Is preservation living?

It's really a good question: when I try to preserve myself, am I really living? You know, if I reserve all of my time an energy for saving my "self", do I have any time or energy left over to live?

I struggle with "self" preservation all the time. I want Tim to be important; I want Tim to have what Tim wants; I want, I want, I want. In the end, will I find emptiness where a life could have been lived? As I struggled with that a few weeks ago, I read a very good reflection from my book by Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening. Here's what he said on October 17:

"Early in life, I learned to protect myself, and this meant that I became very good at catching things. In fact, I never went anywhere without my catcher's mitt. No matter what came at me, nothing could surprise me. And while this saved me from unpredictable assaults of my family, and even helped me in my odyssey through cancer, it eventually had a life of its own. Everything - birds, women, friends, truth - was intercepted by the quick reflex of my mitt. Eventually, nothing got through, and the very thing that helped me survive was now keeping me from being touched. The softness and wonder of the world was vanishing from my life. (my emphasis)...We are, each of us, in a repeatable war between defending ourselves from hurts that happened long ago and opening in innocence, again and again, to the unexpected touch of life."

Wow! Those are important words to ponder. They also could help us in our quest to understand one another as we go through the "changes and chances of life". In our class of Emergence Christianity, we have encountered many challenges to our sensibilities, some challenges to our ways of thinking, even a few challenges to personal definitions of "church". If I had to sum up the challenges we have had in the class, it would probably look like Mark Nepo's reflection.

Think about it: when we meet challenges in life, the first thing we do is try to protect the "self" - make sure I am safe from harm. After some time, I start to realize that I am safe and I can start to reach out. The problem is, when I start to get comfortable, some new challenge comes along and I start the "self" preservation process over again!

How can the Church help us to let go of "self" and allow the "softness and wonder of the world" from vanishing? I am not sure how that happens, but I think it happens most often in a life-giving, life-transforming community - hey, isn't the Church one of those kinds of community's? It sure is! How could the world change if the Church lived out its call?

What do you think?

Peace,
Tim