1. Walking to the gym the other day I saw the younger Japanese man owner of the sushi restaurant around the corner bow to the older Japanese owner of a convenience store across the alley. It was very early in the morning, and I felt I had stumbled upon some private sacred ritual that conveyed such a deep respect for the humanity recognized in the other.
2. Although I know that the line in the old hymn says that "his eye is on the sparrow", but I have pigeons with mangled feet in my neighborhood, and I don't think that God would mind if I sang "his eye is on the pigeon" as the meaning of this is far more radical and relevant. I can't imagine giving a second glance to a pigeon in Los Angeles.
3. Brad and I did our Church alternative last week by walking through skid row and praying. I noticed several instances of the words "holy ground" written on buildings and trash cans along the way. Could skid row be holy because the people in this neighborhood are closer to holiness by the obvious nature of their dependence?
4. How responsible am I for the human rights abuses that must occur in the garment district that is my neighborhood? The other day I saw a flyer posted on the building next to ours that stated that if you were being forced to work against your will you could take one of the the phone numbers written on little sheets of paper below. A few were torn off.
I was challenged recently by DOOR'sdevelopment director to read a book-Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony that the Dweller's in Miami read during their year in community. Since it was written by an author I have long heard of but never had the opportunity to read I began. While being frustrated by Stanley Hauerwas' constant denunciation of both Richard Niebuhr (I really enjoyed Niebuhr's Christ and Culture) and the translation emphasis of theological concepts to philosophically accessible language, I did appreciate his emphasis on the unique role of the Church in our society.
He makes the point that rather than trying to logically undermine demanding Scriptural passages like the Beatitudes we ought to ask ourselves what kind of community would we need to be in order to live out the call to be perfect like our heavenly father is perfect. Clearly we cannot do this on our own, but the call to live out the Biblical description of reality must be done at the level of the Church. This clearly means that the church must be different than a socially designed helping agency intended only to make our society better. We are not called as the body of Christ to help people but to follow Jesus and in following Jesus we learn what help means. The Church, Hauerwas says, is crucial for our epistemology, as we are not called to convince people to do what they already know they ought. Our task is to live faithful to Christ by being a subversive colony of believers in a hostile world. This lifestyle will require suffering, but "no ethic is worthy that does not require potentially the suffering of those we love".
The radical nature of Christ's call I am certain of, but I am also as certain that I have no idea what this level of intentional community looks like.
"The Danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest by a lie it should persuade itself that it is not hungry"
--Simone Weil
I have mixed feelings about the field of Christian Apologetics, but I enjoyed Beyond Opinion Ravi Zacharias' newest work because it combines reservations of the heart and the heart regarding Christian faith. A couple of insights that stood out to me:
1. The historical growth of atheism dating from the eighteenth century was fueled in part by the French revolution in which the church was deemed on the side of the establishment, and so an oppressor rather than a liberator. Atheism has since had little appeal when the church is on the side of the people. [p. 25]
This seems to resonate with my experience working with the homeless and my knowledge of the account of Desmond Tutu's autobiography, as well as the incredible account of Archbishop Romero's work in El Salvador.
2. The difference between the way redemptive violence is portrayed in the Koran and the Old Testament is that in the Old Testament the reader is not encouraged to take up arms.
This has been a point of interest for me after reading certain Surah's in the Koran and the Old Testament book of Joshua. I could tell there was an objective difference between the emphasis and intention of the two but this seems to capture the difference.
For as long as I can remember I have marveled at the feats of engineering to the point where I have almost felt a little guilty for my lack of contribution. Who am I do be able to use these roads, ride these elevators, and fly in these planes that my hands and mind have had no contribution in creating. Maybe it is the fact that my mind is not even slightly bent towards mechanical analysis that causes such personal admiration for engineering.The Devil in the White City perpetuated this astonishment in its' fascinating description of the World's fair in Chicago in 1893. A true story of the narrative behind the fair's development and the life of a mass murderer, this book takes you into this moment in time and presents one with the awe resulting from both human ambition and depravity.
I think that I have spent most of my life thus far dealing with the fear of failure. Most people probably would not have described me as a fearful person. I have skydived, eaten monkey meat, and am regularly out after dark in my skid row neighborhood. I do not, however, make it my general practice to try things I am not good at. I may make a little attempt at a lot of different things, but when I meet resistance I do not usually persevere. It is almost as if I have promised myself that I will not try as hard as I can because if I actually give it my all and then fail this will be personal damning verdict. So, I routinely give up to 60% to various endeavors and so I can portray to myself and others a daring individual who is living life to the fullest.
The truth is I am scared, and I have only begun to explore what it means to give my all to something. But I have begun the journey.......
It started last Spring when I enrolled in a Kaplan LSAT prep course. I invested a lot of time and money in the course and gave what I thought was enough to get by. I had anticipated scoring in at least the B range given my practice tests, but my score was more around the C range. I was devastated and considered having that be the final verdict on my law career- not good enough. Then something rose within me and I signed up to try the test again. I then gave way over 60% and went on to get a score that was more in the A- range. This try and fail and then try again process of applying to law school has been amazing for my character growth and I'm sure a lesson I will only build upon in the next year as I begin Loyola Law this fall.
My little glimpse of the value of failure and perseverance was given eloquent elaboration in Mark Batterson's In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. The whole book is a kick- your- butt encouragement to see the opportunity that lies in out fears. One of the most significant points he makes is that the cure for the fear of failure is not success but failure. Previous to my LSAT experience I would have only given timid affirmation of this paradoxical truth, but now I have a more "bring it on" approach to failure. I am trying to identify hidden fears so I can confront them and am looking at the unknown with expectation. I don't know exactly what I will do with my law degree, but isn't that exciting!
Go for it my friend the regrets of inaction are always greater at the end of life than the regrets of action!
"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day ay bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation."
--Oswald Chambers
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyages of their life
Is bound in shallows an in miseries.
On such a sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
--Julius Ceasar
The Same Kind of Different as Me was a book right up my alley. A true story about the relationship between a modern-day slave and an international art dealer, the book is an amazing authentic depiction of what can happen when the boundaries of race and economic class are overcome through love. Following the book there is an interview between the two men. In partial response to the question, "What three things can we do to bridge the societal gaps that exist in our culture today?" Ron Hall, the white rich art dealer says, that "we must move beyond our comfort zones and make a friends of a different race and socioeconomic group and be accountable to them"
This seems like simple advice, but I am sorry to say with the exception of one friend of another race (not socioeconomic class), I don't have anyone close to me who I can honestly say is a close friend. Yes, there are people I care about that fit this description (the three homeless friends I see every week for instance) but I cannot say that any of the people in life who are closest to me are of a different race and socioeconomic group. This was not a conscious choice, but I now want to be intentional about making choices that change this reality. I am under no illusions that this will be easy.
Although I have read The Screwtape Letters many years ago several people lately have told me that I should read it. I am not sure if their advice was more of a result of their recent enthusiasm for a good book (which is now apparently a play) or a concern for my capacity for deception.
Aside from a needed reminder of the presence of intentional, targeted deceit in the world, (aka the devil) I particularly enjoyed Lewis amendment to the book which contains interesting commentary on various political themes such as the following:
Describing the way the the word democracy can be manipulated Wormwood says to Screwtape:
"The first ans most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good solid resounding lie. I do not mean merely that his statement is false in face, and that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist-measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says "I'm as good as you" believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the duce, nor the employable to the bum, not the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.
And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food. 'Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I- it must be a vile, upstage, lah-di-dah affection. Here's a fellow who says he doesn't like hot dogs- thinks himself too good for them no doubt. Here's a man who hasn't turned on the jukebox- he must be one of those highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were the right sort of chaps they'd be like me. They've no business to be different. It's undemocratic.'
Now this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware if feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it- make it respectable and even laudable- by the incantatory use of the word democratic."
Unfortunately I must admit that I can identify with the strange insistence on equality and am not yet prepared to call it envy without qualification. This certainly deserves some additional thought. I just wonder how many other stages there are in my life in which my self- praised noble character may actually cast dark shadows in the wings.
I didn’t want to finish reading Finding Our Way Again-The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian Mclaren. He describes the basic categories of the ancient practices of Katharsis, Fotosis, and Theosis and describes Spiritual practices as “about life, about training ourselves to become the kinds of people who have eyes and actually see, and who have ears and actually hear, and so experience not survival but life.” Of course the concept of training ourselves to accomplish things beyond our expectations is not a foreign concept to a person like me a non-runner who trained and ran a marathon just to see if it was possible. For some reason though while I understand that the body can be physically trained, things like one’s ability to write poetry, paint landscapes, or see God seem to have been placed in a whole different category in my mind. They are in the category of a divine gift of genius or saint. If there is anything to training oneself to wake up ones soul to God, the possibilities are endless. So here I go attempting to begin katharsis by fasting every Monday to cleanse me from my addiction to tastible pleasure so that I can better sense the deeper pleasures of the soul.
This morning I almost threw out an orchid plan that I have had for two months. By now all of the flowers have dropped off and although the leaves remain a deep, brilliant green, I have no idea how to care for it until it blooms again. I have heard that orchids can keep growing for as long as humans can, but the thought of looking up how to take care of the plant along with the awareness of my lack of green thumb didn’t make me hesitate- at least initially- to toss it in the rubbish bin.
Then I had the thought that this lazy approach of throwing away what we don’t know how to care for applies so eerily to the way our society treats human beings. I may not be an orchid aficionado any time soon, but I can at least repot my plant and water it once a week. I guess the next lesson will come once it has been a year and has not bloomed and I am contemplating the rubbish bin again.
Henri Nouwen has the story that I have always wanted to have. There is a secret part of me that wonders if this is part of why I am going to law school. After twenty years in academia holding a high profile position as an author and professor at Harvard, he moved to L' Arche a community for the mentally handicapped. To be able to succeed on society's terms and then move "down" to redefine success and fulfillment seems somehow better than being accused of opting out of an admirable career track because you don't have the aptitude or ambition. Perhaps my admiration for his story was what made Nouwen's reflections on Christian life and LeadershipIn The Name of Jesus so meaningful. Throughout this slim eighty page book, Nouwen's reflects on his transition between his two "careers" and gives warnings against temptations common to worldly success. He ends with a powerful counterintuitive statement:
"If there is any hope for the church in the future, it will be hope for a poor church in which its leaders are willing to be led" [64]
Clearly the poor church, taken literally, is not what the American church is after, but the being led part is even more offensive to me personally. I think I have built up so many defenses against the concept of following because of both my hippy upbringing as well as the poor examples of people in the church who end up being led by poor leadership. Good leaders must know how to recognize the value of following and be able to discern who to follow. I am still at the beginning stages of recognizing my deficiency in the area of submission and following. Once again my reactionary nature has to be brought back to the center of paradoxical truth.
As seems to be the trend lately, I found myself reading another book on the monastic life. This one was unique in that it was written by a woman who lived the rule of St. Benedict for over thirty years in a monastic community. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily. My favorite thing about the Benedictine rule is the way it values the way daily living can be given a high level of sanctity. Although there is not a whole lot of practical advice about how to enact the rule in different circumstances, the definitions underlying each principle were revelatory. The description of humility, for example, includes the following:
"Humble people walk comfortably in every group. No one is either too beneath them or too above them for their own sense of well-being. They are who they are, people with as much to give as to get, and they know it. And because they' re at ease with themselves, they can afford to be open with others." [64]
Perhaps the reason that this definition in particular stands out to me is that while I am comfortable with people that I feel are beneath me (yes, if I am honest there are people who still fit into this category), I have trouble associating with those above me. I wonder if this is because I have trouble receiving rather than giving. Just when I think I may be making some progress towards humility, I find a new aspect that I have yet to begin. As is usually the case, the pattern of my current life affords plenty of opportunity for practice (somehow God always seems to work this out) as my association with law students this fall, and the community of movers and shakers that my husbandBrad Abare seems to find himself magnetic with.
The biblical reference Obama made in his Democratic convention speech last fall, affirming that we are our brother's keeper, captured my imagination. There was something right about this message that seemed a departure from Cain's denunciation of personal responsibility ("I am not my brother's keeper") that characterizes our Country's recent past. It is time to depart from the climate of protecting our individual prosperity and embrace the responsibility of caring for our brothers.
But who should we count among our brothers? While my resources of natural compassion may encompass my own family and friends, I don't know if I would easily insist on being a "keeper" of anyone else. Clearly though, this call of "being our brother's keeper" must extend to those who do not have their own brothers. My initial thought was that we must become brothers with those outside our current kinship, for only if we adopt them into our "family" will we have the courage and compassion needed to help. Last night I was reflecting on the biblical Parable of the Good Samaritan whose help did not seem to be given on the condition of kinship. When asked who is our neighbor, and so I think by fair analogy, our brother, Jesus seemed to be saying the one who offers help. In usual Jesus fashion, he turns our societal assumptions on their heads, and encourages us to act like neighbors (or brothers) to those who are not a part of our family, even to those we have radical differences with.
We need a follow up call from our president challenging us both, to be our brother's keeper in this increasingly difficult economic time of providing for our own families, as well as to remember that our brother is not the government, but the person on the side of the street who may not look like our family. Ultimately though, the church needs to continue to call Christ's body to reject Cain's response and embrace the radical call of the good Samaritan. We are our brother's keeper.
Looking back at my recent posts, I see a pattern of "wanting to escape from the ordinary to learn from the exemplary". My recent read Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa taught me about meaningful work and service has enflamed my passion for stepping out of the workaday world to commune with God. In addition to enticing me toward a period of monasticism, this book, written by Mary Poplin a former professor of mine at Claremont Graduate School, provided me with a few intellectual nuggets that engaged my mind as well as my soul.
The first insight concerned this notion of the way our society has enshrined the skeptic. Having just assigned Philosopher of Religion William James' essay The Will to Believe the matter of believing without sufficient evidence was a matter mulling over in my mind. Poplin quotes contemporary philosopher Dallas Willard on this related topic:
The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that, for centuries now, has cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than the one who believes. You could be almost as stupid as cabbage as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a hardy individualist or social rebel- or one desperate for another life- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright. Partly because of the social force towards skepticism, which remains very powerful even when we step into Christian congregations and colleges for ministers, very few people ever develop competence in their prayer life... Today we live in a culture that overwhelmingly gives primary, if not exclusive, importance to the visible. This stance is incorporated in the power structures that permeate our world and is disseminated by the education system and government."
The integration of intellectual explanation and spiritual application of certain phenomenon such as the one mentioned are highlighted throughout this book. Although I have witnessed the above preference for skepticism while in graduate school and teaching, I have not stopped to assess the way this "fashion of the age" has influenced my prayer life. I wonder what it would take to remove the cultural bias in my mind that predisposes me toward unbelief in the invisible. I wonder if the sisters of charity have this cultural hurdle to maneuver in their daily prayers.
The other point made which as incredible social ramifications is the one Poplin highlights through the contrast of Mother Teresa's work with that of the social progressives described in a quote by Theophan the Recluse, a nineteenth-century Orthodox saint who criticizes the progressives who seek the good of mankind at the expense of helping individuals:
"Those who keep thoughts of the welfare of all of mankind inattentively let slip by that which is in front of our eyes. Because they do not have the opportunity to perform a particular work, they accomplish nothing toward the main purpose of life."
I see this mentality in the upwardly mobile individuals in my building who would rather pay more taxes than go mentor an individual in crisis at the local homeless mission. I see this in the students who come to DOOR who come seeking to serve in our city but seem stymied when the discussion turns to what to do about "homelessness." I see it in myself when I would rather go to community organizing meeting that addresses homeless "issues" than walk across the street and introduce myself to the lady who has decided to camp out near our building. It is a lot easier to feel oneself more intelligent and strategic when addressing the issue as a whole, but if this is done at the expense of helping those in front of us we are more than a little off course.
I'm not saying that I wouldn't have more issues if I was brought up Catholic, but sometimes I find myself perturbed over my lack of awareness of all the rich traditions of our faith. I found myself most acutely in this state after finishing Sacred Pathways, a book by Gary Thomas which outlines different pathways people have taken to God throughout history. Though we seem to have no trouble acknowledging our different personality types and strenghts, as the many profiles on the market attest to, somehow we have failed to embrace that individual differences might also suggest that we draw near to God in distinct ways. From Sensates, to Naturalists, to Contemplatives, to Intellectuals, Thomas explains how different temperments are suited for different sorts of engagement with God. He also gives practical advice on how to incorporate the practices of the path most suited to your temperment. A few I enjoyed most were:
- carrying physical objects in one's hand to remind one of spiritual realities, for instance, carrying around a nail during the season of Lent to remind oneself of identifying with Christ's sufferings.
-joining the Benedictines and other orders in praying the hours at specific times of the day with intentional, historic prayers, in order to reorientate oneself to God through the day
-setting aside a distinct time of silence within the life of one's family to jointly acknowledge his presence and listen together.
This approach is also helping me with the guilt I often feel for not wanting to attend weekly Church services.
