All the Free Lunches

"When I look back on my life, what jumps out is how many variables had to fall in place in order to give me a chance" (J.D. Vance, "Hillbilly Elegy," p.239.

Many years ago, a man of considerable success and wealth said to a group of Rotarians, "Life is full of free lunches."

He went on to list so many things and people that simply came to him as gift, out of the blue, if you will, or from the hand of God, as some might say.

A loving home and the wisdom of mindful parents.
Teachers who cared and encouraged and challenged.
The network of family and friends who looked after him.
His own ambition and good health.
His dreams and energy.

Professors who never let him get away with shoddy work.
Folks who helped him get his first job.
The banker who loaned him money, on his word.
And all along the way, people, even strangers, who showed up at the right time.
And all of those fortuitous moments, too numerous to mention, and mostly unknown.

All of these, and more, the free lunches of life.

Here was a wise man who understood that his life was a gift, not a achievement of his own doing, and as such, there was only response, and that was gratitude, immense and all-consuming, gratitude, and the promise, the pledge, to be a free lunch for others.

How it should work, who knows.

Some have the opportunity, but something gets in the way.
A crummy family life.
Poor health.
Bad choices and no one around to cushion the fall.
Who knows?

A spectrum of variables, bits and pieces.

But this much I know, for those who "make it," there's only one legitimate response, gratitude. And maybe a huge amount of humility, as well.

Too many people walk around these days with their arms in a sling, broken arms, for patting themselves so vigorously on the back.

But for the woman or the man who truly understands the millions, even the billions, of variables that had to come together at just the right time so they could make, there is no back-patting, but only open arms and open hands to everyone around them.

And the best we can do is give and keep on giving free lunches.

Government programs, of course.
Personal engagement, you bet.
Financial support for aid organizations, all the way.

And many more moments and variables in which we can play a part for others.

Butterflies and Bullfrogs - Creation, Evolution and Celebration

Sometime in early college, maybe earlier, when I had a chance to think about it, I became an evolutionist, a theistic evolutionist. I believed that God created the world, and gave it life, and its life took off, evolving from one from to another. At every moment, the creative impulse of the Creator was there ... always and forever moving the universe along with love, for billions of years. 

I love this kind of a world - it's big. I mean, really big. And I like big things, loud things, like thunderstorms and diesel locomotives ... and waterfalls and fast cars and airplanes.

My scientist colleagues know that the world, the universe, is really, really big, and I find in their musings something of the greatness of the God in whom I have found myself living all these many years.

For me, there can be no religion that denies the material world, for the material world is of God, a marvelous creation full of wonder and mystery and bewilderment for us, mostly always exceeding our grasp at the moment, and I think it'll be that way for as long as human beings ponder and probe. I think the material world has an infinite dimension to it, and if not infinite, at least really big, big enough to keep us studying for millions of years.

To look at the Grand Canyon or any other structure of the universe and to see the expansive nature of God is great joy for me. It's big in its material form, it's big in its immensity of time; it's just big! And somehow or other, that bigness is God for me. But as big as it is, there's a kindness to it, a gentleness that creates butterflies and bullfrogs, and dancers and poets, and little girls and boys who love Gummy Bears and ice cream.

I know that others see something else, and that's okay ... I'm just glad when anyone sees anything that's great and large and mysterious and wonderful. Who find in the world they see love and passion and justice and mercy. 

For me, I see a great personality, a great love, whatever, at work in the eons, the ages ... and love has left its mark, because love creates life, a myriad of forms, large and small, enduring and momentary, much of it consigned to the mud, compressed over millions of years to be found by us, dug up and put on display in museums.

To affirm this, and celebrate it, is to affirm God, and to celebrate Creation - something really big, big enough to delight us and keep us from getting uppity. 

I'm an evolutionist - makes sense to me and affirms what my scientist friends find in our world, a world trustworthy to the eye and mind and heart, a world that intrigues, but doesn't trick; a world of much mystery, but not unkind deception.

I'm a theistic evolutionist who loves the imagery of Genesis 1 - a God of great order creates a marvelous world full of marvelous forms ... and the imagery of Genesis 2, the God of dirty hands - who takes a little mud and forms a creature and dares to blow God's own breath into it, and it lives - a little bit of mud, and a little bit of God, all wound up together in something quite beautiful, and sometimes downright mean and nasty, too. Our meanness, I don't think is of God, but of our mud trying to hold on to the breath of God, and it's a lot of work, and sometimes the mud gets scared, and angry at other mud flopping around. And yet the breath of God holds on to the mud, too, and keeps pumping breath into it, for another day, another go at it. 

Anyway, that's how it is for me, a theistic evolutionist ...