Our world is in trouble. So much unrest and anger can be blamed on the growing towers of tensions we read about daily. We’re either caught inside these towers or watching them tilt crazily toward us from the ground. Every day we have to decide who to trust, who to believe, how to act, and what it means to be responsible in a world that seems about to crash. Maybe society needs to blow up in order to reset, but I sure wish we had a button to let us do it safely and sanely.
A reset button, in fact. A time out for routine maintenance. A release valve. Something! A chance for relief from this building energy.
My own body tells me I need this: with relief, tension-held muscles relax– ones I didn’t know had locked into position creak into a new freedom. Tears come. Deep sobbing. When my body finally settles into peace, it’s possible to think again, examine reality with fresh eyes. Form new vision and set new goals, maybe form new beliefs to help guide me through this new reality. or this same reality viewed with a different lens.
We are on a brink here. I’m curious and I’m worried and I’m praying more than I ever have for guidance in what to do. Our country–and maybe it’s our whole planet–cannot keep on like it is without breaking. I’m still reading the New Testament with my sisters, and sometimes Paul’s words seem perfect.
In hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.”–Romans 8:24-26
I love that last, “inexpressible groanings.” It makes me smile. It makes me think of something I might read in The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (a childhood favorite). It makes me think that God is on my side, groaning along with me, groaning FOR me in fact.
How hard these times are for us all! It brings me some peace to think God will provide all the inexpressible groanings we need in these crazy times. My job is to keep my hope intact, which I think is another way of saying my faith strong. The reset button is out there, for me and for my world. I HOPE my heart opens to understanding where that reset button might be, what it might look like, and what I can do to press it.