The Trees Today

Today I was asked to respond to this question:

What is your experience of God and how is it shaping your theology?

Here are my thoughts:

 

            As I sit in this coffee shop, I look out the window next to me to see a small bit of untamed land; a small piece of natural, quiet, beauty amidst the otherwise busy and commercialized Hennepin Avenue.  The trees there today look still and steady, claiming their space.  The leaves are vibrant: piercing flashes of red, orange, yellow and green on a backdrop of grays and browns.  I can’t really explain how such brilliant, lively, lovely color speaks to me of God, but it does.

            My experience of God is not only like those trees but it is those trees.  God is alive and present in all that is still and steady.. in my breath.. in this warm, unassuming mocha.. in the people in my life who love me through my faults.. in the voice inside of me that is also constant and claiming its’ space. 

            God is also alive in flashes of color.. in beauty.. in easy laughter… in a dog who welcomes me daily.. a home that exudes safety and confidence… in big, real hugs from children whom I love and trust.. in all the people and places that show up in my life in often surprising ways to teach me and remind me about change, vibrancy, honesty, mystery, joy, hope, beauty, life, and love. 

            Yes, perhaps my entire experience of God, the Universe, can be summed up in my experience of these trees, this mocha and this couch on this day.

            This awareness has and continues to shape my theology immensely.  Just as no one can claim to own these trees.. to have the right to them.. to possess them fully and uniquely.. so it is with God.  No one person, group, community, or religion can fully and exclusively own, express, know, or possess, God.  God leaves God’s self, open to be witnessed by all at all times.  In the same, God doesn’t demand our attention… God doesn’t debate for it or advertise…  God doesn’t fail to exist just because we failed to notice or respond.. God simply is. 

            God invites.  And the invitation is always open, at all times, in all places, to all people.  It is an invitation to be united to God, to make a connection, to glimpse and be grounded in the awe-inspiring beauty that God is.. and hence that we are too.   

Truth

Over the course of the last few years, I have realized that my spirituality has become very open. By that, I mean, I have come to appreciate and respect that no one dogma or doctrine or tradition or creed or faith has the monopoly on the Truth.


Initially this idea scared me. I had always thought that faith and Truth were an either/or… either yours is right or mine is. To a certain, logical extent, this makes sense. It makes sense because different traditions often have different ways of seeing the world and hence in a way they contradict each other… and so, it makes sense to wonder: how can two contradictory worldviews be simultaneously true?

Thinking in this way scared me because for the first time in my life it caused me to question: what if my way, my Truth, my beliefs, are the wrong ones? I think that it is this black and white, either/or thinking that traps people. It has a way of forcing people to cling to their beliefs so strongly, compelling them to use all of their energy, words and actions to win in the tug-of-war between us and them. It’s too scary and overwhelming to think everything you’ve ever thought to be true might be wrong or only partially true, so instead, you hold firm and tight and throw questions and accusations elsewhere.

Somewhere along the line, through Divine intervention perhaps, I came instead to adopt a both/and vision of faith.. both mine and yours can be true. Both mine and yours have value and importance. This rings more true for me, it is a worldview I can sleep with. My struggle, however, is how to hold this belief and simultaneously live in a world where the stakes are high and people are imperfect and hence hurtful. In essence, my struggle, is with this word “can” and what falls into that category.

People use their Truth in various ways to hurt others and limit others and oppress others, and that doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t feel right. Such views cause me to think that they don’t fall into the “can be true” category. But if I say that that Truth isn’t real, aren’t I back to deciding what’s right and what’s wrong? Who am I to say whose beliefs are really real and right and whose are wrong? Where do you draw the line? How do you hold an openness that promotes life, dignity, and freedom without leading to anarchy?

It almost feels as if my discomfort with those who are judgmental is in turn judgmental… I’m judging the judgers. So, in efforts not to do that, I let them be who they are, but then bad things happen and people are hurt. So, I try to be a stronger voice for humanity and then in the end it feels as if I am back exactly where I started believing that my way, my Truth is in fact right and those who don’t get it are wrong. Either you believe in that which is life-giving or you don’t, and if you don’t.. well, then, I don’t buy it.

It's all very interesting.  But is it true? 

Parting words of wisdom....

One of my favorite things to ask adults, whether recovering addicts at a homeless shelter or successful business men and women, is: if you could impart any wisdom, any advice, upon young people today, what would it be?

I’m afraid that if asked this question I would have way too much to say.

More than anything, I would remind them that they are gifted, they are beautiful, they are valuable.  They are not valuable just because of what they can do…. of how they can perform, of how intelligent they are, or how many letters they have on their Jacket; no, they are valuable just by merit of being the only them ever to exist.  They are valuable because they are made in the image of God and are a temple of the Divine spirit dwelling within them.

After that, I would say: life is hard and people are imperfect.  Good people die, bad people win, things happen that are out of your control and the world is messy.  Even so, life is worth it.  What matters most in life are not the things we accumulate, our possessions, our awards, what matters are our relationships.  People matter.  One good day, one good conversation that is honest, one true connection with another human soul can make all the other chaos more than acceptable. 

Our role on this earth is not to be perfect people so that bad things don’t happen to us.  Our role is to be the very best version of our self that we possibly can be and to wake up every day with the determination to try again to do the same.  Our role is to be grateful for the incredible beauty that surrounds us and to do our part to love one another.

Loving one another is hard.  (This goes back to the whole we’re not perfect thing).  But we try… and we remember that loving, forgiving, embracing, is way better than the alternative.  Every time I have loved another person, I have grown… I have experienced joy… I have been fulfilled.  Loving other people is worth it, even when they don’t love you back because loving other people reminds us about who we are and what we yearn for.   Be compassionate, empathetic, and nonjudgmental….  look for the good in people and the good you shall find.    

Loving ourselves is hard too.  Sometimes we are paralyzed with guilt.  In that case, we need to forgive ourselves…. we need to give ourselves a break and allow ourselves the right to be human.  Sometimes instead we cover our guilt with pride and refuse to admit our own shortcomings.  In these times, we need to develop the ability to laugh at ourselves.  We need to be able to admit our mistakes with grace and earnestness. 

Then there is loving God.  When we’re not sure how to love others or ourselves, loving God seems like an unbearable task.  So, start small.  Start with believing.  Start with believing in something bigger than yourself….  start with recognizing that the universe is large, and significant, and beautiful.  Start with believing that beyond everything you have ever witnessed and everything before and after you, there is something holding it all together… something to have created it all.  Start where you are and explore, question, doubt, etc., until you find yourself to a place of genuine conviction and Truth.  Never stop asking questions or taking steps on the journey.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, trust yourself.  Learn to drown out all of the outside noise and listen to your own inner voice… the voice that is telling you who to be.  At the end of the day, the only person you can control is you and the only person you have to live with is you.  Be somebody you can live with… be somebody worth emulating… be someday that you can be proud of.  Don’t sell yourself short, follow your heart, dream big dreams, touch souls.

When I was working as a chaplain intern someone told me that the five most important things for someone to say before they die are these:  Thank you.  Please forgive me.  I forgive you.  I love you.  Good-bye. 

Do these every day whenever appropriate to whomever is appropriate.

That’s it, that’s all I got. 

For those to whom I have not said it enough: thank you.  Thank you for inspiring me, for changing me, for loving me. 

Please forgive me for the times I have not lived up to your expectations of me, for the times I have let you down. 

I forgive you for the time times you as well have been less than you could be. 

I love you, truly and deeply. 

And finally, good-bye, not forever, but for now until God wills our next encounter. 

Boundaries

Last night I had a conversation on the phone with one of my dearest friends.  We’ve been friends for over two decades which is a long time for someone my age.. perhaps it’s a long time for someone of any age.  In a matter of seconds, our conversation went from a mere sharing of stories.. of catching up… to her crying and me feeling immensely helpless to comfort her. 

In simple, she was crying because sometimes rules don’t make sense, and life is unfair, and people fail to be compassionate or reasonable or open.  In detail, she was crying because in a few months she is to be married to a man who isn’t an American citizen and his mother was denied a visa to attend the wedding.  She was denied a visa because our government fears that after attending the wedding, she won’t return home.. that she will stay here unlawfully.  And so, a mother is denied the opportunity to witness her only son get married.

It is interesting to me how boundaries get drawn.  For instance, who was the first person to ever hold up a flag, draw a line, and say, “this is mine and you can’t come here without my permission.”  And after that, who was the first person to accept that as reasonable… to agree that one human person could claim territory and own territory and sell territory.  I’m not sure I understand how anyone has the right to limit which parts of this vast, beautiful, unique world, one can visit and explore and be in awe of. 

Of course as I write this, I am sitting in my parent’s backyard… I am at the house that we have owned since I was two years old.  I love my house and I am glad that it is “ours”.  I am happy to have my own bedroom, my own things, my own space.  It makes sense to me that this is the way the world works.

What doesn’t truly make sense to me is how the world got divided.. how the world got divided into lands that formed countries, citizens, rules and regulations about who could go here and who could live there and who was and wasn’t allowed to buy property or attend their son’s wedding.  I don’t understand when being right and having control began to take precedence over being compassionate, and sensible, and human.   

One of my favorite parts of the Bible is the first creation story in the first chapter of Genesis.  God reminds man and woman that they are to be stewards over creation; that they are to enjoy it and be fulfilled by it and watch over it.  God gave us all the world; what an amazing and inspiring gift.  Often I think we have taken that gift and we have gotten greedy with it.  We have forgotten that we didn’t earn any of it, that perhaps we don’t deserve any of it, that it was a gift.  Instead, we cling tightly to the piece that is ours and we spend countless time and money making sure that no one else has a share in it without our permission.

It reminds me of a story that one of my professors told me in college.  He was talking about the way they sometimes try to catch monkeys in places like Africa.  Supposedly, they cut an empty coconut in half and inside they place an orange, then they glue the coconut back together.  After doing so, they drill a small hole in the coconut, small enough for a monkey’s hand to fit in but too small for an orange to come out.  Then they wait.  Sure enough, sooner or later, a monkey will come, stick its hand in the hole, and attempt to retrieve the orange.  It will stay there stuck, unable to pull the orange out.  It will continue to stay there even after it sees its captors closing in.  Unwilling to merely “let go” and give up the orange, it will allow itself to be caught. 

I think that perhaps that is a good analogy for our society.  We have a difficult time “letting go”… we don’t want to let go of our possessions, our land, our borders, our right to have things the way we think is best.  And so, we hold on tight.  In the mean time, we get caught.  We fail to realize that in holding on too tightly to such things, we lose ourselves.  In such instances, we risk losing our integrity, our joy, our fulfillment, our gratitude, our humility, our humanity.   We risk forgetting that there is something larger and more important than us. 

In the end, my friend and her fiancée will probably just end up having yet another wedding.  All will be well and they will move on.  Nonetheless, it saddens me. 

It saddens me mostly because in the past year alone I have been blessed to travel to Spain, Haiti, and Guatemala… not for a wedding, but just because I could and because I wanted to.  In each of those places I found immense beauty, joy, and hope.  I am saddened because while I am confident that those things can be found in the United States too… I am afraid that so many people from across the globe may never be allowed to see it. 

Being a Teenager is Hard

This past weekend I went on a retreat with a group of 6-8th grade students. After a mere 12 hours with them, I came to this conclusion: being a teenager is hard.

Over the weekend I shared that conclusion with some adult leaders by saying, “my conversations last night reminded me how hard it is to be a young person.” Immediately a parent in the room responded something to the effect of, “Oh my, don’t you just wish they would understand that things will get better when they get to high-school”?

Upon deeper reflection, I’m not sure this is true.

The Middle School students I met were struggling with everything from deceased parents to parents with cancer to parents in the military or other life threatening professions. They were worried about brothers being sent to Afghanistan and friends doing drugs and having sex. Some of them had self-image issues, eating disorders, and patterns of cutting. They told tales of excruciating, scary, painful things. So, yes, hopefully, they will get better.

Yet again, last night after the retreat I met with some high-school students. In one, low-key, average evening, these young people expressed concerns about parents fighting and possible divorce, being betrayed by friends for seemingly no explanation, the pressures of being financially accountable to their family during these precarious economic times. One of them was having surgery this week; another absent in preparation for her grandfather’s funeral. More scary, difficult things.

This past year in the life of adults I know, there have personal trials such as stillbirths of children and cancer of parents. There has been the fear of foreclosure and the loss of jobs. There has been the despair of loved ones not loving you back. And collectively, there has been shootings, and suicides, and war, and famine, and intense political negativity.

I guess the point is this: things seem to be difficult all around. And, I’m not sure that they get better as we get older. We have a tendency to criticize our young people for being, “dramatic”. I wonder, however, if it’s less of that and more that as we get older we become more desensitized to suffering. Certainly with age comes perspective and strength and emotional maturity, but perhaps it also comes with a tinge of apathy… with a quiet surrender to things that maybe shouldn’t be accepted as normative quite so easily.

The things is, 13 year olds should be scared of brothers going off to war and friends drinking alcohol in Middle School. And our obligation as adults should not only be to comfort them and support them but also to ask important questions. Questions like: What am I as an adult doing to promote peace in the world so that young men and women have no need to go to war? And, what is happening in our society that it’s acceptable and normative for young people to start taking substances long before their brains have developed?

Rather than promising our young people that things will get better merely because we hope they well mature into an acceptance of such difficult life circumstances, I wonder what would happen if we promised our young people that things would get better because we were committed to making that true. Because we were committed to making things change.

I am under no illusion that life is easy. I know that there will always be death and disease and accidents and tragedies. And yet, I am fairly confident that it is harder to be a teenager now than it was when I was a teenager, ten years ago. And so, I feel obliged to ask: what can be done? How can we help?

How can we instill hope in our youth so that they can approach tomorrow with strength and confidence and a bit of joy?

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Author Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are “help me, help me, help me” and “thank you, thank you, thank you.” How simple and complete these are.

Over the course of the past month or so, I have started a gratitude practice. This simply means that every night before I fall asleep I take the time to write down three things about the day that I am thankful for. The idea is to literally take the time to say: “thank you, thank you, thank you” in a very specific and intentional way.

At times, what or who I appreciate has been quite predictable: time spent with my nephews and niece, my dog, my friends, my students. Simple pleasures like a white chocolate mocha from Caribou, hot tubs, and The Bachelor. Beauty such as a starry night sky, an orange and pink sunset, and Lake Calhoun.

At other times, I have been surprised about what I have found to be thankful for. Like the day that I forgot my purse at work and had to drive all the way back from home to get it. That day I was thankful that such an inconvenience was the worst thing I had to complain about. There was also the day I was thankful for having the courage to talk to my supervisor about a desire I have; whether or not my petition was granted was irrelevant, I was simply grateful that I took action to ask. Last night I was thankful that before sharing a meal with friends, we took the time to hold hands and bless our food as well as those who go without; such a simple thing, and yet, so refreshingly comforting to me.

Some days it’s easy to be thankful: like the day that a stranger bought me breakfast when I didn’t have cash and the seller didn’t take credit. Some days it’s more of a challenge: such as the day when an old schoolmate got in a serious skiing accident and had to have his lower leg amputated. That day I was simply thankful that I have my health…. and I realized that that is something I take for granted all too often.

I’m not sure that saying “thank you” to God, to the universe, to the people, places, and events that make my life meaningful changes anything about the world around me. However, I do think it changes me. It is something I can control… and it helps me to look for the good. It helps me, as Oriah Mountain Dreamer says, to, “see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday.”

Upon reflection, I wonder how often I am vulnerable enough to say, “help me, help me, help me”. For the most part, I like to think that I have pretty good control over my life. I am a self-proclaimed “over-functioner”. This means that when the world seems to be falling apart, I don’t let myself fall apart with it… I keep on, keeping on. I go to work, pay my bills, walk my dog. I function.

Functioning is important. And yet, so is having the courage to admit, “I can’t do this all on my own” or better yet, “I don’t have to do this all on my own”. Sometimes we need to admit that we are lost, or confused, or scared, or sad or angry. Sometimes we need to ask for help with heavy, significant things that we are struggling to accept or navigate.

At other times, maybe we would do well to ask for help with little things: such as for patience when sitting next to particularly loud traveling companions on an airplane. We can close our eyes, breathe deep and say, “help me, help me, help me”.

And, at still other times, perhaps, we would do best to ask for help in receiving that which we most want out of life. St. Ignatius says that at the beginning of each prayer you should ask God, “for what I want and desire”. Sometimes we don’t realize what we want until we take the time to truly put it into words. Sometimes trusting the heavens to help us in our quest to find that which we truly desire is the best, and maybe only, thing we can do.

I’m sure that there are countless ways to pray and access the Divine. I know I have some favorites of my own. But I have to think there is something to what Anne Lamott has said.

I have to think that if the only prayers we ever said were, “thank you, thank you, thank you” and “help me, help me, help me,” frequently and sincerely, that those might just be enough.

To Confirm

One of my many roles in the parish in which I work is as Confirmation Coordinator. It is around this time each year that I find myself amidst preparing 75-85 adolescents for their Confirmation into the Catholic Church.

Admittedly, when I started in this position I did not have a very deep sense of what this sacrament is all about. Of course I had been confirmed myself and I had even been a sponsor on more than one occasion. Even so, its’ significance wasn’t much more to me than as a rite of passage.. something one does when they get to be about 15 or 16 if they plan to continue on their faith journey. It should not come as much of a surprise to me, then, that this is approximately the amount of knowledge and understanding that my students and their parents have about this sacrament as well.

It seems obvious that in order to teach, one has to know, and hence, my understanding and appreciation of this sacrament has grown immensely over the past four years. In coming to realize that Confirmation entails truly “confirming” one’s faith, it has been important to me that my students have a real understanding of what the faith is that they are confirming. It has become important to me that upon reaching their Confirmation day, my students are able to articulate how exactly their beliefs and values stand on their own, apart from the beliefs and values of their parents, Godparents, sponsors and even me. If confirmation is about a commitment to live out those values for the rest of their lives, I want my students to be sure that they are values which they freely and wholeheartedly choose to commit to.

This being my logic, we spend a good amount of time talking about faith; the real, personal, experienced faith of these young people. And, in order to talk about faith, it seems only natural to me to talk about doubt. Apparently this jump, what I’d call a step, to doubt, is concerning for others.

I have come to realize that many faithful adults are afraid of the word “doubt”. It almost feels as if people are concerned that God’s psyche is too fragile to handle our doubts and questions… that somehow through our searching we will offend God and lose God’s grace.

This trepidation became apparent to me early on in my ministry when I came across a parent who wondered why we didn’t confirm students when they were in eighth grade. The implication was, “why don’t we confirm students when they are younger, while we still have control over their lives”. I think many parents share this sentiment: that it would be better that we confirm our young people before they have a chance to think for themselves.. before they begin to question.. before they begin to have competing priorities.. before they get too busy for God. Even at 15 and 16, so many of my students admittedly still have no better reason to be confirmed than because “someone is making me”.

I understand the pull to get confirmed because “that’s what you do when you’re Catholic”. But, if that is our only reason, if we treat this sacrament entirely as a rite of passage, if we do it without thinking about why, or what we believe in, or how we mean to live it out in our lives, than it is no wonder that so many youth grow up to become adults who leave the Church. They leave the Church because they weren’t really “thinking for themselves” when they entered in the first place.

One of my favorite quotes on this subject is from Benedictine Sister, Joan Chittister:

The problem with accepting truth as it comes to us rather than truth as we divine it for ourselves is that it’s not worth dying for—and we don’t. It becomes a patina of ideas inside of which we live our lives without passion, without care. This kind of faith happens around us but not in us-we go through the motions. The first crack in the edifice and we’re gone. The first chink in the wall of the castle keep and we’re off to less demanding fields. Doubt, on the other hand, is the mother of conviction. Once we have pursued our doubts to the dust, we forge a stronger, not a weaker belief system. These truths are true, we know, because they are now true for us rather than simply for someone else.

All around me I see people, young and old alike, who have faith happening around them but not in them. I see people who are so scared to doubt, that when pressed to justify their beliefs they have no better response than, “that’s what the Church teaches” without any real understanding of why or for what purpose. This kind of faith works for many people. But for others, at the “first crack in the edifice”.. the first time tragedy strikes.. the first time a loved one dies.. the first time they enter a philosophy class.. the first time they meet someone passionately invested in a faith other than their own.. and they’re gone.

I would rather that we invite and even encourage deep personal reflection, replete with doubts. I would rather we take the chance that in so doing, some people may walk away, but more will “forge a stronger, not a weaker belief system”. When I look around the world, I am convinced that we need less lukewarm believers and more people wholeheartedly confirmed in a faith of hope, compassion, love, and justice.

When I look at my young people, I pray that they have the courage not merely to “conform”, to accept truth as it comes to them, but instead to “confirm”… to confirm truths that are true for themselves not simply for someone else.