Learning to embrace the sadness of life

I walked a mile with Pleasure.
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me.

-- Robert Browning Hamilton, "Along the Road"

I enjoy pleasure. It is nice. I have fun. It feels good. I laugh and sing and smile a lot. And I often go deaf, dumb, and blind in it, losing my awareness of myself and others, drunk on the experience.

I value sadness. In sadness I see and feel, learn and grow, and everything worthwhile and lasting comes to me, and I weep wonderful tears of awareness and new hope, stunningly enriched by the experience.

I have a deep sadness this morning, painfully aware of something I missed yesterday and days and weeks before. I see and feel it deeply, and am learning and growing from the slowly emerging awareness. I weep over my previous oblivion, keenly aware of what there is for me to do now, feeling hopeful and yet stunned into reverence for life and love and the depths of beautiful sadness that await ignorance.

Pleasure is nice; sadness is rich. Both are wonderful. Both plants the seeds of each other.

A healthy dose of humility on the journey of real faith

"If humility is what you authentically seek, then simply measure your love of others against the standard of God's love for you, not in comparison to your lowly assessment of other's love of you or others. You will get this more completely when your arrogance, pride, and self-centeredness have been completely dismantled by His overwhelming grace and mercy."

-- Yours Truly

Strap in for a fairly long, ego-confronting ride. Notice what happens within you as you read this. Resist the temptation to blow it off as religious bluster and really pay serious attention, from the place where you do your own damage to yourself.

"When true Christians become fully aware of the challenge of real faith, they set out on the journey - the pilgrimage - with dedication, focus, and resolve to be sure they don't miss out on anything God has planned for their lives. They execute their spiritual duties as if they had escaped a country that was ravaged by the plague. And it is not enough for them to simply cross the border; they exert all their energies to get as far away from the plague as possible. Knowing that the journey of faith will not be easy, they do not become discouraged when difficulties arise. And knowing an adversary will oppose their efforts, they are not surprised or unprepared when the enemy attacks. As they set out on their way, they expect the early going to be extremely difficult, but they know they have the most Trustworthy Guidance and that the end of the journey will be well worth it. It is not without merit that those who pursue authentic faith in this manner are called pilgrims and strangers. A pilgrim is one who is on a bold journey. When the journey transcends the normal boundaries of conventional wisdom and societal norms, he becomes a stranger. He is an adventurous traveler. He learns to expect the unexpected. But as he travels, he knows he is traveling to a 'better country' (Heb. 11:16).

I trust you can see that this pilgrimage is impossible and unimaginable for the cultural Christian who is simply focused on club membership. It's way too confronting and hard. But this is no dreary duty! This is pure challenge and excitement! This is the ultimate adventure! This is what life was meant to be! From Pascal to Sir Francis Bacon, the travelers on this path have seen the end and found the journey more than worth making. When we looked at the characteristics of the nominal Christian, we saw that the underlying deficit was an obvious lack of the love of God. Many examples were pointed out, and the most cursory observation of these men and women makes it obvious. For we know what the love of God looks like. It is obviously missing in the majority of nominal Christians. The most blatant evidence is that they find no real and visible delight in either the genuine service or worship of God. In fact it becomes obvious drudgery, filled with complaint. Whatever outward actions they make in the name of religion are done as if slavishly performed for a harsh master who has not yet delivered the goods. Even while smiling and play-acting among themselves, they are cold and sullen when it comes to things of real faith. To the almighty Sovereign of the universe, who has given them life and new life, they give a dull, artificial, and heartless kind of recognition, devoid of any gratitude for who He is and what He has done on their behalf. They are primarily and relentlessly focused on what hasn't been done for or delivered to them.

Contrast this sentiment with the very first of the commandments. God tells us that our very first duty is to love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength (see Mark 12:30). This one attitude acts like a master spring that sets all the other components of the human heart into action. When it is lacking or not set right, all else falters, and then we often find fault with Him for allowing such disaster to befall us. When it is present and active, many of the questions asked about what is appropriate and not appropriate behavior for a Christian would not even need to be asked. Rather than trying to figure out what they can get away with and how close to the line they can get, men and women would be attempting to discern what they could do to more fully express their love for God. The motivation would be totally different, and we can assume that the product would be also. Love avoids all that might harm the beloved and seeks out all that might be pleasing.

I know I am about to tread on delicate soil, but I feel compelled to apply this principle to the way we entertain ourselves. It has been asked whether certain kinds of entertainment are appropriate for Christians. What would our response be if in every case we evaluated our decisions about our leisure pursuits by asking if our choices would demonstrate our love for God? Is there any way we would engage in immoral or innapropriate kinds of activities when we are genuinely attempting to honor God and serve Him? When entertainment is crude, demeaning, objectifying, or off-color, the answer seems too obvious. When actions we would never allow in our normal interactions of daily life are part of some form of social entertainment, something is deadly wrong. The very values we seek to influence in a positive direction are intimately woven into the fabric of what passes for entertainment today. Much of the content of popular entertainment contains elements the Bible expressly forbids. Somehow, though, when it comes in the form of our entertainment, we find it less offensive, and, in fact, we find criticism of it much more offensive. In reality, this is all very dangerous. We often let our guard down in certain types of casual entertainment and what we call our relaxation time. I fear we have been conditioned to accept such things in much the same way that a frog learns to accept the ever-warming water, until eventually it is boiled to death without ever noticing the gradual change in temperature. Such is the influence of the entertainment/leisure industry in our time.

If the genuine love of God is not extinct in the majority of professing Christians, it is certainly at an all-time low. Even our love of our fellow man is not at the level we would like to pretend it is. Our country is filled with institutions designed to help other people, and these institutions are pointed out as examples of how well we care about our fellow human beings. I believe this praise is exaggerated in the case of these institutions. Nominal Christians love to draw attention to the external and shallow evidence such institutions provide. They would have us believe that the very existence of the institutions is proof of the good will toward their fellow man held by the members of the higher or wealthier classes in this country. But do these institutions offer proof (or visible evidence) of the internal benevolence of those who have funded them? How is giving to be evaluated when it comes from a source filled with pride, vanity, self-love, self-interest, love of ease or of pleasure, cut-throat ambition, competition, and the scramble for elevated social position and prestige? The Bible tells us that 'God loves a cheerful giver' (2 Cor. 9:7) and that He is looking for the one who gives out of self-sacrifice rather than without any measure of real personal cost. The bottom line seems to be whether we are willing to give even when it really costs us. In the same way, are we willing to do what is right when doing so might actually result in a loss of personal prestige or human praise? It again boils down to what is happening in our hearts when we take actions that outwardly are viewed as humanitarian and philanthropic. Are our actions lavish expressions of our love for God or simply half-hearted or ego-driven actions taken because of social ambition or expectation?

When evaluated by these criteria, I fear that the majority of professing Christians have done little that would merit the praise of heaven. Rather than congratulating ourselves on our benevolence or efficiency or skillfulness in doing good, we need to realize that, no matter how it's measured or compared in the human realm, we continually fall short of the giving spirit that comes from the true love of God and our fellow man. In the end, the standard we are called to measure our giving against is not human at all, but the giving nature of God Himself. Jesus told us that we are to be perfect, as the Father is perfect. When that becomes our single criteria and our only measuring rod, it reduced all of us to a healthy humility, in which all competiton and squabbling over form or technique fall away. However, this kind of thinking is virtually unknown by cultural Christians."

-- William Wilberforce, in Real Christianity

And in case you think the above is too old-fashioned or prudish, having been originally written over 200 years ago, within a very conservative (at least in outward appearance) society, here is what eventually becomes all too evident to oneself, written and performed over 200 years later all the way across the pond, in a fairly loosey-goosey, free-wheeling society, but, more importantly, in the delusional, self-destructive aftermath of ignoring His fundamental principles on the subject. I hear very elaborate, gory-detailed versions of this lament all day long (about what a "mess of me I've made," repeated over and over again, even while the conscious thought of surrender and obedience to His will is viewed as total anathema:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9lg7Utdnyk&feature=youtube_gdata

I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
There ainīt no drug that they could sell
Ah there ainīt no drugs to make me well

There ainīt no drug
Itīs not enough
There ainīt no drug
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

We lock our souls in cages
We hide inside our shells
Itīs hard to free to the ones you love
Oh when you canīt forgive yourself
Yeah forgive yourself!

There ainīt no drug
There ainīt no drug
There ainīt no drug
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

AHHHHHHOOOOO! Right

There ainīt no drug
There ainīt no drug
There ainīt no drug
No drugs to make me well
There ainīt no drug
Itīs not enough
Iīm breaking up
The sickness is myself
The sickness is myself

- Chorus -
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
Iīve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!!

"Mess of Me," by Switchfoot

And this "ignoring them" (God's fundamental principles) doesn't just "happen to us." We are not innocent victims here. We actually "choose our poison," and then guzzle it down in heavy, regular doses. And then, usually only when we've suffered enough, it seems, we get to "unchoose it" and choose again, once we've finally faced the truth of our own self-centeredness and self-destructiveness, and then, with extravagant grace and mercy, He creates our NEW LIFE.

Support Request

It's that time again - and it's been that time every two months or so over this entire year - my new normal. Yes, it's that somewhat awkward time (just based on past experience where it was all up to me) when there's just not enough money to cover my monthly costs, and the only thing to do is to cry it out. I'm learning the significance of this practice. It is both humbling and a cool reminder of who's in charge.

I used to rely solely on human beings to pay me for my time, skills, and services, based on agreed upon rates and fees.

Now I rely soul-ly on God, and for Him to touch people to lend their support of my life choices and response to calling.

I ask you to listen care-fully with your heart and respond accordingly with your help, if you happen to feel so touched.

And If you've done so already, or do so on a regular basis, I sincerely thank you and greatly appreciate your support.

And, once again, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen, I am at His and your service with all that I am.

God, thank you for always doing so, and please give me today my daily bread.


Amen.

There, God, and I feel your sustenance being delivered once again, according to your Son's words, and thank You:

"Pray for what you need; believe you have received it, and it is yours."

-- Mark 11:24 (NIV)

Beware the resistance to change

"You don’t create anything new by staying in the same place or in the same way of thinking."

-- Andy Law

"Faced with the choice of changing one's mind or proving that there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof."

-- John Kenneth Galbraith

"In times of rapid and profound change, the flexible and open learners inherit the earth, while the rigid and closed learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

-- Eric Hoffer

"Nothing we can do can change the past (but often we will wallow in the agony of that futility endlessly), but everything we can be can radically change the future (and yet we can be so reluctant to risk leaping in order to thus fly)."

-- Ashleigh Brilliant

"Safety and security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright naked exposure. Life is either a bold, daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

-- Helen Keller

"The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that clear insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to move toward you when your words are seeming to pursue or attack them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes (open and loving) are the real and most effective figures of speech."

-- Edwin H. Friedman

It is not the world's or other's job (or natural inclination, for that matter) to change to accomodate us. To expect or wait for this, while clear and complaining about what's so obviously wrong with the situation, is pure folly. It is our sacred assignment and spiritual responsibility to change to align ourselves with God, regardless of our outer circumstances.

"Men are anxious to change their circumstances, but are unwilling to change themselves. They therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set."

-- James Allen, in As A Man Thinketh

Examining our motivation

Have you ever seen the movie, "Amazing Grace"? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454776/ It is a wonderful story about William Wilberforce, who made it his personal mission to end the slave trade in England in the early 1800's, in spite of great opposition from so many (with so much ridiculously blustery justification). The movie gives you but a hint of his lifelong relentlessness in pursuit of what God asked him to take on. His book, Real Christianity, recently revised and updated by Bob Beltz, enriches and expands one's appreciation of the breadth, depth, and fullness of his life's mission, which included taking on the enemy that has come to be called "Cultural Christianity," that watered-down version of faith which focuses primarily on belonging to the right social club and doing only those things that maintain one's "status" in that club (i.e.; not really about Jesus at all). It is brilliant in exposing so many of its day in 19th century England, many of whom made up his most avid opposition in the drive to end the slave trade, and it applies equally devastatingly in its pointed scrutiny of 21st century America. Take a look and see what you think.


"The argument that 'good-looking behavior' or 'well-intentioned works' are the equivalent of 'true faith' and 'loving God' is completely contrary to the clear teaching of the Bible. As we have previously seen, the unequivocal teaching of the Bible is that there is no substitute for the absolute appreciation and love of God being our highest motivation and purpose. It is the height of arrogance and/or the depth of ignorance to attempt to twist this teaching into one in which the egoistic efforts of humans are placed on a par with a thankful, wholehearted love of God. This thinking comes from a form of mental gymnastics so distorted that I prefer not to waste time refuting it here. It is conceived in the resources of a mind that seeks to escape the convictions it is unable or unwilling to humbly stand before and to evade the obligations and responsibilities it cannot or will not perform. God is concerned about the heart as well as (and well before) the outward actions. Only an action directly motivated by a genuine love of God is truly a Christian action. Even earthly fathers look for a proper attitude to accompany, if not drive, their children's actions. Proper actions, when designed primarily to win approval, but performed with poor attitude, does not really please us as parents. Neither does it please God as our Creator. And right attitude effortlessly and naturally results in right actions and behavior."

-- William Wilberforce, in Real Christianity

"The chief reason people cannot get along together is that most are filled with pride and a ridiculously distorted sense of self-importance. This in turn results in an ongoing demand for others to treat them the way they view themselves and leads to an unrealistic assessment of the value of material possessions and worldly acceptance and honor. These dynamics produce a terrible competition between men and women to possess them. The rough edges of one person rub against the same in another and create a friction that is bound to disturb the waters of interpersonal harmony and peace.

However, when Christ is really at work in our lives, he files down those rough edges. Instead of rubbing against each other, we surrender to working together like a well-oiled machine. And when this is not the case, we have to wonder if we are seeing cultural Christianity instead of 'true faith.' Cultural Christians might espouse and verbalize the need for love and benevolence, but their bondage to pride and self-importance keeps them from exercising these virtues and leads them to the pursuit of personal and professional success, usually at the expense of others and what really matters in life.

Some have mastered an outer appearance that enables them to pursue these goals while maintaining a thin veneer of apparent goodness, but they lack genuine love in their hearts, or it is very conditional. When the pressure is on, whether through disappointment or interpersonal strife, their true colors and cut-throat competitiveness will show. They might have even mastered the art of disguising their competitiveness and hostility, but internally they are usually stewing and thrashing. And their anger may break out at any moment if they let their guard down.

This seems to be particularly true of those who have been elevated by society because of success, rank, or notoriety. They have learned how to put on an appearance of goodness and respectability while they frantically pursue nothing but their own selfish interests. It is such a charade that you often have to admire men and women of the working classes who never had the opportunity to learn such so-called manners and who let you know exactly what is on their minds.

Authentic faith is not interested in being able to put on a virtuous mask in polite society. It demands truth in the inner person. The person of faith stands in the presence of the One who searches our hearts for purity. The true believer (or, better put, follower) attempts to live in an atmosphere of benevolence and works to avoid any action or thought that would distort or diffuse its purity. This is why placing ourselves in positions where we must compete, even if very subtly, for ascendancy or favor over another person can be so damaging. It is hard to love someone with sincere love when you are exerting so much energy trying to rise (or stay) above that person."

-- William Wilberforce, in Real Christianity

"The great distinction between 'true faith' and cultural Christianity is that the cultural variety believes all things are attainable by our own good efforts. True Christianity is looking for and counting on something much greater. True Christians continually look to God to restore the image of God to their soul, but know that this is NOT something that they are able to accomplish on their own. All their hopes of attaining this rest on total reliance on the Holy Spirit who comes to indwell them when they humbly open their hearts and lives to it. Notice the critical order here. Our change of behavior does not PRECEDE our reconciliation to God and somehow become the CAUSE of God's favor; it FOLLOWS our coming into deeper relationship with God and is its EFFECT!"

-- William Wilberforce, in Real Christianity

And remember, if we claim to be "true followers," living in "real faith," we totally relinquish the right to attack or tear down anyone, under any circumstances - not the ignorant, nor the arrogant - because the work of "justice" and any ensuing attitudinal or behavioral "correction" is to be left to Him and Him alone.

So don't hit back or run away; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it." Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy (or someone you're in conflict or disagreement with) hungry, go buy that person food, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him (and probably yourself, as well) with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you, ever; get the best of evil by doing good (out of a humble attitude of real obedience, vs. faking it).

-- Romans 12:17-21 (The Message, with personal annotations in parentheses)


Yes, that's what this is - the heap of burning coals that
somehow land squarely on my head when I am seriously
and deliriously confronted with grace and kindness when
I am behaving in ways that don't warrant that response
- i.e.; the perfectly obedient response to my foolishness.

The Eternal Now

"The search for longevity in this life or for eternal life afterwards might be missing the point of the biggest opportunity of all. When I was young I would very often think about wanting to live for a very long time. And then as I got a little older I started thinking about life after all my birthdays had run out - the 'afterlife,' or 'life after death.' But the more I grow and learn and mature, the less interest my 'longevity' or my 'afterlife' hold for me. Worrying about tomorrow, next year, the next decade, even about the next life, seems a false pre-occupation. Wondering how things will be for me as I age or die seems, for the most part, a distraction from a much bigger, more precious reality. When my clear goal is true life, which is timeless, I am becoming more and more clear that that life is reachable right now, right where I am, because true life is in and with God, and God is where I am right here and now. The great mystery of the spiritual life - the life in and with God - is that we don't have to produce, prolong, or wait for it as something that 'will happen' someday if we get it right. Jesus said and says, 'Dwell in me as I dwell in you.' It is this divine in-dwelling that is, indeed, true and eternal life. It is the active presence of God at the very center of my daily living - the movement of God's Spirit within me - that give me eternal life in the radical and explosive expansion of the present moment. And from a place of appreciation and celebration, the future is truly NOW."

-- Henri Nouwen, in The Dance of Life (in fact, its last paragraph)

When I take my eyes off the present moment and look to the future in any way - regardless of whether it's the very immediate (like next quarter in a business sense) or the very distant (like on my deathbed or at my funeral) variety - I leave the only place of true health, holiness, peace, thankfulness, and wonder, which is the only place that is totally grounded in his singular eternal reality, and I instead re-enter that place of my dualistic apparent reality, which is a tortured place, indeed. So here's to devotedly following him by remaining in him and him in me, now and forever - by never leaving this amazing, kaleidoscopic swirling vortex of a perfect moment, which defies man's and time's attempts to contain, define, limit, manage, or package it in any way.