Month: December 2019

John Lennon wrote a song by this title. When it came out, many Christians saw it as very cynical and so it was, to a point. The song says “so this is Christmas and what have you done”? Is this cynical or honest? What have you done? Is the world a better place because you are in it? Maybe John was right, what have we done?

Advent begins the new year in the Christian calendar, a chance to get it right this time. Is that not what birth is, a brand new beginning? Do we not celebrate the birth of a child who changed the world? In the world before Jesus, in the pagan world, this celebration has been done for hundreds of years. The “country people” (that is the meaning of pagan) lived in a world that followed the clock of creation, the four seasons. Yule is the name for this holiday.

In the pagan world, Yule was celebrated, in part with a yule log and the point of this celebration has always been that at the very darkest time in the calendar, there is still a spark of light. The evergreen tree (Christmas tree) represents life as ongoing, not overcome by the darkness. Why do you think we put lights on the tree and on our houses? Because for Christians this day marks the birth of the “light of the world”.

This is a time of joy, of hope, of celebration and of showing mercy and love to everyone. So let’s go back to John’s song. I see the song as hopeful, hopeful that we can express the love and mercy we have been shown by the Light of the World, all year long. Read the lyrics of the song and you will discover that whatever John Lennon believed, he knew what Christmas is about. If we really did this all year long, not just Christmas, there would be no war, no prejudice, and no hatred.

So on this most joyous of days, as we celebrate and as we look with love on our friends and family, we need to remember that we are the lights of the world. Scripture says that if we love, we are of God and we become the picture of God’s presence on earth. Let’s try to be that spark of light, love, and hope for every person we meet. Then we truly understand Christmas and then we can truly answer the question of what we have done.

TMM

In many newspapers adds for various products there is often a disclaimer in very small print that says one item may be substituted for another. This happened recently in renting a car in Ireland. The contract said a Ford Focus (or similar car). When I arrived it was a Toyota Yaris. They are similar in size but not in how they run or are built.

What if we did this as expecting parents, “after the child is born we will send the child or one similar home with you.” No one would take that deal. It is silly to even think of it and yet there is a lesson in this for us all.

Scripture says from the beginning each and every person, each and everything on this Earth are made in God’s image. If that is true should we not respect each other and this Earth and treat all as if it were God. This is the first thing the organized church gets rid of, the idea that we are all in God’s image and the church does this by setting up rules to tell us who is “in” and who is “out”. Who goes to heaven and who does not.

Richard Rohr has a book, “Everything Belongs” and he makes a great point that we are all one creation. We get a choice though, we can choose to be similar to God or not. In God’s image is not a choice but a truth. When we choose to be similar to God, we behave as if we are God’s presence in the world today.

Is this not why Jesus came? Came to show us how we can be similar to God. Is that not the point of all spiritual disciplines? To become similar to Christ? I think it is exactly the point. Now let us consider this world we live in: if you are Black, Hispanic, White, LBGTQ, Male or Female then you are God’s creation and in God’s image. How can we be similar to God if we exclude even one?

This is the origin of discrimination and prejudice. When we cease to see all as God’s creation, then we make the choice of who to exclude. We then use scripture to prove some are to be excluded. What we are really doing is creating boundaries that say which similarity is “okay” and which one is not “okay”. We are dictating what is similar to God and what is not. Christ came to us all to show us what it is really like to choose to be similar to God.

These “statements of faith” or “creeds” simply reinforce the idea that no one is good enough and the image we are to be similar to is absolute perfection, which we, of course, cannot achieve. Perhaps it is time to treat all the world as God’s image and good creation and then to practice similar types of behavior that reflects that we are the Living Image of that very creator.

TMM

Have you ever met someone that is just downright crude and impolite? These sorts of people or these sorts of behavior are greeted with, “Were you raised by wolves?”. It is meant to get that person to behave better. The truth is that wolves run in packs and that is their family of sorts.

Being raised by wolves would really mean that the person knows their place, follows the leader, doesn’t venture outside the pack and doesn’t really challenge authority. Wolves know how to take care of each other and do so. No, what people are really referring to is a lone wolf mentality.

The lone wolf separates from the pack and becomes their own parent and does things their own way. The lone wolf has established its own code of conduct and no longer plays well with others. In a sense, the lone wolf raises itself.

I think that is what we are really hearing when someone says, “Were you raised by wolves?”. We are asking “who raised you?”. Where did that person learn to act that way? Perhaps this is the question we must ask ourselves in our spiritual lives, “who raised us?”.

As a child, I was a “latch-key” kid meaning I got home from school and no one was there so I was responsible for myself. Oh, it was clear as to how I was supposed to behave but it was far lonelier than my parents, especially my mother ever knew. When you are a child you shouldn’t have to be so grown up. In many ways, you are raising yourself, you are a lone wolf.

In the spiritual life, many of us if not most of us are “lone wolves”. We are trying to raise ourselves spiritually and we search for a long time to find a path that works for us. Now, who is our “parent” supposed to be on this journey? Our true Parent is the Living God, but our foster parent is the Church. Whatever flavor of a church you may have grown up in, the average church does not teach the spiritual disciplines, it does not teach us how to pray and what living the spiritual life is supposed to be.

In essence, we end up raising ourselves or, for so very many, they simply never grow up spiritually. As long as they stay “in the pack” they know who to follow and how to act. But then a day comes when a person gets separated from the pack and they are truly lost. No one to tell them what to think, believe or how to behave. Instead of being nurtured and encouraged to go off (into solitude or the wilderness) on their own in a healthy way, these lone wolves go their own way with little guidance.

Have you raised yourself? Have you been a latch-key Christian that had to figure out the spiritual life on your own? You should know that you really aren’t alone, that the Creator of all has been there with you every moment. Maybe it is time to find a different pack to run with. We have a name, Contemplatives or Mystics. We are around if you want to join us.

TMM

I am sure no one else is like me, a perfectionist. I have no illusions that I am perfect but there will always be that part of me that hears that childhood “you have to be better” phrase and wants no, needs, perfection. If you are like me then you understand how challenging this can be.

I have been a therapist and a teacher for a long time and I have never, ever be demanded perfection from clients or students. At home, my daughter was held to the standard of “if you tell me you have done your best, then that is good enough”. It is the same for my students, I just want the best they can do, the grades take care of themselves at that point.

So, why is it so hard to give myself permission to be imperfect? I don’t ask it of others, I believe grace abounds and that we are loved by God, just the way we are. If you are like me (and trust me some part of you is) then you know that those interior voices, those “tapes” that go off in our heads are hard not to listen to. Our families, life experiences and our culture are those voices. I don’t hear it much anymore but women used to say, “you can never be too rich or too thin”. So, if you are like me and not rich and certainly not thin, how do we measure up to the standards of society.

The answer is, we do not have to live up to those standards. We do not have to live up to our perceptions of what our parents wanted us to be and we do not have to live up to the expectations of others in our lives. I continue to work on turning off the “tapes” and remembering that I am fine just as I am. The key is humility, to understand who we are and whose we are. If I acknowledge my gifts and my shortcomings and that I have been endowed with those gifts by the Creator, then I can let go of being perfect. Instead, I can let go of perfectionism and open the door t satisfaction with a job done to the best of my abilities.

This is not easy. If it was, I would have been happier many years ago. But, it can happen for me and for you. Scripture says that God delights in us. It does not say we have to earn that delight, it comes for us as we are. So, let’s let go of have to and should and rest in whatever it is we have done, it is good enough.

TMM

Athletes are always wanting to be better, to swing better, catch the ball better, hit it straighter, whatever it is the athlete wants to always do more. In rural East Texas and I am sure everywhere else, this very common sense saying exists: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That seems obvious but is it?

We are all like this you know, we just want a little more, to be a little better, to do something that “matters”, or make a little more money. Whatever it is, we always want a bit more. And then the day comes when we have a new question to ask ourselves, how much is enough? The society we live in, that secular world, would have us believe that more is better but what happens when we get to the end of more?

If you stop and think a minute, you suddenly realize two things. The first is that the world is lying to you, you do not have to keep “fixing it”. We still try to though. I believe we do this because we have internalized the idea that we are not good enough and never will be, so we keep trying to fix it, fix ourselves. This leads to the second realization and that is that quite often, the sermons that we hear are rife with this idea, the one that says you aren’t good enough, you sin all the time, you will never be good enough, but you must keep trying to repent.

The good news for us all is that we are indeed good enough, just as we are, just as you are at this very moment. You already have and are enough. You are a beautiful and divine creation. You are not something that needs to be fixed, you are not (as some of my Presbyterian brothers and sisters might say) utterly depraved! The good news is that we have always been good enough for God, who delights in us.

So, what shall we do with all this extra time when we stop trying? Just be! When we rest in the Creator of the Universe we soon discover that we have wasted our time trying to fix what is not broken. That is our moment of “salvation”, that moment when we realize how broken we are without the Living Christ in our lives and then…….to realize that that very presence has always been there.

This saying has been attributed to the great ballplayer, Satchel Paige: “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.” So there you have it dear ones, Just Sit! Just Be! And for heaven’s sake stop trying to fix what ain’t broke.

TMM

I will confess that when people say “back in the day” I think about a long time ago, say 50 or more years. So here we go: back in the day, my brother and I would play outside until it was one step beyond dusk. Yes, we had electricity and lights but outside was……well outside and boys really do hate to come in before dark. In those twilight hours, my brother and I could be found playing baseball, basketball in the back yard and even an occasional pick -up football game. It would be getting hard to see and still, we kept playing.

It was always a real possibility to get hit by the ball because we never saw it coming or miss making a basket because we misjudged the distance in the dark. All of that is really familiar and those memories provide a warm feeling all of these years later. Those twilight times taught us not to be afraid of the dark and taught us to look more closely and see more clearly. Still today, I tend to notice things at twilight that others miss.

This is also a description of the spiritual life. We all fear the darkness when it comes to our interior spiritual life. We want to be sure, to know what is right, to have proof but that is not faith. Just like playing ball at twilight, as you become comfortable with less light, your vision improves. And so it is with this spiritual life we all crave. We fear not knowing, of being uncertain and yet, when we embrace the “darkness” we embrace a deeper faith. A faith that is not only comfortable with not knowing but actually feels relieved by not having to know. This is the faith that is expressed by the old saying, “faith is walking to the very edge of all of the light you have and then taking one more step”.

As I write this, it is the beginning of Advent. That time when the physical world rushes to its darkest and shortest days. We are all moving into darkness but it is the darkness of anticipation, of hope, and yes, growing faith that at the end of these weeks of Advent, the Light of the World will once again come to us all. Instead of getting caught up in avoiding the deepening darkness by shopping, noise, and continuous movement, what if we all worked on our night vision? What if we all welcomed and embraced the dark as simply the other part of life? That place where we have no choice but to look and listen more carefully. This is Bethlehem for each of us, the place where faith is born, the place where the light in our lives begins to shine in the darkness and the darkness does not understand it.

TMM