Christmas is nearly here. This year, the approach of Christmas leaves me with mixed emotions. I long for a Norman Rockwell Christmas: a loving family gathering around a fragrant balsam, feasting, good-natured ribbing, games, laughter, making new memories, and sharing remembrances of Christmases past.
That fantasized Christmas is rarely, if ever, anyone’s reality. I have come close to it a few times. But the truth is that our dream of the perfect family Christmas, a wistful melange of Rockwell, Hallmark, and Hollywood Christmas classics, is not likely to be realized. Nonetheless, we look for it, we hope for it, and we may even convince ourselves that it is”normal” and anything else is a letdown.
This Christmas, it will be just my wife and me at home, as it was last year. This is not a bad thing. Our children are grown, with their own families and busy schedules. They should be building their own traditions and their own memories. But the truth remains: our Christmas will look nothing like my idealized version of the Holiday.
The massive gap between what we expect and what we get can become a hazardous space. We can be like a child who had his heart set on a pony for Christmas and, when he doesn’t get it, angrily rejects the gifts he did receive, gifts which would have delighted him had he not been consumed by the wrath that came from not getting his desired pony.
This phenomenon is not limited to our holiday experiences; it can infect our spiritual lives as well. We can set our hearts on one particular good, which we eagerly await, straining to discern its advent. Focused on that one Good, we run the risk of not noticing the good that God does offer us. Or even if we do notice it we may reject it because we are too busy chasing the good we want and expect or because we are sulking and angry that we didn’t get what we wanted.
C. S. Lewis noted this tendency.
“It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good. Do you know what I mean? On every level of our life – in our religious experience, in our gastronomic, erotic, aesthetic, and social experience – we are always harking back to some occasion which seemed to us to reach perfection, setting that up as a norm, and depreciating all other occasions by comparison. But these other occasions, I now suspect, are often full of their own new blessing, if only we would lay ourselves open to it. God shows us a new facet of the glory, and we refuse to look at it because we’re still looking for the old one. And of course we don’t get that. You can’t, at the twentieth reading, get again the experience of reading Lycidas for the first time. But what you do get can be in its own way as good.” ― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
The same sentiment found its way into Lewis’ novel “Perelandra,” where a pre-fall “Eve” contemplates the temptation of wanting what we expected and despising what we received.
One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before that at the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or a setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished—if it were possible to wish—you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.” ― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra.
I find myself in this state more often than I like to admit. I have decided what is good for me, what will make me happy, or how God will come through if he really loves me. And when I don’t get what I want or expect, I miss the good I am being given.
When my Christmas does not meet the Norman Rockwell/Hallmark fantasy I carry in my imagination, can I set aside my disappointment and embrace the good I am being given? Or am I like those in Jesus’ day who were expecting and looking for a liberating King and so missed the presence of Love incarnate?1
What are you looking for? What is the good you are expecting? How do you want God to show up in your life? Now, in the Christmas season, and always, when you expect a particular good, and when your cherished dreams don’t materialize, look for the good that is given, even as you lament the good you were expecting. Quiet your soul, take your lament to God in prayer, then ask him, “What is the real good you are giving me now?”
Pride, on the other hand, is the mother of all sins, and the original sin of lucifer…. An instrument strung, but preferring to play itself because it thinks it knows the tune better than the Musician.
C.S. Lewis: Family letters 1905-1931 (ed. 2000)
It had not been very long since I had encountered Pride Rock; only a few weeks had passed. I was content, knowing that my pride was well and properly dealt with and was now safely part of the foundation of my place. I was also wrong. The Lord was far from done with me and my pride.
Another Side of Pride: Selfishness
During my time in Pops’ Workshop, I noticed a pattern of God speaking to me through corporate confession in church. At my church, like at many other churches around the world, we often have a liturgy of corporate confession that includes time for silent reflection. It was during those times that I would hear from the Lord.
It makes sense that we would hear more readily in those times. He is always speaking. When we are full of ourselves and our ideas, we crowd our minds with our grand thoughts and don’t leave much space for other voices, making it harder to hear what the Lord is speaking. When we confess our sinful thoughts, actions, and desires, we empty ourselves or ourselves, making it easier for the voice of God to break through.
During a Sunday worship service, as we paused for silent reflection during our corporate confession, I heard the word “Selfish.” More than just hearing that word, it was being thrust upon me. There was no gentle suggestion or Holy Spirit “nudge.” It was more of a siren than a word, an in-my-face, insistent, almost shrill voice repeating over and over again, “Selfish, Selfish, Selfish!” That got my attention. It could not be ignored any more than a ten-foot-tall flashing neon sign placed directly in your path could be ignored. As I sat with that “word,” I became aware of several areas of my life where I was being very selfish indeed.
I had been in a funk because things were not turning out the way I wanted. I was in an in-between space. I was being healed but not whole, being called to ministry but still in a grueling “day job,” seeing how much I had changed and was changing but having those closest to me tell me I must be “faking it.” I wanted to be on the other side of healing. I wanted to be able to focus on ministry. I wanted my loved ones to acknowledge the depth of the change God was working in me.
Those are reasonable frustrations and reasonable wants. It was not selfish of me to want those things. However, I wanted what I wanted without considering what others might want or need. I was thinking about only one person: myself! And, to make it worse, I was sulking and withdrawing when I didn’t get my way. That is why the warning klaxon, “Selfish,” sounded for me that Sunday morning.
I wasn’t thinking about Pride or even the Workshop, but unexpectedly, my thoughts jumped back to Pride Rock. I saw it once again standing upright. As I watched, it was lifted up, and I could see its underside. Carved there, where it was otherwise invisible, was the word “Selfish.” The Lord was directing me to recognize my selfishness as another side of Pride.
I am sure that many readers are right now saying, “Well, duh!” of course, they are related. But I hadn’t ever thought about that,1 and it makes sense. What, besides Pride, thinking we are really something special, leads us to believe that we should have whatever we decide we want. What, aside from a pride-fueled sense of entitlement, makes us think we should have our wishes granted as soon as we wish them? What, besides Pride and conceit, leads us to believe that our needs, wants, and desires are, without question, more important than anyone and everyone else’s needs, wants, and desires?
Pride need not look boastful and preening. It can also appear selfish and demanding. Clearly, God was not yet done with me and my pride. My pride was more pernicious and more toxic than I had imagined, and I was about to learn yet another lesson about pride and selfishness.
Even Another Side of Pride: Discontent
The more time you spend being attentive to what God may be saying, the more often you’ll find him “breaking in” to your everyday activities. That can lead to getting revelation in the oddest times. I was still a road warrior, flying across the country most weeks of the year. While boarding a flight to Virginia, I thought about how hard it was for me to exercise and tend to my diet while on the road. Suddenly, an image of the exterior of my Pops’ Workshop flashed in my mind. It was as if the Lord was saying, “Pay attention, this is me.” Instantly, I saw with bitter clarity that not exercising and eating poorly were other manifestations of selfishness.
They really had nothing to do with my travel schedule; they had to do with me wanting to eat what I wanted and to do (or not do) what I wanted and when I wanted to do it. If I didn’t feel like exercising, I shouldn’t have to. I deserved to spend my time the way wanted to, not how I “should.” If I wanted to have a seconds at dinner or have fries instead of a vegetable, why shouldn’t I have it? I deserved to have what I wanted!2
The hits just kept on coming, and next, the Lord spoke to me about dissatisfaction. Earlier that morning, as I was walking from my car to the airport terminal, I was feeling a bit depressed at having to leave home again after a very short weekend home. I had returned home on Friday, a day later than usual, and on Sunday, I was already headed back to the airport. I felt stuck, despising my life on the road, and feeling anything but contented.
Back on the jet bridge, waiting to get on the plane for Virginia, I realized that my discontent was yet another side of pride. Discontent: a “lack of satisfaction with one’s possessions, status, or situation; a sense of grievance; dissatisfaction.”3 Pride-born selfishness is the progenitor of discontent and the enemy of contentment. It says, “I should have my life how I want it. It is unfair, unjust, and unacceptable for me not to have things my way.” How dare the world not deliver life on my terms? But as a Christian, am I not really saying, “God, not your will be done, but mine?” In my discontent, I am, in effect, saying to God, “I know what is needed in my life better than you do.”
To put a little icing on the cake of discontentment, my Bible reading for that day included Philippians 4. Paul, writing to the church at Philippi, says:
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 NIV
If anyone had reason to be discontented, Paul certainly did. Scholars tell us that his letter to the Philippian church was written after he had been, at various times, threatened, arrested, beaten, stoned and left for dead, imprisoned, and shipwrecked, with most of those calamities happening more than once. Yet he was content. I was seriously put out that I had to travel for my job. I think I was missing something important.
An Object Lesson in Selfishness
On that travel day, now aboard the plane and en route to Virginia, I was journaling some of my reflections on selfishness and discontent when I was suddenly convicted of yet another instance of selfishness.
I was seated next to an older woman who was traveling by herself. She had accidentally left all her reading material in her checked bag and had nothing to do except peruse the in-flight magazine.4 It was obvious that she wanted to talk to somebody. I did not want it to be me. Usually, when on a plane I was quick to put on my noise-canceling headphones and immerse myself in a book, a movie, a game, or almost anything besides engaging a seatmate in conversation. So, knowing that my neighbor was bored and wanted to talk and knowing that she was left with nothing else to do, I did what you would expect. Put on my headphones and piously and pointedly spent my time catching up on my Bible reading and praying.
As I ended my prayer time and started journaling, with my seatmate sitting silently beside me, I finally woke up and stopped analyzing what God was saying and started actually listening to it. I put my things away and engaged my seatmate in conversation for the next two and a half hours. I had to set aside my selfish desire for solitude to ease someone else’s anxiety and boredom. I had to put a stranger’s ill-defined needs above my needs. Incidentally, but not surprisingly, it was a very pleasant conversation with a caring woman who had led a very interesting life.
Pride: The Mother of All Sins
Self-glorifying pride has been the mother of all manner of sin in my life. Pride births selfishness, greed, anger, discontent, impatience, jealousy, lying and deceit. That list gives us a pretty fair start on Paul’s enumeration of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5.5
We should not be surprised by the destructive power and malignancy of Pride. It is the first sin the enemy taught our Mother and Father in the Garden of Eden. “God is holding out on you. You deserve better. Why should you be kept from having what you want? Go ahead, take it!”
The antidote to Pride is Jesus. By knowing him and spending time with him, we begin to learn that we have been chasing the wrong things. Joy and contentment, so much greater than our desires and happiness, are ours when we know that we are known and loved by he, who is the beginning, center, and end of all things. In him, we find what our souls long for. Then, we can become lovers of others instead of prideful lovers of self.
I wonder how much our spiritual health could be improved by spending time thinking about how our sin patterns overlap and intersect. ↩︎
Full disclosure: Years later, I am retired, and I still struggle with getting enough exercise and eating properly. The problem was not traveling! ↩︎
It may seem strange to think of it, but there was no on-board WiFi at this time, and many flights had no on-board entertainment. They did have airline magazines, which most people read only as a last resort. ↩︎
“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21, ESV ↩︎
My Desire is here just beyond my reach I see it I sense it I need it
With each movement toward it, it retreats Like a wary bird, staying just our of reach A slow reach toward it, a slow retreat Thrusting out my arm, a dash away A violent rushing grasp falls on empty air
Ever fleeing; never leaving. Always returning, resting tantalizingly close. I want it; I need it A siren song I cannot ignore Yet every move to take it fails
Stymied, I sit Watching Waiting Wondering Planning my next move
In my quietude, my Desire moves ever closer Coming to rest on my open, outstretched hand My chance! My hand snaps closed To hold my treasure with an iron grip.
My Desire, as if a vapor Slips through my closed fist Soon to perch again Just beyond my reach Ever fleeing; never leaving.
Is this a joke; A cosmic tease? I cannot have what I most need? Shouting into the emptiness: "Why am I made to desire what I cannot have?" "Who delights in withholding what my soul yearns for?"
My anger drains me Emptied of will Bereft of demands I sit again with hands outstretched Toward the unreachable, ungraspable
It draws near again To rest again in my hands Exhausted and empty, I do nothing Sitting with my desire in my hands But not possessed by me
An idea grows in my mind. Birthed of desperation Or planted there by what rests in my hands I draw my hands slowly to my chest Embracing my desire
It does not flee Like a snowflake falling on water It melts into me It is gone But it remains
It flows into me It makes its home in me Food for my soul Water of life I hunger and thirst no more
At peace No desire to grasp or hold No need to possess I am complete I do not want
Grace It cannot be taken, only given It cannot be earned, only received Becoming empty, I am filled Surrender is victory
The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. Matthew 7:25
Not long after my lessons on pride and selfishness, sitting with my director in prayer, I once again found myself in the Workshop. As usual, I had not sought the workshop and so had no agenda. My Pops was, as usual, working near the door. No sooner had I entered than he turned to me and said, “Shouldn’t you be building your own workshop?” My Pop’s abrupt question was a surprise but wasn’t completely unexpected. I had been picking up clues that the workshop was a place of healing, growing, and learning but not a place to dwell. It is a workshop, not a home.
Of course, I was not to be banished from the presence of the Trinity. God makes his home in us, and he invites us to make our home him. But my particular experience of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in my Pops’ Workshop was ending. It was an intensive — a boot camp of sorts. A boot camp is not a place to dwell. We learn the basics, albeit intensely. The foundation is laid, and then it is time to move on to put into practice what we have learned while we continue to learn and grow.
Me? Really?
Even though I knew deep down inside that I would not always remain in the Workshop, the idea that I would build my own workshop took me aback. It seemed a very unlikely thing for me to do. I quickly came up with any number of reasons I could not “build my own workshop.” What would it even mean for me to build a workshop? After all, my Pops’s Workshop does not have a physical location. (At least I don’t think it does!) My Pops’ Workshop is his, created by him. I can’t create something on par with God. My workshop could be at best a faint shadow of his.
Even if I figured out what it would mean to build “my place,” what would be the point? In my Pops’ Workshop, I encountered the loving, healing, and transformative presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If I built a workshop, anyone who showed up hoping for something similar would be sorely disappointed. The only person they would meet in my workshop would be me! God was doing remarkable and wonderful things for me. What could I do for anyone in “my place?” Even though Jesus had directly invited me to participate in his work of restoring beauty to souls, I certainly didn’t feel up to the task.
I had (and still have) a long way to go in trusting Jesus. He would not send me out on an impossible mission. If he calls me to something, there must be a way to accomplish it. Critically, I was forgetting that Jesus had invited me to work with him. He was not subcontracting work to me. I would not be on my own; he would be there with me.
But don’t judge my lack of trust too harshly. I had not yet started my studies to become a spiritual director and so I had not learned that people cannot bring peace, healing, wholeness, or anything really worth something to anyone. The best we can do is hold space, listen well, and prayerfully support people as they come into the presence of the Lord. We can assist, but without Jesus, nothing happens.
Nonetheless, at that moment, I was doubtful of building a place of my own. How often do we hear an invitation from God, and then, believing that we must do everything in our own strength, we rush for the exit, knowing that, left to our own devices, we will fail? But we are not left to our own devices and we don’t have to do everything in our own strength.
We are invited to join God in the work he is doing, not to brush him aside and take over. He doesn’t need our help; really, he doesn’t. He is capable of doing whatever he wants without us. He does not need us, but he wants us. He wants us involved in the ongoing work of revealing his kingdom of the heavens here on Earth. By myself, I can do very little; working in alignment with God’s plans, I can let his love and power flow through me to accomplish his purposes. I don’t need to do it all, and I certainly don’t need to do it alone.
To underscore that I don’t need to do everything, during a time of further silence, Jesus showed me that I would not have to build my workshop myself. I saw people coming with tools and armloads of lumber to help me build my workshop. By this time I had decided to pursue training as a director, but that training was still months off. Nonetheless, I was certain that some of the help would be from the School of Direction.1 I also believed, with my director, that there would be other help that I didn’t know about now and couldn’t foresee or expect.2
A Foundation God Can Build On
A few days later, I saw a vision of my workshop “under construction.” At first, I didn’t know what I was seeing. My Pop’s Workshop is deep in a forest, surrounded by dense woods. I had assumed that mine would be similarly situated, but I saw the top of a wind-swept knoll or hill covered with long, dry grass like you find in the high desert of Northern Arizona. The forest around my Pops’ Workshop is lush and inviting. What I was being shown seemed dry, desolate, and lonely. It did not look inviting, like a place anyone would want to go.
At first, I thought the hill was topped with a patch of bare dirt. However, as I continued to look at it I could see that there was a foundation in the ground. My natural mind assumed it would be a cement slab, but I soon knew that wasn’t right. Instead of a poured concrete slab, the foundation was made of stacked stones. That difference was only mildly interesting until I noticed something surprising. “Pride” rock, that huge, imposing, fearsome rock that I could not shift from the stream below Pops’ Workshop, was there as part of the stone foundation. It was laying on its side, its triangular shape helping to level the foundation where it met the slope of the hill. The word “pride” was facing out, now written horizontally. I soon realized that, in addition to pride rock, all the other rocks I had pulled out of the well and given to Jesus were being used as the foundation of my workshop. The entire stacked-stone foundation seemed to be made up of stones I had given to Jesus in the stream below the Workshop.
I was puzzled. There were many more stones in the foundation than I had given to Jesus; at least more than I was aware of giving him. As I sat with that puzzle, I came to see that the foundation stones are the fruit of surrender. Any time I have surrendered to Jesus, allowing him to know me more fully, he has added to the foundation. For many years, not just the few months I had been experiencing the Workshop, Jesus been preparing the foundation of my workshop, waiting for me to discover it and be ready for me to build on it.
Jesus can build on the foundation of our surrender; I am confident that he can build on no other. But this feels counterintuitive to the modern, Western mind. We value strength and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We look down on weakness and surrender or giving up. Giving up and giving Jesus the rocks of my sinfulness and brokenness is weakness. It is an admission that I can’t do it. To be whole, I have to give up all of myself, especially the parts that my pride would rather withhold. We must surrender our desire to be the gods of our own puny and ineffectual kingdoms if we are to enter Jesus’ kingdom of the heavens.
Being weak to be strong is no surprise to one who reads the Bible.
To cling to our lives is to lose them; to find our lives we must lose them for Jesus’ sake.3
The first will be last and the last will be first.4
We must receive the kingdom like little children.5
My surrender, self-exposure, and admission that I can’t do it became the place where Jesus can be strong in and through me. Surrender is the perfect building material for a foundation.
If you want to grow deeper in your faith, to have a personal, impactful relationship with Jesus, but can’t seem to find your way to that, it may be a good idea to spend some time with Jesus, asking about your foundation. What are you holding on to that he needs to complete the foundation he can build on? It may be a sin, shame, guilt, anger, pride, or something else. Whatever it is, pray for the strength to be weak, to let Jesus have all of it, especially the nasty and unpleasant parts. He already knows about them, you lose nothing by bringing them to him and you have everything gain.
This proved to be true. I have found unexpected help and support from organizations like the ESDA, Mosaic Formation, the Arizona Spiritual Formation Society, and the Apprentice Institute and people associated with them. ↩︎
Anxiety seems to be an inescapable fact of our times. The vast amount of information available, carefully curated by algorithms to keep us engaged and coming back for more, seems destined to drive up our anxiety. Nearly everything is hyperbolic. Death, destruction, danger, and peril are presented as always just around the corner.
Surely we do live in fraught times. We have deep and seemingly unbridgeable chasms in our society. Politics, race, gender, and religion all seem to be pulling us apart. It is no wonder we are anxious. As real as our perils are, we amplify them in our social networks, adding to our anxiety. We are anything but peaceful, yet Jesus promised his followers peace:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27 ESV
Years ago, inspired by a talk from Alan Fadling, I was inspired to write a “version” of the 23rd Psalm, for the hurried life. Recently, I attended another workshop with Alan, this time on living an un-anxious life. Unexpectedly, I found myself drawn again to the 23rd Psalm, this time to adapt it for the anxious life.
The 23rd Psalm for the Anxious Life
Anxiety is my shepherd, I shall have no peace. It makes me distrust green meadows. It worries me beside still waters. It erodes my soul. It leads me in paths of destruction for no purpose.
Even though I walk in the presence of God, I will fear every evil, forgetting he is with me; his rod and his staff fill me with dread.
Anxiety feeds me a forecast of disasters that delights my enemies. It churns my mind with fear; worry overflows my life.
Surely panic and brittleness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the chaos of my mind forever.
Anxiety is a part of our nature; it can serve us well. But when we find anxiety mastering us instead of serving us, we shouldn’t passively accept that. It is not God’s design for us to be mastered by anxiety. As one who lives with anxiety, I can attest that there is no silver bullet. Medication and therapy are both valuable tools.
Practicing the presence of God is another valuable tool. It can be as simple as reminding our souls of the truth of the real 23rd Psalm, “The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack” (Psalms 23:1 HSCB). Our shepherd is the wisest, most competent, and caring shepherd. Reminding ourselves of that truth regularly can be a powerful tool in our anti-anxiety toolbox.
I did not know it beforehand, but I was reaching the beginning of the end of my time in my Pops’ Workshop. A new phase, which would be the last, was beginning. Looking back, I can see three broad movements in my time in my Pops’ Workshop: identity and invitation, healing and wholeness, and calling and sending.
The first movement was about identity and invitation. I learned who I am to God and who God is to me. I began the long and still-ongoing process of learning to trust him and yielding myself to his will. Understanding who I am to God meant understanding that I have purposes I never would have guessed.1 I was invited to be a small part of the healing and restoration Jesus brings through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and I was invited to bring words of peace and wholeness.
The second movement, my time with the Holy Spirit and my time below the Workshop, focused on my healing and wholeness. I had been promised both peace for my soul and attacks by the enemy, with the assurance that any hurts would be put right. I had taken an inward journey, discovering how the hurts and pain I stuffed down and tried to ignore had damaged my soul and were crippling my ability to share the life-giving waters of Christ-life. Jesus had come alongside me and invited me to bring my hurts, doubts, and sinful attitudes to him. I began the long, continuing journey toward soul wholeness.
A third movement was now starting; It was a movement of calling and sending. In some ways this was an echo and amplification of earlier the earlier invitations to help Jesus sand and polish to reveal inner beauty, to somehow facilitate the Holy Spirit’s internal work, and make God’s promise of peace widely known.
As this third movement unfolded, the way I experienced the workshop was also changing. Up to this point, my time in the workshop formed a fairly linear, coherent narrative, which made for easier writing. My experiences in the Workshop were becoming more like self-contained lessons, though the same lesson was often revisited. My “visits” were becoming shorter and more a distinct point. As I look over my journal entries for the remainder of my time visiting my Pops’ Workshop, it is much harder to tease out any kind of narrative. Accordingly, from this point onward, I will share my time Pops’ Workshop thematically and not necessarily share encounters in the order they happened.
Being
Even as the end was beginning, there were still some important lessons I needed to learn. In a direction session my director reminded me that much of what happened in the Workshop was Jesus healing, shaping, and forming me. That seems obvious to me now, but then it was something that was not front of mind. I simply didn’t notice what had happened and what was happening, especially where my interior state was concerned. We talked at length about just “being” with emotions and thoughts. He encouraged me to set aside analysis in favor of experiencing what was happening in the moment.
I had (and often still have) an unhealthy predilection to question and analyze my thoughts and emotions, novel ones in particular. Given the unpredictable environment of my youth that is not very surprising. I had developed a finely tuned analytical engine that had helped to protect me. Retreating inward in analysis helped me see where danger could be brewing and it also took me mentally and emotionally out of traumatic situations. I built a sturdy wall. Instead of the healthy processing of emotion, I learned avoidance. I stuffed it, either down the hole or hidden away, not to be recovered. In either case, I had learned not to be present to unpleasant and stressful situations.
As is often the case, the defensive mechanisms we craft in our youth are not helpful to us later in life. My inward withdrawal and shutting down was not limited to unpleasant emotions or frightening situations. I had taught myself to use analysis to pull back from unpleasant and stressful situations, emotions, and thoughts. But my defense mechanism was not selective. It applied to all situations, emotions, and events, whether they were good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, sacred or profane. Every emotion, good or bad, that stirred me and every thought that came to my mind had to be understood. What did it mean? What did I need to do about it? What action was necessary?
Focusing on critical analysis and working out the next step, usually a defensive step, kept me from being present to what was happening. I was mainly unaware of the breadth and depth of what God was doing to me, in me, and for me. Instead of receiving and being present to God’s grace, I was racing ahead to see what “it” meant and what I should do next.
The action of analysis, the effort to try to understand and make sense of something, necessarily removes us from the experience we are seeking to understand We stop being participants and start being observers. For me, the most tragic instance of this is failing to be present to moments of transcendant joy. Rather than simply be in that moment, I would detach, taking myself out of the moment, to think about how that feeling of joy came about, how I could maintain it, and how I could get it again in the future. It was like seeing a beautiful sunset beginning to unfold and running into the house to check all the astronomical and meterogical conditions that caused to occur so that I could better understand it and vainly believe I could anticipate and “be ready” for the next one, all the while missing the beauty in front of me.
For many things, especiallythe things of God, the greatest and perhaps only value, is being present in the moment. The only time we can experience God is in the present moment. We can remember how he was present in the past, but we cannot experience him in the past. We can dream and imagine how he might be present to us in the future, but we cannot experience him in the future. The only time we can be present to God is in this moment. When we take ourselves out of the present moment because we are afraid, uncomfortable, or as a learned defense, we take away the possibility of being aware of God and seeing his activity in and around us.
My director’s advice was wise. I needed to learn to set aside analysis in favor of experiencing what was happening in the moment.
When you read “Law and Gospel,” what comes to your mind? In my initial formation, I learned that Law and the Gospel were connected in a quasi-symbiotic relationship. The Law was there to convict us. It laid out the impossibly high standard for righteousness, a standard we could never meet. Its ultimate purpose was to show us our wretchedness and our need for a savior. The Gospel was the other side of the same coin. We were in line for eternal punishment due to our transgressions, but the good news of the Gospel was that Jesus paid the price for us, wiping the slate clean.
I didn’t think about this much; I just accepted it as dogma. The few times I thought about the Law/Gospel dynamic, some things didn’t line up for me. Jesus saves us from the burden of the Law, but he seemed to be laying down a whole bunch of new laws: “You have heard it said…but I say to you….” If his atoning death and resurrection saved me from the law, what is the point of more law? Then we get to Paul and another raft of rules for us to follow.
I also wondered what Jesus meant when he said that he didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. And why should I care about him fulfilling the law if he was about to render the whole question moot, and I would be let off the hook if I believed the right things and had “enough” faith?
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Psalms 1:1-2 (ESV)
What do we make of the sentiment in Psalm 1, that we are blessed when we delight in the law and meditate on it day and night? When we in the West think about law, our minds almost always go to crime and punishment. Laws tell me what I must not do or not fail to do if I want to avoid punishment. Law, while often needed to maintain order, is coercive. We follow it not necessarily because we think it is good but because we fear punishment.
The Hebrew word torah is rendered “law” in the ESV, but it can also be rendered “instruction.” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary reminds us that torah (the law) primarily signifies instruction from God. It is an expression of revelation, not regulation and religion.[1] If we can shake off our fixation on law being what we must do to avoid punishment and instead see it as instruction, it indeed becomes a lamp for our feet and a light for our path.[2]
The difference between a legal mindset and an instruction mindset turns out to be an important one that can ultimately influence the kind of people we become. As we read scripture, we “hear” it through a lens that reflects our mindset. Is God “laying down the law,” or is he showing us how to stay on the path that leads to him?
As a simple experiment, consider Jesus’ telling his disciples, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”[3] What is your natural inclination when you read that? Is Jesus giving a “law,” saying if you judge others, I will judge you? Or, is he giving wise instruction for kingdom life, telling us not to judge because it is bad for those we judge and bad for us. judging is condemning and condemning hurts those we judge. They are likely to hurt us back, so it is just a bad idea all the way around.[4]
Once you shift from the legal mindset to the instruction mindset, you will start reading much of both the Old and New Testaments with new eyes. And that reading will drive how you think about God. Is he a God who mainly wants us to know how wretched and hopeless we are? Is he petty and vindictive? Is that a God whose nature is love? On the other hand, a God who gives us guidance and instruction is a God who loves and cares for us. He is a God who wants the best for us, even when we don’t know what is good for us.
Our conception of God will, of course, influence our relationship with him. The judicial God pushes us toward self-reliance. We are driven to measure up, make the mark, and, hopefully, avoid punishment. We fall into an adversarial relationship – us vs. God. He imposes the law on us, and we had better follow it. At the end of that road, we find a transactional system where we try to make God accept and love us by obeying his Law, or at least trying really hard. The God who gives instruction out of a loving heart invites us to become reliant on him, knowing that he cares for us and wants the best for us. We do not try to earn our way into his heart; we are already there.
Finally, how we think about God and our relationship with him predicts what we will become; we become like the God we worship. If we worship a judgmental, condemning God whose focus is enforcing his standards on us, we become like that God: angry, judgmental, and eager to impose our standards on others. We become incapable of following one of Jesus’ few direct commandments, that we love each other.[5] When we worship a God who instructs us out of his love and care for us, we become like him: caring, compassionate, and letting love be the master in our relationships with others.
When you read about “the Law” in scripture are you being summoned to a courtroom or invited to a classroom? If we are focused on law we try to moderate our behavior in a vain attempt to measure up, or, worse, to try control God in some weird quid quo pro where we can put him in our debt. We keep God at arm’s length, managing our own lives as best we can.
When we realize we are in God’s classroom, we embrace our union with God; we look to the Lord of life, who saves and heals us. We follow him and his instructions for living in his kingdom and gaining the life he intends for us.
Jesus came to save, not to condemn. He really isn’t looking for better-behaved sinners. He came so that we can have life and have it to the full.[6]
Walking into pain. Accepting humiliation. Entering the darkest of dark nights.
Betrayed. Forsaken. Abandoned.
Righteousness submitting to injustice. Brutal torture borne that we might know Love.
Love that washes feet. Love that heals. Love that weeps. Love that is merciful. Love that forgives. Love that redeems.
Love that dies.
Dying that we may serve. Dying that we may heal. Dying that we may know joy. Dying that we may show mercy. Dying that we may forgive. Dying that we may love.
Dying that we may be one with you. Never forsaken. Never abandoned.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 (KJV)
My experience in My Pops’ Workshop began in late February. It was now the end of May; I was three months into this mystic journey. Praying on what was the morning of Pentecost Sunday, I returned to the workshop. Jesus and Pops were both quite busy, seemingly hard at work. I thought this odd since it was the Sabbath, I would have expected them to be at rest. Looking back on it, it shouldn’t have seemed odd since Jesus often healed on the Sabbath, and I was coming to the understanding that my time in my Pops’ Workshop was a time of healing.
Pops’ workshop was beginning to feel comfortable. I should have felt comfortable because I was in the hands of Love; that was not the case. I was becoming comfortable because I believed that I understood the workshop. Even worse, I was starting to think that I could manage what happened there. I imagined I could come and go as I pleased and encounter God when I wanted to and on my terms. Thinking that we can somehow manage God and his actions is patently absurd and is the height of vanity.
Nonetheless, that is where I found myself that Sunday, in the Workshop with my own agenda: I was hoping to just hang out with God. I aimlessly lounged around a bit and started getting uncomfortable. As my Pops continued his work, I felt awkward and out of place, like someone who blundered into the wrong meeting. After a short while, Pops broke the awkward silence, “Don’t you have some work to do with Jesus?”
Doing “work” with Jesus was not on my agenda; I was there to chill with the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all that is. But my Pops’ tone of voice was firm, and his meaning was clear. I was not in charge of this situation, and I had not been given the grace to once again return to the Workshop so that I could lol around and expect to have God on my terms. He was not asking; he was telling me that I had more work to do.
Called to my senses, I dutifully headed back to where Jesus was busy sanding. He, too, seemed too busy for idle conversation. As I watched Jesus’ careful and attentive work, I started to get a slightly giddy feeling; I was starting to sense this would not be the casual workshop encounter I had hoped for. I was there for a purpose.
In my prayer, I asked Jesus to teach me to sand; I gave the Holy Spirit permission to have my mind, thoughts, tongue, and ears, and I thanked him for the work he was doing in me. Reviewing this encounter now, years later, I am struck by my own lack of activity. My Pops had just told me I had work to do, and yet, in my prayer, I sought to be a passive recipient of who knows what. That attitude belies a truth about spiritual formation and transformation. It isn’t something that happens to us while we sit passively doing nothing. God’s transforming grace is, in fact, all grace; we can do nothing to cause it to happen outside of God’s action, but we must be active participants. We show up, and we cooperate. We engage in practices that open us to his grace and power. Paradoxically, it is all God’s grace, and we have work to do. Our effort, puny though it be, is necessary.
Back Down the Hole
After my prayer for passive assistance, as I sat in the workshop, I knew why I was there. I was supposed to go back through the hole in the floor, down into the well. I resisted and, for a while, pretended I didn’t know what I was there for. Eventually, I surrendered, and down I went.
I was surprised to see the subterranean stream. When I last saw it, it had been barely a trickle—more like a seep. Now it was flowing—it really was a stream. Not only was the water starting to flow in earnest, but much of the muck and slime that had coated everything on the floor of the “well” had been washed away. I was astonished by this improvement, but I shouldn’t have been. The water, God’s love, the water of new life, was washing away the pollutants that tainted my inner life. This was yet another depiction of the changes God was making in my inner being.
I had resisted returning to the well, dreading the unpleasant work of confronting my brokenness. But now that I was there, I could see one of the reasons I was called back down: to receive encouragement. I had already made noticeable progress in unclogging the flow, and I may not have as much muck to clean up as I had feared. That encouragement was welcome. As I looked around a bit, I literally saw the other reason I had been summoned back down the hole and what my Pops had meant when he said, “Don’t you have some work to do with Jesus?”
Pride Rock
In the middle of the stream stood an enormous rock. I had not noticed it when I had been down the hole before, but much was clearer to me now. The “cave” under the workshop seemed brighter. I was certainly less ominous and oppressive. But this large rock was both ominous and oppressive. There was nothing encouraging about it. Other rocks I had encountered in the hole were about the size of a basketball or a little bigger. Big and heavy, but something I could manage to pick up and bring to Jesus. This rock was three or four feet tall. It had a broad base and came to a wicked spike at the end. I asked the Holy Spirit what this rock was, and after a short while, I heard a single word, “pride.”
This rock, Pride, was so striking and seemed so important to me that I sketched it in my journal. Here is a reproduction of that sketch.1
“Pride rock” was a new challenge. Unlike the other rocks I had encountered, it resisted all efforts to shift it out of the stream. I tried several times to lift it, and when that failed, I tried to push it over and out of the stream. It wouldn’t budge. This Pride, which stood blocking the flow of water, was intractable.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the biggest, most ominous, hardest-to-move rock would be Pride. I had previously started clearing the rocks of fear, doubt, inadequacy, and shame by bringing those parts of me to Jesus. But pride was foundational to my being. Feelings of fear, doubt, and inadequacy were potent because they threatened my Pride; Pride empowered and activated those unhealthy feelings. If you had known me, you might have guessed that I had a fragile ego. So fragile, in fact, that fear, doubt, and feelings of inadequacy could not be tolerated. A large, immovable Pride was needed to protect myself. When any of the intolerable feelings arose and were metaphorically chucked down into the well, my Pride grew and swelled, vainly hoping to protect me from the next onslaught of insecurity.
It is hard to open the Bible without finding an admonition or warning against pride or encouragement to pride’s opposite, humility:
You rescue the humble, but you humiliate the proud.2
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.3
Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor.4
Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the LORD will be exalted on that day of judgment.5
His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.6
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.7
For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.8
This should not surprise us. Pride is at the root of most of our other sins. We lie, cheat, become angry, covet, steal, dishonor others, and even kill to protect our egos and our pride. We think we deserve whatever we want simply because we are “us” and want it.
In his masterwork of apologetics, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis devoted an entire chapter to “The Great Sin,” pride. He begins his treatise on pride by calling out its primacy.
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Lewis, C. S.. Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (pp. 121-122). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
He calls Pride a spiritual cancer that “eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”9 Pride is essentially competitive. We want to believe we are, in some dimension, better than our neighbor. We aren’t satisfied with just a good car that provides safe and reliable transportation. We want a car better than our neighbor’s. We want a car that will show others how rich, up-to-date, or clever we are. If cars aren’t your thing, we can just as easily substitute house, vacation, income, spouse, children, etc. We feel good about ourselves when we believe we are better than others, and they know it. We feel dissatisfied knowing that others are better than us.10
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.
Lewis, Mere Christianity (p. 122).
We see this sense of competition coming into play in the earliest instances of pride, which, not coincidentally, is also when sin entered the human condition. In the account of the fall of humankind told in Genesis,11 the enemy of our souls appeals to our pride to inspire the mother of all other sins. Adam and Eve are told that they are missing out; God is holding out on them. They are not getting what they should have. God has something you don’t have. What is it besides pride that leads us to say, “Yes, even though that is forbidden to me, I want it, and therefore, I shall have it?” Pride is at the root of our separation from God and at the root of all our sin.
Happily, there is an antidote or counterpart to Pride: Humility. We often think of humility as “not thinking too highly of one’s self; of having a proper perspective of our place.” That is not a bad way to think of it, but Lewis offers a helpful amplification, telling us that a truly humble person “will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”12
If pride is the root of all sin, is its counterpart, humility, the root of all virtue? Our first thought may be: “Is it not true that Love is the most important virtue?” The answer is yes. Jesus affirms the Old Testament’s teaching that “to love God is the greatest and first commandment.”13 In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul intimates that the greatest virtue is Love.14 God is Love15, and Jesus gives his followers a new commandment, to love one another.16 How, then, could Humility be greater than Love?
There is a Latin phrase, incurvatus in se, which means to be curved inward on oneself. That is not a bad way to think about pride. The proud man thinks only about himself, and the humble man thinks only of others. It is not just our attention and thoughts that can become distorted to curve back on ourselves. Love, too, can be bent in the wrong direction. We find ourselves loving ourselves where we should love God and our neighbors. We are made in love to love others, but in our sinful pride, our love is curved inward and we become the object of our own love.17 Pride deflects our love; humility sets it back on its proper path.
In the workshop on that Pentecost morning, I was still faced with the enormous problem that I now knew to be my pride. I had tried to move it but failed utterly. I asked Jesus to move it for me and, unsurprisingly, saw that he was down in the well with me. I was embarrassed to have him in my muck (my pride was showing), but he didn’t mind it all. It seemed as if he had been waiting for me to ask for his help. He did not offer to take this rock away, as had done for the other, smaller and now seemingly inconsequential rocks; He offered to smash the rock of pride into tiny pieces.
Immediately, I remembered a friend’s Holy Spirit experience. He had been completely overwhelmed by the spirit in a very public way such that he could do nothing but lay on the floor and yell “FIRE.” Is that what Jesus was offering me: what seemed like a public humiliation? It could have been the enemy trying to dissuade me, but I think this memory was a loving reminder to make sure I knew what the offer to smash my pride could entail. Jesus hadn’t offered to gently break the rock into manageable pieces. His offer was to smash my pride.
I was not sure I was willing to have a “FIRE” experience.18 However, I was sure that I wanted Pride Rock gone and that I couldn’t shift it myself. As I closed my prayer time on that Pentecost Sunday, I gave the Holy Spirit permission to do whatever was necessary to shift the rock of my pride out of the flow of Jesus’ love. That left me feeling uneasy and more than a bit nervous. “Whatever” is a very big word.
Another Side of Pride
I was soon to encounter my “Pride rock” again. It was exactly two weeks later, again on a Sunday morning. I had been noticing a pattern of God speaking to me through corporate confession in church. That is what happened that day. As we paused for silent reflection during our corporate confession, the word “Selfish” was being impressed upon me. This was not a gentle suggestion. It was an insistent, almost shrill voice, ringing over and over in my mind: “Selfish.”
This certainly got my attention. As I considered that word, I became aware of several areas of my life where I was being very selfish indeed. I had been in a funk because things were not turning out the way I wanted. I wanted what I wanted without thinking about what others might want or need, and I was sulking and feeling sorry for myself when I didn’t get my way.
I hadn’t really thought much about my experience with Pride Rock, but now, my thoughts jumped back to it. I was again down in that subterranean space, seeing that frightful rock. As I watched, it was lifted up, and I could see the underside of it, where the word “selfish” was written. I hadn’t considered selfishness as another aspect of pride, but now I had to confront it.
One aspect of pride is that of the preening peacock, caring too much about what others think of you and desiring to look good in the eyes of others. That is inherently a selfish desire. It has no value except to make you feel good about yourself. Another aspect of pride was being brought to my attention. In my pride, I cared only for myself. My incurvatus in se, was on full display. I was turned completely inward, neglecting my obligation to love my neighbors as myself. That was a needful reminder I need to hear most days.
During a session with my spiritual director, I remembered how I almost exhausted myself trying to move “pride rock” before I asked Jesus to help me with it, and then I was anxious about what that help might look like. As my director and I waited in silence, Jesus made me an offer that shocked me. He suggested that I go hang out in the meadow, just enjoying the long grass, warm sun, and cool breeze, while he goes down in the hole and takes care of “pride rock.” There was no angst, no sense of me having to endure anything or be embarrassed. He would simply take care of it.
I do not know what might have happened had I given unambiguous permission for Jesus to “smash” my pride. At that stage in my journey, I did not yet trust the Lord’s goodness. Jesus is, and has been, slowly “taking care” of my pride. But my pride is still with me. If I saw Pride Rock today, I imagine it would be smaller, certainly less sharp, and perhaps pushed a bit to the side, blocking less of the flow of life-giving water. My struggle with pride is ongoing and will continue to the end of my days. However, knowing that I am prideful is the best antidote and is the beginning of humility.
A Postscript
This “chapter” was extraordinarily hard to write. It stopped my progress on this book for years. I often worked on it then put it back down, not really knowing what to do with it.
It was hard for at least three reasons. The first reason is simply pragmatic. My time under the workshop was, in some ways, a pivot point. Much of what happened before was to prime me for my interior work and much of what was to come flowed out of it. That realization nearly always gave me pause.
Second, it is a very personal account and in many ways I find it embarrassing. I do not say it is right that I should feel embarrassment about my struggle with pride; ironically, it is pride rearing back up that makes writing about my pride difficult!
The third reason this chapter kept stopping my progress is that it is a reminder that the work begun below the workshop, nearly 10 years ago now, is still far from over. That, too, is embarrassing, to how much work I still have to do. I still stuff emotions and disappointment, finding it easier to ignore my feelings than to understand them and, when needed, sit with Jesus with them. Pride remains with me; less commanding and less prominent but still a part of who I am.
As hard as this chapter was to write, I hope it was not so hard to read.
I really like the AI-generated version used as the featured image of this post, but nonetheless, this simple drawing is closer to what was in my journal that day. ↩︎
It is worth noting here that there is nothing inherently wrong with having a nice car, home, income, etc. It is a problem if we value those things because they feed our pride by making us feel that we are somehow better or more deserving than others who have less (of material things). ↩︎
Michael Reeves gives an excellent exposition of this thought in chapter 3 of his book, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. ↩︎
The person who had the “FIRE” experience did not, to my knowledge, ask for it or grant permission. ↩︎
One: It is so very dark. I know that you’ve been out in the light. Can you tell me about the light? What is it like when the sun rises?
Two: We’ve talked before about the light and the breaking of dawn; I don’t think there is much I can tell you that you haven’t heard before. You really need to experience it. If you’d like to come and walk in the desert and experience the sunrise, I am happy to accompany you.
One: I’m not really comfortable going out in the dark; it doesn’t seem like I would be safe. Can’t you go out and wait for the dawn, and when it is fully light, come and get me?
Two: I wish I could, but one cannot jump from the dark to the light here. You have to go through the transition from darkness to light. I know the dark is frightening. Almost everyone is more or less scared of the dark. But we will go slowly, and I will be with you. I’ve walked with many as they move from darkness to light. You may be uncomfortable, but you will be okay!
Two: I am glad that you have decided to brave the dark so that you can walk in the light. Now that we are here tell me: how are you doing?
One: I am afraid to move. What if we step off the path?
Two: We don’t need to hurry; we will go as slowly as you would like. Be still for a moment. What do you notice?
One: I think I hear things out in the darkness. I am a little scared. What is it I am hearing?
Two: Could it be the sound of the world waking up? It might be rabbits and squirrels venturing out for the day, or you might hear birds stirring in their nests while they wait for the light.
One: Yes! Yes! That is what I am hearing!
Two: That means that we are on the right track; dawn is coming. Can you hear those sounds as heralds of something coming and not something to fear? As you do that, pay attention to what your other senses tell you.
One: Hmmm. I think that maybe it is starting to get a little bit lighter?
Two: Is it? Can you see any further ahead than you could? How does the sky seem to you?
One: Oh. Yes, I can definitely see more than I could before. The shadows are not as deep and dark as they were; I can make out the shapes of trees and bushes quite clearly now. And yes, the sky is a bit lighter. Instead of black, I see a deep blue, and at the horizon, I think I see a bit of gray.
Two: It sounds like you are starting to see light. When you are ready, let me know, and we will move on.
Two: We’ve been walking a bit now. Let’s rest here. What are you noticing now?
One: Wow, the clouds! Before, the clouds were grey, but now they are tinged with colors.
Two: Can you tell me more about the colors? How do they make you feel?
One: They are soft pastels: pink, orange, and purple. I think I see blues and yellows as well. It is hard to say I they make me feel. Happy, maybe, but more than that. I think I am feeling a sense of peace.
Two: Why don’t we just sit and watch for a few minutes? I wonder what happens next.
One: That seems silly; I just told you what I am seeing!
Oh…Wait! I do see something happening; the colors in the clouds are changing. Even as I am watching, they are becoming more intense and brighter. There is hardly any gray in the clouds anymore. This is amazing!
Two: It is wonderful, isn’t it, how the light brings so much color and beauty. I am glad that you are noticing it. Take a minute and look around. What does the sky behind us look like? What do you see in the landscape now?
One: I can’t believe this: the colors are in the sky behind us. Even where there are no clouds, the sky is purple and pink. And I am starting to see the colors of the plants around us as well. I can see yellow and red flowers and shades of green in the foliage. And the shadows are almost gone. Now I can see birds and rabbits scurrying in the underbrush. That must be what I was hearing before.
Two: As we move from the dark to the light, it is important to look around ourselves frequently. You’ll see lots of unexpected things! The sun is almost up now. It may be tempting to stay here, but let’s go on up to the top of the hill, shall we?
Two: Well, here we are at the top. I wonder if we are close to the sunrise.
One: I’ve already seen a lot that I never expected. If I am honest, I am feeling a bit disappointed now. The beautiful colors are fading. The sky looks more blue, but the lovely colors are almost gone from the clouds.
Two: I see what you mean. It can be hard to let go of something, like the parti-colored clouds; especially if we don’t know what is coming next. We can’t really hold on to what was. Let’s rest and see what is next.
One: I really like the beautifully painted clouds. Why do they have to fade?
Two: It is in their nature to fade. They herald the sunrise, but they are not the sunrise. The sun cannot rise without whitewashing the clouds. But if you are willing to press into what is next, I think you will be glad you did.
One: I think I see something new. It looks like there is a line of bright gold on the horizon. It looks like the sky is on fire! It is getting hard to look at. Is that the sun?
Two: Not yet, but soon. Look around you again. What do you see? What do you notice?
One: I see so much more detail now. The colors I thought were bright before are really bright now; they are vibrant. Even the shadows are brighter. They are still there, but they don’t hide anything anymore. They are no longer shadows; now, they are shades.
Two: Look to the east again.
One: I see it! I see the sun rising! I can’t really look at it; it is too bright. It is incredible, each moment more of it is revealed. I am feeling its warmth, too. It feels like everything that was dark or asleep has come to life.
Two: I am glad you were able to experience the sunrise. Now it is time for us to go back down the hill, back home.
One: I know we are not going back into the darkness, but it will get dark again, won’t it?
Two: Yes. It will get dark again. And the sun will rise again. It will be a while before it is dark again. For now, enjoy the warmth of the sun and the brightness and newness of the world around you.
Now that you have seen the sunrise, do you think you will experience the darkness differently?
One: I think so. I hope so. I want to. I will remember the sunrise.
Will it be just like this the next time it rises?
Two: No. Each sunrise is different. Sometimes, there is almost no color in the sky; other times, the sky is completely filled with impossibly vivid reds and oranges. But remember: the “show” is just the preamble, the herald of the coming sun. You may rightly delight in seeing it, but the sun is what warms us and feeds our souls.
One: I like that. Knowing the sun will rise again will help me bear the darkness.
From Pops' Workshop 