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“The Uncageable Spirit”
Galatians 5:16-6:10
A Meditation by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley
In a few moments, the choir will perform a choral setting of a Walt Whitman poem. It has this line in it that has caught my imagination these past few weeks, “the joy of our Spirit is uncaged.” I have been thinking of all of the things that might cage and uncage our spirits.
Think of that which cages us. A cage is a prison. A cage is a trap. A cage is not of our own making. It is also a place of security and predictability. For some people, cages are good. They give them the boundaries that they need. They keep them safe. And yet a cage is something that is porous. It might not keep us as safe as we want it to. I think of Richard Dreyfus in the movie Jaws. You remember when he goes down into the shark cage thinking he’s safe. But he underestimates the power of the shark and the cage is destroyed, leaving him in peril.
We have our own cages, don’t we? Think of some of them:
Our preconceived notions about right and wrong.
Our fears
Our prejudices
Our addictions
Our elected officials
The timeline of the legislative session.
Our church families.
Our own families.
Our promises
Our definitions which impact our promises
Our beliefs
Our values
All of these are cages.
Paul listed
off the cages the people he saw were in: (I really like the way Eugene Peterson
translates this passage from Galatians
“Repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.”
We can stay in those cages or we can choose not to be in them.
I heard a preacher speak about birds in cages that were loaded in the back of a truck. In the wind, the birds flew within their cages. The preacher used this illustration to tell us not to be anxious about things that will get us nowhere. I chose to think instead of the bird and how even in the midst of its cage it still sought to be free. It would no longer let its cage keep it from flying. In essence, the bird on that truck chose not to simply be in a cage, but in communion with the wind, remembering with each flap of those tiny wings all that she was meant to be. Remembering and as a result uncaging her spirit.
I have to believe that a part of what we are to do is to set ourselves free. We are to uncage our spirits. We are to let our polythemous moths have wings. We are to set each other free.
Paul also talked about what will set us free. Again in Peterson’s translation:
“What happens when we live God’s way? God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal communities, not needing to force our way of life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” (Gal.5:22,23)
This season as people graduate and set off on new adventures, as people begin to think about new job opportunities, as we begin to imagine what our world might look like away from denominational cages, may we do all we can to set our spirits free.
May we do all we can to uncage ourselves.
May we do all we can to uncage others.
When we do all of that, then we are free to imagine something new, exciting and life-giving. That’s what the Spirit’s presence did at Pentecost. And look at the results.
So what are you doing to cage up the Spirit. It’s longing to get out and set itself free. Are you ready to free it, too?