Keep the Faith: To save the world, savor it
E. B. White says “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
It’s only the people who savor the world — the ordinary and extraordinary stuff of the earth God made, who love the perfectly imperfect people walking around in it — who will save it.
It’s not the SAVIORS, it’s the SAVOR-ers.
We cannot save what we do not love.
We can only love God as much as we love the world. We can only love the world as much as we love each other. We can only love each other as much as we love ourselves.
I am embarrassed to say this aloud, but I would guess that I spend about 30% of my waking hours thinking about and despising what I look like, specifically my weight. I thought this tendency toward self-hate and self-obsession would go away when I reached my mid-40s. But I still wake up in the morning, not torn between a desire to save the world or savor it, but with a strong desire to lose weight.
It is a profoundly self-involved tendency. I think about diets I could go on, and when I should start. Then I Google them. I say terrible things to my image in the mirror. I try not to say any of these things out loud where my daughters can hear. Then I eat, and shame myself for eating too much of the wrong thing. Then I shame myself for shaming myself.
I sometimes think about what I would do with all of that time if I got it back. Would I read more novels, or would I write a best-seller? Would I go on more walks? Would I enjoy my family more? Would I love my work better and more effectively? Would I brainstorm new ministries that might make a difference in the community? Would I save someone’s life? Would I be kinder?
You might spend a great deal of your day in similar negative self-talk. Maybe the words directed at the mirror come from people in your past who didn’t love you well. Maybe you say things to yourself you would never say to your worst enemy. Things like “You’re ugly. You’re stupid. If you had more money or confidence, you could talk to that woman. If you weren’t so unambitious and lazy, you would have gotten that promotion.”
I don’t know about you, but spending a good percentage of my waking hours wishing I were different, or better, or smarter, or thinner just makes me anxious, frustrated, sad and lonely.
It’s no wonder we use the precious time we have on this Earth acting out our feelings of alienation: looking for reasons to be angry on the internet, finding human gods who are avatars for our fury and our fear, making cruel yard signs and staking them in our grass, shouting expletives at other drivers on the road. We do not love ourselves. Perhaps if we loved ourselves more, we would be less apt to, as Michael Gerson says, “ignore the cries of the ill, poor and abused, and honor the unerasable image of God we see in one another.” We could get some of that wasted time back and use it for good.
My favorite psalm is 139: O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
The Good News, the psalmist says, is that we were created by a God who knows absolutely everything about us and looks upon us lovingly anyway. God’s gaze is like a father’s, made all the more beautiful because he’s changed his daughter’s diaper, wiped her tears after she fell, put her in time out for hitting her brother, and will a couple of years later catch her drinking underage and forgive her for it.
Our call is just to savor this truth like a delicious blessing.
For many of us, this is easier said than done. Seeing ourselves the way God sees us is virtually impossible because our love is so conditional. We know ourselves. We’ve seen ourselves naked. We’ve participated in all of our own sins, harms and foibles. We are hopelessly unforgiving.
Being known this intimately by God can feel threatening. After all, we go to great lengths every day to hide the parts of us that cause shame. When asked how we are, we answer “fine.” We cover up the truth about our suffering with small talk. We smear our faces with contour to avoid people seeing what we really look like. We help other people so as not to be perceived as people in need of help. We post pictures of our well-dressed family on Instagram at golden hour in a field, but don’t tell anyone about our tween’s scars from cutting. We stay closeted and guarded. We are careful and private. We call this pride, but the results are a profound and gnawing loneliness.
The truth is that our greatest desire is not to hide who we are, but to be fully known, and loved anyway. The psalmist praises God precisely because he is known by God:
“O LORD, know me; you are acquainted with all of my ways; you know what genius thing I am about to say, or that I’m about to put my foot in my mouth, before I even utter a word. You surround me on all sides, you do not pull away from holding me… no matter how many mistakes I’ve made. "Everywhere I go…there you are. You are with me when I succeed, and when I am embarrassed by defeat. You are with me when I’m scared and when I’m courageous. You are with me when I bag out of my commitments, and when I faithfully fulfill them. You are there when I say a cruel word, and when I ask for forgiveness. You are with me when I get promoted, and when I get fired. You are with me when I get married, and when I get divorced. You are with me as I run my first marathon, and when I receive my first cancer diagnosis. Even the dark is not dark to you. You watch over me as I lie and hide my identity to others, and you stand with me as I say the hard truth that sets me free. I come to the end, I am still with you. You don’t expect my perfection, only that I show up for my life. You are with me when I was born and you will be with me when I die.” I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
The word “fearfully” doesn’t mean quite the same thing in Hebrew as it does in English. It comes from the verbal root “yara," which means awe, reverent respect and honor. A better translation of the word might be “reverently.” And “wonderfully” comes from the verbal root "pala" which means in Hebrew to be different, striking, remarkable - outside of the power of human comprehension.
God did not make a mistake when God made you. God made you intricately in holy reverence to be indescribably different and remarkable — unlike anyone else. God wrote you into the narrative; to be used for the world’s healing. You were created as a remarkable blessing. It’s Jesus’ job to save; it’s your job to savor.
SAVOR being watched over and adored by the inescapable God who knows AND loves you. When you look in the mirror, look beyond the imperfections to the unerasable image of God you see there. Look for that same unerasable image in your neighbor. That is how we will slowly transform the world into something that resembles the kingdom of heaven.
The Rev. Robin Bartlett is senior pastor at The First Church in Sterling.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: The Rev. Robin Bartlett on saving the world by savoring it
