Aimee Mullins wears many hats, some of which are athlete, actress, and public speaker.
If you’re a fan of Stranger Things on Netflix, you might recognize her as Terry Ives, Eleven’s birth mother.
If you’re a fan of TED Talks, you might remember her popular speech about adversity and adaptability.
It was the latter of these credits that caught my attention this week.
Mullins was born with a medical condition that required doctors to amputate both of her legs beneath the knee. She is well versed, therefore, in the conversations, emotions, and policies that shape our understanding of topics like accessibility and disability, even as she tries to deconstruct and expand how we think about those things.
One of her points of emphasis is the importance of seeing adversity as normal, not as some sort of deviation from what we should expect, not as some sort of curse that requires a hero’s effort to survive.
As sure as there will be sunny days and rainy ones, too, we will encounter resistance, pushback, and hardships as we move through life.
“Adversity,” Mullins remarked, “is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.”
The combination of matter of fact realism and optimism in these words really appeals to me, in no small part because few things get me thinking about the need to adapt like the start of a new school year.
September mornings in the Radmacher house look very different from August’s.
Three kids in three schools, two drop offs, one bus stop, new classes, new expectations, new schedules, new after school routines–even as I get caught up in how all the changes are affecting me, I’ve had to check myself and remember that all of these changes hit the kids even more intensely.
It’s no accident that within the first two weeks of school, everyone in our house has called it a night and gone to bed before 7PM at least once already.
Change can be exhausting.
So I was ready to hear what Aimee Mullins had to say.
“Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.”
Please, tell me more.
Mullins’ TED Talk continued,
The idea I want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity as it is opening ourselves up to it, embracing it, grappling with it….maybe even dancing with it, and perhaps if we see adversity as natural, consistent, and useful we're less burdened by the presence of it. [To paraphrase Charles Darwin,] “it's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”And that’s when it hit me. Our capacity to adapt is one of, if not humanity’s greatest trait.
Across the wide expanse of the human experience, we find examples of individuals and entire communities adapting to meet the challenges of specific moments, particular climates, and emerging threats.
Humanity has found a way to thrive in the extreme heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter.
We’ve figured out how to live in tiny isolated villages and sprawling megacities.
And people have survived situations and circumstances that they never would have chosen, that they wouldn’t even have wished upon their worst enemy, because deep inside they were determined that this moment, this challenge, this hardship would not break them.
This brings me to the scripture before us this morning, another episode of the Bible’s epic story of Exodus.
Last week we jumped into this story by reflecting on the moment when God created a space at the edge of the Red Sea where Moses and his people collected themselves and saw a way forward revealed where no way once seemed possible.
I told you then that I am approaching this season at Asbury as if we’re standing on the water’s edge like Moses and the people and that this is our moment to catch our breath, steady ourselves, listen, and find our way.
The Exodus story continues this morning on the other side of the sea where Egypt and slavery have been left behind, but new challenges arise daily–challenges like answering the timeless question, “What do we have to eat?”
Unfortunately, for the Exodus people, the answer was, “Not a lot.”
We pick up the story in chapter 16.
The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." (Exodus 16:2-3)Now it’s very tempting to shake our heads as we read these verses and stand in harsh judgment of the Israelites.
“They’re so ungrateful.”
“All they do is complain.”
Nag. Nag. Nag.
There have been a lot of sermons preached in that vein, and I’m sure I’ve preached a few of them–as if we’ve never been so “hangry” that it overwhelmed our sense of gratitude and reason.
But that quote from Aimiee Mullins got me thinking about getting into this story from another angle–of not seeing it as an indictment of the people’s lack or gratitude, but as an acknowledgment that adaptation is an essential characteristic for moving forward with faith and purpose.
Let me explain.
Those people who were complaining to Moses were, in fact, survivors. They had seen some things and, confronted by tremendous hardships in Egypt, they adapted and thrived.
Exodus chapter 1 says, “the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” (Exodus 1:7)
We should be really careful, then, about making them out to be weak-willed complainers.
But even still, in our story, those survivors are facing an existential threat.
They’re not imagining things.
They need to eat.
And it’s an ugly side of our privilege that would shame hungry people for not being thankful.
No, I think it’s possible that the point of our story isn’t to show us that the people lacked gratitude as much as it is about helping us to see that they were trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions and that the old way wasn’t going to work for them anymore.
Egypt’s flesh pots and bread ovens couldn’t do anything for the Israelites in the wilderness.
Those were just memories now, memories of a different problem with a different solution that wasn’t relevant to people’s current situation at all.
Doing what had worked in the past was a recipe for hunger in the present because the menu was changing in the wilderness.
The LORD spoke to Moses, "I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'"“Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.”In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.” (Exodus 16: 11-15)
As we consider the challenges we’re facing today, I believe it’s helpful to ask ourselves if we’re trying to solve them with solutions to questions that aren’t even being asked of us anymore.
Maybe age and health have shifted the options available to us.
Maybe you’re moving into a situation in which you need to be more independent than you have been, maybe it’s time to be more of a team player.
And for our church—every church for that matter—we’re always confusing the timelessness of the Gospel with the timeliness of the ministries to which we’re being called.
How many people, how many churches, are beating their heads against the wall trying to figure out what happened and why what they’re doing isn’t working for them anymore, when it used to work so well?
Like life in the wilderness, doing what worked in the past is a recipe for hunger–or frustration, or aimless church life–when we fail to hear the questions that the present moment asks of us.
But thanks be to God, hunger isn’t our destiny.
We just need to learn to live with a new menu.
The promise of our faith is that God offers us what we need to face our present moment, whatever our present moment is.
The Exodus story calls it manna from heaven.
Jesus said it’s daily bread and we should pray for it.
And in the lived experience of God’s people, it’s the willingness and openness to say this challenge, this hardship, this “adversity is just change that I haven't adapted to yet,” but I can, and I will, because God has more to say about who I am and what I can accomplish than any one or anything else.
And that’s why, even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, our’s is a story of Good News.
Thanks be to God for this Good News today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment