The True Meaning of Christmas - BAH! HUMBUG!

The Christmas season is here.  You can tell because you spend money you don't have on things other people don't need.  You can drive around at night without your headlights on.  And of course, you're much busier than usual.  These are all signs that it's the Christmas season, 21st century style.

In observance of the season, it might be possible to cram in a church service, social service or Christmas show.  Maybe even all three.  Who needs sleep anyway, IT'S CHRISTMAS!  Each of these with varying degrees of success, will likely beckon you away from the frenzy at some point with whispers about "the true meaning of Christmas."  Its' good to console yourself with that thought as you're fighting for a parking spot outside the church you're trying to get into. 

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" will be on TV at multiple times for your viewing convenience.  My favorite version of this Christmas classic is, of course, "Scrooged." The story is about the intrinsic superiority of generosity over selfishness and greed.  There's a Christmas goose in it.  There's a mom too but as far as I know, no apple pie.

I'm not sure we needed convincing that avarice, greed and consuming self interest are not good as being...well...good, but Dickens and a few thousand other people over the intervening years since he wrote the novella have made an awful lot of filthy lucre telling us that's true so there must be something to it.
What is wildly ironic about this feel good spending/eating/doing frenzy is that it happens during Advent. I haven't observed the church calendar for most of my life but I've been paying it a little more attention to it over the last few years. Advent is a season of quiet.

Advent is the first season of the new church year.  It's purpose is to prepare us to receive the Christ child.  It was surprising to me to learn that Advent for about 2000 years, has been considered the second most penitential season on the church calendar after Lent.  And it's considered a pretty close second.  Virtually any discipline you'd pursue for Lent (fasting, silence, etc.) is considered fit for the Advent season.

The point of this deprivation is to make us a little less focused on ourselves and a little more focused on the one who created us and redeemed us.  Advent's been good for that up until the last 150 years or so.

All of this points to the fact that there is no "true meaning" to Christmas.  Christmas is not about meaning at all. It is about the incarnation of Christ, both on earth and in our lives.  He is good, generous, loving and kind, so Christmas has those attributes.  However, to celebrate those attributes without Christ is a bit like standing a good ways from the fire and expecting the smoke to keep you warm. 

There is I think there is a still deeper truth in Advent.  It's a truth buried deep in us.  We were wired for this season.  We were made for a time of slowing down and remembering the shepherds, the wise men and the star.  Something down very deep in us cries out for the still small voice we first heard in the moment we were spoken. 

And that's why, when Linus steps out into "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and recites Luke 2: 8-14 about the birth of Christ, there is a celebration of silence.  It's what we wanted all along.

Christmas is almost here, all 12 days of it.  The joy to come is easy to see from the place of quiet.

Long Time No See - Squirrel

It's been a while since I posted last.  All the usual suspects are responsible.  This includes all flavors of busy and a muse that likes to play hard to get.  A few people mentioned the absence. And yup, I noticed it too. 

There is one thing in particular that has contributed to my silence.  I've had a lot of partial thoughts, fragments, but nothing that of itself drove me to the keyboard.  Years ago, these would have become poems or maybe songs after being jotted down and revisited later.  Single thoughts, images that grab the eyes of mind or soul with enough power to slowly pull complimentary thoughts, one from the other.  (With apologies to Noyes and his "Highwayman," my own favorite poem/lyric of mine was composed while driving home past a foggy grave yard under full moon.  I never wrote it down.)

In response to the nothing, I've decided to do something.  Here's the something I'm going to do:  Anything.  Yes, I may even commit poetry at some point.  Don't tell the authorities. 

Following is one possible example of things to come:

 Item one, containing some rather blunt ideas:  Jesus isn't defined by who you want him to be, what your morals, desires and aspirations are at any given moment.  He's not swayed by things you think should be right or acceptable and pay close attention here, your sense of social justice.  Over the years, I've discovered that Jesus makes you very uncomfortable at times.  Physically, spiritually, socially, in every way.  His life passion and work is to fulfill himself and each one of us and to have each one of us fulfilled in him.  He's very very brave in that he's willing to endure and risk everything (and risk and risk and risk) to make that happen.  He doesn't need another street march, protest sign, FB meme, or Snopes patrol to finish his work.  On the cross, he has already leveraged the fulcrum of his intent.  We must choose each day to work with him to live out our lives with him, to in turn be moved by him, the lever of the spirit.

Item two, endurance:  My impression is that we usually think of endurance as gutting or grinding it out.  This is a misunderstanding.  You might gut out a meeting.  You might grind out a home work paper.  You don't gut out a roller coaster ride and holding down your stomach contents doesn't count for gutting it out...or in.  Never the less, you do endure it.  I get motion sick some.  I went to a go-cart type of recreation day  with work years ago.  I made myself nauseous driving as fast as I could.  Did I endure the nausea so I could have the fun?  Not really, they were both wound up together.  They were inseparable.  Endurance is more about picking an endpoint and pushing through to it regardless of interim consequences than it is toughing it out.

Item three, completely unrelated and completely related - rules:  These were (and the good ones still are) intended for our good rather than as a prescription of things to (not) do.  Man, do we get confused about this.  Following or not following rules isn't and never has been the salient point of life or Christianity.  Rules can be good boundaries.  However, they aren't the road and they certainly aren't the journey.  Rules can be very very important but they should not be confused with the core.  The key arguments about good evil are about the destination and the identity we want to own; that is, who we want to be when we grow up.  The journey is beautiful, terrible, humbling, fulfilling and filled with good and bad consequence.  It's amazing.  Rules are just rules, serving to show us where the road lies.

Item four, a child under a tree in Africa:  I don't remember whether she read it somewhere or came up with it on her own but my wife has a wonderful image she trots out from time to time that I find helpful.  In considering the goodness or badness of your circumstances or the circumstances of others, think about a child playing under a tree in an arid grassland in Africa.  The child is nearly naked, completely poor, at least a little hungry but still happy.  How valuable is that child?  How valuable is her life?  What will she grow up to be?  Is your circumstance better or worse than that child's?  If you have to consult your checking account to answer that question, you have your answer.  Now imagine that child unhappy, crying.  Same questions.  There's an awful lot here but certainly one component is this:  It has much more to do with the person we're considering and how we value them than it does with either their circumstances or ours. People are raging beautiful creations of the living God.  We're honored to be among them.  And they are honored to know us.

And finally, Squirrel:  As I write this, there is a squirrel on top of a telephone pole across the street.  He's been there about 20 minutes. It's a pole with no cross bar, just a vertical pole.  His head hangs over one side and his tail down the other.  Every now and then the wind catches is tail and blows it around a little.  I think the little beast is just relaxing and catching some sun.  Apparently, the squirrel FDA and/or OSHA has not informed him of the imminent hazard of squirrel sun bathing in a neighborhood where birds of prey live, not to mention fur burn from high tension wires. As I finished that last sentence, the squirrel climbed down off the pole, probably off to complete his many self-appointed tasks.  Miraculously, he successfully navigated his sun bath without being molested by those wishing him harm or by those wishing him safety.  He just carried on, largely oblivious to all.  It is a good day to be a squirrel.

Are We There Yet?

My mother (a single mom) learned to drive around the time I learned to talk.  She bought a used '55 Chevy a little bit before that.  A neighbor went with her to look over the car and drive her home.  He later taught her how to drive.  We started taking weekend trips and drive 'till you drop vacations almost immediately thereafter.

As we lived in the Los Angeles area (Huntington Park...not Beach), it was at least an hour in any direction to get out of town or for that matter to get to Huntington Beach.  If you are younger than 40 and don't have easy access to a Way Back Machine (Google "Mr. Peabody and Sherman"), you won't remember that cars didn't have more things then they actually had.  There were no FM radios (there was barely any FM), no clock, no power steering, the dash boards were made of steel and there were no seat belts.  On the up side, there was a rather primitive AM radio.  When you're 4 and you can't watch Star Wars on the iWhatever as you travel, just getting out of town in this context can be tedious.

There are 3 general directions to escape L.A.  All of them, depending on time of year, are hot.  Early on, our primary destinations were the Southern reaches of the Sierra.  This included Sequoia on the West side of the range and the Owens Valley/Mammoth Lakes area on the East.  (Mammoth didn't have a gondola in those days.  What is now the main street was a bad dirt road.)

I clearly remember the first time I said "Are we there yet?"  It was in the Owens Valley around Lone Pine.  It was hot as stink, the radio wouldn't get anything and we'd sung all the songs I knew a couple times.  Worst of all, it was too hot to nap.  I repeated it a few times, varying the theme a bit.  "Are we there yet?"  "Are we closer?"  "Will it be long?"

My mother was patient at first.  Gradually though, I wore her down.  She was hot and relatively miserable too.  Finally she snapped at me, telling me to not ask anymore under threat of spanking or being slapped in the face.  It immediately became clear to me that I'd come to the end of that particular line of inquiry.

As the years went by, through a combination of practice and maturing I learned how to tolerate and even enjoy the ride.  As we drove up the Owens Valley with the Sierras to the West and the White Mountains to the East, my mind would travel on the dirt tracks that vanished up into the valleys of those mountains.  In time, I learned to love the journey as much as I loved and enjoyed the destination.  Later on, we actually followed some of the less traveled roads into those mountains to lakes and forests that were only minutes away from US 395.

As I was adapting to travel, I had no idea that the experiences and lessons would apply to the whole scope of my life.  For example, my impatience usually gives way to resignation.  Eventually, my mind wanders off somewhere and I would forget all together the current moment of discomfort.  

There's a difference though.  The lessons of childhood usually have boundaries.  Our parents provide them.  Usually, our joys and our pains happen within the lines of what our parents provide for us.  Sometimes this is out of our control altogether and sometimes its even out of theirs.  Even so, as children we seem to always have a base level of comfort or hope derived from our parents even when they're broken and afraid themselves.

From any one moment, our adult lives stretch out before us as a plane of possibility that encompasses the totality of human experience, from fatigue to enthusiasm, from joy to terror, from fear to love.  Sometimes our steps are intentional.  Sometimes we stumble as if pushed from behind.  Sometimes we stagger under the weight of all we've imagined will soothe and protect us on our trip.  Sometimes in sadness or fatigue or both, we just lay down.  Even then though, the small steps intrinsic in each moment carry us forward to someplace that contains at least some part of our choosing.  We may or may not reach the destination of our choosing but we can never escape the journey.

The journey is a joyful thing...if the choice of joy is made.  If God is invited into as many moments as we can remember, as our eyes cast around for the thing of beauty that plays discord to the mundane background.

The journey is love...if need is admitted and forgiveness given freely if God is invited into to both our woundings and triumphs.

The journey is peace...if love and joy attend.

My mother introduced me to these ideas and modeled them.  She failed sometimes but always seemed to be able to be mostly upbeat, leaning into the joy and love offered in each moment.  Because of her, it was easier for me to see these things in God.  However, I've also learned this: the God of love and grace so far transcends any human expression of love and joy that any human model is never more than an introduction to the depth of all that God is.

So I sit in the passenger seat.  Some days it's an easy ride.  Some days the sun is hot, the air conditioning broken and the destination too far.  Even so, I count the shadows of phone poles racing by.  My eyes wander to the distant mountains and the dirt tracks that reach into them.  There must be lakes and coolness and water up there.  And then I realize, if there was no journey there would be no destination.  There would be no rushing shadows, sunrises or sunsets or imaginings of distant possibility.  It will be fun when we get there but the ride is beautiful.

A Voice in the Wilderness

Years ago on a trip to Wyoming, our family camped at Dinosaur National Monument.  We had a camp site on the edge of the Green River.  It was across from a sheer cliff that rose out of the water.  The geology was dramatic and unique and resulted in a near perfect echo.  Our boys who were something less than ten at the time were consumed by their new toy.  I remember them shouting at the wall and then waiting to hear their own voice returned to them in a way that technology can't hope to match.

When I was small, my mother took me hiking all over the Sierras and later in the Pacific Northwest as well as in Arizona and the Rockies.  Vacation was pretty much an excuse to live outdoors someplace beautiful.  From one of those early trips, I vaguely remember my first encounter with an echo.  It wasn't much as echoes go.  It was just a little rattle after a loud shout that didn't fit my expectation of how my shout should sound.  It gave me an excuse to make noise though and my mom used it to teach me about sound waves traveling though air.

Wilderness is very good at teaching us how loud the quiet can be and how easy it is to ignore the noise.  Eventually, you start to recognize the sounds of where you are and to reflexively sort the unique from the background. 

Listening and hearing are much harder to do in the day to day of going back and forth to work, maintaining social relationships and delivering children to the their destinations.  Often or even usually, some kind of audio media player is on, blaring noise that was designed to entertain us.  Kids in the car usually up the volume a little so the radio or whatever has to be dialed up some...or a lot.  And then of course, some one calls on your hands free phone.  At this point, if you are able to remember where you are, where you're going, who you're talking to and which of the miscreants in the back seat is responsible for the crying erupting from that vicinity, you may congratulate yourself on having successfully navigated the important skill of multitasking, crucial to existence in post modern society.  If you're familiar with this scenario you probably should make a note to add your mental health professional to your hands free speed dialing appliance.  Little details like that are what makes post modern life worthwhile.

This is all quite unwilderness like.  It isn't necessarily clear who to listen to or who to listen to most when everything makes claim to being our top priority. 

If though, as we move through Advent our goal is to slow down and listen for the presence of God in our lives, we can look to someone who lived in the wilderness to accomplish the same.  In this way we can pick out a bit more of the small voice that whispers, "The King is Coming."

John the Baptist was born a few months before Jesus.  When he began his ministry, he moved out of town to live under the stars, telling people about the coming of Christ.  Several New Testament books mention him and the historian Josephus mentions him as well.  He was pretty popular in his own right and time. For Advent, there are some things worth noting about John the Baptist and his wilderness ministry.

John didn't really have a message of his own.  His function was simple.  It was to announce that the world we live in and even our very lives if we would allow it, were about to change drastically for the better.  It is a "better" that transcends circumstance, even to the point of bodily existence.  It is so extreme that the only idea that can capture it is the concept of rebirth.  The day we are anticipating is the day of the beginning of the human manifestation of God that John was born to proclaim. 

John was outside the ebb and flow of society.  People had to go out of town and presumably out of their way to hear him.  To move toward understanding this season and the coming Epiphany, we're probably going to have to pull ourselves some distance from the river of activity that carries us through the Christmas season.  It's possible we might even get tired or a little sore from the trip.  Merry Christmas.  That particular soreness is part of the original message.

John had a pretty different diet. He ate locust and honey.  ("Would you like locust with your honey or honey with your locust?")  One of our children was in the military and at one point learned to eat bugs, including grass hoppers (locust wannabe).  There's a specific instruction or two that helps get them down, or at least helps them stay down.  Even so, it's worth nothing the dearth of locust based cuisine currently available.  John denied himself "real" food in order to focus himself and to bring focus to the imminent ministry of Christ.  Likely, this was a combination of aspiration and obedience rather than one or the other.  It might be worth messing with our diet here and there during Advent.  A walk along the beach with a growling stomach isn't living in the wilderness but if we let it, it can point us in that direction.  If we let it, it can whisper to us of the voice in the wilderness. 

John's message included a heavy dose of repentance; that is of desiring to change and of actually changing the direction of one's life.  This isn't a bad idea for any season but as we move through Advent to Epiphany it's worth remembering both what has been given and what we're asked to give.  I heard a Catholic priest a couple days ago saying that for 2000 years the only season more penitential than Advent is Lent.  As of yet, I haven't heard that repeated in any department store music tracks.  Since that's part of the season, we're going to have to spend some time in the wilderness of repentance to fully embrace Christmas.

If this doesn't sound like the usual dose of "God bless us everyone,"  well good.  There's plenty of that already and just maybe even that message would benefit all the more from a little wilderness.  Let's leave the furious activity behind for just a moment, step into the wilderness and listen to voice there, calling us to love, repentance and the coming King.     

Fasting Slowly

Modern Christmas has been modern for a while now.

The big lament in modern Christmas as evidenced by Christmas movies is usually that it's is too commercial, too fast paced and just too out of control to capture the "true meaning" it holds.  If we throw in newspaper articles and editorials, we have a history of at least a hundred of years of contrasting what Christmas has become as opposed to what it's supposed to be.  We love the idea; we just don't like living it out.  And yet year in and year out, we continue to celebrate it in the same way anyway.  I think this century old conundrum points to one of the "true meanings" of Christmas, namely hope.

Generally, we don't like denying ourselves much of anything.  (I suppose I didn't have to say "generally.")  At Christmas time, that affection for indulgence is elevated to religious importance.  I include in this definition of self indulgence, our seasonal generosity to our kids.  After all they're our kids and they need all the stuff, experiences and "joy of the season" we can inflict on them...probably.  As a result, we wind up doing all the really important seasonal things until we're exhausted and broke.  We mean well, nothing bu the best really.  Hiding under this all too often failing is another "true meaning" of Christmas.  This true meaning is about generosity of heart and spirit.  It is giving to the point of sacrifice.

We will also likely bend, break borrow and steal everything necessary to be with some component of our extended family.  I love my family and I love spending time with them.  I can't remember a Christmas season in which we didn't travel somewhere to be with someone; in some cases we have even traveled good distances on Christmas day.  I can honestly say that in every case this was, at least on balance, wonderful.  Never the less, it is tiring, can be expensive and can lead to the occasional uncomfortable moments that only those truly close to us can provide.  And here we run full into what is certainly the greatest of the "true meanings" of Christmas.  Love.

 At Christmas time, we're carried away from the hope, generosity and love of the reality of God and his love incarnate in the person of Christ, on a raging river of seasonal activity and expectation.  We can't change the fact of this unpleasant circumstance by riding the current.  We're going to have to do something about it...on purpose.

We can and probably should commit to slowing down some, paring back the activities and commitments.  However, just about any change in behavior can't be limited to subtraction.  Something has to be added back in place of the original offense.  We not only need to prepare for the stuff of Christmas, we need to prepare for what we are remembering.  And most of all, we need to prepare ourselves.

Redeemer Anglican church is intentionally preparing for Christmas in what might seem to be a counter intuitive way.  They offer a day a week fast, concluding by receiving the Eucharist.   The middle of the week (fasting day is Wednesday) becomes a speed bump, slowing us down and hopefully jarring us a little, returning us to the reason we're celebrating.  One day of the week, meals are left behind (yea verily, even very excellent Christmas candy) allowing the rumbling stomach to pull us back to the place where Christ lives as the center of our thought and prayer.  The place where unless all movies and articles do lie, we've always wanted to be.  While it might be counter intuitive, it never the less makes sense doesn't it?  After all, it's chasing after the Christmas for which we were created.

We're preparing one more time, to experience the hope, generosity, joy and love of the greatest gift ever given.  Praise God, Merry Christmas and "may God bless us, every one." 

Things that go Bump in the Night

We all have things we worry about.  If we don't, we worry about not having things to worry about.  Sometimes we worry about things that no one else would understand or believe.  It's probably easier though if we actually have universally accepted things about which we can worry.  Then we can just pony up and worry about them and no one questions our furrowed brows and raised shoulders.

A lot of times our worry will send us off to the web or even a bookstore to research worry, hoping to find help, self help.  We might pick up books on peace and contentment, we might pick up books on worry or we might even pick up both.  If we do pick up both, we worry about which one we should read first.  At some point in our self-help reading, we're likely to stumble over the pronouncement that worry is bad for us.  Then of course, we start worrying about worrying about worry.

The universally recognized worst time (or best if you're a fan of worry) for worry is the middle of the night.  Something brings you awake and suddenly, almost reflexively the pressing problem du jour is the only and biggest thing in the world.  This might be the result of hormones or dreams or even a spiritual attack.  It really doesn't matter because regardless of how big or real or small or irrelevant the issue might actually be, the worry is very real, heart attack real.

Over the years I've tried all manner of responses to this sort of worry.  I've had varying degrees of succes, well actually failure I guess, with everything from watching TV, reading, praying and thinking about fun things.  What's interesting is that for all that might be wrong with worry it has one huge characteristic that makes it unique in it's strength and purity. Namely, it's as persistent as hell, literally. 

Lately I've added a Catholic radio station to my car radio buttons.  In the mornings they play a segment in which the Lord's Prayer (the Our Father in Catholic parlance) and the Hail Mary are recited over and over.  I've heard this practice demeaned a good bit over the years by well meaning people who imagine that because something is repeated that it's necessarily done mindlessly or even soullessly.  That's probably not true.  For myself, I've decided that it's probably a bad idea to criticize people for praying scripture, even if they repeat themselves in profound violation of our tastes. 

I've spent the last year adding a substantial component of rhytmic practice to my life with Christ.  This centers around the church calendar and the Anglican Liturgy.  (Liturgy used to be something I'd worry about.  To wit: Is it right?  Is it boring?  Is it hip(ster) enough?  When I realized it's about 85% scripture, I stopped worrying.  I wouldn't apply those standards to scripture, so why worry about it?)  

Some place in all this, I was reminded of something I was taught decades ago but had long forgotten.  Namely, the Psalms aren't just another book of the bible.  The Psalms are a book of prayers. They were the  prayers of an ancient people. A people who loved God.  These are prayers born from the total spectrum of human emotion including joy, desperation and even loathing. They were written to be repeated. They are passionate, beautiful, fierce and frightening.  I heard Dallas Willard make an off hand statement once to effect that if you want to understand the heart of God, pray and meditate on the Psalms. Yes; I do think so.

These days when I wake up in the middle of the night and the real or imagined crisis of the day threatens to rob me of sleep, one thing comes to mind.  "The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want..."  It seems that the 23rd Psalm is where worry goes to die.  "...He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters..." And many nights I can't even remember the entire Psalm or get the order right.  But I don't worry about it.  "...He restoreth my soul:..."  The night noises both outside and inside my head might seem more real for the deep dark of the late night but so does the peace and completion of salvation. "he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake..."  And if you aren't yet asleep, here's the rest of it:

4     Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5     Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
6     Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Good night. Sleep well.

Of Roller Coasters and Have You Seen My Keys?

Wouldn't you think you'd get better at most everything over the course of your life? 

After living a half century I think by now I should be over losing things.  Whether it's socks, shoes, keys or whatever the critical component of getting out the door is, it seems like I ought to have mastered it by now.  However, while I have generally gotten better at putting things where they go and reaping all the benefits that implies, somehow life always seems to object to my organizational aspirations. 

When something new gets added to my schedule, particularly something that requires me to carry a new piece of hardware out the door in the morning, the apples all seem to spill from the organization cart.  When I focus intently on the new thing, then my old routine suffers. 

About a month ago, I locked myself out of the house.  I had a new thing to take with me that day.  I had the thing in my hand but as a result had forgotten to check my pockets to make sure I had my keys.  We have a contingency at our house for this sort of error.  Since I hadn't used it for years (the good news), I wasn't altogether clear on where all the parts were.  Eventually I found them.  Of course I was late to my appointment...revealing my disorganization.

I'm finding it clearer than ever that time doesn't offer any guarantee of improvement.  If you're like me, you're probably thinking something profound right now, like "DUH."  However, consider how you think about the future.  You assume your kids will get older, better, nicer.  You assume your financial situation will improve.  You assume your health will either remain as it is or you'll get everything fixed in short order.  This is a very short list when compared against the real possibilities and yet look at all the potential for derailment.

Here are some contrary and ugly realities to consider.  Over the next few years, you and people you love are going to experience varying degrees of sickness.  Over the same period, you or your spouse will likely incur a financial set back.  Then there's the kids... The possibilities here are almost endless.  However, since I don't want you to think I'm trying to get even with you because you dismissively said "DUH" earlier, I'll stop.  You can fill in your own gaps if you like.  Just be advised though, the word for that is called "worry" and it is seldom helpful.

When we think positive thoughts about the future, we usually refer to those kind of thoughts as hopeful or optimistic.  Hope and optimism are good and helpful.  However, they can quite often fall prey to the bad things that eventually come to all flesh.  Then of course, we resort to worry.  Over time, if we're really dedicated to "doing better," we wrap ourselves around optimism and hope.  Eventually, something or even a few somethings positive happen.  Then we go back to assuming that good things will always follow.  Wash, rinse, repeat. 

This idea is not new.  The earliest developed version I know of is found in the biblical book, Ecclesiastes.  In fact, entire systems of thought and value have been built on this conundrum.  I would add that so has much of Western Civilization.  We assume that more information has made us smarter and better able to handle life.  While I do think information and learning has improved our physical lot considerably, I think we might actually handle the business of living not quite as well as we have in times past. 

I think the fallacies in this construct are found in focusing on the wrong things and looking too far ahead; all this driven by the vain imagining that all those "things" are out there (i.e. separated from us).   The truth is this, while you might make small and/or temporary differences in what's going to happen next through carefully made plans, tomorrow is going to take care of itself with or without you, one way or another. 

The worst part is that the pessimistic/optimistic construct hides the beautiful truth at the center of it all.  You.  You're not detached from the roller coaster.  You're on it.  You're not the tracks, the wheels or the cart but you are definitely riding, hanging on and leaning into every turn.  And even more, you're the reason the ride is there at all. You can't hide from it, control more than your own place or jump off.  As long as your alive, you ride.  And by the way, we are only given as much control of the ride in any moment as God allows.

Sometimes I ask for changes in the ride.  Sometimes they are granted.  However, even then it's not my will being done.  It's someone else adjusting there's to mine even as I work to adjust mine to theirs. 

I am slowly learning to go with the ride God gave me and to see his reality in all of the roller coaster.  It goes up and down and makes stupid, wild turns.  It goes really fast sometimes and sometimes it's just the clunk clunk clunk up the long grade.  The g-force, turn angle and even the speed don't matter.  Still, how I engage it all counts for everything.

Now you'll have to excuse me.  I have to go find my keys.

The Space Between

O God, Creator of heaven and earth:  Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This day 1980 years ago (i.e. 2013 - 33) was a quiet day in Jerusalem.  After three years of challenge, change and upset most all believed the matter settled.  Jesus had been put to death.

It had been an exciting week.  The preceding Sunday, crowds in town for the Passover celebration had been treated to huge demonstrations of support and love for the teacher called Jesus.  The intervening week had been punctuated with a near riot at the temple, plotting in the councils of the leaders, the usual controversial teaching, manifestations of the supernatural reported both by Jesus' followers as well as more that were reported in at least one contemporary history of the day.  You didn't need network news to get you worked up about all that was going on. 

All that had ended suddenly yesterday with the whisper, "It is finished."  In that moment, things had for a bit, taken a bad turn.  The sky turned black and there was extreme thunder and lightning.  Some people (possibly shaken by the severe weather) reported people long dead showing up and talking about the death that had just happened on Golgotha.  Even in the context of all that had happened the previous week, that had to be weird.  Someone had even vandalized the temple, tearing a particularly heavy temple curtain multiple stories high in half.

Today was a pretty quiet day.  There were a few followers of Jesus here and there, obviously shaken, running from their own shadows and rethinking their career choices.  Most people concerned themselves with their usual Passover Sabbath observations.  Jesus' followers would not even go to his tomb out of respect for the Sabbath.  In any case, the body would keep until Sunday.

In what would later come to be seen as perhaps the single greatest miscalculation in the history of mankind, the current Roman Governor Pilate, ordered the tomb sealed with an official seal and a platoon of troops guard the body.  This was a response to rumors that Jesus' followers would try to steal his body and make people think he'd risen from the dead.  Of course later the guards went running around telling everyone that they fell asleep and when they work up the body was gone.  Odd that was the best they could come up with since that particular story carried the death penalty.

I think there were other guards there too by the way.  They however were actually in the tomb, with the body.  There's a kind of picture of the guards I'm talking about.  It looks like this:

In this picture, the guards are  waiting to do the job of guarding Jesus' body.  This is an approximation of the Ark of the Covenant.  Inside is a sort of scrap book of the intersection between God and his nation Israel.  For one thousand years, most people who knew about this box thought the angels were representations of guards guarding the stuff in the box.  Actually, they were a picture of waiting.  They were waiting for the completion, the filling of the space between.  Notice, they wait on the outside where we all live...but their mission is somehow accomplished on the inside of the tomb, away from all eyes.  Inside...outside...interesting.

Technically, these aren't angels at all.  Whatever the resemblance, these aren't anything like TV angels.  These are terrible and terrifying creatures, here rendered beautifully and simply.  Suffice to say, you don't want to be on the wrong side of whatever they've been sent to do. 

At some point in time before time, I think there was a combination of great sadness, wild anger and infinite determination on the face of God when he commanded these beings, explaining their mission.  In that thoroughly intimidating conversation there was something like this:  "And no one...no one...no one touches or even approaches my son's body.  No one but me."

On the next day of course, everything would change.  The resurrected Jesus would start appearing to a few people, then a few more and eventually to thousands.  His followers who had scattered like a flock of birds from a pack of running dogs stopped running away.  Instead, they followed him to messy deaths, forever putting to death the lie that they carried on as they did for wealth and power.  As a result they spread the life of his truth in a way that changed eternity.  (They were always part of the design exactly like the cherubim...but that's another story.)

Tomorrow's coming but on this day we remember the moment between then and now.  On this day we remember the day the cherubim had been waiting for; the moment the space between was finally, forever and completely closed.   This day is the day of the Father with his Son.

Each of us will watch and live out our own space between.  This is completely true whether we follow Christ diligently, hold him at arm's length or are utterly oblivious to him.  For those that follow Christ, we will slowly and surely come to see the space between filled with something quite complete, beautiful and resurrected that is completely us, completely other and completely new.  Hallelujah.  Tomorrow is almost here.

You Might Have Invented Your Own God If...

I heard a quote yesterday.  I view it as a theological type of "You're probably a Redneck if." 

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”  (from Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott; on page 22 of Bird by Bird she attributes this quote to “my priest friend Tom”)

I think this is a wonderful idea...as far as it goes.  However, since there's an underlying thread in my life that pulsates with the idea that "nothing exceeds like excess," I think this idea can be taken in a whole bunch of other directions with equal or even greater relevance.

Here are some candidates:

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if you imagine that your aspirations for yourself are the same as His aspirations for you.  The corollary:  He's got a lot more in mind for you than your imagination will entertain, or even allow.

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if you imagine that everything that feels right (and maybe confortableto you is actually right.  The corollary:  Everyone is welcome as they are but everyone will be invited and even mightily challenged to change.  You shouldn't look for core theology to change so that you will feel more comfortable. 

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if your righteous indignation carries with it an unnatural degree of logical justification.  The corollary:  The core concepts of Christianity are the core concepts of Christianity and neither benefit nor mutate based on new translation or interpretation.

Honestly, the potential in this construct is probably endless.  The thing I find sad in this is that all such attempts to cast God into something he isn't will be limited by our respective, individual brokenness...and we have enough of that without playing it back to ourselves dressed in a warped image of God. 

I think the confusion often surfaces here that God's peace is not at all the same thing as peaceful circumstance.  In this life there's no guarantee of "And they all lived happily ever after."  Instead, the promise is more along the lines of "And they all lived abundantly, lovingly and eternally."

I hope this makes you uncomfortable.  It makes me uncomfortable.  But that's OK because the invitation in discomfort is the realization that peace isn't a function of circumstance.  It's a function of Christ's redemption and the unique and beautiful wonder you were spoken to be. 

Advent, What's the Point?

When I was a child, the Christ in Christmas was pretty hard to miss.  We attended a denominational church and I went to a Protestant parochial school so pretty much all I had to do was wake up in the morning to be greeted from all sides by "the reason for the season."

We attended a midnight Christmas Eve service regularly.  I remember that I once burned my fingers on the hot wax that dripped from the candle.  We'd go home afterward and because it was now officially Christmas, I was allowed to open one present that had to be approved my mom. 

Sometime in elementary school, I had to write a report about where Santa Claus came from.  Looking back now and given my Christian school context, that hits me as a brilliant assignment.  I was then and to some extent remain puzzled about how the giving of gifts to those we love became the central focus of Christmas.  I suspect it was Charles Dickens that ratified the idea for us moderns but it had clearly been in play for centuries before. 

The explanation given to me at school and home was that we give gifts to each other because of the gift God gave us of his son.  I remember that connection hitting me as odd and even jarring.  What possible connection was there between my Screaming Meemee rifle/grenade launcher and the 2nd chapter of Luke?  What was the point?

The point was hinted at in the traditional, seasonal entertainment of the day.  Movies like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street" pointed in the direction of transcendence with a quivering finger.  It was as if they were more than just a little afraid to embrace the idea that a loving and just God might be more than just a deus ex machina plot device.  Even the much older story of "A Christmas Carol" was oblique on the ultimate point.  Still however, these stories recognized something that provided a hope for people in hurt and need.  Hope and faith were somehow understood to be necessary even if their correct target was lost.

I've minimized the name of Christ in the preceding with a bit of hope that you,the reader, who I now address directly in the occasional style of Dickens, will have experienced a bit of the jangling that happens in me when I watch and read these stories of incomplete completion.  The fact that George Bailey comes to recognize his value through revelation is...wonderful.  Not meaning to be a Grinch but I think there's more to redemption than the restoration that happens to George.  Come Monday, George Bailey will still have Potter and Uncle Billy to deal with.  George has discovered that people surely love him.  I hope though that doesn't represent anything like the sum of George's value.  If it does, then all depends on George always being nice and doing the right thing.  Not even Jimmy Stewart can pull that off.

This year I'm experiencing Advent in a form most similar to what I remember in my childhood.  I've been attending morning prayer at an Anglican church as part of the fabric of Christmas observance.  The season of Advent and it's core cause have supplanted morning news in my life.  Tonight I will attend a service that contains only hymn singing and bible reading.  I will attend Christmas Eve prayers tomorrow, anticipating a bit what the Book of Common Prayer, penned about 350 years ago has to say about that day.  Much so far has been aimed in the direction of preparing myself through submission, confession and reflection for the observance of the Epiphany.  This preparation is perhaps the primary point of the Advent season. 

No "naughty and nice" lists have appeared and reindeer are conspicuous by their absence. This I find wildly refreshing.  I also find it an invitation to smile a bit sadly as I respond to greetings of "Happy Holidays" with "Merry Christmas."  At least I'm able to offer the Merry Christmas response these days without first clenching my teeth.

After a half century of life, I find less and less time for the pale substitutes that have invaded our culture, masquerading themselves as "the Christmas Spirit."  They all fall short and leave me wanting for the reality of the one who gave everything imaginable each of us, yea verily, every one.

My prayer for myself this Advent is that I can be an overflowing vessel of the love of Christ and a witness to the reality of the presence of Christ in the lives of those with whom I am present.  And one other thing, I hope desperately as those of us who know Christ shop, watch TV and get over tired with Christmas observances that we start to feel like something very very important might be missing.  I pray that because our lives are the living Advent invitation to those who we meet.  When we are present in Christ and in the season, it is Merry Christmas.  When we are absent to our calling, it is only a well lit, tinsel covered happy holiday.  

Santa Claus the Easter Bunny and Social Justice

Generally, the idea of Santa Claus is said to have had its origin in the life and work of St. Nicholas.  St. Nick it seems did a good many things but none of them had anything to do with reindeer, presents and chimneys.  As I write this, it is the feast day of St. Nicholas.  Probably as a result, I've heard the following factoid regarding St. Nick about a half dozen times in the last couple of days:  "He slapped Arius."  I think Arius probably deserved it (you can Google it and discover why).  In any case though, that clearly doesn't have anything to do with him being kind to Rudolph on Christmas Eve. 

As a society, we've removed a lot of the reason and much of the heart and depth of Christmas.  We've made it about shopping, presents, the "right" gift and of course Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  The Christians among us (me for example) still observe the holiday as the observed birthday of Christ and perhaps even celebrate Advent.  There is an ongoing, much ballyhooed "culture war" that involves whether we as a society will continue to remember the reason we celebrate Christmas or whether we will find the observance (now more than 2000 years old) so offensive that we must avoid mentioning the word Christmas because it contains the religious word Christ.  Although I hate to admit it, this is likely a case where if you have to have the debate, you've already lost the point.

This only applies to the public forum of course.  What we do personally we are free to hold. This is true even when holding to that which is unpopular costs us and even costs us dearly. 

The clearer vision of what's going on with St. Nick and Christmas is found in the Easter Bunny.  In this case, the Christian church deliberately co-opted a long standing pagan tradition.  The problem with the Easter Bunny as opposed to St. Nick is that the "co-opting" had nothing discernible to do with the death and resurrection of Christ.  Thus, once the reason for the holiday is forgotten as a matter of societal practice, the Easter Bunny continues without even an echo of its intent to reinforce the life and work of Christ. Even the faint echo of the original cause is lost, to society at least.

I've saved the most egregious example of this kind of distortion of purpose and intent for last.  The greatest heathen in the pantheon of linguistic blasphemy is this:  social justice.

Note that Christianity survived approximately 1,807 years without benefit of that phrase but somehow during that time, managed to far surpass anything the concept could hope to express.  It was cooked up by the Jesuits sometime around 1840.  During the years before we were all saved by the shiny new word, missionaries carrying the truth and love of Christ, healing and economic aid and every manner of good and sacrifice (sometimes unto death) were sent out.  It was (and always has been - even absent special new words) a holistic Gospel that encompassed both the physical and spiritual well being; exactly as it was when Christ taught and lived it. And even as it still most often is now in the post social justice revelation era in which we find ourselves.

I've known a Jesuit or two and I suspect that if those boys had kept the phrase to themselves, we'd all still be OK.  By OK, I mean we'd have a common understanding of what the goal of a social mission is...And we'd have that sort of clarity of mission because we'd recognize the love of Christ in those that sent us, those that traveled with as and those we eventually served. 

Of course, this being a broken world, there have been many failures and abuses in the carrying forward of Christ's mission, regardless of the language used to describe it.  However, any complete tally of virtue vs. trespass in this regard will result in only one conclusion.  Namely, Christians have been stumbling along in their brokenness for 2000 years trying to live out the love and and care of their namesake.  In that time, God has worked miracles large and small to bring the love of Christ to all mankind in both physical and spiritual realities.  

It's not enough to address physical need but not embrace the broken in your best imitation of Christ's love.  Both are necessary.  Mother Teresa said this:  “Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them.”  On that path lies the point.  Social justice is a legal and moral concept.  It is fine as such.  However, person to person, man to God and God to man it ignores the fundamental reason for any virtue of service.  Namely, it ignores the healing, love and wonder of Jesus Christ.  It ignores the reality and hope of redemption and completion implicit in the gift.  The thing is, that kind of giving has to include an element of the self of the giver. 

When I raise this point, I usually get a few different things played back to me:  "Well it's just a word and we all know what it means."  Actually we don't.  It's been co-opted by everyone from Protestants to the Libertarians to the Green Party and virtually every other assembly of humanity that might ever have interest in helping someone else.  

Another playback is:  "It's just good to do something regardless of the reason."  The problem here is that where the presence of man is, there also is his heart.  When the heart of man is involved you don't just do something.  You do it for a reason.  In the kingdom of God, the heart of the individual always trumps the shadows dancing in front of us.

When I told my wife what I was going to write about today she said something to the effect of, "Oh, that's very efficient.  You'll make everyone mad all at once and then you can just have one big apology for everyone."  I have to say, that right there is a wise woman. You don't need to be afraid if you run into me when you're on a social justice mission or errand though.  I don't correct grammar or spelling either any more unless asked and then I try to let it be a gentle thing.

Still though, my aspiration for this Christmas and Easter and always is that the great body of Christ can carry forward the present reality of his love and Spirit.  My prayer is that we can communicate the reality that man doesn't live just by bread, but by the breath, will and love of the God that spoke us.   I pray that I can carry that message in the warp and woof of my soul and my deepest inner being.  And finally I pray that the love and nature of Christ so consumes me that its presence in me is unmistakable, even for those closest to me. 

A Really Really Big Tent

Technically, very technically, Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179) is not a saint.  While she hasn't been formally canonized she has been beatified and made a doctor of the church.  I'm told that that amounts to being a saint but isn't quite there.  She does have her own feast day though so that pretty much validates it for me.  She wrote music, had visions and advised high church leadership among a bunch of other stuff.  One source called her a polymath.  That's a great word that I hope you have fun looking up. 

I once saw Johnathan Edwards described as a better Calvinist than Calvin, or at least  a better reasoned one.  He wrote a number of blistering sermons but two of my favorites of his are, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and "On the Future and Just Punishment of the Wicked."  I'll bet he had some great jokes to open his sermons so he could draw everyone in.  I might be wrong be wrong about that though.  He was a leading figure in The First Great Awakening in the United States.  One contemporary said that he delivered his sermons to the bell rope at the back of his church down the center aisle from his pulpit.  The contemporary said that after church, people often expected to see the bell rope charred and smoking from the intensity of his delivery.

Blaise Pascal in his early years was a curious combination of Stephen Hawking and Mick Jagger.  One day, he encountered God and everything changed instantly and profoundly.  It was such a huge thing for him that he wrote it down in a couple places.  One of them was discovered to have been sewn inside his coat after he died.  He died young, probably because he spent his money and health taking care of the desperately ill in Paris.

Joel Osteen has great hair, a TV show a smile that is hard to loathe (I know, I've tried) and is often criticized for not being complete in his delivery of the biblical message.  He also has one of the biggest protestant churches in the known universe and seems to love God.

Robert Schuller built the Crystal Cathedral, the "Hour of Power" TV show and apparently a bunch of fairly unhealthy relationships.  He's suing his old church right now for something like 5 million dollars.  Of course, he's also had Henry Nouwen to the Crystal Cathedral, supported foreign missions and admits from time to time that he doesn't completely "get" God.

Mother Theresa was pretty much the gold standard of Christian reality in the 20th century.  One of he quotes that I really like is to the effect of:  "Killing a child because it is unwanted is a peculiar form of poverty."  She confessed at one point to going a year, while living in poverty, caring for orphans and mentoring her staff, without being sure whether God actually existed.

I could go on like this for a very long time.  I remember just enough of this stuff to be able to Google it endlessly.  (Anybody want to hear the dirt between John Wesley and Zinzendorf?)  However, this sort of bone jarring jerking to and fro from person to personage has a point other than winning a Red Bull off of one of your buddies after a particularly vicious church basketball game.  The point is that the body of Christ covers a lot more ground than can be covered in one person, one church, one generation or even one millennium.  The body of Christ because of the love and grace of Christ is about the biggest tent ever conceived.  How big is it?  Damn big.

Apparently it's a lot bigger than our memories or our tastes.  I hear people complain about Osteen; I hear people dis Edwards; I hear people dis all Catholics that ever lived.  Confession:  I used to hear myself doing some of this sort of dis'sing from time to time.

I've pretty much stopped listening to this stuff and my great aspiration is to stop talking, thinking or fretting about it.  Jesus, who invented all those people mentioned up there, is in charge of them.  Not me.  If you know the story of the Prodigal Son, look at it this way:  Do you like the idea of being the older brother?  I've discovered you have to shut up to avoid the possibility and even that doesn't help sometimes.

Occasionally, I'll decide that someone isn't the best influence on me.  These days when that possibility presents itself I just stop listening to them.  Recently and happily, I've discovered that my mouth isn't involved in listening.  I don't have to run my cake hole to have an opinion or to move on with my life.  Amazing.  Who would have thought?

If you want to blame someone for all these broken people calling themselves Christians or Christian leaders, you better blame Jesus.  He made them.  I have to say though, I've tried that (although I didn't realize for years that I was actually blaming him when I'd whine about "those people").  From my experience, I'd have to say this is a singularly unsatisfactory approach to the problem.

Jesus' tent is humongous.  It's also not at all subject to the rules and theology we think it should be.  I'm pretty convinced there's an inside and an outside but apart from a few who are very close to me, I wouldn't hazard any guesses as to who's standing where.  It's hard to come up with language that describes the size of Christ's grace and love and his ability to include absolutely everyone in it who wants to be included.  I think the best I can do is this:  It's so big, it hurts.

The Many Kinds of Faith

Singer/songwriter John Hyatt said once that if he had a nickel for every time someone played his song, "Have a Little Faith in Me" at a wedding, he'd stop working.  Even though he doesn't get a $.05 royalty for wedding performance, I'll still bet he's doing OK.

We can have faith in all kinds of people and things.  We have faith in loved ones, team mates, people at work and/or their performance and in the 21st century we are encouraged to even have faith in products and brand names.  Faith seems to be crawling around everywhere.

A lot of what we call faith if held up to the light is really hope.  We hope our iWhatever does what it's supposed to, looks really cool and is universally loved and revered, perhaps in the hope that we will participate in the love and reverence a bit ourselves. 

Hope is good.  However, hope is not the same thing as faith.

There's a place in the bible that describes faith as "the substance of things hoped for."  Many many books, chapters and sermons have been written about this passage.  Putting all that aside for the moment, one thing that is incontrovertible from this construct is that "faith" is considered to be somewhat more substantial than hope.  As an example, we might hope for Christmas presents but we have faith that Christ is the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Faith and hope can get real confused.  We usually hope for good outcomes in situations we face, particularly challenging situations.  That's natural and fine.  Sometimes people tell us to have "faith" that everything will come out OK.  That's fine too but it does raise the question as to what "OK" means, or maybe what it actually is.  The potential confusion here is pretty easy to see if you imagine a child being told that the way to get good things is to "have faith" that he'll receive them.  Back when I was a kid, that would likely result in me having faith that I'd get my 2nd hot fudge sundae.  Apparently my mom had more sense than I had faith because I never got sundae number two. 

We Christians use the word faith about every which way it can be used and then throw in a few just to make sure everything is covered.  That's generally fine but it can result in some disappointment or confusion when events don't unfold in a way that's consistent with our hope.  And that's usually because we have confused faith with hope.

Sometimes faith gets confused with expectation.  Faith and expectation are pretty easy to differentiate as well.  We have the expectation that the sun will come up tomorrow.  We don't exercise faith for that.

There's a good example of faith at work in the concept of marriage.  When we marry, we assume that our spouses will be faithful.  In effect, we have faith in their faithfulness.  That points to another word though that is more closely aligned with faith than the alternatives we've looked at so far.  That word is confidence.

Confidence in the good of people (i.e. the faithfulness of a spouse) is akin to faith.  Having confidence that someone will "do the right thing" is parallel to having faith in them.  Confidence and faith both represent investments of heart.

When we talk about having faith in God, it's not so much that we have "faith" that he'll do this or that.  Maybe we expect him to do a particular thing but maybe he has something else in mind.  Maybe we'd like him to do something now but later seems better to him.

That's actually when we have to have faith.  The title here is ironic because in all the universe there's really only one kind of faith, at least as it applies to God.  Faith is this:  Knowing, expecting, hoping, committing and living life in a way that's consistent with the idea that God is who he says he is.  In addition, there is exactly one commentary on this doctrine that's appropriate.  Namely, God is good.  (The idea that God is good is really contained in the idea that God is who he says he is but sometimes it helps to throw in that second bit.)

Most of our pain that's of the self-inflicted kind, most of our railing at situations or other people derive from the idea that God isn't really and completely who he says he is.  I talked briefly to a woman the other night who thought that bankers were evil and should be punished.  I saw kind of problem with this, not because it's impossible that bankers could ever do anything wrong, but rather because this woman apparently felt a lot of angst about the "unfairness" of the things "they" had done.  What was hidden just below the surface of her anger was, "How can this be?  This will not stand!  This is not fair AND everyone should think so."  That's fine but God says that redressing such wrongs is his job. 

Laws are there to prevent systematic victimization and certainly they must be followed and upheld but self-righteous vengeance is a poor substitute for justice.  When we indulge in that kind of thinking (as I too often do), we de facto deny the idea that God is who he says he is and all the cascading truths like, he'll take care of the spiritual injustice of it.  In the moment we take up the cudgel, we deny that God really is our champion.

I'm gradually getting better with the idea that God is who he says he is.  It takes a long time and we have to learn to except a fact about ourselves someplace in this process.  Namely, we are who he spoke us to be.  The truth of that is a story that each of us shares with God...because he is who he says he is.

This 'n That

Some of this (and that) are things I've written about before.  Some of (this and) that are new things.  Don't look for relatedness or coherence.  I seldom do.

Forgiveness

The fake forgiveness ceremony:  

"HEY! You stepped on my foot!"

"Oh! I'm sorry." 

"That's all right. I forgive you."

Fake forgiveness is like a dance with 2 to n people.  All the dancers have to agree to move in time to the same music and then actually take the energy to move.  If any of the dancers happen to step on any feet during the forgiveness ceremony, everyone has to start over. 

Real forgiveness:

Jesus, while hanging on the cross allowing himself to be the victim of all mankind said, "Father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing."  He not only forgave us himself, he even argued a bit on our behalf.  No one danced.

Real forgiveness is unilateral and exists without a response from anyone else.  Real forgiveness is born in love (see below). 

Anger

Being angry isn't a sin.  It's what you do when your angry that potentially turns it into sin.  In any case though, I don't think anger is ever fun or even pleasant.  As someone once said, "Anger is like a headache.  It's not wrong to have one but why would you want one?"

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is nearly always confusing for nearly everyone.  Sacrifice gets confused with giving up food, sex, smoking, time, health, vigor, money, someone you love and almost anything you can think of.  All it ever really is, is "giving up," as in surrendering.  You can't surrender without actually surrendering something but the nature of the something usually matters little.  Here are some phrases that indicate the initiation of surrender:

"I don't need this anymore."

"I still REALLY feel like I need this but I'll just leave it here."

"I REALLY like doing                       but I think I'll just sacrifice it."

Sacrifice is an act of will, often ongoing.  Sometimes circumstances almost force it (i.e. having kids).  However, sacrifice can never be forced.  It is always a matter of will, a matter of choice.

Sometimes, maybe even often, depending on the nature of the sacrifice the sacrifice winds up not really feeling like sacrifice at all.  

Having an opinion

Morality is important.  Living according to it is important.  Having an opinion is not.

Expressing an opinion

Much less important than actually having an opinion.  Standing for morality though is important.  That's not because it's my opinion though.


Life and Death

Both are very real and exist for everyone reading this.  Those of us who believe in Christ believe there's a reason and reality associated with both.  Most of us aren't quite clear on the reason though because we haven't read or maybe yet understood the book of Job.  Many of us who follow Christ seem to get confused about death too. 

My wife likens the death of a loved one who dies in Christ to them being given a ticket to Hawaii with unlimited food, snorkeling and other fun things and even some serious lanai lounging.  The only kickers are that there isn't any cell service there and since they're going be very busy lanai lounging and doing fun things, you won't be able to talk to them until you get your ticket and can go there too.   Yes, it's sad missing someone you still love.  But they're OK.  In fact, they're a lot better than just OK.  They're getting really tan with no possibility of skin cancer, eating everything they want without getting fat and having great fun.  How sad can you really be for either them or you?

Fear

Fear usually starts out as being very helpful.  It can even help us to not go to Hawaii too soon.  However, over time things fear turns into things we try to avoid because they're unpleasant and even painful.  It can get so bad that we avoid everything, even parts of ourselves.  Fear is fine for hot stoves, the bulls in Pamplona, the face of Half Dome, race car driving and any numbers of other activities.  It's not so good for relationships and it has no place in the context of love.  If you have fear in a relationship, it should probably be sacrificed.  After the sacrifice, you might want to think about taking up something in it's place...maybe intention and purpose.

If you have fear about life and death, you should know that if you follow Christ you're going to Hawaii.  In fact, you're on your way right now.

Love

Love goes on forever.  It's the reason those who follow Christ don't die (sacrifice is in there too but it all starts with love - true sacrifice is always a kind of love).  Since we weren't designed for the brokenness in the place we live, our love often gets disappointed.  That can turn into fear if we're not careful.  If we let it though, the perfect love of Christ will pretty much toss our fear under the nearest bus. 

Sometimes we have to sacrifice something in the name of love.  That's OK though because the love we get in return for the sacrifice completes life and transcends death.  It's hard to imagine how you can accept that much love though if you're not able to sacrifice all of the hurts that have been done to you and give up your right (well - your right in your opinion anyway) to get even.  Well in point of fact, it's not just hard to imagine, it's impossible.

I hope none of this makes you angry but if it does I hope you forgive me.  I won't ask for forgiveness because you owe it to yourself and nothing to me and that's not just my opinion.  That's forgiveness...and love.  Most of all it's love.  

Letting Go

There are a lot of contradictory messages in life and there seems to be someone to carry the water for each of them.  For example, some espouse pursuing greatness while others think that one should pursue passion and that greatness will follow.  As with all such apparent contradictions, there will be those who have read both sets of books on the subject.  To explain or to try to integrate the two camps, they'll simply put "sometimes..." in front of both constructs and call it a day.  As in sometimes you have to pursue greatness and sometimes you have to pursue passion. 

All these types of arguments tend to be about doing something or maybe hanging on through tough circumstances.  I don't think they're bad (mostly), but there's a greater truth.  The real chore is always binary.  The real choice is whether to hang on or whether to let go. 

And in that context it's almost always time to be letting go of something.  Letting go is not about sometimes.  Letting go is very important as is in fact one of the things that makes us human and gives us life.

Even hanging on is wrapped in a big package of letting go.  If you're hanging on to something, presumably you're either trying to go wherever it goes or keep it from leaving.  Inside that reality, choices exist.  Do I hang on and leave everything behind?  Do I choose to stop hanging on and let the person or opportunity go?

It's true that there are things pertaining to identity that represent the DNA of who you are that are important to hang on to.  Faith and morality are examples of these as are family (where you came from) and even friends (at lest the close ones who you allow to participate in the unfolding definition of your identity).  However the list is remarkably short.

Most things come and stay awhile and then must be released.  That includes virtually all the stuff in your closet and garage and even includes your closet and garage.  More distant friends will also be let go as they move away or move on.  There just isn't enough of whatever to support all the stuff or enough time to support everyone.  Some, must be let go.

It's counter intuitive, but we seem to hang on to pain with a grip that borders and occasionally transgresses into the desperate.   Whether it's continuing to hate someone who wronged us years ago (hate's essentially the same thing as not forgiving) or our own feelings of inadequacy or even nursing a physical wound long since healed, we hang on to our catalog of things and crutches like grim death.  Exactly like grim death as a matter of fact. 

Our place here is not forever.  That is what learning to let go teaches us.

Esther

My theory is that there is a fairly finite catalog of sermons or homilies or whatever you choose to call the Sunday morning time where someone stands up and front and speaks while everyone else listens. 

There are a lot of reasons this subject list tends to be closed ended.  One reason is that while there's an infinite scope and variety of the experiences of people interacting with God, there's a finite number of stories in the bible.  Another reason is that the theology that's popular at any given moment in time limits the perspective we have of God.  Put that second one another way, it's probably not a good idea to assume that the Catholics of the late Middle Ages were all wrong and that the emerging Protestants were all right...You can reverse that if you're Catholic and the meaning will be virtually the same. 

I think the biggest reason for a finite catalog of weekly inspiration though, is that those who have gotten comfortable with where they are with Christ tend to get a bit bored of the whole thing.  Bored might be too strong but we could certainly say that most people don't wake up in the morning and feel challenged and inspired to ferret out a new revelation from old King James.  Usually we're just happy to wake up again and have the hope that someone got up before us and made the coffee. 

Thus, the Finite Sermon Catalog Syndrome usually leads to the Boring Bible Reading Corollary.  That's the part where we imagine that the bible can no longer surprise us...And who wants to get up to read something that we "know" front to back?  I think the truth is that the bible contains the capacity to give us slap across the mouth revelation, persistently and consistently if we'll just abandon our preconceived, boring preconceptions and accept the bible at it's word. 

The book of Esther is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.  Somewhere down in the fourth chapter of Esther, her cousin Mordecai (who was her surrogate father) says:  “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. ¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, "...  I think when we read this our sense of justice, our modern sensibilities and our "all's well that ends well" reflexes (albeit in this case, "all then ends badly") want to fill in something like, ..."you and all your house will be destroyed."  Here's how Mordecai finishes that sentence:  ..."relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” 

Mordecai appeals to one thing in Esther and it's something we in modern times have insulated ourselves from using every artifice of thought and theology we can muster.  Mordecai appeals to who Esther was spoken by God to be.

I paid someone a compliment today.  He's 60 something.  I don't know him well but I do know that he has walked with God nearly all his life and unless all men and books do lie, he is a habitually nice guy.  He thanked me for my compliment and said he was trying to do a better job of accepting compliments but that it was still hard.  After a half century of knowing Christ, he still found it hard to accept that he's a beautiful creation, well worth compliment.

Mordecai is telling Esther that God's purpose will ultimately be fulfilled regardless of her choice.  However, by choosing to align her life with what God spoke her to be, done at great personal risk, she fulfilled herself and saved her nation.  But something else happens too.  She created a story.

The story she created is the story of a partnership with God.  The partnership made her a queen talked about throughout time.  One day in heaven, I'll walk up to a campfire where a woman will be sitting, staring into the flames.  I'll ask her name.  She'll say, "Esther."  In that moment I will know the story that she co-wrote with God, in the form of the person who risked everything to complete it.  She will carry that story with her throughout eternity.  Out of the story's overflow, a nation was saved.

I will also walk up to other campfires and learn other names.  Likely, most of them will have echoes of Esther's story.  They will be equal parts choosing away from fear and pain, offered and accepted grace and love.  They will all be testimony to the God who like Esther, risked everything to partner with each story, with each soul.

And when they look at me and hear my name, they will know the same of me...and of you too if you so choose.

Immoral Equivalence

Now that I'm in my second half century of life, I freely admit that there aren't a lot of interpersonal disagreements, misunderstandings and hurt feelings that can actually be solved by the correct application of logic.  Heaven knows, I've tried.  I could make myself dizzy and old(er) counting the number of arguments, disagreements and debates that I've won hands down on point of logic, only to be dismissed on grounds that they're uncaring, irrelevant or don't take into account the feelings of...everyone, everywhere that ever lived.  There might have even been a little upset here and there as a result of my being right on point of logic.

It's useful to have guidelines for disagreeing and for stating and rebutting a point.  In real life though, rules for this kind of encounter vanish around the time that shoulders, eyebrows and voices raise.  That's unfortunate because I think if we could follow the rules just a bit, we could have more hope of finding the ground that's common rather than the ground that's higher.  However, reality is pretty real and we have to negotiate the distance between respective positions and perspectives, yielding enough to let someone else pick their way around our tender places as well.

The normal flow of the disagreement is to either withdraw or to establish some form of moral equivalence.  Moral equivalence is the form of argument that says something that sounds like, "Oh sure, my t-shirt might be out but YOUR socks don't match!" Of course, there's even the more basic form learned originally on the playground, "You're a bigger one!"

Of course, none of that has anything to do with the point at hand and only serves to reinforce the presumably broken status quo.  It's not so much agreeing to disagree as it is being disagreeable about disagreeing on the matter of your disagreement. 

This leads to a very knotty question:  How do you fight a war with virtually no agreed upon rules of engagement, act equitably and bring the matter to not just truce but finally peace?  There's really only one way out of this feedback loop of infinite angst and sadly it's the most difficult behavior found in modern discourse in 21st century culture.  You have to listen.

Listening is not achieved by sitting still with your mouth mostly closed while you hear someone talk.  Neither is it achieved by simply taking turns in a conversation.  You actually have to entertain the possibility that the person on the other side of the argument might be at least partially right...or even completely right.

To achieve listening you have to let yourself be a bit vulnerable.  You have to start out by surrendering, even if just a little bit.  You don't necessarily surrender completely, unless maybe you've been obviously and egregiously wrong. 

The idea has been found on the battlefield for at least 2000 years, in the form of the white flag.  I think it's fascinating that the white flag is used as both a sign of surrender as well as a sign of temporary truce.  Even though the nature of the exchange may range anywhere from negotiating mutual interest to dictating terms to abject surrender, it's accomplished under a flag of peace. The greater issues of the war might still remain but for the moment at least we can stand on our common ground.

Sadly, passing with the idea of structured and perhaps civilized disagreement are other good things. These include mutual respect, shared value and even grace.  Wars, battles and arguments are now unconditional.  Treaties are ignored when it is convenient to do so and outrage at "the other side's" treaty transgression is genuine and deep seated.  Abandoning civility in the name of "winning" has become both a social and personal norm.  "Feelings" at both the societal and personal levels have been elevated to the level of deity.  How we feel now trumps how we think, objective reality and even the rule of law. 

I don't have a great solution to this societal avalanche of self-righteous feeling.  I have only one suggestion.  Make your next step to be in the direction of reconciliation.  It might leave you vulnerable or even hurt straight off but sometimes surrender is a step in the right direction.  And maybe while you're making that next step, just listen a little.

The Promise of Something Old and Something New

Our daughter Sarah was married to our new son Brandon about a week ago.  From the guests to the community that helped pull it off to the weather to the bride and groom, it was a story book day.  It will take me a long time to process the beauty of it.

As father of the bride preparing for the wedding, I found I had duties.  I knew I had to give our daughter away of course.  (Mostly I knew that factoid from movies and T.V.)  I also was encouraged to prepare a toast.

From the way this was presented to me it seemed like I could probably wiggle out of this without too much fuss.  I decided that if I had something to say I'd say it.  Otherwise, I planned to just stand around and stare at the tops of my new, black, pretty awesome DC basketball shoes.

As happens occasionally, I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I had something to say.  I knew this because I was so overcome with the beauty of what I'd heard and seen in moments between sleeping and waking that I was sobbing uncontrollably, almost convulsing.  Over the last several years I've found that there are things that are so beautiful that no measured human response is possible.  When you encounter such things, they are so unique and outside the boundaries of daily activity you may not see them for what they are.  However, when you start to recognize them and what lies behind them, you tend to explode emotionally.

I was struck by the fact that Sarah and Brandon were going to make promises to each other in the presence of God and community.  The great good intention of those promises can only be fulfilled by the passing of time and circumstance.  And of course this place we live in is pretty broken and time and circumstance can be rough.  From their wedding vows it was clear that the intent was that the joy of the moment of promise would be fulfilled over time, in love.

This is pretty consistent with most weddings I've been to.  In the middle of the night though, just before I went over my emotional cliff a question hit me:  That's where the promise is going but where did it come from?  The first thing that occurred to me was that it descended in part from a nearly identical promise that Christy and I had made to each other and work to fulfill every day.  Obviously though, that was just a link in a chain of promises that stretches back before time and will exist until there are no longer people on earth.  And that I think was the point at which I started to lose it. 

The marriage promises we make to each other are links forged into a chain of time created in time before time and redeemed two thousand years ago.  This I think is the greatest point made by the inclusion of Christ's genealogy in the Bible.  The chain described there of the gracious and the loving, the rapists and the whores, the kings and barbarians are all given to us as a family portrait of the King and Redeemer of man.  It is a portrait that stretches across millennia back to the origin of man in time. It teaches us that even in the most broken of families the potential for redemption and love is staggering beyond imagination.

There's a scene in Genesis (3:21) that describes God making Adam and Eve's first clothes.  I've heard a couple people over the years comment on this.  One imagined God sitting on rock.  As he drew the needle and cut the skin He saw the future as a great now.  In that now, he saw the love of creation, mercy and redemption but he also saw the monstrous cost to both himself and to his children.  He saw a road of infinite promise, faith, persistence and love set against constant struggle, betrayal and lies.  I imagine a sigh escaping as thread joins skin to skin. 

He would remind generation after generation of this great reality through stories in the form of lives and parables lived out and retold over thousands of years.

And he'd give us a vignette that would be our entry point into time, our desperate pursuit and our life's mission.  It would be the thing through which he would deliver generation after generation of souls already spoken.  That vignette is marriage, both it's promise and it's realization.  It is marriage in it's love and passion but also marriage in it's struggle, effort and even betrayal.  It is the journey of becoming and redemption.  It is the journey to becoming one.

After the promises, the road stretches out before us.  Each step offers a choice of promise or betrayal; each step is a choice.  Persistence on that road offers one certain promise that supports all other possibility.  It offers the hope of ever deepening and expanding love that extends to the point of two becoming one. 

The Incredible Vanishing Log

Forgiveness is difficult, complicated, time consuming and at least at some level painful.  That's probably why we're so awful at it.  There is virtually no chance that anyone reading this (and certainly the writer) has mastered forgiveness.  At least I've never met anyone who has.

Interestingly, I've never met anyone who actually acknowledged having a problem with forgiveness.  I've met people who have been betrayed by family, spouses, and business associates not to mention Republicans, Democrats and the Illuminati.  Point being that feelings of betrayal and other general forms of hurt span time and distance and even transcend reality.  Still, try as I might I can find no human being that struggles with forgiveness.

I met a guy once who had found a theologian he really liked.  The guy liked the theologian because the theologian had "discovered" that when Christ gave his sermons, he was only speaking to Jews.  That meant that according to the theologian (and by extension the guy), the things that Christ said about  forgiveness only applied to Jews.  Paul was "the one" who was "anointed" to speak to gentiles.  Therefore, we as gentiles only had to do things that Paul said.  Apparently, Paul didn't say as much about forgiveness as Jesus did.  I ignored that last bit (which is pretty wrong and wildly irrelevant) and asked him, "How does that help you?"  He said, "That means I don't have to forgive Adolph Hitler who killed members of my family."  His wife whisked him off at this point.  This vaguely reminded me of my wife operating in similar context.  My next question to him would have been, "How does hating Adolph Hitler help you?"

There are a lot of other examples of failed forgiveness.  I've got some for almost everyone I know.  If I don't have an example for someone, it's probably because I haven't learned it yet.  Not because it isn't there. 

All this raises the question, "Why can't we see our own problems with forgiveness?"  I think the answer to this is pretty simple.  The answer is this:  Unforgiveness is invisible.  Well technically, it's not invisible.  Rather, the thing that unforgiveness is attached to is invisible, namely, the Incredible Vanishing log.

Jesus taught all manner of things about forgiveness...to everyone.  One thing he taught on this subject was a comparison about an individual's issues vs. his neighbor's issues.  This all is found in his question about a beam (or log) and a speck.  To paraphrase, "Why do you fret and accuse your brother of having an itsy bitsy speck in his eye when there's a giant Redwood log in your eye?" 

I think we have a perspective extending from a churchianity culture of convenience that renders our respective Redwoods invisible.  We don't see them because individually we don't want to acknowledge them and socially we don't bear each other's issues well.  It's better if we just shut our eyes...which is hard of course when you've got a huge thing in it.  What's fascinating is that we can still see everyone else's issues while remaining oblivious to our own. 

This particular question Jesus asked grabbed me a long time ago.  Over the years, I've noticed a couple things about it.  One is that this is in part a matter of perspective.  The thing in your own eye is a lot bigger, in part at least, because it's a lot closer.  You can't run away from it because wherever you go you take it with you.  The other is that any foreign object in your own eye is bound to distort what you see.  Something in someone else's eye distorts nothing in yours.  Distortion leads to all kinds of other things...bad theology is one example of "other things."

I confess that I don't see my own log well at all.  I've gotten better over the years but it still needs considerable pruning...chainsawing actually.  I tell people about it from time to time.  The response is usually either a bit of pique that I could be so fallen and barbaric as to harbor unforgiveness, or a look that I have come to refer to as "the look of the stunned Mullet."  That's OK though.  Those are responses I've learned to forgive.

I have some areas I've managed to look at and recognize for the mammoth growth they represent.  Even so, a number of these have gotten much smaller over time and now only crop up occasionally if at all.  There are almost certainly some I still don't see.  I'm looking forward to discovering them.  Seems like where I live there are always tress to cut.

Every Now and Then

Kurt Vonnegut used to have a number of go to phrases.  One of them that was particularly prominent in his book "Slaughterhouse Five" was "So it goes."  Since I don't think he ever wrote a sentence that was absent irony, usually that phrase was tossed off as a response to some amazingly horrible event that had just happened to one of his characters.

Vonnegut is my favorite author on the subject of funny.  He was often (mis)labeled a science fiction author, as he often included extraterrestrial beings in his stories.  His favorite invented alien beings were the Tralfamadorians.  Tralfamadorians were not located in time the same way we are.  At any particular moment they would un-stick in time and wind up at some other particular moment.  Here's how he explained it in "Slaughterhouse Five" in the words of his lead character, Billy Pilgrim:

"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"

Interestingly, Tralfamadorians would use exactly the same language when encountering a really great condition as well.  According to Kurt and the Tralfamadorians, when there's no such thing as waiting for the next thing to happen, everything starts to look vaguely similar and eternal.

I think that's true as far as it goes.  However, whether you're dealing with the eternity of "So it goes" or the stuck in the place in time perspective of  "Every Now and Then," you're still there...after all, wherever you go, there you are. 

You're going to have a reaction to everything you encounter.  If you return to the same location in space hoping to recapture a good time you might have had there once, you might be bored or disappointed with that particular location.  Still, boredom is a reaction.  Reactions can be good, as in our reaction to surprise party in our honor.  And reactions can be bad as in a scary medical diagnosis. 

Often, we don't let the word "reaction" hang around by itself.  We frequently stick a word in front of reaction and create the idea of "involuntary reaction."  When talking about someone getting bad news, we'll often ask out of concern, "How did he react?" That's because emotions don't have the same cause and effect that our knees do when someone taps them with a mallet.  However, unlike our knees we're pretty sure there will be a reaction.  We just don't know what it might be.  In turn, all of us will then react to the report of the reaction if not the reaction itself.

There is both beauty and pain in the "every now and then" of passing through time.  "Every now and then," we experience a sunset or a sunrise, a windfall or a look on a face or any number of other things that make us catch our breath or even tear up with joy.  Of course, "Every now and then" we have very similar physiological reactions to bad things that happen as well.  Since we move in a straight line through time, every now and then we experience the highs and lows that we use as building blocks to define our lives.

If we were meant for a living eternity, consider how this time spent living time in straight line time might teach us about how to live like a Tralfamadorian, or even a little beyond that.  Since eternity is all they've ever known, Tralfamadorians have the reaction of "So it goes."  However, if there's one thing that living at an actual place in time teaches us, it's that every now and then something beautiful happens.

And what if the beautiful part of the "every now and then" of this world, through the work of one man, could be transformed and completed into a fulfilled eternity of "so it goes"?  I think we might call that heaven.

And even more, if we fully realized the value of the work of that one man (Jesus), if we really believed what he said about the Kingdom of God, maybe then we'd start to become a little un-stuck in time ourselves. Maybe we'd see past both our "here and nows" and our "every now and thens," and into a "so it goes" that is completed peace, fulfillment, transformation and joy. 

We might even go beyond calling that heaven.  We might call it the Kingdom of God. 

People have argued for two thousand years about whether the kingdom of heaven (or "Kingdom of God" - the New Testament uses the ideas pretty much interchangeably) is in the future or starts now.  I can't decide if we have these kinds of arguments because theologians want to be lawyers or lawyers want to be theologians or if both have become vocationally un-stuck.  All I can think to say about that is, so it goes.

I think when we decide to follow Christ, what really happens is that we become aware of a future that's much more beautiful and full than our now; this even extends to us being more beautiful and complete than we ever imagined.  This is a case where "then" is actually a lot better than "now." 

However, I think we also become a little un-stuck from our now.  Sometimes we get carried forward and backward and we see that the entire time we've been part of a beautiful and divine "so it goes" that's really more of a "And God said."  We call our images of the past memory, and our images of the future imagination or visions, but really when you're part of "And God said," they're all now...and then.  And so it goes, in peace, love, joy and completion in the creation that God long ago spoke for us.  Anybody feel like un-sticking a little?