Facing Up

When I resigned my church back in 2013, my world fell apart. By 2020, I had a lot of company. It started with Covid. Then came natural disasters, political unrest, the war in Ukraine, A.I.… Everywhere, the stories that gave life meaning and security were crumbling. The whole world was entering a dark night of the soul. No wonder people want to set the clock back to 1950.

When my foundational story crumbled, every day became a struggle. Some days, I couldn’t find a reason to go on. I hated being human. I faced Hamlet’s question: To be or not to be? I never seriously considered killing myself but there were times when not-to-be would have been my preference. It certainly would have been easier. 

            Not-to-be may have been easier but it was not natural. Nature chooses to be, however difficult and illogical. The mountain wildflower blossoms and reaches for the sun only to be buried by snow a few weeks later. The salmon swims upstream to lay its eggs and die. The pinecone tumbles onto the ledge of a granite cliff and tries to grow there. Why bother? Why not curse God and die? 

            I don’t know. But I see this: Nature gives an unconditional “Yes” to life. This “yes” is not based on a story. It is existential. “I am, therefore I will live.”

            The central mistake of my life was grounding my being in story. Stories always crumble, be they stories of God, the United States, the Big Bang, or my idea of how the day should unfold. I am no match for the Specters. They always win. The solution is to stop fighting them and allow them to open the door to an existential “Yes” to life.  

I used to get up each morning and do my best to plant my feet on a firm foundation of faith. Now, I intentionally uproot myself. I invite the Specters to do their worst, tearing my stories to shreds. Releasing foundational story frees me to choose nature’s “Yes.”

I do not stop there, with my head in the clouds. Expressing myself in a story is as essential to my existence as swimming is to a fish or flying is to a bird. I dive into the flesh-and-blood world of story and tell my tale. The difference is that I regard the story of my life as an expression of my existence, not a foundation for it. 

I began by searching for the answers to life’s big questions. What I found instead is a deeply meaningful way to live without them.

        I was a preacher,

        a professor,

        a Godsplainer

        a Rock.

       Then my high pulpit crumbled.

       I thought I would land,
but just kept falling.

      So I traded my firm foundation

      for a set of wings

      and made my home
      on a rush of wind.