As I reflect on this reality here, I am not trying to make an excuse for posting endless pictures of my daughter on a blog entitled, 'God Watcher' - although I suppose I could make that argument based upon the 'God-is-in-the-ordinary' premise. Rather, I'm trying to understand my spiritual life - my journey with God over the last decade.
I have felt close to God in the mountaintops of marriage and graduation and Samara's birth. But I have felt closest to God in the valleys of the shadow of death and of cancer. When someone asks me to tell my story, to share my testimony, what stories do I tell? I tell the story of losing Layton and how God was with me. I tell the story of Samara being diagnosed with cancer and how God was with me. I am used to tragedy. I know best how to relate to God (struggling, crying, listening) in the midst of the catastrophic.
This is a picture of Layton's car after it was hit nearly seven years ago now.
This picture is a representation of the life I am used to. I am most familiar with the God who rescues me from this kind of tragedy.
But how do I relate to God when life is not wild and dark? Who is God and who am I when life is plain as the plains? When life is Vanilla instead of Rocky Road?
I talked about this the other day with a colleague of mine, who is also a spiritual director. She shared with me this quote from a book she's currently reading: "Legacy of the Heart" by Wayne Muller, 1992, Simon & Schuster.
The Perpetuation of Danger
The problem is this: Skills learned in danger require the presence of danger to be effective. If our greatest skill is getting ourselves out of trouble, then we are at our best when we have discovered some trouble to get out of. In a strange way we feel safer in fear and danger than we do in tranquility, because we know how to survive danger. We have no idea how to manage peace.
How do I manage peace? When the wind stops blowing... how do God and I spend time together?
This is what I'm learning and how I'm growing right now.
How about you?
6 comments:
OK, I'm crying a little bit because I'm so happy that you are finally thinking about this.
When I first started reading today's post I was quickly reminded of Mr. Wagner talking to the students during chapel at the christian scool when I was 5 or 6. When he said that God was with us all the time I was horrified! :)
I had just learned a few years earlier that it was okay to get dressed in front of the TV because although I could see Mr. Rodgers, he could not see me. Now with God seeing me all the time how was I supposed to get dressed or go to the bathroom. I can't remember what Mom said to alleviate my fears, but she must've been pretty amused.
You're totally right about the highs and the lows and feeling the closeness. For me it's also during those rare quiet times alone near nature. Usually this is at the crack or dawn. How can you not feel close to God when he gives the gift of beautiful sunrises, sunsets and the changing of the seasons?
There will be so much to talk about when we meet together again! Let me know what time frame will work for you this year. I anticipate it :)
I think your thoughts apply further. What if God wants us to just be normal -- not great, not super-anything, not saving the world? What if God's plan needs you to just be there?
I'm wired to be the best I can be, to solve things, to make things OK. What if I'm supposed to just be the normal guy?
Can I take that?
One of my initial responses to the quote here was that it seemed pejorative.."when we have DISCOVERED some danger"...especially when applied to your life circumstances, Heidi. When tragedy "discovers" you, and then sets a pattern in place, a spiritual pattern, I wonder if, yes, we need to be attentive to the ways in which we may be "perpetuating" further dangers, needing our dangers, transmuting them, but also attentive to the ways in which we might be called into the dangers of others because of this pattern/knowledge, or to new kinds of challenges. While Mike comments that he may be called to be the normal guy, I wonder if normal can quite fit the contours of a heart that knows the deep presence of God can be found in times of great trial? And surely, normal can fit alongside of the extraordinary, as a season, even a discipline, dare I say a particularly maternal discipline?
I have felt a kind of loss in the midst of normality, and am learning difficult lessons about what can be so easily overlooked when variations on "just being there" are..well... overlooked as a divine gestures. But I often wonder how this affinity with God and danger may be the way God has genuinely shaped and called some to the abnormal places in the lives of others.
Thanks, all, for your comments - for being with me in this wondering... about God. For sharing your own stories of normal. Shelly, your question is helpful: "I wonder if normal can quite fit the contours of a heart that knows the deep presence of God can be found in times of great trial?" And your pointing out of the difference between discovering danger and being discovered by it.
And, Mike... what if God wants us to be normal? Well, I guess that's up to God, right? God uses us in little ways and big ways... working through tragedy and simple daily practices... Staying in the flow of the Spirit - be that flow calm or whitewater - this is what I'm called to... what we're all called to.
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