Earlier today, I had a massage.
For some time now, I have been experiencing tightness in my calves and the
visit to a local physiotherapist was aimed at trying to ease the pressure,
particularly on my left leg. At the library where Celena works, they have
massages available every fortnight. It is 20 minutes, every two weeks, that she
refuses to miss.
We all live with some degree of
tension in our lives. Whether it is experienced physically in our shoulders or
our feet, mentally in our head space or emotionally in our hearts, tension
seems to be as much a part of modern living as texting and taxes. But should we
be as keen to rid ourselves of tension as we seem to be?
In his book The Holy Longing: The
Search for A Christian Spirituality (Image, 2008), Ronald Rolheiser, contends that tension is
an integral part of the Christian experience. In fact, Rolheiser argues,
tension is part of the “nobility of the soul”.
“We are better persons when we
carry tension, as opposed to always looking for its easy resolution. To carry
tension, especially great tension, is to ponder in the biblical sense.”
Part of the examples Rolheiser
gives are based on anecdotes that involve sexual behaviour and our identity as
sexual beings. They include an episode from an American TV show and an exchange
between an academic and some of his students. The specifics are not important.
What is significant, however, is the conclusion that tension, particularly
unresolved tension, heightens our capacity for...well, everything. We
appreciate the beer more after we have delayed that first sip; we feel closer
to our partner after we hold off on giving into our immediate desires; that hug
from an absent friend seems so much more powerful and comforting if we been
apart for a long period.
In movies and television, the
unresolved sexual tension between two characters is a key ingredient in keeping
the audience engaged. Writers know that to keep the pages turning, the reader
has to feel the tension of that comes from wondering where characters are
heading and how plots are unfolding.
Jesus was no stranger to living
with tension. His life was often characterised by waiting for someone to
arrive, or delaying His departure for a destination (remember how he waited to
go and see Lazarus, even though He had been told he was gravely ill?).
Rolheiser acknowledges this, claiming that the message of Jesus contained a “strong
motif of waiting, of pondering, of chastity, of having to carry tension without
giving in to a premature resolution.” The most vivid example of that motif occurring
was in His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection.
But why? When muscles are tense,
or we crave companionship, why should we carry the tension? What is wrong with
giving into the desire for release?
“The real value in carrying
tension for the sake of love,” Rolheiser writes, “is that it is a gestation
process.”
“By pondering as Mary did, as she
stood helplessly beneath the cross, and by enduring suffering as Jesus did in
the garden at Gethsemane, we have the opportunity to turn hurt into
forgiveness, anger into compassion, and hatred into love.”
In other words, without some sort
of death, a willingness to give up and let go, we cannot experience a
resurrection. New life comes out of dying to ourselves. Carrying tension means
that we are letting things – and people - be as they are, not as we would like
them to be.
Ever since Amber, and then
Brodie, died, I have been living with tension, a revelation or a sign as to
what the greater purpose was in their deaths. In vain, I have looked for ways
to massage away the ache in my heart.
Rolheiser concludes his chapter
on tension and pondering as a form of prayer with a quote from a Catholic
philosopher, Jacques Maritain, who said:
“...one of the great spiritual
tragedies is that so many people of good will would become persons of noble
soul, if only they would not panic and resolve the painful tensions within
their lives too prematurely, but rather stay with them long enough, as one does
in a dark night of the soul, until those tensions are transformed and help give
birth to what is most noble inside of us – compassion, forgiveness and love.”
I seek nobility. Until then,
however, I will live with the tension!
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