What do you do when you expect a 90-minute blank space in the schedule? It would be so easy these days to fill it with music, phone conversations, information and other electronic noise.
But today marked a drive to the Valley. And I don't drive to the Valley much anymore. With my mind filled with personal, local and global concerns, I shut off the radio and phone and just allowed myself the space to "contemplate the universe." Connect with myself and God. Listen. Wait.
I went back to a place I experienced in my teen years. Solitude. Before the noise of life increased. No cell phones. No internet. Our youth pastor collected some appliance boxes and directed us to occupy said cardboard. She wasn't thinking homeless simulation. Just isolation. Time to think and pray and be alone with ourselves. At the time, I didn't want to admit it was actually useful. Today I could use that box more often. I'd add a cushion or pillow -- these 50-year-old bones don't do unpadded surfaces very well these days.
Rarely is there a time of solitude from my first waking moment to my last thought before sleep takes over. Spouse. Co-workers. Work. Music. Social media. Email. Maybe television or a movie. If there's any solitude, it's in my truck or the shower.
So, once I shared a few thoughts about current situations with God, I just let the time pass. And clearly, my mind wasn't vacant. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
Enemies? I don't really have them. But there are certainly people who rub me the wrong way and seem to do everything in their power to work against me. Just because there isn't outright warfare doesn't mean there's not conflict.
It's easy to pray for the people you like. It's fairly easy to pray for those you don't know very well. But how about those people who oppose you? Those who you don't think deserve a shot of your attention? The words catch in the back of your throat as you say, "God, I think ________ needs your help." Or better yet, "God, help me to see ____________ as a child of God with the gifts you have given him/her." A handful of names quickly came to mind, and will remain there until my prayers turn my heart.
Then add two more people to the list. My husband. Yesterday didn't go very well. And the last couple of days, and if I'm really truthful, the last couple of weeks. Lately, it doesn't take much to make one of us snap at the other. "Heal us, God. Work from within to knock down The Wall.*"
And then there's me. It's easy to pray for what I think I need, but harder to pray for what I actually need. Patience. Self-control. Harder still to look for those sharp edges that God still needs to wear down.
I love the way The Message explains this piece of the Sermon on the Mount that I've heard over and over. Matthew 5:43-48 43-47 “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
48 “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
*The Wall, an anonymous poem.
The Wall
Their wedding picture mocked them from the table,
These two whose minds no longer touched each other.
They lived with such a heavy barricade between them
That neither battering ram of words
Nor artilleries of touch could break it down.
Somewhere, between the oldest child's first tooth
And the youngest daughter's graduation,
They lost each other.
Throughout the years each slowly unraveled
That tangled ball of string called self,
And as they tugged at stubborn knots,
Each hid his searching from the other.
Sometimes she cried at night
And begged the whispering darkness to tell her who she was.
He lay beside her, snoring like a hibernating bear,
Unaware of her winter.
Once, after they had made love,
He wanted to tell her how afraid he was of dying,
But, fearing to show his naked soul,
He spoke instead about the beauty of her breasts.
She took a course in modern art,
Trying to find herself in colors splashed upon a canvas,
Complaining to other women about men who are insensitive.
He climbed into a tomb called "The Office,"
Wrapped his mind in a shroud of paper figures,
And buried himself in customers. Slowly, the wall between them rose,
Cemented by the mortar of indifference.
One day, reaching out to touch each other
They found a barrier they could not penetrate,
And recoiling from the coldness of the stone,
Each retreated from the stranger on the other side.
For when love dies, it is not in a moment of angry battle,
Nor when fiery bodies lose their heat.
It lies panting, exhausted,
Expiring at the bottom of a wall it could not scale.
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