Fellow DWB blogger, Margaret McGrath (sorry if you were going to blog on this Margaret) has this wonderful expression to describe the crazy lusting that too many of us indulge in, life porn. Whether you have sought after it or not, you are sure to recognize it all around you. You’ve heard it blasted over your television speaker and read it in screaming bold print, “Do ____ and you will be ____ instantly!” Fill in the blanks with all the wonders that Madison Avenue promises. “Just a few easy steps!” “In only ___ weeks, you can lose ___ pounds.” “Are you tired of waiting for ____? Well now you can have ____ any time you want!” Blah, blah, blah, blah…..
Any instant gratification without a real commitment or relationship is bound to be pornographic on some level. But oh how seriously we long for so much of what is passed before our eyes. We are tempted by so many things that promise satisfaction without the realistically required effort. But the instant easy way is the way of the tempter, Satan. Stay with me here, I’m not ready to go all fire and brimstone on you, I’m simply referring to the tempter (or accuser, both are decent translations of the Hebrew hasatan from which we get the name Satan), the one Jesus encountered in the wilderness (as heard in this week’s pneuma divina). In that wilderness, both literal and figurative, Jesus was tempted with instant power, instant healing, instant feeding…and would not put God to the test. God apparently is invested in process, or as we considered this past week, “hovering.”
God’s spirit is seen as a thing with wings that hovers and sometimes broods over the chaos of the world. It is this hovering that ena
bles order to come from disorder and being from nothingness. That is why we do well to reject the instant gratification of life porn and instead choose to hover over those things with unfinished potential in our lives. Those things that don’t look all shiny and perfect may be the very substance from which holiness will emerge when we have the faith to hover a while and “put a halo on it.” Eric had some fun on the episode with a small yellow halo and here in Brimfield, we participated in an exercise from Troy’s book by putting a halo on our building project fundraising and a dove on our sign that reminds everyone that no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey they are welcome here. When I was in Albuquerque this summer I saw a dove on a flag pole and thought how much better that looked than an eagle. How much better to be a nation known by a peaceful dove than a warring eagle. Putting a bird on it doesn’t instantly make it so, but holding on to that truth that may yet be is a way to direct creative efforts in a way to make it true in God’s time.
What ONE thing you need to put a halo or bird on? Out of the clutter of all the things vying for your attention, what calls to you? In this hectic, multitasking world, where we juggle many, many things just to keep from falling behind, we still can (and should) perceive our true callings. That sweet spot where we can hover a while, putting a halo on it, is the place of our God-given, God-blessed creativity. But we must stay in that spot! Remember that even though he had just a moment before seen and proclaimed the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, Peter became the tempter (hasatan) when he chose to see the Messiah in that instant, not where God was creating. Jesus understood God’s call on his life meant giving all, including his very life. God’s spirit was hovering over the whole of Jesus’ being, patiently creating blessing in the midst of curse. Jesus’ call to us is not to say a magic formula and gain instant gratification, but to find our life in losing it, by taking up our cross and following him on the journey.
So again, what one thing will you put a halo on? Mary Oliver, in contemplating not all the grasshoppers in creation, but this very grasshopper in her hand,suggests answer: your ONE wild and precious life.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, The House Light Beacon Press Boston, 1990.
Rev. Ian Lynch is pastor of First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Brimfield, MA He blogs about the intersection of spirituality and society at CultureDove.blogspot.com and the intersection of spirituality and ornithology at https://birdparables.blogspot.com
