weak is the new strong

live strong bracelet
Originally uploaded by Greg Blosser.

Strong is not the answer. Strong is the problem.
Little boys go through a stage of life beginning at around three years old, when they want to be independant. They want to do everything themselves. They want to be strong. Jack is now five, so this "strong" stage is in full swing. He is utterly infatuated with super heroes, and super powers, and knights with swords, and cowboys and guys with capes and light sabers, and that catch the bad guys and fly and lift cars and break things and blow stuff up. And we've got all the paraphanalia that goes along with it. The action figures, the comic books, the dvd's. In some ways all of this is very good. It promotes manhood and idealizes courage and bravery, justice and truth. Strong is attractive. Strong is exciting. Strong is cool. But strong is pretend.

A growl of frustration made its way to my ears from the upstairs bathroom. Jack had just entered the "I can do it myself" stage and was learning to dress himself for bed time. The growl gets louder. Now its a scream. Jack doesn't ask for my help, but it's clear from his unintelligible protest that my help is needed. I climb the stairs to find Jack standing in the bathroom, naked from the waist down. His arms are contorted and sticking nealry straight into the air. He's flailing wildly. Still growling, bound and blinded by his Superman pajama shirt which is half-on/ half-off, over his head. Jack needs my help in putting his pajamas on for bed time, but he doesn't ask. He wants to do it himself. He wants to be strong. His strength is his weakness. If he would just ask me to help. If he would just be weak, for a moment, he could be free. The great irony of course is that it is his Superman shirt which binds him and blinds him. Jack's great strength is not Jack. Jack's super power is his weakness. It is when he is weak that I can help. His weakness is his strength because it allows me to work.

Little boys enter that independant stage at around age three. I'm not sure when they grow out of it. Not thirty, apparantly. We're still in it. And so we live strong. Walking around naked from the waist down with some polyester-blend pajama shirt wrapped around our heads, arms flailing wildly trying to free ourselves from the mess we're in. Of course, we think no one notices. We pretend our flailings are the flexing of muscle or the flapping of wings, ready to soar. And mostly, no one does notice. They're blinded, naked and flailing as well. We're not strong. The answer is not inside us. Help must come from outside of us. We need the strength of our Father, and when we are weak, he is strong. Our weakness is our greatest power.

Ever wonder what the prayers of a pastor sound like? They must be so eloquent and spiritual, right? Lot's of times it sounds like this: "Jesus, help me. I don't know how to fix this. I can't do this. Jesus, help". And so I stop flailing. And he puts my head through the head-part. My arms through the arm parts. He covers my nakedness. In the end I find that my problem was my need to be strong. I mean, that's the original temptation isn't it? The serpent says, "eat this and be like God, do this and know the answers, turn stone to bread, have power, be strong". Well, I don't want to be strong anymore. I need to be weak, so Christ can be strong in me. Strong is my whole problem. I want to learn to live weak.