Mercy

Those of us who passionately care about making the world a better place; those of us who are change agents; people like ministers and activists--have a struggle in our hearts.  I know it very well myself, in any case.  You will have to decide if this struggle affects you or not.

I want to talk about one of my inner demons--you know, those persistent patterns of behavior that lurk under the surface of our character.  During my sabbatical I got acquainted with many of my inner demons, and found it helpful to give them names, when I was able to recognize them in action.  

So the one I am thinking about today is the Critical One.  What I love about the Critical One is her ability to hone in on what is broken and even come up with some good ideas about how to address the problem.  What I hate about the Critical One is how she always hones in on what is broken, and gets overwhelmed by how much work there is to solve our problems.  What was that beautiful quote?  “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.”  The Critical One has a hard time with that.  When she takes over, I forget about the mystery.  I can do it to myself, I can do it to my family, I can do it to our church, I can do it to our country, I can do it to Life in general.  It probably is part of why I can name so many of my inner demons, and sometimes forget to name my inner beauties.

The first step in dealing with an inner demon is to see it and accept it.  Which of course is just the opposite of what the Critical One would do.  She would fix herself.  I also have to remember that she’s hiding feelings--all demons hide something.  Under my Critical One I find anger.  (How many of us learned to deal well with our anger?)  I also find the vast gap between what we can imagine and dream about, and the pain in us and around us in reality.  

Think about our world.  Has there ever been a time when there was no war, no violence, no struggle, no oppression?  We sometimes like to imagine that there was an Eden of perfect peace and joy.  In fact, it is an amazing capacity that human beings can dream of perfection, can imagine justice and harmony.  (Maybe the Dreamer and the Critical One are siblings.)  But in reality, I don’t think the world has ever been perfect. And that is what shook loose my vision.  The Creator--or if you don’t relate to the idea of a creator--think of it as nature, or the sun shining on the earth, or the Life force--the Creator has embraced us the whole way through.  Life unfolds age after age.  The sun shines on the good and the bad, the environmentalists and the polluters.  Suddenly I realized that this is the experience of mercy--to be embraced as we are.  

I am trying to get to that place which embraces the beauty in what exists right now, not as I dream it could be.  Can I embrace my self, as I am, all my demons included, right now?  Can I notice the beauty in my family, each day?  Can I embrace my church community, all our struggles included, right now?  Can I embrace my country, with its deceit and greed, can I see its hope and courage?  Can I embrace this life, always filled with both beauty and pain?  I do have that power in me, as well as the Critical One.  Maybe I can call her the “Embracer of All That Is.”  Invite her to go to tea with the Critical One, and work out the balance between the two of them. 

       Mercy leads to joy.

Sound of Sweet Silence

Almost immediately after I set up the new blog, I found myself at a loss for words... Or maybe that is not quite accurate... I found myself bewildered by the form, and struggling to sort out which voice this might be, and how it might fit into the many forms of communication I practice in my life.  I have journaled for years and years, and have 4 or 5 boxes of journals in my closet--but that private writing of my soul doesn't quite fit in with this public forum, especially as a person with an already public life as a minister.  And as a minister, I have other forums for expression, most notably preaching, that marvelous challenge and gift to which I devote two days of my life each week, plus Sunday mornings.  Preaching is a distillation of my thoughts and feelings and spirit stirrings in the cauldron of communal life, the relationship with my church community.  And preaching also becomes a public voice, for the sermons appear on our church website in written and podcasting form.   

Then there are the many other forms of communication in the work of ministry.  I have said that most of ministry is about talking and listening, in one form or another.  Meetings with groups, chats over dinner, phone calls, hospital visits, listening to the intimate revelations of the heart.  Not to mention the public voice, the letters to the editor, the presence in the work of particular struggles for justice.  And each of these spinning threads of connection between myself and other people.   So it was easy at first to imagine the blog as another forum, another avenue of expression and connection. 

But then, peering at the blank square of the blog "new post", amidst these many words of ministry, I found myself experiencing a craving for silence.  During my sabbatical I had been visiting a deep silence, a silence that opened up the interior life, a silence that made room for an inner dialogue.  I had the incredible gift of time to wander into the depths of my soul and discover how vast is that terrain--and of course to realize that this inner world is expansive in each of us.  Now, every day I notice my yearning for that silence, and each morning I try to make time to enter it as deeply as I can--but often I am just opening the front door, and pausing in the vestibule.  And yet it is ever present, and illuminates the work of ministry with wings of mystery.  

Is there a bridge that can span the inner silence of one soul to the inner silence of another?  Can I bring my inner worlds into a larger web of communication, and if I could, what would be the purpose?  Is there something about the blog, in the vast hidden expanse of cyber space, that invites this silence to express itself?
And if silence can speak, might it have the capacity to open my ears, or your ears, to hear the sound of one hand clapping?