The Tension

A few years back in the midst of a long standing and exhausting depression, the Bryan Adams song, Summer of ’69, came on the radio.  What struck me about this song, a song about failed love and a band that didn’t make it, was his hook, ‘those were the best days of my life.’  I think it was this song that invited me to not only look at my story more holistically but to respect its profundity.   

Immediately out of college, I declared that time to be a major failure.  A failed relationship, arguments with my father, a mountain of school debt, and a band that didn’t make it, composed the highlight (or rather lowlight) reel.  The problem with telling my story this way is it simply wasn’t true.  That time of great heartache and grief was also interlaced with profound friendship, feelings of love, community, connection and passion.  What my Baptist friends would call blessings.  Those places I sinned and made mistakes, I made doing the best I could with what I had.  The times I loved and lost, I could confidently say I did everything I could to win.  Although people hurt me, those same people shared times of profound intimacy with me.  To throw it out, to call it all a mistake would be to spit on a very sacred ground.  So why did I struggle so hard to see it this way?  Because even though the glass was so obviously half full, the missing water in my cup still hurt. 

That’s the tension.  It’s the thin space where joy and sorrow meet one another.  My desire to cut ties from that time in my life was met with a promise of taking the pain away.  I wanted to write off that time of my life because it was easier than actually grieving it.  It was simply a desire for relief.  But guess what, we don’t get to do that. 

 Read this passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 8):

“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

You see what Paul is saying, if we truly want to be whole, we must sit in the tension, because all around us there is that thin space of the broken creation meeting redemption.  Furthermore, the reason we never get relief is because for God’s redemption to happen we have to be the ones to engage it…

If you have ever introduced yourself to the outcast, someone with special needs, a homeless person, that stress you feel as you reach out your hand… the tension

If you have ever sat with someone crying or grieving, when you stayed and resisted your desire to run out of the room… the tension

The church’s current relationship to the homosexual community, loving and accepting a people despite our tradition’s moral codes… the tension

The feeling you have when you visit the third world and you begin to become aware of how much you paid for your shoes… the tension

Being alone, feeling the weight of loneliness, and resisting the temptations of meaningless sexuality, drunkenness, or apathetically watching television… the tension

The irony of this whole thing for me is that, my journey over the last few years has been about searching, rather aggressively, for relief.  All this time in prayer and solitude, writing songs and sharing stories, adopting spiritual disciplines and giving myself over to ministry has been about finding that sweet relief. 

Oh, to have a time when I will no longer have want.  When this anxiety I carry around, that fire that burns deep in my soul that longs for intimacy, pure joy, and love, dissipates into a cool autumn air. 

Rest. 

But I don’t think you get to have that.  Not the kind that has any permanence.  That isn’t met with the tension of a coming wave of conflict and heartache.  This tension never goes away.  But Paul’s promise is the more you stay present to it the more your outbursts will turn into kind words, your bitterness into forgiveness, your fucking into intimacy. 

The Good News is the tension, this kind of suffering, will save us all.  When we choose to sit in the tension healing happens, connection is made, violence ceases to be an option*.  I conclude by saying, learn to love your angst.  It’s not going anywhere. 

*Violence is the ultimate act of breaking the tension.  We have three choices; we can run from the tension, which usually looks like apathy or my story above.  We can fight the tension, impose our will and make the world the way we want it, which is what violence is and for the most part the majority of our problem with the world… the third way is to sit in the tension.  When you sit in the tension you soon realize that no one in fact gets their way, and violence is exposed for the immature child that it is.

Note: The book Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser does a far better job of explaining this concept…you should read it.