Good morning…
After writing yesterday’s controversial post, A Mother’s Perspective, I climbed back into bed, hoping for more sleep.
That’s when the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 5:3 (CEV) filled me full, integrating my mind, my body, and my soul. If you keep thinking about something, you will dream about it. If you talk too much, you will say the wrong thing. I must have kept thinking about all of the unrest in our city streets and our conflicting perspectives on the painful state of our shared humanity, because my unsettled anxiety came out in a dream. I was startled awake again by a short, piercing nightmare.
In my dream, here is what happened. I was watching two peaceful protesters lay on the street, exercising their right to embody their own perspective. Then three officers appeared, peacefully trying to move the protesters out of the way. When the police people laid hands on the protesters, they immediately jumped up, threw gas in the officers’ eyes, and lit their faces on fire. Shocking, I know. Short. Startling. A real nightmare.
As always I woke praying, “God what was that all about?”
Pondering the image throughout the day, I am aware of both sides of our self-protective human nature. Peaceful protesters can abruptly turn abusive. Well-meaning police people can inflict deadly force. Our potential to harm one another is intense and intrinsic. From my first psychology class back in college, I learned that, when stressfully backed into a corner, our human nature is quickly ignited. Unconsciously we either fight (attack) or we flight (run). Might this be what happened on Friday night in the Wendy’s parking lot here in Atlanta? Human nature kicked in, flaring up suddenly in two peaceful people. After an adrenaline-pumping struggle, Rayshard Brooks took to running (flight) and Officer Garrett Rolfe took to shooting (fright). Honestly, I can totally relate to each innate impulse. In my mind’s eye, I could have reacted like either person in this sad sad scenario. If left up to human instinct alone, I might run away if I felt endangered and I might shoot if overwhelmed with fear.
Is it possible that we are more alike than we are different, not one right, one wrong?
We all need God’s intervention so desperately, since left up to our human nature we all suffer, polarized in pain. God offers us a different option than unconsciously reacting, fighting or flighting in the stressful heat of life’s moments. Jesus shows us a stabilizing way to be strong in our struggles, a higher way of deepening down into intimacy with the all-powerful God who remains with each of us, always.
Here is the way Jesus explains God’s invitation into ongoing oneness, an invitation extended to all. “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant” (John 15:4-8, MSG).
I truly believe we are all designed to be a part of God’s abundant harvest, but it requires that we each stay rooted in the love our LORD has for us all. My short nightmare shocked me awake because King Solomon is right. If you keep thinking about something, you will dream about it. If you talk too much, you will say the wrong thing. I believe that as I fall to sleep prayerfully thinking, God integrates more and more of my conflicting emotions. And I know that as I keep talking about these controversial issues, my imperfect self is bound to say something wrong. When a nightmare wakes me or I talk too much, I know what to do. I simply return to silent solitude with God, planting my whole self down peacefully at the intersection of “God’s Vine” and “my branch.”
Might we all be designed to do the same?
…Sue…
P.S. Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com.
