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!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Abortion
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
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
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.
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.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Waaaay Different
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
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
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Something Missing
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.
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.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
DISASTER
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.
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.
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