Uncluttered

But God calls us to offer our stories to others

Isaiah 47:8, 10-11 “Listen to me, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure. You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’ … But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray, and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’ So disaster will overtake you, and you won’t be able to charm it away …”

Psalm 40:1-3 [David sang] I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.

“Bottom line, it’s all about me. I deserve comfort and security, happiness and pleasure. I should put myself first in the choices I make. I deserve this.”

Last Friday on a delightful tramp through the autumn woods with my son Dan (20,000 steps!), I laughed over the relentless message in our culture that I should prioritize “self-care.” How do I know that choosing this afternoon to abandon my to-do list and everyone else’s concerns and just enjoy the beauty of fall and the heartening company of my son isn’t my first step down a slippery slope to self-centered hedonism?

Part of the trail at Harrison Hills Park lies along the edge of a bluff above the Allegheny River.

Dan grinned and told me he had just read a book (here’s a review) about substitutes for faith, ways people choose to meet their needs for purpose, significance, community, and ritual when they don’t want “religion.” The author identifies self-care and wellness culture as one of those ways—literally, a substitute for God, what Scripture calls an idol.

I mused that maybe spontaneously taking off one workday afternoon a year might not result in total self-indulgence. Dan said he wouldn’t worry even if I did so once a week. Hmmm…

How do we find the balance between obsessive self-focus and appropriate care of our own bodies and souls? I would love to know your thoughts about this! I suspect it has to do with Who or what is primary in our lives. What matters most to you? What does it mean in practice to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30/Luke 10:27)?

Yesterday I read the last pages of a book I’ve mentioned before, To Be Told, by Dan B. Allender, a psychologist who has devoted his life to the healing of abuse survivors. To my surprise, he addressed the topic of this post. He describes becoming a hilarious giver, passing “payment” forward of a debt to God we can never repay, and says we are indebted even to those who did us harm—“I am a debtor to those who sexually abused me because they aroused in me fury and defiance against injustice.” He then reminds us of a basic premise of this book, that we co-author our stories with God, for purposes greater and more joy-filled than just ourselves.

Here’s a taste of what Allender says in this last chapter:

“We are not our own; we are God’s. We invest in another when we see ourselves as uniquely privileged and available to join his or her story. Gabriel Marcel speaks of ‘availability’ as a ‘being who is ready for anything, the opposite of him who is occupied or cluttered up with himself.’ Not to be cluttered with oneself means that we have first embraced our life as God’s story, whether we understand or even like what he has written. Further, not to be cluttered with oneself is to embrace enough of our story to say to God and to others, ‘He is good. And he has written me well.’

“And perhaps even more, being uncluttered calls me to wrestle with those stories that confuse me, the stories I continue to hold at arm’s length. We will never be fully at ease with our story, but we can come to love our story profoundly and with more joy. Finally, to be uncluttered is to offer all of who we are, even the parts that are still unredeemed, for the redemption of others … What we give away often returns with greater goodness than what we originally gave.

“Will I receive from [Christ’s] wounded hands my day’s portion of story, and will I bring my tears and battered questions for him to engage? Will I bring my story to the gospel and cry out for him to answer? And will I offer my broken story as a gift to others to taste and see that God is both odd and good? If I will do this, then the gift that I receive will stagger me—God’s story will be my own.”

Like the boy who offered his lunch to Jesus and saw it multiplied to feed thousands of people. Like David, who wrote his “new song” so that three thousand years later, we can be encouraged. Like my friend who offers hope and skills to other trauma survivors through her DBT classes because of her hard work facing into the confusing and painful parts of her own story. Like my friend who regularly shares her own story of alcoholism to encourage other strugglers through her leadership in AA. Like so many others I admire and learn from.

Today, I am offering my story back to God, not just my personal story, but Facing the Faeries 1906 as well, which I fully believe he coauthored with me. I deeply desire he use this complex, multi-entwined story to nurture and hearten others.