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Worth, Value, and Price

08 Monday Apr 2013

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Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

–C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Worth, value, and price…these are terms used by economists to try to understand how people interact with the economic world.

Worth is a way of talking about how much “use” a commodity or service is to a particular individual.  Take the service provided by a plumber: the worth of service is low to me if I have an only slightly annoying faucet drip.  However, the worth of service is very high if I have a major water leak and my house is flooding.

Value is tougher.  Value is “worth” to our economy in the abstract.  The service provided by our plumber is valuable to our economy because of the benefits of managing water and waste flow.  We could certainly do without but our economy would suffer.

Price is what the market says is the worth or value of the commodity or service; it is the voice of the collective…us.  Our plumber charges some amount that the market will bear; in other words, what the average person will pay for the service.

Ideally, in any economic transaction all three line up: What I think a thing is worth is the same as its value to the economy and is the same as its price.  None of us likes to pay more than we think something is worth.  And sometimes, things are simply overvalued.

I went to a baseball game the other day.  I like baseball.  It brings me pleasure to sit in the stands on a warm, sunny day and watch a game; it is worth something to me.  I paid $26 (USD), the market price of the ticket.  That is about the upper limit to what I think it was worth to me; I would likely not have paid much more.  As for value, though, I think the value of baseball is way out of line.  Professional sports teams make the case for economic value to a city to justify the costs of a new stadium or salaries to players.  Since stadiums continue to be built and player salaries continue to escalate, then clearly not everyone agrees with my value assessment of baseball.

Over the past years each American president has called for an increase in the numbers of scientists and engineers.  This call indicates an understanding of the need for technological advancement, which leads to economic growth.  Scientists and engineers are, therefore, highly valued in our economy.  Playtime is also highly valued.  It is important to occasionally escape from work that we might play, whether camping or fishing or golf, or…watching a baseball game.    Play, after all, refreshes us and allows us to work more efficiently.  So, playtime has value because it brings money into the economy and refreshes workers who work more effectively, thus, enhancing the economy.

Why stop with work or play?  I can value a friendship because it may prove useful to me in an economic sense; maybe we will end up doing business together or maybe my friend will throw business my way.  The arts, too.  We build museums and theaters only after economic studies show they will enhance the local economy.

The economy, stupid.

“The economy, stupid” was a central point in Bill Clinton’s successful bid for the presidency in 1992. Is it really all about the economy?  Is all of value in life to be subject to economic evaluation?  Why has no American President called for more artists, poets, or philosophers?

imagesIn our economic-growth mindset we have lost the ancient idea of leisure.  Aristotle believed that we were unleisurely, at work and play, so that we could be leisurely, which is the center of culture.  Today, we have co-opted the word, leisure, absorbing it into “play.”  For Westerners, there is now only work and play, both of which we try to do “hard.”  This couldn’t be more different from the historical understanding of leisure.  Now, our word that comes closest to the ancient understanding of leisure is “contemplation”; however, even that does not quite capture the proper sense.

Leisure, as understood by the ancients–Greeks and Romans–was to engage in something for its own sake.  In Lewis’ view of friendship, above, one spends time with a friend for the sake of the friendship and nothing else.  Schools (Greek skole) were originally conceived as places of learning for its own sake rather than the trade schools they have become.  Van Gogh was famous for his study of color for its own sake rather than the expectancy of economic benefit.  Surely there might have been some local economic benefit to his working a job rather than playing with colored yarn; however, culturally we would be so much the poorer had he not engaged in the leisure of the arts.

This is not to say that leisure cannot result in economic benefit; however, it “results” is never the goal of a leisurely activity.  As schools today cut back on forms of liberal arts education–forms of leisure–we lose the ability to appreciate people, experiences, and things for their own sake.  If our activity has no economic value, then we turn away with both our time and our money; after all, if there is no economic value, the its worth to me is zero, which is the price I assign it.

We ignore leisure at the cost of our own souls.  Leisure allows us to escape the confines of our environment, whether at work or play, and move beyond ourselves, to tap into those parts of us that are not practical, to enter into the sphere of wonder and awe.  Ultimately, leisure is what allows us, in the words of poet Magee, to “put out my hand and touch the face of God.”

Navigating Life

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in All, Life

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[Alice went on,] “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
–Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Are you leaving from? Or are you going to?”–a recent question to me from a friend.

Sometimes I wonder whether life isn’t just a simple navigational problem. I used to be an airline pilot. For each flight I knew where I was starting from; where I was going; why I was going there; what the obstacles were between here and there (e.g., weather, mountains); what the best route of flight was for the triple goals of maintaining the schedule, fuel economy, and passenger comfort; and how much fuel I needed to get there.

My journey through life has often seemed less precise. There have been times when I have been leaving from somewhere; I have found the situation I’m in intolerable for any number of reasons and I’m off to something else, anything else “so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” as Alice says. I’ve left where I am with no clear destination in mind. In “leaving from” I knew my starting point but any of many destinations will do.

That’s the thing about leaving from. The destination is often unknown; when I have wanted to leave where I am all that I know is that I want to be where I am now not. My reasons for leaving have sometimes been to escape: escape from the big city, escape from life in a cubicle, escape from a dreary job, escape from routine, escape from a difficult situation, escape from painful memories…escape to anywhere but here.

For some, a life of leaving is enjoyable. No roots, no commitment, no responsibilities…it is the journey that matters. It is a life of exploration and excitement. Spontaneity rules. Perhaps you
have seen the t-shirt that says, “Not everyone who wanders is lost.”

I have a natural curiosity and restlessness that has often provided fuel for my life’s journey. It has been the driving force behind some of my leavings. “The grass is greener,” I have told myself more than once, “just on the other side of the next fence.” Just over there it will be better, there will be new things to see and learn, new experiences to be had. And, often that has proved true.

Recently, however, I’ve begun to think differently about leaving. No, not about changing locations, but about the idea of “leaving from” vs “going to.” In “going to” the destination is known. One can start a going to journey from anywhere, but the destination is known. As I reflected on years of leaving–I’ve lived in 9 states and had 5 careers, so far–here is the realization to which I’ve come, strange as it may sound to some: all of my leavings have been goings. Whether fueled by curiosity, restlessness, or escape, all of my instances of leaving have been caused by my search for something, by being drawn toward something that has been unknown to me for most of my life.

In his little book, Happiness & Contemplation, philosopher Pieper claims that “man craves by nature happiness and bliss.” By nature we crave it, it is hard-wired into us. “Why do you want to be happy?” asks Pieper. It is a question we never ask because it has no answer. We just do want it…by nature. Now there’s a lot more to this happiness thing than can be said here, but if he is right, and I think he is, then all leavings are indeed goings…going toward happiness, even if we don’t know what that is for us. Of course, some believe they are undeserving of happiness, but that is for another time.

Why do you want to be happy?

If I am simply a creation of random mutation and natural selection, then it would seen happiness should be within my grasp. Happiness should come from surviving, from achieving the four F’s: flee, fight, food, and fornication, these are all that are required for an organism’s basic survival. And yet…for millennia philosophers have known this about happiness: truest happiness is a gift, it comes to us from outside our souls. We can act to get things or to do things, each which brings us some measure of happiness; however, that which quenches our deepest thirst for happiness comes from outside of us, from contemplating the greatest good.

An African bishop named Augustine, alive some 1700 years ago in present-day Algiers, had an early life of wandering, of leaving-from-while-really-going-to…he has helped me to understand my own journey happiness. He said, “You have made us and directed us toward Yourself and our heart is restless until we rest in you” (Confessions 1.1)

You have made us and directed us toward Yourself and our heart is restless until we rest in you.

I am created by God to be in a loving relationship with Him; outside of that I will always be incomplete and unhappy in the depths of my soul. And not just any god will do, the god must be the God of tri-unity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, each a person, each person God, yet together the one God…the great mystery of the God of Christianity. The single-person gods of other beliefs will simply not do here; a single-person god would find happiness by contemplating self, the worst sort of self-centeredness. No, none of these single-person gods are like the intrinsically outward-facing Christian God of eternal love between Father-Son-Spirit; a God of happiness spent in eternal contemplation of the Other.  It is this God that yearns for a loving relationship with each of us.

Happiness, then, comes from contemplating the greatest good, the God of Christianity. He made use that way; it is our nature. Poet T.S. Eliot described for me my journey back to God in a few lines from his poem “Little Giddings“:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The Nights

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in All, Life

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I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
~Vincent Van Gogh

How long the night seems to one kept awake by pain.
~Bernard Joseph Saurin, Blanche et Guiscard, translated

—–

12:30 am. No sign of sleep.

It is dark, quiet, at least in the world external to my mind, nothing is moving about…what is it about the night?

—–

There are sleepless nights that I find friendly. During these nights, there are no demands on my mind–other than the nagging back-of-my-mind reminder that the alarm clock will soon sound and I’ll be tired all day. But on these nights, even that seems an easy price to pay.

During these kinds of nights my soul feels free. During the daylight, you see, there are rules to be followed and responsibilities to perform and schedules to keep; I never feel quite free to let my mind roam: free to think thoughts that seem important to think, free to bend over and examine what is under every thought-rock, free to contemplate all there is. During the daylight hours, whenever I do let my mind roam so, I miss my turn or the driver behind me honks because the light has gone green–someone went around me today. In the daylight, I’ve found, I must always be attentive to the outer world, to be present to something or some other. How constricting and tiresome it can be.

In the early 1940s, before the US entered World War II, American pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. wrote the poem, “High Flight,” to express what it was like for him to fly. Sadly, Magee died in a midair collision shortly after penning this poem. Having also flown, his poem is meaningful to me. And, it describes the free feeling I have in my soul during this kind of night, these friendly nights. Here’s is Magee’s poem:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth 
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things 
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung 
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, 
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung 
My eager craft through footless halls of air. 
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue 
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace 
Where never lark, or even eagle flew. 
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.

“Touching the face of God” is a phrase that resonates deeply within me. You see, contemplation, the highest form of knowing, is a form of reaching out and touching the face of God; it is beholding in love one’s Beloved. It is the greatest form of happiness. Wonderful nights!

—–

There is another night, the kind when freedom is replaced by exhaustion. During these nights my mind may race from thought to thought like a glutton shoveling food with both hands, never stopping to savor. Still other times my mind repeats thoughts, rehearsing them over and over and over and over like a scratched 45. Are you old enough to have used a record player?

—–

There is a worse night: a night of torment. There have been many of these lately. In these nights I am awake with a problem or pending conflict, my mind churning and grinding, breaking thought boulders into rocks, then into peebles, then into fine sand. Finally, after what can be hours, the problem is diagnosed, the conflict seen for what it is. And then…

…a solution begins to form. My mind shifts gears, now whining, high pitched at a very high RPM, rapidly sifting through ideas, combinations and connections with other thoughts are made, evaluated, and discarded or retained. A web of solution slowly takes shape, layer upon layer. The earlier layers are forgotten and must be rediscovered; a higher gear yet, and the whining in my head again increases in pitch with the change in RPM. Finally, the problem is solved, elegantly or the path to resolving conflict is found, usually by a dramatic, self-righteous speech. I am eager for the morrow! But wait! Is this really the answer? And, it begins again, the boulders have reformed. Is this what insanity is like? It is certainly Satan’s playground.

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The worst part of these nights of torment is the appearance of the light of day. Photons strike the hard-won solution or reflect the words of the self-righteous speech only to illuminate the foolishness. The night was a waste. Now I’m just tired.

—–

Worst yet are the nights filled with the pain of love. A number of spiritual writers throughout the centuries refer to God’s “wound of love.” It is the deep longing for God that He inflicts upon us, a painful yearning that will never be fully satisfied until after death. A night of sleepless longing filled with happiness and joy.

It is at this point I find that the circle is completed, the nights of wounded longing meet the friendly nights of a freed soul…

—–

1:25am, and still no sign of sleep.

Ears That Do Not Hear

24 Thursday Jan 2013

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I have recently seen a figure published that there are nearly 200 million English-language blog sites on the web, and that worldwide the total begins to approach one billion.    —http://www.rickmylander.com/2013/01/blog-blah-blah.html?m=1

This is the way a friend of mine introduces his new blog.  Imagine, 200 million English-language blog sites, nearly 1 billion world-wide.  If we added in emails, tweets, Facebook posts, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and the myriad of other electronic outlets for our thoughts, how many words per minute pouring out of us do you suppose that represents?  So many of us with so much to say.  This blog is but one more…

For the sake of brevity, let me label everything “spoken” into the electronic world by humanity as iSpeak.

Is it that the billions of us iSpeaking away really have something to say?  Is my voice so different from the others that my words find a unique place among the billions of billions of words being iSpoken into the aether?  Well, yes.  Ultimately, I do think we each have something unique to say.  After all, we are each unique persons who see the world just a little differently than the other.  My voice, yours, too, is indeed unique in this universe.

Here is an odd turn in the road that my mind is walking: the connection between iSpeaking and casual sex.  About casual sex, philosopher Joseph Pieper says this: “The encounter that is sheer sex and nothing else has rightly been called deceptive in character.  For the moment, an illusion of union arises; but without love this apparent union of two strangers leaves them more remote from each other than they were before” (Faith, Hope, Love).

Is iSpeaking like having the deceptive casual sex as Pieper describes, an experience that leaves strangers farther apart?  I think so.  Consider Margaret Guenther’s thought from her terrific book, Holy Listening: “In a way, not to be heard is not to exist.”

In a way, not to be heard is not to exist.

Loneliness is perhaps both our fundamental condition and fundamental fear.  It is our fundamental condition because we are estranged from God who made us; it is only in relationship with Him that we find our true identity.  To be truly alone is to be unaffirmed as a human, do be, well, as though dead.  Sadly, this is our deepest condition.  We are estranged from each other and, if we are honest, from ourselves.  Even Christians, those who have accepted the act of Jesus on the cross as God’s act of overcoming the estrangement, find ourselves struggling with loneliness as we long to be with God, face-to-face.

So, what has all this to do with iSpeaking?  A speaker without a listener is like Pieper’s two deceived, casual lovers.  Broadcasting my words into the electronic aether deceives me into thinking I matter, that I’m not alone.  However, with no listener is that really true?

A quick test: how many of you fellow iSpeakers are disappointed when no one “likes,” “follows,” or “comments” on your words?  Surely you feel it…particularly if you have iSpoken something important to you.  Perhaps you have only some who follow you; perhaps you have a legion.  How many followers is enough to make you feel as though you matter?  I wager that the number will never be high enough to make us feel as though we exist.

If Guenther is right, and I think she is, then we may iSpeak all we want, we may even garner a multitude of followers; yet, without being heard it is as though we don’t exist.  Could it be that billions of words that we iSpeak acutually come out of our own desperate need to be heard?  At the depths of our individual souls aren’t we each searching for someone to listen, someone who will say to us, “What you says matters; you exist”?  I want someone to affirm that it is good that I exist; this is the bedrock of what it means to be loved, which is our most fundamental need.  And being heard is a cornerstone of the goodness of my existence being affirmed. 

Our need to be loved extends beyond the electronic iWorld and into the rWorld (real world).  So many people speaking, so much verbal noise, so much information to convey, so much to do, hurry, hurry, HURRY…  We are growing deaf to each other.  Do any of us really hear? Or, with no listeners are we all in danger of becoming extinct to each other?

Another test: Name a person in your life who really hears you, who lets you finish a thought even if it means periods of silence; a person who will let you feel what you feel without trying to correct or fix you.  In my experience few can name such a person.

All is not lost.  There is a way out of the noise.

We can practice hospitality.  Sure, it is an old fashioned notion.  Webster defines hospitality as the act of receiving another in a kind and liberally generous manner without expecting a reward.  But, we’ve no time for hospitality these days.  We move too fast and are too tightly scheduled.  Productivity reigns.  The ancient idea of leisure, contemplating something for its own sake, is gone.  And yet listening, at its core, is the best kind of leisurely hospitality.  It is the hospitality of making room within your own soul to invite the other in as you listen.

iSpeaking has its place.  I write because it helps me think and I post it because perhaps another wonders about the same things.  But, I will fall into despair if I hope to have my existence affirmed in this way; while you may read this, I can never really know whether I have been heard by you.

So, find another human being and practice hospitality.  Hear their words, notice their voice inflections, see their body language, look into their eyes, quiet your own desire to be heard, talk as little as you need, ignore your desire to fix them, be attentive to your own internal responses as they talk allowing your emotions and feelings to connect with theirs…offer the hospitality of inviting them in to your very soul.  Give the other the very, very rare gift of being heard.  For a short time, one fewer voice in the world will not be missed.

Safe

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

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Jesus put his arms around each one and whispered, “I didn’t come to just give you good things; I came to give you Me, my Father, and the Holy Spirit. In Us, you have real life. You’re safe.”
–Presence (unpublished…coming soon)

Philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard is fond of asking the following question: “If you could use only one word to describe Jesus, what would that word be?” You can probably imagine the answers: God, Savior, Teacher, Fraud, Risen, Redeemer, Liar, Beloved, Lord, Friend, Christ, Lunatic, Rock, Son, Messiah, Fictitious, Healer, Love…perhaps you have your own one-word description.

Willard’s word is “relaxed.” Perhaps I have a different image of a “relaxed” person than Dr. Willard intends. From Webster: Lacking precision? No, Jesus was very precise. At rest or at ease? Often; however that whole sweating blood episode before His beating and crucifixion didn’t seem too relaxing. Easy of manner? I imaging Jesus as assuredly intense. “Relaxed” doesn’t fit for me.

“Safe.” I like this word. To be clear, I don’t think it is the best word to describe Jesus; however, I do think it is a great word to describe His response as He moved about in the world.

The world around us is a scary place. There are murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, fiscal cliffs, car crashes, wars, falls, scrapes, bumps, bruises, insults, betrayals, hunger, bankruptcy, homelessness, fights, loneliness, sickness, disease, and so much more. One has only to watch the evening news.

There is a great scene in the 1991 movie, Grand Canyon. Suburbanite Mac’s car breaks down at night in the inner city of Los Angeles. While he is waiting for the tow truck, a carload of young thugs threaten him. Tow truck driver Simon arrives and in a confrontation with the thugs says, “I don’t know if you know it, but the world ain’t supposed to be this way.” Mac isn’t supposed to be afraid, the thugs aren’t supposed to be waiving guns, and by extension there aren’t supposed to be a poor inner city or young men forced to prove their toughness or…well, it goes on and on. It reaches all the way back to the Garden. It ain’t supposed to be this way.

Isn’t that true. Somewhere, deep down inside of us we know that the world is dangerous, we agree with Simon, the world ain’t supposed be this way. We should be safe.

Now, I feel safe in one regard: I know my eternal destiny, to use the Christian vernacular. I am completely assured that when I die I will be with the Christian God for all of eternity. I will be safe. To quote God’s promise:

And I heard a loud voice from God, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”

That is safe! It is safety guarantied by God Himself, creator of all the heavens and the universe. Right now I feel safe in that way, a future safeness, a safeness-to-come. I’m sure Jesus also felt that kind of safeness-to-come.

What about right now. Do I have to live in fear now and wait for the safety-to-come? Did Jesus? No, to both. Is it as simple as a choice? My choice? Yes, to both.

Don’t be afraid any longer, only believe.
–Jesus

Jesus felt safe by letting go. Jesus had no expectations of His own, only expectancy of His Father’s fulfilled promises. By contrast, I have expectations and plenty of them, and most of my life’s expectations have been tightly interwoven with the American Dream. Too, my expectancy of God-at-work has been low. “God helps those who help themselves” after all. I work hard for my daily bread, my refrigerator is full; I don’t have to expect God to keep His promise. (Oh, that last quote is from Benjamin Franklin, not God.)

I have learned that my expectations keep my eyes firmly locked on me; it is my expectation of how my life should be, my expectation of how the world should be, and my expectation of how God must act. My expectations put me in the center of my world and offers the illusion of me in charge of my life and the world and God, and that’s the whole problem, isn’t it. In fact, that’s the root of the problem: man trying to be God. Expectations only lead to fear, the fear of failed expectations.

Expectancy is different. Expectancy as practiced by Jesus is God-centered. My life for His glory; Jesus’ choice must be mine. No expectations. I am God’s adopted son. I have all of the rights of His son. He loves me and will treat me and care for me as the beloved son that I am, including dashing my expectations as He conforms me into the likeness of Jesus. Those are not my expectations, those are God’s promises. To the extent that I, with His help (and He does most of the work!), can let go of my own expectations and hold on only to the expectancy that my Father will love me and treat me as He has promised, no matter what that means for my personal circumstances, then I will feel safe. I will be safe. Fear will be gone. My life for His glory.

Jesus didn’t come just to give me things to fulfill my expectations, He came to give me Himself in loving relationship. Only in relationship with Him will I be safe, and I will have life and have it abundantly.

That’s the way things are supposed to be.

Why Us?

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in All, Love

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Jesus turned and saw Andrew and another following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day…later, Andrew went and found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Christ.”
–The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, verses 38-41, paraphrased

Have you ever wondered why God created us? After all, we seem to be a lot of trouble for Him, so much so that He once destroyed “every living thing” that He had made, except Noah and his family and at least representative pairs of all animals and birds.

But, why would God create us? Some point to Isaiah’s words that say God created us for His glory. Surely this is true. The Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that “the chief end of man” is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Again, surely this is true. Still, somehow all of this seems a little sterile to me. Using a human relationship, I can glorify a human king by being an upright, obedient subject and by showing proper respect to the king. But beyond that I might never have any relationship with the king.

God moved me beyond my early notion of bringing Him glory when I began to understand Jesus when He said that eternal life is to “know the only true God [the Father] and Jesus Christ whom He sent.” Here, the Greek work for “know” means the most intimate relationship we can imagine. So, to combine the Scriptures, somehow my intimate relationship with God glorifies Him.

But, again, why? What is it about God that wants a relationship with me and yearns for me to have a relationship with Him…a relationship He wants so badly that He, in the person of Jesus, died to have it?

I think have found the answer; and of course I’m not the first to come to this. Here is how I am currently thinking about this question of the creation of mankind. Have you ever had an experience that you found so joy-filled that you couldn’t wait to share it? An experience you just couldn’t wait to invite another into hoping they, too, would share your joy? As a kid I was always inviting other kids to play football or baseball in the park; it was so much fun for me and I wanted us all to have fun. As an adult I encourage friends to go to a particular restaurant or to go see a movie…all things that have brought me joy. Even better are the events in which I share the joy with them, such as shared meals or movies. I really enjoy golf. I find great joy in being outside and walking the course. The (very) occasional good shot I hit is also joyful. My pleasure from golf was actually enhanced when my wife began to play and we could share the joy of the game. It seems natural to us to invite others into that which we have found joyful and in that act find our own joy enhanced; so natural is it that I believe it is part of who we are, part of being made “in the image and likeness” of God.

So, now I imagine the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; I imagine the perfect love that exists in the relationship, so perfect that the three are distinct and yet one, unified in love. I imagine the joyous love that must always be present within the Trinity, so present that the Apostle John says that God is love. I find it easy to imagine that God, immersed in perfect love and the resulting joy would want to share that experience; not just by showering others with love but by inviting others in to that experience of love. With whom did God choose to share His experience? Us…He created us to share the experience of love with Him, to enter into the same relationship with God that Jesus has with His Father.

With whom did God choose to share His experience? Us…He created us to share the experience of love with Him, to enter into the same relationship with God that Jesus has with His Father.

Can there be any truth more profound? I think not. When Jesus walked the earth He continually invited others along. “Follow Me” was His urging. Some followed; most didn’t. This inviting is, I believe, at the heart of what Jesus means when as His last words to His followers before being crucified He prays for us to be relationally “one” with He and our Father (John 17:22-26).

I have had a few deeply mystical encounters with God in which I have experienced the briefest taste of His love for me. Its power is incapacitating in the moment. The result of each encounter has always been the deepening of my love for Him. And I have the great fortune of experiencing perhaps the best possible human expression of God’s love in my marriage and also with a small, deeply loving community of committed Jesus followers. These experiences have been important events that have moved me along the path of being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Here is something I’ve discovered along the way: the more I become like Christ, the more I experience the kind of love that exists within the Trinity, and the more I respond to His invitation to join in His love, the more I long for others to experience it…I long to share with you the experience God is sharing with me.

So, I say to you, whoever you are reading this, I have found the Christ…come, and you too will see.

The Art of Waiting

17 Monday Dec 2012

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Stoplights have been the bane of my existence. I seem to have the natural ability to time stoplights just so that I have to stop at nearly every one. And, just so you understand the depth of this ability, not only do I encounter most lights as they are red, no, I come to them just as they are turning red. In this way I have the privilege of waiting through the entire cycle before getting the green light to go. So pronounced is this ability of mine that my wife actually comments whenever I do encounter a light that is green and I move through the intersection without having had to stop.

I actually don’t believe it is an ability at all. Rather, what I really believe is that I am about one second out of phase with the universe. In other words, I feel that if I could somehow jump ahead one second in time then I would get mostly green lights rather than red. Now, you may think this is foolishness, but it is actually a testable hypothesis and, in fact, has been tested. To my own satisfaction I have been proven right.

You see, the keepers of the world’s official time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), occasionally add a leap second to keep the clocks on track. This is necessary because of the slight variations in the Earth’s rotational period. The last time a leap second was added was June 30, 2012, roughly six months ago. A funny thing happened…I began to make the green lights. Not just a few; rather, I made nearly every green light. It was most remarkable. I zipped around town with minimal stops and arrived early at every appointment. This lasted for weeks. Gradually, however, I began to encounter more and more red lights. Finally, much to my dismay, I found myself returned to my assigned place in the universe: one second out of phase.

Perhaps it is this opportunity to wait at stop lights that causes me to think so often about “waiting” and the ordinariness of day-to-day life.

So, because of the many hours I spend waiting at stoplights each year, you can imaging what a relief smartphones have been to my waiting. I found that my time at a stoplight was transformed from interminable waiting to an opportunity to stay connected by checking email, texting, or web surfing. At each light I had the ability to distract myself from waiting by being productive or with mindless activity, it seemed to matter little which, as long as I was no longer simply “waiting.” I was living a stoplight life of bliss.

Over time, however, I began to notice the gradual loss of my ability to wait in any situation. Waiting for a computer to boot, waiting on the microwave timer, waiting on another to finish talking, waiting for winter to end…in these and so many other instances I was annoyed at the waiting and longed for distraction. And that is when I began to more fully understand the ancient spiritual discipline of solitude and silence.

I used to understand solitude and silence as a way to gain some psychic distance from the noise of the world and, for Christians, to hear God more clearly. Given my monk-like nature, I liked my extended experiences of solitude and silence, and when back in the noise I found myself longing for the quiet; the noise is often overwhelming to me. Then the stoplights came to mind and the disciple of solitude and silence took on new meaning.

There is no reason, I decided, that I couldn’t have a monastery within. Solitude and silence could be an inner condition bolstered by the occasional actual experience of getting away. If I let them, the experiences of stop lights could also help; by sitting quietly at stop lights, avoiding the temptation of distraction, I find now that I am able to foster a more continual sense of inner solitude and silence resulting in a deeper peace and increased awareness of God. Now, I find that I measure my response at encountering a red light on a peace–frustration scale, and I find that the when my life is harried and out of balance my red light frustration is much higher; the opposite in my life brings peace at red lights.

So, avoiding distraction and “waiting well” has become a way for me to cultivate an inner monastery of solitude and silence in the noise of everyday life; it is a place from which I find I can be more attentive to life itself and, more importantly, more attentive to God.

And attention, as French philosopher Simone Weil asserts, is the only faculty of the soul that gives us access to God.

If true, and I believe it is, then why would I want to live life other than in an attitude of attentiveness.

How to Wait?

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

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For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. … But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
–Apostle Paul, Philippians 1:21-24

Waiting. Sometimes I find it harder to wait than other times. Perhaps it has to do with what I’m waiting for and the circumstances I’m in at the time.

“Wait until your dad gets home” was a phrase I heard from my mom from time to time during my growing up years. That was anxiety-filled waiting. My wife and I will be vacationing to a Caribbean island this Spring; that is excitement-filled waiting. Christmas is coming, there are presents to buy and decorations to set up. That is an activity-filled waiting.

During Christmas we celebrate the Advent season. This season, the four Sundays before Christmas, is when we remind ourselves of those generations of Jews who spent their lives waiting on the Messiah, and when we remind ourselves that we, too, wait on His return. As the Bible tells us, it is an activity-filled waiting. We are to go about the business of building a relationship with Christ and following Him into the world to love others with His love.

Paul felt torn, “hard-pressed from both directions,” in his waiting. For him, to die and be with Christ was better, to stay for the sake of the Philippian Christians was necessary. Wouldn’t it be instructive to talk with him about that? It would be for me. I don’t think I’m waiting very well right now. I am desperately impatient to be in union with Christ.

Paul says he was taken up into the “third heaven” (2Corinthians 12:2). “After that experience,” I would ask him, “how do you continue to wait so well?” He had an earlier encounter with Jesus, later he was “caught up to the third heaven”; it must have made waiting so very difficult. He must have certainly experienced a momentary fulfillment of the great hope we who follow Christ have: to be in the presence of Love Himself. What he must have felt! How can he honestly then say he is “hard-pressed from both directions”?

How is Paul able to not cry out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”as he yearns to be with Jesus.

Of course, God, if Paul is unavailable I’d enjoy talking with Moses or Elijah. Both had direct encounters with God. But, perhaps the best conversation would be with Jesus, Himself. After all, He came to earth, “emptying Himself” by fully taking on human nature subject to pain and suffering and temptation, deprived of glory until the end.

Jesus must have felt “hard -pressed from both directions,” too. Yet, He endured, suffering the burdens of daily life, which we join Him in His suffering, thus participating with Paul in “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Christians suffer for and from the world, pastors additionally suffer for and from His Church. It is hard.

So I wait, and not well right now. My impatience makes me restless, wanting to hurry time along. I would still like to have that conversation with Paul; however, the strength to wait well will only come from Jesus. Advent will be particularly good for me this year; it reminds me to wait well.

Eros–Self Love

13 Tuesday Nov 2012

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[Jesus,] who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
—Hebrews 12:2

Self-love. Eros love, to use the Greek. I love myself and I want happiness for me. Is that wrong? Some would say so; they would say that it is wrong for me to want anything for myself. Real love, they might continue, is selfless and total unconcerned for self. This line of thinking has already caused me no little consternation in my own life as I think of my motives in a loving relationship. It is a common way to think within Christianity, but is this true?

Apparently, Jesus believe I should love myself. After all, He explicitly endorses self-love:

You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. Apparently, if I do not love myself then what hope has my neighbor of receiving my love? What hope do I have of obeying Jesus if I don’t love myself?

Bernard of Clairvaux, the 12th century monk, offers a progression of four “degrees” of love that help me think through this (see his work, On Loving God). From lowest to highest, they are:

1) Love self for the sake of self. This is selfish, self-centered love. He refers to this as “carnal” love. This “first degree of love” is where we all start.

2) Love God for the sake of self. This is where I begin being “in love” when another is involved. I remember saying, “I can’t live without you.” It is loving another because of the happiness it brought me. I began my Christianity this way; I loved God for what He could do for me. Whether it was keeping me out of hell or keeping me healthy…I loved God for what I got out of the relationship.

3) Love God for solely because He is God. As I persisted in my relationship with God and begin to know Him, I found myself coming to love Him for whom He is. He is God and I love Him for that alone. And, as a consequence, I found that as He drew me closer to Him I began to see myself in the intense light of His perfect holiness. There was nowhere to hide; in every act I saw my sin. I loathed myself for the stink of my own sinfulness.

4) Love self only for the sake of God. God never loathes me. Jesus died for me; there is no greater expression of one’s love for another than this. A reporter once commented to Mother Teresa how much she loved the poor. She replied, “I don’t love the poor; Jesus loves the poor and I loves Jesus.” She loved the poor for the sake of Jesus. So it is with me: Jesus loves me; therefore, I love myself for the sake of Jesus. This is Bernard’s “fourth degree of love.” Given what I know about myself, what goes on within me, I have no other basis for proper self-love than this. Any other basis of self-love would be delusional and be the selfish love of Bernard’s first degree: self-love for my own sake.

If I love myself for God’s sake, then I say to myself, it is very good that I exist. In fact, philosopher Josef Pieper (Faith, Hope, Love) asserts that self-love is the love “on which all other [types of love] are founded and makes all others possible.” If I cannot apply the test, “it is very good that one exists” to myself, then to whom else can I really apply it? If the deepest form of love is union with another, then whom else am I more one with than with myself? As Pieper says, “unity is closer to the source than union.” With Jesus and with my wife I am becoming united; only with myself am I in unity.

Self-love is a consequence of my creation, of believing in my deepest self that it is good that I exist, then it must be good to seek my own happiness. I am, it seems, created to be a hedonist…a hedonist according to Bernard of Clairvaux. What does it mean to be a Christian hedonist?

If eros is self-love, then look at the other extreme, agapē love, the love God has for us. It is often described as selfless love, sacrificial love, a love free of self-interest, self-protection, or self-gratification. We say that Jesus died for us out of His agapē love for us…but then what do we make out of the joy He felt as He went to the cross? He was joyful because He loved His Father and out of love for Him and for us was crucified. Doing something for the One He loved and for us, who He also loved, gave Him joy. How, then, can we say that Jesus’ love was selfless and free of self-interest? Was it purely agapē love as we like to define it? Is there such a thing as love that is absolutely selfless?

Let’s try the philosophical technique of reductio ad absurdum, taking this idea of selfless love to its logical conclusion. If selfless love is best, then what about painful love? If it is good that I get nothing out of love, then wouldn’t it be better if it hurt? No.

This selfless characterization of agapē love sounds to me like a very antiseptic love, and I think it is a wrong characterization. I love my wife and my love gives me great pleasure. Should I not want that for myself? I love myself, shouldn’t I want happiness for me? Frankly, I cannot conceive of loving my wife without the accompanying joy and happiness it brings me. I cannot conceive of loving God joylessly. The feeling seems mutual; the old prophet Zechariah tells us that God sings over us (Zephaniah 3:17).

Eros, self-love, and agapē, selfless love. If self-love is that upon which every other love exists, then where does self-less love fit? Does eros end where agapē begins? I don’t think so. Consider the paradox of hedonism: it is the concept that one cannot find happiness by seeking it; rather, one finds happiness by living a virtuous life. However, one does not deny the received happiness as the reward of virtue. Bernard says the same thing about love:

Love is an affection of the soul, not a contract: it cannot rise from a mere agreement, nor is it so to be gained. It is spontaneous in its origin and impulse; and true love is its own satisfaction. It has its reward; but that reward is the object beloved. For whatever you seem to love, if it is on account of something else, what you do really love is that something else, not the apparent object of desire.

Tricky stuff. It seems that if I love serving God or love making Him happy, then those are the objects of my love and not God Himself. My joy, then, would be based on service to Him (likely as I define it) or His happiness (also likely as I define it) rather than God alone. My love for Jesus must be based on my affirmation that it is very good that He exists and my desire (out of self-love) to be united with Him. I am choosing to reorder my life to be in loving relationship with Him. It that because of self-less love or self-love?

I love God and I love my wife. I hope I would find it true were it ever put to the test that I would do anything for them, even giving my life. It is self-less in the sense that I desire nothing more than them. It is selfish in that out of their joy of being loved I receive the very pleasant reward of joy, the desire for which is born out of my self love, my eros.

So, unconditional love between lovers would be each wanting only the other, and out of the joy of the other experiencing joy. In this light, to even talk of “sacrificial love” seems foreign; for the lover there is no sacrifice, there are only acts of love for one’s beloved. For the joy set before Jesus, he endured the humiliation of the cross…my, what love.

The Glory of Jesus Given to Us?

05 Monday Nov 2012

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The glory which You [God the Father] have given Me [Jesus] I have given to them [Jesus followers], that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. –Jesus; The Biblical Gospel of John, 17:22-23

“It’s very good that you exist.”  Believing this of another is the ultimate in positive affirmation that the other exists, and it is, I have been claiming, the biblical basis of love.  It is what God said about us in the beginning (Genesis 1:31).  It is what we must hear God say to us and more importantly, it is what we must experience from God to be able to love in His way.  It is what we must offer to others if we claim to follow Christ (1John 4:7-21).  However, it is easily misunderstood.

It seems to me that our American culture (all of Western culture?) has taken this “very good that you exist” thing wrongly because of the way our culture has redefined tolerance as affirming anything that makes the other person “happy.”  Consequently, a critical element of love, implied in the statement, has been overlooked.  It is indeed very good that I exist.  I need that affirmation from God and from others in my life.  What it doesn’t mean, however, is that everything I do is good or even that every aspect of who I am is good.  The God of the Bible does not tolerate all behavior and being in the way our society has come to expect.  In other words, who I am and what I do is not indiscriminately excused by God if it is indeed not “good” according to His nature (see my recent blog on forgiveness).  Therefore, as a Jesus follower I cannot indiscriminately affirm aspects of being or behavior that are not “good” according to God’s morality and commands. This applies to me and others–and I’m assuming with great humility that I can know to some extent “good” as defined by God.

I believe that God yearns for our “goodness,” that He wants the best for us; this is clearly seen in the Bible in God’s promises, culminating in Jesus’ death for us and His subsequent resurrection.  Returning to God’s own statement of the very goodness of creation (Genesis 1:31), what is meant there by “good” is “the purpose for which it was created.”  It is very good that all of creation, including you and me, exists for the purpose God intended.  Therefore, it is good that I exist within the context of my becoming fully whom I was created to be.  You, too.  For me, this “becoming” means to journey towards a life ultimately free of the lies in which I have come to believe and the inner wounds I have suffered, a life free of the fears with which I live and the hurt I inflict on others.  I believe Jesus makes this explicitly clear that it is also God’s desire for us in what He says He gives us (see the passage at the top of the page).  He explicitly gives glory to those who follow Him, the very same glory given to Him by God, His Father.

So, what exactly is this glory Jesus gives us?  Theologian M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (Dictionary of Spiritual Theology, Zondervan) notes that an aspect of the Greek word doxa (glory) refers to the “essence of a person, that which makes a person who he or she is” (216).  In John 17:1, Jesus tells us that the Father (God) and the Son (Jesus, God-Man) “glorify” each other.  In other words, both Father and Son find their essence, their true identities only in relationship with each other.  Try this: a human father has no identity apart from his son (or daughter).  It seems obvious that for one to have identity as “father” requires the existence of one’s child.  Similarly, for one to have identity as “son” or “daughter” requires that one has a father.  And so it is with God.  God the Father finds His true identity as Father only in relationship with His Son, Jesus.  Similarly, the Son, Jesus, finds His true identity as Son only in relationship with His Father.  Mutual glorification, therefore, means that only in relationship with each other do Father and Son fully become who they each are (see John 17:1, 5).  And not just any relationship will do, such as acquaintance or friend, it must be a relationship of loving union…they, Father and Son, are one (see John 10:30).

This is the same glory Jesus is offering to us when we choose to follow Him: the glory He has with His Father, God.  Jesus is saying to me that it is only through the same relationship of loving union with God that He has can I find my true identity and become fully who I am meant to be.  (Some writers call this my true self as contrasted with my false self.)  This loving union is the relationship Jesus intends for us in John 17:3 when He defines eternal life as “knowing God and Jesus,” where “knowing” means the most deeply intimate knowing of another person one can imagine.  It is a “knowing” that is most often used when referring to the intimacy between husband and wife that takes a lifetime to achieve (and it is never actually “achieved” since the journey of becoming intimate is eventually interrupted by the death of one spouse–with God, my “knowing” Him, an infinite being, in this deeply intimate way will take an eternity).  Therefore, the glory offered to me by Jesus is to become my true self–the image of God I was created to be– through a relationship of loving union with Him (this relationship is sometimes referred to as the “transformative union” with God).

So, with this understanding of love as affirming the goodness of one’s existence and wanting the best for one, which can only in relationship of loving union with God, then what does it mean for me to love my neighbor as I love myself (Matthew 22:39)?

Self-love is me affirming that it is very good that I exist, where the goodness referred to is that I become freely me–my true self–the me I was created to be, the me whom is free of the baggage of the lies I’ve believed and still believe, the hurts I’ve experienced and caused, the fears that torment me, and the failures that haunt me; it is the me free from all the baggage that hold me captive and feeds my false self.  This is the goodness I intrinsically want for myself, it seems built in to humanity that we each want this for ourselves. I long for this in the depths of my soul…and I can only find it in  a relationship of loving union Christ.

Then, if this is the healthy way I love myself, what about my neighbors?  I surely must want this for them, too.  I must affirm that it is very good that they exist and I must want the best for them, as well, which is for them to become fully the person who God created them to be.  Therefore, I must want them to be in a relationship of loving union with God.  This means I must not want for them anything else, nothing, no matter how pleasant it may seem in the moment, that would interfere with this transformative union with God from starting or from continuing in a healthy way.  And, again, I must exhibit great humility in expressing what I want for and not want for my neighbor.

As for my enemies (Matthew 5:44)…well, the same thing must apply if I am to love them as commanded by God.  I must affirm the goodness of their existence and I must want for them the things that move them toward a relationship of loving union with God.  Only in this way, it seems to me, can I fully and rightly (righteously) hate the things they do to interfere with their relationship with God thereby preventing them from becoming fully themselves as they are created to be by God.

This, I believe, is what it means to hate the sin but love the sinner, whether that sinner is me, my neighbor, or my enemy.

Sadly, not everyone will appreciate this point of view; most, in fact, will not (see Matthew 7:13-14).  Our society spends a lot of money trying to convince us, and we try to convince ourselves and each other, that many, many things and behaviors are good for us when, in fact, they keep us from this type of relationship with God, and, therefore, from becoming who we are in Christ.  Generally, most of us don’t want to become fully who God created us each to be, at least from God’s perspective; rather, we continue to think we know better than God what is best for ourselves.

A relationship of loving union with Jesus, a transformative union: it is what Jesus means when He says He is the only way to God, the Father (John 14:6).  No other relationship will do.  None.

Becoming my true self in relationship with Christ, this is what it truly means to be “saved.”