Tied up in Knots 纠结

Frustration had been simmering just under the surface. The email, a response to a query I’d sent several days earlier, brought the frustration up to a roiling boil. The details are irrelevant. Suffice to say that it wasn’t an issue that involved friends or family. It was just an issue.

I had picked up the email just before I sat down to do my somewhat unusual homework … contemplative prayer. I am required to practise it 3-4 times a week as part of some study on missional spirituality. Usually, I love this homework, but not today. I was too cross to pray. Too distracted. I didn’t want to think wise thoughts. I just wanted to be cranky. A serious sulk beckoned.

My usual way of responding to something like this would be to get busy. Weeding the grass is a satisfying way of handling frustration. Cleaning works too. But today that wasn’t an option. I only had a small window of time for this, my homework. Why, oh why, did I check email first? 

“What is going on in your heart?”  

We are encouraged to ask this question in a prayerful attitude as part of our spirituality practicum. And so, as I entered into a time of contemplation, reverently though without restraint, I took time to tell my heavenly Father just what was going on in my heart. 

“I’m frustrated. Feeling helpless. It’s not fair. They don’t understand. But there is nothing I can do about it.” Actually, Chinese has a an apt phrase to describe what was going on in my heart. My heart was 纠结 (jiujie) – tied up in knots. The character 丝 (si) literally means silk or threads. Can you see the pictograph of two sets of threads lying neatly side by side in the character 丝？ In contrast, can you see how those threads are all tangled in the Chinese word 纠结 ? (If one must be literal, the other parts of the two characters give us an idea of the sounds. Only the threads 丝 are pictographic. But I still think that 纠结 looks like a mess of thread as well as meaning ‘tangled’. Don’t you?) 

It won’t surprise you to know that as I continued with the contemplative prayer practice, somehow, God sorted out that mess of metaphorical threads. By the time I was done, the strands in my heart were lying nicely side by side (丝 ), no longer tangled (纠结). Not only was I feeling better, I was able to pray in a mature and compassionate way for others involved in the issue too.

“What wisdom is God revealing here?”

This is another question we are to encouraged to explore as part of our homework. What springs to mind in this particular instance is Biblical teaching on how we are to manage our thought lives. 

The Bible describes the non-believer as “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (Ephesians 2:3b). Indulging in chips and chocolate to salve the knotted heart as well as succumbing to sulking are examples of my natural responses to frustration. The context of this verse is a description of the person who follows “the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 1:2). Yikes!  That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?

Christians are told elsewhere to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5b).  That was actually written in the context of teaching about spiritual warfare and the importance of nipping problems in the bud. 

Does ‘making thoughts obedient to Christ’ mean repressing our frustration and anger? A simple glance at many of the Psalms in the Bible make it clear that no, this is most certainly not what it means. Repression would most likely be quite unhelpful. What it does mean, as I understand it, is that we open our hearts to God and let him untangle the threads of our knotted up hearts. 

The end of the story

After this particular prayer time, I felt quite pleased about the change in my heart. I jotted some notes in my journal to that effect. Yes, reflective journalling is another requirement for this practical exercise. 

And then I fired up the computer. 

To my astonishment, there was another email awaiting my attention. It had been sent as a follow-up to the earlier one which had evoked such a reaction. My predicament had already been resolved!

God doesn’t always make everything fall into place just as we want, but he did in this case. I am taking this as a metaphorical ‘gold star’ on my contemplative prayer homework. I hope that my classmates are enjoying some gold stars too. 

May I remember this lesson about letting God unknot the heart long after my essay has been submitted. (That essay will incorporate reflections on our practices of certain spiritual disciplines and show evidence of academic reading on the subject, by the way.) Writing this blog post helps reinforce my reflections too. I hope that these meandering thoughts may also be of encouragement to my fellow believers, for we are all all enrolled in God’s transformation course. Most of us don’t have to submit essays, but we all have practicums to undertake. May we support and encourage each other along the way as we become more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18).