Lull

I haven't written in a while.  Sometimes a lull occurs and I am grateful.  Not that things have been bad or perfect, or even dull.  Just relative peace in my mind and life.  I'm actually inspired back to write by a chance comment from an unknown reader.  But I don't know where this will go.

Holidays are finally over and it takes several months to recover some normalcy.  Some things never come back.  I wonder how many things, good or bad, are lost because of the American Holiday Season.  Some people like the change.  I think they wait all year to do the things they do in that season.  But I don't.  I don't see life as that long.  Truthfully, it isn't a conscious decision, just the way I am made: I see multiple pathways in everything and that includes the negative.  I may very well not have another opportunity, so I take them where they come.  This melds into and shapes my worldview to do only what God asks of us in the moment that he asks.  It's a curious chicken/egg, Daoish, paradox of influence.

But anyway, the point is, I do all year things that most reserve for the one time a year.  Therefore when the holidays come and everyone stops doing what they normally do for some unexplained cultural reason, my life grinds to a halt.  After 3 months of that, people (including myself) have forgotten what we were doing before that time and have to start all over.  What is recalled takes months to ramp up momentum.

In other news, my hand and wife are healing, so even more activities that have been on hold are slowly coming back.  Really, I think if it wasn't for these lulls, more would be accomplished.

Another factor contributing to the lull is that we finally completely dropped a major source of irritation and provocation...namely the church we've been going to for many years.  Being someone who commits slowly and moves circumspectly, I am also slow to completely drop something.  I keep trying and biding until all remnant of good is squeezed out of something and the one last straw falls.

The long and short is, I'm now much happier in that regard.  We've started checking out another place which is a very different character, yet not entirely alien.  I have no intention of jumping in too heavily, and anyone who wants to argue that I should do otherwise is welcome to step to.  I'll challenge anyone to walk in my shoes for a while and tell me they'd do otherwise.  Same goes for anyone who says you shouldn't change churches because we're all flawed.  I know where they're coming from.  I've been them before.  Just keep jawing what you don't know...you'll see.  And if not, then our paths are different and all the best on yours.

Seriously, I wish people would think a little more before they start spouting advice.  Does anyone ever really give good advice?  I remember hearing a friend whose job included listening to people's problems say he was done giving advice.  I thought I understood, but thought he was taking it too far.  Surely sometimes we know what someone else doesn't, I thought.  But now, I'm starting to see his point more clearly.  We are never in exactly the same place as another.  we might be passing nearby, but our lives come from and are going to different places, making it very difficult to ever truly tell someone else what to do with any accuracy.  Further, too many people can't see them selves clearly enough, or refuse to admit their own reality, to even see what wisdom you might offer.

I recently had a friend call me repeatedly (I have to tell him I HATE the telephone) to try to get "advice" but each time I clearly saw what he wanted to do and that he was just looking for an excuse to say he'd talked it over even though he'd really already made up his mind.  Self deception at it's finest.  And this is a smart and relatively good, well-adjusted person!

No, I think the best we can do is listen and reflect, perhaps share a story or thought sparked by what they say and maybe help each other discern our own paths at the moment.

Child

I read a lot of things. I look for Truth in all places. One thing I've learned is that not one prescription fits everyone. There are ultimate Truths, but below that there are so many variations. Ecology teaches us this too. There is not one single path, not ten, but thousands, millions of interactions that make up any system. Grasping this is liberating in one sense, but difficult in another.

It is liberating because of just what I'm saying...people are built differently. It is liberating to me because I find it hard to be certain that one way is right...how do I trust that it is? What if it's false? This is not just a simple question as it might seem to those who think linearly. For example, suppose we trust something because it came from a trusted source, but what if the trusted source learned it wrong and is in himself mistaken or deceived without meaning any harm? What if the source conveyed it right, but I misunderstood, or misheard, or forgot something important...all of which we do as humans every day. We all have. If you trace this out far enough, there is no end, no knowledge, no surety...only doubt and oblivion. It's called nihilism and this is my hell. I lived in it for years.

True to form, I didn't escape it by finding the right path. There are no paths. Just a jungle, living and wild and trackless. I didn't even escape. I was pulled out by a force beyond myself. A force with a face, and a body, and a voice, and a personality. I don't understand how, I barely believe it. But I know someone reached into...no not reached into...exploded like nuclear holocaust...manifested in me. If I did anything, it was nothing more than a whisper, like Harry's soul floating up toward a dementor. It was a primal cry...but even that may have been nothing more than the aura, the pretremor of the blast that was already occurring from this God arriving.

Anyway, I digress. Knowing that things are not so linear means I don't have to find the right way. I just have to be in the right way...if that makes any sense. I don't have to worry that I'm not on the exact path of the millions that intertwine with millions more intersections by which I might accidentally slip off the right path. I know we teach faith that way, but we misuse the narrow way metaphor. So for someone like me, I don't have to fret that at each of those junctures I might go astray because as long as I'm on the course toward the end goal, I'll get there one way or the other; over, under, or around, I'll arrive at the end result. This is liberating if you think like me.

It's difficult as well because there is no way to know for sure. It's hard to trust anyone or anything. Do I take action, or wait? Go or stay? Do more, or less, or make no change? I can read all kinds of stuff about how to decide, how to follow God, how to give things to God. But it's all just part of the jungle. Is the confidence of these authors faked, or genuine? Is the source of it real or imagined? Is it God or self-help in a Christian wrapper? It leaves me wanting something sure and unable to find it. I just want a road sign. Something indisputable and direct. But you don't find that in the real world. These are human inventions and humans are fallible.

So in times like these, I find myself sinking into that black mire again as I become more and more paralyzed the more I try to discern. That's when I can only cry out again. I can't figure it out. If you can that's great, and I'm happy for you...really I am. But I am the lost two-year old crying in the aisle. I can only stand there and wail until my Daddy finds me and picks me up.

Christmas lost

I have bouts with humbuggery. It's not that I dislike Christmas. In fact it's precisely the opposite. I like it so much, feel its sacredness so much, that the rampant commercialism and overwrought "Christmasy" stuff is a mockery and cause for sadness to me. Even amongst family, the greater portion of whom have at least some faith, the secularized traditions and popular religious-esque traditions they doggedly associate with Christmas are so hollow, cheesy, or inappropriate to the day I can barely stand it.

It's not that they have a bad heart. They just buy into the supermarket commercial image of the holiday with all it's kitsch and forced nostalgia that is really just a clever marketing ploy. Some actually enjoy the whole gift exchange aspect...but I'm pretty sure I've blogged on that before.

The point is, some years I have been able to keep Christmas in my own heart by avoiding as much of that as possible. By finding time to slow down and step aside, stay out of the shopping places, and let the real import of the season affect me. But this year because of some changes in circumstance, I have been unable to do it. Many times this year, I've been thrust into that Christmas madness unwittingly. It has left me grumpy and short-tempered. Everything I do not want to be around Christmas.

You know what this tells me? When I am ill-tempered because I can't find the goodness in something, or otherwise off-kilter, it usually means I've done something wrong. Like Eve eating the apple and finding that the result she got wasn't what she had expected. It tells me that I have been duped. That I have allowed myself to be pulled off balance. Frustration at being had, makes me angry, and I don't even recognize why right away. Upon realizing it, I can almost hear the demons' cruel laughter.

So what to do? It may be too late for this year. I just have to be extra careful not to take the frustration at my mistakes out on those who aren't aware of the problem. In other words, I shouldn't ruin the holiday for those who are blind to the evils inherent in their practices. They aren't able to see it even if I point it out. I've tried in the past. The result is that I just look sour and angry.

I can also take steps to arrest it from spinning off any further. Today I refused to buy any more Christmas presents. It's done. I'm done. I have also been praying and asking for God to restore my peace. I've been trying to saturate myself with things that typically help me so as to regain my balance.

And then, there's the biggest decision. I don't do it lightly, which is why I haven't fully made up my mind. Perhaps it is the reason I was brought into this state, though...to bring me to the decision point. I am debating excusing myself from the entire rat race next year. I mean not accepting or buying a single present. No name exchange or dollar limit that no one pays attention to but me. No Christianity Today version of 'recapture the holiday and kiss Mother Culture's feet through mental gymnastics and homemade gifts'. If I get a present, I will return it or sell it and donate the money.

This is a big decision. Family will not understand it. It will create some hard feelings because it will act as a mirror for others' materialism. I'll be accused of playing the martyr, acting holier than thou. It will hurt some family members who are so bound in their materialism that they genuinely feel they are expressing love by foisting it on others. Not to mention someone will give me a great gift that I will not want to give up. It's not that I hate presents. I even believe it is a virtue to graciously receive. It's the obligation, the rat race around it that I hate and I see no other way to step out of it. I've tried, but people won't hear me. They force me to play their game.

Now of course I would buy or make a present for my son. I wouldn't force this decision upon him. But I would not hide my decision. Already we have given up the Christmas feast as a family in favor of an empty-bowls dinner...soup, bread, apple, water. To remind us of the humble nature of our King and identify with those for whom that meal would be a feast. Maybe it's time to take the next step and get out of this consumerist hell. I think it could be done delicately enough.

Church

This is a difficult topic for me right now. I just read a book that was ironically recommended by a pastor friend. The book comes from a movement of reformers that are a little over 20 years old. They believe that the modern popular expression of church is flawed at the root and should therefore be done away with in favor of something strictly Biblically based. It goes by different names depending on the flavor of the group. I've heard the arguments before for most of it, but some of this book's arguments are really resonating with me and I'm not sure how that will play out.

I've had a problem with the dry knowledge-based church style. It is dead and changes very little of very few people. I've been involved in charismatic-tilted church and seen the personality cults, the blind devotion to 'signs & wonders' and even those who move across the country repeatedly, chasing the latest 'move'. I've been in the growth-based seeker-church and seen the blatant marketing principles applied and worked on people as if God were a Ad Exec. I'm sorry, when textbook marketing gets butts in your seats, you can't call that God.

I've even been involved in home churches that were cloisters of ungrounded, disenfranchized people who just thought they could do it as well as anyone else...who needs the regular stuff, we'll make our OWN church. And the converse where they think all who meet in buildings are apostate servants of the antichrist.

I've also been involved in radical dregs of the earth ministry church that goes in deep and helps people who couldn't even begin to set foot in traditional churches. And there I've seen the hurt create cliquishness and let's just face it, damaged people do damage. When your whole church is made up of people with serious issues, those issues will play out.

Not that all of these things were all bad. I've seen people's lives changed. I've seen transformations and real moves of God. But I tend to think these things are in spite of and not because of the church structure. Afterall, we're all flawed people. Can we really expect our organizations to not be flawed? This is the conclusion I'd come to and lived under for years.

But then, somewhere deep inside me, I've never been able to shake this small voice, almost too hard to hear, calling out for something more. Longing for a group to share my life with...not a life group or some other forced approximation, but a real connection. A community to live into and to raise my child in. A group like Bunyan's troop making their way along the road in the footsteps of Christian. A group where strong faith carries weaker, where helpfulness arises, where there is a palpable realness of spiritual unity. How do I know this exists?

It's in the New Testament. It's in Bunyan's work. I've even experienced it myself...no really, I have. Not for long, but there was a time and a group, several of whom I am still deeply connected to. For a time, we were a real community. Flawed, yes. But there was a real unity that is beyond human ability. It wasn't just a Sunday thing, or a semester study group. These people were brothers and sisters and we shared everything! Not like some hippie commune, but our lives were a part of each other entirely. Our worship, our problems, our challenges, sicknesses, jobs, marriages, social circles, were all intertwined in this group. It was Holy.

But then it ended. Perhaps we tried too hard. Perhaps we tried to do too much. Perhaps we fell victim to the insidious attacks of an enemy that would do anything to bring down that kind of unity. Honestly, I don't care what happened. I don't want that group back. It ended for good reason. But I do want that reality back. THAT I can't let go of. I wanted to spend my life in that.

Every church before or sense has been ok for a time, and then turns miserable. Something just eats it up. The common denominator here is me. So I have tried to change myself and as hard as it has been, as unnatural as it has been, I have been making progress. But then on the heels of a visible, palpable "issue" at my church, there comes this book. And as critically as I have taken it, as much as I have checked references and confirmed his Greek and sniped his logical fallacies, there is a piercing dart of truth in it that echoes across all of what has been good in church in my life.

I feel like Lucy who has just seen Aslan go left when Peter (human authority) and the group (the majority) go right, saying she is a silly little girl. If I don't run after Him, will it be on my head? I know what I saw! I know what I want! Is this the path to it?

My heart beats at my ribs screaming, "YES, YES, YES, for the love of God THIS is it!" But I distrust me heart. It is easily enticed away by sirens who echo what it wants to hear. I have to go down this path, but I will go slowly. God forgive me for it. I want to abandon myself to the current that I know is true, but must test, must know it is the right stream first.

Please God, pull my foot from under me and I will go headlong n spite of myself!