Spirituality is...a Bended Knee

Baines:  Have you even bent your knees, Malcolm?.
Malcolm X:  Yes, when I was picking a lock to rob someone’s house
Baines:  Tell Allah that.  (Malcolm tries to kneel but can’t bring himself to do it.) You can grovel and crawl for sin but not to save your soul. Pick the lock, Malcolm. Pick it!
Malcolm X: I want to. God knows I want to.
         “Malcolm X” directed by Spike Lee.

In many of the world's religious practices, the bended knee holds a special place and spiritual value. Whether it is kneeling in prayer, the lotus position, sitting with someone and holding hands or bowing in faith -- there is something powerful about bending your knees. Most people talk about kneeling before God as an act of submission to God, and the physical acknowledgment of who God is in relation to who we are.  But, kneeling or bending the knee has a lot more advantages and purposes than reinforcing the fact that God is bigger than us. Bending your knees offers a host of spiritual lessons.

Flexibility 

I don't know about you - but I don't have a problem kneeling down on the floor. The problem I have is getting back up! I am always grateful I don't go to a church that practices kneeling in prayer during its Sunday worship because the moaning and groaning it takes to put me back in standing position would ensure me a seat in the narthex or our choir would begin to repeatedly sing "dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!"  I am simply not flexible.
   "You should try yoga," some helpful person will say.
   "I love yoga," I respond. "Except for all the falling down and screaming."
   "That has never been a part of my yoga class," they say.
   "Then you've clearly never been there with me."
 Flexibility isn't just something good for the body. It's good for the soul too.

Inflexibility is one of the things Jesus strongly opposed when he talked about the Pharisees dedicating themselves to the "letter of the law, but not the spirit."  Too often people have confused worshiping the "One God" with enforcing the "one way" - one way to think, one way to be, one way to know.  Yet the bible describes itself as the "living word" and what do we know about living things? The more flexible they are - the more suited to both surviving and thriving.

Cats:  Our flexible overlords

That is not to say the Bible can "mean anything" - but it does mean that the more we are open to history, learning, listening and growing in biblical understanding the stronger we become in faith and in life. 

Function

 One of the many things I've discovered since I started gardening is the simple fact that if you want to get your hands in the dirt - you've got to put your knees on the ground. I saw plenty of tools at Home Depot designed to let people stand up while working on the garden, but none of them seemed as efficient or as functional as just getting on ground level and getting things done.

Spiritually bending allows us to be closer - closer to people, closer to the problems, closer to the joy, closer to the work.  That proximity gives us the heart and ability to reach out with God's love and God's empowerment and make things happen in the world. Spiritual bending may mean we have to go places unfamiliar to us, or hear things that challenge us. It may mean we have to refresh our minds and hearts in God more frequently to be clear on what God is calling us to do. Almost always - spiritual bending, like physical bending, will develop our muscles and led to a strengthen of our heart and spirit.  My favorite quote on spiritual bending comes from Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer (of the Talmud):

"If you want to pull a friend out of the mud, don't hesitate to get a little dirty."

Focus

One of the first things we teach youth workers or people who work with small children is that the best way to instruct them or have a conversation with them is to sit down in a chair or on your knees to be at their eye level. It is much nicer for them to see the adults who are speaking to them than to be talked at from above.However, the benefit is not just for the child - but for the adult too.

Once you get down to that level - you instantly get a sense of how big the world is and how overwhelming it can be. You realize that to spend most of your time looking up at things, not being able to reach things without help, and experiencing most people as a talking set of calves is to be at mercy to the forces around you.  Spiritually bending the knee has the same benefit. You aren't just showing submission to God, but you are reminding your spirit how very big the world is, and how very much we need and long for someone who can reach all the counters, and guide us safely through the things that crowd around us.

There are many postures in faith that give us spiritual abundance. When there is turmoil God wants us to stretch out and rest. When there is injustice, God wants us to stand up and fight. Yet in the day to day relationship we have with God, there is always a time to bend.

Spirituality is...Opening Your Eyes

What are we scared of? Why are we frightened of the dark?

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's nothing but a spark

Everyone's longing. Everyone's longing to be wise.

What if its simple? Easy as opening  your eyes.

               "Breathe" by The Kennedys

  

Spirituality  can be transformed, enhanced and nurtured through readings and writings in sacred texts. However, while we manage to find plenty of spiritual encouragement in everything from TV sitcom theme music to elegant 15th century poetry, we seem to have problems finding it in a text designed for spiritual encouragement. The bible.

Too often the bible is written off as an archaic rule book we really don't need or it is studied at such a close and scrutinizing range that we miss the larger point of living in the world with a faith based on love.  The problem isn't just the fact we rarely read anymore - but the lens we look through when we read it.

Not long ago I heard a woman say, “I love C.S. Lewis”.  That certainly made my ears perk up!

“Which book do you like best?” I inquired. “Screwtape Letters? Great Divorce? Mere Christianity?”

“Oh,” she replied, as if antennas had started growing out of my ears. “I’ve never read any of his books!”

“But you love him?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen those Narnia movies several times!”

Whether I like it or not, we are becoming a nation of “see-ers” more than a nation of readers. As a writer, that’s something I would like to rail against. However, I have to admit I do it too. With limited time and patience, watching a 2 hour movie sometimes seems easier than reading an 800 page book.  

I’ve often wondered what would happen if we turned the Bible into a movie, or better yet, a series since the story is much too big for one film. Series films worked for Harry Potter, Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Why not the Bible?  They could cast different directors to do the different parts.

In my perfect world the following directors would be cast:

For the creation narrative – A great naturalist director like David Attenborough. It would, of course, be narrated by Morgan Freeman (or James Earl Jones, if Mr. Freeman is busy).

For the lives, dramas and loves of the Patriarchs, their wives and children – Nora Ephron, queen of the romantic comedy/drama would be great.

For the laws of Leviticus through Numbers – Morgan Spurlock, of “Supersize Me” and “30 Days” fame can do a documentary where he tries to live by the whole law for 30 days.

Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon – Definitely Merchant and Ivory – with Emma Thompson cast the “the Beloved”.

Prophets – Michael Moore could do an investigative documentary on the lives of the prophets and their messages and if he’s still too controversial, then a turn by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour might be interesting.

Who better to tell the gospel story with its miraculous conclusion than the master of happy endings, and resurrections – Stephen Spielberg?

Nick Cassavetes, director of acclaimed memoir movies like “The Notebook” and “My Sister’s Keeper” would do a great job with the epistles.

And for Revelation, with its vibrant imagery and final battle, there can be none other than action-disaster maven Michael Bay.

Armageddon: This time it's personal!

Maybe, if we filmed it that way, people might be willing to give the Bible a second chance (or even a first look).

Reconnecting with God can be enhanced greatly by reconnecting with the love story set before us to help us understand the nature of God in relationship.  Sadly, many people have a preconceived view of the bible which acts as a deterrent to their investigation of scripture.

• “The Bible is so anti-woman.”
• “It’s nothing but a bunch of rules that don’t matter anymore.”
• “The Old Testament God is so angry; I can’t stand to read it. It’s like being trapped in a car with my grandfather who is throwing a raging fit and telling me how messed up I am.”
• “It’s a series of folk and cultural narratives that have nothing to do with my life.”
• “The Bible is just used to shame and keep us from asking real questions.”

 On and on the stereotypes about the Bible persist.  And yet, when you find yourself saying one or more of those sentences you aren’t revealing anything about the Bible; you are showing what lens you’ve been looking at it through.

Whether you see the Bible through the lens of a child who was preached to or punished with Biblical edicts, or from the academically detached lens of literary criticism, you aren’t giving it a chance to permeate your heart, mind and soul with the living truth and inspiring examples it has to offer.

Seen differently:

• ·         “The Bible lifts up women as examples of courage, faith, hope and life”
• ·         “Living by codes like “do unto others” and “love your neighbor” can make your life better and joyous.”
• ·         “The Old Testament God tries time and time again to make a lasting love with the people of Israel, and every time they fail that relationship God forgives them, brings them back and tries again. The Old Testament is the story of a God who never stops reaching.”
• ·         “The stories of rage, regret, love, sacrifice, ambition, and hope are still played out in our relationships with each other to this day.”
• ·         “The Bible wants us to think, like Thomas did, and shows Jesus revealing answers to the questions and proof to the doubts. The Bible repeatedly encourages us to ask, seek, reach and knock.”

How can the same Bible create both of those lists?  It isn’t the book, it’s the eye of the beholder that matters. If you aren’t happy with the way you see the Bible and its wisdom, then change your lens and look again. Stop seeing the bible as an "old book" and start seeing it as a new hope.  Recognize it as a love story - between God and the people of Israel (OT) and God and everyone else (NT).

At it's core spirituality is about openness.  In terms of the bible -

Open the book

Open your mind

Open your heart

Open your life

Open your eyes.

 

Spirituality is...a Forever Change

Xena: See how calm the surface of the water is. That was me once. And then....(throws a large rock in)....the water ripples and churns. That's what I became.
Gabrielle: But if we sit here long enough it will go back to being still again. You'll go back to being calm.
Xena: But the stone's still under there. It's now a part of the lake. It might look as it did before but it's forever changed.
"Xena: Warrior Princess" - Episode 1.3 Dreamweaver

 
 One of my favorite lessons in middle school science was the Mobius Strip. They are easy to make. Take a strip of paper, give it a twist then tape one end to another creating one strand. The curious thing about the mobius strip is that because of the twist - you can trace the entire surface of the strip in one continuous movement without ever coming to an end or an edge.  It is both changing and unending. It's good sometimes to remember spirituality follows that form.  Why is it good to remember? Because it is so easy to forget.

The Myth of Lost Faith

I've heard it. I've said it. You've heard it. And maybe, just maybe, you've said it too.  "Lost faith."   I usually encounter the myth of lost faith when talking with a group of people or listening to prayer requests.  However, when you stop and think about it - its something that seems to hang in the air around religious conversations  like a mosquito swarm.

•      "Please pray for my son-in-law. He's lost his faith."
•      "I used to be active in youth group but when I grew up I saw church as hypocritical and I just lost my faith in it."
•      "I don't want my students reading ideas from the Jesus Seminar.  They could lose their faith."
•      "I'm going to a pastor's conference on reclaiming those who are lost to faith."  
•      "Losing my Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in American and Found Peace" is a book by former LA Times religion reporter William Lobdell. 

Surrounded by so much rhetoric and repetition it becomes easy to believe lost faith really happens. However there exists numerous forms of evidence to suggest faith really doesn't get lost at all. It changes, it causes ripples in the calm waters of our being, and it may seem to disappear beneath the surface but the fact remains that once you've had a spiritual experience you are forever changed.

Part of the reason for this myth is the tendency of evangelists to promote spiritual change as a "one time only" kind of deal.  When they are talking to someone about Christianity they really play up how gaining a relationship with God through Christ is going to change you.  What they fail to stress is that once you change - you're gonna change again, and again, and again.  So we see the phenomenon similar to William Lobdell's situation frequently.  People's lives are a mess, they embrace Christianity and change, then they get disappointed (in Lobdell's case he traces his change of heart to years of reporting on the Catholic sexual abuse scandals), or they embrace something else and they change again, claiming to have lost faith.  Only they haven't lost it. They have changed it and chosen to believe in something more comfortable, or less disappointing or more reflective of where they are in life.

People marvel and feel spiritual awe when they encounter the beauty of a deer drinking from a creek, or look at the sonogram of their new baby getting ready to enter the world.  They may place the credit for this awe on God, science, or nature, or kismet, but the fact remains the spiritual experience is still a part of their being - they haven't lost it at all. These feelings change them and add to the complex system they understand in life.  What is seen, can't be unseen. The rock is in the lake and nothing is the same again.

Jesus frequently describes the idea of teaching about faith as "planting seeds" and uses quite a few seed parables to remind us faith life is a process which involves change at every juncture.  When you plant a seed the ground is changed and the seed is changed. As it grows the plant will change. When it is harvested the fruit will change and the harvester will change from having the experience of gathering fruit. The ground isn't lost, the seed isn't lost, the fruit isn't lost.  It's all just changed.

mmmm....change is good.....

Once we rid our thinking of the myth of lost faith - spirituality regains its place as a connection we all can share.  When we no longer have to hold on to our faith with such a tight grip that we can't read, hear, see or learn things that challenge us, we open ourselves up to a more adventurous faith and a stronger bond with God.  When we don't have to label people as "lost" - we find our commonness with them creating the pathway to peace, not the highway of suspicion, superiority or seclusion.

Think of the great things that happen in our hearts and in our world when churches stop scrambling for programs to keep from losing attendance, and start programs designed to bring more of heaven to earth. Imagine the peace that could be found in families when we stop thinking someone who is experiencing spiritual change is "off the path" and start embracing them with love so they can find a steady path to walk upon.  Without fear, we can revel in the times we share spiritual moments with one another, knowing after that interaction or experience we will not be the same again.

There are people who fall into depression. There are people who seem to have given up on life.  There are those days we have when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling and we wonder if it wouldn't just be easier not to believe.  However, that is not a loss of faith. It is a blockage of a faith that is still there.  Even in the most angry heart a shadow remains of the good, the God, and the positive spiritual experiences.  With medical treatment, connection or persistence that shadow can guide us like a sundial back to a place where our faith is waiting.

Spirituality is not being seduced by the calm water and pretending the ripples never happened.  It is also not being caught up in the ripples and thinking the calm water will never return.  Most importantly, spirituality is not pretending that when the calm waters do return that everything is the same as it was before.  Spirituality is the forward moving, continuously changing lake of our soul.  May we refresh it, and be refreshed in it, always.