When encountering crisis, or navigating rushing rapids, holding on is not a viable option. As recognized in the previous post, holding on is a natural instinct, avoiding immediate disaster but insufficient for ultimate survival. Our amygdala induced response to crisis overrides rational response. In a previous post, I wrote about dynamic stability. I think the concept is helpful in trying to understand what it means to head out.
Dynamic Stability
When so many things are accelerating at once, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a kayak in rushing white water, being carried along by the current at a faster and faster clip. In such conditions, there is an almost irresistible temptation to do the instinctive thing—but the wrong thing: stick your paddle in the water to try to slow down.
“Why ‘Keep Your Paddle in the Water’ Is Bad Advice for Beginners.” Have you ever stopped to consider what the phrase “keep your paddle in the water” actually means? If you did you wouldn’t ever recommend it to a beginner whitewater paddler. The paddlers and instructors who give this advice are well intended and what they are really expressing is: “Keep paddling to maintain your stability through rapids.” When beginners hear “keep your paddle in the water,” they end up doing a bad version of a rudder dragging their paddle in the water back by their stern while using their blade to steer. This is a really bad position to be in … To enhance stability in rapids it’s important to move as fast or faster than the current. Every time you rudder or drag your paddle in the water to steer you lose momentum and that makes you more vulnerable to flipping over.
The only way to thrive is by maintaining dynamic stability—[a] bike-riding trick …But what is the [spiritual] equivalent of paddling as fast as the water or maintaining dynamic stability?
Kayaking rapids is an appropriate metaphor for our experience of chaos in 2020 and our immediate future.
Heading Out… responding faithfully and creatively to change, dangers and opportunities of chaos.
Another way to illustrate holding on and heading out in crisis is driving an automobile. A treacherous experience driving can occur when you drift to the side and your wheels suddenly drop off the pavement. The immediate, and sometimes fatal, reaction is to jerk the steering wheel hard left to get back on the road. [Hold on] . Survival depends on a resisting panic and using proper techniques to avoid disaster. [Head Out]
What is it that keeps us from succumbing to panic and reacting in dangerous ways? Despite instruction and warnings.
Heading Out… is the equivalent of …firmly grasp the wheel, do not hit the brakes, slow down and carefully return to the road…”
Although the idea of Holding On or Heading Out when faced with crisis, is applicable to everyone, my concern is for Christ followers.
How Christ followers respond to crisis is shaped by our view of faith.
Some, like myself early on, view faith as finite and bounded, something to be achieved and defended. Richard Rohr describes this view of faith well:
“If you surrender to the fear of uncertainty, life can become a set of insurance policies. Your short time on this earth becomes small and self-protective, a kind of circling of the wagons around what you can be sure of and what you think you can control–even God. It provides you with the illusion that you are in the driver’s seat, navigating on safe, small roads, and usually in a single, predetermined direction that can take you only where you have already been. For far too many people, no life journey is necessary because we think we already have all our answers at the beginning. ‘
For them, …holding on… is the only option. There is no capacity to see opportunity, only danger. What results are outcomes described in the previous post. HERE
…holding on… is the only option. There is no capacity to see opportunity, only danger.
Over the course of life I have come to view faith differently, I wrote previously:
I believe our lives are a journey. A healthy life is characterized by growth and change. Each day holds the prospect of adventure and discovery. Life is not defined by seeking a safe place and hunkering down insulated and protected from the world around us. Each of us possesses a deep longing to go home. To find our way to that place that we were created for. The pathway we take is not always pleasant and there are dangers to be dealt with. But, there are many beautiful experiences along the way. Wonderful relationships with people. Beautiful sights and sounds and smells.
We do not travel alone. Our creator leads us and watches over us. He gives all that we need for our journey. We meet many people along the way. Some of them join us our journey. Some we encounter briefly. Some encourage us and offer provision of our journey. Others do not understand and become enemies bent on disrupting our pilgrimage. No matter what happens to us along the way, we continue to travel toward our destination because we trust our creator who loves us and will not abandon us on our journey. He has promised us life.
…thinking about life as a journey reminds me to stop trying to set up camp and call it home. It allows me to see life as a process, with completion somewhere down the road. Thus I am freed from feeling like a failure when things are not finished, and hopeful that they will be as my journey comes to its end.I want adventure, and this reminds me that I am living in it. Life is not a problem to be solved, it is an adventure to be lived.
John Eldridge
It is easy to be deceived into thinking Holding On keeps us safe, but life is dynamic.
Since Adam, when we, God’s created beings, rebelled and lost our home in God, we were destined to be restless wanders searching for a homeland. A thread that runs through the history of God’s dealing with mankind is the reality of their status as restless wanders in this world.
Jesus said, “Follow me”. As he carried out his ministry, he wandered about, without house or home. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Jesus did not say he was “the place” but “I am the Way”
As followers of Christ we have not arrived. We are people on “The Way, we are no longer restless wanders but are pilgrims bound for the homeland. As pilgrims we are “Heading Out”. Restless spiritual wandering becomes a spiritual journey following Christ.
In 2020 and now 2021 we are navigating dangerous rapids. These are times that expose the character of our faith.
The next post will examine the idea of dynamic stability for Christ followers in the rushing waters of our chaotic society.
Still on the journey.