Purple People
I don’t know about you but I really like this time of year. Finally the temperatures are warming a bit, the sun has reappeared and my countenance begins to lift. This is spring time in Seattle, what a joy! Let me write about a few serendipity snapshots that I hope to tether together in a meaningful manner.
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I was reading, I cannot remember where, that the less body weight you carry from middle age to old age the better. I remember thinking that makes sense. I need to get back into shape and try and lose the sins of my youth located primarily around my middle core. I joined the Highline Athletic Club to embark on a journey of losing that middle. I learned quickly that exercise and physiology had changed a bit since I was a member there about four years ago. The trainers were talking about exercising on unstable environments. So, I began to fumble my way through all of the newest and latest techniques that included standing on half deflated balls of various sizes while doing weight work, sit-up crunches on a large ball and many more that made me feel like I was going to lose my balance and fall off. In the act of falling it would make me look very uncool in the midst of all those muscle bound testosterone-types. This I obviously did not want to do. I learned that I did indeed get a better workout on unstable surfaces. This is due to the fact that you have to engage all of your bodies muscle groups to lift, bend or curl. Through this process one is able to get a more efficient and total body workout.
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I was reading about a framework for the seasons of life by Walter Bruggemann that he described as orientation, disorientation (read unstable surface), and new orientation. I thought this is a great framework to experience all of life from, whether it be life – stage, a crisis, an illness, loneliness, family break-up, chronic pain and illness, habitual sin or anything that leaves us reeling and wondering why and where God is. We all go through moments when life is good, there is orientation. We are sailing along and smiling, laughing, even loving life.
And, then, usually out of nowhere we are struck, by something that seems to blindside us, out of the blue—disorientation, read as unstable surface. This is the gymnasium where and when God can best be seen to do God’s greatest work. It could be simply the grace and mercy to make it through. It could the refining fire to remove sin or a habitual vice that has left us more enslaved than free. Whatever the work of the life sculptor, one thing is true we are vulnerable and lay open and naked before God, the world and ourselves. By the way the Greek work for gymnasium is gymnos and means “naked.” In this sense we are stripped of all the veneer, the pretense and the denial. We are raw; we are, well, human. God is most at work right in this very tender place. It is the whisper of God in a white noise world reclaiming us, repositioning us, retexting us, and rewriting us for a hopeful tomorrow.
What is interesting is that through this season of disorientation there is a fluid like movement to new orientation. A radically new orientation whereby one lives a life without addiction, or a loved one, free of denial, bondage, anger, hopelessness, and despair. This new life is less about domestication and more about freedom. It does not come as an autonomous rugged individual. It usually involves worship, silence because prayer is difficult if not impossible, community, and the text of Scripture. This is why CHURCH MATTERS. This new orientation is a life free from commodity and anxiety. It is a life that is lived for meaning, shared significance and shalom.
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It occurs to me that this is exactly what Lent is all about; orientation (life as we once knew it in all its familiarity), disorientation (death of Jesus Christ on a cross) and new orientation (a resurrection life in Jesus). This is the Easter story. It is Gospel. Good news! That is the color of Purple, the color of Lent, the color of hope, the color of you and me. Live into the mystery and awe of the color purple. It is interesting to me that when you combine the colors red and blue you get purple. It is also noteworthy to remark that during this season we are embedded in dialogue about red states and blue states. How about kingdom of God space to be purple? I like that because with Christ at the center we can transcend political differences to reach a consensus with Jesus at the center. It is tempting to be red and blue, whether politically or as a church or even as a pastor. Let's set those aside for the color purple. Find the chronos time to allow for kairos time and holy-time to take you to a place where your soul is refreshed.
