Month: March 2009

Comments on another blog considered the partial line from Hamlet, “to thine own self be true.”  In the context of the larger speech/poem from which it is drawn, it bears a remarkable kinship with selections from biblical proverbs and psalms.  Those who commented on the line, taken by itself, seemed to imply that within each of us there is a certain true self that is a self of integrity and inherent goodness, and that being true to that self is a defense against the falsehood and hypocrisy that surround us.  There seemed to be other implications in those comments.  That true self lives deep and must be discerned by honest introspection.  The self that appears on the surface is often a false self of accommodation to “the slings and arrows of outrageous” conditions around us (sorry about that Wil).

I wonder.  I wonder if there are not among us more than a few who, digging deep into their deepest self, find that whatever is there is not very admirable, or, perhaps, find nothing at all.  I wonder if our surface self is, in fact, very much a part of our real and true self, just as much as whatever may lie deep.  I wonder if a thief is being true to his own self by stealing (Shakespeare suggested that the French elite might be especially gifted that way).  Luther and Calvin seemed to feel that, surface or deep, all was corrupt.  Or, as I like to remind my Presbyterian friends, they belong to the church of the utterly depraved, which is a joke that doesn’t always go over well.

One comment reflected on institutional Christianity as a religion of condemnation that probably needs to be avoided if one has any hope of living joyfully into one’s own true self.  Elsewhere, another blogger cited editorial opinion that the major product of American evangelicalism is atheism.

Having considered all that, I am reminded that Jesus engaged with people as they were in the conditions of their lives as they presented themselves.  The gospel record suggests that he took in the whole person, deep and shallow, and treated them with respect.  Stories of healing were not just about bleeding or blindness, leprosy or lameness.  They were about wholeness, and not just the integrative wholeness of Jung, but of physical, emotional, spiritual and social wholeness in intimate communion with God.

It is just exactly this that suggests to me that whatever our true self might be, in Christ it can experience a transformation so incredible that nothing is impossible.  My public self, my private self, my secret self, my self unknown to me, all is made new and whole, a new creation.  Speaking only for myself, that transformation is a slow one with plenty of missteps along the way, but the way, however painful at times, is one of great joy. 

I’ll close with this.  During Lent, our tradition of Morning Prayer calls for a recitation of the Prayer of Manasseh several times each week.  Manasseh was the worst of the worst kings of Judah.  There was nothing cruel, evil or sinful in which he did not immerse himself.  Legend has it that, late in life, he repented and lived the short time he had left as a holy man.  His prayer of repentance is recorded in the books of the Apocrypha, and we use it as a reminder that as unworthy as we (I) may be, God’s abundant mercy will forgive us and restore us to newness of life.

 

We’ve had an exceptionally long, harsh winter for our little valley.  The snow is supposed to stay up in the mountains, but it kept coming down here.  The cold is supposed to stay up there too, but slid down into the valley as if no one cared.   This afternoon I looked out the kitchen window to rejoice in the crocuses blooming, with other spring bulbs not far behind.  Willows are starting to look like they are ready to turn, there are huge buds on our tulip tree, and both bird houses have prospective residents paying daily visits.  Spring might come this year after all. 

I was recently visiting with a friend who has had a pretty rough year in a lot of ways and wondered, with some hint of anger, whether God ever listens to prayer, much less does anything useful when it’s really needed.  I managed to mumble out a few of the standard responses and make a few suggestions.  But I think I really tread on the conservative evangelical toes of his youth when I suggested that God probably does not control every event in our lives, and that although most every event has causes, that does not mean that God has a reason for letting bad things happen to us.

Over the years I’ve observed a lot of Christian teaching that leads believers to think that, if they can only confess Jesus as their personal savior with all their heart, life will be great from then on.  If something bad happens it must be due to some lack of faith, poorly worded prayers, sinful backsliding or one of God unfathomable reasons.  Where does this come from?

Even a cursory reading of scripture has got to reveal story after story of lives that endured extreme misfortune time and again. Where in the bible would you find the “I believed and lived happily ever after” story?  It is true that scripture goes to great length to describe a personal life and social fabric that will lead to a truly good life in every way, but we have not yet demonstrated that we are willing to live that kind of life.  We’d rather do it our way, suffer the consequences and blame God.

For all of that, scripture also reveals that, in spite of our human condition, life in companionship with God is a life of abundance and second chances (see Erick Kolbell).  Such a life has misfortunes, but it also has direction and purpose, and for those of us who follow Christ, it also means that we know that we are already living into our “eternal” lives.  And there is one more thing that I keep working on.  That is the idea that the more we open ourselves to God’s presence in our lives, the more God engages with us in them.  To be open is not to pray for this or that, but simply to be open.  A life of faith is not about an easy life, but it is a life of great adventure.  It’s a life growing in faith and communion with God.  How hard that can sometimes be, but, wow, what an adventure.

In spite of my no news Lenten discipline, I watched the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer interview and was appalled.  First, I was appalled that the single best interrogative interview in years, whether t.v., radio or newspaper, was on a Comedy Channel fake news program that is up front about “selling snake oil.”  Second, I was appalled at the facile duplicity of Jim Cramer who clearly understood how to screw the investing public for his own benefit and did so, while, at the same time, doled out misleading, useless financial advice to millions of viewers, and continues to do so.  Third, I was appalled that this appears to be symptomatic of the ethos of an enormous sector of the media and corporate financial sectors of society, aided and abetted by twenty years of political leadership from the right, both secular and religious.

Today’s Morning Prayer including this reading from the 5^th chapter of  Jeremiah:

For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the LORD, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this? An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

 

Pale Rider (1985) was on again the other night.  You remember, the Clint Eastwood movie with Clint as something like an avenging angel in a plot not unlike Shane but with more violence.  It has a strong religious tone, obviously taking it’s title and it’s inspiration from The Revelation to John but with a strong dose of Samson.  Eastwood’s character is even a preacher of sorts, as well as a being returned from the dead to set things right.  And in the end, order, justice, peace and social equilibrium are restored to the good people by the total, and bloody, elimination of all the bad people.  Throw in the obvious connection to portions of the Hebrew Scriptures calling for the genocide of the Canaanites, or David’s life-long commitment to revenging himself against foe and friend alike, and you’ve got a pretty solid theological argument going for you.

There are other, more violent, bloodier movies that follow that same theme, but this one is an original.  It has depth to it, character development, and addresses issues of justice from a very religious point of view.  In particular, it is an exploration of retributive justice that deliberately celebrates revenge as a good way to achieve justice, bring a satisfying closure in the lives of the victims and establish the conditions for a good and peaceful life to begin anew.  Many scholars assert that retribution and revenge never bring any of those things, but it’s a hard sell.

We’ve always had cowboy movies that followed that script in a less violent way, but they often seemed to be more concerned with restorative justice than revenge.  What I wonder is this; was Pale Rider the start of America’s love affair with revenge as a way to achieve justice and bring closure in the personal lives of victims?  Name me a single so-called action movie in the theater or made for television that does not celebrate it.  Has the popular idea of justice become nothing more than retribution?  Is that why we lead all nations in imprisonments, and come close to doing the same in death penalties?

There are a lot of pious editorials about the need for schools of peace, and an awful lot of talk about restorative justice.  Workshops led by Mennonites and Quakers abound.  Articles by the dozens flood the pages of The Christian Century.  So What!  The movies and television teach another form of justice, and they have the attention of a huge, gullible audience.  What do you suppose would happen if the popular media began to be flooded, not with scholarly articles, but with critical reviews of each and every vengeance celebrating movie shown in theaters or on television?  They wouldn’t have to be Christian, or even religious. They would simply need to take “deadly” aim at the falsehood of the idea that revenge as good and that good things come from it.  It’s just a thought.

Giving up the news for Lent is harder than I thought it would be.  Sitting in a meeting of marginal interest this afternoon and fiddling with my iPhone I thought about just taking a quick look at the market and checking what might be on Politico, but laid that aside in favor of checking on the weather in the places where we have family. 

I already gave myself leeway to take a quick read of our local daily because that’s usually about all it takes anyway.  So I can report that there will be a class on using scrap glass to decorate bowls, high speed chases seem to be more popular in the county but everyone always gets caught so what’s the point, a rural health clinic is closing due to budget cuts, there is a new mayor in a neighboring town, an Irish band will play on St. Patrick’s Day in a local food market, and downtown retailers will hold a workshop on branding and marketing in tough times. 

To be fair, I also let myself take a quick early morning look at the headlines at Yahoo news just in case something earth shattering takes place.  The really hard part is to turn off NPR, which is so much a part of my daily routine that it feels awkward not to hear the news in the morning and early evening. Right now my wife is in the next room getting ready for the concert we will attend.  I can hear “All Things Considered” in the background and wonder if I might edge a little closer to make out some of the words.  What about “As It Happens?”  Does Canadian news count?

What exactly any of this has to do with a spiritual direction or discipline remains to be seen.  I’m working on that.

I love Lent as a season for introspection and deeper levels of prayer but am not very good at giving things up.  However, for this Lenten season I’m going to pay as little attention to the news as possible.  For a political news junkie like me that might seem odd, but right now I’m tired of all the blowhard punditry that is seldom right but never in doubt.  The economic columnists are no better, and the cable news economic commentators are the worst of all when it comes to anything approaching accuracy.  So a pox on all of them.  That does not mean that I will give up the comics, a quick read of my favorite daily news summaries, or possibly a scan through The Week, and I may look in on Rachel Maddow now and then just because I like her style.  My local daily doesn’t count since it usually takes only three or four minutes for a really thorough read.  In addition to giving up secular political news, I think I’ll toss in anything that has to do with church politics as well.  

What does a house say about its occupants?  I go into a lot of houses.  I expect you do also.   Lot’s of things hit my eye right away:  how clean or cluttered, type and age of décor, books and photos in plain sight, indicators of religious faith or spiritual interest, signs of personal habits such as ash trays, beverages, foods, kinds and numbers of electronic equipment and gadgets, whether drapes re open or closed, and the like.  A quick survey like that helps me make  some guesses about where best to start a conversation, how best to address a tragedy, what follow-up might be in order, and possibly a little about what values and beliefs might underlie the lives of the residents.

A few days ago we took a tour of a house now owned by a museum.   Beautiful beyond beautiful, elegant beyond elegant, and large beyond large with incredible views out over the ocean on one side while surrounded by gardens on the others.  My wife and sister loved it, and, given enough servants, could envision the good life that they might enjoy there.  As far as it went, I agreed, but something also seemed very wrong to me.  Entry to the property was down a steep driveway carved into the side of a seaside cliff.  The house and grounds were built on a rock platform blasted out of that cliff  about fifty feet above the sea.  Not defensible in a military sense, but clearly a place meant to discourage communion with anyone else.  Although said to be in exactly the state it was when the owner lived there, there was not a sign of anything that would identify him or her or any other person related or close to them.  Guests were said to be many, but it appeared that a guest bathroom of any kind was relegated to the pool house except for one second floor guest apartment.  The only other bedroom was the owner’s suite taking up nearly a third of the place.  The kitchen, I presume, was in the basement and the province of the servants.  All works of art were elements of a magnificent collection but devoid of human personality.

What it said to me was that the resident was lonely, had few real friends, lived in a museum setting that deliberately avoided personal intimacy, and it filled me with a profound sense of sadness for the owner.  What does God’s kingdom hold for such a person?  What does reconciliation, forgiveness, salvation, restoration to wholeness bring to such a person?  Is such a person something of a social leper regardless of wealth and fame, or maybe because of wealth and fame?  Scripture is filled with such earthy people who, for good or ill, are intimately involved with life and each other.  Where might scripture speak to such a person?  I wonder.

Right now we are in the last phases of the required anti-racism training in our diocese.  This last phase is meant to pick up the curmudgeons like me who are resisting because it will be our umpteenth anti-racism training, and there is a point of diminishing returns that set in quite a while ago.  Besides, I’ve decided it’s not about race at all, it’s about culture.

I’m not sure how to describe what I mean by the word culture.  Eric Law, who does a lot of training in this field and has written several very fine books on the subject, is the one to turn to for that.  But it seems to me to do with a very complex combination of ethnic heritage and ethos with which one is identified by others and in which one self-identifies, as well as the color of one’s skin and other physical traits.  Yet it’s more than that.  There has to be some authenticity to the ethnic identity one has for one’s self, and I suspect that authenticity has to be endorsed by other members of the group.  For instance, we went through a period where it was cool to claim some American Indian heritage, but unless the elders and members of a given tribe backed up that claim, it was a silly charade at best and terribly insulting at worst.  Or, take me as another example.  I can honestly claim to be Celtic on just about every side as far back as one can go, but whatever cultural ethos that might involve is lost to history.  I may find it a curiosity to delve into for the fun of it, but my cultural ethos is just plain North American European with a heavy dose of Lake Wobegone, Minnesota.

With that in mind, I think we need to get away from anti-racism training and start more serious training in learning more about the ethnic cultures that make up America with an emphasis on those who have and continue to be denied a full measure of American membership by those of us who have always been in control of the membership committee.  Moreover, learning about must also mean learning to respect, learning that fullness of membership does not mean becoming ersatz North American Europeans from Minnesota, and learning how to engage one another in ways that work for and with one another. It also means needing to give up our predisposition to make unwarranted assumptions about the ethnic identity and cultural ethos of others.  I’m particularly sensitive to that since my own family includes so many different ethnicities and skin tones.  Love and sex have a way to making that happen.

So, with that in mind, I’ll finally go to one of the anti-racism workshops and do my best to suffer through it, but I don’t have to like it.