Spiritual Reflections

Last Church Standing

2012-02-05T13:57:00.003-05:00

The last church in Afghanistan was recently demolished. No new building permits are being issued for churches. It is not because there are no Christians or no need for churches. The American-supported government in Afghanistan is following a systematic policy of discrimination against Christianity. What is troubling is that this has happened while American servicemen and women are fighting for the Afghans’ freedom. What about religious freedom?

The same thing has happened in Iraq. There are only one third as many Christians in Iraq today as when the Iraq War began, due to bombings of churches and assassinations of church leaders. The so-called Arab Spring has not been kind to Christians in other countries either. Church burnings and persecution against Christians in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, have been widespread and brutal. The rise of militant Islam to a position of power in these countries does not bode well for the Christian minority populations.

What is most troubling is that there is no outcry in America from either the Republicans or Democrats. Religious liberty is not a topic for presidential debates or campaign stump speeches. People are more concerned about whether the Mormon Romney is a true Christian or whether Obama is a Christian than if Afghans have the freedom to be Christians.

I guess I should not be too surprised. I see prejudice against Christians in our land as well. There are too many Christian voters to allow it to degenerate into full-blown persecution, but the anti-Christian attitude is clearly present and growing. It was most recently seen in New York City when churches were prohibited from meeting in school buildings on Sundays for no other reason than that they are religious.

Best-selling books by the New Atheists spew hatred of religion in general and the Christian religion in particular (with titles such as “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”) I cringe when I listen to audiences applaud while Bill Maher ridicules people of faith. Anti-Christian prejudice is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in this country. People are scolded by society for saying anything anti-Semitic, racist or even homophobic. But you can say anything you want against Christians, and people will smile or laugh.

This bigotry in American society usually comes in the form of derogatory comments about “organized religion.” When people use this phrase they are not talking about synagogues or yoga centers; it is a euphemism for Christianity. The term “fundamentalist” is used in a pejorative sense to refer to any Christian who holds to traditional Christian doctrine or morals. The insinuation is that evangelicals are spiritual cousins of the jihadists who fly airliners into buildings.

There is a deep-seated prejudice against Christians held by people who are otherwise quite tolerant of diversity in our society. It is time for this anti-Christian bigotry to be exposed for what it is. So the next time someone disparages “organized religion” or the “institutional church,” politely point out that anti-religious language is not different from other forms of hate speech.

If enough people stand up for religious tolerance, our society would be a much more civil place in which to live. Hopefully we will never find ourselves in the position of Afghanistan, where the church in our community becomes the last church standing.

November Faith

2011-11-02T16:20:00.001-04:00

There is something about the change of seasons that makes me contemplative. Perhaps it is the dewy web of moisture collecting in crescents on the windowpanes. Perhaps it is the nostalgic smell of wood smoke or the bittersweet ritual of putting away the outdoor furniture. Maybe it is seeing the early snow on the mountainsides.

When autumn moves toward winter, it makes me thoughtful. It might be all the funerals I have been conducting recently – funerals of old friends whom I will not see on Sunday mornings any longer. In any case November causes me to ponder things a bit more deeply.

There is a mystery in life that becomes more apparent at this time of year. The barrenness of nature is exposed. The trees lose their leaves, and suddenly we can see beyond the trees.

The world reveals a transparency. It feels like I can see deeper, further and more clearly. These are not the nice warm snapshots of summer or the colorful vistas of autumn. In November we see through things.

Through the barren trees we glimpse mystery. It is a mystery that is not acknowledged by the summery religion so popular these days. Too often religion tries in vain to solve mysteries with doctrine and rituals. It attempts to give answers to questions that were never intended to be answered.

Some questions are simply meant to hang in the air and give voice to the depths of life. When life begins to reveal its barrenness, people ask, “Why? Why me? Why him? Why now?” There are no answers to these questions, except perhaps “Why not?” Such questions can only be met with faith.

Faith is living with questions without answers. Faith is laughing at stories told at funerals. Faith is smiling tears when you say goodbye. Faith is smelling spring while watching the first snow cover the pumpkins. Faith is living with the mystery of life.

Faith is experiencing the reality of God that is beyond the ability of words or thoughts to convey. Faith is the language of Spirit. It is wide and deep, infinite and immortal. It answers the unanswerable questions with groans and sighs.

That is why I like November. After the leaves fall, I can see the invisible.

Death of Death

2011-07-29T08:17:00.001-04:00

A seminary student, who is a friend of mine, came to visit me today. He asked me how my new ministry in Sandwich, New Hampshire, was going after being on the job for six months. Specifically he asked what type of pastoral care issues I was dealing with in my church.

Only a colleague – especially one who had just finished a seminary course in pastoral psychology - would ask such a question. I pondered the question for a moment and then replied, “Grief.” There have been a lot of deaths in this small church in this small New Hampshire town.

We have also had personal grief. My mother-in-law passed away a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I spent an emotional weekend in Orlando for her service last weekend. In order to attend, I had to delegate a graveside service scheduled for that same day to another minister so I could officiate at my mother-in-law’s funeral.

Furthermore when we returned to New Hampshire Sunday night, we had not been home for more than a half-hour when I got a phone call from an old family friend. He had been trying to reach me all weekend to ask me to do his mother’s funeral the next day. Of course I said I would.

Today a hospice chaplain asked me to cover for him, if needed, while he was on vacation. Again I said yes. For these reasons death has been on my mind a lot more than in my previous church, which was a younger congregation.

I have noticed that people use the word “pass” a lot nowadays to describe death. I guess it is a shortened form of the traditional phrase “pass away,” but it sounds strange to my ears. Passing is something I do on the highway while driving or playing cards or when someone at the dining table asks for the salt. I don’t think of death as passing. It sounds euphemistic.

I call death “death.” I intentionally use that dirty word “death” when talking to people who are dying and those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Naming the enemy helps to defang him. In the Harry Potter books and films, the evil archenemy Voldemort is always referred to as “He Who Must Not Be Named.” People will not say his name because they are afraid. The same is true of death.

Another person remarked to me recently that death is “so final.” Once again, I don’t think of it that way. I just finished reading the best-selling nonfiction book, “Heaven Is For Real,” the account of a little boy’s visit to heaven during a Near Death Experience. Anyone who thinks that death is final needs to pick up that book.

Death does not seem strange, unusual, or scary for me. I know the Bible calls it “the last enemy,” but it also says that it will be destroyed. I feel that the victory is already won. Death is defanged. It has no bite.

Seventeenth century Puritan John Owen wrote a theological classic entitled, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.” (J. I. Packer's introduction to the book is almost as good.) Owen’s title sums up my attitude toward death. Christ’s death was a death-destroying act. Our faith in his death is a death-defying act. Death is dead. Long live life!

This past Lent I led a Bible Study about the death of Jesus. During the discussion, I made the uncensored comment that I knew what death felt like. My actual words were something like, “I know what it feels like to be dead.” The table full of people stared at me as if I had just said, “I see dead people.” (For the record, I don’t.)

What I mean is that I know what it will feel like to be dead because I know what it feels like to be eternally alive. I experience eternal life now, and I will continue to experience eternal life after the troublesome hiatus called death. I don’t hope for life after death; I live it.

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Art is “Eternal Life Energy 1” by Kim Stapleton

Traveling to Tilton

2011-06-20T09:34:00.001-04:00

Recently I attended the Alumni Weekend at my alma mater, Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire. When I attended Tilton in the 1960’s, it was a traditional boys prep school. Think of Hogwarts without the magic. Imagine “Goodbye Mr. Chips” New England style. We even had our own “Mr. Chips” a beloved master, and later headmaster, named John MacMorran, affectionately known as Mr. Mac.

It was a time of required chapel and formal dinners. Blazers and ties were the dinner attire, and tables were set with white tablecloths and cloth napkins. We learned table etiquette from the masters and wives, who sat with us and prompted us to engage in proper conversation.

2011 is not my reunion year, and so there was only one other member of my class in attendance for the weekend. I did not know him during my school years, and I did not meet him this time around. Apart from a meeting in the chapel and a meal under a tent, I spent most of my short time on campus wandering the campus buildings in the rain.

There were new buildings, of course, and the old buildings had been updated over the years. But I was surprised at how much was familiar. I was startled at how quickly the old feelings came back and how powerfully memories of my teen years returned.

The smells of the classroom building, the familiar sound of climbing the old stairwells, the arrangement of the furniture in the lobby, all brought back long-forgotten feelings. I felt like a character in a science-fiction movie who suddenly finds himself transported through time. If I looked in a mirror I thought I might see a fifteen year old with a bad haircut and acne staring back at me.

I missed the multi-media presentation on the schedule entitled “A Walk Down Memory Lane,” but I had my own personal walk. Even though it is summer, I could envision the front walk covered with snow. I could feel the weight of my tweed sport coat and long scarf with school colors.

I could hear the steam escaping from the old radiators and see the frost coating the single-paned windows. As I opened the door to my old dorm room, I half expected to see my old roommate sitting at his desk and listening to classical music on his record player.

I passed the door where I had sat on the floor of a master’s apartment while the Poetry Club analyzed T.S. Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I could taste the tea and remember the sound of Mr. Mac’s voice as we played cribbage in his bachelor apartment, a one-on-one habit that undoubtedly would be forbidden in our scandal-phobic society today.

I could picture the World War I vets sitting on the front porch of the New Hampshire Veterans Home as I walked past. I remember a trip to hear Satchmo play his horn at Plymouth State College and a trip to Franklin to see the new film, “Dr. Zhivago.” I remember the loneliness of being separated from my family, the kindness of the faculty, the thrill of being intellectually challenged by the academic material.

I remember a chapel sermon by the school’s chaplain about the spiritual impact of his military service in Korea. I even remember the title after all these years: “The Razor’s Edge” (undoubtedly borrowed from Maugham.) I remember visits to the chapel by Franciscan friars recruiting brothers for the monastic life.

I remember classes on Philosophy of Religion and Ethics taught by the chaplain. (Would a school offer such classes today?) I wonder now how much those religious discussions influenced my later decision to enter Christian ministry.

I was on campus for only a few hours on a Saturday. This busy pastor had to continue on to Concord that afternoon to visit a parishioner in the hospital, and then back to Sandwich to prepare for worship the next morning. But in those four hours I traveled over forty years.

A River Runs through Me

2011-06-06T18:05:00.002-04:00

I spent the day in the mountains today and visited our favorite spots. One is the Swift River, which runs through the lower tier of the White Mountains. We stopped at Lower Falls. It is too early in the season for tourists – except on weekends - so we had the place to ourselves. The black flies drove back the few flatlanders who ventured out of their cars.

I sat on a rock in the middle of the river and listened to the water. Actually I listened to the voice that spoke beneath and through the waters. The quiet roar enveloped and suppressed all inner and outer noise.

Later we stopped to view a panorama of mountains. The expansive vista and the deep silence had the same effect on me as the river. The Spirit that inhabits the mountains also inhabits my soul. The Spirit draws out the silence of my spirit, and they echo together through these mountain valleys.

The quiet draws me in, and I disappear. I drown in silence. Thought ceases, and I momentarily cease as well.

I have felt this way throughout my life. They are sacred times. As a child, the ocean mesmerized me. As a boy the lake haunted me – especially on early morning fishing trips. As a teen, hiking these Appalachians inspired me to write a poem, which was published in our school’s literary magazine - to the chagrin of my teammates on the football team.

When I come in contact with the depths of nature, all thinking ceases. The voice of Creation “drowns out all music but its own” as the hymn says. At such times I can see most clearly. I know myself in a way deeper than words. And when I know myself, I notice the presence of God.

I catch glimpses of this also at other times - notably in prayer, meditation and worship. Music can do it; so can art. But the silence is loudest, and my own inner chatter the lowest, when I am in the wilderness.

Norman Maclean wrote a famous short story about fly-fishing in Montana. He writes of his experience: “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

I know what he means. The river runs through all things, and it runs through me.

Pretty in Blue

2011-06-04T13:33:00.001-04:00

In April I had surgery for skin cancer. It was originally scheduled for the middle of May, but there was a last minute cancellation. The doctor’s office called me up and asked if I could come to the office in Hanover in two days. I hesitated.

As everyone knows, Lent and holy week are important times in the church. I was not looking forward having this procedure done a couple of weeks before Easter. I did not like the thought of having a huge gash and large bandage decorating my forehead while leading the largest services of the year.

But I decided it was better to have this cancer removed sooner rather than later. After several hours in the doctor’s office and two sessions under the surgeon’s scalpel, I came home with a hole in my head, a two-inch scar and twelve stitches on my forehead (six on the inside and six on the outside.)

While the doctor was stitching me up, he asked if I was superstitious about the number six. I replied that I was glad there was not another row of six or I could be accused of having the “mark of the beast” (666) on my forehead.

The surgery was performed on a Thursday, and the pressure bandage removed on Saturday. When I took off the dressing on Saturday afternoon, the wound looked pretty bad. I debated whether to wear a large Band-Aid on my forehead during worship the next day or let the stitches show. I chose to go au naturel.

I explained during the sharing time in the service what had happened to my face. (My wife Jude had been telling people that she hit me over the head with a skillet, so I had to correct that rumor!) Before and after worship, people asked how I was doing and expressed their prayerful sympathy.

But the best remark came after the service. As I walked out of the church, the family across the street (in the former parsonage) greeted me. I crossed the street to chat. (My daughter-in-law Sarah nannies for them, so I have gotten to know them.) Rachel was sitting on the steps while her two children, Gus and Leo, played nearby.

Five-year-old Gus took a look at my head and asked what happened. I explained the situation, and he was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It looks pretty. They’re blue!” (referring to the color of the stitches). I chuckled, thanked him, and pointed out that they matched my blue shirt. He agreed.

Only a child could look at a cancer incision and think it looked pretty. Only a child could see stitches as fashion accessories. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He who has eyes to see, let him see beyond scars to the beauty which is at the heart of all existence.

Rapture Ready

2011-05-21T15:12:00.004-04:00

Today - May 21, 2011 – is the day the world ends, according to Harold Camping of Family Radio. To be more precise, today is supposed to be the Day of Judgment and the Rapture. The official End of the World is not supposed to happen for another five months.

Actually the Rapture is supposed to happen at exactly 6:00 PM – less than three hours from the time I am writing this blog. So if you are reading this on Saturday night or Sunday, then it didn’t happen… unless you are one of the unlucky ones left behind.

I am of mixed feelings when it comes to this much publicized event. Theologically I don’t believe it. Historically I know that the idea of the Rapture is a nineteenth century doctrine invented by a religious fringe group in England in the 1830’s. If it hadn’t found its way into the textual notes of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909, no Christian today would have heard of the idea.

In my opinion it is a misinterpretation of the Scripture passages describing Christ’s return. But that is just my opinion. Unlike Harold Camping, who is absolutely certain that his interpretation of Scripture is correct, I am not so sure of my hermeneutical skills. I am so fallible in so many areas, that the only thing I am certain about is that I am probably wrong in my interpretation of Biblical prophecy also.

I hope I am wrong. I would love to be whisked away into heaven in a couple of hours, holding hands with my wife as we are “caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” But that is unlikely to happen ... at least not this day. But a part of me is watching the clock and thinking, “What if this crazy old man is right?”

In one sense it must be today. Today is all there is. It is always only today. I have never experienced a tomorrow. Nor have I lived a yesterday. These temporal concepts are just thoughts occurring today. There is only ever today. As the apostle writes, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

As he said elsewhere, “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Jesus said to the thief dying on a cross next to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Christ was right … as he always is.

One of these todays will be the day that I will be with him in Paradise. What if it were today? Why not? One day it will be today! But probably not this today. I suspect that at 6:30 PM I will be watching the ABC Evening News and there will be no reports of Christians mysteriously disappearing from airplane cockpits and living room sofas.

So I have my sermon prepared for tomorrow, and I am pretty sure I will be around to deliver it, and that I will have a congregation to deliver it to. There are no references in it to the Rapture, Judgment Day or the End of the World - just practical advice for living the spiritual life today. I am wondering that type of sermon Harold Camping will preach to his flock tomorrow.

Nothing comes from Nothing... and Vice Versa

2011-04-18T08:27:00.000-04:00

That which is born will die. It is a universal law. Have you ever known it to be otherwise? That which comes into existence will one day cease to exist. Humans come into existence. Therefore one day we will cease to exist.

That which exists must have its source in what is eternal. How can it be otherwise? How else could it exist? As the von Trapps taught us in The Sound of Music, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”

The Scriptures speak of eternal life. If we have eternal life, then we must be – or be one with - that which does not die. The ground of our being is eternal – the One who says, “I am who I am.”

The Scriptures teach that God spoke us into existence. We are the words of God – nothing more and nothing less. God formed us as his words and breathed into us the breath of life. We are divine speech - vibrations from the mouth of God, animations of his breath.

But we forget this reality until the Word of God awakens us and redeems us from our wordlessness. He tells us who we are. “You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world! Let your light shine!”

The secret of meaningful life is to hold this truth in faith. The key is to experience this truth in our lives - to be who we are. When we know who we are, our eyes are open to the world as it is. We see the Kingdom of Heaven around us and within us.

Nothing comes from nothing. Being comes from being. That is eternal life. That is abundant life now.

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Art is “de nihilo nihil,” crayon and pastel, Frank Baranowski

The Mind of Christ

2011-04-12T10:08:00.000-04:00

“For ‘who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?’But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)

The apostle does not say we will have the mind of Christ. He does not say we should have the mind of Christ or can have the mind of Christ. He says unequivocally, “We have the mind of Christ.”

It is a reality now. He contrasts it to the old understanding of God voiced by Isaiah in the first half of the verse, in which the prophet assumes that we cannot know the mind of the Lord.

But now something is different. The coming of Christ changed things. Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost changed us. We have the mind of Christ.

In other words, I am of two minds. I am doubled-minded. I have a mind of my own, and I have the mind of Christ.

Of the two, I prefer Christ’s mind. My mind is pretty muddled sometimes. My mind gets things wrong most of the time. I do not understand things. I misunderstand things. But Christ is God. He knows the mind of God. And we have the mind of Christ.

Psychiatrists talk about left-brain and right-brain thinking, referring to the two hemispheres of the brain, which process things very differently. The same is true of our Christ mind and our own mind. Christ views things from the perspective of eternity. He sees how everything works together in perfect harmony.

“Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 6:26-27)

The mind of Christ thinks God’s thoughts. It sees the world through God’s eyes. It feels with God’s heart.

Paul tells us elsewhere to “have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus….” We are invited to set aside our way of thinking and embrace Christ’s perspective – to be single-minded instead of our usual double-mindedness.

This is not far away or out of reach. It is not an ideal. It is our natural spiritual state here and now. For we have the mind of Christ.

(Art is stained glass window at Central Christian Church, Orlando, Florida)

The Wreath Police

2011-04-02T18:35:00.000-04:00

I have been cited for a serious social infraction. This time it is not a moving violation ticketed by a local police officer or a state trooper. (Thank goodness! I have enough of those!)

This time I was sitting at a community meal in the basement of the church when I was informed of my offense. Two local members of the “wreath police” informed me that I still had a Christmas wreath hanging on our front door.

Apparently it is a serious faux pas in this community to have Christmas decorations visible beyond the first day of spring. It should have been removed by Valentines Day, I was told. Ash Wednesday would have been acceptable. But the vernal equinox is absolutely the latest permissible date for yuletide hangings.

People keep track of such things around here. They noted there are still eighteen offenders in our small community. I am one of them. My offence is particularly offensive because my home is in the center of the village for all to see. Furthermore as the local church pastor I am expected to set an example.

I pleaded for mercy. I told them that I had not been able to reach my front door since I purchased the house in January. There are still feet of snow and ice blocking my front door, prohibiting access.

I explained that it is not even my wreath. The previous owners left it on the door. I didn’t even want it! They should have taken it with them. If anybody should be blamed, it should be them. I told them that I had the former owners’ new address in Vermont if they needed it.

Nope. It is my responsibility now. Local social mores clearly state that the present owner is the responsible party for all decorative infractions.

Well it is April now, and we just got a few more inches of snow. I don’t think I will be digging out the front steps anytime soon. There is a good chance that the wreath may still be hanging there on Easter Sunday. I am wondering if the severity of the offense increases when the violation extends beyond the next Christian holy day.

But I have an idea. I am thinking of calling it an Easter Wreath. I’ll stick a few Easter lilies in it and start a new tradition. I am sure that Easter decorations are acceptable at least until Memorial Day. By then the snow ought to be melted enough to take it down. If not, I will just call it my Fourth of July Wreath. Anyone have any little American flags?

Fire Tending

2011-03-29T08:40:00.000-04:00

I had never owned a woodstove before this year. But this winter – and this early spring - I find myself tending a fire regularly. We do not heat our home exclusively with wood, but most nights I build a fire in the box. I do it to save money on our propane bill and simply for the joy of it.

We have one of those woodstoves with a glass front through which you can view the fire burning. So we have the ambience of a fireplace while heating the house more efficiently than with an open fire.

I find it difficult to take my eyes off the fire. When I am reading or watching television, I find my eyes drawn irresistibly to the stove – to see if it needs more wood or just to watch the movement of the flames. It is so much more interesting then the flickering images on TV.

There is something mesmerizing about fire … and something very spiritual. Fire is a universal symbol for the divine. In the Hebrew Scriptures, sacrifices were offered through fire. In the Vedas, fire was the primary focus of Hindu worship.

The Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in tongues of fire at Pentecost. God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. There is something about fire that connects us to the spiritual realm.

Tending a fire feels like a spiritual practice. It is like tending to the spiritual life. A fire needs watching; so does the soul. Without attention, the flames die down and quickly go out. So does the fire of the soul.

There is nothing so dead as a cold woodstove. There is nothing colder than a dead soul. On the other hand there is nothing that warms the heart more than a blazing fire on a cold night.

I will leave it to the reader’s imagination to explore the details of this symbolism. How does one tend the fire of the soul? What is the fuel? What is the flame? Who is the one who tends the fire?

An ordinary wood fire easily becomes a complex allegory in the mind of a preacher sitting by his woodstove on a cold night. Undoubtedly my imagination is going too far. But how can I not speculate? The fire inspires.

Thaw of the Soul

2011-03-23T16:40:00.001-04:00

It is March and the intermittent thaws send water flowing in the streets. Melting snow finds its path across roads, making its way into the lakes.

As I drive down Squam Lake Road, the water seems impatient with the customary routes of creeks and brooks. Water dashes in wide swaths across the road, seeking its rest in the mountain lake.

The sight stirs my soul. My inner being feels this way about God. My soul races toward God. I could not stop it any more than I could stop water from flowing downhill.

My soul seeks its home in God. My soul came from God and will return to God. In the meantime I sojourn here.

The soul is God’s. It is deeper and stronger than my mortal personality. It hungers for God. It flows from God. It empties into God.

I could not stop its flow if I wanted. But I do not want to stop it. Indeed, I wish to follow it to its Source. I ride the current of my soul like a twig carried by a river.

Revelation says there is a river that flows from the throne of God and flows through the streets of the New Jerusalem. I know what path it takes. It flows through my soul.

Fifty Thousand Thoughts

2011-03-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

I was watching a new episode of the television show “House” recently and saw a segment called “House Call.” It is a fifteen second spot that presents interesting medical facts. This one was entitled “Thoughts.” (You can watch it here.) It stated that humans have about 50,000 thoughts a day. That is 2083 thoughts per hour or one thought every 1.2 seconds. That is almost as many junk emails as I get!

I have been thinking about those thoughts. It seems like an awful lot of thoughts. It does not leave much time for other things. But I know that it is true. My mind is a never-ending thought-producing machine.

Many of my thoughts are repetitive cycles of thoughts. I continuously rehearse the past or speculate about the future. Too many of the thoughts are negative. I read Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” years ago. It didn’t help. The more I try not to think negative thoughts, the more they appear.

It is like someone saying, “Don’t think of pink elephants.” Well, of course pink elephants pop into your mind. Then I start thinking of whether they are African or Asian elephants, and how a pink elephant could be born of a regular elephant, and where that recessive gene could have come from, and so on.

After thinking so many worthless thoughts, I have decided that thinking does not get me anywhere. Even when I think godly thoughts, they don’t seem to bring me closer to God. Thinking thoughts about God keeps me bound to my restless mind instead of enjoying rest in the Spirit. Thinking about God becomes a substitute for experiencing God.

Thinking seems to erect a barrier to God. That is a rather disturbing thought for a pastor. I have been trained as a theologian. My job is to think about God and communicate those thoughts to my congregation in thoughtful sermons. It’s what I do; I’m a preacher.

But this preacher is thinking that thinking is an inadequate approach to God. It is all right as far as it goes; it just doesn’t go far enough. At some point in your thinking you come to the limit of thought. Then all you can do is point beyond thoughts in the direction of God.

You often have to use words to point, but they are words that point to the Reality beyond thoughts. They are triggers of faith. Faith is not believing thoughts for which there is insufficient evidence. Faith is stepping beyond thoughts into the realm of Spirit.

Faith is resting in the Ground beneath thoughts. It is living in the space between thoughts. If we have 50,000 different thoughts a day, then there are also 50,000 spaces between the thoughts, however brief they may be. That is where we meet God - fifty thousand times a day. What a glorious thought! Our minds are filled with God. We just have to know where to look!

The Unused Door

2011-02-23T08:11:00.001-05:00

I recently bought a house with a front door that is not used. I am not the only one with such a door. It is quite common in this area to have unused front doors. People use their side doors, back doors and porch doors instead. There is an unspoken rule that front door entry is inappropriate.

I visited some friends’ home a few days ago, and they have a table barricading the front door to make sure no one will mistake it for a usable door. My front door has insulation stapled between the inner and outer doors to make sure that everyone (including the new owner) gets the point.

I think the door may also be nailed shut; I will find out in the spring when I can access the door from the outside. The snow bank that buttresses the front steps makes it impossible for anyone to approach that door now. At least I think there are front steps. I don’t really know. They were snowbound when we arrived in January, and I have never actually seen them.

The outside of our front door is unpainted as if to announce to the world that it is not to be used. It is neglected-looking gray wood, in contrast to the fresh paint that coats the rest of the house. It is a color code that shouts to UPS and FedEx drivers: “Use some other door!”

I am not sure why front doors are unused. Often the used door is harder to access than the front door. When we moved into our house in January, it would have been easier to carry our furniture through the unused front door. It is bigger and opens directly into a large room. In contrast, our side door opens into a narrow hallway with an immediate tight turn that makes it difficult to maneuver larger pieces of furniture.

Having a spiritual bent, I have been pondering the spiritual significance (if any) of unused front doors. For example, does God’s home have an unused front door? If Jerusalem is God’s hometown and the temple is “the house of God,” perhaps it does!

Jerusalem’s front door – the Golden Gate that faces east and was the main entrance to the Temple Mount in Jesus’ day – stands unused. It has been blocked for nearly five centuries. If you want to enter Jerusalem, you have to go in one of the side doors.

According to Jewish tradition, the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) used to appear through this front gate. Tradition says that this is the gate through which the Messiah will enter Jerusalem. For that reason the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Great sealed the Golden Gate in 1541 to prevent the Messiah's entry. Muslims built a cemetery in front of the gate to emphasize the point.

It makes me wonder if there is a spiritual significance to unused front doors. Is it symbolic? Is it psychological? Does it represent the door of our souls? Jesus’ words suddenly have greater significance.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” If you hear knocking at your unused front door, now you know what to do.

___________

The Divinity of Space

2011-02-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my study looking out at the sun shining on the snow. It is a February thaw, and I can see the water dripping steadily from the eaves. Out by our shed, I can see the picket fence that separates our property from our neighbors. The sun shines through the wooden slats, casting dark shadows on the bright snow. Beyond the fence are second-growth trees stretching up a slight knoll.

I am suddenly aware of the spaces between everything. The spaces between the dripping water drops, the spaces between the pickets, the spaces between the shadows, and the spaces between the trees. I am even aware of the open space of the glass door that allows me to view the space beyond.

The spaces are what create the objects. There are no drops of water without space between them, no pickets without the spaces between them, no shadows without the contrast with the light.

Then I am aware of the space between my thoughts. The spaces distinguish thought from thought. I hear some music drifting in from the living room where my wife is babysitting our grandson. The spaces between the notes create the music. The spaces in the paintings on my wall produce beauty. Thespacesbetweentheletterscreatethewords.

Because the spaces are so important, I decide to dwell in the spaces for a while – the spaces between sounds, the spaces between thoughts, the spaces between emotions, the spaces between breaths, the spaces between heartbeats.

In the Old Testament it is said that God dwelled in the space between the wings of cherubim on the ark of the covenant. There was nothing there to identify the presence of God. No image like other religions had. No symbol. No writing. Just empty space.

Yet in the emptiness is God. No physical, verbal or mental image can communicate God. No doctrine captures God; God dwells in the space between ideas. Even today the Jews do not speak the Biblical name of God. They know that no name is adequate.

The same is true of prayer. I pray with words, but God dwells between the words. God lives in the silence between my sentences and thoughts. So I spend most of my prayer time in the empty space where God dwells. In that space is peace. In that space is truth. In that space is God.

____________

Photo is “After the Snow” by Solo

My Day in Court

2011-01-28T09:11:00.000-05:00

A few days before we moved from Pennsylvania I went to court. It was nothing serious. When we had our auto accident in December, the police officer gave me a traffic citation. The charge was “driving at a safe speed for the road conditions.” He meant “unsafe speed” but I took the words written on the ticket literally. I thought I was driving at a safe speed!

It was the day after a snowstorm and the road was all snow and ice. I was driving slowly down a country road when my tire caught the berm. The car began to skid and sheared off a utility pole, deploying our airbags and totaling our car. Thankfully we were unhurt.

The officer apologized for giving me a ticket, saying he “had to do it.” Being the ornery guy I am, I “had to” challenge it. I figured it was not my driving, but the unsafe road condition that was to blame.

So I had my day in District Court. The police officer didn’t show up. The judge said that since there wasn’t any evidence against me, he declared me “Not Guilty” and dismissed the $100 fine. Vindicated!

I knew I was not guilty. At least I think I was. To tell the truth I was not sure how fast I was going, even though I know I was traveling under the speed limit. Perhaps it was a little too fast for the road conditions … But I shouldn’t have been issued a ticket. My conscience is clear…. I think. In any case the judge has spoken, and that settles it.

One thing I didn’t tell you is that I have a friend who is a judge. Not the judge of my case; my judge friend is a friend of this judge. When I explained my situation to my friend, he shared his expertise. He did not “fix it.” I would not have asked him to do that, but it doesn’t hurt to have a judge on your side.

“Our Daily Bread” recently printed a story about Ffyona Campbell, who was famous as the first woman to walk around the world. But the truth was she cheated. She had broken the guidelines of the Guinness Book of World Records by riding in a truck a short distance during the trip. To clear her conscience, she confessed her deception and forfeited the right to be listed in the record book.

The apostle Paul says that all people have “the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, their thoughts sometimes accusing or else excusing them.” Whether or not people believe in God or a divine moral code, each person has an inner moral compass that tells them right from wrong.

All of us are accused by our conscience sometimes for doing wrong. That is judgment.The Christian gospel provides a way to clear our conscience and have us declared “not guilty.” That is the power of the gospel. It is the power of inner peace that comes from a clear record.

Only one man in history has ever claimed to have the authority to judge the world and also the ability to free the guilty. Jesus said that he came to save the world and was returning one day to judge the world.

Either he was mistaken, or the early church got it wrong when they quoted him, or it is true. Personally I believe him. In any case, it is always good to have the judge as a friend. What a friend we have in Jesus!

Cold Weather Spirituality

2011-01-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

It is cold up here in the mountains! On Sunday afternoon we arrived at our new home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and were welcomed by an overnight low of about 18 degrees below zero. Some reports put it at 24 below; others said it was only 14 below. I don’t know exactly how cold it was, but it was cold enough.

We opened the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink and kept the water dripping on all the faucets just to make sure that the pipes didn’t freeze. The last time we lived here, we practiced this ritual in the parsonage whenever the mercury dipped below zero. If we didn’t, we would be waterless in the morning. The joys of country living!

Cold does something to me emotionally. It makes me cautious. I am more careful about where and how I drive, just in case I get stranded in the cold. I am careful how long I stay outside, how far I walk, and what I wear. I have been on the phone with the propane company making sure that I have enough propane in the tank. It is not the type of weather to run out of heating fuel. I have some wood for the woodstove, just in case.

The cold makes me very aware of my vulnerability and mortality. It makes me more prayerful. I prayed while driving here from Pennsylvania as the auto thermometer read below zero for hour after hour. I prayed for others on the road. When we arrived in New Hampshire, I prayed a prayer of thanks. When I woke up the next morning and found my pipes intact and the furnace running, I prayed another prayer of gratitude.

The cold makes me feel my dependence on God. I realize that if I lived here a couple of hundred years ago – back when my church here was founded – then the cold could have killed me. So could a myriad of diseases that are treatable now. When transportation was horse and wagon and not heated automobile, one risked one’s life to travel.

You could say that the cold is good for my soul. It makes me very thankful to God. It makes me grateful for what I have. It makes me more appreciative of friends. The cold fosters community. People here find occasions to get together for meals and fellowship. Cabin fever is a real malady up here. The cure is fellowship.

The cold also encourages fellowship with God. Not for everyone of course. It keeps many away from church rather than bringing them out. Many Yankees just hunker down at home and tough out the winter months. But the cold has the opposite effect on me. It melts my heart and softens my soul. It strengthens my spiritual bond with God and others.

Don’t get me wrong! I will be glad to see the spring come! I will be thanking God for the muddy roads. (Look for a blog on “mud season spirituality!”) But in the meantime I will practice the spiritual discipline of cold weather spirituality. They are predicting a low of 16 below zero this Sunday. Perfect worship weather!

______________________

Photo by Betsey L. Josselyn

Return of the Pastor

2011-01-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

After being a fulltime pastor for over thirty years, I took some time off to catch my breath and get my bearings. To tell the truth, I had gotten lost in the job.

Just yesterday I was telling my wife that I had given my heart to my last church, and somehow I lost my heart. The emotions swirling around the position of pastor, especially when denominational politics got involved, was more than I could take. I needed to step back for a while.

After 1½ years of true sabbatical, I am returning to fulltime ministry next month. I have already had a foretaste of it before I step foot on my parish turf. I am already a part of the joys and sorrows of my new congregation via telephone, Facebook, and email.

In his book, “Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile,” John Shelby Spong reflects on what it meant for him to go through the stages of professional Christian ministry – to be a university student, a seminary student, a pastor, and then a bishop. Regarding being a pastor he writes:

“One who has not walked in the shoes of the ordained pastor will never understand what it means to be wrapped in the images of antiquity, to be related to by others out of experience that you did not shape, to be loved and trusted far beyond any deserving on your part, and to be hated and feared beyond any cause to which you have contributed. People invest their lives in their designated spiritual leader, and the responsibility is awesome.”

Bishop Spong describes the experience of being a pastor well. It is a whirlwind of images and expectations over which the pastor has no control. It is certainly true that no one but a pastor can understand the pastor’s life … except the pastor’s spouse!

When you are a pastor you are not yourself. You are the projection of all the ideas and emotions that people have about clergy and church – both good and bad. Seldom do people really see you. They see who they think you are or who they want you to be. The danger is that you begin to see yourself the way that others see you.

In speaking about his role as a bishop, Spong goes on to say: “I discovered that I lived inside God-sized expectations that I could never fulfill, and simultaneously I recognized that no one else could deal with those realities but me….”

This reminds me of the plaque that a pastor got from his congregation for “Pastor Appreciation Month.” It read “Pastor: The reason that you mean so much to me is that when I look at you, it is Jesus whom I see.” After worship a little girl once shyly stared at me at the church steps and asked her mom, “Is that God?” Just for the record, I’m not God; I’m not even Jesus.

For more than a year, I have simply been me – sitting in a pew, preaching occasionally, writing a lot – enjoying being a husband, father, grandfather and friend. Soon I will be a pastor again.

This time I will try to remember who I am. Not the reflection I see in the faces of my parishioners, but the reflection I see in the depths of prayer. Just a sinful man, a wounded healer, trying to fulfill his God-given ministry the best I can.

In the Crosshairs

2011-01-14T08:53:00.000-05:00

The current national conversation about the Arizona shootings is getting bizarre. In a time when the country needs to be grieving and supporting those who grieve, the news media are on a witch-hunt. There is the assumption that someone must be to blame for this tragedy, and they are out to find him or her.

So they blame Sarah Palin! What? How does “targeting” a congressional district for an election victory have anything to do with a mass murder committed by a crazed gunman? I am not a Palin fan, but that is far-fetched by any standard.

Palin’s “blood libel” remark does not help anything; it amounts to accusing the media of anti-Semitism. Where did that come from? The fact that Congresswoman Giffords is Jewish makes this comment even more confusing.

Then the media blames the shooter’s family. They blame the lack of gun control laws in Arizona. They blame the mental health system. They blame the community college he was expelled from. The assumption is that someone must be at fault. Blame, blame, blame. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

As a Christian pastor I know something about guilt and blame. The history of Christianity is filled with it. I have seen preachers and churches manipulate people by guilt and blame. It doesn’t work; it just makes things worse.

The reality is that tragedies happen. People snap. Violence occurs. All the gun control laws and mental health evaluations in the world will not stop it. Some people are just crazy. Others are downright evil. Sin runs deep in the human heart.

We need to stop blaming others for everything that happens in this country. This goes for both right and left, Democrat and Republican. Shootings like this will happen. Violence is instinctive to the human animal.

We are violent by nature and sinners by choice. Our animal nature and our spiritual nature collude to ensure that that there will always be acts of violence. Ever since Cain killed Abel, man has been killing man. It can’t be bred, educated or legislated out of human nature.

What can we do about it? First, let’s not overreact. Let’s tone down the rhetoric – from the left and the right. Such vitriol is verbal violence that can only lead to more violence.

Second, preserve personal freedom at all cost. The gut reaction is to try to fix this situation somehow, and that fix is often assumed to be some form of new legislation or regulation. But the cure may be worse than the disease. Never give government the power to solve a problem when there is some other option; government intervention should be a last resort.

Third, let us examine ourselves. Why are we reacting the way we are to the shooting? What emotions does the crazed image of Jared Loughner evoke from the depths of our heart?

Let us examine our own anger, our own hatred, our own fears, and our own prejudices. Let the crosshairs settle onto our own soul. Then we may learn what is causing us to blame others.

Huckleberry Jesus

2011-01-11T08:36:00.001-05:00

You have likely heard about the new edition of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” After being banned from many school libraries, the classic is finally now becoming "sivilized." 127 years after first being published, Huck Finn is being edited for offensive language.

The revision is meant to eliminate certain unacceptable words, most notably the dreaded “N-word.” (I dare not even print it here, lest I be accused of insensitivity.) In spite of the fact that the racial slur is routinely used by African American youth and can be heard in music over the airwaves, it cannot be tolerated in American classrooms. The 219 uses of the “N-word” will now be changed to “slave.”

Huck’s Jim is not the only one getting an extreme makeover. Tom Sawyer’s “Injun Joe" is now "Indian Joe." (Why didn’t they go all the way and make him Native American Joe?) No longer is he a "half-breed;" he is now a "half-blood" (apparently so Harry Potter fans can understand it better.)

I am wondering if the Bible is next on the censors’ list. There is certainly much "hurtful" and "injurious” language and behavior in Scripture. On one occasion Jesus referred to Gentiles as dogs. On another occasion he accused Jews of being children of the devil.

In the Old Testament, God instructs the Hebrew armies to do what would be considered “war crimes” today. The Levitical laws of the Bible make the present–day enforcement of Islamic Sharia law look compassionate in comparison. The death penalty was routinely prescribed for what today would be considered personal preferences.

Any nation or regime that literally enforced the Torah would be instantly condemned for human rights violations. Mark Twain’s offenses against modern sensitivities pale in comparison to those of Holy Writ. Any of the so-called New Atheists can give you an exhaustive list of the moral offenses of Scripture and Scripture’s God.

I am not one to defend the morality of ancient Israelites of 3000 years ago or Christians of 2000 years ago. Nor do I feel the need to defend Biblical injunctions against their modern day critics. For the same reason I do not feel the need to defend the language of Mark Twain or censor American classics.

I do not have to like the vocabulary choices of Sam Clemens to appreciate his writings or the social message he was trying to convey. I do not have to advocate the death penalty for Sabbath-breakers or children who curse their parents to appreciate the principle behind the biblical laws.

Every work of literature is a product of its time. That is true of Christian scripture and American literature. Every author – whether 19^th century or first century – is a reflection of the culture in which he lived. The key to understanding scripture or literature is to be able to hear the message without getting sidetracked by the cultural language in which the message is communicated.

After interpreting the Bible publicly for 35 years, I can tell the difference between the medium and the message. That is an art that is not practiced in schools today. Instead educators feel the need to rewrite literature to accommodate the feelings of the delicate American psyche.

How long will it be before the Bible is rewritten? Look in your local Christian bookstore soon for the New PC Testament (Illustrated). It has a Jesus sanitized of all references to hell and judgment, and the gospel without the gory violence of the cross. It omits the whole Book of Revelation altogether! What remains is a picture of Christ as a glassy-eyed Sage, mouthing inoffensive platitudes and pleasantries.

As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

The Mystery of Grace

2011-01-10T08:59:00.000-05:00

Here is another excerpt from Thomas Merton’s “Thoughts in Solitude” and some of my thoughts on his thoughts. He is writing on the subject of “contemplative souls” finding God in prayer.

“And how do they find Him? By technique? There is no technique for finding Him. They find Him by His will. And His will, bringing them grace within and arranging their lives exteriorly, carries them infallibly to the precise place in which they can find Him. Even they do not know how they got there, or what they are really doing.”

When I was a young believer, the first teaching I gave to my college campus fellowship was on the topic of prayer. Specifically it was how to have one’s prayers answered. I did a quick tour of the relevant New Testament scriptures on answered prayer (assisted mightily by R. A. Torrey’s book “How to Pray”) and presented a foolproof method for having one’s prayers heard and answered by the Almighty.

Nearly forty years later I realized that I was the one proven to be the fool. There is no foolproof technique for answered prayer… or anything else in the spiritual life. In her book Traveling Mercies Anne Lamott writes: "Here are the two best prayers I know: ‘Help me, help me, help me’ and ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ I concur.

As I sat in the oral surgeon’s chair this week, I had time to pray … both before and during the surgery. In fact I had been praying for days leading up that endodontical encounter. My only technique was “Help me, help me, help me.” It was sufficient. Now I pray “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

It is all a matter of grace. I do not know why God found me and called me, especially when so many others do not seem to experience that sense of grace. I do not know why God keeps ahold of me in spite of all my wanderings. I do not know why he continues to preserve me and use me.

My only answer is that there is no answer. There is no answer to all the great “Why” questions we ask of God. The questions that arise in our souls during difficult times - such as pain, evil, injustice, and healing or lack of it - have no theological or philosophical resolution this side of eternity. The only answer I know – and it is more than sufficient for me - is the mystery of God’s grace.

To quote Anne Lamott again: “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Thoughts in Solitude

2011-01-03T09:46:00.000-05:00

I am reading through Thomas Merton's book "Thoughts in Solitude" and wanted to share this excerpt:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does, in fact, please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore, I will trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
___________________
Thomas Merton painting by Victor Hammer

Envelope Sermons

2011-01-02T11:54:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I found myself scribbling ideas for a sermon series on the back of a #10 envelope. I haven’t done that in well over a year. The envelope contained a fund-raising letter (unopened) from my seminary alma mater, so it seemed appropriate.

I start my new position as pastor of the Federated Church of Sandwich, New Hampshire, on February 1. I have been pondering how to start the pastorate homiletically. What will I preach? An introductory sermon is appropriate for my first Sunday, but what about after that?

I think I will preach on questions raised by the Apostles' Creed. The Presbyterian church we have been attending this past year recites it regularly. Saying it out loud has got me thinking about what it says … and doesn’t say.

This oldest of Christianity’s theological summaries covers the basics of the Christian faith, without getting too enmeshed in theological details. It seems like a good place to start my stint as theologian-in-residence in a small New England village.

This is an unusual choice of sermon topic for me. I am not a creedal kind of guy. Baptists have historically avoided creeds. In fact when the Northern Baptists officially formed in 1907, they voted to make the entire New Testament their denominational statement of faith, instead of the proposed New Hampshire Confession of Faith.

For me it is more important to experience God than to recite theologically correct formulae about God. But I know it is also necessary to think rationally about God. Our thoughts are – at best – human approximations of the divine mystery. But it is important to try to put our intuitive knowledge of the divine into some kind of understandable language, as imprecise as that endeavor is.

The Apostles’ Creed was written to answer questions being posed by the Christians of the first two centuries. We have similar questions. What are our answers today? Do the historic Christian answers still ring true? The questions I hear people asking - and which I ponder myself - are questions such as these:

Is there a God? Is religion relevant today? Who was Jesus and why does he matter now? Is Christianity fundamentally different than other religions or essentially the same? Who or what is Spirit? Is the institutional church obsolete? Is the concept of sin useful any longer? What really happens to us when we die?

So far I have come up with seven sermon titles for this series, which I have tentatively entitled “Questions of Faith.” They include “Does God exist?” “The Ghost of God” and “Guilt-free Christianity.” All titles and topics are, of course, subject to change. I will just have to find a bigger envelope. This one is getting kind of full.

The Evergreen Cross

2010-12-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

As soon as we arrived in Sandwich, New Hampshire, for the holidays we started decorating the house … even before we unpacked our bags. The borrowed 3-foot Christmas tree, which we brought with us from Pennsylvania, went up in minutes.

I located the window candles in a box in the garage and placed them on the windowsills. My wife, Jude, set up the olive wood nativity set, which we had purchased years ago from a carpenter’s shop on Milk Grotto Street in Bethlehem.

While we were in the midst of festive festooning, some friends came by with a gift – a beautiful evergreen wreath to place on the front door. I have been meditating on this wreath ever since.

It is not your typical circle of green; it is even better. Don’t get me wrong; I love traditional wreaths. The symbolism of the endless evergreen circle is a powerful statement of everlasting life. It was a symbol connected with the winter solstice in northern Europe long before the gospel came to that cold climate. It adapted well into Christianity.

But the wreath that now hangs on our door is in the shape of a cross. I must have seen such cruciform wreaths before, but I can’t recall when. I know I have never owned one.

A Christmas cross wreath is a powerful symbol. It combines the life symbolism of the evergreen with the death symbolism of the cross. Christ was born to die. We all are. As soon as we are born, we begin dying. That is the nature of life. All that is born must die.

There is a painting by an anonymous artist that depicts Jesus as a toddler crawling on the floor of his father’s carpenter’s shop. The child is playing with one of three large spikes as his body casts an image of a cross on the workshop floor. It is entitled “Destiny.”

Death was the destiny of the Bethlehem babe. So is life – eternal life. Death is our destiny … and so is life. The evergreen cross brings these disparate realities together in one image.

In Jesus the unborn is born. The immortal becomes mortal; the ageless ages. The all-knowing one “grows in wisdom and stature.” The impassive suffers, and the deathless dies. And death is swallowed up by life.

That is the message that hangs on my front door for all to see this holiday.

Apocalyptic Advent

2010-12-20T08:47:00.003-05:00

I have attended two churches during this Advent season. One was in Florida while visiting my in-laws in the Orlando area; the other was back home in Pennsylvania. In both locations the pastors were preaching a series of sermons on the Book of Revelation. Did I miss the memo? Is this the year when pastors are supposed to preach apocalyptic advent messages?

My hometown Presbyterian pastor was doing a series entitled “An Apocalyptic Advent.” on the symbolic account of Christ’s birth in the twelfth chapter of Revelation. It was an intriguing trilogy of sermons and thematically appropriate for the season.

The Southern Baptist pastor’s series in Florida was not so appropriate. The Sunday I heard him, he was preaching on the end-times tribulation. Thankfully I missed the previous sermon on the pre-tribulation rapture. But I had the misfortune of singing Christmas carols and then hearing a sermon on the hatefulness of God.

I hesitate even to get into it … okay I will. He talked about God (or was it Satan? It was hard to tell the difference in his sermon) putting AIDS in the water supply (Yep, he actually said that HIV can be transmitted through drinking water!) and the MRSA bacteria in the air. (Yep!) He said that both were designed by God as horrible deaths to punish evildoers for their sin. A nice Christmas sentiment. Ho, ho, ho.

I was almost ready to walk out when he started to identify the mark of the Beast. I had to stay for that. Most pastors aren’t so audacious as to claim such inside knowledge.

Accompanied by digital images projected on the overhead screen, he demonstrated how the Hebrew letter waw was the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Waw is equivalent to the English W, therefore 666=WWW, the World Wide Web. Yep! The internet is evil. I was waiting for him to identify Mark Zuckerberg as the Antichrist!

I almost crunched up my bulletin and threw it at the preacher. I thought of rolling it into a tube to use it as a megaphone to boo this ridiculous exegesis. My wife, who had been eying my increasing restlessness throughout the sermon, gave me the eyeball and I relented.

Anyway, this has got me thinking about the relationship of Advent to apocalypse. Advent is a wonderful time to contemplate apocalyptic images. During Advent, the malls, homes and churches are filled with symbols and colors. Like in Revelation, the colors and symbols have spiritual meaning.

Furthermore, Advent comes at both the beginning and the end of the year. December is the end of the secular calendar year and the beginning of the Christian calendar. The annual celebration of Christ’s first coming reminds us that time is growing short for his second coming.

As the apostle wrote: “Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” He is coming soon. Come, Lord Jesus! Merry Maranatha!

________________

Art is "The Crowned Virgin: A Vision of John" (Revelation 12:1-3), from the Bamberg Apocalypse, an 11th century richly illuminated manuscript.

Five Minutes With God

2010-12-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

Last week I finished reading Mitch Albom’s book, Have a Little Faith. In the epilogue he records a conversation he had with his hometown rabbi.

He was talking about heaven and suddenly, for some reason, I had a notion. What if you only get five minutes with God? “Five minutes?” he said. Five minutes, I said. God is a busy God. Here’s your slice of heaven. Five minutes alone with the Lord and then, poof, on you go to whatever happens next. “And in those five minutes?” he asked, intrigued. In those five minutes, you can ask anything you want.

You will have to read the book for yourself to see how the rabbi answered the question. It is quite a good answer, by the way. The whole book is definitely worth reading; I recommend it. But for the last few days I have been pondering how I would answer the question.

Would I ask God the big theodical questions about suffering and evil? Would I intervene for loved ones? Would I pose the prayer of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and say a prayer for world peace? What would I do with my five minutes with God?

After some thought I have decided that I would simply enjoy the company. If all I got were five minutes, I would not waste them on my own questions and concerns. I don’t need to understand how suffering and evil works into God’s plan for the universe. I trust that God knows how it all fits together; that is good enough for me.

I don’t have to worry about my loved ones. They are in God’s good hands. Neither do I have to intercede for world peace or plead for an end to world hunger. No one cares about these issues more than the Lord. To bring such concerns to God is a waste of precious minutes.

So how would I spend my five minutes? I would praise Him. I would express my love for Him. I would enjoy His undivided attention for five minutes. As the old gospel hymn says, “That would be glory …… be glory for me.” I would lose myself in God’s glory, love and grace. Five minutes spent like that would feel like an eternity.

I would spend my five minutes with God much like I spend most of my “quiet time” with God each day. I kneel in his presence and bow in awe. I also do my share of confession, petition and intercession. But as I pray those types of prayers, I always feel like they are somewhat unnecessary. God knows what I need - and what others need - before I ask.

God knows the concerns and thankfulness of my heart. It is still important to express my needs and thanks, but I do not have to use many words doing so. As Jesus taught, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Most of my prayer time with God is wordlessly opening my heart to joy, awe, and wonder. When I am with God, time stops. Five minutes in God’s presence is an eternity. It is more than enough.

By the way, in the book the rabbi gives away three of his five minutes to those who need them more. You will have to read the book – or at least the epilogue – to see how he uses the other two minutes. (You can read the epilogue for free with the “Search Inside” feature at Amazon: Have a Little Faith: A True Story)

But in the meantime take five minutes now to ask yourself, “How would I spend my five minutes with God?”

Need To Preach

2010-12-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday after worship several people came up to me and expressed gladness … and sorrow … that I was planning to take a church in New Hampshire. They were sorry to see us move away, but happy that I was getting back into the pulpit. “You need to preach,” one woman said to me in the middle of a hug. Those words have been echoing in my heart.

It is true. I need to preach. It is not a unique experience. The apostle Paul said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” The prophet Jeremiah said, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

Do not misunderstand me. I have enjoyed not preaching during these fifteen months of mini-retirement. When it comes time for me to really retire, I will embrace it without regret. During this extended sabbatical we have enjoyed traveling, relaxing, and spending time with family and friends.

I have even enjoyed sitting in a pew and hearing someone else preach. I have been blessed to be part of a great church with a great preacher for the past year. I have heard a lot of bad preachers in my time. In fact on a recent visit to Florida, it took all of my willpower not to walk out of a horrible sermon. But the pastor at “our church” is good. He is the age of my eldest son, yet he has wisdom beyond his years.

I have enjoyed writing this blog and a book (unfinished but not forgotten.) I have read widely in controversial areas. I have had freedom in the Spirit to express emotions and explore new ideas - ideas that would have been self-censured if I had to second-guess how a congregation might receive my words. It has opened up new spiritual vistas for me.

But I need to get back into the pulpit. It is what I do. Strangely enough I also need to shepherd people. I missed church people. I did not miss the innumerable endless meetings. Neither did I miss the bickering and pettiness of church life. But I missed the intimacy of sharing deep times – crises, illnesses, deaths, joys, births, and weddings – with sinner-saints.

I missed talking openly and frequently about spiritual matters. Unless you are a pastor you can’t invite yourself to someone’s home and then ask pointedly, “So how is your spiritual life?” It would be considered presumptuous. But it is okay if your pastor asks that question.

I missed interaction with children and elders. I missed riding the heartbeat of a spiritual community. I missed the camaraderie of other pastors struggling to balance the expectations and responsibilities of the pastorate.

I missed the richness of pastoral ministry. Back when I was a seminarian I had a decision to make after I got my Master of Divinity degree: preach or teach. I decided I would teach. I entered the Ph.D. program with a plan was to teach in a college or seminary.

Then I had second thoughts. I felt like I needed to explore pastoral ministry first. So I took a church … just for a few years. But like Frost said, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” I did not fully realize it at the time, but I had permanently left academia for the pastorate. Thirty-four years later, I am not sorry. I need to preach.

__________________________

Art is “Saint Paul Preaching in Athens,” Raphael 1515-1516

The Pepsi Defense

2010-12-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

Recently a local man was arrested for assaulting his mother. That is nothing new. Petty crime is a commonplace around here. The highlight of our local newspaper, the Beaver County Times, is Mugshot Monday, where the photos of all those admitted to the Beaver County jail in the past week are displayed.

Recently David Huffman, 33, of New Sewickley Township was charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and harassment of his 68-year-old mother. The mother suffered a fractured wrist in the incident.

The interesting aspect of this story is his excuse. Huffman told police that it wasn’t his fault: the Pepsi machine at Costco made him do it. I have a feeling he had been imbibing something a little stronger than Pepsi that evening. And he didn’t get it from a vending machine.

It illustrates the victim mentality that is prevalent these days. It is never our fault. Pepsi made Huffman do it. It is reminiscent of the famous “Twinkie Defense” used in the trial of Dan White in 1979. White’s attorney argued that junk food deranged his client to the point that he was compelled to murder San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone.

A couple of Sundays ago God made Buffalo Bills receiver Steve Johnson missed four passes. At least that is what he angrily tweeted that night. There is no shortage of other scapegoats. Our parental upbringing made us what we are. Racism, sexism, homophobia or some other cultural bias have caused our problems.

I just read the story of a man who inherited $14 million and was broke in ten years. He was angry. He said it wasn’t his fault. He blamed it on bad financial advice. Right! They made him buy all those houses and vehicles!

The classic theological formulation of this attitude is “The devil made me do it.” If it is not the external devil, it is the internal one - our “sinful nature” or “the flesh.”

The apostle Paul writes: “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Human freedom and responsibility are tricky concepts. There are powerful forces that influence and limit our freedom, but ultimately our actions are always our responsibility. Though we may be “slaves to sin,” we are still accountable to God. Ultimately there is no defense for our sin – carbonated or otherwise.

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Tweeting God

2010-12-02T10:44:00.000-05:00

Buffalo Bills Wide Receiver Stevie Johnson missed four passes during Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, including what would have been the game-wining touchdown in overtime. Late Sunday night he launched a tirade at God via Twitter for letting him down. He tweeted, “I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS IS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!!!!”

Hmmm… This is disturbing in so many ways. First is the idea that you can communicate with God by Twitter. Does God tweet? Is this God’s new mode of revelation in this electronic age?

The second troubling idea is that God is responsible for our mistakes. Where does human responsibility kick in? Does God really compensate for our lack of athletic coordination? I guess if athletes can credit God for touchdowns by pointing to the heavens, then it follows that they can discredit God when the ball falls short of the goal line.

A third disturbing thing is that this man thinks he has the right to yell at the Almighty when things don’t work out as he thinks they should. If God is really the type of God Johnson thinks he is, then if I were Johnson I would be watching the sky for lightning bolts.

A more fundamental assumption behind Johnson’s tweet is the idea that the spiritual life is a deal made with the Almighty. We agree to praise Him 24/7 and in return he will make us successful in whatever we attempt. If we aren’t successful, then God has dropped the ball – literally and figuratively. Our failures become God’s fault, and we have the right to berate him loudly, angrily and publicly.

This is the arrogance of the “prosperity gospel,” which sees a direct relationship between righteousness and worldly success. If God really does micromanage the universe, including intervening in football games on behalf of his servants, then we ought to observe a direct correlation between righteousness and Super Bowl victories. I don’t see it.

Stevie Johnson’s tweet may seem crude, but it is the unspoken sentiment of many people’s souls. They just don’t make the complaint so publicly. They voice it quietly to their pastor in a hospital waiting room or even more privately in agonizing prayer.

As a pastor I have heard many people say that God has let them down – usually in the form of unanswered prayer, tragic death, or serious illness. Too many people say that is the reason they will have nothing more to do with church or religion.

It is a serious issue – serious enough for the Bible to have a whole book – the Book of Job – dedicated to the exploration of the topic. In the end there is no good answer – no tweet from heaven. No neat explanation for why bad things – things much worse than incomplete passes –happen to people.

In the end we can go no further than Job. For forty chapters Job yells at God, but in the end he shuts his mouth and repents. Not because he has received a satisfactory answer to his complaint, but because he has met God, who has some questions of his own for Job. In the presence of the One who knows all, no answer is necessary.

View from the Fence

2010-12-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

I love reading scripture. Not just Christian scriptures – although I love those most – but also other religions’ scriptures. After all, the word “scripture” just means “writings,” much like the word “bible” literally means “book.” But these words are commonly used to refer to the most ancient and sacred writings of a culture.

Anyway, I am starting to read the Upanishads again, some of the most revered texts of ancient India. The Isha Upanishad says, “In dark night live those for whom the world without alone is real; in night darker still, for whom the world within alone is real…. In dark night live those for whom the Lord is transcendent only; in night darker still, for whom he is immanent only.”

It seems like religious folks are always making one of those two mistakes. We tend to gravitate to the extremes – inner or outer world, transcendent or immanent. The West tends toward the outer and transcendent; the East tends toward the inner and immanent. And as Kipling reminded us, “never the twain shall meet.”

I have likewise lived at the edges. As I look at my spiritual pilgrimage, I have not held one changeless theology. I have moved within a range of theologies. One decade I embrace transcendence, another decade immanence. One season of life I am more conservative, another more liberal.

Consequently I have friends on both sides of the theological divide. I never sat on the fence. I always passionately believed in the values of whatever side I was on. But now I see truth more like a balance of extremes. I have crossed the fence so often that the fence feels more familiar than either side.

Maybe I have just grown weary of the trips from one end of the playing field to the other. Perhaps my heart has stretched some in the process – like the Grinch whose “small heart grew three sizes that day.” I find that can hold hands with those on either side of the fence without much strain.

The differences between the extremes feel more like harmony than contradiction. It is creative tension rather than conflict. I also can see more clearly from here on the fence. There is more light here. The light shines from both directions as well as overhead. The extremes look so very dark from here. I did not realize how dark they were until I stopped moving.

Here on the fence paradox is enlivening. Conundrums are comforting. Words are signposts directing the hearer toward truth rather than bearers of truth. The divine is real presence instead of a distant figure from the scriptural past or a theological weapon used to pummel your opponent.

From the fence it all seems so simple. The fence is not meant to keep the sides apart. It is a meeting place where opposites reconcile, where enemies become friends, where two becomes one. Call me a fence sitter, if you want. I will be here to greet you when you become tired of the extremes.

Truth or Metaphor?

2010-11-27T09:08:00.001-05:00

At an interview for a pastoral position recently I was asked about my interpretation of the Bible. The question was: “Is the Bible true or metaphorical?” It is a great question, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

The short answer I gave at the time was “Yes.” The long answer I gave was that it mattered what was meant by the word “true” and what part of the Bible is being interpreted.

When Jesus said he was the bread of life, he was not saying he was composed of wheat and yeast. When he said he was the door, he was not saying he was made of wood and hinges. When he told the parable of the Good Samaritan, he may or may not have had a real event in mind. In any case it didn’t matter; he was trying to make a spiritual point not quoting a police report.

Pilate asked Jesus, “What is Truth?” For me truth is seldom either/or; it is usually both/and. Facts are true. So are metaphors, symbols and myths. They just communicate truth in different ways.

Does it really matter how truth is communicated? Does it matter if your dinner is served on a paper plate or fine china? I guess for some it does. But for me the food is what is important, not the delivery system.

Is history true? Yes and no. Any historian will tell you that there is no such thing as pure historical fact. It is all a matter of perspective and interpretation. The same event can be viewed from various perspectives. No one sees the same historical event exactly the same.

That is why there are four gospels in the New Testament and four different accounts of what happened at the Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. Which one is true? The church has confidently proclaimed that all four are true, even though there is no way that the details can be honestly reconciled with one another.

Myths are true. Myth is truth that cannot be stated in historical or theological terms. Allegories and metaphors are true. The Bible has both. Everyone acknowledges that. It is just a matter of which passages you interpret historically and which you interpret symbolically and metaphorically.

In an ultimate sense all theological truth is metaphorical because all talk about God is approximation. Nothing we say about God is true in an ultimate sense. All theological language points to the God that is beyond the ability of our language to describe or our minds to comprehend.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” Ultimate Truth is beyond us. As Jack Nicholson said in "A Few Good Men," "You can't handle the truth!" The best we can do is utter earthly truths that point in the direction of Ultimate Truth. Anything more is mistaking the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself.

Truth is metaphor. Myth, allegory and symbol are truth. But most importantly, truth is incarnation. Truth is best communicated in human form. That is why God became enfleshed in Jesus Christ. That is why the church is said to be the Body of Christ. That is the truth – no matter how you interpret it.

Selfless Self

2010-11-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

On a recent car trip from New Hampshire to western Pennsylvania I had time to think. I don’t like to listen to the radio, and we did not bring any CDs. We did some reading. My wife Jude read aloud our morning devotions and some of the newspaper (the section on the new Harry Potter film). Later I silently read the rest of the paper.

But mostly we talked or enjoyed silence. For a couple of hours, while my wife listened to Christian music on her iPod, I enjoyed some philosophical reflection. Because I am basically a selfish person I thought about myself – or more exactly my self.

There are many qualities associated with self. There is self-centeredness, self-esteem, self-employment and self-actualization. There is self-justification, self-involvement and self-knowledge. There is self-love and self-loathing, self-conceit, self-importance and self-satisfaction.

There is even a magazine entitled Self, which can be found on self.com. It seems I am not the only person interested in my self.

I find the words “selfish” and “selfless” interesting. Think about the literal meaning of these words. Selfish is about the self. A stylish person has style; a selfish person has self. A selfless person literally has less self. Does that imply that Jesus, the perfectly selfless person, had no self? If he was full of God, perhaps there was no room for self.

In Buddhism the self is seen as illusory - the doctrine of “no-self.” They say there is no one home in this body and mind. The self is just a fleeting constellation of thoughts and feelings that we mistake for an enduring entity.

In Hinduism there are two selves - the little individual self and the “capital S” Self. The big Self swallows the little self like the sea swallows a drop of water. This cosmic Self is understood as our true identity. The spiritual life is waking up to that Self-knowledge.

Christianity never developed the idea of a divine Self masquerading as little individual selves. Instead we are real little selves created in the image of the Other Self who is clearly not ourselves.

The selves can have communion and (in Christian mysticism) union with God. But it is a costly union – both to God and man. The Cross is the self crucified, so that the risen Christ who knows Himself as God’s very Self, may live.

By faith we share Christ’s selfless death and Self-ful (is that a word?) resurrection. We live in Christ, and Christ lives in us. We are the body of Christ. “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

Me? Well, my self is still selfish. My selflessness appears only for brief visits. But as I peer into the depths of myself, I see the Holy Spirit indwelling my spirit. God is the selfless Self at the heart of my self. And as Augustine said, “My heart is restless, O God, until it rests in Thee.”

Let Them Eat Bark

2010-11-22T08:20:00.000-05:00

I was reading a story today about Ho rim Ahn, a 14-year-old boy, who is one of the 2900 North Koreans who defected to South Korea in the past year. Somehow these refugees find a way out of their repressive land and into the somewhat less repressive country of China. From there they make their way into a third country and eventually into South Korea where they are granted citizenship.

This boy remarked that his new life in democratic South Korea was much better than his communist homeland. “I feel stronger now. I eat eggs and meat. I no longer have to eat bark,” he said. He was referring to the starvation that the population in his former land is enduring.

The story prompted many emotions in me. One is compassion for him and his countrymen. I will never forget hearing Soon Ok Lee speak a few years ago about her experience in a North Korean prison. Her book “Eyes of the Tailless Animals” is one of the few books that have made me cry. I do not understand why there is not continual outrage at this brutal regime.

It also made me think of the many Americans who do not have enough to eat. They may not be eating bark, but a lot of Americans will not be eating turkey either this holiday season. Charities are suffering a shortage of funds this year that is making the traditional turkey dinner harder to offer to those in need.

The story led me to think of spiritual bark. There is great spiritual hunger in our land, but the hungry often have only bark to eat. It is a depressing experience to go into a Christian bookstore these days. I remember when religious bookstores actually sold books – biblical commentaries, devotional classics, and theological tomes.

Now I go into one of the Christian chain stores and I am bombarded with shelves full of religious trinkets. I go a little deeper into the store and find music. If I go far enough into the back of the store I will find some books, but they are generally thin volumes by religious celebrities.

Further in are shelves of fluffy “practical” books with catchy titles, and rows of Christian fiction. I have read some of them. They taste like bark and have the same nutritional value. If I am lucky I will locate a small section of old classics.

I know there are good books being written today. I buy them online, but they are not in bookstores. It is not the retailers’ fault. There is no demand for them. People prefer junk food – physically and spiritually.

But the most nutritional spiritual food does not come in books at all. It comes directly from the Source. All we have to do is turn our attention inward or outward to the immanent and transcendent God. This God surrounds us in the cosmos and dwells within us as part of the cosmos. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

This God was incarnated in Jesus, who said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus calls this “true food” and “true drink.”

This is the same nourishment that we experience when gazing at the billion galaxies in the heavens. The awe we feel is the sigh of a well-nourished soul. I invite you to eat your fill. It is so much better than bark.

UnderGod

2010-11-17T08:18:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently ruled that New Hampshire schoolchildren will still be allowed to say the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Whew! Now I can sleep at night!

The court decision resolves a challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of two atheist and agnostic parents, whose three children were attending New Hampshire's public schools.

The judges ruled that the pledge was constitutional because it is clearly a patriotic act and not a religious act, in spite of the words “under God” in the text.

I am a supporter of both the Pledge and the inclusion of the words that refer to the God of the nations. I am both patriotic and religious. But I don’t think the Pledge of Allegiance really does much to instill faith in God.

If anything, it seems to serve as an inoculation against real faith. The words proclaim that the nation is under God, but the message communicated is that God is a footnote to the flag. The God of civil religion is an “underGod” type of Deity. I wish that God stirred as much passion and sacrifice in the pledgers as does the nation under Him.

Last week I attended the Veteran’s Day parade in our county seat. I was impressed by the hoards of soldiers – old and new – as well as the hundreds of people who lined the streets to pay them respect. The bulging ranks of the Junior ROTC really surprised me.

The ranks of soldier wannabes swarmed with young recruits. I wondered if they really knew what they are getting into, with two wars going on and terrorism waxing around the world.

I guess I have seen too much of the cost of war – things like the traumatic effects of PTSD and crippling combat injuries. But still - the fact that these kids are willing to risk life and limb for their nation stirs me. I wish that the church inspired such sacrifice and courage.

Is the Christian cause any less important? Of course not! In fact it is far more important! I would say it is infinitely more important. If forced to choose between God and country I would choose God without a blink of the eye. Nations rise and fall; God is eternal.

Then why are teens lining up at the recruiting office yet walking away from the church? What does that say about the way the gospel is being presented – or (God forbid) the message of the gospel itself? What does it say about the priorities of our nation?

I am glad that children can still publicly profess that America is “one nation under God” in the classroom. But I wish that the hearts of these school children were pledged to the one God more than to the one nation under God.

Disappointed in Humanists

2010-11-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

A new advertising campaign by the American Humanist Association has just begun - just in time for the holidays. It is called “Consider Humanism.” You can find out about it on their website: Consider Humanism.

The campaign includes a recent spot on NBC Dateline and print ads in major newspapers like USA Today, the Seattle Times, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the San Francisco Chronicle. AHA director Roy Speckhardt said the campaign hopes to recruit people to join his organization instead of a church.

I have been greatly enjoying reading Humanist and New Atheist writings in recent months. They have challenged me to discard old religious idols. As Greg Epstein, the Humanist chaplain at Harvard, would say, “Thank God for atheists.”

So when I first heard about this campaign I was looking forward to some intelligent public discourse on important philosophical issues. What I got was trash talk reminiscent of the dirty political ads that ran during the recent midterm elections.

This Humanist campaign is not worthy of the authors I have been reading. It takes the worst passages from the Bible and the Quran concerning topics like women, slavery and genocide - quotes that promote violence and intolerance - and juxtapose them with the best of Humanist quotations. (See examples on their website.)

Sorry, that is not fair. I could do the same thing on the other side. I could find terrible, hateful quotes by atheists and contrast them with wonderful passages about love and tolerance in the Bible. I could quote Marquis de Sade on women and Nietzsche on race, and contrast them with progressive Christian theologians.

It is not hard to find passages that make atheists look like a bunch of bigots. But what would that accomplish? Such prooftexting – whether Christian or Humanist – proves nothing.

Come on, Humanists! You don’t want to play the same type of propaganda campaign that the so many fundamentalist apologists play. You can do better. I know you can. I have been reading some good stuff by you guys - books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Greg Epstein. Why retreat to philosophical mudslinging?

Take the best of religious quotes from the Bible and the best of Humanist thought. Compare apples to apples. Fight fair, and then see who wins.

I love hearing intelligent atheists do battle with intelligent Christians. This Humanist campaign is meant only to stir emotion and attract the ignorant. If you Humanists want the hatemongers in your organization, please take them. But you will be sorry. Anti-religious bigotry can easily degenerate into violence against holy places and persecution against religious people. Just look at Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and Communist North Korea.

Forget the potshots. Pull the ads. Let’s have some respectful dialogue. That would be more worthy of Humanism.

Older Than Dirt

2010-11-04T08:55:00.002-04:00

Recently I have been pondering my true age. Not my brief human span of sixty years; I mean my real age. In reality I am roughly 13.7 billion years old. I can’t remember exactly. That is pretty old. I am older than dirt.

The oldest rocks on the earth are about 3.9 billion years old by several dating methods. (That is my undergraduate geology major coming through.) The oldest sedimentary rocks include minerals that are 4.2 billion years, just a little younger than the earth itself, which is 4.5 billion years.

Every molecule in my body comes from the earth. The Bible is right when it says that humans were formed from the ground. It is no accident that the Hebrew word for human being is the masculine form of the word for ground or earth. As scripture says, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

But I am older than the dust. The earth itself emerged from our forming galaxy, which came from still older beginnings. The elements that make up my body were made in a star astronomers call a Red Giant. I am literally stardust, a fact that I was beautifully and spiritually reminded of recently in a song called “My Soul” by Peter Mayer.

That gives me an entirely different perspective on life. I am not a being that “came into” the world at birth. I am not a creature who lives “on earth” and will one day “depart” this earth at death.

My body came from the earth. My personality was formed from the genetic code of my ancestors coupled with social conditioning. Both are unique creative expressions of God. One day both body and psyche will return to their origins. As Solomon wisely said, “For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

I am physically of the earth, but I also share the life of God. That is the meaning of eternal life. That is the life of the eternal Christ, “who was God and was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. “

Christ is my past, my present and my future. Christ is my resurrection. Christ is my hope and confidence. So the next time someone asks me how old I am, I will respond, “Older than dirt.” And see where that conversation takes us. Hopefully it will take us on a journey to our origins.

As the skyward poet says, “And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod / The high untrespassed sanctity of space, / Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

__________________

Image is the Eskimo Nebula taken by the Hubble telescope

After Hereafter

2010-11-02T09:25:00.000-04:00

It was a cold, gray, drizzly day. So we decided to take in a movie. We (meaning I) chose to see Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Hereafter.” It was not the most exciting film I have ever seen. Reviewers describe it as “meditative” and “contemplative.” I just found it slow.

I usually enjoy films that deal with spiritual or religious issues in a serious manner; there are so few of them. But this film made an important topic boring. The subject of the film – for those of you who have not seen the film or the previews – is the afterlife.

One of the main characters, a journalist named Marie LeLay (played by Cécile De France) gives voice to the central theme the film. She asks her boyfriend, “What do you think happens when we die?" Her atheist boyfriend says that nothing happens, just a black void.

Religious answers are given cameo roles. A boy looking for answers about the fate of his dead twin views a YouTube video of a Muslim talking about the afterlife. He is the stereotypical jidadist, frightening and fanatical. So much for Islam.

He then watches a Christian preacher on YouTube who assures the listener that "if you believe in Christ, you have nothing to fear." The boy shakes his head in disbelief. In this manner the gospel is summarily dismissed.

Mediums are pictured as charlatans. New Agers are shown as silly, and atheists are portrayed as intellectual snobs. So who has the answer to the hereafter? Not the main character, an authentic psychic played by Matt Damon. Though he can speak with the dead, when asked about the afterlife he repeatedly says, “I don't know."

There are frequent visions of the hereafter – which is pictured as a blurry place with fuzzy light populated by shadowy figures waiting around to talk to the living. It reminds me of the Old Testament Sheol and the Greek Hades.

A dead boy’s spirit speaks about feeling weightless and boundless, and tells his brother (through the medium of Matt Damon) that the afterlife is “pretty cool.” That is about as exciting as the hereafter gets in the film.

After the closing credits began to roll, a pair of young men hurried down our row, eager to exit the theatre. As the first one passed, he looked down at me and remarked, “That was the stupidest movie I ever saw!” I wouldn’t go that far. I have seen stupider movies, like “Dumb and Dumber” for example. But, of course, that movie was not trying to appear profound.

This film shows just how shallow the American concept of the afterlife is. Often when I have talked to people about their understanding of heaven, they make it all about them. They are reunited with loved ones, retired to mansions in the sky, and eternally enjoying themselves with their favorite pastimes.

I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the hereafter any more than anyone else does. But I know what the Bible says. Furthermore I know better than to take it too literally. One thing I am pretty sure of – the hereafter will not be boring or fuzzy.

Furthermore it will not be about me. My self - if I will even have one - will be swallowed up by the glory and presence of God. As the apostle says, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Hole in My Soul

2010-10-28T08:43:00.000-04:00

Krista Tippett (of NPR’s Speaking of Faith, now called Being) is moderating a discussion at the New York Academy of Sciences in December entitled "Perspectives on the Self." The first session is called; "To Be or Not to Be: The Self as Illusion." That might seem like esoterica to most folks, but it is right up my alley.

What is the soul? What is the self? And how is the immaterial aspect of humans related to the physical. It is the old body-soul debate in new clothing.

After building the Jerusalem temple Solomon stood back and wondered what he had been thinking when he started the project. "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built?” Solomon knew that it is impossible. His temple project was a failed concept.

It is said that God dwelled in the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, especially the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant. How can this be? How can the infinite inhabit the finite? How can the immaterial indwell the material? How can the spaceless be in a contained space?

If this is true of religious temples, is it not also true of the human body and soul? How can a soul or spirit inhabit a body? The apostle Paul complicates matters by talking about “spiritual bodies” at the resurrection. What the heck are those? It is like speaking of square circles.

The first time I heard Norah Jones’ song “Creepin In,” I thought she was singing, “There's a big ol' hole that goes right through my soul.” (Actually she says “sole” – as in shoe leather - but I heard “soul.”) I perceive a hole in my soul – a big ol’ hole – and it seems like it is getting bigger all the time, and eternity is creepin in.

The hole is now big enough for me to see through. It is like a built-in Hubble telescope peering into the depths of space. Through this hole in my soul I glimpse the universe and its Creator. It is like one of those wizardly tents in the Harry Potter novels. It appears small on the outside, but when you step inside it is enormous. My soul feels boundless when I step inside.

I am getting much too esoteric here. But my point is important – at least to me. What is the essence of a human being? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience." Furthermore, what does this say about the Incarnation – God becoming flesh in Jesus Christ?

Anyway, here I am pondering my holey soul and the holy God. As I look into the depths I do not see anything that appears to be me. All I see is what is not-me. Where did I go? Perhaps I slipped through that widening hole in my soul.
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Image is “The Flame Pierced a Hole through My Soul” by Esther Alinejad. Stoneware, wire, bone ash, and cayenne Pepper.

What to say at the Pearly Gates

2010-10-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

If a street evangelist should ask you if you are saved, just answer, “No, and neither are you.” (That is sure to spark an interesting conversation.) The truth is that you are not saved, and neither is the imaginary street preacher. Nor am I. By this I mean that the “I” and the “you” cannot be saved. The “I” and the “you” are what must be lost in order to be saved.

One of the most pervasive misunderstandings concerning the Kingdom of God is that it is populated by little “I”s and “you”s - little “me”s that possess private mansions in the sky in which to store “my” heavenly treasures. The mansion is our Father’s house, and he is our treasure.

There are no “I”s and “you”s in heaven. That would be hell. I can imagine nothing worse than living with this ego of mine for all eternity. I am sick and tired of it already; I cannot wait to shed it!

When one is “born again” (to use another misunderstood concept) the “I” dies in order for eternal life to be gained. “I” and “you” cannot inherit eternal life, any more than flesh and blood can. Only God has eternal life. We only share in it when we are God’s. Salvation is not something that we possess; it is something – or more accurately Someone – who possesses us.

Jesus said that you have to lose your life to gain it, and that you have to lose your soul to save it. The apostle Paul described this condition as being “in Christ.” There is no room for “I” and “you” in Christ. “Christ is all in all.” To be in Christ you have to leave yourself outside. Paul explained, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Picture the clichéd Pearly Gates and Saint Pete standing guard – just like in all those newspaper cartoons. You come knocking on the iridescent portal. The apostolic voice asks, “Who’s there?” If this should happen to you, the correct answer is “No one.” Then he will say, “Right answer! Enter into the joy of your Master!”

If Saint Peter were to ask you why you should be allowed into heaven, the proper answer is “I shouldn’t.” Not just because of your unworthiness (which is certainly true) but more importantly because “I”s and “you”s are not allowed in heaven. They must be left outside, like shoes left at the threshold of a mosque.

There are times on earth when we experience this selflessness. There are moments when the boundaries of the self blur and the soul dissolves. At those times we see that the Kingdom of God is not “up there” or “in the future.” We are in the midst of it here and now… when our eyes are open.

It is the unself that is saved. That which is not-you is what survives the dissolution of our mortal frames. Don’t worry; you won’t miss yourself. The self was never yours to begin with. It is just personal baggage that we have picked up along way to help navigate our earthly lives. You will be glad to set down both your body and your self at death.

Then who will we be, if we are not ourselves? We will be the image of God as we were originally created to be. We are mirrors held up to the Eternal One. When he looks at us standing at the gate, he sees the reflection of his Son. Then he will exclaim, “Welcome home, son!” When you hear those words, just say, “Thanks, Dad. It is good to be home.”

What I Learned From the New Atheists

2010-10-23T09:13:00.001-04:00

I have been reading books by atheists for months. I have been reading the so-called New Atheists – men like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. I have been rereading some of the “old atheists” like Bertrand Russell and Sigmund Freud. I read the Harvard humanist Greg Epstein and the atheist turned theist Antony Flew.

The most interesting book I read was “Why I Became an Atheist” by former evangelical pastor, John Loftus. The most disturbing was “Bible Stories Your Parents Never Taught You” by Mike Earl. If you want your understanding of Scripture challenged, listen to this free audiobook.

Why have I delved into atheism so thoroughly? I did not do it to gather apologetic ammunition for use against atheists. I did not do it to assure myself that I was right and they were wrong. I did it for the sake of truth – to see if perhaps I had been wrong after all.

My doctor insists I get a complete physical examination every year. But I had not undergone a complete spiritual examination in decades. This was a complete examination, including the spiritual equivalents of a prostate exam and colonoscopy, and it was just as pleasant.

At sixty I am not the same man – physically or spiritually – as I was when I became a Christian at age 22. It was time to make sure that the faith I embraced as a young man still rang true to the older man I had become. If God were really nothing more than an imaginary friend, I did not want to waste any more time with the fantasy.

I wanted to find out if the atheists were right, if I had indeed believed an illusion (as Freud calls religion) or a delusion (as Richard Dawkins calls theism.) I wanted to examine my beliefs as critically as possible and see if they passed the test. I wanted to challenge my faith in the light of science, history, and reason as honestly and thoroughly as possible.

In the process I had to come face to face with the terrible things that Christians have done and taught in the name of Christ. I also had to confront the pervasive violence in the Bible done by God’s people at the command of God. I had to look carefully at the doctrine of hell and the question of theodicy. (Why is there suffering and evil in the world?)

I reasoned through the philosophical arguments for God’s existence. I reevaluated the Christian doctrine of creation in light of modern science. I revisited the issues of miracles and prayer. In short, I examined every aspect of Christianity from the perspective of skepticism.

This spiritual exam was painful. It was humbling. In a sermon entitled “Thank God for the New Atheists” Michael Dowd argues that the New Atheists are playing the role of prophets to the Church, much like the Hebrew prophets did for Israel. I think he might be onto something. God may be using those outside the church to speak hard truth to the church. At least they spoke hard truth to me.

I have come through my spiritual self-examination as a changed man, but a stronger Christian. I know that was not the intent of the atheists. They are trying to convince their readers that there is no evidence for belief in God, much less faith in Jesus Christ.

What I learned from the atheists was that unexamined faith is not worth living (to reword Socrates’ famous quote.) Christians can to do better than wear cultural and intellectual blinders and mindlessly parrot the pronouncements of religious authorities. If the gospel is to be taken seriously by thinking people, then we Christians need to do some serious thinking ourselves.

The reason the American church is so theologically, spiritually and morally weak is because we have an uncritical faith. We believe before we think, and often do not think at all. What is needed is an intelligent faith that has thought through the serious questions being asked today.

What did I learn from atheists? I learned how important it is to question my assumptions, and to doubt everything I hear or read. I learned to sift fact from fantasy. In the end I know that God is real, Jesus is Lord, and that the Christianity is a reasonable faith … for those who use reason faithfully.
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Image includes New Atheists, from left to right: Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Polly Toynbee, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Martin Amis

Relax & Enjoy Life

2010-10-20T08:28:00.000-04:00

There is a religious war raging in the British Isles. Not between Catholics and Protestants, or between Muslims and Christians. This is between atheists and Christians. The British Humanist Association has been running an Atheist Bus Campaign for almost two years.

It is designed as a response to the “Jesus Said” ads, which feature a series of verses spoken by Jesus. They include banners that read, “JESUS said, “I am the resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me shall live.” www.JESUSsaid.org.

Atheists reacted with their own ads. All across the United Kingdom, buses have advertisements that bear the slogan, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” In a further response the Christian Party ran counter-ads that read, “There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life.”

Both the atheist ads and the Christian Party ads have been the target of lawsuits. Now it is not just a war of words, but a legal war as well.

I have been reading a lot of atheist writings recently, but these ads reveal what atheists really think about religion. They obviously think that if you are a theist then you worry and do not enjoy life. For them, faith means being troubled and joyless.

These atheist assumptions are disturbing. This means that the Christian gospel is not being communicated well. Salvation actually means peace and joy, as well as a number of other “fruit of the spirit.” The fact that Christianity apparently represents just the opposite to British society means that something is clearly wrong – either with the church or with the church’s image.

I suspect that it may mean that Christians are not exhibiting these Godly qualities that attract people to Christ. Humanists look at the church and only see a bunch of unhappy people who cannot enjoy life because they are afraid of divine judgment.

That is exactly the opposite of what true Christianity is about! The gospel means freedom from all fear, doubt, guilt and worry. It is joy in the Holy Spirit. It is deep peace that the world cannot give, to quote Jesus. But this message is obviously not being communicated to Brits.

The other possibilities are that humanists really do not understand Christianity or they are deliberately misrepresenting Christianity. Both of these are unlikely. My perception is that humanists and atheists know Christianity at least as well as Christians do, and are no more deceitful than the average bloke.

In any case, believers need to change people’s perceptions of Christianity by truly living our faith. Christians - Inform your face what your heart knows. Practice what you preach. No one cares what Jesus said unless they see that it makes a difference in your life.

Slogans on the side of buses do not convince anyone, one way or the other. Bus advertisements apparently just result in lawsuits and more ill will. As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.”

The best thing that can be done … to use the atheists own words … is relax and enjoy life. “Either God exists or He doesn’t. Relax and enjoy life!” Now that is a slogan both sides can agree on!

Living Silence

2010-10-18T07:57:00.000-04:00

To quote the famous sage, Sister Maria of Salzburg, when I am in the mountains I hear the sound of music. I don’t twirl around and sing aloud. (Please get that image out of your mind!) I stand still and listen to the sound of the mountains. At the risk of sounding like Paul Simon, it is the sound of silence.

There is a quality of silence heard only in wild places. It is different than regular silence, like the difference between tap water and spring water – not the kind out of a plastic bottle, but direct from a spring.

When I was a child I used to visit my grandparents who had a cabin in New Hampshire. They had a hand pump in the kitchen that drew water from the lake for washing. But if you wanted a drink, you had to walk down a winding path to a spring and dip a ladle in the water. Jesus called such water “living water.” Living water is running water, as opposed to still water.

The silence in the mountains is living silence, as opposed to the dead silence of human places. You can’t usually hear it near human habitations. There is too much noise pollution, even in rural areas. The only place I hear it is in far into the mountains.

I heard it again last week in the White Mountains of New Hampshire - in Bear Notch, where we stopped to view the patchwork of colors on the valleys below. I heard it earlier at the end of the dirt road where our son and his family live on Mountain Road in South Tamworth. At the top of a hill with a beautiful view of the mountains, one can hear silence.

This is the silence I hear in prayer. It sounds like the voice of God. It speaks. It stirs the emotions. It enlivens the heart. It invigorates the soul. It is nourishment for the human spirit.

Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I don’t think he was talking about Bible reading. I think he was talking about silence.

The psalmist describes the natural voices of heaven and earth: “They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.”

That is why Jesus often went into the wilderness to be by himself. He was feeding on silence. I need silence. When I don’t have my Minimum Daily Requirement of it, I get “out-of-sorts.” Silence keeps me sane.

It is best when gathered in wild places – mountains, oceans and forests. But a prayer closet provides the next best thing. Right beneath the skin of the soul, divine silence lives.

It is like when you put a seashell to your ear and hear the sound of the sea. When I get to my knees and press my ear to my soul, I hear the silence of the mountains. For a few minutes I dwell in sacred space, and feed upon the silent word of God.
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Photo is “Mountain Silence” by Peathor

An Evangelical by Any Other Name

2010-10-16T08:50:00.006-04:00

“A rose is a rose is a rose,” wrote Gertrude Stein nearly one hundred years ago. Juliet said about her Montague boyfriend, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Can we say the same thing about evangelicals?

What is an evangelical? There is a continuing conversation about the meaning of the term. Baptists have struggled with the label for decades. (Read the ABP story of this struggle.) I have used it as convenient shorthand for communicating my acceptance of traditional Christian doctrine, but I have chafed under the unwelcome connotations of the term.

In many people’s minds it is synonymous with the religious right, and I am certainly not that. It smells like fundamentalism to many people. It carries with it an anti-scientific connotation and a Republican social agenda, neither of which I embrace.

I used the word in the subtitle of my book, “More Than a Purpose.” I described my approach an “An Evangelical Response to Rick Warren and the Megachuch Movement.” I wouldn’t use the same words today.

It does not have the meaning it once did. It is both too big and too small. If the term can embrace both Joel Osteen and Billy Graham, then it has become theologically meaningless. If it can include both James Dobson of the religious Right and Jim Wallis of the religious left, then it no longer has social content.

The only thing the term is good for is to engender misunderstanding and emotion. Instead of clarifying one’s position, it confuses it. It prompts emotional reactions that are not conducive to communication and understanding.

Religious and theological labels are misleading. I don’t like them. Apparently neither does God. Moses tried to pin the Lord down with a name, so he would something to legitimize his mission to the Hebrews in Egypt. The frustrated Lord finally shouted, “I am who I am. Tell them, ‘I am’ has sent you!”

So am I. I am who I am. If you want who know who I am, don’t pin labels to me. Talk to me. Don’t call me liberal or conservative, traditional or progressive, evangelical or emergent.

Even the word “Christian” is misleading these days, being used to describe people who burn Qurans and picket military funerals while holding signs that read: "God Hates Gays." I have nothing in common with them.

People use labels for other people so they don’t have to listen to them. This past year I have been intentionally listening to a much larger variety of voices. I have listened carefully to people like Muslims and atheists. I thought I already knew who they were. I was wrong; all I had were labels and preconceptions.

The same is true of me. I don’t even know what I am; how can anyone else label me? An evangelical is not an evangelical any more. Neither do they smell so sweet these days.

Touching Eternity

2010-10-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

I bought my daughter an old pendant this week. I am not talking antique; I am talking ancient – 450 million years old! It is an ammonite fossil embedded in rock, shaped as a pendant. I bought it at the fair at a “gems & minerals” booth for $8.

When I think of ammonites, I am used to thinking of the Biblical people, the descendants of Lot and his daughters. But these ancient denizens of the deep are much more inspiring. When I hold a fossil like this, it fills me with a sense of awe.

It is the same feeling I get when gazing into the heavens on a starry night or when standing on a mountaintop. The time spans of natural history prompt in me a feeling of vastness and spaciousness that I can only describe as spiritual.

I learned from biologist Richard Dawkins (in his book “The God Delusion”) that atheists feel the same thing, which means it is not a religious experience. But it is definitely an awe-inspiring experience.

For me it is like touching eternity. I cannot conceive of eternity with my crude mammalian mind, but I can approach it through natural objects like this fossil. It is my bridge to the infinite.

It is one way I approach God. When I hold a fossil in my hand, I reach back across the eons to the infancy of life on earth. Terrestrial life is young by cosmic standards. This fossil is barely a tenth of the age of the earth, which is only a third of the age of the universe.

Who knows how many universes there were before this universe? One theory of our universe holds that the Big Bang that started it all is just the latest in a string of bangs that may have been pulsating forever.

When I hold a 450 million year mollusk in my hand, my body feels how short my life is. My lifespan is no more than a blink of an angel’s eyelash. Yet God cares for me.

As the psalmist says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain!”

I bought my daughter a chunk of eternity today. I hope it inspires the same awe in her does in me. It is not expensive, but it is priceless.

The Eyes of a Child

2010-10-12T07:44:00.000-04:00

Our time in New Hampshire is coming to an end. As I look back on our visit here, one of the dominant features is babies – lots of them. As a pastor I have always been around babies. I was often one of the first people to hold newborns, sometimes even before the grandparents. I have greeted almost every baby in my congregations with a hug and a prayer before they were 24 hours old. Now having been out of the ministry for over a year, I have become baby-deprived. I have made up for it this trip.

During the last two months, I have not only held my own grandchildren almost every day, I have also babysat and visited with a host of other infants and toddlers. It turns out that when your children are having children, all their friends are also having children. So we become honorary grandparents to a cadre of little ones.

There is something about babies that makes the heart glad. There is a deep spiritual dimension to small children. Jesus knew it. He said that adults had to become like little children to enter the Kingdom of God. He meant that children have a natural connection to God. Early childhood is a state before sin has clouded the spiritual vision.

That is why Baptists could not stomach the Roman Catholic teaching that unbaptized infants were excluded from heaven. Jesus says just the opposite. He held them and said to the fully ritualized adults who would exclude them from his presence, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

I don’t want to slight that venerable Christian doctrine of original sin. It is obvious that every adult human is sinful. I just don’t believe that infants are sinful. They have fallen out of the womb into the sinful world of adults, but they do not share that sinfulness … yet. They are “of the kingdom of God.”

Jesus said, “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” These tiny humans have a direct link to heaven. That means that we can learn from infants.

Zen calls it our original face. The koan asks, “What did your face look like before your parents were born?” If you can glimpse your face before you were conceived, then you see the face of God.

The so-called “fall of man” not only happened long ago to our original human parents. It happens to us. It is universal and unavoidable. It happens when the innocence of childhood ceases. Baptists call it “the age of accountability,” although we have never been able to clarify that idea further.

But whenever that personal “fall” occurs, we spend the rest of our lives are trying to regain our lost state. We seek to get back to the Garden in order to put the fruit back on the tree of knowledge. That is what religion is all about.

But it is futile. Cherubim with flaming swords guard the way. We spend our lives east of Eden. We only see that heavenly realm again at death … or when we look into the eyes of a child.
_________________
Photo is our new grandson Jonah Michael Davis

An Outdoor God

2010-10-10T07:55:00.000-04:00

I prayed at the opening ceremony of the Sandwich Fair today. It is the 100th anniversary of this traditional country fair in New Hampshire. The early morning ceremony was held at a flagpole on a windswept hill. As I write these words, I still feel the chill of the brisk breeze on my face. The flag was raised, the anthem was sung, the pledge was made, and a prayer was offered.

I like public prayers. It is the closest I come these days to open-air preaching. I had the opportunity to do some real outdoor preaching this summer. I proclaimed the gospel from a rocky pulpit that had been regularly used for outdoor services two hundred years ago. I can’t wait to do it again.

There was a time in this country when it was common to hear a preacher voice words to, and about God, in the open air. Circuit riders and traveling evangelists would hold camp meetings and tent revivals that would go on for days or weeks. Street preachers would take their stand on the town common and draw a crowd. Now you need a permit.

I was baptized by immersion at an outdoor service at the mouth of a river that opened into the Atlantic. The parson preached a short sermon to gawking sunbathers and swimmers, and then ceremonially dunked me into the cold water. Maybe that is the reason for my nostalgia.

The days of outdoor worship are mostly gone – except for carefully orchestrated and ticketed stadium affairs. In my last parish I insisted on having at least one outdoor worship service each year, but that is all I could muster the support for.

Nowadays God is kept safely within thermostat-controlled boxes. The God preached in these comfortable structures is comfortable as well – a designer deity accommodated to the tastes of those who prefer padded pews.

The God preached these days is a tame divinity – tolerant and accepting, gentle and mild, multi-cultural and ecumenical. He is nothing like the fearsome jealous Jehovah of biblical times. The Father God of Jesus had rough edges. Christ’s parables were not comfortable Aesopic fables.

But the rough-hewn gospel is gone, replaced by a message of self-esteem and family values. The contemporary God of both liberal and evangelical Christianity is definitely an indoor deity.

No wonder the churches are emptying! The God of Churchianity is boring. Where is the excitement and danger? The Bible is an extreme book. The pages are filled with real people living sinfully and confronting a holy God. The Bible is scary and exciting, confusing and awesome (in the original sense of that word.)

The Hebraic God of the Bible is an outdoor God. He is a God of the desert and the wilderness. He is the God of fiery mountain and the parting sea, thunder and smoke. Moses never preached indoors. Jesus was kicked out of the synagogues and took to preaching on mountainsides and from boats.

The Scriptural God could not stand closed places. He scolded David for wanting to confine him to a temple. Likewise the theological descriptions of God in the Bible are wild and unpredictable. He is not a God of systematic theology, much less politically correct ideology.

He cannot be packaged and marketed. He is the God of nomads, pilgrims and prophets. Now we have settled pastors with $100 haircuts preaching on multi-million dollar campuses. What would John the Baptist think?
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Photo is sunrise at Mount Sinai

Unmasked

2010-10-08T08:15:00.000-04:00

I opened my Bible at random today, and it fell open to these words: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy is one of the sins that Jesus was most adamantly opposed to. Nothing could get Jesus so riled up as the hypocrisy of religious folks.

The word “hypocrisy” is a word picture that depicts a person wearing a mask. It is wearisome to think about all the masks that we wear. I don’t need to describe them all. You know them. You are wearing one now, and you will wear a different one in a few minutes when you do something different with different people.

When Christian theology speaks of the triune God as three “persons,” the word is “persona,” which means “mask.” God wears masks. Joseph Campbell wrote a series of books on the mythology of the world called “The Masks of God.”

We wear masks and worship a God who wears masks. The spiritual life is the process of unmasking - revealing who we are and who God is. The Biblical word for this is revelation, which means “unveiling.”

We peel away masks like chefs peeling onions. The more we do it, the smellier it gets, and the more we cry. When we get to the center of it all, there is nothing. Yet that is the substance of it all.

The Bible opens, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.” That is what is at the center. Buddhists call it sunyata, or emptiness. But it is full emptiness.

It is the full emptiness of a seed. In every seed there is the plant. Yet when you open the seed, you find nothing. In that nothing is the potential for the plant. In the emptiness of the human soul is the seed of the human being. That is what we find behind the masks.

In the Genesis account God spoke into emptiness, and universe began. Out of nothing – ex nihilo – came everything. When we unmask ourselves, we return to that primordial beginning. When we unmask God, we find the Source. Behind the masks, we find ourselves hiding from ourselves, hiding from God.
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Painting is “Sad Masks” by Lidia Simeonova

The Second Coming of John Lennon

2010-10-07T07:38:00.000-04:00

This Saturday would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday. His widow Yoko Ono was recently asked by the Associated Press, “One hundred years from now, what do you want people to know about John Lennon?”

She replied, “First of all, I'm not sure if I'm not going to be there. Things are changing in this world so much, and it might be like we're all going to live as long as we want to. And also John might come back. We don't know anything. So I'm not going to answer that question.”

John might come back?! What? How? When? In what form? A resurrected Lennon? Lennon coming in the sky with diamonds? It brings to mind Lennon’s famous quip that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Now Lennon’s widow is trying to make her dead husband into Jesus.

It is more likely she is thinking about cloning John. But who knows? She did not want to elaborate. But she clearly has been giving it some thought.

Lennon’s famous humanist anthem “Imagine” was based on one of Yoko’s poems. It clearly sketched their beliefs: no religion, no countries, no possessions. No heaven, no hell – no afterlife. Imagine there’s no Lennon.

So I think it likely that she is planning to undergo some gene therapy that allows her to live forever. She probably also has in mind some “Jurassic Park” type of experiment using her husband’s DNA that will return the extinct Beatle to earth.

In any case, it sounds like Yoko has the all-too-human tendency to deny the reality of death – both hers and her husband’s. It is a natural instinct. Some think it is the impetus behind all religion.

I think it is eternity in our hearts. Three thousand years ago, Solomon wrote, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.”

There is an instinct for eternity in human beings. Scientists have recently labeled it “the God gene.” If denied the normal religious channels of expression, it will find other ways to make its presence known. I call it the natural revelation of God in the human soul.

According to the Bible, John Lennon is coming back. All of us are. Physical death is not the end. It is called Resurrection Day. “The dead shall be raised.” What that means is anybody’s guess. Yoko dreams of being reunited with her deceased loved one. She’s a dreamer; but she’s not the only one.
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Photo is the John Lennon Imagine Memorial in Central Park.

Faith and Being

2010-10-05T08:19:00.000-04:00

I enjoy Public Radio’s “Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett.” This summer the name of the show changed to “Krista Tippett on Being.” The name change from Faith to Being reflects a change in the cultural discussion of spirituality.

In our society the cultural change began with the “spiritual but not religious” phenomenon, composed of those who had abandoned “organized religion” and the “institutional church” but still felt a spiritual longing.

But that adolescent rebellion against religious authority has run its course. In its place is a form of spirituality that transcends the normal categories of religion or spirituality. It bridges atheism and theism; it connects science and faith.

While many churches and denominations are still fighting the old battles of evolution versus creation, people have moved on to the spirituality of science. While aging congregations are still fighting the “worship wars” of contemporary music versus traditional hymns, young emergent congregations are reenvisioning spiritual community.

While baby-boomers are still building “big box” churches and chasing the idols of bigger buildings and bigger crowds, people tired of warehouse religion are thinking outside the box. Outside the box of religion and spirituality is Being.

I love the word Being. I have loved it ever since I first read Paul Tillich’s Christian philosophy back in the 1960’s. Being is bigger than Faith. It does not exclude faith; it envelops faith. Before there was faith, there was Being. After there is faith, there is Being. During life there is faith and Being; after death there is Being.

After I die, I will no longer have faith in God. I will be in the Presence of God. In heaven there is no faith; there is no need for faith where there is sight. As the apostle says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

But we also participate in Being now… by faith. Our present experience of the God who is Being is partial. There are glimpses, episodes, and experiences of Being. There is even an underlying awareness of the constant presence of Being.

But my attention wanders from Being into existence. I live between two worlds. But in truth there is only one world – the world of Being – of which existence is a shadow cast into time and space.

But until that day when there is no shadow (because there is no sun) we live in the shadowlands of faith. Conscious of Being, we exist by faith. Faith and Being walk hand in hand until the day dawns.
_________________
Image is a cartoon by Saul Steinberg, included in the original edition of the book “My Search for Absolutes” by Paul Tillich.

Older Than God

2010-10-04T07:42:00.000-04:00

I am filled with awe these days. Maybe it is colors of the autumn season, but that is not the way I usually respond to fall. I normally begin to settle into a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder this time of year. Now I am being affected positively.

Maybe it is the new grandson I have, and the joy of seeing him each day. Maybe it is the daily renewal of old friendships here in New Hampshire. Maybe it is because I have been preaching again recently.

It can’t be the spiritual reading I am doing. I have been reading books by atheists these days, but even they seem to be inspiring holy awe in me. How is that possible?

If I had to name it, I would say that I am experiencing Mystery. I am in increasing awe of the complexity and the beauty of God’s creation. There is a sacredness and holiness in life that speaks directly to my spirit. It is as if the depths of Creation speak to the depths of my soul.

I am connected in a way that cannot be denied or ignored. It is eternal and permanent. It is the Ground that underlies everything. It feels deeper and older than God.

Older than God? What am I saying? How can there be anything older than God? My Christian theology rebels at such a concept. It is impossible. There can be nothing older than God; I know that. It is just older than the human concept of God.

My soul knows that this connectedness is older than me. It is older than humankind. Billions of years before a creature known as Homo sapiens sapiens walked the earth, this Sacred Ground was. I think this was what the prophet Daniel called the Ancient of Days.

Man peered into the sacred depths and saw God. But what he looked into was older than what he saw therein. It is like the woman who saw a picture of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich. The image is in the eye of the beholder. The image of God is in the eye of the worshipper. The true God is older than the imaged God.

Seven hundred years ago Christian theologian Meister Eckhart called this the “God beyond God.” He wrote: “God is ‘No-thing’ – but rather the Being that undergirds all reality – and we must become no-thing to be one with God.”

Twenty five hundred years ago Lao Tzu said, “It is hidden but always present. I don't know who gave birth to it. It is older than God.” That sounds about right. But in the end it doesn’t matter if I understand what I am experiencing. Understanding is overrated. It is more important that I am aware … and awed.
_______________________
Image is The Ancient of Days, Watercolor etching by William Blake (1794)

Presidential Faith

2010-10-02T08:33:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, September 28, in a backyard in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a teacher’s assistant asked President Obama, “Why are you a Christian?” His response (Click here to watch the video) is the most articulate and clear response he has made so far on the controversial topic of his faith.

First he answered, “I’m a Christian by choice. My family didn’t -- frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life.”

Being a Christian is a choice. It is not something you are born into. Obama was not “born a Muslim” as Franklin Graham said. He was born into a home where his father was a non-practicing Muslim and his mother a non-practicing Christian. But Obama chose Jesus Christ. That makes him a Christian, even by evangelical standards.

He even got the Christian understanding of salvation right. He explained, “And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God.” Salvation is by grace. That is the Christian gospel, and the president clearly believes that.

Obama did not use the opportunity to proselytize, but he did say, “But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.” Not too bad. That is more than most churchgoers do.

When it comes to other people’s faith, Obama says, “Part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and of no faith -- that this is a country that is still predominantly Christian. But we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own. And that’s part of what makes this country what it is.”

I would not phrase it in those words. The idea that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists have “their own path to grace” is a judgment I am not willing to make. I do not presume to know the mind of God on that matter. But I understand the point he is trying to make. He is affirming the religious plurality of America and the importance of respecting everyone’s faith or non-faith. That sentiment I applaud.

In short, the president got it right. And he got it right without a script written by his White House speechwriters. He spoke from the heart on the spur of the moment about his personal faith in Christ while respecting the religion of others. In this regard he was both presidential and faithful. He did much better than the average Christian could do, if asked the same question at a backyard barbecue.

Religiously Dumb and Dumber

2010-10-01T09:14:00.004-04:00

A new survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life tells us what we already know – or rather what we don’t know. Americans are profoundly ignorant when it comes to religious knowledge.

The survey had 32 questions that covered the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions. It covered things like whether the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist and whether Martin Luther was part of the Protestant Reformation. On average, Americans got only half of the questions correct. That is a failing grade, even in American public schools.

Of all religious groups, atheists and agnostics scored best. They knew the most about religion, even though they are not religious. (That is fodder for another blog post!) Jews and Mormons were the next most knowledgeable groups. Mainline Protestants and Catholics were the least knowledgeable. Evangelicals were about average in their ignorance.

Stephen Prothero already told us about this phenomenon in his book “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't.” Not only are Americans ignorant of religion, they are also very opinionated when it comes to the subject. Even though they know next to nothing about other religions, they are certain that their religion is right and others are wrong.

Some are certain that all religions are basically the same and equally valid – a view that reveals even greater ignorance of religions. I call it the Lazy Man’s Philosophy of Religion. Prothero addresses this pseudo-intellectualism in his new book, entitled “God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World - and Why Their Differences Matter.”

As a lifelong student of the world’s religions, I am aware of how diverse the spiritual traditions of the world are. Even those religions that worship one God do not worship the same God. Allah of Islam is not the Triune God of the Christians or the YHWH of Israel.

When President Obama made the statement (as he did recently on September 11) that all Americans worship the same God by different names, he was revealing his lack of knowledge of theology. His actual words were: “We are one nation under God. We may call that God different names, but we are one nation.”

His motives were commendable; he was trying to unite the nation and express tolerance of Islam. But he only succeeded in giving offense to all religions, including Islam and his own Christian faith. No Muslim would say that Allah is the same God as Jesus Christ or even the Father of Jesus Christ. They call that shirk – idolatry and blasphemy.

Knowledge of religion is now as indispensable as knowledge of language and culture in international affairs. It is essential to know religions in this complex world where wars are enmeshed in religious tensions. Governments are naive if they think they can ignore religion and still have a viable foreign policy.

The teaching about religion has been omitted from public education because of the fear of crossing the line into the teaching of religion. They are not the same. Teaching about religion is legal; the teaching of religion is illegal. The fear of the latter has hindered the former. When even our president makes public misstatements, it is time to address this serious problem of religious illiteracy in America.

Rewriting My Life

2010-09-30T08:16:00.000-04:00

All history is interpretation. There is no such thing as “pure history.” We think history should be about objective data – dates, facts, and artifacts. But it is largely a subjective art. History is always an interpretation of selective facts told from a certain perspective. Other people see things differently.

Other facts could have been selected by another writer, which could produce an entirely different history. That is why there are four Gospels in the New Testament, which do not fit together seamlessly, even after piously trimming the edges of some puzzle pieces and omitting others.

Nations write their history in the name of patriotism; cultures do it out of pride. “History is written by the victors,” Machiavelli said. It is also written by the vanquished; it is just a different history. I am vividly aware of this whenever I hear differing accounts of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Every person is writing his own personal history in his head all the time. We fit the events of our lives into a personal narrative that we carry with us, amending it as we go along. In this way we make sense of our lives. We give our lives meaning, and hopefully some dignity.

I write my own personal history from my perspective. Therefore I usually make sure I come out looking pretty good! Unfortunately a lot of it is fiction. I tend to omit or rewrite the bad parts of my life to justify my own failings and shortcomings, and then believe my own fiction.

I skew the facts to fit the image of myself that I want to present. I change the past to coincide with what I think should have happened. I make myself look better in my own eyes and others’ eyes, and most importantly in God’s eyes.

But I know that my interpretation of my life is a fiction. My wife keeps me honest when I get too self-deceptive. But my unwritten autobiography could still qualify as fantasy or even science fiction.

I am painfully aware just how self-deceptive I can be… and self-justifying. I confess that I am self-righteous. I could add hypocritical to that autobiographical portrait. I am not being hard on myself. Sometimes I just see myself a bit more clearly. This seems to happen most often when I am on my knees.

In prayer I can’t get away from the fact that God knows me as I really am. David wrote: “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

I had a friend who changed his name – both his first name and last name. He remarried and moved to a foreign country and began a new career. He completely changed his persona in an effort to rewrite the story of his life. He was, I suspect, running from a painful past.

I do not want to hide from the past or fool myself. In my better moments I want to know myself – to know myself as God knows me. The words “Know Thyself” were inscribed over the entrance to the temple at Delphi. The assumption was that you could not approach God unless you were honest with yourself.

As David ended his psalm: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Unplugged Spirituality

2010-09-28T09:02:00.000-04:00

It has been almost five weeks since I have watched television. It is not because I have decided to live a simpler lifestyle. I am not that holy or disciplined. It is because the house we are renting in New Hampshire has no television reception.

We have a radio, but we get only three static-free radio stations. The highlight of my week is listening to Prairie Home Companion on Saturday night. I actually look forward to it for days! The only news I hear is from Lake Wobegon.

I didn’t know what I was missing until I caught part of a news broadcast in a hospital lobby a couple of weeks ago. It was shortly before the September primary election, and the political commercials were horrendous. After being used to normal people treating other normal people normally, I was taken aback by the nasty things people were saying about other people.

Another thing I noticed was the fast pace of the electronic stream. There was no space to think about what was being said or shown. It seems designed to bypass the mental process of discernment and feed directly into the subconscious. I felt like I was being mentally ambushed by the television.

As I write this, I can hear only the rain dripping from the eaves, an occasional automobile passing by, and the oil furnace kicking on. There is space to think and talk, play games and read, feel and pray.

I have been having a lot of extended conversations this last month. I stop to talk to friends on the street, and a half hour goes by easily. We sit over a nice meal for two or three hours sharing stories, memories and opinions.

I don’t know how I found time for television before… or why. I understand now why my son and his wife decided against having a television. They don’t want themselves or their newborn son exposed to electronic pollution.

What I appreciate the most about being unplugged is the spirituality of silence. To hear God you have to have quiet space - more than just a few minutes a day. You have to breathe in silence for days and weeks.

When I am disconnected from the matrix for a while, my ears slowly begin to adjust to the “still, small voice” of God. It is not that I am hearing heavenly voices. The message is in what I am not hearing. In not hearing the voices of the world, you begin to understand the natural rhythms of God in nature and in people.

God speaks without words or thoughts. His voice is deeper than intuition or conscience. God speaks beneath silence, before thoughts, deeper than self. It is the language of the Spirit, “speaking spiritual truths in spiritual words,” as the apostle says. To hear God’s voice clearly, it is best to keep the television unplugged.

The Color of Soul

2010-09-27T09:08:00.001-04:00

It has been a long time since I have seen autumn come to New Hampshire. For years I have returned for a few days each October at the height of the fall foliage season, but I had forgotten what it was like to see the trees begin to change in September. This year I am daily enjoying the gradual transformation of the forest.

The colors start on the fringes of the trees and work inward. It looks like the trees are frosted with gold. The maples are bright red and orange, ash and birch are yellow, and the oaks are golden. Some smaller bushes and shrubs turn dark red. The pines stay green to add contrast.

There are a few trees that wear their full regal colors early, especially those in the wetlands, as if eager for the autumn to come. When the sky is blue and the sun is bright, it seems like heaven has visited earth for a season.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s lines come to mind: "Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pick blackberries." In autumn all of nature is “afire with God.”

I remember hearing the scientific explanation for the changing colors. The bright colors are the natural pigmentation of the leaves. The fall colors are there all along, but are masked by green chlorophyll in spring and summer. Only when the leaves prepare to fall are the real hues revealed.

As I write this blog post, I am watching a line of cars depart the rural cemetery near our house. I recall that a graveside service is being held today for a dear saint of the church. I knew her in her later years, what they call “the autumn of life.” This woman, who was always lovely and gracious, grew even better as she aged.

This is not always the case. Some people harden with age. In either case, people’s true colors are revealed as the years progress. The difficult times of life harden some people and soften others. Some depart this life in a blaze of beautiful color. Others grow dull and dry.

I hope that I am one of the former. Life is too short to let the inevitable hardships of life rob us of our natural joy. Family and friends are too precious to allow differences to divide us. The spiritual dimension of life is too important to let religious squabbles quench it.

So I will enjoy the autumn colors that transform both landscape and lives. And hope others will see the natural color of my soul.

Why I Am Not an Atheist

2010-09-25T07:59:00.000-04:00

I have been reading books by atheists recently. I just finished “Good Without God” by Greg Epstein, and I am now reading “God is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens. They challenge me to think about God in ways that Christian writers do not.

Atheist arguments push me to examine my assumptions and presuppositions. Why do I believe in God? Am I fooling myself? Why am I so certain that God exists when these thinkers are so certain he does not?

My first instinct is to appeal to biblical authority; that is the way I have been taught. As the children’s song says, “Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” But arguments based on Biblical authority and inspiration are meaningless to atheists.

Why do I accept the authority of Scripture? Why do I believe what the Bible says about God? When I keep asking myself “Why?” long enough, it comes down to personal experience. Either you have had a spiritual experience that convinces you of God’s reality, or you haven’t.

The bedrock of my faith is a deep and abiding personal awareness of God. Apparently this is something that atheists do not experience. I don’t know why I have this awareness of God and they don’t. Maybe it’s grace. Perhaps it is what the Bible means by election. For me the awareness of the presence of God is strong and sure. Atheists’ arguments against the existence of God are irrelevant when asked in the presence of God.

Am I deceiving myself about my awareness of God? Maybe. But I might be deceiving myself about the presence of the chair I am sitting in or the light shining through the window. But those are physical phenomena provable by science, the skeptics claim. True.

Then how about beauty or art, mathematics or logic, love or music? God’s presence is as real as any of these for me. If I had to compare them, I would say that God is more real – even than the physical world. I am more certain that God exists than that I exist.

How can I describe this awareness of God? Words like existence, being or consciousness come to mind. Wholeness, joy, and peace express it somewhat. The phrases of Paul Tillich are helpful – Ground of Being, Being Itself, Ultimate Concern. But these sound so impersonal. God is not impersonal.

God is personal in a way greater than human persons. People can be so impersonal; God is never impersonal. God is not a superhuman personality – an invisible male in the sky. God is the depth and height of all relationships. God is that in which everything else exists. God is. When Moses pressed God repeatedly to identify himself, God finally responded, “I am who I am.” That is God.

God does not exist; God is. God is who God is. I am who I am in God. Apart from God I am not. I do not exist apart from God. Apart from God nothing exists. This primary awareness of God is where I take my stand. That is why I believe in God.

This consciousness of the presence of God does not feel like an experience to me. Experience assumes a certain distance between the experiencer and the experienced. Experience needs a subject and an object. God is not an Object that I experience. This feels more like an intuitive awareness in which there is no distance between God and me. If I had to describe this as an experience, I would say that I am conscious of God experiencing me.

That may not make a lot of sense, but it is as good as I can do. I am certain it is not good enough for atheists. I am sure they can explain this in naturalistic terms. But it is good enough for me.

Thank God For Atheists

2010-09-24T08:38:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading “Good Without God” by Greg Epstein. It is subtitled, “What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.” Epstein is the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University. What is a humanist chaplain? Isn’t that title an oxymoron?

A friend loaned me the book. In return I suggested he read William Young’s “The Shack.” I am now a bit embarrassed that I suggested such a lightweight book, whereas he loaned me such a heady volume. It turns out that “Good Without God” is a sort of “Purpose Driven Life” for atheists – but much better written. He even references Rick Warren in his book several times.

You might wonder what a Baptist preacher is doing reading a book about atheism. Well, it turns out that even atheists (he prefers the term Humanist) have a spiritual life. They just don’t attribute it to the Spirit.

In fact the whole volume is an attempt to answer the oft-repeated accusation (voiced by Warren) that there can be no morality without belief in God. To quote Dostoevsky, “Without God all things are permissible.” Epstein counters that argument and builds a case for a humanistic ethic.

The strange thing is that I have been arguing Epstein’s case for years. Whenever Christian colleagues would say that there is no morality without religion, I would argue the contrary. In my experience nonreligious people are just as “good” as Christians. There are studies to back up my argument. For example, in spite of all their talk of “family values” the rate of divorce among evangelical Christians is actually higher than nonchristians!

There is something in human nature that naturally produces ethical systems. You see it throughout history and across cultures. I have argued that ethics is a human phenomenon rather than a religious one. As a Christian I attribute this to the natural revelation of God in human conscience. But those who do not believe in a Creator have no need to find a heavenly cause for the ethical instinct.

As I read “Good Without God” I found it very spiritual, even religious. I guess it is the way he defines atheism. He sees people like the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, American Deist Thomas Jefferson, and even Christian philosopher Paul Tillich as closet humanists. Epstein sees the religion of these men as a nascent form of atheism.

But for all his insights, Epstein falls into the same trap as all atheists. The God that he rejects is not God. It is an image of God; images of God are, by nature, false gods. At one point he quotes his mentor Shewin Wine as saying, “Sometimes the nicest thing you can say about God is that he doesn’t exist.” That is true; the God that atheists don’t believe in doesn’t exist. I don’t believe in that god either.

God is by definition beyond definition. All definitions are by nature idols. As a cultural Jew (he refers to himself as a “Humanist by faith, a Jew by cultural heritage, and a Humanist chaplain and rabbi by profession”) Epstein knows that the first two commandments are not to worship other gods or make images of God. Doctrines are mental images. Theology is an image-making endeavor.

In this regard the atheist is the believer’s best friend. The atheist is an iconoclast, relentlessly tearing down the idols erected by his theistic brethren. Atheists believe that when all gods are revealed to be false, there is nothing left to believe in. From my perspective, when all the man-made gods are shown to be false, what is left is God.

Contemporary atheists do Christians a great service, and we should listen carefully to their voices. They relentlessly expose the idolatries and falsehoods in religion, and thereby reveal the true God. The Greg Epsteins, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens of the world teach more about God than most popular Christian authors these days. Thank God for atheists.

Ontological Illusion

2010-09-22T08:17:00.000-04:00

In God I cease to be, and yet I am. It is kind of confusing. That is why I am so hesitant to write about my prayer life. Words seem so sloppy and imprecise. So are ideas. In prayer we dwell in the space between thoughts. Doctrines cannot contain the God of prayer anymore than colanders can hold water.

In prayer we live in the expanse behind the material world. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God. It is not “up there” in heaven, nor “down here” on earth. It is not “out there” or “in here.” Yet it is both up and down, here and there. It is breaking in and yet to come. See what I mean? Words are sloppy.

I use the word God to describe the presence behind the creation because it is the best word I know. But the word “God” has been so distorted by theists and atheists that it would be equally true to say “not God,” by which I mean not the idols we mistake for God.

God is “not me” and “not the world.” Rudolf Otto called God “the wholly other.” Theologians speak of the transcendence of God. I guess that term will work, as long as transcendence is understood to include immanence.

God is present during prayer. No argument can convince me otherwise. I am more certain of the reality of God than I am of my own reality – much more certain. In prayer one perceives a divine depth to existence that is normally in the background of our awareness. But in prayer, we notice it because we are paying attention.

It is like the optical illusion of the vase and the faces, or the hag and the beauty. It is all how you look at things. We tend to look at things the way we have been conditioned. But when we are alone with God, then God nudges us into a new way of seeing – to see the kingdom of God that is hiding in plain sight.

In prayer the vastness of eternity is made known. It is so real that everything else seems like a mist in comparison. It is more real than my individual personality or even the material world.

In the presence of God my personal identity is perceived as little more than a fleshly fiction whose main purpose is to keep me from God. It is where Adam and Eve ran to hide from God, and we have been hiding ever since.

But in prayer we can come out of hiding, and God comes out of hiding. “Truly you are a God who hides himself,” the prophet Isaiah said. But he is also a God who reveals himself. He hides in plain sight. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

One-Third Free

2010-09-21T08:33:00.000-04:00

“I stand before you today only one-third free,” said Sarah Shourd, the American hiker freed from Iranian captivity after more than a year. She spoke these words at a recent press conference and was referring to the fact that her fiancé and a friend are still in Iranian custody, accused of espionage.

She continued, “That was the last thing that Josh said to me before I walked through the prison doors. Josh and Shane felt one-third free at that moment and so did I. The only thing that enabled me to cross the Gulf from prison to freedom alone was the knowledge that Shane and Josh wanted with all their heart for my suffering to end.” She then went on to say that she would now turn all her attention to gaining freedom for the remaining hikers.

Being a student of religions, my first thought on hearing her words was the bodhisattva vow. According to Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattvas take a vow stating that they will strive, for as long as it takes, to free all sentient beings from bondage and lead them to enlightenment. In other words, a bodhisattva will not enter Nirvana until all enter Nirvana. To use Christian language, they will not enter heaven until all enter heaven. They are not saved until all are saved.

It is a noble sentiment. As a Christian, I wish there was more of this attitude in my Christian religion. But as a pastor I have seen a different attitude. Christians say they believe in eternal heaven and hell, and they rejoice in their salvation. But they do not seem very disturbed at the thought that their neighbors and friends will not be spending eternity with them.

They seem unconcerned that, according to their model of salvation, most of humanity will spend eternity in hell. They certainly would never think of delaying entrance into the pearly gates until all are saved. In fact they seem eager to leave this vale of tears behind and get to their celestial reward.

It is disturbing that the Buddhist religion seems to demonstrate more compassion than Christianity in this regard. It certainly isn’t Jesus’ fault. Christ demonstrated supreme love and compassion. He willingly went to the cross, and experienced death and hell for us! He worked tirelessly during his ministry and gave his life for our salvation. But I don’t see this Christly attitude in his followers.

When Sarah Shourd stated that she was only one-third free, her words struck a chord in my heart. I don’t know what her religious convictions are, but her attitude felt profoundly Christian.

Can any human being feel content until all humans are free? Can any Christian enjoy freedom from sin and death until all are free? How can any Christian rest until they do everything they can to ensure that all are saved? How can any person walk through the heavenly gates knowing that loved ones have been left behind?

According to religious statistics from the year 2000, one third of the world’s population is Christian. (That is a very generous figure that includes all forms of Christianity and counts all nominal Christians. The real number of sincere, active, believing Christians is certainly a fraction of this figure.) But if we accept the figure – and furthermore assume that the Christian gospel truly presents the way of salvation - it means that we are only one-third free.

So we either change our apathetic attitude toward those facing eternal imprisonment or we reexamine our model of salvation. Anything else is hypocrisy. We either join Sarah Shourd in directing all our attention to freeing our companions on this earthly journey – or we rethink our doctrines of heaven and hell.

But to enjoy a life of freedom while believing that others are still facing endless imprisonment and torture is unconscionable … and unchristian.
____________________
Photo is of American hikers Shane Bauer, left, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal.

The Joy of Words

2010-09-19T08:48:00.000-04:00

Thursday night I went to a poetry reading. I do not have many opportunities to do this sort of thing at home in Pennsylvania. But here in the woods of New Hampshire, interesting cultural events are found tucked away in the unlikeliest of places.

This was a reading by Donald Hall, a resident of Danbury, New Hampshire, and the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2006-2007. I bought a book of his poetry when he was appointed Poet Laureate, and have read it whenever I was homesick for New Hampshire.

It was a rainy evening, but I gladly drove the forty minutes to Plymouth State University. The event drew about 150 people, many of them college students, who (I assumed from their body language) were required to attend the campus event by their English professor. For me it was a purely voluntary and fascinating evening.

There is something about the spoken word that fills me with joy – especially when voiced by one who knows how to use words well. This poet was difficult to understand. He is getting older now, and neither his voice nor hearing is very strong. I had to strain to make out the words. But in time I adjusted my hearing to his speech.

He spoke of ordinary people and things – items in an attic, baseball games, reading books on a quiet evening, making meatloaf – but the way he said them! The cadence of the words, the way he caught the inflections of the Yankee speech patterns – like Robert Frost used to do so well.

You could feel his joy at creating works of art made entirely of vibrations cast into the air. You can’t get that out of a book! When he spoke of the events of September 11, 2001 in poetic verse, the emotions of that day filled the room. No video footage can do what he did with words!

A question and answer session followed. One mother asked what advice he would give to young poets. (The aspiring poet was seated beside her.) He replied: Read and Revise. “Read the old poets,” he said, “Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare, Scott … especially poets of the 17th century.” He continued, “No one seems to read anything written before 1970 any more!”

Concerning writing he advised, “Revise each poem at least 200 times before you let anyone else see it. These days, people write a poem in a day and immediately distribute it to friends. Don’t do it. If you do, their voice will get confused with yours. Rewrite it again and again in solitude before anyone sees or hears it.”

The room gave him a standing ovation. The students gathered on the stage to pose for a class picture with the poet. Then the audience recessed into the lobby to purchase books and have them autographed. I asked him to sign a copy of his children’s book, “Ox Cart Man.” I will give it as a gift to our grandchild who was born in Concord as I wrote this blog in the waiting room.

I can’t wait to read it to him – Jonah Michael Davis - and hopefully fill his heart with the joy of words – an old preacher of sacred words passing on the joy of words to the next generation.
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Photo of Donald Hall

Preaching on the Edge

2010-09-17T09:12:00.003-04:00

Last Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at Pulpit Rock in Sandwich Notch, a beautiful outdoor setting in the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. The “Tour Through Sandwich Notch” was composed of many stops along the Sandwich Notch Road with many speakers. It was sponsored by the Sandwich Historical Society and organized by Suzanne Pohl of Sandwich.

Pulpit Rock is a natural rocky outcrop that stands about fifty feet above the Sandwich Notch Road. Resembling one of the high pulpits found in colonial meetinghouses, it has a cliff behind it that acts like a sounding board. The spot is a natural amphitheater allowing the preacher’s voice to reverberate from the opposing hill.

Sunday was a drizzly day, and the climb up the rock was steep and slippery. The lichen and moss, which had gathered on the stone over the centuries, did not help matters any. People suggested that it was too dangerous to ascend the peak and that I should preach from a lower location. But having dreamed of sermonizing from the top of that peak for 28 years, I was not about to let a little weather stop me.

From the top I peered over the edge at my congregation of 50 hardy souls below. I am not one who loves heights, but the thrill of the moment counterbalanced my fear of falling. I preached from Psalm 61:2, “From the end of the earth I will cry to You when my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

I spoke about the Quaker heritage of the site, the value of inner silence, the beauty of God’s natural revelation around us, and the transitory nature of life. I quoted Jesus’ words about the man who built his house upon a rock. I talked about Moses preaching on Mount Sinai and Mount Nebo.

As I preached, I consciously tried to keep my feet firmly planted on solid rock. But as I ended my message, I noticed that I had unconsciously crept dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. This was truly a death-defying sermon!

As I think of the experience, it feels like a metaphor for preaching. It is easy to take the homiletically safe road when preaching - predictable topics, standard scripture texts, traditional doctrines, conventional morality, expected social issues – staying safely within the well-trodden boundaries of Christian pulpiteering. It is the ecclesiastical way. But Jesus clearly said that his way was very narrow and not very safe.

While driving the old dirt road to Pulpit Rock, I had a conversation with a geologist, who was scheduled to speak at another stop. He mentioned Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” I shared what I had heard Frost say (in a recording) about that poem. He said this was his most misunderstood poem. People think it is about the poet taking “the road less traveled by,” but the title of the poem clearly states that it is about the road he did not take.

It is easy to consider oneself to be a bold, prophetic preacher (“I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”), especially when one enjoys freedom of religion, a steady salary, and a retirement fund. But most Christian preachers in most countries today do not enjoy those luxuries. Just yesterday I read about Christians being persecuted by Buddhist extremists in Bangladesh. Every religion has their bigots.

One of Jesus’ early sermons was so dangerous that his Nazareth congregation forcibly removed him from the pulpit and nearly tossed him off a nearby cliff. (Luke 4:28-30) I am just glad that no one was up on Pulpit Rock to nudge me off if I got too close to uncomfortable truths.

Wait a minute! Come to think of it … there was a woman who climbed up there with me. And she waited on the rock behind me out of sight throughout the message. She said she was just waiting for us to descend the rock together for safety’s sake. But what if she had other instructions I am not aware of? I guess I must have preached a safe sermon after all. I am still alive to tell the tale.
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Look carefully at the photo (click on it to enlarge) and you will see me preaching on the top of Pulpit Rock. Photo by Jude Davis.

Gospel of the Broken Leg

2010-09-16T09:02:00.000-04:00

The Disciple came to the Master and asked how to inherit eternal life. “Keep the commandments,” he replied. “All these I have kept,” he replied. “Then sell all you have and give it to the poor.” So he did, yet he did not inherit eternal life.

He returned to the Master, “I have done all you have asked. I have given away all I have. What more must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Preach the Kingdom of God in the towns and villages,” he replied.

So the Disciple did as the Master requested. As he was returning from his journey, he fell and broke his leg. Immediately the heavens opened, and he saw the Kingdom of God. He returned to the other disciples on crutches, rejoicing in the heavenly blessing.

The other disciples inquired how the illumination occurred. He explained how the heavens opened the instant his leg snapped. So the other disciples immediately began to take up clubs and break their legs!

“Stop,” shouted the Disciple, but it was too late. All their legs had been broken. “How can you now spread the Gospel with broken legs?”

The Master returned to find all his disciples moaning on the ground with splints on their legs. “What happened?” he asked. “Have you been attacked by our enemies?”

“No, Master, they replied. “We have broken our legs in order to enter the Kingdom of God.”

The Master looked at his disciples in amazement. “Then you are your own enemies. Nothing you do can bring you into the kingdom,” explained the Master. “The Kingdom of God comes in a manner you do not expect.”

Choosing My Ancestors

2010-09-15T08:31:00.001-04:00

I take pride in being the descendent of the first settlers in New Hampshire. My direct ancestors were Thomas Roberts and Rebecca Hilton, both among the first boatload of English settlers to arrive at Dover, New Hampshire, in 1623. Thomas later served as the fourth governor of the Dover colony from 1640 until it was annexed by Massachusetts.

In researching their lives I found an interesting account of Thomas Roberts’ religious leanings. In the early 1660’s, after Dover had come under the rule of the Massachusetts Puritans, he protested the treatment of some Quaker missionaries who had arrived in Dover.

At the time his sons, John and Thomas Roberts, Jr., were constables in Dover. In accordance with Massachusetts laws against Quakers and other religious dissidents, they administered 10 stripes to three women Quakers for their religious activities and expelled them from their jurisdiction.

The missionaries, Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose, were led out of Dover on December 22, 1662, tied with ropes to an ox cart. According to the warrant, the women were stripped to their waists and whipped on their naked backs “not exceeding 10 stripes apiece” as they passed from one town’s jurisdiction to another. (A contemporary Quaker writer declared they had administered 11 stripes for good measure instead of 10.)

After recuperating from their ordeal, these missionary women returned to Dover and resumed their preaching. This time constable Roberts, with the help of some of members of the community, took the missionaries down river and out of Dover bound in an Indian dugout.

According to the Quaker narrative the women were taken from a house and dragged through the deep snow to the river. Alice Ambrose was plunged into the icy water and made to swim beside the boat to escape drowning.

Thomas Roberts publicly rebuked his two sons for their harsh treatment of the Quakers. He refused to attend the local Puritan church services. For his religious insubordination, the town records show he was fined one cow.

I pride myself on being of the noble heritage of Thomas Roberts, one of the early supporters of religious liberty. But I am sad to say that I am also the descendant of his eldest son, constable John Roberts, who treated the Quakers so badly.

There are two strains of Christians in America today, seen clearly in the recent controversies concerning Muslims – events like the recent arson at a Tennessee mosque, the threatened Quran-burning in Florida, and the controversy concerning the building of a mosque in Manhattan.

There are the haters who get all the attention and hide behind the law. Then there are the lovers - simple Christians like Pastor Steve Stone and his Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee. Heartsong opened their church building to a Muslim group that had bought the land adjacent to their church property to build a mosque. Muslims now pray in a Christian church while their mosque is being completed. Instead of intolerance, these Christians showed love.

One side of America is like my ancestor John Roberts and the other like Thomas Roberts. The DNA of both men runs in my veins. But I choose to side with Thomas … and Pastor Stone. That is my heart’s song.

The Devil Wears Size Six

2010-09-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday I participated in an historical excursion through Sandwich Notch in Sandwich, New Hampshire. It was a marvelous day of exploring 19th century rural New Hampshire life. Local historians, naturalists, archeologists and scientists shared their knowledge; I was along to give some spiritual insight.

At one stop we viewed the “Devil’s Footprints.” These are indentions in the rock that look like the petrified footprints of someone who had walked across the landscape in the distant past.

But these are not human impressions left in the mud of ancient times. A geologist informed us that this is a natural phenomena caused by the erosion of the stone. It is purely accidental that they have the shape of footprints and are spaced at the distance of a person’s stride.

Nevertheless, the local custom is to place your foot in the indentions to see if the devil’s shoe fits. I am relieved to say it doesn’t. Good thing, I was scheduled to preach at Pulpit Rock at the next stop. People might have looked at me askance if the preacher had the devil’s shoe size.

One participant’s sneakers fit exactly into the indentions in the rock. I asked her what size she wore. “Women’s six,” she replied. “That would be a men’s eight,” she added. So I guess the devil is a woman… or a small man. But he/she/it has the stride of a much larger person. And by the depth of the impressions, the devil seems to be carrying quite a heavy load.

There is a poem by Mary Stevenson called “Footprints in the Sand” that people have often asked me to read at funerals. It describes two sets of footprints – the Lord’s and ours. The earliest version of this well-known poem (there are at least three!) concludes:

"You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?" The Lord replied, "The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you."

I saw only one set of footprints in Sandwich Notch, and they are deep. It seems as if the Adversary also carries folks. The apostle Paul writes: "In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Sometimes he gets more than a foothold in our lives. He might have added, “And don’t let the devil carry you.”

During difficult times it is easy to give in to strong emotions – to let anger, depression, bitterness or discouragement carry us along. At other times God’s grace seems to sustain us beyond our natural strength. In both cases, it may feel like we are just along for the ride.

And we are … it is just a matter of who is carrying us. At such times it is best to look down and check the shoe size. By the way … I have it on good authority that Jesus wore size 12.
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Photo is one of the Devil’s Footprints in Sandwich Notch, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, NH. Photo by Jude Davis.

Dreaming of the Dalai Lama (And Other Dreams within Dreams)

2010-09-13T08:39:00.001-04:00

I had a dream last night (I am not kidding) that the Dalai Lama was a dinner guest in our home. He was a pleasant fellow and laughed a lot. But he did not care for the barbeque pork. Then I woke up.

Have you ever awakened from a dream only to still be in a dream? Then you wake up again to discover that you were in a dream within the dream. When that happens I can’t help but wonder if I am still in a dream within a dream within a dream. And if I am, who is doing the dreaming?

The Taoist teacher Chuang Tzu had a dream that he was a butterfly. He woke up to exclaim, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”

A creation myth says that the universe – and all history – is the dream of God. Is this really so far fetched? The Bible says that God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing. In other words, the universe is nothing more than words spoken into a void. We are thoughts of God spoken out loud.

What is the difference between an idea and a dream? One is conscious and one unconscious. But does that distinction have any validity when we are talking about God?

There is another myth that the universe is the song of God. Another that it is the dance of God. Another that it is a story crafted by God. Didn’t Shakespeare say this?

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158)

Before our birth we are nothing more than ideas in the mind of God. After our death, when we have no substance to bind the spirit to earth, we are once again ideas in the mind of God … and those who loved us. Then the Scriptures say we are spoken into existence again - enfleshed anew at the resurrection.

It is said that words never die, that sound remains as long as it has a medium for propagation. So how can there not be eternal life?
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Image is Sound Waves, painting by Ofelia Uz.

Learning to Pray

2010-09-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

A man woke up in a cave high in the mountains with a bruised head and no memory. “How did I get here?” he wondered. “And who am I?” He looked at his clothing and saw the rough robe of a monk. He looked around and saw copies of holy books. “I must be a monk,” he concluded.

So he tried to pray. But he did not know how to pray. He asked God to remind him how to pray, but there was no answer from heaven. “The Lord must be busy. I will wait for an answer.” So he waited and waited, but still no answer came.

“Perhaps I am not worthy enough for God to answer my prayer. I will practice mortifications to purify my body and mind.” So he fasted until he was little more than skin and bones. But still there was no answer. “Perhaps I need to perform acts of charity to be worthy of God’s attention.”

So he descended the mountain and entered a nearby village. He tended the sick and cared for the homeless. He read to them out of the holy books. In return the people of the village fed him. But still he was unable to pray.

In time he returned to his cave disillusioned that he still had not learned to pray. But by now the townspeople had come to respect him as a holy man. They brought him gifts of food and new robes. In return he would read to them from the holy books. In time he knew the books so well he could recite them by heart.

Years passed and the reputation of the monk grew. Kings and philosophers sought his presence. Holy men came to hear his wisdom. But in his heart the man knew that he was an imposter, unworthy of this respect. He did not even know how to pray!

One day an old man came to the cave. “I have come to confess my sins, Abba,” he said.“Many years ago I came to this cave. I was cold and hungry, and the young monk who lived here showed me hospitality. I stayed with him many days. He came to trust me and showed me the treasure hidden deep in the recesses of this cave. I rewarded him by beating him, taking the riches, and leaving him for dead.”

The old monk looked deeply into the eyes of the visitor. “I am that monk,” he replied. “Only now have I remembered those events.”

“Can you forgive me?” asked the old man. “Of course,” replied the monk. “When you left me for dead, you took my identity as well as the riches of this cave. I was a very self-righteous man, proud of my religious knowledge and my holiness. By taking my memory, you gave me my life. It was the kindest thing you could have done. Thank you.” Then the monk began to pray.

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Painting is Monk Reading by Rembrandt

Borderlands

2010-09-10T08:36:00.000-04:00

While we are here in New Hampshire for a couple of months, we are always on the lookout for wild animals - especially bear and moose. But we enjoy the foxes, turkeys and smaller animals as well. There is more wildlife here than other places because this town borders the White Mountain National Forest.

We have noticed from our own experience, as well as from the accounts of others, that it is normally at the dawn and twilight that the animals are seen. Wildlife appears in the transition times when the light is slipping into darkness or vice versa.

It is the same with God. Our Lord appears in the transition times. It is no accident that the risen Christ arose “while it was still dark” and appeared on the Emmaus Road “when it was getting dark” and at the Sea of Galilee “early in the morning.”

There are transition times in our lives – times that straddle life and death, employment and unemployment, health and illness. C. S. Lewis called them Shadowlands. Bob Dylan described it as the north country “where the winds hit heavy on the borderline.”

This last year has been a transition time for me. I quit my position as a fulltime pastor a year ago for a full year of intentional hiatus. I am “between churches” as they say in my profession. The year is now officially up. In fact it was up two weeks ago. Now when people ask me what I am doing, I don’t know what to say.

People ask me if I am retired. I reply, “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” They laugh as if I were telling a joke, but I am serious. I have gone from an intentional sabbatical to a true transition time. I don’t know what I am doing at the moment. Most people don’t know what to make of my situation. Some are unsettled by it. Some understand.

I met the son of an old friend the other day. His dad had died recently, and he was in a transition time. He also happens to be a life coach. After reminiscing about his father, he asked what I was doing. I explained my situation, and he knew instantly what I was talking about. But most people’s eyes are not adjusted to the gray light of the borderlands. They cannot stand long in the heavy winds of the borderline. They seek shelter in the familiar.

But in this borderland I see God. I am more spiritually aware now than ever before in my life. I see more clearly in the twilight than at noon. I am free to be open to God and to opportunities for ministry.

Last winter I was on a retreat with a man who described himself as a “freelance pastor.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time, and I pressed him on the matter. Now I understand. I might even start using that term when people ask me what I am doing these days.

The Lord walks the borderlands. He is not comfortable in civilized places. They are too mapped out and organized for him. He meets us in the unformed wilderness places of our lives and our souls. At those times and places we are malleable, and he can work with us. In this valley of the shadow, the Lord is with me. I know that “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” You know the rest.
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Painting is “Shadowlands,” by Jude Woodland, acrylic on canvas

Reading the Quran on September 11

2010-09-09T07:52:00.000-04:00

As September 11 approaches, all eyes are on a small nondenominational church in Gainesville, Florida, which is planning an "International Burn-a-Quran Day." The world is wondering if it will be the match that ignites wildfires of protest and retaliation around the world.

General Petraeus has warned about the consequences. The White House has weighed in on it. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has condemned it. Interfaith groups have protested it. Christians in Islamic countries are pleading with the pastor to cancel the event.

The most creative response to “Burn-a-Quran Day" is “Read-a-Quran Day.” Rev. Larry Reimer, minister at the United Church of Gainesville, Florida, has proposed that people protest the burning of Qurans by reading the Quran. That is what I will be doing on September 11.

I have read the Quran completely through several times – more than most Christians have read their own Bible. The first time I read through the Quran was over thirty years ago (back when we called it the Koran). I took a Ph.D. seminar in Islam at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and we had to study the Islamic scriptures as part of the course.

I read the whole Quran again in the wake of September 11, 2001, when I participated in a series of radio discussions with a Sunni imam. I read it again when I visited his mosque in Pittsburgh, and he presented me with an annotated copy of the Quran as a gift.

I am a student of the world’s religions. I have read many sacred scriptures and appreciate them all. As a Christian I have problems with all scriptures … including parts of my own. I have problems with the Quran, especially the parts that advocate warfare and violence against infidels.

But I can’t complain too loudly about those sections of the Quran, because my own Scriptures have passages that are just as violent as those in the Islamic holy book. We are all selective when it comes to reading our holy books. Every believer has a “canon within a canon.” We consciously or unconsciously edit the scriptures to fit our religion, rather than the other way around.

Many Christians have never heard some Bible texts read from a pulpit. I found that out when I preached a series of sermons on the Song of Solomon a few years ago. There are lots of sexy parts in that book, including many euphemisms for body parts that are not supposed to be mentioned by preachers in church! People were shocked. The Bible is X-rated – for both sex and violence!

Back to the Quran…. I imagine that many of the most vocal critics of Islam have never opened the Islamic book. Those who are burning it have likely never read it. (The pastor admitted this to NBC News.) That is probably equally true of those who are condemning Quran-burning. It is easy to be tolerant when you have no idea what you are being tolerant of! It is hard to defend the reading of ideas that seem intolerable.

So I invite you to join with me in reading the Quran on Saturday, September 11. Read more than a few sentences. Take 10 or 15 minutes out of your day to read portions of the Quran. It can be found at quran.com. Personally I prefer the Authorized English Version translated by Dr. Rashad Khalifa.

Pick a surah (that is what they call their chapters) and start reading. You may be surprised at what you find. You may be shocked. But at least you will be a little more knowledgeable about the book that is at the center of this controversy.

God of the Waters

2010-09-08T08:46:00.000-04:00

A young man chanced upon a small clear lake in the forest. As he bent down for a drink he saw his reflection in the calm surface of the water. “This is the abode of the water god,” he declared. “I have seen his face.”

He erected a shrine to the deity at the site of the apparition. He placed wildflowers at the altar daily. People came from miles around to pray, bathe in the water, and be healed of their diseases.

In time thousands of people visited the lake, peered into the water and saw their faces, believing it was the water deity. The various descriptions of their reflections – male and female, young and old, dark or light – became different myths of the water deity, the various faces of God.

A rumor arose that drinking from the water made you immortal after you died. The young man’s son started selling the lake water to those who could not make the journey to the forest. The demand was so great for the water that he employed many helpers to bottle it and ship it to distant locations.

So many bought this water that the small lake dried up, leaving only a muddy basin. “The water deity is dead,” the man declared. “Swallowed by the mud god,” he explained. And he began to sell the mud, which was said to have rejuvenating properties for the skin. People came from miles around to apply the mud to their faces and bodies.

Then the mud was gone, leaving only the hard bedrock beneath. The grandson of the original discoverer of the site began to sell chunks of rock as amulets. They were said to have divining properties, leading the wearer to places where they could dig a well of fresh spring water.

People used the amulets and found water. They dug wells, looked into the water and saw their face. “I have seen the water deity,” the people said.
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Painting is “Narcissus” by Caravaggio, 1573-1610, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Roma

Spiritual & Religious

2010-09-06T09:48:00.000-04:00

There are esoteric and exoteric dimensions of spirituality. The esoteric is the inner, experiential dimension. The exoteric is the outer, practical dimension. These days the esoteric is called the spiritual, and the exoteric is called the religious.

Many people like the esoteric but not the exoteric. They are “spiritual but not religious.” They have had a spiritual experience, but have no use for organized religion. But Jesus saw the value of both. He regularly attended both the temple and the synagogue “as his custom was.” He knew one’s spiritual life needed balance if it was to remain healthy.

Jesus described the relationship between the inner essence of religion and the outer expressions as the relationship between wine and wineskins. “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.”

He did not say that you don’t need wineskins. He knew that wineskins are necessary. But they had to be suitable to the wine within. Without skins (or their modern equivalents of barrels and bottles) only vintners would drink wine. Without wineskins, wine could not be transported from place to place, and passed from person to person. Skins are useful packaging … but they are not the wine.

The wine is the experiential encounter with the divine – salvation, liberation, eternal life, enlightenment - call it what you will. It is the mystical essence of the religious life. It is deeper than emotion but expressed in emotion. It is more than thoughts, but expressed in words.

The wineskins are rituals and creeds, traditions and scriptures, institutions and organizations - that sort of thing. They are useful, but only insofar as they hold and serve wine. Without the wine, the skins are old and dry relics of a spiritually intoxicated past.

But without the wineskins there would be no wine! Grape juice needs containers in which to ferment and become wine. In fact, these days the wine takes on the flavor of the barrels in which the wine is aged. They give it character and flavor.

Jesus says an interesting thing: “No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'” Everyone knows that the best wine is old wine. Some vintage bottles of wine can sell for thousands of dollars. Once you have tasted fine old wine, the $5.99 bottles at the supermarket just don’t seem like the same beverage.

New wine is the popular spirituality of our culture - eclectic renditions of ancient spiritual wisdom. They are appropriately labeled as “New Age,” “self-help,” “self-esteem” and “motivational” messages. They are packaged as esoteric wisdom (“The Secret’) and preached by spiritual teachers and self-styled gurus on Oprah and PBS. They aren’t all bad. In fact there are tidbits of truth to be found in them.

On the other hand, some are dangerous. They kill their followers in Arizona sweat lodges or bilk their naïve followers of hard-earned savings. But others are harmless. On the whole they are just new and inexperienced, like their followers. They are inexpensive wine. “No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'”
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Painting is “The New Wine and the Used Wineskins" by Kazakhstan Artist Nelly Bube.

The Outlaw Jesus Christ

2010-09-05T08:18:00.000-04:00

Today I was reading about Jesus’ encounter with the Sabbath-keepers. (Luke 6:1-11; Mark 2:23-27). They were a law-abiding bunch and hated law-breakers… like Jesus. “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” the Pharisees asked him.

I have studied these Sabbath episodes in my biblical commentaries and preached them in sermons. The standard interpretation is that Jesus was not really breaking the fourth commandment; he was just breaking the Pharisees’ legalistic interpretation of it.

This train of thought says that Jesus was actually fulfilling the real meaning of the Sabbath law, thereby keeping the Sabbath in a deeper manner. Whew! The Ten Commandments are intact! Maybe. Or maybe Jesus was really breaking the Sabbath.

The Sabbath commandment is one of those divine laws that many people bend to fit their own circumstances. The Bible makes it very clear that the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week – Saturday. No other day would do. It was not a holiday that moved to fit a person’s weekly work schedule. The work schedule was supposed to change to fit the Sabbath; that was the whole point.

But apart from the Jews, only the Seventh Day Adventists, and my cousins the Seventh Day Baptists, observe the Sabbath on Saturday. Other Christians have transferred the day of rest to Sunday, the first day of the week, something Scripture never permits.

Even assuming Sunday were the new Sabbath, Christians don’t even observe Sunday as a day of rest any more. Many Christians “have to work” on Sunday; their jobs demand it. Larger churches even provide Saturday evening worship to accommodate their Sunday-Sabbath-breaking members.

So technically speaking, almost all Christians are Sabbath-breakers. Yet we hold up the Ten Commandments as the pinnacle of morality, lauding them as divine non-negotiables and demanding that monuments to them be erected in public places. Maybe we should be honest and edit them down to the Nine Commandments.

I have never been convinced by the sophistry of Christians who rationalize breaking the fourth commandment regularly, yet get bent out of shape at people who break the other nine. It seems kind of hypocritical to me - more like the Pharisees than Jesus.

That is why I like the stories about Jesus as a Sabbath-breaker. He does not justify his behavior as actually “keeping the spirit of the law.” He just points to another famous lawbreaker in Scripture, King David, and says he is just following his great, great, great, great, great granddaddy’s example. Then he announces, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus goes further, saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Is he stating a divine principle that supersedes other biblical commands as well? Or is this principle unique to the Sabbath? Does this principle apply to other Scripture texts? Is he possibly saying, “The Scriptures were made for man, not man for the Scriptures?”

Whoa! That is going too far! Think of the ramifications! But the Pharisees thought Jesus was going too far in regard to the Sabbath command. It says, “But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.” I can almost hear people discussing what to do with me - the outlaw Marshall Davis. At least I am in good company.

Singing with Agnostics

2010-09-04T08:41:00.001-04:00

I am a theist who loves agnostics. (I want to say I am a gnostic who loves agnostics, but that would take too much explaining!) I love agnostics’ honesty and courage, and ability to clearly see through the smokescreen that most of us Christians blow around our churches.

Last night I was listening to Folk Alley, an internet folk radio station. All I get is country and pop radio stations up here in the woods of New Hampshire, so I have resorted to listening to radio via my laptop.

A song came on that I mistook for a gospel song at first … until I listened closely. It was “Probably Not” from Susan Werner’s 2007 album “The Gospel Truth.” The refrain goes: “Is there a god above? Is there eternal love? Probably not. Probably not. Is there a home up in the sky? Will we be there by and by? Probably not. Probably not.” Those would be “fightin words” for most preachers, but I found myself wanting to sing along.

The final verse got me laughing out loud. “But what if I've been wrong, And God's been up there all along. And He hands me a heavenly crown. Would I dare to turn Him down? Probably not. Probably not. And if He sends me down to hell, Would I smile and say ‘oh well?’ Probably not. No, Probably Not.”

Werner describes herself as an “evangelical agnostic.” They are “a passionate but ambivalent group,” she explains. She calls her music “Agnostic Gospel.” From what I can pick up from the lyrics of her songs, she is one of those kids who never could fit into the shoes of her parents’ faith.

She writes in “Lost My Religion” that she lost her religion at age ten. “Lost my religion. I guess it had to be. Lost my religion, or my religion lost me.” In her song “(Why Is Your) Heaven So Small” she asks, “If god is great and god is good, why is your heaven so small?”

In her song “Sunday Morning” she sings, “and I went back the other day, closed my eyes and tried to pray. But a voice spoke loud and clear ‘you ask too many questions, dear’ and I said, ‘you ask too few.’ That's why I still don't know quite what to do on Sunday mornings.”

In “Our Father (The New, Revised Edition)” she prays, “Thy kingdom come to every nation. Thy will be done in everything we do. Lord, lead us not into temptation. And deliver us from those who think they're You.” I could quote every word from every song on the album. I love it.

I love agnostics. I love talking about spiritual matters with them. They are so much more interesting than most church folk. They think things and say things that true believers are afraid to think and say… at least to preachers. They question the sacred idols of Christianity.

I am not an agnostic, not even an evangelical agnostic. I am more like an agnostic evangelical. I don’t mind regularly saying, “I don’t know,” which is what agnostic means.

I once said in a sermon “I don’t know,” and a lady came up to me afterward and told me she never heard those words spoken from a pulpit. She said, “Pastors don’t say such things.” She meant it in a good way. She explained that she respects people who admit they do not have all the answers.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. In fact the longer I live, the less I know. It is in this unknowing that I see God. The less I know, the more I know God. That is why I love agnostics. They don’t know either. And unlike most of my Christian brethren, they know they don’t know.
_______________________

Susan Werner’s website can be found at http://www.susanwerner.com

Phed Up With Phobias

2010-09-01T08:32:00.000-04:00

The August 30 Time Magazine cover loudly asks the question: Is America Islamophobic? I have been hearing about this new phobia for some time now. My response is weariness of heart. Here is another phobia invented by the thought police to browbeat people. Just when I had recovered from homophobia!

I am not saying there isn’t a widespread distrust and ignorance about Muslims in our land in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There certainly is. But I am tired of this trend of labeling everything as a phobia.

Phobias are legitimate psychological disorders - like agoraphobia and arachnophobia. But now the term has been expanded to contain hundreds of fears. One website “The Phobia List” (phobialist.com) tries to name them all.

As a pastor I have known people with some of them – like homilophobia (fear of sermons), ecclesiophobia (fear of church), and hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (fear of the number 666.) Some people are downright theophobic (fear of God.)

But terms like homophobia have been horribly misused in public discourse. It is a genuine pathological disorder, but now the word is commonly misused as emotional blackmail to disparage those who disagree with gays and lesbians on matters of sexual ethics. Just because someone holds different ethical standards doesn’t mean they have a phobia! To label everyone who disagrees with you as phobic is itself a phobia – fear of people who disagree with you!

Many Americans are now afraid of being seen as phobic. It is a form of phobophobia (fear of phobias). In our society nothing is worse than being called Islamophobic or homophobic or some other politicallyincorrectophobia. Once the phobic label is applied, it ends all civil and intelligent discourse. Where is FDR when we need him? He spoke the famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The rest of the quote from Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address is worth reading. “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

To get back to Islamophobia … there is a virulent form of militant Islamic fundamentalism growing in the world. It is a genuine threat, and it is healthy – not phobic - to be afraid of this religious extremism. These folks are crazy dangerous! They strap bombs to themselves and fly airliners into buildings! This mutant form of Islam is a cancer that threatens Islamic countries and western civilization. It needs to be addressed. But the best way to do this is by strengthening healthy religious expression, including mainstream Islam – not attacking or fearing Islam as a whole.

In combating this threat our greatest enemy is fear – including the type of fear that labels those whom we do not understand as deviants, and turns our neighbors into pariahs with psychological, social or moral disorders. As a Christian I have been the recipient of hateful labels that I can only describe as Christophobic (fear of Christians.)

If we continue down this path of name-calling we will eventually embody the punchline of the old joke about the Quaker who said: “Everyone is crazy except me and thee, and I am not so sure about thee.”

The Gospel of Nice

2010-08-29T08:10:00.000-04:00

There is a new book entitled “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church” by Kenda Creasy Dean, a Methodist minister and a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. It is based on the National Study of Youth and Religion, which conducted in-depth interviews with 3,300 American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17.

She says that teen Christians have bought into a form of Christianity she calls "moralistic therapeutic deism," a watered-down faith that portrays God as a "divine therapist" whose chief goal is to boost people's self-esteem.

Another book, “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers” by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Dentonis, is based on the same research. It says that teens’ faith is a hodgepodge of banal, self-serving, feel-good beliefs that bears little resemblance to traditional Christianity.

It is not the kids’ fault, they say. This “mutant” form of Christianity (as Dean calls it) is not a result of youth culture; it is the religious product now being taught by churches to adults as well as children. It has been produced by the economic need to fill pews and offering plates.

Traditional Christianity is too scandalous and controversial to boost attendance, so a watered down version has taken its place, one that will offend no one. Part of this new form of Christianity is what Dean calls a "gospel of niceness," where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers.

Being Christian has become equivalent to being nice. Christians are nice people with big smiles and happy words. I watched a television interview with a Texas pastor and his wife recently. They were advocating a one-day “fast” from Facebook. I thought the idea was interesting, although a bit trivial in the light of what is happening in the world these days.

But I could barely watch the whole interview because of the goony smiles on their faces. Ugh! Every once in a while the façade fell away to reveal the vacant expressions beneath. But quickly the wide grins would return, accompanied with smiley words. I felt like I was watching a comedic caricature of Christians from Saturday Night Live rather than a real pastor and his wife.

I’m sorry if it seems like I am not being nice to say such things. I am sure this pastor is a very nice man, and that his wife is very nice, and that his church is filled with nice people who do lots of nice things. I am sure he preaches nice sermons and that his church building is very, very nice. But if this is the face of contemporary Christianity, please count me out.

Do you think Jesus walked around with a smiley face all the time? I don’t think so! There are no smiley words recorded in the gospels. He challenged people, and he made people angry enough to crucify him. Jesus was not nice! Did you hear that? The cross was not nice! The Christian gospel is not a gospel of niceness.

It is a tough teaching filled with “difficult sayings” that clever exegesis cannot completely explain away. Jesus regularly offended people. That is how he saved them. Nice words and smiles may make you feel good and fill churches, but they cannot bring about repentance, salvation or justice. Only truth does that. Christianity can be either nice or true, but not both.

If Obama Were a Muslim

2010-08-26T08:45:00.000-04:00

Most Americans don’t know the religion of their president. That is the conclusion of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. Only a third of Americans know Obama is a Christian. A fifth think he is Muslim, and almost half don’t have a clue what faith he espouses.

The increase in the number of people who think that he is a Muslim (11% to 18%) and the corresponding decrease in those who think he is a Christian (48% to 34%) is causing most of the uproar. The White House is responding by insisting that Obama is - and has always been - a Christian.

I have several observations. First, what does it matter? I couldn’t figure out what religion Ronald Reagan was the whole time he was in the White House! He never went to church, didn’t seem to believe much of anything, yet he was the darling of the Religious Right.

Furthermore, what is wrong with giving the First Family a little privacy when it comes to their faith? The publicity surrounding their religious practice has made it impossible for them to worship with a Washington congregation like other presidential families. That doesn’t seem quite right.

Second, conservatives ought to be celebrating the fact that Obama says he is a Christian. They ought to be encouraging him in his faith, rather than alienating him by suggesting he might not really be a Christian. They ought to be celebrating his first name – Barak – named after the Biblical Hebrew general – rather than pointing to his middle name – Hussein – named after the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. But you don’t hear anyone suggesting that because of his first name he might be Jewish.

Third … and the most radical idea for my Christian brethren to fathom … I wouldn’t mind if Obama were a Muslim! So what if he were a Muslim? That should be the response of the White House these days!

It would be fine with me if we had a Muslim in the White House – for the same reason that I think it is great that we have an African American president. Having a non-Christian president would signal that we have achieved true religious tolerance in this country, as well as give us a much-needed rapport with the Arab world.

Of course I don’t want a Taliban in the White House instituting Sharia law. But that wouldn’t happen anyway. That is the scare tactic behind the rumor that Obama is a “secret Muslim.” But having a moderate Muslim president – like having moderate Christian presidents - could a boon for America and the world. At the very least if would force us to learn about Islam.

There is a plague of religious illiteracy in America, especially when it comes to Islam. The ignorance spewing from the debate about the mosque proposed near Ground Zero has revealed that. Perhaps having a Muslim in the White House would raise the level of religious discussion above placards and slogans.

But maybe not. Having Jimmy Carter in the White House really didn’t help the image of Southern Baptists. We have had two Southern Baptists presidents in recent decades – Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – and yet people still connect Southern Baptists with Republican presidents Reagan (a Presbyterian) and Bush (a Methodist)!

Theoretically I wish we had more godly followers of Jesus Christ in Washington. I think it would be good for the country. But I also think that religious diversity in high places is good for the country. That is why I am disturbed that there are presently no Protestant Christians serving on the Supreme Court … but that is another blog.

Walking on Water

2010-08-25T08:35:00.000-04:00

It was a cool rainy day on Monday, so we went to see the new movie “Eat, Pray, Love.” I was hoping for a film about a spiritual quest. What I got was superficial self-indulgence. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if the book is any better, but the movie is as shallow as a wadi in the dry season.

When I wasn’t bored, I wanted to jump up and do some preaching in the theatre. (I am sure that would have gone over big!) At every turn of the film, there were missed opportunities and misdirections. Even the lessons that Liz (the Julia Roberts character) learned during her year of self-discovery were more like fortune cookie wisdom than real truth.

Then yesterday I woke up to a beautiful morning and went out on my porch with my morning cup of tea. There I heard a wisdom much more profound than anything I heard in that theatre. I heard it again in the afternoon when I hiked a mountain and saw the view from the summit.

I heard it echoing a third time when I knelt for my afternoon time of prayer. What I heard was silence. I thought to myself, “This is it!” This is what that sad woman in the film was searching for in recipes, religion and romance.

In the film the main character was visiting an ashram in India when she was asked what she was looking for. She answered “Peace.” That is what the silence of creation provides – a peace born of silence, which books and films, ashrams and gurus cannot give. There is a silence beneath it all.

It is a powerful silence, always flowing like an aquifer beneath our feet. It is the living water that Jesus shared with the Samaritan woman at the well. This is the goal of all spiritual quests. It is the source of life. It flows in our veins and rings in our ears, strong and clear.

I read recently that a system of huge underground rivers has been discovered beneath the Simpson Desert of the Australian outback. The surface landscape is dry and barren, but one hundred feet below the surface is a system of rivers that covers hundreds of miles. These rivers and streams are the oldest in the world, at least 50 million years old, dating from the late Cretaceous period when the desert was green and wet.

This is the spiritual landscape of today. The religious landscape of our post-modern world is barren and dry, covered with the wrecks of worn-out fundamentalism, tired liberalism, and faddish contemporary spirituality. But beneath our feet is the river of life, the source of creation. It is under the desert landscape of our thoughts and emotions also. All we have to do is dig a well.

The Samaritan woman complained that she was thirsty. The village well was deep and she had no vessel with which to draw water. Jesus replied, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” He said later, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

In other words, he is the source; we are the well. As the prophet Isaiah said, “For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”
_____________________________________
Image is of the Simpson Desert, Australia

Flannel Shirt Weather

2010-08-23T08:52:00.000-04:00

It’s only been sixteen years since I lived year-round in New Hampshire, but I had forgotten how cool it could get here in the summer. While packing for a two month stay, we brought a mixture of summer and fall clothing, thinking we would not need the autumn apparel for quite a while. After all, we left Pennsylvania with temperatures in the eighties and with a forecast of 92 degrees the following day.

Well, we got up here Saturday night, and by Sunday night we had all the windows closed and had broken out the flannel. Some people were even wearing their parkas in church yesterday! I am not expecting a frost anytime soon, but it is a significant drop from what we were used to.

My wife read the forecast for the next few days and kept repeating, “I don’t like this weather! I don’t like this weather!” I didn’t say this to her, but I will whisper it here, “I like this weather.” After a summer of extreme heat, it is nice to have some God-made air conditioning.

There is something about flannel shirts and blue jeans that suit me. I am one of those rare birds who would rather be cold than hot. You can always put on more clothing to get warm. You can only take off so much to get cool.

I could never retire to Florida, even though much of my family (by marriage) loves it. (My biological family has more sense.) My parents-in-law think it is like heaven down there, but it feels more like hell to me … at least most of the year. January and February aren’t too bad. When I read about the Infernal Region in the Bible, I picture it as 95-degree weather with 95-percent humidity - just like Orlando in August.

But we won’t be getting out the snow shovel here in NH anytime soon. They say it will stop raining, and the sun will come out here in a few days. I am sure I will be putting on my swimming suit and taking a dip in the lake later this week. Of course, first we will have to break the ice.

Simple Spirituality

2010-08-19T08:53:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I don’t get it! I don’t understand why there is so much drama surrounding the spiritual search. Monstrous buildings, obscene budgets and rich men in expensive suits or elaborate vestments. On the other extreme are self-loathing and ascetic mortification. What is all this drama about? What do these theatrics have to do with God?

Spirituality is really quite simple. In fact, it is the simplest thing in the world. We are looking for inner peace, but the one place that people don’t look is in their souls. Instead they look inside buildings or inside books. They look outside in people or religions or things or places. But where else would you look for inner peace than where that inner people must ultimately reside?

People are looking for meaning and purpose. These are values of the heart. Where else would one look for them but the heart? But people look in the external world of things, work and causes.

People look for someone to look up to, but they don’t look up! They look out at politicians and celebrities, gurus or saints. They look around, searching and searching and searching. The truth is that the One you are searching for is already present. No need to seek. Just open your eyes.

To see God the best place to start is to look at the image of God. Not painted icons or carved idols but living humans who are the image of God. Look long and deep into the image of God and you see the One the image reflects.

The image is not God, but the image reflects our gaze toward God. It is an Escherean mirror reflecting infinite regressions toward God. Never-ending of course, or else God would not be God. But when the mirror is clear enough, it can see beyond the horizon into the throne room of God.

The end of the spiritual search is that there is no search - at least not a search that you make. You are already found. The door is already open; your prayers are already answered. It is just a matter of stopping long enough to see. Just turn your eyes around, and the search is over. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news!

Peace abundant and full resides at the center. Truth surrounds us and enfolds us. Meaning permeates us. Living water flows up from within into eternal life. Christ is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Creator and Created, the Savior in the form of the one who is saved, the Word beyond words.

Burning Qurans

2010-08-18T08:52:00.001-04:00

What is it that causes a person to burn what is sacred to others? The Nazis did it with books in the 1930’s. Anti-American mobs do it overseas when they burn American flags. The Taliban did it in Afghanistan when they dynamited the ancient statues of the Buddha in the Bamyan Valley in 2001. A church in Florida is planning to do it next month when they burn Qurans.

The Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational church in Gainesville, Florida, is planning to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning Qurans. They are calling it "International Burn-A-Quran Day." Pastor Terry Jones explained his motives. "We feel, as Christians, one of our jobs is to warn." The goal of the event is to give Muslims an opportunity to convert, he said.

It is one thing to discard books or objects that are part of your own past that you want to leave behind. In Acts 19 Christians believers burned their own occult books as a way to make a psychological break with their past. If people want to destroy their own property, then that is their business.

But publicly destroying other persons’ sacred books and objects just to make a statement is a different matter. It does not bring about any good. If Pastor Jones really thinks this is going to cause Muslims to convert, then he is delusional. It is obviously going to give propaganda ammunition to Al-Qaeda, which recruits members by portraying the West as at war with Islam.

What is it in a person that needs to destroy that which is sacred to another? I think it is fear – fear that “the others” may be right. Book burners are afraid of the ideas in the books. The flag burners are afraid of what the flag stands for. We seek to destroy that which we fear.

That means that the members of the Florida church are acknowledging their fear of the Quran. It is really a testament to their own spiritual weakness and insecurity. They are afraid the Islamic holy book holds power that they cannot withstand, so they must destroy it.

In a backhanded sort of way, the Quran-burning event is a compliment to Islam. But the Muslims will not see it that way. If you think Muslims got upset when a cartoonist in Denmark drew a caricature of Muhammad, wait until you see their reaction to videos of Christians burning Qurans in the United States!

We seem to be entering a dangerous era of religious extremism in our world. Religious intolerance is increasing around the globe, and along with it comes the persecution of minority religions. It did not take the Nazis very long to go from burning books to burning Jews.

The National Association of Evangelicals has condemned the Quran-burning. “The proposed burning of Qurans would be profoundly offensive to Muslims worldwide, just as Christians would be insulted by the burning of Bibles,” an NAE statement said. In other words, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Perhaps the best thing we can do is to ignore the book-burners. Why give them the media attention that they desire? It only adds fuel to the fire and continues the cycle of extremism. The best way to extinguish a fire is to cut off its oxygen supply. If the media would just ignore the religious crazies in Florida on September 11, the world would be a lot better off.

__________________

Photo is a burned Quran found in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in January 2010.

Religious Liberty at Ground Zero

2010-08-16T08:21:00.002-04:00

President Obama recently jumped into the controversy about the mosque to be built near Ground Zero and promptly got his head bitten off. Therefore it is probably foolish of me to wade into the same shark infested waters. But this is an issue of essential interest to Baptists.

Baptists have historically been champions of religious freedom and tolerance. Baptists were born of persecution ... persecution by other Christians in England and America in the 17th century. We were the first voice for religious liberty in the “new world.” A century and a half later the United States wisely came to adopt those Baptist values.

Now those values are in danger – spoken against even by some Baptists. I saw a placard that said, “They can build a mosque at Ground Zero when Christians can build a church in Saudi Arabia.” Do we really want to model our standard of freedom after the Saudis?

First of all, let me say I believe it is a bad idea to build a mosque near Ground Zero. In fact I think it is a stupid idea. The Islamic group planning to build this huge Islamic Center called Cordoba House is showing incredible insensitivity to the families of the victims and to the national wound that has still not healed from 9/11.

I think it is a mistake to build a mosque near that location. But in this country religious people have the right to do stupid, insensitive, and even wrong things… as long as they do not hurt others or infringe on the rights of others to believe and do equally stupid, insensitive, and wrong things. That is the nature of religious freedom. Religious freedom means that people have the right to believe things we think are wrong and worship in ways we think are wrong.

The Pilgrims who sat around that first Thanksgiving table thought the early Baptists were wrong. In fact those Puritans thought Baptists were so wrong that they kicked the first American Baptist – Roger Williams - out of Massachusetts. He fled the Bay State in the middle of the winter and eventually made it to Rhode Island where he founded the first colony built on true religious tolerance and freedom in America. He called that colony Providence.

The initiators of the Cordoba House are not Islamic radicals or jihadists. They are not the ones who flew the airliners into the World Trade Center, nor do they agree with their politics of intolerance. In fact, Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, the leader of the Cordoba Initiative, is a Sufi. He has been the imam of a Sufi mosque called Masjid al-Farah in New York City since 1983.

Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. Sufis have been persecuted in both Shia and Sunni Islamic countries like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and also in India. Jihadists consider them heretics. They hate Sufis almost as much as they hate Christians.

Abdul-Rauf is no saint, and he is not perfect. He can also say and do stupid things. But one doesn’t have to be a saint or perfect to build a house of worship in this country. If that were true, there would be no churches in this land.

At least one other Sufi leader agrees that the Cordoba House is a bad idea. Sufi Suleiman Schwartz said that building a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero is inconsistent with the Sufi values of simplicity of faith and sensitivity towards others.

I still hope that this Islamic Center in not built where it is planned. But if it is built in this location, I pray that it would become a place of religious tolerance and inter-religious dialogue that might undermine the jihadist agenda in this country and around the world. If it did, my Baptist forebears would be proud.

God Willing

2010-08-15T09:20:00.000-04:00

I find myself using the phrase “God willing” a lot these days. The phrase prefaces most statements I make concerning the future. It is not a thoughtless habit or cliché, like when someone mindlessly says “God bless you” when you sneeze.

When I say “God willing” I mean it. I am sensing the uncertainty of my plans. I make my plans, but I have no ultimate control over whether or not they will happen. God decides. As Proverbs 16:9 says, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.”

Being a student of religions, I am conscious that this pattern is a very Muslim habit. Arabic-speaking folk often say “In sha' Allah” (إن شاء الله). Long ago Christians used to say the Latin phrase “Deo volente” or simply DV. However you say it, the concept is becoming a part of my everyday consciousness.

I make plans, but I am increasingly aware that my plans don’t really mean a thing. I am not in control; God is. At best I can hope and pray is that my plans align with God’s prior plans. I had planned to be a fulltime pastor until I was of traditional retirement age. Then all of a sudden God had other plans.

I plan to go to New Hampshire on Friday, but I know there is a doctor’s appointment earlier this week that could change that. A pastor friend called me from New Hampshire the other day asking me when I would arrive; he wanted to talk. I said, “God willing I will be there Saturday or Sunday.

We are going to New Hampshire for the birth of a new grandchild, due to arrive in three weeks. The child is already more than seven pounds in the womb. I do not worry, neither am I anxious. I trust God, but also I know too well the dangers inherent in childbirth. So I pray fervently for the health and safety of mother and child. But in the back of my mind I utter the prayer of Jesus, “Not my will but Thine be done.” That is how it is anyway, whether or not I think it or say it. God is in control.

I have been invited to preach at an historic pulpit in September that has not heard a preacher’s voice in almost two hundred years. I am excited at the opportunity. But I know what could happen between now and then, so I say “God willing, I will preach…” I am meeting tomorrow with someone who can open doors of ministry for me here in Pennsylvania. I am excited to hear what possibilities God may have placed in this man’s mind. It is God’s will.

I have a sense of being carried in the hands of God, guided step by step. Over the years many people have come to me for advice in discerning God’s will. They agonize over decisions. So I say, “It is God’s will.” They are relieved to hear they are making the right choice. The truth is that they do not choose – God does.

The apostle James wrote: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'”

The Quran echoes James words: “And never say of anything, 'I shall do such and such thing tomorrow.' Except with the saying: 'If God wills!'" To this timeless truth that transcends the differences between religions, I say “Amen.”
______________________
The image is the Arabic word "Inshallah" (God willing) in decorative script.

Meow Mind

2010-08-13T09:54:00.001-04:00

Buddhists call it the “monkey mind” or the “mind monkey.” It describes the restless nature of our thoughts. I don’t know much about monkeys, but I know something about cats. I have had a cat as a pet for almost my entire life.

I have heard some people speak about cats in glowing spiritual terms, as if they were natural born sages embodying spiritual virtue. One guy calls it “the power of meow.” Cute.

Well, he has not met my cat. I love my cat, but he can be a pest. Like when I need to cut his claws, or put him in his animal carrier. He is especially a pest when we are trying to sleep at night.

We do not have central air in our home. That means that these dog days of summer can be very uncomfortable. But we have a window air conditioner in our bedroom, so that we can at least get a good night’s sleep. That means our bedroom door must remain closed.

Our cat cannot decide whether he would rather sleep in the coolness with us or be free to roam the rest of our hot home. In and out, in and out, all night long. It is the closed door he hates. Whenever he sees a door, he wants to go through it. He meows and scratches relentlessly until it is opened. Once he is inside, he wants out again.

It is not just this cat. We once had a cat named Arminius (his name is another story) who accidentally shut himself in our basement bathroom. He succeeded in ripping up my newly laid vinyl flooring in his attempt to get out. Robert Frost penned, “Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down!" If he had owned a cat he would have written a poem about doors.

My mind is like my cat … but not in a good way. When I go into my prayer room, close the door and kneel to pray, my mind wants out. Something there is that doesn’t love prayer, that wants out!

What is it about the silence of prayer that raises my restless animal nature? The apostle Paul calls it the flesh, often mistakenly identified with the body. It is not the body that is the enemy. That is why some biblical translators refer to it more accurately as the “sin nature.” Paul elsewhere refers to it as “the old man.” It is our unredeemed nature.

It feels deeply instinctive, as if it were originating in the reptilian core of my brain. It is definitely bestial and primal. It is in rebellion against God and his salvation. It is not the true me, at least not my best me. My true nature is the one who watches the cat nature in me and is annoyed at its restlessness.

Once my cat was literally closed in my prayer room. He had been sleeping under the guest bed and emerged from hiding shortly after I was engrossed in prayer. He started scratching at the door wanting out. When I ignored him, he came up to me, put his paws on my chest and nose in my face to let me know he needed attention. Just like my inner cat mind. I found that if I just patted him a little and spoke gently to him, he would curl up at my feet and let me pray. It works for the cat mind too.

Transparency

2010-08-12T09:04:00.000-04:00

While on vacation this summer, both in Hawaii and New Hampshire, my wife and I enjoyed many hours swimming. Actually we mostly floated on inflatable tubes. As we drifted many yards from shore, we marveled at the clarity of the Hawaiian ocean and the New Hampshire lakes. In both locales the water was virtually transparent.

The word “transparency” is used a lot these days in the news. People talk about transparency in economic matters and transparency in government. I want transparency in spiritual matters. I am not talking about religious affairs. It would be nice if religious organizations were more transparent, but I do not expect that to happen. Religious institutions tend to build more walls than windows.

I want transparency in prayer. When I pray, it is the darkness of my own soul that I want to eliminate. I know intellectually that God sees me clearly just as I am; I cannot hide anything from the Lord. But I want to experience that transparency. I want to see God as clearly as God sees me ... and live to tell the tale. I want to see myself as God sees me, and see God as Jesus sees God. I want transparency of soul.

But when I kneel to pray, I find myself in muddy water. There is murkiness in the depths of my heart. When I consciously attempt to be more fully open to the presence of God, my soul shoots out an ink screen like an octopus. My emotions instinctively try to protect me from God. My sins drag me into the windowless back rooms of my soul.

My mind plays games to avoid transparency. One of those mind games is thinking profound thoughts. Part of me thinks that if I can fill my mind with spiritual thoughts, then that is sufficient. But doctrines are not enough. Theological thoughts can be helpful aids to approaching God, especially in the early stages of the spiritual life. But in my experience they are often barriers to experiencing the God who is higher than our thoughts.

So the goal of my time of prayer is to become transparent to the Holy Spirit. I seek to be a clear window, without dust to obscure the view. I want there to be no distortions, no filters between God and me. I want to be over my head in deep water so clear that I can see God’s face.

So I calm the waters of the heart and silence the chatter of my mind. Prayer for me is not reciting a wish list of things I want God to do for me. Prayer is not trying to bend God’s will to fit my idea of how things ought to be on earth; it is submitting my will to God without a ripple of dissent.

Prayer is more about seeing God than influencing God. It is more about being in the will of God than changing the mind of God. It is about being transparent, so that I can see God, and others can see God through me. Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” That is transparency - to be unseen, so that Christ may be seen through us.
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Art is “Gate of Eden” by Ben Goossens.