From Your Minister
Podcast: Download (4.9MB)
Subscribe: More
When we were kids, we were all supposed to have favorites of everything. Remember that? People would say, for instance, “What is your favorite color?” And I would always feel completely stumped. To avoid the discomfort of that bewildered feeling I always said, as if it were a no-brainer, “Blue.”
The truth was then, and is still, that whenever anyone asks me what my favorite anything is, I go stupid. My favorite book, movie, song, color, month, time of day, cookie, pie, kind of dog? Asking me my favorite of something is actually a pretty good way to quiet me down. Now, if someone says, “What are three of your favorites?”—that is much easier. Or even if they say, “At this moment, what song/color/tree are you most drawn to?” For me, the word “favorite” implies something static, unchanging, fixed. And nothing in my experience feels like that.
The word “salvation” affects me similarly. It sounds as if there is some static, unchanging, fixed experience when I should have been saved and therefore would remain saved ever after. As if I could answer someone who says, “Are you saved?” by responding, “Yes, I am saved” the same way I could say, “Blue.” As if I could say, “Yes, I was saved in 1972, thank you very much.”
My favorite color depends on so many factors. Just for starters, the color of what? And salvation feels the same way. Saved from what? And by what? If you asked me, for instance, whether the earth has saved me, I would say an emphatic yes! And we could talk about that. About my garden and how the time there has taught me patience and love and care, and the deep joy of co-creation. And that my relationships with very particular plants in very particular soils and seasons teach me how, in fact, I am the earth, and the earth is me. About how trees and soil and worms and frogs and crows, especially in my own yard, have taught me so much that I need to learn.
If you asked me whether other people have saved me, I would say an emphatic yes! And we could talk about that. I could talk about kindness I have been shown when I didn’t believe I deserved it, about how difficult relationships have called me to my deepest self-reflection and honesty, about how knowing people over years has helped me to see how complex and how simple we all are, how visible and invisible. Particular relationships and experiences have touched my deepest self, and in that contact they have saved me.
If you asked me whether my work for justice has saved me, I would say an emphatic yes! And we could talk about that. I could talk about how my relationships with the earth and with people have touched such a deep love within me that standing up for justice became the logical outgrowth of those connections. Taking action to fight injustice has grounded me in the power that has been given to me, given to all of us on this earth, to use on behalf of those communities we love.
If you asked me how dreams have saved me, how books have saved me, how music has saved me, how art has saved me, how prayer has saved me, how worship has saved me, how meditation has saved me, how making mistakes has saved me, how animals have saved me, how parenting has saved me, how colleagues have saved me, how grief has saved me, how computer solitaire has saved me, I’d be ready for a great conversation.
I know life, including salvation and that mystery we might call God, in particular bite-sized moments and experiences. Sure, I’ve had mystical moments when I step out of time and see something much grander. And I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But, finally, each of those experiences becomes just another moment, no matter how big. So when people talk about being saved by God, to me it means everything I’ve written about above and gazillions of other things, too.
So if you ever said to me, simply, “Are you saved?” I don’t think you’d get much more from me than “Yes.” And it would be as inadequate and, ultimately, as meaningless an answer (to a very inadequate question) as when I used to say “Blue.” But if you want to examine the whole prism together, I’m good for an all-nighter.
- From Your Minister - July 1, 2020
- From Your Minister - June 1, 2020
- From Your Minister - May 1, 2020
