Month: April 2018

It is springtime. That glorious time when I get to play in the garden. Make the grass just so when I mow it. Plant flowers and shrubs and grass and, well, all of that. I could spend all of my hard earned money on the yard and on the garden. I have to really control myself.

I have always enjoyed working in the garden, mowing the lawn, and doing things outdoors. It has kept me sane. As a professor and a therapist, I never really get to know if what I have done or taught was successful. Yes, grades for students and growth for clients can be seen, but I have no control over it, learning and change are in the hands of Another. The yard and garden are places where I can see the fruit of my labor. The yard is mown and perfect, the flowers fill the world with color and I get to say I did that.  Well okay, I really didn’t create flowers or grass but you get the idea, I get to see what I have done.

I find it interesting that the Resurrection and Pentecost are set in the Spring. I really don’t think that is accidental. Spring is the time of starting over, of our own resurrection from the dark of winter. In Celtic spirituality, it is Beltane, that time when the world is fertile and full of potential and full of new growth. I find myself drawn to a spirituality that honors creation, honors the earth, honors the seasons. By doing so, it honors this wonderful creation that the Divine has made us all a part of.

I think the phrase “grow where you are planted” is a bit trite but it does call us all to a most important point. We only have this moment and this place in time. We are often so busy, we do not enjoy this moment. We want so badly to be in control and often to be somewhere else and that causes us to miss this moment. It takes energy and determination to get a plant to grow. How much more for us to grow.

Yes, it is Spring. Everything is beginning to bloom. Are you? Have you nurtured that tender young seedling so that it can grow into what it was meant to be? Think of it this way, every day is a resurrection for us all. We only have to be willing to nurture ourselves, to allow ourselves to be who we are each created to be. To bring forth the best blooms from our lives, now and in this moment.

TMM

 

Do you follow the rules? If you were raised in the late 50s to early 70s, the rules were a big deal. You obeyed your parents, your teachers, your government and your church. There was little self-determination in all of those situations. You did as you were told. Then this thing called Vietnam happened and suddenly, we no longer wanted to trust authority.

This change started to put an end to blindly following rules or people or governments. It was (and is) a good thing. If you are going to do something, do it knowingly. But, be forewarned, it is a more difficult path, this one of making your own choices. This path requires you to think, to be fully engaged and that is much more challenging.

Let’s face it, it is just easier to do as you are told. And this is how the Christian church has operated for centuries. The pastor or priest told you what the rules were and that God expected you to follow them. If that sounds like how you treat sheep, you are correct. The assumption in so many churches is that we are all sheep. We don’t know any better and we cannot be trusted to make our own choices or go our own way.

This is also why the Christian church has become so good at condemning other ways of knowing God, like for instance Judaism or Islam. It is a matter of control and that is just like the 50s and 60s. It is sad that rules have become more important that mysticism. It is sad that being rational is prized above having emotions. God did not create us to be automatons. We were intentionally given free will, but the Church wants to always remove it from us.

I have a dear friend, who is brilliant. Brilliant as in perfect recall of anything she reads. She does not forget things. This eidetic memory means if she ever reads it, she will always know it. My friend, at age 12 asked questions at her church that stumped the adults. She did it enough times to be asked not to come back to Sunday school. She sought out a spirituality that honors thinking and questioning and, big surprise, it isn’t Christianity. Her spiritual path honors choice and thought and self-examination.

My question is this: is that not exactly who Jesus was? He said, over and over again, following the letter of the law blindly will always lead you away from Grace. The Beatitudes, those are the utter exposure of legalism. Is that not what most of our churches expect of us? To be legalistic? To just follow the rules? To never ask the hard questions?

As I have grown as a mystic/contemplative, I have discovered that so much of what Church taught me is intellectual and behavioral legalism. I still have to let go of some of those faulty teachings from time to time. We are called to a higher path, one that says it is not about rules but about love. It is about us making a choice, using our own volition to follow God or not; using our own volition to enter into a relationship or not. The commitment is much greater if it is by choice, freely given.

So, today, let’s take that “road less traveled by” and choose free will. Let’s stop being sheep and start being what we are created to be, unique creations of a loving God. It is a harder path, it means you have to think, emote, choose, and experience things that you might rather avoid. Don’t! Take the narrow path and truly live.

TMM

As a college professor, I have no small number of students who “multitask”. At least that is what they appear to be doing when they have their phones out and are also supposed to be involved in the class discussion. Are they really multitasking? I have read a lot about this new generation that can do several things at once. It is and it isn’t true.

My students may have three things going on at the same time: reading, music, and texting, for example. The issue is quality. Are they enjoying any of those three things? Are they performing well at any of those three things? Nope, I really don’t think so. I see their work and hear their discussions. But the biggest issue is not the quality of their work or discussion. The real issue is the lack of commitment to anything.

Sadly, my students in particular and college students, in general, are not committed to anything in particular. They have a notion of where they want to go but are not committed to the process of getting there. I think the word to describe them is “Omni-focused”. How is that for a new word? Omni-focused. Focused on everything and enjoying nothing. Committed to nothing. I guess they want it all!

Before you judge college students, you must ask yourself if you are just like them. Are you omni-focused? Another way to discuss this is are you too busy? As much as I want to say I am not like my students, the truth is I am exactly like them. No, I don’t go to meetings and listen to music, discuss important issues and text my wife, well I don’t listen to music. In the field of stress management and biofeedback, we have long had a name for this: hurry sickness. I want and try to do too much. Part of this is the job(s) I do professionally, but part of it is our society and the pace of that society.

This is why I love my Abbey and my visits there. There is no hurrying there, though my monk friend has said otherwise. And maybe he is right in the sense that they have a list of things to get done. Yes, even monks have jobs, duties, and chores. The difference is that they do them one at a time. This makes for high-quality work, they are totally focused on the moment.

And this is where I and my students and you are missing the boat completely. We lose focus, or we have no focus. We do not enjoy the trip because all we care about is the destination. If we don’t enjoy the trip, what is the point? Maybe it is time to repent. Repent means to go a different direction. I  need more focus and less hurry. I need to broaden my perspective. I must say no more often, mostly to myself. There is so much I want to do but perhaps quality should win out over quantity.

How about you join me and let’s slow down, ease up and enjoy the trip? Come on, you know it’s right. You know our Creator made this wonderful and miraculous world for our enjoyment. I think we will all feel better, live longer and be richer for the effort.

TMM

Everything evolves. It is sad that the word has become something bad. Hundreds of years ago, the Western world became rational, developing what is called a “dual mind” where everything fits in a good and evil, or yes and no category.  The modern Christian church has labeled evolution as ungodly and some have gone so far as to explain that the world is a mere six thousand or so years old and that dinosaurs were on the Ark.

Now, think of this clearly………all of creation has been static and unchanging for the last six thousand years! Does that fit your life experience? Are you the same now as you were at age 8? Of course not, we are ever evolving, ever changing to become more or better. Even scripture says to ‘work out your own salvation”. This is very hard to do if everything in your world is black and white, yes and no.

I think this happened because we have lost the mystery of life, of faith, and of ourselves. We have to have an answer and we become frightened when all we can say is “I don’t know”. Why do we have to know? Our ancestors saw the world as either or both. They saw spirit and flesh as one. How can we say we follow Christ if we do not have the same viewpoint? Do we not follow a Savior, a God that came to put us back together? To show us that spirit and body are one thing, one glorious creation?

Throughout the Christian scriptures, the picture is of the Creator putting the world back in order. Jesus was not Plan B. He was and is always plan A. Scripture clearly teaches that. And he came to embody the living God in human form. Perhaps instead of using an ancient Greek philosophy to deny that we are really human, we should embrace our humanity and our good Earth, our good creation.

If we do not evolve, we are dead already. If your faith is not growing, if your relationship to a very personal Creator is not evolving into the beautiful think it should be/can be, then what is the point? We are called to be more than we think we can be. Don’t fight it, let go and grow. Live life with mystery and curiosity. Never, ever be afraid to consider not having all of the answers.

I do not want to have an answer for everything. I want to keep the mystery in the sunrise. I want to marvel at our beautiful world and weep with Mother Earth when we damage her and/or her children. I never want to explain the mystery, I just want to marvel at it and revel in it. Come on, quit stalling and evolve!

TMM

It is an expression that I hear often at the college, “speak truth”. It is a phrase regularly used in the African American church. Not so much in the white church and I really don’t have to wonder why. In every church I have ever been a member of, there is a limit to how much the members are willing to hear before they internally rebel. No one really seems to want to hear “truth”.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the church leaders of the day (Pharisees and Sadducees) very quickly got a dose of not wanting to hear truth. Most don’t realize that they came to John to be baptized. I have read it for years and not noticed. They were not mocking John, they were hedging their bets, wanting to get baptized, “just in case”. They were not seeking truth, they were seeking, as we said back in my Baptist days, fire insurance.

Then, John spoke truth: “You brood of vipers” he said. He knew they wanted just another certification, another guarantee of being the good and spiritual people they believed themselves to be. And he spoke truth. And they were not happy at all. John confronted their ego, their self-centeredness, and their hollow view of spirituality. Speaking truth, both then and now, has cost more than minister their “head”. In churches that are independent, the minister has to be very leery of speaking truth. Making the wrong deacon or elder angry gets the minister fired.

This is why, in reformed churches, the minister is not a member of the church and is appointed by the governing body, synod, presbytery, district. The bishop or district superintendent makes the choices. Sure, a church can request a change with good reason, but the minister can speak truth with much less fear for their professional livelihoods.

How does that relate to us? Question that I asked myself was this: how many times have I sought “baptism” for the wrong reason? How many times have I gone to God, truly wanting to receive God’s presence (baptism of love) but wanting things my own way? Wanting that presences for how it might make my soul feel, not for how it would further the Kingdom.

There is nothing wrong with loving God and wanting to be loved back, but it is not truth. We do not get God all to ourselves and we do not just get what we want from God. We will always get what we need and on a few occaisions, it will line  up with what we want. Let us all set out to seek and speak truth……let’s start with ourselves. Then, we can seek to be baptized in God’s love for the right reasons.

TMM

The whole wide world, that is how I learned it as a child. When you wanted to describe something as really good, you said: “it is the best in the whole wide world”. Now that is a really big place and when you are a child, this phrase really captures the world as seen through the eyes of the child.

As a grown-up, I have watched the world grow smaller and smaller due to instantaneous communications and electronic information. And with this change, I think we have lost the magic of having a “whole wide world”. That makes me very sad, to ever lose the magic and mystery of anything, but most especially of God’s creation.

You see, that is what we have done. We no longer have any mystery to see, we have nothing to wonder about with regard to our world.  People have taken their responsibility for this world too lightly. We have taken from it but rarely given back. We have abused Mother Earth without apology. We act as if we have someplace else to go. And I have just named the real issue.

Christian folk, good Christian folk, often see this world as a transient place that they pass through to get to Heaven. Dr. Stan Hauerwas helped author a book called, “Resident Aliens”. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good book with a good point, but it is wrong. We are not aliens to this world, we are part of it. We are part of God’s glorious creation. Too often, the Church has taught that we are just visiting here, on our way to heaven and that quickly leads to our destruction of this world.

I think Franciscan theology is a “more excellent” way. It places us squarely in creation. Not as lords and masters, but as fellow creations. We are called by God to be good stewards of all of creation. We are called to see God in every part of this creation. We are not just passing through, we are the crown jewel of creation, humans are the only ones with free will and that makes us responsible for all of the rest of creation that does not get to choose.

Think of this………what greater thanks can we, as creations, give than to accept our roles as shepherds and stewards of all of creation. Are we not called to care for the “least of God’s children”? Are we not to be the voice for all who have no voice? That is the Christ we follow, we speak for all of creation. In this way, the mystery and joy of the whole wide world will return.

TMM

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. A life that was taken too soon, that is clear. What is also clear is that people like me have not done their jobs. Now, you might ask, what do you mean “people like me”? I am a professor at a historically black college. It is my job and people like me, to raise up a new Dr. King. We have not done so. We have not captured our students’ minds enough to instill in them the deep need to do what is right.

Dr. King was not just a civil rights leader. He was deeply spiritual and a minister. He studied more than his Bible, he also understood and respected Gandhi. He was open to other forms of spirituality, especially ones that went beyond the walls of the local churches. He was not loved by all of his own African American community. It has been said that those other ministers helped to plot the assassination. That is quite likely true. The power of the human ego to ignore human need is powerful.

Today is a day of great sadness because we are fifty years later and the ugly head of racism, segregation, discrimination and just pure hate has raised itself again. Now, more than ever, we need another Dr. King. And here is why I write this today: if we claim the title Christian, then how can we allow these things to happen? Why is it that each of us as Christians can turn our heads and ignore what is going on?

Being a Christian is hard work. We must give up our ego, our picture of who we think we are and who we think we should be and take on the image of Christ. It is not easy to give up those ideas of who we think we are supposed to be. Some of them given to us by our parents and some, sadly, given to us by our religion. Churches have become great places to learn “shouldhood” but not to discover our True Self. It is time for each of us to be who we are called to be: the Living image of a Loving God. Let us all be Dr. Kings in our world and put an end to what we know is wrong!

TMM

I can be insufferable when I fix something or make something. There is just a great satisfaction in looking at your own handiwork and seeing it complete. I have long worked in areas where I never really know if what I have done matters. I mean, how do I really know my college students have learned anything? And for all of the clients I have ever had over these forty years, I have never really been sure if what I did helped them all that much.

This is why I have always loved gardening, mowing the lawn, fixing things and making things. I know when I have finished that it mattered. For a few days, I can look out across that lawn and see it looks just right. That is not true when the object of your work is other human beings. So what I have learned is that the accomplishment is doing a good job. Doing the job well has to be enough because I don’t get to see further than that.

Isn’t that the way of the Gospel? We live a life that expresses that Gospel, that Good News, but we never really know who sees us and who notices and who changes because of it. And, I think that is the way it is supposed to be. We live such a life because we are loved into it. Sound silly? Well, Easter was just a couple of days ago and that is our celebration of living again. Christ/God does not ask us to do anything but love. There are no other expectations from God but for us to live and love, just as we are.

I get it, that sounds simplistic. Aren’t we supposed to follow all the rules? No! Aren’t we all sinners and fall short? Yes and No!. Yes, we all have that propensity to go our own way. It is always a choice we make. The Devil doesn’t make us do it, we go our own way because we think we know what we are supposed to do. As of that first Easter, I no longer fall short. On the cross, Jesus said “tetelestai”, it is finished. And it is, finished. We no longer have to try to be good enough. We don’t even have to try, we just are good enough.

I know, it seems like we should do something to earn this, but that is simply not the Gospel. It is already accomplished in us, for us, by the Creator of all. The resurrection restored us to who we can be. And it is total empowerment, we get to choose each day. You see, it is enabling if we have to meet a set of standards to be called Christian. It is empowering when we realize God chose us because of our free will. So, let’s accept the accomplishment, believe that we are good enough, and bask in love.

TMM