who knew?

As I pen this latest reflection I am back in my room on the 8th floor of the Hilton Hotel in Clearwater Beach, Florida, trying desperately to process everything that has been offered over the past three days of workshops. We are on the eve of the conclusion of the 31st annual “Institute on Behavioral Health and Addictive Disorders” conference. Which is funny since I am a pastor and not a clinical therapist like almost everyone else here. But since I am working a lot now with people with addictions I thought it would be a great way to pick up some learning on the topic of addiction.

I am not (necessarily) trying to become an addiction counselor, but there are some really interesting things I have learned about the whole addiction process, both by being here and through some of the reading I have done. The workshop I attended this afternoon was taught by a “nutritional psychologist” (of all things) who was dealing with the whole concept of eating disorders. He began the session by going through a lengthy, clinical and chemical analysis of the processes that happen in our brains when we eat. He dissected the reasons that explain the mass appeal of chocolate and really helped shed light on why it is that for some people, food becomes a real problem.

I was nodding off a bit during the science part, but when he got to the conclusion of the whole workshop, he made a statement that just jumped up and bit me on the butt. He talked about the lengths people go – whether through food or alcohol or drugs or sex – to create certain responses in the brain that produce what we experience as a sense of peace or satisfaction. He then went on to say, “But the thing we often forget is that there are other, more direct and certainly more healthy ways to get these responses in the brain; You get it by hope, you get it by forgiveness, you get it by compassion, you get it by altruism, you get it by relationships.”

I had to go up and talk to him after the session and tell him how much I really enjoyed the conclusion and what sort of citations he might have for those. He (his name is Ralph Carson, in case you were curious) cited a book by Martin Seligman called, “Authentic Happiness” in which Seligman goes to great lengths to point out the links between these effects and the virtues that we spend every waking hour espousing in church!

So… it turns out that the results of intense scientific study and research has come to the conclusion that loving, serving, forgiving, hoping, and caring are what we human beings are WIRED FOR! These are not just moral imperatives that we “ought to” abide by (that is, if someone makes a really, really compelling case for us). These are who we were created to BE, for crying out loud. In this context we can pretty quickly see that heaven consists of living our lives in concert with the way God made us. Hell is just the opposite. It is seeking the outcome but ignoring the process.

Forgive me God for thinking I had to go outside your inspired Word in order to believe you. Have mercy on my urge to validate your truth through the tools of modern science. Thank you for your patience with my pride.

The gift of perspective.

Earlier today as I drove along the highway, I heard a radio commercial that made me laugh out loud. The problem is, I am pretty sure the people who produced that spot were not going for guffaws. I think the commercial was for a life or health insurance product of some kind, but the “cackler” at the end was the line that went, “And with ______, you have the option of speaking to a human being whenever you call.”

I laughed because I am old enough to remember the time when talking to an actual, living, breathing human being on the phone was not some kind of amazing breakthrough. It was the thing that happened every time you made a phone call. Granted, you may not have spoken with anyone who could offer anything at all helpful, but the person was really real. No endless phone tree of “press one for billing, press two for customer service, press three for a personal zodiac reading, press four to spin the prize wheel,” etc.

And as I finished my hearty laugh, I was more or less immediately grateful for the gift of my life experience that had made that radio commercial funny. I am pretty sure that no person under the age of 35 would see the slightest humor there.

And since this all took place on Martin Luther King Day, I also stopped to reflect on how the gift of perspective plays a role in our ability to appreciate the significance of this day. A piece that aired later that day on NPR featured an interview with Deval Patrick (governor of Massachusetts) talked the fact that because of a recent mayoral election, a citizen of the town of Newton, Massachusetts today can stop and take stock of the fact that they have an African-American mayor, an African-American state governor, and an African-American president of their country.

For young people, the governor said, this trifecta is just “… the way it is. No big deal. Nothing superextraordinary.” But for people of a certain age – especially for African Americans of a certain age, this is an awesome and incredible reality of life in 2010. I am sure there are those who would never have pictured that kind of political vista, even in their wildest dreams.

Thank God for perspective. Thank God for age!

Sorting essentials

Be brutally honest… when was the last time you sat down and named the things that – for you – are absolute essentials in your life? I was just musing about this question the other day and found myself a little more challenged than I thought I would be to make the decisive list… a list that pushes a little more deeply than “food, air, shelter, companionship,” of course.

Even more interesting is to begin trying to look backward in your life a little bit and see how that list might have changed and evolved over time. Was “having a lot of money” ever on your list? Is it still? And then, after you have taken a look at the things that have fallen off, things that have been added, you are able to probe a little deeper and try and figure out what forces were at work in the shaping of your list.

For example, for me as a practicing Christian, “Faith in God” is absolutely front and center on my list of life essentials. But I can’t honestly tell you that he was always there. In fact, it is almost embarrassing for me as a pastor to admit to how recently in my life that element has been added. Please understand… God has not been a stranger to me for that entire period. But until certain events transpired in a certain way that led me into certain paths, I did not list God as an essential!

What I sincerely hope is NOT the case is that God became a part of my list as a function of age. In other words, because my years are advancing (I am 58, by the way) and I am having more and more frequent encounters with the fact of my mortality (aching joints and depleted energy reserves, etc.), it should be expected that I would start considering the fate of my eternal soul a little more seriously. But if that were the sole or even primary driver behind God’s ascension to my personal list of essentials, it would seem a very shallow or utilitarian basis for faith. It would also let everyone under the age of 35 completely off the hook by saying – in effect – “You really don’t have to start taking this whole faith thing seriously until you begin to see the hearse backing up to your front door.”

So for self preservation purposes if nothing else, I will credit my increasing wisdom as the reason that a vital, living, evolving faith in God is now firmly planted at the top of my list of essential elements for a life worth living.

What’s on your list?

Can you change?

I just got back from seeing the movie Up in the Air with my wife. It seemed like a  perfectly innocent way to spend the day after Christmas. I was not so sure this was my top pick from our “movies we have to see” list, but I was OK with it. I had seen that it got great reviews, knew it was about a guy – played by George Clooney – who travels around the country a lot by plane. I knew that going with Joan to a George Clooney movie would gain me a lot of valuable husband points. Beyond those factors I was just really not sure what the draw toward this movie was, but frankly I have watched movies in the past with a much lower threshold of motivation.

As we walked out of the theater, I was aware of nothing so much as a profound sense of disappointment and sadness, both revolving around the way the filmmakers ended the movie. At the risk of spoiling it for anyone who has not seen the movie, the conclusion that it seems to draw is that regardless of their inclinations to the contrary, people really ultimately cannot change. It is essentially a modern day paraphrase of Popeye’s motto; they are who they are and that’s all that they are.

The thing is, if the Clooney character had experienced the kind of dramatic transformation that he seemed to be leaning toward, the producers would have been flagged for being too cheesy and “formulaic” or something like that. And heaven forbid that we go down that road.

But sometimes people do change. Sometimes there are profound events that change our perspective and show us that we have been totally off-track in the way we have been living. And then sometimes we heed that wake-up call and spin around and head off in a different direction.

I suppose the ironic thing about the movie (and I realize now that if I have spent this much time thinking and writing about it, it must have gotten under my skin quite effectively… so they probably did make a pretty good movie after all) is that the very thing George Clooney kept advising people to do was the very thing that he could not do. As a corporate “head chopper” (i.e., a consultant hired to come in to a company and tell people they were fired) Clooney’s character always told folks to regard this as a chance to make a fresh new start in life and start over… to turn around and go in a new direction.

And ultimately, he was the one who could not heed his own advice when the moment to make a huge change presented itself.

But I know because I have seen it. People can change. People do change. But usually only with God’s help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Praise God!

Pursuing results

I am thinking tonight about how absolutely gung-ho we all are about “results.” We judge whether something is worth doing by the results we can expect from it. I am not just talking about something that happens in our workplace either. We go through some form of mental calculus about the amount of skin-darkening sunshine we might be able to absorb before venturing out by the pool with our towel. I have to somehow be assured that my occasional stints in front of the TV will pay off with some degree of added entertainment or information value or the provision of some mind-numbing background while laundry is being folded.

But everything has to pass the “results test,” or it just doesn’t fly.

Which is exactly the way we also approach our pursuit of the spiritual disciplines. Our question becomes, “What will I get out of…?”, fill in the blank. Sure I will pray, or worship, or meditate, or fast, or study but first tell me what the payoff will be. And how soon I will receive it, too.

We have enough spiritual awareness to know that our peace, our joy, our contentment will not come from such transitory sources as our jobs, home, or hobbies. We know that God is the source of everything, tangible and intangible.  So we seek to bend our efforts to solving the equation, “X hours of the practice of the classic spiritual disciplines equals Y units of spiritual maturity.” We’re not sure what the answer is, but we know we need more Y, so we pile on a double helping of X.

The problem then comes when we don’t see the level of spiritual maturity (or peace or contentment) that we thought would result from our efforts. We gripe to God. We slack off in our practices. We wonder what the point is.

Here’s a head scratcher for you: what if the point is not “results” at all? What if there is a completely different reason we engage the spiritual disciplines other than what we will get out of it?

Well, the fact of the matter is, there IS a completely different reason. Shockingly it turns out that the reason we pray, or meditate, or fast, or worship has very little to do with us and a WHOLE LOT to do with God. It is hard-wired into our DNA. Our practice of turning toward God through one of the many modalities commonly in use today is nothing more and nothing less than the proper response of creatures reaching toward the Creator. The fact that certain types of results often follow and that people talk and write about them is all well and good. But it is clearly beside the point. We pray because we were made to pray.

Worth it?

Just got back from 10 amazing days in Maui where we snorkeled, scuba’d, hiked, drove, played, spent time with family and friends and just generally relaxed. The only monkey wrench in the works was having to go to the emergency room on the last day and get a treatment for a case of “swimmer’s ear;” a minor, though painful bacterial infection of the outer ear canal. First there was the ER visit and then a (discounted) $100 prescription of ear drops to fill.

We then arrived yesterday at our De Soto, Kansas home (in 98 degree heat) to discover that 1.) the automatic garage door opener was broken… $233 to repair. 2.) the air conditioner was not working… $805 to repair. If my theology were a little less sound I could see myself concluding that we were being punished for going away and having such an amazingly good time in Hawaii. 

So the question is: was it worth it, considering the hefty return price tag? I will let the photo below answer for me.

Beach at Wailea at sunset. Priceless!

Two elephants in the room.

We just finished the Kansas East Annual Conference less than two hours ago… our last at Baker University for at least the next year. As we walked out the front door of Collins Auditorium, there they were… the two elephants who had showed up in the room at the beginning of Conference without ever being introduced or acknowledged. I almost went to the microphone toward the end of the session and pointed them out, but at that point things were moving along on a WAY different wavelength, so I ended up ignoring them too.

But that is one of the reasons we have blogs, isn’t it? I will admit, it feels a little cowardly to wait until I am safely behind the shelter of my keyboard to name the elephants, but I am still working on that whole “bold and prophetic voice” thing.

Elephant #1 was named GracePoint. More specifically the elephant was the decision of the founding pastor of GracePoint United Methodist Church to leave the denomination earlier this year. If you talk to this pastor, his version of why it was necessary to “de-Methodize” his church was because he had bold, innovative ideas about how to make new disciples for Jesus Christ that were just not being well received by a staid, stodgy, interested-only-in-defending-dying-churches denomination… a denomination that could not “get with” his radical thinking. Many discussions with people familiar with the case paint a dramatically different picture, but we won’t really get into that right now. Nonetheless, much blood was spilled and many tear shed over this event in the life of our Kansas Area. I guess we didn’t want to open wounds that have only recently begun to heal, but I believe valuable lessons still remain to be learned from this situation.

The second elephant was the official “un-shunning” of Adam Hamilton by his home conference. Craziest thing… the man who leads the largest, most vibrant, healthiest, and dynamic church in our denomination has up until now been something of a pariah in his own annual conference. That he was a delegate to last year’s General Conference (for the first time, I might add), and was invited to be the plenary speaker at Kansas East AC (also for the first time) seem to indicate that we are finally O.K. with him being a part of our group. 

I bring both of these up because they are very closely related to each other. When Bryson Butts (the GracePoint guy) talks about being blocked and resisted by his denomination in his attempts to be innovative, it is not really that hard to believe. We do that. We regularly throw cold water on people who think differently and do things differently. As he grew and led Church of the Resurrection into its amazing position of global prominence and leadership, Adam was very often on the receiving end of volleys of sour grapes and tomatoes (metaphorical) from other pastors and even from one previous bishop. “Stop growing so much!” seemed to be the message. “Stop making the rest of us look bad,” was what was really being said.  

But whereas Bryson quit, took his ball, and went home, Adam stayed. Adam continued to love his denomination, in spite of the crummy way it sometimes treated him. In fact, Adam has turned a significant amount of energy and attention toward the task of revitalizing and renewing his denomination, recognizing the amazing heritage and gift we – as United Methodists – have all received from John Wesley and his successors. It is truly a denomination worth saving. This might be a little overly dramatic for some, but Methodism –  done right, done faithfully, done with the humble, yielded approach of John and his fellow Holy Clubbers – might just be the thing that will save the world.

It is sad to see Bryson and GracePoint now on the outside looking in. But the prayer and the challenge I wanted to issue to my fellow Kansas Easters as they left the room today was to join me in a pledge to STOP beating up on the innovative leaders among us! As we go forward into the next quadrennium, united behind our commitment to “Rethink Church” and welcome those who don’t look, think, or act like “us,” can we also make a pledge to welcome those INSIDE our fellowship who think differently? Can we make room at the table for the young, excited leaders who want to try stuff that we haven’t ever tried before? When a young person approaches one of us “old-timers” – as apparently actually happened in one Kansas East church – with an idea to paint a giant Cross and Flame on the roof of the church to appeal to people in planes flying overhead, can we please first praise him for his enthusiasm for spreading the Good News BEFORE we tell him how dumb his idea is? 

The elephants at annual conference were pretty big and embarrassing, but I believe they were elephants that were there to help us be a better version of the body of Christ than we were when we came in.

That’s all I wanted to say.

Is God a luxury?

Earlier this week I met with a group of people from our church. The common denominator of the group was that everyone in the room – except for the church staff people – was either out of work or about to be. The purpose of the gathering was to offer prayer and support to each other in the difficult period of life that unemployment truly is. At the end of the evening my mind began formulating a dubious proposition I sincerely hope is not the slightest bit true. 

I am a pastor, but I know about unemployment. I have been unemployed. The longest stretch was probably seven months back in 1989. I remember it as being truly one of the most difficult stretches in my life, from an emotional and spiritual perspective. The feelings of frustration, of seeing hopes first raised when you spot an opening that would be “just perfect” for you, only to not even get a return letter or phone call from your inquiry; the ritualistic act of “suiting up,” getting your best motivated, go-get-’em face and voice on and charging into an interview, only to find out that there are still 30 other highly qualified candidates to interview and “we will get back to you,” to going day after day after day without even a sniff of a prospect. Worthlessness is a very palpable sense that has to be aggressively kept at bay to keep from just curling up in the fetal position and staying there for weeks. 

And so the idea of this group was that it would (and will) be a place where people can come and just pour out their hearts to each other about what is happening to them. To say the kinds of things to each other that they dare not go home and say to spouse or children.  It is not meant to be a place for “tips and tricks” in the job search. It is just a support group in the truest sense of the word. 

And so here is what happened at my table: each person was first invited to just go around the table and “tell your story.” One guy (and they were all men. We decided to gender divide) had been unemployed for seven months. Another for over a year. A third had been out of the job market for seven years and now had to get back in because of his wife’s serious illness. 

But as the stories were shared, and real emotions expressed, the conversation turned very quickly into a problem-solving session. As the out-of-work engineer told about the places he had tried to find a job, someone chimed in with ideas for fine-tuning his resume. As the man re-entering the workforce spoke, suggestions were flying at him about courses he should enroll in, places he should call, resume writing websites to visit. All were VERY good suggestions. Some touched on areas the person had not considered before. 

But as I continued to try and remind them… this was NOT the purpose of our gathering. This kind of “monkey wrenching” conversation was for another place and time. Here we were meant to be about saying things like, “You know, I sent out six resumes today and came away feeling like I might as well have spit into the ocean. I am depressed and my wife is really starting to lose her patience with me. Why is this happening to me?” 

Part of the explanation is that it was a group of guys. Guys fix stuff. Guys are all about “gittin’ ‘er done.” Guys don’t like to talk about, let alone EXPLORE feelings. I get that. I am a guy too. The other part of the explanation is that I was not facilitating the discussion as well as I should have been. Probably some truth to that, too.

But here is the unsettling thought that began forming in my head: is our pursuit of a relationship with the Creator and Sustainer of All That Is … is that a pursuit we feel we are only equipped for when all of our basic needs are being met and we are no longer in fear for the longevity of the roof over our heads? Do we believe the ability to ponder spiritual realities, to take the time to meditate on scripture, pray, and listen to the “still, small voice of God” is shaped in some way by our economic standing in the world?

I most assuredly hope not. And I take as a solid validation of the off-basedness of my musings my experiences traveling through the Third World. There I have met person after person after person who had little more than the clothes on their back, and yet who obviously knew, loved, and absolutely venerated God. I think particularly of some of the women I met in Guatemala, most notably those at the UPAVIM Co-op.

But maybe we think God is a luxury, a pastime reserved for the contentedly idle moments in our lives when we can lift our eyes above the daily grind of existence and ponder eternity.  If we do think that, we are a sadly mistaken – and wretched – bunch of folks. 

If this is our take on the time and place for our spiritual practices, we are people who have missed the entire point of the Christian life. We do not even vaguely understand the Savior who touched the lepers, who blessed the prostitutes, and who sat down and ate with the “sinners” of his day. 

I sure hope I am wrong about this. Please tell me I am.

How Would He Know?

Every time I hear multi-mega millionaire Mick Jagger sing the words, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need” I ask this question. But I am sure that there were times in his life that he was not able to satisfy any urge or whim at the drop of a hat. He must have even experienced hunger, in a long ago and far away time.

Source notwithstanding, I still think this is a brilliant insight on life. It even begins to border on the spiritual when you stop to raise the question of how “what you need” gets defined for any of us. If you squinted really hard you can begin to see how this tuneful rock anthem can be heard calling us to a stance of fundamental gratitude for the provisions of life we find on our hands… regardless of how well they match up with the hopes and dreams we might have entertained.

 

Take my situation right now as I sit here writing this entry. Joan and I made arrangements months ago (Truth watch: OK, Joan made the arrangements. But when the time came to endorse them, I gave them a very enthusiastic thumbs up!) to take a few days off in mid-February and get away for a mini-vacation. We wanted to pick some place warm so that we could escape the freezing Kansas City winter and have a nice little break. Celebrate Recovery was launching at the end of January, so it seemed like a good time to break away. 

Great idea, eh?

Great idea until little things like the jet stream and temperature inversions and barometric pressures start cavorting around crazily, doing strange and unusual things, the net result of which was that we left a sunny, 70 degree day in Kansas City and landed in a drizzly 55 degree Phoenix. Then after spending a couple of days in “The Valley of the Sun,” with Joan’s sister, we drove off to our little mountaintop hideaway in Sedona. Of course, as we drove north up Highway 17 the rain became chunky. By the time we were settled in and ready to head off to the local grocery store to buy our supplies, a full-blown snowstorm was upon us.  We awoke on Tuesday morning to see six inches of new snow on the ground, by one local’s account, the most they have seen here in “quite a long time.” And then pulling up the Kansas City Star on-line I found that sunny and 59 degrees was the order of the day in K.C.

(However the shock of the weather disparity was mitigated somewhat by my joy at seeing that Missouri had beaten KU in basketball the night before).

We certainly did not get what we wanted. But as it turned out, we did get a whole lot of exactly what we needed on this trip. We did not get warm sunshine. We did not get to take two or three spectacular hikes in the red rock region of Sedona (although we did take a really nice hike in the Superstition Mountains before leaving Phoenix). But we did get a great time away… lots of time spent in relaxation and conversation and reading… we got breathtaking views of the red rocks covered with white snow against a brilliant blue sky and time to pick up the blogging practice again. And we got “times of refreshment” as Paul calls them.

Mick says, “You can’t always get what you want.” The Psalmist says, “THIS” – not some other, not one that you hoped for or dreamed of, not one that you read about in a magazine article or saw a picture of somewhere, not one that your best friend told you about and said you really ought to try, but THIS very exact one, “… is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24).

I say “AMEN.”

putting away Christmas awa

Here it is… New Year’s Day 2009! Not wanting to be a total couch potato/football fiend I began bringing boxes up from the basement in order to start taking down the Christmas decorations. I mean, why not? It is a day off work and it needs to be done sooner or later. But somehow it just seems too darned soon. Plus I really like the way they make the whole house look with the lights ringing the two banks of windows, the tree with its glittery and nostalgic decorations hanging there and the cards from friends and relatives. Are you really sure we have to take it all down? 

Probably not. But most of the time in life – as in Christmas decor – beginning something new means putting away something old. We love the stuff we know and are familiar with. We see it all the time and know how it works. We are not completely sold on the value of the thing we are moving toward and move toward it somewhat reluctantly. 

But the time has come and put away Christmas we must. Correction… put away Christmas DECOR. Putting away Christmas is another matter completely. Keeping the spirit of God incarnate alive in our hearts is something we can do every day, regardless of the season. 

Long live Christmas! Christmas decor can go back to the basement.