PENDULUM SWINGERS

“Pendulum Swingers” is the title of a new song I’ve been playing incessantly on our IPod lately, whose words have become nearly worshipful for me these past weeks. Over the guitar chords the song uses the balance of a pendulum swing as a metaphor for life today. The pendulum (pictured below) is a weight (or bob) attached to a string that swings from the extremes, moving from one to the other in sudden motion. But as it continues on its journey, it matures to a center of balance as the wide arc slowly reduces to a circular motion. A pendulum uses its energy, or life-force, to find the center: the sanctuary place of balance where it marks its place and purpose. Isn’t that what we’re called to by faith?

Our world seems to be inundated by waves of extremism and reactionary responses. I’m not just thinking of terrorist attacks, but also of our political and cultural landscapes in which those who think or act differently are portrayed not as different and diverse, but rather as divisive and destructive. Oftentimes we react to the extremes we brush up against with equally extreme reactions. If they’re not with us, then they’re against us! Right? My “road rage” is well known and documented in my sermons. When I’m cut off driving down the street or on the 580 by someone holding a cell phone, I react with near explosive anger and over-the-top frustration. My faults and habits are well known – but don’t we all have extreme reactions to the world around us? Maybe for you it’s anger at the “other” political party, frustration with clueless work colleagues that don’t get with the program, or even irritation in never getting the break or rest that you so desperately need. In the midst of the cultural wars, political polarization, and urban jungle that charaterize our life in the East Bay in 2006, it’s easy to lose sight of our focus. We long for a center of balance that seems so foreign, we struggle to understand how to ask for it.

Balance isn’t necessarily a big catch word on the marquee of Christian thought. Didn’t Jesus say that “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mk 8:24) Such challenging words, as well as the teaching that “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” (Mark 9:35) seem to lead more to radical lives of martyrdom, self-denial, and self-destruction than to a life centered on and upon a deeply welcome good news. Where is the message of balance, wholeness, or peace in those words? More often than not, we associate the words “balance” and “centeredness” with other faiths, with light-saber wielding science-fiction heroes or with the tires on our car. Didn’t Jesus say to give everything, to serve everyone, inviting us to a life of extreme service, radical humility, and total submission?

Behind my words is a picture of a pendulum. Which is the most powerful or important place in the swing of the pendulum? Is it 1? 2? 3? 4? 5? The answer is that the whole movement is equally important. It’s the movement – or inertia – of the weight on the string that continues the movement from extreme to center to the other extreme and back to the center. This pendulum swing in fact is the key to the ways watches work, to how we measure earth tremors, how planes and ships navigate around the world, how metronomes help us keep time in music, and how Foucault proved that the earth is rotating in circles.

So what does my scientific treatise have to do with seeking to live a daily life of faith, or with what God may be doing in the life of our church, or calling you to in your own life? The mystery of the pendulum is that the entire swing is essential. The energy or strength of the pendulum swing comes from the swing, points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 – the entirety of the swing. Without the swing – it’s just a bob on a string. Life is like that isn’t it? I think that this is the deep truth of human nature that Jesus was talking about. Jesus isn’t calling us to burn up in a flash of life-destroying service. His words invite us to recognize the other side of the swing – the one we don’t often recognize or validate on our own. I’m talking about the opposite of service, seeking to lead rather than follow, aiming to be first rather than risking to be last. You might say it’s just semantics or world play. Some famous thinkers in history argued that Jesus was simply justifying losers – the weakest of the human race – by teaching that we all should be last. But what I hear him saying is that each person is needed – the first and the last – the powerful and the powerless – the one who washes feet and the one whose feet are washed. What I hear Jesus affirming is that our importance is not just when we feel it nor is it based on what we have to “offer.” Jesus calls us to take up our cross – to follow after him – in the swing of the pendulum – the movement of life that creates and expands community, a movement that draws us in – that completes us in our giftedness and our needs – with purpose, passion, and peace. How do you need such balance or peace in your life today? How are you longing to see your work, actions, words and relationships fit into the pendulum swing of the Kingdom of God?

Peace to you and yours,
Monte