Timing: Martin Luther and A Young Kamikaze Pilot

Saturday marked the anniversary of Martin Luther's birthday back in 1483. He's known for the Ninety-Five Theses (short for "Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences"), his famous attack on the Catholic church and its various practices that he found to be against the word of the Bible. Also famous was the way he delivered the treatise -- he nailed them to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Evidently this was the custom of the day, but when we were taught about this as children, the practice seemed overdramatic and awesome.

Luther's Theses are widely regarded as the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation, and, of course, a branch of Protestantism took its name from him.

What most compels me about his story is the element of perfect timing that fueled the spread of his work. He wrote these Theses right after the printing press had been invented, which meant that his words could be and were reproduced widely and read all over Europe, driving the spread of his ideas and the movement launched from them.

He could not have planned this timing. His ideas simply came to light at the perfect historical moment for them to make their maximum impact.

This is the kind of thing that haunts me at night.

Coming at this idea from another direction:

There's a character in Empire of the Sun (a movie I watched repeatedly as a pre-teen which is now etched into my memory, along with J.G. Ballard's source novel) that also haunts me. It's the opposite of Luther's story. A young Japanese boy with dreams of becoming a kamikaze pilot finally gets the opportunity, and goes through the pre-flight ritual -- but it is too late; the Japanese have surrendered. The time for his dream has passed. He is devastated.

This really freaked me out when I was younger. (Along with about a thousand other images in that story. But that's a whole other blog post. Or a hundred. Seriously. What pre-teen watches and watches and watches a movie about World War II internment camps? Me, that's who.)

In my 20s, I was obsessed with timing. What if my unique gifts in the world had come along at the wrong time? What if the world didn't need what I had to offer? What if I had a great idea for a book or movie but it should have come out a hundred years ago, or a hundred years from now?

I'm a little older now, and I feel more restful about the idea of timing, simply because I understand that the forces of history are completely out of my control, and that's okay. There are many elements of timing that I can control, including my basic belief now that I can and will find the compatibility of my historical moment and my unique talents.

The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

--Frederick Buechner

Finding that divine overlap can feel like a long process, but I take hope from the millions who have done it before me, and most of them past their 20s, unlike the elite American wunderkind fantasy.

Another key element of timing is that perhaps there is no way to know the legacy of your timing during your lifetime. In which case, the work simply continues, and you navigate by pleasure and gladness.

Have you experienced these sweet spots of your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meeting? How did you know you had found that place?