RETURNING TO OKAY [R, 5-28-20]

“DAILY” DEVOTIONAL: Working with the Spirit

RETURNING TO OKAY     [R, 5-28-20]

[Be warned—this is advice about spiritual resetting by someone who is not very good at it, and who should not give advice about anything. I’d much rather tell a story and let you take from it what you will. So, you’re warned…]

As I was getting ready to walk yesterday, I heard a piece of news that made me angry, frustrated, spastic, made me not-okay.

There are two things I need to do at a time like that. The first is to do what I can to make the wrong thing right. So often, though, there is nothing that can be done. Oh, yes, eventually, through a contribution or a letter or a vote, but that doesn’t help me get okay with my anger and frustration now.

So, I do the second thing—I return to my most recent okay spot.

Yesterday, that was Zooming with the Crumble Bums, four—retired but not nearly as old as I—old men, smart, thoughtful, funny. We are called the Crumble Bums because in the BV era, we met at the Crumble Bakery on W mornings for coffee and conversation.

I was really okay when I was with them, so when I got not-okay because of the news I heard, in my mind, I went back to be with my friends.

Your most recent okay place need not be anything dramatic or major. As I walked, I saw the little blond year-old boy being pushed in his stroller by his mother. He smiled and waved to me, from a safe distance. That became my new most recent okay spot.

The advantage of returning to your most recent okay spot is that it is so accessible. If you try to use your most grand experience as a spiritual reset button, you have to think about it a bit. Which was my best experience? What would be the best reset? Where in the world is my happy place, anyway?

But it need not be that complicated, and the psychologists say you really have only 9 seconds to reset before your brain rots. So, when you get not-okay—angry, frustrated, confused--go to your most recent okay spot, no matter how minor. It will be good for your soul.

If that doesn’t work, Google “laughing babies” and turn your sound up.

John Robert McFarland

BORING EXPLANATION YOU’VE PROBABLY READ BEFORE: As we began to “shelter in place,” some folks spoke of the need in this pandemic time for an online “daily devotional,” some spark to light the spirit. [“It only takes a spark to get a fire going…” One of the favorite camp songs of the teens in my church in the 1990s.]

 So, in addition to writing a 500 word column two or three times a week for Christ In Winter, I started writing a short, 200 word, “devotional” on the in-between days. Nothing fancy, just words to try to help us hear the Word in these strange and frightening times.