Mother Martha's Monday Meditation |
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| February 5, 2007 | ||
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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!" Isaiah 61:8 This famous passage from Isaiah is often read at ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood; however, it applies to everyone and his or her call in life. God calls each of us throughout our lives--new calls or renewed calls again and again. Just like Isaiah, we often try to hide from God's call in our life. I know that I spent quite a few years in my late teens and twenties, hiding from God's call for me. Yet, I knew the more I hid from my call, the more unsettled I became in my life. God was calling me to live more fully into my soul and self. I chose to hide behind a wallof my own making and choosing. I recently came upon this quote from a business guru, Warren Bennis, about leadership and call. I've doctored the quote just a little bit: The point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, and to use yourself completely--all your gifts, skills, and energies--to make your (God's) vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming. (from On Becoming A Leader by Warren Bennis) I've found this quote and many other thought-provoking words in a collection of essays honoring Parker Palmer. The book is edited by Sam M. Intrator and is titled Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 2005) In the section entitled "Leading from Within," there is an essay by Russ Moxley, who is Director of the Center for Leadership and Ethics at Greensboro College. His essay begins with this quote by Bennis and goes on to talk about Parker's phrase "hiding behind the wall." Moxley's point is that it is so easy in life to succumb to "groupthink." And as I pointed out in my sermon Sunday, the complex, diverse, and global society will live in often makes it easy to hide behind groupthink. We distance ourselves from the suffering and wonder all around us because it all just seems too much. The grave danger in doing this is that we wall ourselves off from our own humanity. Is this what we in America have done with the war in Iraq? Even deeper than this walling off of the "other" and external challenges in our lives, we also can wall off our essential self. Moxley puts it this way: We are born whole and integral, but early in life we learn to "wall off" ideas and truths most precious to us. We are unwittingly encouraged to do this by parents and parent-figures, by teachers, by friends, and later by bosses. Parker suggests, and I think he's right, that we tend to speak our truth only when we realize the pain of living a divided life--the pain that comes when we realize that we are diminishing ourselves as persons--is worse than any consequence we might suffer from coming out from behind the wall. When we decide we will not wall off our truth but instead let it make an on-stage appearance, then we decide to live "divided no more." Living divided no more is living and leading with transparency, with deep integrity; it is allowing others to know what is going on inside of us." (p. 260) As we approach the season of Lent, it's time once again to look into our hearts and see where we've built walls--walls that divide us from our world, our community, the "other," and our very selves. Of course, after years of living behind the wall, it takes a good bit of courage to come out from behind that wall and to speak our truth as we know it. That's where a supportive community comes in. That's where Jesus stands on the other side of the wall--ready to help us walk into our new life--the life that has been prepared for us since before we were born. Text: Isaiah 61 Pondering: Where is it easy for you to hide behind a wall? Where are you divided? Where is God's calling you to a new way of being? What piece of yourself deep inside seeks to be heard? In Christ, |
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