All posts by Rod White

The Shape of Water: Enough already!

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Film/TV, Marriage and Family, , , , , ,

My one-line review of The Shape of Water for Facebook

I went for the beautiful. Stayed for the overlong, derivative, pig in lipstick movie. Del Toro snoro.

I suppose daring to put out negative reviews on Facebook invites conflict. I did it anyway, since I rarely leave a movie so irritated. Maybe I was just in a bad mood. But probably not, since I usually even like the bad ones (like Downsizing!). But I needed to say something lest everyone run out expectantly when it wins some Academy Award.

A lot of reviewers think this movie is great.

The most welcome and notable thing about The Shape of Water is its generosity of spirit, which extends beyond the central couple. Full review

Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water elegantly blends whimsical fairy tale with a fresh spin on classic monster movies for a delightful experience. Full review

However, the Observer called it

A loopy, lunkheaded load of drivel.

It won two Golden Globes and was nominated for five more.  Like the foreign press noted, it does have a wonderful score and it is a feast for the eyes. I think the acting is a credit to the actors, who were given one-dimensional characters to play. I almost decided to suspend my criticism when [spoiler alert] the souped-up creature from the black lagoon mimicked Fred Astaire in black and white. (I am one of those people who brakes for Fred and Ginger on TCM). But I guess I was already homaged to the breaking point.

Instead, I ended up with two reactions:

Enough already with the magical alternative family!

Del Toro with cast. Watch out for the plaid dude, family.

Once again we have lonely lost souls creating an alternative family. Wasn’t this done to the saturation point with Friends? We’ve had fourteen more years of saturation since that show ended. OK, we get it. There are a lot of brave, lonely souls out there who can’t seem to be accepted for who they are. We are all like that and society stinks. But here we go again anyway.

The family clings together in the middle of a rotting 60’s city, rundown apartments and an overwhelming, secretive, cold war, government installation. The villain is not only a bureaucrat, he’s a suburban lunkhead and a Christian fundamentalist. I share your prejudices, but enough already!

Beauty and the Beast made $1.2 billion dollars last year. Weren’t we saturated with that story when the Disney gave us the first movie in 1991? (I was). But here we go again. Del Toro wants to take it a bit farther so his nonhuman monster becomes the romantic hero. Even they are worthy of love and acceptance. The audience is invited to kiss that beast.

I am down with love, acceptance (and I will add the crucial forgiveness). They are basic to the message of the gospel. And I understand alternative family, I have been living in Christian community since I began to follow Jesus. I never submitted to silly men and the damaging institutions they create, at least not for long. I appreciate artists expanding my vision. You’d think I’d love this thing. But this redundant messaging from filmdom borders on propaganda and us autonomous souls relating to the screen are its victims.

Enough already with the magic of romantic (mainly sexual) love!

Surely everyone interested in this film knows this, so I won’t consider it a spoiler. At the end of the movie there is a violent scene in which the lovers, mute girl and amphibian, are shot. The creature heals, gets up to slice the shooter’s throat, picks up his dying lover and dives into the water with her. In his natural element, he not only revives her, he gives her gills.

To be fair, Del Toro, steeped in religion as he is, says of this ending, “A very Catholic notion is the humble force, or the force of humility, that gets revealed as a god-like figure toward the end. It’s also used in fairy tales,” which he loves. “In fairy tales, in fact, there is an entire strand of tales that would be encompassed by the title ‘The Magical Fish.’ And [it’s] not exactly a secret that a fish is a Christian symbol.” That should make me feel better, shouldn’t it?

But I missed that symbolism completely. If you go see the movie, it will probably help to see it in that light. What I got was the final, summarizing voiceover from the narrator.

When I think of her, of Elisa, all that comes to mind is a poem. Made of just a few truthful words… whispered by someone in love, hundreds of years ago…:

Unable to perceive the shape of You,
I find You all around me.
Your presence fills my eyes with Your love,
It humbles my heart,
For You are everywhere.

That would be a great prayer, wouldn’t it? Instead, it was pictured as a moment when the male sea creature gives his mate the capacity to become one with him after she saves him to do it. That’s one problem. More generally, it is a moment when love becomes all. It shows us that the magic of our love is beyond us; it is where we find our shape. When it is actualized, we are created. The words could be straight from a Christian mystic, which I appreciate. But the visual container is free of God content. It reinforces the repetitive teaching that we must find a lover who accepts us as we are and magically makes us who we can become. They are god-like. Their presence fills us. Enough already!

I have a good marriage, but as godly as my wife is, I know she is not God. I am glad we know we are not gods and love the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ so we do not kill our relationship with expectation and despair. This movie would be a great reason to never get married.  Because we know the beasts do not always get beautiful enough to look good at the ball. The monsters do not all turn out to be healers. Magic does not begin with or reside in sexual attraction. Life is not really the way the movie taught us AGAIN.

Like the movie, this short post brings up more to talk about than it attempts to answer all the questions. The film tells a story. It is a love story on many levels, which is nice. I have a story of my own in response. And I link my story to Jesus, not hidden in the fine print, not symbolized in the fish, but Jesus right out there for everyone to see, the one who can truly remake us into the shape to love and who is present with us when we can’t or don’t, too.

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Do not be afraid: Your container will be filled with content

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, , , , , ,

I am surrounded by twenty and thirtysomethings. It is a blessing. Serving these people has been the joy of most of my life. I think the spiritual life that follows adolescence and precedes the second half of life might be the most interesting but also the most frustrating and dangerous time of life. So I often feel like I am in the thick of it. We often think of babies as the most vulnerable of creatures. Twenty and thirtysomethings spend a great deal of their energy creating a container in which these dear little beings can survive.  But what about the parents? They are vulnerable, too, and quite often their true selves die before they even get recognized!

maslow's hierarchy of needs five stage pyramid
Clearly what will be called personality problems depends on who is doing the calling. The slave owner? The dictator? The patriarchal father? The husband who wants his wife to remain a child? It seems quite clear that personality problems may sometimes be loud protests against the crushing of one’s psychological bones, of one’s true inner nature. — Maslow, 1956

Build a container for content

The noble actions of first-half adults are focused on finding one’s place in the world, often as a mate, a parent, an income supplier and a social system builder. The whole era of first half development is a crucial time for growing into our fullness as humans and as spiritual people. But a big danger comes with our development. Our container building can become the only thing we know how to do and we never move on to receive the content to fill up the container! Success, security, some sense of power – looking good to ourselves and others, can almost be our only considerations. We can become containers with little content.

As we often say, U.S. society promotes such emptiness, since our rulers are preoccupied with adolescent pursuits. For instance, they are obsessed with security needs, among other things. Neither Republicans nor Democrats seriously question the enormously high military budget. But that budget is all about the container. The developmentally-arrested president wants to build a wall to contain the whole country and protect it from “shithole” nations!  At the same time, appropriations that reflect needs that are deeper than Maslow’s first two stages on the hierarchy of needs are neglected: education, health care for the poor and everyone else, community-building and the arts. The leaders neglect the need for content in the container. Is often the first cut in the budget, if it is considered at all.

The U.S. is basically an adolescent society and our religious expressions look like it, too. Liberals criticize the church if it is not preoccupied with food and housing [Maslow’s first level]. Conservatives criticize the church if it is not filled with certainty [second level, isn’t it?]. Circle of Hope can get it from both sides as people come to Jesus and his people looking for the basic needs they lost when their lives fractured in this fracturing world. We help them build a container. It is tempting to stay stuck in it and miss the content for which it is intended.

Richard Rohr says, “We all want and need various certitudes, constants, and insurance policies at every stage of life. But we have to be careful, or they totally take over and become all-controlling needs, keeping us from further growth.” Receiving the content of resurrection life takes faith and trust, which are not that useful if one is anxiously maintaining a container. Thus the most common one-liner in the Bible (365 times) is “Do not be afraid.” We we need to move beyond our early motivations of personal security, reproduction and identity. But it is scary to do so.

Do you think we commiserate more with what people fear than we help them not be afraid? How many people are driven from your cell because they can’t compute life beyond their container-building religious ideas? Consider how often you don’t help them figure out how to move deeper. Maybe your cell is stuck at the third step up Maslow’s pyramid up above and does not have an eternal outlook.

Be afraid of the right thing

Being preoccupied with morality, control, safety, pleasure and certitude comes to a bad end. A high percentage of people never get to the content of their own lives! Sometimes you can see the trouble creeping up on us. Areas of our leadership team silo off and don’t talk to other teams. Whole congregations get a sense of their “otherness.” People demand that we make policies about identities. We have to keep saying, “Human life is about more than building boundaries, protecting identities, creating tribes and teaching impulse control.”

Like Jesus said in Luke 12, “Why do you ask, what am I to eat? What am I to wear?” He asks the container-builders who ask such questions, “Is life not so much more than food? Is life not so much more than clothing?” Repeatedly he asks, “What will it profit you if you gain the whole world, and lose your very soul?” (Matthew 16:26). And I add, what will happen to your children if all you teach them is fear and practical faithlessness? What will happen to the church if you persist in never getting the content you need to share? What will happen to the world when your adolescent faith burns up in the heat of adulthood?

A thirty-year-old in our church was 13 when the 9/11 attack turned the country even more into a security state. When they were 19 the Great Recession hit and fear and anger skyrocketed. Since the 80’s, a philosophy-shift resulted in the top 20% of the population securing 76% of the wealth. Now, Oxfam says, worldwide, 8 men own as much wealth as the 3.6 billion who make up the poorest people in the world! Everyday life has encouraged a whole generation to be anxious and fearful. Now Trump is president and each day looks like the foundations in society are being upended. It is no wonder we try to build a wall around ourselves . But our vessels of clay are meant to to hold glory.

Take heart, you were made for this

 

Window by Douglas Strachan in the church of St Andrew’s and St George’s in Edinburgh.

Jesus tells us to “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). It is hard to hear him when we are feverishly trying to keep ahead of the eroding foundations under our feet, as if that were top priority. Jesus was less concerned about his impending death (!), about his life-container, than he was about the content of his life. He was less interested in the consequences of his actions than he was interested in revealing to his fearful, controlling, unfaithful followers what a container is for. Life is more than finding one’s own bliss or balance, disciplining and making the most of one’s time, and fighting for one’s rights — all that is for beginners! The bulk of an eternal life is lived in trust and hope. Dying to mere self-awareness, self-aggrandizement, and self-centeredness is the first task of gaining content for the container.

Barack Obama displayed some of this wisdom when he was shown talking to David Letterman the other night. He said, “One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did—was part of your ability to lead the country doesn’t have to do with legislation, doesn’t have to do with regulations [making a container], it has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness [being and receiving content].” He is a hopeful guy and he inspires me to be the same, even when I feel I am in the thick of it. Our containers (egos, churches, and what not)  have holes in them, so we need Jesus to overcome our world and keep filling us with eternal life. But as  long as we are co-workers with the Lord instead of container protectors, we have a chance to become the kind of content that makes the world take heart.

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Pursue it with a hobble; that’s OK.

A life in the Spirit

I have been pretty much hobbled this week, so I decided to replay a very old blog post that just a few of you read a long time ago. It seems appropriate, as I have spent much of the week with Gwen in the hospital; I had to miss the funeral of my dear friend’s mother; I endured a cyclone bomb of snow and cold; and I did not manage to get all the important work done for our important cause. Yet, as I was writing this, that wonderful old feeling of peace was again given by God. I hope you can enjoy it with me.

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.  — 1 Thess. 5:23-4 , New Living Translation

Yesterday I woke up and my back felt a little better. I am slowly getting over my bidecadal back thing. So I felt a little foolish as I hobbled across the street, looking like some old dwarf from Middle Earth, to drop off my keys at my mechanic’s house — he had graciously offered to take my car in himself. Only I had not been to his house in so long that the wrong address I wrote down seemed plausible and I put the keys through the neighbor’s mail slot! We discerned this via cell phone when my trolley was about to descend underground.

So yesterday my body was not working so well and my inner workings seemed a tad whacked, too! So what is Paul telling me in the scripture above?

For in thing, he is reminding me that my trials are rather insignificant compared to those of others. My friends have chronic illnesses. They can’t get their weight down. They are locked in immoral sexual relationships. They have been betrayed or abused by people they love. They can’t find a job. Their dreams have been overrun by faithless comrades. Their cells aren’t as vibrant as they’d hoped. They’ve been sent into war. They can’t get along. Their refrigerator died and their Bubba Burgers spoiled.

Whatever Paul might be saying, they are having a hard time hearing anything but the alarm system in their mind going off.

I don’t know what God might be saying to them, for sure, or whether my friends will be listening at all. But I am hearing two further, important things from what Paul is saying:

1) The first is about God. God is the God of peace. God is our Lord, Jesus. God is faithful. God can and will make me holy and whole, Jesus will come again. God is taking a lot of initiative.

2) The second is about my situation. Peace is a possibility. I am set apart for something good. All of me, inside and out, has a destiny because of what Jesus did and does and will do, not because I work that well. I can trust him in the middle of the mess.

And there is just a lot of mess. The leaders of the church felt knee-deep in it last night. It was interesting. I think that the more we talked about what a mess we were and everyone else, too, the better we felt. At the end of the conversation, I think we all realized that our backs were aching and our keys were locked up in the neighbor’s foyer — either God saves us, or we’re dead.

That’s realistic. And you know what? The more realistic we got the more courageous we felt, the more truth we told, and the more our laughter was freed up.

My body and mind feel a little better this morning. But I’m not sure that is the point. God will make what needs to happen happen. If I have to pursue it with a hobble; that’s OK.

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We mostly have opponents because they oppose us, not because we are bad.

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , , ,

A few years ago, some of us were reading Psalm 109 together during our noon prayer time.  It may not be on your top-ten psalms list, so give it a try.

When we read it, we had a groupthink moment and ALL got the wrong impression about what was going on. When we heard verses 6-19, we thought the psalmist was pronouncing a long curse on someone! We suspected something like that was in the Bible, and here it was! It was hard to take thirteen verses of curse! We are nice, of course, and we at least keep our curses short.

Sometimes the Psalms feel a little rough to us, since we’ve all been taught to keep our emotions subject to our theories and politics. What’s more, a lot of us just don’t trust anyone, so we never share what we really think or feel. So all that angry, vulnerable poetry in the Psalms jars our sensibilities a little. This one seemed VERY jarring:

“May his children become orphans

            and his wife a widow.” (v.9)

Who would say such a thing!! We were uncomfortable reading it. How did THIS prayer get in the Psalms?

Oh, it is SOMEONE ELSE talking

The prayer had started off in a way we could relate to more easily:

 “In return for my love, they accuse me,

            though my prayer is for them.

And they offer me evil in return for good

            and hatred in return for my love: (Psalm 109:4-5)

That we could pray. We’ve all been abused and misunderstood. I’m not very good at seeing it — but I am sometimes hated. I’m usually shocked when I find out about what someone feels about me or says about me, but sometimes I do find out that I have an opponent who doesn’t mind taking me out behind my back. In return for my love, they hate me.

We thought what came next was the Psalmist pronouncing a long curse on the people who returned hate for love:

“Appoint a wicked man over him,

            let an accuser stand at his right…

Let his days be few,

            may another man take his post….

May his offspring be cut off,

            in the next generation his name wiped out”

It was going on and on. One of us finally said, “Whew!” Because we usually think – “If it is in the Bible, then it is an example for us.” If the Psalms are a prayer book, this is a wild prayer! But we were more than a little hesitant to say the prayer.

We didn’t understand that vv. 6-19 is a quote of what someone else is saying about the psalmist, not what he is saying about them. The prayer is about being taken out, being hated, being attacked by an evil person. He ends up crying out for mercy:

“And You, O Lord, Master,

            act on my behalf for the sake of Your name,

                        for Your kindness is good. O save me!

For poor and needy am I,

            and my heart is pierced within me.”

My realization after using this Psalm and studying what it really says is this: I can get surprisingly out of touch with the forces that are coming against me! Evil and its allies want me destroyed. You may have the opposite problem and think I am kind of nutty, since you’re effectively paranoid all day — so have some mercy. I had such a resistance to pronouncing a curse that I didn’t see the curse coming at me — even in the safety of my own prayer book!

Poor, needy, opposed — admit it

In Celtic Daily Prayer it says “Our society teaches us to be suspicious of what is good, and to listen passively to whatever is evil.” We are even getting used to Trump’s daily lies! We may not even be aware that evil is coming at us! Look at how so many have sacrificed children to screen domination and allowed porn to provide a generation’s sex education. When evil does come at us, we may invite it in for a drink because we are committed to being nice, or at least committed to appearing nice — “Who am I to judge whether any screens or sexual practices are unhealthy?”

I want to love and trust first, but I don’t want to be nice to evil. Even worse, I don’t want to impassively stew in what’s wrong until it cooks me.

So I recommend some appropriate drama today. Let’s pray it together: “I am surrounded! I am needy! Save me!” 2018 could be 2017 doubled, Lord!

Let’s be appropriately concerned that we might be mean to someone. But for those of you who are like me, let’s be appropriately aware that we have opponents. We’re doing good things and they will be opposed — so opposed that our opponents might wear us down or throw us into defensive apathy. Lord knows that if we keep harping on mass incarceration there is a domestic army willing to defend itself! We are made good in Jesus and we, because of that good at work within us, are dangerous, as far as the Lord’s opponents are concerned. They just might try to take us out. We just might need a Savior!

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It is a joy to lead, but it is not easy: Pray for church leaders

Leadership
The Lord’s leadership team

Great, influential churches often look like they run on the energy of the charismatic leader who fronts them. Sometimes that is true. But my experience says that it is mainly the leadership team behind the leader who makes these world-changing churches happen. We are devoted to the proposition that God has gifted people to lead whatever church, whatever circle of hope, needs to be created and sustained. If those gifted people aren’t present or are undeployable for some reason, the church will adjust to whatever substance it has.

As we have developed as a church, so has our leadership team. A few years ago we realized that we needed to make some major developmental changes if we wanted to keep following our potential into our destiny. One of the main things we did was create an inventive Leadership Team that reflects our priorities and convictions. Like our church, our leadership team is a collection of small groups that form one team. The pastors form the main team. The Cell Leader Coordinators are a team. The Church Planting Core Team keeps us on the apostolic edge. The Compassion Core Team makes sure compassion is at the heart of us. The Capacity Core Team makes sure we have the infrastructure to do what we are given to do.

We want to put ourselves out there to be part of how Jesus is transforming the world. Each of our five leadership teams represents a whole collection of teams who work out the aspects of our mission they lead. The Leadership Team members who have their pictures on the website are representative of a much larger group of leaders who make up our extensive network — Cell Leaders, Sunday meeting team leaders, compassion team leaders, mission team leaders, capacity team leaders, and children’s team leaders. We are all integral to the whole – we designed it that way. No passion, no leadership, no initiative – no church.

We have been blessed from the beginning of our mission; we found many people who would lead. We found hundreds of risk takers who wanted to change the world, even though they were not the most qualified, richest or put-together people God could find, even though our vision is countercultural and so not that easy to share. In our own relaxed, nonjudgmental, communal way, we have made a big difference in our region. We could not have done it if our leaders had not made significant decisions about how to think about their lives. They decided to be transformational people on a transformational team.

In making the decision to be that kind of person, they had to face at least four typical things that make or break our leaders. When they faced the issues, they had to change their mind and lifestyles to lead.

Their day-to-day job serves their vocation in Christ.

They do their job so the can live their vocation. Who they are is a member of the body of Christ, not an employee of a corporation. If their job is in line with their vocation great! (Mine is, good for me!) But if they go to the job to get the money to fuel their vocation, like their role in the church, they feel that is the right thing to do.

Their family is a part of the tribe.

Their family is not a separate “nation state” competing for scarce resources. They share their resources as part of a common enterprise. This is crucially significant. Individualistic, competitive Americans are always making it seem like any “job” steals from the family, who lives in “leisure time.” That’s a lie. Everything we do has one Lord and the kids need to know that mom and dad are not the Lord, doling out time as if they create the universe. That mentality is the postmodern myth writ small – all choice and no obedience.

They pick mates that match their vocation

They find mates who share their goals or they make deals with the ones they have. Leading takes time. Loving your mate also takes time. If leading the church is always seen as taking time from your mate, leading is hard. If one does not have a supportive mate, they probably can’t lead. Of course, if your mate does not recognize your gifts and calling in Christ, then the marriage is going to be difficult.

They find joy in what they do

You could say that the secret many leaders have learned is how to gamify their duties. They find joy in serving. They don’t feel robbed, they feel energized by the creativity of building a church that can transform the world. They are part of something big and exciting, not stuck in an “institution” that takes a lot of time.

Being changed and changing lives is hard. Love is challenging. Truth telling is demanding. Every time we come up against the powerful forces that dominate the world, it is tempting to return to Egypt. When we face our limitations, it is tempting to return to our vomit like a dog. When our way is unclear or demanding, it is tempting to desert Jesus. The Leadership Team of the church are the people we call out to keep us going when the going is tough. Most every day, for some of us, the going is tough. There are just enough of us who have the combination of faith, prophecy or pastoring to lead us. So we give them the lead and thank God they are brave enough to take it!

It is going to be an exciting year in the world and among us. I hope the winter slowdown has given you some space to recuperate. I hope you have managed to put Trump’s tweets in perspective and realized the antidote we are. And I hope we will, in the Philadelphia region and wherever this is read, deploy and support gifted leaders who will steer our church through difficult times and provide the transformation in Christ so many people are missing.

This week, pray for our Leadership Team. They will all be at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in Aston on January 6-7 for retreat. They are brave, good people, but any one of them might be, like you, facing a tough time. Our prayers and support make them able to give their gifts.

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Basic ways to work with all that anxiety

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth

I was at a conference two weeks ago and one of the common maladies being considered was the “panic attack.” They are more common than ever, it seems. You may have experienced your heart racing and your mind filling with doomsday visions as you worry about everything around you, including whether you’ll have more panic attacks or not be able to stop them.

About 40 million people eighteen or older in the United States, that’s 18% of the population, will suffer from an anxiety disorder this year. David Rosmarin, the director of the Center for Anxiety at Harvard says, “We’ve seen a massive increase in services in New York City in the last six months. From North Korea to hurricanes, we live with a greater degree of uncertainty. What it boils down to is: How much can people tolerate it when they don’t know what’s going to happen next?”

To make matters more anxiety-provoking, there’s an overwhelming number of methods to which you might turn to help you manage life in these uncertain times. (Coping might not be  a DIY situation for you, so you might need to contact Circle Counseling).

Check your thinking: just because you are anxious does not mean you’re disordered

There’s an important distinction between anxiety and an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is a natural reaction to stress — it’s not necessarily pathological or dangerous. There’s the point where it becomes a “condition.” It depends on the level of persistence, the severity, sense of distress, and if it’s impacting day-to-day function.

So, for example, if you feel anxiety while watching the news, you probably don’t need to do anything about that (except maybe turn off the TV, go for a walk or take some deep breaths). But if your anxiety is interfering with your concentration, ability to focus or sleep (or, as the DSM-5 says, if you have worry for more days than not for at least six months) — those things point toward disorder and you should find a counselor. But for anyone who has some nervousness, anxiety or stress, there are many coping strategies you can try on your own.

Even at extreme levels, anxiety is uncomfortable but generally does not result in death. (Even if it doesn’t feel like that at the time.)

Get out of control

Anxiety is an excessive focus on something that might happen in the future. It is always related to a perceived lack of control.

Jesus followers started following Jesus because they saw the truth that they were not supposed to be in control and could not manage the authority of being so, so they returned to a proper relationship of trust in God.

When things feel “out of control” we can do very practical things to put ourselves back in an appropriate track. Rather than focusing on what we can’t control, we can focus on what we are given to manage. Think about how you can contribute, do things, make progress. Just walk outside — even that does wonders. Talk therapy is rarely a bad thing.

You might think about “editing” your life to help bring back a sense of empowerment. This means giving up things that contribute to anxiety.

Medication can have its place

Many doctors urge caution, however, with regard to prescriptions, as well as indulging too heavily in “self-medicating” with beers or rosé with friends. Keep in mind, however, that there’s an increased association between anxiety and alcohol and other substance abuse. And drinking too much can ultimately make you feel even more anxious. So turn to rosé cautiously.

Meds do have a role for some people either short or long term as they are generally safe under the care of a doctor. A person should use them only so far as they help deal with the problem, Ultimately, people have to face their fear. To get a person to that place, that’s the art of therapy.

Meditate

Even people who don’t care about God think praying is great. It doesn’t have to be scary. Begin  with a very simple daily practice in the beginning of the day. Keep it to five minutes, or do five breath cycles if five minutes causes anxiety. For example, breathe out anxiety, breathe in goodness, strength, or whatever you’re trying to cultivate, all in the safe presence of the Holy Spirit.

If you sit down and enter a space you’ve decided is safe and healthy and healing, it sends a message to the rest of your system that you are not just at the whim of all the other things that are going on.

This is also where you might work in gratitude, or the practice of being grateful for what you have. I have a friend who keeps a list of things on her iPhone that make her feel good (reading a few of them made me feel good, too!). Others write in journals or think of a positive thing — or several — before going to sleep at night.

Go into more natural settings and attend to the trees, the weather or the ocean. It will refocus your attention away from the worries and toward God. Going to the cell and the Sunday meeting, getting out to help somebody else or protest, provides ways to be among good human nature.

Control the phone

Lots of people sleep with their phone, or right next to it. It’s generally the first thing they look at in the morning, and the last thing they look at before they go to bed. That’s asking for anxiety. Try turning off your ringer and all alerts so you don’t immediately respond to texts or calls. The Moment app might help you, since it tracks how much time you are looking at apps on your phone. Get off the devices and try to spend time with people you care about and restrict how much you interact with anxiety-provoking topics.

Get sweaty

The exercise, dance, sports are not guilty pleasures or luxuries, they are ways to take care of oneself so you can engage more meaningfully. Even if you don’t feel that great when you are there, plod to the gym. The endorphins are nice, and the process gives you a sense of mastery over your situation and your body. That reduces anxiety.

Say no

Packing our schedules with activities and obligations takes a toll, no matter how much we want to do them. Maybe you need to get over your “FOMO issues” — Fear of Missing Out. Anxiety creeps up when we let demands — even fun distractions — from the outside have their way with us When we say no it feels like we’re reshuffling the decks so we are a priority and not “the things.”

Try working backward. What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your day to look like? Whenever you come up against the feeling of dread, instead of saying “I have to do this,” say ‘I GET to do this, what will this GET me?’ If what you are asked to do does not align, then stop doing that.

… But say yes to the right things

“Self care” has become a suspicious phrase because it’s often a marketing strategy for things that feel frivolous. But we should not throw the baby out with the scented bath water.

Need some ideas? I collected some the other week. But here are some more:

  • Do a sheet mask (it requires you to lie down motionless);
  • adopt an anti-inflammatory diet;
  • sleep at least eight hours a night;
  • read poetry or fiction and don’t read all the latest articles;
  • watch the best TV, including escapist favorites like 30 Rock, or The Great British Baking Show;
  • ride a roller coaster every few weeks. North Korea may be beyond your comprehension. But being upside down at 60 miles per hour is not is a fear you can handle.
  • Spend quality time with friends, both furry and human;
  • Be with kids, yours or borrowed. They can really help put things in perspective.

Ask for help

Panic often leads to isolation. The shame of not feeling completely, personally capable is part of our original sin. If you need to press the numbers through tears, that’s OK. Call someone. Spending time with people who you find supportive, professional or otherwise, is one of the most protective things.

Suggested by Jen Doll NY Times

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Unlock the John the Baptists!

The Mission, ,

 

The world always needs a John the Baptist.

I love that fact that our pastors still follow one of the traditions of Advent in which traditional readings point to certain people in the story of God’s incarnation, like John the Baptist a week back. I was glad I got the assignment to highlight him up on North Broad, since I think he needs more airplay and we need to be even more like him.

We’ve always been like him in many ways. Like it came to John, the word of God came to us in Philadelphia in the wilderness of postmodernity and vacuous expressions of the church. The same Spirit that moved John the Baptist, Odo of Cluny and Sadhu Sundar Singh brought us together.

Isolation

That Spirit also isolated us in ways. While our life together might seem normal to us, the reforms we instituted make us loved and resented in the world, just like our spiritual ancestors. We’re admired, but also feared, even in our own denomination. For instance, a man is flying in from Kentucky to consult with us next month. But our bishops are never sure we are really team players.

There are good reasons for that  suspicion. We don’t get along with Trump Christians; we deploy women leaders. We welcome gay people, accept cohabiting people as married. We listen instead of fighting and think reconciliation is more important than being right. We love psychotherapy and believe black lives matter — and we are going to keep saying that. We abhor war and suspect guns — and we are going to keep saying that. We love immigrants. We talk to so-called liberals all the time about Jesus. We celebrate the ancient/future Advent, practice contemplative prayer and get Pentecostal. Then we start a business. We don’t reflexively put men or anyone else at the top of a pyramidical structure.  Last week the pastors encouraged us to use our listserves to offer toasts to 2017 — people don’t get trusted to do such things that often and pastors don’t ask them to do them. The list could go on, right?

Plus, we are an ambitious people. We might go to your monastery like Odo or go to Tibet and tell you what God showed us like Sundar. We might follow a rule, wear a yellow robe or reveal the Son of God right in your backyard like John the Baptist. So we might get as isolated as John the Baptist, as feared as Odo of Cluny, or thrown in a dry well like Sadhu Sundar Singh. That’s Advent. The unwelcome wind of carefrontation, change, and nextness often isolates the reformers while they are bringing people together in Christ.

Anticipation

What is the word that Jesus wants to get out there now? Any John the Baptists in the wilderness reading this? I know there are. Do not let anyone shut you up! Tell the truth no matter what it costs; love people even if they hate you. Give us what we need even if we throw it back in your face.

The message, spoken and demonstrated, is old. It came as a variation in the 900s and 1800s. But it always has a unique slant when it arrives out of the wilderness of some society. What wind of the Spirit is moving you? What is blowing into your mind and heart? Trust it! Test it with us! Enact it as a “we” (or as Dan Siegel taught me last week in California, as a “mwe” – fully me and fully we in harmony). The word of Jesus is true freedom, and when his people live it out in community we undermine the whole godless culture. Can we do that?

That’s the blessed question of Advent. The word comes to us, disrupts us again. It begins the end again. And we end up being the vehicles who come with that word to a needy world. We become the advent of Jesus ourselves. What an honor! I want to die wearing that badge of honor: maybe like John the Baptist in prison, like Odo tramping all over Europe,  like Sundar in Tibet, or like us in one of those little renditions of the “mwe” we call cells in the body of Christ — advents making a difference all over the region.

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What to do with rage: Healthy strategies after an awful year

A life in the Spirit, Music, Psychological growth, , , ,

In my neck of the woods (and the Facebookwoods) people have had a hard week after a gobsmacking year! It goes on and on: the 1% tax grab, Trump stirring up the Middle East and begging nuclear war with North Korea, then firing back at abused women in the divisive Pensacola rally; meanwhile Mueller painstakingly exposing and following the lies and more lies. It was a tough week.

One of my old friends on Facebook asked, “Today, I found myself weeping in the car out of rage about the on-going state of the world. Our society is not super comfortable with folks processing anger and rage out loud. Many of us suffer in the silence of depression due to the weight of carrying our unprocessed anger. We need to lift each other up and  make our common journey through this broken world livable. WHAT ARE SOME HEALTHY STRATEGIES YOU USE FOR PROCESSING ANGER/RAGE?”

Another old friend immediately exclaimed: “This is like the fifth post like this I’ve seen! Meanwhile my mom and I are over here yelling about everything that’s going on. The rage is intense.”

It has been a tough week after a tough year. but people are not giving up! A few people responded to my friend’s tears in funny ways (it was on Facebook after all!), but most were serious. Some suggested drinking, it’s true. And one said, “I usually just bury it deep inside until I’m full of rage and then lash out at something irrelevant.” You might relate. But a lot of people had some great ideas to suggest. So I am relaying them to you in their honor.

My mind went to Galatians 4:21-5:1, especially this part: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” I go to my faith when rage tries to tie me up. I don’t see how we can stand against the wind of slavery and deny false gods the attention and honor they demand unless we are free. We are children of the “free woman,” not the “slave woman,” Paul says. Some responses to the present national disaster strike me as “children of the slave woman” responses, as if we can get the “master” to set us free if we reason well, shout enough or organize better. The government is not my master. And being “in power” or “out of power” is not all that matters. Let’s tell the truth and be the truth and bring the liars down. But let’s do it as people who come from God, not just more powermongers or victims.

That being said, the FB users had some good answers to the question: WHAT ARE SOME HEALTHY STRATEGIES YOU USE FOR PROCESSING ANGER/RAGE?” If we are free, what keeps our minds and hearts in freedom while we are getting blown away by the latest thing the powers-that-be are perpetrating?

These are not all direct quotes, but I hope they honor the gifters.

Express your anger

There’s no perfect solution. Allowing yourself to start sobbing in your car is more productive than people think. I repress so much out of habit. I imagine others do too. So if it comes out in big tearful moments, then that’s fine. Cry! And be okay with it. Pray! Ask Jesus to comfort you. Sometimes it’s just saying “Jesus” in the midst of the cry.

Cry over unrelated things — Inside Out is usually good for some solid sobbing.

Primal Scream Therapy is still suggested. My dad often came back from work, changed into work out gear, silently wheeled his Nordic Trac exercise machine out to our deck and then screamed out into the woods.

Some people conflate “processing” with “avoidance.” An immediate reaction to anger might be “turn off the internet for a day.” A lot of us avoid feeling our rage so it gets tamped down and turned into depression. Many of us aren’t comfortable with rage because we fear it taking over. But either expressing or suppressing rage could lead to depression, since the outcome in both cases is likely to be still feeling powerless, negatively impacted by a bunch of stuff nearly completely out of our control. If we are free in Christ, rage doesn’t kill us and might fuel us, since we are done with being in control or merely reacting to people supposedly in control.

Stop drinking and start exercising

One person got back to the dialogue to say, “I just got back from a solid run/walk interval session. I run without earbuds or music so I am forced to focus and listen more deeply to my body — from my foot falls to concentrated deep breaths to my heart-headspace.

Another person also started running again, but they like boxing even more. Another agreed, “I’m not very strong so if I punch my punching bag for like 7 minutes I feel amazing and exhausted.”

There are a lot of options: kickboxing, “beating the shit out of a bike in spin class,” lifting weights and yoga. They all help us put our focus on training in a discipline and channeling energy into something constructive. Maybe this is not the year for a passive quiet Advent, but an angry, active one!

Stay awake

You are angry because evil powers are doing evil. Keep in mind that making the oppressed depressed is a strategy for them, not a mistake. They are making the chaos and despair. It is an industry, not mere self-expression — boycott their “products.” Don’t give in! Try, if possible, not to let them get to your emotion. They are counting on us to completely lose hope. Don’t let them steal your freedom and joy. Those treasures are gifts from God. They don’t need to be earned or approved.

Another person started a daily action email blast. He made it super simple and stripped down to make it easy to know what to say and what to do. He sends letters to his congress people everyday via ResistBot.

One person summed it up with, “just watch this video:

Get spiritual again

One person said, “I have started meditating but that is more just to focus.”

Many people use music to meditate. They find it powerful for helping them process the full range of their emotions (one person said, “Most of those I express through crying”). For the past few years, one friend has been educated, inspired, and released to cry by Praise 107.9.

Another friend offered the Daughters of the King Devotional for December 8: “You Are Not Alone”

Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are” — 1 Peter 5:9, NLT

You are not the only one whom God has chosen.
You are not the only one who loves the Lord deeply.
You are not the only one who has said yes to Him.
You are not the only one fighting on the front-line.
You are not the only one He is pruning.
You are not the only one being used by Him.
You are not the only one who is sacrificing in order to obey Him.

The enemy loves to make us feel alone. If we’re doing good, he’ll say you’re the only one. If we’re doing terribly, he’ll say you’re the only one.”

Get on your music and art

This may not be something most of us have tried when we are angry: “The focus of creating has been a good way for me to process through shit. For me, it’s comix, particularly the inking, where my marker traces over penciled lines. There’s something autopilot about the motion and my mind becomes incredibly focused on each line (and whatever music I’m playing in the background).” Just go away from everyone for a bit so you can reflect, or play guitar or music.

Draw (even if you think you can’t) and see if it helps. Also, look into Danny Gregory’s Everyday Matters. He teaches about how sketching ordinary items allows us space to slow down, process, and recover.

Play drums!!!!!!

Sing! One friend says, “We’ve been making up songs, channeling emotions into melodies and loops and chants and prayers. I’m often surprised how quickly a song can come through when I have something I have to get out of my body.”

Such great ideas!

We are free to try them all: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Don’t let anyone steal your joy! We can stand against the oppressors because we come from a place of freedom when we are in Christ. The beloved of God know to whom they belong and the heart of their homeland is truth and love.

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Don’t kill another church: Agree to reconcile

Building community, Leadership, ,

Abba Agatho used to say: “If one is able to revive the dead, but is not willing to be reconciled to his neighbor – it is better to leave the dead in the grave.”

Paul said about the same thing as Abba Agatho in 1 Corinthians 13, but Christians generally domesticated Paul’s lines into something we’d find in a fortune cookie. So let’s stick with Agatho.

Hopefully, what he said will stick with us. Because the thing that kills churches most effectively is the unwillingness of Christians to reconcile. They run into a problem and cut people off. They go to great lengths to avoid people they resent or fear. They act like things are OK when people know they aren’t and so force others into pretense. Fear and pretense at the expense of love kill churches. We should stop agreeing to disagree, and start agreeing to agree. We should have our potentially church-killing conflicts, but use them to learn to reconcile.

It seems to me that Christians, in general, have regularly decided to follow the command of Jesus/Paul/Agatho by just avoiding conflict, altogether. As a result, we either explode from pent up frustration or implode from deception: we would never explode! I think many of us were relieved when the ethic of “tolerance” took over the moral vacuum left by our unreconciling churches so we could at least feel like we could be as “nice” as everyone else by avoiding conflict, or making it illegal!

I have been talking to several of our leaders lately (and we have 50-plus cell leaders, along with everyone else in our leader-intensive system, so it is easy to find one). Some of them are having a tough time with the thought that they might start a conflict — and leading can often seem like it is perpetually on the verge of starting a conflict. Even when a leader is merely saying, “I would like us to go in the way we have all decided we want to go,” it could seem like starting a fight. Just providing encouragement in the name of the whole, since that might appear to be at the expense of an individual, could feel so much like prospective conflict, that a new leader won’t do it. They are quite afraid (and possibly legitimately so) that someone will say, “Who died and made you the queen?’ or “So now you work for the man!” or “I’m just nor feeling that anymore,” or who knows what else?

What are we supposed to do when we feel conflict is coming? We feel these fears when we relate with parents, co-workers and neighbors, too, not just fellow-followers.

We need to live by faith.

The key work of faith is following the example of God in the person of Jesus, who does whatever it takes to be reconciled with a clueless, broken-down creation. Jesus did not explode all over people and coerce them and he did not dismiss them by pretending they weren’t in conflict with him. He called them to a new way to relate to God and others and then demonstrated just how one does that. He told the truth, acted in love and then kept acting.

Conflict is not merely about the conflict. It is about faith. Having good conflict may take converting someone so they have the wherewithal to have a decent relationship that includes coming to mutual agreement about living together in love. If you can raise the dead, it is not more powerfully Christian than being reconciled.

For those of us willing to follow Jesus as completely as reconciliation requires, we may need to start with our own faith. We should avoid starting with the lack of faith we note in others. It is rather easy to point out the deficits of others: “They not only can’t fight well, they can’t reconcile!” We need to watch ourselves watching others who do not reconcile and watch ourselves looking down on them for messing up our beautiful church. That’s not where Jesus started. Don’t judge; convert.

We can nurture agreement

Do you want the church to live? Nurture agreement among us so we will be ready to reconcile with God and others before we get into our inevitable fights. Have that conflict. Don’t wait to be offended by what someone does or does to you, or wait to be offended by how incompletely they are reconciling with others. Proactively work toward a culture of reconciliation. Get a positive agreement about forming an environment where reconciliation is the gold standard – an environment in which not being reconciled is not OK. That culture is something worth fighting about.

Someone told me the other day that they actually experienced, in their own church, the cliché church-split over the color of the carpet! Before that happens in our own backyard, let’s everyone note the horrible possibility it could happen here. Then let’s help everyone avoid perpetrating some, similar soul-numbing, church-killing behavior. It would be good for someone to quote us after we’re dead like they quoted Abba Agatho: “They used to say, ‘If one is able to revive the dead, but is not willing to be reconciled to her neighbor – it is better to leave the dead in the grave.’”

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Intensity: How to be in a movement, not a moment

A life in the Spirit, , , , ,

So how was the meeting of the church yesterday? Was it about as exciting as the Eagles’ rout of the Bears? Did you skip it because you thought it might not be worth driving to? Are you out of the habit?

Maybe prayer has even slipped out of your schedule and you replaced it with caustic remarks about people who “drank the Kool-aid” and keep acting excited about things you “got over” a long time ago. Maybe you chalk up your boredom to your “meeting fatigue” or “lack of bandwidth.”

I don’t mean to shame you if any of this is true about you. I just want to be honest. Christianity is intense – all the time. It is a life and death matter – all the time. Most of us have a moment of that intensity here and there, or we would desert Jesus altogether. But we need a movement, not a moment. And if we expect to reveal Jesus to the world and work with the Spirit as God transforms it, we certainly can’t do it with a few moments of intensity.

Earnest expectation

In Philippians 1:20 Paul says, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” Many translations  says he has “earnest expectation” and hope.  He is intense. The Greek word has the idea of a head that is outstretched, as if waiting in suspense, eyes peeled, ears open.

We can all relate to this sense of expectation. My grandchildren were afraid and delighted to be going to race go-carts the other day. You may have a job interview lined up. The baby might be due. For Paul, he is writing while awaiting trial before a Roman court. It could be that the delusional Nero will give him a death sentence. What was Paul’s expectation? That Christ’s glory would be seen in his body whether he lived or died. That was his EARNEST expectation.

Paul’s intense desire was that Jesus, in whom he lived and who lived in him, would have free rein of him so he would prove to be the best vehicle of transformation he could be. If dying proved to be a better strategy, then so be it. Really! He wrote that to the church in Philippi, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That’s intense.

Paul did not come equipped with his courage or will. We humans have those capacities, but they are mostly moments, not movements. His courage came from the Spirit of Christ who made him alive, even if he died. He was not talking about achieving an ongoing integration of Christ “into his life.” This was not post-therapy, post-intellectualizing Paul telling us how he ended up enlightened. Jesus is his light and he is confident Jesus will shine through what he is and does whether he lives or dies.  That is basic Christianity. It feels intense to us.

If the Sunday meeting does not provide us a moment, we might feel like we have no movement. If a person feels like they are too intense, we might want to put the brakes on their movement, since it feels like we are getting run over. I supposed we are getting run over — meanwhile, Paul appears to like getting run over. Being a vehicle for God’s glory is his definition of wonder-ful.

How do we get into the movement and stop living off the “crumbs” of the spiritual moments that don’t add up to enough?

1) We need to pray

Pray for yourself. Pray for others. Pray for the Congo. Intercession is crucial if anything is going to happen. If things seem flat, maybe we are not praying! But even before you get to interceding, practice the turn into the movement of God’s Spirit.  Work on the meditation that gets you out of thinking your courage and capacity makes it all happen.

2) We need to relate rightly

If you are talking about people instead of to them; if you’ve decided you can’t talk to them so you are just avoiding everyone, you are starving for connection and it is wrecking you. The moments of love you get may hurt, since they just point out how much more you need. Those moments might make you mad, since they seem to be depriving you or demanding of you. You need to be in the movement.

I wish our leaders told us every week that the Sunday meeting is not just about the speech or the songs; it is about the relating, the being together in the Spirit, the relationships built and the plans being made. What happens before and after the scheduled events should be just as important as what happens during them.

3) We need to do something. Trump is president.

The fact that the populace (or at least the system) elected a liar who would rather have a strong-man government like Russia’s demonstrates that the world needs saved. What are you going to do about it? Get depressed? Be resentful? Withdraw? Join in and make as much money as possible while the doors are open to exploitation? Get as mean and divided as the powers are promoting? Conform to an even more debased way of thinking? I wish I did not have to even list those things, but people are doing all those things.

Many people are doing just the opposite, of course, but temptation is everywhere. Black Friday background checks for gun purchases soared last week while we were calling for “buy nothing” day. While we are calling each other to Turn Up to Bail Out, the Ku Klux Klan claimed a surge in new members. Some of us are overwhelmed. We would never have done anything to get into prison like Paul did and if we did get there we might have gone crazy instead of converting the Praetorian Guard.

The main thing Paul does is demonstrate the glory of God in his body whether he lives or dies. He does not have a plan to save democracy or depose Nero. He is part of a movement of God’s Spirit that is way more than the present moment. He trusts in it. He is confident in it.  He is not waiting for a moment or disappointed because he missed it. He lives in an eternal now with Jesus.

The main thing Paul expects the followers of Jesus to do is demonstrate the presence of the risen Lord as the body of Christ. How we do that is discerned moment by moment, but we are always in the movement. If the powers that be try to kill us, that will make Jesus even more obvious.

I, for one, would not be a Jesus follower if Christianity were not intense. That’s why it is hard, sometimes, when I think the meetings feel a little dead, or I run into loved ones who are more resistant than resplendent with glory. But then, like today, I often remember Paul’s letter to the Philippians and note the contours of my cell — and maybe even pen my own letter, of sorts. Jesus is with me.

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