flux

"Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me in ministry."  -The Apostle Paul, 2nd Timothy 4.11

On a previous trip, the Apostle Paul was so adamant against taking Mark with them, that Barnabas parted company with him.  In Paul's eyes, Mark had let them down before (Acts 15.37-39).  But in his letter to Timothy, Paul asked for Mark by name because he had faith that he had learned from his mistakes, and valued his skills, heart, and determination.  Mark had changed.  He had grown. He was the same Mark, but enhanced by experience.

All of life is a process.  Safe and warm in the mother's womb, we are spat out into a cold, seemingly hostile environment, and made to draw our first breath by a slap on our bare behinds!  We move through all the stages of infancy, the toddler years, and into childhood in an ever-changing world, ourselves changing and growing constantly.  In those first several years we process more information and change more than all the rest of our years.  All the learning, growing, and changing are all part of the process that is ordained by the Creator, and prepares us to live in a world in constant movement, independent of those most special benefactors, parents.  The entire process of life could be boiled down to this:  learning to learn.

Until I was 23 years old, I thought the objective in the process was to live without making mistakes.  On a road-trip  with my Dad I began discovering the inconsistencies of this theory.  In our conversations He did something completely surprising, and it initiated a shift in my thinking and learning process.  He unabashedly apologized to me for any and all mistakes in his parenting he had made while I was growing up under his roof.  We really "aired the laundry" on that trip, and I began to see my Dad, my life, and my journey in an entirely new light.  In his open confession of not always responding correctly, not always having the answers, etc., he unknowingly released me from the social charade of having to always appear correct, proper, and in control of my life.  As I began to weigh how this would affect my journey, a great burden was lifted from my mind, and I felt a freedom I had not previously known.

From early childhood we are molded, impressed, even coerced to only value right choices, and to shun those who make unwise ones, without the understanding of the journey we are all on.  Our teachers in life sometimes expect us to know how to make right choices without taking all the steps to teach us-perhaps because they did not enjoy an open atmosphere in growing.  Most of the time, in that early childhood process, we are protected from erring, or at least from the consequences of erring.  Since that road-trip with my Dad I have come to understand that erring and the consequences it brings has been my most effective teacher.  My Dad always pointed me in the right direction, but was not surprised when I strayed.  Both in life decisions and personal "safety," I was allowed to screw up.  However, I was also made to withstand the consequences that followed.  He understood that I was always free to obey or disobey, and allowed me the room to experiment with the entire experience.  In a culture that expects its participants to always act within the confines of consensus, I had the freedom of trial and error.  Social consensus was not even something I pondered until I was an adult.

This is not a celebration of screwing up.  Of course, everyone wants to always do the right thing, and we want and expect that of each other.  That is a good thing, when in balance.  But to grow without stunt, to learn most wholesomely and freely, it is valuable, even virtuous to allow each other to screw up, to expect it without recoil, and then to become a part of another's process, helping them to discover what is best.  The burden we place on each other of always having to act and respond correctly strips the joy and peace from living.  We are all in flux, and none of our learning lines run straight or parallel.  They cross, dipping and weaving toward what is best.  Wisdom dictates a cultivation of patience and grace, so that learning is uninhibited.  Being a father has taught me this.  God, Himself, anticipated Adam's and Eve's screw-up, and already had a plan in place to help them find their way. 

There is always more to learn; more about life, more about each other, more about learning.  Admitting we don't have all the answers will quell attitudes of superiority in the teacher, and quell feelings of inadequacy and inferiority in the student, thereby creating an atmosphere of freedom.  On my pilgrim journey, so far, I am quite sure I have learned that the freedom to err is the freedom to really learn.