to see, to hear, to feel

When I was twenty-one, I had my tonsils removed. I was one of those people who got strep throat every few minutes, and my doctor finally decided that I needed to have my tonsils taken out. For the entire week afterward, swallowing hurt so much that I could barely open my mouth for a straw. I had a prescription for painkillers, though, and when they ran out but the pain hadn't, I called the nurse and said that she would really need to send another prescription over, and maybe a little mixed grill of drugs because I was also feeling somewhat anxious. But she wouldn't. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She told me her supervisor was at lunch and that I needed to buy some gum of all things, and to chew it vigorously—the thought of which made me clutch at my throat. She explained that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. So finally my best friend Pammy went out and bought me some gum, and I began to chew it, with great hostility and skepticism. The first bites caused a ripping sensation in the back of my throat, but within minutes all the pain was gone, permanently. I think that something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds—the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both—to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So those wounds never have a chance to heal.
—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

As Jim was speaking tonight, I couldn't help but remember this story. The way that God wants us to live our lives to the full—to see and hear and feel—yet we are so cramped up emotionally and spiritually that we divert our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears and loudly pronouce, "LA LA LA LA LA." And we distract ourselves from feeling pain by television and conversation and Facebook and beer (all very good things when used in the right context) and skirt through life with the illusion of living it.

But Jesus says, "He who has ears, let him hear." He has given us ears to hear, eyes to see, souls to feel...yet we shield ourselves for fear of pain. Jesus calls us to be active participants in our lives, in his word, in his kingdom. What if Annie had stopped cold at the first ripping sensation in the back of her throat? She would've prolonged her pain, or worse yet she might have never eaten again, walking around sucking down milkshakes with a face scrunched with anxiety.

At the beginning of 2006 and I started praying that God would wrestle me to the ground every time I tried to take the easy way out and close my eyes to pain. I asked him to walk me through all the gross and dirty parts of my life and heal me. And this has been the most stinking painful year of my life, by far. But where am I? Closer to God. Closer to myself. A million miles closer to freedom.

The challenge that Jim set before us tonight is simple: use our eyes to see, use our ears to hear, and be aware and conscious of our feelings. So often we ask God to reveal himself to us, to reveal his glory to us. Well, God's been revealing himself and his glory all over the place. We simply need to open up to it, to realize that sometimes we'll see and hear more clearly on the other side of pain, even if we take that first step with hostility and skepticism. One day the pain will be gone, permanently.

"You dance over me while I am unaware. You sing all around, but I never hear the sound." —Amazed, Jared Anderson