From the Chaplains
The Pressing Place
Earlier this week I read a fabulous quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:
A woman is like a tea bag; you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.
Eleanor Roosevelt
In chapel I asked the girls to describe what pressure looked like in their lives, what types they they face and how they respond to it. Some of them spoke about the pressure of academic expectations, expectations of beauty standards, peer pressure and even the pressure of climate change.
Pressure effects each of us differently, but one thing rings true. When pressure hits, we really feel it. The question of ‘when pressures come, how do we respond?’ then arises.
In this week’s lectionary reading we heard from the Gospels of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. His entrance was a loud spectacle that captivated the hearts and minds of the thousands who had gathered to celebrate. Thinking Jesus had come to free Israel from the tyrannical rule of the Romans, Jesus was welcomed as a king.
Within three days, the crowds of thousands had disbanded. Their cheers of Hosanna silenced by their uneasiness in his message. He had not come to liberate the people from Roman rule, but from a deeper and more cosmic struggle. To liberate people from oppression and captivity in their hearts, minds and bodies.
The night of the Last Supper, Jesus sat with his 12 disciples and the women disciples who accompanied him. Once supper was over, Jesus withdrew to the Mount of Olives with three disciples. Exhorting them to pray, they fell into sleep. He was alone in this garden of olive groves.
As the early hours of the morning crept in, Jesus’ prayers to the Father echoed with pain. Luke’s gospel records that the ache in Jesus’ heart as he anticipated the cross and the pressure that he was to endure. Sweat like drops of blood fell from his temple as he asked the Father to take the manner of his death away. “And yet, not my will but yours be done,” he prayed, choosing the way of God over the way of the world.
The pressure of the pain, the punishment, the spectacle that awaited him drew something out of him. He did not ignore the pressure nor implode under its weight. He allowed the pressure to be an opportunity to extract the strength that God had placed within him.
Ironically, as the place in which he prayed this prayer, was known as the ‘Pressing Place’. He sat, surrounded by an olive grove. These olives were to be plucked, then placed in a press in order to extract the oil for use across the world. The only way to access the oil is through the application of pressure.
At the end of our service, the girls each held stalks over lavender. By rubbing them in their hands, the scent was extracted and the chapel was filled with the heady sweet perfume. I encouraged each of the girls that their lives are like the lavender. When pressure comes, this is an opportunity to extract the perfumed oil from within that will affect the entire atmosphere around them.
May each of us, when experiencing the Pressing Place, find in it an opportunity to extract strength and beauty within, to spill out to those around.
Reverend Cass Blake
College Chaplain