Traveling in Place

Separation Anxiety

It’s nearly October, which means the back-to-school flurry has given way to a more settled fall routine. That goes for life at church as well. The sudden post-Labor Day shift from summer doldrums to what feels like hyperactivity is a bit jarring. But once we jolt ourselves into a more active pace, we adjust and even feel grateful for all the opportunities the church affords us.

For churches like ours that operate a nursery school, the September bustle includes the foot traffic of nervous young parents and their bewildered children. Over the course of a couple of weeks, they gingerly make that first painful transition from being together all the time to separating for a few hours a day. The initial snip of the apron strings is more difficult for some families than for others. A familiar sound of the season is the wailing of tots who suddenly realize with horror that their parents have left them with a group of strangers. Nice strangers, but strangers nonetheless.

Separation anxiety is just part of growing up, of course, and it usually goes both ways. Parents may keep it together the first time they say goodbye to their youngsters, but many of them spend a few minutes sobbing softly in their vehicles before they pull out of the parking lot.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, as I listened to the helpless, screaming cry of a youngster facing the abyss of life without Mom, I thought about the spiritual separation anxiety that adults often face. Many of us first encounter God’s presence in a personal way during times of hardship. We sense a greater Presence giving us strength, or even rescuing us from a seemingly intractable situation. That early, palpable experience of God shapes our spirituality. We embrace prayer enthusiastically. We begin to notice signs of God all around us. Gratitude grows into joy. We begin to feel invincible.

Living Within Limits

Originally posted July 31, 2010. Please see my 9/2/14 post.

My good friend Wendell Berry just published a new book of essays entitled What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth.  He’s not necessarily saying anything new but several of these essays were written since the 2008 financial crisis and the beginning of the current recession, giving his argument for a sustainable, land-based economy a lot of potency.

Wendell has been saying for decades that our industrial economy, which rapes the land and destroys agriculture (the whole culture of land, including agrarian communities and small diversified farms), is not sustainable.  It simply is not possible to maintain an “authentic economy” without recognizing the primary value – even pricelessness – of land, water, and air.   Our present economy, on the other hand, seems to be based on a doctrine of limitlessness, and any suggestion of living within the limits of nature is treated as heresy.  This doctrine is fantasy.  “An economy cannot grow forever on limited resources.  Energy and food cannot stay cheap forever.  We cannot continue as a tax-dependent people who do not wish to pay taxes.  Delusion and the future cannot serve forever as collateral” (What Matters, p. 26).  Our current economic crisis demonstrates rather plainly that we are up against our limits, but we continue in our delusional state, believing that, with the right government policy, or with faith in free enterprise, “the American way of life” will prove indestructible.  “We will keep on consuming, spending, wasting, and driving as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves” (p. 41).

Far be it from me to make Wendell’s argument for him.  I do feel qualified, however, in asserting that learning to live within limits is an entirely biblical principle.  The doctrine of limitlessness has corrupted freedom into selfishness, and has turned consumers into idolaters – we have made ourselves gods.  We believe it is our “inalienable right” to be always upwardly mobile.  (I am quite certain that Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness” bore absolutely no resemblance to modern consumerism.  Jefferson was an agrarian who found happiness in the freedom to own land and use it well.)  Only when we live within the limits of the created order do we create a sustainable way of life that can go on forever.  When we live as if we have no limits, we create the prospect of an apocalyptic end to our economy.

Why Theology Needs More Attention

Originally posted October 26, 2010. Please see my 9/2/14 post.

A lot of the spiritual counseling I have given over the years has concerned people’s confusion about the relationship between Jesus and God.  I remember a conversation with a woman in her forties who was very involved in church, loved working with teenage youth, and spent time every day in prayer and Bible reading.  Yet, she betrayed a lack of confidence, a suspicion that she wasn’t doing enough and might not be living up to God’s expectations for her.  

During a session of spiritual direction, I asked her, “In your experience, what is God like?”  She seemed genuinely taken aback.  She looked down, bit her lip, and thought long and hard before she answered.  “God is distant,” she finally said. “He’s angry, impossible to please, and always in the shadows.”

“What is Jesus like?” I asked.  She sat up straight, looked me in the eye, and declared, “He’s loving, compassionate, and always available to me.  I can feel his presence whenever I pray.”

I was troubled as much by her sense of God’s distance from Jesus as by her sense of God’s distance from her.  “So, how does Jesus relate to God?” I asked.

“Jesus is my Savior,” she said.  “Without Jesus, I would have to face God’s anger, and I wouldn’t survive.” 

This woman’s theology is hardly unusual.  It is quite common for Christians to believe that Jesus is the good son who protects human beings from the abusive father.  Or, to use Jesus’ imagery, he is the Good Shepherd who protects the sheep from being devoured by the wolf, who is God.

Ministry Between Ages

(Originally posted July 1, 2010. Please see my 9/3/14 post.)

“I should have been born 40 years earlier.”             

I’ve said it and I’ve heard it (though the number of years might vary by a decade or two).  We live in a time when many people feel displaced; like they showed up at the wrong time and missed the party to which they were originally invited.  The rate of change in our culture keeps accelerating, so that people who are nurtured with one set of values and expectations – dressed up for one cultural dance – find that by the time they are ready to be contributing members of society, the dance-step, the rhythm, and the fashion have all changed.             

I’m not only referring to septua- and octogenarians who reminisce about a simpler time when they were children.  This is not your father’s generation gap.  We now live in a world where “generations” change in 5-10 years.  Older and younger siblings do not speak the same language.  So no amount of preparation seems adequate.

I accepted a call to church ministry when I was in college in the early 1980’s.  I attended seminary in the mid-80’s, and my first full-time solo pastorate began in 1990.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that my seminary education was already dated by the time I was ready to use it.  I remember a sickening feeling when I realized that the church I had been educated to lead, a stable, sizable church probably located on the county square in Anytown USA, was fast becoming a relic.  The nominally Christian culture that I had been encouraged to shake up with new ideas had disappeared, replaced by a post-Christian culture of biblical and theological illiteracy.  The generation of pastors before me often entered the pulpit as prophets challenging deeply held beliefs and condemning, on the basis of Christian scripture and tradition, discriminatory practices against people outside the dominant culture.  Today, there is no Christian core of knowledge from which to challenge anything. The theological edifice has been pretty well demolished, and nothing has emerged to take its place.  In my most shameful self-pitying moments, I have convinced myself that I would have been far more successful “if only I had been born 40 years earlier.”

Time for a Break

If you pay much attention to this blog, you have probably noticed that it’s been two weeks since I posted anything. So, in case you’re concerned, let me assure you that I’m not slipping into a depressive state or having an existential crisis. (Well, I need to qualify that last clause. I’m in my fifties – a decade that, I’m discovering, is an existential crisis. But I’ll save that subject for another time.)

The truth is, I’ve been so pre-occupied preparing for all of my fall teaching gigs (at LeMoyne College, the Spiritual Renewal Center, a Lutheran colloquy, the UCC New York Conference building, and my own church) that I’m running out of creative space in my head. There’s still enough room for sermons, but maintaining this blog has become more challenging than usual.

So I’ve decided to give myself a break. During the month of September, I’m going to re-post some reflections I shared during the blog’s first year – posts that still seem to “hold up” despite the passage of time. When these reflections were written, my readership was much smaller, so there’s a good chance you’ve never read them, or if you have, don’t remember them.

If during this month I am overcome with an urge to write something new, I won’t resist. But I’m not going to pressure myself to do so.  I hope the posts you see over the next few weeks, despite being re-runs, will still prove interesting and valuable. - JML