Faith Reconfiguring

Wanting

2010-06-04T10:58:00.001-07:00

Maybe my main job is to nurture passion, or as Jesus called it, “hunger and thirst for goodness”. Passion for God … for life … for healing … for hope … for justice. This is my job.

Now, passion is a dangerous thing if it goes wrong. “Crimes of passion” should include religious wars and judgmental hostilities to those who think different from us. Thus, passion is best when it is pastored, shaped, guided. At my ordination as a pastor I used the image of a controlled burn.

But without the burn, nothing happens. Where there is energy there is heat. When the news of more job layoffs brings you to a painful desiring for those affected to be whole and safe, that is from your deepest passion. Even the anger over the government’s and bankers’ irresponsibility is from that honorable place, though we can take it crazy places.

When you want badly to see a child healed or a war ended, a relationship reconciled or poverty ended, you do that from your passion for God, for life, for healing, for hope and for justice.

When we play the cynic, or pretend that we can prefer detachment or distraction, we lie to our core. We are in love. No amount of work, or television, or computer gaming can really deplete your hunger.

You thirst for the best of reasons. Feel it in your taste buds! Listen to God in your soul. Don’t rush. The hunger doesn’t die. But do stay engaged. This wanting … it’s in your nature!

Abortion

2010-05-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Rigid extremes are not what a woman dealing with an unplanned pregnancy needs. Neither are words of scorn and judgment helpful when she has to make the maximally difficult decision of what to do about it. While some faith families are sure that a pregnancy is always to be saved, they can be quite tone deaf to the question of protecting the woman carrying that pregnancy. Here are some thoughts from a different perspective that can be helpful for you, or when you deal with others concerned with moms in crisis pregnancies or about the abortion/stem cell debates:

We are taught to take artificial positions on abortion, as if pro-choice isn’t pro-life and vise versa. This is a game of hatred-brewing that damages our ability to hear each other and even hear the Spirit speak. Fund raisers and lobbyists nourish this dichotomy, and if we were further removed from the debate, we would find them and their extreme positions absurd and hilarious.

Everyone wants happy, healthy babies to be born into ready, happy, and healthy families. Don’t you just love kids and smile from the inside out when you see healthy families! While we can disagree on particulars, it is artificial and nonsense to believe that people who view the abortion debate differently than us don’t want that just like we do.

But that Isn’t the Whole Story, Is It? Crisis pregnancies happen in virtually every community in the world every day, and more so in areas where birth control and abortion are hard to access. And a desperate mom does not need theoretical debate or pressure. She needs the same access as any other mom could have to quality medical care!

The religious community is divided into two broad camps, mainline Protestant and Jewish communities on one hand, the Catholic and Fundamentalist Christians on the other. One focuses on compassion to the expectant mother and the other on compassion to the baby she carries. The United Methodist Social Principles speak of the “tragic conflict of life with life” but still insist the decision on abortion is a private one between a woman and a skilled care provider.

The Jewish point of view on the beginning of fully actual human life is that it begins at birth. “God … breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being”. In Exodus 21 a forced loss of pregnancy is worked into a legal discussion about when the community of God in the fragile early years of Israel should use capital punishment, since there were no prisons. A hypothetical situation is raised: two men fight, and a pregnant woman steps in to stop them. She is struck and lives, but loses her child. Is this time to pay “life for life”? The clear answer in this text is No. The child was not yet a born, breathing baby. A fine should be paid. It is a real and tragic loss. But it is not fully actual life in the same sense of a born child.

Anti-abortion advocates don’t focus on these Biblical guidelines, perhaps out of fear that this will lead to under valuing life itself, especially that of the vulnerable. Their Biblical inspiration comes from poetic lines in psalms and prayers, like Psalm 139, “You knew me in my mother’s womb”. Also the anti abortion teachings find passion in the Bible’s condemnation of people who “offer their children in the fire” to the god Moloch, a hideous child sacrifice ritual with commonalities in many cultures. But of course, these are born children. Even in the staunchly pro-choice community, you never meet a soul who would not risk their lives to save a born child, so the child sacrifice analogy is irrelevant to the concerns of either side. It is sure hard, though, to find common ground when some view the thoughtful choices of others as murder.

However “pro-life” you may view yourself, unless you believe a mother and a doctor choosing to have or assist an abortion should be tried as murderers, you are functionally on the “pro-choice” side. And you have many friends who have had an abortion. Most of them don’t strike any of us as death row candidates.

Our real tasks are these: First, to work to make birth control options viable for anyone, yes even of young people. Our thoughts about sex among the young should not cloud our commitment to provide for their safety and protection. And in many places, this means confronting an anti-condom culture among men in certain “macho” sub-cultures.

Second, compassion for the living pregnant woman matters a great deal as we ponder the possibilities for the developing embryo. A teenager saw anti abortion leaflets showing a sonogram of an embryo six weeks from conception. His response? “Where is the mother?” he asked. He pointed out that the photo gives no sense of the needs or situation of the mother whose body this embryo was in!

Third, we must say an absolute NO to those who would have us hate each other over our differences. Pro-life and pro-choice people have great swaths of reasoning and purpose in common, and no lobby or demagogue should be allowed to obfuscate that. My position is mother-centric, but in our church we have several members who lean on the anti abortion side. We talk. We challenge each other. But we don’t deny each other the right to work for positions that we each feel compelled to.

And most important, we are called to be agents of healing and grace for those who have tough choices to make. Moms and Dads need a bigger community on their side and laws that support family health. And women in painful conflicts should have as many options as possible available to them so they can choose the best ways to move forward into life making and life sharing. And we need to be there for them and with them.

Now that President Obama has launched the American stem cell sciences again, this issue, too, is more tender for our fundamentalist friends. Stem cells are usually most available from embryonic tissue. This means that we need to be clearer about how we see abortion before we can understand and take reasoned positions on research and curative work with stem cells. Balancing our hopes for healing therapies from stem cell research with our concerns about the unborn will help us see what “pro-life” really means.

Do well

Suicide

2010-05-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

There is no laughter here.

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Suicide: If you come from certain religious traditions you might think I would condemn those who commit suicide, or assume they have committed an unforgivable sin and will be judged by God as having done so. Please know that is not the position of most Christians. The United Methodist Social Principles state that “nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God”.
But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? Almost all the time, suicide is more like leaving a bomb inside the lives of surviving family and friends. Leaving the pain behind in suicide leaves a hundred times the pain in the survivors. I am a survivor. I have had close friends commit suicide. Most days I cannot even approach my own pain over the loss. And I’m a pretty healthy guy emotionally. And those who commit suicide leave their survivors at much greater risk of suicide themselves.

I tell people at church that I thought about it. On a particularly bad day in college, I got as close as I have ever gotten to it. But for me, that was only once. Almost everyone has an id moment at some point, and some people hardly ever have the thought far from their minds. They are choosing to live every day despite that possibility gnawing at them as a pathetic temptation.

Here’s Where I Get In Trouble: The states that have allowed assisted suicide actually become a strong argument for something else. Very few people use that option. Why? Because to do so in those states requires people work through counseling for their depression and anger, and get access to appropriate pain and mood management medication and that they wait through a period that lasts longer than most people’s rage.
Suicide is most often a function of depression (see my blog on depression in the archives) or pain or mood disorders or rage. The few using assisted suicide are the exceptions to much of that, and therefore their situation isn’t much of a useful comparison to the vast number of suicides and the times when you or your friends and family have considered it. It is a solution of impatience. Considering suicide is a cheap, fast food kind of way of avoiding dealing with those other issues. But when you hurt, you are sometimes not sensible.

On the other hand, who among us has never opted for fast food?

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Life has many ups and downs. We all will grieve, and lose, and hurt, and be in funks that defy logic. And we will all have depressions and angers that brew in deep places.

And someone near you will do it. We all suffer when one person commits suicide.

Love your life. And get help when you are struggling. At least have one confidant you would tell if you are not safe with yourself.

And look out for each other. Love their lives enough to ask and care about their answer as to how they are doing in times of stress.

Do well.

Waaaay Different

2010-03-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m going to choose to laugh. We all know that occasionally good people get attacked for doing good. And churches get attacked sometimes just like synagogues and others just for their beliefs and faith families. But once in a while you hear an attack that has to be laughed at. There is no other choice unless you want to mourn and panic to death. This is a topper.

A TV, radio and internet star “news” guy has been
attacking churches for their
advocacy of justice.

You may actually run into friends who ask you whether your church advocates “social justice” or “economic justice”. They may turn pale if you say yes!

If you take the call to justice out of the prophetic books in the Bible, they would be maybe 80% shorter. It is the primary issue in books like Amos, Hosea, Micah, and many more. John the Baptist raises the issue; Jesus indicates it is the primary matter in the separating of the sheep from the goats. And now we have Glenn Beck saying we should only go to churches where everyone wants to be a goat.

We would have a waaaay different Bible and waaaaaaay different message if we took justice out of it. “What does the Lord require of you, but that you do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God”? (Micah 6:8). I’ve been a Republican Christian, and I’ve been a Democrat Christian, but may God never leave me, so I may never be a justice-free Christian! And you too!

Do well

Something Missing

2010-02-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

The season of Lent typically starts after a day of feasting and joy called “Fat Tuesday” or Mardi gras. The day is usually celebrated at the church I pastor by a dessert bash, and a fun, wild night. Where was it this year??

Two months ago the Haiti earthquake happened and saddened the whole world. That occurred after we had ourselves been through an almost two year long recession that nearly became the worst economic event for 80 years.

I miscalculated two months ago. I thought we would still be so pained that we would not be able to do a good job feasting and laughing. So, looking two months ahead, which is how I typically plan, I left off pursuing this event.

Boy was I wrong. Instead of just mourning Haiti, our whole country, and by all means our area, have put their energy into raising money and truly doing fantastic things for Haiti.

We appear to be creeping out of recession.

It is hard to suppress hope. It is the basic orientation of the journey of faith. My bad for thinking we would mope instead of work. My apologies for forgetting the power of a faith family to aim high, do good, and cherish the lives we have been given.

Hope you had a fun preparation. Now, Ash Wednesday comes and the stretching season of Lent. Work it! Stretch into your future, and don’t underestimate the power of hope.

Do well.

2010-02-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

When Sin Helps

News Item: A week or so ago the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations, under the understanding that they are legal entities like a person is, have every right to contribute as much money as they want into election campaigns (within the “soft money” limits). Many theoreticians think this may be the worst blow dealt democracy in our history, or at least possibly so. I am choosing to believe, or at least passionately hope otherwise, although I am referring my friends to www.movetoamend.org.

The thing that fascinates me though about this is the perspective behind this ruling. Remember the bank bailout? It came from an idea called deregulation, which posits that banks and other corporations will do what is good for us because it is in their self interest. Notice what is missing? Will they fool themselves into doing foolish things? Should someone watch out for their dumbest inclinations if they do? Who should that be (since stockholders typically have no way to influence the corporate system)? An understanding of sin in the ancient meaning is what is missing from this theory.

Now we have corporations buying elections. They won’t ruin democracy since that is not in their self interest. They won’t buy up all the press so you can’t even hear the other side, now will they? They won’t misjudge and self justify their most egregious behavior. Or will they? Or will I if given enough unchecked power? Or will you?

The ancient idea of sin, unlike our modern prurient one, contended wisely that we can all fool ourselves. While having divergent ideas about traditional faith, the early American founders had no doubt about this principle, thus establishing the three branches of government to check each other, and blessing a free press to challenge even them.

We are helped to humility by the ancient view of sin. It reminds us we can be self deceptive, even to the point of self destruction (can I get an “amen” from my twelve step friends!). The newer view of sin is mostly self assault and judging others for personal flaws. That is not what the concept taught originally. It taught we can all misfire. We need checks and balances. We need a system for rigorous self examination or we can lose everything.

DISASTER

2010-01-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

What irony for us to go through a shakeup with the recent earthquake and to see three days later the most hideous imaginable collapse in Haiti. The way neighbors checked in on each other here is multiplied in thousands there. More than that, it’s multiplied in millions in the way the whole world responds to crises like this one.

Even here, we began a discussion immediately as to whether we should reroute our Mexico trip or send a separate detail to Haiti, although our excellent resource people in the United Methodist Church family are not telling us yet when people going there will be as valuable as our money going there first. That will be the primary question we ask.

Two things to remember: first, for all the existential angst about where God is when horrible things happen, something profoundly spiritual happens in our world when all of us know from our depths that we must get involved with others’ healing and recovery. When most of the nations of the world send Haiti relief, we must note the very hand of God in that act.

Second, the best disaster responses are coordinated ones, and the major agencies of world charity and non profit work are working that ballet as they do with most emergencies (though some organizations work with others better in different situations). Remember, the United Methodist Committee on Relief’s response focuses more on long term recovery. They were the very last relief agency to leave the area after the floods in the Chico/Yuba City that we went through in the mid ‘90s. They will send water and doctors and supplies to Haiti, but they will be there long after the immediate response is over, building buildings and lives.

This commitment to long term relief means UMCOR work goes on for years in some places (yes, they still solicit teams of volunteers for the area hit by hurricane Katrina, and Eureka UMC sends a team there each year even now). May God bless every relief agency and team member, and all the survivors in Haiti. And may we as United Methodists take our role in that blessing by committing to remember the people there for years, not weeks.

SOMETHING BETTER THAN OPTIMISM

2010-01-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Are pessimists disillusioned optimists? Are optimists just people who haven’t been through a critical mass of pain? Is there a better and more realistic approach to life than either one of these?

While studies seem to indicate that optimists have the better time with life, and I would in most senses recommend that point of view, optimism can be rooted in facts that can change. Disappointments can devastate the optimist, sometimes more than is tolerable. I suggest there is an even healthier perspective.

Beyond the optimist’s confidence that good will come and suffering and loss will decrease, and beyond the pessimist’s certain knowledge that the optimist is wrong, and that suffering and loss WILL increase, is a truer wisdom visible in the whole argument of Jewish and Christian scripture. Let me summarize it like this:

Pain and loss will always be with us, and
will increase with years and knowledge,
but life, even at its most wounded,
will always be sacred and beautiful.
We live in a love and grace
bigger than any pain we can ever know.

I have watched many saints transcend constant horrific suffering, receptive to God’s presence, appreciative, keenly aware and attuned to the sacred, transcending situations in a way that I can only term mystical. [I will write another time on finding communion with God’s pain at our suffering.]

In your new year, may you be blessed, healthy, relieved of much stress, financially stable, and satisfyingly engaged and happy! But may you grow deeply and vitally into the love of God that is, to quote the bible, “sufficient for you” in all situations. May you choose always to see God’s sacred presence in all those you meet and in every situation you find yourself in. God does not desire our pain or our suffering, but God is always here. Always. And where God is, there is beauty and mercy.

Do well in the new year.

HEY, THANKS

2009-12-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

Many of you have noted that I have repeatedly said lately, "To turn away from spotting goodness and celebrating - it is the beginning of psychic devastation."I'm serious; I believe that suicidal thinking is rooted in this very act: not intentionally noticing and appreciating the gifts in our lives.

So, I wanted to wait until after the Thanksgiving holiday to note my appreciation for all of you in my life. I don't just celebrate you on holidays. I love the life I have been given, and all of you who share it with me. I am often embarrassed that I have lived this richly in terms of friends, adventures, strengths, and opportunities to do some good in the world.

It seems like I have lived many lifetimes. It is hard to believe all these friends, adventures, strengths, and opportunities can be compacted into one life.

Oh, God, thanks you! And to all of you, thanks a million fold!

May you spend time, real time, today and in the next few days and weeks intentionally noticing all the gifts, friends, stories, strengths, and opportunities to do good that enrich you. May you dance your soul out, and laugh and listen to music. May you care with passion, work with price, and pray with ecstasy and depth.

God looks good in you, as does life itself.

Thanks,

Do well.

ONE OF THE LEAST POPULAR IDEAS IN AMERICA

2009-12-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

We are a nation with two recently “discovered” problems: First, we don’t like to pay for what we get when we get it, preferring to rely on credit (or fantasy). Second, we optimists tend to ignore the struggles of others, which has led to a bizarre abstraction of lack of interest in the public over our current wars! These two issues as a matrix have revealed a profound imbalance in our lives.

You will probably not be surprised that I am about to argue for an unpopular new idea that has surfaced in the White House, supported by a minority of both parties. Let me share the context first, since many will hate the proposal while missing the brilliance within it.

At the same time the war in Afghanistan began, we heard from our politicians that after the economic stoppage of 9/11, we would be doing our nation a favor if we went shopping and to entertainment and investing again. Economically, this makes sense. But we were sending people to risk their lives, and many to lose them. Not to condemn the politicians for their realistic appeals, but we were being encouraged to ignore the pain and fear and consequence in the commitment. Sound familiar?

Now some scholars on both sides of the aisle suggest we pay for an increase in troops with a tax. We, of course, will be suffocated by politicians and media criticizing the nature and math of the tax, without realizing how wise it is that there be some kind of payment that we will all participate in.

I never want my country to send people to risk their lives without in some way sharing the cost. Yes, I can donate to the United Methodist Chaplain services, and can send items to the soldiers. But in the World Wars, there were far more impacting demands put on the civilians back home that not only helped the soldiers, they spread the cost to every civilian.

I doubt the tax will pass through our phalanx of divisive, self-serving politics. But it is worth contemplating. How much do we want to be the United states? How much will we do together? What would we be willing to do to work as a union for each other’s safety and well being? More than just sending someone else and forgetting about it?

ANOTHER WOMAN THING --

2009-11-11T19:31:00.000-08:00

It broke my heart today to see the second turn in the anti-woman part of the health care debate. A few weeks ago I heard a representative had objected to reproductive health care in a Health Reform bill, saying that as a man he had no need of that. The official he said that to said something to the order of “Well your mother did”.

Now I hear that there is a concerted effort to make sure no health reform money goes for women’s access to abortion and birth control services. Hmmm … so a woman will have to go to the back alley? That is a reform??? Is that what they are calling pro-life? Won’t that cost much more in the long run?

The problem isn’t just an anti-abortion consideration. It is that the whole definition of a sex, in this case the female sex, is about reproduction issues! To define those out from a health bill is to do something very, very disturbing.

In this blog on March 12, 2009 I gave some information that has been helpful to many of you about the subject of abortion. I’d love you to go there if you haven’t. But this is about more than that. It smacks of the 1920s debate about whether women should be educated about birth control options (which were few then). It smacks of misogyny.

I wrote my congressman and senators today. Maybe you will, too.

For good insight into this crazy turn of events, you can go to rcrc.org for conversation about the issues from a faith perspective. Of course there is good stuff at ppfa.org as well.

Why does history ever wax toward oppression of women? I know that seems like a silly question after all the material we have from the feminist perspective, but it still bugs me and it hurts all of us.

Paul quoted what was apparently a central hymn in the early church in Galatians 3:28 saying that we are no longer viewed as Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we “are all one in Christ Jesus”. The issue of women’s full place in church leadership was one of the main reasons the early church had its pivotal debate about what amount of Jewish law Christians would have to follow, recounted in Acts chapter 15. That debate is what freed us to come to church even if we don’t eat kosher, aren’t circumcised, or haven’t offered sacrifice at the Temple. The church lost its way on women’s issues for generations. We can’t lose our way again.

Hey, guys, we need to make some noise here. And women, God hears you. I hope congress will, too.

Do Well

EVOLUTION

2009-10-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

Maybe the biggest trouble for the fearful side of the Christian family is the topic of evolution. Those of you who have started the Awed Life curriculum have already read some material on this. Here are some thoughts that might help.

No, evolution is not covered in the Bible text. On the other hand, neither is any scientific field. Why would they be? The Bible is not offering us scientific data, but a life with God! Wouldn’t it be a bit off the subject if suddenly the Bible gave us the Table of Elements or the Laws of Thermodynamics?

The difficulty for the fear-based Christian communities might be most related to a misreading of Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is a powerful theological argument that the creation is not scattered debris of a war between gods, as was the claim in the common myth of the Middle East in which Genesis was brought forth, called the Eneuma Elish. Genesis contends that the creation is one of extravagant kindness from a single lover that we can respond to without fear that other gods will be jealous and demand similar appreciation. But, fatefully, Genesis uses the scheme of the Eneuma Elish (seven cycles of creation) to tell its story.

The passage uses seven “days.” These are clearly used to argue for an orderly and intentional process, and a complete one, using the sane number seven of the Eneuma Elish, but with a different significance, since the Hebrews used the number seven to express complete and perfect. But did the Bible’s original authors and readers intend these days to be taken as 24-hour periods? In the passage, three of the days are before the creation of the sun, so there would have been no “day” possible in any technical sense at all!

Moreover, the Bible contains other creation stories that have different orders of what gets created, and none of these other passages uses days for a structure of the creation story at all. Examples can be found in Psalm 104, or Proverbs 8:22-31 [about the place of wisdom in the creation story]. In Jewish and historical Protestant and Catholic and Christian Orthodox churches’ intellectual communities, a sizeable majority of biblical scholars do not believe that the Bible teaches anything like a 6-day creation story. Why?

Not only for the reasons listed above, but for the persuasiveness of the emphatic Biblical argument that the creation speaks of the truth and glory of God! The Bible regularly asserts that the creation speaks the truth of Godl. I just looked up ten Psalms that have the point of view that the heavens and the earth speak God’s truth. The point is also made over and over in other books of scripture. When a scientist looks closely at a cell, a supernova, or a fossil, the creation speaks God’s truth.

This is not a point without nuance, since death is everywhere in the creation; God, from Genesis to Revelation is not a fan of death, and it too is a part of the world. But understanding that the creation is wounded, and therefore doesn’t speak with all the clarity we could long for does not negate is voice. The creation sings God’s truth. So evidence for the age of the universe in the stars or of the age of the earth in geology, or of the age and development of the species in anthropology and archaeology are the stuff of faith as well as the Word and reason and church.It is a crime that many people of faith keep their kids from learning science and “dumb down” the people whose faith could provide the most healing and positive influences in the scientific community!

Do not be afraid. The creation sings. So do you. Use you mind and your heart to listen and study the world God has given us.

WHAT IF YOU STUMBLE?

2009-10-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

What if You Stumble?

When we started the Church of the Joyful Healer, we sang a song two or three times called “What If I Stumble?” Its central question was “will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl, what if I stumble, what if I fall?”

About five years ago, a close friend of mine did something real stupid and it got in the papers where he lives. Oh, and it was ugly and scandalous. His church family abandoned him and left him isolated and humiliated. I am still angry … not over my friend’s stupid actions, but about a church of Jesus the Healer leaving a wounded one out in the cold.

I appreciate that in United Methodism, there are teams for dealing with a pastor who fails to keep his or her integrity. When someone fails themselves terribly, often that means many are hurt and wounded along with them. They are responsible for much pain. There are always consequences. You know this. When you fail people they hurt. We all do this and we all grieve when we cause others pain and heartbreak.

BUT we are in the business of healing. Our United Methodist Church family has a commitment to be about resolution and restitution. We have the agenda of reconciling and redeeming. We will have times as a local expression of these values when we will feel conflicted and horrified at the behavior of one of our church friends just like we will over our other friends, coworkers, and family.

As much as we can understand the question of responsibility and consequences, we will also be the people on the cusp of the question of redemption. That is our responsibility. We are about a daunting, and sometimes agonizing task: not just to empower the ready, but to welcome the wounded, to heal the broken, and to restore the damaged. Some days that will be you.

May we be as kind to others in their failings as we will want to be to each other in our missteps. I say this today in the luxury of the hypothetical. But today, remember who you are, so that tomorrow, you will be ready to do your work and your call. Christ heals. Sometimes, Christ heals through us.

Do well.

MARIJUANA

2009-09-16T09:24:00.001-07:00

Living in Humboldt County, USA is a constant reminder of the issues around marijuana use, and the industry behind it. Several of my friends are users, and some of them for no medical reason whatsoever. I know a few who grow and some who sell. And I am a pastor in a United Methodist Church, usually not the best connected to the marijuana community!

There are many questions related to its use that spiritual people are right to ponder:

First, there is a near-universal tendency of the human family to find pharmacological substances in nature and to use them with sometimes wisdom, and sometimes excess. Virtually every ancient culture has discovered and used substances in their environment to alter feelings of emotion, pain, and lethargy. From these we get most of our modern drug therapies and, of course, also the drug problems. This ranges from aspirin and caffeine to coca and opium.

Second, in the Jewish tradition there is a place for an occasional light buzz from alcohol as a tool of celebration, as you can see in my earlier blog on drinking. This can be easily transferred over to marijuana use, or other rather benign substances.

Third, excess in the Jewish Bible is condemned as damaging to life and to others. My big concern for non-medical marijuana use is around this topic. How often have you heard a frequent user brag on the non-addictive properties of marijuana? This is hard to hear from someone using it three times a day, or even three times a week. Deep breathing and exercise and play and reading and so many other things alter us for good without the downsides of drug use, and without requiring drug use. It is hard to admit when we have let ourselves slip into a dependency, and pot is a great one to suck us in.

On the legality issues, I always favor public acknowledgement and public tracking. With cigarettes legal, we can track the trade, tax it, watch for labor and producer abuse, and even use its income to seek to limit its use. With current marijuana law, none of that can happen. Many times you hear pot users compare its use to alcohol favorably. I understand, but those involved in alcohol production can be held to account and contribute to the public good whether they want to or not, and that is a fully appropriate societal demand. Anti marijuana laws have done much harm to individuals, and have produced very little benefit.

As to medical use, pot has some real benefit to those who have digestion problems and need palliative medical care. This seems to be an obvious place for support from the spiritual community at large.

Am I pot user? Nope. Have I ever inhaled? Yes, the last time was 34 years ago. Why not now? I love being alive, in touch with my ups and downs, and I don’t need help except from friendships, family, nature, and physical and mental work.

Do I have any … ANY interest in condemning others for pot use? Not a puff. Oh, forgive me for that. But do I hope my friends can do without, or use it very rarely, or use it in a nation with more sensible legal structures? Yes, and I’m not just puffing smoke.

(Oooh, am I going to get it for the puns)

Do well---

SHIFT

2009-08-31T19:23:00.001-07:00

Watching the wallflower is always painful, even if it is we ourselves. I recently watched a kid refuse to jump into a rambunctious game with friends for obvious fear. Then the friends wound up laughing their guts out and I saw the child who had opted out visibly grieve missing out on the joy.

We have all seen fanatics [remember the definition: someone who redoubles their effort after having forgotten their aim] in faith, and none of us wants to be associated with those people. But we have all also seen the awkward one incapable of jumping all the way in to the deep water, or into the dance, or the sport, you name it, and their over conservative approach keeps them from living fully in the moment.

There is no time like now to shift to a new level of faith living. No time like today to begin the real investment in looking for God in everything and everyone, in prayer, in church, in doing good. Changing gears always means some transition, and with new speeds come new risks, but life with no risks is not life, and faith calls us into a life of risk.

Please make a true Methodist pledge with me, too, on a related item: if you see someone going all out for their job, cause, faith, politics, you name it, please commit yourself to bless them for trying, for risking, for craving to be all in, even if it is not your cause, or perspective, or “thing”. Blessing fanaticism? No, not really--just cherishing that even the fanatic is trying to live out a call to passionate living. That doesn’t mean supporting their cause at all. [I bet you, like me, have even helped a few fanatics get into treatment or get arrested!]. A prayer like ….

“God, I see their desire for you and for living fully the life you gave to them. Help them, like me, aim better, and higher, but thank you for calling them, and me, to live truly alive. Lead me to the same passion for the best of your kingdom”.

Do well.

HABITS

2009-08-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Habits are more than just our junk food or 12 step-worthy problems; they keep us alive. From eating regularly to brushing our teeth, from calling family each month or birthday, to shopping weekly, basic, committed rhythms are what keep us from meltdowns into unstructured and disordered living.

We all know most of our bad habits by name (although our spending habits are curiously often hidden from ourselves … hmmm).

My first question is Do you know your good habits by name? If you feel like it, would you type a list of your good habits? If you’d like, click comments at the bottom of this blog and we can compare notes, or keep them to yourself. See if you can name 20 habits, and yes, you can use the suggestions in the first paragraph. Many of my readers have begun to keep a Sabbath every week, including recreation, church gatherings, and rest. Don’t forget to put that on your list if you are locking that one down.

Second, do you know how you created those habits? When? Did you do it on purpose? Were others involved in helping you shape a habit or two?

Third, which new or renewed habit would improve your journey now? Which new habit is most realistic to begin building into a routine now? What would it take to lock this in as successfully as you did others in your past?

Last, is there a habit that is destructive that you are ready to be done with? Instead of getting all pumped up to “finish it off” like we get pumped up to take on a new diet, with all the usual two weeks that it takes to lose the whole effort, is there a gentle, simple way of peace you can begin that would help you end it?

In the name of full disclosure, here is a list of 20 of my habits, and it is really hard to get to 20 without dipping into more embarrassing material!

Reading before sleep
Reading in the tub
Reading the Bible in the morning
Reading in the bathroom (yes, it is a habit!)
Reading a news magazine before Sunday morning
Reading a Daily paper at breakfast
Reading the daily news on the computer (usually in the later afternoon)
Checking my favorite team scores at night (in baseball and football seasons)
Working out each day (usually in the late afternoon)
Hugging my family members before bed
Praying when I wake
Praying when I hear a siren
Praying at meals
Listening to the morning news on NPR (Picking only one item to pray about from the news. It is a rule I keep to not be overwhelmed.)
Doing the bills on Saturday
Family meals for dinner (my four family members are all together for this only about four times a week!)
Worship every week
Brushing and flossing
Bathing
Shaving

Have fun with this, but I hope it kicks off a renewal of commitment and an appreciation for wisdom you have received into yourself already. “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self discipline” II Timothy 1:7.

Do well.

PIOUS ANYONE?

2009-08-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

One word I struggled to understand growing up was pious. It was used as a criticism but could also mean focused on God and spirituality. Now I get it.

When spirituality is used as another way of being self obsessed in a consumer culture, it is one of the ugliest things in the world. Whether it is used this way in the language of fundamentalism, where the world’s only issue is the salvation of my individual soul and maybe that same concern for others, or in more New Agey “the only thing that matters is my sense of personal space and peace”, a spirituality that doesn’t embrace activism and work and community service is just another name for narcissism.

I want so badly for you and me to be alive in the love of God. I want you to be full and free. But I know that will always be a chimera if it is not deeply connected to your giving yourself and your gifts to the world God loves. Let’s build homes for the destitute, feed some hungry people, and get involved in politics and healing projects. Let’s give gifts of craft and love for kids, let’s support people’s health efforts, let’s get people (and ourselves sometimes) into support groups. Let’s pool our money for these and other projects from here to Darfur.

This will be a part of your prayers and your Bible reading, or really Bible living. These will balance and compliment, but also be the very foundation of a love for God and a spiritual life. Let’s do it together and not ignore the social and communal aspects of life in God’s love and spirit.

Do well.

Re-releasing Christianity 101

2009-07-18T21:59:00.001-07:00

When Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church 500 years back, the hierarchy argued that it had a fixed corpus of data from the early church that justified its interpretations. Luther’s argument became, essentially, that God always does a NEW thing, and the Scriptures themselves call for new openness and new questions for faith. In effect, Luther said

‘Who wants to build a faith on a frozen corpus?
Newness and openness to questions of a new era will constantly change the way we view the words of the Bible’.

All the early, or “mainline” Protestant churches lived Luther’s slogan “semper reformanda” … the church is “always reforming”. So we revisit issues as the Spirit calls, whether of women clergy, or married clergy, or birth control, or the validity of other faiths, and therefore big releases of spiritual energy and wisdom occur.

Now we live in a time of deep historical ignorance. The new “Protestant” evangelical and fundamentalists portray their job as identifying the frozen corpus of Christian Biblical interpretation!! In these churches, for example, women pastors are not allowed, birth control is suspect and abortion is absolutely condemned, and churches attack each other for their beliefs. Sex for pastors will probably head for the chopping block within a century (although that might cause people to reconsider this whole trajectory!).

Now mainline Protestant churches are struggling with new understandings of homosexuality, how to view other religions, and healthy responses to politics of oppression and violence, as well as environmental destruction. Evangelical and fundamentalist preachers attack mainline churches, frantically assail gays and lesbians, condemn followers of other faiths to hell, and seek to force their ideas on governments from the USA to Uganda.

What do you think? I think you can tell where I come out. I am a very happy United Methodist mainline Protestant, trusting God always to surprise us and to give us new insight into how to love and receive and bless everyone we meet. Church history waxes and wanes from healthier to unhealthier to healthier understandings. As to the way to live out Protestant faith, I see the mainline Protestant Christian understanding as hope for the world. I see the other as the way backwards to faiths that war and destroy.

WHEN THEY DON'T LIKE YOU

2009-06-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

Rejection is devastating. From kids being bullied or isolated in school to partners being shattered by separation or divorce, it all hurts. Selection for hostility by workmates or “friends” can empty us. And yet at least every parent is scheduled to experience rejection, at best the leaving home for college, at worst what we often see in adolescence, though we’ve all seen kids who have grown hostile even sooner than their teens. [Of course, not every teen rebels in stereotypically ugly fashion].

Pastors know all kinds of rejection, from church visitors not “getting it”, to people meeting us socially and attacking us for faith itself, to people who have begun the walk of faith drifting away, to people “church hopping” off to greener church pastures. Oh, and some people just don’t like me! But when my children hit the point in their lives when I was not their greatest joy, or when they could only remember my restrictions and not my permissions, it hurt more than any other.

From parents I have talked to, the biggest problem in rejection from their kids seems to be in the surprise and disorientation, yet we all know it’s coming! It would be so cool if it was begun on a certain date, scheduled ahead of time. Maybe this is a serious clue: Our modern romanticized view of life includes the idea that everyone should like us all the time. Jesus promised that wouldn’t be true!!

I summarize my philosophy for parenting my younger kids as giving then an enormous yard for experimentation but with cliffs at the edges. What I mean is I let them grow without much criticism if they stayed within the bounds or appropriate social behavior (some of you would say I define that a bit loosely!). But I was very severe for crossing those lines.

On the other hand, as a youth ages, our control of the consequences goes down … the cliffs can appear as gentle inclines. But life has consequences. So then I become interpreter for life itself when my kids can’t see why they get bit by the snakes in the grass. This is no more fun than being the bringer of the consequences themselves. Sometimes the messenger gets blamed!

The most important thing I know about rejection is that when it is happening for anyone, in any situation, we have to go somewhere healthy to make up for the missing doses of affirmation. The neglected lover doesn’t do well starting an affair, but can do really well joining a group like a Men or Women’s breakfast or a book club. The child needs a club or hobby group or activity where they are not the reject in the group. The parent needs (ideally) to rediscover their partner, but at least the developing of the same networks of love and pleasure that an adult without a child would have. This is maybe a reason we have such great adult attendance in karate class from parents of teens!

And deeper, we must find the voice of God in our souls. From the Bible, from prayer, from the creation,from other spiritual reading and most of all from church, we must hear again the voices of love when others don’t play their part in conveying God’s joy to us.

Take care.”You will be despised and rejected” at times. Gather in the love God sends from other sources. Do not let yourelf remain loveless. Actively seek out where God is intending to send you grace.And give. It is a uniquely spectacular source of affirmation.

If it is your kid rejecting you, don’t blame them for that. They will make enough additional mistakes. (Parents caught in custody blame fights, there are different issues. Talk to me or a counselor on that, will ya?).

Oh, and listen to the truth often: You are loved. Enormously. By a God who sings and dances your name in the heavens.

Do well.

BROKEN HEART

2009-06-08T20:24:00.000-07:00

Broken Heart

Consider these headlines: “Church Leaders Rejoice over Gay Marriage Ban,” “Abortion Doctor Shot in Church”, and “Pastor Condemns Obama’s Efforts to Appease Muslims.”

Whatever your opinion on these issues, don’t you think it is a bit odd that most people in America know the church better for the things it condemns rather than for its message of love? Some people call the anti-abortion efforts of some faith communities as the “Talibanization of American Christianity” because so much of the anti-abortion crusade is from some Christians against others they judge as less correct than themselves. I don’t think throwing slurs against either side does us well, but I do lament when a man being as compassionate as he understands his faith to call him to be can be gunned down in his own church.

People, we can only earn the right to criticize honorably when people know we love them and want them healed. Gay people all over the country hear conservative churches not as working to “protect marriage” but as attacking them rather directly. And killing a man serving his God in church in the name of “pro-life” is bizarre.

We have good news. It is that God loves everyone. Immensely. We will have to live that out loud with kindness that sings above the cruelty for any change to be made in this culture’s image of faith and church. Go ahead. Get in a bit of trouble for doing kindness and genuinely accepting others. Surely it would be better to love a little too much than to be known as judging at all.

Do well.

WANTING

2009-05-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

HOLY DEFIANCE

2009-05-06T17:29:00.000-07:00

We pretend sometimes that we will find a one-to-one ratio to “niceness” and spirituality. Kindness, maybe, but niceness, no. Joy? Oh, yeah. Sweetness? No guarantee. Much of life is lived best because we exercise holy defiance.

Quick example: Someone recently said to someone in front of me in a long line “Life sucks, doesn’t it?” I guessed he meant it to suggest he shared the sense of the long wait. But the person to whom he spoke said back “Well, I love my life, but this moment isn’t so hot!” No, I didn’t hear ‘what do you mean life sucks? It’s great! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know about life in God … ‘etc. Just a gentle counter. But that is still holy defiance.

Sure, we see holy defiance when spiritual people stand against the powerful for the poor or against a government when it kills or wars or degrades people’s lives. But you will have several opportunities today to be defiant in the best sense, right in your day’s work and in your evening rest.

You will be tempted toward numbness by your television or electronics; you will be invited into negativity by the news manipulators (some of them in your own back yard). You will be lured toward self centered-ness and averted from touching the creation by much that will come your way.

Defy!!! Love! Care! Walk in the wind! Feel deeply, and hope against hopelessness. Pray! Read. Plan your datebook around love, faith, and doing good. God is making you strong. Use your gifts.

ANGELS MIGHT MATTER

2009-04-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

Some of you might know that I occasionally do a bit of interviewing before I write a blog (see previous blogs about pornography and gambling for examples of the results). For this one I spoke to three of my more skeptical friends about angels. These friends, who do a fine faith journey in spite of their difficulties with God, miracles, you name it, have no problem at all believing in angels!

For at least two of them, the reasons are entirely practical and experiential: They think they might have met one, or more.

Ok, in the year before I was willing to consider myself a person of any faith at all, I had three experiences with someone I couldn’t explain … I couldn’t understand why he showed up where he did … in three different situations … all of which were the most upsetting moments of my year… and in each situation he, well, “saved” me.

Jesus speaks of each of us having an angel advocating for us. Oh, and by the way, I know some of you and --you need it!

In some faiths they speak of serendipity, the way some things seem to conspire together to make just the right thing happen at the right time. In most large world faith traditions they speak of supernatural beings or messengers or gods present in our world.

I don’t think you have to believe in angels to be a person of faith. But you might do well to consider the help you get, from finding your keys to not being hit on the road. It seems to me that in light of a wounded world where we all suffer some real pains, that God has, perhaps in our defense, constructed multiple layers of kindness to meet us on our way. And you never know when you will run across a surprise.

Talking About Faith

2009-04-02T11:15:00.001-07:00

Remember the story of E Stanley Jones, the day after he became a Christian? Someone said “E Stanley, you ain’t no Christian”, to which he responded “The Hell I ain’t”.

This is in response to a recent question of Diane’s “How do we share the invitation to faith in a religiously paranoid age?” (my wording).

I asked some of you what people said to you when you were considering church or before you were. The answers varied. I didn’t ask permission to share names, so you’re safe!

I told Diane I often say to atheists that I am glad we’re at least partly on the same page. They must have rejected much of the religion of judgementalism and closed mindedness that I, too, have had enough of.

One friend told me someone said nothing of their faith other than to listen to her story of wandering, and then said they were really glad she had embarked on a spiritual journey and would love to share it with her if she didn’t yet have a spiritual family.

Another said that someone just conveyed that they genuinely appreciated him. That made him ask questions of their faith and hope.

I guess the joy of it is that we are never in a place where we have to sell anything. We can admit to our friends we are in love, with God and life and all the creation. We can admit easily to those who are deeply pondering that we don’t have all the answers. And we can deeply listen to people’s stories and hopes and tell them our spiritual story as well, in mutual hearing. And it really matters to be able to tell friends that we go to a church where love is all we need to belong, trusting God to figure out the rest in us.

But don’t forget: most all of the people you know are wounded by their histories with bitter, hateful people who claim to represent Christ. My sense is that they are nervous only until we show them that we are ready to hear them and love them as they are. When they see faith as the power behind whatever loving we know, it tells them something more important than words.

I am wondering how [or if] you share your faith with others? If you’d like, find “comments” at the bottom of this page, click it, log in and share your thoughts [if you’re shy, send me an email].

Do well.

LOSING OUR RELIGION

2009-03-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

One academic Christian friend stood in front of a group and said “I stopped believing God exists several times last week. That apparently had little or no impact on God existing”. Have you seen this week’s headlines about the slipping number of people who consider themselves Christian in our country? Bishop Warner Brown mentioned it in his message to the Church of the Joyful Healer last week.

Hmmm … Since church/synagogue/house of worship in the USA hovers at between 25 and 35 percent most of the time, when I hear that those who call themselves Christian has dropped from 86% to 75%, I think we may not be getting clear information from the poll. I suspect rather, the use of the word “Christian” no longer has the same meaning it once had, like in the South, where a “good Christian” used to mean someone who doesn’t cause much trouble. People used to call themselves Christian with little meaning to the word other than perhaps a relative was buried by a pastor or priest. Maybe it is good for the country to support people being more reflective on how they connect themselves.

But specifically, when I was appointed to start a church in northern Humboldt County in 1998, in my research I only found one other place in the country that had a lower percentage of people who saw themselves in alignment with traditional Christian faith perspectives than here! Yet our church has grown to have almost 180 people a week in worship, sharing joy over the love of God in a Christian church. Hmmmm …

I suspect that as churches in the USA rediscover the radical and hopeful faith that was at the heart of Christianity in its inception, the church will grow again, and impressively. As long as the aberrant and damaging fundamentalist perspective gets the press and throws its weight around neighborhoods, churches will be on the defensive, and should be.

I don’t expect our more open and positive church family to grow every year in number, but usually it does.

What is more important is that the church is growing in relationships and in usefulness to the communities around it. I just spoke to someone in the tick-borne disease support group that meets in our building on Friday. She loves our church even while being a member of a very different religious group. It is never about numbers! It is about the people we bless and the life we find together in faith.

Do well.

ABORTION/STEM CELL DEBATES

2009-03-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here are topics and notes that might help you with people concerned either about the abortion/stem cell debates, or with moms in crisis pregnancies:

We are taught to take artificial positions on abortion, as if pro-choice isn’t pro-life and vice versa. This is an asinine game of hatred-brewing that damages our ability to hear each other and even hear the Spirit speak to us. Fund raisers and lobbyists nourish this dichotomy, and if we were further removed from the debate, we would find them and their extreme positions absurd and hilarious. But now that President Obama has launched the American stem cell sciences again, the issue is more tender for our Christian fundamentalist friends.

What matters in our message? You are my friend, whatever your opinion about this or almost any issue. We are called by Jesus to be one. I offer you my hand.

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Abortion: Everyone wants happy, healthy babies to be born into ready, happy, and healthy families. And you probably already know, I love kids and smile from the inside out when I see healthy families! While we can disagree on particulars, it is artificial and nonsense to believe that people who view the abortion debate differently than us don’t want that just like we do.

But that Isn’t the Whole Story, Is It? Crisis pregnancies happen in virtually every community in the world every day and more so in areas where birth control and abortion are hard to access. And a desperate mom does not need judgment or theoretical debate or pressure. She needs the same access as any other mom could have to quality medical care!

The religious community is divided into two broad camps, led by the mainline Protestant and Jewish communities on one hand, the Catholic and fundamentalist Christian communities on the other: one that focuses on compassion to the expectant mother and the other on compassion to the baby she carries. The United Methodist Social Principles speak of the “tragic conflict of life with life” but still insist the decision on abortion is a private one between a woman and a skilled care provider.

The Jewish point of view on the beginning of fully actual human life is that it begins at birth. “God … breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being”. In Exodus 21 a forced loss of pregnancy is worked into a legal discussion about when the community of God in the fragile early years of Israel and its wanderings should use capital punishment, since there were no prisons. A hypothetical situation is raised: two men fight, and a pregnant woman steps in to stop them. She is struck and lives, but loses her child. Is this time to pay “life for life”? The clear answer is No. The child was not yet a born, breathing baby. A fine should be paid. It is a real and tragic loss. But it is not fully actual life in the same sense of a born child.

Anti-abortion Bible readers don’t focus on these statements of principle, but fear that such a reading will lead us to under value life itself, especially that of the vulnerable. Their Biblical support may be a rigid reading of poetic lines in psalms and prayers, like Psalm 139, “You knew me in my mother’s womb”, but their concern is for the belief in all life as sacred. Not a bad platform now, is it? Also the anti abortion teachings find passion in the Bible’s condemnation of people who “offer their children in the fire” to the god Moloch, a hideous child sacrifice ritual with commonalities in many cultures. But of course, these are born children. In my contacts with the pro-choice community, I have never met a soul who would not risk their lives to save a born child, so the child sacrifice analogy seems to me to be irrelevant to the concerns of either side.

It is sure hard, though, to find common ground when some view the thoughtful choices of others as murder.

Don’t Lie to Yourself. As pro-life as we may view ourselves, unless we believe a mother and a doctor choosing to have or assist an abortion should be tried as murderers, we are functionally on the “pro-choice” side. And you have many friends who have had an abortion. Most of them don’t strike you or me as death row candidates.

Our real tasks are these: First, to work to make birth control options viable for anyone, yes even of young people. Our thoughts about sex among the young should not cloud our commitment to provide them safety and protection. And in many places, this means confronting an anti-condom culture among men in certain “macho” sub-cultures.

Second, we must raise the issues of compassion for the mother as well as the child. A teenager saw anti abortion leaflets showing a sonogram of an embryo six weeks from conception. His response? “Where is the mother?” he asked. He pointed out that the photo gives no sense of the needs or situation of the mother whose body this embryo was in!

Third, we must say an absolute NO to those who would have us hate each other for seeing this issue differently. Most pro-life and pro-choice people have great swaths of their reasoning and purposes in common, and no lobby or demagogue should be allowed to obfuscate that fact. My position is clearly mother-centric, but in our church we have several members who lean on the anti abortion side. We talk. We challenge each other. But we don’t deny each other the right to come to conclusions and work for positions that we each feel compelled to.

And last, and most important, we are called to be agents of healing and grace for those who have tough choices to make. Moms and Dads need a bigger community on their side and laws that support family health. And women in painful conflicts should have as many options as possible available to them so they can choose the best ways to move forward into life making and life building and life sharing. And we need to be there for them and with them.

Stem cells are usually most available through the destruction of embryonic tissue. This means that we need to be clearer about how we see abortion before we can understand and take reasoned positions on research and curative work with stem cells. Balancing our hopes for healing therapies from stem cell research with our concerns about the unborn will help us see what “pro-life” really means.

Do well

RAISING KIDS #1 - Going to Church

2009-03-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

A little guy was completely out of control one morning in church. Finally his dad picked him up and walked out in frustration. The little one cried that he didn’t want to leave, but dad kept walking. Finally near the door the little guy called out “Goodbye everybody. Pray for me.”

How to bring our kids to church is an issue at every stage of development.

What you might expect me to say about kids in church: It is one of the greatest gifts you can give them to grow up in a church and faith family.

But that isn’t the whole story is it?

… When they are young they can be distracting when they cry or fuss or spit up or yell or play loudly or grab or … or … And most of that distraction is quadrupled for the parents trying to pray or hear a message.

… As they get older they can act out home frustrations knowing you are vulnerable in a group, or they can have trouble with doing the group activities or even wanting to leave home and get dressed.

… As they get to pre-teen stage, they can think church is awful and come up with vicious interpretations of church and faith, or have issues of “coolness” or independence that can make it almost impossible to get them to come. I have seen kids love me one year, “hate” me the next, use me for a job reference the next, and tell me I have been one of the best influences in their life in the next!

What to do?

Frankly, for younger children, the best thing a family can do is keep the habit. Be there except for sickness and out of town weekends if you can. Even when it is unsatisfying, it is the gift of teaching the ritual to the child. None of us are good at something if we do it seldom enough. Frequency is the way to proficiency in anything. Families with more than one adult can shift management of the details back and forth a bit, but that is a reminder to love on the many single parents among us!

As a child gets into elementary levels, it is a real favor for them to get to know the church family as individuals. If they can remember they are coming to see “Pat, Tim, Judy, Mary, Shante, Juan, Sarah or Mike” rather than just the amalgam of those people in a big blob it can greatly add to their social skill set, since church is one of the rare opportunities for a child to mix with folk of diverse ages. Churched kids are, on average, socially ahead of others in the skill of multigenerational socialization, a vital capacity for grown up life. This makes coffee hour and an occasional special church event like the campout real useful, even vital.

Here’s a note that will save you a lot of grief with some kids: At elementary grade levels, kids need to learn that church behavior isn’t courteous because it’s church. If they think all the social graces they have to learn there are because of church or faith they can resent church or faith for requiring those social graces of them!!! They need to be taught that these graces are human graces, and are required of them any time they are in group settings. Church doesn’t need to be blamed for this. They would have to use the same social skills in a club or a family reunion.

And at elementary grade age, they need to be expected to participate in church attendance just like the easy expectation of eating family meals together and visiting cousins together.

If and when church attendance becomes a struggle, which it often does in the early to mid pre-teens, I recommend a graduated pattern of adjustments. First, remember that the kids most likely to attend church as adults have parents that are faithful to their church whether the child goes or not. In other words, when you go even when your teen is not going, they finally see how much it really matters to you. That rubs off.

If the resistance gets thick I recommend that you first make church rituals more obviously useful to your growing kid. I have seen several families wisely develop a two or three-part ritual on church day, like always doing a family out-to-eat on Sunday after church. If you miss one you miss the other. Other possibilities are starting or ending play time with other kids at church, or always doing a movie out or biking or other hobby right after church. This is just good use of precious family time, but it makes the point that this is a central part of us being family.

Do I encourage parents to debate church beliefs with a hostile teen? Not much, if at all. Church is our extended family. Many adults go without buying all of its beliefs, but we do good for ourselves and for the world as a church, so we are here and committed. The habit teaches more than the cognition, I think.

Did my kids have options not to come to church? Yes, but not often. I let them know I thought the family deserved their participation. And the youth program was a part of that family. And so were all those folk who they have come to know here. We weren’t rigid, yet as awkward as it can be for the “preacher’s kids” to feel free to define themselves, both my kids accepted church as a given for most of their youth. And they are still among you and thriving as a result of that connection.

Did we debate beliefs when they were in “rejectionist” mode? Not much. I never suggested they needed to accept church belief to attend. The same is true for many adults who attend church. They do so out of something bigger than their momentary cognitive assent to certain beliefs.

Don’t lie to yourself: church is best when it is a habit, but something inside us will try to break that. Keeping it for yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself, even if your kids/parents or significant other don’t come along. And they are most likely to “get it” seeing you keep the habit no matter what.

Do well.

Thinking of God

2009-02-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

An old teacher was speaking to pastors and said, “When you speak of heaven your eyes should be bright and you should smile and your face should reflect the joy of God. When you speak of other things, well, your normal face will do.”

Thinking of God the Joyful Healer, is a healing habit.

But that’s not the whole story is it? Many people struggle with images of God that are destructive or at least distracting.

In our images of God it is good to check: Is God always male? Is God old, or distant or angry, or irrelevant and passive? Or worse, are we just plain sure we have it figured out and have no mystery in our sense of God?

The truth is that some images of God are far from true to Jewish and Christian historical wisdom. Jesus said “God is spirit”, and this suggests that we are not headed in a constructive direction when we try to limit God to our personal conception. Many scholars believe that the Muslim practice of praying the “99 names of God”, in which the believer reviews many facets of God’s nature, was learned from either Christian or Jewish believers in the Middle East at the time of Muhammad. Well, that is sure not a current practice in some churches where Christian images are limited to “God”, “Father”, “Lord”, and “Jesus”. I find it interesting that in those forms of spirituality, many pray the names of God in almost compulsively repetitious fashion, as in “Father God, Father, Lord Jesus, we ask you, Lord God, to …”, as if the believer is stuck like a CD player.

Jesus is only quoted for a brief bit of his life, and only in a few of his messages in the Bible, yet he exhibits an explosion of freeing images of God. God is male in some and female in others (like the woman sweeping her house). God is anthropomorphic in some and even earthier in others (like the mother hen gathering her chicks). In just one of Jesus’ parables God is pictured as running to meet us, kissing and hugging, and singing and dancing in joy over us!

And Jesus endemically refers to God’s relation to the creation as one of intimacy and tender, thoughtful presence.

Let yourself go! God is not limited to our conceptions or our understanding. Great saints in the early church pointed out that that while God is beyond our thinking; we do well to think of the ways God chooses to come and be exposed to us. God mothers us and fathers us, God is a friend and lover, God wrestles with us and sings in us, God accompanies us and cherishes our every breath. God is wild in the creating business and loves our creativity and honors it.

God loves every moment we move in the ways of healing and justice. The church I pastor is actually called The United Methodist Church of the Joyful Healer!

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Sometimes when people hear you speak of faith or church or God, they filter you through their seriously damaged images of God. Be compassionate enough to understand their reservations and even sometimes their outright hostility. But listen for where the hurt is. It can make you able to communicate at an altogether different level.

And God is right here, right now. Filling the space you live in and your heart as well. Receive your blessing.

Do well.

THE END OF FRIENDSHIP

2009-02-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Some of you have heard me tell a tidbit: I was in front of a large group of men, and I asked them to make a list of their five best friends, and get in groups of two or three and quickly describe one quality of each of the five. The room lit up with laughter and animation as the men told each other of their best friend’s styles and qualities (and maybe foibles!).

Then I asked the men to write on their list the number of months or years that it had been since they had spent time with that friend. Each group was then to average their number of months or years.

For most in each group they hadn’t spent time with their five best friends since high school. Most didn’t even know where their “best friends” lived, or what they did for work, or if they had kids.

The average age of the group was probably around 40 years old.

A nationally known counselor said that what makes our world different from 50 years ago is that now adult women are losing the skill of making good friends just like men in our culture. What is sad is that if you watch kids, we are made to be social, and most of us had the tools of community in us at one time.

For me what is most peculiar is that most men in that group seemed to not think of themselves as lonely. Now most of us fall into one or two of three common modes: lonely and noticing it; lonely for meaningful friendship but keeping so busy and distracted as to avoid noting it; or living all our friendships out at a very shallow level with workmates or over kid’s play dates until we retire.

Yes, I know, great friendships develop slowly, and are discovered almost like trolling for fish. You drag your line through the water and keep moving slowly until you find something. What is different from the analogy is that we often don’t know we have a good friendship for a long while after we have found it. But trolling is a good analogy in that it suggests on purpose.

I have friends in the church I serve that are so good at making and keeping friends that I have to resist the urge to send all my new acquaintances to them. They are almost full of time slots just enjoying their sacred connections. But most folk I know don’t even know how to begin.

What to do? Well, at least we get started by recognizing what our culture has underequipped us to do … or even underequipped us to even want to do!

And of course, it helps a lot to have a few places on our calendar we show up in regularly where we might possibly make a friend or two … places like church, hobby groups, sports teams, even volunteer task groups and community organizations. Just not bars! I have few issues with drinking in healthy ways [see the archive blog about drinking], but I have seen so many downhill journeys begin with people feeling needy walking into bars.

I also recommend we take our extended families more seriously. Calling or visiting, I mean. Actually hearing voices!! Email is not what we evolved to do, even though it’s nice. Really, when we honor our family commitments well, we grow in ways we can open ourselves to others.

And I recommend we become generous in time and gift giving in our neighborhoods. Few of us will make close friends of neighbors, but again, we are trying to learn the ways of the human family again, and neighbors used to fill a bigger slot by far than they do now.

I am not lonely, so it feels cheap to write too much about it. It solves so slowly in a day in which we move so often, and have so little time uncommitted, as do the others we could know better!

I am embarrassed by how in love I feel, and how much I receive from virtually anyone I meet. I wish I could give this experience to everyone I see. My closer friends leave me so satisfied, too. I have a few real close friends I see casually a lot (common interests), and intentionally as well. I also keep up on several in my family by phone, which is powerful to me.

Don’t lie to yourself: the electronic world has many benefits [you’re reading a blog, for heaven’s sake!], but it is also a terrible drain on our souls. It is a box. We can open our electronics, from radios to televisions to computers to MP3 to … you get the idea … and never turn away from them again. They will suck us up and leave us numb and tired and keep us from walking outside and speaking to a neighbor or calling a friend or from watching a child play. I have an acquaintance that complains of having no friends, who spends three to five hours a night watching TV. If this is you, you’re in a different fix than other lonely people. You need to turn it off. Go call your mom/uncle/aunt/first grade teacher … SOMEbody! For the rest of you, take care of your soul. Do what you can. Keep trolling. Keep open to the loves of God. More and more you will find people to whom God will pass along that loving through you.

And maybe add the rituals of talking about all the good moments you do have with people, and remembering those moments on purpose. Cherishing time with others is a two step process: first, enjoying them when they are there; second, enjoying them after you leave them. Add more of the second. Great relationships leave a great taste in your soul. Don’t be too quick to let go of that flavor.

Do well.

I Have To Say This ....

2009-02-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

This isn’t in my regular style or voice for this blog. I’m not at all easy with writing. But I just have to say as I take off for a ten day jaunt to Japan for karate training …

I could never ever have asked for this wonderful of a life … In my wildest dreams. It has been like the best music, on all the time.

In 51 years, I have met some of the greatest minds, some of the kindest souls, some of the most fascinating journeyers. I have felt fully alive in a body that has almost pulled me into activity. I have had two kids, and received another into our family, each almost overloading my circuits with joy every time I look at them. I have had the wife all the love stories dream about.

I have read the greatest words in books and my Bible; I have felt the wind on my face in most of the 50 states and 12 countries; I have thought; and felt. I have been reunited with family from long ago, like my sister Tracy who I didn’t see for 29 years. I have played and worked my fanny off.

Maybe most surprising to me is the church that I have been treated to. I have seen people take off like rockets, I have seen others journey, sometimes upstream and sometimes downstream, but always to better places, and always on a journey that is itself sacred.

And in those churches, I have seen people do good to each other, to others they hardly know, and to themselves and their families.

In all of this and so much I am not writing, I have been loved by, and even felt the presence of, a graceful and extravagant God. For everything from my skin to my nose to my eyes [my eyes, always stunned to see] to my ears to my tongue, I give thanks.

It will be so good to be back in a little over a week to share with you. ‘Till then, I hope you get to see your life in its wonder once in a while. I only see the wonder once in a while. But those moments still knock me out.

See you back.

Suicide

2009-02-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

There is no laughter here.

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Suicide: If you come from certain religious traditions you might think I would condemn those who commit suicide, or assume they have committed an unforgivable sin and will be judged by God as having done so. Please know that is not the position of most Christians. The United Methodist Social Principles state that “nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God”.

But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? Almost all the time, suicide is more like leaving a bomb inside the lives of surviving family and friends. Leaving the pain behind in suicide leaves a hundred times the pain in the survivors. I am a survivor. I have had close friends commit suicide. Most days I cannot even approach my own pain over the loss. And I’m a pretty healthy guy emotionally. And those who commit suicide leave their survivors at much greater risk of suicide themselves.

I tell people at church that I thought about it. On a particularly bad day in college, I got as close as I have ever gotten to it. But for me, that was only once. Almost everyone has an id moment at some point, and some people hardly ever have the thought far from their minds. They are choosing to live every day despite that possibility gnawing at them as a pathetic temptation.

Here’s Where I Get In Trouble: The states that have allowed assisted suicide actually become a strong argument for something else. Very few people use that option. Why? Because to do so in those states requires people work through counseling for their depression and anger, and get access to appropriate pain and mood management medication and that they wait through a period that lasts longer than most people’s rage.
Suicide is most often a function of depression (see my blog on depression in the archives) or pain or mood disorders or rage. The few using assisted suicide are the exceptions to much of that, and therefore their situation isn’t much of a useful comparison to the vast number of suicides and the times when you or your friends and family have considered it. It is a solution of impatience. Considering suicide is a cheap, fast food kind of way of avoiding dealing with those other issues. But when you hurt, you are sometimes not sensible.

On the other hand, who among us has never opted for fast food?

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Life has many ups and downs. We all will grieve, and lose, and hurt, and be in funks that defy logic. And we will all have depressions and angers that brew in deep places.

And someone near you will do it. We all suffer when one person commits suicide.

Love your life. And get help when you are struggling. At least have one confidant you would tell if you are not safe with yourself.

And look out for each other. Love their lives enough to ask and care about their answer as to how they are doing in times of stress.

Do well.

PRAYING FOR OUR LEADERS

2009-01-26T10:33:00.001-08:00

Have You Heard this One: “Due to the lack of production of great followers, the production of great leaders has been suspended”.

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Prayer for Leaders: Just pray! The leaders in your world can’t get by without it. Barack Obama needs you to; I need you to; and a lot of other leaders in your lives need you to, and God wants you to pray.

But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is it? Many of us don’t know how to pray. And many of us just don’t do it. And many of us would easily miss praying for many who lead us outside of a president or two.

Here’s Where I get in Trouble: Sure, sometimes we don’t pray because we doubt ourselves, or God, or we doubt those we might pray for, but the truth is most of us would be happy to pray for others if we had any rhythms of prayer at all. Beginning a pattern of prayer is hard for us who want everything do-able in three minutes or less. And sometimes we can only find the heart to pray for closest friends in a cocoon-like narrowness focused only on the world we can see out our front window, or maybe only within our walls.

But for a lot of us the problem is how. So, while I can’t set rhythms of prayer for you, here is an exercise as a suggestion or two about how to pray for leaders.

I recommend you start with your favored hand. Really. If you get out your hand and look at the fingers, that will help in this exercise, and it might be so helpful you could add it to your routines at a fixed point each day. Start with the thumb.

When I pray for those who lead, I take hold of my thumb and pray for the most important thing a leader has: integrity and caring. This is more important to leadership than any decision anyone can make. I pray that they will be whole in God.

After that, I take hold of my little finger and pray for the small subtleties that make a leader balanced. I pray for the environment they find themselves in and those who advise them.

Then I take hold of my ring finger and lift to God all who love the leader and ask that they find intimacy and power and forgiveness in their core family relationships.

Then I grasp my middle finger and … well, the fame of the middle finger is actually helpful to me when I pray. I remember all the obstacles and opponents who would destroy or diminish their work. I pray protection for leaders from those who would … well … middle finger them.

Then I pray with my first finger pointed. To the sky, maybe, sometimes tapping the chair I sit on to remember the firmness of a direction found. For example, I pray for my Bishop that he will know where the church needs to go and what he needs to point to for it to go there. I pray for his courage to keep pointing even when there is fog all around. I often find myself pointing in front of me, even if I don’t know what direction my leader should take. I just ask God to tell him!

Don’t Lie to Yourself: prayer is not bargaining with, or controlling, or controlling the world that God made so free that it finds ways to be wounded. And, uhhh, the real question is still going to be finding a rhythm and a hope for praying.

Oh, and by the way, when you find that rhythm, you will be so happy and grateful. And freer.

God loves you.

Go ahead, pray. Let your hopes go to work, and let them go wild.

PRAYING FOR OUR LEADERS

2009-01-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Have You Heard this One: “Due to the lack of production of great followers, the production of great leaders has been suspended”.

But for a lot of us the problem is how. So, while I can’t set rhythms of prayer for you, here is an exercise as a suggestion or two about how to pray for leaders.

After that, I take hold of my little finger and pray for the small subtleties that make a leader balanced. I pray for the environment they find themselves in and those who advise them.

Then I take hold of my ring finger and lift to God all who love the leader and ask that they find intimacy and power and forgiveness in their core family relationships.

Oh, and by the way, when you find that rhythm, you will be so happy and grateful. And freer.

God loves you.

Go ahead, pray. Let your hopes go to work, and let them go wild.

Miracles

2009-01-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

Have You Heard the One About: The Appalachian sheriff pulled over Wilmer, a known moonshiner and asked what he was doing out so late. Wilmer thought quickly and said “I was at that revival down there at the New ‘Nited Methodist Church”. The sheriff asked what the sermon had been about. “Miracles” bluffed Wilmer. “Well, said the sheriff, what’s in those jugs in the back seat of your car?” Wilmer mumbled “Water, I s’pose”. The sheriff asked if he could have a drink of water, to which Wilmer glumly agreed. Suddenly the sheriff said “Wilmer, this here is alcohol, it’s not water!” Wilmer, quickly inspired, bowed his head and said “Look at that! The good Lord done done it again!!!”

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Miracles: They happen every day. They happen in the very fact of life. We need to choose to see.

But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? When we stand at the bedside of dying children, we demand more. When mothers of children are diagnosed as terminal, we demand more. When disasters strike randomly we insist that God do more to change the situation. When we see birth defects, ravaging disease, unintended consequences, or even when we make mistakes, we want a do over. We insist on it. We command God.

Here’s Where I Get into Trouble. Nowadays, miracles are the stuff of science. Doctors have words like spontaneous remission, benign, misdiagnosis. Medical research gives us terms like immune system, regeneration, adaptation. Physicists use terms like uncertainty principle, probability. Cosmologists use terms like omega point, anthropic principle. We don’t use the generic term miracle often, but we actually have multiplied our use of similar concepts.

Drug and physical and psychological therapies, joint replacements and organ transplants, civil engineering, waste water treatment, the list goes on and on… art and beauty, benevolence and self sacrifice. Miracles are everywhere! We live the supernatural!! What we complain about are the exceptions where we don’t see miracles. Miracles are the norm. We don’t like it when they don’t show up. I guess you could call us spoiled. We can get lazy and only pray when we see the exceptions. I hope we can pray for wisdoms to develop more miracles, from forgiveness to gardens growing, and pray our joy in seeing the miracles we do see, as well as pray for the places we don’t see them yet.

Have I seen miracles in answer to prayer? Hundreds of times. Many have been confirmed by doctors, using the language of their field, of course.
Thousands more have been confirmed in the changed lives of individuals.

Have I seen prayers for miracles go unanswered? I guess thousands of times if we just mean God did not do what I asked. [Oh, and yes, sometimes we can give many thanks for God not doing what I have asked. I can’t always see the whole picture.] But kids dying? Mothers also? Come on God. And I have also seen some miracles that I didn’t think were necessary … that I would have gladly traded for bigger better things.

Cosmologists will tell us we shouldn’t be here at all. And anthropologists will tell us that none of us should be living as long as we are, historically speaking. But every time someone dies, even if it makes sense in some abstract mathematical way, I cringe. I will continue to pray for miracles until I die or until no one dies anymore. And I will continue to be angry with God and the creation when miracles don’t happen that could heal or recover a life. What does that do to my life with God? I don’t follow this God because I get my way. If I did get my way altogether for just a little while, I would become deeply sick and the world itself would be damaged horribly. The movie Bruce, Almighty could be any of our life’s story if we got our way all the time.

Jesus suggested we could have a part in making miracles happen. And we do. So why not pray miracles into the creation every day, and pray twice as hard for the exceptions where we don’t see them? If we don’t get what we want, we at least take our part on the side of a passion for goodness.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: We will all face moments when the anomaly of believing in a God of love and seeing good people suffer will make us either mad, crazy, or atheists. But we do get to choose which. We will ache. At the top of our lungs and the bottom of our souls.

But we can love all good, and desire for even more. And hold each other as sacred in our hearts, and share our hope. And learn to see. Do well.

Beggers

2009-01-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

Have You Heard the One About: When bankers go to Washington they “ask” for bailouts and no interest loans. When starving people ask for food we call that “begging”. What’s the difference? The bankers shave. For that they get $699,999,999,999 more than the beggar. That’s funny without being funny!

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Beggars: Give to those who ask of you, without expecting a return. You who know me know that I have been deeply shaped by a story of Jesus saying when we give food or drink or clothing or visits to the poor and wounded we do it to Jesus himself. So giving to beggars is doubly sacred and is also a privilege.

But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? If you and I both give $5.00 to a meth user or a drunk, we could get them horrendously high tonight. This might even be the night they tip over the edge and become violent toward others, maybe even their own children, or to themselves; or the night it kills them.

Here’s Where I Get into Trouble: If we really want to invest in a desperate human’s healing, a buck isn’t enough! If we kept the next ten single dollars we were going to give to ten beggars on the side of the road, and on the eleventh, took time to hear their story, took them to a restaurant, and gave them phone numbers to our church and/or another agency, and let them use our cell phone for a five minute call to their closest family member, wouldn’t that feel different? And it might cost $11.00! And an hour or less.

Of course we would need to 1) mitigate any silly risks associated with this effort, and 2) not think we have a right to a successful turnaround to mainstream living from anyone we take the time to help.

I love that you want to help people enough that you chose to read this piece. But I hope you will put real effort in your help. Otherwise it might not be help. But if you do take a beggar to dinner, you might well feel better knowing you learned their name and the names/situations of their family.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: You can get roped in by cons in a heartbeat if you go out like a lamb among lions on the street. Yes, also drugs and alcohol and mental problems are endemic out there. But there are many honest people who beg who are just desperate enough to not always act as they would if they weren’t desperate. You are called to care. Wisely done, without silly expectations, it can change you as much as it changes them.

And some of your best compassion is put into voting, and/or supporting churches and agencies that do real work for the hurting that we as individuals can’t do. And volunteering. And loving a wounded kid on your block so he/she doesn’t become the next generation on that same street.

Do well.

Meditation

2009-01-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Have You Heard the One About: the Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler movie “Anger Management” has a scene where Adam Sandler’s character visits the Buddhist monastery where his old school bully now lives as an adult. Instead of me telling it, let me just recommend the movie.

What You Might Expect Me to Say about Meditation: If you are from a certain background you might think Christianity is against meditation and that it is a practice limited to eastern religions and “new agers”. I hope this isn’t you. But assuming it is not, you might also expect me to say that meditation is easy to learn and practice.

But that’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? While Judaism and Christianity have encouraged meditation from the very beginnings of their movements [see Psalm 19 for example, and note the last lines] it seems that the practice is rarely taught, and even when it is, it is hard to admit how many conflicts with the practice most of us have.

What is it? Usually being silent, frequently in a group, but maybe more often alone; breathing slowly, sometimes counting during breaths to slow their pace over a period of time; and focusing on one thing of beauty or goodness, or one passage, or just resting in the Presence of God. How to learn it? Well, see below, but I recommend reading a short story from the life of Jesus several times over, then going into the breathing and quieting time beginning with a simple prayer like “God stand guard at the door of my heart”, and listening directly to the spirit.

What goes wrong? Well, let’s see … kids, phones, to-do-list kinds of thinking, models of prayer that end at asking God for stuff, caffeine-laced twitchiness, impatience, you name it. Still for those who learn to meditate, they insist it is a profound act. I practice three forms, both with no regular schedule, but both very meaningful to me. The first is a lot like the above, the second is more of a Muevorar kind of planned movement, often associated with Bible passages, and a third a kind of meditative walk, almost labyrinth style (labyrinths rock, by the way). As a hyperactive, it is nice to move between the three.

Reading can be a meditation. Even exercising, gardening, studying intently, or listening to music in certain settings and ways. Prayerful music sung together can give the same kind of experience.

Here’s Where I Get into Trouble: If you can never go there, if you can’t imagine having the time and attention to meditate, that is a self diagnosis that your life is probably paced to kill. No, you don’t need to meditate like the next person, but if you never get to be at home in your deepest internal space, you probably have been force fed a lifestyle of noise and activity and stimulation that is divorcing you from you. It happens to all of us, but realizing it is a call to come home, to take your soul back and to allow God to bring you to yourself.

But Don’t Lie to Yourself: The call to become meditative is a beginning of a grand conversion away from the electronic perversions of our day … it is just a beginning and it will not end there. Choose it at your own risk. You will become more at home outside than inside, you may lose your love of shopping online and television drivel, you may lose your hunger for gadgets, you may even speak fewer words and more meaningful ones.

On the other hand, you may find it is a very unBuddha-like war to try to build a lifestyle of even the occasional hour for this artful life choice. My only counsel on that matter is try to let every minute become a little more mindful and ease back on all your intense behaviors and it may become more realistic to slip into the deeper place.

And one more thing: Moms and others under near-constant pressure, and still others who are prone to self flagellation, don’t abuse yourself if this seems far from you. Resenting those who keep you from deepest silence is not a way to find any peace at all. Cherishing the moments with others can be its own kind of mindfulness, and doing the meaningful tasks of life at a certain clip can be total immersion experiences.

Peace and joy, strength and beauty to you.

Do well.

Stress

2009-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Have you heard this one? “I don’t have stress. I give it.”

What You Might Expect Me To Say About Stress: Aw-w-w, just relax. Or maybe toughen up. Jesus said worry doesn’t help at all.

But That’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? From financial meltdowns we cannot control, to family pains, to work and responsibilities, stress is almost built in. Jesus does razz us about worrying in Matthew 6, but he, too knew responsibilities and tensions with those around him. A good summary of Paul’s writing in the Bible might be “trust God, but work hard”. Not quite as comforting as a good massage, is it?

Here’s Where I Get in Trouble: You can use me to say this to you if you need someone to remind you of what you already know. Two issues boil to the top that don’t get talked about enough in self help books. First is the need to balance our work with our joy. I am the senior staff responsible for three organizations, including this church that I pastor. I have kids, and bills that are oppressive. I live with a brain injury. But most days I am deeply happy. I know people who are even more at peace than me who have even more responsibilities and challenges. How is this possible?

Those who don’t die under stress are those who have developed the capacity to cherish … they look to the successes in their work and remember them out loud; they look to their workmates or families and verbalize and take note of their gifts and kindnesses; they look for good stuff and appreciate it at length, as a habit of the soul. When you stop looking for good, it can be hard to see. When you look, it is everywhere. You know this!

Second, we need rhythms we won’t compromise for anything but the direst conflict. The morning bran … the walk … the church worship … the bedtime kiss or the reading before sleep, you’re not all the same, but we have to keep some rhythms or we fall into a disorder not far from schizophrenia. Watch the stress/depression that accompanies so many who either get into the sleeping-in-with-no-fixed-waking-hour anti-routine or the opposite of no-bed-time and no-time-when-work-has-to-stop. Sure, there is chicken and egg as to cause, but not eating at least some veggies and fruits, and not getting aerobic a couple of times a week, and not being near positive people for conversation and for celebration regularly will leave us ready for the meltdown.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Life is hard, and sometimes REAL hard. And you have to say no to things before you can say yes to other things. You don’t stretch so far or so well! But some stress is the natural function of living. The question is balance.

And another argument for kind, honorable living is that it reduces the pains of horrid consequences. But if you have failed here, don’t forget, God forgives. Consequences may last, but God’s love overcomes even our worst failures.

[[BUT: major health breakdowns and certain major life losses are not in this same category. These are not just stress. They involve grief and pain and chemical reactions and are worthy of getting counseling and help from friends and family. Dumping on yourself about your ability to manage stress in those times just drains you more. Stay or get close to some people in those times that will help you keep your head above water through the intense times. You will find grace in the most unusual places.]]

Do well.

Depression

2008-12-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the one about: An old Vaudeville tale recounts a pair of obnoxious magicians who traveled the circuit. They encountered another performer in a hotel lobby who looked deeply disturbed. One asked “Hey, why do you look so down?” The reply was “I just got word that my mother died” to which the second magician responded “We know how you feel, we just lost our trunk”.

What you might expect me to say about depression: Yes, there are people who have a tougher time than you who still find the ability to be joyful. And yes, faith and a life in church will have a direct positive impact on most of us most of the time in the realm of our emotions. And yes, medication is not the answer for everything. And look at all the beauty and giftedness of our lives! We can look inside and say with the Psalmist “Why are you cast down, my soul? … Hope in God”.

But that’s not the whole story, is it? Your wounded heart matters to God. And to me.

In our emotionally stilted culture, we have few tools to use to deal with the more pained emotions, and few models of getting it right. We panic at the thought of someone being down. ”Cheer up!” becomes a defensive argument, even when it is unrealistic to ask of someone, or of ourselves.

Here are words of counsel I typically give: First, ask yourself, is it actually depression? It’s helpful to consider two distinctions. The first is that some of what we call depression is really sadness. What is the difference? A lot. Sadness has a cause, or a couple of causes that take us over the top (or under the bottom) from our everyday dealing with life’s pains into a hurting state. Sadness has a rhythm that we need to honor.

Sometimes it is grief.

Sometimes it is a call to action.

Always it is a call to commune with the wounds in the heart of our God.

Depression may best be defined as bigger than any one cause. When everything looks bad, that is, to some degree, a sickness of perception. Truthfully, many if not most of the goodnesses that make life what it is are still functioning wonderfully. When we can’t see or feel any good at all, and when all our life perspective is down, that is depression. And as that definition suggests, there is likely not a single answer, either.

A second useful question is about anger and injustice. Is there something or someone that is actively wounding us in a way which does not leave us free to respond openly? Rollo May once said that the most destructive human emotion is powerlessness. Depression can be a mask of anger when it is turned inward instead of outward toward our actual problem, or a close mimic of depression may hint that we are in a situation of powerlessness or oppression. Then the answer is probably not in any therapy, medication, or meditation, but in action or getting help, or at least recognizing the true cause being outside of the emotional tracts.

Now, if we actually discover ourselves to be depressed, what can we do? This could be a book, and it is not, so I will be as brief as I can. First, we do well to assess how deep it is. Can I do the things listed below? If not, I may well need help from family, pastor, counselors, and/or physicians or even a crisis hotline. The healthiest people over the long run are always those who can admit their need for others and their inability to do everything for themselves.

Then we can (by ourselves or with others’ help) double check that the basics structures of healthy living are in place. Are we eating veggies and fruits, and getting our proteins, minerals, and micro-nutrients? Are we walking or exercising consistently? Are we seeing the sun (or the vague reflection of it off the clouds in our rain forest setting)? Are we keeping our rhythms of spiritual community life every seven days? Are we calling relatives and checking in with friends? Are we regular??? Like in solving problems in high quality sports, often the best returns come from going back to the fundamentals.

Is medication a good idea? The Bible has many examples of medication used for God’s purposes, and wise use of all of God’s gifts is essential when we desire healing. But of course, there are limits on what medication can do. And for those without lifelong chemical imbalances, it is always good to treat medical interventions as catalysts and short term assists. And yes, there are diets, and possibly supplements that can provide some of what western medicines do, but this does not discount medication’s usefulness in the depths of times of need.

Now I Get Myself In Trouble: What is NOT useful when we are depressed is dumping on ourselves for our deficiencies or failures. When dealing with questions of mental health, the United Methodist Book of Resolutions uses the phrase “exaggerated self-negation …” While we all need God’s forgiveness, we must not fall into cycles of guilt and self abuse and pretend that is God’s will for our lives. Maybe when we are depressed we are least likely to be able to assess our faithfulness to the Spirit’s call in our lives.

When others around us feel depressed there are a whole lot of issues that are raised I won’t start with here, but I hope you seek help when others around you are struggling! I have a particular concern for parents seeing their children go through depression with all its risks and for those undergoing economic and medical crises.

My favorite Sufi poet Hafiz is quoted as saying “I know the voice of depression still calls to you.” But soon after, saying “But you are with the Friend now. And you look so much stronger”.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Not all depression needs to be “cured”. Some depressions simply last for a lifetime. I have found that allowing myself some brief time not fighting depression gives me permission to pray differently, like the writer of Psalm 42 and 43. But at some point, I take depression as a call to look again. After all, it is a sickness of perception. So I look at the sacred people of life. I have never met someone who is not in most deep ways beautiful. Looking. Seeing beauty.

As Hafiz says,

“Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear,
From the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.
You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom
And Love.

Whenever you say God’s name, dear pilgrim,
My ears wish my head was missing
So they could finally kiss each other
And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!”

For those of you with longer term depression, it is an honor to share life with you even when you struggle. Thank you for opening up to all of those you can open up to. You are beautiful in God’s eyes. And mine. And so many others. Keep squeezing drops of the Sun.

Let a friend know that this blog is here.

Grace and joyful healings to you.

If you have interest in Hafiz, I got those lines from I Heard God Laughing Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky.

Drinking

2008-12-18T10:15:00.001-08:00

Did you hear the one about: A pastor loved a little wine, but served a parish that didn’t easily support alcohol consumption, certainly by one of its clergy. A couple who knew and appreciated his palate brought a bottle of home brewed blackberrry wine to a private dinner with the pastor. They said they would gladly give him another bottle if he would put his thanks in the newsletter. In the next newsletter there was a note: “The pastor wishes to thank Mr and Mrs. Smith for the gift of fruit and the spirit in which it was given”.

What you might expect me to say about drinking: Look at the disaster of alcoholism and drunk driving and liver disease and the deaths and disastrous decisions made from excessive drinking on campuses and see how destructive it is to have the alcohol option so pervasive and available in this society. As the United Methodist Book of Resoutions quotes from John Wesley’s mother: “… whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things … that thing is sin to you…”

But that isn’t the whole story, is it? Many many people are capable of drinking a drop of wine for their health (just like Paul tells Timothy to do in the Bible (I Timothy 5:23). Most people are capable of taking a glass of wine or a beer to relax. It really is true that some foods go better with a wine!

Now I get in trouble: Many people have the power to drink to a little “buzz” a couple of times a year and not drive or become fools or violent at all. A bit of drinking, to what we would call that buzz, was done by the Jews at festivals under God’s guidance, as seen in passages like Deuteronomy 16:12-14 or Ecclesiastes 9:7. The passage where Jesus makes the water into wine is more striking to me because it is clear that Jesus was at a party with people who were drinking more than I am prone to do ever (it is in John chapter 2).

Some of you know that I attend a 12 step meeting of one kind or another, over 30 years after I used chemicals to excess. But I can drink a glass of wine with no problems at all. I just find the 12 step process to be useful to me.

I would want to put it this way: if you can drink with meals or after mowing a lawn to relax a wee bit, good for you. If you can drink a bit more twice a year and not need to drink the same every weekend, good for you. I hope you smile for joy!

And yes, I have willingly let my kids taste wine at restaurant meals. Me. A pastor, no less!

But don’t lie to youreslf. You are an example to someone at those meals out who might not be as capable as you. So the context is a big big deal. And a lot of the alcohol industry makes its living from excess and abuse. The Bible and most holy books are more critical of drinking for these reasons than they are ever permissive about it. I am quite willing to vote for more and more restrictions on the use and availability of alcohol, and feel no love for events sponsored by beer companies.

Well, I hope your merriment is richer than a drink could ever make you. And that you have much of it. Remember, Jesus said “I came that your joy would be full”.

Anger Management

2008-12-10T15:45:00.001-08:00

Have You Heard the One About: When I was a pastor of my first church, I had someone come to me who was new on a faith journey and had been reading the Bible for the first time. She came to tell me she could not be a Christian. I asked why and she said she had discovered in the Bible that Jesus got angry. And she said that meant that he was not a Christian, either [she did work that out, by the way].

What You Might Expect Me to Say About Anger Management: Rage is an awful thing, and it most often targeted toward those we supposedly love. The United Methodist Social Principles say “We recognize that family violence and abuse in all its forms—verbal, psychological, physical, sexual—is detrimental to the covenant of the human community”. I have risked my life several times to intervene in intimate violence. It is horrible.

But That’s Not the Whole Story, Is it? We all get mad. And sometimes to be honest with those we love we need to talk about uncomfortable things. The Bible decries rage, but allows it is quite possible to “Be angry but do not sin”. Some of my friends dump on themselves for every hint of anger they have, when some of that anger seems quite appropriate and even useful energy to me. And yep, Jesus did get mad. And his followers did some good anger along with some … well … less good anger. Then and now!

Now I Get In Trouble: I believe that much rage is from holding back on good anger. What do I mean? Well, here is the difference in simple examples: If I say, “I am so angry about this, and I don’t want to be angry with you. I love you. We have to fix this problem, and I want to fix it now” that is anger. If I say to my beloved “You are the scum of the earth, you disgusting excuse for a human, you rectum of the universe” … that’s different. Totally, completely the opposite. But if I don’t have the tools to express anger and find grace in it, I avoid it at all costs. Then we wait ‘till the water boils.

I think people who over-rely on anger are putting themselves into tensions at odds with the peace intended in their soul. But I think people who have never distinguished between anger and rage tend to give up on themselves and go straight to rage because they think of all those emotions as the same deep evil in themselves. When we rage, we have given up on ourselves. And this is deadly.

I don’t believe in rage as a tool at all. I think anger is a decent way to discover energy intended to propel us toward healing. Dr King was angry. Great leaders are angry at evil and corruption and social decline.

If you need to see someone about rage, do it right away. It is not enough to find a counselor who will hear you whine about life. It is important to find someone who will help you find your best energies for healing, including anger, and be able to spot when this rage is masquerading as anger.

If you are raising kids, you need to help your kids figure this out. If you are in a relationship, this is vital to your future. Do well.

gambling

2008-12-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

Have You Heard the One About: One member of my church gambled in Reno once every three months. I razzed him about it. He said he always tithed his winnings. Once when he came back he came and got me and said “Remember I told you I always tithe my 10% after gambling?” I said yes. He then said, “Well, then the church owes me $37.50”.

What You Might Expect Me to Say About Gambling: I’m against it. Don’t do it. The United Methodist Social Principles say that “Gambling is a menace to society … deadly … destructive …” and it advises abstention and helping those addicted. My dad’s days long disappearances when we were little makes the point well. And when he got back, we got no rides to sports and he sold a car or two. It sucked.

But That’s Not the Whole Story, Is It? We have wonderfully healthy friends who are once-in-a-while, budgeted gamblers. They set aside way less than it would take for me to go to a pro football game and don’t take their credit or debit cards, and have a silly night out with friends. Oh, and did I mention that the Bible has hardly any direct counsel on the subject of gambling itself?

Should everyone quit to protect the addicted? Or to stop the crazy confusion made out of government policy toward education and other concerns because of the systemic damage gambling causes? Or to reduce the incentives of native communities to invest so much in such a crime-ridden business?

Or, to avoid one more distraction with bells and whistles? Or, more seriously, to get hold of our tendency to let commercialism train us into taking our and our family’s own money {!!} and giving it away to others for truly cheap entertainment? We can dream. But that is not real.

Now I Get In Trouble: I think that IF you have no credit card debt, and if you are a healthy giver and a disciplined saver, you do little harm to yourself with budgeted gambling. Do I? Absolutely never. Partly out of concern for what gambling is doing to our national systems and psychology. Partly out of respect to the addicts and the addictable. And mostly because I need all the help I can find in keeping my monetary issues about what I earn and save real. If you gamble I hope you have a great time. But I shall razz you (consider yourself warned!). But really, you gotta be careful.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Just because it can be just a light form of recreation, it still is no ideal hobby, and limiting yourself is essential if you do give yourself permission . Hoping to “game” the universe is not a plan. And it is a sick way to think. And that money would do wonders in Darfur, medical research, or in Humboldt County churches and agencies helping kids and youth and seniors and the hurting.

Your brain has vulnerability that leads all the way down to your soul. If you have a problem with gambling, be proud of yourself for admitting it. If you want to gamble honorably, take up farming. Or reach out to a troubled youth. You might lose. And even then you gain. Do well.

Pornography

2008-12-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

[Hey, couples, maybe read this together!]

Have You Heard the One About: Did you know that in the early 1900s, one of the reasons people thought young people should only get a New Testament was that that way they would not see the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament [the Jewish Scriptures], because it was about sex. From God’s point of view. But they didn’t think young people should be exposed to that … … …?

What You Might Expect Me to Say About Pornography: I’m against it. Don’t use it. The United Methodist Social Principles say “We deplore all forms of commercialization and exploitation of sex… cheapening … human personality”.[And we hear often of pornography mixing in violent images, and I don’t even think it is proper to refer to anything with children as pornography, but rather of child abuse in the most wicked sense].

But That’s Not the Whole Story, Is It?: Here I am a Christian church pastor, and I have had many church attenders tell me of their uses of pornography. I made some delicate calls to a few of those lately, and I want to express my gratitude to them for broadening my sensitivities. What did I hear from healthy people? Hmm … a bit of what can be separated into two categories of thought.

First are those who confess porn has done them poorly, an addiction for some and a cheapening, almost sexless lust for others. This has damaged relationships with partners and has hindered spiritual freedom. I even heard this from a church pastor who said this was a big problem for him.

But the second group are people who genuinely see it as benign. One woman says she appreciates the sexual energy she finds it awakens in herself and her husband; another says it keeps her partner vented without wandering. Another says it has kept her attuned to her sexuality while she is single. Guys have said it is a safe way to be honorably single and honorably away from a sweetheart.

Now I Get In Trouble: Humans are curious. In many societies in longhouses and extended family tents and even in community celebrations there have been not-aberrant ‘information-gathering” glances toward others in passion’s embrace. And conversation about sex in graphic terms wasn’t invented after the camera, or after the printed page! Neither was masturbation. And we have so panicked over sexual conversation that there are few healthy ways for that interest to be satisfied.

I read once that what the world of porn needed was consumers who would demand examples of loving, committed couples healthily expressing their intimacies. Another Christian wrote that the place of healthy erotic literature needed to be lifted up as an alternative to porn. The fact that the Bible itself has an example of this in the Song of Solomon suggests that this idea has merit! And it is there with no suggestion that reading it will create unhealthy lust. But how often do you hear this argument from churches who claim to find their wisdoms in the Bible?

Do I believe that all use of porn is destructive to individuals and couples? Some very graceful people have convinced me that that is not necessarily the case. But would I recommend it? Would I like my kids to grow up to be users? Nope. But if you are a user, be reflective and limit it.

Don’t Lie to Yourself: Porn is an industry famous for abusive relationships, even if recently there is a new trend toward more care over pay and safety issues, if the news is to be believed. And its titles don’t suggest much in the way of healthy, committed couples. And addiction is common. And since sexual stimulation was apparently occurring pretty well for the last two million years without it, we can probably learn to live without it and still love passionately, and likely much more healthily.

You were made sexual. Go wild! Cherish the gift. Watch out for sexual junk food. It could make you sick or slow to hear your deepest cravings. If you are in a relationship and do use porn, talk to your partner about it. Don’t make it into a dirty secret. Sexual secrets are dangerous to a couple. Do well.