Monkey Bars

     I was talking with my wife's father, a retired pastor, and he told me about an image he used in many of his sermons throughout the years.  It is a thing that every kid learns on the monkey bars on the playground at school.  It is simply this: when you are on the monkey bars, you can't move forward until you let the hand behind you let go of the last bar.

     In this way, I am kind of stuck in my life.  The trailing monkey bar is my smoking cigarettes.  I just haven't been able to let go of that bar no matter how hard I try.  I believe that this bar gives me a lift.  You see, I suffer from a chronic depression.  When I go outside and have a smoke and a caffeinated beverage, I get a little boost to my mood.  Often this gets me back on track and I start doing things besides laying in bed.  I might do the dishes and I feel better about what I have accomplished.  I might, being awake now, go lay on the couch and listen to my soaking music (my God mix on Spotify) and take out my bible or a spiritual book and begin reading.  These things make me feel better in longer lasting way.

     But I can't get further in my spiritual development unless I let go of that trailing monkey bar.  You can see it in my interactions with people.  They have slowly improved over my twenty-two years of practicing Christianity.  Save a few relationships that have fallen away, I have more friends and more love in my life than I ever have.  But I can see that I have gotten to a plateau in these relationships.  And relationship is what Christianity is all about - relationship with a God who is in constant relationship with himself (the Trinity) and with all of creation and all of us.  The plateau in these relationships that I have is the direct influence of my smoking.  I walk away at points throughout my interactions to take a smoke break.  I leave the people that I so dearly love to go worship my God, nicotine. I am absent so much throughout the course of the day that I miss out on so many interactions with people, especially with my wife and child. It keeps me from having deeper relationships.  And this stunts my spiritual as well as natural growth.

     What monkey bar have you not let go of?  Is it a past relationship?  Is it a way of thinking - a belief that you just wont let go? These things keep us from the people around us.  They keep us from community.  And community is the context in which we grow.  Many people would like to leave community behind because they fear they will have to let go of that monkey bar to have honest relationships.  And this is scary.  I know that I am scared to let go.  But it is community that I long for. In Nicotine Anonymous I was presented with this wisdom.  When you want to have a smoke and believe you can't resist it, you have a phone list.  You suck down your pride and call someone on the list (or call your sponsor) and just share with them what is going on.  They will often "talk you down from the ledge," so to speak.

     I was feeling a little down after writing the past few paragraphs.  I thought, "my situation is hopeless."  "I will never be able to let go of that bar." I took a little break and walked upstairs to get my cell phone.  A few seconds after I picked it up, a text popped in.  It was John.  He was an old friend that I had counseled in my time as a Stephen Minister.  (It is a program of peer counseling and listening that I was involved in in my church.) It simply read, "Merry Christmas.  How's the baby?"  Maybe, I thought, I can't let go of the monkey bar on my own power.  But God is reaching out to me though my friends.  I may not be able to let go of that bar by peeling my hand off it via sheer force of will.  But I can do what I can do.  I can invest in the relationships I have and develop new ones.  Relationships with people around us are the ligaments in the body of Christ.  The church (the people in our community) are the hands and feet of God in our lives.  Relationships hold us together as the hands and feet of God. And it is through these relationships that we are healed.  We are healed of the things we hold on to that are not good for us.  God spoke to me though John.  God spoke to me from his body.  Invest in your relationships.  It is what will help me and you let go of the negative baggage, habits and beliefs that keep us stuck on the monkey bars of life.  God uses people.  And when we invest in relationships, God is using us to do the same for others.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This is part of the mystery and the wisdom in the body of Christ.