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.