Spirituality is....Getting It

“I’ve defined myself, all my life, by what I was against. I fought against everything, but more and more I worry that I was never for anything. Oh, I can criticize and complain and judge everything, but where does that get me? Rebelling isn’t rebuilding. Ridicule isn’t replacing. My generation! All we did was make fun of the way the world was. We didn’t make it any better. We spent so much time judging what other people created we didn’t create anything of our own. We took the world apart, but had no idea what to do with the pieces.”

                             Ida Mancini in Choke, by Chuck Palahnuik

 Today at church during a lively children's sermon the speaker was talking about Jesus telling the woman at the well she could have "living water."  He carefully, and cheerfully, walked the thin, razor-sharp highwire made by the stringing of metaphors between small children still in their literal age.  In trying to explain that the woman didn't understand what Jesus was saying, he sought to show that people in our time, having the advantage of knowing the whole gospel story, understood it better.  What he said was, "She didn't understand what Jesus meant. But we have the benefit of "getting it."

I have thought about that sentence ever since he said it. (Proof once more that I am much better suited to learning from the children's sermon than the adult one. Not a surprise, really...). "We have the benefit of "getting it."   All day the question has nagged me.  Maybe -  when you look at a world in so much need and a church (universal) still struggling with science, acceptance, and how to reach outside the circle of the secluded saved, -  the same question nags you too:

Are we?
Are we "getting it?"

Another text in the Bible shows an exasperated Jesus encountering legalism and posing the same question. 

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow but he died also, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her.

Jesus replied, "Are you in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry or be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising - have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, "I am the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are badly mistaken."
                               Mark 12:18-27 (NIV)

 Jesus asks them -- Are you in error (are you not "getting it") because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? In other words: Are you people ignorant or unbelieving? 

A professor once taught me that if you want to truly get the feel of a scripture - write it out by hand and see how you interact with the words.  I tried that with this scripture, grabbing my trusty fountain pen and writing it into my journal.  I noticed two things right off:

1.  What a long question!
2.  What a stupid question.

Jesus seems to notice both the length and stupidity of the query in his grumpy response, concluding - "You are badly mistaken".  Personally, of all the things I want to hear Jesus say to me, "You are badly mistaken" is NOT on the list.  What are their mistakes? Why aren't they "getting it?"

They, like Ida Mancini, are too busy ridiculing to gain any real knowledge.  They don't believe in resurrection, and they probably don't spend a lot of time caring about who is married to anyone. The ludicrous scenario is intended to make fun of the idea that we live on after we die.  They were not willing to learn. They were, in fact, ignorant.

They also were practicing what we know as "confirmation bias" - the psychological phenomenon that says we only give authority or acceptance to ideas that confirm what we already think instead of accepting something that might change or broaden our reality. They didn't want to believe in the power of God to carry our souls through death to life. They were, in fact, unbelieving.

 

Spirituality - "getting it" - is that act of leaving both of those qualities behind. It's easy to think of pithy questions and outrageous scenarios to question faith, hope or God. Like the always popular, "If God is all powerful, can God make an object so heavy that God cannot lift it?"   (My answer:  "Stop it."). Ridicule isn't replacing and logic traps don't make anyone brighter, better, or more hopeful.  Being a spiritual being is having the capacity to learn, and interact honestly with people, scripture and God.

Spirituality is also the willingness to confront our confirmation bias (we all have it - its connected to our ego - and what do we remember about ego?  E.G.O. -- Everybody's Got One).  When you realize you are drawn only to things that support what you think or what you think you think - stop and give other thoughts a chance. It doesn't mean you have to believe something just because its different.Rebelling isn't rebuilding. But it does mean a conscious effort to really consider ideas will give you more tools and more chances to be "getting it."

Finally, be energized and excited by the fact that while spiritual people are "getting it" - no one on this earth - has "got it."  Spirituality is a journey of learning, changing, praying and hope.  It is about rebuilding, and it is about replacing. It is about revelation, and re-creation.  No one gets to sit on the platform of "I got it all figured out" (and you should be highly suspicious of anyone who tries).  So do not worry about how near or far you think you are from "getting it" - just keep listening, learning, and loving.

Spirituality is...A Partnership of Miracles

    God: People ask me to do things - big things, little things - billions of times, every day.

    Joan: What do you expect? You're God!

    God: I put a lot of thought into the Universe; came up with the rules. It sets a bad example if I break them - not to mention, shows favoritism. Why should one person get a miracle, and not everybody else? Can you imagine the confusion? It's better when we all abide by the rules.

    Joan: No miracles?

    God: Miracles happen within the rules.

Joan of Arcadia "The Fire and The Wood"

Like most people in our world, I have been touched by  horror, sadness and fear as I watched Japan struggle with earthquake, tsunami, and a nuclear power crisis. I have also been touched by horror, sadness and fear as I listen to media commentators, television preachers and political pulpit-teers suggest this suffering was the punishment, and/or will of God.  It simply boggles my mind that churches will spend thousands of dollars and hours on programs to "bring people to God" - only to turn around and suggest that God created this terrible loss of life as some sort of "lesson" or "punishment" never realizing they just drove countless  people in opposite direction from God's love.

I have told more than one person when they’ve spouted off, “it is God’s will” to be careful when saying that around me. After a quizzical look comes my way I’ll add, “That statement gives me an allergic reaction.” Why? Two reasons:

First - It’s a write off, not a theological truth. We throw around God’s unknowable, indefinable will and we don’t have to think anymore.

“I don’t know why I didn’t get that job, it must have been God’s will that I do something else,” we say. Without ever bothering to admit we were entirely unprepared for the interview or lacked the necessary experience, we hang our coat on the “God’s will” rack and fail several more times. God’s will is that we learn, seek and change. What does God say through the prophet Jeremiah?

“You will seek me and you will find me, when you seek me with your whole heart.” (Jeremiah 29.13.)

God’s will is that we LOOK for an answer, not just fill in the blank check of mystical, deterministic desire and go about our business without investigation. Did you ever notice something about the car keys and wedding rings we credit God in helping us find? We were looking for them when they showed up! God’s will is not separate from us; God’s will involves us.

Second – taken at face value, the idea that “everything that happens is God’s will” is a very disturbing idea.

In the book A Good Friend for Bad Times: Helping Others Through Grief, author Deborah Bowen explicitly says, “Do not say to a child who has lost someone, “It was God’s will.” Regardless of what you as an adult believe about spirituality and death, such a statement will negatively shape a child’s view of God and spirituality.”

It isn’t just children who can get a negative understanding of God through the idea that everything that happens in our world is what God wants. A deity who wants families to lose their homes, planes to crash, or disease to devastate a loved one is not someone I want to worship, serve, or even spend much time hanging around. From the violence of child abuse to the hypocrisy of church leaders damaging faith to promote profit, it’s clear not everything that happens is the will of God.

I do believe that while not everything that happens is God’s will it is also true that God has a will – a desire - for everything that happens. God desires abused children to be rescued, and restored. God desires hungry people to be fed, hurting people to healed, lonely people to be held, and all manner of good to come to our world. God’s will for us is all around us. But in order to see it, we must seek it and we must pursue it. Just as Jesus spoke of kneeding a little yeast into the bread - we must work God's will into fabric of this world.

 We’ve looked at all the unsatisfying answers to our questions and disappointment. Now let’s ask the question again. If God is all-powerful, and has this overriding desire for life abundantly to come to us, then why doesn’t it? Is there an answer that will satisfy our hearts? I can’t say I have found “the” answer, but I have found a peace – a place to rest and ponder this question. That resting spot is the understanding of our divinely designed partnership with God.

Want to understand the design? Then study the designer. Want to understand the designer? Study the design.

God made a system, not a “stand alone” world. God created a universe with things like gravity (as one of my favorite bumper stickers says, “Obey gravity, it’s the law!”), systems and structures. God made life - all life - into a system and gave that system some mechanisms to secure it. Earthquakes happen because tectonic plates shift and the pressure must release or the earth will explode. Hurricanes happen because of hot water, wind and the earth’s rotation. It’s the natural consequence to a set of parameters. It’s not because someone is bad or good. It’s not because God loves or hates. It’s the way the design works.

 A good parent obeys the rules he/she sets forth for the child. So I don't think God messes with the design a whole lot. I am not suggesting that God is forced to obey gravity, but I do think God chooses to let the system work as it was designed, even when the outcome is sometimes great loss. When that happens, God's tears fall, and God's inspiration is seen in all who aid, help, sacrifice and struggle.

Death and loss in Japan, or Libya, or at your neighbor's house may not be God's desire. But bringing light, life, hope and healing to those places is definitely encapsulated within the heart of God. Instead of legitimatizing those phony baloney media hounds who are slinging blame and condemnation in the name of the God who made us, let us show God's true "will." Let us show charity, compassion, giving, hope, interaction, selflessness, and love. Most of all, love. That would be downright miraculous.

"The Architect" by Jared Cullum

Spirituality is...A Do-Over

"With God, every moment is the moment of beginning again."
Catherine Doherty

     One of the most awesome and powerful elements of childhood is the "Do-Over".  You remember the "Do-Over" don't you?  It usually happened when someone new was playing a game and violated a rule without knowing it, or there was so much confusion or contesting about a play in a game that the simplest, best method for solving the crisis was simply to pretend the event never happened and start again.  Do-Over's are metaphysical miracles. They are part time-travel (going back as if something never happened), part opportunity (a baseball strike before a do-over could become a hit the second time around), and all grace.

     As we grow up, we seem to use Do-Overs less and less, and we seem to need them more and more. A chance to go back, a chance to re-do, and a chance to change the outcome of our actions or in-actions would change the game of our lives and the world entire. 

     In the bible, there is a story of a woman accused of adultery.  The bible describes the scene this way:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”   John 8:3-11

We may be tempted to think of that scenario as her "Do-Over".  But we would be wrong.  It isn't a Do-Over for her --- no one who gets that close to death can pretend it didn't happen.  It's a Do-Over for the crowd - for us.  They have judged, accused and sentenced her - they have treated her badly, and looked upon her with neither mercy, nor wisdom. Jesus stops this event before it gets any worse, and by pointing out their own sin gives them a chance to walk away, think about it, and hopefully do better the next time around.

Spirituality - the ability to look internally and give mercy externally is a constant invitation to Do-Over. It is the comfort that reminds us it is never too late to begin again.

Imagine Jesus, compassionate and protective, standing with the woman caught in the act of adultery, challenging the crowd to examine their souls. It is a moment of tense silence as the stones in their hands grow heavy with the weight of their own sins. What if, suddenly, one person unable to see his sin (or unwilling to admit it) throws a rock at the woman? It strikes her, and bounces to the ground. What would happen? You know. So do I. She would die under a barrage of stones as the flood gates of self righteousness open.

But what then? How could there possibly be a Do-Over then?  The answer lies with the stones.

What would happen to the stones? Would they lay on the ground jagged and stained? Would someone collect them and show them in a museum? Would someone in her family retrieve them, sharpen them and throw them back at members of the crowd? And perhaps the most intriguing question of all - what would Jesus, the Savior, do with those stones?

I believe Jesus would pick up the stones one by one and with his tears and his own garment clean the blood from their surface and use them to build a bridge or a well or a church. I believe Jesus would reclaim those stones in the name of the Holy God who made them and use them for hope's purpose. I believe Jesus would make a lesson and a life change of those stones.  I believe he would make those stones a monument to the power of beginning again.

We live in a world where sinners throw stones every day. We hurl insults, divide with prejudice, and judge one another without hardly any thought to the stones we are throwing or the sin we deny. Jesus is pretty clear. If you have sin in your life, then you must seek forgiveness, reconcile with God and change your ways. And until you do that wonder of wonders -- leave the stones on the ground.  Only a person without sin may throw a stone (and, really, why would that person want to?).

Jesus is still in front of us - writing in the sand, reminding us to search our hearts, to build some bridges, and to never forget the power of the Do-Over.