A couple days ago, I posted about "birthing Capri." I wrote about experiencing increasing intimations of a coming birth and of the entity God is creating through me slowly separating itself from the birthing wall of my insides. I felt God gently touching my hand so my fingers would slowly release their grip on what is coming, choosing a loss of oneness for the health of its life.
Then yesterday happened.
Yesterday I read a book by Ronald Rolheiser called The Holy Longing. The first chapters of this book explore the human conundrum of pathos. We are, each one of us, he says, carrying an energy, a fire, a passion, an eros, even a madness that fires our insides and propels us forward through our days. It is a longing we seek to fill, through good or ill means, to create a meaningful life.
How we channel that energy is our spirituality, Rolheiser says, and all of us has a spirituality of some making because we all, by virtue of living and making choices each day, channel that energy in some specific direction that is continually forming us into integrated or disintegrated beings.
The trouble is, we underestimate the power of that fire. When we play loosely with it, it can burn us. Destroy us, actually. He uses the example of Janis Joplin, who was full of life and passion to experience as much of life as she could . . . and died of exhaustion and a drug overdose at age 27.
The remainder of the book is an exploration of what it means to have a specifically Christian spirituality.
I guess the experience thus far of reading this book has really sobered me. I think about Storychange and what I have imagined it to be: a channeling of inner longings toward some sense of understanding and resolution about who we are and what we're made for. But if that is undertaken lightly, what kind of damage could be done? And if it is not done in a specifically Christian context, will I lead people further into their own destruction?
I'm not sure. I guess right now, all I have are questions, an increasing humility, and a gratitude for this path I'm walking that will, at some point, begin to help the clouds clear away so I can see God's gracious face without obstruction.
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Wisdom. Faith. Grace. Becoming.
For different reasons, we're all in the crucible. We're walking through a season of intensive refinement, punctuated with celebrations and miracles. We wonder and ask, what is God doing? Where is He? And when it hurts the most, we beg for His deliverance. We struggle to open our hands and our hearts to Him even as we question His presence and purposes in this place. We cry out for Him to show us what He intends for our lives.
And then we are challenged to ask:
What if, instead of pleading His intervention, we acknowledge His presence and thank Him for these crucible moments? What if, instead of asking Him to deliver us from this place, we ask Him to deliver us in this place?
None of us knows the answer, but it is clear He has given us each other to lean in on and walk with. Our tears and prayers and questions spill together. We can each find a reason we don't quite belong, but we know all the same that He brought us together for a purpose that as of now, remains hidden in Him.
This is us, walking through it together. This is us, sojourning through a land where the line between faith and crazy is sometimes imperceptible. Reach out in the dark, and you will find the hand of a friend.
Sometimes we stand and wait, trusting that our seeming stillness somehow amounts to best honoring and serving our King. And sometimes we have the chance to open our windows so everyone can see and to say: Even if He does not show up, I will not bend my knee to another.
Dedicated to the glory of God and for the purposes of His kingdom.
Sarah, Christianne, Christin, and Kirsten
For different reasons, we're all in the crucible. We're walking through a season of intensive refinement, punctuated with celebrations and miracles. We wonder and ask, what is God doing? Where is He? And when it hurts the most, we beg for His deliverance. We struggle to open our hands and our hearts to Him even as we question His presence and purposes in this place. We cry out for Him to show us what He intends for our lives.
And then we are challenged to ask:
What if, instead of pleading His intervention, we acknowledge His presence and thank Him for these crucible moments? What if, instead of asking Him to deliver us from this place, we ask Him to deliver us in this place?
None of us knows the answer, but it is clear He has given us each other to lean in on and walk with. Our tears and prayers and questions spill together. We can each find a reason we don't quite belong, but we know all the same that He brought us together for a purpose that as of now, remains hidden in Him.
This is us, walking through it together. This is us, sojourning through a land where the line between faith and crazy is sometimes imperceptible. Reach out in the dark, and you will find the hand of a friend.
Sometimes we stand and wait, trusting that our seeming stillness somehow amounts to best honoring and serving our King. And sometimes we have the chance to open our windows so everyone can see and to say: Even if He does not show up, I will not bend my knee to another.
Dedicated to the glory of God and for the purposes of His kingdom.
Sarah, Christianne, Christin, and Kirsten
8 comments:
I read this last night and I've been knocking it around in my brain since then. I don't know if I can yet formulate the response I want to make, but I'll try.
First of all, I think you're onto something there. It seems like this book gives new words to some of what you were thinking earlier.
I also wonder if the fact that you're willing to see things like this are what makes you the one who can found something like Storychange.
I see you here doing some of what you'd talked about in your last post--unwrapping your fingers and figuring out what this can look like. Maybe turning it even more over to God, to his leadership, design, etc.
Love to you, in this process. Your an encouragement to me to think about God's place in the things I'm about, too. Take your time, here...being here seems important.
i'm with sarah - i just read all these words and am letting the thoughts they convey digest a bit. i really don't know what i intend to say, but the author's message as you describe it makes sense: that pathos, the fire and the longing can be mishandled and used improperly, ultimately becoming destructive instead of constructive. it's a sobering thought and good to keep in mind. it's a reminder that what's inside us is so much more powerful than (perhaps) we give it credit for.
i was thinking on this whole image of birthing and storychange and the special gifts and passions each of us are carrying inside. and i realized a few things about mary:
* she was asked if she wanted to carry the Christ child. her miraculous pregnancy was not forced upon her. she had to agree with God's plan before that happened.
* carrying that child cost her something. it's just barely there in the text, but we know from the steps joseph is getting ready to take to divorce her quietly that her community likely viewed her as a loose woman. her whole reputation would have been called into question. and so bearing the son of God cost her something.
i keep thinking of that in the context of these images we're discussing in relation to storychange and writing and all the things the four of us are about these days. He won't force anything upon us, but if we agree it's likely going to cost us something.
kirsten is rambling and is going to stop now. :o)
Kirsten, that last line of yours sounds like a Facebook status update. :) (And yes, whereas for the past two years, I've been thinking about life in terms of blog posts, now I'm thinking about life in terms of Facebook status updates.) :)
Girls, thanks for your thoughts here. My mind, too, keeps going back to that image of God asking me to release my hold on this. That is so much of what the past couple weeks have felt like to me . . . but is this really that different? Maybe it's through the release of my fingers that all this new stuff could rise to the surface and I'd be willing to say, "May it be unto me according to your word."
I think what feels SO HARD about accepting whatever God says it is supposed to be is that . . . I'm not so sure how much the final entity will look like the Storychange entity I've created. From what I can see right now (and granted, I'm walking in a fog), the current product format might become too chintzy and light for the subject matter, and too loose.
And secondly, the subject itself -- the reason it's called Storychange in the first place -- might not even be the point. Is God calling me, really, to help people awaken to their stories, begin to attend to the meaning of those stories, and embrace their authentic identity in response? Or is he calling me to something entirely other, something about what it means to be truly on the path to being conformed to the image of Christ -- which, by the way, is obviously something that happens over an entire lifetime, not over the course of one year with Storychange?
I guess I'm wondering if "Storychange" is really the point. If it isn't, I feel like I've got nothing. No more cards in my hands. And that makes me really frustrated. What was this last year of work for, then? (I know, I know -- we're going to agree that God was forming things in me beyond the specifics of this Storychange work. Blah!)
I really love Storychange as it has been created. I guess, like my post says, I'm just sitting with questions right now.
Christianne is not so sure anything she just said made any kind of sense.
lots of BLAH!!!
i get the concept of releasing hold of something
i have something in my hand, and then i let it go.
i no longer have my grip around it. it might stay in my hand as it is, or it might leave my hand and change into something else.
but what does this mean for storychange?? what does it mean to let go of an idea, a passion, a business model, letting it (possibly) become something else, relinquishing your control of it?? well, i have to say. after much head-scratching and chin-rubbing and scrunching up my face, i haven't the faintest clue.
BLAH!!
Okay, I just need to say I LOVE the header art. Really, really nice.
I finally figured out what this post reminded me of. Christianne, I actually feel like this ties in with a lot of what you've been saying lately.
A while back, probably before I was connected with you girls, I posted this and this. They're posts about an image I had right after Dave and I were married, when we were talking a lot about the future. I felt like our plans were like birds that had landed in our hands. We could either hold them tightly, which isn't good for the birds and isn't really a pleasant experience for the people either, or we could open our hands and let the birds do as they would. They could stay, or fly away, or fly away and come back.
I felt like opening our hands acknowledged God's role in our lives, and really mirrored how he chose to deal with humanity.
I don't know if this is at all helpful, but it's been in the back of my mind since you started talking about releasing your grasp on Storychange, Christianne.
I need to let some of my deeper thoughts mull on this for a little longer, but I just had to say, I'm envious of the statement "Yesterday I read a book," because I take this to mean that you read the book in one day. I miss the days of reading a book in a day. *sigh*
Sarah, yes. That image is really helpful. I just made a comment over on your post about "standing" in which I said I feel like God is moving me more to a posture that requires kneeling . . . somehow, the image of holding the bird in my open hands feels akin to this kneeling I'm learning how to do. So, thanks.
And Christin, your comment about reading the book made me laugh. :)
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