This is the last post you're going to read from me for quite a while. Tomorrow is the day of departure. I'm going to see Michele off to work, put the kids on the bus and then I'm going to go out the door of my comfortable little house in the woods and spend over 40 days wandering. Everything in the next 24 hours is going to be emotionally charged to say the least, because it's all about lasts, last meal together with the family, last night in my own bed, last time cajoling my grumpy children out of bed, last time goofing around with them as they wait for the bus.
Then the steps begin. Home to New Jersey, Parents house to Philadelphia International Airport, Philly to Barajas Airport in Madrid, the metro to Atocha station, Atocha to Pamplona, a bus from Pamplona to Saint Jean Pied a Port in France, then things slow down to walking pace.
It has occurred to me several times that one of the hardest things I'm going to have to do is to pull the front door of my house shut behind me, to leave all that is familiar and comfortable and just walk away. Once I do that, the journey takes on a life of its own, once that step is taken all the other ones are necessary in order to complete the journey.
I have to admit that I have always been a bit of a homebody. There were times, even when I was young, that I would not do things because I would just rather stay home. Some of these things would have been fun or adventurous, but home was safe and comfortable. That's why I think I enjoyed Tolkien's stories about Hobbits so very much, because I understood and valued the life they were trying to save. To this day, the idea of a comfortable little home with a garden and pub down the way sounds much more attractive than any grand estate. It's always been a sort of disappointment to me that the simple life of an agrarian village just isn't really feasible in the modern world, unless you're Amish.
Once you see and experience the world of iphones and automobiles it's hard to go back, in fact, going back seems like a hardship more than an adventure. That's why I think pilgrimage is making a comeback in the 21st century, not because people are going seeking salvation, but because they need some sort of grand vision to pull them out of their comfortable little Hobbit holes. I know I do. I know I wouldn't feel at all the same if I suddenly had to walk 15 miles a day just to get to and from work, but because it's an official adventure, I'll do it.
So here I go, on a big adventure. Away from home, away from safety and security, away from careful plans.
Just away.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Friday, April 3, 2015
Not Getting Over It
Michele reminds me every year that we shouldn't rush through today. We always tend to push the fast-forward button on the darkness of the crucifixion in order to get to the light of resurrection. Of course it's a bit of an exercise in trying to un-know something, but it is important in a lot of ways, especially to a culture that absolutely denies death and wants to avoid suffering at pretty much any cost.
Pretty much anyone who grieves is likely to hear someone, usually a well meaning someone, recommend that they, "just get on with life." So much of our processing of death and dying now involves ideas of a "better" place and some sort of utopian vision of heaven that we are often inclined to just expect ourselves to get over the grieving process with a snap of some emotional fingers. But it doesn't work that way.
I suspect that the lives of the Apostles were forever shaped by their grief over Jesus' death. Yes, I know they experienced the resurrection, but they still talked an awful lot about the cross, I think that their experience of the darkness made their understanding of the light all that more profound. And yet, in most churches Good Friday services are becoming anachronisms. Part of it has to do with the fact that people don't get the day off any more, but I think something has to do with the fact that we would just prefer not to deal with the blood and guts of the crucifixion. Let's get to the flowers and jelly beans already.
But this is wrong, we don't let ourselves grieve. Did you ever consider that even though Jesus was resurrected, the disciples still had to say goodbye? He wasn't going to hang around for very long. Can you imagine that? Not only do you lose your teacher and your leader, you actually get proof that he's something beyond pretty much anything you could have imagined, and then he's still gone.
And you're on your own, to try to figure out what to do without him, which is where grieving really comes in.
It really sets in after the funeral is over and the friends and family have all gone home. It sends a little spike though you on holidays and birthdays. It forms a lump in your throat whenever you're having an otherwise pleasant moment and something reminds you of what you've lost, and what is absent.
Can you imagine what might have been going through Peter's mind on Pentecost as he tells everyone how wonderful Jesus was, and what this all means? What if he was thinking about how much he wished Jesus could be there to hear him, and be with all of them as the Spirit started to burn among them?
I can only compare that to the thoughts that I have about my brother's absence from our family. It's been nearly 10 years since he passed, and I still feel the absence, particularly when things are good. There is a part missing that should have been. By now there should be a wife and kids, by now we should be planning family vacations together, I see it in other families, and I feel that presence of an absence. It hits at holidays and the beach, it can be rather unpleasant, or it can just be like an old acquaintance that stands silently by. I think that Peter and the Apostles probably lived with Jesus like that. There had to be regret about all the things they didn't get when he was there. I think that when they did things like participate in the Lord's Supper or say the Lord's prayer, they had to feel a little sting.
This means that for the church to deny or minimize the grief, is to ignore a fact and a feeling that must have been central to the formation of the community. In John's account of the resurrection, you know the one with Jesus and Mary in the garden, you can feel this connection between the grief and the joy. The resurrection doesn't negate the pain, it just makes it purposeful, it just means its not the last word.
The author Frederick Buechner crystallizes the nature of our existence and God's creation in the following: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."
"Good Friday," is a terrible thing, no two ways about it. Easter is a beautiful thing, a hopeful thing, but it wouldn't be anything without the darkness. They are both necessary, don't be afraid.
Pretty much anyone who grieves is likely to hear someone, usually a well meaning someone, recommend that they, "just get on with life." So much of our processing of death and dying now involves ideas of a "better" place and some sort of utopian vision of heaven that we are often inclined to just expect ourselves to get over the grieving process with a snap of some emotional fingers. But it doesn't work that way.
I suspect that the lives of the Apostles were forever shaped by their grief over Jesus' death. Yes, I know they experienced the resurrection, but they still talked an awful lot about the cross, I think that their experience of the darkness made their understanding of the light all that more profound. And yet, in most churches Good Friday services are becoming anachronisms. Part of it has to do with the fact that people don't get the day off any more, but I think something has to do with the fact that we would just prefer not to deal with the blood and guts of the crucifixion. Let's get to the flowers and jelly beans already.
But this is wrong, we don't let ourselves grieve. Did you ever consider that even though Jesus was resurrected, the disciples still had to say goodbye? He wasn't going to hang around for very long. Can you imagine that? Not only do you lose your teacher and your leader, you actually get proof that he's something beyond pretty much anything you could have imagined, and then he's still gone.
And you're on your own, to try to figure out what to do without him, which is where grieving really comes in.
It really sets in after the funeral is over and the friends and family have all gone home. It sends a little spike though you on holidays and birthdays. It forms a lump in your throat whenever you're having an otherwise pleasant moment and something reminds you of what you've lost, and what is absent.
Can you imagine what might have been going through Peter's mind on Pentecost as he tells everyone how wonderful Jesus was, and what this all means? What if he was thinking about how much he wished Jesus could be there to hear him, and be with all of them as the Spirit started to burn among them?
I can only compare that to the thoughts that I have about my brother's absence from our family. It's been nearly 10 years since he passed, and I still feel the absence, particularly when things are good. There is a part missing that should have been. By now there should be a wife and kids, by now we should be planning family vacations together, I see it in other families, and I feel that presence of an absence. It hits at holidays and the beach, it can be rather unpleasant, or it can just be like an old acquaintance that stands silently by. I think that Peter and the Apostles probably lived with Jesus like that. There had to be regret about all the things they didn't get when he was there. I think that when they did things like participate in the Lord's Supper or say the Lord's prayer, they had to feel a little sting.
This means that for the church to deny or minimize the grief, is to ignore a fact and a feeling that must have been central to the formation of the community. In John's account of the resurrection, you know the one with Jesus and Mary in the garden, you can feel this connection between the grief and the joy. The resurrection doesn't negate the pain, it just makes it purposeful, it just means its not the last word.
The author Frederick Buechner crystallizes the nature of our existence and God's creation in the following: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."
"Good Friday," is a terrible thing, no two ways about it. Easter is a beautiful thing, a hopeful thing, but it wouldn't be anything without the darkness. They are both necessary, don't be afraid.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
That Feel
This thing is unbearably close now.
Everything has started to take on this weird significant feeling.
I will be in Spain one week from now, so that means that every normal little piece of routine is pretty much coming to an end in the next seven days and something new is going to replace it for a good while.
On the one hand, I'm trying to mark that significance, but on the other I'm just trying to keep my stuff together, and the more I think about it, the crazier it all seems.
Every once in a while I remember the Camino. I remember it's feel and the smell of it, and the ancient-ness. And I am less worried, less afraid, because I know that out there on the way there is a clarity of purpose that does not, really cannot exist in anything like an ordinary day.
Yesterday afternoon as the kids and I hiked around the lake, I was thinking that opening scene from Apocalypse Now, where Martin Sheen is in Saigon waiting, reflecting on how he is here in a hotel, "getting soft." There is a sort of dread and an impatience with the waiting. I know for a fact that once the "mission" is underway, a lot of this will evaporate, but for now, I'm trying not to numb up or stifle this feeling, because I think it's important to honor the sanctity of these ordinary moments.
Right now the kids are both absorbed in their own little electronic worlds, sitting on the couch in my office. I can look over at them any time, and I'm finding that I feel like that is a blessing. Why? Because I know, for over a month, I will not see them. I will not have to scold them for being vegetables or not eating their vegetables. I will not be able to tuck them into bed at night or have to drag them out of bed in the morning. It makes me (sort of) cherish even the annoying things about parenthood.
Maybe that is important work for a pilgrim as well, learning to see with an Ecclesiastes sort of realism: "there is nothing better than to enjoy your life and take pleasure in your toil."
Is that it then? Is the first lesson of a grand adventure to truly appreciate all that you leave behind? Or is what I'm feeling now just a reflection of the depth that absence will teach?
Anyway, here we go.
Everything has started to take on this weird significant feeling.
I will be in Spain one week from now, so that means that every normal little piece of routine is pretty much coming to an end in the next seven days and something new is going to replace it for a good while.
On the one hand, I'm trying to mark that significance, but on the other I'm just trying to keep my stuff together, and the more I think about it, the crazier it all seems.
Every once in a while I remember the Camino. I remember it's feel and the smell of it, and the ancient-ness. And I am less worried, less afraid, because I know that out there on the way there is a clarity of purpose that does not, really cannot exist in anything like an ordinary day.
Yesterday afternoon as the kids and I hiked around the lake, I was thinking that opening scene from Apocalypse Now, where Martin Sheen is in Saigon waiting, reflecting on how he is here in a hotel, "getting soft." There is a sort of dread and an impatience with the waiting. I know for a fact that once the "mission" is underway, a lot of this will evaporate, but for now, I'm trying not to numb up or stifle this feeling, because I think it's important to honor the sanctity of these ordinary moments.
Right now the kids are both absorbed in their own little electronic worlds, sitting on the couch in my office. I can look over at them any time, and I'm finding that I feel like that is a blessing. Why? Because I know, for over a month, I will not see them. I will not have to scold them for being vegetables or not eating their vegetables. I will not be able to tuck them into bed at night or have to drag them out of bed in the morning. It makes me (sort of) cherish even the annoying things about parenthood.
Maybe that is important work for a pilgrim as well, learning to see with an Ecclesiastes sort of realism: "there is nothing better than to enjoy your life and take pleasure in your toil."
Is that it then? Is the first lesson of a grand adventure to truly appreciate all that you leave behind? Or is what I'm feeling now just a reflection of the depth that absence will teach?
Anyway, here we go.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Lessons Learned?
This is continued from yesterday.
I have been thinking about the things we might learn from Scientology, and quite frankly, I'm a little worried that perhaps we have already "learned" too much from them. See, the thing that strikes me about the whole mess is not that it has become a monstrosity of weirdness and abuse, but that it reflects so powerfully on the negative capability of religion. Any time religion is divorced from the divine truth it becomes a monstrosity. And I will go out on a Unitarian sort of a limb here and say that most of the time tested religions have some sort of claim on divine truth, and they also have demonstrated that they can sever their connection with that at the drop of a hat.
Christianity included. This is me trying to take the log out of my own eye. I'm going to stop taking swings trying to prove another religious system is crazy until I can fully sort out and repent for my own religious insanity.
If I criticize Scientology for being too utilitarian (meaning they emphasize results regardless of methods), I must admit that Christianity has often "converted" people by force. We explain it away, we say, "Well at least they're not pagans anymore, and at least they now seem to really embrace the faith." It's a highly colonialist argument: perhaps they're slaves but at least they're not savages.
If I'm going to criticize Scientology for insisting that their moral and behavioral system is the the only way to enlightenment, and that everyone critical of that is an SP (suppressive person), then I'm going to have wrestle with the fact that we Christians are rather constantly labeling each other heretics and apostates.
If I'm going to call Scientology out for basically making all about the almighty Cash Flow, I'm going to have to admit that churches can get all too wrapped up in dollar signs and the all too closely connected statistical idol: attendance numbers. You want to know the ugly truth behind why churches can't be the true communities of the faithful that most of them would actually want to be? It's all about the ducats, either not enough of them or too many, either way it can make you sick.
It's tempting to adopt the techniques of promotion and selling, because we wonder how else the church is going to grow. It's tempting to try and smooth things over and avoid difficult conversations because we don't want to turn over the apple cart. It's tempting to run prophets and reformers out of the kingdom, because we like the kingdom the way it is. It's tempting to sort of retreat into an over-realized eschatology that focuses on how things are all going to be better on the "other side," because things obviously aren't according to God's will on this one.
Obviously.
The word of defeat.
Obviously the reason why we constantly pray for God's will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven," is because we want God to ride in on a white horse and rescue us. We obviously can't think that we're the ones who are supposed to actually make that happen. That's just crazy talk.
Obviously Jesus actually intended us to limit who we love to our closest friends and associates. He didn't, he couldn't seriously expect us to actually love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Obviously he intended us to forsake the mystical for the merely supernatural.
Obviously he wanted us to insist on seeing the world in a dualistic fashion instead of inching towards a unitive perspective, because dualism is the only way to get things done. Divide and conquer, sort things out, find the answers, all the answers, leave no room for questions, questions cause trouble, just get moving.
Obviously we ought to understand parables and indeed, all of Scripture, as authoritative truth, that clearly says the thing that we find most comforting, instead of constantly discovering new things that will most likely just cause trouble.
You get the idea.
I think we would all do well to remember the testimony of the Pharisee Gamaliel, which is recorded in Acts 5. The Apostles have been arrested and are in front of the High Priests, they are being accused of blasphemy for proclaiming Christ after being told not to. Gamaliel says, "I tell you keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God you will not be able to overthrow them - in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" I think we need to really trust that wisdom. Understand that God doesn't need us to stick up for him. If Scientology, or any of the radical fundamentalist sects we often fear, are against God's purposes, they will fall, they won't need our help to explode on their own.
It's pretty obvious from history that things eventually get sorted, and it's probably not our job to try and defend orthodoxy, we should just spend more time trying to help one another. You know, "do justice, love mercy, walk humbly," that sort of thing.
It starts with us, not "them."
I have been thinking about the things we might learn from Scientology, and quite frankly, I'm a little worried that perhaps we have already "learned" too much from them. See, the thing that strikes me about the whole mess is not that it has become a monstrosity of weirdness and abuse, but that it reflects so powerfully on the negative capability of religion. Any time religion is divorced from the divine truth it becomes a monstrosity. And I will go out on a Unitarian sort of a limb here and say that most of the time tested religions have some sort of claim on divine truth, and they also have demonstrated that they can sever their connection with that at the drop of a hat.
Christianity included. This is me trying to take the log out of my own eye. I'm going to stop taking swings trying to prove another religious system is crazy until I can fully sort out and repent for my own religious insanity.
If I criticize Scientology for being too utilitarian (meaning they emphasize results regardless of methods), I must admit that Christianity has often "converted" people by force. We explain it away, we say, "Well at least they're not pagans anymore, and at least they now seem to really embrace the faith." It's a highly colonialist argument: perhaps they're slaves but at least they're not savages.
If I'm going to criticize Scientology for insisting that their moral and behavioral system is the the only way to enlightenment, and that everyone critical of that is an SP (suppressive person), then I'm going to have wrestle with the fact that we Christians are rather constantly labeling each other heretics and apostates.
If I'm going to call Scientology out for basically making all about the almighty Cash Flow, I'm going to have to admit that churches can get all too wrapped up in dollar signs and the all too closely connected statistical idol: attendance numbers. You want to know the ugly truth behind why churches can't be the true communities of the faithful that most of them would actually want to be? It's all about the ducats, either not enough of them or too many, either way it can make you sick.
It's tempting to adopt the techniques of promotion and selling, because we wonder how else the church is going to grow. It's tempting to try and smooth things over and avoid difficult conversations because we don't want to turn over the apple cart. It's tempting to run prophets and reformers out of the kingdom, because we like the kingdom the way it is. It's tempting to sort of retreat into an over-realized eschatology that focuses on how things are all going to be better on the "other side," because things obviously aren't according to God's will on this one.
Obviously.
The word of defeat.
Obviously the reason why we constantly pray for God's will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven," is because we want God to ride in on a white horse and rescue us. We obviously can't think that we're the ones who are supposed to actually make that happen. That's just crazy talk.
Obviously Jesus actually intended us to limit who we love to our closest friends and associates. He didn't, he couldn't seriously expect us to actually love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Obviously he intended us to forsake the mystical for the merely supernatural.
Obviously he wanted us to insist on seeing the world in a dualistic fashion instead of inching towards a unitive perspective, because dualism is the only way to get things done. Divide and conquer, sort things out, find the answers, all the answers, leave no room for questions, questions cause trouble, just get moving.
Obviously we ought to understand parables and indeed, all of Scripture, as authoritative truth, that clearly says the thing that we find most comforting, instead of constantly discovering new things that will most likely just cause trouble.
You get the idea.
I think we would all do well to remember the testimony of the Pharisee Gamaliel, which is recorded in Acts 5. The Apostles have been arrested and are in front of the High Priests, they are being accused of blasphemy for proclaiming Christ after being told not to. Gamaliel says, "I tell you keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God you will not be able to overthrow them - in that case you may even be found fighting against God!" I think we need to really trust that wisdom. Understand that God doesn't need us to stick up for him. If Scientology, or any of the radical fundamentalist sects we often fear, are against God's purposes, they will fall, they won't need our help to explode on their own.
It's pretty obvious from history that things eventually get sorted, and it's probably not our job to try and defend orthodoxy, we should just spend more time trying to help one another. You know, "do justice, love mercy, walk humbly," that sort of thing.
It starts with us, not "them."
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