June 8, 2020

+Porter Taylor

Sooner or later we lose our way. We run out of what we can do and manage and control, and then we have a choice of whether to depend upon God or to insist that we can make our own lives work. There’s a reason Jesus begins his ministry in the wilderness. The lessons he must learn have nothing to do with his wisdom or holiness or powers. It’s about surrendering to God and trusting God even though we cannot see or understand how the future will unfold, and then to become effective instruments of God’s will. It enables us to get our ego out of the way.

We as a country are at a crossroads. We can try to manage this racial crisis that has infected us since our birth as a country, but that means we will try to make it go away by patching over the wounds that have opened. Or we can do the hard work of letting go of our assumptions and follow not our eyes or our heads but our hearts. However, this requires skills that we do not know how to use: letting go of our defended positions, entering the darkness, waiting for the Holy Spirit to bring newness, and then having the courage to embrace it and act upon it.

I thought of a poem by Randall Jarrell, “What’s the Riddle”:

“What’s the riddle that they ask you
When you are young and you say, “I don’t know,”
But that later on you will know—
The riddle that they ask you
When you’re old and you say, “I don’t know,”
And that’s the answer?
“I don’t know.”

There is so much we don’t know. Like what happens tomorrow or with your next breath. Like what to do about the racism that has been embedded in our society since our beginning. Like what to do to stop black men from being killed in the street---George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner—and those are just well- known ones.

Wendy Wright wrote, “If you want to see the stars, you have to learn to walk in the dark.” There isn’t a simple solution to the racism that infects our country. However, just because we don’t have a clear-cut plan, doesn’t mean we can’t move forward. We can’t do everything at once---fix our schools for all races, correct our economy for everyone, make our prison system just, reform our police, get more responsive government and on and on—but we can and must do the next thing.

My favorite saint, Francis, never had a plan. He knew no answers for any riddle. But he allowed God’s love to come into and rule his heart and he just did the next thing. He didn’t wait for the government to change; he simply changed the way he behaved and the way he saw and the way he loved. One person wrote, “St. Francis was a man who did not want to see the wood for the trees.” He just saw this tree and then that tree. He loved the person in front of him as a brother or sister. He did the next charitable thing. He gave thanks for this moment. He changed the world.

When we find ourselves in the dark, it’s tempting to wait for the light or to spend our time trying to make the light come on faster or fixated on who is to blame. But this is the only moment we have to live for God. Don’t wait for the light. Just live for God and love for God, catch God’s vision of the Beloved Community, and do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. It’s one way the world gets changed.

Prayer: “Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart that barriers which divide us may crumble; suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Book of Common Prayer page, 823)

Practice: Notice the people you confront; become aware of the inequities where you are; ask God for how to respond.