Promises

Letters to my Adult Children - On Being Anti Death - March 2020

I live my life as a rebel for love. I fight death. But not mere physical death. For physical death does not have to be the enemy of love. No, the death of which I speak -- who is my enemy, and who will one day be completely destroyed is called, “Shame.” Shame is death by another name. It is always accompanied by “self-serving,” and, can’t be fought through the politics of power and control. It can only be defeated by love and self-sacrifice. It can only be defeated by a gaze that communicates, “You are valuable. You are loved. That won't change.”

For many years I've labeled myself “pro-life” even though I don’t always vote a “pro-life agenda.” I am pretty outspoken in my condemnation of the "pro-choice" defenders. People wonder how I can be against abortion, call myself pro-life, and not push for abortions to be illegal; and, I answer that though I label myself pro-marriage and think adultery is evil; I don’t think adultery should be illegal. And, that though I am pro-sobriety, clear-headedness, and relational connectedness; I do not think that alcohol or illicit drugs of any kind should be illegal. So, it follows, given my invitational nature — I invite people to the good, rather than to try to force them to it — that I can hold abortion to be an abomination and not fight for it to be illegal. There are too many evils like this to name — things that destroy people and relationships that I have no desire to outlaw. I believe people need to have the freedom to choose good over evil, rather than be forced to it. I’ve written about this to you extensively and don’t think I need to repeat myself here once again.

Within the last year or so, Tony Kriz and I were talking about the “pro-life” debacle — people who stand against abortion politically; who try to make the choice to abort a child illegal and who are also war hawks, pro-gun, pro-death penalty folk. Tony told me that he’d adopted the label, “anti-death,” for himself. I took it as an invitation. Slowly, I began to refer to myself the same way. I now say, “I am anti-death.”

Tony’s and my conversation occurred in the context of Paula and I walking this horrific end of life road with her parents. As you know, Miggy — “007” — is a brilliant man and nuclear engineer who is now stuck inside his body and his mind. He cannot speak. He cannot toilet. He cannot feed nor dress himself. Neither can he walk. We need to thicken anything he drinks so that he does not asphyxiate. This is not a life he would want or chose. He has a DNR that is incredibly strict. Mike would prefer not to be alive at this point. If we were a tribal people, he wouldn’t be. And yet he is. We keep him alive against his will. The life we give him is actually death for him.

Dementia and Alzheimers were your Gramgee’s biggest fear. She wanted to be dead rather than to live with losing her mind; yet, that is how she left the planet. I am beyond grateful for a doctor who cared enough to not to prolong her life any longer than she cared to live because while I am convinced her last months and years were God's great gift to her, she was miserable in the end.

When we got toward the end of Dad’s life we had a choice on how to proceed with his cancer treatment. We chose to attack the tumor aggressively. Weekly I took him to his radiation appointments. And, while the radiation wasn’t fun, it allowed him to maintain his quality of life. He and I still played and took short trips together. We still went out and enjoyed Timbers games, etc. But, the radiation was not a cure. The doctors thought that taking the tumor out surgically was the best medical course, so we followed their counsel. I would not repeat it, nor do I want it for me. For while we may have prolonged Dad’s life a little, we destroyed his quality of life. His last 9 months were miserable. He practically lived at OHSU. His life was sucked out of him. I wish I could have a mulligan on Dad’s end of life. We’d play it completely differently than we did. The choices we made during those days are some of my biggest regrets.

People often think me morbid to say I want to exit the planet on the back of my bike, but I want to die as I lived. See, death doesn’t scare me in the slightest. I told Thomas last night on a FaceTime that I am ready to go whenever. though I have no death wish. There is a lot of life left to live, I am content to exit whenever it is time to go. I would be lying to say that the process of dying doesn’t scare me though. It petrifies me. I certainly don’t want to exit the way Gramgee did, nor the way Mike and Char are. Waking in glory is my hope, suffering along the way is my nightmare. If there is a redemptive feature to it, it eludes me.

All of that brings us to a discussion of this incredible time period we are all experiencing right now. I have not lived through anything like it. There have been times like it in history, but none that any living person has ever experienced. The pandemic of 1918 and the Black Death of the middle ages were similar in the annuals of human history. But this is completely unique and new. It is as if a giant “pause” button was being pushed. We are being forced to live a year of Jubilee (See the Old Testament commands around this) even though we’d never choose it for ourselves.

I along with millions of others, are taking actions right now to ensure that you, in particular, Maggie — and the countless others like you who have health challenges — are not put into positions where you have to fight for lives not yet fully lived. For though I may be ready to enter glory at any time; and though, I may see the reality that Gigi and Miggy would prefer to stop breathing and exit this planet; I am not ready for you and/or TL to do the same. You both have lives to live. You are my greatest gifts to this world. And much h of the hope of life I hold is to leave you to the world when I exit the stage. There is no greater gift I can imagine giving the world than the two of you. No amount of money or profit; nothing I build or create can compare to the gift that you are to this planet.

I’m joyfully choosing to give up my ability to move around and enjoy my life the way I want in order to make sure others have a chance to continue breathing. Some don’t want to give up these freedoms. They are saying, “I want to live the way I choose to live. Don’t tell me how to live. It is my body, and my choice.” It is ironic how the catchphrase of the pro-choice movement is now being used to spread even more death.  And while one of my social media friends complained about that reality and attempted to deny any parallels to abortion saying this is a completely different thing; her arguments were inane, factually wrong, and harmful and hurtful.

For too long, the pro-choice movement has sounded the refrain, “My body, my choice.” Don’t tell me that I can’t live the way I chose even if it costs another human life. I shouldn’t have to have any consequences for my actions. Men, not wanting responsibility pushed abortion further. There was now another escape of responsibility; men became abortionists and began pushing a “pro-choice” agenda. There was an additional benefit to ridding the world of unwanted brown babies, now that machines and industry didn’t need their cheap or free labor — we truly could get to a place of survival of the fittest, the poor and the downtrodden could be controlled simply through population control, and a marketing genius made it all sound as if it was a woman’s choice.

Now the oligarchs have repurposed their slogan and are now arguing that “opening the economy” is more important that the health risks of 2% of the population (think of how many millions of lives that is!); that people need to be “free” to chose to live the lives they want rather than be held captive by a disease that threatens others’ lives. It is a similar refrain to the war hawks who are willing to kill thousands “over there” so Americans can have the kind of life we want to have “over here.” It is the kind of refrain that allows us to separate mothers from their children at the border, putting their kids in prison, so that we don’t have to worry about being overrun by brown-skinned people who may cost us a few dollars to feed and clothe. Why should we? They don’t even speak English.

The real issue, whether it is abortion, or war, or immigration policy is an insipid commitment to pursuing death rather than life. The death of which I speak is bigger than mere, “ending of breath.” Death is a commitment to self without regard for another. Death, as I am defining it here, is the denial of relationship. For there is no life without love. The mother who kills her unborn child by having an abortion must deny any relationship to that unborn child. The oligarch who pushes the politician to order a pilot to drop a bomb on the oligarch’s enemy; or a seaman to launch a missile to do the same, has to deny a relationship or connection to the families they kill when the bombs and missiles land, killing indiscriminately. The populist who says the parents of the kids at the border that we threw in prison, should never have brought their kids here in the first place, has to deny any kind of relationship to those brown-skinned children in order to throw them into those prisons. The Russian policeman who arrests the dissident to send them to the Gulag has to deny the horror to which they are sending them. We have to deny relationship to live the way we want. The tribesman who captures and enslaves one from a different tribe to sell him into slavery has to deny any kind of relationship to him. In order to perpetrate such evil, we have to first deny relationship and therefore humanity. In so doing, we create a culture of death. I will stand against that culture with all my being. It is why I stand as a rebel for Love.

 

Letters to My Adult Children: On Journeying Toward Death - Spring 2020

Maggie and Thomas,

This is the ride I signed up for; that I knew it was coming, and yet, it is still unfamiliar and passes through a canyon of death who provides echoes of the past that sweep over me as I ride through.

Late on the evening of July 4th, 2014 I asked Paula to be my wife. They set off fireworks to celebrate the event and they have on the anniversary of that date ever since. As we navigated what our wedding was going to look like and how we were going to pay for it, we needed to have a conversation with her folks where Paula got really vulnerable. Some of my first impressions of her Mom weren’t great; she was the power broker in the family. She was used to getting her way and dictating what was said and unsaid -- even what her family was allowed to feel. The day we had that conversation with her folks was the day my relationship with Char forever changed.

I don’t remember exactly what was said, but Paula's fears of the conversation materialized and she began to cry, racing from the room in tears. This made Char really uncomfortable and she demanded that Pabs stop crying. At that moment I did something she wasn't used to. I kindly but not nicely stepped in and spoke to Char in ways I’m pretty sure no one ever dared to speak to her. I loved her but also stopped her, putting up a boundary that needed to be erected, protecting my fiancé from the vitriol that never should have been uttered. Simultaneously, I made sure that Char knew I loved her, but what she was doing, saying and demanding was not OK. Without shaming her, I made certain she knew she was wrong. From that moment on, Char and I became besties.If I could lovingly stand up to her, I could create a safe space for her daughter to thrive.

How I grew to love that woman! We learned to laugh together and I loved to tease her. She always tried to tease me back and loved the playful banter we shared. I knew she was losing her marbles. All the signs were there. I had been here before. This was different but familiar all at the same time. I traveled a similar road with Gramgee when she transversed the Alzheimer’s plain. I already knew many of the tricks, and I quickly relearned them as Paula learned how to distract, and redirect; crack a joke and make Mom laugh.

These days, I try to get to see her between appointments; she is just up the street from my office, about a four-minute ride. It has gotten harder and harder though as she sinks lower and lower, disappearing into a pit of despair.

To her, I’m not nearly as funny as I once was, and she can’t understand why I simply don’t take her home to be with her pets. Her confusion is no longer simply forgetfulness, rather it is delusion and hallucination. She is living in a world crafted in the ecosystem of her anxiety and shame. This is a cycle of life I wish didn’t exist.

Our medical advances help us stay alive while internally we fade and die. We breathe too long these breaths of death that merely fill us with hopeless dread.

Two days ago, as I visited Mom, the TV droned on in the background and as usual COVID 19 was on the tongues of the talking heads. Mamma’s comment was, “I wish I could catch that.” She is so ready to be done. She is ready to find a resurrected life somewhere other than here where she isn't confined to a chair or a bed; where her memory doesn't desert her and leave her forlorn.

Bearing witness to Char is only part of the journey for me though, I also get to watch my wife wriggle in discomfort that refuses to let her go. She loses thoughts and ideas under the duress of having to grieve and heroically carry the weight of her parents’ journeys. She has sat with her Mom in the Pit of Despair for so long, that the despair has invaded her -- soul-sucking the light from her eyes.

This beloved wife of mine can find no respite. There is nowhere for her to run, nowhere to hide and escape. There is no drug that can make her well. There is no safety from the onslaught of a loved-one's slow and torturous death. I can’t lift the veil. Doing so would break the sacredness of her journey, so for now, I too have to grieve the temporary loss of my partner and friend.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we find moments of joy together along the way. We are too good of friends for those to be taken from us. We function and make it through, but this journey my wife is on, though sacred, is taking her to the very gates of hell, and it is a slow burn. That burning of her heart sears my soul as well. These are painful days.

This is why I hope to go out on the back of my bike. But then again, your Gramgee told me that her greatest fear was Alzheimer's and it ended up being God’s good gift to her. I don’t want to be kept alive. If I wander off to die alone in the wilderness, please let me go, it would be a kinder death.

Though I have no intention of leaving the planet anytime soon; there is still too much life I want to live with Pabs and with you; I’ve been ready to go for a long time now. It feels like I’ve done what I was placed here to do and from here on out it is all gravy. It feels good to be at peace with my soul, with my God, and with His creation. It feels good to not have regrets and to be free to love and live without fear of messing up the future. It is a place in life I hope and pray you discover early in your lives and enjoy for as long as possible, for it feels like this is what we were created for. It is not free of pain, as you can see. Right now, life hurts like hell most of the day — but it is good and it is rich, and it is full, and it has meaning.

I think the reason Gigi’s and Miggy’s journeys are so hard to witness is it feels as if their meaning is being ripped from them. I think that is my fear for the end of my life — that meaning would be ripped from my chest and stolen from me. I have to choose to believe that what appears to be the case isn’t; that their lives and the number of heartbeats God has given them is pre-ordained and held in His hand. It is hard to believe some days… like today.

Letters to My Adult Children - Evil & Politics - Winter 2020

When one feels the need to control another adult, to take power over another adult, to get them to behave the way you think they ought to behave, you are engaging in evil. The attempt to gain control and power is the first sin. It is how Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). It is how Jesus was tempted after his baptism (Matthew 4). It is something that God does not do with us. He seemingly always allows us to choose evil. He gives us the freedom to make evil choices. It is one of the biggest complaints people have with God. "Why does God allow evil?" The atheist argues. Surely a good God would not allow all the atrocities that occur in the world. Yet, God does. He doesn't choose to take power over people, but rather continually invites them to another way of life -- The way of love. Usurping, or attempting to usurp power that God doesn't take is surely the worst kind of Evil.

---

Recently, a good friend, who I respect and admire posted an admiration piece on AOC. I trolled him. Though I try not to, some friends simply beg to be trolled. Gotta figure out what that is all about. But, that is another post. On his post, referring to AOC, I wrote, "She is her own kind of evil." He asked me to articulate what about her makes me say that. Another friend, who I also respect, posted her record that isn't so different from many of the new wave of socialists flooding the House, as the electorate reacts to the evil in the White House. 

My friend accused me of having "racially informed libertarian leanings." I cracked up at that, partly because my political leanings find their genesis in from my understanding of Scripture which he is partially responsible for -- specifically, the theological position that individuals, as well as people, are made in the image of God (the Imago Dei). If that is true than individuals are made to be free. I put that together with 18th-century French political theory developed by Frederick Bastiat, my time in 12-step rooms and studying The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and finally my work in the domestic Violence world where I learned to define abuse as, "any time I attempt to tear at the humanity of another." Combining those streams of thought and experience, I end up holding that DJT and AOC are both tools of evil --  if not evil itself. This does not mean that they are exempt for being used by God -- for God uses all things. He used the Pharisees and Herod and Pilot and the Centurians who crucified Jesus. God transforms evil. But that does not excuse it.

So with that prolegomena, let's talk about why I think both our current president, DJT; and Congresswoman, AOC are evil...

They are evil because they are trying to take control and power over others - not to hold evil back, but to promote their own agendas.

Let's look briefly at this story from the gospels. James and John came to Jesus and they said, "Will you grant us a request?" Jesus responded, "I don't know what it is, but, maybe?" They then said, "When you enter your Kingdom, we want to sit next to you - one on the right, and one on the left." Jesus responded, "That isn't mine to give, but watch yourselves. Don't look at authority the way the world does. That isn't the way of the Kingdom. Instead, learn to be servants, for the first will be last and the last will be first." 

Jesus repeatedly turned the world as the disciples understood it on its head. True power was found in giving up power. True life is found by sacrificing one's own life. Love, modeled in the Trinitarian relationship, was the template for life in the Kingdom. This relational life does not grab after power and control -- that is the world's way. To be made in the Image of God is to be made free to chose either good or evil. God purposely chose never to try to force us to the good, though God continually did warn us against the evil. That evil, revealed in story after story in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, seems to happen most often when one person tries to take power over another. The quest and thirst for power are the taproots of the story of the Fall in Genesis 3 and the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. It is nearly always one of the ways people are tempted toward evil. This, in and of itself, by itself is more than enough to say that DJT and AOC are both evil, for both want to control others, wanting to and taking power over them.

As far as I know, Frederick Bastiat, who wrote a small, wonderful booklet entitled, The Law, was not a Christ-follower of any kind. He was a political theorist who argued that the collective does not have rights that individuals don't have. He gave the example of ten friends gathering together and nine of them voting to take the tenth friend's money and divide it equally between them. Such action would is immoral. I think he is right. While his argument has limitations - everyone believes the collective has some rights that individuals don't have. For instance, the collective can imprison people for wrongdoing and hurting others. The collective does what it can to protect its citizens. The real issue here becomes, where is it right for the collective to draw this line in repurposing wealth and property and still be moral? Many of these questions are far more easily answered on the community level rather than the national level.

If someone attacks a village, the village bands together to protect itself. However, if a rich person wants to take more land from someone else to become richer, she may well use her power to conscript poorer people to fight for her to take what is not hers. This is the beginning of nationalism and the genesis of America. Here it is easy to see the evil that arises from a quest for power. Part of Bastiat's answer to this question of where the line of individual versus collective rights is drawn was to argue that collectives existed to protect the individual. Governments exist to hold evil back. They do not exist to promote the good. This is where disagreements take place among thoughtful people. I hold that disease and death are non-human forms of evil and therefore the collective needs to form a collective to fight against them. To some degree, I believe that ignorance is also a form of evil and so the collective is wise to work together to combat it through education. In this realm, I struggle because historically, we fall into the trap of teaching people what to think rather than how to think. Education has limits. We have made it into a tool of the corporatists and the oligarchs. So, while I agree that education is an antidote to the evil of ignorance, centralizing control of it is its own form of evil.

Bastiat's economy can be seen in the realities of the microcosm of a household. It is far too easy to let others take the responsibility to love. I don't say this proudly, but when Paula is traveling I simply do all the things that need to be done around the house. When she is home, many times, I wait for her to see what she does to see what I need to do. This approach to life is not loving Paula, it is me giving up my responsibilities because it is easier. People often don't do things because they don't have to do those things. Someone else will do them. So, if I can get others to pay more, I can pay less. This is immoral. This is a form of evil. I want to make sure people are cared for at the lowest possible cost to myself. Therefore, I will spend other's resources to alleviate my need to care for the marginalized and the poor. Practically, socialism takes real pain and makes it someone else's problem. I don't have to worry about it anymore. The government will take care of it. That is surely not what is intended. But it is what results from the practice. We tend to not do what others are doing. Parents don't spend the time educating their kids because schools do it. I don't give to the homeless because we pay taxes to address it and then bitch and moan when City Hall can't come up with viable solutions to the problem. We don't worry about unwanted children because we kill them before they are born. We figure out a way to pay as little as we can, knowing that someone else will pick up the slack.

Recovery also shaped why I see both AOC and DJT as evil. I don't think I've ever explained how The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous works. We are now into the Fourth Edition. In every Edition the first 164 pages are identical. So, for instance when people talk about, "the promises," everyone knows to turn to page 83 to find them. Those first 164 pages never change. The majority of the book, however, is the stories of recovery which make up the last 2/3 of the book. One of those stories, found in both the Third Edition around page 473 and in the Fourth Edition, around page 416, is entitled, "Acceptance is the key." It is a doctor's story of recovery from alcoholism. My therapist at Keystone asked me to read three pages from that story every day for three weeks of my five-week stay in rehab. The doctor points out that he was an expert in finding the problems in everyone and everything else in the world, but it took realizing that his problem lay inside of himself, for him to stop drinking. His story was my story. I had to stop pointing my finger at "the evil out there," and discover that the problem wasn't out there. It was in my inner sanctum and inner being. Once I realized this. Once I accepted my own shame, I opened the door to healing and Love. 

I saw this same issue as I worked with domestic violence perpetrators. The men with whom I worked saw themselves as victims. They gave their power away. They felt emasculated and so they grasped for power that was not theirs to grasp, They tried to control their girlfriends and wives, abusing them along the way. My refrain to them was heard almost every week, "abuse occurs whenever you attempt to tear at the humanity of another." We typically abuse people in one of the following ways: physically, verbally, sexually, emotionally/mentally, financially, through control or damage of properties, harm to pets, and spiritual abuse. 

DJT is doing this by stealing property to build a wall. AOC is doing this by attempting to steal wealth to pay to accomplish what she sees as moral, saying that those who have billions could not have come by those dollars honestly. She may be right about that, but we don't right wrongs by repeating them. In many ways, AOC's approach is not so different from Jerry Falwell's attempt to control morality from the conservative position. When we attempt to control morality, rather than to invite people to it, we attempt to do something God never did, because it would violate His very nature. And things that violate the nature of God are evil

Both DJT and AOC believe that the problems in the world are, "out there," problems. Both want to take control of other peoples' lives, to fix the problems. And let me remind you that if we can only be OK if others change, we are in deep shit. That belief creates a sense of powerlessness which in turn swings to abuse. People don't like feeling powerless so they grasp power. That is a mistake. Grasping power is at the root of Evil.

Both the unfettered nationalistic capitalism of DJT, and the democratic socialistic vision of AOC are born in the furnace of an attempt to take control and power over others. Both have succumbed to the same temptation that Jesus overcame, Both see the problem as being, "out there." They are both wrong. They have both bought into the economy of the Evil One rather than the Kingdom of God. This shadow kingdom must be labeled correctly or we shall wrongly endeavor to live as its citizens rather than claiming our birthright in the Kingdom of Light and Love.

 

Letters to My Adult Children - The First Among Heroes

Yesterday, as I was driving to pick up TL for racketball, "Hero" by Steve Taylor came up on my playlist:

 

I began thinking of my work, my story, my desire for a Ph.D. and my need to hone down my topic. I don't remember when I first heard Taylor's song, it was a long, long time ago. It immediately struck a chord with me. Growing up, I always wanted to be a hero. As an adult, I always wanted to be your hero. I wanted to be a hero to everyone close to me. I knew that if I could be a hero, I'd be loved; I'd not merely be me.

So, I've gotten lost in stories of heroes. As I got older, my heroes became more nuanced. And, my understanding of the "hero's journey" has also become more sophisticated. Joseph Campbell identified the Hero's Journey back in 1949. Writers have used his template to create hero stories ever since. While countless people have written on this topic, I am using the template from the people at the Reedsy Blog (https://blog.reedsy.com/heros-journey/) to make writing this easy.

As I drove to pick up TL, I began to think of the Hero's Journey in light of the Jesus story and many other Biblical Stories I grew up idolizing. My phraseology in the last sentence is incredibly important. I idolized the stories. I unconsciously defined salvation as, "becoming a hero." I had to be a hero! My graphic novel bibles took me to places of fantasy around the biblical stories. Now I wonder, if these incredible stories end up being twisted in our souls and are given death by Evil to create more shame than light.

The hero's journey starts in the ordinary; what Reedsy calls, "the mundane." It is the phrase, "I was born a poor child..." Jesus was born in a manger and laid in a cow trough. King David was rejected and was a shepherd doing the most humble of tasks. Moses was born to a Jewish slave family and hidden in the weeds. Gideon was cowering from fear. Ruth was a Moabite of no repute. Rahab was a hooker. Mary was a simple girl betrothed to a carpenter or stonecutter.

After humble beginnings, there is, " a call." In the Jesus story, this occurs at his baptism, "This is my Son, with whom I am well-pleased." Following the call, there is traditionally a rejection of that call. Think of Gideon and his requirement of a "fleece." The Jesus story doesn't have this traditional "rejection." However, think about how the different writers set up His story. Everyone knows he is the Messiah from his virgin birth, royal lineage. Questions arise though when Herod sends troops to kill all the male children under two. Remember Moses' story and Pharoah doing the same thing? Mary, Joseph, and Jesus become refugees, escaping to Egypt. So, there is that interruption and threat to the call. But then, after the call, Jesus doesn't start teaching and calling his own disciples immediately, He goes into the wilderness where he fasts for 40 days. At the end of His time in the wilderness, Satan comes and tempts him three times. These are temptations that we use to reject our own calling. Only Jesus doesn't reject the call because he is the "first among heroes." As I am thinking about this, I am thinking this is one of the first places that boys trying to be a hero in the vein of Jesus begin to face their own shame, and then begin living out of their shame.

The next step in the Hero journey is to meet the mentor who will help the hero overcome and then there is an event where the curtain is pulled back and they enter into the arena, seen as the hero that they were born to be. In the Jesus story, the mentor is the Holy Spirit who descended on Jesus like a dove. She becomes the connection point for Jesus through the rest of the gospels.¹ John makes note of Jesus' stage entrance. This is the famous event where Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding. The miracle serves as an announcement to the reader, Jesus has accepted his role as a hero

Stage six is typically the bulk of the hero story. It is where they find allies, discover their enemies and the obstacles they must overcome and develop the close friendships that will help them cross the lexicon. In the Jesus story, this section involves the calling of the disciples and the Pharisees and Sadducees' introduction as the villains of the story. It involves Jesus casting out demons and healing the sick, the lame and the blind. It includes his teachings and personal interactions. John's gospel is different here because his longest section comes next. 

The next section is where the hero approaches his biggest fight, drawing close to their own personal crisis. For Jesus, this is the last week of his life, where he knows he is about to die and he doesn't like it one bit. In the Church, we remember this time in Jesus' life as Holy Week -- the week leading up to Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. You have to feel this movement. It is where you come face to face with your humanity and brokenness. It is the part of our story where we have to choose to walk through our fear. It is the place that courage is most seen and felt. In many ways, it is the place where we see ourselves becoming or failing in the hero journey. the question here is, "Will he push through? Will he make it?" It is not the moment of crisis, but the foreboding before the crisis.

In the Jesus story, the crisis comes in his arrest, trial, betrayal, and crucifixion. This moment is the reason for his existence. In it, there is no glory -- only defeat and hopelessness. This complete defeat is perhaps the reason the Jesus story stands above all other stories. He dies defeated. And, with his death comes complete despair, emptiness, and darkness.

But, in a hero's story, there is a moment of triumph. In the Jesus story, it is resurrection - an empty tomb. The restoration of hope and life, not just for him, but for the world he came to save. He wins!

Or, does he? In hero stories, there are roads left to travel. There is often an awakened enemy or incompleted business. In the Jesus story, the gospel writers - indeed the writers of the rest of the New Testament believe that much of this road is to be walked by those who follow the crucified, risen Messiah. We are told that we are his reconstituted body that is to finish the work he set out to do. We are to be his hands and feet for a broken world. So, in the Jesus story, we are in this part of the story. The story is still being written. Complete resurrection won't occur until we experience it personally. Once we have, Jesus is promised to return to create a new world void of pain, suffering, and death.

Why does this matter at all? In my thinking right now it matters because as we tell the story boys, in particular, are left yearning to be a hero they cannot be. We all want to be just like Jesus. Those of us who feel this calling most, often become pastors. The struggle is that we know ourselves to be frauds; and/or we work to create our own deaths in order to imitate Jesus' hero journey. We have to fail and be resurrected to be like him. So we unconsciously destroy ourselves to become the hero we know we are to be. This twisted idea of wanting to be a hero in the mold of Jesus comes from a place of shame rather than a place of holiness or a desire to be in relationship. We call out for resurrection, hoping to be found worthy of being the hero we long to be. Listen to the echoes of this in the words of Todd Agnew:

1. Please note that the Spirit is nearly always referred to by the biblical writers with female words in both Hebrew and Greek. Sometimes it is hard because in English we don't have feminine and masculine words like in Spanish or Hebrew or Greek. If a man is my friend and I speak Spanish, I refer to them as "mi amigo." If a woman is my friend in Spanish I refer to her as, "mi amiga." In the same way, the language used around the Spirit is nearly always feminine. The language around the Father is nearly always masculine. So when I refer to the Father, I use masculine terms; when I refer to the Spirit, I use feminine terms, and when I refer to the Trinity I use the newly resurrected and minted, "they." 

 

Letters to my Adult Children - On Emotions & Anger - Fall 2019

In one of the last DV classes I taught, I took a minute to talk to think. (Whenever I talk to think, I get words out of my brain so that I can see them more clearly and ponder them from different angles to discover if the words are true or not.)

With many of the men I work(ed) with, I have to teach them about emotions. To do so, I created a worksheet to hand out that reads something like this:

When we say we feel bad we might be saying…

• I feel hurt — Something that makes me who I am has been attacked, broken, or damaged
• I feel sad — I’ve lost something
• I feel lonely — I am disconnected from others
• I feel guilty — I did something bad
• I feel despair — I am without hope things are (I am) never gonna change
• I feel scared — things are going to go badly
• I feel disgusted — I experienced something that I found to be inhuman or gross and had a visceral or somatic reaction to it.

Shame is its own category because it is a combination of fear and shame; but, it is fear and shame about myself.

• It is fear that either, I am too much, or I am not enough
• It is despair that I will never be enough or always be too much
• It is fear that if you see me for who I am you will not understand, accept or delight in me
• It is despair that this won’t ever change

My favorite definition, though not clinical, is simply, the inability to meet the gaze of another. You can’t look them in the eye. You can’t let them see your soul.

Surprise is its own category as well because when we say that we are “Surprised,” we may be expressing a negative or a positive feeling.

Surprise happens when someone or something has caught us off guard and we weren’t prepared to experience it.

Like Surprise, “Anger” is not always a “bad” emotion. Sometimes it feels good to feel Anger.

Anger is one of those bad feelings combined with a sense of injustice or blame — "Someone or something else is responsible for my bad feeling and I am powerless to do anything about it."

We feel anger toward others, ourselves, institutions, cultures, people groups, and objects

Many times, the anger we feel at others is really anger we feel toward ourselves that we “transfer” to them or “project’ onto them to avoid blaming ourselves. Other times, we “transfer” or “introject” anger that we feel toward others onto or into ourselves to unconsciously gain more of a sense of control. Typically, this happens when fear is the “bad” emotion we are “unjustly” feeling.

Sometimes, anger is justified, righteous and empowering. When this is the case, we rightly condemn the wrong action or the evil without judging the person who chose it. This is a very difficult discipline.

As I thought about this, I thought about my Mum and the fact that she helped a ton of people and was someone that my brother says, “is the most evil person he has ever met.” Since she sexually abused me, it is hard to deny her this title, but something in me needs to if I am to stay sane.

Dwight Friesen was my advisor at The Seattle School. His office was filled with “&’s.” Over my three years inhabiting that holy space, I learned the power of holding the “and.” Mum was both completely evil and a saint. I had to learn to hold both truths about her. The question was could I hate her evil — her actions that broke me and my brother (including but not limited to her sexual abuse of me) — with the fury of all that is holy; and still hold her as my mother who was herself broken and worthy of love?

So, "holy anger," is anger that is directed at the evil that is done, and not at the persons who do it. It separates the evil act from the person who acts. This is so hard to do! It is far easier to hate the person who does the act than to focus our hatred on the action and the evil that leads the person to take the action.

Anger directed at evil changes the world. It led William Wilberforce to dismantle slavery throughout the English Empire in the 19th Century 40 years before the American Civil War. It led amazing women to lead the Women’s suffrage movement in this country. It led Martin Luther King Jr to lead the Civil Rights movement, and Gandhi to begin dismantling the caste system in India. The hatred of evil is an amazing motivator for change in our world.

This is true in part because Holy wrath is always organically connected to love. We “hate” that which destroys personhood and mars the image of God in people. But can you see how close that is to hating people for doing evil? It is a fine line and it takes a lot of hard emotional work to hold it. But, it is worth it because malingering anger at others eats away at the foundation of our souls and though it is rooted in the past, haunts us in our present lives and relationships.

So How Do We Get There???

There are 3 prerequisites for holy, world-altering anger:

1. Grief
2. Forgiveness
3. Proper Boundaries

Grief is mourning what is lost. Someone rightly said it is the removal of the opportunity for us to love. We grieve when we have lost something or someone that/who gave us hope for a better tomorrow, for connection, for understanding, delight, or beauty.

Grief

Many people have addressed the stages of grief: denial and isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Others have outlined how we don’t simply step through each step in an orderly fashion, we bounce from stage to stage, and then back again.

What hasn’t been addressed is the fact that for many of us, get stuck in the anger in an attempt to make an end-run around the grief and not fully experience it. We don’t want to feel the loss and the hurt, the loneliness, and the sorrow, the fear or the anguish that accompany grief. Instead, we stay angry so we don’t have to feel the sorrow. Anger becomes our defense against the grieving process. When it functions this way, we don’t cycle away from it. We get stuck in it.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is making a choice to give up judging the person and/or the need for revenge against them. It is not giving up the right to judge their action, nor is it necessary to enter into or hold a relationship with someone you have forgiven. Forgiveness does not mandate relationship. It only mandates judging or holding resentment against another. A lack of forgiveness is a sign that we view a person to be little more than their actions, choices, or emotions. And, none of us are merely our actions, choices, or emotions. We are much more than merely the things we do, feel, or choose. 

Boundaries

For the past two-plus years a national debate has raged over the nature of our nation’s southern border. The debate has been over the nature of the boundary that we have with Mexico. On one extreme, some argue that there should be no border and no boundaries. And, on the other, we need to build a wall, and perhaps a moat to stop anyone we don’t let anyone in that we don’t want in. Most of the country falls somewhere between these two extremes.

That picture provides a handy metaphor about personal boundaries. Personal boundaries exist to protect us from others and others from us while allowing for relationship and connection with others.

Like in the national debate, people with poor boundaries fall into two extremes: People who don’t really have a sense of who they are except through the eyes of others - who can only feel good about themselves if those around them feel good about them (these are similar to the people who want no border); and, people who hold a position of not caring or needing anyone else and being complete loners, refusing to let anyone know what is happening inside of them and not really caring what is going on inside of others (these are the people that build a wall and dig a moat around themselves to protect themselves from getting hurt.

Having good personal boundaries means that we are both differentiated - knowing who we are and what makes us us; as well as being attached - knowing who we are through our relationships with others, creation, and the Creator. When I talk to clients who don’t believe in God, instead of using the term, “Creator,” I refer to “the transcendent realities of our world” - things that go beyond reason and rationality such as love, wonder, and awe. I guess what I mean by that, is that when I go to Ecola State Park and look over the knoll where I poured out Mum and Dad’s ashes to the Pacific Ocean with seems to go on for an eternity and pounds into the rocks below, I learn about myself in relationship to my world. When I crested Piegan Pass in Glacier National Park, I literally fell down to worship, not because I was tired (though I was) but because I was full of awe and wonder at the creation that opened up before me. At that moment, I not only saw the majesty of the Northern Montana Rockies, the peace of the hollers below, and the beauty of the glacial lakes hidden in them, but I got to see myself in light of all those things. It gave me perspective about myself and my limits. Perhaps the best illustration of this is found in a little part of the 1991 movie, The Grand Canyon. When Simon (Danny Glover) sits on the curb talking to Mac (Kevin Kline).

Simon is really talking about boundaries without knowing it. It is difficult to see where we start and stop. We need to see this reality if we are going to deal with our own unhealthy anger. If we are going to hold to boundaries that promote life and health.

It sounds a lot easier than it is because in close relationships our boundaries overlap. the choices you make affect me, and the choices I make affect you. We lust for freedom that infringes on the boundaries of another far too deeply. If I own property and dam a creek to create a reservoir for myself and for irrigation, it means that the people who live downstream are robbed of water that they need. If I build a four-story house, it might block the sunlight from yours. Actions have consequences and so the freedom we long for can often limit the freedom of another.

We feel anger when we see freedom impinged upon by another. This balancing act is at the heart of nearly all the social debates and dialogue in this nation. As I work with clients who complain about dysregulated emotions (their emotions are too big for them to handle and it causes problems), to work effectively I need to work along two fronts: 1) giving them tools to help them regulate their emotions in healthy rather than unhealthy ways, and 2) helping get at the issues that cause the dysregulation in the first place. As you can see above, it is because they have faulty boundaries. So the work becomes exploring the unconscious reasons and motivations they hold to those boundaries.

For you guys to thrive this will be your work as well. For anger not to rule you. For you to be able to hold to the righteous anger at the evil people do while not feeling anger toward the people who do them is perhaps the single-most Christ-like behavior we can practice. Living this way is why I say I am a Christ-follower. It is perhaps the single hardest thing we Christ-followers are called to do. It is also how we get to experience eternal life in this life. It is a life full of joy and sorrow. And it always promises adventure for us as we follow in his steps, leaving drops of grace in every step we take.

Letters to My Adult Children: Look for the Good - February 2019

In 1994,  a weird and wonderful spiritual event began. The BBC labeled it the Toronto Blessing and the name stuck. For many, it was the stuff of a horror show. For others, it was a movement of the Spirit of God they had prayed for their whole lives. People got on their hands and knees and barked like dogs or fell over while convulsing violently. Others experienced miraculous physical healings. The conservative church watched it in horror. Mainline churches were bemused. And charismatics and Pentecostals flocked to it as if it were Mecca. they hoped to be a part of something they saw as a miraculous movement of God.

During that time, an intellectual, mainline Presbyterian minister named Bob Ekblad who spent much of his life working with the poorest of the poor in Honduras and then, upon returning to the USA, worked with men just-released from prison was invited to go to Toronto to experience the phenomena with a family member.

It wasn't his thing. He really didn't want to go. He was a social justice guy and the Toronto movement had little or nothing to do with justice. Toronto was about a supernatural experience of God. For some reason, Ekblad ended up going. Before he went, he spent some time praying and was impressed that though he might see 100 things he couldn't stand, he needed to look for "one good thing." He listened and went to Toronto keeping his eyes open for one good thing. And, while there, the Holy Spirit moved in him in ways he couldn't explain.

He was changed because he looked for the one good thing. He still works for justice, among those on the margins, but now when he lays hands on people to pray with them, there is a power that can't be explained any other way than that it comes from God.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I was at Hillsdale College in the fall of 1986 when Dad surprised me with a phone call. Remember this was before cell phones. We stood in the dorm's stairwells to talk to our family and friends on the payphone. There was one on each end of each floor in the dorm. My dormmate said, "Hurry, it is some sort of emergency." 

Dad explained that he and Mom rushed home to Portland from Idaho, canceling one of their evangelistic missions, because Mom was in incredible pain. Once home, the doctors performed emergency exploratory surgery and discovered tumors in Mom's abdomen that were pressing on her spinal cord and major organs. Dad told me that they were the size of my fists -- bigger than a softball. They closed her up because it would have been too dangerous to remove the tumors given their proximity to her spine and vital organs. In another week, Mom & Dad were scheduled to be in Vermont for more meetings. Dad wanted to cancel because Mom couldn't go. She didn't want him to. He needed to go. We arranged for me to fly out to meet Dad in her stead since the dates coincided with my fall break. My fraternity pitched in money so I could buy the emergency ticket.

There wasn't really much hope for Mom. The doctors told her they would do what they could and scheduled a catscan in order to pinpoint the radiation that they would shoot at her. They weren't talking about a cure. They were talking about doing the best that they could. The tumors they had seen during surgery were simply too big. The catscan was scheduled for the Thursday I arrived in Vermont to join Dad. The week before Mom called their pastor, Dwight Steele and asked, "Do you believe James 5?" Now, James 5 tells sick people to call for elders to pray for them in order that they may be healed. Conservative Baptists typically didn't believe in the miraculous, and typically didn't follow through on Jame's teaching.

Being crafty, Mom knew Dwight couldn't say no to her question because he couldn't say he didn't believe Scripture. In essence, she tricked him. And to his credit, scared as he acknowledged himself being, he studied, prayed and called the elders together to pray for Mom on the Wednesday night before her catscan (the day before I flew to join Dad). Mom had to wait a long time top be prayed for that night, because Dwight questioned each of the elders, looking for uncovered sin in their lives before finally calling Mom into his office to pray for her. I don't know what anyone expected out of that time together but the next day, over my Dad's objections that there would be no news, I called Mom to find out what was going on. She announced, they can't find the tumors, they are gone. "The report says that there is a slight swelling of the lymph nodes,  and we can't rule out the possibility of lymphoma." Mom was healed, in part, because Dwight was faithful.

That same man, a longtime pastor at Montavilla Baptist Church completely screwed up when it came time to deal with me and my sexual sin and double life. His handling of the situation couldn't have done more harm to me, the church or the gospel if he'd wanted it to. He was in over his head, couldn't acknowledge it, and reacted rather than responded to the news of my sexual betrayals. He became so intent on trying to read Scripture literally that he missed its message and ended up twisting it so that it said what he wanted it to say. This gave him a license to publicly read a list of my sins during a "worship service." His friend at Portland Foursquare followed his lead, also reading a list of my sins out publicly. I think he'd still argue he was right to have done so. In case you were wondering, he wasn't. He chose the action because of his shame rather than my sin.

My family had been at Montavilla Baptist since 1969 and Mum and dad were universally loved. Mom and Dad were power brokers in the church and potential threats to any pastor coming in to shepherd the church. Pops knew that Dwight viewed our whole family as a threat. And he warned me to be careful. Dwight could be caring and fantastic as well as vindictive and cruel. Out of his respect for Dad, he went with Timothy, Dad, and me to pour out Mom's ashes at Ecola State Park, caring for us in amazing ways. Later, he allowed me to preach at my Dad's service and helped me make wise decisions surrounding that service so that I didn't alienate Timothy further and cause a wider schism between us. And then he'd do something crazy like take the elders of the church without seeking any discernment to Timothy's house to perform an exorcism because I stayed there. If there were evil spirits in the house when they prayed, it had more to do with my brother's choices than mine. He was seeing a dominatrix at the time. So Dwight practiced evil, and stupidity as well as kindness and love, all at the same time.

In my anger, I could only see his evil. In the wake of my blow out, he was one of the hardest of all the Church patriarch's for me to forgive. I seemed to be incapable of holding the good and the evil that resided in the man. And for me to heal, I needed to be able to do precisely that. I needed to see and remember the good as well as the evil that always seemed to blind me to the good. He was not as evil as I made up in my mind that he was. I had to consciously look for the good. I had to consciously choose to see it. SOmeone said, "there is a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us." My job is to see the good while acknowledging the evil. It is in that balance that I find freedom.

The biggest example of this is Mom. You know her story. She was an early pioneer in the women's movement in the church. She was the first person - male or female - to produce a weekly Christian radio show across Europe, She was a noted Christian women's speaker. She was a better preacher than most of the men of her day -- certainly better than Dad. Her Bible study notes are amazing. She was a poet and a performer. Hundreds, if not thousands of people found life, meaning, freedom and authenticity because she was a faithful warrior, fighting against the darkness, And, she sexually abused me in evil and horrific ways.

In spite of the horror of that, for me to be free, I need to see the "and" that allows for the good in her, Just like in the story, I told you about Dwight. I will begin with the good before citing the bad. I have to, in order to be sane. I chose to look for the good so that I can be free.

Without knowing it, most of my work in recovery has been the work of recognizing and holding the "&." I hold that my Mom was an amazing, wonderful woman who chose to act evilly. I hold that Dwight was a good man who chose evil. There are countless more stories I could tell. You have stories to tell as well.

I believe that God uses evil, pathology, and narcissistic people for good in other peoples' lives. God uses seemingly crazy things to impart His power. In discovering the good I find freedom. I look to find the image of God in the shit. When I find it, I find hope. Calling forth the image of God from the shit creates the Kingdom of God. that is why seeing the "shit and magnificence," in Paula was part of my wedding vows to her. We do well together for a lot of reasons but one of them is that we can hold the "crap and glory" (her phrase) and shit and magnificence (my phrase) that we see in ourselves and in the other.

So, for me, to be a Rebel for Love - A rebel for the Kingdom -  means that I do this work. I look for the good in the midst of the shit. In some crazy ways, this starting point is the fuel of my freedom. But I think that needs to be held for another letter.

Letters to my Adult Children # 2 -- January 2019

I remember sitting in my class, Interpersonal Foundations, with Dr. Roy Barsness. It was my first week of class at The Seattle School, and I hadn't figured out that I was no longer swimming in an Evangelical stream of thought. Roy postulated that there were three questions with which we needed to wrestle as we began our journey toward being counselors, pastors, and non-profit leaders. We needed to think about: 

1. "Who is God and what is she/he/it like?"
2. "Who are people and what is our nature?"
3. And, finally, "What is the nature and function of sin?'

Roy was about to begin deconstructing the theology of his young students. Some of us who were older sat back, crossed our arms, and silently said to ourselves, "Bring it;" while younger, less seasoned students began to seriously question things they'd been taught but never had a chance to live.

I gotta take a minute and explain something. The Seattle School is not for the faint of heart or conservatives or evangelicals who don't want to be challenged, and Roy... Well, let's just say, Roy is Roy and no one I know loves as he does. So much so, that when I graduated I went on the record to say that my goal was to love people the way he does. I never did, "buy in" to all his thinking, but because of my relationship and discussions with him, my thinking shifted. It shifted as I asked and answered the questions he posed. My answers are different than his. That is OK, we began a conversation. That conversation led to my theological shift. I say, "shift," because it didn't really change it much. I merely shifted my emphasis and focus. If I wanted to follow in the steps of Love Incarnate, I figured I had to.

As a preacher and an evangelist, I focused a lot on sin and powerlessness. It was the first point of five-point Calvinism - total depravity. Now, as a therapist and counselor, I focus on the image of God that is in everyone (see Gen 9:6). My shift didn't come about because of a job change. It came about because of my relationship with the Scriptures and my relationship with others who challenged my doctrinal emphasis. And while I still accept the doctrine of total depravity, I think about it differently than I once did.

St. Paul outlined total depravity in Ephesians 2. St Augustine fleshed the idea out and popularized it; and, then John Calvin developed the idea more fully. (Be careful with Calvin because his thinking in his early career evolved.)

The way most people think about total depravity is different from the way Calvin grew to understand it in his later years. Current teaching resembles more of what he believed early on. At least three things happened. First, people knew how shitty they felt deep down at their cores and so it was not hard to jump to the conclusion that everyone was equally as shitty and was as bad as they felt themselves to be. Secondly, powerful people began using the idea of total depravity as a way to control people and consolidate their own power. And, finally, those who disagreed with it latched onto the weakest and easiest to attack versions of it, in order to defeat it.

Most people when teaching the doctrine teach that people are as sinful as they can possibly be. They rip the line from Ephesians 2, "dead in your sins." This Idea, that we are as bad at our core so seems to me to be unsubstantiated by the rest of Scripture and, indeed, antithetical to Scripture's teaching about people being made in the image of God (or, Imago Dei).

Calvin taught in his early work that the image of God was entirely corrupted in people when we fell into sin in the garden. Later, he shifted and began to argue that we were mostly corrupted (If you want to know more about this shift, see Randall Zachman, Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL. pps. 64-68).

Much of the protestant church in Great Britain, America, and their colonies adopted Calvin's more strict, unbiblical, and unhealthy formulation of "total corruption" of the Imago Dei.**

It is no secret that people have taken theology and used it to control and manipulate others throughout history. We need to own and acknowledge this. But let is also be noted people have also used their Christian belief's and doctrines to change the world for good. It is really easy to look for evil and miss the good. If we miss the latter, we miss the gospel. If we miss the gospel, there is no reason to believe. Some of my good friends have chosen this route.

But historically without the Church, women would still be seen as less than human and children would not be educated and would be put to work in factories. Without the Church, slavery would still be part of everyday life. Without the Church, there would have been no civil rights movement in America. Without the church, abortion and women's circumcision would be much more prevalent. Without the Church, there would be much more war. Without the Church, "might" would still make "right" and human sacrifice would still exist as common practice. Hate and fear would be the dominant emotions of all the world, not merely rule their slice of it, and shame would have free rein.

Sorry, I took a tangent. 

We need to think about total depravity differently, more biblically and more gracefully. My formulation of the doctrine states that we are sinful in every way in which we can be sinful -- that sin touches every aspect of our life. I still believe this. I can't get away from it. Nor, do I want to. 

More importantly though, when I think about the image of God, I want to think about what it is, rather than what it isn't.  And, I approach it differently than Calvin. Calvin argued that being made in the image of God meant that we had, "soundness in all our parts."  By that, he formulated that because humans are made in the image of God, they possess wisdom, justice, and goodness. He was not incorrect. But it has to be more than that. (If you want to read more about Calvin's thinking on this, or if you need a sleep aid, read: Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Library of Christian Classics, vols. 20 & 21. pg. 176). When I think of the core or foundation of the Imago Dei, I first see it as being the perfect relationship (or love). Secondly, I see it as an expression of holy freedom thirdly I see it possessing creativity (seen in its voice). And, finally as possessing all-power (or agency or differentiation -- also connected to holiness).

As we live in love; experience freedom from shame; create beauty and speak life; using power to serve the rest of creation; we begin to live life as it was designed to be lived. And so, I believe, that in order to experience the fullness of life, we need to experience the fullness of these things

My next letters will try to flesh these out a bit, in terms of their practicalities. I had to start here though because this is foundational to my belief system. I'm starting with Roy's questions. And though I took a tangent, here are my answers.

1. Who is God? God is perfect relationship -- a divine picture of true love. God is free from all constraints to love. I believe that God in her love creates beauty and wonder. I believe that he is all-powerful because of his love.
2. Who are people? People are made in the image of God and are designed to love, need to be free to love and use their power and creativity to create, protect and enjoy beauty and wonder.
3. What is sin? Sin is anything that violates relationship, for in so doing it violates the very nature of God.

Out of those three answers to the questions, Roy postulated comes all my the thinking that will follow.

 

 **Note: Powerful people have used Catholic theology to do inhumane things in the same way. They suggest that if you are not baptized you are evil and we are allowed to treat you as sub-human.

 

 

Letters to my Children: On Being an Episcopalian

We are to pass on what we've been given. If we don't, we lose that which has been entrusted to our care.

A poignant memory for me is traveling through Sault Saint Marie, Ontario, Canada. Mum turned to me as we passed by an Anglican Church (Episcopalian Church) and said, "If you are ever on the road, and don't have meetings, and don't know where to go to church; go to an Episcopalian Church. It is always a safe bet, because no matter what else happens, the gospel is always present in the liturgy of the service." Knowing what I know now, the fact that mi Mum, a Bob Jones graduate, said that is rather remarkable, and I have never forgotten it. I pass it onto you.

You know that after your Mom and I split I ended up at St Matthews in Parkrose. I was there for three or four years. I still love those folk. I think (I hope) I left well. I certainly held no malice and left because of epistemology rather than theology. If you remember, I left to go to Evergreen. I wanted to hang out with Bob Hyatt, who I considered to be one of the most innovative pastors in Portland.

While I was at St Mattie's, I joined the church. To do so, I went through confirmation, rewriting the catechism as I did so. (I need to go back and look at it to see what I wrote and how I'd change it today.) So you know, the Catechism is the training that liturgical Churches (Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans (Episcopalians), Presbyterians, and Christian Reformed, to name some of the bigger ones) provide congregants who want to pursue membership in the church. Catechisms appear to be a series of questions and answers. Those joining the church memorize (or at least know) the answers to each of the questions in the catechism. In the old days they were tested, but not many churches test congregant's knowledge anymore.

At some point, we'll talk about the catechism (and why I re-wrote it), but for now, I only wanted you to know what it was. A brief Church history lesson will also help. Throughout the Church's history denominations form because they don't like something in the existing church. Because of this, you might say, each denomination is reactionary. Many times splits are doctrinal. But sometimes, they are not so much about theology (orthodoxy) as they are about behaviours and practices (orthopraxy). Anglicans (or Episcopalians) split from the Roman Catholics not because of theology but because of practice.

Henry VIII, the famous king who had eight wives by the time he was done, wanted a divorce from one of them. The pope wouldn't grant it, and so Henry ordered the Bishop of Canterbury to form a new church and called it, the Church of England. Though the Church was birthed under Henry, its future wasn't solidified for some years -- until after the reign of Henry's daughter, Mary, who returned England to Catholicism (killing a lot of people in the process). Mary's sister Elizabeth took the throne after Mary died, and she made the split final for political reasons. The Church of England's future was secure. During her reign, she commissioned a document called, the "39 Articles of Religion." Perhaps more than anything else, the 39 Articles defined the direction of the Church for the centuries to come. The document expounded 39 points of doctrine. A few are reactionary, while many confirm beliefs held by the Catholic Church. At this stage, the document is more historical than anything else. I agree with some of the articles and disagree with others, as do nearly all the Episcopal pastors I know. We probably disagree on which articles to discard, however. And we all probably read all the articles differently than the authors intended they be read. There is some hazy history, but it appears that it took nearly eight years for the Church to agree on the final 39 articles. This isn't that surprising. If you ever study or write theology, you will discover that it is more surprising that they agreed at all.

Many of those in the churches that I grew up in think that the Episcopalians are too liberal. They argue that many Episcopalians deny Jesus is God, that the Scriptures are the Word of God and are perfect and that Jesus is the only way of salvation. To the Church I grew up in all of this is heresy. Also, many argue that the church's refusal to condemn homosexuality and transgenders is an anathema.

I disagree with the Episcopalians teaching on some of these things. You know that I hold, with an open hand (in other words, acknowledging that I might be very wrong) that had people fallen into sin, there would be no homosexuality and no gender dysphoria -- that God's original creation was for eternal monogamy between a man and a woman. 

However, we don't live or love in that perfect world any longer. I know the life of heterosexual monogamy to which I've been called, and given my complete failure in that arena; I am not going to look at anyone else and tell them how God intended for them to live. It is simply not my place. To do so would be the height of hypocrisy. As I read Jeremiah and Joel (two Old Testament prophets) I need to allow people to work out how they walk before their God for themselves. I no longer claim to know how anyone else should behave in any of these matters. 

Denying Jesus as Lord is another matter. I could not be part of a congregation that denied the Trinity. Having said that, how Jesus saves is an open question for me. While I hold with a closed hand, grasping tightly to the fact that the Jesus' death on the cross is the only means of salvation, how the cross saves is beyond me. I was taught the only way that a person cold be saved was by saying a prayer, inviting Jesus into their heart. Not only is that extra-biblical (not found in the Bible), it is plain wrong. 

Though I've never said it to you explicitly, you may have noticed that I don't use the word "Christian" anymore to describe myself. There is nothing wrong with the word. However, I've chosen to refer to people like me who love Jesus as "Christ followers." Because for me, that describes who I am -- In all things, I seek to follow Jesus. A Christian is someone who cognitively believes Christian doctrine. A Christ follower is someone who attempts to obey and follow Jesus. I want to be the latter.

When you are at an Episcopalian Church you will hear more scripture than you do in most "free church" services. We'll talk about the free church later. It is sadly true that many Episcopalian people that I know, don't know their Bibles very well, they hear it in church more regularly than their Baptist brethren. I was raised to believe that the Bible was "inerrant" (or without any errors) when originally written. That last phrase was important because no one has any of the originals. As I look back, I realize that the church of my youth fought tooth and nail for inerrancy to fight for their interpretation rather than for inerrancy. The Bible clearly has errors. That is part of its magnificence. What is more, our understanding of it is flawed and fallible and when we think we have understood it, we most certainly have not.

This is an important piece of my journey and transformation. I need to write an entirely different post on Scripture alone so you can understand my journey on this all important topic.

Suffice it to say; I believe that the Bible is God's unique and divinely inspired word to us and for us. It contains all we need to know for salvation, and it is mediated (or revealed) to us by his Holy Spirit so we can have a relationship with the Triune God. It is worthy of intense study and scrutiny. It will not give life by itself but will be used by God to raise the dead, heal the sick, give hope where there is despair, and faith where there is doubt. There is no book like it, and no other writing compares to it. I think that most Episcopalians would agree with this paragraph and those who don't have a right to be wrong. 

When I go to an Episcopalian Worship service, I trudge a rhythmic path toward Jesus. I am invited into Jesus' presence, and hear his word proclaimed: First an Old Testament reading, then the Psalm, then a New Testament reading, and finally a Gospel reading. I am encouraged in my faith through the homily; am invited to pray for the world, confess my sin, and hear God's forgiveness given. With shame taken from me, I can fully enter into relationship with my neighbors sitting next to me, as we pass the peace one to another; and, finally, I am invited to partake in the body and blood of Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist. 

I need to stop here once again. As I grew up, I often heard preachers and pastors add to the Bible by saying, "This is a symbol of my body and blood." They did so because they don't really believe the Bible is inerrant. They believed their interpretation was inerrant. This is important because Jesus said, "Whenever you gather to worship, partake in communion together" (SGT, 1 Cor 11:25); and Jesus didn't say, "this is a symbol..." What he actually said was, "This is my body which is given for you..." and, "this is my blood, which was shed for you..." (SGT, Mt 26, Mk 14, Lk 22, 1 Cor. 11).

And this is the glory of it, so please catch it. Because he forgave me (and he had to forgive a shit ton of sin in me), I get to take communion. And as I take communion, I say, "I will enter into his death and give up my life for the world in the same way he gave up his for me. It may look like it costs me everything, but death always precedes resurrection, and resurrection is better than life!" When we are done with communion, we are sent into the world to be Jesus' body in the world.

These are the reasons that I am grateful to be Episcopalian. I realize I didn't address the things in the church with which I do disagree: The ecclesiology (how the Church is set up), or the right of infant baptism. Those issues, in practice, don't affect me and are easy to overlook. The things that make me Episcopalian far outweigh the things that pull me away.

 

For those who know better, these days need you to be better

In my second year of grad school, our Therapy professor introduced my cohort to the work of Margaret Crastnopol who studied and wrote about psychic micro-trauma. She spent two hours with us presenting a paper and then took questions about her theoretical construct and how we could better work with those with our clients who were cracked or broken because of micro-trauma in their life.

Her work naturally follows in the wake of a similar book on micro-aggressions, by Derald Wing Sue who wrote, Microaggressions in Everyday Life. While micro-traumas are not necessarily the result of micro-aggressions, they are connected. Micro-traumas are the bi-product of recurring small traumas. One helpful metaphor is Chinese water torture. For micro-trauma functions in a similar vein. It is the result of repeated, ongoing small traumas; indifference; low-level emotional, spiritual or verbal abuse; prolonged emotional abandonment; or unintentional, recurring micro-aggressions. Dictionary.com defines Micro-aggressions as,"A subtle but offensive comment or action directed at minority or other non-dominant group that is often unintentional or unconsciously reinforces a stereotype and/or,the act of discriminating against the non-dominant group by means of such comments or actions." 

I fear that many of us are suffering micro-traumas as a result of this completely inane election cycle. And I believe that social media is only compounding the problem. It has become a hotbed of micro-aggression. People's feeds resemble their personal culture and ideologies. Anything outside of their worldview is unwelcome. Using this standard, when people post hateful things, those posts reach the level of being micro-aggressions.

It is people on the political right who distrust academia who seem to struggle with the construct of micro-aggression and micro-trauma the most. Surprisingly, though, micro-aggressions are not limited to the conservative right. We see them within many of the reactive movements that stand against the abusive, systemic powers that conservatives support.

This mutated election cycle, with all of its craziness, has led to not only micro-aggressions but full on assaults on whole demographics by people from both sides. We are truly a fractured nation. What caught me off guard is the scope of the assaults that both sides seem more than willing to perpetrate against the other.

If you look to the right, Mr. Trump and his talking heads apparently enjoy attacking those who oppose them. Let's face it; their strategic offense is offensive. The only way to avoid their ire is to agree with them or avoid them. On the stump, Mr. Trump has lumped hard-working illegal immigrants with rapists and murderers. There is no room in his worldview to obey biblical commands to welcome the alien and the stranger. Likewise, his misogyny is on display nearly every day at every rally he attends. One doesn't have to read too far into the text to see he would have thrown the first stone at the woman caught in adultery, and that he would never have spoken to the woman at the well (except to command her to serve him). He is intentionally and strategically offensive. He is unapologetic and generates tribalism among his followers that is at best, frightening -- and at worst. lethal. 

What surprised me recently, however, is that the other side (though not as course and blatant) is just as deadly and intentional in their attacks on their enemies. When Secretary Clinton referred to half of Mr. Trump's supporters as "deplorables," she not only created a circle of hate; she created an apologetic for it. For, it is not wrong to hate deplorable things. Her allowance of hatred of the deplorables opens the door for all sorts of propaganda that twists and distorts the truth, further inflaming Mr. Trump's supporters. She continues to create an atmosphere that is unwelcoming and damning of anyone who dares to challenge her. This one misspoken phrase reveals much of the character and strategy of the Democratic party.

My Facebook feed is full of articles attempting to argue that it is impossible to oppose Secretary Clinton without being a misogynistic, racist, gay-hater. No longer is it merely Mr.Trump's supporters who are all those things. And now, it is anyone who opposes the former Secretary of State. In me at least, it has backfired, making Mr. Trump more palatable; and that realization disgusts me. I don't want shit ever to taste like anything I'd want to eat.

It has been common in this country to dehumanize your political opponents. There is nothing new in that. I may not like it, but I've grown accustomed to it. What feels different in this election is the attempt to dehumanize the followers of your political opponent. While conservatives blast the intelligence of the progressives (which is irony at its best); the progressives (I will no longer call them liberals -- for the word denies them entrance into its fraternity) blast right back. They do so more subtly and with longer words containing more syllables, but they do it nonetheless. Each side is attempting to dehumanize the other. 

The thing that most breaks my heart, however, is when my classmates and friends from my seminary who sat in lectures with me about micro-aggression and micro-trauma; who worship the same Jesus who we read about in the Holy Scriptures, violate their call to heal. They do so by tearing down those who disagree with them; dehumanizing them and making them, "less than." I want to believe that their micro-aggression is unintentional and that if they realized that they were creating micro-traumas in people, they would stop.

As people who claim to follow Jesus -- who urged anyone who would listen to him to repent and live in the Kingdom of Heaven; we are called to be Kingdom people. I don't care if you vote for Mr. Trump, Sec. Clinton, Gov. Johnson, Ms. Stein, Sasquatch, or my wife (her campaign slogan is: "No bad beer," BTW). For nearly all of us who live in Oregon and Washington, our votes don't matter. Our States' electors are already set. There is no urgency in this part of the country. We are still going to have conversations with others -- in particular with those whose hope rests in the temporary government of the USA. The way we have the conversation reveals how much we love our enemies; how willing we are to trust Jesus when he urges us to turn the other cheek. It reveals to which Kingdom we belong.

We are to be "salt and light." We are to care for the orphans, the widows, the aliens, and strangers (see refugees). We are to beat guns into plowshares and turn weapons into art which gives life rather than taking it. We are to feed the hungry, turn the other cheek, care for the grocery clerk or the gas station attendant who serves us. We are to bring life, joy, hope, peace, faith, and self-control to our world. It kinda needs it right now, don't you think? 

As long as we are focused on tearing down the intelligence of our political opponents, our focus is not where it needs to be. We can and need to demonstrate to the world how to disagree with each other and still love and respect one another. We can (and are called to live in the Kingdom of Heaven while we navigate this world's, wars, hurricanes, tornados, mudslides, earthquakes, raging fires, hunger and poverty,, racism, militarism, consumerism, individualism, and even elections. 

I recognize that there is a certain irony to this post. I hope in its current form there aren't any unseen micro-aggressions left. I think I also removed all the outright aggression as well. I don't want to shame anyone into trying to love better. Though sometimes I try. 

I don't write to discourage people from supporting their candidate of choice, or following their conscience and not voting at all. I write, wanting the conversation to shift, love to come to the forefront, and Christians to remember -- not only that they are royalty but that they are already residents of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Looking Back... Looking Forward

Growing up the son of a missionary and gospel singer/evangelist who were committed to living, "by faith:" asking no one but God to meet the family's needs shaped me in some interesting and challenging ways. I grew up having visited many of the 48 contiguous states, and seeing many things my peers only dreamed of seeing. At the same time, Mom would drive up to the house with us in the car and there would be groceries on the front porch that she needed, hadn't asked for, and cooked with that night to feed us. We were always dirt-poor, and always had enough.

If Dad was called for meetings in East Texas or Florida, he'd always say yes, and then he'd pull out the Rolodex and begin calling churches and pastors along the way to build an itinerary so he could afford to get there. You see, Dad never required any payment and never knew what he was going to get (if anything) and so the idea of the church covering his expenses was foreign to him. We paid our own way and graciously accepted whatever was offered to us upon completion of our mission or crusade in the community. Nearly always, every weekend and every Wednesday night were booked and we'd simply travel from community to community in order to reach the place that first booked us. It could take weeks, but it is how we traveled. 

In today's world, I wonder what my parents' Facebook accounts would look like. Undoubtedly, they would post pictures of churches where they ministered and pictures of Dad singing or Mom telling a story or leading a Bible Study or women's meeting, but I imagine there would be a lot of pictures of Timothy and I swimming outside of Boonesborough, Kentucky in the Cumberland Gap where I spent my 10th birthday, or of us touring the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Straight Street in Philly on the 4th of July 1976. Perhaps you'd see pictures of us playing at Niagara Falls or Fort Ticonderoga, looking at Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons or the Grand Canyon. 

Maybe my parents would have been smart enough not to post those photos that family and friends wanted to see on their public pages so that people wouldn't get the wrong idea about the family and think that we were flush and simply playing all the time. Because that certainly wasn't the case. I don't know how they would have worked that out and I wish I did.

This summer has been a celebration summer for Paula and I. We spent the first two years of our marriage never qutie having enough to pay the bills, and spending at least one, or many times two or three nights each week apart, as I traveled to the Little Fishing Village to the North of Portland for School. Supporters stopped supporting Paula because they assumed, as a man, I'd take care of her financially. After all, isn't that my job? They don't realize that as a grad student, living on the edge, having betrayed my former ministry partners through my adultery, I simply couldn't. 

Like many couples, especially older-- poorer ones, blending our financial lives is one of our greatest challenges. In contrast to my background, Paula grew up in an affluent family who trained her how to manage money well. In some ways, we're good for each other and in others we sometimes want to kill each other. 

So this summer, in the wake of three life-changing years, we've chased beauty as we've lived, using many of the travel strategies I learned growing up. We've taken Dr. Dan Allender's advice and taken the time to connect to each other more tightly, and God in new and fresh ways. It is easier now that I don't have another book to read and paper to write. When we've gone somewhere for business, we combine it with a day or two to relax along the way.

In June I graduated in Seattle and took Thomas to check out a school in British Columbia. I combined the two because I couldn't afford to take him on this campus visit any other way. Since we were in BC, TL and I tagged on two days in Whistler that didn't cost us anything except for the gas to get there. We took our food and had a kitchen in which to cook. We had a brilliant time.

In July, Paula gave me a 50th birthday/graduation gift and we rode 1701 miles to Canmore, Alberta to see the Canadian Rockies. It was a vacation to be sure, and it cost money to do. We were celebrating major milestones. And our celebration was also an act of worship. Paula called it a Pilgrimage. The bonus was that we stopped along the way to develop new ministry partnerships and see people we'd never get a chance to see if we weren't making the trip.

August is Paula's birthday month and September is our anniversary month and so we planned to go to Bend on a working vacation/celebration to see and connect with people for the Kingdom. After that trip was planned friends gave us an actual real-life vacation at Depoe Bay. It caught us both off guard and was probably the best vacation ever, and yet, even then we spent our mornings reading, planning, and writing together before going to play in the afternoons.

So you can't imagine my disappointment when Paula told me that someone said to another of her friends,"It seems like all they do is vacation."

I teach, metaphorically, that there are three legs of the stool upon which I rest. One of those legs is that "what other people think of me is none of my business." I believe that wholeheartedly and I am also aware that this person's hurtful statement will lead us to make some changes, not to how we live, but how we portray the way we live.

The second leg of the stool is  "If you spot it you got it." The person thinking we're always on vacation has his/her own insecurities in regard to our actions. Regardless, we live in a world where perception matters. And as supported missionaries, we need to make sure that we are not harming our ability to develop kingdom partnerships with people who are called to support Kingdom work financially.

Unlike my parents, we can't post pictures of the people with whom we meet or even tell the stories of the lives that are changing when we meet with them. It isn't appropriate or ethical in our line of work. Those stories aren't "Facebookable." I thought the beauty we've chased along the way was, but that is apparently not so. APparently we need to limit that to a very few close friends. That is a sad reality we are going to have to face. I think you can expect some further changes to our Facebook feeds as we move forward. It might be that we need to cancel them altogether, creating other ways to communicate with our friends around the world. We'll see. We have some talking to do. 

Please feel free to chime in on this topic either in the comments below the blog or the Facebook post, or in a personal message on FB, or even in an email to Paula or me. On quite another note, I am sure that this is the reason that Allender doesn't use Facebook.

By the way. Here is the link that Paula's friend was sharing with Paula's other friend. It was this link that led to the discussion that has led to this post: