A Lesson From Leroy

10 Wednesday Aug 2022

Tags

dogs, Father, God, heart, Holy spirit, hospitality, Logismoi, nous, Son, Trinity

It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them, and every new dog who comes into my life gifts me will a piece of their heart. If I live long enough all the components of my heart will be dog, and will become loving as they are.
-Anonymous

Leroy, our dog of more than 10 years died last month. He was a little guy with feet too big for his body; something upon which everyone who met him commented. Those big feet have left enormous footprints in our lives.

He was part of our family. As a Caviler King Charles Spaniel, I think Leroy knew his breed contained the word “king.” As the “king,” he demanded our attention, usually in the best of ways. While he was happy to be fed, walked, and have his ear scratched, his greatest delight seemed to come from simply being near us.

Anyone who has had a dog knows of the unconditional love they can show. Leroy didn’t care about how we looked, how we dressed, how we spoke, our politics, our morality, our economic status, our jobs, our education, the color of our skin, our country of origin…I don’t ever recall an argument with him or getting a lecture from him on any of those subjects. Instead, whenever our eyes would meet, his tail would wag, which made me smile.

I think their hearts are what first attracts us to our dogs and makes us fall in love with them. Leroy’s heart was always open to me, inviting me in, and, despite its small physical size, his heart was big enough to hold without judgment all that was me.

Looking back on the moments we shared together, I am aware that Leroy was simply always fully present in the moment; he was never lost in his past or worried about his future. Sadly, I was rarely fully present with him. Too often I was elsewhere, “anywhere but here, anytime but now.” My mind was too noisy and my heart was too small for his 25 pounds. Even so, with his big eyes, big feet, and his heart bigger than mine, Leroy always accepted from me without complaint the little or the much I could offer him in that moment. It is a remarkable offering of love.

Why could I not be as fully present in our moments together as Leroy was with me? Why is my heart too small for even a little dog?

Well, it seems to be a hallmark of humanity to live in our heads and to be anywhere but “now.” While the mind is not evil, its needs and desires are endless. So are its fears…Analysis [which can be good] is achieved by the mind…the mind does not have an “off” switch. When we are not actually using it, it carries on under its own power behaving as if it were in charge and issuing a constant stream of comments and challenges, almost all of which are of a negative character…The stream of thoughts is negative because the mind dwells in a land of unrelenting desire and boundless fear, and it attempts to influence us to experience these two areas as our rightful home…The mind prefers to work in the past or future, since these dimensions are both actually constructs of the mind’s own workings and thus the mind controls them. The present moment, however, is completely outside its control and therefore ignored.¹

The human mind races; we learn to do that from the youngest age. We look at everything and render analysis and judgment: safe or dangerous, tasty or sickening, beautiful or ugly, good or bad. We need analysis and judgment; however, if your head is like mine, it too often runs amok in ways that are not relationally or psychologically or spiritually helpful.

And even my morality—which comes from my Christianity and, admittedly, sometimes from my culture—encourages judgment: Are you one of us or one of them? Sinner or saint? Woke or not? Progressive or conservative? Pro-choice or pro-life? Noise, always noise.

The noise in my head can be deafening. How I long to have the large heart of little Leroy that was fully present to me and fully accepting of me; like him, I want to have room in my heart for the person in front of me, simply taking in all that they are.

The dark storm-clouds of life bring no terror to those in whose hearts Your fire is burning brightly. Outside [i.e., in the mind] is the darkness of the whirlwind, the terror and howling of the storm, but in the heart, in the presence of Christ, there is light and peace, silence. The heart sings, Alleluia!²

Silence.

Silence is the language of the heart, silence is the language of Heaven, silence is the language of God. The Church has always known of this “silence.” In fact, the very purpose of the ascetical practices (“spiritual disciplines”) of the ancient Church are to give us a way, working in synergy with God, to quiet our thoughts (control our disordered passions) so that our “minds will descend into our hearts” where Christ dwells within us. It is the way find to St Paul’s “peace from God that passes understanding.”

Rather than dwelling in our hearts in the moment, experiencing God by contemplating whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—anything that is excellent or praiseworthy (Phil 4:8), we focus on the voice of Satan and stay in our minds dwelling on the thoughts, emotions, and feelings of gluttony, lust or fornication, avarice or love of money, dejection or sadness, anger, despondency or listlessness, vainglory, and pride.³

The Church warns us about these unchecked “deadly thoughts”—this constant noise in our heads—because the language of God is silence; not silence of emptying my head of all the “noise”; rather, it is the silence that comes from filling my mind with God so that I let my mind descend into my heart where Jesus dwells.

You, me, God…we are not things to be judged, items to be sorted, categorized, and labelled; rather, we are persons to be experienced, beings to share life together. I don’t want to judge you (though I do); there is already too much of that. And God knows there is good and bad in me—my heart contains both sheep and goats—so that you could very easily judge me.

Life is is not about being “right” it’s about being together, sharing life with each other and with God. Interestingly enough, Jesus never once suggested to His disciples that they be right. What He did demand is that they be righteous.⁴ To be “righteous” is to share in the life of God, which is to be on the journey to becoming “fully human” in which I see myself as part of humanity—all of us “in Him”—and not as an isolated being.

The past is gone and the future is not here. The only reality is the present moment. It is the only place God exists.

In the madness of this world and in the noise in my head, being fully in the moment where, in the presence of Christ, I will find Christ’s light and peace, silence. And my heart will sing, Alleluia!

Join me in learning from Leroy. Try to inhabit the present in the silence of Christ, so that with Him you might be fully with someone today. Please pray for me that I might, as well.

—————-

Webber, Metetios. Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God. 17-19.
“Akathist to the Glory of God.” Ode 5.
Called Logismoi, early Church Father Evagrius’ grouped them into eight deadly thoughts. These later became the “seven deadly sins” of Roman Catholicism.
Bread & Water, Wine & Oil. 40.

Too Easy

18 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life

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Tags

Easy Life, Father, God, Hard Life, Holy spirit, Jesus, Narrow Gate, Trinity, Wide Gate

Life seems too easy.

I had asked a friend how he was enjoying being retired. His words were both a response and a lament. His work life, he told me, had been one of planning and executing plans for large and complex projects. Since retiring, he had done volunteer work, engaged his hobbies, played golf, travelled…the usual things retirees do. However, it all seemed too easy to him; there was no struggle, no challenge as he had experienced in his work life.

I am seventeen months into my own retirement. I confess to having had the same thought on occasion: my life seems too easy. I have a wonderful marriage, a comfortable retirement income, my health is good, I have good friends, hobbies, and a good church. In my work life I had great responsibility: literally holding people’s lives in my hands. Now, I just have to make sure the dog is fed twice a day.

And, isn’t that the point…to have an easy life? Growing up I was told that I should work hard all of my life to retire—and retire early, if possible—so that I can enjoy myself in relative physical and material comfort. And the goal of an easy life in retirement is certainly the main focus of millions of advertising dollars spent on American TV by the financial planning and pharmaceutical industries.

Of course while still in the work force I remember the not-so-subtle shift in the message, that the easy life is no longer just for those retired folks. I now hear that if I become properly educated in a S.T.E.M. profession, have the latest cell phone, am a member of the right social networks, subscribe to the correct kind of shame-cancelling morality, and am properly woke, then I deserve and should expect to have an easy life with perhaps hundreds, thousands, or millions of virtual “friends.” Soma for all!

It sounds idyllic, doesn’t it, being the captain of my own ship, the king of my own castle, in full control of my own destiny. Clear skies, calm seas, and flat terrain ahead! Who wouldn’t want that life.

Then why does this idea of an “easy life” bother me so much? After all, by many common measures I was successful in my career and life. I should feel somewhat proud of myself and blessed by God that I did enough “right” things and made enough “right” choices that God rewarded me with an “easy life” in my retirement years. Right? Shouldn’t I?

Then what is wrong with me.

Now I do have to admit to you that some of my angst comes from guilt. From within my “easy life” I see so many others living life that is not so easy. I admit to experiencing a form of survivor’s guilt: why do I have it easy and not them. But there’s more to my angst than guilt.

What if there’s nothing wrong with me. What if thinking that my life is too easy is a giant red flag waving at me. What if I should understand these thoughts as moments when I recognize, even sub-consciously, that the culture is winning within me. What if these are moments in which I am standing at an abyss I don’t recognize, having forgotten that my life is only found in relationship with God.

I was recently reading a book about how the Christian Orthodox Church views salvation, participating in life with God. In it, the author recounts a conversation he had as a young man with St. Sophrony (Sakarov) of Essex in which he was lamenting to Sophrony how difficult his school exams were. Sophrony acknowledged that school exams are indeed difficult, then added:

In this world there is nothing more difficult than to be saved.

This is not the Christian message I grew up hearing. I recall hearing, “say the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ go to church, pray some, give some, and try to be a good person to those around you. God sees you through the blood of Jesus. You are saved.” No one in my Christian world would have talked about it being hard to be saved.

I have been praying, and it can be a tricky thing. You’ve probably heard the old joke about not praying for patience because God will put you in a place where you have to learn it. Well, I have been praying for God to do whatever it takes in my life to draw me closer to Him. So, He opened my eyes and led me to the abyss in my own soul.

Abyss. It seems like such a perfect word for what it is intended to convey, doesn’t it. Hearing the word brings to my mind a chasm of unknown depth. A pit of blackness—blacker than the darkest night. A place of demons and despair; a hole into which were I to fall there would be only falling. Forever.

God has brought me to the abyss within me. It is the place in my heart where my radical self-love and my self-serving passions exist. It is the place where there is little or no thought of loving God…or you. It is the place of Solzhenitsyn‘s line of evil within my own heart. It is where the goats of St Matthew’s gospel graze within me.

It is hard enough to stand at the edge and look into it. One has to bear the shame of admitting that kind of darkness exist within one’s own soul. Standing at the edge is looking at one’s past self-centered behavior and facing it, owning it. Sophrony again says that we should only stand at the edge of the abyss until we can take it no longer, then we must step back and have some tea. It is while drinking tea that I am able to talk to myself about the abyss, coolly offering advice and encouragement and remembering the promises of Jesus and repenting of my thoughts and deeds.

As hard as it is to stand at the abyss and peer in, it is quite another thing to recognize real-time that I am in the abyss. It is being in the darkness and terror of the storm itself. In these times I can feel myself awash in self-serving self-love manifested by one or more extreme passions of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice, and slothfulness—the seven deadly sins. The demons toss me shackles to bind myself to them and I gladly put them on. I experience myself being overwhelmed by my own desires and wanting more while being horrified that I find so much pleasure in it. I may even hear my inner self shouting faintly to me that what I am doing pushes God and those I love most away from me. Still I go on.

As the moment subsides, I am convinced that I am not saved because I have no love for God or neighbor within me. The shame of who I am and the pain of my very existence washes over me.

Accepting the shame without turning from it nor letting it crush me is the most difficult thing. Recognizing that I am falling into the abyss and trying not to let my passions rule me every time is the most difficult thing. Remembering and calling upon God’s mercy in my life is the most difficult thing.

Thinking that my life is too easy should indeed be a giant red flag waving at me. I can and should be thankful for the abundance God has provided. But thinking life is too easy, well, they are the moments of blindness when I no longer see the abyss in my soul. It is the time of greatest danger to my soul.

There are two roads. The road of the easy life is wide and comfortable. The road of sharing life with God is narrow and perilous.

Fierce is the war we rage, yet it is a wise war and a simple one. If the soul grows to love humility, then all the snares of our enemies are undone and his fortress captured. In this spiritual warfare of ours we must see to the state of our ammunition and our provender. Our ammunition is our humility; our provender—the grace of God. If we lose these, the enemy will defeat us…

Here is the easiest and quickest way to salvation: Be obedient and sober, do not find fault, and keep mind and heart from evil thoughts. Think that all men are good and beloved of the Lord. For such humility the grace of the Holy Spirit will dwell in you, and cause you to exclaim, “How merciful is the Lord!”

But if you find fault and are querulous, if you want your own way, even if you pray much your soul will fail, and you will cry out, “The Lord has forgotten me!” But it is not that the Lord has forgotten you—it is you that have forgotten that you must humble yourself, and so the grace of God abides not in your soul.
—St Silouan the Athonite

Lord have mercy.

The Noonday Demon

10 Monday May 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life, Prayer

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Tags

Acedia, Depression, Despondency, Father, God, Holy spirit, Noonday Demon, Son, Trinity

There is a digital clock on my desk. The clock tells me it is Thursday. May 6th. 4:28. pm. Central daylight time. The temperature at my desk is 78 degrees Fahrenheit. The clock read 3:12 when I first sat down. Now it is 4:29. On the upper left hand corner of the clock is a map of the United States and the Central Time Zone is highlighted. I know it is the Central Time Zone because of the letter C below the map. I know it is the afternoon because above the map are the letters “pm.” Now 4:32. The small letters “DST” tells me it is daylight savings time; curiously, “DST” blinks at me silently, the electronic equivalent of the ticking of a clock, I suppose. Blink. Blink. Blink. It is now 4:34. Other symbols on the clock face tell me the clock is receiving a signal from station WWVB, which broadcasts a signal from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado. A built-in thermometer tells me the room temperature. 4:41. Blink. Blink. Blink.

4:48. The demon stopped by again today. He (do demons have gender?) and I are old acquaintances. He is very old now but he seems well for his age. He used to be quite famous, you know. There have been many, many pages written about him throughout history, though I believe him to be widely unknown today. After all, we are too smart to believe in demons. Too bad for us. However, I think that’s a good thing for a demon. It is better for them to work in anonymity, they are much more effective. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. 4:56.

This demon has a name. No, not from me. He has been named for at least 3,000 years:

You shall not be frightened by fear at night, Nor from an arrow that flies by day, Nor by a thing moving in darkness, Nor by mishap and a demon of noonday.
–-Psalm 90:6 (King David. Septuagint, The Orthodox Study Bible)

He was so named “noonday demon” because of when he generally comes to visit. Eighteen hundred years ago, many Christian monks moved to the desert caves of the Middle East seeking a life focused on God alone. Boredom was a constant companion. For some, the noonday sun seemed to stop in the sky. This was when the demon would come visit them.

5:02.

Now 5:17. Early desert-dwelling Christians (Church Fathers and Mother’s of the 4th century and beyond) recognized the noonday demon as “a dangerous and frequent foe” (St John Cassian). The monk’s day would drag on and on. And on. Many would eat and drink as a distraction. Others would sleep. Or pace. Or stand in the mouth of their cave, trying to will the sun to move. Still others would visit neighboring monks for idle conversation. Anything to find distraction from the attack of the demon, the pain of the boredom. 5:38. Blink. Blink.

The Greeks have a word for the effect this demon’s visit has on us: acedia. Apparently, it doesn’t translate well. The English word was sloth, but that word has taken on a different emphasis these days. Now it is more commonly called “desolation,” not to be confused with depression. Desolation, as used in the spiritual context, has been described as a sickness—weariness—of the soul. Father Alexander Schmemann says it is “the suicide of the soul because when a man is possessed by it, he is absolutely unable to see the light and desire it.” Strong words. 5:52. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

It is the apparent futility of living and dying that, more than any other factor, invites the apathy of despondency.
–Nicole Roccas (Time and Despondency).

Fundamentally, despondency is a sense of futility resulting in hopelessness; one’s soul is sick. One suffering the demon’s attack seeks to escape by giving in to the apathy (no activity) or by busyness (much activity). Whether lazy or busy, one has the overwhelming desire to be “anywhere but here, anytime but now.” Looking back, I now know this demon I first met many years ago when I was a kid. Futility is part of my early and ongoing awareness and distraction; a lifelong way of living for me. (Why is it so rare to see a number change on a digital clock?) 6:44. 6:45. 6:46. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Even as I write I wonder whether it matters. Will it change anything? 6:48.

Sun set. Sun rise.

The clock tells me it is Friday. May 7th. 4:57. pm. Central daylight time. It is 76 degrees in my office. Since I was last here I’ve visited friends, walked the dog, slept, ate, bought groceries, and played golf. Feels like activity without importance. The letters on my clock continue to blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Space is exposed to our will; we may shape and change the things in space as we please. Time, however, is beyond our reach, beyond our power. … It belongs exclusively to God.
—Abraham Joshua Herschel. The Sabbath.

5:35. In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death. He believed Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) was the better prophet than George Orwell (1984). To each of us the noonday demon whispers, “You will live and you will die. There is no hope.” If you don’t believe in life after death, then the demon whispers, “Ultimately, nothing matters. The universe will one day grow cold and die. All you hold dear will be gone.” If you believe in life after death, the demon whispers, “You will be as Stepford Wives: perfect people doing perfect things. There will be nothing new or challenging…for eternity. How boring.” 5:50. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Huxley and Postman saw a future of humanity with humans self-medicating to dull the pain of hopelessness. These modern two prophets say we will set aside the deep things of life, wonder and awe; rather, we will strive after “wow!” They say we will not notice that “wow” begets the need for more “wow.” We will live our lives seeking Huxley’s Soma and CS Lewis’ Turkish Delight: Bigger, faster, newer, more features, more excitement, more challenge, more pleasure. More. More. Still more. It is hopelessness masked by distraction.

It is more serious to lose hope than to sin.
–St John of Karpathos

6:00. At around 6pm we have happy hour at our house. I always look forward to a glass of wine. Usually only one glass for me, though. I fear if I have another there will be another still. I find red wine goes best with futility.

Sun set.

The clock tells me it is Saturday. May 8. 12:43. am. Central daylight time. It is 77 degrees in my office. I can’t sleep.

History, at least in the West, is on the side of Huxley and Postman. In 1949, with the carnage of World War II still fresh in the world’s collective memory, Elton Trueblood (Alternative to Futility) wrote this:

Actually most of us like war better than we like peace. We like it because it saves us from boredom, from mediocrity, from dullness. It is instructive to note that great numbers of people in Britain say openly that they look back to 1940-41 with nostalgia. Those were the days in which they really lived! There was the constant danger of invasion and all the resultant horror; there was the bombing; but there was more. People stood shoulder to shoulder, united by a common pride. They were sustained by great rhetoric and great deeds. Life had significance. Now all is different. Now there is no danger, but only a constant round of petty restrictions; life has become commonplace and humdrum.

12:55. am. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Apparently we prefer immediate danger and death over the pain of a slow death by the sense of futility of a commonplace and humdrum life. The demon whispers.

1:17. am.

With the passage of the years, I have found that the cross Jesus tells me to bear daily is heavy; my soul has grown weary from the struggle. It is easier to just lay on the ground under my cross than to carry it.

And the three men I admire most,br. The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
—Don McLean, “American Pie”

Where is God? He said His burden is light and His yoke is easy

When the demon comes and I begin to lose hope, I struggle pray. Going to church becomes a wearisome chore. 1:38. am. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Sun rise.

The clock tells me it is Sunday. May 9th. 2:24pm. It is 78 degrees in my office. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Some Christians tell me to shout back at the demon, “Get behind me Satan.”

2:50.

The ancient Church warns me not to take on a demon, for I am not strong enough to take on a demon.

Stay in your cell and it will teach you everything.
–Abba Moses (4th c.)

Those who have been in their cave and faced the demon tell me, “Don’t fight the demon. Neither should you mask the weariness with distraction. Cry out to Jesus. Look to Him and at Him alone. It is the path to purification.”

They tell me that if I can say nothing else, to pray “Jesus help.” They tell me prayer is vital. Father Thomas Hopko says to pray as I can, not as I think I should (“55 Maxims for the Christian Life”). They tell me I am in need of the Church, the hospital for the soul, where I will find healing. I know they are right, but the weariness presses in. Where is the rest Jesus promises?

3:08.

Evagrius Ponticus (4th c) was one of the earliest Christian cave-dwelling monks to write extensively about acedia. He believed the thoughts of desolation were the most debilitating of the eight evil thoughts that assail humankind. His advice is to pray this simple prayer from the Psalms:

Why are you so sad, O my soul? And why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks to Him; My God is the salvation of my countenance.
–Psalm 41:6 (Septuagint, The Orthodox Study Bible)

The clock tells me it is Sunday, May 9th, 3:17 pm. Central daylight time. The temperature at my desk is 79 degrees Fahrenheit. The letters, “DST,” blink as the ticking of an electronic clock. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

The Bird and the World

12 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life, Prayer

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Anxiety, Frustration, God, Holy spirit, Jesus, Problems, Song

It is Spring and a bird has moved into the large holly bush near our home. The bush is large and lush, the leaves a deep green. The bird is rather ordinary looking; it wears black, white, and shades of gray. Its song is extraordinary. I can not help but smile when I hear it’s music.

One particular day, we left the house to walk our dog. It was a lovely morning: the sky was blue, the sun bright and warm, and the breeze was light. I stopped at the bush and talked to the bird. “Good morning, bird,” I said. The bird looked at me and cocked its head. I continued. “A pandemic is sweeping the planet. What shall we do?” The bird responded with its beautiful song.

Another day I stop at the bush. “Good morning, bird. The politicians are ruining the country. What shall we do?” The bird sang its song.

Each day I asked the bird a question. “Healthcare costs are out of control. What shall we do?” “Our country is at odds with Russia and China. What shall we do?” “There are racist attacks against blacks and Asians.” “There is civil war in Mali.” The bird sings its song. I, with the growing fury of a plodding brute, slash at the bird with broadsword problems. One slash, healthcare. Another, Russia and China. A third, racism. A fourth, civil war. One, healthcare. Two, Russia and China. Three, racism. Four, civil war. Slash, slash, slash, slash. Healthcare, Russia and China, racism, civil war. With each grunt and swing of my broadsword, the bird, with the grace and ease of an expert fencer, parries my attack with its song. Women’s rights, song. Poverty, immigration. Song, song. Refugee camps, healthcare, starvation, terrorism. Song, song, song, song. Slice, parry. Thrust, parry. Slash, parry. Problem, song. Problem, song. Problem, song. National debt, human trafficking, immigration. Song, song, song. Pandemic, politicians, war, racism, debt, starvation. Song, song, song, song, song, song. My strength is fading. Russia and China, women’s rights. Perry and now riposte: song, song, song, song, song, song, song, song, song. Pandemic, I croak. Song, still the song.

From my exhaustion, “The bird does not understand that these are serious problems and that they must be fixed.” I make one more attempt. I explain to the bird, “These problems will destroy us. We need a task force,” I say. “The task force needs funding to study each problem and develop plans. It needs the authority to create departments and to hire people. We need these people to act on the plans and collect data. We must have more laws. We must regain control.”

Song.

“You do not care about the problems of the world, bird.” To my ears, the bird’s once exquisite song has become the noise of uncaring. I no longer smile at its song. “Stupid bird.”

I want the bird to care more about the world, to share in my frustration and anxiety, to join in my cry, “We must do something!” The bird only sings its song.

I want the bird to be more like me.

Jesus wants me to be more like the bird.

See the birds of the sky: they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns. Your Heavenly Father feeds them! Are you not much more value than they?¹

I want a task force. Jesus says to first seek Him. I want action. Jesus says to love God and my neighbor. I want to control events. Jesus says that He has overcome the world.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own.²

God became man and dwelt among us for perhaps 33 years. For the first 30 years, He lived in obscurity. Infant, child, teen, apprentice, adult, carpenter. For three years of His public work He moved slowly and deliberately. No horseback, no chariot, no Facebook friends, or Zoom seminars. No planes, trains, or automobiles. He did not blog. Jesus moved slowly and deliberately. Jesus walked. A person who walks can see the eyes of another. A person who walks can hear the words of another. And at the most profound moment in human history He could not move; nailed to a cross, no action at all.³

The song of the bird is the song of Jesus. What do I hear? An exquisite song or the noise or uncaring? I cry out to Jesus, “You must fix these problems!” He continues to sing. The verses are simple: “Love your God. Love your neighbor.” The chorus repeats: “Prayer, fasting, alms giving”; “Prayer, fasting, alms giving.”

Sing the song of Jesus and the bird.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Matthew 6:26-27; EOB: The Eastern / Greek Orthodox New Testament.

2 Matthew 6:33-34; ibid.

3 Kosuke, Koyama. (1979). Three Mile an Hour God. Orbis Books. 3-7.

With a tip of the hat to the writing styles of Father John Oliver and Ray Bradbury.

How Does My Life Mean?

11 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Healing, Journey, Life, Self

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Father, God, Holy spirit, meaning of life, Self love, Son, Trinity

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
—Jean-Paul Sartre

I have come that people may have life, and that they may have it abundantly.
—Jesus

I have been obsessed with the meaning of life since I was a kid. Early on, I remember reading obituaries in the local newspaper. I noticed that some during their lives had done extraordinary things, accounting for significant advances in science, math, engineering, the arts. Others had led large companies to unprecedented prosperity, providing many jobs and making a lot of money for themselves and others. Yet others lived more modest lives, working hard and raising families. Still others had hard lives marred by poor decisions, struggle, and loss.

There are culturally accepted ways to assign meaning to life and we label and reward accordingly. The “great” person affects humanity and gets public honor: a star named for them (or a star on Hollywood Boulevard), or a monument dedicated to them, or a statue built in their honor, or a street or park named after them An “expert” is widely recognized in their field of expertise and have a wall or a shelf in their home filled with their achievement awards. The “average Jane or Joe” lives a generally nondescript life, invisible to all but those closest to them. About another life we use the word “wasted” or “shameful,” particularly when addiction is involved. If one dies young, then we say their life was “tragically cut short” presumable lamenting that they did not have time to do the things that would have given their life greater meaning.

But even the highest reward for a meaningful life can be fleeting. We have a short collective memory. Have you ever stopped at a statue of a person and wondered who the person was and what they did to have a statue erected for them? I think these questions can be asked of any memorial we come across. I try to stop and read the usual plaque, then say something like, “Hmmmm, that’s interesting” before moving on.

My mom and dad were quite prominent people in our small, midwestern-America town. My dad was mayor for awhile, and when he died there was quite a celebration of his life and accomplishments; the town even named a street after him. Now, thirty years later, I’m sure most people driving down his street wonder who he was. Honestly, if anyone even thinks of him at all it is probably only to wish his street had a shorter name. And I’m sure that now only us, his kids, could find his, or my mom’s, grave site at the local cemetery.

I, too, have accomplished things in my life and have had my own achievement awards; however, even in the midst of the work I always had that small voice chiding me, “One day,” it would say, “this accomplishment will just be a line in your own obituary that will soon be forgotten.”

I am very aware that the day I die my toys and precious belongings will become just troublesome stuff for my kid to dispose of. In two generations, likely no one will know where I am buried. The best I can hope for is that I appear in some future progeny’s web search on an “ancestor” archive.

On my deathbed, if I am able to reflect back on my life, what is it that will have given it meaning? Will I be graded on a scale based on things that can measured, such as philanthropy or adventure or personal achievement? If so, against whose scale will I be judged? And who will grade me? Family? Friends? Society? If no one ultimately remembers me, then why should I really care how I am graded?

So, how does life mean? Wait! That is too big a question. What I really want to know is this: How does my life mean?

This I know: God created humankind—me—to participate in His very life, to be “one” with him and with other Christians. By His graciousness I am invited to become like He is by nature. Therefore, my life’s meaning doesn’t come from a collection of material things or accomplishments but by my movement into relationship with Him. My life begins to have meaning when I am awakened to the Beauty of God and I begin to “come out of myself and move toward Him,” to “run toward God without any regard for myself” (Patitsas)…like lovers do. Here is one way the Bible describes it:

My beloved is a shining and fiery light, Chosen from countless thousands. His head is like refined gold; His locks of hair are shiny and black, Like a raven’s feathers. His eyes are like those of doves Sitting by pools of water, Having eyes bathed in milk and fitly set. His cheeks are like bowls of spices Pouring forth perfumes. His lips are lilies dripping choice myrrh. His hands are like elaborate gold Set with precious stones. (Song of Songs, The Bible)

Isn’t that great imagery! Too often we are hit over the head with the threat of an angry God who is judging our every action and keeping score. That is not really true. It is much more like the paragraph, above. Elsewhere in the Bible it says that God is singing over us. Imagine that…God singing over me, the mess that I am.

To run toward God I have to try to get over myself, specifically to get over my love of myself, so that I might love Him. That is what it means to participate in God’s life.

In my human relationships I know that loving another is never easy for me. I don’t really want to put you first, at least not for very long. Setting aside my desires, my self-love, is often a sacrifice for me, and all too often it is too much of a sacrifice, so I don’t do it. If I’m honest with you, all the evidence in my life points to the fact that I love myself way too much, so that I want any relationship I’m in—with you or with God—to be on my terms.

But, love does require sacrifice. It all sounds so counter-cultural, doesn’t it. And it is, but this is what we were made for: to be in a loving relationship with God and others.

There’s hope for me, mired as I am in self love! Here is the little secret of Christianity that I have discovered: God knows I’ll never do “relationship” very well. Because of how much I want what I want, I’ll spend my life struggling to love you and God more than I love myself. Mostly I will fail at it. And then with God’s help I will get up and try again. And I will fail. And I will try again. And I will fail. And I will try again. For all of my life. With every fall I try to cry out to God Who helps me to get up again. Any successes I have will be entirely God’s doing.

But—and this is the final answer to my question—the only thing that gives my life meaning, eternal meaning, is whether I stayed in the struggle to try and love God and you more than I love myself. There are no monuments or achievement awards given for a life lived like this. There is only eternal life with God…life’s ultimate meaning.

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
—Jesus

Oh, and that little word, “know” means the knowing God in the same way found only in the most intimate of relationship between lovers. Me knowing God (God already knows me)—it is both the meaning and reward of my life.

So, now when I read an obituary I appreciate the person’s accomplishments, but I also wonder how their life meant to them and to God, and I pray for them as I, too, struggle to live my life as one filled with eternal meaning.

What If…

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by CurateMike in Church, Death, Healing, Life, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Church, desert fathers, Father, God, Holy spirit, Jesus, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, orthodoxy, Son

In the beginning of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series (Fellowship of the Ring), we read of the Hobbits living their everyday lives in a way we would consider normal: there is juicy gossip, a party with fireworks, mischievous kids…the things of normal life we all would recognize. However, we are soon introduced to an enchanted world with Elves and other beings, and the Dark Lord Sauron. Tolkien opens our eyes to a larger reality: against the background of the normalcy of the Hobbit’s lives, there is a battle underway for all of Middle-earth.

What if this were true for us. Like Hobbits, we go about our daily lives concerned about our families, our jobs, our personal finances, the stuff we own or desire to own, politics, sports, the weather, etc. What if, as in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, our world is actually enchanted, good and sinister beings exist, and there is a battle, of which we are largely unaware, underway.

To switch stories, in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the wicked White Witch introduces Edmund to the addictive treat, Turkish Delight. With it, she is able to distract Edmund from her true intentions to rule over Narnia as a cold and snowy land and to entice him to join with her.

What if this were true for us. In the United States and the Western world we are easily distracted: our high standard of living, the internet, social media, the entertainment industry, sports, the never-ending news cycle, toys we have or want, computers, phones, tablets…it is a long list. What if, as in Narnia,these things are given to us as Turkish Delight, used by an enemy to distract us and to entice us to acquiesce to or outright join the dark forces in the battle.

In the Bible’s New Testament, St Paul says this:
…we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

There is a indeed a battle raging. However, it is not a battle for a geographical kingdom, such as Middle-earth or Narnia. Rather, it is a battle for the Kingdom of God that exists within us. In this battle, we are both the battleground and the prize! The battle is for our very being and the battleground is raging right now around us and within us.

In Tolkien’s and Lewis’ fictional fights beings suffer wounds or delusion as a result of the battle. It is true for us in our battle. But what if each of us is born into our enchanted world with a wound, an illness that darkens our soul and blinds us to our enchanted reality and the battle around us and within us.

Each of us has a part of our being called a Nous. Nous is an uncommon word to us modern people. In classical philosophy, nous “is a term for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real” (Wikipedia). It is often believed to be the center of “reason.” However, centuries ago, Orthodox Christianity re-purposed the word to mean “the eye of the soul, which some Church Fathers also call the heart, [it] is the center of man and is where true (spiritual) knowledge is validated” (Orthodoxwiki). It is much more than “reason,” it is the faculty that allows us access to the immaterial world around us and to know things that are beyond our reason. Most importantly, our nous allows us to know God. (“The Limits of Human Reason” podcast)

Each and every one of us was born with and suffers from an illness of our nous. This part of our being, originally given to us to know God, to “see” the enchanted reality all around us, and to recognize good and evil, has been darkened and blinded; we were born with this condition. Consequently, we go through life focused on ourselves, we engage in survival of the fittest, just like all of the plants and animals of nature.

But God doesn’t leave us in this wounded state, He reaches out to each person to awaken us to the battle around us and within us. And how He tries to awaken us is unique to each of us. To one He speaks directly, to another He sends a messenger, to yet another He speaks through the circumstances of our lives.

Once awakened to the reality of the battle, we may choose to ignore it and try to live in a safe world of our own making, continuing to gather and feast on Turkish Delight. Or perhaps we will choose to join the rulers of darkness who are continually at work around us and within us to win us as their prize. After all, joining the dark powers may bring us power, prosperity, and sensual pleasure, albeit only in this life on Earth; however, the price is the continued darkening of our nous.

God longs for us to choose Him. He longs to heal our wounded nous. God has a hospital and a cure for us. It is the Church.

You may strongly disagree. Perhaps you have been to a church and found no help; rather, you have found only judgement because you don’t meet some standard of behavior. That is like waking up one morning realizing you are very sick. You go to the hospital only to be told you cannot enter until you are well. That is not the true Church.

All too often a church focuses only on the “rules” for our spiritual life. When the goal of a church is only on the “formulation” of man’s character, his ethical propriety, and his becoming a ‘good’ person and a ‘good’ citizen” then it is acting like a courtroom rather than a hospital. In the Church-courtroom we experience only “empty moralism…a superficiality” rather than finding the love of God and His healing. Sadly, many have experienced this Church-courtroom and revolted against God; but, who can blame them? Why would anyone want to worship a God like that.

Sick people don’t need a courtroom. Sick people don’t need to be told they aren’t acting like healed people. Sick people need a hospital. And, sick people need a cure.

The true Church has always been a hospital that exists to offer a cure for our illness, our woundedness, our spiritual blindness—our darkened nous. The goal of Christianity has never been about making us into “good” people. The world is full of “good” people who are still dead people. The goal of Christianity has always been to make dead people alive! The path to life is the path of the healing for our nous so that we can see God and join Him in His life.

In God’s Church-hospital, all are welcome. The Church is filled with people who range from those who do not yet know the extent of their sickness and seriousness of their wounds to those who are well along the path to being healed.

What if you actually believed in the reality that an epic battle is raging, that your very being is both the battleground and the prize. What if you believe that you can choose which side to be on in the battle. What if you believe there is a hospital offering you both care and cure for your wounds. And, most importantly, what if you believethis hospital’s Physician loves you more than you can ever imagine.

What if you believed all of these things…would it change your life?

Beauty

10 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by CurateMike in All, Healing, Life, Uncategorized

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Tags

Art, Beauty, Christ, God, Holy Spiorit, Love, Modern Art, virtues

Brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
—St Paul, Philippians 4:8

The concept of beauty has been on my mind for quite awhile. Beauty is of one of the three classical virtues, the others being Goodness and Truth. Dr. Timothy G. Patitsas, in his new book, The Ethics of Beauty, advocates that we must first look to Beauty (rather than Goodness or Truth) to fill us with life. Beauty is life-giving.

Patitsas argues from “St Dionysius the Areopagite and the Fathers that followed him” that as “the beautiful appearing of God” hovered over the deep (Genesis 1:1-2), non-being became inflamed with love of God’s beauty and willingly left its non-being, becoming “gloriously alive.” (Pg 45) Patitsas goes on to argue that if we first get caught up in the intellectual pursuit of Goodness and Truth without first allowing ourselves to fall in love with God’s Beauty, we will become “imprisoned in the self.”

My thinking on Beauty has intersected with my thinking about Luck, Life, and God (my previous post). In that post, I said I have come to believe that while God does not cause the tragic events in our lives, He does permit them and He meets us in them. If being in love with beauty draws us toward life and away from non-being, then how can I learn to not just see the tragedy and become cynical about life and God? How can I learn to see beyond the ugly and find Beauty—God—in the midst of tragedy?

Certainly I can find beauty in nature. Recall a sunset that has been like a fire setting the sky ablaze. We know the physics: nuclear fission combines hydrogen atoms into helium; the Earth’s atmosphere filters out the blue spectrum; the Earth orbits the sun and turns on its axis. However, knowing these rational things about the sunset are not what stops our breath and fill us with wonder and awe; rather, the beauty of the sunset transcends the natural and reveals to us something more, something unseen.

The same thing can occur in art. Here is a photograph of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “Pieta.” It depicts the dead Jesus laying across the lap of His mother, Mary. Regardless of your beliefs, the sight of a dead child in the arms of the mother is as a tragic a sight as there can be. As a man, I cannot grasp the depth of the pain that a mother would experience.

And yet, this work is considered to be one of the great works of art. Through it, we witness a great tragedy while at the same time experiencing its overwhelming beauty. How can this be?

The tragedy of the scene is manifold. For the Christian, we see God dead at our hands. All of us, Christian or not, see a man in his early 30s, dead, a life cut short. We also see the grieving mother. While we may not have experienced the loss of a child, likely each of us knows the pain of a life cut short; or, we have experienced loss due to death. Most know what is like to feel the pain and emptiness when someone we love dies: the extraordinary pain of grief that feels as though it is crushing the very life out of us as we struggle simply to take our next breath. Viewing this statue, we relive our own pain as memories flood in; we are filled with empathy for Mary.

And, we see more. In the tragedy of Jesus’ death and Mary’s loss we also see the very essence of what makes us human: love. Without love there is no grief. Mother Mary’s pain is a window into the depth of love. Too, without love, there is no self-sacrifice. Jesus willingly gave up His life for us, that we might be saved from death. Mary would have willingly traded places with her Son. “There is no greater love than to give your life for another,” said Jesus.

Michelangelo speaks to us in the universal language of life, pain, joy, suffering, and death. In this work he shows us the beauty of love is its rawest form. It is as though his work is a portal through which we can see through the tragedy and glimpse true reality beyond this world. And isn’t that the function of true art, whether sculpture, painting, literature, poetry, music…? True art has the power to transform both the tragic and the ordinary into the extraordinary, to give us a glimpse into true reality; it lifts the veil separating the natural from the rest of reality. When art does this, when it succeeds in opening the portal to reveal all of true reality, then it is truly beautiful.

All art is not created equal. Contrast Michelangelo’s work with this photograph of Salvador Dali’s painting of Jesus’ crucifixion (“Corpus Hypercubus”). That is Dali’s wife looking on. Francis Schaefer (Art and the Bible) argues that modern artists no longer use a language common to us all; therefore, he says, without help we cannot know what the artist is trying to say to us. I find this to be true of Dali’s work. I view it and I experience a sense of “wow” at the artwork itself, but I do not experience awe in the depths of my soul that I feel when seeing Michelangelo’s statue.

And this is the problem with art that “wows” us. So much of modern art, for me, either speaks a language I don’t understand without explanation, or seeks to shock me with the tragedy and absurdity of life. “Wow” is like a drug; we constantly need more. It seems like so much of modern art is left to try become increasingly abstract or shocking to satisfy our desire for more “wow.” Too often it is meant to inspire in the viewer anger, cynicism, or despair. Rarely does modern art inspire awe by revealing the beauty often hidden in reality.

For 2000 years the Christian Church has been filled with icons. These icons are not intended to be photo realistic depictions of people or historical events. Icons are a way we can see through the portal and experience God’s Kingdom now. In worship, surrounded by icons, we enter into the reality of the Kingdom of God with Jesus, the angels, and all the saints praying for us and awaiting us. We know we are worshiping God with all of creation. Icons are always beautiful.

What about our day-to-day life?

We each know that life is difficult and it is relentless. Life is too often filled with seemingly senseless tragedy, ours or that of others. I began this blog with Patitsas’ (The Ethics of Beauty) claim that we must find transformative beauty to endure tragedy around us or heal from tragedy that has happened to us. Recall too, above, that St Dionysius said creation willingly left its non-being for being when encountering the love of God, the ultimate Beauty.

For us, we can find beauty in nature and in true art. And, perhaps most importantly we can find it in another place.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within us. Each human, is made in the image of God; therefore, each of us has the potential to be an icon of Jesus, the God-man. When you weep with me in my suffering, laugh with me in my happiness, rejoice with me in my joy, smile at me, offer a kind word, help me when I need help…when you do these things for me, in you I see the Beauty of Christ; in your beauty I see beyond the natural, survival-of-the-fittest world and experience through you the Beauty of Christ’s selflessness toward all of humanity. Through you I experience the Kingdom of God. If I am able to do these things for you, then you, too, can experience God’s Beauty and Kingdom in this life.

The gift of Christ’s Beauty is our greatest gift to each other; this is why we are to told by God to love our neighbor. Through our giving and receiving love we each offer the other the opportunity to gaze upon the Beauty of God and to experience His Kingdom; we remind each other of our moment-by-moment choice to willingly move away from the non-being of our self-centeredness and toward the healing of our soul and body and have fullness of life in the love of God.

St Paul exhorts us to always strive toward Beauty:

I consider [the things I have obtained as] garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
—Philippian’s 3:8-9, 12-14

Let’s choose Beauty. Choose love. Choose life.

______________________________________________________________________

The Ethics of Beauty—Timothy Patitsas

“Why Beauty Matters”—Roger Scruton

Naturally—Rick Mylander’s reflections on creation and Christian spirituality

Journey Into Humility

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

God, Humility, Jesus, Repentance

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. -Apostle Paul, Philippians 2:5-8

I know a man, once at the top of his profession. He has a long list of credentials. He travelled the world as a representative of the world’s largest company in his industry. He worked with other companies and governments on matters of international regulation. At times he had individual’s lives in his hands. Now, he works in what most consider as an entry level job in his profession.

I know a woman, considered an expert in her field. She held a prominent position in one of the largest organizations of its kind in the world. She knows state and federal law applicable to her field. She has spoken at national conventions and has consulted across the country. She has coached and influenced the lives of hundreds. Now it is hard for her to be accepted into an occasional volunteer position in her field.

I know a man, once a spiritual leader of hundreds, ordained by his denomination. He has years of advanced study behind him. He has taught at the university level and led spiritual retreats across the country. He now attends a beginners class with other new believers in his own faith.

Humility is a curious thing. Someone once said that the moment we think we are humble we have lost it. We often think of a humble person as one who does not seek to be noticed and if noticed is quick to deflect praise and give credit to another. The humble person might say, “I didn’t do anything special,” or “I didn’t do anything anyone else would’t have done,” or “I didn’t really contribute anything, Jane did much more than I did.”

I think this is humility, but that it is so much more.

Let’s go a little deeper and consider cleaning toilets. I have cleaned toilets for Christ. In my zeal to help another, I have cleaned toilets on occasion. And I have come to see the pride in that: “Look at me, everyone, I am such a good Christian that I clean toilets.” There is no humility in that attitude! But, what if the only job you could get is cleaning toilets? What if, despite all of your years of schooling, your vast experience and expertise, your accumulated wisdom, etc., what if all anyone would hire you to do is to clean toilets? This is a different level of humility. Would you take the job or would you consider it beneath you? If you took the job, would you do it daily as though you were doing it for God?

Deeper. Imagine a private screening of your life story, but you see your actions through the eyes of others. You see and hear the real story behind the story, how hurtful your actions have been, how self-centered your life really is…the lasting pain you have caused another. My first response would be to quickly look around to ensure no one else was watching my movie. Could you stand to watch as the all scenes unfolded or would you hide your eyes during the painful moments and relish the joyful ones? Would you have the courage to not rationalize away all that you saw, but to face who you are?

Still deeper. Think of what it would be like to reveal to another human the darkest side of yourself through the stories of the deeds and thoughts you have just witnessed. Facing the shame of who we are is hard enough in the privacy of our own minds; however, would you have the courage to reveal it to another? Not just to reveal the things you could bear revealing, but to reveal the deepest, darkest part of you? What would it do to us? Would we feel crushed? Or…would we feel sorrow in the depths of our soul?

It is here, I believe, that humility and repentance become one.

But this is the one to whom I [God] will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.

True humility is an emptiness of self so that one can turn to and be filled with God (repentance). It is realizing that we are nothing but dust with the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit in us making us into the image of God Himself. It is realizing that, as dust, we cannot even fully grasp the fulness of our own wretchedness. However, it is not, ultimately, self-abuse.

St Gregory of Sanai says it well:

…true humility does not say humble words, nor does it assume humble looks, it does not force oneself either to think humbly of oneself, or to abuse oneself in self-belittlement. Although all such things are the beginning, the manifestations and the various aspects of humility, humility itself is grace, given from above. There are two kinds of humility, as the holy fathers teach: to deem oneself the lowest of all beings and to ascribe to God all one’s good actions. The first is the beginning, the second the end.

Choose Life

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life

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God, Holy spirit, homosexuality, hope, invitation, Jesus, Life, Love, Sin, Trinity

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…

—Moses (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

The debate over homosexuality is a hot-button issue about many things: moral right and wrong, human rights, love, happiness, natural law, the definition of marriage…

As important as these issues are, I don’t believe they should be the focus, at least not for Christians. The debate over homosexuality should be a discussion about one thing and only one thing: what brings us life.

And this focus should apply not just to homosexuality but to all behavior, sexual and otherwise.

Here’s a question: Why did Jesus die for us? If you have ever been to Sunday school or watched a sporting event you know about John 3:16—

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son [Jesus], that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Life.

Jesus said later in the same book of the Bible that He came so that we might “have life and life more abundantly.” Sadly, that is not often the message of Christians. Too often we reduce Christianity to a list of moral rights and wrongs rather than an invitation into abundant life with God. We wag our fingers at Christians and non-Christians alike when we see what we believe is unbiblical behavior; we judge and scoff at and scold people for not being “good.”

When we reduce Christianity to a list of rights and wrongs we say that Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection were God’s way of making bad people good. Sadly, we turn God into some kind of supernatural Santa Clause who keeps a list of who has been naughty and nice and doles out eternal presents or lumps of coal.

Like many of you, I don’t want to worship that kind of god either.

But…what if Jesus’ death was not about making bad people good? What if it was only about offering life to dead people? If the latter is the case, then the Bible can be no longer viewed as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth; rather, through its stories God tells us and shows us the way that people fully alive with Him normally live, and Jesus’ life is the exemplar. Further, the Bible shows us of God’s eagerness to be with us and the lengths He will go to help us to participate in His life.

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, Jesus came to offer life to dead people.

I know a little something about living without God—living as a dead person with my dead-person behaviors. I wanted to be the master of my own universe, to fulfill all of my own desires.

I know from my own experience that dead people act out because they don’t know any better, it is simply “natural” for them to act this way. You Christians sometimes got mad at me, but I didn’t know any better. Rarely was I invited into life; rather, it was pointed out to me that I was acting badly.

It doesn’t matter whether the dead-person behavior born out of greed, pride, gluttony, power-mongering, anger, or lust (homosexuality or premarital heterosexual sex)—and the list goes on and on—dead people will naturally do the things of dead people. Sure, dead people can perform good and great acts, too, but even those acts come from the vestiges of God’s morality since we are all made in His image and will not in and of themselves bring life to the dead.

Sin is not the things we do that are wrong, where “wrong” is defined as acting against biblical rules. No. Sin is our state of being separated from God. When God calls us to turn to Him and then to obey Him, He does so only because wants to unite us to Himself, He wants to bring us into a relationship with Him where we will find the abundant life He has for us; therefore, following His way for us to live is simply the way people fully alive in relationship with Him try to live their lives.

God is inviting us into the fullness of abundant life; He is not an all-powerful Killjoy…

God is inviting us into the fullness of abundant life; He is not an all-powerful Killjoy trying to ruin our fun and quench our desires. Obeying God does not prevent us from enjoying life. Quite the contrary! Obeying God frees us to live the abundant life He wants for us. We are oppressed only when we allow ourselves to be held captive by our attempts to satiate our own unbridled passions and desires.

This is the heart of the Bible message: God only wants for us to be our best, to be fully alive, to become the person He created us to be, which only occurs when we are in relationship with Him. This is real Love, His for us.

But, participating in God’s life takes effort, just like any relationship worth having. I must put forth effort into changing my old, dead-person habits for the sake of our relationship, relying on the power of God’s Holy Spirit within me to increasingly transform me over my lifetime into a person fully and abundantly alive and participating in His life.

Yes, I still battle many of my old, dead-person habits. And lately, it seems, God has been unfailing in pointing out to me just how much I still act like a dead person. Curiously, His pointing this out gives me hope because it reminds me of His love for me and that I can only find abundant life with Him. And it helps me to have compassion for the still dead people and for other dead-acting Christians and makes me want to offer them the same hope I am finding with Him.

God is calling each one of us out of dead-person life and into a life fully alive with Him. God is love and can only act toward us out of love; however, His love for us precludes Him from accepting something less for us that He has intended.

So, the choices in our lives, Christian and non-Christian alike, are not about right and wrong and who has the moral high-ground. All of our daily choices of behavior really boil down to a single choice that we repeat every moment of every day: it is the choice between behaving as a human being alive with God or behaving as one dead and apart from God.

Respond to God’s invitation. Choose life.

—Moses (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Head’s Down

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by CurateMike in All, Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

distraction, flying, God, Moses, smartphone

Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every bush afire with God.
And every bush afire with God.
But only he who sees takes of his shoes
The rest sit around and pluck blackberries…

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from “Aurora Leigh,” book 7

“Head’s down” is an old phrase used in aviation, specifically among pilots, to indicate that the pilot is busy with something inside the cockpit, such as reading a checklist or looking at navigational maps. In an airplane with two pilots, one might say to the other, “I’m going head’s down to program the navigation computer for landing.” It can be important for the other pilot to know because other than when flying in the clouds (a relatively short time in an average flight) it is critical for both pilots to be “head’s up” and looking out the window; after all, it is ultimately the pilots’ responsibility to see and avoid other airplanes as well as prevent an unscheduled encounter with the ground.

pier Pilots are not the only ones who periodically operate head’s down. Recently, a women was walking head’s down, intently browsing on her cellphone. Distracted by what she was doing, she walked off a pier and fell into the ocean. Rescuers found her floating on her back holding her cell phone out of the water. I’m sure you know that this is only one incident in a growing trend of people walking, driving, dining, or in any number of circumstances, being distracted by their phones. Increasingly, it seems, we are a culture that moves through life with our collective heads down.

It is easy to point at technology as the cause; however, I think it has only made a common problem worse. I think we have always been head’s down people. But now I’ve switched the meaning of “head’s down” just a little. Rather than being attentive to something right in front of us, I intend “head’s down” to mean our radical self-absorption. Mankind, by nature, is generally a self-absorbed, head’s down creature.

Lately, out of the circumstances of my own life, I’ve been wondering about Moses. Perhaps you know his story, found in four of the first five books of the Bible (Exodus – Deuteronomy). Born a Hebrew slave, his mom placed the infant Moses in a basket and set him afloat in the Nile river. She did this to avoid his death at the hands of Egyptian soldiers ordered to kill all infant Hebrew boys as a form of population control. The basket was found by the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her own. He grew up in Pharaoh’s house. As a man, the Bible tells us, he killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave and then fled to Midian to escape the death penalty.

If Jewish legend is to be believed, Moses grew up to be a man of great education and influence in Pharaoh’s court. After killing the Egyptian at the age of 27, he fled to Ethiopia and served as their king for forty years, eventually unseated because he was not Ethiopian. It was then at age 67 that he moved to Midian where he become a shepherd, married Zipporah, and had a family.

Here is where my imagination takes over.

As a shepherd, I imagine him in the desert feeling like a caged animal. He once had it all: a powerful man in Pharaoh’s court and then the the king of Ethiopia. He had the world at his feet. Now, he is a shepherd. I imagine him emotionally exhausted and unhappy, consumed with the what-if’s of the past and scheming to achieve his desired future: a return to prominence. I can see him in my mind’s eye, alone with the sheep “in the back of the desert”, so head’s down, so self-absorbed with his own misery, that every day for years he walked past God in the burning bush without noticing. And God let him walk by each day, inviting him with flames but never calling out to him to stop.

In the Bible, God often uses the desert as a teaching tool. Again and again, people, including Jesus, find themselves in the desert facing the greatest battle of all, the battle with themselves. For Moses, I imagine God using the desert to begin to transform him from someone who lives head’s down in the inner torment of his life as a shepherd and into someone who lives head’s up. Only on the day he was first able to begin to look past his circumstances—the day he finally went head’s up—was the day he saw the bush literally afire with God, and he stopped. And only when he stopped did God speak to him (“when the Lord saw that he stopped to look, God called to him…”).

Barrett Browning is right. The Earth is crammed full of heaven. Every bush is aflame with God. Rather than take off our shoes, we are so busy with our Blackberrys (smart phone or other self-absorbed distraction) that we no longer notice God—not that we ever did—and we walk off the piers in our lives suddenly finding ourselves floating in the ocean, holding up our phones, waiting for someone to rescue us.

In our radical self-absorption we miss God at every turn and we wonder why we are so often cold and wet. Perhaps it is time for each of us to find a piece of desert, to enter our own cell and let God teach us to live life head’s up, with our eyes on Him alone.

Come, remove your shoes and sit for awhile by the warmth of a bush afire with God.

curacy

~ thoughts from the desert

Category Archives: Life

A Lesson From Leroy

Too Easy

The Noonday Demon

The Bird and the World

How Does My Life Mean?

What If…

Beauty

Journey Into Humility

Choose Life

Head’s Down