What we focus on matters!

I love the story of the two wolves warring inside of us.  I especially love the second ending that people hadn’t heard before, where we have to feed both the black and the white wolf(check out the longer ending here: https://danherr.com/2015/05/27/two-wolves-the-real-cherokee-story/ ).  When I was growing up, for example, it was the established understanding that we shouldn’t show anger or cry in public, for that was a sign of weakness.  Our comic book heros didn’t cry, the Lone Ranger or Zorro never shed a tear.  Instead they triumphed and rode off into the sunset, satisfied with a job well done and another case of justice made right.

A lot of the cowboy westerns by people like Max Brand and Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour would have a brave individual fighting to make things fair through perseverance, cleverness and knowing the difference between right and wrong.  But this was a lop-sided view of the world.  The image of men who could take a pounding and rise up to still prevail against the guy with the scar and the black hat was unrealistic to say the least.

Men did their best to live up to these high expectations.  They stuffed their anger down, they pretended everything was fine.  They denied to themselves how they were feeling.  They learned that it was more important to show folks a calm demeanor than to be real.  They embraced the phrase, ‘boys will be boys’, and bottled up all the negative energies they had.  Women didn’t do much better.  We were supposed to bottle up emotions and never get angry either.  We grew up with a double standard.  Nice girls don’t get noisy or demanding or angry or asking for justice.  Nice girls keep their legs together, dress modestly and stay at home dreaming of the prince who will ride into their lives, sweep them off their feet and plunk them into the castle of their dreams where they would live happily ever after.

Women needed rescuing and they couldn’t make decisions and the only emotion they were supposed to show was gratitude for being rescued by their strong man.  So no wonder the greatest pain that most people struggle with is one you would least expect.

Last weekend at the workshop I was at, we talked about spiritual pain, and how there were four kinds.  The loss of meaning, the loss of hope, the loss of relationship and the loss of forgiveness.  The one that was most prevalent in dying people was lack of forgiveness.  Veterans from the military, the modern tough cowboys of our society, were 73% more likely to be struggling with forgiveness than meaning, hope or relationship.  Forgiveness was broken down to four different issues: forgiveness of myself, forgiveness of others, forgiveness of God and forgiveness of multiple groups.  Guess who vets struggled the most with? Forgiveness of themselves.  Guess which was the hardest to forgive? God. 83% of people who were mostly angry at God failed to find peace and the strength to forgive God.

What is forgiveness? It is not going up to someone who abused you in the past, pasting on a cheesy grin and saying “I forgive you and Jesus loves you”. No, that is shallow and not terribly believable.  Instead my course taught that forgiveness is a voluntary letting go of the desire for revenge.  It does not say that the harmful actions were inconsequential or unimportant or even appropriate, but that we are not going to dwell on those harmful actions any more.  It is saying that I don’t want to live my life full of thoughts of resentment and envy any more.  It recognizes that anger is, as the Buddha taught, a hot coal that I pick up to throw at someone else but it burns my own fingers first.

Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters.  We cannot fill our minds with negative angry thoughts and holy ones.  We cannot spend our time thinking about grudges and hurts and resentments and God as well.  We cannot be both full of judgement or inflexible condemnation and Christian love.  It is one or the other.  Jesus taught that when we are feeling negative emotions, it can help to go for a walk in nature, thinking about birds or flowers or fields of grass.  Another practise is to write down a list of things we are grateful for.  In fact this is a very effective tool for healing our resentments.  It’s why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  And it is a powerful form of prayer.

But there are times when feeding the white wolf is not enough.  We need strength and resiliency.  There are times when, like Jesus, we need to have the courage to name oppression and abuse for what it is.  We know that it isn’t easy, and it couldn’t have been easy for Jesus to start heading to Jerusalem where he would speak against the injustices he saw around him, the abuse of power, the attempts to control vulnerable people, to exploit the poor and the lonely.  We saw plenty of that this week with the coverage at the senate hearings.  Regardless of who we found more credible, there is a troubling sense of conflict over what should be a priority in our world, unbiased, fair, level-headed justice.  Trustworthy people that will make wise choices not based on who is in power or what their personal beliefs or biases are, but for the highest good of the whole community.

The God view.  Seek first the community of God.  Even a practice of gratitude as the psychology experts recommend should take back seat to the work of looking for and creating the community of God, one that does not fear the future or what other people might think or say.  A community that seeks to heal one another and work for justice and equity for all.  A community of radical hospitality, radical generosity and radical forgiveness.  That is the kind of dream worth making great sacrifices for, that takes God-given strength and courage to work towards.  That takes radical acts of thanksgiving and forgiveness and uses it to benefit all the world, not just humans.  Thanks be to God that we are not alone in this journey.

Arguing with God?

Have you ever asked yourself if it’s okay to argue with God?  Some folks don’t like thinking about God because they take every bad thing that ever happens in the world and either blame God for it or decide it’s proof that God does not exist.  Some folks take misfortunes like their daughter’s ill health or their disabilities as a test of their obedience.  But sometimes I think it is quite okay to argue with God, to challenge what we think God has or has not done.

We see Jesus getting challenged.  He wanted to get away and have a vacation where he wouldn’t be recognized.  Like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt putting on sunglasses or Benedict Cumberbatch sporting an ugly beard, Jesus thought he could go off and relax deep in the heart of gentile territory, modern day Lebanon.  He got called out by the Syrophoenician woman, who refused to take no for an answer, who refused to be treated with racist and sexist comments.  Despite her ancestors being at war with Jesus’ ancestors for generations, because let’s not forget that Goliath was a Philistine and Phoenician who was killed by David, one of Jesus’ ancestors, this lady was not going to take no for an answer.  Despite the cultural animosity between their two peoples, she was going to challenge Jesus until he could see things her way.  And he shifted his opinion.  He realized that God’s love is not limited to one race, to one faith, to one culture.  He took that learning into his next teaching stop, the Decapolis.  Opening a man’s ability to speak was similarly dramatic and like a cork popped on a genie’s bottle, the good news of that healing could not be contained or silenced.  Good news spilled out wherever he went.

James also was letting the good news spill out.  He spoke out against favoritism, reminding everyone that they were beloved regardless of their income level, how much they could throw in the collection plate, how famous they were or how they dressed. And that just praying for folks in difficulty is not enough.  Like recent gun control advocates in the states remarked, there comes a time when we have to stop praying for the victims of mass shootings and start challenging the NRA.  Start boycotting companies and organizations that profit from the manufacturing of tools meant to hunt humans.  Hurt them in their pocket books.  Something that even we Canadians can take part in.

But I like to argue with James.  Just as Paul argued with him, and Martin Luther argued with him.  James thought it’s all about our actions and deeds.  Paul thought it was all about grace.  This is one of the oldest arguments in our Christian faith, and it is not easy.  Which comes first, faith or action?  Or in academic words, praxis or prayer?  And why does one answer have to be the right answer?  Some people come to faith first and then learn to act from a faith perspective, some practise acting like they have faith before they have it.  Do we have to say that either way is better than the other?  Do we have to demonize all wealthy people like the Koch brothers who support libertarian organizations in the states, or can we remember folks like Jimmy Carter who is also a wealthy man and who came to Edmonton at the age of 92 to work on a Habitat for Humanity build?  Or the millionaires who helped fund The Ocean Cleanup, which has raised $35 million US in donations to fund the project, including from wealthy folks like PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

Christianity is at its best, I think, when we argue with the scriptures and with our teachings.  Augustine argued with the folks who taught him about Plato. 

He argued with the people who wanted to take every story in the Bible literally, saying that sometimes it is clear that the bible stories, even the ones about Jesus, needed to be looked at as metaphors.  And scholars have argued with him too, on concepts like just wars and his sense of sexuality, which was much healthier when he was living with his concubine and son.  We argue.  It’s healthy.  But as James reminded us, if we are going to argue, it must be done in a spirit of love.  We must remember to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  If we argue, let it be done with a higher purpose in mind, whether it’s to develop a deeper sense of our relationship with God, or to develop an action plan to address an injustice.

Why is this important?  I heard two different rumors this week that were very disturbing.  One person claimed that all Subways stores were being forced to get rid of their ham and bacon due to pressures from Muslims.  Another told me that Christian churches are being burned down around the world by Muslims.  Both of these are patently false, planted to foster fear and suspicion.  True, some Subways in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods have chosen to see what their customers would buy, but that’s a few places in England.  Lest you say they should leave their food culture at home, where would we be without dim sum, pizza and cabbage rolls?  And true some churches in the Middle East have been burned by Muslim extremists, but they are destroying museums and archeological sites, not just churches.  And in Egypt, Muslims often surround Christian churches to protect their friends so they can worship in peace.  And the Koran says that Hallal meat can be blessed by people of the book if no Imam is present.  Who is a person of the book?  That’s how they describe Christians and Jews. 

In the end, we are called to be both healed and healers.  The call comes from God, and we do need to argue with that call to make sure it is indeed God’s voice calling and not our own egos or need for power and control.  We are called to take the time we need to be centered and grounded in God’s word, in prayer and in community.  We are also called to do what we can to heal the injustices we see around us.

Words spoken in Truth, Love and Wisdom

It’s good to be back from vacation and it’s good to be doing all kinds of things getting ready for the fall.  One of the things I got to do this week is to witness the power of words spoken from the heart, out at Amber Valley yesterday.  I asked a group of people if they would support two young people as they made vows to love and honor and support each other.  The folks that were there to witness these vows almost thundered their response of I Will to the question of “Will you honor the commitments these two young people make today.  It was really touching, the power of these words on the two young people.  Loud words spoken in truth and love and wisdom, but also with pride and deep conviction.

I think that those words were spoken in the true sense of the good news that Jesus and James were trying to share.  Sounds like these two men were on the same page when they thought about what people say out loud.  Which shouldn’t be too surprising since James was Jesus’ younger brother.  How often did they hear angry words? And how often have we too been on the brunt end of angry words or lies or slander and envy? Probably more that we’d like to admit.  But James also asks us to examine our own words and actions, not just dwelling on what we hear others say.

This week I heard others say things ranging from insensitive to angry to downright insulting.  Sometimes it was about someone not in the room, sometimes it was to someone’s face.  Sometimes it was on the news and caused international discussions, sometimes it was right here in Athabasca.  And sometimes it was so subtle that one had to really think about what the person had said before it came home how hurtful the intention was.  Sometimes it tried to hide behind humor, and sometimes it even came out of my own heart and I didn’t realize it until it was out of my mouth.  Whoops!  And Yikes!

Sometimes it was the words that did not get said that hurt, like how for many folks, Pope Francis did not say enough.  Sometimes it was the words said to a person so hurting that they over reacted.  Sometimes it was words that brought up memories of other words that hurt.

No wonder Jesus talked about the heart, the interior emotions causing what he called uncleanliness.  Koino-ew, in Greek, meaning dirty, common, and unholy. He and the religious scholars of the day were all concerned about anything that would separate them from God, but they were divided as to what that separation was caused by. What builds walls between us and God?  The Pharisees thought it was made by what people did or how they did, but Jesus and James thought it was caused by our interior states.  That sometimes we are not 100% logical, and that sometimes our words are clear symptoms of the state of our interior selves.  As one psychologist put it,

“Bad news, friend: you are not a rational person. Turns out most of your opinions and decisions are made up of an unsavory soup of prejudice, first impressions, old hurts, snap judgements, and fantasy, with some actual fact and reasoned thought thrown in for spice. In case it makes you feel better: same here. Same everywhere. We tend to think of humans as highly rational, but it just isn't so. Google "are humans rational?" or "do facts change minds?" Dig one layer down past the fluff pieces and listicles and see what science actually has to say about our minds—not that I expect any of the information there to change yours, if you're like the rest of us.”

That can be a pretty bleak way of looking at ourselves, and it would be easy to give up.  We are full of what Steven Covey called the 5 cancerous ways to talk to others – complain, criticise, compare, compete and contend.  All five of these tend to tear down community, to tear down peoples souls, to destroy hope, to undermine love, and to sabotage faith.  They are addictive and habit-forming and can grow out of control, hurting everyone who hears them.

But James and Jesus both paint a picture of better things.  Of words spoken that can build each other up, that can strengthen communities, that can help our faith grow.

Words like “I do” and “We will” spoken with passion, conviction and hope.  Words spoken out loud where other people will hear and witness what has been said.  Such is the power of the Serenity Prayer, which has been used in many different versions for over 80 years to help folks with wounded hearts.  Folks that some people would label as unclean or unable to change.  Simple words that have helped people look into that mirror and truly see themselves for whom they are.  Flawed humans struggling to deal with the cards life has handed them, and who humbly and gently rebuild themselves with words from the inside out. 

God Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I can change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

When I get down and discouraged from hearing complaining and criticizing words, or thinking that I can’t change the world I live in, I am going to do my best to remember yesterday.  Because that noisy crowd of folks wearing plaid shirts, cowboy hats and john deer baseball caps, with hip flasks, cowboy boots and running shoes, looking like the reddest of red neck Albertans, whooped and hollered and cheered and vowed to support the two lovely brides as they exchanged kisses in front of all their guests.  What a gift to that young couple that said I do, that their families and friends supported them regardless of their gender.  So when I think or we think that what we do or say in this country, this province and this town doesn’t matter, know that Jesus and James would be proud of how our witness to love is building a safer world for all kinds of people that were once thought as unclean.  God wants us to live in hope and love and truth, not anger or fear, and when our hearts are centered in hope, love, truth and wisdom, it is contagious, we do make a difference in this world.