Being
Centered
John
15:5
A Quaker proverb says, “If you are very firmly attached
at the center, you can dare to be free around the periphery.” This is true in so many ways that we easily
see the truth in these words. The more
rock-solid our center the freer we can be with the marginal aspects of life.
Imagine yourself trying to retrieve a dish from the topmost
shelf of a kitchen cabinet. You’re
standing on a stepstool, but you can’t quite reach the object you need. You think, “If I pick up one foot and stretch
as far as I can, I can get close enough.
But if I pick up one foot and stretch that far, will I lose my balance?”
Now, imagine someone holding on to the leg that remains
on the stepstool. The person doesn’t
have to be very strong. He or she only
has to provide you with enough balance so you can feel free to lift that other
foot, stretch yourself out, and pick up that dish.
Whew!
We need to find the strong center in our emotional
lives. We must be emotionally stable
before we can add another person to the equation. It’s easy to have casual relationships with
other people, but to form lasting attachments we first have to know who we are.
Otherwise we can’t give of ourselves to anyone else.
We need to find the strong center in our intellectual
lives. I encounter this every semester
in the ethics class I teach. Some
students only know what they’ve been told all their lives. They believe it, but can’t tell you why. Other students know they are searching for a
belief system, but have no idea what it might be. These students don’t have the intellectual
freedom to explore other possibilities because their center isn’t strong
enough. They may have strong convictions,
but they haven’t really absorbed them enough to understand why they believe
what they profess to believe.
Most importantly, we need to find the strong center in
our spiritual lives. If you’re reading
this, chances are you’ve had exposure to some system of religious belief. You may or may not be committed to that
system, but at least you have been taught some basic principles. Perhaps you have already figured out that
what you have been taught has not been completely absorbed. Perhaps you feel you know what you
believe, but not why you believe
it. Perhaps you are looking for
something—or someone—to believe in. How
can you develop that strong center?
Last Sunday the congregation at my church sang the hymn, Come and Find the Quiet Center. The first verse says,
Come and find the
quiet center in the crowded life we lead,
find the room for hope
to enter, find the frame where we are freed:
clear the chaos and the
clutter, clear our eyes that we can see
all the things that
really matter, be at peace and simply be.
Jesus understood the need for a quiet, strong
center. This is why he frequently went
off by himself to pray. He had to renew
his strength through intimate contact with his Father. In his final speech to his disciples he put
it this way: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is
that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
No branch, separated from the main stem, can stay alive
very long. It will quickly wither, die,
and be of no further use.
The paradox is that we encounter God at the margins—the
periphery—but God must also be at the center.
If we are connected with God at the center, we can follow God to the periphery,
where we will be free to explore all the avenues of service that will open for
us.
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