Tag Archives: non-violence

Gifts & Growth: Re-imagine

Posted on by
1

This humorous story reflects the conundrum faced by those of us who tend to over-think and stay trapped in the mind:

A celebrated holy man is on his deathbed. His students are lined up in order of seniority to pay their respects, awaiting his final words with bated breath. Eventually, and with effort, the holy man opens his eyes, then addresses his most senior student.

“Life,” he declares, “is a river.” The student turns to the next most senior, and the message gets carried down the line: “The master says life is a river.” “The master says life is a river.” Only the most junior student, the last to receive the words, is naïve enough or daring enough to venture a question: “But what does the master mean, ‘life is a river’?” The query comes back up the line, until the senior student, trembling at the audacity of questioning the master, manages to blurt it out. “My master, I’m sorry, but what do you mean, ‘life is a river’?”

The old man is moments from expiring. But for one last time, he opens his eyes and regards the student in unblinking silence. Then, he shrugs and turns up his palms.

“All right,” he says, “So it’s not a river!” (adapted from Burkeman, 2024).

Moral of the story: Real wisdom doesn’t lie in getting life figured out. It lies in grasping the sense in which you will never get it completely figured out.

This proposition can be unsettling for those of us whose starting gift is being in our head. This is the gift of analysis, of thinking through and solving problems by acquiring more knowledge.

A “head spirituality” (Ware, 2000) favours what it can see, touch, and vividly imagine. It’s a concrete spirituality often expressed in concepts. Thought and belief are central to this highlighted quadrant on the Gifts and Growth Wheel. This spirituality is often recognized by focusing on doctrines, position papers, and theological argument. This gift is so important to the church and has likely dominated in the church since the Protestant Reformation.

The temptation can be to drill down deeper and remain stuck in the world of mental constructs and abstraction. The excess of this gift; that is, if head-types don’t commit to a journey of growth, is over intellectualizing one’s faith. It is to depend exclusively on rationalism and certainty.

The path of growth for the head type is first toward the Receivers who know to receive reality is at is without an initial compulsion to have to rationalize it or solve an intellectual problem. The Receivers, as we learned last week, are particularly gifted in simply experiencing the presence and celebrating the grace of God without having to understand it fully.

copyright Martin Malina, 2025

When the thinker follows the path of growth their true gift can bear fruit in the community and they become the Re-imaginers (Bailey, 2021). They come with solutions, but no longer according to the exclusivist agenda of the powers that be. Without going to the opposite side first can make head spirituality exclusive – either by creating a community only of like-minded people and/ or pursuing a course of action that excludes others and paints a line in the sand between ‘them and us’.

In the world of the bible, Jerusalem represented the powers that be. Jerusalem was the seat of religious and political power in the region. Jesus knew that prophetic ministry in the face of power was a dangerous activity. Jerusalem personified the power of the world that sowed division and discord. Those that spoke the truth of God’s kingdom in Jerusalem risked their lives. Jesus knew he was in the crosshairs. But what is surprising in this Gospel text (Luke 13:31-35) is Jesus’ reaction (Reese, 2016).

In the face of threats from Herod and the religious authorities, Jesus responds with love. He responds with a longing of love for the people of Jerusalem. Jesus’ response is the compassion of a mother. His lament evokes powerful imagery of mother hen embracing her chicks in protection and love. This is the longing of God for us, expressed through Jesus’ imagination. He re-imagines what it could be like even though Jerusalem would refuse the grace of God, even though Jerusalem will crucify him.

In the last century, the Berlin Wall represented a physical manifestation of the ideological battle between communism in the east and capitalism in the west.

In the early days of the Berlin Wall during the 1960s, emotions—anxiety, fear, anger—were running high.

Hostilities flared when truckloads of stinking garbage were dumped over the wall into West Berlin by those living in the eastern sector of the city.

West Berlin Mayor Willie Brandt was flooded with demands for revenge at this offence.        

Understandable. Tit for tat. You throw garbage at us. We’ll throw it right back!

But Willie Brandt responded in a unique way.

Mayor Brandt requested that flowers—hundreds of colourful, beautiful flowers—be brought to a specific place at the wall. Then, truckloads of these flowers were poured over the wall into East Berlin (Hays, 1997).

That act in the 1960s may not have immediately felled the wall. But history bears witness to the power of non-violent solutions. Almost thirty years later, in 1989, a peaceful candlelight vigil that started in a church and gathered tens of thousands brought down the Berlin Wall.

May we re-imagine our response in the conflicts and struggles of our days and lives. May we learn to start with grace, and love – the grace that Jesus imagined for us. May the flowers reign down where division and strife pretend to define the reality that God, over time, is shaping into something good, gracious and beautiful for everyone.

This is our Lenten hope.

References:

Bailey, J. (2021). To my beloveds: Letters on faith, race, loss, and radical hope. Chalice Press.

Burkeman, O. (2024). Meditations for mortals: Four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts. Allen Lane.

Hays, E. (1997). The old hermit’s almanac: Daily meditations for the journey of life. Forest of Peace.

Reese, R. A. (2016). Commentary on Luke 13:31-35. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-in-lent-3/commentary-on-luke-1331-35-3

Ware, C. (2000). Discover your spiritual type: A guide to individual and congregational growth. Alban Institute.

Cornered?

Posted on by
Reply

Have you ever wondered why this building was designed to be more-or-less round? Well, don’t you know, “The devil can’t corner you in here!” we say.

Like in the boxing ring, the combatants in the corner are at either end of the victory-defeat spectrum: In the corner they either have the upper hand, literally. Or, they are on the verge of collapsing in a heap.

Being in the corner is an undesired position. Cornering someone is to put them at a disadvantage. The one being cornered is vulnerable. Being cornered is to admit there are no options left.

We also use the phrase to mock contractors and builders worried only about the bottom line when they ‘cut corners’. Cutting corners may serve the bottom line, but in the long run cutting corners is a prescription for guaranteed repair and reconstruction work sooner than later.

At the same time, the latest fashion in contemporary urban design values right angles and sharp lines. The new buildings are rather square and boxy, aren’t they? Meaning, lots of straight lines. But a straight line can’t go on forever. Therefore, lots of corners.

People in many non-Western cultures don’t build as many corners as we do. The Zulus in southern Africa, for example, live in a less-carpentered world. They live in a history and culture where straight lines and right angles are scarce, if not entirely absent. (1)

What would it be like to live in a non-linear world? Where our material culture presents more rounded, softer, curved constructions such as our building!

And yet, there is a gift in the message of a corner. Not only can corners get us stuck. But they also are an indisputable sign that there’s always a corner to be turned. In truth, this is what we say, don’t we, when things are just starting to get better: “We’ve turned the corner on this.” When things are not yet better, we wonder: “When will I turn the corner on my illness, my fear, my problem, my troubled feelings, my strained relationships?”

Turning the corner means, nevertheless, there’s no turning back. Once you’ve crossed the line, there’s no going back to the way it used to be. That could be good. It can also be scary. Corners are necessary to find a way through a predicament, such as in a maze. Corners define clearly where one eventually needs to go, like it or not.

The story of Jesus’ resurrection is a huge corner turned in the cosmos of all that was, and is, and is to come. History is forever changed by the empty tomb. The ether of our very existence is transformed into the triumph of good that can be, for all time, for all people, and in every place. All the evil forces that led to Jesus’s crucifixion no longer need to triumph in the world today.

They say any lead in playoff hockey is a dangerous lead, as the first few games of the NHL playoffs have shown. More often than not the lead does not stand. If a team does have the lead however small, they are coached to employ the killer instinct:

Don’t let up. Don’t get too comfortable. Don’t sit back. Finish off your opponent with indiscriminating, ruthless power. Once they’re down, make sure they stay down. Hate your opponent. Don’t give them a chance to come back. Don’t be merciful, kind, generous, compassionate. Above all, don’t feel sorry for your opponent’s misgivings.

This is the philosophy of competitive play in professional sports. Why professional athletes and teams are so popular and generate billions of dollars in our economy is precisely because we humans are really good at believing this philosophy if not doing it from time to time.

Easter is God’s come-from-behind victory. The way of non-violence, of loving self-giving, and of trust in God is a victory against all the odds. It is, frankly, an unbelievable, unexpected move from our human perspective. Jesus’ demonstration of non-violence, of loving self-giving, and of trust in God is validated and redeemed by his resurrection. The surprising, brilliant victory of Easter morning is a poignant witness to what God is really all about.

The way of violence of our will/my will over yours, of greedy acquisition for more, of cynical mistrust of others — this is the way of the world that crashes in a heap of defeat in the light of Jesus’ resurrection. Now, the way of God is before us.

Resurrection says a lot about the nature of God’s purposes. Because Jesus lives. And Jesus is Lord. We therefore gather today to affirm that God’s purposes are good. And, in the end, it is not all doom and gloom. In the end, God comes through.

One thing I like about the re-modelled communion rail around the chancel, is that we have those corners at both sides. Some have said they don’t like it at the corner, because they feel squeezed out. Well, we can help each other with that. What the corners force us to do is pay more attention to who is standing beside us; and make room for them. And that’s not a bad thing!

What these corners force us to do, is to face and look at each other when we are standing or kneeling at the altar. We are not just individuals coming to face the Lord God one-on-one in a straight line, not seeing nor even respective of who comes along beside us. Now, it’s no longer just about ‘me and sweet Jesus’.

It’s about ‘us’ and sweet Jesus. And Jesus is not always sweet. We are a community gathered around one table, a people who embody the living Body of Christ in the world today. We are also the broken body of Jesus, whose power is shown through human weakness (1 Corinthians 1:18-29). What better place than to see our sisters and brothers in Christ, eye-to-eye, and practice right here what it means to pray for others, to encourage them, to recognize our unity in the living God.

And then take in word and deed that awareness and message from this place, into the world out there: Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

1 — Wayne Weiten & Doug McCann, “Psychology: Themes and Variations” 3rd Edition (Toronto: Nelson Education, 2013), p.168