Moving On

For 35 days we moved.  Every single morning we woke up, packed everything we had and walked to another place.  About a week in, I started to notice the dynamics of this practice: some places were easy to leave, other places felt a little like leaving home.  People too, you never knew if you would see the same people come evening, maybe they went farther or not as far, maybe they picked another albergue.  Some people were easy to part with, others you left with a hope that your paths would cross again.
Aside from homesickness, the constant moving was perhaps the biggest challenge of the Camino, and yet it was also a compulsion.  The thought of staying somewhere for two nights seemed odd to both Dad and me.  We talked about it any time someone mentioned staying somewhere to have a bit more of a look around: Leon, Astorga, Ponferrada, Sarria, the thought crossed our mind that maybe we should just take a day off.  But we didn't and our justification was mostly momentum, we didn't want to stop, because we feared the difficulty of starting to move again.  As long as we did this every day, it was routine, or as close to routine as you can get when you're a pilgrim.
There were a few days at the end where we had to re-adjust to staying in the same place.  We stayed two days in Santiago, and resisted the urge to drive or bus it out to Finisterre and Muxia, because we sort of knew that we had to stop moving somewhere.  Personally, I tried to relish the chance to just be still, but it was difficult, partly because I really wanted to be home, to finish the journey.
Since I have been home I have felt very content to just be where I am.  Sometimes I have dreams where I'm moving again, sometimes the idea that I moved that much for that long seems like a dream. It's not all good though, my body is quickly softening and spreading out again, my sedentary habits are re-asserting themselves, and when I observe this, I know I need to get moving to something, but what?
The suction of comfort and familiarity is a powerful thing, and not always a bad thing.  If I were to give in to the wandering I would inflict far too much suffering on those who rely on me, and quite frankly it's not an option.  So I'm trying to learn what I can from my moving and from the experience of inertia, both in the habit of moving, and in the habit of staying.
I think there is always tension between the progressive impulse to change (hopefully for the better) and the conservative notion that we ought to keep things stable.  There is value in both things.  My pilgrimage taught me that the next thing was not always better than the last thing, and the notion that you were going to come to the end of your struggles over the next rise was an unhelpful and often cruel delusion.  But there is also a necessity to keep moving and not over-idealize the past and the status quo.
I hear a lot of rhetoric that mentions "taking back our country," or "turning our nation back to God," both of which ring with a prophetic notion of repentance, but when I look back at where we've come from, I don't think there is much prophetic about it at all.  The truth of the matter is that we are, perhaps too slowly, making progress.  I keep in mind Martin Luther King Jr's statement about the arc of history being long and "bending towards justice."  Lately I have been feeling like it might be nice if it bent a little faster, but I understand that it probably can't, things might start breaking.
Don't get me wrong, I have been steeped in reformed theology long enough to know that we are never going to reach the promised land. I know that this pilgrimage we are on is never ending, that doesn't mean we just get to pitch our tents in the valley of the past and stay there hoping we can hold on to what we have.  That is, in essence, despising the way that God is leading us, out of slavery and oppression and into freedom.  Do you want to go back to Egypt?  Does the future scare you?  Why?  Have you no faith?
The world was never perfect, not in 1950, not in 1850, not in the first century, go back as far as you need to, there is never a place where everything was just wonderful for everyone.  You Bible reading types know that Eden didn't even make it out of the third chapter of Genesis.  You might hope that some day God is going to magically make it all better, everything that has happened since "The Beginning," seems to indicate that God is pretty intent on having creation do its thing, and that  means us as well, with our sins and our stuttering and inconstant progress.
It is a grave theological error to make God as impatient and short-sighted as we are.
Let me be clear, God is not waiting for us to finally get it right.  It is not as though Creation is incomplete or broken.  What has been made is good, if there is anything out of joint about the whole thing, it's us.  We don't need to fix anything but ourselves and we are incapable even of doing that without God's grace.  I know, it's not fun to be constantly on the move, and not really sure of where you're going, but trust me, you can get used to it.

Salesmanship

When I was a kid we had a visit from an encyclopedia salesman.  I listened as he gave my parents a very elaborate and (to me) persuasive pitch about how we needed this very expensive set of books.  My entire academic future seemed to hinge on whether I had access to this magical compendium of knowledge, complete with multiple layer maps and illustrations.  Of course the books cost as much the car my parents owned at the time, and of course despite my protests, they let this man walk out the door without placing an order, even though convenient financing was available.
That is my first memory of a sales pitch, and as you can probably imagine, it was not a positive experience.  As an eight year old kid, I had no frame of reference to balance out the fear mongering and urgency that seemed to be attached to getting my parents to by encyclopedias, something they honestly didn't need, because libraries exist.  Eight year old me had no idea about any of that.
Fast forward to my first job out of college: selling office supplies and electronics at Staples (yes, that is very GenX, working retail with a bachelor's degree in your pocket).  I discovered that my own personal sales style was to actually try and figure out what people needed and help them get it.  I was just plain bad at what was called, in the training modules: up-selling, or trying to get people to buy a more expensive thing.  I was lousy at selling extended warranties, which were major sources of bonuses for me and profit margin for the store.
Customers actually liked me, because I was honest about stuff that they were hesitant about.  I could sell things that I thought were good: talk to me about HP laserjet printers from the mid 1990s, those things were amazing and lasted forever, they didn't do color though and so I usually ended up hawking a lot of inkjet printers of various makes, which I knew were fickle and unreliable beasts that would probably crap out in a year or so (I could actually justify the extended warranties on those).
A lot has changed in almost 20 years, but I'm still not much of a salesman. It would probably benefit me professionally if I was better at it.  After all, I'm now "selling" a product in which I actually believe: the redeeming power of Christ and the community of his Church.  I truly believe that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life.  I believe that individuals can live more truly and fully in faith.  I believe that the world can be changed by people who authentically follow Jesus.
But I still don't want to sell it.
Honestly, I believe that if it needs to be "sold," it's probably not worth buying (I'm sure many will disagree with that assumption, that's okay).
I have, in my own mind, found the three things that should absolutely sell themselves: faith, hope and love.  So my strategy is to simply let the products speak for themselves.
I am pretty turned off by people who are essentially selling the same thing as me, but who seem to be perfectly okay using fear, false information and even violence to "spread the Good News." I'm just not sure how that works.  I understand that you can "sell" people with those methods, I get that they have been effective in the past, what I don't get is how people square up using those tools in the name of Jesus.
In my mind, if a church grows because it manages to make people fear God's wrath, it is not really growing in the Spirit of Christ.  Likewise, if a church grows because it nurtures it's people in positive thinking and strategies for worldly prosperity, I question the authenticity.  I try not to judge another man's servant, but I'm pretty sure they're not following the Jesus I find in the Gospels.
I see, in current trends, a reflection of how the various "sales techniques" the church has been using are failing.  Fear isn't pushing the numbers the same way it used to, but it can still get some.  Prosperity can still inspire faith that's a mile wide and an inch deep, but there is, I feel, a deep hunger for something more real.
If the problems have come from old sales models, maybe we should look at the newer ones: Carmax and Amazon.  Both emphasize a model where the product takes center stage and the salesman is no longer the driving force.  Don't get me wrong, they both have sales practices, and teams of people working on selling, but there's a crucial difference: it doesn't push people's buttons, it just lets them choose what they really want.  Carmax has become one of the most popular ways to purchase a new vehicle, one that traditional dealerships are starting to emulate (partially out of necessity).  It's popular because you don't have to go through the "let me go talk to my manager" sort of nonsense that everyone who ever bought a car had to sit through.  Amazon is practically taking over the world because you can get exactly what you want, fast with a whole lot less hassle than it used to take to drive to the mall or even a big box store.  When you browse Amazon you have lots of product information and the ability to see what others thought of the same product, you can give feedback of your own and the more people participate in the process, the better the overall thing works for all.
Amazon uses affinity algorithms to put adds and email in your way that are meant to lead you into buying more stuff, but there is never anything like a pushy salesperson or a high pressure sell.
It bears mentioning that Amazon also loses money, but continues to grow, in odd defiance of economic common sense, but that is perhaps what makes it something the church could learn from: it's not necessarily about the bottom line, sometimes it's just about giving people what they need.  Are we serving the poor?  Are we bringing people into closer relationship with God?  Are we challenging people to grow in faith?  Are we giving hope to the hopeless?  Are we loving?
The product and our methods and behavior are not separable.  If Amazon all of the sudden stopped being fast and convenient and out-servicing other retail methods, it would implode with a quickness.
To some extent, I think, the church has let go of the world-changing power of what it has to sell: the love of God, the fellowship of the Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ, as the old benediction goes.
We need to remember that, honestly, those things sell themselves.

Law of the Land

Then he (Jesus) said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, 

and to God the things that are God's."

-Matthew 22: 21b

For further discussion (and expansion) of this concept see Romans 13: 1-7, where Paul calls worldly authorities "instituted by God."  Okay "biblical" people, I give you Jesus himself and his lawyer Paul both telling you that you should obey and honor the law of the land.  For you who feel that the Supreme Court has made a terrible mistake and is on the verge of brutally squelching your religious freedom, I ask you to consider these two teachers of our faith.

Do you think that the Roman Empire was friendly to them?

In fact, it put both of them to death.

Do you think that Caesar was a reasonable ruler, fair and just?  Do you think the Roman Empire was a wonderful place to live for people who refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman Pantheon and Caesar himself?  Do you think there was ever a thought given to religious freedom?

Do you think that being forced to make a cake for a gay wedding or even being pressured to perform a wedding ceremony is in any way analogous to being crucified or burned alive?

Do you think that even these minor collapses of religious freedom are likely to happen in a nation that hallows freedom of religion and separation of church and state in it's very first Constitutional Amendment, the top of the list of the Bill of Rights?

The fact of the matter is that the law of the land has changed, and for those who would try to follow a coherent Christian ethic, I mean if the "love your neighbor" thing wasn't enough to push you over to the rainbow connection, you have this now.  The laws of our society now recognize that same gender couples have the same rights and privileges as "traditional" couples when it comes to the civil arrangement called marriage.  This in no way re-defines marriage for churches like the Roman Catholic Church, which considers it a sacrament, or for any other denomination for which it may be a simple rite or ritual.  My own denomination did this re-defining a few months ago, and so the way is clear for same gender couples to be married in my church.  I could, and I probably would, if it was entirely up to me, but still it's not, because I have another yoke on my shoulders and that is pastoral care for my congregation, which means I need to consider the feelings of the people in my flock; are they going to be deeply offended by a same gender marriage in their church?  I don't know the answer to that question for every single person, so I have to do my best to sort it out.

My point is, I am beholden to a whole host of written and unwritten laws, a veritable web of accountability and relationships.  Following the law of the land is the least of my worries.  As it should be for any clergy.

As Paul says, "Do you wish to have no fear of the authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God's servant for your good."

Did I mention that the authorities in his day were the bloody Romans?  Did I mention that they put him to death as they did Jesus and the rest of the Apostles?

Do you think he was in denial of that impending reality?

For me, as a white, middle class, well-educated Presbyterian, the functions of the law as a guarantor of my safety and well being are very solid.  I have nothing to fear from the law unless I start driving like a moron or decide to cheat on my income taxes.  That is not true for everyone in our society, and one group for whom that has not historically been true are LGBT people, it is also not true for black, brown and Native American people.  I should do everything I can to remedy these situations, before I ever start to worry about whether or not the authority is going to turn on me.  The authority is me, and unlike Jesus or Paul, I have a voice and vote and say in what the authority does or does not do.

The realization that sort of clicked my "justice monitor" over from watching what sinners were suddenly "getting away with," to seeing LGBT people as an oppressed minority is the considerable pain and suffering of people in that community.  The fact that the majority of homeless teenagers in this country are homeless because they "came out" of the closet and got "kicked out" of their family.  The fact that people who have been living in committed relationship for 40 years could not share medical benefits or have family privileges at hospitals.  The fact that people have been told that something fundamental to their very being is an abomination by those who then turn and claim to represent a loving and beneficent Creator.

I guess I just started to define where the sin was a little differently.

For a while I had the law of the land, the law of my church, and the broad acceptance of my own orientation by society at large to hide behind.  I am thankful for those protections, because they allowed me to listen and understand what the Law and Spirit of God were saying to me.  Being safe allowed me to encounter a Jesus who does not condemn an adulterous woman and who challenged me to put down my stones. Christ did not condemn me for not being brave and getting out in front in the vanguard. I was allowed to stay very comfortably stay in the rear with the gear.

Now, I'm not persecuted by the change in the law, I am challenged to live into the new door to freedom that the law has opened for people who had been shut out.  I am glad to live in a time and a place where instead of tightening the bonds of the status quo, the law is loosing justice and equality.

I just hope in the future I will not be so stubborn and slow to see it happening.

Heresy and Apostasy

Not even if he had them by the neck, I vow

Would e'er these people scent the Devil

-Goethe, Faust

I may have done this before, if so please pardon me for repeating myself.
Heresy is false doctrine, it is something that is theologically wrong.  It is defined solely in contrast to the accepted doctrine and theology of a group of people.  While it is generally applied to religious beliefs, you could also apply the label to other fields where there is a commonly accepted group of principles.  You can therefore have a heretical scientist, who eschews the scientific method for something that more closely resembles sorcery (think Frankenstein).  In fact, as I think about it, the modern character of the mad scientist, is in fact nothing more than a modern or postmodern rendering of the heretic.
Apostasy, on the other hand, is not the same thing, though they are sometimes lumped into the same soup.  Apostasy is the rejection of the values and the practices of a system, an apostate is someone who once subscribed or belonged to a group, but has chosen to no longer do so, or has been cast out (possibly due to views that could be considered heresy, but more likely over some ethical dissent).
On the other side of the balance, you have orthodoxy, which is defined as "right" belief or practice.  There are Orthodox Jews and there is he Eastern Orthodox Church, there are even Orthodox Presbyterians, but notice the capitalization, those are names, chosen for themselves, not descriptions.  True orthodoxy is a much broader stream, and history has shown us that many within the stream of orthodoxy consider others, also within the bounds of orthodoxy, to be heretical.  There are things that I believe as protestant that the Roman Catholic Church considers both heretical and apostate, and therefore un-orthodox.  There are things that I believe and support as a Presbyterian that many in other protestant traditions consider apostasy, there are things that I, as an individual believer hold in my heart that are probably heretical to my own tradition (for instance I'm sort of glib about the whole predestination thing, but that's another article).
I also admit that there are things I see other people holding to that I would certainly label heretical: dispensational eschatology, the prosperity Gospel, and I have big problems with the apostasy of many who call themselves Christians, but make no effort to live in a Christ-centered way.  I am pretty ready to question the convictions of those who disagree with me about social issues, and who call me heretical or apostate, and shoot the same words right back at them, because, "OOH I HATE THEM VARMINTS!!"
And that's where I realize that the Devil has got me by the neck.  Within the church we love to lob various verses from Paul's letters to Timothy back and forth at each other, things about itching ears and false teachers and God breathed scriptures.  But when you sort of step back and read the whole two letters, you will notice that what Paul is doing is telling Timothy to stay the heck out of all that mud slinging, don't hate them, don't fear them, just don't get involved with it, because it's futile.  Hold on to what you have been taught and what the Spirit is doing in you and through you, don't get pulled into the wrangling about heresy and apostasy and orthodoxy, because they're all going to distract you from the Good News.
It's funny, sort of, that Paul's one-liners are so often taken out of that context and made to engage "the enemy" on the very ground that he was exhorting his young protege to avoid.  Seriously, Paul's message to Timothy in both letters: "haters gonna hate, shake it off."  Yep, there's that Taylor Swift song again... hanging my head a little bit, but darn if that isn't good advice.
I believe that the Devil, or whatever you want to call the adversary of God, has really mastered using human beings as the primary weapon in the war of chaos against creativity.  So much so that perhaps our somewhat medieval notions of some sort of monstrous demon are outmoded to the point of being dangerous.  When our desire for truth can be so easily turned into a crusade against other versions of the truth, when our desire to live righteous lives can turn so quickly into persecution of those who live differently than we do... well I think  you know who wins.

You Go Girls!

The US Women's National Soccer Team won their third World Cup last night.  They looked absolutely dominant against Japan, which is something that no US Soccer team could really claim to be at such a high level.  Which is sort of odd, given the fact that, even though Soccer is far from the most popular sport in this country, we certainly have a leg up on most of the world in terms of total dedication and perhaps even obsession with athletes and sports.
The men's national team has never managed to ascend to the heights that the women have occupied over the past two decades, because what most of the world calls football is only just catching on here.  What we are exporting on the other hand is so much more important that I almost can't help getting a little star-spangled when I even think about it.  What we are exporting is the notion that women are strong and capable and able to do great things.  The skill and the speed of the women's game is not a step down from the men's game, the game is not popular because of the clothes they wear (thank God Sepp Blatter didn't get his way), the game is popular for the same reason futbol is popular all over the world, because it is global.
On my recent trip to Spain, I had the opportunity to watch some La Liga games in Spanish bars with Spanish crowds.  I watched Real Madrid lose to Juventus (an Italian team) in the semifinal game of the European Championship and I was on the edge of my seat with the rest of the crowd.  I saw the FC Barcelona Jerseys start to appear when they won the championship a week later.  I have seen kids in Guatemala playing soccer on a dirt field with a volleyball covered in duct tape.  I know the power that this game has beyond our borders.
And so, I may be putting a lot on the shoulders of Carly Lloyd and her teammates but I am so very happy that they are representing the notion that girls and women ought to be allowed to do the same things that the boys do and that they should be given an arena to achieve the ultimate goal.  They should be honored for the merit of their achievement and not have it overshadowed by the male version (in our country they can't be, and probably won't be for a while).
They may be representing our nation, and that's all good and fine, but more importantly they are representing women from around the world who are not allowed to play games (or even show their ankles).  Their victory shows the world, that while we may have our difficulties, we are miles ahead of the world in the way we empower our women and girls.  What I saw last night was not just "good for a girl" it was good, period.  That needs to get out there.
It needs to get out there because the world is a dark an brutal place for a lot of women who do not have the good fortune to be born in a place where they are considered (at least in the eyes of the law) as equal to men.  We have our issues, before Title IX, women's athletics were the backwater and the afterthought of varsity athletics.  It took a sweeping and sometimes controversial edict from the top to change that, slowly.  We still struggle for income equality between men and women, but it is at least a known issue.
That's the crux of the issue: in America, women are pushing for that last bit of equality that allows them to stand shoulder to shoulder in full sunlight with men.  In much of the world women are still trying to glimpse the daylight from under the shadow of patriarchal systems and seemingly insurmountable oppression.
The beautiful game can reach those places.  It can plant a seed, an idea, a glimmer of hope.
We are growing to appreciate the world's game more and more.  It's only fair that we give them something back, let's give them the notion that women are strong, and fast, and powerful, that they're not property to be hidden in the dark, they are fully able to stand in the light.

O-Fence

The interweb is great for two things: pictures of kittens and offending people, oh yeah and then making jokes about how easily people get offended, so I guess that sort of makes three things.
What I would like to do here is take a break from judging people who are offended by one thing or another and examine why it is that people seem so quick to get their nose out of joint these days.  Have we become more sensitive?  I don't think so, back in the day, people certainly did moral outrage about a lot of things.  I mean, at one point, a bunch of angry teetotalers managed to get the US government to outlaw alcohol.  It didn't go so well, but for one shining moment, outrage won the day.
Fortunately, with the proliferation of outrage and offense taking, the really dangerous sort of shrill humbuggery (which really ought to be declared an abomination somewhere in Leviticus), is far too diffuse, and those afflicted with it cannot be bothered to actually organize or do much of anything beyond re-posting things on facebook and twitter, or maybe, if they're really outraged, writing a hasty and poorly thought through blog (sort of like this).
No, the butt-hurt masses and all their impotent outrage are likely to be balanced out in the end by people who are offended by the same thing, but in the opposite direction.  Maybe that's the real genius of the internet: when everyone is able to express their opinion it all comes out in the wash.  Thoughtful commentary and moronic fear mongering are all out there for you to choose from, but choose wisely or else you're just going to join the ranks of the offended.
Let's be honest, human beings really aren't at their best when they're annoyed.  We don't think straight and we tend to revert back to our least nuanced comfort zones.  Example: you're on a road trip with the family.  The kids are bickering in the back seat, you're stuck in traffic and you're about an hour and half from home.  One kid whines, "I'm hungry and I have to go pee."  You see a McDonalds is coming up in about two miles, you know stopping at McDonalds is probably best for all involved, you can stretch your legs and consume some fat and salt, which, while it doesn't do great things for your overall health, will certainly make you feel better, it will allow whiny kid to go pee, and all involved to proceed with adequate blood sugar levels, it may even help you wait out some of the traffic.  If you are sufficiently objective, you will clearly see that this is the right course of action.  If you are annoyed and impatient though, you will not, you will think only about getting home, pushing through, buckling down, fighting harder, and you will invariably condemn yourself and your family to a very unpleasant final leg of the journey and possibly precipitate a melt down from one or more members of your clan.
This is not an advertisement for McDonalds, it's a parable about how being angry and offended impairs your judgment.  The internet is a huge traffic jam.  People of all sorts are out there some are clever, some are stupid, some you may agree with, some you may not, if you're lucky there are enough pictures of kittens to sort of balance out the day.
At it's best, you might actually get to roll down the window and have a decent conversation with someone along side, at it's worst, someone gets out and starts beating others up with a tire iron.
Sometimes people get a little carried away with a metaphor, so I'm going to get to the point.
Being offended is not usually a good place to start with constructive conversation or action, it may be the impetus for something that becomes a cause for action, but your gut feeling (which is usually what ends up on facebook and twitter) is not really sufficiently thought through and will most likely just add to the soup of hurt feelings and bunched up undergarments.
Take a deep breath, stretch your legs, have a cheeseburger (or similarly comforting vegetarian alternative, if there is one, actually, if there is let me know because I could really stand to cut back on the cheeseburgers).  Do us all a favor, just don't press post or tweet or publish until you've really thought things through, there's enough outrage out there already.

In Summary...

I'm going to say this once last time: I believe the Bible is actually a "Good Book."
Not everything in the Bible is absolutely true in a historical sense.
Not everything in the Bible is morally correct.
Not everything in the Bible is clear and inerrant.
The Bible is not a science text book.
The Bible is not "life's instruction manual."
The Bible is a collection of writings assembled by a community of human beings who felt connected in a covenant bond to the One God, the Creator.  This God got involved in the human story through people like Abram, and Jacob and David.  The people were given rules to help them navigate the complicated often confusing waters of human social existence.  Those rules were neatly organized into ten "Big" rules and interpreted by the community, through trial and error, into over 600 separate statutes.  Conventional wisdom was that if people followed these rules, God would bless them, if they did not God would curse them, but to tell you the truth that equation was a little iffy.
The rain always seemed to fall on the just and the unjust alike.
And man, were there questions about what happens east of Eden.
What about Ishmael?
What about Canaan?
What about all the people who were killed and dispossessed so that God could keep a promise?
Why does David want what isn't his?
How can such a broken man sing such beautiful songs?
What's with all the idols?  Is God really doing everything he can?
The story gets really complicated, and the questions never stop.
Exile?  Really?  Is that the end?
Restoration!  Will things finally be better?
Rinse, lather, repeat.
It's a beautiful story, it's a horrific story, it's filled with heaven and it's filled with blood and fire.
People sing praises, and people weep in bitter lament, and God is in it all, in the whirlwind and the still small voice of silence.
The questions never end.  People wonder, "what is truth?"
Jesus of Nazareth, born of the house and lineage of David, rooted in the people of the covenant and the stories of Israel.  Raised to read and live the Scripture, born to be the answer, but not the answer that most people wanted.  His answers to all the questions were so terribly simple, and so horribly impossible: love and forgive, forgive and love.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
More questions:
Why didn't he pick better disciples?
Why do bad things still happen?
Why do we still have all these questions?
Why aren't things simple and easy now?
Why can't we just figure everything out once and for all?
Isn't Jesus the way, and the truth and the life?
Shouldn't that solve all this mess for us?
Why does God so insistently let us muck about and make such a mess of things?
Surely there's a better plan.
Better than what?
Better than grace?
Really, you think you can beat grace?
Good luck with that.