Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” – Maya Angelou
What’s the wall you feel like you are up against these days?
What kind of wall has COVID-19 thrown up in your life? Walls of anxiety? Walls of joblessness? Walls of mourning?
Aside from COVID-19 there are still many of the other concerns that are part of our lives that are still real, still worrying us, and some are made worse because of the pandemic.
How to pray when you feel like you’re up against a wall, nowhere else to go, not sure what else to do?
It’s easy to pray with anger, frustration, and resentment. But how to pray with empathy, courage and hope when up against a wall?
In Jerusalem there is a literal wall that people press themselves up against to wail when they feel like their lives are up against a wall.
The Wailing Wall in the Holy City is part of the western edge of the Temple, all that is left of what Herod beautified and Titus destroyed almost 2,000 years ago.
It’s a complicated wall, which is why it draws people to it with their complicated lives to pray, to mourn, lament, wail, intercede, plead, hope, and bless.
While there is only one Wailing Wall in the world, we can all relate to the conflicted spirits that are drawn to that wall.
The Western Wall of the Temple Mount
While we don’t have a Wailing Wall in our city, when we feel like we are up against a wall, we can still pray like those in the Holy City where everything is “complicated” and shaped by violence, poverty, resentment, fear and hope.
What about you: if you could go to the Wailing Wall, what would you want to pray about?
Up against the “Wailing Wall”
How to pray when up against a wall? With trust.
You are not alone when you are up against a wall.
It can be a reality-check about where you stand with God, and the little bit of trust you have opens you up to the empathy God has for you, and it can fuel your courage and empathy towards others up against a wall.
What did I pray for when up against the Wailing Wall?
Mercy and peace for the people I know.
Cheesy, I know.
But with my head up against the wall, remembering the many conflicts in my spirit and the world around me that loom large over me, I tried to clear the clutter in my heart to hear the words of the Lord.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” – Jesus of Nazareth
How to pray when up against a wall?
One way is to immerse yourself in the Lord’s Prayer – own it in your spirit, trust that God is hearing you, and with you, and working to answer it in your life, no matter what is ahead of you.
Another way: open your eyes to see the blessings God has brought to you, and is bringing to you – even if all you see are stones and crevices. The Beatitudes – the Blessings – are how Jesus operates in our world with walls and wars, resentments and revenge.
When up against a wall, focus on how God blesses you, and through you, even amidst whatever you are facing.
As a Christian, praying on the heights of Mount Zion where the Jewish Temple stood for centuries, and is now a site for two Muslim mosques, it was sobering and humbling.
Seeing the beautiful Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount inspires me, but also conflicts my spirit. For some it stands as a symbol of God’s favor, for others it’s an obstacle to it.
And if I wanted it to be for me, a source of resentment towards all those who have fomented bloodshed on this site, who have perpetrated violence, who have incited hate and terror.
With a group of YMCA professionals in the OnPrinciple program, I was able to stand next to the beautiful mosques on the temple mount. It compelled me to pray for peace with a renewed earnestness.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God .” – Jesus of Nazareth
Dome of the Rock MosqueSelfie on the Temple MountOnPrinciple Group 2020
The day also included a stop in a space some believe was where Jesus hosted his last supper with his disciples before he was betrayed by Judas and handed over to the government authorities for execution.
It became a Byzantine church, then a mid-millennium mosque, then retaken as a Christian site, now operated by the Israeli government.
Here it was that Jesus washed the feet of his twelve apostles, shared a Passover meal, and then broke bread, passed a cup and asked them to remember him.
It feels “complicated” in that space now. Eucharist is complicated now. So is the gospel, salvation, and Christian hospitality. But somehow we are expected to not give up on peace and mercy.
“Blessed are those who still hunger and thirst for righteousness – for they shall be filled.” Jesus of Nazareth
Upper Room of the Last Supper, Mount Zion
OnPrinciple Team in Upper Room
Olive Tree in Upper Room, gift of Pope John Paul 2; three branches – for Jews, Christians, Muslims – symbol of peace
How to pray when up against a wall? From the heart, with trust, courage and empathy.
Like our Lord, when he was up against the wall, we can learn to pray from him and how to bless through him.
May mercy and peace sprout from your life when you are up against a wall.
What is the way you suffer? How do you adjust to reality? Amidst this pandemic, as we prepare for Easter, consider the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering by Jesus. Instead of despair, we can abide, lead, and serve in faith, hope, love.
Whether you deserve the suffering you eventually experience or not, we’re all faced with the same existential question: what will you do with it?
For the Christian, we believe it all can be redeemed. We are the Good Friday people, the Easter community.
Like every organization in our nation, YMCA’s are also striving to endure this current pandemic-sourced suffering.
But more than that, especially because of our mission and Christian legacy, Y’s are working to also find a way to grow stronger and more loving because of it.
When you find yourself reflecting and grieving on your suffering in the world, it can be a moment to remember the journey of Jesus on his Via Dolorosa, of what he did with his Way of Suffering.
“He who himself does not wish to suffer cannot love him who has.”
Next week is Good Friday, the darkest afternoon of the year for followers of The Way, when we retrace the steps of the Via Dolorosa in our hearts.
This past February, through a YMCA program called OnPRINCIPLE, a cohort of 12 Y workers, along with our 12 mentors and organizers, spent ten days in the Holy Land of Israel and Palestine. On our third day there, we walked the Via Dolorosa, which includes 14 traditional stations of the cross.
Below are my images from most of the stations, along with reflections on The Way, of suffering, of hope in the world with Jesus, the one crucified and resurrected.
First Station: Jesus Condemned and Flogged by Pontius Pilate
“To suffer patiently is not specifically Christian – but freely to choose the suffering is.”
– Kierkegaard
The natural tendency of humans is to avoid suffering, to reduce the risk of suffering, to take preventative measures to reasonably protect ourselves from it.
Fear can have a healthy role in this labor. Or a sick one.
Love for one another, our neighbors and strangers is a more powerful healing agent for responding to unwanted suffering.
Love and fear – each transforms how we, the YMCA, the world, suffers, and why.
Second Station: Crowd Watches Jesus Carry His Cross
Sometimes though our efforts to insulate ourselves from suffering is fueled by irrational anxiety and selfish paranoia.
A crowd mentality can take hold of us, narrowly driving us to resist and revile suffering, which causes us to misunderstand and misapply the medicine at hand.
Third Station: Jesus Stumbles Under His Cross
Sometimes members of the community have to take on suffering as a way to bring healing to those who also suffer.
This can be done out of duty, it can be done out of cynicism and bitterness, but it can also be done fueled by the common bond of humane responsibility to each other.
This is partly what we see in Christ purposefully embarking on the Via Dolorosa; it is what Y members can aspire to, what we in the church can imitate, for the world.
Fifth Station Entrance: Simon of Cyrene takes upon himself the Cross of Christ
“Adversities do not make a person weak, they reveal what strength he has.”
– Kierkegaard
Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene taking up the cross from the shoulders of the fallen Christ
Imagine being Simon of Cyrene, on a religious sojourn from his island homeland to the Holy City for Passover, caught up in the terror and surge of the crowds pressing in on Jesus.
Out of all the men to be asked by the soldier to carry the cross of Christ, why Simon?
Why you, when drawn into the suffering of others?
Fifth Station: Altar
Having walked the Via Dolorosa with fellow YMCA workers, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst the adversity pressed upon our society these days, Simon of Cyrene has become a sort of mentor for me.
Caught up in a storm not of his making, out of his control, he chose to kneel and turn his suffering into a form of holy service.
Simon’s participation in the carrying of Christ’s cross, like ours, is how we contribute to the redemption of the world.
Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
Therefore, dare to renew your decision. It will lift you up again to have trust in God.
For God is a spirit of power and love and self-control, and it is before God and for him that every decision is made.
Dare to act on the good that is buried within your heart.
We don’t know much about Veronica, there is nothing in the Gospels about her tender caress of the bleeding and broken face of Christ.
What courage, though, embodied by this caring woman, seeing this suffering servant of the Lord, mocked and gawked at by the crowds, to venture forth, prompted by the compassion in her heart, to take a risk and wipe the tears of Jesus.
It’s redemptive stories like these that prompt us to enter into the suffering of others, moved by courage and compassion for our Lord.
Seventh Station: Jesus Falls Again Under the Cross
This much is certain: the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally – weaknesses, fears, and all.
For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guise of weakness.
– Kierkegaard, Provocations, 8
When we suffer, whether it be something chronic or uniquely difficult, within our spirit or throughout our body, as a Christian, we are allowed to submit it to the Lord.
When we fall under the weight of it, weak and worn, we can pray for the Lord to remove it.
But, we can also yearn for courageous obedience, seeking to imitate Christ who gave himself to God utterly and unconditionally.
Eighth Station: Jesus Pleads with the Women of Jerusalem
“Therefore never in unlovingness give up on a person or give up hope for him, for it is possible that even the most prodigal son can still be saved, that the most embittered enemy, alas, he who was your friend, it is still possible that he can again become your friend; it is possible that he who has sunk the deepest, alas, because he stood so high, it is still possible that he can be raised up again; it is still possible that the love which has turned cold can burn again – therefore never give up any man or woman, not even at the last moment;do not despair.
It’s remarkable to me that while Jesus suffered, he took time to pray for the women of Jerusalem, to plead for them to flee and seek refuge: do not despair, hope all things.
When we suffer amidst pain, anxiety, and loss, we can become passive, waiting for others to lift us up.
But there are times amidst our straining difficulties that we can lift up the heads and hearts of others with our words to resist despair with enduring hope.
Ninth Station: Jesus Staggers Under the Cross Thrice
It must be firmly maintained that Christ did not come to the world only to set an example for us.
If that were the case we would have law and works-righteousness again.
He comes to save us and in this way be our example.
His very example should humble us, teach us how infinitely far away we are from resembling him.
When we humble ourselves, then Christ is pure compassion.
And in our striving to approach him, he is again our very help.
It alternates: when we are striving, then he is our example; and when we stumble, lose courage, then he is the love that helps us up.
Three times on the Via Dolorosa we stop to meditate on the falling of Jesus under the weight of his cruel cross.
It’s a testament to his perseverance, his faithfulness, his striving to complete what he set out to do – for us, and with us, amidst the world’s suffering.
It’s when we stumble under the weight of suffering in our homes, churches, YMCA’s, community organizations, businesses that we can become humbly ready to approach the Man of Sorrows and discover his compassion and redemptive help.
Front Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, site of the final four stations of the crossEleventh Station: Jesus Nailed to His Cross
By abiding, the one who loves transcends the power of the past.
He transforms the break into a possible new relationship, a future possibility. The lover who abides belongs to the future, to the eternal.
From the angle of the future, the break is not really a break, but rather a possibility.
But the powers of the eternal are needed for this.
The lover must abide in love, otherwise the heartache of the past still has the power to keep alive the break.
It seems impossibly unrealistic to consider how one might abide while suffering, especially while being nailed to the cross.
But in reflecting on the fresco at the eleventh station, it does seem like our Lord is abiding, in love.
Kierkegaard cuts to the heart with his comments on the Lord abiding in love: otherwise, the heartaches of the past still has the power to keep alive the break.
For so many of us, isn’t this – the keeping alive the break – the compounding wound of suffering, the one that sticks us with toxicity more fatal than the initial wound?
Is it humanly possible to abide in love while suffering?
It would take a miracle, divine intervention, holy help.
The site where St. Helena discovered the lost cross of ChristStatue of St. Helena clutching Christ’s cross, mother of Roman-Byzantine Emperor Constantine
Surely Christianity’s intention is that a person use this life to venture out, to do so in such a way that God can get hold of him, and that one gets to see whether or not he actually has faith.
Helena ventured forth with her entourage in the early fourth century to discover the sites of our Lord as described in the New Testament.
What she found became sacred places for Byzantine churches, some which can still be touched today, some in ruins, some preserved.
It was a risky journey, and many wonder if she actually found the original sites of Christ’s gospel work.
But it was a sojourn prompted by faith, sustained by faith, appreciated by faith – much like why we might enter into the suffering of others.
Station Fourteen: top of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus was buried and from whence he resurrected, under the beautiful church cupola
For Jesus and those of us on The Way with him, resurrection is a powerful reality and hope as we endure suffering in this world.
But in love to hope all things signifies the lovers’ relationship to other men and women, that in relationship to them, hoping for them, he continually keeps possibility open with infinite partiality for his possibility of the good.
Consequently he hopes in love that possibility is present at every moment, that the possibility of the good is present for the other person, and that the possibility of the good means more and more glorious advancement in the good from perfection to perfection or resurrection from downfall or salvation from lostness and thus beyond.
The hope of redemptive suffering, to have new life and possibilities on the other side, to have not just survived but to have grown in love and faithfulness – these are divine and sacred realities we need in our homes, our YMCA’s, and communities.
God’s raising up of Jesus from the stone tomb was an affirmation of his loyalty and goodness amidst his temptations and suffering.
It affirms for us that Jesus is worth imitating, that the hope he instills in us is real, and that suffering we endure with him is redemptive.
“What Jesus invites us to imitate is his own desire, the spirit that directs him toward the goal on which his intention is fixed: to resemble God the Father as much as possible.”
Standing on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, I was struck by the historical reliability and faithful tradition that this is the place where Jesus withdrew in preparation for the coming darkness on the night he was betrayed and handed over to the mob.
He prayed, he didn’t panic.
The stony ground upon which Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, surrounded now by the Basilica of the Agony (also known as the Church of All Nations).
Prayer and panic are postures. They are responsive attitudes, often to crisis and pandemonium. They are embodied actions of your spirit.
Jesus often walked up to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives to rest, reflect, and pray. It was a safe place to recover from the hardships of his life and mission, as well as a way to prepare for heading back out into the crowds.
2,000 year old olive tree
Prayer is not a replacement for planning and preparation. Like prudence, it is a virtuous element we employ in our habits and daily rhythms to be at least partially ready for the chaos that will always emerge in our world.
What’s the alternative to paranoia and panic?
When pandemics roil up over us, when pandemonium gets whipped up by gossip, fear-mongering, and ignorance, what can you do in the midst of it? How do you resist the magnetic pull of the crowds to absorb the anxiety of infection and death?
Prayer is not magic incantations. Prayer has no real power within itself. For imitators of Christ, we believe that it is God the Father who embodies the real energy to hold all things together.
When we pray instead of panic, we put forth energy to align our spirit, mind and body to the faithful presence of our Lord.
When our OnPrinciple team was in Jerusalem, we spent time in the Church of All Nations near the rocky ground where Jesus knelt and prayed.
Church of All Nations
aka: Basilica of the Agony
altar by “stony ground”
From there we traversed up to the Lion’s Gate in the Old City, pausing to reflect where the first Christian martyr, Stephen, was stoned with chunks of rocks by a mob whipped up into a frenzied panic by the Pharisee Saul.
OnPrinciple team
Lion’s Gate
Bethesda pool ruins
What did Stephen do when surrounded by the crowd? He knelt on the stony street and prayed, looking up to the heavens, profoundly sensing the real presence of Christ.
It reminded me that it takes preparation to resist the urge to panic in the face of the fear-laced crowds.
From there we walked to the ancient ruins of the Bethesda pool, where Jesus met a man who had been crippled for over three decades. It was humbling to pause by the pool and reflect on the healing power that flowed from the Lord.
It’s interesting to note that the man wanted to be healed. C.S. Lewis observes in his book Mere Christianity, that there are people who don’t want to get well, they’ve gotten so used to their situation and circumstances.
To extend the analogy, there are those who want to panic, who want to be swept away by the pandemonium.
Our OnPrinciple team spent time at the Mount and Pool as part of a longer journey towards engaging in adaptive leadership practices. Each generation inherits and also adds to the complexity of their life, often adding sorrow to sorrow.
For adaptive leaders who want to bring healing to these complex and uncharted situations, to bring peace to the pandemonium, wisdom to the panic, let us can learn from our Lord and his season in Jerusalem.
Christians are called to take responsibility for the welfare of their community. When pandemics spread across the globe, followers of Christ have a duty to imitate the Lord, of leading, praying, preparing, and putting into practice actions that heal, protect, and care in a responsible way.
In seeking to imitate Christ our Lord, in reflecting upon his choices there in the Garden that evening, he chose to pray, not panic. May we prepare for chaos like him, in imitation of our Father in heaven.
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives…knelt down and prayed: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the stony ground.
the Gospel according to Luke the physician, 22.39-44 [NIV]
