Sometimes we need a kick in the seat… and then a helping of grace

It’s amazing that I can spend a week at camp and come back to find I’m more than a month behind at work, home, and everywhere in between. I intended to write a post last week but the catching up got in the way of catching up. A lot of things are bouncing around what passes for my mind these days, but nothing that sorted itself out first. 

In the chaos of this week, this quote from Sarah Bessey popped up. Several times.

I don’t want to be swallowed by the darkness. Nor do I want to be blinded by the light. No, I want to be part of a people who see the darkness, know it’s real, and then, then, then, light a candle anyway.

After enough times, I got the hint and read the post. Although she wasn’t writing about the aftermath of the Zimmerman trial or the latest political battles, she could have been addressing any of the too many us-vs.-them animosities that snarl across the internet.

From In which faith comes by listening to the right story:

The temptation is to listen to only one perspective or the other. We choose sides, and often that “side” depends on the place from which we engage life.

The temptation is to say that our own narrow experience trumps all other evidence or the experiences of others.

The temptation, particularly for those of us who operate from a position of privilege, is to gravitate towards the good and ignore the very real and true cries of the oppressed and marginalized or even just-plain-different-from-us of our society, to retreat into the worlds of our own making and the brightly lit aisles of a shopping centre, and then point to the good stories as good enough for us. We seek our convenience and comfort and safety. Surely these stories of abuse or injustice are anomalies, right?

Or the temptation is to gorge ourselves on sorrow and anger, to fill our hearts and minds only with the tales of hate and evil and horror, until we forget the beauty and peace and justice growing and rising like yeast among us. We keep our face towards the darkness, weeping or raging, and we miss the candles bravely flickering around us.

And then our temptation is to turn the other side into a straw man argument to blithely ignore or burn in effigy. Either way, we don’t have to listen to a straw man.  I don’t think that this is unique to women’s issues or to the Church or to the Internet: we do it in every corner of our life or with any issue.

Yet the word “right” or “wrong” isn’t the proper word for our human experience. Whether it’s a story I love or a story I hate, whether it’s a story that grieves me or a story that angers me, whether it’s a story that inspires me or a story that sickens me, whether it’s a story with a happy ending or an unresolved ending, I often don’t get to decide whether or not it’s right, it simply is what happened. It is the story. It is real. It is true. In our broken world, injustice is just as real as justice.

They are both true: the darkness and the light along with the reality that most of our lives reflect both. There is no either-or to real life.

Jesus walked into a messy world and taught that the kingdom of God works through love, not condemnation. We’re neither too righteous nor too broken, no matter what we think of ourselves. In all our messiness, God sees us as redeemable, worthy of grace, love, and restoration. Not just me, or the people who think, look, act, vote, and believe like me. But also the people who think differently, live differently, and are on the other side of the ideological spectrum. 

Here’s how the “light the candle” quote fits into Sarah’s post:

To me, the right stories are in the Word of God – Jesus – as revealed by Scripture, by the community, and by the Holy Spirit – and He is a story of life and love and hope for us all, for all the Boths and the Ands and the Neithers and the Eithers. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

The right story is the old, old story of heaven breaking through, of redemption arching, of justice rolling down, of deserts blooming flowers, of exiles planting gardens, of swords into ploughshares, of life instead of death.

The right story is the one to listen to because it’s the one that makes room for all of us, this is the story that holds all our stories with the promise of life and hope, joy and renewal.

I don’t want to be swallowed by the darkness. Nor do I want to be blinded by the light. No, I want to be part of a people who see the darkness, know it’s real, and then, then, then, light a candle anyway. And hold that candle up in the winds and pass along our light wherever it’s needed from our own homes to the halls of legislation to the church pulpit to the kitchens of the world…. 

Faith comes by listening to the right story. It’s true. And the right story for me, the ones I turn towards when I’m tempted to choose one side or the other, is the Great Story that holds all of them as precious and worthy of love.

I’m thankful for this reminder that God doesn’t let political, ideological, or other baggage get in the way of offering us grace and redemption. I just need a kick in the backside every now and then to remind me of it.