Sensing God In a Moment
Towards the end of our big community dinner last Monday, right in the middle of this crazy obstacle course game, time stood still just long enough for me to look around.
Up front, six-year-old Tanisha and her father TT were running the course together, laughing at each other while the rest of the group shouted directions and cheered them on. TT’s been in and out of jail for as long as I’ve known him, and he and his wife Gina are always on the edge of disaster, but their love for their kids is incredibly strong. I hate the way they parent, and I hate lots of the decisions they’ve made, but I can’t help rooting for that family, and not just in games.
At the back of the room, Gina’s brother Terrell was shouting encouragement, along with his best friend Robert. Terrell is only 5’5”, but he weighs more than 250 pounds, smokes like a chimney, and has a bad case of asthma that takes him to the emergency room four or five times a year. He’s a genuinely nice kid, though, and great with his nieces and nephews, which is a good thing since he is practically unemployable and will probably live with Gina and TT forever. Robert is genuinely nice too, which is no small thing for a nineteen-year-old boy in a neighborhood like ours.
A few rows up were Danielle and her daughter Jasmine, whose two-year-old son Malcolm happened to be squirming in my arms at the moment. He had been running into danger before I scooped him up like I used to scoop up Roman, without even thinking about it. Jasmine didn’t mind, of course, partly because she was so into the game, begging her mom to be her partner in the next round. She’s still a little girl herself, after all, though just last week she finally landed a job at McDonald’s. We’re all delighted about that, since none of us much liked Jasmine’s backup plan of stripping in bars. She’s better off here, playing kids’ games with people who love her.
On the other side of the room, Ronnie and Deandra were sitting next to one another. Ronnie’s an awkward twenty-something white guy who came to us out of a halfway house, angry, suspicious, and alone. Over the past two years, however, Ronnie has not only stayed sober; he’s grown up as well, into a bright, healthy, fun-loving young man who takes care of himself and cares about his friends. Among those friends is Deandra, a gregarious but physically broken fifty-something black woman whom our fellowship has kept safe and warm for years. Deandra was smiling that night, partly because, after many years of toothless frustration, she’s finally got dentures, and partly because she loves it when we all play games together like a big happy family. If you knew her real family, you’d understand why.
Out in the kitchen, my introverted next-door neighbor Ric was doing the dishes, happy for any excuse not to play the game, while my wife Marty, who cooked for 50 tonight as usual, sat with Ric’s wife Karen, laughing with some of the younger women in the group. Among them was nineteen-year-old Tasha, who we’ve collectively mentored for the past six years, and who is just about to move from her family’s overcrowded apartment into our fellowship’s community house. Tasha usually won’t play my games either, but she and Karen had taken a run at it earlier, just for fun.
There were thirty or so other people around me, too, all of them connected to me and to one another by a web of loving relationships so tangled and unlikely that I could never fully describe it in a way that makes sense. And yet, in that frozen moment, it all made sense to me. I’m not saying my friends and I don’t struggle with ourselves and one another, or that we know what we’re doing when it comes to living by faith, or even that a few of us might not have shown up drunk or high that night. I’m just saying that, for that one moment, it wasn’t very hard for me to believe that God was the One who brought us together, or that God was in that room, whooping it up with the rest of us, having the best time of all.
On the way home afterwards, as I decided whether to give Deandra the Oxycontin left over from my ankle surgery—believing that her daughter stole her own prescription—or whether she would just sell it for beer money once I dropped her off, everything went back to not making sense, and I wondered how God slipped away on our way to the car. But then I thought, so what? I had my moment, and I still have it.
So do you, I hope.
Bart Campolo ministers through The Walnut Hills Fellowship in Cincinnati, Ohio. This article is reprinted with permission from his blog, which you can read here.
The Journey of Faith
I told a story last night that I want to expand upon this morning. For those of you who were not here for Kol Nidre, I will give you a thumbnail sketch. R. Levi Yitzchak has been informed that the people of Israel are about to be inscribed for a terrible year and only he can intervene with the heavenly court. First, he tries to reason with G-D, but his arguments only reach the gates of heaven. Then he tries sincere prayer and repentance, but his prayer only beats upon the gates of heaven without entering. Finally, he begins to recite a long list of the acts of justice and loving kindness performed by different individual Jews. This final plea reaches the heavenly court, routing the adversary, the prosecuting attorney. The people of Israel, along with the whole world, are inscribed and sealed for a year of blessing.
There is a clear lesson in this story. What counts in the end is the way we treat our fellow human beings. It is how we act that averts the severe decree. But why did R. Levi Yitzchak go through the first two pleadings? Why did he not just jump to the third? R. Levi Yitzchak was not only a man of great saintliness, but also a man of extraordinary wisdom. Surely he knew what his ace in the hole was, his most powerful argument.
I was thinking about the order in which R. Levi Yitzchak performed his pleas to heaven. I suddenly realized that the pleas formed the later part of chiasmus. A chiasmus, for those of you who did not spend the summer in R. Barth’s class on psalms, is a poetic structure that reverses itself. R. Levi Yitzchak’s pleas go in the order of reason, repentance and attachment, and action. For there to be a chiasmus, there must have been earlier action followed by repentance and attachment leading into reason.
When we are children, we are taught what is right and wrong by our parents. We are told what actions to take and what is forbidden. Sometimes, we are taught some reasons for what the rules are. Often we are told Hillel’s dictum, what is hateful to you, do not do to another. Or, in a more likely form of address, “Well, Timmy, you wouldn’t want David to take your toy, would you? So you shouldn’t take David’s toy.” Even this sort of reasoning requires the child to
believe what the parent says and to deny his natural egoism.
Eventually, some sense of religious identity and belief develops. This belief is unquestioning and emotional, built off of the faith of the parents. There can be great and passionate attachment to the religious ideas and ideals we adopt when we are children. There can also be crushing guilt for failures of, sometimes, in small infractions of religious or perceived religious rules, followed by repentance, which, while completely sincere, may be fleeting.
The child enters adolescence and adulthood. Suddenly, faith is not enough. Just because mommy and daddy said so is insufficient. Young adults begin to think carefully about issues they once took for granted. Sometimes faith is lost, never to be regained. Sometimes, faith remains but must be transformed to a deeper more refined, more profound form in order to deal with the questions and issues raised by careful thought and reasoning. Sometimes faith is lost but one is forced back to faith by perceived limits to the power of pure reason and a merely physical understanding of existence.
So it is we rejoin R. Levi Yitzchak where he takes up the plea of argument and reason. For a person in this stage of the process, the problem of evil has raised its head, along with the belief that if G-D is worth worshipping, then G-D must have the attribute of mercy and forgiveness. So, sometimes we seek to reason with G-D in our prayers. But, at last, we can also see that if we were to adhere merely to reason and argument and a rational level of mercy, we are all surely doomed, for everyone is flawed and falls short of the ideal.
We return to the path of attachment and repentance. This is no longer a child’s faith or the easy repentance of one who has not experienced the world. This is the deep faith that is comingled with doubt and an awareness of the abyss of meaninglessness that sits just out of sight. This is the repentance one who has repented before and failed; the repentance of one who begs for needed help, knowing that merely human strength is not always enough to make changes that will last beyond the sighting of three stars after the concluding Yom Kippur service.
I have sinned!
I have done wrong!
My imperfection knows no end.
Help me!
Help me to do better.
Help me to be better.
Finally, comes the understanding that faith and repentance without action is meaningless. It is seen only in serving others can we can concretely serve G-D. Religious belief, holy ethics, the whole panoply of theology, doctrine, and religious philosophy is nothing but blowing wind unless it leads to action. Reason is vain and prayer is empty unless it informs how we treat our fellow human beings.
What we did as a child out of obedience we now do as an adult out of an understanding that this is how we can truly be our best selves. We understand Hillel’s dictum of treating others as we would be treated, because we have striven to make our egos transparent so as to be illumined by the holy will.
We cannot reach the place of right action with proper kavenah, proper intention, unless we first find our hearts broken and we are forced into the mystery of faith. Not the simple child’s faith, but the hard won faith of an adult battered with the knowledge of suffering and the evils and imperfections of the world. It is from a place of mature faith that we can cry out from our innermost selves in repentance and reach the conclusion that having a broken heart is not enough. We come to understand that a broken heart must be accompanied by a helping hand, a kind word, and truly being present to those around us.
So too, this mature faith can only be obtained through wrestling with doubt. When reason tells us faith is foolish but some inner drive and intuition tells us there is more to the world than what we can measure. This is a faith that has lived through the dark night of the soul when nothing seemed to have meaning or worth. Then, out of the pain and wrestling with our mind and heart, we come to a place where faith can grow again.
On this Yom Kippur, reflect. Recognize that we must serve G-D with our minds, our hearts, and our hands. We cannot leave our faith unexamined or it will never grow and deepen. We must delve truly in to who we are and what we have done and how we wish to improve in order to fully repent of our errors and wrong doings, to adjust the aim of our lives to a better course. Finally, to repent is not merely to promise, no matter how sincerely to do better. No. To repent is to act in accordance with that promise in a myriad of small acts every day; acts of justice, acts of loving kindness; speaking words of encouragement and words of love.
May you become the kind of person you wish to be and, in that, for this year, may you be sealed for a blessing.
Plodding Along
Not long ago I participated in a week-long spiritual formation course. Meditating on stories of Jesus from parables and words from the Gospels such as Matthew 5:44 (“love your enemies.”), Luke 6:27 (“do good to those who hate you.”) and John 13:34 (“Love one another as I have loved you,”) we were there to consider how we could live more fully like Christ. As part of our work, we were offered information about the Cardinal Virtues and the Sister Virtues as observed by Plato and early church scholar Thomas Aquinas, respectively. With a better understanding of the words “Fortitude,” “Justice,” Prudence,” and “Temperance” we were asked to identify those within the stories who exhibited virtuous behavior or employed the use of vices. This, just as the leader of our group had planned, led to more Bible study, discussion, and personal reflection throughout the remainder of week.
Considering “How can we become more Christ-like?” in some of our group discussions, we often found ourselves giving great Sunday school-quality answers! We were sure, from our mountain top vantage point, that we could “do” these in our lives. Our wise leader simply listened and encouraged us, knowing what is still dawning on me, thought this pattern has repeated itself in my life for over 40 years.
On our last day together, many shed tears as such a spiritually high, mountain-top experience had to come to a close. So much information and so much richness of shared experience was ours that words were not adequate. The winds that blow against the side of a mountain are often great, and so, too, had been the winds of the Holy Spirit that blew among us in our time there on the mountain.
Many from this group have kept in touch. We have shared through the use of modern technology the challenges we have faced as we seek to live more intentionally like Christ. Shaken and blown about by the Spirit like the trees on a mountain, we have found life in the valley below dull or sedate at times. When we have tried to employ some of our good “Sunday school answers” on how to “do” what we so desire, we have found even our simplest answers fail us. It seems like we are just plodding along in the valley longing to climb back up to the high spirited winds on the mountain.
After telling a friend earlier this week that I was just “plodding along” she asked me to tell her about my experience. As we shared together about our lives, she happened to say that she would do (her goal) “with God’s help.” The Book of Common Prayer often offers the words, “With God’s help…” in many prayers. Those words and her statement were on my mind later as I was driving. Looking out the car window my younger son observed rather matter-of-factly from the back seat, “The mountains are beautiful, aren’t they? But …the grass is really only green at the bottom – down in the valley.”
Once again I was reminded that just as mountains get more annual precipitation than the valleys below, so, too, do we sometimes get great holy showers of blessings from the mountain top experiences of our lives, but the rain showers on the mountains are not well absorbed by the vegetation of the higher elevation. Often it is the same with us. The abundance of water from the mountain top runs off only to be absorbed in the valleys where everyday life takes place. So today I hope to get a little closer to understanding that with God’s help I will live a life more fully like Christ, with God’s help I will rely more on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and with God’s help, I am living a little more aware of the beauty and growth around me as I plod through the valley in which I live.
Thou Art With Me
Welcome our newest contributor to the FaithLab blog. Stephanie is a hospice chaplain and and a new mom. It is out of these experiences that she often writes.
My husband and I, both people who generally think more than we say, have somehow created a chatterbox. Baby Girl combines varying phonetic sounds with varying facial expressions and varying volumes. She often gets her hands involved too. The conversation tone can change quickly though–she chewed out her stuffed monkey the other day though we were not privy to his sudden fault.
She will look at you intently, stretching her arm out, and orate better than any TV evangelist. That little arm reaches high, but thanks to some creative design, only baby-arm high and thank goodness, there’s no telling what she would reach if her arms were the same proportions as an adult’s arms.
Sometimes, I think that I know just exactly what she is saying, and then other times, I have no idea. I think she thinks the same thing of me. When she recognizes a word or a song, a broad smile appears, even a laugh. Her body lights up and I’m sure that mine does too–we have expanded our points of connection. She laughs when I say “no.” I hope this is not a sign of things to come.
—–
One of my new patients is not old, at any rate, too young to be in his medical state. He is unable to talk loudly and some days cannot push out a whisper. I knew this going into our first visit, but still felt completely inadequate during our interaction.
I gave my name and explained my role. I don’t always, but did ask this time if I might pray for him. He eyes looked into mine and he nodded, “yes.” I prayed. I then asked if he needed anything else. He began to mouth words, and I tried to focus all my listening ability to his whisper. I couldn’t understand. Trying to focus even harder, with my eyes on his lips, we tried again. Still nothing. I began looking around the room. “Water?” No. “Do you want your head up?” No. “TV off? Up louder?” No. Around the room I went, and could not find the right object. Finally, I looked at the windowsill. An open Bible lay there, in plain view. In a chaplain’s, this chaplain’s, plain view.
“The Bible?” Yes. Relieved for a “yes,” but annoyed at myself, I brought it to him. “Do you want me to read to you?” He nodded. It was open to Psalm 23 and I asked if he wanted to hear that passage. He nodded again. My eyes already cloudy, I started, “The Lord is my shepherd…” I had to stop in the middle of “He restoreth my soul,” because my tears were loudly interrupting my speech. A deep breath and apology later, I continued through then end.
What beautiful poetry, what perfect truth. Thou art with this man.
Sometimes, when I am gifted to do the holiest parts of my job, the emotion of it all catches up with me. In that scene, the communication points were three–God, patient, chaplain. This man lay there, in a state which tests my theology, and wanted me to act out my role; he wanted me to bring God closer to his side. What else does that bring but tears?
I hope, and I envision it as so, that God lights up and is filled with joy when such points are established. I believe that human connection, especially when it comes from love, is a gift, but a gift largely ignored until it is hard to attain.
My prayer for my patients is that they find a place of peace, in the green grass or beside the still waters. Last night, as I rocked my baby to sleep, I thought through what I wanted my prayer for her to be. The prayer is the same–I want her to have peace. If she finds herself in a place of unrest, I want her to be led by the shepherd back to that place of sanctity and quiet sanctuary. Thou art with her.
Thou art with me, bless my soul. Amen.
Read more from Stephanie at her blog.
All Is Love
A sermon on Romans 13:8-14.
Do you ever search for an easier way to do things? Americans seem to have perfected the system: we have fast food restaurants so that we not only do not have to cook, but we don’t have to wait for our food. If you are trying to be healthy, you can buy your fresh fruits and vegetables pre-sliced and ready to eat at the grocery store. We have microwaves and instant coffee. Many send email instead of taking the time to write and mail letters. And with internet and digital cable there are services like Netflix and Hulu and OnDemand that instantly deliver TV shows and movies to your TV or computer – or iPad or smart phone so that we don’t have to waste time with a trip to the video store. We even have tricks to make learning easier. We put the letters of the alphabet into a song, make up raps to learn our multiplication tables and chant “i before e except after c or ending in ‘eigh’ as in neighbor or weigh” in order to remember spelling. When my mother taught the second grade, she would teach kids to identify states on the map by telling stories. She even managed to convince her students that Kentucky looks like a piece of fried chicken. It seems that in all areas of life, we want to find an easier way get things done, to remember.
As we look at today’s text, I can’t help but wonder if the first century church didn’t have that same desire. Look with me at Romans 13:8 – “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” And just in case you were reading quickly through the letter, Paul steps into teacher mode and repeats. “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” And since students don’t catch on that something is important until after it is repeated, Paul writes it again – just in case. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Paul has just handed out the cheat sheet. “You know all those commandment that we study Torah and attend Sabbath School to learn? You know that mental list of commands you run through before deciding how to behave? Here it is – your “i before e except after c.” Are you ready? All is love. That’s it. If you are truly loving your neighbor, you’ve got the commandments down. If you just treat everyone with love, you’ll never have to remember the lists of commandments again. And when you consider that in Jewish tradition – and remember, Paul is a Jew – there are 613 commands, being able to reduce them to just one single, simple word saves an awful lot of time.
But do you see the problem?
What do you do with the guy who cuts you off in traffic, only to display a certain finger in your direction?
Or with the coworker who claims all of your ideas as her own in order to get the big promotion?
Or with the stranger who yells at your child in the middle of the supermarket for being a typical five-year-old?
The problem is that love is hard – much harder than simply choosing not to murder someone or steal from them. It requires stepping beyond
I recently heard the story of Mary Johnson, a 59-year-old woman who lives in Minneapolis. Mary’s 20-year-old son was shot and killed in 1993 as a way to end an argument. The murderer, 16-year-old Oshea Israel, was tried as an adult and spent 17 years of a 25 ½ year sentence in prison. Those of you who are good at math have probably figured out that means Oshea was released about a year ago. The remarkable part of this story, however, is that Oshea lives right next door to Mary – at Mary’s invitation.
But love was not easy for Mary. When she recalled her feelings during the trial, Mary described the murder as being “like a tsunami. Shock. Disbelief. Hatred. Anger. Hatred. Blame. Hatred. I wanted him to be caged up like the animal he was.”
As part of a grief group, Mary was encouraged to reach out to Oshea’s family, because they, too had lost a son and were grieving. After getting to know the family, Mary decided to go a step further and asked to visit Oshea. At first, he denied her visit request, but several months later, he changed his mind. Mary said she wanted to see what Oshea was like – if he was still that boy she’d wanted to go hurt during the court proceedings. But instead of a 16-year-old boy, she found a grown man. During that meeting, Mary talked about her son and what kind of person he was.
That’s not the picture we usually see, is it? TV shows seem to paint this scene more accurately – the angry parents might have visited Oshea, but it would be to yell at him – to threaten him. To let the murderous beast know that he was being watched. My guess is that was the tradition of the neighborhood where Oshea was from. You take someone out, then you watch your back. Revenge is the way of the street.
But Mary didn’t seek revenge, she just wanted Oshea to know who her son was. And Oshea was overcome with emotion – he even hugged Mary at the end of the visit. Mary described that experience – hugging her son’s murderer – as the moment she knew she had forgiven Oshea. And a relationship began to develop.
Mary choose to love. And that love took work. Took a decision. Took action.
During a recent StoryCorps interview – a project to provide Americans of all backgrounds to be able to record their own life stories – Oshea described Mary’s forgiveness as transformative – because he hasn’t been able to fully forgive himself. The two described their relationship as like mother and son.
“Well, my natural son is no longer here. I didn’t see him graduate. Now you’re going to college. I’ll have the opportunity to see you graduate,” Mary said. “I didn’t see him getting married. Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to experience that with you.”
Oshea says he is on a different path because of Mary – because she loves him and believes in him. He’s trying to live a better life – and doing it right next door so that Mary can see what he’s up to, can call on him if he’s doing something he shouldn’t and can praise him and encourage him in his new life.
I sincerely hope that none of us ever have to experience what Mary did. But whether it is a son’s murderer, or the person who bullied you in school, or the person on the street corner asking for money, or the neighbor who fails to care for their yard, we all have people in our lives that we don’t know what to do with. We might not steal from them or intentionally hurt them, but if we aren’t actively loving them, then Paul says we’ve missed the point – we’ve failed to live up to the law, even if we have practiced the letter of it.
Singer/songwriter Kyle Matthews depicts this well when singing about the relationship of a parent and child. The kid keeps getting into trouble – as a kid he’s caught cheating on a test, because Mom told him to make good grades. In high school he is caught selling drugs, because his family needs money. The response to him is always the same – “son, the way we go about it matters, it’s the testimony of the heart. Yes, the way we go about it matters, it’s the proof of who we are.”
It isn’t about the end result – isn’t about accomplishing the task or the law, it is the way we go about it that matters. We may have passed the test, but if we did so by cheating, then we didn’t actually learn the content that gives that grade merit. If we have kept from harming our neighbor, but done so without love, what have we accomplished? The way we go about it matters. If we want to fulfill the law, we have to love.
And that love can change the world around us. As followers of Christ, we believe that we are people transformed by God’s love for us. As God’s people, we have been sent out to transform the world with that same love. Are we people who are known for our love? Or are we simply people who follow rules? Paul says that all is love – that without love, we’ve missed the point. The way you go about it matters.
Note: the title “All is Love” comes from the Karen O & The Kids song of the same name.
Read more from Jennifer at her blog.
About Steve
By now, unless you’re totally out of touch with world news, you know that Steve Jobs recently passed away. I have been keeping his picture on the desktop of my work PC for some time now, just to remind me that I had something to go home to, after a day of working with Windows, and it was really hard to look at today. Still, I have a tendency to write too many knee-jerk things on the Internet, so I decided to wait on other people’s reviews in order to attempt to be a little more knee and a little less jerk.
There are three Apple-savvy writers whose work I greatly admire: Guy Kawasaki, Andy Ihnatko, and David Pogue. All of them wrote wonderful things about Steve that both captured my feelings about his passing and helped me put things in perspective. I really appreciated their work today. By the same token, there were a number of other people who got into the act, delivering written eulogies that praised him as one of the great innovators of the past century and comparing him to Edison and DaVinci. There were good things said by friends and competitors alike, with even companies who had worked together to make Apple the most sued company in history taking time out of their courtroom battles to salute him as a great and noble competitor.
Of course, as Guy would say, “causes polarize,” and in our modern world where the pundit-driven media is working overtime to make us hate each other and vilify people without restraint, there were no end of “responders” to his Internet eulogies who have been so driven to hate his life’s work as to spew their venom all over them. I can’t deny that people have a right to feel what they are going to feel, however they were persuaded to come to that extreme position, but I’ve already written a Faithlab rant about how improper it is to demonize the recently deceased and I stand by that.
So what can I say about Steve’s passing, as I type away on my MacBook Pro while waiting for my iPhone to ring? Mostly, I find myself wondering what people are saying about it in church this weekend. Is his passing just something to ignore? As much as he has changed the world’s technology landscape a lot of people may not know who he is or how he has affected their lives. Such people might not know why anyone should dwell on the passing of the man who brought us Macintosh, iPods, iPhones, Pixar, and other things.
My first thought was probably a bit negative. I was reminded of Luke 12:15-25, which includes the parable of the man who worked all his life to achieve wealth and comfort, only to die as the work was completed. After all, the company he helped start and later saved from bankruptcy just became the largest, most successful company in the world. I couldn’t help but see a parallel. The “Wall Street Occupier” in me looks at a rich corporate giant and wants to rail about the evils of people who are so obscenely wealthy that they make much more every day than I will make in my life – partly out of jealousy and partly out of my sense of the desperation of our times. Of course, from all I have read and experienced of the way Steve lived his life, I don’t think that money was what he was about, so much as an intense (let’s be fair – borderline “psychotic”) focus on changing people’s lives for the better and various other aspects of his personal vision. As he once said: “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” Yes, we can all rail about the “better” ways Steve could have done things, and a lot of his detractors are doing that right now, but I think we’re better served letting his life speak for itself.
So that leaves me with a more common sentiment that I have shared with a number of friends over the years, which is that God occasionally sends us extraordinary people, like Elvis, John Lennon, Larry Normon, Gene Eugene, or Kathryn Chapman. These people may change the world for millions or just for you, and their life’s work means something for those millions or just for you. There are special things for which you hold them dear, even though you may never have met them, and the world is just not the same place without them. in fact, it can be hard to even fully understand that they are gone, since they or their work have held some sort of key place in your life. Steve did that for many people, either through his products or for the way his activities changed the way we think of beauty, products, technology, leadership, or other things – for good or ill. People will scorn him or praise him, but they’re not likely to forget him.
His most often-repeated quote, at least for today, came from his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005:
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Surely, there’s something theological in there somewhere. I can’t speak for you, but I am really going to miss Steve Jobs.
Watching Our Words
I confess to being Facebook fan. While I don’t spend a lot time on Facebook, I do find it an interesting place to visit. Recently, a friend posted the following: “If you didn’t hear it with your own ears or see it with your own eyes, don’t invent it with your small mind and share it with your big mouth.”
It’s good advice . . . but it doesn’t go far enough. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians about the importance of getting along and being of the same mind. In the fourth chapter he addressed two women, Euodia and Syntyche, who were obviously not getting along with each other.
He wanted them “to be of the same mind in the Lord.” Why would Paul be so frank as to cause their names to be called out loud in public? The relationship of any two people in the church affects the whole. This was not a private matter between Euodia and Syntyche, whatever they may have thought. This was a church, dare I say, a Christ, matter.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Euodia and Syntche. One of the things I’ve thought is that the names called out in public could just have easily been Edgar and Sam. Being at odds and saying things to and/or about another is not limited to women. Being at odds with a fellow believer and saying things to each other we ought not to say and saying things about each other and repeating half-truths or even truths that need not be repeated is common to both genders.
Words are powerful. I would like to believe that we sometimes forget this, thinking that otherwise we would not say some of the hurtful things we say to each other and we would not spread gossip. Of course, it may be that we know the power of our words, and we use them hurtfully on purpose.
We can’t always control what we hear. Words accidentally overheard can hurt us. When such words are spoken, we need to practice patience: count to ten . . . take a breather . . . put ourselves in “time-out” until we can respond calmly and rationally. Often what we hear another say is not what the other meant. Taking time to hear the concerns, needs, and emotions behind the words is necessary for good communication.
We can’t always control what we hear, but we can control what we do with what we hear. Things we hear that are untruths, particularly about others, should be gently, but strongly countered. When someone begins their conversation with us by saying, “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but . . . ,” we should stop them before they finish. If stop them we can’t, we need to lock their message away and never, never repeat it.
When others speak to us or we overhear them speaking out their anger and hurt, we should treat that as confidential information—information that is never ours to repeat to anyone. Chances are people who speak such words will soon regret it. While they can’t take the words back from those who heard them, how much better their lives and the lives of others would be if we who heard them never repeated them. There is only one proper response to people who speak out of their hurt and anger, and that response should always be one of reaching out to comfort them and to walk alongside them.
We can’t always control what we hear, but we can control what we do with what we hear. For each other’s sake and for the sake of the gospel, we must take control of our words.
When Paul urged the women to be of the same mind, he was saying more than get along. When he wrote be of the same mind in the Lord, he was reminding them and the church that they were to “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
Being of the same mind as Christ means doing more than suggested by the message I found on Facebook. Even when we hear it with our own ears and see it with our own eyes, there are some things that should not be repeated! While we should practice truth-telling, even more we should practice charity. There are things we hear and see that are true that if shared with others only serves to make things worse for those about whom they are true.
How much hurt and pain would be avoided were we to follow Paul’s admonition?
“This Time I Mean It”
When I was a boy, my mother’s younger brother, my Uncle Howard, died. He was 50 at the time, which seemed quite old to me. However, as 50 approached, and I must admit that I will never see 50 again, I began to worry. Uncle Howie or, as I used to call him because I saw him so infrequently, Uncle Figment, died of a heart attack. I was overweight and did not exercise enough and I would soon be 50.
I resolved to get healthy. I would exercise more and eat better. But some days I just did not want to exercise and I didn’t. Sometimes the ice cream was too good, the pasta plentiful with a red sauce to die for (perhaps literally), and the cheese-I can never resist cheese. So having stumbled and failed in my resolve, I gave up. I soon succumbed to heart disease and died in my late forties.
Hmmm, something seems wrong with that. I appear to be alive. At least one the statements above must be false, either I was perfect and never messed up or I did fail, repeatedly and often, but did not give up. Anyone who knows me, knows that I fail and stumble all of the time. Therefore, I did not give up.
I will get up on the morning after having had a dinner of Blue Bell cookies and cream ice cream or a whole chicken and resolve to do better. I will go to sleep at night, notice that I have not exercised for two or three days and set the alarm to get me up to run in the morning. I have my moments of weakness and sometimes, moments that feel awfully close to despair, but I keep plugging along.
Where would I be had I given up? Probably in much worse health, if not dead. I am always backsliding and having to resolve to start again, but slowly, I am doing better and the accumulation of periods of better behavior have had a positive effect on my health.
Compared to trying to be a better person, trying to eat healthier and exercise more is a piece of cake. How we behave, our habits of reaction, they way we view the world or interpret the way other people act are ingrained deeply in each of us. These are, in some real sense, who we are. Changing ourselves in these fundamental ways is like a surgeon operating on herself with no anesthesia.
How can we do it? Even when we are blessed to see ways to make ourselves better, how is it possible to do so? In this, even with the greatest of resolve and effort, we will repeatedly stumble and fail. Surely there is no way to overcome the vast accumulation of bad habits of thought, action, and seemingly preprogrammed response. Beyond that, besides hurting ourselves, we have hurt others with our flaws-the mountain of pain we have each caused must be insurmountable.
In his book, Wrapped in Holy Flame my teacher’s teacher R. Zalman Schachter Shalomi quotes Israel of Koznitz concerning the yetzer ha’ra, the evil impulse.
The yetzer ha’ra says to man, “Why do you exhaust yourself for nothing? You have committed so many sins they are innumerable-it is impossible for you to repent for them all”…The yetzer ha’ra, the evil enticer, seducer, urge drive, presses on and on this way, cooling one’s connection to G-D, and leading one away from his teachings. Finally, one is thus led like an ox to the slaughter…”
This passage refers specifically to the sense of one’s own internal voice of doubt, of self indulgence, of self destruction telling one that it is impossible to repent from the multitude of sins one has committed in life. Similarly, this internal voice tells each of us that we cannot do better, we cannot improve ourselves, we cannot become better people. Doubt is good, but too much self doubt, too much lack of belief in our own potential for improvement is the path of madness and self destruction.
We know from our tradition and the record of so many flawed people called to serve G-D, that even the most broken vessel can do great good and change into better version of himself or herself. Indeed, sometimes it is an individual’s very flaws that are the channels that allow that person’s inner light to shine forth and convince others that they too can become forces for good in the world; they too can change for the better.
The only way to insure failure in the task of becoming a better person is to not try. We will always have our failures and backsliding. No one achieves the goal of self-improvement immediately or fully. It is only through trying and failing, trying and failing over and over again that the gradual work of self reformation is painfully and imperfectly done.
The following story is also contained in R. Zalman Schachter Shalomi’s book.
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, at the bedtime Sh’ma, would look back on his day and say that he was sorry for what he did not do right and the tomorrow he would do better. Then he chided himself, saying, “But Levi Yitzhak, you said the same thing yesterday!” Then he would say, “Yes, but today I mean it.”
Every day, we must try anew to be better than we were. This evening at the start of the ten days of awe, at the beginning of a new year, at the opening of the birthday of creation is the perfect time to start to reflect anew about how we can be better people, more kind, more generous, more attentive, more authentic, more centered, more active in the repair of our broken world.
I do not believe we can be miraculously cured of our flaws. G-D’s presence is always available to enfold us and comfort us. But as with a parent whose child is learning to walk cannot walk for his or her child, G-D will not, cannot walk for us. G-D can only encourage and show us the way. THE HOLY ONE can only love us as we fall again and again in our efforts to take each halting step.
There is no pill one can take, there is no formula one can follow to instantly reform oneself into a better person. There is only the daily struggle to be the kind of person each one of us would like to be. May you be granted the strength to know your flaws and the wisdom to realize that imperfection is the common heritage of humanity. May you be granted a vision of your better self and the knowledge of your amazing potential for strength, gentleness , and beauty. May you believe, as R. Nachman of Breslov said, that if you can break, you can also repair. And may each of us have the fortitude along with R. Levi Yitzhak to start anew over and over again and each time be able to say from the depth of our beings, “This time I mean it.”
Thanks be to God for R.E.M. (especially “Everybody Hurts”)
The call for tributes to favorite REM songs went forth, and I immediately replied with my request to write about “Everybody Hurts.” Actually, “request to write about” can be interpreted in this context to mean “begged, pleaded, and may have crossed the line over to ‘demanding’” (It’s just a very personal song for me). The nod of approval came my way, and off I went …
I should’ve asked for “Stand” – something peppy and fun; or something from Reconstruction of the Fables (or, Fables of the Reconstruction, depending on how you look at it). “Everybody Hurts” is just too personal.
I have a very small select group of friends (more like brothers than friends) that pray for each other, encourage each other, and carry each other – we are forever bonded together because of our connections with the deepest, darkest depression and suicide. “Take comfort in your friends,” sings Mr. Stipe … little does he know. Or, perhaps he does.
When your day is long and your night … your night is yours alone;
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life … hang on.
Michael (not Stipe, but a different one) was one of the friends in our group. He was a gifted and beloved youth minister. I was just getting to know him (I was the new kid in this circle of angst-ridden ministers/writers). An online private discussion about depression and faith emerged within our small group. Someone mentioned Elijah’s depression and Elijah crawling inside the cave to die. Michael posted, “yes, but Elijah’s story had a happy ending.” Just a few days later, Michael’s wife came home and found him dead … suicide. Despite our best efforts, there was no comfort for Michael, not even in his friends.
Sometimes everything is wrong …
If you feel like letting go, hold on …
For me, more than any other song, “Everybody Hurts” gets it. The words are repetitive and direct, yet overflowing with the imagery of overwhelming darkness. The music, at first, is very simple, slow, and hypnotizing.
Stipe doesn’t preach. He just shares the emotions as only one can who has experienced them personally (I have no idea about his experiences with depression, but somehow he knows…). He doesn’t smile and try to make anyone be a shiny, happy person. He just shares in the emotions. And instead of offering easy answers or “always look on the bright side” platitudes, he just pleads.
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, hang on …
The music begins to build. The strings begin lifting the music higher. The passion grows higher. The pleas and the rhythm build on each other until musically it borders on gospel (especially with the organ). Somehow Stipe’s continuing plea to “hold on” becomes a chant of hope.
Hold on …. hooooooooooold onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn …
For others of us in our small group of close-knit friends, we’ve each pleaded with each other many a long, dark night.
Hold on.
Sometimes only those who have been there can understand the depths of the loneliness, and only those who understand have earned the right to say “hold on.”
Take comfort in your friends …
REM’s “Everybody Hurts” is more than a song. It is itself a dear, close, comforting friend.
For Michael (not Stipe, but the other one), I wish we could have helped you hold on a little longer.
And for Michael (Stipe), Bill (Berry), Peter (Buck), and Mike (Mills) – thanks be to God.
Click here to watch the music video
Click here to watch R.E.M. perform it live (Stipe transforms into a worship leader and the song transforms into a truly gospel experience)
Nevermind the Nonsense (Ode to Jesus & Johnny Rotten)
Just in the three years I’ve been in Starkville, we Mississippi State fans can count on four or five or even six hands how many terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad calls cost us victories – with no thanks to the men wearing black and white stripes, often referred to by fans as “stupid refs” (no offense to my referee friends).
That LSU football game two years ago. That UK basketball game last year. How Auburn got that first down last week when everyone in the whole world can see in pictures and video that they clearly missed it by a good inch.
The notorious, belligerent, somewhat anti-social punk rocker Johnny Rotten, at the end of his final live show with his band the Sex Pistols, yelled out to the audience, “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Rotten walked off the stage, left the band, and the Sex Pistols disintegrated not long afterwards.
So, ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
We want life to be fair. We want to know, we want a guarantee, that if we keep our end of the bargain, that the other parties are going to keep their end of the bargain.
If we feel we have been cheated, there are all sorts of clearly defined procedures we can follow to register a complaint and have it examined by an official.
A student who believes she has been graded unfairly and in a manner not in keeping with the syllabus grading scheme, can register a complaint with the school and have someone look into the matter.
A customer who believes he received a less-than-satisfactory product can ask to speak to a manager, or send a complaint to someone in a corporate office, and have the matter looked into.
American citizens who feel a particular law or court ruling is unfair to them can join together and have lawyers argue their case all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Why do we do these things?
Because in all areas of life there are times when, whether or not we actually have, we get the feeling we’ve been cheated.
Jesus tells a parable about workers in a vineyard. About workers who worked all day and expect a full-day’s wage … and they received it.
But there are also workers who got hired later and only worked half the day, and worse, workers who got hired at the end of the day and only worked one hour … and at the end of the day when the money started being distributed, the last ones hired got paid first, and they got a full-day’s pay, then the half-day workers got a full-day’s pay and finally, the all-day workers who – you guessed it – got a full-day’s pay.
The all-day workers, naturally, complained because they felt cheated.
This is what the Kingdom of God is like, Jesus says – grace doesn’t always appear fair.
Have you felt resentment toward the grace that has been poured out upon another person obviously less deserving, when you’ve been doing good all along? Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
A single mother finds her way into a local church, and the church takes her and her child in warmly. She volunteers and helps out often around the church and takes part in functions. After a while she is asked to help co-direct the church nursery.
A longtime member of the church, one of the most loyal and hardworking people in the church, complains to the pastor – that woman has no business helping in a leadership role with the children. She’s unmarried. Her life has been a mess. She still doesn’t have it all together; so what if she’s good with the kids? What kind of example is it if the church starts letting just anybody come in and start serving?
The longtime member was feeling more than a bit cheated. Cheated over leadership issues (why hasn’t she been asked to be in a leadership role?), but cheated also because of grace; this single mother had a not-very-polite past, and occasionally a still-not-very-polite-present, and yet grace was being poured out upon her as equally as to the longtime member.
In Jesus’ Kingdom in which a Johnny Rotten is as welcomed and loved as a Bill Gaither, instead of complaining about being cheated, give thanks; for somewhere somebody is complaining that she’s been cheated because you’ve been treated equally to her.
Nevermind the religious nonsense, here’s to God’s cheating grace.
Learn more about Bert Montgomery at his website.
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