A while back, I was feeling a little bit green about my lifestyle ( or really, I should say green about other’s lifestyles). Admitting that feeling is very embarrassing because saying it makes it seems as if I really have it tough when in reality my life is pretty charmed. Oh sure. I have had situations of grief, disappointment, and pain but overall the beauty and blessings of this life overshadow any trouble.

This green mode mostly happens with the comparison game. You know how it is played- you hear or see someone else’s things, lifestyle, attitude and you think, “They have it all together. No problems. They seem so…. (fill in the blank) chic, put-together, stylish, successful…” And so, the ugly green monster (not Fenway Park) of envy emerges.

The thing is 1) Everyone has stuff, junk or another four-letter word that starts with “s”. No one is exempt. 2) People that seem to “have it together” are folks that either: a) good at their own “press” b) have a neat accent so when describing what they are doing, it seems cool c) Don’t care a rip what anyone else thinks. They have a certain cavalier attitude. Confidence.

Life is quite wonderful. Our respective lives are wonderful. I realize that I have all that I need and want. The things that I get annoyed or frustrated about are just that- annoyances. They too shall pass.

In our small group we just finished discussing Ephesians, a book of the New Testament. The apostle Paul gives some good advice regarding how one should live one’s life: how to avoid certain emotions and behaviors and how to embrace others. One such emotion is covetousness or jealousy. As was explained in one of the commentaries- covetousness, the jealous longing for someone else’s possession is a form of idolatry. One becomes obsessed with obtaining that object or at least very annoyed and angry that one doesn’t have it. As an emotion it becomes obsessive and can be quite negative and ugly.

How true is that? I know that I must not be the only one that in seeing someone with a certain item, I think I wish I had one. (If it weren’t true then the billions of dollars spent on endorsements and advertisements would be for naught.) I then will search high and low for said similar item. So much unproductive wasted time and energy.

To counter that emotion, one needs to practice thanksgiving. Or in our modern day parlance- gratitude. Years before it has become the psychological thing, Paul, the former Jewish teacher/ Christian missionary was reminding people to do so. It is again the reminder to focus on what one has and not on what one doesn’t. When one is thankful, one can see all the blessings. In a sense, seeing one’s blessings, begets seeing another, and so on and so on…

What about you? Has the green monster ever reared its ugly head? What prompted it to do so? How did you (or did you) combat it?

Thanksgiving. Gratitude. It is such a simple thing yet it so difficult to do on a daily basis. We can become so bombarded with being green that we forget that there are other beautiful colors around.

Flashes of light in my periphery. Blurry streaks in my field of vision. Black squares traveling up from the bottom of my eyesight.

Nope. Not the screen of a horror movie but the state of my vision in my left eye the last couple of days.

So this morning was a flurry of activity**: phoning physicians, stating and restating the onset of symptoms, filling out paperwork and forms, waiting in a retina specialists office, having my eyes dilating, filmed, poked and prodded. All for the explanation that a woman of a certain age doesn’t want to hear- “It’s because of your age!”

Turns out that I have posterior vitreous detachment (PVD). At this point we are in a watch and come back mode. Supposedly 85% of the cases resolve on its own and the symptoms won’t occur again in that eye. My other eye most likely will also go through the same type of thing. I still have questions for the doctor when I go back in a couple of weeks but for now there is nothing I can do but just be alert to the signs and symptoms if my eyesight gets worse.

It makes me think of warning signs for any situation.

Do we heed them? Or do we ignore? I heeded this warning from my eyes, but I certainly didn’t heed my body’s warning signs about my carpal tunnel and consequently had to have surgery to correct it. I still have some difficulty in my wrists and I will never know if that is due to my decision in lack of immediate attention to be treated, the surgery itself or something else?

I know of folks who, for whatever reason though most likely fear that the situation was irreversible, have ignored warning signs about their health. In most of those cases, a simple preventative or early check-up would’ve reversed the process. By ignoring the issue, the situation did become what they feared.

What about warning signs in our society? Are there attitudes, policies or decisions that we make that reflect what we value? Is it how we treat the most vulnerable? The weak, disenfranchised, or poor? Those who have no voice?

Pearl S. Buck once wrote, “Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”

Hubert Humphrey said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

Matthew Rycroft, UK Ambassador to UN said, "How a society treats its most vulnerable is always the measure of its humanity.”

Nelson Mandela, “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”

Ideologically we may agree with these lofty quotes but do we heed the warning signs? When we do not value the young, the old, the sick, the needy, the handicapped, the lowest citizens? Just like I had to be evaluated with the warning signs about my eyes, I think we as a nation are in the evaluation time about our diagnosis and our future. We have a say in how we want to be governed, what we think is important and what our country means and stands for in this world.

Not only are there signs of warning but there can be signs of “all clear”: signs that things are progressing in a positive direction. I have a friend being treated for cancer. She is hopeful that very soon she will receive the “all clear”- that the treatments have worked and that the cancer cells have been eliminated from her body. Her signs of “all clear” come through her blood work. If she and her doctor ignore that and continue with her treatment, she might receive unnecessary and potentially harmful doses of chemotherapy.

Outside our kitchen door, I have a collection of herbs growing in window boxes. A couple of weeks ago, we saw the signs of a nest being built among the rosemary. At first I thought that some leaves and twigs had blown and were caught in the stems of the plants. Then we heard and saw the little wren hopping along the deck railing, looking left and right before it entered into the cover of the rosemary. We knew that those quick little builders had made a nest and that I would have to watch how I watered the window box for fear of frightening the parents away or drowning the little peeps. I had to heed the signs for the birds and when I see the “all clear” of an empty nest and “littered” deck floor- (or the “poop” deck as we might have to call it) we will know that they have fledged and I can go back to tending my herbs.

We can have positive signs in our lives. Signs that things are going well and that life is good. Sometimes we miss those too because they might be harder to detect. Warning signs have to be glaring and painful to get our attention. Good, “all clear” signs might be more subtle: still small whispers of encouragement, tiny drops of blessings, moments of peace and contentment. It is just as important to notice them. They provide the balance in our lives.

What about you? What are the warning signs in your life? “All clear” signs? Signs that alert you to danger? Or signs of God’s goodness and blessing? Are you heeding those signs? Or ignoring them through ignorance or ingratitude?

The Apostle Paul reminds us to “Give thanks in all circumstances.” (I Thessalonians 5: 18). Having a posture of thanksgiving and gratitude are two ways that I can tackle whatever signs I see.

** I apologize for this post being late. I had another post I was working on yesterday which I will post at a later date.

It's not easy being green...

Ignoring the Signs