Two Megs, A Hole in Water, A Stop Sign - Hope, Fear, and the Present Moment

Quick “programming update” - MaryAnn McKibben Dana and my next Pop Culture Pastor’s Hour conversation is going to be this coming Monday at 2pm. We’re going to be talking “What’s Saving Our Lives Right Now”. We’d love to have you join in live or check it out after. Ok…onto today…

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I first read something from Dr. Margaret (Meg) Wheatley back around 2006. It was called Leadership and the New Science and she talked about leadership through the lens of new insights in science - notably in quantum physics. I read this as a part of my Doctor of Ministry studies and the book became a core text for our group. Dr. Wheatley showed up again this past weekend during a brief 24 hour retreat with some of my pastor-types in the area. Our faciliator, Troy Bronsink, shared this short Wheatley article with us and it is still working on me. I would encourage you to take a moment and follow this link to read the article before you go further. It is the article that started a bunch swirling around in my heart and head this week..

The Place Beyond Fear and Hope - Dr. Margaret (Meg) Wheatley

Ok - welcome back. I have three images that were from this week and from what that article spoke into me (as well as book I’m reading)

The first two images were from that brief retreat where I received the article. The third is from the morning after I returned home. Let’s start with the first two.

Sunday night, I wandered out onto the deck of the building where we were meeting and noticed this really unique water pattern on one of the tables. There was that “hole” in the middle of the water. I didn’t look too closely to figure out why but was fascinated simply by it being there. I also saw the sunset (the deck faced west) reflecting in the edges of the water. Camera came out. Click.

Hope

The next morning, while it was still below freezing, I was curious whether the “hole” was still there. Sure enough it was, but this time frozen with nearly the exact same shape. Camera again came out. Click.

Fear

Back to the first...I say it represents hope to me because hope is fluid, hope reflects, hope brings life and restoration. It is also a bit more nebulous and harder to take hold of. The frozen one, however, spoke of fear because when we are fearful, we can become literally and figuratively more rigid and unyielding. It is also possible to hold it more tangibly but it is also more able to shatter.

Hope and Fear. Two photographs, two different senses. Yet the same water.

Early in the article, Dr. Wheatley writes:

Fear is the necessary consequence of feeling hopeful again. Contrary to our belief that hope and fear are opposites where one trumps the other, they are a single package, bundled together as intimate, eternal partners. Hope never enters a room without fear at its side. if i hope to accomplish something, I’m also afraid i’ll fail. You can’t have one without the other. Those of us raised in western culture were never taught that fear is the price of hope. rather, we can’t envision life without hope...¹

But she then goes on to describe how we need to move beyond the simple binary of hope and/or fear. She isn’t saying that we stop holding hope or somehow stop being afraid (fear can be a natural and healthy reaction when it is not being used to control people as it too often is). But instead that if we stay in that binary place, we will continue on a roller coaster of the highs of hope and the crushing depths of fear.

Life these days is a roller coaster ride between hope and fear, oscillating wildly between what’s possible and what is. Like all roller coasters, this one is both exhilarating and terrifying, often simultaneously. we are fully engaged in being part of the solution, and then we plunge into despair at the enormity of the challenges and the fear that our efforts will fail.

So she calls us to move beyond just that binary to stop and find ourselves in the present moment. “All fear (and hope) arise from looking backward or forward. The present moment is the only place of clear seeing unclouded by hope or fear.”, she writes.

And here’s where the third photo comes in.

The sunrise on Tuesday morning here was simply stunning. But it was when I got out of the car and was walking around to the other side to get Scout out that I saw the message.

Stop

Be in this moment. Right now. It was reaffirming what I read from Dr. Wheatley and also what I had read in A Wind in the Door earlier in the morning...From Proginoskes to the other Meg (not Wheatley, but Meg Murry the character in the book...how interesting the overlap)

All that is required of you is to be in the Now, in this moment which has been given us.²

Be in the Now. Stop. Do what can be done in the now and not be tied to a hope of what might be or a fear of what was but instead knowing that hope and fear walk together in the present. One more quote from Dr. Wheatley (Meg)...

We may not succeed in changing things, but we choose to act from the clarity that this is right action for us. people who endure and persevere for their cause describe clarity as a force arising within them that compels them to act. they express this by saying, “i couldn’t not do it.”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of what is ahead in the future, whether that is what might happen tomorrow or what might happen much further down the line. But I’d also be lying if I said that I also didn’t hold hope along with that when I see the courage of people in the present moment.

And when things seem the most difficult, speak and act from courage and love in the present, just as Meg (Murry) did in the quote below from The Wind in the Door (apologies for the names, etc that aren’t familiar if you haven’t read the book, but you’ll still get the gist)

Name you, Echthroi.
I Name you Meg.
I Name you Calvin.
I Name you Mr. Jenkins.
I Name you Proginoskes.
I fill you with Naming.
Be!
Be, butterfly and behemoth,
be galaxy and grasshopper,
star and sparrow,
you matter,
you are,
be!
Be caterpillar and comet,
be porcupine and planet,
sea sand and solar system,
sing with us,
dance with us,
rejoice with us,
for the glory of creation,
sea gulls and seraphim,
angle worms and angel host,
chrysanthemum and cherubim
(O cherubim)
Be!
Sing for the glory
of the living and the loving
the flaming of creation
sing with us
dance with us
be with us

Be!

They were not her words only.
They were the words of Senex,
of the Deepening Sporos,
of all the singing farae,
the laughter of the greening farandolae,
Yadah itself,
all the mitochondria,
all the human hosts,
the earth,
the sun,
the dance of the star whose
birthing she had seen,
the galaxies,
the cherubim and seraphim,
wind and fire,
the words of the Glory.³

I know this all may feel a bit random (It kind of does to me as I re-read it) but it is what has been swirling around in me this week and I hope there’s some line of thought through all of this that speaks to you.

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A few more pics - from the time at the retreat and then the sunrise from Tuesday morning, including Scout looking like she’s leading me into Mordor...

Sunrise at the retreat

Tuesday's sunrise without the Stop sigh

I captioned this "On to Mordor" when sending to the family group chat

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

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1. https://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/BeyondHopeandFear.pdf - All other quotes from Dr. Wheatley come from this same article

2. L’Engle, Madeleine. The Wrinkle in Time Quintet: Books 1-5 (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet) (p. 238). Kindle Edition.

3. Ibid