empathy.

a few years ago i discovered Morgan Spurlock’s 30DAYS tv show, a reality show where individuals are inserted into situations that are often in direct opposition to what their beliefs are.  i had watched a few episodes a while back, but just re-found the series on netflix, and watched the “Immigration” episode.

in this episode, we meet a man (Frank) who entered the US as a legal immigrant from Cuba many years ago, is currently a staunch oppositionist to illegal immigrants, and is a member of the volunteer Minutemen border patrol in southern california.  in the episode, after a lengthy introduction to his beliefs and values on illegal immigration, he agrees to spend 30 days living with an illegal immigrant family in east LA — a family of 7 living in a 500 sq. ft. apartment.

now, the genius of this TV show is real life experience.  this isn’t Survivor where they’re set to compete or anything.  it’s (seemingly) un-influenced experience.  and we watch Frank with his hardline black and white views on immigration arguing with this family about how they should go back to Mexico and immigrate the right way, etc, etc.  But as time goes by, and as Frank experiences their life and the poverty they came from in Mexico, Frank lets his guard down.  and he sees these people simply for who they are.  there’s not some dramatic change in what Frank believes — it states so in the closing credits.  but Frank’s last statement on camera is this:  “there comes a time when you love people for who they are, all politics aside.”  i love this.  esPECially because Frank didn’t have some big 180.  he simply experience empathy.  and he gained it through relational experience.  i don’t ever expect people to budge on what they believe.  what i do expect is a loving and thoughtful attitude in communicating and living out what they believe.

there’s a lot going on in the Presbyterian Church these days.  and i wish there were more “Franks” in the church, because i think the church needs more active and authentic empathy.  how many less people would hold their hardlines on gay issues if they had a close friend or family member who was openly gay?  in our world of increasing individualism, i think people become afraid of new things and of things they don’t understand.  and they feel the need to defend so vehemently what they know, that genuine empathy is lost.  and i think this is tragic.  maybe we should take steps to truly experience the things we think we believe, so that we can be sure of the way to live out that belief.  Frank didn’t change his beliefs, he simply learned that you need to love people, all politics aside.  and that’s a beautiful thing.

simple?

i believe things like this:  CLOTHING MATTERS:  WHAT WE WEAR TO CHURCH

lead to things like this:  WHY I HATE RELIGION, BUT LOVE JESUS

anyone with me?

filling.

6ish months ago, i realized that i found myself at a church where certain members of leadership were strongly upset at the recent PCUSA decision to remove ordination standard language that previously prevented openly gay disciples from being ordained.  i struggled with my situation, because i am an open and affirming individual, doing my best to support my gay brothers and lesbian sisters in their call to ministry.  i have sat largely silent these past months, feeling a bit unsafe about attempting conversation in the somewhat-angry environment that i observed.

but when i realized the situation i was in, i knew that i needed some sort of outside experience to help me gain wisdom on how to conduct myself.  i quickly found that The Covenant Network was having a conference within driving distance, so i immediately submitted my registration, feeling that this would be a step in a healthy direction for me.  Their ‘tagline’ is:  “Toward a Church as generous and just as God’s grace.”  that’s pretty beautiful, if you ask me.

i arrived here yesterday, and went to a ‘first-timers’ orientation session.  within minutes i was brought to the verge of tears as people introduced themselves with their name and their reason for coming.  things like “i’m Sarah and my daughter is gay, and i want help in knowing how to navigate this discussion with people who are in opposition” were shared.  it was raw, real and moving.

and i realized that while people are arguing over the ‘authority of scripture’ with this issue, it’s really about their experiences.  it’s about how God has become real in their lives — how this issue has or has not been a tangible reality in their experience.  the authority of scripture is of great primacy to me, but how God has chosen to reveal Godself in my life is of even greater primacy.  some of the most faithful people i know in ministry are gay, and i cannot in good faith be in opposition to them.  i am encouraged by being here.

all that said, i encourage you, dear reader, to be thoughtful about the things that you stand on.  know why you stand.  pray about where you stand.  surround yourself with people for support.  and draw near to your Lord.

today.

i’m getting married today. to this amazing woman:

this is a great day. we get to commit to each other as lifelong partners, and celebrate with friends and family. we are so blessed. we are so lucky. we have been showered with love from the get-go. and we are so good for each other – it has been a wonderful year-and-a-half already, and my excitement for our partnership grows daily. this is a great day.

i love you melissa.

unsettled.

i wrote this awhile back, but it felt pertinent to share today. i literally feel ill today, after reading a bit of the back-and-forth about Occupy Wall Street, and listening to a segment on NJ101.5 radio.
_________

lately, i’ve grown increasingly tired of liberal and conservative ‘wars’. and by ‘wars’, i mean the lumping together of these two camps and pitting them opposed to each other, throwing nothing but cynicism, criticism and degradation back and forth. it’s pretty pathetic on both sides. and i truly hope that everyone knows that as long as ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ place themselves as vehemently opposed, nothing will ever get better. as long as one side sees the need to ‘win’ a majority over the other, we will never accomplish anything.

a couple thoughts:
-an ‘open-mind’ does not mean the foundation one stands on is shaky.
-caution and restraint are necessary components in decision making.
-change must be preceded by thoughtful reasoning
-generosity is a noble characteristic.
-all people desire to be loved and respected for who they are and what they offer.

so i’d like to press you, for a moment at least, to not think of yourself as a ‘label’ (read: ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’), and to jot down a list of 5 things that you stand for — they can be both general or more specific. and once you’ve sat with that a bit, think about how that describes you as a person. i simply encourage you to think about who you are and what you stand on — and not the label or stereotype you ascribe to. [feel free to share.]

and out of curiosity, i googled some web definitions for both ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’. some of the results follow:

CONSERVATIVE.
-resistant to change
-Traditional or restrained in style
-Moderate; cautious
-a person who is reluctant to change or consider new ideas; conformist
-tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions

LIBERAL.
-showing or characterized by broad-mindedness
-generous and broad sympathies
-tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
-favors a philosophy of progress and reform
-free from bigotry
-open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others
-Tending to give freely
-characterized by generosity and willingness to give
-from Latin liberalis, from liber, free

me?

i’ve become increasingly aware (and troubled) by the fact that we live in a me-centered society. after seeing a lot of the back-and-forth regarding current economic struggles, i am even more convinced that we may never fill in the growing chasm between the rich and the poor. i would even go so far as to say the Bill of Rights is incomplete. as in, there is no explicit ‘right to basic needs.’ i think this is an inherent flaw in the Constitution. our country is capable of so much more.

but in steps my friend Jürgen Moltmann. brilliant man, AND a logical thinker. he’s practical. he looks out for people. and i think he suggests that, as long as we live in a me-centered society, there will never be enough for all…

“Why have people in our modern world become so perverted? Because both consciously and unconsciously they are dominated by the fear of death. Their greed for life is really their fear of death; and their fear of death finds expression in an unbridled hunger for power. ‘You only live once!’ we are told. ‘You might miss out on something!’ This hunger for pleasure, for possessions, for power; the thirst for recognition through success and admiration – that is the perversion of modern men and women. That is their godlessness. The person who loses God makes a god out of himself. And in this way a human being becomes a proud and unhappy mini-god. ‘There is never enough for everyone. So reach out now and help yourself!’ That is what death tells us – death which swallows us up after we have swallowed up everything else.

‘Every man for himself!’ people say. If you don’t push, if you go to the back of the [line], that’s your own fault. Everyone is his own best friend. And so we have a world that really is without heart and without soul: the dog-eats-dog society.

If we want to find true life, and to escape the universal death of the world – if we want to gain the true riches of life, and to escape from poverty and want – the we must turn round and begin at the point where the severest loss of all begins: with God. Godlessness leads to the feeling of godforsakenness. Godforsakenness lets the fear of death and the devouring lust for life well up in us; and then there is ‘never enough.’ But if God is not far off, if God is near, if God is present among us in the Spirit, then we find a new, indescribable joy in living. We are in safe keeping; we are at home; we are trusted and can trust ourselves and other people. Our profoundest want, the want of God, has been remedied. Our yearning for happiness has been fulfilled.

What should we do? We can then restrict our desires and our demands to our natural requirements. The dreams of power and happiness and romantic far-off places which are used to create artificial wants no longer entice us. So we use only what we really need, and no longer go along with the lunacy of extravagance and waste. For this we do not even need solemn appeals for saving and moderation; for life itself is glorious, and here joy in existence can be had for nothing.

I would suggest that the best thing we can do is to build up communities of a manageable size, and to strengthen our sense of the life we share with one another and for one another. The ideology of ‘there is never enough for everyone’ makes people lonely. It isolates them and robs them of relationships. The opposite of poverty isn’t property. The opposite of both poverty and property is community. For in community we become rich: rich in friends, in neighbours, in colleagues, in comrades, in brothers and sisters. Together, as a community, we can help ourselves in most of our difficulties. For after all, there are enough people and enough ideas, capabilities and energies to be had. They are only lying fallow, or are stunted and suppressed. So let us discover our wealth; let us discover our solidarity; let us buildup communities; let us take our lives into our own hands, and at long last out of the hands of the people who want to dominate and exploit us.

People who experience and become aware of this, discover how calm and relaxed they become, because they have stopped being afraid, and are encompassed by a great peace.”
-from Source of Life

i think i’ll just leave it at that.

curious.

in my staff meeting at church today, our devotion intro’d with the concept of ‘needing to prove God exists.’ we often talk in christian circles about the fact that believing in God is not about the need to prove that God exists, but committing one’s life to a journey of faith and trust in following God. that a large part of believing in God is to live in the mystery. that evangelism should be more of sharing one’s life in God with others, rather than trying to prove to them that they should believe in God. i’m on board with that. with me so far?

why then, does it seem like such a high priority to a lot of christians to proclaim things like “the scriptures are clear on X”? so our christian journey shouldn’t be about the need to ‘prove’ God exists to others, but we feel like it’s our job to ‘prove’ what scriptures do and don’t say? if faith is a journey of trust, then how we read the bible should be an act of trust as well, and not resulting declarations of what is black and white. we should all remember that God is much bigger than what we think is ‘clear.’ just got me thinking today.

p

shallow values?

IF IT FEELS RIGHT.

this is a short, great and somewhat frightening read. is (has?) our culture (permanently?) shifted from sturdy virtues to shallow values? i think we can take a quick look around and see that we may be past the point-of-no-return. there seems to be little-to-no restriction remaining on language, topics, sexual content, etc., in what is viewable by people via all streams of media.

or dare we question someone who has achieved their ‘happiness’ at the expense of others – dare we take away their God-given right to be happy? we seem to be in an everything-goes situation. is this what has diluted virtue?

this is worth some thinking — for all of us. but especially for any of you with young children — how will you raise them in this world where everything goes?

old school hi-jinx…

do kids put together models anymore? i don’t think i’ve noticed any in stores recently. can you even get models anymore? i mean those old plastic car/truck/plane ones that come in a box with a picture of the ‘real’ car/truck/plane on the front.

well, Bill Bryson, one of my favorite authors, reminisces about building these very models as a kid. it’s something of a tangible nature that seems to have been lost in the present. and his recounting is hilarious…

“Most things that were supposed to be fun turned out not to be fun at all. Model making, for instance. Making models was reputed to be hugely enjoyable but it was really just a mysterious ordeal that you had to go through from time to time as part of the boyhood process. The model kits LOOKED fun. The illustrations on the boxes portrayed beautifully detailed fighter planes belching red-and-yellow flames from the wing guns and engaged in lively dogfights. In the background there was always a stricken Messerschmitt spiraling to earth with a dismayed German in the cockpit, shouting bitter epithets through the windscreen. You couldn’t wait to re-create such lively scenes in three dimensions.

But when you got the kit home and opened the box the contents turned out to be of a uniform leaden gray or olive green, consisting of perhaps sixty thousand tiny parts, some no larger than a proton, all attached in some organic, inseparable way to plastic stalks like swizzle sticks. The tubes of glue by contrast were the size of large pastry tubes. No matter how gently you depressed them they would blurp out a pint or so of a clear viscous goo whose one instinct was to attach itself to some foreign object – a human finger; the living-room drapes, the fur of a passing animal – and become an infinitely long string.

Any attempt to break the string resulted in the creation of more strings. Within moments you would be attached to hundreds of sagging strands, all connected to something that had nothing to do with model airplanes or World War II. The only thing the glue wouldn’t stick to, interestingly, was a piece of plastic model; then it just became a slippery lubricant that allowed any two pieces of model to glide endlessly over each other, never drying. The upshot was that after about forty minutes of intensive but troubled endeavor you and your immediate surroundings were covered in a glistening spiderweb of glue at the heart of which was a gray fuselage with one wing on upside down and a pilot accidentally but irremediably attached by his flying cap to the cockpit ceiling. Happily by this point you were so high on the glue that you didn’t give a shit about the pilot, the model, or anything else.” [p.98-99 of "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid."]

hands.

i like to get my hands dirty. because there is nothing like the exhaustion and accomplishment that comes after a 10-hour manual-labor workday. i’m adamant that everyone should experience such things on a regular basis.

this picture was taken after a long day of putting (2) telephone poles into the ground, with only a bit of assistance from a backhoe.