Faith Venture

Are You Prejudiced?

March 3, 2017

Remember how Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?”

Recently I saw one of my many friends from India. “Are you prejudiced?” he asked me. Three times.

I don’t feel any, I thought. But I was raised in the rural Midwest. I know I was raised with prejudices. Some were taught outright–never marry a Lutheran, my mom often said. They are almost as bad as Catholics. (Whatever that meant.)

My first date, when I was a senior in high school by the way, was a Lutheran. Go figure. But I married a Baptist–who was born in Kentucky. Oops. A family of outsiders had moved into town when I was little. All the old women whispered about “hillbillies.”

Except my wife was raised in Michigan. Oops. Everyone around is an Ohio State University fanatic. Hate Michigan.

Prejudiced? I don’t know. Nothing came to mind quickly. It’s hard to get past your roots. I’ll admit it takes me maybe a minute or so to get past piercings and tattoos to see the person underneath the rebellion.

There are behaviors I don’t like. Strong opinions not backed up by facts. Hate. Injustice. Am I prejudiced against the people? I don’t know. Maybe.

The first time I talked with a person of another race was when I was a freshman in college. Never had a problem with that. Gay people? Doesn’t bother me. People are people.

Even when I look at my Teacher. Jesus had no trouble with the Samaritan woman. But he did have quite the discussion with the SyroPhoenician woman about prejudice of Jews toward other tribes. “Even the dogs get table scraps,” she told him.

So I am still watching. Where are my prejudices? I must have some. You must have some. The way to get past them is to first recognize them. And then realize that all humans are created by a God who loves them.

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What Form of Sacrifice Works For You

March 2, 2017

Lent began yesterday. Somehow Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday just went past me, almost unnoticed. I was not raised in a tradition of emphasizing Lent. My virtual friend, Jon Swanson, has written a book for people like me–Lent for Non-Lent People. You can check it out, if you’re like me.

I guess it was the guy who gave up watermelon for Lent back when I was a kid that emphasized the frivolous nature of such traditions. That was back when Catholics fasted on every Friday. We had two or three Catholic kids in our school. The school cafeteria served either fish sticks or grilled cheese every Friday. I couldn’t stand either one (terribly finicky eater back in those days). Figured I could never become Catholic. Ah, kids and their ideas.

But I digress.

I’ve been reading people’s stories about their Lent experience. Many seem to be turning the fasting or sacrifice idea on its head a little. Instead of giving up something that they normally eat, they are finding ways to serve.

How about that? A special way of serving as a Lenten sacrifice? That sounds intriguing.

As a culture we build up Advent as anticipation of Christmas, but not so much Lent as anticipation of Easter. I guess there are so many secular Christmas songs–usually about snow, friends gathering, food, that sort of thing.

Easter is the end of winter, beginning of spring. Bad weather. Mud. Tornadoes. We’re tired of friends coming over mooching all the food.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the meaning of the resurrection. How we would not be Christian without it. I am a liberal in many ways, but I never understood liberal theology that couldn’t explain miracles, so they didn’t think a resurrection such as described by all those eye witness writers could have happened.

Bill Hybels just explained his “Do…Done” explanation again last week at Willow Creek. Use it with a seeker who asks. Some people say we get on God’s good side by what we Do. The more we Do the better. That is, until we discover it’s a gerbil wheel getting us no where. Then we discover the Done–what Jesus already has Done for us. We just acknowledge it and believe. It’s so simple.

So Easter–we celebrate the “Done”, the culmination of what began at Christmas.

How do you focus?

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Fear Not For God Is With You

March 1, 2017

Anger leads to fear; fear leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. Yoda

Every time God appeared to someone through an angel or whatever means, what was the greeting?

It was never, “Hi, how are you doing?”

“Don’t be afraid.” or “Fear not.”

We are seeing Yoda’s warning played out in major parts of the world right now. Certainly not a majority of people. However, media coverage make certainly makes it appear that everyone is angry, fearful, full of hate. And there is much suffering in the world.

These are emotions. Negative emotions. And philosophers from ancient times have taught us about how important it is for our well being, and the well being of our society, to control our emotions.

It is similar to James talking about the tongue. How it is the small rudder that steers the giant ship.

Most of my anger is the son of insecurity. Then it is triggered. Then comes regret.

We practice mindfulness to place a barrier around the negative emotions. We step back in our minds and watch ourselves as if a drama is playing out on a screen. And we see how foolish we look to have been manipulated into a situation of losing our balance emotionally.

How foolish it is to yell at someone who is only trying to help. Or at someone who is helpless , and whom we should be reaching out to help.

Paul tells us about living in the spirit. How we set our minds on things of the spirit and find life. In other places he talks of the fruit that comes from living that life. Things like peace and joy.

We become what we focus on. Do we want to be remembered as angry, hateful people? Or remembered for our spiritual walk? It really is our choice. We can choose anger and fear; we can choose the spirit.

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The Words of My Mouth And The Meditations of My Heart

February 28, 2017

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. –Psalm 19

Saw in a cartoon strip. Two 50-something men sitting in a bar. Old friends. One is a priest. Woman walks up who is an old friend not seen for many years. “Gosh, Nicole, you look, er, wonderful.”

The man turns to his friend, the priest, “Forgive me Father, for I am about to sin.”

“I don’t do funerals,” replied the priest.

My wife is in a small group studying the Sermon on the Mount. They hit the divorce teaching of Jesus. We talk about it. Not to get one, of course, but to consider the current cultural environment.

For example, the Religious Right chose an issue it thought would get the most emotional allegiance from politically conservative Christians. It did not choose divorce. In fact, it doesn’t even have a divorce teaching. One of the founders was quite frank about it–too many people are divorced and accept it as just a part of living. No big deal.

And the legal reason back in Jesus’ day for divorce was–adultery.

Jesus, when asked one of those trick questions, said that Moses put in a law about divorce because humans are sinful. But God didn’t create us to have disposable spouses. Then Jesus talked about the meditations of our heart.

In fact, Jesus said, just to contemplate how “wonderful” another person is in a sexual attitude is the same thing as adultery.

Words can be cruel things that cannot be recalled. The meditations of our heart, though, corrupt our very soul. That’s like yesterday’s teaching. Where we set our mind is the direction we’ll go. We become what we think about. Don’t let your imagination get carried away.

Posted in Attention, Disciplines, emotions | Leave a Comment »

Where You Set Your Mind, So Shall You Go

February 27, 2017

You become what you think about.

It’s Monday. Are you thinking about your week ahead?

What am I going to do this week? What will I work on? Who will I meet? Where will I go? Will I be surprised at the answers come Friday?

Maybe a better question to begin each week is, Who will I be this week?

Earl Nightingale was a radio personality making the first “personal development” recordings on actual records. He devoted his life to seeking wisdom. He discovered the phrase quoted above was repeated by almost every ancient philosopher. It’s the strangest secret, he said.

I’ve been teasing out meaning from Paul’s letter to the Romans. It began to dawn on me in Chapter 7 and then hit me in Chapter 8. “Fix your mind on” was the phrase as translated into English in the New International Version.

Fix your mind on matters of the spirit, and you will find life. Fix your mind on matters of the flesh, and you will find death.

It helps to rise each morning, and after drinking 8 oz. of water and fixing that cup of coffee or tea, sit down and read something spiritual and then contemplate. What shall be my focus today?

I will be [calm, joyful, thoughtful, patient, forceful] today. I will watch for opportunities to serve anyone anywhere.

I will become what I think about.

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Have You Lost That Creative Feeling?

February 24, 2017

If you want to hire a creative employee, you’ll have a 98% probability of success by bringing in someone who is 3-5 years old. On the other hand, you’ll have a 2% chance of success by hiring an adult. –attributed to a NASA study

A European speaker at the conference I attended this week opened with this remark. I didn’t try to validate it. It’s almost a truism.

As we age, we so easily fall into ruts. (For the young people, that refers back before all the roads were paved. Wagons and other vehicles would go over the same path and over time grooves would be worn called ruts. So you could just let the horse pull the wagon or take your hands off the steering wheel and the vehicle would just follow the rut.)

Check it out if you’re old enough to read this post.

Have you tried any new foods lately?
Have you read any books that cause you to stretch your mind?
Have you traveled somewhere out of the ordinary?
Do you have the same ideas and prejudices that you’ve had for years?
Are you in the same profession doing the same job the same way?

Or, like children.

Do you try different combinations of things?
Do you learn something new every day with joy and anticipation?
Do you dream of things being different?
Are “what if” and “why” a dominant part of your vocabulary?
Can your imagination just take off at times and you can sit in it for extended periods of time?

Try this.

Sit quietly for 20 minutes a day and list ideas. At least 10 ideas a day.
Meet and talk with someone new every week. Maybe make it 5 people instead of 1.
Begin to learn another language. That forces your brain into new ways of thinking.
Are you fascinated with NASA’s discovery of six earth-like planets? What can you imagine about them? What if we could travel there?
Pick up a book on a topic you haven’t read since elementary school.

Many of these I’ve tried. I had a great opportunity once to start a magazine. I looked at the space we’d cover looking for what’s new and different? That worked for 8-10 years. But things changed. So I tried to imagine what was next in industry. So, I went off in a new direction.

And that is the next step. I’ve always imagined things, but seldom had the courage and confidence to do them. That was then. And I grew up. Even now I hold back at times.

What is holding you back? Dream of a new you.

Tags: creativity
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Travel Is Fatal To Prejudice, Bigotry

February 23, 2017

Found this article on “Big Think.” This confirms observations that I have made over the years. It’s often said that there’s safety in numbers, and unfortunately, the bromide applies equally to people with hateful attitudes when they operate in groups. Racism, for example, is easy to maintain when surrounded by other haters, but a different matter altogether when a racist is alone with his or her intended victim. At that moment, it’s much harder to ignore the fact that the object of hatred is just another vulnerable human being with the right to be treated respectfully and decently.

Author Daryl Davis knows this, and as a black man has been disarming members of the Ku Klux Klan, one by one, since the 1980s by asking each one he meets, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” he tells the Daily Mail. He says he’s gotten over 200 KKK members to quit.

Davis is about to release an updated version of his memoir, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, which describes his experiences.

Davis cites Mark Twain in explaining how all the traveling his family did when he was young gave him a different view of racism, and an unusual patience with the ignorance underlying it: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

I hear so many blanket statements about groups of people. In today’s immigration argument, it’s a frequent topic. But, I think, they just don’t know any. It’s all theory. And theory is a killer. This man is a genius. I have none of his courage (or the social skills to pull it off).

Recently a message came my way–visit new places, meet new people, read new things. Good idea. Deal with people in the particular, not in the general.

Now, to go forth and practice my own preaching…

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A Smile Is All It Takes

February 22, 2017

She is a beautiful young woman. My server for breakfast at the Courtyard in San Diego Gaslamp District.

She may have been tall, maybe as tall as me. I’m not sure.

I think she had dark hair. But maybe medium brown.

Maybe a darker complexion. Or maybe fair?

Ah, the smile. That’s what I remember. What a nice, pleasant person with a great smile.

That sort of thing starts your day off right.

Ending the day in Carlsbad Village. Dinner at a nice small Italian restaurant. Glass of chianti. Probing discussion of deeply spiritual things. Is God unity? How wast the universe made? If it’s a closed system, is God outside the system? And inside at the same time?

Unanswerable questions that lead to deeper spiritual insight.

Quiet, and a smile.

Joy. What a blessing to be able to experience these incidents in the midst of chaotic politics. President? Who cares? There is the Spirit, and only the Spirit.

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, Disciplines | 1 Comment »

What One Thing Have You Done

February 21, 2017

What one thing have you done this year to simplify your life?

I saw that question recently. The writer was really talking about New Years Resolutions. But it fits at any time.

We know that one of the spiritual disciplines is simplicity.

Too much stuff gets in our way toward spirituality. Jesus said that we cannot serve God and material things. He was, of course, right. Our car, it often gets in the way.

What about clothes?

Furniture?

Decorations?

Cars?

Tools (ouch)?

Gadgets?

Jewelry?

Social status?

What do we need to give up in order to get closer to God?

What have you already given up?

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Let’s Pick The Scripture / Teaching We Want

February 20, 2017

It’s like a buffet. You get in the queue. All the dishes are laid out in front of you. Looking through the sneeze guard, you pick the things you want.

A guy I knew who was firmly and proudly in the Religious Right preferred to black out inconvenient teaching in the text. And often blacked out the context, too.

I’m teaching a class focusing on one of Paul’s letters. “I never liked Paul. He said such mean things about women.”

It is so inconvenient. Reading thoroughly for meaning within context, that is. It is so easy to pick out the things I agree with and ignore the rest.

And when we do that, we hurt people. Deeply.

I even know of people who have deeply held “religious” and “Christian” views that aren’t even in the Bible. Or even in any reputable Christian writing from the early Church fathers to Dallas Willard and Henri Nouwen.

And they deeply hurt people. And drive them away from the church.

Can I ask an existential question? What happens to both people when a self-proclaimed Christian person separates another person from God? Are there any winners? Are there any losers? Who?

I have only one faith–that God raised Jesus from death to life.

And two commandments that I follow quite poorly (geek that I am), namely Love God thoroughly and Love other people as myself.

So there are two responses, peace and justice.

And where lie peace and justice in a world where we draw lines based on buffet-line-style religion? And a world where self-centeredness rules?

How about instead of a buffet line reading of the Scripture we try a wine tasting way? We try some and learn to savor the different flavors and aromas. Discerning the nuances of each grape and fermentation process. And then try some more.

Spiritual writing is to be savored with discernment, not picked over and swallowed without tasting.

Posted in Compassion, Disciplines, Love, Study | Leave a Comment »