Chaplain’s Corner: CLXXXVII
“Staying Centered”
In his book, “Soul Keeping”, author and pastor John Ortberg recalls a visit that he and some friends made to an open-air street fair. Among the attractions was a mechanical bull, the kind that brave and foolhardy people attempt to ride. The man sitting at the remote control panel gave Ortberg the lowdown.
There are twelve levels of difficulty on this bull. It might not be all that easy, but the key is you have to stay centered, and the only way to do that is sit loose. People try to clamp on too tight. Don’t do that. You have to be flexible. “If you think you can be in control of the ride you’ll never make it. You have to keep moving. Shift your center of gravity as the bull moves.”
Ortberg decided he would give it a shot. He climbed atop the bull, which began to move slowly. Then picked up the pace. John held on tightly. “Then I remembered his advice,” he writes, “so I loosened up, and it kept moving faster and jolting and bucking and jumping. I was hanging on sideways. My arms were flailing around all over the place. I just hung on and finally the bull slowed, and it stopped, and I was still on the bull. It wasn’t pretty but I made it.” Ortberg couldn’t wait to see the look on the operator’s face-some acknowledgement of his triumph. He glanced over at the man, who looked right back, shook his head, smiled and said, “That was level one.” John then adds, “Level two lasted maybe a second. The bull won.”
Most of us do pretty well when life comes at us on level one. The problem is that life never stays at level one for very long. The key is to have a center.
A center is an emotional and spiritual home base. A place where your soul is at peace. The point that doesn’t move when everything else around you is in motion, or seems to be falling apart. Apart from a center, we’re not going to be able to stay in the saddle when life escalates to levels two through twelve. It’s fairly safe to tell if your soul isn’t centered.
Life is not just busy-busyness is a constant for most of us-but hurried. Hurry is the overwhelming sense that I need to be somewhere else or get on with the next task, rather than slow down enough to experience in the present moment. You’ll feel impatient. And midly irritable. And increasingly desperate to control circumstances that quite frankly are beyond your control. Ortberg observes, “The soul without a center finds its identity in externals.”
If life isn’t centered in God, I’ll try to live as if my work, my appearance, my accomplishments, or my circle of friends will allow me to stay on the bull for a few seconds longer. But it’s obvious we are fooling ourselves. When life gets crazy or stressful even here at Westminster Village you can try to hang on tighter. Or you can go a different direction.
Consciously choose to relax your grip. Offer this prayer: “Lord please center me today in your hands.” And trust that God is a sure grip that will never let you go.
Faithfully, Ron Naylor
