Nothing But Fancy

Last night I went to the New York City Ballet.  I had an in house activity (Board Game Night!) and arrived at the very end of the second piece, which was the Prodigal Son choreographed by George Balanchine.  As I entered the dark theatre, the son was returning home.  The dancer painstakingly dragged his body across the stage toward the front gate.  My first thought was, “Where is the Father!  He should see the son and RUN to him.”  As the son approached the gate, the father came out of the house.  The father was twice the size of a normal person with a long robe and grey hair passed his shoulders.  When he saw his son, disheveled on the ground, he opened his arms.  The son hid his head and slowly dragged his whole body, reaching arm and fingers stretched to finally grab the edge of the father’s robe.  He then climbed up the father, using only his upper body, while his legs dangled, curled in the fetal position.  The son’s arms reaching around the father’s neck and holding tight as the father’s arms wrapped around the son, carrying him inside the house.  There was no fatted calf.  There was no jealous older son.  The ballet ended.
I was memorized by the whole thing.  How many times has my return home looked much more like this ballet, than the real story in Luke 15 of the Prodigal Son — dragging my brokenness back to find the Father waiting for me to climb into his open arms.

In college one learns though gen. ed classes and GPA, that it is not as important to learn a subject as it is to know the subject better than everyone else in your class. One can have no clue what they are doing as long as everyone else is just as lost. It’s more about jumping through the professors hoops, than it is about learning a subject.

In the real world, there are way to many students to be the best. Someone will always be better than me and someone will always be worse. Therefore my only competition is myself. Perfection has become my competitor… and nothing I create will ever be good enough.

If that’s not discouraging enough, there is a power that controls the real world and everyone’s way of life. Despite our talent or our depth of understanding we are not in control. People we do not know make decisions that control us. It is all very overwhelming.

Two ideas learned in the “real world”: perfection and control — both unattainable.

Jurgen Moltmann has this idea: “the power of the powerless.” It’s where I recognize my own vulnerability and own the fact that I lack in regards to perfection and I am defenseless in regards to control. Mysteriously, when I admit this… there is no power over me because I have chosen to have none.

The idea didn’t originate with Moltman… it originates with God… Jesus did not say a word at his trial. He hung helpless on a cross… he owned vulnerability and weakness.

So when I think about this big, real world and all the ways that I try be better than everyone else, exemplify perfection, and possess control, I think about God who continues to wait for me to learn that, “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Thoughts inspired by: Richard Foster, The Challange of a Disciplined Life, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1985), p. 204-05.