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Shapes of Fear

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by Margie Van Duzer, CFDM Faculty

During the first week of Lent, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. Now, I am absolutely no art expert. I never took an art class or art history class in high school or college. The embarrassment and shame experienced through my elementary school art projects lingers to this day. However, as somebody who believes God can speak through this creative medium, I consciously prayed as I went from painting to painting; I asked to have the eyes to see what God wanted me to see. I was drawn in by a dark and moody painting of four robed bodies. Although the robes covered their heads, one of them was facing directly towards me while I looked at the painting. Well, not exactly facing me because this shape had no face. Just darkness where a face should have been. The other three were turned to the side, so they were completely covered in robes. All four of them were wearing easily visible shoes-shoes for running away. The painting was called “Shapes of Fear”. I found myself identifying with these shapes. When I am in a state of fear or anxiety, it is as if I am faceless. I lose sight of the reality that I am God’s beloved daughter, loved in all of who I am, a person created, named, known and redeemed by Christ. Instead, I feel like a faceless, nameless non-entity, where my only distinguishing feature is my overwhelming inclination to flee.

Shapes of Fear 1930-1932 Maynard Dixon Born: Fresno, California 1875 Died: Tucson, Arizona 1946 oil on canvas 40 x 50 1/8 in. (101.5 x 127.3 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design 1956.10.1 Smithsonian American Art Museum 2nd Floor, North Wing. Used with permission.

How dark and lifeless these shapes looked, so far removed from God’s intent for us as God’s beloved. And yet, how often I live in that place of faceless fear, not, as Henri Nouwen would say, claiming my belovedness.

This Lent, with this picture still looming large in my mental background, I have decided to make it a spiritual discipline to consciously choose “belovedness” whenever the feelings of fear arise. And they do arise. Surprisingly, I have found that the memory of these four robed shapes somehow make it easier to name the fear when it comes and claim my rightful identity. Instead of making a move to flee, I am able to stop and turn towards the God who intimately knows all and lovingly is with me still.

What’s in a Name? An Ash Wednesday Meditation

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by Rev. Terry Tripp, Co-Director CFDM

What’s in a Name?

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In 1991 the best movie of the year was “Dances with Wolves”. You may remember this heroic film about a civil war hero who travels West to join a far out post in the Western Territory of the US. His loneliness creeps up on him over time and in a desperate attempt to make a connection with another living being, he tries to befriend the wild wolves in the area. This is when the nearest Native American Tribe first observes the soldier’s personality and quality that eventually draws both parties together in a life long commitment to one another. The soldier is there after named “Dances with Wolves”. In the Native American tradition, a name signifies a person’s personality, purpose, quality of character, or station in life. The name may be given early or later in life, perhaps changed over time to signify new tasks, or accomplishments. Do you remember looking up the meaning of names you picked out as possibilities for your expectant child? Did the meaning matter or were you satisfied with the sound of the chosen name? Do you know what your name means?

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet uses rich language to describe God and finds words that name God for his nature, character, acts of salvation and creation, and for his ultimate purpose for you and I. In a familiar text out of chapter 9, we read these names for God the Savior, the Messiah, the coming one: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And then in chapter 40, Isaiah again uses rich language to describe a victorious Savior: the glory of the Lord revealed, his breath is upon the people, the Lord God comes with might, his arm rules for him, his reward is with him, he is a shepherd. Now in contrast, Isaiah 53 gives us names for our Lord Jesus that are less than majestic: a root out of dry ground, no form or majesty to look at, undesirable, despised and rejected, a man of suffering and acquainted with weakness, one from whom others hide their faces, held of no account, one who carries our diseases, stricken, struck down by God and afflicted, wounded for our sins, his bruises heal us, carrier of our sins. Are you attracted to this Lord or are you confused, or are you repelled?

It seems that God is always doing more than what seems to be happening at first glance. God loves to use the unexpected, to reverse our incomplete understanding of his mystery. God brings together in the story of Jesus, complete opposites. In fact, God seems to delight in using the opposite character quality of what might be expected in order to achieve the Lord’s purposes.

I experienced as a Pastor, in tangible ways, that God can bring wholeness and perspective through what would to the observer be unimaginable. One such relationship was companioning a young couple in their grief over the loss of their baby girl, just 19 weeks gestation. The mom was diagnosed with 3rd stage melanoma. At the same time it was  discovered that their long awaited baby girl had a congenital defect that put her survival post birth in question. Either the cancer or disease was going to snuff the life from their dreams for this long awaited child. This tender mother and father prepared to give birth to their daughter prematurely – and then held her in their hand until life seeped away – she was named Hope. Hope, their daughter, was going to be for them the hope from God that life will come from death.

As the names that Isaiah gives to our Lord centuries before his birth, capture God’s story of finding freedom in pain, at the same time that glory depicts sacrifice; the names that we live into can describe how loss can bring healing, absence can discover fullness. God’s story is reflected in our story every time we choose faith, hope and love, no matter what our circumstances are.

Lent is a time to reflect on how we are in the process of being healed from the inside out – being re-named for God’s purposes. In naming our fears, pain, rejections, hatred, betrayals, guilt, need for control, losses, … we have an opportunity to experience how the God who became all those things for us can change our name. We can discover anew who God is for us and who we are for God.

What’s in a name? Some might say everything, especially after reading the book of Isaiah. However you understand how to be in relationship with God, there is waiting a name that God gives you that describes who you are to Him right now – and, a name that you call God in this season of your life that describes how He is for you. Listen for those names; yours from God, and God’s from you. You might begin your prayer with questions: how do I experience God right now in my life? What in my life circumstances tells me that I need God and God desires me? And finally, if Lent is a time that we experience our mortality and therefore our great need for a Savior; what do I need to name in me that gets in the way of experiencing new life on Easter morning?

Being the Beloved

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by Boni Piper

 

Dear Beloved,

This blog is called, “Being the Beloved” because that is who we are, even though we so seldom live in that place. It’s hard to reconcile the “dirty rotten sinner”(as a friend of mine calls herself) with “the Beloved.” Yet isn’t that the very thing Jesus turned on it’s head? His death and resurrection let the sinner become the Beloved. These two themes are constant in scripture and the church. I learned about the “dirty rotten sinner” way before I learned about being the Beloved. Sinner is the obvious one. I see my sin. I do the things I don’t want to do. I turn from God more than I like to admit. And in that very place of sinning, God’s Spirit touched me and redeemed me and gave me a new name…Beloved.

I think it pains God when I forget that and when I choose to live in the “sinner” lie rather than the beloved truth. Where I make my home changes everything. It is my identity, the spirit that comes from me, the way I treat others and myself, and defines who God is to me and who I am to God. That God the Father sees me through the eyes of Jesus and what he has done demands that I see myself as his Beloved. The love child. The one he loves to spend time with. The one he woos and calls and equips. Shame has no place in the life of the Beloved for God looks upon her/him with love, and smiles!

Being the Beloved means believing in what God has done and said about you. How much of believing you are the Beloved forms your identity? How does claiming the name Beloved help you identify with your true self? What would be different in your life, if being the Beloved was something you believed with all your heart?

That’s what this blog is about. We want to encourage each other in this God given identity of being the Beloved. Knowing that makes us different, but different how? We want to be more about being than doing, but we don’t want to “be” just anything. We want to act, feel and demonstrate that our being defines us, and that being is, the Beloved. It should mean everything to us. It should form our identity, decisions and actions.

It is our hope that this blog would help you in forming your identity, in your discernment and in your actions. Please feel free to dialogue so we can join our wisdom together on this crucial part of being Christian.