In an earlier post, I reported on my Lenten observance this year: that of seeking to see God in everyone I encounter. As might be expected, I have done an abysmal job of this so far. Long years of crusty habit have made the faults and foibles of others too easy for me to find, and God gets lost in all the judging.
And yet. . . There was a day, one day, a week or two ago now, that I walked in to work and gazed around at all the people—the sea of faces (I currently work in a large municipal library). And what I saw on each face was the touch of God, the Divine Presence looking back at me and saying, “Here I am; here in this person I have made.” The room swam and I literally caught my breath as I recognized God everywhere—walking and talking and looking back at me.
Sometimes, it seems as if God is very far away, and we have to look awfully hard for any kind of reminder that God even remembers us. Sometimes, though, God is right there in front of us, looking us full in the face. Would that I always saw God so clearly!
And then the moment passed. And, of course, by the next day, those I encountered were the same irritating, rude people they always are (and so was I). I did not see the presence of God in the people I encountered, and now halfway through Lent, I catch myself even forgetting to look.
But there was a day I saw it. And I will never forget it. I think that if I can make this practice a habit, and learn regularly to see God in others (in whatever way God is present in them), I will encounter God more often. I wouldn’t feel quite so often as if God is so far away. Instead, I would talk with God every day, in every person I meet. Whoever seeks, finds.
What if I don’t need everything I think I need? What if I lose everything, but grow closer to God as a result?
What if I don’t really want what I think I want? What if losing everything–really LOSING EVERYTHING– actually is the source of true gain?
What if Jesus was exactly right when he said, “Blessed are the poor?”
What if all the personas I try to adopt to put myself in the best possible light with others are themselves only shadowy projections of an insecure ego separated from God?
What if there is nothing great that I must do, no goal I must achieve beyond union with God? What if career and calling are subtle traps for the ego, taking me away from knowing God?
What if the most important thing I can do is pray? What if all my attempts to wrap myself up in achievements and activit–to make myself look good–are worth nothing compared to the openness of naked surrender to God?
What if becoming less wealthy, less important, less connected, less well thought of leads to the very death of self that allows God in? What if, in all my grasping, I grasp only misty shadows, and lose God?
What if self-improvement is not truly possible, and there is only being more or less united to God?
What if gaining the world really does mean losing my soul?
What if there is no one I need impress, nothing I must achieve, no pleasure that would make me happier? What if all I need is God?
What if making life better is a chimera? What if there is no better save union with God?
What if all the work I must do is in the world within, rather than in the world without, deep down where my soul meets with God?
What if, finally, God is all there is, and all there need be?
I really like the Five for Fighting song “100 Years.” The song highlights the swiftness of life, as the singer passes through various life stages: “I’m 15 for a moment . . . 33 for a moment . . . blink of an eye, 67 is gone . . . 99 for a moment . . . ” You get the idea. You can hear the whole song in the YouTube clip below.
The title of the song references roughly the human life span (I believe the average Western life span is now actually 79, but 100 sounds much more poetic). It’s a beautiful song, and a good reminder to make the most of the time we have. The refrain is haunting, “When you’ve only got a hundred years to live . . .”
The problem is that that’s not entirely true. We’re very materialistic, we Westerners. And right now I’m not talking about our love of stuff, our desire to accumulate, our consumerism—although to be sure those are problems for us, too (and related to our materialism). Right now, I mean materialistic in the old philosophical sense: we believe only in what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands. We have no conception of an extra-physical world. And so we are consumed with these few passing years we have now, because it’s all we know. There is this life, and that’s it – then it’s over.
But there is, in fact, another life beyond. For Christians, this is our hope. (Followers of other traditions are certainly welcome to dialogue here as anywhere on this blog, though the focus of this post will be on the Christian understanding of the life beyond death.) We followers of Christ have done an abysmal job of creatively imagining the next life and actively planning for it. Instead, we have largely surrendered to our culture’s nursery school versions of “heaven” as a place of clouds and harps, or perhaps one giant church service—overall a place of overriding boredom. Certainly this kind of heaven is not someplace anyone would actually want to live. And so, like “those without hope” (as St. Paul says), we place all our hopes and dreams in this life, and we, like everyone else, create our bucket lists and try to squeeze every ounce of pleasure, every new experience, out of this life we can, fearful of a dim and uncertain future.
Now, to be sure, I am as ambitious as the next fellow, and probably more so. I still have it in mind to obtain several more degrees, to visit at least 50 “must see places” around the globe (and several of them more than once!), to learn half a dozen languages. I have more interests and more “potential hobbies” than I can count. I have barely begun to scratch the surface of everything I want to do.
That would be deeply depressing if I have only these “100 years.” But in the Christian conception, not only do I have eternity, almost all of it will be spent in a perfect environment, free from all of the restrictions of mortality. Imagine what we will be able to do when we will never get tired, never run down, never get old. Our bodies will never hurt, we will never be hungry or weary. Moreover, relationships will be perfect; we will never again be weighed down by embarrassment or jealousy or guilt or shame or malice or contempt. There will be no trauma, no scars to work through. All of that will be over.
Instead, we will achieve the fullness of our human potential—utter creativity unleashed! The writer will experience no writer’s block, the gardener no thorns or weeds. Every act will be rich with meaning—no more punching the clock just for a paycheck, no more maintenance just to keep things going. We will experience delights beyond measure: food without allergies or indigestion, relationships without guile or agendas, physical activity without weariness or pain. In short, nothing will stop us from being everything we were meant to be and doing everything we were meant to do.
Obviously, we have to use our imaginations to picture specific scenarios, because we don’t know in detail what the next life will be—but we know it will be fantastically better than this present life, beyond all powers of our imagining. We have only to look to the risen Christ for a glimpse of life after death.
Think about this: after death, Christ was clearly physical, enjoying all the pleasure of this life, such as food and walking and talking with friends. But he could also appear and disappear at will, even through locked doors, and was also able to rise into the sky under his own power. I don’t think these are things he was able to do because he was God; I think he was able to do these things because human life after death means powers and abilities beyond every limitation we now know.
Imagine being able to eat with your friends, and then, feeling satisfied but not uncomfortably full, you then are able to teleport yourself someplace else, or fly around in the clouds for a while! We will be like Christ!
Moreover, if we truly have any insight into the fullness of what the “Kingdom of God” implies, we would be giddy with delight to see what lies beyond death. A kingdom is a realm that responds to a king’s rule and commands. And if the entire universe is God’s kingdom, all of it responds to God’s rule and commands. Moreover, in the next life, we will be co-heirs with Christ, joint rulers of the kingdom, even, according to St. Paul, exercising authority over angels. Imagine what it will be like when we are able to command angels, when we rule with God over a kingdom where every photon of light, every atom, responds to the King’s commands. We will be able to shape whole planets to our will! And because everything will be right and good, we will always have the best motives and absolutely no greed—so these amazing powers we will be able to embrace without fear.
These 100 years are only a shadow of the best yet to come. We only have 100 years, in this life at least, but then we step through death’s door, and our real lives—the lives we were meant to live—begin.
Five for Fighting – “100 Years”
“Waiting for my Real Life to Begin – as sung by the cast of “Scrubs”
We have entered the Lenten Season. Traditionally at this time, the call is for Christians to “give up something for Lent.”
It’s a good tradition, for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment. And so I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I might give up. In the past, I’ve given up things like television programs, and tried to use my time more wisely. This year, I’ve thought about my desires to be healthier and considered giving up say, sodas, or those runs through the McDonald’s drive-through.
These types of choices, the giving up sweets or caffeine or fast food, are common choices for the Lenten fast. Moreover, presumably, those Christians who do follow through with such Lenten sacrifices do experience some health benefits. But I began to wonder: laudable though such a goal might be, is physical health or losing weight really the true purpose of Lent?
The early Church developed Lent as a preparation for Good Friday and Easter. It was modeled on Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness before he was tempted, and was designed to bring us into the experience of Jesus’ suffering. It was a time of mourning for sin, remembrance of our mortality, confession, and purification.
And that’s appropriate. It is a sadly common practice in some churches now to give the impression one must be always happy. Contemporary worship music is too often relentlessly optimistic and upbeat, with any mention of sadness or suffering resolved, at sitcom-like speed, by the end of the chorus. By contrast, the 40 days of Lent allow one truly to mourn for sin and the suffering of the world, and to identify with the suffering of Jesus. By Good Friday, one is truly aware of the misery of sin and the necessity of the cross. And then, a light dawns on a very early Easter morning, and the wildest, most joyous celebration of the Christian year begins. Without the preparation of Lent, there is no way to experience the raucous, visceral joy of Easter.
Lent, therefore, is a purging, a dying before being born again. It is a repentance of the old us and a renewing of the new us. It is a reminder that we are a new creation, and a seeking to live as that new creation, newly born children of Easter, co-heirs with the risen Christ.
Given all of that, a Lenten fast that just helps me lose weight or cut out some minor addiction would not really live up to its purpose. Lent (like all Christian practices) is supposed to help me live more like a new creation and to become more like Christ.
I’ve decided this year, therefore, not merely to give up something for Lent, but to make a thorough-going Lenten change. For these 40 days, my aim is to look for God in every person I encounter. Naturally, this will be outrageously much harder than it sounds, and I expect to fail often. Moreover, this is a serious “sacrifice” for me, in this sense that I will be fighting off my critical and judgmental nature. I tend to hold myself to very high standards, and then, completely unfairly, tend to apply those same standards to others. I am too quick to see people’s flaws. This year, for the 40 days of Lent, at least, I’m going to try a different outlook (and who knows – maybe it will stick). I’m going to try, as I enter into the suffering of Christ, to see people as he did. When people seem to me to be petty or lazy or foolish or selfish or mean I’m going to look past those appearances for the image of God in them, and treat them accordingly. And I hope, when I am exhibiting all of those bad qualities, as I almost always am, that people will look for God in me, too. God’s there, deep within, sometimes almost buried, but for Lent, at least, I’m trying to dig God out.
Let’s all give each other a little grace this season. We’re all fighting our egoic desires for these 40 days. “I invite you, therefore . . . to the observance of a holy Lent . . .”
For the record, I don’t think that all religions are basically the same—and I don’t see how any serious student of religion can think that. That’s not to deny the obvious truth that all religions have things in common and some similarities. But it’s because of those differences that I think the various religions have things to teach each other.
Buddhism has always fascinated me, and I think it has a great deal to teach my tradition—Christianity. One of those teachings comes from the stories of the life of the Buddha. According to Buddhist tradition, Siddhartha Gautama grew up as a prince, surrounded by unimaginable luxury. His parents, intending him to be a powerful ruler, purposely kept from him any ugliness or suffering that would upset his view of the world. One fateful day, however, the young prince ventured out from beyond the palace walls, and encountered for the first time a frail, elderly man, a diseased man, and a decaying corpse, and was suddenly made aware of the sad realities of suffering and death that stalk all humanity. It is this realization that drives Siddhartha to become an ascetic, eventually pursuing the path to enlightenment.
It’s critical that Siddhartha’s encounter with suffering was so life transforming. Siddhartha recognized that something was wrong with the world, and that some great change was needed. As such, there is a strong theme of compassion, as a basic religious practice, that winds its way throughout Buddhist teaching.
Compassion has a place in Christianity, too; over and over the Gospels report Jesus having compassion and reaching out to hurting people. Buddhism and Christianity have an ethic of compassion in common.
In 21st century American Christianity, we have, I want to suggest, by and large lost that ethic of compassion. Our unique contribution to historical Christianity, that of fundamentalist Evangelicalism, has placed all the focus on the cross of Christ, to the virtual exclusion of the life and teachings of Jesus. The rampant individualism that defines American culture added a corrupting layer to Evangelicalism, erecting a theological throne for the idea of “personally accepting Jesus,” which quickly becomes distorted into a personal responsibility to accept Jesus—one that each individual can, perhaps must, pursue in isolation from others. The guiding paradigm of Christianity, then, has become the personal responsibility to accept Jesus in order to go to heaven when one dies, effectively divorcing heaven and earth, this life and the next.
Indeed, too often our connection between Christianity and the world in which we live, aside from trying to convince other people to accept Jesus (or more often, simply condemning those who don’t) has become conflated with civil religion: go to church, be a good citizen, work hard, don’t do anything naughty. The ethic of Christianity has been reduced from compassion to merely being nice.
And that allows us to go through this life largely untroubled by the suffering around us. Oh sure, we’re concerned that people should accept Jesus and go to heaven—and sometimes, there is some legitimate compassion in that desire, in its own theological context. But placing all the emphasis there often causes us to lose concern for the this world and the real people who live in it. We might take umbrage when someone commits some naughtiness, and we sometimes rail about various moral “issues” in games of political football. But we are largely satisfied living comfortably as well-off people in a ridiculously wealthy nation, and Christianity becomes a concern for the next life, not for this one.
We are not troubled by how broken this world really is, mostly because we kind of like it here. We give everyone personal responsibility to accept Jesus and then leave it at that, busy living our own lives and enjoying ourselves. We shake our heads at the man sleeping in a doorway but shrug our shoulders and murmur, “Well, that’s the way it is.” We complain about the high cost of giving free meals to schoolchildren, suggesting that their parents should take more responsibility for their lives. More grossly, a political party supposedly dominated by those calling themselves evangelical Christians is able to cheer at the suggestion that someone might die because they don’t have health insurance.
We may occasionally give a few bucks to a man holding a cardboard sign on a street corner and pat ourselves on the back for doing a good deed, a random act of kindness. But it doesn’t really bother us—it doesn’t cause our hearts to break—that there are people standing on street corners with cardboard signs. We are so satisfied with life and our lucky places in it that we forget that something is really wrong with this world, that this miserable little planet desperately needs help. Nothing causes us to weep with compassion anymore.
And that’s what the Buddha can teach us. He reminds us to open our eyes and see the suffering around us—the same way Jesus lived. The Buddha saw that there was an immense problem, saw that life was broken, and did not rest until he found some answers for it. If we follow Jesus, who lived with compassion, who wept for the pain humanity endures, we cannot live otherwise.
(I originally posted this piece for New Year’s 2011, but it so well expresses my thoughts and feelings at this time of year–and I’ve gained a few new readers these past 12 months–that I thought it worth posting again. I hope you enjoy it; I welcome your comments. Happy 2012!!)
The ancient Celtic peoples, from what we know of them, made little distinction between the natural and the spiritual worlds. Faeries, banshees, and gods were considered just as real, and just as likely to be present, as trees and animals and human beings. As part of this worldview, they were especially interested in the “times between times”: dusk, dawn, the beginning of spring and end of winter—any period of transition in the world. These times between times were said to be especially meaningful, when the world between natural and spiritual was especially thin, and anything might happen.
This concept fascinates me. I’ve always loved liminal places (places where the line between natural and spiritual seems thin and especially permeable): cathedrals, ancient ruins, etc. But I have not given as much thought to liminal times.
Today, of course, marks the day (in the Gregorian calendar, anyway) we consider to be the first day of the New Year. I have long considered New Year’s Eve and Day to be my favorite holiday, and I think this is so because I enjoy the sense of transition, that being present for the passage of time, observing the passing of the old and coming of the new. I suppose that waiting for midnight on New Year’s Eve is a lot like being in the time between times, liminal time, watching the world change.
But the problem with New Year’s, like many things in our contemporary culture, is that is too scientific. At 11:59:59 it is 2011, and then at 12:00:00 it is suddenly 2012. There is not really much time between times; there is only one time, and then, all at once, another. We have not given ourselves much breathing room to observe the transition.
And we do this with so many things. One moment, one is a student, and then one hears one’s name read and receives a diploma, and then one is not a student any longer. One walks into a church single, take vows, and then one is married. The work day begins promptly at 8 and ends at 5, with an exactly 60 minute lunch. We have everything so carefully measured, so exactly timed, that we do not even notice the changes.
But life, real life, where it matters, is not like that. Organic things do not follow clocks. There is no exact time when a child becomes an adult (laws about turning 18 and 21 notwithstanding). Rather, there is a time between times, when one is both and neither. We do not instantly go from day to night, but watch the sunset and the falling shadows of dusk. Spring is already on the way before winter is fully over. And because we can’t measure these things exactly, they are easy to miss. We are in one time, and then we realize that we are in another time, and we don’t even remember making the transition.
And really, all of life is a time between times. We are always transitioning from one thing to another, whether we realize it or not. Usually, mired in our circumstances, we do not realize it. But whatever is is already passing away, and whatever is coming is already coming. If we stopped to be in the moment, to be mindful of where and when we are right now, we would realize that the moment is passing. Whatever we are enjoying now will not last forever, and whatever we are suffering will not last forever either. Change, impermanence, is the true nature of things. We are always in the time between times.
And if one is a follower of Christ (and I am not assuming, dear reader, that you are, and I certainly welcome your views whatever your spiritual or religious persuasion), the idea of living in the time between times is especially meaningful. Some of us in the Christian world get very wrapped up in “end times,” while others of us point to the spirituality of now. But both of these viewpoints have their truth, of course. We are in the present, the now, and it is a time between times. We are living between the time of Christ’s first and second comings. He has been here and is still here in Spirit and his influence is still being felt and he is coming and is on his way. We are between times. We can take comfort and rejoice in the now, because it is passing away. What is coming is already on its way.
During Advent this year I’ve been meditating on the Magnificat, the Song of Mary as she reflects on her pregnancy and the pivotal role her son will play in human history. For those not familiar with this piece (and even if you are familiar with it), this song of praise bears quoting. It is recorded in the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, verses 46-55:
“With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior. He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant. Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored because the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. He shows mercy to everyone, from one generation to the next, who honors him as God. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, just as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”
As we, too, prepare for the birth of Jesus, the Christian seasons of Advent and Christmas butt up against our culture’s celebration of christmas. I use lowercase lettering purposefully in the latter, because, of course, christmas as it is currently celebrated has very little to do with Christ or what he was about.
Now, this is not another polemic against the ridiculous “war on Christmas” that has some Christians up in arms. Whether one says “Merry Christmas” or puts up a nativity scene or lighted tree has very little to do with one’s relationship with the only begotten Child of God. God will not someday judge us on which holiday phrase we use to greet one another every December. In fact, the record of both Old and New Testaments seems to suggest that God is not all that interested in the little rituals of our so called holy days.
Rather, God has a radically different agenda in mind. Our celebration of Christmas usually consists of three things: the basest and most violent level of crass commercialism, keeping an accumulated mix of cultural and family traditions, and a vague spirit of wishing well to others (as long as they don’t interfere with our lives or what we want to buy). But Mary understand what God is up to. The imminent birth of Jesus, she realizes, means that the mighty one has done great things: he has scattered the proud, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty-handed.
Christmas begins the Great Reversal that is the Kingdom of God. The poor, the unemployed, the alien, the criminals, and the needy suddenly find themselves elevated to places of prominence, while the rich and powerful are dethroned. Humility becomes the route to greatness, and surrender the path to freedom. Turning the other cheek (refusing to defend ourselves) becomes the answer to violence. Shepherds (our socio-economic equivalent would be sanitation workers) and foreigners (who practiced astrology and probably didn’t even belong to the right religion!) get the news of the birth of the Savior before everyone else. Fishermen and revenue agents will become apostles and bishops. A homeless man will save the world. Everything that we thought mattered—our race, our religion, our bank accounts, our weapons—all are trumped by love, mercy, grace, humility. People with no hope suddenly have hope. Dying will be the route to new life. Arrest and execution as a criminal will lead to victory. And the Almighty God, King of the Universe, is born as a baby in a barn.
Everything we’ve ever thought about the way the world works is wrong. Everything we thought important is worthless. Jesus didn’t come to preserve our traditions, to honor our ludicrous use of wealth, or even to wish us greeting-card style “peace on earth.” He came to turn our world upside down, to upend all our values. He came to change everything. He came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.
Advent and Christmas then, are rightfully times of celebration – but among other things we should celebrate that everything we thought we knew was wrong. Everything is different, everything is changed because of the baby born in Bethlehem. Thanks be to God!!
To help us get in the right mindset, I’d like to share a video that’s been floating around the internet. It captures the spirit of the Great Reversal, challenging all our assumptions. It’s a bit long (10 minutes), but absolutely worthwhile, and it will make you weep for joy.
