When Jesus emerged from 40 days and 40 nights of fasting and prayer he is confronted three times by the voice of deception, three distinct encounters with the devil.
The first temptation is for Jesus to feed himself. Something like this: "You are hungry, feed yourself and in doing so, perform a little miracle. Turn these stones into bread." Without getting into dialogue with that voice as Eve did, Jesus proclaims a larger reality by quoting Scripture: “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus is not denying that as a man he needs the bread, only that there is another bread that man and woman need to feed on every day. This brings quite a deeper meaning to the prayer, "give us this day our daily bread." Give me this day, Lord, one word from you that I might feed on it today. God is speaking. Are we listening and asking for that Word?
I have always loved words. I love literature, poetry, and writing. I was an English major in college and then studied the law. Both disciplines are worlds of words. So, when I received last year seven words before a planned eight-day solitude, I was expectant. The seven words were "radical", "transition", "death", "beauty', "palm", "mercy", and "gratitude' or "gratefulness". A previous Highway letter (Summer 2019) gives the background and can be reexamined on our here. That letter focuses on the word "radical".
This letter focuses on the word "transition.” I was recently speaking with a friend and member of our Verbena prayer team when I noticed her use the word "transition" several times, both in reference to herself and also to describe a friend who was coming for an intensive. This affirmed what I had already been feeling: The Spirit was leading me to engage in the next word.
Transitions are often thought of as waystations, as a sub-reality to get through, to be endured. Last year, just before I left for the retreat, the teaching began during a session in Okinawan karate. My teacher (sensei), Alan Kent, was working me through a series of movements, a form called the kata. To my surprise and delight, he emphasized the importance of the transitions, that they could be the most important phases of the form. I began to think how many times I had regarded these interstices as impediments to getting to where I was going. In contrast, Alan emphasized that we must occupy the transition, engage it.
The time at Eastern Point Retreat House matched up with a portion of Lent. Lent itself is a transition between the birth of Jesus and his death and resurrection. During the retreat, I used Eugene Petersen's book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, as one of my guides. It is a beautiful commentary on that portion of the Psalms known as the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120 to 134. The songs were sung by the Hebrew pilgrims as they made their way up to Jerusalem, their "Aliyah." for the feasts. Petersen comments:
”But the ascent was not only literal, it was also a metaphor:
the trip to Jerusalem acted out a life lived upward to God,
an existence that advanced from one level to another in
developing maturity-- what Paul describes as " the goal
where God is beckoning us onward to Jesus. (Phil. 3:4).”
He highlights the importance of the "in-between times" on the journey just as Alan did. He goes on to highlight Paul Tournier's book, A Place For You, stating that it "describes the experience of being in between -- between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. It is like the time when a trapeze artist lets go the bar and hangs in midair, ready to catch another support; it is a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, of extraordinary aliveness."
I realized as God brought me these elaborations on "transition," that silence itself is a transition, an in-between, filled with meaning through listening. In this time in history and in our own journeys, we might listen to Petersen's encouragement concerning engaging the Psalms of Ascent:
”Christians will recognize how appropriately the Psalms may be
sung between times: between the time we leave the world's
environment and arrive at the spirit's assembly; between the time
we leave sin and arrive at holiness; between the time we leave
home and arrive in church with the company of God's people;
between the time we leave the works of the law and arrive at
justification by faith. They are songs of TRANSITION (emphasis
mine), brief hymns that provide courage, support and inner direction
for getting us where God is leading us in Jesus Christ.”
Of course, we can just endure and wait it out. Or we can feed on the Word in ever greater depth, exploring by God's grace the message, the song, the meaning. Words are symbols. The hidden reality is revealed in the exercise of the imagination and obedient attention. It is another dimension altogether that sparkles with the stimulation of discourse with God. There is a deep peace in accepting and receiving transitions in this way. I felt God saying to me, and possibly to you: "By dismissing transitions, you shorten your life by not living into a good part of it, the in-between." By being fully present to the transition we have the possibility of hearing words like this: "Behold I am doing a new thing. Can you see it?"
Many blessings in the many transitions of 2020 and beyond,
Trip and Laurie