I never realized until today (after watching Joyce Meyer's Part 1 of "Get Radical" with guest, Erwin McManus), that a lifelong problem of mine has been basically an acting out of a theme as old as the Garden of Eden.
In the Garden of Eden, God tells Adam and Eve that they can enjoy any and all foods from the Earth. Anything and everything . . . except the fruit from one tree, the infamous Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What happens next of course is that this one tree is the very tree Eve, and then Adam, choose from which to eat. The devil-as-serpent's first strategy is simple but effective: he calls attention to this one tree. If it were a carrot, the devil would have been seen merely dangling it at first. His initial strategy is a bit like what happens when someone says to you, "Don't think of a red stop sign. Whatever you do, just don't think of a red stop sign" and you think of a red stop sign. Not only do you think of a red stop sign, it's as if you can't stop thinking of that blasted red stop sign! Alas, it doesn't take much for us humans to want to do what we aren't supposed to.
But what happens in Eden is more than just all too human. I understand that the Fall, that sin, is not always defined as obvious, intentional evil, but that it is often disguised as childish petulance and entitlement. So many times, we sin not out of outright malice, but because our pleasure-drive grabs the steering wheel without any input from the C.E.O. part of our brain. We impulsively lunge for immediate gratification without checking in with our own higher consciousness through which God can guide us.
"You can have everything, everything to your heart's delight" was the message God gave us through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But God also gave us one choice and the freedom to choose it. It's funny that any outsider could see how not only catastrophic Eve's choice was, but how plain old, any which way you slice it, STUPID her choice was. It's as if Eve was a little 5 year old child who God brought to Toys R Us saying, "You can have ANYthing here. In fact, you can have EVERYTHING here. It is ALL for you. . . just not that one toy next to the cash register." And the little 5 year old delights in a truck load of new and amazing gifts that could satisfy her for a lifetime, but then she forgets all about them once she sees the one thing she shouldn't have. Once she sees it, she allows it to become larger than life because that's all she chooses to focus on.
This is where I come in. This is how I really relate to the story of the Garden of Eden in a very literal way. I can have all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables I like. I can eat them with great, savoring enjoyment, but instead of focusing on this gift of lasting abundance, I CHOOSE to focus obsessively, negatively, and with great frustration on the junk food I shouldn't have, the very junk that I know makes my body both feel and act poorly.
God has blessed me with God's Grace--- literally, blessed me with many things I neither earn nor deserve. I happen to be both culturally and financially able to buy fresh cherries in the middle of winter; I can purchase raw cashews that are organic. I enjoy the luxurious convenience and health benefits of already prepared, whole foods. All these kinds of things that have been provided for me are things I absolutely LOVE. It's not like I don't get to eat the things I truly enjoy. And yet, I repeatedly allow my psyche to become depressed over the things from which I feel "deprived" that are not in my best interest to enjoy in the first place. Of course, if I single-mindedly focused on the cornucopia of natural, healthful foods God set on Earth, I would never choose to see myself as deprived.
So, here I sit with my soft belly, clear evidence of how I've reaped what I have sown. Oh, I've been eatin' from the tree of knowing both good, whole, fresh, delicious foods, and of knowing evil, processed, high fructose corn syrup saturated, and nutrition deprived foods. I wish I had never tasted from the 'evil' side to begin with, but I have. No turning back time. But now I still have the freedom to choose.
Will I choose to continue to sin against my body which God never intended as a McTemple? And will I continue to hide from God in the back of my pantry between the Doritos and the M&Ms? My problematic relationship with food has been a lifelong struggle. But then, why do I even choose to see it as a "struggle"? As if all this is just about God trying to take something (my frozen Ho Ho's) away from me? God doesn't want to take anything away. God wants to add to my life, to help me choose God's lifegiving ways. God wants me to choose better for my own good. Afterall, I don't want to keep sinning and then feel so ashamed that I have to hide in the Garden behind some fig leaves (deep fried fig leaves, that is).
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Using Our Faults for Good
One of my favorite messages from Joyce Meyer (see http://www.joycemeyer.org/ for podcasts, radio, and television ministry programs) was when she referred to the occurrence of some negative event by saying, "The devil may have intended it for evil, but GOD intended it for good." I both borrow and build from her message to discuss the following.
One of my many sins or character faults is that I can be jealous and competitive. Mind you, I am not competitive in any sort of productive way-- like training for a marathon or like striving to produce the highest sales numbers on a team. No, my competitive streak only takes shape in pitiful and utterly inane ways --- like when I race to my son's school in order to be first in the car line for pick up time. With the fearless determination of an Olympic athlete, I am single-focused about needing to beat the next parent who, to my warped ego, joyfully only comes in second.
So, now you get the picture of the me I'm dealing with! With this bit of background, you will better understand why my best friend and I intentionally engage in a spiritual competition. Yes, fools that we are, we half-jokingly agreed to race 'harder' toward God. Since each of our tendencies are toward talk and not action, we both decided that we would like to amp up our spiritual development (as if Grace can be hard won).
Because neither of us were going to church as often as we'd like, one day I called her an hour before heading out to my church and with a purposefully childish tone said, "I'M going to chur-urch. Na nee, na nee, NA NA!" She exclaimed, "What?! You're not supposed to tell me that when there's enough time for ME to get readyto go to MY church!" Long story short: we both went to our separate churches that day. Score: tied.
The next Sunday late afternoon, she called me to report, "I'M more spiritually advanced than YOU are" in the same 'na nee, na nee' sing-songy tone that we had established before. It turned out, not only had she gone to her church, but she had a kind of breakthrough in which she experienced a deep craving for God. She first relayed her experiences to me in a serious way, but then she became fiesty and decided to once again rub in the 'fact' that she was "MORE" washed in the Blood than I was. We both laughed, but even though I KNEW that kind of talk was all in good fun, there was still a part of me that was ticked that she had one-upped me in our spiritual competition.
I stewed over her alleged spiritual victory for a few hours before calling her back in the early evening of the same day. I had prepared a number of defenses of my spiritual development that were meant to trump hers. She had thrown down the spiritual gauntlet and declared a challenge. Not only was I ready to take up the challenge, my jealousy motivated me to try to win the competition. It was illogical and a bit theologically insane, but it was fun and energizing nonetheless.
The battle was ON. SHE started listening to Joyce Meyer first, but *I* started listening to Joyce DAILY. SHE started hanging out to make friends during fellowship. *I* mustered up my substandard, introverted social skills and tried to make more church friends on-line. SHE started going to Bible study mid-week. MID-Week!! *I* felt I was losing! I had intended to go to my mid-week Bible study, but had a tooth ache and failed to shower that day. She did not miss the opportunity to rub in my failure again by saying, "Why don't you tell God, 'God, I meant to go, but my tooth hurt and I felt gross.' Yeah, that's a perfectly good excuse I'd say!" She mocked me. I laughed with her, but my little ego secretly pouted.
Then it happened. I was watching Joyce Meyer, a.k.a. "Mama J" and felt truly inspired by her teaching. In this particular conference, she spoke about giving back. I decided that instead of feeling guilty about living comfortably, I was going to use my guilty feelings productively. I did not wait for the momentum of my resolve to piddle away with time. I got on my computer, found, and without hesitation applied to a volunteer position. I grinned with satisfaction, "I'm WINNING!" And the best part is that SHE doesn't even know! Perhaps she will relax her vigilance, falsely assuming she is well in the lead. Yes, these were my thoughts, however fleeting-- (Sick, sick, sick)!
Jealous competition is clearly ugly. The devil certainly means it for destruction. However, GOD can use any one's faults for good if God chooses. I acknowledge that it is Machiavellian (in which the end justifies the means), but: if the sinner ultimately finds her way both to a deeper relationship with God and to an improved form of faith-in-action, does it really matter how she was brought there?
One of my many sins or character faults is that I can be jealous and competitive. Mind you, I am not competitive in any sort of productive way-- like training for a marathon or like striving to produce the highest sales numbers on a team. No, my competitive streak only takes shape in pitiful and utterly inane ways --- like when I race to my son's school in order to be first in the car line for pick up time. With the fearless determination of an Olympic athlete, I am single-focused about needing to beat the next parent who, to my warped ego, joyfully only comes in second.
So, now you get the picture of the me I'm dealing with! With this bit of background, you will better understand why my best friend and I intentionally engage in a spiritual competition. Yes, fools that we are, we half-jokingly agreed to race 'harder' toward God. Since each of our tendencies are toward talk and not action, we both decided that we would like to amp up our spiritual development (as if Grace can be hard won).
Because neither of us were going to church as often as we'd like, one day I called her an hour before heading out to my church and with a purposefully childish tone said, "I'M going to chur-urch. Na nee, na nee, NA NA!" She exclaimed, "What?! You're not supposed to tell me that when there's enough time for ME to get readyto go to MY church!" Long story short: we both went to our separate churches that day. Score: tied.
The next Sunday late afternoon, she called me to report, "I'M more spiritually advanced than YOU are" in the same 'na nee, na nee' sing-songy tone that we had established before. It turned out, not only had she gone to her church, but she had a kind of breakthrough in which she experienced a deep craving for God. She first relayed her experiences to me in a serious way, but then she became fiesty and decided to once again rub in the 'fact' that she was "MORE" washed in the Blood than I was. We both laughed, but even though I KNEW that kind of talk was all in good fun, there was still a part of me that was ticked that she had one-upped me in our spiritual competition.
I stewed over her alleged spiritual victory for a few hours before calling her back in the early evening of the same day. I had prepared a number of defenses of my spiritual development that were meant to trump hers. She had thrown down the spiritual gauntlet and declared a challenge. Not only was I ready to take up the challenge, my jealousy motivated me to try to win the competition. It was illogical and a bit theologically insane, but it was fun and energizing nonetheless.
The battle was ON. SHE started listening to Joyce Meyer first, but *I* started listening to Joyce DAILY. SHE started hanging out to make friends during fellowship. *I* mustered up my substandard, introverted social skills and tried to make more church friends on-line. SHE started going to Bible study mid-week. MID-Week!! *I* felt I was losing! I had intended to go to my mid-week Bible study, but had a tooth ache and failed to shower that day. She did not miss the opportunity to rub in my failure again by saying, "Why don't you tell God, 'God, I meant to go, but my tooth hurt and I felt gross.' Yeah, that's a perfectly good excuse I'd say!" She mocked me. I laughed with her, but my little ego secretly pouted.
Then it happened. I was watching Joyce Meyer, a.k.a. "Mama J" and felt truly inspired by her teaching. In this particular conference, she spoke about giving back. I decided that instead of feeling guilty about living comfortably, I was going to use my guilty feelings productively. I did not wait for the momentum of my resolve to piddle away with time. I got on my computer, found, and without hesitation applied to a volunteer position. I grinned with satisfaction, "I'm WINNING!" And the best part is that SHE doesn't even know! Perhaps she will relax her vigilance, falsely assuming she is well in the lead. Yes, these were my thoughts, however fleeting-- (Sick, sick, sick)!
Jealous competition is clearly ugly. The devil certainly means it for destruction. However, GOD can use any one's faults for good if God chooses. I acknowledge that it is Machiavellian (in which the end justifies the means), but: if the sinner ultimately finds her way both to a deeper relationship with God and to an improved form of faith-in-action, does it really matter how she was brought there?
Thursday, January 20, 2011
My Father's Light
While I was sitting next to him, trying to keep him from what I thought was just falling asleep, my father passed away at home in his own bed. His wish had always been to be buried with his family of origin in Germany. My mother felt that she could not wait before being able to arrange and attend his funeral service overseas. She felt she needed an earlier sense of closure than that. The local church was not her preferred option since she felt slighted by its pastor who failed to uphold his promise to visit my father while he was still alive and bed bound. With the real funeral weeks away, my mother felt like she was in a torturous limbo. She desparately needed a more immediate, formal ritual that would help her both honor and say goodbye to my father.
My mother and I decided that we would make our own meaningful, interim memorial service. After some planning and purchases, we went equipped to a nearby lake at night. Into a starry sky, we released heart shaped balloons that said, "I love you" and shouted out the same as if my father could hear it. My father had loved fireworks since he was a child. So we had attached sparklers to the bunched balloons, wanting to celebrate his life. However, we stood in grievous yearning as the balloons became smaller and smaller until ultimately disappearing into mysterious night.
We then set aflame tiny tea light candles and pushed them out onto the lake. We brought one candle to represent each of my father's family members and one candle to represent my father himself. We watched as all the candles quietly glowed and flickered in the otherwise dark surroundings. Almost immediately, a number of the floating candles blew out, leaving only three. Both my mother and I simultaneously exclaimed, "That's us!" meaning that those three remaining lights represented our little nuclear family: a father, a mother, and their only child.
Moments later, one candle light began to float away from the other two. My mother was distressed by the symbolism of it all and cried out, "He's leaving us!" Then with a tone of defeat, she whispered, "He's leaving us behind." I felt differently and said so: "No, Mom. He's not leaving. He's just going on ahead, paving the way, like he always did."
We sat on a dry log facing the black night lake. Two candles stayed lit and close to shore. One light kept traveling further and further out into the murky distance. We wanted to wait to see how long that one light, my "father's light" could last, but we became cold and restless. With a pathetically dim flashlight, we stumbled in the dark back to our car, always checking over our shoulders to see if the one candle was still shining. It was.
Once we reached the car, we got in and watched some more, not wanting to leave while my "father's light" was still reaching out to us somehow. That single, tiny dot of a light shone in the darkness even though it floated away from us ever further. It seemed that candle light was as stubborn and resilient as the person it represented to us. With sighs, we finally decided to leave the lake, end our memorial service, and drive home. Our car rolled slowly over the grinding gravel road; as we physically distanced ourselves from the lake, we squinted and strained to see if the light had gone out yet. It hadn't. It seemed like it wouldn't die out at all, at least not when we were still there to watch it.
Unlike my father's death for which neither my mother nor I felt prepared, that night on the lake my father's light faithfully remained lit for us to see . . . My father's light continued and continued to shine for us. His presence through this light seemed to remain with us until, this time, WE were ready to say goodbye.
This memorial felt like such a gift of grace. There we were feeling despondent yet out of silly balloons, sparklers, and candles something wonderful was annointed for us. I remember in my first years in seminary, I had to write a psychological explanation for my faith. I wrote that my father's long periods of absence (due to having to travel extensively for his job) helped me to accept that Love could be communicated without tangible, physical presence. As a child, I knew my daddy loved me even when he wasn't around. So, it was easier to understand that God, Whom I could not see, loved me too. Even with my father's death, the ways of God's love were communicated to me again: In the midst of despair, in the pit of darkness, a steady Light shines as a beacon to comfort, heal, and show forth God's Love.
Thank you, Father.
My mother and I decided that we would make our own meaningful, interim memorial service. After some planning and purchases, we went equipped to a nearby lake at night. Into a starry sky, we released heart shaped balloons that said, "I love you" and shouted out the same as if my father could hear it. My father had loved fireworks since he was a child. So we had attached sparklers to the bunched balloons, wanting to celebrate his life. However, we stood in grievous yearning as the balloons became smaller and smaller until ultimately disappearing into mysterious night.
We then set aflame tiny tea light candles and pushed them out onto the lake. We brought one candle to represent each of my father's family members and one candle to represent my father himself. We watched as all the candles quietly glowed and flickered in the otherwise dark surroundings. Almost immediately, a number of the floating candles blew out, leaving only three. Both my mother and I simultaneously exclaimed, "That's us!" meaning that those three remaining lights represented our little nuclear family: a father, a mother, and their only child.
Moments later, one candle light began to float away from the other two. My mother was distressed by the symbolism of it all and cried out, "He's leaving us!" Then with a tone of defeat, she whispered, "He's leaving us behind." I felt differently and said so: "No, Mom. He's not leaving. He's just going on ahead, paving the way, like he always did."
We sat on a dry log facing the black night lake. Two candles stayed lit and close to shore. One light kept traveling further and further out into the murky distance. We wanted to wait to see how long that one light, my "father's light" could last, but we became cold and restless. With a pathetically dim flashlight, we stumbled in the dark back to our car, always checking over our shoulders to see if the one candle was still shining. It was.
Once we reached the car, we got in and watched some more, not wanting to leave while my "father's light" was still reaching out to us somehow. That single, tiny dot of a light shone in the darkness even though it floated away from us ever further. It seemed that candle light was as stubborn and resilient as the person it represented to us. With sighs, we finally decided to leave the lake, end our memorial service, and drive home. Our car rolled slowly over the grinding gravel road; as we physically distanced ourselves from the lake, we squinted and strained to see if the light had gone out yet. It hadn't. It seemed like it wouldn't die out at all, at least not when we were still there to watch it.
Unlike my father's death for which neither my mother nor I felt prepared, that night on the lake my father's light faithfully remained lit for us to see . . . My father's light continued and continued to shine for us. His presence through this light seemed to remain with us until, this time, WE were ready to say goodbye.
This memorial felt like such a gift of grace. There we were feeling despondent yet out of silly balloons, sparklers, and candles something wonderful was annointed for us. I remember in my first years in seminary, I had to write a psychological explanation for my faith. I wrote that my father's long periods of absence (due to having to travel extensively for his job) helped me to accept that Love could be communicated without tangible, physical presence. As a child, I knew my daddy loved me even when he wasn't around. So, it was easier to understand that God, Whom I could not see, loved me too. Even with my father's death, the ways of God's love were communicated to me again: In the midst of despair, in the pit of darkness, a steady Light shines as a beacon to comfort, heal, and show forth God's Love.
Thank you, Father.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
ABC News' "What Would You Do? "
How do I love thee, oh, ABC news show, "What Would You Do?" Let me count the ways:
1) John Quinones as Host. Clearly, a nice human being. Warm. Concerned. Dignified. Latino!
2) Voyeurism for a Good Cause. This show combines audiences' love of reality t.v. with hidden camera fascination. Does the end justify the means? Yes, because its implicit message to viewers is:
3) You too could Make the World a Better Place for Someone. Most of us probably watch with disgust as real people ignore the plight of others in these moments caught on tape. We cheer for those rare human beings who do the right thing even when it means risking their own safety. As a professor of Social Psychology, my educated guess is that while watching these televised incidents, most of us not only cheer for the hero, but actually identify with him or her. In other words, we'd all like to believe, "*I* would have done the right thing too." Whether this is an accurate belief or not is irrelevant. What is important, is that this show has the potential power to change our actions by making us more conscientious as we each increasingly learn to love our neighbor as ourselves.
1) John Quinones as Host. Clearly, a nice human being. Warm. Concerned. Dignified. Latino!
2) Voyeurism for a Good Cause. This show combines audiences' love of reality t.v. with hidden camera fascination. Does the end justify the means? Yes, because its implicit message to viewers is:
3) You too could Make the World a Better Place for Someone. Most of us probably watch with disgust as real people ignore the plight of others in these moments caught on tape. We cheer for those rare human beings who do the right thing even when it means risking their own safety. As a professor of Social Psychology, my educated guess is that while watching these televised incidents, most of us not only cheer for the hero, but actually identify with him or her. In other words, we'd all like to believe, "*I* would have done the right thing too." Whether this is an accurate belief or not is irrelevant. What is important, is that this show has the potential power to change our actions by making us more conscientious as we each increasingly learn to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Variations on a Theme
Most conflicts-- from sibling spats to the Israel-Palestine clash--
are variations on the Cain and Abel story. Whenever we raise our hands or voices in anger, we do so against our very own brother.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
What Mother Teresa Wrote to Me
I just wanted a record of this somewhere in case my actual letter is lost or destroyed. In 1993, I wrote to Mother Teresa saying that I had little power of influence to create a world peace minute of silence, but that perhaps she could make this happen.
Her letter came on a small note card in which one side has a black and white photo of her holding a baby and a quote from Isaiah 43: 2-7. On the other side, her writing is written by manual type writer with errors and whiteout marks, a stamped return address, and a hand written signature. Here was her response:
+LDM
23rd Oct. 1993 Missionaries of Charity
54/A, A [illegible] Bose Road
Calcutta 700016 India
Dear Christina
Thank you very much for your letter.
To spread peace, begin by working for true peace - the freedom of being the children of God, ofbelong to Him. This freedom enables one to love as He loves andto forgive as He forgives.- for true obstacles to peace are within us. when we sincerely try to remove fromour hearts and minds all anger and thoughts of revenge we make way for true peace. Through your Christian life, work for it and make way for it in your own life by desiring true peace and wanting it at any cost. May God's blessing be abide with you and all your loved ones.
God Bless you
M Teresa MC
Her letter came on a small note card in which one side has a black and white photo of her holding a baby and a quote from Isaiah 43: 2-7. On the other side, her writing is written by manual type writer with errors and whiteout marks, a stamped return address, and a hand written signature. Here was her response:
+LDM
23rd Oct. 1993 Missionaries of Charity
54/A, A [illegible] Bose Road
Calcutta 700016 India
Dear Christina
Thank you very much for your letter.
To spread peace, begin by working for true peace - the freedom of being the children of God, ofbelong to Him. This freedom enables one to love as He loves andto forgive as He forgives.- for true obstacles to peace are within us. when we sincerely try to remove fromour hearts and minds all anger and thoughts of revenge we make way for true peace. Through your Christian life, work for it and make way for it in your own life by desiring true peace and wanting it at any cost. May God's blessing be abide with you and all your loved ones.
God Bless you
M Teresa MC
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