Shattered Glass

 

On Monday, I pointed out that often our minds love to fill in the gaps in a story.  We all have biases that block us from seeing/hearing/connecting to others.  We tend to see people not as they are, but as we believe them to be.  And sometimes, because they resent and resist such characterizations, the relationship cracks and crumbles.  Why do we do what we do?  Why do we say what we say?  Sometimes we don’t know.  We are all in the middle of a story called “Our Life” that we don’t know how it will end.  As author Margaret Atwood says, when you are in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all.  Just confusion like a glass shattered or wood splintered.  The story starts to take shape as the sharp shards of glass are swept up to see what can be salvaged, or the piece of art begins to emerge from the whittling down of the wood.  It is only when the melody finds harmony or the notes begin to create what is a symphony.  In the messy middle, which is where most of us find ourselves, there isn’t much of a story.  In a world addicted to certainty, confidence, and being correct, this reality rubs our souls raw.   I am not sure what cliffhangers you carry with you today.  It could be medical, as the doctor adjusts your medicine, or you wait for an appointment with your therapist.  It could be spiritual, as you wait for God to send you a neon sign, text message, or wait for the pony express to bring a telegram.  It could be waiting to see if that frozen conflict has any hope of thawing.  Or culturally, as the world waits to see if peace is possible and if humanity can ever stop hurting and harming each other.  We get a glimpse into the lives of Mary and Martha.  We don’t know what happened the day before or year before in their relationship.  But we do know what happened to us last week with our sibling, and so we inject and project that onto the screen of Scripture.  We don’t know what happened last year to that neighbor with that political sign, so we are glad to fill in the gap of our knowledge with certainty that all people who vote that way or go to that church or have that bumper sticker are like that.  We are in the middle of a story, our own as well as our family story and cultural story and our church’s story and the bigger cosmic story of God’s world.  These stories can be in tension with each other, and we are seeing/living through the cracks in the stories colliding right now ~ like eggs dropped on the floor.  May you and I continue to awaken to the truth that we don’t know what we don’t know.  Or I like to say that the older I get the more I don’t know..and I realize/recognize I may never know.  So I sit in the mystery of life that isn’t a puzzle to be solved but a way to be in the world here and now with love that truly makes a family.  Amen.

A Both/And System

 

Yesterday, we dipped our pinkie toe into the waters of Family Systems Theory, founded by Dr. Murray Bowen.  There is no way I can do justice to all the key concepts/components of this theory.  Basically, it boils down to systems don’t like to change, and under stress/strain some systems would rather implode than evolve.  The famous example from churches is contemporary worship.  Oh, people have opinions about that!  I remember watching the video about Family Systems Theory on this topic where people on the Church Council called each other to rally people to “their” side, hence triangulating and creating an “us-versus-them” culture.  People talked about each other rather than to one another.  People tried to pull rank, “My family founded this church…” as though they were the CEO of this particular Christian franchise location.  All because of the music played?  Of course, you have a preference, but is the church only about meeting your needs?  This is the pitfall of our modern-day consumer Christianity.  Remember, change always makes the system feel threatened.  This can be because of fear, or they just prefer organ and wonder why someone would rather worship God with a guitar and piano?  We all define and defend our perspectives.  Martha had a value of being a good host.  In Jesus' day, hospitality and spirituality were so tightly intertwined that you didn’t know where one began and the other ended.  To be a bad host was the worst insult you could throw at someone.  So, please give Martha a break, because she is trying, maybe even exhausted, to uphold a tradition that is built and baked into the system ~ she felt it all on her shoulders.  Maybe you feel that way trying to prepare the “perfect” holiday dinner or shopping for gifts or planning a vacation.  When and where do you wear Martha’s sandals of feeling judged by others based on your performance?  Oh, that one feels close to home! 

 

Mary might value connection and relationship, which is also important in Jesus’ day.  What happens when two important values collide and conflict?  Well, we gotta choose; ain’t enough room in this town for both of ‘em…or so the system would have you think.  To be sure, life is a series of choices.  But the deeper truth is that we can highlight hospitality at some times, and other times need to embody and embrace relationships.  Sometimes you can’t have it all, do it all, be all to all people.  Martha and Mary had a choice.  It is unfortunate in our compartmentalized, prioritizing, moralizing that we think there is only one message here.  Namely, we should all be Marys.  But…just before this tale of two sisters and family systems was the parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells us that hospitality, especially to the stranger, is vital.  Wait, now I am confused.  Am I supposed to help others, like the Samaritan or sit at Jesus’ feet?  Should I be about action or contemplation, because chapter 10 of Luke seems to contradict itself?  “Make it plain,” my soul shouts.  And the gospel says subversively, “Yes”.  Martha/Good Samaritan hospitality matters.  Mary contemplation/quietness matters.  Both matter.  We are complex, contradictory people.  We can be both Martha and Mary without rating and ranking, without saying one is better.  Systems need space to breathe and be, evolve and expand, and sometimes contradict and confine.  This is what it means to be alive.  Ponder today the ways you can be trapped and tripped up in either/or thinking when the world is so much more than a multiple-choice test for which you are receiving a grade.  Because God’s grace says it isn’t about the right answers, but rather faithfulness that is responsive and awake to what God is up to, from the roads of Jericho to the home of two sisters where faith takes different shapes and shades.  Amen.

Sensing the Systems

 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:38-42

 

It is interesting to me how many conclusions and convictions we can arrive at from reading just a few verses of scripture.  Our minds love to fill in the blanks with all sorts of delicious details. For example, I can be lured to believe that Martha is the type A, driven, and 8 on the Enneagram (people who want to prove their strength and resist weakness, dominate the environment, and stay in control).   While Mary is quieter and more contemplative, glad to be reading books or singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”  Do we really know this?  We get one glimpse of Martha and Mary’s complex, contradictory lives, and we think we’ve got them all figured out.  We do this not only with scripture, but sadly, with each other.  We meet someone with a bumper sticker on the back of their truck for a particular candidate, and suddenly we know their whole life story.  Or we bump into someone at a health food store buying matcha, and suddenly we have compartmentalized and condensed their whole story.  After all, how well do we really know ourselves?  How often do I say to myself, “Why did you do that, bonehead?!?”  (I often talk to myself in ways I would never talk to someone else).  Because we compartmentalize someone, we tend to put them in a box, assign them a role in the play we are producing ~ where we are the star of the show, and force that person to stay in their lane/stick to their knitting.  God forbid that someone try to change, even though we are constantly changing physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.  This isn’t new.  Dr. Murray Bowen noticed this years ago when he was a doctor in a psychiatric hospital.  He noticed when families would come to visit on weekends, how the patients would change in response to their moms and dads…suddenly taking the role their parents wanted them to take.  We all want to belong, but because we are not sure we will truly be accepted or that we are truly wanted, we tend to settle for fitting in.  Bowen said that family systems will do anything to keep homeostasis.  We will bully, triangulate (that is, talk about someone to a third person rather than talk directly to the person ~ church parking lots are famous breeding grounds for this behavior), shame, or blame someone ~ raining guilt down until they are saturated and soaked into submission.  And systems that are unhealthy don’t easily change; we know this socially in our economy and politics, but also in our churches that would rather go along to get along than risk trying something new.  Rewind and review your life so far this year.  Have you triangulated?  I have.  Have you sometimes stopped listening to someone because you think you know what they are going to say?  I have.  Do you sometimes resist change, or have you said, “Oh, we already tried that!”  Or “That will never work here”?  I have.  This week, let's explore the systems that shape us, stop us, and other times confine and contain us in ways we may not even realize but spend a lot of calories resisting.  May the reflections on our one, wild, and precious life (thank you for that beautiful phrase, Mary Oliver) be shown in all its perplexity and complexity and three-dimensional nature that is true not only for us, but for others, especially Martha and Mary.

Slow Down

 

God of endless choices, sometimes our lives feel as overwhelming as trying to navigate the cereal aisle at the store.  Good lord, do I need over a hundred boxes for breakfast?  Sometimes, O God, I can make all choices feel like life-or-death decisions.  What if I write an awful morning meditation that doesn’t get “enough” likes?  What if I lose my temper and say something I instantly regret?  What if I falter as a husband and father and pastor?  We live in a world of false urgency with everyone wanting to play the part of “Mordecai” in the stage production of our life.  Good Lord, help!  Help me name and notice which decisions are important and which ones I have surrounded with anxiety and false pressure.  Help me name and notice why some decisions feel bigger because they impact others more than myself.  Help me quiet the voices that shout at me that I have to act now or else.  Amid a world that spins faster than the tilt-a-whirl at the State Fair, God, slow me down to Your pace.  Grant me Your spaciousness.  Be with me in the moments when I am exhausted, overwhelmed, and underslept because my problems keep waking me up at 3 a.m. to chat.  God, You are here in such a time as this.  I am here.  We are here together.  Help me see that others are also in this space, that there are caring people like Mordecai who truly desire to share Your unconditional and unceasing love.  Let me rest in a promise and pace that is guided by You. Remind me that wherever I go, whatever I do, and whoever I am, Your love and grace will not let me know.  May I breathe in this truth now and in the days to come, for such a time as this.  Amen.  

Breathe

 

So far this week, we have considered the false and true Mordecai in our lives.  Those who want to force a choice now and demand a donation, and those who join us in the messiness of choices without trying to fix/save/advise us.  We listed the decisions we are facing personally, religiously, politically, communally, and relationally.  We have named and noticed our list of pros and cons.  And we’ve realized that the choices we make have ripple effects on others.  Hopefully you see why choices have a weightiness.   In such a time as this, we can feel overwhelmed by all that we are facing.  Perhaps we empathize with Esther because we feel like we have the whole world on our shoulders.  So today, I want to invite you to breathe.  Remember that the false urgency of a Mordecai today wants you to decide right now or you will miss your moment.  But, in the spaciousness of God, there is always a pause.  Or as Viktor E. Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  I would add to that that in that space is a Sacredness of God seeking for us to pay attention to the One paying attention to us.  It helps to breathe.  I invite you to get out your decision list and breathe.  Invite God to sit within you in that space.  Listen for God.  And I pray if you need a Mordecai to help you listen to your life, I am also glad to be present with you in those spaces and places we find ourselves at such a time as this.

 

Here is a wonderful breath prayer by Rev. Sarah Bessey:

Inhale: I invite the practice of

Exhale: peace and faithfulness.

Ripple

 

Yesterday, I said that a true Mordecai in our life won’t make up false urgency to decide right now.  Yes, some decisions are time-limited.  But many of the decisions we face in such a time as this have a spaciousness for us to breathe, ponder, pray, and listen to God, others, and ourselves ~ that last part of listening to your life is vital.  A true Mordecai’s doesn’t reduce decisions or give me advice, but joins me in the messy middle and the squeeze between the rock and hard place.  Yesterday, I invited you to listen to the decision you are facing personally.  This could be medically or vocationally or volunteering, or which issues you are called to offer your life to or where you want to live.  Some of these decisions are thrust upon you, not of your own choosing.  The decisions we face rest not only in our one wild and precious life but can have ripple effects and ramifications on those we care about.  If I decide that I really want to become a clown in the circus, that is going to impact Gina.  Decisions can have relational ripple effects and religious effects.  How we see God matters here.  Is God a judge waiting and watching for your decision to render a verdict on your life?  Or is God the caring, compassionate one sitting with you and reminding you that you are beloved, whether you go left or right or stay put or dig deeper?  Finally, some of our decisions impact our community and country.  This is true of voting.  This is true of what we post online.  This is true of how we speak outside our homes.  Today, ponder the decisions you are facing, and ask if there are others who this choice will impact.  Esther’s choice impacted a whole group of Jewish people.  Most of my decisions rarely mean life or death for others or myself, even when it feels that way.  From yesterday on that page with pros and cons or if you made a decision tree, name and notice others who might be impacted by what you are facing.  Sometimes the pressure we feel is because there are people quietly and silently on the margins of the page who we haven’t noticed, but our hearts know our choice will effect and affect.  Hold this truth alongside God, who is there with you in the rock and hard place moments we all are wedged and wiggling our way through in such a time as this.  Amen.

False Mordecai

 

Yesterday, we played with the idea that lots of people want to wear Mordecai’s sandals in our lives.  There are lots of people who want to fix, advise, save you, tell you what to do, how to do it, when and where you should show up, and to act now or you will fail!  And these messages tell us, send $50 now to support the cause, because don’t you care?!?  False Mordecai’s come to us as marketing schemes and fundraising demands.  False Mordecai comes to us wearing masks of urgency and pulling the strings of compassion.  False Mordecai comes to us through social media platforms or 24-hour news cycles or political machinery.  How do we know when our still-speaking God is showing up wearing the skin-suit of another?  How do we tell a true Mordecai from a false?  First, pause.  Breathe.  False Mordecai, like all salespeople, operates with made-up urgency.  You must act now!  Unless someone is dangling from a ledge or playing out in the street with a speeding car zooming down the road, chances are you can breathe…even walk away… to tell the “Mordecai” that we want to pray on it, rather than be preyed upon.  Second, pray.  Listen for God.  Several weeks ago, when we read 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talked about the spiritual gift of discernment.  Discernment is a wonderful dance between the individual and collective.  One form of discernment is to use the tool of listing the pros and cons.  For Esther, the pro of speaking up was saving her people, including Mordecai, who was her adoptive father.  The con was that she was risking her life from a King who had already banished one wife.  The pro was she could make a difference.  The con was that there were no guarantees of success.  Do you see that this was not a slam-dunk decision?  Oftentimes, A False Mordecai preys upon the idea that their way is the only way and that other ways will make you less of a person.  Ultimately, Esther needed to consider the consequences.  She could hold onto her life and possibly watch her people endure the heartbreak and soul ache of genocide, or she could risk her life for the sake of others.  Finally, let me be clear that even though my mind wants to make so many life-or-death decisions, rarely do I wear Esther’s sandals.  Yet, A False Mordecai makes it seem that if I don’t do this now, donate now, act now, I will be seen as less than and a failure.  Today, I invite you to ponder prayerfully the decisions you are facing.  Write them down.  You may make a list of pros and cons.  Or you can Google how to make a decision tree.  After you put down your thoughts, listen for God’s guidance.  And there is a third step.  Find a trusted friend.  A true Mordecai in our life will sit with us in the rock and hard place moments, not telling us what to do or trying to advise/fix/save us…they will help you listen to your life and how God is seeking to show up.  Tomorrow, we will ponder the true Mordecai in our life, but for now.  Name and notice the decisions you are facing personally, religiously, relationally, and as part of wider communities/groups/country/world/cosmos.  Amen.