Charlie Brown’s team is behind 98-0, and he is standing on the pitcher’s mound, talking to himself: “Boy, I must be stupid to stand out here and take a beating like this! The other team is laughing at me; my own team hates me; I’m a lousy pitcher; my stomach hurts. I don’t know why I play this game. I must be really stupid!”
Lucy comes over to console him: “Charlie Brown, you can’t go on like this. You’ve got to change your attitude! The years are going by, and you’re not enjoying life at all! Just remember, Charlie Brown, that the moments you spend out here on this pitcher’s mound are moments to be treasured! We’re not going to be kids forever, Charlie Brown, so treasure these moments!”
Then Charlie Brown, with determination on his face, tugs at the bill of his cap, rears back, and fires a pitch toward the plate. The batter swings and rips a scorching line-drive back through the pitcher’s box, knocking Charlie Brown off the mound. His cap goes one direction; his glove goes another. Knocked right out of his shoes and socks, he lands flat on his back. Lying there, Charlie Brown studies the situation and says: “This is a difficult moment to treasure!”
Charlie Brown expresses what we all have experienced sometime in our life, maybe many times, —that many moments in life are “difficult to treasure.” Life can be painful, and no one is exempt from the pain. And when those times come – times of such pain and anguish that they grab our hearts and squeeze them until we want to cry out or break down in tears, we are confronted with the question of faith. Do I have a faith that will sustain me? Do I have a faith that sees beyond the pain and sorrow and darkness into the light?
To have this kind of persevering faith is something that needs to be nurtured long before the storms come. It doesn’t just come. That is at the heart of the spiritual journey and why we are called to give attention to the spiritual life. In our spiritual journey, we are creating the resources that will enable us to not just cope with the daily stresses and strains and challenges of life and the potentially life-crushing moments, but will also help us to live abundantly. We can admire Charlie Brown’s persistence, but we need more than persistence, we need persevering faith. And so the question is: Am I/are you developing that faith? The care of the soul is a life-long process. Is it important to you? Do you spend time working on it? And if we are, even in those moments that we feel overwhelmed or feel completely inadequate to face the challenges, we will find that God gives us the resources to cope and even grow.
Flora Slosson Wuellner, in an article entitled “When the Stars Begin to Fall”, reminds us that “The moment of our greatest fear, the moment when the ground shakes beneath our feet, is the very moment of God’s deepest presence and power within us. It is the moment of our new beginning.” But we might not recognize that presence and the giving of that power if we haven’t been seeking to walk with God in the sunshine and the daily routines of life. One of the things that prayer does is give us perspective and awareness.
Let me invite you to take some time to stop and reflect on your faith journey. Are you building up the spiritual resources you will need when the storms come? Would you be able to recognize God’s presence and power in the dark night of your fear or when your foundations begin to shake?
Prayer: Dear God, like Charlie Brown, we all face moments that are hard to treasure. In fact, there are some things that we encounter in life that scare us, cripple us, and leave us dazed and confused. We ask that you will help us to cultivate that depth of relationship with you that not only lives gratefully in the sunshine, but can also recognize your presence and power in the darkness. We are weak people and we know that left to ourselves, that even in spite of our courage and persistence, we will fail. We thank you that you are always present and that your grace undergirds all of life. Help us to grow in the awareness of that gift so that at all times and in all places and in all circumstances we may experience its life-enabling power. Amen.
