“May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”
A couple of posts back, I wrote about how it can sometimes feel like God is trying very hard to get a message across. He knows us so well, He knows exactly what speaks to that place within us that wants to hear Him. I think this is particularly true in those times that we find it hardest to hear His voice, or when we don't want to listen in case He says something we don't want to hear. Personally, I find it difficult not only to hear God but to talk to Him when I am in pain, or otherwise in a dark place. It's not that I don't want to; those are the times I want communion with Him more than ever. I just can't. I'm too distracted by the storm. I can't hear Him for the roaring of the wind, I can't see Him for the ten-foot waves between us, I can't feel him for the rocking of my little boat.
So I go away in search of silence, and the first thing I see on walking into this place is a board with these words: "Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm". It's the message of Matthew 14:22-32, the same one that's been coming at me from all directions lately. Peace amid the storm, stillness in its midst. The world does not have to come to a standstill for us to be at peace. The peace of the Lord passeth all understanding, and it is where God is, which is everywhere. God is always there. We may leave, but He is constant, waiting with open arms for us to come back and be comforted, celebrated, cherished, loved.
Which is all very well, but how do you find this peace when the reality of life as you are living it is anything but? I wish there were an easy answer, but it's complicated. Because we are human, and imperfect. Because it is connected to our relationship with God, and relationships are complicated. Because an ant can only see so much of a mountain at once. So I don't have the answer, and there isn't a magic wand we can wave, but something helpful has come my way. This is what was prayed at evening prayer, the night I had spent the whole day asking God how to find the still place.
You, Lord, are in this place.
Your presence fills it,
Your presence is peace.
You, Lord, are in my heart.
Your presence fills it,
Your presence is peace.
You, Lord, are in my mind.
Your presence fills it,
Your presence is peace.
You, Lord, are in my life.
Your presence fills it,
Your presence is peace.
Help us, oh Lord, to know that we dwell in You and You dwell in us, this day and for evermore.
That's a pretty good place to start, don't you think?
Do you ever get the feeling God/the universe is trying to tell you something? I spend quite a lot of time asking God questions, ranging from "what am I supposed to be doing with my life?" to "why can't I just eat cake all the time?" - and He never, but never, seems to give me a direct answer. Most annoying, but I suspect God doesn't work that way for most people. What I think He does do is keep open the lines of communication from His end; God constantly reaches out to us, but we don't always see or hear him, because sometimes we just can't or just don't want to. It's scary to listen to God. He might be saying something you really don't want to hear, and what happens then? So we put up walls, or I do anyway - because I am scared, suspicious, stubborn, worried, angry, or for whatever reason have too much internal noise to hear the still small voice of God.
He is always there though. That is the point of Him. He doesn't go away. Not ever, believe it or not, and it can be so hard to believe it sometimes, even if you know it. And while most of us probably don't have daily visions of Him, or hear him a la the Metatron in Dogma or Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty (you might, I don't), I do believe He tries to get through to us all the time. He is there in prayer, in the people we meet, in the books we read, the music we hear, the art we create, the world He has made - look at a sunrise or a sausage dog and tell me God had nothing to do with that.
This is all wonderful but not terribly specific. However, now and then I think there is something God really wants us to hear, and then I think He goes all out to make sure we get the message. Now I don't know about you but I tend to be fairly oblivious and usually need to be hit over the head with it before I get it. And that's the kind of week I've had. Everywhere I've turned, every other person I've spoken to, every random moment I've experienced, I've been hearing the same thing.
There's this great story in Matthew 14:22-32: Jesus has fed the five thousand, and tells the disciples to get in a boat and cross the lake at Galilee while he goes off alone to pray. A storm arises in the middle of the night when the boat is far from the shore and everyone panics. Jesus walks out on the water to the boat, and everyone freaks out, convinced he's a ghost or spirit. Jesus tells them not to worry, it's just him, and Peter says, "If it really is you, tell me to come to you on the water." Jesus does so, and Peter start to walk towards him on the water. Everything is fine while Peter keeps his eyes on Jesus, then he notices the wind, panics, and starts to sink. He cries out, "Lord, save me!", and Jesus reaches out to him and catches him saying, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?". And when Peter and Jesus climbed into the boat, the wind died down - at which point the relieved disciples worshipped him saying, "Truly You are the Son of God."
Wonderful, and so apt for me at the moment. I feel a lot like Peter; as long as I keep my focus on the Lord, everything's fine - or at least I feel like it's all going to be ok. I trust. But I get distracted, and panic, and then I flail. It reminds me of when I was learning to play the piano and my teacher used to get me to memorise the music. I'd be playing along from memory quite happily, with the score in front of me "just in case", and it would be perfect until I suddenly realised I hadn't turned the page in ages, doubted myself, and my beautiful Chopin would collapse into a rubble of dischord and missed notes. Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?
I also feel a lot like the disciples: I'm inclined not to really believe with all my heart until the storm has been calmed. The problem is, some storms keep raging for a lot longer than I can keep my focus.
Anyway, everywhere I have turned recently I have been hit over the head with Matthew 14. I went to the BBC Proms for the first time this year, and randomly chose a performance of Elgar's The Apostles - guess what a big chunk of that was about? My favourite stained glass window in my new church (shown to me by the lovely, intuitive vicar who thought it would speak to me) depicts - you guessed it - Jesus calming the storm. The readings in every other service/bible study/random discussion I've had in the last week or so? Matthew 14. The passage a spiritual director gave me to read on retreat? Matthew 14.
You think He's trying to tell me something? I don't believe in coincidence, but I do believe in a divine plan of such magnificent scale that it's beyond my comprehension. And in the meantime, while my bark is tempest tossed, it's rather nice to know that He will calm the storm and as long as I keep my eyes on Him, anything is possible.
"People who are in the habit of praying- and they include the mystics of the Christian tradition- know that when a prayer is answered, it is never answered in a way that you expect."
"... follow your heart. I know it sounds trite, but it's the only thing to do. Because at the end of the day your heart will stop beating, and it will be too late to regret that you didn't go where it prompted you to go." (Berthea Snark, "A Conspiracy of Friends", Alexander McCall Smith)
God knows what He's doing. It's a truth I find it hard to hold on to sometimes, especially when nothing seems to be going the way I'd like it to, but it's an unshakeable part of what I believe and therefore of who I am. It doesn't mean that bad things don't happen, or that life isn't full of disappointments and unfairness. But it does mean that when I remember to stop being such a type-A control freak, I have the exquisite luxury of knowing that the guy in the driver's seat knows where we're going and how we're going to get there. All I have to do is go on the journey - and try to remember to enjoy the ride.
I have spent most of my life fighting my own heart. I am used to putting everyone else's expectations before my own desires, everyone's wants before my own needs, other people before my self. Not because I'm particularly good or kind, but often because I have felt that is precisely what I am not. I have a terror of being selfish, and so I find it very hard to say "no". I have been conditioned to put duty and responsibility above all else, and certainly above that pesky little ego and id - my super-ego reigns supreme.
Don't get me wrong, duty, responsibility and moral obligation are important. There are far too many people with no sense of how what they do affects the people in their lives - or who just don't care. But how do you take care of the people you love if you won't even give yourself permission to breathe?
Rob Bell, writing in Velvet Elvis, puts it better than I can ever hope to:
"I started identifying how much of my life was about making sure the right people were pleased with me. And as this became more and more clear, I realised how less and less pleased I was with myself. What happens is our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split.
...I had all this guilt and shame because I wasn't measuring up to the image of the perfect person I had in my head.
...I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it's like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.
And the only way not to be killed by it is to shoot first."
The very first time I read this passage, a few years ago now, I felt the power of what Rob Bell was saying. It scared me how close to the bone this man, who had never met me and didn't know me from Eve, had come. I read this, and I saw myself, and I knew that he was right. If I didn't stop living this way, I was going to end up dead.
I knew this, and still I could not, or did not, or was not quite able, to stop myself. And so I kept going. I fought it, and I tried, but I kept going. I didn't want to, but I kept going, because that is how I am. I am a perfectionist, and I try hard, and nothing is ever good enough. I am never good enough. Way to miss the point, huh?
And finally, finally, it has almost killed me. It has almost, quite literally, ended my life.
There is a story that's been doing the rounds for years, told as a joke but with a serious point to make:
A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says, "Get in, get in!" The religous man replies, "No I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle."
When the water is up to his waist, another boat and rescuer come by but once again the man responds that he has faith in God and God will provide a miracle. With the water at chest height, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again because "God will grant me a miracle." Finally, as the man is almost completely submerged, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in. Mumbling through the water in his mouth, he says - you guessed it - he believes God will come to his rescue. Of course, he drowns. He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Saint Peter, I thought God would grant me a miracle and I have been let down." St. Peter chuckles and responds, "I don't know what you're complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter."
I have turned down several boats, but there is no way I am not getting on that helicopter. It means letting go of a lot, and leaving people behind. It means having to fight a lot of learned behaviour. It means giving myself permission to be the person I really am, instead of struggling to be the person I am expected to be - which, horror of horrors, means accepting that maybe, just maybe, who I am is enough. No, not good enough, which has nothing to do with anything; just enough. It is the hardest, most terrifying thing I have ever done (and this is a lawyer speaking). But it is better by far than the alternative.
It is going to be a struggle, and I am going to need help - most of you will have no idea what it took for me to recognise and admit that, to myself much less to anyone else. But at this point I have nothing to lose. So I choose not to let the floodwaters close over my head. I choose to be free. I choose life. And it doesn't really matter that I don't know what I'm doing, where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, because God does, and I have found, in some of my darkest hours, that I really do trust Him. So, don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing's gonna be all right.
"Faith is knowing that God is who He says He is, has what He says He has and will do what He says He will do and then putting ourselves in a position where our lives depend on it."
"Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy."
- Francis of Assisi -
It seems like the least we should be praying for, but oh how huge it really is! How crucial, how challenging, how small, how life-changing - like so much of God's work :)
*I pray this prayer in the spirit of yesterday's post. It's the same message, though obviously St Francis was much more articulate, concise, and got to the rub of the thing far more effectively!
"Many of the world's finest Oriental rugs come from little villages in the Middle East, China, or India. These rugs are hand-produced by crews of men and boys under direction of a master weaver. They work from the underside of the rug-to-be. It frequently happens that a weaver absentmindedly makes a mistake and introduces a color that is not according to the pattern. When this occurs, the master weaver, instead of having the work pulled out in the order to correct the color sequence, will find some way to incorporate the mistake harmoniously into the overall pattern. In weaving our lives, we can lean to take unexpected difficulties and mistakes and weave them advantageously in the greater overall patterns of our lives. There is an inherent good in most difficulties."
Today is my 30th birthday, generally considered one of life's milestones, and for various reasons I am not in a position to have any kind of celebration to mark it. Over the last few months, I suspected that this would be the case and was pre-emptively disappointed. What did it bode for the year to come if I couldn't have some serious fun even on this special day itself? It didn't look good for the next 365 days...
But why this fixation on turning 30? To be honest, it hasn't been so much about the number itself; it's not like I feel "old". If anything, I often feel more like a child than a grown-up. And that's probably part of what was bothering me. By 30, I was supposed to be a grown-up. I was supposed to be married, and have a child (or at least one on the horizon). I was supposed to be several rungs up the ladder of my chosen career. I was supposed to have a few mortgage payments under my belt. None of these things have happened, and it hasn't helped that it seems as if most of the people I grew up with have managed to achieve what I have failed to do. They have grown up and ticked the boxes we were all supposed to. If they could do it, why haven't I been able to?
I have worried about these things for years. People I love and trust have been telling me for at least the last couple of those years that all this anxiety is misplaced and unnecessary. What is all this "supposed to" talk? Who decided that there is only one way for life to go, and that if you take the scenic route rather than the expressway you might as well be walking around with a big fat red "F" on your chest, like some kind of post-modern scarlet woman? Of course, lots of people tell you, constantly, what is expected of you; and it is almost impossible not to listen and be affected. And a lot of the advice we are given is good - about working hard and being responsible and so on. But to be told that there is only one acceptable way to live?
I don't think anyone has the right to tell me exactly how I should live my life except God. And He has given me free will! What does that say?
I have had so much time for contemplation this last year, and a lot of it was time I did not want. I wanted to be up and doing, not forced to keep still when I wanted to move forward. I spent so much time fighting the stillness, and the harder I fought, the more gently but firmly I was made to be still, until I resigned myself to it. Even that was not enough. Resignation, in my case at least, contained a strong element of resistance, and so more and more obstacles (for want of a better word) turned up and pushed me beyond what I thought were my boundaries, to a whole new place of stillness, until I began to learn acceptance.
And now, I am so deeply deeply thankful that I was forced to learn this lesson. It has been a hard, painful few years, and there is still a struggle in front of me. I am pretty sure that I have only just begun to catch a glimpse of what God has been trying to show me, but that glimpse is changing my life.
Finally, finally, I am letting go of all the "supposed to"s. I am letting go of everything that kept me toiling on the path I was on, banging my head against a brick wall, even though I knew in my heart of hearts it was wrong; even though I knew it was not my purpose. I don't "have" to do anything. But there is a lot that God has planned for me, and it is better than anything I can imagine for myself, even now.
So, I am not going to rush into anything. I am not going to make any decisions based on what anyone else wants or expects. What happens next is between me and God, and having decided that feels more "right" than anything has in a long time. I think I know what I want to do, for the first time in my life. I've had this idea for some time, but I remained unsure because my vision was clouded by self-doubt and fear. Once I accepted that it was ok to make a mistake, I felt a lot happier about trying these new things.
It took a lot of pain and heartbreak, but I have come a lot closer to trusting unreservedly in the God I love so much. I needed to see that He would not let me go, no matter what. He has stood with me through all the awfulness of the last few years, never leaving me, never giving up on me, giving me what I needed to get through it, and more. He has kept teaching me, though it must have pained Him to watch me struggle as much as it hurt me to go through it. He has suffered with me, for my sake, though I have been able to give so little in return and can never match His love and selflessness.
So, it is fitting that my 30th birthday will be a day of ordinary things. I will spend it making plans and running errands for a celebration in my late grandfather's honour. The 20th anniversary of his death falls on the 1st of March, and I would rather spend this time remembering him and his life. I am glad that I have been given the opportunity to spend my birthday in the service of another. There could be no better way to begin the rest of my life.
