| Deep Chairness |
January 7, 2001 |
Problems are like a mattress, when you're on top of them, you
rest comfortably.
When you're underneath them, you feel smothered.
Faith is like a light bulb ... you need it when you can't see
where you're going and you don't know what to do.
Stay in the Light.
Abraham Verghese says
"In America we love fairly easily.
But to trust someone is almost a higher art, a higher goal than to
simply love someone.
Love is used fairly freely as a word to describe our
feelings for other people.
But we can love them [care for them, want what is best for them]
without necessarily trusting them,
and I suspect that the most
complete form of love is also to trust someone and risk all
the pain that might ensue from having not just loved, but also trusted
them, bared oneself to them."
I look at the models in teen magazines, starving, muscle-skimped,
105 pounds young women...
and I think of bulimia that I believe is brought on by that
unrealistic image of body...
I remember the words of grown ups to me when I was growing
up...
love people for what's on the inside, not what's on the outside.
And then I look the at baggy clothes being worn by teens.
It may have started as a way to hide guns...
but now for many teens it is a way of withholding their body from
public view ...
and maybe this is a good thing...
it is their way of saying, "get to know me for what is
inside..."
When Fred's mother was 91 years old, her arthritic
knees made it nearly impossible for her to walk.
Her bed in her own room became her entire world.
She read the papers and watched the evening news;
she kept up with goings-on of her children and grandchildren.
But the most important were those things that happened in her
room.
Her cane had fallen behind the radiator, and the building
superintendent was going to have to do something about it.
And where was her fan? her gold purse?
She once said,
"If I didn't have something to look for, I would be
lost."
That, I think, was one of her most shimmering utterances.
Our experience of God is often shaped by our expectations, by what
we are looking for.
Most of spiritual growth is learning a new eye with which to see.
The Bible offers two different viewpoints on the subject of
dealing with government.
One voice says reject government.
The other voice says, subject yourself to the government.
I think if we take it as a whole, the idea is that God supports
governments as they are because people would perish without a
government, but then God calls all governments to grow into line
with God's spirit.
Kinda how God deals with us...
takes us as we are, because that's who we are...
but constantly invites us to change and become more like God's image
that we were created to be.
Read the text. Isaiah 43:1-7
Behold ... the chair.
The seat of success in our high-tech economy.
Right along with food, shelter, clothing, and high-speed Internet
access, the chair is becoming one of life's necessities.
With all the time we spend sitting these days - in front of a
computer, a work station, a desk or a table --
an ergonomically correct, comfortable chair is clearly a key to a
quality existence.
[Take a seat in the chair.]
It's got to be the right height.
Gotta have good lumbar support.
A top-grade cushion is nice, as are some armrests and a little
rocking action.
You want a comfy place to sit as you manipulate your computer
mouse, keyboard, laser printer,
scanner and the like.
[Exit chair.]
But where do you go in your quest for comfort?
Office Depot?
Office Max?
Amazon.com?
Walsh Brothers?
Some folks are looking to a company called Herman Miller, a
crafter of master seats.
There's no comfy padding on their Aeron chair - just
polyester mesh, woven into a unique design that is light,
flexible, mobile, resourceful and utterly resilient.
Posed like a damselfly on its off-center mechanical
core, it is leveraged, restless and always ready to serve.
It is an example of what the seat scientists of the 21st century
call "deep chairness."
A competing firm, called Humanscale, makes its padding
from a silicone-like substance called TechnoGel - a material that
spreads weight with uncanny gentleness, thanks to its gelatinous
buoyancy.
The Humanscale chair has a waferlike seat that goes way beyond
mere "cushioning."
One user said it's "like sitting in a puddle of your
own flesh."
Of course, seats this sweet are anything but cheap.
The Aeron will cost you somewhere between $750 and
$1,100.
Humanscale's no-frills price is a mere $985.
In the grand scheme of things, seating comfort is not, of course,
a world-class problem.
Sure, it made the front page of The Wall Street Journal in an
article on padded church pews,
an episode of "Will and Grace" was devoted to the
invention of a subway seat cushion,
but there's little chance that many people have butt comfort very
high on their agenda.
We might even want to ponder the question that if we're willing
to spend that kind of dough on cushion comfort, what would we be
willing to shell out for peace of heart, mind and soul?
In today's text, the prophet Isaiah has no interest in high-tech
chairs, but he is addressing a people who are in dire need of deep
comfort.
They're a people whose despair is driven by truly earthshaking
concerns.
Their nation has been broken and scattered.
Their homeland, community and families are in danger - even their
very lives.
God says that when they pass through raging waters and walk
through scorching fires, his presence will be with them.
He will protect and restore them, for he is the one who has
created and formed them - he is the LORD their God, the Holy
One of Israel, their Savior.
"Do not fear," says the LORD.
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine"
(Isaiah 43:1).
Here is deep comfort for a hurting and hopeless community.
It's easy to forget, as we fuss about our new economy
nuisances - you know, posterior pain and other problems of
privilege - that our neighbors may be experiencing real
agony.
People are passing through "the waters"
(Isaiah 43:2) -
through the raging and
overwhelming rivers of divorce, death, depression and job
disillusionment.
Think of the couple whose marriage grows colder and
colder, they held it together through the holidays, but now it's
on the precipice of shattering like a block of ice ...
Or think of the young parents who lose a cherished child to a killer
cancer ...
the retiree who becomes isolated, depressed and then suicidal
...
the computer techie who makes a stupendous salary but who absolutely
dreads the thought of going to his cubicle each day.
Others are walking through fire - through the flames of family
conflict, spousal abuse, financial difficulties
and life-threatening
disease.
Picture the frustrated father locking horns with his defiant
teenager ...
the twentysomething wife who shows up at church with strange bruises
and a chipped tooth ...
the young professional who has maxed out his credit cards and can't
seem to pay his bills ...
the middle-aged man who is slowly wasting away because of AIDS.
These are our neighbors, people feeling pain as they pass through
the waters and fires.
They're not turned on by the tantalizing TechnoGel technology
that turns an office chair into "a puddle of your own
flesh" - instead, they want simply to keep
their flesh in one piece, out of the searing flames and the raging
rivers that threaten them every day.
What concerns them is surviving.
Not sitting.
Perhaps the same is true for us.
Maybe our own quest for comfort goes beyond "deep
chairness" as well.
Along with all those in crisis around us, we are challenged to
dig deep into this passage from Isaiah - a passage that
promises to give us a way through fires and waters, as
well as a shot of strength and comfort in the face of
trouble.
The good news is that we begin in a privileged position.
Not a bad place to start.
God created you, insists Isaiah.
God formed you.
God called you.
God redeemed you
(Isaiah 43:1).
No matter how bad life gets - no matter how many divorces,
deaths, disillusionments and disappointments we face - nothing is
going to change this connection we've been given.
We can't be pulled down from our position as created, formed,
called and redeemed children of God.
Raging water?
No.
Fire?
Can't do it.
We can't even be dragged down by a psychotic boss or an abusive
spouse.
"You are precious in my sight,"says God through
the prophet, "and honored, and I love you"
(Isaiah 43:4).
That's a permanent commitment, from the Creator of all that is,
in heaven and on earth.
So many men and women have counted on their relationship with
God to sustain them through a variety of raging storms, and they
haven't been disappointed.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Phil Berrigan wrote journals while in
prison, speaking convincingly of the power of prayer and love
to overcome the power of fear.
Phil Berrigan was an artillery spotter whose big guns shelled
German-occupied cities during World War II, but
"the vast accidental cemeteries" that he saw as his
handiwork after the war changed him forever.
Today, the 76-year-old Berrigan is in jail in
Baltimore, awaiting trial for the December crime of having
hammered on the fuselage of an A-10 bomber at an air base in
Maryland.
The A-10, used in Iraq and Yugoslavia, fires "depleted
uranium" weapons, which generate radioactive dust.
Although he wasn't a Christian, Mahatma Gandhi was able to walk
alone into incredible violence between Hindus and Muslims in India
because he was convinced that Jesus walked with him.
Sister Helen Prejean - whose story is portrayed in the movie Dead
Man Walking - discovered that she could go into death row, develop a
relationship with a convicted murderer, face all the recriminations
that flowed from that relationship, and then accompany him at the
moment of death.
But is this connection enough?
Perhaps not.
A relationship alone doesn't have power to protect us.
We also need the assurance that God is taking aggressive action in
our lives.
That's why the promise in Isaiah is so powerful:
When you pass through the waters ... the waters of being
dumped, death, depression and disillusionment ... I will be
with you, says the LORD.
When you pass through the rivers ... the rivers of failing
friendship, dying children and despair-filled days
... they shall not overwhelm you.
I will be with you to bring you new love, new life, new
opportunities, new hope.
What this text tells us is God is an active God, not just a
passive presence.
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned ... even
if the fire is conflict, abuse, bankruptcy or disease.
God is always working to bring peace out of violence, good out of
evil, and life out of death.
Although we will certainly feel the heat, and may even get
singed, with God at work in our lives the flames shall not consume
us
(Isaiah 43:2).
But that's not all.
Sometimes we ourselves can act as channels of God's
amazingly active involvement in human life.
At times, we can reveal the power and presence of the
LORD to a neighbor who is in danger of
destruction.
When Sister Helen Prejean asked the condemned man if he wanted
her to be present at his execution, he said yes.
She went on to tell him,
"At that last moment, Patrick, look into my eyes and I
will be the face of Christ for you."
The reason I told you all of this is so we can confront what is
not right in our world.
So we can be the face of Christ for our neighbors.
So we can lower the bucket into the well of someone's despair.
You can't have an omelet without breaking eggs.
The same is true in confronting evil.
Martin Luther King Jr., and Gandhi took some amazing
risks, they had to go through a lot of suffering and hardship,
there's no way out of that.
The point is not to return to violence.
[Back in the chair.]
The quest for comfort always ends here:
In the presence of the God who creates, forms, calls and redeems
us and who works actively and aggressively for good in our lives.
The ultimate good is not deep chairness, but instead
"deep faithfulness" - the deep faithfulness of Almighty
God.
So, in the end, where do you really want to sit?
In a puddle of your own flesh?
Or in the lap of God?
Sources:
McGinnis, James. "Go Out Into the Deep." Weavings,
March-April 1999, 42-43.
Sterling, Bruce. "The Hot Seat." Wired, July 2000, 196ff.
Animating Illustrations
The Heritage Chair, loved among design aficionados for
its homage to their superhero, Charles Eames, is getting a new pair
of legs.
The Emeco Heritage Rocker combines the lifelong aluminum
construction of Eames's original with the sleep-inducing advantage
of rocking motion.
A mere $700 sets you up for some stylish winks.
| -"Zzzzzz," Esquire, September 2000, 178. |
Sitting is a posture we have taken to new levels since the
Industrial Revolution.
Never in history have so many people sat still in a chair for such
long periods of time.
And companies are cashing in on chairs designed to tolerate even the
toughest white-collar worker.
A good chair is one solution, but learning how long to sit in it is
another.
Between 75-85 percent of all people will experience some type of
back pain at some point in their lives according to the American
Association of Orthopedic Surgeons.
In fact, more people see doctors for back pain than any other
ailment except coughs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that back pain accounts for
more than 40 percent of all occupational injuries in the United
States that result in days away from work.
Most back pain can be associated with bad posture, sitting in the
wrong type of office chair,
sleeping in a bed without good support,
lifting incorrectly
or the weekend softball game.
Whatever the cause, prevention is the key and the earlier the
better.
Ergonomic chairs for children is a market that is just beginning to
take off as people become educated in this field.
A recent interview in the Tampa Tribune featured Dr. Jay Brand
who works for Haworth, a large office-furniture supplier.
He summarized the sitting process as follows:
- Within 8-10 minutes of sitting, gravity starts pushing the
ischial tuberosities through their overlying tissues closing the
surrounding capillaries.
- Prostaglandin E2, a central nervous system depressant, is
released into the bloodstream.
- Fatigue sets in affecting performance and productivity.
Perhaps George Costanza from "Seinfeld" is onto something
when he climbs under his desk for the afternoon snoozes.
An article in
msnbc.com
had a statistic from a chiropractor showing
there's approximately 25 percent more pressure on your spine when
you're sitting than when you're lying down.
So once you've purchased an ergonomic chair, remember to stand
up, stretch, take a walk or do whatever it takes to get that pesty
prostaglandin E2 out of your bloodstream.
This might be just the excuse you need to justify more frequent
office breaks.
|
