Calm After The Storm
Sunset After The Monsoon
I woke up this morning from another restless night. I am told there’s lots of anxiety out there, growing rapidly, causing a lot of harm. What’s going on? Our grandson Andrew may have summed it up the other night: “I went to a party last night. It was weird. Something’s happened to us, Grandad, something’s changed.” It’s not very clear what has happened, but we know a bunch of stuff is causing a lot of change. It’s just not the same.
We know the dizzying array of threats: From continuing projections of Covid, to environmental catastrophe, to a faltering economy, mayhem on the border, and always polarization and demoralizing paralysis. The technological tools we hold in our hands and covet on our desks also seem to spiral out of control. We can’t keep up.
No wonder we’re not sleeping. We can’t get away, even in our sleep.
But then, this morning, after this hard night, it came to me like a bolt of lightning. Earlier that evening I got all tangled up in argument. In the end I wasn’t even sure what we were arguing about. I was afraid we were going to end up walking away from each other. There is a lot of pain in that for me, for all of us.
The bolt of lightning came this morning to tell me the only answer is love, not thinking more, not arguing it out, but learning better how to treat each other with love.
Don’t get me wrong. I will never give up pursuing the truth, trying always to put words to what is true. Some things are true and some are not. But still, we can’t let ourselves get tangled up so intensely that we’re tempted to walk away, separate ourselves, alienate ourselves. We can’t abandon the truth, but we can’t abandon each other either.
James K. A. Smith, from whom I have learned a lot along the way, reflects on a deep change of heart that has happened to him of late.
As a young Christian philosopher, I wanted to be the confident, heresy-hunting Augustine, vanquishing the pagans with brilliance, fending off the Manichaeans and Pelagians with ironclad arguments. As a middle-aged man, I dream of being Mr. Rogers. . . .
Oh right, exchange Augustine for Mr. Rogers? Well, not exactly, maybe a little more nuanced. Smith goes on to say he is
less confident we’ll think our way out of the morass and malaise in which we find ourselves. Analysis won’t save us. And the truth of the gospel is less a message to be taught than a mystery enacted. . . . I’ve come to believe that the grace of God that will save us is more powerfully manifest in beloved community than in rational enlightenment.
I’ve been studying again that rich, magnificent letter to the Colossians, where the Apostle Paul, with all kinds of specious truths swirling around them, gives thanks for the growing community of believers in Colossae. Where does he get his confidence in this community? Well, first, he sees that they have placed “God’s secret, which is Christ himself” at the center of their search for wisdom and truth. They’ve located their truth in Christ.
But then, he encourages them, to put on some new clothes, behaviors like
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgiving, if any of you has cause for complaint: you must forgive as the Lord forgave you. Finally, to bind everything together and complete the whole, there must be love.
This is what I woke up with this morning. Maybe the answer to our tortured moment, both personal and societal, is to treat each other in these ways, with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. We are invited here to become different people. This will help us build radically different communities, new neighborhoods, new families, new churches, new organizations. And always remember: “there must be love.”
Can we do this? This has become a big deal to me, very personal. I’m not sure completely how to go about such a huge change, in my own heart, in the world around me. But something has happened to us, and just maybe, this new kind of person really is the way to change everything. I keep saying, today, over and over: Remember, there must be love.