On Brinksmanship

And how True Religion calls us out to the Edges

In scary times, I retreat to my books. Memoirs, History Textbooks, Biographies. Scripture, too. I’m a midlife convert to graduate school most likely because I’d run out of ways to avoid it. There comes a point in life when you have to sit yourself down and open up your brain, acknowledging there’s more we just don’t understand. This sub stack, is an attempt to open up my heart in light of all that I’m learning, too. To set a table of hospitality for myself and hopefully for people who might want to learn alongside me.

The Quaker author and teacher Parker Palmer told my leadership class last semester that he writes to differentiate between the thoughts that are his ego and the thoughts that are the wisdom of God. I like that. This is the way it’s been for me too.

So a word on what I’m remembering this week…

A decade ago I picked up the memoir of Calvin Miller, a respected writer and Baptist pastor who died in 2012. He was from a different time, but his words stand the test. Picking it up again the other day, I read the following:

“We all like the middle. The middle is safe. You can’t fall off the middle. Only the edges are dangerous. The great lessons, the deep tragedies, the storms of unbearable heart-quakes always happen along the edges. We don’t cry much in the middle, but then we don’t laugh much there either—at least with any belly-deep laughter. Still, every day, nine to five, we suit up for the only contest that can be played along the unsafe edges of our years. Brinkmanship is the name of the game…I once met with a circle of widows to do book reviews. What amazed me was their laughter. All of them had walked with heavy steps behind life’s shiny hearses and watched as the shallow earth swallowed up what seemed their only reasons to live. Each of them had known the grim necessity of setting a table for one. All of them had wept over tasteless bread and wide, empty beds that nibbled at their security. But amazingly, in time, they learned a new laughter along the edges, and what wholesome laughter it was too. They had learned to play and survive the game of brinkmanship. They had finally accepted life’s greatest truth: joy rarely erupts in the safe centers of our lives. Laughter may inhabit the middle, but not joy. Joy rises only along the edges.”

Brinksmanship. The Oxford dictionary defines it as “the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.” When I read that the other day, I read it in light of current events. The “especially in politics” part hit home and surely that’s what’s happening here. Our country is testing the limits of democracy by the hour.

Today, I read it differently. Today I read: “Pursuing a dangerous policy,” and think:

Surely, there’s Spirit-Driven Brinksmanship too.

In my time with foster youth this semester we’re studying the book of Mark. Mark’s gospel is the shortest gospel and its believed to be the first gospel text written. Luke and Matthew took parts of Mark and expanded on them in their own particular voices for their own particular audiences. Mark, though? He writes like a skittish reporter holding a ticking time bomb, wondering where he should put the words down. He seems worried it might just explode before he has a chance to get it down on the page.

Mark’s Jesus is secretive. He exorcises demons and then tells them to be quiet. He heals people in profound ways and then tells them to “immediately” head to the priests for a ritual washing. “See that you don’t tell anyone,” he insists throughout. When the women (the women!) find his tomb empty three days after the crucifixion, Mark says over and over again: “and they were alarmed.”

This is not a text for the comfortable. It's a text for the curious, the concerned, the complacent. It’s quite possibly a text for the people who find themselves in the middle. Middle class, mid life, mid career, middling? Mark’s Jesus is often referred to as “Christ the worker” because he is, as my New Testament Professor says, “The one for whom the Kingdom of God has drawn near.” Mark’s Jesus may be secretive but I believe that’s because he’s just getting started. He’s got a marathon to run here and he’s trying to figure out how to up the ante without losing control. Brinksmanship, we would call it.

The powers that be will forever pursue their dangerous policies. The centers of global power wait with bated breath to see what the outcome of those policies will really be. Mark’s gospel, however, begins with John the Baptist in the wilderness calling people out to the edges. “Prepare the way for the Lord,” he says. “Make straight paths for Him!” Eleven verses later, John the Baptist is in prison and Jesus begins his ministry with one of the greatest sentences in all the Bible: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Repent. That’s a scary word that should be demystified a bit. It simply means “turn around!” Change. The Delta sign, as we learned in our grade school math classes.

America, and God help us, American Religion, has to change. And we can head towards the center of power and align ourselves with known fools, or we can head out to the edges and see what joy there is to be found in the wilderness. The road out to the edges can be scary. But there’s laughter there too. I’d bet my money on the edges any day of the week. Let’s head out to the edges together. I’ll see you there.