior.

I’m no sex sheriff.

My calling is more in the direction of redemption. I know people do wrong things. I know because I’ve done them too. I know people make bad choices. I’ve made them too. What I find myself fascinated by is how we move forward after harmful choices, not how we charge, judge, punish or condemn people for having done wrong things. My experience has educated me in this direction.

I find that my calling is to redemption, to renewal, to recovery, and in this calling I am drawn to understanding individuals, not categories of people,”getting” the person in front of me, not by critiquing groups off to the side of me. When faced with a moral crisis, I like a one-on-one dialogue with the specific brokenness right out there on the table, and the question of the hour right at hand.

“Now, let’s talk openly about who you are, what’s been going on with you, and where you would do best to go next. What is the most reasonable, healthy, spiritual option for you now?”

I am not a relativist, but I don’t know all the legal and moral answers concerning right and wrong.

I know this: The older I get the less I have it in me to want to be a legal and moral expert, a judge, and the more I have it in me to be a physician. I have a passion for an accurate diagnosis. I thrill over understanding each patient. I burn for the exact proscription for the each precious, imperfect one. I am ramped-up to help people recover and move on, and to use their pain as rocket fuel to empower a new, if yet imperfect future.

For me, too many of the questions, discussions and generalizations about moral or legal failure feel like military ordinance, explosive, and fraught with collateral damage. On the other hand, specific curatives, custom designed remedies, patient-centered therapy — this is my line of work. I’m not saying we can’t generalize about right and wrong. I am saying I do my best thinking when I am dialoguing with individuals about getting well. I am better at medicine than law.

I know now that I am at my best when I’m affirming people, not condemning them. I am a supporter of people; not a opponent of people. I like to talk super-honestly over coffee, not to carry a placard in the street. I’d rather ask questions than make judgments. I want to make a mark on the world by triumphing what I am for, not what I am against. Others have the calling to bring the judgment; they must do that. I have a calling to bring about compassion. This is my delight.

I am at my best when I am thinking along the lines of forgiveness, when I am bringing mercy, when I am focused on understanding, when I am bringing healing to individuals, not when I’m judging others or sparring with interrogators who want to see if my moral and legal judgments are in alignment with correct doctrine — as they know it. I am probably not in alignment.

Here is the deal with me, and I am comfortable who I am: I don’t care to think too much about what people have done wrong.

I do care a lot about helping individuals who are open and ready to see what might be wise and healthy for them to do next.

Enough

Posted: January 7, 2014 in success
Tags: an essay about trying, how to combat shame, how to keep trying, how to keep trying in life, randy hasper, why write, writing for its own sake

I received several email rejection notices recently.

Some of my soliloquies and anti-fables — ones I had sent out for consideration — were rejected by literary magazines of some repute.

This stung, but it was also bracing, a little bit, in that way that serves me notice that I’m out there, risking and scraping for a voice. I’m still offering, after all this time, some thin, cracked, painted shards of myself to the world.

I know a little bit of literary publication success, and I also know literary disappointment. Sometimes in the moments of disappointment I fear not getting enough opportunity to contribute to the public discourse about life. I badly want to share — proverbs, soliloquies, fables, stories, essays, sermons, lessons and any other genre that fits me — in the conversation about reality and what is astonishingly mysterious.

Rejection is not fun. “Not accepted” is reality for many of us, and it can have damning effects, flushing us with shame, the shame of not being enough, of not being good enough.

I suffer this, along with the rest of the race, the I’m-not-enough experience of life, but not so much anymore.

I am finally beginning to do what I do because I cannot, not do it, not because it pleases someone else. I read and write because I want to, and because I have to, for myself, to stay sane, and to stay in tune with the muses within. Words are life, they are bread to me, even when they don’t provide bread. Words in themselves, as I discover them, as they uniquely proceed from me, are enough motivation for more words.

Last year I finished up either watching or reading all of Shakespeare’s plays. I couldn’t not! Shakespeare is one of my muses. No one gets it better than the shaker. He shakes and spears his plays veneers, and out falls human nature, human motivation, passion, eloquence, dark evil and bright good with a beautiful clatter and clamor that I cannot ignore.

Shakespeare inspires me to keep shaking the linguistic tree, until the literary fruit falls — or I do.

Here is the deal. We face down “not enough” with “enough.” I may not get enough recognition for my own writing, but I will write enough anyway. I will pour out my words in public talks, lessons, private conversations, blogs and micro-blogs.

All artists throwing paint, words, song or food might do well come to this, to not do what we do because we are receiving some kind of affirmation, but because we are giving a gift, to ourselves first and then to the universe, and because we can’t, not.

The doing of the creative things we were made to do is a reward in itself. There is no shame in being expressive. The artistry is often enough to maintain the art.

Rejection — it’s just a splash in my face as I throw myself down the crazy, wild, hilariously steep slope of the next thing I have to say.

Deep Rest

Posted: December 24, 2013 in recovery
Tags: how to deep rest, how to rest, how to slow time, how to stop pushing so hard, how to take a vacation from life, randy hasper, what is deep rest

Work, work, work; push, push, push, rush, rush, rush — that’s just what we middle-class Americans tend to do.

And after extended bouts of work, it’s hard to come down, even when we get a holiday break. I’ve been jittery lately — too many dead lines, shopping trips, meetings, duties and self-imposed, others-imposed, high flying, hard-driving expectations.

Yesterday, after weeks of working too hard, I went and sat in my backyard, with tea, and looked, at my pond, the sky, my plants, at nothing. I also took a nap, and wrote a new batch of proverbs that flowed out of my reflections.

I needed this kind of seeing and doing little, or nothing.

We all need deep rest. What is deep rest? It’s like deep sleep.

Deep sleep, also called slow sleep or wave sleep, alternates with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep in a regular pattern of 3–5 cycles each night.

During deep, body-calming sleep, good stuff happens — the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, appears to strengthen the immune system, consolidate new memories and secrete growth hormones.

We need deep sleep. We also need deep rest — rest while we are awake. Deep rest is found in wakeful but quiet, comfortable body postures, in cessation of activity, in relaxed observation of the environment, in quiet reflection, in quiet conversation, in rumination, in meditation and perhaps for some of us in reading, writing or prayer.

Yesterday I read in the Psalms, took a few minutes to let those wise words soak in and felt appreciative. Later, I went out to the front yard and gardened, and then, slowing time with my hands at my sides. I stood back and looked over my work. I laid-back on time, and with a deep-drawling, pause-pleasing, slow-slipping, soft-shoeing satisfaction, I rested.

Cats sleep 16 hours a day, or five years out of seven. We might do well to emulate our cats more, to cat nap, to cat rest, to cat-live, to slow-blink life softly down. After all, the domestic cats lead the good life.

To deep rest is to slow life down, not to stop life. It means to cook slower, eat slower, talk slower, think slower, react slower. It means to pick a slower wave, found in each life-washed moment, and to ride it gently and patiently all the way to time’s softly-lapping shore.

Rest — deep rest — it’s regenerative; it’s good.

Where the Heck is the Glory?

Posted: December 17, 2013 in beautiful
Tags: being you, Christmas glory, glory, glory to God in the lowest, how to love yourself, how to wear the glory, randy hasper

I’m kinda wondering where the glory is?

Luke tells us that at the Christmas event the angels sang:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Is glory in the highest? I tend to live down among the lowest; I don’t see it all that much. Where in the heck is the promised glory?

Last Thursday night the San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos! For us in San Diego, that’s a bit of glory!

Glory is defined as a high honor earned by notable achievements.

Chargers 27; Bronco’s 20 is a notable achievement. This season, the Broncos are averaging 39 points a game. San Diego held them to 20. Glory for that!

I’ve myself, have experienced similar glory to Phillip Rivers and the Chargers.

During my glory days, I won the ping pong tournament in my gym class. I’m hoping to one day be inducted into the High School Ping Pong Hall of Fame. That’s my one shot at glory.

There is a second definition of glory. Beside coming from notable achievement, glory is also marked by magnificence, great beauty.

The sunsets this fall in San Diego have been glorious, beautiful. When I see them, I feel like I see a little sliver of the glory of God.

If you stop and think about it; there is a deep mystery in the glory of God, because in Jesus, glory got redefined. The Bible word for exalt or glorify (doxa) actually means to lift up on high.

Glory is putting the quarterback on the teams shoulders and lifting him high.

Glory is putting the team on the podium so everyone can see them.

But for Jesus, his glory involved him coming down low, to earth as a baby, living a lowly human life. And If Jesus was lifted up at all on earth, it was on a cross where really he was, put down.

Christmas glory is a great reversal, a coming low, before being lifted high.

What we mean by the glory of God in Christ is this: Jesus, the humble servant, the underdog, the little baby made glory something earthly, fleshly, broken and weak. Jesus was dominated on a bloody cross in order to bring a efficacious, salvific, redemptive, glory to us.

Christ glory? It’s gory!

The movie Lone Survivor is coming out January 10. It is the story of a gun battle, four Navy Seals fighting with the Taliban in Afganistan in June of 2005.

The lone survivor, Marcus Luttrel, eaned a Navy Cross for his actions there.

That’s glory: Never giving up; never surrendering; the last man standing, broken body and spirit, crawling to safety.

The same for God. God earned his glory, battling for us, being crushed.

Jesus earned his glory by acts of valor, in the war zone of our hearts, by being the lone survivor of death, by being a braveheart, by heroically dying for and thus saving the whole world.

But it is even deeper, with Christ, this glory thing. God’s glory resides in his very nature. Glory, magnificence, beauty is his very character. We train glory into Navy seals. God has always had glory, installed, within himself.

God is a kind of magnificent without doing anything. His love, his sacrifice, his humility – it’s hard wired into him; it’s built in to him; it’s just who he is!

Cool! Therefore, we hold God in the highest position. But weirdly he doesn’t hold on to that. He gives it away.

At Christmas, we sing, Glory to God in the highest,” but at the end of his life, Jesus? He gave his glory to us!” Where is glory? In us who believe!

John 17:20-23 This is Jesus’s high priestly prayer just before he died.

“My prayer is not for them alone. [His followers] I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, [us] ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one…

Wow and super-wow! Jesus said he has given us, the ones who believe, the glory God gave him, in order to bring us into oneness with God.

Jesus glory is shared with us! This is incredible.

We make it all about God, and we should, and Jesus turns around and he makes it about us too!

This isn’t taught enough.

It needs to be.

God values us, cares for us, loves us so much he gives us his honor, his reputation, his beauty, his glory!

I can relate to this. My wife, Linda, works as a university archivist.

I like telling people that. Linda is an important person. You know you are important when you tell people your title, and they say, “What?”

Archivists are the people who don’t know what you want but who know how to get it. And they like the smell of old books.

It gives me glory to be married to such a bonafide, card-carrying, record-loving, profession nerd.

Except that our entire garage is alphabetized and stored in labeled, museum quality, acid free boxes.

In the same way, being in the family of the brilliant, intelligent, accomplished, savior Jesus, being the sons and daughters of God, through Christ — this gives us … His glory!

We need to hear this. Some of us tend toward saying things like, “Oh, I’m nothing,” and think we are being humble. “Oh, I’m no big deal. I’m don’t count for much. I haven’t done anything.”

There is a huge problem with these kinds of comments. They are bad theology. When we belittle ourselvesnwe belittle what God has made and what God has redeemed

When we downplay our significance, we downplay the glory we have inherited from Jesus!

Jesus went to war for us. He draped us in glory. We are the inheritors of his honor. We are not nobodies!

It is so hard for some of us to feel good about ourselves.

Many of us, at times, hate ourselves, put ourselves down, punish ourselves.

Why? We have had our glory burned away by life and stolen from us by the horrible choices that we a have made and the horrific, destructive choices of others.

Life, our reactions to it, our choices, others choices — it has a way of making us feel ugly and small and tarnished and unimportant.

People, even family, sometimes communicate to us that we are flawed, the problem, shameful. People use us, they harm us, they burn down our psychological flooring and the fire the very floor joists propping our psyches up.

We may have had this happen to us. We may have been burned by someone, our mental flooring may now be damaged — unstable — but we are not burned down. We are are not nothing!

In Christ, we who believe are the children of God, charred by life’s fire perhaps but we share the glory of the father, and we also shine with a fire from above, the HS which fills us with forgiveness, gifts with power, destines us for eternity.

“Nothing!” No, we Christians are priests and royals, we are something very special.

Lorde, the New Zealand singer-songwriter, in her hit song “Royals,” sings “We will never be royals,” but we who trust Christ — we already are!

Paul himself writes to us: 2 Corinthians 3:18

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplatethe Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Face it, accept it, revel in it , own it. In Christ, we Christians are being transformed. We are changing for the good, we are coming alive to a new us, a new creature, a newly glorified being.

Few birds have a more striking array of plumage than the peacock, but when they are born, they are just yellow and brown and lanky. But God is the God who turns ugly chicks into beautiful, mature peacocks!

We can honestly, sincerely sing, “Glory to God in the highest, because he brings glory to us in the lowest chick, and the lowest form of us.

In Christ, God has put fancy feathers on us too .

This all true. So there is this: How do we act out our glory?

To live in glory we must never again say we are nothing. Jesus never put himself down. We must by our wills put a stop to hating ourselves. We must not minimize our importance. We must not compare ourselves to others. We are children of God. We count. We make a difference.

We must work hard on not putting others down. Even when we correct a child or employee, we need to find ways to give them value. We need to practice giving others credit for stuff even if it was originally our idea. We must learn to let other people have a chance to be the star! We must practice being like Jesus, empowering others; sharing the glory!

Lastly we must start choosing to live out our uniqueness. We must boldly begin to be who we are, in public. We must own our personalities, wear then on the outsides of ourselves, and give them. We must never apologize for who we are, but instead be the bit of the glory of God that God has made us to be.

Where is that glory?

It’s right here, in us!

Why I Want To Keep Cleaning My Own Bathroom

Posted: December 9, 2013 in thriving
Tags: how to be happy, how to live well, living close to our own humanity, randy hasper, the art and trade of cleaning, the craft of cleaning, the value of doing your own cleaning

Of all the desultory tenderness of life to love, the household intimacies stand out.

This morning I cleaned my master bathroom. My wife cleaned the downstairs bathroom. My daughter cleaned her bathroom. I liked it. My cleaning time was a happy spraying, scrubbing and rinsing, a kind of putter-headed hum and buzz and calm that comes amid the keeping, caring circular motions of washing things.

The ho-hum, assign-and-be-done, domestic particularities, the dirty dishes, the tubs of laundry, the vacuuming , the dusting — chorish and dutified as they be thought — they rank, crank and bank sweet, sane, solid satisfaction.

It’s not the little things in life that drive us crazy; it’s the little things that keep us sane — a clean toilet, an uncluttered counter, a folded stack of clothes.

What we do to order the borders of our rooms and homes and yards and offices make up the warp and woof of wondrous, wellish, woofish world.

Cleaning is craft.

This morning, with a spray bottle and a rag I humanized my most intimate space, my master bathroom, turning spotted, stained, dust-covered counters and toilets into gleaming, clean, smooth surfaces for my most intimate preparation rituals — those everyday, private motions of cleaning, brushing, trimming, washing, combing, moisturizing and scenting my own body.

The art and trade of cleaning and of organizing is the art and trade of personalizing our most sacred spaces.

Last week I emptied a drawer in a cupboard, threw out all the faded, fossilized flotsam that had piled up there over several years — old phone chargers, abandon power cords, beat up photo frames, a stray dice — and put back in order those things I still want and need to keep on hand.

Life is just this — the fiddling though detail, the categorization of the personal particular, the cleaning, placing and keeping of our stuff, and the tossing of the dice. It is a decision, to live as orderly or as messy as we choose, to ignore the voices of our mothers telling us to clean our rooms, and to heed our own soft, non-judgmental voices, telling us what degree of mess, muss or made-bed we want.

Life is a sorting, a chucking and a storing business that takes place within the vertical and horizontal props and privacies of our favorite walls and floors and ceilings. There we hunker down, do our own work, make our own domestic map, live as we choose.

I love it.

I’m not for maids or house keepers, or yard guys either. I’d rather clean up after myself, or not, as I choose.

I am my own standard of order, I vibrate to my own cleaning chord — and sometimes my wife’s. I live as I choose on my own steamed-cleaned carpet, mown lawn, within my own flower garden, my own lily pond, my own patio, in the cubicles of my own closet organizer, in my own self-painted, self-decorated bedroom.

I wish to keep it this way, to do my own household tasks, to live close to my own humanity, to make my own bed, clean my own toilet, say my own household prayers, wash my own dishes, mow my own yard, shave my own face, take out my own trash.

It’s sanity, this happy, soothing looking after oneself and ones family.

I want to keep cleaning my own bathroom, not because it’s humbling, but because it is intimate.

The Mystery

Posted: December 2, 2013 in becoming
Tags: Christmas made better, how to connect with God at Christmas, how to experience Chriatmas, more than Starbucks for Christmas, randy hasper, the mystery of Christmas

I can tell it’s the Christmas season — Starbucks is using their red cups. That’s okay, but there is something needy in me that wants more than holiday cups this year.

I long for something new, something surprising, unexpected, deeply satisfying, hopeful, mysterious.

Christmas has that in it, I know it does, but what I want to know is how to find my way to the thrilling edge of that.

Redwoods come to mind. A small seed becomes a 379 foot tree! And I also think of babies. My friend Tony called; his wife”s water just broke. How exciting. A new life — coming tonight!

Christmas conjures just this mystery — what is large became small! God became a baby! So he could relate to us! How odd, how unlikely for anyone to make up, how weird, how amazing, how good. How hopeful for those of us like me who relentlessly ply the beaten-down paths of petty grievances, minuscule anxieties, micro-egotisms and minor regrets.

The largest thing, God, a cosmic Redwood, becoming the smallest thing, a baby in a mother, so that we might through him become larger. I want that! I want the largest-small-thing, God, to make me larger. I want out of my smallish ways, my micro-pettiness, my microscopic loves, my seed-sized hopes, my baby faith. I want Christmas to go off in me.

I can only think of one thing to do.

Ask, for something new to come to me tonight. Ask for the mystery to come in me.

And so, I do.

“God, great and small at the same time, even tonight come near to me, move inside me, enlarge in me and expand me beyond myself. Great God of power and love, see my small, cracked, raised cup and fill it up with the mystery of you.”

Thrive!

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