I just read a really interesting article at psychologytoday.com. It addresses how human beings tend to respond to crisis and uncertainty.
Essentially, we take control any way we can.
And if we can't actually be in control, we'll give ourselves the illusion of control.
The research shows that in deeply troubled times--during world wars, for example--we'll join more authoritarian churches, invent more comic-book super heroes, and choose a German Shepherd for the family dog, over a Chihuahua.
It's fascinating to me that we human beings have such a need for control that we collectively do these things, pretty much automatically, to the extent that attack dogs become statistically significant.
My dog Petey. He'll chew your leg right off, if he can bother to get out of the shopping bag.
That article made me think about all the other things that keep our illusion of control alive and well, whether it's
- money in the bank
- modern medicine
- meteorologists and storm-tracking software on duty, 24/7/36
- martyrdom to our ministry or career
But here is what we all know, in the dark of the night: sometimes, no matter what, the bad stuff comes.
And at that point, you might need something more than Superman or an attack dog.
Yeah, I know the Christian answer here. You need a Savior. And that's true. But what I've found is that He's not a vending machine. He doesn't save us the way we want. There is very little pixie dust shaken over the problems I see in the world.
For every miracle I know about, there are 10,000 injustices still waiting For That Day.
Down the road, redemption. Yes. I know it's coming. I believe it, I do.
Right now, it's a federal disaster zone, and that's what we have to deal with.
Honestly. Painfully.
Here's one of my all-time favorite quotes on dealing with the aftermath of disaster:
"Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can't be beat. While too much exercise works for some people, it doesn't for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering. But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination." Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies
The best thing is not protection or control or denial.
The best thing is softness and illumination.
I think about the Prodigal Son a lot, running away with his life firmly in his hands. I bet that even when he climbed into that pig sty, that kid still thought he could be in charge. He still thought he was going to make it on his own. It took him a while, like it does most of us. But he finally figured out that the best thing was not more control or more denial.
The best thing was softness and illumination. The softness to remember love and the illumination to turn toward it.
When we run through all our other options, we may finally realize, like Larry Crabb says, that sometimes we need to look bad in the presence of Love. Just open our real, true selves up to Love.
Love doesn't care how we look or what we've done.
That's all taken care of.
Love just welcomes us home, every time, no matter what.
And that, in my book, is way better than any illusion of control.