“The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness. When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound. Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever. After we have died, the ebb and flow will still continue.” (Pema Chodron, “When Things Fall Apart”)

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-12)

Pema Chodron has hit upon a message – one I have been trying to get across in my devotions for the last week or so. That message is: learn to lean into the challenges that life presents us. When we learn to meet the challenges of our life “face to face”, we learn more about ourselves and about life and about our faith than we ever will if we just shrink from these challenges. As Chodron says, “After we have died, the ebb and flow will still continue.” As I tell my soccer players, we cannot play the game if we are backpedaling – that is true for soccer, it is true for life. If we turn our backs, the game goes on whether we want it to or not.

 Have you ever seen a baseball player run the bases backward? Have you ever watched a tennis player face the wrong way while trying to play the game? Of course not. I have found that one of the hardest skills to teach my daughter’s soccer team is the “header”. When there is a corner kick, it is the most opportune time to use their head to score a goal. The trick is to get over the fear of the ball hitting them, and to lean into the opportunity to use their head to connect with the ball.

 Chodron says again: “…no matter what the size, color, or shape is, the point is still to lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it.” (Pema Chodron, “When Things Fall Apart” p. 25)

 We must lean into any effort that is worth putting our time and effort if we hope to make any progress – it is true in our sporting life – it is true in our day-to-day lives – it is true in our faith lives as well. It is the best way become “fully known” with our trust in G-d.

 Pastor Dave