Uncontrollable? We've got a five step plan for that!

 

There are four dimensions of controllability, according to Rosa.  These four are: making “it” visible (whatever “it” is that feels uneasy or makes you queasy, or when life leaves you wheezy, or you think this sentence is cheesy).  After we make the uncertainty visible, we define and describe (which is to control and confine).  Third, we make it reachable and accessible.  Our culture loves to give you a five-step plan to reach your goal.  Once something is attained or achieved, we enter step four of managing it.  Books start to be mass-produced and marketed, “experts” develop, and consultants come in to “help”.  Finally, we want “it” to be useful for our own advancement, even if it is at the expense of someone else.  The four steps of making it visible, defining/confining the uncertainty, developing a plan to turn our vulnerability into controllability, once we attain or achieve the idea that we have “it” all in order, we manage it with puffed-out chests.

 

Because we have accepted this framework as what is normal, the next logical/linear step is to believe the world is controllable.  If we just follow the above four steps, we are infallible and in charge.  And if you fail, falter, find yourself on a cross because you dared show an uncontrollable, unconditional, unceasing love of God that doesn’t play by rules ~ welp, that’s on you.  And moreover, we will turn the tragedy into a triumph in our theology and say that God was paying a debt, so you’d better show some appreciation and pray this prayer so your soul can get to heaven.  Again, my shy soul is shuddering at that last sentence.  But it reminds us how we have turned the uncontrollable into a process for people to get their golden ticket into heaven. 

 

The truth is, Hartmut Rosa tells us, if the world is uncontrollable, our first response is anxiety.  We know that mental health is now receiving more and more focus because our bodies, minds, and souls are stuck between a world that preaches and teaches and markets to us controllability and a world that won’t bend to our will.  We all have a low-grade fever from ungrieved ache of losses that have piled up in our souls.  This is the week to be honest and heartfelt about the humanness.  This is a week where our brokenness may not find instant blessedness.  Hold this today.  Pray for your uncertainties, your questions, and what is stirring in you on this day of our Holy Week pilgrimage.  Amen.