The Language of Dreams and Investing in Them

Last night I went to a presentation by Brainard Carey, who talked about making a living as an artist; I wrote about it in more detail in this post on my creativity blog.

I was struck by how much of what he said could apply to churches too.

He began by asking why do we, as artists, check our success at certain levels? He says the only thing holding us back is ourselves. In other words, we've got a lot of self-defeating behaviors, and many of them are unconscious. If we could control that behavior, all sorts of success would follow.

I've noticed that churches have a lot of self-defeating behaviors too.  We cling to doing what we've always done, even if we've lost sight of why we do it or whether or not anyone finds it meaningful or relevant or even fun.  We watch our members grow old and wonder why younger people no longer come to church.


Brainard Carey talked about artists who need to learn to speak in the language of financiers, if we want to find a patron.  Likewise, the old church language may not work.  People might ask us why they should come to church.  What do we say?

Too many people talk about getting to Heaven.  But frankly, that's not very motivating.  We can't control our addictions, even when they destroy our lives.  Why would we expect that life after death would be compelling?  The idea of life enhancing behaviors during life is rarely motivating.

Brainard talked about artists who approached rich people not by asking for money, but by describing their project, saying "This is our dream," and then asking, "Have you ever thought of investing in a dream?"

What if we talked about the dreams of God for our lives and for all of life on earth?  Would non-churched people invest in that dream?  Can we describe it so vividly that people want to be part of it?
Over and over again, Brainard Carey reminded us of the value of asking for what we want and need. If you want a show, ask for one. If you need an audience with a mover in the industry, invite that person to coffee near where the person works or for 10 minutes in a cafe in the building. He understands how we're afraid of rejection, which makes us afraid to ask, but he assures us that we will be astonished at often the answer will be yes.

With our members, I've noticed that church leadership can be hesitant to ask people to work on projects, much less lead them to fruition.  And then we wonder why we're so burned out.  The same is likely true of working with people in other institutions.

And in a corollary command, Carey warned us about underselling ourselves, which artists tend to do. He reminds us to ask for the moon.

What would happen if churches asked for more?  What if we told members what it really would take to create the church communities we want to have?

We worry that people would run away in horror.  But maybe they'd commit more fully.

If you live in Southeast Florida, you've still got one more chance to hear Brainard Carey: he'll be speaking tonight at Girls' Club Gallery (117 NE 2nd Street in Ft. Lauderdale)at 7 p.m.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 3, 2013:



First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm: Psalm 63:1-8

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

In this week's Gospel, we get the parable of the fig tree, that poor fig tree who still hasn't produced fruit even though it's been 3 years. This Gospel gives us a space to consider our view of God and our view of ourselves.

Which vision of God is the one in your head? We could see God as the man who says, "Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?" If we see God that way, and if we see ourselves as the fig tree, that's a scary proposition; we've got a few years to produce before God gives up on us.

A traditional approach to this parable might see God as the impatient one, and Jesus as the vinedresser who pleads the case for the poor little fig tree. I know that Trinitarian theology might lead us this direction, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of a God who gives up on humanity. Everything in Scripture (and the experiences of those who walked this path before us) shows us a God that pursues us, going so far as to take on human flesh and walk amongst us. This doesn't sound like a God that gives up after 3 years.

But what if God is the gardener who pleads for the tree? What if we’re the owners of the fig tree, the ones who grow impatient with the lack of progress on the part of the tree?

My pastor friend David Eck, in this post, says, “As we listen this coming Sunday to the parable Jesus told, we must be careful not to equate God with the man who had a fig tree and Jesus as the gardener. Instead, we need to think of this parable as debate between judgment and mercy. The easy path to walk in this story would be to simply cut the tree down. Likewise, in life, we are tempted to walk away from tasks and people whom we find difficult. Judgment is always an easy thing to do. It takes very little effort on our part.”

Eck goes on to urge us to “consider for a few minutes the trees God has planted in your life. They may be people or places. They may be dreams or projects. Which ones have been giving you a hard time lately? Which ones have you been tempted to chop down and walk away from? Perhaps with a little more tender care, these barren trees just might produce some fruit. The questions is, are we willing to be patient enough for this to happen?”

But what if it’s your own spiritual life that’s the fig tree that’s refusing to bear fruit? Maybe you've felt yourself in a fallow place spiritually. Or worse, maybe you've felt yourself sliding backwards. Maybe you started Lent with a fire in your heart, and you've burned out early. Maybe you've spent years thinking about church development, wondering what the Pentecostals have that you don't. Maybe you haven't been good at transforming yourself into a peace-loving person.

Look at that parable again. The fig tree doesn't just sit there while everyone gathers around, waiting for something to happen. Action is needed. The vine dresser gives it extra attention. The vine dresser digs around it and gives it extra manure (ah, the magic of fertilizer). We, too, can be the vinedresser to our spiritual lives. And we don't have to resort to heroic measures. We don't have to start off by running away to a religious commune and devoting ourselves to God. Just a little spiritual manure is all it takes.

You've got a wide variety of spiritual tools in your toolchest. Pick up your Bible. Read a little bit each day. Find some time to pray more. Find something that irritates you, and make that be your call to prayer; for example, every time I hear someone's thumping car stereo, I could see that as a tolling bell, calling me to pray. If you can do nothing else, slow down and breathe three deep breaths. Do that at least once a day. Turn your anxieties over to God. When you're surfing the web, go to a site or a blog that makes you feel enriched as a Christian, as opposed to all those sites that make you angry or anxious. Give some spare change to those people who stand in the medians of the roadways. Smile more--you are the light of the world, after all. Time to start acting like it.

God is not the harsh gardener who will chop us down and throw us into the fire, but the season of Lent does remind us that we won’t be here in our current physical form forever. Choose your spiritual manure and get to work bearing good fruit.

Free Time and God

Each Lent, I read my way through Show Me the Way:  Readings for Each Day of Lent; the readings are taken from the works of Henri J. M. Nouwen.  Each year I wonder if I can possibly read anything new in this book that I've been using for a decade.  Each year, I do.

Even if I didn't, I'd still use it, because the ideas contained are so wonderful and so essential--it would be good to rediscover them each year.  But each year, something new leaps out at me. 

This morning, the reading that leapt out at me came from Letters to Marc.  The first bit has leapt out before; I know because I underlined it:

"You are probably wondering how, in imitation of Jesus, you are to find that descending way.  That's a very personal and intimate question, and in the end I don't think that anyone can answer it but you.  It's not simply a matter of renouncing your money, your possessions, your intellectual formation, or your friends or family.  . . . It has nothing to do with spiritual heroics, dramatically throwing everything overboard to 'follow' Jesus" (p. 47).

He talks about finding the descending way by discovering what the path concealed in every person's heart.  But because we rarely walk that path, it may be overgrown with weeds, which we'll need to clear out.

How do we clear them out?  By prayer.

Here's the part that spoke to me this morning:  ". . . to pray is to make free time for God" (p. 47).

I love this idea of creating more free time by praying.  Too often, we see prayer as one more thing on our to-do lists, one more obligation.  But so rarely, I'm guessing, we see it as creating more of what we crave:  unstructured time.

I also love the idea of free time with God.  I have a vision of God and me walking through a museum or deciding to go out for lunch or having a beer at the beach.

I also think of the unstructured time we've had with our nephew, which are some of the most fun times.  We have sword fights and sand castle building at the beach and ice cream outings and Lego constructions of all sorts.

I'd like more of this kind of time in my life.

I suspect God would like more of this kind of time with me.

The Pope's Last Sermon and Christ's Last Words

Yesterday, as I watched news snippets that showed the Pope and his last Mass, I found myself wondering about the Pope's last sermon.  He has the advantage of knowing it's his last sermon.  What a difficult, yet wondrous, rhetorical task.

What would you say, if it was your last chance to speak with such authority?  What final words does your flock need to hear.

I have the last words of Christ on the brain this Lent season.  Our pastor has started this blog, and my spouse and I are trying to contribute photos for the last word of each week. 

We missed week 1 and contributed week 2.  This week the last word is "Woman, behold your son; behold your mother" (John 19:  26-27).  It's a tougher assignment.

We agree that we don't want to do any mother-baby combination.  That's much too Christmas-y.

My spouse would love to find a way to get a shot of a mother at a courtroom.  Perhaps it's time to leave the realm of photography.

It's an interesting Lenten discipline that we've taken up.  I like that we're doing it together.  Even if we can't create the ideal photograph, it's intriguing to talk about what we would do, if we could accomplish anything.

Director/Faculty in Practices of Ministry Position Announcement

On Thursday, my mom and dad told me about this job at a Lutheran seminary.  My mom's cousin is a dean at a different Lutheran seminary, and she heard about this job opening, thought of me, and told my mom.  My parents think I would be perfect for the job.

So do I, if it's the job I want it to be.  The announcement is written so broadly that I could make it be any number of jobs.

The link ot the Global Preaching Initiative website at the bottom of the announcement intrigues me. I'll be interested to hear what the Seminary plans to do in conjunction with this initiative.  Or will that be part of the Director's job, to provide vision and leadership for this initiative?

I have a Ph.D. in British literature, not in theology or other related subjects.  My Ph.D. may be the dealbreaker for a search committee.  If they hired me, I'd be the only faculty member with a non-theology degree.

I think about my evidence of scholarly potential.  My publishing record is very eclectic, to say the least.  I've written articles for The Lutheran and I've been a regular blogger for the Living Lutheran site.  But I haven't done scholarly publishing much of any kind, and the little bit that I've done has been about literature, not theology.  So, when I look at my CV, I see evidence of potential, but I don't know if it's the kind of evidence that a job search committee would want to see.

I have a lot of non-academic training in areas which I suspect the Director of Practices of Ministry would need to have, but no official degrees or official training. I can offer a valuable perspective as someone with decades of experience but as a lay leader, not a pastor.

Part of me agrees with my parents that I should apply, just to see what happens.  Part of me doesn't want to waste anyone's time.  If I could find out that my Ph.D. in English isn't good enough, that would answer some questions.  Perhaps the next step is to send an e-mail with that very question ("Is a Ph.D. in English enough?") to the dean who is chairing the search.

Stay tuned!

Reports from the Afterlife

This morning, I listened to a fascinating interview with Dr. Sam Parnia, the author of Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death.  He's spent his medical life easing people back from death, and he's got all sorts of insights.

If you're interested in the biology of death, and why some people can come back from death relatively unscathed while others are terribly damaged, he's got some answers.  He also reports on his efforts to determine whether or not the experiences that people have after death are due to chemical reactions, pop culture expectations, or something else.  He reports that people who can discuss leaving their bodies do indeed have experiences and knowledge that they couldn't have had at the moment of death.  For example, he's placed pictures at the head and the foot of the bed as they worked to bring the patient back, and the patient can describe the pictures in great detail.

Very good, you might say, but what happens to them?

Some of what he reports will probably not be new to you:  the light in a tunnel, a presence that welcomes them.

But one chunk of what he said made me wonder if we'd behave differently during life if we knew we'd be facing a test when we died:  "They often describe having a review of their lives, everything that they had done from early childhood to that point. And interestingly, the way they describe their review is very much like they experience, sometimes, everything that they had done. So for instance, if they had hurt somebody's feelings, even inadvertently, without purpose, they feel the pain that they had given somebody else. And therefore, they judge themselves, in effect, and their actions. And that's why when they come back, many of them are motivated to lead their lives in a completely different way. I remember one person who said that, I particularly wanted to make sure that I don't fail again; and I want to make sure that I at least end up with a C, when I get back there again."

I have always loved the great English poet John Keats' view of heaven as one where we experience again all the joys we experienced during life; but we experience them even more intensely in the afterlife.

But what if we also experienced all the pain we'd caused to others?  Would that knowledge shape our behavior here on earth?

The interview with the doctor is fascinating from beginning to end, and if you want to hear it or read the transcript, go here.

Meditation on This Sunday's Narrative Lectionary Reading

The readings for Sunday, February 24, 2013:

Luke 13:1-9, 31-35

optional reading:  Psalm 122 or 122:6


I don't have much history with sermons that implore us to repent.  I grew up as a good Lutheran girl and learned that God has already forgiven me.  I struggled with the concept of grace; if I'm already forgiven, why should I be good?

I don't want to wrestle with that particular question this morning.  Whole fields of Philosophy and Literature and Psychology and Sociology can give us a wide variety of answers.  No, I want to think about this issue of turning around and returning, verbs which are at the root of the word "repent."

In many passages, Jesus implores his listeners to leave the path that they're on and to choose activities that will lead to new life.  The prophets that come before and after Jesus have trumpeted a similar message. The end of the Narrative Lectionary reading for this week shows that Jesus knows that his listeners will not pay him attention any more than they did the prophets of old. 

But Jesus is clear:  repent we must.  Jesus didn't come to earth to get us into Heaven after we die.  Jesus came to earth to show us how to live so that we create the Kingdom of God right here on earth now.

Those of us who cling to the concept of grace like to think that we have plenty of time.  Sure, we'll take care of our neighbor.  But first, we've got some movies to watch.  We'll help feed the poor--right after we get back from our vacation.  We've got a grueling work schedule, so maybe we can just arrange for our credit card to automatically send money to Lutheran World Relief.

It might help us to think about that fig tree that gets a reprieve.  The fig tree doesn't get an indefinite amount of time to bear fruit. 

I'm not about to suggest that God will chop us down and send us to the flames of hell.  Frankly, God doesn't have to do that.  We marinate in the bad choices that we've made, and that's punishment enough.

But the parable of the fig tree suggests ways out of our barrenness.  We could think of pruning.  What in our lives needs to be pruned so that we can bear good fruit?  We could start with a bad habit or two keeping us from the life God wants us to have and build from there.

Or think of fertilizer.  What would enrich the soil of our lives?  More prayer, more inspiring reading, stopping each day to take a real break for a meal together:  the list is endless.  Choose one and begin to enrich the soil in which you're planted.

Like ancient people, we kill the prophets of God in all sorts of ways.  We like to think that we'd have recognized Jesus had he appeared to us, but would we?  Now is a good time to tend the fig tree lives so that we can truly repent and choose the way of Jesus.