Another Great Episode of "Speaking of Faith"

This morning, I heard another great episode on NPR's Speaking of Faith. For the past few months, as the economic crisis unfolded, the show's producers have been calling past guests to see what words of wisdom they had.

It was wonderful to hear a show about the current downturn that didn't make me want to vomit out of fear and anxiety. In fact, it made me feel oddly hopeful, as so many of the show's guests pointed out that this kind of time of crisis is actually a great opportunity.

For example, the first guest, Rachel Naomi Remen suggested that we focus on the following questions: What can be trusted? What will sustain me? What do I really need to live? She pointed out that we all tell ourselves stories to help us sort out our lives, and that in the past decades one of the most dangerous stories has been "the goal in life is comfort."

The show is full of gems such as these, and if you want more wisdom from any one guest, the website gives you links to the past shows where each speaker has been focused. Go here and start exploring!

Would I Be a Better Person If I Went to Church?--Raising Children to be the Kind of Humans We Want Them to Be

Yesterday, I read a Washington Post article about Michelle Obama feeding the homeless at Miriam's Kitchen. I hope she has her daughters with her, I thought. Then I realized it would have been a school day, so she probably wouldn't have.

I have had friends who make no demands on their children. Actually, my friends seem often to be on one end of an extreme spectrum or the other: no demands or too many demands. The ones who make no demands, except that their children go to school, say, "Well, they can decide for themselves when they're older." But then my friends seem shocked when their children grow up deciding to be self-centered and lazy. They say, "How did they learn this? I set such a good example."

Unfortunately, setting a good example isn't enough. We have to require our children to do things that will shape them into the kind of humans we want them to be.

For my family, a lot of that shaping came through church work. We raised money for the poor, we made Christmas baskets for abused women, we created food baskets, we worked in food pantries and so on. Some of my friends went to third world countries to help the poor, so I felt that we got off easy.

And thus, we learned compassion for those less fortunate than we were, and we learned a strong thirst for justice.

I have no children. I admit that it's easy for me to declare that if I did have children, we would all participate fully in church life. But we would. I would pick my battles, and that would be one I would fight. My children could rebel and tell me how stupid church was. But they still would have to go with me, to weekly service and to do social justice work and whatever else I deemed important. School would be non-negotiable, and so would some chores, and so would church, and so would social justice work.

When I saw the article about Michelle Obama, I thought, what a good example she's setting! But based on the experiments of parenting friends, setting a good example might not be enough. Unfortunately, with our current spiraling economy, many of us are learning compassion for the poor from first hand experience, as people we know lose money, jobs, and houses. It's not how I would wish that people would learn this lesson, don't get me wrong. But a collapsing economy can remind us of the fragility of our lives and make us think about the structures in which we have placed so much trust. Many of us are learning that our trust has been misplaced: the bank won't help us with our mortgage, and our bosses are not our friends who will let us keep our jobs, even when profits dry up.

Again, as a child in the church, I watched the church help members down on their luck. I learned the value of community, especially a community where members care for one another. It's rare to find non-family communities that exhibit that level of care anywhere else in our society--and unfortunately, it can be rare to find it in churches.

Still, in many churches, we go to worship service every Sunday and hear God's vision of the world that we should live in. Ideally, we go out into the world and work on building that Kingdom in our current lives. And yes, maybe parents can teach that on their own, and instill those values in their children without any societal support. But what a help it is to belong to communities, religious and otherwise, that provide additional undergirding for those values.

The Bible Has Inconsistencies--Shocking!

Yesterday, I listened to an episode of NPR's Fresh Air that was so fascinating, I listened to it again later (ah, the joys of the Internet). Bart Ehrman talked about his Biblical studies and the inconsistencies he's noticed--and then he talks about why they might be there.

It did occur to me to wonder why I found this show so fascinating. It's not like Ehrman was pointing out something I didn't already know.

I occasionally have this tiresome discussion with atheists. They point out to me that the Bible is full of inconsistencies--how do I explain the difference in the stories of Jesus' birth or the fact that Jesus says different things with each Gospel? They fling these things at me and then sit back, with an expectant air, as if I'm going to say, "Oh my goodness! Inconsistencies in the Bible?!!! I hadn't ever noticed!!! Well, that's it, I'm no longer a believer."

And of course, I'm not going to say that. But how much of a history lesson should I give? How interested are they, really, in this area of Biblical studies? Depends on the atheist, I've discovered.

I grew up Lutheran, so we talked about these things in my churches, Sunday Schools, and my home. I have an old-fashioned liberal arts education, from a Lutheran college, so I'm not exactly unexposed to different ideas about the Bible and Christianity. I have a Ph.D. Granted, it's in the area of Literature (19th Century British Lit, to be exact), but I have a healthy respect for rigorous scholarship, even if it threatens my beliefs. I grew up in the last part of the 20th century, where it seems that every other week, some cherished belief about how we knew the world or what we knew to be true was overturned.

Ehrman grew up in a much more conservative environment, so it was interesting to hear about his faith journey. He also has an interesting view of Jesus, and what he thinks that Jesus thought about his ministry--it's a much more apocalyptic view of Jesus than most churches emphasize.

I spent the rest of the day humming "My Lord, What a Morning," which sounds like it would be a lovely way to greet the day, but which is really quite a hauntingly apocalyptic spiritual, with it's line about the stars falling from the sky.

How Hard It Is to Keep the Light Lit

Last night, we had a brief service before we walked the labyrinth. I chose two Bible passages: Psalm 1 and the passage from Matthew that talks about our call to be the light of the world.

I haven't been feeling too much like the light of the world lately. I've been craving a nap for about a week solid. I'm in one of those work periods where we have lots of meetings, lots of 10-12 hour days. I feel fortunate to still have a job, but I'm wishing it came with a napping couch.

Last night, after I read the Bible passages, we lit candles in tall jars to take with us to the labyrinth. It was windy, so we didn't bother to set up the labyrinth with candles--experience has taught us that the candles won't stay lit.

It was tough keeping the candles lit even when we carried them. I cupped my hand over the flame, but the first moment that I was distracted from my task of keeping the little flame lit, it blew out.

I think that only one of us (out of about 11 walkers) had a lit candle when we were done.

At first, I felt searing guilt over my inability to keep the flame lit. And then I thought about the experience as a metaphor.

In that passage from Matthew, chapter 5, verses 14-16, Jesus tells us that we are to let our light shine, but he doesn't tell us how hard it will be some days. As a child, I always thought that once the light was lit, the hard part was over. I would just shine and shine and not hide my light under a bushel and not let Satan pfff it out (as that old song goes).

How do we keep our light from going out? I suspect it's in the various disciplines that we adopt to strengthen our spiritual lives: praying, reading the Bible, reading other spiritual literature, fasting, tithing, charitable giving, working for social justice, practicing gratitude, noticing the wonders of the world.

It's important to realize that we can't keep our lights lit if we see this activity as a weekly duty. I suspect that even a once-a-day duty isn't enough. We need to develop disciplines that reorient us throughout the day. We need to build in breaks throughout the day to attend to our wicks and lights.

Meditation on This Week's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 8, 2009:

First Reading: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm: Psalm 22:22-30 (Psalm 22:23-31 NRSV)

Second Reading: Romans 4:13-25

Gospel: Mark 8:31-38

In this week's Gospel, we have an interesting portrait of what it means to be the Messiah: to be rejected, to be hung on a cross, and to die in a humiliating way.

Again, repeat after John the Baptist, in our Advent readings, "I am not the Messiah." I've come to find that phrase comforting, as I realize that there are so many areas in which I cannot save people. I cannot force students to come to school and to enroll in classes, I cannot make the ones I love adopt healthier habits, I cannot rid the body of disease (although I'm willing to pray that it will happen), I cannot prevent the body from breaking down inevitably, and I cannot make adolescents behave in safer ways. I am not the Messiah.

But Peter's behavior makes me think that I can take my denying efforts too far. If I can say, "I am not the Messiah," it means that I have some expectations of what a Messiah should be and do. And then what happens when my expectations aren't met?

I know many people who pray to be delivered from disease, either for themselves or for others, but then death comes anyway. How do those people respond? Some of them admonish God and turn away from belief.

Jesus makes it clear that just because we believe, we won't lead charmed lives. We will still suffer any number of losses, and perhaps we will suffer even more losses, precisely because we do believe.

When I was young, I used to create dramas, where the main character (often a Barbie doll) was captured by Communists, who wanted her to renounce her faith; in fact, they would threaten her with death. My childhood belief system imagined that the worst thing I could do would be to renounce God in a public way like, say, a trial or a book.

But now, I think about the number of ways that we deny God in our regular daily lives. For example, many of us don't give our money away because we don't really trust that God will provide for us, as God has promised to do. We don't believe in Christ's vision of a redeemed world, because our senses (and our news media) tells us otherwise.

Like 3 year old children, non-believers (and shaky believers) are watching everything we say and do. They will say, "If _________________________ claims to believe in God, and yet behaves this way, then I'm certainly not going to believe in God." And so God stands betrayed and abandoned.

The season of Lent is a good time to do some self-inventory. How have we betrayed our core beliefs? How have our behaviors and thoughts betrayed our Creator? How can we change to avoid any future betrayal?

Invitation--Midweek Labyrinth Contemplative Worship

If you live in the Southeast Florida region, you're invited to join the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church, in Pembroke Pines, for midweek fellowship. The journey begins on March 4, and continues March 11, March 19, March 25, and April 1 (note that most weeks, we meet on Wednesday, except for March 18, which is our time to go to First Lutheran in downtown Fort Lauderdale to serve a meal to the homeless; that week, we'll meet Thursday, March 19).

Each week’s midweek experience will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a simple supper of soup, salad, and bread. At 7:00, the participants will move chairs to the labyrinths and help set up and light the candles in the larger labyrinth. The group will read a Bible passage and then experience a labyrinth walk.

For those who want to know more about the use of prayer labyrinths in Christian tradition and on how prayer labyrinths can be utilized, these Wednesday night opportunities are an accessible entry point. We invite everyone who hungers for a contemplative spiritual discipline to join us. For more information please contact Trinity Lutheran Church at (954) 989-1903. Voicemail may be left at any time. Trinity is located at 7150 Pines Blvd, at the SE corner of Pines Blvd and 72nd Ave, due east of the BCC South Campus.

Invitations--Create In Me Retreat

Are you wishing for some sort of retreat where you have interesting Bible study, worship services drenched with meaning, and plenty of time to play with a variety of art supplies (including fabric, clay, wood, and abandoned junk)? Are you despairing of ever being able to pay for what you imagine such a retreat would likely cost.

Lutheridge, in the North Carolina mountains near Asheville, has the answer for you. Go here to read about the Create in Me retreat. This retreat is designed to appeal to a wide variety of artists and artisans. You can explore the rest of the website to discover a scrapbooking retreat or a handbell retreat (although those are done for this retreat season, Lutheridge seems to offer them each year).

I cannot recommend the Create in Me retreat enough--whether you're a professional artist or someone who would like to try being creative for the first time, you'll find a welcoming atmosphere. You can participate in everything, or take some time for yourself and enjoy nature, or Asheville, or being alone in your space.

It is a retreat with a mainline Christian focus, although the afternoon drop-in stations are arts-focused. It is a retreat at a Lutheran camp, which means you might find it rustic, unacceptably so, if you're used to spa getaways (no televisions in rooms, which I like, but others might find oppressive). But that registration fee does include lodging and meals and all your materials. It's hard to beat.

I've gone every year since 2002, and it's one of the highlights of my year, every year. It nourishes me in a way that little else does. And I come down from the mountain with all sorts of ideas, both for my personal creative life, for my students, and for my church.