Hmmm … not certain what I think about that.

This just in … my e-mail box from LightHusband:

Talking Jesus Doll Stirs Debate … yes … that’s what it is … a talking Jesus action figure. He quotes Bible verses and tells the story of the loaves and fishes. There’s a lot of concern spouted about how children will become desensitized to these … perhaps even mix and match his robes for Bratz clothing.

My concern is not so much for that, Jesus can wear any clothes the kids want and well, He’ll still just be a plastic action figure. I have a larger concern. This doll is, you got it … Made In China.

Does anyone else catch the irony? An action figure which is arguably an icon of religious freedom being manufactured in one of the least free nations on earth. By people who would be put to death if they worshipped Him. That’s beyond ironic and moving toward cruel.

I don’t even want to get into the whichever commandment … Thou shalt not make any graven images. We broke that one a long, long time ago.

I have a real problem with a Jesus doll being made by slaves, sold by a company (Wal-Mart) which condones slave like conditions in its stores … Jesus was about justice, mercy and freedom. He explicitly said in Luke 4, “I have come to set the captives free.” There is no captivity like economic slavery (read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck sometime if you doubt me). There is no hope, no light and no freedom there; the bondage is eternal. So manufacturing and selling a Jesus action figure in that environment … well, it just makes my skin crawl.

How much is the salvation of little Western souls worth? Apparently more than the lives of Chinese men and women.

I get a daily e-mail from Sojourners. It’s called Verse and Voice. There is a daily scripture and a daily quote that has something to do with the scripture. I read it, more or less, every day. Some days I’m overwhelmed and I don’t read it.

I can still remember the first time I encountered the scripture that came with today’s verse. It hit me right between the eyes. I was so taken with it, that I wrote it down on an index card and put it on the refrigerator so I could read it everytime I opened the door. And I did. It was a long time ago that I heard that verse … we had the old battleaxe avocado green refrigerator in our townhouse. But I can picture the index card on the freezer door. I had to write small to get it all in, because I didn’t just put the two verses that Sojourners sent … I had a whole bunch more for context. For weeks I would pause to read it whenever I opened the freezer. It took my breath away; my heart fell and broke with God’s at the poverty of our injustice to each other.

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The Lord saw it, and it displeased [God] that there was no justice.
– Isaiah 59:14-15

But I had never quite considered it as close to home as the author of today’s quote did. In general, I tend to take a global view of things and some times have a hard time seeing the trees for the forest (I’m quite certain that’s why my house is so messy … I just see the big mess and cannot clean it up 😉 ). Nonetheless, I was quite taken aback by Peter Horsfield’s quote for the day and his perspective on forgiveness:

Unfortunately, though we often talk about forgiveness within the church, very often by the way we deal with things—attempting to suppress conflict, not making judgments, keeping things secret, not enforcing the ethical conditions we talk about, not holding the powerful accountable—we actually create a situation that stops people from being able to forgive.

It’s quite a lot to chew on … how justice, mercy and the ability to forgive all walk down the road together, hand in hand. They are, it would seem, interdependent upon each other.

As noted previously, LightGirl had hockey practice on Halloween evening.  So she and I participated in a long standing tradition.

We drove through a local Chic-fil-a for dinner on our way to practice.  She got a sandwich, fries and a lemonade.  I got a chargrilled wrap and a rootbeer.

Now it so happens that as one drives out of the drive through slot of this Chic-fil-a one is catty corner to the end of a strip mall, the tail of which is a Panera.  Standing on the corner as we drove out yesterday evening were three older teens … maybe even pushing 20.  They were dressed for the evening … in costume.

“Hey, Mom, look.  There’s an angel and a devil and Jesus on the corner by Panera.  And look!  That’s really funny.  Jesus is smoking.”

“Well, how do you know that’s Jesus?”

“I don’t know Mom, but I think the crown of thorns gives it away, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

Jesus smoking on a street corner on Halloween.

So, what better place for Him to be?

Well … what do you see here? Tell me in the comments. I’ll tell what I see later too. I found this at My Blue Puzzle Piece, but it’s a fairly common optical illusion. I like how the author of the site presents it though:

Have you ever been with other people while looking at one of those optical illusions? Have you ever been the one person who couldn’t see what everyone else sees? It’s frustrating! It’s easy to suspect they’re just playing a prank.

I particularly suspect they are playing a prank when someone hauls out one of these … Just stare at this for a while the instructions declare … so everyone does, including me.  So … just stare at this for a while.

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I could stare at that for the rest of my misbegotten days and nothing would happen.  Not one blessed thing.  The rest of you would chatter on about all the wonderful and cool things you saw.  Me.  Nothing.  It’s a prank.  Only, I know it’s not.  I know for certain that all of you saw something.  I wish I could.  I know that I have sucky eyes (astigmatism, near-sighted and who-knows-what-else and am legally blind without correction).  It could have something to do with all of that.  Or perhaps the way my abi-normal brain works (I do have a seizure disorder with an abnormal EEG).  Who knows?  It’s frustrating.  So when people haul out these party games out, I mostly just walk the other way and find something else to do.

I was thinking about this optical illusion quite a bit lately though.

Depending on whether you look more at the white space or the black space you can see either two facial profiles or one chalice.  I’ve been involved in several conversations in a variety of places this past week about women in church (that’s the Body of Christ worldwide, not necessarily any particular church).  I like this illusion because it’s a good visual for me (just me) about how I feel about women in church.  I’m pretty committed to the idea that it takes balanced participation from both men and women to present a holistic picture of God to the world.  So I like this visual because there are two equal profiles and one chalice … to me the chalice represents the wine or Blood of Christ poured out for us.  And this is an easy illusion to see through.  Most people can “get it.”  They can see both sides easily.  I like that.  It’s helpful in pushing the envelope to opening up the other side.

In my conversations I’ve thinking about what the contribution of women might be and how women can fit in.  I’ve been asking, of myself and others, what does this look like?  How can women fit into the picture?  Yesterday, I realized that I had been making some assumptions about the painting that had been all askew.  Look again at the illusion above.  You’ll see some very wonderful symmetry there.  The two profiles match exactly.  It’s makes a great visual … but it suddenly occurred to me that trying to find that same symmetry in real life was not terribly effective.  I had that thought as a result of reading the following on GodSpace, the blog of Christine Sine:

It reminded me of a book I read many years ago written in 1970s by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier called The Gift of Feeling, in which he reflects on what the world would look like if women found their true place.  At one point he comments “If women dared to be themselves, to realize their special mission and if their influence increased, would our society become more humane?”
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Father Dear writes in his article:

“Women are the peacemakers. The world will not achieve peace without the energy and the work of women.” So writes Dolores Huerta of the United Farmworkers. Gandhi said the same thing in 1947: “Women are the natural messengers of the gospel of nonviolence, if only they will realize their high estate…. It is for American women to show what power women can be in the world. You can become a power for peace by refusing to be carried away by the flood-tide of the pseudo-science glorifying self-indulgence that is engulfing the West today and apply your minds instead to the science of nonviolence…. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with women.”

“It” is an article by Father Dear in The National Catholic Reporter to which Christine links. And, I must confess, I’ve really given you most of Christine’s post.  Because it’s good.  I must also recommend the article in the NCReport by Father John Dear.  It’s also a must read. Discover the power of clomid forms! Are you struggling with fertility issues? Don’t lose hope! Introducing the game-changing clomid forms that are designed to support your journey towards parenthood.

As I reflect on both and my conversations that I have been involved in, I continue in my commitment to the having space for women in the picture of God.  For having a full profile for women as well as men in that optical illusion as it were.  But I’m beginning to understand that my understanding and perspective on symmetry may need to be adjusted as I wander down the path.

The other day I was cleaning the kitchen. It was a long and frustrating task. You’ve heard of people being color-blind? My family is trash-blind. They do not see trash. It is invisible to them; it blends into the flotsam and jetsam of all the stuff surrounding it. So I was tidying up. I found the hotdog rolls in the hotpad basket. I found a hard crumpled roll behind the breadbox. I found two (2) empty papertowel tubes. Yeah, I don’t know why the person who was kind enough to replace them with a full roll of paper towels was unable to take two extra steps and throw the empty tubes away … but there you have it … trash-blind.

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Then I found this:

Emergency Vampire Garlic

Yes, that would be LightGirl’s handwriting.

I almost fell out laughing. I will keep this for a long, long time. Maybe it *will* keep the vampires away. Kinda like clapping your hands keeps the polar bears away.

Later on LightBoy and two FlamingLambs came through giggling and laughing, chattering happily about what Halloween costumes they had planned this year. LightBoy is going to be a dwarf, one FlamingLamb will be a devil, I missed the other descriptions. They all inspected the garlic and agreed that it was an important addition to the kitchen. The conversation continued as they discussed a neighbor girl who does not celebrate Halloween, “… she’s Catholic and thinks Halloween is of Satan. She just follows what her church tells her to do without thinking. But she’s nice anyway.”

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Wow. Out of the mouths of babes. We used to not *do* Halloween. We used to go along with the whole Halloween is evil thing. I never quite understood it, because I’ve always known about the real history of Halloween and understood it’s roots as All Hallows Eve … that is the eve for All Saints Day. I’ve always understood that the history behind dressing up in costumes and putting candles in hollowed out pumpkins was in order to frighten evil spirits away, not call them down. In any case, in this day and age, I was always a little confused about the whole evil spirits running rampant on Halloween thing anyway. It seemed a little … well … medieval.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to make waves over something so insignificant. So we went along with all of it. We kept our children safe and sound and went to “Harvest Parties” at church. Truthfully, I never saw what the difference was. All the children got dressed up, ran around getting pumped up on too much sugar, and came home with bags full of candy. The only difference was they’d stayed in one place doing it … and had boring, dorky costumes.

Then I got belligerent. If there truly was something wrong with Halloween, we plain old weren’t going to do anything at all. One year we went out to dinner with friends. Another year we went to the mountains. Then I began to realize … there’s nothing wrong with Halloween. So we decided to celebrate it.

My kids have been pirates and witches and cave people and this year LightGirl wants to skate as a vampire. She is infatuated with vampires this year. There is that last tiny part of my brain that wants to me to be afraid of this. The rest of me is assured that this is a phase. In part it is a phase of exploration of something new and shiny. In part it is to test me and see if I will holler. So I just look at her when it comes up and try not to roll my eyes at the ridiculous makeup.
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Here is the other reason I am unconcerned. I know her heart. During the years that we did not do Halloween, I was told that it was important to keep my children safe so that they would grow up to be “Godly.” I’m still wondering what that means. I thought I knew what it meant at the time. At the time, what I did know was that it was important to keep my children separate in order to be safe and thus become “Godly.” If they were not separate they would lose that chance … somehow. It was a weird and strange logic as I began to really think it through. There were some sane underpinnings to it, despite the oddness. But the stark command that I could not get past without bruising my forehead on it, was this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ‘There is no commandment greater than these.”

I began to consider that loving God and loving our neighbors included living and being amongst them … including on Halloween. That there was nothing to fear. And so … there is nothing to fear. Including vampires. LightGirl’s heart is wonderful. She is of an age now where she is struggling through who she is and what she believes. She is discovering what her faith is and what it will become. But I rest easy in the fact that she has the heart of a Jesus-follower. She does not know this yet, but she loves God and she loves her neighbor. She has learned and is learning the role of being a light in the world. I see this played out over and over again as she brings her teammates together on her hockey team. It is a remarkable thing to see 11 or 12 eleven, twelve and thirteen year old girls who get along and do not form cliques. The parents all shake their heads in wonder at this … but I know that a very small part of the reason is that LightGirl wanders amongst them with her shepherd’s heart looking for the lost sheep; pulling them back into the flock. And that is the best vampire protection of all.

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The October 24th SynchroBlog includes 26 people sharing their thoughts, their experiences, and their expertise on the subject of “A Christian Response to Halloween” (or at least something remotely connected to that idea.) Perhaps not all the writers are Christian, and that is actually even cooler. Please check out these offerings of love, and gore…uh, I mean lore.

The Christians and the Pagans Meet for Samhain at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Our Own Private Zombie: Death and the Spirit of Fear by Lainie Petersen
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
John Morehead at John Morehead’s Musings
What’s So Bad About Halloween? at Igneous Quill
H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N Erin Word
Halloween….why all the madness? by Reba Baskett
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Hallmark Halloween by John Smulo
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Removing Christendom from Halloween at On Earth as in Heaven
Vampires or Leeches: A conversation about making the Day of the Dead meaningful by David Fisher
Encountering hallow-tide creatively by Sally Coleman
Kay at Chaotic Spirit
Apples and Razorblades at Johnny Beloved
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Fall Festivals and Scary Masks at The Assembling of the Church
Why Christians don’t like Zombies at Hollow Again
Peering through the negatives of mission Paul Walker
Sea Raven at Gaia Rising
Halloween: My experiences by Tim Victor’s Musings
Making Space for Halloween by Nic Paton

We have two pets. Hmmm … well … that’s not quite true. We have two animals that are considered pets and then we have a fish tank. So if you count the fish in the fish tank, I don’t know how many pets we have. I don’t count the fish. So we have two pets. They are Sam (the golden retriever) and Monty (the black cat).

Sam is also known as Samuel Allen Dawg. That’s his registered name … he is registered with the American Kennel Club. Samuel Allen is for the man who was Ethan Allen’s father. Ethan being the Revolutionary War hero … um … not the furniture store. We added the Dawg because you have to have three names for the AKC and we couldn’t think of anything else. It seemed appropriate.

Monty is also known as Montgomery Montgomery from the Series of Unfortunate Events. He was born in our laundry room on Patriot’s Day 2005. He is a beastie cat. He yells a lot. He also purrs a lot. This has saved him from many trials.

Today, as I heard Monty yelling from across the field that he wanted to come in the house (the door was already open), I remarked, “That cat is dumber than a sack of hair.” Which sent LightBoy into gales of laughter. When he recuperated he said, “Mom! That cat *is* a sack of hair.” We were eating lunch out on the deck. It’s wrong to be able to eat lunch outside in the end of October. I’m enjoying it, but it’s wrong.

Monty has been in one too many cat fights lately and he’s looking a little raggedy. His back end looks as though a five year old took after him with a set of electric clippers … and the clippers lost. We imagined what it would take to make a set of cat armor for him that would work. He needs to let his fur grow back. But I don’t imagine he’ll stay inside for vanity’s sake. Does anyone know where we can get some kitty kevlar?

After lunch we came inside and settled into our seats in the family room. The door to the deck was open. The wind was blowing. Sam is worried. He keeps watching the door waft back and forth. What is making that door move? No one is standing anywhere near it. He looks at me. He looks at the door. Why is the woman not worried about that door? Why doesn’t she see it move? The door should not move! Make it stop!! The door keeps gently moving. Now some papers flutter in the breeze. Oh wait … the breeze fans his feathers and he likes that so he forgets about the door and faces the wind. Then … the door moved in his peripheral vision again and the worry returns. I watched this for a while bemused.

Our pets are a source of almost endless amusement for me. Especially Sam. I wonder what it would be like to not understand the wind. To see a door move and worry about it’s source. Then I think … maybe that’s why the church is struggling so right now. We do not understand the Wind. We see it move a door and worry about it’s source. Instead of just enjoying the Wind and allowing it to blow and letting the Wind curl around us and embrace us, we worry about it. Maybe we should just relax and let it be.

As promised yesterday here is my review of It’s A Dance: Moving With The Holy Spirit, by Patrick Oden.

In a nutshell … I want to buy this book for all my friends and sit down and talk about it with them over coffee and Bishop’s Bread (my very favorite coffee cake – homemade). Of course, since they are spread out over four time zones this might be fairly difficult. I’m having a hard time writing a serious review that all of you will pay attention to, because really … the book just makes me grin and laugh and think all at the same time. It makes me want to dance again.

For everyone who needs experience with the Holy Spirit … get It’s A Dance. For those of you who are post-charismatic or charismissional … get It’s A Dance. It’s a must. Seriously (and now I feel slightly like a used car salesman … but … I really mean this).

Here are my favorite things about It’s A Dance …

First, it’s so holistic. It is complete and whole and yet within the warp and woof of the text I found room for my own story to weave in and out; making a new picture amongst the original.

When I was a child my dad used to play a silly game with me. He would put his hands together and put his fingers together in a certain manner and say, “Here is the church.” Then he’d change their position, “Here is the steeple.” Then he’d change the position again, “Open the door,” and he’d flip his hands around and waggle his fingers in the air at me, “and see all the people.”

So many books on theology and the church don’t have any place for the people. There are no people in the church or in theology. They are dry. When you flip them around and open them up, there’s nothing there to waggle. But It’s A Dance has room for people in it’s theology and in the church. I suspect each person reading this book will find a uniquely different story here, because they have a different story to weave in amongst it’s main threads.

Patrick also manages to deal with huge themes fairly thoroughly in a smallish book. He doesn’t do so completely, but he hits the high points and does so gracefully and thoroughly through the venue of conversational story-telling. We read about power, pride, church issues, giving, receiving, marriage, love, creativity, unity, leadership, following, going, staying, sacred and secular … among many other things.

Second, It’s A Dance really is a dance. One of the things I love is finding patterns that reveal further patterns. It’s one of the things I love about history. It’s also one of the things I love about quilting. So many quilts use fabric patterns and block patterns to reveal secondary, larger patterns going on. So you begin making one thing and end up making something entirely different. Patrick used the metaphor of a dance to describe the relationship of the Trinity to one another. He does so beautifully in this piece of conversation:

“Well, I know that God doesn’t seem too concerned if he doesn’t make sense, but I do think God works and exists in a way that can make sense to us, if only on some level. One basic way of understanding God’s interaction with himself is to think of his existence as a dance.”

“A dance?”

“Yeah, a dance. What happens when people are dancing?”

I pause for a moment, not quite sure what he’s asking. “Depends on the style I guess, but people move together following a specific rhythm.”

“Take ballroom dancing,” Nate says.

“I did, and lasted about half the class before falling too far behind.”

“It’s complicated,” he laughs. “Two people have to act in a concerted way to the music. Moving their whole bodies in intricate patterns together, always acting and reacting to what the other person is doing, always moving with each other even if they aren’t doing the same thing.”

“God is a dancer?”

“God is all the dancers, and the music, and everything. Think of the Trinity as interacting in this complicated and amazingly intricate dance. They are all moving as one, together, even as they are not the same person and even if they are doing different things in different ways.”

“God is not line dancing, is He?”

“No,” Nate laughs. “That’s everyone doing the same sort of thing together, all in a row. God is like a ballroom dancer, or even better, a ballet, with the whole show being this gathered collection of intricate steps and interactions. The dancers highlight each other, point to each other. They create this rhythmic flow out of their separate contributions.”

“The Trinity is that sort of dance?”

“That’s basically what the term perichoresis means. It’s a swirling together dance of the Trinitarian persons.” (p. 85-86)

Yet on a deeper level, It’s A Dance is also a dance between textbook, novel and Scripture. Patrick very adeptly uses the dance metaphor as a description and as an organizational tool to form the basis of the conversation that flows throughout this book. The conversation dances along, winding it’s way through scripture and text and story always leaving space for the reader to improvise a few steps of their own and find their own story within the larger story; to say, “Hey, I recognize that,” or “I remember when that happened and I …” or “Wow, that looks something like x in our community and I bet we could …”

Third, the historian in me was oh, so happy to discover that everything old really is new again. When I first read reviews of the book it was revealed that it is a novel written in conversation form. It takes place almost entirely in the form of conversations between Luke, a newspaper reporter, and Nate, a “pastor” (you’ll have to read the book to discover why I put quotes around that 😉 ) and several other people involved in Nate’s church. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Interesting approach.” But then I got to the end of the book and read (as I always do) the notes on the sources. Well, first I read the Bibliography. Before that I have to tell you that there are no footnotes in this book making it a wonderfully refreshing read. The bibliography is diverse and spread out … by which I mean I think there are books in this bibliography from all periods in Christian history. Indeed the final quote in the main body of the book comes from Tertullian … not entirely expected in a book on the Holy Spirit, but in the end, entirely apt. Then I read that the idea of writing the text in the format of a conversation came from, not something new and novel, but from an extremely old and ancient source … The Conferences, written by John Cassian in the 400’s AD. As Patrick writes (in his notes on sources):

The conversation breaks up the difficult considerations and allows for questions to be asked–questions that are often on the readers’ minds. It also makes the theology into a story. This is not a removed set of philosophical statements but instead people living the life God has called them to live. We remember the story, the characters, the conversation much better than we remember details and notes. (p. 266)

He’s right. We do remember stories and characters and conversations. Theology … not so much. But if it’s put into the context of story, we can remember it. More than that, we can embrace it and find it in our own story. And this last is why I think this book is so important. It allows the reader to approach and embrace some really important theology in a way that many other books on the subject do not. It brings lofty subjects down to street level … which is where God might just want them in the first place.

So … if you only get one book in November, let this be it. Or put it on your Christmas list. Just make sure you read it.

I’ve kept reminding myself to breath these last couple of days. Just breath. Just breath.

Smaug rolled again yesterday and snorted. He did it in the most unlikely of places too. Caught me completely unaware. I hate when that happens. I was happily reading blog posts and sipping my morning coffee. When Googlereader flashed a new post from Bro. M. entitled “Stockholm Syndrome.” “Ohhh … sure to be good,” I thought.  And just clicked on through.

I’d really recommend reading the whole post and comments for yourself. I know I always do that. You’re probably tired of it. I do that for a number of reasons. Primarily, I do it because words are a dicey form of communication. I interpret them slightly differently than you. So, you’ll read that post a little bit differently than I do … because your context is different from mine. Second, I’m sure to have missed some important point or other … so please go point that out to me. I always need the help. I can synopsize here … but you’re really better off reading it for yourself. Especially the comments, which are also good.

I spent the better part of yesterday and now this morning stewing over that post. It hit me hard. I don’t know if it was between the eyes or in the solar plexus. In either case, I spun away dizzy and hurt. Churning and emotionally stunned. It wasn’t that Bro. M. wrote anything particularly hurtful. It was that what he wrote stirred up the waters of a pond I have just recently brought to still. I tried several times throughout the day to write a coherent comment at his place and couldn’t. So, I’m writing here. In between breathing and taping the trim and painting.

Bro. M. likened some of the experiences in church and spiritual abuse to the experience that some kidnap victims have that is known as Stockholm Syndrome. “Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed.”

I’m not certain that I agree with Bro. M. that Stockholm Syndrome adequately describes the effect or the relationship between the parties in the relationship when spiritual abuse or bullying happens. I think that there are some aspects of it that are present. But here is where I think there is a significant difference between victims who are under the influence of Stockholm Syndrome and victims of spiritual abuse. Victims who are influenced by Stockholm Syndrome eventually come to realize that the things that they feared while under the influence of their kidnapper/protagonist were unreal, unreasonable and/or illegitimate fears. They were (in a word) made up, in many cases, by the kidnapper in order to hold sway over the victim.

Victims of spiritual abuse never have that realization. Their worst fears are all realized. They lose. They lose their friends. They lose their spiritual family. They lose their source of spiritual support. They lose everything. I can count on one hand the number of friends I have. One. There is hardly anyone to pray for me and mine in the brick and mortar world. We are alone. And it is lonely here. This walk is painful and dry and hungry. On my good days, I know that God is here. On my bad days (and they are frequent) even God is absent.

In January of 2006 I had a nervous breakdown that involved panic attacks and depression. My panic revolved around an unreasonable fear I had that people (policemen mostly) were going to accuse me of something I hadn’t done and the courts would not believe my testimony or any evidence I gave on my own behalf. I was fortunate to have a good counselor and psychiatrist who working together brought me out of that state in relatively short order. I learned how to deal with those fears and strange thoughts. The brain is an interesting organ. But imagine my dismay when it turned out to be some horrible foreshadowing. In January 2007 the people making the unfounded accusations were not the police, but some of my closest friends and no one would believe my testimony or any of the evidence I gave on my own behalf.

I’m no spring chicken. I’ve been around for a while now. One of the things that I’ve been involved with for a long, long time is the process of peace. Redemption. Reconciliation. Mediation. I first heard about it when I worked with the Neighborhood Justice Project to fulfill my community service requirement in college. This was a group that was devoted to mediating disputes between landlords and tenants in the town where I went to college. I heard about it next when I was interning for Senator Stafford. One of his assistants was involved in an initiative that would eventually become The Network of Peace and Conflict Studies at George Mason University. Both of those examples date back to the very early 1980’s and I could go on. My personal history is rife with such examples. I’m dipping into the deep past to say that I’ve been immersed in the issues of peace, redemption and reconciliation for a very long time and it pre-dates my journey with Jesus by a number of years. I know how to mediate and I know the cost involved in reconciliation. I’ve done both … and it’s painful. It’s hard. I am never good at it. I’m not certain anyone is.

So this morning I read this post at Jonathan Brink’s blog about the Mark Driscoll kerfuffle. I’m going to quote some of what he wrote. Not because I think MD has anything to do with this issue, but because Jonathan said some significant things about the process of reconciliation (or not) and redemption (or not) that we all highjack:

All of this makes me realize there might have been a deeper wisdom to Jesus inviting us to, “Turn the other cheek.” How many times have we read that verse assuming it was only our enemy. Maybe Jesus knew we’d need that verse for our own brothers (and sisters) too, for the one’s that hurt us within the church.

The reality is that my brother is going to miss the mark sometimes. But if I go to him in secret, holding his dignity in love, he’ll know I really am his brother. I can listen to why he thinks this or that and say, “Oh I get it…but have you thought about this.” It’s just between the two of us. Jesus knew that love was the only response that worked. In a mission of restoration and reconciliation, I can’t do that if there are blows thrown.

Maybe Jesus knew that the moment someone strikes us is the moment we are being invited to destroy ourselves by striking back or running away. When someone hit us was actually the most defining moment of our lives. It was in this moment that life was demanding an answer to who we really are. Are we really the children of a living God?

See … going to a brother in secret? Well, one sort of supposes that that conversation is kept in confidence. That is when redemption and reconciliation is possible. On the other hand, sometimes those conversations are used as artillery. When one discovers that the conversations have not been kept in confidence, but have been twisted and maimed; taken out of context and given to others. Then one is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I absolutely loved what Jonathan had to say … it’s beautiful and right and good and true. However, if you find that the brother or sister you’ve gone to is not trustworthy or is not playing the same game that you are. There is nothing else to do, but walk away. There is no reconciliation possible. You may over time forgive that person. But until they are ready to reconcile and play on an even field, redemption of the relationship cannot work.

And so I also found myself at odds with Bill Kinnon (it was a strange day indeed). He riffed on Bro. M.’s post writing about the responsibilities of the congregation under such brutal leadership. He said in part:

But there are congregations throughout the world that are, for want of a better word, stupid. For, as Forrest Gump is wont to say, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Rather than exhibiting the power of collective intelligence*, they reflect the swamp of collective stupidity. Their senior pastors operate like potentates with management skills worthy of inclusion in Bob Sutton’s book or possibly one of Robert Hare’s – whilst these so-called leaders are busy self-identifying as Level 5 leaders. Yet the pew people stay loyal followers.

Sorry, Bill, I need to part ways with you on this. I don’t believe in collective stupidity. I do, however, believe in a state of collective fear. Or should I say … pack behavior. We are, after all, dogs. Or, in the words of Handel, sheep. No one wants to be excluded from the pack (herd). May I refer you to my (not so wonderful) post on the topic? The people in a church know exactly what happens to those who step out of line. The leadership make sure of it.

I was emotionally raped in front of my team by my leadership in my own livingroom. They did it on purpose. Guess who are their most ardent followers now? Those who saw up close and personal how savage the leaders could be. They know exactly what will happen if they step out of line. They know exactly when, where and how they will be outcast.

Those things are unspoken in any social construct. Every social entity has a gatekeeper. That gatekeeper lets people in and out. Is the keeper of the pack so to speak. That person is also the keeper of the unwritten and unspoken rules of that social entity. People will go to great lengths to keep that person happy without being aware of what they are doing … without that person even being aware of their own position in the group. People know what they have to do in order to “make” it in a group and so they do those things in order to get along and stay part of the herd. Because the root desire of most people’s heart is to belong. They want to belong to the larger group.

So, I don’t believe it is collective stupidity that drives people to suspend their good judgment in order to continue to belong to unhealthy groups/churches. I don’t believe it is Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t know what it is. I think there are some parts that want to continue doing and being what and where God calls us to be. We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And most of all, nobody wants this … this long walk in a desert. Nobody chooses this. It’s much too hard, too lonely, and people will do almost anything to put it off. I know I did.

… or how Christians have gotten it wrong lately.

I was tagged by Julie (who was tagged by the eminent Bro. M.) in a new meme, based upon the book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters. For some good thinking on the book and the meme, you should go to Bro.M’s post … he’s very thorough. Much more so than I.

Here is the gist of it … as few as 10 years ago Christianity had a good name. Now, not so much. For the meme we are to list three negatives of the Christian religion that is all too prevalent and then 1 positive of the faith that we wish were more abundant.

Negatives …

Christians are cherry-pickers. They pick and choose which parts of the Bible they’re going to pay attention to on any given day of the week. Ferinstance, they’re all for the right to life. When it’s in the womb. Once you’re out and breathing though, by god, you’d better take care of yourself. Welfare is for slackers and lie-a-beds. You want to kill all the killers too. Nuke the towelheads. The death penalty is our God-given right. There are consequences to sin and you’d better be prepared to pay ’em in this life and in the next.

Christians are always right and Right. Jesus is a Republican. Or he would be if were here today. Your salvation is in question if you vote Democrat. No lie. Christians should be involved in politics as long as those politics are conservative … make that reactionary. And you should always have an answer that is right, as in correct. Be able to answer every question, even those that are never asked. When you’re always right, no one can ever question you. Nice place to be, yeah? No conversation there …

Christians like to live in ivory towers, closeted away from the stains of the world. They listen to “Godly” music. They raise “Godly” children. They have “Godly” chatchkes. They have “Godly” friends. Their children marry “Godly” spouses. Can someone tell me what that means? Everything is carefully controlled and contrived. They have Harvest parties so their children won’t be tainted by Halloween … but it all looks the same, it just has a different name. We’re just fooling ourselves.

Here’s what I think … I think the three things I mentioned above stem from one thing. Fear. And Jesus came to set us free from fear. So here’s what I wish I would see in the Christian faith more abundantly … freedom.

I would love to see Christians living freely. Giving freely. Living with open hands in a closed fisted world. I would love to see those of us follow Jesus living in His freedom … smiling, laughing, dancing, giving, loving, and living openly, honestly. Being who we are without masks. Being Jesus to a frightened world. Imagine that for a moment. What a wonderful world it would be …

I’d love to hear the thoughts of Bill Kinnon, Erin Word, David Fisher, and Kay Paris on this subject.

The last time I stood in a church and participated in communion was March 4, 2007. I have not stepped into a sanctuary or had the Eucharist since then. I did not go to church on Easter. Not at Pentecost. When I had my annual physical recently, my doctor was astonished that I have forsworn the gathering of the saints. She was very concerned about that.

The friend I spoke of in my previous post has dealt with her issues of trust in another fashion. Her family attends a local mega-church. As she put it, “Why do you think we go to a church of 11,000 people?” And I responded, “That’s why we don’t go to church at all.”

Yesterday, however, I gathered with friends at the home of TexasBlueBelle and BlueMan. There were friends of their children present as well. The house overflowed with teenagers, adults, and children of all ages. The neighbors who have stood by them were there too. The couple from the neighborhood who have remained steadfast have lived there for seven years. They are not Jesus following people or people of any particular book. At one time or another it seems that they were indoctrinated in the ways of church, but that was long ago and far away.

We had lunch and heard the tales in the first person from all four of them for a little while. Things are much worse than I thought. When we all drove in there were people outside watching us arrive. There were people watching the house every time we stepped outside. It was eerie. It was weird. I wondered what they thought we would do or they would see. I waved and smiled as I left. There are six Peace Orders on the court docket scheduled to be heard on Friday, October 5.

After lunch we gathered in the livingroom for a communion service that I’d put together that included some prayers … the Lorica of St. Patrick, a Caim Prayer and we had open prayer for my friends and their neighbors. Then we all took communion together.

“Church” happened all afternoon. Love was present in the room. In the house. In the yard. Love and hope and joy and wonder filled the air as we gathered together to support our friends and celebrate communion together. We prayed for shielding from hate and persecution. We prayed for redemption and reconciliation. We prayed for peace.

I wish I had words for the beauty of what happened in that livingroom. I know that a lot of people cried, but I didn’t. I don’t always cry when things move me, but I will always treasure that afternoon. The prayers of the people and the children were simply beautiful. They were simple. And beautiful. And filled with hope. It was food and drink for the soul in ways that have no words.

The bread of heaven and the cup of salvation … world without end.