THE ART OF DECOMPRESSION
Scripture: Psalm 32

FOCUS: We are called to confess our brokenness, and then to put it down, accept grace and become transformed people for the building of God’s kingdom.

I am not much of a swimmer, and I have never done any scuba diving, don’t ever plan to. But I have read enough to know that if you are going to do any diving, one of the first things you must learn is the art of decompression. Failure to take this essential skill seriously can be harmful, even deadly. Divers, especially those who have gone to extreme depths, who fail to take into account the need to decompress as they return to the surface may encounter decompression sickness, or “the bends”. 

I was curious to learn the inner workings of this rather odd health risk so I did a bit of digging and discovered that the source of the medical problems associated with “the bends” is tiny bubbles of gas. Air bubbles, so to speak, which work their way into places where air bubbles are not welcome, like your joints, like your blood vessels, like your brain. So how do the air bubbles get there? I’m glad you ask.

As divers descend from the surface, the hydrostatic pressure of the water which surrounds them increases as they plunge deeper into the oceans abyss. As the water pressure builds it compresses the body ever so slightly squeezing all its organs, including the blood vessels. The deeper one goes, the greater the pressure and hence the greater the compression. The increased pressure is not really a problem on the way down unless one tries to go incredibly far into the oceans depth.  The problems arise if caution is not taken when ready to ascend back to the surface.

Obviously, if on descent pressure on the body is increased, the opposite must be true when the diver makes his or her way back to the surface, the pressure decreases as they move up. Now on the surface it would seem to me that problems would be more likely to happen as pressure increases, not as it is relieved. But what do I know? Not only am I no diver, neither am I a scientist. Decompression sickness occurs when the diver rises to the surface too swiftly, when the hydrostatic pressure is relieved too quickly. What sometimes happens to a diver who allows rapid decompression is that those bubbles of gas are formed as the pressure is relieved so rapidly as to create empty spaces where empty space was never meant to be.

This past week Ryan and I have learned a new skill. We have been administering IV antibiotics to Kathy’s mom twice each day. Because the medicine she needed can only be given by IV it was necessary for us to become familiar with the procedure. Like most of you I had seen it done many times, watched as nurses did it to me. I often wondered why I saw them thump the line before attaching it to someones arm. Now I know. When there are air bubbles in the line they must be moved up and out before the medicine can be administered because pockets of air in blood vessels can act like a blockage, cause blood flow to be hindered and lead to significant medical issues.

Let’s go back to that diver who is in too much of a rush to get back to the surface. If they move up is too fast, the pressure can be released too quickly and those bubbles may appear. If they happen to appear in a blood vessel, they can cause the same life threatening problems the dreaded bubble introduced from an IV line can cause. So it is imperative, for their health and well being, that divers learn to make calculated, incremental ascents from the oceans depth.

So what does all this have to do with Psalm 32 you ask? Well I think it has a great deal to do with it actually, for as I read through the Psalm and the other lectionary texts for the week it came to mind that they were all dealing in one way or another with what is clearly one of the fundamental challenges to twenty-first century physical, mental and spiritual health. And the good news is that the scriptures offer some clear and honest solutions.

Like scuba divers, we are all dealing with challenges presented by pressure as we journey through this adventure called life. I suspect each of you, like me, at times feel as if you have gotten in too deep, as if the pressure is more than you can withstand. We feel as if we are being pushed and shoved from every direction, pressured from all sides. We strive to balance work and church and home and civic responsibilities and personal goals. We try to be model campers, but we find ourselves failing, often repeatedly, frequently in exactly the same way. And when we do we suffer the consequences. We can identify with the psalmist as he speaks of feeling as if his bones and body were wasting away. Who among us has not had those days where we felt like groaning and grumbling all day?  Some of us have actually done it! And haven’t we all known the feelings David expressed in verse four? In The Message paraphrase he says, “The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up”.

The gospel lesson for today is one of the most familiar stories in all of scripture. It dawned on me as I pondered it this week that the story of the man with two sons deals in a variety of ways with life’s pressures, poor decisions and consequences. In the tale of the prodigal son we find the younger brother who thought living on the wild side, grabbing all the gusto and eschewing discipline would be a fun and fulfilling way to live. It may have been fun for a while, but it certainly was not fulfilling and when the trust fund money ran out, he found himself in a real pickle. He was desperate for life’s basics, so he agreed to work slopping pigs and eating right along with them. Imagine the humiliation of the scene, a good Jewish boy from a prominent family, hanging out with ritually unclean pigs. The irony was intentional. It was Jesus’ way of making plan the notion that the young man had fallen to rock bottom. This son had chosen to dive so deeply into life that he was in danger of being destroyed by the pressure. His body was wasting away. He was no doubt groaning all day, each and every day. His strength was drying up as was his spirit.

Returning to the psalm we find that the groans, the wasting, the dryness of body and soul came to David when? They overwhelmed him as he kept silence, as he kept things all bottled up inside, as pressure continued to build unabated. Several years ago I worked with Bob Nolen, a psychologist and really good guy, to present a series of seminars for the boys at the Settlement group home aimed at helping them to develop appropriate interpersonal skills and coping mechanisms. One of the images Bob used has stuck with me over the years. He referred to the very human tendency to keep frustrations, anger, fear and brokenness inside as trash compacting. He made the point that when you use a trash compactor stuff gets hidden out of site for a while, but sooner or later, as more and more junk is pressed together, the compactor reaches its limit and the trash must come out and be disposed of. If it is not,  if you keep adding stuff and never empty the compactor sooner or later it will either explode or cease to function.

Isn’t that exactly what happens to us? We continue to shove our frustrations, our anger our bitterness down until one day we either explode or simply shut down. We see both reactions in the parable of the prodigal and his bitter brother. That foolish young man took his inheritance and ran off in pursuit of a life of pleasure and excess. But in the end he found himself out of options, literally living like an animal, having been forced by his circumstances to accept the humiliation of a subhuman existence. He had shut down.

Then there is that older fellow, the one we would certainly call the good brother. He had not squandered his inheritance. He had not disappointed his family. He had made something of his life, worked hard, stayed home working in the family business. He got up early and went to bed late to insure that everything was running smoothly on the family farm. But he was eaten up with resentment, most likely had been for all those years that his younger brother had been gone.

I can identify with the older brother, can’t you? There he was doing all the right things, being a good son. As he worked in the field he couldn’t help but think about his brother. I imagine the elder son assuming his sibling was out having a good time, living large and care free. Isn’t that the way we react when we think we have been treated unfairly? Isn’t that what we think when we assume someone else has been treated better than we? So he stewed and fretted and grew more and more angry. He trash compacted all those feelings until in the end, when his brother came home, he simply exploded in a fit of self righteous rage.

What both brothers needed was a bit of instruction in the art of decompression. They could have found the key in the psalm we have before us this morning. They could have learned from David. In fact, though he may not have been reading the psalms, the younger brother did come to understand. David cried out that while he kept silent his body was wasting away and his spirit was dry. Then he declared that when he acknowledged his sin and finally came clean before God the pressure was relieved, the trash compactor which had been his life had been emptied. In The Message Peterson translates his words: “Suddenly the pressure was gone-my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.”  

Confession, acknowledgement of sin, admission of failure and brokenness. Such are the tools of successful decompression. Now I would advise that paying too much attention to Peterson’s use of the word, “suddenly”  might be dangerous. Just as the diver who rushes too quickly toward the surface is in danger of experiencing the bends, or worse, those who expect all of the pressure built up over years by our unconfessed sin and brokenness to be released in an instant may well be in dangerous waters.  The New Revised Standard version simply says that when David confessed his transgressions and stopped hiding his iniquity God forgave the guilt of his sin. To be sure the forgiveness was instantaneous, but I doubt David was instantly freed from all the pressure. The journey from the stress of compression to freedom in God’s grace takes time and practice. It is a process.

We witness the process in progress in the parable of the prodigal. Jesus says first that the young man came to his senses. If we are to begin the process of decompression we must come to our senses. We must face reality, honestly assess our lives, and accept responsibility for our brokenness. Then and only then will we begin to move out of the deep waters of self absorption and deceit toward the surface where we can breathe the fresh, invigorating air of God’s grace.   

Having come to his senses the prodigal continued the process of decompression as he confessed the sin which he had finally confronted head on. It is one thing to come face to face with our brokenness; it is another to willingly confess it before the one against whom we have sinned. We are creatures skilled at making excuses. Far too often, even as we recognize our failures, we are at the same time compounding them by looking for justification, by assigning blame to others, by whining about our circumstances. Such behavior does not facilitate decompression. As the prodigal moved toward wholeness he understood the need to confess to his father that he had sinned. So must we confess to our heavenly father if we are to make any progress toward full decompression and spiritual well being.

Finally the prodigal expressed humility. “I am no longer worthy to be your son.” he said. “Treat me like a hired hand.” He didn’t come demanding his room back. He didn’t take anything for granted. He didn’t assume that all would be forgiven. He humbled himself, admitting that he had been unfaithful, recognizing that he was unworthy, and accepting responsibility for his failure. There is a word for that in the Christian tradition, repentance. Repentance is a hallmark of the season of Lent. Each year we are called to be about the work of honest, humble repentance in these days. We are called to face our brokenness, to confess our sin, to express honest regret and then to move forward, decompressed and ready to live as new creatures.