The Right Choice is Yours to Make

Since it was “beginning to look a lot like Christmas” already about a month ago–or was it October– it’s not so easy to feel the full force of the crescendo now, especially when we have compelling reasons to pay attention to other, dare I say bigger issues, such as protests over police killings around the nation and the racial divide that stubbornly persists in this country.

I’m going to leave that important topic to others, however, and present to you another kind of divide, lighter in tone but still causing a slight seizing of the spirit, that I find articulated with surprising frequency around the state of New Hampshire.

It is, for lack of a better name, the admonition to “Do this or do that.” And, all things not being equal, the second choice is really not desirable and you’d really better make that first choice work.

In Massachusetts, at least in the Five College area where I last lived, we were all about inclusiveness, do as you please, express your truest self, just let it all hang out.

Here, in certain situations anyway, there are apparently some edges to be maintained.

The most recognizable example of this is the slogan on our license plates. There I am, just going about my business around town doing errands, maybe even feeling a little jauntiness because in fact I will be ready for Christmas (no, actually not true), and I stop at a light and see this on the car ahead: “Live Free or Die.” During that period of time when I am still adjusting to the novelty of this ubiquitous slogan, I might think to myself, “Am I in fact living free? Do I need to pack it in?”

Talk about jamming a lot of possible meanings into several short words…wow, Emily Dickinson couldn’t have done it better. The line has its origin in the Revolutionary War, and certainly does have a heroic ring to it; I can almost hear those patriots’ drums going tap-a-tap-tap. On the other hand, do we really need to think about paying the ultimate price for our principles on a daily basis? That’s tiring.

The fact of the matter is, of course, all of us may try to do our reasonable best to “live free,” but we will all die anyway. So the choice is really not what it purports to be. Cheerful thought, huh?

When I’m not in my car but out on the many glorious trails we have around here, I can be faced with another message presenting a stark choice:

“Stay On Trail Or Stay Home.” Now I understand the reason for this, sure, and know that it’s meant mostly for the snowmobilers who are about to come roaring through. However, especially when I’m feeling a little dip in my self-confidence, I might tend to focus on the second part of the statement more than the first…and then the sign seems about as warm as, “Surrender, Dorothy!” Would just “Please Stay on Trail” not have enough oomph? Is it the balanced two sides of the message that is most compelling? Do we need to get a whiff of “do-this-or-else” to ensure compliance?

Pondering these two examples, I find myself now imagining more possibilities that could soon appear. So far, “Ski Like a Bandit Or Don’t Clog the Lift Line” is my favorite, followed by “Be Rugged Here Or Go Back to Boston.” Take your pick or, better yet, send me your contribution in a comment.

I know that many people, millions probably, all over the world read the Bible on a daily basis and then apply what they find to their regular lives.  As I’m a pastor’s wife with no previous grounding in religion but eager to learn some of the elements, I do the opposite: experience something interesting, then seek a Bible passage–often with a tip from my husband–that might in some way correspond to whatever it is I’ve experienced.  Maybe this is backwards, but it’s my strategy and I’m sticking to it.  As my mother used to say, “We all have our little ways.”

So it was that my pondering about stark choices led me deep in Deuteronomy , when Moses is handing down the Law to the Israelites. This, as you may well know, is not a time for messing around with what is right and what is wrong. It’s worth quoting what’s often known as the “Exhortation to Choose Life” at some length:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding, you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways and observing his commandments, decrees and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish…you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings andcurses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…(Deuteronomy 30:15-19).

The italics there are mine, showing that Moses must not have lived in New Hampshire, because he opts for “and” instead of “or” even when he’s presenting a choice between tremendously different behaviors, arguably a more important choice even than whether to stay on the trail or not.

Anyway, have a lovely holiday season. There’s really no good alternative, is there?