Murdering creativity...

Forty-four years ago, Harvey Cox wrote, "As the true heirs of our Puritan forebears, we are taught to turn our backs on the world of fantasy - along with such accompaniments as mirth, intemperance and unseemly speculation - and to labor diligently in the world of fact.  That very Puritan man, Sigmund Freud, sternly warned us to respect the 'reality principle' and not to be tricked by illusion, future or otherwise.  So we have obeyed..." (Feast of Fools, p. 70)

Or we did for a while... but today, even in the land of the Puritans almost nobody goes to church anymore.  "Oh, that's boring and irrelevant" many say.  Others are clear that it isn't even on their radar for options.  A few suggest that they "might" go to worship if it had any thing to do with grace and joy.  But even young families who want to nourish the moral and ethical values of the Christian faith often find it easier to stay at home on Sunday mornings or let the kids play soccer or basketball.  They might feel a little guilty but... oh well.

Some of this, it seems to me, is the consequence of our "sibling society" where many adults don't want to act like parents because the desires of their children for "more" has become the rule of the day.  Others have truly had their hearts broken by a variety of clergy and institutional abuse that has destroyed trust in one way or another.  A few don't know where to go with their questions and doubts any more because there is a renewed drive to "follow the leader.  What's more, most churches seem to be more interested in security and conformity than wrestling with the truth. 

But many - maybe most - aren't interested in the counter cultural way of Jesus because for so long it has murdered creativity.

I know that is strong language, but it rings true to me.  Starting in the 1950s and bursting upon the middle class in the 1960s, we have been hell-bent on reclaiming creativity as well as imagination and fantasy in our lives.  Look at the movies and books we buy, think about the video gaming industry and the possibilities of the Internet. Our souls have been aching for ways to nourish the creative spirit within for nearly 50 years - and  we have jumped into this quest with verve and zeal - but nobody but the marketing departments have paid any real attention.

Most churches are terrified of creativity - and over the years what has been passed off as soul food born of the imagination is limp, inept and so saturated with pastel images that our imaginations feel strangled to death.  Hell, I stayed away for as long as I could, too.  Who wouldn't? 

But here's the thing:  adolescent rebellion gets old and our replacement of the ancient rituals that have historically nourished the soul and imagination have now become pathological. That was one of the great insights of C.G. Jung:  whenever life-giving and creative rituals lose touch with the sacred, they are replaced by pathological alternatives.  We don't fast any more, we diet - and burden our children with eating disorders, too.  We don't celebrate the awesome, sometimes dangerous mystery of the sacred any more, we play video games or hunt out pornography or cut ourselves to know we're alive.  It doesn't satisfy but it distracts long enough with a buzz so we go for it.

I can't help but believe that this hunger for creativity is where we really need to put our energy as a church.  The quest to feed our imagination - and I mean in bold, demanding and vibrant ways - is ever more on my mind as I get ready for a vacation break. Like Grace Slick sang 48 years ago, let's REALLY feed our heads - but not with bullshit - but real communion with the sacred.

Babel, arrogance and Pentecost...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, June 24, 2012.  Our band, Between the Banks, will lead this week's worship music, too.  This is part three of my essential stories series and focuses on the Flood, the Tower of Babel and the blessings of Pentecost.  Then we're off for 2 weeks of vacation.

Introduction

An old Jewish proverb tells us: “It is better to ask the way ten times than to take the wrong road once.” And while I might add that sometimes on vacation there are blessings to be found by wandering and exploring for a time, too still the truth of these old words warrants our attention:  by faith we have been called by God to live in humility and trust.

·      We have been commanded to actively seeks out wisdom in all its forms and embrace it, to honor the hard won good judgment of our elders with respect and strive never to become a law unto ourselves.

·      That is the fundamental reason why we read the Scriptures each week:  “we do not want to make the mistake of becoming our own blind guides” (Chittister) in a complex world.  So by trust and humility we listen for God’s word about the human condition in the experiences of our ancient relatives and then attempt to discern what that living word means for us.

Without the time-tested wisdom from generations past, you see, most of us will be left “dumb, undeveloped and awash in a naked arrogance that blocks our minds, cripples our souls and makes us unfit for the relationships that should enrich us beyond our merit and despite our limitations.” (Chittister, p. 71)

·       And God forbid we should want to become kind and helpful?  Without trust and humility our meager virtues and petty appetites will devour us.

·       Look at Syria – or the Sudan.  Take a long hard look at all the money being poured into this election cycle alongside the perpetually unmet needs of our schools, families and our most vulnerable citizens.  Or better still, maybe a mirror would be most instructive…

What I’m trying to say is that here is so much understanding and insight available to us from our ancient wisdom traditions if we would only be open to receiving it; in humble trust, we don’t have to reinvent every wheel.  Our faith communities have a great deal to teach us – they stretch back four thousand years – so what we need is respect for experience… and enough trust to know that what we cannot see right now may still be valuable to us.” 

St. Paul said told us that now we see as through a glass darkly, but later we shall see face to face.   All because we can mature and ripen with compassion and competence if we are willing to learn from those who have gone before us.  So today we move into story number three in the Top Seven Essential Tales from the Old and New Testaments:  the Tower of Babel.  It is a wild, primal and penetrating legend about what happens to real people when we choose to ignore the will of the Lord. 

·      It is as ancient as the desert world of Babylon 900 years before Christ was born and as contemporary as 21^st century global warming.

·      It speaks to the hubris of dictators past and present, the complexity of living IN the world but not OF the world and the challenge of trusting the heart of the Lord when all we really want to do is dance.

It is a GREAT story – and comes to a provocative conclusion in the Christian Pentecost, too – so let’s take a little time to:  1) review the action; 2) put it in context; and 3) tease out some of the wisdom for our lives so that we, too, might benefit from the trials and testimonies of those who have gone before us in faith. 

Pray with me:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Insights

Now what can you tell me about the story of the Tower of Babel?

·      What’s the action – how does it unfold – what do you recall?

·      It is a story about building a huge tower and God’s displeasure and eventual destruction of it. We’re never really told why God was displeased, but we sense it has something to do with arrogance.

And that hunch is reinforced when we consider a part of this story that occurs prior to the action of Genesis 11 in the narrative of our early faith. That story has to do with the Great Flood and Noah and his Ark.  And, in order for our story about Babel to have depth, we have to know about the flood and what takes place in that story, too.  So, what do you know about Noah and the Flood and the reason for the devastation?

·      On one level it was a mythological story to make sense of the periodic flooding that took place throughout the region, right? 

·      On another level it was a theological story about God cleansing the earth from the blood of violence:  starting with Cain and Abel this story tells us that the Lord acted like a temple priest who cleansed the earth of all traces of impure and sinful blood spilled in violence.

What else?  Well, it is also a story of faith, trust and humility:  Noah is described in Genesis as a tzaddik who is tamim – a compassionate and just man who avoids sin and does so in a mature or even perfect way.  One of the great Jewish interpreters of scripture and tradition, Rabbi Shapiro, known as Rashi puts it like this:  A tzaddik is one who refrains from sinning, someone in control of his urges and inclinations while a tamim is someone whose thought process is perfect, his philosophy in-line with G‑d's (see Rashi on Deuteronomy 18:13.)

In the legend, both before and after the flood, Noah is a generous and compassionate man:  one who has learned from his tradition and is without sin.  His mind and heart is attuned to the will of the Lord.  So he is selected to co-create with God after the impurities of spilt blood is cleansed by the flood. 

·       And after the cleansing of the world – much like a ritual bath or astronomical hand washing – new life resumes on earth and Noah is told to go forth into all the world and be fruitful and multiply.

·      That’s why the story of the Flood matters in our ancient tradition:  it is about God’s cleansing commitment to creation – setting us free from the stain of impure blood – and celebrating the importance of living as tzaddiks and tamim – compassionate, mature people of faith and humility.  Are you still with me? 

Well, after the flood the book of Genesis gives us a long laundry list of the offspring and relatives of Noah and his sons – Shem, Ham and Japheth – and all is well and good until we come to the name of Nimrod.  He is the son of Cush whom Scripture calls a dark and mighty hunter who became the first mighty man on earth – a passionate warrior who went forth to create… Babel.

·      Not a tzaddik or tamim – but a warrior set on achieving his own goals – building his own kingdom – a tower which could be seen for miles in every direction.

·       Do you see where this is going and why it might have some ethical implications for us? 

In two generations the Bible tells us that the emphasis had shifted from living in harmony with God’s will to creating empire and power and temples of arrogance created out of our own limited vision rather than in the image and will of the Lord.  Another ancient rabbi pulled it all together like this:

When the flood gates closed, the waters settled, and the people emerged from the floating box, they quickly went ahead to rebuild civilization, having children, building homes, accumulating wealth, and just getting back to routine.  And not too long afterwards, they hit upon a wonderful idea. Why not, they thought, build a huge tower that will reach the sky? After all, we have the technology and the manpower! Let us build a legacy for ourselves! Let the future world know about how awesome we were! The vote was unanimous to build the tower, and the people of Babel set out to make their dream a reality. Things started out smoothly and they were making headway, when G‑d decided to put a stop to the project. He mixed up their languages – confused them – and dispersed them all over the world.

And you ask, what was the big deal? Why did G‑d react so angrily to such a harmless cause? Where did these visionaries go wrong? Could there be something wrong in wanting to build a legacy?  Well, yes! There was something very wrong. Think about it, friends. The world had been destroyed and now their society needed a lot of help.  Children needed schools, places of worship needed to be built, traumas had yet to be settled . . . and all these people could think about was their legacy! Why not the first hospital?  Or school?  Or homeless shelter?

·      It reminds me of the obscene absurdity spoken after the tragedies of September 11^th:  Don’t let the terrorists win we were told – go out and… shop!  Remember that?  Not join together in a sacrificial act of sharing to help one another.  Not advance the cause of peace and understanding.  Not let’s go down to the river and pray – Jew, Christian and Muslim together – but shop! 

·      Same thing right here in the ancient story:  use your creativity and wealth and power and resources to show the world how awesome and self-absorbed we can be – so God struck down their arrogance and caused them to be confused and scattered.

That’s part one:  the action – with just a little bit of commentary along the way.  Part two is this:  we don’t really know when the Tower of Babel story came into being.  Maybe it was picked up along the way in the desert before Israel became a nation.  It could have taken shape and form during the time of King David or perhaps during the 6^th century BCE when Israel was in bondage to Babylon.  After all, the word Babel comes from two sources:  the Hebrew word, balal, which means to jumble or confuse, and, the Greek word for Babylon, bab-el, the gate of the Lord.

·      Clues, to be sure, but the exact origin of the story isn’t clear.  Many scholars think it is likely that it was organized in its current form sometime in the 6^th century BCE because of the reference to bricks being burned thoroughly – something that wasn’t done early in Israel’s history – but was a part of Mesopotamian construction techniques. 

·      And this 6^th century BCE date might also be true given how Israel was trying to understand why God would allow them to be destroyed – again – during this time!  Had they become too proud?  To cavalier with the Law?  Too self-important?

And that brings me to part three:  what do we do with this story?  I think there are at least two parts to an answer.  Christians came to believe that the brokenness of creation that was instituted by the Lord at Babel was reversed on the first Pentecost after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, right?  Do you recall the action of the Pentecost story?

·      Christ has been crucified – and his disciples heart-broken.  Then by the grace and love of God Christ was raised from the dead – resurrected – and came back to encourage and teach his beloved friends about how they might move forward as tzaddiks and tamim – compassionate and mature people of faith – for their generation.

·     And before Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of God forever he taught them the scriptures and prayer and advised them to hang tight and wait until they received power from on high.

And that’s exactly what they did:  they waited and prayed and studied and listened – they practiced humility and trust – until God was ready.  And on the Jewish celebration of Pentecost, what happened?  The Holy Spirit came upon them the believers and filled them all with a dynamic power…

·      A power that gave them courage and the willingness and ability to speak to different kinds of people in ways that everyone could understand.

·     That’s what Pentecost is all about – the maturation of humility and trust combined with an outburst of God’s grace – so that you can speak and love everybody regardless of language, race, creed, color or class.

By the blessing and presence of the Holy Spirit – the same breath of God that the Lord breathed into the first mud creatures who became nephesh chayah – living souls – the same power God used to bring order out of chaos in the beginning of the book of Genesis – this same breath of God filled the first disciples and gave them the ability and desire to build bridges between very different kinds of people.  Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms which is the parent of Habitat for Humanity, put it like this:

·      Pentecost is NOT about talking in spiritual gibberish.  It is about God’s grace made so real in your life that you can communicate in love with everyone:  you can communicate with business people and soldiers, peace advocates and nihilists, young and old and gay and straight and male and female and Republican and Democrat and Green.  Because your tongue has the gift of grace.

·       So Pentecost is about maturing in humility and trust and being on fire for sharing God’s love with everybody.  How did one preacher put it?  In God’s grace the Lord can take a no body like me – and turn them into a somebody by love – who is on fire to tell anybody in life – that everybody is both blessed and beloved by the Lord.

Conclusion

And that suggests that we have some work to do, yes?  Some work in humility and trust?  Some work in being open to the Holy Spirit in love? 

·       Some work in resting deeply enough in God’s grace that we can offer clear and loving challenges to the arrogant destruction that surrounds and infects us all?

·       Some work in being tzaddiks and tamim – adults of mature compassion whose thinking is aligned with the will of the Lord – by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

And here’s the good news of this challenge:  if God could take that wild and crazy group of disciples that included Peter and James and Mary Magdalene and all the rest, then there is hope for you and me, too.

Jesus was clear:

If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you. I will talk to the Father and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth – the Holy Spirit – who has been at work in Creation since before the beginning of time. The godless world can't take him in because they don’t have eyes to see him and don’t even know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you and will even be in you just as he has been with me from the beginning.

By the grace of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – in humility and trust – the wounds of Babel can be reversed.  And this, beloved, is the good news for today.

credits:  see the brilliant work @ http://artistaday.com/

Yet another surprise...

Finishing the last chapter for tonight's book study, Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker Palmer talks about the work of... Marshall Ganz.  I haven't thought/heard about Marshall in 20 years - but apparently he has been active - in a variety of culture changing ways that still resonate with our old commitments.  On the Harvard Kennedy School of Government web page is this decription:

Marshall Ganz, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, entered Harvard College in the fall of 1960. In 1964, a year before graduating, he left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. In 1965, he joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; over the next 16 years he gained experience in union, community, issue, and political organizing and became Director of Organizing. During the 1980s, he worked with grassroots groups to develop effective organizing programs, designing innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state, and national electoral campaigns. In 1991, in order to deepen his intellectual understanding of his work, he returned to Harvard College and, after a 28-year "leave of absence," completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an MPA by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his PhD in sociology in 2000. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics.

I knew Marshall back in the day - then he was the head of Salinas, CA field office of the United Farm Workers - and I was the administrative assistant to Secretary-Treasurer Gilbert Padilla.  He was an organizing genius and maverick who knew how to get the job done:  he was tireless, dedicated, idealistic and pragmatic. I first learned to sing, "Woke Up this Morning with My Mind" - a gospel song turned freedom tune by the Civil Rights movement - from Marshall's friend Jessica Govea during a Farm Worker Campaign. During a contract negotiation that required Gilbert's presence, I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of a closet in Marshall's apartment. And I appreciated the role he played in an inter-racial movement as a middle-class white guy.

Here's a picture I recently found of the glory days of the Farm Workers:  (from left to right: Dolores Huerta, Mack Lyons, Richard Chavez, Cesar Chavez, Eliseo Medina,
Philip Veracruz, Gilbert Padilla, Marshall Ganz and Pete Velasco) Gilbert was my boss, Pete was my neighbor and I played guitar for Richard's daughter's wedding.

Like hundreds of UFW activists grand and small, there came a time to let Cesar do his thing and create our own lives.  And it seems that one of the things Marshall worked on was running something called "Camp Obama" in the days of preparation for Obama's bid for the presidency. Journalist Zack Exley writes:

No one who attends a "Camp Obama" training weekend can deny that something truly beautiful is taking place inside the Barack Obama campaign. But beauty does not win votes. Is the campaign's innovative, intellectual and emotional training program leading toward electoral power, or, just another screaming disappointment for the grassroots?

Well, clearly Camp Obama was part of the reason for the 2008 victory because as creative community organizers have known since the time of Saul Alinsky, you have to "combine the language of the heart with the message of the head because it is values, not just interests that move people to get involved in politics."  What Ganz did with this camp - and apparently what he has been doing on a professional level for the past 25 years - has something to do with helping activists figure out how to advance the cause of democracy and civil rights beyond feel good vigils.

He puts it like this on a website from the Kennedy School (http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k2139)

Welcome to Marshall Ganz’s Web module on organizing. Professor Ganz is a long-time organizer; a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and a principal of Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
Please click here to preview the featured video vignette of Ganz's "Motivations" (52 seconds).

This Web module contains learning materials that touch upon such questions as:

• What is organizing?
• How do people organize?
• What skills are required of organizers?
• How can these skills be shared with others?

This module is designed for organizers, students, and trainers of organizers alike. It is more of a library than online course per se. Organizers and students will find readings, video lecture clips and Web links on organizing ("Learning Resources" tab on this website). In addition, trainers will find a pedagogy of organizing developed by Professor Ganz and his colleagues ("Trainer's Workshop").

As Ganz explains, learning organizing is learning a practice, like riding a bicycle--falling off, and having the courage to get back on, is the only way you can learn to keep your balance. (See the "Learning Organizing" section of this website for more detail.) We welcome your suggestions and/or feedback on this site. Please email Professor Ganz's assistant, Joanna Hamilton (joanna_hamilton@harvard.edu).

Read more about his insights and commitments here: Why Stories Matter.

I grew up in Bakersfield, California, where my father was a rabbi and my mother was a teacher. I went to Harvard in 1960, in part because it was about as far as I could get from Bakersfield, which was the terminus of the dust bowl migration that John Steinbeck made famous in The Grapes of Wrath.

I got my real education, however, when I left Harvard to work in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. I went to Mississippi because, among other things, my father had served as an Army chaplain in Germany right after World War II. His work was with Holocaust survivors, and as a child the Holocaust became a reality in our home. The Holocaust was interpreted to me as a consequence of racism, that racism is an evil, that racism kills. I made a choice to go to Mississippi.

I also was raised on years of Passover Seders. There’s a part in the Passover Seder when they point to the kids and say, “You were a slave in Egypt.” I finally realized the point was to recognize that we were all slaves in Egypt and in our time that same struggle from slavery to freedom is always going on, that you have to choose where you stand in that. The civil rights movement was clearly about that struggle. It was in Mississippi that I learned to be an organizer
(http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/marshall-ganz-why-stories-matter/)

Amazing the different blessings that stumble your way when you're not looking, yes?

Count down for vacation begins... yesterday!

So in 8 days we leave for jolie Montreal - both of us vowed last night not to carp (much) during the next busy week because we are soooooo ready - and the anticipation is growing. Before we go, however, there are pastoral calls to share, worship times to lead, prayer, Eucharist, classes to teach and church administration (for me) and inventory, mailings, art works and more (for Di) to finish.  That is, the quotidian mysteries continue.

And it is funny how when you're not looking and busy getting ready for something else, some beautiful things sometimes pop up and invite your quiet attention.  They speak to your heart and soul and remind you that even in the midst of preparation and anticipation, God is still speaking.

Two unexpected blessings showed up yesterday and they are worth sharing.  The first is this quote from Brian McLaren.  Often he captures what I am experiencing in this ministry of renewal - the challenge and invitation to live in new ways - not simply new ideas.  This is rough going for everyone - myself included - but is so much more satisfying than just rehashing the same old same old over again and expecting different results.

What we need is not simply a new way of thinking, although our quest leads deep into and through the mind. We also need a new way of 'being', a new inner ecology, a new spirituality that does more than make us opinionated and fastidious, but that renders our souls an orchard of trees bearing good fruit, rooted in who we are before God and who we are becoming in God. (p. 29 A New Kind of Christianity)

As I try to work through various petty annoyances and problems, I find that McLaren speaks to what is most important to me: not hassles rooted in opinions and fastidiousness but rather grace and creativity.  Time and again I run into the truth that I can't change anybody else - I can barely change myself - so the more I rest in God's grace the better everything turns out.  This washed over me again last night after meditating on these words and leaving them in God's hands.

The second is this sculpture that showed up on Facebook and captures what is so important about art:  here is a visual portrayal of a deep spiritual truth that has been given shape and form.  As a created work of art it continues to challenge and inspire long after the words have evaporated.  It, too, was an unexpected answer to prayer... blessings abound even in the hassles and pain.

The hurt you embrace...

Rumi says that "the hurt you embrace turns to joy."  I suspect that this is true, but it is joy hard won, yes?  Nobody likes to own their shadow - or sin - and it takes a lot of patience and grace to do so consistently.  Joan Chittister writes:

To bear bad things - evil things - well... is a mark of humility.  And it is a dour and difficult notion for the modern Christian to accept. The goal of the 21st century is to cure all diseases, order all inefficiency, topple all obstacles, end all stress and prescribe immediate panaceas. We wait for nothing and put up with little and abide less and react with fury at irritations. We are a people without patience. We do not tolerate process. We cannot stomach delay.

In a word, we do not know how to endure.  I know this is true for me - and that's why I sometimes think God called me to be a pastor.  Because mostly pastors wait - we have to learn to bite our tongues - and trust that God's grace is bigger than our frustrations. And we have to do it with people who are lovely, those who are annoying and those who are mean-spirited as well.  We have to endure with people who are quick to point out our failures but are unable to embrace their own.  And we are called to endure with souls who are saintly and show us how petty we can real be from time to time.

Some days it is a humbling vocation - always blessed - but hard because, of course, the root word for humility is related to humiliation.  Still, Rumi is right and with patience our hurt can lead to wisdom and insight and, in time, even joy.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgement.

Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived meYou desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right^* spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing^* spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God^* is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Wynton Marsalis says that he learned to accept everything in a person - the good, the bad and the ugly - from playing with Art Blakey.  "He made it clear that you never know enough about another person to judge them..."  We don't know their pain, their fears, their curses and demons - we just see the tip of the iceberg - and what we see is only part of the story. Both Marsalis and Chittister bring me a healing word for today... and I am grateful.

Going deeper towards the emptiness...

Fr. Thomas Keating, mentor of the Centering Prayer movement, once wrote that the goal of feeling centered in a deep inner rest with God is never the goal of the inward journey: consolation is a nice experience, but truly resting in God is destination.  He went on, therefore, to note that often when people begin to pray in this Western mystical way they first experience a sense of renewal and hope. And they are elated: how wonderful to feel intimately embraced by the Lord.  And I agree - it is sweet - but what happens when the feelings end?  What happens when we inevitably come down off the mountain into the valley of the shadow of death? 

Do we quit?  Do we conclude that God has abandoned us?  Do we only go inward to feel better and then rush on to something else when the feelings become empty or hard?  If yes, then our inner journey is more like the opiate Marx described and we're spiritual addicts frantic for our next fix.  I've done this - and maybe so have you - it is natural.

That is why Fr. Keating urges us to continue to practice centering prayer - learning to move past the initial loss of what we think of as God's sweet intimacy - in order that we might actually come to rest and trust God's presence beyond our feelings. This is a spiritual commitment beyond our capacity to either comprehend or control.  Authentic rest, not spiritual consolation, is the goal.  And such a distinction is clearly a minority report in contemporary Western Christianity. Is it too harsh to suggest that often we are either addicted to "sloppy agape" (as one of my seminary profs put it) or we're frantic with anxiety? 

I know that every generation must move forward in faith with fear and trembling - and there are some beautiful things happening in our world - but the dominant paradigm of our generation seems to be the polar opposite of the mature disciples St. Paul (or his emissary) spoke about in Ephesians 4:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Robert Bly and Marion Woodman suggest that in our quest to overcome the lack of emotional affect born of the 1950s "organization man" - and the absence of a clear and strong father born of the industrial revolution - our 1960s/70s culture has created a "sibling society" that overcompensates.  The result is that we become a group of wounded, emotional junkies.  No one is an adult - nobody is mommy or daddy - and everybody is a child.  No one takes responsibility for making hard decisions - pain is somebody else's fault rather than a hard fact of life - and the goal is to have others take care of us because life is just too hard. 

As one reviewer put it: "Bly and Woodman make the case that we have neglected our elders and abandoned our children to become a horizontal, sibling society of adolescents attempting to raise each other." Wynton Marsalis says much the same thing in his small book on jazz, On Higher Ground:

Jazz insists on the undisputed sovereignty of the human being... and the arts let us know who we are in all our glory and reveal the best of who we are. All the political and financial might in the world is diminished when put to the service of an impoverished cultural agenda. And we see this in our schools, in our homes and in our world profile: rich and fat, lazy and morally corrupt with wild, out of control young people. 

This seems to be part of the human condition and religion often encourages the quest for security rather than deep inner peace.  Enter the disturbing story of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Here an older Babylonian myth about a good man in the best sense of the word is reframed by Jewish sages sometime between the 6th and 4th century BCE as an alternative to the quest for religious security. For most of the story, Job eats it - he endures and prays, he wonders and frets about his agony until finally he explodes at the Lord with a fury fueled by anger, hurt and fear.

That is, he acknowledges in his soul that within the Sacred there is chaos as well as order - there is a power within the Holy that is not just beautiful but also terrifying - there is meaning in life as well as the abyss.  And when Job embraces this in his own flesh... 

I like the way poet Stephen Mitchell expresses Job's reaction when he writes: "The Book of Job is the great poem of moral outrage. It gives voice to every accusation against God and its blasphemy is cathartic.  How liberating it feels NOT to be a good, patient little God-fearer, scuffling from one's hole in the wall to squeak out a dutiful hymn of praise. Job's own voice has freed him so that he can move from the curses of his first speech to the final self-affirmation his own attorney for the defense."

As the story continues eventually God responds to Job - mostly with questions - questions as vast as all of creation and outer space combined - questions as like a voice from out of a whirlwind.  Again Mitchell is instructive:

Now take note: this is a truly different religious vision than the one of Genesis One where humankind is given dominion over all creatures, yes? In Genesis One the world is an ordered and beautiful place. Job tells us, however, that yes there is order, but only up to a point. So Job wants us to see from a "God's-eye view of creation before man, beyond good and evil, marked by the innocence of a mind that has stepped outside the circle of human values... this is in contrast, too, to the peaceable kingdom of First Isaiah where the wolf lies down with the lamb." (Mitchell, p. xx)

What Job points towards, you see, is what Keating encourages, too:  learning to rest fully in the totality of God - the joy and the sorrow, the peace and the agony, the order and the chaos - all beyond our feelings.  How does Jesus put it in the Sermon on the Mount?  "I want you to live as children of your father who is in heaven who makes the sun shine on both the evil and the good, the just and the unjust?"  God is more vast and powerful than our imaginations can take in...

Job accepts - he does not surrender or submit but accepts in maturity - that the way of the Lord goes beyond our child-like quest for order. Job rests in the complexity of God - he has faced down the emptiness - he has lived through his dark night as well as his agony - and knows from the inside out that it is as real as his joy and blessings.  And this is where he finds the ability to enter Sabbath rest. God truly is other in ways that we can only accept as the Serenity Prayer invites.

From this... vision, the idea that there are accidents or victims is an optical illusion. This statement may seem cruel. Certainly it is a difficult statement. How could it not be? Paradise isn't handed out like a piece of cake at a Sunday school picnic. But the statement is not cruel. It is the opposite of cruel. Once the personal will is surrendered, future and past disappear, the morning stars burst out singing and the deep will, contemplating the world it has created says:  Behold it is very good."

Fifteen years ago a woman asked me while I was being interviewed for ministry in Tucson, "Do you know how to help me become an adult of God?  I know all about being a child, but how about being an adult of the Lord?"  Job and his radical acceptance is key.