Let It Be

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, the Beatles were always one of my favorite bands, and some of their songs speak to me in profound ways.  One of those songs is "Let It Be."  I have often thought about the meaning of the phrase "let it be" and wondered about its significance.

Paul McCartney wrote the song after he had a dream about his mother Mary McCartney, who had died when he was 14.  Paul said the Mary in song refers his mother, not the Virgin Mary, as many people have often assumed.  (It is, however, interesting to note that according to the gospel of Luke, when the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she would be the mother of Jesus, she replied, "let it be to me according to your word.")

Paul also said that in the dream, which occurred during a difficult time in his life, his mother told  that everything would be all right, and he should just let it be.  Often when Paul was asked whether the song was about the Virgin Mary, he would reply that people were free to interpret the song any way they liked.  So, with the permission of none other than Sir Paul McCartney, I offer some thoughts about what the song means to me.

First, the phrase "let it be" is good advice about how to to think about the past.  In recent years, I have learned something about how to deal with difficulties from the past, things that make me angry, and things that sometimes seem beyond acceptance.  I have learned that when I am reminded of bad things that I can do nothing to change, I tend to ruminate on them excessively, to allow them to dominate my thoughts and emotions.  Continuing to do this would only result in my becoming bitter, and would not change the thing I am trying to accept.  So I've developed a mental trick to keep from obsessing over such things.  I imagine a wooden cabinet with drawers.  When I find myself dwelling on something too much, I imagine that I am putting that thing in one of the drawers and locking it up.  Then for awhile, while it is in the drawer, I am able to let it be.  Usually the thing I have locked up  eventually escapes that drawer and I will find myself focused on it again. But then I lock it up again, and I find that the more often I lock it up, the less often it escapes the drawer, and the less often have to deal with it.   

Secondly, the phrase "let it be" is good advice about how to think about the present.  Another thing I have learned in recent years is that most of the things in our lives that we think we control are actually beyond our control.  I am a planner and an organizer, and I am often surprised and irritated when my plan for today doesn't work out like I wanted. Stuff happens, as Forrest Gump famously said, and much of that stuff can neither be foreseen nor controlled.  I have found that instead trying to control things, it is wiser to be courageous, and to accept each day as it comes.  Instead of trying to completely control the present, just let it be. 

Lastly, the phrase "let it be" is good advice about how to think about the future. For me, the future has often been a scary place.  I hate not knowing what is coming.  Since I'm big on planning things, thinking about the future offers extreme challenges, since there is just no way to foresee the next 10 minutes, much less the rest of our lives.  So, it is easy to worry over the future, and sometimes events in the present contribute to that worry.  (Anyone with anything in the stock market has probably experienced at least a little of that worry in the past few weeks.)   

Jim Bishop once wrote, "The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face."  I find that thinking about the future is usually just worrying about it.  In "Let It Be,"  Mother Mary says, "There will be an answer.  Let it be."  For me, that means two things.  One is that if I'm worrying about the future today, I need to lock those thoughts up in that cabinet shown above.  The other thing is that although future is unknown,  I will not be alone, and there will be solutions to the things I face, just as there are in the present and there were in the past.  The future will come, and I must relax and let it be. 

Copyright © 2015 by Steven W. Fouse

What, Me Worry?

Anyone familiar with American pop culture over the last 50 years or so probably knows that the funny little guy to the left is Alfred E. Neuman,  the mascot of Mad magazine.

If you recognize young Alfred, then you probably also know that his signature phrase is, "What, me worry?"   The phrase sort of capsulizes the zany comedy in Mad magazine, along with suggesting a carefree, possibly irresponsible attitude about life, focused on finding the humor in any situation.  It does that effectively, I think.

If you know me at all, then you know that for most of my life I have been the antithesis of Alfred E. Neuman.  Although I do look for the humor is situations, and often find it,  avoiding worry has never been my strong suit.   My signature phrase might have been, "What, me not worry?"

I have always been goal-oriented and have taken my responsibilities seriously.  I have always planned my life and how I think it should go.  These are not necessarily bad qualities, but the problem I had was that I tried to plan and take responsibility for things I could not control.

In a blog I wrote in 2013,  I talked about how my illusions that I had about a safe, certain future were shattered when I was laid off from my job.  That experience was devastating for me, because it forced me to face the fact that it didn't matter how much I planned or shouldered my responsibilities, unforeseen things were going to happen in my life that were outside my control.  Some of those things would be bad.  Part of what I had to cope with when I was laid off was stress and worry about the future.  Somewhere in my psyche, I realize now, was the belief that it would be irresponsible of me not to worry.  If I wasn't worrying about the future, then somehow I wasn't the capable, take-care-of-things guy that I believed I was.  Those ideas were positively reinforced when I was called back to work less than two weeks after the lay-off.  If I hadn't been worried, maybe that wouldn't have happened, or so I thought.

In a more recent blog, I wrote about the ultimate result of that 2013 lay-off, the decision my wife Dana and I made to leave Oklahoma and move to Missouri to be near our kids and grandkids.  That decision recently led me to another lesson, which was that sometimes you don't get to see what happens next.  Your plans don't work out, and you have to trust God.  You have to take a leap of faith.

So, I took the leap, and now I'm in Missouri without a job.  And the surprising thing is that I am less like that planning, worrying guy that I used to be and more like Alfred E. Neuman.  Although I will never replace Alfred as Mad magazine's shining example of the carefree non-worrier,  I am not worried about finding a job.  I am not worried about the future.  And, surprisingly, I don't feel guilty or irresponsible that I am not worried.  I am spending my time enjoying my family, taking it easy, and applying for jobs.

I am not usually a big fan of most church marquees. A lot of them are somewhere between lame and unbelievably hostile and unloving.  But the other day when I was driving home from a lunch date with my son (how cool it is to be able to do that!),  I saw a marquee that spoke right to my heart.  What it said was so profound to me, and gave me such encouragement to keep doing what I'm doing and to avoid the temptation to worry.

It said:  Thank God for what you have.  Trust God for what you need.

Whoa!  What an awesome reminder that I have so much to be thankful for, that God has brought Dana and me to this place, and he knows I need a job.  I don't need to worry, I just need to trust.

Just in case I needed another reminder, today when I was driving home from my morning swim, I heard  a song by Unspoken that fits well with that church marquee I saw the other day.  The lyrics of that song include these words:


And you may never know what your tomorrow holds
But you can know that I am holding your tomorrow.

What, me worry?  



Copyright © 2015 by Steven W. Fouse

Trading Control for Courage

Over the past two years, my wife Dana and I have been striving to fulfill a dream to live near our children and grandchildren in the Springfield, Missouri area. 

Dana is more of a dreamer than I am, so at first it was mostly her dream.  I usually approach things from a logical, practical perspective, which doesn't always allow a lot of room for dreaming.  I shared her feelings that it would be wonderful to be near our offspring and be more a part of their lives, but to me that seemed a bridge too far.

I mean, there were so many things that had to be worked out before we could make such a big life change.  We owned a home in Lawton, Oklahoma, and although it was a nice home in a great neighborhood, the market for existing houses in Lawton was moving very slowly.  Also, we both would have to find jobs.  At first, we assumed that this would not be a problem for Dana, who is a registered nurse, and there are always jobs for nurses.   I did not see how I could responsibly give up my job.  I had worked there for over 30 years in the defense industry.  I just didn't see how I could walk away from that, and what I could ever find to replace it in Missouri.  We also had other concerns about leaving the place we had lived for so long.  We didn't know how all these details could be timed to work together.  What should we do first?  How would we begin?


Since I have always wanted to try to control the way things happen, it was difficult for me to surrender to all these uncertainties.  What if things didn't work out?  What if we got jobs in Missouri, but couldn't sell our house in Lawton?  What if only one of us got a job, but the other one didn't? What if, what if, what if?  It all seemed too hard to me, but I was willing (although sometimes pretty frightened) to try to make it happen.

So, we did some updates on the house, and listed it for sale.  We both started applying for jobs in Missouri.  For a long time, it seemed to me that I was right, that it was all too hard to do.  Neither of us was having any luck finding jobs, and our house did not sell.  There were long periods of time when no one even looked at it.  Dana came to Springfield twice for job interviews, but neither of those opportunities worked out for her.  I was not having any luck finding employment either. 

Finally after nearly two years,  Dana got a great job.  It has proven to be the perfect job for her.  Then a week after Dana got her job, our house finally sold.  OK, great, two pieces of the puzzle were fitting together.  The only thing left was for me to get a job.  We moved Dana to Missouri in April, when her job began.  I stayed in Oklahoma to finalize the sale of the house.  I would join her in Missouri as soon as I had a job.  Or so I thought.

Throughout all of this, Dana and I had prayed for God to show us the way, and to work out the details.  And we were seeing how how the details were all working out and fitting together.  I assumed that God would see the logic of my plan to stay in Oklahoma until I had a job in Missouri.  I mean, how could I be so irresponsible as to leave a good job without another one lined up.  That was just not acceptable.  Right, God? 

Today I read a new post in one of my favorite blogs, which is written by Mark Chernoff.   In it Mark makes this statement: 

'When you attempt to control the uncontrollable you automatically block yourself from the truth.  You resist how everything works rather than learning about it.  So here’s a simple challenge for you:  Instead of trying to make things work exactly the way you want them to work, just watch them work today."

Wow!  That was a lesson I learned for myself in recent weeks.  You see, it turns out that my logical plan to find a job before I moved to Missouri did not coincide with God's plan.  Although I've had several promising leads on jobs, and a couple of interviews, I still don't have a job.   I finally came to
understand that I would have to take a leap of faith.  I would have have to walk away from that good job without another one waiting for me.  I would have to trust God.  I would have to give up control and act in faith instead.   I was beginning to understand that when God made it crystal clear to me.  A leap of faith is the only kind of leap I will be capable of for awhile, because while I was struggling with this decision,  I learned that I am going to have to have knee surgery.  I knew then that I had to go to Missouri, that I couldn't stay in Oklahoma until my plan worked out.  My plan was clearly not the plan because my plan sure didn't include a torn meniscus.

So, now I'm in Missouri with my wife, my kids and their spouses, my grandboys, and my Mom.  No job yet and a bum knee.  Sometimes I'm slightly freaked out that I'm not sure what will happen next or how long I'll have to recuperate, or when I'll get a job.  But I'm taking Mark Chernoff's advice to just watch how things turn out instead of trying to control how they turn out.  And I know I'm in the right place, because sometimes God is kind enough to speak very loudly.

You see, on the morning about three weeks ago when I walked into my boss's office and took that leap by turning in my letter of recognition, God sent me a message.  I receive a daily Bible verse via e-mail, and that morning right after I had turned in that letter, my phone vibrated to signal I had a new e-mail.  I opened it, and it said, "So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you. - Deuteronomy 31:6.”  If you read that chapter in the Bible, you'll find that the speaker is Moses.  He's telling the Israelites to go and take the Promised Land, that they could be brave because God would go ahead them, and that he would never fail them.  

Pretty cool, huh? 

Copyright © 2015 by Steven W. Fouse
 

He Did It His Way

A few months back, a co-worker of mine passed away after a long battle with cancer.  I  had worked with him since 1981, and although we did not see each other outside work, we respected each other and I considered him a friend, so I attended his funeral.

A few days later, another co-worker who had not attended the funeral asked me about the service.  I told him a few details and named some mutual acquaintances who had also been there.  Then I told him that there were  two songs played at the end of the service.  One was an old hymn.  The other was Frank Sinatra's standard "I Did It My Way." I remarked that I thought that song was very appropriate for the man who had died, and he agreed.  Then he told me that his minister does not allow that song to be played or sung at funerals that are held in his church.  He allows it at the cemetery, but not at the church.

I thought about that, and I didn't like it much.  I guess I understand the minister's position.  He obviously equates doing things "my way" as the equivalent of disobeying God, or perhaps not being humble enough.

However, I take a different view.  Our co-worker who had died was a complex man.  He could be stubborn and argumentative.  He was often unforgiving to those he felt wronged him, and he held grudges.  He was confrontational and believed in winning by intimidation.  He always said what he thought about everyone and everything, and he didn't care who had a problem with that.  You never had to wonder what he thought, because he would always tell you without any effort to sugar-coat anything.

However, he was also hard-working and passionate about doing a good job.  He loved to work, and continued in his job well past the age when he could have retired.  He and his wife raised and showed  quarter horses, and they enthusiastically enjoyed that endeavor as long as their health allowed.  If he gave you hell, the way to earn his respect was to give it right back.  When you did that, he would often smile a little as if he was glad you had stood up to him. He was loyal to those whom he respected, and under his rough exterior, he loved people.  He faced the cancer that eventually killed him with courage and dignity, and he was open and honest about the toll the disease and the treatments took on him, both physically and emotionally.  He never gave way to hopelessness, and he continued to work until he literally could no longer come to the office.

In other words, my friend lived and died on his own terms.  He was completely and unabashedly himself, the way God had made him.  He had faults and he could be difficult, but he lived life enthusiastically, and he completely enjoyed the things he did and the life he lived.  In other words, he did it his way.

I believe that God was fine with that.



Copyright © 2015 by Steven W. Fouse