Blind Spots

Two Sundays ago, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading was John 9:1-41, in which Jesus heals a man born blind.  One set of characters in this story is a group of powerful religious leaders, whom Jesus engages in conflict.  (It's remarkable how often the good, proper, diligent religious leaders come in for quite a hard time with Jesus!!)  These religious leaders are sure that they know the truth.  Their certitude blinds them to dimensions of grace, truth, reality, neighborliness, mystery, and compassion.

This story makes me wonder about our own "blind spots."  What are the things that keep us from seeing life clearly?  What dimensions of reality, truth, grace, mystery, and life are kept hidden from us?  To what aspects of life are we blind?  What aspects of life are we unable to see?

Our biggest blind spots are often directly related to the primary ways that we like to think of ourselves.  When our sources of identity and self-esteem are threatened in some way, we may lose our ability to perceive things accurately.

For example, imagine people who base their identity and self-esteem on how much money they have.  The more money they have, the better they feel about themselves.  Now, imagine those people losing an enormous percentage of their money in the stock market.  If these folks genuinely believe that their self-worth is tied to the amount of money in their accounts, their capacity to see any beauty, joy, or abundance in the world will be severely diminished at that moment.  They may begin to panic.  They'll be blinded.

Or, imagine people whose self-esteem is based on whether people like them or not, whether people approve of them or not.  When people praise them, they feel terrific.  But now, imagine those people  being severely criticized for something.  If these folks genuinely believe that their self-worth, their identity, is based on whether people like them or not, then their ability to think clearly and calmly may be threatened when they get criticized.  They may panic and be unable to see clearly.

Who are you?  On what do you base your self-esteem?  For many of us, we may have built our lives and our identity around becoming a success, or being thought of as nice, or being acknowledged as right, or around staying safe, or around being really popular.  We may have become really good at these things!  The trouble is that these things never last.  They can be transient, fleeting, and taken away from us.  And our zealous pursuit of these things can blind us to larger, deeper, more lasting dimensions of life.

This is why the Christian faith insists that the only firm foundation for our lives is God's gracious love for us.  Everything else can be taken away from us.  We haven't earned this love, we don't deserve it, and we can't control it.  But God pours it out on us, abundantly, anyway.  And it will never be taken away. 

One Step at a Time

‘Step by step.’  ‘One day at a time.’  ‘Every journey begins with a single step.’  Our culture has a variety of wisdom-sayings that encourage us to take things slowly and deliberately and patiently.  These sayings are very important, because in our anxiety and haste, we can feel like we have to “fix everything RIGHT NOW!!!”  But when we take things slowly, and only expect to figure things out “one step at a time,” even our most difficult projects can become manageable.

A number of years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Zimbabwe to visit our dear friends, Mark and Ruth, who were working there.  A highlight of the trip was a day-hike that we took with Mark.  We were hiking up one of the many kopjes (medium-sized hills of rock; pronounced “copies”) around Zimbabwe.  The kopje we climbed is named Ngoma Kurira, and is about 25 minutes outside the capital city of Harare.

Mark had told us that it would be a “nice day hike.”  Well, my assumptions about what constituted a “nice day hike” (easy, gentle slopes; about a 45 minute walk) did not match the reality of Ngoma Kurira.  The hike involved navigating a small ravine, in which we placed our feet on one side of the ravine, while we leaned across to place our hands on the other side of the ravine.  We then crab-walked our way for a short distance, while virtually horizontal over the ravine.  (If you’re having trouble getting a visual image, that’s probably just as well.  Believe me, it wasn’t pretty.)

But the most demanding—and ultimately, the most satisfying—part of the hike was climbing the face of the rock, a 500-yard climb at a 60-degree angle.  Standing at the base of the rock and looking up, I laughed nervously and said, “We’re going up that?”  Mark said, “Yep.”  I said, “No, seriously.  For real?”  Mark said, “Yep.”  I continued, “Mark, I’m not sure I can make it to the top of that thing.”  And then Mark said—and this is what blew me away—“Right now, your task is not to get to the top.  Your task, right now, is to focus on finding a place for your left foot to go.  Then, your task will be to find a place for your right foot to go.  Eventually, you’ll be at the top.  But you’ll only get there one step at a time.”  So, for the next 45 minutes, I focused on one step at a time, not thinking about anything else, as we climbed the steepest, longest rock-face I have ever climbed. 

45 minutes later, we were at the top.  It worked.  My nervous, skittish self had become a rock-climber.

So many times in our lives, we become consumed by, threatened by, intimidated by the big questions in our lives.  “What will I do with my life?  How can I become a good person?  How can I put together this major project?  How can I finish this work of art?  How will I ever raise a child successfully?”  We can become so demoralized by where we think we need to end up that we do not pay attention to our next step.  “What is the next thing I need to do?” 

It is good and necessary to have a general sense of where we are headed.  Otherwise, we’re likely to go nowhere.  (After all, we did select this one, specific kopje to climb.)  But once we have established a general sense of where we’re going, then we can concentrate our energies on the much more modest task of, “What is the very next thing that I need to do?”  Sometimes, the “very next thing” is simply to pray for clarity about what the “very next thing” actually is.   One step at a time.

Lent: A time for laying down our defenses

This Wednesday (March 5), Christians around the world will celebrate Ash Wednesday.  This day begins the 40-day journey of Lent to prepare ourselves for the events of Holy Week – Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.  

The preparatory season of Lent is a time when we can reflect on, and ask God to deepen, our own commitment to God and God’s kingdom.  During Lent, we are invited to reflect on our own lives - in as honest a way as possible.  During Lent, we engage in the kind of practice that 12-step movements call a “searching and fearless moral inventory."

Our Lenten self-inventory is “searching” because we want to examine every part of our lives.  We want to look into the shadows of our lives, looking under all the rocks and hidden places inside of us, looking for all the places where we try to hide from God and God’s call on our lives. 

Our Lenten self-inventory is “fearless” because we can engage in this self-examination without any fear that we are going to find something that will make us unlovable to God.  There is nothing that can make God reject us.  Absolutely nothing can separate us from God (cf. Romans 8:38-39), not even the unsavory and unattractive parts of our lives.  God does not reject us, only accepts us.  We are profoundly and completely accepted by God, as we are.  God accepts, and is ready to heal, every part of us - even those parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of.  When we are willing to turn over to God those parts of our lives that we are afraid of, or ashamed of, God sets us free.

The sharp point of the Lenten invitation is that we are invited to lay down all the ways that we defend and protect ourselves.  Over the course of every day, in a whole variety of ways, we can guard and protect ourselves from other people, from events in the world, and from God.  From the time we are small children, we are taught to protect and defend ourselves.  “Keep your guard up.”  “Watch your back.”  “Eyes open, at all times.”  “Boys don’t cry.” “Don’t let others get mad at you.”  “It’s best to do everything yourself; that way, you can make sure nobody messes it up.”

These words of advice may serve us well if our primary life-goal is to 'stay safe' or 'be popular' or 'always be in control.'  But when we live by these and similar codes, we will be (1) reluctant to trust others (including God), (2) hesitant to share ourselves with others (including God), (3) inclined to avoid sharing our gifts with the world, and (4) tempted to see other people as threats rather than neighbors.

The Christian life is a journey of learning to live for the world, rather than living in fear of the world.  It is a journey of living with the world - in all of its pain and complexity and messiness - rather than trying to stay safe from the world.  We are invited this Lenten season to lay down some of our self-defenses, which may have helped to keep us safe in the past, but which have also bound us and held us back from a life of freedom and abundant love.

What is one way that you protect yourself from the world?  (If you’re like me, you may have a whole repertoire of ways to keep yourself safe!)  What is one way that you defend yourself against being vulnerable, guard yourself from being exposed to the thoughts and opinions of others?  Please do not beat yourself up about this, but simply begin to notice the times during the day when you go into “self-protection” mode.  When are you most likely to feel the need to self-protect?  What goes through your mind when you feel like this?  Can you notice some negative repercussions of this self-protective behavior?  What does it cost you, or take away from you?

As we become aware of these ways we protect and defend ourselves, we can ask God in prayer to help us lay them down.  We can ask God to help us let go of these defenses, so that our hands can be more open to share life with the world, instead of clutching on for our personal safety.  As we lay our fearful defenses down, we will walk into our lives with greater freedom, no matter what may come our way.

No punishment

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." -- 1 John 4:18

The verse above is an enormously important text for taking the measure of our spiritual growth.  We may ask, "How is it going with my spiritual life?" We can re-phrase this question by asking, "How often am I afraid?  How large a presence does fear play in my daily life?  Am I afraid of other people?  Am I afraid of God?  Am I afraid of the future?  Am I afraid of taking chances?  Am I afraid of messing up?  Am I afraid of what other people might think?  Am I afraid of what will happen if I really speak my mind?  Does fear drive any of my actions?"  If you're anything like me, the answer to at least some of these questions - and sometimes a lot of them! - is "Yes."  The amount of fear in our lives can be a gentle signal of how much growth we have yet to do in our spiritual lives.  (It can also be an enticement to continue on the spiritual journey, to imagine how much more abundant our lives will be as we live with less fear.)

I take it that the key goal of our lives is to move towards "perfection in love" - complete love for God, complete love for other people, complete love for the whole creation, complete love for ourselves.  One of the things that can block us from this life of greater, deeper love is fear of punishment.  This can even (and perhaps, especially) be the case when it comes to religion.  Fear can drive a lot of "religious" behavior.

People can go to worship, not to praise and adore God with their whole hearts, but because they think that might make God less likely to punish them if they've been to church.  People may be scared of God, rather than filled with love for God.  People can also do a lot of religious and service activities, not with love and generosity, but with fear.  They can engage in these activities as a way of demonstrating to the world that they are good religious people, and as such, they deserve to be rewarded, and not punished.  Their activities, then, do not flow with love and joy, but are done with a kind of tightness and rigidity.

We may say what others want us to say, even though we don't agree with them, because we don't want them to punish us by rejecting us.  We can keep our mouths shut when someone is telling a racist, sexist, or homophobic joke, because we don't want them to punish us with ostracism.  We can spend a lot of money on clothes or cars because we want to fit in with the crowd, and because we don't want the crowd to punish us by making fun of us.  Large parts of our lives can be lived in fear.

Whenever we are acting out of fear, we are not living in Love.  We are not allowing Love to guide us.

Let me say it as clearly as I can: There is no punishment.  I truly believe this.  God may judge us, but God does not punish.  Love may judge us and hold us accountable, but Love does not punish.  Now this does not mean that there are no consequences for our actions.  Along the way, we will make mistakes, even horrible mistakes.  We will commit sins and offenses.  And there will be consequences for those mistakes.  If we break a precious vase, it will still break, and we may still need to pay for it.  But we need not experience that as cosmic punishment.  If we lose our head and yell at a loved one, the relationship may still be damaged, and we may need to engage in the difficult process of saying we're sorry, making amends, and working for reconciliation.  It may be difficult, but we need not experience it as cosmic punishment.  We are still, and always, held by Love.

Love will hold us accountable, but Love will do that without punishment or cruel scorn.  So we need not be afraid of being held accountable.  We can live in Love, always.

Dance Like No One's Watching

In my last post, I talked about the work of Brene Brown on shame and vulnerability.  As I said there, Brown's work is exciting, funny, and very challenging.  One way that I would summarize some of her work is that we have a choice in our lives: we can allow our shame and embarrassment to keep us from living wholehearted lives, or we can live wholeheartedly in the face of our shame and fear and vulnerability.

When I was a child, I looked around at all of the grown-ups in my life and I thought, 'These folks have it all together.  I can't wait until I'm like that."

What I now realize is that grown-ups sometimes do a good job of pretending to have it all together.  But shame, embarrassment, and the desire to 'fit in' and 'be cool' are enormously powerful influences in the lives of grown-ups, too.  Adults can be just as afraid of being called a "loser" or a "moron" or a "dork" as any teenager.

The last section of her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, is entitled, "Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and 'Always in Control.'"  Brown observes that, for many of us, dancing in public can raise HUGE anxiety.  If we do get out on the dance floor, we may be inhibited and stiff, or we may concentrate really, really hard on trying to impress other people with our moves.  What we may have a really hard time being, is free on the dance floor.  Free, in the way that young children are free when they dance, at least until the older people in their lives convince them to try to 'be cool.'

Brown writes, "For many of us, there is no form of self-expression that makes us feel more vulnerable than dancing.  It's literally full-body vulnerability.  The only other full-body vulnerability that I can think of is being naked, and I don't have to tell you how vulnerable that makes most of us feel" (Gifts of Imperfection, 119).

Too often, we can hold ourselves back, out of fear of being exposed.  We may sit on the sidelines, rather than stepping out onto the dance floor.  We may say, "I'm just going to enjoy watching everyone else dance," when what we mean is, "I am scared to death of dancing in front of other people."  We can withhold ourselves from others and we deprive the world of the gift of who we are, all because we are worried that our dance moves aren't ready for prime-time, and afraid that the 'haters' will make fun of us.  We give the haters way too much influence over our lives.

Brene Brown says that the Hopi Indians say, "To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak."  If this is the case - and it seems intuitively true to me -- then I hope that you'll step out onto the dance floor the next time you have a chance.  Dance like no one is watching.  The 'haters' in the world may try to make fun of us.  But the world will be better for it.

Worthy and Beloved

Brene Brown (http://brenebrown.com/) is one of the most exciting writers working today.  If you don't already know her books -- Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection -- or her TED Talk on "The Power of Vulnerability," then you should really check them out.

Brown is a "shame-researcher."  She researches shame.  For a living.

When I first learned about this, I thought, "Hmmm.  That's a strange thing to research.  Why would someone want to research shame?  Wouldn't that be, I don't know, depressing?"

What Brown has discovered in her research is that shame gets in the way of  living an abundant, wholehearted, free life.  So if you're interested in living an abundant, wholehearted, free life, then it makes an awful lot of sense to get to know what will get in your way.  And Brown says that shame is One-of-the-Biggies that gets in the way.

According to Brown, shame is "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging" (The Gifts of Imperfection, 39, my italics).  Shame comes at us from all over our culture.  From media messages that tell us we're not good enough, that tell us what our bodies need to look like, to religious messages that tell people that God is against them rather than being for them, to peer pressure that makes us do things we know aren't good for us, and on and on and on.

All around us are messages that we are not worthy of belonging or of being loved.  We might be able to make ourselves worthy someday, but right now, we are not worthy of being loved.  We will only be worthy IF.  We'll be worthy IF other people say so ... IF we can get a good grade ... IF we can win the conference title ... IF we can impress the boss ... IF we buy that new pair of shoes ... IF ... IF ...

But Brown says that if "we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging" (Gifts of Imperfection, 23).  Right now.  Just as we are.  With all of our imperfections and flaws.  Right now.  We are worthy.  You are worthy of love and belonging.  Right now.

Brown's claim makes deep, intuitive sense to me.  It also resonates with the deepest truths of the Christian faith.  "You are my Beloved."  "Do not fear, I am with you."  "Even while we were sinners, Christ died for us."  That last one (from Romans 5:8) is particularly telling, I think.  Even though we were still sinners, Christ found us to be worth dying for.  Even though we were sinners, even though we were imperfect, even though we hadn't yet figured it all out, we were worthy of God's love.  God loves us that much.

But it can be difficult to accept this, to really believe this.  After many years in the church, it can be tempting to only hear the rather loud religious voices crying out, "Oh no, we are NOT worthy.  We have fallen short of the glory of God.  Like Psalm 22:6 says, We are all worms.  Do not believe this business about being worthy.  We are NOT worthy."

While these voices may be pointing to the truth that we are -- all of us -- sinners and imperfect creatures, they too often distort themselves into shaming voices that can make us doubt our belovedness.  They can become so very loud that we can no longer hear God's still and small voice telling us, "I love you as you are, right now.  I'm not waiting to love you some day in the future.  I love you right now.  Even though you are imperfect, even though you are sinful, you are worthy of my love just as you are, right now.  You do not have to do anything to make me love you.  I love you just as you are, and you belong to me.  No matter what anyone else tells you."

There are two truths at work here.  At the same time, (1) we are worthy of God's love and (2) we are sinful and imperfect and broken.  Both truths are fundamental.  If we only hold onto one of them, we will have a distorted view of ourselves.  But sometimes, it seems that the world can call such loud attention to our sinfulness, that our belovedness can be overlooked or pushed to the side.

Never let that happen. You are beloved.  Right now.  Just as you are.  You are worthy of being loved.

The Art of Juggling

I don't know about you, but there are days where I feel like I am juggling different projects and responsibilities and tasks and commitments from the moment my eyes open until I go to sleep.  "Running fast just to stay in place" can seem like a distorted personal motto at certain times!  (A friend has said this is just a particular characteristic of the month of January, when people are starting the new year, catching up after the holidays, preparing for annual meetings, etc.  However, I have noticed that it can also be a particular characteristic of the month of February.  And March.  Oh, and April.  And May...)

One real question for me is whether the overwhelming nature of day-to-day life is (a) a feature of human existence, with the different demands that are placed upon us in our lives, or (b) a signal that we have allowed our lives to get out of control, and we need to be re-grounded.

If it is (a) -- a feature of human existence -- then the overwhelm is something that must be accepted, embraced if possible, and smiled upon.  Feeling overwhelmed doesn't mean that we're bad.  It doesn't mean that we are failures.  It just means that we're human.

If the overwhelm is (b) -- a signal that life is out of control -- then a different approach may be called for.  We may need to take some time to re-focus, to re-prioritize, to re-assess how we are living our days.  We may need to say 'no' to some of the things we have committed to.  We may need to pull back from some projects.

My hunch is that our overwhelmed-ness is sometimes (a) and sometimes (b).

Many of us have surely overextended ourselves.  Too many of us have difficulty saying "no" to things, and a hard time drawing boundaries around our energy and our time.  We accept new responsibilities, even if our old responsibilities were already placing a drain on our energy.  We do not do the hard work of setting priorities and goals, but rather just slide along from one day to the next, treading water and staying afloat.

But even if we were to be energetic priority-setters and boundary-keepers, there are going to be times when life is simply overwhelming.  Life cannot be fully controlled, no matter what the experts say.  Life is not like some crisply-edited movie.  There are messy parts, there are boring stretches, and there are times when we just cannot get to everything.  Books and websites that promise to help us get our lives under control (in 12 easy steps!!!) may be tantalizing, but they may promise more than they can deliver.  I've got a decent stack of books that promised to be The-Book-That-Will-Change-Your-Life-Forever.  I've read them, and I still get overwhelmed plenty.


So as we begin a new year, if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, I invite you to join me in a couple of approaches.  (1) Take a deep breath.  (2) Smile.  Know that this moment is actually a beautiful moment, whatever may be happening.  (3) Ask yourself and ask God what your current overwhelm is about.  Is it something you can change?  Or is it something that you need to live with for a little while?  Are there things about it that you can shift?  (4) Take small steps.  You do not need to fix your entire life today.  See if there is one thing that you can do that will help.

"When you pass through turbulent waters, I will be you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned," says the Lord (Isaiah 43:2).