While in Wilderness
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Reading scripture has lately been an ethereal and smoky experience, gentle but haunting. It brings forth memories of a time when I still attended church and reminds me of a person I once was – someone who was deeply involved with the church’s ministries and communal life. Reconciling the gap between our past and our present is an undeniable part of the human experience, but lately this part of life has proven more tenuous and exhausting than usual for me. The fullness from Lenten seasons past, when deep brokenness frequently and tangibly met God’s enduring and healing presence, reverberates more loudly against the barren walls of this year’s Lenten season.
Upon reading today’s liturgy, I witnessed the steadfast love of a faithful, attentive, and patient God to his creation. I see that though trust has been broken between YHWH and his people, YHWH is unrelenting in his love, desiring for the relationship to be repaired and restored. And he works to make it so. There is peace for me there. Yet, I come to these passages with my human wounds too – the most pressing centers around the idea of community, something an inner Dawn (I’ve named her ‘Policing Dawn’) incessantly reminds me I lack right now.
I understand myself as a being among many other beings; the intersection of my life with other lives changes the fabric of reality. Human or non-human, we exist within a web of interrelatedness. As such, whether the relationship is brief or long, I attend to the beings and existences of others with as much intention and care as I can, trying to see and honour who they are.
Unfortunately, that is the catch – my way of being with others has resulted in me having an expansive network of individual relationships. In other words, I exist in relationship with a group of individuals, not a group, and certainly not a group of Christians. The Kingdom life is a communal life. Even the mystics lived in community with other believers. I wonder, for what feels like the eighth millionth time in the last five years, what else I should be doing or how else might I change my perspective. My deepest question, borne out of frustration, exasperation, and sadness: can’t my way of life be enough? Can’t who I am be enough? I wonder if my imagination is too small. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for myself.
My inner critic has been working overtime trying to tag, analyze, and fix all these issues. There are so many voices, each well-meaning in their beliefs about what Kingdom living looks like in practice. But my own healing journey has taught me the importance of asking who I am now and what my present context looks like. And despite Policing Dawn’s efforts, I am tired of failing to meet this standard. I want integration within myself. I want wholeness.
I guess that is the wilderness of Lent – stumbling around in the dark, knowing that feeling lost and being lost are two different things. I know God doesn’t need me to strive for his acceptance (the Hebrews passage in the lectionary today is quite clear on this) but I am not devoid of responsibility.
I wish church was easier for me. I wish my reality was more conducive to living a traditionally communal life. I wish my efforts would bear more fruit towards this end. I wish many things, but I can only act on that which is real, that which is true.
Right now, divine silence, weariness, a general lack of direction, and a growing pile of neurotic behaviours I’m only noticing now are my reality, amongst other things. But that is not all. There are other truths too: that I am a dynamic being, that growth is slow and muddy and messy, and that discovering and embodying my true self – the person God made me to be and is forming me to become – requires honesty and courage.
A friend shared with me some time ago that the fear of doing the wrong thing paralyzes her from doing anything at all until she knows her action is correct. I share this fear: what if I’m wrong? what if leaning into my relational tendencies brings me further away from living in community? What if I never return to this form of community? How long can I withstand the expectations of others and/or the expectations of Policing Dawn for how I’m ‘supposed’ to live? What if I’m wrong?
And yet, I cannot shake the conviction that we are most effective in the world when we are freed to be who God has made us to be. These muddy fragments are all I have right now. And maybe I’ll be stumbling around in the wilderness for a long time. But in light of the actions and character of our Triune God, I know that the patience of my God extends beyond my mistakes. I know that feeling lost and being lost are two different things. And despite his silence, I know he is here in the dark with me, with you, with us.
Tomorrow will come, and even as things continue to shift and change around me, my fears are tempered: it is not my efforts that carry me forward but the Spirit’s. Eventually, I will arrive at where I need to be, and another journey will begin again.
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