Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

The language of sexuality and your orientation

Doing Theology, Psychological growth, , , , ,

Depending on how I feel any given day, one of the benefits or banes of doctoral studies is learning a new language. One of my professors calls it part of my “socialization.” The implication is that we are growing up into “doctorhood,” so we’d best learn “doctorese.” The goal reminds me of the Wizard of Oz taking his unexplainable balloon trip to hobnob with the other wizards.

This past week the topic for my socialization was new language about human sexuality. I found myself in an unexpected but helpful “encounter group” for most of the class time. But there was also an interesting lecture on sexual “identity.” The guest lecturer was something of an evangelist for the latest science that defines who we are sexually. I haven’t sorted it all out yet, but I thought I’d let you in on the language, since it is bandied about all the time.

One can start with biological sex. When Solomon Schnapf was born Sunday, the doctors immediately took a look at his parts and announced his sex; they probably tagged him “baby boy Schnapf” and wrapped him in blue. Most of the time knowing one’s sex is easy,  but people do come out with a variation on parts.

Our gender is less obvious. Gender is how we feel, male or female. We all get socialized by our families and others to be men or women, but it is important to feel the part. Now that we have the science, wealth and politics to change, Chastity Bono can become Chaz.

Orientation is the morality hot-button territory these days. Regarding sexual orientation This used to be named preference. Most sexuality scientists insist that who-we-are-attracted-to is a built-in feature, not a choice. However, the Kinsey scale of hetero-homo orientation offers a lot of discussion about the science, since it appears that most of us are sexually attracted to most of us, at least a little. Christians who are solidly on the preference side of the definition often argue that God’s transforming power is greater, no matter how we come equipped. We insist that it is how we are oriented in relationship with God that is the heart of any other orientation problems, sexual or otherwise.

Then there is behavior. Biologically and psychologically, some things are hard-wired. But humans do what they decide to do and can be forced to behave in all sorts of ways. My teacher thought it might be a bit foolish not to act out one’s sexual orientation, and thought it was a Christian duty to help people be themselves. But people can and do act sexually in ways that go against their orientation and their morality all the time. They have seasons of behavior that come and go. They behave how they choose and they often behave according to definitions and roles people require of them.

Orientation is our struggle

I think some Christians get derailed in the discussion of sexuality because they are too hung up about orientation and get it confused with behavior. I think it is safe to say that God thinks everyone’s orientation is a mess. Everyone has sinned; everyone has experienced a broken relationship with God; everyone lives in an environment that is fallen; everyone needs a savior. We have orientation issues.

Obviously, not everyone sees it that way. Scientists and  philosophers from the beginning have tried to normalize a universe that does not include God, certainly one that does not include God-with-us leading us into fullness. They’ve tried to find ways to explain, justify and redirect our orientations. Scientists of sexuality (at least the few I have learned from) can be evangelists for respecting someone’s orientation as good, right, and theirs. If the scientists are Christians, then they can insist that “who you love” should be protected by the great Lover. Orientation meeting sanctioned behavior is their goal. I feel the love. But I don’t think our orientation issues get solved by making them normal.

Upon learning this language there were just a few howls, in our class full of Christians, from the biological side of the identity argument. A sex is a sex. But there was more grumbling from those who did not leap to the same morality as the presenters. An orientation is not a behavior. For one thing, singling out sexual “orientation” for their reasoning seems unfair. There are a lot of “orientations” that can land someone in prison if they are acted upon. For instance, society kills murderous psychopaths (at least in Texas) and has an elaborate system to protect children from pedophiles. This does not mean that homosexuals are the same as murderers; it means that society is passing judgment that might not warrant allegiance.

Even more irritating to some people, perhaps, was our lecturer quoting Sergeant Friday saying, “Just the facts, ma’am.” She claimed to be enumerating the facts; the implication was that the classmates who did not go along with her interpretation of them were wrong — and even more damning to Christians: unloving. But, in fact, the “facts” are a little squishy in the language of sexuality, and the interpretation of the facts is not that clear if one’s commitment to the assumptions of scientific rationalism is squishy.

My one conclusion to share today is this (really, this is all I have, the rest was meant to be open-ended): I don’t think God wants our orientations to define us. Making decisions based on the drives we feel or the feelings that have come to drive us often leads us to sin as much as it does to satisfaction. Our orientation is not God. Our so-called “orientations” in relationship with God, subject to the love and truth in Jesus, become aspects of our character that lead us to our renewed identity. Our sexuality is so deep in us that it might be the most difficult territory of all to explore. But all of us are exploring many territories and many layers of orientation that challenge us. We are all  deciding what to do about the facts of our lives. When people try to socialize us to submit to facts that don’t include God, his people, creation and revelation, the facts aren’t factual enough yet.

Companion posts:

“Identity” and What the Idea Is Doing to Sexuality

More Thoughts on Identity

Related articles

Competing desires: Those spiritual clogs

A life in the Spirit,

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.  James 1:13-18

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Competing Desires by Naomi White

This may be a bit too much information for a few of you, but one of my grandchildren really has to work on getting the poop out. They are easily clogged up! I don’t know if you have watched a typical baby soil their diaper lately. If you had, you would know that this one baby is working pretty hard! It might take a couple of days to get to poop-stage and then a couple of hours for the great accomplishment to be completed!

The baby’s bowel movements made me think about our spiritual digestion, of course, and James. I have regularly felt spiritually clogged by some indigestible thought or feeling. I have often pondered what it might take too feel less backed up. You might relate to what I am talking about. The classic things that clog us up are the usual dissipations we use to distract us from what bothers us or to temporarily release us from what is. James calls this the practice of our “evil desires.” We drink too much, maybe insult someone when we are unreserved, get a headache and don’t go to the PM, then feel mildly irritated that we are the way we are and that irritation becomes a clog. We get in a relationship that started with sex and then ventured into intimacy, we end  up connected but not committed, we have arguments we don’t know why we are having, we dread the next moment of awkwardness looking for closeness and then that dread becomes a clog. When we go to pray we end up rehearsing our irritations and dreads rather than relating to God. Sometimes we can end up with a real spiritual logjam because we stop praying altogether, it is so unsatisfying – at least the way we do
it!

In just a few sentences, James has good wisdom for how to get things flowing again.

Note the desire.

If this were easy, we’d all be spiritually regular. We need to identify the diet that gives us spiritual indigestion or requires a laxative. With a baby, a parent needs to find out, through experimentation, what is best for this particular being to eat then feed it to them. Our Father has good food for us, too, but we need to cooperate and experiment with what is good for us. This starts, most of the time, with noting what is bad for us. Contrary to popular belief, some of our desires need to be sublimated. Some of them are downright evil. Note that. Employ a great friend or a good therapist to help you.

The other night after “happy mic” we ran into the NA group coming in for their birthday party. Those good people have noted their desire for chemical self-destruction and are very disciplined in their response.

Don’t be deceived.

A lot of people are feeding us crap. My friend and I swore off Burger King again the other day because we noted how we always get sick after we eat there, even though we also always think it is a delicious experience. People are feeding us 24/7 spiritual crap on every communication device they can lay hands on. With the new, popular  worldview that every thought deserves its freedom of speech in the democracy of ideas, we have a tendency to take in everything and pretend we are not affected by any of it.  Our perpetual seat at the intellectual smorgasbord clogs us up.

Two of my friends said on two days that they are overdue for their regular overnight spiritual retreat. I am getting one in the schedule, too. Concentrated time with God clears out the mind and refocuses our desires. Get up every day and pray. Stop  sometime from 11:45-12:02 and pray with the network pastors and staff as they exercise that discipline.

Live the gift.

James can sound like he is just saying, “You are full of evil desires. Stop it!” That is not all there is to it. He starts us noticing what is happening and meditating on the causes. He wants us to wake up and see the evil. But the whole point is becoming new and doing new. This newness does not come from nowhere, it is coming from God all the time. We have the capacity to eat what is good, we just need to eat it. We have been offered the gift, we need live it. James has often been the cause of people suspecting every one of their desires as evil, so they restrict their sense of righteousness down to  following only the proven principles of goodness. But I think the process is a lot deeper than that. Desire, in itself, is not good or bad. We have desires that can come to good fruit. When I move with God’s desires, I am moving with my own best interests and deepest good. I am unclogged.

I have to admit, that even as I am thinking and writing about these things, I can list all the desires that well up in me to compete with my deepest desires to be among the first-fruits of God’s new creation in Jesus. My life is littered with tablefuls of spiritual  gumdrops and Doritos, and there are plenty of good-looking foods that are sure to mess up my spiritual digestive system,  which doesn’t work that well anyway! I have choices to make. It may take a long time to get unclogged sometimes! But now that I have eaten some decent spiritual food this morning, this particular day may not feel so constipated.

Let’s live the gift. In Jesus, God gave birth to newness is us, too. No matter how difficult the process feels to you today, eat what’s good. Good is coming to you and meeting good desires in you. Let it work right through you.

Muslims Are Just as Nominal

A life in the Spirit, , ,

I had a very enlightening pilgrimage (as you expected). You will hear more (as you expected).

I am not recovered from my nine-hour direct flight from Istanbul to JFK, then my three-hour van ride home. So maybe I am not so coherent. But I want to offer one reflection for you to ponder. If you think the United States seems like it is descending into a religious wilderness (which it is), do not think it is alone among the nations. We often receive a lot of images on the screen and in other news media of hundreds of Muslims praying in the street. It looks like Islamic people are very religious. Some are, of course. But from my scant collection of evidence, I get they are just as irreligious as the rest of us, in general.

We were chatting with our boat captain about the call to prayer blaring over Bodrum. He said it was all pre-recorded and plays automatically. We asked him if he prayed five times a day and he said quickly and dismissively, “Nobody prays.” We were not sure we were always communicating with our Turkish-first friend, so we checked again. He said 98% of the people did not pray. Some of the women were devout.

OK. That was news.

In Istanbul, at the Blue Mosque, Gwen and I were “befriended” by Zeki, a handsome young, light-eyed Kurd.  He gave a great tour — both of us shoeless, Gwen in a scarf, me in a skirt to cover up my infidel legs. We asked Zeki how many people prayed when the muzzein called them to prayer. He said 45% — but then he “works for the mosque.” He also told us that women don’t usually go to the little space reserved for them in the mosque to pray, they really like to pray better at home.

Hmmm.

I think most of the Christians I know don’t pray, either — certainly not five times a day (unless you count OMG as a prayer).  Christians and Muslims alike, at least in the big cities I experience, are all going to the mosque to sell carpets, so to speak, because their god is profit, or at least their god is keeping themselves as comfortable as possible.

I am so glad we are aspiring to something better. Right now we are perspiring, right along with Istanbul. But I hope we will not be breaking a sweat for profit, alone. Let’s pray five times today and see what is happening in the Kingdom of God. Something is happening in post-Christendom and post-Islamdom; we are right at the beginning of a new era of real Jesus-following. I’m excited about it.

The Art of Retreat

A life in the Spirit,

I’m energized by the Men’s Retreat. Just getting over 90 men in one place at one time, focused as best they can focus on the Lord — either it will wear you out or get you going! It got me going. I came away with many good memories and an encouragement from God : “Let’s go ahead and change, Rod.” There are changes to be made.

I think changing may be the art of retreat. We need to go, get out, and be away in order to stay, go forward, and be present. Making an intentional change of pace for a weekend often breeds unexpected development. I think I am having that experience right now.

Group art

A view of our forest-found-object art

Our small group, motley crew that it was, symbolized the art of retreat with some retreat art. Obviously, when you look at the picture, you have to think, “I guess you had to be there.” True.

Our master’s-piece mostly derived from the camp’s giant compost pile. Our initial idea was to raise up some fallen, decaying nature in praise to the Lord (or something like that). But men like to build things; so our art piece sort of took on a life of it’s own. It kept changing until it provided enough interior space for something that ended up looking like an altar in the heart of it.

Someone spontaneously dared us to circle that little altar under it’s roof of debris without destroying the structure — which we each accomplished as exactly who we are. It was trail of bowed-down men on a journey through the heart of fallen creation raised up in worship. I’m not kidding — at least that is what I was doing.

My symbolic journey has turned out to be a surprisingly abiding memory. (And I can’t forget Brian Dwyer lithely moving through it at comparatively breakneck speed, either). The memory is a good motivation for change. The whole weekend was a means to get moving.

  1. I had to get to the retreat place.
  2. I had to get into the smaller group.
  3. Then I had to fall down a couple of times extracting limbs.
  4. I had to negotiate the vision of our art with my brothers.
  5. I had to shamelessly move around the altar like Samuel raising his Ebenezer.

Wonderful.

Today I am circling the altar in my heart and in my day. I have some more wilderness alive in me through which Jesus is travelling with me.

Lent, the Teen Whisperer, and Skins

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

Last night the room was dark and smoky. Candace took a journey around the room with a censer and spoke out laments and promises based on the prophet Micah. The wall had grown with another floor-to-ceiling abstract painting. Looking at it all a day later, I have to wonder, “How weird is that?”

It seemed like people were into it. But given the typical attention-span of most of us, it will probably take an uninitiated person about five years to understand what is going on during the season of Lent. I hope they stick around that long. A lot is going on. Right now we are getting to the home stretch, moving toward April 24 and the resurrection.

Lent will not soon be popular

Lent goes against about everything that’s going down these days, which is the main reason I like it. But it is not going to get popular any time soon.

Although — Lent is, apparently, getting more popular with evangelicals. Many of the people of Circle of Hope are from that fold. I never really drank the evangelical kool-aid, so sometimes I don’t understand how big a leap some people are taking to use the discipline of Lent. They suspect anything that is Catholic and feel obligated to argue about orthodoxy. (Someone came through the door last night, smelled smoke, and asked, “Are we having a BBQ? I thought we were Protestants.”)

But uncomfortable Christians from the subculture don’t make me nearly as concerned as teen-agers from the culture at large, when it comes to Lent. Increasingly, Christians are even more uncool than ever, and the notion of discipline, in general, and ancient things, in particular, are not likely to be the next fad. I don’t want Lent to be a fad. But I don’t want people to miss it.

Tina Wells has me thinking about teens and Lent, which is probably why I’m thinking, “How weird is that?” She knows all about what teens think is cool and uncool. So she hates “Gossip Girl” because it is all about the market perpetuating stereotypes without even asking their audience. People call her the “teen whisperer” because she can speak a fifteen-year-old’s language even though she is older now. She’s been a marketing guru since she was a teen herself. Now she’s working on becoming Camden County’s Oprah. She doesn’t really like MTV’s controversial “Skins” (another rip-off from British TV) but she relates to it. On Joy Behar she said, “I was haunted by the decisions they were making, but it’s realistic…I think it’s the reality that’s making people so scared of the show.”

I am not scared of “Skins” (I have about ten episodes on my DVR right now and nothing is malfunctioning!). But I think it might point out how weird Christians are becoming. If a teen’s church is doing Lent, she might be uncomfortable that it is weird Christianity. But her secret discomfort might really be that she is more like “Skins” than Christian. That reality unnerves Tina Wells, and it unnerves me. But I want to be more like Tina and wade in to keep learning the language of the culture emerging around me. If you are speaking it better than I am, I want to get to know you.

One of the reasons I like the spiritual discipline of Lent so much, is because it is so Christian. It is unabashedly speaking the language of reconciliation with God. A person who is a nonbeliever often gets Lent better than the Christians who suspect it is too weird. The unbeliever doesn’t know any “better,” so they can either do it or not. So many believers are modestly doing Lent while pondering whether they want to do “Skins” or not. Either way, Lent gets the subject out of one’s head, however distantly it might be there, and into a smoky, weird room, in which they’ll be invited to share the body and blood, and be invited into the possibilities of knowing God and their true selves.

Promises about Machines, Data, Precedent

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , ,

I don’t get out of the city limits much, unless I am on a plane. So I enjoyed my stimulating car ride to Lancaster Co. the other day. I went to a morning-long meeting that came equipped with hugs, affirmation and encouragement from good-hearted people trying to do good things. The added benefit was that I had nine hours to meditate and cogitate. I want to share some results.

The results are promises. They are in reaction to what I experienced, but not in opposition. I’m not even going to mention what meeting I was at, because what I say might sound personally critical — I have no general aspersions to cast, so don’t go there. But the general impact of my day away was to be warned of three temptations we are facing. I am feeling the Ephesians 6 battle today. The meeting caused me to remember my first love. So I am constrained to do with God and you what I did when I first faced the need to practice fidelity to my wife: I made a promise. I think we have new promises to make to one another before the Lord these days.

If we are going to “do everything and stand,” I think these are among the things we need to say to the Lord, to ourselves, to each other and to the powers.

I will stay as human as humanly possible.

We will not bend the knee to what we have created to amplify our capacity.

The temptation: I have been to a few worship times, now, in which the worship leader is a small person made huge on a screen. The screen is the mediator of the worship in words and pictures. This past weekend I had the bizarre experience of a speaker playing a video of himself and turning to watch himself give a speech instead of just talking to the 3-400 people who were in the room! Christians need to rage against the machine, at least we should use them consciously and not just conform to the technology available just because it is available.  And leaders (like me) need to be careful not to create an atmosphere for people who give us charge of their souls in which those unsuspecting people are lured into further complicity with the godless technology powers.

If I want to know the truth about you, I will ask you.

We will not bend our knee to data.

The temptation: I was listening to a presentation about a group in which I am deeply involved. The speaker was talking about our financial health and presenting different charts and conclusions about our downward-trending patterns. I was tracking with the presentation until he got to the point where he said, ‘We don’t know why the contributions are less.” The data was inconclusive. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute!!” If all the staff picked up the phone and made about twelve phone calls a week, they could ask all the local leaders about the giving, personally, and have a conclusion about the downtrend in a month! Data makes our love lazy; as Facebook amply demonstrates, data can make our community illusional. I think the powers want Jesus himself to be seen as just another collection of data and want his people to mediate their relationships with sociological analysis.

I will make history with you.

We will not bend the knee to precedent.

The temptation: I am connected to two organizations which had interesting opportunities to be inclusive in their meetings last weekend and almost made it. But they were thwarted by their own history. Each has a strong, Central Pennsylvania sense of being “us.” When they talk about their somewhat new, multicultural, multiethnic nature, they talk about how “we” are becoming diverse. I usually feel like I am one of the people who has added the diversity to “us”, since I am an Auslander from Philadelphia (still the cradle of democracy) and I have all the elements of otherness: bits of Native American ancestry, sprinklings of radical politics, and, the main thing, no family history in Central PA. Of all the people in the world, we Christians, who have been born again into a new family in Jesus, should be very adaptable when it comes to being respectful of but unattached to our history. The people who made us who we are would be proud if we made who’s coming next who they are. I know Jesus is sending forth His Spirit to meet the unbelievers of the megalopolis pushing their way into Lititz. Our past may enrich how we love them, but our relationships are going to make a new memory in Christ.

As you think and pray with me, what comes to mind as the temptations the powers are throwing in your way? Are they some of the same things? Thinking bigger, what do the powers throw in our way, as a people? As we incarnate Jesus, speak the truth in love and keep our eyes on giving the best we have to offer to our era, we have great opportunity to live out of our true selves in Jesus and make a difference. I am encouraged all over again, just thinking about the possibilities that could be realized by keeping our promises.

Opposition: The Bully, The False Lover, The Shrewd Army Commander

A life in the Spirit, , ,
Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

I had a spiritual director once who was trained in the “Ignation School” of spirituality. Our relationship was a nice experience for me. He was a chemist, by education, and brought much of the personality and expertise of his field with him into our relationship. Being almost the opposite of a chemist, in training and typical personality type, I benefited greatly.

At one point, he told me about the three ways I could be tempted, according to Ignatius, and asked me to decide which way I was being tempted in the moment. I have never forgotten the imagery. Here are the thoughts from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola paraphrased by David Fleming. I thought you might like to examine yourself to see how you are likely to be opposed this week. According to Ignatius three are Three Ways the Enemy Works:

Like a Bully

The enemy behaves like a bully who is a weakling before strength, but a tyrant before weakness. It would be characteristic of a bully to lose courage and take flight when confronted with someone who is determined and strong of will. However, if a person loses courage and begins to flee, the anger, vindictiveness, and rage of the bully will surge up and know no bounds.  In the same way the enemy becomes weak, loses courage, and turns to flight as soon as the one leading a spiritual life faces their temptations boldly. (SE 325)

I have been very encouraged this week by dear friends who have had the courage to face “the bully” in whatever guise he was taking. They make me remember the recurring dream I had for several weeks, long ago now, in which a “monster” was chasing me. Gwen suggested I prepare to turn and face it that night rather than dreading to run away from it in my dreams. I decided to do it, and in my dream I did it. The result was exactly as Ignatius said. I proved it had no power over me.

Like a False Lover

The Enemy’s behavior can also be compared to that of a false lover.  One who loves falsely uses another for selfish gains, and so people become objects at one’s disposal or like playthings for entertainment or good times.  A false lover usually suggests that the so-called intimacy of relationship be kept secret because of fear that such duplicity will be made known.  So does the Enemy often act in ways to keep temptations secret, and our tactics must be to bring our temptations out into the light of day to someone like our director, confessor or some other spiritual companion. (SE 326)

I regularly hear about the literal “false lovers” who lock people up. Porn is the undiscussed  false lover for any people. Many people have connected with a person who doesn’t love Jesus and that relationship is a secret love. Some people have many secrets about how they have satisfied their lust and pretended they didn’t to their intimates. Sex it a spiritual matter. Although many people are resolute in pretending otherwise, there are probably no inconsequential couplings or orgasms.

But our loves are not all sexual. We have many lovers who use us and leave us kicked to the curb. We trust our employers or addictions or abusers, even when they don’t love us like Jesus. We trust our false selves in all their delusions and bad heart-habits, even when they have repeatedly been proven self-destructive.

The solution is dialogue. We shouldn’t wait for our expectations of trustworthiness to be fully satisfied before we talk about our lovers. They are much less powerful in the light. Just because they fear the light, and they tell us that being secret is better, and they warn us of the terrible consequences of living in the light, that doesn’t mean they aren’t lying.

Like a Shrewd Army Commander

The Enemy can also work like a shrewd army commander who carefully maps out the tactics of the attack at the weakest point of defense.  The military leader knows the weakness is found in two ways:  a) the weakness of fragility and unpreparedness, and b) the weakness of complacent strength which is self-sufficient pride.

The Enemy attacks come against us at both points of weakness.  The first kind of weakness is less serious in that we more readily acknowledge our need and cry or for help from God.  The second kind of weakness is far more serious and more devastating in its effect upon us so that it can be a more favored tactic of the Enemy. (SE 327)

Peter says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. This is a similarly threatening image. Our enemy is like an army commander scoping out the weak defenses of our walled city. Some places, like the gates we open to the world every day are well-defended because we know about them. But there are weak sections of the wall, perhaps, that defend places we never expect to be attacked, or don’t want to imagine being attacked because we’ve been hurt there before, that are much more dangerous.

Opposition is real

For instance, Circle of Hope is a relational network. We count on people loving one another. We have 50 cell leaders entrusted with nurturing the process of micro-communities. So, naturally, we can get complacent about how everyone supposedly loves one another and can be “sitting ducks” in the gun sites of an enemy shooting conflict at us. We can be so committed to our harmony that we don’t allow healthy conflict, or don’t even allow needed change to occur if it might create conflict – even though we have a proverb that says, “Everyone is recovering from the sin addiction – expect conflict.”

On a more personal level, each of us might be very unaware of our childhood defense mechanisms and just consider them “normal,” or even “my right to be who I am,” or even, nowadays, “my genetic disposition that I can’t change even if I want to.” We could all use a little more Ignatian attention to self-sufficiency. The enemy would love us to be self-sufficient. It is antithetical to serving God.

Ignatian spirituality is not for the weakly committed. It takes a lot of time to ponder all the ways we could be growing stronger in faith and becoming stronger opponents to the enemies of God. I am encouraged to take the time, because much of the time I am not spending becoming aware of my temptations I am spending conforming to them.

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My Week of Seeing Jesus in the Morsels

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Lent is coming soon and it will inspire a good fast. That’s good, because I could use one. But until then, I think I am determined to receive whatever I am served at whatever table I am seated to see God revealed. Last week was a feast.

Valentine morsels

Monday it was linguine, Mexican linguine at Paloma. (I don’t understand their brand, but it was delicious). My Valentine told me she was going to let the conversation flow wherever it flowed and enjoy it. She gladly wore the bracelet I bought her from the Eyes Gallery, which is always full of Mexican oddities. (Do you detect a south-of-the-border theme?) The blessing was easy to spot in the surprisingly good pasta: many Valentine’s Days and deep, comfortable love. Given where we come from and our native incapabilities, that is no small blessing.

Quesadilla morsels

Tuesday it was a quesadilla at ten o’clock after buying a minivan. I have the van sitting in the garage waiting to be driven, waiting for grandchildren to grind chocolate into it, chocolate I probably shouldn’t have given them. The quesadilla asked the question as I impatiently waited for the cheese to melt, “How much are you going to pack into this week?” The voice of Jesus was in the quesadilla.

Brotherhood morsels

Wednesday morning it was the granola of brotherhood with the band of cell-leading brothers at Morning Glory. Their partnership seemed like a sudden development. Suddenly everyone loved one another and was committed to the group like it is life-saving. It made my yogurt especially sweet to be with them. In spite of all their professional and family pressures, they want to have a life in Christ that makes a difference.

Neighbor morsels

Wednesday night it was limp pasta at the Gold Standard with my neighbors. We decided to have dinner together rather than just meet for snow shoveling. My one neighbor was ready to tell stories about Vietnam and gang life in North Philly. We were focused on his seventeenth and eighteenth years. They were entertaining years. Jesus was in the entertainment, in seeing people who I don’t normally see just the way they are, in offering understanding, and in waiting for love to do what love does.

Team morsels

Thursday noon it was spanakopita with the pastors in the Lebanon Farmers Market. (No kidding). I could have had the Kenbrook Camp lunch but we evacuated to visit Jonny’s mother (thus preventing his early demise). She has an Egyptian-food stand in the market and served us what undoubtedly amounted to the entire day’s profits. Delicious. The pastors are deliciously spiritual and committed to one another. The conversation was deliciously spiced with talk about Coptic Christians in the midst of Egyptian upheaval.  Jesus was definitely at the table. Rich fare.

Cell morsels

Thursday night it was a horseradish chip at the cell meeting. My cell knows I am repenting of my weird dietary habits this year, but what is a few chips going to hurt? They also know I rarely leave the supermarket without buying something I have never eaten, like horseradish-cheddar potato chips. God was in the being known and still being loved.

Family morsels

Friday it was the family feast for the twins’ birthday — toddlers and babies everywhere, new houses and new developments, faith stories, disappointments, negotiations about how to be a clan. Again, even while washing every dish in the house afterward, it all seemed like a blessing. I am so happy it is all right to come to our table and tell the latest miracle story about how someone bumped into Jesus by bumping into one of us.

Friend morsels

Saturday it was overpriced burb food with friends who are worth suffering bad food for. We were shooting for PF Chang’s and ended up at Redstone (don’t bother – but then, I realized I am very spoiled by Philadelphia food). Jesus was especially in the tales of woe that surfaced, and which were received, and which benefited greatly from being told in a place where one is sure to be loved.

Mission morsels

Sunday it was a carb-feast with the women of Shalom House and their Guidance Team (I look forward to meeting the men of Shalom House, soon). Jesus was easy to see in the vision of their listening tour, and in the creativity around the table. In the desire to see big things happen, it is often easy to overlook just how big it is to participate in what is happening already!

Grandchild morsels

Then, Sunday night, Josiah made sure I got one of the Tootsie Pops on the snack table. That’s a big deal to me. Papa needs a Pop. Being loved by a child loosens up the hard candy shell around my inner child.

This week, I honestly hope my spiritual food is not accompanied by so many calories. But I am encouraged to consider each morsel as a gift and have a feast of love when the babaganoush and diet cherry Pepsi are passed to me like bread and wine.

Emptiness as a Friendly Place

A life in the Spirit, , , ,

Emptiness, yearning, incompleteness: these unpleasant words hold a hope for incomprehensible beauty. It is precisely in the seemingly abhorrent qualities of ourselves — qualities that we spend most of our time trying to fix or deny — that the very thing we most long for can be found: hope for the human spirit, freedom for love.

This is a secret known by those who have had the courage to face their own emptiness. The secret of being in love, of falling in love with life as it is meant to be, is to befriend our yearning instead of avoiding it, to live into our longing rather than trying to resolve it, to enter the spaciousness of our emptiness instead of trying to fill it up. — Gerald May in the Awakened Heart.

Fear of emptiness

It is hard to see emptiness as a friendly place. Our whole quest as a society is going the exact opposite direction — filling up our houses and storage units with stuff and our schedules with activities. I think a lot of us have sex in a vain attempt to fill and be filled. Gerald May is talking about something with which we are not very familiar.

I was struck with my own fear of that empty place in me when I reflected on our meetings last Saturday. At the monthly training I was surrounded by 50-plus loving people; then at the Leadership Team meeting I was with dear comrades, among whom are some of my closest friends. Yet I still came away feeling distant and fearful of my emptiness. I expected something from the meetings I did not get. I wanted to leave with joy, motivation and faith. There was so much joy, motivation and faith in the room, one would think it was hard to resist! I’m not saying I did completely resist. But the meetings did not satisfy my yearning. In fact, they seemed to heighten it.

I thought it might be helpful to name what we often feel in the middle of the sea of goodness and grace in which we swim.

Impossible expectations

As I said at the meetings, I seemed to meet a series of seriously empty people looking for fullness last week. They were making careful assessment of Circle of Hope (and me!) to see if we were likely candidates to meet their need. I resented being assessed like that. And I was sure I did not meet the test, which made me feel inadequate and guilty. But I relate to the search. I feel sorry for the seekers like I feel sorry for myself. When you’ve been hollowed out by drugs or other addictions, when you went to your parents and found them wanting or neglectful, when your mate broke your heart, the emptiness can feel desperate. We certainly don’t want to look somewhere that is going to injure us again! Our insides make definite demands, even if we don’t want them to!

I am often in a quandary as to what to do with myself. Much more do I wonder how to talk to someone else who appears at the door empty and ravenous and yet picky about the food served, even resistant to being fed. If we do not lose ourselves to find ourselves in Jesus, we are just full of it — that is, we are full of impossible expectation. I don’t always have a good solution for people who haven’t gotten to the end of thinking they can fill themselves up, or that they will be filled up if they just hook up with the right person, if they find the right community, of if they get a few friends. It will not all be better.

I know my life is not better until I enter the spaciousness of my emptiness and meet God there. The wide plain of our loneliness is the homeland of the Holy Spirit. Let’s be kind to ourselves as we realize this. As obvious as the thought might seem, the reality of moving that direction is excruciating. Rather than being merely irritated with the hungry packs sniffing the air around us for connection or running away from the fear of lack of it, let’s stay near each other and help one another with the terrors of life in the Spirit.

Bearing the Beams of Love

A life in the Spirit, , ,

And we are put on earth a little space
That we might learn to bear the beams of love. William Blake

“I think William Blake was right about the purpose of humanity; we are here to learn to bear the beams of love. There are three meanings of bearing love: to endure it, to carry it, and to bring it forth. In the first, we are meant to grow in our capacity to endure love’s beauty and pain. In the second, we are meant to carry love and spread it around, as children carry laughter and measles. And in the third we are meant to bring new love into the world, to be birthers of love. This is the threefold nature of our longing….

Choosing love will open spaces of immense beauty and joy for you, but you will be hurt. You already know this. You have retreated from love countless times in your life because of it. We all have. We have been and will be hurt by the loss of loved ones, by what they have done to us and we to them. Even in the bliss of love there is a certain exquisite pain: the pain of too much beauty, of overwhelming magnificence. Further, no matter how perfect a love may be, it is never really satisfied. The very fulfillment of a desire sparks our passion for more; sooner or later we discover a deepened yearning within what felt like satisfaction. Even in their beauty, the beams of love can often seem too much to bear.” Gerald May in The Awakened Heart

I am signing up for getting hurt again this year.

Who’s with me?

I have a lot of resolutions on my list, again. Some of them are the same as last year. But at the top, I am putting, “Suffer.” I mean, suffer with Jesus, the Son of God who is love.

I don’t mean that in some grandiose way, as if I were Jesus. I just want to use the capability I have, born of the capacity the Lord has patiently enlarged in my heart over years of loving me.

Oh yes, I want our network to operate efficiently and productively. I want to meet all the modest goals we have set. I want to make good investments in buildings and business. I want to use our money efficiently and effectively. I don’t want to waste a minute. But we can do most of that and just get tired and irritable. We can do a lot of that with further arguments about justice. We can do a lot of that by exercising power and leveraging guilt and fear.

I want to act out of my heart connected to the heart of it all. I want to stay vulnerable to what Gerald May called “our passion for more…a deepened yearning within what felt like satisfaction.” That will cost us. But, at the end of the year, I want to have invested my days in eternity and experienced eternity invested in the year. The beams of love are shining. I want to bear them.