Several years ago a guide took our group of 26 pastors down the mile-long side of a hill located in Tiberias, Israel. It’s a cut-through that Jesus himself may very well have walked, and so, yes…walking in the footsteps of The One.
Recent rain had turned the path into a thick, gooey clay, which quickly caked our shoes with layers of mud. Each step added more of it of the same.
We tried kicking it off. Nothing.
We tried picking up sticks and pushing the mud off. Laborious - and ineffective. As soon as we knocked some of it off, we would place our foot right back in another pile of mud.
Soon enough we are all holding onto one another for balance. Ankles are tiring. And pastor jokes are on the uptick. “Not easy following Jesus, you know” (perfectly fine if you are doing a face palm right now).
Truth is, we all know this path. We are walking a part of our life where we thought it was holy ground.
The break we had been waiting for…
The job we had always wanted…
The marriage we had longed for…
The parenthood we had prayed for…
The move we had been planning for years…
And we arrive only to find…mud!? Far more, actually, than anticipated.
We’re slipping.
Steps are surprisingly labored.
It seems every step we take is calculated so as to simply minimize how much mud is accumulating (we’ve stopped even thinking about taking bold, free, creative steps!). It may be for any variety of reasons - but we all know what it is to finally ‘arrive’ only to find the path filled with unforeseen weightiness.
Or…
Maybe we have no idea whether the ground we’ve been treading upon is holy, profane, or somewhere in the middle - all we know is that the mud is real.
Every time we take another drink - the mud cakes thicker.
Every time we hide our true self - the mud layers on.
Every time we prioritize what everybody else thinks of us - the mud builds.
Anymore, it is my sense that a good many us walk too many of our days with a gooey mix of shame and guilt weighing upon our steps.
Regardless of what kind of mud cakes easily upon our souls - the question is this: what do you do when the mud gets real? What do you when it really is just too trying and too exhausting spending your days trudging with this…
shame/bitterness/rage/anxiety/guilt/hiding?
Well, our group of pastors eventually make it to the bottom of this trail. Caked in mud. Ankles swollen. Exhausted. And there before us are all these puddles in the potholes along a nearby street.
One of the pastors begins running awkwardly toward the puddles and with his final, long stride lands with a loud splash into one of the puddles.
Then up and down he goes!
Next thing you know, we are all looking for puddles. 26 pastors-like-children are splashing around in Holy Land puddles. And laughing!
It is so strangely simple and freeing to watch what water does almost immediately to mud. Within seconds, we were newly light; newly grounded.
And we began to walk.
Where’s your puddle?
AA has been a puddle for millions. Jumping around in shared tears of freedom.
Good therapists draw up a pretty great foot bath for those willing to risk bring their mud and taking off their shoes.
Front/back porch conversations with a good friend or two - that is some significantly underestimated puddle-jumping.
How about ol’ fashion forgiveness (toward others and self)? True, it doesn’t play well in our larger cultural narrative these days, but goodness - it’s hard to think of a more purifying pool.
The point is: if the mud is real, where’s a puddle? Who’s a puddle? Where can you jump?
I should add - I do imagine rainstorms work, too.
Look up to the sky, and let the free drops puncture the heaviness. The religious term here is “grace.” A gift that falls alike on the good, bad, and everyone else in the middle.
And nobody controls it.
It just falls.
And falls.
And falls.
That might be the other option for mud: watch for falling rain and then go and stand under it for as long as you can bear the gift.
While the whole piece resonates with me, the part that really stabbed at me were the words, “watch for the falling rain and then go and stand under it for as long as you can bear the gift.”