Meditations - Thoughts Along the Way

Our meditation writer, Jim Segaar is on vacation for the remainder of May.  Look for new meditations in June.
 

I am not stupid, I am wounded. Please respect me.

Jill Bolte Taylor
My Stroke of Insight

Yesterday I test-taught a class in strategic thinking that I’ve been writing at work. One topic we covered extensively was assumptions. My major point was that when we are working in areas with lots of unknowns, which seems to be pretty much anywhere in these turbulent times, we need to make assumptions – or best guesses – in order to move forward. If we wait to act until we have all the facts we want, then we never get anywhere.

It is hard for many people to accept assumptions as a foundation for business decisions. It just seems way too risky. And yet we make assumptions about other people all the time. We assume that a friend’s lack of attention must be an intentional act meant to punish us for some unknown wrong. We assume that a stranger shies away from us on the bus because of our under-treated body odor. We assume that someone who is behaving strangely must be drunk, or high, or mentally ill. I know in my case my assumptions tend to run toward the bad, not the good.

Jill Bolte Taylor experienced these kinds of assumptions when she suffered a stroke at age 37. In her book, My Stroke of Insight, she writes about her experience, beginning on the morning when she awoke with a piercing pain in her head. Her ability to communicate was destroyed as blood flooded the left hemisphere of her brain. She managed to summon help, but her greeting at the hospital was uneven at best.

She writes of struggling to comprehend the concept of “president” when a doctor asked her who the president was. She could recall individual images, but could not link individual details into a sensible story. Some of her caregivers understood what was happening, and she was intensely grateful to them. But others treated her as defective, deficient. One nurse kept raising her voice when Taylor failed to respond as requested. The nurse was oblivious to her needs, assuming she was deaf.

Taylor survived the stroke, and her caregivers’ shortcomings, and began a long recovery process. Undoubtedly she bore many more unflattering assumptions along the way.

Is it natural for us to assume the negative when we meet someone who is impaired? Or is it just ignorance or carelessness that labels someone as drunk or crazy instead of bravely recovering from near death?

Going back to my day job, one of the concepts I have to teach is that other people generally are not stupid or incompetent. In a complex business such as Information Technology, people have many different opinions and ideas about how certain things should be done. Invariably when someone encounters different ideas, the first response is that the other people don’t know what they are doing. My job is to convince people otherwise – that usually differences occur because people are working with different information or goals in mind. People need to be taught to give people with whom they disagree the benefit of the doubt.

Religion teaches us that we are creations of God, loved and valued. It is very important for us to remember that, and to also remember that those around us are also loved and valued. It really is worth our time to understand what is going on when someone is behaving differently than we expect. They may be wounded or even ahead of the rest of us, and not stupid at all.
 

Recovery was a decision I had to make a million times a day.

Jill Bolte Taylor
My Stroke of Insight

A song I learned during my childhood goes like this:

“I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.”

It presents a comforting sort of certainty, of making a single decision that guides our lives from that day forward. But life is not that simple in my experience. More often than not our course of action is determined by many small decisions, not one big one.

Jill Bolte Taylor illustrates this in her book about recovering from a stroke. She recounts how her stroke caused pain and frustration, but also brought a new sense of calm and wellbeing to her life. With only half her brain functioning, life slowed down. Her inner dialog was quieted. She felt fluid and at one with the universe. Even though she could not talk or read, she liked much about her new state of being, and she had to make not one but countless conscious decisions to recover, to give up some of her newfound wellbeing in order to recapture her former life.

This axiom plays out in my life in so many ways. For example, years ago I decided I wanted to be more environmentally responsible. But that was the easy part. The real work has gone on ever since, of trying to figure out how to live in our consumption-focused world in an environmentally conscious way. It goes beyond deciding what car to drive, or whether to take the bus more, or packing out my trash when I go backpacking. Everything I do seems to impact the environment. At times the weight of trying to do the right thing seems overwhelming. Is it wrong to purchase a vehicle that my 6’2” frame actually fits in? Must I pay more for the “luxury” of having a kitchen counter made from recycled paper that requires monthly maintenance instead of buying some nearly indestructible granite or quartz?

This challenge is hardly new. The story of Jesus is packed with tales of his followers, who had made big, difficult, life-altering decisions to follow him only to fail him by making little choices – to sleep instead of staying awake to comfort him, to lie a little in order to protect their safety, to remain at a safe distance rather than providing comfort as he died.

Bolte made her choices and took the road to recovery. Her explanation of that decision provides an example for all of us.

“In order for me to choose the chaos or recovery over the peaceful tranquility of the divine bliss that I had found in the absence of the judgment of my left mind, I had to reframe my perspective from “Why do I have to go back?” to “Why did I get to come to this place of silence?” I realized that the blessing I had received from this experience was the knowledge that deep internal peace is accessible to anyone at any time… My stroke of insight would be: peace is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind.”

For all those years of my life, I really had been a figment of my own imagination!

Jill Bolte Taylor
My Stroke of Insight

How would you feel if you had a major stroke at 37 years of age? Terrified? Doomed? Jill Bolte Taylor discovered an unforgettable sense of peace that pervaded her entire being and she felt calm. This is one of the many surprises Taylor shares in her autobiographical book My Stroke of Insight.

The book begins with Taylor telling how she became a “brain scientist” and began doing advocacy work for the mentally ill. She also explains the science of the brain - how it works - highlighting differences between the left and right hemispheres. Then she shares a very detailed, personal account of what happened to her when a knot of blood vessels exploded in the left hemisphere of her brain. In a matter of hours she lost the ability to walk and talk. She experienced intense pain, panic, confusion, but also an unexpected calmness. She carefully recounts the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of her experience.

“I was, by anyone’s standard, no longer normal,” she writes. “In my own unique way, I had become severely mentally ill.”

The experience was not without its bonuses, however. She describes how her left side, including the intensely self-critical parts of her brain, shut down. Her right side, softer and nonjudgmental, not only continued to function but was unfettered. The cadence of her life slowed down. She appreciated just how amazing and wonderful her body was. She felt like a fluid part of the universe, with no firm, hard edges. She realized that her sense of self was really the result of her own inner commentary – the left hemisphere creating a running dialog about her and everything around her.

The Bible tells us that we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. Taylor’s truth was that she could choose to turn off her negative commentary and accept herself as the miracle that each of us truly is. What about each of us? What truth could we learn about ourselves if we somehow managed to quiet our minds at least for a little while.

I resonated strongly with Taylor’s story of self-criticism. I know well the loop of dialog that runs in my left hemisphere, judging everything I think, say and do and making sure I never forget one of my less-than-perfect moments. I’ve even blurted out this self-critical commentary at times, calling myself names I would never say to anyone else. I’ve always felt this was some sort of personality flaw, certainly not normal behavior. Taylor helped me understand that many people, perhaps all of us, have this nonstop commentary running in our brains. We cannot do a thing without our harshest judge seeing what we’ve done.

These thoughts reminded me of parents who warned their children to be good because Jesus could see what they were doing. Well I’ll go one further. Be good because you, your harshest critic, will see what you are doing and you will never give it a rest.

I found comfort beyond just feeling normal. As she recounts her experience, Taylor explains how the brain is working at various times. She helped me understand that our brains are biological organs, and there are chemical reasons why we function the way that we do. Suddenly a huge part of my being that I always considered a mystery suddenly made sense and became more real somehow. And in becoming real, it became manageable somehow.

The truth truly can set us free. Taylor’s truth helped me understand my own brain, my own self, and provided a glimpse of hope and freedom from my omnipresent judge – from me.
 

He is not here, for he is risen, just as he said.
Matt. 28: 6

Sometimes life is so ordinary and yet special, so expected and yet such a surprise, so planned and yet so random that it literally takes my breath away. As I write this I am recovering from one such moment during a quiet evening at home, and it inspires me to write this Easter message.

Where to begin. It is a Wednesday evening, my night home alone with the dogs while my partner Jeff plays Bridge. For years this was the night of the week I spent rehearsing with the church choir, but in just a few months it has become a quiet treasure when I can enjoy simple things – a warm blanket, a recliner and our dogs. And tonight, music.

I don’t often listen to music any more. I still sing one night a week, but seldom do I find myself at home with time to stop and listen. But tonight I made time and flipped through 20 CDs before finding my pick – symphonies by Alan Hovhaness, a 20th Century composer who lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest. It was during the Symphony No. 2 “Mysterious Mountain” that something special happened.

My attachment to music goes back as far as my memory. Some of my earliest memories are of singing and I learned to love classical music from several important figures in my childhood – my mother, my father and Bugs Bunny. Throughout my life with them, music always connected me to my parents. As an adult I was able to share music with them, taking them to opera and inviting them to choir concerts. I will always cherish the memory of my arthritic mother fighting her way up the steps into the balcony at Seattle First Baptist Church to hear our performance of St. Matthews Passion. I once told her that the sound was best in the balcony, and she insisted on savoring that masterwork from a prime spot.

My mother died just over three years ago, followed a year later by my father. I am still surprised by how much I miss them. At times I wish so hard that I could make some sort of psychic connection with them again, maybe not exactly talking to the departed but at least feeling their presence in some special way. But that has not happened – not at their graves, not near their home, not anywhere that we shared an experience.

Not happened except through music. Twice.

One was tonight. As I listened to the expansive sounds of Hovhaness Mom and Dad came into my mind. I had not been looking for them or pleading for them. They came unbidden, in their own time, and brought me a sense of their presence and love more powerful than any I’ve felt since their deaths.

The other occasion occurred last year in St. Marks Cathedral in Seattle. I sang in a performance of Morten Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna” with the Seattle Choral Company. Lauridsen is a living composer who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and his “non-liturgical requiem” is one of my favorite pieces of music – both to listen to and to sing. When we finished the performance, the audience sat in absolute silence for 45 seconds before bursting into applause. In that quiet I felt the longing of so many hearts around me, and I sensed the presence of Mom and Dad who had come to share the moment with me.

What exactly happened on these two occasions? I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do care about is that at least briefly I felt a connection that I never appreciated enough during my parents’ lives. And in some way we shared the beauty of life through music once again.

Mom and Dad are not here, but they are somewhere. And these words, translated from the closing moments of “Lux Aeterna,” are for them this and every Easter.

“Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Alleluia. Amen.”

Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

Duruflé Requiem (translation)

The quote above is rooted in the biblical story of Palm Sunday, when the crowds cheered Jesus saying “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” The requiem mass text inherited this sentiment when it was created centuries ago, and congregations in churches around the world still wave palm fronds one week before Easter.

We inherited three palm trees from previous owners of our house. They stand near the street, and for years I have been amazed that they thrived in our much-cooler-than-tropical climate. Apparently some types of palms can tolerate short periods of cold weather and will grow as far north as Canada.

This winter has taken its toll however. Our palms look haggard, with their fronds turning brown and dropping off. In the process they are amazing me all over again – by the volume of fronds that the trees release into the neighborhood every week. We’ve cleaned up piles of the fronds – enough to stock several large churches with Palm Sunday foliage for years to come – and yet more fall. And it is not just our parking strip that is feeling the effects. The wind is depositing our fronds all over the block. I find fronds all over while I am walking the dogs, and I know they come from our beleaguered trees. We have the only palms around. Our fronds are blowing everywhere. And palm fronds are tough – they stick around for a long while.

For some reason I’ve started seeing these falling fronds as a metaphor for our actions in life. Just as our neighbors must deal with our fronds, each of us must live amidst the words and deeds of those around us, and our words and deeds blow over into our neighbors’ lives on a regular basis. Each day we find ourselves standing on a street corner with a handful of fronds – some our own and some from others – and we need to decide what to do next. We can wave them at a passing prophet, weave beautiful baskets, haul them out back to the compost heap, or just dump the mess on the sidewalk and make everyone else tromp over them.

I found myself dealing with some metaphysical fronds at a concert at church recently. The event took place on the 7th Anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. It featured several songs and readings on the theme of peace, culminating with a stirring performance of the Durufle Requiem with choir and orchestra.

Some of my fronds came from being a citizen of the United States. From them I felt shock that something so morally reprehensible as this war could still be going on. But I also had some fronds of hope that an end is in sight.

Some of my fronds came from being a part of Seattle First Baptist Church, with dual traditions of peacemaking and great music. This concert combined the two into a moving event.

And some of my fronds came from my family, as I thought of my nephew who is on duty in Iraq with the National Guard, volunteering to put himself in harms way for his country and his beliefs.

What do I do with all this handful of mismatched fronds? How can I come to peace with an event that touches me in such different ways? And is my dilemma really any different from the ones each of us faces every day as we decide how to handle that which we encounter on our way?

I remember a Palm Sunday reading from several years back that presented the question “Why do you wave palms?” And today as I think of the concert and my handful of fronds, I ask myself “Why do I wave these particular palms?” My answer? I’d rather wave them, mismatched as they seem, than chuck them in the trash or leave them in a heap to rot.

It may seem foolish to wave fronds at a prophet, who some see only as a strange man riding a donkey. But that is what I choose to do. For now, that is what I can do.

While you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.

Matt. 13: 29-30

In today’s economy people are once again talking about Victory Gardens – the predecessor to the Pea Patch that helped feed Americans during World War II. A recent article on the topic got me thinking about gardening and spirituality and how they are related. One can certainly be a metaphor for the other. Beyond that, some folks see the way to peace through one or the other, while other people run away from the activity with equal enthusiasm.

I have many years of experience with gardening, but have never considered myself an enthusiast. My parents got it all going. We always had a vegetable garden when I was a child. My earliest plant-laced memory is of weeding the carrots. Apparently I had not yet learned today’s text about letting plants grow together. I simply pulled everything out and then replanted what I took to be carrots. They all died. Talk about living a Bible lesson.

As I grew older I became somewhat more helpful in the garden. I remember harvesting beans, pulling carrots (mature ones this time) and washing the mud off, watering flower beds and vegetable patches. I was never responsible for the family garden, but I participated when it was convenient.

For much of my adult life I’ve lived where gardening was impractical, or more precisely where I could keep it well contained to a small area because that is all I wanted. I did build garden beds at our house in West Seattle. I learned a lot from those beds over the 13 years I tended them. The first year I discovered that raccoons love pepper plants and eat them down to the dirt. They leave pole beans alone. I also got into compost – complete organics was the name of my garden game. That is how I learned just how many worm-like organisms eat carrots when given a chemical-free chance. Zucchini are raccoon and worm-resistant. They will also expand to fill all available space, growing to grotesque proportions if given the chance. One industrious squash grew to 3 feet in length during a late summer vacation one year. And tomatoes – I learned that if you have a small greenhouse you have a much better chance of getting ripe tomatoes in Seattle’s sunless climate. But some gloomy years even the greenhouse fails to achieve redness.

Something else I learned about gardening was that I liked the dramatic beginnings and endings best. I loved digging up the soil in the spring and getting ready to plant. It is so fulfilling to dig in good soil, smelling the earthiness and adding more goodness through compost. And I liked cleaning up in the fall, clearing away the jungle of dead vines and moldy leaves and tidying things up for the winter. It was all the time in between I did not really care for – all that planting and watering and weeding and endless tending that goes with a good garden. I didn’t hate any one activity, but I resented the constant attention that was necessary to keep things alive.

Today I’m into low-maintenance landscaping – automatic watering, weed-free plantings, lots of nice rock, things that look good enough to justify a minimum amount of attention.

Does any of that sound like spirituality to you? Big beginnings and endings but a reluctance to pay attention to daily care and feeding. Violent arguments about which is the only true way – rotten plant matter or bags of chemicals. A tendency to just hire a professional service and let them take care of it all. Or maintaining a complete ignorance of the process, living on the 30th floor and just buying what we need off the shelf.

Does anyone know where can I find low-maintenance enlightenment? Or, like a garden, do we get out of spirituality approximately what we put into it?

In the temple courts Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

John 2: 14-15

I have volcanoes on the brain. Not just the mountainous ones but the human variety.

Volcanoes come in different types. With some, you know right away you are dealing with active geothermal energy, and the glowing lava river provides a pretty strong hint that it is best to keep a safe distance. But others are quiet on the surface, looking solid and majestic as they provide the focal point for a dramatic landscape.

I grew up in the shadow of Mt. Baker in northwestern Washington. Its white glaciers rose above the surrounding mountains, providing quiet beauty for years. But in 1975 steam started rising from Sherman Crater and we wondered what might come later. The answer was more steam, which has since slowed again. Baker remains a white gem, with not-so-subtle reminders that it still is active.

Today I live in Seattle, with Mt. Rainier a constant companion – well, at least on the days when the clouds allow us a peak. Rainier is much more impressive than Baker, rising 4,000 feet higher and truly dominating the landscape. A decade ago I climbed Mt. Rainier and learned firsthand what is involved in existing at 14,000 feet on glaciers. All was cold and ice and wind. But at the top in the crater it was calmer and warmer. And off to one side were rocks free of snow and ice – hot rocks, evidence that Rainier too is still alive.

Baker and Rainier are still pretty quiet as volcanoes go, and we tend to take their peace and beauty for granted. Think of other volcanoes that have been much more violent in human memory. Names such as Vesuvius and Pompeii or Krakatau in Indonesia bring to mind mass destruction and death. Even close to home we have seen what Mt. St. Helens could do. An old man named Harry Truman thought that Mt. St. Helens was simply too beautiful to leave, right up to the time when he was buried 300 feet deep by rock and ash in 1981.

Some times we think that volcanoes are just there to look pretty. Maybe we think of them as a special gift from God to beautify our landscape. But we also know they are sitting on top of a chamber of molten rock and gas, and at some point in some way we can expect pyrotechnics.

People are like volcanoes. In my early years many people believed I did not have any lava or gas in me. Depending on your perspective I was either infinitely patient or a push-over. I still marvel at the amount of emotional crap I absorbed in my 20s. But eventually I unleashed a pyroclastic flow of my own and swept away much of who I had been. Since then I’ve continued to vent steam on a consistent basis. I certainly feel the lava bubbling inside me, but my venting keeps the danger of explosion low. At least that is how I see things.

I take solace in knowing that even Jesus had volcanic moments, like the quote above when he went berserk in the temple. But I also recognize that he had many non-volcanic times when he was approachable, supportive, a solid rock amid shifting sand for his friends and family.

What kind of volcano do I want to be? Can’t I just wish myself into being a “fold mountain,” the most common type of mountain on Earth that is quiet and yet substantial? Kahlil Gibran said “If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?” A French proverb warns us “Don’t dance on a volcano.”

But I would add, “Do not plug up your vents if you have hot rock at your core.” Better to steam occasionally than explode violently causing mayhem to all in your path. Go berserk in the temple when you have to, but also stoop to touch the forehead of a sick friend.
 

If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
Matthew 5:41

Photo from Wikipedia.org

How often in life do you end up doing more of something than you really planned on, and how do you feel about it at the end of the day?

At work I have established a pattern of working and working until I finally get near the summit of several big projects (it never seems to be just one) and have a little respite. But soon after hitting the summit, I feel bored, and I end up volunteering for several more mountains of work – usually without understanding how big any of them are and how much they add up together. My 10 minutes of boredom lands me in another 18 months of scrambling.

Volunteer positions have a similar pattern. I am careful about agreeing to take on new volunteer roles. I was just going to type “and I only take on one at a time” but caught myself in that lie. I have multiple roles, but they are of different types. One might be leadership, another just as a member of a larger group. One might be work-like, another might be just for fun. But again I often fail to understand the dimensions of my undertaking. Leadership can feel overwhelming at times, and fun can shape shift into duty several times in a single day.

Yesterday I had a sports instance of doing more than I planned. As usual, it was self-inflicted. We went cross-country skiing at Whistler, BC on a new complex of trails and facilities for the Winter Olympics next year, and we were able to ski on the same trails that the medal winners will speed along in just 12 months.

The Olympic Park is beautiful, but confusing to the uninitiated. The trails loop in on each other. I decided to try the biathlon course. Biathlon is that strange combination of skiing and shooting that most people roll their eyes at. I picked the trail because the map indicated it was somewhat easier than the other race trails. But I found not just a trail but a series of 5 loops, from 1.5 kilometers to 4 kilometers, all overlapping and intersecting, so that races of various lengths can be laid out in a relatively small space. I took many wrong turns and doubled back on myself multiple times before I finally figured out the signing system. I also learned that these trails are HARD! Up, down, UP, down, UUPP, down (yes, the down always seems smaller). I was amazed as athletes in training whizzed by me while I stopped to gasp for air on yet another climb.

All this happened before lunch. After a short break I headed for the recreational trails. Once again I was confused, and ended up on a long loop I had not intended to ski – I probably went 10 kilometers out of my way. By the time I got to the trail I had actually intended to ski I was feeling pretty pooped, but I skied on. It was beautiful and very well groomed. I didn’t see racers on these trails, but still got out of the way when some gray-haired skiers sped past on a long hill. After more than an hour I once again felt a bit lost. I stood in front of a large map trying to figure out how I got to “You Are Here” and more to the point how I could get back to the car quickly and easily. I finally followed some other skiers that seemed to know where they were going and soon (but not soon enough) got within sight of the parking lot. At that point I removed my skis, clambered through a few meters of unpacked snow, and walked on the nicely plowed road back to the car. I was absolutely exhausted.

And here I sit the next morning, ready to ski some more. At this moment I am planning on an easy day but I honestly doubt that I’ll hold to that. I only have so many chances to ski, and each time I feel that I want just a little more before quitting. It is just that some times the trails are a lot longer than I’d like at the end of the day, but by then I have no choice but to keep going to the car.

And so goes life. Often we end up some place where we did not plan to go. We do what we think we committed to do, but find a greater need or another task. And often we do it. We stretch ourselves. We end up exhausted, but still alive. And the next day we are ready for more.

I know, all you counselors out there are thinking I really need to learn to set and keep limits. But life can be more rewarding when the limits are porous.
 

They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;
They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
Isaiah 61: 4

I just returned from the Ash Wednesday Service at SFBC. Tim Phillips spoke about ashes, using imagery relating to the great Chicago fire of 1871 and how the city and its institutions rose up like a phoenix from the ashes. He also mentioned the book “Ashes Transformed” by Tilda Norberg, in which the author recounts stories of healing from the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001.

Different images of ashes came to my mind – volcanoes. Last night I watched a History Channel show about Krakatau, a volcano in Indonesia that nearly disappeared as the result of a devastating eruption in 1883. Thousands of people died from the blast itself and a resulting tsunami. Today scientists find evidence of ash and sulfuric acid from Krakatau in ice cores taken from Antarctica and Greenland. The eruption was so severe and the ash and acid so dense that the event provides a marker in time as scientists work with the ice cores, counting each layer as a year like the rings of a tree.

Closer to home, I recall numerous trips to Mt. St. Helens following the 1980 eruption. The eruptions of that year were devastating on a local scale, with loss of life and enormous damage in Washington State. I first traveled to the volcano two years after the major eruption and was struck by the level of obliteration. Hillsides of trees lay parallel along the contours of surrounding mountains, like some giant had combed the trunks into place with hair gel.

Looking out at Mt. St. Helens in the mid 1980s it seemed impossible that life would return to that area any time soon. And yet today, even though the crater still steams and lava flows to the surface, the surrounding area is once again green in the summer and white in the winter. Plants are growing in the ash, and in some places snow accumulates deep enough to survive most of the summer.

Krakatau was many times more violent than St. Helens, and it is amazing to think that any people in the area survived. And yet today Indonesia has more than 130 active volcanoes with nearly 250 million people living on the islands they form.

Nature teaches us that disasters are not the end. Even though it seems as if nothing can survive a volcano, life does continue. Indonesia survived Krakatau and its many siblings. Washington State has survived Mt. St. Helens and her neighbors. Life may change or get rerouted, but it survives and thrives.

And so it is in our lives. We experience our own disasters that at times seem as devastating as a pyroclastic flow. We wonder, “How can I survive the death of my best friend, or the end of my relationship, or the loss of my job?” We cannot see how life can continue, or we may wonder whether we even want it to. And yet these disasters do not end our lives. They shape our lives. Just as Indonesia was born of volcanoes, we are born of our experiences. The events we live through – good, bad and indifferent – do not kill us. They make us who we are, who we will become.

Can our lives rise from our ashes? They can and they will. For that is who we are.
 

Who do people say I am?
Mark 8: 27

Photo from Culturama.com

Last week I wrote about change and newness. I like to believe that I seek out and welcome newness in my life. God knows I’ve certainly been more than a little surprised by where I have found myself over the years, but I can honestly say my life is rarely boring. All this newness can be confusing, however. How do we balance a compulsion to change with a need to remain true to ourselves and our purposes in life? Can we be sure that our transformation is progress and not decay? I still like to ask myself, what will I be if and when I grow up. But have I already grown up, and should I just concentrate on being who I already am?

I wonder what Jesus’ life was like in this regard. We only get the highlight film in the Bible – little dribs and dabs from a few years of his life and nothing from the majority of his time on Earth. The quote above is famous in Christian circles. In response to Jesus’ question Simon Peter answered “You are the Christ.” But what happened at other times in Jesus’ life? Did he ask the same question at age 15 or 20 or 25 and get a different answer? Maybe something along the line of “You are a carpenter’s son who has his head in the clouds. Now get back to work!”

I used to think that as I grew older my mind would settle down and I would become happy just to be who I am, with no more change necessary. But then I watched my parents age, and live better than they ever had before. They met new people, took volunteer positions in various parts of the country, even ate ethnic food now and then. Even at 91, my Dad still had energy to act like a seventh grader in love when he started “keeping company” with a lady after my mother died. Both of my parents kept changing throughout their lives, but no one ever accused either of them of losing their identity or not being true to who they really were.

At times I wish I could change who I am, or at least forget some of the things I’ve learned over the years. It always shocks me when I hear someone describe who I am. At work, and probably in other places, I’m known as a cynic. Some times I wish I could get excited when someone finds “the answer” to all their problems – that diet or new job or love interest that will once and for all fix their problems and make them happy. But Jim the cynic has learned to smile politely and keep quiet, rather than blurting out “But you know dear, you will still be you at the heart of things.”

Where is all this going? I think it has something to do with one of my favorite movie quotes. In What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Blanche, played by Joan Crawford, is an invalid confined to a wheelchair. Her sister and caretaker Jane, played by Bette Davis, terrorizes her. In one scene Blanche opines about her captive state, how life would be so much better if only she was not in a wheelchair. “But you are, Blanche,” Jane retorts. “You are in a wheelchair.”

Blanche is in her chair. I am a cynic. You are you. And yet each of us is capable of moving on, of taking that which is best in us and building on that, of living into the promise of our lives. Each of us can choose change and yet stay true to who we are.
 

The one seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!’
Revelation 21: 5

This year seems to be a season of trying new things for me, or rather making adjustments to the way I do old things. My job remains full of surprises, I have a new leadership position at church, we have a new pastor, and on a personal note I have a new bicycle.

Let me explain the last one first. This winter I made a big change in my biking equipment. I’ve been riding a trustworthy Trek 520 touring bike for years and have ridden that dark green machine literally thousands and thousands of miles. The big ride was a tour across the country five years ago, but my steel-framed steed and I have also been together for countless rides to work, a series of tours that now stretch from the Canadian border to San Francisco, and notably training for and completing the Seattle-to-Portland bicycle classic in a single day last summer. Over the years I’ve become – well, comfortable isn’t exactly the right word since saddle sores are hardly comfortable – extremely confident on my bike. I can maneuver with ease around potholes, through stopped cars, and safely across busy arterials. Riding my Trek is second nature, something that requires very little thought. It is meditative much of the time.

But now I have a new bike, and it is a recumbent. I now lie on my back, with my arms at my side, and my feet forward and even with my chest. It is a pose that one rider aptly described as pedaling your way out of a garbage can. Sounds gruesome, I know, but it has its good points: less pressure on my rear, no shoulder or elbow stress, far less back strain, shock absorbers to cushion the ride, all things that become more important as a cyclist approaches and then passes the age of 50. I describe my new bike as lounge chair with pedals.

This change has not been easy or painless, neither emotionally nor physically. I fell the first four times I rode it. The first time I simply tipped over when I was going too slow up a hill. On my next ride I crashed when a passing rider asked me a question at the same time as a dog crossed the street in front and I lost control amid all that stimulation. It took two more dumps for me to figure out that I was so tense riding my new steed that my stiff arms prevented me from turning properly. I was not physically injured by all this falling but my ego certainly has a nice case of road rash. I am slowly adjusting to my new bike, and can turn and stop consistently if not effortlessly. I am beginning to feel somewhat comfortable in its wide seat, and look forward to riding it from San Diego to San Francisco this spring. Through determination, adjustment, mistakes, and corrections I am learning how to bike in a new way.

I wonder about our church, my time there, and our new pastor. I have much to learn about my new position as president of the congregation. How many times will I crash in that one, and will the congregants let me get back up and keep going or run me over while I’m lying in the gutter? And how about our new pastor? Will we allow him to ride some flat roads before insisting that he scale mountain passes? Will we learn how to travel with him, just as he learns to travel with us, along this windy, hilly, potholed path we call the way of Jesus Christ?

Life is like riding a bike. Once learned you may not forget how, but we do need to make major adjustments and course corrections from time to time. And now and then we will crash. That is when we get to make the big choices about getting back up, healing our hurts, and pedaling on our way.