The small group I lead on Wednesday nights was straggling in slowly to our little room at the church and something in my leadership rhythm just won't let me start until there is a "quorum". My hesistance to delve into our topic ("What is True Spritiuality?") only to end up repeating a personalized version of my oh-so-powerful introduction for each new arrival forced me to do that thing I am really supposed to do anyway as a small group leader: begin by letting the members each share what is on their heart. Monica, my long-time friend who has just gone back to nursing school after years of intense homemaking and motherhood, had had a particulary challenging day. As she shared her story, she struck a chord in me that is still reverberating. I'll be going on about this one for a while, I'm sure!
Monica's nursing instructor had assigned a typical group project regarding the care of a patient. Now Monica is a conscientious, bright and diligent woman and it seems that the group of younger classmates to which she was assigned had not pondered their life options or commitment to education--and particularly their tasks in this project--with the same degree of seriousness Monica had. After sitting through the less than stellar performance by her group mates, it was Monica's turn to present. She was so overwhelmed with the need to compensate, explain gaps and fill in holes (years of motherhood may have entered into this) that she, rather than focusing on the patient in question, began every sentence with "I felt..." or "I thought..." As she finished her words, she said that she realized that she had used the words, "I, me or my," probably 25 times in a presenation that should have been done in clinical third-person! She had a momentary opportunity to fall into despair, but instead, she said she drew a breath as she sat down and said to herself, "Oh well, the world with just have to stretch to accommodate me today!"
When Monica shared her coping mechanism, I knew I was hearing greatness. If Joseph Campbell had been in my small group, I felt certain he would have recorded Monica's words for a list entitled: "Things All Heroes Must Learn to Say," for, at one strategic point or another, every hero must be willing to make the world stretch to fit them! I have no idea what grade Monica received on the presenation, but I believe the grading scale of life stretched for her at the moment she made that inner determination! Monica had realized that, though it is futile to demand that the world stretch, or even force the world to stretch, there is still merit in singing along with Tom Petty: she could quietly "stand her ground," refusing to "back down" in terms of how she viewed herself.
God makes us the way we are and we, so often, spend so much time trying to re-shape ourselves to accommodate the spaces left for us by people trying to find room for themselves! Rather than dare ask someone to adjust their position, we bend ourselves into unrecognizable forms. We think we are being flexible, and sometimes this is required, but what happens after a while is that accommodating other people becomes a habit and we wonder where the Eric Liddle Chariots of Fire stuff ("When I run I feel His pleasure...") went! When the joy of presenting yourself to God in living worship has waned, it might be time to decide that the world needs to stretch to fit you! You might need to use some "I, me, and my" once again, rather than the clincial third person expression that seem less self-centered!
Like a fine mist, expectations, opinions and scruples settle in on us, dampening the joy of expression. Especially in the church world, Josephs don't hold on easily to their amazing technicolor dreamcoats! There are plenty of self-referenced brothers ready to rip the garments of individuality straight off of us. But if anyone ever made the world stretch to fit him, it was Joseph. He ultimately stood his inner ground and made all Egypt--and the known world as well as the future who would read about him--stretch to fit him!
It is easy, even for the fieriest of temperaments (and I count myself in that group), to feel stretched. Life, circumstances and even God's challenges to us often make us feel that if grace doesn't reinforce us, we will certainly meet the fate of an overtaxed rubber band! Let us not, however, become so addicted to the feelings of powerlessness that fail to remember that this is a two-way street. In God's economy, all things are reciprocal. We are stretched by relationships and requirements, but sometimes we are the stretching force on others as well.
We live in a time when God is wanting to stretch his church. We actually live in a reformation. More power to you who need to pioneer new ways to express your worship, both in and outside the church doors and both with and without the overt identification of your craft as worship! You--you army of Joseph's out there who sometimes feel more like you have landed in Egypt than home--you are the ones who will declare, "I feel...; I think...; and I see..." and the world will be a better place for it. God asked Jeremiah more than once, "What do you see?" and Jeremiah's answers played right into God's plan to make Israel stretch.
When I was a teenage hippie (back in the day), we all had posters of the cult credo Desiderata which began, "Go placidly amid the noise and haste..."hanging next to our black light posters. I remember the words of that poem as an island of peace in the midst of my existential turmoil--long before my heart found the real peace that is Jesus. Looking back now, I can see that in many ways the Desiderata (Latin for "things desired") painted a landscape--much like the one the Moody Blues sang about in "Question"(between the silence of morning and the crashing of the sea, was it?), which was frequently playing on the stereo just under the poster. It was a spiritual landscape where one could simply "be" without anxiety over performance or worry over what is "acceptable". It was a vista of grace and freedom--a freedom so secure it need not prove itself in the energies of rebellion. I now know that the promised land lies only behind the Savior who calls Himself "the Door". It is the Narnia of the Kingdom where "I" "me" and "my" exist without selfishness, and express without frowns of disapproval. I realize now that only in Christ do I have access to my "right to be here" and the knowledge that "the universe is unfolding as it should" for me. But even so, what I hear the Desiderata saying is "When faced with the pressure to mold yourself around someone else's laws or needs, decide instead to simply make the world stretch to fit you." Jesus will make room for you as you do, for that's what easy yokes and light burdens are all about...Make your world stretch to fit you.
