the life of a conundrummer
‘Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.’
– Jesus (in John 12.24-25)
‘We do not find our own center; it finds us. We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking. We collapse back into the Truth only when we surrender, when we are naked and free – which is probably not very often.’
– Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs.
for me, more often than not, life is a conundrum.
i like the word, the way it sounds and rhythmically rolls off my tongue (and not just because i’m a drummer, or because it is the name of the song that contains one of the greatest drum solos of all time by one of the most underrated drummers of all time). i like what it means (a paradoxical kind of riddle or situation). i even like how the concept frustrates me so often (and not because i’m some kind of glutton for intellectual punishment).
one of the great joys of my life came near the end of this lenten season, journeying through holy week not merely as the person in charge of making sure an environment was created for people to experience the Presence of the Divine, but actually feeling free enough to enter into the experience myself. as the week progressed towards the time when Jesus let go of life itself so that new life could be born, i found myself letting go of concerns and control and simply letting the Presence take me where i needed and longed to go. and in the process, i didn’t find the Center of my life. rather, it found me. again.
in moments where i was supposedly leading people into the Presence, i found myself being led into the Presence.
at times when i wanted to seize the moment and make the most of it, i found myself letting go and letting the Presence fill the space in ways i couldn’t have possibly imagined, let alone created.
in allowing the grain of wheat to fall into the ground and die, new life springs forth.
for me, more often than not, life is a conundrum.
and i guess that makes me a ‘conundrummer’.
i emerge from a season of transcendent experience such as this with a little clearer vision, a little sharper hearing, a little broader perspective, a little more space to live and move within. like snow in springtime, it’s unexpectedly beautiful.
until i encounter a perspective different than my own.
then, as quickly as the weather changes in missoula, and the bright, sunlit blue skies are crowded out by the drab grey of clouds and fog, so the new space i’m living and moving within becomes claustrophobically constricted. the breadth of perspective i experience narrows to the size of the eye of a needle. the multi-coloured mosaic of inclusivity i affirm and attempt to embody is reduced to a black-and-white starkness like squares on a checker board.
for all the ways that wisdom has come to me in the paradox of foolishness, i convince myself that how i see things is wisdom, and how any other vision is foolishness.
in the process of growing in knowledge by realizing how much i don’t know, i become that much more determined that what i do know is more ‘right’ than what others know.
as i have let go of the illusion of control and been released from that captivity to live in the freedom of openness, there’s just something i miss about the cage.
on the journey of dying to rise to newer life, and living into newer ways of thinking, i can’t seem to avoid falling into the paradoxical potholes along the way.
but such is life for a perpetual conundrummer.
i got into a discussion with a friend on my facebook page the other day regarding a writer who has been very insightful and controversial in the broader christian faith community. this writer is one of the people who has helped me to articulate some of the ways that my faith is evolving, and has been a catalyst for more than one experience of the Presence that has broadened and (hopefully) deepened my perspective on life and faith. my friend took issue with some of this writer’s theology, and all the openness and inclusivity i had felt towards humankind and creation as a whole was suddenly swallowed whole by a passion that became monstrous within me. i felt the desire, even the God-given calling, to articulate ‘correctly’ this writer’s theology and how it resonates with my own, and to point out how ‘wrong’ it is to discount other viewpoints in favour of your own.
i did this by discounting my friend’s viewpoint, pointing out how ‘wrong’ it was, and proclaiming how exclusively ‘right’ my inclusive viewpoint was as i rejected his viewpoint for being ‘wrong’.
the conundrummer strikes again. (sorry, chris.)
there is a lot of controversy spreading through the missoula community about a proposed city ordinance that would ensure that no one is discriminated against in regards to housing, employment, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identification. standards for non-discrimination regarding race and religion are already in place. this ordinance would expand the protection rights further.
those in the community who support the ordinance feel that this is an issue of basic human rights, of justice for all, of freedom to live and work in the community as the person you are without being wrongly judged or dismissed because of particular lifestyle expressions. on this side of the issue, discrimination in all its forms is wrong and is to be fought against.
those against the ordinance share grave concerns regarding safety in public facilities such as restrooms, as well as the possibilities for private entities (such as churches) to be forced into providing services for people that violate their stated standards of polity (for example, mandating that a church perform same-sex marriages when their church governance does not allow for it). on this side of the issue, the way to end discrimination is not by freeing certain people to live the way in which they choose, and discriminating against another group of people who have concerns about those lifestyle expressions in the process.
i feel for people on both sides of the issue. i know people on both sides of the issue.
dear people from the broader faith community are on both sides of the issue. and they are responding to the issue by banding together, not across the divide but on either side of it. one group for the ordinance and one group against it. both speaking out for their beliefs, and against each other in the name of faith.
it breaks my heart. not only for the people feeling discriminated against on both sides of the issue, but also for the broader faith community as a whole, and for the way that faith community is perceived by the broader city community.
the religious people who believe in God’s love for all of creation…who will kill each other with words (or worse) in order to prove it.
and i sit in my supposedly broad-minded, wide-hearted space, seeking to take all peoples’ best interests into account, a ’spiritual switzerland’. and i discover that this space is actually becoming one marked more by my feelings of superiority than humility, passion for being ‘right’ rather than compassion for all those being ‘wronged’ on both sides. and i find that this space is shrinking in around me, entrapping me in feelings of frustration and resentment and fear.
it’s getting hard to breathe in there.
it’s getting hard to believe in there.
and the only way to get some Air in there, some Wind, some Breath, some Spirit…is to let go once again.
to die to the frustration and fear of losing control, and to rise in the freedom of true Love.
to live my way into broader and deeper thinking and feeling and being.
to rediscover the sacred Rhythm at the heart of it all.
to rejoin the divine dance in the center of it all.
to rejoice in the eternal gift of life that embraces it all…
the life of a conundrummer.