OK, so in the last post we established that I find Jesus to be a difficult role model. He wasn't a parent, he wasn't a spouse. He wasn't female. He was an itinerant rabbi. He voluntarily died for his beliefs. He's a pretty tough exemplar.
It's occurring to me that I'm perhaps I'm being a bit too literal here. Which is odd, because the people who are literalists about the Bible don't seem to have a problem with this. I'm definitely not a literalist when it comes to reading the Bible, but I find it difficult to use Jesus as my moral guide because I just fall so far short of his example--maybe I take him too literally?? I can't live the way he lived.
What am I missing here?
Of course there's grace and forgiveness and God loves me no matter how far I fall short, etc etc. I may not always be good at really truly believing that, but I get it intellectually. It's pretty much the cornerstone of Christianity. I don't think that's the problem.
The problem is something in the way I think about Jesus. When I compare myself to him, all I feel is guilt for how little I do, how selfish I am, how often I want to blow off what's right and just do what I want. I'm not inspired by Jesus. Thinking about him depresses me. (probably this also goes back to what I described in last year's Maundy Thursday post.) So I tend not to think about him.
If you're still reading, thank you. This is not my finest hour.
So. Enter Jim Palmer's third book, Being Jesus in Nashville. You may remember that I've briefly talked about reading his first two, Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces. Honestly, I don't always agree with him, and I find myself arguing with him or rolling my eyes at him almost as often as I am touched and inspired. But I'm starting to realize that's my favorite kind of book.
As a former Evangelical pastor, he's wrestling with many of the same questions I am as a preacher's kid and former Evangelical. Our perspectives are different because Palmer came to Christianity in his late teens after a non-religious childhood and left it in his thirties (I'm not sure I have those ages exactly right, but that's the gist of his story), whereas I was raised as an Evangelical and started leaving it about the time I turned 20. I haven't regularly attended an Evangelical church since I was in my early 20s. So sometimes Palmer will spend an entire chapter going on and on about something that is obvious to me, and I'm sure my musings about my childhood faith would seem equally irrelevant to him. But more often than not, he has insights that are mind bending, or perspectives to share that really, deeply help.
OK, so back to WWJD. The premise of Palmer's third book is that he spent a year trying to recreate In His Steps (the original WWJD book) --hence the title, Being Jesus in Nashville. The first few chapters were of the duh, obvious! type, but by the time he is standing next to a dying dear friend's hospital bed and trying to figure out how he can (like Jesus) heal him, I was hooked. I've done that--not with a dying friend, but I've tried to heal someone. Shouldn't we be able to? Didn't Jesus do it all the time? And like Palmer, I was unsuccessful. How do we deal with this?
Palmer has a pretty simple solution. He says that Jesus was completely and utterly dedicated to living his life according to his gifts and his destiny (except Palmer words it better than that). Jesus was fully himself. So rather than trying to emulate Jesus's actions, we emulate Jesus by following our own path, as Jesus followed his. We can discover our own gifts, and use them to the fullest extent (hence the previous post about understanding our gifts). "I wanted to 'be Jesus,'" Palmer says, "but I noticed that all Jesus ever did was simply be himself. Jesus was never trying to emulate someone else....[he] was simply present to the world."
Palmer also points out that although we tend to think that being "like Jesus" means always putting others' needs first and never having any needs of our own, that's not how Jesus acted. His death was the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, but in his daily life, he didn't efface himself. If he needed time alone, he went off by himself. If He was angry, he said he was (or strode into the temple and started turning over tables). He surrounded himself with people who loved him. He defended the women who performed lavish acts of devotion to him (washing his feet, anointing him with oil, listening at his feet)--he didn't blow them off and say he didn't need anything from them.
So there you go. After two and a half posts worth of setup, it took two paragraphs to type that out, but I can't tell you what a game-changer that is for me. It has fundamentally changed something in my head. I'm still working out the implications (and also I'm still reading the book). There may be more to come on this topic, but that's it for now. Thank you, Jim Palmer.
Happy Easter, or Oester, or Happy Passover-- or whatever version of Spring holiday you celebrate.
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Lent: WWJD? part one
I cringe to use that overworked four-letter cliché in the title of this post, because which of us doesn't cringe when we see it? But that's the topic today, so there it is.
The idea of emulating Jesus has been around since Jesus, of course, but this particular formulation of it started with Charles Sheldon's 1896 book In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? Even though it was published well over a century ago, it's still in print. It's one of the best-selling books of all time. (I confess I tried to read it years ago and I never got past the first couple of chapters.) It's a novel about a midwestern congregation that undertook to ask the question "What would Jesus do?" before they took any action.
But the question isn't easy to answer. First of all, because Jesus lived two thousand years ago. Would he carry a cell phone if he lived now? Would he have a Facebook page? Would he be a Luddite--spurning technology? Would he prefer CNN or MSNBC? or would he not want to know what was going on in the larger world so he could concentrate on the individuals around him?
The questions seem ridiculous. Probably most of us want to think that Jesus would be a simple man, eschewing the trappings of modern life, because Jesus exists firmly in our heads as a monk-like icon from a simpler time. But it's entirely possible that he was just as much a man of his times as anyone --although with a unique perspective on pretty much everything, as he expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. After all, we're talking about a man who befriended sinners, prostitutes, and tax-collectors (more or less the loan sharks of their time).
And then there's the fact that Jesus was an itinerant rabbi (teacher). He wasn't married, he wasn't raising children, and probably he would have been a little bit mystified by our current notion of what it means to hold a steady job with good benefits (as would any person from that era). He didn't have a savings account, he didn't own a home, and given the Torah's teachings against usury (charging interest), he probably would have been opposed to having a mortgage. He did few of the things that most of us would consider to be a mandatory part of a responsible adult life.
Interesting aside: when James Joyce was looking around for a role model for Leopold Bloom, the quintessential Everyman who is the central character of Ulysses, he rejected Jesus because Jesus never had to live with a woman. He went with Odysseus instead. (I know. Go figure. because Odysseus, mighty warrior and veteran of years-long absences from home, wasn't exactly your John Doe, either.)
So the question of "What would Jesus do?" is considerably more complex than the WWJD bracelet-wearers would have you believe. This came up in our small group a couple of months ago. Jesus's most direct life-choice instructions (Sell all you have and give it to the poor; "go, therefore and make disciples of all nations") imply leaving home for a Jesus-like itinerant life. They are ignored by all but a tiny minority of ultra-passionate Christians whom the rest of us secretly think are taking things just a little bit too far.
This whole issue is something that has vexed me for a long time. And honestly, my response for the most part has been to ignore it because I couldn't figure out how to resolve it. Like most people, I just try to figure out the best I can how to live a moral life. Although I'd like to be able to sugar-coat this a bit, to be entirely honest, my response to WWJD, I'm sad to say, has frequently been, what difference does it make? He was never confronted with most of the problems I face.
I can get behind "Love one another" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I can learn from Jesus's radical perspective on power and materialism as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, but Jesus as a role model? What did he know about enforcing curfews for teenagers? When did he ever have a fight with his spouse? When did he have to decide whether or not to pay the extra 30% for organic groceries? First world problems, I know, but they're some of the ones I think about.
Huh. to my surprise, this is turning into a two-part post. I'm not sure there's enough for a second post, but this one is already plenty long. More to come.
The idea of emulating Jesus has been around since Jesus, of course, but this particular formulation of it started with Charles Sheldon's 1896 book In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? Even though it was published well over a century ago, it's still in print. It's one of the best-selling books of all time. (I confess I tried to read it years ago and I never got past the first couple of chapters.) It's a novel about a midwestern congregation that undertook to ask the question "What would Jesus do?" before they took any action.
But the question isn't easy to answer. First of all, because Jesus lived two thousand years ago. Would he carry a cell phone if he lived now? Would he have a Facebook page? Would he be a Luddite--spurning technology? Would he prefer CNN or MSNBC? or would he not want to know what was going on in the larger world so he could concentrate on the individuals around him?
The questions seem ridiculous. Probably most of us want to think that Jesus would be a simple man, eschewing the trappings of modern life, because Jesus exists firmly in our heads as a monk-like icon from a simpler time. But it's entirely possible that he was just as much a man of his times as anyone --although with a unique perspective on pretty much everything, as he expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. After all, we're talking about a man who befriended sinners, prostitutes, and tax-collectors (more or less the loan sharks of their time).
And then there's the fact that Jesus was an itinerant rabbi (teacher). He wasn't married, he wasn't raising children, and probably he would have been a little bit mystified by our current notion of what it means to hold a steady job with good benefits (as would any person from that era). He didn't have a savings account, he didn't own a home, and given the Torah's teachings against usury (charging interest), he probably would have been opposed to having a mortgage. He did few of the things that most of us would consider to be a mandatory part of a responsible adult life.
Interesting aside: when James Joyce was looking around for a role model for Leopold Bloom, the quintessential Everyman who is the central character of Ulysses, he rejected Jesus because Jesus never had to live with a woman. He went with Odysseus instead. (I know. Go figure. because Odysseus, mighty warrior and veteran of years-long absences from home, wasn't exactly your John Doe, either.)
So the question of "What would Jesus do?" is considerably more complex than the WWJD bracelet-wearers would have you believe. This came up in our small group a couple of months ago. Jesus's most direct life-choice instructions (Sell all you have and give it to the poor; "go, therefore and make disciples of all nations") imply leaving home for a Jesus-like itinerant life. They are ignored by all but a tiny minority of ultra-passionate Christians whom the rest of us secretly think are taking things just a little bit too far.
This whole issue is something that has vexed me for a long time. And honestly, my response for the most part has been to ignore it because I couldn't figure out how to resolve it. Like most people, I just try to figure out the best I can how to live a moral life. Although I'd like to be able to sugar-coat this a bit, to be entirely honest, my response to WWJD, I'm sad to say, has frequently been, what difference does it make? He was never confronted with most of the problems I face.
I can get behind "Love one another" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I can learn from Jesus's radical perspective on power and materialism as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, but Jesus as a role model? What did he know about enforcing curfews for teenagers? When did he ever have a fight with his spouse? When did he have to decide whether or not to pay the extra 30% for organic groceries? First world problems, I know, but they're some of the ones I think about.
Huh. to my surprise, this is turning into a two-part post. I'm not sure there's enough for a second post, but this one is already plenty long. More to come.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
'tis a gift to have gifts
I've been thinking about gifts, the way each of us is gifted. In the New Testament, Paul talks about "spiritual" gifts, which are a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit, but clearly this idea doesn't apply just to Christians. Everyone has their gifts. There are several lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, including wisdom, knowledge, administration, preaching, teaching, healing, and so on. Some of them are even a little quirky--like the gift of mercy (is that why some people find it so hard to show mercy? they don't have that gift?), and my favorite, which the King James version translates as the gift of "helps."
Christian or not, those lists are hardly exhaustive. A few that are left out: music, visual arts, cooking, writing, crafts and needle work, design, encouragement, engineering, building, computer/technological expertise --there must be dozens more. The gift of humor. The gift of entertainment--you know how some people can mesmerize a crowd by telling stories of their college days? The gift of loyalty and support--the people who make you feel better just by being around them. Some people have the gift of adventure, both of going on wild, amazing adventures and also of making adventures out of everyday experiences. The gift of play, which I don't think I ever had.
One of the reasons I've put off writing this post is because there didn't seem to be any way to do it without saying what I think my own gifts are, and that's a little scary and embarrassing. But that's silly, so here goes. I think my gifts are writing, teaching adults, helps, and a side serving of knowledge. Also I can be a leader, but it's not a major strength of mine--it only comes to the fore when I'm in a group that doesn't have someone with stronger leadership skills.
The cool thing about this is that once you figure out what your gifts are, you can maximize your time and efforts. When you play to your strengths, not only do things go more smoothly, but you enjoy your work more, and you can avoid wasting time on things that are never going to work. It helps me understand why when I am in a group, people respond to the information I present (teaching) but not to my vision for what our group or their lives could be (preaching/exhortation). And why I am not the one who ends up organizing and delegating tasks (administration), or charting a course for the future (vision). And why years ago when I was in a women's spirituality group, it didn't work to change our leader every time we met--some people just don't have the gift of leadership.
It also helps me understand some situations I've been in. An example--a couple of years ago I was working on a project with a friend where we needed to present some information to a group. It wasn't until long after we finished the project that I figured out why we were having such a hard time agreeing on how the information should be presented. I think her gift is exhortation (inspiring people to bigger and better things in their lives), but my approach was from the standpoint of a teacher--how do we break this information down so that people can understand it? If we'd seen that earlier, it would have given us a blueprint for how we could mesh our different styles.
and for the record, having a gift and being proficient or good at it are not necessarily related. At least I don't think so. I'm a perpetual beginner in writing, learning more and more about it all the time. The more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know. but conversations with other people over the years have convinced me that most people don't have this need to write things down, to get thoughts and ideas out of my head and put them down in words. (I almost said "on paper" but when was the last time I wrote anything other than a grocery list on paper?)
When I started typing, this was a setup post for something else. But you know how often I never get around to the "next" post. we'll see.
So what about you? What are your gifts?
Christian or not, those lists are hardly exhaustive. A few that are left out: music, visual arts, cooking, writing, crafts and needle work, design, encouragement, engineering, building, computer/technological expertise --there must be dozens more. The gift of humor. The gift of entertainment--you know how some people can mesmerize a crowd by telling stories of their college days? The gift of loyalty and support--the people who make you feel better just by being around them. Some people have the gift of adventure, both of going on wild, amazing adventures and also of making adventures out of everyday experiences. The gift of play, which I don't think I ever had.
One of the reasons I've put off writing this post is because there didn't seem to be any way to do it without saying what I think my own gifts are, and that's a little scary and embarrassing. But that's silly, so here goes. I think my gifts are writing, teaching adults, helps, and a side serving of knowledge. Also I can be a leader, but it's not a major strength of mine--it only comes to the fore when I'm in a group that doesn't have someone with stronger leadership skills.
The cool thing about this is that once you figure out what your gifts are, you can maximize your time and efforts. When you play to your strengths, not only do things go more smoothly, but you enjoy your work more, and you can avoid wasting time on things that are never going to work. It helps me understand why when I am in a group, people respond to the information I present (teaching) but not to my vision for what our group or their lives could be (preaching/exhortation). And why I am not the one who ends up organizing and delegating tasks (administration), or charting a course for the future (vision). And why years ago when I was in a women's spirituality group, it didn't work to change our leader every time we met--some people just don't have the gift of leadership.
It also helps me understand some situations I've been in. An example--a couple of years ago I was working on a project with a friend where we needed to present some information to a group. It wasn't until long after we finished the project that I figured out why we were having such a hard time agreeing on how the information should be presented. I think her gift is exhortation (inspiring people to bigger and better things in their lives), but my approach was from the standpoint of a teacher--how do we break this information down so that people can understand it? If we'd seen that earlier, it would have given us a blueprint for how we could mesh our different styles.
and for the record, having a gift and being proficient or good at it are not necessarily related. At least I don't think so. I'm a perpetual beginner in writing, learning more and more about it all the time. The more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know. but conversations with other people over the years have convinced me that most people don't have this need to write things down, to get thoughts and ideas out of my head and put them down in words. (I almost said "on paper" but when was the last time I wrote anything other than a grocery list on paper?)
When I started typing, this was a setup post for something else. But you know how often I never get around to the "next" post. we'll see.
So what about you? What are your gifts?
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Lent: this one really is about Lent
You may remember that the church tradition I grew up in didn't celebrate Lent. Lent is an adopted tradition for me. And to be honest, I have pretty mixed feelings about it. In Christian theology, the whole point of Jesus's death on the cross is so that we don't have to suffer for our sins. It's called "substitutionary atonement" if you're interested (and I just googled that and found a fascinating wikipedia article. I had no idea there were so many nuances.)
Technically speaking, Lent--like Advent--is a season of preparation for the celebration of a major church holiday (Lent for Easter, Advent for Christmas). But popularly speaking, most people use Lent as a time to identify with Christ's suffering. They give something up to identify with Jesus's voluntary surrender of his life. We suffer because Christ suffered. The 40 days are symbolic of Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness, mentioned briefly in Mark and described more fully in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, or the 40 years the Israelites spent preparing to enter the Promised Land.
There's a problem here. If Jesus's death is supposed to substitute for us so we don't have to suffer, trying to take on some of his suffering or identify with his suffering is completely missing the point. And there's no reason at all to use Lent as an opportunity for wallowing in how awful we are, we are mere worms, etc etc. That kind of hair-shirt attitude changes the focus from gratitude for Christ's sacrifice to making it all about me.
So I have lots of mixed feelings about Lent. But I do appreciate the rhythm of the church calendar: the intensity of focus on the spiritual life during Lent or Advent, followed by weeks of "ordinary time." It works much better for me than the year-round intensity of some churches I've attended, which sometimes feels to me like we are trying to whip up a frenzy of religious devotion every week. (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't suit me as well as the church calendar version, which is why we can all be grateful that there are different denominations for different people.)
Usually for me, Lent is a season of learning. This year I took a continuing ed class on the Jewish origins of Christianity, focusing on St. Paul. It was fascinating. I will tell you more about that another time.
But having said all that: here's something else. This year I gave up sweets for Lent. It has nothing at all to do with identifying with Christ's suffering, and everything to do with me taking advantage of the season to do something I wanted to do anyway. (Who's mis-using Lent now?) I didn't give up sugar, which is in all kinds of things like salad dressing and barbecue sauce and fruit yogurt. Just sweets--cookies, candy, cake, pie, and the like.
The first ten days were easy. So easy I was surprised. I should have done this months ago, I thought. But the past ten days have been a little harder. I built in an escape hatch--I could have a few bites of something if it was a special occasion--and I've taken advantage of that twice. But mostly this has been about me figuring out how it feels to not have sweets in my life. So far, so good.
Technically speaking, Lent--like Advent--is a season of preparation for the celebration of a major church holiday (Lent for Easter, Advent for Christmas). But popularly speaking, most people use Lent as a time to identify with Christ's suffering. They give something up to identify with Jesus's voluntary surrender of his life. We suffer because Christ suffered. The 40 days are symbolic of Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness, mentioned briefly in Mark and described more fully in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, or the 40 years the Israelites spent preparing to enter the Promised Land.
There's a problem here. If Jesus's death is supposed to substitute for us so we don't have to suffer, trying to take on some of his suffering or identify with his suffering is completely missing the point. And there's no reason at all to use Lent as an opportunity for wallowing in how awful we are, we are mere worms, etc etc. That kind of hair-shirt attitude changes the focus from gratitude for Christ's sacrifice to making it all about me.
So I have lots of mixed feelings about Lent. But I do appreciate the rhythm of the church calendar: the intensity of focus on the spiritual life during Lent or Advent, followed by weeks of "ordinary time." It works much better for me than the year-round intensity of some churches I've attended, which sometimes feels to me like we are trying to whip up a frenzy of religious devotion every week. (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't suit me as well as the church calendar version, which is why we can all be grateful that there are different denominations for different people.)
Usually for me, Lent is a season of learning. This year I took a continuing ed class on the Jewish origins of Christianity, focusing on St. Paul. It was fascinating. I will tell you more about that another time.
But having said all that: here's something else. This year I gave up sweets for Lent. It has nothing at all to do with identifying with Christ's suffering, and everything to do with me taking advantage of the season to do something I wanted to do anyway. (Who's mis-using Lent now?) I didn't give up sugar, which is in all kinds of things like salad dressing and barbecue sauce and fruit yogurt. Just sweets--cookies, candy, cake, pie, and the like.
The first ten days were easy. So easy I was surprised. I should have done this months ago, I thought. But the past ten days have been a little harder. I built in an escape hatch--I could have a few bites of something if it was a special occasion--and I've taken advantage of that twice. But mostly this has been about me figuring out how it feels to not have sweets in my life. So far, so good.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Lent: give me strength for round 5
Lent is upon us. Some of you are probably still recovering from Mardi Gras, which I completely forgot to celebrate this year. We did make it to our church's Ash Wednesday service tonight. Every year during Lent I think more than usual about religious themes, which I know is not of interest to some of you, so I'll put "Lent" in the title when that's the case. The posts won't be specifically about Lent. Or at least I don't think they will be, I've only got two planned at the moment. And just 40 days to go.
Awhile ago I decided--as I periodically do--that I should make yet another effort to come to terms with the evangelicalism of my youth, this time by reading books by evangelicals. So I looked through the Christian bestseller lists and the awards lists and picked out eight or ten books that looked promising. Most of them I pitched right back into the Salvo box after a few chapters, but I made it all the way through a few of them.
I left Evangelicalism behind thirty years ago, so I am not new to the effort to define my beliefs by comparing them to my past. I've had decades now of figuring out what I believe and how it differs from the way I was raised.
For the most part, I am pretty unconflicted about this. I have no desire at all to be an Evangelical again. There are so many things that bother me about Evangelicals these days it's hard to know where to start: the intertwining of faith and politics; the lack of questioning of consumerism and materialist values; the willingness to reduce the New Testament message of love, joy, peace and mercy to a couple of harangues on maintaining 1950s middle class morality. As a friend of mine said a couple of weeks ago, we've come to the point where people see the church as "exterminators of sin" instead of "dispensers of grace," and I think Evangelicalism is the primary culprit in that.
But that's not to say that all Evangelicals are like that. There are still things I can learn from them, and learn I did from a few of these authors. But over the past couple of days I've realized that my reading had an unintended and unwelcome side effect: it re-awakened a voice in my head I thought I was done with. It's the voice that just-below-the-level-of-consciousness tells me over and over again that I can't trust myself, I can't trust my experience, my ideas aren't worth anything, and it's a little ridiculous to think that my opinions are valid compared with the weight of all those other opinions out there, isn't it?
It's a voice I learned at least in part from being raised Evangelical. It's clear to me that not all Evangelicals have this voice, but I am naturally a person who asks questions, and the answers to my questions were often that's not how it is or accept our beautiful system of belief and stop asking questions. Or simply: you're wrong. I learned very early to keep my questions to myself and not rock the boat.
I hate rocking the boat anyway. That's why I post my opinions here in this little blog that only about 30 people read, and I make very little effort to increase my readership. Because even though I love to ask questions and to consider what I think and believe, I also hate to cause problems. I like peace. I like it when people get along. I enjoy listening to a lively discussion, but if it turns into an argument, I head for the door. I hate conflict. I am a wuss.
So anyway, for a minute--ok, maybe for the past month or so--that reawakened voice in my head caused me to forget that I do trust myself. I do value my own experience and my own opinions. (ha, and suddenly I'm remembering the post from last week that was also about learning to trust myself. This seems to be a theme.) My opinions may not be orthodox, and I may not be able to write down a logical defense that will convince anybody else, but that's OK. That's not the point.
When I finally realized what was going on, it was like a load of bricks falling off my back. Oh, yeah, I remember now. I'm OK. I can let go of that bit of legacy thinking that insidiously tries to tell me that I have to rely on an authority to tell me what to do and think. And THANK GOD for that. Literally.
Awhile ago I decided--as I periodically do--that I should make yet another effort to come to terms with the evangelicalism of my youth, this time by reading books by evangelicals. So I looked through the Christian bestseller lists and the awards lists and picked out eight or ten books that looked promising. Most of them I pitched right back into the Salvo box after a few chapters, but I made it all the way through a few of them.
I left Evangelicalism behind thirty years ago, so I am not new to the effort to define my beliefs by comparing them to my past. I've had decades now of figuring out what I believe and how it differs from the way I was raised.
For the most part, I am pretty unconflicted about this. I have no desire at all to be an Evangelical again. There are so many things that bother me about Evangelicals these days it's hard to know where to start: the intertwining of faith and politics; the lack of questioning of consumerism and materialist values; the willingness to reduce the New Testament message of love, joy, peace and mercy to a couple of harangues on maintaining 1950s middle class morality. As a friend of mine said a couple of weeks ago, we've come to the point where people see the church as "exterminators of sin" instead of "dispensers of grace," and I think Evangelicalism is the primary culprit in that.
But that's not to say that all Evangelicals are like that. There are still things I can learn from them, and learn I did from a few of these authors. But over the past couple of days I've realized that my reading had an unintended and unwelcome side effect: it re-awakened a voice in my head I thought I was done with. It's the voice that just-below-the-level-of-consciousness tells me over and over again that I can't trust myself, I can't trust my experience, my ideas aren't worth anything, and it's a little ridiculous to think that my opinions are valid compared with the weight of all those other opinions out there, isn't it?
It's a voice I learned at least in part from being raised Evangelical. It's clear to me that not all Evangelicals have this voice, but I am naturally a person who asks questions, and the answers to my questions were often that's not how it is or accept our beautiful system of belief and stop asking questions. Or simply: you're wrong. I learned very early to keep my questions to myself and not rock the boat.
I hate rocking the boat anyway. That's why I post my opinions here in this little blog that only about 30 people read, and I make very little effort to increase my readership. Because even though I love to ask questions and to consider what I think and believe, I also hate to cause problems. I like peace. I like it when people get along. I enjoy listening to a lively discussion, but if it turns into an argument, I head for the door. I hate conflict. I am a wuss.
So anyway, for a minute--ok, maybe for the past month or so--that reawakened voice in my head caused me to forget that I do trust myself. I do value my own experience and my own opinions. (ha, and suddenly I'm remembering the post from last week that was also about learning to trust myself. This seems to be a theme.) My opinions may not be orthodox, and I may not be able to write down a logical defense that will convince anybody else, but that's OK. That's not the point.
When I finally realized what was going on, it was like a load of bricks falling off my back. Oh, yeah, I remember now. I'm OK. I can let go of that bit of legacy thinking that insidiously tries to tell me that I have to rely on an authority to tell me what to do and think. And THANK GOD for that. Literally.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Lent: Maundy Thursday
The church I grew up in didn't observe the church calendar (Advent, Lent, Holy Week, etc). The closest thing we had was the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering wreath, which was an enormous wreath with four white C7 Christmas lights attached to it. As the amount received for the Christmas Offering reached another thousand dollars (or whatever that year's increment was), another light would be turned on. It wasn't until years later that I attended a church that used a similar wreath to celebrate the four weeks of Advent and I realized where they'd come up with the idea.
So you can imagine my confusion when my middle school friends started talking about giving something up for lint. My mom was a third (fourth?) generation Dallasite, and my Dad immediately adopted Texas as his home state once he got there, but I was born and lived the first seven years of my life while they were in exile from the promised land-- i.e., above the Mason-Dixon line. (you can tell a Southerner because they know what the Mason Dixon line is, and consider it a reasonable topic for dinnertime conversation). Don't worry, because they moved back South as soon as my dad could get a job there. The lingering effect of those first seven years is that I said "pehn" for "pen," the subject of endless amusement to my friends, who all said in correct southern-speak, "pin." Can I borrow a pin? Mine's out of ink.
So my parents had to explain to me that giving something up for lint didn't have anything to do with laundry fuzz, it was Lent, the forty days before Easter, when people give something up in order to prepare for the celebration of Easter, as a way of identifying with Christ's suffering. My friends would give up sugar or soft drinks or watching TV.
I'm a sucker for symbolism and ritual, so I was enchanted by the idea, but it was Not The Thing in our church. We just went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, all year round. There was no differentiation of different seasons or holidays (except for Easter, but that mainly meant that we got a new dress with matching shoes). We sang Christmas carols at Christmas, and "Up from the Grave He Arose" at Easter, but other than that, it was just the same damn thing every week.
No, of course I'm not resentful, why do you ask?
So I never heard of Maundy Thursday until I was in college and started attending a lovely Episcopal church. Maundy Thursday is part of Holy Week, which is kicked off with Palm Sunday (which commemorates Jesus's entry into Jerusalem), followed by Maundy Thursday on.... wait for it.... Thursday, then Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter is on Sunday. I'm being silly here because I had a moving experience at our church's Maundy Thursday service last night, and I'm (apparently) still too cynical to play it straight.
So. Maundy Thursday is the church service that celebrates the Last Supper. In Episcopal churches I've attended, there is a three-hour service on Good Friday that goes through the sequence of events of Jesus's trial, torture, and crucifixion, so Maundy Thursday is only about the Last Supper. There is often a foot-washing ritual, as Jesus washed his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. But our current church doesn't have a Good Friday service, so our Maundy Thursday service telescopes the entire sequence events of the last few days of Jesus's life into one service.
It was beautifully done last night. The sanctuary progressively darkened as readers read the story, until at the end, three people carried out the cross, wrapped in black. It was very moving. But the story is awful. The last hours of Jesus's life were appalling--betrayed by one of his own, deserted by the others, whipped, beaten, tortured, and then crucified.
When I was five or six, a helpful Sunday School teacher painted the picture in even more graphic detail than what is in the Bible story. Did you know that the whips that were used on him were probably cat-o-nine-tails, commonly used by Roman soldiers in whippings, which were a group of leather thongs wrapped together at one end, with glass shards embedded in the other end? The forty lashes Jesus probably received had been enough to kill people on other occasions. And then the Crown of Thorns pressed onto his brow. And the nails into his feet and hands. And then once he was up on the cross, he would have had to push down on the nails in his feet to lift himself up so he could breathe. And then the sword piercing his side.
It was horrible. Here we were, this semi-circle of little five and six year olds, listening to her tell the story in twenty minutes of vivid detail. And of course, she ended with: Jesus wouldn't have had to do all this if it weren't for YOU. Jesus died on the cross of his own free will because of your sinfulness, so that you could go to heaven when you die. If you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, he went through all that for NOTHING. I was completely and utterly sick that Jesus went through all that for me. I couldn't line up fast enough when she did her little invitation at the end, asking did anyone want to accept Jesus as their Personal Savior?
Until last night, I'd never quite recovered from this. In the past, when I thought of Easter, it wasn't about the renewal and rebirth of the resurrection, it was about the sick ball of guilt and shame in my gut because Jesus was tortured and killed and it was all my fault. That's why I never went to see the movie The Passion. Just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. But last night for some reason at the end of the service, I was finally able to get some adult perspective on that childhood guilt, that childish belief that everything is your fault, and let it go. phew. Like a great whoosh of tension and shame leaving my body. I don't know how else to describe it. Renewal of the best kind. And hey, I only had to be 50 to figure it out. Some of us are just slow.
Happy Easter. However you celebrate this weekend, as the return of Spring, the Passover, or the resurrection of Jesus, or just a chance to get great candy at half price, I hope you have a great day.
p.s. this is the post that I've been putting off writing since I started this series of posts, but it ended up being much different than I thought because of last night. It wasn't so bad after all. :-)
So you can imagine my confusion when my middle school friends started talking about giving something up for lint. My mom was a third (fourth?) generation Dallasite, and my Dad immediately adopted Texas as his home state once he got there, but I was born and lived the first seven years of my life while they were in exile from the promised land-- i.e., above the Mason-Dixon line. (you can tell a Southerner because they know what the Mason Dixon line is, and consider it a reasonable topic for dinnertime conversation). Don't worry, because they moved back South as soon as my dad could get a job there. The lingering effect of those first seven years is that I said "pehn" for "pen," the subject of endless amusement to my friends, who all said in correct southern-speak, "pin." Can I borrow a pin? Mine's out of ink.
So my parents had to explain to me that giving something up for lint didn't have anything to do with laundry fuzz, it was Lent, the forty days before Easter, when people give something up in order to prepare for the celebration of Easter, as a way of identifying with Christ's suffering. My friends would give up sugar or soft drinks or watching TV.
I'm a sucker for symbolism and ritual, so I was enchanted by the idea, but it was Not The Thing in our church. We just went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, all year round. There was no differentiation of different seasons or holidays (except for Easter, but that mainly meant that we got a new dress with matching shoes). We sang Christmas carols at Christmas, and "Up from the Grave He Arose" at Easter, but other than that, it was just the same damn thing every week.
No, of course I'm not resentful, why do you ask?
So I never heard of Maundy Thursday until I was in college and started attending a lovely Episcopal church. Maundy Thursday is part of Holy Week, which is kicked off with Palm Sunday (which commemorates Jesus's entry into Jerusalem), followed by Maundy Thursday on.... wait for it.... Thursday, then Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter is on Sunday. I'm being silly here because I had a moving experience at our church's Maundy Thursday service last night, and I'm (apparently) still too cynical to play it straight.
So. Maundy Thursday is the church service that celebrates the Last Supper. In Episcopal churches I've attended, there is a three-hour service on Good Friday that goes through the sequence of events of Jesus's trial, torture, and crucifixion, so Maundy Thursday is only about the Last Supper. There is often a foot-washing ritual, as Jesus washed his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. But our current church doesn't have a Good Friday service, so our Maundy Thursday service telescopes the entire sequence events of the last few days of Jesus's life into one service.
It was beautifully done last night. The sanctuary progressively darkened as readers read the story, until at the end, three people carried out the cross, wrapped in black. It was very moving. But the story is awful. The last hours of Jesus's life were appalling--betrayed by one of his own, deserted by the others, whipped, beaten, tortured, and then crucified.
When I was five or six, a helpful Sunday School teacher painted the picture in even more graphic detail than what is in the Bible story. Did you know that the whips that were used on him were probably cat-o-nine-tails, commonly used by Roman soldiers in whippings, which were a group of leather thongs wrapped together at one end, with glass shards embedded in the other end? The forty lashes Jesus probably received had been enough to kill people on other occasions. And then the Crown of Thorns pressed onto his brow. And the nails into his feet and hands. And then once he was up on the cross, he would have had to push down on the nails in his feet to lift himself up so he could breathe. And then the sword piercing his side.
It was horrible. Here we were, this semi-circle of little five and six year olds, listening to her tell the story in twenty minutes of vivid detail. And of course, she ended with: Jesus wouldn't have had to do all this if it weren't for YOU. Jesus died on the cross of his own free will because of your sinfulness, so that you could go to heaven when you die. If you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, he went through all that for NOTHING. I was completely and utterly sick that Jesus went through all that for me. I couldn't line up fast enough when she did her little invitation at the end, asking did anyone want to accept Jesus as their Personal Savior?
Until last night, I'd never quite recovered from this. In the past, when I thought of Easter, it wasn't about the renewal and rebirth of the resurrection, it was about the sick ball of guilt and shame in my gut because Jesus was tortured and killed and it was all my fault. That's why I never went to see the movie The Passion. Just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach. But last night for some reason at the end of the service, I was finally able to get some adult perspective on that childhood guilt, that childish belief that everything is your fault, and let it go. phew. Like a great whoosh of tension and shame leaving my body. I don't know how else to describe it. Renewal of the best kind. And hey, I only had to be 50 to figure it out. Some of us are just slow.
Happy Easter. However you celebrate this weekend, as the return of Spring, the Passover, or the resurrection of Jesus, or just a chance to get great candy at half price, I hope you have a great day.
p.s. this is the post that I've been putting off writing since I started this series of posts, but it ended up being much different than I thought because of last night. It wasn't so bad after all. :-)
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Lent: rebel without a cause
So you might have noticed that I have a problem with authority. It's one of the main reasons I can't diet-- just go ahead and try to tell me what to eat. You're not the boss of me. *sigh* I have this damn rebellious streak and it's a mile wide and it is the biggest pain in the ass. For example, it severely limits the number of jobs I can have, because I simply cannot work for someone I don't respect. At my last job (where I worked for a wonderful woman who was not a problem), the employees were still talking about the previous boss, who was a problem. The stories were awful. I asked one of them one day, so why did you stay? And she shrugged and said, "I figured I'd outlast her." And she did. But I wouldn't have made it six weeks working for that woman. I would have given up a great job with great benefits because I could not take orders from someone I didn't think deserved to be able to give them.
A couple of weeks ago I told you I decided it was time to start re-thinking Christianity again. [note from AB: the first draft of this post was written over a month ago.] I hate these posts because I worry that they make me sound like some kind of religious fanatic, and I guess I am in some ways, but just not in the way you'd think. But like I said, it won't go away.
So of course I immediately started looking around for a book to read, because when I need to think about something, that's what I do. I read. We were in the middle of packing up the house, and Dean would have just gone ahead and pulled out all my fingernails if I bought any new books. I lost count of how many boxes of books we packed. So I started poking around in the books I already had and found one that someone gave me several years ago, Flesh and Blood Jesus: Learning to Be Fully Human From the Son of Man. It's by a guy that I heard speak a number of times when I was in college, and I liked him very much. It was a place to start.
The first couple of chapters were pretty standard stuff. There were a few new insights mixed in with some fairly run-of-the-mill interpretations. But then I got to chapter 4, which was on Jesus' attitude toward authority. And the author had some interesting things to say. He pointed out that Jesus didn't always react to authority in the way that you'd expect. And he didn't always react the same way. He had a variety of options. I do, too. (*light bulb*)
1. Jesus and his mom at the wedding in Cana (John 2.1-11). The hosts are running out of wine. Jesus' mom pulls him aside and tells him to take care of the problem. Remember, we're doing the "Bible as Literature" thing here and interpreting the story within its own confines; we're not questioning whether or not it is factual or "true." (I have no idea whether or not it's true.) In the story, Mary knows that Jesus can do something about the problem. (How does she know? has he been practicing his miracles around the house?) Jesus doesn't want to. This is early in his career, and he's not ready for people to know that he can do party tricks. But she confidently tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. And he does. He turns water into wine, and it's good wine, and the party is saved. The entire story is less than 300 words, but there are a number of telling little details. Her confidence that he can fix the problem; his willingness to do what she asks in spite of his initial reluctance-- I read it as amused respect and trust between the two of them. They know each other. There is no power struggle going on here. I want you to do this. But I don't want to. Yeah, but I really want you to do this. Okay, then, I'll do it.
2. Render unto Caesar. The Jews were expecting a political Messiah. They were an oppressed people; their country had been taken over by the Romans. They are looking for a Messiah who will deliver them from political oppression. But Jesus' agenda never included politics. He didn't lead rebellions; he didn't plan midnight raids on the barracks. When the local Jewish leaders ask him if they should pay taxes to the Romans, it is a loaded question. If he says yes, his fellow Jews will be disappointed; if he says no, then they can turn him over to the Roman authorities for inciting insurrection. Jesus does neither. He asks for a coin, and holding it out, shows them Caesar's profile on the coin. Give Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Give God the things that are God's. He didn't get his back up, he didn't unthinkingly rebel against authority. He used his brain and came up with a different way to respond.
3. Jesus in the temple. There was an entire superstructure in place at the Jerusalem temple that revolved around selling animals for sacrifice to people who were visiting the temple. It must have been quite profitable for those doing the selling. But it angered Jesus. He responded swiftly and violently; he wades in and overturns tables, throws money boxes, sets the animals free. Interesting that he doesn't rebel against the government, but he reacts violently against religious hypocrisy, yes? Let the political leaders do their thing. Vote your conscience, say your piece, but political power is not important in the long view of things. But mess with my temple, and your ass is grass.
See what I mean? My version of rebellion is knee-jerk. Some diet guru tries to tell me what I can eat? I DON'T THINK SO. Some flunky higher up the corporate ladder wants me to spend two days wasting time on corporate bureaucracy? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME? Anybody tries to tell me what to do, I get pissed.
But Jesus was thoughtful. He had more than one option, and he chose his response based on the situation. I'm working on it.
A couple of weeks ago I told you I decided it was time to start re-thinking Christianity again. [note from AB: the first draft of this post was written over a month ago.] I hate these posts because I worry that they make me sound like some kind of religious fanatic, and I guess I am in some ways, but just not in the way you'd think. But like I said, it won't go away.
So of course I immediately started looking around for a book to read, because when I need to think about something, that's what I do. I read. We were in the middle of packing up the house, and Dean would have just gone ahead and pulled out all my fingernails if I bought any new books. I lost count of how many boxes of books we packed. So I started poking around in the books I already had and found one that someone gave me several years ago, Flesh and Blood Jesus: Learning to Be Fully Human From the Son of Man. It's by a guy that I heard speak a number of times when I was in college, and I liked him very much. It was a place to start.
The first couple of chapters were pretty standard stuff. There were a few new insights mixed in with some fairly run-of-the-mill interpretations. But then I got to chapter 4, which was on Jesus' attitude toward authority. And the author had some interesting things to say. He pointed out that Jesus didn't always react to authority in the way that you'd expect. And he didn't always react the same way. He had a variety of options. I do, too. (*light bulb*)
1. Jesus and his mom at the wedding in Cana (John 2.1-11). The hosts are running out of wine. Jesus' mom pulls him aside and tells him to take care of the problem. Remember, we're doing the "Bible as Literature" thing here and interpreting the story within its own confines; we're not questioning whether or not it is factual or "true." (I have no idea whether or not it's true.) In the story, Mary knows that Jesus can do something about the problem. (How does she know? has he been practicing his miracles around the house?) Jesus doesn't want to. This is early in his career, and he's not ready for people to know that he can do party tricks. But she confidently tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. And he does. He turns water into wine, and it's good wine, and the party is saved. The entire story is less than 300 words, but there are a number of telling little details. Her confidence that he can fix the problem; his willingness to do what she asks in spite of his initial reluctance-- I read it as amused respect and trust between the two of them. They know each other. There is no power struggle going on here. I want you to do this. But I don't want to. Yeah, but I really want you to do this. Okay, then, I'll do it.
2. Render unto Caesar. The Jews were expecting a political Messiah. They were an oppressed people; their country had been taken over by the Romans. They are looking for a Messiah who will deliver them from political oppression. But Jesus' agenda never included politics. He didn't lead rebellions; he didn't plan midnight raids on the barracks. When the local Jewish leaders ask him if they should pay taxes to the Romans, it is a loaded question. If he says yes, his fellow Jews will be disappointed; if he says no, then they can turn him over to the Roman authorities for inciting insurrection. Jesus does neither. He asks for a coin, and holding it out, shows them Caesar's profile on the coin. Give Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Give God the things that are God's. He didn't get his back up, he didn't unthinkingly rebel against authority. He used his brain and came up with a different way to respond.
3. Jesus in the temple. There was an entire superstructure in place at the Jerusalem temple that revolved around selling animals for sacrifice to people who were visiting the temple. It must have been quite profitable for those doing the selling. But it angered Jesus. He responded swiftly and violently; he wades in and overturns tables, throws money boxes, sets the animals free. Interesting that he doesn't rebel against the government, but he reacts violently against religious hypocrisy, yes? Let the political leaders do their thing. Vote your conscience, say your piece, but political power is not important in the long view of things. But mess with my temple, and your ass is grass.
See what I mean? My version of rebellion is knee-jerk. Some diet guru tries to tell me what I can eat? I DON'T THINK SO. Some flunky higher up the corporate ladder wants me to spend two days wasting time on corporate bureaucracy? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME? Anybody tries to tell me what to do, I get pissed.
But Jesus was thoughtful. He had more than one option, and he chose his response based on the situation. I'm working on it.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Lent: the chicken or the egg
Another thing we talked about in that Jane Austen class is the impossibility in our era of being sincere. If you're aware of being sincere, you automatically aren't; and if you are truly being what once would have been called "sincere," it has a tendency in our postmodern world to come across as naïveté, a lack of understanding of what reality is like. It seems sweet and maybe a little bit stupid.
Which is how I feel about that last post. I don't think sincerity works too well when talking about religious issues, at least not for me. Because there are so many ways that sincere religious belief can be used to manipulate, coerce, manage, and otherwise accomplish Bad Things. Once you're aware of that, it becomes almost impossible to talk about what you believe and have it mean anything.
So why the hell am I writing these posts, and isn't that a good question. But I am. So today's topic is how you know what you believe ('you' being not you, gentle reader, but some mysterious average person out there). Judeo-Christians and Muslims are "people of the book," although the book they're people of varies-- Christians rely on their Bible, Jews on the Tanakh and the Talmud, Muslims on the Koran/Qur'an-- and I'm not Jewish or Muslim, so forgive me if I didn't get that precisely right. In those belief systems, especially among the conservatives, in order to define what you believe, you refer back to The Book.
Which leads to vigorous debate over the precise nature of The Book-- who wrote the text(s) and how did they know what to write? were they divinely inspired, or writing out of their own experience? were they eyewitnesses of the events they recorded? have the texts been edited, and if so, should we try to sift through that editing back to some shadowy "original" that pre-existed the current text? how should the text(s) be translated? and that's just getting started. You could go on and on, and if that stuff interests you, years of study await you. It's a huge field.
I find it fascinating in small doses, but almost completely unrelated to what happens when I sit down and read a sacred text. The veracity of it, the actual "factual" fidelity to some historical event, is irrelevant. I wrote a series of posts about this a few years ago (they are here, if you want them in order, start at the bottom and read "up"), so I'm not going to belabor the point at the moment.
I learned one way of reading sacred texts when I took a (secular) university course in "The Bible as Literature" a few years ago. The professor encouraged us to read the stories in the Bible as if they were literally stories, with God and Moses, or David and Bathsheba, or Jesus and the Disciples, as characters who exist only in the text. It's an entirely different way of reading (compared to what I was raised with). Take a story (or series of stories) like the Israelites wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. We always read God in those stories as being, you know, GOD. A pre-existing Divine Being who was the same as the "God" we sang hymns to at church, pledged allegiance to, and sang about in "God Bless America." But if God in those passages is just another character in the story, one that has temper tantrums and gets his feelings hurt, the stories read quite a bit differently. They're a lot more entertaining to read that way, for one thing.
Ack. I keep getting further and further away from the point I wanted to make when I sat down to type. Which is that I think the way I was raised to think about my beliefs is the opposite of what makes sense. I was taught to take some external standard (the Bible, a sermon, the instructions of my parents) and match my beliefs up to that standard. What I've come to believe is that the opposite makes more sense: you figure out what you believe, and then find a way to think about it that makes sense. No, that's not exactly it. how to say this???
OK. Take that last post. The end of it turned out to be something I learned about accepting love, feeling loved. The text-- the story of the rich young ruler--was a vehicle that gave me a new insight into that. But it wouldn't have to be a text from the Bible that led to the insight. It could be Pema Chodron, or watching Finding Nemo, or observing a friend cradle her toddler. Heck, sometimes I think that's why I enjoy romance novels-- I tend to define myself as not lovable, and reading a romance novel allows me to vicariously experience the feeling of being loved, breaking down that resistance to feeling loved.
I bet this isn't making the slightest bit of sense, because I can't figure out exactly what I'm trying to say, either. It's entirely possible that this whole dang post has been just another way of saying the same thing that I said in the one on cherry-picking. Eclectic belief systems, part 2. *feels somewhat dejected* I don't think I made it to the place I was trying to go. Let me know if you have any idea, and maybe I'll try again another day.
Which is how I feel about that last post. I don't think sincerity works too well when talking about religious issues, at least not for me. Because there are so many ways that sincere religious belief can be used to manipulate, coerce, manage, and otherwise accomplish Bad Things. Once you're aware of that, it becomes almost impossible to talk about what you believe and have it mean anything.
So why the hell am I writing these posts, and isn't that a good question. But I am. So today's topic is how you know what you believe ('you' being not you, gentle reader, but some mysterious average person out there). Judeo-Christians and Muslims are "people of the book," although the book they're people of varies-- Christians rely on their Bible, Jews on the Tanakh and the Talmud, Muslims on the Koran/Qur'an-- and I'm not Jewish or Muslim, so forgive me if I didn't get that precisely right. In those belief systems, especially among the conservatives, in order to define what you believe, you refer back to The Book.
Which leads to vigorous debate over the precise nature of The Book-- who wrote the text(s) and how did they know what to write? were they divinely inspired, or writing out of their own experience? were they eyewitnesses of the events they recorded? have the texts been edited, and if so, should we try to sift through that editing back to some shadowy "original" that pre-existed the current text? how should the text(s) be translated? and that's just getting started. You could go on and on, and if that stuff interests you, years of study await you. It's a huge field.
I find it fascinating in small doses, but almost completely unrelated to what happens when I sit down and read a sacred text. The veracity of it, the actual "factual" fidelity to some historical event, is irrelevant. I wrote a series of posts about this a few years ago (they are here, if you want them in order, start at the bottom and read "up"), so I'm not going to belabor the point at the moment.
I learned one way of reading sacred texts when I took a (secular) university course in "The Bible as Literature" a few years ago. The professor encouraged us to read the stories in the Bible as if they were literally stories, with God and Moses, or David and Bathsheba, or Jesus and the Disciples, as characters who exist only in the text. It's an entirely different way of reading (compared to what I was raised with). Take a story (or series of stories) like the Israelites wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. We always read God in those stories as being, you know, GOD. A pre-existing Divine Being who was the same as the "God" we sang hymns to at church, pledged allegiance to, and sang about in "God Bless America." But if God in those passages is just another character in the story, one that has temper tantrums and gets his feelings hurt, the stories read quite a bit differently. They're a lot more entertaining to read that way, for one thing.
Ack. I keep getting further and further away from the point I wanted to make when I sat down to type. Which is that I think the way I was raised to think about my beliefs is the opposite of what makes sense. I was taught to take some external standard (the Bible, a sermon, the instructions of my parents) and match my beliefs up to that standard. What I've come to believe is that the opposite makes more sense: you figure out what you believe, and then find a way to think about it that makes sense. No, that's not exactly it. how to say this???
OK. Take that last post. The end of it turned out to be something I learned about accepting love, feeling loved. The text-- the story of the rich young ruler--was a vehicle that gave me a new insight into that. But it wouldn't have to be a text from the Bible that led to the insight. It could be Pema Chodron, or watching Finding Nemo, or observing a friend cradle her toddler. Heck, sometimes I think that's why I enjoy romance novels-- I tend to define myself as not lovable, and reading a romance novel allows me to vicariously experience the feeling of being loved, breaking down that resistance to feeling loved.
I bet this isn't making the slightest bit of sense, because I can't figure out exactly what I'm trying to say, either. It's entirely possible that this whole dang post has been just another way of saying the same thing that I said in the one on cherry-picking. Eclectic belief systems, part 2. *feels somewhat dejected* I don't think I made it to the place I was trying to go. Let me know if you have any idea, and maybe I'll try again another day.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Lent: the plank in my own eye
I don't think I've ever mentioned here that Dean and I were separated for a year once. It was when Nell was three, so we've now been together since the separation longer than we were together before it. We spent many, many hours in marriage counseling and we both learned much, and we continue to learn much. Marriage is hard.
But back then, there was a definite turning point for me when I decided it was time to move back in. I was (am) very good at analyzing other people's faults. Oh, Lord, am I good at it. I've got this brain that likes to analyze whatever it can find to analyze, and picking out poor Dean's faults used to be one of its favorite activities. There were some legitimate problems, I wasn't just making things up, but I arrived at our first counseling session loaded for bear. I launched into a list of every single way he had failed as a husband.
I, on the other hand, had not done any of those things, so in my mind I was the innocent victim. One of several lightbulb moments for me came when I was in a solo session with our marriage counselor and was once again virtuously declaiming all my righteous anger. At some point I said something to the effect of "He doesn't have to put up with anything like that from me!" To which she gently replied, "Well, he has to put up with living with someone who is constantly critical of him, and always looking for the ways he screws up."
Which was more or less like a bombshell, because DUH, but it had honestly never occurred to me. I wanted to keep on spluttering about how truly awful his faults were, but what she said was just so patently, obviously true that it took all the wind out of my sails. I was ignoring his willingness to work on our problems, his dedication to marriage counseling and fixing what he could, and instead concentrating on a continuous mental rundown of all the ways he didn't meet my standards.
I've worked very hard on this since, just as Dean has worked very hard on his end of things. I'm learning to remember the whole person, and not just let my brain go into analytical mode-- and not just with Dean but with everyone I love.
There's a post coming on how I felt about growing up with Jesus as practically a member of our household, so I won't start on that here, but I'll just tell you one story, one that I am definitely keeping. One of my two or three favorite Jesus moments comes when he's talking to the rich young ruler (Mark 10.17-23). The guy is enthusiastic and has good intentions, but he's hung up on being wealthy and powerful. He asks Jesus, "Good teacher, what must I do to be saved?"
Jesus tells him that he must keep the laws and the commandments (the Jewish laws and commandments, almost all the followers of Jesus in the Gospels are Jewish), and the guy says that he does all that and he has since he was a child. He was probably hoping for a pat on the head, the sycophantic response he must have become used to as a wealthy man: "You're awesome, man, just keep doing what you do!" You know that he's going to get a put-down, because that's not the way it works if you follow Jesus.
But instead of the expected put-down, the story continues: "And Jesus looked at him and loved him."
Which just blows me away. Jesus didn't roll his eyes at the guy's faults; he didn't refuse to talk to him because he was asking a dumb question. Jesus looked at him and loved him. And then he also gave him an impossible task: "One thing you lack," Jesus said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." It's a great story, and there are a number of other directions you could go here, but I'll just say briefly that I think the guy's mistake wasn't in not selling everything he had, it was in walking away.
But that's not what this post is about-- my main point is that difference in attitude between my hyper-critical-ness and Jesus's love and acceptance. That's the attitude I want, that willingness to look at someone and just love them. Most people, underneath the facade, have a quivering, tender heart. It's easy to forget that.
You may have noticed that I took this post down, edited it and put it back up again. It would be a long story to explain why, but to keep it brief I'll just say that I had a bad moment of reminding myself of one of my least favorite aspects of my dad's personality; and what made it far, far worse was that I didn't even notice I was doing it until several hours after I posted this. When I came back to edit it tonight, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered-- I've only edited it slightly.
It occurred to me as I was driving back from U-Town this afternoon that maybe I need to recognize that the unconditional love that Jesus shows toward the rich young ruler would apply to me, too. I tend to see it as a moral example, and forget that if I stood before Jesus with my messy, panicky self, he would look at me and love me, too.
But back then, there was a definite turning point for me when I decided it was time to move back in. I was (am) very good at analyzing other people's faults. Oh, Lord, am I good at it. I've got this brain that likes to analyze whatever it can find to analyze, and picking out poor Dean's faults used to be one of its favorite activities. There were some legitimate problems, I wasn't just making things up, but I arrived at our first counseling session loaded for bear. I launched into a list of every single way he had failed as a husband.
I, on the other hand, had not done any of those things, so in my mind I was the innocent victim. One of several lightbulb moments for me came when I was in a solo session with our marriage counselor and was once again virtuously declaiming all my righteous anger. At some point I said something to the effect of "He doesn't have to put up with anything like that from me!" To which she gently replied, "Well, he has to put up with living with someone who is constantly critical of him, and always looking for the ways he screws up."
Which was more or less like a bombshell, because DUH, but it had honestly never occurred to me. I wanted to keep on spluttering about how truly awful his faults were, but what she said was just so patently, obviously true that it took all the wind out of my sails. I was ignoring his willingness to work on our problems, his dedication to marriage counseling and fixing what he could, and instead concentrating on a continuous mental rundown of all the ways he didn't meet my standards.
I've worked very hard on this since, just as Dean has worked very hard on his end of things. I'm learning to remember the whole person, and not just let my brain go into analytical mode-- and not just with Dean but with everyone I love.
There's a post coming on how I felt about growing up with Jesus as practically a member of our household, so I won't start on that here, but I'll just tell you one story, one that I am definitely keeping. One of my two or three favorite Jesus moments comes when he's talking to the rich young ruler (Mark 10.17-23). The guy is enthusiastic and has good intentions, but he's hung up on being wealthy and powerful. He asks Jesus, "Good teacher, what must I do to be saved?"
Jesus tells him that he must keep the laws and the commandments (the Jewish laws and commandments, almost all the followers of Jesus in the Gospels are Jewish), and the guy says that he does all that and he has since he was a child. He was probably hoping for a pat on the head, the sycophantic response he must have become used to as a wealthy man: "You're awesome, man, just keep doing what you do!" You know that he's going to get a put-down, because that's not the way it works if you follow Jesus.
But instead of the expected put-down, the story continues: "And Jesus looked at him and loved him."
Which just blows me away. Jesus didn't roll his eyes at the guy's faults; he didn't refuse to talk to him because he was asking a dumb question. Jesus looked at him and loved him. And then he also gave him an impossible task: "One thing you lack," Jesus said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." It's a great story, and there are a number of other directions you could go here, but I'll just say briefly that I think the guy's mistake wasn't in not selling everything he had, it was in walking away.
But that's not what this post is about-- my main point is that difference in attitude between my hyper-critical-ness and Jesus's love and acceptance. That's the attitude I want, that willingness to look at someone and just love them. Most people, underneath the facade, have a quivering, tender heart. It's easy to forget that.
You may have noticed that I took this post down, edited it and put it back up again. It would be a long story to explain why, but to keep it brief I'll just say that I had a bad moment of reminding myself of one of my least favorite aspects of my dad's personality; and what made it far, far worse was that I didn't even notice I was doing it until several hours after I posted this. When I came back to edit it tonight, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered-- I've only edited it slightly.
It occurred to me as I was driving back from U-Town this afternoon that maybe I need to recognize that the unconditional love that Jesus shows toward the rich young ruler would apply to me, too. I tend to see it as a moral example, and forget that if I stood before Jesus with my messy, panicky self, he would look at me and love me, too.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Lent: reboot
You know, that last post just isn't right. I took it down, and I will edit it and put it back up next week. I've been trying to eliminate the negatives and only talk about the positive, but doing it that way feels dishonest. So I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to change it. I'll think about it for a few days, plus we've got a bunch of stuff going on this weekend, and be back next week. Thanks for your patience.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Lent: the art of cherry-picking
Early on, in my mid-twenties when I was first struggling with leaving behind the faith of my childhood, I occasionally tried to talk to people who were older and wiser, and whose opinions I respected. I discovered this wasn't this best way to figure out what I needed to figure out, but it didn't change the way I feel about them. They are still older and wiser than me, and I still respect them and their opinions. I've just chosen a different path. I rarely talk about my beliefs with these people anymore, although I still listen to them and learn, re-writing things in my head to suit my current way of thinking.
Anyway. One of those times, I talked to a much-beloved uncle who is about as conservative as anyone I know. I don't remember what topic we were discussing, but I must have said something to the effect of I-still-believe-this-but-I-can't-believe-that. And he responded that you can't cherry pick which beliefs you want and leave behind the ones you don't. In his mind, Christianity is a piece of whole cloth-- seamless, like Jesus's robe.
He didn't mean that there are no problematic passages or thorny theological issues-- on the contrary, he is probably far more aware of those than I am (he is a seminary graduate, although he decided to go into teaching rather than the pastorate). He meant that if you've made the choice to be a Christian, you're in it for the whole thing, not just the parts of it you like and that make you feel good.
And I understand his point, and in some ways I think it's a good one. Kathleen Norris makes a similar-but-different point in her excellent book Amazing Grace. She says that it's silly to sit in church and speak certain lines of the creeds while remaining silent on others (which is exactly what I was doing at the time). Her point was not that you should blindly accept all the doctrines of the church, but that you should acknowledge the ones that bug you, let yourself rub up against them, argue them, take them head-on. Claim them, as it were, instead of dumping them, or trying to pretend they don't exist. In doing so, in stretching your mind to try to understand the thought behind the theology, you may uncover some surprising insights. It's a method I've used frequently since.
But there are also some things that need to be said on the other side. First of all, Christianity is not as monolithic as my uncle would like to believe. If it's made out of whole cloth, who's cloth are we talking about? Catholics? Presbyterians? United Church of Christ? Church of Religious Science? On just about any item of faith, if you delve deeply enough, there are a range of opinions, and not just between denominations-- even within churches. One of the most interesting discussions I've ever heard was in a small group at our church where the issue of pre-destination vs. free will came up. What exactly does it mean? Every person in that room would have said without hesitation that they are Christian, and yet the range of opinions was wide.
Which leads to my further point that faith is a choice, and even conservative Christians have to make (sometimes) difficult decisions about what they believe and what they don't. Sometimes believers (of all stripes, not just Evangelicals) short-cut those difficult decisions by just mouthing the creeds they've been taught and not thinking the issues through. But that doesn't mean the difficulties aren't there.
So all of that is just to say: When I talk about finding the parts of Christianity that I want to keep, it's not something I take lightly. I'm not just choosing the feel-good bits and ignoring the difficulties (I hope). I'm talking about trying to winnow through the things that are habit, the things that people believe just because that's the way they were raised, the way it's always been done, and sift through to something that feels more essential. For me, that has involved cobbling together a set of beliefs that come not just from Christianity but from all sorts of sources. If it's cherry-picking, it's thoughtful cherry-picking.
I just read a blog entry by one of my extended family members who is still extremely Evangelical. That whole mindset can still hook me right back in. Not that I believe it again, but it's so familiar, like a pair of slippers that mold perfectly to your feet. It's still hard sometimes, even after all these years.
Anyway. One of those times, I talked to a much-beloved uncle who is about as conservative as anyone I know. I don't remember what topic we were discussing, but I must have said something to the effect of I-still-believe-this-but-I-can't-believe-that. And he responded that you can't cherry pick which beliefs you want and leave behind the ones you don't. In his mind, Christianity is a piece of whole cloth-- seamless, like Jesus's robe.
He didn't mean that there are no problematic passages or thorny theological issues-- on the contrary, he is probably far more aware of those than I am (he is a seminary graduate, although he decided to go into teaching rather than the pastorate). He meant that if you've made the choice to be a Christian, you're in it for the whole thing, not just the parts of it you like and that make you feel good.
And I understand his point, and in some ways I think it's a good one. Kathleen Norris makes a similar-but-different point in her excellent book Amazing Grace. She says that it's silly to sit in church and speak certain lines of the creeds while remaining silent on others (which is exactly what I was doing at the time). Her point was not that you should blindly accept all the doctrines of the church, but that you should acknowledge the ones that bug you, let yourself rub up against them, argue them, take them head-on. Claim them, as it were, instead of dumping them, or trying to pretend they don't exist. In doing so, in stretching your mind to try to understand the thought behind the theology, you may uncover some surprising insights. It's a method I've used frequently since.
But there are also some things that need to be said on the other side. First of all, Christianity is not as monolithic as my uncle would like to believe. If it's made out of whole cloth, who's cloth are we talking about? Catholics? Presbyterians? United Church of Christ? Church of Religious Science? On just about any item of faith, if you delve deeply enough, there are a range of opinions, and not just between denominations-- even within churches. One of the most interesting discussions I've ever heard was in a small group at our church where the issue of pre-destination vs. free will came up. What exactly does it mean? Every person in that room would have said without hesitation that they are Christian, and yet the range of opinions was wide.
Which leads to my further point that faith is a choice, and even conservative Christians have to make (sometimes) difficult decisions about what they believe and what they don't. Sometimes believers (of all stripes, not just Evangelicals) short-cut those difficult decisions by just mouthing the creeds they've been taught and not thinking the issues through. But that doesn't mean the difficulties aren't there.
So all of that is just to say: When I talk about finding the parts of Christianity that I want to keep, it's not something I take lightly. I'm not just choosing the feel-good bits and ignoring the difficulties (I hope). I'm talking about trying to winnow through the things that are habit, the things that people believe just because that's the way they were raised, the way it's always been done, and sift through to something that feels more essential. For me, that has involved cobbling together a set of beliefs that come not just from Christianity but from all sorts of sources. If it's cherry-picking, it's thoughtful cherry-picking.
I just read a blog entry by one of my extended family members who is still extremely Evangelical. That whole mindset can still hook me right back in. Not that I believe it again, but it's so familiar, like a pair of slippers that mold perfectly to your feet. It's still hard sometimes, even after all these years.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Jane Austen and the Sermon on the Mount
I have two almost completely written posts from the last few days trying to figure out what I want to say, and I'm not getting anywhere. They're about what I warned you was coming a couple of weeks ago-- time to dive back in to the faith of my childhood. The last time I did this, I was analyzing what was wrong, what drove me crazy, why I left. I'm good at that. It comes naturally.
This time I'm trying to figure out what's worth keeping. That does not come naturally. I was burned, badly burned, and I don't want to think about the positives. I want to keep being cynical, snide, and bitter. (even though I keep going to church. It's weird.) Also-- and probably more to the point-- I don't want my readers to think I'm a religious fanatic. But you know what? I need to do this.
So if religious stuff bores you to tears, feel free to tune out. Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) is this week, so after this one I'll put "Lent" in the title somewhere for this topic so you'll be able to tell.
So... back up to last spring, which is when this started (that's how long I've been putting this off). I took that seminar on Jane Austen where we read all of her novels, some juvenilia, and some of her letters. The prompt for our seminar paper was a quotation on Austen from a famous critic that was something like: Austen was the first major writer to present secular morality, a morality that is based not on religious tenets, but on what is socially acceptable. "Austen's fiction," continued the prompt, "seems to constitute as much of a departure, as a continuance, of Christian ethics." Agree or disagree, using examples from her work, in 15-20 pages.
The question fascinated me. I wish I'd had a couple of months to work on it. (to which you could respond, and rightly so, that I did have a couple of months, if I'd started as soon as he gave us the prompt, but I had a few other things to do at that point, which I started to list but that would get me way off track.) First of all, it pissed me off that some critic thinks he gets to decide whether or not Austen is Christian. Austen gets to decide that (or speaking from certain theological standpoints, I guess God would get to decide that, but whatever, not the critic anyway). and Austen clearly considered herself to be Christian. Read her letters, the prayers she wrote for family devotions, the things that other people said about her. Just because what she believed doesn't match up with what some critic considers to be Christianity doesn't make her not Christian.
Obviously I have a personal stake here, because I still consider myself to be a Christian, but my beliefs are not the standard ones. if I were to write a list of things I believe (my own statement of faith), probably most Christians, even members of my family, would say that I am not Christian. So when someone sets themselves up as the arbiter of what is and is not Christianity, my back is already up before we've even started.
But I've run into the problem of inserting my own beliefs into academic papers before (see this post). It doesn't work. So even though I started with the point that Austen considered herself to be a Christian, I still had to figure out some way of defining Christianity that would be acceptable academically, and then show whether or not Austen matched up. I started out looking at Anglican creeds (Austen's father and closest brother were Anglican clergymen). But creeds are too abstract for what I needed.
So I ended up at the Sermon on the Mount, which is a sermon Jesus preached outlining his ideas about moral behavior (although it seems likely that it was actually a collection of his teachings, and not just a single lecture). Some version of it appears in all four of the gospels, so it is pretty much the standard statement of Jesus' ideas about morality.
(The paper becomes mostly irrelevant at this point, but just in case you're interested, I thought I made a pretty good case that in her novels, there are many examples of Christian morality as it is presented in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, Jesus says, "Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them," (Matthew 6.1) and Mr. Darcy does his best to save Lydia without letting anyone know about it.)
But what surprised me, since I hadn't read the sermon on the mount in years, was how much of my own ideas about morality come from it. And one of the things that turned me off about Evangelical Christianity is how little they follow it. I had a bunch of examples here, but I just deleted them, because this wasn't going to be about analyzing the negatives, remember? It's about what's worth keeping.
So first on my list of things worth saving would be the sermon on the mount. It seems to me that one of the main points of the sermon on the mount is that what looks like winning isn't always winning; the person who looks big and important and powerful is not worth any more than the homeless guy under the bridge; looking all holy and righteous in public is pointless if you're not practicing what you preach in the small, private moments that really count. It's not a description of the way the "real" world is; it's a way of thinking and seeing that prompts you to look past the glitter and the trappings of power and see the human heart underneath the facade. and those are ideas worth thinking about.
And it's taking all I can do to not launch into an analysis of the parts of the sermon on the mount that are problematic (like, when does 'turning the other cheek' become 'enabling an abuser'?) but that's not my point at the moment. maybe we can discuss that another time. and p.s.: I only described as much of my JA paper as I needed to set this up, so it doesn't sound like a very convincing argument. We canargue discuss further in the comments if any of you made it this far and are so inclined.
This time I'm trying to figure out what's worth keeping. That does not come naturally. I was burned, badly burned, and I don't want to think about the positives. I want to keep being cynical, snide, and bitter. (even though I keep going to church. It's weird.) Also-- and probably more to the point-- I don't want my readers to think I'm a religious fanatic. But you know what? I need to do this.
So if religious stuff bores you to tears, feel free to tune out. Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) is this week, so after this one I'll put "Lent" in the title somewhere for this topic so you'll be able to tell.
So... back up to last spring, which is when this started (that's how long I've been putting this off). I took that seminar on Jane Austen where we read all of her novels, some juvenilia, and some of her letters. The prompt for our seminar paper was a quotation on Austen from a famous critic that was something like: Austen was the first major writer to present secular morality, a morality that is based not on religious tenets, but on what is socially acceptable. "Austen's fiction," continued the prompt, "seems to constitute as much of a departure, as a continuance, of Christian ethics." Agree or disagree, using examples from her work, in 15-20 pages.
The question fascinated me. I wish I'd had a couple of months to work on it. (to which you could respond, and rightly so, that I did have a couple of months, if I'd started as soon as he gave us the prompt, but I had a few other things to do at that point, which I started to list but that would get me way off track.) First of all, it pissed me off that some critic thinks he gets to decide whether or not Austen is Christian. Austen gets to decide that (or speaking from certain theological standpoints, I guess God would get to decide that, but whatever, not the critic anyway). and Austen clearly considered herself to be Christian. Read her letters, the prayers she wrote for family devotions, the things that other people said about her. Just because what she believed doesn't match up with what some critic considers to be Christianity doesn't make her not Christian.
Obviously I have a personal stake here, because I still consider myself to be a Christian, but my beliefs are not the standard ones. if I were to write a list of things I believe (my own statement of faith), probably most Christians, even members of my family, would say that I am not Christian. So when someone sets themselves up as the arbiter of what is and is not Christianity, my back is already up before we've even started.
But I've run into the problem of inserting my own beliefs into academic papers before (see this post). It doesn't work. So even though I started with the point that Austen considered herself to be a Christian, I still had to figure out some way of defining Christianity that would be acceptable academically, and then show whether or not Austen matched up. I started out looking at Anglican creeds (Austen's father and closest brother were Anglican clergymen). But creeds are too abstract for what I needed.
So I ended up at the Sermon on the Mount, which is a sermon Jesus preached outlining his ideas about moral behavior (although it seems likely that it was actually a collection of his teachings, and not just a single lecture). Some version of it appears in all four of the gospels, so it is pretty much the standard statement of Jesus' ideas about morality.
(The paper becomes mostly irrelevant at this point, but just in case you're interested, I thought I made a pretty good case that in her novels, there are many examples of Christian morality as it is presented in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, Jesus says, "Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them," (Matthew 6.1) and Mr. Darcy does his best to save Lydia without letting anyone know about it.)
But what surprised me, since I hadn't read the sermon on the mount in years, was how much of my own ideas about morality come from it. And one of the things that turned me off about Evangelical Christianity is how little they follow it. I had a bunch of examples here, but I just deleted them, because this wasn't going to be about analyzing the negatives, remember? It's about what's worth keeping.
So first on my list of things worth saving would be the sermon on the mount. It seems to me that one of the main points of the sermon on the mount is that what looks like winning isn't always winning; the person who looks big and important and powerful is not worth any more than the homeless guy under the bridge; looking all holy and righteous in public is pointless if you're not practicing what you preach in the small, private moments that really count. It's not a description of the way the "real" world is; it's a way of thinking and seeing that prompts you to look past the glitter and the trappings of power and see the human heart underneath the facade. and those are ideas worth thinking about.
And it's taking all I can do to not launch into an analysis of the parts of the sermon on the mount that are problematic (like, when does 'turning the other cheek' become 'enabling an abuser'?) but that's not my point at the moment. maybe we can discuss that another time. and p.s.: I only described as much of my JA paper as I needed to set this up, so it doesn't sound like a very convincing argument. We can
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)