Call it what you will —caving, spelunking ... crazy— exploring under the earth is a pastime that just draws some people. My friend and I were two of those people. We had done our planning, assembled our gear, and were presently deep under the earth.
How deep? I don't know. All I know is that we had been going steadily downward the whole time. We started out walking. Then, we had to crouch a bit. Soon enough, we were crawling on all fours.
And always on a slight decline.
Eventually, the cave ceiling became so low the only practical thing to do was to lie down. For most of that journey, we crawled along with just enough room to use our legs and arms to push/pull us. That wasn't so difficult. Even though it was slight, the incline was downward. There was still room to turn over on our backs whenever we wanted to take a break.
The payoff for all of this? The massive "cave of crystals" rumor said we would find at the end of the tunnel. Others had been there before us, and had promised the experience was well worth all the trouble. So on we went. In time, the tunnel dimensions grew pretty tight. We lost the ability to turn over on our backs; just too narrow. There was just enough ceiling height for us and our gear.
Yogi Berra famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” We eventually found ourselves at just such a point. Left? Right? Like many of life’s choices, the two tunnels before us bore nothing to indicate the best way. For no particular reason, we chose the left tunnel.
We had been told that the last stretch was a bit more of an decline, the end of which would be an opening into the large cave. We got pretty excited when the tunnel turned even more downward ... until we came to the wall.
Dead end.
So there we were, one in front of the other, heads down, feet up. At this point, the tunnel was too tight for us to turn around. We hadn't found the crystal cave. We couldn't go forward. We were out of options. We just wanted to give up.
Are you feeling that claustrophobia? That sense of failure? No room to maneuver? Nowhere to turn? Stuck between a rock and a hard place?
The Hebrew word for this kind of situation is "tzoros." It's the word for trouble. Its literal meanings are dire straits, nowhere to turn, between a rock and a hard place, no room to maneuver, out of options, no margin.
That's the word in this week's Lectionary selection from Psalm 91 where God says, "Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them." (NRSV Psalm 91:14-15)
Some trouble is expected. But more often than not, we don’t see it coming. Regardless whether we expected it or were caught off guard, what a difference it makes to not be alone! My friend and I were able to discuss our situation, cheer each other up, and go about the business of moving ourselves, backwards, to the junction. It took a little longer, but our wrong turn helped us know which was the right turn. And taking the right tunnel led us to the crystal cave.
God knows when we are in trouble (tzoros) and will be with us in it. Anne Lamott gets at this in Traveling Mercies: "This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway. It goes down into the rat hole with us . . . and there it swells and comforts. It gives us second winds, third winds, hundredth winds." That is God's response to no margin, to dire straits, to "out of options," to trouble so bad it needs a special word to describe it.
God goes down into it with us. God meets us at the dead end ... even if we’re revisiting that dead end. No matter how much tzoros we’re in, God's expansive (and expanding) love truly can conquer all.
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PHOTO: https://www.theurbanlist.com/sunshinecoast/a-list/queenslands-caves
A different version of this reflection appeared in September 2016 as Dead End.
Link to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: https://smile.amazon.com/Traveling-Mercies-Some-Thoughts-Faith/dp/0385496095/ref=sr_1_1?crid=HS72A167N5OE&keywords=traveling+mercies+by+anne+lamott&qid=1569534211&sprefix=Traveling+m%2Caps%2C316&sr=8-1
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 21 (26) (September 29, 2019)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=281
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
Amos 6:1a, 4-7
Psalm 146
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
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Join us Friday morning for Lectionary Breakfast. We meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an interesting hour of food, scripture, and fellowship.
Blessings,
Steve
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