Oregon Associates Retreat 2011 #4

There is a story about a monk who came to Joshu (The Chinese Zen Master) at breakfast time and said, "I have just entered this monastery to learn about God. Please teach me."

"Have you eaten your porridge yet?" asked Joshu.
"Yes, I have," replied the monk.
"Then you had better wash your bowl," said Joshu.

Bowl washing… not the inspiring advice he was expecting. We live in a self-help show-and-tell culture. We want our lives to be meaningful, to make a difference… our faith to make a difference.

We have all the appropriate descriptions for what we want, we know the jargon: we want to practice mindful-living. We want to be fully present. We want intentionality, to be alive in our own skins. We want to live in the NOW. Well NOW for that monk was time to wash his bowl. But because that act had no special significance, wasn’t meaningful, it wasn’t even on his radar.

Of course there are always going to be times when we’re tired or unfocused, times when we’re too caught up and ignore the details.

But in our culture it’s more insidious than that. We quite literally don’t see or notice, or don’t pay attention… to the life that is right in front of us. We’re looking ahead to after the bowl is washed— that’s when we’ll get the payoff. As if there were a payoff.

We don't want to "just" wash the bowl — or whatever small, insignificant, trivial task we may be engaged in. We want to comprehend it. Or turn it into some sort of competition. I washed twenty-five bowls today. How many did you wash?

I am so guilty of this. For me it’s taking out the garbage. We keep our garbage cans in one of the closets. It’s a temporary situation because we haven’t finished landscaping the outside of the building. We need to buy a couple of those garbage can “houses” that you lock up so nobody can steal your garbage, go through the bags and make a big mess all over the sidewalk. (This is New York, even the garbage is under lock and key.)

So for now, the cans are inside the house, in a closet. Garbage days are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and Saturday is also recycle day. That means in addition to the big black plastic garbage bags there are also clear bags with bottles and cans and paper.

I seem to be the only one who can remember when it’s garbage day. We once had a maintenance man to do this work but now we don’t. It’s not a hard job: you pull the bag out of the can, tie it up and put it out by the curb. It just has to be done before 7:00 am. If you do it the night before, the bags get ripped open and the contents strewn on the sidewalk. So sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 am the garbage goes out.

If we forget the closet starts to smell. If Tuesday’s garbage waits til Thursday, some of the contents have been four days in the tomb and they stinketh. The bag is also heavier now; it won’t come out of the can as easily.

I used to do it every garbage day. But there was a worry that if that continued I’d go through garbage burn-out and get resentful. We’ve had some history with that in our convent… one sister will want to play the hero and take on more work than she can handle. The other sisters let it happen. She gets tired, bummed out that no one else is stepping up to the plate to help, then the resentment starts to simmer… it’s not pretty.

So we agreed that since one sister is breakfast cook on Tuesday and another on Thursday, that they would take over those days and I would do Saturday. Saturday. Saturday is our “sleep in” day. Saturday is recycle day… more bags to put out. See how that sense of competition creeps in? It’s insidious.

Each year I come out here and stand up in front of you and talk about something. Some of you say: “Oh, what you said— I needed to hear that.” Or “I’ve been struggling with such and such and your comments put it in a different perspective.” When that synchronicity happens it’s the Holy Spirit. It’s Grace.

Because the truth of the matter is this: with you, I’m preaching to the choir. You are already holy, faithful members of Christ’s amazing Body. I’m really preaching to myself.

I need to hear the words "let go of the old story" so God’s new story can emerge. I need to hear "It’s difficult to be a Christian. Embrace the difficulty." I need to hear going deeper in faith changes everything. So I won’t be dumfounded when everything changes. I need to hear that I am a fig tree with a measly harvest waiting for God and the day of reckoning to arrive. I need to say “yes” to my watershed moments.

Greg Levoy said this:
Wherever our most primal fears reside, our fears of the dark, of death, of being devoured, of meaninglessness, of lovelessness, or of loss changes— wherever those fears reside is good, because beneath them lie gems of wisdom— and maybe a vision or a calling. Wherever you stumble: on a tree root, on a rock, on fear, on shame, on vulnerability, on someone else’s words, on the truth— dig there.
Dig there and be ready to be surprised.

Friday I spoke about Jesus being busy, but never in a hurry. In the middle of his busy schedule (teaching, healing, caring) lots of people clamoring for his attention, the whole town gathered at the door— what did he do? He withdrew to a solitary place to pray.

His disciples couldn’t understand it. They were put out, hunted him down… Jesus! What are you doing here?!? Nothing!?! Don’t you want to be a good Messiah? Get back down there. People are counting on you. What will people think? Jesus, you need a time-management seminar—you could accomplish more.

Okay, so that’s a pretty loose interpretation of Mark’s Gospel. But even the literal translation sounds spot on: “Jesus, everyone is looking for you.”

It’s just another variation on “You have some nerve saying no.” We’ve all been subjected to that kind of thinking. We’ve also more than likely projected it onto others who said no to us. But there are problems inherent with this way of thinking.

• There’s an assumption that worth comes from what we do or produce. If we believe that then we’re motivated to be indispensible.
• We assume that withdrawal (whether it’s Sabbath time or R&R) is wasteful. And we should be guilty about it. The inner voice chirping in our ear — shouldn’t you be doing something worthwhile with your time?

What did Jesus say when the disciples said “everyone is looking for you”?

He said: “Then let us go somewhere else.”

Today we would say Jesus needed a “spin doctor.” But the bottom line is this: For Jesus, withdrawing is not optional. It is intentional and essential.

We may enjoy the adrenaline rush of being needed, but when we give in to the should of being all things to all people— when we give up the need to withdraw or rest or renew— we lose the rhythm of life that feeds our souls.

Jesus is saying to his disciples: Do you see that clump of people? Do you have any idea why I have any power in that clump? It’s because I regularly say NO. I regularly withdraw to a place where I listen to a different voice, my Father’s voice— about my identity.

What happens is… if we don’t say no when we need to, the no will come by default. And then we will end up saying no to the ones we love the most.

Oregon Associates Retreat 2011 #3

I was talking this morning about Faith — how it is always about choices, but more importantly, about how those choices are specific.

For Jesus, for the first disciples and for all the brave souls throughout the ages, faith is and was a courageous choice for God. Today that’s us. We are the brave souls of our own age. Faith changes our lives, and our changed lives make all the difference.

I would be lying to myself and to you if I didn't say up front, transformation hurts. Some choices will limit our movement and require dying to self. As much as we may fight this notion: Faith was never intended to be easy or casual.

Our retreat this year comes on the heels of Easter. Something truly “magical and revolutionary” happened that first day. It transformed maybe what? At the most, say 100 lives. Then those believers told others, and pretty soon… a movement began. That movement sent evangelists to the far reaches and that produced a wonderful array of gospels, letters and stories.

Now it also produced a steady and tragic stream of power struggles, scheming bishops, beheadings and burnings, The Inquisition, heresy trials, European history marked by warfare and torture, and now, today in our own time, church wars for our right to declare other people wrong. For many denominations, even ours I’m afraid, Religious Content is what we fight about. God didn't call us to be consumers of religious content. And even though Mt. Angel has a lovely gift shop full of wonderful things, Christianity isn't about consuming religious products. And Christianity is especially not about consuming content that someone else created.

Christianity is about transformation of our lives. It’s about sitting with a blank screen of your own life and creating something, as best you can, and offering that something to God. It is about dreaming and imagining, working and worrying, serving and loving – making a difference with life.

Faith isn't something we can download to watch or to play. Faith is something we have the audacity to embrace, knowing it will compel us to become a “new creation.”

So as we come to the end of the Easter Octave we must remember: Easter Christianity is about people submitting their lives to the love and will of God. It is about receiving and giving mercy. It is about putting down weapons, or tethers, winning each day some small victory over greed, learning fresh each day to love our enemies, (and if we have no enemies at hand, to love those who annoy us.) It’s about showing up each day to join God's never-ending push for justice and peace.

Easter Christianity takes courage.

Courage, like love, is a decision, an act of the will. It’s not the absence of fear… no, Courage sees all the reasons to be afraid — from bad numbers in our checkbook and our parish enrollments, to bad leaders to bad enemies to bad luck. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it — courage decides to "walk through the storm with our head held high."

John’s Gospel says: The Word was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. (John 1.10-11)

We can choose to be like that… not to accept him. But rather than reject Jesus’ radical call, I think we want to go deeper. We want to know the Word that has come into our world. We want to accept him. We want to know why Jesus came for us and what it is, if anything, we should be doing about it.

We want to submit to God — first by discovering what those words mean.
I like to think of myself as an open-minded, change-affirming believer, and yet I sense that the Word is way more radical and disturbing than I allow for, not to mention more enlivening and focusing.

In Luke it talks about John the Baptist’s willingness to submit his own agenda to God’s:

John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. " (Luke 3.16)

Life is filled with sadness. We don’t admit that to each other very often. Beginnings require endings. Within the joy and zest of life is always the salt of tears. The stories about John the Baptist speak of a fundamental truth:
Much had to pass away for Jesus to emerge. His coming brought watershed moments to a battered yet proud nation, to a religious establishment that probably was a lot like ours today, to people in one village after another, to a group of followers and family, and to himself.

For Jesus to emerge, much had to end, and those endings were difficult. John's situation epitomizes the trauma: think of it: he had the brass ring almost, people from all walks of life responded eagerly to his hard work, some even hoped he was the messiah… and now he must step aside for another.

Can any of us really know who or what died in us yesterday in order for today to arrive? Or the joy that we haven't yet fully accepted, for fear of the watershed it signals?

We think of faith as a supplement to life, something new and wonderful that we add to what has gone before.

But in fact, faith is a watershed.
(Watershed: an important point of division or transition between two phases, conditions)

It is an ending. It is a time of things passing away. It is roads diverging and our having to decide. While that choice might bring great joy, it also brings much sadness. Our willingness to accept that sadness says something very real about our faith.
It’s difficult to be a Christian.

John said Yes in his watershed moment. Many say No. (Not only no, but hell no.) No more watersheds, no more change, no more pain of loss, no more sadness.

Still, the watersheds keep appearing. For there is no other way onward. Life always requires death.

Oregon Associates Retreat 2011 #2

It's difficult to be a Christian. Looking up, down, out, in, looking at those we love and especially at those we don’t, looking at things ending and things beginning.

Nothing will get better for us until we embrace that difficulty and do the hard work of following Jesus through the specifics. To look for God in daily life, is to open the door, to step into the flood, to see what God sees, and then to decide whether to care. That decision to care or not is a defining moment of faith.

Take Morality For example: It’s sad: we live in immoral times. Not one of the Ten Commandments is widely in force. Graven images are common, especially in church. The Sabbath, no matter if yours is Saturday or Sunday… the Sabbath is the prime shopping day. Murder is carefully defined so we can allow for all kinds of ways to kill each other and still get away with it. And Coveting—well, that’s the heartbeat of advertising. Stealing and dishonoring are common. Bearing false witness is an Internet art form.

It would be funny except immorality hurts real people. At the level of an actual marriage among regular people, adultery can be devastating. Most marriages won't survive it.

And then there's money. We live some no-man’s land between grace and greed. No wonder Jesus told us to “love one another.” We can do it. I know Jesus' commandment – “love one another” – is within our power. We just aren’t very consistent.

Our Creed may encourage generalization, but the way Jesus taught suggests that "I believe in God" isn't enough. It needs to be, "I believe in God enough to submit my will to God today and to make this next decision with God in mind." Or, "I believe in Jesus and will follow his teachings and his model as I greet my family this morning, as I take my part in the workplace today and as I walk home tonight." I keep saying it. Faith is about specifics. It isn't enough to declare a general intention to be faithful. Faith manifests in specific decisions: Decisions about allocating time, managing money, responding to people, dealing with needs, monitoring our own personal morality.

Shallow religion is easy. Go to church, enjoy what you can, make a token commitment, keep your motor running. See God as a friend, Jesus as a kindly shepherd. Buy a cross, put a Bible on your desk.

Going deep in faith… changes everything.

Not only is it uncomfortable because A: we don’t like change, but B: because it takes way more effort and time. As God's fullness comes into view, the old ways of doing religion don’t work. Going deep in faith means that all those rich, deep and troubling nuances of Jesus become pretty disturbing. The real Jesus challenges us, holds us accountable, sets an impossibly high standard for ethical behavior. He demands openness and giving up of control. I don’t know about you, but that strikes terror in my heart.

Deep is dangerous. Shallow may be dull and lifeless, but it’s a whole lot safer. It takes trust to go deeper in faith.

Deep water happens everywhere, and our ability to swim in it comes and goes. We can be capable one minute and incapable the next. We make wise decisions, then dumb decisions. Not even the most perfect, seamless resume can hide the painful reality that we are flawed creatures. We hurt the ones we love, we squander opportunities, we fail.

Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.” (Luke 13.6)

This is our relationship with God. Few of us, not even nuns, spend our days in fervent prayer. Even the most diligent Christians have jobs, families, duties as citizens. Most of us also treasure “down-time.” God knows we are distracted.

God waits in patience for us to remember who we are as children of God or, to use Luke's metaphor, as fig trees called to bear fruit. At some point, push comes to shove. We either live into our true identity or we slip into delusion and spiritual amnesia. We give or we take. We love or ignore. We serve others or serve ourselves. We bear the fruit that God created us to bear, or we take up space and yield nothing that is worthy.

At this point, to follow Jesus' parable, God makes one more attempt to get our attention. If that fails, God moves on. God doesn’t smite us, but God may lose hope in us. We have tried God's patience, and now God will turn to others. It would be a bleak moment when we realize God has finally stopped looking for us to bear fruit.

Jesus said, “So the owner said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'” (Luke 13.7)

Christian leaders were reshaping the reality of Jesus within years of his death, adapting his teachings to their own agenda, concocting words for him to have said, portraying God as whatever they wanted God to be. In their hands, Jesus went from anti-establishment prophet to ultra-establishment figurehead, from peacemaker to warrior, from subtle teacher of disconcerting parables to a partisan judge vowing death to the Church's enemies. The Jesus who loved everyone became filled with hatred, and his open circle became a closed hierarchy.

What, then, are we to make of a parable that portrays God as indignant and determined to hold creation accountable and Jesus as an advocate for patience – not infinite patience, but “one more year”?
If you visit ten different churches, you’ll hear ten different takes on this parable, each one tailored to its congregation. They will range from God's determination to hold us accountable to gentle images of an ever-patient friend.

On the one hand, Jesus' parables deliberately leave room for many different understandings.On the other, we need to hear what Jesus actually said. The distracted shouldn't listen for a God who waits patiently for them to pay attention. The prosperous shouldn't seek a God who rewards the elect. The oppressed need more than a God who is on their side.

At the center is the Jesus who actually was. When we find his authentic words, they sound like “tough love” in Luke's parable. God expects us to bear fruit. Jesus bargains for us, but only for another chance, not for a permanent exemption from accountability.

There is life in that reality. Only you can know where you stand in that cycle of patience and testing. But Jesus' parable assures us all that the moment of reckoning does happen. God comes “looking for fruit,” and either finds it or doesn't find it.

These may be harsh words this morning, but I think we need to be pushed and stretched. (Take exercise. I hate to exercise. I quit at the first sensation of "the burn," and as a result I just get flabbier.) If we consider the pain of growth wrong and blame and punish those who caused it, we make no difference.

If our faith makes no difference, what's the point?

Oregon Associates Retreat 2011 #1

The theme for our time together this weekend comes from a sermon I heard earlier this year. The jist was this: Through God’s abundance we’ve been given so much… and two hands to hold it.

We have received and can continue to receive every day, but only if our hands are empty. If our hands are still holding on for dear life to those blessings, there’s nowhere to put the new ones.

The message of Jesus never much emphasized the receiving part… but he always spoke to the giving part. So we must learn to let go, to give what we’ve been given away. Thus the theme: hands to receive and hands to bless. Simultaneous receiving and blessing… that’s become my personal goal.

When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” (John 2.3-4)

Jesus made an assumption. In that moment when he replied to his mother, before he acted, he was relying on his preconceived notion of his time and what it would look like. He was tethered to a sense of timing. I can relate to that, can’t you?

We're all tethered to something. I don’t notice it in the always-on Internet world of New York, but I have become totally tethered to the Web. Free wifi in airports and hotels is important to me. Others who are not now, and will probably never be, internet users, are tethered to something else: yesterday's ideas or yesterday's systems.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s wi-fi, or cars, or traditions, or world-views, roles, privileges – If you take them away, we feel lost. So this story of the wedding is a perfect story for us, to help us let go of our own tethers.

Our tethers don't define us. They might help us function and make us feel useful. But in God's economy, dislocation is often essential for stepping forward. Losing our grip on yesterday's assumptions and assurances is critical for doing what God wants today.

“Dying to self,” as Jesus commanded, isn't just about letting go of bad habits and self-centered ways; it's also about leaving behind those good things we thought we knew, things we worked hard to attain. It means putting aside old stories in order to claim God's new story.

Some theologians believe Jesus knew it all, had a perfect plan for his short three-year ministry, but this passage from John suggests he discovered his purpose and identity along the road. To do that, he had to let go of his own yesterday.

The miracle at Cana was more than magic with water. It was the miracle of Jesus cutting his tether and moving on. He lived his own eventual counsel: let God name the hour.

I think we want faith to be important, but too often it ends up being the ultimate add-on to life. We get an education, get the job, get the family, get the toys, and then we want to get faith. We get everything we want in life, and then we get right with God. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Then we discover the truth. The path to God goes by way of loss and bondage, not by accomplishment… by letting go, by keeping our hands empty.

We enter a wilderness, not a comfortable place. We hunger and then are fed. We fail to see and then are shown more. We feel lost and then are found.

We stand naked before life, not the heroes we wanted to be, not the flawless stars, and then God asks us to come closer to a tomb that is empty. Empty of everything except God's mystery. Our plans for the day are shot. Our dreams for life prove hollow.

Have you ever noticed that when we read the Gospels, Jesus is often busy (as in occupied, needed, pulled, demanded, pushed). But Jesus is never in a hurry. Is it possible that we can change the way we live, not by addition, but by subtraction?

Maybe this weekend we can practice being empty. Take some time to think about the things that clutter your hearts and minds: write them in your journal.

• Do you need to be in a hurry?
• Do you need to impress those around you?
• Are you dissatisied with ordinary days and gifts of grace?
• Are you preoccupied with all that's left undone?

When our identities are defined by what we do or have, or earn, or strive for, or require in order to impress, we have everything to lose. Maybe this weekend we can work on losing it.

Paul Tillich tells us, "You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not seek for anything. Do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted." If that happens to us, we experience grace.

His words are a reminder that we can live and choose and commit "from acceptance" and not "for acceptance." I'm not doing any of this (Sabbath, prayer, rest, reflection, renewal) to impress anyone or earn stars in my crown in heaven. Life is full. This life. This moment. This relationship. This conversation. This encounter. The sacred present begins here.

Oregon #2

The following is the first part of the second meditation.

I’m willing to bet we have all heard this quote: Faith is a journey, not a destination. Most of us have experienced that journey for ourselves. It’s not always a pleasant sight. It’s not always a comfortable trip.

Explorers are people who live for the journey. They will tell you that the joy of discovery outweighs any risk of getting lost or changed. But feeling lost is scary. And being changed can make you wish you’d never gone down that road at all.

These are some of what I like to call the universal truths about our faith that we are often all too eager to forget. So lets take a journey of our own, as explorers, discovering some of these universal truths, to see if they actually do ring true for us.

First, The central assertion of our faith is that the way of the Cross is the way of life. Not that we have to be physically nailed to a wooden plank, but that we do have to die. Specifically, while we are still living, we have to die to self, and only by doing that do we live. Just about everything about our faith has an ironic twist, and this is just the beginning.

We can live for others, and only by doing that, we learn love. We can deal with life as it is — wounds, pains, storms, wars, injustices and our own shortcomings — and only by doing that, discover life as God intends it to be. We aren't called by the Cross to escape life, but to embrace it.

Escape life. I talked a little about that this morning. After all doesn’t it say in the Bible we may in this world but not of it?

Well here’s one example: How many of us have, at one time or another tried to put Jesus in the role of scapegoat? We load our sins on him. He’s the savior. That’s his job. What if we have it wrong? What if his job as savior means showing us the courage to confess our sins, to bear their consequences, to seek God's mercy, and to start fresh. New Life. New Life. Now that would qualify as Good News.

Here’s another quote: Faith is a journey of infinite variety. Some of us have learned over the years not to project our own faith experiences and preferences onto others. There are many paths to God and all of them are valid. But in just about every faith tradition, except maybe Buddhism, there will be someone in charge who says: Faith has to proceed a certain way, follow certain rules or achieve certain ends.

In Texas they say: “Well I’ll tell you what…” Well, I’ll tell you what: whoever says that is just a bully. Trying to take away your freedom in order to feel better about himself.

Some people think that God had called us to rule the world and the Bible is our instruction book for how we can do that. There are those who actually believe that. You probably know a few. In that scenario, We could set rules, write a manual on correct procedures, worry about orders of ministry and the shape of liturgy. Rubrics would be big. Black would be black and white would be white, and we would not have to be wallowing in all those gray areas of life. It might be nice, but not real.

For myself, I think Jesus said Yes to his call from God before he understood everything that call meant. In fact, may not have understood it completely until the night before he died.

As much as we try to make it so, we simply are not members of a perfect institution started by a perfect man. We, too, have heard a puzzling call. We are trying and failing, and learning as we go. We, too, are being sent to the frontier of our capability, way beyond comfort and safety. Way beyond our understanding. 



We, too, will figure it out and then realize that what we gave along the way was all that God ever wanted. Now that would qualify as Good News.

Oregon #1a

The folks at the retreat seemed especially glad to hear I would be posting the meditations to my blog. (Just in case they were dozing) So here's the rest of the first address:

Then the devil led Jesus up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" (Luke 4.5-8)

We’re told in the Bible that these temptations all occurred at the end of Jesus’ time in the desert. (We don’t know what he was doing in the beginning… gathering wood, finding a rock for his head, looking out for snakes or scorpions… but at the end of his time he was more vulnerable than he’d been at the beginning. He was hungry. (Famished the Bible says) and he was no doubt grubby beyond belief, wanting a bath, a change to sweeter smelling clothes.

We know what that’s like. Early stages of crisis tend to bring out the best in us… later stages the worst.

Even in a given day, patience, compassion, and any ability to handle stress or adversity ebbs and flows. For me, an incident that hardly touches me in the morning can feel like a huge weight by the end of the day. So… when our patience ebbs and flows, what do we do? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Escape.
Run away from home.
Quit.

It's in those moments that we’re especially vulnerable, not only to our lesser instincts: irritability, frustration, condescension… but to the powers of darkness.

Satan offered Jesus escape. If he would just worship him, “all the kingdoms of the world” could be his. He could escape not only the wilderness, get a bath, change his clothes, but he could also escape the dreary oppression of his Jewish heritage. He could escape his own personal invisibility. He could escape everything that ties us down as humans.

Escape is the devil's deal. It comes up over and over again. If we’ll only forget our identity (our identity as children of God) and accept the easier path of evil, we can escape… all boundaries, all commitments, all worries, all consequences, all suffering.

We know the truth, of course. It never works out. We just trade in one misery for another… out of the frying pan into the fire.

Of course it doesn’t make the “deal” seem any less appealing. But our survival depends on remembering the truth. And that truth is the devil can’t deliver. Not just won’t, but can’t.

Jesus told us he was the father of lies. “Glory and Authority” haven’t been given to the devil. Those things stay with God.
So, whatever we think will help us escape: one more drink, an affair, a shopping spree, chocolate… cruelty… shunning anyone we consider lesser than… all those are just new bonds of oppression.

Even a retreat can promise escape. We’re in a special place, a “deserted place” because it’s empty of all our normal concerns. Some call it mountaintop (and not just because we’re up high, looking over the valley,) but because it’s away from our daily routine.

If your time here is blessed, it may be an intense experience, Maybe joyful even. But it may be sorrowful… because you can finally stop all the diversions and commitments that keep you on daily auto-pilot. When those fade into the silence, the real fears… the major concerns we’re normally not facing, can get our undivided attention.

So this time away, in this deserted quiet place, can be stressful. Or relaxing. It can be exhausting. Or energizing. And that’s because it’s about you. There’s no bills to pay, no office work, no meals to fix. We’re here. In the center of the universe.

But then, of course, it’s time to leave.

And when you get home your family didn’t share your experience. Your colleagues at work aren’t interested. You may want to share your experience so they can feel what you felt (whatever it was) because… Because you want to keep those feelings alive. For you. Nobody’s interested. It’s not that they’re hostile, or don’t care, they are just distracted.

More than likely, you’ll feel a sense of isolation. You grieve what you had because you’re losing it— bit by bit.

Now comes the frustration. You have to resume everyday life.

So, where is our faith in all this? That’s the dilemma. Since faith can seem like the ultimate mountaintop experience, that same experience causes a problem. It drives an emotional wedge between faith and life. As much as we pledge to and want to “venture forth in ministry” that ministry is probably back home. Back at work, back in the neighborhood, back on the very streets we have so enjoyed being away from.

What would Jesus do?

Well, we know what he did. He always came back.

He never stayed long in the deserted places or on the mountaintop. He kept moving, working his way back to the common ground of everyday life. That common ground is faith’s venue.

Thomas Merton wrote a lot about conversion of life. Conversion of life isn’t about attending retreats. A retreat may help, but only if we leave it behind.

So this weekend… here’s the invitation: come away to your deserted place and look inside. Ask yourself this question: What is it that you uniquely care about? What is the fire that is yours alone?

Jesus tapped into the fire burning in a few dozen men and women. He tapped longings that went deep enough to claim their lives.

So, for now, instead of reciting what the church tells us we ought to care about, lets just be explorers. And explore what we do care about. Let your longing, your yearnings… be your guide. That’s where God will meet you. That’s where you will meet God.

Now there’s a difference between escape and sabbath.
Sabbath is deliberately resting so you can go back. You press pause.
But that doesn’t mean the movie stops.

Jesus retreated to his deserted place. He pressed the pause button and gave himself the time he needed to recharge, to renew, to return to the world. It’s an art… this pressing pause. And we only learn by doing it.

Oregon #1

Another blessed year with the Associates in Oregon at Mt. Angel Abby.

Here's an excerpt from the first address:

From Frederick Beuchner’s The Longing for Home:
…our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do…And in a world where it's often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending, that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live.

—from A Letter to Benjamin

In the Bible it says “there’s nothing new under the sun.” I think that’s true. All the ancient knowledge of the universe, and our place in it, our connection to God, our inter-related-ness… all that resides within us. But we are dense bodies… made of the stuff of the earth. The irony is that because we are made of matter, we forget that we do matter.

Somewhere in our subconscious is the belief that while grace is lavish and unconditional, it is also limited. Cross God one too many times, fail too often, sin too much… and God will decide to take His love back.
God may love us, but He might not like us, so we have to worry that someday His love will run out.

For some reason, we aren’t wired for grace. We need to prove something. It’s all wrapped up in our value being tied to our performance. How do we greet each other?

"What do you do for a living? What did you do today? What have you done for me lately?

Too often religion means we have to clean up our act, sit up straight, earn something… while all the time worrying that we’re fooling everyone. Public opinion is a big deal in our culture, and it’s too easy to believe our own press, good or bad.

But I think Jesus came to teach us to let go of the need to appear good. Instead, slow down enough to listen to the Word within us, to live in the mystery of who we are. If we’re preoccupied with protecting our image, being model Christians, excellent parents… then all that does is lead us into the “look at me” behavior that is just another form of bondage.

We have to quit trying to be saints. Faith isn’t about believing the right things. It’s about love. And grace. So how do we tap into that knowing? How do we quiet down enough to hear God whisper “I’ll never take away my love?"

What we bring to God is deeper than we realize. But it’s frustrating not to be able to name it. There’s an inkling… it’s about that same yearning, that same longing Beuchner speaks about, but we get stuck. So maybe we need to bring to God our search for the name… the name of our empty place, the name of our despair, the name of what would heal us.

We certainly bring our worries to God: get me a job (especially in this economy;) save my marriage; fix my car; help my children succeed. And we help God out by providing the answer, as if God needs reminding.

And when the problem doesn’t go away we blame God. Or someone else for getting in God’s way.

So if we ask God for a name… what is my fear? What is my pain? What is my emptiness? Then instead of waging war on everyone else, maybe we can see God calm the storm.

It’s not magic. And trusting in magic is another way to escape. Things change because of long, slow and small increments. Countless hours of prayer, countless times of saying “yes” to God, countless instances of kindness, or forgiveness. One day at a time. One day at a time to win the battle over fear. Fear is the enemy: fear of change, fear of failure, fear of losing control, fear of losing out… fear of praying and hearing nothing but silence, fear of death.

Faith is only small steps toward courage.

Oregon Again!

What follows is my first retreat address from the Associates Retreat at Mt. Angel Abbey near Portland, Oregon last Friday evening. The second address was totally off the cuff, so I have no idea what I said. The third and fourth I have some notes for… so I'll post them eventually.

I had a long involved dream the first night I arrived in Oregon. I had not had any sleep the night before, and I had lain down to take a nap in the late afternoon. Only I slept through… the whole night. When I sleep long and hard like that, I dream. 

In the dream some people were coming for a retreat and I was going to show an audio visual meditation. Some others had heard about it and brought the rector of the church, who in turn brought some church officials from another country. All this took place in the basement of the church where I work on Tuesdays and Fridays, so… as in a lot of dreams, everything was all mixed up. My conscious mind was probably still concerned with Friday’s pantry session that takes place in that same basement, as well as with the Associates' retreat that I was to begin that next night. So, in this dream, as in many dreams, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. 

For some reason we needed batteries for the projector and there weren’t any. A few of us left to go buy batteries and got caught up in rush hour traffic, then an endless series of school buses and subway transfers… a wrong turn here, a blocked intersection there and every decision took us farther and farther from where we had started, farther and farther from where we wanted to be.

The emotions that were running high in the small group I was with, were anxiety, worry, fear…frustration, and anger.

There were about four or five of us in the group, and at some point, while we were waiting in a train station, someone asked about the retreat, and I gave them a little mini meditation on the subject of “embracing what is.” The truth was, I had no meditation on embracing what is (until I woke up from the dream that morning,) but it sounded really good (in the dream), and I’m always on the lookout for Holy Spirit input, so there it was.

It went something like this: When you get up in the morning you always have some expectations about what your day will look like. Certain things are supposed to happen. If you’re a scheduled person you probably keep a calendar. You know if today is a workday, a volunteer day, a play day. On my calendar, if it’s Tuesday I leave right after mass to go to St. Bart’s where I manage the food pantry. If it’s Wednesday, I’m the breakfast cook and the doorbell queen. That means I answer the door, listen to the phone messages. So Wednesday is not a day for me to schedule a doctor’s appointment or to go out grocery shopping.

But, even though we wake up with certain expectations, life will intervene. So the annoying interruptions, the unexpected crisis, the unannounced visitor will all (in some way) derail our best plans. What happens then?

Well, stuff happens.

It’s only in how we respond to the stuff that makes the difference. Now this thought is not unique… to either me, or my dream. Intellectually we each understand that you can’t change your neighbor. You can’t change the weather. You can’t change the fact that you cooked dinner for ten and fifteen showed up. Or that you cooked dinner for fifteen and five showed up. What you can change is your response. You can be angry. You can rail against the injustice. You can envision elaborate plans to punish whoever ruined your day with their incompetence, their thoughtlessness, their lack of attention to detail. Self-righteous anger is one of the first places we can go when stuff happens. But we also know that a steady diet of self-righteous anger is hard on the stomach and bad for the heart.

So, in my little train station meditation, I suggested they keep a little supply of one-word responses for each new day, and to pick one out of the stash first thing each morning when they woke up. The words that I suggested were all the usual suspects: gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, humor… Holy and enlightened people have been suggesting these same words for centuries, nothing new here. Why then, is it so much easier to get angry or annoyed or irritated than it is to feel gratitude? Your best friend learns she has cancer. You’re supposed to feel gratitude? At what?… that it was her and not you? Of course not.

But in the context of my dream, when we were off in Timbuktu through no fault of our own, and those we left behind were tired of sipping their cold coffee and were no longer waiting patiently for us to return… the responses that all of us were giving forth were ALL related to either anger or fear. Some were actually yelling into their cell phones, looking for someone to blame.

Blame, now there’s a concept. Think about blame. Blame relieves accountability. That’s really all it does. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. Well, that part is absolutely right. Too bad we can't stop there.

If it’s not my fault, then who’s fault is it?!?

Finding out who’s fault it is, is big business in our culture. Really. Think about it. People spend extra years in college so they can get law degrees. So they can spend long hours at work in law firms so they can make big bucks in law suits defending and accusing each other’s clients, just so they can determine who’s fault it is.

“Your client was negligent. Left a wet floor, and as a result, my client slipped and fell down.”

“Well your client was blind or stupid, because he didn’t even pay attention or ignored the wet floor sign and walked over the place my client had just mopped.” 

All that to determine who’s fault it is, when in many cases, if not most, it was an accident. 

I said that all blame does is relieve our accountability; that’s not exactly right. We also blame someone to make the pain more bearable. Shame is perhaps the most painful of all the emotions human beings can feel. And if something is our fault, we’ve added insult to injury and we are ashamed. I’ll come back to this thought, but for now let me finish the dream.

I’ve had these anxiety dreams many times… always trying to get somewhere to fulfill some obligation, and obstacles are always preventing me from getting there. Some people can wake themselves up in this kind of dream, but not me. Maybe once or twice I’ve been able to stop and say “look, I’m just not going to make it in time for this meeting… or event.” And when I can do that, I usually wake up. But mostly I just keep plugging away, trying to get wherever it is I’m supposed to be. This was the first time I’ve ever been with other people trying to get back, and that was different. Seeing others reacting badly mirrored both my own internal turmoil and my own progress, if you will, from how I always used to react in these situations, and how in some ways the religious life has changed me. 

So, as I said, I entertained my own little group with the word possibilities (which I must say they all loved immensely and thought I was very enlightened) and we all managed to arrive at some central meeting place in downtown Manhattan. The rector of my church was there and he was furious. Seething would be the best word to describe him. His important guest was from France and not at all happy about all the waiting they had been doing all morning. He had in his hand the day’s itinerary schedule, and he said, “Ah… Union Theological Seminary. Let’s see, we did that at 8:00. It was lovely.” And he scratched it off his paper. Well of course he had not seen Union Seminary at 8:00 because at 7:30 that we had all left in search of batteries for the projector… which had started this whole series of unfortunate delays. I was trying to decide if he was being sarcastic or if he just had a dry sense of humor when I woke up.

That was the dream. I cannot remember my dreams unless I immediately write them down, but since this one seemed to be speaking to me, I got up, found a pen and started writing. So, where is this going? This long-winded description of anxiety dreams and response words and in the midst of all that the concept of blame?

Well, originally I said that blame is a tool we use to relieve accountability, culpability when something goes wrong. And, I revised that to say it’s a tool we use to make the pain more bearable. Martha said to Jesus “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” We read those as loaded words. Martha blamed Jesus. Then Lazarus was raised. People were overwhelmed when Lazarus emerged from the tomb. And… they drew an erroneous conclusion from that miracle… that the blessing would go on and on and on.

Some scholars believe that the raising of Lazarus was the culminating factor in the Pharisee’s decision that Jesus needed to be eliminated. That this kind of miracle would only incite the masses to revolt, and that any revolt would lead to the inevitable destruction of the Jewish people. "One man’s death would be better than the death of many."

So, if you follow that very logical line of reasoning, Jesus could easily have blamed Martha and Mary for his subsequent arrest and crucifixion. It was their fault. The Jews didn’t kill Jesus. The Romans didn’t kill Jesus. Martha and Mary killed Jesus. The last words on the cross would have been: If you had not whined so much, I would not have raised Lazarus, and if I had not raised Lazarus, I would not be hanging on this cross. It’s all your fault.”

Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus understood, perhaps as no other human being has ever understood, that it was not about him. Down through the ages the church has made it about him, but he didn’t.

Heresy? Perhaps. Let me explain where I’m going with this, what I’m really getting at. When something doesn’t work, we find someone to blame. We externalize the frustration and find fault with someone, and then we imagine a savior. Not especially uplifting, but it’s a tool we use to cope. When Martha and Mary blamed Jesus for their brother’s death, they were speaking out of their pain, trying to make it bearable, externalizing their problem… and dumping the burden on Jesus. 

This is what we do with God. A lot. From the Israelites whining in the wilderness to our modern ways of blaming God for every tragedy, we tend to relieve our own agony by blaming God. Then we stay there. And wait.

We wait for God’s response. If the agony ends, we thank God for favoring us, and we look for ways to make the favor permanent, so we won’t have to feel that same agony again. However, if the agony continues, or gets worse, we still may think God will rescue us once we find the perfect formula for appeasing God or honoring God. We make it, whatever it is, all about us. If I don’t get what I want, I blame God. If I do get what I want, then I imagine it will be forever.

This makes no sense, does it? There’s a lot we do, and keep on doing that makes no sense. 

So, lets explore some of what we do (and don’t do) that makes no sense. Lets look at ways we limit God and limit ourselves by the way we’ve developed and interpreted the beliefs we hold so dear… look at possibilities for expanding upon some of those cherished beliefs… especially when they have lost their ability to uplift or comfort or sustain us in times of crisis and unrest, in times of agony or despair, in times of fear and trembling.