Friday, May 18, 2012
Memories of Mt. St. Helens
It is hard to believe Mt. St. Helens erupted 32 years ago today. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were in the pasture trimming the goat's hooves that morning. I just happened to look up as a giant, black cloud silently billowed upwards, continuing until it had thrust thousands and thousands of feet up into the early morning sky. We stood and stared, speechless. We watched it all day. At times we could see lightening zig-zagging horizontally back and forth as the event created its own weather inside the black, roiling, angry cloud. It wasn't until late afternoon we started getting news footage on television and saw all the trees rushing down the Toutle River. There were so many trees in the river, going shore to shore, that it seemed there was no water in the river, only trees. Crowded around the television our family watched a house amidst all the debris being smashed under a bridge as it was carried on the backs of the trees. At that moment the thought came to me that, as we had been watching the mountain erupt all day, we had been watching people being killed. Until then we really hadn't thought about the people.
I worked in Longview, Washington for a company that sold and repaired log trucks & equipment. Over the next days and weeks it was strange to drive through town, everything covered with ash. Sounds were muted like they are when driving through snow and cars drove slowly as any fast motion kicked up the ash into dusty clouds. People were scared. I did our company's banking every day and it was common to go into the bank and hear only silence. No friendly chit chat, only frightened looks and silence. It was reported that there was a giant log jam threatening to break at one end of Spirit Lake. No one was sure what to expect or when to expect it, so we held our breaths and waited.
Over the next many weeks Weyerhauser began to bring down its log trucks from the blast zone, the ones that could be salvaged. My company's job was to clean off the ash and repair them. Grey ash was glued onto the trucks like cement and it often took an entire day just to remove it from one truck. As each truck was towed into the repair yard we looked at its ash-coated, mangled and twisted steel and saw not a truck, but a war veteran, returning from combat and gave it a moment of respectful silence.
Eventually, life returned to normal....a new normal. Words like pyroclastic flow, red zone, eruption, plume and lava dome became part of our every day speech. Across the Columbia River, in St. Helens, Oregon, my home town, we became used to seeing our beautiful cone shaped, namesake mountain that had often been compared to the serene and majestic Mt. Fuji in Japan, now a full third shorter and flat at the top. The mountain was wounded and so were we, but over the last 32 years we've come to accept it as it is and fondly remember as it was.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thirsty For God - The Life of Monks and Nuns
This is an excerpt from a homily by Sr. Magdalen Antonia, SSAE that was given first September 11, 2005 on the Jubilee of Br. Kevin James Antony, SSAE's first profession of religious vows and again on Sept. 14, 2011 when Sr. Constance Antonia, SSAE entered the Novitiate:
What does it mean, "consecrated life"? When you live a consecrated life you live a life that is ever moving in the direction of union with God. It is the reason for everything that you do, everything you study, everything you teach; and all that you are or ever hope to become is all bound up with this unquenchable desire for total union with God. We just recited from Psalm 63 together: "O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, as in a barren and dry land where there is no water." This is the consecrated life. Psalm 42 says it also. The King James Version is very descriptive: "as the hart (deer) panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." You are so thirsty for intimate union with God that it is almost a physical panting that drives you towards Him in surrender. That's the only thing you have to give Him - a surrendered life. So, you give it over and no longer live for yourself alone. Scripture tells us that no one comes to the Father except the Spirit draws him. Coming to God is not something we can will ourselves to do but, rather, it is a gift initiated by God, through the Holy Spirit, that often begins as a gentle nudging inside your heart and mind. Remember that boy of seven or eight, the one sitting here today, who said, "Someday I am going to be one of those" and he didn't even know what "those" were when he saw the group of monks. He felt that nudging even then.
If we are open to God, the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit becomes an incessant tugging at the heart which you must eventually answer or die. In the life of a consecrated Religious union with God is the reason for your very existence. It is difficult to explain because human language in inadequate when trying to describe God who transcends our human experience. I don't know why some people are drawn into this intimate type of union with God and some are not. It's a mystery. It lies within the sovereignty of God. He is God and does as He does. For those whom the Holy Spirit draws away from the life of the world, just going to church on Sunday, being on a committee or two, volunteering once in a while, paying tithes and offerings and fellowshipping with others is never enough. Don't get me wrong - all these things are good things. It's just that for some that's not where it's at and will never be enough. This desire for union with God is so strong that it makes you so thirsty for Him that nothing else will do except to be joined with Him. Consecrating your life, surrendering to God and setting your life apart in this public way by stating your vows of marriage to Him, which is the tangible symbol of that journey into union, is the closest a person can come to that mystical union in this human life.
In 1980 Br. Kevin consecrated his life within the context of a religous community where he continued to learn, especially those things that he would need for what he has now been called to do. Over the years he matured spiritually and grew more fully into a life of intimacy with God. After many years he once more felt the tugging of the Holy Spirit to separate himself in preparation to begin a new religious community. In 1996 Br. Kevin received permission to begin this community - The Society of St. Antony of Egypt. Sometimes, when one begin a new venture the urge is to run around doing a lot of activities, being busy. Br. Kevin did not. He waited. He thought, "If this is all just me wanting to something because I want it, eventually it won't go anywhere; but if it is from God, in God's timing, it will take root and grow." And he waited some more, and some more. From 1996 until 2005, Br. Kevin waited. At Advent 2003, I walked through the door of this church for the first time and said to Br. Kevin, "I believe God sent me here for your community." I don't think I really understood what I was saying, but from the expression on Br. Kevin's face I realized he what what was being said. In January of this year, I consecrated my life to God through the structure of the Society of St. Antony of Egypt. So, now we are two, and where two or three are gathered together in His name, Christ is in their midst. God's timing had arrived.
When you make your religious vows you don't declare your love and then just skip off into the sunset, hand-in-hand with God. Just as in any marriage where there are responsibilities and agreements, the life of a Religious is no different in this. You, too, make agreements. One of those agreements is that you agree to live by a Rule of Life. There are all kinds of rules of life, and if you follow them life is generally easier. There are the general, ethical, unwritten rules of life that most people, even non-religious, non-Christian people follow. Rules like love and respect your spouse, be good to your kids, don't kick the dog, get along with the neighbors, help old ladies cross the street and give up your seat on the bus to pregnant women. These rules of life allow you to get through things without too getting into too much trouble. Living a rule of life in the context of religious community is not different in this. If you follow it things generally go easier than if you do not. A religious rule of life is a tool designed to keep you pointed in the right direction towards your goal of union with God. Pretty much all rules of life of religious communities come down to us from the Rule of St. Benedict, and are similar in many ways.
In living a rule of life, one engages in specific activities and attitudes of mind that keep one God-focused. Those living the consecrated religious life are no different than anyone else. We are all still human beings, and we all know that human nature wants to go its own way. The best illustration of this is to watch a two year old - tell them not to touch something and turn your back, and that is the one thing they head right for. We are like that, too, so we really do need a rule of life to keep us from going our own way too much and to keep us going in the right we really do want to go, which is into union with God. Br. Kevin and I have talked about the Rule [of the Society of St. Antony of Egypt] a lot. The one thing we agree on is that we fail at it every day. It's kind of like sports. Take bowling, for example: you stand up with the ball and get your feet going straight and then you realize your arm is doing something stupid as you swing the ball. You get that under control and then realize your eyes are not looking at the correct spot on the floor, but are looking all over the place. You get so totally distracted with getting one thing to go right that you forget there are a whole bunch of other things you need to pay attention to. Sometimes trying to do everything all at once is so overwhelming you throw your hands up in the air in despair, believing you will never be able to do it right. Trying, every day, to keep the Rule is like that bowling example, but at some point, as you mature, you realize that you can't keep the Rule. Every time someone asks me what the essence of the religious life is I give the same reply. The essence of the religious life is this: we get up, we fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get up...
As human beings we forget easily, and Br. Kevin I want to remind you today, at the beginning of this second quarter century of living the consecrated religious life, that just keeping the Rule is not where it's at. You told me that on the day you made your first profession of vows that another monk, Br. John, gave you some advice. He said to you to always remember that professed brother lives his life in such a way that if every copy of the Rule was to be destroyed, the Rule could be reconstructed by watching you life your life. I don't think he meant for you to keep the Rule like a Pharisee, so it becomes just a set of physical behaviors. Keeping the Rule is not some insurance policy for heaven. Keeping all the parts of the Rule perfectly will probably keep you out of trouble, but don't have a whole lot to do with heaven. I think Br. John meant that as you attempt to live the Rule every day, and that every day as you fail to keep it, if you pick yourself up pointed in the right direction, remembering the purpose of the Rule and the goal of the consecrated life, others will see in you the spirit and the heart of the Rule. They will see a consecrated life, a life surrendered to the will of the Father, a life that is in love with God. They will see a life that, while being lived in a world that is constantly changing, is a life of unchanging confidence in God. As we go onwards towards union with God, as we struggle to get there by living the Rule, among other things, hopefully we realize that we have gotten to know God better and more intimately than we did when we started; and hopefully we become conscious that living the Rule is not so much about the destination but about the relationship we are having with God along the way. So Br. Kevin, I want you to remember to live your life so that if every copy of the Rule was destroyed, the spirit and heart of the Rule can be known by watching you because it really is not about keeping a list of rules or about being perfect at it. It's not about the destination, but is all about the journey. Amen.
What does it mean, "consecrated life"? When you live a consecrated life you live a life that is ever moving in the direction of union with God. It is the reason for everything that you do, everything you study, everything you teach; and all that you are or ever hope to become is all bound up with this unquenchable desire for total union with God. We just recited from Psalm 63 together: "O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, as in a barren and dry land where there is no water." This is the consecrated life. Psalm 42 says it also. The King James Version is very descriptive: "as the hart (deer) panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." You are so thirsty for intimate union with God that it is almost a physical panting that drives you towards Him in surrender. That's the only thing you have to give Him - a surrendered life. So, you give it over and no longer live for yourself alone. Scripture tells us that no one comes to the Father except the Spirit draws him. Coming to God is not something we can will ourselves to do but, rather, it is a gift initiated by God, through the Holy Spirit, that often begins as a gentle nudging inside your heart and mind. Remember that boy of seven or eight, the one sitting here today, who said, "Someday I am going to be one of those" and he didn't even know what "those" were when he saw the group of monks. He felt that nudging even then.
If we are open to God, the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit becomes an incessant tugging at the heart which you must eventually answer or die. In the life of a consecrated Religious union with God is the reason for your very existence. It is difficult to explain because human language in inadequate when trying to describe God who transcends our human experience. I don't know why some people are drawn into this intimate type of union with God and some are not. It's a mystery. It lies within the sovereignty of God. He is God and does as He does. For those whom the Holy Spirit draws away from the life of the world, just going to church on Sunday, being on a committee or two, volunteering once in a while, paying tithes and offerings and fellowshipping with others is never enough. Don't get me wrong - all these things are good things. It's just that for some that's not where it's at and will never be enough. This desire for union with God is so strong that it makes you so thirsty for Him that nothing else will do except to be joined with Him. Consecrating your life, surrendering to God and setting your life apart in this public way by stating your vows of marriage to Him, which is the tangible symbol of that journey into union, is the closest a person can come to that mystical union in this human life.
In 1980 Br. Kevin consecrated his life within the context of a religous community where he continued to learn, especially those things that he would need for what he has now been called to do. Over the years he matured spiritually and grew more fully into a life of intimacy with God. After many years he once more felt the tugging of the Holy Spirit to separate himself in preparation to begin a new religious community. In 1996 Br. Kevin received permission to begin this community - The Society of St. Antony of Egypt. Sometimes, when one begin a new venture the urge is to run around doing a lot of activities, being busy. Br. Kevin did not. He waited. He thought, "If this is all just me wanting to something because I want it, eventually it won't go anywhere; but if it is from God, in God's timing, it will take root and grow." And he waited some more, and some more. From 1996 until 2005, Br. Kevin waited. At Advent 2003, I walked through the door of this church for the first time and said to Br. Kevin, "I believe God sent me here for your community." I don't think I really understood what I was saying, but from the expression on Br. Kevin's face I realized he what what was being said. In January of this year, I consecrated my life to God through the structure of the Society of St. Antony of Egypt. So, now we are two, and where two or three are gathered together in His name, Christ is in their midst. God's timing had arrived.
When you make your religious vows you don't declare your love and then just skip off into the sunset, hand-in-hand with God. Just as in any marriage where there are responsibilities and agreements, the life of a Religious is no different in this. You, too, make agreements. One of those agreements is that you agree to live by a Rule of Life. There are all kinds of rules of life, and if you follow them life is generally easier. There are the general, ethical, unwritten rules of life that most people, even non-religious, non-Christian people follow. Rules like love and respect your spouse, be good to your kids, don't kick the dog, get along with the neighbors, help old ladies cross the street and give up your seat on the bus to pregnant women. These rules of life allow you to get through things without too getting into too much trouble. Living a rule of life in the context of religious community is not different in this. If you follow it things generally go easier than if you do not. A religious rule of life is a tool designed to keep you pointed in the right direction towards your goal of union with God. Pretty much all rules of life of religious communities come down to us from the Rule of St. Benedict, and are similar in many ways.
In living a rule of life, one engages in specific activities and attitudes of mind that keep one God-focused. Those living the consecrated religious life are no different than anyone else. We are all still human beings, and we all know that human nature wants to go its own way. The best illustration of this is to watch a two year old - tell them not to touch something and turn your back, and that is the one thing they head right for. We are like that, too, so we really do need a rule of life to keep us from going our own way too much and to keep us going in the right we really do want to go, which is into union with God. Br. Kevin and I have talked about the Rule [of the Society of St. Antony of Egypt] a lot. The one thing we agree on is that we fail at it every day. It's kind of like sports. Take bowling, for example: you stand up with the ball and get your feet going straight and then you realize your arm is doing something stupid as you swing the ball. You get that under control and then realize your eyes are not looking at the correct spot on the floor, but are looking all over the place. You get so totally distracted with getting one thing to go right that you forget there are a whole bunch of other things you need to pay attention to. Sometimes trying to do everything all at once is so overwhelming you throw your hands up in the air in despair, believing you will never be able to do it right. Trying, every day, to keep the Rule is like that bowling example, but at some point, as you mature, you realize that you can't keep the Rule. Every time someone asks me what the essence of the religious life is I give the same reply. The essence of the religious life is this: we get up, we fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get up...
As human beings we forget easily, and Br. Kevin I want to remind you today, at the beginning of this second quarter century of living the consecrated religious life, that just keeping the Rule is not where it's at. You told me that on the day you made your first profession of vows that another monk, Br. John, gave you some advice. He said to you to always remember that professed brother lives his life in such a way that if every copy of the Rule was to be destroyed, the Rule could be reconstructed by watching you life your life. I don't think he meant for you to keep the Rule like a Pharisee, so it becomes just a set of physical behaviors. Keeping the Rule is not some insurance policy for heaven. Keeping all the parts of the Rule perfectly will probably keep you out of trouble, but don't have a whole lot to do with heaven. I think Br. John meant that as you attempt to live the Rule every day, and that every day as you fail to keep it, if you pick yourself up pointed in the right direction, remembering the purpose of the Rule and the goal of the consecrated life, others will see in you the spirit and the heart of the Rule. They will see a consecrated life, a life surrendered to the will of the Father, a life that is in love with God. They will see a life that, while being lived in a world that is constantly changing, is a life of unchanging confidence in God. As we go onwards towards union with God, as we struggle to get there by living the Rule, among other things, hopefully we realize that we have gotten to know God better and more intimately than we did when we started; and hopefully we become conscious that living the Rule is not so much about the destination but about the relationship we are having with God along the way. So Br. Kevin, I want you to remember to live your life so that if every copy of the Rule was destroyed, the spirit and heart of the Rule can be known by watching you because it really is not about keeping a list of rules or about being perfect at it. It's not about the destination, but is all about the journey. Amen.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Ralph's Legacy
This week our town suffered an incredible tragedy. It was an ordinary January morning one moment, and the next moment the world was turned upside as our beloved police chief Ralph Painter was shot and killed responding to a call where a young man was reportedly attempting to steal a car. Our town is small, only 1700 people. The Chief was the only officer on duty that morning, responding to the call alone. As events unfolded there was a scuffle, and the Chief was shot and killed with his own service revolver. The suspect, also wounded, was taken into custody.
In tragedies like this one question is always asked, "Why?" This question can be a catalyst to improvements in procedures that will benefit emergency response in the future. Arriving at answers to this kind of "Why?" is a good thing for everyone.
The more difficult question to answer is the spiritual question, "Why?" Delving into this question can be a good thing if it causes people to take stock of their own lives and makes needed changes, or if it serves as the impetus for a lifelong journey of spiritual learning, just to name a couple examples. Where this questioning can become a bad thing is when no answer that seems to suffice can be found. It is precisely at this point that people often turn away from God and their faith.
We have to remember that we are citizens of two realms. We have one foot on planet Earth and one foot in heaven, in a manner of speaking. We live physical lives in this world, here and now, but the spiritual realm is something we have trouble seeing clearly because it lies outside the physical world we experience every day. Scripture (I Corinthians 13:12, NRSV) says, "...now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known..." This is the ultimate description of what it is like for us as humans. We know some spiritual things from our own experience, but the rest is often unclear and hard to access. We get some clues about the spiritual realm from the authors of Scripture and from the descriptions of other writers; but mostly, we find spiritual things difficult to understand, and questions like "Why?" can drive us crazy.
You may find yourself wrestling with questions and not finding answers about the tragic events from this week. We ask questions: Why did Ralph have to die? Did it serve a purpose? Why does it seem that good loses and evil flourishes?; Did God cause Ralph to die? There are many other similar questions as well.
So much of life is seen just as the Scripture describes, dimly, almost like we are looking through a gauzy curtain. We see some things and know what they are by their general shape, but the details remain unclear. The truth is that sometimes we just don't know why things happen, and the best answer seems to be that we just happen to live on an imperfect planet where imperfect people cause imperfect things to happen, and that's just part of our human journey.
In ensuing days and weeks we will find ourselves confused or frustrated, at times, with the many questions that are normal in situations like this because we don't have the answers. Let us give ourselves a break from all that and focus our attention forward to consider the legacy that Chief Ralph Painter has left us. The last few days we have listened to those who knew Ralph speak of the qualities he had that made such an impression on them. We have heard how he was loved by everyone and was loving in return. We've heard of his many kindnesses, his compassion for others, his strong values and his integrity. We have heard of his love for his family and his life of service. These qualities of being are Ralph's legacy to us. May our best testimony to Ralph's legacy be that we strive to emulate his example.
May Eternal Light shine upon Ralph as he enters into the joy of God's Presence; and may God's mercy and love heal us who are left behind. Amen.
In tragedies like this one question is always asked, "Why?" This question can be a catalyst to improvements in procedures that will benefit emergency response in the future. Arriving at answers to this kind of "Why?" is a good thing for everyone.
The more difficult question to answer is the spiritual question, "Why?" Delving into this question can be a good thing if it causes people to take stock of their own lives and makes needed changes, or if it serves as the impetus for a lifelong journey of spiritual learning, just to name a couple examples. Where this questioning can become a bad thing is when no answer that seems to suffice can be found. It is precisely at this point that people often turn away from God and their faith.
We have to remember that we are citizens of two realms. We have one foot on planet Earth and one foot in heaven, in a manner of speaking. We live physical lives in this world, here and now, but the spiritual realm is something we have trouble seeing clearly because it lies outside the physical world we experience every day. Scripture (I Corinthians 13:12, NRSV) says, "...now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known..." This is the ultimate description of what it is like for us as humans. We know some spiritual things from our own experience, but the rest is often unclear and hard to access. We get some clues about the spiritual realm from the authors of Scripture and from the descriptions of other writers; but mostly, we find spiritual things difficult to understand, and questions like "Why?" can drive us crazy.
You may find yourself wrestling with questions and not finding answers about the tragic events from this week. We ask questions: Why did Ralph have to die? Did it serve a purpose? Why does it seem that good loses and evil flourishes?; Did God cause Ralph to die? There are many other similar questions as well.
So much of life is seen just as the Scripture describes, dimly, almost like we are looking through a gauzy curtain. We see some things and know what they are by their general shape, but the details remain unclear. The truth is that sometimes we just don't know why things happen, and the best answer seems to be that we just happen to live on an imperfect planet where imperfect people cause imperfect things to happen, and that's just part of our human journey.
In ensuing days and weeks we will find ourselves confused or frustrated, at times, with the many questions that are normal in situations like this because we don't have the answers. Let us give ourselves a break from all that and focus our attention forward to consider the legacy that Chief Ralph Painter has left us. The last few days we have listened to those who knew Ralph speak of the qualities he had that made such an impression on them. We have heard how he was loved by everyone and was loving in return. We've heard of his many kindnesses, his compassion for others, his strong values and his integrity. We have heard of his love for his family and his life of service. These qualities of being are Ralph's legacy to us. May our best testimony to Ralph's legacy be that we strive to emulate his example.
May Eternal Light shine upon Ralph as he enters into the joy of God's Presence; and may God's mercy and love heal us who are left behind. Amen.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Fourth Coming of Christ
In preparing for any homily I start out by reading through all of the readings for that day. On Monday, when I read through the Scriptures (Advent 2: Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12), what stood out to me was the action and the language. The Old Testament reading with it’s images of lions, lambs, wolves and bears struck me with all its strange images of animals acting contrary to their natures. In the Gospel reading I was struck by its almost apocalyptic language - firey baptisms and the Messiah waving his winnowing fork and clearing things out and all that unquenchable fire. Scary stuff!
Tuesday I read the lessons again and nothing came. Wednesday, same thing.
But at lunch on Thursday I was sitting at the Dockside Restaurant downtown, and somewhere between a drinking some coffee and a having couple spoonfuls of soup, it occurred to me that anytime when dealing with Scripture it’s easy to get hung up on the language. And it’s really easy this time of year to get hung up on the action. The stories themselves get almost get in the way of our understanding.
We’re now on a countdown to Christmas, after which we sort of even out and end up at Lent. Then we start another countdown to Easter and, then, Pentecost. We gauge our progress towards these events by the action, the plot - where we are in the story. And we camp out in these stories because we like them so much. We associate many childhood memories with them. They give us emotional, warm fuzzies inside.
Sitting there in the restaurant, what Sophie (our affectionate term for the Holy Spirit) said to me was, “You have got to get past the stories, past the action. You've got to get past the what, where, and the when and get to the WHO because that where you are going to find what I have to tell you.”
Today’s Gospel starts, “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea…” The Gospel of Mark is similar. Luke gives a little more detail. He records Zechariah’s prophecy about John, that he would have “the spirit and power of Elijah,” meaning John would be a prophet like Elijah. And he goes on to say of John, “The child grew up strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly in Israel.” That means he spent thirty years there before he preached his message of repentance and baptism. John's Gospel reports another detail. Those Jewish leaders who went out to where he was baptizing even asked him if he was the prophet Elijah come back. He told them, “I am the voice of one crying the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”
And what about this Elijah, the predecessor of John? God sent him to the wadi Cherith and there was a terrible drought, and then God sent him to Zaraphath and the drought was there, too. Three years of drought. I got online and looked up Cherith because I wanted to know where it was on the map and got a search result for a video. On the video a young man was reading Bible passages about the Prophet Elijah on location from Cherith. He was standing there holding his Bible and behind him was the most dry and desolate desert I think I have ever seen, and that was Cherith.
Our New Testament reading today was written by the Apostle Paul. What about him? We all know the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus, but we have to go clear to his letter to the church at Galatia (Galatians 1:17-18) to find out what happened after that. He says, “I went away at once into Arabia" (i.e., the desert). At some point he returned to Damascus. Then he says it was three years before he went up to Jerusalem where he had his historic meeting with Peter. Many scholars think and some traditions have it that Paul spent those three years in the desert receiving instruction from the Lord.
The desert. This going into the desert seems to be the thing that ties all these characters in our readings together today. The common denominator. And need I point out the obvious example? Even Jesus, just as soon as he was baptized by John, went into the desert.
What is it about the desert?
I continued thinking about this as I was finishing my lunch. Just as I was deciding to let it go and think about it later, it came to me. Sophie said, “There it is! This is what I want you to know. To get to the heart of Advent. To get the most out of this season you have got to be like these guys you've been reading about. They really wanted to know and to see God. They wanted to know what he wanted for them and they wanted to serve him. They wanted to be filled with his Presence. They desired and got this intimate friendship with God that brings understanding. And to do it they had to go where where it was necessary to get it. And so do you.”
This is the insight I received, and it’s my job to give it to you. So, here goes.
Now, about the desert. I am not advocating that to know God you have to go to some literal desert. You do not need to go home today and announce to your family that you won't be spending the holiday with them because you've bought yourself a ticket to Death Valley. Or the Gobi. Or the Kalahari. But I am here to tell you that if you want what those apostles and prophets who went to the desert wanted and got, an intimate relationship with God; or if you want, at the very least, to be able to understand these stories we’re so fond of this time of year and to be able to hear what God wants you to get out out of them, (and God must want us to get something out of them because our New Testament reading today says that everything in Scripture was written for our instruction), then we have got to go there, too.
We have got to go to a place where the layers that we are wrapped up in are pealed away – our materialism, our holiday greed and overconsumption, our self-centeredness, our hate, malice, frustration and angst. All the masks we wear. All the body armor. You know, the attitudes we project to show the world how good we’re doing when maybe we’re not, and all this emotional baggage we carry around all the time. And especially at this time of year, we carry it around even more. I'm sure we all have at least one family member who melts down during the holidays because they have issues. I'm not sure if we are carrying around more baggage at this time of year or if we are carrying all the really sensitive stuff on top like an overcoat. But to get past all this stuff that burdens us and prevents us from seeing clearly and have a meaningful Advent and Christmas, we have got to retreat to a place where we can no longer hide behind or be buried under these things. We are not going to see clearly until we get all the stuff off us, and see ourselves clearly. It’s like not being able to see the forest for the trees. There’s just too much stuff. And once stuff is cleared away there’s always a better view. And when we have a better view we have better understanding and we can get the most from this Advent or any season. We have to go to our own desert. Not the literal one, the interior one. That’s why we hear that Advent is a reflective season…It's because we turn inward. We turn inward to get to the heart of matters.
I had a conversation with Fr. Gary the other day in which he pointed out to me that Anglican teachings on Advent often include the first and second comings of Christ, whereas in his Lutheran tradition, the take is a little different in that they often include a third coming, Christ in the Eucharist. But today, I’m thinking there is a fourth coming. That’s almost a pun. "Advent - Forthcoming."
“Christ is formed in your HEARTS by faith”. We all know this verse but, most of the time we hear it read with the emphasis on the word "faith." For today, we are going to place the emphasis on the word "hearts" because that is where Christ is to be found. In this deep interior place in your being, your heart of hearts - what the desert mothers and fathers of the first centuries of the Church knew. They went to the literal desert to get themselves to a place where they would not be distracted so they could get to their interior deserts.
At times it is not pretty there, in our hearts - our interior deserts - because that’s where we hold all of our secret thoughts and unrealized dreams. Our fears and insecurities. Our disappointments and feelings of worthlessness and rejection. But we have got to go there because that’s where Christ is - in our hearts. That place where God has placed that deposit of his life substance within us, the Holy Spirit, so that we never have to be alone or filled with fear or feelings of worthlessness again. It's one of those spiritual paradoxes - the place where we are hiding away all of this unsightly, personal baggage that gets in the way of our understanding is right where God pitches his tent and decides to live with us.
These prophets and apostles we’ve just been talking about – John, Elijah, Paul - God may have illustrated his point by having them go to literal deserts and have the scripture writers tell about it, so we could be instructed by it. They went there physically, but you can bet they also went to that interior desert – that place deep inside themselves where they communed with God, learned from him and gained understanding because they came out changed men.
This interior desert, this desert of the heart, calls each of us. Elijah went there and he was changed. John the Baptist grew up there and look what was he to do and be for God. And Paul. He did a complete turn around. He went from being the premier persecutor of Christians to the premier Christian himself, with such an understanding of the things of God that his writings make up most of the New Testament and he teachings continue to instruct men more than two thousand years later. Can't get much more change than that.
I, too, go to the desert. And I sure can testify that my desert is not pretty at times. But I can say, with a certainty, that it has changed me. Is changing me from day to day, for the better, the more time I spend there. This Advent, this reflective season, I promise you, if you go there, to your interior desert and meet the One who dwells there, the One who promises to be with you and give you understanding, it will change you too. Amen.
(Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, St. Helens, Oregon, December 5, 2010)
Tuesday I read the lessons again and nothing came. Wednesday, same thing.
But at lunch on Thursday I was sitting at the Dockside Restaurant downtown, and somewhere between a drinking some coffee and a having couple spoonfuls of soup, it occurred to me that anytime when dealing with Scripture it’s easy to get hung up on the language. And it’s really easy this time of year to get hung up on the action. The stories themselves get almost get in the way of our understanding.
We’re now on a countdown to Christmas, after which we sort of even out and end up at Lent. Then we start another countdown to Easter and, then, Pentecost. We gauge our progress towards these events by the action, the plot - where we are in the story. And we camp out in these stories because we like them so much. We associate many childhood memories with them. They give us emotional, warm fuzzies inside.
Sitting there in the restaurant, what Sophie (our affectionate term for the Holy Spirit) said to me was, “You have got to get past the stories, past the action. You've got to get past the what, where, and the when and get to the WHO because that where you are going to find what I have to tell you.”
Today’s Gospel starts, “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea…” The Gospel of Mark is similar. Luke gives a little more detail. He records Zechariah’s prophecy about John, that he would have “the spirit and power of Elijah,” meaning John would be a prophet like Elijah. And he goes on to say of John, “The child grew up strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly in Israel.” That means he spent thirty years there before he preached his message of repentance and baptism. John's Gospel reports another detail. Those Jewish leaders who went out to where he was baptizing even asked him if he was the prophet Elijah come back. He told them, “I am the voice of one crying the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”
And what about this Elijah, the predecessor of John? God sent him to the wadi Cherith and there was a terrible drought, and then God sent him to Zaraphath and the drought was there, too. Three years of drought. I got online and looked up Cherith because I wanted to know where it was on the map and got a search result for a video. On the video a young man was reading Bible passages about the Prophet Elijah on location from Cherith. He was standing there holding his Bible and behind him was the most dry and desolate desert I think I have ever seen, and that was Cherith.
Our New Testament reading today was written by the Apostle Paul. What about him? We all know the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus, but we have to go clear to his letter to the church at Galatia (Galatians 1:17-18) to find out what happened after that. He says, “I went away at once into Arabia" (i.e., the desert). At some point he returned to Damascus. Then he says it was three years before he went up to Jerusalem where he had his historic meeting with Peter. Many scholars think and some traditions have it that Paul spent those three years in the desert receiving instruction from the Lord.
The desert. This going into the desert seems to be the thing that ties all these characters in our readings together today. The common denominator. And need I point out the obvious example? Even Jesus, just as soon as he was baptized by John, went into the desert.
What is it about the desert?
I continued thinking about this as I was finishing my lunch. Just as I was deciding to let it go and think about it later, it came to me. Sophie said, “There it is! This is what I want you to know. To get to the heart of Advent. To get the most out of this season you have got to be like these guys you've been reading about. They really wanted to know and to see God. They wanted to know what he wanted for them and they wanted to serve him. They wanted to be filled with his Presence. They desired and got this intimate friendship with God that brings understanding. And to do it they had to go where where it was necessary to get it. And so do you.”
This is the insight I received, and it’s my job to give it to you. So, here goes.
Now, about the desert. I am not advocating that to know God you have to go to some literal desert. You do not need to go home today and announce to your family that you won't be spending the holiday with them because you've bought yourself a ticket to Death Valley. Or the Gobi. Or the Kalahari. But I am here to tell you that if you want what those apostles and prophets who went to the desert wanted and got, an intimate relationship with God; or if you want, at the very least, to be able to understand these stories we’re so fond of this time of year and to be able to hear what God wants you to get out out of them, (and God must want us to get something out of them because our New Testament reading today says that everything in Scripture was written for our instruction), then we have got to go there, too.
We have got to go to a place where the layers that we are wrapped up in are pealed away – our materialism, our holiday greed and overconsumption, our self-centeredness, our hate, malice, frustration and angst. All the masks we wear. All the body armor. You know, the attitudes we project to show the world how good we’re doing when maybe we’re not, and all this emotional baggage we carry around all the time. And especially at this time of year, we carry it around even more. I'm sure we all have at least one family member who melts down during the holidays because they have issues. I'm not sure if we are carrying around more baggage at this time of year or if we are carrying all the really sensitive stuff on top like an overcoat. But to get past all this stuff that burdens us and prevents us from seeing clearly and have a meaningful Advent and Christmas, we have got to retreat to a place where we can no longer hide behind or be buried under these things. We are not going to see clearly until we get all the stuff off us, and see ourselves clearly. It’s like not being able to see the forest for the trees. There’s just too much stuff. And once stuff is cleared away there’s always a better view. And when we have a better view we have better understanding and we can get the most from this Advent or any season. We have to go to our own desert. Not the literal one, the interior one. That’s why we hear that Advent is a reflective season…It's because we turn inward. We turn inward to get to the heart of matters.
I had a conversation with Fr. Gary the other day in which he pointed out to me that Anglican teachings on Advent often include the first and second comings of Christ, whereas in his Lutheran tradition, the take is a little different in that they often include a third coming, Christ in the Eucharist. But today, I’m thinking there is a fourth coming. That’s almost a pun. "Advent - Forthcoming."
“Christ is formed in your HEARTS by faith”. We all know this verse but, most of the time we hear it read with the emphasis on the word "faith." For today, we are going to place the emphasis on the word "hearts" because that is where Christ is to be found. In this deep interior place in your being, your heart of hearts - what the desert mothers and fathers of the first centuries of the Church knew. They went to the literal desert to get themselves to a place where they would not be distracted so they could get to their interior deserts.
At times it is not pretty there, in our hearts - our interior deserts - because that’s where we hold all of our secret thoughts and unrealized dreams. Our fears and insecurities. Our disappointments and feelings of worthlessness and rejection. But we have got to go there because that’s where Christ is - in our hearts. That place where God has placed that deposit of his life substance within us, the Holy Spirit, so that we never have to be alone or filled with fear or feelings of worthlessness again. It's one of those spiritual paradoxes - the place where we are hiding away all of this unsightly, personal baggage that gets in the way of our understanding is right where God pitches his tent and decides to live with us.
These prophets and apostles we’ve just been talking about – John, Elijah, Paul - God may have illustrated his point by having them go to literal deserts and have the scripture writers tell about it, so we could be instructed by it. They went there physically, but you can bet they also went to that interior desert – that place deep inside themselves where they communed with God, learned from him and gained understanding because they came out changed men.
This interior desert, this desert of the heart, calls each of us. Elijah went there and he was changed. John the Baptist grew up there and look what was he to do and be for God. And Paul. He did a complete turn around. He went from being the premier persecutor of Christians to the premier Christian himself, with such an understanding of the things of God that his writings make up most of the New Testament and he teachings continue to instruct men more than two thousand years later. Can't get much more change than that.
I, too, go to the desert. And I sure can testify that my desert is not pretty at times. But I can say, with a certainty, that it has changed me. Is changing me from day to day, for the better, the more time I spend there. This Advent, this reflective season, I promise you, if you go there, to your interior desert and meet the One who dwells there, the One who promises to be with you and give you understanding, it will change you too. Amen.
(Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, St. Helens, Oregon, December 5, 2010)
Sunday, May 9, 2010
You've Got To Keep Your Eye On The Toast - Living Intentionally In The World
I once read an article in Christianity Today about how technological we have become, and how disconnected and uninvolved were are with much of what goes on around us. The article explained that in times long past, social life was centered around the hearth, and went on to point out that the Latin word for "hearth" is the same as the word for "focus". This gives a picture of life being all about the hearth and the warmth to be found there. It gives meaning to a phrase we've all heard before, "Keep the home fires burning." Picture, if you will, how labor intensive activities were that were necessary to keep the home fire burning - gathering wood or other fuel, cleaning out ashes, consciously remembering to to feed fuel into the fire so it wouldn't go out,etc., so you could keep warm and have food, since food was prepared and consumed at and around the hearth. Everyone contributed to the effort. Social life was focused around the hearth.
I am reminded of some close friends of mine who set their living room up with all the chairs facing a big wood stove on a large, raised corner hearth made of stone, rather than chairs facing the television at the other end of the room. It was always comforting to visit them because we knew that their focus would be entirely upon us and everyone gathered in that warm and cozy corner, rather than on an indifferent talking-head box at the other end of the room.
All of this makes me think how intentional all of life should be, from our most important spiritual decisions down to even the most mundane of our daily actions. Our thoughts and actions should be intentional from things as personal as acting on what we believe about God, to the time-consuming as effort of nurturing new relationships, and even down to the simplest things in life, such as making toast.
I used to collect old kitchen tools. I gave that up some years ago when it was becoming apparent that those same items that were considered "state of the art" when I was a child were coming into vogue as collectibles. It wasn't fun anymore when I realized I was beginning to be contemporary with much of what was hanging on my walls. I had visions of someday being stuffed and hung there, myself, among the old can openers and vegetable choppers, as a relic of the past. This may be a slight overstatement, but you get the picture.
I still have a special affinity for early, electric kitchen appliances. I am the owner of an "Armstrong Table Stove", a kind of early 1900s toaster oven that was supposed to do everything from poach eggs to grill steaks. The inventor must have had big city apartment dwellers in mind when inventing it. I also have an "Eskimo Kitchen Mechanic", sort of a cross between an electric milkshake maker, butter churn and an electric paint can stirrer. Those old appliances always make me smile to think strange (to us) devices must have been very innovative for their time. My favorite old kitchen appliances are those antique flap-door toasters. When I got rid of most of the old kitchen tools, I liked the toasters so much that I kept a few. I still have them and they still work!
When my husband and I got married, some 26 years ago now, we did not receive a single toaster as a wedding gift. That, in itself, was unusual, but as I was already using one of the antique toasters on a daily basis, we continued on with it. I was used to it, but my new husband wasn't. Making toast with a flap-door toaster was a very intentional process. You had to be involved in your food making, not like today where you just go through the drive-thru and get a burger, fries and a soda and don't even think about where they come from. Heck, we don't even have to ask for a burger, fries and soda anymore. Now we just ask for a meal by number.
Food preparation today is quick, easy and mindless. To make toast the old fashioned way you opened the doors on each side of the toaster, put a slice of bread in each opening and shut the doors again. But, you had to be alert. You had to be involved in the process because you had to intentionally check every thirty seconds or so to see if you were burning the toast. No button to dial to get the desired browning. No automatic eject button that popped the toast up when done, the opposite of toasters today where you put the bread in and it comes out automatically toasted to the right color and texture, and you don't have to worry that either the toast or the kitchen will catch on fire if you leave the room. It seems to me that must of the challenge of daily living has been lost. And what a loss it is!
My husband learned the hard way that you can't shave and make toast at the same time. He learned that if he went and shaved while making toast he ended up having to live with the results of his inattention. We never did burn the house down and, eventually, we sacrificed the old flap-door toaster for a more updated model that even toasts English muffins, but I still miss the old one some. I believe much has been lost as we have become less intentionally involved in the process of feeding ourselves. I do remember the major lesson learned from that old toaster.
What I learned from that toaster was this: every worthwhile thing in life comes from some intentional action or decision. In this modern, computerized, videoized, spectator-centered, social networking age, knowing this is more important than ever. Today, we are divorced and disconnected from much of what goes on around us. Television, video games, the internet - all of these are hypnotic and lock us, bodily and mentally, into some inactive, frozen state of paralysis where we are no longer participants in an active life, but are spectators. This shift in focus has crept into all facets of life, even to where we have become spectators in our own spiritual lives and in our own religious expression.
Over the years, I have seen a real shift in what goes on in many churches, which I suspect mirrors some people's private spiritual lives. We live in an age where we are entertained all day long. We are entertained by television around the clock. Most stations no longer go off the air at night. Video games have become our babysitters and a way for us to be violent and aggressive in seemingly acceptable ways. The internet has taken the place of face-to-face relationships. Now, I am not against these things. Television, computers and video games are not bad in and of themselves. What I am concerned about is how we have come to depend on these devices to entertain us with an endless stream of whatever it is they offer that stimulates our sensory organs in some endless, feel good massage. We are barraged with so much quantity that we no longer critically assess what we are taking in and have forgotten that these devices do have on-off switches and plugs that can be disconnected. We act as if it is beyond our control to control them. We forget we can turn them off. These devices are no longer just tools, but have often replaced meaningful, intentional actions and relationships. And we have come, in our times of religious expression and worship, to expect this same kind of stimulation. We expect to be entertained.
People are hungrier than ever, spiritually speaking. Most of them don't know what they are looking for. All they know is that there is an empty place deep inside, but they do not know know what's missing. They do know that things like television, video games and internet chatting makes them feel better, temporarily. But it wears off after a while and they they have to go back for another fix. I am the child of alcoholics. I understand this feeling. Of the symptoms of being an adult child of alcoholics is having the urge to shop. It's a mechanism to self-medicate, to alleviate pain. You go out and buy a bunch of stuff, most of which you don't need, because it temporarily sedates the pain of dealing with the pain of your childhood experience.
People who are spiritually hungry, but don't recognize it for what it is, act in a similar fashion. They go from church to church, from guru to guru, seminar to seminar, or switch from channel to channel, scanning religious television programming or, even worse, watching the same religious channel on television all day long without recognizing that many of the 30-minute, back-to-back programming segments are teaching conflicting theologies. They aren't listening. They just want to feel something; but, culture being what it is and because of how sensitized by it they have become, and having bought into being mindlessly entertained in lieu of intentional living, they aren't looking for spiritual truth. They are just looking for the next spiritual fix, so they can feel better. Being entertained temporarily cuts the pain of being disconnected and empty.
The dictionary defines the word "titillated" as being tickled, excited or pleasurably stimulated. That's what a lot of people expect from their church or religious experience today, to be "titillated". They want to feel good. They want music that makes them feel warm and fuzzy. They want a speaker who doesn't get too deep or says things that makes them uncomfortable. And it's a plus if the preacher can crack a joke or two. They don't want anything mentally challenging, and definitely nothing that requires involvement or a response on their part. The questions - Am I here to worship God today? What am I bringing to this gathering? What is my spiritual offering? - have been replaced by - What is the service going to do for me today? Am I going to be entertained? Am I going to be pleasurably stimulated and excited? If these are also the questions you are asking, you might as well stay home and sleep in. You don't have to go to church or some other spiritual gathering to get the same physical effect. You can have sex and get the same effect as that.
Your spiritual life is not about entertainment, and should not be approached with anything less than your total, focused intention and attention. Your relationship with God is not some virtual reality video game where you create your own entertaining reality. You can not lay in your spiritual recliner and just flip channels with the remote control until you find something about God that excites, tickles and stimulates you in a pleasurable way. God does not work that way. With God there is only one channel, and it is tuned into His unchanging Holiness and HIs intention is that we be brought into line with that. That's His will.
"Will" is the deepest desires of one's heart. It is God's will, His deepest, heart-felt desire, that we be in a vital and conscious relationship with Him. That is why He intentionally paid out the life of His Son. To fix things so we can have that relationship. What is your spiritual will? Is it your will to be brought into line with God's will? Is your spiritual life and expression intentional? Or are you mindlessly flipping channels, trying to find something that makes you feel good? Are you expecting to be titillated in every service and meeting? Are you looking for entertainment?
I can hear you asking, "Well, doesn't it just happen? I believe in God. I had this emotional altar call experience once. Wasn't that it?" The danger of this kind of thinking, where we think our emotional, born again experience is the goal, is that we go onto automatic pilot and believe that the beginning point of our Christian life is the finish line and, and there's nothing left except to be entertained because we have "arrived". As a consequence, we don't move on from there, developing and growing into spiritually mature individuals. Our growth becomes stunted because we are paralyzed and hypnotized. We stay children who want nothing more than to be titillated - tickled, excited and pleasurably stimulated.
What did Jesus say about all of this? Mark 8:34-35 in the Amplified version says it best,
"If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself
[forget, ignore, disown, and lose sight of himself and his
own interests] and take up his cross, and [joining Me as a
disciple and siding with My party] follow with Me [continually,
cleaving steadfastly to Me]. For whoever wants to save his
[higher, spiritual, eternal] life, will lose it [the lower,
natural, temporal life which is lived only on earth]; and
whoever gives up his life [which is lived only on earth] for
My sake and the Gospel's will save it [his higher, spiritual
life in the eternal kingdom of God].
Is this what you want instead of continuous, mindless entertainment? It can be yours. But it requires something from you. The key word in these verses I just quoted is the word "intends". The dictionary defines "intend" as:
1. to have in mind as a purpose, plan; 2. to mean something to
be used for, as destined or designated; 3. to signify. And older
meaning is "to bend, direct or turn: as they intend their thoughts.
It implies having in mind something to be done; a deliberate purpose
or design, suggesting careful planning in order to bring about
particular result and a determination to do a specified thing or
act in a specified manner, to an ultimate end or purpose."
Is your ultimate, end purpose to be entertained or to have a true, filled (with God) and fulfilled life based upon a relationship with your Creator? If all you want is to be tickled, excited or pleasurably stimulated with entertainment, just continue on with spiritual channel surfing or a spiritual life of uninvolved spectatorship. But be warned. There is a price. It is this: You will always be empty and looking for the next fix. You will never be filled and you will never be fulfilled.
If you want to grow into spiritual maturity, want to be filled and fulfilled and wish to not be on the sidelines as some spectator who has no power to do anything about anything in life but would rather be an active participant in your spiritual life, you need to have intention. This means you have to do something. You have to "turn or bend your thoughts" to a decision, as the dictionary defined it. And you have to be willing to carry it out. Every day. Jesus said to "take up your cross." This means having to turn off or unplug the wanting to be constantly titillated and entertained that is keeping you in a childish state of spiritual paralysis and you have to intentionally tune in to the only channel that God is broadcasting - Himself. It requires laying down the remote control, getting out of your spiritual recliner and going into the kitchen; and, just like my old flap-door toaster, it requires intentionally keeping your eye on the toast!
Copyright, S. Rolf-Tooley, 2002, 2010.
I am reminded of some close friends of mine who set their living room up with all the chairs facing a big wood stove on a large, raised corner hearth made of stone, rather than chairs facing the television at the other end of the room. It was always comforting to visit them because we knew that their focus would be entirely upon us and everyone gathered in that warm and cozy corner, rather than on an indifferent talking-head box at the other end of the room.
All of this makes me think how intentional all of life should be, from our most important spiritual decisions down to even the most mundane of our daily actions. Our thoughts and actions should be intentional from things as personal as acting on what we believe about God, to the time-consuming as effort of nurturing new relationships, and even down to the simplest things in life, such as making toast.
I used to collect old kitchen tools. I gave that up some years ago when it was becoming apparent that those same items that were considered "state of the art" when I was a child were coming into vogue as collectibles. It wasn't fun anymore when I realized I was beginning to be contemporary with much of what was hanging on my walls. I had visions of someday being stuffed and hung there, myself, among the old can openers and vegetable choppers, as a relic of the past. This may be a slight overstatement, but you get the picture.
I still have a special affinity for early, electric kitchen appliances. I am the owner of an "Armstrong Table Stove", a kind of early 1900s toaster oven that was supposed to do everything from poach eggs to grill steaks. The inventor must have had big city apartment dwellers in mind when inventing it. I also have an "Eskimo Kitchen Mechanic", sort of a cross between an electric milkshake maker, butter churn and an electric paint can stirrer. Those old appliances always make me smile to think strange (to us) devices must have been very innovative for their time. My favorite old kitchen appliances are those antique flap-door toasters. When I got rid of most of the old kitchen tools, I liked the toasters so much that I kept a few. I still have them and they still work!
When my husband and I got married, some 26 years ago now, we did not receive a single toaster as a wedding gift. That, in itself, was unusual, but as I was already using one of the antique toasters on a daily basis, we continued on with it. I was used to it, but my new husband wasn't. Making toast with a flap-door toaster was a very intentional process. You had to be involved in your food making, not like today where you just go through the drive-thru and get a burger, fries and a soda and don't even think about where they come from. Heck, we don't even have to ask for a burger, fries and soda anymore. Now we just ask for a meal by number.
Food preparation today is quick, easy and mindless. To make toast the old fashioned way you opened the doors on each side of the toaster, put a slice of bread in each opening and shut the doors again. But, you had to be alert. You had to be involved in the process because you had to intentionally check every thirty seconds or so to see if you were burning the toast. No button to dial to get the desired browning. No automatic eject button that popped the toast up when done, the opposite of toasters today where you put the bread in and it comes out automatically toasted to the right color and texture, and you don't have to worry that either the toast or the kitchen will catch on fire if you leave the room. It seems to me that must of the challenge of daily living has been lost. And what a loss it is!
My husband learned the hard way that you can't shave and make toast at the same time. He learned that if he went and shaved while making toast he ended up having to live with the results of his inattention. We never did burn the house down and, eventually, we sacrificed the old flap-door toaster for a more updated model that even toasts English muffins, but I still miss the old one some. I believe much has been lost as we have become less intentionally involved in the process of feeding ourselves. I do remember the major lesson learned from that old toaster.
What I learned from that toaster was this: every worthwhile thing in life comes from some intentional action or decision. In this modern, computerized, videoized, spectator-centered, social networking age, knowing this is more important than ever. Today, we are divorced and disconnected from much of what goes on around us. Television, video games, the internet - all of these are hypnotic and lock us, bodily and mentally, into some inactive, frozen state of paralysis where we are no longer participants in an active life, but are spectators. This shift in focus has crept into all facets of life, even to where we have become spectators in our own spiritual lives and in our own religious expression.
Over the years, I have seen a real shift in what goes on in many churches, which I suspect mirrors some people's private spiritual lives. We live in an age where we are entertained all day long. We are entertained by television around the clock. Most stations no longer go off the air at night. Video games have become our babysitters and a way for us to be violent and aggressive in seemingly acceptable ways. The internet has taken the place of face-to-face relationships. Now, I am not against these things. Television, computers and video games are not bad in and of themselves. What I am concerned about is how we have come to depend on these devices to entertain us with an endless stream of whatever it is they offer that stimulates our sensory organs in some endless, feel good massage. We are barraged with so much quantity that we no longer critically assess what we are taking in and have forgotten that these devices do have on-off switches and plugs that can be disconnected. We act as if it is beyond our control to control them. We forget we can turn them off. These devices are no longer just tools, but have often replaced meaningful, intentional actions and relationships. And we have come, in our times of religious expression and worship, to expect this same kind of stimulation. We expect to be entertained.
People are hungrier than ever, spiritually speaking. Most of them don't know what they are looking for. All they know is that there is an empty place deep inside, but they do not know know what's missing. They do know that things like television, video games and internet chatting makes them feel better, temporarily. But it wears off after a while and they they have to go back for another fix. I am the child of alcoholics. I understand this feeling. Of the symptoms of being an adult child of alcoholics is having the urge to shop. It's a mechanism to self-medicate, to alleviate pain. You go out and buy a bunch of stuff, most of which you don't need, because it temporarily sedates the pain of dealing with the pain of your childhood experience.
People who are spiritually hungry, but don't recognize it for what it is, act in a similar fashion. They go from church to church, from guru to guru, seminar to seminar, or switch from channel to channel, scanning religious television programming or, even worse, watching the same religious channel on television all day long without recognizing that many of the 30-minute, back-to-back programming segments are teaching conflicting theologies. They aren't listening. They just want to feel something; but, culture being what it is and because of how sensitized by it they have become, and having bought into being mindlessly entertained in lieu of intentional living, they aren't looking for spiritual truth. They are just looking for the next spiritual fix, so they can feel better. Being entertained temporarily cuts the pain of being disconnected and empty.
The dictionary defines the word "titillated" as being tickled, excited or pleasurably stimulated. That's what a lot of people expect from their church or religious experience today, to be "titillated". They want to feel good. They want music that makes them feel warm and fuzzy. They want a speaker who doesn't get too deep or says things that makes them uncomfortable. And it's a plus if the preacher can crack a joke or two. They don't want anything mentally challenging, and definitely nothing that requires involvement or a response on their part. The questions - Am I here to worship God today? What am I bringing to this gathering? What is my spiritual offering? - have been replaced by - What is the service going to do for me today? Am I going to be entertained? Am I going to be pleasurably stimulated and excited? If these are also the questions you are asking, you might as well stay home and sleep in. You don't have to go to church or some other spiritual gathering to get the same physical effect. You can have sex and get the same effect as that.
Your spiritual life is not about entertainment, and should not be approached with anything less than your total, focused intention and attention. Your relationship with God is not some virtual reality video game where you create your own entertaining reality. You can not lay in your spiritual recliner and just flip channels with the remote control until you find something about God that excites, tickles and stimulates you in a pleasurable way. God does not work that way. With God there is only one channel, and it is tuned into His unchanging Holiness and HIs intention is that we be brought into line with that. That's His will.
"Will" is the deepest desires of one's heart. It is God's will, His deepest, heart-felt desire, that we be in a vital and conscious relationship with Him. That is why He intentionally paid out the life of His Son. To fix things so we can have that relationship. What is your spiritual will? Is it your will to be brought into line with God's will? Is your spiritual life and expression intentional? Or are you mindlessly flipping channels, trying to find something that makes you feel good? Are you expecting to be titillated in every service and meeting? Are you looking for entertainment?
I can hear you asking, "Well, doesn't it just happen? I believe in God. I had this emotional altar call experience once. Wasn't that it?" The danger of this kind of thinking, where we think our emotional, born again experience is the goal, is that we go onto automatic pilot and believe that the beginning point of our Christian life is the finish line and, and there's nothing left except to be entertained because we have "arrived". As a consequence, we don't move on from there, developing and growing into spiritually mature individuals. Our growth becomes stunted because we are paralyzed and hypnotized. We stay children who want nothing more than to be titillated - tickled, excited and pleasurably stimulated.
What did Jesus say about all of this? Mark 8:34-35 in the Amplified version says it best,
"If anyone intends to come after me, let him deny himself
[forget, ignore, disown, and lose sight of himself and his
own interests] and take up his cross, and [joining Me as a
disciple and siding with My party] follow with Me [continually,
cleaving steadfastly to Me]. For whoever wants to save his
[higher, spiritual, eternal] life, will lose it [the lower,
natural, temporal life which is lived only on earth]; and
whoever gives up his life [which is lived only on earth] for
My sake and the Gospel's will save it [his higher, spiritual
life in the eternal kingdom of God].
Is this what you want instead of continuous, mindless entertainment? It can be yours. But it requires something from you. The key word in these verses I just quoted is the word "intends". The dictionary defines "intend" as:
1. to have in mind as a purpose, plan; 2. to mean something to
be used for, as destined or designated; 3. to signify. And older
meaning is "to bend, direct or turn: as they intend their thoughts.
It implies having in mind something to be done; a deliberate purpose
or design, suggesting careful planning in order to bring about
particular result and a determination to do a specified thing or
act in a specified manner, to an ultimate end or purpose."
Is your ultimate, end purpose to be entertained or to have a true, filled (with God) and fulfilled life based upon a relationship with your Creator? If all you want is to be tickled, excited or pleasurably stimulated with entertainment, just continue on with spiritual channel surfing or a spiritual life of uninvolved spectatorship. But be warned. There is a price. It is this: You will always be empty and looking for the next fix. You will never be filled and you will never be fulfilled.
If you want to grow into spiritual maturity, want to be filled and fulfilled and wish to not be on the sidelines as some spectator who has no power to do anything about anything in life but would rather be an active participant in your spiritual life, you need to have intention. This means you have to do something. You have to "turn or bend your thoughts" to a decision, as the dictionary defined it. And you have to be willing to carry it out. Every day. Jesus said to "take up your cross." This means having to turn off or unplug the wanting to be constantly titillated and entertained that is keeping you in a childish state of spiritual paralysis and you have to intentionally tune in to the only channel that God is broadcasting - Himself. It requires laying down the remote control, getting out of your spiritual recliner and going into the kitchen; and, just like my old flap-door toaster, it requires intentionally keeping your eye on the toast!
Copyright, S. Rolf-Tooley, 2002, 2010.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Christ Our Passover
What a week this has been. Just the other day, along with all Jerusalem
There was that trouble in the Temple Temple Temple
Now the word on the street is that they’re going to get him. Someone came to my uncle’s house looking for that guy, Lazarus, from Bethany
We were jubilant and hopeful just the other day. Now all Jerusalem Temple Guard Jerusalem
But it’s evening and the streets are quieter., now. The air seems a little cooler as the evening breeze begins to waft up through the streets, calming nerves at it cools the air. Our attention now turns away from this city gone mad and onto one little group of people who have gathered for Passover. We join them in an upper room of private home, where we see this same man who rode the colt of a donkey triumphantly into the city and who, in our local expression, now seems to be public enemy #1. He is speaking.
In many ways it’s a Passover meal like many being celebrated in homes around the city at this hour. All the traditional items – lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, cups of wine, what you’d expect, but tonight there is an urgency we don’t quite understand in his voice, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.”
But this Passover will be like no other. Oh, I’m sure there will be the traditional prayers and blessings and the telling (the Haggadah), the story of deliverance of our ancestors from Egypt
As he speaks, not with so many words, he is in effect saying, “This commemoration of the first Passover – with the lamb, one that must be chosen without spot or blemish – a perfect lamb, a perfect sacrifice – that’s me. That is who I am. I have been with you some three years now and some of you still struggle to know who I really am. And as our families have done all these years, from generation to generation, celebrated that time when the Angel of Death passed over the first born of our ancestors in Egypt
I am that perfect lamb, that perfect sacrifice that must be chosen. I am offering the sinless live I have lived in the will of my Father, as the ransom for you. An exchange – my life for yours.
And the symbol of this body that will be killed, given for your sake, will be this bread that I am breaking with you and giving to you. And this cup, this fruit of the vine that we pour, this is my life’s blood that is going to be poured out for you.
Just as our ancestors had to choose a perfect and spotless lamb, one white as snow, sacrifice it and paint it’s blood on the doorposts of their homes, so they might have life and might be free, so must you. But from now on, you will eat it’s body by my symbol, the bread; and you must paint its blood on the door posts of your hearts because that is where I am going to be with you until I come to you again. And you must paint that blood on the door posts of your hearts by my symbol, the wine, as often as you drink it. And in addition, I do this not only for you, but for whole world.”
In just a little while, we are going to share in this Passover with the disciples, as this is what this night is all about. We call it the Eucharist. Just like the disciples, some of us still struggle, at various times in our lives, with just who Jesus was and is. Was he just a good and wise teacher like so many others? Was he a mad-man? A heretic? Or was he God come down into the lives of men and women, that he might be kinned to us, as our Kinsman-Redeemer, the only One who could save us from ourselves. But even though we waver – we’re human – we are subject to human thoughts and emotions. It’s how we’re made. We’re sure one moment. We question the next. Then we doubt and then we’re sure again. Don’t beat yourself up if this is you. It’s just part of the trip. We are constantly falling away and coming back. It’s the journey of our Christian life.
But tonight, we know who he is. Take a prayer book from the pew and turn to page 364 (BCP). Down a little past half the page, under the heading the Breaking of the Bread. I want us all to read the part that the celebrant, the priest usually says:
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER IS SACRIFICED FOR US!
And what is our response? “Therefore, let us keep the feast!” And what a joyous feast because that is who and what He is!
Turning back to the scene, the dinner is now over. Some of the disciples are struck silent by the truth of words of this man from Nazareth
The one who would betray him has gone about his business. He’s been gone some long time now, and the deal has been made, another kind of exchange. It seems the One we just heard tell his disciples that he was giving his life as a ransom for the entire world, in another exchange is only worth thirty pieces of silver.
The final hymn of the Seder has been sung and the dinner is now breaking up. We and they come down from the upper room and step out into the cool of the evening. It’s getting late and there is one more appointment to keep this night, but the man from Nazareth takes a moment to stop listen to the night sounds, the sounds of the city bedding down for the night, a dog barking in the distance, a cricket chirping. Such simple things. He stops to feel the cool air against his skin and shuts his eyes, as if enjoying it for the very first time, wanting to remember it later. Then, we go along with this band of men and their leader, as we make their way down into the Kiddron Valley and go across, up to the Mount of Olives .
Amen.
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