"There Is Something Afoot in the Universe"

Every now and then, I run across an insight that takes my breath away. It happened again this Advent season. In an eloquent editorial, Father Andrew Greeley offered a quote (from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) that puts the heart of the Christmas message in the language of mystery it deserves:

“There is something afoot in the universe, something that looks like gestation and birth.”

This is not just about a baby in a manger. It is, rather, a cosmic reality that makes our lives pregnant with meaning and hope. The Utterly Unknowable becomes not only knowable, but personal. In the process, he makes the ultimate effort to know us…by becoming one of us.

It is a story that can change lives.

I pray that this Christmas season—and the new year to come—bring you even more of the Unknowable in your midst. Blessings and peace.

Getting Ready for the Second Coming

Recently I suggested a different perspective on “Christ will come again”: maybe, just maybe, this statement does not so much affirm an actual future event as express a longing for (and faith in) restoration. The whole discussion reminded me of a quandary that plagued me during my fundamentalist days: the gospels seem to indicate that we should “get ready” for the Second Coming—but how?

A recent trip through Matthew 24-25 surprised me with a straightforward answer. In this passage, Jesus presents four parables that deal with “getting ready.” Here’s what struck me:

• The servant left in charge of the master’s households (Matthew 24:45-51). If the servant gives “the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time,” he is blessed; if he beats the servants and “eats with drunkards,” he is punished. The moral: treat other people with justice and respect.
• The wise and foolish maidens (25:1-12). Five of the maidens run out of oil for their lamps, so they cannot meet the bridegroom when he returns at night. The other five have prepared and are (here’s that word again) ready for the bridegroom. I may be reading too much into this, but I believe it expresses the need to cultivate and feed the interior life—to “keep the flame alive,” as it were.
• The parable of the talents (25:14-30). The master leaves three servants with money. Two of them invest the money and earn back double what they invested; the master commends them. One, saying that the master is a “harsh man” and being afraid of his wrath, buried it in the ground—to keep it “safe”—and was rebuked. The moral here involves stewardship: manage wisely your gifts and talents, and use them to bear fruit.
• The sheep and the goats (25:31-46). At the Second Coming, the king separates people as one would separate sheep and goats. The “sheep” go to eternal life; the “goats” go to hell. What separates them? How they treated the sick, the hungry, the naked, and those in prison.
  

So, in summary, how does one “get ready” for the Second Coming? By practicing justice, acting as wise stewards of God’s gifts, fostering the life of the Spirit within us, and serving the very least among us. Or as the prophet Micah puts it (Micah 6:8), “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

In other words, we get ready for the return of Christ by doing what we’re called to do every day of our lives.

This is why I think—whether you believe in a literal Second Coming or not—that we need not pay a great deal of attention to it directly. Our job is simply to do what God calls us to do, day in and day out. By fulfilling God’s will, we make ourselves ready for God’s coming, regardless of what that means.

Living in the Mystic Now

Mysticism confuses people. When they hear the word, they often think of wild visions or ecstatic trances or whirling dervishes. And sometimes that comes with the territory, or so mystic writers (like St. Teresa of Avila) testify.

I’m experiencing something different.

Lately, I have felt driven not into ecstasy, but deep into real, everyday life. Just by paying attention to what’s happening around me, I’ve learned some essential lessons. For instance, as I’ve dealt with the people who cross my path every day, I’ve run up against my capacity to hurt and be hurt. I’ve seen that I’m just as fallible and occasionally noble as anyone else: no more, no less. I’ve noted how God weaves himself sublimely, almost invisibly, through the day.

None of this is earth-shattering, of course, and much of it seems pathetically obvious. But maybe that is a key practice of mysticism: to draw simple yet life-changing lessons from the reality around us.

Many spiritual traditions look at it that way. Zen calls its practitioners to be present to the moment. Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle exhorts us to “be here now.”

I believe that quiet, constant attention, that “being here now,” works its magic in us. Not only do we learn about reality, we start to align our lives around it. When we see what is, we see our own feelings and prejudices for what they are—and can reach beyond them to what is beyond us. Our compassion for others expands. Most miraculously, we begin to sense the presence of the Divine like a constant hum throughout the day.

The beauty of Christianity, I think, lies right there: in the constant presence of a loving God permeating this everyday life, working with the messes we often make—and the good we sometimes do—to weave the human cosmos together in ways far beyond our imagining. This God, I think, is our hope that, as we live purposefully in the here and now, our lives take purpose well beyond.

Where Vocation Lives

We were spending a week with my aging parents in Florida, and our 10-year-old was bored and restless. Try as she might, she could not figure out what she wanted to do. There weren’t many choices: go to the pool, read, or…what?

So I asked her to try something that’s worked for me. She quieted her mind, focused inward, and tried to listen for anything that bubbled to the surface. After a minute or so, she said, “I think I want to play with pipe cleaners.”

So, much to the bemusement of my parents, we went out and bought pipe cleaners. And she was happy and engaged for the rest of our stay.

I wonder if vocation is like that.

Saturday’s religion section includes a story of a woman who was on track to become an attorney. When her mother took ill, however, she came back to our region to care for her—and found a part-time job as a youth minister. “It was then,” she wrote, “that I realized working with teens and sharing my faith has always been my passion.”

Note: has always been my passion.

I suspect vocation is like that. The calling lives in us all along; our challenge is to discover it—to sort through the many facets of ourselves and find the one thing that strikes right to the heart of who we are.

Not that the path to this discovery is entirely introspective. Nowadays, we get our kids involved in all manner of activities. The purpose is not (I hope!) to push them into a particular activity, or teach them to become overachievers; we’re simply giving them the chance to see what really ignites them.

In other words, we’re helping them find their vocation.

That trial and error is important (in moderation). More important, however, is what we do during the trial and error: we pay attention to our souls. We ask ourselves: What happens when I do x? Do I sense a peace, a purpose, when I do y? What passion sits at the base of my being?

Simple attention drew our daughter to the one thing that would fulfill her during that vacation. Simple attention can help us find our own vocation in life, then pursue it for what it is: the will of God for us.

Second Thoughts on the Second Coming

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

We Episcopalians often say this splendid confession of faith during the liturgy of the Eucharist. But what are we saying, really, when we affirm that “Christ will come again”?

And if it’s not the traditional answer, could it be something just as deep and compelling?

As a former fundamentalist, I have always assumed the affirmation meant what it said: that Jesus would return from heaven at the end of time and usher in the Last Judgment. There are ample scriptural references to this event: whole chapters (Matthew 24), even whole books (Revelation), are devoted to this topic.

Or are they?

A closer reading causes me to wonder. From all appearances, the New Testament writers fully expected the return of Christ within their lifetimes. St. Paul writes, for example, that “the appointed time has grown very short…. For the form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29, 31b). The writer of Hebrews exhorts readers to meet together regularly, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25).

One small problem: it didn’t happen.

Then you look at the apocalyptic passages in the gospels and realize they could be talking about any era. “You will hear wars and rumors of wars”: happens in every age. “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places”: same thing. In fact, these could be referring to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the first century. Given that Revelation is written to “the seven churches that are in Asia,” might not that book also be referring to first-century events?

Now, none of this necessarily means that there won’t be a final return of Jesus and an “end of the age.” Still, when I read scriptural affirmations of such a return—especially when coupled with harrowing accounts of the end times—I hear something distinctly different: a deep, almost unutterable yearning for restoration and healing after a cataclysm. In that sense, the passage echoes the most moving passages from the Old Testament prophets, in which they bewail the destruction and captivity of Israel—then bring the good news of a future return.

In a post-9/11 world, don’t we need this message more than ever? For us in the modern era, “Christ will come again” becomes a stirring message of hope in the restorative love of a God who, all evidence to the contrary, has not abandoned us—and never will.

Yes, “Christ will come again.” Count on it.

Spiritual but Not Religious?

You hear this from a lot of people these days. Many of them, I suspect, mean they have an appreciation, even a reverence, for the things of the spirit, but they find themselves repelled by the trappings of institutional faith. (Given the history of institutional faith, who can blame them?)

In many cases, as our parish’s interim rector said in his sermon this past Sunday, this hunger for spirit expresses itself in a most eclectic way. The small shrine at our dog’s favorite kennel includes all manner of spiritual objects, including statues of Buddha and the Virgin Mary nearly side by side. “Spiritual but not religious” people might place Emerson in with Krishna in with St. Francis of Assisi and Zoroaster in one religious stew.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think so. Truth is hardly restricted to one faith tradition. On the whole, at least from what I’ve read and seen, I think Eastern religions have gone far deeper than Christianity in matters of meditation and mysticism. On the other hand, there’s a depth of meaning in the Incarnation—God “lived and died as one of us,” so surely he knows our failings—that I believe is unique among faith traditions.

Here’s the one thing that worries me about “spiritual but not religious”: I suspect that, without a single established core to one’s spirituality, it becomes tempting to adopt those elements of faith that offer comfort but not challenge. In that guise, non-religious spirituality fails to do what spirituality at its highest level does: make us grow toward the Divine—and toward one another.

An example from the tradition I know best: Christianity, like the other Abrahamic faith traditions, calls its followers to live out their faith in flesh-and-blood communities, in this case the church. When you participate in a church with other people, however, some of them are bound to rub you the wrong way. The solution, according to modern society, is to leave. The solution, according to the Christian faith, is to stay—and even learn to love (though not necessarily like) those people. Why? Because it forces us outside ourselves, leavens our perspective with those of others, and fosters our growth in love.

In the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, we ask God to “deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table [the Eucharist] for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal.” This, I suspect, is what happens when we commit ourselves to a spiritual tradition: we enjoy the comforts even as we take up the challenges to which God calls us. Following that path is an adventure like no other.

Who Is God That We Should Submit?

I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn…: “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” (Isaiah 45:22-23)

On the face of it, this passage seems exceptionally self-serving: it makes God sound like an autocratic medieval king. But there’s at least one good reason to “bow the knee” that has nothing to do with accumulation of glory.

To understand this, start with a definition of God that is disarming in its simplicity: God is love (1 John 4:8). It’s easy to gloss over those three little words, but their effect on our understanding of God can be life-changing. The image of God as the big judge in the sky fades; in its place, we are left with God as the ground of self-giving, a wellspring of extravagant love bestowed upon the universe.

If that’s the case, what are we doing when we “bow the knee” to God? Not just yielding our will to a larger will, but imitating that self-giving love. By doing so on a daily basis, we become more and more like Love himself—and from there it is an easy step to give of ourselves to others.

Perhaps this new perspective could make an impact far beyond us as well. If our primary view of God ceases to be the big judge in the sky, perhaps we stop seeking to judge and drawing dogmatic distinctions. If we relate to God as the ground of self-giving, perhaps we focus more on our own self-giving. If, as in traditional Christian thought, we see Jesus as God fully identifying with the human race, perhaps we too seek to identify with and understand the other. That might lead to more compassion and more peace.

Can God be reduced to three little words? Of course not. From what I’ve seen in the scriptures and my own life, God is so infinitely complex—and so impenetrably mysterious—that no words can capture the divine essence. Still, God is love, I suspect, gives us a glimpse into that very essence. And if we place that glimpse at the core of our understanding of God, we just might bear more of the fruit that the world so desperately needs.

The Four Seasons and How to Tolerate Them

A few years ago, I found myself complaining about the weather all too frequently. I decided I needed to restrict my kvetching to just one season. So I chose my least favorite: summer.

Now I may even have to repent of that.

In a recent posting on his weekly blog, Br. Bede Thomas Mudge, the prior of Holy Cross Monastery, discussed the need to accept the seasons for what they are—and the energy that comes from doing simply that. The idea is to let go of the complaining and the steeling oneself against (in my case) the unremitting heat and humidity and the unpleasant person it makes me.

And unpleasant is the word for it. My concentration dwindles to zero, often making prayer a joke. My irritability goes through the roof. My lethargy leaves me not caring whether those work projects get done by the due date. Et cetera.

So if I simply accept summer—and my reaction to it—what happens?

Suddenly my perspective changes. Maybe it’s a good thing to go through times like this. Every year, like clockwork (or maybe thermometerwork), I get to see the unpleasant side of me, which breeds humility. Even more, I get to embrace the irritability and the lethargy and the et cetera, not as good things, but simply as part of who I am. It gives me a clearer vision of myself—and what is humility if not that?

Of course, this experience is hardly unique—as anyone familiar with St. Paul can attest. To keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me…. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

For me at least, it’s one thing to read about these experiences; it’s quite another to discover them at work in my own life—and to start recognizing them for the blessings they are.

P.S. None of this stops me from running the air conditioner when the temp hits 90. Got to keep that irritability from getting out of hand.

The Siren Song of "I Need It Now"

Since committing myself to Holy Cross’s Rule for Associates, I’ve tried to live more in balance: less time at work, more space for quiet, more routine ensconced in prayer. So much fruit has come from this—and some of it is most visible during those times when, Rule or no Rule, work and other commitments still get out of hand.

The last two weeks, for instance—which included a gigantic work project on ridiculous deadlines—have reminded me just what it feels like to live out of balance. The frenetic pace robs me of my ability to pray, concentrate, or reflect deeply. I have neither the time nor the energy to step back and gain perspective. I suspect this is why people call you for information you’ve already provided in an e-mail, or they repeat back something to you that they think you said, but you really didn’t: they’re moving so fast that they haven’t been able to pay attention.

I can’t live this way for more than a couple of weeks. The pace is insane. It is also, however, strangely seductive. To pull it off, I have to restrict myself to a certain level of input, sealing off perspectives that might intrude on my own sphere. As long as I stay in that zone, I’m OK…or so I think. It makes life easier. It gives at least the illusion of control in a culture that drowns us in information and false urgency.

This isn’t necessarily bad in the short run. Sometimes it’s all you can do to cope with what’s at hand. But when this becomes a long-term strategy for dealing with the world, it closes us off to the essentials: to God, to the deep workings of the universe, to one another, to plight of those who are poor, to listening. It keeps us from the abundant life that God holds out to us to savor and engage.

I wonder if this is why we so often have epiphanies during a crisis or catastrophe. In those moments, life breaks through the illusion of control and forces us to waken to something larger. It may not be that “this catastrophe happened for a reason”: maybe it just happened, and for better or worse, it now presents an opportunity to see beyond our limited sphere.

It’s an opportunity worth seizing, within crisis or without. The life beyond modern culture’s frantic pace—especially life with the Divine Presence—is rich beyond measure. May we embrace it with both arms.

Three Words to Promote Healing

No, not those three words. To be sure, I love you goes a long way toward building solid relationships and healing broken ones. But three other words might help the healing process as well.

I don’t know.

Something in our DNA compels us toward knowledge. Perhaps it’s the thirst for understanding: where would science be today without it? Maybe, less beneficially, it’s the desire for control. Or the drive to hold on to something concrete amid constant change: such a drive, I suspect, has contributed mightily to the rise of fundamentalism.

One tiny problem: certainty eludes us. The cosmos isn’t built for it. Look at the mind-boggling uncertainty at the subatomic level; you can’t even tell where a particle is with any certainty. On the human level, we have studied the psyche for thousands of years—and yet there is still so much about our inner life that is mysterious.

This is all the more true of God. Even the Bible speaks of a God who changes course and sometimes seems to act in a contradictory manner. In our everyday lives, God stuns us just when we think we’ve got him—wait, her?—figured out.

If we could embrace such uncertainty—if we could hold our ideas about God and the world lightly—we would be more at peace with the nature of things. But in so many ways, we insist on certainty. That, in turn, means that we clash with others who cling to their certainty. We cannot afford to listen and dialogue because our certainty might be threatened.

Conversely, the more we embrace I don’t know as our fundamental orientation, the more we open to the thoughts and insights of others—even others with whom we disagree. That enables us to move into dialogue, into respect for other people and their own experiences of God, into appreciation for those experiences and what they can teach us.

In a world where so many people and cultures clash with one another over their conflicting “certainties,” the simple admission of I don’t know could be the dialogical equivalent of laying down one’s arms—the first step to peace and to healing.

Does God Intervene?

The reality of unanswered prayers is a huge problem. Think of all the people who prayed for deliverance from the Holocaust, all the people who prayed for peace and safety in the midst of war, all the people who prayed for healing—and whose prayers were not answered.... I do not and cannot believe that God is an interventionist.

—Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity

Recently I’ve run across a couple of deep religious thinkers who express the same reservations. And they are unquestionably on to something. The normal responses to such thinking—like “God always answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is no”—are hopelessly glib and inadequate in the face of the Holocaust or 9/11. In these and many other cases, God seems exasperatingly silent.

So is Borg right, then? Not so fast. I see some real problems with a non-interventionist God as well:

1. What do you do with those instances where, from all appearances, someone has prayed and actually received a concrete response? You could chalk up the biblical examples to a spiritual dramatization of actual events. But what about modern-day healings? Not all of them can be attributed to natural causes, like the change in emotional state that prayer sometimes brings.
2. How do we explain the concept of vocation—not just to ministry, but to anything? Isn’t the act of calling someone to do something an intervention in itself?
3. To take it one step further, how do we explain any divine influence on the human soul? Certainly, neuroscience and psychology explain a lot. Still, I have found that by opening myself to the divine presence, I find myself thinking and doing things that I never would have imagined. I’m not saying God is doing brain surgery on us, but can we truly say that God is not involved at all?
   

That still doesn’t make instances of an interventionist God’s non-intervention any less horrifying or impossible to explain. It simply means both viewpoints leave way too many questions unanswered—and unanswerable.

So what do we do? I see no reason why we can’t treat this as we do so many other aspects of God: simply revere it as an ineffable mystery and go about our lives. Even Borg, despite his belief, continues to pray for a variety of reasons—one being that it’s arrogant to refuse to do something because you can’t imagine how it works. And again, in some mysterious way, the practice of prayer seems to open us to God’s presence—and that presence has an equally mysterious way of transforming us from the inside out. That alone is reason to pray all the more.

Evil and the Mystery Within Us

Whenever we face a horrific event like the Virginia Tech shootings, I find myself devouring every bit of news I can find—all to answer the question that, I’m sure, plagues many people:

Why?

Specifically, what on earth brings people to do such things? And what does it say about us, the human race?

A segment on PBS’s NewsHour (“Experts Explore the Mind and Motivation of a Mass Killer”) shed some light on the perpetrators of mass shootings. They tend to be loners, shunned by their cohort, controlling, secretive. They follow a fairly predictable path of escalation, from angry writings to angry actions to threats. Some of them, like the Virginia Tech shooter, seem troubled almost from the very beginning.

What is that trouble, though? We often use the word sick to describe them. Where does mental illness end and evil begin?

Evil is not a word we should ever use lightly, especially with people. It instantly separates us from whomever we call evil—and makes compassion for them very difficult indeed. It is a very small step from using the word for certain groups and doing violence to them.

And yet, if you live in the world for any length of time, you see too much evidence of evil to deny its existence. It’s most obvious, I think, in its institutional form: when governments massacre their own people (as in Darfur), or when rebel groups force children to join their cause.

Even with institutions, though, it’s not always easy to draw the line between truly evil, unjust, and simply stupid. (For stupid, thinks Starbucks’ attempt to charge for water near Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11.) In individuals, the line between illness and evil is similarly hard to draw.

And that brings me back to the utter mystery within us. Even with the mind-boggling strides in psychology, neuroscience, and other fields—and they are wonderful indeed—there is still so much about the human race, about even our very selves, that is beyond our understanding.

So how do we respond? Maybe like this: With humility, because we don’t know all the answers. With compassion, because I cannot imagine the pain that the shooters have suffered, let alone that of the victims’ loved ones. And, maybe, with awe at the One who knows our very depths—and still has compassion on us.

The Worst Verse in the Bible

Several posts ago, I ruminated about the Bible’s offensive passages, and what (if anything) we can draw from them. The question came to mind again while I was driving today, and I started reflecting on the scriptures’ most horrifying verse:

Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! (Psalm 137:9)

What on earth do we do with this—especially in a culture where we go to great lengths to protect children?

First, a little context. This verse comes at the end of a psalm that, in heartrending fashion, expresses the utter desolation of ancient Israel in exile—far from the land that, for them, was so closely tied to the presence of God. The verse simply lashes out in the most hurtful way possible, the way we can easily do when in despair.

Though extreme for the psalms, it is hardly unique. Look at the book as a whole, and you see a drop-dead honest expression of the vast range of human emotion. The psalms are raw, they’re unvarnished, they pull no punches.

As such, they present a challenge to us. Can we allow ourselves to feel so honestly? Do we actually believe that God will embrace us if we admit to such horrifying feelings?

Maybe the psalms—and especially this verse—testify that God does, in fact, embrace us, with all our baggage. Which makes God a safe place in which to feel even the ugliest emotions and face even the most unlovable parts of ourselves. If we have such a place, we are freed to reflect on all of it—and do the work of healing.

If we can draw insights like this from one extreme verse, what else can the Bible’s offensive passages teach us?

Pronouns

Are you still in flux with using pronouns for God? I thought I had it figured out to my satisfaction, but then something happened.

Like many folks of my persuasion, I’ve been substituting God for he wherever possible, while avoiding clunky constructions like God sits on God’s holy throne. For me, this approach still works in many instances.

Lately, though, it’s lost some of its luster, because it takes me away from the personal. There is something profoundly, unutterably personal about the divine presence—at least I perceive it that way—and I need to express it. So I tried something hardly new, but still controversial.

I threw in a few shes.

The effect was unexpected. The feminine pronoun suddenly opened me to ways of thinking about God that I hadn’t known existed. There’s something mind-expanding about “She shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples,” or “She comes to rule the earth.”

Praying these passages gives me a sense that God does not transcend gender so much as God encompasses gender—both genders—in the same way God encompasses, and is within, everything. I can also see, once more, the power of language to shape our thinking.

As my wise sister-in-law says, “Words mean things.” May we always be attentive to their transformative power.

Another Reason Not to Fear Death

Maybe death isn’t as big a deal as we think. Part of believing that, of course, hinges on believing in the afterlife.

But maybe part of it doesn’t.

Think of it this way. God calls each of us to a life of service—of working with God to make a better world. You respond to that call where you are, serving with the gifts and influence you have. In doing so, you add your efforts to the millions of others who are responding to the same call.

Of course, as one person, you can only do so much. When you realize this limitation, you can easily see that the world becomes a better place primarily through we, not me. To mangle the well-worn proverb, it takes a village to do just about anything.

So what happens when we die? The creation of a better world goes on. The we still exists. Many others pick up where we leave off. Certainly—certainly—our contributions matter, and we have not lived in vain.

Sort of takes the edge off death, doesn’t it?

This is not to make light of death’s profound impact on the living. Live in the world for any length of time, and you’re going to affect people deeply. We’re all so interconnected that the loss of any one of us is profoundly painful. But I wonder whether seeing ourselves as part of that larger, interconnected whole removes the sting from our own death, much as the resurrection does.

Adopting a perspective like this, of course, requires a move away from self-absorption. In our culture, making that move is a constant battle. Thankfully, we have with us the constant presence of God, tirelessly drawing us out of ourselves. If we respond, we can become more fully who God intended us to be…and join with God in re-creating the world.

Wrestling with Everything

One of my more recent posts (“When the Bible Offends”) got me thinking.

Maybe the scriptures aren’t the only thing we need to wrestle with. Maybe that wrestling needs to take place with everything we encounter: every person, every experience, every thought.

Of course, no one has time or energy for all that wrestling. So maybe wrestling isn’t the right metaphor. Perhaps there’s another way to draw insight and lessons from every situation.

I (and many others) have found such attentiveness to be a fruit of the contemplative life: contemplative not in its popular connotation of thoughtful, but to describe a life that is continually open to the divine presence in the here and now. When we live in a contemplative way, we remain open to each situation—and listen carefully for what it has to bring us.

Here’s an example. Like everyone, I often find myself in dull conversations, wishing I could excuse myself. In some of those situations, however—when I’m awake enough—I take a mental step back and just observe. Why has God put me here, now? What is there in this moment that speaks to me? What can I offer to this moment?

Not that there’s a clear answer in every case. But sometimes the required attentiveness is enough to refresh my soul all by itself. And quite often, that person—whom I considered so dull—has something to say that I desperately need to hear.

Joan Chittister, in her book Called to Question, sees a blessed interconnectedness among all such moments in our lives: “Isn’t everything that happens in life simply seeding something to come—and isn’t all of it God? But if that’s true, the question is, then, Are all our thoughts new seeds of life to be pursued?”

I think this type of contemplative approach comes through constancy in prayer and meditation. As we open ourselves to God, we become open to God all around us. That, in turn, makes us anticipate—eagerly—God’s presence and voice wherever, and with whomever, we find ourselves.

What’s Missing from the Anglican Picture

Like millions of others this past week, I’ve read the communiqués and missives and web postings about the latest developments in the Anglican Communion. In the process, I’ve noticed certain elements that are conspicuously absent from the war of words. See if you agree:

1. Care for those on all “sides.” The Primates’ communiqué proposes an entire structure to care for those in the U.S. Episcopal Church who do not agree with the consecration of a gay bishop. To the extent that they need such care, maybe this is a good thing. But there’s not a word about those who welcome GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) people in positions of authority. They are no less in need of care, especially in the face of hostility from segments of the Anglican Communion worldwide. Do the Primates assume that the U.S. church’s structure will take care of them? Or is dogma getting in the way of mercy here?
2. Some explanation of what this is all about. Yes, the controversy is about the role of GLBT people in the church. Clearly, millions of people have deeply held beliefs about this. But people believe things for reasons. And those reasons do not always involve power or control or homophobia or a desire to “get with the times” or the pernicious influence of worldly values. At bottom, I can’t shake the belief that it all comes down to your beliefs about the Bible. Literal truth? Inspired (but sometimes fallible) guide? A book by God or about God? I don’t think we will get anywhere unless we explore the roots of this conflict—and have that debate—in greater depth. Which brings me to:
3. Honest dialogue. From what I’ve read, most people on every “side” have now given up on dialogue. I see no mention of it in the communiqué, and very little to commend it elsewhere. The only person who seems to be discussing it is the Presiding Bishop, bless her heart.
   

This last point is particularly worrisome—and not just for the Anglican Communion. The state of honest dialogue, at least in U.S. society, is appalling. People don’t talk; they scream. And they sure as hell don’t listen. I’ve always thought one of the Anglican Communion’s great witnesses to the world has been its reflective, deliberative approach to issues, discussing them in an atmosphere of mutual respect. If we have lost the ability to talk, how on earth can we help the rest of society get its house in order?

We may never agree. But at least we can talk. All it takes is the willingness to start.

When the Bible Offends

“‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.’” (Titus 1:12)

Holy cow. Talk about offensive.

This verse, part of the liturgical readings for Episcopalians yesterday, certainly disrupts the sweet rhythm of worship, to say the least. And it’s not the only one. The entire Bible is dotted with verses and passages that make one cringe. Take the second half of Psalm 149 (an approval of vengeance), or Exodus 4:24 (where God tries to kill Moses for no apparent reason), or Psalm 137:9 (which I can’t even bring myself to type).

What do we do with these? Do we pray them in the liturgy? Can we draw anything from them?

Accepting them as literal truth, let alone as prescriptive truth, is clearly not an option. The other extreme—rejecting them out of hand—is certainly attractive. Perhaps, though, it’s not the best.

Take the verse from Titus, which I wrestled with this morning. In the context, the apostle Paul is advising his young disciple on selecting leaders for the church in Crete and helping church members grow spiritually. In his description of Cretans, here and in other verses, I think he’s trying to set a sociological context for the direction Titus needs to take: “Because Cretan culture is like this, and these people have grown up in the culture, here are the steps that might be most effective in helping them grow.”

The way he says it, of course, would be condemned today, and rightly so. So would his use of gross generalization. But after wrestling with the passage, I take the lesson that when fostering someone’s spiritual growth, it helps to take the whole person into context—including the sociological air they’ve breathed.

Exegetical sleight of hand? Maybe; I’m no scholar. The point, though, is that the truth of hard passages just might come forth in the wrestling. After doing so, you may still think a particular verse or passage should be expunged from the scriptures. But by wrestling with it, at least you’ve tried to wring some truth out of it.

Maybe, too, the wrestling itself hones one’s spirit and attunes it more closely to God. That in itself would make the whole exercise worthwhile.

In the World? Of the World?

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)

This verse, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, kicks off a lengthy passage that has always made me squirm. It includes the “wives, be subject to your husbands” business that men have wielded to justify all manner of bad behavior against women. According to later parts of the passage, children must be subject to their parents, and slaves to their masters.

Part of this was yesterday’s lectionary reading. Being confronted with it during Morning Prayer, I suddenly saw an entirely new side of St. Paul.

That “new side” shows up in his admonitions to those in power. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” “Masters…stop threatening [your slaves], for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.”

Consider that women, children, and slaves in ancient cultures were considered property at best, if they were considered at all. Paul’s exhortations require those in power to treat those without power as human. And how radical (for that time) is the idea that God has no partiality, so that all—adults, children, slaves, masters—stand equal before him?

I believe we’re looking at an apostle caught between two worlds. He admonishes women, children, and slaves because there is some need—especially given the precarious position of the first-century church—to maintain the social order. Paul himself is a fan of stability: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). Yet he also seems to yearn for the gospel in full flower: where love reigns, where children are nurtured to their full potential, where there is no partiality. He gives voice to that gospel when he writes, “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

To be sure, human history has moved on. In most places, slavery is just a bad memory; in many, women have attained equal status. We’re getting closer to that “gospel in full flower.” Yet we too face the same tension between God and culture—between “in the world” and “of the world.” Isn’t that part of the dynamic that drives the divisions in the church over homosexuality?

Jesus knew that change would come slowly, because we couldn’t take instant transformation: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). But we can continue to explore, to discern what belongs to “the way things are” and what represents the reign of God that should be. Indeed, we must continue to explore—for how else can we fulfill our mission to extend that reign?

The Problem with Inerrancy (and the Good News That Follows)

The last post (“No Harm Will Befall You?”) illustrates what I think is a flaw in the notion that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired and true for all time. At one time or another, we all run across this scenario: we read something in the Scripture; we look at our own experience; the overwhelming evidence contradicts the Scripture. What do we do then?

What I did, in my evangelical days, was tie myself in intellectual knots. I would try to force-fit a literal reading of the passage—which, as I saw it, was the absolute truth—to the way life clearly is. I would force-fit a passage clearly intended for ancient Jewish culture onto our culture. In contrast, the notion that the verse sprang from the spiritual wellspring at the core of the writer, however divinely influenced, or was meant for that culture at that time makes more sense.

To be sure, you can go too far the other way too: flippantly dismissing all kinds of passages as incorrect, or culturally relative, or inaccurately translated, and therefore not worthy of attention. I suspect that’s why I clung to inerrancy so tightly—because I feared losing a cornerstone of my faith.

Is this true of most evangelicals? If so, there’s good news on two fronts. One, between inerrancy and flippant dismissal is a whole spectrum of frameworks in which we can take the Bible seriously, if not literally. And two, there is always the true cornerstone of our faith—the Holy Spirit—who, according to Jesus, would “guide us into all the truth” (John 16:13).

P.S. It’s been a while since I could honestly call myself an evangelical. If you are one, and you feel I’ve misrepresented you, please speak up!

No Harm Will Befall You?

The fear of the Lord leads to life; and he who has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm. (Proverbs 19:23)

I’m at a loss with this verse.

I discovered it on my way through Proverbs. It instantly reminded me of other, similar verses scattered throughout the Scripture—like “a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you” (Psalm 91:7). If you love and follow God, the verses seem to say, no harm will befall you.

And yet clearly it’s not true.

If it were, how could we explain the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul? Or the assassination of Martin Luther King? Or the Holocaust, or any of the other genocides of the past 30 years?

I’m not even sure I’d want this to be true. I’m much more comfortable with the idea that God “sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Plus, there’s the value of suffering with Christ and thus identifying with him—and with all humanity: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).

And yet Proverbs 19:23 and its like are in the Bible. So let’s wrestle with it.

At first, I thought the “no harm will befall you” passages referred to some ultimate, spiritual harm. Nothing will touch our soul. But doesn’t the death of a loved one, or reports of a genocide, touch our soul? As Joan Chittister says in Called to Question, “The way of the cross takes its toll on us.”

To repeat: I’m at a loss. Do you have any ideas? I would love to hear them. Feel free to post them here.

Love for Introverts

Owe no debt to anyone except the debt that binds us to love one another. (Rom. 13:8)

Does that include a debt to be loved as well?

For those of us who have been hurt, abused, ashamed, or are simply private, being loved is a hard thing, sometimes an impossible thing. The very act of sharing the personal (a prerequisite to being loved) leaves one open to anything, from ridicule to genuine affection, both of which can be frightening. And the journey from that fear to the place where we allow ourselves to be loved—whether it requires therapy, or spiritual direction, or whatever—is arduous.

Allow me to suggest, however, that it is an important journey to make.

Here’s why. Every one of us is woven into life’s fabric. Even our smallest gestures can turn around someone’s day or, on occasion, someone’s life. Our stories can inspire, or warn, or calm the souls of others. We don’t choose this state of affairs; it simply is.

But we can choose to enter into it—and thus do good to those around us. By opening ourselves to others, we allow them not only to learn from our experiences, but to practice love themselves—to make a payment on “the debt that binds us to love one another.”

In short, we can do so much good by embracing our interconnectedness.

As with so many other things, of course, balance is a virtue here. I’m not talking about sharing everything with everyone. Our inmost self can be delicate and needs a place of quiet in which to grow.

Yet our capacity to share ourselves, in even the smallest ways, can bless and repair the world. And regardless of the path to healing that we take to allow ourselves to be loved, one thing supports our journey: the inexhaustible supply of love from the Divine Presence. That alone can give us the fuel to carry on.