What If? Reflections on What a Church Could Be

This Talk was delivered by Toby Jones at the first summer gathering held Tuesday, June 23, down at the Bear River Shelter in Petoskey. 25 people attended. Here's what you missed! Join the conversation! Read it! Leave a comment! Subscribe! And tell others about it! Then join us next Tuesday, June 30 as we continue our journey together!

 I am so excited to be here tonight and even more excited and grateful to have all of you here with me. I’m here tonight because for the last six years, since leaving the church, I’ve been trying to follow Jesus and continue my broader spiritual journey alone, and it’s so hard…maybe even impossible. You know that famous quote from the creation account in Genesis 1, where God says, after creating Adam, “It is not good that the man should be alone…”? I think that this truth applies to our lives as spiritual creatures and to our spiritual journeys. It’s not good for us to be alone in our search for God and for meaning and for ways of making a positive difference in our community, wherever we find ourselves.

And I know for a fact that I am not the only person trying to follow a spiritual path on my own. As you’ve probably read and perhaps even experienced in your own life, and among your family and friends, the most rapidly growing religious population in this country – spiritually speaking - is known as the “Nones,” – not N-U–N-S, but N-O-N-E-S – as in NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION. Far and away the fastest growing population – both in America and right here in Petoskey, Michigan – is the folks who don’t go to church and claim no particular religious affiliation. And once you make that decision – the decision to no longer connect with a church - you are pretty much on your own, where spiritual journeying is concerned.

So in a lot of ways, that is what tonight is about, that is what those of us who have organized tonight’s and the next seven Tuesdays are trying to do – build and offer some sort of healthy, vibrant, outdoor, globally- minded, inclusive form of Christian spirituality to our friends and neighbors here in Northern Michigan. So if you’re up here for a couple weeks ,or for the summer, or for the rest of you lives, we’d love to get to know you and travel with you on the journey of life… So none of us has to be alone…

(Musical Break– to play and sing Message in a Bottle by The Police)

Now, when confronted with the fact that fewer and fewer Americans are still going to church, most people conclude that that means we are less interested in God, that we have become MORE selfish and LESS interested in matters of the spirit. But you know what I think…? I think the opposite is true. I think that we are actually MORE interested in God and in spiritual things, and in living lives that matter than we have ever been! It’s just that we’ve found over the years that the churches around just aren’t helping us to get there.

I want to bring up a new friend of mine, Megan Heintschel, because I think her story and faith journey will resonate with many of you…

(ten minute live interview with Megan)

Thank you SO much, Megan.  I want to build a little on what Megan shared and get you to dream with me tonight of what a different kind of spiritual community might look like, right here in Petoskey, Michigan. I want us to ask the best two-word question in the world – “What if…” What if…?

Here’s “What if” #1 – What if a church or a spiritual community didn’t have to be a group of people who all believed the same thing? What if your individual beliefs and mine took a back seat to a collective humility shared by the group, a humility that affirms that beliefs are…well…beliefs! They are things that none of us really know, that can’t be proven, that aren’t facts. I think that’s why they call them “BELIEFS,” isn’t it? Do we need our church or spiritual community to force us to believe certain things or to push us into some sort of box with everybody else in that community? What if a spiritual community simply encouraged us to keep asking our own questions, to keep exploring our own spiritual journey? What if a church could be an active partner in helping us grow, even if it wasn’t in the direction everyone else in the group happened to be heading?

I want to share with you a little known fact about Jesus, but a fact nonetheless. In the earliest and most accurately recorded Gospel – the gospel of Mark – Jesus says nothing – absolutely NOTHING about what people, including his disciples, should believe. Never does he determine whom he’s going to hang around with or who he’s going to invite to journey with him based on belief. Furthermore, do you know what the earliest communities of Christ followers were called? Do you know what they were known as? People of the WAY – as in way of life, a way of living. Jesus was never about beliefs – so why should a church - named after him - be? What if a church or spiritual community wasn’t all about what we believe…? What if???

Here’s What If #2… What if a church or spiritual community could be a place of practice, a kind of active living laboratory, where we learn to BE like Jesus, to actually DO the kinds of things he and the other great spiritual teachers DID and asked their disciples to do? One of my favorite Christian writers Brian McLaren has a great phrase for this; he says that a church or spiritual community should really be a “community of practice.” A “community of practice,” where we gather to show each other and help each other how to do things – Christ-like things – like how to feed the poor, how to visit the sick, how to assist widows and those in prison? What if those of us who were good at building things said to the rest of us who aren’t, “A bunch of us are spending this Saturday working for Habitat over in Alanson working on a home for a homeless family. Why don’t you come with us and lend a hand?” Or what if those of us who were fairly comfortable with visiting elderly folks said to the rest of us who aren’t, “Hey, were going over to Bay Bluffs this Thursday after work to play some games with the residents. Why don’t you come along?” What if that is what a church was and how a spiritual community worked? What if each of us did what we’re good at doing – we do it for others – and then we simply invited some folks who aren’t so good at it to come with us, so they could get good at it too? What if the church were a community of practice?

I’m pretty sure that’s what Jesus was up to when he just told the disciples to follow him and to come with him. They just hung out with him while he fed people and healed people and comforted people. Jesus was good at it; they weren’t. So they just hung out with him for a while, watched, and learned.

And then, after a while, Jesus asked them to give it a try. He gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. And sending them out two by two, – so they wouldn’t be alone - he said, “You try it…and come back and tell me how it goes…”

What if a church could be a community of practice? What if…?

I’m sure the disciples were a little freaked about going out to try all that stuff without Jesus. But, again, they weren’t going alone…They went out with their friends, and we can do a lot of stuff with a little help from our friends, right?

(Musical Break - Play and sing “With a Little Help from my friends” – The Beatles)

So – one more What If -  #3: What if a church didn’t have to be a place we gathered?

What if a church didn’t have to be a place at all?

For many years, I used to ask my congregations and audiences to picture and then draw the first thing that came to their minds when I said the word….(wait for it…) “church.” Everybody – from the oldest to the youngest – always drew a building.

And the real problem here is not just that people picture a building when they hear the word church; the problem is that buildings have taken over the life and energy and budget of the church! In my second book, The Way of Jesus, I make the point that American churches spend an enormous percentage of their annual budgets simply on maintaining their buildings – the mortgage, the heat, the electricity, the roof. Buildings have become the tail that wags the dog of Christian communities, dictating what they can and can’t afford to do in the name of Jesus.

So what if…what if there were no building? My good friend and mentor Tom Dickelman started a building-less church 16 years ago. They meet on a beach on the other side of Lake Michigan from Memorial Day through Labor Day and then they rent an empty chapel from the local college for the rest of the year, for about $20 a week. Because of that, they have very few expenses as a congregation, and that has resulted in their giving enormous sums of money away to the hungry, the poor, they’ve even built and started an orphanage and a school in Uganda that has helped raise and educate hundreds of kids.

What if the church was not a building at all, but a group of people who, together, endeavor to live simply as good stewards of God’s beautiful and free earth? Now keep in mind, plenty of “new churches” get started without a building. But it seems like they are just waiting to get big enough, to get rich enough, to get “legit” enough to get their own building. I’m talking about NEVER getting a building! My buddy’s church in Chicago has been around for 16 years, and not only do they still not have a building; it is their expressed intention NEVER to have one!

What if we could pool our collective resources from time to time to help the hungry or the homeless in our area, instead of paying for some building we only use once or twice a week? What if a spiritual community had nothing to do with a building? What if?

I’d like you to think about these 3 ‘What if’s’ in the coming week. Take them home with you and talk about them with people you care about. Let’s see if we can keep this “What if?” conversation going throughout this week. Think about it. Meditate and pray about it. Ask the God of your understanding if living out these principles might be possible? And consider whether you and your family might like to be a part of making them a reality here in Northern Michigan.

I’d love to hear what you think. Email me or better yet, go to my blog, where you’ll find a copy of tonight’s talk and leave your comments and thoughtful feedback. Send your friends to it so we can really ignite a conversation here in northern Michigan. Who knows what we’ll come up with or what God has in store? That would make my week. Thanks again for coming and for being with me. It’s so good to know that in each other, we’ve got a friend…

(Musical Break – to play and sing – “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King)

Let’s close our time tonight in a prayer circle. Let’s stand up and gather around and join hands.

There are so many ways to pray, so many postures and styles. Feel free to keep your eyes open if you’re someone who sees God in nature. Or close your eyes if you’re someone who likes to turn inward when you pray. However you want to do it, let’s pray …

God, Creator, Spirit…we are so grateful to live in such a beautiful place…We are so thankful for having others to journey with, to question with, to dream with, and to stumble through our darkness toward the light with. Thank you that we don’t have to settle with what is, where church and spiritual communities are concerned. You want us to dream and to hope and to shape something new…something better…something that makes sense in this time and place. Open our hearts and open our minds as we journey together here in Northern Michigan. Amen.

Thomas Jefferson - a "new" faith hero for today?

As I was preparing to teach my “History of Religion in America” course last night, I rediscovered a forgotten faith hero…Thomas Jefferson. In the early 1800’s, as our founding fathers confronted challenge after challenge from various religious groups vying for supremacy in the emerging colonies, it was Jefferson who espoused a rational Christianity.

Jefferson’s main interest was to keep Christianity both simple and moral. His contention was that theologians and the purveyors of dogma were overcomplicating the pure faith of Jesus with “the incomprehensible jargon of Trinitarian arithmetic.” He blamed the Platonists for turning “the pure morality of the Sermon on the Mount into unintelligible jargon.” He went onto say, “We have given up morals for mystery and Jesus for Plato.”

For Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, religion’s chief societal purpose was to provide a reliable morality. These three sought a purer form of faith that placed “deeds above creeds.” In 1819, Jefferson went so far as to say, “If I were to found a new sect, my fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s; that we are saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.” As Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt put it, for Jefferson “the true emphasis of Christian faith must lie upon our deeds more than our words, upon our good works more than our declarations of belief.” (The Religious History of America)

I don’t want to overstate my point. I am well aware of the necessary tension between faith and works that the Christian tradition contains. But in the polemical landscape of contemporary American Christianity, I would gladly trade all our endless bickering over who is saved and who isn’t for a little love of neighbor. I am so ready to exchange our theological debates about homosexuality for some good, old-fashioned mercy and compassion.

In these days of division and diatribes, I long for a leader like Jefferson to call us back to the simple goodness and kindness of the Sermon on the Mount and Micah 6:8: “The Lord has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”  As long as our creeds are more important to us than our deeds, we shouldn’t be surprised that the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated multiply exponentially, while our church pews continue to empty.  

* Gautstad & Schmidt, The Religious History of America, Harper ONE, 2002

Can a Little Ever Be Enough? ( A message of hope shared with the residents of a nursing home 3/15/15)

            Do you ever think about any of the things you used to be able to do, and that you can’t do any more? Do you ever think about the way your life used to be configured, when your life used to be freer, less limited by age and time? Maybe it was back when you had your own house or you had a good job…? Maybe you think back to when you used to have a big family around you all the time or when you had people working for you or listening to you. Or when you had a good income or a bigger living? And then you look at where are you now... and how apparently “small” your life has become, measured out in trips to the cafeteria, down to the lobby for your mail, or on the bus to Meijer. Sometimes our lives here in Independence Village Care Facility can feel pretty small, a little meager, a far cry from where we used to be or what we once were.

            It doesn’t help that we live in a time and a culture that celebrates big things – big accomplishments, big incomes, big titles, big deeds. A former defensive lineman for the Detroit Lions just signed a contract this week for $114 million dollars. But today I want to remind us all – including me – that the God who is spoken of in the Judeo-Christian scriptures has always favored little things. Have you ever noticed that about God or about Jesus Christ? God always seems to have a soft spot in his heart for the little guy. God has managed to do a heck of a lot with very, very little. I’d like to take us on a quick tour of scripture and remind ourselves of some of the tiny little things that God has used in some very big ways…

            Moses…what do you picture when you hear that name? Perhaps a handsome, burly Charlton Heston, parting the mighty waters of the Red Sea with his staff? But let’s not forget that Moses was nothing but a stuttering, orphaned shepherd boy, found in a basket floating in a river. And God chose that little, insignificant shepherd boy Moses and said to him, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

            Then there was David – that scrawny, runt of the litter. He was the youngest – and by far the smallest - of 8 brothers. While his brothers went off to seek glory by assisting King Saul in battle, David was relegated to tending his father’s sheep near Bethlehem. But David knew and had come to believe in God’s love for the little guy, and so David stepped up to Saul in the face of the Philistine threat, saying, “Let no one lose heart on account of this giant Philistine. I, your servant, will go and fight him. And so little David went and took on Goliath, slaying him with a simple slingshot and single smooth stone.

            And it isn’t only little people God has always used in big ways; God has also found ways to use little offerings, little contributions to help bring about his big plans. Think of the birth of Jesus. We always remember with derision that innkeeper who had no room at the inn – a very understandable situation given that census Ceasar Augustus had ordered that put everybody on the road to be enrolled. But why don’t we remember and celebrate that innkeeper, or whoever it was, who said to Mary and Joseph, “I may not have any room in my inn or in my house, but I do have a little stable out back. You are welcome to that.” What a precious gift that turned out to be, right? That little, tiny stable turned out to be enough, didn’t it?

            And what about that the little boy who was in that huge, hungry crowd, when Jesus turned to his tired disciples and said, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples couldn’t imagine how they were ever going to feed so many. They didn’t have nearly enough money to buy everyone lunch. But that one little boy came forward with his tiny little lunch and said, “I have five loaves and seven fish here. You can use that to feed these people.” That little boy’s meager lunch turned out to be enough, didn’t it?

            We might live very little and limited lives here at Independence Village. We might not have big houses and big jobs and big families around us anymore. We might not have our cars or the freedom of movement we once did. But we would be making a terrible mistake if we concluded that our lives and our abilities were too small to be used by God in important, life-changing ways.

            How many of you can still write? If you can write a letter, you can make a difference. You can encourage someone or brighten someone’s day. Do you know how rare it is these days to receive a real, live, handwritten letter? Here is a handwritten little card I received a month or so ago. It is from a little old lady who heard a sermon I preached over in Harbor Springs and wrote me because she appreciated it. This little card meant so much to me and lifted my spirits so much that I keep this on my refrigerator. A hand-written letter or card can do SO much. It can remind someone that they are loved and thought of. With your letter you can remind your senator or congressional representative of what he may have forgotten about.

           How many of you can stand or sit by a doorway and shake a hand? I saw a piece on the news lately about an awkward 15-year-old boy who didn’t like the meanness and coldness of spirit in his high school. So he started going to school 15 minutes early and stood at the door as all his fellow students arrived each morning. He held the door open for each person and said a hearty good morning to his schoolmates and teachers each and every morning. And that tiny, daily gesture made a huge difference in the culture of that school. Could you stand or sit in the front lobby and be a welcome or position yourself at the entrance to the dining hall and offer a smile, a warm hello, and handshake to everyone who came to eat?

            Can you still use a telephone? Who could you call today just to say to hello, to say, “I’m thinking of you.” It feels SO good to be on the other end of a phone call like that. Can you make a call or two like that today? If you don’t know whom to call, your pastor, a deacon from your church, or maybe even someone at the front desk here at Independence Village could you give you a list of names and numbers each week. You could have your own phone call ministry!

            If you are still pretty mobile and get around these halls well, even with walker or wheelchair, you could do what two special little ladies did for my father –GW Jones – who lived the last year of his life right here in Independence Village. Two ladies- who might even be in this room right now - used to stop in on him every couple of days, just to chat, to let him know that he wasn’t alone, and to invite him to their table in the dining hall. My dad was a lonely, sad man, particularly in his later years. I bet he never thanked those ladies for their many kindnesses to him. But, boy, did they make a difference in dad’s life. And not just in his life, but in our lives as well, because we knew that somebody was reaching out to him, even when we couldn’t.

            Little things mean a lot! We worship a God in Jesus Christ who understands the amazing significance of the small, the transformation of the tiny. I want to close with a gospel story from Mark 12:41-44. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They gave out of their wealthy, but she out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”

            And that little, tiny, hunched-over widow, limped quietly to the temple with her tiny, pittance of an offering. A couple copper coins were all she had. But it was enough. God not only saw that offering, but he saw to it that it was enough.

            May each of us have the faith to take what little we have, at this late hour and final chapter of our lives, and offer it in faith to the God of little things, the God of Jesus Christ, who has always proven that a little is actually enough. Sometimes a little, once we put it in God's hands, is even more than enough.

A New Kind of Church...What if...?

I have a dear friend and long-time colleague in ministry, Tom Dickelman, who stepped out on faith 16 years ago and started a new church in the Chicago suburbs. A few weeks ago he sent me a document that sits on a table near the entrance as people enter his church for worship. It is a simple, straight-forward document that seeks to describe who they are and who they aren't as a community of faith. Here it is:

 

We do not have members

            but over 200 active families call the Community Church “home”

We are an independent congregation

            and do not report to or pay taxes that support external bureaucracies 

We do not have a church building

            and believe the use of existing community spaces is economically and 
            environmentally responsible 

We hold over 30 worship services each year on the shores of Lake Michigan

            and experience nature as a dynamic and inspiring cathedral

We also worship in the historic Lily Reid Holt Chapel at Lake Forest College

            which we have leased through the year 2030 

We are not guided by historic creeds

            but by contemporary needs and who we believe God calls us to be 

We do not include outreach in our church budget

            but have raised about as much for outside charitable groups and ministries as we have
            for ourselves over the last 8 years

We also do not include outreach in our church budget

            because people in our day are highly-educated and have access to all the information 
            they need to make informed charitable giving decisions

We do not have committees

            which allows people to use their time for worship, spiritual growth, mission and 
            fellowship not running the business of the church

We follow the way of Jesus

            but respect and honor other traditions 

We do not tell you what your faith should look like

            instead, we seek to be an inspiration and active partner in your spiritual growth

The Community Church of Lake Forest & Lake Bluff

www.thecommunitychurch.us

I don't mind admitting that I cried when I read this. That's how moved I was. That's how impressed I was by the clarity, simplicity, and purity of this ministry. I would love to be a part of a community with these values, and, in one sense, I am, because the good folks from The Community Church have welcomed me to their unique community on a number of occasions. I even got to speak there on March 1. At the end of the service, they blessed me and offered their support to me, as I seek to find some folks here in Northern Michigan who are moved by this vision for spiritual community. They know that they are onto something important, something worth replicating, and they think that I have the gifts, the vision, and the context to give it a go up here. What I know is that I can't give birth to something like this on my own.

So if you spend all or even some of your year in the Petoskey - Harbor Springs area and would like to be a part of a new kind of community, get in touch with me and let's talk. I am totally energized and excited about being a part of a spiritual community like my friend Tom's. He and his staff have pledged their support to me as I explore this in Northern Michigan. I will be visiting with them periodically and their Center for Innovative Ministry staff will be coming up here from time to time to help us bring this vision to life.

Why not print out this blog - or at least the statement from The Community Church - and post it on your refrigerator or your mirror. Talk with your spiritually minded friends about it. Pray about it and about your role in a Northern Michigan version of this. Who knows what God might have in store for us?

The Power of Now

I am 53 years old, and I’m just now beginning to understand the very difficult and often unhealthy relationship I have with time. Time, to me, has been both a god and a devil, something I’ve inadvertently bowed down to and worshipped, something I’ve unwittingly let manipulate me and distort my relationships and my purpose.

Perhaps some of you have heard the line “Today is all we have.” Or, put another way, “Yesterday is history; Tomorrow is a mystery: Today is a gift, which is why we called it ‘the present.’” I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I have frittered away so much of my life in either regretting my past or worrying about my future. As a good friend of mine once told me in his inimitable Brooklyn NY accent, “Tobes, you know what your problem is? You got one foot in the past, one foot in the future, and you’re just pissing all over the present!”

My friend Georgie is right, unfortunately. That is pretty much how I’ve lived a huge portion of my life. But I don’t know why. It’s certainly not been something I’ve wanted to have happen. But I DO know that it has everything to do with my mind. Eckhart Tolle, in his epic book The Power of Now, says that while we like to think that we control our minds, the truth is that our minds actually control us. And the particular way our minds control us is by filling our heads with thoughts of the past and of the future – past regret and future worry. And because our minds are so hell-bent on the past and future, that sets up a situation in which we can’t be here. Our bodies and physical selves may be “here,” but our minds can be in so many other places. And whenever our mind is somewhere other than right here, right now, where our bodies are, we are missing out. We are, to quote my somewhat crass friend Georgie, pissing all over the present. And that, my friends, is a huge recipe for regret. Because the more we allow our minds to pull us either back to the past or ahead to the future, the more we are missing – really missing – in the here and now. And the present – once it is past - is something we can never, ever get back. 

It was January 7, 2001. It was my mother’s 70^th birthday. I had called at about 4 pm to wish her a happy birthday. Dad was taking her out to dinner about 15 miles from their home in Petoskey, Michigan over to mom’s favorite restaurant in Charlevoix. At 12:20 that night, my phone rang in Exeter, New Hampshire and my brother told me that my folks were in a horrible car accident and my mom was dead….Dead? But I just talked to her! I just wished her a happy birthday…But everything can change in the blink of an eye, in what Don Henley and the Eagles call “a New York Minute."

Time is a sort of devil, isn’t it? Time messes with us in so many ways and on so many levels. Our minds - and American culture in particular - has convinced us that we have to stay busy, that we must always be productive, as if making the most of time can be equated with getting the most stuff done. There’s a great story in the Christian scriptures about this very thing. It’s recorded in Luke’s gospel and involves Jesus visiting the house of two sisters Martha and Mary...

   "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!'

    Jesus replied, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed - or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'"  (Luke 10:38-42)

You can see the struggle, right? You can feel the tension and grasp the trade off, right? Martha is playing the hostess. She wants to show her love and respect for Jesus by straightening things up, by making the house look nice, and by fixing him a really good meal. But Mary…Mary senses that when Jesus is around the only thing worth doing is devoting 100% of her attention to him. She sits down at his feet and listens. She focuses all of who she is on the here and the now, knowing that you don’t get Jesus in your house very often nor for very long. Two sisters. Two good and loving sisters who took radically different approaches to honoring Jesus.

Now to me the question this story raises is not so much which sister is right and which sister is wrong. It’s more about how satisfied does each sister wind up being with the approach she took. Martha is agitated, frustrated, running around like a chicken with her head cut off, and pissed that her sister isn’t helping her. We know how unsatisfied Martha is by what she says and how she reacts. This could have and would have been a very different story had Martha been internally happy and content with her attempts to make Jesus a nice meal. My hunch is that had that been the case, Jesus wouldn’t have said anything to Martha at all. He wouldn’t have criticized her or told her that Mary’s choice was a better one. But her agitation revealed the truth about where focusing on being busy and over preparing can lead. Martha missed the present. She missed the gift, the gift that can only be experienced in the moment. And she can’t get it back. We can only imagine how Martha must have felt when Jesus left her house that night – never to return - for he was dead in a matter of weeks. Talk about regret! Talk about not being present! Everything CAN change in a New York Minute.

We who have screwed up badly in our lives, who are addicted, or who have messed our most important relationships are particularly susceptible to regret, aren’t we? Once we mess up our lives, we are so quick to play the “what if” game with our lives and our past. If I just wouldn’t have gotten that third DUI…If I just wouldn’t have lied that one time…If I just could have stayed with my family… But we did. And it’s done. And there is no going back. We can’t change or undo the past.

Similarly, we who struggle with addiction, depression, unemployment, or many other difficulties are equally susceptible to worries about the future. How am I every going to get my life back? What if my family doesn’t hang on and wait for me to get clean and sober? What if I can’t find another job? What if…what if…what if?

But one thing we can be sure of is this: if we are regretting our past or stressing over our future, we are not showing up in the present. We are not being “mindful,” as our Buddhist friends would say. We’re not here, not living in the moment, not living one day at a time.

Jesus said that we should not worry about the future. He said the each day has enough troubles and challenges of its own. But you know, as much as I love and respect Jesus, speaking as someone who really struggles mightily with worry and regret, with incessant negative thinking about both the past and the future, that kind of instruction about “just being present” is not all that helpful. Telling someone who worries not to worry is like telling someone not to picture a pink elephant. It can almost do more harm than good. We’ve got to be able to give somebody more than that, Jesus, with all due respect.

And in fairness to Jesus, he did give us more than the admonition not to worry. He actually gave us two critical assurances. In some ways we could argue that the two main thrusts of him ministry were specifically designed to bring us more fully into the present. First, he focused relentlessly on forgiveness, on getting us to understand and believe that God had wiped clean the slate of our past. There is no question in my mind that one of the main reasons he was so focused on forgiveness in his ministry is so that people wouldn’t waste so much of their lives regretting and lamenting their past and their mistakes. Second, his desire to pull us more fully into the present had everything to do with the assurances he gave us about the certainty of our future with him, with his notion of heaven. When he told his disciples that his Father’s house had many mansions, many rooms for all of us, he did so in hopes that we wouldn’t waste another moment of our lives worrying about the future. He wanted us to know that our ticket had been punched, that our future was utterly secure. 

When we think about these two concurrent prongs of Jesus' ministry, it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? It’s almost as if Jesus directed his entire ministry to assuring us about two things: 1) our complete and utter forgiveness – that God has forgiven our past and 2) that we have a place to which we’re going, a ticket that has already been punched for an eternal future with God.

And if we can accept and fully take in these two crucial assurances – about our past and about our future – maybe then we can open the door to a truly amazing present. For me, what has helped begin to put a dent in my piss-poor relationship with time and with my overly unruly mind, is various forms of mindfulness meditation, silent, prayerful practices designed to get me into the here and the now, to this exact moment. Breathing based practices have become huge for me – anything that gets me to focus on my in and out breaths. Why? Because we can only breathe in the present. Breathing is a physical, tangible activity. It is the single most present thing we have, God's most powerful drawing card, the most compelling physical gift God has given us. It’s a gift that says, “Toby, this is what you have, right here, right now.” 

Buddhist Mindfulness meditation is a powerful tool, as are so many of the ancient practices of monastic Christians, practices like centering prayer and the Jesus prayer. And this is what I’ve been doing on Tuesday nights with my little Living Vision community up in up in Petoskey, Michigan. I meet with a small group of people in a yoga studio – from any religion and no religion – to help us all learn how to use silent meditation forms and prayer to come more fully into the present, into the here and now. These ancient, silent practices can help anyone be more mindful in the moment.

I could never claim that I’ve got all this figured out in my life. I'm not even close to being able to say that I’ve finally and definitively escaped my past regrets and future worries. But I do know I’m on the road. I know that to be the most effective servant I can be, I need to be here - right here, right now. I know I need to show up for this moment, whenever and wherever this moment happens to be. May it be so for all of us!

Love, Relationships, and Impermanence - A Valentine's Day Reflection

 

On February 14, 2015, while I certainly do celebrate and give thanks for all the love in my life, what seems most on my heart this Valentine’s Day is the reality of love’s impermanence.

In so many ways the world tries to convince us that love is forever, but human love is oh-so-temporary and fragile. My mother, one of the most loving people many of us had ever known, died suddenly and tragically on her birthday in a car accident 15 years ago. In that single, icy moment we lost her. Her memory endures; her spirit is arguably still with us, along with her wisdom and legacy. But in most every tangible way, her love is gone; my relationship with her is no longer available to me. Death happens. Its arrival for all of us is an ultimate certainty, though its timing remains a mystery. And it is our human relationships that get caught in death's crossfire.

But it isn't only death that can rob us of loving relationship. When we fall in love romantically and begin to open and ultimately give our heart to another, we do so at tremendous risk. For while two people may fall in love together, walk through their courtship together, encounter the chapters and seasons of their lives together, perhaps even have children together, one of the two – acting unilaterally – can simply walk away from the relationship at any time, call it quits, taking the love away with him/her. This has always struck me as tremendously unfair, tragic, and even devastating. Romantic love’s utter impermanence continues to blow its cannon sized holes in my fragile heart well into my 50’s. And to be clear and fair here, I have been on both sides of this cannon. I have fired the shot and I have been its target.

But the loss of love that comes from a parent's death or from a romantic break up are child’s play when compared to the most unthinkable lost love of all. It's a possibility that haunts me every day, and far too many people I know have experienced it. I have but one and only one child, an amazing 7 year-old daughter. The love she has brought into my life and the love she has unleashed in me is beyond all measure. Every day, as I do my absolute best to love, nurture, protect, and celebrate her, I am aware that even she and her immense, incredible love are not permanent. I have no guarantees that she will be with me tomorrow, much less in 20 or 40 years. Children her age and younger die every day, every hour, every minute all over this fragile world, Car accidents and cancers, starvation and S.I.D.S., drones and drownings claim the lives of innocent children constantly. And what can we do about it? Nothing…

The impermanence of human love and human relationships is everywhere apparent. It is a defining characteristic of being human. And while our hearts resist this truth at every turn, we must, somehow, learn to live with it. Our minds must somehow come to grips with it too. Gratitude, it seems to me, is one very important part of how we do that. Being thankful and expressing our gratitude for those relationships we cherish absolutely lightens this load we carry around in the form of a deep, unsettling truth. 

Impermanence is knit tragically into the very fabric of our being, and though we try not to talk about it or acknowledge it, every now and then, something happens – perhaps in our own lives, in the life of a neighbor, or even on the evening news – that reminds us that none of our human relationships last forever, though the feelings and memories attached to them might.

I wish I could end this blog entry with a solution, some cyber inoculation against our innate human vulnerability where love is concerned. I grew up in the Christian tradition, which claims that God’s love is eternal and I believe that. The Apostle Paul wrote that "love never ends." Maybe not, but relationships sure do. And in those times, when a loved one is taken from us or simply walks away, faith's aphorisms provide little consolation.

I'm sure that to many readers, this reflection feels entirely negative and pessimistic, but that is neither its intention nor its spirit. I've come to believe that the most negative thing we can do is deny or resist the fundamental impermanence of our relationships, for in doing so we take them for granted and lose sight of their power in the here and now. Conversely, if we can come to grips with their impermanence and live in their somewhat shadowy light, there may be some profound gifts in store for us.

To be human is to live with what Pema Chodron calls “a certain groundlessness.” She and many of the great Buddhist teachers call us to sit with, accept, and even “lean into” this terrifying truth. That "leaning in" is what I am endeavoring to do even now on this Valentine's Day. And perhaps, just perhaps, if we have the courage to do that – to sit with and lean into the utter impermanence of human love and relationships - we will discover the profound beauty, goodness, and love that is ours in this one, single moment we call “now.”

                               “The past is history; the future’s a mystery.

                          Today is a gift, which is why we call it the present.”

A Mindful Messiah

Mindfulness is all over the news lately. On New Year’s night, the NBC Evening News  reported that several violence-ridden high schools are teaching mindfulness meditation to their students and seeing amazing results. Books about Mindfulness by people like Thich Nhat Hanh and Jon Kabit-Zinn are flying off the shelves. Even American business executives are experimenting with this Eastern spiritual discipline to bookend their workday.

Mindfulness has been defined as “maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.” (http://greatergood.berkeley.edu) I also like John Kabit-Zinn’s abbreviated definition of mindfulness as “presence of heart.”

While some Christians may consider Mindfulness a foreign concept, a discipline that seems more Buddhist or Hindu, and thus lying somehow outside the Christian framework, I would like to challenge that notion. I see Jesus as a Mindful Messiah.

Mindfulness, at its core, is about being fully present in the here and now. It is about tuning into one’s breathing and becoming completely aware of one’s body in space and noticing everything that is immediately before us. A mindful person is keenly aware of this moment and doesn’t want to miss any of its giftedness or possibilities. That strikes me as being exactly like Jesus.

I made this connection a number of years ago, while making a systematic study of the four gospels. I noticed that almost everything Jesus did was done on the way to doing something else. It was when Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Gerasa that the famed Gerasene Demoniac came from the tombs to accost Jesus, and Jesus healed him. It was while Jesus had crossed to the other side of the lake and began to address a large crowd, that Jairus, one of the synagogue leaders, fell at Jesus feet and pled for the life of his dying daughter, and  “Jesus went with him.” It was while Jesus was pulling the disciples away from the crowds to a quiet place that Jesus noted their hunger and said, “We must give them something to eat,” and the 5000 were fed. It was while Jesus and his followers were just entering Jericho that the blind beggar Bartimaeus cried out, and Jesus stopped to heal him.

In all these and dozens of other instances, Jesus was on his way some place to fulfill some purpose. But being fully present, aware and mindful of where he was, each and every step of the way, Jesus consistently responded to the moment, to the holy now. And to reinforce his way of mindfulness, he even focused on it in his parables.

In his famous Good Samaritan tale, Jesus includes two priests who were on their way to somewhere or something important. And when those priests encountered a beaten and bloodied man – right in front of their eyes – they, in their busy-ness and preoccupation, crossed to other side of the road and walked right passed him. It is as though those holy men were focused on the future - the meeting they were to attend, the sermon they were to preach. And in that preoccupied, future-focused, non-mindful state, they failed to assist their brother in need, the one who was right in front of them. But the Good Samaritan – the one who stopped, dressed his wounds, lifted him onto his own donkey, and carried him to the nearest inn – that man was on his way someplace too. He had people to see and things to do. But he was mindful, in the moment, open to the possibilities of the here and now. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that it was the mindfulness of that Samaritan that made him “good.”

In his famed Sermon on the Mount, one can see further evidence of Jesus’s teaching on mindfulness. “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or what you will wear…Look at the birds of the air; they don’t sow or reap or store away in barns…Can any of you add a single hour to your life by worrying?...Therefore I tell you, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Centered, grounded, and mindful of every moment, Jesus walked through each and every day responding to what was immediately before him, possibilities that, like breath itself, come only in the holy and gifted now. Jesus was of such incredible use to God precisely because he was so uniquely present in each moment, so mindful.

Mindfulness is a much a Christian practice and virtue as it is a Buddhist and a Hindu one. If we want to be more like Jesus, we must learn to be mindful, to be fully engaged in what is immediately before us. May it be so.

P.S. - For a great 4 minute summary of Mindfulness from Thich Nhat Hanh, check out this address : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD7i6VUOriI