The Magical Way

Sometime during the years we spent in Arizona our next door neighbor put up a privacy fence (really a dog fence, I hope) along their property line. Now, our neighbor’s property line is only about six or eight feet from the fence we have on our deck. I imagine that for some people that stretch of eight feet or so would feel inhospitably narrow. But It has given me a different experience. I presume the neighbor put the fence up to help keep his rambunctious dog (Chico) penned in. He tried an electronic fence a few years ago which Chico summarily ignored. So an actual wooden fence would succeed where the virtual electronic fence did not. By the way, Chico chewed through the gate on the wooden fence, too. But for me this new development offered a very distinctive experience. It created a threshold.

You see, my studio lies at the end of that path out in our back yard. These last couple of years have been a journey of taking my art seriously. I’ve always squeezed my studio space into a basement or a garage or maybe some borrowed space. When we bought the duplex, one of the true appeals was this building out back, I’m guessing maybe 20 x 20 feet. It is well built, insulated and decently lit. I’m guessing it was originally intended as a wood shop but for me it is ideal studio space. It is the first time I have ever had a dedicated space that is for making art.

Now, the studio is a straight shot out our side door and back from the deck. But i often prefer to walk out the front door, around the side of the house and through this narrow alleyway to get back to the studio. For me, it is a passageway. Somehow, as I walk through those narrow fences I move from the space of the ordinary world into the space of the creative world. All right, I realize that any division between those two  worlds is arbitrary and  a construct. Nonetheless, I enjoy the transition that narrow passageway provides.

I have known a number of people who are quite intentional about their spiritual disciplines. For them, a simple practice like lighting a candle has a Pavlovian response. It automatically, unconsciously, prepares them for meditation or prayer or communion. In much the same way I imagine that the walking through that short, narrow passageway transports me from the mundane world into the world of fancy and conjuring. When I walk that path I become ready to paint or draw or just sometimes listen to music that waters my soul. That brief journey reminds me that I am in a different place, a place that nurtures my creativity and in some way validates my existence.  It is the cabinet and Narnia is there on the other side.

At that the end of that path it doesn’t really matter if I preached a life-changing sermon last Sunday or if I got the due forms filled out correctly or if I burned dinner last night. At the end of the path I can bring something beautiful into the world that had not existed before I crossed that threshold. It probably won’t ever be a Guernica or a Mona Lisa or a Starry Night, but it might just add a little beauty and joy into the world that but for me had never come about.And that narrow path prepares me to do that. Is that what sacramental means?

The Thermian’s Dilemma, or Galaxy Quest as a Cautionary Tale About Fundamentalism

I loved Galaxy Quest as soon as I saw it. As a fan of Star Trek in all of its incarnations (OK, maybe not Star Trek 5 so much), I recognize almost all of the players in the movie: the geeked-out fans, the trapped actors longing to move beyond their stereotypes, land the viewers of the movie who like science fiction because maybe, just maybe there really is something more out there than just what we know. But I’ve noticed that there is a moral to the tale of Galaxy Quest that lies underneath the trappings of its science fiction.

If you remember the story (and more pertinently if you don’t), the story is this: Galaxy Quest was a 1970’s TV show which is seen by an extraterrestrial race (the Thermians) who have no concept of fiction. As such, when they come under attack from General Sarris they see the crew and ship of Galaxy Quest as their salvation. The hope of that salvation is dashed when Sarris enlightens the Thermians to the nature of fiction – that the crew of the Galaxy Quest are all actors and not real officers of a starship, not at all the heroes they portray.

The Thermians

The Thermians are a kindly and gentle species, but they are fundamentalists or at the very least literalists. They have no concept of fiction. When they intercept the transmission of the TV show, they take it literally. So much so, when they construct the Galaxy Quest ship, the NSEA Protector, , they include all the ludicrous contraptions created as plot devices on the show: the chompers, the flame wall, chopping blades of the cooling vents, and ultimately the Omega 13. When they watch the shows they have no idea that the cast is anything other than the officers they portray, that they have the expertise and experience to defeat their enemy. And that unwavering belief becomes their greatest weakness and failing.

General Sarris

It is that literalism that leave the Thermians completely incapable of face the evil that confronts them. General Sarris exposes the crew of the Protector as actors, storytellers, as liars. Those who have no concept of fiction or metaphor often fall into dichotomous thinking. For the Thermians, if these people are not in truth officers then they are deceivers and liars. Serris’ unmasking of the crew’s true nature devastates the Thermians and leaves them helpless. Only when the humans begin to believe their own mythology do they rise to the occasion and save the day.

And that is the cautionary tale for Christianity. Literalism leaves us helpless when confronting real evil. Biblical literalism creates an enmity between knowledge and faith. Now I’m not saying that biblical literalists lack the ability to see it as fiction (which some of it surely is, and some not), but more specifically they lack the ability to see its contents metaphorically. Literalism narrows the reading of the Bible and allows only one interpretation. Six days of Creation becomes a literal 144 hours. Virgin birth becomes a litmus test of belief. Contradictions and factual errors get glossed over in order to maintain a fallacious integrity of the whole because the entire Bible has to be literally true.. Literalism diminishes the Bible as whole and reduces its ability to speak with relevance and dynamism to a complex and turbulent world.

When the Thermian are told the truth about the crew of the Protector, that they are actors and not really the officers they portray, they (the Thermians) are devastated. Their foundational belief in the universe is shattered. They see the people they had invested all their faith in as liars. Often biblical literalists have the same reaction when they are presented nuanced views of the Bible, its authorship and nature. I have heard baby and the bathwater reactions such as “if there never was an Adam or Eve then how can we rely on any of the Bible?” The assumption seems to be that if one point is not factually true, then none of it is. Literalism doubles down on its own facticity, creating new “facts” and denying the facts presented by biology, history, geology, climatology, physics and much more. Galileo was right, and was known to be right, and he was silenced anyway – for all the good it did. Biblical literalists fear messengers like General Sarris not because they are deceivers but because they are proclaimers of devastating truth.

And even the humans in Galaxy Quest are almost destroyed by the truth that Sarris presents. They know they are actors, pretenders, and not a real starship crew. When they are exposed they also believe that they have deceived the Thermians – deceived them and in all likelihood brought them to their destruction.

Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith as Peter Quincy Taggart

But they are not Thermians who have no capacity for metaphor.General Sarris believes that by disarming his foes that they will lie down and take execution without protest. And without ;the capacity for metaphor that seems to be the only option. All falsehood is exposed and there is no other truth to turn to. But the humans are not Thermians and so not suffer their limitations of literalism. Jason Nesmith, the actor who portrayed Captain Peter Quincy Taggart on the TV show (portrayed in the film by actor Tim Allen – don’t you love the layers of this?), rallies the other actors (to whom he has been a Shatner-ish dick) to present a defense. He and they draw on the episodes of their fictional TV show to create a stratagem that eventually defeats Sarris. They are fictional episodes. Factually untrue. Nonetheless, there is truth there to be had. Fiction or not, the plots of the episode give the humans the direction they need to save the day. Facts are not the only kind of truth. The human actors use Sarris’ own devastating truth to defeat him.

Can we make the same kind of metaphorical leaps with biblical material? Obviously I think so if this is anything more than a fanboy gush about a movie. So what if King Saul didn’t really see the ghost of Samuel? Maybe it is a way of saying that he was trapped in the past. And that we can lose our future when we get trapped that way. So what if Elijah didn’t literally find God in a still small voice on a mountainside? Maybe it is a way of saying that it’s OK when we can’t find God in any of the obvious places in our lives or in our world. Sometimes we have to bet that God shows up in the absolute silence when we’ve run out of options. What if Mary wasn’t factually a virgin? Maybe it is a way of saying that God conceives improbable hope in the unlikeliest of circumstances. And that when life makes us feel barren we can still be the source of hope incarnate. What if Jesus didn’t literally exorcise a legion of demon from a wildman living in a cemetery. Maybe it’s way of saying that every reason society has for making someone unacceptable, Christ’s acceptance makes one whole. And that goes for us today as well: Gentile, insane, pig-loving, death-swilling or gay, trans, liberal, undocumented, black.

Literalism’s limitations make the Bible more and more irrelevant in today’s culture of change and adaptation. And beyond irrelevant, and as seen in the Thermians’ dilemma, literalism leaves us inadequate to face the complexity of contemporary life. The leap of faith required in getting beyond literalism and moving into a metaphorical reading of scripture (and life itself) is the leap of freedom and creativity. It empowers us to move beyond the confinement of narrow, even single-visioned interpretation and engage a world full of possibilities. It is a leap into transformation and isn’t that what Christ invites us to regardless of our chosen method of reading?

SCOTUS and the Deafening Silence on Sunday

I find myself in an ongoing awkward situation, and one that I have chosen. I have become the pastor of two small, rather conservative churches on the outskirts of Lincoln. I know them only minimally and it is entirely possible that they know me even less. I am timid with them, because it is important to me that I am accepted there. Too timid to share with them the fullness of my thinking and spirituality. I am liberal, progressive and at times most probably post-Christian. They are most definitely not.

It was an enormous spiritual victory when the SCOTUS decided in favor of marriage equality. It has been a struggle that I have been involved in one way or another for most of my ministry, over 30 years now. It was a moment that demanded celebration, jubilation, King David dancing naked into Jerusalem kind of elan. And I said not one word about it that following Sunday. Not one fucking word.

My silence got me thinking about the the quietude and selective voices kkwe progressives have given in the conversation about sexuality and religion. In the days since the decision, and in the miry bog of reactions to it (which I guess this is one) it has occurred to me that once again we have allowed the negative voices to claim the vocabulary of the argument. the seven deadly verses from the Bible have been ponied out again, those verses that purportedly proscribe homosexuality from God’s acceptable states of being. We have worked diligently to explain them away, that they don’t say what common wisdom says they say. But it seems we have allowed those voices to tell the world that these are the definitive (and only!) biblical pronouncements on the subject.

So I want to pony out a couple of verses my own self. When someone asks what the Bible says about homosexuality or marriage equality I want to bring up Peter and the Gentiles and point out Acts 11:17: “If God gave them the same gift given to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” And more comprehensively, Acts 10:28b: “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”  And if they protest aht we are changing definitions or even institutions (which have always been in flux anyway), there is Isaiah 42:9: “The things announced in the past—look—they’ve already happened, but I’m declaring new things. Before they even appear, I tell you about them.” The Bible itself tell us that things are never written in stone – even the 10 Commandments notwithstanding. And those of us who have a more human orientation regarding scripture must challenge our stricter-reading siblings to take seriously those words which open the gates of change.  Ours is a religion of the Spirit, who cannot be contained or predicted. It is time and past time to own that understanding of the nature both of scripture and of God.

Now if somebody can tell me how to say all this on Sundays without getting my ass fired, I’d really appreciate it!

The Last Waltz All Alone

                I’m sitting here this morning watching “The Last Waltz,” thoroughly enjoying the music and mourning just a little bit. Yes, I’m morning Levon Helm and Rick Danko and Richard Manuel and all the great musicians lost to the years, and maybe the way we humans screw up friendships and partnerships and deny ourselves the joy and art we can create together. But really, I it is an experience I am grieving.

I’m watching “The Last Waltz” on Netflix. It is not the first time I’ve seen the film and not even the first time I’ve watched it on Netflix. It resides on my cue. I don’t pull it up often but I can watch it whenever the mood strides me. It is still a great film, great music, a great time capsule.

But I’ll tell you what I kind of miss today: the event. In the days before Netflix and before DVD’s and back preceding even VHS a good movie was an event. Not the kind of “let’s got to the theater and watch a movie” event either. It was a word of mouth event: “Hey, The Last Waltz is gonna be on channel 4 10:00 Friday night!” Word would be passed and for such an auspicious event plans would be made, friends gathered, and undivided attention given because it was a gift that some programmer decided to air this movie for us and we never knew just how long it would be before some other programmer made a similar decision.

“The Last Waltz” is still a great movie but now I can watch it whenever I want, and if life interrupts I can put it on pause and get back to it whenever I have the time. I miss the eventfulness of “We gotta get together and watch this!” And it was not just “The Last Waltz” that caused this to happen. “The Wizard of Oz” got everybody’s attention. “The Ten Commandments” or “Ben Hur” for better or worse Mr. Heston. But for my group of friends it was the lesser known, almost forgotten relics that grabbed us. It was “Godzilla,” “The Naked Prey,” and “Planet of the Apes” (Heston again, I didn’t realize I was such a fan!).

I was drawn into one such an event by my older brother, Ray. He and his friends gathered in our family room on a Friday night in Williston, North Dakota to watch the Midnight Special. But this was a special Midnight Special. It was a live performance by Rick Wakeman of his “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” They were excited to watch and listen to this musician I had never heard of. They tolerated this barely teen-aged butt-inski who was curious about what kind of music would create this kind of event for my cool oldest brother and his cool friends. Would it be cool music? No, it wasn’t cool. It was SPECTACULAR and it changed the music I listened to pretty much shaping my tastes for the rest of my life.

And so as I enjoy “The Last Waltz” by myself on a Saturday morning, I wonder what kind of events we create anymore. I don’t know who would like to get together and watch a movie at any time of day, I don’t know what movie might compel us to carve out the time. I’ve enjoyed the movie. But I do miss the event.

In League with Noah

     I am sympathizing with Noah these days, but it has nothing to do with saving animals. And a caveat here at the very beginning: I have not seen the recent star powered movie, and really have no intention of doing so. Noah imagined is much better than any Noah portrayed. And I am imagining old Noah sitting in his cabin on the top deck of the ark with wads of wool or something stuffed up his nostrils but his eyes are streaming nonetheless because of the hot, fetid, omnipresent stench and he’s wondering just how long this interminable rain can really last. That’s how I am imagining Noah these days. 
     You see, I am joyfully anticipating an occupational transition but it doesn’t happen until the beginning of July. The job I am currently working is mind-numbingly meaningless. It is the means to a pay check. I hope I haven’t done too good of a job disguising my dislike for the work. The environment is fine, the people are good, but the job itself is gnawing at my soul like termites on fresh wood. And because I know that a change is coming (and one I very much want to happen!), each day stretches out like the interstate heading west out of Salt Lake City. You can drive for hours and still not see the end of it. And what got me thinking about Noah is that when this change was finalized, it left me with exactly 40 working days left.
     Now I don’t think Noah had a calendar where he was marking off each day of rain. First of all I don’t think anybody had clued old Noah into the whole 40 days and 40 nights metric, and second of all it is a myth in the best sense of the word so I don’t believe anything actually happened like that. But that notwithstanding, I can see myself on deck with Noah waiting less than patiently for the long lost sun to finally break through the clouds. I feel like Noah with his nose packed with wadding and eyes stinging, trying to enjoy the voyage for itself but searching the far horizon for any sign of dry land and daydreaming about green grass and air that is sweet and breathable. Noah didn’t know if it was going to be ten days or forty or forever, and here I am already marking the days and trying not to count the hours yet. 
     This is why: My new transition will create about the same income as I have now, but leave me with more time for writing and arting, and yes my beloved wife, more time for cooking and cleaning and home maintenance. In theory. Oh, and time for coffee. Don’t forget time for coffee!
     Now, a lot of spiritual advice-givers talk about “living in the moment.” So you can see I am having a hell of a time doing that. I am guessing Noah was not much of an in the moment kind of guy. At least when he was on the boat. There’s too much shit on the belowdecks and the flies were terrible. I kind of know how he feels

Homiletical Tourette’s

    After my last post one of you asked me if I have Homiletical Tourettes. The answer is probably. Or definitely. True confession: lots of the bible makes me cuss. So how do I get from cussing to preaching? It ain’t always easy.

           Now I need to sneak in another confession here. Fred Craddock died recently. It was his book that I studied in seminary on the craft and art of preaching. I feel woefully under-equipped to talk about my own process of sermonizing compared to him. I feel woefully under equipped, but I am going to do it anyway.

          Most of what I think we’re my sermons started with a bout of Homiletical Tourette’s which usually descends into the depression of “what the fuck can I preach on this?” But somehow I seem to believe that there is good news in that damn bible somewhere. So the process begins by living with even the crappy parts for a while. And listening. Not just to the text itself, but to life in general and all the the intriguing bits life can present.

           So the Tourette’s inducing scriptures for last week were the 10 commandments (which I admit I dismissed out of hand because I simply was not going to plow that tired old field), one of Paul’s discourses on the cross (foolishness and wisdom and all that), and John’s curious displacement as of the incident a of Jesus and the money changers which got placed at the beginning of the story instead of the end. Having read those passages I really had no idea where to go. So I went to work–I mean I went to my job at Nelnet.

            It just so happens that I got tired of the few CD’s I kept in the car recently so I had foraged for something different to listen to. One of the albums I foraged was Peter Mayer’s “Heaven on Earth.” This is one of those collections that has quite a few gems on it.

          One of those gems was a song that wormed its way Into my head called “Japanese Bowls.” Now I have to say that this is not my favorite song on the album, but it is the one that this particular week got into my psyche and wouldn’t leave. It talks about how the artist of Japan in older days would mend their broken bowls with gold, highlighting the breaks and cracks and how in life our own scars can become gilded and transformed into the signs of who we have become.

          Shit. Maybe that’s what Paul meant about the foolishness of the cross. Instead of hiding our wounds and scars, they become the cracks that become gilded by the loving healing of God. Jesus on the cross becomes the preeminent Japanese bowl. And so then can we. So you see where I had to go. There I did indeed go. (By the way, it pisses me off when I end up preaching to myself!) [And by the same way a little farther along, I usually do anyway.]

         And so that is usually how it happens for me, by listening. Listening to that gift that presents itself unexpectedly somewhere in my life or the world that sometimes speaks to and transforms the crap in the bible that elicits my Homiletical Tourette’s. Sometimes it is a song or story or even just something somebody says in passing. I have come to trust that it is out there somewhere, and it is my job to be ready for it.

         Now, having said all that I have to tell you that I went on to ready the lectionary texts for this coming Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent. That blue haze you saw over Lincoln was the fierce bout of Homiletical Tourette’s that those texts brought out of me. They are even worse than last week’s. I trust my process, but it is now Friday night and no Japanese Bowls have crossed my path yet! Holy Fuck!

The Huck Finn Dialog

If you remember Huckleberry Finn, you might recall that respectability was for him a dubious thing. The widow Douglas has waged an all-out campaign to make Huck respectable, so much so that Huck finally escapes and disappears in an effort to reclaim his lost disreputable glory. Huck tries to explain himself to Tom: “Well, I’d got to talk so nice it wasn’t no comfort — I’d got to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth, or I’d a died, Tom.”

I’ve often identified with Huck in that respect at least: respectability weighs heavy on me from time to time. This last year has been my time in the attic, gittin’ the taste in my mouth. And it is beginning to haunt me now as I take baby steps back into respectability.

I’ve agreed to provide pulpit supply for a little church outside of Lincoln for the next few months, for a little pocket change and to signal to the powers that be in my professional world that I am still playing their game. Not having plied that practice in the better part of a year, and not having practiced lectionary preaching for more than four years, I have encountered an odd internal conversation that brings out my inner Huck.

So I was reading over the lectionary selections trying to decide what I could preach on.  First lesson: Old Testament, Exodus – the ten commandments. (Crap. I can’t do the ten commandments.) Psalter: Psalm 19 – the law of the Lord is perfect. (Double crap.)  Epistle, 1 Corinthians: the message of the cross. (Fuck! I hate Paul!) Gospel, John – Jesus overturning the tables in the temple in Jerusalem. (Jesus Christ! – and not said reverently!) So how does one actually preach something that is supposed to be good news when the source material brings out my attic-dwelling Huck?

And maybe, just maybe it is in the heart of that dialog between the disreputable and the respectable that something of worth can finally be said. Yes, I have found something of a sort of good news to share, and surprisingly enough (for me at least) it will come from Paul. Well, Paul and Peter Mayer – but that’s fodder for telling over another cup of coffee.

The Year It’s Been

My apologies that we haven’t sat down over a cup of coffee in far too long a time! But sit down, here is a cup of fresh, strong joe.

 

I’m finding it extremely difficult to find the words for what I want to write about. Today is for me an extremely dubious anniversary It was one year ago exactly that I resigned from what was supposed to have been my dream position. I think on all sides of the situation that dream never approached fruition. I spent three years at this very progressive, creative congregation and somehow I’m afraid we never truly connected. Somewhere during that last year the leadership of the congregation lost confidence in me and from what I gather they began to meet in secret and decided that they did not want to continue in relationship with me as their pastor. As wrenching as that was, I also already knew that I was working myself to exhaustion trying to figure out what they wanted me to be. As much as I hated to admit failure or defeat, I was also relieved to put down the Sisyphus-ian effort. Relieved but broken.

I did my level best to exit with dignity and integrity. Many praised me for “taking the high road.” A lot of taking the high road is simply keeping your mouth shut, and I’m still not prepared to spew some of the pain and anger I still have about the exit process I endured. But what I endured bled out a great deal of the passion I had for ministry and the church in general. I can count on one hand the number of times I have sat through Sunday worship and I can’t say that I have missed it.

But the worst part of this past year was to the loss of my passion for ministry. It was my loss of passion in general. I decided to make choices to pursue my art with more devotion and attention than I have ever given it since I went to college (which was for art). But there has been no fire. I haven’t been swept along with the joy and the inspiration of simply creating. There has been the discipline of making art more constantly, just making even if the mood wasn’t there. That has been good, and it has been a valuable discipline in these months.

Yet I’m not sure where I put that passion. And I’m not sure where this journey is leading or what these pieces will create when they get put back together again. Life isn’t what I want it to be right now, but there is a lot of unexpected good that I would not have encountered if everything had gone as planned. One of the things I have learned about the process of evolution is that there is no predetermined outcome. Evolution is the constant response to one’s environment, and as that environment changes so the path of evolution alters. So there is never a “there” to arrive at. You never get “there” because there is no “there” to get to. I know I am still developing, but sometimes evolution still sucks.

Anniversary over. Time to evolve now. I just hope it won’t take  two hundred million years.

Once Upon a Time… Zombies

I know we are full tilt into the Christmas season already, but I’ve been thinking about the zombie apocalypse. Zombies have somehow crept into our national vernacular and that in and of itself intrigues me. It seems to me that our culture has been enamored with things supernatural for a whole now: an entire world of magic just outside of our range of vision in the wildly popular Harry Potter series; the resurgence of orc, elf, wizards and hobbits in Tolkien’s tales; and the spate of vampires and demons from Buffy to Bella. So it seems that zombies would be an all too natural progression in our supernatural fascination

But there is a difference in the way we are telling the zombie stories. Whereas in Potter or the RIngs saga and even the various vampire scenarios there is an inherent – even essential – element of magic. That does not seem to be so any longer for zombies. It used to be though. I remember reading horror comics as a kids in the last quarter of the previous century and zombies were created by nefarious ritual and powerful magic of the evil variety. Zombies were the bodies of dead reanimated without soul or consciousness. They were the epitome of evil unchecked, the example of powers that humans thought they control but all too often the truth came out when the zombies turned on the very sorcerer who raised them. But zombies were magical creations.

Not so with the zombies of our most recent storytelling. Today’s zombies are the creation of another power that we humans think we can control, and they are evidence that we can’t. From “Shaun of the Dead” to “Zombieland” to “The Walking Dead” the new explanation of zombie-ism is not magic, it is misbegotten science. You become a zombie by being infected with a virus or some such other invisible little critter, usually created by some well-meaning scientist or a nefarious government bent on world domination (even if it is our own).

So, the meta-myth in our stories is shifting from the supernatural to the warped and mutated natural – but it is based in the world we all share and not originating from some power other than what is in the nature of this world. This is not new news by any means. Science as meta-myth began to take hold with Newton and Galileo and certainly Darwin, and I do not think they are wrong. But I find it interesting that in our fanciful storytelling “Once upon a time in a laboratory” has begun to replace “Once upon a time in a kingdom of fairies.”

This brings me back to Christmas. It seems that a lot of us don’t buy miraculous pregnancies or angelic prophecies like we used to. Not that the baby in a manger or the traveling wise men don’t touch us. I love those stories, but as stories and not as facts. Kind of like Santa. The meta-myth of science has supplanted the supernatural. And so does that ruin Christmas? Well, we still have zombies, even if we tell the story a little differently. And I think we will always have Christmas, but that in this day and age we need to begin to tell the story a little differently. I’m still working on what that “differently” will be.