Community and Paradox

Weekly message to diocesan clergy

“Most of life’s challenges are not problems to be solved, but paradoxes to be managed.” This thought from psychologist Esther Perel recently shook me into a new clarity. She’s exactly right. I cherish Minnesota winter, and I’m tired of being cold. Our congregations can be places of profound beauty and healing, and painful conflict. I love my kids more than I thought it was possible to love anything, and sometimes I just need a break. None of that can be fixed, I just have to learn to live inside the fact that it’s true.

Christian spiritual practice is also a matter of learning how to live inside paradox. God is three persons in one being. We are fed by giving. You have to lose it to save it. Dying is the only way to truly live. In Luther’s formulation, we are all, always, simul justis et peccator.

One reason why life together in the local church matters so much in a fractured world is that true community forces us to sit with the liberating pain of paradox, rather than solving every problem with brute force. The massive fractures of the modern western world are driven in no small part by the fact that we live with endless choice. When things get tough, we can always move on to the next job, the next relationship, the next community. When we are mildly annoyed at the music or the rector of one congregation, we can go down the street to the next, where, of course, everything is perfect. Committing to life together, a core part of both our baptismal and ordination vows, means we are called to navigate paradox more than solve problems.

One paradox of my own heart is that my gift of enthusiasm and passion can cast a shadow of impatient frustration when things don’t go as well or as fast as I think they should. Life together forces me to slow down, which I hate so much, and is essential for the salvation of my soul.

There are any number of challenges you and I are both facing right now. I hope you will give yourself permission to remember that you don’t have to solve or fix all the things. In fact, we are more likely to encounter God’s boundless grace, and to help others do the same, if we soften, and simply sit with the paradox, thanking God for the way true, painful, excruciating, glorious love breaks us open to set us, and the whole hard world, free

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