Do you WANT to be made well?

As we wake up to the news that a country music star has taken her life, this question seems all the more relevant.  Of course, it is a personal question.  Do YOU, do I want to be made well?  The want is the crux of the question.  Many times I find I want change, but I want someone else to do the hard work of enacting it.  I want balance, but I find it hard to say no, to cultivate sacred space where the balance may be found.  I want healing, but don't want to have to change to realize it.

When we are asked a question like this, it seems that we immediately focus on ourselves, somewhat negatively.  And, there is no doubt the element of self-appraisal.  Do we enjoy our sickness?  Do we revel in the attention, the familiarity, the contours of our excuses?  No doubt I can answer, yes, in many respects.  Do I want healing enough to focus not on what I can do of my own volition, but to trust in God's ability to sustain, renew, restore?  Beyond the self-appraisal there is more.  Am I willing to let go long enough for God to reach me?  Am I willing to follow in to uncharted territory?  Is there something beyond my failures?

In Baptism we proclaim that we are a "new creation in Christ."  It is easy to tap the hope when we see a young child emerging from the waters of Baptism.  Is it as easy for an adult who has history, has consequences, has a network that may be toxic, even deadly?  How does that new creation thrive in such?

Like those who employ a twelve-step model to beat their addiction, there is a sense in which we must "fake it until we make it."  No one finds immediate new life, immediate change, immediate balance, immediate wholeness.  It takes time, one day at a time, as they say.  Sometimes I think we must live into the promise, the hope, even when we do not feel it.  Then, every so subtly, a new reality creeps in and becomes more authentic.

Psychological gurus claim that it takes anywhere from 10-30 days to form a new "habit."  What new habit might I form in the 40 days of Lent?  How might that habit change the questions I tend to ask that lead nowhere?   Instead of asking "why...why me...why this?" maybe I can ask "help me Lord, in whatever way you see fit."  Can I surrender the why questions for a trust in grace?  Is this where healing, wholeness, and balance is found?  Today I will concentrate on what needs to be changed in me rather than what needs to be changed in the world.

Do YOU wish to GO away?

Some days the answers is "yes."  I do not wish to go away from God, but sometimes from myself and the incessant pull to do things "my way."  I can imagine standing there when Jesus uttered this question.  Many quietly took steps backward, arms folded, head shaking, sideward glances, and they slipped away.

Jesus asks us to do things we've likely never done:  forgive lavishly, accept, engaged the wholly/holy other, die to self, and give freely.  Yet, we live in a world that prizes success, measurements and competition, high places on the totem pole, and exclusionary relationships.  It is no wonder that the early cultures had no other term for "Christians" than "Followers of The Way."  They were different, they stood out, they defined new measurements of justice, charity, and fellowship.

What did I learn from my experiences of being lost?  I learned that we tend to beat ourselves up for being lost, experiencing lostness, and that mires us even further.  I learned that sometimes the fork in the road does not render any clues or clarity, that there is no road sign.  Sometimes it is hard to answer "where do you want to go?"  I learned that beyond my choice of which path to take, God is still there.  It is not always an either/or proposition as I once thought.  I learned that lostness sometimes is necessary to relinquishing the illusory sense of control or mastery.  After all, I had to be lost in order to be found.

What holds me back from following?  What keeps me from being a true disciple of "The Way?"  My self, my wants, and my illusions.  The moment I oblige pity, anger, regret, false hope, and comfort; the moment I forget that the Cross is at the end of this path, I have joined the ranks of those who slip back and who slip away from Jesus command.

In order to follow, I don't need to ask any questions, don't need to pack extraordinary provisions, I only need to keep it simple.  I tap into the freedom, the abandon, the trust, and the adventure, all of it.  Then and only then can I join the transfiguration witness:  how good, Lord, it is to be here.

WHAT can you GIVE in return for your LIFE?

I'm not sure how to answer this question.  Of course, at first glance, I can give nothing for a life that is gift in the first place.  But, I struggle to embody life as gift.  So, my next thought is that I can give myself, poured out in service to others.  In that, I can find meaning and significance.  But, there is the ongoing existential struggle between living in giftedness/significance and mere survival.

I have always been drawn to Thoreau's thoughts on this matter.  My experience is that most people do indeed live lives of quiet desperation.  It is cloaked for most as the pursuit of success.  As Bob Moorehead wisely tells: We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things. We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.

 If I oscillate between survival and significance, what must I give up to live fully into a life of significance?  For me the answer lies in giving up people pleasing (and a false sense of success) to be true to self and God.  I find this increasingly difficult in a culture that has abandoned character in favor of personality.  As I started reading on yesterday the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a Word that Can't Stop Talking, the author describes: "In the culture of character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable.  What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private."  

This rings true to me. In the current culture of personality, the characteristics that are valued are the "personas" we can create/forge/fake based on newly prescribed ideals: magnetism/gregariousness, outward appearance, and popularity.  For those drawn to the inner life this becomes problematic and leads to despairing.  As someone told me recently, "you belong to another era" because I do indeed crave a return to a culture of character rather than personality.

If I base my significance in the belief that God has knit me for a particular vocation in this life, then it is easier to pursue that calling with honesty and disciplined virtue and to forget about personality or popularity.  The irony is that such a dedication requires ultimately that I transcend myself, lose myself, and become free in an identity that is not wholly mine.  I do believe that desperation can be sidestepped in this emptying, what scripture calls kenosis.

As an introvert, my dreams generally center upon getting away from so-called civilization and living much like Thoreau.  I joke with friends and family about my tiny house dream:

The challenge, aside from running away to a remote location to find God in nature, is how I find significant living right here, right now, with the people and places God has put in my path.  How might I become the person God created me to be?

Today, I will seek that song that is still inside, beyond the desperation and exasperation.  I will run in the sun, read in the sun, spend time with God and my loved ones.  I will find my identity in breath and in song, repentance and release.

WHO touched me?

Who touched me?  It is a powerful question in scripture.  The unclean, outcast, worn down, sick and tired of being sick and tired woman touched the hem of Jesus' garment.  She had courage, she was bold, and she believed.  I find that rather amazing given her condition of twelve long years.  I admit that I am short of perseverance in the face of illness.  How did she ever muster the ongoing energy to be faithful, to be hopeful, to keep on keeping on?

Many of us at some time or another have found ourselves as outsiders in a family or community, or maybe we are outsiders to ourselves these days.  Many of us may long to know what it feels like to find our way back, or to hear the invitation that Jesus offers us, to return and be restored. 

Some of us may have had the experience of slipping alongside a crowd, hoping not to be noticed, and yet hoping to be noticed, hoping for some way in.  It seems significant that no one notices the woman on the edge of the crowd, at least no one except Jesus. 

That tells us something about the people God notices in our own time and place. God is still speaking to us today, calling us to participate in the mental and spiritual healing of others and the bringing back of those who are beyond our borders and boundaries.

The still-speaking God keeps challenging my comfort zones, those areas of protection and comfort, of assumptions and privilege and invades my so called "sacred space" when it has become nothing more than a private comfort zone and a barrier to keep others out.

Perhaps God wants me to see that I can only be a wounded healer if I help others to acknowledge how wounded and scarred we all are in this our human relationship.  This is a reality, a daily dynamic that plays out in the life of a congregation in less than wholesome ways.  We forget that we are all wounded healers, dealing with life in a myriad of ways, and we fail to cut each other the grace, the slack when it is needed.  



If I am honest, I am that woman, I am that desperate, I am reaching out just to touch the hem of his garment.  
Will my faith make me whole?  
Or, more aptly, will Jesus' ability to heal make me whole in this search?

On this I shall lean: The Lord will sustain us on our sick beds, our wanderings in the wilderness, in the dark moments as well as in the light.

What are you looking for? The Journey Begins....

I think this is a very good question to begin with.  There is a temptation for Ash Wednesday and even Lent to be another gimmick, another feel good exercise (though traditionally deprivation doesn't feel good, eh?).  Sadly, we have a way of seeking quick fixes that revolve around shortcuts.  

There are no shortcuts in this next forty days.  There are no easy answers, no quick fixes.  What am I looking for?  Balance.  It is a small word with grandiose meaning.  What would it mean for my life to be more balanced between the spiritual and physical?  The outward and the inward?  The joyful and the sorrowful?  Quiet solitude and noise?  Listening and speaking?

What are you looking for?  Are you willing to share?  Dare we walk this walk together?  

In a world filled with clutter, noise, and hustle, Lent is a good excuse to step back and rethink how we think and live.  In a world of instant gratification, it’s a chance to practice delayed gratification – to fast — so that we can truly appreciate the blessings we have.  In a world where virtual friends are replacing real ones, it is an invitation to spend time with real people again.

It’s an opportunity to give up something that is sucking the life out of us so that we can be filled with God, with life, and with love again.

Welcome!  This blog is open to anyone who would like to journey and participate in our 40 day Lenten Journey guided by the book, Beyond Question by Pastor Eric Burtness.  I will post daily following the book and its meditations and ask that you join me in sharing your reflections and insights.