The Law of Undulation
My Dear People,
The Law of Undulation: that life is like the waves on a sea, a series of ups and downs, troughs and peaks; and it's in the troughs where, more often than not, we allow God to do God's deepest, most transformative work in us.
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C.S. Lewis gave us this ironically witty articulation of a deep spiritual truth. God does reach us, and speak to us, on the peaks as well, of course; however, if we've paid sustained attention to our own lives, we know that it's through, during, and after the more difficult experiences, that we are more likely to let God do the holiest work in us, and in our world.
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The black and blue images we now see of the Gulf of Mexico present us with just such a difficult moment, to put it mildly, only this experience is of gargantuan proportions. To reprise a question that we've had to ask more often than we would like recently: Will we let this crisis go to waste?
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Bill McKibben says, "For 20 years there's been a bipartisan effort to avoid taking action on climate change." The question then is, will this trough take us down deep enough, that is, will it be so painful, that we will make the choice to change, to change the way we live, to change the way we inhabit God's green earth?
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Last October, "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history" took place, according to CNN, when 5,200 rallies took place across the globe, in 181 countries, calling on world leaders to face into and honestly reckon with global warming and the state of the environment. A movement for change is underway, and yet, in order for the necessary change to happen, that movement must grow exponentially, and you and I must be a part of it.
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After all, after having told us to be fruitful and multiply, the very first thing God told us to do was take care of his creation.
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This is political. (Of course.) And it is spiritual. (Of course.)
As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "We do not begin to approach a solution of our problems until we acknowledge the fact that they are spiritual."
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So then, is this trough deep enough, or shall we wait for a deeper one?
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
