The Comma

Yikes!  That useful and evocative word is on a coffee mug of mine, one that I got at Magic Mountain, the amusement park north of Los Angeles where I took my San Jose church youth group once on our way to a mission trip to Mexico.   On the mug, in addition to the “Yikes,” is the face of a cartoon figure, upside down and moving fast, strapped in to a roller coaster (Magic Mountain is famous for them).  I bought the mug because it perfectly conveyed how I sometimes felt about youth ministry, and all ministry now that I think of it, and as a matter of fact, it captures how I often feel about life. 

I have been drinking out of that mug a lot lately.

The “yikes” (yikeses?) I’m feeling about life range from ongoing little farm tasks that still aren’t done, all the way to generalized anxiety about the state of the world.  The “yikes” I’m feeling about the blog, of course, is that I haven’t posted anything in three weeks.  So here I am, Thursday morning, starting over once again. 

It’s ironic (and isn’t it always?) that this Sunday I am preaching on the question, “How do you decide what is the right thing to do?”  It’s actually been interesting for me to think about this sermon topic.  And the most fun I have had with this is that a few weeks back I sent out a text message to a bunch of friends and family, asking them if they would help me out with this sermon by answering that question from their own perspective.  Every person I asked said “yes,” which is interesting in and of itself.  And beyond that, the responses themselves have been fascinating.  If you want to know more about those, you can find the sermon on line at the church website next week.

But here is what I am realizing as I write this sermon (and as I am living my life): it is one thing to know what the right thing to do is, and it is another thing entirely to actually do the right thing.  The blog is a simple and pretty inconsequential example.  I want to post every week.  I intend to post every week.   And because I said I would do it, it seems like the “right” thing to do.   But still, here I am, with three weeks between me and my last post.  Yikes. 

The real ethics, of course, are much more complex and much more significant.  I know that living in a sustainable way is the right thing to do. And yet, my lifestyle is not a sustainable one.   I know that working for justice for all in our world is the right thing to do.  And yet, I am often content to settle for my own comfort, and the comfort of my own community.  I know that peace is the only hope for the future of humanity.  And yet . . . .  YIKES!

So I am concluding that any complete ethical system has to take into account the “yikes” factor.  And thus has to also take into account the “starting over” factor.   I’m not sure exactly how to articulate it, but I need a grace that helps me move forward and not get stuck in my “yikes.”  Maybe I should get a mug with a very humble cartoon character on it, no longer zooming along upside down, but taking a step forward, as if it were the very first step taken, and that says underneath, “Beginning again.”