Day Eleven

Day Eleven // March 9 // The Roots of Stridence

“I came. I saw. I conquered.” – Julius Caesar –

What pushes us? Really. What is it that compels us to press and to challenge and to do? To do more? To do better? More than just competition, what lies beneath our gasping-for-breath assault to win: to win at life, to win at business, to win at school… to win at all costs? Could it be that, lurking just beneath the finely-honed facades that we don every morning, there is a sneaking suspicion that we really are nothing more than the sum total of bank accounts or our resume?

Fueled by such an economy of self, it is no surprise that our world has grown ever more encumbered by the rot of stridence – that welling compunction of the flesh to prove itself capable and worthy: worthy of love, worthy of notice, worthy of grace.

Like a man dreaming of mansions from the shantytowns he’s always known, we know that there’s more. We know that there’s better. But we fool ourselves into thinking that we can get “there” on our own, that we can build those mansions with our own two hands. “All it’ll take,” we tell ourselves, “is just a little more effort, just a little more strain.” Little are we aware, however, that, in all our striving, we sacrifice the very mortar that holds the mansion together: gentleness, patience, grace.

It amazes me how often Jesus had the opportunity to react: to unfair criticism, to unwarranted angst, to unjust condemnation and rage; more amazing, however, is how often He refused to do so. Our Lord refused to get embroiled in the world’s weak-kneed harvest of spoiled fruit. He refused to lower Himself to the stridency of this life and, instead, reflected on the Life that is truly life. He reflected on His real Source of strength, on His real Source of power; Jesus reflected on His real Source of purpose and identity and worth. And, in so doing, He reflected to us the doorway of that sort of life that we – all of us – were created to know.