Getting out from Under

 

I'm moving again.

Six years ago, I left the place I'd lived for more than twenty years, one that would have been a rural paradise in many minds, but for me had become oppressive in a way I could hardly describe.  And I did what so many my age and in my situation do - I downsized. I sold, discarded, burned, and gave away a lot of my possessions. 

It's a wearying thing, to do that. Not because one regrets getting rid of them, but because of the mental decision-making involved - evaluating their purpose and importance in one's life, and then doing whatever is the appropriate thing. There's only so much of that one can do in a day. There are some basic prinicples that can make it easier, though, and I've found ones that work for me.

More than anything else, I've found it imperitive that whatever I own serve me in some way. I'm sure you've discovered that much of what we own works the other way around - that what we own demands something from us. We have to store it, care for it, insure it, repair it...yada yada yada.  That, however, is not why we acquired them. We acquired what we own because they were supposed to add something to our lives so, as I make decisions about what to keep, I try to remember this.

What I own must still give me more, much more, than what I have to give it. The objects that surround me have to bring me some kind of pleasure commensurate with the trouble they cause. My car is a good example. It costs plenty to run and maintain, but I need to find pleasure in the way it looks, how it sounds, and the way it feels when I jump on the gas and maneuver it down the road. That's how it pays me back. More than just a way to get from one place to another, but something that has the ability to make my soul sing with freedom and skill.  Ahhhh...yes. 

Ah yes. Smooth. Quiet even under turbocharged acceleration. Comfortable. Solid. Reliable. Just today, when I was unloading some of my castoffs at the local Salvation Army, the attendant stood back and smiled. "That's my favorite car", he said. I smiled back. "Mine, too."  I will keep it as long as I can.

But as for all my other stuff. The stuff I'll have to move - or not have to move as the case may be. My partner, into whose house we are moving, keeps reminding me that we will have plenty of room for anything I want to bring. But that's not the point. The point is that the stuff I own needs to earn its way in my life. It needs serve me and to fulfill the purpose I had when I acquired it in the first place. The things I keep need to do more than bring me pleasure because they exist. They need to earn their place as symbols of beauty or memory or imagination. They need to be select and few so that their individual significance is not lost. I need to not only enjoy their use but their weight and meaning because outside of my imposition of meaning, they have none. 

They are just things. They get all of their importance from me and their importance is that I am enlarged, not enslaved, by them. 

Those that make the grade, well, welcome to my new life. Those that do not, I will not miss you. Which is kind of the point. 

Image: JWalking

Who Really Wants to Be Alone?

 

Ah, Greta Garbo. She was famous for saying she wanted to be alone.

Some people have crowded, even frantic, social lives. Some jealously guard their privacy to the point of barricading themselves and the places they live. Most of us live somewhere in between, trying to balance social and private lives, and we do it for different reasons. Sometimes it's just for the sake of sanity. Sometimes, we do it so that we can maintain a level of creativity that allows us to exercise the gifts we've been given. Sometimes, we do it so we make sure the members of our families aren't shortchanged in attention. Sometimes, we do it to grow our spirit. 

Greta is known for saying she wanted to be alone but it is less known that she made a distinction. She didn't want to be left alone, she said. She wanted to be let alone, and the difference for her was profound. The problem is that solitude has a partner - loneliness. No matter how much we sometimes crave peace and quiet, too much of it leads to a hollow result, a place where the echoes just get too loud. Sometimes, the solitude is worth the price. Sometimes not. 

It seems that solitude and community are not meant to be exclusive states. Each has a purpose. I don't need companions for everything - indeed, for some things they are counterproductive. But I do need them for some things. I've long held that a church community, for instance, is not the place I commune with God. It is far too loud for that. But it is the place I test and share that communion. 

There's an African proverb that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." As I hear that and think of the Kenyan Maasai - the tribe famous for running across the East African plains - and how they seem to be both alone and together at the same time, self-possessed but always aware they are in company with their fellow travelers.

I like the idea. It seems right to me. Finding the balance which, by the way, changes with times and situations, seems important. Right now, I feel it shifting. Having lived much of my adult life delighting in the company of friends often and well, the balance is shifting toward more quiet, maybe because I'm folding in the feathers of wings I spent a lifetime forging in preparation for final sleep. 

A friend gave me a copy of a book in 1990 to commemorate some plays we had read together with a group of others. It was a particularly sweet time and he included with it a quote by playwright and theologian Charles Williams:

"Much was possible to one in solitude; perhaps the final transmutations and achievements in the zones on the yonder side of the central knowledge were possible only to the spirit in solitude. But some things were possible only to one in companionship, and of these the most important one was balance. No mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter and equal it, and to save it from conceit and blindness and bigotry and folly...balance - and movement in balance - as an eagle sails up on the wind - this was the truth of life and beauty in life."

Yes. I think Charles might have been right. 

Equality and the Philosopher Kings

 

It's hard to resist connecting theology and philosophy. They originally grew up together in the ancient world and it was only in the early 300s AD that they began to be forced apart. I maintain that they still belong together and are all the poorer for existing in different places, each denying the validity of the other, so today I'm going to try to piecemeal a partial reconciliation. Starting with Socrates.

Good old Socrates. Brilliant but elitist. He thought men were made of three kinds: The workers or producers who are ruled by appetite, the soldiers or protectors who are ruled by spirit, and the rulers or philosopher-kings, who are the advanced decision-makers ruled by logic. He thought men could be trained to advance from one kind to another, but most often, they were born to a certain type and were best off living within the confines of it. 

Was he right? Are there philosopher-kings who see farther and higher than others? Is is all right to praise these extraordinary people for this ability and to exult them for their vision? We do, you know. Are followers best off following? 

Well, think about it this way. We are all made in God's image, like God in that we are primarily spirit having a material experience. In this, we are all equal. But Socrates was right in that we may be equal by virture of our common humanity, but we are not the same. There are standouts among humans, standouts in courage and proclamation. They are not more human, but they are a different kind of human. By ignoring either of these premises, we have made ourselves poorer. We either deny the glory of man or deny his ability to attain the greatest heights to which he is able. I don't want to do either.

All humans are created equal. But they are not created the same. 

I once heard someone attest that a parent's highest responsibility was to help their child discover what they were made to do and help them attain it. They were right on two scores. First, that they were made by God and second that He made them for something particular in this world. One is based on faith and one is based on a school of philosophy. And they belong together.

Image: Psychiatric Times

75 and Counting - Growing Old as an Individual - Saying YES

I turned 75 yesterday. 

Time to pause. Time to reflect.

It's not the getting old thing that makes me stop and think. It's the living thing. The living, the fact that I'm still doing it, and since I am, I have to think about how. I thought I'd be sliding into home right about now, with little left to figure out. 

I was wrong.

Living never ceases to bring surprises, you see. But it's only the results that surprise. The getting there remains mostly consistent. By now, someone in my stage of life has developed a pattern or a worldview we use to navigate this living thing. Mine is two-pronged.

First, it's an attitiude of faith. It's consistently looking for God all around and in every activity. Second - and this is not contradictory - it's individualism. It's a view forward that drives me to do something no one around me is doing. Community is fulfilling and enjoyable, but it's aloneness that fosters an environment toward creation and invention. lt drives me toward success but often at the expense of fellowship. 

So I have to be careful. Careful not to isolate or insulate myself so much that I become unaware of the lives and struggles around me. 

 

But I take encouragement from the understanding that Jesus was an individualist. He was always aware of His mission and where it came from. Nobody shared it with HIm. He walked His path alone and never expected anything else. He finished what He started all by Himself. It was always supposed to be that way. 

However, He did it perfectly because He drew a community around Him at the same time He was doing it. He moved steadfastly along in His appointed way and taught while He did it so that when it was done, others could not only begin to understand but were able to follow. As He moved along, He accepted both the credit and the responsibility for His actions.

Others will not do what an individualist does, but they will watch and admire and take inspiration from it as they realize that such things are still possible. The people in this world are eager for the recognition of achievement and I'm finding that 75 is not too old to demonstrate it can still be done. And I'm finding that the only way is a simple one. 

Just say YES to what life brings my way. YES to trying something new and unexpected. YES to what sometimes looks dangerous but is offered as an opportunity. YES to relationships with people not at all like me. YES to what I'm not sure I can do but am willing to try anyway. YES to what I don't think I deserve. YES to uncertainty. YES to love.

So, it's 75 and counting. Here's to it. 

Bird on a Branch

 

I saw a bird this morning. 

It flew past my car as I was driving to the gym just after dawn and lit on the branch of a tree right in front of me. It was a slender branch, the only dead-seeming unleafed branch on an otherwise greened-out luxuriantly leafed maple. 

And the bird flew right to it, as though none of the others were quite right, somehow too unavailable or just not good enough. But the bird got a bit of a surprise. The branch barely held him. It was too small, too exposed, and it shook and swayed from even his slight weight. Oops. He almost fell off.

But he didn't. He could have flown away all right, but hung on until, finally, the branch stopped moving. It was bent, for sure, but it held and he seemed satisfied with his choice.

Why did I feel like him? Choosing the least likely, the least safe, the most exposed place to land, and then stubbornly hanging on? I've done it for sure. And it's not the first time. You'd think I'd be used to this by now.

It all started with the bet I made with my boss forty years ago. I wanted a job I wasn't qualified for and he offered me a deal - he'd give me the job, but if, in six months, I couldn't get up to speed and do it well, I'd get fired. No safety net. Well, it worked, and the job became a springboard for a whole series of promotions and life opportunities. 

And I took chances again and again. When I got my race car. When I met and married my late husband after two weeks of dating. When I became a teacher with no qualifications. When we moved to the farm. When I sold the farm and came here. When I went back to college to study philosophy. When I started preaching and teaching. And now, when I, who am turning a ripe 75 this week, said yes to a new love that comes with a whole list of cautions but promises more rewards than any I've ever known. 

Yup. me and the bird. Landing in the least likely place and sticking it. My branch is still rocking. 

image: Etsy

The Sun is But a Morning Star

 

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.--Henry David Thoreau, conclusion to Walden

Someone once reminded me that the stars we find so captivating are always out and shining. It's just that, during the day because the sun is so bright, we can't see them. In the end, then, it's not a question of beauty disappeared or hidden, it's more a question of having eyes to see it. We go to sleep with the stars and wake up to the sun, which is just another star, but one by which we can see and live. 

And that is what we're looking for. Beauty. Perspective. Vision. An uncluttered reality providing a clear path to living genuinely. Understanding that the star we want to wish upon at night is just another sun and that our sun is making its inevitable way around the curve of the earth and will show itself in due time. 

There is no darkness that does not eventually pass. There is no moment in the sun that lasts forever. Life, however, is incessant, insistent in showing itself regardless of darkness or light. Both exist all the time, separate but ever-present. It's up to us to walk with confidence into whatever is before us, knowing we are clothed in eternity.

Image: Morning star before sunrise, shutterstock.com

Life Near the Bone

However mean your life is, meet it and live it. Love your life, poor as it is. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. Life nearest the bone is the sweetest. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden

When HD Throeau want to live beside Walden Pond, he pared his life down to what he considered its essentials. The physical possessions he took to his 10 x 15 cabin, the one he built largely from castoffs with his own hands, were a cane bed, his green writing desk, a small table, and three chairs. He didn't do this because he had to, but because he thought there was something he had to learn, something that could be learned no other way than to remove all the clutter and the noise it generated. 

We usually have no idea how much noise surrounds us. I went to Alaska once, in 1985, and experienced for the only time a life without noise. We drove out into the what seemed like the wilderness to us, though in Alaskan terms, it was just, well, just Alaska. But we pulled over in the middle of nowhere, literally more than a hundred miles from any man-built structure, shut off the car and listened. That day, for the first and only time, I could HEAR the wind. And on it, the whirr of insect wings. And nothing else. No engine. No human. No bird or rustling of any animal, although they surely were there. It was just the earth. The earth breathing.

I think Thoreau had a similar experience by his pond cabin. Completely alone in a place that declared the vitality of life all around him. And he chronicled it. The birds, the fish, the habits of plants, the beavers. He had visitors, to be sure, but left the distinct impression that they were far less interesting than the revelations nature provided. And the revelation that stuck was that the material things we hang on our lives are too easily mistaken for life itself. Life is best lived, he thought, without as many of them as we can manage. Even undisturbed cartons stored in a shed or a basement exert a silent claim on our lives, a claim of attention and awareness. They are just THERE. Thoreau wanted to evaluate their noise and, living in the woods, he did.

He eventually went back to what we call civilization, of course, but with a renewed attitude, one he wanted to share with us. Hence the book. I am in a place in life where I have a chance, another chance, to do something similar, to sell my clothes and other possessions, if you will, so that I can lay final claim to my thoughts. I am paring my life down to see whether I can find the bone of it and I'm encouraged by HD's happy ending.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Bravo, HD. I endeavor to similarly advance.

Image: The Reader's Thoreau

Recognizing the Call

Hearing and listening. They aren't the same thing. We can hear before we listen. Listening is intentional. And the difference is important because the whole idea of listening is inherent in developing a deep life of faith. 

The admonition to listen is everywhere in the Old Testament - The Israelites are told to listen to God over and over, to listen to their prophets, and to listen to their king. Samuel presents himself to God by telling Him, "Speak, Lord, your servant listens." Psalms and Proverbs, the pleas and the wisdom, all include God and His servants listening. And of course, Jesus ends many parables with the final thought, "He who has ears, let him hear."

And you know why?

Because God is always calling. 

And we are not always listening.

Instead, we're usually talking.

"God, I pray for this." 

"God, please do that."

"God, why did you do (or allow) this?"

We just need to shut up once in awhile. If there are answers to these questions, they are not in the noise of prayers or even of worship. They are in that still, small voice we keep talking about but rarely heed.  They are in the silence because in silence is communion and, in communion, few answers are required. 

Oswald Chambers said, "The call of God is like the call of the sea. No one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him." 

He who has ears for God will hear Him. 

Image: dreamstime

The Price of Consolation - Living Like a Desert Father

 

Some words have more than one meaning. Take 'Consolation', for instance. In its most common use, it can mean the sweet ministrations of empathy given in a difficult moment. To a comtemplative, however, - that is, someone who works to develop their spiritual life through meditation and/or study - it means something quite different. It means achieving and maintaining life in the presence of God. Consolation = Connection and fellowship with God. 

The Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks, lived in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria starting around the 3rd century AD. They left the cities to seek a life of deep solitude, unceasing prayer, and spiritual combat. Sound like fun? Well, maybe not. But they discovered something many of us actively seek when we take Christ at His word that He wants to give us Peace. 

"My peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you." (John 14:27) We say it all the time, don't we? We wish it for one another. We pray for it. 

But Peace costs something.

I was reading an article in America magazine recently about a young woman who hung up a fulfilling career to have children and raise them at home and was trying to manage the transition, perform her daily tasks, and maintain a relationship to God. Not surprisingly, she found this difficult because her new life held none of the intellectual challenge of the old. Oh, it held challenges, all right, but rather than complex problem solving and quick, tangible results, it held day after day of repetitive tasks done mostly in isolation. 

It was tough for awhile until she understood that her life resembled that of the desert fathers, who did not seek worldly success but chose instead a life of solitude, of repetitive and mundane tasks, and those tasks became essential to their paths to God. 

Are they boring? Yes. Who likes changing diaper after diaper, or washing dishes meal after meal without visible end? But it's the daily tasks that offer the brainspace for prayer. It's in the mundane that stillness is available and peace can be found. 

Want peace? This is where it can be found: in regular, intentional separation from the world; in inner quiet; in repetitive manual labor. You already know it's not found in the busyness of packed schedules or in our retreat into entertainment and devices or in homes overloaded with stuff and the shopping that gets them that way. 

When folks recommend meditation and quiet times, this is the reason. They are looking for peace. And in this confusing and hectic world, even at the price, it is worth it. 

Image: Dreamstime

Being Abraham

 

Abraham had a tough life. Sure, God considered him a friend in a way many of us can barely imagine, but really, theirs wasn't the kind of friendship most of us would relish. 

He never really got to settle in. First, God told him to leave his home in Ur without giving him a destination. That's it. Just leave. Not go to the next town or to Jerusalem or to Detroit. Just go. And, remarkably, Abraham seemed content with that. He went. Just like that, one day at a time, and ended up in Haran, after 600 miles on foot with his whole household. 600 miles.

He stayed there for awhile, and then God told him to get up and leave again, this time to the promised land in Canaan. Another 400 miles. On foot. To a land already occupied with folks they had to evict by force. And Abe did it. 

When he got there, God told him he would have a son. His wife had a few chuckles over that because of their advanced age, but Abe believed it and waited. He waited 25 years and no son came. His wife got impatient and tried to make it happen, but that didn't work out the way she planned and finally, when Abe was 100, his wife had a baby. 

Later, God told Abraham to kill his son. Yup, the same one he waited 100 years for. And Abraham prepared to do it.

Well, I feel a lot like Abraham these days. I can see what God has done and what He is doing and think I can see what God wants me to do, but for the life of me can't see how to get from point A to point B. It's like God is saying, "Go to Los Angeles" and then He breaks my legs. It's like He's promising me an impossible son. Just like Abraham. It's like He's telling me something is going to happen, but there is no possible way it can. 

And I guess that's the point. Trusting God (or anyone, for that matter) really depends on not understanding how impossibilities can actually happen. It's doing as much as we can in obedience and love, then letting the person responsible for getting the rest done just do it. After all, our aim is to fulfil God's purpose, not our own, or is supposed to be. And if the purpose is not ours, then the method by which it is accomplished is not ours, either. 

The simple way is to say it's a matter of relinquishing control, and that's probably true, but it's more than that. It's believing God is God. It's understanding the nature and reality of love. It's acknowledging that our greatest strength doesn't lie in strength of character, natural virtue, knowledge, or experience. Our greatest strength lies in our connectedness to God. It's remembering that our first and best purpose is not to succeed in our plans. It's to follow, like Abraham, where we're pointed, content to not understand why. 

Maybe that's what will make me a friend of God, too. 

Image: Crosswalk.com

How to Lose your Faith

 

Did you ever notice that you have been made human?

Well, of course you have. But it's a problem, isn't it? I mean, you were made human, but it seems like every time we turn around, we're being told to be something else. More spiritual, more perfect, more like Jesus. And none of these things seem to fit in to the reality of humanity. Humanity is random, very flesh and blood, and full of error. It's a thing, for sure. What exactly, then, are we to do with these two things that seem so far apart, spirit and humanity?

Well, Simone Weil had something so say about that. 

"Whoever puts his life in his faith in God can lose his faith but he who puts his life in God Himself will never lose it."

We are often told that the bridge between the perfection of the spirit and the imperfection of humanity is faith, but Simone doesn't think that works. The problem is that faith only stops with the act of believing and doesn't go far enough. Believing isn't going to do it because it centers on us, not on God. Believing is what we do, not who we are supposed to be believing in . Believing is a created thing. We create it with our mind and intellect. And as such, it is as misguided a goal as wealth or fame. Faith is just a thing. It's God we really want, isn't it? And God isn't reached by faith or any kind of constructed belief or practice. God is reached by encounter and fellowship directly with Him. 

It's kind of like believing the Bible. If belief in and following the Bible is our goal, that's one thing. But it can end up kind of like worshiping a book. A good book for sure, but it is still a book. The Bible is not God. It may be from God or about God, but it is not God. Neither is faith. The Bible and faith are both tools, means to an end, but not good final goals. There's more. With God, there's always more.

The temptation is to go to church, read your Bible, learn prayers and verses, then kind of dust off your hands from all the effort (and it is an effort) and think you're done. 

But that's just the beginning. It's like putting a carcass on the table without meat. There's a framework to build on, but nothing of real substance to nourish.

God gave us the Bible to lead us to Him. That's it. Nothing more. 

He gave us faith, and prayer, and church families for that, too. Nothing more. It's Him. It was always Him. 

Faith and doctrinal frameworks provide support on which those things might grow, but there's little point in growing a tomato plant if you never pick the tomatoes. 

Faith is not the fruit of a well-lived life. Life in God is. Faith is temporary. You will not need it in heaven. 

Knowing your Bible is not the fruit of a well-lived life. God is. You will not need someone else's idea of what God is saying in heaven.

Building a strong church is not the fruit of a well-lived life. God is. You will be part of a church with no walls, no hymns, no bake sales in heaven. 

When God tells us to focus on the eternal, He means Himself. 

So lose your faith, and focus on Him, where faith becomes irrelevant because He is so real.

image: beliefnet

I Need a Hero

 

I went to see Chris Nolan's Odyssey yesterday.

I couldn't resist, having a sincere weakness for Homer and his epic poems - that Nolan should attempt this fabulous tale, one that has never lost its fascination, was worth the ticket alone. But it didn't work for me.

We left half way through, unsatisfied, and not knowing at first exactly why. I was just disappointed, deflated, knowing that something crucial was missing. And then my companion shook his head. I didn't see Odysseus, he said. All I saw was Matt Damon. That was it. It was impossible, incredible, but Nolan had made the Odyssey without a real hero. Matt either didn't have it in him or couldn't find it or was directed badly. Never mind that Telemachus was almost Woke or that the CG was better than some of the acting. The movie tried really hard, but in the end, at least for me, it fell flat. 

Then I started to think. Why is Homer so important, so lasting? I think it's that we love heroes.

Oh sure, there's a lot of talk about sports heroes and that kind of thing, but a real hero? They are a bit harder to come by. And what defines them? Bonnie Tyler, in 1984, thought she knew:

Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?

Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night, I toss and I turn, and I dream of what I need

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon

And he's gotta be larger than life, larger than life  

And maybe she wasn't too far from right on. Okay, the white knight business is a bit much, but some of rest sounds pretty right. Strong and fast, sure and right on time. That makes a lot of sense. Someone who brings just what we need when we can't and it seems like we need it so much. It's not always someone like Hercules or Odysseus or Achilles. It's not always even a man. Sometimes it's the person who is standing right next to you, the one who reaches into your chaos without fear and says "lean on me". And then does it. Every time. 

As far as films go, Uberto Pasolini and Ralph Fiennes did much better by Odysseus in his The Return. Here was an Odysseus I could understand. 

Worn from 20 years of war and struggle, he was visibly shredded, but found something in him that was larger than life and became the hero, not because he killed all the bad guys and came home to the girl, but because battled his own demons and won right before our eyes. Better than that, in the process he gathered in the people around him and proved true. 

There aren't many people like this in our world. There's a lot of flash and a lot of emotion, but real heroes? Not so much. They might be there, but they're hiding in plain sight most of the time.

You know, most of us can handle our day-to-day crises, even the larger ones that rear their nasty heads. But there are those days when our resources are at an end, when our doubts and fears get the best of us, and it's on those days we long for a hero who will stand in the gap of our weaknesses. 

I have two of them. There is God of course, who never fails and when my faith is strong enough to hold on to Him who has no flesh and blood, I gather all the strength I need from Him. But there are still those days when I shrink and fade in the face of the world's roller coaster. That's when my life's companion steps in. His hands, very much flesh and blood, reach out and catch me with confidence, strong and always right on time, and then hold on tight until I stop shaking.

May we all need to be someone's hero. It's in there. We just need to find it.

Sullying the Image

 

Mediocrity.

Good, comfortable, mediocrity.

No one rises above anyone else. No one keeps score in case someone might show themselves more able, more bold, than someone else. We are not only all equal in our dignity and humanity but we are all the same in our abilities and our courage. There are no heroes. There are no innate leaders. We are not challenged. We are satisfied.

Bah. 

Even Jesus knew that a society founded on mediocrity doesn't work. 

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." -Rev 3: 15-16

I am often mocked for finding truth in philosopher (and fierce capitalist) Ayn Rand, but sometimes, I just can't help it. Some of what she has to say rings true.

We don't want any great men. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept, and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop incentive to improvement, to perfection. 

This is why Jesus spits the mediocre out of His mouth. He wants excellence. He made us for perfection.

"Be ye perfect, like my heavenly Father is perfect." - Matthew 5:48

Perfect. And He's not kidding.

We may forget that we were made in God's image, but He hasn't. He did it and we are expected to live up to it. That means to be the best we can be, the most Christ-like, the most holy. We are to strive, not slump into perpetual, amused relaxation. 

There's a reaon for this.

There will always be venal men or women who will exploit our ennui. They will take advantage of our contentedness with the average and rise above, not with ability or nobility but with shrewdness, greed, and calculated corruption. Look around. We already live, at least partially, in this world. Do you wonder why?  Look in the mirror.

To what extent have you been given a vision of a life, a community, that offered something more than vanilla and done little to work toward it?

When have you been satisfied not with your best, but with just good enough?

To what extent have you traded the hours of your life to being amused?

Even the church can forget that, although we are taught to be the servant of one another, that assumes that everyone involved understands the principle of godly service. When some don't, we don't have a community of mutual service, but of servants and masters. Instead of all of us serving God, we end up serving someone who has no God. We are not to yield our godly image to them. We are not to forsake our holiness or our excellence to the service of those who dominate and destroy. 

We are responsible for preserving what we've been given and this is done one soul at a time. It is done starting with you.

image: istock

Who's Dying When We Kill Time?

 

"One cannot kill time without injuring eternity." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

This is where I get to air a pet peeve.

I get really edgy when someone tells me they are doing something because it "takes up the time" or because it "makes the time pass".

  Are you kidding me?

I am 74 years old and the one single resource I have in shortest supply is time. I weigh almost everything I do in terms of whether it is worth the time I'm allowing it. Should I read this book? Not if it doesn't do enough for me to be worth the slice of my dwindling life I have to allot it. Should I take this trip? Not if all it does is relieve a state of boredom that I shouldn't be subject to anyway. If I'm bored, it isn't because I'm not enough amused. It's because I'm not enough interested or curious.

Henry David was right. 

Life is the supreme gift. Just the privilege of being alive. Acknowledging this gift means that every moment must be lived, really felt and experienced and noted as it passes. Just being aware of our surroundings, as he was, is enough to fill us with wonder. The change of seasons. The chance to laugh with someone. To watch something grow. To smell fresh ground spices or fresh peaches hot coffee or wet paint. To feel our muscles move when we dig a hole or dance or embrace someone we love.  

Once, when I was talking to my daughter-in-law, Gina, trying to understand why she kept such a seemingly frantic schedule for herself and her family, she just shrugged and told me, "These days won't last forever and I don't want to miss a thing." In essence, she was telling me that she doesn't want just to witness her life pass. She wants to live it.

The specific intention to live makes amusement a thief.

Eternity is the tree of life that grows from the seed of a moment. Moments do not exist as separate entities but as contracted wholes, not strung one to another but discrete entireties. If we don't look out, we will run out of the time we're trying so hard to make pass. And then, it is not only time we run out of, but all of life and we will be left wondering where it's gone.

image: Illimilab

Marketing God: What Separation Wrought in the Church

 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

 The first part of the first amendment of the Constitution, written at a time when a state-proclaimed and -authorized religion was the order of the day and citizens could be prosecuted for practicing any other. Look carefully. It was not designed to protect the state from religion, but religion from the state.

And when the First Amendment put up the wall between church and state, something else happened. Religion became a new marketplace. New faith systems, and splinters from those faith systems, sprung up from disgruntled and fractionalized believers, creating a landscape of hundreds - literally hundreds - of different denominations. In the process, they made themselves compete for believers in a way not much different from the way competing advertisements praise their laundry soaps or SUVs. 

A cynic might shake their head and muse that, of course their mandate is to preach the gospel to all the world - they need to fill their pews and increase the target pool, though that is not likely to be their main motive. After all, the command to preach is part of the gospel and assuming it wasn't one of those add-ons that are uprooted from time to time, needs to be taken seriously from a viewpoint beyond marketing. However...however....

The result of abolishment of a national religion cannot be denied. We have churches that unabashedly appeal to those who demand entertainment and an uplifting, but often shallow, Sunday morning experience. We have religions based on doctrine or atmosphere rather than an experience of God. We have parishioners who stay in a church only so long as they are not challenged or offended, then readily migrate to the next one. We have every kind of worship practice from rock bands and strobe lights to snake charmers and Bible thumpers. 

It's hard to look at the total landscape of divisive faith flavors and not wonder what in the world this has to do with the Jesus they (or at least some of them) claim to follow, the Jesus of the sermon on the mount, the Jesus who had no church building, or anywhere to lay His head, and apparently needed none to effectively follow His Father. 

image: religious freedom/Old Life

The Sun is Always Rising

 

I took this photo from the middle aisle of a 787 on the way to Rome. I'd been tracking our progress: Chicago, Michigan, Toronto, Montreal, Nova Scotia, and then this. A brilliant full moon over what I knew was nothing but miles of ocean. A full moon that dazzled the eye of the plane window. A moon and nothing else but black sea below. 

But I knew the direction we were heading - the plane was flying to Rome - East, directly toward the rising sun. The moon wouldn't last long. We were leaving it behind.

It's always that way. The sun is always rising somewhere even when all looks black where I happen to be. Today, I get to catch up to it and hold it almost in my hands, possessing its power to turn the world bright and hot again. 

The way home, which I took in a little over three weeks, holds the same sun in stasis for hours, like it did for Joshua at Gibeon, daylight getting neither shorter or longer, until we land back in Chicago after ten hours in the air, but at almost the same time of day. 

The world is big and round and we could, if we wanted to stay in motion, experience a constant rising sun, a world of unextinguishable hope and possiblity. All we have to do is stay above the surface, gliding along it at the same pace as the globe is turning, and we never have to leave the brimming daylight behind. 

This is not a practical possibility, of course. We have to live a life somewhere in the process, but it can be a sustainable state of mind. We can, if we want, remember on our darkest days that the sun is still rising somewhere.

Defining Beauty

 I'm back in Florence.

This time, I took the whole family. There are nine of us - children,  one of the spouses, and all five granddaughters. And me. And this time, they made the itinerary. I told them to choose whatever fascinated them the most, hoping of course, they would see in it what I did: the grandeur of the Renaissance, the beauty of the art, and the history of politics, and the glory of God. And, of course, they did not. They chose very differently. A favorite winery, an interactive museum, a fortress town from a video game. Except  to see the David, no one wanted to go near an art gallery. Except for the Vatican and the  Pantheon, no one was interested in a church. 

It's not generational. It's more temperament, I think. Anyway, whatever it is, what brought me to Florence, and what keeps me going back, is the beauty. In art, in architecture, in science, in literature, in music, in the easy statliness of the ringing bells and the delightful lilt of Italian voices. It is all beautiful, and weaves an intoxicating web that catches me every time. I don't care much about the shopping or the gelato. I do care about the chanted rhytum of the nunc dimitis and the graceful swing of the bells in the campanile. I care about the marbeled eyes of a hero that seem to really see.

 I care about the medallion in the Piazza de la Signoria commemorating the hanging and burning of my favorite renegade monk, Girolamo Savanarola, 

I care about the  second floor garden that confined the imprisoned Galileo. I care about trying to figure out whether the Medicis, who largely financed Renaissance art, were benefactors or tyrants (they were probably both).

Lorenzo the Magnificent

For a long time, I couldn't figure out why I cared about any of this, then Simone Weil told me:

"Beauty is the incarnation of God in the world so all first rate art is inherently religious. Beauty is the real presence of God in matter."

That's exactly it. Beauty is how God shows Himself in the world. That's why we all recognize it in some form. God is in all of us, but the extent to which we seek out God determines the extent to which we are able to appreciate beauty. Beauty is part of our blood and bone in the same way as is oxygen or iron. There's a disease in Florence called Stendahl Syndrome - literally a malady characterised by dizziness or fevers- that is the result of too much beauty too fast. 

Beauty is the way we bridge the gap between God and man. Another piece of Weil wisdom: 

"Workers need poetry more than bread. Only religion - God - can be the source of this poetry. Its deprivation explains all forms of demoralization. Slavery is work without the light of eternity." 

And we are meant to bridge that gap. That, I think, is our main job as humans. That's the reason for the Eucharist - to apply the glory of God to material cells. 

"Manual work is time entering the body. Through work, man becomes matter like Christ in the Eucharist. "

Exactly. God gives us Himself. In bread. In art. In work. In beauty. 

Florence image: History Extra

David image: Fine Art America

Savanarola image: Alamy

Lorenzo image: Wikipedia

More Simone Weil: The Choice or: Nobody Ever Wins a War

 Every once in a while, not often mind you, a philosopher will say exactly the right thing in a short, concise form that really hits home. Today, Simone Weil did that for me.

"Whoever takes the sword will perish by the sword. Whoever lets go of it will perish by the cross."

Perfect.

Now let's do a little unpacking. The first part will be familiar to most people. Jesus said, "Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword." We get that, well, in theory anyway. None of us do it. Not really. Everybody doesn't have a basement full of guns and ammo, but almost all of us are inclined to take God's justice ("Vengence is mine; I will repay, says the Lord" - Deut 32:35) into our own hands. Defending the defenseless, or even giving the bad guys what we think they have coming to them, seems like standard procedure. What else are we to do? 

Well, maybe take God at His word. Don't do it. Just don't. 

But what then, some of us wonder. What if no one stops the playground bully? He grows up to be Don Trump. What if no one stops Hitler? We all end up speaking German and clicking our heels. Or do we? I mean, no one really knows what would happen because no one has really tried. 

OK, a few have - Ghandi and Martin Luther King, for example, but things didn't go really well for them, did it? Minor victories, but nothing universally world-changing. And yet we admire them for what they did do. We know on some level that humans were not meant to exact violent revenge on one another. We were not meant to kill each other. Even in an effort to save innocent lives.

I've often wondered what would happen if we stopped taking revenge, or even defense, against a clearly evil enemy. First off, I think a lot of innocent people would die. A lot more even than in the fighting, perhaps. And at the end of it. we would still be stuck with a tyrant. That's not a happy ending, and it kind of proves Simone's second point. Once we lay down our weapons, we will die anyway, but by the cross, by sacrifice, without personally perpetrated, heart-destroying violence. It could happen, and I can't help feel there's some kind of salvation in it. After all, nobody wins a war. Ever. 

That's one thing about philosophers. They are some of the few people who admit everyone is going to die and really believe it. That's most of the cause of all their angst, but it does lead to a good, heavy dose of reality. We have to choose how we are going to live and in doing so, choose to a great degree how we are going to die. Because we will die, you know. We all will. And what will we be holding onto at the end? The self-righteous end of an .357 or  the cross? If my own death is going to count for something, let it speak of love.

Image: Sportsman Outdoor Superstore

What is Your Myth? - or - Living with Comfortable Fictions or Taking the Red Pill

 

We are obsessed with truth. We want it. From everyone.

But do we really? My late husband Dave had a reputation, not always a good one, for always telling the truth, a reputation that included unwelcome truths as well as welcome ones. Some folks thought this some kind of superpower, but some thought it anathema and issued warnings to anyone asking his opinion about anything. 

We spend so much of our time keeping company with pleasant truths, you see. Did you ever watch a Hallmark movie? Did you ever just want someone to tell you that, in spite of appearances, everything was going to be all right? I do. And I want to hear it because I know that often, it won't. Pleasant fiction.

John F. Kennedy has something to say about this when he gave an address at Yale University in 1962: 

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

Oh, boy.

Myths. Preconcieved ideas. Cliches. Ideas that look like truths but feed vacant wishes. Premises that distort all of our possible futures with unlikely or impossible promises. Happily ever after endings.

That just isn't life. 

But we still color our outlooks with worldview. Here are a few examples:

• The Cleavers - the concept that there is or was a perfect family whose every member understood their role and lived contentedly in it, not making waves, and smiling when they took out the garbage.
• John Wayne - the idea that there is a simple world where black is black and white is white, where the good guys wore the right hat so you could recognize them and always win in the end without being scarred by the men they had to kill to get there.
• Consipracy Theory - the worldview that knows nothing is what it seems, that everyone you meet is out to get you, that no one can be trusted
• That Old Time Religion - A basic assurance that everything one needs to know about God is in the Bible, that church structure can be trusted implicitly, that nothing good can ever be added to or subtracted from what one hears in church on Sunday
• Blood is always thicker - the idea that family precludes every other relationship, that blood relationships inevitably tie people together no matter what, that even though people grow and change, family will love one and respect another forever.

Forgive me if these betray my own personal prejudices - they undoubtedly do - but I know folks who hold these worldviews and even though they are a source of consolation to them, a comfortable way of living in a confusing world, they are also a source of almost constant disillusionment because, well, because they're not true. 

No worldview always applies. No overall ideology works in every circumstance. They are myths. Myths that help us cope, to be sure, but myths nonetheless. 

The truth is that the world is a constantly changing combination of goods and evils shifting every moment, necessitating that we keep on our toes if we are going to stay within rails of reality. In short, we have to THINK. We have to go through the agony of figuring things out if we want to live in the real world. We have to take the red pill. It isn't always fun, but at least it's real. 

Image: The Telegraph

Being Blind Bart

 

Years ago, I was the fortunate writer of and participant in an annual passion play my Richland Center, Wisconsin church wrote and produced called "The Keys, the Cross, and the Kingdom." There are lots of stories and memories arising from those years, but one of the enduring is Blind Bart's. You know, Bartimaeus the blind, annoying beggar from Mark's gospel:

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and His disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus, was sitting by the roadside, begging. When he heard it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!" Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and said "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?", Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."  "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately, he received his sight and followed Jesus. --Mark 10: 46-52.

Good old Blind Bart, persistent Blind Bart, annoying Blind Bart. I like him. There he crouched, in the middle of a pressing crowd, yelling at the top of his lungs to get Jesus’ attention. People around him told him to shut up and he wouldn’t. And what did Jesus do? He stopped dead and looked around, telling his disciples to bring this loudmouth closer and when Bart got there, Jesus looked at this blind beggar and asked him a question. “What do you want me to do for you?” SERIOUSLY? Here’s this guy, blind, ragged, and dirty, and Jesus doesn’t know what he wants?

Of course He does. But He wants Bart to know it, too. He wants Bart to say it. 

Something similar happened to my late husband and I years ago. When my husband was very ill near the end of his life, he was referred to a doctor who looked him right in the eye and told Dave he would not get better, that he would continue to sicken and at some point not too distant he would die. That took courage to say and for us, courage to hear. But the part that came next was the most important. Dave was given homework. He was to determine the thing he valued most about life, that thing should he be left without, he would not want to get up in the morning. Then he was to focus what remained of his life on that thing. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Jesus.

Predictably, Bart says, “I want to see”. Ironically, that’s what Jesus wants for him, too. In fact, that’s what Jesus wants for all of us. To see. He wants us to see Him. He wants us to see ourselves through His eyes. He wants us to understand what we’re asking for when we pray and to look deeper than our latest catastrophe. He wants us to acknowledge what we desire and more importantly, why we desire it.

When Jesus asks us “What do you want me to do for you?” it may be that the best answer is to remember that He is already in us. Maybe the best answer is for Him to help make us holy.

Image: Jesus Film Project