Live the Question

I was once a daily reader of scripture, a teacher of scripture. I had perfected judging my love-your-neighbor-as-yourself neighbors, and I proudly checked yes in all of the boxes on the list of "Things a Righteous Person Tries to Do." And then things got complicated, my life which I had quite nicely planned out (thank you very much) was tipped upside-down and I got lost in a place that I was convinced was never supposed to be mine.

While trying to get my bearings, I threw God out of my life. It was definitely a throwing the baby out with the bathwater kind of situation. There was God, sitting not in glory on his throne, but in a cramped tub of bathwater that had turned cold and grey. That tub, drained, dry and empty, became a flimsy altar I reached for as I found myself drowning in my own cold and grey.

As evidence of God's amazing grace, I fell in love with Him again, while scared, angry and far from home. I recognized him in a pastor who saw me through my tears. I saw Him as I sang, with  hands raised to heaven. I heard Him in the songs of praise, in the drumbeats and in the guitar riffs.  I felt Him as I swayed and clapped to the music, to the words, to the Spirit, drowning out the steady, slow hymns of my right-side up life.

Today I curl up on the couch under a quilt, handmade by someone I barely knew, who gave it to me when I was sitting on this same couch recovering from an unexpected and unexplained stroke. (Hey, Universe, healthy, forty-somethings do not have strokes while getting their personal training on at the gym!) The quilt keeps out the morning chill as I read and re-read a verse of scripture. I'm not a daily reader anymore but when I choose to read, the words and their images rest upon my soul.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14

My thoughts start to weave the words through the fabric of the Buddhist teachings of impermanence, attachment and non-self that also speak so much truth to my heart, but my finger lingers under the question. For what is your life? The former teacher of scripture in me suggests that I answer the question in the context of the words that precede and follow it. For what is your life? It is unpredictable and brief, surprising and fleeting. But my soul hears something different in the question, perhaps a consequence of having learned how to live upside-down, no longer righteous, no longer a judge.

The words turn and tumble in my mind and "for what is your life" becomes "what is your life for". I listen to the question as it repeats itself. What is my life for? What would the God I love have me do?

At some point this morning, I will leave the warmth of this gifted-quilt to try to live the question.