As you approach New Orleans on Interstate 10, as I did a couple of weeks ago, you begin to notice that the land has changed. The ground has become unstable, and with it the surface of the highway, creating a pavement that rises and dips.
No matter how hard the highway engineers work to make the road flat, it doesn’t stay that way for long. Eventually the shifting earth itself takes over, and you find yourself rocking and bobbing along at 70 miles an hour, while all around you the other vehicles — cars, SUVs, 18-wheelers, motorcycles — rock and bob like boats on the water. When you reach the city streets, the rocking and bobbing continues, but slows down to 30 miles an hour or so.
So while I drove toward the city, lifting and dropping more or less rhythmically, I pondered the unsteadiness of human life and how human beings dip and fall and bob again to the surface. I thought of Carol, the mentally ill homeless lady who comes to our door from time to time and who had recently been staying at the house of someone she called the “old lady.” The last time Carol came to the door, I asked her if she was still there. “No,” she said, “the old lady and her boyfriend were fighting all the time, so I left.” Knowing Carol, I imagine it is more likely that she lost control of herself and was told to leave. In any case, she was back on the street. Somehow, though, whatever happens, and in spite of the ignorance of government officials who have told her she is not ill and should just get a job, she manages to surface, buoyant, rocking and bobbing by the grace of God.
And in our own more privileged lives, we too move ahead – not smoothly, but by fits and starts, and not on a surface that is entirely smooth and flat. We dip and go under and then come up for air; we rock and bob along in the company of others who share the uneven path we are given to follow. And through it all, we are sustained by God’s grace, held up so that in spite of everything, we may take in life and be transformed in the breath of God’s Spirit.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
- Psalm 23