The “but” changes everything.

Mar 11, 2013 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality

With an hour’s drive ahead I pulled up Google on my iPhone – on the hunt for a scintillating audio to keep me company.

You might find it hard to believe, but I typed “Walter Brueggemann sermons” into my search bar. An Old Testament scholar extraordinaire, Brueggemann offers brilliant and innovative insight into ancient texts that continues to dazzle me. This was no exception.

He told the story of a young woman who attends his church, bound to a wheelchair, unable to speak, fed through a tube, and completely dependent upon caregivers. He pondered what she must think about on Sunday mornings. Week after week of sermons, liturgy, and ritual – none of which she can talk about or participate in, at least as others around her do. In this context, he then read Psalm 31: 9-15,
positioning her as the psalmist.

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and body with grief.
My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.
Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors
and an object of dread to my closest friend —
those who see me on the street flee from me.
I am forgotten as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery.
For I hear many whispering,
“Terror on every side!”
They conspire against me
and plot to take my life.

I can imagine Brueggemann is right: this must be how this young woman feels so much of the time. And though I don’t begin to understand her plight, I know my own version of these emotions. So do you. Different circumstances, but no less acute, our complaints are allowed and legitimate.

This psalm reminds us that it is normal and even acceptable to articulate such a dirge; to express exactly how we sometimes feel – to a god of our own understanding who can handle it. Indeed, in the face of such injustice and ache, the divine is often the only one who can handle it – and us – raw honesty, complete candor, no holding back.

This, in and of itself, was worth the sermon and the drive. But Brueggemann continued, turning the corner in the psalm and drawing his listeners attention to the “disruptive conjunction” that occurs after the litany of frustration, fear, pain, and emotion; one small word that changes everything:

But…

But I trust in you, Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hands…

Yes, there is much that threatens to destroy, but…
Yes, there is injustice, but…
Yes, there is heartbreak, but…
Yes, there is misunderstanding, but…
Yes, there is sickness and sorrow and sadness, but…
Yes, there is anxiety and worry, but…
But…my times are in your hands.

This is what changes the psalmist’s perspective. This is what changes our perspective – about ourselves, about those around us, about our world. Not a dismissal or diminishment of any or all that threatens to overwhelm; certainly not a dismissal or diminishment of a young woman’s wheelchair-bound existence. But one simple conjunctive that disrupts lament with something else; someOne else.

The but changes everything.

Is it that simple? Does just saying it make it so? Is it true even if belief is less than rock-solid? Is it enough to repeat the words like mantra without the accompanying feelings?

I do not know. Here is what I do know:

I’d rather cling to even the most doubt-laden and insincere repetition of that but…than to let go of faith and trust.

To hope-to-believe that my times are in the divine’s hands (and my ever-changing definition/experience of such) changes how I act, how I choose, how I behave, how I love, how I live. And that is enough. At least for today.

The last verse of Psalm 31 says this:

Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in God.

No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it: may it be so.

 

Being Certain about Uncertainty

Feb 20, 2013 | Spirituality

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death. ~ Mary Jean Irion, from Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation

I am certain these words were written for me. I need their deep-breath-ness: when desire seems foolish, far away, and graspy; when not being sure is both ghost and muse.

I am certain these words are the only ones I can offer others when deep breaths are needed but hard to come by: when blows, disappointments, and heartaches buffet; when not being sure seems the only dependable thing.

And though I am loathe to admit it, these words remind me that not being sure is the only way to experience faith, hold on to hope, and believe in love. I’m certain of it.

None of this is pretty, or easy, or even sane. But then, few things of deepest passion and lasting value ever are.

*****

I type these words praying they are true; that the hard things of life – in mine and others’ – are the very things that invite the certainty of faith’s reward. I’m not sure . . .

And maybe that’s the key. Letting go. Loosening my grip. Deep breaths. Allowing uncertainty and un-sure-ness to carry rather than bearing the intolerable burden of demanding answers or assurance.

*****

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions,  then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.

Pregnancy. Infertility. Faith.

Jan 17, 2013 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

The Ending:
One day, out of the blue, unexpected, unanticipated, unbelievable, I was pregnant. And again, 15 months later. Emma is now 16, Abby 14. They are miracles.

The Beginning:
I was 31 years old when I got married. Behind the power curve (in my insular opinion) where such a significant life-marker was concerned. Children were up next (and fast) on my make-up-for-lost-time agenda. There would be no leisurely year of nuptial bliss before we began the process of trying to get pregnant. The clock was ticking. There was no time to waste – or for which to wait. I was in hot pursuit.

The Middle:
After a year of trying with no success, the fertility consultations and moderate treatments began. By year two, we’d moved to more intensive, invasive testing. And with still no success or answers that satisfied, in-vitro was the next-recommended attempt. Once. Twice. Nothing. And then I couldn’t bear any more. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of trying. I was tired of hoping. So I stopped. No more treatment. No more planning. Little-to-no conversation. Time for life to move on.

It did, of course. And it didn’t.

In the nearly-three years that followed, no matter how I tried to ignore my longings, those emotions would not be aborted. No matter how I tried to put on a spiritual happy face and quote Romans 8:28 (And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
God…), I raged inside. No matter how I tried to tell myself that God had other plans for me, that my life would have other “births,” that my world would be rich in unimaginable ways, I was miserable.

But not for lack of trying to summon up any other emotion, any other perspective, any other experience. I tried to pray. I tried to be patient. I tried to let go. I tried to trust. I tried to have faith, thinking that would make sense of things, but every effort was impotent and infertile.

Oh, how I wish I could say that my (im)patient waiting, hoping, and tenacious trust resulted in a profoundly dynamic spiritual life; a seismic and never-to-be-questioned-again faith. Even more, how I wish that I could say to others who struggle with such intolerable heartache that “just having faith” will, indeed and ultimately, engender and enable a hope in God that comforts and sustains.

I cannot. I will not.

I grew up believing that faith was something I needed to (and could, with enough work) attain. It was a developed skill, a worthy goal, a near-requirement for the believer in God. I also grew up believing in some kind of Divine barter system: if only I could have what I wanted, what I desired, what I fervently prayed for, then I would have faith. I ask. God comes through. My faith exponentially grows.

I am still growing, but here is what I believe now: Faith is not ours to work toward, aspire to, or command at will. It will not appear at our beck-and-call.

Faith grows in chasms of doubt. It is nurtured in the darkness of pain. It slowly, silently, almost imperceptibly multiplies in long, wide, and deep spaces of waiting, of questioning, of aching, of asking.

Faith is not a sense-making activity, quality, or attribute. It is a crazy, defiant, and nearly certifiable choice – made an infinite number of times within one day, one life, one heart. It does not come in miracles and breakthroughs, but in the pregnant spaces of life that are more-often filled with desolation than hope. Still, an occasional tinge of awareness that something is growing and will be birthed, but a complete and helpless inability to will it to arrive any sooner. It is a mysterious, un-navigable, impossible-to-(pre)determine journey.

Faith is much like pregnancy: experience more than event. And faith is much like infertility: despairing, but waiting-hoping-trusting anyway.

Faith is living one day after the next. One foot in front of the other. One wish-and-a-prayer that is too-often dashed, but whispered yet again. One broken heart that somehow mends and loves again. One longing for success that decries a dwindling bank account. One more blog post when creativity wanes. One more load of laundry. One more commute. One more prayer. One more push.

Faith is not the ending of the story, nor is it the beginning. It is the way in which we be; the way in which we live in the middle.

Naturally, the gift of my two daughters – then and now – nearly takes my breath away. Naturally, I am deeply grateful to God for their presence in my life. But I have learned that faith that spikes in such places rarely sticks. The faith that stays – and sustains – is that which is nurtured in the well-worn path of worry, the sleepless nights, the inconsolable heartache, the insatiable desires. In between the lines. In
the middle.

I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. ― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith 

Choosing the Storm

Mar 6, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

I’ve been thinking a lot about how strong my proclivity is for calm; for a life that is tame, sedate, and predictable. 

Somehow, I’ve gotten the notion into my head that surely God’s desire for me would be a life of comfort and ease. God’s protection and promised presence would surely look like secure relationships, finances, profession, retirement, future…

I’m aware that at least in part, this incessant and often subconscious demand has come about by growing up and living in Western theology and culture that tells me I not only can, but deserve to have it all and that this is what God wants for me too. Even though I know that this is a lie, it’s hard to shake. I find myself asking questions like, “Can’t things just be easy?” “Can’t my life go the way I want it to?” “Why does life often feel like such a struggle?” 

And then I begin to wonder: if God were to answer these questions the way I want (translate: by granting me a perfect, conflict-free life) who would that god be? Surely not the God I know from Scripture. 

Who is that God? 

It’s the God who sleeps in the storm: 

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were lled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41) 

This is not a tame, sedate, predictable story. This is not a tame, sedate, predictable God. And the natural question to follow: Why would I anticipate my life to be such if this is the God with whom I’m in relationship? 

I’ll admit it: I’m somewhat afraid to let this narrative (and nearly every other one found in the pages of the Bible) define my God or shape my life. If I chose to reflect on, believe in, and live by this image of God – a God who was nonplussed in a treacherous storm – who might I become? That potential – to be like that God – dangerous, risky, not afraid – is more than I often want to imagine or bear…but not in the ways you might think. 

The following two quotes speak beautifully to what it might be like, at least in part, to let the images and stories of scripture define my God…define my life: 

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. (Don Miguel Ruiz) 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Marianne Williamson) 

Ultimately, the disciples’ fear is not about either death or being inadequate. The disciples’ fear is over what to do with a God who can sleep through such a storm, who can choose to calm it, who has dangerous, unquenchable, beyond-imagining power. Who might they become if they really understood, believed in, and followed this guy? 

And like the disciples, our fear is not really over what might happen to us, what might overtake us, what storms might bluster and blow. Our fear is of who we might actually be if we believed in this God of Mark 4, this God of the Bible. Our fear is that we might actually have to let the wind blow; that we might just have to let go of our incessant demand for a life of ease – and the all-too-familiar comfort of doubting God’s faithfulness when things don’t go our way (or God seems to be asleep). We might actually have to get wet! 

I think, maybe, that’s what I want… 

Maybe – by Mary Oliver 

Sweet Jesus, talking 
his melancholy madness, 
stood up in the boat 
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry. 
So everybody was saved 
that night. 

But you know how it is 
when something 
different crosses 
the threshold—the uncles 
mutter together, 
the women walk away, 
the younger brother begins 
to sharpen his knife. 

Nobody knows what the soul is. 
It comes and goes 
Like wind over the water— 
Sometimes, for days, 
you don’t think of it. 

Maybe, after the sermon, 
after the multitude was fed, 
one or two of them felt 
the soul slip forth 
like a tremor of pure sunlight 
before exhaustion, 
that wants to swallow everything, 
gripped their bones and left them 
miserable and sleepy, 
as they are now, forgetting 
how the wind tore at the sails 
before he rose and talked to it— 
tender and luminous and demanding 
as he always was— 
a thousand times more frightening 
than the killer sea. 

No, I’m certain of it: this is the God I want to follow – tender, luminous and demanding, a thousand times more frightening than the killer sea. 

This is the God I want to reflect. This is the life I want to live: choosing the storm.