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December 30, 2015

“New Year’s Resolution:  Shimmer”

By:  James L. Brewer-Calvert

            My Aunt Ginny collects pop-up books.  One book in her collection emphasizes people’s fears.  Open the book and you are standing at a lectern in front of a church.  Turn the page and snakes leap out to the reader; turn the page and you are atop a tall building looking down; turn the page and you are in a packed elevator; turn the page and you are sitting in a dentist’s chair looking up at a light; turn the page and you are six feet down in a grave looking up.

Pretty scary! It is truly frightening to pick up a cute little pop-up book and suddenly come face to face with one’s fears.  Of course, Aunt Ginny’s book needed one more page, one more pop-up to spring out and confront us with our greatest fear.  We fear our glory.

At his 1994 inauguration speech, the late President Nelson Mandela quoted Marianne Williamson:  “Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

In his book Waking the Dead. John Eldredge also speaks of our fear that we are powerful beyond measure.  Eldredge recognizes that we too often fear our glory despite living daily as beings made in the image of God.

“We do fear our glory.”  Eldredge writes, “The…reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of our sin. We can work on our ‘issues.’  But there is nothing to be done about our glory.  It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his [or her] face.

“And that is why living from your glory is the only loving thing to do. You cannot love another person from a false self.  You cannot love another while you are still hiding. How can you help them to freedom while you remain captive?”  (John Eldredge. Waking the Dead. Page 87-88)

Are you ever afraid to take off your mask and share your true self, your fabulous, beautiful, brilliant, talented God-made self?  Are you just a wee bit reluctant or frightened of living into the butterfly Christ sees in you? It’s our light, not our darkness that frightens us.

Be not afraid!  Shimmer!  Move forward in the beauty of the glory of God that lives in you.  Let your light so shine before God and humanity.  Dare to let the universe know that God is alive and at work in the world . . . and in you and yours.

Happy New Year!  As always, First Christian Church of Decatur, I am delighted to be your pastor.  Shalom, James