Resilience

“TIME TO STOP PLAYING GOD,” a very caring friend said to me recently. She was referring to my tendency to confuse resilience with invulnerability. “You need to let some balls drop, and quit being the strong one all the time.” 

Hard words for an oldest child. Hard words for a pastor. Sometimes friends who know us best say just the thing that we need to hear, just the thing that gets past our defenses, just the thing that smacks us in the gut. I was glad she said them to me.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. (Exodus 7:13) When we confuse a desire to be resilient with a desire to be invulnerable, we end up becoming hard-hearted, less human. Ironically, that makes us less resilient, because we are moving away from our essence, from who we are. That makes us icy, repressive, and ultimately oppressive to others.

Resilience grows up around pain. When we experience a trauma, or when we see our children suffering, we may think that pain must be avoided. We try to shelter ourselves and others from it. But denial of pain halts the process of developing true resilience.

You are an enclosed garden. (Song of Songs 4:12) Perhaps we are like a circle of grass, vulnerable yet hardy, as we grow up around our pain.

Help me to be resilient and vulnerable, growing around my deepest pain. Amen. 

Sunset

In Sunset After a Storm on the Coast of Sicily, a lone figure (near the bottom middle) wearily pulls a group of people ashore in a boat. As indicated by the waves on the left, they must have been through a harrowing and exhausting journey, narrowly escaping with their lives. The shore looks equally inhospitable: have they survived one trial only to be put through another?

Yet the figures’ dire circumstance is not what you see first. Even though darkness surrounds the figures, it is offset by the more powerful and captivating light of the sun. The clouds seem to be clearing. Night approaches, but the yellow glow is there, indicating hope in the hearts of the people.

If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. To you darkness and light are one. (Psalm 139:11-12) A very hard thing for us western Christians to understand. Darkness and light are one. I find it comforting, because it means to me that the evil and good that I have done, and that have been done to me, are all of one whole. All part of a unity of the plan, purpose, and being of God.

Where do I look back and see the unity of dark and light, good and bad, in my life? How might this vision bring me wholeness? 

Be with me in the sunset, O Lord, as I move through the dark and the light. Amen.  

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As I approach my last Sunday as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Morris Plains, I reflect on the many memories of people serving God together. So much of the journey has been about developing more awareness. Of ourselves as a congregation, of the needs and challenges of ministry in the 21st century, and ultimately, of God's presence and activity in our lives.

This devotional—Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello—is a new discovery for me. I will be keeping it close for awhile. I just got through reading a section on why, in pursuit of awareness, you cannot make demands. "Someday you will understand that simply by awareness you have already attained what you were pushing yourself toward."

I am aware to very great and deep extent that I contributed to a culture early in my tenure here, and which I never quite managed to escape, of demands and counter demands, of pushing zealously toward goals rather than meeting life with acceptance and grace.

I am grateful to God and to the congregation that despite this, we were given the gift of many fruitful ministries, many great conversations about God's work, and many times of active service together. We grew together, in our understanding of who we are before God and in recognizing our calling as his created people. As the church moves into its new chapter, I now believe it has a bright hope, as the painting suggests, of a good and fortuitous dawn. 

Qian

Surely one of the most sublime and powerful gifts of being human is the power to create. To initiate, to bring into existence that which was not there before, is a power vested in humankind to a much greater degree than any other in nature.

When we offer our own vitality in the service of initiating, we give away our own being. The ancient Chinese had a word for this heavenly energy: Qian. The ideogram (word-picture) for Qian depicts a sun on the left side, with a plant sprouting above it and another taking root below. On the right are the sun’s rays spreading out from the center. Qian means the creative, initiating power of heaven.

Qian is also depicted by three solid lines, often seen on flags and emblems. A Christian might see in the three lines another expression of the sublime: the Trinity. Creation of the truly new comes from convergence and community. Not two sides, not two persons, but three.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19) Jesus instructed his followers to initiate in the name of Three, especially when performing that rite of initiation called baptism. We see the power of Qian whenever there is a confluence of minds (at least three!) that results in new action. Where do I see this initiating power currently at work?

Help us to create and initiate, O Trinity, with the same mind as Heaven. Amen.

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I have found the I Ching a helpful devotional as well as a deeply profound guide for faith. The concepts in it are mirrored in the Bible, but find different expression here. The visual explanations of the Chinese ideograms in this particular edition by Alfred Huang are vivid and accessible. Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding more about Taoism, eastern thought, comparative religion, or simply dealing with the confusions and changes of daily life.