Anyone who has come through an addiction
or experienced the healing
of a deep emotional wound,
such that love
and wellness become possible again,
understands
in a primal kind of way
what it means
“to be carried as on eagles’ wings.”
Understand please,
we do not know much of anything
about whether the story of slaves
escaping en mass from Egypt
is historically factual or not.
But we do know it is true —
truer than almost anything else we know.
The Book of Exodus
describes the Hebrew equivalent
to Jesus’ resurrection
in an event dating back to Pharaoh Ramses II
in 13th century BCE of ancient Egypt.
The who, what, how, and when
of all of it is unknown to historians
and only the Bible records it.
The Bible describes it, literally,
as God hearing
the groans and cries of slaves
and responding to them
by using the agency of Moses
to bring about their freedom.
But it takes a lot to defeat Pharaoh,
even for God,
and that is where the story receives its drama.
As we know, God throws 10 plagues
against Pharaoh
and in between each one
has Moses demand: “Let my people go.”
Pharaoh has some pretty good wizards
and magicians himself,
and he puts them up against God.
But there was simply no recovery
from the tenth plague.
God sends the spirit of death
to kill every male child of every Egyptian household.
In the midst of mass grief
Pharaoh relents and allows the slaves to leave.
But suddenly, almost immediately,
He sends an army in hot pursuit of the slaves.
The crescendo of the story, of course,
takes place when God
parts the waters of the ocean
to allow the slaves
to escape across an inlet or sound.
Like I said, we don’t know
if the Exodus really happened,
as in an historical event,
but we do know it is true.
Those who have experienced
severe trauma in childhood,
or who have been victimized by violence
and who eventually found themselves
emerging up
from under its pressure and weight
like the buoyancy of an air bubble
escaping the cold bottom depth of a lake,
knows the truth of Exodus.
Those who have been held under
the surface of an addiction
or compulsion
for years and years and years,
secretly and silently
suffering its indignities,
and exposing themselves
and subjecting others
to its cruelties and evils,
knows the truth of Exodus.
Those who have had any kind
of deep emotional wound
that became debilitating,
and which caused their life
to feel lived within a small room
of extremely limited possibilities,
but then discovered
that liberation was both possible
and accessible,
know the truth of Exodus.
Who knows
whether or how
those slaves really escaped,
and who knows
who or how
the way toward liberation
was made available to them?
But we do know
how they remembered it.
We do know
that they remembered it as miraculous.
We do know
they recognized that a way out
was given not made.
We do know
that they attributed their recovery
to a power greater than themselves
because they had tried on their own
to gain freedom
but had never been able to do it.
The Exodus
tells a story that many of us, right here,
know to be a true story.
We know a power greater than ourselves
carried us, as on eagles’ wings,
at the very moment
when we imagined
there were no more possibilities.
At the very moment
we thought death was the only option.
At the very moment
we thought more drugs were the only option.
At the very moment
we thought despair was the only option.
At the very moment
we thought anger and rage
were the only options.
At the very moment
we thought lovelessness was the only option.
At the very moment
we thought self-destruction was the only option.
At the very moment
we thought there were no other options
than the tragic,
self-orbiting trajectory we were on…
At THAT moment
something happened
and we emerged up out of the depths.
At the time,
we may not even have thought of it
as a gift.
We may have imagined it
was our own unique achievement.
But as we reflected on it,
maybe even years later,
it may have begun to dawn on us
that it wasn’t our own doing
at least not ours alone.
All those somethings
that took place in our lives — just ours,
right here in this place —
may have no similarities
except that they were given not made;
except that we were freed
when we thought it impossible;
except that we were carried
by something even stronger than our own will;
except that we did not do it
all on our own
even if we imagined at the time is was all us.
That, by the way, is how we know
the story of the Exodus
is true
whether or not it is factual.
Some eagle’s wings carried us
at one time or another,
and we can only bow our heads in thanksgiving.
Now the same can be said
about that funny little story from Matthew,
although it is not quite a story —
it is more a description or profile.
But what I am interested in,
in this little description from Matthew,
is where it says
that Jesus
saw the crowds
and he had great compassion for them.
But look, his compassion was not stirred up
because they had diseases and illnesses.
He didn’t feel sorry for them
because they were poor
or didn’t have a lot of creature comforts.
He felt compassion for them
because they acted
“harassed and helpless” –
like sheep, it says, without a shepherd.
They were anxious.
They were in that box I was describing —
in that tragic place
in which they could not imagine any options.
They were harassed from beyond
and felt helpless from within.
And I think that describes all of us
at least some of the time.
But here is what I know:
when we reach the moment of acknowledging
our powerlessness
over the thing
that has been oppressing us,
it is at that moment
a way forward begins to be made known.
We can call it miraculous if we want,
or we can call it strategic
or we can call it psychological.
We can call it anything we want.
But what we know,
is that at the moment of surrender –
when we acknowledge our powerlessness
in the face of what ails or oppresses us –
we begin to see new options.
We hate those words, I realize,
powerlessness and surrender.
I cannot think of two more un-2023 words
than powerlessness and surrender.
Whether we are on the Left or the Right,
Feminist or misogynous,
activist or advocate,
those two words are everything
we do not want to be — ever.
But I am going rogue here —
retrograde actually, as in 13th century Egypt.
The moment of powerlessness,
when we admit to ourselves
that we are not self-sufficient
and that we can’t do it all on our own,
that is the moment
when we begin receive the vision
or the information
or the capacity
or the utter gift
that we needed
in order to move forward.
Ascribe to this phenomenon of surrender
whatever authority
mystery
or dynamics we want,
but I am proclaiming it as true.
What is the difference between a church
and a spiritual community?
A church is an institution
with a central mission to perpetuate itself.
A spiritual community
is a matrix of relationships
between people who know
and acknowledge
their common woundedness
and their mutual neediness
and are not afraid to admit
and share
the times when they became open
to a power greater than themselves.
Ironically, those things we hate —
powerlessness and surrender —
are the very experiences
that grant us strength
and power.
Hanging out with people
who have looked into their own powerlessness
and experienced an Exodus or two or three,
is what makes a community compelling,
is what makes a community healing,
is what makes a community spiritual.
And that’s all I got.
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