Interrupting the Silence

“Shut up. Suit up. Show up.” Those six words are the daily mantra of a psychologist named James Hollis. He says them to himself as he rides the elevator down to his car each morning. (Hollis, Living Between Worlds, 132)

With the first he’s telling himself “to stop whining and complaining” (Ibid.). It’s his recognition that there are so many people on this planet “who have no home tonight, who have no food, whose children are being murdered” (Hollis, A Life of Meaning, 116) and that he has a roof over his head, food on the table, and relative security. (Living Between Worlds, 132) I suspect that’s true for most of us here today. Though I sometimes complain, I really don’t have anything to complain about. How about you?

For Hollis, “suit up” means that we deal with our life as it is. We don’t run away from life or make excuses. We don’t hide from or avoid what is before us and what is being asked of us. We don’t give up when life is hard or doesn’t go our way. We do our homework. We prepare. We get dressed and ready for life. (Living Between Worlds, 132; A Life of Meaning, 116) Some days that’s easier to do than other days. You know that as well as I do.

The third part reminds him “that we all have to show up.” That’s really all any of us can do. (A Life of Meaning, 116) I’ve often said to myself and to others that 90 or 95% of life is just showing up. We show up as best we can and offer what we have. We don’t hold back and we keep nothing in reserve. It’s a vulnerable but authentic way to live. We do it today, again tomorrow, and the day after. Sometimes showing up is the hardest work we do.

Though he’s a bit more direct and blunt than me, I think Hollis’ mantra is as much an offertory sentence and invitation as what I say to you on Sundays. 

Every Sunday I say to you,

“Bring all that you are and all that you have, come into God’s courts with praise and thanksgiving.”

I say those words immediately before the offertory. It’s not just a cue for the ushers to begin the offertory or bring forward the bread, wine, and money. It’s not really even about the bread, wine, and money. And it’s not limited to what we do here on Sunday mornings.

It describes a way of living. It’s about offering and presenting ourselves to life, to God, to one another. It’s what Hollis calls keeping our “appointment with life.” And I think that’s exactly what we see happening with Simeon in today’s gospel (Luke 2:22-40). In order to understand what I mean by that you need to know a little more about Simeon.

Our sacred tradition says Simeon was one of the seventy men who translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, what we call the septuagint. While he was working on the translation an angel promised that before he died Simon would see the Lord’s Messiah, the child born of a virgin, Jesus, the one Simeon takes in his arms today. That translation began around the third century before Jesus’ birth and was completed 132 years before Jesus was born. 

Are you doing the math? That means Simeon was a really old guy. One strand of our tradition says Simeon was 270 years old when Jesus was presented in the temple. Another part of the tradition says Simeon died at the age of 360. 

Let’s not get stuck on Simeon’s age, whether Simeon was really that old, or how someone can live that long. The question isn’t, “Did that really happen?” or “How could that happen?” The question is, “What does that mean for us?”

Here’s what I think it means. Every day for weeks, months, years, decades, maybe even centuries, Simeon is left waiting and wondering. “Is this the day? Is this the day I will see salvation or is this the day I will give up hope? Is this the day I will experience the fulfillment of the promise or is this the day I despair of it ever being fulfilled?” 

Simeon was living in an in-between place, between the promise of life and the fulfillment of life. 

You know what that’s like, right? You’ve had times when you were living an in-between life. Maybe that’s where you are today; between a promise and the fulfillment, between what used to be and what will be next, between what you have and what you want, between your prayer and God’s response, between pain and healing, between a known past and an unknown future, between the reality of what is and your dream of what could be. 

The thing that strikes me about Simeon is that he continued to show up. He continued to be vigilant and attentive. He continued to trust the promise. He continued to wait with hope and expectation. He never despaired. He didn’t whine and complain. He didn’t sit around in his pajamas. He never walked away from the promise of life or the possibility of more life. 

Every day he showed up to life as best he could with what he had. What if that’s enough? What if that’s the most any of us can ever do? What if that’s all God ever asks of us? 

What would it mean and take for you to show up today a bit more fully than you did yesterday? What keeps you from showing up? What parts of yourself are you withholding? And what would it be like to offer just a bit more of yourself today than you did yesterday?

One of the things I’m learning is that when I show up my life improves and is more complete. I see that in my marriage and other relationships, in my priesthood, in my compassion and care for others, and in my concern for and response to violence, injustice, inequality, and the pain of the world. 

Showing up doesn’t necessarily make life easier or eliminate problems but it offers us meaning and lets us live more wholeheartedly, and that changes everything. 

Simeon puts it like this: 

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation.”

Simeon kept his appointment with life. What about you and me? 

We all have an appointment with life and the world is depending on us to show up as often and as best we can. (Living Between Worlds, 20) Whether we show up and keep our appointment remains to be seen. 

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Image Credit: By Giotto – Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.