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The Pendulum

I love the pendulum. I mean I really love the pendulum. For me, it describes perfectly the idea of learning to live in the "radical middle." It will be the picture on the cover of my book...If I ever stop procrastinating and get it done!


Many of us grew up skewed to the conservative right. Right wing religion, right wing politics. The pendulum was definitely leaning right. And that's okay. Despite modern rhetoric, no one side has a monopoly on truth, ethics, and morality. For some, the pendulum was leaning much further right than for others; but it doesn't matter. As we have gotten older, many of us can no longer swallow everything that goes with being "right-wing."


When you let a pendulum drop, it does not come to stop immediately in the middle. It swings back and forth. Back and forth. That's almost always what happens to our beliefs. If we were raised focused on truth and punishment (legal and biblical), then our pendulum will swing more towards grace and love; it will more than likely swing too far. Again, it won't rest in the middle. We will find ourselves leaning more to the "left." Again, that's okay.


Eventually, with enough work, patience, and prayer, my hope is the pendulum will come to rest in the radical middle. This will be the work of a lifetime. Again, that's okay.


There are two verses that really resonate with me as I work towards living in Jesus' third way, the way I call the "radical middle." The first is John 1:14 where the NIV states, "The word (Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of GRACE and TRUTH (emphasis mine).


For believers, Jesus is the example par excellence. He had that pendulum right in the middle, full of both grace and truth; not excluding one for another. The second verse is Luke 2:52 "and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and man." If Jesus, fully God had to grow in wisdom, how much more do we?!?!


Here is what I have noticed both in my own life as well as in many of the lives of those who are "deconstructing." We get angry with people who are not as far down the road as we are in our journey. We want people to be where we are, forgetting the length of the journey that got us here. We have to be gracious with those who are not where we are; instead, there is a lot of venom and hatred spewed towards those we use to uphold and revere. Older brother syndrome can just as easily (maybe more easily) affect us after deconstructing than it does before. Direction is so much more important than distance. It is not fair that what has taken us years to wrestle with we turn and expect others to grasp immediately. Let's be gracious.


Come join me in the "radical middle." I promise there is always gonna be room for you.


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