As spiritual people, our desire isn't a thing to overcome. Our being is one big mass of desire. Desires
can help bring deep meaning to our lives. They can also feel like nothing more than
turbulence and deep distraction. And most of the time those starkly different expressions of desire are two sides to the same coin.
When our desires feel chaotic and at war against us we speed down a road of self-destruction. And when the desires of our bodies, minds, and heart feel
in alignment with one another this feels like Shalom.
Desire by itself isn't wicked, but when desire is distorted and disordered it certainly feels that way. In this social media era, we are forced to ask how much of our desires are even our own. When we peruse the social media feeds, how much of our true desire do we suppress while borrowing the desires of another.
This was the question directed at me by a college student
after having recently taught class for Denver Urban Semester. The question
fit the subject matter I was teaching which was the biblical notion of the
wilderness. We studied the characters of Moses, Hagar, Balaam, as well as Jesus
and we discussed how each of these characters encountered the transformative
yet disorienting zone known in the scriptures simply as wilderness.
As part of the teaching I often show a clip from Tim
Burton’s Alice in Wonderland where Alice reaches a critical turning point in
her life. She’s confused by her circumstances and in that confusion she decides
to follow a talking rabbit, which leads her tumbling down into the dream world
of wonderland. What I tell the students, all of whom are between the ages of
20-23, is that this is the realistic terrain of the spiritual journey.
The college years can be a lot like falling down the rabbit
hole into a world of seeming contradictions and unforeseen dilemmas. It’s often
the first time we are confronted with what we actually believe as opposed to
what we think we are supposed to believe. As we leave the fantasy-like realm of
adolescense behind we begin to wonder, “What is the gospel of Christ, really?
And I don’t think we have to be college students to
appreciate this struggle it’s just that those are the years we likely begin to allow
ourselves to be thoroughly confused about our faith.
Since the student asked that important question I've been reflecting more this week on the response I gave...
What if confusion isn't evil, but is more like a messenger, an angel sent to accompany you?
This weekend the frigid temps meant the boys couldn’t play
outside so in order to burn off some of that relentless energy we landed in a
convenient indoor spot, the Cherry Creek Mall. When the stores opened I decided
to stroll into one that I recently vowed never to buy from again.
I walked by the racks of shirts that caught my gaze and there they were looking up at me seductively, … the elusive tall sized
garments.
A few years ago, I thought I had put an end to my life
long clothing dillema. I had finally found a store that fit my style and most
importantly my lanky 6’6” frame. This store is located less than ten minutes
from our home, so without giving it much thought, when I needed clothes, this
is where I’d go.
After a while, a little voice in my head invited me to take
a closer look at the tags to see where these clothes were made. Mexico…
Pakistan… China… This then led to an internet search and sure enough, if I’d
want to keep shopping there I’d need to be ok with the idea that the shirt on my
back was likely constructed by an underpaid, underage, overworked, individual
in some third world situation.
Before moving out to Denver ten years ago I was a case manager
for mentally and physically disabled adults. Throughout the two years invested
in that job, I played many board games with my clients. There was one
particular individual who demanded we get at least one game of Jenga in before
getting to any serious conversation. He loved to play Jenga, but this man was
hopeless at the game. His hands were gnarled from birth. His tremors were such
that he’d be lucky to remove two or three blocks before the entire tower would
come crashing down time after time after time.
More often than I’d like to admit I fantasize about my basketball
days. I relive those glorious (and inglorious) moments of high school and even
my short college career through ridiculous dreams, which often involve me
hitting last second game winners or going off for 40 or even 50 points.
It seems these dreams are indicative of the universal desire
for more – more achievement, acclaim, and notoriety. And while one half of us
enjoys these silly dreams the other half of us recognizes that fame is usually more
burden than blessing.
Tragedies such as the stunningly horrific one played out in Aurora early last Friday morning tend to make most of us measure our time a bit more precisely. We can’t help but view these alarming events as personal wake up calls reminding us of our core longings and inviting us to create deeper meaning with our remaining breaths through kindness to strangers and a more generous way of living in the world.
Although there’s great reason for a heightened awareness of time in moments like these, through sundials and pendulums we’ve pursued the measuring of it since the beginning. The elusive sand pouring toward the bottom of the hourglass has a simple way of reminding us of our finitude and so measuring, naming, and calculating time perhaps offers at least a slight sense of comfort regarding something so seemingly other and outside of our control.
One of the most searing seasons of loneliness for me was experienced during my time in seminary. Nine years ago we packed up a big yellow moving truck and transitioned to Denver from the Hoosier state with a seminary degree as the primary motivator. Sitting in that first class (Defending the Faith) I began to painfully see that I’d be a circular peg in the traditional square seminary hole and yet somehow through prayer and key friendships I managed to grab the degree. As a creative, a futurist, and an Enneagram 4, those seminary years nearly did me in as I plumbed the depths of liminal space with hard questions and confusions.
I don't attribute the despair of that season solely to Denver Seminary. It just happened to be a fertile context in which I'd set off on a journey to mindfully consider the cup that I've been given to drink. As Henri Nouwen described so well,
Holding the cup of life means looking critically at what we are living. This requires great courage, because when we start looking, we might be terrified by what we see. Questions may arise that we don't know how to answer. Doubts may come up about things we thought we were sure about. Fear may emerge from unexpected places.
In frequent moments throughout those years while carefully examining what I began to see as my unique cup, there were moments that I'd strongly echo the words of Christ in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from me."
I've often wondered what it was that Jesus actually felt in Gethsemane.
As a young hoosier in our bible church's children's program I was awarded a rather impressive trophy. It was handsomely wooden with a little golden cup that sat on the top.
The prestigious Timothy Award was the top prize awarded within the fundamentalist youth program called Awana. They didn’t hand out these treasures for nothing. At the end of the year I was one of only two young christian soldiers standing on that podium. As the Tim Tebow of scripture memorization I straight-armed my way through the competition on my way to achieving this sought after goal. Hundreds of King James Version scriptures were downloaded and recited and my Wednesday night attendance record was unstoppable.
From a lifetime of reflection on American christian subculture I've recognized that the relationship between christianity and competition feels as normal as fireworks on Independence Day. The two are practically inseparable.
Despite a gospel narrative in which Jesus repeatedly sides with those who are too poor to compete...
We have been both consciously and unconsciencly conditioned to compete...
With other faiths. - Mormons, Muslims, etc. (My first seminary class was called defending the faith)
With other churches. - Better attendance, better music, better preaching, better fashion? etc.
With friends. - better dinner parties, better looking & performing families, etc.
With other value systems. - this is where we co-opt political agendas and claim them as "christian"
...Just to name a few.
Speaking of Tebow... This past NFL season Americhristians discovered the perfect spokesperson for our competitive brand of christianity in quarterback Tim Tebow as he mowed down the competition on his way to the end-zone while publicly giving all the glory to his Lord and Savior - Jesus Christ. I do like the guy. He is a spectacular athlete... who happens to fit our competitive brand of christianity quite nicely.
Within our Americhristian subculture, competition along with its subsequent addiction to winning isn't quirky or out of place, it's normal... and encouraged.
All the while, outside the subculture we appear like (drum roll please)...
Our attachment to the spectacular... to the winner is embarrassing.
And it's precisely due to this embarrassment that Jesus pointed toward a lifestyle of proximity and genuine friendship with the poor.
Why do competitive christians need the poor? Because we require special guidance in order to de-spectacularize our lives. The poor allow us to recognize and heal from a religion which throughout its history has been inextricably bound to dominance and one-uping our neighbors outside of the christian set.
Ask any Gen X or Millennial not affiliated with a church which words best describe the christian. It's most doubtful that you will hear, humility. Along with increasing one's theological greyness and producing endless questions, presence among the poor and lonely certainly brings with it a distinct humility and increased openness to the expansiveness of God.
What if we actually considered the poor our spokespersons?
When we are mentored by the poor, a profound humbling takes place. Befriending the poor -- not as a project but as mutual learners -- leads to being poor in spirit and cultivating relationships of mutuality. People who identify with the poor desire to become poor -- not in a romantic sense of being poor just for the sake of being poor, but to simplify and live less for things and more for people. ~ Albert Nolan
So, if there is any sense of competition associated with the Good News perhaps it is to out love our neighbor or competing to become smaller and less noticeable like mustard seeds or children. Of course, in our push to out love the other we'd soon realize in God's strange economy of radical grace and love until death, there really is no such thing as competition.
The following was a class project for students at Grace Prep Academy in Durango, Colorado. These awesome students spent a week in the city with me last spring which left significant impact on us all. They returned this past November asking if we could spend another week together in order to develop a film as part of a class project.
Their expanding heart for the marginalized coupled with their amazing creativity points to the kind of Kingdom collaboration that humanity is capable of and leaves me hopeful for our future...
The following image has had significant meaning for myself and others the past couple weeks as I've used it to help me consider what I'm heading toward in 2012.
Where do you find yourself in the image?
Perhaps you are standing at the bottom of the steps indecisive having yet to enter into the challenges ahead...
Or maybe you see yourself within the walls safely running around child-like in the forrest on the hill...
Still... Many of us will see ourselves between the two arches... Within the tension of liminal space having left one dimension of life although not yet ready to enter the next.
An interesting image and question to say the least...
What determines where we see ourselves and the ensuing movements that take place in our next season is inevitably impacted by our addictions.
"It becomes so clear to me as I grow older that people who change, and keep changing, are the only people who grow up." -Richard Rohr
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
-John Wooden
"Receptivity without confrontation leads to a bland neutrality that serves nobody. Confrontation without receptivity leads to an oppressive aggression which hurts everybody."
- Henri Nouwen
"Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of spirituality begins where we are now in the mess of our lives."
-Mike Yaconelli
"But that doesn’t mean community is easy. For everything in this world tries to pull us away from community, pushes us to choose ourselves over others, to choose independence over interdependence, to choose great things over small things, to choose going fast alone over going far together." -Shane Claiborne
"Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in light of what they suffer."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create." Albert Einstein
"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman
"A nation that continues to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
-Dr. Martin Luther King
"Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful--- Christian community is the final apologetic."
-Francis Schaefer
"It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools."
Wendell Berry
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than the particular country in which he was born."
-Francois Fenelon
"Ministry cannot be about maintenance, but it is about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts of and conditions of people; home is a place for mother tongue, of basic soul food, of old stories told and treasured, of being at ease, known by name,
belonging without qualifying for membership."
-Walter Brueggemann
"Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are
not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to
being the particular poet or particular monk that they are intended to be by
God."
"In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted
to be."
-Thomas Merton
"God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and God's been speaking through them ever since. So, if God chooses to speak through you don't think to highly of yourself."
-Rich Mullins
"We must become holy not because we want to feel holy but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us."
Mother Teresa
"I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self."
Henri Nouwen
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