All posts by Rod White

9 reasons you are such a know-it-all

October 16, 2023Psychological growthfundamentalism, inner critic, Jada Pinkett Smith, know-it-all, neurodiversityRod White

Someone may have called you a know-it-all – maybe even to your face – and you are considering whether to listen to the criticism. This post might help you.

Or maybe you are tired of co-workers “mansplaining” or tired of “authorities” who enforce household or office rules, or tired of endless arguments about factoids that bore you. This post might help the people you despise.

How would you define a know-it-all?

“Know-it-all” is not a diagnosis from the DSM, but it is probably a defense system someone uses to protect themselves from further harm or uses to regain something that was lost or neglected. If you try hard enough, I think you can probably add “know-it-all” to descriptions of certain enneagram numbers (they are looking at you, number 1), or to several Myers-Briggs types (watch out NTJs). Regardless, most of us can spot the behavior in others (if not ourselves) when we run into it.

Someone will be correcting what we say (even our memories and feelings), or they will launch into detailed descriptions of their own (or our) history or book plots which only tangentially connect with what we were just saying, or they may appear to know more than everyone about any subject brought up during any meeting. One person complained a co-worker could not resist blurting out “That’s not right” when someone was sharing a thought. They did not blurt back, “Who made you the arbiter?” — but they were blurting in their mind. A person on the search for “rightness” often gets tagged a know-it-all if they always have the correct thing to say.

This “type” of person is so common there is a Wikihow article about them, which is helpful. Eze Sanchez just updated it in May. Here is his intro:

Smarty pants, wise guy, smart aleck – we all know one. Whether at family get-togethers, at the office, or in a social setting, know-it-alls are everywhere and they know everything. Sometimes it is utterly unbearable to spend time with these annoying individuals even if you have tried to engage, endure, or even empathize with them. In the end, it might be best just to avoid them, but if they are friends, family, or coworkers of people you know, it is still possible to come into contact with them. Therefore, you better be prepared to deal with them.

This is not a study or much of a lit review, but I offer nine reasons you might be, or at least come off as, a know-it-all. Eze goes on to be more empathetic after his intro above, and I also want to help us care for people who are messing up social situations or locked in self-destructive patterns they can’t see. Just “avoiding” know-it-alls or “dealing” with them is not good for them psychologically and does not reflect the way of Jesus very well, either. I hope this list will help you see yourself with kindness and also help us see one another with understanding and hope, rather than with more judgment.

9 reasons I am a know-it-all

Knowledge is power and I want to be one up.

I think this is what we usually think about a know-it-all. They are power tripping. They are working on being greater than everyone or they think they already are.

The apostle Paul had a whole faction of know-it-alls spring up in one of the first churches. In his first letter to that church he wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). By his second letter he is saying, “I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am untrained in speech, I certainly am not with respect to knowledge; certainly in every way and in all things we have made this evident to you” (2 Cor 11:5-6). The know-it-alls were challenging their teacher!

In the info (and false info) age we live in, everyone thinks they are, can be, or ought to be a Google-aided expert. So life has become an endless argument. We are all know-it-alls in training. For example, Progressive Insurance is filling our football games with commercials about people “going to replay” to verify that they are right.

I am an affirmation pig, since I am, somewhat hopelessly, still trying to get parental approval because I grew up in an affirmation desert.

I think this is much more likely than #1. Being a know-it-all could be a misguided approach to finding soul-food, just repeating a habitual approach that never really worked. If I am smart, I will get praised (for once).

I actually have more knowledge than most people, but I have few social skills. I would like to be an expert for people. I learned stuff, but not how to relate. I might be “on the spectrum.”

Some people are just smarter and many people have worked hard to learn stuff. They might be bursting with it (ask any dissertation writer). Respecting them might be appropriate.

But some otherwise smart people might be less smart about how to present what they know. An Asperger’s/HFA mom wrote on a forum:

I can become hyper focused on topics and want to know as much as possible about them so that they, too, become part of my mental algorithm for connecting dots. I retain a lot of the info and am able to think about possible solutions to problems that others seem to either miss, or just don’t research enough to see. I try to impart topics to people in an attempt to help them (oh you have dry eyes- get your zinc levels tested) but it’s about 50/50 whether it’s received well, or taken negatively as if I’m trying to demean them with some perceived superior intelligence.

Looking like I am smart is a façade to mask my insecurity. I don’t trust you to love the real me.

A lot of us reading this probably have this wound, which leads us to think we should be competing with the other know-it-alls for some kind of recognition that validates the persona we use to protect our vulnerability.

Married couples run into this when they are longing for intimacy. One person in counseling, who admitted they are something of a know-it-all, frankly said, “I married a know it all, so ‘active listening’ does not work well. We both have too many corrections and ‘but whats’ to get in there.”

Performing knowledge tricks is the main way I have gotten attention my whole life. I had to compete.

This is a lot like 2 and 4, it just focuses on how we train children to feel attended to. Most of our training comes from a school of some kind. “One achieves what one measures” is a Western culture proverb. We measure the intellectual development of children and they are good at figuring that out. They may keep achieving smartness at your Thanksgiving dinner to get attention.

I have no reflection time. I am mostly making up things as I go along. So anything you bring up I expand on as I am incorporating it. I might be dyslexic or a verbal processor.

A lot of people get their view of self by grazing in social situations, they never eat a home-cooked meal. They might not be correcting you when they are chewing on what you just said as much as spitting it back out as if they thought it in the first place. This might irritate you if they don’t “quote” you, but it could be taken as a back-handed compliment.

During neurodiversity week this year a dyslexic woman said, “My dyslexia has given me more strengths than weaknesses. My ability to read people’s emotions and situations extremely well means nothing can get past me, and I always know when to ask someone what’s up.” She may have trouble reading a book and having an inner dialogue about it, but she may be able to read you and quickly use what you say.

I have to be right or I will go to hell. And I have to make you right or you might go there, as well.

Everyone who latches on to some kind of fundamentalism, religious or not, thinks what they know is salvation for themselves or others. Sharing their knowledge (or imposing it) seems like a gift to humanity. This reflects #3 in the sense they may actually have knowledge others need or should want. But it could also reflects any of the other numbers, only the truth behind it is subsumed under a religious or social justice rubric.

I learned it was unwise to trust others, so I try not to need anyone. I know it all to be self- sufficient. And I don’t care what others think because they are untrustworthy.

Jada Pinkett was on the Today Show last week marketing her new memoir when she revealed she and Will Smith have been unofficially divorced since 2016. She said, “Why it fractured…that — that’s a lot of things … By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.” A know-it-all might be consigned to their own sense of truth and justice because they only feel safe alone. Kelly Clarkson sang about it once. It hurts to feel disdained. But before you take on a know-it-all’s scorn, you might want to see if you should feel sorry for how alone thye are.

I am isolated because everyone else is a jerk. I project my own inner critic on others. It is especially hard to go to class or church because the leaders always have a flaw.

This is similar to the previous idea only the energy is going out, not in. A know-it-all might not think they are smarter than you, you are just receiving the knife edge of their projected self-loathing. They may see themselves as radically flawed or were taught to see themselves that way. It is so intolerable, they have to project the criticism on someone else. Any imperfection is fair game for them. I hope they are not reviewing your play or restaurant!

After collecting aspects of the common label: “know-it-all,” it seems like a less-than-useful description, doesn’t it? We’re all rather complex. So reducing our irritating behaviors into a single label might be the height of know-it-allism! Most of the time, what irritates us about others is also in us. But even if people are lost in their ignorance, malice or power hunger, a sympathetic, curious and life-affirming (but appropriately boundaried) realtionship with them will do more for the world than more judgment, cancelling and fearful self-protection.

Why can’t I receive a compliment?

October 9, 2023A life in the Spirit, Psychological growthChristopher Littlefield, compliment, LeeAnne Renninger, praise, surprise, Tania Luna, view of self, Walter BrueggemannRod White

You’re heading back to your desk after grabbing some coffee when your boss walks by and compliments your work on a project. “Great job on that report,” she says. “I especially liked the way you formatted those graphs. They’re so easy to understand.”

What’s your first reaction?

You take yourself down (lest some unknown watcher might):“Ha ha, sometimes I get the job done.”
You parry it (like in fencing) as if it might wound you: “No, no, this was all you!” (Like a Musketeer? “Non. Non. c’était tout toi! Touche!”) “It wouldn’t have been possible without your guidance!”
You throw out a squirrel: *awkward smile* “So … um, did you see the game last night?”
You depreciate in front of their eyes: “It was nothing, just doing my job.”
You deflect on someone or something nearby: “It was really a team effort.”
You convince them they are wrong about you and their impressions are faulty: “I really don’t think I did a good job, here’s why…”

Do any of these responses feel familiar to you?

A lot of us just can’t take a compliment. Not long ago I complimented a client after hearing a story about their success. They applied almost all the reactions above, but I stood my ground until they had to suffer a moment of praise penetration. In a study of more than 400 people, Christopher Littlefield found nearly 70% of them associated feelings of embarrassment or discomfort with recognition or receiving a compliment. [Thanks Dr. Littlefield for the general outline of this post].

I think a lot of our discomfort has to do with our “view of self.” Some people would attribute it to “low self-esteem.” But it might be more complicated than that. Before we lament our low opinion of ourselves too much and bring it even lower, we might consider that an even more immediate response to a compliment might be surprise. You might squirm simply because you were caught off guard

In their book Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected, Tania Luna and LeeAnne Renninger define surprise as “an event or observation that is either unexpected (I didn’t see that coming!) or misexpected (That’s not what I thought was going to happen).” They expand their definition into a “surprise sequence,” riffing on the themes of evolutionary psychology. They suggest an unexpected situation — whether it is a pleasant compliment you weren’t prepared to receive or a bear you encounter while walking in the woods — triggers the same prehistoric sequences in our modern brains.

The authors can track four stages in this surprise sequence:

1. We momentarily freeze
2. We latch onto an explanation for what is happening

If we learn something, we can move on into:

3. We realign our perspective
4. We share what is happening with someone else

If you’ve ever been given a surprise party, your first response may not have been “Oh! How wonderful!” The intensity of the moment probably put you right into Stage 1: Freeze. That’s why people say “You about gave me a heart attack!” right after we pop out from behind the couches. Tania Luna explains, “Intense emotional experience can feel uncomfortable and destabilizing. And, as a result, some of us may want to shut it down so we can feel stable and get comfortable again.” So blurting out one of the awkward responses above may be our unconscious way of trying to regain control in what feels like an emotionally vulnerable situation.

After the initial surprise, we start to look for answers in Stage 2. What caused this feeling? When we discover “Oh. They appreciate what I did.” That reality may bump into our usual way of seeing ourselves, which is less positive. The collision can feel jarring. As a music performer and sermonizer, I have had a lot of experience with someone’s praise bumping into my self-criticism. At one point early on I wanted to stop singing altogether because I could not stand the dissonance.

The interplay of surprise and self-image can make it harder to process the nice things we hear about ourselves. I have had many clients tell me something like “I fear if I let in a compliment, and feel good about it, and then end up disappointing others or myself in the future, I risk taking a bigger bite out of my self-esteem.” We’re clever when it comes to self-protection. Sometimes so clever we can’t get complimented!

These psychological triggers are compounded when they are overlaid with some of the debilitating theology which is unfortunately quite common. Many church leaders have been overly successful in convincing people they are sinful, or even totally depraved. If you compliment a Christian they might say, “Not me, it was Jesus.” Or “I’m just a clay vessel in the Lord’s hands.” Or you tell them “Good job!” They say, “Glory to God!” Humility is important. But not having the humility to receive the love of someone else is not what the Bible teaches. It is also humble to accept the idea that if God is at work in you, you must be something praiseworthy. The good you do is not an anomaly or an opportunity for an object lesson, it is you being alive in the Spirit.

Compliments can trigger joy instead of anxiety

The last two stages of the surprise sequence mirror what the Bible has taught us about praise for generations. Walter Brueggemann developed a helpful way to categorize psalms, which are all about praise, so we could use them in normal life. They meet us in one of three places:

A place of orientation. Things are normal and they make sense. (Like you are just sitting at your desk doing your work.)
A place of disorientation, in which we feel disrupted, attacked, even brought low. The boss comes up and wants to talk to you (“Am I going to get fired?”) and he compliments you (“Is she crazy?” Am I crazy?”)
A place of reorientation in which we realize God has lifted us up and we are full or awareness and gratitude. (“Well, OK! I guess I can do something. I make a difference!”)

The third stage of the authors “surprise sequence” is about reorienting. When we find an explanation for the compliment, we can shift our perspective. If we are porous enough, we can fit the new information into how we usually see ourselves. With a little practice, we can expect the unexpected!

The Psalmists effected Stage 4 by writing a Psalm we are still sharing with them! If you share what has happened to you with someone who can listen, that may help you with the integration process. Such changes take practice and time.

Here are three starting points for reorienting how you receive compliments.

Don’t steal the compliment

When a person recognizes you, don’t immediately steal their praise and lock it up in you view-of-self vault. It is their compliment and they are sharing it with you. You may have done everything last minute, lost a whole page of your speech, or burned the French fries. That’s OK. They are talking about what they experienced, not what you did.

I gave up on not receiving praise when an accompanist skipped an entire staph of a familiar wedding song during the ceremony, but the show had to go on. Someone came up to me afterward and said, “I’ve never heard that song performed that way. I loved it.” I said, “Thanks a lot.” I’m still experiencing the dissonance, but I’m also still receiving their compliment.

Prep your vulnerability rather than it prepping you

Maybe “expect the unexpected” should be one of your proverbs. Especially if you follow Jesus, you know that much more than you can imagine or control is going to happen. You might get complimented and not immediately know how to respond! Get ready for that.

Luna and Renninger recommend thinking of your vulnerability not as a weakness but as openness. Praise doesn’t always need to feel unexpected or scary. Instead, think of it as an opportunity to connect with someone else, or learn how others experience you or your work.

When someone praises you, you could have a prepared response ready to go, like, “That’s so nice I hardly know what to say!” Before long you might fee less anxiety and relate to compliments as nice surprises.

Explore how you formed your view of self

Many of our knee-jerk reactions to compliments are learned behaviors. Our reactions are often influenced by what we see, observe, and experience from those around us. For instance, if your parents responded to recognition by making jokes, praising God, or diverting others’ compliments, you may find yourself doing the same. Similarly, if you witnessed classmates being made fun of or excluded after receiving positive recognition (like being called a “suck up”), you may unconsciously avoid similar situations out of fear the same might happen to you.

Below is a series of Littlefield’s questions to help us dig deeper and explore why compliments may make us uncomfortable — extra praise for jotting down your answers on paper so you can see them better!

1) In your culture or faith, what were you taught was the appropriate way to respond to praise? Was it to just say thank you, praise God, or divert the compliment with your eyes down? None of these responses are wrong, just observe what you were taught and how it impacts how you respond today.

2) How abundant or scarce was praise or acknowledgment in your childhood? If you got an A on a test, would people be excited for you? Or would they ask why you didn’t get an A+? How did that make you feel? How do you think that may impact your experience of recognition as an adult?

3) What are the unspoken rules about recognition in your home? Was it something like, “In my house, if you are not being told you’re doing something wrong, you’re doing it right. But don’t expect to be complimented.” How about your house? Did your family have any unspoken rules around praise and acknowledgment when you were growing up?

4) When you were growing up, did people around you regularly use praise inauthentically? Would people use flattery right before asking for something? Would teachers regularly praise one student to make others feel jealous? Would your parents praise people to their faces, and then gossip about them after they left? If you ever find that you doubt the authenticity of people’s compliments, this may be why.

5) Can you think of any incidents from your past, maybe in school or with family, when you were (or were not) recognized that made you uncomfortable? Did you grow up hearing statements like, “It’s not that big a deal,” or, “Don’t let it get to your head?” Reflecting on those experiences, how do you think those incidents impacted your current experience? As a more self-aware adult, how might you reframe those incidents to update your past experience, and thus, your current one?

We can learn to slow down conditioned responses and let ourselves feel gratitude. Just as any other behavior change, learning to take a compliment well starts with self-awareness — hopefully you have been gaining more of that for the past few minutes. The more aware we become of our feeling/thought patterns and how they impact us, the more we can choose how to respond to them and build new patterns.

In my house, I spent a lot of time trying to please my overly-critical parents. When I did something I knew to be praiseworthy, I remember my mother noticing and say, “I think someone needs to take you down a few pegs.” I did not know what that meant for sure, but I could feel being taken down. I am still leery of letting my flag fly too high. But I am not so fearful that I would run away from writing this blog post and telling you the story! Besides, Jesus loves me as I am right now and the ultimate surprise I am expecting is just how good my destiny is going to feel.

African Famine and the Somalia of our souls

October 2, 2023A life in the Spirit, Climate, Spiritual directionaccelerators, Black Hawk Down, climate change, conflict, economic turmoil, International Rescue Committee, Joe Biden, Mennonite Central Committee, Somalia, soulsickRod White

In a land of food glut and people overdosing all around us, it is hard to remember that 1.3 billion people in the world are food-insecure and the number is rising. But we did remember.

I was treating my wife to an exquisite and expensive meal at Lark for her momentous birthday. But even as she was taking another splendid bite, she remembered people who do not have food.

So the next day, I got into the IRC website and ended up connecting my wealth to the starving people of Somalia. We regularly connect with the International Rescue Committee because they often find a way to get on the front lines in the most distressed places. We also stay connected to the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) because they are good at long-term solutions produced through churches or partner organizations.

I want to tell you a bit about Somalia, since you might not remember where it is and might not know how it got into the mess it is in. Maybe even more, I think I can help to show how the same elements that produce physical hunger around the world are also threatening to impoverish our souls in Philadelphia and all over North America.

Poor Somalia

The IRC puts out a yearly Watch List in an attempt to understand where the deepest crises are happening and where the greatest trouble will be in the coming year. They and their supporters want to be in those places to save lives and help form a better future. If you hit the link above and read the material, you will be much more educated.

Conflict, climate change and economic turmoil are the three key accelerators of humanitarian crisis in Somalia and all the other watch list countries. “They have a twin impact:

exposing individuals and communities to greater shocks and
weakening the systems and infrastructure they depend on to withstand such shocks.

These three accelerators consequently feed off themselves— and one another—to drive vicious cycles of deepening crisis.”

The United States was intricately involved in deepening the 30-year conflict that is confounding every attempt to save the lives of Somalis. You might remember Ridley Scott’s movie Black Hawk Down, which followed one of three helicopters shot down over Mogadishu when U.S. special forces were sent by President Clinton to capture or kill the warlord who was not following the U.N. peace accord brokered in 1992. If you’re not about 40, maybe you don’t remember the action itself but have run into the Oscar-winning film on Netflix (where it is “included with your subscription”).

What was supposed to be a couple of hours of in and out turned into an overnight battle the U.S. calls Battle of Mogadishu. The Somalis call it Maalintii Rangers, the Day of the Rangers.

In 1992 under the first President Bush, U.S. forces, primarily, helped end the Somali famine in the south. In 1993, the U.N. authorized a force to establish a secure environment throughout the country (which is big, as you can see). All 15 factions agreed to the terms hammered out at the Conference on National Reconciliation in Somalia. But Mohammed Farrah Aidid’s faction signed it and did not comply. So President Clinton authorized the Rangers to take Aidid out. The military objectives were achieved but the U.S. could not tolerate soldiers being killed and dragged through the streets with contempt. Within six months American forces were withdrawn and the whole U.N. experiment ended in 1995. The civil war is ongoing.

Somalia illustrates how crisis accelerators interact with each other. The country has been on IRC’s Watchlist for the past decade but recently rose to #1 as climate change and worldwide economic turmoil deepened the crisis. When well-constituted countries get a jolt, poorly-organized ones get clobbered. Somalia would have been better able to withstand the shocks were it not for decades of chronic armed conflict that destroyed and weakened many of the systems and infrastructure that protect communities in other countries when disaster strikes. What’s more, Somalia was unable to produce food locally because of conflict and climate change, so they had to rely on imports. 90% of their wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine. Last year U.S. citizens were upset at 11% rise in food costs. In Somalia, the sixth poorest nation in the world, food price inflation was about 40%.

Worldwide, a staggering 80% of malnourished children are not getting treatment, leading to roughly two million deaths annually. In Somalia nearly 8.3 million people were projected to experience crisis or worse levels of food insecurity by mid-2023, with over 700,000 facing starvation every day. With poor rains persisting in 2023, even more Somalis have been unable to access enough food and many have little option but to leave their homes to seek humanitarian assistance in urban centers or across the border in Kenya and Ethiopia. About 80,000 Somalis had crossed into Kenya by last April — that’s twice as many people as live in my zip code

The Somalia of the Soul

Last week Republican radicals in the House changed their focus of uproar to the Southern Border, where thousands of people have pressed for entry into the United States. Their insistence that we wall off the country is characteristic of their hollow Christianity and emblematic of the loveless and murderous solutions the nations of the world are implementing when it comes to growing crises.

Their reaction is much like the situation married couples find themselves in when their mutual sense of violation makes them defensive and they are caught in a recurring argument that often escalates into rage and even violence. They build emotional walls to feel safe.

The same factors that are bearing terrible fruit in Somalia and also infecting my city and undoubtedly yours, too. Conflict, climate change and economic turmoil are the three key accelerators of crisis in the U.S. too — and maybe in your homelife. They have exposed individuals and communities to greater shocks and they have weakened the systems and infrastructure they depend on to withstand such shocks. The accelerators feed off themselves to drive vicious cycles of deepening crisis. Joe Biden was trying to fight them in Arizona last week.

These accelerators create an atmosphere our souls are breathing. Each of us may, or may not have the personal, spiritual, or relational resources to screen out the toxins and have a healthy soul. If there is any hope of spiritual survival, we must begin with identifying what is choking off love and starving faith. Here are five factors making us soulsick.

Climate change causes anxiety and withdrawal.

Climate change is real and climate change anxiety is increasing. When we are threatened we proverbially fight, flee or freeze. We might not automatically pray, connect or act. Many churches discovered they were too weak to withstand the pandemic and other recent challenges. Some became addicted to fear and no longer follow Jesus. But I see revival beginning in unexpected places. It is hope for the world if Jesus followers trust God, build community and take action.

High food prices make us insecure

Last week a friend obsessed about whether his palatial house was actually a good deal. He could hardly enjoy it because he could only think of whether he had squandered too much of his wealth to buy it. Our first world problems are dehumanizing.

The media helped preoccupy most of us with inflation after the pandemic, which has quickly calmed down. But we were so used to inexpensive food, the uptick felts like a crisis. I refused to buy a $6 box of cereal yesterday, which gave me a little twinge of insecurity. Meanwhile the U.N. says 10,000 children a day die from hunger and related causes.

When I am in crisis because my glut of food costs more than it used to, that is being soul sick. If you have faith, your security is in God, right? If you don’t have faith, you at least have the rational capability to respond to facts.

Violence makes us feel at risk

Last week opportunists overshadowed the protesters who were bringing attention to Judge Wendy Pew’s dismissal of charges against Office Mark Dial. On August 14, he shot Eddie Irizarry through his rolled up window during a traffic stop, on video, within 5 seconds of exiting his police cruiser. Maybe that exemplifies our deteriorating social infrastructure in a nutshell.

Instagram got looting going for a few days. The media exploded with outrage. And people got more scared and hopeless. Consider that Somalis have been enduring a much higher degree of violence for 30 years!

We are minting psychotherapists and hallucinogen providers at a quick rate, these days. They often identify any thing that bothers us as “trauma.” Our endless defensiveness makes us sick.

Conflict blunts compassion

Last week the U.S. Senate passed further aid for Ukraine but House radicals still want it ended. This has a direct impact on Somalia. But I think it also is having an impact on our souls.

Our own interpersonal and societal conflict makes it difficult to feel well and cared for. We have become accustomed to a constant battle for power instead of collaboration to find mutually beneficial solutions. I think people actually care about others, but we are caught in a bad pattern. Again, it is like some couples I have worked with. Many of them have to spend a long time learning and implementing nonconflictual behavior before they can get back to love and hope.

Lack of funding undermines action

Poverty leads to more poverty. Philadelphia is the poorest city in the United States like Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world. One of the main reasons is lack of or inequitable funding and poor use of the funding there is.

Likewise, a starving soul leads to a dead faith. At least that is what James said. Not long ago an AA acquaintance said they had a “high bottom,” meaning others had to hit “rock bottom” before they would turn around. I pray that soulsick people in the U.S. see the grace around them long before they hit rock bottom. Developing our souls is not a luxury it is a necessity.

The other night, we were inspired to make an investment in a living faith that has been exercised enough to be strong when it faces the deterioration of the world. We literally funded our development. Obviously, having a healthy soul is not just about about how we spend our money. It takes a lot of various investments to thrive. But if we don’t put our money where are hearts are, it surely won’t make our souls healthier.

Emergence: New discoveries and new books enrich how we see the work of God

September 25, 2023A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, The Missiondark energy, dark matter, David Hogg, emergence, James Garfield, Nancy Abrams, Ray AndersonRod White

When you are feeling good, like after being in the park last Wednesday or Thursday (!), you probably feel like something good is “emerging.” Maybe you feel like Tony singing “something’s coming” in Westside Story.

Emergence is a constant we feel inside and experience coming at us. It is like catching a wave rippling through the universe and finding yourself moved to a new place. One of my clients said their therapy process led them to a new place of peace and understanding — and they had no idea how they got there. But they felt, finally, like something new was possible. It is likely that something will “emerge” tomorrow. It will seem to come from out of no where.

President Garfield

The three books I’ve been reading (not always a good idea) have each encouraged me to think about “emergence” in one way or another. The first one moved me because it seems like the United States is never going to emerge out of the dreadful sin of racism and all the other hatred which laid in wait to be stirred up by Trump and his cronies. The book is President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (2023).

I did not know how much I would relate to Garfield’s life! How he ran away from and ran into racism and hate during and after the Civil War sounds like a replay of what’s been happening since 9/11! Can the United States possibly be tempted to disenfranchise and otherize entire classes of people in the old name of white supremacy? This week it is a debate about Venezuelans.

In 2019, I thought we might actually emerge into new territory. People seemed to be susceptible to enlightenment in new ways. I hoped that white people, mainly, would repent of our sin and we’d come to new reconciliation. But the exact same thing happened as it did in 1876 when tired out, threatened men, tabled the issue in honor of profit protection and their own power – and those were the nice ones. The mean ones planned violence – and don’t imagine a new KKK is not possible! It seems like we periodically push the boundaries like the alien in John Hurt’s body, but some things never quite emerge.

I think James Garfield felt discouraged, too. He could feel the possibilities. He road a wave quite a way from his log cabin, preaching and teaching in the Ohio Reserve, clear to the Congress and then to the White House.

In 1878 Garfield quoted Junius Brutus from Coriolanus in his diary, “Let’s carry with us eyes and ears for the time / But hearts for the event.” The “event” was the emergence of something better. Coriolanus represents the arrogant old guard hurtling to a fall, and Garfield the plebian, idealistically undermining their surety. Ironically, the man who assassinated President Garfield three years later was angry with him for not rewarding him with a job from the spoils system Garfield had spent most of his career trying to eradicate. I picked up this book because I often wondered what it might have been like if he had not been killed. What was trying to emerge?

Nancy Abrams

A much more profound book is by a philosopher of science married to the famous cosmologist Joel R. Primack: A God That Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet (2015) by Nancy Abrams. Abrams essentially made a god for herself out of “emergence.”

Mysteries abound and are simplified for public consumption when Abrams and Primack get a hold of them. I won’t even try to summarize their science-shattering revelations. But this video will help you (below). I hardly ever watch a long video, but this one is engaging and enlightening, especially if you want to keep up with the revolution of understanding our new space telescopes have provided.

Their exciting new theory is that stars are about 1% of the 99% of the universe we cannot see. “Cold dark matter” is interacting with “dark energy” creating something that looks like a web or like a picture of a cell in our bodies.

Nancy was not troubled by the lack of God in their groundbreaking models until she entered a 12-step program for eating disorders and realized that, as an atheist, she had no way to connect with the “higher power” that was supposed to help her with her struggle. That got her thinking, “I had this sinking feeling that I had never really tried to understand God.” Her book answers her question, “Can anything actually exist in the universe as science understands it that is worthy of being called God?”

What she comes up with is “emergence.” She describes it as something “new and radically unpredictable” which arises out of a collective. One example of emergence is the complex global economy that arose from local buying and selling. Another example is the way a swarm of ants can build an anthill even as no individual ant can understand how that might be done. She sees the universe working that way and that is her higher power.

For humans, God, she believes, is a phenomenon that emerges from our collective human aspirations. “We need to redefine God,” she said. “The emerging God is not king of the universe; it’s humanity’s bridge to understanding the universe.”

Boiling down her thoughts this way does not do them justice and does not describe the wonder of seeing how the universe has “emerged.” As she was teaching, my thoughts turned to questions about how slavery and the Civil War “emerged.” And how in 2019 a wave of power struggle upended my church and so many other collectives and institutions. Now we are all worrying about what will emerge from the wonder of A.I. I’m not known for focusing on the dark side of the dark matter. But I do admit it is there. If you are James Garfield or Nancy Abrams, you are expecting goodness and development or at least inevitability to emerge. I would like to be a point of light, myself.

Ray Anderson

The third book comes from a professor I knew of when I attended his seminary, Fuller. Ray Anderson died in 2009, but I am just getting to one of his last books: An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches (2006). I never thought of the church we planted as an “emerging” church, but I think Anderson would have. His ideas sort of bring Garfield and Abrams into the ongoing work of God I have experienced, as I think they experienced too. We all looked out into the stars and felt a shiver of wonder at what is coming, what seems to be moving, and how we are caught up in life.

Anderson loved the emergence he saw in the church. But he wanted to write a book to supply some underpinnings he thought the movement was missing. Beware, I’m going to boil down another philosopher; here goes. He saw the emerging church of the 2000’s as another expression of the Spirit, like we see the energy of the first church of Antioch escaping the gravitational pull of the mother church in Jerusalem. Here is how Brian McClaren asked his question in the intro:

Are we going to follow an Athens-based faith, where our message is domesticated and diluted by new cultures it encounters? Are we going to follow a Jerusalem-based faith, where our message is tamed and contained by a dominant culture from the past? Or are we going to follow an Antioch-based faith, where our message never loses its wild, untamed essence (flames of fie, rushing wind), but like a spring of living water or vibrant new wine, it always flows and is never contained in new forms?

The aspiration of the last sentence sounds like Garfield’s Disciples of Christ heart and Abrams’ brilliant insight: emergence.

Anderson distinguishes between what is “emergent” and what is “emerging.” When Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate what was going on, he was caught up in the emerging church that represented the newness their faith represented. The powers in Jerusalem rejected the Church’s “emergent” message of resurrection life and scattered the believers all over the world. Antioch was the fertile place an “anthill” formed, and soon ants were in every kitchen of the Roman Empire. To the honor of the Jerusalem elders, when Paul and Barnabas came back to report, they blessed them even if they did not become them.

That “untamed essence” is what Garfield, Abrams and Anderson all see and want to move with. Me too. I can see emergence in the past and I want to move with like-minded aspirants to see the best of the future.

I think it is a bit ironic for Abrams’ to rest her new faith in the latest discovery of science, which always thinks its latest revolution is the last one. But what she is feeling about what she is seeing resonates with me. From the detritus of the last few years, I keep seeing “ants” aspiring together and bringing forth new things. Dare I say that the aspirations of David Hogg and his fellow survivors of the Stoneman High shooting finally resulted in the Office of Gun Violence Protection President Biden announced last week? Is my energetic local pastor, committed to the emergent gospel, going to build an emerging church on the crumbling foundation of the old? Something’s coming! I hope to move with that “dark energy” that makes for starshine.

The common emotion wheels need unpacking

September 18, 2023Psychological growthCharles Darwin, constructionist, emotion, emotion wheel, Lisa Barrett, Maria Gendron, Robert Plutchik, Tchiki DavisRod White

Not too long ago, a client consulted an “emotions wheel” I asked him to find online. It was useful. When we discussed the options he might choose, I asked him if “disappointed” was on his wheel. It was not. I was surprised, since what young child is not severely disappointed at some point — like with the authority figure who denies her a cookie? Or who hasn’t felt disappointing after a failure or after being criticized? I considered disappointment to be a basic feeling.

After our session was over, I took a look at all the emotion wheels in my resources folder which I often passed out. I could not find “wonder” on any of them. There was no “tenderness” or “betrayal.” I realized, “These wheels are all different!” They must have some philosophy behind them.

I started researching. I needed to do some thinking because I, like you, have some assumptions about how my emotions work. And maybe like you, I realized my assumptions were not examined very well, even though most of what I do all day deals with emotions!

Thanks to Google, I found this scholarly article by Maria Gendron and Lisa Barret about the history of emotion in psychology; then I found a less-scholarly summary by Tchiki Davis. Those women taught me I should be careful about what I pass out. The emotion wheels do have some thinking behind them.

Base emotions

There are many theories of emotion which try to organize the feelings we often have difficulty naming. The theories help us understand where emotions come from, how they relate to each other and what they mean in our culture. The most well-known of these theories is the “discrete” (or basic) theory of emotion. This was the theory used in the movie Inside Out — the five characters representing the five basic emotions are at the left. Pixar’s goal in that popular movie is to encourage children, in particular, to welcome the full spectrum of their emotions because they all matter; there is nothing wrong with feeling sad. That’s nice.

The movie also made an indelible impression that feelings have an “identity” that is unlikely to change. So our emotions should just learn to get along. We should be inclusive of all our feelings. The need to be inclusive is an extension of the basic premise that emotions are separate, discrete things. They are basic elements all humans experience because they originated from dealing with fundamental survival tasks like running away from a predator or getting food when you are hungry.

Another well-known chart of emotions is Plutchik’s wheel, above. This wheel suggests there are primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions. Each of the basic emotions in his wheel are amplified and can be combined to create new emotions. Both the charts above are based on the theory of evolution, which assumes survival instincts are imprinted on our species; there are immutable feelings in us all. What Robert Plutchik adds is how the emotions keep adapting. They not only have a complexity born of a long evolutionary history, they keep combining into new and relevant forms. His chart has a movement to it; the feeling states are all part of a process involving both cognition and behavior and containing several feedback loops.

Dialogue about emotion is broad

The theorizing already feels complex, right? Part of the reason for that is we have trouble answering the question, “What is an emotion, anyway?” More than ninety definitions have been offered over the past century. There must be almost as many theories. English, in particular, continues to add to a complex array of overlapping words to describe our emotions. Fried, hyped-up, knackered, infoxicated or wacked may soon be added to some wheel.

My psychotherapy clients are mostly men; it often helps to have a list of words on which they can find their feeling. They understand they are angry and sometimes anxious, but some of the other feelings are harder to name. Emotions are complex. What’s more, emotions are amplified on the screen all day every day. Add to that a demand for an idealized version of an emotion from one’s partner and a man can feel overwhelmed (and women, too, of course). They might feel like everyone is supposed to have the kind of emotion that’s on the chart, explained by Pixar, or demonstrated on Netflix — and they are afraid to choose wrongly.

My research into the history of how the present, general sense of emotion in the U.S. developed taught me how broad argument has been. We are not zeroed in, yet. Darwin‘s musings led to the idea of “basic” emotions. Then philosophers and scientists tried to prove those few emotions were either innate or were caused by reactions to typical external forces.

A lot of thinking in the past 200 years, really, has been about “is it this or that?” As is usual for modern thinkers, the researchers focused on emotion came up with “dichotomies that define modern ideas about emotion — basic emotion vs. appraisal, evolutionary vs. social constructionist, dimensional vs. discrete, experience vs. expression.” (Gundren and Barrett)

The “basic” emotions people were contradicted by the “appraisal” theorists, who said emotions are not discrete instincts, they are mainly a matter of humans making meaning and are quite complex — the higher thinking of humans combines with higher feelings. We feel and think about what we think and feel. The appraisal theorists argue we are not merely reactions to what is happening to us, we also happen to ourselves and consult with others. They corrected the assertion that emotions are derived from reactions along the rocky road of learning how to kill a mastodon and survive the ice age. On the contrary, emotions came into consciousness by firelight when people were painting the hunt on the cave wall and naming what they felt.

My main problem with the emotions wheels I have been distributing is they might lead clients in the wrong direction. Most clients are in therapy because they want to adapt better to how they feel and learn things that will make them happier and more lovable. They are experiencing a very complex “chart” of themselves and realizing how responsible and capable they can be. What’s more, once they get comfortable with themselves and their often-unrealized capacity, they sometimes uncover an even deeper ability to relate spiritually. They feel things , both inside and out, that are fearsome and joyous mysteries, not reducible to five pieces of pie on a chart.

The constructionist view and God

In a further article, Lisa Barrett goes on to assert her “psychological constructionist” view of emotion, which I think appropriately considers how emotions are not just inside out, as the appraisal people imply, they are also outside in like the discreet people imply, and they are more. A constructionist view says emotions are formed by and deal with all the ways our brains, bodies and relationships contribute to what we feel. She asks, “What if psychological facts are not physical facts? What if the phenomena we want to explain—emotions, cognitions, the self, behaviors—are not just the subject matter of the human mind, but are also the creations of that mind? What if the boundaries for these categories are not respected in the very brain that creates them?”

The discussion about emotions is as complex as the formation of them. That statement may give you comfort and cause you to take a deep breath and listen to what is going on, trusting the process, so to speak. Or the discussion may add to your distress and cause you to wonder how you will ever figure yourself out if the experts are all arguing! I think you should take the breath. One of the great things about us is we never know or feel everything we can imagine we should already understand. But that discomfort forms us.

One of the best things about the postmodern thinking which deconstructs the binary arguments and assumptions of the past is that it leaves room (like Barrett’s quote does) for mystery. There are still plenty of scientists who think they have it all figured out, or who believe their next experiment will solve the problem. But, more and more, people are a bit more content to admit they may never know enough. The advances in brain science lead some researchers to think psychology as a science might be dispensed with. But the phenomenon of emotions is one of the realities that prove our experience is much larger than how the neurons are firing.

The constructionist view includes the full breadth of human experience in the formation of emotions. If you look for it, this view can be seen lurking, unacknowledged, in most of the binary arguments of the past. You can also see the view in the Bible, as just these few verses from Proverbs 14 show. These wisdom sayings are full of the mystery of being human but deeply appreciate our capacity to discern what we feel and what is good in the moment, even within all the competing stimuli:

Only the heart can know its own resentment;
    likewise no stranger can experience its joy.
Before every person lies a road that seems to be right,
    but the end of that road is death and destruction.
Laughter can mask heartache,
    and joy often gives way to grief.
A disloyal heart has its fill of disloyal ways,
    but a good person will be satisfied from above.
The gullible believe anything they are told,
    but clever people know to question every step. (The Voice)

The constructionist view of emotion asserts all the multitudinous ingredients the brain creates 24/7 are involved the phenomena psychology explains: emotions, cognitions, the self, and behaviors. From elements we might see as inside or outside of us, the mental states called “feeling” and “thinking” are created.

I may lose the emotion wheels

When I took a new look at my emotion wheel charts, I was not sure I could correct the ones devoted to “basic emotions.” They might need a warning label: “too simplistic.” As the constructionists imply, the process of forming emotions is bigger than a chart. Emotions may appear to be discreet, nameable, even universal things, but the whole creation is having a dialogue and coming up with something next right now.

I thought it would at least help if I put a little circle in the middle of a “basic emotions” wheel with “truth/love” at the center. That would give it some movement and an appropriate mystery. There is something about us that exists before our emotions. I think our experiences and meaning-making are generated from our godlike dialogue between mind/brain and heart/body, heaven and earth — speaking and hearing the truth in love.

The emotion wheel charts imply emotions just happen in us, they are built in, “it is what it is.” I not only think we make meaning of our thoughts and feelings, I think we make choices that create them and heal them. Unfortunately, the charts are studiously devoid of anything outside their immanent frame. In their estimation, no one would never feel “godly” or “soulful” or “virtuous” or “kindly” or “convicted” or “blessed” or even “thankful” — charts overlook any number of feelings that are precious to us all, the kind we feel when we are most deeply alive.

I wish I could retract all the wheels I have passed out over the years. I am chastened to resist going with the flow when it comes to psychology. From now on I will pass out a list of words to help someone give a name to what is happening in them and to them — no colors, no charts to impose a theory. I may need to add a few words that are missing! A person looking over the list may need to add some of their own. A list allows us to imagine our own process, not just conform to someone else’s idea of who were are or who we are supposed to be. We’ve probably done enough of that conforming already, which is why we can’t figure out what we feel!

I hope we grow to feel comfortable with “good” and “bad” feelings and thoughts, free to welcome them as part of a human life. If that life is lived in grace, even the worst feeling has meaning and the other side of it has hope.

Bonus track:

Is more anxiety in the air? Or do we measure it better?

September 11, 2023Psychological growthAlpha-Stim, anxiety, Jonathan Haidt, Mike Huckabee, performance, statistics, TikTok, Vicki PhillipsRod White

Is this really the Age of Anxiety? Maybe it is. On the Trinity Broadcasting Network a few days ago, former pastor and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee opened his most recent episode by saying if former president Trump loses the 2024 election because of the many indictments grand juries have handed down concerning his behavior, “it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.” That makes me anxious!

Maybe the “spirit of the air” right now is named Anxiety and the media spreads it like a virus. It seems like therapists, teachers, parents and all sorts of authorities are moving with this zeitgeist. They may being seeing and naming anxiety where little is actually present. They might proactively drug anxious-looking behavior when it is not really necessary. They might be creating the atmosphere they fear by overdefending against it.

Even though there is plenty to be anxious about right now, maybe our better-therapized society is only slightly more anxious than usual. Maybe we are just more aware and more prepared to talk about how we feel.

Alpha-Stim® AID is a handheld medical device that is proven safe and effective for the treatment of anxiety and insomnia. Alpha-Stim uses cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) to deliver a patented waveform via two earclip electrodes.

Are you monitoring your anxiety?

A junior college professor in Utah starts his class each day by having students open up a Canvas page where they give themselves an anonymous mental health rating. The poll is a 10-point scale—modeled loosely after health care’s 10-point pain scale—with a 10 being the best and one being “I’m just pressing buttons today.”

The professor has a conviction. He says, “At the end of the day, the student who is coming out of the pandemic and coming back to our institutions just wants to know they matter, just wants to know that somebody knows their name and just wants to know that somebody will genuinely ask them how they’re doing.” He sounds like a great professor to have.

It also sounds like he is training his students to monitor and rate their anxiety (and everything else) every day. His attempt to pay attention might backfire. Back in the 2010’s it became popular to attend to “key performance indicators.” The saying goes “What gets measured gets done.” Managers wanted regular measurement and reporting to keep workers focused. The use of the idea expanded. For instance, a client who is successful in business took tracking indicators to heart. He had charts to rate his anxiety from 1-10 every day. Once he had a solid month of no “over 3 days” and found it miraculous. I was ambivalent about his technique, but I rejoiced in his improvement. He needed to wean himself from the anxiety indicators and start measuring positive things until he could stop measuring so much altogether.

Do we all have a report due?

As school gets rolling it is good to know that someone is attending to the possible epidemic of anxiety infecting the student body. I’m not sure all those authority figures have good solutions to the problems, but at least people are being inspected. One survey in 2021 reported 72% of female students and 51% of male students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety. 59%/48% reported feeling things were hopeless. Those are astounding percentages! I meet those people in my office and online. It does seem like the overwhelm is making it hard to settle down these days.

But it is possible that some of these statistics are being created by survey makers who imply you might be out of the mainstream if you aren’t anxious or hopeless. One inspector, Vicki Phillips, pushed back on Jonathan Haidt’s criticism of Gen Z stats. He called the generation “too soft” and “coddled.” As a result, he said they were unable to stand up to the challenges they face. On the contrary, Phillips says, “Gen Z is drinking less, learning more, and embracing a spirit of global agency and impact that prior generations could not even imagine. Which raises the question: what were later Boomers and Gen-Xers of Haidt’s cohort doing when they were 15, 16 and 17?” I think it makes a lot of sense to assume, like she does, the younger generation reports a higher percentage of anxiety than previous generations because they recognize and admit they have mental health issues.

They tell you about their mental health issues on TikTok. I am not much of a TikTok user. I deleted it because it soaked up so much time and offered so much misinformation. But I took a cursory look to see what creators were saying about anxiety. They are admitting it. There is a lot of mental health tok to find! I especially appreciated the young man who made a small song about his anxiety and the what ifs.

It is always time for development

Jumping into the argument the media is having about mental health can be confusing. Experiencing what the social media producers share about their health can be discouraging. Therapists could be swayed by it all to assume that most people entering therapy fit the stereotypes being passed around about whole generations. We could unwittingly conform the clients to an untested fad, to the latest temporary solution, or to a medical solution that promises more than it delivers (as this TikTokker reported).

Therapy clients are likely to resemble the general ways of humanity and the trends of the zeitgeist, of course. There may even be “best practices” that apply to them. But rather than assisting them to acclimate to the present atmosphere, or just teaching them to cope better, we all could help one another to be conformed less and enabled to form more. How my therapist sees me can shape me. A teacher’s survey also instructs as it collects info. A parent’s lens can tell a child how to view themselves. Love discerns the best in someone and nurtures it.

Each of us is on a unique journey. It is not singular, since we are in relationships with other people and with God, and those relationships and systems shape us. But in the therapy dyad, especially, we are given a unique chance to explore our own story, experience deeper attention, and make actionable decisions and goals. Teachers, relatives and spouses can all give similar attention.

It may be an age of anxiety, but each of us comes of age into whatever developmental stage we are entering in our own time and way. No matter what is happening, it is hard to keep us from growing. It is a privilege to witness, affirm and encourage healthy development. And if things aren’t moving along as desired, it is an even deeper privilege to come alongside with hope. If what gets measured gets done, let’s measure our love.

Should I pay taxes? Yes. No. Maybe.

September 4, 2023A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual directionAugustin Tunger, Julia Butterfly Hill, Marian Franz, Peace Tax Fund, taxesRod White

In 2007 our church was growing fast and many of our new members were relatively unacquainted with Jesus and His ways. Here is one of the “frequently asking questions” on which we spent the summer.

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

We have just a few more weeks to answer frequently asked questions. Thanks to everyone who has been submitting them. We’ve had such a good time, we decided to sprinkle some time all year to answer questions that are submitted. So keep your thoughts coming. Tonight it is “Should I Pay Taxes?’ As you will see, the answer is clearly, No, Yes, Maybe.

No, Yes, Maybe

In November of 2006 Marian Franz died. She had been the director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund for 24 years. I met her and her husband a few times on trips to Washington DC to visit our lobbyists. Her conviction was that hard-won provisions for conscientious objection to war in our laws, should be extended to people who not only don’t want to fight wars, but don’t want to pay for them. She convinced quite a few lawmakers that the Peace Tax Fund should be set up so individuals could redirect the taxes they would normally pay for military expenditures to a designated fund which would only be used for non-military purposes.

In a tribute after her death, Daryl Byler, former director of the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office, described Marian Franz as “a pastor-prophet to the U.S. Congress, combining gifts of compassionate listening with passionate advocacy. Her vision and energy were contagious, and her life’s work was a powerful illustration of Paul’s words to the church at Galatia: ‘So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.’ ”

Ms. Franz believed that war taxes have enormous consequences. She said “They kill twice. First, they directly enable war . . . particularly paying for weapons. Second, taxes allocated for war represent a distortion of priorities. Money is taken away from the important work of healing and is spent to destroy and kill.”

So should one pay taxes? I think Marian gave a Jesus kind of answer.

Specifically, no, if the ways the taxes are used violate God’s will or violates your conscience before God. No!
But generally, yes, since government has a place and needs money, since you’re a citizen, and since it is rare that anyone needs to be a lawbreaker for some noble purpose. So let’s change the laws! Specifically, No. Generally yes.
And Usually, maybe — I think she’d say, “I reserve the right to decide what I need to do. I’m not going to give up until things work the way they ought to work. So I can’t give you a yes or no until everything gets sorted out.”

That maybe is the hard place of faith. People prefer yes or no. You always hear the lawyers forcing people on Law and Order, “Just give me a yes or no.” People love to have the good news from the Prince of Peace turned into a Jesus-book of rules and regulations that can apply to every situation so we don’t have to think, or love, or learn anymore. I can tell you that such a book does not rightfully exist and Jesus won’t be calling us to stop growing and learning and thinking and loving.

Discerning with Jesus

Jesus would never demean our dignity by presuming we are the kind of creatures who can’t discern. We are built for discerning. He’s made the fact that we are often too lazy to do it his problem. So, as usual, tonight will be all about discerning.

I think Marian Franz was following Jesus quite brilliantly. She sounds a lot like a person who could have been talking to her disciples in much the same way Jesus was talking to Peter in this part of the Bible where Jesus is quoted in Matthew 17. Let’s have a woman under 30 read this.

When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?” He said, “Yes, he does.”
And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?”
When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free.
However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.” — Matthew 17:24-27 (NRSVUE)

Unpacking a little, you can see what is happening. Peter commits Jesus to paying a particular tax. Why he did this, no one knows, since, as we find out, Jesus hadn’t done it yet. Maybe Peter answered the taxman that way because felt too proud to be among those who were exempt from the tax because they were too poor to pay — as a band of beggars, Jesus and his crew might have been considered exempt. Jesus doesn’t really have an income, per se. Maybe Peter just didn’t want to look bad in the eyes of the solicitor. Chances are Peter paid the tax every year, as any upstanding Jewish male might do.

The Temple tax had been gong for a couple of hundred years by the time of this incident. It was based on rules from Exodus 30. All adult Jewish males, everywhere, were supposed to pay a tax for the upkeep of the temple in Jerusalem. It was like a sign that you were connected to your people and to God. Two drachmas was not very much, but the fund built up so much sometimes that the priests had to invent ways to spend it — like one time they constructed a solid gold vine in the temple.

The tax collectors went out to solicit, but the tax was not compulsory, like you’d go to jail for not paying it. Some groups refused to pay it on principle because they thought the Temple was corrupted. Other people were exempt. Jesus, being something of a radical, might have been one of the people refusing to pay. Or as a rabbi, he might have been considered exempt.

I am going to try to show how this applies to whether we should pay our taxes or not. So you might be wondering how a voluntary temple tax compares to your relationship to the IRS, or to the state treasury or to the Philadelphia wage tax. The taxes do not directly match up. The two systems are not exactly the same. So you’ll have to extrapolate. As a matter of fact, no form of tax mentioned in the Bible would have the pretense of being much less than a temple tax. Some people consider Americanism a religion, but most of us don’t think we pay taxes to support religion. But ancient people had no such distinctions. Taxes to Roman went to a government that would soon make Caesar Augustus a god. Jesus has questions about Roman taxes as a result. I imagine he has some interesting ideas about our tax system, too. The ways the passage does match up with our situation is this – there is a governmental authority, it is demanding money, everyone else is paying it.

Within this small interchange with Peter, I think we can discern some of Jesus’ attitudes that will help us figure out how to interact with our own government.

I think the first answer we can find is “No.”
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “No.”

And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?”
When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free.”

This is the regular logic of the Bible, just like the Christmas carol says, “God rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.” God is king of kings and Lord of lords.

So Jesus has a little fun with Peter, knowing he just signed him up to give taxes to Caiaphas and his band of robbers running the Jerusalem Temple. Do the kings of the earth collect taxes from their children? Of course not, unless they are somehow very evil. Is God, the king, going to ask his children – Me, the very Son of God, you a child of God, to pay taxes? Of course not. We’re exempt. We are actually free. Loyalty to the government won’t buy freedom for us.

Lots of people over the years have refused to pay taxes for just the reason Jesus gave. “I have no particular allegiance to any king but Jesus. So I owe you nothing.”

Ten years ago, when she was 23, Julia Butterfly Hill climbed 180 feet into the redwood tree she nicknamed Luna and refused to come down until she was sure the 600-year old beauty was safe from the Pacific Lumber company. [Her picture is above.] 738 days later, she came down with an agreement to save not only Luna but a three-acre patch of trees that surrounded it. [Sixteen years later, the belated IRA]

After her successful tree sit, the wireless company OmniSky and two other companies used her story and likeness in unauthorized ad campaigns. She sued to stop the ad campaign. “I do not endorse products,” she said today, “I endorse actions and beliefs.”

She and a volunteer legal team worked on a lawsuit. She said, “I wanted 100% of the proceeds of the settlement to go towards the social and environmental causes for which I work so hard…. Shortly before settling out of court in 2002, I found that even though I was not making a single penny off of the lawsuit, the federal government was going to demand that a very large percentage of the settlement be paid to taxes.” The total tax bill was over $150,000. “When I found this out I was sickened.”

“I struggled for a long time with the knowledge that if given to the government, this money would be used for terrible things, but that if I refused to pay, I faced consequences, some of them potentially very serious. When the first US bomb dropped in Iraq in March, my decision became crystal clear. I could not in good conscience allow this money to be used for the murder of innocent people.”

Hill said, “I was raised by Christian parents who taught me about the Ten Commandments, the first of which is ‘Thou Shall Not Kill.’ Paying for the murder of innocent people with my tax dollars is something that I cannot do in good conscience.”

So far, the IRS has not gone after her. She said no.

I think the second answer we can find is “Yes.”
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Yes.”

“But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin . Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Here is the argument. No we don’t have to pay taxes, but since God is king of the world, we have plenty to share, what’s the hurt, here? Tax schmax. Let’s not offend them. Why should we bother making them feel badly about us? Why hassle it? We should have a very good reason to make a big deal out of something. We have bigger fish to fry than worrying about whether we should pay the Temple Tax. Let’s just consider it the cost of doing business here and get on with our business.

I’m not sure people like this about Jesus too much. First he makes a point of saying he is righteously exempt from the tax and then he pays it. It is like Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 9 that he has all these rights and power as a leader of the church, yet he would just as soon die as exercise any of them, because then his servanthood would be brought into question. Jesus has all the rights of the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Savior of humankind, and he is almost cavalier about not exercising them. A lot of people would prefer that he duke it out with the tax gatherers.

This humility is a constant problem for us. Melissa Powell told us a story about how the Nigerian Christians are facing it. She’s about to return to Nigeria where the Christians are really having a struggle. In the North of the country where it is mostly Moslem, the government allows some form of Sharia law to be practiced in certain areas. Some Christians have been hurt and even killed for resisting this, or just for being outspoken Christians.

In the south, where Christianity dominates, there is much less violence against Moslems, as Christians try to work out how to respect people who aren’t necessarily respecting back. They are struggling with how to be Christians when a vengeful enemy terrorizes you with power and tempts you to use their godless weapons. Melissa says the north and south are quite different places, so far. Christians have not always been so humble, of course, especially in Europe, where kings have warred against Moslems and anyone else on the other side of their God-blessed wars, looking for vengeance or dominance. In this particular instance, even though Jesus had a case and had the power to win it, he doesn’t even bother to get involved with it.

Generally, I think I have the same attitude toward my taxes. I pay my taxes because it is less of a hassle than not paying them, and I know God is the king of Kings, so he will take care of judging the injustice and sinfulness of a government. I could be mad about the nonsense of the government all day and lose my focus on what Jesus is really doing here. As it is, I only focus on what I’m mad about for a quarter of the day — progress.

A third answer may be more prominent than Yes or No and that may be just as Jesus prefers.
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Maybe.”

You’ll have to discern what to do and don’t forget the fish.

Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

From Augustin Tünger’s “comic book” in 1486.

I presume Peter did this. It seems like maybe he was having an I-am-ashamed-of-me day, so maybe he waited until it was almost dark so no one could ask him what he was doing — he seems to have wanted to look good before the tax collectors. Maybe he didn’t want to hear, “Hey, pristine coin! Where’d you get it?” He’d have to say “Well, Jesus told me I’d find a 4-drachma coin in the first fish I caught. This is it.”

It is absurd. Finding a coin in the fish is as foolish as finding salvation in Jesus. Opening up a fish and looking for a coin is as foolish as looking into Jesus for something precious. Trudging over to the lake with his odd task, wondering if anything is going to come of it, feeling odd, feeling insecure about being so odd, feeling like some little kid learning all over how the world works and feeling stupid about being treated like a little kid – it is irritating. “Why didn’t he just give me a coin? If he’s going to do a miracle, why not just pull a coin out from behind my ear like David Copperfield? Why can’t we just have a business and make some money rather than wandering around like paupers relying on women and random fish?”

Rely on the fish

When it comes to paying your taxes, “Maybe you should risk relying on the fish.” It will take some discernment, but more important, living like that will take some relating to Jesus, who knows where the coins are. It will take obeying Jesus, instead of the kings of the world or obeying the feelings and fears that tend to rule us.

I’ve been pondering this, lately. I’ve been running into quite a few people who have run into Circle of Hope and their lives are changing. They are really changing for the better! — dealing with mental health, drugs, poor relationships, destructive habits, all sorts of things. It is really encouraging! The discipline of the faith and the love of Christians is very life-giving. But once they get sort of settled, they have problems with Jesus.

Maybe I could say, they don’t like going to catch the fish. They like regularity. They don’t like having another conversation where Jesus says three things and then smiles – “Now go along and figure it all out. I’ll be with you.” It’s irritating. They don’t like getting an answer to their question that ends up being, “God will have to do a miracle. There is really no hope unless God is present.” What kind of answer is that?

Does anyone really like Jesus? For whatever reason, I really do. I like Jesus. I am a Jesus fan. I totally love that he has an absolutely out-of-this world solution to Peter’s dilemma about the taxes.

Peter sets him up to pay the tax without talking to him. Jesus says, “No big deal, I’m exempt anyway.”
But Peter is still thinking about what he said to the tax gatherer so Jesus says, “No big deal. Pay the tax so no one gets offended by you going back claiming exemption after you already told him I’d pay. Maybe the guy thinks we’re cool, so why make him feel bad about us?”
But Peter has to say, “But we don’t have any money.” So Jesus says, ”No big deal. Go fish a coin. It will only take a minute. It will be in the first fish you get.”

I really like that. I like knowing that happened. I like knowing Jesus. I like being rearranged by His Spirit and then being put together in a better, deeply discerned way. I like the anticipation of what he might do next. I like remembering all the great things Jesus did. I like him invading the little dilemmas of my life and revealing himself in them and showing me ways through them and turning them into something full of life. I like the dilemma of paying taxes, or not – who knew such a little deal is such a big deal? Or that me having or creating a problem is a big enough deal to God for Jesus to come and personally work it out with me?

Spiritual Life? : How does anyone have time for one?

August 21, 2023A life in the Spirit, Spiritual directionPs. 119, spiritual direction, spiritual discipline, timeRod White

In 2006, life in our church was rich. I started collecting questions that became the launchpads for messages.

The “frequently asked question” for the evening is: How does anyone have time for a spiritual life? You know these questions come in as a result of what various cells have been exploring over the year. This is a very practical question, so I am glad to take a stab at it. I hope you’ll be thinking along with me as I speak. The fact is, you are having time for a spiritual life right now. Make the most of it. Have your spiritual life.

Normal vs. spiritual life?

Before I try to get practical, I want to bring up one of the main problems with having time for a spiritual life. It is the notion that there is a “normal” life and then there is a “spiritual” life. The way most of us think, there is a split between real or normal life and spiritual life.

For the most part, this might be just a figure of speech – we talk about the sporting life. We ask “How’s your love life?” and “How is family life?” – and all we mean is how is the part of our lives under discussion. But it can go further with our faith. Somehow faith got pushed into our private lives and out of our everyday lives. Jesus became a part of our leisure time and not a part of our work life or civic life.

So, for instance, when President Bush was asked how faith might shape policy in the presidential debates in October of 2004. He answered from the classic evangelical viewpoint, I think. He said:

My faith plays a big part in my life. I pray a lot. I do. My faith is very personal. …I’ve received calmness in the storms of the presidency. I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, well, how do you know? I said, I just feel it.

My faith is a big part of my life. It is very personal. Prayer delivers things to my life. I don’t know what the president thinks, really. But a lot of people have a personal faith, a “spiritual life” that never coincides with their regular life.

So when someone asks, “How do I find time for a spiritual life?” It must mean two things, at least.

“Normal” life is taking you over and you have no time for other things, like whatever is in my personal life.
You think you have a life that is not “spiritual” and you want to develop the one that is.

I have to question the question. I’m not sure it is helpful to talk about our “spiritual lives” too much. As far as the people in the Bible go, there is only one life. There is a spiritual life in relation to God or there is existence plummeting toward no life. You’re alive or as good as dead.

John 6:63 — The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life.
Romans 8:11 — And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit , who lives in you.
Galatians 2:20 — The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me

If you follow Jesus — if you serve/belong to/believe in Jesus — you have a renewed spiritual life. You have been given life. The capacity you had for spirituality in you has been activated and is developing. You are filling up with life. It is not like you are the owner of your life and you are managing sectors of it trying to keep everything in balance or keeping the plates spinning. The life you have, you received from God through the work of Jesus. You were dead, but back in relation to God, you are alive.

in 2006 Branson pledged $3B to develop alternative fuel sources.

I don’t have time?

The second big problem with finding time to actually be consciously related to God and exercising our new life, putting on this new self, living in our eternity is how we have come to view time.

If all you have is this life then every second counts. (“I have only one life, let me live it as a blonde!” the gospel of Clairol taught us). We are generally painfully aware that we cannot get back the seconds that have passed (“Nothing is further away than a minute ago”). Since we have most of our physical needs met these days, and many of us no longer fret about how much money we don’t have, now it is all about time. We weigh it out all day; we consider what our time is worth and whether we are spending it wisely.

Spending it wisely could mean we spend it all frantically making the most of it to get what we want – so we will have more experiences or will earn more leisure time or afford more retirement time.
Or it could mean we avoid spending any of it on work so we can be free from time constraints and get all our time up front before I have spent it all on loveless toil.

We are always making a time deal.

So Joshua and I know that between May 15 and October 15 or so, every weekend is going to feel precious to most of us, because we only get so many sunshiney Saturdays a year. People are weighing out what is more worth it, time spent on the spiritual life or time spent on vacation.

So when someone asks, “How do I find time for a spiritual life?” I think they might also be asking, “Is this going to be worth it?”

For the people in the Bible, they are not so conscious of the value of all their moments, because they actually think they are eternal and they know any moment has value because they, themselves, are valued. They still want to make the most of their days on earth, but they don’t have such a sense of hoarding a scarce resource.

John 6:27 — Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you
Colossians 3:1-3 — Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

The idea is that we need to learn a new way to invest our time, not in the fear of scarcity, but generously, joyfully, freely being eternal. Depending on our personality styles, we can make the most of the moment and make the most of a decade — whatever we are given — because we are living in an eternal now.

We can help ourselves with the process of being a growing, spiritual person who is alive to God and comfortable in their own reality with him by doing very practical things. It is not just about knowing right things and changing your mind, although I don’t see how any transformation happens without that; it is also about considering how you feel, how you are built psychologically and mostly, doing something with your body.

Let me answer this question.

How can I learn to use my time well as a person who lives in the Spirit?

I want to give you some verses from Psalm 119, since we are letting the Psalms guide us in different ways this summer. Psalm 119 is all about feeling the challenges of seeking God and living a life in relation to God in a difficult world.

How can I learn to use my time as a person who lives in the Spirit?

Use the time you have.

Don’t be outside the time you are experiencing. A lot of us wait for something to happen sometime, instead of happening in the time we are in. I am sure that just last week some people missed a great time to learn and praise: they were angry, were on drugs, were analyzing, were daydreaming. Then they wonder why they don’t have time for their “spiritual pursuits.” Be as present to God as you can right now.

Psalm 119:59-60
I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.
I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands.

There is no replacement for honoring the importance of every minute, the meaning inherent in it. Jesus calls us to live. The Psalmist is having the same conviction. “I’m considering. I’m turning. I hasten to obey, to participate in my God-given time.”

Listen for God in your cell.
Prepare for worship
Give yourself a reminder phrase before you enter into a distracting situation – “Why am I here? I am here to worship. I am here to hear you. I am here to rest. I am here to love.” Keep centering on it, so you don’t get your time stolen. Hold on to your time like it was your purse in a threatening situation.

How can I learn to use my time as a person who lives in the Spirit?

Discipline your time

Time is like a river – build dams and levees that slow it down. Time is like a child, it needs to be trained. Time is like a bronco, you either tame it, it stomps you, or it jumps the fence and runs away. A schedule can get flabby and need to go to the gym.

Psalm 119:147,164
I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.
Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.

The people who get to know God are not all smarter. They do things. Scott Peck said the original sin was probably laziness. Just doing whatever, just going with what is going, not bothering to consider, to imagine, to step out of the regular rut leaves us out of touch with God. The psalmist is making the effort. He gets up before dawn to pray. He’s got a seven times a day discipline he is using.

You might like to start big with the schedule form on your seat. It could help discipline all the time in the week.

Make a copy and write down what you do in a week. That way you can see what you really do. As you do this you’ll notice that you will already be freeing yourself to makes changes and decisions. “Do I REALLY want to watch 3 hours of HBO a day? Did I really play Halo that long? Can I afford that commute – am I using the time on the train?” Etc.
Make a list of things you want in your week. “If I want to be a person who is living in the Spirit, what do I need to do?”
Put them on the sheet and try to meet your goals.

How can I learn to use my time as a person who lives in the Spirit?

Be incremental. Accrue

I think no time spent pursuing God is wasted. The actions build up. They accrue and begin compounding interest — so do something. Something is better than nothing. Do some little thing so you can get to a bigger thing. It is all too easy to let the day be so troubled that we never get to resting with God or praying, or caring for our inner journey – or even travel on it! It is also easy to see where we ought to be on the journey and be so ashamed or so overwhelmed that we don’t even take a step. Do something. Like the kid who gave his bread and fish, Jesus can multiply what he is given, and in the giving we are grown, too.

Psalm 119:143
Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands are my delight.

The psalmist has problems, too. But he’s delighting in what Good has given him.

When you are listening to me, be determined to get one thing from all this time that is for you. Then make a goal to act on it in some way, “I am going to complete that schedule thingy this Thursday night when I normally would watch America’s Got Talent.” Something like that.
Whenever you read the news, a book, or the Bible, write down a little goal for the day that will be a little step you can take to apply what you receive. When you are with your mentor, do whatever you felt moved to do as quickly as possible. When you are alone with God take your gut reactions seriously, unless that usually messes you up, and do what you are moved to do. You usually don’t have to spend a lot of time planning. You usually are given what you are already able to do. Do what you can. Don’t wait.
If you have a big goal that feels too big to start, like 20 minutes of contemplative prayer twice a day, maybe you need to be incremental. Do five minutes a day for a week.
Maybe you can manage to kick start some new direction by doing something dramatic – take a day retreat by yourself with God (I have loads of places you can go; some are very cheap). Take a pilgrimage to someplace instead of your usual weekender. If you are going to NY, say you are going to see St. John Divine and spend two hours there – then do whatever else you wanted to do. Get your mate or your friend to help, if you work well that way – say “We will begin the day with prayer each Wednesday from now until October.”

How can I learn to use my time as a person who lives in the Spirit?

Read meditatively.

Reading gives time. If you can’t read, learn to read. If you have ADD, struggle through the reading process once in a while. Don’t avoid reading very slow and listening between the lines. It is not an accident that the word of God is in a book, too. It helps us to meditate.

Psalm 119:130
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.

The process of meditation is about something unfolding, like the petals of a flower grows and blooms. It takes time. The process of understanding words and relating to the people who wrote them and relating God who is always thinking along with us is a basic way to use time well for spiritual development. Better than TV, tapes, iPods, whatever.

Carry a book with you. We get a lot of demands on our time so we need to be ready when we get a moment: on the bus, in line, on hold, at the café before the friend comes. It might be a good thing for you to do at this stage of your life. You might also need to stop reading and listen to what you’ve already heard.
For a lot of us, meditatively reading — reading to listen to God and not just get information, is something of a lost art. Plan an hour for it that you normally give to media. Try a goal of ten pages a day. I have all sorts of suggestions in your program.

How can I learn to use my time as a person who lives in the Spirit?

Get direction

It is a great, helpful luxury to sit down with a caring someone and listen for God as they listen for God in you. That is time well spent. In some sense I think of it as expanded time, a lot of goodness poured into a small space of time.

Psalm 119:63
I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts.

The psalmist feels a spiritual camaraderie with everyone who reveres God. Those kind of friends are cultivated by anyone who wants to have a life in the Spirit. There is probably nothing more dangerous than finding yourself in love with people who fritter your time.

Visit your therapist – most are worth the money.
Take a class – even one at Temple or Penn could be a time to get a break to listen to the depths of your mind and heart.
Find a spiritual director – these are not easy to get. You friend or your cell leader may be a good person for now.
It would be nice if we took each other seriously to receive the great gifts that are all around us, rather than holding out for some saint someday.

I think my favorite verse from the very long Psalm 119, must be this one:

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

The many people who asked, “How can I find time for a spiritual life?” were probably tired and frustrated. They are running in the path of the world’s commands and time is running out! They are yearning and trying, but it isn’t happening as well or as fast as they want. I hope I have stirred up some new possibilities or at least got what you already had installed activated. One of my main points though was that you don’t need to tack on a demanding spiritual life to your already full normal life. You have one life and it is eternal. God has laid out a lot of ways to run free in it. Don’t be afraid to try them. Your are important and your time makes a difference.

What do you want to add? Some of you may have a lot of good answers to this question too. Let’s here answers or questions and talk back.

How to Fast: The burning patience that leads to the shining city

August 14, 2023A life in the Spirit, Spiritual directionfasting, King David, Pablo NerudaRod White

By 2005 our church was hopping and ready to multiply. This teaching was part of a series devoted to learning spiritual disciplines. Many of our people had never tried any.

I like Lent. I like fasting, physically and emotionally! Fasting makes my body feel better. Fasting feels like a sport to me. I like feeling all ancient. So I guess I’m a natural.

But fasting is more than physical or emotional. Spiritually, fasting is another matter. It is getting the physical and emotional to open up to the spiritual. Fasting points out how rebellious I really am, how unfocused, how afraid to be weird, how secretly undisciplined, how needy I am.

So it is difficult to go where fasting is designed to take me. It is like the old analogy about being spiritual. If God is the lake, I love water skiing. But becoming a fish seems a bit much. If fasting is like fishing in God, then I might like throwing a line in for the afternoon, but it is a little different to think about being taken to the depths and developing gills. So I want to admit that right off.

Why fast?

I want to get to some “how to fast” stuff. But I’m not sure there is a reason to get too practical right away unless we have a good reason to fast at all. Not eating, or not doing anything does not have a lot of spiritual value unless the deprivation has a purpose, unless it is after something.

So here is a good reason to fast, in my opinion, and by my experience. One thing the discipline of fasting is good for is to cultivate what Pablo Neruda called “burning patience.”

Pablo Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 and died in his native Chile in 1973. He had a rich, difficult life full of poetry and politics. In his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize this is how he ended.

I come from a dark region, from a land separated from all others by the steep contours of its geography. I was the most forlorn of poets and my poetry was provincial, oppressed and rainy. But always I had put my trust in man. I never lost hope. It is perhaps because of this that I have reached as far as I now have with my poetry and also with my banner.

Lastly, I wish to say to the people of good will, to the workers, to the poets, that the whole future has been expressed in this line by Rimbaud: only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all mankind.

I’m not sure I am hoping for exactly the same thing as Neruda; I don’t put my trust in humankind the way he does. But we are both cultivating the ability to get to that “splendid city.” I can’t control your destination of choice. You could see it as a home in the heavenly city at the close of time, or as a secure place in the city of God where Jesus rules represented by his church, or as the renewal and healing of Philadelphia until it is splendid. Regardless, to arrive anywhere redemption and regeneration want to take us requires a burning patience. Getting to that splendid city where God is taking us requires the cultivation of what Paul names the fruit of the Spirit called patience. And that is why we fast.

When you fast…

When Jesus was teaching his disciples about fasting in Matthew 6 (and we should all know Matthew 4-7 first among the revelation of scripture), he started out with “When you fast…” do this, and that. It was not “If you decide to fast,” or “If you get around to fasting,” or “If you can’t avoid fasting because someone coming after me is going to make up a season called Lent, then make you observe it and try to force you to fast…” It wasn’t any of those things. Jesus assumed his seeking-after-God followers were going to fast, because it is a physical aid to prayer.

We are spiritual beings in physical bodies; it is our unique identity among God’s creatures. So we need physical aids for spiritual activities. Fasting is good for training your body to go with your spirit. It helps you get your body out of the way so you can be more direct with God. Your body’s pains and grumbles can provide good places to learn to trust and rely on more than what you can get for yourself. In an overfed society, fasting might be crucial for hearing God!

There are many ways to fast and I hope a few of you will tell us how you have fasted in a few minutes. But for the sake of this teaching, I am thinking of fasting as going without food, like Jesus did that time he fasted for forty days in the desert before he began his miracle-working ministry. There are many goals and results of fasting, but I would like to underscore one — how it develops burning patience. I think fasting helps develop:

The character to face failure and difficulty but never lose hope in what can be and ought to be.
The courage to face evil and experience scorn but never lose faith and continue to work out that faith through love.
The ability to see a vision and persevere after it your whole life.

We need that burning patience.

Psalm 69 provides a good outline

I think Psalm 69 demonstrates the heart and struggle of fasting pretty well. So I decided to offer that to you for further study. I hate to dump a lot of Bible on you, since some of you may not have too much experience with it. But see how much God gives you through it.

In Psalm 69, the great King of Israel, David, is in the middle of his splendid city, Jerusalem and imagining where God might take everyone. He is consumed with the worship of God in the great temple, God’s house, in the middle of the splendid city, the capital city of God’s people. I think he represents a faster who has this burning patience I’m talking about. So maybe he will help you grow throughout Lent.

Some of you think fasting is advanced spirituality. I say Jesus thinks it is basic. Some of you think it is an imposition from some legalistic religion of the past that should be discarded; I say it is an important way to let God in and to keep you from taking over God’s place. If you’re skeptical and don’t know where to start, maybe you can explore feeling and acting like David, see and see what happens. See if your awareness of yourself is heightened, your connection with God is deepened and a character of burning patience is acquired.

Opening up to hope

David starts Ps. 69 in distress. This is the classic reason people fast. They are in need and they are clearing the decks of anything else but asking God to meet their need. Fasting is for focusing on God. There is lots of burning here:

You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you.
May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me,
O Lord, the LORD Almighty; may those who seek you
not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.
For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.

David is a sensitive man. He is sensitive to his own sin and sensitive to how others sin against him. He can’t shrug off the insults he feels hurled at himself and he seems to feel at least equally bad about the scorn heaped on God.

These are always good reasons to fast: I want to deal with my guilt. I want to gain strength so I don’t disgrace God. I want to prove my faith by enduring scorn – which people might do if you fast. What do you do when you are feeling terrible? I’ve been known to eat a half-gallon of ice cream or ingest something stronger, but it did not fix me up.

When we give up something, in this case I’m thinking food in some way, we open up an empty space. In that space we keep running into what reminds us to focus on God and pray. Some people could go without food for days. Some people need to focus on one meal. Bodies are different. The point of it is to open up some empty space for God to fill. The point is to experience the fullness of our discomfort to be comforted by God. The point is to add force to an eager prayer by getting normal activities out of the way.

When we fast we are practicing a patience that is not passive. Like a dancer practices a move over and over until her body can express what’s in the music, we are training our lives to express what is of the Spirit of God. Like any artist knows, that hope for the fullness we seek is generally a passion only partially fulfilled in our lifetimes – it runs on a vision, on a dream, on a revelation.

I often give up sweets for lent because I am a sweetaholic. It not only makes my body feel better, it makes me remember that not only do some people never have a sweet, but Jesus tasted death for me, which was anything but sweet. I hope my suffering will result in something better, too.

Opening to faith prevailing in love

David displays a heart of zeal. This is another reason people fast. It is a creative act. It is getting zealous, or getting into it, or getting determined. You really want God to act, you need direction, you want power to serve in some way, you are looking for miracles. So you fast. David says:

I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons;
for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;
when I put on sackcloth (Or when I wear an ash cross on my forehead on the bus after Ash Wednesday), people make sport of me.
Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards.

David wants God’s temple in Jerusalem to truly be the spiritual heart beat of the nation. He wants people to get it and they don’t — but he wants them to and he is not giving up. He is wasting away praying for it and acting out his faith.

These are always good reasons to fast: I am consumed with relating to God. Something needs to change. I must find out what is true or whether I am the nut case people say I am. James starts his letter with this:

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Fasting is welcoming the trial. It is deliberately entering into something you must persevere, maybe like a spiritual joust or a marathon.

In this sense, I think fasting can be more about taking on than putting off. The point is to make a concerted effort to get yourself in a position to gain some strength, to make a change, to become something new, to get a new skill, to focus on the future.

I was telling my cell that this lent I am determined to cordon off more time to pray and study. I have been so busy the past year, that I feel hungry, and a little resistance to meeting my need has cropped up. I need to act on something before I get used to being hungry. So I am taking on a new schedule – at least I am trying.

Opening up to vision

Finally, I want to point out how David is fasting and praying in such a way that he is including himself in the big picture of how God is changing the world. He wants to see God’s salvation for himself. He’s praying against the forces that he calls: the mire, the deep waters, the bitterness of gall and vinegar.

But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor;
in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.
Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink;
deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. …
Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless;
I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.
They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.

Let’s pause a second and remember that that last line is just what happened to Jesus.

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. — John 19:28-30

David was looking for that sure salvation. He was swimming in water a lot deeper than he even knew! He got himself right in with God’s plans for saving whoever would listen to him and love him.

This psalm is highly personal, but nothing about relating to God is ever just private. God is the creator of all and the redeemer of all — if you get involved with him, you get involved with everything. We experience the impact of everyone’s sin when we pray. When we pray we are facing down the powers that threaten to drown us. So these few lines are an amazing, prophetic vision of Jesus — in whom all of David’s hopes and fears met.

I looked for comforters, but I found none.
Three days later Jesus rises from the dead.
50 days later, the promised comforter comes.
2000 years later God’s coming to us.

We fast as an aid to our praying because it clarifies our vision of what God’s all about and what God’s doing. We get gummed up. Our spiritual car goes through winter and desperately needs to go to the spiritual car wash so we can remember what it looks like. It even seems to run better when it is clean. I feel different in it. The world looks different. We are like that, fasting cleans us, maybe puts on a new coat of wax, encourages us to drive into the future.

When you fast …

Now I’m not talking about if you fast. I’m talking about when you fast. I am not trying to sell you on fasting, like someone should be begging you to be good, or be something.

I know 90% of you do this or are interested in this practice. And 50% of the 10% left who aren’t interested is yearning for you to be interested, because you are either threatened by mire or you know that this is the time of God’s favor, like the rest of us. You are looking for his sure salvation.

I know you all are fueled by that kind of vision or you would not fund our mission, give so much of your time to our common life and cause, you would not go to such great lengths to love each other and form a place where people can see God reign, you would not be such energetic worshipers and learners. You are not even close to the dead churches that have killed off so much faith in this town, you are the antidote. God bless you.

So I am just trying to add fuel to your fire so we are full of this burning patience. We are not meant to be apathetic, defeated, ambivalent people. We are meant to keep changing and changing things for the better. If they don’t get better right now we are going to keep at it until our time is up. Whenever you fast, and if we fast this season of lent,

God will meet us in our distress – go be with him,
God will affirm our zeal – don’t shrink back, and
God will transform us and those around us and even the powers that be will be moved around and reformed – enter the big picture.

Do you have anything more to share with us about what has happened with you when you made that empty space of God by fasting? Any more tips?

Patience: The lost virtue our relationships need

August 7, 2023A life in the Spirit, Marriage and Family, Spiritual directionAlan Kreider, Origen of Alexandria, patience, Teresa of AvilaRod White

“Patience attains all that it strives for.” At least that is what the saint says. The prayer, “Nada te Turbe” was found in Teresa of Avila’s breviary, written in her own hand. Since the 16^th century her private words have consoled countless numbers of people, including me. I even put it to music for the church to sing (before I discovered several other versions).

Gm
Nada te turbe,
Let nothing disturb you;
D
Nada te espante,
Let nothing dismay you;
Gm F
Todo se pasa.
All things pass:
F
Dios no se muda.
God never changes.
F
La paciencia
Patience attains
F Bb
Todo lo alcanza.
All that it strives for.
Eb
Quien a Dios tiene
The one who has God
D
Nada le falta.
Lacks for nothing:
Gm Dm Cm D
Sólo Dios basta.
God alone suffices.

Teresa is credited with reviving Catholicism in the 1560’s and 70’s when Protestantism threatened to bring down the church. Her most significant contribution was founding the Reformed Discalced (Barefoot) Carmelite Convent of San Jose, a more radical version of the Carmelites. At the time of her death in 1582 she had started seventeen further houses, in Spain.

Teresa is best known today as one of the great Catholic mystics, which means she recounted her personal experiences with God. She described her raptures in several books. Among the most widely read works is her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus (1611).

Teresa of Avila may have been the last proponent of the virtue of patience. Around the time she founded the Discalced Carmelites to restore basic, early church Christianity, the Catholic Church was breaking up. Spain was conquering South and Central America. Europeans were colonizing the world. Spain was in constant war to secure Charles V’s royal claims. Copernicus revealed the earth orbited the sun. Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. Henry the VIII murdered his wives and founded the Anglican Church. Cervantes wrote El Cid. John Calvin wrote The Institutes. Shakespeare and John Donne wrote their early works. Nostradamus published his prophecies. It was a wild time. Flush toilets, the spinning wheel, the pocket watch, the graphite pencil were all introduced.

Yet Teresa still disciplined herself to be patient, like her examples from the Early Church, reciting her prayer. She might have been the last leader on the continent to believe “God suffices” as the Europeans rushed into the modern world and the Americans soon invented a country (for the first time) to represent all that was new. I’m not sure most Americans would consider patience to be an important character trait, would you? — even though my mother used to mockingly chide me when I was tired of waiting with, “Patience is a virtue,” unwittingly channeling Piers Plowman from 1360 (Passus II, 383).

Patience, the lost virtue

Patience may be the lost virtue Christians, in particular, need to rediscover. I think many of us might see it as a bit out of date, now that we are accustomed to complaining if Amazon is a day late, or the line at the drive through is taking too long. A person lamented yesterday that their arrival at their appointment was thwarted for ten minutes by the Schuylkill. They were very frustrated. We have things timed down to the minute.

A book I have been reading, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, has reminded me the Bible writers and the earliest Christians considered patience to be a central trait of authentic Christianity. I want to leave you with a bit of their wisdom so you can follow their fruitful lead.

Origen of Alexandria (died around 253) quoted Romans 5:3-4 this way, “Tribulation produces patience, indeed patience produces assent to belief, and assent to belief produces hope.”
The KJV translates it: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.”
My favorite, the NRSV says, “And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
I think the VOICE amplified translation sums it up well. “And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness.”

You’ll notice that the word for patience is often translated “endurance” or “perseverance.” It is an active idea, not passive. It is not just waiting for your birthday to come without too much complaining. It is a discipline exercised by people who want to develop. It is a strategy for demonstrating glory. Patience takes intention and effort. It is a way of seeing and acting. Patience is not swallowing your resentment when it takes a while for your kids to put on their shoes. It is not just standing in line at the store behind a less-than-able shopper without groaning or looking around for another line with panic.

As you can see from the constellation of translations, patience is an outlook that results in a way of life. Patience is trusting God in the middle of everything, especially when you suffer. For the early church, patience was sticking with Jesus when the world was sticking it to them. They were not like the Stoics who endured by tamping down emotions and developing personal resilience, even seeking imperviousness. It was quite the opposite. Christian patience is opening up to the Spirit of God incarnate in our hearts and behavior. The eternal lens and heartfelt trust of the early church was central to their endurance. Patience is knowing everything works for good to them who love God.

The early church’s premier virtue

Few writings from the first 300 years of the church are about a “topic.” They are mostly stories or compilations of teachings. But Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian and Lactantius all wrote about patience. The early church did not produce writings about evangelism, at least as most modern people think about it: verbal persuasion and radical changes of allegiance. But they did write about patience, which changed them and changed their world. Their way of patience made the first Christians a distinct and attractive alternative to the brutal Roman world.

I was happy to discover Kreider’s book when I was listening to several couples trying to work out the tribulation of their power struggle. Many marriages, not to mention churches and other institutions, went through a lot of trouble during the pandemic. We are all still sorting things out. For many people, the trouble in the world became trouble in their relationships. It is terrible how often general trouble gets translated into blaming the people close to us: “If I have trouble, it must be you.”

The early church helped each other learn patience and didn’t turn on each other; they turned their behavior out into the world. Their way of life was salt and light. St Perpetua (martyred around 203) caused many conversions the day she refused to grovel in the arena, begging for mercy, but stood still and dignified, patiently trusting God for her future. If my lens developed a character like hers, I could at least endure the development of my mate (or myself) and give some time and space for our relationship to grow before I hardened my heart, cut them off, or found something better.

I hope you are getting the idea of how the virtue of patience is foundational to enduring as a Jesus follower and making a difference in our relationships and culture. Here are a few final characteristics that sum up how the Bible writers and early church teach about patience:

God is patient. She is walking with you and working for your best right now.
Jesus demonstrates God’s patience. Origen calls him “Patience itself.” He highlights how to trust in oneself and in miracle at the same time, in real time.
Patient people don’t just manipulate outcomes; they can take risks in trust and not worry what they can’t control is as urgent as it seems.
Patience is not hurried; it accepts incompleteness and can wait.
Patient behavior inevitably undermines the world’s common sense.
Trusting in patience to change lives is the opposite of relying on violence and retaliating. It is innately uncoercive.
Patience is hopeful, confident in God. As Teresa noted, God alone suffices.

Most families are good laboratories for learning patience. Churches should be a good place for learning it, too. They are the main places we learn to forebear in love, or don’t. In a marriage we have a daily opportunity to develop a way of living together that hopes more in God’s blessing than in the immediate satisfaction of our desires. As one of my clients said the other day, in marriage we learn to act out love rather than wait for love to make us feel like connecting. Patience opens up our families to God’s presence and relaxes the stranglehold of our disappointment and longing. Patience let’s things grow, and delights in nurturing what God is growing up in our loved one — that wonder, that creation, that future resurrected being.

How would you define a know-it-all?

9 reasons I am a know-it-all

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Compliments can trigger joy instead of anxiety

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Poor Somalia

The Somalia of the Soul

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President Garfield

Nancy Abrams

Ray Anderson

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Base emotions

Dialogue about emotion is broad

The constructionist view and God

I may lose the emotion wheels

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Are you monitoring your anxiety?

Do we all have a report due?

It is always time for development

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No, Yes, Maybe

Discerning with Jesus

I think the first answer we can find is “No.” “Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “No.”

I think the second answer we can find is “Yes.” “Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Yes.”

A third answer may be more prominent than Yes or No and that may be just as Jesus prefers. “Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Maybe.”

Rely on the fish

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Normal vs. spiritual life?

I don’t have time?

Use the time you have.

Discipline your time

Be incremental. Accrue

Read meditatively.

Get direction

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Why fast?

When you fast…

Psalm 69 provides a good outline

Opening up to hope

Opening to faith prevailing in love

Opening up to vision

When you fast …

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Patience, the lost virtue

The early church’s premier virtue

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I think the first answer we can find is “No.”
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “No.”

I think the second answer we can find is “Yes.”
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Yes.”

A third answer may be more prominent than Yes or No and that may be just as Jesus prefers.
“Should I pay taxes?” Jesus says, “Maybe.”