But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
First, I must say that St. Paul, the credited author of Ephesians wrote way too many run on sentences. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but I struggle with the point of his sentences, because I tend to find five or six points in one sentence, and I cannot get out of each rabbit hole fast enough to travel down the next. Having said that, this is a good run on sentence, and while I cannot contemplate all rabbit holes, I can gloss over each, and make a summary conclusion for me today.
We are each equipped with specific gifts and talents, and if we use those to work together in love, we all can grow together in Christ – the universal truth. Whew.
It’s funny, or maybe predictable, how my context absolutely defines how I understand Scripture. One week, I could understand this passage to be about my work context, other times it’s about my family life, and still other times it’s about my interior work. Given my week, I hear this section to be about my sick loved one, the gifts my husband and I are equipped with, and the process of building up love.
Joined and knitted together. I am inextricably joined to the rest of creation, including my sick loved one and my husband. This I genuinely believe.
With every ligament with which it is equipped. I come to my family with an entirely different set of equipment than does my husband and kids. My gifts are no better or worse than theirs. My sick loved one has equipment that has allowed them to cope with a challenging past, including the foster care system, and all that inherent trauma, and now to cope with this insidious illness. I cannot always see their God given gifts and talents, nor do I understand how they’re used. But I know they have a whole tool box of equipment, for which I’m grateful.
As each part is working properly. Um, no. After these past weeks, it is painfully clear to me that all of us and that all of our equipment is not always working properly. And how it works or doesn’t work constantly changes and throws the whole system into flux.
I’m reminded of the word homeostasis, the tendency to move towards a relatively stable equilibrium. In my world, my loved one’s behavior has changed, with an increased need to get out, and be independent. Their extended absences are frightening to me, in part for concern of their safety, and in part because it’s created a sense of instability because of its novelty.
But as systems aim to reach stability, we learn to use new tools with which we’re equipped, to stay knit together. I desperately do not want to let a momentary instability unravel the knitting.
And so we adjust. We respond to new circumstances, to changes in systems, so to reach that sense of equilibrium yet again. I am grateful for gifts with which I’m equipped, my husband’s equipped and my loved one’s equipped. I need to continue to work towards that knitting together, even when all parts aren’t working properly. Because who am I kidding? All parts are never all working properly!
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