Reflection: Disruption

Both disruption itself and the fear of disruption have been formative in my discipleship as a follower of Jesus Christ.

The people of God are sojourners in this life, navigating to the best of our abilities and making meaning out of circumstances along the way. The personal narrative which most stands out to me as an experience of disruption, one which has afforded me immeasurable peace and strength in its outcomes, has been my process of “coming out of the closet” as gay. This process, which is of course not as neatly instantaneous as theatrical portrayals might lead us to believe, was always a disruption of which I was terrified. I resisted the prospect of bearing that cross—whose two beams are authenticity and vulnerability—to the summit of such a public execution of the ego; I was so deeply deceived by the fears which had been whispered into my soul by the Accuser and his allies (within the Church more often than not) that I had little faith in the Resurrection that would occur on the other side of the plundering of his torturous abode. Encounters with God are sometimes experienced in “the still, small voice,” but many of the disruptions which have bent the course of my own life towards redemption and renewal have been felt in flames and tongues of fire descending in the midst of the gathering of God’s beloved. No Holy Saturday liturgy of the Byzantine or Slavic rite is complete without the clacking and clanging of percussive instruments as the chanters proclaim “Let God Arise!” (Ps. 68), which announces the bursting open of the tombs and the utter desolation of the gates of Hell (at which time, Eastern Orthodox children tend to have a great deal of fun whirring and banging their liturgical party favors) The Psalm proclaims that “the earth shook” with the breaking of chains and the triumph of God’s own vulnerable and humble sacrifice over the rigidity and arrogance of Satan. The world shakes and trembles with exhilaration as the Risen Christ binds up the Captor and assassinates Death. Resurrection is disruptive.