Christianity

Hard Lessons

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This has been a tremendously taxing last month and I’m glad it’s over.  July seemed long and tedious, and the fact that the AC on my car has been dead for some time didn’t help matters.  Neither did the “check engine” light that just won’t go off.  Neither did the fact that I traded territories with another chaplain as she was doing far too much traveling, only to find now that I’m doing a lot more traveling than I like now.

I kept up with everything and CPE was going great.  But last week killed me.  I had a very busy week with my new caseload and also had to manage the house and kids on my own as my wife was out at a conference.  I plugged through because I had this big goal at the end that I was looking forward to – being an extra in the new Batman film.  But then that got yanked and I felt like I ahd just run a marathon for nothing.

I got really mad and was emotionally all over the place.  Then I felt that I should just never count on anything good happening – that maybe I was holding on to things too hard anc counting on outside things too much.

And that was when I realized that I was exhausted and not taking care of myself.

This was why I was having such a big reaction to something that would have been disappointing but not a crisis event.  Self care for me is really hard, as I just don’t feel like I have the time to do so.  However failure to do so just makes me burn out faster.

Today I had trouble with one of my CPE reflection papers, as I found it really hard to “reflect” on the visit that I was supposed to be writing about.  What was going on spiritually during the visit?  Hard to tell, because right now I don’t feel spiritually connected to myself or anything else, just the stored-up pain in my shoulders that I can’t neck-crack away.

So all this to serve as the reason why I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off!

Experience

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“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” Jer 31:33

It’s relatively easy to accumulate knowledge if you put your mind to it.  I went through a spell of having 5 or 6 college courses on CD in my car at any time, on topics from Greek philosophy to “great Christians of the world”.  I called it Buick University, home of the fighting Taupes.

But I realized that most of this seeking after more and more knowledge was less helpful than I thought.  I knew much more than I did, for sure.  And that knowledge influences me in lots of ways.  However I started to see it as my own attempt not just to “better myself”, but to prove myself to myself.

I think my tradition (Calvinism) pushes this head knowlege a lot.  There is so much focus on doctrine, on saying the right thing and doing the right thing.  I remember hearing about arguments behind the scenes at church concerning the music not being as doctrinally sound as it should be!  And more arguments today about modern praise music being too “easy” or doctrinal.  Surprising, seeing that a lot of praise music is lifted literally from scripture.

I’m trying to move less into my head and into my heart.  I can know a lot, but if I don’t know God all that other knowlege just puffs me up or, even worse, distracts me from Him.  It’s easier to know Calvin or Merton or – gasp – Pau and Moses l than it is to experience God.

Living with Thomas

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I’ve taken up reading Thomas Merton.  I happened upon him in the usual roundabout back-door way in which I tend to find most anything.  Regardless of the process I’ve found his journals to be very interesting and his writing challenging.  His journals are especially interesting and helpful.  They are not highly thought-out or doctrinal, which I like.  I can pick them up and put them down easily.  The main things that I’ve gotten from them is his own joy in simply reflecting on life around him and the conscious desire to be simple, not because it’s somehow more holy or better, or because of a command, or because of self-despising humility, but because he loves God and finds that the best way to love God fully is to love Him simply.

When I stop and reflect as Merton does, I feel joy and gratitude.  Not all the time of course.  Today I have a splitting headache for example and even writing this through my blurry glasses makes my head hurt more.

The fact that Merton still struggles with the need for acceptance, self-acceptance, and all the “shoulds” that go along with it also make me feel more normal.

Awareness, Part II

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I wrote already of awareness in terms of being aware of problems and issues in one’s life.  However this time I’m thinking of awareness in terms of simply being aware of one’s self in the world.  Yoda’s basic criticism of Luke came to mind:

“All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! What he was doing!”

I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s journals and one thing I find is that every day is not filled with some kind of inspirational masterpiece or heavy thought on life or whatever.  Often it’s simply what’s going on:

“The sun, the clear morning, the quiet…” June 3&4, 1963

“Brilliance of Venus hanging as it were on one of the dim horns of Scorpio.  Frozen snow.  Deep wide blue-brown tracks of the tractor that came to get my gas tank the other day…” Jan 5, 1968

When I started CPE I saw awareness as being aware of what was going on with me at that time.  And that’s fine, but I’m seeing more that awareness involves not a narrow focus on me, but on me in the world.  I’m getting used to not putting on the iPod when I go out for walks.

I’m even a bit self conscious as I write this, knowing that this sounds a bit like navel-gazing or flaky or something.  But I’m appreciating the experience.

Awareness

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I see more and more that simply being aware of something isn’t enough.

CPE is a lot about finding your weaknesses as as well as your strengths.  I think most people find that it’s about their weaknesses and “issues”.  But CPE is just as much about uncovering your strengths.  For me it’s been an experience of uncovering both and accepting both.  However, simply being aware of something is not enough.

Awareness of an issue involves acceptance of it, but that only gets you so far.  That’s the starting point, not the end.  You then need to decide what you are going to do with your issue.  Realize that any particular issue has two sides to it – not just all bad or all good.  Then look at how you are going to use this issue in a positive way while trying to limit the negatives.

For example, I tend to be extremely hard on myself at times.  The upside of this is that I tend to work hard and set high standards for myself.  The downside is that I can set the bar too high and then beat myself up for not clearing it.  Awareness is being able to say that I’m hard on myself, but the problem is that I’m still overly hard on myself.  I can stop there and learn to live with myself, or I can change the downside of it.  Thankfully this is what I’ve been doing, and I’m so much the better for it!

I know someone who has gone through four units of CPE, which is pretty advanced.  She’ll talk about her issues as if she has mastery of them.  Yet these issues still continue, and there doesn’t seem to be any movement to do anything with them or change them.  Any change involves a loss, and a fear of what that loss will cost.  And when that loss is part of what we sense to be our selves, that change can be very intimidating.  Better to live with the devil you know than the devil you don’t, especially when you’ve been living with that devil for 40-some years.

Sin works in the same way.  To simply be aware of sin is one thing, to turn from it is another.  And God calls us ultimately to turn from sin, not just be aware that we are a sinner.  We fall into the same traps however.  We fear change, we beat ourselves up for failing to turn from sin, or we feel that change is impossible so why bother.

Change does not need to be complete right out of the gate. Turning from sin – or our issues – is a lifetime event.  It is done, and constantly being done.

Grief

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I think grief has less to do with whatever is lost and more to do with the change it makes in our lives.

I meet so many people in my job who are truly accepting and realisitic when it comes to the death of someone they love.  Especially when that person has dementia, has been due to a long and drawn out illness, death has been otherwise anticipated and even welcomed.  People often are ready for their loved one to die and therefore feel their grief will be short.

However I find so many times that even when the loss of someone is expected, the loss of everything associated with that person isn’t.  Suddenly the family member is faced with not having to visit the nursing home on Sunday afternoons, like they have for the past 8 years.  No more doctor’s appointments.  No more visits with the visiting nurse after the bedsheets are changed.  These are the unexpected losses, and these are the focus of all the denial, bargaining, anger and depression associated with grief.

Mourners can accept the loss of the person, but they can’t accept the fact that that loss has changed them irrevocably and they can’t accept the feelings that accompany that loss.  They don’t deny the death, they deny that things have changed and that they have changed.  They don’t bargain with God to get them back, they pretend that if they don’t go by the nursing home or the hospital they won’t be sad.  They aren’t guilty that they didn’t do more, they feel guilty because they can do more, and that change bothers them.

When I turn from considering grief to only be about a body in a casket to being about the global change in my world, I can really grieve and grow.

Theology in Practice

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The Other:

Jesus’ ministry often involved interacting with those who were ill, dying, and marginalized by society.   These were the people that Jesus favored though, calling them “blessed”.  I feel that in the same way, the dying today are marginalized, dehumanized, and feared by our culture.  However, Jesus still favors these over the mighty and powerful.  Caring for the dying not only mirrors Christ’s ministry, but fulfills his call to “mourn with those who mourn” and to care for “the least of these”.

Those who are terminally ill and dying remain creations of God, and still maintain His image.  They therefore have dignity, value and honor that are not destroyed by their illness, and deserve to be treated accordingly.  Not only do the ill maintain their value as part of creation, but are also a means by which God reveals himself.

The ill and dying approach God just as they are.  Yet they may mask themselves because of their illness.  Disease can carry feelings of fear, anger and loss among others, all of which may be hidden by shame.    Jesus’ reaction was not to shame the dying, but to approach them in that shame and take its power away through touch, association and healing.

My Self:

As a chaplain, I function as a witness of Jesus and an agent of grace with those I encounter.  Just as in some traditions the sacraments are a means of transmitting and transferring God’s grace, my presence can be sacramental as well.  I believe that a major part of being a chaplain with the dying is in the role of shepherd.  While a shepherd protects the sheep, this is only part of the role.  Shepherds also provide safe environments where the sheep can flourish.  Shepherds also do not try to change the sheep into something other than they are.  Being a sheep is not a problem, so trying to fix the “sheepiness” of another will not only frustrate the shepherd but devalues the sheep.

I also approach my position as a servant, as Jesus came as a servant to all, and led through that service.

As the ill approach God just as they are, I approach God just as I am as well.  I bring my own gifts, stories, fears and sin to the encounter.  Shame causes me to want to hide as well, but recognizing this can allow me to empathize with them as a fellow sufferer.  God chooses to use people within history and within their own history for His work, and these particularities are significant to each encounter I have.

Finally, working with the ill and dying is a way that I encounter the living Christ in the world, for in caring for “the least of these” I care for the suffering and dying Christ.

The relationship:

The relationship is not merely a one-on-one relationship, for God is present and active in every relationship as well.  The other is, as a teacher of mine stated, just as much in God’s hands as I am.  I can hold loosely to my own agendas and be more at peace when I recognize this.

On Textual Criticism

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During a brief lull in my day I peroused the news wires and found an op-ed piece by Bart Ehrman on the Huffington Post concerning biblical authorship.

Ehrman follows the academic tradition of viewing the biblical texts through the lens of textual and historical criticism.  That is to say, he doesn’t take anything the bible says at face value.  While I studied biblical criticism in seminary, I can’t say that I understand it completely.  However what I can say is that even what I do understand doens’t make sense all the time, at least to my logic and reasoning.

Textual criticism holds that most of the bible is at best a “pious fraud” or at worst, according to Ehrman, outright lies.  In his article Ehrman focuses in on the idea that only “the most rabid fundamentalists among us” still regard the bible as literally true and free from error, and goes on to say that significant parts of the scriptures are outright fabrications.  He focuses in on the latter half of the NT primarily, namely 1 & 2 Peter, and Paul’s letters.

Without going in to much detail as to why these letters are regarded as inauthentic (Ehrman doesn’t either), here’s the thinking: if you compare letters to each other there should be more similarities than differences.  Some letters are pretty certain to have come from Paul, others not so much.  So if we compare those that we aren’t sure about to those that we are sure about, they should be similar in style and composition.  If not, one is probably inauthentic.  Note that this is a very cheap-and-dirty version of the hypothesis here.  Letters like 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus are probably not Pauline because they are so different from his other letters in form, thought, and theology so he couldn’t have written them.

However, here’s my own thinking on the matter.

Take a paper that I wrote in the beginning of my Systematic Theology class and compare it to one that I wrote (or maybe I did) at the end.  Will they be similar?  Yes, but how much so?  Thinking, wordage, form and maybe even structure will all be different.  There may even be inconsistencies from one to another.  Why?  Because I was a different person at point A than I was at point B.  That, I think, is a huge problem with this theory of criticism: it requires that people be consistent over sometimes long periods of time based on a very small sample size.  It seems like a lot to hang on a big assumption, and I don’t find the assumption to be necessarily valid.

Also, if the texts are not authentic, why are details like Paul’s urging Timothy to stay in Ephesus (1 Tim 1:3) and to bring him a cloak that he left in Troas (2 Tim 4:13) included?  If I’m writing a pseudonymous letter, I would want to avoid such details as much as possible, because they can easily be refuted (I can see Timothy arriving in Troas – “A cloak? Paul who?”).

Are there problems in scripture?  Sure.  But I, along with the majority of my non-rabid Evangelical friends and comrades would suggest that these problems negate the message.  If Mark wasn’t written by Mark, does that mean it’s a complete lie?

Again, I’m not even trying to make this a complete refutation of textual criticism, Ehrman, or anything else.  This is more just me talking out loud than anything.  Take it at face value.  Who knows – maybe I didn’t even write this!

Cliffs

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My wife and I are in a study at church in which you read the Bible from cover to cover in 90 days.  If that sounds crazy, that’s because it is.  It is quite the experience though, and quite the challenge.  It’s challenging not only practically (carving out an hour to read every day) but also spiritually.

Frequently in the Hebrew scriptures, at least early on, the covenant seems to be hanging by a mere thread.  On some occasions that thread is threatened by the behavior of the people involved (Abraham is a classic example).  At others it’s God who threatens to cut the cord and start over.  In the former instances, one is able to attribute grace to God and find the lesson there.  However, the times where the Israelites are saved from destruction only through the individual bargaining of Moses, for example, are more troubling. 

Other passages relate God as one who regrets his actions, sends “lying spirits”, or curses individuals for seemingly innocuous acts.

Sometimes you read and wonder, “what God are we dealing with here?”

The reading brought me back to a place where I hadn’t been in a long time.  Several years ago, right out of college, I came to a point where I thought the whole Christian thing was a sham and tossed the whole thing out.  I didn’t question scripture so much as see it as irrelevant.  I didn’t stop believing in God, but I stopped believing in a God that made sense.  I saw the cliff dividing faith and doubt and stayed on the doubt side of the cliff, choosing not to jump.

Reading the Bible in this drag-race “no holds barred” way brought me back to that same cliff I had been to so long ago.  It was not a comfortable place to be.  This time, however, the pain came mostly from remembering the experiences I had around me at that time.  I had felt like a broken person, and felt that God had done the breaking.  Now I approach the cliff much more whole, but still felt that I was revisiting the concentration camp years after being liberated.

All Christians struggle with faith and doubt.  If you haven’t, I think you need to.  Jacob’s wrestling with God (or angel or whatever) was not an accident, and neither was it a hindrance to him.  It was a significant event in his journey, and marked him for the rest of his life.  It’s remarkable to note that after his encounter, Jacob notes that he had confronted God and yet his life was spared (Gen 32:30).

Struggling with God does leave scars, doubts, uncertainty, anger and fear.  However doing these things do not mean that we are afraid to step off the cliff of faith, but have maybe stepped out further than we ever had before.  And lived.

CPE Unit 2, Thomas Merton and drag racing through the Bible

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I started my second unit of CPE last week.  One question that I’m looking at this term is “how do I love God?”  This came up during our last unit as one of my fellow students described his theology as simply “love” – which says a lot and nothing at the same time.

As part of this, I’m reading Thomas Merton as well as engaging in a church group which is reading the Bible in 90 days.  I’m interested in Merton because of his incorporation of eastern thought in his spirituality.  Buddhism lends itself to spirituality in hospice care a great deal, and this may help me grow in this area.

Reading the bible in 90 days will lend some much needed discipline and meditation to my ongoing CPE education.  Also, I think that having a topic on mind as I read will guide me a bit as I do this.  I’ll give my impressions as I go.