good in tensions

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!"
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from The Song of Hiawatha, part 10

"In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead." - James 2:17


I was never in Boy Scouts, so I don't know much about bows and arrows. But I do know that those flimsy, plastic ones or the Nerf version that I used to play with are nothing compared to a real, English longbow. Reading about English longbows, made from a piece of yew wood about 6ft long, just made me feel like a little Camelot kid, brought me back to my wistful, medieval imagination. A longbow could fire an arrow over 200 yds easy. Range and power, which brought the Britons to victory.

photo credit: http://www.solarnavigator.net/sport/archery.htm

Power, because there is tension.

Perhaps why I find my faith to have little bearing on the weight of my real life is because I misunderstand tension. When I hear about faith being accompanied by action, I think of

believe the right things + do the right things = good life.

And I think of the good life as the easy, relaxed kind of life. Things ought to go my way when I get my theology right and I practice social justice, right?

But what if faith and action are not merely two parts of an equation, but are tensed together like the cord and the bow? What I mean is, sometimes our faith can stretch us only when we act, and sometimes our actions can only stretch us when we have faith. Which means sometimes our faith can be difficult. Our actions may prove to be costly.

Right before James 2:17, the scripture gives a real life example of faith without action: "go, I wish you well" without doing anything to provide for that to be a reality. It's a classic example of good intentions. But the other end, of merely doing good without faith, appears to be a contradiction. How do you "do good" without believing what that "good" is?

I don't have clear answers. But I think that being strictly "answers only" or a "questions only" seems to me a powerless kind of life, a piece of wood rotting on the ground. String tangled in a mess. But maybe there is something in seeing the cross as nailed together by mercy and judgment, earth as a battleground between heaven and hell. I myself, a mix of sinner and saint. Simul justus et peccator.

If Romans 7 is right, then a Christian's spiritual life is always in tensions. It's not about resolving that tension (cutting the string, breaking the bow), but living in that tension well. To grieve well when I sin, to rejoice well when I triumph in Christ.

Lord, let me not be numb.

I want to have more than good intentions. I want to be good in tensions.