The Life You've Got--August 29, 2022

The Life You've Got--August 29, 2022

"However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has distributed, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches." [1 Corinthians 7:17]

You've probably heard the old saw that goes, "If the grass seems greener on the other side of the fence, you should probably do a better job taking care of your own lawn."

And while that line is something of a cliche by now, there's a reason things become cliche--they are often truths so helpful to remember that we keep coming back to them over and over again.  And this a particularly useful truth: you have been given your life, not somebody else's.  You are free to work on, develop, and improve your own life, but it's no good pining for someone else's life--or getting bitter about the good things happening for others.  The motto of envious siblings throughout Scripture, from Cain glowering over at Abel to the Prodigal's old brother, has always been: "But what about him?  It's not fair that I don't have what he's getting!"  And that kind of covetousness is never a good look--it always smacks of small-minded ingratitude for what one has.

By contrast, I've always been in awe of this beautiful and poignant insight from Wendell Berry's novel, Hannah Coulter, in which the narrator says this:

“The chance you had is the life you’ve got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: ‘Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.’ I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

Those are the right instructions, indeed.  And it's no surprise that Berry's character quotes another passage of Saint Paul at the end there [that piece about rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks is all from First Thessalonians], because here the same Saint Paul gives similar direction:  live the live you have, and receive it as a gift.  That doesn't mean we have to pretend the bad parts--the heartaches and wounds, the raw deals and unjust circumstances, the rotten luck, or the tragic turns of our lives--aren't there.  Neither does it mean we get to blame God for the bad stuff or tell other people that the suffering in their lives has been divinely sent to teach them some lesson. But it does mean that even once we have named the pains of life, we still each have the actual life we've been given to live to do something with.  And while perhaps every life has a certain amount of bitter to go with the sweet, life itself is a gift we did not earn.

In a culture like ours that seems built to run on an engine of dissatisfaction, it is a revolutionary thing to practice contentment with what we have and where we are. It is radical to receive this day, in this life, with all its beautiful things and terrible things, and to use as much of it as possible, as well as possible. When so many voices try and sell us on the Next Big Thing we are supposed to want [you know, so that THEN, at long last, we'll be happy... right?], and when so much of social media seems designed to make us feel like we are in competition with each other to "win" at life, what a refreshing--and downright countercultural--thing to continue on the path we are each on and, as the poet says, "to fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run" while we are on it.

Today, then, over against all the voices that seem bent on growing our discontent [and then peddling products they swear will fix it], what if today we listened for the quieter voice, the certainly more peaceable and wise voice, that says, like Hannah Coulter, "This is the life I've got--with this life and this day, I will rejoice... and pray... and give thanks, even in the midst of all the rottenness around, too"?  What if we framed the day with the question, "How can I use this day and the opportunities and challenges it brings, rather than wasting another moment in envy over what somebody else has, or in self-righteous condemnation over what somebody else is doing?"  

And yeah, like Wendell Berry's character says, I'm not always capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.

Lord God, give us the gift of open-eyed contentment to use this day well, and to receive this life as a gift.