A young CNN reporter heard about an old Jewish man in Jerusalem who had been going to the Western Wall to pray twice a day every day for a very long time. She decided to interview him, and when she found him, standing at the wall praying, she introduced herself and asked, “How long have you been coming here twice a day to pray?” The man answered, “About 60 years.”
“That’s amazing!” said the journalist. “What do you pray for?”
“Peace,” replied the old man. “I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and friendship.”
“And how do you feel after doing this for 60 years?” asked the young woman.
“Like I’m talking to a damn wall!” said the man.
We have all had that feeling at one time or another, haven’t we? Deeply frustrated that what we have been asking for, often over and over again, has not come to be…. Or, even worse, we’ve made a heartfelt request, over and over, and our prayer appears to not have been heard at all… It is not that we’ve gotten a “no” answer. We haven’t gotten any answer…
It is so frustrating to ask for what you know would make life better not only for you, but for all, to ask again and again and nothing changes…
When I read this story the first time, my question was “Why, would the old Jewish man keep doing what was not working?”
That, of course, is not so much a question, as it is a judgment. Why would one be so stupid as to keep doing what’s not working?
It is a judgment my inner critic throws at me in the form of a question over and over…Why do you (meaning me), I ask myself… keep doing the same ole thing day after day, year after year, when you obviously are not getting what you seem to want from that behavior?
Reminds me of Dr. Phil saying; “is that working for ya?”
Yet, I know from studying myself and you that whatever we do does “work” for us in some way. We may not be getting what we are consciously asking for, but we are getting some need met. The old Jewish man wasn’t getting through to God, but he did respect from the young reporter for his long time regular and consistent prayer life.
Maybe it was just in that moment, when she asked what he had been praying for… for so long, that it dawned on him… how frustrated he was….there was no more peace in this world than there had been 60 years before, and on the day she asked….it was clear there was no peace in his heart either…
Have you seen those bumper stickers? “No God, No Peace”.
I don’t know if an all powerful “God” who answers our prayers is required for there to be peace in the world. I am not even sure if God is required for there to be peace in our hearts. But I suspect that peace in the heart is required for there to be peace in the world…
There has to be something more (or less!) than our prayers of petition…prayers asking for something….there has to be something more (or less) than our chattering minds that gives us peace, serenity, calmness …even when we realize how frustrated we are!
If it is God we pray to and God doesn’t answer, doesn’t even seem to hear, it’s only natural to be frustrated.
Where are you? Why aren’t you listening? Some of us good people have been doing our part, praying for the good of the world, regularly, consistently for years.
Why aren’t you doing anything?
Sometimes I imagine God expressing his (or her) frustration with us in the same way…
For centuries, I have called out to you. Why aren’t you listening, why can’t you hear me?
Maybe we (human beings and God) need couples counseling….the kind that gets us to move past the chattering, the praying without listening, past the illusions and delusions of the perfect relationship, past the frustration, past the stand offs… and the break ups
John Welwood in his book Journey of the Heart tells a story about getting into an argument with his wife. They are still really angry with each other and have retreated to separate places in their house to stew. A bit later, they encounter each other in the hallway. Welwood describes how they are eying each other warily wondering what’s going to happen next. He talks about how one part of him wants to drop the whole thing and embrace his wife, yet he knows that his embrace would be false and too soon. Another part of him wants to start the argument all over again, but that would be like pouring concrete on any hope of reconciliation.
He does neither. They both just stand there in the hallway holding onto the “I love you” and the “I am angry with you” space that so real, poignant and paradoxical… Slowly they find a new entrance into conversation and before long they are laughing. They start to playfully call each other names, expressing anger and affection simultaneously.
To make peace, in the world, with each other, with God, we have to learn to stand in that place of not knowing what comes next. We have to learn to stand in that place of faith, that all will be well even when it isn’t!
I believe we need to feel our feelings, all of them… anger, sadness, joy, fear, frustration…and that we need to use our feelings and our intellect to solve problems in this world…especially those problems that have to do with hostilities and hatreds between religions, nations, people, all the competitors for the world’s limited resources… We need to acknowledge what’s not working, so that maybe we can move on to what will…
But we also need to have the experience, particularly as religious people, of standing calmly in the luminous space of not knowing….no answer…no God…no other who is going to fix the world/our world…no way we can fix it…and yet it’s OK…
I don’t know what your prayer is. I don’t know what you ask for again and again…
What I hope for you is that over your lifetime you have received enough calmness when life was chaotic to have learned to be calm, that you have received enough serenity to be at peace with yourself when every false idol demands your loyalty, that someone has but enough faith in you so that you know that you have the resources to move through life’s frustrations with peace in your heart….that it will be OK…
The first traveler to come down the road was a wealthy merchant who went around the rock and cursed the king for not keeping the road clear.
The second traveler to come down the road was in a great hurry, and, all the while muttering about her plans and complaining about this nuisance, climbed up one side of the bolder and down the other and continued on her way.
Next down the path came a tired peasant pulling a vegetable cart. Approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and putting his shoulder to the task moved the stone to the side of the road. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he suddenly noticed the pouch lying in the road where the boulder had been. Inside the pouch was a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the obstacle from the roadway.
We all have been in all three of those places in our lives; cursing the king for not keeping the road clear, muttering our annoyance at the boulder being in the road… And just doing what was necessary to move the obstacle out of the way..
Sometimes our role is to answer a prayer that wasn’t directed at us….to move a boulder out of the way to clear someone else’s path, to clear the path for all the travelers coming afterwards..
A young man stood up from a bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with a rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in the Santa Barbara public library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind.
In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner’s name. With time and effort he located her address. She now lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for military service.
During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. He requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.
When the day finally came for him to return from overseas, they scheduled their first meeting – 7:00 PM at Grand Central Station in New York. “You’ll recognize me,” she wrote, “by the red rose I’ll be wearing on my lapel.” So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he’d never seen. I’ll let him tell you what happened:
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose.
As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. “Going my way, sailor?” she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw the woman with the rose. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own.
And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be romance, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.
I said; “I’m the person you have been writing to, and you must be the person who has been writing to me. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?”
Simultaneously disappointed and thrilled.. Frustration! A prayer answered in a way we didn’t expect.
We all have our obstacles and frustrations. Sometimes we shape our own stumbling blocks. Still, we can... with peace in our hearts... put our shoulders to the task of clearing what is in the way, not knowing what comes next yet ….clearing a path not only for ourselves, but for others.
Back to the end of the story: When the soldier asked if he could take the plump, gray haired women to dinner, her face broadened into a tolerant smile. “I don’t know what this is about, son,” she answered, “but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat! And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street!”
I almost didn’t want to tell that ending! That’s like a happy ending to a movie!
And life isn’t always like that! Life doesn’t always have a “happy ending”. Life doesn’t always work out the way we might want it to. Sometimes the very best part is just standing still in the not knowing, real, poignant, luminous places...
I was reading a book the other day about how to deal with difficult people in congregational life! The author made the point again and again that the way to deal with difficult behavior in congregational life, or in life in general, was to cultivate that calm spot in yourself. To not label, or exorcise your own frustrations on other people, or let them exercise their frustrations on you….but just find and stand in that calm, non-anxious spot in yourself.
At the very end of the book, the author said something that really struck me. He said that “as a pastor, I am supposed to be an expert in God’s love: proclaiming it to others and knowing it in my own life.” He admitted that he’d gone through a time when he didn’t know God’s love and was proclaiming it falsely, yet he'd returned to a space where peace was again in his heart.
I thought about that, I wondered how to understand that for myself. I don’t think of myself as an expert in God’s love. I don’t think I am an expert in how to be in relationship with God. And, I often wonder if God is any kind of expert about me!
At the very same time, when I can be so frustrated about, even in denial about, the necessity of relationship with God, or God with me….At the very same time, I can stand in the yard and watch the snow come down and know that everything is OK, will be OK…
It is in that place that I stand…not knowing what comes next, but OK, so OK with what is, even if no one seems to be listening, I've heard the calm sound of it's going to be, it is OK.
1 comments:
Thank you. I needed this today:)
Post a Comment