Do The Right Thing

That phrase is certainly part of popular culture now. It's even being used as a marketing slogan! (for non-profits, but, still..)

Do the right thing. Yeah. But.. easier said than done, huh?

I suppose it depends on what doing the right thing costs you. If it's "rounding up for charity" at the grocery store, or telling the clerk when he under-charged you, or trying to be a little more environmentally conscious by consuming less, it's not all that hard to do the right thing.

But what about when doing the right thing actually causes you pain? Most people are pain-averse, whether it's physical, financial, or emotional pain. We avoid it, and often take the easy way out, even when we know full well what the right thing is to do.

The western swing group, Riders In The Sky, puts it this way in their concerts: "Well you know what they say, Ranger Doug: you *could* do it the eeeeasy way.. (and here the audience all joins in) but that wouldn't be - The Cowboy Way." Durn-tootin' it wouldn't, Ranger!

We try so hard to avoid pain, that we'll continue on living with a situation in our life that we *know* we should change, for our own good and the good of those around us, because we don't want the pain that will come with change. Sometimes what it takes is the unexpected (and sometimes harsh) circumstances of life forcing you toward it - toward change that you already know you need to make.

Suppose the right thing to do is stop using a substance (could be as innocent as sugar.. or something more lethal) that your body's become accustomed to. It will go into withdrawals, and it will be painful if you stop "using." But you have the motivation on the other side of a healthier body, and feeling better in the long run. So you tough it out for the reward.

Suppose the right thing to do is to give significantly to charity, especially one that is personally meaningful to you or someone in your family. You know, put your money where your convictions are. But that will mean giving up things you've become accustomed to.

You could say the same about getting out of significant debt. You will have to give up, do without, spend less, maybe work more, and suffer some. But on the other side is changed lives (in the case of charity), or financial health and freedom (in the case of debt reduction.) You have something to look forward to on the other side, so you suck it up and tough it out.

Suppose the right thing to do is give up something that you have become emotionally attached to... but you shouldn't be, anymore, and you know it? What it is doesn't matter, really. Could be a person, way of life, belief system, habit, thought pattern, self-assessment, source of affirmation, whatever. You just know that you have to let go, and you don't want to. You know you will cry. You will hurt inside, you will feel adrift, lost without it.

You may feel that a great measure of the joy has left your life, and where to find it now? You may grieve, be depressed, downhearted.. they used to call it "the blues", I guess. Sure were a lot of songs written about it back in the day. But on the other side is.. is... is.... what? What's the reward waiting for you, the incentive to tough it out, go through all the pain?

If there's a moral component to it (and I suppose it could be said that all of these examples have that).. you have the incentive of a cleaner conscience, or a truer heart, on the other side. Or perhaps being more available, emotionally, for people who need you. I guess that would help as a motivation. It's less tangible than better health, financial freedom, or changed lives. But it should help.

And I guess it does. A little.

There's a Michael Card song I've sung as a solo in church many times since it first came out 20 years ago. I used to believe it was true. It'd be nice if I could believe that again someday.

Right now all I can say is - there's some hope of it.. if I can ever see past the pain to the pattern of reality behind it. After the pain stops being front and center, and I stop focusing on it.. maybe then, like one of those 3-D Magic Eye pictures, I'll see the pattern of joy emerge as I move through the pain toward the joy that lies beyond it. And then maybe I can sing this again, and mean it:

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

And all those who seek it shall find it
A pardon for all who believe
Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who've been born in the Spirit
And who share incarnation with Him
Who belong to eternity stranded in time
And weary of struggling with sin

Forget not the hope that's before you
And never stop counting the cost
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

And freedom for those who obey...

Chargin' through the countryside..

..well, not charging all that hard, really. I sort of poked along most of the time on this little driving vacation.

After a tour of the Spam Museum (highly educational in a creepy sort of way - I mean, it makes you picture all that gelatin surrounding the meat..) in Austin on Saturday, Sunday was spent going from Albert Lea to St. Cloud, after an all-you-can-eat Sunday breakfast buffet with all the locals up there at the Happy Chef in Owatonna. You know the place. Marva Jean had my table, and eventually brought the obligatory thermos of coffee, and a bowl full of them little creamers. A-yuh. Sweet! (um.. the buffet, I mean, not Marva Jean. She was a little cranky.)

The farmers were out in the fields en masse chopping corn this weekend. Lovely mid 50's weather for it, too. And the size of those harvesting rigs! Hokey Pete! Every 50 miles or so, I'd come upon one tooling down the mostly double-yellow-center-line asphalt, taking up 1 and a half of the available 2 lanes. Putt, putt, putt.. can you go any slower? Soon as I got the dotted yellow, though (or maybe even a little before then), I'm out on the opposite shoulder, kickin' up a little gravel, varooommm! Ah, the open road..

Got quite a few looks this weekend while pumping gas into the black Charger out in rural America. I'm pretty sure it was the car. I doubt it was anything else. Although the new $17 jeans I got from Farm & Fleet do have a certain country-fresh cachet about them. That, plus a fresh haircut and a tight olive t-shirt..... naaaahh. It was definitely the car. :)

Although slow as can be, it a was nice weekend. I had plenty of things to think about. Parts of the weekend have been absolutely lovely. Parts have been awfully hard. But on balance.. definitely time well spent. :) And I find myself both looking back.. and looking forward.

It is a lot like driving, I guess. You're always checking the mirrors (where you've been) and remembering who's behind you, but you're always looking out the windshield (where you're going) and thinking about what's up ahead.

I expect that after about 24 hours of quiet at St. John's Abbey (retreat center) I'll come home from this weekend drained, but refreshed, and maybe.. a little different man. That would be nice, too.

A few days off

Well, after unloading all that in the last post..

I think it's time for a rest. For the readers as well as the blogger. ;)

I'm taking a long weekend to go for a 4-day driving vacation, have some windshield time, some prayer, some time to think through a few things. Important things.

Talk to you all Tuesday at the latest. :)

Passionless Certainty

Probably better to start a new post than try to finish the prior one. :) So consider this to be "Faith Crisis? (part 2)"

But before I pick up where I left off.. let me rave just a moment about dinner. Tilapia fillets in a lime and basil marinade, pan-fried in olive oil. Ooo, yummmmy! The marinade wasn't too bad with some sugar snap peas for a vegetable, either. Fish is really remarkably easy.

And! J1 called from California where she has been applying for (and not getting) jobs for two months, with the news that she is starting a new job on Friday! Yay! :) A medical assistant to a neurosurgeon. Huh? Not in the operating room, strictly in his office, but may help with removing sutures and such. Will wear scrubs, even. Apparently the surgeon and his wife are cultured people and liked her art history degree. Go figure..



Okay, so where was I? Something about cognitive dissonance..

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Ok, so I think I know why my Calvinistic theology was clashing with my recent (last 7 years or so) life experience. As I said, it has to do with risk, uncertainty and passionate engagement.

How?

Well.. hang on..

The way I think of it is like this: the whole direction of modernism since the Enlightenment has been toward certainty of knowledge, and a narrowing of what can be considered knowledge, based on how verifiable it is. The more scientifically provable, the better. And that concept over time has ruled out more and more areas of life as knowledge, such as the arts, literature, human emotions, and .. faith. Anything not verifiable didn't count as knowledge. If there was uncertainty about something.. it couldn't be trusted as true. Subjectivity was seen as something negative - objectivity was king.

But the problem with this is that all learning has subjectivity to it. All people process things subjectively. All of living contains some measure of subjectivity. We are not part of the Borg collective, all with a common mind. We are individuals who each bring our own unique perspective to learning. Plus, even in science there is great need for intuition, inventiveness, imagination (all of which are subjective), otherwise new discoveries don't get made!

What certainty does is eliminate risk. It eliminates the risk, in particular, of being wrong about what we know to be true. And yet, even the most secure science (such as Newtonian physics) is eventually shown to be partly in error, or rather .. incomplete.

Einstein used his vivid imagination to picture a person traveling on a beam of light, and in that flash of insight he understood that time is relative, that the universe doesn't have "a" clock ticking uniformly throughout. It has many clocks ticking, all of which are on "local" time, and all of which run at different rates. Astronomers later verified his theories about the curvature of light by gravity, and thus the relativity of time.

But before it was confirmed, he *imagined* it to be true. True enough to stake his reputation on it. That is *not* certainty.. but it *is* confidence - confidence in the validity (if not yet the actual verification) of his ideas.

Whenever we take a risk, a risk that, if we are wrong, could either expose us to bodily harm, financial loss, or ridicule.. we are NOT dispassionate about it. We are nervous, agitated even. Risk brings passion to the forefront! It's like "laying out for a Frisbee", in a way. It's curling away from you, you're not sure you can reach it, but you surely will not if you don't dive for it.

If you risk "going horizontal", you might have a chance to snag it. But you could miss it altogether, look foolish, land wrong and hurt yourself besides. But you try! You take an on-the-spot calculated risk, based on what you *know* about your speed, agility, the direction of the frisbee, the wind conditions, and... who's watching you! :)

But how do you "know" these factors? With certainty? No.. But with some measure of confidence! Enough to take the risk and go for it. That is knowledge with the uncertainty left in. And that also leaves in the passion!

The problem with modernism is that in its quest for certainty, it drove out passion. It also marginalized as untrustworthy almost all of life and how we know most things - by making subjective value judgements based on observation and intuition.

Now to my main point. Finally. ;)

As I have come to view Protestantism, and particularly Calvinism, it seems that it has cooperated with the Enlightenment and modernism in how it prizes certainty and devalues mystery.

Calvinism neatly categorizes people according to God's unconditional election of them, and through His irresistable grace (points U and I of the T-U-L-I-P acronym) assures us that their eternal destiny will come about no matter what.

So.. it lets us off the hook, really, as to evangelism. Heart for the lost? Who me? What for? There are no "lost" that God will not save (if they are among the elect) through whatever means necessary, whether I play along or not. The introvert can stay in his cave.

Also, because of Calvin's notion of the total depravity of man and the preservation of the saints (T and P), it matters little what I do as to effectively righteous living because I can neither earn my way into God's favor, nor can my bad behavior cost me my salvation, so.. who cares what I do, really? If I get into heaven by my fingernails.. at least I'm in. Can't take that away from me. Restrain my behavior? What for? My salvation is certain - there's no risk.

And don't even get me started on the limited atonement.. (L, if you're keeping score.)

Suffice to say that there is a lot of certainty in Calvinism, and also.. very little passion for godly living in community left in it, either. There's little appreciation for mystery, and little tolerance for struggle and doubt. It's part of why expressing doubt and honestly admitting to struggle is not looked upon happily in churches with a strong Calvinist tradition.

So.. my faith crisis, I think, has not so much been with God and who He is, but with a theological system that has (at least in my personal application of it) drained the life from my living. So where have I found my passion, my zest for life? Well, I haven't had much of it lately, but what I've had of it has NOT been in the things of God.

And that's because of how I have been looking at the things of God for the last 25+ years, because of the spiritual screen through which I've seen life. And now my life experiences simply won't let me get away with hiding behind that screen any longer.

It isn't God that I doubt. I simply think I've known Him in a way that is too limiting, and devoid of risk. And with absolute certainty.. there is no passion. There is no faith.

Uncertainty requires faith to act. It requires confidence in what you *know* (yes, even subjectively) to be true. And now the famous quote from Hebrews 11:1 (NASB and ASV used here) about faith is making more sense: "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen."

Assurance and conviction, yes. Certainty? No.

Faith Crisis?

What faith crisis? :)

I think I got some perspective on it over the course of the last week, both from this textbook on "knowing" that we just finished, and the class lecture and discussion last night in TS501.

Really, I don't think it's so much a wavering of faith as it is a doubting of my theological framework - the grid through which I have been seeing God, me, others for the last 25+ years - the structure of my belief system.

Since late 1999, the neat and tidy system of theology that old Mr. Calvin left behind him as his legacy some 400+ years ago has been failing to contain within it my real-life experience (and the life experiences of others I know) in a satisfactory way. I believe the term is "cognitive dissonance" (when what I hold to be true doesn't square with reality.)

What Calvinism said about God and His relationship to the world, when compared to certain life situations I encountered, seemed either inadequate to explain them, or the explanation didn't line up with what I know to be true about God. I know that's murky, but.. unless you want me to lie on your couch for a couple of weeks to talk it all through.. it'll have to do.

And I think, after last night, I kind of get why.

It has to do with risk, uncertainty and passionate engagement. More later as I have time.. right now, I need to work!

Acting out

The subject of the week this week in TS501 is.. epistemology: the study of knowing. How do we know what we know? And what, if anything, can we know?

"The traditional model of knowledge that we have inherited from the Greeks, that extends through millenia down to us, typically divorces knowing from doing. It is possible to think about something in abstraction from acting on it. While there are times in our experience when it is useful to make this distinction, the distinction has the adverse effect of leading us to think of action as mindless and mind as actionless. Knowledge, we are led to say, is to be had even if it does not shape our behavior."

"On the other hand, ... someone can show you that he or she cares about you by sending you flowers, inviting you into his or her home, silently stroking your shoulder as you cry."

"Knowing is, at its heart, an act. To act is to live, [to] embody, knowledge. The act of knowing is a profoundly human one. And it is a struggle toward coherence."

----- Esther Meek, Longing to Know



The subject of the week in church yesterday was the "love test" in 1 John 2:7-11. The gist of it is.. how do we know love? By what it says and does. And it's not just John, the apostle of love - Jesus taught the same thing (as did James in his letter.) Our words and actions reveal what's in our hearts. It seemed to tie in with the "knowing" idea for TS501 somehow.. to know something is to experience it: act it, embody it, live it, as Meek says.

We can say that we *know* someone loves us. But if they don't act on that love, don't express it to us in ways we can perceive with our senses, doesn't thinking about unexpressed love in our heads also call for that love to *show* itself, to demonstrate its existence in reality? Don't we long to *feel* it from them, as well as *know* it exists? As humans, we are not a walking dichotomy of feeling and reason, as if the right and left sides of our brains had an impenetrable wall between them - we are an integrated whole.

If I love someone, and don't tell them so with my words, show them so by my actions.. am I not divorcing feeling from reason, thought from action, denying my basic humanness, and essentially dis-integrating the wholeness of the love I have for them? What good is the knowledge of love without the experience of it? If I am human, I also *experience* that which I know, or.. I may not really *know* it at all, according to Meek.

Does God love us this way? Not just thinking about it, but acting on it? It seems that He's told us He loves us with His words.. and shown it by His actions. It's what's embodied in the liturgy: hearing His Word, remembering His Action.

And so.. how do we love God? "...with all your heart and soul and mind and strength." Like that? With the whole of ourselves, not just with an unlived concept in our heads? Is what He wants of us?

"...and your neighbor as yourself..." Is that also to be done with our heart and soul and mind and strength? Not just thinking about it, but acting on it?

I guess these are rhetorical questions; I hope the answers are obvious.
(to me as well as to everyone else.. I know I need reminding of this.)



And so if I ask you: "do you really love me?", you may say "yes!", but how will I *know* that your 'yes' is true?

(pause here for obvious answer..)



Somehow I can hear Jesus asking this of Peter, while taking steps to reconcile with him after all that happened: Peter's trust-breaking lies, the crucifixion, the resurrection:

"Simon, do you love me?"
... Lord, you know I do.
"Feed my sheep."

(repeat as needed, until Peter gets it.. and sees the painful irony)



I think God is saying: intellectual assent is not enough. If you think it, then act on it. Put legs and arms and hands and lips on your beliefs. Show what you believe, what you think is true, with your words and your actions, even if it costs you. Costs you in your checkbook, your calendar, your freedom.. and your heart. It's what Jesus taught, and how he lived.

That combination of thought and action represents whole, healthy humanness, *and* it's the way God made us: to think.. and act out what we think. He set the pattern, showed us how.



(note to self: you would do well to take this to heart more often.)

50 is the new 30?

Oh, I don't know...

That is what they're saying now (along with brown is the new black.) Maybe they say it because the people who are in charge of advertising agencies are 50ish and they want to feel better about themselves. ;)

But this morning, I actually believe it. Sort of.

Slept in until I woke naturally this morning, showered, shaved, had my coffee.. felt good all over, and the morning had dawned crisp and clear and cool after a week of rain.. so I thought "Go on! Try it! Maybe today!"

After the first half mile, no twinges in my knee. So far so good. After the second half mile, legs feel light, feet aren't like lead. So far so good. At 1.50 I found myself at the top of a little rise and actually forgot I had just gone up an incline. No sweat trickled into the eyebrow until 1.8, and I rounded for home knowing I had crossed what for me is a magic barrier, and still felt like I should keep going. :)

But I stopped at 2.08 miles and checked my time.. the same pace as I run for one mile. Wow. Never, ever have I done this.

At 30 I couldn't have run two miles straight if my life depended on it, much less do it at a "good" pace (according to Dr. Cooper's book.) Yeah, Fat Boy weighed less then, but had very little muscle tone and was so out of shape.. I feel so much better now.

Maybe there's something to this advertising slogan. When you're 30, you are supposed to have sort of an existential crisis at leaving your "youth" behind. Gee, that sounds freshly familiar, too.

Except that I'm not concerned about becoming part of the mistrusted "establishment" now, like you supposedly do at 30.. I'm actually working the first year of a 4 year plan to leave the establishment. :)

From whence love stems

While online today, I saw this quote, and thought it to be true.



"Love which stems from created things is like a small lamp whose light is sustained by being fed with olive-oil. Again, it is like a river fed by rainfall; once the supply that feeds it fails, the surge of its flow abates. But love whose cause is God is like a spring welling up from the depths. Its flow never abates, for God alone is that spring of love whose supply never fails."


----- St. Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh), 7th century



I think for we who are creatures, we must tend and feed the love we have for others, or it will fade to something less than it was. But if the love we have for others is grounded in, undergirded by, the love of God.. then He supplies what's needed to sustain it.

Nice thought to take into the weekend. :)

Stinking insurance companies..

I know, I know, I've worked for them all my adult life.

But there are times when they really deserve the lousy reputation they've got. And in part, it's why I want out. At least I want out of the ones who are in it only for making a solid return on equity (ROE), which is.. all of them now, I guess. :(

When I started the process of seeing a counselor, I checked with the insurance plan to see who was eligible. Dr. Shrink-wrap was on the list. So I go to him, spill my guts, start down a path of identifying and working on key issues, and.. what do you know? There's no coverage!

Apparently the insurer told my clinic some completely wrong information about Dr. S-w's eligibility as a provider. The clinic and I were both going forward in good faith, thinking it was all set. Nope. Ooops, gee we're sorry.

So now I either have to start completely over with another provider in a different clinic - yuk - or change insurance plans to one that this guy's qualified through, but is more expenseive and more restrictive in the number of visits, or... go uninsured at a discounted rate of half the normal one per session, but still 4x what my co-pay is.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.. so no appointments on the calendar now for a while until I sort this out.

But he did say that I was thinking about things properly, and heading in a good direction. He also said, though, that, as I change my patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, and at the same time contine to deal with losses of all sorts, both fresh and long-standing, it will feel like I'm "white-knuckling" it for a while. I should expect it will feel like "going through withdrawals" until my patterns really change for good, and I get some distance from the old ones. :(

Gee, I feel better already.



Shifting gears a bit..

At RCIA classes last night, we began three weeks on the sacraments. Hoo boy, there is a lot going on in these. Sooooo many questions! So this may be a bit of a sticky wicket here. Oh, that darned John Calvin! His theological framework was just too appealing, too neat and tidy and consistent and.. parsimonious! ;) (Read parsimonious as: "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one.")

It's not easy to lay aside all I've understood as right for so many years. But as my "author of the week" in TS501 says (Esther Meek, "Longing to Know"): "..the circumstances of our lives at times force us into the cellar, so to speak, to examine the foundations of our beliefs."

Hmmm... it's kinda dark down here in the cellar of my foundational beliefs.. where's my flashlight? This feels kinda scary... gee, maybe I should've tied a rope around one ankle before I came down the stairs, just in case I...

woah, what was that?!?!?

Felt like a liberal thought brushing my cheek. Must be a spider web..

Postmodern Protestants

"Postmodernity is Modernity with a broken heart."

Fun class last night. :) It started pretty slow, but then the prof had just come back from his honeymoon, and honestly he looked a bit worn out. I made that remark under my breath to my seatmates, and the girls on either side of me giggled & said in a knowing voice "yeah, but I'll bet it's a good kind of tired." Mmhmm.

Interesting dynamic in the class - most of the students are married (those two included.) I wonder if this is normal for grad school in general or just Seminary in particular?

Anyway, it was good to listen to some lecture and discussion rather than read. After 135 pages this week of the most tedious writing and arcane language I can recall in a while, it was time to just hear someone talk about the topic. I mean.. this is a sample paragraph from the text:

"Here we reach the particula veri of the notion of verbal inspiration. Because verbal inspiration was routinely misconstrued (sometimes by its defenders and nearly always by its detractors) as entailing divine dictation, the notion of inspiration has been 'personalized' or 'deverbalised' and redefined as authorial illumination. This distancing of inspiration from the verbal character of the text is considered to ease the difficulties of offering an account of inspiration by thinking of the words of the text as a purely human arena of activity, whether of authors, redactors, or tradents. But the result is, again, docetic."

Arghh. Makes me want to have this guy over for dinner and discuss the subject over some meatloaf and mixed vegetables, to see if he really talks like this in person. I can't imagine this being anything but a persona laid on to relate to other academics. Ick.

So, we talked about the doctrine of Scripture last night: inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, authority, etc., and the interaction between divine agency and human agency in the writing of, and attesting to, Scripture. Fascinating. To me anyway.

And eventually, we got around to talking about interpretation (hermeneutics) and how the twin Reformation emphases on sola scriptura and "the priesthood of all believers" in northern Europe, served to cooperate with the Enlightenment in southern Europe, to essentially sever all ties with the past and repudiate the traditions of the Church.

I asked: "Well, okay. The Church guided our interpretation of Scripture for centuries, and then the Reformation knocked the legs out from under that. Since then, it's been 'every man for himself' when it comes to interpretation, and the Protestant church has fractured into uncounted pieces as a result. Like this is better?"

"So is there any recognition of this among Evangelicals, and is there any attempt underway to sort of 'herd the sheep back into the pen' and come to some agreement on interpretation that can put at least some of this missing guidance of the Church back in place?"

He said, yup, there is. In the last few years, Protestant theologians have realized what they are missing by being disconnected from the centuries of believers that have gone before us, and the great insights that formed the creeds and liturgy and ministry of the Catholic Church. The Reformers focused so much on the excesses of the 16th century Church that they threw out all the good things that a consistent faith tradition brings to the individual Christian.

Then he went in a fascinating direction. He said that it's much like what is being realized in our culture today. Post-modernism is starting to long for a connection to the past, an appreciation of traditions. He put it like this: "Postmodernity is the ultimate result of modernity's despair at its rootlessness, with angst laid on top." The angst comes from the perceived relativity of truth ever since Einstein upset Newtonian physics - no anchor, no roots, no stake in the ground.

And even the advances in science since the 1500s, which seemed to portend an upward trajectory for mankind (evolving to something better and better, if you will) and reinforce the idea of mankind's essential goodness... even all this positivity has been shown to be false hope as progress resulted in the design and use of more and more horrific means of destruction and death.

Man is not getting better. The Enlightenment has crashed and burned. And what it has reaped in postmodernity is.. despair. Modernity with a broken heart. And no "family", no home to go back to, since the Enlightenment and the Reformation burned those bridges - the chafing teenagers yelled at Mom and Dad and all their "rules", and stormed out of the house never to return. :( Now they realize, like the Prodigal, that maybe it's time to go home.

And I think, if they do, that to the Protestants the Catholic Church will be like the Dad in the story.. they'll welcome the Prodigal home. And for the Humanist children of the Enlightenment, the community of faith will welcome them home, too.

Live your way into the answers

Got the nicest letter from J1 last week, encouraging me in the new job despite its lack of altruistic appeal. :) She's always been a natural encourager. And, she has the ability to know, somehow, where my heart is, even though we haven't sat down and talked.

In it, she quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke, author of "Letters to a Young Poet", to wit:

"I beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the question now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

While I never heard this before today, at some subconscious level I think I first began to understand this idea of embracing the unresolved, about three years ago.

And you know what? Now for the first time, I actually feel like I've given myself permission to do this: have patience with the unresolved in my heart.. love the questions.. and live my way into the answers.

Anglicans & Catholics

Are not so far apart, I think.

Sunday we skipped the 60th anniversary festivities at Calvary (hard to relate to when you've been there a month) and went to Messiah Episcopal down in the Highland Park neighborhood. Smaller place, a bit newer than most Episcopal buildings I'm familiar with, but the same wooden stave ceiling that looks like the bottom of a ship.

Somebody told me once why they are all built that way, but I forget. Something about the church being like Noah's Ark?? Hm. Looks kinda funny when everything else around it is blond brick and glass, but... it's symbolic of something. I just can't remember what.

The service was constructed very much like the Mass - first the service of the Word and then the Holy Eucharist (and yes, they call it that.) Many of the prayers and the responses were the same. And because of the lectionary, the readings were the same as at Mass Saturday.

And they still do the Apostolic Succession thing with their college of Bishops, etc., and still hold to transubstantiation of the elements. Confession, Nicene creed, kneeling, sign of the cross, passing the peace.. it seemed pretty close.

The wine was a nasty sweet German white, though.. not good symbolism there, folks. I mean.. think Passover, people! Red wine, cut with water, served warm. And.. no dinner rolls for bread, please! The yeast!!

Must I go into the details of how Christ fulfills the feasts of Israel along with the prophecies? Liturgical servers: read St. Paul on Christ the Paschal Lamb, the Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth..

But oh, the music during communion! D cried, so did I. This song by Michael Perry contains it all, in just a few well-chosen words:

Heal me, hands of Jesus, and search out all my pain;
Restore my hope, remove my fear, and bring me peace again.

Cleanse me, blood of Jesus, take all bitterness away;
Let me forgive as one forgiven, and bring me peace today.

Know me, mind of Jesus, and show me all my sin;
Dispel the memories of guilt, and bring me peace within.

Fill me, joy of Jesus, anxiety shall cease,
and heaven's serenity be mine, for Jesus brings me peace.

Prayers for the Seasons - Creation

This is the last of the prefaces. Thanks, Fr. Joe Dolan, for writing..

Preface of Creation

Loving God,
You have given us the abundant earth to be our home,
and from your hand has come
the fields that yield the harvest,
the gardens and waters that feed and delight us,
the vineyards and the mountains,
the valleys, plains and meadows.

All that lives is your gift of life,
all that grows is part of your creation,
and all that delights us in the rainbow and the rose
is part of your eternal beauty.

For the miracle of life,
and for sending us Jesus to teach us how to live,
we give you thanks,
and join the angels and saints
in their unending song of praise...

Prayers for the Seasons - Everyday

Preface for Everyday

We give you thanks, Lord,
that you have sent Jesus among us
and he became the reason for our hope.

You have called us to be children of the light,
no longer to walk in darkness,
not even to fear the night of death.

You call us to live by your commandment of love,
to recognize our neighbor as part of ourselves,
to see all things and all people
as part of your creation
and the earth itself as the home of your children.

For this we give thanks and pledge our faithful love
as we join the angels and saints
in their unending song of praise...

Prayers for the Seasons - Summer

Preface for Summer

We give you thanks, O Lord, for summer days,
for waterfalls and waves
that beat on lazy shores,
for the fruit of spring's blossom
and gardens of delight.

We give you thanks for murmuring sound
and brilliant wing,
for all your carnival of living things,
birds, butterflies, and honeybees,
that cannot keep the secret of your art
but wear it in trees
and dandelions and green carpets on the valleys.

We thank you now for laughter and for rest,
for animals and fish and time to play,
for friends and love's embrace.
And for the hope that endless summer
is a hint of our eternal joys.

Lord of our happiness and sorrow's end,
we give you laughter and our praise,
as we join the angels and saints to sing...

Prayers for the Seasons - Spring

Preface for Spring

We give you thanks, O Lord, for times and seasons,
for wheat that grows through winter snow
and now for spring and the promise
that life has many colors
and stirs within the womb.

We give you thanks for greening fields
and warming sun
for winds that move the rainful clouds,
for all the flowering land
the budding tree
and seeds that break the tomb.

The brook runs free, the clod is broken,
and hope is sudden, like the swallow's flight.
Our sleep is deep, O Lord, as vast as death,
and waits the quickening of your word.

We give you thanks for Him
whose newest birth we celebrate in spring
so all may know that beauty is not counterfeit
and earth has yielded up her dead.

Lord of color, Lord of all living things,
we are your glory, and we give you praise
with all your angels and saints as we sing...

Prayers for the Seasons - Winter

Part 2 of the series.

Preface for Winter

We give you thanks, O Lord, for times and seasons
and now for wintry nights
when stars shine coldly bright
and dust is turned to diamond underfoot.

For wintry days
when trees are stronger than the icy death
and hold in blackened limbs
the promise of the resurrection.

For opposites be praised: for heat and cold,
for stillness and the snow
that sculptures every house and tree, and falls
like some great absolution
to heal the wounded earth.

We give you thanks for Him
whose birth we celebrate in winter
so all may know, may wildly know,
that love is stronger than the coldest flesh
and mercy blankets all the land
more surely than the snow.

We give you thanks for him
who makes more than children joyful
and does not cheat our laughter in the end.

Joyous Lord,
beyond imagining but not beyond desire,
we give you glory and our song of praise...

I like the line about the trees holding within themselves the promise of the resurrection. :) What powerful imagery - blackened limbs stronger than icy death; as I move toward winter in my own life.. something to remember.

And yet.. not just yet. Yesterday night I'm at Caribou, reading a textbook from TS501, the place full of 20-somethings with laptops and backpacks studying this or that, and as I get my refill-to-go, the talk at the counter among young customers and staff turns to the groundbreaking "free" (w/ optional donation) online album download from Radiohead.

They wondered out loud what the name of the album was.. I filled them in. They asked what I paid.. I told them. Approving nods. :) Said I hoped it was better than OK Computer, and that Radiodread, the reggae tribute version to it, was actually an improvement over the original. With mouths (complete with lip rings) hanging open, they stood speechless and watched the old guy walk out..

And 6 tracks into it this morning, so far it is better. A lot better. :) Guess it's not quite wintertime for me yet. ;)

They did get 2" in Bemidji yesterday (!) but that's Bemidji for you. As for me, I won't have to really face what winter has in store for me for oh.. about another 3 weeks or so. :( And in the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish listening to Radiohead's latest.

Prayers for the Seasons - Fall

Here is the first of these beautiful Preface Prayers, written by Fr. Joe Dolan, that I mentioned two posts ago. Makes me want to meet the guy. :) I also can't help but relate them to the seasons of life that we as people go through as we grow and age. He makes the autumn of my years sound lovely. :) I need to see them as more like this, rich and full, and less as a harbinger of winter and old age..

Preface for Fall

For autumn and the leaves of death
we give you thanks, O Lord, and seek to praise
that northern lands can be a glory,
and men and women can find rest from empty fields
and spilling barns.

We thank you for abundant days,
For all the richer life your Son has promised,
more than eye, taste, and even autumn can provide.

And present things: books, faces, friends' return,
the fire's dance, the shouts of play,
the scarlet maple and the distant hills.

Your gift is like a wine,
pressed down and running over,
good measure for Autumn days!

We give you thanks for banquets and for bread,
but more, that You are the One that saves
the very leaf that falls
and seeks communion with the earth.

And we are never dead,
although we sleep and winter will return.

Gather us, O Lord of the Harvest.
We are the children of your love.
We are your glory, and we give you praise
with all your angels and saints as we sing...

And at this point the musical liturgy kicks in again with the priest singing the Sanctus: "Holy, holy, holy Lord ... " or however it goes. I don't have it memorized yet. :)

Hello, India?

So at 6:50AM this morning I'm sitting in my underwear at my desk (try not to picture this!), swilling my second cup of coffee, pulling on my headset, adjusting the microphone arm, logging in to the company network, pulling up the internal IM program to ask the meeting moderator what the dial-in number is today... and...

presto! Some guy in New Delhi or wherever is on the line and sharing his screen. Weird. Kind of gave me the creeps.

I mean this is soooooo technologically advanced from when I saw my first computer printout on paper with green and white bars chunked out from a tractor-fed dot matrix printer running on a Univac mainframe (all before the internet and wireless were invented), that I thought for a minute I was inside a Philip K. Dick short-story-turned-movie. Blue pill or red pill, Bob?

I haven't mastered the accents yet, either. The India dude was pretty faint in the headphones, but if I muted myself I could hear. Hmmm.. maybe it was because I had a fan running in the background, since it's still about 100 degrees in this darn house! Luckily the furnace people come today and I can get the A/C back on this afternoon, and cool it off & dry it out in here.

So whatever it was he said, I caught about half of it. Maybe I can work with him by email instead. I'm sure there's no accent in his typing. ;) And how peculiar the time zone difference. It was 7AM here, and 5:30PM there. Five *thirty*! What's up with that? Half a time zone? How does that happen?

Ooh! Ooh! He just answered my email. And yay! No accent! ;) Plus, he works noon to 8PM their time, so thats.. um.. gosh this is awkward.. um.. 10:30PM to 6:30AM my time. No, wait.. uhh.. it's.. 1:30AM to 9:30AM my time. Yeah. That's it. Oh, that's better. :) I don't have to have 7AM calls with him. Whew.

So week four begins with a lurching cough and a sputter. Two of the first three weeks were not spent at home. But no travel plans on the horizon now, except for a little vacation. :) Not that I've worked hard enough to need it, yet, but.. I get 5 days for the rest of this year, and.. I'm taking it! :)

Money and Seasonality

Money, money, money.

At church this morning a guy from the elder board came into adult SS class with architectural drawings for the next in what seems to be an unending string of building projects. I mean, they are still reporting in the bulletin the progress against the notes they sold on the last one!

I have sat through more presentations on building projects than I care to remember, and am so glad that I can go to Mass on Saturdays where this subject doesn't seem to come up - ever. Not to mention that they seem to toss around so blithely numbers like $500,000 to $2,000,000 for this or that addition to a facility.. ugh. How far could that money go in Ethiopia? Sudan? South Central LA? The Bronx? Or a little closer to home - Frogtown?

And to top it off, the sermon this morning was on 1 John 3, talking about how, if we claim to follow Christ, we must walk as Jesus walked. I seem to recall Him saying "foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head." And in the bulletin, apparently the shelves in the community food pantry are still running low and need our contributions..

Building projects. Yuk.

I know, I know, there is seasonality to life - cycles of acquisition, consolidation, elimination. I've been through all of those personally several times. I just so rarely see the church in a cycle of elimination. We just add and add and add, never subtract. And it seems to be a problem particularly in the Evangelical church, which (implicitly or explicitly) follows the model of business which says "grow or die."

In business, growth is equated with success. The Evangelical community is obsessed with growth as a measure of success, and to accomodate and effectuate that growth, we must have larger and more ministry-effective campuses. Bigger barns to store all the souls we save (as if they were ours to house.)

Just once I'd like to see a church adopt a model of the boutique winery. Small batches, but exquisite results. Why not?

Speaking of seasonality.. the priest at St. Rose's prays something remarkably beautiful after consecrating the host. It's a lengthy prayer that focuses on the season of the year we're in. I heard him pray this Summer-y thing every week and thought it was part of the liturgy, until the Autumnal Equinox when he switched it to a Fall version.

So finally I asked him about it yesterday. Turns out they are something called Prefaces, whatever that means. Some guy, a Father Dolan or something (Hmm... Timothy?) wrote them. The priest said "email me, I have them in a Word file, I'll send them to you." So I did. When I get them, I'll post them here.

That's the kind of seasonality I can celebrate. You'll see. :)

20 degrees above normal

Just before I left for KC, the furnace fan went out, and no air can circulate in the house, hot or cold. The home warranty policy covers it, though, and the repair people are were set to come on Monday while I was gone.

Yep, that's the problem, all right, fan blew, but we have to order the part. A couple days. Sure.. no problem, D says. I mean.. it's early Fall. Temps are neither too hot or too cold, right? And besides.. ha! I'm gone and in an airconditioned office and hotel. Riiiiiight.

The hotel room never gets below 70 no matter what I do, so I get maintenance to bring up a fan and have it going all night. The office is worse. 74 at least and no air movement. I run to Target and buy a cool (as in hip) little fan that plugs into my laptop's USB port - works great, but.. makes a lot of noise. :( I feel bad for the people in neighboring cubicles, so rarely use it. Drip, drip, drip.

Now I get home and .. no furnace fan. Monday after 1. Fine, fine. Except that this weekend happens to be a record breaking heat wave. Arghhh! :(

Still, last night it didn't matter. I crashed anyway.

Nice to be home, heat and all.

39 Hours..

..and I'll be home.

I can do this. The week is winding down. Only two more days in cubicle-ville and this rat can exit the maze.

My cheese is waiting.. up north.

Drinking the Company Kool-aid

So yesterday 35 of my closest new corporate friends and I spent all day in a meeting room listening to talking heads (of businesses, that is - some in person and some by video) explain their vision and strategies, and listening to their underlings drone on and on about their accomplishments by reading from mind-numbing powerpoint slides. And ooh, just think – more today!

All day long we heard about initiatives, initiatives, initiatives, ad nauseum (and oh yes.. why don’t initiatives ever become conclusives?) Then we saw the latest in corporate direction reduced to logos and diagrams rich with embedded meaning.

I felt like I should open up the “random corporate buzzword generator” spreadsheet that I invented a few business cycles ago. Just open it up and hit ‘enter’ to get the buzzwords of the day, like “quantifying effective strategies”, or “initiating meaningful incentives”, or my favorite.. “right-sizing inspirational reorganizations.”

Well, for once in my life I didn’t drink all the Corporate Kool-Aid they served. I sipped one serving all day long, in between many many cups of strong coffee, and was able to even have a bit left in my glass at the end of the day.

They are not going to get my heart this time, no matter how winsome they are. This time I'm going to remember - they will never love me!

So I felt refreshingly detached from the rah-rah mumbo-jumbo (which I have so earnestly delivered myself more times than I care to admit), and was able to focus more on connecting with the people around me. That was a nice change.

And.. about a third of them were teleworkers! Even met a Sales Director from South St. Paul. Wow.. I didn’t feel so out of place.

Of course, there was a little “getting to know you” exercise. We submitted pictures of things in our office environment. Mine were 1) my full-sized shofar & miniature ark of the covenant, 2) the red alstromerias I had in a bud vase on my desk, and 3) the small bronze of Rodin’s “The Kiss” that’s on my bookshelf. We were supposed to guess whose office it was by the pictures. They were more than a bit surprised that the owner of these things was the new actuary, who also happened to wear a bright blue & green shirt with an electric green tie today. Nothing like making a statement as the new guy! :)

And speaking of making statements…

After the group had dinner and drinks last night (good martinis!), there was a “team-building exercise.” O joy! O rapture! They broke us into teams of 6, and told us to put on a skit, complete with designated topic, creative costume materials, singing requirements, advertising jingles, and man-on-the-street interviews.

I was at my wit’s end… not! ;)

They did give us some props. Without going into details, let’s just say that our skit revolved around a glamorous celebrity, a fashion infomercial, real tattoos, tinfoil, balloons, pipe cleaners, a Manfred Mann song, serious gender confusion, hair removal products, and an extremely thick Swiss accent. By some twist of fate I got the lead role, and it would be safe to say that I made an entirely different impression on the group than earlier in the day. And really.. it’s probably better not to ask. :)

Fun as that was, playing for laughs again, I still really, really , REALLY don’t like being here in the “corporate environment.” Especially when they are soooo gung-ho about return on equity targets. Ugh. I wanna go home!!

There’s a lot to be said for going to work in a t-shirt and gym shorts… and not having to model a sports bra coated with reflective safety material..

Oh, that's me, all right

A couple of quotes from Sunday morning that struck home.

First:

There's a hole in my sidewalk, by Portia Nelson

******

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I was lost. I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in. I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it's not my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

I walk down a different street.

******

I know which stage(s) I've been in, and when, and which I'm in right now. Which are you in, dear reader?



The second quote is from Julie Gorman, in her book "A Community that is Christian":

******

Persons today hunger for intimacy. They long for someone to know and accept them as they are. They fear being known and judged. They want to be in a relationship where they can trust, where others will be committed to them when they are the least desirable. They long to be esteemed as individuals.

******

Yes. They do.

I do.