It goes without saying that a couple of Presbyterians were sort of fish out of water on the Camino de Santiago. We weren't the only Protestants (or even the only Presbyterian Teaching Elders), but we didn't even see a Protestant Church the whole time we were in Spain. It was very Roman Catholic.
The feeling was cushioned a little bit by the fact that so many Pilgrims are not Catholic, and many are completely non-religious, so among the Pilgrims we felt more or less at home.
But still, there was all this stuff, the whole setting, the story and the history that surrounded us were just drenched in a sort of Christianity that is foreign to me, partially because of the Catholicism of it, but partly because it was not even modern Catholicism, it was medieval Catholicism, which is an entirely different beast. And it has some distinctly beastly attributes, many of which I understand to be the heart of the disagreements that the reformers had with said church.
One of the reasons why Pilgrimage was pretty much a lost discipline for 500 years is the fact that the very purpose of Pilgrimage was to earn and indulgence, a physical act that begat forgiveness of sins, for yourself or for others. People risked life and limb and spent considerable resources to "earn" themselves a better afterlife. Theologically speaking, at least in Christian terms, this is utter nonsense and was anathematized in all its forms by reformed theology.
Yet when you anathematize (name abhorrent, condemn in the strongest possible terms) things, you often throw the baby out with the bathwater. You become a reactionary and often cannot ask yourself searching questions or hear the convicting answers. Case in point: Matamoros, the Moor Slayer, the medieval alter ego of Santiago. The Apostle James, whose bones are believed to be in the crypt under the chancel in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, has two general manifestations: the Pilgrim, who you will see as a sort of kind, balding man in a long robe with a pilgrim staff and a gourd for water. He is the evangelist, the one who wandered to the ends of the earth bringing the good news of Jesus to the world. Then there is the Moor Slayer, mounted on a war horse, complete with medieval armor and weapons and often literally slicing through a horde of North African Muslims.
Matamoros made me a little queasy, first of all theologically, and second of all factually. It is so obviously an anachronism, and it so obviously counter to the ethical imperative to love your neighbor and pray for your enemies, and turn the other cheek and all of that. Matamoros is a superhero who bears the name of an Apostle, a fiction that people living in a world threatened by an unknown and terrifying other looked to for comfort.
I want my faith to be more about the Pilgrim than the Moor Slayer, but then one day I was standing on a wall that used to surround the town of Mansilla de las Mulas, there's still a lot of the wall left, including a couple thick stone gates. I thought of what it must have been like for people who were just trying to live their lives in the face of marauders and wild animals and the threat of a foreign people sweeping down upon them to kill, rape, steal and enslave them. I thought about the fact that the Moors were not nice people when they went slaughtering their way through Spain. They were, quite frankly, a cold splash of reality.
I thought of the average peasant farmer outside of Leon, who would need to be able to flee to one of these walled cities for protection if the Moorish horde appeared on the horizon, and I thought about his wife and children being protected by the city and by Matamoros (even if he was just a legend), and it makes me at least understand why they carved his image on their churches.
I thought of all the violence that Christian people have supported and done over the centuries, and I understood, it no longer made me queasy, it just made me sad. And a good part of the sadness was rooted in the fact that much of it was so very necessary. Hitler needed to be stopped, Ghengis Khan was not a peaceful benevolent sort of fellow. For all it's faults the Roman Catholic Empire and the legacy it left was responsible for creating a world where freedom and liberty could become important values, and where things like the Reformation and the Renaissance could happen.
Do I like Matamoros? Not so much, but I came to understand why he exists. Do I now subscribe to the veneration of Saints? Do I think we ought to be more like the medieval church? Ummm, nope, but I have a better understanding of many things, and understanding increases my capability to love.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
All That You Can't Leave Behind (But Do Anyway)
Of the physical items that I brought on the Camino, there was one that almost got left at home, a red fleece sweatshirt. I'm so rarely cold and it was spring after all, and I had a jacket and a rain coat and multiple layers available. Then I sort of picked up the fleece thing, which I had bought because of its light weight, and I said to myself, "Gee, this weighs next to nothing, I'm gonna take it." As it turns out, I wore the thing almost every day, not while walking, I rarely needed more warmth when I was walking, but in the evenings, when things got cool and my body was exhausted and I just wanted something warm and soft to wear. Could I have left it and survived? Sure, but it made my existence so much more pleasant that it was worth bringing.
The hardest things to live without on the Camino, simply could not come with me. Of all the little choices I made in gear and of all the necessary, unnecessary, and sort of nice to have things that I brought, the heaviest weight to carry was the absence from my family. This being 2015, we pretty much got to "talk" to each other every day, through Facebook Messenger mostly because the internet in Spain is apparently a little thin on bandwidth, but occasionally we got a good enough connection to actually talk. And the talking usually made me feel worse, it was like a little taste of something that you crave really badly, or being able to sort of scratch an itch, it made me more aware of how much I missed them, and forced me to think about how much they were missing me. As the husband/Dad, I'm not sure which one of those is worse.
It's a peculiar thing about loving people very deeply, when you know they're suffering, you would rather take the pain yourself, so that they don't have to. When Jack was four and he had a bad asthma attack, we took him to the ER and as I held his hand while they put an IV in, it was the only time in my entire life that I actually wished they were jabbing me with the needle.
Yesterday, I talked about the physical struggle of the Camino, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of knowing that you're not going to see the people you love the most for a very long time. I have always had great respect for folks in the military who regularly spend even longer periods of time away from their loved ones, but now the idea of six months or a year away simply breaks my heart.
But you have to do what you have to do. You stay in touch, you hear, you read, you try to ease the separation, and you know it's temporary. That's the only thing that keeps it from being full fledged grief, you know you're going to be home eventually.
In the early part of the walk we stayed at an Albergue run by a Dutch Christian association. The hospitalero at the Albergue was a volunteer, from a church in Holland, he had never walked the Camino himself and asked us why we were doing it. At this point, about a week or so into the walk, some of us really didn't have good answers. The Albergue was in a place called Villamayor, on top of a fairly good sized hill, and the Albergue itself was at the top of a steep slope. He said he watched people climb that last bit of the hill every day and they often seemed like they were suffering. I told him that suffering was definitely a part of it, but that you just had to get through it, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
He still wondered why we would do such a thing, and I couldn't really give him very much of an answer. I told him it was hard, but that it was usually worth it, and the evenings where you could sit and talk to folks and have some beer, sort of made it all better. He said that he used to work in television and whenever he and his crew would have a hard day trying to film something, they would tell each other, "Sooner or later, it will be evening." That became sort of a touchstone for me, when things got physically difficult, however, whenever I started to miss my family, which happened fairly often, I just had to tell myself, "Sooner or later it will be May 20."
And now it is.
The hardest things to live without on the Camino, simply could not come with me. Of all the little choices I made in gear and of all the necessary, unnecessary, and sort of nice to have things that I brought, the heaviest weight to carry was the absence from my family. This being 2015, we pretty much got to "talk" to each other every day, through Facebook Messenger mostly because the internet in Spain is apparently a little thin on bandwidth, but occasionally we got a good enough connection to actually talk. And the talking usually made me feel worse, it was like a little taste of something that you crave really badly, or being able to sort of scratch an itch, it made me more aware of how much I missed them, and forced me to think about how much they were missing me. As the husband/Dad, I'm not sure which one of those is worse.
It's a peculiar thing about loving people very deeply, when you know they're suffering, you would rather take the pain yourself, so that they don't have to. When Jack was four and he had a bad asthma attack, we took him to the ER and as I held his hand while they put an IV in, it was the only time in my entire life that I actually wished they were jabbing me with the needle.
Yesterday, I talked about the physical struggle of the Camino, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of knowing that you're not going to see the people you love the most for a very long time. I have always had great respect for folks in the military who regularly spend even longer periods of time away from their loved ones, but now the idea of six months or a year away simply breaks my heart.
But you have to do what you have to do. You stay in touch, you hear, you read, you try to ease the separation, and you know it's temporary. That's the only thing that keeps it from being full fledged grief, you know you're going to be home eventually.
In the early part of the walk we stayed at an Albergue run by a Dutch Christian association. The hospitalero at the Albergue was a volunteer, from a church in Holland, he had never walked the Camino himself and asked us why we were doing it. At this point, about a week or so into the walk, some of us really didn't have good answers. The Albergue was in a place called Villamayor, on top of a fairly good sized hill, and the Albergue itself was at the top of a steep slope. He said he watched people climb that last bit of the hill every day and they often seemed like they were suffering. I told him that suffering was definitely a part of it, but that you just had to get through it, physical, emotional, or spiritual.
He still wondered why we would do such a thing, and I couldn't really give him very much of an answer. I told him it was hard, but that it was usually worth it, and the evenings where you could sit and talk to folks and have some beer, sort of made it all better. He said that he used to work in television and whenever he and his crew would have a hard day trying to film something, they would tell each other, "Sooner or later, it will be evening." That became sort of a touchstone for me, when things got physically difficult, however, whenever I started to miss my family, which happened fairly often, I just had to tell myself, "Sooner or later it will be May 20."
And now it is.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
I'm Baaack
Lately it occurs to me,
What a long, strange trip it's been.
-The Grateful Dead, Truckin'
Where to start.
That's really a tough question. The past forty days have been an odyssey indeed. I have been sharing pretty much only a few pictures and whatever little comment I could feasibly type with my thumbs, but there was so much, so many people, places and things, not to mention the rather peculiar and oftentimes difficult journey of the heart and mind.
I'm going to start with the fact that my clothes fit me a little better right now than when I left. I know, this is kind of a "well duh" sort of an observation, but it bears mentioning that this journey had a profoundly difficult physical component. It started to sink in on the bus ride from Pamplona to Saint Jean Pied de Port. We crossed the Pyrenees, and saw what we were going to be up against, and we knew we were not up for it. We looked at the elevations, we looked at what our eyes told us, we felt our too heavy packs and our too soft bodies, we were jet-lagged and car sick and we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.
That seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. It's difficult to sit here now and recognize the people that were convinced they needed a taxi, but that's after almost 500 miles, several mountain crossings, weeks of walking day in and day out and dropping about 20 pounds of softness.
Coming face to face with your physical limitations is actually a profoundly spiritual exercise, which I suppose is why there is at least a thread of ascetic practice in almost all religions. Encountering the place where your body just says, "no, I don't think I can do this," and then having your will and your spirit (and undoubtedly the grace of God) go ahead and do it anyway, sort of sets a tone.
Even though we chickened out of the via Napolean and took the via Valcarlos, we didn't really take the easy way, we just took the way that was a little safer if our bodies over-ruled our mind and spirit and decided to be super stubborn by having a heart attack or bad cramps or heat stroke or dehydration or some other corporeal nonsense. As it turns out we also took the way that didn't involve snow and 80 kph wind, so, you know, good stuff. We still had to slog our way up some pretty nasty hills, and we still had to confront the daunting truth that this was what we were going to do, all day, every day for over a month.
The first couple of days were particularly troubling for me. I was perhaps more out of shape than I expected, my pack was a bit heavier than was probably prudent, and most of all, since moving to Maryland, I have become rather less familiar with things called hills, let alone mountains. The climbs of the early stages were a bit of a struggle. I would walk about 15 meters or so and have to catch my breath. People would come by and say, "you need to keep moving!" in English, Spanish, German and French. I would say, "my lungs beg to differ." I knew they were right, I knew that every time I stopped I was losing momentum and worse yet, making no forward progress.
I did hope and actually trust that the climbs were going to get easier, or at least less torturous, but I was wondering when, exactly, that was going to take place. About half way up one of the mountains I stopped and thought to myself if was actually going to be able to do this.
And that's where the spiritual stuff started. I realized that I have never really done much of anything physically impressive, not really. Despite being 6' 4" and having a pretty good frame, I never played organized sports. My "Al Bundy" moment was one time in Seminary I scored six touchdowns during a game of flag football, not exactly climbing K-2. But here, on the Camino, I had a chance to really push myself, to do something that would sort of make people say, "Wow, 800 km?" that's a long way. Right about then a little old woman with a small backpack chirped past me and said, "Buen Camino," and I realized that if I didn't carry this pack, if I didn't do the whole thing, there really wasn't much to it. If I "bailed and mailed," which means shipping extra weight to Santiago via the mail, or if I simply threw stuff away, which a lot of people do, or if I just sort of tried to avoid the struggle of the climbs by taking a bus around the really difficult parts, I really wasn't going to make this the physical challenge I really needed it to be.
See, that's the thing, I think I was trying to impress someone, I don't know who. The Camino is not an Everest situation, it's not a one of a kind physical accomplishment. The Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail will put you to more of a test, and you will probably not be routinely passed by tour buses full of tourists with little daypacks, but the Camino will test your body, it will test your resolve and it will force you to deal with your own soul. The heaviness of my pack, and the nagging knowledge of those few things I probably could have done without became a metaphor for those things that you may not exactly need, but that you do need to carry.
So much of the "self-help" spirituality encourages you to try and free yourself of burdens and entanglements and strive for this sort of free and clear existence. But that is a terrible and impossible idea. Life is about weight, relationships are messy and tangled, but if you want to be a part of the good, you must sometimes carry the bad.
I am glad that I left some of my excess padding on those hills, but I am equally glad that I came home with all the things, necessary and otherwise, that I took with me. Not because they were ultimately useful, but because I learned to carry them.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Leaving the Shire
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.
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.
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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