Tag Archives: jesus

Burdened and Burnt Out?

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Recently, I very nearly burnt out. Some of this was my own doing, taking on too much all at once. Along side work I was writing a dissertation and a chapter for a book and trying to be a good husband and dad and various other bits and pieces. I was feeling pretty stressed, not sleeping well, having palpitations at times (something I’ve never experienced before) and feeling close to tears. Work is full on at times and can be emotionally exhausting, dealing with and loving people in the midst of the grit and difficulties of their lives.  I got out of a good rhythm of work and rest and reached the end of myself!

A fellow health professional came to see me feeling much the same way. He said, “Andy, where do we take all this stuff? Where do we take the pain that we carry for other people, the burdens we pick up, the mistakes we make, the emotional baggage that gets placed on us?”

Is it that we become less caring? Do we need to separate ourselves out from the pain of other peoples journeys? Well, maybe sometimes….sometimes we need to have good boundaries in place and make sure we take time to rest and be restored, so we can carry on loving and giving of ourselves. But sometimes, we do need to suck it up, bear with other people in love and suffer with those who suffer. Waking up in the night thinking about the teenager you’ve seen who’s not sure they want to carry on living and spending some time thinking about their family and praying for hope and peace is part of what it means to be human, even when it doesn’t feel great to be bearing that burden with them. Jesus said that the “human one” must suffer much. Suffering because of love. To enter fully into what it means to be human, we cannot avoid the pain of others or separate ourselves out from it. To love is to embrace the ‘other’ to allow ourselves to be moved by them and to see things differently. But if we carry it all in ourselves, we can be destroyed in the process and then we are not much use to anyone.

Where do we take this pain? Where do we lay these burdens? How do we forgive the systems which cause so much anxiety and dysfunction? What do we do with the abuse we suffer? Some people use alcohol or other substances to numb the pain. Some throw themselves into activities as a distraction. Some people disengage with it altogether. Some people talk it through and lay their burdens onto others.

On good friday, I am reminded that there is a remarkable place to lay all my burdens, pain, failings, stress and anxious thoughts: at the feet of Jesus. When I look at Jesus, laying down his life, having confronted the powers that disempower and abuse the multitude, I do not see him appeasing an angry God, rather I see God Himself; suffering in the most appalling way, utterly embracing our humanity and carrying away the pain of our mess with his arms stretched wide in love. I hear his cry of forgiveness for my ego-centric failings, find his grace for the shadow and unhealed parts of my life, see in his eyes a love that knows no bounds and discover a hope that this way of life laid down love brings peace for all humanity.

I love this passage from Matthew 11, found in The Message version:

Jesus says, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burnt out? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

I love that Jesus is with me in my work, doing it with me and he knows what it is to suffer. I choose again to receive his yoke, not those that others or the system try and place on me and in that, I find an incredible freedom.

A few years ago I wrote this song. Maybe you’ll find it helpful, maybe it won’t resonate with you at all. All I know is that as I engage with the pain of others, I am so glad to have found the One who can really carry my burdens and help me walk in freedom and love.

 

The Ring of Power

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I’m currently reading Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings to my eldest son. We have just finished that part in ‘The Two Towers’ in which Gandalf has returned to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli at the turning of the tide. He makes this awesome statement about Sauron the dark lord:

‘That we should wish to cast him down and have NOONE in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the ring (of power) itself has not entered into his darkest dream.’

There are still the stirrings of revolution in many nations. But revolution that is based on violence and only replaces one form of dominant power with another sort of hierarchical dominance is no revolution at all.

Kenarchy is about the emptying out of power. It comes from an understanding that the politics of Jesus were about emptying out power and utterly transforming it. Leadership is not only to be kenotic (that is poured out for others), it is to be kenarchic (that is emptied out) so that we begin to understand that the lowest place is the highest place. We begin to understand that level playing fields are the order of the day. We are not looking for new political parties, but a new politics, that is a new way of relating to one another. We are not looking for new economic regulations, but a new economics. We are not searching for peace maintained through violence but a genuine love of one another, including the love of our ‘enemies’ that transforms how we live together as humanity.

William T Cavanaugh gives a radical reinterpretation of the christian eucharist in the light of this. We live in a divided world in which the ‘powers’ crush and break the multitude. When Jesus breaks bread and gives it away, he is not looking to form an exclusive club. He is, rather inviting us to partake of this kind of givenness, to embrace brokenness in the face of violence and to find that this way of life-poured-out-love finds hope in resurrection. As we eat the bread, we receive life, we become life and we give life as we share with others. The bread is given and is available to all who will receive it. Our barriers are broken down, our borders and our flags lose their relevance. We become part of this trans-local body that only exists to bring life, love and peace. There is no politics (way of doing life) that is more radical than this.

The nation state project holds power at the centre. It uses the components of money, law and control through violence to do this. I believe that as we build relationally in our localities we can find new ways of being. This is happening on a vast scale already and many stories are emerging of alternative ways of being that provide a different narrative to the dominant (economic and political) one of our day.

Sacred Economics – The Trouble With Property

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Sorry it’s been a while! I was trying to do a chapter a week of this awesome IMG_1638book and then a few things converged at the same time and conspired to make blogging more tricky than I would have liked. And then, I went on holiday with my awesome wife and children and we had some QT in La Belle France. But, now I’m back and ready to plod on….

We were hoping that Charles might be coming to Lancaster, to speak at the Richardson Institute (a centre for peace studies at the university) in the late autumn, but alas, we cant make it work – but he is in York, giving the Schumacher Lecture, Friday 22nd November and then in Leeds on 23rd. (I’ll be in Toronto…..wooot, but sad to miss him!). Go if you can!

Onwards! This chapter is challenging to the core. The age of separation has reached a fullness of times. We find ourselves in cyclical crises, (so if you were thinking that the mini property boom in London is an indication that it’s back to business as usual, then think again!) and the trauma of this separation from one another, our community, nature itself and the divine have remedied themselves in self protectionism. The tragedy of this logic of me and mine, as CE rightly points out is that we seek to recover our loss by expanding and protecting the separate self and its extension: money and property.

So, the modern concept of property, or the ownership thereof is a symptom of imgresthe sovereignty of the individual. If we claim ownership of that for which we did not labour, the land, the rivers, the trees, the resources of the earth, which are a gift to us, then this is tantamount to theft. It was Marx, and others like him that proclaimed “property is robbery”, as the origin of most property was taken by force – witness most of the United States of America as just one example! It was the rich and powerful who seized the land and made the laws. So if property is robbery, then the laws which protect private property, so CE argues, are those which perpetuate a crime.

But he is not advocating the abolition of private property for three reasons. Firstly because abolition is a forceful imposition on the unwilling. Secondly, private property is only a symptom of the deeper sickness of separation. Thirdly, the problem is not necessarily ownership, per se, but the unfair advantages of having it.

So, what do we do? Sell everything we have and give to the poor? A beautifully radical way to live. Jesus challenged a rich young man to do just that. He couldn’t do it, because he loved his wealth and it gave him a status and position that he held too tightly. I often wrestle with wondering if I am like that man…..But then Jesus also says – to whom much is given, much is required…..

Perhaps if we embrace gift, we understand that nothing we possess is really ours. And so we must ask ourselves how we steward that which we have been given, so that it can be given again to the community in which we are embedded. Can our properties become gifts?