Below you will find the latest letter I sent to the congregation with whom I am serving. For some reason I went a little philosophical with this one. I sure hope it makes sense.
I hear in my writing an invitation to welcome complexity and paradox, in our ongoing process of attending to the stories we tell ourselves even while we hold those stories with openness and wonder. I think I am trying to arouse an even greater imagination for moving toward the real.
I have a growing sense that our physical bodies, in this moment, and in the particular place we are located are wise guides to the real… the true. A vital companion in our process of narrating our experience of the real are the wisdom of scriptures, and articulations of experience by our ancestors. These stories, reflect the best efforts of others to faithfully express their experience of the real, thus they coach us in drafting, and redrafting the stories we live into and live out of. See what you think…
Dear St Luke’s,
Even a cursory consideration of the bigger news events this week underscores the sense that there is so much loss and suffering in our world. We can feel it in our bodies. We can feel it amongst our families, friends, and associates. So much senseless pain. We often feel, and sometimes voice questions of “Why?” Or “Where is God amidst this?” Or we echo the psalmists who cried, “How Long O Lord?”
Yet everywhere we can also see beauty, joy, hope, and love. Even in a natural disaster like Hurricane Ian, the coverage of the event is jam-packed with helpers, (I’m reminded that Fred Rogers’ mother once told him, “When something bad happens, look for the ‘helpers,’ there are always helpers”). Or the forest fires and diminished air quality, which also bring beautiful sunrises and sunsets; jaw droppingly so! Or a global pandemic flips script on everyday life, enabling us to see afresh the courage of health care workers, neighbors bringing groceries to the immune compromised, even while we all grow more adaptable and flexible than we ever knew we could be, and so much more.
For some reason it’s often challenging to simultaneously hold pain and beauty. Suffering is not punishment; joy is not reward, they just are. Both suffering and splendor are part of every life. “Joy and sorrow flow mingled down” the old hymn says.
Most of us lean in one direction or the other. Some among us tend to feel and grieve the suffering, or get angry at the lack of equitable justice; while others among us tend to search out and celebrate the beauty, choosing to focus their energies on what feels hopeful and uplifting. Reminiscent of the age-old glass half-full/glass half-empty dynamic.
In the midst of this dynamic human beings search for meaning, and in the absence of clear meaning people construct narratives that work just well enough for them to go on with life. Sometimes they feel the need to create narratives blaming “them”, or creating a scapegoat upon whom they can heap their pain, fears, or anger. Other times the best they can do is dump it on God, essentially suggesting that God intended to send evil or suffering their way to teach or test. Still other times it feels easiest to turn blame on themselves, fueling the fire of self-loathing that some know so well.
There are many other narratives; humans are surprisingly creative. Sometimes people find it necessary to tell stories that help them avoid responsibility, “What can I do?” “I’m just one person!” or “It’s not my problem.” At times people find it convenient to hold more escapist fantasies inviting them to imagine this life as an unfortunate obstacle they leave behind in the sweet by and by.
We create these and many other stories to help us make sense of our lives. What a gift to be able to do this. We are storied creatures. We tell stories to make sense of reality.
Wisdom invites us to distinguish between the “experience event” from the story we tell about it. Our real experience is never the same as the narrative we construct around it. Rather, our stories point toward reality. We do not put our faith in our stories. In a sense, the ongoing work life is to search for the least inadequate stories in our unending process of opening up the reality of our lived experience. In the midst of this ongoing process of opening up to what is real we gather in faith before the Source.
By faith we believe all that is, is sustained by and finds its source in God. A God who reveals Godself relationally: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Into this world reflective of its relational Creator a rupture of relationship is introduced (evil/sin). A turning away from Divine relationality toward self over other. As an expression of God’s love for all of creation God responds to this rupture by forming a people who would reorder their individual and collective lives after God’s Shalom for all and everything; the reconciliation of all relationships. Ultimately God enters God’s own world. Creator becomes creation. The living Word becomes flesh, flipping the script on all the narratives human beings construct.
Jesus Christ even flipped the scripts of the stories we had told about the Messiah we’d anticipated… power is given away not centralized, captives are set free while enslaving systems of religion, politics, economics, gender dynamics, and social stratification are reimagined through the lens of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
This is the story we gather around. But we do not worship this story, nor our re-telling of it, nor even the way the story is revealed in and through the Bible. Rather by faith we believe these stories faithfully guide us toward what is most real… that there is a Divine being of Holy Love who joins us in our real experience. By faith we believe that these stories point toward a real God. A God who is present. A God who cares. A God weeps with us when we suffer and rejoices with us when delight in beauty. A God who is always with us.
So in the midst of the stories you tell yourself in your quest to foster openness, curiosity, and love in the way of Jesus; take heart. You are not alone! If you see and feel the suffering, or if you see and feel beauty, or if it’s all mingled inside of you. You are part of a faith community that exists to help you hold it all before a God who is, a God who cares, and God who is with us. We need each other to remind one another that God is even greater and even closer than the stories we tell ourselves.
I feel so grateful to be in community with St Luke’s. As a faith community we seem to strive to welcome the fullness of both suffering and beauty as part of life. We seem to embrace each experience of life – joy or sorrow – as our chance to discover and practice God’s grace, and to gather around stories pointing us to the God who is, I love it!
Please remember you are not alone, you belong, and you are loved.
St Luke’s “Our QUest for Faithful Presence”
Peace, dwight
