"Disappointments that Make Life Great"

Here is the dilemma. We have this life, which is as limitless in its opportunities as it is mysterious in its purposes. There is a lot that we don't know. But we put one foot in front of the other, and life unfolds.

Some of it we can plan, but most of it is unpredictable. We gather up the joys and the pleasures, along with everything else that turns out the way we hoped - sometimes, even better. And we conclude that this is the way life should be.

Except that it isn't. None of us - none of us - lives life exactly the way we think it should be. We may be happy enough, content enough, grateful enough, but that doesn't mean we haven't had our share of disappointment. It starts early. Perhaps that elementary school election doesn't turn out as we hoped, or we don't get into the college we wanted, or the person we asked for a date just wants to be friends. Or worse. Perhaps a parent dies suddenly, or we find ourselves spending our high school years fighting cancer. Or we end up marrying just as we hoped, only to find ourselves divorced just when we most feared being alone. The dreary list could go on and on.

The dilemma before us is not how to live free of disappointment. It is how to live well despite it. This life we have - in all its possibility and mystery - is too precious not to live as fully as we possibly can. But that is not always so easy to do.

This dilemma is the domain of religious wisdom, which seeks to console the disappointed with assurances of various kinds. If you live a good life, whatever its sorrows and trials, you will be rewarded later - in heaven, possibly, or in a more advantageous rebirth. Just keep the faith. These teachings have never offered much consolation to me, however. Perhaps I just can't see far enough ahead. What I need - and what I see a lot of people around me need - is the ability to live with disappointment here and now.

Most of us lack the temperament to do this naturally. What is required is some spiritual discipline to see us through the rockier developments. It helps many people to believe that everything happens for a reason. Whatever it is, however horrible it may be, there is sure to be some great lesson at the end that makes it all worthwhile. I wish I could believe that, but I don't.

Another belief that helps many people is that we are only given as much as we can handle. That would be a comfort if I could believe it is true. Unfortunately I have known people who are trying to handle more than anyone should have to. Whoever was passing out the trouble had a poorly developed sense of fairness.

I'm a hard case. I've had my share of good and bad experiences in life and I've learned from them, but I can't accept that they were meant to be. Things happen; we learn - or we don't learn; somehow we work these experiences into lessons or stories that mean something to us. These meanings remain subjective and personal, which is good enough for me. They don't have to have cosmic significance. All they really need to do is to keep us from getting bitter when we get old. And this means a whole lot.

The writer Anne Lamott, whose work I read earlier in the service, is more of a believer than I am. In her narrative about buying the used car, being so happy with it, then being so let down by it, she turns quite naturally to her faith to help her to cope. When she is overwhelmed by people honking and swearing at her while her car is stalled at an intersection, she turns to prayer. "I don't believe in God as an old man in the clouds," she writes. "But I do believe that God is with us even when we're at our craziest and that this goodness guides us, provides, protects, even in traffic." Some kindly people do step forward to help, the car gets fixed, and Anne Lamott can't help but wonder what it all means.

The meaning reveals itself to her a few days later. Back in the car and on the road to see her dying friend, she opens herself to the poignancy of the moment and the purpose of her visit. As it turns out, her timing is perfect. She is able to keep her friend company as she dies.

"Now." Anne Lamott writes. "Maybe you think it is arrogant or self-centered or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I'll never know for sure."

Something started out as an aggravation and disappointment. But woven into the fabric of Anne Lamott's life, it transformed itself into a moment of grace. Anne Lamott sees the hand of God in such experiences.

I'm not sure I see the hand of God, but I see something else I like. I see a person who is willing to wait long enough for life itself to hand her what she needs to move on. Disappointed she is - for a while. But she remains open to what happens next - the appearance of helpful mechanics who don't rip her off, a change in schedule that turns out for the best; she stays in the present; she looks outside herself; she feels grateful for what is good.

These are the spiritual skills we need to deal with disappointments every day of our lives. A broken car isn't much in the big scheme of things, but the life lessons are big. Don't stay stuck with the car - or the disappointment. There is always something you can do; always another way to look at what is happening to you.

Our children's story this morning deals with a much more serious disappointment. A king has no children. His sorrow is unending. A wise old woman comes to him and tells him that he will have a child if he does just one thing: give the people clean water. He does as he is asked. One thing leads to another. The wise woman asks the king to provide adequate land for his people, and to make peace with his neighbors. And he does. But still there is no child.

The king's disappointment alternates with sorrow and rage. He is ready to vent it on the old woman, when she shows him what he has actually done with his life. He has brought health, wealth, and the security of peace to his people. Through acts of loving kindness, the old woman reminds him, he will be "the father of and remembered by all the children of this land." What had been a bitter disappointment, fueling his rage and threatening those who could not satisfy him, turns out to be an act of beneficence, a legacy worthy of any king, with or without an heir.

The king had no special spiritual skills, though he had a wise old woman to help him. What he also had was the patience and the imagination to learn from what his life had given him. Much had been withheld, it is true - the love of a child of his own; but much had also been given. If he had killed the old woman or refused to listen to her advice, he would have grown old and bitter, thinking only of what he didn't have. Instead he grew old and wiser, having done what he could with the life that he had.

We cannot compare the greatness of the life that the king actually had with the greatness of the life he had wanted. There is value in every life, however it turns out; as there is also disappointment. What makes a life great, however, is the ability to live with disappointment and not let it stop us from living as fully as every one of us can do.

It is a simple lesson. It is not so easy to practice. Every day of our lives we face disappointments great and small, our plans diverted, new challenges presented. What will you do, what will I do, with the time ahead? Will we let our sadness turn to bitterness, refusing to see what we might have done? Or will we stay alive to the possibility and the mystery, growing old and yet more open to all that life can be?

That is the choice we make every day. It gets easier with practice. You can start anywhere and anytime. Just think of how many different ways life still can be great.

You are living one of them right now.