Category Archives: A life in the Spirit

Can we listen to the Truth in Trumpland? We are so easily deceived!

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The prophets have been speaking. We should listen. In September of 2024 the Scientific American (of all things!) published an article titled “Meet the New Autocrats Who Dismantle Democracies from Within.” This was just before our billionaire oligarchs started to boldly dismantle the U.S. government.

I hear some people say, “Why isn’t anyone listening to the warnings everyone is shouting?” I think I’ve said that myself since Ronald Reagan was president. There are a LOT of great books, movies, articles and podcasts whose prophecies of doom are being fulfilled as we speak. Doesn’t anyone have an ear to hear?

It might be a little late, but I think people are beginning to listen. I keep hearing about it everyday.

Listening issues

To be honest, in general, most of us are not very good listeners. We’re kind of into ourselves and we are rather isolated these days.  Those realities are compounded by the fact we get fooled. We buy dumb stuff off TikTok. We can’t believe our eyes when things are appalling or out of order – “Did I just see Elon Musk’s four-year-old tell Donald Trump to shut up?” We wait and see. We are strangely trusting for being so cynical. We don’t have the energy to dig through the deceptions powerful people throw up to defend their designs for power. Proverbs has to tell us to attend to the obvious:

Enemies disguise themselves with their lips,
but in their hearts they harbor deceit.
Though their speech is charming, do not believe them,
for seven abominations fill their hearts.
Their malice may be concealed by deception,
but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. (Proverbs 26:24-26)

So the researchers of Scientific American came up with a study to prove the same old wisdom. Here’s a bit:

Rather than eradicating democratic institutions as leaders like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet or Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko did in the past, today’s established and emergent autocrats (as is the case of Maduro or Orbán, for instance) corrupt the courts, sabotage elections and distort information to attain and remain in power. They are elected through ostensibly free elections and connect with a public already primed to be fearful of a fabricated enemy. Critically, they use these democratic tools to attain power; once there, they dismantle those processes. Autocratic tactics creep into the political life of a country slowly and embed themselves deeply in the democratic apparatus they corrupt. Modern autocracy, one may say, is a tyranny of gaslighting.

We gathered a group of scholars who have looked at successful and failed autocracies worldwide in a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, to identify common denominators of autocratic rulers worldwide. This research shows that modern autocrats uniformly apply key building blocks to cement their illiberal agenda and undermine democracies before taking them over. Those include manipulating the legal system, rewriting electoral laws and constitutions, and dividing the population into “us” versus “them” blocs. Autocrats routinely present themselves as the only presumed savior of the country while silencing, criminalizing and disparaging critics or any oppositional voice. They distort information and fabricate “facts” through the media, claim fraud if they lose an election, persuade the population that they can “cleanse” the country of crime and, finally, empower a repressive nationalistic diaspora and fund satellite political movements and hate groups that amplify the autocrats’ illiberal agenda to distort democracy.

We give into these people because we aren’t sure what is going to happen to us if we don’t. Look at the Senate who gave us Tulsi Gabbard last week! They know better, I presume. Only God knows their heart, but they can’t possibly believe Trump’s cabinet is good for the country! Maybe they are all evil, but I doubt it. They must be scared. They might be deceived.

They might be exhausted, too. Elon Musk is counting on us being exhausted as he marches through the “deep state” like Sherman destroying Georgia. We need to get some strength from God, every day, so the liars don’t destroy every sense of goodness in our communities.

A Hegseth is hard for us to resist

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signs a memorandum reversing the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg while flying in a C-17 operated by the 300th Airlift Squadron en route to Stuttgart, Germany, Feb. 10, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

I admit I was a bit exhausted. I could not believe my eyes. But I decided to highlight the Under-dictator of Defense, the unqualified Pete Hegseth’s immediate action upon being  seated on his throne. He renamed Fort Liberty, the former Fort Bragg in North Carolina, as Fort Bragg.

I wrote on Facebook:

The United Daughters of the Confederacy were responsible for many of the monuments to confederate soldiers erected in the 1920’s, when Fort Bragg was built. Now Hegseth is re-writing the unwriting of the rewritten history of the Lost Cause, the misinformation campaign of the Jim Crow era. I’m sticking with Fort Liberty and the Gulf of Mexico. We can at least not conform to the intellectual fog machine.

He’s acting like they are naming the base after a decorated WW2 private (wink) which only compounds the nonsense. …Come on, Senate! Are you really going to subject the country to a slew of petty, racist dictators?

I also wrote a version of my post to my senators and representative, as well as Senators Young, Kennedy and Lankford.

Did anyone listen to me? I didn’t get 5000 likes. But I’d say, “Sure they listened. Because the Spirit of God, Jesus the Truth, is praying for us in ways too deep for words.” We are notably deludable, but we also have a way of spotting lies, even if it takes a while. The psychological skill of spotting lies can be improved, and the spiritual ability is built in and Spirit-nudged. You can usually tell when you are lying, after all.

In the case of gaslighting about Fort Liberty, the 2021 defense budget directed that nine military bases that honored Confederate rebels would be renamed after review by a commission of retired senior military officers and civilians.

The commission said in a 2022 report that it purposefully did not choose different honorees with the same last name as the Confederate figures. Mr. Hegseth’s decision did the opposite, swapping out Braxton Bragg in favor of Roland L. Bragg. (Although the caption from the DOD site above belies that switch).

The 2022 report noted that Braxton Bragg had a plantation stocked with slaves and is considered to be “one of the worst generals of the Civil War.” Roland Bragg was a private who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and won several medals.  But the main thing about him, for Hegseth’s purposes, is his name was Bragg.

This is what the liars, do. They make a statement which is obviously a lie they can deny is a lie and tell everyone to swallow it. I’m going to remember the name is Fort Liberty.

Relanguaging

Meanwhile, after listening in on Tulsi Gabbard territory at the NSA, Judd Legum got on X to report on a memo: “The administration has continued its efforts to eliminate, and maybe eventually outlaw, ‘woke’ language….it is working to remove 27 disfavored words from all agency websites and documents. The 27 dirty words are:

  • Anti-Racism
  • Racism
  • Allyship
  • Bias
  • DEI
  • Diversity
  • Diverse
  • Confirmation Bias
  • Equity
  • Equitableness
  • Feminism
  • Gender
  • Gender Identity
  • Inclusion
  • Inclusive
  • All-Inclusive
  • Inclusivity
  • Injustice
  • Intersectionality
  • Prejudice
  • Privilege
  • Racial Identity
  • Sexuality
  • Stereotypes
  • Pronouns
  • Transgender
  • Equality”

My friend Lou said “I suggest they remove Christlikeness also so as not to confuse their intentions.”

Dominating communication, right down to what can and cannot be said Is the deceiver’s playbook.

How do we do the truth?

I seem to be quoting James a lot these days: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (1:22)

If we are bad at listening and easily deceived, if we even deceive ourselves, we might be even worse at doing the truth in love! But it is certainly time to try again.

The U.S. government is not the arbiter of God’s will. Jesus does not require it to save the world. It is a dispensable tool, whoever uses it. Right now, however, it is filled with false prophets asserting they are Christians called by God to take over the seats of power so true righteousness can be installed. It takes about five minutes of thought to suspect they are deceivers. For instance, Elon Musk is working to eliminate the agencies that were investigating his companies and likely finding a way to sell armored cybercars to the State Department. His minions fired the people who oversee the U.S. nuclear arsenal the other day and had to call them back.

In the face of the Corinthian superapostles Paul boldly wrote his truth.

I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Corinthians 11:12-15)

I’m going to keep doing what I am doing too. I feel moved to build a community in Christ full of truth and love. And I will be at City Hall at noon today to demonstrate I can see the deception and demand change.

And I am going to keep listening. The Spirit of God is moving in the world right now. The logjam of Evangelical nonsense is being exposed and is about to break. I can’t predict a great American economy once it gives Ukrainian territory to Russia, or whatever Trump does. But I think I can predict a renewed church finding its courage and voice and providing an alternative. Many of you are probably the reasons I have such hope. God bless you.

War is burned into the U.S. culture: A warning 

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The greatest skill the United States of America has is making war. My veteran dad was proud of that. His pride helped propel me into a meaningful life. Ever since I decided to follow Jesus, proactive peacemaking has been an everyday aspiration. One of the reasons I felt called to stay in the United States, even though I thought it could harm my children, is this: the U.S. A. is a major mission field for the Prince of Peace.

Joint Task Force – Bravo website: Nov. 24, 2024
NGOs retrieve 180,000 pounds humanitarian aid from Soto Cano Air Base (Honduras)

The country where I became a citizen by birth, is history’s largest war machine, by far. Presently, it has 800+ military bases around the world. It rules the air, land, sea, space and, probably for at least a few months, prevails in technowar. It spends more for “defense” than the next twelve largest militaries in the world put together. China is a distant 2nd and Russia is 3rd.

So I am not writing to debate my title; the truth of it is rather obvious. I just want to demonstrate the truth of it, once again. You did not need the last paragraph’s stats to agree that war is burned into the U.S. psyche. You just have to watch our movies, play our video games, look at our national sport, and listen to our language of “shock and awe” to verify the fact that our societal amygdala is wounded.

Researchers say about 20 million U.S. Americans a year demonstrate PTSD symptoms. For many people the symptoms are transitory. But we therapists who listen to a lot of people know that the vestiges of trauma are hard to dislodge. When you live in a country where violence is foundational, where war is considered essential, where the most honored people are the winners of conflicts, and where our political life has degenerated into opposing encampments, most of us expect some projectile to hit us any moment, one way or another. Many of us haven’t slept well for years and even endless screen scrolling can’t distract us enough from the fear that’s built into our lives.

The War on Drugs

The war on drugs is a prime example of our bellicose assumptions.

When Richard Nixon, Trump’s grandfather, was president, he called for a major assault on drug use. People called it his “war on drugs.” The description stuck. It is exactly the way one would expect the U.S. to approach a problem — and not solve it, as is evident all around us. In fact, the war on drugs created a worse problem, including the cartels stationed on the southern border, for whom Trump promises, you guessed it, a war.

However, Nixon did not invent the war on drugs. In Johann Hari’s book, Chasing the Scream: The First And Last Days of The War on Drugs (2015 with a 2018 afterword) he reveals the real instigator: Harry Anslinger of Altoona PA, married to the favorite niece of Andrew Mellon, the richest man in the country. I’m a little late to Hari’s book but the internet is full of articles and blogs where parts of it are lifted wholesale and presented as fact without reference. It is still popular.

Anslinger served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, beginning with the administration of Herbert Hoover, then under Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy – an unprecedented 32 years. He zealously advocated for and pursued harsh drug penalties, in particular regarding cannabis, which he got included with regulated drugs like morphine. As a propagandist for the war on drugs, he focused on demonizing racial and immigrant groups. And he used the power and influence of the U.S. after WW2 to force the whole world to fight drugs the American way. Hari notes when the Swiss and Portuguese decided to stop the war in their countries, they still had to face international treaties that enshrined a compassionless approach.

I could see the war at work but I, like Johann Hari,  never knew about this well-connected bureaucrat who found a way to make his little department into the DEA. Hari tells his story with verve. Anslinger apparently said in a radio speech:

“Parents beware! Your children…are being introduced to a new danger in the form of a drugged cigarette, marijuana. Young [people] are slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, [and] turn to violent crime and murder.”

The infamous 1936 film Reefer Madness referenced one of the murders Anslinger falsely attributed to marijuana and which the yellow journalists of the Hearst newspaper chain falsely asserted as fact.

Just four months after the passage of the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937, which made selling pot illegal if not registered and taxed, Anslinger wrote an article in the FBI Law Bulletin, linking marijuana to instances of rape, assault, murder, and madness. He called it a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine when viewed with regards to causing crime and insanity (article).  In 1948 he told a congressional hearing, “Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.”

This story should not astonish me. It is the American way. But I am still flabbergasted.

Now a war on the USAID

Musk and Trump with their war of words

In the footsteps of Anslinger and Nixon, young jackboots have been let loose in the “deep state” to root out corruption and anything that seems “woke.” The Nazi-tinged Elon Musk promotes the war like Harry Anslinger on Ex-Twitter, telling mostly outright lies in order to grab the power to gnaw the meat off the bones of the institutional carcass.

Ron Kraybill, a respected voice from the Mennonite branch of the family with worldwide experience, wrote about Musk’s assault on the USAID on Facebook last week:

You may think [our military might] makes us secure and safe. But a military presence that vast, often heedless to local populations who see no benefits to themselves, also earns us plenty of resentments, even when our warriors are not in combat. When our bombs, missiles, and shells kill people who see themselves as defenders of their freedom and homeland, or innocent civilians – well, how would you react if you were in the shoes of their families and communities?

One of the few things we bring to the world for the stated purpose of assisting the well-being of others is assistance channeled through USAID. In 2023 we spent $43.6 billion on USAID. For the military, $820 billion. That’s a ratio of about twenty to one in favor of weapons. Now Trump/Musk are ending even that tiny investment in the social and economic thriving of our neighbors on the basis of falsehoods. And we would like the world to appreciate us more?

As people later found out, Harry Anslinger didn’t even believe marijuana was as dangerous as he advertised — as he had been repeatedly told by researchers. But he did believe people of color were dangerous and he thought wielding power over the world from his important office was crucial. I suspect Musk and friends are much the same.

Marco Rubio said “foreign aid” was the least popular thing the federal government does when justifying Musk’s attack. It is true, the supremely capitalist country is wildly self-interested, so giving anybody anything seems illogical. In truth, the whole point of USAID is also about securing American interests. But at least it helps some people and shares the wealth a little bit. Among the many things the government does which I find immoral and detrimental, the USAID stands out as something a Christian could easily defend, even subject to the God-free Constitution, as it is.

War has a way of killing the winner

This post is another warning, in case you need one, to never surrender to powermongers, liars and the rich drunk with their wealth. They are the ancient enemies of goodness and charity. Proverbs 26:18-19 is picturing Trump:

Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows,
so is one who deceives a neighbor
and says, “I am only joking!”

In the U.S. the maniac has a vast arsenal of “firebrands and arrows.” He presides over a society imprinted with war and traumatized by the use and abuse of power. Lying is his native language and he deludes a host of followers who believe all his lies as a matter of faith — he’s a true wolf in sheep’s clothing, a devil disguised as an angel of light. The War on Drugs is followed by the War on Terror, the War on the Borderlands, and now the war on the government, which may soon be a war on us all, starting with the most vulnerable.

The vulnerable is who I hope to attend to in this troubled time. I hope the vulnerable find community in the church, where the Lamb of God sits on the throne, where love, even of enemies, heals war-torn hearts, and where truth reinforced by the Truth, himself, gives us courage to take our daily stand for goodness and charity. Like the resurrection demonstrates, the wins of murderous have a brief shelf-life.  Like Jesus says, the meek will inherit the earth.

Let’s lose the labels: A step toward Jesus in the storm

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The peace we are seeking in the midst of our personal and societal storms is much deeper than the superficial labels we wear. Let’s mentalize.

As with so many things in the postmodern era, our sense of what is spiritual has become thin. As a result, mental health is weakened. Much of what I read assumes “spirituality” is a broad and universal “concept” boiled down to a personal search for meaning, purpose, hope, value, and, for some people, God. So many people are left alone in their valley looking toward a fixed horizon of imaginary wholeness which seems to be distant no matter how far they travel.

We are in need of thicker descriptions for wholeness and a broader sense of our horizons. In his book Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges, John Swinton says the question cannot simply be “Where can I find meaning in the midst of my brokenness?” We need to be more specific, “Where and how can I find Jesus and hold on to God in the midst of this experience?” How do we find Jesus in the storm? The question is thin enough to grasp. The answer is much thicker.

It starts with describing the world

I have been culling my books, lately. But I could not part with Nancy McWilliams’ Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. The PDM-2 offers analytic-leaning therapists an empirically based, clinically useful alternative or supplement to the DSM (APA) and the ICD (WHO) categorical diagnoses. People never fit neatly into categories, but comparing my inkling to years of expert study makes me a better helper.

The problem is, the categories can cause more harm than good. Whenever I use a diagnostic term with a client like “narcissism” or “masochism” (which is rare) I like to make them promise not to wear is as a label. I’d rather they see the description as “weather,” or “scenery,” or as part of a “journey.” Mental health labels can become straitjackets or even identities.

Swinton is mainly focused on the label “schizophrenia” in his book and generally sides with the movement seeking to eradicate the use of the word, since it has become associated with “being schizophrenic.” People say, “I’m schizophrenic” like they say, “I am an alcoholic” or “I’m bipolar.” The labels are too thin for the thick experiences people are having.

I’m with the people who oppose the stigmatization that comes with an insurance company needing an approved label for an illness before they pay. They whole system creates “epistemic injustice.” The labels should be provisional and descriptive, but they end up being formative. I went to YouTube and typed in “how to deal with a narcissist” and found scores of entries (ironically, one by Dr. Phil!). Labeling narcissists without much awareness of the tested descriptions is a cottage industry.  The fact someone can get even with an abuser by labeling them a narcissist says a lot about what the categories mean to us.

“Evidence-based” labels

In 2013 the director of the NIMH stated that the DSM did not describe authentic disorders because they had no “biomarkers” attached. Therefore, they could not be empirically verified. The diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of symptoms, not laboratory measurements. So the director said they were useless.

His concept of “mental illness” is that it can be fully explained on a biological basis. I think he believed he was democratizing mental health by getting the labels out of backroom dealing and into the sunlight of science. But he did not destigmatize mental health challenges by making them just another biological reality. Instead, his view taught people they no longer had an illness, they are an illness. If your genes, chemistry and brain processes label you, there is not much one can do.

“Mental illness” is not like having the measles. What is happening in our wildly complex brains, ever-developing bodies, and our changing environments cannot be reduced to a genetic marker. The biological, medical models are too thin.  If Jesus showed up at the NIMH he might be labelled schizophrenic when he said he heard from his Father!

Thick spirituality

The spirituality that sneaks into clinical practice is usually reduced to a very Eurocentric model that assumes the primacy of individualism, freedom, autonomy, choice and the right of people to create their own destiny. I know my studies, even in a Christian-oriented university, baptized me behind my back and forced me into a thin description of spirituality and humanity.

What faith in Jesus brings to the discussion about mental challenges is an antidote to the detriments of the DSM. The labels are instructive, but I don’t think we benefit if all we have is a comprehensive conceptualization like the ICD categories hovering over us. The satellite image from Google Maps provides an astounding outline of my house but has no clue about what is inside. Even the street view automatically captures a moment that is now past. We need a guide walking with us on the ground, noticing the details firsthand: the bumps, curbs, turns, and everyday accidents that make the journey of mental health interesting, difficult and complex.

Jesus is a walking exercise in such phenomenology. The incarnation intrinsically questions the assumptions we use to control and disempower. “What is an hallucination?” is recast as “What does it feel like to experience hearing voices?” Likewise, “What are the best practices for dealing with these symptoms?” is recast as “Where is God in this storm? What is the suffering making me? Where can I find joy in it? How can I receive healing? How can I appreciate my goodness and sort out my collusion with evil?”

Lose the labels

My clients who are organized masochistically look toward a horizon of joy with deep skepticism. They tend to label themselves as losers. They are from some “shithole” country where trauma and anxiety rule. I try to help them see that their sense of horizon is important; we need to look toward our ideals and see how we are distorted and isolated in comparison to what we hope. At the same time, we all need to grasp that a horizon is always changing. As we keep moving, the horizon looks different from where we are now standing. An unchanging horizon is only real in the abstract; it is not an everyday experience. We need to look and listen, not just keep talking about yesterday’s snapshot from Google.

From the Gospel Book of Otto III, 11th century

In Mark 5, Jesus has a famous conversation with a “man from the tombs with an unclean spirit.” That is a very evocative way to describe him, and it fits how many people I’ve known describe themselves, in one way or another. The man Jesus met was known to howl like the man on my block hearing negative voices. He bruised himself with stones like someone secretly cutting themselves or injecting street chemicals. Jesus spoke to the man’s inner tormentors and told them to come out of him.

Then Jesus did an unusual thing. He asked him what his name is. 1) Jesus did not treat him as a possessed man, just a man who has a name. He was not a diagnosis. 2) The man did not give his name but rather named his condition “My name is legion for we are many.” He self-stigmatized, as opposed to Jesus, who refused to go with the label he’d acquired. When the villagers came out to see about their swine, they met this man who used to scared them to death sitting with Jesus having a conversation.

Finding our way through mental health challenges can start with having a Christlike relationship with ourselves. Jesus names us as a friend, his beloved. We can receive that fundamental label. When we can’t see the forest for the trees, we can turn to Jesus who can show us the way,  Even more, Jesus can be the joy we seek even in scary, shadowy places of suffering beyond our understanding.

We can all make the world a better place for people by listening to where they are and helping them see the horizon they can see. None of us is our diagnosis. We are not really trapped in a box of symptoms, even when we feel we are. No one is their lack of perfection or their inability to meet the standards of the sinful world. Jesus names us, and we emissaries of the healer.

We can help people hold on to Jesus in their personal difficulties, and as they move through these difficult times in an atmosphere of our blessing, wonderfully free of  unnecessary guilt or blame. Understanding and valuing the perspective of others brings epistemic healing. Coming to rejected, lonely, humiliated and demonized people with gentleness and tenderness is the superpower that keeps peace at the heart of a soul-weary world. Let’s lose the thin labels and regain the thickness of each person finding their unique way through creation, known and loved by God.

Don’t hunker down. Expand your tent

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For many years, now, even before the pandemic, we have all been scrambling to find a new place in an upended world. Our institutions, from the federal government to the classroom, all seemed to be deteriorating, Our churches, associations, families, marriages feel threatened or unsustainable. More and more young people have begun to live alone, with the workplace as their main place to relate outside their bunker — and even then much of that relating has been consigned to a screen, sometimes in their bedroom.

Booming business for bunkers

Now that Trump has taken the helm, pardoned a slew of criminals and installed billionaires in new thrones (one, at least, giving a Nazi salute for the cameras), half the country is wondering what to do. And from what I hear, one of their solutions is to “go to their tents:” don’t watch the news, hunker down, shore up their family or small group of friends and try to survive. That is understandably defensive. And it is not a new response to a social mess.

But it is not the right time to go back to our tents. It is time to infect the society with truth and love.

The Biblical Trump

When Rehoboam, perhaps the Trump of the Old Testament, became king after his father Solomon died, he had a choice. He could lighten up on his father’s grandiosity or follow in his footsteps. Solomon had built an oversized kingdom on the backs of his people: high taxes and conscripted labor to build a lavish temple and palaces big enough for his many wives, stables and more. The people were tired of it. The king was a one-man 1% collecting all the wealth.

The elders, like the Episcopal bishop, and Catholic Archbishop preaching to Trump last week, asked Rehoboam to lighten up. He told them to come back later and he’d tell them what he planned. Then he went and talked to his cronies who lived with him in his bubble. They advised him to double down. In our context their advice would be, “Tell them they must say the election was stolen. Tell them you’re going to pardon bitcoin criminals. Tell them you want to conquer Greenland.” In Rehoboam’s context it was, “Tell them your pinky has more girth than your dad’s loins. Tell them, ‘If my dad set on you with whips, expect me to  set on you with scorpions.’”

The elders did not like his answer. Their response was so legendary the storytellers compiling the history could quote a song about it: “What share have we in David? / We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. / To your tents, O Israel! / Now, see to your own house, O David!” (Today we’d cue up Le Mis). They took the place name “Israel” with them and left Rehoboam with just the tribal area of Judah. The call, “To you tents, O Israel!” is reminiscent of how the tribes organized themselves in the encampments on the way from Egypt. It was like another exodus from an oppressive ruler.

I think a lot of the people I know are unwittingly or deliberately going to their tents. They are leaving Mark Zuckerberg’s predatory social media, boycotting Amazon, not touching anything smelling of Musk, turning their exhausted backs on Trump and the next outrageous thing he says or does. That’s understandably defensive. But I don’t think it is worthy of us.

The vision of an expanding tent

In the 580s BC, King Zedekiah of Judah chose the wrong ally. (Trump might be deciding, “Europe or Russia?” right now). Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled the elite, including the prophet Ezekiel. Other citizens fled to Egypt. The Assyrians had previously done this to the Northern Kingdom in the 720’s BC. A prophet among the exiles in Babylon, speaking in the spirit of Isaiah, prophesied Israel’s return to the place of the ancestral tents. His vision is the antidote we need to the poisonous atomization to which we are tempted to surrender in our own exile.

In Isaiah 54 the prophet has God speaking to a “barren” people whose tents are empty of children. They are desolate, as you may well feel this week. Discouraged. Exhausted. Afraid. Instead of hunkering down in exile, he calls them to respond to a vision of something better, something only God can do.

Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.

Historically, the prophet is talking about returning to Israel, which the Persian Empire eventually allowed. But I think its broader meaning, a spiritual meaning, calls me to make a bigger tent, not a smaller one, because we need to gather ourselves and build something ancient and new to meet the challenges of the latest tyrants. We need to shore up or re-establish a community where the love of Jesus reigns.

To be honest, Trump Christians believe he is the new Cyrus returning them from exile and making a place for their tribe to again rule God’s chosen nation, the United States. I think that is a ruinous delusion; you can decide for yourself. I don’t think Trump or the U.S. is exceptional or chosen, just a decent port in the choppy ocean of history. We don’t need to fight for the control of the nation as much as we need to salt it with the grace we enact within and from our tent.

Jesus tabernacling

The ultimate guide for our ongoing exodus is Jesus, who is pictured as an expansive tent. The key verse in John uses an ancient image that calls us away from our division and isolation and empowers us to not only envision but practically extend our tent pegs in expectation of an ingathering.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14

The more literal translations accurately trade “dwelt” for “tabernacled.” I agree it was John’s intent to reference the big tent, the “tabernacle of meeting” the Israelites set up during their sojourn where God met them. Jesus is the tabernacle where the world meets God face to face. Jesus is the tabernacle from where the people-God-calls-out of the world gather to meet in truth and love.

Now is not the time to isolate, avoid, wait or play defense. At least that is not Jesus’ strategy for the good life. Now is the time to relate: to God and to one another. The antidote to every disaster is to stick with God and love one another in practical ways. Many people know this and are making it happen, but you and I need to do it, too.

During the pandemic and because of the Evangelical/Catholic delusion about Trump, the church took a hit. You may still be out of church. You may have turned your back on Jesus altogether and explored the many alternatives cropping up. But many of my readers wish they could find some place to be the church with integrity and action. Exhausted as you may feel, now is the time to find it or build it.

We need the church now, as much as ever

Thirty years ago we planted a great church for the “next generation.” Little did I know what would hit us during the pandemic, and I thought Trump was just a brief, worst nightmare. It was a great sojourn for me and hundreds of other people.  Seeds of that work are still ripening even now.

Even though many churches have taken a hit, there are plenty of revived or reviving churches to join. My friend just joined a new church in Baltimore. If I were in Southwest Philly I’d sojourn with Salt and Light. If I were in Northeast Philly I’d probably be with Oxford Circle Mennonite. In my neighborhood near St. Joseph U., I’m part of the newly-expansive St. Asaph’s. I dare say most churches are not fully on the Trump bandwagon and certainly are not in favor of scaring undocumented people to death or tormenting trans folk. I think most believers know dominating others, lying, or having a devotion to violence and greed will never be OK. They want real stuff.

Jesus is still tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. We need to meet him personally and meet with him together with others for our mental and spiritual health, in order to experience our deepest loves and desires, and to keep the world from falling off the cliff of its own self-destruction. Maybe more than ever, we need to gather around Him, share our spiritual gifts and natural strengths, do our part in making the love that will not only benefit us but make a better future.

God bless you as you do the good you do in the school, workplace or neighborhood association. But “me against the world” will never be enough. It is likely to make you a minion of TikTok. The people of God need to be with God and each other in their basic tent of dwelling, their portable, flexible, developing homeplace, not only in their hearts, but in their face-to-face relationships and joint action. There is no time to lose by lamenting and laying low.

I rejoined the church two Lents ago. I started a new small group, and we are about to start another. I decided to give what I have to a local expression of the Body. It feels right. I feel a bit hopeful. And even in my uncertainty, I feel like I’m in the tent where I belong. What is God giving you to be and do to meet the challenge of this wild time in history? I doubt the call is, “Go to you tent.”

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

Today is Mahalia Jackson Day! Check in with her at The Transhistorical Body.

The inside and out of mentalizing

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, , ,

Mentalizing, if we boil it down, is just thinking about wat we think and feel, and feeling about what we feel and think — with a clear mind and balanced heart. Normally we don’t think and feel about what we think and feel; we just do what we do because it’s “normal” – at least as far as we are concerned. But most of what we care about and what troubles us is circling around how we mentalize, or don’t. The more mature our process is, the more peace of mind, harmonious relations, productivity and spiritual satisfaction we feel.

At the end of the month, we are doing a presentation to the PAMFT centered on mentalizing. I’ve been refreshing my awareness of the literature. The term “mentalization” emerged in psychoanalytic literature in the 1960’s. It became more widely applied in the 1990’s. Peter Fonagy and others applied the concept of mentalizing to attachment relationships gone awry — that is where I encountered the idea in the 2000’s.

At that point I was especially interested in how so-called “borderline” personalities might learn to live in the church. These kind of people, with a “disorganized” attachment style — likely due to physical, psychological or sexual abuse and other trauma, have difficulty developing the ability to mentalize. Had they experienced their parents doing it, they would be better able to imagine and represent the states of their own and others’ minds. But their weakness leaves them mistrusting themselves and others and desperate to find a way out of that arid place.

We’re mentalizing in our dreams

Mentalizing is something we need to learn if our insides are wounded; there is a disconnection we are rejoining. As hard as that may be, there is good news: it is a natural process. I think we naturally do some mentalizing when we dream. When we are asleep and our waking self is not reacting to the outside world as it usually does, our undistracted mind is repairing and forming understanding that we might discover later. I had an interesting experience of the process that led me to write this post.

I woke from an intriguing dream. I can’t remember what went before, but I remember wanting to hang on to it — to mentalize. The part I do remember was me walking through a hall, like a cafeteria, filled with people scattered about. I saw a table across the way filled with some of the cool kids. They were looking at me, apparently talking about me. One of the all-around athletes in my high school was there. They were commenting on the 3 ft. piece of 4” PVC pipe I was carrying. The people I passed seemed to think I might use it as a weapon. The cool kids made fun of me for having it, like it was foolish and I didn’t know it. I heard them and went over to their table. I sat down with them. A table behind them was filled with women teachers, significantly. The women acted like they could not hear what I said but smiled approvingly.

I asked the group “What do you think is successful?” No one answered as I looked around. So I said, “Let’s try this. At what is each of you most successful?” No answers. So I turned to the football star, “What do you think Phil is successful at?” There was no immediate answer, so I talked about how he was good at football. I looked around circle. My intention was for each of us to tell the others what we are good at.

That is when I began to wake up. I woke up realizing I was dreaming about the kind of affirmation exercises I led many times in many groups — which seemed like a very strange thing to be dreaming about! Before I was fully awake, a Bible verse I memorized as a child floated up from the King James Bible:  “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” My mind was working out what I think and feel about success.

When we are asleep, we are still mentalizing. I got to see what was going on because I have a cold and kept waking up. Responding to the urge to remember and even write it down, as I later did,  sealed the process.

We are mentalizing in a psychotherapy session

Some might say connecting the concept of mentalizing to dreams is the opposite of the word intends. Because the whole idea the theorists were going for included intention. People with a mentalizing deficit are awash in automatic thoughts, unmanageable feelings and unruly behavioral habits. Mentalizing is about putting our inner and outer processes under control, balancing out, slowing down and speeding up when you intend to, not just following the chaos around. That’s a very important skill for everyone to develop.

But the theorists might be going too far, by implying our good intentions have enough power to get things under control. We say “I didn’t do it intentionally” all the time because we often don’t intend our bad behavior and we are afraid to enact our good behavior! Dreaming is a built-in process, like breathing, which we don’t control. When we experience our dreams at the edge of sleep, we get a peek into what the brain is doing when we sleep to repair and prepare. I think my dreams represent my God-given capacity to chill out and get better. We are not just our intentions, we are intended. We are designed to heal and grow. When we are awake and mentalizing (even thinking and feeling about our dreams), we are cooperating with our innate capacity, not just trying get the monster within to act according to as better rubric.

When we come to a psychotherapy appointment, no matter what kind of method is being used, a basic thing we are doing is mentalizing. It is a lot like I was doing in my dream, wandering around my inner world, learning to understand my own mental states and others’ feelings, desires, wishes, goals, purposes, and reasons — only now  I am starting with a therapist in front of me in a small “hall” so to speak. It is all quite doable.

The therapists helps me to mentalize and helps me to do it with another person, which is that much more complex. We humans are all about relating, all the time. In my dream, the scenes were filled with people. I was relating to myself in all the many ways I do, all represented by people I love or want to love or who I wish loved me or don’t. In therapy I can explore all that with a safe partner.

Often, no matter what techniques the therapist has or goals they might have for their client (even if they are a very bad therapist!), if all we are doing is wandering around in a safe place to explore our inner world with another person, something good is likely to be born. Not long ago a client complained about all the bad therapists they had paid. I later wondered if he wanted me to feel good about him by complimenting me for not being so bad! I thought, “All those therapists were just helping you along the way, and now you are here, able to imagine what would be good therapy and eager to take advantage of this new season of growth.”

I hope I have learned to be a decent therapist. But, I have to admit, as my dream reinforced, the best thing I do, probably, is to show up and be kind. I am tenderhearted toward my clients, which means I have learned to mentalize. I can feel along with them, not only empathize, but understand their misunderstandings with them. I don’t impose my understanding of God on my clients (as if that would do them any good), but I do the last part of the verse, too. I forgive them as Jesus forgave me. All their self-loathing and resistance, their willful ignorance and self-destructive behaviors, the harm they cause in the world and all their immoralities — it is not “all good” but I am intentionally putting it all in God’s good care.

We should intend to mentalize all day

We are all working on mentalizing, whether we know the word or not — or how did this famous song get so popular? There are so many covers of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” it may be the mentalizing national anthem. A lot of us are desperate to do the work.

 Yeah, baby, sometimes I’m so carefree
With a joy that’s hard to hide
Yeah, and other times it seems that
All I ever have is worry
And then you’re bound to see my other side

… Oh, I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

Everyone is wandering around in their dreams and on the sidewalk wishing they understood what was going on. And their minds are racing to figure it out, one way or another. People are looking to each of us to help them.

Here are some examples of how we come to feel better and better understanding when we mentalize:

  • A woman told me she had “one of those moments” when the preacher was speaking directly to her. It was like “he was reading my mind.” She was stopped “in her tracks.” I think connecting spiritually is real. I am glad some pastors give people the impression they empathize and think alongside their people.
  • If you are out on the street you can probably tell which people you can talk to when you need help. You get the idea they will understand you and feel with you.  I practiced this a lot when I first got to Philly and intended to meet prospective church members right there on the sidewalk. If I got lost, I would look around and spot the likely helper.
  • There is a look on someone’s face when they see that you see them. Sometimes they melt. We love our dogs because a lot of them can’t help but wait to see if they are going to be seen. Before TikTok is banned you’ll probably see a bull dog sitting on his master’s chest, looking him in the eye and then putting his head down to cuddle up under his chin. We all feel that way if we think someone is attending to us with positive feelings and thoughts.
  • Since we just finished Christmastide, let me end with another song. The “Coventry Carol” was working on mentalizing long before their we psychology folk discovered it. The chorus is “Lully. Lullay, thou little, tiny child.” The women are thinking about the danger the bloodthirsty king, Herod, presents to Jesus. Some people say the words are 14th century slang for “I see. I saw.”  That would be great for my point if it were true, but I haven’t verified it. It is a lullaby. It brings us into a “lull” where we can feel safe, go to sleep and dream ourselves toward connection and peace.

When our mother or father cradled us in their arms and looked us in the eye, we began to feel the safety of being seen and seeing back, even before our eyes could focus well. You might like to try listening to the carol intentionally as if the singers were seeing you in your sorrow or your threatening situation. Feel the sadness, the fear, the awe, the lull and also think about the story, find yourself in it, wonder about how you would react to the situation. That would certainly be an antidote to the shallow soundbiting we are taught all day! You’d be mentalizing. You might feel better or deeper when you were done. You might even gain some mental strength or spiritual courage to face the troubles you face,  and move with the positive desires drawing you, inside and out.

Which industry enslaves you best?: 1 Cor. 7:21-23

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

Were you a slave when you were called?
Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person;
similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.
You were bought at a price;
do not become slaves of human beings.
1 Cor. 7:21-23

What did your family or friendship circle talk about over the holidays? At our Christmas brunch, for a few minutes the conversation turned to slavery.

The education industry

I have a grandson ready to enter college (and highly qualified to do so!). The biggest question is: how much is it going to cost and how much debt is going to be accrued? I asked, in an apocalyptic tone in line with our times, “Can you avoid becoming a debt slave?” After all, Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

President Biden tried to give borrowers some relief by plugging some holes in the leaky federal student loan system, like the  one leaking out the loan forgiveness built in for public service. He was not too successful, with the Congress and Courts as they are. Here’s a story about it from The Hill:

Lisa Ansell, an educator from California, was one of the people who got their loans cancelled in 2021 when Biden made those changes, after she was denied eight times.

“I should have been eligible for public service loan forgiveness in 2017, which would have been the first cohort, because public service loan forgiveness was signed into law in 2007. I applied in 2017 and, of course, I was denied, no valid reason. We know that the Department of Education likes to invent reasons to prevent people from receiving their lawful cancelation,” said Ansell, the California chapter president for Student Loan Justice.

Ansell said she was relieved, but “what I felt was anger and resentment because I had been kept in indentured servitude to the Department of Education for close to five extra years, and because of that, I was never able to save up any money.”

While Biden forgave the most student debt of any president, his efforts affected only a small portion of the 45 million borrowers.  (The Hill)

These stories are so painful for us Boomer college grads! My excellent college education in California was completed before the state stopped considering it an investment in the future. The school debt slavery so many experience now all started with Governor Ronald Reagan.

When Reagan assumed office in 1966, he changed the course of the state’s higher education system. In his eight years, he cut state funding for college and universities and laid the foundation for the tuition-based system there is today. Once he became president, he continued his quest. {Great article describing in in the UC Irvine Campus Newspaper from 2023]. The “intellectual curiosity” to which the university was devoted created protesting Berkeley “brats” he said. He preferred a campus-as-business model working to create more profiteers — at least the few who could make the cut.

Since Reagan, college has gotten more and more expensive. It is amazing, really. Just think, the average American saved $5,011 in 2022. That means it would take them about 75 years to save up enough cash to send one child to a top-rated U.S. university. If your child wants to go, you’ll either need to get very rich or sell her to the debtors. (CNN 2023)

The average tuition at U.S. private colleges grew by about 4% last year to just under $40,000 per year, according to data collected by US News & World Report. For a public in-state schools, the rise was less, about 1%. But it always goes up. Another take on the stats sees that small rise as a glass half full, since 20 years ago it climbed 68%!

At highly rated or selective schools, which are most likely to get you the lucrative job or your chance to be part of the 1%, the price tag increases substantially. Harvard University charges about $58,000 in tuition and fees, per year, for undergraduate students. When you add in housing, food, books and other cost of living expenses, Harvard says you should expect to pay over $95,000.

We’re used to being rolled over by the “anti-socialists” who believe the rich deserve to rule (just like Proverbs lamented above, perhaps with a picture of Elon Musk in mind),  so we  kind of think it is common sense for slavery to debt to be part of getting an education. This guy explains how it happened to us:

While we were at it (Merry Christmas!), we enumerated other systems that have gone through the same kind of process until what was once a sphere of the “common good” has ended up in the hands of people skilled in making profit/slaves. I just want to touch on them.

Healthcare / insurance industry

There are many reasons healthcare is so costly (link). But the big ones in my mind are mergers and insurance. Big health systems have eaten up smaller rivals until they can basically charge what they want.

Worked into the fees they charge are paying off insurance companies for fear of malpractice claims. So insurance companies have their hands out all along the way, as Luigi Mangione pointed out. On average, a single person will pay $12-25 a day to the insurance slaver or they will be personally liable for the astronomical cost of a hospital visit or procedure, which will be allowed by the master, or not.

Like with universities, healthcare is a good investment for profiteers, since everyone needs it. An investor can be assured that profits are available since the cost for drugs and medical care can go up to whatever can be tolerated by raising the cost of insurance. My insurance toll goes up every year.  A recent stay in the hospital for a family member for a one-night surgery cost over $100,000.

Porn industry

The average age reported for first viewing pornography is 12. Almost half of the reporters (44%) went looking for it, while slightly more than half (58%) encountered it accidentally. It is hard to miss. The total adult entertainment revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate  of 5.3% from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly $248.18 billion by 2030.

There are legal arguments about what is obscene and so regulatable. But from listening to my twentysomething clients, the porn industry is not a discussion about personal choice, it is a slaver. Like any other addiction, there is an introductory path on the way to enslavement and profit engineered by an industry. Monetizing sexual desire is a growth industry. Under the spell of profit, people tend to think that is self-evidently appropriate.

Phones/gaming/social media industries

I got an ad for Royal Match on Bible Gateway (!) as I wrote this. That seemed about right.  We’re all getting squished or drowned no matter where we look and we have to complete some crazy puzzle (and fast!!) or someone is going to die. Our movies, games, and notifications are all full of this anxiety. That anxiety is not our fault, no matter what the powers that be tell us.

It is profitable, somehow, to produce endless ads for this game and loop us into it. The ads are incessant lures to get me hooked so I play the game on the subway instead of relating. Then the phone can report how much time I’ve spent with it every week and I can worry about that. There is nothing benign in our “economy.” No tools are provided for mere creation, we are the host for giant corporations to drain. The phone is like Neo connected to the Matrix.

The prophets made that movie in 1999! Lots of people listened to them, but they got rolled over anyway (maybe the medium is the message). Besides, even by 2011, only 35% of Americans owned a smartphone. But by 2024, 91% of them did. Now we are enslaved to it. I can’t leave the house without it, I might need to satisfy a 2-step verification to get to my money or need Siri to tell me where the nearest Chipotle is.

Sorry

I’m kinda sorry I want you to be ramped up with me.

I will look for something more uplifting to talk about next time. I know most of us are upended by Santa Ana winds in January spreading fire in L.A. Trump is setting Canada and Denmark on edge for some reason. And Jimmy Carter is dead. Anxiety is in the air and we need some relief.

But seeing what we are up against at least gives us some juice to move with the ever-rebellious Paul, and not bend the knee to the norms of a sin-fueled world. “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.”

Ronald Reagan opened the door to the American henhouse and the foxes are finally in charge of it, now — in Paul’s time, it was Rome eating up the world. But as Paul and Jimmy Carter exemplified, you don’t need to offer yourself up to be breakfast. You might even change the world, as a result.

Top Ten Posts for 2024

A life in the Spirit

Every year I try to take stock of how you have received what I write.  Here are the top ten, most-read posts of 2024. This list might help you catch up with what people found important if you are new to the site. 

2024

I will always long for community

Looking back over my development, I celebrate how I built community, but more how it built me.

Robert Putnam in his 80’s: The cause of our aloneness is moral

Putnam made an impact on me decades ago with his often-quoted book Bowling Alone. Some people rediscovered him this year.

Conversion: The smoking woman and the dejected church planter

My dear friend got me to recount my church planting to her and it helped me celebrate how it converted me.

Emergent identities: The queer future of the church, too

At the CAPS Conference, Mark Yarhouse helped me see the proliferation of identity labels and how the culture is quickly moving away from them.

How do we build the new community we need?

Post-pandemic and pre-Trump-2, community feels hard to build. I give reasons and suggestions.

Receive the shush of God and face today’s troubles.

News about the Congo leads me to look for the comfort God gives and I find a “shush” right where I need it.

Grief: Make room to grieve in every way you need

There is grief behind the meanness. My friend wrote a book that gives wonderful help in how to move through it which inspired this post.

The impact of siblings: Five things you are probably sharing

Psychologists used to think the parents, mainly mother, had the greatest influence on a child’s development. Now siblings are getting their due.

A few tweaks to improve “Draw Me Close To You.”

I dare to have a few issues with another classic Evangelical song. I try to make it less transactional and perpetually aspirational, more present.

Listening in the era of lies

The election of Donald Trump (again!) challenges us to hold on to the truth somehow. I offer some basis for listening for the truth.

Top Ten from earlier years

I am not sure why some posts become the search-engine go-to or why some are linked to popular sites and others aren’t. Some of these posts are perennial favorites, with thousands or views each year. 

Exploring DBT skills with Jesus: Ever thought you’re an idiot? Read this (2019)

A spiritual midwife: God’s helpers in birthing new life (2013)

The common emotion wheels need unpacking (2023)

Who Are You? — In honor of Teresa de Jesus (2019)

The Stages of Faith: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water (2018)

FFF #17 — Brendon Grimshaw and his Seychelles wonder (2022)

Group communication “sad?” Try on some Virginia Satir. (2023)

Slander divides: Six ways to overcome it (2023)

Undo triangulation in the church: Practice Matthew 18 (2019)

Patsy Cline leads the way after the midnight of the world (2021)

_______________________

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. Get involved with it at The Transhistorical Body.

Epiphany Psalm

A life in the Spirit, Poetry
A woman much like this one has been my inspiration.

I looked at Christmastide
through my historical telescope:
a distant planet of revel
clouded with 13th century faith,
a faint tune from a long-past
collective unconsciousness,
a wisp of memory clinging to
moments of glittering hope
painted on a faded background.

My celebration turned, stretched,
lurched into the unrepeatable future.
Pondering whether to toss old journals
led to guilty, ambivalent listening
as they echoed down the trash chute.
Discovering an old speech from the past
led to a spiritual rehab.
But all the old poetry was saved as is:
hundreds of psalms sketched in moleskin
like Mechtilde esoterically
scratching for the Poetry Foundation.

I am at odds with the year again.
My Advent is just beginning:
as taxes come due, as we are on the road,
journeying to a new place, a new era,
waiting for a final shoe to drop,
dreading flaws in the makeover,
anticipating grief in the unknown.

I am still following the star
hoping a cradle is in my future.
But also sure I will meet a Herod,
or confront the inner intolerable,
living off some dead woman’s inspiration
or at least subject to her grandiosity.
I have come to so many mangers,
it is hard not to think the present star
is rather dim in comparison,
the myths of memory casting shade.
Waning and waiting go together now,
like John the Baptist finding his dream job
is officially over and all too brief.

But I suppose if I am the last person
longing for the next Epiphany,
strangely inspired by the wild 1200’s,
following some ineffable star,
that will have to be how it is.
Because it is, just as you are:
as inescapable as life and death,
as brilliant as you are dim and dimmed,
uncovered from the rubble of history,
obscured by the uncertain future,
and as bright as a New Year’s dawn.

 

[I recorded it, if you like  LINK]

Seven mistakes that could neuter your faith (2016)

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

Faith feels kind of fragile. This is a message from 2016, but I think it still works for this year, when passion is blunted and fear is high. 

Don’t struggle with prayer

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. — Colossians 4:12

Epaphras struggled in prayer, wrestled. It was hard. If we do not learn to pray, our faith dies. In every era of life, the struggle is different. When we suffer, it is especially hard to pray and especially fruitful.

So how do we learn how to pray? A father from the Desert was asked by a novice “Abba, how do I pray?” The father answered, “Pray and the prayer will teach you everything.”

That’s a good piece of direction. Here are some more specific hints.

  • Establish a minimal daily routine. Reaching consistency is the most important goal.
  • Get warmed up to pray. Use a book or an app, maybe. Look over your notes from Sunday. Read the Bible or the writings of great guides – they whet your appetite for prayer.
  • Create a praying atmosphere. Use icons, candles, incense, prayer beads. They all contribute to decreasing distraction and increasing Holy Spirit awareness.
Artsy prayer corner
  • Involve both the spirit and the body. Kneel or stand, bow your head, raise your hands, lay prostrate.
  • Set reasonable expectations. In a society that enjoys instant gratification every day, one can abandon prayer after a couple of “failed” attempts. Prayer takes patience.
  • Don’t obsess on mystical experiences. It is important to discern among the spirits. Visions and experiences need to sit and prove themselves. Our pride can deceive us. We can turn prayer into an achievement or a competition
  • Remember that prayer is more than your “quiet time.” It is linked with repentance, humility, charity and fasting, etc. It happens in community. It is being in the presence of God all day and staying in dialogue.

Prayer is an encounter with God, is building up a personal relationship that needs nurturing and perseverance. The more we communicate the closer we become to any person and to the person of God. The conversation becomes more rewarding every time.

You have already been doing some evaluation by going through the list above. Make a plan to implement the element of the list that moved you the most — or maybe the one that seems to be the greatest struggle.

Let your sharing erode

 We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. – 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8

The Thessalonians have a tight community and they are experiencing the kinds of things people in community fear. Some people take advantage. Other people hold back. A few people try to hold things together and end up feeling burned out. There is always a pull towards isolation and tepidity. We’re made for that by sin. If we let our sharing erode our faith could die.

Paul writes his letter so that the new life of his church plant won’t get wrecked by the unconscious erosion of their sharing – not just of money (although that is a big thing in Thessaloniki) but of love and the kind of covenant keeping that makes family out of strangers.

He uses his own sharing as an example. When he came to town, he was purposely dependent on them. He could have been in power, but he was like a child. Likewise, they were dependent on him. He was like a mother and they were defenseless children. Why? It was love. Love moved him to share the good news of Jesus which is all about God’s love moving Jesus to share eternal life. What’s more, love moved Paul, just like God, to share this life personally. Paul’s message wasn’t about love, it was love in the flesh.

After a while, sharing money or sharing life in community can feel wearing if they lose connection with passionate love – a love so deliberate it comes from heaven in Jesus or walks from Syria to Greece in Paul. When is the last time you shared in an extraordinary way? How long has it been since you checked to see if your passion is fairly represented in how you share your money? Celebrate the joys, if they reflect your answer. Pray for courage and confidence if the answer presents a challenge.

Be threatened into silence

“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”

Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” – Acts 4:16-20

It is interesting to wonder what is going on with Peter. When confronted in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ trial, he denied he was a Jesus follower three times! After he received the Holy Spirit, he performed a miracle and refused to stop talking about it when the same court that condemned Jesus ordered him to do so. Not long after, however, when he travelled to Antioch, to Paul’s church of Gentiles and Jews, he “began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (see Galatians 2:11-21). Even the boldest among us can be threatened into silence. It neuters our faith. We become hypocrites who supposedly have a faith with public principles, yet we are afraid of the consequences of being public.

These days, people are afraid to say something on Facebook because they might look like the kind of person who would say something on Facebook! If they talk about Jesus or their church, they are afraid someone will judge them for being too into themselves, or too aggressive, or too something, so they are shamed by the very thought of being shamed by the latest judge.

But if you can’t talk about Jesus like you talk about your latest vacation, or your family, or the various causes that heighten your passion, hasn’t your faith become of no consequence? What does it mean if the Lord is not the most consequential person alive from the dead?

Pray: Give me boldness to speak about what I have seen and heard of You.

Maybe you should imagine frightening situations — like telling your parents you are a Christian, or telling some significant person about what you now believe. You might rehearse talking about it in front of the mirror – that might lessen the terror when you actually encounter the real-life situation. Sharing your fears with others might help, too. Talk to them about what you felt and decided when you read today’s reading.

Write down your story of faith so you can really see it. Then you won’t need to invent it on the spot when you feel like you have an antagonist looking at you skeptically. Hold up your story to God as an offering and say, like Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Stop making new friends

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you,  leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. – Matthew 5:23-4

In the long run, worship and prayer easily become very singular, personal, private. You are probably reading this alone and it never crosses your mind to share the experience with others. The U.S. is so steeped in individualism, you probably rarely think or asking for help or sharing personal things. The reading for today speaks into such a situation – the Jewish people having a long, insular faith devoted to staying free from outside influences.

Jesus suggests the worshiper leave the scene of the sacrifice as it is being enacted when he or she realizes the real impurity must be expiated relationally. They remember how they have wronged someone and must make it right. The work of the altar is about reconciliation. And that is not just healing a breech between a person and God, but healing the breech in a divided heart so prone to ignoring sins against love.

Our faith is neutered when we stop making friends with new people because we busy at our altars – doing church, satisfied in prayer, happy for therapy, stabilized enough to make money and buy insulating comforts. Whole churches effectively close their doors because they are busily grooming the relationships they have already domesticated. None of the New Testament writers recommend anything but pushing into new relationship territory. Jesus would have us love our enemies – just because we can.

Pray: Remind me Lord when I come to prayer and ignore my sins against love.

Obviously, when Jesus says “be reconciled” he is talking about people who have something legitimately against us, not just that they are upset and we should feel responsible. We are to be free to love with abandon, we are not abandoned to repairing every breech.

Dare to think beyond the security of your present life with God and the people of God. Who should become your new friend? Where should you go looking for a new friend?

While we are at it, let’s look at our church as a whole. Are we allowing people to become our friends? Do we think of them, even as we are worshiping, or would that seem like a violation of our space?

Put the church on the other side of a boundary

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness….

[E]ven if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. – Philippians 2:5-7…17-18

Who is God? Look at Jesus and you can see. There He is making himself nothing, finding a way to express self-giving love in the most redemptive way possible. Who am I in Christ? Paul often says “Look at me. I am the chief of sinners being used by God. Here I am emptying myself, pouring myself out like Jesus.” Both Jesus and Paul are demonstrating the joy of knowing and expressing their true selves. Even though Jesus is making himself a slave and Paul is in prison for his faith, they rejoice.

People who have grown up with this message often hear it upside down, as if this selflessness was a demand, not a promise. They have been so required, they have never chosen, and have a grown up faith that is full of boundaries. They are still pouring themselves out of their false self, not out of the inexhaustible joy in the Spirit. God and God’s people end up threats who will steal life, not give it.

These generalities don’t fit every person, since people are not standard. But the idea is worth pondering. If you are putting the church and its work on the other side of a boundary, if you have to “set a boundary” so you will feel comfortable or safe, what does that mean? Could your faith be more a reaction than an action? Isn’t it being neutered if the very thing that should give it life seems to be stealing it? Jesus and Paul don’t seem to be losing the promise and holding back even though their circumstances are dire.

Pray: Help me to get out of myself and into the Body.

Consider what script is running in your head about the church, in particular. Note your resentments and fears, your disappointments and resistance. It does not matter if they are legitimate or not. But they could be neutering your faith.

Try crossing your boundary. Volunteer to give your spiritual gift in a practical way. Go to the Sunday meeting four times in a row with the intention of pouring yourself into them, “on the sacrifice and service of someone’s faith.” Or do that thing you have been intending to do as a representative of God’s people and don’t tell a soul, just do it whether anyone notices or is there to judge it or not.

Look liberal and act conservative

Read Colossians 2:16-23

These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

One of the things that neuters faith, hope and love the quickest is imposing a new holiness code. Paul is against it. He respects the Law of Moses and the interpretations that grew up around it. But Jesus shows it to be the mere tutor it was, not the standard it pretends to be. Likewise, he tries to undermine the latest teachings of the latest lawgivers who find a reading in the stars or a vision by which to order everyone according to their new rules of purity. He calls is “delighting in false humility” and being “puffed up with idle notions.”

There are so many good things that are, in essence, disconnected from the head, who is Christ, but are very connected to the latest political theory or scientific realities. We can look “liberal” like we are into the latest thing, while we are very conservative, practicing the oldest of deceptions. Wearing nonexploitive clothes, drinking the right coffee, eating farm direct produce, biking, practicing the right kind of yoga, not vaccinating your child, being fit, not bathing, having a beard, voting Green, not voting, protesting a lack of diversity, judging inappropriate speech – the younger one is, the more rules there seem to be! There is a new holiness code, but Jesus did not make it up!

Pray: Help me see beyond the shadows to Christ.

Good intentions are the shadows of the real good to come, which is connected to the head, from whom the whole body grows as God causes it to grow. Take a moment to be freely and securely connected to the head as part of the body of Christ, free of any false criteria that condemns you.

Take a brief inventory of (not a condemning look at) your “identity.” What parts of your “lifestyle” are really based on the rules of people? Can you name a few rules you can safely live without in the light of Jesus? Get rid of some “shoulds” that could lock you up.

“Trust” the leaders instead of being responsible

I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.

You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant. – 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (The Message)

Timothy was Paul’s apprentice. He was young, but he was put in charge of leading one of the churches. He faced a lot of things that make many people his age run from responsibility: hard work, opposition, people without a stomach for the truth. The main thing that neuters faith might be that people want their leaders to have faith for them, even force it on them, provide them a weekly mirage of it, be a larger than life example of it to enjoy vicariously.

A church should be devoted to apprenticing responsible leaders. There should be about one in every ten people. That means if sixty groups or missions got started this year, the ten founders in each one would all need a leaders the church produced. The generative capacity of the whole church will be neutered if we are not able to do that.

You might not need to be a group or mission leader, but you do need to be responsible to give what you have been given. It is not the leaders’ church. You do not attend “Rod’s church” (someone called it that). It is the Lord’s church. And, as Paul warned Timothy, “God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch.” We would like this judgment to somehow be non-threatening, but it is a threat. We don’t get to live someone else’s life; we are responsible for the one we have. We can’t “trust our leaders” and let them decide everything and do everything; we need to be our part of the team.

Pray: Help me keep my eye on what I’m; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.

Maybe you do not have the stomach for this “solid teaching.” Or maybe you are surrounded by people whole have weak stomachs, so you feel kind of embarrassed to eat a rich diet. It doesn’t matter; we need to eat the bread of life and not turn away when Jesus offers us his body and blood. We are called and honored with good work to do. We must not make the mistake of being untrustworthy.

Are there any responsibilities you have been given as part of the body that you are shirking and letting one of the leaders do?

Does God protect us? : The music sends a message

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

During my four years In college, I was in a choral practice every day, Monday through Friday. I think I loved every day — at least I do now, as I look back on it. I learned a lot about much more than music, but it is the music that keeps rising up to bless me.

On Friday, the music was there to meet me as soon as I woke up. I was startled awake because of a dream. I won’t tell you all of it, but the part that woke me up was about being on a straight road going very fast and then realizing I had fallen asleep. When I jolted awake, I did not know where I was. I eventually found out I had gone to Maryland in my dreams!

I know how this actually feels because I did fall asleep once when we were driving to San Francisco for the weekend from So Cal – back in the day when all-night things were pretty normal. I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up just as I was about to enter an overpass curving over a railroad track. I still remember the feeling of shock and terror, then relief.

I definitely felt protected by God in my dream and in my experience.

Does God protect us?

In my dream, though, I felt a bit ambivalent. Was I protected? Honestly, my unconscious was having an ongoing intellectual discussion just before I woke up.

But even before I opened my eyes, a song came to mind. It was a solo I sang in college. We performed Honegger’s King David, which is a rather difficult, not-too-melodic drama. I did not really get it. But my director often gave his ignorant protégé solos which were over his head and labored to help me perfect them. He had one good reason to deploy me: I actually felt what was behind the sacred music. We were in a secular setting and he was surrounded by music majors who cared more about Honegger’s technique than his motivation. I never got the technique that well —  my mentor had to mark my scores with endless instructions. But I did get the faith.

I realized years later that the little solo he gave me in King David was really half a solo. A new, older tenor had joined the choir who read music like I read the newspaper, and he wanted a solo in the piece. My director did not want to disappoint him, so he gave him the first half, which was more like an intro to my second half, which might be the most melodic measures in the whole work.

My one line was a soaring moment of assurance God gave David in his old age. Essentially, it was, “You’ll be OK even though Absalom has upended your kingdom.” Whether Psalm 121 is really about that, who knows? I didn’t even think about it. I just sang,

He will not suffer thy foot to be mov-ed,
for he is on high, watching above.
The Lord who is thy keeper neither slumbers nor sleeps.

That one line of music has stuck with me my entire adulthood. It pops up at just the right time, over and over.

To hear the pro sing it, you’ll have to scroll to section #21 “Psaume” at about 54:00

I’m not sure I can promise what you want

Again, and again in my life, especially when I feel threatened, that one line of Psalm 121 comes to me in a song. I’m thinking about it today, but I normally don’t. It just happens.

In my dream, God protected me. He kept me. God is my keeper, even in Maryland.

Intellectually, I would not defend that God can be relied on to keep me from flying off an overpass and into Bakersfield. But in my dream, I definitely felt God had protected me when I woke up in Maryland. I told God as we pondered together, “I don’t believe you constantly protect me,” because my experience tells me otherwise, and I cannot justify why God would not protect everyone who is abused by more than I have been. But I also said, “I do believe you watch over me and suffer with me,” since inexplicable grace happens and I feel God suffering with me and comforting me, heart, soul, mind and strength.

Practically, the fact is, I risk and imagine further risks almost every day under the assumption I am protected, that my future is in God’s hands. I prayed, “Your lack of slumber is the eternity in which I wake and sleep and defy death.” God being with me and me being with God is what is safe, not being kept unharmed. Escaping harm is exciting and comforting, too, but it is kind of the surface of things. One day I will, in fact, die. I will then only defy death because I am with God and God is with me. God will not keep me from the “harm” of dying. When I finally die, Jesus will take my hand and lead me into the fullness of eternity.

Feeling the confidence to live the risky life we all live is better than avoiding the troubles I fear. I think the world has so much trouble right now there will never be enough avoidance to deal with it!

But I can promise grace will happen

I have had the blessing of faith my whole life which has allowed me not to worry too much about my safety. But I have many clients, especially those who have been traumatized, who struggle every day with how God did not save them and how they can’t save themselves. They’ve flown off the bridge from which I was saved.

I can’t make a promise God will keep them, like the psalm appears to promise. (But let’s be clear, Absalom had already raped his father’s concubines in public, so David’s foot was mov-ed a lot!). Even so, I do have evidence that gives me hope that even the more damaged, distressed people can find security.

Grace happens all the time. It is as hard to explain as waking up just before you were going to fly over a guard rail. For instance, once a client had a vision in which a significant spiritual figure met them while they were meditating. The person saw themselves crouching in the dark, and the spiritual figure put a hand on their shoulder and said, “You are not a loser,” among other things. When I heard that, I did not reply with a therapeutic “That’s interesting.” I yelped with glee. I welcomed that extraordinary experience and was shocked at the same time. I saw it coming about as much as I expected to fall asleep at the wheel.

God comes to meet us all the time. Jesus knows we need the immediacy. We need the ongoing incarnation of his truth and love. He said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” As sure as the angels instructed the shepherds, God watches over us.

Having trouble believing angels talk to shepherds? Look up in the air, more. Look beyond the limits you have imposed on the sky’s boundary. Help is on the way. If you don’t see it, it may already be here. At least I know God is here.