All posts by Rod White

The ego: We need it, but not as much as we think

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

When I rediscovered my Goodreads pages the other day, I immediately added my favorite book from last year: The Master and His Emmissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009). In the last twenty years, brain science has greatly increased our appreciation for how our most important organ functions. It has also “discovered” that science, itself, has perpetrated the wrong impression of which side of the brain is the master.

Jill Boite Taylor

The Eurocentric countries, like the U.S., have given their allegiance to the functions of the brain’s left hemisphere, and dismissed the right  — that’s a problem. This was illustrated colorfully in Jill Taylor’s book, also from 2009, called My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. Taylor is a Ted Talk expert on the human brain who woke up one morning having a stroke. By the end of the morning the left hemisphere of her brain was totally “offline,” as she puts it. She had no sense of personal identity; she couldn’t recognize her own mother, speak or understand speech, remember the most recent moment of her life, make and carry out a three-step plan, walk, or feed herself, among many other things we take for granted. We know that she eventually recovered those left-brain functions because she wrote the book.

That was fourteen years ago. Since then, the world has become more aware of the functions of the brain hemispheres. But such awareness seems to have made little difference in society or in most of my psychotherapy clients. Do you think it has? Many of us know the brain’s left hemisphere is more logical, rational, linear, and rule-oriented; it’s the problem-solver, enabling us to build buildings, fix the plumbing, pay the bills, stay on schedule, negotiate our social encounters, and speak and understand others’ speech. Many of us have become much more aware that right side of the brain is metaphorical, creative, intuitive, nonverbal, and emotional – which are all things that are unclear, hard to define and measure, and hard to see as important. According to McGilchrist, the left brain finds the right brain wanting because of its imprecision and immeasurability; it is too “spiritual.”

Dr. Taylor saw much of the world through the lens of the left brain before her stroke and was transformed when she lost the use of it. Her empathy was no longer boundaried and she experienced others’ emotions directly, unmediated by rational or “egomental” thought. She felt, wordlessly, whether the person with her liked her or didn’t, cared about her or didn’t, was angry or happy or sad, was at peace or in pain. She was, in effect, involuntarily connected without boundaries to all other people, and to the movements of the Earth. She felt “at one with the source and flow of the universe.”  What’s more, when in solitude she was at peace. Without the baggage of memory, ego, or worry about the future, she was free to experience the inherent wonder of the moment.

To deepen spiritual awareness

Everything Taylor experienced sounds like the fruit of the Spirit to me (see what Paul’s amounts to Paul’s takedown of left-brain domination here). Christians feel the movements of their spiritual awareness, mostly resident in their right brains, as ecstasy, as union with God and creation. We learn to contemplate so we can get to the place Taylor’s stroke caused her to access. Western culture has kept people so locked down, they gravitate towards drugs, my beloved Pentecostalism, political rallies and concerts to experience the basic sensibility pre-Enlightenment people took for granted. I have heard countless sermons about how terrible our “big egos” are and how we must crucify our fleshly self to gain heaven – and ecstasy, peace.

The left side of the brain is considered the seat of the ego, which uses left-brain functions to help us know ourselves and live in the material world. When David Benner describes the ego in Soulful Spirituality: Becomng Fully Alive and Deeply Human (2011), he essentially sees it as synonymous with the left brain.

The ego includes all those mental functions that allow us to perceive, organize, elaborate, differentiate, integrate, and transform experience. Ego is a fundamental psychic structure that secures our reality testing, good judgment, impulse control defensive functions, affective regulation, interpersonal relations, moral orientation, thought process, and much more.

We don’t want to get rid of the ego, all that preaching notwithstanding. We just don’t want it to run the whole show. It is the “emissary” to McGilchrist’s right-brain “master.”

The left brain gives us our capacity to see ourselves as someone. But given that great power, it can function as if it makes us someone. And so it might see itself as needing to save us. We need to be self-aware and self-confident but we dare not become self-sufficient or self-serving.

The right brain gives us our capacity to see ourselves in right relationship. It allows us to live on an appropriately large plain: in touch with heaven and earth, the depth of ourselves and eternity. When the right and left brain are in touch with heaven and earth, we are being saved when we are saving, being found when we are finding. As Jesus says: the one who asks receives, who seeks find, the one who knocks experiences an open door. I think our spiritual awareness transcends brain function but is firmly rooted in it. That is the main reason I want to keep understanding the integration of psychology and Christianity.

Quiet your ego

I keep talking about right and left brain and the domination of our egos. I obviously find it important to understand why we feel so locked into the fears that cause us to flee or freeze or fight, and why we are so committed to the defenses we throw up to protect our fragile egos. Why are truckers blockading Ottawa and using their children as shields? Why are we piling armaments and troops into Ukraine? Why do I continue to dwarf my loves as if I were still ten years old? Why do I keep fighting for my rights with my spouse as if it is life or death situation?

All these terrible things could have many causes, but one we rarely consider is the fact we think reality fits within the limits of the left brain. If we all had a stroke, life would look a lot different. Most of us would die from a stroke like Taylor’s, not make a Ted Talk out of it! So we are unlikely to experience that shortcut to wholeness. Instead, we will have to make our way through a lifetime of challenging choices to quiet our egos. When we first become aware we have been trapped in a locked, egocentric room, leaving it might feel like we are losing our minds.

Again, Benner says:

The pathway to the transformation of not only our egocentricity but our very self is the path of surrender. We must be willing to lay down that which we were previously willing to die to defend. But this surrender of egocentricity is not the same as the elimination of the ego.

We need our ego to be fully human and to become spiritually whole. But we all need to surrender egocentricity, which is not so easy in a society that presumes it.

One of the best results of this terrible pandemic we have endured is so many people deserting their left-brain-dominated pursuits: jobs just for money, obligations that thwart personal desires to appease “the man,” seeing oneself as trapped, letting a feeling of scarcity cause one to overprotect, using the world up rather than protecting it, and more. The long, existential crisis has caused necessary spiritual crises. Left-brained egocentricity has been shown up as inadequate for many people. What appeared to be saving our lives has, in many cases, been shown to be what is destroying it.

Right now, people are crying out against mask mandates so we can all get back to normal. The left brain wants equilibrium. It is the seat of justice. It tends to blame factors outside itself (since it is limited) — outside factors like its counterpart, the right brain, even! But enough of us are seeing, I hope, I hope, that how society is organized and how we have organized ourselves and our spirituality is the main cause of our distress.

Our all-out attempts to preserve our egocentricity is the problem. Be it an inflated ego or a broken one, whether the song is “Slay me, Lord” or “Build me up,” any sense that the ego must save us must be lost so we can find our full life. Like we keep repeating when we share the memory of the Lord’s great grace: our lives emerge out of death. In order to live, I must lose what appears to be my life, lose the truncated view of my left brain and my allegiance to the society that traps me in it.

I spend a lot of therapy time massaging the hardened traumas that lock up our memories, reforming the hard words that have shamed us, unraveling the dark masses of unexplored pain that demand to be protected from further harm. Often, fragile egos become strong enough to surrender their dominance and a person experiences the wonder of feeling joy in the wide open spaces of their true, whole selves. I wish that freedom for all of us as we get back to a new normal.

FFF #20: My first set of climate action posts.

Climate
Climate strike Philly
Climate Strike Philly — WHYY pic

I committed myself to twenty posts in solidarity with Greta Thunberg and her climate strike movement among high school students (and others). Here is #20. I suspect I will be back with 20 more, someday, since there is much to learn and share in this dire time.

For now, I invite you to check in on what you may have missed. The two entries with an asterisk are the most read, so far, in case you are curious what others find interesting.  The entry on Phoenix, in particular, received about five times as much interest as one of my weekly posts.

If you care about climate action, I am with you. It is going to be hard to sustain our efforts when the powers are preoccupied with fighting and fiddling as the Earth burns — they are often in the way. Our experience of community is so weak these days solidarity is hard to find — the pandemic accelerated the development of societal trends and technologies that were already isolating us. But good things are happening, too and people are joining together to make a difference. Even if we fail at keeping under the limits of disaster, I want to fail doing the good I can, don’t you?

Write your own psalm: Another integrative way to pray

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual direction, , , , ,
Matthew Birch on Dribble

An effective way to develop, if you are able to write, is to write. Writing is another integrative activity that helps us deepen psychologically and spiritually. It takes strength and mind to pick up a writing utensil or sit down at the keyboard and express ourselves. If turned the right direction, writing expresses heart and soul in a way that makes our feelings and our spiritual experiences more tangible and more connective. If you are interested in loving the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then it makes sense to take out the headphones or put down the remote and write.

I know that last line sounds accusatory, so please forgive me if you must. But we have to acknowledge that what used to be simple is getting harder for lack of use. It feels hard, even weird, to write. Writers write and we consume their product. But we don’t write back. Someone told me last week that their family member wouldn’t even text back to a family group text! — writing is too something for them. Our capacity is being reduced by the technologies we use and the slave masters behind them. So writing has become an exercise in nonconformity or rebellion — if we aren’t too dulled or afraid to do it.

I suppose I am innately rebellious, but I mostly use writing to keep open to God. For me, writing is about opening things up, exploring things, revealing things, and receiving things of the Spirit. Receiving things is what I mainly want to talk about today. I was reading Teresa Blythe’s very practical book 50 Ways to Pray and she started by suggesting we use writing to pray. Other Jesus followers have written wonderful things, the New Testament being primary, and you could exercise the same Spirit and intention those writers exercised by writing yourself! Let’s try that.

Create your own psalm

One of the ways Blythe suggested praying was to write your own psalm. She offered an exercise to help us create one. This appealed to me because I have been writing pslams, with my dear wife, for many years. Most Sundays we get up and write a psalm. Then we share it with each other and pray together. If I am not with her for some reason, I do it anyway. It is a good way for me to pray. There is so much heart, soul, mind and strength involved in that loving, open receptive act! I would have a terrible time parting with the discipline.

This past week I was reflecting on songs that had moved me and sustained me in my grieving. I wrote this final stanza to my psalm:

I thank you that Spring
will be right on time again,
and though my sprouts
will never be the same,
they will, in time, sprout again.
Parents, grandparents,
and so many have died,
my past is gone
and soon go will I.
Maybe they are waiting,
I will then know, in the place
where the lost things go.

When I feel a bit lost,
lose things, lose thoughts,
I delight in your touch.
A whiff of music scents my soul
And pulls my attention
like Spring in the air.
I turn into it expectantly
and meet you there.

My psalm is not high art, even after I have fixed it up a little from my original.  I never meant to show it to you, anyway. Most psalms are not written for public use; they are a way to connect with God, a way to open up, to use some strength on behalf of what’s happening inside, to get it out, to get it heard. Writing a psalm is much more like your baby or your dog, for that matter, making sure you know it is time for dinner than it is about doing good art. It’s following an urge. Besides, God’s great art is you. When we function spirit to Spirit with him, she sees a piece of art in action. A beautiful rendition of your best is frosting, but everything you do with heart, soul, mind, and strength is cake.

My wife can write a nice psalm that reflects the basic structure of the Bible psalms, which tend to repeat thoughts rather than sounds to make a lyric. Lots of people have written about how they work. Here’s a little article.  Robert Alter wrote his great work on the Psalms; I have poured over it to good end. Walter Brueggemann wrote one of my favorite books about how the Bible psalms work. But Teresa Blythe is not suggesting a prayer pursuit that feels like what scholars do. She just wants us to practice getting our heart and soul through the blockade of our minds and expressed with our strength. Writing a psalm is good practice for a life full of that love. She says “It doesn’t matter whether you think of yourself as a writer or not. This is heartfelt communication, not an exercise in pretty writing.”

The Bible’s collection of Psalms reflects the thoughts of the collectors at the time. There were undoubtedly more psalms and there is demonstrably more poetry in the Bible that might qualify as a psalm. All of it can serve as inspiration for your psalm, if you need some. Blythe made a list of psalms you can go to if you feel a certain way and want to express it,  or need to be seen as feeling  a certain way and are looking for a response. Of course, no psalm was written topically, like “I am going to write a psalm about joy.” They are all pretty organic, not abstract. But many are well known for the parts of them that always resonate. I edited Blythe’s list a bit for you:

I feel or want this positive experience. “I’m happy.”

  • Joy – 11, 18, 23, 27, 33, 84, 87, 103, 112, 122, 150
  • Peace, — 23, 63, 103
  • Love – 33, 62, 99, 103, 104, 139, 145
  • Gratitude – 30, 32 65, 75, 77, 103, 118, 136

I feel or want relief from this negative experience. “I’m needy.”

  • Fear – 86, 130, 131
  • Anger – 55, 58, 94
  • Threatened – 17, 26, 35, 69, 141
  • Distressed – 29, 42, 44, 71, 88, 109, 113
  • Sick – 22, 37, 72
  • Uncertain – 25, 37, 72
  • Oppressed – 26, 52, 114
  • Guilty – 39, 51

You could take one of these Psalms and use it as a form for yours. It may have been based on something else, itself! You could re-write it in your own words and tilt it towards your own purpose. I’ve done this many times and it is always a good exercise – as long as it doesn’t turn into to a poem critique like in English class! Using a well-known psalm as a base is a good way for me not to worry about form and content and let a person guide me to my own expression.

You could sit back and let your greatest desire, feeling or conundrum (as of today) rise up and come into focus and then write a psalm that expresses it.

  • I want to feel_____.
  • I want help with ________.
  • I think of myself as (ungrateful, over-certain, flawed, etc.).
  • I appreciate this about my relationship with God
  • I am puzzled or distressed about this in my relationship with God.

Those are just suggestions. Let it flow and see where you end up. God is with you as you use your strength to be with God.

David Composing the Psalms, Paris Psalter, 10th century

When you are done you could put your psalm in your drawer or notebook for future reference. You might pass this way again! You may not want your stuff laying around, so you might not keep it at all. Maybe you want to share your psalm – but that is hardly required. Think of all the people who wrote psalms, just like King David (St. Patrick, too), sitting out on a rock with the sheep, and never got one of them into the Bible or a blog post! They were just doing it.

The main challenge with any kind of development, is to overcome our resistance and do something. When we get out of ourselves and enter the space between us and God, the Lord meets us in many ways. As simple an act as writing a psalm — getting the feeling and thought out of our hearts and minds and onto the paper, is one of many ways to move into the space between. It is a good way to pray. Give it a try!

FFF #19 — Do you live in a C40 city? I do.

Climate, , , , , , , , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. 

Philadelphia has been a C40 city since 2005. That means my city helped create what many people call the leading edge of climate action: the mayors of large cities. My friend, Chris Puchalsky went to Copenhagen in 2019 for a C40 summit with Mayor Kenney and shared his inspiration with WHYY.

I did not know I lived in a C40 city until I was wandering around city government, exploring what it is doing to take climate action and adding my voice to spur the government on. Turns out Philly has an even bigger government than I thought — even goes global! It does a lot and it gets clogged up a lot. One thing I did not know I give to you, in case you didn’t: we’re C40, Philly people. How about the rest of you?

The C40 cities are deploying a “science-based and collaborative approach to help the world limit global heating to 1.5°C and build healthy, equitable and resilient communities.” In 2006 the Mayors of the C20 invited 22 further mayors, including many from the Global South and became the C40. The name has stuck, even though now the number of member cities is closing in on 100.

The Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative was also put into action in 2006 and was an important partner for the Mayors at that point. In 2011, C40 Chair Michael Bloomberg (remember that presidential candidate?) initiated the merger of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s Cities Program with C40. Bloomberg Philanthropies supplied enough funds at that point to make C40 a major climate action organization (choose your chairs wisely!).

C40 member cities earn their membership through action instead of membership fees. Their Leadership Standards set the minimum requirements for all members and ensure the integrity of C40 as a network of climate leaders. That sounds like Jesus telling people his disciples are known by their fruit, right?

Garcetti in Copenhagen

What are C40 Cities doing now?

C40 played an important role at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) last year. There, Chair Eric Garcetti from Los Angeles passed the baton to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. They also announced that more than 1,000 city and local governments around the world have joined Cities Race to Zero. What’s more, they presented a report from the C40 Cities and Mayors Migration Council  which deployed a Task Force on Climate and Migration. This warmed my heart, since I got a close-up view of the environmentally-disastrous border wall the U.S. put up on a shocking amount of its Mexican border last year and heard about climate refugees being refused entry.

Part of Eric Garcetti’s work as Chair was to partner with Mayor Gong Zheng of Shanghai to begin building a green shipping corridor between two of the busiest ports in the world. The port businesses and other C40 cities will work with industry partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the movement of cargo throughout the 2020s, including a goal to transition to zero-carbon fueled ships by 2030. I drove my VW around most of LA in high school, and it warms my heart to see LA’s mayor subverting the snail-paced national governments

Here are the key decarbonization goals for the corridor, so far:

  • Phase in low, ultra-low, and zero-carbon fueled ships through the 2020s, with the world’s first zero-carbon trans-Pacific container ships introduced by 2030.
  • Develop best management practices to help reduce emissions and improve efficiency for all ships using this corridor.
  • Reduce supply chain emissions from port operations, improving air quality in the ports of Shanghai and Los Angeles and adjacent communities.

A major player in Garcetti’s initiative was the Aspen Institute (for the history of the institute, which is enlightening, here’s the Wiki). Aspen Institute created a collaborative called Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels (coZEV).  This platform facilitates action to speed up the decarbonization of maritime shipping and encouraged the C40 to get onboard. The collaborative is a specific application of their Shipping Decarbonization Initiative (SDI).

I did not know most of this stuff until I bumped into it. Now, when I talk to the PEA (Philadelphia Energy Authority), where all my research started, I might sound like I’ve been trying, at least, to pay attention. My city is involved in important steps to save the planet. Things might not work that well, but there is work being done.

“How I Got Over:” Mahalia Jackson helps us do the new

A life in the Spirit, Music, Spiritual direction, , , , , ,

Singing is one of the most integrative activities we can do. It uses heart, soul, mind and strength to express our desire and open us to receive good things from God and others. When we sing in a group (and we will again, some day) it is often a unitive experience. So let’s sing with Mahalia Jackson . I think she can help with 2022.

When Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 in the category of “Early Influences,” even their watered-down bio said her “voice hit audiences with the force of a hurricane.” That hurricane did not just emanate from her birthplace of New Orleans, it came from God and her own suffering. The opposite of a storm that knocks down, Mahalia is a storm that lifts up.

As such a faithful and troubled woman she is a great guide to yet another troubled year. Trouble and faith go together. We are all suffering the pandemic and the uncertainty of our politics. And Black people, in particular, are still suffering the burden of needing to “get over,” as institutions highlight their struggle and this week the media reports the instant barrage of defamation hurled at any prospective Black, woman Supreme Court justice.

Mahalia Jackson performing How I Got Over in the March for Jobs and Freedom on Washington DC.

When I remembered Mahalia Jackson last week on her death day (January 27) [song link], I was once again moved by her iconic rendition of “How I Got Over.” She most famously sang this song [song link] after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington in 1963. And she’s been singing it in my head and heart since last Thursday, which I greatly appreciate.

She wanted her music to be for everyone. She told a reporter, “I have hopes that my singing will break down some of the hate and fear that divide the white and Black people in this country.” That’s a work for Jesus. People try to do it without Him, but they rarely get very far. Jackson took songs other people just sang and she filled them with spirit and The Spirit in a way that made them a force for good, and a force for change. When I listen to her, even now, after she’s been dead for fifty years, she changes me. She does me good.

A transformation meditation

That experience of transformation is why I wanted to remind you of her today and give us all a chance to lodge her song “How I Got Over” into some sturdy place in our memories. We can come back to places where we have met God again and again. Those places comfort our troubled souls; they give us a place to stand when we are under attack; and they create a solid place from which to launch into whatever will require our courage and passion. This song is such a place for me, maybe it will be for you, too.

Here are some annotated lyrics. My idea is to expand what the lyrics could mean for us and lead us into meditation as we face what we will face today. I think Mahalia Jackson intends to lead us through our deep struggle into a place where we give thanks. Just like she got over and is getting over, she wants us to  “get over” into our re-birthplace in Jesus. Let’s use the song for all it is worth.

How I got over
How did I make it over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
How I made it over
Going on over all these years
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

I don’t speak Jackson’s vernacular or sing well in her musical style. So what? I don’t think she cares, and neither should I. She is turning my heart toward wonder. That’s what she cares about and so should I. All day I am tempted to attend to the forces and voices that put me under their malign control; this song is about turning away from those powers and seeing what is good. The question is, “How did all this life happen and how does it keep happening? How did all this good happen? How did the Lord bring me to this place where I would be meditating on this song and looking for meaning and hope?” It is a wonder.

Tell me how we got over Lord
Had a mighty hard time coming on over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did we make it over
Tell me how we got over Lord
I’ve been falling and rising all these years
But you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

When Jackson turns the subject to “we,” I think she is first referring to the Black struggle which she felt as an abandoned child in the Jim Crow South of her youth and then felt in new ways after she joined the “great migration” to Chicago where she struggled to survive. She’s singing about the terror of facing down white supremacy and the capricious violence of the United States as the Civil Rights movement progressed. “How did we get here telling our story on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial among all these politicians and movie stars? How did we stay so resilient and faithful though all our struggle, all our falling and rising?” It is a wonder.

It is a rich stanza full of Bible imagery. Jesus is falling and rising as we observe the stations of the cross on our way to our own death and rising with him. In like manner, the song alludes to the promise we will “get over” the Jordan River and into the promised land. Jesus is baptized into, identifies with, our sin and death in the Jordan. Like the Israelites passed over on dry land, we follow Jesus through death into life, a death now made impermanent by his gracious work. “How did we make it over?” Only by the Lord’s grace. It is a wonder.

So Mahalia unveils the wonder and invites us into it.

But, soon as I can see Jesus
The man that died for me
Man that bled and suffered
And he hung on Calvary

And I want to thank him for how he brought me
And I want to thank God for how he taught me
Oh thank my God how he kept me
I’m gonna thank him ’cause he never left me
Then I’m gonna thank God for  old time religion
And I’m gonna thank God for giving me a vision
One day, I’m gonna join the heavenly choir
I’m gonna sing and never get tired

We can use a song like we use an icon. It gives us a musical vision of Jesus and we experience that connection heart, soul, mind and strength. It is worth singing this song with Ms. Jackson enough times to feel it more than think it, sink into it and sense all the nuances and even beyond them — “Jesus brought me to this place, taught me, kept me, never left me.”

When she thanks God for “old time religion” it is not just religion that used to be popular but isn’t; I think she means the Spirit-filled experience that transcends time and culture. We are one with the first disciples of Jesus. Being in God’s presence gives us a vision beyond the boundaries of our humanity. As a result, we can let loose our innate imagination and  be part of the choir of all beings who see the face of God, however dimly, in this darkness. Let your tiredness lift as you tell it all to Jesus who walked with us and on our behalf in history and walks with us now.

Meditation that leads to connection is good for whatever ails us in this hard time! Sister Mahalia has led us to the altar, now she calls us to worship

And then I’m gonna sing somewhere ’round God altar
And I’m gonna shout all my trouble over
You know I’ve gotta thank God and thank him for being
So good to me, Lord yeah
How I made it over Lord
I had to cry in the midnight hour coming on over
But you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

Tell me how I made it over Lord God Lord
Falling and rising all these years
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over

We are joining with the huge crowd John sees gathering from the four corner of the earth in the age to come.  From that place, we are looking back on all the trouble that is now over, all that crying in the midnight hour we had to endure. Looking back on what we’ve already gone through creates wonder — if we celebrate how we are alive and don’t fixate on how we’ve been dying. Try it. Maybe you can start a vision history in your “wonder journal.”

The Bible has a lot to say about the “midnight hour.” The first born are killed in Egypt before the slaves are set free at midnight. Paul and Silas are singing hymns to God in prison about midnight before they are miraculously released. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a great sermon about “A  Knock at Midnight.”  Through the vulnerable moments, sleepless, anxious moments, tell me Lord, “How did I make it? How can I believe I will make it right now when I still feel scared and ashamed, and when I am still threatened and scorned? But I do believe. Help me where I don’t.”

Mahalia puts on her new self like she belongs at the coronation.

I’m gonna wear a diadem
In that new Jerusalem
I’m gonna walk the streets of gold
It’s in that homeland of the soul
I’m gonna view the host in white
They’ve been traveling day and night
Coming up from every nation
They’re on their way to the great Coronation

Coming from the north, south, east, and west
They’re on their way to a land of rest
And then they’re gonna join the heavenly choir
You know we’re gonna sing and never get tired
And then we’re gonna sing somewhere ’round God altar
And then we’re gonna shout all our troubles over
You know we gotta thank God
Thank him for being so good to me

Rest in the “homeland of the soul” might feel hard to grasp, but we know what she is singing about. A little bit of that rest seems fleeting and even paltry, but how odd it is that such a little bit goes such a long way! We can’t forget about it and we long for rest for our souls all day.

I don’t know what I love more, the picture Jackson paints of the age to come, or the picture  I imagine of her in her diadem. Some people hear the lyric as “diamond dress,” which is also great. Everyone has traveled a long way, but here we all are. We are looking good, feeling happy, and dancing down the street in the New Jerusalem [like a NOLA funeral]. If you can’t sing this song, just play it, and let yourself move at least a little during this part. Feel at home in your new self and feel the energy of renewal remaking you. God is good to you. It is a wonder. “Maybe I should strut like the wonder I am!”

Now Mahalia goes into the part that probably made her famous. She started out calmly, but as the song goes on, she can’t help feeling it. She is not just performing it, she is inhabiting it. She is an incarnation and, as such, an invitation to everyone to enter in with all the gifts, services and energies we bring.

You know I come to thank God this evening
I come to thank him this evening
You know all, all night long God kept his angels watching over me
Early this morning, early this morning
God told his angel God said, “Touch her in my name”
God said, “Touch her in my name”

I rose this morning, I rose this morning, I rose this morning
I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting
I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting, I feel like shouting
I feel like shouting, I just got to thank God, I just got to thank God
I just got to thank God, I just got to thank him
Thank God for being so good, God been good to me

I put this song up in some chat the other day and someone said, “That is a long song!” We’re mainly used to 2 1/2 minute pop songs and jingles. I said, “She can sing it all day and I will sing it with her.” Turning into “I just got to thank God” is a lot better than resenting some fragment from a 70’s song stuck in the crevices of my brain. Turning into thanks, feeling gladness well up, and letting it loose with a shout, a dance, a hug, or some tears is the kind of integration we need to open us up to wonder.

An angel wakes up Zechariah and Elijah in the old Testament. But I think this final picture Mahalia paints is about how we get over. Just like an angel apparently woke Jesus up from his slumber in death, just so will we be awakened on the last day. And as long as we are in the age before death, that is every day. Every day is as good as our last day. Every day of life is gift. We are raised up into it. Relying on an angel to follow orders to “Touch her in my name” is a wonder. I want to live constantly touched by God.

I pray for us all to wake up today touched by Mahalia Jackson who is much like an angel sent to open us to new life. She was a struggling, Black woman who went with her gift in faith and kept turning away from her trauma, and then turned others away from theirs. I hope this meditation helped you turn away from yours and into wonder.

FFF #18 — Farmlink: Young people doing more than speaking their minds

Climate, , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. 

A good way to encourage your donors

The Farmlink Project has only been around since the beginning of the pandemic but it already has volunteers all over the lower 48 states and Mexico. The leaders are all young and, up until recently, were all volunteers. They became so popular with donors, they have hired staff and organized more good things to do. It’s a wonder.

Their seed thought came after the revelation that a lot of food is wasted by grocery stores, restaurants, institutions and families. They discovered that farmers often aren’t able to get their produce off their farms or find a price good enough to make a profit; so they let it rot in the fields. And this waste happens even when food insecurity is epidemic.

They found ways to get the food to food banks with volunteers collaborating with farmers — and with a bunch of donors. CBS and other outlets were so thrilled with these kids they all created segments to laud their work. Here’s one.

Such a waste of a planet

The World Wildlife Fund says “ an estimated one-third of all the food produced in the world goes to waste. … And if food goes to the landfill and rots, it produces methane—a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide. About 6%-8% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced if we stop wasting food.”

The world Wildlife fund was started in 1961 by a squad of super rich people and royals, six years before Buffalo Springfield sang For What It’s Worth. Today’s young activists are a lot better at organizing the rich instead of just talking about them.  I think Farmlink is a good example.

Farmlink relates WWF’s stats more colorfully:  “If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.” I did not verify their chart but they offer one to make their point:

Over one-third of all produce grown in the U.S. is wasted every year, and it happens at every step of food production. Tens of millions of pounds of edible produce are left unharvested, lost in transit, processing, or retail, or thrown away by consumers.

The majority of food waste that occurs at the warehouse, store, or consumer level is ultimately sealed in a landfill, where it releases methane—a greenhouse gas with over 30 times the heat trapping ability of carbon dioxide. Landfills are responsible for almost 15 percent of the country’s methane emissions, with organic matter making up the largest percentage of total landfill mass.

Crops left in the field don’t expel the same volume of greenhouse gases, but they do account for massive amounts of wasted resources. A 2016 study estimates that 21 percent of water, 18 percent of cropland, and 19 percent of fertilizer in the U.S. are dedicated to food that is never eaten.

I made a donation to Farmlink and they wrote back with more info:

“Since our founding in April 2020, we have delivered nearly 50 million pounds of produce from farms to food banks — or the equivalent of 42 million meals (and counting)! We have provided $3 million in economic relief to farmers and truck drivers, all the while preventing 40 million pounds of carbon emissions.”

People like me wanted to support this good work. Our donations

“made it possible for us to formalize our 501(c)(3) status and take on a full-time staff, thereby ensuring institutional longevity, as well as build out Carbonlink, our carbon offset program for a sustainable food system….While our small unit of full-time staff focuses on operational continuity, our 120-person volunteer base of students continues to serve as the engine of this organization.”

It is a wonder how these young people cared. And it is a wonder that so many people wanted to support them. I think the greatest wonder is their quick contribution to meeting an obvious need: food insecurity and climate change caused by wasted food.

Overwhelm: The feeling and what we can do about it

Building community, Music, Psychological growth,

More and more clients seem to come into a session feeling overwhelmed. In fact, they use the word in the new way we have begun to use it to describe their feeling: “overwhelm.”

I can relate to experiencing overwhelm. The last few years have been the most overwhelming I can remember — maybe for you, too! As for me, I transitioned out of my long-time pastoring work – that would cause anyone some trouble. I was defrauded by a contractor. I moved to a new home. I lost my church community. And, of course, we are still in a pandemic and the country is unraveling – at least that’s what David Brooks says. And then the next climate disaster is in the offing! I have had my peculiar version of the overwhelm most of us are experiencing.

I am feeling OK now, but I am really concerned about those who don’t feel OK. I think they are multiplying and their feeling of overwhelm might be deepening. We have had two years of pandemic isolation to heighten issues we might normally handle well. We need to check on each other. Check on the vulnerable even if you feel vulnerable. We all need to find more community life.

Royal & the Serpent gets it

In June of 2020 Royal and the Serpent recorded a song which depicts the feeling of overwhelm just right. I can’t help but believe the 11 million people who have viewed it feel some kind of community with each other as an artist musically names what they are experiencing.

FYI, Royal and the Serpent’s stage name translates to “Me + My Ego.”  Her given name is Ryan Santiago. She struck a chord with many of her listeners on YouTube:

Youraverageartist commented: “I feel like the beat represents the buildup to an anxiety attack. The beat gets faster and more intense as they sing about being overwhelmed, and then when the beat drops into the wild electric music, that represents the anxiety attack. Then everything is calm and back to normal. You realize that everything around you isn’t any different. These attacks normally aren’t very physical, they happen in your head, although it doesn’t always show to the outside.”

Check up on people who might be feeling this. They might like to talk to you rather than a YouTube audience.

booksandboots commented: I’m 28 and I’ve known about my anxiety since I was 8. This is the first song I’ve ever heard that really captures what it feels like. For me, it’s never gone away. It’s a part of who I am, for whatever reason. Perhaps an evolutionary response to a threat that isn’t there?…

I’m happy to say I haven’t had a true panic attack in over a year, something I never, ever thought would be possible. I had just accepted that was my life: panic attacks every day or multiple times a day. Frozen. Silent….

It also helps to listen to your anxiety, as strange as that sounds. To ask it questions like, “What are you really upset about? Is it that person standing too close, can you do something about it? If you can’t, can you breathe slowly and deeply and try some grounding exercises? If that doesn’t work, can you try to drink some water to occupy your mind in this moment, focusing on nothing else but the water? You can do this. I believe in you.”

And, as juvenile as it sounds, I speak to my anxiety as if it were a child. In a good way. I don’t think of my anxiety as some monster in the closet. It’s just a chemical imbalance that believes it’s helping me stay safe. I explain what reality is to my anxiety and comfort it the same way I would my own child. If my anxiety is here to stay, then we better get used to each other. I can’t walk around hating that part of myself because it doesn’t make the anxiety go away, it makes it worse.

Tender people who are bravely looking OK might not be. Given what we are all facing, who isn’t feeling a bit overwhelmed? I know I have needed to tell my story to people who care about me. Telling it diminished the power of the loss and the trauma. But more loss and trauma is likely to come my way. We need community to face it all.

Signs of overwhelm

Sometimes (and maybe over a period of time), the intensity of our feelings outmatches our ability to manage them. At some point you will probably feel overwhelmed by negative emotions, such as anger, fear, or guilt. Some of us will experience mania and be overwhelmed by euphoria.

If you feel overwhelm, it might be hard to pinpoint why. Usually a collection of stressors contributes rather than one particular event. Your emotions may bleed into seemingly unrelated parts of your life until you are “all stirred up.” Emotional overwhelm may be caused by stress, traumatic life experiences, relationship issues, and much more.

Here are some common signs of overwhelm:

  • You have a big reaction to a small situations. For example, you may panic when you can’t find your keys.
  • You feel physically ill or fatigued and don’t know why.
  • You have trouble focusing or completing simple tasks.
  • You find yourself withdrawing from friends and family.
  • Your emotions color your perception of everything. For example, your grief may keep you sad even during pleasant occasions.

Causes of overwhelm

When we are stressed by the small things in our collection, we might say to ourselves, “This is dumb!” Nevertheless, small things often add up to overwhelm. For instance, it is common for a simple things-to-do list to hijack someone’s brain. That’s because your brain might not see a to-do list, but see the threat of scarcity: not enough time, not enough energy, not enough magical ability to fit everything into 24 hours. Or it might see the threat of failing, the threat of disappointing others, the threat of feeling like you’re not doing enough or might not even be enough.

We react to these feelings the same way we do with other threats. We fight, flee, or freeze. That’s true whether the threat is a bus hurtling toward us or our responsibilities  make us feel like we can’t catch our breath.

Usually, we land somewhere between freeze and flight, numbed out. We avoid. We dig in our heels and resist. If we’re at work we might procrastinate: make a call, do tasks that don’t matter, call in sick. If we are at home we might binge-watch Netflix, stay up late reading things that don’t require thought, sneak off for some porn, buy something on Amazon, or scroll through Instagram.

Remember, your emotions may get overloaded by a single stressor, like surviving a traumatic accident or violence, or losing a loved one. But overwhelm can also occur due to the pile up of many smaller stressors. For example, missing your bus may not feel like too big of a deal by itself. But if you’ve been fighting with your family, having trouble sleeping, and are hungry from skipping breakfast, a missed bus can be the proverbial “last straw” of the day.

A therapist can be a big help. Even if you are in therapy, everyone still needs some community. Check up on people. We are all experiencing the same big things bearing down on you. What’s more, the latest trauma may have dislodged some unprocessed memories. Everyone needs a safe place to tell their story.

Six ways to deal with overwhelm right now.

  1. Ground yourself in the present using the 5-4-3-2-1 technique.

When your emotions are flooding, your mind is getting foggy, or your skin is getting clammy, this technique could be a way to get your feet back on the ground and your mind cleared. It’s a classic tool everyone needs in their backpack. Donate it to someone who needs it.

5 – Look around and name five things you can see, right now, from where you are.

4 – Listen and name four things you can hear.

3 – Notice three things you can touch, like the pages of a nearby book or the feeling of your feet on the carpet.

2 – Next come two smells: Breathe in the pages of a book or the citrus scent of the candle you lit.

1 – Finally, name something you can taste: a sip of cold water will do, or even just the taste of your own mouth.

This does two things to interrupt the overwhelm. First, it grounds you in your senses and, more importantly, the present moment. Second, keeping track of the counting and working your way through your senses interrupts spinning thoughts.

  1. Clean up your immediate surroundings.

The phrase “outer order, inner calm” is popular for a reason. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, tidying the area around you restores order to a little corner of your universe and allows you to move forward.

You don’t need to redo the office or redecorate the house. Restrict yourself to things within arm’s reach. Stack loose papers, put caps on rogue pens, wipe away dust or grime. The resulting order will help you feel like you’ve accomplished something and allow you to focus. One time we all went over and cleaned someone’s whole house with them just to give them a boost and allow their emotions to settle and let them feel part of the friendship circle.

  1. Ruthlessly prioritize.

Cut everything that should be done and stick to things that need to get done now. This is harder than it looks for some people since if they change their “shoulds” they will feel disloyal to their family or feel like they are condemning their past self. If someone trusts you, they might let you help them sort.

  1. Stop accidentally multitasking

Trying to work from home and simultaneously keep an eye on the kids, holding a conversation while the TV is on, eating lunch at your desk, leaving your email open while you work, or simply keeping your smartphone at hand 24/7 are examples of things that force you to transition your attention (and then transition it back) hundreds of times a day.

Multitasking works about as well as texting while driving—which is to say, it doesn’t. So if your nerves are frayed, mend them by doing a singular thing at a time. When you’re feeling less frantic, you can go back to googling Beyonce’s net worth while making a sandwich. But until then, single-task, single-task, single-task. You might help your friend do this by asking them to take a walk around the block with you or eat lunch together — community building is also a single-minded task; giving someone else attention and receiving it is a natural way to heal from the pressures of life.

  1. Take the next tiny step.

When you feel frozen in the proverbial headlights of what is bearing down on you, think only of the next tiny step. The next step can be very tiny—only you have to know that you’re inching forward by thinking “Okay, now click on the folder. Now open the document. Now start reading.” Or “Sit up, Put your feet on the floor. Breathe in goodness. Stand up. Stretch slowly” all on the way to starting your day. I am often grateful when someone calls me and I get a chance to tell them what I am planning to do. Just talking to them gets me out of whatever rut I am in and often encourages me to take the next step.

  1. Radically accept what you cannot do or control.

This is the basic stance of faith. We stand in grace and we can turn into the reality of it at any time. God is with us and loves us. You can strategize, organize, and hack all you want, but at some point, you will run into something you can’t do or control. When you do, the only thing to do is to radically accept. Trust Jesus and be one of those good people who can be trusted to listen and care.

Radical acceptance doesn’t mean throwing in the towel. It means allowing for uncertainty and uncontrollability, without struggling like you’re trapped or complaining as if bad things should never happen to you. It is keeping on with what you can do instead of dwelling on what you can’t. (Thanks to Jade Wu).

When you get behind the wheel of a car, you radically accept that a reckless driver may hit you no matter how well you drive. Yet you still do it because you want to get from point A to B quickly. When you fall in love, you radically accept that your heart may get trampled on. Yet you do anyway because love is worth the risk. When you simply can’t meet a deadline without compromising your mental health, you can radically accept you’ll have to be late and you may disappoint someone, because your well-being is worth it.

Just telling a story, thinking things through, letting some feelings settle down or pass through might be enough to deal with overwhelm. Doing it together with Jesus is undoubtedly even better. There are a lot more resources to apply to feeling overwhelm, of course. Your therapist or trusted friend or mentor can help. This post was mainly a means to give you some space to feel some hope and experience some care. I write because I care. I think we need to keep finding ways to check in on each other and build some community. It is an overwhelming time.

FFF #17 — Brendon Grimshaw and his Seychelles wonder

Climate, ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. 

My friend, Robyn Ryan, posted a story on Facebook a week or so ago about Brendon Grimshaw, who bought a tiny island in the Seychelles, turned it into an interactive arboretum and donated it to be a national park. His work is a strange wonder among the many efforts of conservation and climate change mitigation all over the world.

Moyenne Island

Grimshaw first came to the Seychelles on vacation in 1962. At the time, he was an editor working for some of the biggest newspapers in East Africa. Tanzania had declared independence the year before; Kenya would follow a year later; and Grimshaw, an Englishman, knew his job would soon pass to a local. So he was searching for a new direction that took him closer to nature. He dreamed about owning land in the Seychelles – ideally, he’d buy his own island.

Once in the country  he wondered whether he needed to change his plans. The few islands on the market had jaw-dropping price tags. On the second-to-last day of his holiday, a young man approached him in the Seychelles’ capital, Victoria, and asked Grimshaw if he wanted to buy an island — just like that. They traveled together to Moyenne, a small dot less than 3 miles off of Mahé. He immediately fell in love with its silence and its wild tangle of vegetation. It was close enough to be accessible from the Seychelles’ main island, and yet a world away. He bought it for about $10,000.

He was determined to complete the massive task of restoring the island’s natural beauty. Neglect and heavy-handed human intervention had left Moyenne gasping for air. Weeds choked the undergrowth. The island was so crowded with invasive vegetation, falling coconuts never hit the ground. Birds were noticeably absent and rats foraged in the shadows.

Grimshaw wanted to create a mini-Seychelles, to replicate what the archipelago was like before Europeans and tourists came. By his side in the task was a local man named Rene Antoine Lafortune, the 19-year-old son of a local fisherman. The two became inseparable, and together they set about transforming the island, clearing the scrub, planting trees and forging paths through the undergrowth. It was painstaking, back-breaking work – and it became Grimshaw’s life-long obsession. By one estimate, Moyenne now has more plant species per square mile than any other national park in the world due to their work.

Brendon Grimshaw

As tourism grew in the the Seychelles the 1980s and the archipelago became synonymous with a tropical island paradise. Investors turned their covetous gaze towards Moyenne. Grimshaw received offers of up to $50 million (purportedly from a Saudi prince) to sell it. He resisted every overture.

As he grew older, Grimshaw became increasingly aware he had limited time left to protect the island’s future. He had no children to whom he could pass on custodianship of the island. When Lafortune died in 2007, Grimshaw was left alone at 81. He decided to act. He set up a perpetual trust to protect the island and signed an agreement with the Seychelles’ Ministry of Environment which made Moyenne part of Ste Anne Marine Park, and granted it a special status. With that, Moyenne Island National Park became the world’s smallest national park.

The island has no jetty. One wades ashore, barefoot, through the shallows. As you reach dry land and take your first steps along the gently climbing forest trail, the trees close in behind you and you enter another world. Dappled sunlight filters down through the canopy to the forest floor, the temperature is cooler, and the island’s 16,000 trees – mahogany, palm, mango, and pawpaw – planted by Grimshaw and Lafortune, surround you.

Every now and then, you may find your path blocked by one of Moyenne’s nearly 50 free-range giant Aldabra tortoises, which had been on the verge of extinction. You’ll hear the song of 2,000 newly-attracted bird species. Thanks to Grimshaw’s efforts, the once deserted island now hosts two-thirds of the Seychelles’ fauna. An abandoned piece of land has turned into a wonder.

Grimshaw died in 2012 and his grave sits alongside that of his father (who later came to live with him) and the graves of two unknown people which were uncovered during the restoration, usually considered pirates. At his request, Grimshaw’s tombstone reads,

Moyenne taught him to open his eyes to the beauty around him and say thank you to God.

In his last will and testament, he expressed his final wishes:

Moyenne Island is to be maintained as a venue for prayer, peace, tranquillity, relaxation and knowledge for Seychellois and visitors from overseas of all nationalities, colours and creeds.

In 1996, Grimshaw wrote a book about himself and the island, entitled A Grain of Sand. In 2009, a documentary film was produced by the same name. The filmmakers say: “Brendon has provided us with an example of why not all hope is loss in what at times seems an overwhelmingly mad world.” Here is a link to the video.

In it you’ll hear Grimshaw say:

“I don’t own the island. God owns the island and I look after it.”

Freedom for the word “religion”

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , ,

What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

I’ve been thinking about that questions thanks to David Benner. The members of my spiritual direction cohort, by and large, love Benner’s book Soulful Spirituality. In it he is working on reinforcing how everyone’s spiritual life is embodied –– like our older brother Jesus, we are also incarnations of the Holy Spirit in our unique and dependent ways. I am not as big a fan of this book as my friends, so far. I’ve been told it gets better. (Even if it doesn’t, we will always have The Gift of Being Yourself, which is one of Benner’s gems).

I may have been in a mood when I was reading, but I became fixated on Benner’s persistent binary assumptions regarding “religion” and “spirituality.” The words are often grouped, these days, in a common dichotomy, so I don’t know why it began to bother me. It’s not like I haven’t heard it all before.

For instance, at Psychology Today’s site, a contributor talked about the same issue. She wrote:

The purpose of religion, in general, is to unite a group of people under the same values and principles and to facilitate their collective and individual communication with a Higher Power and/or philosophy. In other words, religion was meant to enhance spirituality.

That said, it must also be said that it is entirely possible to be a very religious person yet be totally out of touch with spirituality and its essential connection to an authentic Self. On the other hand, true spirituality unites a person with his or her authentic Self.

By the way, I think the author, Andrea Matthews, capitalized “Self” because her interest and writing leans into finding “the territory of the Self” and “differentiating between the authentic and the inauthentic” living, which will lead to a “peaceful internal home.” Psychoanalytic and Jungian people, in particular, use a capital S Self to differentiate from the false, unrealized, unintegrated, lower-case self. (Me too, sometimes.)

You don’t need to hear all my arguments about her Christless musings. She’s just an example of how people think about religion vs. spirituality. I just want to offer one argument about “religion” that made me feel better.

Religion is a modern invention

I decided to find out when people in the so-called “West” started using the word “religion” in the way Benner and Matthews use it. As when Matthews starts with “the purpose of religion” and she assumes we all understand the abstraction called “religion” and can sort various groups under that definition. I had never studied it, but I had the idea that “religion” is probably a modern invention, like a lot of powerful things contributed by the Enlightenment and Europe’s project to colonize the world and remake it in its own image.

Brent Nongbri

I came up with a very interesting book that confirms my suspicion: Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (2013) by Brent Nongbri. He is now a professor at the Norwegian School of Philosophy in Oslo. But he was raised in Texas and got his doctorate at Yale.

My thought was: the way Benner is talking about religion does not match the Bible’s worldview. Like so many things, the word “religion” had been redefined to fit the straight-jacket of European (and now American) thinking that posits a unifying theme and then collects like things under it. We are all being fitted into abstract categories as if that is important. I often squirm under the abstraction “identity,” which comes from the same thinking; now we all must choose an identity to become authentic. On the map we are all wrestling with the abstraction “nation,” defined by lines which cut through family systems and language groups and create endless conflict in service to a European imagination; the U.S. wall along the border with Mexico is a visual reminder.

Nongbri’s thesis is straightforward. For the past two centuries people have assumed “religion” is “a universal human phenomenon, a part of the ‘natural’ human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history.” This modern notion has been criticized in the last thirty, postmodern years. The main criticism comes from the fact that no ancient languages have a term that really corresponds to what modern people say when they mean “religion.” In fact, the names of supposedly old religions can be traced back to the recent past. “Hinduism” for instance, starts showing up named around 1787 and “Buddhism” in 1801.

The isolation of something called “religion” as a sphere of life ideally separated from politics, economics and science is not a universal feature of human history. If you take a look at the Bible, no one is thinking that way. If you look at the Bible from a European Protestant lens, through which all the past looks like a projection of European thinking, then you can find the separation. But once you begin to imagine a world in which God is present in every activity and, indeed, enlivens the planet, then these abstract separations can’t be found.

James Tissot — The Tribute Money (Le denier de César), 1886-1894.

It is not in the Bible

For instance, in Matthew 22 Jesus famously says, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” The modern lens sees a dichotomy in the verse between the secular government and the religious establishment, or between the realm of humans and the realm of God. I find the stultifying arguments that Bible students have had my whole life over this quote pretty tiresome, much as I was finding Benner’s dichotomy between religion and spirituality. The endless arguments about abstractions are a modern imposition.

I don’t believe Jesus or the writers were seeing the world through such a corrupt lens. Nongbri notes that Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, reflected 1 Tim. 2:1-2 when he interpreted what was “owed to Caesar” were prayers on his behalf. In the fourth century, Ambrose of Milan understood Jesus to be encouraging people to give up their property and lead an ascetic life like he was living, free of Caesar’s things.  No one in the Bible thought Caesar’s things should be religion-free (like John Locke) or thought religious things would be threatened by secular authorities (like Roger Williams).

I don’t like being an abstraction in the lens of some powerful leader corralling me into their Eurocentric organizing principles, especially when they do it in the cause of religion or spirituality. On the contrary, I like trying to walk with Jesus in the light of God’s revelation in the Savior. When I am suckered into seeing through the eyes of modern thinkers — and that is not unlikely since they made the situation we are in, I feel caught. I think Jesus is still calling us out. Paul says, in Col. 2 (and Gal. 4)

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces (basic principles) of this world rather than on Christ.

I suspect Benner is going my direction and also wants me to be close to my Savior. But I would like him to tighten up his thinking. The idea of religion is a recent abstraction that has become a debilitating “basic principle.” I think people fill the idea with good meaning and use it in good faith to good ends. But I don’t want to live under it and I do want to get in touch with what the rest of the church in history taught and what many non-Europeans intuitively know.

FFF#16 — SpinLaunch: A potential wonder

Climate, ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. 

Every day my Twitter feed has at least a few people adding this to their #climateaction tweet: “None of this matters until we eradicate the fossil fuel industry!”

Climate action advocates tend to be a testy bunch, like my inspiration, Greta Thunberg. Many of them are so appalled at the foot-draggers who are not reducing emissions NOW they have a lot of negative things to offer to the conversation!

Star forming nebula in small Magellanic Cloud

Keep an eye out for wonder

But people are trying — maybe we should look concentrate on how great they are! After all, Proverbs 17:22 says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

So let’s talk about SpinLaunch. There is a bit of wonder out there in Long Beach. This company has been in the news all month because they had their first test launch out of SpacePort in New Mexico late last year. (Yes, SpacePort  exists).

Space flight is a pollution nightmare and hugely expensive. SpinLaunch is trying to figure out how to use sun power electricity to spin a projectile so fast in their vacuum chamber it can make it out of the atmosphere, pin a satellite into space, and return to Earth for re-use. They have a much greener and cheaper approach. Although space is going to start looking like a beach on Eleuthera pretty soon with all the trash we throw out there. But let’s try to stay positive.

Here is an excited video about SpinLaunch’s accomplishments. They are the first of fifteen technologies these YouTubers applaud:

You can see what CNBC says about SpinLaunch, too. Here are some internet critics dissecting the video. But let’s stay hopeful.

Will this wonder work?

A more even assessment comes from Michael Barnard at CleanTechnica, where they are devoted to catalyzing the clean tech revolution through industry coverage with journalistic integrity.

Barnard doubts SpinLaunch will create a full-size launcher and doubts their idea will be found necessary until space gets more profitable. But we are looking at possibilities here.

In October, SpinLaunch threw a 10-meter projectile over six miles into the sky and retrieved it. They did it using electricity instead of rocket fuel. And they did it in a novel way that might eventually prove useful.

Their “launcher is a giant solid sling inside a vacuum chamber. It has a big counterweight on a short arm at one end, and a long end that holds the payload at the other. Over 90 minutes or so, it uses electricity to bring the rotating arm with the dart on it up to absurd revolutions per second, about 10,000 gravities of centripetal force. Then, at exactly the right microsecond, they let the dart go. It goes up through a tube with a light plastic sheet keeping the vacuum in and air out, and continues upward under its own inertia for 10 kilometers right now.”

The launcher won’t be too useful until it can throw satellites with final stage rockets into orbit. They have not made something that can do that yet. But their idea was interesting enough to warrant $75 million in funding. $38 million of that went to build the sub-scale prototype, which is the biggest vacuum chamber in the world to date. Their successful test opens the ways for more investment (and the Pentagon has been knocking at their door).

Their intention is to craft a sabot — a surrounding aerodynamic shell — which wraps around a thruster, fuel tanks, and payload. Up in orbit, or near orbit, the sabot will pop apart, leaving the simple space vehicle to deliver the payload to its final orbit before it presumably has its own orbit degrade and becomes a brief flash of light in the sky somewhere.

However, there are a lot of challenges to overcome before SpinLaunch might be considered a competitor to SpaceX, not to mention the much easier target, Blue Origin.

Here are several Barnard listed:

  • The small prototype was an amazing piece of engineering. But the much bigger system is a huge risk to fund.
  • The sabot and payload have to be able to survive 10,000G lateral forces, and then the orbital vehicle and payload have to manage the rocket forces when they kick in.
  • The gripping component of the spinning arm has to be able to support the sabot at 10,000Gs and also release it in a microsecond without causing any wobble. That’s an extreme engineering feat.
  • The rotating arm’s moment of inertia is going to change radically and instantly at release. The buildup of velocity takes 90 minutes, so it’s easy to balance, but the release is instant, with a couple of tons of mass at 10,000Gs disappearing at the long end of the arm. Getting the mechanics of that right is another extreme engineering feat.
  • The bottom parts of Earth’s atmosphere are really hard. When the sabot supersonically speeds through them there will be some sonic booms. They won’t be a good neighbor to have. The whole thing might work better on the moon or Mars. But since no one is planning to mine the moon or Mars any time soon, this big idea might sit on the shelf.

Thank God for brilliant people planning green alternatives to the fossil fuel industry, which must be eradicated before Greta’s home town is underwater.