A Roadmap Through Uncertainty

Author: Pastor Heidi Eickstadt (from the sermon on 7/24/2022)

A long time ago, in what may now seem a galaxy far far away, there were these things we used when we traveled that we called a road atlas, do you remember those? Before GPS devices and Apple Maps or GoogleMaps, you had to read a physical map, and interpret which was the fastest and easiest way from A to B. Even though a road may look like the shortest route, you had to know from the key which kind of road it was…whether it was an interstate with higher speed limits or a highway or secondary road with lower speed limits, towns with stoplights and more windy roads.

I became very familiar with these ancient relics when I was growing up because my dad is a long-haul trucker and when I went on the road with him, my job was to read the latest edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas. Now my dad knew the interstates and many of the highways like the back of his hand so I suspect most of the time he gave me this job to make sure I learned one of his most important life-skills: knowing how to read a map and travel without getting lost.

One of those trips, we were traveling west across Missouri and I noticed on the map that we if took an alternative to the interstate, we would just happen to drive by the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead in Mansfield, Missouri. Now I was a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan and had read all of the Little House books many times, so I was ecstatic about the prospect of visiting her Missouri home.

So I begged and pleaded with my dad, please, please, please can we take Highway 60 and stop by Laura’s house? He tried to explain that the road would slow us way down, it was a winding highway through the Ozarks but I kept pleading. Eventually, he finally relented and so we took the alternate way.And I quickly learned the difference between those different colored lines on the atlas, a US Highway is definitely a more scenic but way less efficient way than the interstate to get from point A to point B, especially in a semi pulling a full 40 foot trailer behind it. They look similar but one is way scarier to navigate in a big rig.

But we made it thanks to the atlas, to both the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum and back to the interstate to get to our final destination on time. My dad and I had never been on this road or in this place but the atlas kept us from getting lost, orienting us back to finding our way.

But how do we find our way in navigating life? How do we find our way when we are in unfamiliar territory and we feel lost and disoriented by our emotions and experiences?

In Brene Brown’s latest book “Atlas of the Heart,” she says that the research shows most of us feel disconnected from ourselves and each other, in large part because we don’t have the language to understand or express our emotions and experiences. Apparently, most of us can only describe our feelings as sad, happy or mad. And such limited language and understanding keeps us from knowing where we are in the atlas of our heart, knowing how we got there and how we can get from places of disconnection to places of connection.

She says in the introduction: “Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our 2 emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.”

Disembodied and Disconnected. Two Words that are the antithesis of who we know Jesus and His Way to be. And there’s just one of the ways we see the importance of Brene Brown’s work, for us as the church and as Christians.

For we know God is a God of embodied love, embodied faith, embodied relationship. God didn’t just summon creation into a spiritual or ethereal existence but God BREATHED a physical, embodied creation into being. And in Jesus, God entered into a body and an embodied human existence as both divine and human.

So embodiment is the essence of who God is but also so is connection. Jesus said the most important commandments are to love God, love one another and love ourselves. But we simply can’t follow those commands without connection. Love can’t exist without connection. There is no way to be in relationship without connecting to the other person…and you can’t love yourself or God if you are disconnected from God and yourself.

So we are going to dig in and map this atlas of our heart, learning how to name our emotions and how different experiences bring up different emotions in us and take us to different places… and how we can travel from places of disconnection to connection.

And the first experience is “When Things are Uncertain or Too Much.” None of us have felt this one at all these past few years, right? This one’s a biggie for us but it’s something we hear others also experience in our readings today.

We hear in Lamentations the pain of those living in Judah after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, occupied the country and deported most of its citizens. They are overwhelmed by their suffering and uncertain of whether God hears or cares about their plight. We hear in Matthew how Jesus is grieved and agitated in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the point of throwing himself down on the ground in anguish.

Both the writer of Lamentations and Jesus are experiencing more than stress, they are overwhelmed, which Brene defines as: “an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.”

In situations of overwhelm, many of us don’t recognize that’s what we’re feeling. We try to keep on pushing through, keep on keeping on, afraid to stop and face what we are experiencing. In Brene’s words, we often armor up to protect our egos and our feelings, turning to perfectionism, pleasing and proving to try to control the situation.

But when overwhelmed and full of anxiety, the poet and Jesus instead stop, listen, and pray. They stop doing and problem-solving, which is exactly what the research shows is the only way for people to recover from overwhelm. And they let themselves be vulnerable, willing to admit their uncertainty, anxiety and fear instead of doubling down and putting on the “brave face.”

But the thing is, it’s not being brave to armor up and reject vulnerability. Although we’re taught that being vulnerable is being weak, Brene says there is no courage without vulnerability, for courage requires the willingness to lean into uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.

Lamentations and Jesus both show us some of the places we go when things are uncertain or too much: stress, overwhelm, anxiety, fear and vulnerability. And they model for us what Brene and the research show to be the way back to connecting with ourselves, and ultimately, each other and God: putting the brakes on, pressing pause, naming what we are feeling and letting ourselves be vulnerable. Allowing ourselves not to have all the answers but leaning on God and each other, admitting our doubts, our uncertainties and our struggles.

That is courage that connects. That is embodied faith.

As we travel this atlas of our hearts in the coming weeks, the journey is not going to be like driving a smooth and efficient interstate but it’s going to feel a lot more like that winding and bumpy road I traveled with my dad all those years ago in Missouri.

It’s going to bring up emotions and stories that may be difficult so please do take the time to care for yourself, taking time to pray and rest. And although you may wonder if the journey is worth it, like I am sure my dad did that hot July day careening through the Ozarks, may we dare to trust the way of love and connection.

Thanks be to God. Amen.