I had my 84th birthday earlier this week. It’s a privilege to have lived this long.

            Franciscan priest Richard Rohr has written several books about the process of aging. Basically, he suggests, the first half of life is about acquiring -- possessions, wealth, friends, family. The second half is about letting go -- of our acquisitions, our ideas, eventually our lives.

            Recently, he’s been writing about a pattern of spirituality. He calls it Order, Disorder, and Re-Order.

            In his terms, we inherit from our parents, our friends, and our social culture an understanding of the world we live in. That’s the Order. We don’t question it; we just accept it.

            Then as we mature, we discover that the old Order doesn’t work as well as it should. It can be downright unfair. Life sucks; shit happens. So we reject bits and pieces of what we used to take for granted. Which inevitably renders the whole old Order suspect, even if we never toss it out entirely.

            And then eventually, we re-organize our lives and our understandings into a new Order -- a Re-Order, in Rohr’s terms. Once again, we know what we believe. Yes, we DO believe. We no longer drift aimlessly with the tides. Nor do we deny the reality of those tides.

Pattern for growth

            I don’t think it’s just a pattern for spirituality; it’s a universal pattern for growth.

            Teenagers need to rebel against their parents’ values to discover their own.

            Addicts have to hit bottom before they can start over.

            Medical researchers must learn how much they don’t know about viruses before they can develop vaccines.

            The old Order cannot see any alternatives to the way things have always been. Of course books are filed alphabetically -- how else could you file them? Crayons, sorted by colour. People, slotted into stereotypes.

            Then you meet someone who doesn’t match your expectations. Art lessons teach you to colour outside the lines. You realize you can live without a car after all.

            Or perhaps, in Rohr’s theology, you give up believing in a God who sits on a golden throne in the sky and dispenses rewards and punishments. Heaven and hell become concepts, not destinations.

            That doesn’t mean that there is no Order. It means only that you’re working your way through Disorder towards a new Order.

Benefits of longevity

            My Disorder phase involved identifying things I could no longer believe. About God, certainly. Also about money, power, privilege, and love. In searching for a new Order, I felt obligated to challenge people who clung to unexamined assumptions.

            When life expectancy was 40 years, few lived long enough to out-grow the old Order. Those who struggled with Disorder were labelled atheists, rebels, or misfits.

            Very few made it to a New Order. Some did and were called mystics. Others were burned alive as heretics, a threat to the existing Order.

            I now feel that I have come through enough Disorder to find a more satisfying Re-Order.

            I believe far more strongly now in a divine presence within us, among us, surrounding us, than I ever did in the old Order deity I once took for granted.

            And I’m profoundly grateful for living long enough to have had that opportunity.

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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Pogo may have been dead (or at least not published) for 40 years, but he still has lots of fans. Dick Best, for example, wrote, “I, too, am a Pogo fan. Not that I followed him all that religiously. My favorite Pogoism was, ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’ How true, and getting truer every day.”

Wayne Irwin had a special memory: “In the late 60’s, on a Sunday morning in Saskatchewan, as I would be driving north for half an hour to preside at my first worship service for the day, a couple of chaps on the main Regina radio station would read aloud the Saturday comics -- L’il Abner and Dagwood among them. I remember that contemplative weekly drive fondly.”

            JT: It’s hard to imagine that happening today!

Tom Watson added his own Yogi Berra quotation: “I chuckle at your comment, ‘The more outrageous the quote, the more likely it will be attributed to Mark Twain or Yogi Berra.’ Not too long before he died, Yogi was asked about something he said. He smirked and said, ‘I didn't say a lot of things I said.’”

Bob Rollwagen commented, “Cartoonists have a platform of influence. The popular ones probably do influence political trends. Like the NBA, they need to band together to expose reality in a way the common citizens can understand. Unlike the NBA, they are individuals fighting for exposure in media space primarily owned by big corporations that are independent and isolated by the capital markets to resist non-traditional content. Thus, Franklin in Peanuts was a small win -- but why didn’t Franklin get to bring his friends?”

            Bob related comic strips to political trends: “Fundamentally, Right stands for small government and low taxes; Left reflects the widening gap in wealth and privilege by suggesting social support structures that only bigger governments can provide through balanced tax structures. Every citizen should have a living income, access to education, and not be disadvantaged by our social norms… These (cartoon characters) are not the people we see at food banks or in prison. Did Charlie Brown ever get arrested by mistake for not fitting in better or for making an inappropriate advance towards Lucy?”

Karen Opit: “Your column today brings back many memories of Pogo, L’il Abner and many more. I don't think I had ever heard about Charles Schultz being chastised for creating Franklin, but of course that is the response he would give to bigots.”

Richard Hendricks and Mary Elford didn’t agree that no one had attempted a comic strip about Jesus, and sent me samples. 

On the same subject, Isabel Gibson suggested, “Maybe it's a collective unconscious memory of the Spanish Inquisition that prevents cartoonists from making a comic strip about Jesus.

            “In 1979 the Monty Python crowd made a silly but funny movie called ‘The Life of Brian’. They weren't mocking Jesus, but people's silliness around religion. They still got in trouble for it.”

Ruth Buzzard recalled “my dear Aunt Sadie, the widow of a United Church clergyman, introducing me to Pogo. And I remember visiting old age homes at Christmas to sing carols, which invariably morphed into the Pogo versions!” 

            JT: I still get to sing “Deck us all with Boston Charlie” once a year at our church’s Advent party. 

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Psalm paraphrase

In recent years, many autocratic governments have been overthrown -- not by military coup or armed rebellion, but by the accumulative energy of ordinary people, the communion of saints. Psalm 149 may have a message for our times, too.

1          Familiar words aren't enough.
New times call for new ways to praise God.

2          So dance. Sing.
Show love with your bodies as well as your words. 

3          Use every means you have -- 
your music, your work, your social systems --
to demonstrate your love for God. 

4          God will not shun you because you show emotions.
Love is not limited to important positions or plummy accents. 

5          So join together with others.
Link your hands and link your lives.
Clap your hands and sing;
Raise the roof in praise of the Holy One.

6          Let the vigor of your voices overflow into your living.
Seize each challenge as an opportunity

7          to promote justice among all the people,
to bring to judgment to those who cause pain and suffering. 

8          Even ruthless dictators cannot resist the surge of popular pressure.
The longer they try to withstand the tide, the deeper they drown. 

9          That is how to give God praise.
Let us all praise God!

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalms available from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.

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                  I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

                  And for those of you who like poetry, please check my webpage .https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry I posted some new poetic works there a few weeks ago. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca, or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)