I quit. I give up. I’m done. Each of these short phrases strike fear in most people. If we are talking your job, then of course we are afraid. If we are talking a relationship, then of course we are sad and hurt and afraid. If we are talking about a contest, then giving up means we lose. And, I hate to lose. As an athlete, I never learned how to be a good loser. Now, that doesn’t mean I was a “sore loser” or acted badly, just that I was not good at losing, it felt bad.
And, then, I grew up. I finally figured out that if all I worried about was winning or losing I was going to be upset at least fifty percent of the time. I was a really good hitter in baseball. No, seriously, really good……..and I still failed sixty percent of the time. A .400 batting average is really good, but we forget that means we fail 60 percent of the time. And yet, when I was a player I was angry every time I did not get a hit. Really angry. Break the bat (yeah, they were wood in those days) angry. And I have spent a large portion of my life angry because I did not win.
I began to change this when I discovered Christian mysticism, being a contemplative. All of those “have to’s” I heard in church started making less and less sense. Seeing the Bible as a set of rules to be followed was just plain frustrating and impossible. I began to see there was a different way. And then, very recently, I read a meditation by Richard Rohr. He said that “the biblical revelation is about awakening, not accomplishing. It is about realization not performance.” And I finally have a way to sum it up. The Scriptures are not about doing, they are about being. No wonder I and you are so frustrated, we have gone about reading this book all wrong.
What if, instead of trying to see the great deeds of the biblical characters, we began to see the progressive awakening of the character. Start with Genesis 1. Instead of counting the “days” we began to look at the creation of the world as a progressive revelation. Where the Eternal does one thing, looks at it and says, “well that’s pretty good, I wonder what I can reveal next, oh, how about over time, I reveal something called life?” Or, how about we don’t see Abraham as doing an act of great faith in attempting to sacrifice his son. Instead, we see him engaged in a progressive awakening to the Eternal. I can relate to that story better.
I am going to quit. No, not at the college, I love that crazy place and the students and even a few colleagues. No, I am going to quit trying to do God’s will. I am not good enough anyway so what is the point? Instead, I am going to BE God’s will. I am going to realize that the Eternal, the Creator of All, is already me, in me around me, through me. Instead of seeking to do…….. I am going to let God’s will happen and watch it, awaken to it, see it unfold.
That is what the Scriptures are about, ongoing revelation. They are not about endless doing or achieving. A recent bible study on Revelation was indeed “revealing” in that most people strive to understand all that is written in that book. They have to make maps, interpret characters, divine what the hidden truth might be. It is an impossible task. Revelation means hidden writing, so why not look at the hidden writing as a progressive awakening to the possibilities instead of a prediction of the probabilities.
Yep, I am quitting. Being is so much more fulfilling. And I am not going to try to be, I am going to learn to let it be.
TMM