ALL THE CLICHÉS, ALL OF THEM [M, 10-11-21]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. This is the slogan/cliché that Jean Cramer-Heuerman referenced when we both got cancer. Before those days, we sat in the back of committee rooms and made cynical remarks to each other about the simplisms other people spouted. But after the oncologists told us we’d die, she said, “You know, all the cliches are true. This really is the first day of the rest of my life.”

So I began to be less cynical and more open to using one cliché or another to direct me through some hard thing. Which is one of Carrie Newcomer’s cliché songs: You Can Do This Hard Thing.

Here is some of my collection so far:

Reach for it, even if you can’t grasp it. “A baby’s reach should exceed its grasp, or what’s a cat’s tail for.” The original is Robert Browning’s “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for,” but I prefer this tweak by the humanities professor and new father who Tweets as “Saethelred, the Unready.” It’s just so visual.

Try again. Our pastor, Jimmy Moore, recently used this in a sermon about a very popular and effective rabbi who had tried seminary when young and was told he didn’t have the gifts and graces necessary. Later someone suggested that he should be a rabbi. He told him he had tried but it hadn’t worked out. “Try again,” he was told. He said it’s the advice he used most often in his ministry.

Be Perfect. [John Wesley] Perfection is not just the goal; it is the method. Perfect not in action or knowledge. Those are not possible. But perfect in love. Perfection in love means always intending/trying to do the right thing, the kind thing. Love is not just the goal; it’s the method.

Don’t get careless with your mind. A college student in one of my churches told me that this was his problem: “I get careless with my mind.” So I told him, “Don’t do that.”

            Doctor: Does it hurt when you do this?
             Patient: Yes.
            Doctor: Then don’t do it.

Bloom where you’re planted. My seminary roommate [for 3 weeks, the only time either of us had a seminary roommate], Walt Wagener, has always been such a good example of this. He always refers to that rabbi whose name I always forget who said that on the judgment day, we shall be called to account for every moment of beauty we failed to appreciate.

Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. From an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem.

Love is the answer. Doesn’t make any difference what the question is; love is always the answer.

No day is over if it makes a memory. One of Helen’s favorites.

Laughter is the best medicine. “Unless you’re diabetic. Then insulin is the best medicine.” Scott Burton, cancer survivor comedian

Knock, and it shall be opened. Or, as the golfers say, “Never up, never in.”

Put your shoulder to the wheel. Yes, my frail strength can’t make much difference, “But I am prejudiced beyond debate, in favor of my right to choose, which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.” Bonaro W. Overstreet

Whenever I have faced some problem, I have chosen a helpful cliche and recited it to myself. But now I’m old. I’m easily confused. Sometimes I can’t remember which mantra I should chant to put myself into right mind and actions. Also, my inadequacies have accumulated so greatly in so many years that now, I just say, “All the clichés! All of them!”

John Robert McFarland

“Moments come and go, but phrases you find framed at Target last forever.”