Musings

It Could Happen Here

If you are trying to kill a religion, there is no surer method than marrying it to a government.

Consider Iran, where vast crowds  gathered recently in Tehran’s streets to protest the theft of an election by turbaned clerics.  From the rooftops, the people chanted the same words that the masses roared 30 years ago when they brought down the Shah and ushered in the current theocratic government:  “God is great,  death to the dictator!”  Read:  "God is great, but we are done with the people who claim to rule us on God's behalf!"  The majority of the people of Iran are under 30 years old, and most of them are chafing under the repressive rule of unelected ayatollahs.  Whatever moral authority Ayatollah Khamenei had before the protests has been seriously eroded since his brutal crackdown on dissent.

Consider Europe, where the churches are sponsored by the state in many countries.   Hardly anybody goes to church anymore.  Europeans don’t have religion forced down their throats nearly to the degree suffered by Iranians.  But they still find it hard to swallow.  The holiness of the church doesn’t rub off on the state nearly as much as the unholiness of the state rubs off on the church, in countries where the two are intertwined.

Iran’s case is a cautionary example for us in America.  It’s really nice to have a progressive Christian in the White House.  But the last thing the country needs, and the last thing progressive Christianity needs, would be for the President to identify his administration strongly with our religion.    As long as progressive Christianity is not seen as the force that runs the country, we have some chance of influencing America for the better, while preserving the integrity of our faith.  We need to keep the state from being run by a church, and a church from being supported by the state, at all costs.

The damage done to Islam by Islamic theocracy in Iran is enormous.  The clerical leadership has alienated a vast swath of the population, particularly the younger generation, from the rich heritage of the religion.  Clergymen use goon squads to silence the protests.  If we think it couldn’t happen here, we ought to think again: there are millions of people in the US who yearn for “Christian dominion”, a vision of a theocratic state that would force everybody, Christian or not, to obey laws based on fundamentalist Christian interpretations of biblical laws.  (For scary reading, see www.chalcedon.edu  .)  Imagine posses of self-anointed Christian Dominionists in America enforcing a legal code from the Bronze Age, and you get the picture. 

I’d like to think that these recent events have eclipsed America’s neo-conservative hype about Iran as a monolithic enemy of the West.  Consider the deep contradiction of millions of Iranians protesting against theocracy, and John McCain’s theme song of “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”  How would our bombs distinguish between the pro-democracy protesters and the pro-theocracy thugs that attacked them?  Hopefully it is now obvious that a ham-handed approach won’t work in a country of people who don’t eat pork.  Yes, the prospect of Iran as a nuclear power is a real problem.  But it’s a problem our Air Force can’t fix.

Even the clerics in Iran aren’t of one mind about their form of government.  In the seminary city of Qom, debates have been raging for years about whether or not it serves Islam for a cabal of ayatollahs to run the country.  Those debates are at a high pitch now.  A significant number of influential religious scholars are pleading for recognition that the will of the majority of the people is the best way to interpret and apply “sharia” in society.   These scholars see the awful damage done to their religion by the clerical oligarchy, and are striving behind the scenes to change the system.  Indeed, what happens in the cloisters of its seminaries may have as much impact on Iran’s future as what happens its the streets.

While the election of Obama made the prospect more remote – thank God – the possibility that our country could go the way of Iran is far from unthinkable.  May recent events on the streets of Tehran inspire us to vigilance in preserving religion and democracy by keeping their institutions a healthy distance from each other.

Feeling For

Hiking alongside Big Tesuque Creek near Santa Fe, New Mexico, last week, I felt the urge to stop and stare at a little pinon tree.  It was sprouted from a nut likely dropped from the full-grown pinon under whose scrubby arms it was sheltered.  I observed my reaction to the sight of this baby tree growing beneath the bigger tree’s branches.  I felt a wave of warmth, a feeling of the love of a parent for a child.  I almost scoffed at myself:  trees can’t feel such emotions, so why am I reading love into a situation where it doesn’t exist?  But as I pondered further,  I asked a question about my role, my task, in the natural world.  Am I here to love on behalf of things that cannot love on their own?  Perhaps the love I feel belongs to the parenting pinon as much as it does to me.

Am I here on earth to feel for trees, since they don’t have their own nerve endings?  I stood and wondered.  I looked up at the tumble of stones on the mountainside above me.  Since rocks have no brains, am I here to ponder their origins and their futures on their behalf?  Perhaps I am not here just to think for myself.  Perhaps this mind isn’t just mine, but rather was put in my head for the sake of the other creatures and entities in the world around me.  Perhaps my mind belongs also to the pinon tree, enabling it to love its offspring.  Perhaps my brain also belongs to the boulders on the mountain, enabling them to consider their places in the cosmos.  Perhaps my feelings enervate the tumbling creek below me, enabling it to appreciate the music it makes as it splashes over the stones in its bed.

“I am not here for me,” my fellow seminary student friend Dan Rauker once said to me, years ago.  His words have served as a mantra ever since.  I found myself chanting this mantra as I hiked into the mountains.  I felt for, I loved on behalf of, the birds and butterflies and even the mosquitos I encountered along the trail. 

And at least for a little while, I was not there for me.

Matthew 13 Revisited

ARIZONA MUSINGS READERS, PLEASE NOTE:
I'll be at Scottsdale Congregational United Church of Christ in Scottsdale, AZ, this weekend - www.scucc.com - Seminar: Sat June 20, 2-4 pm - Preach: Sun June 21, 9 and 11 am.)
This piece below is one I wrote years ago - it appears in my recent book, BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS (available at www.tcpc.org - click on "store").

Matthew 13 Revisited
(A readers’ theater in four voices.)
From BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS by Jim Burklo

    Matthew:    The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.
    Martha:    That  a woman mixed in with three measures of flour.
    Mark:    What was that?
    Mary:    It was a pearl of great value.
    Matthew:     Which, when it was leavened,
    Martha:     Turned into the greatest of shrubs.
    Mark:    What did she hide?
    Mary:    It becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and made nests in its branches.
    Matthew:    When the man found it, he sold everything he had and bought the field where he had found it.
    Martha:    Until all of it was all leavened.
    Mark:    What is the kingdom of heaven like?
    Mary:    It's like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
    Matthew:    It's like a woman.
    Martha:    It's like yeast.
    Mark:    It's like who?
    Mary:    It's like a net which was thrown into the sea.
    Matthew:    It's the smallest of all seeds.
    Martha:    When it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.
    Mark:    What was full?
    Mary:    What is the kingdom of heaven like?
    Matthew:    The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

On Wild Oats and the Exhortations of the Elder Zossima

The reason I continue to write "musings" each week is that I get such rich, soulful feedback from you, my readers and fellow spiritual seekers.  I got a lot of thoughtful responses to my last two pieces, on "The Four Spiritual Awes" and on "The Marriage Bus".  The latter article got correctives from readers about my statement that religion was the main impediment to the legalization of same-sex marriage, and on the strength of those comments I am persuaded that while religion is a big factor, it may not be the main one.  Indeed, Jesus' example of compassion and acceptance has been an important inspiration for the movement to embrace and support same-sex unions. 

Regarding the former article, one dear reader pointed out that love was not included front-and-center as one of the "Four Spiritual Awes".  A point well-taken indeed, as there is nothing more awesome.

I was taking a hike a week ago in the wilderness park above Claremont, and at a lonesome spot on a trail on a high meadow, I stared at golden, dry wild oat stalks waving in the wind.  The oat husks were joined at the tips in pairs that pointed into the breeze.  The sight of them moved me.  They were beautiful, elegant, just as they were, and in their own right.  But the sight of them stirred a more metaphorical thought in me. 

My wife, Roberta, is the "musings" reader from whom I get the most feedback.  She and I had a conversation recently in which she confessed that after our 15 years together, she still doesn't really "get it" about progressive Christianity.  The language of the faith just doesn't make sense to her, and my best efforts to explain it have not reached her soul.  On one hand, this was upsetting to me.  The person with whom I am closest, the person with whom I am so powerfully bonded and connected, doesn't really understand the gist of my work.  But she has a good reason.  She's a "recovering Catholic".  She was so turned-off by the particular version of Catholicism in which she was raised - it never made sense to her - so the whole Christian religion seems confusing and unhelpful to her.  On the other hand, her confession was very helpful to me.  When I talk with her in secular, everyday English about matters spiritual and moral, she understands and appreciates what I'm saying.  I need to do more of that in my relationship with her - and with many others.

For some reason, contemplating wild oats caused me to realize, abruptly, that I need to be fully bilingual on matters of the soul.  I need to work harder to communicate clearly with people who cannot relate well with religious language.  At least as hard as I try to communicate with people who are steeped in the Christian tradition and want to keep the baby Jesus but toss out the bathwater of useless dogma and doctrine.  As the oat husks are joined at the tip that aims in one direction, so secular and religious seeds of spirituality each have their place in growing us toward the Awesome One.

In the midst of this rumination, I picked out a time-worn copy of Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" from my office library as bus and subway reading for this week.  I found myself re-reading, after many years, the section on "Notes on the Life of the Deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, Taken from His Own Words by Alexey Karamazov."  It was uncanny to find powerful resonance with my own recent thoughts and conversations as I read these words from Russia in 1881.

Dostoyevsky's character, Elder Zossima, is a saintly and beloved Orthodox monk who recounts significant passages in his life.  Zossima's brother Markel, who died at age 17, was a major influence on him.  Markel rejected the church and embraced radical, socialist ideas (as did Dostoyevsky in his early years).  Markel was a bitter and sullen teenager, until about the time he contracted tuberculosis.  Then he became full of love and appreciation for life.  He received the sacraments and went to church, apparently as a kindness to his devout mother.  But he never espoused the doctrines of the faith.  As he was dying, he spoke about awe and wonder and love and compassion.  "Life is paradise," said Markel from his sickbed, "and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.  If we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day.... every one is responsible to all men and for everything...  Though I can't explain it to you, I like to humble myself, for I don't know how to love enough... am I not in heaven now?" 

As his life was ending, Zossima gives his testament of divine love, in Christian terms but in a manner that made room for other ways of expressing the experience.  "If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things... Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things.... My brother asked the birds to forgive him.  That sounds senseless, but it was right for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth.... It's all like an ocean, I tell you.  Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, you would pray that they too would forgive you your sin.  Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.... Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love.  Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy.... prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one..."  Zossima kisses the ground as he dies, surrounded by his fellow monks and followers.

It seems that Dostoyevsky wanted to get one message across in two languages, through the stories of Markel, the free-thinking secularist, and his brother Zossima, the devout monk.  One idea that Dostoyevsky himself saw from two different perspectives:  the modern, secular viewpoint, and the ancient, traditional Russian Orthodox viewpoint.  One message of awe in two languages, joined at the tip that points to Love....

 

 

 

The Marriage Bus

Some of my progressive clergy colleagues recently have made a bold declaration.  They've announced that until same-sex marriage is legalized, they won't perform marriage ceremonies for anybody - straight or gay.  I greatly admire them for taking such a stand - it's a strong statement with personal consequences for them.  Many pastors depend on weddings as an important source of income.  These pastors are putting their money where their hearts are, for the cause of marriage equality.

I respect their stand but won't be joining them in their pledge.  My heart is in the same place as theirs, but I believe I'm called to push for the cause by other means.

A few days ago, I did a pastoral counseling session with a woman whose husband announced a few months ago that he was leaving her.  Now that they are fairly deep into the process of divorce, he has begun emailing her, asking for reconciliation.  She feels guilty for not responding, but she knows he no longer lives in her heart.  Traditional religious beliefs had a big role in locking her into an unhappy marriage, and now those same beliefs tug at her to let her husband move back in with her again.  But when I asked her about her feelings toward him, she made it clear that the inner connection between them was broken.  The marriage had been over for a long time - long before they filled out the divorce paperwork.  She once thought marriage was fundamentally an official status bound by government and church laws.  Now she sees that marriage is a spiritual state between two people.  When marriage ends, the spiritual facts have changed whether or not the dissolution papers have been filed with the court.

Likewise, in my long experience of performing wedding ceremonies, I have seen firsthand that marriage transcends the legal status associated with it.  When marriage begins, it's a spiritual fact that can't be denied even if the law doesn't yet recognize it.    I have performed marriage ceremonies for people who for various practical reasons didn't sign wedding licenses.  I have performed marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples years before the law (temporarily) recognized such unions.  Those gay couples were as married as any straight couples whose services I have performed.  To deny that they are married strikes me as absurd; I don't understand how anyone who really knows these people could question it.

The last same-sex wedding I performed was for a lesbian couple who got legally married during the window of time when that was possible in California.  I knew that the majority of the people who attended that beautiful event - a rather traditional-looking ceremony - had never been to a same-sex wedding before.  I would wager that dozens of people were converted that afternoon, turned in favor of legal recognition of same-sex marriages.  For these converts, going to a lesbian wedding has become a "new normal" thing to do.

The more of these ceremonies we clergy people conduct, with our without the blessing of the law, the more unremarkable such weddings and relationships become for the wider public, and the more converts we make to our cause.  Just as interracial and inter-ethnic couples are now commonplace, and miscegenation laws are now seen as bizarre footnotes of history, the day won't be long in coming when most people will look at same-sex marriage as perfectly normal.

I believe that the biggest objection to same-sex marriage is religious in nature.  People who oppose legalization very often do so on the grounds that it is against the will of God and the divine word of the scriptures.  Religion is most of the problem, so religion has to be at least part of the solution.  If churches and temples encourage people who are spiritually married to celebrate these facts of the soul in wedding ceremonies, without distinction regarding their legal status, this makes a very powerful statement to the wider public.  Such ceremonies visibly demonstrate that there is something of the divine in the bonds of committed, spiritually-centered couples, whether gay or straight. 

So I will keep on doing weddings for heterosexual and same-sex couples alike.  And I plan to emphasize more than ever in my wedding addresses that marriage is a spiritual reality, quite apart from whether or not society has evolved to the point of legally supporting it. 

I suppose that this question is a lot like the choices that civil rights activists had to make in the '60's.  Should they get on the bus and refuse to sit in the back, no matter what the law says, or should they boycott the buses completely and walk instead?  Both were honorable, and in their own ways effective, means of action against the injustice.  I'm going to stay on the marriage bus and do my part to assure that same-sex couples are up front, for all the world to see. 

(This is a revision of a "musing" from over a year ago.  It will be the basis of a sermon I'm giving at the United Church (UCC) in Simi Valley on June 14 (10 am: http://www.uccsimi.org).  I'm considering this as the "seed" of a new book by the same title.  It is a radically different alternative to the ubiquitous fundamentalist tract by Campus Crusade for Christ called "The Four Spiritual Laws" - http://4laws.com/laws/english/flash/ .  I'd love your reactions/suggestions!)

THE FOUR SPIRITUAL AWES

1.) Awe for _________(God, Nature, the Universe, Allah, Atman, Great Spirit, the Christ, Cosmic Compassionate Consciousness, Ultimate Reality, etc).  The Awesome One is beyond the capacity of words to describe, beyond being named with any one name, too awesome to fit exclusively into any one philosophy or religion.  When we discover the Awesome One in the everyday world around us, we are filled with joyful, worshipful wonderment.

2.) Awe for compassion. Our awe for the Awesome One makes us humble, and this enables us to feel and practice an awesome kindness toward all beings.  Our humility keeps us aware that our fellow creatures are fragile and precious, needing our loving attention.  If we have awe for the Source of all life, then we treat life reverently.

3.) Awe for freedom.  Our deep, powerful attraction to the Awesome One invites us to choose among many paths and purposes.  There is no one predetermined plan for each of our lives.  We can be guided by our powerful inner attraction toward the Awesome One as we continually make and change our plans.  We are in awe of the unique creative potentials given to each of us by the Source of our lives.

4.)  Awe for discovery.  We are always too amazed by the Awesome One to claim full knowledge of its essence or its purposes.  So we remain humbly curious about its awesome ways and workings, eager to learn more through every kind of inquiry.  The more we learn, the more awestruck we become, and the more we want to learn.

How do YOU want to live?  You have a choice.

If you put yourself at the center of your life, what happens?  Do you obsess about how other people affect you?  Do you worry about how you look, how others think about you?  Do spend a lot of time thinking about your future – what you’ll get, what you’ll do?  Are you focused on your possessions – what you have, what you want to own?  What is it like if you make yourself the center of your life – living as if everything and everybody else revolves around you, as if you were the center of the universe?


Is this what you want?


But if f you put the Awesome One at the center of your life, what is that like?  Do you begin to see that others are no less or more awesome than you are?  Do you feel like you share a common life with other people and even other creatures and things around you?  Does that help you feel love and compassion for them?  Does that improve your relationships with others?  Does that help you love yourself more?  Do you feel joy and wonder and amazement?  Do you feel the urge to be creative?  Do you feel like you have a task in life, a purpose to serve others in a special way? 


 
Is this what you want?

If you choose to put Awe at the center of your life, instead of yourself, you have joined the company of the seekers and saints of all the great world spiritual traditions, in all places and in all ages.  Find a community of people to support you in your quest to make Awe the focus of your life: a church, temple, mosque, or other Awe-focused group of people who are open-hearted and open-minded.

New Songs for Progressive Christians

From my work on a campus with tens of thousands of 18 through 30 year olds, from lots of conversations with young people who care about religion and spirituality, I have a sobering report to offer my fellow progressive Christian pastors and lay church leaders.  Over and over, I hear the same sort of thing from students who are church shopping:  "I go to evangelical churches and hear cool music and experience lively, engaging worship, but the punch-line of the message is old-fashioned, right-wing, literalist theology.  I go to progressive churches and listen to dull music with old-fashioned lyrics in boring worship with a lot of old people, but the preaching is up-to-date, pluralistic, open-minded, and creative.  Where can I find lively worship with progressive content?"  There is a big and growing population of young people who are attracted to Christianity but can't find churches that meet their needs.  Will progressive churches rise to the challenge and change their worship habits, in order to serve this emerging demographic group?

For some time, I have been re-writing old hymns with new lyrics that keep the faith but drop the dogma, words that re-energize and re-interpret the Christian tradition.  (You'll see several in my latest book, BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS, which you can order from the "store" at www.tcpc.org .)  Putting fresh words to the old tunes that are familiar to older folks in our churches is a step in the right direction, but to reach younger people who have no sentimental attachments to those tunes, we need an ever-fresh body of new, singable music in our worship.

Here are my latest lyrical contributions to the cause: three progressive Christian "chant songs".   Spread them freely - all I ask is attribution...  I hope that some musically talented members of my readership will offer tunes for them! 

RE-MEMBER by Jim Burklo

Re-member, re-member, re-member me with you
With this bread, with this cup, re-member me with you
Re-member, re-member, re-member me with you
With this love, with this care, re-member me with you
Re-member, re-member, re-member me with you
On this day, in this hour, re-member me with you


JUST A PINCH by Jim Burklo

A pinch of yeast within the flour
A treasure hidden in the ground
We know not the day nor hour
When the pearl is finally found
Secrets held in mustard seeds
Salty grains give food its worth
All our small but loving deeds
Show your presence in the earth


YOURS THE PRAISE by Jim Burklo

Fire who burns inside the mountain
Earth who feeds the trees
Sea who sprays up like a fountain
Wind who sighs the leaves
You, the source of inspiration
You the beauty bring
Yours, the power in creation
Yours, the praise we sing

_____________________

PS to California friends:

I voted (absentee) on the May 19 election as follows:  Yes on 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, and no on 1F.  I think all of these propositions are seriously flawed - however, the first five of them are essential in order to avoid a budget catastrophe that would hurt the poorest people in the state.  The last one, which would prevent pay increases for lawmakers in times of budget shortfalls, is meaningless in terms of its effect on the budget - it's just for show, and on grounds of principle I am against meaningless propositions.  I believe that our state needs comprehensive fiscal reform, starting with a constitutional change that would roll back Proposition 13's requirement of a 2/3 majority to pass a budget or increase taxes in the legislature.  We need a return to real democracy, with simple majority rule in the legislature.  The second reform would be to make it much harder to put a proposition on the ballot, so that our legislature can do its job of crafting laws and passing budgets.  California now has proven that minority rule and Athenian democracy by ballot initiative don't work in running a huge and complex state government.  We need to empower our legislature fully to do its job on our behalf and then hold them fully accountable for the consequences.   It won't be perfect but it will beat the mess we're in now.

Jesus Was A Liberal: book review

Book Review by Jim Burklo, Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California, and author of BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians: 

JESUS WAS A LIBERAL: Reclaiming Christianity for All
by Rev. Scotty McLennan (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009)

“Liberal” is anything but a dirty word for the Dean of Religious Life, and pastor of Memorial Church, at Stanford University.  Scotty McLennan is proof that while Christians may be a minority group within it, publicly professing followers of Jesus still thrive in the Unitarian Universalist Association in which he is ordained. He has written his opus on progressive Christianity without disparaging the conservative Christians or the public atheists to whose positions his book carefully responds.  With his typical generosity of spirit, Scotty shares how much he respects and learns from those with whom he substantially disagrees, while using them to locate progressives in the center of the Christian tradition.  Scotty is the real person behind the figure of Rev. Scot Sloan in Doonesbury, created by McLennan’s Yale roommate, Garry Trudeau.  Contrary to his comic-strip caricature as the pastor of a nearly empty church, McLennan’s big audience will grow bigger with the launch of this new book.

JESUS WAS A LIBERAL is the best introduction to theologically and socially progressive Christianity that I’ve read in the past several years.  McLennan offers a concise definition of “liberal” Christianity, and applies it concretely to hot-button social issues and common confusions about biblical interpretation. He describes what is right about the long, venerable liberal religious tradition more than he argues against what is wrong with atheism or biblical literalism.  He makes his cases unequivocally but without being shrill.  He offers a defense of abortion rights grounded on the Christmas story in Matthew:  “Precisely because Mary’s situation is utterly unique, it places in bold relief other girls and women who have not voluntarily chosen to become pregnant.” (p 16)   He shares the bases of his public opposition to the war in Iraq in Christian “just war theory”.  His analysis of the impending conflict, and his predictions of the outcome of the war expressed in his sermons and a newspaper editorial, turned out to be uncannily accurate.

The book is flavored throughout with both the earthy and the intellectual.    Scotty moves between insights from religious scholarship and stories from his own and others’ experiences of pastoral ministry.  He illustrates with stories from his stints as a poverty lawyer, as a disciple of a Hindu priest in India, and as a university lecturer.  He neatly addresses the common concerns of lay people who are struggling with basic Christian concepts like the Trinity, the “body and blood” of communion, being “born again”, and the apocalypse.  But he doesn’t talk down to the reader: he also salts the text with scholarly analyses of biblical texts and historical details. 

The most distinctive feature of his book is his detailed response to four highly visible public atheists of the past few years; Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens.  He engaged with them personally in their appearances at Stanford, responding to their indictments of liberal, progressive faith.  Scotty’s book is a call for critics of supernaturalist faith to refrain from throwing the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.  He vigorously argues against their accusations that progressive faithful people unwittingly aid and abet the perpetuation of archaic, harmful religion.  At the same time, he calls liberal Christians to join atheists in ecstatically experiencing the natural world.  “…I congratulate Richard Dawkins on his enthusiasm, awe, and wonder forged as an atheist in the realm of science alone.  We religious people need more of his spirit.” (p 127)

The book ends with McLennan’s rousing defense of the “L” word.  “Too many (liberal Christians) choose silence, afraid to use the word “liberal” to describe where they stand.  That leaves them lying low, sitting quietly in their pews at church or in private prayer at home… I bellow, ‘Stand up, stand tall, and proclaim the positive power of liberal Christianity!  Do it now, before it’s too late!’” (p 219)  In the cause of redeeming the faith, whether we use the word “liberal” or “progressive”, nobody stands taller – literally and figuratively - than Scotty McLennan.

Why I'm Here

Standing at a bus stop and watching, instead of waiting.  Seeing the world from that spot, observing the people rushing by on foot, on bicycles, in cars.  Seeing something, if ever so little, of what each of them sees as I catch expressions on their faces, cues from body language.  Snippets of their stories, hints of who they are.   For a while – I don’t know how long - it’s all about them, not about me.  Until the bus surprises me with its arrival, its doors jerking open.

Walking on the pale, crunchy dirt of a mountain trail, and for a moment, experiencing a break from my usual absorption with the inner dialogue that occupies my thought.  Hearing the call of a bird.  Stopping, turning, looking.  Wondering, then giving up on trying to remember the name of the species of the bird.  Just listening, following the notes and tones of its song.  Really paying attention to that song, maybe for the first time? But for a moment the time doesn’t matter.  For me, for then, it was just about the sound.

My tentative conclusion about the meaning and purpose of life is this:  I am here to notice.  To be awake to the living beauty and fascination that surrounds me in everyday life.  I’m here to watch, to listen, to feel, to be, to let be.  To empty myself of my self-absorption, and make room for other things, other people, the divine Other.

And, by contrast, I am not here to be successful, not here to achieve things.  Nor am I here just to put in time – to finish the day or the week or the year, to make it to retirement. I’m here to be and to see, not to do and get through.  

It’s strange to write such a paragraph, focused as I usually am on projects, swept along in the torrent of stuff that runs through my mind.  Mostly, I act as if achieving my goals, and the getting the resulting social approval, is the purpose of my life.  Mostly, I don’t step back to carefully consider the thoughts or urges that motivate me toward these goals.  I don’t notice them any more than a bike notices the road on which it is riding.  Unexamined expectations, assumptions, and desires: these are aiming the bike down the road, not I.  No wonder, then, that when I wake up and take hold of the handlebars, sometimes I’m shocked to see where the bike is headed.

If life indeed is about waking up from the sleep that usually passes for wakefulness, and then paying attention, this is a purpose that can be fulfilled anywhere.  I don’t have to wait to discover the meaning of life.  I don’t have to strive long to find it.  The point of life is right in front of me in each moment.  I can find its meaning in special, satisfying moments of my career, or just as much in the routines of my workday.  I can find it by taking a walk in the neighborhood around our home as much as I can find it on an exotic vacation.  A person unable to rise from bed in a nursing home can still pay attention and experience the purpose of life.  

I worked as a nurse’s aide during my college years.  A memorable few of the people for whom I cleaned bedpans and drained catheter bags were possessed of a serenity that greatly surprised me.  They seemed to have learned the fine art of simply being there, noticing and appreciating what and whomever was around them.  Their example taught me that what worked for them in dying might work for me in living.

Is there any purer form of worship than simply noticing how the Divine is manifested in the everyday miracles that surround us?  Do we not serve others best when we carefully notice who they are and what they are doing and saying?  The first line of the Westminster Catechism is this:  “Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”  I interpret it thusly: my one task above all others is to be in a state of reverent awe as I lovingly appreciate the people and the world around me. 

Application for Membership in the 12 Disciples

(for my "Prayer at Tax Time": http://tcpc.blogs.com/musings/2005/04/a_prayer_at_tax.html)

(I scribbled this about 20 years ago while enduring a long and boring church meeting.  I found it this week in the course of looking for some old tax documents, so I'm copying it and sharing it with you.  I hope it lightens your mood as you fill out your 1040's:)

APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE 12 DISCIPLES

Name:   ________________first _____________nickname     bar ______________(father's name)

Address:  __________hut, shack, tent  ____________village  ____________ province  _________empire

Occupation:  __bass fishing  __catfish fishing  __tilapia fishing  __walleye fishing  __tax-collecting  __banditry  __carpentry (houses, furniture)  __carpentry (crosses)  __farming  _____other

Class:  __desperately poor  __dirt poor __poor  __poor but proud

Ethnicity:   __Jew   __Gentile

Family Status - check or fill all that apply:

__married, one wife   __married, two wives  __married, 3 or more wives  __eldest brother  __2nd or lesser brother  __mother still living and kvetching that you don't come home often enough   __ # of children

Do you keep kosher?  __yes  __ no    If yes, really? __yes  __no

Hobbies:   __fishing   __other

Political Affiliation:   __Pharisee   __Sadducee   __Zealot    If Zealot, which faction?  __People's Front for the Liberation of Israel  __Front for the People's Liberation of Israel  __Revolutionary People's Front for the Liberation of Israel  __Front for the Revolutionary Liberation of Israel  __Peasant's Front for the Salvation of Israel  __Peasant's Party for the Violent Overthrow of the Roman Empire  __other faction

Medical Status:   __lame  __blind  __leper  __resurrected   __demon-possessed   ___________other

Education:  __Bar Mitzvah  __Hanging out in synagogue/temple  __School of hard knocks   _______other

Have you ever been someone else's disciple?  __yes  __no

        If yes, reason for defecting: ___________________________

Have you ever loved your enemies before?  __yes   __no  __are you crazy?  __am willing to try

Have you ever performed any of the following miracles:

__walking on water  __ healing lepers  __healing the blind  __turning water into wine  __multiplying loaves/fishes  __resurrecting dead people  __pulling money out of fishes' mouths __no, but am willing to try any/all of the above

Ever offered forgiveness to someone who harmed you?  __yes  __no  __I still hate that @*!)**?!!@   __am willing to try to forgive

Have you ever been persecuted for righteousness' sake?  __yes  __no    If yes, describe persecution:______________________  Are you ready for more?  __yes  __no

Do you have transportation:  __sandals  __walking stick __camel  __ox  __ass  __boat

Are you literate? __yes   __no  __kinda

         If not, provide name and address of person who assisted you in filling out this form: ________________________

Please deliver this completed form to: Simon, aka "Peter", Director of Personnel and Recruitment.