Eulogies over a still-breathing body

Eulogies over a still-breathing body.

Ruach, the breath of God, of life, replaced with a hum and a hiss.

Deus ex machina taken literally.

Death stalled by a machine, not the spirit of life.

An interruption of the drama that was unfolding.

“No heroics,” she once said.

But it wasn’t on a piece of paper, so heroics were performed.

Now, the family must be courageous enough to stop the machine.

Not to kill, but to let-die.

She had years ago made the same decision for her mother.

The cycle continues.

Eulogies.

They were letting a great woman die.

Could it be that they thought they were killing the greatest woman

Who ever lived?

Who gave them life; a reason to live; an example to follow?

"She fought so hard."

Still, it was the “easy decision” with profound consequences

And mourning already begun.

“I’m hollow,” her daughter said.

“I’m guilty,” her sister said.

Pain floods from fresh wounds that will eventually turn into scars.

Scars that won’t hurt any more, but will bring pain back to remembrance.

Every time they see the scar.

The grief weighed too much. 

I felt it before I entered the room.

I absorbed it while I was there.

But grief mixed with love makes for some buoyancy.

I prayed for them and with them.

In between their sobbing and my own.

Other family members were coming into town.

To gather around later.

And all together

Remove the machine.

And wait.

“All of us go down to dust,”

The hymn says, “yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia.”

May it be so.

Even as our honest tears overflow.

A prayer before CPE

Eternal One,

Tomorrow I begin Clinical Pastoral Education.

I trust the students going through the program with me.

I know most of them well. 

I will know them better.

There has been nothing to set off warnings within me about the pastoral care department.

I've found them to be wonderful people--professional, caring, and observant.

Everyone I know who has gone through the program has told me that it will be the most difficult and rewarding thing I will do in my time in seminary.

I believe them.

The benefits seem obvious.

The next two days are orientations, and may be the easiest days of the program.

Then the hard part begins.

The tragedies and the joys.

The banality and the poignancy.

The uncertainties of life and finalities of death (at least, until the coming of the Kingdom).

The little sliver of white, the little sliver of black, and the whole spectrum of grey in between.

The loss of control over one's life; mine or my patients'.

The illusion I ever could count on such a thing as control.

The presumption that I can offer such a thing to others.

Oh.

That presumption.

That is what is keeping me up tonight, God.

That is why I needed to write when I should be asleep.

I like tidy.

This job will not be tidy.

I like peace.

There will be drama.

I like being knowledgeable.

I will never know everything.

I think I can accept all of this.

But it does not feel possible to accept it right this second.

This divide scares me.

But it is not the only division.

Someone once wisely observed that I am so afraid of doing harm to another person's spirituality that I envision the Holy Spirit between the other person and me.

Not as a help to me; but a shield for them.

But when I keep you out there in front of me, God, I cannot hear you.

Another cacophany takes over.

My doubts.  My "fixes."  My natural inclination to push away rather than to embrace.

My harsh, harsh internal critic holds court. Prosecutes me. Defends me. Convicts me. Acquits me. Sentences me.  And, very rarely, pardons me. 

The obvious then presents itself. 

Of course I'm not supposed to do this without You. 

Of course I will trust You. 

Of course You will forgive me.

Of course You and the world will challenge me.

I signed up for this.

(...Or did You sign me up for this?  I think we know the answer to that one.) 

O God, make speed to save us; 

O Lord, make haste to help us.

Two years ago, over the course of a week, I stood in front of a hospital door and recited these lines.

There was no way of knowing what the "perfect" resolution would be.

There was no way of knowing what I would be called upon to do in the course of the day. 

This was my most honest prayer.

It is still my most honest prayer.  Isn't it, God?

Is this Your point?

I don't know what perfection looks like, so why ask for it, expect it, or worse yet seek to create it?

     It's presumption.

My life is mine to live and I cannot live the life of another, so my answers are not theirs?

     It's presumption.

The point is that it isn't me.  It is You.

     Any otherwise, and it's presumption.

I'm the flesh in the room, meeting the other flesh in the room.  

But I'm not the Creator.  

But I don't make normalcy.

But I can't heal cancer.

Maybe, just maybe, the best I can hope for is to be a midwife and to prepare the space for Your new creation and Your comfort.  May I not forget that You dwell in me, and I in You...and You in everyone else.

God, be present.  Keep me mindful of Your purpose and to hear Your murmurings.

Christ, be present.  Keep me mindful of Your incarnation,Your knowledge of our painful existence, and the remedies thereof.

Spirit, be present.  Keep me mindful that I've always done better to acknowledge and hold  You within me than push You out as a defense mechanism.

In the name of the undivided Trinity, Amen.

Why I am not a Pacifist (an addition to yesterday's thoughts on Bin Laden's death)

The alternative title to this blog post is "How I almost went into the military, did not do so, and have dealt with that decision ever since."  Given my post yesterday, filled with cynicism, I felt it might be welcome to give some context to why I'm so concerned about our internal reaction to the (justified) death of Bin Laden.  This post is mostly autobiography, but I'll tease some threads out by the end.

Military School

Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a fighter pilot.  Glasses kept that particular dream from happening, but I readjusted and instead thought of Military Intelligence or Military Police.  I went through JROTC all four years of high school and did well in the unit.  I then planned on entering college and ROTC in order to be commissioned as an officer in the Army.  I was a senior in high school when 9/11 happened; I had planned on joining the service before, and continued to believe so after...even after a series of letters back and forth between me and DODMERB about whether I would be allowed to serve (I got the exception I needed).  

The next year, I matriculated into North Georgia College and State University, a senior military college.  I stayed there for 2.5 years.  

A few formative events stand out for me while I was there.

Hazing happened.  It was part of the territory.  But it was there that I developed a sense of knowing when something crosses from being fun, or "team-building", into sadism.  The line exists, and while not all hazing is categorically bad, there is a line at which it became a gross misuse of power on the part of the person doing the hazing.  The use of humiliation is a good sign that hazing had gone too far.  I witnessed this and on perhaps two occasions participated in the sadistic side of it.  On another occasion, I ended another squad leader's hazing session when it had obviously become sadistic.  

The vast majority of military personnel are NOT sadistic.  The important thing is that the power given to people in militaries lends itself to abuse.  That is why the military so heavily emphasized values (such as the Army's acronym LDRSHIP), discipline, and attention to the Geneva Conventions.  These hopefully keep us human, and remind us that we are fighting other humans.  These restraints are worthwhile, even if our civility puts us at a disadvantage when we fight those who follow no such rules and see us as less than human.

The U.S. invaded Iraq while we cadets were on Spring Break.  Upon returning, all of the first year cadets were asked in class who thought the invasion of Iraq and defeat of Saddam would be easy.  We all raised our hand.  We were then asked who thought the following police action and rebuilding process would be easy.  We all dropped our hands.  We proved to be right.  The U.S. can win a conventional war easily, it's keeping order after you've destroyed infrastructure that is hard (as evidenced by the looting that followed).  Oddly enough, General Shinseki, the chief of staff of the army at the time, suggested that the invasion of Iraq needed several thousands more troops for just that sort of peacekeeping work.  His suggestion was ignored for political reasons.  The point is, all of us first year cadets just about predicted the mess Iraq was going to end up being.

Over my time there, it became clear that things were not going well in Iraq, but I attributed it to post-war fluctuations. I wrote off anti-war protesters as not being able to understand what the nature of war was and as being simplistic in their worldview. It was easy to see them as simply hating the military when the image of a man screaming "baby-killer!" was shown.

By my third year (and 2004 in general), things were coming out and being leaked (and in no particular order here). Generals, after retiring, were criticizing the administration. I could not attribute them to my image of a protester. They deserved a hearing.  Haliburton, Cheney's company, was swindling the military for meals. Then I learned about General Shinseki, who gave a larger number than was politically acceptable when he was asked how many troops were needed to stabilize Iraq post-invasion, and was ignored before the war. I attributed that to the naysayers in Congress until I learned that it was Bush's advisers that said that more troops weren't necessary. Then, as I was listening to the radio one day, Rumsfeld was asked by a soldier why troops had to go through to landfills to armor their vehicles. His response?

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had."

I remember having a physical reaction to that, thinking "Wait, this war was a preemptive strike. You shouldn't start a war unless you are ready." How is it that a room full of cadets knew this war would be protracted, but you [Rumsfeld], supposedly an expert, did not? 

The Bush Administration, which had gone to great lengths to brand naysayers as, well, traitors, had members swindling the military on something as basic as food and had also been very nonchalant and downright dismissive about providing other supplies to troops. (How about this, families and citizens buy body armor for troops because they can't get it supplied).   I was on track to enter the service, but the most disdain for the military and the brush-offs seemed to be coming from those who were putting them into battle in the first place.

 As such, I started to doubt whether I could serve in the military.  True, the military, its ideals, and that which the military protects transcends the administrations that it reports to, but I was finding it difficult to imagine commissioning.

So, I was in military school in 2004, planning to commission in either MP or MI when the news of Abu Ghraib broke.  While it was billed as an exceptional case of bad soldiers given clearance to "soften up detainees" without direction as to how to do it, and even as President Bush expressed horror at what was happening there, it seemed clear that there were orders to get rougher with detainees.  Not knowing if the Army had received something from up the chain of command that countermanded the Army's field manual of interrogation, I had to ask myself what I could do, or order someone else to do, to another human being.  (That the U.S. tortured is a strong claim, but we called waterboarding torture when the Japanese did it to our pilots in WW2, and when the Khmer Rouge used it in their revolution. We executed the Japanese prison officials for what they did. For the U.S. to turn around, use the same tactic, and call it "enhanced interrogation" is a farce.)  My faith, as nominal as it was in 2004, would not allow me to torture, order others to do it, or be in a position to witness it (even if military personnel are not involved, the CIA has been doing it in military detention centers).  

What weighed as more important than my faith was my knee-jerk reaction that torture was not something that America should resort to using; we were better than that.  I decided that I could not go into the military and serve with honor if I were put into a position to act against my faith, the American tradition, and international law.  More troubling still was the general attitude of apathy or “it serves them right” that was very common.   

I decided to teach instead.

Since Military School

So I returned home to Mobile, AL and went to school to become a teacher.  Along the way, I decided to pursue interests I had that grew out of my experiences at NCGSU.  How do you get people to agree to torture others?  What does power do to people?  How does religion turn violent?  Why do Christians support torture at higher rates than non-Christians?  What are the ethics of war?  Who sets these ethics?  How does religion legitimate wars between nation-states?

I don't think it is too strong to say that my anger at the way the United States decided to fight the war on terror kept me out of the military, and I spent my time at Arizona State University trying to understand why the United States decided to pursue the war the way they did, and why I reacted the way I did.

But I treated the study and the questions as a simply academic exercise.  At some point, it became less academic and more about life to me.  I stopped simply studying arguments and began making arguments. Along the way, God became real to me that was not apparent to me earlier, and I now understand and evaluate a lot of the ethical traditions I studied through a Christian lens.  I studied pacifism, the just war tradition, and the idea of holy war.

Where I am now

In the end, my study has not left me with answers.  It probably should not have either.  I’m not a pacifist, or rather, I hope I’m a pacifist when it comes to (not)defending myself.  But my decision directly conflicts with my responsibly to protect people under my care:  my wife, my future children, those weaker and poorer than me.  One wonders how Jesus would have told the parable of the Good Samaritan if the Samaritan walked upon the actual robbery and beating.  In the end, I can try to turn the other cheek; I can’t hold out someone else’s cheek to be struck.  Pacifism can only be a personal decision, not a national policy.

While I hold pacifism as an ideal, I find myself reluctantly in the camp of the just war tradition.  Reluctantly, because there has never been a purely “just war.”  There have been less-morally-plagued wars, but no just wars.  Still, given the fallen nature of humankind, I recognize that the equality of sin does not mean an equality of guilt.  The United States is not perfect, and has not always used its power responsibly, but I still think we all have the ability to call out that which is evil in the world.  Bin Laden killed or arranged the murder of thousands over his career; he wasn’t finished in his work.  He died fighting instead of surrendering when given the option.  His death was the last option available given that he thought killing unarmed civilians was justified and that he was willing to murder again.  That may be the sad reality of life on this side of perfection.   I am thankful and relieved that Bin Laden is dead, and the military has reason to be proud of the work they do, but for the reasons I state here, I find no joy in it.

The danger is that our virtues can blind us to our vices (I’m sounding positively Niebuhrian here).  When we forget our own capacity for evil, because of the exercise of power, we risk losing our soul.  That is why I am bothered by triumphalistic language and nationalistic fervor in the wake of Bin Laden’s death.  When we forget that justice in an imperfect world is a somber task, and we instead start to believe we can do no wrong in the pursuit of justice, our power can give way to sadism.  We get used to our exercise of power under those circumstances.  Celebrating the death of the Enemy becomes easier.  Torture becomes easier and thinkable.  We forget that we can become like Them when we forget what makes Us different:  that we committed ourselves to higher standards.  I saw glimpses of the slipping of those standards in military school, and I saw fully and studied what ignoring them does in places like Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and Guantanamo Bay.

That leaves me cynical.  Pacifism is an ideal that can’t be imposed, and the just war tradition comes up short because it is an idealized ethical framework that relies on imperfect human beings to implement (provided that they even want to).  But the necessity of trying to keep us human remains, and that goal is best served when we remember that even the people we fight are human as well.  Pacifism and the just war tradition address that point more readily than the ethical systems of nationalism and political realism.

Instead I hope for a better world where peace, love, and reconciliation reign, and orient myself toward that goal.  I write about it, I preach about it, I pray about it.  In the meantime, human nature guarantees that utopia to be a long way off, and so I make a distinction between the military taking pride in its work and skill and taking pleasure in the death of a person, even if it is the result of one's skill. I'm indebted to military and police personnel (many of both in my family) for their work—work that is unfortunately required in this world.  And I pray that God has mercy on us all, even our enemies.

Thoughts on the death of Bin Laden

I woke up this morning to the news of Bin Laden's death.

My first reaction was that I didn't believe it.

My second reaction was that some semblance of justice had been served.

I am not a full-throated pacifist.  Bin Laden set in motion the killing of thousands over his career, not just on 9/11.  And on 9/11, it wasn't just Americans who were murdered, but individuals from many different countries.  His brand of terrorism respected no religious creed but his own warped vision of Islam, meaning Muslims could also be potential victims in a war where he proclaimed there were no neutral parties.  I accept Bin Laden's death was as just an outcome as we could expect on Earth given his past actions and future intentions.  (A trial would have been nice, too.  It reads like he decided to not be taken alive.)

My third reaction approached cynicism.

That the mastermind of the largest terrorist operation on U.S. soil had been killed by the skillful SEAL Team 6 registered in my mind as a solemn example of our own imperfect nature.  There is one less planner of terrorist attacks, but the cycle of violence will continue.  As many will be saying in the days ahead, the war is not over.  In some ways it is never over.

What will prove to be the hard part of the once-called "war on terror" is that the end of the war seems unlikely.  The celebration that broke out in various places in DC and New York seemed more fitting for the end of hostilities, but in a never-ending war, we seem to take what small victory we can get.

My fourth reaction was disgust.

Celebrations!  We celebrate because Bin Laden is dead.  But he still wins, in a way.  His actions have killed thousands; Our reaction has also killed thousands, cost trillions, and put us in a position to continue to fight wars that Bin Laden no longer can fight.  He got what he wanted, a civilizational war with what he and others like him called the 'Great Satan.'  Going forward, some in our own country will be happy to oblige in the civilzational war Bin Laden believed in so much.

In quarters of social media, the phrase 'Enjoy Hell' is popping up as a status.  Christians glorying in death is not a good sign.  People draped in the American flag chanting  "USA,USA!!" is not a good sign.  Justice, like war, is a solemn undertaking.  When we start celebrating death, even the death of one so guilty of crimes against humanity, we turn from justice and approach revenge.  We turn away from life.

David Gushee, in a statement today, wrote that:

For those of us who embrace a version of the just war theory, honed carefully over the centuries of Christian tradition, our response is disciplined by belief that war itself is tragic and that all killing in war, even in self-defense, must be treated with sobriety and even mournfulness. War and all of its killing reflects the brokenness of our world. That is the proper spirit with which to greet this news.

The Vatican shared the same sentiment:

In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion  for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.

I am of the same opinion.

The Christian task is harder than dispatching someone in a speedy death (or a slow death, as some have stated that they would have preferred for Bin Laden).  And while I sometimes wish Jesus had been reasonable and would let us sometimes hate our enemies, our job is instead to be about the business of our Father:  love and reconciliation.  Anything less than reconciliation and love is a lesser good, even if it is what is possible in a broken world.  It is not a situation worthy of celebration but lament. 

And so, my prayer today is this:  O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP)

"Do not rejoice when your enemies fall,
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble."
Proverbs 24:17
________________
The religio-political edge to my thinking:

Some Christians are willing to go down that above-mentioned path of death, such as David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who said 

I know President Obama understands that getting Bin Laden doesn’t mean an end to the war on terrorism but how about a smile? How about showing a little joy? How about a word or two saying something about how this is no doubt a happy or joyous occasion for Americans? We got nothing like that at all. Instead, we got Mr. Monotone. Mr. Bars and Tone. Mr. Non-Emotion.  President Obama missed an opportunity to connect with Americans last night.

On behalf of President Obama, I apologize to David Brody that he did not get an "Osama is Dead!" Balloon.  I think Obama gets this whole business of war a bit more than Brody does.  While we might acknowledge that our imperfect nature leads to conflict, we don't need to celebrate it.

Good Friday into Holy Saturday

In 2005, St. Paul's-on-the-Green in Norwalk, CT commissioned a set of paintings depicting the stations of the Cross. The paintings can be found here.  The paintings juxtapose Christ's trial, torture, crucifixion, and burial with modern scenes of conflict.

For instance, this particular painting is based on a photo of the abuses in Abu Ghraib; as you can see, it is eerily accurate (here, especially).  Seeing these paintings while on a tour were what ultimately led me to work at this particular parish.

I'm of the opinion that these paintings get to the heart of the crucifixion in a way that few other stations of the cross do.  The stations traditionally remind us that the crucifixion of Jesus--the torture and murder of the Son of God-- was a one-time event in the history of our salvation that never needs to be repeated.  They tell that solitary story of the decisive moment in history.

The paintings go further.  They show us the hard truth that humankind is still in the business of falsely accusing, torturing, and killing Christ by our actions toward our neighbors; yet we may say we would never do such a thing to Jesus if we were in Jerusalem, even while we yell "Crucify him!" on Palm Sunday. But we must consider who we are willing to crucify in our daily lives.  Who are we willing to let be crucified on our behalf, or because we are told we will be safer?  From whom do we deny the image of God that they bear?

The paintings, and the span of history, remind us that even with the work of salvation done-and-yet-ongoing, human nature is still warped in a way that no one, not even the Church, can fix without God.  Unfortunately, the drums of war and the banging of gavels are sometimes loud enough to drown the still, small voice calling us to forgo the calculations that keep us estranged from everyone around us.

There is hope.  But that is for tomorrow and the Resurrection.  Just for today, the world has won.  At least, the world thinks it has won.  The rebel is humiliated, crucified.  Dead.

Maundy Thursday II

The following is a letter I sent to a person from a different liturgical tradition, in which I try to explain why I was at church on a Thursday.

________________________________

You seemed surprised that I was going to church last night.  I feel obliged to explain why, because in the church year, the Thursday night before Easter is a very difficult and emotional night for me.

In a lot of denominations (Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Eastern Orthodox, etc.), we go through the year by what is known as the liturgical calendar, which divides the year into seasons based on when things happened in the Gospel stories.  We commemorate Christmas and Easter; but we also commemorate Pentecost, Epiphany (Christ’s manifesting of himself with the visit of the Magi, Christ’s Baptism, and the miracle of water into Wine at Cana), his Transfiguration, Ascension, and other events.

What this has meant for me is that I live my life in two different times:  The normal Gregorian calendar, but also a calendar made sacred by entering into the God’s story of the salvation of the world.  In some ways, the sacred calendar is also timeless.  I have found that if you allow yourself to fully enter into the cycle, then when you commemorate the events in the Christian story, you are actually there.   

The week before Easter is known as Holy Week.  The week starts with Palm Sunday, in which we remember Christ’s triumphant entering of Jerusalem before his death.  Starting on Thursday night and going until Easter, we tell the story of Christ’s last supper, betrayal, interrogation, torture, death, and resurrection, according to the day it happened.  This is coming at the end of Lent, a period of the year in which we are more intentional about thinking about who we are as individuals, and who we are as human beings.

I know you don’t worship according to the same type of liturgy/ritual that we do, but I’m going to try to explain why the night is very difficult for me.  It will be helpful to remember that when I worship, I’ve entered the story.  In our rituals, every action (should) have a symbolic meaning that points to God or to the Gospel story in some way.  Here is a link to the Maundy Thursday service that we used in Arizona, which was a little different than last night’s. But I’m going to tell you about last night.

According to John 13:1-17, what we commemorate on Maundy Thursday is the night in which Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.  It is also the night in which he instituted the Holy Communion.  We do the same; we wash each other’s feet and we celebrate Communion.  All of this is pleasant, but it isn’t the end of the night.

After Communion, which represents the Last Supper, everything left over is either consumed or gathered.  Two choir members begin to chant the entirety of Psalm 22 (My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?).  Since the parish in which I will work is Anglo-Catholic, we believe that Christ is really present in the bread and wine.  That bread and wine is then taken into a smaller chapel, where an all-night vigil will be held.  This represents Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane.  Where the sons of Zebedee failed to stay awake, we attempt to watch and pray with Christ.  While this happens every candle in the sanctuary is extinguished.

After the bread and wine are placed in the chapel.  The priests return.  They strip the outward vestments that they wear, the ones that set themselves apart as priest.  Then the altars are stripped of all candles and linens, leaving the sanctuary bare.  This represents two things:  Christ’s own forced nudity on the cross (he was stripped of his garments), and his absence because of the three days in the tomb.  With the candles gone, the absence of light is symbolic of the absence of the light of the world and the hour in which the earth was dark.

The chanted psalm ends.  Next, the Betrayal and arrest of Jesus is read aloud.  The last words were from Mark were “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”   Immediately, the overhead lights go out, and the ministers and choir scatter and walk away as the disciples did.  The congregation leaves in silence, or goes to keep vigil with Christ in the chapel throughout the night (the only light in the building). 

So begins the darkest part of the Christian year, and human history.  The days in which we all killed God.  We won't see the light again until Saturday night/Sunday Morning, when Christ is risen.

Getting out of the way

As I was walking from lunch to the library, I felt pulled to the music coming from Marquand Chapel.  There was no scheduled service at that time, but the set-up looked as if the class on funerals was walking through a funeral service.  As I looked through the small windows to see what what going on, behind me a door opened and a rather lost-looking young woman walked in from the chilly, overcast day.  Today is 'admitted student day', when gaggles of students come to visit and discern if YDS is right for them.   

She rather nervously picked up a program from the 10:30  Marquand service and then looked as though she would sit down in the hall (and it was noon).  She seemed very uncomfortable.

I asked if she was visiting for admitted student day.  She replied that she was a freshman from Yale College, and that she was seeking somewhere quiet (from Yale College to Yale Divinity is a pretty long walk just to  find somewhere quiet).  She seemed to want to go into Marquand but because of the class going on (and because silence would be hard to come by), I suggested that she follow me down to the library, to Nouwen Chapel.

Marquand Chapel

Nouwen Chapel

On our way to the library, I struck up conversation.  She is considering religious studies as a major, but freshmen do not have to declare for a while.  She appreciates the friendliness of the divinity school students (we're pretty counter-cultural for the Ivy League's highly competitive messiness).  She doesn't know much about this "Christian thing,"  But she attends Compline at Christ Church, New Haven on Sunday nights.  She asked how long Christians have been praying Compline.  Centuries.

Nouwen is an out of the way chapel in the back of the basement in the library. It's often very quiet but for a hissing noise from heating system.  There is natural light from windows in the high domed ceiling, but it is still an appropriately dark space if it needs to be.  It's also a small and intimate setting, with seating for about twenty (and the potential to fit 10 more) as opposed to Marquand, which fits a few hundred. 

"Wow," she said as she walked in.

"Would you like more light?" I asked as I pointed to the lightswitch. No.  "Stay as long as you like, and if you would like someone to talk to, I'll be nearby." I then left to work on a paper, but took a workstation near the door to the chapel.

About thirty minutes later she emerged, looking thankful and somewhat relieved.  She seemed in a hurry, perhaps to get to a class downtown.  I told her that she is welcome to come back to either chapel anytime she needs them and that the community gathers for services at 10:30 am, Monday through Friday.  She thanked me and walked away.  Maybe the heaviness she walked in with was gone.  Maybe it was lightened.  It seems that something holy happened, and I do not get to know what it was.

So, part of me wonders what more I could have done.  But part of me is pretty sure that the answer is "nothing more today."  My presence--where I was, and when--was enough.  It is an exercise in humility to know that I may simply be a small stepping stone on the Way.  I don't save people.  I don't rescue people.  I merely set the conditions for others to meet the Holy.  God works on the heart in manners that are delicate or sharp, but always profound.  Not knowing when we need to step back can sometimes drown out the 'still, small voice' of God with earthly pontifications.  My task is to be present, and trust God to guide; but it also means that I have to know when to get out of the way of the Spirit.

Oddly enough, this reminds me of a line from the fine sermon I heard last night from a fellow seminarian, Kino Vitet:  "Jesus wasn't crucified so you could be a spiritual guru."

 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.  According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.  For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:5-11, NKJV)

P.S.:  Now that this happened, and with the prospect of Clinical Pastoral Education this summer, ordering business cards is now on my to-do list.

My theological influences

I expect that I will find it helpful to write an intellectual biography and return to it occasionally in order to see where I have been and where I am going theologically.  I was inspired to consider this task by rereading Martin Luther King Jr.'s own short autobiography.  I don't think I would start such a thing until after seminary since I'm going to be inundated with theological material over the next few years.  But as a preliminary task it would be good to start a list of my theological influences that formed me from 2006-2010, the years before seminary.

So I'll list a name and the field through which I've found the person most helpful. I'm presenting them in no particular order of importance, but instead with a two-tiered approach.  The top tier represents the most influential.  The bottom tier represents from whom I've grabbed bits and pieces.

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1. Catherine Keller:  process theology, feminist theology; Methodist
2. Martin Luther King Jr.: Social protest/activism, economic justice, faith/secular divide, nonviolence, the nature of love; Baptist
3. Howard Thurman:  theological precursor to MLK Jr., mysticism; Baptist
4. Stanley Hauerwas:  ecclesiology, narrative theology, ethics, pacifism, realism; Methodist(?)
5. William T. Cavanaugh:  ecclesiology, church/state divide, liturgical protest/social activism, Eucharistic theology, theology of torture; Roman Catholic(?)
6. Reinhold Niebuhr:  Christian Realism, the nature of love and justice, social critique
7. John MacQuarrie: existential and systematic theology; Anglican
8. NT Wright:  Eschatology; Anglican
9. St. Thomas Aquinas; virtue, just war tradition; Roman Catholic
10. Rabbi Irving Greenberg:  theodicy; Jewish
11. Melissa Raphael:  theodicy, attributes of God, feminist theology; Jewish

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St. Augustine of Hippo, Peter Gomes, Marcus Borg, John Howard Yoder, Hans Jonas, Martin Buber, James Turner Johnson, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Thomas Merton, Margaret Farley, Michael Ramsey, Desmond Tutu, Eric Reitan...

The stated-unstated: The Bible and the Books of Common Prayer are my theological primary texts.

Re-Learning Evangelism (part one)

      I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior when I was ten years old.  I’m not sure that I remember why. 

It was a long time ago, and I wonder what my mindset was when I was sitting in that pastor’s office.  Did I love Jesus or did I want to avoid a painful eternity in Hell?  Most likely, I think I saw loving Jesus as the way to avoid Hell.  Through tears and prayer, I bought myself fire insurance.

I also grew up a premillenial dispensationalist, believing in the imminent rapture of Christ’s followers and the tribulation that would herald Christ’s return to Earth.  Sometime between the ages of 8-12, it was not uncommon to hear that, during the Tribulation, anyone who was 'left behind' would watch their families being tortured by the forces of the antichrist in an effort to get them to renounce Christ or swear allegiance to Satan.  The greatest fear of a child is the threat of losing one’s family.  Salvation was a way to avoid this fate.

In the end, I’m left to wonder if my entrance into Christianity was based on love or fear, the divine lure or threat of pain.  The manipulation of fear that I witnessed growing up, and continuing in parts of the Church today, paralyzed any sense of doing evangelism that I had.

I left Christianity when I was seventeen because of the hypocrisy I saw in the Church.  What cemented the break was a conversation with my old preacher. I asked what the Bible had to say about interracial dating because I was considering asking someone out and I was looking for some sort of comfort from the flak I was taking at home. My parents were not absolutely against the concept but were telling me not to put on the strain or the particular set of problems that an interracial relationship can bring. I suppose was hoping that I could be offered some strength from the Word, but found condemnation. “Interracial dating is against the Bible,” I was told. I decided that what I was hearing was not the Bible, but the denomination's—or maybe just that preacher's—line.  Still, that was it.  I was done.  In fact, when I received a scholarship at the high school baccalaureate that the church gave in honor of graduates I promptly turned it down on same day because I wanted nothing to do with that particular expression of racist Christianity, which maintained barriers between people while “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female… in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3.28).”

Being outside of the Faith was a great gift; the perspective I gained has been nothing but beneficial to me.  In the world I left, evangelism was taken to mean that one goes out to tell people about Jesus.  It was from that time outside the faith that I observed that what passes for “Good News” is actually not good news; it’s often manipulation of people’s fears.  Watching evangelism felt like watching someone trying to make a transaction—a profession of faith gets you into Heaven!  And who wouldn’t want to go to Heaven!  Eventually, if it was a hard sell, the threat of Hell would make an appearance.  At that point, the Christian traded the loving God for the wrathful God, and traded Good News for ultimatums and coercion.  Implicitly, it shows that the Christian is more certain about God’s wrath than God’s love.

What was worse, and I still see this weekly, is seeing something that is supposed to be evangelism, but it is actually fulfilling a need for Christians.  Yelling “You are all going to Hell!” on a street corner is called evangelism by the people who are yelling, but it is actually a way for them to confirm their own image of themselves:  a persecuted minority bravely standing against the wickedness of the world.  Taking delight in believing atheists will deserve what they get in Hell also falls in this category; the Christian whose evangelistic efforts are rebuffed wants to feel vindicated in the afterlife—Hell will show the atheist who was right(!).  Christians who publicly say they need to evangelize quickly turn around and disparage the person they seek to talk to, which shows a lack of respect for the very person—another child of God— the Christian wants to talk to. 

As I got used to seeing bad evangelism, evangelism as a concept became a problem for me.  I wondered about my own coming to “salvation,” I still hold disdain for the reliance on fear, and I watch Christians show utter disrespect for those we are supposed to love as we love God and as God loves us.  None of this is news; non-Christians have been onto this game for a long time. Even when I re-entered the Church, I felt that I had few models of what I would consider to be healthy, natural evangelism.  What’s more, I have feared that some of the embedded theologies with which I grew up would mean that I would fall into the same bad habits as those noted above if I tried to evangelize.  I think quite a few others who are refugees from other denominations felt the same way.  Entering the Church again was sometimes like going through spiritual triage; it takes time for wounds to heal.  (It was literally last week before I could bear to call myself an evangelist in a way that resonated with my soul and not just my head.)

Eventually, I came to a broader understanding of evangelism.  I needed to; evangelism is a primary responsibility of a Christian.  It took a while to come to the understanding that evangelism is not about converting others, it’s about living in a way that shows how faith in Christ makes a real difference in the here-and-how.  In the broader sense, evangelism is one’s expression of the Word and the sacraments using one’s life as an example.

The Episcopal Church has in recent decades relied on social witness as their primary method of evangelism.  This is certainly not wrong; the Good News of Jesus was not just who He was and that believing in Him lands you in heaven, it is also about what he did as He lived.  When Jesus was asked if he really was the messiah, he replied that “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor (Mt 11:5).”  The Good News of the Kingdom of God is that love and justice are to hold sway in our relationships with our neighbors and our enemies.  Christians need to bear witness to that reality.  So we clothe the naked, sate the thirsty, feed the hungry, and comfort and visit the ill and the imprisoned.  Along the way, Episcopalians continued to do the work of the Kingdom, but (so the story goes) spoke less forcefully about why we were doing it in the first place.  So, part of reclaiming evangelism needs include to learning how to tie the stories of our life to the story of the Faith.  Part of living an intentional life is making these connections and being open about them. 

Here are some ways I make the connections. 

• Because of my faith in Christ I denounce the use of torture, particularly by the American government. 
• Because of my faith in Christ I do not think we should turn a blind eye to violence against women and children.
• Because of my faith in Christ I support the creation or reformation of just social systems, from education to prisons.
• Because of my faith in Christ I think men are women are equal, and the Church should reflect this equality.  “Separate, but equal” doesn’t cut it.
• Because of my faith in Christ I think that God cares about the quality of our love for others and not the configuration of our genitals.
• Because of my faith in Christ, I don’t worry about Heaven or Hell.  I instead worry about the hells we are so good at creating here on Earth.
• Because of my faith in Christ, I ask why there are poor people.
• Because of my faith in Christ, I recognize sin in myself and in our society and yet I believe in forgiveness and redemption.
• Because of my faith in Christ, I think we should rely on God instead of superior firepower.
• Because of my faith in Christ, I try to see Christ in everyone I meet.

These are not political beliefs that I, as a Christian, happen to hold.  These beliefs flow out of my theology and understanding of who God is.  Each one holds a story of a journey I have taken in my relationship with God and with other people.  Humans are storied creatures.  Evangelism is telling our stories to others, not for an anticipated reaction but out of a genuine desire to share the deepest parts of one’s life.  Evangelism is also learning how to listen to the stories of others out of a sincere love for the person.  Learning to do that takes work well worth the effort.

The Monastery

The experience at Holy Cross Monastery was lovely! The pictures I took can be seen on facebook.

It seemed to me most of the “events” I would write about were internal, and I’ll talk about them in a different post (it’ll be long—I connected with some deeper parts of my enneagram type in powerful ways).  Instead of writing a travelogue, I’d rather give a quick list of what I found meaningful.

·         The junior class shared themselves and their thoughts in some wonderful ways.

·         Relatedly, I got to know some awesome people in ways I never had before.  It was powerful to share many of our stories in informal settings.

·         Learning about Benedictine spirituality in a monastic setting does add to the experience.  The simplicity of the way of life makes for a great antithesis to the larger world. 

·         Antithesis is not too strong a word either.  If one sees the pervasiveness of power, sex, and greed as operative in the world (and I certainly do), the Benedictine call to stability, chastity, obedience, and conversion of life offer an antidote to many of the world’s ills.

·         Much to Laura’s relief, it is clear that I do not have a monastic vocation.  My vocation is to be a secular priest, but find ways to infuse a Benedictine spirituality into life outside of the monastery.

·         The brothers opened up and were truthful in ways that impressed me.  As a group they modeled health—not perfection and certainly not a facade—in ways that were honest and forthright.  And by their honesty, the brothers did not allow us to keep our idealized vision of “the holy monk.”  For that, I’m grateful.

·         I’m now convinced that Compline (prayers before bedtime) is my favorite office.  Particularly in the order’s breviary, the prayers hold an authenticity in its reminders of our human condition and dependence on God.  The liturgy also includes a striking confession of sin, remembrance of those absent, and a reminder of baptism in the form of asperges. 

·         Silence is both scary and glorious.  The monastery observes a “Great Silence” from 9pm-9am.  That doesn’t sound so bad since we sleep through part of it, but it is all the more striking when the first thing one hears in the morning is the peal of a bell and the chanted phrase “Lord, open our lips.”  In the meantime, you wait to hear the Spirit; She never ceases to speak.  

Oh yeah...I'm going back when I can.  Good thing it's only two hours away.