It's Not All About Doing Better, But Sometimes It Is
Sunday in yoga, our instructor cued us to choose an intention that might guide us through class and hopefully the day. A word or phrase or feeling we can come back to once we’ve inevitably become distracted by the pose, or children, by deadlines, or traffic. Believing the Spirit lives inside me, it’s common I’ll ask for prompting since my own intentions don’t usually get me as far. Sometimes one will come, sometimes it won’t, but this time it did, and I hoped I could be positive.
How very pedestrian of You, I thought, kitschy, but okay. It quickly untangled itself to me, though, less in the way of Positive Thinking and its self-helping power and more in the way of edification — loosely translated as ‘better’. Fruitful. A more beneficial choice. After all, we only know positive because we know negative, and most would say there’s one of the two that’s better. Christians only know they’re born straight into sin because they’ve heard talk of a better Garden and so on and so forth with almost any human abstraction.
Later in the day, Ryan was driving me for coffee and I had to repeat something I’d already said to him earlier. He’d been preoccupied and unaware. I calmly brought up the great listening v. hearing debate and then frustratedly spiraled into a more unhelpful lecture. “Just know that when you respond this way, it makes things worse.” The conversation ended and that word stung my ear. The radio played, but it echoed loud and near and long like a hiss. Worse.
I’ve always had poor tone but never knew what people meant when they’d say so. I’m learning more and more that my arranging of words has much to do with it. How might that final stinging sentence have been different? Could I have said the same thing more positively arranged? “In the future, if you could let me know X, that would make me feel better.” An intention of positive arrangement didn’t mean “shaking it off” or minimizing hurt or changing the meaning or putting on a happy face. That day, positive was quite literally meant to show me in the direction of Better. Metaphorically better and specifically ‘better’. Word for word. Something we can only conceptualize by our knowing of Worse. Producing value rather than inducing shame.
As I was reflecting on that prompting and its immediate consequences, I came across this prayer in one of my favorite books, The Valley of Vision. You should read it below and not let the Puritan language scare you away. More than anything, I came away grateful that indeed I’m a sinner, but I’m not insensible of my state. “We suck and we sin, but praise God for the cross.” No! I mean, yes. But we have the gift of a wakeful conscience who’s qualified to nag us when we do harm. Divine truth, on suitable occasions, will inform, caution, guide, and comfort. In the way of spiritual growth, what a good thing to have.
O thou most high,
In the way of thy appointment I am waiting for thee, my desire is to thy name, my mind to remembrance of thee. I am a sinner, but not insensible of my state. My iniquities are great and numberless, but thou art adequate to my relief, for thou art rich in mercy; the blood of thy Son can cleanse from all sin; the agency of thy Spirit can subdue my most powerful lusts.
Give me a tender, wakeful conscience that can smite and torment me when I sin. May I be consistent in conversation and conduct, the same alone as in company, in prosperity and adversity, accepting all the commandments as right, and hating every false way.
May I never neglect what is necessary to constitute Christian character, and needful to complete it. May I cultivate the expedient, develop the lovely, adorn the gospel, recommend the religion of Jesus, accommodate myself to thy providence.
Keep me from sinking or sinning in the evil day; Help me to carry into ordinary life portions divine truth and use them on suitable occasions, so that its doctrines may inform, its warnings caution, its rules guide, its promises comfort me.
Arthur Bennett, The Valley of Vision