Life is Hard

Don't make it harder still

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

“Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world.”

Miroslav Volf

Life is hard

It’s hard to be a woman. It’s hard to be a man. It’s hard to be a child. It’s hard to be a grandparent. Name any job, relationship, or stage of life, and someone will tell you why it’s not easy.

And here’s the thing—life is hard for different people in different ways.

And that can be baffling.

I mean, they vote different, worship different, their nationality, race, gender, and station in life are different from mine—maybe we were never meant to share this planet. Given how wobbly the world is, the certainty and solidity of a nice, high wall between us feels safe.

When diversity morphs into division, it’s easy to feel unfairly pinned and labelled:

you’re too stupid or too elitist,

too angry or not angry enough,

too caring or too indifferent,

too wimpy or too demanding,

too quiet or much too loud,

too opinionated or too conformist.

And, according to someone out there, everything is all your fault.

My son teaches High School math, and he will tell you many of his students carry the weight of not-enough and too-muchness. Some, the social misfits, hear the clear and constant whisper: the world would be much better if you didn’t exist.

Pause here for a moment. Those students are children, their self-worth and right to be alive at the mercy of the locked-in judgment of adults they will never meet.

The longing

I spoke at a marriage conference this week and began by asking couples, “Raise your hand if you long to be better understood.”

Every single person raised their hand.

Then I asked the group to raise their hands if their spouse just raised their hand. With wry smiles they all did as well.

There it is. If 100% of us long to be understood, then, if we care about other people at all, what percentage of us need to learn to understand, to patiently listen not only for the what and who, but for the why?

The walls we build, the ditches we dig, don’t allow for the nuance of why, only the what of accusation—you have no right to be anything unlike me.

Recently I read this: Humans have always lusted after power to impose our will on others. We strive, in both subtle and violent ways to change others into us, as if our will and wants decide the template, the blueprint for normal.

Yet, as someone once wrote,

“If we don’t learn to delight in our differences, we will destroy each other’s distinctiveness.”

And that, I believe, is the devil’s aim—to erase or shame our names.

Art class: a parable

Imagine a painting workshop, held in a large, bare-bones room. In the middle, a circle of easels surrounds a homely still life—flowers in vase, with lemons.

Behind each easel, students peer intently at their view of the setup, considering shapes, values, and colors. They choose a center of interest, they decide where the lightest and darkest points will appear on the canvas, then pick up a brush and begin to paint what they, alone, can see. After a while, rough sketches emerge— the same porcelain vase, the same delicate posies, the same artfully cut lemons.

Yet each painting is unique.

I’ve stood in that circle many times, the teacher walking behind me throughout the process, observing, commenting quietly. I may be tempted to ask, “Shouldn’t you tell my neighbor to use a bigger brush? Don’t you think the painter on my other side has an unattractive point of view? Did you notice that new student is using paint right out of the tube—should I tell her she’s doing it wrong?”

But his answer would be a raised eyebrow, my questions ignored. “Soften your edges. Your shadow color is muddy. You need to lighten your lights—then you can start another.”

Ah, I get the hint.

The teacher knows what we don’t—our strengths and weaknesses, our skill-level, the stubborn if hidden habits we all strive to overcome.

When students are new to painting, feedback is simple and invariably kind. With more practice and improvement, we will more often feel the ego-sting of critique. The teacher knows the limitations of tools, and pigments, and easel set ups. He’s walked every step of the same steep learning curve we awkwardly climb.

He knows our best strategy is to focus on our own efforts, and on him, our teacher, the Master Artist.

The metaphor is obvious. Look in the mirror. Is your palette so pristine, your canvas blank, your paint tubes left un-squeezed, because you wasted class time looking around to see who is getting it right?

Me: God, isn’t my point of view the right one? Aren’t I supposed to inform others where they are doing things wrong?

God: Why are you here?

About knowing

I love this quote by Thomas Merton:

“The saint is never offended by anything and judges no man’s sin because he does not know sin. He knows the mercy of God. He knows that his own mission on earth is to bring that mercy to all men.”

What does it mean to know mercy instead of sin? I don’t think Merton means real saints never sin, nor do they diminish the damage sin leaves behind it. No, there’s something else saints do well. How would you describe it?

I am convinced of this: to understand the command of Jesus to love my neighbor as myself I must begin with the ways I’m broken, not the ways I am better.

You have needs, and so do I.

I am not self-sufficient, and neither are you.

I struggle as do you—will you share your story?

Life is hard so let’s not pretend life is easy just because we’ve had good luck.

Like a sea diver sharing oxygen when another’s line has been severed, those of us who breathe the air of God’s goodness are sent out into the deep, to what?

A social experiment

It was late at night, and our plane finally pulled up to the gate.

Almost home.

After two movies and salt-heavy snacks I was thirsty and cranky, but I felt nudged to do something unlike me. The flight attendants and pilot were crowded into the small galley, nodding with tired smiles as the passengers shuffled off the plane. It was my turn, and, looking each of them in the eye, I was surprised to hear myself blurt, “Thank you for being you. I’m so glad you are in this world.”

Cheesy? It sounded like it to me. But the words came straight from a too-seldom-used place in my heart. I blushed, expecting the crew to roll their eyes or lean away in alarm, but, although visibly startled, they melted and broke into broad, grateful smiles. “Thank you for being you, too,” they each replied.

My experiment didn’t stop there—I felt like a gardener with a sprinkler in the midst of a prolonged drought. Everywhere I looked I saw downcast eyes, and shoulders stiff, as people wait for the next blow to land. What a difference a few words can make.

“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Proverbs 16:24

In a world suffering from discouraged dehydration, to whom will you offer a cup of cold water today?