Eric’s Sunday Sermon; Choose the Journey, Not the Destination

“Hurry up!” “Wait up!” How do we do that every morning around here in order to get our boy to school on time? Life is funny that way.

I had better get this sermon done before…. I am late for an appointment. Why is it called “rush” hour on freeways? Perhaps I am a most lucky person. I do not do stuff with “deadlines” in the day to day. Sure an appointment time to time or maybe a plane to “catch”. Interesting we use the term “catch” for trains and planes. I guess we are chasing after them?

With my children I chortle as we walk places. Kids love to be where they are. That is good. But sometimes we need to at least make an effort to “move along”. So they say wait up and I say ketchup. We have this really cool nature preserve we go to on fishing days (2 days a week). Grab all the fishing gear and off we go with the early bird getting the worm. Oops. Catching fish becomes secondary to screwing around and cruising up the shore for a mile. Even when we do get to fishing it is more about who can cast the furthest rather than killing a fish. Oh well.

Do not start getting this notion wrong. It is right and good and responsible to “get the job done”. Someone’s birthday is an appropriate time to get something done on time. Don’t look at me about Christmas. I celebrate it about 3 times every year. Not everyone can be everywhere on an exact date. Which brings to mind about Santa Clause hurrying to get it all done in a night.

My wife grew up on a farm and I raised chickens for a bit. “She is running around like a chicken with her head chopped off.” The phenomenon is very true. And an obsessive compulsion person does that.

Doesn’t it appear that successful people go really fast? Like that thing I do called “multi-tasking”. Most folks though have a handle on a “racing” mind. Something that just happens or not. I really have to work on not finishing other people’s sentences. I have to slow down so that I do not get ahead of myself.

For me road trips and church services are destinations to me. Once your in the car all you have to do is enjoy. Once you are in a church you cannot hurry it up. (although good preachers have to pay attention)

A Koi fish lived over 200 years. There is a tortoise than can live up to over 150 years. Some elephants are believed to be over 100 years and are some Macaws. Aren’t those bits of trivia? Some trivia teaches us things. What do all those animals have in common? Not one of them spends any substantial time going fast!! And basically cared for and not harmed by man or beast they are way happy. Now these are not my opinion. These are facts.

My grandmother via my wife lived to 105. Since about her 94 forth we just had a blast together. My Vietnamese not so good, my French close and English. Her English ok kind of, her French beautiful and of course her Vietnamese sounded like a wonderful small water fall into a perfect mountain pond.

She would say Ralentissez, s'il vous plait. My French said something like duch’e mo. (I think mine was more like Frenchlish.) They mean “slow down”. And hers as a polite please. I like s'il vous plait in French and cảm ơn bạn in Vietnamese. Of course Danka dir. And Italian is something like our Spanish gracias but grazie. What do you think does any of this have to do with the journey rather than the destination?

Well saying please and thank you slows us down. And gives us a happy face. Less muscles used than a sad face. These words connect us with each other. And that requires a slow down to get the other persons place. So grandma told me to slow down and not understand her words but what she was saying. Now one of my favorite songs is the “Sound of Silence”. But she changed my world as listening is more than hearing. The journey of understanding is not vocabulary but of feeling and loving a person to make their journey also your journey. Translation is different than interpretation. Interpretation of another’s words is staying a place long enough to care and love. Love is not a drive by. Thriving is not a solitary journey. Sharing it is.

We have been exploring the journey of a young boy growing up. We can teach them to go for the score, the goal and the grade. And this is so important. My wife and my boy’s various teachers/instructors do this so well. We are talking very very well. I will not go a day without thanking them.

Wow that clears me and justifies me on concentrating “of the journey”. The journey to reading so well you get awards yet what you read was cool and we shared that journey. People are hardwired to “score”. That is nature. What we have to really work out is nurturing teachers on the long road to love, and only love. Love for reading, love for math, love for plants and any creature including our enemies. There are so many things to love it is omnipresence.

Perhaps understanding and advocating are destinations and not journeys. Not in my castle. We do questions. “To Conclude” is actually quite strange. I love to study. Plato’s Republic and Darwin did not conclude. Michelangelo and Einstein did not conclude except to conclude we need to learn more. (thinking of it no one ever finished the Sistine chapel.) Edison said he needed more time to fail in order to rule out wrong tries.

My son and I were bantering. And he proclaimed a cockroach can live without his head and that it was the longest living animal. We fact checked that in the car. No. One cockroach lives only a bit and cutting off his head shortens that. But the species has proceeded even dinosaurs. The journey of one cockroach only leads to another cockroach never understanding. Like maybe Genesis. Too deep there for us.

If I wake with love and spend some time nurturing that then the end of my day can even go back. Each day can be started over anytime we like. Love ain’t got no hurry up time table.

Here is a funny one. I have not been “late” for anything in many years. I do not do late. Yuck, it disrespects. But I get to cheat. I get to pick my time. I wonder if that is because they want my time more than I want their money. Well I would like to hear the problem more than the solution. Let them deal with that journey and not their destination. I row a boat. I like to row a boat. I really could not give S where we are heading. Cross-Country snow skiing and sailing on a Catamaran the same.

It would seem to me that most of my writing is a journey. Fancy pansies’ hire me for that notion. I can a law clerk for a federal judge into my peoples journey.

So the sermon is short while the prologue was long. If you love this moment, in time then the result will be love. The only journey destination is love.

/// Sorry I had more fun writing this than you will have reading it – life is GRAND! ///