vitalwholeness

It finally became clear. In a flash, as the crowd of 15,ooo stood for the opening rituals before the basketball game, it occurred to me: We’re entertaining ourselves to death. And losing much in the process.

The omnipresent jumbotron scoreboard/display monitor suspended over the floor demands just as much of our attention as the actual creatures who scurry back and forth from one end of the court to the other. In a sense, we are being asked to pay attention more to a technology that mediates the same reality that is happening before our eyes. “Here look at this representation – very fancy – even though the real thing is in front of you. We’ll mediate, reshape, and reframe it for you so it becomes more important.”

All of this is the result of television screen and computer monitor possession. We have been hoodwinked into believing that the real source of all phenomena comes via a screen, a monitor. All else is a weak imitation. Not technology amplifies life, but life is a weak reflection of what we have created it to be in technology. We’re owned. Call in the exorcist, fast.

But then there is the national anthem. Everyone stands. Then we behold what has become the new ritual. Depending on the status of the sporting event, some singer – of variable talent – sings the national anthem solo. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not. But more importantly, this becomes a highly individualized, performance, entertainment moment. How does she (and it’s usually she these days) do with the high notes? Which singer does she sound most like? How will she groove and ornament it. Cool. She’s really cool. Hoot and holler a little when we’re awed by her virtuosity.

But the national anthem, or any other cultural song, is not made for solo work. It’s purpose is not to deliver a song so, one more time, as in the jumbotron, we’re entertained. No, the point is that we sing a common song, hear the human voice intertwined with thousands of others, and sing a common thing, share a common thing in a common way. It’s the opposite of entertainment. We find the most thrill in our common sound. That’s the experience.

In the same way that the jumbotron wants to entertain us, so does the soloist. It has become entertainment, the product of sports gone to television; everything re-presented for another home audience.  Athletes as stars. And it’s ruined it.

Now don’t get me started on church, just don’t. Don’t tell me one more time that we need to entertain our children to keep them from the life-shattering experience of their own boredom. Because when we get there, assuming this is true, buying into it, we will know without a doubt that the cultural captivity of the church, our children and our minds has finally and completely been accomplished.

It was on a street near downtown, near the university, and I was going from here to there, absorbed in the things of the day, looking but not especially seeing. On my right, walking the same direction as traffic, was the man. A young man he was, dressed after the Bohemian style, and carrying more than a few musical instruments on his back and in his arms.

The drums were wrapped around his neck like a cape and he held the guitar like the fearless whitewater explorer might grasp the paddle. He walked as one knowing where he was going, on a mission, in a hurry, to some beat in his head.

But where, and why? I’ve moved music gear many times, but usually from car or truck directly to location. Load the car here, unload it there. But never have I walked up the street, wearing it all like a coat. Was he heading to some backroom jam session? Was he seeing how he could do at the pawn shop, having just emptied his closet of every last thing? Or was he returning what he  borrowed, finally, after all that time?

Was he embarrassed? When I’ve walked along the road in our car-oriented society, and it was obvious that I was not doing a workout, a jog, some elective activity to keep the reaper at bay, I’ve felt awkward. What, lost his license? Doesn’t have a car, has to take the bus or walk? Lose your chariot you lose your status.

Or, if we traveled back a thousand years, was he simply a minstrel, strolling the countryside, free as a bird, heading to court to entertain the king, or to a town faire, offering up entertainment for coins?

The truth is that the most important information about the walker remained hidden under the surface of his drum heads, guitar strings, and shakers. They encased him like mirrored sunglasses, and I could only glance at his life, the surface of it, like I would a waterfall, or a couch that fell off the back of the pickup into the street and onto the shoulder of the road. It’s there, but I don’t know why.

And what do we really know about anyone, the depths covered over by the debris of time, our stories stuffed in the little canisters of the mind where only a few have ever visited?

Like the fiddler I met on the street the other day, playing for coins tossed into his open case, there are stories and life to find somewhere under the his feet, under the sidewalk, down where the earth remembers our footprints. So where did you grow up? And when did you start playing? Is this tune from Appalachia or Scotland? And what did you say your name was?

Me? Oh, I’m just walking alongside traffic, my random accessories strapped to my body, the artifacts of life tuned to the next moment they might sound, might speak, might find a way to love or lose. If you see me, wave. And I will, too. Ask my name and I’ll do the same. Tell me the story of that instrument, and that one, and that one, too.

She’s 99 years young and I hope I can have just half her concentration if I ever live that long.

Born in 1911 she experienced WW I through the eyes of a child and then WW II through adult eyes. Her pastor husband was studying in Germany just as the Reich was rising. One night, as they listened to the radio in their guesthouse, there was a voice ranting from Berlin. They said his name was Hitler. It was time to leave Germany and fast. And so they did.

During he rest of her life family, church and faith took her to remarkable places, meeting fascinating people. I knew the children and grandchildren of some of them.

And then it was time to bring our visit to a close. I asked if we could pray together. There was no gap whatsoever between the spirit of our conversation and the spirit of prayer. Of course, said she. And by whatever mercy I thought to ask her to pray for me as well. After I fell silent her intense prayer washed over me like a healing balm. She assured me that it wouldn’t be the last time.

One of the things I have learned to appreciate are monks and nuns in monasteries and convents who perpetually sustain the world with prayer. That is their vocation, to pray. And it is somehow, strangely comforting to know that someone like that, somewhere, is praying for it all.

But there are other holy places and holy people of which we are unaware. That’s because some of them are disguised as nursing homes and nursing home residents. They are traveling incognito, flying under the radar, carrying God around by stealth. The liturgy of the hours is spun out there in such a way that the unobservant soul could confuse it with drudgery. But that’s only because they haven’t yet been prayed for by the right person. How will they know? Oh, they’ll know. When that happens everything that used to look ordinary starts to look like a temple. And in the center of the temple is the throne of God.

I’m not exactly sure why I pulled Plato’s Republic off the shelf. Like always, there were the other choices – a good novel, the latest memoir, some theological tome. But no, Plato. Was it because the cover was old and red and more interesting than any other?

Or was it because I just happened to watch My Great Big Fat Greek Wedding for the umpteenth time. There is that scene when the patriarch of the family, lover of all things Greek, mutters under his breath, “My people were writing philosophy when your people were still swinging in the trees.” Ho Athens.

Of course, there is Plato’s famous back-and-forth, the unending sequence of questions and answers. How do you describe justice? Well, by describing injustice. And what if an unjust man is portrayed rather as just? Well, that’s not for you. And on and on.

I like the way he plays philosophical chess with his hemlocked mentor, Socrates. It’s fun talking with dead people because they can’t change their minds anymore. And they always make the very best straw people, asking anything you want them to. For that matter, Plato lines up a whole host of imaginary conversation partners just so he can query and answer them. They are his intellectual playmates and he enlists them in his cause. How could any philosopher have more fun on the way to truth?

But why pick up this Athenian who lived five centuries before Jesus? Maybe it was the lure of antiquity; I sometimes grow weary of the present day stream of prattle that masquerades as significant. This year’s new wine is alright, but give me something that’s aged in the cellar for 2500 years or so.

Oh, but he did surprise me. Whereas I may have read Plato before, this time I talked with him. Now why is that? Maybe it’s where I am in life.

2500 years is not very long, not really, not anymore. Talk to some of the new physics gurus and they’ll tell you that past-present-future are much more closely related than you think. And now that I’ve lived a little longer I have more a sense of what a century is, and by extension, a millennium. So time is collapsing, and Plato draws closer because of it.

And then there is location. His home is just a few hours flight from here, even closer with live video feed.

So Plato is not really that far away, either in time or space, not when you think about it. And my conversation with him reflected that. I could hear him talking this time. He had some interesting, familiar and strange thoughts. And I set the dead man up on the edge of the coffee table, just like he did with Socrates, and asked him my own questions. His answers were pretty much what I expected. But that’s not the point. I had to hold up my end of the conversation.

Not a few analysts have already connected the revolutionary dots between Egypt now and Iran over thirty years ago. In both cases strong armed military regimes were in control, their leaders exerting an iron grip on power through their repressive policies and actions. Then the Shah was unseated in revolutionary Iran. Now Mubarak was dislodged as the result of a pan-Northern Africa movement toward some mixture of democracy and/or Islamic governance.

The parallels, as regard the involvement of the United States, are strikingly similar. In both cases, with the Shah and Mubarak, our relationship of state was defined by mutual benefit. In the case of Iran, oil and resources were more than a little of the story. With Egypt, the geopolitics of the region have  determined our support of Mubarak; stability in Egypt spells peace with Israel and the broader Middle East.

What does American leadership do when it finds itself on the wrong side of a democracy movement? Whether it is the  Shah or Mubarak’s regime, a people’s movement arises to defy it, demanding that dictators, totalitarian rulers and oligarchs be tossed from their thrones. But it just so happens that we have lent support to these very same dictators, totalitarian rulers and oligarchs that have given us what we’ve wanted. What to do?

Well, if you’re the U.S. State department, you tap dance. You say that you hope these things are resolved peacefully. You council the government to not send in the tanks. You distance yourself from the leader so that when he skips town you’re not perceived as too cozy. So the game is played. Mubarak? Oh, yeah, we used to be friends a long time ago …

The problem now for Egypt is larger than it seems. It’s one thing to cast off a repressive government and its leader. It’s quite another to build something that serves the common good. And, considering developments in the Middle East, I’m guessing we’re not going to be witnessing the birth of some Jeffersonian democracy. The Cold War is long over so it’s not going to be some warmed over version of communism. They most certainly won’t go the way of the Saudis with an Islamic Monarchy.

No, this  may go the way of other nation-states in the region toward an Islamic theocracy. If so, and that is very possible, the outcome could lean either way, toward a moderate form or a radicalized one. This is a huge concern for Israel. It’s a huge concern for the whole region and the world.

It’s hard to know who your friends should be. If you support the neighborhood bully, a repressive lid keeps things under control – even though some of our most treasured values of freedom and democracy are abandoned. But if you really extend democratic freedoms – such as Israel did in Gaza, for instance – the decisions people make are often not what you would choose.

Now is a time for real prayer, for thoughtful and moderate religious voices to rise and seek a peaceful and life-giving way forward for Egypt. We can hope that the social contract of their people will be shaped less by strident voices and more by democratic ones. And in the end, as a part of the community of nations, we can hope with a new kind of friendship – not with the town bully, but with some representative form of government that helps to create a new destiny for their people.

And now, with a benevolent concern for all, we pray especially for the Coptic Christians in Egypt. They come from the most ancient roots of the Christian tree, a small religious minority in Egypt. May they remain faithful, reflect the way of Jesus, and become leaven in the lump.

So I just returned from a men’s retreat in which over 150 men gathered to share table, have fun, and consider the serious side of faith. I was blown away by the passion these guys had to be together and their attentiveness to the deep things we share.

True, we selected a theme that would naturally attract men.  We also cobbled together all the natural networks of men in the congregation to make for a big pow-wow. And the fact that the co-leaders were the former Sr. Minister and present Sr. Minister lent it gravitas. But I saw more.

I think there is in men a deep spiritual yearning that often goes unmet. We often do not give ourselves or others permission to deal with matters of the heart. And I think men shield their wounds from other men, largely because we are cultivated to be so competitive. And there is a meta-message floating in the culture that we have certain roles to play and they often do not include spiritual search and servant leadership. The sheer number of men who turned out for this retreat sends a different kind of message: It matters and we are the ones who care about it.

At the end of the retreat we challenged the men to go on a forty-day spiritual journey during Lent. We will be reading a day-by-day meditation guide by spiritual master, Richard Rohr. He’s especially well versed in male spirituality. And a bunch of guys said, “Count me in.”

At the end of the movie we viewed for discussion, A River Runs Through It, the narrator, now an old man still finding mystery in the river he has fished since his childhood, says, “I am haunted by waters.”

And so I end with a quote from Rohr:

“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”

As of late I have been hearing more and more particular examples of how church conflicts and Christians behaving badly are causing people to flee such places. People pack up their wagons and move down road because they are disillusioned; they witness the worst of human nature in a place you would expect just the opposite.

In the past, under these kind of circumstances, people usually sought out another church, starting taking communion at a different address.  There is nothing new about that.  What is new, however, is what is now happening after that kind of exit.

For more and more Christians the flight away from the fighting faithful is the last exit from the institutional church, of whatever stripe. It’s the final throwing the hands in the air, waving goodbye and finding spiritual life, community and service far outside the Christian huddle. It’s the last exit – not from God – but from the church.

It breaks my heart for several reasons. I’ve seen what could be very, very good turned into something very, very bad. It sours and jades many who have been long-suffering, hoping after hope over extended periods of time. And then, as the greatest indignity, there are the people who finally re-entered church after a long absence – giving it one, last, hopeful shot – only to to witness the dark side. That is the last straw, and not just in the metaphorical sense. They are now gone forever.

So let’s be clear and not mince words: We’ve done this. When Jesus barked out that those whose souls are most at risk are the ones who cause others to stumble, he wasn’t blowing smoke. When we sully the spiritual experience of others as a result of our own pride, lust for power, selfishness or greed, a crack runs through the psyche from top to bottom. It’s emotionally and spiritually debilitating because we live with the truth of the harm we have inflicted. As they say, the unconscious has no garbage disposal; it  stays with us, regardless of whether we consciously recognize it or not.

The beginning place is confession of our culpability, something that requires huge doses of humility and honesty. But if we listen carefully enough to the voices of those who have left and are never, never coming back, it might begin to soften us.

Good friend Lynelle Phillips, on faculty at the University of Missouri in Public Health, recently took a group of nursing students to Cape Coast, Ghana. The goal of the trip was to expose nursing students to urgent dimensions of public health in a 3rd world context, participate in an international immersion experience and to offer some help in public health education and HIV screenings in particular villages. They were also able to enjoy places of local history and cultural richness.

On one day the students visited the historical locations of the transatlantic slave trade. This included a slave camp and the path the captured slaves took down to a a stream for their last bath and last drink of stream water before they were confined in the dungeons of Cape Coast, where they languished for weeks before being shipped long distances to be sold.

There were four African American young women among the students and for them this visit had special  poignancy. This was the departure point of the ancestors and the remains of many were buried directly beneath their feet. As the group stood on the banks of the last-drink-stream contemplating all this Lynelle writes in her journal:

“Local African women appeared out of the woods as if by magic. They took our African American women by the hand and led them one-by-one into the creek to let the cool water soothe their feet and souls. The good Lord sent them angels this morning.”

Somehow these wise mentor women, whoever they were, took these women by the hand and led them to the stream of their ancestors. They were baptized in the meaning of it all. And after they came out of the waters, without so much as a word, the strange visitors disappeared into the forest from whence they had come.

In 2009 President Obama came to Cape Coast and apologized for the role that America had played in the transatlantic slave trade. So often only a collective apology can address collective sin, regardless of whether I, as an individual, actually participated in it.

Lynelle ends her journal with a reflection on mission trips, what really happens, and prayer. I share it with you now:

“It is the secret riddle of all mission trips – this paradox of giving morphing into receiving. Perhaps it’s God’s little practical joke on modern humanity. On the one hand we privileged Americans are driven to sign on, undergo injections and forfeit our vacation. We are compelled to help. We want to make that difference, even if it is only one random dribble off the hillside…yet in a gradual, puzzling twist of fortune, we become the recipient. What sets off to be a practical journey of service mysteriously winds up as our own spiritual enlightenment. We dine on the love and warmth and character of those we hope to serve. We magically transform from master to servant, from giver to receiver.

I sit and ponder winter/spring, servant/master, giver/receiver … in my place of confused wonderment. Oh my dear Lord, what is your calling for me? Wild geese honk their friendly greeting overhead. Looking down, I notice my hands are more beautiful when intertwined together, their left-right/giver-receiver distinctions fade as they unify in prayer. Oh…maybe that’s it…”

If we had a belfry you could say we had bats in it, but we have no belfry. Even if we did we couldn’t say we had bats be cause there was only one. And the one bat came to worship last Sunday and chose the best seat in the house, way up near the rafters of the ceiling. Of course he was added to the attendance count.

It’s a safe assumption that he is not a bat out of hell, since he has been church shopping and all. And like other visitors who walk through our doors our members greeted him with a measured hospitality. Welcome, they said, looking him over twice. You’re not from around here, are you?

The children were another matter. Anything that spices up church is a good thing. Where is he? What’s he going to do? Will he dive bomb some matriarch and get tangled in her hat?

It’s hard to see church through a visitor’s eyes. We’re so used to being here. Everything is so normal, so as it is. But what is it like to be new, when everything is seen or heard for the first time? Some things you can only discover through an exit interview, a good conversation about what it was like. So as I talked to the winged rodent, we hung upside down together, me off the coat rack and him from the top of the heater vent.  I asked how his experience was.

The organ was a bit intimidating, he said. Big sounds, big echoes. He really didn’t know where it was all coming from or if he needed to move, get out of the way. He was used to people talking, but not making noise at the same time, singing and praying and such. I don’t think he was just being polite when he said that, overall, it was a good experience.  He spent most the time just being an observer, just listening. When I asked if he might come back he was a bit noncommittal. He wasn’t sure if he really fit in with our crowd and really couldn’t know without a few more visits. Of course, you’re always welcome, I said. Inclusion and diversity are important to us, I explained. And what’s more, you have to know how much you blessed us with your presence.

They say flying things remind people of the spirit. And you never know when it might appear, even in church.

When I awoke this morning, it was not only to the light filtering through the shades into my room, but to a familiar sound, a sound of another season, a sound out of place. The rising and descending tone came from the woods, the voice of a lone bird. It was immediately familiar, the morning whistle of spring.

This bird, however, was not accompanied by any chorus of friends, no antiphonal echo from the far side of the ridge, passing the word from branch to branch. He alone would sing.

The fact that his was the only voice to dare such a song did not inhibit the effort or somehow reduce the volume. He wasn’t merely trying it out to see if it might work; this was the unreserved voice of spring sung in late winter. After the silence of cold and snow, the stillness of animals retreating to their hidden burroughs and dens and nests, this sound shattered the air like an opera star singing full voice in a library. Shush, the people say.

Before I left the house today I looked at the thermometer, checked the weather report and then opened the closet door, surveying a variety of options. There were the big insulated parka, the black overcoat, the checkered scarf from Scotland. Would I need earmuffs or gloves, a hat to sit on my head?

For some reason I reached for one particular jacket, the lightest one in the row. Thin as a windbreaker it could scarcely keep the wind at bay, much less hold in a measure of warmth. I slid into it like someone heading south, to the Bahamas, ready to lounge around on the deck of the cruise ship or walk the steps of muggy jungle ruins. But when the cold air hit my face and crept inside the thin walls of the garment, winter said that it was not finished with me yet.

And I said that I didn’t care, that I’m dressing for the future, issuing an invitation for them to come ahead of schedule. It was hope, I suppose, in which I dressed myself, like a call in the woods that seems untimely, beckoning with a song, like the end is almost here.