"Everything Old Becomes New Again"

You’ve probably heard the saying before. People use it to note the return of fashions from the seventies, or family values from the fifties. It’s more startling when the time between old and new is 2,700 years.

This Advent, the scripture readings for the Daily Office have taken us through some of the judgment passages in Isaiah. These can be disturbing in any year, but at the end of 2008—as an entire American era has come to a crashing halt—they are downright haunting, because they could have been written yesterday. For instance:

The Lord sent a word against Jacob, and it fell on Israel…but in pride and arrogance of heart they said: “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” So the Lord raised adversaries against them. (9:8-11)

I’ve heard this unfounded optimism so often during the past 25 years. Stock market crashes in 1987 and 2000? Don’t worry, things will bounce back. Huge national debt? But it’s fueling the economy! Remember the books with titles like Dow 50,000? And then subprime mortgages came and swept it all away.

The Lord cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day—elders and dignitaries are the head, and prophets who teach lies are the tail; for those who led this people led them astray, and those whom they led were left in confusion. (9:13-16)

Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi scheme. Investment bankers and their relentless push for higher profits. Before them, Ken Lay and Enron. All of them led us to believe things that shouldn’t have made sense to us, but did. They, too, have been swept away.

[The king of Assyria] says: “Are not my commanders all kings?...Is not Samaria like Damascus?...shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols what I have done to Samaria and her images?” When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride. (10:8-12)

Consider the Bush administration’s approach to Iraq. America knows how to fight wars; hell, we’ve won almost every one in the last 200 years! We’ll handle Iraq the same way. No need for overwhelming force. Five years later, Americans’ confidence in this type of arrogance has been swept away.

Should we view all these events, then, as God’s judgment against the U.S.? There’s no way to know for certain, and it’s dangerous to assume that we could. But I think we can read these passages simply as an apt description of the way the universe works: the arrogant and the corrupt and the complacent do get their comeuppance, eventually. When it happens, we come back to reality. We pay attention to the things that deserve our attention. Our life together recaptures a measure of sanity and health.

And eventually, something else becomes new again. Today the lectionary turns a corner:

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding…. With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. (11:1-6)

A Messiah comes among us. He brings justice for the poor and the meek, the Divine Spirit to all of us, and an abiding peace to all the world.

In these times especially, we need such a Messiah. In these times as always, we have him—either in anticipation and hope (if you are Jewish) or as one who has come and will return (if you are Christian). Happy Christmas, Chanukah, or whatever feast you celebrate in this holy time.

The Danger of Balance

Three and a half years ago, in my pledge to become a monastic associate, I promised to live a life of balance, built around the quest for God. Rather than dominating my existence, as it had for two decades, work would coexist with play, family, service, study, and above all prayer.

I never imagined how subversive—or how isolating—this would be.

Yesterday I attended a business seminar on social media, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s easy for me to come away from these seminars with a fear that the world has passed me by: oh my goodness, my customers have moved on to the latest and greatest, how could I not have known, I have to rush back to the office to keep up.

Balance, on the other hand, makes it hard to care whether I keep up—because it forces me to see there’s more to life than the latest trends, or even success at work.

At business functions, it’s almost a cliché to ask people “How’s business?” and have them say, “Busy!” Constant activity seems to be required for membership in the club: if we’re not busy, maybe we’re not successful. No wonder so many people wear busyness as a badge of honor—or a protective shield.

Balance, on the other hand, asks us to let go of our obsession with busyness and pay attention to something larger.

The life of balance can be subversive because of what it leads to. You start asking, “Why am I rushing around?” You have more time and clarity of thought to question all kinds of other things too. And you begin to live differently. Perhaps, in the interests of a more spiritual, more balanced life, you pass on a promotion that requires crazy hours, or you refuse a social commitment on the weekend because you’ve decided to keep Sabbath. Maybe you decide not to hit the malls during the holiday season, or you’re just not as productive as you used to be.

Just like that, you’ve broken the social contract—the one that equates constant activity with individual self-worth. The social contract won’t care, but the people who adhere to it may not understand you anymore.

That’s where the loneliness comes in. Suddenly you no longer speak the language of your old pals and co-workers. They talk about how much they’re rushing around; you have no reference point. They look for a place to squeeze in coffee with you; your schedule is flexible.

This can be profoundly disorienting. In my life, I often wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I question my self-worth. Sometimes I think how comfortable it would be to dive back in to busyness.

And then I look at the benefits of balance. For instance, I think more clearly. My vested interests are fading away, leaving me freer to approach things with an open heart. I get to follow a mysterious Spirit one small step at a time on a path whose form I can’t begin to guess. Part of every day involves communion with the ground of all being. I’m privileged to, however imperfectly, try to live a life for something larger than myself.

This life of balance is lonely. It is disorienting. It can be dangerous to things like income or financial security. And yet I would never go back. Even if I could.