Review – The Enoch Factor

I had the great pleasure of reading Steve McSwain’s new book The Enoch Factor over the past month. It took me the entire month to read it because it is the kind of book I like to digest slowly. In The Enoch Factor, McSwain, a lifetime Christian and professional minister, chronicles his personal spiritual awakening out of fundamentalism and into the arms of Christ. He tells a story of growing up in a believing family that will sound familiar to many American Christians, in its spirit if not in its exact details. He also describes the flatness and emptyness he experienced in his “faith,” and offers some candid appraisals of some of the false beliefs he carried with him for decades. McSwain then details the transformational experience that brought him a spiritual awakening. He spends some time explaining his new spiritual perspective, inviting readers to glean what they can from his personal experience and understanding.

At his best, McSwain reminds me of Richard Rohr – clear, insightful, and creative in his use of material from non-Christian traditions. Though McSwain anchors himself solidly in the Christian tradition, he draws from a variety of sources, Christian, non-Christian, and non-theological, to give voice to his experience of the divine. I was with him when he stuck to theological ideas from Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, and even atheism (he quotes Andre Comte-Sponville a lot). To a lesser extent, I was also with him when he was discussing the concept of ego, although the language he was using there was less familiar to me. He lost me when he started talking about the Law of Attraction, but like all conversions, McSwain’s was highly personal, and we all have some eccentricities in the way we try to explain those experiences. The genuine-ness of McSwain’s encounter shines through the book, and I recognized a lot of my own journey in his. He asked a lot of the questions I’ve asked, and he reminded me how easy it is to be with God, something I was having trouble remembering in my current process of wrestling with church. Even with the moments of (for me) theological weirdness, we could use more spiritual memoirs like this one.

Also, I got a free book in exchange for writing this review, which was not required to be a positive review. Here’s the legal way of saying it:

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

Learning to Encounter Art

I took an impromptu trip to the New Museum for Contemporary Art this evening because I was looking for something free to do on a Thursday night. My first venture into this futuristic building on Bowery was in 2007. I was supposed to meet a tutoring student down on Bowery, but nobody was home when I arrived.  Company policy said I had to wait 45 minutes to make sure the family wasn’t just running late, and in the course of that 45 minutes, I saw an awful lot of people file into the really futuristic building that was almost next door. When my time was up, I had a free evening, so I moseyed on over to see what the big deal was. It was the grand opening of the New Museum (their new location, anyway), and they were having extended free hours. And I thought, why not?

It’s a good thing I didn’t know going into that inaugural exhibit what it was about, or I never would have gone. I was taught, like many, unfortunately, that abstract art, installations, and other forms of non-traditional, non-literal art are nothing more than trashy attempts by artists to get attention by slapping trash on a canvas and pretending it means something. “Real” art, according to sources who shall remain nameless, consisted only of the classics – Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rodin, anybody who painted or sculpted recognizable things.

This might qualify as “real art,” although it’s highly suspect that she’s blue. Indivisible Woman. Acrylic on corkboard and wood, 2009ish, by Fairy Bear.

This, definitely not. Untitled. Oil pastel on cardboard, 2008ish, by Fairy Bear.

The inaugural exhibit at the New Museum definitely would not have qualified as “real art” by my old standards. I’m not even sure why I gave it a chance – surely the word “Contemporary” in the museum’s name was a clue to what I was getting into. Maybe I was feeling rebellious that day. Or just really curious. I don’t know. I just remember walking in and almost laughing when I realized that the whole exhibition – all 5 floors of the museum – was dedicated to sculptures that appeared to be made, literally, of trash.

And I LOVED them. I looked at everything. I wanted to touch most of it. (I didn’t). Because of copyright issues, I can’t post photos for you right on the website, but the exhibit is digitally archived here. I spent the most time on two particular pieces. One was called “Elephant,” and it’s in the digital archive. The other one was a naked wax woman. She was as tall as me, and made to look pretty cartoony. Not comic book cartoony, but maybe mannequin cartoony. And when you walked around behind her, it turns out she was a giant candle melting into the floor. Her whole back was corroded, and her insides were just melting away. The wick of the candle was positioned in such a way that the back was melting much faster than the front, so from the front she still looked like a naked, cartoony woman, but from the back, she looked like a bombed crayon. As a young woman recently in touch with the violence done to me in the past and its consequences (feeling dead and mangled on the inside, needing to present something fake and normal-looking on the outside), I felt a deep kinship with the wax woman. I was deeply moved by several of the other pieces as well, although it is harder to articulate the reasons because they were more abstract, but they each touched me in some important way.

I stayed in that exhibit until the museum closed, and I walked out liberated. I felt like a whole new world had opened up to me. I had discovered something that the art critics in my past had never known, even though they’d been staring at it for decades (or perhaps they weren’t staring nearly hard enough, as I’ll get to in another paragraph or two). Most important, though, I felt that deep, unseen parts of me had been seen and understood by these strangers, maybe even more deeply seen and understood than I understood myself. I had been challenged as well; I left thinking new thoughts. I felt that I had shared some deep communion with friends. I didn’t need to see their faces because I had encountered pieces of their souls, articulated into visible space through the medium of ….. trash. Anything was possible after this.

I tell this story because I have a lot of artist friends (in many disciplines), and we can get very chummy in our arty world. It’s easy and exciting for us to engage with art and talk about it and let it impact us, because that’s how we’re built. Like some people show a very early proficiency with mathematics, my mother likes to tell the tale of that time when I was 4 years old, and she took me to a modern dance concert, and I nonstop the entire (long) car-ride home, re-counting in intricate, chronological detail the various movements, stories, and relationships between the dancers, and what it all meant. She says I noticed more about the show than she did. To this day, given a choice, I’d rather be in a theater than almost anywhere else; it’s my natural habitat.

But it’s not a natural habitat for everyone, the way that mathematics and art museums have not always been a natural habitat for me. I had to be taught multiplication because I never would have gotten there on my own, and many people need to be educated about how to encounter art. If you spend your whole life not knowing how to interact with art, you’re missing out. Different types of art require different types of viewing; I’m a natural with anything remotely narrative, but I had to learn how to be in an art museum just like the majority of humanity. The best advice I ever got on how to be in an art museum came from my wonderful Art in Education professor, and I’m going to pass on to you here.

First, banish the idea that you are supposed to see everything in the museum, cruising through rooms like a tourist, spending a few moments on each piece, passing judgment or not, and then passing by. A quality encounter with a piece of art takes some time, so decide before you go in that you are NOT going to see everything in the museum; instead, you are going to have a lengthier encounter with a few pieces. Maybe just one. I usually figure I’ve had a good museum trip if I found 1-3 things that I really wanted to spend time with. One quality encounter is a win, more than three and I usually start feeling art-fatigued. If, after 3, you still feel hungry, or if you paid good money to get in and feel cheated if you only encounter 3 pieces, by all means stay longer, but I would schedule in breaks to help refresh your brain so that you don’t lose quality with the quantity. If one of the pictures on this page speaks to you, try this exercise with it. If it doesn’t, you’re just going to have to get yourself to an art museum.

Untitled. Watercolor on paper, 2007ish, by Fairy Bear.

Untitled. Acrylic on particle board, 2011ish, by Fairy Bear.

Acrylic on paper, 2008ish, by Fairy Bear.

Moon. Acrylic on paper. 2007ish, by Fairy Bear.

Second, you don’t have to spend time with the first item you see. Or anything on the first floor. If something draws you immediately, great, but feel free to wander, tourist-like, for a while until you find The One. Choose a piece that appeals to you, or intrigues you in some way. There is absolutely no right or wrong. There doesn’t have to be anything profound about it, either, maybe you just think the texture or color or subject is interesting. Whatever it is, it’s something that invites a closer look.

Now that you’ve chosen, find a good place to plant yourself and observe. If the museum is not crowded, this is easy, but if it’s mobbed, be patient and hold out for a quality spot. (Some sculptural pieces may invite you to observe them from several different perspectives, which is totally okay).

When you’re in position, start observing the piece. I mean just look at it. Without checking your phone for text messages or facebook updates. Look at it for a full three minutes. You might even want to time yourself in the beginning until you know what three minutes feels like, because it can feel like a year to all of us who are acclimated to instant gratification. While you’re looking at it, you’ll start noticing things that you didn’t notice when you first looked at it. You’ll notice different things in the third minute than in the first. Notice what you’re noticing, and notice the questions that start to surface. “Is that wood?” “I wonder if the woman posing for this felt vulnerable?” “Is that meant to look like a face, or is it a trick of the shadows?” “I wonder why the artist used blue in the skin tone?” “Is that discoloration original, or a sign of the age of the painting?” “Is that a lump of paint or is something hidden in there?” “I wonder why this painting makes me feel sad?”  Etc. Again, there is no right or wrong for questions. This is your sacred moment, they are your questions, and this is a judgment-free moment for your soul. If you have a journal, write down everything that you’re noticing and the questions that are surfacing. If journaling’s not your thing, just be present and aware.

When you’ve looked at the piece for three minutes, look at it for another two. Maybe take a 30-second break to read the little card beside it if you haven’t read it already (although, personally, I find that half the time the cards are just confusing rather than illuminating). See if you’re noticing anything new, or if any new thoughts or questions are arising that are related to the painting. Have some of your earlier questions been answered by your persistent looking? What new questions have come up since then?

You look for as long as you need to look to be finished. I would give it at least five minutes until you have some practice and can tell more instinctively when you’re “finished.” “Finished” doesn’t mean that all your questions are answered. “Finished” also does not mean that you will necessarily understand the piece, or understand why you were attracted to it. Although you might. For me, I know that I’m finished with a piece when I feel full. I don’t know how to explain that; I just know that I can’t receive any more from this communion, that I’m full. As you practice, you’ll get to recognize when you’re finished, versus when you’re not done with an image yet, when it still has something to tell you or pry out of you. Not every piece will be a life-changer; some will just be an interesting pause in your day. In fact, you might have to practice for a while, on a lot of different kinds of artwork, before you actually find a life-changer. That’s okay too, there’s no rush, just enjoyment of the process. When you are finished with your piece, you may decide to seek out another to repeat the process, or you may feel that you are done for the day because you need to chew on that one for a while. You might even feel that you need to come back to a piece later because you don’t have time to finish today. I know a guy who has had a print of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son hanging above his desk for years because it is still speaking to him. It’s your choice, your encounter, your judgment-free zone for your soul.

I went through this process today with several pieces that were all made of found objects wrapped in yarn. Here are some of my noticings/questions: “Wow, that’s a really interesting shape. I wonder why it’s that shape.” “It looks so soft, I want to touch it.” (I didn’t). “I can’t see anything past the yarn, there are so many layers.” “I’m really attracted to the messy parts of the yarn wrapping, the parts where the strings are knotty or tangled, or dangling crazily.” “Seriously, what is inside there? That’s the weirdest shape.” “I wonder if it’s something fragile or something really strong.” “It seems so well-protected, like somebody wanted to hug this thing with yarn.” “It’s like somebody’s secret that they wanted to wrap up and protect in this soft, colorful cocoon.”

Etc.

Somebody else might look at the same piece and think, “Yarn ball, really?” Because different pieces will speak to different people. If you are a Classics/Masters kind of person, go for it. If you like abstract or sculpture or ceramic or tapestry or whatever, go for it. Just learn to take your time and SEE what you’re looking at. It will change your whole museum experience, I promise.

And G-d Spoke Through the Atheist (Part 1)

Despite my commitment to doing as little as possible at the Wild Goose Festival, I did find myself at two actual intellectual talks, both of which were extremely excellent and deserve their own blog posts. The first one that I’ll write about (though it was nearly the last thing I attended) was Chris Stedman’s talk, “Faitheist,” which is also the name of his forthcoming book. Stedman is an atheist who works with the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard as an interfaith resource for students who are seeking spiritual connection. He is also an outspoken activist who believes that it is important for atheists to be involved in interfaith work, and for interfaith and religious groups to actively cultivate relationships with atheists. His talk was awesome. There should be more non-combative atheists and agnostics talking at Christian events – they ask a lot of the right questions. Even when they might not intend to (although he probably did – he’s pretty sharp).

There were two questions that I took out of Stedman’s talk, both of which were only mentioned in passing, that I think every person should ask themselves, regardless of their belief system. The first one was a question that someone asked Stedman on his journey. He was in his Christian phase, studying religion at college, and someone asked him, “Why are you really a Christian? What motives brought you into it?”

This is a fundamental question. Everyone should ask it. This question isn’t academic – the answer isn’t “Because it says in John 3:16 that G-d so loved the world….” (if you’re a Christian), or “Because science tells us that life evolved on earth from proteins animated in the such and such epoch…..” (if you’re that kind of atheist), or any variation of “Because it’s the RIGHT belief, and I know because……”

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you actually have THE “right” belief, perspective, or idea, out of the probably millions of different forms of belief, perspective, and ideas, on the earth. Even if you possess the singular truth of all human existence, I hate to break it to you, but you probably didn’t get there just by being your awesome, perfectly perceptive self. Probably your parents handed it to you. Or a favorite professor. Or author. Or your friends. Or perhaps direct revelation. I’m not judging, I’m just saying you probably didn’t get to your beliefs in a vacuum of influence. And just because you were influenced, probably deeply, by outside forces, also doesn’t make your belief wrong. It’s not that you should have no influences, or that they will always lead you astray, but that asking yourself a good, honest “How did I arrive here?” can be extremely healthy spiritually.

For example, when Stedman asked himself this question, and I mean really really asked it honestly, he discovered that he’d become a Christian because he felt a deep need for an ethically grounded community. But he found that the whole Invisible Being idea really didn’t work for him at a core level; he was just going along with it so that he could be in the community. This realization was a water-shed for him, and he started to step out of what was, for him, a false religion. So claiming his atheism, which he sort of had before anyway, just not outwardly or consciously, was a step towards honesty, integrity, and wholeness for him. I’m totally paraphrasing, but I hope I did some justice to his story.

I actually went through a similar process in reverse. I spent ten years as a Dawkins-style atheist, and when, after 10 years, I finally took a good long look at where I was, I realized that I was mostly an atheist because I wanted my Dad (who was an outspoken atheist) to like me more. It’s such a cliche, it’s embarrassing, but there it is. And I had built up all the intellectual props around my atheism to hide the truth from myself. When I actually broke it open, I realized that atheism had actually made my life smaller – every choice I made was wrapped in the fear of my dad not liking me. And I found that empirical explanations for life didn’t satisfy my need to understand my experiences. This is not true for all people, but it was true for me. I totally believe in a world-behind-the-world; I did as a child, and I do now. For me, the Christ story gives the most satisfying explanation of my experiences with the Divine, and the most beautiful vision for what a human life can be. It’s true that I enjoy Christian community (probably more than half the time), but given some of my deep-rooted issues with the church as a whole, I don’t believe that the whole reason I’m in Christianity is for my family or friends. The vast majority of my closest friends and family aren’t Christian anyway, so if I ever decide to leave the church, I’m not going to be suffering from lack of community as much as some might. So when I ask myself, “Why do I identify as a Christian?,” I find myself on pretty solid ground. For now. I don’t see myself leaving soon.

But what if, when someone asks himself why he really sees things the way he does, he discovers that the answer is “Because my parents told me it was the only way and I don’t want to disappoint them.” Or “Because all my friends are doing it and I don’t want to lose my community.” Or “Because this religious world is the only thing I’ve ever known, and I’ve never questioned it.” Or “Because I’m afraid that if I don’t believe, I’ll go to hell,” or “Because I need to prove that I’m smart/worthy, and this stance is the best one to argue,” or “Because I feel great guilt about something I did, and believing this allows me to do a kind of penance and feel better.”

I’ve known people who believed doctrines, Christian and non-Christian, for each of these reasons. I myself have believed doctrines for some of these reasons. But could we call any of those a sincere expression of belief? Notice that they are all a little mercenary in nature – “I believe because I’m getting something out of it.” Or, stated negatively, “I believe this because I’m afraid of what I’ll lose if I don’t believe it.” It’s not quite….honest, is it? There’s a little bit of manipulation there – I believe this so I can have this, or feel safe in this way, or belong to this group, or whatever. That’s quite a bit different than “I believe this because I almost can’t help but believe it – all my experiences, thoughts, and perceptions add up to this.”

It’s the difference between believing and just fronting.

Discovering that I’ve been fronting about some particular belief or doctrine is never my first choice for how to spend an evening, but the question “Why do you believe?” is worthy to be asked.

I’m not accusing anyone of harboring false beliefs. Very often when I ask myself why I believe something, I come up with very good reasons for where I’m at, and see no reason to move on from a particular idea. Just because I ask myself the question doesn’t mean I’m going to find something out of kilter. It is also entirely possible that me and Stedman and maybe like one other person are the ONLY people in the history of thought to have professed a belief for the wrong reasons. So I’m not saying you have false beliefs. I’m just saying that asking the question can yield some healthy and interesting results.

I’m also not asking anyone to throw out their whole religion or philosophy or belief system. I am still holding strong to a belief in the risen Christ, but I have let go of some of the more tangential beliefs that I thought had to go with that. When I really looked at them, I only believed them because I was afraid G-d was going to punish me if I didn’t. They didn’t actually match up with my experience, my conscience, or even, in some instances, my intellect. And let me tell you – if, in your heart of hearts, you don’t really believe, Jesus already knows. So does the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And Cheesus, for that matter. For real. And He hasn’t punished you yet, so relax. Be not afraid. There is enough space here for questioning and doubts. You are where you are for a reason, and that alone deserves respect and dignity. Your journey is sacred. Asking “Why do I believe?” can sometimes open up the next step on the path.

Response to a Response to “Late Night Theology”

A friend posted this response to “Late Night Theology:”

“I just think it is important to remember that God is Love but love is not God. Our society places love above God and makes love God but we have to remember that everything God has given us in the scriptures, rules included, was out of His amazing love. Rules, too, are not God, and it is not our place to wag our fingers unlovingly at those who don’t follow God’s rules. Heaven knows we “All fall short of the glory (perfection) of God. But if, in the name of love, we watch carelessly as our dear ones walk straight into traps of sin even hold their hands and encourage them along the way, we are putting “love” above God. We have a responsibility and that is to put God first in all things. If there comes a fork in the road where we have an opportunity to share God with someone or “lovingly” just let them remain lost…we HAVE to choose sharing God. Trusting that the fact that He IS Love will win the day, even if to our limited human minds, pointing someone toward Christ does not feel like love in the moment.”

Friend – I’m going to enthusiastically agree with most of what you just said.  God is Love but love is not God (esp. when you define love narrowly as Hollywood-style infatuation and saccharine ever-after endings). Yes. Rules come from the amazing love of God, which seeks harmony, not chaos. Yes. Rules, too, are not God, so we should not wag fingers. Amen, sister. We have a responsibility to put God first in all things. Absolutely.

And here’s where we start to diverge.

First, I question your use of the word “carelessly.” I don’t think it’s careless to let someone choose their own path, I think it’s reverent and trusting – trusting that they are a fully-functional human being with a brain and conscience and intuition, trusting that God has their path in His hands, and that His Holy Spirit will be there IF and when they need re-direction. I think too often we are in a rush to fix someone’s situation, make them better, improve them, or otherwise interfere because WE are uncomfortable with their situation, not because they actually need our advice. How do I know what God wants to do in someone’s life at this moment? I hardly know what He’s doing in mine!

I can pretend the Bible tells me, but the Bible is full of universally true generalities (God is Love, love your neighbor, remember the poor, etc.), and sometimes-true, culturally specific weirdness (do you cover your hair or speak in church or wear polyester?), and archaic, barbaric examples of human behavior (do you keep slaves?). And sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other because a loving action is always situation-specific (handing someone a warm brick is loving to a cold person, but deadly to a drowning one). How do I know that what I perceive as “sin” in their life isn’t something that God is perfectly happy to let them hold onto while He works on other things? Or even something that He wants them to go through in order to heal something else? We do, after all, cure cancer with poison. How do I know that what I perceive as sinful isn’t THE thing God is actually trying to DO in someone’s life? I have certainly had instances in my life where I thought God wanted me to “behave” a certain way, and it turned out that he was trying to do something much bigger in my life. For which He actually needed me to fully commit to the very actions that I had considered “sinful.” Once He had accomplished the bigger soul-surgery, the behavior that I was so concerned about just went away, and I found that I had been freed of a much bigger oppression than my behavior was causing me. If I can’t always discern in my own life which behaviors are detrimental and which are God-sent, how on earth am I supposed to judge whether someone else is walking into a “sin trap,” or just taking a different path after God than I am?

God’s work is always much deeper than our outward behaviors and beliefs, and so I think that walking beside someone, listening, and allowing them to work through something careFULLY is not only loving but holy. It leaves more room for the Holy Spirit, Who is the one charged with convicting people of sin, not me. If there is immediate and observable harm, like if someone I know is abusing his or her child, then on a case-by-case basis, there will be times when it is appropriate and important to step in and set boundaries. But I find that more often than not, when Christians are talking about saving someone else from “sin,” they’re talking about much grayer areas, and trying to impose standards and boxes on people’s lives that might not be from God at all.

I also think that very often, when Christians say “sharing God,” what they end up meaning, intentionally or not, is “conforming you to my subculture,” which may or may not have anything to do with what God is trying to do in someone’s life. If, in fact, I interfere with God’s work in someone’s life because I am anxious to fix something that I perceive as wrong with their life, then I am inflicting soul-violence on them. When the Holy Spirit “convicts of sin,” it feels like liberation. When people do it, it often just feels like shame and oppression. It can be much more difficult to heal the wounds inflicted by the religiously zealous than those inflicted by the world, because wounds inflicted by the religiously zealous have all the (false) apparent weight of God behind them. There are reasons why Jesus exhorted people to remove the planks from their own eyes first. Ask me about my personal experiences with this sometime.

More coming on this topic when I finish the Stedman post about totalitarian religion…..

Late Night Theology, Brought to You by Facebook Chat

I’m working on some more reflections from the Wild Goose Festival, but in the meantime, here’s a convo I had with my dear fiancee this evening. Errors have been preserved, although names have been changed. I apologize for the crappy formatting, I couldn’t get wordpress to separate the lines more clearly for some reason. It started like this:

My fiancee (B) posted the following status:

” ‘Unless your worldview loves all of humanity, it doesn’t represent the creator of all of humanity.’ – Donald Miller.

I agree. Now let’s show more love to believers of non-Christian religions, gay people, immigrants, atheists and agnostics.”

One of his uber-conservative friends posted this response:

“Love is not love if sinners ate not told that repentance is possible because forgiveness is possible because a loving God paid the penalty for our sin.
The result of being forgiven is not to go on sinning, but to repent.
So, I suspect Miller’s comment sound cool, but may not tell the whole truth.”

And this is what I wrote to B afterward in a private chat:

Me: I’m resisting the urge to write this under [uber-conservative friend's] response to your quote:

“Which is why it’s so important to point out to self-righteous religious people when their judgment is a stench in G-d’s nostrils, and a plague to their fellow travelers. How else can they repent of the planks in their eyes?”

Sheesh.

B:  Well, they are part of that church group I told you about that turned very conservative and rightward. You keep telling me to stop watching Fox News, but I don’t have to, because I get the talking points through them. You can post it if you want, just expect an cranky and unhappy response.

Me: yeah, I know, that’s why I don’t really want to. i’m not in the mood for a catfight.

B:  yeah

if you’ve noticed, i’ve kept myself out of any skirmishes today

i think my little message yesterday helped

Me:  yes, i did notice

your little message?

B:  about not commenting on the presidential electio

it was a disclaimer for me

Me:  ah, now i see it.

i’d missed that one.

B:  now that we’ve experienced progressive christianity, it’s hard to go back to that judgmental sin and shame based faith, eh?

Me: hell yes.

btw, i’m working on my blog piece about stedman – looks like it’s actually going to have to be two blog posts.

turns out i have a lot to say about this.

B:  [uber-conservative friend]‘s post REALLY turned me off and if i weren’t a Christian, i’d really think that christianity is the last religion I’d want to practice

as it is, i might already feel that way.

Me:  i completely agree.

i at least don’t want to practice it that way.

which is why i’m still tempted to post that response to his comment, even if it unleashes a firestorm.

just so other people who read the thread will know that that’s not the last word on Christianity.

but i’m still not sure i’m up for a flame war on your wall.

B:  we’re trying to build bridges and really welcome those different from us, and he has to chime in with that?

with ‘friends’ like these who needs enemies?

Me:  right?

B:  any progress i might have gotten with my non christian fb friends was probably lost

Me:  ok, maybe i should post my response then.

B:  maybe you can word it so it’s less provocative

Me:  hehehehe.

B:  still firm but less in your face

know what i mean?

if it turns in to a flame war, i’ll moderate it

Me:  i know what you mean, trying to think how to word it…

B:  i’ll hand out warnings

Me:  hehehe

B:  make sure it stays civil and doesn’t get abusive

but you argued with [uber-conservative friend] before in that complementarian vs egalitarian thread

just keep in mind that it might go the way of that thread

Me: Erg.

i can’t seem to make it less offensive without taking the bite out of it entirely.

B:  but i say you should say what you must

if you can’t change anything, then just post it

Me:  “Yes, exactly, and let us not forget that the only sins that really got Jesus riled up were self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and profiting from religion.”

?

So therefore, brothers, let us exhort one another not to be prats.

?

B:  hehe

Me:  is that less inflammatory, or the same?

B:  still inflammatory

Me:  dang.

what if I change it to “giant prats”?

B:  lol

i was just going to say that love we show the non-christians should not be conditional

only if you repent

that’s not love

Me:  that’s a much nicer way of putting it.

you should write that.

B:  only if you remove your sin

that’s not love

Me: i also just feel like the huge emphasis on sin takes away the emphasis on love.

not that the idea of sin is unimportant, but it’s hardly the main component of the message [and I feel like it's a largely misunderstood concept, so we should just stop using that word entirely because it's so loaded, but that's a whole blog post in itself. Maybe several blog posts].

B:  yup

but for righty evangelicals, it is the main message

Me:  and to your idea, the “christian” response is “but we don’t only love you if you remove your sin, it’s the love that enables you to overcome your sin”

the effect, though, is still to keep the focus on someone’s self-improvement rather than on the story of fierce love.

B:  another thing: i thought that [uber-conservative friend]‘s post was irrelevant for atheists and agnostics. they don’t believe in God, so they don’t believe they need to repent

heck, i believe in God and most of the time i don’t think i have to repent.

Me:  oh i don’t know – i felt the need to repent as an atheist – there are things every person does that they’re not proud of.

B:  well, i’m talking about the repentance in the mind of the conservative chrisitian

Me:  but this whole framing misses the larger meaning of repentence anyway, which is to “turn around” – it essentially means to have an “aha!” moment and break through into a new viewpoint.

not just to stop doing certain specific behaviors that others have deemed inappropriate.

B:  it’s about changing your path

Me:  exactly.

B:  another thing that bothered me was that [uber-conservative friend] was making the assumption that to love these people one has to proselytize them.

i’m thinking no, we just have to love them where they are right here, right now.

Me: hear, hear.

Since when does loving someone mean exercising thought-control over them?

B:  yeah

well, hence why so many of [a mutual friend's] old friends can’t be friends with him now

Me: what’s the phrase – when you love someone, you have to set them free?

it’s so sad.

and really, they’re the ones who are trapped.

they don’t even realize they’re prisoners.

B:  they can’t be friends with him as long as they feel that they have to change him and they feel he has to comply

Me:  yeah.

B:  that’s also the name of a song by sting

hehe

Postscript: I’m SO glad I’m marrying this person.

Things I Learned While Doing Nothing at the Wild Goose Festival

I got to shake Pete Rollins’s hand! But that’s beside the point.

Yesterday I finally peeled off my neckerchief (whose ice had melted hours before), rinsed off several layers of dust and sweat, scrubbed the sticky out of my hair, and lay down in air conditioned luxury for the first time in four days. Today, sandal-tanned feet still a little dusty, rainbow yarn bracelet still wrapped childishly around my wrist, good friends further and further behind us, I am making the long trek north toward home.

This was B’s and my second trip to the Wild Goose Festival. Held on the Shakori Hills festival grounds near Durham, NC,  it’s a mostly Christian, mostly progressive festival of music, art, spirituality and justice. You can check it out here. Last year, during the inaugural Goose, B and I were very ambitious – we scheduled ourselves for something nearly every hour of every day and were haunted by a continuous feeling of missing out. Until I suffered heat stroke on the third day and had to lay down and sip water and munch cheerios for 11 hours. Thus chastened by the limits of my body, this year was a much different, much lazier, and much more satisfactory Goose. I committed myself to putting forth the least effort necessary to feel that the trip had been worthwhile. The result: a little art, a little dancing, a little music, and a lot of long, meandering conversations. I feel that I came out very much ahead.

Here are some things I learned while doing next to nothing at the Goose:

1. You can never have too much bug spray.

2. Cookies and beer make a really excellent communion.

3. Rock-Paper-Scissors is so much more interesting when it encounters gamma radiation and morphs into Rock-Paper-Scissors-DoubleClaw-Meercat:

Epic. Even we couldn’t figure it out.

4. Dance might be the most purely incarnational of the art forms.

5. Being an Honorary Queer at a Queer Party is fa-habulous.

6. I really really really really need to learn how to fire dance:

7. Pimento Cheese (it’s a Southern thing, if you’ve never encountered it) is so divine that when you put it on the table, you have instant church. Cheese Church. Come worship at the plate of Cheesus. We are radically inclusive.

8. Painting your arm is more awesome than painting on paper.

I managed to avoid all activities that require hand washing for several hours after this just so I could be badass for a little longer.

9. Sometimes one is forced to make compromising moral decisions. For example: DEET is very bad. But ticks are so much worse. Therefore, you can never have too much bug spray.

10. Hummus-munster-tomato-avocado on a challah roll is my new favorite summer sandwich and deserves its own blog post (stay tuned).

11. Despite recent loud protestations to the contrary, it turns out that I still enjoy hanging out with children. As long as I’m not responsible for improving them in any way.

Caution: Hanging out with children can lead to pick-up games of Rock-Paper-Scissors-DoubleClaw-Meercat.

12. Faith takes many, many forms.

13. Face painting is much more difficult when you don’t have a brush.

14. There are Bloody Mary’s, and then there are Bloody Mary’s from Provence, which had to be re-named and classified as their own super-species. Thus: The Provence Fainting Mary’s.

15. “Provence Fainting Mary’s” is a bookable band name.

16. So is “Whiskey Tango and the Leftover Unicorns.”

17. So is “My Asian Hillbilly.” You’re welcome.

18. Ticks suck. Literally.Therefore, you can never have too much bug spray.

19. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that hippie communes and carnival freak shows are probably my natural habitat:

20. The People’s Mic is alive and well in progressive Christendom.

21. Beer and Hymns should be a monthly institution. Everywhere.

22. You should never be afraid of the truth.

23. Spiritual directors with tangerine hair and tattoos give very sage advice.

24. “Faitheist”  is my new favorite word.

25. Hot buttered biscuits are my new favorite breakfast.

26. Really, truly, you can never have too much bug spray.

It’s really amazing how much I got out of doing mostly nothing for four days. Praise be to Cheesus!….(Biscuits, anyone?)

Because Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends Play with Objectivism*.

At least not without close supervision. Prolonged or unchallenged exposure to objectivism can lead to all kinds of nastiness, often against yourself, close friends and loved ones, or your entire facebook community.

I’ve been off of blogging for a while because of engagement and wedding planning and moving and the working two jobs thing  (this is my busy season), but when I see friends quoting Ayn Rand on facebook, I just want to seize them by their virtual lapels and shake them awake.

I had one such experience today, so I’m going to pick up where I left off so very long ago with my “Atlas Revisited” project. (See here.)

Wait, I think I vaguely remember promising in that post that I would refrain from snarky and smug comments. And I will. Starting now.

So far, I’ve read most of the preface to the 35th Anniversary Edition (the one my dad bought for me when I graduated from high school, with the inscription “May this book inspire and sustain you as it has me.”) Already I have enough notes in the margins to start a book, and it’s hard to know where to start, but I’ll focus in on one passage for the sake of trying to keep this blog post readable.

As I believe I sort of mentioned before, one of my main areas of bafflement with the whole Ayn Rand movement is how many professing Christians have started adopting parts of her philosophy as their own. Ayn Rand herself claimed that you could not be both a disciple of Jesus and a disciple of her philosophy.  I even understand some of the psychological appeals of objectivism (wasn’t I a disciple myself for 10 years?), but they are vastly different from the rigors required of a serious Christian faith, and I’m puzzled at how many people don’t seem to see how obvious this is.

In the preface to the 35th anniversary edition of Atlas Shrugged, Leonard Peikoff (Ayn Rand’s “intellectual heir”) mostly quotes from the journals in which Ayn was working out the premise and relationships driving her book, and he quotes this passage, straight from Ayn herself:

“Therefore, while a creator does and must worship Man (which means his own highest potentiality; which is his natural self-reverence), he must not make the mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to worship Mankind (as a collective).”

Let’s start here. In one sentence, Ayn has inverted the entire central message of the Bible. I don’t think I’m overstating the case. Consider this passage from Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV):

” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Emphasis mine.

In the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, the first and primary commandment is always to love G-d first. Or, as it’s translated in the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Or, from Luke 4:8, “Jesus answered, ‘It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ‘ ” (He was quoting from Deuteronomy).

Ayn makes the case for worshiping “Man” instead of worshiping G-d. And specifically, worshiping the best in yourself but not in others, the very opposite of treating others as yourself. She’s not subtle about it. And who is this “Man” that Ayn has set up as a god? She calls him “the creator.”

“Man, at his highest potentiality, is realized and fulfilled within each creator himself….He alone or he and a few others like him are mankind, in the proper sense of being the proof of what man actually is, man at his best, the essential man, man at his highest possibility. (The rational being, who acts according to his nature).” Emphasis hers.

So there it is. The god-Man is a rational creature, apparently the only creature that properly falls under the category of mankind. Emphasis mine. I could go on at some length about how our rational faculties are only a small percentage of our brain, and that denying the rest of the human experience, the full range of human emotions for starters, creates a false expectation of reality, not to mention two-dimensional characters and wooden fiction, but I’ll save that for another post. Reigning in the snark beast.

Practically speaking, what does such a rational creature as Ayn’s god look like? In her own words, “I think I represent the proper integration of a complete human being. Anyway, this should be my lead for the character of John Galt” – {her hero in the story, ‘the ideal man – the consistent, the fully integrated, the perfect’ – I couldn’t make this up if I tried.} – “He, too, is a combination of an abstract philosopher and a practical inventor; the thinker and the man of action together…”

I’m sorry. I have great respect (truly, no sarcasm) for anyone who can type out a 1168-page work of fiction and then get it published. And then spawn a movement that lasts for decades. Let me not diminish the magnitude of Ms. Rand’s achievement in this respect. But does anyone else find it incredibly convenient for Ms. Rand’s philosophy that, aw shucks, her ideal Man, her god, looks just like her?

I believe in academic circles, you would call this anthropomorphism – the creation of gods who look like (and act like) people. Often some narrow, idealized aspect of what a person is. In Christianity, we call it idol worship. Ayn liked to think that she was doing something unprecedented in the history of humanity, and while she has achieved some very notable worldly success, let it also be noted that creating gods in your own image is as old as civilization itself. We used to make them out of bronze or gold; now we craft them from words.

Here’s something that I actually really appreciate about Ayn: she understood that your basic assumptions about life, death, and morality have very practical consequences for the way you live your life. I don’t have a direct quote for you on hand, but this theme shows up a lot in her writing – the consequences of belief. In this, she is actually in agreement with Jesus (“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”) Both Ayn and Jesus understand that what you believe is not necessarily what you say you believe or even think you believe – words and thoughts can lie. What you believe is what you do. This also sheds light on Jesus’s admonishment that “the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (Jn 6:29)- if your true beliefs always show themselves in your actions, then excavating your real beliefs and holding them up for examination and submitting them to G-d for the renewing of your mind is truly work. And our behaviors betray our true beliefs more reliably than our words. Peter Rollins has a very challenging piece along that topic here. Anyway.

So when Ayn says that the proper object of worship for man is Man, she understands that this has very practical consequences in real life. Or, as Richard Rohr (a Franciscan monk) puts it, “Your image of G-d creates you.”

This is why it’s so important to me to tell people why I think that Ayn Rand is dangerous. I spent 10 years letting Ayn Rand’s conception of perfection shape me, and I grew smaller. In soul, spirit, and courage, my life got smaller. In some ways, I was lucky – my innate gifts are so unlike those worshiped by Ms. Rand that my spiritual failures were acute, and I was forced to address the inconsistencies early. I could have languished for years longer if I’d had a little bit more of a “rational” bent. Not that there’s anything wrong with having a rational nature; somebody has to keep us dreamers tied down to facts and sense. Even for people who are more rational by nature, though, Ms. Rand’s philosophy is ultimately limiting. While some rational types find a kind of affirmation in Ms. Rand’s writings that they struggle to find elsewhere, this intoxication (and Ms. Rand’s insistence that they are already superior to their lesser, less rational, brethren) can dissuade them from seeking to understand and celebrate human expression in all its forms.

I have tons more thoughts on this, but for now, here’s the take-away: If you’re in need of a Higher Power, don’t look to John Galt.

*[I am stupidly happy that spell check informs me that "objectivism" is not officially a word.]

My Prayer for the Occupy Wall Street Day of Action Tomorrow (11/17)

I’m deeply uncomfortable praying out loud. Here goes anyway.

Father G-d,

You have always heard the cries of Your people, Your little ones, when they are in distress. You have always heard the cries of the voiceless when they have nowhere else to turn. It is You who delivers us from slavery, from prisons, both internal and external, it is You who frees us to be fully human, to act in dignity, open-handedness, and love. It is You who creates unity, You who softens hearts, opens ears, lifts burdens, melts opposition, and creates space even for forgiveness.

Your people labor under powers and principalities that grind down many, which create shame and suffering, which bring death to people in far places, which seem at times to be insurmountable.

You, G-d, hold all of history, past and future, in Your hands, and I cannot know Your will for tomorrow, but I know you honor justice and relief for the oppressed, and that You knit unity from division and order from chaos. You care about our cries, and You care about how we treat one another in our distress.

I pray for Your peace to reign over the city tomorrow, that Your Spirit would move among us all, protesters and bystanders and police alike. I pray You would move in our hearts as a people, that our eyes might be open to what You want to build. I pray that You would create dialogue in places where there was hatred or silence, I pray You would create delight in the midst of anger, and I pray that Your passion for people and for justice and for forgiveness and for compassion and for love would bubble through Your people everywhere, that we would see You in one another.

Help us to see.

Help us to hold steadfast to hope, for ourselves, for one another, and for the world.

Help us to remember that we are all Your children.

Help us to find some truth in the confusion.

Weave something beautiful for the world tomorrow.

Burden of Proof….

Continuing the conversation from before:

“Atheists have no obligation to prove or disprove anything. Otherwise—if you demand belief in all Beings for which there is no absolute disproof—then you are forced by your own twisted “logic” to believe in mile-long pink elephants on Pluto, since, at present, we haven’t explored Pluto and shown them to be nonexistent. The idea of the Christian god only seems more rational than the pink elephants or the Greek gods because we’ve been brainwashed into accepting the Christian god by repetitive parental and societal propaganda.” – David Mills on the burden of proof from his book Atheist Universe.

A friend on facebook said something similar about the burden of proof – that because theists are claiming something and atheists are claiming nothing, the burden of proof rests entirely on the theists/believers/Christians/etc. to prove their case.

Two thoughts on this. Number one, I think everyone can calm down about proving anything. I don’t see why we can’t agree to disagree on this.  This could get me in trouble with some evangelical and other more literal friends, but I don’t think “proclaiming the gospel” means getting everyone to recite the Nicene Creed. “Proclaiming the gospel” is about loving people. Love broken people, protect vulnerable people, seek justice for the oppressed, the imprisoned, the sex-trafficked, the violated, heal the abused, comfort the mourning, minister to the sick, invite the outcasts, remember forgotten people, love the difficult-to-love people,  love your enemies, love scandalously, show that it’s possible to die to your own ego because Christ already died for you.

It’ s like that verse where Jesus says, “You shall know my disciples by their correct theology.”

Oh, wait. Nevermind, He said, “You shall know my disciples by their well-defined eschatology.”

Oh, no, I was thinking of that part where Paul says “And these are the fruits of the spirit – superior Bible knowledge, better proof-texting, knowing who’s in and who’s out, and getting a 100% on G-d’s Great Multiple-Choice Test in the Sky (extra harp if you answer the bonus question correctly!)”

Oh, wait.

We’re supposed to love one another. And if we love one another, the importance of winning conversations diminishes, because, by its nature, competitive conversation divides us, rather than helping us to know and appreciate one another. I ask my atheist (and Jewish and Muslim and Ba’hai and other) friends about their beliefs because I’m interested in who they are, how they orient themselves to the world, where they are on their journey, what influences speak most strongly to them. When I disagree with them on something, I don’t hide it, but competitive conversation is not my goal (not that I don’t slip into it now and again – old habits die hard).

I suspect that if fewer Christians were intent on controlling other people’s beliefs and making their faith look just-like-mine, it’s possible that atheists and other people of different faiths would be less intent on arguing with us, and more interested in collaborating with us on, oh, say, feeding the poor.

So in my heart of hearts, I want us to be able to agree to disagree, without needing to necessarily “prove” anything.

Secondly. If we are going to try proving things anyway, I don’t think that atheists should be able to lay the entire burden of proof at the feet of believers.

My philosopher friend made the point that it is the person asserting something who then carries the burden of proof. If you assert the existence of alien monkeys, it is your job to provide proof. You have to show me the monkey. ( )

Or, because a christian is asserting the existence of G-d, the burden rests on the christian, not the atheist, to provide evidence. The atheist is free to rest on their assumption of absence and wait for the proof because the atheist position of the absence of G-d is taken to be the default position.

Let’s look at this from a different vantage-point though. The burden of proof argument comes from the vantage-point that the absence of space monkeys is self-evident. Absence in this case is the default position.

But what about the existence of the sun? In this case, because the sun is self-evident, if I were to claim that the sun did not exist, I would be the one required to provide evidence of my belief, and rightfully so. In this case, existence is self-evident, so existence, not absence, is the default position.

When Copernicus insisted that the sun did not revolve around the earth, this is precisely what happened. It appeared self-evident to most people that the sun revolved around the earth, not the other way around. Copernicus was required to provide evidence to the contrary if anyone was to believe him. And he was correct. The truth is always more complicated than it first seems.

So the atheist argument (that the burden of proof rests entirely on believers) rests itself on the assumption that G-d is not self-evident.

Billions upon billions of people throughout history and from radically different cultures disagree. The vast majority of the human race has experienced, perceived, and/or interacted with a “world behind the world,” so to speak, even if they classify it and name it in very different ways. The existence of a spiritual realm has been self-evident to practically all cultures throughout time. As C.S. Lewis put it, in his particular christian context, “I believe in Christ the way I believe in the sun; not only can I see it, but by its light I see all other things.” (I totally did that from memory, so it’s most likely paraphrased and might not even be C.S. Lewis). For millennia, spiritual experiences have not only been believed, but have provided the lens through which we see the world.

Certainly, atheism is not new. Newton was an atheist, and many others, and these are just the ones we know about in recorded history. So the existence of G-d has never been self-evident to everyone. But never, and nowhere, has atheism been a majority cultural stance until the past century.

This is an interesting historical point. Spirituality is about meaning, and in the Abrahamic traditions especially, spirituality is about relationship. “Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.” This is how the law and the prophets were summed up in the New Testament. Love the Lord your G-d. That’s a relational statement.

So it’s interesting to me that atheism has gained more and more prominence beginning with the industrial revolution, when relationships began to disintegrate. People no longer lived on their family land for generations upon generations. Traveling used to be so expensive, so laborious, and so exhausting that the vast majority of people died within a few miles of where they were born. Or, they developed nomadic cultures, but even here - families moved together. People stayed with their groups, and there were very strict rituals in place to help people through changes in group loyalty, like marriage. Relationships were a primary part of life, and communities were so dependent on one another that violent disruptions in relationships could easily put the whole community at survival risk.

I’m not saying life was ideal, or that all the rules put in place to keep group cohesion were healthy, but relationships themselves were unavoidable, deep, immediate, daily, and often life-long.

Today, we can avoid relationships in all kinds of ways. We have relationships with our tv’s, with our playstations, with our phone apps, with our stuff, with our work. We change friends when we change circumstances, and the corporate structures that dictate our cultural norms move us around when it suits them (how many people do you know who have moved for a job? vs. – how many people do you know who have moved because they wanted to be part of a community?). Family structures have been radically re-drawn at unprecedented levels in the past century (50 years?), and we could have a whole different conversation about the reasons for that, but the point is that we do not have relationships  in recent centuries the way that people had relationships in previous centuries. I heard Mother Theresa credited with the quote, “The tragedy of the East is its great poverty, but the tragedy of the West is its great loneliness.”

The reason I’m bringing all this up is because christians and others of the abrahamic faiths believe in a relational G-d. We are often accused of clinging to archaic cultural contructs and superstitions, but what if atheism is the cultural construct, born of a culture in which relationships are so fragmented, belief in a relational G-d appears to have no grounding in reality? What if it’s the broken relationships making it appear that the sun revolves around the earth? (Actually, I think it’s worth exploring how this same fragmentation also helps fundamentalism along – the misconception that following G-d has to do with getting the right answers rather than having good relationships. That’s a gross oversimplification and the rest of that thought will have to wait for a future post).  Broken relationships make a relational G-d seem far-fetched.

And so atheists think that the absence of G-d is self-evident, and believers think that the presence of G-d is self-evident, and we end up arguing about who’s right and who has proof, and who needs proof, and what kind of proof is acceptable.

Which brings me to one last point. I’ve spent a lot of time and blog space recently laying out my reasons for believing that a lack of scientific evidence does not disprove G-d, and saying that I will not attempt to prove the existence of G-d to you using scientific means.

But I absolutely believe that G-d wants to be known by you. G-d wants you to find Him/Her. G-d admires your commitment to seeking the truth. Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened up to you. It’s a promise. There’s an incredible adventure through that door.

The thing is that if you want to know a relational G-d, you have to seek your evidence relationally.

What I mean is – if you want to know if G-d exists,

ask G-d

not believers. (or not only believers).

Ask. Seek. Knock.

And be prepared for answers that might surprise you.

As a New Yorker and a Christian

I mourn deeply with those who suffered loss and anguish in the events of 9/11, who smelled burning flesh for days and weeks, who still suffer from respiratory ailments, anxiety, nightmares, grief, and other ailments of the human body and spirit.

I mourn deeply with the Iraqi and Afghani families who have suffered the loss of family members, homes, businesses, and infrastructure at our hands.

I mourn deeply with Guantanamo detainees who were denied due process, kept from their loved ones and livelihoods, tortured, neglected, and ignored in the name of victory and security.

I mourn deeply the fear, mistrust, suspicion, and division that have multiplied and multiplied from the initial violence, poisoning our communities, our rhetoric, our politics, and our foreign policy.

And I mourn the fact that the death of Osama bin Laden will ultimately resolve none of these, because resurrection, security, reconciliation, and peace are never found in another’s death, except in the case of the death of Jesus Christ.

Being imperfect in my faith, I do not mourn the death of Osama bin Laden, but neither can I celebrate.

“‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live….‘” – Ezekiel 33:11