Honestly

I think honesty is waaaaay overrated.  Now hang on a minute.  I’m not saying that honesty isn’t a great virtue.  I’m not saying that honesty isn’t essential to healthy interpersonal relationships.  For a Christian, honesty is non-negotiable in contrast to its opposite: deliberate deception.  I’m firmly opposed to deception, even in the little-white-lie-to-facilitate-everyone’s-good-mood capacity.  For me, the problem is that our quest for honesty has replaced our search for truth.

As valid and valuable as it is, honesty is not truth.  In John 14:6, Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Truth is not contained in us, nor does it originate with us, nor does it end with us.  Truth can inhabit us, but we don’t possess it.  Truth comes from God, and is much, much bigger than anything we can be honest or deceptive about.  Honesty, on the other hand, is our best attempt to “tell the truth” about what is going on inside of us.  What do I genuinely believe, perceive, and experience? What have I done or said, and why did I say or do it?  These are the things about which we can be honest.  These are the things which we can know.  Truth is something sufficiently higher than we are that we can never know it fully, at least not while we see through this mirror, dimly.

How often do we say hurtful words or commit destructive actions in the name of honesty?  “Sometimes the truth is hard” or “at least I’m not being a hypocrite,” or “No one should have to live a lie” becomes our rallying cry, and we run off pell-mell in the direction that we “honestly” want to go.  We all do this.  I’ve done it a million times.  The problem is, no matter how deeply we believe something, it may not be the truth.  Our perceptions are limited, and Truth does not belong to us.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be honest.  Deception is a terrible trap, and lies ruin lives.  It is a good thing not to deceive.  It is a better thing to try to discern what is present or relevant in our situation that might be truer than ourselves.  Our honesty is worthless when we ourselves are deceived, and you can be totally honest and still be dead wrong.

So what’s the take away?  Should we trust ourselves?  I tend to say generally not.  At least, we shouldn’t trust in ourselves only.  In any course of action, or choice of words, no matter how small, there is room for wise council, prayer, research, counting to ten, and all kinds of other steps intended to supplement and enrich our honesty.  Sometimes we simply have to act on the best we know.  Sometimes all we have to go on is what we believe.  When that happens, the best thing we can do is to temper our actions with caution and gentleness, not being afraid to speak or act, but always remembering that someday we may know better, that we can learn from others, and that everyone makes mistakes.  At least, that’s what I honestly think.

Objects in Space

When Christ says anyone who wants to find his life must lose it, He is challenging the central, sinful tenant of every human heart from first century Palestine to modern day America.  It is the principle of self-determination and self fulfillment.  Our goal, far too often is to make ourselves happy.  If we are moral people, our goal is to be happy while causing the minimum amount of damage to others.  If we are flippin’ saints, our goal is to contribute the maximum amount to other people’s happiness. 

Rarely do we ask whether or not happiness is what we were made for.  It’s as though the planet earth were suddenly feeling frisky and adventurous and said, “See you later, sun, I’m off to explore.”  Then took off gallivanting through the galaxy, and suddenly wondered why it couldn’t hold all its stuff together properly.  According to the laws of the universe, it is impossible for any object in space to orbit around itself, and without the gravitational pull of something far larger to keep it on course, all you get is an asteroid, careening around wildly and crashing to its doom on the first surface strong enough to attract it.

We want to be self-determined, but we can’t be.  We don’t have to like it, but we are nowhere near big enough to hold ourselves in orbit.  We have to revolve around something outside of ourselves, and that Something has to be far, far larger than we are.  All of us wake up one day and realize that the choices we’ve made aren’t making us happy, and aren’t fulfilling us.  I know that I wake up that way at least twice a year.  One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite shows (Wicked, for any of you who don’t know me well enough to guess) sums it up great:  “Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true…isn’t it?” Nope.  Not to be a downer, but every dream that comes true, with all the joy and wonder that it brings, also brings you to the inevitable question: “What now?” If you were counting on that dream to be the end of your journey, you are out of luck, my friend. 

Happiness or fulfillment or whatever you want to call it is a tricky thing.  It is the ultimate truth represented in every fairy tale that contains the legend of a treasure that can only be found when you aren’t looking for it.  Trying to fulfill yourself will never lead to anything but frustration.  Ditto with searching for happiness.  The only way to find either one is to get busy living for something else.  The grain of wheat will never fulfill its purpose by trying to be the best darn grain of wheat it can be.  It was made to turn itself into something else, to be used up and spent in the fulfillment of its calling, and so were we.  Happiness is a frequent and pleasant by-product of surrender, and it is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, but anything that is found within us is too fleeting and flimsy a thing to be that for which we live.

Next time we ask ourselves whether or not something we are doing is making us happy, we first need to ask ourselves whether our own happiness was the point of that action.  If it turns out that we only made that choice to fulfill ourselves, we have to seriously question our expectations.  Why would we ever think that something so great and amazing as happiness or fulfillment could flow out of something as small and narrow as ourselves?

Yeah, but she's our witch

“Yeah, But She’s Our Witch:

Why the Church Should be More like Serenity”

The best t.v. show of all time, “Firefly,” centers on a small spaceship crew trying to get by in the tumultuous universe the human race has made for itself five hundred years from now.  The rag-tag band of outcasts and adventurers that crew the good ship “Serenity” are ostensibly in search of one thing: a job.  Any work you’ve got for them, they’ll do it, from hauling legal cargo and passengers to smuggling contraband and occasionally a little gun-slinging.  They need work.  They need money.  They need food for their table and fuel to keep their ship flying.  They’re a lot like most of us.  Specifically, they’re a lot like any church I’ve ever heard of.

Churches, whether we intend it or not, are goal driven.  We’re always on the look-out for that next job we need to do, trying to discover the work that God wants us to accomplish, the causes He wants us to champion.  We look to find a mission around which we can wrap our congregational identities, believing that if we do so, a sure sign will be that our doors will stay open.  Our lights will stay on.  Our staff will get paid.  We’ll be able to do even more Godly work in the world.  The cycle of blessing will continue when, and only when, we successfully execute the job God wants us to do.

What I’ve always loved about “Firefly,” though, is that over and over again, the mission gets derailed by the needs of the people trying to accomplish it.  The crew must put their work on hold to take care of their own, and sometimes others who come across their path.  Mal takes time out from pursuing a paying job to flatten a guy who insults Inara.  When Book needs a doctor, the job comes to a full stop.  Rescuing Simon and River from danger gets in the way of, well, almost every mission that comes along.  In fact, it’s relatively rare that the crew of Serenity completes their work.  They are really not great successes.  When the crew does see a tidy profit, they almost immediately hand over every cent of it to ransom Mal and Wash from captivity.  In fact, time after time, caring for one another wrecks the crew’s plans, interferes with their work, and complicates their profit.  This is why I want to live aboard “Serenity.”

In church, we know we’re supposed to love each other.  Everyone agrees to that, but when relationships get in the way of accomplishing what we think is supposed to be our “mission,” other people are off the priority list.  Once a person disagrees with us on what the church should be doing or how we ought to do church, that person becomes expendable in our minds.  Sure, if the dispute is minor enough, we might agree to disagree, but if the difference is real and vital, then we feel justified in either winning them over or cutting them loose.  They’re going to hold us back from accomplishing our God-given mission, all that work we believe we are called to do in the world.  They become, to use a very churchy term, “stumbling blocks.”  I mean, I love you and all, but if it’s a choice between you and my mission, then it’s your own fault for not getting with the program.   

The problem is, I’m harboring a growing suspicion that the relationships we develop in church, first with Christ, and then with each other, may be the only mission we are called to in this world.  What if you are supposed to be my only cause?  Knowing you might be supposed to be my only mission.  Loving you could be my only program.  When I look at the scriptures, I see the story of the good Shepherd. 99 sheep are very definitely with the program.  They’re hanging out right where they’re supposed to be, munching on the food they’ve been provided with, staying in the boundaries, obeying their Shepherd.  That’s not good enough for Him.  A shepherd’s whole job was to stay with the sheep, and that’s the one thing He “fails” to do.  The missing sheep leaves a big enough hole that He literally walks away from the rest of His responsibilities to go and restore it, prioritizing the needs of the individual, and the troublemaker at that, over the successful accomplishment of the rest of His task.   

I want to quit thinking of you as something I can dismiss when you don’t support my agenda.  I want a friend who is most present to me when I am most useless to them. In the church, as in the rest of the world, we distance ourselves from others when they become a liability. When someone is caught in failure or sin, the world builds a pyre and the church shows up with the matches.  Where, oh where, are the friends who will show up with a spaceship and some shot-guns and announce: She may be a witch, “but she’s our witch.  Now cut her the hell down.” Where are the people willing to insist that right at the moment when a person becomes worthless or dangerous is the moment when we need to scoop them back up into the fold and hold on for all we are worth?  What, besides that kind of faithfulness will ever open up our hardened, self-satisfied hearts enough for us to be changed?  What else can it truly mean to become the body of Christ on earth?  This church thing, heck this salvation thing, is kind of a crazy idea to begin with.  It shouldn’t work.  Only love, first God’s for us and then ours for each other, will keep us in the air when we ought to fall down.

If at first you don't succeed...

I’m listening to a great song, The Altar and the Door by Casting Crowns.  It talks about something that’s on my mind pretty often, namely that tenacious tendency we all have to get all fired up about making big changes in our lives, then run out of steam less than halfway to our goal.  In a Christian context, think of it as the “Last Night of Camp” effect.  In a more secular context, we might think of it as the New Year’s Resolution phenomenon. 

We can’t put up with who we are or how we live for one more second.  We cry, we pray, we re-dedicate our lives, to Christ, to weight loss, to financial responsibility, the list in inexhaustible and unique to each individual.  The point is though, whatever we want to change, we have a plan.  We’re with the program.  We really mean it this time.  And then we fail.  We get distracted, life gets too hard, something happens that wasn’t part of our plan, and we give up.  Then we hate ourselves, cry some more, and start the cycle over again.  This is a bad thing, right?

Maybe, but then again maybe not.  Here’s an example from my life.  I want to lose twenty pounds.  Always.  Pretty much regardless of what I actually weigh at the time, I wish it was twenty pounds less.  I go through this cycle with weight loss over and over where I have a great diet and exercise plan, I’m super dedicated to it, I start to lose weight, then I go out and consume every French fry and potato chip in the city of Abilene.  More than once, this has frustrated me to the point that I want to quit altogether.  I decide that I’m never going to lose those twenty pounds no matter what, I’ll just go and buy some bigger clothes, and eat what makes me happy.  You know what happens then?  I gain five to ten pounds a month.

Do you see my point?  Even though it’s frustrating to never really reach my goal, even though there are set-backs and failures along my way, those re-dedications to a healthy lifestyle are apparently the only thing standing between me and constant binge eating/dangerous rates of weight gain.  Some day, I hope and pray for more progress, but in the mean time, my short-lived attempts at self-control are having an effect.  It’s not the effect I’m hoping for, but maybe it’s worthwhile anyway.  Maybe it’s worthwhile because I’m still establishing the habit of paying regular attention to the issue of my health and well-being, and making a pretty frequent effort at practicing restraint and discipline.

I think this principle may be applicable to more than just healthy living.  Maybe it’s true in any habit we want to break or establish, and true even in our dedication to Christ.  I don’t know that Christ gets as annoyed by our frequent tearful returns to the altar as we do.  Yes, He knows we’ll fail.  He knows we’ll be back to repent again in the future, but maybe He also knows what kind of mischief and mayhem we are avoiding during our “good days” for lack of a better term.  While we’re beating ourselves up for all the progress we failed to make, maybe we don’t realize how much ground we would have lost if we hadn’t tried. 

I think that if nothing else, the cross tells us that our failures are not a problem for God.  He’s already found a way to deal with my brokenness in the long run.  In the short term, maybe it’s perfectly okay that I deal with my brokenness through trial and error, trying and failing, flying and falling.  We may not be able to sustain the flight, the mountaintop, the fired-up-good-intentions-never-gonna-be-the-same kind of days, but at least we had them, and history indicates that we will have them again.  Meanwhile, who knows what God is achieving in us through even our brief and sporadic efforts.  God’s ability to accomplish His plans is always greater than my ability to mess them up.

God is Good

I’m beginning to think we as Christians have developed a basic vocabulary problem that is interfering with our ability to proclaim the glory of God.  It goes something like this:

“God is good” we announce.

 “Oh Yeah?  Why does He allow suffering and hardship if He’s so “good?” Replies the world.

  “Umm, umm, we don’t really know,” We finish lamely, usually after some even lamer attempts at explaining away hardship by describing how God uses suffering for good, or people cause suffering with their sinfulness, or any number of other fairly valid, but horribly incomplete explanations.  No answer I’ve ever heard is really adequate to meet the agonizing “why?” that always comes with tragedy, so why do we meet the world’s skepticism with hollow explanations, instead of pointing out the basic difference in what they mean and what we mean?

               When I say “God is good,” I don’t actually mean it in the exact same way that I say my two year old is a good girl.  I don’t mean that I’m pleased by God’s actions or that I’m delighted that He’s made such good choices today.  I’m not expressing my assessment of His behavior.  I mean God is good like water on a hot day is good, or food when I’m hungry or medicine when I’m sick is good.  I mean that whether my circumstances are pleasant or unpleasant, glorious or horrendous, God is healing, restorative, beautiful, and that which makes life worth living.  When I feel cut off from God, it is difficult not because it lessens my belief in God’s goodness, but because it lessens my experience of that goodness.

There’s plenty of reason and need to address the problem of suffering, even though we’ll probably never sound the definitive word, the “aha” explanation of it all.  I just wish we could quit thinking that God’s goodness is somehow connected to whether or not He’s living up to our expectations.  It is precisely when life is difficult that I experience the goodness of God the most, just as it is only when I’m thirsty that I really understand how good water can be.  The question of suffering is a valid one, but not all that connected to God’s goodness.  Now maybe if suffering is raised in a conversation about His kindness, or His love, it has more relevance.

  Can we take more time to acknowledge though, that goodness, like holiness, is an accurate description of God’s eternal character that has nothing to do with how much I, or anyone else, is benefiting from it today?  How can we find ways to proclaim the goodness of God without getting sidetracked into arguments that miss the point?  We have to keep trying, because God is good all the time, and all the time… 

Blessings in Vain?

               I’m contemplating the beautiful injustice that is my life.  No one has any right to the blessings that fill my life, not in a world this full of suffering and darkness.  I didn’t earn my freedom, security, health, or love.  I’m blessed over and over again by the sacrifices and kindnesses of others, and not nearly everyone in this world is as blessed as I am.  There is famine, disease, persecution and oppression.  There is child abuse, greed, and selfishness, and senseless violence.  While others live in terror, I live in peace.  While others hunger, I live in plenty, and though sometimes it is easy to feel guilty, I don’t accept the idea that to have while others have not is a sin, although to horde while others have not is a different story.

               Every time tragedy or heartbreak strikes a life around us, our automatic response is that something must be done in the name of that tragedy to ensure that the suffering will not have been in vain, that the darkness may not have the final victory. It may be the establishment of a memorial charity or the passing of a new law, or the creation of a national day of remembrance, or it may simply be a lesson learned, but something must change in our reality in response to horror and tragedy.  We can’t bear the thought of all that grief and destruction and waste being for nothing. But what about our good days?  What about our gifts, our joys, and our successes?  Do we worry enough about letting our happiness be in vain? 

               I think we’ve gotten in the habit of believing that peace, joy, safety, and prosperity are ends in themselves.  Once we have achieved these things, we win!  Good for us.  How might we win some more?     I remember though, a quote from scripture.  One that usually makes me cringe when people bring it up, particularly in times of grief: The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:21 b).  And another verse like it: If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so whether we live, or whether we die, we belong to the Lord. (Romans 14:8)  These two verses make me suspect that there is more to suffering then just avoiding it, and more to happiness then just achieving it.  It seems that whether our life seems to us to be “good” or “bad,” God wants to use our circumstances to reveal Himself to us.  So I have to ask, are all my blessings in vain?  Am I squandering joy selfishly?  Have I treated the goodness and mercy following after me as if it is there by my right and for my purposes?

               What might it be like to see all that has come into my life as something to be used for the furthering of God’s kingdom and the betterment of His creation?  We all know we should be using our money to help others and glorify God.  We could all be better financial stewards.  We know it, and we should be reminded of it often, and we should act accordingly.  I’m thinking though, of my tendency to horde non-financial prosperity.  Do I live in peace?  How can I spread that peace to others, instead of focusing on creating a perfectly stress-free lifestyle for myself?  Is my home a place of rest and joy?  How can that be extended through the ministry of hospitality to others?  Can the very walls and bricks and nails of my home become an offering to God?  Am I surrounded on all sides by amazing love?  Some people aren’t.  Could I make a difference by extending that love to one who is ostracized or alone?  I’m pretty sure that for any of you reading this blog (all three of you) have more blessings than burdens in your life, at least compared to the global scale of suffering and hardship.  Let’s think together of ways to make certain that what we have received doesn’t go to waste, that our joys are not for nothing, not hoarded up for ourselves, while others live in lack.  Any thoughts?

Feed the Movie Stars

       Yes, I know it's been forever since I've posted.  I'm very sorry, and I'm working on getting better.  So here's what's on my mind today:
      Have you seen any movie stars lately?  Am I the only one who thinks that the whole skinny=hot thing has gone seriously too far?  If you saw someone who looks like that in a commercial about poverty or a news report about some war torn country, you would cry.  Then you would send money to a charity dedicated to fixing their plight.  Isn't time for some well-meaning Christian organization to start shipping sandwiches to Hollywood?
      When you see someone who is clearly underfed because of their poverty, hopefully it not only motivates you to try to help them, but also gives you an intense feeling of gratitude for the food you are able to eat.  Yet, when we see an underfed actress or model, we feel a sense of guilt and self-disgust for eating the food with which we have been provided.  We berate ourselves for every bit of non-celery stick food consumed in the past week, and feel inadequate as women, because starvation has become the standard to which we are failing to live up.
      In a recent interview, I heard Portia Di Rossi point out that we are at the point where we expect grown women to maintain the body type of girls in their early teens.  I've heard other models/tv personalities discuss their struggles to conceive children, because maintaining the weight required to compete in Hollywood has decreased their fertility. Stop and ponder briefly the implications for the human race, given that we have begun to exalt characteristics that are tantamount to infertility as hallmarks of desirability.  I'm just sayin' is all...
     It makes me think of Brian Mclaren's description of today's culture as a suicide machine.  We are all caught in it, to some extent or other, and if anyone has any ideas about how to break the world out of this insanity, please share them with me.  In the meantime, clean your plates.  People are starving in Hollywood.