Inspired

In September of 2013 I launched the book INSPIRED: Churches of Seattle, a coffee table book showcasing the architecture and ministry of 52 churches in the greater Seattle area.  The book was greeted with enthusiasm, except by a few honest friends who pulled me aside and asked: why in the wide world of sports write a book about churches in unchurched Seattle?

When my wife Hattie and I moved to the Emerald City from Los Angeles in 2011, we naturally started comparing the cities on prices, friendliness, weather etc.  We also started driving by and visiting some amazing churches and wondered why there is so little written them.  Take for instance the 1990’s book Seattle: World-Class City: A Contemporary Portrait, a 300-page coffee table book that documents in detail every possible cultural and civic institution of note.  Except Seattle churches, where nary a word was spoken.

Hello?  We soon discovered churches in Seattle are a dynamic part of the current and historical culture of Seattle, affecting and contributing to all elements of the society.  If you wanted to find out who is doing good in this city--helping with housing, hunger, domestic violence, human trafficking, addiction/recovery, mental health, gang, prison and refugee work--look for church folk to be in the mix.  And Seattle sure has a boatload of churching for an unchurched city; I soon estimated there were over 100,000 people attending services every Sunday in the area.

So my main motivation was telling what seemed to be an untold story.  I have to admit to some anger along with the desire to educate: the media is dissing the brethren and I need to do something about it!  A few other Christians I knew shared this “them’s fighting words” (or in this case the lack of words) mentality, engendering in both of us a bit of an us vs. them vibe.

Unfortunately as I found out, the vibe in town could also be us vs. us.  Like many larger cities, Seattle’s churches polarize over various issues: gay marriage, women in ministry, the list goes on and on.  When it came right down to it there didn’t seem to be a great deal of contact in Seattle between the Mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostals, Evangelicals and dozens of other denominations.  

Which invites the question I always ask when I visit the churches to market the book: with all the  polarizing between the churches, is there anything that pulls us together?  Many answers center around what should be the relationship between the churches, emphasizing Christ’s call to unity among us.  Other answers look at similarities with social justice outreach, emphasizing that although we may have a few differences in faith and hope we can (and have) come together in love.

So although my original motivations for writing Inspired were to tell a neglected story and address a diss,  I’m now inspired to take a look at church unity in the area.  No easy answers here, but worth taking a closer look.

B and OB

When the phone rang, the battle in my mind began.  I was driving to work on the freeway without a headset or ear plugs, and my options were to answer the call (totally illegal) or let it ring (legal but totally frustrating).  It was do the right thing vs. what if this is work calling?  Following my conscience vs. I might be missing......something.

Not the world’s worst moral dilemma but it struck me how seamlessly I took the road most traveled (answering the phone).  A haunting thought occurred to me: after all these years of Bible study, church attendance, and spiritual disciplines, was I still programmed to do the wrong thing?

      

For many of us older Christians, the ideal of becoming Christlike can seem challenging if not unattainable.  However willing our spirits over the years, our flesh has been weaker, as the consistent battle with our lesser angels has worn us down.  Not wanting to completely give up, we continue to assent to the possibility of Christlikeness, but the probability seems increasingly far-fetched.

And this far-fetchedness isn’t just with the agape love, turn the other cheek type of Christlikeness. Brendan Manning writes “I find myself threatened, challenged and exhilarated by Christ’s freedom from human respect, his extraordinary independence, indomitable courage, and unparalleled authenticity.”  I’m also blown away, both by the existence of these attributes in the life of Christ and the almost total absence in mine.

Wretched man that I am!  Who can save me from this life of non-Christlikeness?  Dallas Willard for one.  In his soul-searching book “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard attacks the throw in the towel idea with a penetrating combination of wisdom and logic.  “Surely the life God holds out for us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle!”   My wife and I have gleaned many insights from this book and for both of us “Renovation of the Heart” has been a restoration of hope.

So let’s say for a moment that becoming Christlike (or at least more like Christ) is actually a possibility.  What is the best means to that end?  There have been various answers broached over the Christian millenniums, most of them having to do with either squelching or negotiating with our sinful nature.  To me it has something to do with addressing the relationship between my faith and feelings, those pesky little human reactions which always seem to have a life of their own.

The Willard emphasis with challenging emotions is straightforward and simple: don’t deny them or dwell on them.  Let’s say you’re feeling angry: don’t suppress the feeling but don’t cultivate it either, and certainly don’t embrace it as some kind of expression of your deepest self.  Although emotions themselves aren’t sinful, there are actually such things as good emotions (i.e. fruits of the spirit) and bad emotions (anger, malice, resentment etc.), and through a lifetime of spiritual discipline and the grace of God a person can gravitate toward the good and extinguish the bad.

In the world of psychology emotions are often seen differently.  Emotions aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just are, and are certainly a window to the inner world.  A person’s shadow self and the concurrent feelings shouldn’t be run from but embraced; the way to the eye of the storm is not around it but through it.  If I’m angry I start by recognizing the emotion, have a mindfulness about taking action, and then later ask myself what this anger is telling me about myself.

Taking a bit from both camps, I’ve developed my own little mantra on my voyage to Christlikeness: B and OB. B is to be, letting myself just be who I am (a human being). OB is obedience, listening to God and attempting to do His will.  Starting on the B side, I let my emotions surface--holy, unholy, or somewhere in the middle.  Then on the OB side I take what surfaces and try to take action on the leading of the Spirit.  

By doing so, somehow by the grace of God my character is starting to conform to the image of Christ.  I can still be a saint and sinner in the same millisecond, but this aspect of my humanity can be embraced and put in perspective.  Willing my way to Christlikeness never worked; what seems to help is finding a synthesis between my humanity and my faith and letting the Spirit forge that into something special.

Is mercy fair?

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you."  Wendell Berry

Last week the well-known pastor of a Seattle mega-church turned in his resignation.  The church board stated that the pastor was guilty of "arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner."  They also were quick to point out that their former boss hadn't committed any acts of "immorality, illegality or heresy."  I assume that by using the word "immorality" they were using church-speak for sexual sin.

A couple of questions come to mind.  Why does the church board's announcement have to clarify that the pastor had not been guilty of "immorality, illegality or heresy?"  Does this not imply the pastor was not guilty of The Big Sins, but of lesser, smaller ones?  Was the qualifier of his innocence in The Big Sins an attempt to allow the pastor to continue in the ministry somewhere else and on his own terms? With the incredible amount of information coming from the victims of the man's careless and ruthless dismissal of those he deemed enemies, much of it spoken publicly--what has been or will be done in regard to the pain and confusion of those who were kicked out of the church and then shunned or declared persona non grata?   If the pastor is reinstated into a new ministry in the future, does he get to choose who oversees that process if his victims were not allowed that same luxury?

For his part the 43-year-old pastor acknowledged that "Recent months have proven unhealthy for our family -- even physically unsafe at times -- and we believe the time has now come for the elders to choose new pastoral leadership...There are many things I have confessed and repented of, privately and publicly, as you are well aware. Specifically, I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit."  Did he resign mostly (and ironically) because the situation which he himself created is now unhealthy for his own family?  Does it not appear that this pastor, with a long-standing track record as a controlling intimidating leader, has even controlled his departure by appearing to be gracefully resigning so the elders can choose new leadership?  By stating "..I have confessed to past pride, anger and a domineering spirit," is there the intimation that those things are now buried and forgotten?  Should he be allowed to quietly take his leave?  Since he was a man who crafted a public persona as a macho, gun slinging, biblically-correct prophet, will he now concoct another persona of his own choosing or merely burnish and temper the current persona?

I know.  It's easy to ask questions.  Sometimes answers are available, sometimes not. As a Christian believer who prays repeatedly throughout each day "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner," I love the virtue of mercy, probably because I have needed it on a daily basis. Mercy has long been defined by my faith tradition as not getting what you really deserve.  In the calculus of God's justice, however, mercy seems to contribute to unfairness.  Should not those Christian leaders who brutalize those under their care, pay the consequence of their misguided actions?  The answer is simple: they do!  I believe that "missing the mark" (the primary definition for the word sin in the New Testament) is its own inescapable consequence.  Those consequences may not be immediately felt or revealed and are not always imposed from a governing body as punishment.  Even some highly abusive cult leaders have been able to maintain the appearance of normalcy--complete with followers,wealth, and cable TV programs-- for decades.  But, a deeper truth must be faced: all of us get away with things... only temporarily. Eventually, our true thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors catch up with the images of ourselves we seek to perpetuate.  Personas are always false, inauthentic creations perpetrated upon ourselves and others.  How ironic that we, too, are victims of our own falsities.

It's not a stretch to admit none of us deserve mercy. And, since it cannot be earned, neither can we control with certainty how, when, or if mercy may be granted. We can only hope and pray that it will. Of one thing I am quite sure: the possibility of mercy being genuinely granted  can only take place after a repentant person embraces true guilt and failure with full disclosure.  Until that happens it would be a mistaken presumption to assume that all is well.

Being Ozzie

When I tried on that cardigan, I immediately thought of Ozzie.

Not Osbourne of course.  Nelson.  I grew up with Ozzie Nelson: my father Perry Grant had co-written every episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, whose 14-year run (1952-1966) was one of the longest in television history.  One night a week for much of my childhood our family (Perry, Edie, Cheryl and Ricky) would watch the Nelson family (Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky).  The show was in essence TV’s first reality show (Ozzie before Ozzy), featuring the actual Nelson family and a set duplicated from the Nelson’s actual home.  

Ozzie often wore cardigans on the show, and when I recently tried on a speckled purple variety in a Palm Desert men’s store, I made the immediate association.  But beyond association was connection, a kind of visceral portal for me to embrace or at least take a look at both my childhood and advancing age.  And it seems I’m not the only one channeling Ozzie; our culture also uses him as an archetype for discussions of family and the essence of normality. 

To some, Ozzie and his show symbolize the mindless fluff of the 50’s Eisenhower era where the perfect family was conflict-free and conversed in banalities (“Want to go to the malt shop Oz?” “Sure Thorny.  Then we can drop off Harriet at the hairdresser.”).  To others the show emphasized traditional family values and exuded normality when normal was still a virtue. Today to say a couple is “like Ozzie and Harriet” can either be a put down or a complement.

I sometimes wonder if my parents modeled their parenting on Ozzie and Harriet.  Growing up in a “perfect” neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, California with my father head of the household and my mother a homemaker, they certainly patterned our family around a 50’s ideal and lived to have a marriage of almost 60 years before my father died.  But there was much that wasn’t ideal about my family upbringing; we didn’t deal with conflict well and glossed over many challenging personal and societal issues when the 60‘s and 70‘s unfolded.

But when I tried on the cardigan earlier this year, I wasn’t thinking about family ideals or dysfunction: I was thinking about my age.   I’m 58, and I have to admit most of my fashion choices (i.e. the tendency of wearing athletic attire) are made in attempts to look younger.  On the other hand, cardigans speak gentility, staidness, old school, Ozzie.  And something within me embraced this.

In my den at home I have a sarcastic photo Ozzie Nelson sent to my father “expressing the fondness we of the writing community have for each other.”  Taken on the set of the show, there is a massive moosehead on the mantle and Ozzie is wearing a smoking jacket and ascot with a smug look on his face.  It’s nice to see Ozzie didn’t seem to take himself too seriously, and I imagine he might laugh at his current role as a cultural icon.

But I know he’s had a role in my life, and next time I’m at the men’s store I’ll see if they have any smoking jackets and ascots to try on.

      

    

BEING REAL

"It is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing one is wretched." Blaise Pascal

I suspect that many in today's Western church would have serious reactions to the writings of this great French philosopher/mathematician who lived in the 1600's.  Their protestations might sound like this:  "My dear Pascal, you sound so negative!  Wretchedness?  Do you not realize that the Gospel is positive?  In our church we just want people to feel good about themselves.  Isn't the Gospel supposed to be Good News? Can't we just focus on the goodness in people?"

Though wretchedness sounds like a "negative" to American sensibilities, Pascal links the self-awareness of it with the idea of true greatness.  In his Pensees, he goes to some length to develop the idea that truth cannot be accurately comprehended if the seeker of truth is not honest about him/herself.  In his words, "Those who do not love truth excuse themselves on the grounds that it is disputed and that very many people deny it."  The truth that Pascal asks us to see is the paradox of our humanity--that we are great and wretched at the same time.  A correlated thought is that the greatness inherent in humans, placed there by God, cannot be seen until we are willing to embrace the awareness of our depravity.  To be sure, to focus only on our dark side would lead one to despair.  To disavow our wretchedness, however, is to be taken captive by denial.  Call it what you will--the dark side, sin, self-deception--it is never too far from the surface of our daily lives.  Every time I am cut off by another driver on the freeway, it is definitely not goodness that rises in me.

Being honest enough to accept both sides of one's being is not a case of positive or negative.  It is about authenticity. To paraphrase another writer, God has not called us, nor does he expect us, to be good.  Rather, the call is to be real.  In a culture consumed by appearances, the concept of authenticity is counter-cultural.  Indeed, it is far easier to settle for superficial myopic optimism.

Let me close with a few basic questions.  In what settings does the obsession with "looking good" take precedence in your life?  What would need to change for you if a commitment to authenticity was established and then practiced with regularity?  Are you ready to make the change?

PARADOX: WALKING A FINE LINE

How do we make sense of the need to be at peace or rest and the seemingly opposite desire to be on a continuous quest for new horizons?  Some people settle for a simplified either/or answer to this tension, e.g.  defining people as either “pioneers” or “settlers.”   A fairly recent development approaches this issue by using an idea known as Dialectical Wisdom (not to be confused with the Dialectical Materialism of Marx and Engels).  The leaders in this concept are a diverse group of scholars attempting to integrate the fields of psychology and theology.  A helpful starting place comes from a book I highly recommend by F. LeRon Shults and Steven J. Sandage titled Transforming Spirituality: Integrating Theology and Psychology.  The brief comments that follow are indebted to these authors.

Human beings possess a need for both structure and change.  While some may find themselves predisposed to emphasize one side or the other, the reality for most is the dilemma of learning to live simultaneously with both sides of this tension.  A key part of the dialectical construct is the understanding that growth in wisdom entails “transcending polarities and appreciating paradoxical truths.”  An example drawn from scripture is Christ’s statement that saving one’s life will result in losing it.  The amazing idea resulting from embracing this paradox is that transformation takes place in the individual willing to live in both places.

To flesh out this concept Shults and Sandage draw a correlation between what they label spiritual dwelling and spiritual seeking.  In a brilliant integrative move they then write of the psychological dynamics of attachment and differentiation.  One conclusion they draw is that “Optimal spiritual maturity is characterized by a secure style of spiritual and interpersonal attachment and high levels of differentiation of self.”  In other words, walking in both sides of this dialectical tension sets up intrapersonal and interpersonal opportunities that are conducive to transformation and developmental growth.

I grew up in an either-or/right-wrong atmosphere, both in my family of origin and in my faith.  For years I struggled to get things right, to be on the "right side" in dealing with life's normal struggles.  About twelve years ago I begin to explore non-duality.  Of course, that immediately put me into the world of paradox.  The more I attempted to flesh out this concept, the more freedom I experienced.  The need to assess blame disappeared.  I also noticed a lifting of the burden of always having to be right and the resulting self-righteousness that came with it.  It's not that I no longer struggle with arrogance and judgmentalism, but a new reality is that I am more quickly aware when I do go there.  Life now feels more like an invitation and less like an examination.  Spiritual dwelling and and spiritual seeking are no longer opposites but run parallel.  There is a glorious interplay between the two.  Many years ago in Switzerland I sat at the feet of Dr. Francis Schaeffer and heard him say, "Parallel lines meet in infinity."  I think I finally agree with him.

FLYING

                                             He who binds to himself a Joy
                                             Doth the winged life destroy;
                                             But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
                                             Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.  

                                                                                           William Blake        

Mystery is different than confusion or ignorance.  People tend to battle confusion and uncertainty--their own and that of others--with a nagging desire for absolute certainty and control...the twin enemies of mystery.  Since the beginning of the Enlightenment and up to this moment, religion and science have bravely attempted to supply formulae of knowledge that produce certainty.  In our own time the number of books that include “How to” in their titles affirm our preoccupation with solving problems by finding the Golden Key, Rule, Principle or Law that will fling us onto the shores of a predictable paradise.

Along with certainty, the idea of safety is widely promulgated.  Our own government has promised peace through strength, leaving one with the impression that only the strong have access to peace, and only the powerful are safe.  To be sure, the desire to feel safe in a relationship is appropriate, even a requirement, if mutuality is to take place.  When it comes to the larger existential questions, however, the obsession with safety inhibits exploration, curiosity, and growth.

A favorite poem of mine by one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, the late Denise Levertov (she died in Seattle in 1997) gives fearless voice to the quest for existential freedom.


The Blind Man’s House at the Edge of the Cliff   

At the jutting rim of the land he lives,
but not from ignorance,
not from despair.
He knows that one extra step from his seaward
wide-open doors would be
a step into salt air,
and he has no longing to shatter himself
far below, where the breakers
grind granite to sand.
No, he has chosen a life
pitched at the brink, a nest on the swaying
tip of a branch, for good reason: 

dazzling within his darkness
is the elusive deep horizon.  Here
nothing intrudes, palpable shade,
between his eager inward gaze
and the vast enigma.
If he could fly he would drift forever
into that veil, soft and receding. 

He knows that if he could see
he would be no wiser.
High on the windy cliff he breathes
face to face with desire.

The longing for freedom is akin to learning to fly in this sense: it always requires letting go of something; a cherished notion, a dogmatic assertion, or possibly a dysfunctional but habitual way of facing life.  Both theology and psychology refer to this as surrender. In his book Will and Spirit, Gerald May states "We may enter psychotherapy or growth groups in order to 'find ourselves,' only to discover that we have really deepened our questions.  Though we love those precious moments when we are awed by the wondrous, endless truth of life, we may also find ourselves terrified because those very moments rob us of our solid images of who we are." Indeed, we may feel unsafe and uncertain upon entering the turbulence of not knowing-with-certainty because self-surrender appears to be another form of death.  Facing the winds of uncertainty, therefore, requires courageous faith.  Faith by definition is more about not knowing than knowing. The blind man at the edge of the cliff might appear as a fool, but perhaps his faith provides him with a knowing-beyond-knowledge because he dared to face into the wind and breathe the rarefied air of the wise.