It Really Is a Wonderful Life

A friend commented that there are five people in the country who don’t like Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life and he married one of them—though she’s coming around. And Dottie and I have made watching the film a yearly holiday tradition.

When it was released two weeks before Christmas in 1946, however, it was a flop. Reviews in the United States rated it as mediocre at best. In England, the reviews were terrible. It was so bad that, as Patrick Coffin wrote recently, “Frank Capra might well wish that his creation had never been born.”

But watching the story of George Bailey and seeing through his eyes what life would have been like if he had never been born gently nudges us to ask the question, “What would the world be like if I had never been born?”

And after a weak start, that question took hold. Coffin writes, “[T]he personal, often emotional, fan letters started rolling in. Less than a year after the film’s anti-climactic debut, the warden of San Quentin prison mailed him a bag stuffed with more than 1,500 letters scrawled by inmates; the letters told of the film’s impact on them. For decades to come, the letters kept arriving, and Capra personally answered every one of them.”

If 1,500 inmates at San Quentin could find solace in the film, surely we can. What if you had never been born? The lives you have touched would have never been touched. More than once I’ve had a friend tell me that something I said years earlier changed his life. In none of those cases could I remember ever saying the life-changing words. But if I wasn’t there to say them….

We need to keep that in mind especially as we age and are tempted to think we’re nothing but “old and in the way.” John Henry Newman (1801-1890) addressed the George Bailey in all of us when he wrote:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

So rejoice in Jesus’ birth and rejoice in your own birth. In spite of the evils, problems, and struggles, it’s a wonderful life.

Let's Not Compare

At the turn of the New Year many of us take stock of the closing year and set goals for the next. It’s a great think to do as long as in the process we focus on ourselves and don’t make too many comparisons.

Do you remember the joy of being a kid on Christmas and opening presents? Along with the sweaters, socks, and underwear—things we really didn’t care much about until we discovered what it costs to buy them for ourselves—were toys. Sleds, skates, games, dolls, toy guns, trucks, bikes were miraculously delivered under the tree and life was very, very good.

At least for a little while. After enjoying that big gift—let’s say it was a bike, we’d head into the neighborhood to see our friends. “Santa brought me a bike! What did he bring you?”

“Santa brought me a bike too. How many speeds is yours?”

Speeds? “Uh, one, I guess.”

“Oh. He brought me a three-speed.”

Ouch! Suddenly, that bike that made life so very, very good a few short hours earlier looked pretty lame and “three-speed” began to loom large in our hopes and expectations for next Christmas or maybe next birthday. And to think that we began the day so content and joyful.

Some things change: Over the years we’ve progressed from bikes and dolls to jobs, houses, and children (“My son/daughter the [fill in the blank with some impressive profession]”).

Some things never change: Comparing ourselves and our successes to others still robs us of joy by robbing us of contentment. If we fall short of others, we can become resentful and envious. If we “beat” the others, we can become (oh, let’s be honest, we do become) proud and nervous. As someone said, we become failures or Pharisees and neither is an attractive alternative.

The answer is not to compare at all. The ancient Greek philosopher, Epictetus wrote, “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.” It’s not the one-speed bike that’s the problem, it’s a lack of gratitude. It’s not being out of work, living in an underwater home, or having a child who’s a Whack-A-Mole repairperson that’s the problem. It’s our attitude—an attitude that will only find greater purchase in our lives as we get older.

So I intend to look over 2012 and thoughtfully consider 2013, but I’m going to try to do it with gratitude before I look things over with a critical eye. There’s certainly room for improvement and there are things that need to change. But the key to improvement and change is gratitude for what’s working and contentment with right here and right now.

Adventures

Later today we're headed for the theater to see The Hobbit. One friend loved it; another walked out. We'll see.

In anticipation of the movie, I reread the book--always a good way to be disappointed by a movie unfortunately. Where The Lord of the Rings is a desperate, do-or-die race to save the world, The Hobbit is an (apparently) unnecessary adventure.

Bilbo Baggins as the story opens is a staid, respectable, and stable resident of the Shire, living in his extremely comfortable Hobbit hole in one of the nicest parts of town. His like Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady, he is well-to-do, "a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so," and "lives exactly as he likes and does precisely what he wants."

Bilbo's great desire is to keep his nice life as nice as possible by avoiding, above all things, adventures. "We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures," he tells Gandalf the wizard. "Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them."

Adventures are, above all, unsafe. Bilbo's adventure (sometimes these things just happen) included trolls, goblins, a dragon, and quite a few close calls. And most of us like Bilbo would just as soon think of ways to play it safe, finding our ways into and never leaving nice, safe, comfortable existences.

But as Helen Keller (Helen Keller of all people!) wrote, "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."

There's our choice. Since safety is either an anomaly or an illusions, we either kid ourselves into believing in safety anyway or we run out of the house without our pocket handkerchiefs and follow the road to the next adventure.

So what will be your next adventure?

Life is Short

I had every intention of posting a blog entry on Friday, but in light of the slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut, I didn't have the heart.

Over the weekend I wrote my weekly column about the shootings and I don't want to repeat those thoughts here. You can read them later this week at Religion Today.

While I know it's a cliché, I can't help but be reminded that life is short--often far shorter than we think. It's too short for harboring anger or holding grudges. Too short to withhold help, concern, kindness, and comfort. Too short to let the inertia of day-to-day keep us from reaching out to the people we love and to the people that we really don't love, but should reach out to anyway hoping that love will grow.

It's too short to forget to bring Christmas cookies to your neighbor. Too short to avoid taking your son fishing or your granddaughter hiking. Too short to dislike your in-laws or your child's in-laws. Too short to ignore strangers instead of showing them kindness. Too short not to go to church and give thanks. And it's far too short to be selfish, sullen, stubborn, ungrateful, or bitter.

There's a sticky note posted just above my keyboard reminding me to sent a card to a gentleman I met a few months back who recently had knee replacement surgery. It's about time I sent the card. Life's just too short to do otherwise.

Preparing for Life after Mid-Life

A dear and extremely kind friend read my first blog post and commented, “Just for the record, you are still in midlife.... I don't believe the ‘after’ part.”

She is, of course, absolutely correct. In spite of the fact that the Catfish Place in St. Cloud, Florida gives me a seniors’ discount merely for admitting I’m over 50 it’s a long way from now to Social Security—assuming that there will be any Social Security when I apply.

That being said, “three score and ten” is the ancient definition of a good lifespan (Psalm 90:10). And while we all hope to live beyond 70, 58 is on the downside. If I’m not “after mid-life” yet, it’s not that far away and I’m convinced that the time to prepare for being old is while you’re still young.

It always disturbed me when my 20-something employees opted out of retirement programs. As every financial planner will tell you, the time to start saving for retirement is as early as possible.

In the same way, the time to prepare for a good life after mid-life is as early as possible. And that preparation includes more than getting yourself in order financially. I know too many seniors who have plenty of money, but are utterly miserable. We need to prepare spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.

For example, while worrying is never a good thing, at age 30 you can get away with the stress that comes with being a worrier. At age 70, the stress of worrying will begin to impact your health and, over time, will kill you. Start releasing the worry now before you’re old.

Another example: you can get away with having lots of acquaintances, but no true friends at age 40. Just keep busy enough and you won’t notice—at least you won’t notice too often. But at age 65 if you don’t have friends, the loneliness will begin to eat you alive. Now is the time to develop lasting friendships with people of all ages who will then walk with you as you age.

One more example: while few people think about and prepare for death at 25, by mid-life we need to have faced our mortality and come to terms with death as it gets nearer and nearer.

So I’m not pretending I’m old. If anything, I’m still pretending I’m young. I can still ski bumps at 8,000 feet and I intend to keep doing it as long as possible. But the day will come when walking 8,000 feet on a level bump-free sidewalk at sea level will be a challenge and finally will be impossible. That day will come and I can’t stop it, but I can prepare for it and all the days leading up to it.

Abraham Lincoln said, “And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” Whether we live three score and ten or far beyond that, we can begin stockpiling the life in those years today.

A Good Life After Mid-Life

Three lines from T. S. Eliot’s poem “Chorus from ‘The Rock’” sum up my fears about myself and my generation:

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”

The first of seventy-seven million (that’s 77,000,000!) of us—the baby-boomers—have begun to retire. That’s about 10,000 every day and maybe more than that as the economic downturn turns long-term job searchers into reluctant retirees.

The wealth of experience, wisdom, and energy this represents is beyond calculating. And it would be a tragedy to squander it in a retirement orgy of decent and respectable godlessness, road trips, and lost golf balls.

Or at least I want more than that out of whatever years I have left (I turn 59 in February).

Thus a blog considering thoughts and ideas many of which are still in nascent form about living a good life by which I mean a fruitful and full life after mid-life.