I Believe in Santa Clause

This morning, I delivered presents to children for our church’s Angel Tree ministry.  In case you are unfamiliar with this ministry, it is a program for low-income children (some churches do it for children of prisoners) to receive Christmas presents.  It’s a charitable and sentimental thing to do for the community and they invited me to come, so I thought it would help me get into the Christmas spirit. 

from today at the preschool

Part of the experience for the kids is that someone from the school district dresses up like Santa and the kids get all excited and they get their picture taken with him.  Now I have hang-ups with the whole Santa narrative.  As someone who isn’t a parent I am afforded the luxury of looking down my nose at parents who go to so much trouble to deceive their children into believing a story about a man in a red suit that goes down their chimney and runs a sweatshop of little people in the middle of the Arctic.  It gets even more obnoxious when Santa somehow has omniscient seeing powers and judges the behavior of all the children of the world and rewards them accordingly.  I digress.

But as I sat there this morning watching this larger than life mascot, of the Christmas season, bring smiles to the faces of underprivileged children, it struck me.  I believe it was because for the first time I saw Santa Clause in his natural habitat, outside of the disgusting consumer whoredom that is the mall in December.

When you take Santa out of the mall, when the church takes back the Santa Clause, and tells his story our way; not as an unlimited supplier of consumerism, but rather as a true hero of Christian charity, we have something truly incarnational for our children to love.  Santa Clause isn’t the enemy of Christmas; he’s the icon of Advent.

Tomorrow is the feast day of St. Nicholas, you know the guy who the guy in the red suit is based off of.  He was a 4^th century bishop in Myra, an ancient Greek town in modern day Turkey.  He was famous for putting coins in the shoes of poor children and advocating for the rights of prisoners.  Furthermore, one of his greatest tales was a time when he gave money to three young virgins in order to keep them out of prostitution. 

You see Saint Nick is doing exactly what John the Baptist commanded, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord (John 1:23).”  This is the mantra of Advent, to prepare a way for Jesus. 

But what is that way exactly?  And why do we have to prepare, can’t God just do God stuff?  If we remember the song Mary sang when she found out she was going to birth the God-child (from Luke’s Gospel), we are reminded of God’s way: 

The Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

St. Nick being like, 'hey, put
down that sword' 

There are two things to note here.  1) What God’s promise looks like: the hungry are fed, the lowly are lifted up, the oppressors are brought to justice.  2) He has come to the help of his servant Israel.  God isn’t magic, God works with God’s people to bring justice and peace to the broken creation.  Because it is our job to set things to right!  God has our back, God will sustain us and guide us, but we as God’s people are ultimately the ones who’s job it is to make peace in this world.   

Advent is the season to remind us our responsibility.  The baby Jesus was the gift who came and showed us the way, however, we must prepare that way.

I believe Saint Nick is a faithful example.  Remember that the true meaning of this holiday season is Christian charity, because charity, self-sacrifice, for the benefit of those who may not deserve it, is the way of the Lord.  So this Advent as we wait for the Lord, let us follow the way of St. Nicholas.  Rejoice…

…Santa Clause is coming to town…to show us the way to Jesus.

Peace on earth and good will toward people!

Shalom

advent and waiting for superman... continuing thoughts on the tension

A Reading from Romans 8:
^22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Advent is the season of anticipation.  But what are we waiting for?  The Christ Child has already come!  He has already died, resurrected, and ascended, but we still live in a world full of heartache and longing.  We decorate our homes with tinsel and garland, we hustle and bustle through stores, and we drink expensive alcohol and sing carols, but I fear these may only be distractions from the greater reality of this world:  the creation isn’t as it was made to be.  Oceans are polluted, children are exploited, families are separated, and even though the savior of the world has lived among us, our hearts still ache for salvation.

So again I ask: if the Christ child already came over 2,000 years ago, what are we waiting for?  Is Jesus going to come back like a divine Superman and save us all?  Did Jesus ascend and abandon us?  Are we left to fend for ourselves until he comes back?  Of course not, we as followers of Jesus are also bearers of Jesus.  The Christ child never left but rather dispersed and lived in the hearts of his followers.

Therefore, the season of Advent asks us to return.  As we wander through the wilderness of our lives, as our ambition drives us to alien territory, as our suffering drifts us further into the sea of despair, the season of Advent calls us to come back to the beginning.  To allow the Christ that dwells in us, which guides us and empowers us to be healers of this broken creation, to be reborn.  We return to find sanctuary from the pressures and chaos of ordinary life, to listen to the groaning and longing within our soul and to hear the quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit calling us to simply be.     

And so we wait, actively sitting in the tension of who we are and who we wish to become.  This promises to be painful and hard work: In the same way a mother waits for her unborn child, we will be stretched and our deepest fears will come to surface.  However, our struggle will be deeply purposeful.  The Apostle Paul says, “the longer we wait the larger we become.”  Waiting forms us into a people that are big enough to take on and reconcile the real forces of evil in this world.  Waiting gives us space to truly address the truth about ourselves, the places where we aren’t whole, where our insecurities and doubts hurt others.  And the longer we wait, the more strength we have to lift our darkness up to God our healer. 

The irony of this holiday season is that there is very little space for waiting.  But I urge you strongly, to find that space.  Be vigilant.  The Christ child isn’t just growing inside of you, he is growing in every corner of the creation!  I invite you to be present to this season’s most wonderful gift: the Christ child growing all around you…Shalom. 

The Tension

A few years back in the midst of a long standing and exhausting depression, the Bryan Adams song, Summer of ’69, came on the radio.  What struck me about this song, a song about failed love and a band that didn’t make it, was his hook, ‘those were the best days of my life.’  I think it was this song that invited me to not only look at my story more holistically but to respect its profundity.   

Immediately out of college, I declared that time to be a major failure.  A failed relationship, arguments with my father, a mountain of school debt, and a band that didn’t make it, composed the highlight (or rather lowlight) reel.  The problem with telling my story this way is it simply wasn’t true.  That time of great heartache and grief was also interlaced with profound friendship, feelings of love, community, connection and passion.  What my Baptist friends would call blessings.  Those places I sinned and made mistakes, I made doing the best I could with what I had.  The times I loved and lost, I could confidently say I did everything I could to win.  Although people hurt me, those same people shared times of profound intimacy with me.  To throw it out, to call it all a mistake would be to spit on a very sacred ground.  So why did I struggle so hard to see it this way?  Because even though the glass was so obviously half full, the missing water in my cup still hurt. 

That’s the tension.  It’s the thin space where joy and sorrow meet one another.  My desire to cut ties from that time in my life was met with a promise of taking the pain away.  I wanted to write off that time of my life because it was easier than actually grieving it.  It was simply a desire for relief.  But guess what, we don’t get to do that. 

 Read this passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 8):

“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

You see what Paul is saying, if we truly want to be whole, we must sit in the tension, because all around us there is that thin space of the broken creation meeting redemption.  Furthermore, the reason we never get relief is because for God’s redemption to happen we have to be the ones to engage it…

If you have ever introduced yourself to the outcast, someone with special needs, a homeless person, that stress you feel as you reach out your hand… the tension

If you have ever sat with someone crying or grieving, when you stayed and resisted your desire to run out of the room… the tension

The church’s current relationship to the homosexual community, loving and accepting a people despite our tradition’s moral codes… the tension

The feeling you have when you visit the third world and you begin to become aware of how much you paid for your shoes… the tension

Being alone, feeling the weight of loneliness, and resisting the temptations of meaningless sexuality, drunkenness, or apathetically watching television… the tension

The irony of this whole thing for me is that, my journey over the last few years has been about searching, rather aggressively, for relief.  All this time in prayer and solitude, writing songs and sharing stories, adopting spiritual disciplines and giving myself over to ministry has been about finding that sweet relief. 

Oh, to have a time when I will no longer have want.  When this anxiety I carry around, that fire that burns deep in my soul that longs for intimacy, pure joy, and love, dissipates into a cool autumn air. 

Rest. 

But I don’t think you get to have that.  Not the kind that has any permanence.  That isn’t met with the tension of a coming wave of conflict and heartache.  This tension never goes away.  But Paul’s promise is the more you stay present to it the more your outbursts will turn into kind words, your bitterness into forgiveness, your fucking into intimacy. 

The Good News is the tension, this kind of suffering, will save us all.  When we choose to sit in the tension healing happens, connection is made, violence ceases to be an option*.  I conclude by saying, learn to love your angst.  It’s not going anywhere. 

*Violence is the ultimate act of breaking the tension.  We have three choices; we can run from the tension, which usually looks like apathy or my story above.  We can fight the tension, impose our will and make the world the way we want it, which is what violence is and for the most part the majority of our problem with the world… the third way is to sit in the tension.  When you sit in the tension you soon realize that no one in fact gets their way, and violence is exposed for the immature child that it is.

Note: The book Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser does a far better job of explaining this concept…you should read it. 

The Television: A Poem

The Television

what is it exactly that it promises?

it's a comforting mistress, an unsatisfying whore, you give me what i want:

company

but what about need?

its voice floods my air

putting off the silence for a few more hours

oh silence

what a noise:

a reminder that no one is near you

a reminder that no one is thinking of you

no one is asking for your attention

your affection

your soul

there is no compassion here

no sharing

no laughter

solitude

just i,

only an i

and i've finally come to the place where that isn't much

is this humility?

suffering

insecurity

and a beer gut

and if i sit in the dark long enough 

and i let the silence surround me

if i give it time i'll get to the questions about god

disillusionment

maybe salvation

but it'll probably amount to nothing

so i watch the programs

i subject myself to the commercials

but even it doesn't care i'm here, 

it never said it did

 a window 

a glorious, bright, sexy

window

what a fantastic world

i'll never be invited to get any closer to...but lying here on the outside

lusting, wanting, loathing

is better

better than noticing this space that no one else desires to 

occupy

The Shamelessness of Desire

James 4:1-10

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? ²You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet^* something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. ⁴Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God^* yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? ⁶But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
   but gives grace to the humble.’ 
⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.⁹Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

So at the suggestion of my good friend, Jarrod Shappell, I am reading “Holy Longing” by Ronald Rolheiser.  It is a fantastic book so far and it has given me some great categories for why I find myself in these cycles of dysfunction so often.  Rolheiser’s main thesis is that humans are filled with varying levels of passion (or in his words eros) and it is our jobs as followers of Christ, people who would like to join in the redemption of the world, to discipline our eros and make good with it.  Furthermore, what we do with our eros defines our spirituality.  I am finding it to be very similar to a chapter about lust in Rob Bell’s book, SexGod.

Those are two book suggestions right there, but this isn’t the purpose of this writing.  What I found to be either coincidental or evidence of the Holy Spirit was what happened last Sunday night.  The youth group that I pastor is currently going through the book of James and we just so happened to be on chapter 4 the same week that I began reading Rolheiser’s book.  After we read through the chapter, I opened the group up for discussion, and the second or third question was, “what does it mean that ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit?’”  Eventually the conversation went on and I asked, “What’s inside of you that God might be jealous for?”  Silence.  And then I rephrased the question, “What are you passionate about?”  Again Silence.  But this time the silence wasn’t because they didn’t understand the question, the silence was much more awkward than that.  And I kept pushing, “what are you passionate about?”  “What is your mind constantly fixated on?”  “What in this world do you want more than anything?”  Finally, one of my kids said jokingly, “a girlfriend…”  Everyone laughed and so did he and he quickly took it back but I knew he wasn’t really joking.  Then a few other guys confessed to the same thing, then someone else said “fame,” then another said “church,” and slowly and cautiously everyone revealed them.

The question I walked away with from that conversation is, “why are we so afraid to admit what it is we actually desire?”  Now, I agree that there are variety of things that people claim to be passionate about: Darfur, the homeless, coffee, music, comic books, and various forms of artistic expression or social justice.  But these things are all out there, they are tangible and they all carry with them varying levels of cool.  What I would like to argue is that for most people, they either are ashamed of their deepest desire or they don’t even know what it is.  It’s a secret, a dark shadow dwelling inside your soul; for the majority of us living in a consumer culture, this is the answer to St. James’ question at the beginning of James 4: “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?”.

Every time we keep something in the darkness, the only thing that can grow from it is bad fruit.  Why does every one of us have these incredible cycles of dysfunction brewing in us?  Why do our relationships continually end in the same way?  Why is it so hard to forgive sometimes?  Why do I seem to be fine and then all of the sudden find myself angry and bitter?  It’s because we are slaves to our desires and they control us, they become our gods, our masters.  This is why God is jealous.  Because God no longer becomes the voice of guidance in our lives, our cravings do. 

In this way our desires play out much like an alcoholic’s addiction and the first step to recovery is admitting to having a problem.  But in this case it isn’t a problem, it is a gift that hasn’t been properly developed.  It’s immature.  What do you want?  Is it intimacy, community, family, or to be known.  These things are not bad, they are the things we long for and often times we are too willing to compromise for the inauthentic, incomplete, and distorted satisfactions.  In other words, we are thirsty and we’ll take any drink to make the wanting stop for just a moment.  But as we all know this is only temporary and the hunger comes back even stronger. 

This is exactly what God is asking you to lament, mourn and weep.  Don’t be ashamed of your desire, but die to it.  Trust that God will give the desires of your heart and choose discipline over consumption, struggle over relief, suffering over settling.  It is in this heavy place of humility that you will discover the depth and profundity of God’s gift, that our desire is not a burden but instead a vehicle for saving the world.  And God’s satisfaction is promised to be eternal!

In conclusion, be honest about what you really want, if you don’t know spend time in solitude listening to yourself or just start talking to someone that’s smarter than you.  Ignore the narratives of cool: immature desires should make you look weak, selfish and needy, but overtime with God’s help your soul will deeply desire something far more profound.  Then, finally, ask yourself, “What am I compromising to get what I want? Where am I choosing a narrative of consumerism and self-gratifying love over a narrative of reconciliation and self-sacrificial love?”  It is in this space your faith will truly be challenged, but there is life, redemption and hope on the other end…or so I’m told.  Shalom.

I Would Like To Argue I'm Not That Hard on Myself

Today’s Old Testament reading in the daily office struck a difficult note.  It was a reading from the book of Lamentations and it essentially described the deep longing God’s people had to return home, but at the same time understanding that it was their sins that brought them there.  Often times people will argue with me and tell me that I am too hard on myself.  When I make a mistake, more specifically, when I knowingly fall into a destructive pattern of behavior, hurt others, and/or stunt my spiritual growth, I tend to speak hyperbolically about how I have upset the cosmos.  The response from my friends is generally, “what about grace?”

Here’s my thought about grace: if you read most liturgies for confession or reconciliation, they generally follow along the lines of, “I was lost but now I am found.”  My point is, yes, you were can come back to the community whether it be in an existential way or a physical one (say your actions got you excommunicated), but what does it mean to be lost.  I guess “lost-ness” for me means that for a few days before I repented for my sins I was depressed and felt bad.  So this is what I get for betraying a covenant? 

This is where I struggle with books like Lamentation, the middle parts of Isaiah, and other parts of prophetic literature: the price for betrayal is exile, real exile, where your teeth gnash, and you wail for forty years and your children eat nothing but gruel.  So those people’s sins, their betrayals and their deviances got them generations in exile and all I have to deal with is guilt?  That doesn’t sound like justice to me.  Furthermore, I wonder if we are even worshipping the same God.  There has to be more to lost-ness than just feeling bad.  I would say this especially because there are plenty of things I do that are probably considered sinful or betraying God that I don’t necessarily feel bad about.

My pondering is essentially, what have I lost?  What great dream did God have for me that I have lost because of my shortcomings?  Am I alone today, still dealing with feelings of rejection and isolation because of the sins of my past?  These are simply just questions and the answers to them are unanswerable, however, I do believe they point me to the seriousness of our sins.  Have we lost respect for our God?  Has our narrative of free grace and the freedom to come and go as we please, sent us into an exile that we don’t even know we are in?  The humanist in me would like to argue that the world is getting better, we are becoming more socially conscious and less violent.  But, this can’t possibly be the Promised Land! 

This brings me back to my original point: our sins are serious.  I worship the same God whose people generations ago found themselves in exile because of their betrayals.  I cannot possibly be exempt from that kind of suffering.  I suppose the good news is, I haven’t arrived.  This so-called enlightened place I find myself in isn’t the Promised Land.  There is a better life, a more whole life, a more communal life out there, however, my biggest fear is that my exile will last longer than my years in this body.

New Monasticism: Choosing a Narrative

Neo-Monasticism seems to be a buzzword going around Christian circles these days.  Put as simply as I can, it is the effort to order one’s life and rhythms around Christian worship and community while still maintaining a life in modern culture.  What I would like to do in the spirit of Lenten preparation is offer an invitation to begin the next right step toward altering the rhythm of your life into the way of Jesus.  Let me first begin by telling you my journey.

This journey into neo-monasticism began about three years ago.  I had just graduated from Belmont, had aspirations of making it in my band, and enjoyed working a couple hours a week with the St. Bartholomew’s (or St. B’s as it is affectionately called) youth minister, Fr. Dixon, and his youth group.  Then one Monday my car broke down.  I had recently spent the rest of my savings on repairs for the old car and I was finally out of money.  This new repair was going to cost double the car’s value, so I sold the car to the mechanic for $200 and went home.  The next morning I woke up, terrified and broke.  I felt like I was now at a major life crossroad and had a choice to make: Quit the church job, get a job that paid more and pursue the band or quit the band, and pursue my calling in ministry. As is apparent, I decided to pursue my calling in ministry, however, there really wasn’t a job there at first.  It was a simple church administration job; the official job title was Youth Assistant.  At that time I thought, “certainly, this wasn’t really an actual ministry job.”  And those voices in my head took a hatchet to my ego on a daily basis.

Then a young kid named Noah started coming to St. B’s.  He was an old family friend of Fr. Dixon’s and a freshman at Belmont.  He needed a ride to church every Sunday, so I would pick him up and through our conversations on the way to church, decided to do a Compline service on Tuesday nights at Belmont.  This then evolved into doing an Evening Prayer service in the rectory on Thursday nights (what is now called Victus).  Which then turned into me leading Morning Prayer once a week. Which turned into going to noon Eucharist on Wednesdays.  Which has now evolved into a rather robust daily prayer life that I’m not sure I can live without.

My point in telling you all this is not to boast, which would be quite ironic and contrary to the teachings of Jesus.  What I do want you to draw from my story is that my neo-monastic journey didn’t begin overnight nor have I arrived at the end of my Christian formation.  Developing a rhythm of life in the way of Jesus begins now.  For me the illusion was that somehow I would find holiness when I became ordained and got matching job title.  I would further argue that I wouldn’t still be here at St. B’s (still as an Assistant, still broke) if it weren’t for a life in daily prayer reminding me of who I really am. 

I imagine for you if you’re reading this, you too long for a life of rhythm in the way of Jesus.  But you tell yourself that you will begin once your debts are paid off, you get to a particular rung of the social ladder, get married, the kids move out, or you retire.  The biggest enemy to our Christianity in the modern age isn’t the government, the media, terrorism, or other religions.  It is competing narratives.  Those stories we tell ourselves to give our lives value and meaning.  The “have-tos” in our brain that drive us into doing more work, buying more things, and driving more fear.  This is precisely the reason why we need to begin developing a daily life of prayer and forming rhythms and patterns into the way of Jesus. 

Adopting rhythms of life centered on the Christian narrative begins to transform our ontology.  The very way we understand who we are and our purpose in this world is formed by the stories we tell ourselves.  Every morning I wake up and go to the church for Morning Prayer.  Every morning I am told my value comes from God’s love for me, I should not be afraid, and the only thing I have to do is love and forgive my neighbor.  As I begin to adopt Jesus’ narrative, the other narrative gets quieter and quieter.  The voices in my head that tell me I’m not ok unless I have a certain job title, that tell me I need to make more money or busy up my calendar, these voices are quieted everyday I live in the story of Jesus.  Because the story of Jesus has always promised us that all the fame, fortune, and happiness in the world will come to an end, but the way of Jesus will sustain us and the rest of creation for eternity. 

I share my story with you, because I it demonstrates how Christian practice is about the next right step.  I came to my former rector, Fr. Jerry, a while back with this big plan to turn the rectory into a monastery.  He suggested I start by simply going to Morning Prayer everyday.  Often times we get inspired and try to reorient everything in our lives and in turn only disorient ourselves.  This Lent as we adopt rhythms and fast, ask what is the next right step?  Christian formation is like training for a marathon: you don’t learn to run 26 miles overnight.

I would like to invite you to do Morning Prayer, maybe just one day a week.  Perhaps spend just an hour a month volunteering.  Meditate and see what rhythms God is revealing to your soul.  Be still and listen to God’s voice for a change and begin the journey of quieting the voices that are leading you away from wholeness and peace.