What to Do?

I’m being picked on by my manager at work. The classic type-A personality, she has no patience for this old man that ended up sorely out of his element when I needed a job after surrendering my credentials as a pastor of The United Methodist Church. Add to this the liability of my gender for which she has nothing but disdain, and you have all the ingredients for a hostile working environment that is the most unpleasant I’ve been subjected to since the cliquish days of high school.

I was detailing my woes in an instant messaging session with daughter Rachel when she took the golden opportunity to remind me that perhaps I needed to refresh my understanding of logotherapy. Little had I known that she had been waiting for such a chance to get even ever since I suggested that the possible solution to the distress she was experiencing during her high school days might be reading Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

The premise of logotherapy is remarkably practical. As persons we have no control over many of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The only thing that we really have control over is how we respond or react to those circumstances. Frankl’s imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp served as a horrendously extreme example of this. He had no control over being a prisoner subjected to unthinkably inhumane conditions, but he discovered that he had virtually absolute control over how his inner self coped.

I used nine sermons (October 5 through December 7) to outline my understanding of process theology. It was an admittedly primitive attempt to help make the distinction between theological concepts when viewed from either a static or dynamic perspective. While this might have seemed to have had some pseudo-scholarly appeal, my truer intent was to hopefully provide a set of tools that have a very practical application to the reality we experience day-to-day, moment-to-moment, many times without having a great deal of control over it.

This is why I have chosen to share with you an example of a circumstance in my life that presently seems to me increasingly untenable on a daily basis. So, it is not necessarily my aim to provoke your pity, even though these days I’m happy to receive it wherever I can get it. What is the point, however, – as Rachel so wisely reminded me – is to first, communicate that even the deepest thinkers bleed when cut; and second, that from this compassionate viewpoint might arise a realistic way to give some sort of meaning to even the most meaningless of circumstances.

In other words, I have a new appreciation for and understanding of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and hate to have to go to work. What’s more, from this experience I have learned that I am not alone, that there are many others who feel the same as I. The challenge then becomes to determine how my personal theology influences my perception of my circumstances and what it says to me about whether or not I am in a position to do anything with or about them. If my theology cannot do this for me, then of what value is it?

Even more to the point is the need to examine each of these high-minded ideals to see if it really has the potential for positively affecting a real-life experience. So, regardless of whether my understanding of atonement is static or dynamic, the question fundamentally becomes: does it have a genuine influence upon the way I experience the current moment? And since there is this polarity to choose between, do I find either the static or dynamic perspective to be more effective?

I have found it very easy to fall into the “static trap.” I have caught myself asking “why me?” It’s not been all that hard to fatalistically accept that I am presently caught up in some sort of preordained plot that is serving to payoff some gargantuan karmic debt that may or may not be related to something I’ve done to offend the gods. For certain, though, to place my current predicament in the context of a divinely authored script in which my role is set in stone creates a genuine sense of hopelessness.

Now, one way to try to counter this hopelessness is to continue in the vein of my static mindset. If God has dictated my current untenable situation, but if my “religion” tells me that God really does love me and wants things to be better for me, then I have to place my belief in the plot yet to be acted out in which my redemption and salvation are part of a predetermined future for which I must simply wait. This definition for “faith” I find a great many of my evangelical contemporaries subscribing to.

What I don’t like about this point of view is that it places God at such an emotional and physical distance. Atonement fails to make much sense in a predetermined environment in which a higher power has already decided upon the outcome of my personal future. What difference does it make whether I’m at one with God in such a scenario or not? My fate is already sealed, in a manner of speaking, and I’m left with little more than a superstitious wish that saying the right words or performing the right actions will magically change the ending.

When I realize, however, that I’m involved in an ongoing process of being in relationship with my Creator, atonement begins to make all kinds of sense. Once I comprehend that the Power within me is itself One, I enter into a co-creative mode that becomes mutually beneficial and satisfying to the degree that I align myself with it. From this perspective my life takes on new meaning and authenticity as I intimately work through with my “suffering companion” whatever circumstances a dynamic reality presents.

So how is this kind of fanciful thinking going to affect things when I go back to work Monday? Is my manager going to suddenly be a more compassionate person? Are the 2,000 cases that are assigned to me going to be reduced to a more reasonable number? Is the administration going to be more receptive to my opinions? I doubt it. What I do not doubt, though, is that if I continually remind myself that I am not alone such remembrance will be the source of the strength, courage and creativity I need to shape my response to whatever situations present themselves.

I’ll let you know what happens. Amen.