On Urgency

Dear Friend,

Today we will get the results of Monday’s scan. It’s early in the morning, and I’m intentionally writing now - before we know what Dr. Daras will say. 

You might think that hearing Dr. Daras say that the scan showed “no progression” would sort of let the air out of the anxiety balloon. Give us some time to breathe. Would somehow take the pressure off to squeeze as much into each day as possible since we might reasonably expect there to be more days and therefore more space to do all the things we want to do. 

Alternatively, you might imagine that hearing her say, “significant progression” might have the opposite effect. Might charge our days with electricity and a sense of do it now, before we cannot do it at all.

But weirdly, at least this morning, it’s not like that at all.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about urgency lately. Wondering if it’s real, or if exigency is something we just sort of imagine into existence. Of course, urgency is clothed in time, or at least in measurable time, and there are plenty of people far smarter than I who question whether measurable time is real at all. And if it is not real, then the whole idea of urgency sort of collapses on itself. Doesn’t it?

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This morning I walked with Carley and talked with Abi. We chatted about this feeling of ought-to-dos and urgency. I wondered aloud where it might come from. I got the sense that the question was far more interesting to me than it was to Abi.

I started, “Do you think it’s a function of our not quite believing we are already loved as we are, and that we have just a tiny sliver of time to elevate our lovability score as high as possible?”

(In case you haven’t noticed, this has been a theme these past couple of months - maybe longer than that.)

Abi responded with, “Do you think the way the sunlight comes through the tree branches will change depending on what your doctor tells you?”   

I said, “Do you suppose, instead, that we have been given a secret list of tasks that we must accomplish in our time on earth in order to earn eternity with God?”

Abi laughed. “Did you hear that? I think it might have been a loon.”

I listened. I heard what she heard. It may well have been a loon. I have never heard a loon before. Not that I remember.

Finally, I offered: “Okay, not tasks, then. But experiences. Maybe our job is to taste and touch and feel and hear and smell as much of God’s creation as our limited time allows. Maybe the whole idea of a bucket list was planted in our souls when God shaped us. That we see and name all the different shades of green in the summertime. That we hear the sound of a gentle rain in an aspen forest. That we notice how the air gets a few degrees cooler during a solar eclipse and how the birds wander away, believing night must be falling. That we stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon and realize how small we are and then sit under the stars on a clear night and reset our sense of smallness. That we get surprised by the scent of hyacinths every spring. That we see lightning strike the surface of the ocean, and if we get far enough along, that we might catch a glimpse of a field of sunflowers through Van Gogh’s eyes.”

“Maybe,” she said.  We walked into the open field and it got a few degrees warmer, just like it did that day we sat on the beach in Corolla as the sun emerged from behind the moon. The last time I experienced an eclipse. Abi went silent, and offered Carley a peanut butter and banana treat.

A few moments passed and she eventually broke the silence. “What if,” she offered,”it’s none of those things, at all. What if you could accept your own belovedness, not because of what you do, but because of who you are? What if you could look past the beauty and wonder of this creation, if only for a moment, and see what lies behind it? What if all of this is simply pointing to the immensity of the love that is being poured out, moment by moment, and you have been offered an imperfect and incomplete glimpse of perfect and complete love? And what if you have an eternity to swim in that love? What is time, then?”

“What if,” I responded and then I, mercifully, lost my train of thought.  

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I’m definitely landing on the idea of urgency, and especially our notion that we are somehow responsible for making meaning from every moment is a diabolical lie.  No. Every moment, I think comes pregnant with meaning, already. And our job is no job at all. What if it is simply ours to allow each moment to give birth to the meaning that it was given before time began, and meaning that it has carried ever since. Maybe our job is to appreciate the moment without interfering. What if it is ours to swim in that grace that is being offered moment-by-moment, and to invite those God has, through grace again, put into our paths, to swim with us by reminding them of what many have forgotten - that their souls bear the fingerprints of the divine, and their belovedness is already assured. 

Already assured. 

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I don’t think it’s an accident that Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God with all my heart and to love my neighbor as myself. I don’t think it’s an accident that he didn’t say anything about a task list on how to earn belovedness, or that he didn’t hand each of the people who were there their own personal bucket lists. 

He said, “Love God. Love your neighbor.” A friend has a T-shirt hanging in her office. It reads:

“You are my bucket list.”

I love that.  

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In a few minutes I’ll head upstairs to shower and get ready to meet with my doctor. She will tell us something, and then we will decide what to do with that something. Or maybe, and I think this is closer to the truth, the sunlight will fall on the branches just so, and the birds, maybe even the loons, will sing just as they always have, and grace will still be grace, and loving God and loving my neighbor will still who I am called to be.

I believe that.

Oremus,

Chris