Presence

I'm often distracted, not because I'm not focusing, but because I'm focusing on something other than the experience of the moment. I struggle with being present.

Hope

Would
you be willing to
give up what you want in order to make a difference?

As a high school student, I knew where I was going in life. I would graduate at the top of my class, enroll at a top-tier university, work at a large private law firm and eventually find a way into politics. I wanted to be well-known, well-liked and well-off (not necessarily in that order). But along the way, I had an experience that changed the course of my life. On a family trip along the Oregon Coast, I was “impressed” with a question. It was just in my head, but I knew it wasn’t from me: “Would you be willing to give up what you want in order to make a difference?” I suspected that God was the asker, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what it might mean. Whatever it meant, however, I knew it was what I really wanted, what I really needed.

Over the years, I’ve had a variety of experiences like that one – times when I’ve had a dream that provided clarity, times when I’ve heard someone say something they didn’t actually say, times when I’ve been “impressed” with a question or an insight or a new perspective, times that I’ve only recently come to recognize as mystical.

So I’m reading the mystics. Because I hope

to learn how to listen better,

to recognize the workings of God in my life and in the lives of those I love,

to better attend to the daily presence of a God who desires for me to experience the communion that brings joy, peace, love and life.

Materialism

Materialism

food for the stomach, a roof
for the rain, a window, a cup of hot coffee, a book, a fire, a friend

I have a box in the basement utility room. It’s next to the washing machine, and it’s the place for stuff I just don’t need any more. When I checked the box this weekend, there were shoes, old gloves, a shirt, three books, a toy car, a ping-pong paddle, an insulated coffee cup. When the box gets full – about once every three weeks or so – I take it to a thrift store down the street. Add it up, and I’m giving away 16 or 17 boxes of stuff. Enough to fill up a minivan floor to ceiling. Every single year. And I’m not keeping up. At least twice a year, I do a major cleaning – move out old pieces of furniture, a rug, a pile of books, dead plants, broken tools, a television or a microwave.

I’ve been challenged to consider the temptation of the material, a temptation to collect and store and value, a temptation to have and to hold that can keep me from growing closer to Christ. Augustine likens these passions for the material to a serpent we must destroy. Teresa claims that our soul – having experienced spiritual reality – is no longer able to find pleasure in anything of the earth. De Caussade says that to delight in God, “we must strip ourselves naked, renounce all desire for created things.”

And I know that they’re right. But I fear they go too far, suggesting as they do that there is something wrong with the material, that there is something wrong with human passion for created things.

I have too much. In order to live a life with room for God, I must intentionally cast off what otherwise obstructs. But the truth is that there is also much value in the material: food for the stomach, a roof for the rain, a window, a cup of hot coffee, a book, a fire, a friend. For this reason, I’m grateful to C.S. Lewis’s noticing that “the attempt is not to escape . . . . It is more modest: to reawake . . . awareness.”

Broken

the practice of mysticism – an awareness of God's reality and presence in all places, times, and situations – is easier to do when I feel like it

The washing machine started in the normal way: filled up with water, moved the clothes back and forth, stopped for the soak cycle. But when it came time to spin, it clicked into place and stopped. There was no revving of the electrical motor, no blurry whir of spinning clothes. And the water wouldn’t drain. Even now, thinking back, I can feel the tension in my stomach. The anger. I don’t have time to deal with this. Not now.

Of course, it’s not just now. I wouldn’t have time to deal with it tomorrow, either. Or the next day. Or the next. But I had to.

The machine simply wouldn’t continue. Couldn’t continue. So – frustrated though I was – I packed up the car with more than a week’s worth of dirty clothes and drove to the laundromat.

Sitting there, waiting, I thought of Brother Lawrence’s claim that “all our actions . . . [should] be little acts of communion with God.” And I realized that the practice of mysticism – an awareness of God’s reality and presence in all places, times, and situations – is easier to do when I feel like it, when I’m at peace and at rest, when I have room for the silence.

But do I ever have room? To stop? To wait? To listen? To experience?

I named that night’s realization. Called it The Lesson of the Broken Machine. Because if I don’t have time to deal with a pile of dirty clothes, a swamped utility room, and a washer that won’t spin; then I don’t have time for God. Or me. Or the people I love. But that’s OK. Because it seems that Brother Lawrence didn’t really have that time, either. He worked so that others might have that time. The difference between Brother Lawrence and me is that he invited God to be part of his work – washing pots, preparing a meal, picking up the pieces of a broken stack of dropped dishes. May God teach me to do the same. Even in a laundromat.

The Mystics

The Mystics

I do not know what I know. Nor do I know as much
as I suspect that I know.

Reading through a scattering of Christian mystics this summer, I've been challenged to rethink what I believe, what I do, and why. In that process of re-perceiving and re-acting my faith, I have wondered how much of my learnings should stay with me, informing who I am as a Christian, and which -- if any -- might be good to share with you. Here are just a few:

1) God is bigger than my imagination. In addition, my experience (and knowledge) of God is limited. I do not know what I know. Nor do I know as much as I suspect that I know.

2) If I really desire to experience the presence of God, I must work on identifying what is and what is not me, letting go of all the stuff I carry around, the stuff that burdens me and blocks me from actually seeing (let alone, knowing) God.

3) From time to time, it's not a bad idea to let go of all the traditionally pious practices – spiritual mourning, loving prayer, physical suffering, confession, study of the Gospel, simplicity, solitude, child-like adoration and worship – in order to simply express and experience love of God, in God’s presence.

4) Finally, if I cannot find God, it may be that I’m looking in the wrong places. If God's presence is as simple as a kiss, the breath of another, a challenging conversation, then I might be able to find God – and especially the love of God – by intermingling my life with the lives of my friends.

Spiritual Autism

It is a gift that sets aside our initial and limited physical sensations and that opens us to a super-sensual experience of God’s creation, of God’s people, of God’s nature.

Gifted children often carry extra burdens. For instance, during my years as a facilitator of gifted and talented programming, I found that the most intelligent students at my school were also – in many cases – the most likely to be diagnosed with depression, ADD, autism and a variety of anxiety disorders. I worked to meet the needs of each but found that I had a special ability to relate to the experience of children on the autistic spectrum. I could get “inside their heads” and help them to make important connections. I was frequently asked to meet with such students outside of the classroom. One of these students taught me an important spiritual lesson.

I met with this boy each week. He was intelligent. He was curious. But he was also different from his peers. He struggled to make and maintain eye contact. He missed (or misinterpreted) social cues. He experienced great difficulty discerning the difference between what is intentional and what is unintentional. He had only limited language for his feelings. In fact, this boy’s biggest problem was that his inability to name his feelings made it almost impossible for him to process and resolve them. Instead, he had “meltdowns.” In our meetings, we would explore the events of his day. I asked questions, looking for emotional buttons. I knew I’d found just such a button when this boy refused to answer a question. And I didn’t let up when he shut down. I worked at getting a response – any response – tears, a clenched fist, yelling. Then we would analyze his experience. How did his face feel? His hands? His shoulders? His stomach? Hungry? Tight? Bloated?

“I don’t know,” he would say. “It just hurts.”

“Does it hurt because . . .” I would ask, listing a number of reasons derived from what he’d shared. We negotiated. By the end of our conversation, he had named a new internal experience. On a good day, he had also come up with strategies he could try the next time he had this feeling. I was giving this boy words for his emotional and social experience. I was trying to be a sensitive ear and an honest mouth for him.

Jacob Boehme, a 17th-century shoemaker (and Christian mystic), suggests in one of his books, “Breaking the Chains,” that God can teach us to do this kind of work.

For God.

We can actually, really, physically be God’s body, God’s “eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking.” God can hear and see through us. But this hearing and seeing isn’t a kind of therapy we offer God. Instead, it is a miraculous opening, given to us by God, that we might see and hear what God sees and hears. It is a gift that sets aside our initial and limited physical sensations and that opens us to a supersensual experience of God’s creation, of God’s people, of God’s nature. And when we give ourselves up to God, we let God become a sensitive ear and an honest mouth. We let God open for us the mysteries that we otherwise miss, that otherwise overwhelm us because of our own spiritual autism.

The Trinity

The Trinity Within

We bear in ourselves
a living representation of Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost.

Put three children in a room together, and they will play.

Take them to the lake, and they will swim and laugh and explore. They’ll take turns pulling a raft. Or pushing. Swimming in front or behind. Pulling down a corner to fill the raft with water. Then jumping in and helping to bail it all out. They’ll attack from beneath, flipping the raft and its occupants. Then they’ll have a mud fight. Go for a swim. Jump in the raft together and do it all over again.

Take them to a waterfall. They’ll climb rocks: “Look! Up here!” “How’d you get up there?” “There’s a trail. No, over here. It’s easy!” One will find a snake and yell for the other. Or maybe they’ll slide as far as they dare toward the back of a hole behind the falls.

Choose what children you will. It doesn’t matter. Even those labeled “shy” or “loud” or “disagreeable” find a way to fit, to take part, to interact, to play.

One of my new favorite writers – William Law – suggests that we must turn “to the Light and Spirit of God” that is within us. We bear in ourselves, he claims, “a living representation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

We were created for communion.

Children know this, and they are naturals at creating community through play.

I spend most of my days with children and youth. And it is this aspect of my job that gives me so much for which to be thankful. My schedule from just one week this summer: On Sunday, I drove a handful of fourth- and fifth-grade girls to Twin Rocks. On Monday, I took a dozen students to the St. Paul Rodeo. On Tuesday, I hiked to Wahclella Falls with 10 middle school boys. On Wednesday, another youth pastor and I drove 20 students to Hagg Lake. On Thursday, back to Wahclella Falls with another group of boys.

And it’s not always a joy.

They spit paper at each other while I’m driving in Portland traffic. They run ahead of the group and try to lose the girls. They toss their empty water bottles in the creek and complain when I ask them to wade in and retrieve them.

But they also play.

They let Thomas have the front seat even though Noah got to the van first. They lean into one another for a group photo. They offer to stay and clean the van when we get back to the church.

They don’t even have language for their experience. Other than that it is fun.

But I do.

And I am thankful for what I see, thankful for this every-day experience of communion, hoping that I am faithfully reflecting “the Light and Spirit of God,” hoping that I am helping youth to see in themselves, “a living representation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Misogyny

In his advice for men, Miller used the words
seductive or seductress five times. In his advice for women,
Miller used a form of the word slut four times.

Earlier this month, Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz (and quite a few other really good books), wrote a pair of blogs about love. He counseled men to provide safety, security and emotional stability if they want to be attractive. He wrote that women should “stop acting like a victim. If you want a strong man who can protect you and your children, stop trolling for predators by crying all the time.” In his advice for men, Miller used the words seductive or seductress five times. In his advice for women, Miller used a form of the word slut four times. Miller tells men to write “a great love story.” He then says to women that they must “train hard” in order to get included in such a love story, likening it to a marathon and further counseling women that they must suffer in order to win.

Nine days later, Miller announced the deletion of both blog posts, offering a kind of ersatz apology. But he didn’t apologize for denigrating women. He didn’t apologize for blaming women. He certainly didn’t apologize for the sexist content of either blog post. What did Miller apologize for, exactly? Here it is. In his own words:

. . . I write blogs on a whim. . . . I’m thinking out loud. What I never expected was to incur the amount of traffic the blog received. And for that matter, the feedback both negative and positive.

Miller apologized, first, for the negative comments his blog received. He was only thinking out loud. He had no idea this many people were reading. He stresses that there was also positive feedback.

To be honest, I wrote the blogs and never reread them, even after all the traffic. I’m writing books at the moment and didn’t feel the need to go back.

Miller apologized, second, for not actually caring enough about the subject to pay any attention to it. He’s writing books, after all.

I write blogs, misspellings and all, as a way of journaling through ideas. That said, after receiving critical feedback from people I greatly respect (along with support from people I greatly respect) I feared a backlash. Not a personal backlash, mind you, but a backlash against the actual ideas the blog presented. That is, I feared many would say “who are you to tell me how to live or how to love, I’m going to do anything I want.”

Miller apologized, third, for people who don’t understand or agree with his argument. He also indirectly labels such people sexual libertines. Reading through the comments on Miller’s original posts makes it clear that many of these people are women.

I’ve seen this sort of backlash before in other arenas. I’m convinced a number of preachers drive as many people away from Jesus as they invite toward Jesus through the harshness of their rhetoric. I’m not interested, then, in driving people away from a good love story simply because I used language and presented ideas they found offensive. Especially when the ideas were generated in no more than half an hour . . . .

Miller repeats his out that he’s too busy for this kind of thing.

But he’s not.

Yesterday, Miller posted a new blog, asking, “Ladies, Why Do You Hook Up?” Maybe Miller’s just curious “why some girls give up sex easily.” Maybe Miller really does believe that women “use sex for some kind of social power.” Maybe Miller doesn’t know that the Getty Images photo he posted with his blog is the same photo used by Time Magazine in its online post Monday regarding the top 10 most promiscuous cities.

When one of Miller’s readers asks why Miller isn’t “asking the same questions to men,” it might just be that Miller’s right in saying, “All questions can’t be asked at the same time to all groups of people. While I appreciate your consideration, it really isn’t helpful. Honestly.”

Then again, maybe not.

Humanity

To Be Human

we live in a
culture that can't talk
about sex

I read an essay not so long ago, written by a woman who received a Facebook friend request from a man who 13 years earlier had raped her. Although she never accepted the request, she did call him. Opened her woundedness. Asked him to talk about what he did and why. She writes that this “hour-long phone conversation with the man who raped me . . . was more helpful than 1,000 hours of therapy.”

It was a compelling piece of writing, and the author handled her subject both honestly and carefully. It was refreshing because – frankly – we live in a culture that can’t talk about sex. Not without a sneer, a snide comment, a joke, or some kind of sotto voce complicity (as though the discussion itself is suspect).

That’s what I find so refreshing in the Bible’s Song of Solomon. There is no shame. Instead, there is honesty, vulnerability, passion – even the passion that will continue to pursue in spite of cultural boundaries (implied by the beating received at the hands of those “sentinels of the walls” who “took away my mantle”).

And that’s what I find so frustrating in some of the early church fathers, such as Origen, who seems convinced of the evil of “fleshly desires.” He writes that only those “free of the vexations of flesh and blood . . . withdrawn from the desire for corporeal nature” may read this Old Testament book. And that’s what I find so frustrating in Bernard of Clairvaux’s insistence, likewise, that perceiving the message of the Song with “any shadow of corporeal substances” is nothing more than an “evil suggestion[s] . . . forced upon us by the bad angels.”

If Jesus was fully human, then we should be free to be the same, opening our woundedness and our longings, discussing with honesty and passion what it is to want.

At Barclay Press.

Community

As to how we make community happen, I often feel like I'm stumbling in the dark, not even sure what it means (let alone how to get there). What I do know is that I have a longing for shared living. I have a longing for being known, being understood. I have a longing to know and understand. I have a longing for relationship. I believe these are universal longings, and this is why I argue that the “love” part of Christ’s crucifixion isn’t so much the sacrifice as it is the opening for reconciliation, the opportunity for celebration, the invitation to community.