Gift and Obligation
Gift and Obligation: 15 January 2025
For Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a book entitled, How Not to Look Old. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up. What does it say about me that my first thought, well, my second thought, was “At least the title didn’t split the infinitive.” Maybe that was because it was published the year Jack was born, before texting and social media destroyed grammar. But is the 17-year-old advice still relevant? Also, given the intended audience, the font size could have been larger.
To be fair, my MIL included a sweet note suggesting I might be interested in the book in 10 or 20 years. Noted.
Still, as I reflect on this Christmas season, How Not to Look Old seems the perfect allegory.
I loved being with family and enacting familiar rituals, but I didn’t sense that anyone’s heart was really in it, including mine. I felt somehow responsible for creating the event that everyone expected but that no one actually wanted. And if I’m honest, I really missed Jesus. Both regretted the absence of, and failed to acknowledge the presence of, Jesus. I missed the beauty and depth of Advent, the miracle of the vulnerable deity entrusted to flawed mortals, the mystery of the incarnation. I just didn’t feel it this year. What I did feel was like I worked hard on Christmas: How Not to Look Grudging.
After the rush of Christmas, I basked in a leisurely three-hour coffee date with two dear friends. We caught up, rejoiced, complained, reveled, groused, and shared hopes and fears for the new year. One friend asked us to pray for her son and offered the prayer she and her husband have been praying for him: May he attract and accept the help he needs.
Nine words that have transformed my prayer life. I cannot say enough about how much I love this simple prayer. I’ve prayed this prayer every day since that coffee—certainly for my friend and her son, but I’ve also prayed it for everyone. I’ve probably prayed it for you. I’ve prayed it for each of my family members, any friend that came to mind, people and situations far from my circle, and for myself.
Temperamentally, prayer can be hard for me, and that’s not helped by my stoic Calvinist (we are all sinners), American (pull yourself up by your bootstraps), Southern (don’t talk about it) upbringing. It’s also true that I can get stuck in my head. I have felt as though asking for divine help needed to be both eloquent and open-ended, neither too abject nor too specific, so I usually landed on: thy will be done.
My decades with Quakers gave me the gift of silent meditation, in which I can literally sit with my feelings and questions without having to formulate words or particular requests of God. I can be open to the swirl of my emotions and desires alongside the objective realities of a situation. And after all the pondering, thy will be done almost always still feels like the best offering, especially when I can muster the desire to submit to that will.
And that is why I love may I attract and accept the help I need. It’s humble and direct in good proportion. It’s specific but without assuming I know the answer. There’s divine guidance and room for free will. And when I pray it for someone else, it acknowledges my desire to be supportive even if, especially if, I don’t know how to help.
Because we want to be supportive, right? That’s the beauty and gift of friendship, offering and receiving support honors the importance of the relationship.
Our new Christian Education series is on the ministry of reconciliation. We are exploring how the theme of reconciliation is expressed in, among other places, the Presbyterian Book of Confessions, and discussing how we might put our theology into practice. I would like to think that all denominations and faiths would lean into this challenge; the world is certainly ripe for reconciliation and civil discussion right about now.
The concept that most struck me during the first session was the statement from the Belhar Confession that unity is both a gift and an obligation for the church.
It seems to me that most of the good things in life are both gifts and obligations: friendship, freedom, love; also, any individual traits, such as artistic and athletic talent, wealth, charisma, or power. To enjoy and honor the gift to its fullest we also are obliged to tend to it and, I think, to share it with others.
I don’t like routinized new year’s resolutions so much, but I do like taking stock of my life and its trajectory. This year I’ve been thinking about tweaking the trajectory by tending to my gifts. A few examples:
I have generally enjoyed good health. But, as has been mentioned, I’m not getting any younger. So, in tending to the gift and obligation of health I have set a few goals I’m aiming to accomplish before next Advent. Be able to sit down on the floor and get back up without using my hands. Be able to do a pull up. Figure out why my feet hurt and what, if anything, I can do about it. Floss.
Gift and obligation of meaningful work: Pay attention and celebrate the gift of having work I enjoy in an environment I love. Go above and beyond.
Gift and obligation of travel: I am thrilled that our family is going on an adventure in Costa Rica in March. By Mid-March I want to achieve level 60 in Duolingo Spanish and feel good about being in a bathing suit.
Back to that gift and obligation of unity, did you notice that that was a gift to the church? Some gifts are collective gifts, and we share the obligation to tend to them.
The gift and obligation of religion is to put our theology into action for the good of the community, the nation, the world. How will we collectively put our theology into practice this year? Thinking about this reminded me of something Rabbi David Wolpe once wrote:
Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world.
Which leads me to this cherished nation. Wasn’t it moving to see all of the living presidents and vice presidents sitting together at Jimmy Carter’s funeral? That is the vision of democracy that I treasure and strive to protect. So, on Monday as we honor and celebrate the never-again-to-be-taken-for-granted peaceful transfer of power, let us redouble our commitment to the gift and obligation of democracy.
May we attract and accept the help that we need. May we be willing to be the help that others need.
“ A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”
