No One Knows When It Breaks

1 Samuel 17:17-30

29 David said, "What have I done now? It was only a question."

I’m not sure why this struck me. It sounded so familiar, and gradually I realized that I’ve heard myself say that very thing to myself too many times to count. There seems to be a bit missing from the first part; it feels like it ought to read, “What have I done to deserve this?” The second part is wistful and resentful at the same time. The implied meaning is, “How am I supposed to deal with the fact that you hate me simply because I exist? I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t hate you, why do you treat me like this?” I thought of my current effort, that of trying to find an apt way to respond to those who “hate” me; who show animosity, hostility, and belligerence toward me for no reason that I can see. People who are antagonistic by default, who make habitual threat displays; people who are just plain mean. I used to react with anger and defensiveness, until just recently I noticed that just before the anger there was a flash of fear. I found out that I could stop at the fear and not proceed on to the anger. This works beautifully in situations where I don’t have to interact with the person directly, like when someone cuts me off in traffic, or honks at me for waiting for a pedestrian. I can just go, “Wow, that scared me,” and let the adrenaline prickles work their way down my arms and legs and dissipate. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work so well when someone is being belligerent to my face. Or patronizing and demeaning. Or predatory and creepy. If I ‘stop at the fear,’ that leaves me at a complete loss as far as generating a rational response, and the choices that my autonomic nervous system gives me (fight, flee, or freeze) don’t seem as if they would be useful either. I suppose I could try saying something like, “I’m going to back away slowly now…” in a humorous sort of way, but I am afraid that in many cases, the other person wouldn’t be aware enough to get the point. So, what to do?  Hey, “it’s only a question!”

Acts 10:34-48

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality…

No partiality! News flash! It’s not just that God shows no partiality between categories of people like Jew or Gentile, male or female, citizen or illegal alien, gay or straight, honest or dishonest, nice or mean. It’s that God shows no partiality between me and you. No partiality between ‘us and them’ either. So it doesn’t matter what sort of categories we set up to divide our understanding of the world into manageable chunks. God does not need our categories in the least. If we expect the God we worship to show partiality; if we demand divisions between people; if we insist that God hate what we hate and love what we love, then we are worshiping a false God. Taking it one scary step further, if we want to live in God’s realm and follow the Way of Christ, then we must work to divest ourselves of any trace of partiality. Ouch!

Mark 1:1-13

3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,' "

Here we are, back at the Way again. Let’s go to some non-canonical, and even more far-flung voices: “Jesus said, “The Kingdom of the father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it, she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty.”  (The Gospel of Thomas)

Zen much?

I hesitate to try and expound on this….but I’ll try. I keep thinking of some of the verses I’ve written lately, in particular: “Zen is how Santa Claus gets down the chimney, when there isn’t one.” But, that doesn’t help much. So I’ll break it down and see what happens. The woman was walking home. She had a full jar of meal. The handle broke. She didn’t notice it. When she got home, the full jar was empty.

(I know where I am going. I am walking home. I have a jar full of myself. It holds all my notions. I carry it on my back where I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. My jar is a good jar, and it keeps my notions dry and safe. The handle breaks, and all my notions spill out without me noticing. I get all the way home only to find my good jar is broken and empty. Reality intrudes.)

Not carrying the jar by its handle,

No-one knows when it breaks.

Arriving home, I set down this useless jar.