I struggled a bit with writing this post, because when it comes to the tension between the urgency of injustice/conflict, the desire for tools, and the need for personal transformation, I am kind of all over the place. It’s almost as if I am sitting on two sides of a scale at the same time. I am both an action-driven problem solver sort, and a “let’s take it slow and figure this out” type, and I would really prefer to be somewhere closer to the middle.
On the action-oriented side of the scale, there sits Superhero Hannah. I’m ready to help, ready to fix—ready to do whatever it is that is required of me to love my neighbors and to love God. This has gotten me in trouble in the past, because sometimes I assume that my way is also God’s way, and then I find out later that while I might have had good intentions, my way wasn’t even in the same ballpark as God’s. I just jumped in without listening or discerning. Superhero Hannah can be performative, too—doing because I should or because I can, instead of because I was called to.
Then, over on that other end sits Over-Achiever Hannah. I want to listen. I want to work on the inside, because I know that I can’t make peace on the outside if I’m not at peace within myself. But then, that desire to get it right creeps in. And that’s a killer. It becomes almost paralyzing—like I want to make sure that I’m doing God’s will and that I have the tools to do so, so I just do nothing until I am certain that I have checked off all of boxes. Whereas Superhero Hannah acts without thinking, Over-Achiever Hannah navel gazes without doing.
My hope is that as we continue to focus on transformation during Journey of Hope, that a pathway to balance will become clearer to me. I so, so desire to get to a point in which I am acting out of my being. For now, though, what seems to be helping me is getting centered. When I pay attention to God and pay attention to my proper role—image bearer, not image manager or image creator—that balance seems to come more naturally. It would seem that knowing who God is and knowing who I am is the first step.
2 comments
Hannah. Thank you for offering this glimpse into your struggle to hold being/becoming with the urgency of doing. Both are critical and they seem at times to compete within us…lulling us toward acting without thinking or navel-gazing. One of my daily practices is to position myself in stillness and listen around the following three prompts: Whose am I? Who am I? What’s mine to do? This simple listening exercise tends to remind me that I am first and foremost a child of God who is deeply loved, not because of what I can accomplish, but because God wants to. This reality focuses my discernment to receive the invitations that the day offers to both become and do. And, what I’m discovering is that when I position myself daily to remember whose I am, my doing is fueled by an abundance of love rather than a desire to prove myself loveable. I wonder if you’d be willing to share what your contemplative practice is that fuels a more sustainable doing?
The contemplative practice that I always fall back on is the Quaker practice of centering down. It’s really easy. I just quiet myself for a few minutes and focus on listening for the Spirit.