Fear #2

see September 25, 2008 (Fear #1)

Flu pandemics, global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, cancer, heart disease, economic downturn, unemployment, institutional collapse, terrorism, crime, violence, family breakdown – sometimes it is scary to look out the front door.

Henny-Pennies abound. There is no shortage of doomsday prognosticators determined that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” There always seems to be good cause for fear.

But the sky has always been falling. I cannot think of a time in my life when someone has not pointed a crooked finger at the dark clouds threatening on the horizon and predicted impending doom. If the solution to fear is to organize the circumstances of life to run smoothly, there is little hope we will ever find peace.

Most fear does not emerge from difficult circumstances. Fear is a trick of the mind. It is entirely possible to lie secure in bed, healthy, well fed, with money in the bank, food in the fridge, and a loving family sleeping quietly in the house, and yet find your heart racing in a panic of terror at some imagined threat lurking at the edge of your mind.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we let fear stalk our nights and threaten our days?

Fear is an addiction. Like all addictions, fear is an antidote to boredom and emptiness. Fear creates a powerful adrenalin rush of intensity. Fear is what we do when we are unwilling to sit quietly and peacefully with our lives as they are.

The writer of I John says, “perfect love casts out fear.” (I John 4:18) The antidote to fear is love.

The problem with fear is that fear produces fear. Actions that spring from fear seldom produce the freedom that is the essential ground for the emergence of love. Fear creates a small world in which we erect walls and build barriers to keep ourselves safe. The more we entertain fear, the smaller our world becomes; the less we are able to open to the expansiveness of love.

The problem with love is that, in spite of what Hollywood would have us believe, love does not come with world-class fire works choreographed to a dolby surround sound symphony.

Love comes softly; the word Jesus used is “secret.” “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6) Love is gentle, calm and quiet. It is not given to the splash and dazzle we find so compelling. If we are to let go of fear and find love, we must accept the dull routines of daily commitment. We must listen deeply to our lives as they come to us, opening to the unexpected and sitting lightly to our plans and strategies.

The way forward may not be clear. The obstacles may seem insurmountable. Fear sets in creating panic and paralysis. Love says, “Trust and open; there is a greater reality at work in your life than all the possible futures of which you feel so afraid.”

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Scarcity or Abundance?

It is just one thing after another.

There are moments when the demands of life seem to overwhelm the available resources. It feels as if there is never enough to go around. Life seems set up to cause us to experience scarcity as the essential nature of existence.

So we scramble to accumulate just a few more resources. If only we had a little bit more, we would be up to the job. The temptation in the face of perceived scarcity is to rush to acquire more and hoard what we have.

Jesus said, “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) Acquiring more will never bring us to abundance. As soon as we get a little more, the task grows bigger, our expectation increases.

Abundance is experienced on a completely different plane. Jesus spoke of “an abundance of the heart.” (Luke 6:45) He pointed to an inner experience of abundance that no external circumstance could ever diminish.

When we experience inner abundance we discover that “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over,” has been “put into your lap.”

This abundance is never discovered by accumulating and hoarding. Abundance is only experienced by giving. “The measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Luke 6:38)

We do not need more of those things we experience as scarce in order to be fully alive. Fullness of life resides in the human ability to choose that which is most truly rich, deep and real about what it means to be human.

When Jesus was asked for the key to life, he repeated the same word twice; he said, “Love.” (Luke 10:27) Only love unlocks abundance.

Life provides an endless supply of love. Love never runs out. The essential nature of existence is love. As we live in love, abundance multiplies. We know ourselves to be the recipients of an overflowing resource of the only gift necessary for true life.

We can always love and the more we love, the more love we experience. The more we live in love, the more we experience ourselves as fully and abundantly alive. There is no longer scarcity; in love life is full.
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A Response to Walker Morrow #5

Dear Walker,

One of the things that encourages me to continue this conversation with you is your honesty. You demonstrate a refreshing willingness to look at your own ideas, to have them challenged and to accept the possibility that you may need to look at things from a slightly different angle. This openness is one of the primary qualities that will help us gradually grow into the people God is calling us to be.

Your reply to my April 23, 2009 A Response to Walker Morrow #4 makes me feel that I have not adequately managed to communicate what I was hoping to say in response #4. Looking back over my response I see that I did not in fact express myself very clearly. I hinted at my point in relation to Psalm 46:10 when I pointed out that rapha which is traditionally translated as “be still” might also be translated as “sink down.” To “sink down” is to open to a deeper realm of our being. It is to experience the depths of what it means to be human. It is to open to a reality deeper than the intellect, more mysterious than rationality. To “sink down” is to enter the realm of faith.

I do not believe that truth is found in the mind.

cont'd

The mind can point us to truth; but the mind can equally be a serious obstacle to our discovery of truth. Truth is more ephemeral than an intellectual formulation can ever fully embody. My granddaughter responds to my request for a hug good bye declaring firmly, “No!” She pauses for a moment before announcing her alternative plan, “ Kiss,” and toddles over to bestow a kiss upon her grandfather; that is truth. It breaks open my heart. I find light and love and beauty. This is where truth is found.

This is why music moves us. It is why we are touched by the beauty of God’s creation and why a magnificent work of art, or a stirring piece of poetry moves something deep within our being. You cannot sum up in words or rational concepts what the kiss of a granddaughter means. You cannot capture the fullness of a symphony or a piece of poetry in precepts and logical equations. You simply have to allow your heart to open beyond rational thought.

In fact the “logic” that you so long for is a poor second cousin to truth. “Logic” functions on the surface of life and leads to sparse results. It is not logical to love an infant. It is not logical to spend hours composing and playing a Bach Cantata. It is not logical to protect the weak and vulnerable, nor to give oneself in service to the poor who “you will always have with you.” (Mark 12:8) The most exalted human instincts emerge from somewhere within the human heart much deeper than logic or reason.

You say it is more “confusion” you fear than chaos. But it is impossible to live apart from either chaos or confusion. The world is a deeply confusing place; chaos abounds wherever you look. In my life I have stood at the graveside with young parents grieving the death of their three week old infant; I have watched as a young teenager died as a result of an utterly arbitrary head injury; and I have celebrated a ninety-second birthday with a senior who lives on her own and recently had her driver’s license renewed. If we choose to open to the realities of life, we must finally acknowledge that life is deeply confusing.

Coming home from Vancouver last weekend my wife and I had lunch in the ferry’s buffet. In the hour and a half that we sat leisurely eating an endless array of beautifully prepared food and watched the most magnificent scenery slip past the window by our table, over 800 children died of starvation. That is confusing. The world does not make sense.

Some years ago, friends of ours joyfully awaited the arrival of their second child. The mother was healthy; the pregnancy had been perfect; the timing was ideal; the whole family looked forward to welcoming this new member into their midst. During delivery, at the last moment before the baby’s arrival, the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and she suffocated. Instead of a healthy little girl, our friends welcomed a severally brain-damaged infant, who died in her father’s arms shortly after delivery. Life hangs by a tenuous thread. It is not rational; it is not fair; it often does not make sense.

If we hope to “think in calm surroundings” rather “than in turbulent ones,” we will be reduced to a strategy of either denial or lies. We do not live “in calm surroundings.” If we are ever going to discover any measure of peace within the turmoil, chaos, confusion, uncertainty, and terror of life, it will only be as we discover a deep inner peace that I believe can only come from knowing the presence of God in the depths of our being.

The brilliant Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, discussing the importance of the Eucharist in Christian practice, says, “A the table as nowhere else we are made aware that true life is in mystery and not in management.” We cannot manage life. We are not in control. We cannot think our way to safety, or organize our environment to meet our perceived needs. Brueggemann concludes that at the table, “we need only yield our lives over to God.”

The Christian answer to chaos is not control, or understanding. The Christian answer to chaos is surrender.

You do not need to fear that this surrender will “turn into apathy.” We are not surrendering to nothing. We are following the example of Jesus and surrendering into the hands of Love. At the end of his physical life, Jesus’ last words were, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) We are surrendering into the hands of God, the hands of the power that turns the universe. There is no possibility that this act of surrender could ever lead to “apathy.” Surrender into the hands of God can only lead to the life-giving power of resurrection. God is the power of love. Love will always compel us out into the world to encounter all of Creation with a renewed capacity for compassion and goodness. Surrender in fact is not a cause of apathy, but the antidote to apathy.

The “larger picture” you want to “capture” is the picture of Jesus abandoned into the hands of chaos and confusion, sunk in the depths of abandonment and doubt, but finally surrendered into the gracious care of God and therefore raised to new life and power. This picture cannot be “captured;” it can only be lived. And it must be lived in the midst of confusion, doubt, chaos, and even fear. This pattern of love that is our true nature created in the image of God, cannot be finally understood, or reasoned about; we can only open to it with complete abandonment and joyful embrace.

The confusion and chaos of life exist to defeat our proud attempts to understand. The darkness that lurks at the edges of life serves to break open the hearts of those willing to learn the lessons of a broken world. When our hearts are broken open, we discover the strength and power of God’s risen life. The aroma of love is released and we become that image of God in which we were originally created.
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A Wedding Anniversary

The Wild Rose

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart.

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

-by Wendell Berry, for his wife

Dear Pieter and Naomi,

Three years ago today we celebrated your wedding. Looking at you together now, I am reminded of Wendell Berry’s poem “The Wild Rose.” It says so beautifully something I think you both understand so well.

Your relationship is a beautiful gift, like “a wild rose blooming at the edge/of thicket, grace and light.” Love is a gift. But it is a gift that we can never afford to take for granted. It is so encouraging to see you both renewing that gift daily as you choose “again what you chose before.”

It may not be the most romantic vision, but love is what we learn by continuing to choose to move together in the same direction. Every choice we make for faithfulness, gentleness and commitment, enables us to grow more deeply into that love for which we were created.

I think perhaps we should use the word “love” hesitantly to describe a relationship until we have stayed in that relationship for many years. Love grows in the deep soil of steadiness. We learn what it means to love when we have walked through many circumstances holding the same hand. When we love with the strength of permanence we discover the freedom that grows in an environment of trust.

There is so much uncertainty all around us. It is hard to imagine what the future might look like for you and your little family. But, whatever the future may bring, you will always be able to see in one another that you are loved. You are cared for and you can always grow in your ability to love. This is the meaning and purpose of your life.

You can always open more deeply to the reality of love. As you choose the openness that is love, love grows. It embraces more of the world and of the people in your life.

The love you share is the true nature of life. It is the force and energy that creates each new human being and causes one season to follow another. You do not have to create this love. You only have to enter into the flow of love and allow it to carry you. The love you chose when you committed your lives to each other is deeper and more real than any fears, doubts or uncertainties you might ever experience. This love will sustain and strength you throughout your lives.

As you enter your fourth year of married life, may you continue choosing every day, to open to one another, sharing all that you are and all that you have. May you always tell the truth to each other, knowing that truth is the soil in which love grows. May you grow daily in your willingness to be gentle. May you desire to be vulnerable towards one another and to share that respect and honour that is so clear in the first three years of your marriage.

It is such a gift for us to be able to watch you grow together. May you always know God’s presence in your life, and the love that surrounds and supports you.

Love,

Christopher/Daddy



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The Flow of Love

Heather and I have just returned from a week on the Olympic Penninsula in Washington State. We were there to attend the "Christophany" retreat with Cynthia Bourgeault held at the Olympic Park Institute.

The retreat was based on the book Christophany: The Fullness of Man by Raimon Panikkar. It is a dense and difficult book. But Cynthia brought considerable illumination to the text. She spoke three times a day over five days and we hads lots of meditation, some beautiful singing and time to walk in the woods. There are a number of things I take away from the week that went quite deep in my spirit.

Panikkar teaches that life is characterized by motion. Everything is in a state of flow. He calls this flow love and says that this movement of love is characteristic of the nature of the God who is known in the Christian tradition as "Trinity." The Trinity is the flow of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of the poles of the Trinity empties into the other, giving and receiving the eternal energy of that love which is the dynamic force of all creation.

The fundamental task of being human is to enter into this flow of love. We exist to receive and give back that love that comes to us by virtue of our creation in the image of God. We fulfill our destiny as human beings when we are able to open to the love that is God and is our true divine nature.

The challenge we experience every day is to know that this love is flowing everywhere, in everything, at all times. If the flow of love stopped, life would cease, the universe would implode. But we tend to lose sight of this love. We forget that everything flows from the ultimate Source that is God.

The Good News of the Gospel is that love does not stop; it does not come to an end, does not run out, will never let us down. Jesus demonstrated that the greatest horror, the deepest degradation, the most horrific loss, could not stop the flow of God's love. The ressurrection is the ultimate demonstration in history of the reality of love transcending all brokenness, all hopelessness, violence, or pain. Love cannot be defeated.

My problem is that I find it difficult at times to trust deeply in this love. I tend to think that I need to create my own life, to manufacture my own sense of well-being. I run around trying to fix all my broken bits and trying to deny my own weaknessess and pain, assuming these flawed parts of my being defeat the reality, strength and permanence of God's love. But, the truth of Jesus demonstrates that the broken parts of my life exist only to open me more deeply to the eternal flow of God's love and goodness.

There is nothing I need to do but open myself to the energy and power of God's love. This love will find me wherever I am. As I allow this love to flow through me, I share in God's nature and become the person I was truly created to be. When I try to hoard anything, protecting myself against those things, or people that I fear, I inhibit the unfolding of my true nature. I block the unfolding of God's work in and through my being.

There is so much fear in the world, so much insecurity, uncertainty, anxiety. We spend so much of our lives thinking that we have to get something done, accomplish something, prove ourselves, demonstrate our worth. For Panikkar this all comes from our small self, that little egoic part of our being that is driven by fear and a sense of lack and need. But the truth is, we need only to view that small frightened part of ourselves with compassion and kindness and allow the love that is at the centre of our being to hold that small one with tenderness and care.

We finished our retreat by chanting together the simple statement, "And Love says, 'I will, I will take care of you.'" This is the truth that keeps the universe operating. Love does take care of us. Even when it seems that everything is uncertain, frightening and chaotic, love is there at the centre holding all the pieces with tenderness and care. This is all any of us really wants to know. This is all that our heartsa long to experience. The only path to this knowing is the radical surrender of deep opening in our innermost being.
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A Happy Birthday

I suppose it only happens once every seven years, so perhaps it deserves a little more fuss than usual. My birthday this year fell on a Sunday. So, I was of course in church with the community in worship for our usual three services. After the second service, some of the children came up from Sunday School and presented me with a paper chain lei with each link in the chain lettered with some quality in which they felt encouraged to grow by being part of our church community. They mentioned joy, truth, peace, grace, love, hope, belief, devotion, patience, mercy,light.

Then we went downstairs for coffee and cake before the third service.

The service had begun with one of our amazing puppeteers having a conversation with her puppet Bruno about winning a medal in the Olympics. The central message of he conversation was that it is what goes on inside our hearts that matters more than what we achieve or accomplish in the world. It felt to me this morning in church that perhaps we really believe that there is something more important about who we are than what we do.

We are a tremendously ordinary group of people. We gather Sunday by Sunday to acknowledge the ivnvisible presence of God at work in our lives. We support one another, care for one another and at times are able to demonstrate profound love and truth in our relationships. It is true we occassionally squabble and there is no doubt from time to time we let one another down, fail to measure up to expectations. But, even with all our shortcomings, there are times when the love, the warmth and the tenderness among us are so real that only the presence and action of God's Spirit could make it happen.

This morning was one of those days. I am so grateful to this community for the spaciousness they allow for God's Spirit to be at work. Our Gospel reading this morning was from Jesus' encounter with Peter in which Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus then says to Peter, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." This community calls me back and again and again to the awareness that there is more going on in the world around us than often meets the eye.

A Happy Birthday celebration is one of those times when, for a moment, the veil of life is pulled back and we get to see more deeply. We get to see that the heart of the universe is a heart of love, that the centre of life is the reconciling power of Christ at work among us. We are loved; in response we are empowered to love one another and all people.

It is good to be in a place that holds up the light of God's goodness to warm my heart with the reality of God's love.

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