We are Anti-Fragile
Second Sunday of Advent
December 9, 2018
Right now every High School Senior in the United States is being asked the same questions:
- What are you doing next year?
- If the answer is further education, the next question is “What college/vocational school do you want to go to?”
- And then “what do you want to study?”
How many of you are doing exactly what you thought you wanted to do when you were 18 years old? I for one knew I was going to be a Latin Teacher. And then when I was a junior in college, I thought that I was going to work in Public Administration,and when I was a senior, I was pretty sure I was going to be going to law school. Clearly – none of those plans stuck.
Our paths in life are rarely straight. We think we are going one way, and suddenly,we’re headed down another path. We hit a mountain, or a valley, and we change course, or pace, take a break, and restart.
We have this beautiful image about the coming of the Messiah in both our reading from Baruch, and in Luke’s Gospel.
Prepare the way of Lord,
Make his paths straight,
Every valley shall be filled,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low
And the crooked shall be made straight
And the rough ways smooth,
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
It’s an image taken from Isaiah chapter 40 that proclaims the hope for the expedient arrival of the Messiah – who will not be held up by having to climb mountains, to descend and ascend valley walls, lose times on switchbacks, and have to walk slowly and carefully over scree and other rough places.
For the early Israelites – that hope was that a Messiah, a military warrior, probably someone from the line of the Mighty King David,would arrive and throw off the oppression of invading countries once and for all. Clearly that did not happen – the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans all had power over Israel with in the span of several centuries.
But for Christians – we believe the Messiah has come – and it was not a fighting Messiah, but a Messiah who taught the way of peace and salvation would come through faith, forgiveness, repentance, love, hope and compassion. And the preparer of the Way of the Messiah was the unlikely character of John the Baptist whom we hear about today.
So how do John the Baptist’s words relate to us today? How do we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord? How do we prepare the path?
Over the last two weeks I have read Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead, and also the Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation of Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Let me just say the title of those two books again. In both of these books they talk extensively about paths. In particular, they talk about the importance of helping children become resilient by helping them face challenges,but not handling their challenges for them. The phrase both these books used were“Prepare your child for the path, not the path for the child.” In The Coddling of the American Mind, the authors go on to say, that what we need to remind ourselves of is that we are by nature not fragile (like a teacup), but neither are we resilient (like a plastic sippy cup – that is can be thrown on the floor by a toddle and remain totally unaffected). But we are instead anti-fragile – and what anti-fragile means is that we become stronger through the challenges and set-backs that we face. Just like our muscles and bones get stronger through challenge and stress, so do we emotionally. Of course they realize that there are challenges that have the potential to break us, but on the whole, those types of challenges are rare exceptions and not the rule.
So let us return to considering our own path – all those events in our lives that were challenging, hard, and left us wounded for atime, and caused us despair and grief, and yet we arrived eventually at the other end stronger, wiser, braver, more compassionate beings. St. Paul actually talks about this in hisSecond Letter to the Corinthians chapter 4: “8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” It is a testament to our anti-fragility.
But how do we get from hard pressed to not crushed? How do you get from perplexed to not in despair?
The pathway to the other side is through reflection,through self-examination – asking yourself what did I learn from that experience, what was my part in that going wrong or right, is there someone I need to apologize to, is there someone I need to forgive – myself – or someone else? How can I move on with compassion towards others and towards myself?
We are all works in progress. The Lord is not through with us. I am convinced that when the Lord made each and every one of you, God thought on the day you were born, “Hey,pretty good work God!” But I also think what made us good was this tremendous potential to grow more and more Christ-like throughout our lives, a work that is never fully completed. And unfortunately it is work that takes effort. It is not busy work, but thoughtful and prayerful work.
The Christian spiritual writers have provided us with tools to help us with this journey along the path. St. Ignatius of Loyola gave us the spiritual exercise of the Examen where we are invited each night to go through an inventory of the day.
The pneumonic device for this exercise is the 5 Rs
- Relish the moments that went well and all of the gifts you have received during the day.
- Request the Spirit to lead you through a review of the day.
- Review the day.
- Repent of any mistakes or failures.
- Resolve, in concrete ways, to live tomorrow well.[1]
Another way to do this is to end your day thoughtfully and slowly with a prayer that is a favorite to Companions in Christ who meet each Advent and Lent here at St. Michael’s, and with this prayer I shall end. It is from the New Zealand prayer book.
Lord,
it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our ownlives
rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.
[1] www.loyolapress.com
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