The World Needs More of You

When I was a senior in college I decided to take voice lessons from Kathy Backlund, may she rest in peace.  I wanted to learn how to sing harmony.  I wanted to learn how to hold my own note while someone else was singing a different one.  I wanted to be a better singer.  So at 9 or 10 o'clock on Saturday mornings I would trek out to Kathy's house near Morgan's Steep for my voice lesson.  Other than singing Greensleeves and maybe a version of the Our Father, I don't remember much about these lessons except that I was inordinately proud of myself for getting up so early on a Saturday morning.  Ha!  But there was one moment.  One moment that I have remembered again and again.

I don't remember what prompted it.  I was singing something, and Kathy walked across the room to the doorway, and I think she was trying to get me to use more of my voice so it would carry all the way to her.  What she said was, "Your voice isn't taking up enough space.  It's like you're afraid of taking up too much space.  The world needs more of you.  You can take up more space."  Or something like that.  What has stayed with me all these years was the phrase, "The world needs more of you."  Kathy had pegged it.  I have spent so much of my life being small and scared, being afraid of taking up too much space, of bothering people, of people not liking me.  She encouraged me to let go of that, to make my unique contribution, to share more of my gifts and myself with the world.  She gave me permission.  She reassured me that my presence in the world was a good thing and that the world needs me.

I am so grateful to Kathy for those words, and I am especially grateful that I was able to tell her how much they had meant to me before she died.  I wish I remembered them all the time and lived by them every day.  When I do, I stop being small and become more willing to share the beautiful person that God created me to be.

So whoever is reading this, wherever you are, whatever is going on in your life.  Hear this:  The world needs more of you.  Yes, you.  You aren't just "good enough," you are a blessing to the world.  Share your gifts and talents.  Share your authentic self.  Share that beautiful soul of yours.  The world needs more of you.

Do It Afraid

"'Be not afraid' does not mean we cannot have fear.  Everyone has fear, and people who embrace the call to leadership often find fear abounding.  Instead, the words say we do not need to be the fear we have.  We do not have to lead from a place of fear, thereby engendering a world in which fear is multiplied." -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak p. 94

I hate making telephone calls.  I'd rather go to the dentist than make a phone call - in fact, one of the reasons I don't mind going to the dentist is that they schedule your next appointment when you're there, so you don't have to call for one.  One of the best inventions EVER is online scheduling!  My "phonephobia" is something I can't explain.  Maybe it's my codependency that leads me to want to see another person's face while I'm having a conversation so I can see how they're responding to what I say and make sure they still like me.  Maybe it's the fact that my brains seem to leak out my butt when I pick up a phone and I babble inarticulately - especially if I'm talking to an answering machine.  Maybe I have bad phone memories from my childhood.  Who knows?  What I do know is that I would rather drive to the vet to make the appointments for the cats or visit a store to see if they have the thing I need rather than have to call and ask.  It's crazy and inefficient.  When I used to work at VA Stage Co. I would walk all over the building to talk to people so that I didn't have to pick up the phone.  Only a real urgency will allow me to bypass my fear.  (Or calling a good friend -  usually that doesn't bother me.) 

I am ready to get over this fear.  There is a phrase in the circles of recovery that says, "Do it Afraid."  It seems to fit well with the quote from Parker Palmer above.  Do it afraid.  Feel the fear, but do it anyway.  Palmer goes on to say, "We have places of fear inside of us, but we have other places as well - places with names like trust and hope and faith.  We can choose to lead from one of those places..."

Lead from a place of trust and hope and faith.  Even if I'm still scared.  Sometimes it seems so much easier just to give in to my fear.  But there are things that I need to do that involve phone calls.  Important things.  Things that matter.  It's time to do it afraid.  Just like jumping off the zip line platform.

Wish me luck. 

I'll let you know if I'm successful.

Whatever you're scared of doing right now, why don't you join me, and do it afraid?  We can jump off the platform together. 

Safety First

 How many times have we heard the phrase, "Safety first"?  We use it with young children, teaching them to look both ways before crossing the street and helping them to understand why they need to wear a helmet when riding a bike.  It's an extremely helpful phrase for people who work in dangerous occupations where failure to pay attention to safety precautions can result in injury or death.  It's a wise slogan when we're doing something potentially dangerous like flying on a zip line or playing around water or fire or jumping on a trampoline.  We use it to remind ourselves to be careful, to take the necessary steps to keep ourselves safe.  Safety first.  Absolutely.

And yet.

Is is possible to take it too far?

I recently had the opportunity to hear Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori speak at the 25th Preaching Excellence Conference in Richmond.  In her address, she talked about the "excessive attention to safety and security" here in North America.  She attributed part of that to our accumulation of stuff.  When we're busy protecting all the things we have stored in our "barns" then everyone we meet becomes a potential threat, especially the people we don't know.  Her response was to suggest that we have to let down some of that vigilance.  "Without vulnerability, there can be no real love of self, God, or neighbor," she said.  In order to love, we have to take risks.  In order to be successful we have to take risks.  In order to be alive, we have to take risks.

I believe that in this country we have turned safety and security into idols.  We have taken the idea of "Safety first" literally.  Safety comes before everything else.  It's at the heart of the discussion about gun control.  It's behind the Patriot Act and all this eavesdropping on conversation.  It's why we have gated communities and home security systems and intensive airport security and endless forms of insurance.  Some of these things are good, sensible protection, but I wonder if we take it too far.  For those of us who are Christians, I wonder what our obsession with security says about our relationship with God.

I've been reading Scott Bader-Saye's book, Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear.  It's been sitting on my shelf since I bought it a couple of years ago when I was still in parish ministry but have only just found time to read it.  I'm only half way through, but I find it very helpful in exploring this addiction to safety and the fear that lies behind it.  I struggle a lot with why bad things happen to good people and how God could allow things like the Holocaust and genocide and child abuse and myriad other things that seem too tragic for a good God to allow.  At times I think I've come to some place of resolution and then something like the Newtown shooting occurs and I'm back to the drawing board.  Seems like there's been a lot of those events lately.

Scott Bader-Saye says, "God provides.  God redeems.  But God does not always prevent." Ah yes.  No matter how much I want God to prevent.  He goes on to say, "God promises to provide.  God promises to redeem.  God does not promise that nothing bad will ever happen to us.  In fact, Jesus promises that if we follow him, the world will persecute us just as it persecuted him.  If anything, we are promised suffering, but we are also promised a way through it."  That doesn't sound like much in the face of tragedy.  Thanks, God.  I appreciate the suffering.  Got anything else for me?

When I'm honest, I have to admit that I just want God to make everything easy for me and for those I love.  I want to be safe and secure and never have to do things I fear or don't like.  Selfishly I want God to work things out according to my plan.  But time and time again I have learned that my plan isn't necessarily a good plan.  It's often selfish and frequently wouldn't even be the best thing for me.  The best conclusion that I've been able to reach is in agreement with what Scott Bader-Saye is saying. God redeems everything.  Maybe not in the way I want.  Maybe not in the time frame I would prefer.  Eventually, God redeems everything.

Believing that is how I can find courage in this culture of fear that tells me my neighbor is different and scary and would just as soon take my stuff or my life.  Instead of insuring my security with more and more and more protection, walls, gates, and locks until I'm burrowed down deep in a cave where no one can harm me, I can choose to take some risks.  Maybe I'll lose some stuff.  Maybe I'll be killed.  But I'd much rather live trusting that God is going to provide and redeem than frantically relying on my own strength and resources to prevent anything bad from happening. 

It's been scary to me in the past few years as I left my comfortable parish job and stepped out into the world where health insurance and pension funds aren't provided and where I'm not sure how I'm going to pay all the bills.  And yet I'm grateful because it's forced me to rely each month on God's providence.  Kicking and screaming all the way, I learn that there's enough.  Often just enough, but enough nevertheless.  I want to know how the bills are going to be paid in December.  God says, here's enough for June.  I am reluctant to let go of fear and my strong need for security.  When I do, though, I am blessed with abundance that only God can provide.

I still apply "Safety first" when I'm getting into a car or preparing to do the Ropes Course, but I don't have to put safety ahead of risks when it comes to other areas of my life.  Putting love first seems like a better way to live.  More joyful.  More abundant.  I'll leave the rest to God.