Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

Quacks in the White House and egg hunts: Why I am reduced to prayer

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Some days it becomes obvious that I don’t get out much – at least out in “church world.” You’d think I would remember that I’ve been part of a boutique denomination connected to a minority movement within Christianity who helped me plant a radical expression of the church in a blue-state city. You’d think I’d remember, but I don’t. I regularly, maybe daily, forget where Jesus has led me. I somehow think most people, much more most Christians, are basically like me. They are and they aren’t, but mostly aren’t, at least when it comes to faith or maybe prayer.

Millionaires and egg hunts

For instance, we were mutually amazed last night when we were talking in a small group of our Leadership Team and one of us mentioned how she had just had a conversation with some of the “girls back home” about the megachurch she used to attend. She noted that all the elders were millionaire men. She noted to us that if we had “elders” she would be one of them and she is a broke, brown woman. I honestly did not think we were that odd. I guess we are.

Then one of our pastors was considering whether to have an Easter egg hunt in order to meet some of the neighbors and stir up some fun. This would be unusual for us. We are much more likely to advertise the discussion on the antiracist book we’ve been passing around, than think of having an egg hunt. Come to find out, another church in town has had egg hunts that attract 1000’s of people. I never even heard about it and 1000’s of people were involved — an egg hunt! I remembered Gwen standing in front of our youth group with our meat tenderizer, setting a chocolate bunny up on the table and smashing pagan fertility symbols as a visual aid. I guess not everyone does that. I forget.

Success would be nice

Some days it also becomes obvious that I don’t want to get out much. One day last week I recalled for my journal that I felt very unsuccessful. My initiatives were resisted; my appointments were cancelled; I felt tired. So I asked the Lord what was going on. Most of my feelings seemed to focus on the challenges. I did not really want to face any. What I really wanted (and expected) was everything to work out, at least not have everything go wrong. I felt like I should be honored, my value appreciated, my work received with thanks, my love understood and received (without any need to prove it), my enthusiasm and hope matched, my personality twinned, my time unwasted; it went on. I realized how demanding I am. But don’t you want all that? I did not fully realize how much I wanted it all until I did not succeed at getting it and was reduced to prayer.

Now this week I find out that millionaire elders put their resources into egg hunts and it works. Churches are full of egg hunters. No wonder  I am not nearly as successful as I’d like. (I know, I am more successful than I deserve). But it would be really great to succeed. I suppose I will have to face some challenges: all those unnecessary, unwarranted, unwelcome challenges, again (and again).

Image result for trump cabinet march 2017
Cabinet meeting

Lack of success reduces me to prayer

Today I was drawn back to my old favorite, Luke 8:1-8.  Jesus reminded me again to pray and not lose heart, not faint. At the end of the day, Jesus is not looking for my success, he is looking for faith that trusts him for life no matter what the circumstances seem to be saying. Hopefully, I will not just be looking for success while He is looking for me! His justice will arrive like an unexpected storm, “and yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

In 1904 Alexander McClaren wrote about these verses as the era of the “robber barons” was coming to a close (so this may sound familiar):

“An epoch of materialism in philosophic thought has always been followed by violent reaction, in which quacks and fanatics have reaped rich harvests. If the dark is not peopled with one loved Face, our busy imagination will fill it with a crowd of horrible ones.

Just as a sailor, looking out into the night over a solitary, islandless sea, sees shapes; intolerant of the islandless expanse, makes land out of fogbanks; and, sick of silence, hears ‘airy tongues’ in the moanings of the wind and the slow roll of the waves, so [people] shudderingly look into the dark unknown, and if they see not their Father there, will either shut their eyes or strain them in gazing it into shape.”

I did not need to spend much time peering into my fog this morning before I saw the loved Face. But we are still sailing through an islandless sea in an era full of quacks and fanatics. Easter egg hunts work. “Black lives matter” seems like a radical statement rather than a moot point. I lament my relative lack of success.  Maybe we should have an egg hunt. Maybe we should keep saying black lives matter. Maybe I should get over myself.

And maybe we should remember Jesus lamenting his relative lack of success. He taught his followers to keep “bothering” God with their demands for a response to their just requests, like: save me from quacks, Trumps, heartless millionaires, mega-whatever and my own impatience and self-criticism! But Jesus had to wonder whether when he returned,  he would still find anyone faithful, still praying, still hanging in there to receive just what they longed for, or not.

Contemplation: Be still. Become aware.

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , , , , , ,

When things were not working out for you, did a well-meaning person ever counsel you to “Walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7)? That’s a popular snippet of the Bible which people use as an encouraging piece of self-talk: “Settle down. God is not done with you yet.” If you take their counsel, you might develop a new conviction: “I am moving ahead, hoping for the best. I am walking by faith, not by sight.” That is good.

the way of contemplation

I think there is something even more immediate that scripture is teaching. I have learned it through the prayer of contemplation. “Walk by faith, not by sight” is also about becoming aware of the unseen things God is doing in the present moment. It is not just looking ahead, it should also be looking in. “I am walking by the Light of the World, not just by the light of day, by faith, not sight.”

Prayer amounts to faithing. Just call walking by faith “faithing.” Faith is an action not an idea; it is relating, not just thinking about principles. And prayer is the basic place we faith. Prayer is how we develop the sense of being guided by the Holy Spirit of God and learn to see and react with more than just our physical senses. God is with us, right now; prayer helps us be with God right now.

When I say “contemplative prayer” you might think of mindfulness techniques that people are teaching to jr. highers to help them settle down. That’s a beginning, but that’s not the prayer of contemplation. The prayer of contemplation includes the techniques for reducing anxiety, but it is more. Contemplative prayer, and any spiritual discipline, disposes us to allow something to take place. The main thing that happens is love. If you find something else in the silence, you might be in the wrong place. Contemplation makes us available for relating to God. We don’t always pray in order to get God to do something for us; contemplative prayer is not about making something happen, necessarily. We are making ourselves available for communion with God. We are becoming open to experience Love, heart to Heart.

It is like this: A gardener does not actually grow plants. She practices skills that facilitate growth that is beyond her control. Prayer is like that. A sailor does not produce the necessary wind to move the boat. He appropriates the gift of wind by exercising skills that can get him home. Prayer is like that.

The basic skill of contemplative prayer that facilitates growth and appropriates gifts is inner silence. There are two practices that are very important to exercising this skill: stillness and awareness.

Stillness

When we attempt to be silent, we need to consider how to face the inner noise with which we struggle. Sometimes we do noisy things when we pray, too, of course; we are embodied spirits, after all. But at the center of us is the silent place where God is simply giving himself to us and we are communing spirit to Spirit. We long to carry this silence with us in the midst of the noisy world and be content that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. We want to feel at home. One of the early teachers of the church said, that in this center, we are constantly being called home, away from the noise that is around us to the joys that are silent. He said, “Why do we rush about looking for God who is here at home with us, if all we want is to be with him?”

Martin Laird, a teacher from Villanova who wrote a book called Into the Silent Lands, tells a story about a prisoner who was accustomed to cutting himself or burning himself so that his inner pain would be in a different place: on the outside of him. This suffering man had come upon some people whose mission was to teach prisoners to pray and turn their prison cells into monastic cells. The prisoner learned from them, and after several weeks of meditating twice a day he said, “I just want you to know that after only four weeks of meditating half an hour in the morning and night, the pain is not so bad, and for the first time in my life, I can see a tiny spark of something within myself I can like.” That is the home we are talking about.

contemplation in Rittenhouse
Stillness in Rittenhouse Square

Awareness

Our sense of separation from God is often a matter of our broken perception. We can’t feel God. We have an idea of what we should feel and we don’t feel it. Contemplative prayer is the place we let go of our perceptions and become aware of God with us, as the scripture guides us:

  •  My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him (Psalm 62:5).
  • I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you (Jesus in John 14:20).
  • I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me (Galatians 3:20).

From the perspective of our everyday life on planet earth, we are separate from God. But from the perspective of our inner awareness, we see Christ with us. When we pray, we are not merely becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings (although that is good!), we are learning to be aware of God and to be with God who is with us.

It is like this: A man was taking his dog to a field where the animal could run and he ran into another man walking four dogs. They got to the open field and let their dogs go so they could enjoy running around in a big free space. But one the dogs was off to the side running is relatively tight circles and did not join in with the other dogs. The man asked his new friend, “What’s with your dog?” The man answered. “Before I got this dog, he had spent years living in a cage. He was used to getting all his exercise, just as you see. He has the field, but he is trained for the cage.” I did not see this dog do this personally, so I can’t prove to you that dogs do this, but I do know myself and many of you. We have the wide open field of grace and freedom to romp in but we run in the contours of our former cage. The prayer of contemplation is retraining our hearts to roam the wide open spaces of eternity freely.

  • My heart is like a bird that has escaped from the snare of the fowler (Psalm 123:7).

Our minds tend to run in the obsessive tight circles of our mental cage. We believe we are separate from God, and we were. So now we need to become aware of something else. I heard something shocking from a friend not long ago. When he was a child his father sang a little ditty that he thought was funny: “Charlie Wilkins is no good. Let’s chop him up like so much wood.” I know this little boy as an old man and you can still see that putrid song playing in his head. Just like that, we may believe we are condemned by God. So now we need to learn freedom. Prayer is the training ground.

When we think about things, we have a cage of thoughts that guide us. Contemplative prayer helps us go beyond that cage and enter into the wide-open fields of silence where we don’t merely think about things, we commune with God. We concentrate attention in our heart to the place of knowing, the place of awareness that is not full of the cacophony of our mind and surroundings but is full of the Spirit of God. It seems like we are just sitting there doing nothing when we pray this way, and that is exactly right and exactly good. In that nothing of ourselves and our surroundings we enter the silent land of our true being with God.

This post tells you more about how to practice contemplative prayer. But we don’t need perfect techniques to pray as much as we need to access the skills that are built into our beings by our loving Father. Be silent and turn your heart to God whether you think you know what you are doing or not. Take a step of walking by faith, not by sight. You’ll have a good time with God.

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The contemplative prayer of imagination: Resist and restore

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What if you want to use Lent to get out of your head and into your heart? What if you want to explore the depths of your life: mind, heart, soul, strength and have a meaningful life that resists the forces that try to consume it? Last Saturday during our retreat, one of the answers was: learn to pray — and learn to use your imagination. Life in Christ is bigger than such an “answer” of course. But developing a spiritual life is the key to meaning, key to surviving.

Morton Kelsey offered a checklist for venturing inward. It is a good one, since it does not skip to “what I can do on my own,” but attends to our context and community, which are so crucial. To venture inward: 1) attend to the regular disciplines of your community (cell, Sunday meeting, team), 2) keep a spiritual journal, 3) talk about your inner life, 4) receive spiritual direction (could be formal or friendship), 5) learn to become quiet, 6) unleash your imagination.

peering into the inner life

Be quiet. Contemplation is the core prayer

Prayer takes many forms. In every form it is communing with God, relating Spirit to spirit. We intercede and move God. We worship and praise God. We confess and reconcile with God. We have conversations that are full of complaining and questioning. But until we learn to be quiet and find out what is on the other side of silence, our prayer is a bit superficial and missing the deep experiences of connection we crave. The core prayer we need to learn might be summed up with the word contemplation: the basic yearning of our hearts turned to seeking, our innate spiritual capacity stepping toward connection.

Via negativa contemplation

There are two intertwining roads in contemplative prayer; one is often emphasized more by one group than another. First, there is the via negativa, the apophatic way, (the word means “other than speaking,” or “denial”). This way stresses how God is best known by negation, elimination, forgetting, unknowing, without images and symbols, and in darkness. God is other than humanity. God is “not this, not that.”

On this way all images, thoughts, symbols, etc. must be eliminated, because, as St. John of the Cross points out, “all the being of creatures compared with the infinite being of God is nothing. Nothing which could possibly be imagined or comprehended in this life can be a proximate means of union with God.” We enter this nothingness to meet God.

Learning to be quiet needs to travel on this way, since we need to turn away from our self-controlled, world-controlled existence to meet God. In prayer, we need to deal with the distractions that inhibit our solitude.

Via affirmativa contemplation

The other road is the via affirmativa, the kataphatic way, (the word means “much speaking,” or “affirmation”). This way underscores how we can find God in all people, in all experiences, in all things.

It emphasizes a definite similarity between God and creatures. We are made in God’s image, male and female. The world is an expression of God’s character. As Paul taught the Athenians:  “In God we live and move and have our being.” God can be reached by creatures, images, and symbols, because the Lord is manifested in creation and salvation history. The incarnation of God in Christ forces us to take our own experiences as relevant, symbolic and part of an ongoing story of salvation. We are God’s workmanship and Jesus not only symbolizes this blessing, He remains with us to bring about its fullness.

The goal of contemplation is love

All humans are made to seek. We are lonely for God. So very few are spirituality-free. In most Hindu and Buddhist practices, people are taught that the universe is, ultimately, impersonal mind (as in “may the force be with you”). Jesus-followers see the universe as lover. God is so interested in the created world that s/he became incarnate, so interested in humans that Jesus died for us. God enables us to be companions and fellow workers by meeting us Spirit to spirit. The context of our meeting is love; the ultimate goal of meditation is love, even when it is apophatic.

Our communion with God in prayer is, in itself, resistance to the forces that attempt to usurp God’s proper place in the world and on our lives. If you are alone in solitude with God, that relationship has an impact, even if you don’t take much action as a result. It is likely we will take action, however,  since our contemplation regularly gives us our direction and stokes our courage to act. Contemplation allows us to fight evil that arises in us and outside us. We each do this in our own way, but in similar fashion. One’s experience of the world of the Spirit depends on their psychology, which can be understood and developed, and on their world view, which can change. So contemplation is unique to each one who practices, but is unified in the One who meets each of us where we are beginning today.

The kataphatic prayer of imagination

On Saturday, we offered two suggestions for praying in a more “kataphatic” way, making full use of symbols, dreams and the art of imagination.  One way to experience inner meaning is meditating on your inner experiences: coming to silence, going back into the images of your dreams and fantasies, first consciously, then allowing them to go as they will. We noted that most of our spiritual guidance comes from our conscious experience, which is the tip of the iceberg of us. We were trying to learn more about how to receive direction from our inner experience of what is normally unconscious. Many people avoid this territory because it seems vast and dark. But we are not to be absorbed into it, we are to encounter love in it. We have a basic direction for our contemplation – Jesus describes God as the loving father of a returning prodigal. It is clear who is the object of our prayer and who we are.

God’s character

So our conscious minds can lead us and our unconscious, our dreams, can lead us. When people describe their unconscious experience it is as varied as they are. But for everyone, using our imaginations to explore our inner depths starts with two simple things: 1) one must be convinced that thinking and feeling in images is important, 2) one must spend enough time to break away from the concerns of the waking realm. We explored this path in two ways last Saturday. I thought you might like some of the teaching to encourage your journey through Lent.

Ignatius and praying the Bible. 

Try Ignatius of Loyola‘s approach to praying the Bible through imagination and entering into a deeper connection with God as a result.

Matthew 19:13-15 – Jesus and the children

Allow twenty to thirty minutes for the exercise.

  1. As the passage is read for the first time, try to hear it as if it is fresh and new—as if you are hearing it for the first time. Read Mt. 19:13-15 slowly
  2. As the passage is read for the second time, enter in to the event Place yourself as a child in the scene as it is read. Read passage again in a slow, meditative manner
  3. Answer the following questions: How do you feel as you walked through the crowd? Are you warm? Do you feel a breeze? Can you feel the hand of your parent or adult as you walk toward Jesus? What do you hear? Birds? Animal sounds? The voice of Jesus? The disciples trying to send you away? What do you smell? Is it a dusty day? Can you smell the animals? The body odor of the crowd? What do you see? Can you see the legs of the people in front of you? Can you see Jesus? The other children?
  4. Go to Jesus and hear him tell the disciples that he wants to be with you
  5. Climb up in the lap of Jesus or sit beside him and let him embrace you
  6. Experience the deep love that is offered to you a. Let it wash over you and rest in the places that you are experiencing some type of emotional pain Let it be a balm to the rejection or abandonment that you have experienced Let it be to you the love that you desire, yet have never experienced to this extreme. Rest in that love for a while
  7. If you want to talk with Jesus, you may
  8. Otherwise, just sit and let Jesus embrace you.

Morton Kelsey and the prayer of waking dreams

Try Morton’s Kelsey’s explanation of imaging prayer.

In The Other Side of Silence (and elsewhere), Morton Kelsey points out when we are still, images will appear naturally, as they do in our dreams. There is a vast, mostly unexplored territory in our unconscious, that impacts us deeply. It is a territory where God is much needed and very available. We can follow the revelations in our literal dreams or our waking dreams, listen to them, and find meaning in what they reveal about our deep places where God is relating to us Spirit to spirit. On the way to being quiet, we will need to dismiss many distractions. But we can recognize deeper images that arise from a place where we are communing with God.

God be with you on the journey! It is a step by step process and each step along the way is moving through eternity. God is with us and we are learning to become fully present to God. Your way is uniquely your own,  but it is also connected to everyone alive with the Spirit, and deeply connected to our Creator.

Marriage advice: Don’t take Trump to bed

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The desire wells up in me to pass out unsolicited advice. I think it is because I have counseled quite a few couples this past quarter, and quite a few of them should have solicited some advice!

So here is some advice for blue staters, especially, as we head into the inauguration ordeal: Don’t take Trump to bed.

Trump showing off his home furnishings line

1) When you go to bed, it is better to wind down than to ramp up.

Even if you have not seen your spouse much during the day and you are itching to complain to someone who is committed to listening to you, resist. I know several spouses who regularly complain that once it gets to be about 11:30, their spouse rolls over and asks them the big questions of the day:

  • “What do you think about a vasectomy?”
  • “Why did your mother treat me like that?”
  • “Why didn’t you know what I wanted for my birthday?”
  • “Did you hear about Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State?”

None of these are good intros to a goodnight kiss. Please show some restraint.

2) When you go to bed the last thing you drink should not be poison.

This goes for everyone, but just because someone offers you poison to drink does not mean you have to drink it. Just because something is on the TV does not mean you have to watch it (you don’t even <gasp> need a TV! Or any of your screens). Just because Breitbart prints it does not mean you have to discuss it for pillow talk. I suppose it is possible, but I have not heard that “Trump” is an enticing thing to whisper in someone’s ear. He’s a divider, not a uniter. Don’t invite him to bed.

3) When you go to bed, it is better not to invite the four horsemen of the marriage apocalypse to join you.

Trump is all about everything that is bad for relationships, unless you like to be dominated (and some people do, let’s face it). He loves to tweet criticism. He pours out contempt. He is well-known for how defensive he is. A “stonewall” is part of his policy-making. Unfortunately, all us humans are kind of spongy when it comes to our atmosphere. We find what is going around hard to resist. Thus the media is normalizing the Donald and we are all-too-likely to begin thinking his deadly behavior is normal for us, too!

Do not take him to bed. I doubt any of us consciously wants to. But many of us have done it already — at least he got as far as the dinner table! He has separated intimate friends, even family!

Not being conscious of complaining, consuming, and carousing with Trump will cost us all. So take a tip from Stephen, since today is the Feast of Stephen. He endured some rather unsavory rulers himself. He was dragged before the ruling council when he performed wonders, argued with upstanding members of synagogues, and questioned whether Moses and his law were God’s last word. Most of all, he gave Jesus his proper place. He quite consciously held on to himself as they we about to murder him and said, “Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One.” He knew what was Trump and what was not. Let’s do likewise. We’ll have to differentiate rather than just go along or just rebel.

Be yourself in Christ when you go to bed and let Trump lie in the bed he has made for himself. You can respond to the messes he makes tomorrow, as you feel moved. But for those precious moments when we can connect and rest, beware of Trump. He’s not a connecter and he apparently doesn’t rest, since he tweets at 3am.

Lifelines for drowning marriages (and whole societies)

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Kindness and so much moreI feel like I have a new friend after reading Katherine Willis Pershey’s book: Very Married: Field Notes on Love and Fidelity. We have only exchanged one email, but I already hope she moves here, or at least comes over to inspire us.

I would like to quote you the entire book, in case you do not buy it immediately, but I will just do this one part today. It feels urgent that I get you to think, feel and pray about marriages, since several are falling apart as we speak, and, I think, the partners in them don’t really want them to fall apart, but they are floundering. They did not do what the following quote suggests we do and the resulting injuries feel insurmountable.

Pershey is talking about John Gottman’s book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (another recommendation). Specifically, she boils down his work into one very Christian exhortation: be kind. If you need a Bible verse, it could be Ephesians 4:32 (memorize it): “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” I agree with her. That about sums it up.

“There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise.” …This is the muscle Benjamin [her husband] and I continue to strengthen, little by little, day by day.

We still fight. But we fight far less frequently and far more gracefully. We are learning the art of restraint and the craft of forgiveness. And I suspect that all the hard work we have done in this relationship has effects well beyond our household. Despite the uniqueness of marriage, lessons learned within this singular covenant translate into other relationships. Marriage has required me to face the very same insecurities and weaknesses that dogged several other important relationships in my life. To be sure, I can still get defensive and petty and critical. (You may now picture my dear old dad nodding enthusiastically). But I know myself in a way that only the mirror of marriage could have shown me.

Kindness is a muscle. Marriages are places for inner development. Covenant is a mirror that leads to a deeper understanding of the truth about oneself and the world. If you know people who are struggling because they have not grasped these principles like life preservers as their marriages drown, maybe sending them this post would help. Pershey goes on with something just as practical:

Not long ago a friend shared a link to an article….the article is short and sweet; in it, a mother asks her young daughter to read 1 Corinthians 13,

[Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.]

swapping out the word love for the name of the cute boy she likes. The girl realizes that the cute boy isn’t, in fact, patient and kind. He is arrogant and rude, and all the other things Paul says love is not. The mother goes on to ask her daughter to consider her own name in the verses. And this, for me, is the key. It is easy enough to ask if Benjamin is irritable or resentful. But am I? Am I patient and kind? Do I keep a record of wrongs? If I flunk all those biblical tests of love in my own marriage –my own marriage! – then I flunk them outright.

Camel kindness

I could apply this thinking to the church, of course, where our covenant love also sets up this test (and I will later do that, no doubt). I could talk about how we can’t make the impact on the world we need to make in this trying time if our love cannot even survive our own covenant! Like Pershey says, a demand for justice is easy, but a willingness to put our love to the test by comparing it to the Lord’s: “love one another as I have loved you,” is what gives us the authenticity and authority to speak into the darkness around us.

But let me not go completely there and just stick with marriage. For those of us in  sanctioned marriages or cohabitation (no matter how ill-defined), you are undoubtedly facing the challenge to be kind and to not just demand justice in the face of your hurts and confusion – especially if you are thirtysomethings. I hope you will not punch this screen or punch yourself as you read this, but just rest in God’s understanding and favor — and learn. God became a human in Jesus to enter into your pain and heal it. He saved you once and for all on the cross and he is saving you now, resurrected, in the power of the Spirit. “God’s kindness is meant to lead [us] to  repentance” (Romans 2:4) — lead us to learn and grow.

These simple thoughts do not solve all your problems or all the problems of your mate, nor are they the antidote to all the poisons that might be infecting your relationship. But Pershey’s summary of the great truths about living in love is such an important lifeline! I would make sure to hold on to them as you paddle toward someplace better.

Hope — an orientation of spirit

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , , , , , ,

It is almost 2017. Last night in our meetings we were talking about Mary and her miraculous Child, born under the domination of the Roman Empire, even more, born of sinful parents and destined to take on their sin — and ours too.  Advent contains an amazing, hopeful story. But do we have any hope left, this year? Really, is there a circle where hope is alive?

It would have been a discouraging year even if Donald Trump and the Russians had not won the election, as it appears they will. It was a year full of arguing about whether black Iives matter and a year when people put “blue lives matter” signs on their lawns to talk back — in neighborhoods minutes from our meeting place in South Jersey. People of privilege scolded us that “all lives matter,” even as it became more and more obvious that such a thought is just a good idea, not a reality. Among us, we passed around great books and films that told us the horrible truth again: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow about mass incarceration, Drew Hart’s book Trouble I’ve Seen about racism in the church, Netflix’s 13th about the amendment that is perpetually subverted, and I finally just finished Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. just mercy

Bryan Stevenson’s great book

I would love to write a lengthy review of Stevenson’s book, if only to  solidify everything I learned from him about the prison system, about a corrupt and broken justice system, about unjust incarceration, about sentencing juveniles and the mentally ill, and about the slow eradication of the death penalty. But I won’t. I know you feel too busy or beaten down to even read this blog post, much less read a long review or even more, a book, so I won’t go there.

Let me give you just one quote in honor of Mary, whose son would be unjustly condemned and receive the death penalty. Let me give you one quote that speaks into our time and tries to encourage people who want to make a difference but who just get tired or cynical and who often end up in despair with few places to look for encouragement.

Stevenson is talking about a case he worked on for years in which a man was serving time on death row for a crime he did not commit. He says,

“I was developing a maturing recognition of the importance of hopefulness in creating justice.

I’d started addressing the subject of hopefulness in talks to small groups. I’d grown fond of quoting Vaclav Havel, the great Czech leader who had said that ‘hope’ was the one thing that  people struggling in Eastern Europe needed during the era of Soviet domination.

Havel had said that people struggling for independence wanted more money and recognition from other countries; they wanted more criticism of the Soviet empire from the West and more diplomatic pressure. But Havel had said that these were things they wanted; the only thing they needed was hope. Not that pie in the sky stuff, not a preference for optimism over pessimism, but rather ‘an orientation of the spirit.’ The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong.

Havel prescribed exactly what our work seemed to require….Together we hoped.”

We certainly have our work cut out for us as followers of Jesus right now, don’t we? Stevenson and Havel are great examples of what Jesus followers  do when they are called to give their gifts in the cause of truth justice and mercy. Mary is a prime example of a less brilliant person, Iike most of us — too young, too poor, too powerless to do anything, who gives herself to God’s calling. We need an orientation of spirit that makes us individual witnesses, and we need to live in a circle that gives a larger witness than our individual capacities. In the face of abusive power we need to hope in a future promised and won by God-with-us, God-continuing-with-us.

Let’s be strong, not in our own capacity or even our mutuality, but in our hope — hope clutched Iike the lifeline it is, hope in Jesus who has blazed our way through the fearsome and relentlessly evil circumstances we face. We are a circle where hope is alive; but it is a flame that needs air and fuel; it needs tending and, like Mary knew when hope was recognized in her womb, magnifying.

The Advent pilgrimage — 5 things to try

A life in the Spirit, , ,

This is a good day to start a pilgrimage. It is the second day of Advent, the season that begins the Christian year. An “advent” is the coming of something expected. God is coming in the person of Jesus to be God with us. God’s coming as a baby invites us to begin again, ourselves, and go through our own process of maturation until we move though death into resurrection life with Him.

I take all my vacations as a pilgrimage. If I have my head on straight, I take a trip to Rite-Aid as a pilgrimage. My definition of a pilgrimage includes welcoming the unexpected, even the unwanted as part of my journey with Jesus. A pilgrimage allows me to see God at work in all sorts of new situations that tests my capacity to trust him. I discover, again and again, that beyond my ordinary awareness God is present and leading. So I don’t take vacations anymore; I’d rather inhabit what is happening than vacate. That’s more like God becoming Emmanuel, I think.

Last week many Americans (especially if they were in elementary school) remembered the persecuted separatists from the English Church, called THE Pilgrims, who created a place for themselves in Massachusetts. The kids learned that a pilgrim is a person who goes on a long journey, often with a religious or moral purpose, often a journey to a place that is foreign to them. The Pilgrims who had the famous thanksgiving feast thought of themselves as those kind of pilgrims. Here’s some evidence: After the Mayflower arrived, the first baby born to the Pilgrims who sailed on it was a boy. His parents (William and Susannah White!) named him Peregrine – a word which applies to a person travelling from far away and also means “pilgrim.” When Governor William Bradford wrote about the group’s departure for America he said: “They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country; and quieted their spirits.”

Everybody in the story of Christ’s coming is something of a pilgrim. The wise men come all the way from Persia looking for what their studies revealed. John the Baptist goes into the wilderness and then out to the Jordan River where people journey to meet him and repent. Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem and then to Egypt and back. The shepherds go to Bethlehem to see the Savior and then go all over the countryside to tell everyone about him. Where are you going? God has come from heaven and Jesus is taking first steps as a human and leading through death into life. Are you a similar pilgrim?

Advent is a season for beginning the journey. Some people reading this are just getting to know Jesus and every step is fresh and maybe unnerving. More people reading this are challenged to begin again, to not stay put, to not let the notables in the well-known “Christmas” story just pass them by.

How do we get started? We have a few weeks to figure that out. I think each of the main players in the story offers a very good example of what to do:

1) Go somewhere.

This whole season will be filled with places to go that are not really spiritual places at all — take Best Buy, for instance — perhaps your office “winter holiday” party. Plan at least one event in your season that is like being a wise man searching for the Savior. Take half a day off and call it “searching for the Savior time.” Walk by the river. Sit in the cathedral. Follow the star like the wise men.

2) Experience wilderness.

The whole season is exquisitely designed, these days, to be absolutely fake. We even disguise trees and put them in our living rooms! But you don’t really need to travel very far from Philly before you can see actual stars. Or just sit down in the park or on your step, and experience the weather. Listen to God in creation like John the Baptist.

3) Fulfill an obligation.

It is true that the obligation to observe Christmas can be oppressive. The “holiday spirit” is so omnipresent that nonbelievers have to get involved! Even Jesus followers end up resenting it and sulk through the season. But taking on the discipline of the spiritual pilgrimage of Advent can be liberating. It does not require tinsel, cooking or forced feelings of warmth.  It does, however, require intention, honor, and determination — like Joseph listening to God and marrying his already-pregnant betrothed, then fleeing with his new family to Egypt. Every act of compassion is like becoming a refugee from your comfort zone. Going to a party to give light instead of looking for feelings you don’t have might be better for you. Listening to God and acting out the best response you can think of would be a good use of the season.

4) Escape.

There is no doubt that this season is filled with escapism that needs to be escaped. How many babies will you see decorated like the one in the picture? Maybe you should deliberately skip doing something that you would not do unless it was expected of you — like making those cookies or going to that thing in New York. The REAL baby Jesus and that baby in you might need some extra protection, some kind of symbolic act that demonstrates they are important. Run for your life like Mary clutching her baby on the way to Egypt.

5) Go tell your story.

Maybe you have no freedom to make a lot of choices or have little money to spend on interesting ways to be a pilgrim. Don’t fret. You can be on a “speaking tour” as you move through your day. Your latest experience with Jesus is worth telling. Move around your own countryside telling about the Savior that is born to everyone, Christ the Lord, just like the shepherds did. It might help to remember that they did not have an idea in their heads about how this was supposed to be done, they just did it like they were themselves, not who they were supposed to be.

Just keep moving. Advent is a pilgrimage. Your inward journey will be greatly benefited if you have outward movement that helps it. If you can manage to not get pushed around by the wacky holiday thing the world does (or manage to not merely resist that wacky thing), maybe you can experience what the people in the true story are experiencing.

12 Things spiritually wise people do not do.

A life in the Spirit, Leadership, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Our character is tested every day. We need wisdom to survive.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
    love her, and she will watch over you. — Proverbs 4:6

Wisdom is hard to find. If you talk to social scientists they will tell you it is a combination of IQ, EQ and personality and toss in a description of brain research to verify what they say. That’s all fine, but while we are trying to apply their science, we are being tested. We are dealing with toxic relationships, maybe a dead-end job, or a struggling marriage or family issue. Whatever the challenge, Jesus calls us to see things through a new lens, take confident action and keep moving in the wisdom God provides.

It sounds easy, but it isn’t.

Spiritually wise people find a way to see and act that allows them to go a different way from the self-destructive crowd. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they tend to see opportunities for faith, hope and love or they see challenges to overcome trouble with the strength Jesus provides.

Too many people fall prey to the mistaken belief that inner strength comes from natural, unteachable traits that belong only to a lucky few. It’s a common misconception. In reality, faithful, available and teachable people can grow in spiritual wisdom and grow in effective application of it. Social scientists helpfully label various quadrants of our being and define common experiences and behaviors that we can watch to good effect, but spiritual wisdom goes deeper.

Wise people imitate.

Getting wisdom mystifies a few of us because it is somewhat intangible. But we can learn it from people we know who have it. Like Paul tells the Corinthian church:

“Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. “ — 1 Corinthians 11:1

If you’re up for it, start with these twelve things that spiritually wise people are careful to avoid.  Each of these categories started, for me, with a category an EQ salesman concocted. I quickly realized that his science had led him back to the Bible! So see what you think. Wisdom from social sciences agree with the Bible that we should consciously avoid these behaviors because they lead us to destruction.

  1. They don’t stay in their comfort zone.

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7

Let’s just say spiritually wise people no longer think their comfort zones define reality. They live with God in a comfort zone that does not depend on their circumstances working out according to plan. This makes them brave enough to look into eternity and to look into the depths of themselves – neither being immediately comfortable places. But one does not become wise unless they dare to look at someone and something outside themselves.

  1. They don’t give in to fear.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. – Isaiah 41:30

They say that bravery is being scared to death to do something and doing it anyway. Many times, that’s true, even when it comes to one’s career, or marriage, or spiritual experience. The fear doesn’t have to come from facing something extreme like rushing into a burning building; it can be a fear of public speaking or going out on a limb to try for a promotion or expressing your needs and desires. Spiritually wise people are as afraid as anyone else, probably, they simply trust God, respect their gifts and fight on regardless of the fear.

  1. They don’t stop believing in their potential.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

Spiritually wise people persevere. They don’t give up in the face of failure, and they don’t give up because they are tired or uncomfortable. They are focused on their goals, not on momentary feelings, and that keeps them going even when things are hard. They don’t take failing to mean that they’re a failure. Likewise, they don’t let the opinions of others keep them from fulfilling their calling. When someone says, “You’ll never be able to do that,” they check that opinion out with God.

  1. They don’t beg for attention.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. – 1 Corinthians 4:3

People who are always begging for attention are soaking up energy they should be distributing. We are tempted to rely on the attention of others to form an identity – we are what others see in us, or say we are, or allow us to be. Spiritually wise people do not make relationships like that. They do what they want to do and what needs to be done, regardless of whether anyone is protecting their fragile self-image. They find their main source of attention by attending to God and finding God’s love and hope in those who follow Jesus.

5. They don’t act like jerks.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. – Ephesians 4:32

Acting like a “jerk” is a relative term – being mean is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. But you probably have an idea of what I mean, and may have some opinions about when you are acting like a jerk. People act like jerks when they act out of the things that make them unhappy and insecure. They act like jerks because they don’t have the strength to be nice when they don’t feel like it, to forgive as they have been forgiven. Spiritually wise people place high value on their relationships, which means they treat everyone with respect, regardless of the kind of mood they’re in. They love like Jesus.

Ravens hold grudges against cheaters
  1. They don’t hold grudges.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. – Ephesians 4:31

Spiritually wise people know they are not just looking out for themselves when they overcome evil with good. But not doing self-destructive things, like holding a grudge, is actually good for them, too. The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on one’s body and can have negative health consequences over time. Researchers have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Grudges not only wreck the body politic and the body of Christ, they wreck our own bodies.

7. They don’t hang around negative people.

Do not associate with a man given to anger; or go with a hot-tempered man,
or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself. – Proverbs 22:24-5

“Negative” is a judgment we need to apply judiciously. Because people act in ways we label “negative” because they can’t solve problems and can’t focus on mutual solutions. They often try to draw people into blaming others for their faults and failures so they can feel better about themselves. We often feel pressure to listen to negative people because we don’t want to be callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear to someone and getting sucked into their downward emotional spiral. Spiritually wise people avoid getting drawn in by setting limits and distancing themselves from negative people when necessary; it is possible to judge a situation without being judgmental.

  1. They don’t feel entitled.

For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? – 1 Corinthians 4:7

Spiritually wise people know that the world is a gift. They soberly assess what they have been given and freely exercise it without competition. They do not worry about their earning power and are not subject to the meritocracy. Yet they are also free to work hard and deserve what they earn.  They live in a world that has love behind it, so they can love it back, not fight over maintaining a locus of control within themselves or be solely responsible for their successes or failures.

  1. They don’t close their minds. 

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. – 1 Corinthians 2:14

When people close their minds to new information or opinions, it’s usually because they find them threatening. They think admitting someone else is right means they’re wrong, and that’s very uncomfortable for people lacking spiritual wisdom. Jesus followers are not threatened by new things; they are open to new information and new ideas, even if it means admitting that they were wrong. Their wisdom is based on following their Guide into what is next, eternally, fearlessly.

  1. They don’t let anyone limit their joy. 

Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. – 2 Corinthians 10:12

WWise people have their joy. Comparisons are odious.hen our sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing ourselves with others, they have become our masters. When spiritually wise people feel good about who they are or what they have done, they don’t let another’s detraction or a comparison with another’s accomplishments steal their joy. Even when they need forgiveness or have failed, they still have a kernel of joy inside that comes from being the beloved of God. We are free to listen to others and learn from them, even when they hurt us or just barely know what they are talking about. But our main interest is how God thinks of us. The Lord’s view is incisively true but overwhelmingly kind.

11. They don’t get eaten up by jealousy and envy.

For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? – 1 Corinthians 3:3

Spiritually wise people understand that the happiness and success of others doesn’t take away from their own, so jealousy and envy aren’t an issue for them. They see grace as being in unlimited supply, so they can celebrate the successes of others. They are not clawing their way to get a piece of a limited pie anymore, so they can share with others and rely on someone else to care for them, as well.

  1. They don’t live in the past.

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord. – Jeremiah 29:11-14

Failure can erode our self-confidence and make it hard to believe we will have a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, failure results from taking risks and trying to achieve things that aren’t easy. Spiritually wise people know that success lies in their ability to “rise from the dead.” Jesus followers, of all people, know their past is forgiven and their future is bright. So they are free to take risks to be true selves and loving members of humanity because they know that their past failures as a human cannot stop them. When you live in the past, that is exactly what happens—your past becomes your present and prevents you from moving forward.

So what do you think of this recasting of thoughts from the EQ community? Maybe you would like to add further things to the list. What DON’T spiritually wise people do?

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Power struggles and how to get beyond them

Building community, Leadership, Marriage and Family, , , , , , , ,

When a marriage relationship or a church community seems to be stuck or even falling apart, it is probably because we are not listening. We must be having trouble hearing one another.

There are often many reasons  for our lack of hearing. But the biggest reason of all must be not listening to Jesus. He is calling us into a transformation that allows us to listen, hear, and love like He does.

It is a strange problem. Jesus wants to nurture us into our true selves, which sounds great, but we resist going there. We have trouble letting Him get through a sentence without feeling threatened and either butting in with an objection or turning away. We have a power struggle with God and everyone else.

Friend or servant?

I was pondering a few power struggles I had identified last week when Julie reminded me of John 15. I have been thinking about our conversation ever since. In that account, Jesus calls his disciples into an intimate relationship with him, like branches in a vine. He warns that a disconnected branch will wither and die. But He assures the disciples that withering is not the destiny for his friends. He tells them he is no longer going to call them his “servants,” as if they were people who merely fulfilled a master’s bidding. They have matured into His “friends,” someone who knows His business and can bear the fruit of love that comes from a renewed life. Most of us have a hard time hearing what Jesus is saying, just like we have a hard time with our other intimates — there are reasons for this.

The main reason for our muddled hearing is that we should have outgrown the servant/master kind of relating a long time ago. I think many marriages and most church communities are still working out of the “lower” level of relationship Jesus describes in which one person is the master and one the servant. I call it a ten-year-old’s sense of righteousness. Pre-teens spend a lot of effort getting things right and understanding how things work. They can be very black and white, dependent on getting praise or punishment by achieving harmony with whatever is dominating them. In Christian terms, they might spend a lot of time in the Old Testament — organized by laws, mastering the rules. But, as Paul says, that process is just a tutor for following Jesus. If they never get out of that stage, they will have constant power struggles with all their intimates trying to get things “right.”

In a church like ours, dedicated to cells and teams, everyone is called into the Lord’s “friend” category. They are responsible for love that overcomes a multitude of sins; they are given the keys of forgiveness and grace to unlock the restored image of God in everyone. But some people persist in the “master” or “servant” category, demanding that the master be followed or getting by with as little obedience as possible. The “master” could be principles drawn from the Bible or the latest cause that becomes holiness for them. The service they do or resist could be sharing money or showing up to a meeting. You might be more familiar with this in your marriage, when one of you is furious over an injustice that consumes all your feelings and you lash out at or withdraw from your loved one who is making you serve their demand.

The five horsemen

Where the power struggle gets exhausting, in a marriage, a cell or a team meeting, is when the parties bring our what John Gottman names “the four horsemen of the apocalypse” to fight for their “rights.” These behaviors are what destroy marriage relationships and undermine any hope of hearing one another. They also destroy cells, teams and whole congregations. Consider them briefly.

The first horseman of the apocalypse is criticism. This is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint! The latter two are about specific issues, but the former is an attack on your partner at the core.

  • Complaint: “I was scared when you were running late and didn’t call me. I thought we had agreed that we would do that for each other.” (Note the “I” message).
  • Criticism: “You never think about how your behavior is affecting other people. I don’t believe you are that forgetful, you’re just selfish! You never think of others! You never think of me!” (Note the “you” message).

If you find that you or your partner are critical of each other, don’t assume your relationship is doomed to fail. But do pay attention to the danger. Because criticism, when it becomes pervasive, paves the way for the other, far deadlier horsemen. It makes the victim feel assaulted, rejected, and hurt, and often causes the perpetrator and victim to fall into an escalating pattern where the first horseman reappears with greater and greater frequency and intensity.

The second horseman is contempt. When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean -– treating others with disrespect, mocking them with sarcasm, ridicule, name-calling, mimicking, and using body language such as eye-rolling. We shame them. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

“You’re ‘tired?’ Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic computer games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid –- try to be more pathetic…” 

In his research, Dr. Gottman found that couples that are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illness (colds, the flu, etc.) than others, as their immune systems weaken! Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about the partner – which come to a head as the perpetrator attacks the accused from a position of relative superiority. Contempt is the single greatest predictor of divorce (and of team failure, church dissolution). It must be eliminated!

It might not be so easy to eliminate contempt (as U.S. political discourse has been demonstrating for years and especially this past week!). We need the Lord involved. We are powerfully motivated to maintain consistency in our thoughts, feelings and actions and to minimize conflict among them. (We don’t like “cognitive dissonance). We even have a place in the brain that researchers have identified as a key mechanism in mediating conflict-reduction. So a marriage partner or team mate may feel a need to control a relationship to satisfy their cognitive dissonance. When they are behaving badly, they might find another way to solve their problem rather than changing. For instance, they might see themselves as a decent, liberal-minded person, and that leads to dissonance between their self-image and their unseemly actions. Since we are all strongly motivated to reduce dissonance, they might unconsciously do so by developing a contempt for their mate or partner which is more in accord with the humiliating way they are treating them.

The third horseman is defensiveness. We’ve all been defensive. This horseman is nearly omnipresent when relationships are on the rocks. When we feel accused unjustly, we fish for excuses so that our partner will back off. Unfortunately, this strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses just tell our partner that we don’t take them seriously, are trying to get them to buy something that they don’t believe, or are blowing them off.

  • She: “Did you call Betty and Ralph to let them know that we’re not coming tonight as you promised this morning?”
  • He: “I was just too darn busy today. You know just how busy my schedule was. Why didn’t you just do it?”

He not only responds defensively, but turns the table and makes it her fault. A non-defensive response would have been:

“Oops, I forgot. I should have asked you this morning to do it because I knew my day would be packed. Let me call them right now.”

Although it is perfectly understandable for the man to defend himself in the example given above, this approach doesn’t create connection or even the safety he would like. The attacking spouse does not back down or apologize. This is because defensiveness is really a way of diverting one’s guilt by blaming one’s partner.

The fourth horseman is stonewalling. Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction. In other words, stonewalling is when one person shuts down and closes himself/herself off from the other. It is a lack of responsiveness to your partner and the interaction between the two of you.  Rather than confronting the issues (which tend to accumulate!), we make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive behaviors. It takes time for the negativity created by the first three horsemen to become overwhelming enough that stonewalling becomes an understandable “out,” but when it does, it frequently becomes a habit.

I think we need a fifth “horseman”: unfaithfulness. This is not a behavior as much as an incapacity to change. Gottman and other therapists assume we can change our minds and move with new feelings, which is true, to a point. But like Jesus tells his disciples, they will not bear fruit that lasts unless they are faithful to Him. Without Jesus we are desperate, withering branches longing for but despairing of connection. We will always be trying to get something and never quite get it. We won’t have a true self to give. We will be drawn into perpetual power struggles, seeking to preserve ourselves or achieve what we want. We need to relate faithfully to our faithful God in order to be faithful friends, mates and partners.

Being able to identify The five horsemen in conflicted situations is a necessary first step to eliminating them, but this knowledge is not enough. To drive away destructive communication patterns, we must replace them with healthy, productive ones. That’s what Jesus is teaching his disciples. They are going to be a community in mission, threatened from without and way over the capacity of their inner resources. If they are not intimately connected with Him, they will just dissolve into feuding factions like the rest of the world.

Four ways to help defuse a power struggle

Without the healing, comforting friendship of Jesus, whatever is pushing our buttons just keeps pushing them. Our unresolved hurts and beliefs continue to scream for attention and healing. As James teaches: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the desires that battle within you? You want something but you do not get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want” (James 4: 1-3). Our faith may not have matured much beyond the 10-20 year old era. But no matter how distant, angry or closed we may feel right now, we are called into a safe place with Jesus where we can stop reacting and start reflecting on the source of our disconnection.

Here are four suggestions for creating connection in your marriage, friendship, cell or team:

  1. Listen to your partner’s point of view with patience and respect. You might have heard it all before but try to understand why the situation has become so loaded.
  2. Look for the important things that are not being said. A useful prompt is: “Can you explain why you feel so strongly about this?”
  3. Behind nearly every power struggle is fear. Resist the temptation to placate, rationalize or dismiss these fears. Instead acknowledge them out loud. When someone feels truly heard, they will be more likely to listen to your concerns.
  4. With everything out in the open, you have an opportunity to look for a compromise or for next steps and to move with how God is leading someplace beyond what you presently experience.

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Connected to him we can hope to bear fruit that lasts, the fruit of love given freely and nurtured in mutual relationships of empathy and vision. Julie (and Jerome) can see their newly-formed community coming together as everyone re-forms around Jesus — it is a productive new vineyard! But it is also painfully easy to see where people just cannot bear that fruit yet. There will be power struggles. I’m sure they will keep listening with patience and respect, but also with an honest awareness of what it takes to love like Jesus.

[Gwen White adds some good things to this subject in her speech The Narrow Way]

“Yes, and” about technology in honor of one of the originals

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Film/TV, The Mission, , , , ,

1% discussing the fruit of their war technologyLast night I was in a rush to get home and enjoy my yearly viewing of Brother Sun, Sister Moon.  Still great. This year I was especially moved by how well it points out the sins of the one percent of the year 1200. Pietro di Bernadone (Francis’ father) looks suspiciously like Donald Trump, telling his son to pillage a particular relic when he attacks Perugia in order to save them a “fortune in indulgences” and picking up heirlooms “for almost nothing” in the postwar turmoil. Most years I miss that theme because I am so preoccupied with watching each of Francis’ circle of friends wake up to their longing for faith in a world gone wrong.

My technology delayed me

Ironically, I was in a rush to get home to watch a movie about my simplicity-adopting hero because my technology delayed me. First, my credit union mobile app would not process a particular check I wanted to deposit — the error message said it could not read the numbers, then it said I had already deposited the check and couldn’t do it again! I spent a while arguing with my phone. I called the bank and was sent to a number that did not answer. Then I went to an ATM only to realize I did not remember the right pin code (since I was retrained to use the mobile app). I finally got home and could not immediately figure out how to use the DVD player because I have been retrained for Roku.

When I sat down for my anticipated reverie, I was a bit exhausted — a bit tempted to give up and scroll through some screens while catching up on cable news, the next episode of the strange and prophetic Mr. Robot, or something numbing like that. Instead, I pressed on and enjoyed watching Francis throw his father’s belongings out the window. In the movie version of his life, Francis is propelled toward his conversion to radical Christianity by a visit to the sweatshop in the family basement he had thus far ignored. His father almost beats him to death after he takes the workers into the sun for an afternoon in which “no one did a lick of work.” I noticed the parallels.

Our dialogue set me up

I was set up for frustration with my commitment/subjugation to various forms of technology by our discussion last Monday of our theology of technology. We bravely waded in to the huge subject and ended up with a rather large summary doc that we have stored in Google awaiting some time when we have enough energy to wade in again. I think we are getting to some good thinking. For instance, we took a few of Circle of Hope’s proverbs and pointed them at technology. Here’s a sample:

  • Our deliberate attempts to make disciples are “incarnational,” friend to friend, so we accept that what we do will almost never be instant.  — Being an organism, being incarnational may not be efficient; reducing processes down to efficiency is not automatically best.
  • People should be skeptical if our message does not originate from a community that demonstrates the love of Christ. — Depersonalizing data collection and screen usage could be antithetical to what we are going for.
  • Life in Christ is one whole cloth. As we participate in and love “the world,” we bring redemption from the Kingdom of God to our society. Jesus is Lord of all, so we have repented of separating “sacred” and “secular.” — Technology is not intrinsically wrong; it is a means to God’s ends in our hands.
  • We are “world Christians,” members of the transnational body of Christ; concerned with every person we can touch with truth and love. — Communication technology is amazing, we need to learn how to speak the language and touch the hearts of those submerged in it.
  • The church is not a “thing” that does things; it is not a building. We are the church and we support one another as Jesus expresses himself through us. — In a digitized, mechanized, roboticized economy, it will be a struggle to be personal.
  • Those among us from “traditional” Christian backgrounds are dying to our precious memories of “church” in order to bring the gospel into the present with great flexibility. — Like it or not, the future is rapidly coming upon us. It is not OK to say nothing about what technology is making us.

Francis’ simple joy sets me straight

 Today, on Francis Day, I intend to keep it simple. But I do not see my example from the 1200’s as a simpleton. He imagined a worldwide mission of peace and community in Christ. He even went to Egypt and got an interview with the sultan who was warring against European crusaders in Palestine (again, a strangely familiar situation). I think we will end up with some good theology to offer a world beset by virtual bigots, techno terrorists and corporate home invaders because we have the perennial sensibilities of Francis and of anyone who simply wants to follow Jesus simply. As Richard Rohr describes him in one of last year’s best books Eager to Love in the chapter “An Alternative Orthodoxy:”

Francis’ starting place was human suffering instead of human sinfulness, and God’s identification with that suffering in Jesus…In general, Francis preferred ego poverty to private perfection, because Jesus “became poor for our sake, so that we might become rich out of his poverty” (2 Cor. 8:9)…

Francis’ was a radically Christi-centric worldview, but one that nonetheless recognized the Church as the primary arena in which this good news could be protected and disseminated. He was a non-dual thinker….[He saw] the living Body of Christ, first of all, everywhere, and then the organized Church was where the “hidden Mystery,” could most easily be recognized, talked about, developed, and praised. Most of us come at it from the other side, “My church is better than your church,” and never get to the real universal message. We substitute the container for the actual contents, and often substitute our church structure for the gospel or the kingdom of God. Francis was an extraordinary “yes, and” kind of man, which kept him from all negativity toward structures or other groups (p. 84).

I think I can nurture a “yes, and” kind of approach to technology (at least the part I don’t throw out of the window). Today, that means becoming poor in spirit and poor with others so we can be rich in Jesus, It means less stress about the containers and more attention to the contents. It means straining out the gnat of goodness and not swallowing every camel the sophisticating salespeople flash before my eyes. It means wading in and trusting Jesus to save me, again.