Flexing

The baby that won't stop crying . . . 

       The employee who won't stop using their phone on the clock . . . 

             The dictator who won't put down the nuclear weapons . . . 

                    The universe that won't stop expanding . . . 

And then there's the internal things.

The anxiety that just . . . won't . . . go away.

The heartbeat that just . . . won't . . . slow down.


And then there's the CEO who gets caught up in a moment of sexual enticement with a woman other than his wife. And the moment turns into a few moments. And the few turn into a few days. And a few weeks. And a few months . . .

Until everything in his life seems secondary to this growing, building, pressure of not knowing how he ever got into this mess in the first place . . . 

But knowing even deeper that he has no idea how to get out . . .

And there's the alcoholic who wakes up one more morning and says, "No more! I'm done . . .

And before she can even think about what's for dinner, she's banging on the bar asking herself, "How did I even get here?"

And there's the new mother, holding her newborn in her arms. And the baby won't stop crying. And the mother hasn't slept in days. And she's wondering how she'll ever have a life again. And she's wondering if it's even worth it. 

And there's me . . . constantly wondering if I'm ever gonna make it . . . if I'm ever gonna amount to anything more than a job title; if I'm ever gonna get the courage to do what I want to do instead of settling for what I don't want to do.

And all across the universe, across hearts, minds, faces, cultures, socio-economic statuses, Facebook statuses, Twitter feeds, religious denominations, there's seemingly this one thing that binds us all together, and it's uncomfortable. It's scary.

      It's soooooo scary that most of us deny it even exists because when we do that, we feel strong again. We feel that we are contributing to the unfolding plans of God, or the universe, or society.

Powerlessness. 

The thing that keeps humans human.

And the funny thing is, the more power one appears to have, the less power they really have. 

What do I mean? 

Just look at any leader of a corporation. On paper, they have the ability to hire and fire at will, change company policies with a swift motion of the pen, direct the ship where they think it should go. 

But we don't usually see their humanity. 

We didn't see how they fought with their teenager who came home high the night before. We don't get to see how they cried in the bathroom this morning because they knew that the cancer was eating away at their body. 

Or the president. 

Executive actions, calling whole countries to change their ways, making decisions that affect billions of people . . . 

And then seeing a close family member battling a terminal illness . . . and waking up every morning with a sense of gloom because he doesn't think anybody in this world could possibly like him . . . not being able to stay off that website after everyone goes to sleep. 

For a world that's constantly flexing its muscles every chance it gets, powerlessness ends up being the great human connector. It's the thing that sets us apart from the divine. 

It's Adam and Eve, it's Tiger Woods, it's me, it's you, it's all of us. 

Some of us are lucky enough, or awake enough, or in the right place at the right time enough to catch ourselves in that moment of whatever's-happening-right-now-is-out-of-my-hands, embrace it, and send it off to the heavens for God to take care of. 

For most of us, however, that's not good enough. Like Cain or Saul or David or me or you or mom or dad or the president, or hell, all of us, we have to stick it through, all the way, to the end, until we can figure it out and credit ourselves with doing the heavy lifting. 

But the thing is, all the time we were doing the heavy lifting, we weren't really doing anything about the problem. We convinced ourselves that the problem was one thing, but it was really something different. 

The problem was ego, but we called it the boss or the deadline or the baby won't stop crying or the kids won't behave or the employees aren't listening to me or the pastor won't listen or the president's an idiotic liberal or the governor's a right winged nut.

And so, in our puffed up attempts to kill any existence of powerlessness in our own lives, the first step is to deny that we're really powerless over anything or anyone. Then everything's okay. Ahhhhhh . . . we can live again. We're kings again. We're powerful again. 

And then another problem arises . . . 

And we smash it as fast as possible because it threatens our delusion of domination and control. 

And the cycle goes on and on and on and on and on.

And there's only one thing that breaks it. 

We have no energy left. No self will. No ambition. No hope. 

We see ourselves for who we really are: small, insignificant, and powerless.

And when that happens,

something else happens.

Something BIG.

Something UNEXPECTED.

Something POWERFUL.

We see that we were really followers the whole time. We were never giving instructions. We were never in charge of anything or anyone.

We were always followers.

God was always in front, guiding, directing, whispering. 

And we realize that life is so much easier when we're not trying to change everything that gets in the way of our egos, but instead . . . 

try to have our egos diminished so we can see all the beauty right before our eyes.