by Stephen W. Smith
It's another year for me. Another year to awaken. Another year to live. Another year to live out what I believe inside and to let my one and only life become congruent with what is true in life.
Sometimes, this past year, I don't think I fully recognized my life I think and the Covid dizziness and national implosion revealed an alarming thinness of the American experiment that makes life feel so fragile these days. I'm uneasy. I feel a bit disillusioned and disappointed if I am honest. It's been a difficult year for me. Perhaps for you as well. Perhaps it's been hard for the world.
We could all use a little more rest; time to catch our breath and time with those we love. There would be no harm in believing this was not only needed but God ordained--God prescribed.
My year involved a complete do over of our life. We moved away from our friends, community and returned "home" out of a primal tug at my heart to return to my roots. On the day we arrived, my oldest sister suffered a serious health setback and mental crash that resulted in her death. Grief has marked my life not only by her death but by so many other losses.
We left our support system; disbanded a wonderful Team that we had called to work along side of us and embraced a new turn in our journey. All of this confirmed, yet again, that I am indeed an "outlier"--a pioneer of sorts always trying to answer a clarion call.
So much change and a search for our new community along with a realization of a deep level of exhaustion in my own soul all surfaced in the Covid Pandemic--allowing me to face some things in my own self and in this big world that I did not like. Like a cellular sickness, I was forced--or invited to see life another way than I had planned. Little by little and step by step--perhaps cell by cell, I am coming to my senses at the close of another year of life.
Men are not good at being honest about stepping off the stage; moving out of the limelight and finding a quieter life-- At least that is my experience. But I sensed it was my time to move off center stage. Both Gwen and I sensed it was "time" for me to do this and for us to do this together--to live a quieter life--to live a life we believed was right and that we both wanted--a life with more time to just "be."
Covid was the great interruption into this new life. As the world shut down, I felt a great shutting down happening in me. With more time than I wanted or bargained for, I awoke to places in my own soul that needed the care I had written about; spoken about and taught across the world. I started to wake up to how tired I really was.
I sought the solace of nature in the peak of the Covid Pandemic and began taking "Mental Health Days" by driving into the Blue Ridge Mountains--a place I had frequented as a boy. There, I found a beauty that I so needed. In the thick rhododendron and pristine green forests and along the banks of an old river, I found a trickle or rather, a trickle of life found me and I found myself coming back to life--but to a different life.
The Apostle Paul pleads with the confused church in Corinth to "return to the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ." And then I read Paul's final words to the tension filled church at Rome that in the final years of his own life, he only spoke about about two things in his final days: the Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. I have struggled with some of what Paul wrote, but I do not struggle with this realization. It sounds good. It sounds right. I'm going to do what he did.
To be honest, I am coming to realize that the words of Jesus really are true and valid for such a time as this. "We cannot put new wine into old wine skins." We are at a place where I believe the old wine skins offered by some of our churches; beliefs offered by our predecessors and structures built by our parents may need to be dismantled. They are taking down statues of Confederate soldiers so why can we not take down some things we have gotten wrong? So much change is teeming beneath the surface. I feel it in my bones and for the most part I am glad and hope to live lone enough to see the change sweep across this tired old world. God knows we need change.
I'm sorry for all those who are still arguing about women in leadership; about whether black lives matter and if God loves gay people. Goodness! I'm just so tired out and worn out by this. Please help us just live and just live well for the time we have on this sick planet. Help us bring healing to the oppressed and justice to those we've failed. Let us say "I"m sorry for all the ways I mistreated you" and let us just help each other out to move onward and upward. There is power in forgiving and there is more power in being forgiven. I've learned this in marriage, parenting, friendship and leadership. I've not mastered this but I know it is the way that leads to life.
I am weary of all the words; all the anger; all the platform building; all the rising stars trying to beat their own drums about some cause. One more year has show me that I have no drum to beat now except the tandem beat of a spiritual cadence Paul offered: Jesus and the Kingdom. If Paul told us that the "greatest of all is love" then can we just humble ourselves and just set our goal to be loving. To do the right thing, is to just be loving. Finished. That's it. Let us take that has our mantra this next trip around the sun.
I do not want to attend any more Global Summits on anything. Probably no more seminars either. Now I simply wish to treasure this fact: that life is so dear and that it is vital to live before one dies. How utterly tragic it is to die before one truly lives.
So, here's to another year of leaning into the abundant life and to believe that it is true, wise and right to live it while I am still alive. That to love really is the greatest feat one can possibly do on this earth--not to set the record straight or to convince everyone that you are right and they are wrong.
It's taken scores of trips around the sun to awaken to this and perhaps a few more will be needed to deepen these truths like a river etches its own way deeper and then wider until it finally reaches the ocean where freedom lies.
I was really humbled to read so many notes, cards and letters for my birthday. Thank you to those who took the precious time in your life to bless my life. I'm grateful. It is a good thing to be loved--it is a very good thing. Thank you.