Category: Culture

Not with a Pure Heart

January 30, 2018

A few years ago, I began an experiment of reading the Bible with a dirty mind. I had been working with middle school students for years as an educator and as a youth minister, and it dawned on me that much of my work to correct their misconceptions about Scripture was based on my own assumptions about how the Bible is supposed to be read.

For instance, I expect time to move from a single point, along a line. Also, for instance, I expect that because the Bible is moral, it must of course reinforce the mores of my own culture. But I know from experience that time is not a line. Our memories are not like signposts along a road – fixed reminders of what happened and where. They are more like goats in a meadow – hungry, sociable, curious, and constantly in motion (part of why they’re so hard to grab hold of). And I know from experience that my cultural mores are not necessarily aligned with those of other cultures.

Not even close.

My expectations about time and morality were blinders, keeping me from seeing what the text has to say. To remove these blinders, I knew I would have to practice seeing what I am not allowed to see, what I’m not supposed to see. I needed to learn to read the Bible, not with a pure heart, but with a dirty mind.

What did I notice? I noticed so many things. Here are a few:

I noticed that it is better, in the Old Testament, to marry a family member than to marry outside the family. This noticing reminded me – as if I didn’t already know – that the Old Testament isn’t inherently Christian. Nor does it belong to Christianity. It is a collection of texts that Christians have adopted and adapted.

I remembered that humanity is created in the image of God, and I recognized that I’d always assumed this as the source of my potential for creativity. But what if it means that God has a body? Is God male or female? What if God is both male and female? What if God is neither male nor female? What if God is more than male and female? What parts does God have? This seemed like a dangerous question to think, so I embraced it. Might that have been the problem of the golden calf? Or of the bull at Bethel? Were they anatomically – correct?

Plato tells how original humans – being male, female and hermaphrodite – were bisected by the gods, and I thought of God making a woman out of Adam’s side. They are cut in two, male and female. But because the Scripture has them coming together as “one flesh” (something new), I wonder what this does to Adam’s maleness. Does a healthy marriage water down a man’s masculinity? Or require him to give it up altogether?

I thought about that problem between Noah and one of his sons (the one with the feet). I considered Jacob’s smooth skin and his skills in the kitchen. I thought about Moses’ relationship with God, especially the parts where the texts suggests that Moses has authority in the relationship (definitely a step beyond Abraham’s efforts to cut a deal at Mamre). I wondered about Potiphar’s lack of children and his relatively tame response to the accusation against his slave, Joseph. I took notes on all the women who remain silent. I tried to count how many don’t even have names.

As it turns out, once I started reading the Bible with a dirty mind, I noticed things. I saw things. I wondered.

And I’m not done yet.

Not even close.

What’s Wrong with Our Story?

January 28, 2018

Can I be honest?

I am learning to know myself, and I’ve been finding blind spots. Gaps. There is a gap, for instance, between my identity and my awareness. Sexuality resides in that gap.

Stick with me for a moment.

Sexuality includes interest and attraction; feelings of love, trust and care; social context; a sense of connection (spirituality) that goes beyond what can be known or observed. Sexuality is not a set of behaviors. It is more like a force of nature. Ingrained. Invisible.

Like hunger. Or longing.

Sexuality undergirds our economic and political systems. It’s a foundation on which we have built our theologies – our understandings of who God is and how we might be guided into both mystical union and communion.

Theology legitimates sexuality. Sexuality supports theology.

“Let us make humankind in our image.”

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

I’ve been exploring these gaps. My experience of God, for instance, occurs in the space between my identity and my awareness – felt but not seen. My understanding of God is interwoven with my sexuality. Two parts of who I am in struggle.

They’ve been coming undone.

Things fall apart.

Have you considered the grand narrative? The details of our culture were drawn on a blank slate – a world wiped clean by the genocide of indigenous peoples. It was built with slave labor. The New World was undressed and brutalized by the pure and virile masculinity of educated European minds and bodies. All our stories reflect this reality. Might makes right, and winner takes all.

Like it or leave it, we live in a patriarchy.

We say there are two sides to every story. But that’s not quite right. If there are two sides, it is because there is the inside. And the outside.

As Americans, then, we are male. Or we are not male. We are white. Or we are not white. We are normal. Or we are not normal. We are inside the story. Or we are excluded.

Why don’t we notice? Even our awareness is constricted by binary constructions of language. We have a sexuality of domination. We have a theology of control. Our authoritarian God cannot abide doubt, dissent, or disobedience. He cannot stomach difference.

Our theology is heterosexual, and heterosexuality is not neutral.

The very existence of sexuality that is not heterosexuality calls into question our understandings of the nature and authority of God. Even worse, if we are men, it calls into question our own authority. We perceive, then, that any sexuality that is not heterosexuality is a perversion and must be silenced. It is an offense against God. It is anathema.

This might be why people left out of the story love Jesus.

Jesus took instructions from his mother (John 2). Jesus saved the life of a widow (Luke 7). Jesus called women to follow him (Matthew 10). Jesus blessed children (Mark 10). Jesus “overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves” (Matthew 21).

Jesus did not come to power through domination or by control. Jesus undid the powers. Jesus disrupted the dominant. Jesus introduced chaos into systems of control. And his followers didn’t fit the grand narrative. They were outsiders.

Up on that cross, Jesus breathed his last. All his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee –

– they stood at a distance.

I am learning to know myself, and I’ve been finding gaps between my identity and my awareness. And it dawns on me that these blank spaces hold everything I need to know of God.

Something drawing me toward love, trust, and care – a sense of connection that goes beyond what can be known or observed. Like a force of nature. Ingrained. Invisible.

Like hunger. Or longing.

Depravity

October 30, 2012

My friends generally fall into two categories of thinking when it comes to questions of human nature:

1) People are basically good; 2) People are basically bad.

My Christian friends mostly fall into the latter category. They use a phrase – total depravity – as though it’s a kind of non-negotiable fact of life.

Or, sometimes, they talk about how everything they do is “like filthy rags.” I can’t help but think that filthy rags generally weren’t born that way. They get filthy from making other things clean. Which, I’ve come to learn, isn’t considered a helpful response.

We’re all evil on the inside.

Dark. Desperate. Depraved.

What a way to live.

Once, in a course on philosophy, the professor asked us if we thought human nature was good or evil. I raised my hand. I said it was good. The instructor, a Christian, asked how I reconciled my answer with scripture. I quoted Genesis 1:27. The easiest way to argue with that verse is to lay the blame for evil on the nature of God. Said instructor didn’t take the bait. He smiled. And he called on someone else.

Later, in a Sunday school class, I handed out blank pieces of paper and asked participants to write down one way in which they look like Jesus on the inside. I gave them five minutes of thinking time. To come up with just one thing. Lots of blank sheets of paper. And blank stares. I got an email from one class member. She suggested that Christians aren’t used to “thinking of something positive to say about themselves.”

Human survival requires both charity and social reciprocity.

But in the Church, it appears that we’ve plowed fields and planted them with self-doubt. Distrust. Disgust.

And we’re starving.

Because total depravity isn’t sustainable. Because belief in total depravity interferes with our ability to recognize and share from our gifts. Because belief in total depravity interferes with our ability to recognize and accept others’ gifts. It’s killing the work and witness of the Church. It’s killing the Church.

It’s killing us.

A friend asked me what happened. “Church used to be fun,” she said. And we didn’t get a chance to finish the conversation, but when we do, I think I know what to say.

Filthy rags can be overwhelmed by shame, paralyzed by questions of how and why and what if I’d only. But filthy rags – used to do what rags are made to do – get good things done. Which is good.

But in the Church, it appears that we’ve plowed fields and planted them with self-doubt. Distrust. Disgust. And we’re starving.

Myth

October 23, 2012

Back when I taught introductory high school courses in literature, every year started with a lesson in myth. American literature classes read Columbus’s 1493 Letter to King Ferdinand of Spain Describing the First Voyage. World literature classes considered the Yoruba story of The Golden Chain. In freshman classes, we looked at the first two chapters of Genesis.

I taught at a Christian school. And by their junior year, most students had been through this unit two or three times. They knew in a general way where I was headed. But in my other classes, things didn’t go so well.

I persisted.

In the first weeks of school, students still have good intentions, so for the most part they listen with intent. As I ran through the initial outline, smiles would inevitably spread as it became clear that I was probably going to hell. (There’s nothing like a teaching train wreck to lighten the day of your average high school student, and every kid knows a certifiably crazy teacher will ruin the year for some and provide limitless conversational fodder for the rest.) But by the end of the first few minutes, those smiles would be fading. Fast.

That’s when I could count on some volume.

Interruptions, urgent questions, waves of murmuring. Students shouting. Students covering their ears. There were always tears.

I persisted.

Myth, I proposed, is any story of origin. If it’s a story – and if it tells of a beginning – it’s a myth. Myths answer questions of identity, purpose and morality. Myths are how a culture – all cultures – encode the answers to life’s most important questions for the shaping of future generations. A culture’s best literature, then, is always built on myth.

Other literature may be commercial or educational or transactional or technical.

But good literature – the stuff that lasts, the stuff that gets passed from generation to generation, the stuff that we’re expected to have read and to know – it all contains myth or is built on myth or is myth. Together, that body of literature contributes to a culture’s mythos, its best answers to life’s big questions.

Romeo & Juliet is built on myth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn challenges myth. The Bible contains myth. It also comments on myth, questions myth, compares myths, challenges some competing myths and provides space for the acceptance of others. Genesis 1 and 2, for instance, are separate myths, and in some important ways, they disagree. Theologians would probably argue that they’re not so much in competition as they are in conversation. Which seems – considering that the two accounts have been placed side by side at the start of the Bible, not to mention the fact that they both lay a foundation for the same culture – a pretty strong point.

I recognize that for some readers, this conversation might be covering new ground. Or creating a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Yet I persist.

Here’s the problem: many of my students were raised in a religious culture that is anti-myth. A culture that doesn’t know how to value the Bible (let alone the myths it contains).

It’s a culture that thinks Genesis is an incomplete history. It’s a culture that thinks Exodus is an unfinished travelogue. It’s a culture that thinks Leviticus is an obsolete legal code. It’s a culture that thinks Numbers is a sloppy census. It’s a culture that thinks Deuteronomy is an abbreviated repetition of all those other Bible bits. It’s a culture that reads all the gospels as a conflated Jesus story – one with wise men and shepherds; Anna, Simeon, and the Egyptians; 8-day-old Jesus, 12-year-old Jesus, a metaphysical Word-and-Light show, and the real Jesus.

It’s a culture that fervently wants for the Bible to be commercial or educational or transactional or technical.

And this, too, is my culture. I was raised in it. I live and work in it. More times than I can count, I’ve felt suffocated in it. Frustrated by it. Angry with it.

But I persist.

And I find that my people mostly know that the Bible – if it’s going to mean anything at all – must be something more than a commercial. It must be something more than a primer. It must be something more than a medium of truth exchange. It must be more than a collection of basic instructions before leaving earth.

And I find that my people – especially those that are spiritual but not religious – need the kind of mythos the Bible already offers.

And I find my people wondering whether the myths in other cultures might teach us something about our own.

In the meantime, I expect the volume to rise. I expect shouted interruptions, urgent questions, waves of murmuring. And tears.

In my life as a teacher, discomfort almost always led to growth.

So I persist.

Here’s the problem: many of my students were raised in a religious culture that is anti-myth. A culture that doesn’t know how to value the Bible (let alone the myths it contains).

Schism

October 9, 2012

In the early 19th century, to be a Quaker was to be opposed to slavery. But how to live out this opposition? To work against slavery was to live in tension with Quaker testimonies to both integrity and peace. Helping an escaped slave, for instance, sometimes created pressure to bear false witness. Or to bear arms. As it turns out, balance is difficult. And there was disagreement between what historian Errol T. Elliott has called the activists and the gradualists. Some Friends gave up their membership. Some Friends lost their membership. Meetings were split.

American Friends at North Carolina’s Rich Square Monthly Meeting minuted in 1843 that they did not “allow their members to hold slaves,” but neither did they allow interference “with the system of slavery further than by petitions, reason, and remonstrance in a peaceable manner.” The larger yearly meeting minuted its condemnation in that same year of “those Friends who had given ‘shelter improperly’ to slaves.” That, too, was the year that Indiana Yearly Meeting would split over the issue of slavery. Hundreds of Indiana Quakers would leave their yearly meeting and start a new one, the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends.

Of course, they would argue they’d been kicked out.

At issue was the Underground Railroad. With active Quaker supporters in both North Carolina and Indiana, its existence created a problem for Friends everywhere. Support for the Underground Railroad looked to many like a form of religious extremism.

Initially, Friends had worked together to support the education of African-American children, as well as to fight the “Black Laws.” These laws, first enacted in Ohio and later in neighboring states, required that any free person of African descent obtain and carry certain court documents for employment and residency. These laws also fined those who helped fugitive slaves. But Levi Coffin called Quakers to a greater cause. An Indiana Quaker with North Carolina roots, Coffin had personally witnessed the separation of a slave woman from her child, resulting in his resolution “to labor in this cause until the end of my days.” For 30 years, he served as an unofficial president of the Underground Railroad.

Many Friends joined him.

Their activism resulted in an 1841 minute by Indiana Yearly Meeting: “As the subject of slavery is producing great excitement in our land, we again tenderly advise our dear friends not to join in associations.” The following year, an enforcing minute was approved, excluding from service on committees, any who identified themselves as abolitionists. Coffin and hundreds of others, having been removed from their leadership positions, simply started a new yearly meeting.

There was reconciliation, with the two yearly meetings effectively recombined by 1857. But old wounds heal slowly. There are still those who call us to orthodoxy. There are others who argue that faith without works is dead.

Quakers today have the privilege of looking back on our history with pride for what was accomplished. What we forget are the compromises that were made, the internal rancor that often boiled up into battles for control over meetinghouses and yearly meetings, battles that frequently led to schism. We forget that the never-ending tension between righteous faith and loving acts is yet to be resolved. There are still activists and gradualists among us. There are still battles. There are still wounds. There is still hope for reconciliation.

We forget that the never-ending tension between righteous faith and loving acts is yet to be resolved. There are still activists and gradualists among us.

To Wait

September 18, 2012

A few years ago, I spoke at this camp on the Oregon Coast. There were lots of kids there whose parents I knew. But most of the kids didn’t really know me. And they had plenty of friends at camp. And I was one of the old people.

Except at the end of the week, one of those kids got left at camp. His parents didn’t show up to take him home. I saw him sitting in the gravel next to the Meetinghouse. Looking out at the highway. Waiting.

I decided I’d wait there with him. I walked over to where he was sitting. Sat down in the gravel. And we talked. About his best friend at camp. About his cabin. About whether his parents loved him (that was a joke on my part, but he took the statement seriously). About his sisters. And life the way an elementary-school kid thinks about life.

I think I told him that because of who his dad was, he was growing up with a lot of expectations. I think I told him that his ability to be honest was going to be pretty important, especially when he made mistakes. I think I told him that effort mattered more than ability. And that I thought his parents actually did love him. A lot.

He told me a lot of things as well. But I kept trying to read between the lines and didn’t end up hearing much. I got the feeling, though, that he enjoyed talking, maybe even needed to talk. That walking over and sitting down in the gravel was a quality decision.

Later that year, I ended up on a planning team with that kid’s dad. We had meetings in Newberg, and on at least one occasion, I stayed at their house. They put me in what one of their daughters called “The Pimp Room.” The kid was playing percussion. Showed me some things he’d learned. Talked about the school he’d missed (quite a bit of school as it turned out). And whether he’d be at camp the next summer.

For a few years, this was the pattern. We’d run into each other during a week of camp or at Yearly Meeting. Maybe sit down once or twice. Not for long, though. Too much happens at camp. I had responsibilities. He had lots of friends. We’d talk about school. About his family. About a book he’d been reading but hadn’t finished. About a theory he had. About religion. About people’s expectations. About whether I thought he could learn how to be happy. Or how to care about someone (not just for them). Or how to let people care for him.

Every year his questions got a little more serious. He was smart enough to know he couldn’t get answers to most of his questions. Which was part of the problem. He really, really wanted answers.

As far as he could tell, other kids either hadn’t figured out how to ask important questions. Or their answers had shown up. Right on time. At the end of camp. And he was still sitting here in the gravel, next to the Meetinghouse. Looking out at the highway. Waiting.

A few years ago, I moved back to Newberg. The kid had really grown up. He’d developed into a first-rate high school musician. He was a decent athlete. He had a gift for bringing people together, for creating community, for making people feel safe and accepted. He made mistakes, and those were bigger than they’d been when he was in grade school. And we talked more. About music. About poetry. About his dreams. About his questions. About his relationships. About his mistakes. About God.

I told him that he had value. I told him that he was doing good work (in spite of the mistakes). I told him that the questions might be a lot more important than the answers. I told him that it wouldn’t hurt to listen to his parents. Or to catch up on his schoolwork. Or to be patient with people. And I told him that no matter what he did, I’d still want to be his friend. That no matter what he believed, I’d always be up for a cup of coffee and a talk. That no matter what I heard, I knew the truth of who he was and of who he’d always be.

Someone who cared deeply about how. Someone who cared deeply about why. Someone willing to sit down in the gravel when the rest of the world was driving home. Someone who was willing to look out at the highway and wait.

As far as he could tell, other kids either hadn’t figured out how to ask important questions. Or their answers had shown up. Right on time.

Shame

September 4, 2012

I’m embarrassed about a lot of the things I did in high school. And no, I’m not talking about the time I convinced my 4-year-old brother to climb into the clothes dryer. Or the time I turned on said clothes dryer. Or the hundreds of times I repeated the story – of how I’d convinced him, of my mother’s screams, of the thrill – over the following year.

In public.

With volume.

Granted, that incident – and quite a few like it – is one that probably should cause shame. But even now, as I’m typing, I’m also smiling. At the memory. Of how stupid I was. And I’m thinking about who hasn’t already heard that story because I’d kind of like to tell it again.

That’s part of the problem. People hear stories of the things I did –

an under-the-radar, pay-day loan service I ran during the lunch hour;
a series of letters to the Oregonian, urging editors to fire a certain columnist I didn’t like;
a faked disorder in which I semi-secretly and pseudo-obsessively consumed paper products for attention (for two years)

– and conclude that there couldn’t possibly be more.

But there is. Few people know, for instance, that I once took part in a public protest.

I was on the news.

I was standing on a street in Portland.

I was holding a sign: Abortion Kills Children.

My friends at church (assuming they read my blog) are probably starting to wonder where I’m headed with this. My other friends are probably wondering how they didn’t know I was THAT kind of Christian. Some of you just want me to get on with it already.

So there I was. At my first public protest. And I was being POLITICAL. I was making a STATEMENT. I was standing up for the TRUTH. And something funny happened.

This car came around the corner. It was moving slow. A woman leaned out the window, and as the car passed, she looked at me and asked, “Why don’t you just keep your penis in your pants?”

For some reason, I thought that maybe my fly was down. I put down the sign and checked. Nope. All good. When I looked up, the car was gone. And it dawned on me why she didn’t stick around for my reply. It was already on my sign.

I hadn’t taken any communications theory at that point. And I wasn’t skilled in cultural exchange analysis. But I knew that sign had a message. And as messages tend to be, it was aimed at someone.

Abortion Kills Children.

Sometimes my brain doesn’t work as fast as I’d like, but I realized, looking up, reading the sign, standing on that street in Portland on a Sunday afternoon, that my sign was aimed at women. What women were most likely to physically feel the sign’s message? Women who’d had an abortion. Women stuck between one bad choice and another. Women who were doing the best they knew how in a world that didn’t love them. And certainly didn’t understand.

I was holding up a sign that was intended to shame people.

Poor people.

Powerless people.

The abused.

The assaulted.

The already-ashamed.

For more than half my life now, I haven’t really thought about that time in Portland. Didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. Even now, writing about the incident, I feel a mixture of shame (I was once one of THEM) and relief (but I’ve CHANGED). The shame is real. But the relief is not. Because I’m still one of THEM. And even though I don’t take part in that kind of protest, I also fail to protest the protest (if you know what I mean). This little blog post is my relatively weak attempt to change that. By telling the moral that I learned that day:

There is no such thing as an issue. There are only people. Jesus loved people. Even people who could have killed their brothers by sticking them in clothes dryers.

I want to love people, too.

There is no such thing as an issue. There are only people. Jesus loved people.

Creativity

April 4, 2012

I’ve been reading about creativity, and I can guess at what you might be thinking.

They write books about that?

I used to think the same way. Either you have it. Or you don’t. What’s there to write about?

You might be surprised. Almost 38 years ago, for instance, I was born into this world as a not-creative type. But I’ve changed.

Illustration. In fifth grade, I took an admissions test for a special program that the district was offering for at-risk students. I aced the reading comprehension and numeric memory portions of the test. In fact, I earned a perfect score on the memory part – something that apparently made me kind of special. But on the section that examined creativity, I scored in the bottom quartile. My parents received a letter from the district. Out of 100 possible points, I had earned only three.

Students with low scores on this test often have trouble socializing, they’re less flexible than their peers, they struggle to break projects down into smaller tasks, to problem solve, to prioritize. They are easily overwhelmed by new situations and expectations. They struggle to express their emotions. They are considered a retention risk. At age 10, I had been identified as a potential high school dropout.

Because I wasn’t creative.

Creativity – it turns out – is important.

Fortunately, creativity can also be taught. I made it into that special program, and my teacher (whose last name reminded me of atomic number 27) helped me to do the work of creativity. I learned how to steal someone else’s idea, make a little change, and call that idea mine – a process my teacher called “piggybacking.” I learned how to use sensory prompts and word-association to quickly generate new possibilities – a process my teacher called “ideation.” I learned how to pace myself when coming up with possible solutions in order to keep from getting ahead of my ideas – a skill that my teacher said would lead to “fluency.” And I learned a lot about work.

Creativity – it turns out – is work.

Creativity, which I’ve learned to define as the process of making new connections between old ideas, seems to require the following kinds of work:

Collecting: Old ideas are everywhere. They’re in the things we do, the conversations we have, the systems and processes of our lives, our families, our communities. They’re in books and in programs and in people. Being creative requires that we collect the ideas we find. Even bad ideas.

Observing: People are constantly connecting old ideas; pay attention to what they put together, how they do it, and why.

Imagining or Experimenting: Being creative requires asking a question. What if … ? Why don’t we … ? Could I … ? Or taking a risk.

Whatever you call it, creating or connecting, what it comes down to is putting old things together in order to make new things.

So I’ve been reading about creativity. And thinking back on my childhood. And wondering … what if our community had to take that test? How would we do? And could we change?

What if our community had to take that test? How would we do? And could we change?

Change

March 28, 2012

When Zachariah Dicks visited Friends in Georgia in 1803, he predicted that the house in which they met – only five years old at the time – would soon stand empty. “O Bush River! Bush River! How hath thy beauty faded away and gloomy darkness eclipsed thy day.” Only five years later, what Dicks foretold had come to pass. Bush River’s member meetings in South Carolina and Georgia had been disbanded. The roughly 500 Quakers of Bush River had moved away, most of them to Ohio.

The issue was slavery.

Many early Quakers in America owned slaves, and when George Fox made his 17th-century visit to American Friends, he urged them to treat their slaves with kindness, to educate them (an open violation of the law) and to “let them go free after a considerable term of years, if they have served . . . faithfully.” William Edmundson offered Friends an additional challenge: “Many of you count it unlawful to make slaves of the Indians, and if so, then why the Negroes?” Eighty years later, traveling minister John Woolman further identified slavery as a kind of moral disease motivated by “the love of ease and gain.”

But effecting change proved difficult.

Southern Quakers argued that purchasing a slave often prevented the separation of man and wife or parent and child. In addition, Friends in North Carolina had learned from painful experience that their former slaves could be seized by their non-Quaker neighbors and once again sold into slavery. In many meetings, then, trustees were appointed to receive transfers of ownership for the slaves, giving freedom while legally binding these “ex-slaves” as property of the entire meeting. Others worked together to get slaves to the North, where they could be free.

Every step closer to abolition of slavery made southern Quakers a nuisance to their neighbors. So when Zachariah Dicks visited Bush River, he found an audience that Errol Elliott describes as “tired and largely hopeless. They had stood firm, but uprisings and violence” in the region had convinced them that war was imminent.

So they left, sold their property and resettled in Ohio, where they helped build up towns like Salem and Springboro – stops on the Underground Railroad.

Many early Quakers in America owned slaves, and when George Fox made his 17th-century visit to American Friends, he urged them to treat their slaves with kindness

A Portraiture

February 7, 2012

British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson set out in 1806 to tell the story of Quakers, to help the larger English-speaking world understand these foreign-seeming Friends. He titled the work, A Portraiture of Quakerism. Why Quakers? As Clarkson puts it, he had been “thrown frequently into the company of the people, called Quakers” in his work against the slave trade, and he “conceived a desire of writing their moral history.” But Clarkson’s explanation doesn’t quite work. This book – presumably conceived in 1787 – didn’t come to fruition for almost 20 years. If the subject – near to Clarkson’s heart – was as important as he claimed, then why did the inexhaustible writer, speaker, publisher, and organizer keep putting off the project?

Some historians have suggested that the book – published when it was – proved politically expedient.

Clarkson had founded the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He had interviewed 20,000 sailors as part of his research. He had ridden on horseback more than 35,000 miles in his search for artifacts and evidence. He had published essay after essay against the slave trade. He had convinced William Wilberforce to present legislation, year after year, that if passed, would have abolished the slave trade. But in 1794, war with France had largely ended the debate in Parliament, and Clarkson was tired. He retired from the movement, bought a home, married, and had a child. Then, 10 years later, as the war was coming to an end, Clarkson saw an opportunity for victory.

He wrote a book, a book that normalized Quakers in order to give public appeal to a cause that had largely been championed by this marginalized religious sect. And it worked. Within a year of the book’s publication, the Slave Trade Act was passed.

But what about the book? What exactly does Clarkson say about Quakers?

He says that no matter the issue, Quakers will consistently “reason on principle, and not upon consequences.” He says that Quakerism itself is a system that leads “towards purity and perfection.” He says that Quakers “never make a sacrifice of conscience.” He says that Quakers are “anxious for the moral improvement of mankind.” He says that “we seldom see a noisy or irascible Quaker.” He says that although Quakers are just as apt as others to enjoy wine with a meal, “neither drunkenness, nor any situation approaching to drunkenness, is known in the Quaker companies.”

Clarkson says that Quakerism, at heart, is “an attempt at practical Christianity . . . as far as it can be carried.”

Quakers “never make a sacrifice of conscience.”

Materialism

October 11, 2011

I have a box in the basement utility room. It’s next to the washing machine, and it’s the place for stuff I just don’t need any more. When I checked the box this weekend, there were shoes, old gloves, a shirt, three books, a toy car, a ping-pong paddle, an insulated coffee cup. When the box gets full – about once every three weeks or so – I take it to a thrift store down the street. Add it up, and I’m giving away 16 or 17 boxes of stuff. Enough to fill up a minivan floor to ceiling. Every single year. And I’m not keeping up. At least twice a year, I do a major cleaning – move out old pieces of furniture, a rug, a pile of books, dead plants, broken tools, a television or a microwave.

I’ve been challenged to consider the temptation of the material, a temptation to collect and store and value, a temptation to have and to hold that can keep me from growing closer to Christ. Augustine likens these passions for the material to a serpent we must destroy. Teresa claims that our soul – having experienced spiritual reality – is no longer able to find pleasure in anything of the earth. De Caussade says that to delight in God, “we must strip ourselves naked, renounce all desire for created things.”

And I know that they’re right. But I fear they go too far, suggesting as they do that there is something wrong with the material, that there is something wrong with human passion for created things.

I have too much. In order to live a life with room for God, I must intentionally cast off what otherwise obstructs. But the truth is that there is also much value in the material: food for the stomach, a roof for the rain, a window, a cup of hot coffee, a book, a fire, a friend. For this reason, I’m grateful to C.S. Lewis’s noticing that “the attempt is not to escape . . . . It is more modest: to reawake . . . awareness.”

I fear they go too far, suggesting as they do that there is something wrong with the material

Between-ness

June 13, 2011

I find that much of my work as a youth pastor involves helping students to live in rather than evade the tension of authentic living. Within my own denomination, for example, there are emphases on both simplicity and stewardship. Should I carefully steward what I have for the future? Or give away everything, taking a vow of poverty in order to live simply?

It’s human to want to resolve the tension, to want to move in one direction or the other. But that kind of resolution almost always ends in an extreme (making me an extremist). It’s much harder to live in the tension, to daily struggle with balance, with paradox, with the between-ness of never quite getting it right and never giving in or giving up.

It’s human to want to resolve the tension

Creation

May 20, 2011

Genesis 1:27 makes clear the equality of men and women as imaged after God’s own self. What then are we to do with the second creation account, the one where Eve comes from a rib, lives as a helpmate, falls for the forbidden fruit, and ultimately gets kicked out – with Adam, it must be admitted – of the garden?

What we could do is think about not what the story says to us, but what it might have meant to its first hearers. And why. Because this second account is not a happy story. It includes wrong decisions, deception, secrecy, shame, and ultimately, punishment. And the story has long been used as instructive. But cultural deconstruction – a critical literary process that requires the reader to reverse her cultural expectations – reveals a few interesting ideas:

1) Adam and Eve live as nomads, freely partaking in the riches of God’s garden. When they leave God’s garden, they are cursed with the responsibility of making their own garden, of becoming agrarian, a cultural system that requires specialization of tasks, a system rife with all kinds of inequality.

2) The curse is echoed in the murder of Abel, a shepherd, by his brother, Cain, a farmer. Cain is physically marked with his curse. And he builds a city, further covering over (exploiting?) God’s garden with his own constructions.

3) The people who passed down this creation account, generation after generation, were a nomadic people. They had sheep. And goats. They traveled (except for when they were slaves). Continued conflict with their agrarian, sometimes urban, neighbors led them to build cities of their own, to request a king, to collect wealth. To stop living as nomads.

What, then, if this creation account – the one that seems to cause us so many problems around sin, around male-female relationships, around identity – were a story of what went wrong with “those” people rather than a story of how “we” were created? What if this account is an explanation early Israelites gave to their children in order to make sense of their crazy, sinful, and out-of-balance-with-God’s-world neighbors?

What then are we to do with the second creation account

Anti-World

May 6, 2011

I’m convinced that most streams of Christianity come across as anti-world, no matter what their claimed intentions. Conservatives want to take over the world, so they can fix it. Liberals strive for relevance to the needs of the world, so they can transform it. Many of the rest of us simply avoid the world, defining ourselves by what we’re against.

But what if we joined with the world rather than criticizing or fighting? What if we learned to see God reflected by and active in? What if we learned to love?

What if we learned to love?

The Other

April 27, 2011

A friend — during a recent visit to South Africa — had a discussion about Apartheid with a man born in 1977. This man had lived in both the old and new South Africa and had reason — my friend believed — to have a unique insight from the inside. But this man was puzzled by her interest. He admitted that he hadn’t really noticed Apartheid until it was officially repealed. Life had seemed normal to him. The separation and subjugation of indigenous peoples had been completely invisible.

I wonder how much of our own treatment (and mistreatment) of others is similarly invisible. I wonder how our progressive but infrequent stands “for the other and marginalized” look to those who are genuinely “other and marginalized.” And I wonder if it’s possible for those of us on the inside to work for change.

he hadn’t really noticed

Tension

March 10, 2011

Should I carefully steward what I have for the future? Or give away everything, taking a vow of poverty in order to live simply?

It’s much harder to live in the tension, to daily struggle

Near & Far

February 3, 2011

Nearly 400 Friends convened in Colorado Springs at the end of December for Summit 2010, the first national gathering of evangelical Quaker youth and young adults. We spoke of missions, of community, of our identity as Quaker followers of Christ. There were discussions on women in ministry, on the importance of theological education, of the tension between pacifism and patriotism, of spiritual formation, sexual purity, immigration, and incarnation. And underlying every conversation were differing conceptions of the very nature of God. Close and personal, the inner Light? Or distant and powerful, the Creator of the universe?

What if God is both?

A meditation:

I live in God. God created me. God also created the boundaries of my life, the places where I touch others – where our boundaries bump (or overlap) – the crossroads of our lives, the space in which I stop to find myself.

I can’t get away from God. For God is here. And there. Now. And then. And when. If not for God, naught I’d be. Not now. Not ever.

Yet I am nothing. A grasshopper. The nation in which I live is a drop in the bucket, a speck of dust, a mote. To what could I compare God? With whom? A potter? A goldsmith? A counselor? They all fall down. Fall short. Fail completely to encompass the God who, in Isaiah, “stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”

Even so, it is God who holds me together. It is God who has reconciled me to himself. It is God who has invited me in, made me part of his body, the Church. And as I find myself a part of God’s body, I also recognize – though painfully – that I am unworthy (and unable). How am I to know God’s ways? God’s thoughts? God’s very word?

God is far away. But close. God fills both heaven and earth. And God is here. As I type. As I think. Looking out the window, watching as one last leaf describes a curve in the slant of afternoon light, I know that God has made this moment. Is making. God draws my attention to the beauty of his work, to him.

Father in heaven, You are holy, wholly beyond my understanding. Give me what I need. Let me forgive. Forgive me. Protect me. Above me. Beside me. Within me (and yet separate). I don’t understand. But I am thankful. You know my needs.

I know, God, that you are present as “the inner Light.” You inform, inspire and guide. But I also know that you are separate – so much bigger – from my selfish, suffering, sin-sick existence.

God fills both heaven and earth. And God is here.

Zombies

January 11, 2011

It can be awkward to enter a religious community that’s not your own. Especially when the people do things that you don’t do at home.

At my first Catholic mass, for instance, I didn’t know how to “pass the peace,” and I couldn’t figure out the patterns of posture – when to stand, when to kneel, when to sit. On my first visit to a Russian Orthodox church, an old woman had to push me out of the way of the priest and censer. My first experience in a Presbyterian service involved communion, and I’d never previously heard it described as a service of reconciliation. In my first Nazarene service, there was a corporate reading of scripture. What I remember most is that the people sounded like zombies.

A piece I recently read on prayer in the Greco-Roman world explores an ancient influence on prayer in the church. And I recognize in the discussion of prayer in “fictional literary contexts” an echo of my own experiences with prayer in literature, experiences that account for my reflection that the Nazarenes “sounded like zombies.” I think of the witches in Macbeth: “double, double, toil and trouble.” I also think of the Harry Potter series, the Earthsea Trilogy, The Odyssey (and others).

What I hadn’t previously realized is that if art imitates life (as well as the reverse) then these chants, spells, and prayers reveal something of both how we pray and why. It’s a revelation that’s somewhat painful. Am I praising God, after all, or simply looking to control the Creator? My motives aren’t pure: after all, there is this idea within me that I bring something to God with an expectation that God might give me something in return. Even when the only things I bring are an attitude of humility and a contrite heart, I expect – and sometimes demand – that God answer.

Richard Foster challenges my expectations with a section in his book on prayer, “The Most Complete Prayer.” He implies that the heart of Christian prayer is nothing more nor less than an experience of the flesh and blood of Jesus, an experience of what it means to be one in Christ, an experience of one-ness. This word from Foster helps me to know that there’s no harm in spoken, corporate prayer (and probably lots of good). But I still think we sound like zombies.

Am I praising God, after all, or simply looking to control the Creator?

Noise

December 23, 2010

During a week-long prayer practice with Psalm 94, I found that the hardest part was the noise.

On Monday afternoon, I prayed in a hotel room; I was attending a conference. I read, “Great is the Lord,” as a vacuum bumped against the wall in the room next door. As I pondered God’s steadfast love, I could hear the television in the room on the other side.

On Tuesday evening, I prayed in my room again but at a later time. And it was quiet. But the lack of noise made it hard for me to read the psalm aloud. I was concerned with what others might hear (and think). The most difficult line of the psalm was the one I whispered: “Rise up, O God, judge the earth.”

On Wednesday afternoon, I prayed while walking. It was raining lightly, and a nearby park was deserted. Still, I found Psalm 94 one that was difficult to speak aloud with its cries for vengeance on the wicked.

On Thursday morning, I found shelter from the rain in a coffee shop. And I read the psalm to myself, taking a sip of coffee and a bite of coffee cake before and after each reading as a symbolic step forward and back.

Then, when I was done, I wondered at why such a simple practice had seemed so hard. I wondered at my need for a kind of quiet that goes beyond silence. Because I found a quiet room on Tuesday and an empty space on Wednesday. But I could not pray as though it were just me and God. I could not stop thinking about others and what they might think if they saw, if they heard.

I could not quiet my mind, and I did not have a quiet heart. There was too much noise.

Image

December 1, 2010

Being made in the image of God connects us to God as well as to our neighbor (someone I’m more likely to think of as other). Prayer, then, is a discipline of connection, of noticing, of focusing, of attending to these connections, staying God-directed, God-centered.

What of the “passions”? Maybe they are simply those desires that lead me away from God and from community. The virtues? Signs of God’s character, stamped on my life, leading me into the quality of service and relationship God intended from the beginning. And temptation – though natural – also holds within it, if I allow it, the potential for distraction from relationship and disruption of service.

Recently, I’ve been challenged to confront those passions that live at my center, to let prayer “cut to the heart” that I might find freedom in being the person God created me to be.

So simple. And not.

Created in the image of God, I also carry within me desires that distort, that fragment that image. It’s as though the image of God within is little more than shards of broken glass in the dusty rubble of real life.

I want to trust that it’s as simple as prayer, that it’s as simple as letting go, that it’s as simple as Jesus. And I’m trying.

shards of broken glass in the dusty rubble of real life

Questions

September 16, 2010

In much of the Church, there’s a cultural divide, a kind of gap between adults and adolescents. Psychologists suggest that adolescents are undergoing a process of identity formation — figuring out who they are and what they’ll stand for — that causes them to question their parents, their friends, themselves. Sociologists suggest that these questions — something we often label “doubt” — make us uncomfortable, that they can create conflict.

Here’s the issue; doubt is dangerous. First, because it’s disconcerting. The right question in the wrong place can throw everything and everyone off rhythm. Second, it’s deviant. People who challenge the status quo identify themselves as not fitting in. They’re outsiders. They’re weird. They don’t belong.

But these questions — these doubts — reveal something important about the young among us. Many of them simply want a first-hand experience of Christ. Their faith isn’t going to be (can’t be) based on someone else’s beliefs.

What, then, might happen if church were a different kind of place, a place where questions could be asked openly, a place shaped by freedom not fear, a place with plenty of room for doubt?

My sense is that God has been shaping us into just that kind of community for a long time now. My sense is that it’s not just the young who have questions. My sense is that we’re in this together.

People who challenge the status quo identify themselves as not fitting in.

Parable at a Bridge

August 19, 2010

Idaho’s 486-foot-high Perrine Bridge is one of the world’s most-frequented sites for parachutists who jump from fixed objects. But when Tamara Judkins and her daughter, Rebekah, drove through on a summer day in 2008, they noticed that the man “sobbing and leaning over the railing” didn’t have a parachute.

Judkins recounted to the Times News of Twin Falls how she circled back, parked, and told her daughter to call for help. Then Judkins did something that none of the 20 or so bystanders had thought to do: “I took off towards him, wrapped my arms around him and held onto him.”

Judkins later said that as she tried to talk the man into coming into town with her for a cup of coffee, the gathering crowd just watched, “many of them snapping photos.”

Eventually, Twin Falls County sheriff’s deputies were able to grab the man, whose name was not released, and pull him back over the railing.

For weeks after I read of the incident, there was one detail that I couldn’t get out of my mind — those people in the crowd, watching and snapping photos.

It reminds me of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Plenty of passers-by saw the man at the side of the road, obviously suffering from his injuries, naked and close to death. But most of them were too busy to stop.

In this newspaper account — a parable for our age — the issue isn’t one of busy-ness. No, we are a society of gawkers, eavesdroppers and peeping Toms; and we have plenty of time. The problem is that suffering — a potential suicide, a televised hanging, tortured prisoners half a world away — too easily excites prurience instead of sympathy . . . leaving me to question my character (and my motives):

Am I more likely to sacrifice for a neighbor in need?

Or take pictures?

Am I more likely to sacrifice for a neighbor in need? Or take pictures?

Contrasts

July 6, 2010

We live in a culture of violence, a place where it is “known” that the best answer — the pragmatic answer — to evil acts is stronger acts that punish or even kill.

I call myself a pacifist — a peacemaker — and as a Quaker, I’m not alone. The denomination has a long history of peacemaking. But if we are to make a difference, to actively bring peace to the world, we must teach our neighbors that life at its fullest is heavy with vital contrasts:

Unfulfilled waiting teaches patience. Through suffering, we learn to experience joy. Deep love — the kind that changes the world by giving life to another — comes best from a heart that’s been broken.

Through suffering, we learn to experience joy.

Happiness

July 5, 2010

Aristotle claimed that happiness is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake. We seek riches, he argued, not because we desire wealth but because we believe money will make us happy. We seek fame, not for the sake of being famous but because we believe celebrity status is a means for achieving happiness.

Yet so many people are unhappy. In fact, clinical depression is the leading cause of disability in North America and is predicted by the World Health Organization to become the second leading cause of disability worldwide (after heart disease) by 2020.

Mother culture holds up an ideal for reaching happiness, claiming that any goal can be accomplished through hard work and determination. We call it the American dream. But it doesn’t seem to be working, and millions of people are coming to their senses, waking up and realizing that there’s something wrong with the way we’ve been living.

Unfortunately, we’ve learned to quiet the questions that bother us by removing silence from our lives. So we know something’s wrong, but we can’t or don’t take time to think about it.

Listen to the voice:

When it asks, “Who am I?” turn off the noise.

When it asks, “Why am I here?” stop what you’re doing.

When it asks, “What is the meaning of life?” listen.

“What’s it gonna take
to slow us down
to let the silence spin us around?” — Switchfoot

“And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.” — Ezra Pound

We call it the American dream. But it doesn’t seem to be working.

Moral Law

June 2, 2010

If there are pre-existing laws of morality and truth, then they should apply to all species (the same way gravity applies to both humans and sea slugs). If that’s the case, couldn’t we study the way life works for the rest of the planet, and, in doing so, start to rediscover, uncover, or just finally notice the rules that we’ve been flaunting?

Here’s an example: studies of several different kinds of apes find that they do have a form of morality, and that this form is generally based on two rules:

1) Choose to help.
2) Choose not to hurt.

If these rules are true, if they are laws, then following them should actually aid a species’ survival.

As far as religion is concerned, it’s basic function might be to encode and enforce rules of morality. Unfortunately, if it’s true that man has exempted himself from these rules, then it would also be true that man has coopted religion, using it to justify rather than to correct his wrong actions.

This new religion, then, no longer serves as a source of truth, but instead has become a means of control and even suppression.

But what if, in spite of this change, there still remains in religion the seeds of truth? Where would we find them? I’m pretty sure we would find them in the first story and in messages from the prophets — those nagging calls to righteousness that keep interrupting society’s comfortable seeking after security and prosperity.

What if, in spite of this change, there still remains in religion the seeds of truth?

Human Power

June 1, 2010

Humanity is unique. For example, no other creature has the power to decide which species are and which are not valuable. In expanding our territory, we commonly make god-like decisions of life and death for others. And although we call ourselves stewards, in effect, we are at war with Creation. Can we win such a war?

I can fight gravity, but jumping off a cliff won’t win me much of anything. I can argue against the law of force, but stepping in front of a fast-moving freight train fails to convince. What if there are already-existing laws of morality and of community and of truth? And what happens to humanity if we continue to fight against these laws?

we commonly make god-like decisions of life and death for others

Redundancy

May 21, 2010

The institutional church, as it grapples with cultural change, has a tendency to preserve the status quo. Members take actions that result in a stronger system — earthquake-proofing, putting on a new roof, remodeling the foyer to let in more light. But what if it’s time to move to a new neighborhood? To leave the old building behind and start on a new journey?

People are afraid of the unknown. They would rather improve efficiency than try a new task.

I dropped a piece of doughnut on the floor, and it’s covered with ants. Two ants are hauling off a section while a third crawls around on top. A fourth and fifth ant push and pull, stopping the portion’s progress for a moment before letting it go again. In spite of this seeming chaos, the work gets done.

What’s wrong with redundancy? Why do we need to streamline? To make processes more efficient? Aren’t these kinds of discussions based on the premise that some people are unnecessary?

But what if it’s time to move to a new neighborhood?

Playing Games

May 13, 2010

Playing games opens up a world of possibilities in worlds that don’t exist. Because that’s what games are – alternate realities – and that’s what games do. They do away with what is real and ask us to do the same. It follows, then, that in the perfect game, players perform foolish acts for no good reason. And in playing out these harmless fantasies, game players discover reality, what it is to live without inhibitions, what it means to finally be real.

The game is central to identity.

God made man in his image, and although we identify God as the source of love, joy, peace, and other virtues, what lies at the bottom of God’s character is creative power. So it is in creative play that we discover God’s image within us, waiting to break free from the oppressive propriety and maturity required in our day-to-day lives.

Imagine a 10-year-old boy teaching adults to wriggle around on their stomachs in a round of Snake-in-the-Grass. Imagine two friends on a road trip, reading billboard messages backwards, pretending to speak in a foreign tongue. Imagine a group of middle school students using dictionaries and a long cafeteria table to create a contemporary version of shuffleboard.

When we create and play new games, we discover God’s creative power in our minds, his presence in our midst. We discover what God created us to do and be: fellow creators.

The game is central to community.

Jesus prayed that God might make us one with each other in heart and mind, unified with the Father so that we might truly worship him in spirit and in truth. But we live in a dog-eat-dog world where people are valued for what they accomplish, not for what they become. Our success-oriented culture pushes people apart, demands that each man and woman be an island, self-sufficient. Reliance is weakness. Need is next to sin.

But the game turns topsy-turvy the world as we live it. In British Bulldog, the strong and the fast become victims to the cooperative efforts of smaller and slower players. Tops and Bottoms – like Lemonade – is designed around the goal of getting everybody on the same team. And no game is complete without an after-opportunity for sharing stories.

When we play together, we create shared experiences that break down barriers to vulnerability and transparency in other areas of our lives. When we learn how to play all out – hard, fair and nobody hurt – then we cease to be islands. We tag shoulders in Elbow Tag, strip off socks in Knock Your Socks Off, wrestle each other to the ground in Whomp-Em or Bloody Wink Em. And every time we touch, we demonstrate that God is forming us into a living breathing body of believers.

The game is central to worship.

First, some background. Dualism is the ancient heresy that claims spirit is holy while the flesh harbors sin. In Western Christianity, we’ve given new life to this system in our practiced separation of sacred from secular. Why else would we believe (or live as if we believe) that worship is only worship if it occurs in a certain place (church) at a certain time (Sunday morning) with a certain group of people (other Christians)?

And what good does worship do as a shot in the arm, a kind of holy inoculation intended to keep us safe from the dangers of greed, sex and road rage? Shouldn’t worship be central rather than tacked on? And must it always include music? Or a sermon?

Here is the problem. We cannot know God unless we know ourselves. We cannot celebrate God’s goodness if we fail to recognize his beauty reflected in the lives of our fellow humans. In order to worship in spirit and in truth, we must know ourselves, and we must have community. Everything else is false.

But our churches too often engage in little more than parallel play. We are in the same place and doing the same things as other believers. But we are alone.

Games bridge the gap.

I once took a group of youth and adults to a grassy hill on the edge of town where we spent hours speeding down the slopes on blocks of ice. As the sun set that evening, we gathered at the top of the hill, recounting stories of close calls and heroic deeds. We dreamed up new adventures. We marveled at the orange-topped buildings in the city below set off by deepening shadows and fiery clouds that shifted from red to pink to purple to blue. We spoke of secret longings and of God. That night, we stumbled down that hill in the dark, drunk with the joy of connecting, of trusting, of being known. That night, we experienced worship.

We are in the same place and doing the same things as other believers. But we are alone.

New Problem?

May 11, 2010

Social researcher George Barna spent several years searching for evidence that attendance and involvement in a local church makes a difference in a person’s life:

“While we certainly found some wonderful examples,” he writes, “I was stunned and deeply disappointed at how relatively rare such instances were.”

Reading this prompts further questions for me:

1) What is spiritual transformation? What does it look like? How does it feel? Why does it matter?

2) If the church supposedly provides a moral foundation for society, then what does it mean that this institution is failing? Isn’t even making a difference?

3) Is this really a new problem?

I’d like to know.

Is this really a new problem?

Logic

May 4, 2010

Logic fails to explain anything beyond the technical, physical, visible. For instance, conscience. Science has no reasonable, logical, or even sensible explanation for human consciousness. Some claim it’s just like parallel programming in computers, but that pales in comparison to actually being sentient and having the ability to interact, care for, have conflict with, or befriend other sentient beings.

I’ve been interested to find that in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, there is an emphasis on paradox (dynamic conflict). In fact, some of the mystics claim that there is no truth outside of paradox. So here’s where I’m left:

Science can’t prove God’s existence or lack of existence. But neither can it explain morality, emotion, desire, consciousness.

Art, on the other hand, can’t tell you much about a rocket’s trajectory, the volume of the universe, or the energy contained in an atom. But what other language exists for exploring the soul? For expressing passion and pain? For finding God?

Maybe the real problem isn’t with God. Maybe the problem is with the tools, the words, the kind of thinking we use to understand who or what God is.

But what other language exists for exploring the soul?

Origen

April 29, 2010

Origen, one of the early church fathers, was a man whose greatest ambition in life was martyrdom. In fact, Origen’s father, Leonides, was killed while in prison. Origen — not quite 17 — made plans to join his father, so they could be tortured side by side. But tradition has it that Origen’s mother hid his clothes to keep him from leaving home.

Never fear. Origen found other means with which to prove his faith. He sold the family library and emasculated himself, dedicating the rest of his life to teaching, philosophy, and comforting those in prison.

Except Origen’s acts weren’t viewed as extreme (unless you count the fact that he was extremely popular with students). So how might today’s extremists appear to future generations? And what might those generations think of those we accept as normal, successful and commendable?

how might today’s extremists appear to future generations?

Efficiency Thinking

April 15, 2010

Just a few years ago, my sister and I decided to unhook our dishwasher. It was a kind of quiet protest.

We’d noticed that tools of convenience actually tend to make life less convenient. For instance, modern appliances save time. But the saved time comes with a need for more space (to house the appliances) and a larger income (to pay for them and the energy they use). Besides that, I tend to take advantage of the time-savings by adding more stuff to my schedule. I decided that living efficiently would no longer be my standard of success.

But it wasn’t until after we’d made this decision that I started to notice how efficiency thinking had invaded not just our homes but also our businesses and social institutions. Take church, for instance, which has become — in so many cases — a kind of one-stop spiritual shop. Every human need has a program (with more being created all the time). We’re becoming busier and busier, struggling to keep up with committee meetings, service projects, Sunday school commitments, home Bible studies, potlucks, small groups.

People need relationship. We’ve made them pay for it with time and responsibility. And now they don’t have time for what they need, for what’s important. No wonder, then, that so many of my friends are disconnected from church. It’s become so efficient that it no longer functions.

It’s become so efficient that it no longer functions.

Islands

April 13, 2010

Looking around on a Sunday morning, I wonder how many people have felt lonely in church. Even surrounded by others, isolation is possible.

So many of my fellow worshipers are people I only see on Sunday. We don’t live in the same neighborhood. We can’t all work in the same town or for the same company. How many have the opportunity to minister to or with others in this group?

What I desire is for each to experience integrated living, a chance to know and be known: to work with, live with and minister alongside a spiritually-connected people.

Even surrounded by others, isolation is possible.

Leaving

April 6, 2010

Back in 2002, I was thinking about leaving my home church, a decision I eventually made (though it ended up being temporary). I struggled with the fact that so much of my identity was intertwined with church. I volunteered with the youth, drove the bus, worked on committees, changed the sign board, cooked for potlucks, showed up at business meetings, represented the local church at denominational events.

Who would I be if I left?

What, if anything, would be left of me?

Looking back, I wonder if people realize how difficult it can be for people to leave. I’m convinced we must take such decisions much more seriously than we do.

Who would I be if I left?

Empire

March 24, 2010

Religion stabilizes society, instills patterns of behavior that ensure a community’s longevity. But is that what it’s supposed to do? what it was created to do?

As for us, have our efforts been to transform society or just to control it? Have we left room for creative engagement (or burned our bridges)?

Empires have tended to use religion to exploit. So what do Christians do about a world in which religion for so long has been an empire (if not the empire)? What responsibility do we have for exploitation done in the name of religion?

As for us, have our efforts been to transform society or just to control it?

Machinery

March 11, 2010

Sometimes I find myself inwardly resisting ideas shared in conversation, and I try to pay attention to the emotional tug. It often reveals new insights — thoughts I didn’t know I was thinking.

I was in a meeting where folks were discussing issues of structural change. I didn’t like one man’s view of doctrine. I disagreed with another man’s concept of authority in the church. When a third shared his view of our shared history, I disagreed; and the fourth man’s corporate metaphors made me uncomfortable. I wondered whether my discomfort was coming from the content of the discussion or the concept itself, so I decided to spend a few moments, consciously sorting through my feelings.

I took up the word “structure” since that was the issue under discussion and immediately sensed a feeling of futility (even despair). After all, formal structures tend to support the status quo. As I was processing, someone in the meeting described oversight as a form of “machinery” that would guarantee consistency and quality.

The church?

A machine?

Heresy!

formal structures tend to support the status quo

Redundancy

March 10, 2010

I dropped a piece of doughnut on the floor, and now it’s covered with ants. Two ants are hauling off a section while a third crawls around on top. A fourth and fifth ant push and pull, stopping the portion’s progress for a moment before letting it go again. Still, the work gets done. It makes me wonder, what’s wrong with redundancy? Why do we as humans feel such a need to streamline our efforts, to make our institutions efficient? What do we really accomplish with such work?

Here are the effects of our efficiency-minded efforts: we make people unnecessary; we divest ourselves of “extras”; we demonstrate our value of programs over people. Is that what we’re really about? Is getting it done as important as we think?

Is getting it done as important as we think?

Compromise

February 10, 2010

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Frequently, in ministry-related planning sessions, someone will say something like the following: “We’re not going to compromise the message.”

It’s a statement that catches my attention because it reveals the speaker’s opinion of others in the group: they can’t be trusted.

Is it possible that some of what we ascribe to the “message” is not, in fact, central to what we believe?

Is it possible that we sometimes confuse cultural values with moral values?

Is it possible to think before we speak?

we sometimes confuse cultural values with moral values

Culture of Nice

February 5, 2010

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Church work is mired in a culture of nice, and that culture keeps bad programs and unnecessary efforts from being eliminated; it also uses up resources that could be and should be used to help good work work better. We’re just too nice to call a bad project a bad project. If we criticize, we do so in abstractions or through back channels (gossip). No one has any problem identifying bad products as bad – the Yugo for example. (If you don’t remember the Yugo, there’s a reason for that; it was bad, and now it’s gone.) Maybe the problem is that in the church, we’re addicted to nice.

It boils down to human decency. When good people are making a good faith effort to do work that matters, you feel like the worst kind of jerk calling them out for waste or incompetence. And every program benefits one or two people. Nobody wants to be the one to say that those one or two people weren’t worth the effort.

But there are a couple of people who liked Yugos, too. Artist Kevin O’Callaghan, for instance, saw something of beauty in the car that the public rejected. He bought 39 rusty Yugos and asked his students to make objects of functional art from them. That doesn’t keep the rest of us from being able to explain exactly what’s wrong with the car. A Time Magazine review judged the vehicle — constructed in Soviet-bloc Yugoslavia — as feeling like something “assembled at gunpoint.” The car had “carpet” listed as a standard feature, and several former owners admitted that the rear-window defrost was a nice touch as it kept your hands warm while you pushed it.

Another problem in identifying and eliminating bad programs is social self-interest. Every program and project is initiated and managed by people I like, people I work with, people with whom I worship, people who own the house in which I live, people who are responsible for contributing toward my monthly paycheck. I’m not about to criticize a friend, let alone an employer (at least not directly). But if we all shut up, then sinkholes of mismanagement and despair keep swallowing up our limited resources.

I don’t really know how to fix this. And I’m not ready to tell you exactly which programs suck. (I like my job.)

Still, it’s worth thinking about.

Nobody wants to be the one to say that those one or two people weren’t worth the effort.

Theological Models

February 3, 2010

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A trip ’round the table in a recent discussion of church change reveals an interesting assortment of personalities:

1) Inerrancy of scripture, necessity of a moral compass, impatience with any trespass of perceived boundaries, repeated emphasis of evangelism’s importance as the center of whatever we do.

2) Historical perspective — this is how we got here (without stressing one current viewpoint), offerer of information, sometimes seeming to use perspective as a means of discouraging certain lines of discussion.

3) Pragmatist — it’s good if it works, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not good. Impatient with “time-wasting” historical and logistical discussion. Seems eager to preserve the status quo (because it’s easier).

4) Champion of the business model, continually bringing forward examples from corporate experience. Treats much of the discussion with a seemingly hands-off-listening approach, recognizing that much of our discourse ranges over topics with which he’s unfamiliar.

5) Two accommodators, willing to share personally but generally unwilling to contest points that have been made other than to ask clarifying questions.

It’s interesting to note what conversational bottlenecks can reveal about what the group members really think as well as what it suggests about where people are unwilling to go.

It’s interesting to note what conversational bottlenecks can reveal about what the group members really think

Denominationalism

January 29, 2010

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Seems to me that denominations have largely served as regulators, means of identifying who’s in and who’s out. The kind of us/them mentality that fuels such boundaries is alive and well in America today, but it’s not p/c: a big problem for churches that want to “reach out” (code for getting bigger).

Denominations may never succeed in ridding themselves of the kind of on-or-off theology that’s guided the Church since Augustine (and Western culture since Socrates). But sometimes I wish people would learn to acknowledge this failing rather than simply covering it over with words.

People see right through that kind of crap (unless, of course, they’re the ones making it in the first place).

People see right through that kind of crap

Just War

May 13, 2007

In the last three days, three different students have approached me with questions about the war in Iraq.

If the war was meant as a swift response to our own loss in 9/11, then why did we attack a country with no known ties to Al-Qaeda? If the war was meant to safeguard the U.S. from future attacks, then why did we invade a country that had no means with which to carry out such attacks (weapons of mass destruction)? If Pat Tillman was a hero, then how do we explain our government’s cover-up of the fact that he was killed by his own trainees (not insurgents)?

I’ve avoided answering questions like these that focus on this specific conflict. The real issue isn’t whether this war is just (or unjust). Instead, Christians must consider whether any war can be justified.

Jesus introduced a new ethic in Matthew 5, when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

For almost 300 years, Christians were so united in their acceptance of Christ’s message that they refused to fight for their country, in rebellion against it, or in their own self-defense. Constantine’s acceptance of Christianity in A.D. 312 changed all that as the Roman ruler made the cross of Christ the banner for Rome’s military conquests.
Before A.D. 173, there was no such thing as a Christian soldier. By A.D. 417, the Roman army only accepted Christians (Christian Attitudes Toward War, 1960).

This acceptance of the “just war” led to the Archbishop of Pisa writing of the crusades that Christians triumphantly proclaimed Christ while riding “in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of the horses.” Apparently, Muslim infidels and Christian soldiers alike failed to appreciate the irony.

Jesus taught that we should turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, do good to those who hate us, pray for those who mistreat us, love those who have given us reason to hate them. He taught that even hateful anger is evil.

Here are some quotations from early Christian leaders, who believed Jesus knew what he was talking about:

Tertullian (150-225): “Christ in disarming Peter ungirt every soldier . . . . Shall the son of peace, for whom it is unlawful to go to war, be engaged in battle?”

Justin Martyr (c. 165): “We who were filled with war and mutual slaughter and every wickedness have each of us in all the world changed our weapons of war â€“ swords into plows and spears into agricultural instruments. We who formerly murdered one another now not only do not make war upon our enemies but gladly die confessing Christ.”

Clement (c. 200): “If you enroll as one of God’s people, heaven is your country and God your lawgiver. What then are his laws? ‘Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. To him that strikes thee on the one cheek turn also the other.'”

Maximilianus (c. 295): “I cannot serve as a soldier. I cannot do evil. I am a Christian.”

Lactantius (c. 304): “It can never be lawful for a righteous man to go to war.”

The real issue isn’t whether this war is just (or unjust). Instead, Christians must consider whether any war can be justified.

Stories of Origin

March 25, 2007

Every culture has its mythos or stories of origin.

The Efik people of Nigeria, for instance, hold that God allowed a human couple to settle on the Earth but forbade them from working or reproducing that they might not grow in wisdom. Mugasa, the sky-god of the Bambuti in eastern Congo, had human children and dwelt among them in a paradise-like land until they angered him, causing him to forsake them. In the Pacific Northwest, a trickster god, named Yehl, created the earth and the sun and the moon before gifting mankind with fire. There’s the Jewish mythos of the God who created a garden paradise in which he took regular walks with a man and wife, enjoying the beauty of his creation. And of course, there’s our own culture’s origin story â€“ a tale that tells of primordial ooze, the cradle of all life.

These stories – true or not – are our attempts to answer questions of purpose and existence. Why are we here? What are we here for? But cultural mythos don’t answer these questions (and can’t). All they tell us is that we’re here.

Right here.

Now.

The question that can be answered, however, is one of morality. How ought we to live? And in this, the fact that we’re here is the only answer we need.

Integrity, for instance, means being completely and consistently myself, wherever I am, whenever I’m there.

Simplicity means being satisfied with my situation – nothing less and nothing more.

Humility is being honest about who I am, about where I am. Pride is dangerous, then, because it denies weakness. False humility is destructive because it denies the self.

Finally, there is love. If I know myself – who I am and where I stand – then others provide no threat to my identity, and I am free to accept them as they are.

Whenever I find them. Wherever they are.

Humility is being honest about who I am, about where I am. Pride is dangerous, then, because it denies weakness. False humility is destructive because it denies the self.

Original Sin

December 22, 2006

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I have many frustrations with institutional Christianity, but my biggest beef is the fact that so many Christians seem unable or unwilling to think outside of the theological boxes within which they’ve been raised (or saved). So many people claim to be following scripture when they’re actually following their interpretation of scripture (which may or may not hold up to scrutiny). And just because a theological theory’s been established, doesn’t give Christians an excuse to stop thinking, to stop wondering, to stop asking difficult questions.

For instance, I received a visit a few days back from a Christian who made the following claim — “Christianity teaches that sin is humanity’s natural preference, due to our self-corrupted nature.”

I know that the comment was made with good intentions. The reader saw what appeared to be a shortcoming in my thinking and gently attempted to expand my understanding. The problem with this particular attempt is that it makes a claim I know to be false. Christians have never been limited to a single line of thought on the subject. There are extremely few — if any — yes or no line items that must be checked before one can advance to heaven (do not pass go; do not collect $200).

Scripture just doesn’t tell us what to believe. That’s not what scripture does. And I’ve gone into the prose vs. poetry argument before, so I’ll cut to the chase. There is room for all kinds of thinking within Christianity. Here are just a few examples on the concept of original sin as referenced in my visitor’s claim .

1) Those who identify original sin with concupiscence: an innate tendency among humans to do evil.

2) Those who see original sin not as a positive reality but as something merely negative, namely lack of holiness.

3) Those who believe Adam’s sin influenced his character, making it impossible for him to lead a completely holy example for his own children (nature/nurture controversy).

4) Those who believe in ancestral sin as opposed to original sin, claiming that Adam’s disobedience changed the very environment in which we live, opening up opportunity for (but certainly not requiring) sin.

5) Those that believe humans inherit Adamic guilt and are in a state of sin from the moment of conception.

6) Those who reject the notion of original sin, believing only in the sins for which men and women are personally responsible.

And it doesn’t matter which of these you choose. There is plenty of room at the table.

Human Nature

December 20, 2006

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A friend of mine writes that “we are all essentially evil at the core.” And I’ve heard this statement shared so many times in Sunday sermons, in conservative Christians’ view of scripture, in the arguments used for a “just war” or in explanations as to why nobody can ever live a truly “holy” life.

But I disagree. If we’re created by God and in God’s image, then the core of our very being must be good. Even someone who doesn’t know God (or believe in God’s existence) has the ability to recognize truth, to give and receive love. I think sin (or evil) is more like an artificial covering, something we like to wear because of the false feelings of protection and power that it provides. The problem is that in trying to protect our own interests, we selfishly cause harm to others (or short-sightedly cause harm to ourselves). And in trying to gain control over our own destinies, we too often decide that someone else’s dreams don’t matter, giving ourselves permission to do whatever is necessary to “win.”

we too often decide that someone else’s dreams don’t matter

If I Believe

September 30, 2006

I’ve adapted these statements from those made by an essayist I admire:

If I believe that all people are created in God’s image and that we are charged with loving our neighbors, then I will treat with respect and kindness every person I meet, without regard to color, gender, belief, lifestyle, or legal status. I will not laugh at their expense, will not avoid their gaze, and will not believe they are of bad character before I know them.

If I believe in integrity, I will not try to take advantage of someone’s error, ignorance, or misplaced generosity. I will not seek favor by offering special favors, nor will I charge others more because I do not like them.

If I believe that God is the Prince of Peace, I will not accept that any effort to wage war on others is anything but sinful. God may have, at times, commanded people to go to war. But short of that direct order, I am to be a bringer of peace.

If I believe that God’s kingdom is not made by human hands, then I will be careful to examine the kingdom that has been made by human hands rather than assuming that it must be just as good as God’s kingdom. I will not believe any earthly kingdom is God’s kingdom simply on the word of others who might say so, even if they do it frequently and with picnics.

If I believe that God is Truth, then I will tell the truth. Always. No exceptions. It is possible to live and work without deceiving others, and if I cannot do this where I live and work, I need to live and work elsewhere, or differently. I will not lie even if it is expected, if everyone else does it, and if it causes me embarrassment or hassle or costs me dearly to tell the truth.

If I have promised to obey God no matter what, I will not also promise to always obey any other power. I will not say that I will, sing that I will, or sign a document that says I will. God is the only one with absolute call on my life and my allegiance.

If I believe that God loves me and that God is everywhere, then I will not suggest that I need to go somewhere special or do any sort of ceremony in order to meet God. There is nothing especially spiritual about a life with God; he’s simply there, wherever I am, no matter what I’m doing.

I will not believe any earthly kingdom is God’s kingdom simply on the word of others who might say so, even if they do it frequently and with picnics.

Natural Laws

September 15, 2006

What if truth (the way we ought to live) were a set of natural laws (just like gravity and thermodynamics and motion and stuff like that)?

What if the only reason humans have trouble knowing what is true and what isn’t is because we’ve decided that we aren’t subject to these laws? What if humans have relegated all discussion of truth to religion because, as far as they are concerned, truth can only be found in the supernatural, not in the natural? What if all this time, humans have been dead wrong?

humans have trouble knowing what is true and what isn’t

What’s a Pacifist?

August 16, 2006

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Growing up Quaker, I’ve always thought of myself as a pacifist. But a question posed fairly recently by a friend of mine made me consider what this actually means.

The question: “On a scale of 1-10, how pacifist are you?”

Many of the respondents answered as if pacifism is actually a form of passivism or simple conflict avoidance, considering only how much they support or don’t support forms of violence (as if religious faith is little more than sacred consumerism in which we can boycott ideas we don’t like and lavish attention or money on those that we do).

But I’m convinced that pacifism is really about taking action, putting an end to violence or, even better, working to replace violence as an option with creative and constructive solutions (both socially and politically, privately and publicly, personally and culturally, locally and globally).

Considering my definition of true pacifism, I had to admit that I don’t rate much better than a 5 in spite of what I claim to believe. After all, action (or, as is more often the case, inaction) speaks for itself.

Truthfully, it’s hard to care about anything that isn’t a clear and present danger. I’m ashamed to admit that huge but subtle problems (like global warming) or faraway conflicts (like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) fly right under the radar of my daily life.

After all, action (or, as is more often the case, inaction) speaks for itself.

On Change

July 4, 2006

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People are afraid of the unknown. They would rather improve efficiency than try a new task.

What’s wrong with redundancy? Why do we need to streamline? To make processes more efficient? Aren’t these kinds of discussions based on the premise that some people are unnecessary?

Aren’t these kinds of discussions based on the premise that some people are unnecessary?

Travelers

June 11, 2006

0001

Imagine an entire city block devoted to books. A place where kilted, mohawked, multiple-pierced punks browse quietly, side by side with slightly-hunched grandmothers, shaggy rpg enthusiasts, and bag ladies. A place with Jesus Action figures and nun-shaped lighters just 50 feet away from Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare. Down a flight of stairs and just around the corner stand rows and rows for railroad enthusiasts. Climb up three flights to an art gallery and rare book room. Cross through spaces devoted to classic literature, reference materials, religious studies, philosophy, education, the martial arts, cookbooks, quilting . . . And everywhere you go, there are people sitting, pacing, staring off into the distance, lounging on the floor with a book or a pile. It’s like a microcosm of the world, like what you might find at an airport or a train station. Except in this place, there’s less physical rush. These are travelers. But they leave their bodies behind as they zoom around the universe, back and forth in time, hitching rides as visitors in some hapless narrator’s brain.

And they come back changed — peaceful, thoughtful, calm — whispering quiet excuses as they step over others who are still traveling, recognizing somehow that this is a holy place, a temple to human wisdom and beauty and truth. A place for searching. For inspiration. A place of peace in the midst of a busy city.

And they always come back. To Powell’s.

And they come back changed

Words

March 22, 2006

Language follows its own law of relativity. Words prop up words and are, in turn, supported by other words. Take a tour through the dictionary – or any reference work – and you’ll find that words define words (and not always definitively).

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos. It speeds through the space of consciousness, revolving around some words, pulling others to itself, exerting and being exerted upon.

So what is it that holds language together? How was this cosmic balance achieved? What keeps these various words from spinning out of control, crashing down, breaking apart? What is it that allows these combinations of symbols and sound to rise above animal grunts or the crash of water on rock?

What gives a word its meaning?

A single word cannot stand alone in the cosmos. It speeds through the space of consciousness

The End of the World

November 19, 2005

0004

We were sitting on the beach at Rockaway, circled around a fire, faces glowing, backs to the dark. One of the elders from my church was there. I’d been avoiding him all night. I knew he wanted to talk. Suspected he’d been assigned to the task.

He walked over. “How are you doing, Eric?” he asked. I told him about the new job, my freelance writing, how I felt about our chances in the next day’s competition. “I meant spiritually,” he said.

Suddenly, everything felt eerily familiar. I’d been there before: cornered in a Meridian parking lot, told by my sister that her pastor was asking questions, contacted by an old friend, confronted by my grandmother. At first, I thought it was a conspiracy. I wish it were. That would have been much simpler.

I’d worked for almost 5 years on the staff of a local church. But I felt like a foreigner. I didn’t fit in. So I resigned my position. And then I stopped attending.

That’s when the questions started: was I in conflict with the pastor, was I depressed, did I have some hideous unconfessed sin . . .

Now — looking back — I can see why people asked those questions. They wanted it to be my problem, not theirs. I wish I could have articulated what was happening. But at the time, I only knew that I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

I wish that I could have told them how frustrated I was with church. I wish that I could have told them that so many of the spiritual answers sounded to me like empty promises, patronizing platitudes. I wish that I could have pointed out that many of the practices of church speak to a culture that no longer exists. I wish that I could have told them that church as we know it and practice it is already dead.

But I couldn’t say any of those things because I didn’t know why I was unhappy.

I was desperate for Truth. I wanted to understand reality and learn to live spiritually. I wanted to know God. I wanted to be fully myself rather than just playing a series of parts. I wanted to integrate faith and vocation with community rather than continuing a kind of compartmentalized existence. And I couldn’t find a way to fit all this stuff into church. The box was far too small.

So I left.

But not completely.

I’m still hanging around, watching and waiting for others to exhibit some of the same symptoms — not just people who hate church but those who desperately want something bigger, something that transcends our limited notion of what it means to have faith.

Why do I care? Because if church really is dead, then there’s got to be something better. And I’m not smart enough to figure it out on my own.

Because if church really is dead, then there’s got to be something better. And I’m not smart enough to figure it out on my own.

Why Church?

November 13, 2005

0003

I got sick, this morning, thinking about going to church. I suddenly felt dizzy and tired. Incredibly tired. I sat down on the couch (with a plate of brownies for sustenance).

What’s going on? Church has been my life. I volunteer for hours every week, attend services at several different denominations, read just about anything I can find, regarding what it means to live a God-centered life, what it means to know God. But I had to face the fact that I don’t like church. It feels like a waste of my time. I resent having to go.

Is there anything wrong with church? Anything I can put my finger on? I believe in an active, living, present God, and we spend a lot of time talking about God. Maybe that’s the problem. We talk God to death every Sunday. But when is there time to experience his presence with us in corporate worship?

What about all the good that churches do? We sent money, supplies and volunteers to help with Hurricane Katrina. We provide food baskets and Christmas gifts for impoverished children in town. We hold an annual appreciation dinner for local public school teachers. We offer free counseling to couples in crisis. But do we know our neighbors? Do we love them? Is our giving truly generous or a burden that we carry (because that’s what good people care about)?

I asked my students, last week, where church originated? Where do we get the idea of church? Nobody seemed to know for sure. It’s just always been, some claimed, while others thought that God had founded the institution.

But that can’t be true. Jesus didn’t go to church.

He invited people to enter a new way of life. It seems, however, that we’ve watered down his message, replaced the Kingdom of God with a social institution.

What’s that mean for me? What’s next? What can I do? Should I do anything?

I don’t know.

Looks like I’m going to need another batch of brownies.

We offer free counseling to couples in crisis. But do we know our neighbors? Do we love them?

To Give

November 10, 2005

It’s easy to give, harder to let go.

When a gift is unappreciated – greeted with disinterest, anger, or even greed – I want to take it all back, un-give. It’s then, in the moment of regret, that I discover my attachment and wonder if I really gave (or only pretended at generosity).

I discover my attachment and wonder if I really gave

Get Your War On

September 19, 2005

0007

I noticed a stack of brochures on the entry table at church, yesterday morning. They were for a seminar coming up, titled Answers in Genesis. The first page has a bunch of intriguing questions: “Dinosaurs and evolution? Gay ‘marriage?’ (sic) Evolution in schools? Abortion and evolution? Racism and evolution?” The questions are followed by this statement: “Get answers from the Bible that connect to the real world.”

Why should I believe that all the important answers come from a single book in the Bible? If I can discover everything I need to know in Genesis, then I don’t need the rest of scripture, and God is irrelevant.

Bigger issue — who said these are the important questions? Is my faith really based on the truth or falsehood of evolution? And how did gay marriage and abortion get tied into this talk? I know the creation vs. evolution debates have gotten a bit worn since the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” but is this what we have to do to sell tickets?

“How to Defend the Christian Faith in Today’s World”

Apparently, my faith is so small that it needs defending. Get your war on.

Apparently, my faith is so small that it needs defending.

The Journey

June 8, 2005

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Lightening our load of possessions brings a lightness of spirit, even freedom.

A friend of mine left for California on an early morning this spring. He’s working there for the summer. He was supposed to have everything packed up and ready to go by 6:30 that morning. Of course, he put it off until the last minute. Of course, his alarm clock didn’t go off. And he wasn’t able to finish his laundry. And he didn’t have room for even half the stuff he wanted to take.

I noticed something interesting as he rushed around, trying to get out the door. His priorities had changed (or finally come to light). Many of his prized possessions — television, computer, books, new clothes — had to be sacrificed because they wouldn’t fit (and the journey was of primary importance). He couldn’t afford to take anything that would hold him back.

Maybe this is how we should view our own lives in the world: as a journey. What are we spending time on — career, possessions, responsibilities, relationships — that we don’t have time for? What people, things or activities are holding us back from fully experiencing this journey to which God has called us? And of all the things that we desire, how many of them do we actually need? Are they good for us?

A Hindu master once said, “Quenching our desires with material gain is like seeking to extinguish a burning fire with butter.”

I hope to travel a different road.

Maybe this is how we should view our own lives in the world: as a journey.

I Need You

April 13, 2005

- Fluidity - #Newberg #luremein #photoyourworld #photowall #soft_tones #ig_c

I quit my job two weeks ago, determined that I had no passion for the work, that this position didn’t fit within the scope of God’s call on my life. And I felt incredible relief when I resigned.

A week later, however, I received a call from the owner. The company could refill my position. But it couldn’t replace me. He asked what I’d like to do. And how much. And when.

Isn’t this how the Church ought to operate? When people leave our community, we can find new workers to fill their roles (like parts in a well-oiled machine). But we can’t replace them.

Our culture values self-reliance, independence, professional distance within relationship. The Church should be different.

We don’t have everything figured out. We make mistakes. We secretly hurt (and not-so-secretly hurt each other). And this is precisely why we need community. We’d never make it on our own (no matter how self-sufficient we appear). So let’s be honest and admit our need.

The world doesn’t know how to admit its dependence. And it’s dying for lack of a good example.

We’d never make it on our own (no matter how self-sufficient we appear). So let’s be honest and admit our need.

Sex Sells

October 27, 2004

Authentic and true (http---instagr.am-p-LZevoQHx4t-)

On the surface, it seems American culture is obsessed with sex, but the kind that sells is more about separation than intimacy.

“It represents the lowest level of human engagement,” writes John Walsh. “It emphasizes the mechanical, athletic side of attraction and downgrades, or makes redundant, the emotional, tender, quirkily personal territory of relationship that makes us most vulnerably human.”

And the results are in: Psychologists say loneliness is the most common problem they deal with in the United States. Depression runs a close second.

We are a people in need of connection.