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Henry Paetkau |
September 2002
How's your balance?
My summer reading this year included Rohinton Mistry's award-winning novel,
A Fine Balance. It's a compelling story of life in India in the 1970s. The main
characters experience the uncertainty and tumult of social, political, economic
and religious conflict and upheaval. Though there is great hardship, sadness,
injustice and tragedy, there is also love and laughter, joy and hope. While human
sinfulness and brokenness is clearly evident, much is beyond human control. There
are no easy answers to the difficult circumstances. Yet each person has a choice.
In each situation they have the choice - and the opportunity - to live out of
either hope or despair. The recurring question is how they, and we, will find
that balance, that fine balance, regardless of what life brings.
Summer is the time when many of us hope to regain that balance in life which
eluded us throughout the rest of the year. Time away from work or daily routines
promises renewal. We will relax, get lots of exercise and fresh air, eat right,
renew the practice of daily devotions, and spend quality time with loved ones.
But a few weeks of vacation hardly compensate for the stresses of daily life.
And soon the old habits and patterns prevail. Where and how does one find and
maintain that fine balance?
Since September 11, 2001 we've become profoundly aware of how fragile the balance
between war and peace, economic boom and bust, freedom and security, compassion
and accountability, hope and fear is in our world. We have been reminded of how
easily we can lose our balance, both individually and as a society. The words
of the poet, W.B. Yeats come to mind:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
"The Second Coming"
Where do we go to find our balance?
A recent "thought for the day" posed this question: "If your
life were a circle, what would be in the centre?" It reminded me of the words
of Paul in Colossians 1:17-19:
[Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things
hold together. He
is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all
the fullness of God was pleased to dwell….
That is when it hit me between the ears! If balance is all in the head (which
is where the inner ear is located), then to find our right balance, as Christians
and as a church, we need the right Head. The One in whom all things hold together.
The One in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. The One whose Cross
restores the balance between life and death, heaven and earth, time and eternity.
That is the centre on which all things will ultimately balance. And the centre
that provides a fine balance here and now.
How is your balance?
-Henry Paetkau, Denominational Minister
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