Grace in Wondering about Life...

Where do you go to resign? Resign from everything and just stop for awhile…throw in the towel and stop the spinning, the vertigo of the soul, the confusion and the complication of living. Is it really to much to want friendship and to be loved for who you are – why does being alive seem so obtuse and difficult – where is the freedom in it? To be…simply be…and not feel trapped or confined, to not have your heart darkened and overgrown with doubt, feeling as if it is in a black hole. Kris Kristofferson wrote that, “…freedom’s just another word for nothing left to loose and nothing ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free…” – again I ask what T.S. Eliot asked, “…where is the life that is lost in the living?”

When Jesus began his ministry he first said this, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…”

So I want to know what this freedom is. How do we taste it, feel it, experience it? It seems a bit ethereal, like a dream that we somehow know is real yet that we wake from and forget in the daytimes of our existence. It seems as there are so many limiters in our happiness, either placed there by ourselves, prisons, oppression of our own making or those imposed upon us by others – it must be these limiters to being human, being alive that Jesus came to free us from, “…to set the oppressed free…” yet this is what we fear most – our own freedom!

I really think that there is pain and death in becoming alive, being born, being released out of oppression because it feels so different and unfamiliar that we don’t trust the reality of what we are experiencing so we want to go back to our oppression – doesn’t the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt really become all of our stories? We fear the unknown, the deserts, newness of what being really alive feels like, what freedom is – the fear is so overwhelming at times and we want to quit, to resign like I expressed I feel like doing today. It all seems too hard too heavy and it is so much easier not to risk, to retreat, to be alone, to isolate ourselves into a state of not feeling or nothingness.

To risk, to live, to love, to be a friend, to be in a community of people is to be free even if it means our lives will seem more unfamiliar, vulnerable, strange and most likely be more messy. Maybe that is the point of what Jesus is saying – be free, to see life for what it is – beautiful! And sure it will be messy and hard at times but that is o.k. because I am really good at messiness so go ahead and take the risk to be free and live, follow your heart and listen for my voice. Trust me…really trust me…

So has this been an attempt to talk myself out of resigning and keep pressing on and risking that love and being alive is in the end better than fear and isolation and desperation and death even though at times it really does not seem so?

I suppose it has helped a little.

Grace comes at these times I think and gives us something - maybe it’s hope, or a little peace, or a touch of a hand, a smile, a sparkle in an eye, a smile, a laugh, a beer with friends, knowing you are loved, a song, a gift, a good book, family, a sunrise or sunset, talking to an old friend, talking to a new friend, writing, listening to your heart, listening itself, giving something of yourself away, being with someone, sharing life, sleeping, a nap in the afternoon, a walk, running, feeling the sun on your face, a cup of coffee…whatever it is for you that touches you, makes life beautiful, something to hold onto and cherish…for God, “… has made everything beautiful in its time.”