Everyone is Crazy ... Except Me

“Everyone’s crazy except thee and me, and I am not so sure about thee.” That is the punchline to an a homiletical anecdote that I have long ago forgotten.  It had something to do with a Quaker and his neighbor discussing doctrine. It was a funny story ... if only I could remember the setup.  

It describes exactly how I am feeling these days. It seems like the whole world has gone bonkers. Conspiracy theories are uncritically embraced. Bald-faced lies are unashamedly proclaimed as truth. After trying to make sense of the rhetoric in this presidential election, I have concluded that the only explanation is that Americans have lost their minds.  

We have fallen into a twenty-first century version of Orwell’s 1984, where Doublespeak is the official language. Politics has become unhinged from reality. It is Bizarro World where everything is backwards. People knowingly speak falsehoods and expect people to repeat the party line.  

It is unsettling. Can this really be happening? How can people deceive themselves so completely? As a culture we are now reaping the consequences of relativism and post-modernism. Truth is whatever you want it to be. This is producing societal chaos. I heard one local culture warrior say, “There is no such thing as truth. There are only ideas you agree with and ideas you disagree with.” Spoken like a true Oceanian. 

It is particularly unsettling to see the role that popular Christianity plays in believing and promulgating falsehood. If Christians can so thoroughly deceive themselves concerning political issues, then people wonder if they can be trusted in spiritual matters. As the apostle Paul wrote: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” 

It is all so exhausting. I feel like the prophet Elijah who exclaimed, “and I, even I only, am left.” My wife and I often joke that she and I are the only sane ones left. Only me and thee, and I am not so sure about thee. Of course, others think the same thing. They think everyone is crazy but them. I am sure many people think I have gone off the deep end.  

I am presently reading a book entitled Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things by Dan Ariely. It explains how normal people can be caught up in a web (or a funnel, as he describes it) of conspiracy theories and other lies. Reading his real-life examples has revealed to me how we all believe irrational things. We are governed more by deep emotions than rational thought. 

Come to think of it, every religion is kind of crazy! The typical religion believes an assortment of unbelievable things.  As a Christian I have hitched my wagon to a wagon train of crazy people, most of whom believe things literally that any sane person can see are metaphorical. Like Alice in Wonderland Christians believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  

Christians look at other religions, as well as sects within our own religion, and think, “How can they believe such crazy things?” Yet people of other faiths and no religion are thinking the same thing about us! We all look crazy when viewed through the lens of another’s faith. None of us are exempt from this craziness, even those of us who pride ourselves on being rational.  

But there are degrees of crazy. There is harmless crazy, and then there is batshit crazy. Americans are entering into the political desert of batshit crazy. There is crazy that allows others to be who they want to be and do what they want to do. Then there is crazy that thinks it needs to impose its view of reality on others by governmental force. America is teetering on that type of crazy.  

The political craziness that is being proclaimed and believed these days threatens to undo America’s fundamental freedoms. If one does not agree with the reigning worldview, you are considered mentally ill, morally aberrant, socially dangerous, or religiously heretical. These “others” are viewed as dangerous to society. Dangerous enough to be outlawed, banned, arrested or deported. Normality, like history, is written by the winners.  

If what passes for normal today is true, then you can color me crazy. I am crazy enough to believe that there is such a thing as historical truth, scientific truth, and spiritual truth. Truth is not a matter of public opinion or political power. Truth is true regardless if anyone believes it.

In other words truth can be the minority position. It usually is. Jesus was executed by the political and religious majority. What is considered heresy by the majority religion may be true in reality.  

Furthermore I believe it is necessary to speak truth to power. It is never defensible to deny or obfuscate truth for political or religious gain. When liars win, we all lose. When Christ said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” he was saying that these qualities were essential to who he was. To speak untruth by commission or omission is to deny Christ.  

Of course I might be crazy for thinking and saying such things. I may have it all upside down and backwards, deceiving myself and being deceived. If that were true, how would I know? Yet I am at peace in my craziness, resting in the One I know. As the apostle quoted to the Athenian philosophers, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”  

Furthermore I remember that when Jesus began preaching the Kingdom of God, his own family thought he was “out of this mind.” So I figure I am in good company. So Jesus, it is just me and thee. Of the two of us, I am not so sure about me ... but I am sure about thee. 

Thanking Trees

During the summer months we worship at a small Congregational church in a nearby town. The congregation worships outside the church building in what they call “the meadow.” It is a shady spot overshadowed by tall pines. These evergreens stand like guardians around a ”peace pole” on which a message of peace is written in several languages. It is a lovely spot for worship.  

I love to worship outdoors. When I served as a pastor, I used every excuse to get my congregation out of the church building and into a natural setting. While here in New Hampshire that included preaching from Pulpit Rock in our corner of the White Mountain National Park, picnics & worship by the pond behind the church, leading worship for fairgoers on an outdoor stage during Columbus Day weekend, baptisms in the lake, a live nativity service at Christmastime, Christmas caroling around the village, Easter sunrise services, and Blessing of the Animals. 

A season never went by without finding an opportunity to get outside the church building to worship. Not only do these outdoor services serve people who might not step inside a church building, but it inspires regular churchgoers to connect the gospel to the world outside the church walls.  

There is something uniquely inspiring about worshipping in a natural setting. God feels closer. God speaks powerfully through Nature, usually more powerfully than through human words. For these reasons I now cherish opportunities for outdoor worship, whether they be at this Congregational church or the Episcopal services held on Church Island during the summer, which we try to attend at least once a year.  

Recently we received some bad news from the Congregational pastor. The four pine trees, which surround the peace pole and shade us during summer worship, are infested with pine borers. They are dying and are going to be removed this month. In her weekly email to the congregation she invited people to “stop by the trees in the next week or two and give them thanks for graceful shade and faithful companionship over many years.” 

So my wife and I did just that. On our way home from the grocery store, we stopped by and thanked the trees. The following day I returned to take a photo of the trees, which I will include here. I thanked the trees for shading us from the summer heat. I thanked them for hosting birds, which would worship with us regularly and occasionally join their voices with ours. The trees inspired us by tirelessly spreading their arms in praise to their Source, which is also our Source.  

They lead us in lifting our hearts to heaven. Trees are so much better at worship than humans are! They are also much better at silence. They are better at teaching and sermonizing eternal truths. Endless homilies are proclaimed wordlessly by these silent sentinels. They are better at living than we are, and they are better at dying. Trees have a lot to teach us if we have ears to hear.  

These four trees have been faithful members of the congregation for many years, and now they are dying. Next spring the congregation will decide what type of trees will be planted in their place. But we all know that it will be decades before the young trees can provide the type of shade that their forebears provided. By that time nearly all (if not all) of the congregation will be gone as well. These old trees will be old memories in historical photographs. 

So, thank you pines! You have performed your ministry well. I miss you already. While I am thinking about it, I also want to thank the trees that sit as cordwood in my backyard, visible to me as I sit on my back porch writing this on my laptop. That firewood will keep me warm this winter. I thank the trees that provided the lumber for my raised flower bed, which I just constructed yesterday. I thank the trees that provided the wood for my old house over two hundred years ago.  

So many trees to be thankful for! So much to be thankful to trees for! Thank you, trees, for the beautiful autumn foliage that is decorating my yard. Thank you for pumping out the oxygen that my lungs breathe in. Thank you for protecting the ground from erosion. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being faithful ambassadors of God. May I do half as well during my earthly pilgrimage.