Finding the new groove
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not a mountain biker
Actually, unless it’s a Harley, I am not a biker at all.
But not long ago when I was pondering the difficulty of really making change — big change — real change that requires rewiring old thinking, a friend gave me this biking analogy that has stayed with me.
It seems that when you are biking on a mud-filled path on a trail bike, you naturally fall into the groove in the mud that has been formed before you. Without even thinking you move towards the path that has been formed.
What is true on the bike is also true in the brain. We easily fall into the same thinking, behaving and acting that we have always done. When faced with like circumstances, we fall into the same routines — even when we want different results. Habitual responses magnetize us into repeated patterns that lead into the same repeated chaos. Even if the results head us straight into the crash-zone.
As Albert Einstein reminds us “insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.”
It’s not easy to carve out a new rut. To push against what is familiar and be willing to stand in the discomfort of making change. Not the Lenten diet plan or the resisting the same old pattern of complaining about the same person. Instead it is to engage in the process of relearning history that left out truth or reopening the possibility of building a bridge of relationship where the option has been cut off or daring to imagine a future possibility for ourselves that is rooted in compassion instead of yielding to the critical drill sergeant within who barks out a list of what is impossible.
We approach the middle of Lent.
The middle of anything is questionable.
Almost any project I begin looks dastardly in the middle. Impossible. Bad Idea. Time to abandon the plan. Not happening.
But unless the middle becomes the Center the good stuff never arrives.
Jesus was human. He didn’t escape this human experience of rut-forming, gut-wrenching, middle-making-messes. We saw his experience in the temple in the Gospel on Sunday and today we see him driven out of his hometown. Not a made for Hallmark version of life, but the real stuff of life.
And so, we start to create new ruts. In my case, not something to be remembered as legacy, but something that causes me to stop and do it differently. Being willing to listen when I think the other person is wrong — retracting the email before I hit send — shutting down the gossip train — being ready to bring a little laughter to the serious time — being willing to believe that I am seen differently by those who have rejected me in the past. Or taking the advice of a good friend and abandoning the “to do” list for a movie that might have the answer (or not)….
It’s the new rut….
Believing that change is possible.
Welcome to the 3rd week of Lent.
I won’t see you on the bike trail, but grab your running shoes and I’ll meet you at the track.
So grateful not to walk this way alone.
But in a community of groovers.
See you at lunch tomorrow,
Bridget
