Is a sociopath training you for evil?: 8 ways to spot one and survive them

May 12, 2025A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual directionantisocial personality disorder, ASPD, conscience, Martha Stout, psychopath, Robert Hares, sociopath, TrumpRod White

sociopath portrait

When I first saw Donald Trump’s “official portrait” I had to marvel at the audacious grandiosity of it. There is no hint of humility or welcome in it. It is designed to intimidate. It matches his endless talk about “winning.” I had to turn away, to try to put him away.

But after his re-election, I decided I needed to turn back and face what we are all facing in that face. A sociopath is president. And all the traits of that 4% of the population are now being worked into the government, into world society, and into our individual lives. No one has ever known what to do when these people get into power (which they normally don’t), except avoid them or kill them – but those are not immediate options for me. So I am at least trying to understand them and discern the most helpful responses God can suggest.

The definition of “sociopath”

I am using the term “sociopath,” even though “psychopath” would work just as well. Neither term has a well-differentiated definition and neither appears in the DSM – the repository of approved definitions for psychotherapists and researchers. I’m using the term because when I decided to turn into the topic, I happened upon the “go to” book for people trying to understand: The Sociopath Next Door published in 2005 by Martha Stout. Someone said it should be required reading for everyone experiencing the Trump phenomenon, so I read it.

Stout’s popular book starts with “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD), which is in the DSM. She lists the disorder’s seven symptoms. Demonstrating any three of these could achieve the label: 1) failure to conform to social norms, 2) deceitfulness, manipulativeness, 3) impulsivity, failure to plan ahead, 4) irritability, aggressiveness, 5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others, 6) consistent irresponsibility, 7) lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.

There are plenty of critics of this definition, as with any in the DSM. Some say it just defines “criminality.” Stout lists further traits that point toward a more complete picture: 1) sociopathic charisma, 2) a grandiose sense of self worth, 3) the need for stimulation, risk taking, 4) pathological lying, defrauding, 5) callousness, no empathy, the inability to bond.

The Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) provides a list of twelve traits and asks the assessor to evaluate credible evidence for giving a participant a 0, 1, or 2 score. If someone scores above 17, they are a confirmed psychopath. 1) Superficial, 2) Grandiose, 3) Deceitful, 4) Lacks remorse, 5) Lacks empathy, 6) Doesn’t accept responsibility, 7) Impulsive, 8) Poor behavioural controls. 9) Lacks goals, 10) Irresponsible, 11) Adolescent antisocial behaviour, 12) Adult antisocial behaviour. One forensic psychologist dared to rate Trump, in absentia, with the help of descriptions in books and articles about him and felt sorry for the world.

Some professionals work hard to differentiate between a psychopath and a sociopath. This is a helpful article to that end. Some have characterized the difference with this simple phrase: sociopaths are made and psychopaths are born. Stout goes to some length to demonstrate the genetic and physiological roots of sociopathy that lead to their lack of conscience, the trait that makes them uniquely different human beings. But it also seems to be true that young people labeled with ASPD can give up their behavior in later years and develop well-adjusted relationships.

After reading up on sociopaths, I am again convinced, when it comes to human beings, most labels are suggestive, not definitive. And most behavior needs to be assessed on a spectrum, with the therapist maintaining an ongoing sense of curiosity about how common traits are working out in an individual.

The sociopath spectrum

There is a cluster of disorders on a spectrum that describes a small percentage of the population who have an out-sized influence on everyone else because of the conscience they barely have or lack altogether. It is a bit easier to see them if we inspect their intent. What do these poor disordered people want?

Start with Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the lower range of the spectrum (NPD = 0-6% of the population). They want to preserve the image that protects their weak ego. Some of them feel remorse and empathy and can make functional relationships. They have probably been severely wounded.

Next add people labeled with Anti-social Behavior disorder (ASPD = .02-3.3% of the population). They want to gain self-esteem from power, personal gratification or pleasure. These people are also known as sociopaths, though, as noted before, people labeled so when they are young have been known to change. Some say trauma creates them.

Next add the sociopaths. The term is used, often arbitrarily, to describe anyone who is apparently without conscience and is hateful or hate-worthy. Sociopaths make it clear they do not care how others feel. They are more likely to react violently when confronted with the consequences of their actions which makes it very hard for them to maintain work and family life. But violence is not an inherent trait of sociopaths or psychopaths. Sociopaths can form attachments, but it is rare and very difficult. Their environment probably exacerbates their innate inability to care.

The term psychopath is sometimes used describe a sociopath who is simply more dangerous, like a mass murderer. They have no conscience (about 4% of the population). The only thing they really want is to “win.” The psychopath pretends to care but fails to recognize other people’s distress. They can follow social conventions when it suits their needs. Psychopaths are unable to form genuine emotional attachments. They have fake and shallow relationships designed to further their goals, which could be small or large, and which are usually unimagined by the 96%.

In describing the sociopath/psychopath end of this spectrum of disorder, Stout describes such a person whose

most impressive talent is his ability to conceal from nearly everyone the true emptiness of his heart – and to command the passive silence of those few who do know. …He knows how to smile. He is charming…He lies artfully and constantly, with absolutely no sense of guilt that might give him away in body language or facial expression. He uses sexuality as manipulation and hides emotional vacancy behind various respectable roles – corporate superstar, son-in-law, husband, father – which are nearly impenetrable disguises. And if the charm and sexuality and role playing somehow fail, [he] uses fear, a sure winner. His iciness is fundamentally scary. Robert Hares writes, “Many people find it difficult to deal with the intense, emotionless, or ‘predatory’ stare of the psychopath,” and for some of the more sensitive people in his life, [the stare may be] the dispassionate hunter gazing at his psychological prey. If so, the result will probably be silence.

Protect your conscience

I think the society is being trained by sociopaths, right now. The president is their leader. If you just go through the behaviors listed above, you probably have little doubt about many people in the news. The innumerable lawsuits being filed are all about combatting behavior on the sociopath spectrum.

If you are a Christian, you probably agree with the New Testament writers who teach that our consciences can be injured, and blunted — and if you develop a “hardened heart,” it can wreck your all-important relationship with God. There is a lot of healthy discussion in the Bible about maintaining a conscience that resembles Jesus’ and stays open to the Spirit of God. But let me give you the teaching in just one little book, 1 Timothy:

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. (1:5-7)

This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith;among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. (1:18-20)

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. (4:1-2)

If you feel like you must be living in the last days, you might be right. Pundits, protesters, prophets and preachers are working overtime to stand against the present “hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.” As Paul teaches Timothy, having a living relationship with God, which keeps our consciences soft and clear, is a fundamental step in our self care.

8 ways to respond to a sociopath

There are many practical responses psychotherapists recommend when you are married to a psychopath, work with one, are led by one, or are just on the freeway with one.

Understand the tools of their trade

They are charm, seduction, and charisma — whatever draws us to let down our guard. Add the kind of “spontaneity” that draws you into taking risks you know are too much. Add acting skills — think Eve and the serpent. If you feel you are a step behind this person or your buttons are being pushed and you are being led along unwillingly, it is probably true. Accept there are people with no conscience.

Watch the leader who says only they can save you.

They will seem good for you and then fold you into their aggressive plans. They use your empathy and compassion, creativity and desire-for-good against you. If your instinct tells you something is wrong with the leader, check out your instinct before proceeding — there are a few wolves in sheep’s clothing out there. Don’t hate everyone in case they are a wolf; just have discernment

Accept that gaslighting is a real thing

In an age of lies, every light looks like a gaslight. If you think that, the sociopath wins their terrible game. Accept that people who find pleasure in dominating or scaring you are not like you. Their terrible behavior might be unimaginable, and you may blame yourself for being crazy to think they are terrible — and they will tell you that’s true. But remember that people with a conscience reflexively doubt themselves. Sociopaths don’t.

Habitually stand up to bullies.

In the age of psychopath billionaires competing with one another to win, many lesser bullies are being nurtured. If the 96% of us who have a conscience speak up and stand up to them, they tend to fold. You will have your doubts and fears, but you are not “rocking the boat,” you are keeping it afloat when you speak the truth in love.

Watch our for the “pity play”

Stout says “The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.” In Trump’s famous tweet, above, he brazenly says his impeachment, which was justified according to the evidence, is a “lynching.” But, of course. “We will win!”

Flee three-timers

One lie, one broken promise, or a single neglected responsibility may be a misunderstanding. Two may be a serious mistake. But three lies says you’re dealing with a liar. Deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior. Cut your losses and get out. Consider Jesus and liars:

Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. (John 8:43-45)

Keep respect separate from fear

Many Christians have read in the Bible they are to “fear God.” They end up feeling overpowered by God and God seems like another predator in their jungle. But honoring God and others is what honorable people do, not coerced ones. Anxiety is not awe. A trauma reflex is not respect. “There is no fear in love.” Respect people who are strong, kind and morally courageous. When you obey out of fear, it is probably not in line with God or your own self-respect.

Don’t keep secrets for people

Obviously, confidentiality is a good thing, when appropriate. But you do not need to collude with people who beg you not to tell or insist you “owe” them silence in relation to their dirty deeds. You do not owe them anything. You are not part of their game, don’t play.

Most of these responses are very strong and do not sound loving — they are not normal for relating to people with a conscience. Definitions and lists make the process of discernment seem cut and dried. It is not. For instance, we cannot effectively label a person a sociopath, but even if we do, God is greater than psychopathy. Even if we are not certain, we must do our best to discern the motivation behind someone’s behavior and respond to them as they are, not according to their deception or our idealizations. We must attend to our personal health and the health of society. We might not have all the solutions or have the power to effect the necessary changes — but our voices matter; our responses matter. Having a clear conscience before God and others matters.

We can have some empathy for the conscienceless and imagine the horror they do not experience. Stout says:

Imagine — if you can — not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken … You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered. How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage?

But don’t offer them pity and don’t waste your time shaming them (which is essentially negative pity). Keep asking, “What are they doing with their huge, secret advantage?” And tell the truth about your answers, to yourself and to everyone who will listen.

________

Same picture going up on buildings

Call on your inner prophet: Light is needed

May 5, 2025A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual directionBernie Sanders, Mhosen Mahdawi, persecution, prophetRod White

Mhosen Mahdawi (above), a leader of the anti-genocide protests at Columbia U. and also leader of the student Buddhist association, was released from two weeks of ICE detention in Vermont last week. Fortunately, his detainers missed the flight to Louisiana or the rapid action of his lawyers might have been foiled.

Mahdawi has a reputation as a peacemaker, but he is not shy about speaking the truth, as any prophet would not be. Upon release, he had a simple word for President Trump from the courthouse steps. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

Buddhists, Jews, Palestinian Muslims and Christians, amoral “nones” and atheists, Evangelicals and Episcopalians all have some prophet in them, some more than others. Some of us are braver, but most of us feel compelled to tell the truth about situations that go against goodness and trample love. When the psychopath president and his abuse victims in the cabinet (at least according to Ann Coulter) say the defenders of the Gazans should be punished, the prophets keep talking anyway.

Afraid to be a protester

In the face of the terrible things the U.S. government is doing, a lot of people are finding their inner prophet, just like Mhosen Mahdawi. But most of us are still standing back and considering the costs.

The other day we were at the huge, union-sponsored protest “For the workers, not the billionaires” and heard Bernie Sanders rouse the crowd to action [PhillyCam]. Part of the crowd was teargassed and over 70 people were arrested when they blocked 676 during rush hour, trying to get people to hear their prophecy: the nation belongs to everyone, not just the one percent. Some protesters wore their Palestinian regalia but covered their faces, since they are not sure what the government is capable of doing. Other faces. particularly brown ones, were not present at all, because they are rather sure what the government can do.

I don’t find it easy to go to protests. Last week, I had to navigate SEPTA, stand in the sun with a bunch of strangers, and deal with a strange counter-protester sitting on a statue. I also had to feel the absence of many people I know, Christians, in particular. Not only do they not see the value in protesting, they are somehow not paying attention to what is going on, or they don’t think anything is happening to them, so they are exempt from making anything happen.

I see it as part of my Christian duty to tell the truth, especially when the rulers are evil. So I find ways to lift my voice. I have been scared before. But I try not to let fear dull my conscience too much.

We’ve all got a prophet in us

If you follow Jesus, you have a voice. You have the inborn capacity to be a prophet. That’s how I read the Bible. And the Bible influences how I live my life.

Paul sent a one-liner about prophets back to his church plant in Thessalonica. I think we need to read it in a deeper way. He said, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).

I think most of us read that passage as if someone else is one of those weird, prophet types and we should at least listen to them in a discerning way. But I also think Paul is telling us not to despise the prophecy in ourselves. Each of us is testing everything according to the Spirit of God, who is in us and with us every day. We know what is good, and we need to hold on to it and hold it out like the light of the world we are.

Paul gets into this a bit more in 1 Corinthians 12. Part of the reason the protest leaders on May Day kept saying “When we are united across all our organizations, we are powerful” is not only common sense, it is part of the Christian influence on the United States. When Paul writes to the church in Corinth, he celebrates how we are all unique in our giftedness and in our value, and at the same time we are all part of a glorious whole. He says this in a variety of ways, but he starts off with, “There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit” (v. 4).

At the end of his chapter, before he moves on to highlight the love that is the deepest part of all expressions of the Spirit, Paul says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers” (v. 28) then goes on with his list. You may have a high opinion of apostles and prophets, the tag-team leaders of authentic Christian community, so you might relate more to “teachers.” You may have children, or you might have helped someone develop their jump shot — you can imagine being a teacher. I say, as surely as you can teach when called upon, you can prophesy. Now we are being called upon to prophesy. You may not be a gifted prophet like Bernie Sanders, but you have the same Spirit living in you that motivates a prophet. At some point, you are likely to be called on to exercise what you are given.

For the Christian, I think the protests should mainly be about speaking the truth in love, like Mhosen Mahdawi has been trying to do. Love is at the heart of our prophesy. And our present federal leaders do not have love as their measure of how to govern, as far as I can tell. They are deadly and need to be stopped. I need to tell them to stop.

There is always danger

When there is trouble in the land, most people run for cover; they don’t automatically put their faces in places a drone is filming. Being a prophet inevitably causes trouble. John Lewis called his prophetic work “good trouble.” It is not just trouble for the evil doers, it is trouble for the prophet.

As the New Testament writers look back over Old Testament history, they find themselves in a long line of people who have been persecuted. When Jesus lists the marks of the new humanity he is creating in the Beatitudes, he ends with:“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Prophets always face danger. It boils down to two main things: 1) rejection of themselves and their message, and 2) violence.

Elijah was ridiculed. The king told Amos to be quiet. Jeremiah got the stone face and was imprisoned under false charges. Micah was rejected — that’s always the prophet’s problem; we like being ourselves but not being rejected.
Jeremiah was struck and placed in the stocks. The king slapped Micaiah in the face. The king and queen threatened Elijah with death and he fled into the wilderness. The king had Zechariah stoned. The king imprisoned Hanani. Uriah fled to Egypt where the king’s men found him and brought his back to be killed. John the Baptist was killed.

You may not get overtly rejected, beaten or killed. But you will likely be afraid of what might happen to you if you keep speaking the truth about the rulers in love — especially now that bullies run the government and they don’t care about the laws.

Old advice for a new prophet

If you are going to raise your voice along with the rest of us, on the street or wherever you get a chance, these basics might help you be a light in the darkness.

Difficulties with other people are normal.
Good troublemakers are still troublemakers. A prophet has to face being despised by priests and other “professionals,” being opposed by false prophets, and being rejected by familiar friends, even their own family.

We need to be grounded in discernment and compassion to handle God’s prophetic word.
A prophet must speak what God has given– not water down the message to make it more acceptable, must be aligned with previous revelation (like the Bible), must be prepared to bring the same message over and over again, and must let love rule what they say and do.

You will struggle with your own thoughts and feelings.
A prophet must be patient and wait confidently for the fulfilment of God’s prophetic word. They must allow critics to call them “traitors” to their country, their party, their clan, or their church, trusting God to vindicate them. They must accept the fact that they will be isolated as abnormal and disruptive and continue even though they torment their hearers.

You will be a blessing
A prophet must follow Paul’s teaching to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12). We can know that Christ is with us, because persecution is one of those things which cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8). You’re trying to do some good, not just call out bad people.

We need to rise from the dead
In troubled and perilous times, when all we have left is to exercise the rights they are trying to erase and the convictions they are trying to pervert, we must “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” as Jesus has taught us (Matt. 5).

A prophet must expect the same treatment Jesus received: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15). But we must also expect to live in newness of life when we are taking to the streets. I think I share quite a few convictions with Mhosen Mahdawi, the AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders, and the protester in D.C. with that great sign I am still singing with Mary Poppins: super callous fragile racist sexist nazi potus. As angry as people are, protests are usually joyful — we’re trying to make something better together! It is encouraging to be so alive!

I want the U.S. to be a safe and loving place for everyone. I want real justice under good laws. But when I get into the street, I’m mostly motivated like Paul as he wrote in his letter to the Philippians (chap. 3):

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me.

If the light in us is dark, how great the darkness!

Your dismissive eye: Generosity saves

April 28, 2025A life in the Spirit, Spiritual directionEusebius, generosity, Georges Cuvier, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Pope FrancisRod White

I hope someone looks on you with generosity today. Chances you won’t be looking on people like that yourself, if you are like most of the people I ran into last week. What’s more, if you woke up today with a generous look at yourself, I’d be surprised. But we can learn. Pope Francis was trying to teach us.

In 2013, Pope Francis answered questions from reporters on a flight back from Brazil about whether there was a “gay lobby” in the Vatican. He reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s position that homosexual acts are sinful, but homosexual orientation is not. He said, “It says they should not be marginalized because of this but that they must be integrated into society….The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers….If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”

Some people were amazed he had the audacity not to judge gay people, the openness to call them brothers, and the conviction to insist they must not be marginalized. Some people criticized him roundly for not going far enough, for silencing gay voices in the Vatican, for condemning gay marriage acts, and so on.

As Pope Francis made his final journey through Rome last Saturday, the drones turned their scathing eye on every detail. I searched a few channels to find a commentator who did not center themselves and failed to find one. I tried to find one who paid attention to what was going on, who would even note what the procession was passing instead of making a quip and chatting. ABC kept adding a pop-up of someone they thought might keep us interested, while they ignored the journey itself or the ceremonies around it.

I wish they had demonstrated a discerning eye on what we were witnessing, receiving the good, assessing the evil, deciding how we relate and what we might bring to the moment or take away. But I think we are more defensive than ever when it comes to wisdom and sincerity. We instinctively turn a dismissive eye, a fearful eye, or a suspicious eye on what is coming at us, like everything is a piece of fruit to consume and we are checking for bruises. I think I see that suspicious eye played out at every four-way stop I come to in Philadelphia — so often, no one will take their turn, they are afraid of what I will do to them, I guess.

Afraid to be duped

As I was writing about some people from the past who deserve to be included in our list of great ancestors in the transhistorical body of Christ [tab above], I decided people must be so critical because they have been taken advantage of way too many times. We have a con man for our president, we are attacked by a deceptive ad everywhere we turn, we have been ripped-off by TikTok purchases, and so on. We don’t trust anyone.

As I read about renown Christians, the historians always had a moment of “being realistic” about them, as if we were all like the reporters on the plane trying to get Pope Francis to say something newsworthy or cringeworthy (which amounts to the same things these days). My clients often double check when they see me taking notes in the session, “The notes really are confidential right?” Some of them can’t be sure I won’t write a book about them or leak their foibles to the neighbors, who might do whatever.

When I read about Georges Cuvier, the groundbreaking 18^th/19^th century French father of paleontology, someone noted how his faith was too private, he was too scientific. Mechthild of Magdeburg, the beguine who became an author in the 1200’s, was too mystical and hard to understand, maybe she relied on men too much. The father of church history, Eusebius of Caesarea from the 300’s, was too political, too journalistic to even be considered an historian. I’ve been too something in the last few years, myself. That makes it easy to suspect first, trust maybe later.

We are surprisingly holy when it comes to our viewpoints, it seems. Many people feel obliged to turn a scathing eye on their subjects – the flaws in the video game, the actress’s hair, the small defects we highlight on restaurant or product reviews (the fact we all read such reviews). And, of course, we are also among our subjects to critique. Maybe we think we are so bad we need to make others look worse so we look better. I certainly know a number of people who can’t stand what they see in themselves so they project it on someone else and beat it up.

Generosity is the key

I am always surprised when people are mad at the apostle Paul when he sounds so judgmental. Chances are the readers are more judgmental when it comes to Paul than he is critical of anyone else. I even read an article the other day proposing that Paul’s prohibitions about women were added to his letters by some editor after he died. After all, Paul could not be some combination of red state and blue state ideas!

It would be nice if the readers were generous to themselves and Paul when they read instead of being defensive and suspicious. They might learn his tremendous generosity and hope. When Paul was imprisoned in Rome he wrote to his worried friends in Philippi:

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually resulted in the progress of the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ, and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.

Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice. – Philippians 1:12-18

Paul is very generous, don’t you think? — even when it comes to the most important thing is his life, the gospel of Jesus! His generosity is striking in relationship to his very identity as the ambassador of Jesus, the witness to the resurrection, the messenger of reconciliation! He says, “People twist my message with their envy, rivalry and selfish ambition. No matter!” As Pope Francis would say, “Who am I to judge?” Paul says, “The gospel inevitably will be given with less-than-perfect motives by less-than-perfect people. I rejoice it is preached at all.”

“Rejoice in the Lord. Dwell on what is good,” Paul will tell the church later. How about turning that eye on the people you meet at the intersection (Rod!)? You can be holy and lonely or loving and lifechanging.

Paul was not a patsy and he was also not afraid of looking dumb. He had the natural generosity of seeing with a Jesus lens. He could even see the good in being imprisoned! If you think that makes him duped, then I think you might need a refresher course in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The self-giving love of Jesus is the picture of generosity.

I hope springtime gives us all, you in particular, a fresh opportunity to hope. I don’t know what was happening when Zelensky was talking to Trump in St. Peter’s the other day, but it was good they were talking. The American regime is terrible, but it is good that people are daring to say how terrible it is and looking for ways to get us out of this mess. Don’t miss your chance to tell your truth on May 1.

In it all, redish looking, blueish looking, some combo, let’s be generous. Let’s have some generosity with ourselves because we are basically not all put together. Have some generosity with others because they don’t need any more judgment than they have received, and they are probably piling it on themselves as we speak. And let’s be generous with God, who gets a surprising amount of criticism, who made a beautiful world and risked it on us in hope.

Your suffering matters: Now is the time to know it

April 21, 2025A life in the Spirit, Psychological growthDan Sun, Janet Gotkin, meaning, Ronald B. Miller, sufferingRod White

We don’t like it, but our suffering is where transformation usually takes place. Psychotherapy and other systems that should help us, even our churches, often do not help — mainly because the story they offer hollows out the meaning of our suffering. In their quest to shape a less permeable behavior for us, our healers can undermine our inborn capacity to endure our pain and even be reborn from it.

Psychiatry and clinical psychology are often accused of being consumed by a biomedical model, overrun by neurophysiology, sociobiology, and behavioral genetics. As a result, the everyday troubles we once described with the language of suffering are now described as diseases. Instead of suffering moral and spiritual challenges, we have infirmities caused by insuperable external forces coming at us, as well as biochemical mechanisms and processes infecting our insides.

In his fascinating book Facing Human Suffering: Psychology and Psychotherapy as Moral Engagement [Goodreads], Ronald B. Miller says the suffering experienced by psychotherapy clients has been replaced by

“a concern with eliminating what are construed as symptoms or manifestations of mental disorders, disabilities, diseases and dysfunctions. The client’s agony, misery, or sorrow is viewed as a mere epiphenomenon to be replaced by a description of a clinical syndrome that is presumably more easily defined, measured, and scientifically explained as the consequence of some technical design flaw in the person’s nervous system, cognitive processes, or learning environment that is amenable to change.”

Miller is eager to restore the moral and spiritual center to the discussion of suffering. Because our suffering matters. Even when we have medical issues to face and medicines we need to take, we are still wrestling with our meaning and yearning to live in safety and love.

Like Miller, I try to respect a psychotherapy client’s moral dilemmas and spiritual capacity, even though it often goes against the scientific assumptions they’ve been trained to bring to our process. They may have already been subjected to the biomedical model and see themselves as a set of debilities looking for expert cures. Janet Gotkin became a well-known leader in the psychiatric survivors movement after ten years of treatment by callous psychotherapists, hundreds of electroshock treatments and high doses of psychotropics. This is a bit of how she described her transformation:

I watched the Seine as it flowed and flowed.

“For eons, since there have been human beings,” I thought, “there has been this river. There has been this pool of suffering.” It was as if a light came into the darkness that was in me at that instant.

“There has been this despair…Women and men have looked down into the pit that is themselves and that life is and questioned the meaning and mourned the futility of it all. No amounts of Thorazine will ever make this feeling go away.

In the blackest pit of desolation, I felt I had found myself for the first time in my life. (pp. 376-9)

The Martyrdom of St. Thomas — Rubens, ca. 1636

As Christians we are reminded by Jesus, especially as we shared his travail during Holy Week, our suffering is important, too. In some sense it makes us human; it is elemental to love. You are more than a set of malfunctioning molecules. Last Thursday night after Jesus had handed his disciples the symbols of his unique suffering in the bread and wine, he taught them:

I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. …

Remember the word that I said to you, “Slaves are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. — John 15:5, 20-21

Everything I do has meaning and everything I am is valuable. The world has been questioning those truths for decades, now. At this moment in our political history, Donald Trump is bringing the argument to a head by disappearing innocent people without due process as if they mean nothing. He is brazenly undoing years of struggle to undo our unequal society as if love is merely “weak” or “woke” and power is everything.

Grassley gets a lesson in morality

Donald Trump is so shockingly and relentlessly immoral [a list], the population seems to be jolted into remembering all the morality it has sloughed off for years. Like Gotkin, they are staring into the pit and many people are waking up to what is important. Chuck Grassley, the 91-year-old senator from Iowa, learned something about how awake people are at a town hall last week. Here is a two-minute clip from ABC’s report.

The New York Times reported on the meeting, as well. ABC skipped Grassley’s responses to his frustrated constituents, but here is what the Times reported:

[A man] shouted: “ Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?”

The question was met with enthusiastic claps from many in the crowd of about 100.

“I’m not going to,” Mr. Grassley said. Pressed to explain his stance, he added, “Because that’s not a power of Congress.”

When the man replied that the Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release, others in the audience began piling on. Some noted that Mr. Grassley chairs the Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration policy and judges, prompting the senator to stammer, then fall silent and wait for the shouting to die down before trying to respond.

“El Salvador is an independent country,” Mr. Grassley said. “The president of that country is not subject to our U.S. Supreme Court.”

The crowd practically erupted in jeers.

Others have noted that the Administration (and Donald Jr.) had no trouble intervening to free Andrew Tate from his 2-year detention in Romania. They questioned the ruling in February, made contacts, and soon Tate was back in Florida. [Guardian]

Grassley is on his eighth term as a Senator. Since 1980 he has presided over an increasingly immoral country. On the right, radicals rebel against how the basic morality of the Ten Commandments is ignored and their form of Christianity is undermined. On the left, radicals rebel against the overwhelming forces of capitalist oligarchs, climate change avoidance, and military destruction. I think both sides are rebelling against the limitations of the Descartes-spawned separation of natural forces/Science and spiritual experience/Church which infects all our institutions, including psychotherapy and the Church. Psychology replaced the Church as a “scientific” replacement for soul care and many people are not completely well as a result.

During the Grassley era, people have increasingly become, at least in their minds, subject to causes beyond their control. Their behavior is functional – an expression of an advertising scheme (as in the “GenZ” marketing generation), the outgrowth of their innate “identities,” a reaction to being helpless before climate change, in need of a strong man to tell them what to do. Grassley’s audience wanted him him to choose and act, not just explain the limits of his function.

I think most of us can’t lose the intuition that we are free to make good choices and we have responsibility for what we do. We are not just reactions to external stimuli whether from our gene pool or our environment — or Amazon. Both left and right seem to be clamoring to get their meaning back. The causal facts of life are never the most important ones, it is what we do with what happens to us that’s important. We are actors and creators, not just observers or passive conduits of the latest winner of some power struggle.

Miller says, “like the sculptor who must work with the piece of rock that is available, one fashions one’s life, or chooses not to and remains an ill-defined weighted object.” The crowd jeered at their senator, the weighted object. I think Grassley was surprised to see they thought they mattered and could do something about their situation.

A.I. might make our suffering more meaningless

Perhaps the most overwhelming piece of science determined to bring us under its power is artificial intelligence. We are all quickly conforming to A.I. It is making us its conduit. It is undermining the meaning of our suffering as it becomes the authority to which we answer instead of our own spiritual awareness, feelings, reason and face-to-face community.

We had a lively discussion about using ChatGPT as a therapist in our counseling consortium meeting the other day. Several of us were not A.I. users but more of us were already learning. I think I was the only one who had a client who used their A.I. platform as a therapist.

A computer screenshot from a conversation with Therabot, a generative A.I. therapist developed by Dartmouth researchers.

I found it ironic to open the NY Times a few days later and see this article: “This Therapist Helped Clients Feel Better: It Was A.I.” In our discussion, I suggested my clients who used A.I. might also be trained by it. I have heard of people who love it for it’s “authority.” When they see me face-to-face there is all the uncertainty of feelings in real time, ancient and immediate mistrust arising, and the fear of exposure. I think an A.I. therapist is pretty good with the externals, but we must also have an internal, moral, spiritual and relational process to be whole.

When Donald Trump paraded the tech oligarchs before us at his inauguration and then set Elon Musk loose on the bureaucracy, it slowly dawned on people they were losing their meaning or had already lost it. The science of the economy, employment, food distribution, and entitlements were all subject to the whims of immoral psychopaths. This was always the case, but we had acclimatized to trusting science and experts as the only authority we needed. Once awakened, being ruled by Meta’s algorithms became even more distasteful.

If we go to A.I. to alleviate our suffering after it has been party to creating the suffering, who are we? And, of course, who is God? Where is our soul? What love is left?

Suffering has meaning

The biomedical worldview and the causal philosophy behind it has left us thinking our suffering is some kind of evolutionary, genetic “fate” or, more likely, our fault, since we must have missed the memo or we forgot our password and couldn’t log in to purchase the right help in time. Me, alone against the world, with only machine-operators to help, is exhausting and traps us in avoidance.

What I am exploring here and attempting with my clients, when it seems appropriate, is to question the meaninglessness that causes us so much anxiety and despair. It causes us to keep going to the empty wells of function and expertise to find solutions to our problems. We end up feeling like we are the problem and are stuck unsuccessfully trying to push down the pain.

Jesus reminds his followers that not only his suffering will have meaning, so will ours. The night before his state execution he told them:

Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. — John 16:20-22

Your suffering can result in transformation, sooner or later. That does not mean suffering should not be avoided, or that you deserve it, or it will never go away, or you should not cooperate with what frees you from it. It does mean it is a place our true selves are born, it is also a way we matter, if we welcome that possibility.

If you cannot welcome the possibility, just trust Jesus with it. That trust, in itself, will do a lot of good. Your act of faith says, “I am a person who has faith,” which is an alternative to “I am alone and helpless before forces that make me suffer.” Such a story about yourself says you matter to God and you matter to yourself. It says you are worth saving and healing and helping and deploying – even when you are suffering, or you are afraid you will suffer, or you remember when you did, or you think you’ve suffered enough, or think you should never have to suffer. You matter whether you are suffering or not, and that means your suffering matters, too.

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Today is Anselm of Canterbury Day! Europe was awash in change and development during his day. He was in the thick of it, theologically, politically and mystically. Get to know him at The Transhistorical Body.

Signs and Symbols of Holy Week: Pause and turn

April 14, 2025A life in the Spirit, Spiritual directionHoly Week, pause, turnRod White

It is the Holy Week. It will end with the most important day on a Christian’s calendar: Easter, the Resurrection Sunday.

Last Saturday, we led a retreat to help us prepare to walk with Jesus through the whole week, since every day of His last week has significance. Christians all over the world will be walking with us, dying and rising with Jesus. They join the billions throughout history, who have also marked this week with their devotion and disciplines. Holy Week is a “thin place” in the calendar where the spiritual and material dimensions seem especially close.

Our retreat was all about pausing and turning into that closeness, daring to hope we could have a deeper, person-to-person relationship with God. We took a curious look at each day to see where there was a place of connection for us. We wondered, “How can I walk with Jesus, even see through his eyes, even be touched like those he touched? How can I be like those first people who heard his teaching and watched his love come to fruit?”

I’ve been moving through Holy Weeks with such spiritual intention for many years. Those who have gone before me have left a trail to follow, something like a spiritual Oregon Trail through the prairie, ruts so deep it is hard to miss the way to the “promised land.” They’ve left a lot of stories and markers along the way. Every year they lead me somewhere better.

I decided to give you a small replay of what we did in case you want to start the journey today, or whenever you read this. Let me show you a symbol for each day of the week, give you a snippet of the scripture story, and suggest where you might like to turn to find the deeper connection. Whether you find something new or deeper in the next few minutes is probably not as important as the fact your stopped, you paused, and you turned a hopeful heart in God’s direction. You might find Jesus, or you might be quiet long enough to be found.

The palm

Yesterday was “Palm Sunday.”

As he went along, people spread their cloaks [and palm branches] on the road.

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” — Luke 19:36-40

Turn into your stoniness. Where you have scar tissue, where hate or fear has made your heart hard, where you feel numb is the kind of place I mean. Jesus is riding into that area right now. You might want to throw your Burberry in the dirt so the donkey hooves don’t get dirty.

The cornerstone

Jesus runs into hard hearts on Monday and all week, especially among the leaders who are afraid of losing power in the zero-sum contest they are having with God.

Jesus claims Jerusalem.

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

“Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” — Luke 20:17-18

Turn into the upside-down kingdom of which Jesus is King. It will take changing your mind. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, this turn will likely be harder than it looks, since you know a lot and changing will feel like betraying who you’ve come to be — or worse, it will feel like you are betraying the image you think people believe you are. You’re not the cornerstone.

The fig tree

Jesus continues to teach publicly and on Tuesday draws his disciples away to lay open the trouble ahead for a world which refuses to follow God incarnate, into a renewed, truthful, love relationship. At our retreat, it was inevitable we would need to talk about Trump.

Then he told [the disciples] a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” Luke 21:29-31

Turn into the “what ifs” that scare you: financial threats, deportation, attacks on your identity, and the uncertainty of the future. Each of us is going to die, the whole world could come to the end of an era or the end of time. Jesus would like to take our chins and lift our heads, nudge us into alertness so we can stand with him in confidence, no matter what.

The alabaster jar

On Wednesday, a woman came to Jesus to anoint him with expensive oil and honor him. Like they did in those days, it was like she was preparing him for his burial. But the broken-open jar, full of precious oil, the out-of-order act of breaking into a dinner party, was like Jesus bursting out of his tomb on Easter, too.

As he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. …And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” — Mark 14

Turn into the wildness. The money is “wasted.” The woman takes center stage. The Lord receives his praise. The future is foretold. This holy week is full of mystery — only it is happening right before our eyes! Where is the wildness in you that is worth remembering, worth daring?

The basin and ewer

At the famous “last supper” on Thursday with his disciples, it begins to become crystal clear how Jesus is going to change the whole world. He turns the bread and wine of dinner into sharing his body and blood — something so profound his inner circle can barely eat it. Then he gets up from the table and washes the disciples’ feet — something so humble they can barely stand it.

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. — John 12:13-14

Turn into the love. Yes, this directs us to get down on the dirty floor and serve. But before we can stick with such endless giving, we need to receive the love: Jesus handing us his body and blood; Jesus doing anything for us, no matter how beneath his rights.

Later that same night Jesus did what he always did before something big or miraculous was going to happen. He paused. He found a thin place to commune with his Father. This time he went to a garden just outside the walls and prayed. The picture of him doing it is so iconic, ChatGPT had no problem providing a drawing.

I ask not only on behalf of those who believe in me through the word of my disciples that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. — John 17

Turn into aloneness so deep it makes you sweat or cry, into connection with God so deep it fills you with compassion. Hear Jesus praying for you even as he prays for himself. Be one with him as he longs to be one with you. Your oneness with God is a revelation of all the goodness built into the world and an incarnation of mysteries we innately long to experience.

The crown of thorns

Judas is lured into handing Jesus over to the Sanhedrin’s soldiers. Peter cuts off one of their ears. There is a night full of secret trials run by angry, frightened, self-righteous men determined to get Jesus killed. By early Friday morning, the sentence is set and Jesus appears before the crowd stripped, crowned and mocked.

The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” — John 19:2-5

Turn into the terrible truth. Behold the man.

The torture and execution of Jesus has many meanings. But the meaning it has for you this week can be the most important. Dying and rising is a daily experience for us. We avoid dying and suspect rising; nevertheless, it is the way of life and the way to life. There is an old, less-than-true person in you who was ready to die a long time ago. The fear of that part of you getting nailed to the cross is the suffering Jesus is bearing with you.

The guarded tomb

After Jesus died and was buried, the authorities set a guard on the tomb who stayed through Saturday. They were sure the disciples would steal the body and claimed they did. Some people still believe their big lie.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. — Luke 23:52-3

Turn into the silence, into the waiting. Saturday of Holy Week can be torturous if you’ve been into deliberately walking with Jesus all week. Now you are dead with Jesus. Listen to that. You are waiting for the promise. Feel the longing.

The empty tomb

This is one of the most-told stories in the world. Despite the soldiers, the stone is rolled away from the tomb and Jesus enters the Sunday morning sunshine alive! The women coming to properly prepare his body after the sabbath see the tomb is empty; Mary Magdalene has the first conversation with the risen Jesus; the disciples see him. Hundreds of people witness his resurrection.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” — John 20:18-22

Turn into the wind of the Spirit, into Jesus blowing new life into your nostrils like God creating Adam and Eve. Turn into peace with God and peace in yourself, into the confidence of knowing all will be well and you will rise too. Turn into how much God values you, how Jesus breathes new life into you, and gives you a true purpose within the work of Creation. Anything is possible.

What a week it is going to be! I hope this helped get you started. The Lord knows there are a million things to distract us and plenty of powerful entities and people eager to steer us into attending to them. Just keep pausing and turning. This week is an especially thin place in a world that seems far away from God.

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Here is some more info and encouragement regarding Holy Week from our Transhistorical Body site.

Say “No” now: It won’t get better

April 7, 2025A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual directionborderline, boundaries, Craig Trainor, dear colleague, dysregulated, exclusion, inequity, Musk, NO, Trump, uniformityRod White

I know my Evangelical friends believe humans are sinful from birth and our main work is to save them from their just deserts. But we are also a very nice species. The vast majority of us hate conflict, we’re easily hurt by slights, and we care about stray animals and lost children to the point of obsession. We can be awful, but most of us are rather polite, and all of us are desperate for love. We are so desperate we have a hard time saying “No,” even when we ought to, if we think it detracts from getting or giving love.

No is often important

Whether we like it or not, though, sometimes saying “No” is very important, and loving. Here is an example of when saying “No” was surprisingly effective. I’ve heard of it happening this way many times:

A mate appeared in the TV room at an unexpected time and turned off the tube. They said, “We need to talk. I can’t keep it in anymore. I want a divorce. You are terrible.” Their partner said, for once, after years of going up and down with their mate, “Well. I guess you’ll have to decide what you need to do.” The mate said, “No. I don’t want to file for divorce; you need to do it.” The partner said, “Well, I am not going to do it” — for once, they said, “No” to their dysregulated mate. They did not get mad and add fuel to the mate’s anxiety-making fire. They did not withdraw and reinforce their fear of abandonment. They calmly said “No.”

The instigator stormed out. It could not be predicted what was going to happen next. It was tempting to go find them and reassure them, or fight with them, or offer a grievance just as powerful as theirs. But the partner did not do it. An hour later, the mate came back and said, “I’m sorry. I should not have said what I said. You are my life. I can’t imagine the future without you.” The “No” actually helped their mate get a handle on what they wanted apart from the fury of their overwhelming feelings.

How to helpfully say “No” is basic training for working with “borderline personalities” (another label which probably needs retiring). I had to learn that the hard way when I was a pastor, since dysregulated people look for love where people will say “Yes” (like in the church), even though their desperate anxiety will usually get them kicked out — the seminal book about them is I Hate you, Don’t Leave Me. I actually invented a few “contracts” that helped people find their way in, safely.

Saying “No!” is crucial when responding to anyone who is acting irrationally or contrary to their own best interests. If someone presents to us and we are drawn into their mania or anger or despair or any unconscious reaction, we should probably say, “No. I don’t want to do that with you,” before we jump in, get hurt, and start hurting others.

Right now we all could use a refresher course on saying “No.” Our surprisingly irrational, megalomaniacal new government keeps turning off our TV and saying something dreadful. Fortunately, we are not married to our leaders. But the need remains. Before we get enmeshed in the dysregulated, abusive pattern being presented, we need to say and act “No.”

Say no to psychopaths

The president is not a normal person. Right now we he is challenging all of us to think about our boundaries, or whether we even have any (“officers” are driving up in unmarked vans, in hoods, to snatch people off the streets these days, after all). And A.I. is collecting what I write — maybe monitoring what you are reading; who knows what can be done with that when the president is so capricious! If he were your houseguest (which is unlikely due to his germ phobia) he’d rearrange your rooms to suit himself and dare you to say “No.” You probably wouldn’t say “No!” because you care, and because dealing with a person who brazenly does not care is hard. But we need to say “No!!”

This week’s brazenness has School Boards and Universities all over the country wrestling with whether to say no to the regime’s attempt to roll back anything that looks like preferential treatment to people of color, including the ancestors of slaves. Some programs I love and support are now causing problems with Universities charged with getting rid of them. Here are people near Nashville having the problem:

People are worried that something resembling a “DEI expenditure” will be in the budget somewhere and potentially noticed by some new bureaucrat rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion and rooting in uniformity, inequity and exclusion (as Pete Buttigieg aptly points out). Are we going to say “No” to uniformity, inequity and exclusion or not? Or will we rush to ChatGPT and ask it to scrub our statements? Again, what would Jesus do?

There is no real process for losing the funds, of course, yet. We’re still just under the onslaught of dubious presidential decrees and illegal impoundments. But schools are conforming because they fear they’ll lose some funds, get outed on Truth Social, or infuriate donors – they can only imagine what might happen. And they do imagine it and act on their fear. That’s the authoritarian playbook in action.

Many states have hopped on the bandwagon and begun to pass bills to eradicate DEI. Here’s a list of bills and what they mean [link]. In my opinion, they mostly just demand we stop saying “No” to racism and pretend white supremacy is equality. But you can decide for yourself.

@diddlyfrickinsquat

the cherry on top of this is that my undergrad is in history… I’m so numb at this point #cabaretmusical #thoughtdaugher #returntotiktok #dearcolleagueletter

♬ only politics – dani 🎭

It got started with the “dear colleague” letter

It is unnerving when you wake up one day and a previously-unknown bureaucrat gives you an order. Educators got a letter designed to undo decades of assistance to students who bear the weight of systemic racism. Last week many of them finally read the “Dear Colleague” decree from the soon-to-be-dismantled Department of Education issued on Valentine’s Day under the authority of Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. You should read it. It is a breathtaking sea change. I’ll give you some highlights that show you why people are wondering who they invited to spend the weekend. I highlighted my highlights:

Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon “systemic and structural racism” and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.
Nebulous concepts like racial balancing and diversity are not compelling interests. As the Court explained in [the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard], “an individual’s race may never be used against him” and “may not operate as a stereotype” in governmental decision-making.
Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly. At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.
Other programs discriminate in less direct, but equally insidious, ways. DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not. Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school.
All educational institutions are advised to: (1) ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law; (2) cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and (3) cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race. Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding. Anyone who believes that a covered entity has unlawfully discriminated may file a complaint with OCR. Information about filing a complaint with OCR, including a link to the online complaint form, is available here.

Anti-racism is now racism. Animal Farm and 1984 will soon be banned from schools, I suppose, since we’re supposed to unlearn what Orwell taught us. I will let you dialogue with Trainor’s claims, since an argument can be made. But I find his thinking a short step away from a slave being told, “You should be happy you have a Christian master.” Regardless, the main message that came to me and educators I know was, “There is a new sheriff in town. Change your mind and change your ways, or you won’t get your share of the tax money.”

If I lose money as a consequence, will I still say “No?” Will the institution fire me if I suggest resistance? Will I stick out, in contrast to compliant people, and my family will wonder what I’m doing to them?

Again, what would Jesus do?

Since Jesus was a teacher without an institution and a psychologist without a license or guild, I guess it is kind of obvious what he would do. He found it quite easy to say “No” to all sorts of dysregulated regulators — people who actually believed the Son of God was going to ruin their world! He’s never been too tied to the present homeostasis.

I don’t think Jesus cares much about the latest status quo, he has deeper things to do. When he says from the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing,” that is his most loving “No.” Your borderline loved one does not really know what they are doing, either. Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not really care what they are doing to you as long as they rule you. Jesus on the cross is a big “No” to that, and big “No!” to whatever destroys love and peace. The cross is a big “No!” to sin and death, right? The resurrection is a big promise that you will flourish, one way or another, later if not now, if you say “No” with Him.

I am going to try to keep saying “No!” in direct and loving ways, as needed. The easiest way to do that is, in the case of Trump/Musk, to get out on the street with a sign and 5000 friends. (You see my latest sign above from April 5 in DC).

The hardest way to say “No” is when I have to say it to a co-worker who wants to advance a truth that is not true like, “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism.’” Or you have to speak to your mate and say, “No. I do not want to do that with you. I’d rather relate to your true self. I’d rather both of us relate to God right now.”

I think one of the messages of the Gospel is “Say ‘No’ now. Things will not get better or just stay the same.” If you go along with the powers you might “gain the world and lose your soul.” Paul says it clearly:

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power; put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and, having prevailed against everything, to stand firm. — Ephesians 6:10-13

I know, Master Trump says DEI is the devil and Venezuelans are demons, and that uniformity, inequity and exclusion is the law now. Yes, I am saying “No” to that and “Yes” to freedom, forgiveness and fellowship. And I think we all need to say “No” now, because it may soon be too late to say anything at all.

The rulers without rules: What would Jesus do?

March 31, 2025A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, The Missiondue, Jeffrey Goldberg, Mike Waltz, Musk, Reddit, rulers, submission, Trump. Pete HegsethRod White

Christians are scrambling to reorient their thinking, now that Trump and his rulers have upended their experience of the Empire. The church has had a rather large comfort zone in society for the last 50 years. As a result, we had the freedom to “mail it in” rather than showing up in faith. Now there is crisis every day, our wealth is dropping, government services are diminishing, and the world is no longer functioning under Pax Americana. It is back to every MAN for himself.

When you ask “WWJD?,” you’re asking within a new context.

Jeffrey Goldberg outs our rulers

The recent Pete Hegseth debacle is a good example of the new context, as we see the faulty new rulers acting faulty. Hegseth and the major players in national defense actions (except the President and the General in charge!) were making decisions about bombing a Yemeni apartment house via Signal this month. The fact they brazenly did that (maybe to hide what they were saying), and now that the whole world knows what they said, lets everyone know that truth and law-following are fundamentally NOT central to the new regime. I think the Signalers firmly believe whatever they say is the truth because they said it. I think they might be narcissistic (or psychopathic) enough to think they are like Allah speaking the Koran to whoever has a pen.

This problem, in a long series of problems, goes like this. A national security advisor, Mike Waltz, included Jeffrey Goldberg, a reporter and editor for The Atlantic, in the group chat on Signal. The very chat they had to know was easily monitored by Russia and the China was also being delivered to someone who should never have been in their group chat. Goldberg did not have clearances, of course, and one would suspect he just might broadcast what they were trying to keep secret. When Goldberg made it known he had listened in, the liars doubled down, as the liars who run the country do. They tried to create their own media reality, or at least tried to produce enough fog so no one would remember what’s what after the news cycle was over.

Using the communication platform was wrong and what they were planning on it is probably a war crime. But instead of admitting that (God forbid!), the president said nothing they did was illegal or classified. The Trumpspeak was: “The attack was totally successful. It was, I guess, from what I understand, took place during. And it wasn’t classified information. So this was not classified.” The story goes on. Goldberg has already published the screenshots of the conversation belying what Trump asserted.

That story depicts the new context in which we live in a nutshell. What is a U.S. Christian to do?

We’ll sort it out on Reddit

For years a great number of Christians, following what they called a “literal” understanding of the Bible extracted Romans 13:1-7 as plain-speaking instructions for how to relate to the government: one should submit because the rulers are God’s servants and you’ll be judged if you don’t. So they teach we need to submit to Trump; he’s the ruler.

In relation to something I posted in Reddit about Elon Musk, a person engaged me in a little chat about that passage last week.

Person: What do you think about the Romans 13 doctrine of government?

Me: If you start it off with the last verse of Romans 12: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And end it with 13:8: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” I think it can make sense. I usually say I need to tell the government what to do because it is as faulty as I am. But most of the time, I let God handle it.

I would not call Romans 13 a “doctrine.” It is missional advice for church planters and survival tips for the persecuted.

Person: you wouldn’t consider the first six verses of Romans 13 to be doctrine of government?

Me: I think people turned it into doctrine. I don’t think Paul was writing doctrine. He was being practical about how to live in the world as God’s people. He obviously teaches “theological” truths. But if you put Romans 13:1-7 in context, as I noted, it really should not be extracted as if Paul were writing a treatise.

Obviously, plenty of people base their doctrine of government on those verses. If they chose to extract John 18:36-9 the doctrine would be quite different, I think. If they decided the Sermon on the Mount was a blueprint for government, the world would be transformed.

Person: how do we know if someone is intending to write doctrine?

Me: The word “doctrine” came to have its present meaning in Middle English.

I think there’s a good chance Paul did not intend to write the kind of “doctrine” we argue about these days. Paul’s writing in Romans 13, when put in the context of what he says before and after it, is a classic example of his two-tiered thinking, which I assert here.

In essence, I think would agree he’s saying, “Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, the Way the Truth and the Life. His law of love rules the citizens of heaven; by following him we fulfill the Law. Our submission to the authorities is based on our submission to Jesus, first.”

What is “due” to whom?

I certainly do not feel I “owe” respect to Pete Hegseth because barely half the Senate confirmed him and he is now “in authority!” I don’t think Paul lives in unqualified submission to the Roman or local governments, even to the town synagogue! There are actually quite a few qualifications in the Romans 13:1-7, which the Constantinians made a “doctrine” of government.

The whole section begins with “Let ,” which I take as Paul including us in his strategy. “Let’s keep submitting ourselves to the authorities, who God raises up and deposes according the same mysterious working we accept when we consider everyone coming before the judgment seat.”
I think his teaching is quite practical, not an abstract theory. In essence he says, “It is smart to keep your nose clean when it comes to the rulers; we have bigger fish to fry than subverting or running away from the prevailing law. The authorities are supposed to be doing good for us. Let them.” That being said, I think it would be ludicrous to say Paul thinks governments are going to do him good, be just, or act godly. He has already noted in his letter that the Roman Christians are facing persecution (chap. 8) and the government is not doing them any good. Quite the opposite of doing him good for doing good, the authorities have been misleading or chasing Paul ever since his name appeared in the New Testament!
Then in verse 7 he says, “Give to everyone what you owe them” (in the NIV). This is a misleading translation. I think Paul is talking about paying what is due. He’s saying, “Keep yourself on the right side of the tax collectors and tariff officials; don’t go underground or smuggle. Tip your hat and make friends with the enemy. To those to whom honor is due, bless them. Give honor as it has been given to you; they are as undeserving as you are.” That’s how the subjects of the Lamb are subject to the authorities.

I wish the powermongers who wrote doctrine to justify their hegemony would have been more honest. Had it been as unsafe to be themselves as it was for Paul, maybe they would have written a different way. We are certainly going to find out what we write, now that millions of us are undermined or persecuted by the powers-that be!

Christ Before Pilate — Mihaly Munkacsy (1881)

Introducing Romans 13:1, the NIV heading reads: “Submission to Governing Authorities.” But we all know the editors of the NIV made the titles, not Paul, right? The supposed summary of submission to the authorities should include vv. 8-10

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

A Jesus follower submits to the authorities in grace and truth, discerning the spirits. You owe them nothing and can afford to give them everything. They have no authority unless God gives it. If they do not fulfill the law of love they receive the submission they are due. We are fulfilling a Law to which the government is ultimately subject, too. They are only the “law” provisionally.

Unlike our present rulers in the U.S. executive, Paul says Jesus followers don’t commit adultery, kill, steal, lie or covet. We love God with our heart, soul mind and strength in Christ and love our neighbor as ourselves. As such people, we salt our society with truth and love, with energy and compassion. We will not invite the wrath of the authorities unnecessarily. We will do our best with the leaders we have. But we will never give up the rule of Jesus for anyone.

I think our terrible rulers might end up doing the corrupted U.S. church a favor. If you are praying for a revival, Trump would be a good cause for it. In the past, our strength of character and our purposeful living regularly saved the country from its worst instincts. But an aggressive minority of “Christians” in the 21^st century have lusted to claim their self-ordained right to be rulers. Project 2025 is their manifesto. The abjectly corrupt Trump is honored by them as he implements it, even though most of them admit he scorns the commandments Paul uses as markers above.

I believe their project will come to a bad end, as Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth so ably demonstrate. But I hope the church, in general, as it is starting to do in many places, will get out from under its faulty submission doctrine and follow Jesus, to whom every knee will bow. We can’t mail it in anymore — especially since Elon Musk is likely to destroy the postal service any day now.

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Today is John Donne Day! Visit the poet turned preacher at our Transhistorical Body blog.

The One Tree

March 24, 2025A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual directionanxiety, creation, Lent, Psalm 65, returning, springRod White

One of the words I kept hearing at the CAPS Conference this past week was “presence.” The message I took away was: “In the middle of Trump turmoil, stay present to God.” Like anxious clients need to hear, “Feel your feet on the ground and sense the air moving in and out of your body as you breathe deeply.” In doing so, we return to our awareness of our life in Christ and rest in the presence of God.

Returning

If you are anything like me, most days I get “messed up.” People and situations disturb my equilibrium, and my capacity to think and feel are an invitation to be disrupted from the inside, too, even if I stay holed-up in my house. I need to get up every morning and turn into my source of life.

Psalm 65 is a useful tool for returning. I meditate with it using three long, slow, deep breaths, one for each stanza:

You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas,

who formed the mountains by your power,
    having armed yourself with strength,
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    and the turmoil of the nations.

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
where morning dawns, where evening fades,
you call forth songs of joy.

After three sets of three breaths, I think anyone might be more able to face the day.

Now is the time

The springtime of Lent is a perfect time to turn.

The other day I wrote my own psalm like Psalm 65 but in my own time and my own place. I did not write it in the name of great art. But you might relate to it and find it useful for your own process. The Lord stills the “turmoil of the nations.” Yesterday, I was stilled by the dawning of creation on the leafing trees outside my window. In the middle of my mess, God called forth “songs of joy.”

Lord,
there is that one tree —
just the top of it I see
through the legs of my desk
as I look toward the sky,
in the Spring morning looking,
looking for light, looking
to see if the chilling wind I fear
is moving in the tallest branches
and locking me in some defensive coat
as I venture out into the sun
after a chilly winter, one chilled
with trouble and the grief
of letting go and letting in.

As I start to write, the tree,
that signal tree, roots me
yet reaches into uncertainty.
We’re completely still.
Serene. Blessed. Surprised
by the joy of the morning.
Nestled. Snug with the other trees
blessing the park with their community,
a home for us wanderers longing to rest.

Now, as I turn my head and heart,
I see the faintest touch of breezing start.
Breeze winds its way through the tallest twigs,
teasing the huddling branches apart.
My tree raises hands and gently claps
in the rhythm of creation as old as time,
in the glow of day breaking with new unknowns,
assured, as one who knows Spring personally
and feels rain like friendship.

In the chill, I would have huddled
in reassurance, longing to cuddle
some wished-for insurance
against the cold, some imminent gale.
But the season has lifted.
My roots tingle with the whispering
of ancient voices tendriling in the park
with a message as fresh as Mystery.

Your love is a hard truth and scary,
and a beam of sunlit hope to carry,
hope gently pushing me like what launched
the tuft of spring’s first dandelion,
a seed launched into the way of brother wind,
now looking for a place to root and bloom
at the foot of our wizened Oak
in the freshness of a Spirit-blown day.

You might want to hear me read it here.

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Today is Oscar Romero Day! If you want to know how to respond to authoritarian regimes, he’s your spiritual guide. Commune with him at The Transhistorical Body.

Empathy: Love in the crossfire of political warfare

March 17, 2025Doing Theology, Psychological growthAllie Beth Stuckey, Elon Musk, empathy, Gustave Gilbert, Joe Rigney, Joe Rogan, Paul Bloom, Trevor ThompsonRod White

While I was ignoring podcasts, a rebellion against empathy was bubbling in them. Post-WW2, Eurocentric, therapeutic moralism was under attack! I was not completely ignorant of these rumblings, since Rush Limbaugh was like a non-resident member of my Central PA Church, and Trump has been getting away with various forms of grabbing for years. But I was still shocked when Elon Musk, who does not lie and dissemble as well as Donald Trump, parroted a line of reasoning that seems to be taking hold.

Elon on Joe Rogan

Musk spoke out on the Joe Rogan Experience. Young men who listen to Rogan, among others, are being taught they are fearful empathy-robots who will lose their country if they don’t grow a pair. I thought that must be an out-of-context exaggeration when I heard about it. But then I found a person who makes transcripts of Joe Rogan episodes (!). I had already reacted on hearsay when I wrote my congressman. Then I found out he actually taught it!

Since I work on connecting to people empathetically all day and hope they feel safe enough to explore who they are and who they want to be, I was understandably alarmed. So I wrote the 20 congresspeople on my list, as follows:

Elon Musk got on the anti-empathy bandwagon with Joe Rogan last week. In his own autistic way, he justified why he cares more for humanity (which he thinks Tesla and SpaceX will save) than for the people right next to him. This is consistent with his neurodivergence. He thinks his heartless capitalism will save us from overspending our love on nonsense – and he will decide what is nonsense.

He said, “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.” He slightly qualified that with “I believe in empathy, I think you should care about people. But you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole, and not commit civilizational suicide.” After repeating multiple falsehoods about immigrants, he claimed it was empathy that had allowed immigrants to become a threat to the United States. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit—they’re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.” In truth, empathy is a “bug” that threatens his lust for power. He needs our resentments to outweigh our regard for other people, and ourselves.

Senator, please help us oppose him. Help us focus on our connectedness and our shared regard for the people being harmed by DOGE, Musk, and Trump. Please keep this administration’s victims front and center in your narrative. Uplift the stories of people whose lives are being lost, endangered or undone. Please help us build a narrative around our shared humanity, rather than grounding our politics in contempt. Form a more perfect union. “Love as I have loved you” is not the downfall of civilization.

I hadn’t explored the Rogan podcast yet, or I might have mentioned that Musk goes on in the conversation to lament if he walked the streets of San Francisco in his MAGA hat, he would get harassed and maybe beat up. I thought, “Oh, so you would like some empathy instead of being bullied!” He yearns for empathy as those empty of it usually do.

The anti-empathy movement

I missed the anti-empathy movement as it was percolating. But it was prevalent enough for Paul Bloom to write a book about it and get a review stored by the NIH. In the review, Trevor Thompson checks out the binary argument the author conducts, beginning with his title: Against Empathy. The Case for Rational Compassion. The book takes a strong line against empathy, arguing that it is not only not useful, but positively detrimental to human progress. Bloom says empathy leads to biased, shorted-sighted, and practically useless action. What Musk might call “civilizational suicide.”

Bloom is working with a reduced definition of a very large and varied human experience. We are all wired for empathy and express it on a broad spectrum. Even autistic people experience empathy on all sorts of levels and have all sorts of neurodivergent struggles with it, in just a different way than neurotypical people do. Yet Bloom says empathy is merely the “act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.” — as if it were just Bill Clinton performing “I feel your pain.” He seems to think most people are just unconsidered reactions to their mirror neurons — irrationally sending useless children’s gifts to the scenes of mass shootings.

Simplistic and debatable, but gives a whole picture

Researchers also name “cognitive empathy,” which Musk could have called “rational compassion.” The label states the obvious: we don’t just feel empathy, we think about it, too. People can react with any of their faculties to the empathy they feel, and generally do. When we feel the pain of another, we may also understand their experience, or respond viscerally, automatically to it, or care about it. Or we may metabolize the pain spiritually and suffer it. We might ignore it or mock it. No one is a robot (yet).

There is a noisy, Christianity-claiming faction with a lust for power dominating the government. Members of it are mounting an argument that love – especially love for strangers – is a distraction, the Bible notwithstanding.

The bandwagon seems to be bulging with new adherents. Last year Allie Beth Stuckey, a Christian podcaster wrote a popular book called Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. Lately, Joe Rigney, a Minnesota pastor and theologian, published The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits (for which, he laments, he gets no empathy). He redefines empathy as self-immolation: “If someone’s drowning, empathy wants to jump in with both feet and get swept away. Empathy jumps in. Whereas compassion says, I’m going to throw you a life preserver. I’m going to even step in with it and grab you with one arm, but I’m remaining tethered to the shore.”

Of course people do foolish things and get exploited. Their empathy might make them a sitting duck for people like Elon Musk if they stop mentalizing. But I think most of us know that humans created civilization with empathy. It is one of our most basic and best instincts. We can be trusted to work out the daily decisions we have to make about it and not get killed. It is not always that easy, since the U.S. government has relied on empathy to get Marines to kill and sacrifice themselves. Even if we don’t want to protect loved ones from “the enemy,” the soldiers want to take care of their comrades in the unit, who pulse together like a common set of neurons.

Jesus will not destroy civilization

When Elon Musk gets ahold of empathy, you know it is being used for something except empathy. He’s not pondering how to best help people or how to alleviate suffering. He’s hard at work finding ways to de-prioritize alleviating that suffering – all the while assuring us he is rooting out the waste in the budget, saving those hard-earned dollars previously thrown away on people who don’t deserve help or should help themselves or might be trans. He’s muting the voices of the dispossessed — it has always been a slave economy, after all. Musk notwithstanding, I find hope in the fact that few people, including the Pope – would accept that the interests of power should be prioritized and the least powerful forgotten.

Jesus does not forget the powerless. Here is a bit of what the Bible actually says about empathy:

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17)
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
“Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13).
Jesus wept (Luke 19:41).

In building his robots and longing for Mars, has Musk forgotten what it is to be human? Has he forgotten that history shows how empathy knits societies together? Has he missed how empathy leads people to volunteer, which then boosts their mental health? Hasn’t he heard that kids who have low empathy are more likely to bully?

Have all these bullies missed learning what happens when we ignore pain and mute the cries of the suffering? Maybe. It happens.

Any post featuring Elon Musk gravitates toward Nazis. So let me end with this warning. Psychologist Gustave Gilbert, interviewed Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials and wrote a book about it. He said, after all his work examining the psyches of those who committed the most horrendous acts of World War II, he had come close to finding a definition of the nature of evil: “It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants,” he said, “a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

***************

Today is Patrick of Ireland Day! Get to know him better at The Transhistorical Body.

Just a little pause, even a slight turn stokes spiritual healing

March 10, 2025A life in the Spirit, Spiritual directionCarolyn Oates, glory, pause, turnRod White

Not long ago, I was listening to a dear person trying to get started on a spiritually aware life. They described themselves as “stuck in their head.”

“I want to feel God,” they said. Then they paused and said, “I guess I just want to feel, period.” A few minutes later they said, “I’m afraid to feel, because it will all come up.”

Their awareness all started with a pause, or two, and a turn – a turn into their true self and toward the spiritual horizon beyond their present place along the way of Jesus.

It takes more effort to stay stuck than be free

They saw themselves as stuck. But they were hardly inactive. They had been working rather hard to keep “what might come up” stuck somewhere out of their consciousness. But as soon as they came to rest, did a little mentalizing, and did some listening with their “spiritual ears,” they began to consciously know what they already unconsciously sensed about themselves.

I admit I was kind of stuck on the fact they felt stuck. They looked at me with a look that meant, to me at least, “What am I going to do about this?” I had no idea, so I told them what I do about it.

Usually, as soon as I get up, I go to my big brown chair and listen. I give thanks for the glories of the previous day. I list the times I saw signs of the Spirit at work and Love. I consider where I followed my false self around. Sometimes I caress my Episcopal prayer beads. Sometimes I investigate my icon wall. Sometimes I use my kneeler. Sometimes I read. But at some moment, maybe more, something will stir in me and I will pause, I may have to turn, to listen. And I feel myself in the presence of God. It is joy.

My accoutrement of prayer is very useful, but I don’t really need it all. I pause when I’m watching a show on TV. I turn into sunsets. I stand in awe of the work of God in others. I have heard one person tell of a series of visions, lately, and I stay very still for those epiphanies. I sing.

Practice the pause

It helps that I just finished a book called Practice the Pause: Jesus’ Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human, by Carolyn Oates. It is a chatty, dissertation-like teaching organized around the author’s discovery of her personal relationship with God. It is a review of spiritual practices and a tale about how she found them when she scratched the surface of her superficial faith community.

She says: “The spiritual journey begins with a pause, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self.”

She also says a lot about how recent brain science verifies that contemplation is life-giving.

“By returning to inner silence, solitude, and stillness in these few minutes a day, your amygdala will be smaller. We know now you will be much less reactive and forgetful. We know you will have a larger insula, more gray matter, and overall much smoother connections to your very human pre-frontal cortex. You will have greater awareness and insight and focus and even compassion.”

Jesus was a pauser. His disciples noticed the pattern of His life and emulated it. Before Jesus does his greatest and most-remembered works, he most likely has returned from some lonely place where he reconnected in the center of his being with who he was.

Oates says,

“This returning to our center again and again is a kind of in-and-out, in and out movement, like breathing: breathing in, we gather strength and calm, maybe an insight, maybe a sense of an injustice needing to be righted, and then breathing out, we go back out into the world to live into what we’ve been given and what we’ve received.”

Lent is the pause in the Christian calendar

I know some people come up against Lent and groan, ”Ugh! 40 days to feel stuck,“ or maybe, “40 days not to experience what others do.” It hurts me to mention that. But I know it is true for some people and they end up ratcheting down their desires and hopes until it seems like their insides will burst.

But I have to bring it up. The spiritual awareness we can all experience is in the pause. Lent is like a pause in the year. Sitting down to pray is a pause in the day. Going to a church meeting is a pause in the week. If you really turn into it, saying thanks before you eat your sandwich pauses all sorts of automatic behavior that could make your stuck.

The other day in worship, we sang a bunch of songs I didn’t really know, and I felt disappointed, because singing is a big awareness time for me. I was feeling, but when it came to church, I was not feeling it. My dear pastor was speaking and I was kind of looking like I was listening but I was turned away. I was too sleepy not to be moody and resistant. But he said something about glory and it hit me. The word kind of popped the cork of my bottled up desires.

I did not start listening, but I did start daydreaming about a song I led at my best friend’s funeral a long time ago, an unforgettable time in my life. I never liked the words of the song much, but I loved the way it brought about 800 of us together in the hushed and loving presence of God. And it was one of my dear friend’s favorites, so I loved it by association. The new words I daydreamed gave me the feeling of the old song with my own sensibilities worked in. If you want to sing it, here’s a version of the tune.

See the glory. Feel the glory. Be the glory come round.
In His name, love constrains us.
See the glory come round. Feel the glory come round.

I did feel the glory. Why wouldn’t I? I paused the week to be in worship. I paused my resistance to listen to a word. And I still feel the joy of it.

“In his glory” by Yongsung Kim (tap to by a print)

I immediately thought this would be a good little song to sing when our new small group meets. We’re building community with desperate hope in a turbulent time – a time when we need to pause, and see, and feel a glorious sense of oneness with God — and we need to be a place of rest for the world, too. Jesus says,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mathew 11:28)

I’m not as alive, not as human as Jesus, if I am not in his rest. If I am not there, I’ll be trying to get unyoked from my burdens or trying to pretend I’m not yoked, but I won’t be led into the true life I need. If Lent seems like a lot of responsibility or useless trouble, pause and listen to what Jesus is teaching above. Pause with him, be gentled and humbled and find rest. Turn into it. It was in that place of oneness Jesus was recharged with joy and courage and it was from that place he changed the world, and still does.

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