Hedgehogs in motion

I'm feeling philosophical today. Perhaps it was brought on by five full days of sitting more-or-less in one place, listening to nature, conspicuously NOT producing anything. I'm feeling de-cluttered in a way I haven't been for about nine months. It's delicious and clean and, well, simple.

On the way back from our vacation, Beloved and I were listening to the audiobook version of our wonderful book club's next selection, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Two chapters in, it seems to me as if this is going to be one of those books I'll end up buying more than once because I keep thrusting it into the hands of all the readers in my life. You can find a synopsis at the link, so I won't bother with it here, but I have to say that Paloma–a mordant, intellectual, twelve-year old genius–will stay with me long after I finish the book. She has created a project for herself: to keep a journal of Profound Thoughts. I'll offer three of them here for your consideration:

• (Art is) the beauty that is there in the world; things that, being part of the movement of life, elevate us...grace, beauty, harmony, intensity.

Paloma understands Major Works of Art (and has a fondness for Vermeer), but doesn't see them as the only containers for artistic expression; for her, art is both ever-present (like Meister Eckhart's image of God as a "great underground river") and something that must be sought, held and practiced.

Movement is a major intellectual theme for Paloma. Her observations thus far encompass not only the way we're defined by the direction we're pointed, but the way that progress (or even the anticipation of progress) irrevocably alters us:

• Most people, when they move, well, they just move depending on whatever's around them. At this very moment, as I'm writing, Constitution the cat is going by with her tummy dragging close to the floor. This cat has absolutely nothing constructive to do in life, and still she is heading toward something–probably an armchair–and you can tell by the way she is moving that she is headed toward. Maman just went by on her way to the front door. She's going out shopping, and in fact, she already is out, her movement anticipating itself. I don't really know how to explain it, but when we move we are in a way destructured by our movement toward something. We are both here and at the same time not here, because we're already in the process of going elsewhere.

It's not simply our attitude that changes (which we can-do Americans hold as Tremendously Significant), but our fundamental nature. Simultaneous presence and absence...if you've ever tried to hold a conversation with someone who's absorbed in their TV program/text message/insert-your-pet-distraction-here, you know what this means. But to what effect on the person who's in two places at once? Paloma again:

• What makes the strength of a warrior isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals; it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself by staying centered.

Food for thought, no?

Strengthening your core

I was fooling around with a friend's Wii Fit a couple of weeks ago, having a great time. At one point, as the machine was evaluating my relative strengths and weaknesses, it sort of hinted at the fact that I could use some work on my core strength; limbs are pretty good, but balance...not quite so much.

Hmmm...I feel a metaphor coming on.

My home church, this Lent, is working with the theme "Come Home" in all things worship-related. We're using the story of the Prodigal Son as a meta-narrative for the season. If you don't know it, here's a version of it--a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson which begins like this:

Then (Jesus) said,

"There once was a man who had two sons.

The younger son said to his father,

'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'

So the father divided his property

between (the younger and older sons).

It wasn't long

before the younger son packed his bags

and left for a distant country.

There, undisciplined and dissipated,

he wasted everything he had..."

I heard this particular version of the story tonight for the first time. And this stuck with me: undisciplined and dissipated. Dissipated--as if the source of the young man's unhappiness was the fact that he lost track of his core, his essential being, his connection. Dissipated--as if his very self had scattered to the winds.

Huh. Ever felt that way? Ever been distracted by something shiny or something "worthy" or just too many somethings, and lost track of yourself? Of your place in the world? Of those things which keep you tethered to deepest reality? I certainly have.

Lots of times, I've heard this story told as if the young man's main problem was active debauchery. And it's easy to hear it or to read it from a place of righteousness: "WE certainly wouldn't be so overtly selfish and sinful. What a bad boy he was." As if we were the elder brother in the story.

This translation, though, suggests to me that the young man's problem was more subtle, more passive--that he just surrendered, little bit by little bit, his essential humanity. He settled for a lesser version of himself until his hunger and desperation brought him back to his senses. He could then go back home, having lost so much and yet regained that which was truly essential. His homecoming was met with gracious abundance on his father's part.

There's a wonderful hymn by Kevin Nichols in Evangelical Lutheran Worship called "Our Father, We Have Wandered." We sang it last Sunday, and the second verse goes like this:

And now at length discerning

the evil that we do,

behold us, Lord, returning

with hope and trust to you.

In haste you come to meet us

and home rejoicing bring,

in gladness there to greet us

with calf and robe and ring.

We don't often manage that kind of gracious welcome with one another. It's sort of ironic that we so regularly (especially when in groups) react as the elder brother in the story did, lost in our own righteousness--wanting judgment to be meted out to those who have "done it wrong" in many and various ways:

• by daring to be both gay and Christian,
• by daring to be both divorced and Christian,
• by daring to be both mentally or physically ill and Christian,
• by daring to be both homeless and Christian,
• by daring to be both broken and Christian,
• by daring to be both doubtful and faithful,
• by daring to admit that sometimes the only way to God is through a pig sty, or, in short,
• by daring to admit our brokenness and to reclaim our core selves in the company of the body of Christ.

It ain't easy. We make it awfully hard on one another. Vulnerable honesty just makes everyone uncomfortable; it seems a living thing unto itself--and a threatening one, at that. It's unpredictable. It doesn't follow the "rules." Those things which make us authentically ourselves sometimes scare our brothers and sisters out of their (right) minds.

But did you notice that, in the parable, the older son is also called to remember who he is, in the context of this new turn of events? To recall his own identity as a son, a brother, a loving being in the world? He lost track of himself, too--was dissipated as surely as his brother had been--but by his own righteousness, anger and jealousy. His father invited him to remember the joy at his own core...to join in the celebration instead of sitting in judgment and resentment of his brother.

And so, whatever your own vantage point in the story in this particular Lenten season, I ask you these questions:

What is the "home" to which you return?

What strengthens your core?

And I end this post with a prayer of awestruck gratitude for a God that continues to welcome me back, despite my brokenness, despite my righteousness--who collects my scattered pieces and restores me to wholeness over and over again, and who runs out to greet me every time "with calf and robe and ring."