Neither a Camel nor a Mouse

Have you noticed that nightly stock market reports always include a detailed analysis of what caused the indices to move up or down, even when that movement is only a few points? Newscasters tell us that a 32-point drop in a market hovering at 10,000 is the result of this or that bit of news, as though you could really pin so small a change on a single company’s announcement of missed projections. We are ready to accept the analysis, to believe the reports, because we need explanations; we need to feel in control – no matter how illusory that control really is.

What is certain, however, is that illusion will not hold us forever. Sooner or later we will look behind the curtain and see the Great Oz as he is. Smoke and mirrors and ropes and pulleys make for a great show, but they only hide the truth from us. As in the movie, from small things a giant shadow is often cast. I am reminded of the fox in Kahlil Gibran’s The Madman, “A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, ‘I will have a camel for lunch today.’  And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again – and he said, ‘A mouse will do.’”

Many of us have lived our lives as though we were walking through a perpetual sunrise. We did indeed cast a giant shadow for awhile, at least in our own minds. This past year I have spent hours with people who suddenly found themselves at noonday staring at uncomfortably small versions of themselves. (Try to find your shadow when the sun is directly overhead.) These are the people who overextended themselves with houses, boats, cars, and toys of all kinds, all the while teaching their children the art of conspicuous consumption and undeferred gratification. Unlike the fox in Gibran’s parable, they found camels to swallow. Sooner or later, however, we all have to discover for ourselves that foxes don’t eat camels.

Some years ago I sat at lunch with two physician friends, both in their mid-thirties. Both graduates of prestigious medical schools. Both in their first years of high incomes, high mortgages, and bills that always seem to grow to match whatever they brought home. Knowing that I had walked away from a career as a corporate executive to enter the ministry, they asked me “How much is enough?” My answer was honest but disconcerting. “It’s never enough.” As long as you define yourself by your salary, your house, and your net worth, it will never be enough. It is not as simple as the old cliché, “You can’t buy happiness.” Trust me; you can – at least for awhile. Given the choice between being rich or poor, most of us wouldn’t hesitate to choose the former. So where is the problem?

The problem is simply that life won’t let us alone forever. The illusion that we are in control, that we small foxes can brunch on camels, will ultimately be exposed for what it is – a lie. A recession, a death, a divorce, a serious illness, a family crisis – these are the noondays that expose us. They shrink our mighty shadow to nothing. They force us to rely on inner resources that, sadly, too many of us don’t have. Viktor Frankel, the great Viennese psychotherapist, survived the Nazi concentration camps because he found that life had meaning even in the midst of such great humiliation and death. For Christians the source of this meaning is both external and internal. External because the great Creating God is at work in our lives and our world. Internal because the Holy Spirit is at work to transform us in the depths of our being.  Finding meaning through faith, through religion, is not a guarantee of a trouble-free life, but it is the medicine for a sick and depressed soul.

A life exposed to the light of God’s love no longer has to hunt camels, but neither does it have to settle for a mouse. No, for those who have experienced the joy of God’s presence, who have come to see their own infinite value in that love, a mouse just won’t do. For them life becomes truly a celebration.

Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, drink wine with a robust heart.  Oh yes – God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Dress festively every morning. Don’t skimp on colors and scarves. Relish life with the spouse you love  each and every day of your precarious life. (Eccl. 9:7-10, the MSG)

Shoot a Few Arrows

One of the oldest prayers in Christendom, dating from the time of the desert fathers, is known as the Jesus Prayer. Its classic form is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It is often abbreviated to “Lord have mercy” or “Lord Jesus, have mercy.” Although the origin of the prayer is unknown, one of the early church fathers, John Cassian, wrote that this type of prayer leads to inner stillness, and as early as the fourth century, prayers of this type were known as arrow prayers.

Arrow prayers are like short darts shot towards heaven. Short prayers for busy people. We all know that Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) is easier said than done. Perhaps life in a monastery with its daily round of community prayer and its established times for meditation brings people closer to this ideal, but I suspect that even there the world intrudes. How much more difficult is it for us in the office, classroom, or shop? Arrow prayers provide a helpful if not perfect solution.

The Jesus Prayer may be said anywhere and under any circumstances. Either recited aloud or said silently, the prayer connects us momentarily with God. As we repeat the prayer throughout the day, we grow in closeness to God. With this closeness comes the inner stillness and peace to counteract the din of the world. William Law wrote: “He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.” Why not try shooting a few arrows God’s way.

If They Would Just ….

The other day I looked at the directions Mitzi had downloaded and printed. It was just as I expected, following them would ensure that you can’t get there from here. The problem is a basic one that I suppose is true for all cities.  Maps don’t equal reality. In particular, the folks in Washington, D.C.  have an annoying habit of turning two-way roads into one-way roads for a block or three, turning four lane roads into 3-outbound or 3-inbound lanes (depending on the time of day), or just flat closing off roads when they have a whim to do so.  The result of this whimsy is that you can’t get there from here unless you know the alternates and bailouts.

Life is pretty much like that for most of us. The shortest way is often the one most likely to get us turned around or sometimes completely lost.  One of my favorite phrases is, “If they would just ….” You can fill in the ellipsis. That phrase is certain to be followed by a sure-fired cure for the world’s ills. What’s more, the speaker is almost certainly genuinely convinced that he or she has the answer when some of the country’s brightest minds are still trying to define the question.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in our current national debates.  The shortest path between two points is the ideological one. Conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist, the ideologue is sure to claim the moral high road and drive a philosophical stake in the ground thereby ending any possibility of debate or compromise.  In all such declarations there is a striking lack of humility. I shudder to think of the times I have heard the phrase “Biblical worldview” used in just this way. It’s become a kind of evangelical nuclear option. Often the topic under consideration is to be found nowhere in the Bible (the debate over public or private health insurance options), or worse, the proponent twists the Bible, proof-texting his way to a predetermined conclusion. Just consider recent arguments over treatment of undocumented aliens where the “Biblical worldview” is to deny them even emergency healthcare. One should shudder at the awesome warning in Exodus 22:21-24 where God promises to personally kill those who treat the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and yes, the alien so uncharitably.

Religious discourse and civil discourse are inseparable. Most public policy questions have a profoundly moral core. How we debate that core says as much about us as the side we take. The short way, the ideologue way, is often the least considered and the least defensible argument. We are certainly called to take the Bible seriously. For Protestants, the Bible has been the “rule and norm for faith and morals” since the Reformation. We are also called to “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). That calls for great care in discerning between a truly religious argument and one based on our deeply held but personal political beliefs. The two are not the same. The one leads to a genuine discourse that may reveal to us the alternatives and bailouts. The other leads inevitably to an “If they would just ….” You fill in the ellipsis.

Between Sunrise and Sunset

Have you noticed how tasks and work demands multiply the moment you decide to go on vacation? It seems that the closer you get to your last day of work, the taller your in-basket grows and the number of people who absolutely must see you multiplies exponentially. The season is irrelevant. There is no good time to be out of the office: summer, autumn, winter, or spring.

I suppose that is the reason we see (and hear) so many people at the beach, in the national park, or in the museum talking on cell phones and anxiously looking for a WiFi connection. We are tethered to the workplace. Perhaps we don’t notice it anymore. This is what we have become.

I am reminded of the poet William Wordsworth who wrote:

 

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

 

Writing in the midst of the industrial revolution, Wordsworth saw the cost to our common humanity of all of this frenetic striving. We have forgotten how to be still. How to be quiet in the presence of God. How to be alone with ourselves, and sadly, how to be alone with our families and to enjoy life for its own sake. This summer try another way. Take time for yourself and for your family, away from all of the outside demands, whether from office, church, or club. The Preacher tells us in Ecclesiastes that the enjoyment of all things, material as well as spiritual, is a gift from God. Like Wordsworth, he wants us to understand that ceaseless striving does not produce happiness; it steals happiness, and ultimately it steals “our hearts away.”

Just as I have found that there is no good time to be away from the office, I have learned that it will still be there when I return. Presidents and Kings, CEOs and Senior Partners, all of them take vacations. You can too. Only this year, take a real one. Don’t let time slip away, unable to remember where it went.

 

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.” (Horace Mann)

Bright Yellow Circles

I recently received an email on my iPhone, liberally sprinkled with emoticons. Those emotional icons, also known as emojis and most characteristically represented by smiley faces, convey a depth of feeling not possible in most direct email-prose. The person sending the email had been struggling with a number of issues, and she wanted to share not only her welcome news but also the joy that accompanied it. Not surprisingly, when I opened the same email in Outlook, the smiley faces had all become question marks. So much for compatibility.
     There is an uncomfortable truth here, however. Behind the momentary joy expressed in bright yellow circles lies a thoughtful and deeply spiritual person – a person for whom many questions remain unanswered. Life is both kind and cruel, fair and unfair, rewarding and demanding. I would be much happier without the uncertainties of life, as would she, but I suspect that I would be a much poorer pastor. All of the nagging question marks of life, the unsettling, unanswered “whys?” connect us. They signal our shared humanity, but they may also divide us.
     The fault line lies along the path of acceptance. The Psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson, noted that the chief virtue of old age is wisdom. Individuals struggle to come to terms with what their lives have meant. Am I satisfied or dissatisfied with what I have accomplished, and equally as importantly, with what I have not accomplished? The answer to that question is critical. No one who despairs over the past can ever truly connect with others. It is only the man or woman who has faced and accepted life as it is lived in the real world that is finally wise.
     The Preacher ends his book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes: “The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” (Eccl. 12:13, NRSV). This is no idle advice. The Preacher wants us to understand the criteria by which life is to be judged. Judged not only by God, but also by ourselves. This is what it means to be finally wise: to place things in their proper place, with their proper importance. Faith does not require of us that we have all understanding, does not demand great knowledge, does not expect perfection. To the contrary, faith meets us afresh, everyday, with our fears and doubts, and calls us to trust. To trust the God who did not come to judge the world but to save it.
     Such a faith is indeed lived in bright yellow circles. Some with smiles, some with frowns, some with winks, and some just plain perplexed. But underneath the circles, as long as we are in this body, there will be question marks. Those who have eyes to see can behold God in both.

Hello

I am pleased to have my blog added to the Baptist Blogs and Bloggers website. I regularly read the entries, but I am not sure I have much to add. I hope that what I write may not only be of interest but may be helpful to those wrestling with the same questions that trouble me. What does it mean to be a Christian in today’s world? Who is Jesus for me? And, what, if anything, can I say through my life and witness to a lost and disoriented world?
   I though by way of introduction I would reprint a blog I wrote in August, 2007:

     In his collection of essays, Unfinished Rabbi, Arnold Jacob Wolf writes of the many different people and groups he has taught. What unites them, he says, is: “In each case they are allergic to superficial one-shot lectures and to halfhearted generalities.” Sadly, too many Protestant pastors have fallen into the trap of refusing to take the laity seriously. All too often congregations are subjected to Sunday school lessons and sermons that are shallow to the point of being trite and which bear little relevance to their lives. We wonder at declining attendance, we reconstruct worship to model the latest fad in popular entertainment, and we offer cafeteria services to meet the needs of our ‘target demographic,’ all the while ignoring the simple fact that our parishioners are tired of “superficial one-shot lectures and halfhearted generalities.”
     I am both unapologetically Baptist and unapologetically ecumenical. I believe that the historical Baptist witness has been and remains an important voice in American Christianity. It is not the only voice. Few of us stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning and face a homogenous gathering of people raised in Baptist churches. Often, nearly half will have come from other Christian traditions — some many years ago, some within the past few months, and some whose spiritual journey continues to lead them from denomination to denomination. Many who are with us this Sunday may in the future transfer membership to a non-Baptist church. What they ultimately seek is a deepening spiritual life, a growing faith, and a relationship with God. A laity defined by denominational identity has given way to a pan-Protestant laity, defined by a heartfelt desire for love and fellowship within the bounds of the historic Christian faith. Such people will not suffer the superficial or the halfhearted lightly.
     Some weeks ago, a young visitor approached me after the service. She told me that she goes to church to be fed for the week ahead. Instead of a full meal, the pastor puts a pea on her plate. She thanked me for manna for the week’s journey. I should be flattered, but the truth is, I’m not that good. It saddens me to think that there are millions more like this young woman, whose pastor does not take her seriously enough to give her more than a pea.
   I hope visitors to this website will find food for thought. I learned many years ago as an inner city hospice chaplain that I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes I don’t have any answers, but together we can at least explore the questions. Like Rabbi Wolf, I am an unfinished pastor; more importantly, I am an unfinished Christian. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I have much to learn before my eyes are fully opened.

There Will be a Tomorrow

People are worried. As the stock market continues to decline and home values fall, people are understandably concerned about their futures. I am no financial expert, but it is a curious fact that, as a pastor, people ask my advice or seek my opinion about things for which I’m no more knowledgeable than they are. It’s rarely appropriate to say, “Your guess is as good as mine.” Because what people are really seeking is reassurance; what they want is to be told things will be all right. I tell them the truth. I am optimistic.

            Whatever the leading economic indicators say ( Sometimes they seem to be no more accurate than reading tea leaves.), we are reminded over and over again in Scripture to have  faith that God will look after us. Throughout Lent and the Easter season, I will be speaking about what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus.  A central theme running through each message is that one should take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. The people of Jesus’ day faced an uncertain future under foreign rule. Wherever he went, he faced crowds of the poor and the disenfranchised. It is to them that he spoke the Beatitudes, reminding them of God’s special care and affection for the poor. It is to them that he said, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or What shall we wear/?’ … and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

            We are not promised a life free from trials. We are promised help. Jesus reminds us that the God who made us watches over us. He knows our needs, and he knows how to meet them. Paul reaffirms this promise when he reminds us that even in the worst of times, the times when we do not even know how to pray or what to pray about, God’s own Spirit intercedes for us with sighs and groans too deep for words. This is the cause of our optimism, the cause of our hope for a better tomorrow.

            I have several friends who are waiting anxiously to learn if they are among those whose jobs will be eliminated. In all cases they have been with the same firms for many years. It is a tragedy to lose one’s job. The loss is more than just a loss of income. Friends. Meaning. Structured activity. All of these go by the wayside in a single announcement.  No, I can’t predict the economic future. Not yours; not mine; not the country’s. I can speak a word of comfort, a word of courage, a word of hope. God has not forsaken us. There will be a tomorrow, and it will be bright once again.

The End of a Book Section and the Decline of the Washington Post

Yesterday, I walked out to the driveway to retrieve the newspaper, and for a moment, I thought there had been a mistake. I was certain that the Post had inadvertently shorted my Sunday paper. Like many loyal Post readers, I am accustomed to a fat roll of newsprint, one stuffed with news, opinion, sports, pop culture, and a healthy does of the curious, even odd happenings in the world, both local and remote — the kind of coverage best described by the neologism “glocal.” That‘s my Washington Post, glocal. This is the stuff not found on the internet without effort.

The paper was not shorted. It was, alas, just “thin.” This was not the first morning that my wife and I have commented about the decline of the Post. For some time, the Post has seemingly become more and more irrelevant. The treatment of stories has often been superficial to the point of being trite. The front-page layout invites laughter. A case in point: a front page story in lead position decrying the failure of women to break through the Federal glass ceiling placed directly under a color photo of Hilary Clinton, taken just after her being sworn-in as Secretary of State, with other powerful women plainly visible in the background. And worse yet, the paper seems committed to fifth-grade English. Whoever said that the American people, especially those who subscribe to major newspapers like the Washington Post, read with grade school comprehension? The Post has become thin indeed, not only in size, but also in journalistic and artistic integrity.

On January 29, 2009, in an article by Howard Kurtz, the Post announced the decision to discontinue publication of its separate book section. To be fair, the Post is following in the footsteps of many newspapers, e.g., The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. But it is significant that the previous CEO of the Post, the late Katherine Graham, more than once told the book section’s editor, Marie Arana, that although the section was not self-supporting, “[I]t didn’t matter, sales be damned, because the mark of a good newspaper was its book section.” It is also worthy of note that Washington Post editor Rachel Shea is quoted as saying, “It’s nice to have a separate section with big display and a big shout-out to what the most important book is. But it’s not worth gnashing our teeth about too much.” The differing attitudes reveal more than a change of editorial policy.

The point at which the Post began to decline is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it was a gentle slide, too gradual to notice. It became apparent during the election, however, that the old Washington Post was merely a thing of history and fond memory. At issue was journalistic integrity. By Election Day, few people that I know were reading the Post, and those that did were limiting themselves to the Style and Sports Sections. The common response to “I read it in this morning’s Washington Post” was “You can’t believe anything that you read in the Post” – this from both Democrats and Republicans. The cause of this perception is not hard to discover. The high state of journalism, both print and broadcast, to which Americans became accustomed in the Post-WWII decades has rapidly eroded in the last generation.

H.L. Mencken credited the high state of journalism prevalent in the major city newspapers in the post-WWI years to their prosperity, a prosperity born of the decline of yellow journalism and the consolidation of city papers with a consequent reduction in competition. The result was a higher standard of reporting. Newspapers were characterized by an editorial policy that “can not be intimidated. They try to report the news as they understand it, and to promote the truth as they see it.” The presentation of truth is precisely the issue in today’s media. The “yellows,” as Mencken referred to them, did not altogether disappear. “The more decorous and decent newspapers, in striving for more civilized manners, have dragged the yellows with them.” But Mencken goes on to note that “[T]he cleaning up has not altogether pleased the public. On the lower levels it longs with a great longing for the old circus-poster headlines, the old scares and hoaxes, the old sentimentalities and imbecilities. It wants thrills, not news; pictures, not text.” Perhaps, here is the answer. Perhaps we are in the midst of another of life’s enduring cycles. Journalism, printed and televised, is caught in the grip of a strangling competition. The result is a decline in quality to the lowest common denominator. Instead of a half-hour of news, we get three minutes on the hour. Instead of Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley, we get Chris Matthews and Nancy Grace. Instead of thoughtful questions and answers, we get James Carville and Andrea Mitchell shouting over one another. The yellows have reasserted themselves, and they have dragged the whole lot down with them. But journalists beware, the “old circus-poster headlines, the old scares and hoaxes, the old sentimentalities and imbecilities” eventually led to the death of the newspapers that relied upon them. We are indeed in a cycle, but who will emerge at the other end? If history is any guide, beware of being numbered among the yellows. The Washington Post is thin, but more worrisome is its deeply yellow cast. Readership and viewership of the majors continues to decline. Perhaps the answer is not to become more like the tabloids. Perhaps becoming a tabloid is the problem.

Seasons of Life

I must confess. I have joined the legion of Wi-Fi slugs. I sit in Panara or Starbucks, sometimes for hours, one hand grasping a mug of coffee, the other two-finger tapping at my keyboard. I have learned to tune out Frank Sinatra and Perry Como (Yes! Perry Como!), singing Christmas carols from the 50’s. If it gets too bad, I can always put my earphones in and let my iphone shield me from the outside world. Such is the wonder of modern technology.

I am not alone. Almost everyone sitting in Panara in mid-afternoon is “connected” in some way. There is a regular group of retired investors who I always seem to wind up sitting near. In the past few months they have grown increasingly grim faced as they peck away at their keyboards, making online trades, giving each other tips and advice, talking of sums of money made and lost that seem stunning to me, even for one who works in one of the wealthiest counties in America. I want to feel sorry for them, but I find it hard to relate.

Yesterday I had a different experience. I sat near a late middle-aged man, about my age. He was wearing an ear bud, and he was systematically working his way through a computer contact file. He was oblivious to the rest of us as he told and retold his story to technical directors and personnel managers. He had gone through his severance, and he was nearing the end of his savings. His only option was to begin drawing on his 401K. He didn’t say this to all of his contacts, of course. But to those he had known for a long, time, those with whom he had a deeper relationship, he was clearly calling out for help. I felt badly. I knew of nowhere to refer him. It has been too many years since I was in the world of high-tech commerce.

Most of us know someone like this man. We add them to our prayer lists. We offer them what help we can. As a church we help with the basic necessities of life – food, lodging, and clothing. We do what we can for them. In this season, we can do something else for ourselves. We can, and we must, remind ourselves that we are loved deeply by the one who most matters. The birth of the baby Jesus in a lowly manger does remind us that God can come to us in the most humble circumstances, and through that act redeems all of life’s situations. It is a cliché, to be sure. But it is a cliché that has stirred the hearts of millions and given hope to generations for two millennia.

Lighting Advent candles symbolizes Christ chasing the darkness away. With each additional candle, the sanctuary brightens and the winter recedes. There are “seasons of distress and grief” as an old favorite hymn reminds us, but we are reminded that it is in prayer that we find relief. In prayer, because prayer connects us to the one who can truly make a difference. It is time this Christmas season to put aside our worries, if just for awhile, and to “come together for Christmas,” to come together as a  family of faith, and rejoicing together,  reclaim the hope and promise that is Christmas, as Christ chases the darkness away..

Congressional Bailout Failure: A Failure to Listen

Yesterday’s defeat of a massive funding bill designed to restore liquidity to the nation’s financial markets has sparked a vigorous debate about who is to blame and which of the political candidates will benefit.  A critical fact has been ignored in all of the name calling and finger pointing. The American people hated this bill. News outlets across the spectrum reported that congress has been besieged with emails, letters, and phone calls expressing outrage at the prospect of a trillion dollars of taxpayer money being used in yet another bailout scheme. Two separate cable news channels reported that public opinion, as measured by congressional correspondence to both Republicans and Democreats, showed clearly the failure of the political leadership to convince the public that this bill was a good idea.

The news media responded with endless analyses of the American public’s failure to understand the gravity of the situation and our failure to understand just how badly in need of immediate rescue we are. Rubbbish. The American people are not uninformed nor are they ignorant of how business works. We are asking a very serious question, however. Simply put: Why this bill and this bill only? It may be the best solution, but no one is debating alternatives. When Americans are asked to fork over control of their collective checkbooks to the tune of a trillion dollars, they have a right to know that all options were on the table and that the best one was selected. As a people, we do not tolerate being told by the government to shut up  while they take care of us.

There has been a huge leadership failure, and there is enough blame to be shared by all. The biggest failure was the attempt to force an enormous spending bill, with the most sweeping powers ever granted to the Secretary of the Treasury, through congress without public debate. Hearings may have taken time, but in the end, a week’s worth of hearings and debate might have taken no more time than will have been wasted due to the rancor caused by this process.

In the end, it boils down to this. Ninety-five Dmocrats voted ”no” on this bill for the same reason over a hundred Republicans did so. Their constituents told them that if they voted for this bill, “Don’t bother to come home.” Americans know that action needs to be taken. They want a say in what that that action is to be. People don’t want to be “saved” by their government if that means their government acts precipitously, against their expressed wishes.  Urging representatives to ignore their constituents is fundamentally at odds with the basic principles of American government. I seem to recall that the American system prides itself on being government by the people. Listen to them.