Faith

Eternal Fences

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I’ve had fences on my mind. Apparently, they have permanent residence and need to be managed.

This is my way of understanding a season I’ve recently emerged from, a season I always seem to have a foot in. I call it the what’s next season.  That question keeps a firm grip on my brain, if I let it. And that’s where the fences come in.

Sometimes I recognize it; sometimes I don’t. The temptation to look over the fence. The temptation isn’t necessarily about looking for greener grass. It’s more like, “What’s over there? If it looks good, should I find a way over there? Should I be looking for a gate? Looking at the field I’m in, there’s probably a better one on the other side of part of this fence, right? I just got to keep looking. Seek and find.”

While chewing on these questions this week during a prayer moment, a connection was made that made me say, “Well that’s interesting.” The connection was to a verse from Ecclesiastes, a book containing a look at forever fences. Here’s that verse:

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11 NASB

Oddly, my mind relaxed. The connection: Because eternity is placed in my heart, I am always going to be tempted to look over the fence. And I’m not alone in that. Every human asks, “What’s next? Is this it? There’s got to be more, right?” We ask it in different ways, seek the answers from different sources, but we ask the same questions.

The lessons that seem to be on repeat during a what’s next season are 1) Embrace Now and 2) Balance Anticipation. As I thought about these lessons, another uplifting passage came to mind. It’s from an equally encouraging chapter, this time from the New Testament. Hebrews 11 contains a roster of fellow fence gawkers who are described as sharing another top of mind focus. Check out verses 13-16:

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They didn’t receive the things God had promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a long way off. They openly said that they were outsiders and strangers on earth. 14 People who say things like that show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 What if they had been thinking of the country they had left? Then they could have returned to it. 16 Instead, they longed for a better country. They wanted a heavenly one. So God is pleased when they call him their God. In fact, he has prepared a city for them.

You see why fences have been on mind? It’s actually good stuff. At the end of it, I find myself in excellent company, both in the past and the present. I say the present because these thoughts led me to three songs that I gravitate toward when eternity is on my mind.

So at the close of this month, this week, this Thanksgiving weekend, I encourage you to take 11 minutes, stare at the eternal fence, and listen to these fellow “longers for a better country.”

Photo by Marie Martin on Unsplash

As You Live and Move and Breathe

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Came across a song new to me today that voiced a prayer of personal need. Before sharing it, do you know or remember this one?

Matt Maher gave us this song 11 years ago, a prayer declaring an awareness and desperation regarding needing God. There are moments in life where this prayer song matches our spirit. In those moments, I believe God is like a father, thankful his child trusts their need with him.

The song I found today is also a prayer song about need, but the declaration isn’t a cry for help. Instead, the song is a declaration of belief in God’s ability to meet needs and, therefore, a desire to stay close to him. Why? Because he knows what we need. That “because” leaves the lyricist to declare something about himself. He wants everything he does and says to lead him back to the one who knows what he needs.

Two songs about human need. Two songs voicing a prayer of faith. Wherever your faith is today regarding your needs, chances are one of these songs captures it.

As you live and move and breathe, sing along. He’s listening.

Heartbroken…There…I Said It

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“How are you doing?”

It’s an ordinary, everyday question. But some people have a knack for asking it more like, “No, really. How are you doing?”

I’ve got more than my share of them. Over the last four days, three of them pried. I skirted one, dumped on the other, and indulged the last one.

It wasn’t until listening to the end of the podcast episode I posted about yesterday that the one word to describe how I’m doing surfaced. And it’s one I have never used for myself. I’ve felt and experienced it, just never declared it to be a current condition.

Heartbroken.

Kate: If we think of ourselves as a very sad but also kind of broken in certain parts person, it can feel like, well, that’s not the person who is going to be able to help very much, do very much. We’re already consumed by all the things that have made our lives difficult or tragic in the first place. We are already too aware of the fact that we are living inside of like crosscurrents of things we can’t fix. Kids with intractable problems. Parents with intractable problems. Jobs with intractable problems. But you and I both agree that there’s something weird that happens to the broken hearted, is that there’s like, a kind of an inside-out-ness that happens that can make us maybe exactly the right people to live in unfinished times.

Parker: I think so. This level of engagement, either in politics or in personal and communal life seems to me to require the kind of opening that can comes through broken heartedness. Absolutely. So just as you said, I’ve thought a lot about the fact that there are two ways for the heart to break. It can shatter into shards and just lie useless on the floor, never to be put back together again. Or you can exercise your heart on a daily basis by taking in the little losses, the little deaths, you know, those things that are feel hard to absorb, the news that’s hard to absorb, take it and let it exercise that muscle the way a runner exercises muscles so they won’t snap under stress, and the heart has a chance then to become so supple that it will break open into largeness rather than apart in into shards. And, you know, the most trustworthy people in my life are people who have known broken heartedness, and those who have known it in depths. Those are the people I can go to and say, and tell it the way it is for me. And then, and in the process, experience healing. They don’t have answers for me anymore than I have answers for them. But we can have a conversation rooted in broken heartedness and honesty about that experience that goes somewhere humanly, right?

In my inside-out-ness, I have to say I’ve probably been heartbroken for years without acknowledging it. The recent storms and reactions to the election have brought me to this awareness that I’m oddly thankful for.

I ask myself what’s this about. I didn’t personally experience loss from any of the three hurricanes. Nor did I personally lose a bid for public office. What’s there to be brokenhearted about?

The answer may seem obvious to you, but it’s not always been obvious to me. My Enneagram 1, Myers Briggs ISTJ self tends to be pretty cut and dry. But not recently. At least not these last three months.

I’m leaning into the belief that loving your neighbor as yourself means seeing ourselves as one. When the community hurts, you hurt. When the community loses, you lose. When any portion of the country cries and mourns, you cry and mourn.

The years of brokenheartedness I’m most aware of has to do with my personal church history. To see the church in the middle of the polarization of the country these last five years continues to cut deep. This last week, my heart jolted, even collapsed, as one side hurries to make false biblical comparisons while the other huddles in fear and shock. It’s war. And it’s heartbreaking.

On my run this morning I asked myself two questions: 1) How long do I allow myself to be heartbroken over these two things that personally don’t impact me? 2) What am I doing about this status?

I answered the first one with more questions:

  • Is there a formula? Like, three times the amount of time it takes for all the debris to disappear.
  • Isn’t there more to recovery than just removing and repairing the visible damage?
  • Feels like there’s grief everywhere, right? How long does that take?
  • God’s probably been heartbroken over the Church for longer than I’ve been alive. Where does that leave me?
  • Feels like heartbreak is part of life, and I’m just now owning it. Or at least on behalf of my neighbor. I’ve missed it for a long time, right?

As for question two, my best answer for my spirit was this: Don’t Rush.

  • Don’t Rush to Retort
  • Don’t Rush to Judge
  • Don’t Rush to Wholeness
  • Don’t Rush to Solutions
  • Don’t Rush to Fix
  • Don’t Rush to Start the Day
  • Don’t Rush to Comfort

To the one I skirted, I’m heartbroken. There. I said it.

Cover photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalrtpix?igsh=MTkydWQ1MG9qMnJiaA==

Six Steps to Writing Your Laments

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I’m guessing if the majority of us were asked if we had anything to lament over we’d have more than one answer.

  • A relationship
  • Religion
  • Politics
  • Finances
  • Physical aches

I’m guessing if the majority of us were asked if we had a proper approach to lamenting we’d struggle to lay it out. Thankfully, Krispin Mayfield has offered some help.

In his book Attached to God, he gives six steps to writing a lament. Why? When we express our most difficult emotions to God, we draw closer to him. Intimacy with God is found in a balance of praise and lament.

In the tradition of the Psalms, here are Mayfield’s six steps:

  1. Tell God something you wish were different in your own life or the world, such as a health condition, difficult relationship, life stress, poverty, or racism.
  2. Tell God what you feel when you think about this issue; additionally, write down any emotions you might feel considering God’s inaction regarding this issue.
  3. Tell about a time in your own life or someone else’s where God intervened.
  4. Ask God to step in and address this suffering.
  5. Tell God you’re confident that your prayer is heard.
  6. Praise or recognize one of God’s attributes or characteristics, based on your past or present experience.

Sharing some of your uncomfortable emotions with God might feel strange. But you can unlock the basement when you’re assured that both God and your faith tradition can hold the parts of your experience. When you are sad, scared, or angry, your emotions aren’t signs of a lack of faith, but rather evidence that you are exactly where you need to be-at home with a God who is waiting to hear your emotions and give you the reassurance you need. (chapter 8, “From Shutdown to Engaged”)

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

God’s Nature: Lording or Loving?

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Sheets continues in the next chapter of The Pleasure of His Company to dig into aspects of our relationship with God. He zeros in on a belief that God’s nature is misunderstood. A misunderstanding of God’s nature would certainly explain why worship can lack passion, be endured, or even resisted.

I don’t believe the problem with most believers’ worship is hypocrisy or insincerity. I think the majority is trying to honor God by giving Him His dues and fulfilling their obligation to Him as the Creator. I doubt if most of them understand, or have even heard, that God is a lover as well as a Lord. And it wasn’t his lording nature that prompted him to create us-He could have made a few billions more angels had that been His desire. It was his loving nature. God is a Father at heart.

Chapter 2, “The Seeker”

This morning I got to talk with a guy at church for the first time and found out he works for a local, family-owned business. Between their six locations, they have over 800 employees. Describing being employed there he said, “You work hard, but it’s like family. We have a hard time finding good employees, but we continue to grow and I love working there.”

He’s describing a work place that isn’t only about lording. We all pretty well can tell the difference between lording and loving. If you come from a faith setting that focuses more on a lording view of God’s nature, it’s probably long overdue for your relationship to take a shift and consider his loving nature.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

13 Quotes from Faith Beyond Belief

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Just finished reading another book that’s delivered richness.

It reads like a podcast transcript. When they say a conversation, they mean it. So it’s refreshing in that way.

The 22 chapters feel like episodes. They don’t necessarily connect one to the next, but they definitely weave the thread of faith and spirituality.

Rather than critique or review the book, I choose to share these quotes for your meditation:

“Love your neighbor as yourself” means be aware that you and your neighbor are one.

The Creative Meaning of Life

The answer I would give the agnostic: if you cannot see [accepting unity with God] yet, you don’t have to accept it. Wait until you experience it. It is not a dogmatic principle we want to impose on you. We only want to say that millions of people experience it. You can too. Open yourself to it.

The Epic Discovery of Self

You have a “vibe.” What do you want to transmit? Bitterness, dissatisfaction, loneliness, or understanding, warmth, and love? None of that requires any great achievement. It simply happens in the way I live my life.

A decision in favor of something is also a decision to let go of something.

“Fear not!” means “take courage, and take anxiety as it comes!”

Calling, Courage, and Fear (this chapter alone is worth checking out this book; so much to digest on the subject of anxiety and courage)

When someone says she doesn’t believe in God, I ask: which god don’t you believe in?

On the Temptation to Want to Possess the Truth

Prayer warms what is frozen and hard into living water.

We fulfill God’s will when we forgive on earth as God forgives in heaven.

The “Our Father” and God’s Trustworthiness

Many people are afraid of death because they have not lived. Unlived life is hard to let go. Those who live deliberately can also let go.

On the Mortal and the Eternal

I cannot explain why there is suffering, but I can influence how I meet it.

Suffering and Reconciliation

Humility is the appropriate attitude by which to accept oneself with one’s strengths and weaknesses.

Transformation is the result of a crisis.

Spiritual Growth

Despite all the deviations, we can say that if the church did not exist, our society would be essentially colder.

What is the Christian’s Focus?

Learning to Walk in the Dark (book review)

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I enjoy a writer who makes you think, or at least presents something ordinary unordinarily. Barbara Brown Taylor is definitely in this category.

In this second of her books I’ve read she gives you a different approach to thinking about darkness.

One beautiful way she does this is by showing you the value of darkness in biblical stories. She says the night sky was a key player in Abraham’s decision to trust God when he was told to “count the stars.” She spends a great amount of words on Moses’ encounters with God in the dark.

The God of Moses is holy, offering no seat belts or other safety features to those who wish to climb the mountain and enter the dark cloud of divine presence. Those who go assume all risk and give up all claim to reward. Those who return say the dazzling dark inside the cloud is reward enough.

Chapter 2, The Fear of the Lord

As you can imagine, much of the book addresses the emotions that come from fearing the dark. She believes that’s actually an indicator of something going on inside of us.

Our comfort or discomfort with the outer dark is a good barometer of how we feel about the inner kind.

Chapter 3, Hampered by Brilliance

A fascinating approach to her research for the book included cave exploration. With aid from professionals, she spent time sitting in the dark in caves and exploring portions of caves that demanded she address her fears. One takeaway: new life starts in the dark.

Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.

Chapter 6, Entering the Stone

A spiritual book about darkness is most likely not complete without a chapter on the dark night of the soul. Taylor’s coverage is exhaustive from both sides of the topic as well as from the individual to the communal. The most helpful section was her description of the difference between faith and belief. Sharing about her observations as a college professor, she gives this distinction about questions college students are asking or are being asked:

When I listen to college students talk about faith, beliefs are what interest them most: Do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? Do you believe that only Christians go to heaven? No one asks, “On what is your heart set?” No one asks, “What powers do you most rely on? What is the hope that gives meaning to your life?” Those are questions of faith, not belief. The answers to them are not written down in any book, and they have a way of shifting in the dark.

Chapter 7, The Dark Night of the Soul

I’ve already suggested this book to a few folks-one running friend who avoids running in the early morning hours, one coaching client who feels distant from God. Whether you are struggling with physical or spiritual darkness, I’d encourage you to give this book a read. See what you learn.

An Altar in the World, Meditation #2

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On recommendation, I recently read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s subtitled A Geography of Faith. In the spirit of that lane, rather than offer a review I’ve selected my top highlights and will offer a meditation post for each one. Here’s quote #2:

Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish-separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two.

Chapter 1, The Practice of Waking Up to God

Taylor’s quote comes at the end of the chapter where she has offered the teaching that God can show up in any space or through any means he chooses. In that moment, we have the opportunity to erect an altar-take note and mark that spot where God revealed himself. Her biblical example is Jacob’s reaction to the ladder dream. Because he knew he had encountered God, he paused and created a marker of significance.

Makes me think of Paul David Tripp’s teaching about two-drawer living. God doesn’t instruct us to live two separate lives-one for him and one for ourselves. Everything belongs in one drawer. The challenge is to view more and more of life as an encounter with him, a journey with him, an alertness that he’s always here.

Case in point: Sunday after church I had three hours to kill before attending an event in another town. I decided to google a new place to eat, try something different. I ended up at Blu’ Island Bistro. When I pulled in the parking lot, I wasn’t quite sure. But I said to myself, “Trust the reviews.”

It’s not a big place, but it has charm. I immediately felt it when I walked through the door. And here’s the thing: IT NEVER STOPPED.

Besides the quick seating, the perfect plate portion, the excellent tacos, and almost just right sweet tea, no one, and I mean no one, lacked joy. Not a customer. Not an employee. Everyone seemed happy to be there. I literally said to myself, “I should tell my pastor that I found the restaurant that feels like church.”

I stopped counting how many servers checked on me. I believe it was six. That’s a little crazy. And I don’t mean annoying crazy. I mean “thank you for your care” crazy.

I didn’t just encounter God between 10:00 and 11:00AM Sunday morning. I encountered him at the restaurant, then at the beach, then at the ice cream shop, and then at the event. How? I was looking for him. And the altar I erected? I gave the restaurant a Google review, I’m posting this blog, and I thanked God for putting everything in one pile.

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

An Altar in the World, Meditation #1

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On recommendation, I recently read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s subtitled A Geography of Faith. In the spirit of that lane, rather than offer a review I’ve selected my top highlights and will offer a meditation post for each one. Here’s quote #1:

Faith sometimes looks like a blunt refusal to stop speaking into the divine silence.

Chapter 10, The Practice of Feeling Pain

In the face of betrayal, keep speaking.

In the face of confusion, keep speaking.

In the face of loss, keep speaking.

When fear says, “No one cares,” refuse to listen.

When doubt says, “No one’s listening,” refuse to isolate.

When impatience says, “No one’s responding,” refuse to self-muzzle.

There is a time to be blunt.

There is a time to be persistent.

There is a time to be verbose.

If God is silent, might it be because he wants to keep hearing from you?

If God is silent, might it be because he’s respecting your need to process?

If God is silent, might it be because he’s taking a moment to appreciate your faith?

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

The Awakened Brain (book review)

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Last month I came across the work of Dr. Lisa Miller, unaware of her connection to the national institute that accredits the counseling center where I work. Quickly I was up to speed and got a copy of her book The Awakened Brain.

I started reading it during the downtime of Hurricane Idalia, finishing it today. Here is one statistic from the introduction that gives reason for Miller’s work:

A study of more than 67,000 college students across 108 institutions in the United States published in 2019 found that 20% reported that they had engaged in self-harm such as cutting, 24% reported suicidal ideation, and 9% had attempted suicide.

Introduction: Anything Can Be Shown

She defines the awakened brain in the introduction to give you some sense of the foundation she is going to build for this way of approaching life.

The awakened brain is the neural circuitry that allows us to see the world more fully and thus enhance our individual, societal, and global well-being…The awakened brain includes a set of innate perceptual capacities that exist in every person through which we experience love and connection, unity, and a sense of guidance from and dialogue with life.

Introduction: Anything Can Be Shown

In chapter four she makes an interesting observation about heredity and environment. Through research, she’s determined that spirituality isn’t solely determined by environment. A person isn’t limited only by the spiritual environment of their early years; in fact, we are born with spiritual awareness. That is good news for everyone.

A person’s degree of spirituality is determined 29% by heredity and 71% by environment…People at greater risk for mental illness due to their developmental stage actually have the most to gain from spirituality.

Chapter 4, Two Sides of the Same Coin

Woven throughout the book are compelling stories of spiritual journeys, including her own. These stories, including clients as well as business and national leaders, illustrate the transformation of lives who live responding to what life is showing them, particularly when they lean in to spirituality.

What I was witnessing was less that we heal when we impose a more positive meaning on the world, and more that we shift toward health when somehow, and usually through struggle, a bigger meaning is revealed to us…feeling better isn’t just a matter of creating new thoughts, of replacing unhappy ones with happier ones; it’s also about noticing and aligning ourselves with whatever life is showing us.

Chapter 7, When Inner and Outer Align

Admittedly, Dr. Miller’s work has not been easy in the scientific community. In many ways she is countercultural, somewhat blazing a trail to question if the way of American living has been wrong for many years.

We make our best decisions when we integrate our heads, hearts, and life’s guidance, learning to tune into our choices and hurdles as part of our spiritual path…We discover that we are seekers rather than makers of our path.

Chapter 9, The Castle and The Wave

Having lived many years in achieving mode and wondering how to step back from it, chapter 12 gave language to my struggle that is lifegiving. It may not ring true to everyone, but the clearness Dr. Miller makes between the two modes of awareness is my main takeaway from the book. I believe it’s the usage of the two words achieving and awakened.

We all have two modes of awareness available to us at all times: achieving awareness and awakened awareness…Achieving awareness is the perception that our purpose is to organize and control our lives…When we engage our awakened awareness, we make use of different parts of our brain, and we literally see more, integrating information from multiple sources of perception. Instead of seeing ourselves as independent makers of our path, we perceive ourselves as seekers of our path.

Chapter 12, The Two Modes of Awareness

Dr. Miller, of Jewish faith, does not use the language of the New Testament. I suggest she paints a clear picture of the difference between Paul’s teaching regarding walking in the flesh and walking in the spirit. Flesh walkers live for themselves; spirit walkers have their eyes open to the world, ready to put themselves aside for others.

Through awakened attention, we open up more channels of perception. We learn not only to notice but also to draw meaning from what shows up in our lives. We see more, and we’re better able to use what we see.

Chapter 14, Awakened Attention

If you are a believer who questions the place of science in your faith, I encourage you to read this book. If you are an academic who questions the place of spirituality in your life, I encourage you to read this book. Allow Dr. Miller to challenge your brain and your faith. What’s the worst that can happen?