Monday, March 30, 2020

Expansion Through Limits

The sea gulls have been driven inland by the storms. While we are corralled by an infectious virus and sent home to camp within our own walls, upon our own little plot of earth, the sea gulls are being pushed inland and away from home. We make due with simple meals and reduced essentials, the sea gulls scavenge through the neighbor’s trash can, too full to close the lid. A misplaced opossum was out in the morning light scrounging around the wood pile for a meal. While we hide, nature pushes out.



Lately, even before the virus, I have been thinking about limitations. It began with a recognition of how much of my life I spent feeling embarrassed and ashamed by my limitations. I am that person who needs regular sleep. I get over stimulated by too much noise or activity. I need more time alone to renew than most of my friends. And so on. I don’t know why I struggled with shame and embarrassment over these, but I have. There is a clear need for me to more fully consent to the way I am designed, my limitations and my need to depend on God. In a very short time the reality of limitations took a giant leap from personal to shared worldwide. The limits on my life, and yours, are greater than any of us could have imagined only a week or so ago. As I write this I am reminded of Romans 8:22-28.



“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (The Message)
Our personal worlds have shrunk to the smallest I have ever experienced. People are afraid and confused. It’s understandable. Can we expand in the diminishing? Can we find ourselves growing as people while waiting in fear and anxiety? People say, “I can’t wait until we get back to normal.” Will we get back to normal? If we do get back to normal, will we have learned anything? Can we surrender and trust God, consenting to what is today? When our focus is on our Heavenly Father and not the circumstances we can be enlarged in the waiting – faith grows in the tension of the unknown.
Of course we do not know the extent of this pandemic, nor the outcome. Like Alice in Wonderland we may find, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” What sort of life will we go back to when all is said and done? Some will have lost a lot in the process. Author Friedrich Von Schiller wrote, “What’s old collapses, times change, and new life blossoms in the ruins.” So much of the time we don’t like change. Some will face greater ruin, while others will appear to have barely been affected. Will we be able to see new life pushing up through the ruins, like a wild plant presenting itself through a crack in the sidewalk?
I do not have the answers, nor do I pretend to know what you need, but I find it interesting how two desert Fathers handled waiting and hard times.

“It was said of Abba Theodore and Abba Luscious of Alexandria that for fifty years they encouraged each other by saying, ‘Once the winter is over we’ll leave this place.’ But when the summer came, they would say, ‘We’ll go once this hot spell is over.’ This is how they always spoke.” (Found in Lent with the Desert Fathers by Thomas McKenzie)



Can we handle this hardship for 5 more minutes, 1 more hour, or 1 more day? We can. We are doing it, we must. We can choose to live with these limitations for one more hour, not planning for the next week or the next month. As we are discovering we do not know anything for certain about tomorrow, let alone next week. I like Mary Englebreit’s rephrasing of Charles Dicki


nson’s opening line of The Tale of Two Cities, “Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time you’ve got.” How can we make this time count for something? We are required to be socially distanced from one another but we are not alone. All of us are going through this together. How can we spur one another to hold on for 5 more minutes, 1 more hour, or one more day? So many have posted beautiful and encouraging words. Others have offered free classes for creatives. People are showing up.
We are all doing without something, some more than others. There are those who are going without enough sleep and protection to keep hospitals open. Others going without their usual income. The list could go on and on. As of today, my losses have not been so great. So I look around and consider what I have gained and pray for those who are suffering greatly.
I have gained more time to connect with others. I can do this by calling, texting, writing, emailing or using Google Duo.
I have gained time to weed. Our yard is out of control from the rain.
I have gained time to complete projects for which we have the supplies.
I have an opportunity to be creative and resourceful.
I have an opportunity to connect with and care for neighbors, though not too close.
I have an opportunity to be enlarged in the waiting – to see up close what I have and didn’t notice when my world was large.

These are difficult and challenging times. Ask for help. Give help wherever you can. We are in this together. We can decide whether to do social distancing only, or isolate. There is a difference. Here are a few links I found encouraging this week.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/m6Uw2DJ9Md8






How are you making sense of your day to day existence as your social world shrinks? What is helping you? I would love to hear from you. Share with others in the comments below what you are discovering about yourself, others, God and His grace.

1 comment:

  1. I appreciate your blogs. It is definitely a weird time and I want to use it wisely. I would like to say, "I'm taking it one day at a time" but as someone else said, "That's how time works, Kookie!"

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