Embracing the Uncertainty of It All

 

As turkeys began to thaw in the refrigerator readying themselves for the oven, sweet potatoes wait patiently on your counter, and pumpkin pies anticipate hugging and holding a dollop of whipped cream on Thursday, preparations and expectations are underway as we begin the week of Thanksgiving.  Years ago, a popular phrase was turning thanksgiving into thanks-living or having an attitude of gratitude.  The sentiment was that Thanksgiving is more than a day. This is not an original thought of recent positive psychology.  Psalm 118 says, “Give thanks to God for God is good, God’s love endures forever.”  This invitation to praise and thanksgiving to God ever living is woven throughout the Hebrew hymnal.  Psalm 7:17, “I will give God thanks…and sing praise to God.”  Psalm 28:7, “God is my strength and shield, in God my heart trusts”.  Psalm 69:30, “I will praise the name of God with song and magnify (amplify or bring to life) God with thanksgiving.”  Woven into our faith is an invitation to praise God from whom all blessings flow.  This thanksgiving is not Pollyanna, it isn’t sticking your head in the sand while the world burns or rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic sinks.  In our dualistic, either/or thinking of Enlightenment; we believe that we have to choose between life being awful and rotten and completely broken OR thriving and breaking growth barriers right and left to live our best life ever.  Holding the #2 pencil of life, we think, “Welp, it’s gotta be one of those.”  In the beautiful complexity and perplexity of life, it is actually C…all the above.  Yes, our hearts break and souls ache with the headlines we consume (and consume us, perhaps leaving us feeling powerless) every day.  Yes, the people I pray for who suffer and struggle in mind, body, spirit, and are afflicted by the pain of people through discrimination, those who live paycheck to paycheck or go hungry or suffer abuse ~ this prayer list is long.  And yes, God is still at work in this world, just as God was in the beginning over the sloshing and stirring chaos that created waves of seasickness.  God is still calling forth light and darkness; creation to thrive and humans to tend (to own our responsibility and accountability of the great commandment to love God with our whole self and love our neighbor as ourselves). 

At this point you maybe thinking, “Goodness, Wes, can we just talk about how your parents used the screened in back porch to cool/store the pumpkin pies growing up.”  (True story by the way.)  What I want to invite you into this week is the continued movement of what Brian McLaren describes and defines as simplicity to complexity to perplexity to harmony.  This a pattern our life repeats and replays.  Simplicity is where the world makes complete sense, there are rules and regulations and rituals that you follow.  One plus one equals two and we seek (even cling) that there must be a rational and reasonable explanation for everything and that everything happens for a reason.  In complexity, we pay attention to limitations and the places where things don’t make linear or logical sense.  There are problems we can’t solve quickly or easily.  Life is messy and no amount of Mr. Clean products will help.  In perplexity, we pay attention to God's elusiveness.   We may feel alone or abandoned in this season, or in a fog.  We cry out with the psalmist about feeling forsaken (Psalm 22).  And in harmony, we hold all that is in its beautiful messiness with curiosity amid the contradictions.  Which season do you find yourself in this week?  Or maybe there are places in your life that are in each of the four states/seasons above.  Hold this with God as we open our hearts to God’s presence that awakens joy and dance in the perplexity and complexity and contradictions of life.  May this truth be encountered and experienced and expressed this week.  Alleluia and Amen.