Ease Isn’t Easy
You are the shepherd of my soul
so I lay down my plans
I give up my rights
and let You take control
of this surrendered life
—“Shepherd of my Soul,” Rivers & Robots
* * *
“Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
-Matthew 11, MSG
During my training in counseling and psychology, I learned about the power of memory to both heal and harm us. We all contain powerful core memories from our early years that shape and inform how we respond to circumstances as adults, often without our realizing that our reaction stems from both the past and the present. The memories don’t have to be dramatic; often, it doesn’t make sense why a certain memory sticks with us in the way that it does. We know that a core memory has been triggered when something in the present brings us instantaneously into a re-experiencing of that event. We remember how it felt, tasted, smelled, sounded. We remember our shame or elation, our tears or our joy. We recall the exact words spoken over us, for good or for evil. Part of the work of healing through counseling is addressing core memories that keep us stuck in the past in a way that keeps us from moving forward.
One of my core memories happened at Christmas time. I was in the second grade, and a classmate’s mother had come in to help us make a Christmas ornament craft for our parents. I was elated. I loved crafts, and being given the tools to make a surprise Christmas gift for my mom and dad sounded like a dream come true. It was going to be *so cool* because we were going to soak a piece of sheet music in tea water to make it look old. I sat up straight at my desk with my supplies lined up in front of me, eager to begin. But just as I reached for my little piece of paper, the mother swooped down and grabbed it. For the rest of the class period, I watched in horror as she used my craft as the step-by-step example for how the ornament was to be made.
The moment I realized that my artistic license had been taken from me, my heart began to beat faster, my hands grew sweaty, and tears filled my eyes. I wanted to scream with rage as she completed every step for me, then held it up to the class. Dramatic? Yes. But that is what the feeling of helplessness does to a quiet and polite child who wants nothing more than to bless her parents with her creativity for Christmas. Even as I write, I feel angry and sad. I want to go back and reprimand that mother for not having the forethought to bring her own dang supplies to use as an example. At the end of craft time, she handed the perfectly created ornament back to me and ‘let me’ glue on a little red ribbon so it could hang from the tree. . From that day forward, I vowed to do as much as I could “all by myself.” On Christmas morning I gave my parents the ornament, but the joy had been stolen from me along with my autonomy. I had not made the gift. I had just glued on the ribbon. Never again would I let someone take from me the joy of autonomy; never would I trust someone else to do what I knew I was capable of.
It is only recently that I’ve learned how much the vows we make when we are young matter. “I’ll do it myself” has become a mantra nearly synonymous with breathing—so natural to me that I don’t even think about it. The struggle for autonomy has infiltrated every area of my life: with my family, I keep my requests small; with friends, even smaller. With work, I do not easily ask for help or input. With my husband, I work hard to disguise my efforts to control everything from our food to our finances. With God, I resent how out of control I really am. Perhaps most tragic of all, that core memory of resolving to “do it myself” has contributed to a spirituality of E-F-F-O-R-T. I am not sure why I capitalized and hyphenated ‘effort;’ perhaps because it took more effort to do it that way. You see my problem. With the same spirit of desperation as the apostle Paul I ask, “Who will rescue me from this life of effort-full striving to be good, capable, perfect, and worthy?” Thanks be to God, who can and does.
In conversation with wise friends and with the Trinity, I am beginning to sense that discerning and following God’s will in my life doesn’t have to be so difficult, elusive, and exhausting. There is a time for everything, and that does include hard work and spiritual discipline. But the Ignatian concepts of consolation and desolation as tools for discerning God’s voice tell me that there is also a time for effortless ease—for moving gracefully with the Spirit in the flow of that river which streams from the throne of God. There is a time for swimming upstream, and there is a time to be carried along by the current. If there truly is a time for everything as the author of Ecclesiastes writes, then there must be a time for embracing ease rather than being suspicious of it—a time for walking through open doors instead of banging my head upon the one closed door I wish would open. But here’s the catch: Ease isn’t easy.
Practicing ease as a way the Spirit moves, guides, and beckons requires such surrender. It asks that we cultivate stillness and attentiveness: two qualities which are impossible to obtain through our own effort. Yet for those who trust and watch and wait, ease as a way of walking with the Spirit offers a well in the wilderness, a path through the wastelands. In the book of Hosea, God tells us that alluring is one of the ways God longs to lovingly lead us—even when we utterly fail in our efforts to be faithful. Speaking of Israel as an adulterous wife, God declares:
Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor (Trouble) a door of hope.
(Hosea 2:14-15)
God’s alluring and speaking tenderly sounds like consolation to me. So why did Israel refuse this invitation to intimate union with God, again and again? Why do I? Perhaps it is because ease has nothing to do with our own sense of achievement. We’d rather “do it ourselves” than dwell in the discomfort of the unknown. I also wonder if the way of ease is difficult to follow because it seems just about as implausible as being given a vineyard in the wilderness—as implausible, even, as resurrection after death. Yet God opens the door of the impossible with ease, turning our valleys of trouble into doorways of hope.
For God’s direct and personal invitation to the Spirit-way of ease, we need look no further than Jesus’ words to his followers in Matthew 11:29:
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
God is gentle; I forget this. What if taking Jesus’ yoke upon us looks a lot more like a gentle embrace and a lot less like the divinely mandated straightjacket we’ve named “Following God’s Will”? This is not to say that we will not struggle with the old self or with sin, but rather to invite us into a life that is shaped and led by Jesus’ way rather than our own. Ease is not easy. It asks everything of us: our autonomy, our stubborn will, our perfect plan for our lives. Yet when we surrender to gentleness, we find rest for our souls. Maybe one way to run our spiritual race with endurance is by walking—refusing to hurry or worry, moving at the gentle pace of the Spirit, being led by love rather than pushed by fear. When we walk in ease, we walk with joyful confidence beside the Shepherd of our souls.
This is my prayer for us in the days ahead:
May we have the courage to lay down the heavy burden of autonomy and pick up the yoke of Jesus.
May we trust the voice of gentleness, ease, and consolation as the Spirit’s alluring.
May we know the truth of our Belovedness, and may that truth set us free.
Amen.
Going Deeper:
Listen to “Shepherd of my Soul” by Rivers & Robots
Lord of the mountains and sea
You are treading a path set for me
God of the seasons and sky
You have always been holding my life
Learn more about the Ignatian categories of Consolation and Desolation as tools of discernment in this helpful article from Loyola Press.