Category: Faith

Why do you call Him good?

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, a man approaches Jesus and asks him what he has to do to “inherit eternal life”. He is called “the rich young ruler” and he addresses Jesus as “Good Teacher” and Jesus replies, “Why do you call me ‘good’?” Jesus goes on to tell him to keep the commandments and the guy says he’s done all that. So Jesus tells him to sell all he has & give it to the poor, and then, in addition, follow Jesus. The man goes away sad because he doesn’t want to do that. And that’s the end of his story.

The young man called Jesus “good” and I can imagine Jesus saying, “Who told you that?” or “Where did you get that idea?” or even “What do you mean by ‘good’?”

As a person who is sent to talk to families during emergency situations, I can tell you that people often think that I do not come bearing “good” news but the news about what Jesus came to offer us is called “good news”, the “Gospels”.

So if Jesus has been thought to be, or even misunderstood as a “good” teacher and the news of Jesus is considered “good news” then why is it that in so many places in Christian history that people of this ‘good news” have been everything but good?

I often feel as confused about the Christian faith at 56, having been in ordained ministry for 22 years, as I did as a young teenager at church camp, reflecting on locker room body shame of a 13 year old. It makes no sense.

Since the beginning of the year I’ve witnessed these things – just briefly, and to name these casually:

  • The United Methodist Church (my denominational home) passing church law to ban anyone other than heterosexual celibate singles or married people from ordained ministry
  • The same religious body to put any clergy person on probation without pay for one year should they perform a legal wedding ceremony between same gender couples & then to strip them of their credentials (remove them) if they do it again
  • A Facebook Messenger video in the voice of Donald Trump discussing the importance of Christian faith, the need for prayer & how vital it is in the backbone of the US & that message being shared in all seriousness by evangelicals who believe him to be the “savior for our country”
  • Weekly natural disasters while our administration claims there is no scientific “proof” of climate change
  • Immigrant children living in cages, three having died in US custody & when the infants and young children were separated from their guardians, no system was in place to keep track of where they were being sent
  • A federal investigation that concluded Russia did interfere in the 2016 election & nothing is being done to safeguard the next Presidential election
  • The Attorney General lies under oath & then stands in contempt by refusing to appear before the House Judicial Council AND misrepresenting a two year investigation to the entire country
  • The President attempting executive privilege to block testimony about investigations about his own corruption before Congress where there could and should be a balance or power

I don’t want to seem paranoid or anything but I know I’m not the only person who is noticing these things but NOTHING IS BEING DONE TO STOP THIS.

We can’t stand on the basic tenets of our Constitution. We can’t stand on the tenets of Wesleyan Tradition of using Scripture, tradition, reason and experience in working out our salvation. Further back,  we have distorted Christianity into something I no longer recognize in this country and champion Donald Trump as a Christian leader and even without any religious dogma, Truth itself, decency, respect are all subject to interpretation and/or cannot be trusted.

We have indeed traded the truth for a lie, we have stomped on the necks of our sisters and brothers in order to get an extra teaspoon of sugar for ourselves. No, there is no decency, there is no kindness.

If the people who believe America was once great when others were sorely oppressed (and wanted to “Make America Great Again”) are proud of themselves and the Pharisees are riding high with the Klan, I will be with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and even those who hunger and thirst for food and drink and medication and education and work with their children in the cages because that’s where I will find the “Good Teacher” and not some Golden Cow.

Here I Stand.

Bedlam

“…God has disposed us with a mushroom shaped cloud …. someone will set the bomb off, and we will all be blown away…”

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Our family sang songs in the car on trips, especially vacations, but I believe we were a little unusual in that we sang a few that were not the usual …

Sweet Rosie O’Grady, she was a blacksmith by birth …
Just a Bowl of Butterbeans…
Three itty fishes and a momma fishy too…
In the Boarding House Where I Lived….
We Live for You, We Die for You, National Embalming School…

There was another song, that is vaguely remembered from a cassette tape recorded by my dad, a couple of his sisters and their husbands, on a trip he took back home a few months before his sudden death, 34 years ago this month. If I could remember it now, it would be a great history lesson, almost as good as Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.

It talked about how the French hate the Germans, the Irish hate the Scots, etc and ended with a line similar to the one I began with “…and we will all be blown away”, followed by a whistle of the sound of a bomb dropping from the skies. It was written post WWII, obviously, and wasn’t one of the more popular Baumgartner tunes, but I listened to the tape, and in the decade following my dad’s death, spent a good deal of time with his little sister (almost a carbon copy – they looked like twins). We sat around playing canasta, with bourbon and coke flowing freely, & sang & drank & smoked & played all night. It was the ‘80s. We were in the middle of the Cold War, and discussions of nuclear weapons were popping up like dandelions around families and churches and social clubs. The US spent (at least) billions of dollars on a bomb that would stop their bomb before it could reach us, and although it failed in every test back then, we poured billions and billions more into it, seemingly with endless funds and voter support.

All along though, the US had enough nuclear war heads to blow up the entire planet several times over. “My stockpile is bigger than your stockpile…” was the US/Soviet dialogue.

How things have changed.

Looking back to those days, no one and no-thing could stop the power of the US with the backing of Ronald Reagan. We were the shining city on the hill, where the poor dreamed of a better life and sought to make their way here. We didn’t fear them. Unless they were Communists, of course. Even then we opened our arms to those who sought political asylum from the Soviet Union in the US, many talented and brilliant people who sought freedom and teetered over the tight wire of Communism, oppression, and poverty to beg for our protection.  We granted them the sanctuary to house them and keep them safe from their enemy states.  (Hmmm, whatever happened to doing that, say, for Syrians?)

Even though I’m a Democrat, I respected all the Presidents, regardless of political party, because they were OUR Presidents. While I became President-elect of the College Democrats following the Mondale/Ferraro attempt to win the White House in 1984 and got to attend wine and cheese parties at Speaker Jim Wright’s home in Fort Worth, I have to grant respect to Reagan (aka the Great Communicator) for coming to a nuclear agreement with the Soviet Union. My side was wanting an elimination of nuclear warheads and even nuclear power plants but that was not to be. But it seemed that by the end of the Cold War, the US/Soviet relations had agreed to disagree. It would have been incomprehensible for Reagan to have had the covert spies or friends of Gorbachev have photo ops in the Oval Office, or would Reagan or Bush or Nixon, for that matter, ever considered the Soviet leaders as people to be admired.

Had there been a question of Russian involvement even giving Mondale a couple of electoral votes in that pitiful Presidential election of 1984, I would bank on Ronald Reagan making a speech and endorsing a full fledged investigation into any interference in our American democratic process. Any American President would, until now.

Half of the Democratic Presidents of my lifetime had mistresses who were either accepted or hated by the media, except Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter; and Jimmy Carter actually acknowledged his sin of “lust in his heart” to Playboy magazine and everyone was aghast that such a thing could be said. JFK had numerous women at his disposal, Bill Clinton did, too. We thought THOSE issues were scandalous?

What has happened? Where did our education of civics, our understanding of American history and our diplomacy go?

Try as I might, I can’t understand this phenomenon of Trump believers. I think it is because they do believe in something of Trump that does not equate with patriotism. Trump himself seems clueless as to how the three branches of government work. I have friends who think that presidents are elected for 8 year terms. Many believe that individual states already have power that outweighs Supreme Court decisions or can manipulate the Court’s decisions to fit their culture. (Look at what’s happened to sanctuary cities, abortion rights, and gay marriage).

Now we have the “good old boys” who have been the backbone of the American south (in my exposure anyway) with whom I shared classes with in all of the schools I attended, who have begun this vitriol over Blue Lives Matter and the Confederate Flag being a symbol of southern history (it was an uprising and we lost …hello????). The NRA has become the 4th Reich; “buy a gun, get one free for the sociopath of your choice”. And coworkers who supported Trump have said to me it was “that transgender thing … the queers … that’s just not Christian” or, more popular still was “I just can’t vote for Hillary Clinton.”

What has happened, America? That sick feeling I had the night of the Presidential election and the days following did not go away; they have been stretched out from having a political flu, to a short remission with the Women’s March, back down to a relapse in the face of White Nationalists organizing in Charlottesville …. which wouldn’t trouble me as much but the swastikas, the white robes and the TORCHES? Seriously, TORCHES?? What the hell? Are these born again cavemen or Klansmen? It’s hard to differentiate.

Here I Stand.

But I cannot finish with the words of John Wesley, “So be it”.

Hey God: What? How? When? Why?

Siri defines “bedlam” as “a scene of uproar and confusion”.

I define God as the great “I AM” and the Creator.

Please, God, re-create us in your image and grant us wisdom to relieve our confusion.

AMEN+

My Mother the Whale

My re-creation of meditation

My Mother the Whale

At some desperate time in my life, another one when I felt alone and needing something  to fill the void; I was befriended or I’d guess, absorbed by another similar blob & I learned from it. It took decades but I learned this very important lesson; how to commune with one of the most giant mothers of our world. It has grown and changed and transformed over the years But it begins like this:

I am alone on a beach on a gray fall day

I lie back on the sand; it’s noIMG_0498t hot; it’s a little cool. I am alone. The tide is rolling in and as I hear this sound come and go, I also let it fill and empty my lungs. Sometimes there are are images I allow to flee from me but usually I focus on my breath. Tide in, breath in. Tide out, breath out. It takes some time to slow it down that much lest I hyperventilate or imagine a tsunami.

When my breathing and the sounds of the tide are in sync, I let the tide roll further and further in, so that it is first at my feet, but getting closer and closer to my head at a steady pace. By the time I fear the salt water in my face, I am relaxed enough to sink further into the sand, and also into the sea just beneath the surface of the sand.

It is there, deep down in the bottom of the ocean that I am initially blinded by the brightness of the white sand on the bottom. As I move around, I see the sand moves too and this feels relaxing and playful. It’s around this time that I remember I’m under water.

It is in just that moment, my mother, the humpback whale, lifts me up to the surface to take a breath of air; which will last me another 15 minutes of total self absorption and play.

I relax deeper and my trust increases. I realize that this magnificent aircraft carrier protecting me overhead from exposure – and danger – is my mother, the humpback. She refers to me only as her “dear one” and we play, she lifts me up for a breath and when I come to rely to on her to do so, she sees that I find my own way.

We have time together, this enormous creature, just the two of us, before we have to journey back north because her life’s purpose has basically been fulfilled.

It’s not an atonement, it’s not a ritual in any of those ways, but she has been genetically programmed to stay behind the herd, eat more, birth me and then escort me back to the northern pacific.

The “cute” orca out there? the killer whales? Kill. They try to get between my mother and me so they can hold me down long enough to suffocate me. The outloud cries and torment of her wanting to stop and “give up” struggle deeply with her recognition that she has to move on or risk dying herself; her life’s purpose stolen in a flash. I can see similar expressions with humans when a loved one dies.

But those thoughts usually flow right on through the water of which I am made; the water of which most of us are created from and filled with; ashes and ashes and dust to dust; why not sand to sand?

Faith has been compared to floating. If you fight, you’ll drown. If you relax, your journey can be magnificent.

My mother the humpback pushes her giant nose under me to lift me to breathe, she journeys right beside me, always watchful for those “cute” orcas who only want my eyes. She protects me. She leads me down an instinctual path that she knows but cannot map out. I know to trust her, without having had therapy with her. She births me. And each day of our journey, she saves me by forcing me to breathe (especially when I am busy at play and want to whine, ”but mom“) and she remains watchful for the enemy.

The ancient Hebrews, they say, were slow in asking directions and thus wandered the desert 40 years. The didn’t wander into the wrong place. They just took a long time getting there because it took THEM a long time to be prepared for where they were going.

My mother the humpback is like that, too. I have no idea if she’s leading me to slaughter, day care or eternal freedom. I only know that she will not leave me except in the case of her death and that if she dies before our journey is complete, most likely, I also will die.

My mother is a humpback whale. I don’t know her name or the name she has given me.  But I would recognize her singing anywhere.whale 2

 

 

The Need That Can’t Be Met

We all have spiritual needs. We may not want to admit that, or think that, or contemplate that but nonetheless, these are very real, vital needs. They are life saving, life sustaining and maybe life creating.

I have recently realized that I have had a wide variety of spiritual needs in the past. In ministry, I have traveled with, been the tour guide, the tourist and the lamp post on the corner in trying to assist others in finding, naming and meeting spiritual needs, not to mention my own.

In ministry I share with many others in having a rather large suitcase to journey along with spiritual needs. I feel a little like a carpet bagger of old, displaying my used and recycled wares from and for my journey, your journey. The older I get, the more things I acquire. I think I may as well open a corner store right before you head into a camping vacation of a lifetime. I wonder what that would sound like …..

“Here, try this walking stick, cane, pole, staff, whatever – it’s called different things depending on how you use it, I guess; … it’s been many places; some folks have used it to hike, some really rowdy folks might poke people with it, some folks need to lean on it because of weakness and others use it to go as an accessory to go with their pointy church hat on special occasions…”

“How about a book? I’ve got many maps for your journey and collections of travel stories all put together in one volume … I call it a ‘Bible’, others call it holy, or useless, or perfect, or even Godself writing a very long letter just for you… Lots of people use it, or well, they get one at the tourist shop on the way. Some say it will take you right along The Way, some say it’s just too confusing and they need a guide instead. Or both.”

“You’ll need something to carry your water in; you won’t last a day without it. Most of the planet is made of the stuff; you can drink some here and there and other places, avoid it altogether. Your water may become wine so keep an eye on it. You wouldn’t want to wash your face with that! Your water may be a way to quench your thirst, or clear a tickle in your throat. Or it may be especially clean spring water, some will even bathe each other in it. In fact, some get so excited about it, calling it something special, making it personal or out in front of everyone. They’ll dabble some on a baby’s head and make a big deal out of it, or they’ll splash around in it when they’re kids and it shows up in the rain. Good stuff. You can’t hold it in your hands very long though, it will all be gone. And when it’s gone, there’s nothing you can do but wait for more to come. You can’t make the stuff.”

“And don’t forget to get something to nibble on while you’re journeying. You’ll need it. Bread’s usually pretty good for that. Some bread is white, light, seeded, course, brown, black, even. They’ll call it ‘the staff of life’, which is sort of silly, being as I already mentioned the staff up there with the cane & walking stick. And get this: some will say that the real bread is God’s body. I know. Sort of hard to imagine. We usually share it with others along the way … make a real special get together with it, and someone brings wine and then, maybe that’s the way to fill that need. Some folks are okay with that alone. Many folks need more.”

So I sit in the corner stand, greeting people as they go on their Way. Sometimes all they want is to hear how I got here, but usually they don’t want to hear it as much as I want to tell it. Sometimes I get to greet groups of people … the kids are my favorite. They’ll walk right up to that odd black shirt with a really tight wrap-around-choking-you-white-collar and play dress up. Funny thing about that though, is that some folks will only call them “father” when they put it on.” Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense really.

Meeting those spiritual needs, the ones that can’t be met, is the great irony of faith, I guess. That just recently dawned on me. Try as I may with books and water and journeys and bread, they never meet that need.

So while many of us have these huge collections of things we use to meet spiritual needs (typically our own, unless we’re in ministry and we deceive ourselves into thinking we obtain this stuff to help others) we really use them to pat ourselves on our backs – we, I can’t say “we”, I can only speak for myself … I collect this stuff and sometimes I’ll look it over and think it proves how spiritual I am, until that day comes when I have to box it all back up again and carry it many more miles, because i think I have this stuff for my spiritual “needs”.

And the “stuff” doesn’t meet a spiritual need. Even prayer, I’m thinking, doesn’t meet the need either. Because the bottom line is that nothing WE do meets that need. We have to stop trying to meet our spiritual needs ourselves. We are not capable. Only God is can do that.

Let go.

 

 

 

 

 

Gray Night of the Soul?

Praying in the Dark
I miss the days of adolescence when I was able to leave the house, unknown to my parents and go outside, in our ten acres of pine trees, and pray toward the sky. I would choose any group of three stars and believe they represented the Trinity. On retreats in adulthood, often held in rural areas, the night sky draws me all the same. When there happens to be a moon in the sky, that, I believe, is the face of God. It is a holy prayer in the darkness.
I now live deep within the city, without so much as a yard to wander in during the night, in silent contemplation. It was only recently that I realized, upon checking to see if it were raining, that I realized there was not much darkness in the night. I capture sunrises and sunset and cloud formations as I go about my coming in and going out. I have, without noticing, transferred my God-in-the-moon to God-in-the-clouds.
How that is deeply metaphorical is in this:
“Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you”. Psalms 139:12
My darkness in the city, like my darkness in my spirit, is no longer the darkest dark. It is void of stars among the city lights. It is gray. It is pregnant with light behind it; it is in the rising sun hidden behind a group of clouds at daybreak, when the sun will rise above and burn the clouds away.
The night is not as dark as my melancholy spirit on an average day. It is not as dark at my present address than it was in my pines of adolescence. It is gray.
Gray is a combination of black and white, of day and night.
Gray is exactly where my spirit meets the Holy Spirit; or better, where my spirit meets the Holy Spirit given to me. The “darkness is not dark to You”. It’s not as dark to me, either.
When I long for the darkness of ages past, I am longing for a greater contrast in my spirit; I am longing to see the difference between the light and dark, ensuring myself of the presence of light; a process in my unique spirit.
Ergo, is my “dark night of the soul” now gray? And in that all encompassing grayness has not my spirit surrendered to the “Cloud of Unknowing”? Have I truly finally surrendered that my prayers, my connection to the God of all creation, now is a process in the way of the saints that is incomprehensible? And shouldn’t prayer BE incomprehensible, if in it, we indeed surrender completely?

10 January 2017