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Listen:
“My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me."
— PSALM 22 :14 (N LT )
Reflect:
I like to describe agency (our ability to act in our lives) as something limited. We are not superhuman (and if you are, call the church office immediately, I have a list for you). This goes against our culture’s imagination that EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE IF YOU JUST BELIEVE.
Sorry, Karen, or Ken. Everything is certainly not possible. You alone cannot cure terminal illnesses. You alone cannot solve world hunger. We can barely make it through our regular days without facing impossible odds. So what if, instead, we start imagining our agency in smaller and smaller pieces. What small decision can you make today? How will you spend your precious energy? Who do you need to reach out to this afternoon? What chore can you leave for tomorrow? We all face very real limitations—limited time, limited energy, limited resources, limited emotional bandwidth, and (if we’re being really honest) limited days. How will you live within all of that beautiful, limited humanity?
Even if we don’t realize it, our whole lives are made up of small decisions in the face of our limitations. We may not be able to do everything, but we can make small decisions about what is important to us. What small decision can you make today that feels realistic?
Blessing:
Blessed are you, faced with the impossible.
You who do not look away from
what threatens to swallow you whole.
You who stare down reality, though your heart quickens.
You for whom action comes swiftly, as you chart
the next step or bulldoze a new path for yourself.
You know to turn hope into action. And bless you for it.
Blessed are you who, when you’ve come to the end
of what’s possible, find the courage to live there too.
Accepting what cannot be changed.
And finding that beauty and meaning and love live there too.
You know how it feels to be held together by so many loves... by so much to lose.
Blessed are we who are learning to hope.
Holding together two irreconcilable truths:
that our lives are so valuable precisely because
we have much to fear with much to love.
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