Breaking the Chains of the Past

Happy New Year!  The new year is a time to both look back and look ahead.  That raises the question of how we can do both these things in ways that can help us live lives that reflect our better selves.  As with most things, looking back and looking ahead can be both positive and negative.  We can look back and see what we have done which is helpful for us and for others.  We can also look ahead and see possibilities that hold the promise of the same.

Looking back at the past year and even further can enable us to learn from our mistakes and failures.  Looking ahead, we can make those New Year’s resolutions about how we hope and even pray we can live differently and better.  If you are able to do these things, more power to you.  However, it seems to me that these are honoured more in the breach than in the observance. 

The challenge that new year can bring brought into focus for me by the sermon preached by Rev. Sherry DeJonge yesterday at my home parish of St. John the Evangelist Anglican, Strathroy.  The sermon drew on the bible passage Luke 9: 62, “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”  It struck me that there can be something positive in looking back to see if you are ploughing a straight furrow.  However, I believe that Jesus was making the point that we cannot dwell on the past, we have to look ahead or we won’t get where we want to go, which for Jesus and Christians’, is summed up in the Kingdom of God. 

That brought to mind a definition of sin that I heard many years ago – unfortunately, I don’t remember the source and Google didn’t help in locating it.  As I recall, sin was defined as, ’those things which chain us to the past.’  For me, that sums up the message from Luke.  If we look behind us, we won’t reach the Kingdom - whatever Kingdom you are hoping and praying for.  Those things which chain you to the past can keep you imprisoned and prevent you from living a full life that we are intended to live.  These are the things – the events in our lives that haunt us at 4:00 in the morning – the regrets and what we did and didn’t do; the anger at what was done to us; the lost opportunities and wrong decisions.  These all seem to outweigh the positive things that we have done and accomplishment in our lives and right decisions we made.  Those are the things which are the ghosts that visit me in the early hours.  I am on a first name basis with many of these old frenemies. 

These are the chains which hold us back and enslave us.  I found this quote on-line which expresses it well:

Things in the past can enslave us. Mistakes we have made, experiences we cannot forget, things that have been done to us. Bitterness and disappointment can consume our thinking, robbing us of joy and hope. Images burned into our consciousness, like pornography or sexual perversion, can cause us to relapse into patterns of sin. Anger over the harm others have done to us can overcome us in quiet moments, long after the events have passed. We can find ourselves trapped by the past, unable to find the freedom we desperately need. We become blocked from the life we want to have, the life that Jesus means for us to have: The abundant life in Him. https://www.onesteadfast.com/Blog/ScriptureStudy/Chains-of-the-Past.

Breaking those chains is not something that is easily accomplished.  It takes work to begin to saw through those chains a bit at a time.  This journey being with the first step in acknowledging that we can’t change what is past so these is no use dwelling in it.  However, we have to acknowledge that life is not perfect and neither are we.  We are going to make mistakes and mistakes are going to be made to us.  The key is in forgiveness.  This is the great gift of Jesus – he showed us by word and deed that forgiveness is possible.  If he could ask his heavenly Father to forgive those who were executing him so cruelly, then it is possible, not easy but possible, to forgive others and, yes even forgive ourselves.  That is the mystery of love which was born at Christmas.

Blessing on your journey in 2024.  May you forgive and be forgiven. 

It's so simple that only a child can do it!

Last week, I had confirmation that the world is getting way to complicated for me.  I had an encounter with a computer program which I thought was required for a course I signed up for.  The course is offered by the Sisterhood of St. John he Divine on Benedictine Spirituality.  I thought I needed to activate Drop Box program to access the material for the course – it turned out I didn’t.  However, as a result, many of my active files were reorganized on my hard drive and I am still having ‘fun’ trying to locate them.  It was rather shocking to sit for about an hour as get continual messages about files being moved to Drop Box and not being able to do anything about it - talk about helplessness.  

The second incident also involved my computer.  I ordered an external microphone for my laptop as I am using it for Zooming with others and the built-in mic is not as sensitive as I would like.  I plugged in the ‘easy to use’ mic but no joy, it would not work.  So, I spent about an hour checking the settings and running a troubleshooting program.  I was just about to give up and I noticed a small control on the side of the mic and in a flash of inspiration – or something less complementary – realized that it was a volume control built in to the mic.  Well all’s well that ends well – at least for now.

It was humbling to say the least and what came to mind was the song from the 1960’s by Tom Lehrer, “New Math”.  The chorus has a message that is more relevant that ever today:

Hooray for New Math
New-hoo-hoo Math
It won't do you a bit of good to review Math
It's so simple
So very simple
That only a child can do it!

It is getting to the point that I am less and less able to deal with the ever increasing complexities of life.  It seems that with computer technology a child to be able the figure out how things operate much more easily than us old fogies.  

There are a number of bible passages that seem to be appropriate in this, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”  (Isaiah 11:6).  Another is, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 19:14) I particularly like that one because it talks of suffering which I find that technology can have that effect on me.

Finally, there is Matthew 18:3, “‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I understand this passage, in particular, is the key to seeing things - whether technology or the world in general like children is that they bring fresh eyes to looking at whatever is presented to them.  Now, we can’t look at this through rose coloured glasses because experience and education is important and brings a valuable perspective to understanding and evaluating the world.  However, we adults can be blinkered and blinded to what is in front of us because we don’t see things with fresh eyes.

On Sunday, Rev. Sherry DeJonge was talking about an aspect of this and the need to appreciate things that are counter intuitive.  She upheld the Sermon on the Mount called for a counter intuitive approach to people and the world.  

As we get older and more set in our ways, we are less able to see the world as it truly is and as how God intends it to be.  I hope and pray that God will enable me to remove a few of the blinkers that are preventing me to see the truth of God’s creation.  I’m not all that sure how that applies to computers - but I live in hope.  

May you have the eyes of a little child on your journey.