I am a wanderer. I would say that I am a seeker, but sometimes I have no idea what I might be seeking, so I will stick with wanderer. This blog is more a public journal than anything. I don't claim to have life figured out. I simply stumble from mystery to mystery, and share my reflections along the way. Sometimes I feel burdened, and trudge. Sometimes? Well sometimes grace breaks through, and its time to dance.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Living new stories
“When our own little stories begin to feel self-contained
and inescapable, that’s when things are tragic.
Maybe on some level you feel that way.
Trapped. Unable to change the
story of who you are. Unable to change
your behavior or attitude or outlook. So
caught up in the events around you, so caught up in the identity you’ve had so
long that it clings to you like a skin suit.”
Nadia
Weber-Bolz, in sermon on the death of
John the Baptist
______________________________________
my life is my story
I have written it
(others have edited it)
for 64 years
it has been,
variously,
a comedy
a drama
a tragedy
there have been moments of great joy
the birth of my children
that moment when I stood as the newly elected pastor
of “the big church”
moments of sheer terror
when I realized I was in fact
at age34 the pastor of
the “big church”
moments of despair
when patterns of thinking and behavior
sabotaged my life
there have been times when I have loved
and felt loved
and times when love seems to have
left
the building
there have been moments when I felt
valued, needed, and effective
and moments when I felt
despised, rejected, ineffective
times when I felt I had friends
times when I felt very much alone
my life is my story
and now
inevitably (Erik Erikson warned me)
I am reflective
wondering about the final draft
wondering if even now
so far into the manuscript
I can change the story
redeem it
if I can find within me
that sense of self I have always sought
find the friends I have never managed
to gather around me
if I can be the person I have always wanted to be
or is my path set
the story inescapable?
Sacred Presence means
the story is never fully told
never inevitable
with Sacred love there is no final draft
that leaves one trapped
in identities and patterns
that cling and bind
The presence of the sacred means we are not trapped by our
stories
It may, and does feel like it sometimes
But we are not trapped by our stories
We can always, always, live a new story.
A story written by a God
who loves us more, and can do
“immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3)
according to the power at work in us”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment