Lyon was beautiful to see. But Lyon was disturbing.
But then I could probably say that about you. You are undoubtedly a beautiful, even wondrous piece of God’s art, but you are disturbing at times.
The world is so beautiful! – it stretched out mile after mile in the French countryside. I saw it. But it is also disturbing.
In Lyon on a beautiful day, we tore ourselves from the lovely view on the bridge over the Saone River and came to St. John the Baptist Cathedral in the Old City (a UNESCO site). Behind the cathedral were the remains of even older church buildings. All that remains of them are an artful arch, a remarkable baptistry surviving from the 4th century and stubby markers of where there used to be walls (my pic above).
Those niches below the rose window used to have statues
The French Revolution
What had remained of the churches of Saint Stephen and the Holy Cross in Lyon were reportedly destroyed during the French Revolution (1789-92) like so many old church buildings were torn down and often used as quarries after they were nationalized. The still-standing cathedral was spared because it was turned into a “temple of reason.” Somehow the ancient baptistry survived. You can read more about the destruction of church buildings here. We saw even more ambitious vengeance when we visited Cluny, a huge, bucket-list, historic complex reduced to almost nothing. When we visited Fontenay Abbey, founded by St. Bernard (also on my bucket list), we saw it stripped to the bones.
After visiting Versailles and Fontainebleau, I could understand even more why people wanted to destroy the ancien regime with its fully-politicized and oppressive church. I have never really been comfortable with most churches dominated by powerful men. I could not even spend a full day at the famous Taize last week, when I realized how women were marginalized. The need for change felt like an emotional itch that needed to be scratched then and now.
As I wandered through history, I could not help wondering what the revolutionaries are doing to the present-day church once I got a personal look at what they did in the past. It did not work out that well in France. After a decade of hysteria, villainy, murder and ineptitude the French Revolution ended up with Napoleon, ensconced again at Fontainebleau. The U.S. might be ripe for the same kind of thing and install Trump or DeSantis. Meanwhile, its fully-politicized church, largely listening to Fox News (or not), would keep tearing itself apart as surely as people literally tore down stones in Lyon.
A couple of survivors got their heads chopped off.
The age of the Huguenots
The Church of John the Baptist in Lyon is striking. When you look at it more closely, you realize it has also been struck. That fact speaks to me.
One of its founders was St. Irenaeus (b. 130!). By 450, a bishop built a big building there. By 1079 the archbishop there was named the “Primate of all the Gauls.” The present building was begun in 1180 and called complete in 1476 (these buildings are all a constant rehab project). Some people blame the missing and defaced statues on the cathedral on an outbreak of Huguenot looting in 1562. Huguenots were statue-hating Protestants like John Calvin (92 miles away in Geneva who died in 1564). They were kin to the Puritans in England and the U.S. There is a lot of church history in your face as you face the church, which left me with more questions than answers.
The church I experienced for most of my adulthood feels a bit looted, of late, from the right and the left of the political spectrum. Part of that is me being old. But more, I feel violated because, just like the Huguenots and like the Revolutionaries who followed them, reaction to the horrible excesses and corruption of the rulers these days is more about tearing down the past than building a sustainable future. I told one of my guides, “We spent some time in the church,” during one of our tourist stops and he gave me a pitying and puzzled look. I said, “We’re like that.” He was surprised anyone still is. The French church has never recovered from the Huguenot wars and the Revolution. I have a lot of friends who aren’t recovering very well right now, too.
I am disappointed over how often the newly-powerful keep doing the same damned things that are as plain as the nose on your saint’s face — chipped right off a Lyon statue! The new regime often throws the baby out with the dirty bath water when they throw a statue into the Saone. (I am not sure anyone did that but those statues are somewhere!). Yet another leader turns out to be a sexual predator and it is off with everyone’s head and burn some books. The ever-present powermongers get a whiff of how they could use your convictions for further profit or fame and we all think being at loggerheads is normal and every institution needs purifying (often in the name of tolerance and intolerance).
What Church are we building?
It seems I must have visited most of the French church buildings by now — they leave them open, so we go in to pray or sing. They are usually beautiful – so regularly beautiful you begin to take for granted the art, skill and passion that went into creating them. But they were disturbing. Empty. Echoing with violence and corruption as well as with praise. I met God repeatedly and wonderfully in them – but they have a lot yet to teach me.
We are in the process of making ruins of the 20th century church. I admit to abandoning it once Ronald Reagan got a hold of it. I probably threw out some babies. There is a lot worthy of reform and I hope we are doing it somehow. But I can’t see what we are building. The lovely things so many people attempted to build in the last 20 years are being swept away for what?
History has a lot to teach us about what creates faith lived out in community. The French revolutionaries thought history began with them so they missed some lessons. I can sympathize with them, though, and I feel the fervor of people who want change now — when it comes to racism, sexism, gun proliferation and climate policy, among many things; so do I. But Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Not far from Arles, we visited the town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It is an ancient town in the marshes of the Camargue, where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean Sea. I am not sure Gwen wanted to investigate yet another church, but she kindly went to see what was under that collection of bells in that tower with a ship for a weather vane. As we sat in the nave, I finally looked up and saw an opening way up the wall. I could not tell what it was, but I surmised it might be the remains of the three Marys in the town’s name. Sure enough, we later learned three times a year they pull out an ornate box and hoist it down to the altar for vernation.
More in a minute. But, I ask you, if Christianity managed to survive such things, don’t you think it will survive the nonsense we are experiencing right now?
The story goes on to say the Three Marys for which the town is named are, in French, Marie Madeleine, Marie Salomé and Marie de Cléophas, the very women who came to the tomb where Jesus was laid three days after the crucifixion. The medieval tradition, still honored today, began when the three Marys escaped persecution for their faith in Palestine and travelled by sea to Southern France, which makes them “de la Mer” for sure. They set sail from Alexandria, Egypt, with their uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, and landed on the very spot where the town sits. They lived in the Camargue the rest of their lives and helped bring Christianity to France.
Legends are being born every day. The January 6 Commission is about to hold public hearings about the findings of their investigation. Mehmet Oz is going to have to decide if he gets on the bandwagon with Trump’s big lie. 34% of the population is likely to keep believing the last election was stolen. Many of us will wring our hands about the lack of factuality drowning us. Last week Tucker Carlson claimed that Democrat efforts to promote gun safety are not about public health. Instead, he said, Democrats want to disarm the people because they’re afraid of a popular uprising against them because “they know they rule illegitimately.”
I assume Jesus has always cared about lying, but just assessing facts does not always mean we arrive at the truth. What does your legend serve?
The Church of the Saintes Maries de la Mer is known in France for the celebrations it holds for each Mary’s feast day. The week-long events draw 24-40,000 Roma Catholics and others from France and beyond. The high points at each feast include a ritual when the painted reliquary chest, said to contain the bones of the Saintes Maries, is ceremoniously lowered from its high perch to the altar for veneration, and then the statue of another figure, the Roma’s own Saint Sarah, can be honored – she was later added to the story as a servant who arrived with the Marys and Joseph (or greeted them onshore, miraculously helping them to disembark, depending on the version). On successive days, Romas and a large crowd process with statues of Sara and the Saintes Maries from the church to the beach, carrying them right into the sea.
I have to say, had I happened upon this quaint village when the big celebration was in full swing, I probably would have folded in and helped take Sara and the Marys right into the sea. I had already joined a candlelight procession for the Virgin Mary at Lourdes a few days before and quite enjoyed belting out “Kyrie eleison!” (Lord have mercy!) with pilgrims from around the world. I don’t believe 90% of the “facts” I keep seeing represented about Mary on French church buildings. But I do believe in thousands of people crying out for the mercy of the Lord in an era where truth is often stranger than fiction and facts are an inconvenience. Didn’t Louis Gohmert, the Texas congressman, just say last week, when reacting on Newsmax to the arrest of Peter Navarro, “If you’re a Republican, you can’t even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they’re coming after you.”
I truly believe Jesus has done wonders with whatever the tides of lies and legends have washed up on our shores. He is always glorious in contrast. But I don’t think he needs what we think is true to validate he is the Truth.
If I say one word of French, most of the natives of France will know I am an American. I think they can tell I am an alien by the way I walk, how I look them in the eye and smile, and how I laugh too loud. I am not quite the “stranger” the Bible tells us to take care of, but I am close enough — I certainly need a lot of care! Just yesterday a canoer extended his paddle to me so I would not float away down the Dordogne River, and then a woman volunteered info on how to use a parking kiosk which only spoke French. I suppose I’d be dead or destitute if I stayed in the country too long without people who care for strangers.
Our first major stop on this trip was Amboise in the Loire Valley, the fabled land of chateaus. My first major lessons on two kinds of Frenchmen were learned on the shopping street of that city. The little stories of two men meeting strangers have become a pilgrimage parable for me and might teach you something too.
Be kind
When we travel we often struggle to find something to eat, especially in French. (I studied up for the trip, apparently to little avail). We found a restaurant in Amboise which looked promising but the tables were all full on a lovely day perfect for lingering — and the French do like to linger. We decided to wait and see if a table opened up. I think I may have looked a bit like a Hugo pauper hoping the rich would offer me a crust of bread. To our surprise, a man who had been sitting contently with his wife suddenly got up and said, in halting English, “Would you like to have our table?” His wife smiled and looked at him with humor and approval and also got up. We made our way to their seats and he left us with a blessing. “Enjoy. And be kind.” There was more to his admonition, but it got lost in his accent. His actions spoke louder than his words anyway.
This care for others is a French virtue which appears as a stubborn streak in their societal personality. A few days later I was in Tours visiting the church of St. Martin, the soldier who turned church planter in the 300’s. He is almost always pictured cutting off half his cloak for a beggar, which he apparently did one time. Although the French generally appear to be disinterested in their old saints, a saintly charity is deeply rooted in many of them. I run into it all the time – and need it.
Speak French
On another day on that same Amboise shopping street, we were again scavenging for food and trying to buy a sandwich. I was attempting to speak French and the server was vainly trying to explain things in English. A man about my age was standing there watching it all. I don’t think he was in line, he was just checking us out. When the server went to collect our order, he said, “You are in France now. You need to speak French. This is not America.” I said, “I know. Qu’est-ce que c’est en Francaise?” He wandered off. But all that day he stuck with me. I was shamed for not speaking French as I was trying to speak French! Oh, the injustice! And what kind of guy butts into a transaction to make someone feel stupid? “What are you, the French language police?” Maybe you know how these internal dialogues go when your shame button is pushed.
This disdain for others and domination of others is also a streak in the French societal personality. I know, I visited Louis XIV’s Versailles, and who knows how many other chateaux by now. Someone commented on one of my brag pics to say, “The French garden is mostly about making boundaries!” That is sort of true. You get over the moat, through the castle, into the walled garden, and every flower bed has an exquisite little hedge around it or some other “wall.” They are territorial and don’t mind telling you.
What will become of us?
Looking at the United States from far away, I have to wonder which of these types of people will prevail in my country. Quite few of my friends have been out demanding school children be allowed to grow up without needing an armed teacher. But many of them are also rabidly in favor of filling Ukraine with weaponry so they can beat back Russia. Are you kind about either opinion? I’ve been wondering what my dominant streak is.
I am trying to be kind. I find that relatively easy with my loved ones, or with people who look like they are about ready to be kind back. But if you look violent, or you have a face that looks ready to shame me, I might wall off my garden. So on my pilgrimage, I keep looking for places to pray and wonder and listen for a deep way to form my personality. Thank you, Jesus, that so many others are also looking, and even looking out for me!
What if I catch Covid-19 and don’t pass the test I need to pass in order to get on my return flight home? That’s an example of a “what if?” question. It is bouncing around in the back of my mind and surfaces periodically. You might have a whole set of what ifs bouncing around, some familiar and some old stand-bys. A few of you might feel disabled by them.
If you follow what if thoughts down an anxiety-filled rabbit hole, it can be trouble. It might difficult to focus on daily life and tasks. The thoughts might even keep you up at night.
For example:
What if I can’t pay the mortgage this month? (money-related)
What if I lose my job because I have needed so much time off? (work-related)
What-if my dad gets COVID? (health-related)
What if I never get this weight off? (image related)
What-if my partner cheats on me? (relationship related)
These thoughts can lead to anxiety. But the pattern can lead to what ifs about the pattern!
What-if I have a panic attack when I’m driving?
What if I shut down and can’t finish my presentation and they fire me?
What if I can’t stand leaving the house and my coach finds out?
When are these thoughts problematic?
What-if thoughts are not all bad. They serve a vital purpose. We have to ask questions about what is coming our direction to decide what to do! Our minds are geared to protect us from danger. That includes considering, “What if something jumps out of the woods while I am driving through this forest?” The other day on our trip, I was fortunately ready to slow down when a mother and father wild boar and at least twelve piglets were huddled by the road, ready to cross in front of us. Things happen!
But intrusive thoughts may start to take up too much space in your mind and overstay their utility. Chronic what if thoughts are a habit we may have learned from a traumatic experience but go over and over again in every possible what if scenario in case it happens again. Or we may have formed our what if habit from some other thoughts we keep repeating.
What if scenarios can spiral out of control and cause anxiety, worry or stress if they get rolling. If worry-filled thoughts distract you constantly or interfere with productivity and relationships, these ruminations could be a symptom of a disorder with which your therapist can help.
Symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder can involve intrusive thoughts like the what ifs but also include:
not being able to stop worrying or being nervous
knowing you worry too much
having a hard time relaxing or concentrating
trouble falling asleep
constantly feeling on edge
Anxiety can also take a toll on your body, and you may notice physical symptoms like:
having a hard time staying asleep
being tired all the time
unexplained pain
headaches, muscle aches, stomachaches
sweating a lot for no reason
breathlessness
needing to go the bathroom often
You probably noticed that a few of these symptoms are also Covid-19 symptoms. Which leads me back to “What if I don’t pass that test and can’t get on the plane?
What can we do about the “what ifs?”
Remember, you’re not alone
Many of my clients are consumed by what ifs. It is such a common issue someone wrote a children’s book about it.
What if thinking is so common, Jesus taught about it.
He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! – Luke 12:22-24
No matter how you choose to deal with your what if worries, you are one of many people in the world feeling the same way right now. At one time, as many as 6 million people in the United States reported having intrusive thoughts.
Note your what ifs, don’t assess them
Reserve your self-criticisms about your thoughts and just note them. If a what if crosses your mind. You could write it down in a notebook your are carrying and get it a step away from what you’d rather turn into. This is a researched way to help lower anxiety.
Call the what ifs what they are
It may be tempting to accept what if thoughts as inevitable truths, something you must suffer or are obligated to consider. They aren’t. They are just thoughts. Thoughts come and go. What you do with the thoughts gives them power. We can manage ruminations if we name them as they come and allow them to pass.
Check your triggers
Once you can call out a what if thought, it can help to take a moment to see if you can pinpoint the source of the unwanted thought.
You might ask yourself:
Is something going on right now that often causes me to collect what ifs?
Do I feel an old, anxious thought about what’s going on right now?
Do I feel unsafe right now in a way I have felt unsafe before?
If we keep mentalizing, we get better at expecting certain situations to get the what ifs going. Like meeting with the boss (“What if I get all nervous?”) or going to a doctor’s appointment (“What if I have cancer?). If you know ahead of time your anxiety could be triggered by a particular situation, you could reach into your anxiety “go bag” and use some of the anxiety reduction strategies that work for you.
1 — Ask yourself, “What is the worst-case scenario?”
Often, our feelings help us recognize we are caught in the spiral of what-if thinking. We may feel angry, sad, anxious, worried or stressed. Work on tuning into those feelings and you may be able to see the what if thoughts behind them and turn away from them. When you recognize that you are going over and over the what-ifs, stop and ask yourself (out loud often helps): What is the worst-case scenario here?
By doing this you are stopping the re-run of the what-ifs. Usually, it is the re-run after re-run of the thought that causes the anxiety. It is like poking a bruise. If you keep poking it and poking it, it gets worse and never heals. So, by facing the worst-case scenario you are, in effect, no longer beating yourself up.
Often we find the worst-case scenario is not as bad as what we were thinking. But even if it is worse, at least now you have stopped beating yourself up by going over and over a bad scenario in your mind.
2 — Ask yourself, “Could I handle this?”
The answer is always Yes! No matter what life throws at you, you can handle it. It may not be pleasant, and in some cases, it may bring hardship, but whatever it is you have the ability to handle it. And if you are walking with Jesus, Jesus is walking with you. Peter taught us, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
What do you think of this example? A woman who had two children was pregnant with a third. She had very bad anxiety over an issue at work. She was re-running scenarios over and over in her mind to the point where she had convinced herself that she was not liked or wanted by her team. To demonstrate how to ask this question her therapist came up with the worst-case scenario: the team forced her out and that she would lose her job.
Then he asked, “Could you handle this?” Her immediate reply was “No! How would I be able to afford to live and with another baby on the way!” He pointed out, because she had two dependents and another on the way was exactly the reason why she could handle it. It would be hard, but she would find a way because she would have to feed her children.
Whatever it is you are facing you can handle it. It may be overwhelming if you decide to face it alone or you are trapped in an unbearable situation, but you probably have more resources than you think you do.
3 — Ask yourself, “What is the best-case scenario?”
This is something we rarely do. Unless we are daydreaming about winning the lottery, or are in the throes of first love, we rarely go into what if scenarios in the positive sense. But just like we have formed the habit of creating what if situations in the negative sense, we can get into the habit of creating what if situations which are positive.
When you take the scenario, you have been playing over and over in the negative, take the same scenario and see the best possible outcome. Then notice how you feel doing this.
The aim is to feel good. Initially, since we are not in the habit of thinking positively, it might take some practice. I have client who feels guilty for being dishonestly positive when they try this! But the effort is worth it. We need to remember how much control we have over our thoughts. We can’t control what others will say or do, or what circumstances come our way, but we can choose how we react to them. Our thoughts do not need to control us. We can get into the habit of turning into our best-case scenarios and moving with the Spirit into blessing.
On May 4th I begged a piece of paper from Gwen to take notes at the Jesus Collective Partner Summit. One would think a serious partner would be prepared to codify his marching orders! At least Gwen came prepared to move with the movement.
A Spirit-inspired vision still being born
I really should have had a few sheets of paper because there were many good things to collect! It was nice to be among a group of committed, often brilliant partners from around the world who are united by a vision for keeping a spiritual ball rolling. Beyond the reformation of Eurocentric, capitalist-bound, principle-centered, power-struggling, often narcissistic and male Christianity, there is a movement of Jesus-centered people who see another way to be the church. It is not a new way, but after hundreds of years of European domination, it seems new. Jesus Collective is working on a practical expression of the ancient-future way of the cross and resurrection that transcends all the boundaries of the world. If you explore the website you’ll probably get an idea of what’s going on. The website won’t tell you everything however; the new zeitgeist of the Body of Christ these days is better caught by experiencing like mindedness in relationship than taught with more left-brained schooling.
I enjoyed the relating but I was also schooled during the Partner Summit and Unite22. Jesus Collective has a unique view of the future because it was born right before the pandemic hit. Life these days is kind of “before the lockdowns” and “after a million Americans died.” It was not the most advantageous time to start something, but Jesus Collective started. Then the pandemic hit and then the revelation of Bruxy Cavey’s infidelity torpedoed the Meeting House which had been the collective’s incubator. The megachurch is still the incubator, only it is more like a NICU in a Kharkiv hospital. Since the inaugural in-person gathering I attended in 2019, the whole constituency has been traumatized and reformed. I was schooled about that, too.
What to do when the movement meets resistance
But there was so much more happening among the Jesus Collective than trauma! I came away stimulated and inspired – and convicted to keep the ball rolling! I can’t vouch for my notes, since my handwriting is often indecipherable. But I am still moved by three points I noted from a speaker I can’t remember. He or she was trying to answer the question, “What do we do now?” If there is still a movement of the Spirit alive in the world, how do we not only move with it but move it along when we are exhausted and beset with overwhelming circumstances? Jesus shows us a way. Here are three elements of staying on the way and showing the way with Him: lament, commitment, and action.
Jesus wept / lament
As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. – Luke 19-41-2
My Christian psychotherapy clients, especially, often call lamenting “griping.” They are prone to say, “I shouldn’t be having these feelings” or “I am not sure I deserve to be sad when Ethiopians are on the verge of starvation.” Jesus did not talk himself out of crying. He did not shut himself down because people would see his despair and despise him for his vulnerability.
Emmanuel Katangole, from the east of Congo, justly became more famous during the pandemic because he has written so eloquently about the necessity and the power of lament. He says:
Lament is an invitation to see reality through the eyes of the most vulnerable, and to name and admit what is broken.
In this historical moment, only through the practice of lament can we imagine a new and better future. More than a personal spiritual practice, lament has potent political implications in three ways: connecting us to the oppressed, telling the truth to governments, and transcending partisan political borders.
I believe there is a new movement of the Spirit at work in the world, just as there is tragedy and evil afoot. If we are being reduced to repentance, that is a good thing. Lament is a positive spiritual response to our shame and hopelessness. Tears often water the seeds of a better future. If we can be moved, maybe we can energize a movement.
Edvard Munch, Melancholy (1894).
Jesus asked, “Do you want to be well?” / commit
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” – John 5:6
I asked one of my clients that question once. They had to think about it. Their aloneness had come to feel like their safe place. The vengeance they wanted over their abusers felt more important than health. The small space of control they felt they owned seemed violated by the question. I don’t think we should underestimate just how profound a question the Lord asks us, “No, really. Do you want to be made well?”
Taking the Lord’s outstretched hand is just the beginning. The man who was healed had to relearn to walk and experience being “the guy who was lame for 38 years.” He had to change how he saw himself and keep deciding to be well. At the end of the day we have to make a commitment to life. We often have to fight for our lives. Together we’re called to fight for the life of the world too.
I think Americans are so accustomed to their imperial ease that hysteria breaks out if gas costs a dollar more a gallon. Filipinos just elected the son of their former dictator because authoritarianism looks good if it promises some semblance of order. Even churches are adopting the authoritarian playbook. In these reactions, I don’t see a commitment to wellness, just control: I see little of the Spirit, mostly fear. I know a lot of Americans and a few Filipinos; many of them are exhausted, traumatized and often numb – and a lot of them are Jesus followers! For the first time, many of us may be able to relate to the man who couldn’t get to the pool. But here comes Jesus asking us for a commitment to him, not just to our own capacity. If we can get up and move again, maybe we can stoke the spiritual movement we all need so desperately.
Jesus taught: love God and your neighbor / act
Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. – Matthew 22:36-8
When I went to the Jesus Collective Partner Summit, I admit I was wary. So it was moving when many people convinced me I was loved and accepted, even valued. I have my own trauma that makes me suspicious; I’m still recovering from a love breakdown in my former church. Quite often I need to remind myself to act love, do love, see love as my daily task. Otherwise I might just do me; I might get in the habit of being suspicious.
The leaders of the church where I completed my pastoring shunned my entire family because they imagined we were a threat to them. It was a classic cut off. Since we all still live in the same town and still care about our old friends, the absurdity of it all comes to fruit when people get married, have children, etc. and throw parties. The people remaining in the church have to wonder if it is OK to still love us and include us. They aren’t sure why, but we are out and they are supposed maintain “boundaries.” I hope we will all be back together in love one day. But until then, loving hurts. It is the task the Lord gives me as much as a delight I experience.
There are still people in Philly who operate according to the old redlining boundaries from the past. Family systems still don’t talk to descendants of a “black sheep.” Whole protestant denominations still recoil when something seems like it might be “Catholic.” For some reason the Supreme Court will sacrifice the peace of the country to overturn the right to privacy. There is a lot of broken love built right into the infrastructure. I may feel like I’m making bricks without straw, but we all need to bring at least one brick to the building of the beloved community every day. If we can move another brick onto that vision, maybe we can nurture the movement of the Spirit springing up in the strangest places.
We are called to get up every day and do the work of love. We are not called to get up every day and wish someone would do the work of loving me or get up angry about the people who don’t do the work. The desire and demand to love may flood some days with the tears of lament – let it come, let it sink in, and move with the Spirit anyway. The desire and demand to love will make us wonder if it is worth it to be well since well is hard — listen to the “yes” of the spirit resonating with the truth “You are beloved and valued” then make the commitment.
Let’s love others because we are lovers not because everything is working out well. Love is a feeling that becomes a task. Love is a desire that can’t help but become an action. Love is Jesus looking over Jerusalem with tears, reaching out his hand in compassion and challenge, getting himself killed, giving his life and forgiveness freely and in hope of resurrection. The Jesus Collective, in league with people all over the world, senses a new movement of raw, Jesus-y love like that spreading around the ever-warming globe, changing and rebuilding lives and churches. Maybe like never before we have a chance to bring good news to everyone in an era full of bad news and broken institutions.
I turn to you Lord. …..You encourage me.
Make me an encourager. …..Defeat the enemies who live in my head, …..whose betrayals and insults dominate conversation — …..damning words inside and in the living room. …..Mute them as my rusty swivel squeaks.
Make me an encourager, Lord, …..like you finding your disciples and soothing their doubt, …..like Francis tousling Giacondo’s hair, …..like my director taking me seriously as I ramble, …..like someone remembering me out of the blue. …..We need the gentle reminders you are near.
I know you are content if I am small; …..you seem to prefer I don’t grow to reach the countertop.
Save me from assessing how tiny I am: …..my few words, unheard words, …..my scant opportunity, …..shouted down by TV, by children, …..by catastrophe and weakness.
I am still a harsh critic. …..You chasten thoughts your forgiveness — …..the grace you voiced with your dying breath, …..the word that recreates the world, …..does not apply to my incompletion.
Make me an encourager Lord.
Everywhere I look this week …..chins are dragging, …..lips are quivering, …..eyes are vacant. …..People are tired, sick, ruined. …..The leaders are fools, …..as are their blind followers.
You do not recoil.
Your reach out your hand as I look in the mirror, …..the fool thinking his dashed-off psalm is worthy of you. …..And you say, “Yes. It is. You are.”
Make me to say, “Yes,” today and every day. …..May my yes be yes as your yes is yes to me.
And if I die or my work comes to naught, …..is despised even, my love thwarted,
encourage me to keep on in a wicked day, …..so I can gently say with you, …..“We do not recoil.”
The other day, therapists working with Circle Counseling considered how we are going to manage the new reality of teletherapy. I’ll get to that.
But first, I’d like to think about what is happening to us humans in the age of virtuality, of which teletherapy is a part. I am not sure what virtuality means, completely, but how I am using it is:
you and me, individually, connecting to the great power that is the internet.
You and your screen,
you and your headset,
you and your Oculus, etc.,
accessing experiences, products, and representations of people
outside of embodied, mutual physicality.
I did not bother looking for a better definition. It would be nice if we shared one. We need some kind of common understanding for this new experience, but that will be hard to find. Because part of the facts of living in our new condition is that each of us has our own experience and resulting definition of what just happened. And we don’t need to explain it to anyone, just conform to the rules that let us into different parts of the internet.
There is a new creation occurring
I decided I needed to get serious about what I, my family, partners and clients were experiencing in the solitude of our virtual lives when I happened upon an article in the New York Times about a Japanese man, Akihiko Kondo, who is among a growing number of people who have intimate relationships with animated, but inanimate, characters. He married a fictional character in 2018: “Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized pop singer who has toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games.”
Mr. Kondo is one of tens of thousands of people around the world who have entered into such unofficial marriages. Some of the characters they marry come from manga. Manga is a style of graphic storytelling which is a mainstay of Japanese publishing and popular worldwide. A child of one of my acquaintances lost their job because they are an “otaku.” In their case that meant they were addicted to manga stories in a way that made them unable to relate to reality. Their experience gives me sympathy for Mr. Kondo. I wonder who among my loved ones is losing their hold on reality right now.
The younger my clients are, the more likely they are to feel disembodied. Some are more comfortable with virtuality than merely human reality (as in the many young men who have difficulty with sex because they are acclimated to porn). Many are avoidant, mistrusting of “reality,” which is so uncontrollable. I’ve noted a vicious cycle. Their relationship with virtuality is often about controlling their anxiety. But virtuality ends up controlling them and creating more anxiety. Those feelings, in turn, require deeper commitment to what controls them.
I am pondering what our wholesale adoption of teletherapy, which I can accomplish in pajama bottoms and never leave the confines of my home (perhaps ever), is doing to the people we want to help. Is using the medium attaching them more securely to it? Can they ever receive what I offer if they never make the effort to know me (or themselves) as a living breathing human? Or is it OK to marry a fictional character?
Where is teletherapy leading?
I practice teletherapy and now have clients from all over the country. NPR is constantly recommending the latest in teletherapy businesses. And even though I am sounding suspicious, I know I have provided helpful therapy screen to screen — sometimes to people who would not have received it otherwise. So is there really a problem? Is there any line at all from teletherapy leading to manga addiction, much less a direct line? I don’t know. I just have a hunch there might be something worth considering.
Months before the omicron variant hit, researchers were producing articles on how teletherapy was radically changing the practice of psychotherapy. Even as my comrades were talking about what we are going to do, I got on my other screen and found an article from March of 2021 titled, “Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions?” A few of us had already decided, “No.” Others wondered if they wanted to get back in an office. And others were dismayed the question was even being asked because they needed off the screen.
Keep in mind, the researchers I uncovered were writing about research done a full year before Omicron was discovered in South Africa and quickly turned the world upside-down again. Two and more years of adaptation to lockdowns and social distancing is more than enough to solidify a new approach.
After more than a year, the researchers reported positive experiences with online psychotherapy. Long before the pandemic, some cognitive–behavioral therapists had positive attitudes toward teletherapy. Psychodynamic people, like me, were less enthused. In their study, the participants stated the pandemic changed their attitudes toward teletherapy. Over 60% said they now preferred it.
However, 70% of the participants agreed that remote work is more draining. Nevertheless, 78% agreed with the statement: “Remote therapy can be as effective as in-person therapy.” I think screens can suck the life out of us, and I believe the powers that run them are intent on doing just that. But I don’t feel drained by remote work. What’s more, even though I think good work is done virtually, I don’t think it is one to one comparable with what happens in person. I guess that puts me in the 30% of something.
This little piece of research and just looking around will tell you teletherapy is here to stay unless some compelling reason forces us out of the arms of virtuality the same way we were forced into it. We’d have to break a habit.
Click for NY Times article
There are reasons we won’t break the habit
Many clients prefer teletherapy. Thus, I have met entire families as they interrupt mom’s session. I’ve had sessions in several cars. Every session begins with making sure the connections work. Many sessions are interrupted by some glitch. But no one needs to go anywhere and sessions can fit into the catch-all schedules we concoct now. Why rent an office if you can work from a free one?
Vaccinations have made a big difference since the researchers were talking to their participants. But health concerns remain. Many of us can’t risk carrying home some unknown virus to our aging parents, who now live with us instead of virus-ridden care facilities. You may be concerned about what it means to your own health when you think about signing up people you don’t know for therapy — some populations would be more likely to be carrying the virus! If masks are required when new variants strike, that makes in-person therapy not much better, if not worse, than online.
Insurance for teletherapy was set to expire as the pandemic waned. But it appears people will be reimbursed at the same rate for teletherapy by providers. The new online businesses advertising relentlessly will take a chunk of the increase therapists might have realized. But if you already have an established practice on your own, the cost of not needing an office is a nice, needed pay raise.
There are reasons we probably should break the habit.
I wrote my dissertation on an ethical issue, and I often lean into those questions. Teletherapy makes me wonder, “Is confidentiality affected by teletherapy?” I don’t mean “Is Google somehow listening?” But few of my clients have a devoted space to do quality work. Babies come to therapy. Children interrupt. Any number of devices need to be quashed. When at home or in a closet at the office (unless you see execs with a corner suite) there is a sense of holding invasive things at bay. It is distracting. And it is often not private. Confidentiality provides safety. An office overseen by a caregiver who provides it for caring is a benefit.
I also wonder if doing therapy out of my home is boundary breaking. Maybe you blur your background and hope your head stays in focus. Or maybe you have constructed a background that makes your circumstances appear neutral. But we know where you are. I think many people do good work by visiting people in their homes to do therapy. Some people have little office buildings in their backyard. Good work is done many ways. But I wonder if it serves the unique process of a client when they are enveloped by the personal world of their therapist. Granted, the office can do that too. But at least the office is, by definition, a place where professional services are dispensed, often by a person licensed to give them.
My main issue with not breaking free of virtuality has to do with community. When our therapist group was sharing I felt hungry for more togetherness and most of them voiced similar feelings. Let’s talk about cases. Let’s have dinner. Let’s build some love. We are starving. Yes, we are just coming out of the weirdest two years ever, perhaps. But our starvation is the future if we conform to the changes the pandemic accelerated. I think psychotherapy is best accomplished in the atmosphere of the beloved community Dr. King preached. Attachment issues are best repaired in a place where people attach. Psychotherapy is about our bodies, not just our minds instructing our reactions and feelings. I think people feel it if therapists are not lone rangers, logging in from wherever with whoever.
The new atmosphere of virtuality is an ongoing dialogue worth having. Elon Musk did not spend $44 billion on Twitter instead of climate change action for nothing; he probably wants to be the chief oligarch. The internet domination system is the future. I’m having the dialogue about virtuality quite practically this week. On one hand, just less than half my appointments are in person this week. But on the other, we are flying to Toronto out of a conviction we need to show our faces at an important conference. It is hard to spend the money, time and energy to travel when the governments still feel like protecting their borders (especially getting back into the U.S.!). But really being there and building something planted in creation makes a difference, I hope. Maybe I will have more to say about what not being virtual is like next week.
My Jesus Collective group was talking about spiritual formation this week, as their churches are re-forming after the pandemic. I think some of my past thinking in this speech might contribute to the subject.
I’m like a frog in the world’s pot
It is a wonder any frogs grow up. I wondered how threatened they must feel the other day when Helena, my three-year-old friend, showed me the frog she caught at the Love Feast. He looked like a twenty-something in frog years, certainly no tadpole. He was just hopping around checking out the world, and then he was in the clutches of a toddler. He was exploring on a nice, humid, July day in Philly, as happy as can be, and then, “Doh! I’m in the pocket of a little sun dress! How the toad did I get here!” But by then it was too late, he was about to meet death by caress. It seems similarly shocking, but I know a lot of people who got to fifty and said, “Doh! I’m fifty! How in the world did I ever get here and what am I doing in this pocket?” Let’s talk about that.
First let’s talk about feeling like the world has you in its pocket. It is hard to put one’s finger on what is wrong in the world, especially when it’s caressing you but you’re not dead yet. The following analogy gets used for everything, and I’ve never tried it to see if it is true, but…the temptation of settling into the world is often compared to the proverbial frog in the pot. They say if you throw a live frog in hot water (no, I do not know who would do such a thing) the frog will try to escape before he dies. But if you put one in swamp-temperature water and then slowly turn up the heat, the cold blooded frog will enjoy the warmth until the temperature goes over a tipping point and she is cooked. This could happen! We gradually gets used to what should have seemed wrong; we slowly acclimate, like a frog heating up in a pot, and then we’re cooked.
You know how this works. When does a young musician who hangs with the drug users and drinkers during performances wake up to the fact that he’s become one of the gang? When does the young woman who took the job to make money realize that she became a corporate lackey with debts to trap her there the rest of her life? The ways of the world are an atmosphere, almost like a mood. Spiritually aware people get an uneasiness that not all is well, but every time we define the illness we feel uncertain and stay put. We often sense the environment we are in is eroding our faith; it is wearing out our hope and proactivity; it is corrupting and blunting our love — then, “Doh!”
What you are now is a step toward who you’re becoming
How you go through the world as it has formed itself in your era, right now, will define what you are when you are fifty. Some of us care about this. Some of us are looking at thirty and realizing, “I needed to do more during my twenties – this could be serious!” Some of are fifty and wondering, “Is this it? – I should consider how to die well, not just die.” I’m trying to speak into those thoughts because people are asking good questions.
The little part of Hebrews I am highlighting shows how to do make our way. The writer is winding up the big finale of his message in chapters 11 and 12 with a call to faithfulness in the face of pressures from the world to shrink back in fear and not go the whole way with Jesus on His way. The famous chapter 11 lists all the great heroes of faith by name and by action. The writer calls us to follow in their footsteps. Of these people of faith she (it could be a she!) says,
“the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”
And they did a lot of other amazing things that showed their faith.
With these examples, she calls each of us to imagine how and where we want to wander. Many of us are following the ways of our time and trying to line our pockets with as much brick and mortar, bank accounts and power as we can. In the face of similar circumstances, the writer of Hebrews in our reading 11:38-12:3 is saying, “Imagine another way. Remember the amazing people who didn’t go the way of the world, but went the way of faith in God and his Son, Jesus.” And I’m thinking of it more like, “Imagine — What do I want to be when I am fifty?”
Pilgrim or tourist?
Let’s dare to ask ourselves and God, “Do you think I could become a spiritual someone?” A full-fledged someone probably has their full development going by fifty, at least, wouldn’t you say? Spiritual maturity takes time. I’m fifty – did I make it? In some ways, yes, in other ways I’m just very adept at seeing how far I have to go. But one thing I did, which I feel very blessed about, is, at about 19, I made a definite decision to take the journey by faith, and that has made all the difference.
50 on May 2
To be a mature person of God when you’re fifty, to be going somewhere in the Spirit, will mean you’ve taken the journey seriously. Just like the writer of Hebrews says, you realize that the world as it has fallen is not worthy of your submission. You don’t quite fit. You recognize the water is too hot and get out before you’re cooked.
As such, believers are the perpetual pilgrims, wanderers; they’re followers; they’re the ones who went out. If you want to get somewhere with God by fifty (or eighty), be a good pilgrim, starting now. Some of the colonizers who came to America to settle were so serious about this wandering they called themselves the Pilgrims. They were spending their lives going somewhere, going home to God, putting their feet to responding to Jesus when he says, “I am the way. No one comes to the Father but by me”
They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
On the journey of life, faithful people are on a pilgrimage to a sacred place, and God is eager to welcome them into it when they get home. To decide where you will be later depends on how you are travelling now. Are you a pilgrim or are you a tourist?
A long obedience
Think about the next verses in today’s reading. A maturing faith is a journey of long obedience, not instant or merely experiential.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Pilgrims sustain a long obedience, even when they don’t get everything they want right now. Tourists want something instant; they are always looking for the next immediate experience. It is axiomatic that we are all so conditioned by thirty-second commercials we have no ability to sustain interest in something for very long.
I went on my first trip as a pilgrim a couple of years ago, and now I try to figure out how I can make every vacation a pilgrimage rather than a mere tour. I would have liked Spain as a tourist, too – seeing everything, getting in line to do all the things I heard everyone else already did, having some extreme experience that would make a good story. But I made up my mind to do the pilgrimage to Santiago and it reaffirmed something important.
It’s a long story, but my pilgrimage did not work out like I had planned. I did not receive what the trip promised; it kind of fell apart. But I kept going and found another way to do it. I love doing sights, but a pilgrimage isn’t about sights, it is about following God with my body and soul and mind and strength. For example, I was quite surprised by what happened when we got to kind of an sad village, a deserted place no tourists bothered to visit. We made a habit of stopping to pray at the town’s church. So in this out-of-the-way place we labored up to a rather ugly church, expecting it to be locked. We found ourselves the only ones there for a long time. We rested and prayed. As we stood to leave, I was moved to sing in this echoey building: “I know my redeemer lives.” We’ve never forgotten how God met us there. It was moment pilgrims get that tourists miss.
Eugene Peterson quotes Frederic Nietzsche, of all people, who got this right. He said:
The essential thing in heaven and earth is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.
Being determined to develop faith, not settling in the world as it is but obeying the vision, believing the promise, trusting the Way — that makes you something that is worthy of living at fifty.
Lifelong apprenticeship
Look at the next set of verses. Learning the life God gives is a life-long apprenticeship in the same thing, not just a search for something novel or the next big thing.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Tourists are just visiting. They are always looking over your shoulder at the next thing. They are just tasting and planning their itinerary to get a novel meal tomorrow night, too. Pilgrims have more of a life-long mindset. They are going somewhere. It doesn’t matter how far away it is, they know where they are going. They are traveling with their Master in a loving and learning relationship – disciples, apprentices. It is a whole worldview.
It seems to me that religion is captured by the tourist mindset these days. It is understood as a visit to an attractive site when we have the leisure to get there. Some go to church. Some go to big services held in arenas or watch them on TV. Some like religiotainment – from one retreat, conference, rally, seminar to the next, complete with the latest personalities and controversial topics. There is always something new: podcasts, yoga, being purpose-driven, medieval liturgical revival, holy laughter, or a Unitarian taste of them all. We’ll try anything, go anywhere, until something else comes along.
Disciples, in contrast, are sticking with an apprentice relationship with Jesus. We’re learning the skills of faith as we go – not sitting in a classroom getting info. We’re walking with him, going where he goes and how he goes. It takes a lifetime. We aren’t learning to hammer a nail straight, we are learning to live straight. We are learning perseverance.
I love the point in a cell (or whatever circle you are in) when things gets boring — when people are over the novelty and have to make a relationship with someone they might not really like all that much. Then real love, faith and hope will have to show up. The church we built was set up to torment people with that reality, and we did torment them. Some fled.
The assumption we’ll have to keep learning has made a lot of people suffer around here. Because they realize that to get anywhere they will have to stay and commit. For instance, we use the word apprentice to describe the comrade of a cell leader. The use of this old-sounding word was well-debated. It takes a lot of humility to be an apprentice – we all want to be co-leaders and never learn anything or aspire to more. What’s more, the word implies that you are sticking around – when the cell multiplies, you will become the next leader nurturing the next apprentice. A lot of people just cannot honestly become an apprentice cell leader because they can see that Circle of Hope (and your church) will soon lose its novelty and they will want to move on – they’ve already heard about a church in California that is cool. Thomas Szasz, the therapist, says,
What we call “sanity”…has a great deal to do with competence – earned by struggling for excellence, with compassion – hard won by confronting conflict, and with modesty and patience – acquired through silence and suffering.
Having a race set out for you and running it with perseverance builds something into you that looks good at fifty.
Patiently keep faith
Finally, look at those last sentences. Getting where Jesus is leading means also being a pioneer with a long view, not hurried or impatient.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Tourists are right in with the world’s passion for the immediate and the casual. Pilgrims are like those pioneers in our country who called themselves by that name. They are authors of life in unknown, even hostile territory. You don’t have to have the famous Pilgrims’ catastrophic view of the native people in Massachusetts or Africans to admire their faith, the same way your real or potential faults do not ruin yours (at least your sins don’t have to ruin you). Pilgrims have the long view of what can be built, what will be, which includes themselves.
Not uncommon
The world is going for short cuts – “Tell me how to be a mature Christian in 20 minutes – if you take an hour I’ll have to go because I made a date for dinner.” We want instant credit. We are impatient for results – blow up Iraq and build a democracy in a year – heck, we can barely get a Thrift Store going in that time! We are impatient for results in ourselves and others, too – “You went to the therapist for six months, so what did all that money go for?” We live in fear of the world — if it doesn’t happen now, it won’t pass muster with the world (which it won’t). Spiritually, that touristy way is a disaster. We can’t get into life in Christ by hitting the high points of the Bible, or go to the sacred places like we are driving by on the bus tour – “And on your left, there is Henry Nouwen suffering for thirty years to understand the prodigal son; now on you right we have Mother Teresa….”
We, as a people, are trying to be rather strange in all this. We purposely don’t try to win a person with a meeting that will wow them with one pass. You’ll have to stick around and relate, or we have nothing to give. I think God is like that, too. He knows what is best and she is not in a hurry.
Picture yourself at 50 (or 80)
To end up a holy person, a sane person, a loving person, a pioneer person, a person who didn’t get boiled in the world, here’s the way:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus – settle in with Jesus and don’t take your eyes off him.
Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, — he’s the generator, the pioneer, the way-clearer, the light in the dark, the welcoming hand at the end of the long tunnel. Start at the beginning, or restart.
He is the one who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. – he’s been everywhere you might go, even death, and he made it to God. Endure your dying and heap scorn on the world when it tries to lure you into its pocket.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – keep your faith in Jesus and follow his way, even when the road seems long.
Picture your church 50 years from now – bunch of tourists? A ship of fools? Can you even imagine lasting that long?
Picture yourself as you, the pilgrim, at 50 (or if you are already there, pick a date you’ll likely die). How many years will it be until then? What can you do with that many years? To what do you aspire to be in your heart and in your life with the author of our faith by your side? What do you want to learn to be? Through what would you like to go and come out the other side with the perfecter of our faith?
If you need a practical step to take in that direction, why not live in today’s reading and keep journeying with them this week. Obey what God says to you in them, learn the depths of them, make a pioneer’s house with them in the middle of this world.
[T]he world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 11:38-12:3)
I am writing on Good Friday, when millions of Christians consider the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The most popular interpretation of the meaning of Christ’s death is well-attested in the Bible: Jesus is “dying for our sins,” as my collection of atonement explanations can show you.
The story goes: We have become creatures unworthy of God’s love, since His justice cannot tolerate the betrayal of our duty to worship and serve him as we should. There are many more specific sins we carry, as you can probably enumerate, which just makes things worse. The good news is: we become worthy as God sees us through the lens of Jesus. We are free to live up to our new, official status as individuals saved by the grace of God.
This particular atonement explanation is especially good news for people with the “secure attachment style” they developed as a child. As for the rest of us, we might want to have another look.
Your attachment style matters
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth did us a favor by exploring how we arrive at our sense of worth when they came up with “attachment theory.” This theory of infant development is so common, you’ve probably investigated your own style. I think such investigation is a good idea, as long as you don’t think the label you discover is more than a suggestion or a starting point.
When you consider what the death of Jesus means for you, your attachment style makes a difference. If you do not have a “secure” attachment style, you already felt unworthy of love when you heard about Jesus. So the story above resonated: “I need a Savior because I am unworthy of love.” I have had clients say, “I am perpetually unworthy. My only worth is what God imputes through grace by the work of Jesus.” Their theology dovetails with their lack of self-esteem. If you keep the theory in your head and don’t let it get muddled up with your feelings, it kind of works; just don’t look too deep.
If you have a secure attachment style, the preacher may have to do quite a bit of work to make you feel unworthy so you can receive the Lord’s worth. I grew up hearing very convincing speakers who made me feel guilty and terrified if I did not confess how bad I was and get saved. But, I have to admit, I felt the love of God long before I was listening in on adult church meetings. I kind of added on “substitutionary atonement” to my general sense of living in God’s grace. Jesus has always been more of my friend than my lawyer.
Your view of yourself may cloud your view of God
One of my favorite descriptions of the atonement is the famous story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. God is described as a worried father of two sons. Neither are securely attached. That might be due to the fact no mother is mentioned in the parable. When their father talks to each of them, he needs to convince both of their worth.
But they were never unworthy. Their father was always sharing everything he had with the older son and was anxiously watching for the younger son to return. God sees us as children whether we are at home, sulking, or coming up the road, skulking. As a parent and grandparent, I understand the Lord’s story of love and hope much better than the courtroom picture of being freed from the consequences of my sin so I can appear before God with impunity. My children were loved little sinners. I saw the best in them.
The work of Jesus is described in various ways in the Bible and that may not be a mistake. It seems like the ways are tailored to the intended audience and come from a particular style of person. I’m arguing that people with different attachment styles see themselves, God, and the atonement differently — that is realistic and good. I also think it is better to come to God as oneself instead of cramming yourself into a one-size-fits-all rubric from the 1600’s! What’s more I think we need a different side of the atonement at different developmental stages of our lives. At eleven years old, when I was baptized “as an adult,” I needed more substitutionary atonement than I do now.
The Bible’s view of our worth
No one writing the Bible is shy about naming the sinfulness of humanity. If we did not have the Bible, the Spirit of God could use today’s headlines to convince us of our bondage to evil. At the same time, she could use each individual as an example of the wonder of creation. It does not take long to meet up with the work of God alive in each human when you get to know them. In my work, I get to know a lot of humans intimately, and each one, even in their suffering, is amazing.
The Bible shares my view of humans, I think. The writers all obviously think they know God and have something to say, so their personal sense of worth is intact. When they talk about other people, they often reinforce the fact that God sees her creation as good. Jesus talks about his work as rebirth, assuming there is a seed planted in each of us that can multiply. Psalm 139 famously says,
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
Our own sin and the sin committed against us does wreck us. We need to be saved and we can’t do it on our own. But once I get next to Jesus, I think it is a sin to keep seeing myself as contemptible. Being responsible for being contemptible may be the terrible lesson we learned as a child from which Jesus is trying to save us! If we continue to insist we are unworthy of God’s love, that might be more about our attachment style than God.
Some kids in Mary Ainsworth’s attachment experiments, when left alone with a stranger for a few minutes, were quite unsure they would again be lovingly received by their mother, or if she would even come back! They sound like the son who was coming back from feeding the pigs who only imagined getting back into the household as a slave. Other children in the experiments were so sure they would not be cared for, they didn’t even look for any care and stayed alone. If I stretch it, they seem a bit like the other son feeling all alone in the back yard while a party was going on in the house.
Paul, who was certainly good at sinning and felt sin at work in him even when he was writing his dense letter to the Roman church said, as he was ending up his treatise on the work of Christ:
[Y]ou did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:15-17).
Again, in those lines, there is that intimate, parental image right at the climax of his argument. There is no condemnation. The law of the Spirit is greater than any other law. You were always meant to be a child of God and now you know that, not in theory but in experience.
When Jesus bent to taste your death with you, it was surely because he felt you were worth it, wasn’t it? You were worthy even before you were born. You were the sinner worth dying for standing in front of the cross looking at Jesus helplessly. You were always the wonder he knew you could become, just as you were created to be. I don’t think God needs a Jesus lens to look at us. I think it’s we who need the new lens.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
John 10:10
[T]hose who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
John 4:14
Does Jesus mean what I think he means?
Jesus came to find us and give us eternal life. So where is it? Is it off in the future and I just need to gut it out until I die? Or is it resident somewhere in all of us and I just need to become restful enough for it to well up? Insert your own variation of these questions.
Eternal life sounds like a good idea, but most people I know aren’t that sure about it. I think the “may have” there in John 10:10 sounds conditional to a lot of us, like those metaphorical sheep who hear the Lord’s voice “may,” as in might, have an abundant life. Some self-described “sheep” are still out there looking for that life, and feeling tentative.
And that word to the Samaritan woman in John 4 puts a lot of pressure on her to “drink of the water,” doesn’t it? — as if she should have already done it and be someone better already. Other desperate people, like her, are thinking, “What if I didn’t take my drink? What if I can’t find the ‘water’ to drink? Is what I’m drinking the water, or not?”
Most psychotherapy clients are searching for answers to such questions whether they consider themselves spiritual or not. There seems to be some thirst-quenching abundance somewhere beyond us all. We feel its possibility.
Jesus is offering an abundant life. He wants us to have it to the full. To the woman at the well he says this life is eternal. In the famous John 3:16 Jesus is quoted promising whoever follows him — whoever believes him and trusts him, eternal life.
Most Christians probably think eternal life is “immortality;” one will live forever — some see that immortality beginning after you die, some see it beginning as soon as you receive it like a cup of water from the Lord’s hand. Others see eternal life as more of a sense of being fully alive in the present — like eternal is the quality of the life, the very life of the Eternal One, the Spirit-life of God welling up within us.
Without thinking much more, what do you say eternal life is? Are you waiting for it? Trying to get it? Hoping for it? Living in it? Is it living in you? Is it making you? What was your first answer?
Becoming and being eternal
You don’t have to have a right answer. But how we see ourselves, see God, and see life makes a huge difference. Someone told me lately that their life was a curse. To be sure, that made a big difference in how they were moving through the week!
The word eternal invites us into the mystery, the unknown or unknowable reality we sense beyond our present capacity to experience or understand. The mysterious word eternal has two sides to it which some see as mutually exclusive, but I see as two sides of the same coin. However your day flips, you may feel on one side or the other.
The “heads” side of the word eternal might feel more familiar. Some people see eternal life as a long stretch of days leading off into forever. If that’s you and you are ambitious, then you are on a long developmental journey one day after the other. If you aren’t ambitious, then you are waiting out the tribulation you are experiencing because Jesus will overcome for you in the end.
I think this linear, physical, practical view makes sense because we are embodied spirits. I think we will always be aware of time, even in the age to come. From our first breath we are developing. Spiritually, we are becoming full or we are emptying out. I wish we could be serene pools of living water without any evaporation, but I’ve never seen that happen. If we aren’t moving into eternity, we are moving toward death.
You can see this side of eternity in our marriages. Once we find a person to travel with, we often wish we no longer had to become anything. “Why doesn’t my partner already know what I want and give it to me? How could I have married someone who needs to learn something? Why can’t we just be OK? What happened to the honeymoon?” It sounds kind of silly when those things are written out loud. But that mate you have can set off a longing for eternity, for abundant life, that can’t be quenched very easily. The main characters on Bridgerton develop for a few episodes and enter into bliss. We turn to the lover on the couch and say, “Why are you depriving me? Where is this thing we’ve got going?”
On the other side of the word eternal, some people see eternal life as choosing abundance now. It is living in the present, being fully awake and ready to engage, drawing on that inner spring of goodness. Richard Rohr calls spiritual life the “eternal now.” The creation itself is a gift of life and by grace Jesus restores its fullness to us. You can hear him calling if you have ears to hear.
I think this nonlinear, spiritual, otherworldly view also makes sense because we all feel the pull of our spiritual awareness – even if only for three minutes when we are touched by a beloved piece of music or when are faced with our mortality. From our first breath we have a sense of being with God. Jesus comes to us and blows the breath of the Spirit on us and invites us to be refilled, to access what can quench our deep thirst.
This side of eternity also shows up in our marriages. I wonder if “in touch” people like Richard Rohr might be even harder to live with. If every moment has a deeper meaning than appears, it might communicate to your mate that they are a bit disappointing at times. At the worst, such a seeker can seem a bit tortured, either making sure they are happy or sinking so far into their goodness they don’t really need anyone else. Madam Bridgerton was so blissed out on her late husband that she left it to her unprepared eldest to do the real living. He almost missed out on his own trip to the well. To his good fortune, he was on Netflix.
Suffering
The bad news about psychotherapy is often: there will be some pain accompanying your change for the better. A lot of people can smell the threat of that suffering even in the Bible verses that promise eternal life. For instance one could reply to Jesus in John 10, “The thieves already came in and stole, Jesus! You know that; they took your life!” A person thirsty for forgiveness and community has surely talked back to Jesus in John 4 saying, “If there is so much water available, why do I feel so dry?”
People come to therapy suffering. They often come to spiritual direction, to church meetings and to dinner the same way. We are all in need of eternal life. I think the sufferers are among the most honest people on the planet. They are asking the all the right questions. Because feeling outside of eternity is terrible.
The way into eternal life begins with welcoming the future or turning into the presence of it right now. We need to move toward or with life day after day. I have been doing that for a lot of days mostly more on than off, I think. I started early, so that’s about 22, 995 days towards death and through it into the promise of eternal life. Like most of you, probably, I’ve recently had a couple of doozies of difficult years. Plus, I am getting old and have to get up and keep moving when my bones ache and heart aches. I have to keep choosing life as things change. I have to change. We suffer.
Before I go, I just want to confess for us that even when I have stumbled into wonderful abundance and when I have turned to swim in the death-quenching water all around me, even when I have done it right and when I have felt at peace, those realities have also caused suffering. I became different, I was different, and I disrupted what others considered normal. I came into abundance and had abundance to share, but people didn’t always take it or even understand it. When I wanted to connect and love, my care was ignored and my chances were stolen. I disrupted myself, too. My opinion of myself had to change because a full me usurped the me who had been protecting against emptiness for a long time.
Becoming and being eternal go together. If you can’t keep going there will be no place to be. If you can’t delight in who you are and who you are in Christ right now, at least a little, there is no motivation to keep choosing and becoming your full self.
However the coin lands, the life and death choices being explored in psychotherapy (and many other places, of course) are about eternal life. We long for the happiness of abundant life. The spiritual thirst we feel implies there is water. Even if we suffer to enter the life Jesus offers, the choosing, itself, makes us more human and more enspirited.
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