Several years ago my husband Bernie
and I were white water rafting down the Natahaila River in the mountains of
North Carolina. We failed to maneuver our boat properly down a six foot drop in
the river and were thrown from the boat.
Several years ago my husband Bernie
and I were white water rafting down the Natahaila River in the mountains of
North Carolina. We failed to maneuver our boat properly down a six foot drop in
the river and were thrown from the boat.
There we were in the freezing, fast rapids—being carried down river toward the deadly Wesser Falls.
Several people frantically yelled instructions from the river bank. They warned, “Don’t try to get yourself out, Just let go’ and let the river carry you.” They went on to say, ‘We will get you out....we’ll drop ropes from the overpass one mile down river.”
I heard their instructions. But, my overwhelming instinct was to get myself out of that river, to save myself, to make myself secure. I kept trying to put my feet down, to stand up—which as some of you know is the surest way to drown in white water.
Finally, I managed to catch a glimpse of Bernie’s head bobbing in the white caps. His face looked so peaceful, so “in the moment”—so free, just going with the flow—like he was actually enjoying the ride.
Meanwhile, I was becoming exhausted from struggling to stand up and from being knocked over so many times by the strong current. Eventually, I surrendered, let go, and let the river carry me; trusting that what I needed would be given.
The ropes were dropped, as promised, and we were safe.
Bernie confessed later that the reason he had been so calm in the rapids was not because he was the Zen master he had appeared to be, but because he had not been paying attention during the orientation and had no idea that we were headed for dangerous falls.
Stay in the Flow
I am not telling you anything you do not already know when I say that the primary work of the spiritual journey is the work of staying in the river, the work of letting go and letting the flow of God’s love carry us; the work of leaning back into the flow and trusting that everything we need to live out of our God-created selves–our true selves–will be given along the way.
As you know, this practice of letting go is not a one-time deal. It is a day by day, moment by moment, practice of awareness and surrender.
Since 9/11, most of us have had some of our illusions stripped away at new levels; like the illusion that we can somehow make ourselves secure. The stripping away of illusions is painful, but it is a critical part of our growing up spiritually, a critical part of our spiritual journey.
With the illusion that we can make ourselves secure stripped away at a new level, we are being given the opportunity to let go and re-choose where we are going to put our trust.
1. Need for More
I’d like to name just four of the many areas in which we have an opportunity to choose to “let go” at deeper levels than before and lean back into the flow of Divine Love. Again, these four areas are not new to any of you—they are some of the core areas the Servant Leadership School of Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC has been working with throughout its history, but they are areas we can work with in deeper ways in light of our new perceptions of the world in which we live.
First of all, we have the opportunity to choose to let go and trust in a way we haven’t before in the area of our need for more. Like the man in the gospel story who decided to build bigger barns so he could store more than he needed— and as it turned out—more than he would ever need, most of us are also addicted to more.... more power, more money, more activity, more pleasure, more approval, more control, more comfort, more sensation, more security, more food than our bodies need, more possessions, more exciting experiences and even more opportunities for our children than are really necessary.
Jesus doesn’t mince words in the parable about building bigger barns; he warns, “You are rich in things and poor toward God.”
Instead of feeling the pain of our emptiness and waiting on God to fill that emptiness–instead of waiting on God to save us from our false, fearful selves–most of us take matters into our own hands (like I tried to do in the freezing river). Instead of waiting on God, most of us attempt to fill our inner emptiness with more, whatever the more is for us.
Wendall Berry, a Catholic priest, farmer and poet recently wrote, “The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day. The optimism rested on proposition that we were living in a new world order and a new economy that would grow on and on, bringing a prosperity of which every new increment would be unprecedented.
The dominant politicians, corporate officers and investors who believed this proposition did not acknowledge that the prosperity was limited to a tiny percent of the world’s people, and to an ever smaller number of people even in the United States; that it was founded upon the oppressive labor of poor people all over the world; and that its ecological costs increasingly threatened all life, including the lives of the supposedly prosperous.”
Berry goes on to say, “We do need a new economy, but one that is founded on thrift and care on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent and war is its inevitable byproduct.”
Just after my graduation from college I served as a volunteer for three years in the Middle East. One day I walked across the street from the hospital in the Gaza Strip—where I was a volunteer that day—to get some lunch. As the vendor handed me a falafel sandwich a bomb exploded in the market place. Seven people were killed. One body landed a couple of feet from me; the man’s head split open like a watermelon dropped on pavement.
Later that day—still reeling from the fear and chaos—I wrote these words:
“If human beings can hate enough to destroy other human beings, then I being a human being have that same capacity for hatred. I know now—maybe for the first time —my need for a savior. I need to be saved from my capacity to hate and delivered into my full capacity to love.”
In a strange sort of way this experience 20 some years ago gives me hope today. It gives me hope that out of our fear and chaos we as a nation will recognize our capacity for evil—some of the ways our way of being have impacted the world—and that we will let go into our fuller capacity to love.
Letting go of our need for more will be a part of this on-going conversion into our fuller capacity to love.
2. In-depth Community
The time has come for us to let go of resistances to indepth community, for it is in the soil of authentic community that we break free from our compulsion to keep seeking more and more of what doesn’t work and more and more of what will never satisfy our deepest longing.
After 9/11 the Seattle Times ran an article about a young mother who felt vulnerable and longed for community after the attacks. She strapped her small children in their car seats and drove to the nearest mall—the only place she knew of to look for community. She discovered that due to the attacks even the malls had been closed.
When I talk about in-depth community I’m talking about the soil in which we share not only our gifts, but also our brokenness. I’m talking about the soil in which we discover our particular call; how we are to give our lives and in so doing find life.
If we were created for that level of intimacy with others and we carry a deep hunger for that level of intimacy why is that level of intimacy so rare even within most churches?
I like Gordon Cosby’s description of church as “a group of people collapsing—collapsing into God and collapsing into each other.” If we’re honest most of us probably don’t like the image of ourselves “collapsing” and we certainly don’t like the idea of others knowing our collapsible parts, the places where we are vulnerable.
But God has a funny habit of coming to us through human weakness. God has a funny habit of showing up in the areas of our lives and the lives of others where we are most vulnerable.
The time has come for us to let go in a new way of all illusions of separateness and to claim our oneness with all members of the human family—especially those who are poor and suffering in ways unimaginable to many of us.
It is a call to let go and let the river of Divine Love carry us to people, places and circumstances we might not have chosen–on our own–to go. For the river of God’s love always flows to the places where love is most needed.
3. Hearts Broken
Many years ago I spent some time in Calcutta, India with Ministry of Money. One day I sat with a mother as she cradled and rocked her dying, nine year old daughter in her arms. What came to me in that experience at a deeper level than ever before was not only that this child was dying of a disease that could have been cured with a round of antibiotics— had health care been available to her—but, also that this mother’s pain was every bit as profound as my pain would have been if it were one of my daughters who was wasting away.
I became aware of a need in me to deny that the poor could possibly feel the pain and indignities of their lives in the same way I would if I were in their circumstances. I realized that this denial in me is an illusion, a defense mechanism. For to face squarely that their pain is as profound as mine would be in those same circumstances would break my heart in two
4. Quit Quibbling
The time has come and is well overdue to let go and let our hearts break, for fuller capacity to love grows out of broken hearts.
Which brings me to another closely related area in which the time has come for us to let go in new ways.
The time has come and is overdue for us to let go of our resistance to spiritual disciplines or practices that keep us in the river of God’s Love.
In the New Creation Community in Seattle, modeled after the Church of the Saviour community in Washington, D.C., members commit to spending one hour a day in prayer. I know you will find this hard to believe, but some of us actually quibble over whether or not we can count the time we spend riding to work on the bus or exercising as part of that hour.
The time has come for us to quit quibbling over the practices which keep us connected to the flow of Divine Love. The time has come for us to quit quibbling over the practices which keep the doors of our hearts open and connected to God’s transforming power. The time has come for us to quit quibbling over anything that will allow us to be infused by God’s very being—which transforms us into the ministers, parents, peacemakers and servant leaders our world so desperately needs us to be and deepens our capacity to love.
Love Beneath Fear
A couple of weeks ago during my centering prayer time I sank into some kind of dream-like state. Maybe I just fell asleep and was dreaming—it sure wouldn’t have been the first time I’d fallen asleep while praying. But this felt different than a normal dream. I can’t really explain it. Anyway, in this dream-state, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to me. He said, “I speak as one who has known fear. You can move through the fear to the place beneath the fear. You can live from the place of Love beneath the fear.” I felt like I touched something I have no words to describe; an energy field that was alive, or electric. And for several minutes I felt an overwhelming presence of love and total absence of fear.
Bernie walked in about that time. I politely asked him not to interrupt my conversation with Martin Luther King, Jr. Bernie wasn’t alarmed. He just smiled an understanding smile and left the room. He didn’t even dial 911.
I believe like never before that beneath our fears is a reality that is more real, more alive than anything the kingdoms of this world can offer. The time has come for us to live from that place of Divine Love beneath our fears.
But how do we touch that place beneath the fear? How do we learn to camp out there long enough to experience making some of our choices from there? And how in the world do we make that Divine reality beneath our fears our permanent residence, the place from which we live and move and have our being?
First of all we must set aside that block of time each day for prayer, time for hanging out with God in that place beneath the fear. Setting aside time for prayer makes it possible for our doing to flow out of the depths of our being–out of that place of Divine Love beneath the fear– instead of out of the wounded, fearful surface layers of our lives. We begin to hear and respond out of guidance to the particular need God is calling us to, instead of just feeling overwhelmed and guilty over our failure to do it all. Guilt is rarely constructive.
Secondly, we need to put our weight down in at least one concrete expression of love–one healing structure–in which we can develop real relationships with people suffering on the margins of our society, people who take us outside our comfort zone, people in whom we encounter the living Jesus. We can’t wait until we are 100 percent sure we have heard our call perfectly before jumping in with some group of suffering people.
Our relationship with one individual or group of suffering people deepens our connection with all those who suffer under unjust systems throughout the world. In short, our responses to the pain in the world will emerge out of our deepening relationship with God, and our deepening relationships with those in whom God suffers—not out of guilt, or out of our own need to fix things or out our own need to be good and significant.
As you know, “chronos” is the Greek word which expresses the quantitative aspects of time. We are programmed early on to think of time in terms of hours, days and years; and to consider how much or how little time we have to accomplish this activity or that task. Our culture conditions us to operate in chronos time.
However, the Greek word “kairos” expresses the qualitative aspect of time, the depth of possibilities in each moment. As we begin to live more of our lives from that place beneath the fear we will find ourselves living with a greater awareness of the infinite possibilities in each given moment; we will recognize that life from beneath the fear - eternal life - is being given in each new moment.
Wes Howard-Brook, the author of Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now recently wrote, “Apocalyptic texts are about Kairos. John’s writing in the book of Revelation was his best effort to inspire his audience to make a life or death choice. One option, then as today, was to participate in the unending cycle of violence upon which all empires are built...The other was to put ones complete trust in God.”
Bishop Oscar Romeo made that shift from chronos to kairos as well as anyone I know of. I’d like to close with his words:
We plant seeds that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing they will hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete but it is a beginning. A step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders. We are ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen
Reverend Killian Noe is pastor of the New Creation Church and cofounder of Recovery Cafe in Seattle, WA, author of Finding Our Way Home, co-founder of Samaritan Inns, and a long-time friend of The Servant Leadership School.