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C. S. Lewis use to say this prayer: “May it be the real Thou that I speak to, may it be the real me that speaks.” [i] In the midst of an uncertain and passing world, in the face of conflicting demands on our time, energies and emotions, this prayer reminds me of finding and speaking from the truest and most genuine voice of my deepest and most vivid understandings of God. How do any of us come to the place of that realness and how do we know we speak to the real God? For me, the answer is in those occasions that remind me of my connectivity to others and to the earth, to suffering and joy, to love and even to the cosmos. For those who might say, “well, God’s realness is revealed in the Scripture,” I would add, “yes, and the lens through which we read it as well as the lens through which we read the testament of life that God gives us.”
One of my favorite books of Scripture is Colossians because, in that book, the issue comes up of bearing with each other. Wow. That goes right to the heart of getting real, with self, other and God. The author of Colossians says to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord[a] has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. [ii]
When I think about this, it invites me into a way of being connected to life that gives me the kind of realness C.S. Lewis talks about. Colossians says that even when there are antagonisms and one upmanship that remove people from positive connection with each other, God’s reality is still all about relationship. When inner emotional or psychological moods and desires cause people to be harsh, God’s reality beckons people of faith back into healing ways: whatever is compassionate, whatever is kind, whatever is patient, whatever is true, whatever is just.
These admonitions keep us closely connected to the divine light within each of us. This inner light binds us in love with other people. It gives us the great reason and meaning of life. It bestows upon us reality. Much of the world is walking around in unreality according to C.S. Lewis. People are often zoned out. They have ghosted. They have quit the relational task with themselves and with others.
For the last few years I have been practicing contemplative prayer and mindfulness meditation to help me stay connected, present and aware and to not forget who I am as a beloved child of God. In Christianity as I have known it, I think we always believe that deep inside each of us is the nudge to remember who we are, to not forget, and to be here in the relational world. I think the reason we sometimes forget how beloved we are is because we become disconnected to the kind of relationship described in Colossians: bear with one another, forgive each other, and bring each other gifts of wisdom and gratitude. If we stop doing that, well, it is just a short distance to losing touch with the reality of the Christian life, the life of shared love and loss, of shared sorrow and hope, of shared compassion and joy, of shared peace and justice.
Here, the New Year is upon us and many people have recently returned from visiting with relatives and dear friends for the holidays. Both as a pastor and a person with extended family, I am aware that for many bearing with one another is a hurdle second to just bearing people. Sometimes it is hard simply to bear another person: the relative who is loud and obnoxious or the one who makes ridiculous comments about grown up children. Or the friend someone brought who can’t remember anyone’s name or the competition that suddenly re-emerges between siblings who are now 45 and 46 years old.
This is a part of our human drama, this coming together and bearing each other. But as we do this bearing, as we suffer it and love it, then a remarkable thing occurs: we learn how to bear with one another. We come very close to the intimacy of Christ when he said to his disciples as recorded in the Gospel of John: “Well, now I call you, my friends.” Now I call you the ones who walk with me in good times and in bad, in the moments of miracle and in the moments to the cross. I bear with you and you bear with me.
Gratitude helps. Letting love rule in the heart helps. Letting love be the welcome mat for gratitude in our homes by remembering all that has come your way that has brought you thus far: the people, the places, the opportunities, the loves, the hates, the sorrows, the wounds, the troubles, the victories, the very air breathed and the soil that sustains. Letting all of that be gratitude for living the life of great realness. Inviting your family members, your neighbors, your community to be real too. In this kind of practice, you find the ability to bear. After a while maybe the wounds you carry heal a little more. After a while, maybe your mind does not remember so intensely the anger that you felt, justly or unjustly. You walk through it in your great realness and you come to the threshold of Christ’s landscape and there, in that territory, you see that you have indeed moved even closer to the heart of God. Be gentle with yourselves as you are gentle with others says Colossians. Bear. Keep walking the walk. Keep seeking the realness that is you. Do this even when others cannot.
We have come to New Year’s, and across this threshold of time there are always many parties and some people drink too much and they lose touch with reality. Others have to care for them. Let’s take this as a metaphor for our Christian care, for our bearing with each other in love. Let’s be the Designated Drivers in a world where many are under the influence of hurtful and self-diminishing things. We are to be the designated drivers in vehicles of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience amidst a world that is under the influence of one upmanship, of meanness, of impatience, and of inappropriate behavior toward self, other and the earth.
We are called to this maturity of self-control so that life may be real. We become the beacons of reality so in the darkness of this hour of the world, where fighting abounds, and suffering grows, the great peace that passes all understanding can signal to all those who seek. Signal like a lighthouse. Signal that love and hope and forgiveness are still alive and still define what is best in us, because it defines the Nature of Christ who gives us breath and salvation.
[i] C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt, 1964), pp. 81-82.
[ii] Colossians 3: 12-13
The Rev. Dr. Mary Lautzenhiser Bellon is a clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. "Abiding in Hope" is a spiritual support project of the conference.