I remember reading a passage in C. S. Lewis about temptation when I was in my twenties. He said that we humans are usually like grass in strong winds, we bend, we give in so quickly to life's many strong forces that we don't really know what strong wind is.
But, he said, an oak tree knows all kinds of wind because it stands upright, taking the wind's full force.
I got to visit Lewis's neighborhood in Belfast once. Strolling in a lovely park I remembered his metaphor of grass and oaks and strong winds. The park was full of massive old beech trees, smooth silver bark and coppery leaves. The day was delightful--cool, the sun going in and out of clouds, a light breeze. I wondered how long those beeches had lived, two hundred, three hundred years? And here they were, still standing.
Later, walking along a coastal cliff, I got to experience gale force wind. You had to lean into it not to fall down. Because the coastal path wound around inlets, sometimes the wind was coming from the land and other times it was coming from the sea. Every now and then it would lighten up--and I'd stumble in whatever direction I had been leaning--which was really scary when I had just been leaning toward a two hundred foot cliff three or four feet away! I decided to walk five feet to the leeward side of the path. Lots of tall grass and some rocks, but it gave more stumbling room.
Standing upright, being a stand-up kind of guy or gal in strong wind is not easy. As long as we go with the flow, we never get an accurate sense of just how strong the flow is.
The Buddhist's, who are often more pragmatic about spiritual formation than we Christians, suggest we practice something called 'Refraining' in lots of small ways so that we can learn how strong the wind is and also begin developing the muscles it takes to stand up when the wind is fierce.
Instructions for Refraining are simple: instead of going with the flow, whatever the flow happens to be, we simply don't. When we're about to scratch an itch, we don't. When we're about to interrupt somebody, we don't. When we're about to turn on the 6:00 O'clock news, we don't. Etc., etc., etc.
What comes next?
Usually some kind of antsy-ness. Some urge to do the thing we were just about to do.
Ironically, it's feeling and learning more about this 'what comes next' that begins to train us to be stand-up kind of people.
If we stick with it, sometimes Refraining is easy. Like a stroll in the beech tree park on a perfect day. Sometimes Refraining is really, really hard, like navigating a coastal cliff path in gale force winds.
When I'm practicing Refraining my mantra is often, "Be still and know that I am God." The stronger the wind, the quicker I usually realize how being still connects with knowing God is God.
Yet the essence is the same, whether life is sweet or bitter, downhill or uphill, breezy or stormy, it's always helpful to be practicing how to be still and discovering the kind of stuff we only discover being still.
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At some point, not that long ago, on another path along coastal cliffs when the wind was fierce, I noticed a gull hovering, staying roughly in the same spot. She just shifted a wing a little this way, a little that way--rose a little, dipped a little, holding her ground, even though her 'ground' was coming at her at 20 or 30 miles per hour.
Ah, I thought. There's somebody who knows how to do it.
Not many of us will ever learn to stand still in Gale-Force Life as elegantly as that gull, but the practice of Refraining slowly teaches our souls something about strength and balance. Something about the nature of the winds we face. Something about our 'selves.' Something about being still. Something about something in us. Something about knowing God is God.
