She’s six feet tall
striding the mall
Thin as a rail
leaving a trail
Shoppers awake
each one agape
Is her skin white—
hardly, though light
What does she want?
What doesn’t she want?
Why is she here?
What is her gig?
What’s her m.o.?
Is she a robot?
No . . . but
are you?
I must have glimpsed the above image somewhere among the array of online images that fly past my eyes as I skim quickly down the line of internet posts. Was this from an ad? I have no idea, but I woke up with this image dancing before my mind’s eye this morning, and these words followed, so I jotted them down. What? The thought that I may be going daft, or demented, or any number of strange ailments, crossed my mind, because I could not make sense of this image, or analyze its meaning.
* * * *
Another image came to mind without warning. It was an analogy articulated by a patristics (studying the early theological writings of the old boys) professor, the late Rowan Greer of Yale Divinity School, back in the early 1980s. He told us students, emphasizing the intellectual futility of any analogy of course for how Creator God interacts with Creation, that the relationship between divine grace and human free will or agency was like sailing.
Grace is like the wind, available at all times for better or worse, and free will was like the sailor (or crew). The tighter you pull the sails in, the less play you give to the wind, and the more likely you are to capsize the sailboat, and possibly drown. Conversely, if you let the sails flap wildly in the wind, you and your boat will flounder aimlessly about, getting nowhere. The wind is always there, to one degree or another. Your job is to cooperate with the wind, to allow its omnipresence to work with you and for you.
Your job is to manage the sails/your life artfully. It won’t happen well if you’re too uptight, or too loosey goosey, about your choices and your destinations. Ya gotta know what you’re doing and be careful doing it. Freedom is a precious and extremely difficult gift to manage—and you’re not alone. Ever.
This as many of you know had been my experience from early childhood, and believe me I’ve been pretty awkward at times managing those “sails.” But I managed them through storms and painful losses and trauma—sometimes very close to capsizing altogether, giving up my own desires and passions to traditional roles. On occasion I have felt becalmed, abandoned by God and everyone else, even myself—too helpless to go on.
Still, I always picked up the ropes of those life-sails again, and managed to go on.
* * * *
I may never fully understand the flash image that came to me this morning, but I am pretty sure the tall woman is not a robot, nor am I. And I’m pretty sure she has life to live, and that she will live it with grace—no matter what.
* * * *
The last morning image that ran into my mind’s eye this morning was another remembered image of children at play. These kids were in a Palestinian refugee camp in Israel. Unlike the well groomed, privileged children in Cambridge, these refugee children were unkempt, often scantily clad, living with anxious parents, unfree, and scared. And still they played with vigor and passion enough, I pray, to, set “sail” even in the face of political and economic upheaval, not of their doing.
* * * *
Many are fond of bemoaning God’s absence, less fond of praising that presence when things go wrong. They ask: Where was God? Others are fond of using most all their energy, individual and collective, to praise God’s presence, less fond of expending much of their own energy on the task at hand, be it recovery from trauma or grieving one’s losses with grace. God asks them: Where were you?
I dare to believe that all these images came to me this morning to spark hope for this world. It’s irrational, I know, but I also know that God does not solve problems. We do, with the help of God whose grace lives within us—in our flesh, as well as beyond us. BOTH/AND.
What if there is no either/or, but only both/and?
Still, I do know that God's Spirit does send sparks of energy my way— doses of trust in that windy presence I call God.
