The Storm

"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm."

-- William Cowper (1731-1800), poet

Whose life is so blessed as to not have occasional troubles to work through?  When even the Christ had to deal with trials and tribulation, how can we be more blessed?  Yet, many still find opportunity to bemoan difficulties in life that hold them back from happiness.  We need to stop finding cause to excuse our misery and begin finding the strength and the courage to face the difficulties before us so we may continue forward on our path.

"The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), poet, essayist

It seems that when our troubles are long legged, when our storms seem to take on a life of their own and set up residence in our lives for the long haul, we tend to forget why the troubles exist.  When we forget why our lives are in turmoil, we start to find other targets on which to assign blame for our turmoil and lack of happiness.  We do this because we insist on making others responsible, when things go a bit off track, for that which only we can claim ownership of - our own happiness.

Re-claiming responsibility and ownership is not an easy task.  Once you fail at solving your own problems, you run the real risk of falling into the "anger trap" of assigning responsibility to others for your lack of ability to ensure your happiness.  Laziness, frustration, and anger, all make it easier for us to assign blame instead of accepting responsibility.  Usually, the only one that does not see through this facade of innocence is the perpetrator, the person assigning the blame.  It's always someone else's fault, right?  

Even when we admit to constantly blaming others, and make the serious effort of taking back the reins of control and admitting you are the only one responsible for you, you have to be extra watchful for falling back into the trap of finding excuses and assigning blame.  Like any addiction, it is easier to give into this temptation than to constantly fend it off.  Let's face it, first we all tend to blame the hammer for hitting our thumb before we laugh at our own incompetence or inattention at hammering.  How many times we jump to blame inanimate objects instead of assigning appropriate responsibility.  I still slap the door jamb I keep running into in my mother's kitchen for constantly jumping into my path with, "Ow!  Stupid door jam!"  I laugh when mom hears me and smiles. 

"Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness.  When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk, author, poet  

When we face the possibility of having to admit failure, our first blush is to find a way out of perceived embarrassment instead of bravely taking ownership.  As someone in charge of a large cadre of personnel in Air Force Intelligence, I would rather have five people I could trust to get the job done and tell me the truth when they screwed up than thirty others who get the job done and hide their mistakes.  The sooner we can get passed the blame game, the sooner we can prevent possible loss of life, material, and money, all valuable assets.

"Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000.  No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him.  Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?"

-- Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956), businessman

Some of our lives seem to be a never ending series of small storms which we elect to have effect on our happiness.  We become frustrated at the constant effort we feel is required to maintain our seemingly smaller piece of heaven when others we feel to be less deserving move through life with what we feel to be so much less effort.  Think about this previous sentence.  "We become frustrated; we feel is required; our seemingly smaller piece; we feel others to be; what we feel to be."  It would seem our happiness is a direct reflection on our perception, misplaced or not, and that perception is what we use to assign blame, misplaced or not.  If we find ourselves constantly surrounded by people we judge less deserving of happiness, they become the root cause of our own misfortune.  As a society we cultivate this idea that everyone else that has made it in life is obviously the cause for the rest of us failing.  What bullshit thought process is that?  Even an uneducated idiot can see the error in logic, yet we continue to feed the monster and excuse our own laziness to do anything besides cultivate our own misery.

Even these seemingly happy lives around us are subject to the constant small storms of life.  Storms are as inescapable as death and taxes.  How we handle the issues which confront us defines who we are and can have the ability to encourage others to be more than they think they can be.  Patience is, indeed, a virtue.  Every storm will pass, we may die or survive, but it will eventually run its course.  We can try to have a positive effect on the outcome, or we can try to survive as it rolls over us.  The storms will, inevitably, come, and sometime there is nothing we can do to change the outcome, the aftermath, the probable damage.  Why worry over that which we have no control?  If we can't escape it, it is better to spend our time bracing for the hurricane, than bemoaning a fate we may be able to escape through a bit of hard work, and faith.

"If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time.  And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm."

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), leader, philosopher 

How you approach life, the ups and downs, speaks volumes about who you are as a person. It defines how people view you, which I am the first to say should not be an issue except that the positive virtues you project may have a bearing on how others view their own circumstance. Where you may not be responsible for their happiness, you certainly might be a game changer for them accepting ownership of it. You can be an island of peace in the eye of their personal storm.

Storms are a necessary part of nature. They can be understood, admired, and used, or they can be feared. Storms blow down the weak, dead branches and brown leaves, creating mulch for growth and litter for environment. The rains cleanse the world and provide sustenance for life. Lightning sparks fires which burn off the old to provide nutrients and make room for new growth. Even the most horrific storms have purpose which nature must embrace to survive. So it is with our own "life storms." We can patiently embrace them, or we can give up, be weak, and become the leaf litter of humanity.  

Is giving up a bad thing?  It depends upon your point of view.  You have the personal choice to be positive or negative; to influence your own life, and the lives of others, in a positive or negative way.  It is your choice and, therefore, you are responsible for making it.  Don't look to God and dare to assign blame there.  God has already given you the tools to change your circumstance.  Do not pray to God to give you those tools which you have ignored.  Rather, pray to God for the strength to overcome your weaknesses, your fears, and for the assistance to overcome the storms of adversity.  

Can your choice be the wrong one?  Of course, because for everything there must be balance, the duality which forms the whole, two complementing yet contrary, opposite, forces which allows the universe to exist; there must be "yin yang."  If you make the wrong decisions, or have been born into a pit of misery through no fault of your own, you have the God given ability to pull yourself out of it, to change your circumstance.  If you choose not to do so and, instead, wallow in it, do not bemoan your decision - it is your decision.  You also have the choice to change your decisions.

The storms shall always pass.  Be patient, and let your choices be the right ones.

"Giving up is conceding that things will never get better, and that is just not true. Ups and downs are constant in life, and I've been belted into that roller coaster a thousand times."

-- Aimee Mullins, athlete, actress, double amputee

Editor's Note:  

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.
  

Pastor Frank Anthony Villari

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."