The following is a short essay that I wrote eight years ago now. It was a culmination of hurt and loss that coincided with the impending decision to leave the urban education program for which I thought I was brought to Chicago to complete. My hope is that this will encourage those who are experiencing a deep level of personal insecurity and anxiety that God is sovereign and that He has a greater plan and purpose for our lives. Rest in Him and find comfort in His redeeming love.
“The Skin I’m In” by Michael Lee Carter, The Chicago Academy
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
This brief reflection deeply evolves from within my own personal anxieties and disappointments as I PUSH through the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) in Chicago, IL. This personal response was prompted as I read an excerpt from and comments on Victor E. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning in chapter eight of “Mosaic of Thought[1].”
I often feel so utterly trapped in my own skin. Not in a cultural, ethnic, or racial prison that some may interpret to be a black man’s limbo, but caught in the trappings of a fleshly way of thinking. One that ultimately finds a man snared like a fish in a net. Although flailing and fighting to escape, soon exasperated, that fish wastes away and is soon destroyed. I am the fish.
I have played the role of fish far too long in this short melodrama entitled “My So-Called Adult-Life.” Far too long have I sought to coexist in a vacuum of perpetual childhood; one free from any real responsibilities. A desire, like Peter Pan, to never – grow – up. However, reality harshly reminds me day after disappointing day that I am a man, a priest whose responsibilities are not only to the self and to self-learning, but toward others and foremost to God. So, in the deep hurts and the painful sense of loss – loss of time, loss of integrity, financial loss, and loss of purpose – I wallow and wail. My breath is soon expired.
Jesus spoke to the five thousand at Capernaum and told them that they did not follow him because of the miracles they saw him perform; but that they followed and sought after him because their bellies were filled. He then commanded them to work not for the food that spoils, but for the food that brings eternal life. What am I really working for: material goods, recognition, fame, and/or some kind of entitlement? I know that I have been called to a greater plan and purpose in life than these things. These are the trappings that find many people eagerly queued and impatiently waiting to cash in their “great works.” While in the meantime, they are void of love, lacking in peace, destitute of faith, and void of hope. These are the fruit of the Spirit by which our passions for greater and more meaningful things are driven. Hence, redeeming the time, I am ready to escape my skin, to shed this flesh, and to embrace a new carapace with new attitudes and new perspectives on life; to adopt a more eternal worldview, even as I am adopted.
For I am God’s poetry, his unique ode, sonnet, free verse; continually humbled at the editor’s desk and being made fit for his eternal purposes. Read between the lines. The hurts and the losses are still there. However, my life and attitudes about life cannot be dictated by them any longer. My freedom is in Christ, and I choose to keep my eyes fixed on my beloved. I cannot fulfill his purposes if I allow my flesh, a carnal worldview, to detour my thinking and cast shadows of doubt on every decisions that I make. I must learn to love, love to learn, and permit myself to grow up and to place those hurts and losses in perspective. I am a giant sturgeon resting in pristine waters, contemplating the deep, rich meanings and the beautiful images of my life in Christ. My life as a husband. My life as a son. My life as a writer and an educator. My life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Satan’s nets are torn and utterly destroyed thereof.
[1] Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann, 1997
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