Message

I ran across a quote the other day.  I may not have it quite right, and I don't remember who said it, but its essence stayed with me, rattling around in my skull, and resurfacing often enough that I started thinking more about it.

Essentially it went like this.  "Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message."

This reminds me that what must shape my faith, shape my beliefs, shape my message, shape my attitudes and behaviors, must be my experience of Christ's love.  That love that will not let me go. It is that experience that changes everything.  It is not the dogma, the words.  Indeed if I focus on the dogma I find myself being pulled into ways of being I don't like.  Sometimes I find myself being judgmental.  "Well if they were REALLY Christian they would (or wouldn't ) support health care reform."  I find myself being judgmental of those who are being judgmental.  "Those people are hateful and I hate people like that."

Focusing on dogma, on the oughts, and shoulds and musts of faith leaves me feeling unsettled, insecure, and frankly a little down.  But focusing on my experience of Christ's love makes a huge difference. To be loved the way Christ loves - with a love that led to the cross, to death.  What a love!  When I think about it, I am stunned.  Christ doing the unspeakable, going the way of death, for me.  Me!

That love frees me.  It frees me from wallowing in shame, remorse, self hatred and guilt.  It frees me from getting locked in to self-destructive ways.  It frees me to be open to God's love and compassion.  Yes, we can block even God's love.  When I focus on the "words" of faith I end up trapped in low spiritual self-esteem.

But when I focus on the experience of Christ's, and ultimately God's love?  Then I can accept God's acceptance of me.  And I am free to be open.  Free to risk.  Free to love others.  I don't have to live and act in fear.  And it is in that moment that I really have a message.

Grace

Gerald May once wrote "grace threatens all my normalities"  It took me a while to get it.  But then,after time, that statement began to make sense.  Grace threatens all that I once thought was normal and true.  I threatens the way I look at the world.  At others.  At life.  Even at myself.  It has become normal, over 50 odd years (OK, its closer to 60) for me to think of myself as "not enough."  This is one of the great demons I must fight with on a regular basis.  That profound feeling that somehow I don't measure up.  But grace threatens this dysfunctional belief and says, "God loves me! God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me!"    It is normal for me to look at certain people and think they are messed up harbingers of evil.  That they are hateful, or greedy. Alas, it is normal for me to find people I despise.  But grace  reminds me that these people were created in God's image, and God loves them as much as that saintly person I adore. Anne Lamott, in thinking about this says "it drives me crazy, that God seems to have no taste and no standards."  It drives me crazy too.  But when I am in the sphere of grace I remember it is a good thing.  That way God can love me too.

The amazing thing about grace is how is changes us.  Grace means you are in a totally different place than you were before.  Grace means you are in a place you could never have gotten to on your own.

If I am really honest, my old "normalities" are often pretty sad.  They are full of fear, prejudice, and selfishness.  I am so thankful, that God can challenge those old thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs, and move me into that new place where grace abounds.  I like the way Paul puts it in Ephesians 2.  "For it is by grace that you have been saved, though faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God - so that no one can boast.  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  Now that is truly a "new normal." 

Breathe!

I spent the entirety of last week going through training to be a neglect and abuse investigator. Not exactly a "light" way to spend a week.  There were many stories of vulnerable people having bad things happen to them.  Sexual physical and psychological abuse, and neglect.  It breaks your heart.  I was reminded that all too often ugly things happen to innocent and good people.  I think about the people I counsel who have often experienced terrible abuse as children.  Of the wonderful man in my church who has cancer.  Of the young man with the traumatic brain injury from a car wreck.

They are out there, these victims.  And frankly it's a little hard to take.  I find myself angry, frustrated, confused, and often downright disappointed by God.  After all, I think I know how God ought to act.  And allowing bad things to happen to innocents is not on my list of acceptable behavior.

I decided to Google "bad things and good people."  There were some interesting results.  I found a group of sites that said basically the idea of bad things happening to good people is not even theologically sound. Why?  Because there are no good people.  "All have sinned" they point out "and fall short of the glory of God."  Sorry, that answer doesn't work for me.

Others suggest that if we could just understand the big picture, the "why", the causal purpose of events then we would be fine.  The problem is that all too often we never figure out the "why", ever.  Think about Job who really never got an answer to the causal question.  I know for sure there are times I haven't gotten an answer.  And I intend to ask about those events if I ever get the chance.

 

Chances are that often we will never understand some things.  So if we begin our efforts to deal with our stuggles by trying to answer the question of "why" we will never get beyond the question.  And getting stuck on the question we will get stuck in our disappointment, our confusion and despair.  And thus we will become frozen. 

In the upper room the disciples were really confused.  They had seen betrayal, had talked about denial, and had heard rumors of death.  In the midst of all that did Jesus offer them another explanation of the ways of God?  A theological dissertation on the implications of the cross?  An apologetic?  A reminder that there are "no good people?"

No, Jesus said "trust in God, trust also in me."  Trust.  Sometimes that is not easy to do.  For in our moments of disappointment, in those moments when bad things happen to innocents, trusting God is not an easy thing.  C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife described the struggle this way.  "My fear is not that I will cease to believe in God, but that I will believe such terrible things about God."  

 

But God still says..."Look at me, and trust." "Remember who I am, what I am like, what I have done, what I have promised.  Look at me, and keep moving.  And you and I will go through it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly, together.

Anne Lamott, in the book "Plan B, Other thoughts about Faith" talks about a time when she was terribly confused and in despair.  She cried out to a friend, "I want to know what to do!"  He answered.  "Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe... We breathe, we eat, we remember that God is present whenever people suffer.  God is here with us when we are miserable."  Anne didn't like that answer.  "But look at the suffering" she responded.  "It seems like people are abandoned by God.  How do we not lose our minds?"  The friend replied.  "YOU take care of the suffering."  I like that answer.  In short it was the same as that of Jesus.  Trust in God, and keep living, and loving, and caring, and helping.  Keep going with God.

Simple, if not easy.  But I like thinking about it that way. Left foot, right foot, left foot, breath.  Go with God and see what happens, one step at a time.  Also known as trust.

Dis-ease

Recently I have been reading through Sam Keen's book "To A Dancing God.".  At one point Keen describes a moment when he felt totally confused by life.  He describes his confusion this way.  "It was as if my interior space had been hollowed out, and boredom, anxiety, despair, impotence, erratic willfulness, and shameful self-consciousness were dumped in and agitated like clothes in a washer.  These demons whirled around my inner emptiness, their harsh screams reverberating and blending into a painful cacophony in the vacuum" (p. 16).

I remember reading that and going "Wow!  That's me!"  Maybe not today.  But many times in my life as my sense of dis-ease with myself, my journey, my life, has come oozing the the surface.  Escaping my careful attempts to keep it hidden.  Not just from others, be also from myself.

What Keen has helped me understand is that my dis-ease comes from my uncertainty about the answer to one very important question. "Who am I?"  It seems like a 58 year old man with two masters and a doctorate ought to know the answer to that question.  But if I am really honest I am not sure I really do.  In part it is because I have been asking the wrong questions.  I have looked for meaning and purpose by asking "What am I to do?"  I have looked for answers to the puzzle of my self by looking at my past, and hoping I could find others' to blame for some of the quirks in my character.  So I have looked behind, and looked forward, but I have had no clue who I am now.

It is not that I can ignore the past, and my memories, or the future, and my dreams.  But I must learn, within the context of my past realities and future hopes, to live in the present.  To be.  More specifically to be present.  To be present with those whom God places in my path.  To be attentive and open.  To listen and care. To put aside the way my past life and future hopes color my perceptions, and really welcome the reality of others, to accept the wonder and mystery of who they are.

In short I need to be present with myself, and others. Sounds simple.  I know all too well it is not.  But I am going to try.  To let go of my slavery to my past, to what I have done, and what has been done to me - to let go of my vision of the future, and the way it narrows my view - and be, with God, with the Spirit in this moment.  For it is in that way that I allow God to lead me each stop of the way, and quiet the chaos within.

The Divided Self

Parker J Palmer, in his wonderful book "A Hidden Wholeness" suggests that many of us suffer from "a failure of human wholeness."  We are not, he insists, integrated but have a disconnect between who we are internally, and who are are externally.  This happens because we deny our true self, in part because we can't embrace the parts of the inner self that are problematic and dark, and thus put on an exoskeleton of morality (I would say pretense) which is the person we present to the world.  The problem is that the divided life is, as Palmer notes, a "wounded life."  Being pathological it is marked by symptoms.  Palmer notes the following

• We sense that something is missing in our lives and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us.
• We feel fraudulent, even invisible because we are not in the world as we really are.
• The light that is within us cannot illuminate the world's darkness
• The darkness that is within cannot be illuminated by the world's light
• We project our inner darkness on others
• Our inauthenticity and projects make real relationships impossible, leading to loneliness
• Our contributions to the world, especially through the work we do, are tainted by duplicity and deprived of the life giving energies of the true self.  (p.16)

Sadly those symptoms have been all too present in my own life, and are present in the lives of many I talk with.  Many of us, including me, need wholeness.  We need to rejoin the inner and outer person, or as Palmer puts it, the "soul and role."

How does this happen?  There are perhaps many paths to wholeness.  One path is likely to be community.  Finding people with whom I can be real.  Whom I can trust enough to let my light shine, and whom I trust enough to share my darkness.  Perhaps we might call this community.  Can it be the church?  Ah, that is a scary thought, for often the church is not a safe place.

I think community is key, but I would suggest that the real starting place is the Spirit. "The secret is this, Christ in us. . . "  Christ in us, the Spirit, in us.  It is when the Spirit is in us that we have the capacity to be new people.  The Spirit illuminates, it helps us see the good and the bad.  The Spirit empowers, it gives us a capacity to begin to move beyond old patterns of behavior.  The Spirit moves us like wind, impassions us like fire. The spirit burns away the division between the external and internal and allows us to be whole.  And as people "becoming whole" (do we ever really get there?) we can connect in a new way with others on the same journey.  And thus we have community.  And perhaps, in wonderful moments, thus we have the church.

This is scary for me, this idea of being my true self.  For it is much safer to hide.  But I need to let my inner world shape my outer.  And I need to let the outer world impact and touch my inner world.  For in that way I become real, and truly touch others, and am touched by them. It is then that the walls come down.

Inner and Outer

Over the past week I have seen over a dozen people with some form of mental illness. And I have talked with a number of people from my church, as well as a couple of friends, and something startling emerged from those conversations.

What struck me was the degree to which almost universally the people I talked to had what is called - in psychology speak - an external locus of control.  Almost every one, in one way or another, was crediting people, events, circumstances outside, for what was going on inside.  A husband, a job, Obama, the GOP, taxes, the economy, children.  So many things are out there that we can point to which "cause" our inner state.  Sometimes those things make us sad, or mad, and at other times they bring us joy.  Or so we think.

But is this really true?  Is it what is happening outside us, or is it how we are responding to that external factor that is the problem?  When someone makes us feel bad, is it really how that person behaves toward me the problem, or how I chose to interpret that action?  An interpretation usually determined by "my stuff."  For example my insecurity, or my lack of self worth.

The same problem emerges when we seek happiness.  Is it a good thing that I rely on another person's acceptance or admiration to make me feel fulfilled?  Lou Marinoff notes that "most people who seek happiness through the pursuit of pleasure or euphoria become increasingly miserable... "  It doesn't matter what we seek, erotic love, power, status - any appetite that can be satisfied by some means external to our self is going to be temporary.

What we need is an "internal locus of control."  We need to find, within ourselves, the strength, the resources we need. For it is what is inside that counts.  For inside is God's Spirit.  As Paul notes, the secret is this, Christ in us!"  When we go inside, when inside we find strength, and inside we find joy, then we can be people who can withstand the battering that life gives us.  Then we can be people who find deep joy and contentment

It is then, as Paul notes in Ephesians, that "we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming."

In this world of polarities, of conflicting values, of voices screaming at us to buy this, or drink that - in this world where people are telling us to be afraid or hate - we need to turn inside, to the God who has become present in us in the Spirit.

In Search of a Soul

Recently the Lt. Governor of  South Carolina made comments about those people whose children partake of school lunch programs.  Mr Bauer said, and I quote, really! He actually said this!

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better,”

Feed "them" and "they" will breed.  And we can't have that !  He insinuated that we should stop feeding the poor so they don't multiply.  Later he would say “…We've got more people voting for a living than we do working for a living,”

Wow! That is stunning.  That is taking people created in God's image, and we are all created in God's image, and truly dehumanizing them.  Refusing to see that in each person there is a "divine original" that can be everything God created him or her to be.  This is taking "the outer" and allowing that to identify the person.  It is making the adjectives definitive.  That person is "poor", or "a person of color" or "vulnerable", or "female", "old" . . . you can supply your own adjective.

It strikes me that Jesus never did that.  He never let the adjectives define the person.  He saw behind the facade of Mary Magdalene, the questionable woman, and Lazarus, the slimy tax collector, and Peter the unstable fisherman.  Instead he saw beyond the exterior, into the heart.  Into what we often call the "soul."  C.S. Lewis said, "You don't have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body."  I like that !  A lot!  We are not our bodies, be they fat, skinny, or in between. We are not our social standing.  Our jobs.  Our education level.  We are not our race.  We our not our situation in life, affluent, or on public assistance.  We are God's creations.  The children of God.  We are our soul.  That place where God lives and moves.

The next time we look at someone who, from the perspective of our culture, we must look at them at in a new way.  We must see that divine original deep within. That one created in God's image.  Not the person  on an entitlement program.  Not the person with an ideology we can't stand.  That a person who causes us fear, or disdain.  We must see the child of God.

Yes, there is a big lesson here for me.  I must see Lt Gov. Bauer, as a child of God.  I think I have work to do.

Hope

It has been an interesting evening. I started out working on a new theme for the Kergyma class I teach at my church. The theme? "God's people have hope."

I then heard the news that in today's election the people Massachusetts voted in a Mr. Brown as the Senator to replace Kennedy. I have heard this man intimate that Obama was born illegitimately. I have heard him say things show he is a person of small character. And enough to know that he holds fast to the attitudes and policies of the GOP Party that lead American into this recession. Why after 8 years of allowing a party to drive us into turmoil, polarization, and fear, the people do not give Obama and his party more than one year to turn around is beyond logic. It shows that Americans are totally willing to buy into the ideology of hatred, fear and self-centeredness if they think it will benefit them personally. This is the mark of a fallen culture, a culture on the way out. And suddenly, although I was working on a lesson about hope, I lost hope.

I said in my heart, "I am done!" There is no sense trying. No sense working for the good. No sense working for community, if Americans are going to be this way.

Why bother to work for a non-profit? Americans will vote to strip away the funding that supports our work. Why bother to preach the gospel? People go against the teachings of Jesus, while at the same time claiming to uphold "Christianity." Why bother to do anything?

A little later I started to read a delightful little book, Grace (Eventually). Thoughts on Faith. In this book Anne Lamont talks about many things. And surprise! In the first essay, as she is talking about humiliating herself on the ski slopes, she writes these words. "Rumi said, 'Someone fills the cup in front of us.' I know that when I call out, God will be near, and hear, and help, eventually. Of course it is the 'eventually' that throws one into despair. For instance even now, I know America will be restored again, eventually, although it is hard to envision this at the moment, and it could take a century or more for the nation and the world to recover from the George W. Bush years. But they will. God always hears our cries, and helps, and it's always a surprise to see what form God will take on earth."

OK, I am still not there. I am still looking for hope. But I was reminded that God's other name is surprise. And that God can restore "what the locust has eaten" (Joel 2). So I will try to stay open for God's surprise, even though it feels like I am in a dry and weary land where there is no water (or hope) - Psalm 63.

Compassionate Community

Sam Keen, toward the end of his book Hymns to an Unknown God, makes a comment that seems remarkably important in today's world. "What we are discovering in American society is that we can't build a good society on the principles of self-interest and entitlement alone. Without generosity there can be no community."

This seems painfully true. As we look at the politicians in Washington explore health reform, as Oregonians look at supporting, or failing to support, funding for state programs, the principles of self-interest and entitlement do not seem to be leading us into generosity or community. Instead we seem to be producing enmity and polarization. Our society seems to be turning into an armed camp.

Frankly, as one of my church friends noted today, it is frustrating and depressing. For we were created to be in community. As God remarks in the story of the Garden of Eden. "It is not good for one to be alone." We find our full personhood, we reach our potential, only when we are nurtured in a community marked by faith, hope and love.

When we are self-encapsulated. When our focus is too narrow, we destroy community. We don't think of our neighbor, let alone the poor and vulnerable we seek to keep out of view. Instead we make decisions, and we act and yes, vote, based upon self interest (I don't want to give up anything that is mine) and entitlement. The other day a commentator on FOX waxed eloquently about calls for America to moderate its consumption of resources. She was incensed and indignantly proclaimed that "they want us to lower our lifestyle, they want to take away our lifestyle so they can have a better life." That is exactly where we end up. In that place where only we count. Why would we not want that person without health care to have care? Or that person without enough to eat, to have food? Or that homeless person to have a place to stay? Because we do not see them as part of our community.

When we surrender to God. When we give our selves to someone beyond ourselves and allow that One to fill our lives with meaning, we begin to ask critical questions. Questions so similar to those Jesus asked his disciples. Who is my neighbor? Who are my people?

As Keen notes, the more we expand our community, the more we are called to move into compassion. If we identify only with ourselves, we do not have to consider anyone else as we make our decisions. If we identify only with our family and friends, then we only have to love those who love us. If we expand our boundaries to include our neighbors, then we must show compassion to some way may not even like. If we include our country, our world, then suddenly find ourselves with at least some degree of responsibility to people who look differently, speak differently, perhaps even believe differently than us. To these people we must offer compassion, food, clothing, and more.

Keen suggests that one way to live community out in everyday life is "to make an effort to respond to people and situations you meet in the course of the day as if they were issuing a personal appeal to you for help OR offering you a gift. Listen with an open mind and heart. Look with a care-ful eye. What is being (silently) asked of you . . . "

And what is being offered, when people treat us this way in return?

"We Expect a theophany of which we know nothing but the place, and the place is called community" Martin Buber in Between Man and Man

I'm am over in the Portland area, far from the beauty of the country. Lots of rain, people, cars, and meetings. Frankly the meetings can be a bit depressing. Everyone is scrambling, trying to figure out what is coming down the road, and worried! Need is great and resources are small. The TV is full of ads debating the virtues or sins of the funding measures on the ballots here in Oregon. And that is even more saddening. I saw two ads yesterday (I don't get them at home). One was against the measures and was using fear as its main tool. THEY are raising spending. THEY are raising taxes. Jobs have been LOST! YOU are in danger. YOU will have to pay more taxes. YOUR job might be next. THEY are getting a raise (those horrible state workers) and YOU will get nothing. It was an ad with some facts, but clearly the authors were trying to make a small piece of the truth the whole truth - which made their ad nothing more than a lie. On the other side and equally sad offering. If YOU don't make more than $250,000 a year these measures won't affect YOU. YOU will be safe. You get the idea.

When we are involved in discussions such as this it is becoming ever more clear that we are not focusing in the right places. We focus on ideology - no more taxes, no big government. We focus on our selves - how will this effect me, will this cost me, will I have to give up something? We focus on what might be called "the moral". This is the most powerful and pervasive of all points of focus. They don't work hard enough. It is all about power. Those people (the poor, mentally ill, addicted) don't deserve all this help.

Ah, the people. This is what we forget in these discussions. At least we forget those people whom Jesus would have called "the least of these." We remember ourselves. We remember those who have and who might have to give up a little. But those who have not? Those who are vulnerable. They are the lost factor in the equation.

When we have a discussion about state funding the real question should be (from a spiritual perspective), "what does this mean for the vulnerable"? If you don't believe this is really where the focus ought to be, read any of the minor prophets, or read Luke, or Matthew. What about the children whose schools will be hit? What about the mentally ill who might lose services? What about the families in crisis who need help? What about the "least of these", the "little ones"?

Jesus said "whenever you do it for the least of these, you do it unto me." (Matthew 25)

The debate about taxes is not really a debate about taxes. It is about much more. It is about our collective soul as a nation, as a state, as a culture. It is a vote about whether we will be compassionate and giving. It is a decision about whether to take care of the vulnerable in our midst, or not. It is about whether we will be a community, or just a collection of individuals, each looking out for him or herself.

"It's time for greatness -- not for greed. It's a time for idealism -- not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action." Marian Edelmen

Finding "Happiness"

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon. After doing some chores I now find myself with nothing specific I need to do, a rare situation in my life. I was reading various elements of my blog page, put together yesterday in fear and trembling, and could not help but notice my own comment, that I am "a seeker."

It is true that I am always searching, and as noted afflicted with "divine discontent." Or is it divine? Perhaps it is just discontent. It does raise the issue of how one finds what one is seeking. Aristotle suggested that there is a kind of "sustainable" or enduring happiness which he called "eudemonia." This is a kind of happiness, perhaps I would call it "joy" that does not come and go. It is not something that can be taken from us. We may lose our family, our job, our house, our car, our possessions, even our way of life, but we can't lose fulfillment.

I think however that most of us, myself included, seek not this kind of deep fulfillment, but more shallow and transient forms of happiness. We seek to find satisfaction through such things as power, food, possessions, and sexuality. We stuff ourself, we consume. The result? We are full, but not satisfied. And then it goes one step further, eventually we just feel sick. Our desire turns into aversion. This is why Lou Marinoff makes the profound statement that "people who pursue happiness end up catching unhappiness."

Biblically the suggestion is that fulfillment and happiness lie within us, not outside. It flows from finding the true self that is inside us, the authentic self. It comes from allowing the diving Spirit (big S not little s) inside us that connects us with God, ourselves and others. It comes from letting that Spirit guide and empower.

I am suggesting that fulfillment is found in neither accumulation, which drives us to be greedy and short sighted, nor renunciation, which makes us angry and dour, but in grasping our authentic self, a self that we find when we love God, and make ourselves open to God's Spirit in us, learn to respect and care for ourselves, and then reach out and respect and care for others.

Now to practical things. Our state is going to choose whether to pay a little more in taxes so kids can be educated and people with mental illness helped. Our nation is looking at sharing resources so every has health care. How will our response to these kind of issues change if we are seeking fulfillment rather that shallow, objective driven happiness? If we are more concerned with people than things?

There are many things to ponder, as we dance with the Spirit.

Greetings

I am new at this. But since I am always thinking, and find that putting my thoughts down on paper helpful, I decided I might as well put my thoughts out there in the hope that they might be meaningful to you, and that what you say in response might be meaningful to me.

After all, faith is all about connection. Connecting with the sacred, with ourselves, and yes, each other.

Much of what I write will come out of what I am reading. I read a lot. Probably too much for my own good. Sometimes my reading is related to my work as mental health therapist, and sometimes it is more personal. My personal reading is usually about personal growth, and more specifically spirituality.

Currently I am reading a book by Sam Keen, who might be called a "recovering Presbyterian." Although he no longer holds tightly to the faith of his father, Sam both challenges and inspires me.

In his book "Hymns to an Unknown God" Keen titles a chapter "Living the Questions." He makes this comment. "The spiritual quest begins when we turn away from our standard answers and turn toward fresh questions. Nothing shapes our lives so much as the questions we ask - or refuse to ask. Imagine the different type and quality of life you would have if the main question you asked were one of the following: Where can I get my next fix of heroin? How do I serve God? What will the neighbors think? Who will love me?> How do I get power? How can we destroy the enemy? How can we end violence? . . . I have come to believe that'the quest' is a metaphor for the willing to live and wrestle with the perennial questions. . . "

It made me wonder. What are the questions being asked by those people on FOX and MSNBC, by our legislators, and pastors? How does that impact how they live? What they say? The choices they make?

And what about me? What are my questions? What are the questions I live, and how do the shape my life? What about you?