A Bus Full of Dogs — Part 3

Fiction

Every year I write a Christmas story to share with the family. This year I decided to “go Dickens” and publish it in installments. So here is part three of four parts for the third Sunday of Advent. I hope you enjoy it. 

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Part One – Joseph wanted to sit in his big new room and toss shoes, but mom and dad were dragging him into Christmas because the grandparents were coming – and expecting a story.
Part two – The Bible and his Canterbury story open him up to respond positively to Gabe’s invitation. Then the dog eats his story and his sister completes hers.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Joseph fumed in his overheated brain as he put on his coat and realized the sleeves were inside out from when he ripped it off the day before. His brother pointed this out gently because he knew the look.

With several “Ughs!” he fixed the coat and groaned out the door without saying good-bye. He hoped to get ahead of his brother and sister and be alone for the trudge to the bus stop. A big problem with their out-of-town house was riding the bus, which his parents found sensible since they already paid taxes for it and the world did not need an extra car trip due to global warming and, “Be sure to watch out for you sister,” etc. “Mph!” Their particular bus made stops at all the schools, from elementary to high school, since there were less people as far out as they lived. So they had to get up early and he had to have his elementary sister on his bus. And this sister intended to sit with you.

His brother and sister caught up as he stomped along the road. “What’s wrong with you?” Johanna asked.

“Ugh!” he answered.

“Was it the dog? You ran out!” his brother, Mark, offered.

“Stop talking” he grunted.

“Maybe this is about your coat,“ mused Johanna. “That happened to me once at school and Cecily Barnstable snickered in a mean way. She dropped her pencil case the other day and I said nothing. Then that cute new boy from New York picked it up and she turned all red.” Joseph let out a long groan. Fortunately, the bus came around the corner a few blocks down and they needed to run.

They got on the bus in birth order. The seats in their usual row were empty. Mark thoughtfully sat on the other side of the aisle. But Johanna decided to sit with Joseph. “Seriously? Sit with Mark.”

“I’m not supposed to get up when the bus is moving,“ she said righteously.

Two stops away, Gabe got on looking a bit frightening and strangely handsome. Very few kids looked at him directly, but very few missed him stopping by Joseph’s seat and giving him a folded up piece of notebook paper. “See you later,” he said. Then he went to the back of the bus.

Joseph did not open the note to find Gabe’s address until second period. At the awkward moment he got the paper he just thought, “You make invitations?”

Right now, he had to deal with his sister. JoJo asked, “You know Gabe? I know his sister. She’s going out of town.” Joseph put up a hand. She halted with a huff.

It was a terrible day. He wandered around like he was in the dark, periodically blinded by the light, like when he saw Miriam Parker outside General Humanities. But that was brief. All day he wondered why he was fated to be himself. “Did the dog eat my story because I let her roam? Was it punishment for being a jerk to mom? Is it because I hate JoJo? Do I have something wrong with me? Is everyone going to hate me? Am I going to end up like Gabe if I go to this party? If there is a hell, will I go to it for lying to my parents?” There was a lot going on.

By the time he got to the afternoon, he didn’t really want to go to the party. But he was embarrassed when he thought about what he would say if he didn’t go. So after school he walked fast, trying to stay off the main road all the way, a long way from school, trying to keep his mind blank. But he was also half-excited to be doing something new and wrong. The door to Gabe’s house was cracked open, so he went in.

He half-knew most of the people like he recognized most people in town. Gabe handed him a beer with a conspiratorial look that silently included, “Don’t be afraid.” So he had his first beer in his hand. He sat in a not-too-central place and started working on the nasty fist-full. About a quarter way through the can, a girl who looked quite a bit less nerdy than he felt, sat next to him with an unopened beer. Joseph was feeling unlike himself enough for an unusual word to pop into his mind: maidservant.

“My name is Mary Jo,” she said. “I’m kind of new in town. I don’t think I’ve met you yet.”

“That’s weird,” he said.  “My dad calls me JoJo and my mother’s name is Mary” And he thought, “Why did I tell her that?”

She said, “That is weird. So what’s your name?”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a slight blush. “I’m Joseph.” From then on, the party got much better. She even got him to play darts with her in the basement. He even laughed. There was a moment he even looked her in the eyes.

Right after they locked eyes, his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He got it out just in time to see the last image of his father flicker off the screen. He thought of not calling him back, since he was bussing tables and all. But his father almost never called him, so something terrible might have happened and he would miss it because he’d been drinking beer at an illegal party. He called him back just in case.

“What’s up dad?” He tried to sound busy.

“We’re outside Joseph. You need to come out.”

“You’re outside? Where?” he asked.

“Outside Gabe’s.”

“Uh. OK.” Then he prayed his second prayer in so many days, “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

He opened the front door barely wide enough to get through so no one inside would see them. And there they were at the end of what turned out to be a very, very long front walk. When he got to them, his fury-faced mom took a deep breath. Without a word, Dad took her hand and she deflated. “I got off a little early, so I went by the café for a cup of coffee,” he said. “Johanna thought you might be here. Their address is actually searchable. So we found you.“

That girl could really read between the lines. He got in the backseat.

The second week of Advent: The joy of being forgiven

A life in the Spirit, Marriage and Family, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, ,
New Yorker, 9/28/2009

I think I am good at forgiveness as a conviction — mainly because I just don’t want the bad feelings that come with not forgiving people. One time a church I led had the slogan “life’s too short not to love somebody.” I’m on that wavelength.

There’s another reason, too. I never got over my first training as  Jesus follower. I would not say I was well trained, but I was introduced to Jesus giving his “Sermon on the Mount” and his teaching about forgiveness is pretty clear in Matthew 6.

 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

I never got over the conditional nature of those lines. If I am not forgiving, I’m not on the team. It is a forgive-the-world and restore-humanity team; it is a peacemaking, undo-evil-even-if-it-hurts team; it is a love-is-#1 team. If I don’t want to forgive, but I do want to be forgiven, I’m just trying to get Jesus on my team, as if my vengeance rules should rule. But that is exactly what he is upending and he assumes I will be praying and acting with him.

Forgiveness is a fundamental force for good. I think I should forgive debts, relational and material, even if I am a victim. I think that is why, right after we forgive our debtors, we pray “Don’t leave me alone, Lord, lest I fall again into evil.” There is no way I can keep developing and behaving in a way worthy of the Spirit in me unless I stick with Jesus and forgive.

We have reasons not to forgive

If I am honest (and maybe you are, too), I have some good reasons not to stick with Jesus. So I am not surprised but still fascinated by how I keep running into lack of forgiveness in the broken relationships my therapy clients endure.

Sometimes they have been cut off or have to cut someone off without being reconciled and need to forgive at a distance if they can, because the hate or the danger is just too strong. Jesus is not in the mix or maybe just on one side, so the miracle is not going to happen.

Other times, people just agree not to forgive without rancor. Forgiveness is so difficult they make an agreement not to forgive and write their story without it.  We’re discovering more and more that the increasingly avoidant way we relate is hard to overcome. Some people agree on relationships that incorporate avoidant behavior as normal. I think many more people just go it mostly alone without much thought.

This example of unforgiveness is a composite of different people I have known. Lets say a married couple grew up managing their dysfunctional parents. The woman apologizes easily because she needed to to protect herself from the wrath of an abusive mother’s control system. But she admits her apologies have no content. Her husband won’t apologize at all since his mother was consistently drugged by painkillers and his father was absent so there was no place to take his injuries. He despairs that there is anything to forgiveness at all and doesn’t do it.

So in their relationship they have a deal: You don’t need to change if you don’t make me change. You don’t need to say you are sorry if you don’t make me say it — that is, as long as you keep your behavior on a spectrum that is not too damaging. She likes that because she doesn’t need to figure out how to forgive with her heart. He likes that because forgiveness is generally fruitless. But when they talk about it, they realize that forgiveness is really on a higher plane than they are operating, not lower. If they don’t forgive, there is no unconditional love in their relationship, no grace,  just the same managed distance with which they were raised, never a closeness. She says, “Oh yes. Love would be nice.”

A client was mortified when they thought our appointment was an hour later than it was. When we got together, they said they were sorry and I said, “I forgive you. Let it go and lets move on together.” They were a bit stunned. No one had ever said something like that to them before. Maybe they got “It’s OK.” or “No problem/o” or “No worries” but never, “I forgive you.”

Do we not like to say “I forgive you” because it seems too formal, too ceremonial? Is it too authoritiative? Maybe it is too committed, too publicly caring. Maybe it is too, “I have to mean it if I say it, and people need to think I can mean it, and I need think it is OK if I presume I mean something.” Maybe we aren’t sure.

The incarnation is about forgiveness

Maybe we don’t forgive others because we won’t, or think we can’t, forgive ourselves. Maybe I don’t readily forgive myself because I don’t practically receive forgiveness from God. Even if Jesus spoke, “Father forgive him” over me at the cross as I was nailing him up,  maybe I still don’t get it and don’t receive it. I’m  still in charge of making the world run right and ashamed I keep failing.

Want to pause an say, “I receive your forgiveness God?’

You may have found that little sentence humiliating, like you had to admit you were wrong for not receiving forgiveness well enough. Isn’t that why people say, “No need to ask” after I say I am sorry? It is sweet that they meant, “Of course I forgive you. I would never make you ask me.” But I DO need to ask and receive an answer. I don’t get forgiven easily. I need the act so I know it happened, so it is recorded in history, and so I know myself as the forgiven one. Being forgiven speaks me into being. It is a creative  and re-creative act. Don’t let me miss it!

Massacre of the Onnocent — Leon Cogniet (1824)

The incarnation of God in Jesus this month is, in itself, an an act of forgiveness. Before Jesus is born it is  predictable that Herod will try to kill him. We are so about power, not love, about creating debtors, about do all we can to deliver ourselves from more trauma. That’s the kind of sin being forgiven. Jesus is rightly seen as the new Adam, wrestling sin into exhaustion and defeat, that’s what it takes to forgive someone. He is also seen as the new Noah gathering people into a new ark that will make it through the trials of this stormy journey into the age to come. Forgiveness is right in the middle of the turbulence and Jesus is right there with as as we endure the waves.

People did not like it when Jesus saw his incarnation as, primarily an act of forgiveness. You may feel the same. But just one more story.

In chapter 2, right at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, he tells a story about a man paralyzed from birth. His friends believe Jesus can heal him and lower him through the roof of the place he is teaching. The gatekeepers of orthodoxy question his authority and Jesus knows what they are thinking.

Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves, and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.”

We may be paralyzed and cannot use our bodies. Our hearts may be stone and we can’t love. Our spirits may be undeveloped so we can’t forgive. But the advent of Jesus is God coming to our homeplace to forgive each of us and to spread grace throughout the world through all of us. One of the joys every year during Advent is hearing Jesus say again, “Stand up. You are forgiven. Whatever is easiest for you to hear, I am here to say it. Now stand up. Learn to walk with me.”

Shall we pause to feel the joy of hearing him? “Stand up. You are forgiven.”

Do you think someone will feel joy when they  hear that same forgiveness from you today?

A Bus Full of Dogs — Part Two

Fiction

Every year I write a Christmas story to share with the family. This year I decided to “go Dickens” and publish it in installments. So here is part two of four parts for the second Sunday of Advent. I hope you enjoy it. 

In  Part One – Joseph wanted to sit in his big new room and toss shoes, but mom and dad were dragging him into Christmas because the grandparents were coming – and expecting a story.

The next morning, Joseph vaguely heard mom screaming. But he managed to block the sound out with his pillow. Dad startled him when he lightly touched his shoulder and whispered, “JoJo, get up.”

He had a love/hate relationship with the nickname JoJo. Dad could not part with it, but he felt obligated to act like he ought to. Besides, his much younger sister was named Johanna and now that little usurper was called JoJo. As with everything, she wore the name proudly.

“OK. I’m coming.” It was still dark. He was still basically asleep. He had stayed up in his new room where someone could stay up until who knows when. And since his alarm clock was still in a box, he did not know when.

The main reason he decided to stay up was to get the story out of the way. He took a while to find the Bible he had been gifted one Christmas, probably by Grandmother. He looked up the story in the index, which was nice to have, since he had no idea where to look. He got to Matthew and there were no angels in the sky as expected. So he Googled Christmas and got to  Wikipedia.

It took a while to get through article, since it had a bunch of blah blah about the solstice and such. A lot of it he had never heard of. But he did see why he needed Luke and not Matthew if he wanted shepherds and angels.

He sort of skimmed most of it. But one section on-down-a-ways (as Dad might say) caught his eye when he saw the word “riots.” He did not quite know who Puritans were — apparently stick-up-the-you-know-where-Christians, who took over England and banned Christmas in 1647.  Their opponents occupied a city called Canterbury and had a big in-your-face party full of banned traditions like roasting apples on a fire (oh yeah, that needed banning), card playing, and some dance with “plowboys” and “maidservants” that sounded kind of pornographic. All sorts of people were singing the old Christmas songs in secret all over the country. This made Christmas carols seem much more attractive.

So he decided to write his story about 1647 in Canterbury. He made a rather elaborate outline, so he would not forget any of his ideas. It was about a Puritan boy who is kidnapped and taken to Canterbury (he did not have a clear motive for this crime in mind, but it still seemed like a good plot point). Once there, he escapes and tries to tell people Christmas has been banned and other kids beat him up. He gets threatened by a sword (since they surely had swords) and eats a roast apple for the first time, too (his tongue might get burned since that often happened to him in similar situations). He had yet to get Jesus in there much, but he had time to think about it. The whole outline was about a page long which made him proud.

The story was, actually, the second reason he was up late. The first reason he was even awake was a text from Gabe at around 11:30. Gabe was his secret friend because there was no way Mom and Dad would ever approve of him after one look. Even Joseph was concerned the first time he sat by him on the bus. He was a bit from the dark side — usually black clothes, out of the norm hair, odd accessories, a piercing. To his surprise, in the dark of night, the unusual Gabe appeared on the rather usual Joseph’s phone to invite him to an after school party. It was not OK to go to such a party, but he said he would go. It was in Gabe’s empty house, which was also very not OK, but he said OK. He thought of Joseph in Matthew having something come upon him in the night and telling him not to be afraid. So he decided to see what it was all about and not be afraid.

Then next morning, when he went down to avoid eating breakfast and get on his way, he told his parents he got called in to work at his random after school job bussing tables. Someone was already out for the holidays. They said, “Fine.” They’d save him a plate.

Just then, one of the dogs came into the kitchen with a quarter of his story outline in her mouth. He ran upstairs but never found the other pieces. Mom screamed. “Joseph, it is time.”

Right when he got back to the kitchen, his sister came in and presented mom with her finished story. “Look, I made some pictures too,” she purred.

“That’s wonderful, JoJo,” Mom said.  JoJo looked at him and smiled.

Continued next Sunday…

The first week of Advent: The joy of being found

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

Whenever I hear a client say, “I do not feel seen,” I can relate. It is such a joy to be seen and, better yet, to be known and accepted as one is right now. We long for that experience from our first days of being held in our mother’s arms and gazing up into her eyes. And if our mother was missing or missing in action, we long for it even more.

Hide and Seek by Pavel Tchelitchew (c.1940)

Being found

I could see that longing to be seen play out the other day when the granddaughters amused themselves with hide and seek. I think they love that game because they love the joy of deliberately hiding and being assured someone will come find them. You may have squealed yourself when somone lifted the blanket and there you were.

I remember being their age and trying to be a part of the bigger kids’ all-neighborhood hide and seek game on summer nights. I was little enough to crawl into some very unlikely places — and I was left in one more than once! Sometimes, no one even remembered I was hiding at all! You can tell I still feel something about not being found.

One of my stories about my mother has to do with hiding from her and not being found. She didn’t even know she was in a game of hide and seek. It was sort of a test I gave her which she usually failed. She would be talking on the phone to a friend, but not talking to me, so I used her inattention to run and hide. I was either a very jealous, demanding, four year old or she was a very neglectful mother. Even if it was the former, I felt the latter – we note even the smallest neglect. I came out after what seemed to me a long time and she didn’t even know I was gone. Sometimes she was still on the phone! It hurt not to be found. It scares us. We need to belong. We want to be seen. Through my tests and hurts I developed an invulnerability to being seen so I would not have to experience the pain of not being seen. Do you do anything like that?

Finding

I think part of my lifelong vocation had to do with not feeling found. One of my reactions to the feeling was to develop a life of finding. It is what evangelists do all day. When someone new came into the church meeting, I never left them feeling unseen if I could help it. One of my dear friends likes to tell the story of how we met – I followed her down the stairs of the meeting place saying, “I’m chasing you!” She felt noticed. A person in the church might have felt neglected if they already belonged, but if you were new to the community, I was on it. We often give people what we want to get.

I am not saying I wasn’t called to be like Jesus coming to seek and save the lost. I was. By giving that act of love I was meeting a basic need we all have! We can’t get enough of being noticed, even from the most loving parents; we keep looking for it. I’m just saying part of my motive for becoming a seeker must have included the thought that, “If I see everyone, someone might see me. If I find someone, someone may find me.” I’m glad my basic needs are still kicking — I haven’t given up on looking for love just because I don’t want to bear the feeling of it not finding me. Not yet.

These days (finally!), I think I am more content being found — or not. I have felt seen a lot. And I feel found by God. So I don’t even do much advertising for clients and mostly let them find me — so far, I have more work than I can handle much of the time. Instead of working the room at a big gathering, which I still think is a lot of fun, I can often sit back and wait for conversations to come to me. My desperation to be known can be noted, but not followed. After a lifetime of “outreach,” I can be reached. Or not.

Adoration of the Kings by Pieter Bruegel (c.1556)

A chance to find the baby

This first week of Advent, I am thinking about that obscure birthplace of God-with-us and the baby who is going to grow and present himself to be seen and known by humanity. At the beginning of the liturgical year, here (whether people know what a liturgical year is or not), Jesus is going be born in a fresh way; he will be finding many people for the very first time — some who feel terribly small and get a little comfort by staying as hidden as possible. Jesus will be seen and known by millions and either unseen or dismissed by millions more.

Jesus is so hidden! Even when people see him, he’s hard to see. Even though I know him well, I feel I know so little. What must that feel like for God? I hope she is not like me, deliberately hiding with the hope someone will find her worthy of being found! More likely, God is sure he will be found because he has made himself to be found

Jeremiah assures us of that. I think Jesus fulfills his prophecy in a wonderful way. I like to hear it in the old language (and in song).

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
And I will be found of you, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

In Jesus, God is saying , “I will be found of you, for real.” The shepherds are famous for going to see and finding the place. They went to see and I think they felt seen. The magi are famous for reading a lot into the stars, and for travelling for who-knows-how long to find Jesus.  They behold him and are overjoyed. They went to know and I think they felt known. Seeing and being seen, finding and being found is how creation works, from birth to death. When we despair of that experience, we go numb.

One of the personal messages of Advent to us all is this: It is at least possible I will be found by someone who is glad to see me. I can sit in my cradle and assume I am a baby worth loving, even if it seems to me I am not. Some kind of shepherd or wise man will wander in with admiration and gifts. Whether my self-esteem is high or not, I can at least accept that baby Jesus is God seeking me and I can stop hiding now, I am found. I can stop hiding from not being found because I have been deemed worth finding. It is a constant fact that I am seen, sought, and loved.

A Bus Full of Dogs — Part One

Fiction

Every year I write a Christmas story to share with the family. This year I decided to “go Dickens” and publish it in installments. So here is part one of four parts for the first Sunday of Advent. I hope you enjoy it. 

Joseph had a new bedroom and it was very large. Finally, he did not have his brother cleaning things up all the time and he could get some rest. He could take his shoes off and not get yelled at because his feet were (admittedly) stinky.

Right now, he had his shoes off and he was sitting on his desk chair holding a shoelace, swinging a big sneaker three (and only three) times and then lofting it clear across his huge room into an empty box. The box had been full of clothes until his mother forced him to put them away. He told her, “You packed it so well, why can’t I just use the box?”

She said, “You can put them away just as neatly.”

He said, “Why did you pack them to move up one flight of stairs?’

She left with “You’ll see you father shortly.”

He called after her, “No need. I’m moving.” He eventually moved.

His only movement now was reluctantly getting up every two shots because he had yet to miss the box with either shoe. This finesse was unexpected. It was nice. But it did require he get off the chair and retrieve his shoes. His arm was actually getting a bit tired. Size 14 ½ shoes are surprisingly heavy. But he could not stop until he missed. And not missing had the added benefit of effectively avoiding his latest assignment.

Joseph was supposed to write a Christmas story, which seemed a little ironic, him being named Joseph and all. What’s more, his mother’s name was Mary, which was also a little ironic, if not awkward. Dad’s name was Mitch. It was not surprising that Dad’s parents were not the grandparents showing up for Christmas this year, for like the second time since he was in second grade. He could hardly even remember the last time. They always went to see his mom’s parents at their spectacular house in Maine during the summer. But they usually stayed in Florida during the winter. At least he thought it was Florida.

Joseph was not well-known for paying attention. So Grandma and Papa (accent on the end) could be anywhere at any given time. But they were scheduled for Christmas. Mom was a little anxious about the whole visit. Thus, his clothes needed to be stowed. Her parents wrote books for a living. Since they were successful at it, they needed no present s for Christmas and made that very clear. The only gift they wanted was a Christmas story from each kid. They thought that “would be very charming,” is how Mom put it. He felt a bit of pressure, being the oldest. So instead of feeling pressure, he was throwing a giant shoe into a box in his smelly room.

Dad came up to check on progress, huffing and puffing a bit after three floors. He was not as thin as he used to be. “Can you believe what’s happening in Ukraine?” he asked.

“What?” A shoe dangled from his finger.

“You have to know about Ukraine,” he said.

“I haven’t been following it that much.” He knew everything about Ukraine, but he did not feel like chatting with Dad about it.

“Your mom says you are avoiding your story.”

“Not really.” But how did she know these things? He hardly knew that himself!

“Look. I know this is a hassle. But your mom is going through some personal stuff right now and a lot of it has to do with her mom. I won’t bore you with the details. But it would be nice if you showed up a bit. The story doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but it would be good if it had some religion in it. They are very Christian, and it is a Christmas story. You want some help with some ideas or something?”

He had to admit it. Dad could be very helpful. “No. I’m good.”

“OK. I’ll leave you to it. You do know it is Christmas Eve in three days, right? And you have to go to school for two of them?”

“Yes. I know.” He knew slightly. But now he had Christ all over everything and it was kind of freaking him out. “Jesus!” he did not say out loud.

Continued next Sunday…

Jesus was “handed over”: What that means for our own passion

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , ,
Le baiser de Judas (ca. 1996) — James Tissot

Let’s start with the man Christians love to hate: Judas.

In chapter 16, Luke  introduces the twelve main disciples of Jesus and gives Judas an extra title: “the traitor.” The noun is less commonly translated “the betrayer.” Judas is famous for betraying Jesus, so you’d think that verb would be all over the accounts of his deed in the Bible. But this line in Luke is the only place Judas is directly called a betrayer. In the thirty-one other occasions he or his deed is mentioned another word is used: Jesus was handed over by Judas. That verb root  should be returned to its proper theological place. The Lord’s passion and our passion is more about being “handed over” or “given over” than being betrayed.

In the Gospel of Mark, when his account gets to Judas going out and coming back as a guide for the authorities, an entire change of literary viewpoint takes place. Up to that point, Jesus has been the center of action and the verbs are mainly about what he is doing. After Judas hands him over, the verbs are mainly about what is being done to Him.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is waiting,  anticipating the judgment and violence of the powers that be. Then he is handed over to them. Previously in Mark, he had given his love freely and was the main power, even if hidden, in every scene — even now we can feel his affection as his love acts on us. But once he is handed over he enters into passion (which means suffering overwhelming forces). He is dependent on who loves him. Bearing our humanity, Jesus becomes vulnerable to overwhelming powers and waits for what will be done to him.

I think we often see Jesus, and so see the image of God in our own humanity, primarily through the lens of the first half of Mark — like Jesus is another action figure on the hero’s journey, mastering his suffering and moving into transcendence. But I think it is more true to the revelation in the Bible to see the passion experienced in the garden, then during the trial and then on the cross, as elemental to our own spiritual development and our calling.  The passion of being handed over is also an example for us. We are made by the God who waits; we are endued with the capacity for suffering love.

Peter says this rather plainly, doesn’t he?

If you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps (1 Peter 2:21;2).

 

[I was happy to run across an unusual book that inspired my refined thinking on all this. You might want to read The Stature of Waiting by W.H. Vanstone.]

Trying to be impassable in the zone of control

We are innately passable

In my therapy practice, I am often talking to a suffering person who, nevertheless, feels compelled to be impassable, not experiencing negative feelings or any feelings (same root as passion).  Their face may even be devoid of expression. They think it is shameful to have endured the trauma they have experienced or feel guilty because they are suffering. If they have grown up in the church, these poor people may have an impassable God as a model, which adds further motivation for trying to be in control.

Many influential theologians have seen God as impassable. Some people accuse them of caving into a Greek philosophical lens. Others suggest the earliest theolgians were contrasting God with the very emotional and volatile descriptions of Greek gods. They emphasized how God is not controlled by human emotions but is independent and unaffected by the whims of humanity.

You can see how this thinking might go too far and imply that God has no emotions at all, even though love is central to God’s character. So some theologians qualified the doctrine of impassability to mean God is not subject to sinful emotions, involuntary emotions, or emotion unworthy of her character. (See this article).

I don’t think there is anything unemotional about what Jesus experiences in Gethsemane and Paul says Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Jesus is passable, or able to suffer. There is nothing we went through today that was emotion-free, either. We are also passable. Though we may use a lot of energy defending against suffering and suppressing the memory of it, we suffer every day. We suffer what is past and present, and even suffer what we anticipate the future will be. Jesus struggled the same way we do and struggles with us now. Take a few seconds, at least, and feel that Jesus cares about your suffering — so much so, he is bearing it with you.

Betrayed

I think there are some good reasons to cut the first translators of the Bible into English some slack. I think they unwittingly, repeatedly, mistranslated the words based on the Greek word “to hand over” as “to betray.” They even did it in Paul’s often-repeated “words of institution” of the communion ceremony in 1 Corintians 11:

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you [there is the verb], that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed [there is the same verb mistranslated] took a loaf of bread…”

The first Jesus followers made it a point to say “the night Jesus was handed over.” Handing over and being handed over were central to their view of Jesus, themselves and the world. Maybe we could say they were passion-centered, passability thinkers.

Paul uses the verb in other significant places, and it is translated accurately:

  • And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself (handed himself over) for me (Gal. 2:20).
  • He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up (handed him over) for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? (Romans 8:32).

Paul’s letters were apparently written before the Gospels were collected. In those later writings, Judas is highlighted as the one who shows the nature of God in a significant way as he hands Jesus over and Jesus suffers the sins of humanity. Judas is still despised as a betrayer. But he begins the Passion. If he hadn’t been there someone else would have done the deed (“Is it I, Lord?”). Peter betrays him later in the evening, too.  The disciples all scatter like scared sheep. Judas just turns out to be central to Jesus being handed over, which is central to the Lord’s passion. I think the early church expected to be handed over, at some level, and encouraged one another to develop a deep trust for God instead of just a deep resistance to suffering.

I can see how the word betrayed overtakes handed over as translations evolve. For one thing, the word in the Latin translation, with which the first English translators were more familiar, is much easier to lean that way than the Greek. But I also think the word betrayed appeals to bloodthirsty humanity. Betrayed implies: “You thwarted my action. You stopped me cold. You defeated me in an underhanded way.” Doesn’t it betray your sense of agency, safety, value and power when you are handed over? Seen through the lens of betrayal, Jesus still looks powerful as he mocks the dirty deeds of sinners by dying according to God’s plan and rising up in their faces on Easter. (Check out the atonement explanations if you want to think this through).

I think the mistranslation contributes to our sinful assumption that following Jesus means we always have power over suffering and injustice — just do God’s will and it will all end up as a “win.” We have been betrayed and we should make that right. We feel entitled to such power, even though the main percentage of the Gospels are devoted to Jesus not exercising power and being handed over to suffering.

The glory of God in Jesus is also revealed when he finishes his active work and becomes subject to the authorities. As he taught quite clearly, his final passion is the ultimate turn of the other cheek. He does nothing to protect himself. He waits.

Life is not Wakanda forever

We’re all action figures here. It is Wakanda forever. There is goodness in that. Jesus is also about suffering love for the abused, oppressed and poor. But his love transcends the power struggle, just endlessly fighting the power. His own death vividly shows that the powers of the world are doomed to their redundant self-destruction and unavailable for resurrection.

Nevertheless, for most of my readers, only what we do is valued, what we produce. We don’t wait around. We inevitably introduce ourselves by what we do. If you are unemployed you are hard to see as a person at all. Retirees are expected to do things for themselves and they are reminded to keep active.  But eventually we all  will be subject to what comes upon us. Old people better hope someone loves them or they will be handed over to be housed by the state or processed by the hospital. During Covid (and for many, that is right now) we all got a taste of being passable; we were patients (from the same root as passion: bearing suffering), we were called on to be patient, since we were vulnerable – and we hate that, some people wouldn’t even submit to a mask.

The beginning of the great work of Jesus begins with being handed over. He waits for what will happen in the garden, assuming it means death. He does not fight it. Like John says, he told his disciples, “Night is coming, when no one can work” (9:4). The night came. Like John says, Jesus told Peter, “When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go” (21:18). The time came. We can’t always do something (I learned).

I got overpowered by ruthless church leaders and handed over to an unexpected future. When I complained about it, my spiritual director called the experience “a passion.”  I did not like it. Passion, like Jesus experienced, was something I had almost never experienced. I had barely even been in the hospital. I had been pretty impassable, similar to the  heretical view of God that ends up tormenting so many people. I am still figuring out what it means to be vulnerable, passable, dependent on love or subject to the lack of love. How about you?

I hope W.H. Vanstone can sum it up and inspire you in this last quote (which is full of his  passive voice and his unassertive assertions). Your suffering has meaning, too. Your waiting for the impossible to occur is also like Jesus. Your patience in the face of tragic circumstances, your vulnerability, is also a vehicle for the love of God. Your passion is like God’s passion!

The divine image we bear may be an image of passion no less than of action; for the God Who is disclosed in Jesus in the One Who hands Himself over to be affected by the world, to receive the impact and the meaning of the world, to wait upon the world. It is of this God that we bear the image – an image that includes passion no less than action, waiting no less than working. Now within our human experience there is one kind or occasion of waiting in which it is not too difficult to discern at least the faint image of the God Who waits; and that is the waiting to which we destine ourselves by loving. In the human figure who, because he loves, finds himself exposed and vulnerable to what may be done to him, the image of God Who is disclosed in Jesus is not unrecognizable: one might almost say that that figure seems a ‘holy’ figure.

Phillies lost, Fetterman won: What do we do after all that?

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

What do we do? It has been such a bad few years for many of us! I think we will finally get a decent interpretation of what came over us before too long. But, right now, I think most of us are still a bit shell-shocked — I know 2020 started a series of traumas for me! Nevertheless, it seems like we’re finally perking up a bit — like how you feel when you’ve been sick for a week and you take a shower and wash the bed. I, for one, was recently taken up in the tornado of Bryce Harper and Dr. Oz — the former’s quirks and latter’s quack. And I am glad all that is over. What now?

The suggestions I am about to offer for “What now?” are hardly new ideas. But they are tried and true contrariness. It is true, isn’t it, that Americans think steaming on and making progress is reality and anything less than constant growth and achievement is mentally ill. If you don’t keep up with the madness of all that, you’re contrary.

I’m suggesting being contrary to madness like this: Goop’s “mind architect,” Peter Crone, counsels the folks at Muscle Intelligence to “create your reality to express your greatness.” Crone is also on Netflix’s Heal show, which says he “redesigns the subconscious mind that drives behavior to inspire a new way of living, from limitation and stress to freedom and joy.” And it is not just us looking for the shortest road to our personal perfection; in the Times of India, the headline reads: “Rewire your brain in just 21 days!”

I deeply appreciate how much we know about neuroplasticity these days and how we can change what feels unchangeable in us. Nevertheless, I regularly suggest to my avoidant, individualistic, wounded clients that taking charge (a la Peter Crone) and improving their “zone of control” in a new way is a positive rendition of the godlike project they’ve been failing at for years. Their “immanent frame” is the proverbial bubble (or tomb) they live in and feel obligated to gain power over. No amount of rewiring can permanently change that misperception. Let’s get out of the zone.

So my suggestions for what to do after the TV does not traumatize you every day lean toward being released (for a while, at least) from your preoccupation with imminent things beyond your control — like Swarber hitting a home run every time he gets up to bat, or like global warming and democracy being your personal responsibility. My suggestions lean toward being released to do something other than what you think you can control and relating to something immanent — being given over to something beyond you, something deeper, something communal, something that is more about love than calculation, something more mutual than contractual, something more at home in the present environment than faithfully making the factory run for future rewards. You get the idea. So here are my suggestions.

Rest

Joe Biden probably said it, I don’t know. But while he was crowing about not being as defeated as expected, he must have said “There is still a lot of work to do.” All politicians say that because it is a truism everyone believes around here. And it is true, work will always be there if work is all there is. Contrary to that bondage is sabbath, which is central to Christians and most other religious people – but, what do you think? Do about 10% of us actually practice such deliberate resting?  Even if you are super lazy, you probably feel guilty for resting; it is reputedly so unproductive! What would it mean for you to rest?

Get out of the media

I got to the point where I didn’t even like watching the Phillies – all that tension! I would not even follow the Eagles to Prime; I’d had enough. And I was so glad to not see Matt Cartwright commercials on YouTube! Poor Georgia! They are going to get a bonus month!

How about a semi media fast of some kind? Not just abstaining, necessarily, but doing better things. Try leafless forest bathing. Take a sick day – a sick of it day and get into the fall light and wind. Enjoy wearing a sweater. Call all your friends – leave cheery messages if they don’t answer; talk about them, not Trump, if they do answer. Make something: art, food, love. Read something fun.

Do something spiritual

There is only so much godlessness a person can take. Americans (and maybe everyone) think their government should save them. There is another way. I admit that most of my faith expression right now is personal or one on one. But why not go to a church meeting? I went to a meeting I might not return to last week. I found plenty of goodness and redemption in it. And I did something.

Write or sing a prayer song – or listen to one if that is the best you can do. Read that serious book that’s been laying there – here are my Goodreads suggestions. Talk to someone about where your heart is post-pandemic. This is so important! If you are married, have you even brought this up as a topic yet? Will a friend listen to you?

Face something personal, not just existential

I am not talking about perfecting your avoidance with any of these suggestions. But I do think we are so eager to control our environments (or so overwhelmed by not being able to do so), we are in a general state of anxiety which generally feels terrible. Given how little I like Mr. Crone, I might avoid an internet-mediated processes for facing something personal. Instead, try sitting quietly for an hour and taking an inventory of what feels good and what does not. You don’t have to take a test to do this. Let the thoughts and feelings rise from what you already know or what God will show you. Gently examine what you think and feel. Take one thing that needs some help and do something. Forgive someone. Clean up your desk. Consider how you use porn. Have that conversation. Make a connective gesture.

Prep for the holidays

Have the holidays at the level you choose, but choose. Holidays should be holy, but even if they are not, they certainly should take days. I know it is irritating when Mariah Carey starts again (another thing I can’t wait to be over every year). But how about not looking at all the bad stuff, not gritting your teeth and getting through the holiday season? This would be a great year to make a plan for what you want to do with the season and doing what you want to do, rather than having “one more thing” you have to deal with. We’re needy this year.

Get a head start on 2023

What do you really want to be and do next year? I don’t mean what should you be and do, but what do you desire? What’s more, what can you really do? Americans generally respond to new years by making plans and having resolve. I have one acquaintance who makes a plan to get drunk and usually succeeds! But most of us make a plan to get paid somehow and proceed accordingly.

Am I being too hard on us? Don’t we think that doing something for free is a waste of time? Aren’t we’re generally a very contractual bunch? A partner in a couple I counseled realized, “I don’t want to forgive, so I decided no one needs to forgive me” — give up on reconciliation and all sorts of problems get solved! Some people don’t want to feel guilty, so they go with Peter Crone’s advice to “name yourself perfect as you are.” So, in looking toward the new year, you may have already said, “I don’t want to be disappointed in myself or in 2023, so I will not have any expectations.”

When I say “Get a head start on 2023” I’m not talking about revving up for a productive year. I’m talking about being content, happy, joyful – somewhere on that spectrum, and getting started on that. Get ready for a year of heartfelt goodness and love, and a glimpse of the truth. What can I loosen up? What step can I take? What long-term reformation can I begin? What stirs me, just thinking about what might come after all this?

 

Three ways to stop the argument in your head

Building community, Psychological growth, , , , , ,

Someone I know (call them Z) was betrayed big time by two old friends not long ago. A job was lost, a reputation sullied. One of the betrayers moved far away from their small town, so Z felt OK about cutting them off. But the other person was not going anywhere. It was almost guaranteed Z was going to see her at the supermarket.

This traumatizer kept popping up in Z’s head. She had said some terrible things. She had told some lies. Z suspected she was spreading slander to common friends, not to mention other people in town who were hungry for gossip and did not mind a bit of scandal.

Invasive thoughts were getting a bit debilitating. Z was out for a walk along a beautiful creek on a perfect fall day but the slanderous woman found some headspace and soon Z was arguing with her. She was impossible to shake. Z’s spouse asked what was wrong and suddenly they were both mad again and the leaves began to turn dull.

Most of us can be tormented by recurrent negative thoughts that tie us up: “What if? What did I do wrong? What am I going to do? How can this be happening to me?” Hurts and losses bubble up as anger. We start saying all the things to the person we didn’t say before. We imagine what they are saying and argue back. We let them colonize our minds. Soon we’re afraid to go to the store for fear of being more overwhelmed!

Here are three common ways to get out of the debilitating cycle of arguing in your head, three ways to move on, grow up, or get through rather than dreading the thought of that person, rather than feeling stuck, or fearing the possibility of open conflict .

Shutting off an internal argument

These suggestions are mainly about changing how you behave.

  • Accept the problem is not going away and be friendly anyway. This may be important when you are related to the antagonist. Just accept you’re different and let it be. “Don’t go there.” Obviously, some major differences may require planning for a calm conversation. But smaller issues can be let go.
  • Choose who you relate to. You do not need to have a good relationship with everyone, especially abusive or argumentative people. It may pain you to scroll by people you think you should care about, or maybe even love. But it is not required to soak up bile or endure uncaring behavior.
  • Remember you have value even if they don’t value you. What other people think about you or say about you is mainly about them, not you. If you are not so emotionally wrapped up in what they said or did it is easier to avoid having unfinished arguments with them in your head. If your co-worker mocks you for the mistake you made, talk yourself out of staying awake feeling stupid that night, “He’s got reasons for being mean and I’ve got plenty of reasons to think I’ll master my job.”
  • Nip the internal argument in the bud. How often have you been washing dishes and realize the free space in your brain has been invaded by “that old argument?” It is great if you can gently note what’s happening and turn to something else. It might take some practice. Maybe you could create a helpful catch phrase to use like, “These thoughts are poisonous, don’t drink them.”
  • If you can’t stop, you could distract yourself. That does not mean looking them up on Instagram and feeling superior. Go for a walk, even if it just around the house; get your body on your side. Call a supportive friend (not to get them arguing too, that could just dig the rut deeper). Do a puzzle. Breathe it out – pray it out. You might not want to vacuum, that might leave brain space unoccupied for more argument.
  • Try setting apart a limited time to fret. If certain thoughts are derailing the whole day, you might try setting apart a limited amount of time to go ahead and think them through. A half an hour in solitude after dinner to practice an upcoming conversation or play through an old one might diminish the threat of them popping up when you’d rather be having sex or preparing for an exam.

Working through the feelings

These suggestions mainly attend to emotions.

  • Trying mentalizing about the whole conversation instead of deflecting bits. Imagine what you and the other person are really trying to say; you might get to say what you wish you had said. But don’t just unleash your fury and devastate them, focus on the feelings that upset you. When the co-worker made you look incompetent, why did that hurt? Are you insecure? Do you feel you are not recognized for your abilities? Did he remind you of your dad, your brother or that demeaning coach in jr. high?
  • Name the emotions as they arise. It is hard to keep a replay going if you don’t feel it deeply. The incident may have triggered some unfinished developmental business you have or may have reignited a traumatic experience. If you name what you feel you might understand your emotions better and and not be run around by a mysterious inner “force.” You might say, “I’m afraid I will be embarrassed when I see them in the store,” or “My anger is strangling me.” It is good for us when we let our emotions be normal, not a threat or a sin, and figure out what we want to do about them.
  • Get your feelings out of your head and into your journal. Maybe your process so far has been the first part of working something out and now you can express what you’ve come to and even make a plan. Use your journal. Maybe you could write a letter to the person with whom you’ve been arguing. You don’t have to give it to them; sometimes communication is no longer possible, or advisable – especially if you’ve been abused or they represent how you have been marginalized. In that case, just getting it out of your mind and onto the paper may be enough. You could burn the letter and let the contents go. You can close your journal and leave the feelings in the past.
  • Professional counselors try to be adept at helping people work through anxiety. If you are losing sleep, t of knowing increasingly angry or depressed, you might like to talk to someone you can trust, professional or not.

Having a healing interpersonal process

These suggestions mainly work with how you relate.

  • Express yourself. If you are a Christian you probably feel obligated to be reconciled with people or, unfortunately, appear to be OK with everyone. Regardless, if you’ve been having an argument with someone in your head and you think it is remotely possible you can have a personal, undistracted moment with them, it would could be good to talk to them. You could begin with, “That comment you made the other day about my work really bothered me. So I thought I’d circle back. Were you just being funny? Or were you trying to say something I need to hear?” It helps to rehearse what you’d like to calmly say.
  • Create a safe place. When you initiate a dialogue, it would help to let the person know you are doing something you care about and invite them into it, rather than just appearing out of nowhere saying something super serious. You could begin with something like, “I feel a little awkward being this personal, but I would like to tell you about what I’ve been feeling. I hope you’ll take a turn to talk when I’m finished.”
  • Keep calm. Something that even smells like conflict often sets people into fight, flight or freeze mode. So it will help them if your tone is calm and you speak slowly. If you have them listening and you bring some fiery emotion they will probably get caught up with how you are acting, not with what you are communicating. Remember to tell an “I” story, not a “you” story. The more you say “you,” the more likely they are to stop listening and start defending themselves.
  • It is always better for healing if there are less details and more feelings. Yes, they came home an hour later than expected and they’ve done other inconsiderate things in the past. The point is to invite them to care about how worried you felt and to work on a deeper trust that will allow you both to feel safe and connected. Especially if you are married, your marriage is a “common ground” you share. You can work on building a good relationship rather than working on one another’s flaws.

 What if none of that stopped the argument in your head?

Wouldn’t it be nice if relationships were “plug and play?” Wouldn’t it be great if each of us were not so complicated? Not long ago, one of my clients said to their mate, “Can we just agree that everyone is shitty?” The mate did not naturally go with such thoughts (thus, therapy), but they went with it that time and it relieved quite a bit of tension. Nothing really “works.” We won’t do everything “right.” We can’t. And if we did do something right, it probably  would not get perfect results in an imperfect world.

If you keep rehashing after all this work, you must be very committed to this internal argument! Maybe it has come to define you. Chances are, if you can’t let go, you are working with something rather deep. I hope you can let it be unresolved for now in a tender way. It must be a mystery and Jesus will need to save you. Constantly working out the puzzle like you are in charge of your own salvation is not going to be better than giving up on complete resolution. Many people have taken these conundrums that torment them like they torment you and lifted them to God in an act of submission and trust. Maybe you need to acknowledge the “thorn” that keeps poking you and let Jesus bear the pain with you until something better develops.

For light where the darkness is deep

Poetry
Oct 29 moon

Don’t give up, stars!
Shine through the night,
through the CO2,
around the airplanes,
over the missiles and drones.

Don’t give up moon!
Rise over the divided nation,
over the atomized children
fingering their elusive controls,
taking a drug to save or salve
their isolated souls,
afraid to look into the endless sky,
averse to wonder oversold, overun.

Don’t give up on us light!
Surround my children with hope.
Sneak into dark rooms and dark thoughts.
Surprise people when the beauty
they visited comes home with them.

I light my candle defiantly,
like Galadriel fighting orcs,
like MLK loving racists,
like Francis bleeding
at the mouth of his cave —
Elijah listening, Ignatius surrendering,
Neanderthals painting in the flicker.

I light it for everyone stuck in their bunker today,
for all the once-were, could-be saints
suffering in their self-imposed shadow,
walled in by trauma, spite, cynicism, despair,
who gave up on the stars,
who never love the moon anymore.

Touch them, touch me, touch us all
with your mysterious presence,
Light of the World!
It is dark enough,
drought has cleared the sky enough
for stars to make us dizzy
from looking up for once,
looking beyond for twice,
and seeing right into the Third Day.

You might be a green martyr sprouting despite your wound

A life in the Spirit, Life as the church, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , , , , ,

I was surprised to find my favorite Tweeter, Dan White, featured in an interview in the New York Times: “A Pastor Ripped Apart by Our Divided Country” (First Person, July 21, 2022). There he was sprouting in an unusual,  new place like an Anabaptish weed.

Dan and his wife now direct the Kino Center in Puerto Rico. He was well known as a pastor and a teacher of pastors. But in the last few years he has become well known for being an ex-pastor. Maybe history will see him as one of the martyrs for their third-way faith. I think there are a few of those martyrs from my former church looking to sprout somewhere. They are among the hundreds of U.S. pastors and others who have been traumatized by the spasm of power grabbing convulsing the U.S.

Dan White was an innovative, fearless church reformer himself, but his unifying message was drowned in the sea of division and combat that has flooded the world and the church. I was talking to another pastor, another victim, last week and the only reason he could see for his plight came from a line from the Bible: people are subject to the “ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient” (Eph. 2:2 NRSVA). There is “something in the air,” isn’t there!

Talking about “martyrs” may seem an hysterical way to talk about people like Dan White. But Christians have experienced martyrdom in one way or another in every age of the church as they speak up about their faith. Tertullian is famous for saying in the year 197, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” The treatment of my spiritual ancestors, the radical reformers of the 1500’s and before, is collected in a famous book called the Martyr’s Mirror. Martin Luther King was a martyr, along with John Lewis. Today, Jesus followers in India are being hounded by Hindu nationalists; and U.S. Christians are often hounded by Hinduish media myth makers.

Red, white and blue/green martyrs

As I was meditating through Margaret Guenther’s Book, Toward Holy Ground, I was intrigued by her reference to different colors assigned to different types of martyrs throughout Christian history. She was mainly interested in helping me affirm how wonderful it is, as an older Jesus follower, to discover the “marvelous freedom of living deliberately yet carelessly” as a “green” martyr who knows “the heroism and the sanctity of faithfulness to the ordinary,” who appreciates the discipline of the craftsman and has learned the patience of the harvester.

The original impulse of assigning different colors of martyrdom mainly had to do with different ways people “died daily” with Jesus. The colors mainly had to do with the way people expressed their religion – not the idea of “religion” born during the Enlightenment and subsequently expanded during the reordering of philosophical frameworks according to the scientific method (see here), but religion in its original sense of living under a “religio,” a rule (which is becoming popular again these days). The witness that leads to martyrdom is almost always more about how one lives than what one says.

The early Jesus followers had a rule of life which was so distinct from their society they were tagged as “Christians.” Their various rules came up against Roman and other rulers and got them killed. A Christian martyr gets in trouble because she follows the Ruler as a rule, even if she breaks the rules of the power of the air.

When Christianity started morphing into the government in the Roman Empire, Jesus followers sat in the seat of power and often found it practical to align with the “spirit at work among the disobedient.” So some Jesus followers longed for the experience of being beyond what the powers considered normal. This is a common development in spiritual enterprises; if you don’t keep transforming, something’s gotta give. For instance, the Benedictine monastic order started off as a brilliant adaptation to the chaos of the 6th century. Two hundred years later it was still going and expanding! But it needed reforming. Odo of Cluny helped do that. His reforming monastery ended up as one of the most influential institutions in Europe for another 500 years! But it got stagnant and corrupted, too. French revolutionaries were so sick of what the church had become, they literally tore down the huge church building in Cluny. (I saw the remnant). Something seems to be ‘giving” right now in the U.S., as well.

Red

We all understand red martyrs. Red stands for blood. I grew up in my non-Christian home schooled by old movies about martyrs like Quo Vadis. That clip still gets my own blood stirred up.

White

By the 3rd  and 4th centuries, some Christians missed the clarifying threat of red martyrdom. Their impulse to go beyond what had become normal created “white” martyrs. Jerome (347-420) created this new category of martyr “for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism.”

In Medieval Europe the impulse of the desert fathers and mothers was woven into most religion. So people looked farther, like the first monastics did. It became very popular for people to go on pilgrimages to visit the sites or relics of martyrs, putting themselves in the danger of not being able to get home or dying on the road. For instance, my hero, Francis of Assisi, made a pilgrimage to Egypt in 1219 in an attempt to convert Sultan al-Kamil and put an end to the 5th Crusade

Green

The Celtic Church added  the category of “green” martyrs (or blue), basically “glas.” Irish doesn’t really have a good cognate for green or blue in translation and “glas” is much more descriptive than either (see here). Glas is more specific to a place or natural phenomenon and less distinct as a concept, which is one of the reasons Celtic Christianity appeals to me. Glas martyrs experienced a kind of martyrdom by devoting themselves to practical rules in their own place, maybe even attached to a place, like Cuthbert wading into the water every day to pray (according to Bede), or monks living on Skellig Michael (which is glas in the picture above).

The martyr colors need an update

The red martyr has the feel of “I need to stand firm in an evil day” (Eph. 6:13). Red martyrdom usually comes upon people rather than them seeking it, like what happened to the kind people killed by Dylan Root. There are still red martyrs. Coptic churches are blown up. The Chinese government threatens the burgeoning church there. Inequities and violence sap the capacity of many brilliant servants in the U.S. I think a pastor, like Dan White, or anyone whose ministry is ended or hobbled by the power-hungry authoritarian elements rising up everywhere could be considered a red martyr. They are not killed, perhaps, but they are traumatized and often neutered.

The white martyr has the feel of “I’ve got to get out of this place” ( 2 Cor. 6:1-7:10). People are leaving the church in droves, looking for something more and getting out from under dominating leaders and moribund thinking. Any church leader who is mostly focused on getting or keeping power probably has a philosophy about to become moribund. In the U.S., people leave churches or kick out their leaders because their white supremacist/heteronormative denomination won’t change their hurtful theological statements; then people leave the newly cleansed churches because they have to toe the line to a legalistic application of the new theology, which is also non-inclusive and power-driven. Evacuations from church war zones reflect the spirit of the white martyrs of old who could not not tolerate the worldliness of their church.

The original white martyrs fled to the Egyptian desert. Their medieval imitators “fled” on pilgrimages. Americans go on some great pilgrimages, too (as you know I do). But I think their best contribution to white martyrdom is creating alternative communities in self-defined “wildernesses” in which to flee (I have done a bit of that myself). In an anti-institutional age (for good reason) people get out by getting small and getting communal. I know many people who have exited their church but held on to the small group where they got most of their face-to-face faith. Sometimes people get very small and intimate. As a newly-credentialed spiritual director, I know first hand that new spiritual directors are rapidly being minted for a lot of one-to-one Christianity (SDI has 6000 members!). Like Jesus followers have often done, people are escaping the ruins of old institutions and chaos.

Green martyrs have the feel of “This is not radical enough for me” (1 Peter). That’s not “radical” in the sense of extreme (although extremists have a similar motivation) but radical in the sense of intense, focused, true, basic. I think there are a lot of new green martyrs these days, looking around town for community, looking for a good rule of life in step with the Ruler. The church is not what is used to be even three years ago! Many people  I know feel a new freedom, a new sense of urgency, new inspiration. Their old way of life did not survive Covid or survive the evils associated with the ascendance of Christian nationalism. The expression of their faith is experiencing the renaissance of starting from scratch and imagining being faithful in their new surroundings.

Maybe Dan White is a green martyr out of necessity, cast out of the institution he created, living on his island, collecting the like-minded and like-wounded, appreciating the sacred in the ordinary, crafting something beautful, and harvesting his small garden — a green martyr despite his wound. Maybe nurses and teachers, Christian or not, should be considered green martyrs since they devote themselves to the common good in a specific place without recognition or pay even when the spirit of the air tries to tear down what they build up every day. Maybe you are a green martyr despite your wound and you should secretly wear the name to get some comfort as you stick with a day-to-day faith which is basic to you but hard to plant in a post-Covid world.