What Are Your Weaknesses?
March 25, 2007 -Sunday at 4
"We are led to truth by our weaknesses as well as our strengths."
~ Parker Palmer
That saying is tacked above my desk at work, written on a large strip
of paper, like the heart of a huge fortune cookie, the print and paper
weathered and worn by time and touch. How many times have i fingered
that strip? Too many. I picked it up over 4 years ago at my ministry
intensive in Dallas, Texas-- a week-long intensive immersion
experience designed to better prepare people for a lifetime of
ministry.
It was waiting for my fingertips in a large bowl of other folded
paper strips, all containing various quotes from Parker Palmer,
poised on the edge of a large labyrinth. As i walked the labyrinth,
thinking on that saying, it began to open and unfold in my mind.
While many may have discarded their saying afterward, as if they were
finished with them, i kept mine. I wasn't sure that i would ever be
finished with it.
It used to be kept in my purse, in a drawer, in a pocket, never far
from my fingertips, but generally hidden from my view, and thus, my
thoughts. I mean, really, who wants to keep being reminded that they
have weaknesses?
Me.
In continuing with our series of Lenten questions, it is a difficult topic to ponder, but all the best ones are. And... in a strange Moebius twist of logic.... weaknesses are no sign of weakness. Superheros have them. Even Moses had them. And as an exhausted Jesus carried the very cross upon which he would be crucified and die, someone else was seized to carry the cross for him for a time (Simon from Cyrene, Luke 23:26). This likely happened because Jesus was too weak to carry on and carry the cross himself,
and they wanted him alive when he was finally nailed to the wood.
So.... with Jesus as teacher... weakness is a part of our very Humanity,
it is a part of the very burden and blessing of being Human.
Weakness.
I know it's a difficult topic, but we all have them.
And perhaps it matters less that we have them,
and more how we perceive them.
And maybe it matters even more the things we do with them
rather than than the things we do in spite of them.
What are your weaknesses?
Exodus 4:1-16
http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=41827773
Second Reading
~from Len Hjalmarson, in “[Covenant, Community, and the Weakness of God]”, from precipiece magazine.
The mystery is that it's in our weakness that we discover grace. And it's in our weakness that community is born. When we need others, we allow them in. Community is never formed from our strengths. As Jim Wallis put it,
"The ability of people to move to a new place tomorrow depends on the love and acceptance they feel today…. The only thing greater than our awareness of each other's [shortcomings] is the awareness of God's love for us and God's desire to see us healed and made whole. The principal lesson of community is... that God breaks in at the weak places."