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I have always been a highly disciplined person. This has been unfortunate from so many angles. It has made me arrogant and judgmental towards those with less “will-power” or commitment. It has made me focus excessively on behavior and choice and see them as the foundations for goodness rather than its fruit. It has made me self-abusive, both in driving myself past any reasonable limits, resulting in self harm, and in condemning myself for my shortcomings (because of the unbridgeable gap between highly disciplined and perfectly disciplined). Like all coping mechanisms, it played to my natural strengths and inclinations and offered me protection from the fears that snarled and snapped inside, but like a protection racket it kept me permanently bound to those same fears.
So here is the wretched conundrum of every coping mechanism: the very thing that protects us blocks us from a real resolution. We cannot give up suddenly and entirely on our coping mechanisms or we will be unable to cope, trampled by our fears and dragged away from the grace that comes to save us. Except for miracles–and by definition those happen rarely–we must grow into grace, beginning with small steps. We speak of a “leap of faith,” but that is best seen as a change in direction rather than a sudden and complete transformation of our psyche. We make a deliberate commitment to a new vision, a new allegiance, a new God of grace instead of the old god of legalism, but learning to live out that commitment is a long, slow process, full of missteps, confusion, and doubt–ask any newlyweds… or oldy-weds. Trust is a tree that matures from a sapling, not a full-grown log dropped at our feet.
Coping mechanisms are both necessary and limiting, helpful and ensnaring. They cannot be shaken off in one go, cold-turkey, like one might give up alcohol or drugs, because they sustain us in a vital way. The struggle for health is more aptly compared to an eating disorder, since we all must eat daily, so the solution cannot lie in abandonment (which seems much simpler and easier to me), but in rehabilitation. That is, I cannot simply chuck discipline, since some discipline is necessary for life and growth. I can certainly moderate self-discipline, but that does not resolve the root of the problem, which is not the amount of the discipline, but its role and purpose. “Why?” is the all important question to snag our inner gremlins. “Why is self-discipline so important to me?” Because it is the gauge by which I measure my worth, it is my source of validation. As long as I do the right thing, I think, I am in good standing with God… which is the quintessence of legalism.
I’ve been at this for years, rethinking my knee-jerk criticisms of the “lazy and irresponsible” and trying to be a little more “lazy and irresponsible” myself as a means of practicing grace towards others and myself. I’ve worked hard for over a decade to recognize my real reasons for doing good and avoiding evil and to realign those with the gracious God I serve. I’ve been focused on this, disciplined. Oh, snap! Yes, it’s true, I can even drive myself to grace or shame my lack of it, trying to force grace to grow but ending up frustrated and impatient, which helps neither me nor my relationships. Old habits die hard, and often rise up in new guises. But I recognize it, take apart my viewpoint and reorganize it. Wash, rinse, repeat. By God’s grace I am not who I once was, and by God’s grace I will not be who I am now.
Good Friday was the triumph of grace over law. Law was unmasked, over-ruled, dethroned. Forgiveness triumphed over judgment, love and mercy over just desserts. Do your worst to God, torture and kill his own son, and he will love you still, he will reach out to you, offer you a way out of your lostness, bitterness, hatred, and misery. God will never stop loving you with all his heart… or your neighbor… or your enemy, which is the hard part for us. He does not love us more than them… he does not even see them as more wicked and deserving of damnation than he sees us. That is the tough news of grace–it embraces everyone or it succumbs to the law, loses its whole nature of undeserved love. Once any small degree of deserving enters, grace disappears. The amazing, wonderful news is that grace is not partial, it covers every evil we have done or will do without flinching. No act, no person is beyond its reach… which is also the hard news. It means the world is not divided between a good us and a bad them. There is no them, just us fallen human beings. We’re all in this together, broken and in desperate need of grace.
But the tough news is the good news, because we finally have a solution to our fractured and destructive relationships. Our resolution to the anger, hatred and aggression of others is not to overpower it with our own righteous judgment and coercive power–for when we try to stand on our own righteousness, we ultimately judge ourselves. The law condemns all equally. The only resolution to hatred, whether self-directed or other-directed, is more love. In other words the true solution, the only solution, the only possible way out of our lostness, is grace. And that grace is ultimately, finally, completely poured out in the life and death of God’s only Son. Grace has come and triumphed over all, breathing life into death, flashing hope into despair, filling our crushed hearts with love unconquerable.
Obituaries bring out the best in people, both the writers and the subjects. Hearing a genuine and discerning appreciation of someone, even someone I don’t know, draws my soul down into grace. It breaks through the clouds of an otherwise mean and turbulent world to shine down kindness and love and acceptance, reminding me that deep goodness still threads its way between hearts that open to it. When I hear it, I want to be part of that spirit of generosity, to appreciate the good in others without restraint or caveat. So those eulogies not only bring out the best in writer and subject, but in listeners as well, a spreading contagion of grace.
But I am reluctant to make any commitments (like “memorial Mondays”) because I am a master at turning opportunity into burden, love into law. Grace which is forced is just legalism in a tux trying to push its way into the party–it looks good till it takes over and puts all the guests in straight-jackets. So it is just a hope that I can share some stories of folks, dead or alive, who have blessed me. I’d love for readers to share stories of their own here as well, a column of living obituaries. There is a lot of good out there for us to notice and appreciate.
So, yes, I did sort of blandly confess yesterday that my life is a useless dead-end. If my dispassion came from fatalism or apathy, it would likely be a sign of spiritual stagnation, but instead, my sharing it with such ease and openness (not stuffed with caveats or apologies or explanations) is a very real sign of spiritual growth for me. It has taken years for me to slowly come out of the closet as a failure, a nobody, and grow into the faith that God is in control and loves me with an unfettered grace. He is famous for using asses (both the donkey variety and the human kind) to accomplish good on this earth, even those totally resistant to his purposes, like Jonah at Ninevah and Peter with the Ethiopian eunuch, so he can surely use someone like me who, though deeply flawed, is eager to be his instrument.
I no longer cower under the withering suspicion that my flaws keep me on the bench, but It is not easy to feel useless, to feel as though my gifts fall to the ground like rotting apples in a starving country. It requires faith and patience in the mystery of God’s will and work in the world. I’m getting better at that… I have to get better at it because the longer I live, the more clearly I see the wreckage around me. As I told Kimberly yesterday, this wretched world gives no rational proof of a good God. The balance sheets of justice (let alone beauty and goodness) cannot be reconciled on earth. As Paul said, “If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.” Forget the world around me, the world inside my chest is so slow in growing towards God that death will catch me long before I’ve lived into half the truth I’ve come to see.
God has a lot of explaining to do to justify his creating this muck-up since he knew the disaster that would come, but I expect one glimpse of his beauty will obliterate all our questions and doubts and captivate our hearts. Until then, we live by faith in a beauty we cannot see, in a grace we cannot well absorb, and in a love that guides us through the dark and home to his heart. May we all find our way by grace and en-courage one another with compassion.
Patience was a virtue before the industrial revolution, but we’ve developed beyond that to aim rather for efficiency. Waiting is passe. In the old days we had to gather wood and build a fire to boil water, but then we invented electric stoves, followed by microwaves, and now (since we can’t wait 90 seconds) we have steaming water on tap. We’ve discovered that frustration breeds progress–impatience is the new virtue. All the important people are doing it. I know I felt important–and righteous–when I was hurrying to do God’s work, but I think I missed a turn somewhere, because I seem to be stuck in the slow lane in God’s Kingdom… although, since I’m not even inching forward, maybe I’m in the back parking lot.
As I shared in my last post, I have never been good at waiting. When God scheduled practice sessions, I played hooky, so I finally got sent to Waiting Boot Camp where I’ve been for a long time now because, apparently, I’m a slow learner. How ironic. Waiting well is an art, and no one advances in it without first understanding its value. What good does waiting offer? Let me start by pointing out problems that come from not waiting.
First of all, there is the bad alternative solution, the shortcut that ends in a mess (ask Abraham about Hagar). If the best solution requires more time, then every quicker solution is going to be defective. It turns out that God’s not in a rush because he has all the time in the world (literally), and he’s savvy to the best rhythm. being both the composer and conductor of the symphony we call history. In fact he IS the rhythm of history, so it’s kind of important that we get in sync with him. The point is to experience the music, not get to the end as quickly as possible. To play his music well, we must be as faithful to the musical rest as to the beat. Timing is fundamental, good waiting is as crucial as good working.
Second, there is our own arrested development, the shortchanging of our own experience and growth, missing what God wishes to do in us and for us by having us wait. When God has us wait, it is always for our benefit, never for our deprivation. God does not have to bilk us in order to bless others, because his resources are limitless. His one unwavering motivation for delay is expressed in his Son: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” We cheat ourselves when we rush ahead because our growth and fulness depend as much on our stillness as on our striving. The first is just as active in shaping and satisfying us as the second.
Finally, there is the impaired relationship, because when two are out of step, their dance suffers. Our motives for pushing ahead of God hurt our bond with him, whether that comes from doubt in his wisdom and love or from being too willful and inattentive or from fear or pride. All of those pull us away from a trusting relationship. The motives erode our connection and then the actions we take widen that fissure. That is to say, capitulating to our fear is relationally harmful, and so are the actions we take in living out that fear. When Abraham bedded Hagar to get a son, he not only side-tracked God’s plan and undercut his own faith, but he also distanced himself from God. He was less able to hear him, to trust him, to receive from him, to delight in his presence.
So failure to wait hurts the objective, the person, and the relationship.
But if you are like me, God doesn’t speak clearly and audibly to give specific directions, so how can we know if we are missing his timing? It is a dance. Dance partners don’t have a running monologue, “Step to your left… step back… on the count of three, dip.” Through a lot of practice and experience they learn to feel one another’s rhythms, patterns, and tells, and it is always more about moving together than getting the steps precise, more about trust and response than about rules and conformity. But if we do not embrace the pause, the waiting, as well as the stride, we will likely miss our partner’s gentle guidance and stumble in the dance. Waiting seems like doing nothing, but it is pregnant with power. Doing and waiting are the inhaling and exhaling of life’s rhythmic progress.
I hate waiting.
I hate it on the telephone, I hate it at the traffic cone;
I hate it at the DMV–I’m what? two hundred eighty three?!
I hate it now, I’ll hate it then. You say I have to wait till WHEN?!
I hate it here, I hate it there; it chafes me like wool underwear.
Waiting is worse than death. When you’re dead you don’t know you’re stuck in the universe’s time-out corner, suffocating on your current meaninglessness, accomplishing squat. Time squandered at least brings pleasure, but time waiting, minute by minute, is a complete loss, like setting fire to money… slowly… one bill at a time. If you tolerate delays, you clearly don’t value time. Unless you have the silly notion that waiting is itself a benefit, which is as crazy as valuing an empty wallet! I’m sure you’ll get a lot of people buying into that motto. What would your bumper sticker say, something cockamamie like “Blessed are the Poor”? Next you’ll tell me that being comfortable with waiting is not a vice of the lazy but a virtue of the wise, and that pre-moderns called it “patience.” Well, patience will get you nowhere, and it will get you there late. If you want results, try yelling.
Is there any benefit to me for being patient, or is it just to benefit God because he’s tired of hearing me whine? Is God losing his cool with me, telling me to shut up, impatiently demanding I be patient? Does calm waiting do more than give me brownie points with God? If virtue is its own reward, what reward does patience give?
For instance, as a hypothetical, suppose there is a lady in front of me in the fast lane at Food Lion and she waits until all her groceries are sacked and each sack placed in her cart before she thinks about her payment. She opens her pocketbook and rummages around, shoving things this way and that until she pulls out one crumpled bill, straightens it out, and hands it to the store clerk. She dives back in looking for another bill. After she passes that over, she re-checks the total on the display, and goes looking for her change purse. There must be a dime in there somewhere, she’s sure of it. A quarter will not do. She pulls each coin out of her purse to get a closer look before putting it back to scrummage for another. Then the receipt must be carefully folded and the right spot found for it in the pocketbook and a place for the pocketbook in the cart. Pretend that my smile slowly turns into a clenched jaw, my friendliness grows sullen, and my thoughts uncharitable. Can waiting really be beneficial? How is postponing good ever a positive? Patience is simply an unwanted chore if I cannot find a reason to value delays. I have some thoughts to share, but you’ll have to wait 😉
My memory is like cellphone reception in the sticks–very iffy. I am a full-spectrum forgetter, from the trivial pen to the crucial time sheet submission, and everything in-between. I’m so good at misplacing things that I’m surprised to find them where they belong–the cupboard is the last place I look for my coffee cup. I have a whole strategy for dealing with my incompetence–jotting myself reminders and propping them in key places (my computer keyboard, my Honda dashboard) or leaning things against the door so I can’t leave without them. I am totally prepped for the onset of Alzheimer’s!
Along with my other inveterate shortcomings, It is my wild forgetfulness that wakens my memory, that keeps me aware of my own inadequacy. Some folks are so successful or competent or busy or distracted that their memory needs to be elbowed into recalling their own failings. They get good grades at work and church and family and pick up extra credit volunteering at the mission downtown. Their lives, unlike mine, constantly point to their virtues and accomplishments, and it is their failings that they forget. They need reminders, blacked out calendar days, time set aside to reflect on the noxious embers that still smolder in their bones. They need Ash Wednesday.
But I need Resurrection Sunday. I live in the ash heap of my own failures, reflecting back on them not for 40 days, but 40 years. I don’t need reminding, I need rescuing. What I need to remember, always remember, is Easter, the joy of forgiveness. My hope cannot be in outgrowing my faults or in forgetting them, but in living my present messy life in the full embrace of God, the God who not only accepts me in spite of my past failures, but also in expectation of my future ones, who is not put off by my need, but is drawn to me because of it. We all fall down, constantly fall down, but may we land in His grace, not in our own self-loathing. And may the ashes on our foreheads be the sign of our mutual poverty as we hold one another’s hands and dance together in the glorious light of His redemptive love.
Assumptions, like fire, are dangerous necessities. I assume the sun will rise, my wife will speak English, my car will start, my office will still be standing, my digestion will work, my dogs will not tear up our furniture, and I will be paid at the end of the month. It’s not possible to live on a contingency basis, always second-guessing, third-guessing, infinity-guessing. I need assumptions, but they can destroy me.
Some false assumptions are self-correcting, whacking me with reality till I admit I’m wrong: if it stinks don’t eat it; get it wet and it will break. But some wrong assumptions are self-perpetuating because they’re in a groove of constant and unchallenged repetition, winning legitimacy by default, like squatter’s rights. These free-loading assumptions can blindside a marriage undetected, and I’ve caught one of the traitors on my own lips: the condemning adverb “just“: “Can’t it just wait till tomorrow?” “I wish you’d just finish it.” “It’s just one phone call!” That 4-letter word assumes that my expectations of Kimberly are simple and easy and so her refusal would be uncaring, irresponsible, or even contemptible. I’m asking so little that denying me is shameful.
But what an arrogant assumption! By what scale can I possibly measure the emotional cost to another person. It seems simple enough–I imagine myself in her position and tally how much it would cost me: a trifling. The obvious failure in this method is that, after walking a mile in her shoes (or rather imagining it), I still end up measuring myself, not her. Every person reacts very differently to a given situation based on their history, perception, experience, energy level, knowledge, calculations, vulnerabilities and strengths (to name only a handful of factors). Guessing how I would respond to a scolding from my boss or my father’s sickness has little to do with how she would respond. In fact, my own responses change from day to day. What is easy or hard for me is no prediction of what is easy or hard for her. I think, “the average person would feel…” but where is this average person, this stereotypical amalgamation of median scores from across the spectrum of society? In fact the “average” person is strikingly unique. My imagination will always fail me. I can only understand her as I hear and accept her self revelations.
Pushing her to ignore her inner voice in order to bend to my will is insensitive, selfish, and destructive, and those hens will come home to roost. That “just” trigger can target me as well. I’m equally vulnerable to the heavy sighs or raised eyebrows or the hundred other ways this attitude can leak out. Kimberly could easily shoot down my failings to meet her expectations… only she doesn’t because she is more understanding and accepting of others’ limitations than I am. She suffers under my judgments without striking back, kind of like Jesus.
“Just do it” is the motto of those who wish to simply override objections rather than understand our hesitations and accommodate our limitations, usually assuming that finishing the job is more important than hearing the heart. But in Jesus’ mind, the person always comes first, the task can wait. Sometimes we must choose to act in spite of conflicted, unresolved, or resistant feelings, but we do so while we acknowledge, validate, and support those feelings, not by belittling and ignoring them. “This is hard, this is really hard, but I am going to do it anyway” is a sentiment that refuses the insinuations of “just.” Such acts are brave and selfless and should be acknowledged as such, they should be admired and appreciated, not dismissed and forgotten. If I could just remember that!
I’m wanting to reach out, share, connect with you tonight, but I have nothing in particular to say. I have stacks of thoughts… quite literally, but none of them inspire me tonight. I feel quiet, ready, in tune, but no thoughts come. Perhaps it is your turn to share with me. Is anything on your heart–any grief or challenge, any joy or hope, any insight or doubt? I welcome with open heart your thoughts.
Sometimes I scribble thoughts as I walk my dogs, juggling pen and paper with two retractable leashes in hand, jerked around by the dogs straining for the next bush. The writing is barely decipherable, and when I get home the little scraps of paper drift around from pocket to desk to bag… or laundry… or trashcan where the burning insight is lost. I’m looking at my pile of scraps now: dentist appointment, a grocery list, a receipt and rebate form, a sticky note with two items scratched through and the third reading, “fix dome light.” My whole life is like that, bits and pieces shuffled around and often dropped or misplaced in spite of my best intentions. I try to keep the most important or urgent things on top of the stack. I lost our backup hard-drive somewhere and having looked everywhere more than once, have presumed it’s gone, along with my electric razor that I haven’t seen in two weeks. I used to be so disciplined, had my life planned out on a grid, kept my ducks marching in step. My life was organized, but my heart was crushed. I’d rather be a mess than a machine. Perhaps one day I will get back enough energy to set my life a little more in step and find enough rhythm to give direction to my confused soul, but for now I just want to learn to be at peace with my own shortcomings, learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
–Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30 from The Message)
Janathan Grace Reflections 