Charlie, Lucy and the Football

This is going to sweep across some spiritual, mental and emotional dreamscapes. (Fore-warned is fore-armed.)

Lately . . . off and on . . . a recurrent image from one of Charles Schulz' "Peanuts" cartoon strips keeps lingering in my thoughts.  You probably remember the series where Lucy is holding a football by the tip while Charlie Brown is about to run towards her to punt the ball down field.  Time after time, Charlie Brown eagerly runs down toward Lucy and the football.  

And every single time he does, Lucy swoops the ball out of his way at the last minute.

Over and over Charlie Brown winds up on the ground with a thud, looking up into the sky on his back.

Every time.

Why does Charlie trust Lucy every time?

Why does Lucy always fail him?

Each of us probably has answer(s) to those questions.

The first "Peanuts"comic strip introduced Charlie Brown to the world in 1950.  On November 16, 1952, Charlie Brown flapped over onto his back in pain when Lucy pulled the football away from him for the first time.  (And actually another character named Violet was the first person to let Charlie Brown down in this way -- but only once.)


(I looked it up online.)

So Lucy failed Charlie Brown again and again from 1952 until Charles Schulz' passing in 2000.  From several months before I was born until I was forty-seven.  

From not long after World War II until the beginning of the new millennium.

According to a sportswriter, Schulz used the same theme of foolish hope and disappointment every autumn at the beginning of football season from then on, but not including three falls --- '84, '85 and '90.

Here's the link :

When we were teenagers in the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF), we read and discussed a book called "The Gospel According to Peanuts,"  just as some of the adult Sunday School classes did.  

In addition, the author, Robert L. Short, came to our church to speak after one of out monthly potluck suppers.  

(I'm telling you this just to make sure that you know that I don't think I am the first person to use the comic strip to talk about spirituality and/or human behavior.)

But again. 

Why does Charlie Brown keep trusting Lucy?

And why does Lucy continually betray his trust?

My reflections on these problems so familiar in tales of human endeavor and relationships led me to another story often told in pulpits and at various Anonymous meetings.  Surely you have already heard this one:

1.  A guy (or gal) walks down a street and falls into a hole.  A lot of people help rescue the guy. 

(If necessary, please keep reading "guy" as "gal" and change all the relevant pronouns to follow through as you wish.)

2.  Then, the guy goes down the same street again. Once more he falls into the hole, even though he tries to be careful.  A few less people help the guy get out and go on his way.

3.  The guy goes down the street and gives the hole wide berth, but the edge of the sidewalk crumbles, tossing him back into the abyss.  This time no one shows up to help and it takes hours or days.  Filled with discouragement, the guy finally crawls out and stumbles away.

4.  Finally the guy walks down a different street.

(That doesn't mean there aren't holes to fall into on the other streets.)

When the same thought processes and behaviors get me into trouble, or when I look for help (love/approval/sympathy) "in all the wrong places," I find it easy to become depressed and disconsolate.

How about you?

The problem is not just that we are repeatedly thinking or doing the same ol' thangs.  The problem is that we are not seeking the right way of changing to thought patterns and behaviors that lead to healthier conclusions.

By the early '70s, I was reading in self-help books connected to the myriad of "Kathy Harris Self-Improvement Programs" I worked on.  Sometimes the psycho-babble didn't make sense.  I thought that "acting out" was the same thing as "acting up."  

As children or teens, we were accused of "acting up" when we disobeyed rules of our household or threw fits.

I came to understand "acting out" as something very different, although misbehaving may have been part of the behavior described.

"Acting out" was the way my sub-conscious put on a kind of play for my conscious self concerning a problem I had not resolved in a healthy way.

The "play" described a circumstance or a kind of person in my life that I didn't remember.  Or maybe the negative thought processes or behavior was triggered by the wrong way of viewing my self or the people in my life.

The most important revelation I had about that was this:

The attitudes, thought processes and behaviors rooted in the past could not be solved by trying NOT to think that way or not act that way in the present.

Only inner healing of the memories from the past helped.

More to come . . . .


    

TRYING TO FINISH THE THOUGHT

I keep waking up not being able to breathe and with a hacking cough when the meds wear off.  Really thought I had kicked this upper respiratory thing, but not yet.  Have every confidence in the Lord that I will be fine soon, but sometimes the waiting makes me impatient.  That's a bit like that joke-prayer, "Lord, give me patience and give it to me RIGHT NOW!!"

That reminds me of being at USAF Officer Training School and practicing for our commissioning parade.  Imagine that there are four hundred people in uniform standing in formation.  In order to form up for the parade, each group of forty officer candidates is in exactly the right place.  Back in quarters someone in charge of each group has spoken a set of commands that starts, "Fall out.  Fall in.  Two lines centered on me. . . ."

We couldn't go out of any building unless there were at least two of us, and we had to march in formation wherever we went outside.  We took turns being in command of the flight we belonged to, and over the course of the ninety days we were transformed from civilians or enlisted people into officers of the United States.

Each flight had about twenty people.  Each squadron had at least four flights.  One fifth of the officer candidates were women, sprinkled around the corps.  They told us at the beginning that there would be people who would not make it.  Either they would be dis-enrolled for not passing every test, or they would find out that becoming an Air Force officer was not for them.

Everything was done according to a schedule and we had to arrive or depart from whatever we were doing within two minutes either side of the scheduled time.

So back to the parade practices.

As I am sure you have seen in movies, or have experienced in person if you are or were in the military, the parade ground is a big rectangle with bleachers  on one long side, a set of flag poles on the other long side, and open space on the short sides.  As we formed up to march, there was always a time when we would march in half steps so that the commanders could make sure that each column was straight, so that each officer candidate in every line was shoulder to shoulder with the others in the line, so that each squadron was the proper distance from the one in front of it.

The band was tuned up, or the PA was blasting the music, if we were just practicing.

Everything happened on cue.

The whole company of squadrons was lined up on the bleacher side of the parade ground, facing the short line of the rectangle on the west.  As the music came to the right place, the order to begin to march in half-step was given.  As we moved together in that mincing stride, there was an excruciating impatience for the point when we could march full-stride.

Our flight was part of the second squadron.  We followed the first squadron and there were three squadrons formed up behind us, each with the same amount of a space between them. The first line of the first squadron was about ten yards from the corner of the parade ground on the lower right if you were sitting in the bleachers.

When the whole company was lined up properly and the music began, the individuals in first squadron began to half-step march along the western edge of the parade ground.  Then each squadron in turn began to half-step as well.   As  we watched the first squadron make the right turn, I was kind of reminded of when you are on a train that goes around a bend and you can look out the window and see the engine and every train car ahead you moving in curve in front of you.

As we all half-stepped counter-clockwise toward the north end of the parade ground, finally we were given the order to march full-step.  The feeling of relief to be able to make a full stride washed over us, and the rest of the commissioning ceremony followed on the first movement to fulfillment.

So right now I feel like I am stuck in that half-stepping mode, yearning for the music to change in order to be able to step out un-restrained.

When you march, you have to listen very closely for each well-known command.  As each person executes every command in the proper way, the whole company with each element moves in complete harmony.

But it takes a lot of practice.

In our spiritual lives we have to practice, too. The Lord has helped me with this in many ways including through reading the book about the French monk named Brother Lawrence called "Practice the Presence of God."

You can find it online to read or to listen to --

A downloadable PDF file: 
Brother Lawrence Download PDF

Practice the Presence of God Audio Book Link:

Practice the Presence of God

And I am reminded of the passage from Isaiah 30:21 -- " Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

I listen for the voice of my Commander and I try my best to execute each command the correct way at the right time.

At USAF Officer Training School there were a lot of practices, but there was only one commissioning parade for each class.  Every six weeks the members of a new class of officer candidates were commissioned.  We were spectators at the parade for the class before us.  The class we helped to bring along behind us watched our parade half-way through their time at the school.

In our lives, too, we watch the generations before us, our grand-parents and out parents.  Our children and our grandchildren watch us.

We learn and grow.  Sometimes we get things right, and sometimes we fail.  God knew what would happen in our lives before we came to Earth. (" . . . all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:16b)

As we continue our relationship with the Love that created us, nurtures us, accompanies us, guards us and guides us, we get to know that Love in intimate ways.

My hope for you this morning, Beloved, is that each day you are getting to know God Who is Love in deeper ways.  The more we can allow God to bless us and help us, the more we are able to bless and help the people in our lives.

Hope you have a good Monday and a lovely week.

Midnight Confessions

In the fall of 1970 I was seventeen and a half years old when I left my childhood home in Tower Lakes to study Russian at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. 

From that time throughout my whole adult life, the longest I have resided in any one house or apartment has been around two years, except for the four years I dwelled in a student apartment on the Wesley Theological Seminary (WTS) campus in Washington, D.C.

I was just thinking about that because I seem to be on the verge of a transition again.

My life also changed when I felt led to leave the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church at the end of July, 1999.

Sometimes we know exactly when our lives will change, and we have plenty of time to prepare for new chapters in the stories of our lives here on Earth. On the other hand, our lives can change no-notice in so many different ways.

The opening sentence in Count Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" can be translated, "All happy families are happy in similar ways, but unhappy families may be miserable in a great many ways.". From that opening remark, of course, Tolstoy has written about 650 pages to prove his point (in the English version).

I thought I started out reflecting on the transition that is on-going in my life, but maybe that's not all I have to say this morning. We'll see.

Wesley Seminary's campus in D.C. sits on a little postage stamp corner of The American University which was founded by the Methodist Church. In the late 1950's the Methodist Bishop of the Washington/Maryland region was instrumental in moving a Methodist seminary from Westminster, Maryland, to the District of Columbia, and the people in charge somehow persuaded the powers-that-were at AU to part with that small but choice piece of real estate near the northwest corner of D.C.

I really loved living there. Besides the convenience of only having to walk across the parking lot to get to class, go to worship, sing in the choir, have a meal, visit with friends, or go to the library, I had easy access to our whole, very beautiful capital city, and to friends, shopping, movies, restaurants and other opportunities in Virginia, Maryland and all around that part of the East Coast.

If we left after rush hour, about 7pm on a Friday evening, we could even drive to Manhattan in about five hours.

The first time some friends and I motored up there, I only had been to NYC once before, when my kids were very little, for a family wedding.

We approached the Big Apple from Brooklyn, so all my memories of movies shot in New York, and memories of photos of the metropolis still did not really prepare me for the way the millions of lights of "the city that never sleeps" shimmered and glowed in a lively way, framed by the arches, cables and spans of the Brooklyn Bridge. The view that included the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center was a complete surprise to me because I watch a lot of classic movies, and of course, in them the Twin Towers were not part of the city's skyline.

****

Looks like I will need to finish this later today. Has been a restless night because the edge of the effects of the upper respiratory virus have been confounded by the effects of the early spring pollen down here. The allergy meds and the cough medicine have just about succeeded in tipping me back over into the sand man's dominion.

God willing, I'll see you later, Beloved. Hope you had a good night's rest and that you will enjoy this Lenten Sunday in worship and fellowship, or however you spend your day.