Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

Why do we turn to stuff we hate instead of praying?

A life in the Spirit

I had another apostle Paul moment when I was on my retreat this weekend. I was reading over some journal entries and noted that over and over again I wrote things like, “I turned to something other than you. I should have prayed, instead I did this. I woke up anxious, but I wish I had sat down with you instead of doing something else.”

I wish all my apostle Paul moments were like Jesus meeting him on the Damascus Road or like the time he was shipwrecked on Malta and bitten by a viper yet unharmed. (Don’t know that one?)

Instead, I’ve got the Apostle Paul moment from Romans 7 on my mind. He says, “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (Romans 7:21-23).

When I know turning to God in prayer will be a source of healing and comfort, or at least will fend off responses that will hurt me or someone else, why don’t I do that? Many times I do do it. But why would I ever not?

I’ve got ruts

I was given a good answer while I was finishing a book I started some weeks ago, Finding God in the Waves. It helped me remember my ruts. I have some mind/heart/soul ruts that make some of my reactions pretty-much automatic, so automatic they just feel like “me.” These ingrained patterns are psychological and spiritual, sin-ridden. The society keeps saying everyone should just get used to what they are as if they chose it. But that is deeply unsatisfying, and Paul doesn’t think it is realistic. Anyone who really thinks their choice is the center of life is probably on the edge of despair or madness. I choose what I don’t want all the time.

The other day the Leadership Team Core was wondering why there is an increase in teen suicide – part of  the reason could be that teens are left alone with their choices. I understand the pull to avoid and numb and detach from the demands to choose who I am. It is hard to endure. My praying ruts are pretty deep, but I still have the vestiges of what sin did to me. My automatic avoidance mechanisms can keep me from choosing what I want. Get me anxious, afraid, despairing, or something and those old, automatic attempts at self-preservation tend to kick in, if I am not looking. I can sink pretty far before Jesus pulls me out.

I get pushed into ruts

 

It is not just the sin at work in me, however, it is also the sin at work on me that gets me into a rut. We have some reaction ruts in our brains and habits, but we can get forced into ruts by systemic issues, too. A list of influences came to mind as I was thought of myself and others with whom I had spoken. These things could also kick off our automatic reactions: Lies from the President. The titans of industry who caused the last recession (from which many have not recovered) flexing their muscles. Machines and the machines’ secretaries that never quite work right (Google Drive Crashed last Thursday and almost upended the Hub). Then Harvey bangs up against Texas and causes a ripple of fear and despair throughout the country. Then here comes Irma.

When I wished my sister in Oregon a happy birthday, she told me she was watching  smoke from her window from wildfires caused by lightning strikes. Come to find out, the West is on fire, check out the map. Most of the country is breathing smoke. Montana is a disaster. One fire near my sister started July 11, has consumed 177,693.00 acres and is only 5.00% contained! Sometimes we wonder why people don’t say “Hi” to us on the sidewalk — I think a lot of them are trying to endure what is beating down on them!

Romans 7 leads to Romans 8

The good part about having a Romans 7 moment with Paul is that it leads to a Romans 8 moment.

Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death (Romans 7:24-8:2).

When we fall into our ruts or are pushed into them by outside forces, we need help! It would be nice if I accessed all the power I have in the Spirit. But I have been known to detour. For instance, on the way to my retreat, I decided I wanted Wawa. I consciously told myself, “Wawa is a waste of time and calories,” but I pictured the bag and bottle I liked and turned off the road in Plymouth Meeting. Sure enough, I got lost, like I always do, in Plymouth Meeting. My phone was turned to “no tolls” (I discovered later) so I couldn’t even find my way back to the turnpike. I eventually ran by a Wawa and got my false comfort, but what I mostly got was a lesson in what runs me around. What do you turn to when you are having a feeling (or are just angry or anxious and don’t know what you feel yet)? Other detours I heard about last week include: screens, drugs, porn, making something too-perfect (like dinner), exercise, manicuring my playlist, games, decorating the house. Most of these things are OK in moderation. They are just things we tend to turn to when we don’t turn to praying.  They are destinations at the end of a rut, our ineffectual means to halt intolerable feelings.

You can decide how Romans 7 works in you. You probably know the tried and true ways to Romans 8 like I do. The spiritual disciplines make a difference. Back to my most recent favorite book. Mike McHargue, the Evangelical turned atheist who is now back at faith, says that the good news about prayer is that those predisposed to spiritual experiences and those who are not can both benefit from all forms of praying.  Prayer is the place to get some new ruts.

Both kinds of people will get stronger with exercise, [It’s] possible for anyone to increase her or his propensity toward spiritual experiences. Through consistent meditative practice, each of us has the potential to make our brain more spiritual—even to the point of increasing the probability that we will experience something truly mystical….The practice is what matters. Plenty of skeptics meditate for the mental and physical health benefits, and if feeling closer to God or confronting doubt is important to you, prayer is going to be more effective than just about anything else you can do. Prayer might not help you solve the mystery of God rationally, but it may help you encounter God.

My retreat helped. Today, I am more aware of the Spirit, less consumed by my challenges and my failure to meet them, more available to my creativity, and more empowered to be creative after Irma is finished with us. I hope these few moments with my blog contributed to development of new ruts in you, too. Why not spend a couple of minutes praying right now? Seriously, why not?

The still point: Finding home in the midst of change

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Things change. The world is a transient experience. We are lonely for home – someplace we can feel anchored, someplace certain, someplace where our roots feel secure and stable.

While we are meditating on that, someone plows into our pizzeria or we just hear about ten such things from the 24-hour news alarm. While we are trying to secure our place in the world as the church, our constant failure and dislocated relationships scare us and discourage us until we worry that our fragile connections will deteriorate and we will be alone again.

How do we deal with this lonely, rootless experience we have as humans? The main thing is our lifelong movement toward the goal of oneness with God. That pursuit causes deeper integration, a new instinct for being rejuvenated in solitude, and the capacity to pray. But I think there is even more. There are attitude shifts and decisions we make that provide us with “still points” where we feel secure in a world that keeps shifting. We need to find the “clefts in the rock” where we feel covered.

still point

How can we find these points and overcome the nagging rootlessness that often makes us so lonely? Here are four suggestions.

The still point of faith

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:1-3

When our faith is out of our minds and hearts and also into our bodies and habits, the symbols we use, the language we speak, and the time we share all provide thin places where we experience the security of the cleft, where we feel covered with God’s hand. They all lead to the great still point.

There is something beyond time and history, beyond what shifts in its impermanence. There is something that can’t be debunked by investigation or made obsolete by new discoveries. That something is a Someone. That Someone is known as we journey into the realm of faith, hope and selfless love. That journey in mind, heart and step will help dispel rootlessness if we persevere in it.  Our friends in recovery know this well, the first three steps of the twelve steps are all about facing rootlessness and coming home. #2 says: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. It takes working the steps to find the still point.

The still point of commitment

I was overjoyed when some of the friends arrived and testified to your faithfulness to the truth, namely how you walk in the truth. – 3 John 1:3

Much of our rootlessness can be overcome by committing ourselves to certain people, values, things, and projects and then refusing to be unfaithful to those commitments. We need to give up on “hang loose.” Otherwise our lives end up characterized by infidelity, broken promises, broken words, cheap commitments, and hastily withdrawn loyalties – and acute loneliness.

Permanence adds a missing ingredient to the words love, friendship, promise and loyalty. It brings the element of timelessness. Teilhard de Jardin, the philosopher-scientist-Jesuit, spent much of his life frustrated with his church family. He was occasionally encouraged by his friends to abandon them. However, he would always dismiss the temptation with the simple statement: “I can never leave because I have given my word.” His commitment gave him a still point.

The still point of history

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. – Romans 11:17-18

I think it is great that we can swipe our cheeks and find out from what part of Africa our ancestors derived. The DNA science gives us a small sense of having roots. Maybe it is good that archaeologists become more clever every day and uncover the truth (or fiction) behind ancient texts. They help us feel like our faith has a secure foundation.

We all feel better when we stand within our tradition and know our history. The newest person who comes into our church or any church does better when they refuse to think their history with the group begins when they make their covenant. They are grafted into a long history and are supported by the roots. They are not losing themselves when they adopt certain traditions and add their energy and voice to steering the future. In a real sense they are transhistorical, alive in Christ wherever Jesus has been honored throughout history. That sense of history provides a still point.

The still point of community

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. – Ephesians 2:19-22

Finding home is more than finding a building, a city, or a country where we feel we belong. That’s just part of it. It is finding a heart or a community of hearts where we find enough safety and warmth to dare to be faithful and loving, to be true — like when Adam first saw Eve and said, “At last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” That wasn’t just sexual attraction, that was comfort to his heart. He found in Eve what the rest of creation did not have for him.

We go through life needing to find that home. Jesus demonstrated how we find it when he was sitting with his disciples one day and his family came to the house looking for him. No doubt Jesus loved his mother and his family, but he did not immediately get up and go to them. Instead he said” Who is my mother? Who are my brothers and sisters?” Pointing to those around him he said, “Here are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.” He is not disrespecting his mother, he’s just teaching us that home is deeper than blood. Faith makes a family than transcends all the ancestries that divide us.

One of the great scandals of being a Jesus follower is contained in that moment. Jesus respects his origin as a man, but he is king of country that transcends and unites all other identities. Many people would fight even the hint that their personal identity does not make them who they are and should be defended at all costs. Yet Jesus persists in knitting together a new family sharing a renewed blood, heart to heart, bone of bone. In another incident a woman shouted out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” Jesus answered, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”  Yes I had a wonderful mother, but I am more than my biology.

Our community in Christ is bound together by something beyond blood, ethnicity and geography and will outlive them all. Our new home in faith is an answer to the loneliness, it is the great still point, the shelter from the storm, the cleft in the rock, that can root out our rootlessness.

Already today I have confronted my weakness, been in an argument, heard about a car disaster, read a distraught email, found myself confused by problems in various structures, lost something, and the Facebook news reported that Texas A&M had also scheduled a white supremacist rally for next month. It is 9:00 am! I am going to reread this post and see if I can’t find that still point I long to live in, sensing God’s sustaining glory in the cleft of the rock.

Love and mercy, that’s what you need: So love and mercy to you and your friends

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Do you need to read this blog post because I am going to offer you some bit of info that makes your life better? Maybe. You’ll be better off if you read it for love.

I want to read your blog post for love. I’d rather you read mine because you love me — or at least you would like to. I would rather read your post because I want to know you, or at least know of you: your gifts, your wisdom, your part in the community we share, whether face to face or just as members of humanity. I don’t think you are an info machine regurgitating data you have effectively evaluated and reconstituted and I am surely not that.

Two things happened last week that made me think many of my friends are overly influenced by two mutually detrimental experiences: their social science teachers and their evangelical preachers. It makes them treat people as if they are data and data sources. Before I tell you about that, I can probably sum up my reaction to my experiences with the Brian Wilson song that came to my mind as I pondered my discomfort. What we need is love and mercy, not another teaching that tells us we’ve got it all wrong or another preaching that tells us we can never get it right.

I loved seeing Brian Wilson sing this at the Tower Theater!

Do we really have it all wrong?

We took a survey of the people who came to our church planting summit last week. They had a LOT of wise things to say off the top of their heads that I will be pondering (and helping us to incorporate) for a long time.

But there was an interesting streak that a few responders added to the mix. It bothered me. They apparently looked around the room and quickly sized us up according to the ideal church/social group they thought we ought to be. They asked things like, “Why are we so much this and not enough that?” and “Where is the data that proves what you are saying?” Even though we have a proverb that enjoins people to resist “bean counting” they applied a mentality that is very common these days. Aren’t most things reduced to, “What does it cost?” or “What don’t we have enough of?” Apply that mentality to a social group, like the church, and it is “Who is underrepresented” or “What is missing?” I often say the mentality leads us to eating the holes in the Swiss cheese.

I’m not saying facing facts is irrelevant. I think Jesus-followers should be the people most able to face the harsh truth about themselves and their group. So bring on any truth that statistics and spreadsheets can tell! But let’s also admit that figures lie and liars figure. And even when they tell the truth, their truth is never deep enough. The great truth we know as Jesus followers is that the facts which prove how worthy we are of condemnation are not the facts we live by. Jesus looks at us like a mother getting the first glimpse of her newborn, or a father looking down the road and seeing a figure who looks like his son coming home. We could not possibly have it all wrong, being so loved. Even if nothing is working out, love and mercy are working out.

Are we really never going to get it right?

The next night I sat under the teaching of the spectacularly-talented Gungor family. I appreciated the depth and variety of their music. I was also very interested in their fan base, who seemed happy to get a chance to ask them personal questions.

From what I can tell, they are refugees from Evangelicalism, but they haven’t completely lost touch with their homeland. As a person who never quite got into the Evangelical fold, it is usually hard for me to describe what I think about it until I run into it again, like I did with Gungor. Their music was all about light and connecting with God, but at the same time it was deeply intellectual and bent on making a point. When they started talking, it became even clearer that their view of us was as unrealized projects who need to conform to ways we have yet to perfect. We haven’t got it right yet and we never will.

Like Michael and Lisa, God’s leadership motivates me to grow and change. We are travelling onward. So bring on your expanded vistas and the hope of eternity! I think they were trying to bring that. But there was also this other streak. Like when Lisa said her new revelation of late was “If we’re not all free, none of us are free.” That is a great word to the powers that be as they insist that Americans are free because of the society’s goodness and power, when they are not. But the impossible dream of waiting for Christians to take over the world and make democracy and capitalism (or anything) work is the kind of thing Evangelicals hope for that make everyone in the meeting get the idea that there is endless toil to complete.

In a similar vein, when a young man asked about how to make an album, Michael told him, among other things, to “Follow what is in you.” Given more time, he might have told him to “Follow Jesus, who is in you.” But, as it is, the young man got the word to assess what is in himself and follow it to success, or to not care about success and be content with whatever is in him – be yourself. That’s a good word to a young man who sees Gungor and can’t feel good until he is Gungor, but it is also and invitation to “Be that perfect you and you’ll be happy.”

When the New Testament writers tell us our hearts are deceitful and assure us God is greater than our hearts, I don’t think they are merely calling me to change everyone’s heart or follow my heart, in the sense that life is an endless project I need to get right. The “burnt out evangelicals” I promise to never disparage again (since most of the people at the summit said they could wear that description!) have been pushing such a rock up the hill long enough. The work makes them feel like crap and the only solution they are given is work harder and like it! Our good works do not make us good people. We can get it right because Jesus got it right for us. It is not going to get any better than that because we somehow out-save Jesus. It is already done. Love and mercy is where we live.

We’re already more than the moral to the story

I don’t know every bean-counter and evangelical on the planet, so whatever stereotype I concoct is just that: a concoction. I’d rather love people than relate to them as a concoction I should assess or exhort. So I am pondering how to end this post. These days little stories, like I have just told, are commodities people consume and store in data bases, if they “like” them.  If they are Evangelicals their story is a new way to preach and every story has a moral. In both cases, bean counter or evangelical, the story is rarely about us as we are, it is always about who we should be or who we aren’t yet.

I can face who I should be and who I am not — I live in love and mercy, after all! But I surely need to be careful or I will become an aspiration, never to be realized, rather than a person in Christ who has aspirations. I am not sure it is even safe to look into eternity if you are not securely by the Lord’s side while you are doing it!

So see if this works for you. When Jesus says “Before Abraham was born, I am!” in John 8, I don’t think he was assessing himself honestly or making a point, or even telling a story. I think he was being vulnerable, being himself. In a similar way, I think we can say, “We are who we are” and rest in that, even though we know there is more to do and a long road ahead. Even the most ambitious man in the Bible, the Apostle Paul, says, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself” – basically, “I am who I am.“

We live in the love and mercy of God. That’s who we are and that’s the essence of what we bring to the meeting or the concert. We are not the facts, or the work, or the moral to the story. Facts, work and morals are all great. But who can live under the weight of them? Who wants to be judged by them? Even now, when you are at the end of what I have said, can I live under your assessment or can you live under whatever judgment you have strained out of what I have written? Probably not. So listen to Brian again and end up in love and mercy, instead.  Be in the church too and let it be: we are who we are, and whatever we become will be a gift of love and mercy.

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Life management: Meeting Jesus at the heart of it.

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Getting serious about one’s life might start with time management, but it needs to end with eternity. Having enough personal value to keep a schedule of our time is a good starting point that many of us never reach. But we are much more valuable than our schedule and there is a lot more to our time than what is passing by so quickly.

Good management hopefully leads to the greater good

I briefly taught the Leadership Team the other night that time management is not just in one’s mind, as if following the laws of effectiveness will really result in getting what needs to be done accomplished. “Good time management” can also lead to burn out and joyless toil. Lots of good managers are resentful, put-upon people who don’t feel like they have a life, just a schedule. For our purposes in the church — and where else is there but “in the church,” since we are in Christ?, time management is from the heart, not just the head.

I was drawn deeper into my heart to meditate on my time not long ago. I was praying about what I should do. I always have a million things to do, but almost every day I wonder what I should be doing. I was thinking about the limits of my time (for one thing, the social security trust fund is dying when I am about 80, so that’s one limitation!). While I was praying, a surprising word came to me: “keep building.”

I somehow connected that word to Nehemiah and discovered that he probably began the walls of Jerusalem when he was in his thirties, but he kept rebuilding the city until he was in his 80’s, or so Josephus implies.  I did not think I needed to keep building things — on the contrary, I hope I never get into another building project! But as I meditated, I realized what the Lord was telling me was about the process of building, not the results of building.

More things and more buildings could be important, and more well-built Jesus-followers is certainly a worthy goal. But there was something deeper. I needed to be encouraged when it came to the building that builds me. “Keep building” was about the verb, not the noun. The joy in exercising the gifts God gives me feeds my heart. At the heart of me, I am a builder. What is happening in my schedule doesn’t really change that.

Jesus exercising time management

Jesus feeds our true selves to live our truth

I don’t think I will efficiently build things unless I find joy in building. My mind may be kind of useless if my heart is not in it, and even deeper, if my soul is not in it. I don’t think you will manage your time for the greatest good, unless you have a heart that loves the greatest good. The greatest good is God. We are going for being like Jesus when he said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Does saying that mean Jesus was working too hard? His schedule might suggest that. Or is he just working out who he is? What Jesus does doesn’t make Jesus who he is. Neither does merely doing our assignments efficiently and most profitably makes us good workers. We are works of God who need to work out what we have been given to be, like a tree needs to grow.

To use our time well, we need to feel our value and respect the value we bring to the greater good. No amount of scheduling will solve the problems of lack of heart, not hearing from God, and not feeling your true self. Choosing how to allot our time will always be hard, but it is only when our food is to do the work of the One who sent us that we can face the challenges with our jobs and commitments and not just bend under the load of our anxiety or fatigue.

Our twenties and thirties are crucial for developing our hearts as we refine our schedules.

I often run into a lack of vision with married couples. They are strangely in their heads, even when they are trying to connect heart to heart. They want solutions, not redemption. They want a road map, not a Guide. For struggling couples, the question is usually less about how to make the little changes in relating that make life pleasant. The question is, “Do you have a heart that intends to present your mate complete in Christ?” Deeper understanding, better behavior and changes in the schedule will definitely improve things. But when it comes down to it, love that comes from Christ saves the world, not one’s love for what someone else is doing. Life is not about being pleased or being pleasing, that’s good, but the greater good is pleasing the Lord and enjoying the food that is eternal. Like Jesus told the woman at the well, “Thanks for the water. But if you asked me, I would give you water from an eternal well.”

What organizes our time? It is a big question when people are making decisions about their lives — and what 20 or 30-something person is not doing that? Are we really going to be like all the people I follow on the freeway who are reading their phone while driving? Even when we are sitting in our prayer chair, we can’t look up from our GPS and be steered by a deeper instinct! Are we more obsessed with taking the perfect next step when we could stride across the landscape, confident that we are eternal? Is time a threat or do we redeem it?  The apostle Thomas was troubled that Jesus was going to His father’s house and he did not know the way. Jesus told him:  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Thomas may have immediately asked Siri for answers Jesus would not tell him! Even so, the truth remains: knowing Jesus provides us with a deeper sense of direction than GPS or a perfectly managed week.

When I get to talk to people about their time and having more heart than mind, they usually want to know what I am talking about. That’s nice. But when they leave the office they often fall back into their rut; they are steered by some “best practice,” or by the invisible hand, or by whatever their friends are into at the moment. I can relate to that. I have been thinking about how to use my time well for decades. But when it comes down to it, what I really need, beyond better technique, is God speaking something  into me that transcends the worries I bring to my day. One day, it was “Keep building.” I’m glad I had devoted time with God in my schedule because that was really helpful!

Fragile faith can die: Jesus will reseed us

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When I travel, God gets a chance to reseed me.

For instance, In May I saw this Van Gogh painting of a sower in Amsterdam — great museum!  I have another version hanging on my den wall, a prized gift from someone who saw me as a sower back in the day. Sometimes I look at it and it convicts me. I remember the audacity of my youth and hope I can still access that fire. I want to reseed. I want to keep building, not just sit in the accomplishments of the past and hope they don’t rot before I die.

Hulking husks of faith

The thought of dying Christianity kind of scared me in Europe. What does a town do with a giant, empty husk of a cathedral building? They are sort of like lovely conch shells, beautiful hard things, from which the living creatures are long gone, long dead. Visiting these museums of past Christianity made me wonder if someday the seed that grew into Circle of Hope will be something like an empty cathedral or an empty sea shell sitting on the coffee table of Philadelphia, the Christian creatures and their faith long gone.

Faith is a fragile thing, it seems. If it does not keep growing, if it not reseeded, then it can die. We know people whose faith is essentially dead. And I suspect there are people reading this whose faith is essentially dead, but they don’t have the guts to open up and be reseeded.

The church is even more fragile. The builders of those beautiful Cathedrals did not expect their community of faith to become so irrelevant! Gwen and I went to Aachen Cathedral in Germany for a splendid re-enactment of Medieval and Renaissance rituals during a Sunday mass filled with tourists. But I am quite sure the builders never expected their work of art to be more of a symbol of what was than a gymnasium for worship they built for forever. The building still stands but the seed of faith basically died out for the most part. I was speaking at 2007 Frankford Ave. and I wondered out loud if one day someone would visit that building and receive a little history tour, hear about the early 2000’s, see a picture of us in odd looking clothes, ask questions about Love Feasts and cells, take a picture of themselves with a djembe, leave a token donation as they went back to the van, and that’s it.

We’re at odds; what will happen?

I doubt that untimely death will happen. But I wonder. Because we are a little bit at odds right now. On the one hand, people are being seeded by faith every day because we have some sowers among us. There is a lot of revelation and healing happening — and in an era and a region that seems a bit hostile to Jesus.

On the other hand the burned out or beaten down among us still can’t figure out how to talk about Jesus without being embarrassed. Some of us are much more likely to talk about politics than talk about the risen Lord, as if making the world work right is how people get saved. We can be strangely subject to postmodern discourse rather than revealing what is beyond it. Many people have become in charge of saving their lives and are losing them.

Desert rose, Ethiopia

Nevertheless people get seeded with the truth and love of Jesus all the time. I have been seeded and  reseeded with the word of Jesus at many points during my life, too. Looking way back on some of it now, my faith seems rather unexpected to begin with and strangely resilient. There were Christian seeds thrown around my family but they never found a good place to grow in most of us.  But they did in me. And, somehow, the seedlings survived and grew into a plant that provided a little shade in this spiritual desert.

Somehow we get seeded and reseeded

Somehow there is a spiritual earth in us where the seed of faith can grow. We have to get seeded, and when the plant gets burned or beaten down, that fertile place in us needs reseeded. It seems that something new is always sprouting which will be the tree of tomorrow.

But those little plants of faith in us are fragile. The congregations and cells we plant, as strong as they are, still have a sense of fragility about them. Faith in Jesus is like a seed that takes root and sprouts. We need to take care of one another’s fragile faith. Never stomp on someone’s fragile beginnings. Never assume someone is completely solid. It is not that kind of world. Never take the survival of your church for granted. The community of faith can end up like an empty cathedral rather than a sower in a field.

Last week one of our covenant members died of an apparent overdose. My blessed foreman from 1226 S. Broad tells me that dear man was the fourth to die from among the team of recovering people who kindly and carefully built a place for healing in Circle Counseling. Life is fragile. In Christ, it is eternal. But we wake up every day challenged by our own fragility and by the fissures in society that disrupt our very souls. The faith that seeds eternity seems distressingly weak, like a sprout among weeds or a thirsty seed in the desert. But Jesus, the sower, keeps farming his beloved creation and will even reseed us when we just can’t see how to keep going. And he always seems to find allies to sow truth and love in joy with him, especially when times are tough.

Benedict (not Cumberbatch) the most influential Christian you never heard of

A life in the Spirit

Last year about this time I went on a personal retreat (and such activity is not just for pastors). In the course of my retreat, I heard a lot from a book by Esther de Waal about St. Benedict and I wrote about it. I am still encouraged by it, so here is a replay.

Hers is a good book I picked up after one of our friends helped us explore it not long ago in Circle of Hope Daily Prayer :: WATER: Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict. Benedict of Nursia is one of those spiritual ancestors we love. He is one of the most influential Christians you may have never heard of.

I am telling you about him today because we do a lot of things he would like. And he did a lot of things that made the “dark ages” a lot less dark. And we might be entering some dark ages ourselves.

The revolution of community

Benedict caused a revolution by considering what it meant to make a covenant and build a community around Jesus in the 600’s. Before Benedict wrote his new rule for the communities of monks he was founding, most radical Christianity was solitary and  spiritual athletes were the people who entered it. Benedict was one of those athletes, but he attracted a bunch of people who were not. He realized that following Jesus is mostly for ordinary people. What’s more, a group of individuals sitting at the feet of a “sage” is not very Biblical. His breakthrough was to emphasize the love among the members of the community as elemental to authentic spiritual life; multiplications of those communities are still shining the light of faith today.

His rule says: “The monks are to bear with patience the weaknesses of others, whether of body or behavior. Let them strive with each other in obedience to each other. Let them not follow their own good, but the good of others. Let them be charitable towards their brothers with pure affection.” (72.5-8).

His communities were all men, but women applied this rule in their houses, as well (thus, his language).

DeWaal says that within a hundred years of Benedict’s death, his rule had provided a collection of communities that wrapped Europe in a cloak of faith. “Whereas in the very earliest days monks had gone out into the desert leaving behind them a comparatively sophisticated life, now that pattern was reversed. In a world in which barbarian invasion, political uncertainty, and the power of the sword seemed the most immediate realities, [sound familiar?] and in a simple agrarian world where parishes were served by priests of humble peasant birth, [sound like many of our neighborhoods?] the monasteries came to stand out as centres of light and learning” (p. 20).

Who is that person sitting in the cell’s “second row?”

Radicals in covenant are important lights in deteriorating circumstances. They not only take care of one another, they provide opportunities for people to know God, learn love, and create sustainable community. Our cells are like Benedict’s little communities wrapping our region in a cloak of faith. We focus on God in prayer and worship, we study to deepen our faith and life, we work for one another and serve those we can touch. The Benedictines were known as change agents by Cruce, libro et atro—cross, book and plough. We have our surprisingly useful version of that.

Radical Christianity was and is all done in love by normal people. When some of those normal people make a covenant to be Circle of Hope at the end of the month they will deepen our capacity to make a difference in this upended world. I think they will reflect a story Pope Gregory I told in his biography of Benedict.

“A certain hermit named Martin had chained himself to the side of his solitary cave near Monte Cassino. When he heard of it St. Benedict sent him a message: ‘If you are indeed a servant of God, do not chain yourself with chains of iron. But rather, let Christ be the chain that binds you.’”

Like Benedict, we point to Christ. It is as simple as that: in the cell where Jesus is the agenda and in our covenant to live as the Body of Christ. That is where the transformation starts and where it continues to astound me.

Avoidance: Six ways to find comfort in your suffering

Building community, Psychological growth, , ,

The best defense mechanism of this generation might be avoidance, even stonewalling. I recently had a lesson on this at last Saturday’s Comfort Retreat. It actually came after it was over. Ellen told me of an article she read about going to a party and texting to tell the host goodbye. I admit I have done this a few times, but I did not know it was a topic (as if every social thing a millennial does would not be a topic – it is a big blogosphere!). So, of course, I Googled it and found out that lots of people have been talking about  ghosting like this for the last five years. Here is one random sample:

[I ghost the exit] because people should only remember you as the life of the party, never the death. We live in 2015, where the text messages travel faster than comets through space and communication isn’t a choice, it is a function of existence. So you text, or call, or Kik, or whatever after the fact and say sorry, but when push comes to ghost, what’s so bad about leaving when you want to leave without the annoying bells and whistles?

All day at the retreat, some of us came to grips with the fact that it is very difficult to show up. We can ghost our life! A few of us could describe how hard it was to even feel when we had the chance. The other night when I was watching Nashville (Yes, it is still on, and yes, Scarlett still can’t get with Gunner effectively), Deacon asked Scarlett if she wanted a hug and she said, “I don’t want anyone to touch me or I will start crying and not stop.”She eventually folded into her uncle, but she was as conscious as a soap opera person can be about her avoidance habits.

Scarlett & Deacon - I love the relationship between these two. So sweet and genuine.

Avoidance wrecks things: self-awareness and growth, relationships, and the big one, knowing God.

God promises comfort. But it is hard to receive comfort when we are used to avoiding the potential suffering of not receiving the comfort we crave. We have reasons to ghost the Holy Ghost. Maybe God is seen as the great corporation in the sky who is perpetually beaming religious advertising at you which you masterfully avoid. Maybe God is seen as your helicopter parents who did so much for you, you have no idea how to do anything and you can’t stand more helicoptering. Maybe God is seen as just another obligation, like soccer practice, and you are just too tired of all that to lift a finger of attention. I got all these ideas from eavesdropping on blogs about ghosting parties.

The key to following Jesus might be summed up in one line from our theme scripture for the Comfort Retreat, 1 Corinthians 1:5: For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. (NASV). That verse is very not-avoidant. So you might have checked out as soon as you started reading it. It has a point that is hard to hear if you can’t even tolerate awkward good-byes:

We suffer. Jesus suffers with us, even bearing our sins, and we suffer with Jesus, even receiving his victory. Suffering is either deadly or transforming for us.

Likewise, we are comforted. Jesus comforts us in our present situation, and we are having a foretaste of his present situation. We  can try to get comfortable in this world, but it is hard to settle for that when eternity is opened up to us.

But what if you are really good at avoidance?

Yes, you might have perfected avoidance. Chances are, however, that if you are reading this, you are more irritated by the stonewallers you love rather than irritating yourself. But if you are good at avoidance, what follows is a list of things that make you suffer and will cause you more suffering if you move through them rather than around them.  But just as the suffering threatens to overflow, the comfort promises to overflow even more. Step by step we get to the end of the journey, unless we avoid starting every day.

Here are six book-length suggestions in a few sentences each for finding a way to stop avoiding. I adapted them from a Huffington Post article:

Give up on denial as a means to stay safe.

 You might start with considering what your mind and heart are really telling you when you take the time to reflect — about you, about your relationships and about God. More important, go with your soul, where God not only challenges you to open your mind and heart, he gives you the motivation and hope to trust him instead of just aspiring to trust yourself and others. Not seeing things clearly will not keep you safe.

 Have healthy conflict

When people who are conflict-avoidant sense a possible confrontation, they become anxious and do whatever they can to avoid the situation and reduce their own discomfort. They may “walk on eggshells” to avoid discussing their needs or “protect” themselves or their partner from experiencing difficult feelings. It’s all too easy to stay in this comfort zone, maintaining the illusion that a relationship is functional when it’s not.

Admit you are needy

Since we have somehow been taught that self-reliance is the height of health, we fear being “too needy.” Some people want to please and care-take, pushing their own needs aside (often telling themselves, “I want to be there for him/her”). They fear becoming burdensome, difficult, or demanding. They have no respect for the mutuality Jesus thinks is normative, at least they don’t respect it with their behavior. They believe that being a “good girl/boy/friend” or being a good team mate means not asking much of their partners and, as such, they often ignore their own needs. You may have tried to get out of that box and been shoved back in, so go back to the part above about suffering and being consoled by God. You can’t solve your neediness without Jesus – except to avoid it.

Let God be in charge of transforming others

You are not the “special someone” who will cure your partner’s inability to commit by being patient, accommodating, loving, and emotionally available. Acting out all those good traits should be giving love because you are loving, not loving because you think you are Jesus. We comfort because we are comforted by God, not merely because we think someone will follow our example or should reciprocate. Perpetuating the drama of feeling good when you are loving but destroyed when you are judged for not being loving enough or good enough to love is like being addicted to something.

Suffer the fact that people will let you down

We will do just about anything to not be left alone. Many of us end up in a series of relationships that all end up with abandonment. So we avoid relationships, even with God. Instead, we should stop avoiding the self-awareness that could tell us why we keep replicating unhealthy relationships. Avoiding abandonment makes us focus on how bad or flawed we must be — even before someone leaves us, we are acting as if they will, which often causes them to do so. No one knows better than Jesus what it is like to be abandoned by those who loved him and by those who should love him and don’t. Those sufferings are flowing back and forth between us and the Lord. But so is the comfort.

Stop playing your part in the “drama”

Healthy relationships seem boring to a lot of us. If something is godly, we might sabotage it to get a thrill or just to perpetuate the illusion that we are “true to ourselves.” We might long for the passion and excitement of our youth and keep trying to get the drama back. But as the troubled thirtysomething marriages around us demonstrate (some of which are dissolving as we speak), long loves are not built on emotional drama. If you were a child raised by parents who could not suffer together and be consoled by God, you really need the replacement parenting Jesus is opening up to you.

I may have just caught up with “ghosting” (I heard the word but did not adopt it). But I have certainly experienced the behavior. An author in Elle even did a survey to validate her experience, which is similar to mine, so my experience has empirical data behind it! People ghost my cell, the church, our appointment all the time and sometimes they even get out of my party before I can make them say good-bye to me. (Best solution to that awkwardness: avoid the party, which has surely been done). I guess Jesus is the only Holy Ghost who doesn’t ghost us. It is a good thing he doesn’t need an invitation to our parties, and it is especially wonderful that he even stays to help clean up.

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What will Wonder Woman do to the children?

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

Gwen and I went to see Wonder Woman — ALL of it.  I even sat through the credits at the end because they were just so beautifully done. I found it to be a lavishly and lovingly produced piece of art. I’d go see it again just to enjoy the production values. But it also contains a surprisingly compelling story. See what you think.

As you can tell from the trailer, the movie keeps getting bigger,  louder and more frenetic as is moves toward its conclusion. My lingering impression from the experience was, “This thing is HUGE!” As we watched the credits we were in awe. I said, “There must be 1000 names on this list!” There were actually over 1500, I found out, and that does not include the 5600 extras that were hired.

Wonder Woman came out on June 2 and has already grossed over $300 million dollars worldwide. That’s BIG. It may make way over $100 million dollars in profit.  Isn’t it amazing how we have gotten used to such large numbers attached to comic book movies? This one took about 12 years to write and 4 years to make. What does a ten year old do with all that hugeness that keeps beating down on him or her? What am I going to do with it? But, more important, what will Wonder Woman do to the children?

The movie is such a big idea crammed into a couple of hours. What does a child do with it all? Here are just a few of the themes: ancient myths,  being a god, problems with mom, leaving home, first love, losing your virginity, experiencing a new world, finding your power, sensing your destiny, losing your mate, confronting evil, being an alien. When a giant story beats down on you, what do you do with it?

Speak, Hear, See No Evil — Sonrise Ministries Uganda

I kind of wish we all blocked the appropriate sense, especially the children. Instead, I think the kids are swallowed. They adapt. They conform. They become acclimated and develop traits that allow them to survive in the presence of the machine.

The experience of Wonder Woman was such an overpowering noise! — part of the anti-silence in which we live.  We saw it on a very big screen and were surrounded by sound: thundering hooves, whizzing WW1 bullets, titanic explosions — by the end, too many explosions.  Maybe we are all used to such things by now. But we should probably notice that watching these movies could be another little dose of the PTSD that soldiers get in battle that dulls their senses and makes them anxious the rest of their lives (this has been studied). Some of these movies may be like taking your kid to work — in Afghanistan.

I look over my precious collection of grandchildren and wonder what the machines will make them. We considered our plan for children as a church last Saturday. I watched Wonder Woman on Friday. It was quite a juxtaposition. I wonder if we will have enough community in Christ to counteract the 1500 people who rammed Wonder Woman into our consciousness and threaten to trample it into submission.

How to nurture dialogue: Discern, don’t soak up what’s unsaid

Building community, Leadership, Psychological growth, , ,

Over and over we have met as a congregation’s stakeholders or as the Council of the whole church and shown the world how Jesus lives in his body. We are a good example of an authentic church. It can be difficult to be in a large group and listen (much more to talk!), but we keep succeeding at it. And it is good that we succeed because such listening and inspired replying is one of the crucial skills for being a real Christian. Circle of Hope is blessed with hundreds of people who will engage in the deep love of dialogue. The world will be even more blessed when we can engage even more.

discern

Don’t just soak up emotions

I think the main difficulty for a lot of people in these large, community dialogues comes down to this question: How can I hear the Holy Spirit rather than merely soak up emotions? So many of us grew up in places where there was little direct communication! We had to pick up the emotions and underlying content by squeezing them out of what was unsaid, what was nuanced, what was withheld. So many of us are such experts at reading vibes, we almost never listen to actual content; we listen for what is in between the lines – especially for the emotions we crave or fear will not be there. So put us in a Council meeting and we are overwhelmed with all the vibes that are assaulting our emotional Geiger counters. The most wicked, hurting, selfish or mistreated person can end up coloring our sense of what happened rather than the Holy Spirit.

We know the Holy Spirit is resident in the followers of Jesus, in one way or another, at some level of consciousness for the follower. When we listen to content or emotions, we are listening for the Lord, too – especially when we are in a meeting designed for that. We want to give our brothers and sisters the grace of listening for Jesus in them all the time, but we especially want to do that when we say we are doing that.

Question your discernment

Here are three sets of questions distilled from a good book on decision-making called The Discerning Heart by Wilkie and Noreen Cannon Au that might help us listen. I offer them to you to help sort out what you are doing when you are listening for Jesus and trying not to merely soak up emotions and call it listening. When we are in a group dialogue ask yourself these questions and ask them of others, too.

  • Are you speaking from the Bible? Are you speaking from our common lore?
  • Does the common sense we seem to be speaking from still make sense? Do the circumstances, opportunities and new revelations confirm it?
  • What are my feelings, intuitions, gut instincts, aspirations, and that sense of being spiritually confirmed tell me about what is being said?

What are we doing when we dialogue about what the Lord is saying to us? We can listen for things we know to be true. We can chew on things that might be reasonable or become more so. We can react heart-to-heart to revelations that could be from the Spirit. All these are better than falling into the group and feeling emotions that probably have more to do with what we ate, or who is angry with us, or who helped to install our defense mechanisms as a child. The process of discernment in the body is an art form that every contributing believer will want to master as deeply as they are able.

How many times have we received a great confirmation for our direction during our Council meeting, or immediately felt someone’s inspiration needed to be incorporated into our plans, or felt convicted that we needed to resist some direction or temptation? I can’t count the times. Our dialogue has made us who we are in Christ, as a people. One time we came to a conclusion that we needed to ban comparing the congregations.  We realized that the way we were talking was, for many of us, more about our desire to fit in and to have a place that looked like each of us instead of all of us. Comparisons are odious. When we (inevitably inaccurately) stereotyped another congregation as a certain type of people, we were actually contributing to evil’s strategy to divide and conquer us. Not only were we factually wrong about each other, we were very spiritually wrong. That was good discernment.

I am sure that someone left the meeting and did not even know we decided all that. They were probably too occupied with wondering what that “dirty look” meant when someone entered the room and glanced at them, or they were wondering what happened when a couple of people got into a little argument during the middle of a discussion, or they felt slighted when their comment did not seem relevant and people did not notice they were hurt. We are all good at soaking things up, and some of us think it means love to do so, but such an instinct rarely helps us dialogue in love and hear Jesus in the midst.

How to listen deeper: What is behind what people say?

Building community, Leadership, Psychological growth

We usually need to listen deeper. Bryce and I were talking one day and he said this little piece of wisdom might make for a good leadership team training: I told him I generally give people a “bye” on the first thing that comes out of their mouth. I don’t ignore them, I just reserve judgment. I assume I don’t know what they are talking about. The crazier it seems to me, the more likely I am to say, “I need to listen deeper. I must not know what is going on here, because what is on the surface can’t be all there is.”

My goal is to trust their heart, not their words, trust God at work in them, not parse their words in order to judge them. I certainly don’t want to get in a power struggle! I want to live in a condemnation-free zone, so I need to guard my feelings and  bridle my tongue. This gets harder the more intimate one is with someone, of course, since we often think we know what they are saying better than they do, and we are often poised to be offended, because what they say matters to us.

need to listen

When I told the leadership team this little bit of wisdom, an astute member immediately noted that brain chemistry backs me up. They noted Daniel Kahneman’ book Thinking Fast and Slow (2011). He shows how our minds react to stimuli with two intertwined systems: the automatic and effortful systems. My bit of wisdom is about slowing down and letting the effortful system get deeper than the snap judgments and illusions that can undermine loving responses from the automatic system. So here’s to brain research!

Slow down and listen again

When we have a large reaction to what someone is saying or feel suspicious about it, it is kind to slow down and see whether there is something else going on we can’t see yet.

There are a lot of different things that could be happening that we (and they) might not immediately see. For instance:

  • They are upset and I am feeling the upset behind what they are saying, even if they are not talking about it directly.
  • They are working something out verbally and they don’t really care what they are saying. They are not holding on to the thoughts I think are important.
  • They trust me and I am getting some very deep things that may or may not fit with the subject. They are putting a lot on the table that may not be sorted out yet.
  • They don’t know what they are talking about yet, but they want to appear like they do because they are afraid I might think they appear stupid or weak. They are speaking from their image, not their feelings.

We are often in challenging conversations in the church because we prize dialogue and are organized to make it happen.  But we are not all the same and we don’t always understand each other. So we need some effortful listening to avoid being tangled up all day or stirring up needless conflict. More love will happen if we demonstrate grace that really listens for anything good behind what people are doing and saying — especially when it seems like what we have heard so far is not so good! We want to find something good to trust. It is exactly like Paul telling the Philippians to dwell on whatever is good in Philippians 4.

This is not always easy. After the sunrise celebration on Easter, some women who like to evoke the dances of indigenous people groups made a circle and started dancing to the drums. My first reaction to what they communicated was, “There is that branding that makes quite a few people uncomfortable.” And “There is a circle that is excluding others — and they look like accessories to the worship team!”  I could have gone home and complained to Gwen in the car about it.

But, rather unconsciously I must admit, I went over and put myself in the circle for a little while. I did not dance like an indigenous person dancing, I danced like me, but I did connect with the dancers, one who is in my cell. I picked up on the deeper message in their dance and it feels good to remember the moment as I write. I understand why someone would dance on Easter Sunday — why wouldn’t everyone?! It felt good to connect with people expressing joy with their bodies and not just stuck in their head. They were not doing something wrong; they were happy!

Maybe everything that is happy seems like it is wrong to someone. And maybe we should be so free that we can express our happiness in ways that don’t run over people. My automatic thoughts were not wrong. But my effortful thoughts were better — and more connective. I tried to listen beyond my reactions, and sure enough it was possible – especially since these dancers were people I knew and loved.

Remember how you would like to be heard

Listen to someone as you would like them to listen to you. (Sounds like Jesus, right?). Think about it. How would you like someone to listen to you? Don’t we all long to express what we are thinking and feeling? How do you want someone to hear you? Do you always know what you are talking about? Aren’t you regularly wrong about what you assumed to be true about someone or some circumstance? Do you even know what you are feeling at a given moment? Chances are, we all have a lot to work through and some effortful listening from a loving person would be great. Too often we need to work something through and we end up dealing with someone’s first reactions more than what we are working through! Too much of that kind of dialogue and we stop trusting anyone enough to say much of anything!

We will make a safe place for faith, hope and love if we go for building trust. Find something good in what people are saying before you stick with your first reaction or make your point. They may say something you think is dumb, inaccurate, ill-considered, or flat out dangerous. Let that go by and look for the best thing about what they are saying. Find something you can affirm. If you can’t find it in their words, find it in them.  After all, if they are a Jesus follower, they have the Spirit of God in them! If they aren’t a follower yet, they are still made in God’s image! Affirming that goodness is the glue of love that keeps us together and makes us all healthier and happier.