How to Be Content? Ask a 103 Year Old Man.

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life….”                   --Lew Grossman, The Magicians

It was a very spartan and a very small place to live. About 500 square feet. A one room apartment with a Lazy-Boy chair and a TV, a small efficiency kitchen, a single bed, a bathroom and sliding glass doors that led out to a balcony. That was it.

Could I live that modestly, frugally, contentedly?

My grandfather did just for the last nineteen years of his 103 year long life, until he died in 2017. Died a contented man, I’d say. For him, treasure wasn’t about things. It was about the love of his family: four children, seventeen grandchildren, twenty-nine great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. His monk’s cell like place was his home sweet home. He was content to live that basically and simply.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if I could live like that. Content. Satisfied with my place in life. Live modestly with few desires, and in whatever circumstances I find myself. Accepting life as it is. Being grateful for this one amazing God-given today, not trying to get to a tomorrow that never quite arrives nor seeking to return to a past that cannot ever be changed.

Just for today I’d love to know more contentment in my life. And you? Are you a content soul?

It’s not that contentment always escapes me. I get glimpses of it. Like last week when I met my first grandniece, a smiling, giggly six-month-old baby girl named Nora. For half an hour, I held her in my lap, made her laugh with razzberries and whispers in her ear. I smiled at her. She smiled at me. I laughed. She chuckled back. For those thirty minutes I forgot about all the discontentment I brought with me that night. 

Anxiety about work and wondering if people will ever come back to church. Worries about the world and how mean spirited so many are these days. The bullies, from Vladimir Putin to our ex-President, to the guy who tailgated me the other night and shook his fist in anger when he sped by me the first chance he got.

All those people, places, and things…I can’t do much to change them. I can try and adjust my spiritual attitude daily, and listen for God, who wants me to remember what I have, not what I don’t have. God who wakes me up to my blessings, not my deficits. I imagine God saying, “Don’t spend so much time brooding or stewing over stuff that is totally out of your control and way above your paygrade.”

Contentment. Can I get there?

It can be hard to find a sense of deep satisfaction in our consumption dominated world. Where is inner peace when the culture is constantly pushing us to always strive to grab the next brass ring? Got to keep moving on up. Got to buy a bigger house. Got to have a newer car and the latest phone. Got to get my kid into an elite school and that promotion at work.

Nothing wrong with these aspirations as long as they do not breed discontentment in our souls, or chronic unhappiness, because we imagine that we always have to do better and if we are not on an upward trajectory, there must be something wrong with us. That’s the American way, right? Upward! That’s spiritually exhausting. Maybe we are supposed to find the ladder rung we are meant to land upon and then just be happy, right there. Let others race the rats.

Can I stay put for a while, bloom where I am planted?

Be thankful too, every day, for all the good gifts around me. Gratitude always increases contentment. Thank you, God! For everything! For my home sweet home. For a body that still works (mostly!) and family like Nora to love and to be loved by. Thank you for friends to ride my bike with and new movies to watch with a bucket full of buttery popcorn and interesting trips yet to be taken in this world, so many places left to explore.

There is so much good in this life! If only we can see it.

Life is not perfect. It is sometimes broken. It can let us down. But there are lessons to be learned and hearts to be strengthened on all days. Good. Bad. Everything in between. I don’t want to waste the precious treasure of time given to me by my Maker. I do not want to feel discontentment because everything is not exactly as I think it should be. It’s up to God to run the show. Not me. I just want to do what I can, where I am, with what I have.

May we all be content. Find contentment. Be satisfied. Be at peace with where we are in this miracle called life.

Thanks for the life lesson, Grandpa. Miss you.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

       

The Coming Economic Crunch. Take Care of One Another. OK?

“It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.”--President Harry S. Truman

Here’s the thing. 

We are going to get through it. Of that I am absolutely sure. We’ve done it before, and we will do it again. It’s just going to be tough for a while before the sun comes out on the other side.

I’m talking about the bumpy (maybe very bumpy) economic times that more than likely are lying ahead for the United States and probably the rest of the world too. For you and for me, in large and small ways. We’ve already gotten personal jolts and confirmations indicating that current economic conditions are out of whack, especially since the beginning of the year, when the stock market began to crater and then to fall by more than 20 percent from its high point. Then the beginning of the war in Ukraine in March pushed the economic bells and whistles and alarms, especially when it comes to energy. Since then, gas, oil, and electricity have spiked in cost and gone sky high.

How much is it for a loaf of bread? A pound of hamburger? To fill my oil tank? For a GALLON OF GAS!! In late June when topping off my gas tank topped off at more than $60, I knew we were all in new economic territory. Most of us have not experienced a significant rise in prices (aka inflation) in more than a generation. Last time the cost of goods and services rose this fast and this high was 1981, when inflation peaked at 9.8 percent. That’s forty-one years ago! Right now, inflation is running at 8.3 percent annually.

Now well into my seventh decade I ’ve been through and yes, survived, several economic roller coaster rides.  The time when I was in elementary school and my dad was out of work for 18 months.  We stayed warm, dry, and fed and always cared for by my parents who did all they could for us kids, but I still remember eating surplus peanut butter and cheese, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the Department of Agriculture.  One summer in college the only job I could find was a second shift job at a hospital, washing and waxing floors, wrestling a behemoth of an unwieldy contraption and all for barely above minimum wage. No other jobs were to be found. But there was always just enough money for beer and pizza.

There was the dot.com boom and then bust in 2000. The great financial meltdown of 2008 was the most severe, widespread, and prolonged downturn I’ve ever witnessed. I will never, ever forget it. Seemingly overnight, trillions in accumulated wealth (at least on paper) came crashing down.  From 2007 to 2009 when “The Great Recession” finally ended, the stock market lost $8 trillion in value. That’s with a “t”! Americans lost nearly $10 trillion in wealth as home values fell and retirement accounts plummeted. Venerable longtime financial institutions like Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns went out of business.

It was a scary time.

And then we emerged from it. That “Great Recession” gave way to one of the greatest economic recoveries in history. Now the pendulum is ready to swing the other way again.  Hold on to your seats. And your perspective too. 

That’s what the gift of my faith gives to me in the midst of anxiety producing times in life like an economic downturn.  Perspective. So, I try and remember each day to be thankful that I’ve got a place to live and food to eat and a job that brings me deep spiritual satisfaction and provides for my needs and then some.  I have people who love me and whom I get to love right back. I have a circle of friends that is the best a guy could ever hope for in all the world.  

Perspective: to also remember that I have a relationship with a God who is always there. For me. For the world. For the hurting. Through good times. Bad times. All times. My prayer for all people, especially when the economy is tumbling, and wallet worries increase is that they too would know some power greater than themselves that can see them through. 

We’ll get through this.

So long as we watch out for each other too. There is a good chance more people will lose their jobs in the months ahead and find it harder and harder to make ends meet. They’ll struggle to pay their bills and feed their kids and heat their homes. That’s when our work kicks in as their neighbors and friends and fellow citizens. Faith and plain old human decency compel us, I pray, to show compassion, mercy, and generosity at all times, but especially in hard times.

We’ll emerge one day from the economic winds of challenge. It will just take some time to get there.  In the meantime?

God bless us all.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Yankees Do Not S__K. And Yes, I'm the Judge of That.

“YANKEES SUCK!”  --the “go to” chant of drunk/confused fans at Fenway Park in Boston

Actually, the Yankees don’t.

It was a warm August night, 2003, a year before the Boston Red Sox finally broke ‘the curse’ ending 86 years of sports futility. From 1918 to 2004, the Sox either missed baseball’s World Series or, when they did make it, they always lost. In 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986. Lost in heart breaking fashion, like a simple ground ball dribbling through the legs of a befuddled first baseman for a game changing hit. The curse was supposedly placed on the Sox by the baseball gods for trading Babe Ruth in 1919 to their much and still despised rivals, the New York Yankees.     

That curse haunted Bosox fans for years who hated and still are known to hate those damn Yankees, our “enemy” who plays in the equally reviled Yankee Stadium, aka the house that Ruth built, some 200 miles to the south and west of Boston.  From the nineteen eighties on, the fan chant that dominated at Fenway Park, especially when the men in pinstripes were in town, was this inelegant two-word declaration.

“YANKEES SUCK!”

Not very subtle and certainly it crosses the line of polite language, even at the game. Back to that humid summer evening nineteen years ago. I walked out of Fenway after a Red Sox win over a now forgotten team, in a huge crowd of fans, a good majority drunk. And I don’t know, maybe to pass the time or claim his place as the Alpha dog in the crowd or just to do what inebriated twenty-something men do, a guy behind me started the chant: “YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK!”

I turned to him and clearly and dispassionately rebutted his argument and said, “Actually the Yankees are pretty good. Twenty-six world championships and counting.” The guy lunged toward me, but I was cold sober, and dodged him. Me and my friend Kevin moved away from this sadly mistaken young man and escaped unscathed.

And then that kid started up his chant again. Oh well.

I still believe what I said about the Yankees then. They don’t…s__k. And this year the team and especially one of their players redeemed my baseball fandom this summer, redeemed baseball for me and a lot of folks. The Sox have been awful in 2022, as bad as the Yankees have been good. As the season ends, the Sox are in last place, 23 games behind the first place Yankees.  

The Yankees have been carried on the back of someone who is chasing history. This season their right fielder Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs, surpassing fellow Yankee Roger Maris’s 1961 record of 61. Most ever in the American League. It’s been fun each day to turn to the sports pages or highlights online, to see if Judge was close to breaking the record and achieving the seemingly impossible.

On Wednesday of this week, he did just that, swatting a 391-foot home run for number 62.  That number really matters to nerdy fans like me, because while there are others who’ve surpassed 62, those three players are widely recognized as steroid users. Cheaters. Imbibers of now banned substances.

But Judge played straight by the rules and throughout his summer long crusade he carried himself with authentic humility, quiet resolve and gracious thanks to the fans. Even when he slumped a bit lately (including against the Sox) and took almost two weeks to hit numbers 61 and 62, he was unflappable. No tantrums. No flip remarks to the press. Just getting up to bat each game and trying his best.

I know it’s just a baseball game and statistic. I know baseball has been supplanted by football and basketball as American’s true pastime. I know at my age I’m not supposed to get all starry eyed about an athlete, especially one who plays for the nemesis of my home team.

But still, baseball with its seasonal rhythms, its traditions, and its place in my life for as long as I can remember—still it thrills me. Especially when someone like Judge comes along and does his job so well, and now so much better than almost everyone else who has ever played the game.

The Yankees—yes, to me they are still the Evil Empire and they have far too often broken my heart, and I won’t ever wear a Yankees cap but there is no denying this truth. They do not, well, you know…the “s” word. 

And Aaron Judge: he is true a champion. I’m glad I had some baseball fun this summer, even if it was with the “wrong” team. The Sox?

We’ll just have to wait ‘til next year.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.