No Condemnation—or Instagram Consolation—in Christ

I feel a responsibility to be encouraging in my writing, to connect and not estrange people, especially during Covid. Social media has fetishized the “hot mess” blogger — somehow she *still* seems to have it together more than the rest of us, even in sweats.

I don’t see many men projecting a similar image to gain relatability on social media, and I’m not especially interested in writing only to women. The kind of hot mess-ness I, and many of us feel in these weeks, is in no way ironic, or a veiled way to count post engagements throughout the day like pats on the back. I don’t want to do that, to come off with my own weird flavor of curated ease, and I’m sorry if I have. 

I generally try to process behind the scenes: The way I talk to my husband and close friends about daily struggles is not often captured in published work. Any personal processing may lead to takeaways to share, but there is little reason to drag Instagram connections through that mud. 

There’s a Bjork song where she talks about waking up early and walking to a cliff to throw off “car-parts, bottles and cutlery” — to get rid of her mental junk before she’s around other people. “I go through all this before you wake up, so I can feel happier and be safe up here with you,” she writes in Hyperballad. I think of this song often, when I’m up early journaling and trying to pray through worries. 

It quickly becomes self-aggrandizing, to assume anyone wants to go to that cliff with me, let alone to think it would benefit others it they did. A sense of guilt comes into the mix here, too. No one needs to hear the Corona-induced struggles of a middle-class white lady who gets to work from home. 

But I *do* think there is a time for certain convictions, longings, and fears to come to light through writing when there is an application that can encourage other people, and possibly form thoughts that can be mirrored to the church. 

This morning, I read with attention the story of Jesus cursing a fig tree. After being praised with palms and hosannas on a donkey, Jesus is hungry. He sees a tree with green leaves and approaches it, but there are no figs. He curses the tree and it withers. The disciples hear him tell the tree it will never again bear fruit. 

This moment startles — it is not the image of the healing Jesus, the one who makes bread and fish multiply. Here, right before Jesus goes to Jerusalem to turn over tables of vendors selling in his father’s house, he curses a living thing. 

I wondered, what if we start to bloom, but fail to produce fruit? 

There was a mock orange tree next to our old driveway I had a certain fixation with. It flowered and smelled fragrant each spring, but I knew it was never going to grow any citrus. I thought back then that the tree represented Seattle, a call to move. Maybe that after 15 years, this city was not the place for our family. But now I see it was a symbol for my heart, which was stuck. The tree didn’t represent a certain place, but rather a spiritual posture of withering. 

I’m convicted by the image of the cursed fig tree during Holy Week. Instead of finding a firm foundation in God during Covid, I’ve found myself looking for some sense of control through lists and tasks that never gets me anywhere good. It’s my own hot mess, to try and predict, manage my impatience, and temper a general crankiness.

During Covid, how can we produce fruit while we manage loss and fear? This is not a time for the church to look slick live-streamed on Easter Sunday, but for people of faith to show up and follow-through by supporting small business, the many who have lost work, the many on the front lines caring for the sick. 

I was talking to Drew about these things a little while ago, and he reminded me of Pilgrim’s Regress, the C.S. Lewis book that argues through allegory that we indeed meet God in weakness as well as flourishing. When we acutely feel like spiritual failures, it’s often because God is bringing us to a place where we can more clearly see the work we have to do as opportunities for transformation, not evidence that we have “gotten worse” as people or regressed.

When we feel like we’re farthest from God, a fig tree that looks healthy but has nothing to offer, there is an invitation to nearness and renewal. It’s a reminder that God can use our whole lives, in seasons of desolation and consolation, to draw us nearer. But never to accuse us with guilt or shame. 

There is no condemnation in Christ, but freedom to meet God right where we are. By sharing an interior mess that is not fixable or particularly Instagram-able, I hope I can be vulnerable in a way that, in its truest form, approaches genuine connection. 

If the church is going to be a source of healing in these difficult days, we’re going to have keep on doing the hard work of being honest, showing up for each other, being brave, and returning to prayer. An orchard with basketfuls of ripe cherries and plums ready for the taking.