7/6/10
I had a marvelous revelation while reading Henri Nouwen’s book Intimacy. The first chapter is called ‘from magic to faith’ an intriguing title to be sure; when I got to a section on maturity I found myself reflecting on my life and its journey, hopefully now finding myself in a mature stage of life. Henri was speaking of the time period we all go through at one juncture or another of questioning, ‘what’s it all about, has anything I’ve done meant anything?’ Henri then stated it’s in this perspective that ‘mature religious sentiment fulfills a creative function. Because it has a unifying power, it brings together the many isolated realities of life and cast them into one meaningful whole.’ I suddenly realized that for most of us what keeps us from seeing the whole is we focus on the one incident (actually a plethora of incidents, but one at a time) and can’t see what that episode, was about. We often in this state as believers, try to find one person we helped, one reason we suffered or seemed to fail, or…that is probably our first mistake or maybe our principal mistake; trying to see reasons for a single component of a very complex life.
I have from time to time said, ‘I want those years back that were taken from me by the illnesses, so much I couldn’t do, years taken from my sum of physical strength (presupposing that with age comes a lessening of physical abilities). There was so much time wasted in not accomplishing the purpose/ministry I am called to.’ I must state that in the midst of this desire (for it was never an indictment against Abba, or any plan He might have had during that time) I could come up with many people I would not have touched in the way I did (health care professional, other suffering people…) had I not been ill for this period of time; so in isolation I could see purpose but it was not an integrated, purpose, I was trying to isolate it in the midst of the sum total of my life thus coming short of the real goal. Simply put I was staring at a small section of the tapestry of my life trying to make sense of such a minute piece without being able to see it wasn’t so much the meaning of that tiny segment as where that area was leading to.
A bit of digression to make sure we are clear on what I’m trying to express. Abba gives free will choice, a wonderful/terrible gift; one that comes with exciting prospects and horrendous seeming responsibility. I did not choose to be ill but made choices which did indeed affect me and others in my illness. I chose my response to the circumstances and colored my world with my attitudes. How then could/did Abba walk me through this time allowing my choices freedom and still get me to where He intends me to be, knowing what He determined I needed to know, with my psyche and emotions intact and my faith not (keeping with the tapestry motif ) knotted up? One very strong visual aid He used was the gift of a loom. I had always wanted to weave having a Penelope heart (read the Odyssey for Penelope’s weaving while waiting for Ulysses for more insight); and while learning the component of the loom and how to dress one it allowed me the basis for this revelation today. The foundation of a tapestry is the warp which has to be kept under tension while you weave. Its color is not an issue since in traditional tapestries it is not seen. The warp’s spacing depends upon the amount of detail you intend in your weaving. The finer the warp and weft, the more detail that is allowed and the more time it will take to finish the tapestry. Choices for the weft are endless. Many varying kinds of materials may be used; the only prerequisite is that it must be able to bend enough to go over and under the warp. It doesn’t seem in the final tapestry that the warp was very important since it merely holds the weft together but we of course understand that without it there is nothing but a jumble of beautifully colored threads with no rhyme or reason. I could extend this part of the writing extensively in waxing spiritual over these basic weaving imperatives but I trust you to be able to put your own thought processes in action. Summing up, though I have a part in the dressing of the loom, without the right warp chosen by Abba as exemplified in His Son, Yeshua, my weaving will not last for eternity. I must in faith trust Him enough to use the right foundation for my life. When it comes to the weft, I have as stated an endless choice of colors and materials and can still come out with the desired results though those choices do affect its ultimate finished state.
Back on point: I suddenly realized the time of illness was not an isolated incident to be dissected and made sense of as much as a piece of a whole, a fragment which if for no other reason has served to get me where I am now. Where I am now is not merely a physical location but includes my spiritual, mental, and emotional state. I’ve realized that while waiting for Yeshua to return I need not as Penelope undo what I’ve done to trick the enemy by not revealing the finished product hence buying time for my rescue from the mess I’m in. I continue the work not judging the pieces; knowing that though it seems sometimes disjointed, disappointingly a waste of time, in reality it’s the grand work of my life, my choices molded with His in order for me to reach my goal: wholeness, maturity, a revealing of His glorious image in me.
I have changed so much in my theological approach to Scripture reading, in traditional understanding of things I’d been taught but somehow had always seemed skewed and left me unsettled in the prominent interp. of the day. So much makes sense, not because of the illness but because of the time of separateness from busyness, from other’s expectations of what I should be doing…It was a wilderness experience, a time of shadow, when sunlight seemed to scorch and the gentle light of the moon was all I could tolerate. A time when insight came on the wings of a butterfly so softly that it seemed to make no impact, yet I came out of this experience with such a radical paradigm shift. (No worries if you think I might have cast off all restraints, the warp was secure but my reasons for the foundational truths became clear making sense in the natural and spiritual arenas of life.) I finally began to understand just how good the Gospel (aka good news) really is. So much freedom in my choices with a new confidence that His divine design allows them, nay revels in them as long as I keep the beauty of the pattern before my eyes, and believe me Yeshua has never been far always very present, and Ruach HaKodesh, Oy Vey, what a friend and master creator of beauty, both giving me glimpses of Abba’s splendor. Suddenly it’s not imperative that I understand that shadowed area on my loom for its own reason, I know it is there to create depth perception and add to the glory.
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