The rulers need slaves: Chains shall He strike

A life in the Spirit, Music, Psychological growth, , , , , , ,

For, some reason, when I sang “O Holy Night” for my sister on Smule the other day, I changed a word in the third verse. Instead of “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,” I sang, “Chains shall he strike!” I think the line could have been translated from French either way. But I  may have had a  “Freudian translation slip.”

Click for Mom’s favorite version (Andy skips the verse in question)

I think I wanted a more violent image. I’m mad about the enslavers enslaving. I was trained as a systems psychotherapist, in part, and the system is not on my side. Our leaders are more interested in profit than health. If I hear right, they think profit is health — even our health system must return a healthy profit for us to be healthy, even if it makes us unhealthy. I’m upset about all the examples of young people, especially, ensnared by things they will find hard to escape and which may, like a slaver, use them up and throw them away. Those chains and chainers need to break!

The latest enslavers

Within my clientele and relationships, here’s evidence of enslavement. They often willingly collude with their masters, but there are masters, just the same, scheming to dominate them and use them.

  • Microchips: In general, machines that deliver the internet have taught us to serve them. For instance, I walked out of the house without my phone, again, when I went to worship today. And again, I kicked myself because it is the key to me getting back safely! The King of Apple was down at Mar-a-Lago the other day to make sure it stays that way.
  • Porn has colonized teenage boys (and younger). The Progress Action Fund put out an ad telling young men that pervy old Republicans were going to invade their masturbation time by restricting porn. It seemed like an emergency to them. The porn industry is unregulated because it is deemed free-but-not-harmful speech, but it is a freedom stealer.
  • Gaming and social media have eaten up many a client’s time and self-esteem. The games are designed to keep us playing (and buying or adding to ad views). The social media platforms are designed to connect us to products – and become one to be exploited ourselves. Prominent Silicon Valley creators are well-known for limiting their children’s access to technology and social media, essentially not allowing them to become addicted, because they know what their creation has become.
  • Gambling: The newest enslaver I hate is online sports betting and other gambling. There is absolutely no benefit  to luring people into the “fun” of giving their money to ever-available casino. The oligarchs call it de-regulation. I tune into a news story and before I get there NBC  gives me a pitch for Philly Harrah’s (in Chester). I watch the Eagles and Jamie Foxx will be onscreen constantly luring me into the latest scheme.

  • Drugs: Everyone uses drugs. Some of the substances are needed and I thank God for them. But there is so much avoidance-using! And I’m surprised we still think recreation drugs are fun after an opioid epidemic — which is capitalism at its most obvious. What’s more, I’m discouraged with how many people think pot and booze enhance their life — put them to sleep, wake them up, make them someone else, etc. Sounds like a prison guard, right? And hallucinogens have become big business — especially now that the FDA approval process is deep-state “socialism.” If you ever watch commercial TV, you can’t miss how often we are promised freedom from any malady we can imagine via a weirdly-named new drug, along with every side-effect we can’t imagine.

Slaves are needed to protect capitalism

I refuse to blame individuals for how they “use” all these things. The oligarchs are using them. Capitalism is not a freedom-loving economic system; it needs slaves. Our socialism for the rich means Elon Musk can buy elections and function as an unelected, unappointed, unaccountable government agent, right there in the Presidential box at the Army-Navy game. Billionaires are able to create a government-adjacent slush fund (inauguration / transition fund) for the billionaire-in chief. Do you imagine they will allow anything to steal their riches, like your real, systemic freedom?

There is always an enslavement scheme in the back pocket of every billionaire capitalist or oligarch in any system.  Saying that out loud might sound crazy — that has been suggested before about me for other reasons, so you decide. But let’s remember, when the U.S. went to war over freeing slaves, someone had been teaching that slaves should appreciate how the masters supply them beneficial work. They claimed the Bible taught slaves to obediently stay in their place. In fact, it was taught slaves try to escape because have  a mental issue — much like homeless people are described today, or anyone else who lives outside the system.

Samuel Cartwright of Jackson Mississippi (1779-1863) invented a disease to explain the cause of runaway slaves. He called it Drapetomania — the “disease” that caused slaves to irrationally run away from their awesome plantations, not considering the death-dealing infection the plantations were themselves. People made wealthy by the system often patted themselves on the back for bringing civilization to savages and lifting them out of poverty. Job creators.

From the perspective of people who supported slavery and were supported by it, preserved it was necessary to save the country. It is the economy, stupid. George Fitzhugh wrote in  Cannibals all! or, Slaves without Masters (1857):

We warn the north, that every one of the leading Abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain ulterior ends, and those ends nearer to home.

They know that men once fairly committed to negro slavery agitation – once committed to the sweeping principle, “that man being a moral agent, accountable to God for his actions, should not have those actions controlled and directed by another,” are, in effect, committed to Socialism and Communism. To the most ultra doctrines of Garrison, Goodell, Smith and Andrews – to no private property, no church, no law, no government, — to free love, free lands, free women, and free churches.

I had never read that until recently. But I have heard the principle espoused in one way or another my whole life, like in the last election. I’ve heard it preached.

Chains shall he break

I know the third verse of “O Holy Night” has issues. Singing “For the slave is our brother” is benevolent, but of course it is sung from a place of privilege. The slave is not singing with him. And women are excluded. It was written in 1843, after all!

But we mustn’t throw out the sentiment with its dirty bathwater. Jesus is the anti-capitalist of all time. It is his intent that we throw off our masters. I’m not going to get into whether capitalism, socialism or fascism is the better system, since I think  they are all oligarchical. And regardless of the system, people under oath to save the system — who would kill to save it — the leaders/owners/dictators, are often saving themselves. They are as good as gods. Regardless of them all, Jesus is, in truth, without rival.

“In his name all oppression will cease,” no matter what the system. The system is not God; it is not our master. Jesus is Lord. And if you think economics Trumps Jesus, you’re right where the masters want you. If you mindlessly consume their latest scheme to dominate you, you are not free.

How did the first week of Advent go? Did you gauze it?

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, ,

On the first day of Advent a bunch of stuff descended on me. Some of it was a bit difficult, like preparing to move in a month or so, and fulfilling a new assignment from my pastor. Most of it was just seasonal fun: having a party, scheduling concerts, buying gifts. And, as you know, I follow the news which also seems to be descending on everyone I meet.

I had intended to sit down and have some extended time with God and make my way into Advent: Jesus prophesied, Jesus incarnate, Jesus present with me, Jesus coming again. But it just was not working. I finally decided this Advent was going a different direction than usual. Instead of considering how I would enter into Advent with Jesus, I decided to consider how Jesus was entering into Advent with me.

Here was and is my prayer: You are incarnate in life as it is. I welcome that.

It has felt good to investigate how I use Advent.

Originally, the season of Advent was supposed to be like Lent: a somewhat sober preparation to open up to the coming of Jesus. Christmas was the beginning of the celebration, not the end (as in “the twelve days”). But when the end became getting a gift on Christmas, the spiritual discipline was upended. So the incarnation might be the most neglected spiritual foundation for postmodern Christianity.

Instead of marveling at our self-giving God during Advent, who deigns to be a human, in all our corruption and pain, we idealize the baby and tidy up the stable. I was late getting Christmas cards this year, so I had to drive clear over to Manoa to the Hallmark store. They are nice. The manger scene has almost no hint of war, ignorance or suffering.

I also managed to put up my very tidy, artificial tree. It is quite beautiful. It reminds me it is “Christmas.” But it is more full of magic than majesty. It probably has more to do with whimsy than worship. I do have a lobster ornament and a dancing hippo, after all, not to mention a plump mermaid and a hand-blown pig. I think it is charming and hospitable, but it is part of an aesthetic and somewhat anesthetic.

I learned how to pair my I-phone with my blue tooth speaker and started playing my Christmas playlist. As a person who sings along with muzak in the store, the playlist can really dominate. I collect all the voices that please me and set an atmosphere; it can function as a musical bubble. I included Respighi’s “Laud to the Nativity” we sang in college. As I listened to the pro sing my tenor solo, I criticized how bad I performed it. I missed the Nativity and the laud as I critiqued the performance.

The aura of Christmas has, for centuries, been refined to the hilt: peaceful (snow on snow), candlelit or firelit (chestnuts roasting), calm and bright (wax burning your hand as you sing on Christmas Eve). We pull out the stops to denude it of most trappings of the original event. We may have colluded with each other to buffer the reality of God with us. Really, those of us who have birthed babies know very well the Christ child was not sleeping in “heavenly peace” with his stressed-out parents in a barn.

I don’t need a buffered relationship

As I was praying, I was distressed that I was messing up my Advent ritual! I was not even praying right. Hmm.  Holiday capitalism and our godless perfectionism gets in the way of Advent. All our excessive, ritual buffering (like our favorite sign off, “Stay safe!”) subverts a prayerful Advent. Jesus is like Doris Day getting shot through a filter.

Doris Day was a famous singer in the 1940’s who became a romantic-comedy movie star in the 50’s and 60’s. She’s on my “pop” playlist a few times. She did not like her freckles so she would tell the cameramen, “Gauze me baby” so she could sing Que Sera Sera. The operators applied Vaseline to the lens or used a very sheer piece of silk or plastic to soften her appearance on screen and later mask her wrinkles. She glowed.

Wouldn’t you say that Jesus is effectively  gauzed during Advent? Aren’t we seeing him through a controlling lens? I don’t need that. Syria is transforming and Trump is sitting with Macron in Notre Dame. Come, Lord Jesus. Do not stay locked up in that Christmas card!

Christ the Savior is born, again

My prayer became, “I dare not let you get cleaned up. I need you down in the dirt, in the stable with me.” I didn’t say, “Down in the shit,” since that would be unseemly. But no one knows the shit of humanity better than Jesus, right?

Much more than complaining about society and humanity, I want the Spirit of God unleashed by Jesus in me, so I am not only born again but I give birth to him in significant ways.

Ronald Rolheiser has encouraged me to do this birthing many times. For him, Mary is a model to imitate not a maiden to admire. From her we get the pattern of incarnation in our lives, hopefully ignited by Advent:

  • Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant
  • Gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life
  • Submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside
  • Spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood
  • Do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.

I guess I am old enough to do some pondering. I don’t make complete sense and neither does Advent or the whole weird world. I think I can let go of the temptation to jump into controlling all that. If I resist, I will be able to welcome Jesus to do what He does: become incarnate in my messy existence. In like manner, I will be much more likely to give birth to the work of the Spirit in me, right in the middle of the turmoil of a world in great need of the true Savior.

The leaders won’t save us: Put on furious, competent love

A life in the Spirit, Climate, , , , , ,

Margaret Renkl wrote a prophecy in the NY Times on November 18: “We Can’t Keep Waiting for Our Leaders to Save Us.” Let’s all say that again — that phrase most Christians (and my team, the Anabaptists, in particular) have been saying all along: We can’t keep waiting for our leaders to save us.

Even though it is convenient to blame someone else instead of taking responsibility and organizing ourselves (ponder whether you are lazily watching your family, church or neighborhood association disintegrate), we don’t have time to wait.

Renkl writes, “We were living in a cataclysmic age of mass extinction and climate instability even before the election. Now the climate denier in chief is poised to gut the environmental protections that do exist. Even so, conservation nonprofits are struggling to raise the funds they need to challenge his wrecking-ball agenda in court. The people who care are feeling defeated, and the fight has not yet begun.”

I want to talk about that some more. But ponder what it will means when the new plutocracy takes over next January. They want to play a new ball game.

  • And I mean plutocracy! Trump $8B, Elon Musk $334B, Vivek Ramaswamy $1B, Linda McMahon $3B, Howard Lutnick $2B, Doug Burgum $100M, Scott Bessent $1B, Kelly Loeffler $1B. The total wealth, just there, is more than the GDP of 169 different countries! Carsie Blanton has a prophecy of her own to sing about that situation.
  • Israel’s wars have reshaped the Middle East in less than a year. Netanyahu’s attacks on Iran and Hezbollah were wildly successful. The cease fire with elements in Lebanon may undercut Hamas so badly they free the hostages. We will see if the far right-wing in Israel annexes Gaza with U.S. permission and invites Jared to realize his dreams, now that his dad, the pardoned ex-con, will be Ambassador to France.
  • A.I. is going to explode in capacity any minute. I’m almost afraid to write that, since it might do something to me. Two of Google’s DeepMind co-founders, Shane Legg and Demis Hassabis, were signers of a 23-word open letter in May of 2023, along with other leaders of the A.I. universe, which declared, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

What kind of game will the new team play? I know some of us can’t see how Trump got into office. But is it possible that the less-than-half who elected him were so distracted by transphobia and other conspiracies, the beastly billionaires sneaked into D.C. to finish their gut of the U.S.? “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” — Luke 6:24

An anti-beast bestiary

Their first play of the game will likely be to undermine the meager approach to climate action the world is managing. The recent COP29 meeting in Azerbaijan (home to the world’s first oil well), gave us what, an 8th of a loaf looking for half? The nominated Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, says one of his three big plans after taking his is seat is to increase U.S. oil production by 3 million barrels a day!

Samoa Environment Minister Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster (right) embraces an attendee during a closing session of the COP29, Nov. 24, 2024. Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Renkl writes, “I was already grieving, and the approach of Remembrance Day for Lost Species, which falls each year on Nov. 30, didn’t help. Was this really the best time to pick up Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures by the dazzling British author and scholar Katherine Rundell? Did I really want to read another book about how so much of life on earth is close to ending?”

I decided I did want to read it. In fact, it is a good book to read in the aftermath of a planet-threatening election. Here’s why — For the hard work that lies ahead, Ms. Rundell writes, “Our competent and furious love will have to be what fuels us.” This weird little book helps us stay in love. Like marriages surviving crises and friendships facing conflict, we need help to stay in love.

Rundell celebrates 23 endangered creatures with factual but endearing little essays. The last of the “vanishing treasures” on her list are humans. If we lose the rest, we will lose us. You know this story.

Wildlife populations are disappearing at an unthinkable rate, but we are getting nowhere in the effort to curb emissions or to protect the habitats of the creatures who yet survive and the temperature of the planet keeps going up. In 2022, the world’s nations made a historic pledge to keep 30 percent of the earth wild. So far, most of those countries have failed to produce a plan for doing so. Plus the promised abandonment of fossil fuels has proven to be an empty one. Global oil consumption was at an all-time high in 2023.

We can’t keep waiting for our leaders to save us. We need to wake up every morning looking for what we can do, collectively and individually, to buy enough time for our leaders to get this right.

In a time of diminishing possibilities, what options are left to us? You probably know about all these choices:

Competent, furious love

The main thing we can do, as prophetess Rundle says, is develop “competent and furious love.” This is where the Christians should really shine, since we know:

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh [your former sin-dominated state]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:6, 13-15)

If the billionaires are devouring the country, if the oil companies are devouring the air, if the media what-nots devour the communication, if the pesticides devour the vanishing treasures, only competent and furious love can stand against it. As we know:

God is love. Anyone who lives faithfully in love also lives faithfully in God, and God lives in him. This love is fulfilled with us, so that on the day of judgment we have confidence based on our identification with Jesus in this world. Love will never invoke fear. Perfect love expels fear, particularly the fear of punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been completed through love. (1 John 4:16-18, The Voice)

Fearless love will be what stands up against whatever thugs are unleashed by the hater-in-chief to punish his foes and stoke more fear. People are already hiding, especially if they look Guatemalan, for the fear of the army patrolling the streets like in Venezuela. Only love like God’s can cast out fear like that.

The fearless love of God, creation and all the creatures will have to prevail. It always seems like “weak sauce” up against AK47s. The National Shooting Sports Foundation said in 2022 there were more than 4.5 million ARs, AKs, and similar rifles in circulation. At the time of their study, there were at least 24,446,000 guns in civilian hands. But either love prevails or we all die.

My pastor is fond of believing “love wins.” He says, even if people die trusting in chariots and horses and kill the planet, love will win because God is love. I hope he is right. But I am trusting in a furious, competent love that fights, right now, with the same weapons God demonstrated in Jesus. Incarnate, self-giving love in faith and in action wins. The hope of such love gives me courage to get real and not just blame the leaders — as blamable as they may be, instead of doing what I can do, in Love.

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

The season of Advent began yesterday. Want to know more about it? Get your understanding refreshed? Visit Celebrating the Transhistorical Body. 

Spiritual Bypass — a new resource article

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction,

In John 8 Jesus proclaims he is the light of the world. His presence is a challenge to all who listen to Him. John records he said to the “Jews who had believed him . . . ‘the truth will set you free’” (John 8:31-32). But there were many others who were not set free. Many very religious people had a difficult time unseeing what they saw was obvious: they were already free. They responded to Jesus, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” (John 8:33).

Often the truth about ourselves is the hardest truth to see, particularly when our view of the self is consciously and unconsciously tied to our religious practice and belief. The Jewish leaders saw themselves as descendants of Abraham. With this firm understanding of who they were in the world intricately intertwined with their religious practice and belief, they could not consciously imagine that they were not already where they ought to be. Nevertheless, Jesus insists each of them is “a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

They were caught in spiritual bypass. When religion is used as a defense, it is twisted to help us avoid a deeper truth. As a result, it might cause us to miss seeing reality facing us in our own backyard. Jesus presents a new way.

That should get you started.

I reduced an academic paper Dr. Gwen White wrote in 2005 for my many clients who are facing the interesting and challenging reality that they use their faith as a defense against facing their psychological needs and, surprisingly, entering their next stage of spiritual growth. In the article I’ve provided a link to the original paper housed at CircleCounseling.com where you can find the referenced work, an extensive bibliography ,and a case conceptualization. 

To continue reading, please select the “Spiritual Bypass” link from the right column or follow this link.

 

But does anybody pray?: Many encouragements to do so

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, ,

I ended my service to Circle of Hope as an itinerant, teaching in the meetings of our various congregations. This message was delivered to Frankford Ave at the beginning of Lent, 2018.

I was on retreat this past week, partially to get myself ready for Lent. As I meditated on my journal from the last quarter, I was astounded. For one thing, the Eagles won the Superbowl and the city was inexplicably happy! Maybe even you were happy for a second!

The second astounding thing: I was sick for six weeks. I had a whole Advent of sickness. In December, I went to a huge conference in California. (Yes, that is an intro video by the Dalai Lama). I coughed through the whole conference so loudly and deeply that psychotherapists would turn around and give me concerned looks — probably that blonde woman right there in front of me above. But did I pray? Well yes, I did. It was strange sickness. It was tempting not to pray, to just rely on the miracle of Nyquil and then fall into despair when Nyquil let me down and I was coughing in the night sitting up in a chair because laying down smothered me. It turned to bronchitis and I bet I had some pneumonia.

Then Gwen had an accident as a result of catching flu. She fell in the bathroom and fractured 7 ribs. We ended up in ICU health hell. I had to wear a mask for days. The hospital was much worse than I expected. But did I pray? Well yes. But, surprisingly, it was off and on. It seems like my disciplines are much better when I am on vacation or on retreat, not living my normal  life. Surprisingly, If there is a problem, one of the first things to go might be prayer — this is not totally true, of course, but I have found it oddly true of me — and it may be true of you. Gwen, on the other hand, prayed a lot. She had a whole season of rib repair and pain in which to do it. If your life is being changed, you need God, right? Better pray.

Just how weakly constituted, wicked, and selfish we really are is often revealed when we are under duress. I feel bad so I lash out or blame. I feel bad so I withdraw or get resentful. I feel bad so I wait for somebody to come and find me and love me; if they don’t, I go into anger and despair, just like I must have reacted when my mother was talking on the phone instead of changing my diapers (there were only “land-line” phones). What do you do when you feel bad? Ask your husband or wife, if you have one; they can probably tell you. Ask your office mates or team members; they probably have an idea. But do you pray?

That is the question

So that is my main question to you tonight. Do you pray? And it is my question to the whole church. Does anybody pray? A whole Lent is laying before us, a whole prayer season. But will we even do it? Why or why not? Big question.

2018 is going to be wonderful in so many ways. You were announcing it a while back. You will have a new building façade to go with your new neighborhood. Circle Thrift thrives even after a hold up. Your losses from last year have opened the door to newness this year.

But 2018 it is going to be hard, too. Trump is president, and whether you like him or not, he creates havoc and possibly war – or so an 80 billion dollar uptick in military resources might imply. We will have a midterm election and people will think it is the most important thing in the world. The 1% will still be stealing all the money, leaking oil out of their pipelines (like the biggest one ever happening right now off the coast of China), seeing how little they can give us (like healthcare) for as much as they can get in profit, and maybe the general economy will run hot, but maybe it will drop, and we will be left holding the bag, not the 1%. Marginalized people will be exploited, deported, murdered. We, I hope just not you, will have relationship problems, physical problems, employment problems, kid problems, church problems, faith problems, But will you pray?

I think the key issue of getting into the deep water with Jesus and finding that you can have a sustainable life of faith, hope and love is all about prayer.

What is prayer?

When I keep saying the word “prayer” tonight I mean it as an umbrella term. Prayer is all the ways we communicate with God and I immediately need to add, all the ways we commune with God, and connect with God.

So, in my definition there are a lot of subheadings under the heading prayer, some of which you may be more adept at and familiar with than others:

  • We can sing a prayer: “Oh Lord hear my prayer.”
  • We can speak a prayer out loud, either together or in private: “Have mercy on me Lord.”
  • Prayer is intercession: I pray “Help Gwen, she is sick.” (Try it personally, right now:  “Touch____they need you.”)
  • Prayer is asking for something, supplication: “Help me. I am needy.”
  • Prayer is worship, which is kind of a category all its own: “I praise you Lord.”
  • Prayer is contemplation – silence, thoughtless. Communing in the deep silence of God. (Try that for ten seconds, right now).
  • Prayer is meditation – mindful, thought-concentrated. You hear a lot about this, because it is how we “pray without ceasing.” I think it is a good. (Try it. Meditate on something I have said so far, right now). Or just become quiet and let God show you something  you need to see or hear right now. Or just be loved. Be touched. Be led. Be turned toward God.

There are a lot of ways to pray. But do you pray? Maybe not – I am not judging you, but I am obviously exhorting you to do it. It is the entry point to the deep, healing, joyful, sustaining life of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is us participating with the Spirit alive in us by the resurrection of Jesus.

Will we get into it?

I like swimming across the lake at our family retreat in the Poconos. But I often don’t like getting into the lake. I am not really a jumper or diver by nature (although that is what I eventually do). You know those people who throw down their towel at the beach and just run in — never been one of those.  I’m not even really a slider (but sometimes I try that) —  sit on the edge of dock, stick a toe in, slowly get acclimated. I tend to push those people in — it is just taking too long — it seems like torture. So I have a getting in problem when it comes to the lake.

So I understand why some of us rarely, if ever, pray, even though we want to be Jesus-followers and we are devoted to God. We have a getting in problem when it comes to prayer. Prayer is like the deep water of faith. We have to get in it. But it is kind of a shock to the system to pray, like getting into a cold, mysterious lake. I like it when I am in there, even though I am kind of afraid what might be under the surface. But I have to get in. We need to keep getting into the deep water of prayer. It may not be a problem for you. But I haven’t met too many people for whom it is not.

I think we are great at helping people get into prayer. We have Sunday meetings to jump in. We have cell meetings to ease in. But some people are still squeamish about these meetings. They are avoidant or standoffish because they don’t want to get into prayer — that water feels too shocking. “It might be too cold or too something. I will get wet. I don’t know how to swim well. I did not bring a hair dryer. I’m too wicked to be seen in a prayer suit.”

We also offer people a lot of resources for how to pray alone. That is a very important discipline to nurture : how to be one on one with God,  But does anyone do it?

What is happening with you when you pray.

Even tonight? What has been happening? I hope you have been looking at how you work.

As I close up, let me give you a few pointers for how to begin or keep praying by using this very famous psalm. You can tell that my goal is to get you praying, not just talk about praying so you can fail or succeed at applying my principles, later.

A lot of you already know this prayer in the beautiful old language of the 1611 Bible commissioned in England by King James. Let’s pray it together right now.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. — Psalm 23 King James Version (KJV)

It is a premade prayer you can use. Six lines. Easy to memorize. I have memorized it, but I have my own version made up of all the different translations I know. I pray it in the night when I wake up anxious and I need to focus on something other than on what I am focusing. I turn it into “You are my shepherd, Lord,” for one thing.

Here is a version from the New Revised Standard Version. I like this version of the Bible because it gets rid of unnecessary male pronouns for God and is still quite beautiful. In this psalm they did not change it because the writer is a male shepherd and he has traded his leadership for God, seeing himself as a sheep. But do what you like, if you are a female shepherd. If you let the world’s identity politics keep you from getting into the water,  that is sad.

Pray it out loud.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

Now let me end by trying to keep you thinking about how this prayer works so you can let it lead you into the deep water and keep praying. It has lovely, basic things to teach.

  • The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Prayer is a constant changing of mind. The shepherd/psalmist accepts that the tables are turned. He is like one of his sheep and God is the loving, attentive shepherd. Even deeper, God, who is like my shepherd, cares for me personally. I am not just part of the herd. I shall not want. I will have what I need. Some of us need to begin all our prayer with that line, since we don’t show up that deeply yet. This is God; this is me. God is my caregiver; I am beloved. God is listening for me; I am praying.

  • He makes me lie down in green pastures;
    he leads me beside still waters;
    he restores my soul.
    He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

Prayer is turning toward the presence of God. God is with me. In Jesus, God is even more completely with me, no one is left out. Jesus is one of us. Even if you were only like a sheep,  green pastures and still waters sound wonderful. If you are a human, a restored soul and a right path sound wonderful.  Prayer brings us to those places. God is with us. So we turn to prayer.

I think this is the heart of getting into the deep places right here. See if you can dive in, or ease in, or find a way into the water.

  • Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil;
    for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Prayer is turning into the discomfort and away from the evil. Oh my goodness! I had to pray this prayer when Gwen was hooked up on a hundred machines in ICU! It felt like such a dark valley. But I was comforted as I faced that darkness with God.

Sometimes I pray that second part in hope, not in full feeling. My cup is up and Jesus keeps filling it, but I need to turn again and again, because my cup seems to have a hole in it. I wish it were not so, but I wake up hungry and frightened. People I expected to love me don’t love me. Institutions I thought would be on my side do not protect me. I need to pray: the Lord is my shepherd, he restores my soul, even in this dark valley.

Prayer is turning into that reality and sitting down at the table, day after day, and experiencing, eventually, how God is with me, taking care of me. I have many fears and opponents, but God is on my side. So pray.

  • Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

Prayer is turning into hope and the promise. If you read this like it is just a fact, you might never pray it. How can the psalmist know that goodness will follow him? What if something terrible happens?

If you wonder that, too, go back to the first part of the psalm and pray it again. Turn into it.

  • Change your mind.
  • Turn into the presence.
  • Turn into the discomfort and away from evil.
  • Feel the comfort and the goodness.

Then you pray this last line. Maybe this final stanza should have been preceded with an “Ah.” The psalmist got somewhere. “Ah! Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Oh yes! I will dwell in the house of God, like a child of God, my whole life long, forever.” So I pray.

So wonderful! Of course everyone prays!

Try diving in to that last part. So hopeful. So trusting. So not like the world usually is. Pray it again, slowly. Maybe do it again until it sinks in.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long. 

For me during the past few months prayer has been all about the turning. Even during this evening I have been more aware than ever, I think, that I need to keep turning.

  • Turning away from how my mind usually works and diving in.
  • Remembering how wonderful it feels to swim freely in the water and not resisting the entry.
  • Turning to face what I fear and believing God will comfort me and seat me at the table as a beloved child.

Ah.

 

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Today is Odo of Cluny Day! Europe was not the same after he ignited a reform movement in the 900’s that influenced the continent for good.  Get to know him at The Transhistorical Body.

Listening in the era of lies

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

We were all a little confused about lying before Trump came on the scene — if you can remember a time when he did not dominate the air. Even when we were lying, then and last week, most of us wondered if it was the right thing to do. But we also had our reasons to do it.

Psychology will back us up; there are many reasons humans lie. There is bound to be an evolutionary psychologist out there who has “proven” we survived as a species because we are so good at deception. We’re still conflicted about it, however.

Science implies there are facts and there are unproven hypotheses — and we should be on the side of facts, since they are real. But all us humans, if we think about it, know it is difficult to tell one straight truth about ourselves, we are all so complex. At least once a week, I dispute what my wife claims to have said to me — and she may claim it was just an hour ago!

But she, and the rest of us, can’t really prove much of what we assert, even when it comes from the depths of us. And when we look around, it is difficult to have a sure grasp on what is true about almost everything else, the universe feels so mysterious and beyond our complete understanding.

Now we have Trump, ready to impose a reality of his own making – science, common sense, and morality be damned. Some people are gleefully adopting a life of lying and have become, with him, a relentless wave against the common institutions and assumptions Americans hold.  Punditry dashed to their computers to explain how Trump won, even though he is a proven, unrepentant prevaricator. How could anyone elect a proven liar? F.D. Flam wrote in Bloomberg:

Trump won with surprising decisiveness, despite his evasiveness and failure to justify his extraordinary claims. It’s tempting to conclude that we live in some kind of post-truth society. Perhaps, instead, we live in a society obsessed the truth, but we’ve lost our appreciation for explanatory depth and different perspectives. At the same time, we’re just as persuaded by a speaker’s confidence as ever.

Most of what passes for “telling it like it is” comes down to Trump making completely subjective judgments with a tone of certainty — that some of his enemies are “losers” or “morons” or “low IQ” or that one of his rivals somehow has a face that’s not fit for office. Some might call this brutal honesty, but there’s nothing honest about it. The Week Magazine calls it “maniacal overconfidence” which “sounds to some people like forthrightness.” In that sense, he is telling it like it is — in his own self-serving head.

In my territory, I can’t ride down the elevator or go to a party without hearing how hard it is to be one of those morons and losers. “Maniacal overconfidence” seems like an overly sweet way to characterize what Trump is full of.

The voice of Jesus

I’m not a pundit, of any merit, at least. But I had to make a few contributions to what people were saying on Facebook and such after Trump won. I was mainly concerned that we all confront the lying before we all conform to it, since it is alarming how quickly the media adapted to “Mr. President” as if he were introducing a new normal. For Christians, I think not conforming comes down to pondering John 8 again if we want to hang on to truth and love, as I do. I still believe in the promise from Ephesians 4: 14-16:

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

Paul obviously couldn’t care less about what society finds normal. I think he is channeling Jesus, as we all aspire to do if we follow Christ. That’s Jesus, who says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

In John 8, Jesus is having an amazing dialogue with religious opponents who are absolutely sure they are living out the truth as best as anyone can. They are just as sure they are speaking God’s truth as Donald Trump is sure he was spared the assassin’s bullet so he could personally make America great again. Most of us are so unsure about the truth and too sure alternative facts cause conflict, we don’t get into it with people on elevators or at  parties, even though Jesus apparently would. He tells his opponents:

You don’t even understand what I’m saying. Do you? Why not? It is because You cannot stand to hear My voice. You are just like your true father, the devil; and you spend your time pursuing the things your father loves. He started out as a killer, and he cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his character, he is a liar; everything he speaks originates in these lies because he is the father of lies. So when I speak truth, you don’t believe Me. —  John 8:43-45

If your first thought after reading this was, “Do I even believe there is a devil?” that’s OK. There is so much theologizing generated by John 8, we might never get done with it. Stick to what Jesus is asserting, don’t stick with your own defensive response. I think the point is, “You need to hear my voice or you will never hear the truth.” Negatively, that is, “If you pursue the things the father of lies loves, everything you say will come from that core.” We’ve got to ponder that before lie-lovers control us inside and out.

Listening in the day of lies

I don’t think Donald Trump is new. He is just the terrible bloom of a society adapting to the media and providing false-self images for it to feed on.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won every electoral vote except for Minnesota’s, the home state of Walter Mondale. For his first term, he had handily beaten an actual Christian trying to be president with the Iran hostage deal. He later did one of his masterful jobs of lying when he explained the Iran-Contra mess. Reagan was the beginning of all sorts of evils, but his main legacy is using the screen so well. We used to watch him speaking and say, “He is lying, but people forgive him because he looks like he believes it. I’m tempted to believe him myself.”

I did not believe him. He galvanized my faith to stick with The Way The Truth And The Life no matter how effectively the father of lies carpet-bombs my consciousness.

Fortunately, people in my feed were trying to keep me listening last week. I appreciated how Bryan McLaren summed up the process of listening to the Truth and hanging on to it in the middle of anxiety. He really takes himself seriously, as we probably should too.

@brianmclaren

If you’re afraid, anxious, tired … election. #terrified #tired #trump #harris

♬ original sound – Brian D. McLaren

I don’t think we can listen to the voice of God unless we can learn to hear what is in the silence. So this is one thing I posted. I love how this little tune is usually repeated, second verse same as the first. It makes us wait, slow down, and enter the peace that passes understanding. That is where we are most likely to hear from God.

I also don’t think we can hear the voice of God unless we talk back to, or shout back at, the voices that compete for God’s place in our thoughts and feelings. If we don’t step up, we could be “blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Then Jesus might say, “So when I speak truth, you don’t believe Me.”

Fortunately, several of my friends were not having it. Their minds turned to a defiant song we used to sing in our old church. I dug out a recording from Internet Archive.

Click the picture to go to the song

That song is good shouting back. Sometimes we sang it in a group of 100 or more. It was a good way to reroute some neural pathways.

I am not sure there has ever been a day of lies like this one, since there has never been the kind of media which surrounds us and trains us. But maybe I’m taking myself too seriously, too. After all, Jesus was talking about people who were in such unwitting collusion with the father of lies, they could not recognize the Son of God, for whom they were purportedly waiting, even when he was talking to them face to face!

I feel sorry for those guys. And I feel sorry for us, too, since were are inevitably a lot like them and lying is still extremely typical of human beings. Our media has made it a worldwide industry. But if McLaren is right, and I believe he is, from all the lying the Truth is born again and again.

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

Today is Lucretia Mott Day!

Speaking of someone who was “not having it!” She is a premier example of standing up for truth and justice.

Visit her at The Transhistorical Body.

I will always long for community

Building community, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

Dan White is a kindred spirit I have never met. We’re just Facebook friends. As his story leaks out, snippet by snippet, I admire him more and more as I watch him heal and further develop as a healer. He was deeply engaged in an organic, neighborhood-based church with some nouveau-Anabaptist sensibilities as a community member and pastor. I haven’t heard the whole story, but he was cast out. He posted this the other day:

6 years after I Ieft, I was able to walk my ole neighborhood in Syracuse, NY. I left in a lot of pain. A couple from our Church heard I was in town and asked if we could meet up. I had immediate panic that it was probably a surprise attack. I was not going to accept their invitation but heard the Spirit say – “it’s safe, go.”

How many Jesus followers and people of all kinds are feeling a similar dread when they think they will see someone who hurt or abused them? In Dan’s case there was some healing. But so often there isn’t.

Broken community can really hurt. Many of us from our former church know a lot about that. We’re scattered to the four winds. A book was written to take a skewed look at our demise. It is like salt in the wound. I’m not out six years yet, like Dan, and I already walk in all my old neighborhoods and sit with some old relationship groups. I’m not raw or afraid. But when my new pastor asked about my past last week, I could still get emotional.

Community matters

I will always long for community. I think that is how it is meant to be.

But then, I have never lived alone, not once. I know I am rare. The builders in Philadelphia are building hundreds of apartments designed for one person. About 34% of the population of my city already live that way. The builders are responding to the market demand for isolation.

Unlike those developers, I have been trying to build community for my whole adulthood. The church is a community of love gathered around Jesus. Building that community means a deliberate attempt to connect heart to heart, soul to soul, mind to mind and strength to strength. It is loving like Jesus in truth and action.

Communities other than the church also have such traits in their ideals (like my condo association and the Republican party). But I think we need Jesus to pull it off — the entities I mentioned are decidedly not succeeding. Even when we try to follow Jesus we blow it big time. The promise is one day we will experience it in its fullness. The glimmers we get in our time are miraculous, since the hostile environments in which we bloom are strong.

First Xmas of Sierra St. Household 1981. Verifiably not hippies.

Did I build it or did it build me?

A recent book that fictionalizes my story says I first explored community in a hippy commune. I admit to being hippy adjacent, but if I took the name hippy, it would be a disgrace to the whole idea. So much for journalism. What we did when we moved in together was get deliberate about our life together. We had a common mission and were tired of commuting to our relationships. So we created an intentional household. Acts 2 gave us the solution we needed.

Demo day for the church building we built.

Eventually, that household planted a church. The intentional community was personal and the church was public. The church just celebrated its 40th anniversary.

After we were in Pennsylvania for a few years, we felt moved to plant a new kind of church community in the thirsty but resistant territory of Philadelphia. I loved it. I was a bit lonely at times since most of my comrades were 20 years or more younger than me. But the whole thing was so filled with the joy and laughter of love, I still smile to remember those decades.

Maybe communities grow up like children

Most communitities resemble families. And like families, they grow and change. People move out of the house. People bring new people into the family. Its changeable, even if you don’t want it to be.

So far, all my children and their families live in the Philly metro. I could walk to the home of one of them tomorrow and steal Halloween candy. But we don’t share a roof or even a church now. I miss that, but I don’t regret their growth. Community is always forming, or at least trying to. If it is unformed or deformed it tends to die.

Ultimately, maybe a bit like Dan White experienced, our previous congregation blew up. It deformed big time and people tell stories about it. I don’t really know why it died, for sure; the leaders surprised me with an invitation to leave, so I did. But if the journalist is right, the destruction had a lot to do with power struggles and conflict over individual rights philosophy. Score one for the developers.

We don’t get it right all the time. Friendships die. We cut people off. Children move to Germany. The government bombs Gaza. We get divorced. We undermine churches no matter how well we build one. [One of my most-read posts]

But the need for community will always surface. We make families. We connect in love and build communities. And if we don’t, we want to. If we are outside looking in, we feel lost.

You can expect some love to present itself

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And he has a lot of friends. They are building community.

Some friends wanted to come over while my wife was housebound, but they caught Covid bad. So we took our first post-surgery outing to have dinner at their house last weekend. The food and conversation felt sweet. I felt a sigh of relief to be loved when so often I doubt I will be.

Remnants of our former church survive. But for hundreds of people its institutional death-match was a huge loss of community. Now it is a case study in loss. People are still recovering, years later, tainted by conflict and cut-off. They’re like couples who lost a child, or had to forgive an affair, or who split because of abuse. The former loves seem unreachable. Now they’re looking to connect in a sea of one-bedrooms, wondering what to do.

I think most of us will find a new way. Dan White has. We recover because we must. We need the love. It is out there to be found.

Over 100 years old and building new community.

I’m surprised I found a new place at St. Asaph’s Episcopal, walking distance from our home. I’m back in a little church. When my wife was laid up from surgery, they brought us food. Then a person from a former place brought herself — a friend from the California church flew out to care. Friends from our former Philly church checked in and prayed. There was a lot of  deliberate loving! There was new, conscious tie-building. It was the love that cannot be killed rising up again.

Conversion: The smoking woman and the dejected church planter

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , ,

Our dear friend from California visited last week to catch up and cheer up. She is such a great guest! She is a kind listener, so she got me telling stories from my early forties when I left her in California for the wilds of Pennsylvania. It was a time in my life when so much was changing! She teased out bits and pieces I had not considered for a while. For instance, she had not heard many specifics about the sufferings and joys of church planting.

First baptism six months later.

I told her a few stories, but I am not sure she got many accurate specifics. The older we get, the more we remember the results of an event or our interpretation of it, rather than remembering the basic who, what and when, etc. (Levine 2002). So a story I told her about a fulcral moment in my midlife history is true, but not in a scientific way. It feels a little like a story from my beloved The Little Flowers which, if not factually true, should be.  I told her I almost never told one important story. She suggested I should, so I am about to.

I gave the telling a trial run at my spiritual direction group. One of the members of our group was about to meet me at the time I was making the memory, a long time ago, now. He said, “I have never heard that story.” I think he was a little disappointed in me, since he had heard many more, less important stories. He suggested my children would benefit from knowing it, so in case I did not tell them, here I go.

The ineffectual church planter

When I came to Philadelphia to plant a church, I had a full head of steam and plenty of conviction. I even had the support of the Brethren in Christ, who generally saw urban areas as far off worlds, at the time. I had inspiration but I did not have a very specific plan. I intended to “make relationships” and let the church organically unfold. This did not go over well with my bishop who thought a phone campaign or some other methodology would work better. After I began, I thought he might be right.

My basic plan entailed walking the streets of downtown Philly and showing up at various street corners, schools and institutions looking for the people God had already contacted who I would gather to form a new church for a new generation. Before I established an office at 4th and South, this was a very dubious process. It was just me and God snooping around.

One day this snooping seemed especially fruitless and downright stupid. I was trudging back to our home in West Philly, head down, defeated. I had nothing. What’s more, I doubted every reason I had moved my family to this unknown place. “No one will talk to me; why would they? I’m not interesting; I’m too old to meet the people I’m looking for. I’m not cool. I’m not nearly as extraverted as I need to be. I’m shy about getting rejected for being overtly Christian. I’m fishing without a hook.”

By Roger Ge in the Daily Pennsylvanian

I did not want to go directly home because I was in a bad mood. It was like I had been hunting for my hungry family and did not have the skill or luck to bring home some meat. “We are all going to starve!” So I sat down in one of the secluded seating areas at Penn to sulk. Looking back, it was like I had a screen up between my mind and the Holy Spirit, because I just did not want to hear it. “Say what you will; I am not listening.” This was unusual, to say the least — I’m not sure I had ever done that. I sat there like I had a spiritual migraine, moving as little as possible, eyes squinted against the light.

The smoking student

Before long, a young woman sat down on one of the other benches to smoke. She was dressed in a mildly punk outfit, her hair bright red. I involuntarily flinched at her presence and curled away a bit. I tried to ignore her, but her smoke wafted my way. She distracted my pity party. But I stayed resolutely rooted in my disgust.

I was succeeding at being inert until she took the few steps across the seating area and stood in front of me, cigarette in hand. “Excuse me” she said. “I feel like you are someone I should be talking to.”

My first reaction was she was trying to help me, I looked so miserable. So I was embarrassed. But I managed to say, “OK. I’m Rod.”

She sat down next to me and looked at her feet. I remember her name, but I don’t recall the details of her story. I probably threw away the journal in which I recorded them. But it was a sad story. It was an afraid story. She was considering ending her life, she felt so alone and unloved.

I told her a bit of my story too. She was surprised I was a Christian and had no idea what a church planter was. But she could relate to how terrible my day was going. She said about my failure, “Maybe I am the only one available today.”

She wanted to hear about faith. “I have nothing else to lose,” she said. I don’t remember how I presented Jesus. And I don’t remember exactly how she received him.

My conversion

I do remember what meeting her did to me, however. I learned two lessons from that encounter which stayed with me for the next 25 years and still inform how I see myself and others.

The first was crucial: It really does matter how much I suck. I hope we have stopped saying “suck.” But it hit the nail on the head then. I was sitting there sucking as a church planter and God nudged someone into my lap. It is exactly what I had hoped would happen in one way or another. One of the reasons I have rarely told this story is my interpretation is too miraculous for me. I don’t like to promise God’s intervention because then I will have to explain Gaza, or Trump, or something. But I took her appearance as a sign. She might as well have been singing with the heavenly host.

The second revelation was equally important: I have no idea what God is going to do. It became inescapable that anything might happen, including things I had never before imagined possible —  things could happen even if I was resisting, or had given up hope! The worst kinds of situations were likely to be filled with God’s presence. Two losers being depressed at Penn save each other. It is so unlikely, it must be God.

I told my friend, I think I became a Christian that day, too – an actual, adult Jesus follower. I had been a pastor for years and had not been doing terrible things. But I had never quite experienced all those stories in the Bible: Thomas doubting then seeing, Peter sinking then reaching out his hand, Paul wandering into Philippi and meeting the only woman at the place of prayer, the Psalmist praying, like I sang in an old song, “From the ends of the earth I call to Thee, when my heart is faint.”

I was right about God’s ability to create something out of nothing. But being right is different from being present when it is happening. I was right about being less-than-able to do what I was called to do, but I was wrong about what God was able to do. I knew the stories about Gideon, the Samaritan woman at the well, and others, but I had never been like them very much, yet. They were probably fortysomethings.

I have forgotten many of the specifics of that day — and that whole year, to be honest. But I do remember the meaning of them. I embarrassed myself plenty of times and felt awkward and out of place countless times, but I was never likely again to think my mild suffering was useless. Sucking actually proved to be an advantage for the mission I was given.

And I became much more adept at expecting God to do the unexpected, even more than I asked or imagined, as Paul told the Ephesians. I was converted that day to a faith that relishes uncertainty, because I came to know God who does not live in my mind and principles. My hope is frail, my memory is weak, my imagination is narrow. God is someone else, altogether — and continues to pleasantly surprise me.

Why isn’t the election about climate action?: Your prefacts and gists

Climate, Psychological growth, The Mission, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The election has apparently boiled down to a discussion about the economy (which that doddering old fool, Joe Biden, led into the post-pandemic envy of the world), and the border (which is challenged but apparently better off under the present administration,

Click for SPLC bio of Trump propogandist Stephen Miller

even though Trump torpedoed the rare bi-partisan solution the Senate hammered out). Meanwhile, the existential threat to the whole world, climate change, is not even on the radar. How are our leaders not talking about the biggest issue we face and why are we allowing them to get away with it? We have our reasons.

The false prophets who rule the world, right now, or threaten to do so, could kill us all. So why do they do it, and why do so many of us keep listening to their lies? We seem to have very little capacity to see the wolves under all that sheepskin (Matt 7:15).

Controlling the airwaves

As Donald Trump has proven over and over, liars become powerful when they control the narrative. Back in the day, when our church was training an expanding pool of cell leaders, one of the hardest lessons to learn was what to do when a person dominates the evening’s conversation. A fledgling leader could easily let a needy or naughty person lead the group down an annoying or unhelpful path just because they could not figure out how to make them share the airwaves. The loudest person in a small group is often the de facto leader. Trump lies loudly. He knows that even when he gets attention for being bad, he is controlling the news cycle.

But why do so many people end up believing his loud lies, or forgive them, even after they are told the Haitians are not eating pets in Springfield Ohio?

Since Donald Trump’s successful playbook started surprising people in 2015, psychologists have been writing about why wannabe autocrats do what they do and why so many people commit to them.

We can see why Trump does it, he wants power. But why do people buy the big lie? There are reasons. Let’s not call them “good” reasons, but we have reasons for preferring something other than truth. [Here’s one article about that I’m using today].

Four reasons people follow false prophets

See what you think about this explanation:

  • We believe “pre-facts.” We are generally preoccupied with what might happen (we spend a lot of time “what-iffing”). It is good habit for surviving. There may be no cars in sight, but we still teach our kids to look both ways because, “You never know.” So we believe a car might run us over. That’s a pre-fact. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is true. It could happen. When we believe something might happen, if someone says it is happening, even if it isn’t, we will likely believe them, or forgive them for lying. Fearsome immigrants in the heartland could be eating beloved pets — or they might, you never know.
  • As a result, we get on unethical bandwagons. If we believe someone’s lies will become true, we reserve the moral condemnation they deserve. In one study, participants who were primed to believe a lie was likely to become true were less likely to hold others accountable for spreading lies on social media and more likely to share disinformation themselves. The stronger the gist was felt to be true, the stronger was the prefactual effect.
  • We become committed to the gist despite the facts. When participants imagined prefactuals more vividly and believed there was a good chance of the facts changing, they were less likely to judge lies as unethical, because they experienced the gist of the statement as true, even if the facts weren’t quite right.
    ……It is astounding, isn’t it, how the Mosaic Law flies in the face of every nation’s fear of being overrun or polluted by strangers. Leviticus 19:34 says, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” That never seems to go with the gist.
  • Our fears compel us to preserve a lie that fits with our bias. We like to think we are rational, but unconscious things motivate us all the time. If we are focused on the what ifs, negative or positive, we are motivated to “go with our gut” which is often a pre-factual “gist.” We all deny unwelcome truth and adjust the facts to conform to preferred outcomes.
    ……In Western cultures, especially, “motivated reasoning” is a mechanism people commonly use to preserve a favorable identity. To maintain positive self-regard, we (unwittingly) discount unflattering or troubling information that contradicts our self-image. It’s a way we avoid or lessen the distress we feel when we get information that makes us uncomfortable — instead of naming the wolf, we dress it in sheep’s clothing. It’s easier.

I can’t stop thinking that Donald Trump might win the election because enough of us prefer his delusional presence, which distracts us and confirms our own wishful delusions. We prefer going with his lies to dealing with the climate terror facing us and the painful changes every society needs to make to save the planet. After all, accepting that climate change is real portends unpleasant environmental consequences and would require most people to head them off by making significant changes in lifestyle. Changing one’s mind and changing one’s lifestyle is hard work; people prefer mental shortcuts—in this case, having the goal fit their ready-made conclusions.

Undermining climate action

Instead of having anything helpful to say about the recent hurricanes in the South, Trump kept himself in the news by suggesting FEMA was going to deprive Republican areas of aid. State officials, red and blue, immediately debunked the lie, but his narrative fit the gist many people live in – a pre-factual world where something is coming to get them, the government, Venezuelan rapists, or trans-loving Army colonels.

The most discomforting reality, however, is blowing in with the latest storm. In case you missed it, the increasingly powerful “El Nino” climate pattern has reduced the flow of the Amazon River in Colombia by about 90%. In Ecuador, which relies almost entirely on hydroelectric power, people are enduring energy cuts of up to 14 hours per day, knocking out the internet and sapping the country’s economy.

In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, the government is cutting water to residential homes at regular intervals and the mayor has suggested that people “bathe as a couple” to reduce consumption.

A drought-stranded boat in the Solimoes River in Brazil, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River. Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Long sections of the Amazon River have turned into dry, brown beaches, and officials are dredging sections to make them deeper. In Brazil, wildfires fueled by searing heat and prolonged dry conditions have consumed vast swaths of forest, wetlands and pastures, with smoke spreading to 80% of the country. It has led to canceled classes, hospitalizations and a black dust coating the inside of homes. (NYTimes)

A drought covering large parts of the Amazon rainforest is especially worrying because it is the globe’s most important carbon sink, absorbing heat trapping gases.

Carlos Nobre spearheaded the multi-disciplinary, multinational Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia that revolutionized understanding of the Amazon rainforest and its role in Earth’s ecology.

Carlos Nobre, the climate scientist, says dryer conditions diminish the forest’s ability to take in those gases, worsening global warming. The less rain means less effective trees taking carbon out of the air. Then they burn, adding carbon to the air.

Nobre notes that the recent drought has crossed several unsettling milestones: never has so little rain fallen in the rainforest, never have dry conditions lasted so long, and never has such a vast region of the jungle been affected.

The drought comes amid another worrisome moment: In January, for the first time, the planet’s average temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels for 12 consecutive months. Temperature levels beyond that would lead to consequences that would make it challenging for societies to cope, to say the least. Nobre confirms that many scientists and policymakers did not expect the globe to hit that mark for years. They are worried the earth’s warming is accelerating. “We are scared,” he said.

Keep your feet on the way of Jesus

People cherry pick the Mosaic law to find things that are ill-applied to postmodern culture.  It is like a party game or it makes an amusing meme to pass around on social media. Meanwhile they ignore the revelations that contradict their pre-factuals. That’s why the law had to tell people, “Don’t kill or ostracize the stranger, treat them like God treated you when you were a refugee in Egypt.” And why Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law, says, “No, don’t just love people who love you. Love one another as I have loved you.” We strain out some gnat of preferred gist and swallow a camel of lies about reality. Save us, Lord.

Right now the false prophets are loudly leading us to ignore the most important truths about our life together on Earth. They help us occupy ourselves with fantasies which fit our warped views of ourselves. Even those of us who know this are flummoxed about what to do. We scroll screens to calm our anxiety and withdraw from difficult community-building right when we are most needed.

I have not managed to changed the U.S. political system – I’ve tried, but it got worse under my watch. I have reasons to give up. I could not even make significant change in the church – what we did was great for a season, but it got blown away. I have reasons to be cynical. But I still feel obligated to walk with Jesus, the way, the truth and the life and trust God, step by step, no matter what storm arises.

The liars are providing delusions. We’re set up to believe things that confirm our alternative facts about ourselves and preferred futures. The overwhelming info machine in our hands is not helping. Even so, many more of us need to invent and support radical climate action or there will be little future to enjoy. I think Jesus would like to help us with that.

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If you want to read more of what I’ve written on climate action, here’s the link.