Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Reason Number Five

Two experiences radically change our perception of the world:  First: travel that takes us a long way outside normal routines;  second: learning a new language.  

Why? They expand our awareness of our interior lives and our habits.  That which is normally rote and routine suddenly becomes challenging, even scary. 

Adventurous travel means going from the known to the much less known, or even the unknown. It carries some element of danger and discomfort.  Luxury travel packages seek to lessen that discomfort by surrounding the traveler with as many buffers as possible and by eliminating much of the risk of different places and customs.  However, those disruptions and differences themselves actually mark the life of the successful traveler.  They give insight into our daily norms and help us question why we do what we do.

Learning a new language offers similar insight.  We must think about each word and phrase. Especially for adults seeking to speak in another tongue, nothing comes easily.  We must work exceptionally hard to hear others and to make ourselves understood.  But the very act of learning another language also opens the brain to very different ways of thinking and perceiving the world.

Yet, few of us really travel adventurously (trips to amusement parks, even with multiple children in two, cannot be classified as "adventurous" travel), and even fewer of us here seek fluency in a language not our own. Most of us prefer the familiar.  It takes less energy to stick with what we know.

All this brings me to Excuse Number Five for avoiding times of gathered worship:  "I don't know the songs or the liturgy or the Scriptures or the customs."  Frankly, going into an unfamiliar worship experience can be much like landing in a foreign country where we don't have a clue has to how to read the road signs and there is no map to help out.  Verbal instructions sound like so much gibberish, as do all languages when we've never heard them before.  It's easy to get frustrated and embarrassed and decide, "Never again."  It can also change our lives so that things will never be the same again, and in a very good way.

The language concerning grace-filled living does not come naturally to most of us. Words that acknowledge our awareness and awe at the immanence and transcendence of a Holy God are radically different from our usual speech.  It takes practice to learn to speak this way. 

In addition, the music played and sung in different worship services challenges us. The language of classic hymns, often littered with "thee's" and "thou's" and archaic terms (does anyone really know what an Ebenezer is?) leave many puzzled, although such music is often filled with great theology.  Contemporary songs have their own problems and are equally unfamiliar to those not accustomed to them. And I haven't even begun to address the issue of liturgical vs. non-liturgical worship customs along with dozens of other unknowns that confront the novice worshipper.

But . . . I must ask this:  Why must it be "easy" to go to worship?  Why should we not demand the most of ourselves in order to acknowledge the greatness of God and seek to learn something that can and should expand our brains and souls to their greatest capacities?  

We live in a world where leisure, free time, electronics and visual stimulation have become gods to us.  We head to familiar chain restaurants in new cities because the familiar is easier. We avoid the challenge of the unfamiliar in order to keep from having to address the nature of our often stuck lives. How terribly sad that we miss the best because we won't discipline ourselves to embrace something different from the ordinary. Yes, it is difficult to walk into a worship space from which we have long been absent or one we have never seen before.  But it is worth it.


Monday, July 19, 2010

Excuse Number Six

When I watch TV, I enjoy some forensic science shows and medical dramas. I suppose I've watched enough of them now that I could easily hang out my shingle and perform delicate brain surgery.  Would you be willing to be a candidate for my first try?

Only a fool would answer "yes" to that question.  Watching McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy hardly qualifies me to cut into someone's scalp and do a delicate dissection (nor does it qualify McDreamy, for that matter).  Yet, there is not much difference in me doing this than in the statement I hear so often that constitutes Excuse Number Six for ignoring times of gathered worship:  "I'm spiritual but not religious."

What fascinating hogwash.  Such hubris dismisses years and years of scholarship with a simple, "I know more than you do."  It says, "My feelings about God, however vague and unformed, do not need the discipline of examination, study, and exposure to different ideas in order to develop and grow healthily." 

I am, as those who know me best are aware, an avid reader. I love it when someone recommends a book or website to me that contains accessible scholarship and well-reasoned arguments--even when I disagree with the major premises. I'm facinated by Stalin's Soviet Union, and India's quest for and achievement of independence from Great Britain.  I find the science of nutrition intriguing, the off-beat books on behavioral economics insightful, and the study and implementation of family systems theory to be enlightening.  I know a little about all of those areas, but I am not an expert, even after years of reading, on a single one of them. Trust me on this:  don't trust me to do brain surgery. 

I have often seen these "spiritual but not religious people" with their unformed spirituality get caught up in cults led by charismatic personalities because they have not taken the time to examine the presuppositions informing the so-called spiritual activities taking place.  We've all heard about them--suicide cults, the fundamentalist polygamous groups, mind-control organizations that empty pocketbooks in the name of gaining secret knowledge.  These are full of spiritual people who are scarily ignorant about the nature of their faith.

Sadly, the word "religious" has become pejorative for many sophisticated people.  They see those who identify themselves as religious as little-minded, backward, uninformed, and unthinking.  The term "organized religion" is even worse--as though there is something wrong with organization, and utter chaos is preferred. 

Yet, I, too, have my problems with institutionalized religion.  I define institutional religion as a religous body whose energies are primarily devoted to keeping that particular institution alive.  The focus on a holy and wholly other God who seeks good, not evil, for the world has been lost.   

We are all spiritual beings.  Even those who have decided that God cannot possibly exist and the physical life is all there is often have a sense of spiritual connection with other people or with something in nature. 

This spirituality provides meaning and transcendence.  An exploration of that intrinsic spirituality by engaging in the historic disciplines of religious formation will test it and prove it and discover its strengths and weaknesses.  Those disciplines include prayer, study of the Holy Scriptures, and gathering with others in corporate worship where we can learn from others and teach them as well.  

The isolated "spiritual but not religious" person cannot develop that sense fully any more than a baby, isolated from birth from human contact, will grow into a well-developed and socially adept adult.  We need each other for this. 

It is frightening how much people just don't know about religion.  Yet, religious beliefs underlie many world decisions, some of which mean life or death to hundred and thousands.  Developing one's spirituality in the context of an open, questioning, worshipping group of people is an act that could easily change the entire world.  Ignorance hurts and destroys. 

Excuse Number Six

When I watch TV, I enjoy some forensic science shows and medical dramas. I suppose I've watched enough of them now that I could easily hang out my shingle and perform delicate brain surgery.  Would you be willing to be a candidate for my first try?

Only a fool would answer "yes" to that question.  Watching McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy hardly qualifies me to cut into someone's scalp and do a delicate dissection (nor does it qualify McDreamy, for that matter).  Yet, there is not much difference in me doing this than in the statement I hear so often that constitutes Excuse Number Six for ignoring times of gathered worship:  "I'm spiritual but not religious."

What fascinating hogwash.  Such hubris dismisses years and years of scholarship with a simple, "I know more than you do."  It says, "My feelings about God, however vague and unformed, do not need the discipline of examination, study, and exposure to different ideas in order to develop and grow healthily." 

I am, as those who know me best are aware, an avid reader. I love it when someone recommends a book or website to me that contains accessible scholarship and well-reasoned arguments--even when I disagree with the major premises. I'm facinated by Stalin's Soviet Union, and India's quest for and achievement of independence from Great Britain.  I find the science of nutrition intriguing, the off-beat books on behavioral economics insightful, and the study and implementation of family systems theory to be enlightening.  I know a little about all of those areas, but I am not an expert, even after years of reading, on a single one of them. Trust me on this:  don't trust me to do brain surgery. 

I have often seen these "spiritual but not religious people" with their unformed spirituality get caught up in cults led by charismatic personalities because they have not taken the time to examine the presuppositions informing the so-called spiritual activities taking place.  We've all heard about them--suicide cults, the fundamentalist polygamous groups, mind-control organizations that empty pocketbooks in the name of gaining secret knowledge.  These are full of spiritual people who are scarily ignorant about the nature of their faith.

Sadly, the word "religious" has become pejorative for many sophisticated people.  They see those who identify themselves as religious as little-minded, backward, uninformed, and unthinking.  The term "organized religion" is even worse--as though there is something wrong with organization, and utter chaos is preferred. 

Yet, I, too, have my problems with institutionalized religion.  I define institutional religion as a religous body whose energies are primarily devoted to keeping that particular institution alive.  The focus on a holy and wholly other God who seeks good, not evil, for the world has been lost.   

We are all spiritual beings.  Even those who have decided that God cannot possibly exist and the physical life is all there is often have a sense of spiritual connection with other people or with something in nature. 

This spirituality provides meaning and transcendence.  An exploration of that intrinsic spirituality by engaging in the historic disciplines of religious formation will test it and prove it and discover its strengths and weaknesses.  Those disciplines include prayer, study of the Holy Scriptures, and gathering with others in corporate worship where we can learn from others and teach them as well.  

The isolated "spiritual but not religious" person cannot develop that sense fully any more than a baby, isolated from birth from human contact, will grow into a well-developed and socially adept adult.  We need each other for this. 

It is frightening how much people just don't know about religion.  Yet, religious beliefs underlie many world decisions, some of which mean life or death to hundred and thousands.  Developing one's spirituality in the context of an open, questioning, worshipping group of people is an act that could easily change the entire world.  Ignorance hurts and destroys. 

Monday, July 12, 2010

Excuse Number Seven

I really enjoy the theater.  I am fascinated by the art of an accomplished actor convincingly becoming another person.   Such a one displays expert play acting--and, by definition, is a hypocrite.  A hypocrite:  someone playing another part, pretending to be someone else.  So every time we go to see a performance, either live or on film, we are looking at a bunch of hypocrites.

Now, on the stage or in film, that kind of hypocrisy is accepted and admired.  While many of today's film stars have gained acclaim more by their off-stage antics than their on-stage abilities, most of us really do appreciate the hard work that goes into pretending to be someone else, especially when it is done live, with day after day performances.  However, we are less appreciative of those who claim to be God's people, but whose lives don't match that claim.  They also are play-actors, hypocrites.

And so, that brings us to Excuse Number Seven for avoiding times of worship:  "They are all hypocrites."

Yes, most of us are.  I know very few people who live lives of absolute authenticity.  In fact, most of us are taught hypocrisy from our parents.  "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."  "Son, go apologize to your sister.  I don't care of if you feel sorry, just go say that you are sorry."  "Learn self-control.  Behave yourself.  Get a handle on your anger and learn to quiet it down."

People who say everything that they feel or think are, at best, considered strange and hard to be around, and, at worst, mentally ill.  We practice hypocrisy in the name of politeness and good manners.  No one really wants to stop at a stop sign.  But we do, because if we don't, we'll probably hit or be hit by another car.  We  don't particularly like waiting in lines.  But we wait anyway in order to keep chaos at bay.  Hypocrisy promotes civil discourse and makes society possible.  It keeps the traffic flowing and mob mentality at bay.  Airplanes fly, trash gets picked up, and schools teach children effectively because people are hypocrites.  Thank goodness.

That is the positive side of hypocrisy.  But there is another insidious and destructive side:  insisting that others adhere to behavioral and moral standards that we ourselves feel free to ignore or violate. The wounds from such practice go deep into the soul.  I know far too many church-wounded people.  They come from an environment where a hypocritical righteousness led to a such a level of self-deception that a toxic miasma spread over the entire worshiping body. 

We all know what happens in such places.  Children are abused.  Broken people are discarded rather than being offered a place and time to heal.  Those who momentarily stumble are kicked aside.  As I heard once, "The church is the only army on earth that routinely shoots its wounded."  I, personally, experienced much of this when I endured a very difficult personal time about fifteen years ago.  The "righteous" wanted nothing to do with me.  I made them very uncomfortable.  Best to kick me out.

Frankly, I think such toxic places should be avoided.  So, is the excuse, "They are all hypocrites" a valid reason for staying away from a worshiping congregation?  No, for it is simply not true that all worshipers are self-deceived and destructive hypocrites. 

Many people who gather to worship God and practice spiritual disciplines do so with an acute awareness of the fact that they don't measure up to their own standards, much less God's standards of purity and holiness.  They come with humility, wanting grace, forgiveness and reconciliation.  They seek transformation so they might actually integrate what they feel and think privately with what they do and say publicly. 

Hypocrisy has its place.  Sometimes, we must play-act.  At its best, though, play-acting will eventually transform the soul, especially if we play-act the holy practices of worship, prayer, giving and service with a group of like-minded people.  Do not let the poor performance of some keep you from the life-giving hope of a gracious God.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Excuse Number Eight

As a real master of procrastination, I know the mantra, "I'll get to it later."  A couple of days ago, I sat down at my desk and looked at my "I'll get to it later" stack.  It was not a pretty moment.  Everything in me wanted just to shove it aside.  After all, I could get to it later. 

I bet I'm not alone.  Most everyone will occasionally delay tasks or the formation of habits that are difficult for the moment.  "I'll eat better tomorrow."  "Next week, I'll get the laundry caught up." "This semester, I will get all my reading ahead of time."  "I'll start tomorrow to build that important habit into my life."

An very unscientific survey of a random group of people turned up these tasks as highly subject to procrastination:  paying bills, sleeping, doing the laundry, cleaning the bedroom (this was echoed several times by teens), scrubbing the toilet, finishing writing projects, grocery shopping.  We'll get to all of this later when we have time, even though "later" doesn't come until the pressure gets so great that something has to be done about it.

So here we have Excuse Number Eight for skipping out on worship services: "I'll get there later when I have time."

The act of forming one's soul, learning about the nature of God, practicing the art of loving God and neighbor, exploring the nature of forgiveness and grace, intentionally entering the Holy Mystery, wrestling with our doubts, all in some sort of worship setting that may bring some discomfort . . . All this will happen later when we have time. 

Here is the problem:  we don't have time to form good and holy habits unless we simply start doing it.  We have to start, not just wish we had started or think about starting. We will never have time otherwise.

Time seems to be the most scarce commodity around these days.  The pressure is on.  We can't fit it all in. When I have time I'll write those letters, make those phone calls, pay those bills, hug my children, weed the garden . . . and make peace with God. 

But right now--?  Yes, right now, what? What will I do with the 24 hours a day given to me?  Will I be a good steward of those hours and build good habits that will last a lifetime and generations beyond?  Will I recognize that time spent in worship is not lost time, but promotes a way of being and seeing that helps me transcend pressures and make better decisions?

Here's what happens to me when I use the "I'll get to it later when I have time" excuse for important things. Panic, despair, living from crisis to crisis, no practiced paths of discipline and self-control. When difficult circumstances hit, I scream to God for immediate rescue.  And God had better have time for me, even though I've not bothered to give time to prepare my soul to receive that grace and hope in the midst of my darkness.

I spent hours that day working my way through that "when I have time" stack, piece of paper by piece of paper.  Financial issues I didn't want to face.  Stuff that needed to be tossed or filed. Lost information that I had laboriously replaced. Had I called upon the habit of dealing with these things immediately instead of letting them build up, the total time spent would have been far, far less.  "I'll get to it when I have time" ended up costing me a lot of time.

"When I have time" to get to worship means we'll never get there.  The habit of putting it off takes on a life of its own.  It becomes a given in our lives.  And it will end up costing everything.  

Friday, July 02, 2010

Messiest Desk in the Country

I was watching "Clean House" for a little while last night as they tackled the "messiest home in the country."  It was pretty horrific, to be sure.  I sat there wondering how on earth that family had managed to get into that mess, and feeling somewhat superior to them.

Then I came to work this morning to try to clear some things off my desk.  Now I know how they got into that mess:  neglect of the little things that could easily have been done in moments turns into big piles that will take me hours to sift through.

Simple procrastination. Not wanting to deal with some things.  Letting myself get buried in paper and clutter rather than clearing it as it comes.  And now . . .

I know I'll feel much better at the end of the day.  Just pick up one piece of paper at a time, figure out what to do with it, and then go to the next.  But how much I want to do anything but this!  "Let this cup pass from me," I pray in agony.  "Bring in the magic desk-cleaning fairy and fix all this," I demand of God. 

But then the words, "not my will, but Thine." 

Time to get to work.

Unless, of course, I can figure out a way to distract myself again!