CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
As I walked this morning, the birds were singing, the trees were waving, the sun was shining, kids were playing in the park, the dogs were… doing what dogs do. It was such a nice day that I started thinking good thoughts.
But immediately I said, “No, I don’t deserve to think good thoughts, because I have been thinking bad thoughts, about corrupt politicians and anti-vaccers and sports gamblers and drunk drivers and computer hackers and racist cops and Cincinnati Reds relief pitchers, and self-destructive people, and how I hope bad things will happen to them, like getting covid 19--not enough to kill them, but enough to make them miserable and cause them to straighten up and fly right. No, a person who thinks such evil thoughts should not get to enjoy the day by thinking good thoughts.”
Talk about self-destructive! The last thing a bad-thought-thinker needs is to be punished by not getting to think good thoughts. Just thinking bad thoughts is punishment enough, because they poison not only your brain and your mind and your spirit, but your body as well. What a bad-thought-thinker needs most is good thoughts, and plenty of them!
I have spent a life-time trying not to think bad thoughts. If anything, I’m worse now than I’ve ever been. In part, that’s because there are so many more bad thoughts available now than ever before. Well, maybe. Probably not. Bad thoughts are with us always. Sufficient for the day are the bad thoughts thereof. Still, there are so many reasons now to think bad thoughts.
So I try to start the day by thinking good thoughts. If you’re already thinking good thoughts, about laughing babies and gamboling puppies and three-point shots going into the basket, it’s harder for bad thoughts to get into the queue. Although queue is not quite the right word. My bad thoughts don’t come just in straight lines, but scattered all over the brain, like puzzle pieces on a table. A table with lemonade spilled on it and some of the puzzle pieces chewed by a cat.
It’s hard to maintain a pattern of good-thoughts-only. You glance at Facebook for just an instant, and some stupid idiot has posted…. Oh, wait. Better go back to laughing babies.
The internet of life always has both the stupid Facebook posts and the laughing babies. Even if you search with great care, you are going to see some of both.
The main thing is this: don’t punish yourself when you are into bad-thought mode by staying there, by saying you are so bad that you aren’t allowed to enjoy good thoughts. Get thee over into good-thoughts land as quickly as possible. And enjoy.
John Robert McFarland
“Trust the moment.” Phil
Jackson
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