Talking Turkey about Thanksgiving -or- On the Spirit of Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I have been doing some thinking about what the attitude of thanksgiving is, precisely.  So, I have torn thanksgiving apart, like the remnants of a cooked avian corpse, to see where the meat is.  Here are some of the more...filling conclusions of my ruminations.  We start with an example that was given to me by my confirmation class this week.

Daniel gives me a piece of cheese.

I like cheese, and so immediately upon receiving the gift I say "Thank you."

Daniel leaves.  I put the cheese in the fridge.

The next day, I see the cheese and decide to have some.

I love cheese.  This cheese is particularly amazing.

In that moment, while eating the cheese, I think about Daniel and what a great gift he gave me.

At what point in all of this is the spirit of thanksgiving born?  Some might say it begins with receiving the gift and saying "thank you."  I disagree.  Thanksgiving is more profound and sophisticated than simple thankfulness or appreciation.  (You may accuse me of splitting hairs here, but please read on to learn more about the distinction for which I am arguing.)  I believe that thanksgiving begins in the moment when I am enjoying the cheese.  And it depends on what I am thankful for in that moment.

In every case of thanksgiving, there are two parties: the giver and the one to whom the thing was given.  Thanksgiving requires that a gift was given, requires that what I am thankful for was transferred to me from someone else.  We can be thankful for something, but it does not become thanksgiving until we make the jump to being thankful to the source of the gift.  In thanksgiving, the object needs a subject.  Daniel gave me a piece of cheese.  If I sat relishing the cheese the afternoon it was given, even if I kept saying how thankful I was to taste this cheese, if I did not take the further step and remember Daniel, then my thankfulness would remain selfish.  My focus would never leave how wonderful my life was with this cheese in it, and so I would miss the opportunity to break through the isolation in life to find a friendly companion in the world.  And the focus would remain on the object, the material thing instead of the intense depth of what the cheese signifies interpersonally, emotionally, etc.  Simply being thankful for something is materialistic, selfish and isolating.  If being thankful for something never becomes thankfulness to someone, then there is no benefit to my soul.   

Luckily, the Christian has a boundless source of benefit for the soul.  For when the Christian remembers that "every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17), then everything for which one can be thankful also entails someone to which one can be thankful, namely God.  Indeed, the Christian is a Christian only if and precisely when the object one possesses receives a subject who has given it.  What's more, every giver who cannot be said to be God is included in this.  For the whole quote from James reads, "every generous act of giving, along with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights...."  So, when I am thankful to Daniel I am, as a Christian, simultaneously thankful to God whose work inspired Daniel's generous act of giving.  Every gift is passed down from on high in this manner.  And we all become vehicles of God's generous giving.

Now say that I am thankful for my iPhone, which I am.  It was not given to me as a gift.  I purchased it.  So, then, is it impossible for me to be moved to a spirit of thanksgiving for my iPhone?  Not at all.  To move beyond being thankful for it, though, I need to do a little work.  I must trace the situation back in order to see that it is, in the final analysis, a gift.  How is this so?  I paid for the phone with money.  I earned the money, perhaps, in my job?  Perhaps I earned the job, but did I myself earn the economic system in which the job was available?  Did I create the organization that hired me?  Did I create the situation in which the organization has flourished?  Did I win the freedom and prosperity of the nation that has given the organization a place?  Or did I create the technology, in order that such a phone would be available to me?  In this way, we can trace my possessing the phone back to the component parts--of civilization, of the human intellect and being, and of the materials with which the phone itself is made--and they are traced back to God's creation.  Of course, along the way, we also see the many hands that passed this gift down, through which God has worked all the while.  And I find that I am not only thankful for my phone, but, indeed, my phone causes in my soul much thanksgiving.

In every act of thanksgiving, there is also a temporal component.  It is quite significant that time passed between my receiving the gift and my giving thanks for it.  Since, in thanksgiving, I am not only thankful for, but also thankful to, thanksgiving requires that I not only remember the thing given, but also the giver.  In fact, remembering the giver is the entire point.  In the moment when the gift is given, it is easy to remember the giver, as the giver is present in that moment.  (Even if the gift is sent, that is given remotely, the giver is present in my mind immediately upon receiving the gift.)  Thankfulness for a gift occurs immediately, in the moment in which it is given.  But the deciding factor in whether or not thankfulness will transform into thanksgiving is time.  Will I, after a little while, when I enjoy the gift, remember the giver?  That is the question.  Because the next condition necessary for the birth of thanksgiving is the evocation of the giver and the moment of the giving after the fact.  Eternity must meet temporality, and only then do we experience thanksgiving as a holy moment.  In enjoying the gift, the giving must become contemporaneous with the moment of enjoying the gift through the act of remembrance.  I must remember how the thing came into my possession.  If I do not, then the gift is no longer a gift, it is simply something I possess.  Moreover, the giver (however distant in time and space) must be brought forth in remembrance.  Part of the idea of the gift is for the giver to be present in one's life in a meaningful way through the gift itself.  And so the enjoyment of the gift must evoke both these things: the moment of the giving and the giver.

This leads us to our final point.  Thankfulness becomes thanksgiving when I give my thanks as a gift.   When I stop to remember, in the moment that I am enjoying the gift and not just in the moment I receive the gift, all of a sudden I am giving attention to the giver in a spirit of thankfulness.  I am also giving a portion of time to the person--whether they know it or not is inconsequential--as I halt in my enjoyment and remember.  At least a portion of my very valuable time and attention is then given to remembering that this cheese was a gift, and instead of simply being thankful for, I have become thankful to in a way that transforms my thankfulness already into a giving.  In this way, I am making my enjoyment itself a gift in return to the giver--by taking the time and attention to remember the giver in thanks.  My remembering Daniel's act of giving alone constitutes a spirit of thanksgiving.  I am not just full of thanks, but am giving it because now there is a subject upon which or before which my thanks can be placed (which brings us back to the beginning).

Thanksgiving, then, requires giving as well as thanks.  The other benefit thanksgiving is to the soul is that it fosters in the individual a glad and generous heart.  And so in thanksgiving, I not only wish to give thanks to the giver, but I also, perhaps, desire to give as the giver has given, as the Giver gives.  My heart is trained in such a way that I become a glad and generous giver.

Every act of worship is a thanksgiving, and it requires all of these components:
Having received a gift; enjoyment of the gift; remembering the giver in thanksgiving; and giving as the giver gives.

Bible Study time.  Deuteronomy 26:1-15 is the quintessential thanksgiving text.
It describes what we are supposed to do on tax day (which for us is April 15th).
When we bring our taxes (or our tithe), we are to place it before the altar and remember.  We are to remember that God has given us all that we have--the bounty of the earth, the land we possess, the money we have, etc., etc.  And so, as we give our first fruits of the year, we recount all that God has done for us (and for our nation!): "...my ancestor was a wandering Aramean" (Abraham) and "you made him a great nation" and "when he went down to Egypt and was enslaved, you brought the people out into freedom" and "you gave us the Promised Land as our habitation."  The giving of the tax or the tithe, then becomes an act of thanksgiving as we remember in thankfulness not only what was given, but who gave it to us.  Our having received and our giving becomes a small part of a much larger relationship, a much larger economy.  Indeed, the passage ends with a plea: 'God, please continue to bless us as you have promised to do, and as you have been doing.'  In other words, we want our relationship with you to continue.  If only April 15th could feel this good!  If only our weekly offering in church could make us feel so infinitely blessed!  All it takes is recognizing the gift, remembering the giver, and letting our thankfulness turn into action...into thanksgiving.

What causes you to give thanks?
What has God given to you this year?
Remember these things, and Christ Jesus who is the source of boundless riches, giving thanks to God.

Joyful thanksgivings to everyone!

rha

Remembering the Dead -or- What All Saint's Day Teaches Us

On All Saint's Day, Christians remember all of those who are witnesses to the truth.  We particularly remember those who have finished their course in life, and who rest in perfect joy and eternal life in God's house.  We remember the martyrs, the apostles, the saintly heros of Christianity throughout the ages, and all of those who have touched our own lives.  Although All Saint's Day is not a day just to remember the dead, but rather even the living who help support and console us in our faith journeys, we particularly remember the dead.

A short meditation by Soren Kierkegaard, in his book Works of Love, gave me a greater appreciation for remembering the dead.  What follows is a repetition of his themes, accompanied and followed by a few of my own reflections.

Remembering one who has died is the greatest act of love.

That is, when we remember this one, despite our grief of loss, with thanksgiving.  When, despite our sorrow, which is a part of our veneration, we lovingly remember the one who is dead.

Remembering the one who has died is the greatest act of love because it is a love that is entirely unselfish, totally free, and completely faithful.

Remembering the Dead One is entirely unselfish.

If I love someone who is living, there is always the possibility that I will get something in return for that love.  At the very least, I will be, as it were, repaid by that person loving me in return.  If I love my family or spouse or friends, then I may receive support of all kinds from them.  How easy it is to love someone who makes you laugh, who helps you, who listens to you, who gives you wise advice, who sits with you in sorrow, or who walks beside you in trials.

But one who is dead can give nothing in return for our recollecting them in love.  The one who is dead cannot help us, cannot walk beside us through life--they are buried in the ground or have been returned to ashes and dust.  The one who is dead cannot even return our love.  Recollecting the dead, then, is entirely unselfish, because there is no room for any expectation that we will get anything in return for the love we give in recollecting.  There is no possibility of gain.

Remembering the Dead One is totally free, indeed, is the freest type of love.

If I say to a loved one who is living: "I will always love you."  Or, when saying goodbye when I move away from a loved one, I say: "I will always remember you."  Or I say to a friend, "I will always remember that good thing you did for me."  It may happen that through the course of busy days, I do forget, that I do not always remember that person in love.  But, when I see that person again, perhaps they remember.  And upon seeing me, they ask, "Do you remember me?"  Oh!  They themselves remember, and they have remembered my promises!  Even if it is by their very presence, and they say nothing to make sure I remember, they remind me of my promise.  Presented with their reminder, I again remember them in love.

Or say my mother frustrates me, and I vent that frustration to a friend.  That friend will listen patiently to my complaint, but then the friend will remind me: She is your mother.  You must love her.  You must always remember your love for her.

There is no such police force to hold us accountable in remembering the dead in love.  There is no governmental or social or independent organization that does or can peer into our soul to verify that we are recollecting the dead in love.  Even our closest friends do not ask if we remember our dead ones...though they may listen intently, with compassion and with admiration for our love, when we broach the subject.  And we will never run into the one who is dead.  The one who is dead will not come back into our lives, and by his or her presence remind us of our love.

And so, if I continue to remember the one who has died, if I continue to remember them with love, then it is a totally free act on my part.  I choose to remember them, and it is by my will alone that I continue so to do.

Remember the Dead One is a completely faithful act of love.

Say that I am in a relationship of love with someone who is warm and breathing.  It may happen that that relationship ends.  I can still be faithful in my love for that person, my love could be unchanged.  For even in the final analysis, I can still say to myself that that person changed.  And it was the change in them, their unfaithfulness, that destroyed the relationship--even as I remained faithful.  I can even turn away from that relationship and forget that person, knowing that I loved faithfully.

It is not so with the love that remembers the one who is dead.  The one who is dead cannot change.  They rest in eternity and have the strength of eternity...that is, they no longer change.  And so, if I forget the one who is dead, and fail to remember them in love, then it can only be because there was a change in me.  The recollection ends, the love peters out, only if I become unfaithful.  Ah, but if I persist in continually remembering the one who is dead, then that love is perfectly faithful, and I am completely faithful to that person.  Recollecting the one who is dead, then, is the highest faithful act of love.

So, remembering in love the one who has died is a work of love that is entirely unselfish, totally free and completely faithful.  But one may still ask what the purpose is for remembering the dead in love.  Why does it matter?  Should we not live for the future?  Is it not good and healthy to move on and to cease dwelling on death, and those who are dead?  Do we not trap ourselves in sorrow, when we cling unceasingly to one who has left us in death?  We should live in the moment.  We should focus our energy and love on those who are around us.  Etc., etc.

These things may be true.  And yet, it is crucial that we continually recollect the dead in love.  It is crucial because when we remember in love the one who has died, we are able to learn and to practice the highest form of love.  And it is the duty of every Christian to love all those who are living with the same perfect love with which we recollect the dead.

To wit, we are to love our neighbor unselfishly.  We are to love every one we meet even if we can expect nothing in return from them.  We must not only love our family and friends--those who support us and help us--but we are also to love the stranger whom we will never see again.  We are to love the poor one, who has nothing to give.  We must not only love those who love us in return, but we are also to love those who do not love us--our enemy, the one who persecutes us, the one who treats us with indifference.

To wit, we are to love our neighbor freely.  If we love and give charity out of guilt of compulsion, it is not a free love.  If we love simply because we think it is expected of us, it is not free.  If we love because we are told it is what Christians do, and therefore in wanting to be Christian we show love, remembering the poor, the widows, the orphaned, the sick, the imprisoned, etc.--then it is not a free love.  But in recollecting the dead, we learn how to love simply by choice and will, by the welling up of love from our hearts.

To wit, we are to love our neighbor faithfully.  Even if the one (remember we are talking about the one who is living!), even if our beloved changes, we must persist in our love.  If the one we love (remember, we are talking about the ones who are easy to love AND the stranger, the sinner, the rogue and the enemy!), if the one we love sins, even if they sin against us, we must be faithful in our love.  Even if they forget us, we are to remember them--always recollecting them in love.  

Recollecting the one who is dead gives us the skill and the fortitude to love those around us.  And so, All Saint's Day is a time when we, communally, practice the spiritual discipline of love--selfless, free, and faithful love.

Thanks be to God that we have the opportunity to learn how to appreciate those we still have--and those we have yet to claim as beloved--by recollecting those we have lost.

[This friends, is the Law that comes with All Saint's Day.  I am certain that you already know, or at least can guess, the Gospel that is also given to us as we remember those who have run the race, and who have received the crown of glory in Heaven.]   

Cain & Martin -or- The Genesis of Reformation

Martin Luther's neurosis was guilt and forgiveness.  He was paranoid over his own sin and the condemnation he felt before the face of God.  He obsessed over the search for adequate penance that would gain him forgiveness.

At the time, the Roman Church taught that it was the broker of the forgiveness Luther sought.  The Church told Luther to pray so many prescribed prayers, to flog himself, to fast and to buy indulgences.  The Church told him turn from marriage and worldly possessions to join the monastic orders, so that he might be perfect as his Father in heaven was perfect.  The Church told him to do many things.  Still, Luther was not satisfied.  Martin scoured the scriptures to find the answer to his worry, his dread.  Finally, he read Romans 3:19-28:  "For 'no human being will be justified in his sight' by deeds prescribed by the law for through the law comes the knowledge of sin" (v. 20).  And he realized that everything from the 10 Commandments to the prescription of prayers and indulgences only served to remind him of his guilt.  Then, "For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (v.23).  And he realized that before God's righteousness, no human being could stand except as a court defendant.  Then, "...they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith" (v.24).  And he realized that everything hinged on the work of Christ.  Jesus was not just a defense lawyer or co-defendant or character witness or scapegoat--Jesus was the Judge that came down from the bench to stand with the guilty.

The Cross alone wiped away all of the sins of the past.  But more than that, Jesus gave the chance for life, for new life.  In sin, we die, and in Christ, we live.  It is Jesus within us (by the power and work of the Holy Spirit), which gives us a new lease on life, so that sin does not take everything from us.  What blessed joy that the sentenced criminal is given a life of freedom instead of confinement or death!!!

This idea started a reformation--the Reformation.  It is a fitting name, since it applies also to the reformed criminal that is supposed to come out of our human "correctional facilities."

On this Reformation Day, as I was thinking of all of this, I thought of the story of Cain and Abel.  The story is an...unlikely Reformation text.  At least, I have never heard anyone link that story to the Reformation.  And yet, I think it is the perfect story.

You remember that Cain murdered his brother Abel.  You can read the story to discover the details, the motive, etc. (Genesis 4:1-16).  I would like to focus on the punishment.  But first note that the commandment against killing had not yet been given.  This second generation of humans did not even know that murder or death existed.  And so, it was Cain's guilt after the fact that made him realize the horrible thing he had done--the law, and guilt, give us knowledge of our sin.

Cain's punishment was that his work would be futile and he would be a fugitive on the earth.  When he planted, the ground would produce no yield.  And he would be forever homeless, a wanderer.  Perhaps this is where the saying, "No rest for the wicked" comes from.  In a culture that lives by the motto: "An eye for an eye," Cain should have been sentenced to death himself.  Indeed, that is what Cain asks for, saying to God, "...I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me" (Gen. 4:14b).  God virtually shouts "No!"  And God puts a mark on Cain, so that whomever he met would know that if they killed him, they themselves would be cursed.

I find it interesting that we Christians often consider this Mark of Cain to be part of the punishment.  In the story, we somehow see death as a mercy, and that God punishes Cain by making him to live on.  Do you realize how messed up that is?  When I read the story, especially through the lens of Luther and the Reformation, I see the Mark of Cain as an act of mercy.  God was trying to preserve Cain's life.  Even though Cain had to face the consequences of his murderous act--to leave his home and his vocation--the Great Judge could not bear to take the life of his human, "adopted" son.

Cain was given a life of freedom.  And although he lost his former life (vocation, home, family, etc.), he went on to build another life.  In fact, if you read the next bit of Genesis, you will find that Cain went to Nod, married, had children--and he started civilization!!!  Scriptures say that Cain went to Nod, "away from the presence of the LORD" (v.16).  And yet, God still worked through Cain to spread life upon the earth--life that was safe and protected and full in the beginnings of human civilization!  Perhaps Cain tried to flee from God's presence, but it would seem that bidden or not bidden, God is present.

So, for me the story is about guilt, yes, but also forgiveness.  Where others may call for our death, where we ourselves may wish for death, God gives us life.  God even gives us a newness to life.  We are freed from our old sinful selves in order to go on and do great, or at least good, things.  (And isn't every good thing great?)

The Church is full of sinners.  The Church itself is sinful.  We, the Church, are Cain.
Luther's struggle with the Law, helped him to uncover some of the corruption that was eating away at the Church.

But God marks us with a mark that preserves our life.
We are marked with the Cross of Christ--in ashes and in water and in oil.
Despite our sin, God gives us life and the chance to go out and do good things to spread life throughout the earth.
The Church is also marked with the Cross.  And yet the Church is commissioned to spread the Gospel of Life.

And with that mark, just like Cain, we as individuals and as the corporate Church experience a reformation.
God re-forms our lives.
God re-forms us.
May God continually re-form the Church.

Amen.



For further thought or discussion:
1. Cain's jealousy revolved around worship, and his perception that Abel's offerings were more pleasing to God.  Worship, particularly the Sacrament of the Altar and the role of leaders in that worship, were some of the contentions of the Reformation.  How might comparing these stories help us understand both scripture and the Reformation?  What can we learn about our worship today?
2. We get from the Cain and Abel story the question: "Am I my brother's keeper?"  I find it interesting that Cain was really interested in keeping track of his brother when it came to comparisons and who was more pleasing to God.  But then, when Abel was in trouble, the response was--not my problem.  Are we our neighbor's keeper?  What is the line between judging and helping guide our neighbor along the Way?  Was Martin Luther judgmental toward the church?
3.  Cain's guilt and punishment seemed to throw him into despair.  Although he did not seem to consider suicide, he hoped that someone would kill him (vv.13-14).  When we feel guilty, we are often thrown into despair in the same way, which causes us to hide our sin or to lash out at others or to cut ourselves off from people and life.  How does God react when we are thrown into despair?  How does God help us?  How can the Good News give us hope?
4.  Civilization is built upon a murderous forefather.  Obviously we are still being reformed.  Discuss.
5.  The Gospel approach to infractions upon the Law is different to the approach of the governments of this world.  This story, and its link to the Reformation may help launch a discussion about our correctional facilities in the United States.  Take a look at the ELCA's proposed social statement on criminal justice.
rha

"Who're You Gonna Call?" -or- Halloween: The Holy Day Christians Forgot

"Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a radiant dew, 

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
Come, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath is past.
For the Lord comes out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the
earth for their iniquity;
the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
and will no longer cover its slain."
-Isaiah 26:19-21

In my opinion, this is the quintessential Halloween scripture.  After all, the image Isaiah paints here is an image of zombies clawing up from their graves, and ghosts coming to haunt the living.  Meanwhile, we flee to the safety of our homes, locking our doors behind us and asking ourselves, "Who're you gonna call?"

I love Halloween.  It is my favorite Christian holiday.  (And it is a Christian holiday--even its name screams Christianity: all HALLOW's EvEN, or the Eve of All Saint's Day.)  I love Halloween because I love that feeling of fear that comes from watching a scary movie or reading ghost stories or seeing a host of scary costumes roam about the streets at dusk.  Halloween is a time when we can be scared and still feel safe.  Just as a roller-coaster brings us safely to the brink of our fears of speed or falling in an enjoyable way, in the same way Halloween allows us to face other fears in our soul without falling into total terror or despair.

Yes, I think Halloween is a time when we can externalize all of the fears that haunt us the rest of the year.  For example, the fear of evil.  Even if we don't believe in demons or ghosts, we might all agree that evil exists and that we are vulnerable to evil things happening in our lives--the thief in the night, the  attacker in the dark alley, the angry dog in our neighborhood, or the bully at school.  The figures of Halloween exaggerate these dark figures, and yet at the same time help us to feel bold before them.  Halloween gives us a catharsis for our fears.

Perhaps the biggest fear that Halloween allows us to face is death.  Skeletons, ghosts, monsters, vampires, zombies, demons...the common fear in all of these is death.  (I will let you make your own analysis of Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana and Superman costumes, though the first two in this list are just as frightening to me--the death of culture, maybe?)

The thing humans fear most, at least in our culture, is death.

We fear dying.  We fear losing a loved one in death.  And on Halloween, we surround ourselves with images of death in such a way that they no longer hold power over us.  This, friends, taps right into the heart of the Good News.

All Saint's Day is when we remember all those who have gone before us, who now rest in God.  It is a day on which Christians celebrate the lives of the saints.  And it is a day on which we celebrate God's mightiest deed--for we trust that God has gathered the saints in eternal life, just as God has promised.  All Saint's Day is about celebrating the victory that God has won over our Old Enemy, Death.

Ancient Christians believed that the light and power of goodness on All Saint's Day made All Hallow's Eve a dangerous time--because all of those demons and monsters and evil spirits knew that their power would be gone on All Saint's Day.  And so, these malevolent forces would freak out and do as much damage as they could.  People started dressing up in costume, either as saints or as demons in order to protect themselves.  If you dressed as a demon, then you could walk amongst the evil spirits safely--you were incognito...and since you were one of them they wouldn't harm you.  Or if you dressed as a saint or an angel, the demons would steer clear of you, because they knew they couldn't beat you.

We have left behind these superstitions.  And yet the message remains.  Halloween and All Saint's Day are like the story of our baptismal life.  While we are in the world we walk through dark valleys, and we wait for the day when all will be light.  If you have died, you are with God and protected in God's Kingdom--you have reached All Saint's Day.  But if you are still alive and on earth, then there is still darkness and strife and temptation and evil--you are still only in All Hallow's Eve, waiting for daybreak.  And yet, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them light has shined" (Isaiah 9:2).  On Halloween we remember that when Jesus Christ is with us, we have nothing--absolutely nothing--to fear, not even the Grim Reaper himself.  Christ is our light in the darkness.  Christ is our shield and portion.  Christ is our guardian and guide.

So let's go back and read Isaiah again, now that the light of Christ is shed on the scriptures for us.  All of a sudden, those zombies aren't zombies at all.  Isaiah says: "O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!"  In the light, the people coming up from their graves are not zombies, but the people of God who are resurrected on the last day!  We, friends, are the dwellers in the dust.  Ash Wednesday teaches us that we will all die, and to dust we shall return.  And here Isaiah is telling us that on that day, we will rise and sing for joy--because God will restore our lives and we will live eternally.

The Cross was scary (understatement).  But the darkness of death and hell was vanquished when dawn broke on Easter Sunday.

On Halloween, we are reminded of God's action on Good Friday and Easter--especially how it applies to each of God's saints, that is, to each of us.  As the earth dies back and cold winter approaches,  as the days get shorter and the nights darker, we need to be reminded of God's promise of warmth, light and life.  That reminder, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, is Halloween.  Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year, when the whole gospel is given to us in one fell swoop!

O, may you taste the delight of fright this All Hallow's Eve.  And as you get spooked by all the things that go bump in the night, call to mind the One that is always by your side, the One who can overcome every evil, the One who can change death into life--Jesus Christ.  He is the light of the world.  The light no darkness can overcome.

Thanks be to God!


P.S.--Another good Bible story to share with your family on Halloween is the story of the Gerasene Demoniac (see Mark 5:1-20).  [Note: Read the story like you would a ghost story around the campfire, complete with voices (and yell loud when it calls for it, to startle your audience!).]
It is a story in which Jesus has command over evil, and he uses his power to restore a man to life.  Possible questions:
1. Why were the people afraid of Jesus, so afraid of him that they asked him to leave their neighborhood?
2. What happened to the demon-possessed man after Jesus healed him?
3. What are we called to do when God helps us through scary times in our lives?
And for further Discussion:
- Have you ever felt scared?  What made you frightened?
- Think of a time when you were scared.  What or who made you feel better?  Why?  How, then, can God help us when we are scared?

The Grace Found in a Prank -or- God is a Trickster

Last weekend, some seminary friends visited from Chicago.  The occasion was my installation as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL.  I gave them a tour of the parsonage, my home.  It was a busy day with family and church family, so I didn’t notice how they tended to linger in various rooms.  After they departed, I found that they had...altered things.  They left notes in my office--one saying they had also deposited a snake for me to find...or to find me, I suppose.  My bed was short-sheeted.  My remote controls for the TV and DVD player were missing.  Books were rearranged on the shelves in my library.  I am still finding things out of place.  I had been thoroughly pranked.

I am not one much for pranks.  I am neither good at nor fain to prank others, and I usually don’t enjoy being pranked.  But this time, I am reluctant to admit, I loved it.  And it got me thinking about pranks, and their goodness.  

The pranks my friends played were not hurtful or mean, per se.  A couple were rather more annoying than the others, but it is nice to be annoyed from time to time.  The pranks were meant to be gestures of love--believe it or not.  By that I mean, these friends took the time to mess with me, and they trusted that I would react in good humor.  

As I reflect, the prank has the following properties and effects:

1. In pranking me, my friends gave a great deal of attention to me, my habits, and my stuff.  They targeted, and moved, those things that were of especial importance to me.  

2. In pranking me, my friends showed their trust.  They trusted our relationship, that it would survive despite some minor annoyances and material adjustments.  They trusted my personality, that I would see the humor in their gestures and wouldn’t fly off the handle.

3. In pranking me, my friends crossed the boundaries of solitude.  They studied and interacted with my things, and with my habits.  They studied my environment closely.  They also crossed over into my vulnerability.

4. Finding that I was pranked, I was able to laugh at my friends and their ridiculous sense of humor, but also I was able to laugh at myself.  I was able to laugh at my own discomfort with having my stuff messed with.  And I was able to laugh, imagining how gleeful my friends must have been as they did all of these things.

5. The pranks were the lingering presence of my friends long after they had left.  The prank is evidence that someone has been here, someone has come so close to another individual that their life is altered, both in the superficial way, and in a more profound way.  And finding something new amiss each day, made me think of my friends...and miss them...and appreciate their visit.

6. Pranks, at their best, create an enjoyment of life, particularly the mundane parts of life.  And, again at their best, pranks allow us to laugh at the most despairing and dreadful thing in life: our all too human vulnerability and lack of control over the world around us.  That laughter helps reconcile us to our all too human condition.

I suppose I could go on, but I will leave off on the analysis of the prank for now.  In any event, meditating on the pranks of my friends, I started to think about how God is a prankster.  I wrote this some six years ago for an assignment in preaching class.  I use the words “prankster” and “trickster” synonymously.  The point, of course, is that God is a trickster that not only wants to remind us of our powerlessness and vulnerability (that all of our plans and considerations and categories are in vain), but God wants to remind us of this in ways that will make us comfortable with being who we are...comfortable with being what God created us to be: merely human.  And lastly, the Prankster does what the Prankster does in order to invite us into the joke--into joy and relationship and interaction.  Every prankster loves a partner...every prankster loves it when the one being pranked gives it back a little (of course, no one likes someone who pranks too well.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, here it is:   

I have decided that God is, at heart, a trickster.

And this is a biblical view of God.

Christians ought to reclaim that word…”trickster.”

God is not a scoundrel, though he associates with them.

God does not lie, cheat or steal, though he hangs out with the crowd that does.

In fact, if God were not God, none of us would believe; who would trust anyone who reputedly 
      socializes with rascals, sinners and scoundrels?

God loves pranks:

Remember when Jacob stole the blessing of his brother?

Esau ought to be given what is his; who does Jacob think he is?  Yet God favored Jacob.

Remember when God crowned David, the progeny of a woman who prostituted herself off to her  
       father-in-law in order to produce a child and heir?

Yet David, Solomon and, yes, even Jesus came from the bold, morally questionable 

cleverness of Tamar.  (No wonder we need to tell ourselves stories of Mary’s purity!)

God is a trickster, all right.

Not the sort that plays jokes on the powerless just for a mean laugh.

Not the sort of trickster that feels mirth in the suffering of others.

Instead God is the trickster that laughs at the haughty and the dreadfully powerful.

God revels in the unexpected and the paradoxical.

God’s possibilities are so much greater than our narrow expectations that most of life becomes ironic…
      well, from our perspective.

God experiences joy when we figure out that God doesn’t play by the rules of our game.

How ridiculous!  A king born in a cow’s food trough?

Later the baby-man would say: “I am the bread of life.”  We eat the flesh...maybe the food trough  was 
      a good choice after all.

Go play with God; enjoy the mischief of the deity!

Called to Doubt -or- Being a Steward of Mystery

Everybody wants answers.

It feels like life would be so much easier if we had the answers.

What are the questions?

Well, ask yourself: what do you want to know?

Why is there suffering?

Why am I suffering?

Is there a God?

Will you marry me?  Do you love me?

Does God love me?

What is the reason for this pain? This tragedy?

What do I do?

What am I going to do with my life?

Where am I going to find a job?

Who is Jesus?

What will the future bring?

What happens when we die?  What will happen when I die?

Who am I?

Who are you?

All these questions and more.

If they were answered, perhaps life would be easier (though I am not so sure).

I have a question for you.  Where do you turn when you don’t know the answer?

Some say that they turn to God.  Others, when in distress--the time we “need” answers most, turn to religion...to the church.

I know a lot of parents, not having been to church for some years, bring their children to Sunday School.  When asked why the response is often, “To learn morality and good ethics.”  In other words, “I want my child to be able to answer the question, ‘What is the difference between right and wrong.’”

Answers.

So many churches (and so many pastors) see themselves as Keepers of the Answers.  It is so easy for Christians, particularly those who are strong and sure about their own beliefs, to think themselves teachers.  And who wouldn’t want to provide answers for people who are blowing in the wind, looking for something to hold on to?

But, I daresay, there are no answers in the Church.

Only questions.  

And pastors are not stewards of answers, but rather stewards of the mysteries of God.

This coming Sunday, many Christians the world over will read the same Gospel reading from Mark, the 8th chapter.  In that episode, Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that I am?”  The disciples respond, “Some say Elijah, others John the Baptist, etc.”  Then Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”  And the Twelve answer something to the effect of: “The Holy One of God, the Son of Man, or the Son of God.”  Now why on earth would Jesus ask these questions?  Was he concerned about what was going around about him?  Was this an impromptu opinion poll?  If it was, Jesus never did any damage control, never turned around to do a PR campaign.  And I don’t know that Jesus would have lacked confidence enough to be affected by rumors about him.  So why?  Perhaps he just wanted to start a discussion with the disciples.  He wanted to make sure that the gossip of others was not adversely and unhealthily affecting their experience of who he was, who he is.  He wanted to make sure that they believed not even necessarily him, but that they believed their own impressions and opinions of him.  He wanted them to trust themselves--ultimately to trust in the relationship.  He didn’t want them to get the answers from anywhere but their own hearts--didn’t want them to search for answers outside of their own souls, their own inner lives...where God was meeting each one of them.

If I were one of the disciples there that day, when Jesus was asking all these questions, I would have expected Jesus to come up with some answer.  I would have been disappointed when Jesus didn’t come out and say who was right and who was wrong.  I would have felt a little anxiety at the end of the interview, not knowing whether I had answered correctly or not.  Because all Jesus said that day was, “Don’t tell anybody what you have just said.  Don’t tell anybody what you believe about me.”

What?  Does that mean I am wrong?  Isn’t that the message we are out here to proclaim?  Jesus, if you have the answers, why don’t you tell us?  At least tell us who you really are so that we get the story straight.

Moses had the same experience with God.  Standing before the burning bush, God had commanded Moses to go to Egypt and free the people of Israel.  Moses said, “But who shall I say has sent me?”  God responded: “I am who I am.  I will be who I will be.”  Hardly an answer.  Each person who comes before God and hears God’s name must answer that riddle him- or herself.  The name invites us to lay hold of our own experience of God.  For God is simply (simply!) God.  And in my life, God has done this....  Today, I saw God here....  

That is what the role of the Church is: to make everyone a theologian.  To empower everyone to search for--and find words for--who God is.  The Church is not there to give answers, but to point people toward the right questions: “Who do you say that I am?”

  

Accepting answers to the hard questions in life is a tricky thing.  When we are given answers, it doesn’t go so well--usually.  But when we come to the answers on our own, our belief is firm, unshakable.  When we experience Jesus Christ first-hand, then he is a rock.  That is not to say that the experience cannot be, or should not be (at least in part) communal.  The Israelites had a solid communal grasp on who God was.  God is the one who brought us from the land of Egypt and established us in the Promised Land.  But if you read the rest of the Bible, and the Psalms in particular, you see testimonies about how God did that same kind of thing over and over again in countless lives--on large scales and small scales.

For Christians, the communal experience is: Jesus Christ died, so that our sins might be forgiven, and was raised up again so that we all have victory over death.  And so, as we evangelize, we are to be little psalmists, sharing how God has forgiven us, how God has freed us from oppression and fear and bondage and death.

More than that, we are to be stewards of the mystery of God’s action in others’ lives.  Our stories should be shared in such a way that invite people to look at their own lives, to look at themselves and ask questions: “Is God involved in my life?  Is there anything that I have needed to be forgiven for?  What got me through to where I am today?  Who can I turn to in order to make it to tomorrow?”  And so on...

Jesus is not the answer.  Jesus is the Way.  Jesus is mystery incarnate--a walking question.  How can he be both fully God and fully human?  If he is God why did he die?  Why would God use such a ridiculous and inefficient way to work on behalf of his beloved people?

And so, as Christians, we are stewards of Question.

When we claim to have THE answer, I am afraid that we are--every time, without exception--forcing idols on people.

Instead, we should be inviting people into the mystery...“I can’t explain it...‘Come and see.’”

[Don’t stop looking for answers.  Just don’t be afraid if the answers don’t come quickly.  The point is to struggle with fear and trembling.  Learning is so much more than (and more fun than) being taught.  I pray that the Holy Spirit gives you strength in your inner being as you wrestle with the sacred mysteries, as you wrestle with the Hidden God.]

God is a Workaholic -or- Labor Day and the Moral Question of Work

Labor Day Weekend is huge in Toluca, my new home.  Starting on Friday, a carnival is in town, with all sorts of rides for young people of all ages.  Bands play each night in what could be the largest single beer tent I have ever seen.  Toluca Idol, a talent contest runs dozens of local acts over the course of two nights.  A friendly water fight is held on Saturday.  The largest Bocce Ball tournament in the state of Illinois begins at 11:00am, and this year did not end until after 10:00p.m.  In daylight they play all over town.  By the end, they are playing in a lot up town under lights.  And a host of other events and activities fill the weekend.  The holiday culminates on Monday with a parade full of home-made floats, marching bands, tractors, horses--and even a semi-truck hauling a live band on a flat-bed trailer.  There is tons of food, droves of people, and a lot of fun.

I never really thought of Labor Day before, but the way Toluca celebrates made me take another look.  The holiday began in the early 1890s.  It was started by worker’s unions in New York, and spread throughout the country within a couple of years.  Labor Day was intended to mark and honor the hard work that people did every day of the year.  The kind of hard work that puts food on the table, and makes the whole country successful and prosperous.  Labor Day was a sabbath, meant for Americans to look upon their toil, and its fruits, and say: “It is good.”

A few days ago, I read an article from some periodical (I don’t remember which one because I read it online...and could you believe I can’t find it again).  It may have been a blog that asked the question: “Is work good?”  Briefly, the argument ran something like this: in the garden of Eden, humanity did not work.  After disobeying God’s only rule (don’t eat the fruit), Adam and Eve were punished, sentenced to hard labor, and then expelled from Eden.  After that fateful act, whenever Eve or one of her daughters bore a child, they would go into labor.  Meanwhile, Adam was forced to toil in the fields for food, laboring all day long for sustenance.  And so the question was asked, “Isn’t this a most un-Christian holiday?  Should Christians celebrate and rejoice over a punishment and constant reminder of their fallen state?  Etc., etc.”  

My response is simply this: Yes.  Labor Day meet and good.  Giving thanks for our labors (and the subsequent fruits) is good.  Rejoicing for such a reason is good and right, our duty and joy.

First, we need to establish the difference between punishment and consequence.  The story in Genesis 2 and 3 tries to explain why we toil, why childbirth, a natural and necessary process, is so painful.  Presumably, these things did not happen in the Garden.  The humans did not work hard for their food, but gathered it.  And childbirth probably wasn’t painless--it probably just was going to be happening.  One could guess that Adam and Eve really didn’t know how to pull off the latter.  

In eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, all that was about to change.  Now, I don’t know anyone that thinks it is bad to know the difference between Good and Evil.  I don’t know anyone that thinks knowledge is bad, even though knowledge always has consequences, always brings change.  Of a sudden, Adam and Eve knew they were naked.  Thus begins the road to being “fruitful and multiplying.”  

All of a sudden, we had the capacity to weigh, compare and judge.  Humans thus were forced into greater responsibility.  Perhaps God realized that now that we could decide what is good and what is bad, we could handle more, well, life.  Setting us free from the Garden, which had become too small a world for humanity, God gave us the opportunity to be co-creators.  We could help change the face of the earth--recreate the world.  Now we, too, could work six days and rest on the seventh, just as God did.  And we would have the blessed joy of looking back on each of our days, seeing the work we have done, and say “It is good.”  We would not have been satisfied in the Garden, but we are satisfied at the end of a good days work--despite the hardship of the toil.  (At least, we have the capacity to be satisfied by such a thing.)

With our new abilities, gained from the forbidden fruit, we were able now to increase the population of humans on earth.  We were given a greater share of the responsibility for keeping humankind alive on the earth.  Oh, we are more dependent upon God for life and for the continuation of the species than we think we are today, but we have more of a role in that survival than we did in the Garden.  Instead of waiting for the trees we did not plant to bear fruit to eat, we can intentionally grow plants for food.  And we learned that meat doesn’t taste half bad (when cooked)--so we started to do that, too.

Our relationship to animals changed, too, because of our knowledge.  Yes, some became more dangerous to us, since we were not protected within the Garden’s insulation.  However, some animals became trusted companions.  Remember that in the Garden Adam named all the animals, but he didn’t meet one that was anything near a companion for him.  Outside of the Garden, we were a little more open to allies who looked and behaved differently.  Because, all of a sudden, we needed help.  And so we became co-workers with animals such as oxen, mules, horses, dogs, cats, birds etc.  And we started raising (protecting, guarding, nourishing animals--as God did to us in the Garden) in order to use their eggs for food, their fleece for clothing, etc.  It is true that these relationships were not mutual.  We kept/keep some ultimately for their meat, which requires that we kill them.  Whether or not this is, in itself bad (or good), I will leave to another blogpost.  But early in the history of humanity, it was much more a part of survival, and it was not quite so brutally industrial.

So, with knowledge, our world needed to be expanded.  We grew out of the Garden, and God was a responsible enough parent to recognize it and to act accordingly.  Instead of holding us back, God propelled us out and forward.  Yes, we disobeyed by eating the fruit.  But I believe that God forgave that instantly, because forgiveness is the labor God loves most of all.  I believe that every action afterward was not a punishment, but God preparing us for the new world that was ahead.  God was telling us what it would be like out in the world--not to scare us, but to prepare us. 

I could go on, but perhaps you get my trajectory in interpreting this text.  Let me return to the main point.  Should we humans stop and celebrate the work we do?  Yes.  Our toils are not a punishment, but a duty, an honor and a joy.  Even God is proud of what we can do with knowledge of good and evil.  

The important thing is this: as we rest on Labor Day, and celebrate the hard work that we have put in to building a life, to supporting a family, to building a prosperous nation, and all of that, we must keep in mind the Good.  That is, as we celebrate our work, it is good to remember and celebrate God’s labors, too.  Because God’s work has been for us.  God created us, sustains us, forgives us, loves us (even when it is hard), equips us for all kinds of tasks, empowers us to participate in creation and creativity, and even went so far as to do the work of conquering death for us [which means that, in the end, God gave us the fruit of the Tree of Life anyway, even after setting the cherubim up to keep us from it].  

Sometimes I think that God is a workaholic.  Then I remember that even God rested and enjoyed the fruits of his labor.  If we are made in God’s image, that means that the cycle of work and rest/enjoyment is something that we should do, too.  

So every Labor Day (and more often even than that) it is good to remember and celebrate our work...and God’s labor, which makes it possible.

The work we do: it isn’t a punishment, but rather a blessing.

Thanks be to God for that.     

Respirations of Life -or- I Believe in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life

“Spirit” is a word that is deeply rooted in the concept of breath.  In Greek, the word is pneuma, in Hebrew it is ruach.  Both have a depth of meaning: wind, breath, spirit.  At every level of meaning, however, there seems to be the common theme of movement, of life.  The Spirit of God brooded over the waters in the very beginning, when the universe was waste and void.  Was God calling forth her brood?  And God breathed life into Adam and Eve in the Garden, giving them animation--bestowing them with soul and with motivation.  In the ancient Christian baptismal rite, after the adult catechumens were brought up from the water, the bishop would puff warm breath into their noses and mouths.  It was a symbol not only of a new creation, like Adam, but it was also the giving of the Holy Spirit, which Christ first gave the disciples when he appeared to them after the resurrection.  Jesus breathed upon them, they in turn breathed upon us, and we breathe upon others, imparting the Word and the ruach of communion, love, faith, hope and joy.  

Reflecting on the biblical and ritual spirations of my faith, I examine my experience of life.  And I realize that life itself has a respiration of its own.  It is this concept that inspires the following exhalation.

“Respiration” means “to breathe again.”  It connotes a cycle, or at least it implies that something has stopped only to begin again, to begin anew.  I breathe in our oxygen/nitrogen/etc. air and breathe it out.  Then I must do the same thing all over again, which, thankfully, I do without thinking.  That next breath is the same action, and yet it is a new breath.  Life, particularly because of the way we experience time (which is a fascinating topic, destined for another blogpost), can be described in the same way: we are the same living thing, but are new every moment.  That is, every moment is new, and yet it is the same life that transpires.  

“Transpires” means “to breathe through.”  I wrote this blog, while breathing.  The writing of this blog transpired.  It has also transpired that you have read it (or at least most of it...so far).  We use the word to indicate something that has happened or that has taken place--as I have just demonstrated.  Life is a transpiration.  Not only do we breathe as we travel across the plains of our life...we breathe through life...but also we continue on in time, for the whole of our lives, as life itself is busy with respirations.

What do I mean when I say life has a respiration of its own?  I do not mean breathing here, but use the concept metaphorically.  For example, at once we are inspired to do something, to participate in some hobby or activity.  After awhile our interest in that thing expires and we leave off.  Sometimes we come back to that same activity, other times we are simply inspired to do something else.  The same can be said for relationships.  One inspiration carries a friend into our sphere of life, creating energy and wind in the atmosphere.  And life, always moving, causes that friend to travel on, perhaps as quickly as the wind brought him or her.  The Spirit gathers us and sends us.  But when either I or a friend are exhaled (ideally, the movement is mutual...correction: in the end, the parting is always mutual--it just takes some a bit longer to catch their breath), but when either I or a friend are exhaled, it does not necessarily mean that another breath does not await.  We may hold our breath in fear of rejection or change or newness, but life compels us to eventually and invariably take the next breath, which brings with it new inspirations of its own.  Oh, and how joyful a respiration when a friend enters our life again, and we realize the void that existed in the interim.  When this transpires, we wonder what powers conspire to make it so.

“Conspire” means “to breathe together.”  The word has baggage that we might as well unload, in my opinion.  Immediately, we think of villains, or at least questionable types, meeting in an enclosed space, speaking closely, so that soon the only air one can inhale consists in the rank, stagnant exhalations of the co-conspirators.  Usually what next transpires is equally foul.  But this is not always the result when people breathe together.  When we sing together, whether a song a church or Happy Birthday in restaurant or home, we end up breathing together.  Cheering at Soldier Field or shouting support at a political rally, people are breathing together.  Lovers’ sighs are a breathing together.  Two friends sitting together either in grief or joy, anxiety or peace--they breathe together.  Are not all of these conspiracies good?  At least these conspirators, I think, aspire to goodness and righteousness.  But notice!  Even within each conspiracy there is a respiration!  Yes, that happy spiration we call conversation.  In dialogue, one’s mind (one’s whole being!) becomes a lung, which inhales the breathed utterances of the other.  Once inspired by a conversation partner, that lung-mind extracts the elements it requires, and (energy renewed) exhales something new, perhaps something different.  Some minds, I regret to say, are all too frighteningly like lungs--only taking in the same things, again and again.  The closed mind is like that room where questionable personages gather closely to breathe in the same recycled air.  The open mind seeks to breathe in different air, the air of different places and lands, conspiring with all kinds of different people--even conspiring with animals.  Parenthetically, dogs are only good co-conspirators metaphorically speaking...literally not so much so...on account of dog-breath.

But let us not forget that a rich life is full of aspiration.  “Aspiration” means “to breathe to.”  In order to breathe to a thing, your face has to be pointed in that direction.  And so the first part of aspiration is vision, or more specifically, the focus of the eye (which the face must follow, and thus the head, etc.).  But it is not just the look, no, but also the movement.  Ah, now we return to the wind, the brooding, the spirit--or the will.  Our aspirations inspire us with passion, which in turn grants us motivation...animation.  And here we find another respiration: reaching for a thing, failing, reaching again, failing--each time learning, each time coming closer.  And the faster one moves toward a goal, the more and the harder one trains to accomplish that which they aspire to, the harder one breathes.  Such is the effect of movement on the body: the faster I run, the quicker and harder and deeper I breathe.  For this reason, a life full of aspiration is richer: more inhalations, more inspiration, more perspiration.  More than we expect transpires when we but begin to follow even the smallest aspiration.

Well, I am afraid that the inspiration for this post has turned into an expiration.  “Expiration” means “to breathe out.”  I am almost done breathing out all of these words and ideas.  However, that is not usually how we use the word, is it.  “Expire” is different from “exhale” since in the latter we alway expect a subsequent inhale, but the former carries with it a dread finality.  When a loved one expires, breathes out his or her last, the grief is overwhelming--invariably knocking the wind out of us.  But, when someone dies, there begins all sorts of new respirations: memories flow in and out of one’s mind, conversations eulogize the deceased, and the world inhales (or is inspired by) new generations.  Are not children a breath of fresh hope?  But that is not all.  The deceased him or herself continues on in an even greater respiration.  Different systems of belief say different things transpire: some believe that the body merely decomposes, releasing gases and nutrients which other living things inhale; some believe that the spirit of the one who died is breathed into another body living on the earth; and some believe that death is merely an exhalation...that because of the Breath of God a new inhalation always follows that final exhalation.      

In any case, life is full of respiration.

Breathe it in...

And out...

And in again...

You get the idea.

rha

Being in Silence -or- Climbing with the Silent Partner

“Sadness and silence, two things 

I keep in jars in my basement that

 I label “Warning: Do not open.” 

― Jarod Kintz,

Go to Google Images and type in “silence.”

I will tell you what you will find: a host of scary and disturbing images.  If you type in “silent” it is even worse.  The tenor of the images that come up in both searches can be summed up (with a few exceptions) with the following words: horror, demoniac, and despair.  In short, things that ought to be kept in tightly closed containers in the basement labeled “Warning: Do Not Open.”

And indeed, silence is a Pandora’s box.  Silence is not for the weak.  We associate “peace” and “quiet,” but silence is hardly quiet.  Rather, silence is scary.  It is demonic because it is unnatural.  Life in the world is loud.  Just take a walk through the country or in the woods.  One can hear non-human life bustling, chirping, clicking and shuffling.  And walk along a city street.  One hears the still louder sounds of human life unfolding: babies crying as they come into the world, adults laughing, and motors on all sorts of tools rumbling (even electric motors on cars and yard tools have a rather obtrusive hum).  I can hear now the sounds of ipods and alarm clocks and cell phones.  I can even hear my own cell phone cry out across the house when it is on “silent.”  When all of these things are truly silenced, our bones understand that a predator or a storm must be near--that all living things are waiting and hiding.  From each one’s own perspective, there is nothing more silent than the bated breath caused by a sense of horror, for even the slight sound of breath is suspended.  Noise is reassuring.  Those things that make sounds rarely have nefarious intent, and even if they do, at least we can hear them coming.

Though “quiet” and “peace” often come in tandem, the word is also commonly wed to “despair.”  Delight is a noisy affair, often coming with shouts, laughter and boasting.  But despair is...more subdued.  The one who is preoccupied with enduring has not the leisure or energy to expend on protest, and thus certainly not mirth.  Although spiritual pain might be better relieved with loud lamentations, as one overcoming physical pain with primal screams.  But, alas, for whatever reason, most feel compelled to suffer psychologically, spiritually (and sometimes even physically) in relative silence.  Perhaps the thought is to remain unnoticed, so as to show no weakness.  Despair, too, becomes all-consuming; the despairing one is too focussed on the inner life, the sounds of which are deadened by the insulation of the mind and heart.  No one else hears the tumult.

Here we arrive at the deep, inherent scariness of silence...the inner life.  

Silence is unnerving because in silence the only thing before one’s consciousness is one’s own nerves.  And they produce the loudest cacophony of all.  

“Silence can often be more disturbing than noise, 

it reveals the complicated mechanism of our thoughts” 

― Jose Rodrigues Migueis

Soren Kierkegaard wrote extensively on the relationship we each have with ourselves.  He believed that there was only one person, one thing, in the world that you could not overcome.  In a word, yourself.  I am an even match to myself.  Therein lies the eternal struggle.  So eternal, in point of fact, that God--the One who is timeless--intercedes to free me from my biggest oppressor.  (And if you do not like that language, I would point you to the thought and work of Malcolm X and James Cone.  Both of their stances on racial oppression in 20th and 21st Century United States convey a similar idea--with more widespread and traumatic implications.  **For a longer treatment of the comparison and contrast of Cone and Kierkegaard’s thought, I will post a paper I wrote in seminary on a new page of my blog.  [So, yeah, I couldn't do this because footnoted papers do not translate well to the blogosphere...if you would like to read the paper, contact me and I will send you a PDF.  Sorry for the inconvenience.] )  

If I met another that was unequal to me, then two possibilities exist: first, I am the stronger, and so I overwhelm the other.  Or, second, I am the weaker.  In this case, I am overwhelmed, but I can always go away with some consolation, i.e. the stronger is supposed to win or I ultimately overcome by surviving and moving on.  If I met another that was equal to me, then there is a stalemate...but the struggle will still end--either with a sense of mutual respect, or with some degree of indignant loathing.  And I can always overcome the one who is equal or the one who is stronger by being, “the bigger person.”  One need only change one’s measure of success, given the situation.

But when the opponent is one’s self, when one is trapped in conflict against one’s self, there can be neither victory nor stalemate, nor consolation.  One cannot be “the bigger person” in relationship to one’s self.  At least, not under one’s own power.

I say all of this not to prove that silence is scary, but rather the proof of the former is the fact that (most) people are afraid of silence.  And even the one who is not afraid of silence, will fear it at some point again.  Because in silence we have nothing to hear, nothing to see, nothing to study or attend to other than the self.  And this makes us dreadfully uncomfortable.  Why?  Because the soul is so deep.  Because one spends so much of one’s time listening to other things, that when one occasionally listens only to  one’s self, the sound (the voice) is foreign.  And in life, over the course of time, one’s soul grows deeper, and one’s personality is changed by various and sundry experiences.  We are each and all of the opinion that we ought to, at the very least, know our respective selves.  At the very least, I should have control over my inner being (our culture gives us this story of radical agency of the individual, over the individual).  And in silence we realize how little we know...how little our self-governance actually accomplishes.  The mirror of silence reveals an unanticipated visage. 

When silence occurs while in the presence of another person, the effect is even more anxiety-producing.  One gazes in the same mirror, while at the same time feeling someone else looking over one’s shoulder.  Of course, one cannot hear the thoughts of another, but the nearby presence is enough to imagine the voyeuristic tableau.  And this produces some amount of shame.

Ah, but if one is comfortable with oneself, then silence is not scary.  It may always be work or striving or struggle, but it is not fear-inducing.  Furthermore, if one engages in silence enough, then the silence shared between two people also becomes a comfort.  The two are sharing in a most intimate activity.  It may not say anything about the relationship.  However, it says a great deal about the individuals.  Then again, I suppose that if one can love one’s self in the presence of another, then there is an openness and freedom that can only be created by the deep mutual trust that is only produced in love.

We have, at last, reached the heart of the matter.  Do not be afraid of silence, because it is the arena in which love strives to win it all.  Silence gives space and place for love to overcome our inner crisis (or crises).  

Be still and know...

...know that God loves you.

...know that you have every reason to love yourself.

...know that you need not fear the judgement of others.

...know that that very stillness will give you inner strength.

...know that I AM.  (Or I suppose...you are.) 

Now, if you will pardon me, I am called to silence.

“In the ultimate stillness

Light penetrates the whole realm;

In the still illumination,

There pervades pure emptiness.

When I look back on the

Phenomenal world,

Everything is just

Like a dream.” 

― Han-shan Te-Ch'ing