Training Wheels

On what/whom do you depend? Posing the question to the assembled group created the kind of silence that made me wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake. People looked at their feet, cleared their throats, or reached for their coffee. In a world which encourages people to be masters of their destiny, to be invincible, or at least widely independent, I understood their hesitation to answer, but I also know that we all depend on something or someone. The question is, on what or whom?

Suddenly, an image came to mind, one that did not make any sense at the time. I thought about the days when I did not know how to ride my bike and my parents gave me a bike with training wheels. It stood erect in the driveway, no need for a kickstand, and I could sit on the seat and not worry about tipping over. Just to make sure, I leaned from one side to the other and was relieved to remain upright. I leaned more dramatically to each side eventually finding out there was a limit to the power of the training wheels.

Not knowing what that memory had to do with this morning’s topic, I listened as people spoke about their lives before entering the rooms of twelve-step recovery. One person shared his obsession with work and how he gave his all to being successful until he came home to an empty house. Another spoke of growing up in an uncertain, unpredictable house and how it caused her to demand absolute certainty from the people around her. Eventually, it led to her being completely alone. Another spoke of material success and how he used it to “buy” the respect of others and how it became a “hamster wheel of more” which led to his eventually defaulting on loans and declaring bankruptcy.

I eventually saw what my childhood memory had to do with what we were discussing. Like those in the rooms, I’ve often longed for something more than I’ve had. No job, relationship, or bank account was enough. There was always an emptiness, a longing, (or “hole in my soul” as someone wise once wrote) and no matter how hard I tried it always remained. I could lean in one direction or another and feel secure, but eventually the “training wheels” would give out and leave me lying face-down on the driveway.

It would be logical to take such a lesson and set out to never depend on anything or anyone, but the truth is we are not independent beings. Despite whatever evidence we have to suggest otherwise, we were born incomplete. The question then becomes, what are we going to do about that, or, as I posed that morning, on what or whom will we depend?

Reaching such a moment of clarity is humbling, and yet it is also life-giving. To realize we are perpetually in need allows us to release our white-knuckle grip on life (and those around us) and turn to something or someone greater than we. It might sound simple or, worse, simplistic, but surrendering to a power greater than ourselves can begin a sacred dance that will lead us in directions we never expected. Unlike the training wheels, we can lean in all we want or need and never topple to the ground.

Black Plastic Bags

46 years ago today, I drove over to a hospital where I was handed a large black plastic bag full of my father’s things. He had died the night before, and the nurses had collected all the notes and cards, his watch, wedding ring, and the clothes he wore when he was first checked in. I can still feel the weight of the bag, remember the long walk down the hall, and hear the thud it made when I put it in the trunk of my car (the car he and my mother bought me for graduation that he never got to see). 46 years later, the moment lives on. 46 years later, the sadness remains. “Surely Dad’s life was more than this,” I sighed.

Who are we, really? Are we the houses we live in, the careers we choose, the bank accounts we build, the possessions we accumulate? These are familiar questions but remembering the black plastic bag of my father’s things, it challenges me to wonder what, in the end, will be put in my plastic bag and what, if anything, will be left behind once I’m gone.

I have three dear friends who are awakening this morning and packing up their parents’ homes. Unlike mine, their parents lived long, vibrant lives, and yet this moment for them is just like the one I experienced long ago. It can’t help but make them wonder, as I did, who exactly were their parents? What remains in this world of their lives?

It’s enough to make me shake my head as I think of all the striving we do to make something of our lives. For most of us, we focus on things that will one day be put into a black plastic bag, but we are all more than that. We leave behind the people we were to others. We leave the kindness we offered as well as the pain we caused, our successes and our mistakes. All of it belongs, all of it remains . . . and none of it can be put in a black plastic bag.

The Real Gospel

Walking down the city street, the man with the microphone assured me that it was not too late to find eternal life. In fact, he said I could have it today if I would only repeat certain words after him. From then on, he added, my life would be one of abundance, peace and tranquility.

“What on earth is he talking about?” I asked myself. To choose a life of faith takes much more then prescribed words, and, for me anyway, the life it leads to is far from easy. In fact, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever tried.

No wonder people try to water it down or bend it to accommodate their lives. Everywhere I look I see and hear a “gospel” that has nothing to do with the one I’ve to come to understand by reading scripture. Designed to make pews more comfortable and behaviors more acceptable, the other “gospel” is all fine and good until a person reads what Jesus actually said.

My experience is that following Christ calls into question most of what I do and challenges most of what I think. No longer can I live a self-centered life because he said it’s all about others. No longer can I feel content with the abundance of my life because he said I am to care about those who are not as blessed as I. No longer can I trust my way of seeing things because I have a plank in my eye, a self-centered plank that keeps me from seeing all the ways I fall short of being who God created me to be. (Judging others is so much easier than judging oneself.)

My brother was an accomplished wrestler in high school and college. I remember watching him bounce around and swing his arms on the side as he waited for the match. When he entered the ring, however, he crouched down, stuck out his arms, and gave it all he had. There were twists and turns, lifts and falls, and I was never sure who was going to win. The life of faith has been like that for me. It’s all fine and good when I am bouncing around and swinging my arms thinking (and writing) about such a life, and another once I enter the ring. Then, it’s a struggle, one with twists and turns, lifts and falls, just when I think I’m “winning” I fall flat on my face.

In this morning’s scripture, John describes many people coming to hear Jesus and walking away. I didn’t remember this passage, but I understood why they walked away. Discipleship is hard. Rather than stick around and say one thing and do another, they turned and admitted such a life was not for them. The cost of discipleship, as Diedrich Bonhoeffer called it, was too high. How refreshing it is to read about people who see the difficulty of living lives of faith as opposed to those who preach on the corner, stand in the voting booth, or walk in front of cameras promising a compromised version of the gospel.

Yes, discipleship is hard, maybe the hardest thing there is. If I am not wrestling with it daily, chances are I’ve watered it down or selectively edited it to suit my own fears which I disguise with greed, prejudices, and judgement.

If the gospel wasn’t hard, I don’t think it would be real.

If it didn’t challenge my human thoughts and actions, it wouldn’t be divine.

If it didn’t involve death of some sort, it couldn’t offer new life.