Let Us Now Praise Lutheran Colleges

On Wednesday, I wrote this Facebook post:

"Let us now praise Lutheran colleges: my college roommate, Heatherlynn is visiting, and tonight she will go to choir practice with my college boyfriend, now spouse, Carl. She will sing with my church's choir on Sunday. Thanks, Newberry College, for making this possible!"

In the interest of honesty, I should say that neither of them sang in college, at least not in a formal group.  It would be a better story if they sang in the Madrigalians (Newberry College's most highly regarded and selective choral group) and had gone on to sing in local choirs.  But would it be a sad story?  Not in real life, but in the hands of a fiction writer, perhaps.  If I was writing the story, I'd do what I could to have readers expect a sad story or a midlife crisis story, but the ending would have the characters realize how lucky they are that they can still sing in a group.  Not everyone gets to continue following a passion this way, especially not a passion that needs a group.

I think of all the ways that being at a small, Lutheran school in the 1980's shaped us.  My college friend came to see us on her way back from last Saturday's women's march.  We came to college with a strong thirst for social justice, and the school encouraged that. 

The school at that time had very minimalist dorms, and only one or two people had their own televisions--those appliances were too expensive back in those days.  So we had plenty of time to talk and dream.  We took long walks through the picturesque town that surrounded the college.  I remember one late night walk where the only person who bothered us was the police officer who slowed down his car to make sure we were O.K.

We're still doing that.  It's been a good week of home-cooked meals, long walks, and discussions of social justice.  It's as if no time has passed at all.

We see a lot of discussions about how church shapes children into better adults, how camp does the same thing, and how other groups compare.  It's interesting to think about the same issues when it comes to Lutheran schools (or other church supported schools) and seminaries do much the same thing.

Meaningful Philosophies of Life and How We Develop Them

A week ago, we'd have been going to see David Brooks tonight.  I've found my thoughts returning again and again to some of the things he said.

He talked about annual surveys of college students and what they hope to achieve.  Forty years ago, the number one answer was "Develop a meaningful philosophy of life."  Now that answer is the #16 goal. 

He says when college students are asked whether they'd rather have lots of fame or lots of sex, they choose fame.  Interesting to ponder what that says about our society.

He says that in our current society, we have many platforms to talk about economics and politics, but not many platforms to talk about love and greater moral values.

He bemoaned the lack of public intellectuals, like Reinhold Niebuhr, who used to keep these conversations front and center in our national conversations.

Clearly, he hopes that his book can help start these conversations, and I predict that it will.  But it probably will among people who already are having these conversations, like the book group or the campus group at my mom and dad's Lutheran church in Williamsburg (St. Stephen).

I did find it curious, the absence of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other traditional venues of moral training in this country and others.  Of course, many of the people he talks about in his book had that moral formation from churches. 

I'll be interested to see if he circles back to the idea in his book.  It certainly wasn't present in his presentation.

Or maybe that will be his next book . . .

Believers: Lone Violin or Part of the Symphony?

I am routinely asked a variation of this question:  "Do I have to go to church to be a Christian/good person?  Can't I do it on my own?"

I have always answered, "Yes, but . . ."

but it's easier to have company for the journey.

but it's easier to have people who remind you of who you are and who claims you.

but it's easier to stay on the path, which can be a hard path, if you have fellow travellers.

but you can do more in a group than you can do on your own.

I was reminded of these interchanges on Saturday as I watched the Broward Symphony Orchestra.  I thought of how my husband sounds as he practices his violin in solitude.  He sounds perfectly acceptable, hitting every note, making his way through the music.

But how much more glorious his violin would sound if he played with others.  Each violin has a slightly different sound--and played all together, there's a depth and a richness that my husband simply cannot duplicate on his own.

And to extend the metaphor, it's not just one church family that supports us as we move through our journey.  No, it's churches everywhere and the people who have gone before us and in some ways, those who will come. 

Violins sound great playing as a group, but they sound even better as part of a string quartet.  And a string quartet sounds great when more strings join them.

And it's not just Christians, but people of every religion and faith.  The strings sound great by themselves, but I loved the note of mystery introduced by the horns and the woodwinds.  Ecumenism in music!

When I used to whine to my mother and wonder why we had to go to church, she used a metaphor that she used as a counselor at Lutheridge.  She asked me to imagine a camp fire.  She asked, "What happens to a coal when you pull it out of the fire?"  Of course, it goes out.

And that might happen to us, but the whole fire will go out eventually--unless, of course, we add more wood. 

In some ways, I'm comparing very different sorts of metaphors.  They do answer the same question.  But I'm glad to have a different metaphor to explain why I think it's important to have a faith community of some sort to help us on our way.

Can We Achieve Community in Complete Silence?

You may remember this post, where I wrote about talking to my friends about why one has a spiritual practice in this age of science.  My spouse, a fellow life-long Lutheran, took part; both friends were raised Catholic, before one decided to be an atheist and one decided to become non-practicing.

Last night, the non-practicing friend told us that he'd been thinking about the conversation and that he could really see the reason for having a religious practice so that you'd have community.

Then the talk turned to the meaning of community.  Can you have a religious practice without it?

I've always said that you could, but most of us aren't that disciplined.  My spouse thinks that we need to gather in church so that we have a knowledgeable person leading us through our reading of the Scriptures; I'm not convinced that most church leaders are as knowledgeable as they should be, and therefore, cannot fulfill that part.

And of course, we're Word and Sacrament people, but last night, we didn't talk about the Sacrament side.  My lapsed friend, interestingly enough, has a brother who's a monk, but a different kind of monk than the Mepkin monks.  He's one of the Irish orders that runs a school.

My lapsed friend said that he doesn't see his brother as part of a community because so much of his time is spent in solitude studying.  My friend said, "And what about those orders that never even talk to each other?"

It's an interesting question:  can we have community without knowing each other as individuals?  I would say that we can.  There's a whole school of thought that would say that our individual selves are not even essential when it comes to community.

My friend, on the other hand, seemed to think that if we don't know each other in a close way, we don't have community.  I see his point of view too.

From my visits to monasteries and from my reading about monastics, I find that they try to subsume their individual selves for the good of the greater whole and for the continuing of an ancient tradition.    It's a very different view of community from the one that says, "We're not really in communion unless you know me deeply, with all my faults and flaws, and you love me anyway."

I'm not sure that one is correct and one is not.  It's just two very different ways of thinking about what community means.

In an Age of Science, Why Have a Religious or Spiritual Practice?

Last night, at the house of good friends who happen to be lapsed Catholics (and one is a devout atheist), the talk turned to religion and why go to church.  In a world where science explains so much, why bother?

It began as a simple question:  as educated people, how do we view the Bible?

Not a simple answer, of course.  My spouse talked about how he viewed the Bible in the tradition of wisdom literature.  I talked about my approach to the Bible as a poet, which means I don't take it literally.  I've had this argument with many people, as we talk about what the Gospels teach us.  Those books weren't written to be a historical record of the life of Jesus.  So therefore, do I believe in the Christmas story that I find there (or, to be accurate, the 2 or 3 stories I find there?).  No.

So, why read the Bible?  I tried to explain that I read the Bible so that I can find strength for the task of resisting the values that our larger culture of Empire would like me to have.

My atheist friend had lost patience at that point.  She reverted to the argument that she often does when we have these conversations.  She claims that she doesn't need religion to lead a moral life.  She doesn't kill people--but not because some church tells her not to do so.

I brought up my argument that living an ethical life is far trickier than not killing people.  We talked about how hard it is to live a life that is truly integrated, how hard it is to make sure that we're really living in accordance with our values.

Today, I'm thinking of all the other reasons why a spiritual life, why a disciplined practice (ideally daily), is so important.  Today I'm thinking of everything I forgot to say.

I did talk about the moral message of the Bible as not caught up in sexual politics or in the murder/not murder question that most people think of when they think of the morality of the Bible.  I talked about economic justice, the fact that there are about 12 Bible passages that address sex and over 2000 Bible passages that address economic inequality.  And that social justice element is important to me.

But a relationship with the Creator does so much more.  I like to think that I'm more appreciative of the beauty of the world around me because of my religious practices.  I try to remember to say, "Great show, God!"  or "Wow!  Cool creation!"

I also try to foster gratitude in similar ways.

I never had a chance to talk about this, but my atheist friend has talked about her fear of poverty.  I just don't share her fear.  I would prefer not to be poor, but my Scriptures teach me that God hangs out with the poor more than with the rich.  I think that too much money is spiritually dangerous.  It teaches us to rely on ourselves, not God.

My spouse also talked a bit about the comfort factor of our religious faith, but it's not comfort in the traditional way, the when we die we go to Heaven where we see our loved ones and our favorite dog kind of comfort.  It's the comfort of knowing that the world isn't quite right, but God has a plan, and the restoration of Creation has begun.  We didn't go into that aspect too much.  It requires a lot of background and a lot of explanation for people like our friends who haven't really been to church since 1963 or so.

This morning, as I caught up on an old On Being show and this morning's episode, I thought of how much a contemplative practice can be a comfort.  Oh, to be able to quiet the mind at will!  I haven't met many people who can do that outside of some kind of spiritual practice--except, for maybe long distance runners, which I might argue are practicing a spiritual discipline during the longer runs.

Having just got back from Mepkin Abbey, I could have talked about the monks and about the importance of praying for the world.  But the hour was growing late, and I didn't want to go down that road.  Once upon a time, I'd have sneered at the idea that prayer was important.  I'd have told people to get out there and feed the poor.  Now, I think that praying for the oppressed can be just as important--perhaps even more.

My friend whom I meet at Mepkin Abbey every year says that she would go to church even if she no longer believed because it helps her feel a vital connection to her ancestors.  My friend is African-American and Episcopalian, so she's got an interesting perspective.  She says that her experience of church is akin to Asian ancestor worship, where she can actually feel the spirits of her ancestors in church the way that she doesn't anywhere else.

I feel that connection too, although I'm not sure that I feel actual spirits.  But that discipline connects me to past generations, both those related to me by blood and not.  I love knowing that I'm singing some of the same hymns that my grandparents did.  I love saying the creeds that centuries of Christians have recited, even though I understand them differently than a medieval Christian would.

I could go on and on about the reasons why my faith is important to me.  It's impossible for me to answer concisely, and I always feel frustration later that I've left out so much.  I also feel frustration that I'm unable to really explain it in a way that makes sense to non-believers. 

Maybe I should take a lesson from my more mystical brothers and sisters.  Some elements of life can't be explained neatly.  I'm comfortable living in the mystery, even if I can't explain why I am to anyone's satisfaction.

Would I Be a Better Person If I Went to Church?--Forgiveness

Yesterday, on the Diane Rehm show, I heard an incredible story about a rape victim who identified the wrong man, and until DNA testing exonerated him (when the rape happened in the 80's, there was no DNA testing), he sat in prison.

I suspect this scenario plays out more often than we think. Memory is a tricky thing, especially as the brain deals with trauma, and our justice system is less just than we want to believe.

No, the amazing part of the story is that the falsely accused man forgave the woman (and the entire flawed system).

Diane Rehm asked him how he was able to do this, and he mentioned his Southern Baptist upbringing.

If we go to church every Sunday, many of us are periodically reminded of how important it is to forgive. My childhood brain did the multiplication of 70 times 7 to come up with the number that Jesus commanded, and gave up in frustration. I would have to forgive my sister that many times?

Yes, and maybe double or triple that.

The practice of forgiveness trains us to let go of our anger. This process may take some time, but most religious traditions assure us it will be worth it. Holding on to our hot, raging anger does not serve us well.

I've met people who are holding on to hurts from decades ago. They think they are protecting themselves, but they're really damaging themselves.

I'm not saying we can't learn our lessons, as we practice forgiveness. If someone hurts us maliciously time and time again, it may be wise to remove ourselves from relationship with them.

Another thing I noted about this story: the wronged man was able to forgive the raped woman because she came to him and asked for forgiveness.

That's another lesson that we learn in church. We must make amends if we've wronged someone. It's more important than showing up to worship--Jesus tells us that if we're in temple, and we remember that someone has a dispute with us, we are to leave that minute to seek reconciliation.

My atheist friends would remind me of all the people who sit through church services week after week who never learn these lessons. They say this as if it is somehow the fault of the church, and perhaps church communities could be better at calling people on their bad behavior.

But we are all flawed humans. Going to church doesn't change that. However, those of us who go to church are reminded that we are to strive to be better than our flawed selves. We hear the stories of Jesus, who came to show us all the potential that a human life contains. Maybe we'd get that message elsewhere, like in the stray Diane Rehm show (go here to get to the show--you'll need to scroll down). I look around me, and I'm not seeing that message projected very often in popular culture. Far better to find a spiritual community that will reinforce me in my pilgrim path towards being the human I yearn to become.

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.

"Would I Be a Better Person if I Went to Church?"--Music

Surprisingly, my adamantly atheist friend says she would go to church if she could find one with a good Gospel choir. She says she would stay through the whole service, carefully not listening to the rest of the service, if the music was good enough.

I asked her if the lyrics to Gospel music didn't bother her, and she claims that she doesn't listen to the words, she just listens to the music. I argued that if she went to church on a regular basis, the words would sink in and change her. She claimed that would never happen. I'll comment on the idea of The Word in a separate post. Today, I want to think about the music that happens in most churches.

Most of us of a certain age probably learned to sing in church. In fact, for much of human history, humans got much of their art training at church. And music has always been one of the predominantly featured arts in many Christian traditions.

Of course, there's a wide variety of music to choose from. And what I find inspiring might drive the next person crazy. Luckily, so far, there seems to be room for everybody.

There's often a wide variety of musical instruments in church, which means that children can learn to play. Again, this doesn't always happen, but it could be a benefit.

I go to a liturgical church, which means that much of our service is sung, and we sing the same things each week. That practice means that the music and the words get in our heads, which for most humans is one of the easier ways to learn and remember (studying for a test? set the facts to music and you'll have an easier time). I'm often surprised when I read the Bible and stumble across a passage that has been turned into liturgy. I've already memorized the words because I sing them every week. Likewise, my church returns to certain hymns on a regular basis; I know the words because I've been singing them since childhood.

My musical backbone means that in times of tension, I've got an extra resource to calm myself down. I have been known to walk outside or to sing in the stairwells if I need a song break (much healthier than a smoking break!).

Music consoles most of us in a way that few other things can. Music can reach even the hardest heart, as my atheist friend demonstrates. And if we have that consolation, then I believe we're likely to be better people: calm, loving, serene, generous.

The lyrics of most religious music that we hear in church reminds us to be the people that God calls us to be. But I'll return to this theme when I talk about the value of hearing words spoken in a church or religious setting.

"Would I Be a Better Person if I Went to Church?"--Charitable Giving

Over Christmas break, I read an interesting New York Times article on charitable giving. Nicholas D. Kristoff references Arthur Brooks' book, Who Really Cares, which explores who gives money to charity and why.

Buried in the middle of the Kristoff piece is the observation Brooks makes that church goers on any part of the ideological spectrum give more than their secular counterparts.

I asked my dad if he was surprised by these findings, and he said no. He said that non-church-goers believe that they can only rely on themselves, and therefore it's harder to part with their money.

Most people think that they give more to charity than they really do. It would be interesting to compare tax returns to get some objective data--we could leave aside the clothes and food given to various drives, and just focus on some objective data to answer the question: how much of your take-home pay goes to charity?

Most religious faiths stress the need to take care of the poor and less fortunate. Many traditions stress this point on a regular basis. Hearing this point preached again and again provides serious motivation to give. Some religious organizations require tithing, giving 10% of one's income.

And churches provide an outlet. If I want to give, my church runs a food pantry and brings meals to the less fortunate and collects clothes and has a fund for people facing temporary emergencies and works with county-wide organizations--for the sake of brevity, I'll stop with this short list. My larger church funds various relief organizations. When the move to give strikes me, I don't have to make much effort. I don't have to research worthy organizations--it's all been done for me.

Not everyone is so fortunate. I know that there are countless examples of charitable giving that's been used to fund buildings (of course, those buildings are often used to provide services to the less fortunate: church by day, homeless shelter by night!). I know that there are unscrupulous pastors who skim the charitable funds to keep a chunk for themselves.

I've spent part of my life going to church, part of my adult life not going to church. And I gave more to the poor when I was going to church than when I wasn't.

And it's a gift that gives back to me. When I've been most successful at tithing, strangely enough, is when I've been least anxious about money. Is that because the tithing process forces me to budget or because God provides more when I'm fulfilling that command? Is it some other reason that's unrelated?

I don't know. All I have to offer right now is anecdotal evidence, based on my life and those of people I know. But I plan to read Brooks' book to get a wider view.

"Would I Be a Better Person if I Went to Church?"

At a gathering at my house in December, my friends and I talked about religion, church, and spiritual practices. It was quite a diverse assembled group: a Hindu, a Catholic, an agnostic, a Wiccan, an atheist, and me, a Lutheran (and my spouse, who sometimes was part of the group, and who is a Lutheran). Usually, I like these conversations, but that day, the tone became a bit combative at times.

My atheist friend said in a dismissive tone, "Would I really be a better person if I went to church?" I didn't have a chance to answer because we madly raced to a different aspect of religion, but I find myself thinking of her question, 3 weeks after she asked it.

My answer would be, yes, you will likely be a better person. I'm going to write several posts on this subject, but I want to stress my parameters first.

I know that there have been churches (both individual churches and whole traditions) that have done enormous damage, both to individual humans and to whole communities. I have a BA in Sociology, and I can tell you that every societal institution has examples, sometimes quite numerous across centuries, of damage done, often on a huge scale. So, there's no societal institution that I reject wholesale, just because there's been some past inflicted pain and/or destruction.

I'm not going to talk about the afterlife. I'm concerned with how a church practice might improve one's life on this side of the grave.

And I'm probably not going to talk much about creeds and beliefs, in the traditional way that people do when this question arises--I've noticed that people often bring up those points when they're trying to convince people that they need to believe a certain way to get to Heaven. As I said before, that doesn't interest me much. I'm convinced that Jesus came to show us a better way to live--right here, right now--not to serve as a ransom so that we could all get to Heaven. I realize that this idea will strike some as subversive, and I could write at length upon it--but I won't, at least right now.

So, this week, I'll write several posts, and try to label them so that readers who aren't interested in the larger topic can easily find a subtopic of interest.

Tomorrow--charitable giving.