You’re everywhere and nowhere baby
That’s where you’re at
Going down a bumpy hillside
In your hippy hat
Flying across the country
And getting fat
Saying everything is groovy
When your tires are flat

(Laurence Weiss / Scott David English)

Every so often I will check in with my second favourite football team, QPR, and watch some match highlights. The fans love to sing the Jeff Beck classic, Hi Ho Silver Lining, at the end of the game. On hearing this recently I was prompted to take a closer look at the lyrics which are worth pondering on. The writer seems amused at his friend’s sunny disposition when things don’t seem to be going too well. Maybe this is why it seems to be the fans of teams that never do too well who sing this song?! The affection the writer shows for his friend comes through strongly. He goes along with her sunny disposition but decides he wont make a fuss…because it’s really obvious!

Pondering further I thought of the slogan, beloved of 12 Step programme groups, which boldly proclaims, “fake it, until you make it!” It perplexed me. I know that outward disposition can be intrinsically linked to inward state but it can also be used to hide and cover up inward turmoil. People will often pretend that everything is rosy when it patently is not. This can often be avoidance of reality, not recognising and dealing with it.

The converse of this are those people who “wear their heart on their sleeve,” (I have been told I fit this category these days – still, better out than in, I say!) exposing their inward turmoil for all to see, maybe in the hope that someone out there will sort it out for them – or change the external situations that are thought to have caused the inner disquiet. Maybe for those of us of this disposition, a bit of “faking it” might go along way in helping. It is often said that habitual things can be internalised – so that what we make our habit, becomes our life. It is not about suppressing negativity but making an attempt to transform it. St Paul tell us to “put on Christ” (Romans 13:14) and that we should consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:11). What we hope to become is indeed something that we can put on now.

I think that is what happens in my prayer life. I say prayers when I often don’t really feel like it and often they don’t reflect what is going on internally for me at the time. Constantly reminding myself that I am loved and forgiven is not fake, it is about proclaiming the objective truth which has been revealed to me by my creator, something that often might not match what is going on on the inside. That inside stuff that sometimes doesn’t match is important too and needs to be shared with an intimate confidant not as a notice for all an sundry worn on our sleeves. Our complete prayer life can also reflect and address this as in the Jesus prayer, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.’ We don’t reach perfection in this life, even though that is our aim. There is always a balance to be struck, that of being real about where one is at now and projecting the life that one wants to and is called to live.

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

(Mark 11:23-25)

The call to ‘believe that you will receive’ is to stand in a place that you are currently not in. In conjunction with this Jesus goes straight on to address any internal angst that might be blocking this…deal with your internals and immediates too…if you have anything against anyone ‘forgive!’

Jesus calls us to address the inside and the outside, to do and to be. Each one feeds the other if we are to grow healthily in God’s love. We have to carry on doing both and not prioritise one above the other.

In the monastic life, we often hear about perseverance. It is a call to deal with the ‘bad times’ we all have. Not to respond to depression, anxiety and other negative feelings with assumptions that this must mean I should be out of here and doing something else. The call to be, makes the best of things when they clearly are not and can indeed be transformative. Sometimes we do just need to put on a new hat!

And so I will walk along with those wearing their happy hippy hats when their tyres are flat! And I will stand in admiration of those football supporters who follow their team week in, week out, knowing that winning any trophy is highly unlikely.

So be real but keep on the path – keeping on that path to where you are going to make it.