A Question of Voice
Yesterday’s post about my initial responses to Ephesians 2 was a strange one for me to write. It as one of those let’s get the words down raw and let them just sit there as they are. I don’t think I will preach that passage in just that way. And for me it was a risk to write it that way, but it was a choice.
A choice of voice.
In my study of the enneagram I continue to see myself as a Type 8. If you do any kind of looking at the Enneagram types the 8 is the more strong willed, in your face, powerful leader. I am learning to see where I do intimidate people, and I am learning to accept that as my type energy at work. Yet, I have spent years not liking the commonly expected voice of the Enneagram 8, what I am thinking of as the Confrontation Voice.
Before I knew of the Enneagram, I had observed some very clear examples of that Confrontation Voice from church leaders. I saw the harm those harsh words had on my life and on the lives of others. So as I was seeking my own voice as a preacher and a leader I intentionally sought a different voice. It was those years of cultivating a non-confrontational and peacemaking voice that led me first to see my Enneagram Type as a 9. I was content with that.
So one of my struggles with the Enneagram has been accepting that I do have that Confrontational Energy and voice within me. Part of that acceptance is to find healthy ways to practice it. And practice is the operative word there. I am clumsy with my Enneagram 8 energy and voice. It is a shift of years of practice to become open to an important part of how God made me.
So yesterday’s post was a practice exercise in that more Confrontational Voice that is one of my authentic voices.
My preferred preaching voice? Invitational. And I can see how that can be just as bold and clear of a type 8 voice as the more confrontational one can be.
To me, the Bible is a collection of God’s loving invitations to us. Invitations to live a life aligned with the righteousness and love that God showed us in creating us, tending us, redeeming us, and transforming us. One of my pastors said once that God does not break into our lives to invade us, that is evil’s modus operandi. God knocks gently and persistently on the doors of our hearts inviting us to open and welcome in the Essence of the Divine. We can choose to ignore the invitation and we can refuse it, and God’s grace will respect that choice.
Yet, God will keep on offering the invitation. As long as we have life in our bodies God will keep on offering that invitation. And I’m even open to the idea that not even death will stop God from that extended grace (can we say purgatory?).
Even in the Ephesians 2 and Acts 10 passages, I can just as easily see God reaching out in love to Us and reaching out in love to Them and then looking at each of us with those sparkling/piercing eyes of grace and saying,…
“Shall we dance together?”
That’s a great invitation.
