In this, the national week of goal setting and New Year’s resolutions, when purpose gurus, guides and coaches call to us from every corner, selling the latest and greatest methods for how to get what we want and live a meaningful life; I am drawn to the stillness of the Magi and the Christ child. To that moment in time when the wisdom keepers of the ages brought their most precious gifts to lay at the feet of the One who would lead the world beyond purpose and meaning into love. I am drawn to Epiphany.
The word itself is known for being a moment in which we have a sudden insight that re-orients our lives. It is also the time when we make space in the new year for the Magi’s visit to the Christ child, those wise people who read the heavens for signs and wonders and interpreted the wisdom they found. It’s a little odd for me as this is the first Sunday in a decade that I am not preparing a sermon. Last Sunday was my last official day in my appointment to a United Methodist church in Nashville, I’ve moved to Chattanooga and am beginning the next phase in my ministry and spiritual journey. Just like the Magi journeying to an unknown place to meet a mysterious, new life being born into the world, I am guided by a lot of unanswered questions. Mystery and wonder are at the heart of 2018, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.
I’m re-reading Parker Palmer’s beautiful book: “Let Your Life Speak.” In which he says: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.” He is in line with one of my favorite Sufi poets from the 13th Century, Rumi, who said, “let the beauty you love be what you do.”
But this is not easy. These are the kinds of sayings that draw us into epiphany, however, they are so ambiguous that they often crash and die in a culture such as ours. It feels as if being drawn into Epiphany is very often more of a myth than reality. We live out the reality of our days in a “get it done” culture. It seems like a fantasy to do something as strange as listening to your heart speak.
The goal-making, purpose driven, intention setting business is one of the most profitable industries in our culture, it is much louder than Epiphany. This time of year, especially, we are all scrambling to get our intentions in line with something that will finally make our lives work and move us further in the direction of where we truly want to go. The heart, with its mushy, ambiguous feeling center doesn’t seem too promising as far as the material things we want to achieve. But when it comes to finding purpose, true purpose from an authentic place, I’m afraid we’re stuck with having to navigate the ambiguous territory of the heart. Like the Magi, forsaking knowledge, reason and even Herod’s instructions to follow an odd, dancing light on the horizon.
So, before I sit down to write my goals for the year, I’m spending some time meditating on that moment when the wisdom keepers of the ages brought their most precious gifts to lay at the feet of the One who would lead the world beyond purpose and meaning into love. My truest purpose is somehow linked to the spirit of that encounter.
Because the past decade of serving some of the most traumatized, abandoned people in our culture has taught me that there is something a little deeper in all of us that lives just beneath the craving for purpose and meaning –this is the cry for love. Something born in the heart.
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Perhaps it was the cry of love that pulled the Magi across the hinterlands, averting Herod’s threatening watch, to a humble and lowly place where a new kind of king was born. The place where they crowned Love as the most powerful force in the universe.
This Epiphany, we can make the journey to that place, too, in our hearts. When the cry for love is met there, we seem to have an easier time finding our way to purpose and meaning in our lives. Strangely, in my own experience, this cry for love is answered best when I am opening my heart to this same need in others. Particularly those who are rejected, wounded, abandoned and traumatized.
When we look into the broken hearts of others with love, we often see the eyes of Christ, the God who is love, the Wounded Healer looking back at us. The brokenness of others is like a mirror of God’s love, staring into our own hearts, pulling from us the Divine love that lives within us all. Somehow, we have to see it in action to know that it’s really there.
Perhaps the Magi did not come to see but to be seen, to be fully observed by the eyes of heaven, to be changed by love. After all, they had been searching for purpose and meaning for so long outside of themselves, maybe seeing the Christ gave them permission to finally look within.
This year, I’m taking a new approach. Having spent the better part of my life setting goals to produce material successes (and often failures) in the world, I’m letting all of that go. I’m just going to let my heart speak and translate that into the world. I’m looking forward to hearing what love has to say.
What about you? What are some of your thoughts on goals, new year’s resolutions and epiphanies as you move into a new year? I’d love to hear from you, leave your comments in the section below.
Grace and Peace,
-Sherry
About the Author: Sherry Cothran, M.Div., is a speaker, musician, author and ordained minister. In addition to her ongoing work as senior pastor, Sherry has been featured in USA Today,UMC.org, led at Festival of Homiletics, was the Artist in Residence, 2015, at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and the recipient of two grants from the Louisville Institute. Her sermons and blogs have been featured in Good Preacher, Abingdon Women, The Interpreter, Ministry Matters, Alive Now. An award winning recording artist, her most recent collaboration with indie film maker, Tracy Facceli, “Tending Angels” can be viewed on You Tube. Sherry is regularly booked as a keynote speaker, workshop leader and performer of songs and stories.
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I’m in the middle of a big transition and it’s scary. It’s anxiety producing and I have no idea how it’s all going to turn out. It’s a magnified version of that feeling I had as a kid reading “There’s a Monster At The End of This Book.” Pages and pages of Grover doing all kinds of creative things to keep me from turning the page, from getting closer to the monster at the end of the book. Only to find out, at the end, the monster is Grover himself! A funny, blue muppet staring back at me.
I find myself thinking about what I’m leaving behind a lot. The security of a regular paycheck, a job I know how to do well, a community and not to mention the factor of being a known person with networks of trust. I am leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar, the known for the unknown, all because I’m on a journey of becoming who I am meant to be here on planet earth and sometimes, that requires risk. I know this intellectually, but the reality of it is something else altogether. It’s just plain scary.
Of course, as always, I am given a text this week to deal with in light of my current anxieties. The Israelites wondering in the wilderness and telling Moses that they’d really rather go back to a life of slavery, because at least there they had something to eat! At least they had four walls and a bed to sleep in. That panicked awareness that being broken out of slavery isn’t what they thought it would be. Sure, they were elated at first, but now that they’ve had time to reflect, they feel cheated. They expected that freedom would mean something more than starving, more than the endless wandering, more than having to feel their feelings of fear, anxiety and the ever looming presence of self-doubt.
So Moses, the epic, archetypal leader, once again speaks to God and hears what seems like a way forward. They don’t really buy it, but God comes through anyway, in yet another spectacular way, I might add. Sending bread and meat from heaven in the form of manna and quail. A fire by night and a cloud by day, the equivalent of an ancient, wilderness compass. Quite creative. But it’s still not enough. Even though God has proven God’s ability to meet their needs, even in a hostile wilderness, the children of God are still riddled with doubt and they continue reluctantly, impatiently, full of anxiety and fear. Like Grover, trying to do everything to prevent the turning of the page.
Still, day by day, God feeds them, gives them water, leads them with signs and wonders, promises them a new life and a promised land. They go on, grumbling, dragging their feet, making huge mistakes but still moving forward, inch by inch. It’s painful to observe and know that this is the same journey I’m on, too. A wilderness journey into the unknown, fighting the urge to build daily barriers that would keep me from turning the page into what I know is my truest life.
The Israelites weren’t just learning to trust God, they were learning to trust themselves. Somehow, these two things go hand in hand. In a world that teaches us that we must be the masters of our own destiny, create a super hero, artificial version of ourselves to conquer our fear, win friends and influence people, build wealth and look good while we’re doing it, the wilderness journey strips all of those things away. On the wilderness journey, we are forced to look within for the resources to make it through. It’s incredibly disorienting at first, none of our usual tricks seem to work on the journey to true freedom.
But over time, we learn on the wilderness journey that there are other resources we knew very little about, and these resources are very powerful because they are connected to God, to the eternal and to our truer selves. These new resources we find are the created ones that were given to us as the image of God within. Only in the emptiness of the wilderness journey can we learn to draw them up, like water from a deeper well, and use them to create life. A true one, not an artificial one. All of this takes time, a long time. For the Israelites, it took forty years. My mentor likes to say, “the story says Moses led them in a circle for forty years because they weren’t quite ready for their freedom.”
We are re-programming our brains, and it takes time. Richard Rohr and Eckhart Toile teach that about 90% of our brain’s thinking is spent either re-processing the past or worrying about the future. We certainly see this in the story of the Israelite journey. They say it is almost impossible for us to think ourselves into the present, we have to learn to think with our hearts. To make this impossible thing possible, we have to be put in situations in which we learn to rely on something deeper than our magnificent brains, the heart itself. Beyond the physical task of pumping our blood, the heart is also the place of our connection with God, it’s where the word “courage” comes from. The root of the word courage is “cor,” the Latin word for “heart.”
I have to remember that although change feels like a death, there is some pretty amazing birth going on inside of me. It is during this period that God is re-ordering the chaos within, creating new pathways by revealing what is stored in my very own heart. Some old ways of thinking will pass away. During this incredibly awkward and uncomfortable time, I am making some pretty major leaps, moving from self-doubt to self-confidence. From all my stored anxiety God is re-creating peace and serenity by providing my needs as they arise and as I am willing to take the next step, to turn the next page on my journey of faith. God is breaking me free from the thinking that has enslaved my heart. God is parting the impassable obstacle before me so that I can enter into the journey I must take to build the tools I will certainly need to become my truest self.
In a cut throat world where violence, hatred, jealousy and competition rule, I am becoming part of a community that is ruled by a covenant and ethic of love. It’s not some idyllic vision of a utopian world, it’s learning how to love in the midst of suffering, uncertainty and anxiety. That love becomes my cloud by day and my fire by night, it becomes my guiding force.
The Israelites didn’t somehow just stop being human beings, they still grumbled, lost their way, hurt one another, and took their own sweet time to get where they were going. But the important thing is that they continued to turn the page, take another step, and even though grumbling, learned to trust their hearts and live from that center where love ruled. At least, they gave it their best, and that is all we are asked to do, that is all I can do on any given day.
Sometimes my best is just showing up, being present in the moment. I don’t have to do the re-programming, I have a Higher Power that can lift from me the old patterns of re-hashing past pain and freaking out about the future. I’m discovering another way to live, in the present, trusting my heart, trusting the wilderness within that has been created by a greater hand. Trusting that God is building order out of the chaos, day by day, one day, one moment at a time. Giving me the courage to turn the page, even when it’s scary.
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There are many different ideas as to what recovery looks like in our nation right now. Economic recovery, healthcare recovery, energy recovery, recovery of the planet itself. We often feel gridlocked, confused about how to respond to chaotic leadership. Many feel simply trapped in an endless loop of verbal warfare about issues of social justice and more divided than ever before on our core beliefs.
But rather than protest or support a political agenda, let me suggest a third way, a different type of recovery, recovery from dysfunctional systems. This is the not the way of cranking down on control or running away, rather, it is the way of letting go.
The greatest threat to our world is not a chaotic leader, this too shall pass, or even the extreme lack of unity in our country, we’ve been here before, but the core issue is dysfunction itself. Whatever threatens the soul threatens the world. If we want to live in a better world with clarity and purpose, it often begins with our own recovery. Healing is an act of revolution.
In this election season, we have been exposed to leadership styles that mirror dysfunction, in which we see our own worst selves. The creation of chaos and confusion, using insults as a form of communication, shaming, blaming, compulsive behavior, greed, bullying, sexual harassment, acting out on racist beliefs, deception, perfectionism, anger, etc. These behaviors, when practiced in organizations and families, create mistrust, confusion, dishonesty, instability, denial and a deathliness of spirit. Even when one seeks to do the right thing, to help others, to be a good citizen, one often feels trapped, as if there is no way out, in dysfunctional systems, it often feels as if a heavy blanket of despair covers the world. More dysfunction is always needed to make things appear successful, dysfunction is a progressive disease and grows worse with time if untreated.
It may appear to be a recipe for success but to the millions upon millions of people in recovery programs, we have learned to see dysfunction for what it is. We know that productivity does not equal wholeness, and chaotic attempts at the management of dysfunctional behavior is not the same thing as sanity. We are discovering a new way to live. Coming out of denial as we realize that our own behaviors are often driven by the chaotic spiral of the dysfunctional trap.
But there is a force that is greater than dysfunction, and we connect with this as an act of recovery. God within. The same power that has pulsed in every living thing for over four billion years is the power that brings sanity out of chaos in our lives, in our hearts. A new kind of stability awaits us. It is as if we begin to live from heart center instead of chaos center. We let go of control over the unmanageable disease of dysfunction and we come to realize that only a Higher Power, God, can restore us to sanity.
Witnessing dysfunction as a leadership strategy on the world stage can often be daunting. However, it can be viewed as a positive development because it no longer remains a hidden thing. Wherever dysfunction is hidden, it becomes more powerful. Because it is a progressive disease, it creates a sense of learned helplessness, in dysfunctional environments, we feel a sense of abandonment, maybe even a sense that there is no God. Or, in the other extreme, we create our own versions of God that make us feel that we are in control. This is how dysfunction works, while convincing you that you must control a chaotic environment, it traps you in despair, loneliness, toxic shame, isolation and anger. At the same time, it drives you into the exercise of will power to gain control, gain the upper hand over the chaos and confusion that seems to have stolen your identity and taken over your life. On the one hand we become way to weak, on the other, way to powerful, we vacillate wildly between the two extremes.
The truth is we are simply powerless over dysfunctional behavior, and it makes our lives unmanageable.
As we learn to name it, we recognize that there is a greater force at work in us, greater than world leaders, political systems or the stock market. There is a force in us that can create sanity and bring stability and manageability to our lives. God. Not some gray bearded man in the sky or some action hero savior that is going to punish everyone in an eternal hell who fails to obey all the rules. We haven’t always painted the most appealing image of God in religious environments. Dysfunction is pervasive. As we become a new creation by letting go of our own control and asking God to be the creator of sanity in our lives, we come to know the God of the universe, the God of creation, who has created and is creating. We come to know the God that Jesus spoke of as love. There are no contradictions in Divine love, there is just love.
We begin to heal. Healing is a radical act, it is one’s own individual revolution that begins to infect the whole world with a new kind of freedom. Jesus knew this.. It makes way for a Divine power to order the world through us. Healing and the proclamation of freedom were intricately linked in Jesus’ ministry. To heal from dysfunctional systems is to claim that your body is not property and you are not at the mercy of chaos. You come to know yourself, body, mind and soul as sacred, created by God. It is to claim that you were created for love. Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
We cannot control dysfunction, but we can let go of it. It seems counter intuitive, but strangely,as we allow God to bring us to sanity, this is how we move towards healing the world, one heart , one soul at a time. This is the constant source of energy that motivates us to serve others, to love with all of our hearts. Finally, because we have access to the source of love within.
We live in a dysfunctional world, can I get an witness? We seem to swim in a stew of wrong and right, bubbling in the shame, blame and guilt that are the end result of the failure to meet impossible standards. Out of this human predicament, we have created a lethal brew known as perfectionism.
Our culture is built around an unattainable ideal of perfectionism, what is morally right and wrong. The extreme pressure to live up to these standards seems to rule us more than the spirit behind them. Even though no one seems to be able to live up to the impossible standards, we still crank down even harder, it usually comes out as hateful words or actions, shaming, blaming and guilting everywhere. But there is an alternative way to live.
As far back as the 13th century (and even long before that) humans have been obsessed with perfectionism as a method for keeping anxiety at bay. One of my favorite poets from this period, Rumi, a theologian and scholar, made this statement in response:
“There is a field out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing, I will meet you there.”
Ahh, what a relief, there is a space for love to flourish somewhere. He is talking about love, of course, as a revolutionary alternative to perfectionism. Not necessarily romantic love, but Divine, unconditional love, what we call Agape. It is the kind of love we are learning in our spiritual process as we meet the God within, as Christ has said, “the kingdom of Heaven (is) within you.” We go within to find the love we need to flourish in difficult times.
Religion is supposed to be a container for this process of love and loving, but these days, it seems some of our religious environment is functioning out of rigid perfectionism. And this “some” has the loudest voice in the world. But that is not the Way, at least, of true faith.
Perfectionism is simply another attempt at control. Making religion and God into something we can control and bend to our own will is classically known as idolatry. The odd thing is that when we engage in trying to control God or love or anything, or the reverse, trying to keep God out of the equation of life, we are the ones that become frozen! It is as if we are trying to freeze time or stop the madness, control the chaos. This always makes for craziness in the world and it seems to happen most when things become unstable.
In uncertain times, people crank down hard on control. But it is not just religious communities that are prone to this, we all do it, it is part of the human condition. As Paul Tillich said, “we are anxious unto our death.” And we all look for ways to manage the anxiety.
But faith interjects a different way, surrender. Surrendering to a higher Love causes us to let go of all the other ways. As Paul said, “in my weakness is my strength.” He was talking about surrender. Over time, in this faith process, as we surrender our control, we become stabilized by our true power, our soul life within, our true nature. Love teaches us how to be natural in an artificial culture.
Rumi’s statement gets at the core of the human condition. It is an invitation to let go of control, let go of rigid moralism and perfectionism and surrender to Love.
The field out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing is a place where we meet ourselves out beyond the shame, blame and guilt of wrongdoing, beyond trying so hard to get it “right.” We try to get at the exact nature of our harmful actions rather than focusing on controlling the actions themselves. We do not try and get “right,” or stop being “wrong,” rather, we become attuned with the Sacred in us and surrender to its work in us. We focus on Love itself and the nature of love and we allow God to do the work in us.
Love, our tradition states, “keeps no record of wrong and does not insist on its own way.” For the early church, the focus was transforming from a litigious religious practice into the heart of relationship with the Divine, the God within, whom Jesus represented and left as the special presence of God on earth, the Holy Spirit. This is the basic root of all Christian theology.
Becoming attuned to Love re-routes us on a new path. Instead of choosing to live in the stew of shame, blame and guilt, we choose other methods for dealing with the pain of living in a dysfunctional world. We surrender to God in us. We walk in the woods, getting re-grounded with creation; or write or paint or do yoga or volunteer for service. We learn that there are many alternatives for dealing with pain and that we have the power to choose them because we are giving up control over our pain and we are letting go of perfectionist behavior.This is the moment when we begin to take true responsibility for our own lives and become actors rather than reactors in the world.
Control is an illusion. Control of fear, behavior, others, the world. When you give up control, what you are really giving up is living life from the artificial energy of your illusions. When you give this up, pain doesn’t stick around as long, it simply doesn’t have much to attach itself to anymore.
For some, religious experience has become a painful place and religion simply is not an alternative. But a loving community is not the same thing. Religion is a system, a container, a loving community is working out faith together. I encourage you to ask God to help you find a loving and safe community for you to practice your true faith.
Here are some helpful questions you might use as criteria:
Am I a part of a religious or faith experience that sees Love as its highest goal? If so, am I learning that true love seeks to be unconditional? How do I feel about unconditional love? Does my community make me feel unworthy? Less than?
Is the community I am a part of confused about love? Do they confuse love with perfectionism? Do they confuse love with pity? How do I feel about love?
Do I feel empowered by my community to pursue what I feel are the dreams God has given to me as the story written on the walls of my soul? Does my community talk about the soul’s life in some way?
Does my community teach me to take responsibility for my own life, empowering and educating me to make my own decisions about my faith journey?
True faith is coming to the field, coming aside to the feet of the great Healer and taking some deep breaths of unconditional love. In the field, we learn to love more deeply than we ever thought we could, because we are learning to love from our souls, where God lives.
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During joys and concerns on Sunday, a man shared he could hardly contain his excitement as this would be his first time to vote as a new American citizen. He came here from war, hunger and turmoil and now feels that he can finally begin living the story written on the walls of his soul. A story he was cut off from most of his adult life due to simply having to survive day to day.
This election season, there’s been a huge debate over what makes us great. We often think it’s something or someone in the outside world that can make us great, that greatness is a thing waiting for us on the horizon somewhere, if only we could pull the right levers, meet the right people, get the right education, etc. But we are confused about greatness. It is not something we can do for ourselves, rather, greatness is something planted in us by a Divine hand, it is love.
We are all born with greatness in our hearts, it is just part of our DNA, our innate ability to love and receive love. But we are also cut off from it in many, many ways in our world. Our ability to access this deep love already within us and connect with it is what makes greatness grow.
As we exercise our freedom today to choose a new leader for our nation, let’s remember what makes us truly great. It is connecting with our deep reserves of love within and building bridges with others. We make a refuge for one another in our hearts as great love grows in us.
I’ve shared a few thoughts here and a song from the old hymn book that was co-written by one of my heroes, theologian and poet, Georgia Harkness.
Sherry Cothran, M.Div., is a speaker, musician, author and ordained minister. In addition to her ongoing work as senior pastor, Sherry has been featured in USA Today, UMC.org, led at Festival of Homiletics, was the Artist in Residence, 2015, at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and the recipient of two grants from the Louisville Institute. Her sermons and blogs have been featured in Good Preacher, Abingdon Women, The Interpreter, Ministry Matters, Alive Now. An award winning recording artist, her most recent collaboration with indie film maker, Tracy Facceli, “Tending Angels” can be viewed on You Tube. Sherry is regularly booked as a keynote speaker, workshop leader and performer of songs and stories.
