Use the Right Tools for the Job

Posted on July 5, 2014 by salooper57

 

Millions of people have experienced the value of a rich and healthy spirituality. Yet everyone knows someone whose religion has not only not helped him, but has made him worse. How is it that one person finds treasure in religious belief when another does not?

Religion is like a house with many rooms, some opulent and others dingy. The treasure does not lie in the structure itself, but in finding the riches within it – but especially in meeting the owner.

Consider the following scenario: You’ve purchased a farm and have heard from people in the neighborhood that the old man who lived there before you kept all his money in hiding places around the farm. He died in a car accident, and no one was ever able to find his money. Rumor has it that hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonds and cash are hidden in metal-lock boxes somewhere on the property. Now if you wanted to search for that, what tools would you use?

A metal detector? Probably. A shovel? Sure – and maybe even a backhoe. Perhaps you would want a surveyor’s map of the property, and a deed that showed where all the out-buildings once stood. You’d surely want a flashlight. You would want the best tools for the job.

Now let’s say that you’ve been going to church for a while and you have heard that it is possible to find an even better treasure in a relationship with God: his favor, his guidance and a continual sense of his presence. You can search for these things and find them, but what kind of tools will you need for that search? What are the most important tools of the trade?

The first essential tool is prayer. The Bible repeatedly links the idea of searching for God to the practice of prayer. People who are serious about the search for God pray, and they pray a lot. Those who neglect this tool will be unsuccessful in the search.

But like any tool, if you don’t use it as it was designed to be used you won’t get the results it was intended to provide. I was once in possession of a tool that looked like a miniature vise, but I never found out where it came from or what it was used for. I’m sure it served a meaningful purpose, but it never served it for me because I didn’t understand how it worked.

So with prayer. It is the essential tool in the searcher’s toolbox, but it is not much good if we don’t know how to use it. The Bible contains plenty of practical advice on how to pray, and every searcher would be wise to begin with Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6. St. Paul gives helpful instruction in Romans 8. The Psalms are a prayer book worth pondering, and helpful examples of prayer can be found in Ephesians 1:15-9 and 3:16-19, Philippians 1:1-11, Colossians 1:9-12.

Prayer works best when used with the other indispensable tool for the search, the scriptures. One of the great searchers, the prophet Daniel, modeled the use of prayer in conjunction with scripture. He says that it was while reading the prophet Jeremiah that he turned to the Lord and sought him by prayer.

Not only did meditation on the Book of Jeremiah lead Daniel to seek God, his prayer was filled with scriptural ideas and images. The “covenant of love” language he used came straight from the Book of Deuteronomy. Passages from the Law of Moses are evident. In fact, nearly every sentence in his prayer grows right out of some biblical passage. It is clear that Daniel had immersed himself in biblical revelation. Prayer and Scripture go together like a hammer and nail.

Fasting is another search tool. It is not a spiritual pry-bar used to move God, as often thought, but a means of humbling oneself. Humility is a pre-condition of the search. God avoids the proud and, no matter how hard you search, if he is avoiding you, you’ll never find him.

Seeking God is a lifelong pursuit. Even when you possess the best tools, and know how to use them, you must persist with determination. The casual searcher will not succeed. The committed searcher will not fail.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 7/5/14

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Your Short Story’s Place in God’s Long Story

Posted on June 28, 2014 by salooper57

Americans love the Bible. But they love the Bible like they love an ideal, not like they love a spouse. They know the Bible is important; they believe it provides inspired guidance for a life well lived; they hold it in reverence. But the truth is they don’t hold it very

According to Religion New Service, almost 90 percent of Americans own a Bible and 80 percent deem it “sacred.” Yet in a year’s time, a majority of Americans only read from the Bible four times, and the under-thirty crowd reads from the Bible less often than that. This in spite of the fact that 61 percent of Americans say they wish they read the Bible

Doug Birdsall, former president of the American Bible Society, compared the issue to America’s obesity problem. “We have an awful lot of people who realize they’re overweight, but they don’t follow a diet … People realize the Bible has values that would help us in our spiritual health, but they just don’t read

Some people try reading the Bible, like they try dieting, but soon give it up. They complain they can’t understand the Bible. They find its size and variety of genres intimidating.

They start in Genesis and read the stories of creation, of Noah and the flood and the choice of Abraham as God’s redemptive agent, and find them interesting. But then they come to the blueprints for building the worship tabernacle in Exodus, and they can’t understand what that has to do with their lives. And when they reach the purity regulations in Leviticus, they give up. The Bible seems to be a randomly diverse compilation of texts.

If God meant the Bible to be a revelation of who he is and what we need to believe, why give us stories, blueprints and regulations? Why not give us a statement of faith – the ten essential beliefs we must affirm to get to heaven? Why not write a job description?

The short answer is: had God given us a job description we would, at best, have been his employees. If he’d given us a statement of faith, we would have signed on the dotted line, and felt like we’d done our duty. Such written works may have informed our thoughts and directed our actions, but they would not have brought us into a loving relationship with God. Yet that is something the Bible, with all its diverse genres, has done for millions of people.

The Bible, from beginning to end, is a revelation – a self-revelation – from God. It is a long story comprised of short stories, poetry, wisdom and apocalyptic literature, and prophecy. The grand, overarching story recounts how God faithfully keeps his promise to rescue and restore his creation, which suffers from life-threatening, self-inflicted wounds. In the Bible we find out who God is, what he cares about and what he is doing.

But why include so many stories that seem only tangentially related to the main storyline? Particularly, why include dingy stories like the patriarch Judah’s dalliance with a prostitute or King David’s adulterous affair? Why relate the ugly story of a woman’s dismemberment at the hands of her lover or of a drunken father’s incestuous relationship with his daughters? Why all the blood and gore of battles, and the devastating destruction of war?

Stories like these, along with many others that surprise unsuspecting readers, are in the Bible because the Creator chose, at the onset of his great cosmic project, to allow his creatures the honor of working as his collaborators. They bring their short stories into his great story and, when they do, he weaves them into his magnificent storyline.

The array of biblical stories, some recounting glorious heroism, some disturbing evil, remind the reader that God can take any story his creatures submit to him and use it to advance his storyline. The crucifixion of Jesus is the most notable example of God’s ability to make everything that happens serve his story. It proves, as St. Paul wrote, “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 6/28/2014

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Accidents happen … or do they?

Posted on June 21, 2014 by salooper57

I experienced a funny coincidence when looking to purchase a new mattress. I had done my homework, investigating different manufacturers online, looking at reviews and reading what the experts say. My wife and I comparison shopped several mattress stores and then went to the mall, where the best-known brand of air beds had a retail store.

Having done my homework, I thought an adjustable air bed might be the best buy for us, but after looking at dozens of mattresses, we were confused. The cost of the air beds was more than I wanted to pay, and yet several friends had been extremely satisfied with their purchase.

After talking to the salesperson and lying on several beds, we left the store to weigh the pros and cons. As we walked and talked, we wandered into a book store. While my wife was exploring, I went to the poetry section and picked up a new (at the time) book by Billy Collins and read the table of contents. The poem titled “Hell” caught my eye.

The title and first line read: “Hell. I have a feeling that it is much worse than shopping for a mattress at a mall…” I laughed at the coincidence and hurried off to show my wife.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a coincidence as: (1) “A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection”; or (2) “The fact of corresponding in nature or in time of occurrence.” The former suggests the co-incidence of events is accidental – they are “without apparent causal connection.” The latter merely notes the correspondence, making no mention of its cause.

What is the person of faith to make of coincidences? Clearly he can affirm the second definition in the Oxford Dictionary, but can he accept the first? Are there such things as accidents?

This is really a question about the kind of world we live in. Is everything that happens brutally constrained by the laws of physics, operating both in the world around us and the world within us – in our bodies and brains? This view, known as materialistic naturalism, suggests that everything that happens around us and in us – even our thoughts and moods – are the result (and are only the result) of the interaction of the laws of nature on the matter of which we and our universe are composed. According to this view, nothing ever happens by accident.

Another view, which might be labeled general theological monergism (in contrast to special monergism, which confines itself to the spiritual regeneration of individuals), suggests that everything that ever happens in the universe, from the birth of a galaxy to the birth of a baby, happens because God chooses for it to happen. As in materialistic naturalism, this view holds that nothing ever happens by accident.

In both these views, an ultimate power (either God or the laws of physics) determines every single thing that happens. A third view loosens but does not remove the restraints of an ultimate power. It sees a complex interaction between matter and will and between God’s will and human will. This view holds that God created the cosmos with a degree of elasticity that allows for real choice, though it makes clear that the elastic will only stretch so far.

According to this view God retains control, both overall and in specific instances, though he allows his creatures to make decisions for themselves, even ones he would rather they not make. He provided room for the exercise of choice in the very act of creation, because he knew that people could never be fully human without it. Only thus could they be made in his image.

In this view God conducts the orchestra, but he does not play every instrument. He has given that honor to his creatures and won’t take it from them. So does that mean that accidents happen? It means that the results of choices (and the results of the results of the results of choices) will often be beyond any power but God’s to predict – or correct. If you want to call that an accident, feel free. I call it an extraordinary gift from a wise and loving Creator.

First Published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 6/21/2014

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New Music

Posted on June 12, 2014 by salooper57

Just added some new music to the Music page for you to check out. It’s called “Should’ve Listened Suite.” Hope you like it. Just click on “Music” in the mast.

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The prelude to an adventurous life

Posted on June 7, 2014 by salooper57

When asked what he thought of his pastor’s sermon, a man said: “The preacher starts preaching at 11:15. And every Sunday when it gets to be noon I look at my watch … and it is only 11:25.”

When our church moved into a new worship space a few years ago, we opted for chairs rather than pews. But that left us with a couple of dozen oak pews from the old space that we no longer needed, so we offered them for sale.

One of our elders joked, “We could advertise this way: ‘You’ve slept in them at church; why not take one home to sleep in? You won’t have all the annoying interruptions!’” Someone added, “We could sweeten the deal by throwing in a sermon CD – guaranteed to give you a good night’s sleep.”

When surveyed, people frequently say they don’t go to church because it’s boring. But that’s a double-edged sword. People may be bored because the church service is dull, but the church service may be dull because the people in the pews (and the pulpits) were already bored when they came in. Sadly, so much of what happens on the church scene today is an attempt to capture the attention of people who lead boring lives.

It is hard to understand how a person can really follow Jesus of Nazareth and still be bored. He did not lead a boring life, nor did his friends, nor did those people who have known him best through the centuries. In Bonhoeffer’s words, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” He does not bid him come and be bored.

Jesus’s life was an adventure: exciting, sometimes intense and always meaningful. And the people who really follow him still live that kind of life. We were designed for adventure.

But here is the thing about adventures: “Adventures by the fireside” (as Oliver Goldsmith put it) with a good book are one thing. Real adventures are another. Thornton Wilder was right: When you’re safe at home you wish you were out having an adventure, but “when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.”

One can’t help but wonder if people aren’t bored because that’s what they’ve chosen. Of course they’d never admit it, but boredom is safer and easier than adventure. Or perhaps they choose boredom because adventure leaves no time for self-absorption and, frankly, they intend to remain self-absorbed. One is never more wrapped up in oneself than when bored.

But boredom is risky. It makes people easy prey to distractions and temptations, from overeating to overspending to adulterous affairs. And it spreads, spreads like a cancer. Boredom reaches into one’s work life, family life, and spiritual life and gradually consumes all its pleasures. As counterintuitive as it seems, adventure is safer than boredom.

To enter the adventure you don’t need a different life, but you do need to live your life differently. You can’t pursue a goal of comfort, prosperity, or security, and hope to escape the stale life of self-promotion and self-protection. Those who do find it necessary to create adventure artificially by going on trips, trekking through the wilderness, or watching action movies. A person who lives for himself has to find ways to introduce adventure into his life.

But if you live for something bigger than yourself, you won’t have to escape the life you’ve been given in order to have adventure. Make it your goal to live for God and to love others, and you’ll have adventure. And not a “fireside adventure” either, but the real thing.

This requires us to make our everyday routine serve a larger purpose, which is exactly what that daring adventurer Paul told people to do: “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” To do so, as the apostle knew personally, is always a prelude to adventure.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, June 7, 2014

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The Home of the Disinterested

Posted on May 31, 2014 by salooper57

Floyd Collins was a legend in his own time. But his time ran out.

Floyd Collins was a Kentucky farmer who dreamed of striking it rich by turning the Crystal Cave that lay beneath his family’s farm into a major tourist destination, rivaling, and perhaps even surpassing, nearby Mammoth Cave.

Crystal Cave had some success in drawing tourists, but Floyd hoped for more. He continually explored nearby caves for new attractions, believing that other entrances into Mammoth system might be found.

In February, 1925, Floyd (called “America’s greatest cave explorer” by the press) was exploring Sand Cave without proper clothing, with only one lamp and no protective helmet. When a stone fell in the narrow shaft he was exploring, Floyd was wedged in and his leg possibly broken.

When his family went looking for him, they discovered Floyd trapped 55 feet below the surface, in a shaft too narrow for rescuers to enter. His story soon hit the press and was broadcast around the country over the fledgling new medium known as radio. Farmer Collins was transformed into America’s greatest caver and the world’s first real-time media sensation.

Reporters from both coasts hopped trains and headed for central Kentucky. Up-to-the-minute reports of the rescue effort were broadcast around the country. People flocked to Sand Cave in great numbers to see what would happen, and even listened to Floyd as he called out from his underground prison.

Food and water was lowered to Floyd while the rescue effort proceeded. A new shaft was dug and a diminutive reporter was even lowered into the crawlway to interview Floyd. But it was all to no avail. After two weeks, the shaft collapsed even further, cutting Floyd off from human contact. Two days later he died.

The most disturbing thing about the Floyd Collins story was not his death, but the circus that went on just above his head. Ten thousand people came to watch. Vendors sold hot dogs and sandwiches. When Floyd lost his grip on reality and began blathering about angels in white chariots, the crowds were riveted. It was good theater.

Of course Floyd was neither the first nor the last person to entertain crowds by his misfortune. Think of the Roman Coliseum or, for that matter, the execution of Jesus outside Jerusalem. A sign had to be posted in four different languages to inform the vast crowd of onlookers of his “crime.”

How easily we slip into the role of spectator. Of course there are times when we are afraid to get involved, but often we don’t even consider getting involved because we have become habituated to watching without acting. We have seen so many murders and so much mayhem in movies and on television that we have become numb to it. Each evening the news brings us horrific stories of tragedy and injustice that we can do nothing about, with the result that we have become accustomed to doing nothing. It is our default position.

Our tolerance – already too high – for injustice has grown. Our ability to distance ourselves from human suffering has increased. The resulting indifference to the poor and ill-used has taken a toll on our national identity. The home of the brave has become the home of the disinterested.

This spectator mentality also inhibits spiritual development. To hear truth without acting on it is a chief cause of spiritual stupidity. “Doers of the word” prepare themselves for further understanding and, therefore, for further adventures with God and people. But “hearers only” anesthetize themselves to the freeing, life-giving impulses of the Spirit.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, May 31, 2014

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The real problem with inventing gods

Posted on May 24, 2014 by salooper57

Some years ago I attended a conference on Intelligent Design (I.D.). The organizers invited speakers who championed I. D. theory and others who opposed it. The highlight of the conference was a debate between an internationally-known proponent of I.D. and an internationally-known Darwinian theorist.

The debate was interesting on many levels. I noticed that the Darwinian routinely characterized his I. D. opponent as a “creationist,” a designation that the other, who also accepted the instrumentality of natural selection in the development of the species, rejected.

But most interesting to me was the religious language and fervor demonstrated by the Darwinist. He personified the evolutionary process and talked of it as if it were self-aware. It was beautiful, brilliant, powerful. When confronted with a specific challenge to traditional evolutionary theory, the speaker exhibited remarkable faith: “We don’t understand it yet, but we know that Darwinism will eventually reveal how it works.”

As I sat listening, it struck me that Darwinian evolution was this man’s deity. He was awed by its beauty. He trusted its power. He sacrificed his life to its gospel. If the debate had been transcribed and his references to Darwinism, natural selection and evolutionary theory been replaced with words like “God,” “the deity” and “the Almighty,” later readers would certainly have taken it for an evangelical broadside.

I am reminded of Voltaire’s sardonic comment: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” And even with a God, humans still find it necessary to invent their own. And it’s not just evolutionary biologists who feel the need.

So we invent our own gods. There is the Therapeutic deity, the one who is there when you need him but politely stays out of the way the rest of the time. He comforts but never confronts, provides but never rebukes.

There is the Success god. This is an old one, who has gone by various names: Baal, Ashtoreth, Demeter and many others. In his present-day manifestation, this god has temples in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, where sacrifices are made in common and preferred stock, futures, options and bonds. There is also a sacred version of this god, whose acceptable sacrifices include cash, credit or checks. You can find his priests on TV and in your local bookstore.

Some of the gods humans have invented are distasteful. There is the “Eye for Eye” (or Bad Karma) god, whose chief attribute is his remarkable memory. He never forgets. There is the Paymaster god, whose pay-as-you-go gospel promises a heaven, but only for the hard-working. There’s the “Bad Cop” god, who is just looking for a reason to pull you over and run you in.

There are some pretty sad gods too, like the insecure, attention-seeker-god, who really could use a few sessions on the Therapeutic Deity’s couch. Or the apathetic god, a regular in ancient times who still shows up today. He may have been concerned about us at one time, but somewhere along the way he just lost interest.

It has been said that the Hindu religion has 33 million gods, but Hindus have nothing on us. If a god is a power to whom one entrusts his security and to whom one makes sacrifices, we have plenty of our own.

The real problem with inventing gods (or giving homage to someone else’s pre-manufactured deity) is that it prevents you from acknowledging the real God and bringing your life into alignment with his ways, which is to say, with reality. The Ten Commandments begin with “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” for good reason. It’s not possible to simultaneously serve the god you’ve made and the God who made you, and manage to do right by either.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, May 24, 2014

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Finding God at the bird feeder

Posted on May 17, 2014 by salooper57
That looks interesting...

That looks interesting…

Hey, I was here first!

Hey, I was here first!

Three's Company

Three’s Company

Who do these newcomers think they are, anyway?

Who do these newcomers think they are, anyway?

A couple of weeks ago my wife bought oranges at the store, which I cut in half and placed on our shrubs and in the maple tree just outside our kitchen window. A few days later I hung the oriole feeder from a branch that extends to within fifteen feet of the house. A day or two after that, I cut another orange in half, scooped out the fruit and filled the half-circle of the peel with grape jelly and then set it on the windowsill.

The next day the orioles arrived. They sit on the feeder and nibble at the orange. They alight on the hummingbird feeder that hangs by the window and jump down onto the sill to eat the jelly. Sometimes there are three orioles on the windowsill at once, squawking angrily at one another, each impatient to take its turn.

The hummingbirds have also returned. It takes a while for them to settle down enough to land on the feeder and drink the sugar water we’ve prepared. And even when they do, they never stop watching for the enemies (mostly other hummingbirds) that lie in wait to ambush them. I’ve seen two hummingbirds, facing each other, stationary in midair, like gunfighters on the street of some dusty Old West town, about to draw.

At times the birds will fly up to the feeder or to the windowsill and eat while we are standing just feet away. If the screen wasn’t in the window, and I was quick enough, I could reach out and grab them.

Our kitchen sink sits under that window, so we are often standing there doing dishes when the birds fly up. For the most part, they ignore us. We can talk, laugh, even clatter dishes together and they pay no mind. But if they see us move, they’re off in a split second.

Sometimes when one lands on the windowsill, I speak to him. “Hey, buddy: I’m the guy who puts the food out for you. I take care of you. What are you so worried about? Don’t fly away!”     But he does anyway.

I’ve been thinking that God’s relationship to people is a little like my relationship to those birds. He takes cares of us, provides for our needs and enjoys having us near. But we, like the orioles and hummingbirds, are rarely aware of his presence. If we do sense him getting close, we are more likely to bolt than to stay.

God speaks to us, like I speak to the hummingbirds and orioles (only with more love and concern), but we don’t realize that we are hearing a voice; or, if we do, that the voice is speaking to us. Unless something miraculous happens – some conspicuous movement of God – we pay the voice no mind. If we vaguely sense that something is moving toward us, we quickly retreat to a safe distance and settle back into our ambitions and distractions.

This explains why, in the Bible, people often do not hear God when he speaks or, hearing, fail to understand what he says. One particularly illuminating instance of this happened just days before Jesus’s arrest and execution. As he spoke before a crowd, St. John tells us, “… a voice came from heaven.”

The voice was God’s, but “The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.” With varying degrees of spiritual insight, some recognized a voice in the unexpected sound but others did not.

This also explains why, when God came to us, he did so by becoming one of us. St. John again: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Coming to us in his (super) natural self was out of the question. We undoubtedly would have tried to flee from him.

Sometimes people ask why God does not show himself in order to convince the world that he exists. But it would do no good. The world is no more (and is probably far less) capable of accepting his appearance than the birds are of accepting mine. Our limitations limit his options. But not his love.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 5/17/2014

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What heritage are you leaving your children?

Posted on May 10, 2014 by salooper57

Baby Boomer parents are confused about what to leave their children when they die. It was the goal of pre-war parents to leave their children as hefty an estate as possible, but Boomers are questioning the wisdom of such a proposition.

Selfishness – the “I’m spending my kid’s inheritance” mentality – may account for some of this reticence, but not all. A survey of Boomers suggests that one in five fear their children will squander their inheritance and one in four worry that their children will become lazy.

The way to overcome such fears is to give more thought to, and place more emphasis on, your kids’ heritage than their inheritance. An inheritance is what you leave to your kids. A heritage is what you leave in them. An inheritance might include real estate or stocks or mutual funds. A heritage might include faith in God, courage in trouble, compassion for those in need, or dedication to improving the community.

A mother who leaves her family a rich heritage needn’t worry about how her children will handle their inheritance, however great or small it may be. They’ll do fine.

When asked what kind of heritage their parents left them, people usually respond by mentioning positive traits: “My dad left me a strong work ethic.” Or “My mom instilled in me a robust sense of personal responsibility.” But the heritage a parent leaves may be positive or negative, or a mixture of both, just as the estate a parent leaves may include assets and liabilities.

The biblical book of Second Kings contains an important reminder that one’s heritage can be injurious: “And to this very day their children and grandchildren continue to do what their people before them did” (2 Kings 17:41). In some contexts that might be good, but not in this one. The children were mindlessly following the harmful syncretistic practices of their parents.

Parents instill within their children a way of seeing the world around them and a way of acting in that world. This way of seeing the world can (and often does) conflict with the way their parents actually talk about the world. When that happens, children may or may not accept what their parents say, but they will see what their parents saw.

Early in the nineteenth century, a prosperous middle-class family moved within the Prussian Kingdom to a new region, where the head of the household promptly changed his name from the Yiddish Herschel to the German Heinrich. He also converted from Judaism to Lutheranism, a move some say was based on economic rather than religious considerations.

Heinrich’s son Karl went to London to study, often relying on his wealthy maternal uncle for material assistance. Karl visited the British Museum almost daily, formulating ideas and composing a book, Das Kaptial. In it he ridiculed religion as an “opiate for the masses” and taught that it – like everything else – could be explained in terms of social and economic theory.

Karl Marx rejected his father’s religion but accepted his father’s world, a world in which economic “laws of motion” govern society. That was the heritage his father bequeathed to him. Moms and dads may or may not pass on an estate to their children, but they will pass on their values.

Many people give a great deal of thought, time and money to organizing their finances and planning their estate. They consult financial advisors and have lawyers draw up their wills. Not nearly as many people give thought to the heritage they will leave their children, even though it will bring them far greater satisfaction and an enriched personal life.

The good thing about a heritage is that a person can begin to build it at any time in life, though of course sooner is better. What is it you want to instill in your children? Confidence? Tolerance? Perseverance? Generosity? Fearlessness? Since you can’t pass on what you don’t have, go to work now to accrue these riches, so that you can pass them on the next generation.

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Recover Eternity In Order to Find Time

Posted on May 3, 2014 by salooper57

 

There was an old farmer who wore a pair of overalls every day of the week, except Sundays. He was a wise, thoughtful, slow-speaking man. The changing fashions of the world around him didn’t interest him, but he thought deeply about people and about the ideas that moved them.

I asked him once, after he had been somewhat sidelined by health issues, if he ever got bored. No, he said, he didn’t get bored. He thought: thought about the past, about the friends he had known and the ways of God and people. Often when we would meet, he would have some question to ask me – usually one he had been contemplating for weeks.

My old friend was out of step with the world around him, and not just in regard to fashion. Unlike his neighbors, I never saw him hurry. His mind did not flit; it lingered. He did not care about the latest thing; he cared about lasting things.

We live in an age of hyperactivity, in which superficiality is the norm. It takes time to grow deep, and time is the one thing we cannot afford. We’ve already spent it – and our money – in trying to keep up with the Joneses. We leave ourselves just enough time to rush to the next appointment and no time to think about whether the life we have is the life we want.

Last week CBS news reported that drivers in major cities are now paying – up to $1.40 per mile – to drive in the express lanes. Yet research indicates that fast-lane drivers only save about two minutes per commute over their slow-lane cousins. But to the so-called “Lexus-lane” drivers, every minute counts. But counts for what?

Gordon Macdonald, quoting D. T. Niles’ Warrack Lectures of 1958, writes: “Hurry means that we gather impressions but have no experiences, that we collect acquaintances but make no friends, that we attend meetings but experience no encounter. We must recover eternity if we are to find time … For without it, there can be no charity.”

Niles’ words were prophetic. Now, almost six decades later, we live in a world that has misplaced eternity, run short on time and lost charity – that sense of love and compassion that makes human life truly human.

Times for stillness and reflection are essential to our development as human – not to mention, as spiritual – beings. There is a recurring theme in the Jewish and Christian scriptures that addresses this need: “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord,” Moses instructed his countrymen. In the psalms: “Be still and know that I am God.” Or, “…commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” The prophet Isaiah reminded his readers: “He who believes will not be in a hurry.”

Jesus told would-be followers: “If you continue” (literally, “remain”) “in my word, you are truly my disciples.” He understood that a brief acquaintance with his teaching was not enough to change people. They needed to stay in his teaching, become conversant with it and think about how it applies to their lives.

That is not something we are good at. On the evening news we watch a complicated story about a funding bill before Congress. The issue is layered. There are pros and cons to the legislation. We spend 60 seconds listening to it and no time at all thinking about it before we are on to a commercial for arthritis medicine. And yet we imagine ourselves to be well-informed.

We do the same thing when it comes to spiritual issues. We listen to a sermon, remark positively on its profound insights, assume that we’ve learned something, and never think about it again. But information only leads to transformation after contemplation. And that takes time.

Jesus told his friends they needed to stay with him and his words needed to stay with them. That takes time. But he knew there are no shortcuts to a richly rewarding spiritual life.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 5/3/2014

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