The Way of Grace E-Book

Glandion Carney

• Herausgeber: IVP Formatio
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 182

Beschreibung

Readers' Choice Awards Honorable Mention Distinguished Honorable Mention, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore "No matter how old you are or how many degrees you have or don't have—when grace takes you to school, you start in kindergarten." This was the experience of Reverend Glandion Carney when he was given the life-altering news that he has Parkinson's disease. He was plunged into denial and despair. This was not supposed to be his journey. How could he face it? With poignant vulnerability, The Way of Grace describes one man's journey into a new land of God's amazing grace. Both his honesty and his resilience will inspire and inform your own times of difficulty. In each chapter we are introduced to a spiritual practice that can carry us through difficult days: acceptance, relinquishment, community, simplicity and more. And a guide at the end of each chapter carries us into a brief and refreshing experience with each of the practices. God's unmerited grace saves us, strengthens us and sanctifies us. We too can experience lives full of grace and truth, courageously searching out God's wonders every day.

Leseprobe

THE WAY OF GRACE

Finding God on the Path of Surrender

Glandion Carney with Marjean Brooks

Foreword by Richard J. Foster

www.IVPress.com/books

InterVarsity PressP.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426World Wide Web:www.ivpress.comEmail:[email protected]

©2014 byGlandion Carney and Marjean Brooks

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website atwww.intervarsity.org.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple

Images:©Ebru Sidar/Trevillion Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-9707-0 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-3594-2 (print)

Dedicated to all whose world has been shaken—

especially those suffering with Parkinson’s or other debilitating diseases

Contents

Foreword

1 Facing Reality

The Grace of Acceptance

2 Experiencing the Presence

The Grace of Submission

3 Giving Up

The Grace of Relinquishment

4 Stuck in an Airport

The Grace of Compassion

5 God Is Not Mad at You

The Grace of Trust

6 Wounded Healers

The Grace of Community

7 A Cup of Cool Water

The Grace of Comfort

8 Life in the Slow Lane

The Grace of Simplicity

9 Possibilities

The Grace of Hope

10 Streams of Grace

The Grace of Living a New Way

Acknowledgments

Notes

Praise for The Way of Grace

About the Authors

Formatio

What is Renovaré?

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

I am Glandion.

I am a contemplative.

I embrace the life and role of the Holy Spirit.

I love a good wine.

I love fellowship and friendships.

I am a deep, caring person.

I am a worrier and a burden bearer.

I take time to notice.

I am soft-spoken yet strong in spirit.

I love jazz, as well as the Gregorian chant.

I am consciously aware of my sinful nature.

I am a great listener.

I am a priest, a husband and father of four adult children.

I am a grandpa, affectionately called “Papa.”

I long to remain in the presence of God.

I like to celebrate.

I don’t have to act in a cultural manner to define my African American identity.

I am a crosscultural man.

I think about my death about once a week.

I think about my life and want to do the things that matter.

I love to laugh yet I cry easily.

I love poetry, especially T. S. Eliot and Garrison Keillor.

I love coffee.

I question myself all the time.

I have never sensed the condemnation of God.

I don’t think about former accomplishments as much as myfailures.

I believe in justice.

I have stood in lines in Ethiopia with the hungry and the poor.

I have traveled to eastern Africa during the time of genocide, war and famine.

I minister in one of the wealthiest communities in the United States.

I have learned that the rich in resources can also be poor in spirit.

I embrace the Scriptures and see them as a guidepost for life.

I have struggled to accept the diagnosis of a disease and tried to cover it up.

I love the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I love the Eucharist.

I embrace another person’s heart, whatever their religious practice.

I believe evil will be overcome.

I love to see the sunset.

I take time to look in the eyes of others to get a glimpse of their heart.

I like to raid the cookie jar in the middle of the night.

I love theological discussions.

I am loved.

I am loving.

I am Glandion.

I have Parkinson’s.

I am learning to walk in grace.

Foreword

It feels like a strange coincidence—perhaps even providence—that I am writing these words at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was here many years ago that I first met Glandion Carney. Back then Glandion was a church planter for the Christian Reformed denomination. He had just started up an innovative ministry, Centerpointe, which sought to bring spiritual formation into Christlikeness into every aspect of congregational life. The entire effort was bristling with vitality and life.

We were instantly drawn toward each other even though our backgrounds were vastly different. Glandion grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the heyday of the black power movement, and I have always appreciated the cutting-edge social concern those early years instilled in him. Of course, the Afro had long since disappeared; indeed, Glandion was quite bald when we first met. No matter. We connected deeply.

We traveled together to various places, Glandion and I, ministering the life-giving news of Jesus alive and present among his people. Together we went to England as a ministry team. British folk were instantly taken by this soft-spoken African American who embodied a special combination of dignity, grace and strength. In the northeast of England we visited Cuthbert’s Cave, where the saint’s body was carried by the monks from Holy Island fleeing from the Viking invaders. We hiked together in the Kyloe Hills with the north wind tugging hard at our coats and the North Sea crashing on the rocks below. On one rainy hike Glandion got a shoe stuck so deeply in the mud that his foot came out and he had to sit in the mud digging out his lost shoe. I laughed at the comical scene until my sides ached.

In those days Glandion was a model of strength and courage. He remains strong and courageous today, but in a very different way. You see, Glandion has Parkinson’s disease. Nowadays he struggles even to button his shirt or to stand without falling. In unsparing detail he shares the story with us in The Way of Grace. At one point he writes, “No matter how old you are or how many degrees you have or don’t have—when grace takes you to school, you start in kindergarten.”

This is a book about grace, God’s “amazing grace.” To be sure, the context within which Glandion shares his experience of grace is Parkinson’s disease, which is debilitating in virtually every detail of his life. But it is not a sad or disheartening book. On the contrary, while taking us deeply into the wounds of Parkinson’s, The Way of Grace is also richly refreshing. It is, as Glandion puts it, a “chosen path” in the midst of life’s circumstances.

Grace is God’s favor, God’s gift, God’s wonder-filled care for us. In this particular context it is God working with Glandion to enable him to do what he simply could not do on his own.

In rare times grace falls upon us by divine fiat. When this happens doxology is our only appropriate response. However, the most common way God imparts his grace to us is through an interactive, cooperative relationship in which God and we are working together. The reason this is grace is that the results are always in excess of the effort we put in. God works with us and alongside us, enabling us to do what we could never do in our own strength.

One reason this is God’s customary means of imparting his grace to us is that through this process something quite amazing happens, something quite beyond the specific need or task at hand. Slowly, over time and experience, we become the friend of God. Step by step, we grow accustomed to God’s presence. We begin entering a with-God kind of life.

Now, this “with-God kind of life” immerses us into a hidden reservoir of divine love and power, bringing into our lives God’s divine life, God’s zōē. This zōē life from God is unquenchable and indestructible. It is, in truth, “eternal life” as the Bible says. It has a principle of its own. No one owns it but God alone. And God graciously imparts his divine zōē life to us more and more as we become immersed into this “with-God kind of life.” In time, this zōē life from God forms us into communities of grace that are enabled to express God’s life and love through our own lives, individually and corporately.

In The Way of Grace we discover the multiplied ways this zōē life from God enters Glandion Carney’s daily experience and sustains him. Indeed, it causes him to become “more than [a conqueror] through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37) and encourages us to do the same. It is a story of great grace in the midst of great need. “Tolle lege, take and read.”

Richard J. Foster

1

Facing Reality

The Grace of Acceptance

It happened so fast—my body wouldn’t cooperate with my mind. Never had I struggled with such simple things. I seemed to be all thumbs as I put on my clerical collar. It wouldn’t go on straight no matter what I did. My jacket got stuck halfway on; it felt like a straightjacket, binding my arms and preventing me from moving correctly. What was going on? Why was I suddenly so clumsy?

It was 2008, and I was leading a pastors’ conference in Kigali, Rwanda, walking men from many countries through steps of meditation, reflection and communion with God. During my trip to Africa, I had become increasingly tired, more so than I had ever been in the past. The work was grueling and the hours were long, but I had done this before and it had never bothered me. It felt like my thoughts were being stolen from my mind. I would begin a sentence and then midway I would not know where the thought was going.

My good friend William Wilson had gone along to minister with me. A former Trappist monk, he was now an Anglican priest like me. William noticed how sluggish and stiff my movements were becoming. At his encouragement I decided to go to the doctor for a physical when we got home. It seemed logical that I had picked up a virus or other illness while traveling.

My physician did his usual examination, but then asked me to do simple movements like walk a few steps and bend at the waist. He inspected my arms, knees and legs, and tested my reflexes. He shined a light in my eyes and then said simply, “You have Parkinson’s disease.”

Stunned, I questioned him. “How do you know? How can you say ‘You have Parkinson’s’ when you’ve done no test or bloodwork to determine this diagnosis?”

He looked me straight in the eyes and responded, “You are not smiling like you used to, and your face looks frozen in a frown. Your movements are difficult. Your joints are in pain. All this points to Parkinson’s. You can get a second opinion from a neurologist, but he will tell you the same thing.”

Words escaped me. I felt nothing. I was empty. Numb.

There was no brilliant logic to apply. There were no prayers to pray. There was no believing or trusting in God for the future of my life in general or my ministry. All was blank, as if erased. I walked out of his office in a fog. When I got to my car I wept like a baby, leaning on the steering wheel for support. I called my wife and told her. “The doctor says I have Parkinson’s.”

Marion dropped what she was doing at work and came home to sit with me in silence. That’s when feeling nothing moved to darkness and hopelessness. Like Job and his friend in Scripture, we sat in the ash heap of despair.

At that point I couldn’t see any applications of grace. No Bible verses immediately came to mind to soothe my dark and foreboding spirit. The words “you have Parkinson’s disease” played over and over in my mind like a record stuck on a track. I felt sabotaged. Tears of hurt, grief and fear fell unceasingly. I couldn’t stop them if I tried.

Many saints through the centuries have referred to tears as a gift:

The “gift of tears” written about by the desert elders and several centuries later by St. Ignatius of Loyola are not about finding meaning in our pain and suffering. They do not give answers but instead call us to a deep attentiveness to the longings of our heart. They continue to flow until we drop our masks and self-deception and return to the source of our lives and longing. They are a sign that we have crossed a threshold into a profound sense of humility.1

I couldn’t come up with any longing in my heart, except for this new diagnosis to be recalled. It was easier to deceive myself with the drug of denial than to begin the hard work of acceptance.

A Different Direction

The physician recommended I seek physical therapy. He reminded me this disease would take its toll over time; to slow the process I needed to change my lifestyle. Get more rest. Exercise more. Start medication. Eat well. It was all so overwhelming.

When I got up the courage, I made an appointment with the physical therapist. I walked into the rehab hospital not knowing what to expect. I was blown away. Hunchbacked patients, shaking violently, were straining to remain balanced while they walked. Most were suffering with the visible effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s. So many diseases and disabilities were represented—you name it and they had it. I saw myself in them and I was scared.

When the therapist called my name, I jerked to attention. Instead of following him into the therapy session, I ran out of the waiting room in tears. I left and did not go back for a year. I have never confessed this to anyone before now.

This was not supposed to be my journey. How could I face it?

I had no direction or sense of destination. I didn’t even have a compass. The nothingness I had felt earlier turned into a dark shadow of gray with shades of anger. I was on a journey with no end in sight, not one I wanted, anyway. Severe difficulties had suddenly been thrust on me, and they hovered over my head like darkening clouds in a storm. Questions tormented me: Will I die? Where is God in the midst of this? Where is my courage?

I went to see a neurologist who was also a member of our church. After he confirmed the diagnosis, he explained that Parkinson’s is a disorder of the brain that leads to shaking and difficulty with walking, movement and coordination, and it continues to get worse. Seeing the immediate tears in my eyes, he came to my side, took me by the hand and said, “Just pray, Glandion. God will show you the way.”

Even after two doctors confirmed the diagnosis, it took me twelve months to accept it. During that year, I concealed my difficulties. Even though my wife studied to learn more about the disease, I refused to do so. I hid out like a fugitive. I denied everything. I foolishly thought that if I didn’t acknowledge the symptoms they would just go away.

One Sunday morning I was shaving in preparation for church when I heard these words in my heart: “Glandion, you don’t trust me. You say you do, but you don’t. You masquerade and cover up your weaknesses. You hide because you will not accept what I have allowed.”

It was Jesus speaking to my heart at the deepest level. It wasn’t a harsh rebuke; it was a gentle voice asking me to admit my weakness and come to the truth.

That morning I stood before my congregation as associate pastor and spoke these words: “As your priest, today I need to make a confession. I have Parkinson’s disease. I have been covering up my weakness, and I need to share it openly. I’m trying to accept it as a grace. I hope you will pray for me.”

Many came up afterward to speak to me: “My weakness is drug addiction,” “My weakness is pornography,” “My weakness is controlling others,” “My weakness is alcoholism.” We wept together, held by a powerful cord of acceptance and confession.

The spiritual director in me wanted to sit down with each of them over a cup of coffee to validate their experiences of integrity, honesty and true confession. You see, my conviction is that we don’t walk alone on the path of faith. We explore it together, learning about grace, trials and new beginnings. We may have different paths on the journey, but we all end at the same destination—the discovery of God’s faithfulness in whatever we face.

But how could I express this truth to them when I had not experienced it myself? I admitted my weakness and began to accept it. Now I had to act on it. It was the first step to healing and freedom. There would be many others.

A year after I initially visited that rehab hospital, I returned for physical therapy. This time I knew what to expect, and I was ready to do the work. Now what I noticed in the other tormented bodies was not their dysfunction but their eyes. Their eyes conveyed hope, courage and a will to overcome. The grace of acceptance allowed me to see them in a different light. Instead of running away from these fellow sufferers, I was motivated to join them. And I was moved to offer up deep prayer for them as a sign of accepting our common experience.

Another turning point in this journey of acceptance was the night my wife and I ate dinner at the home of my coauthor, Marjean Brooks, and her husband, Ricky. After dinner they shared a video with us, saying it reminded them of Marion and me. In the video, a man was sleeping on the couch. His wife talked excitedly about a new home improvement tool as she walked up to the camera, drawing us in. She guaranteed results and encouraged all viewers to watch her demonstrate. Marion was getting interested. She needed some things done around the house and had been trying to motivate me to do them.

As the woman on the video spoke, she rolled up a catalog in her hands. When she finished her spiel, she walked over to her reclining husband, whacked his backside with the catalog and yelled, “Get yo’ butt up!”

Marion and I laughed hard at that unexpected ending. In fact, that line has been a standing joke with us ever since. Afterward I felt as if I had been prompted: “Okay, Glandion, when are you going to ‘get yo’ butt up’ and work on your life?”

Like the main character Much Afraid in the classic allegory Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, I glimpsed the journey with all its peaks, valleys and shadows. Just as Much Afraid took the hands of her companions Sorrow and Suffering, I took the first step of acceptance. Without realizing it, I had been blocking grace by refusing to be humbled. Now I made the choice to embrace a different way to live and a fresh power to love through God’s empowering grace. I had no idea what lay ahead. But I was ready.

Beginning the Journey

In the course of Much Afraid’s journey to the High Places, she faced tremendous difficulties. After each mountain was scaled or each terror was over, she would put a small stone in the pouch around her waist. They became trophies of grace, remembrances of all that the Shepherd had brought her through. In the end they were turned into beautiful jewels, placed in a crown for her to wear.

I haven’t picked up stones along my journey. Instead God has shown me many different aspects of grace that have spurred me on my way. I have carried them until I am used to their weight in my backpack. They once seemed heavy, but now they are weightless. They are so much a part of me that I could not live without them. God’s grace has been manifested to me in beautiful yet challenging ways. He gives this kind of grace to all of us—if we learn to recognize, accept and embrace it to live victoriously in this world.

Teresa of Ávila, a sixteenth-century Spanish mystic philosopher and Catholic saint, described the journey through different graces in her book The Interior Castle:

Let us imagine . . . that there are many rooms in this castle, of which some are above, some below, others at the side; in the centre, in the very midst of them all is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse. Think over this comparison very carefully; God grant it may enlighten you about the different kinds of graces He is pleased to bestow upon the soul. No one can know all about them, much less a person so ignorant as I am. The knowledge that such things are possible will console you greatly should our Lord ever grant you any of these favours.2

As I began to look differently at my circumstances, I wanted God to show me all the rooms in my castle. I especially wanted to see the principal chamber where he and I could hold the most secret intercourse. And I was anxious to be enlightened about the grace he would bestow.

Jesus, Full of Grace and Truth