A priest I know once talked at length in a seminarian supervisors' group session about his desire to be "authentic." Since the 1960s, the word "authentic" has been used frequently in religious circles (and elsewhere) to describe someone whose way of life has integrity, who is genuine and honest. Authenticity is a lofty goal, but one I know we cannot meet, and so I challenged him on it.
I told a story once related to me by an older priest, who had attended a lecture on the Nicene Creed by an elderly patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church "back in the day," as the "authenticity movement" was just taking root. When the good bishop had finished his lecture, he fielded questions from his audience. A seminarian stood up and said he did not think he could say the Creed with any real "authenticity" because it was so full of mythological imagery, including doctrinal statements about the virgin birth of Jesus he could not possibly recognize as true in any objective, empirical sense. The patriarch stared at him over his glasses in silence for a few moments and then said slowly, "Young man, this creed represents the accumulated wisdom of the Church. It took nearly three hundred years to formulate and has been reaffirmed by the Church again and again over more than sixteen hundred years of subsequent history. Who are you to set your understanding above it? Far greater minds and hearts than yours or mine have wrestled with it and been shaped by it. As a representative of the Church, it is not for you to set it aside. You may struggle with it all you like, that is a good thing, but you must not toss it aside in the name of some imagined 'authenticity'. You are not fully formed in Christ--none of us are--and therefore cannot describe yourself as 'authentic' in any true sense. Rather, you need to say it every day as a prayer, in the hope that it will shape your mind and your heart, so that one day you will understand it as it is meant to be understood."
My friend was, I think, a bit upset at me, judging from his expression. He said that I had misunderstood him, that it wasn't that he did not recognize his present understandings as limited and still "in process", but that he wanted to be transparent, the kind of person who was true to his heart, and not some phony pretending to be someone he was not. But his attempt at clarification did not turn away my objection. I wondered aloud how anyone could be fully transparent, given the truth that most of us cannot see very clearly into our own hearts. I could not help remembering Jeremiah's lament, "The human heart is deceitful above any other thing, desperately sick; who can fathom it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, REB) I said I did not know who I was, really, "authentically". I knew I was in the process of becoming someone, someone whom I prayed would be conformed to the image of Christ, but the fulfillment of that longing only would come with the fullness of time. As the old patriarch no doubt would have affirmed, it was that person, and not the person I was now, that I should understand to be the authentic Jonathan.
This did not sit well either. In hindsight, I think I should have more clearly acknowledged the validity of wanting to be transparent and genuine. It is something we all long for and a noble aspiration. And it is our destiny, if we are true to our calling and forge ahead in our pilgrimage, trusting the Lord will lead us in the way. Paul gives voice to this yearning with great eloquence, most especially in I Corinthians 13: "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known." We long to have the fig leaves of Adam and Eve stripped away, to know the perfect intimacy of Eden before the Fall. But the road is long before that joy becomes ours once again. It demands an arduous trek through a desert land, a confrontation with the sin that has made it impossible to know ourselves or one another fully, and a deep supply of grace.
What's more, pushing to reveal too much of ourselves can backfire, precisely because we are, in the world as it stands, prone to disharmony, unable to enter fully into oneanother's hearts. Misunderstanding and hard feelings easily undermine a relationship when opinions and perspectives are shared that may be upsetting or off-putting. Yes, honesty about our own struggles with sin and relationships can help in developing personal connections because it makes clear we know the burden of being human--we can "relate"--but we had best be judicious in what we choose to share and what we don't... and with whom. Our sense of community is always tenuous and provisional, this side of the Kingdom, and what little we do have is, in part, based on a kind of studied ignorance, a willingness to look away from those things that would divide us and fix our gaze upon those things that unite us. Too much information can kill a good thing. I do not want to know too much about the self-doubts and late-night anguish of my president or bishop. I do not want to know too much about the political biases and animosities of my parishioners. I do not want to know too much about the sex life and fantasies of my parents or my children. Let me keep some of my illusions. I need them. They lend me a kind of stability, a stability I need to move forward and not fall into despair. God knows I have enough trouble struggling with my own inner demons, let alone those of others.
So yes, spare me the fully authentic. Inauthenticity, in judicious, well measured portions, is good for me. Paradoxically, it is the very thing that gives me the strength and courage to carry on, a peculiar, inverted grace that makes it possible for me to work toward the authentic. I cannot bare myself and become too naked too soon, or I will perish in the fiercely cold and unforgiving winds of a hostile world utterly unlike the warm and open paradise of Eden.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Shame and Grace
We sometimes hear certain cultures described as "shame cultures." By this, anthropologists mean cultures that seek to compel conformity through shaming, imbuing people with a sense of worthlessness when they fail to live up to the social norms of the community. Japan is considered a shame culture, as are many African and Middle Eastern cultures. By contrast, Western cultures are thought, by dint of their embrace of individual freedom, to have transcended the abuse of human shame and to celebrate the individual, with all his idiosyncrasies and foibles. But if this is so, why the high level of suicide and depression in Western cultures relative to the rest of the world? Why are so many of our counseling centers and psychotherapy couches filled with people with so little sense of self-worth, haunted by their inadequacies, by a conviction of their own "failure"? Why do people report themselves happier in Nigeria than in France?
In his brilliant but unfinished work, Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that shame is a consequence of our disunion with God. He points to Genesis 2, the story of the Fall, as the mythic revelation of this truth. He says that shame demonstrates an awareness of this fractured union, driven by the human desire to become "like God," i.e., to make our own choices utterly apart from God, to define our own good. The impulse to cover up, to hide, that is intrinsic to shame, is a indicator of our sense that we have broken something vital. Perfect intimacy has been destroyed. Judgment has been introduced. What is "good" and what is "bad" must be discerned and separated out, now that we know good and evil.
In many cultures, this discernment is made by a group of elders adhering to longstanding tradition. Anyone who fails to conform with their judgment is shunned and those who have transgressed are not easily reconciled back into the culture. He or she carries a black mark that taints the family, clan, or tribe. Reconciliation and forgiveness are unlikely. Second chances are nearly impossible, unless one leaves the group completely. The burden of shame is huge. Occasionally the stain is seen as so great a blight upon the family name that it can be removed only through some form of "honor killing."
In the West we have convinced ourselves we are too "advanced" to submit ourselves to such treatment. We argue that human dignity won't allow it, that human beings are redeemable, that forgiveness is always possible. Those who transgress, rather than hiding in shame, sometimes make public and open confessions as a way of "working through" the whys and wherefores of their actions. They often are welcomed back into the fold once they have "come clean" and admitted their fault, especially if they pledge to reform. Quarterback Michael Vick, President Bill Clinton, and former D.C. mayor Marion Barry all demonstrate the point: few transgressors remain beyond the pale forever. There is almost always a road back to respectability.
And yet, huge sectors of our population, crossing all ages and income levels, report feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, a kind of shame that seems unrelated in any direct way to a specific action in the world, but rather to who they are... or, more accurately, what they have become. These people describe a sense that somehow they have not "made the grade," that they have not lived up to their own best expectations for themselves. They see themselves as failures in a culture of success, a culture that says you can be anything you choose to be. Not infrequently they are, by any objective, external measure, actually quite successful, but internally they are convinced that they have not measured up, that they have been judged wanting, if only by themselves.
Perhaps this is the dark side of a culture that dares to assert the limitless possibilities of individual achievement without an adequate understanding of human frailty. Disunion with God cannot be overcome through human effort. It can only be transcended by grace, by God's free gift of himself. We cannot "achieve" our way back to Eden, but yet, somehow, we have convinced ourselves we can. As long as we believe this to be true, consciously or unconsciously, we will continue to be haunted by a sense of failure that is rooted in shame, in an innate awareness that we are not who we should be. We tell ourselves we are not the professional success or the lover or the parent we should be, but the problem goes deeper than that. And paradoxically it is only by recognizing the depth of our predicament that we find the freedom to forgive one another, to forgive ourselves, and set ourselves in a position of openness, so that God can find us again.
In his brilliant but unfinished work, Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that shame is a consequence of our disunion with God. He points to Genesis 2, the story of the Fall, as the mythic revelation of this truth. He says that shame demonstrates an awareness of this fractured union, driven by the human desire to become "like God," i.e., to make our own choices utterly apart from God, to define our own good. The impulse to cover up, to hide, that is intrinsic to shame, is a indicator of our sense that we have broken something vital. Perfect intimacy has been destroyed. Judgment has been introduced. What is "good" and what is "bad" must be discerned and separated out, now that we know good and evil.
In many cultures, this discernment is made by a group of elders adhering to longstanding tradition. Anyone who fails to conform with their judgment is shunned and those who have transgressed are not easily reconciled back into the culture. He or she carries a black mark that taints the family, clan, or tribe. Reconciliation and forgiveness are unlikely. Second chances are nearly impossible, unless one leaves the group completely. The burden of shame is huge. Occasionally the stain is seen as so great a blight upon the family name that it can be removed only through some form of "honor killing."
In the West we have convinced ourselves we are too "advanced" to submit ourselves to such treatment. We argue that human dignity won't allow it, that human beings are redeemable, that forgiveness is always possible. Those who transgress, rather than hiding in shame, sometimes make public and open confessions as a way of "working through" the whys and wherefores of their actions. They often are welcomed back into the fold once they have "come clean" and admitted their fault, especially if they pledge to reform. Quarterback Michael Vick, President Bill Clinton, and former D.C. mayor Marion Barry all demonstrate the point: few transgressors remain beyond the pale forever. There is almost always a road back to respectability.
And yet, huge sectors of our population, crossing all ages and income levels, report feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, a kind of shame that seems unrelated in any direct way to a specific action in the world, but rather to who they are... or, more accurately, what they have become. These people describe a sense that somehow they have not "made the grade," that they have not lived up to their own best expectations for themselves. They see themselves as failures in a culture of success, a culture that says you can be anything you choose to be. Not infrequently they are, by any objective, external measure, actually quite successful, but internally they are convinced that they have not measured up, that they have been judged wanting, if only by themselves.
Perhaps this is the dark side of a culture that dares to assert the limitless possibilities of individual achievement without an adequate understanding of human frailty. Disunion with God cannot be overcome through human effort. It can only be transcended by grace, by God's free gift of himself. We cannot "achieve" our way back to Eden, but yet, somehow, we have convinced ourselves we can. As long as we believe this to be true, consciously or unconsciously, we will continue to be haunted by a sense of failure that is rooted in shame, in an innate awareness that we are not who we should be. We tell ourselves we are not the professional success or the lover or the parent we should be, but the problem goes deeper than that. And paradoxically it is only by recognizing the depth of our predicament that we find the freedom to forgive one another, to forgive ourselves, and set ourselves in a position of openness, so that God can find us again.
Friday, October 7, 2011
My Contemplative Prayer Retreat in England
I am writing this to you from Bath, England. Yes, I'm sitting in a pub and nursing a pint. The retreat is over and I am, I have to admit, relieved. Not that it was a bad experience. Far from it. It was one of the most intense spiritual experiences of my life. I am just not used to meditating three times a day, keeping silence at every meal, and wrestling with the Spirit for several hours each day. I have been on silent retreats before, to be sure, but never of this intensity. I'm prayed out!
The leader of the retreat was Dom (a title of respect for a Benedictine abbot) Laurence Freeman, the current leader of the World Community for Christian Meditation, a group founded by Freeman's late mentor, Dom John Main, to promote the use of Christian meditation, a form of contemplative prayer long cherished in the monastic tradition, but little known outside monastic circles until the 1970s, when Fr. Main in England and Fr. Thomas Keating in the U.S. helped to found a worldwide movement to spread the use of contemplative prayer and awareness of the mystical tradition of the Church within the broader Christian community. Their work was greatly assisted by the writings of Thomas Merton and Basil Pennington, two highly articulate advocates of contemplative practice beyond the monastery walls whose work continues to have wide influence, as well as by Vatican II and the Ecumenical Movement.
Today the practice of contemplative prayer and Christian meditation has spread well beyond the boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church. There are contemplative prayer and meditation groups in almost every mainline denomination and the movement is even beginning to gain notice among more ecumenically minded evangelicals. The retreat I attended was dominated by Anglicans, but included a Methodist and a Presbyterian, as well as a handful of Roman Catholics. It was evenly divided between men and women and included three Americans and three Irishmen. Most had come to Christian meditation or contemplative prayer through contact with an active group of contemplatives within their communities. For some, it was a relatively new discovery, while others had been practicing for decades.
The retreat, which was specially directed toward priests and ordained ministers, focused on the need for silence in a world filled with constant stimulation and interruption, where it is hard enough to hear oneself think, let alone hear God. Solitude and silence were sought by Jesus for his own times of prayer, in "a lonely place" apart. While we have no direct knowledge of how Jesus used his solitude, it seems quite plausible that contemplative practice has its roots in Jesus' prayer life, since the post-apostolic Fathers and Mothers of the church who first described contemplative prayer insist they received the tradition from the apostles themselves and those who knew them. It may be that Jesus' instruction to "go into your room and close the door" was a figure for entering into a silent place within yourself, as the Greek word used for "room" (tamieion) is an odd one, referring to a store room in a villa, not the kind of room most of Jesus' disciples ever would have used. Its location suggests interiority, depth, darkness, and quiet.
The practice of contemplative prayer or meditation is deceptively simple. The practitioner chooses a "sacred word," perhaps the name of Jesus or "peace" or "love". It can be a single word or phrase with meaning for the meditator, but should not be too elaborate. Fr. Laurence suggests maranatha or some other Aramaic or Greek phrase, so as not to make the associations so immediate as to start a chain of thought too quickly. (I like eirene humin, "peace be with you.") This word or phrase is silently repeated whenever thoughts enter the mind, gently nudging them aside. The aim is to free one's mind as far as possible of conscious babble so you can wait on God and become more sensitive to his promptings.
Contemplative prayer is not intended to displace other types of prayer, such as intercessory prayer, confession, or prayers of adoration. It is, instead, a complement to them. Most other forms of prayer entail offering our words to God. Contemplative prayer opens us to receive God's word in our hearts. It is a way of listening, rather than a way of speaking, in the holy conversation that encompasses all prayer.
My own practice of contemplative prayer has helped me find a still point in my life, a centering point where I am able to re-orient my mind and heart to the things of God. I have come to realize through contemplative prayer and meditation just how noisy and cluttered my interior world is and how little room there is for God to get a word in. It is not that I suddenly hear God's voice rumbling in my head when I pray this way. Rather, it seems to have sensitized me to God's subtle presence throughout my life and kept me from sinking into that sort of dull materialism that seeks only stimulation and sensation, so prevalent in the modern world.
It is not an easy practice. Anyone who has ever tried to keep silent for a minute, stilling the "gerbil wheel" of thought that constantly churns in our minds, knows well how much of a struggle it can be. But it is one that bears a surprisingly great amount of fruit when practiced with any reasonable regularity.
At St. Thomas, here in Lancaster, we have a contemplative prayer group that meets every other Sunday at the home of Marianne and Harrison Gordon, both of whom are practiced contemplatives. Mildred Lorch has extensive experience in contemplative prayer as well. In short, there are resources available for anyone in the parish who would like to learn more about this life-giving form of prayer. It is my hope that, in the near future, more people in the parish will have the opportunity to discover how fruitful Christian meditation and the contemplative path can be.
P.S. Anyone wishing to know more about contemplative prayer and Christian meditation should check out the following websites:
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Advice To A Newly Married Couple
You want "advice" about marriage? I'm guessing I'm qualified to give it, since I've been married to Ann for more than 28 years.
It staggers me to say that. 28 years. I've lived with Ann longer than I lived with my parents… and, quite obviously, much longer than I ever lived alone. She knows me more intimately than any parent ever would. She knows all my warts. And she still loves me.
Now there's a miracle!
When I got married, I was a mere lad of 25. And Ann was even younger. But I felt all grown up. I thought I was reasonably mature. I had my fancy college degree. I was responsible. I was in seminary, for heaven's sake! In fact, I was so impressed with myself, I was convinced I was wise enough to avoid all, or at least most, of the "mistakes" my parents made in their marriage.
That's what I thought. But what I discovered was actually more like the revelation of historian Thomas Carlyle's wife Jane, who said to her husband a few years after they had married, "I am not at all the person you and I took me for."
This is the first grand insight of marriage: you are both more prideful, stubborn, self-centered, and inconsiderate than you ever imagined. And if you ever vacillate or have any doubt about it, your spouse will be only too happy to explain to you the truth…or at least, the truth about you, if not him- or herself. The fact is, you take your mess along with you when you get married. All the neuroses of the family, all the anxieties, secrets, resentments and feelings of anguish come with you, like it or not… not to mention the ones you cultivate all on your own. They're like the smelly old gym bag your mom keeps throwing out but somehow keeps showing up in your closet. You just can't let it go.
Once the truth dawns, what then? Well, you have three choices:
You can opt out. Lots of folks do. Most divorces happen within the first seven years of a marriage. People think, "This is too hard. I'm too crazy, you're definitely too crazy, so I'm outta here!"
You can stay, refuse to change, and be miserable. Some folks do take this option, to save face, or "for the sake of the kids".
Or you can grow up… together… at last.
But it must be done together. When one spouse wants to change and the other refuses, it's a very sad thing and no good can come of it. It can only be done together. In fact, this is precisely why you have one another, it's the reason marriage exists, the deepest, truest reason. You are to be the instrument of one another's transformation, a transformation into a person more loving, more honest, more open, more wise, more whole than you are now. This is the work of love. Because you have made this covenant together, it is your work now, the work of a lifetime.
And it is hard work. You have to fight against all the bad habits of the past, all the unkind words and inconsiderate gestures. You have to change behaviors you were hardly aware of. You have to confront yourself. You have to find the courage to enter into and look upon forbidden psychic and spiritual landscapes where signs warning "Don't go there!" are posted, with your eyes wide open. And you have to place your mind and heart in the mind and heart of the other, not only as a way of offering empathy and compassion, but also so you might understand how best to challenge the other, confront the petty cruelties and unkindnesses, the denials and self-delusions we are all guilty of, so that he or she may hear you. It is work that requires a tender heart and a very tough mind.
The Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev once pointed out you cannot love in general. You can only love someone, and it can only be done "in minute particular." In other words, the little things matter. The greetings in the morning, the tone of voice, the gentleness, the touch of the hand: they matter. So does doing the laundry, making dinner, cleaning the house, lending a hand. Listening matters, and so does talking, honestly, openly, kindly… though listening matters more. You cannot remain obsessed with your interests, your wants, your needs, or assume they are identical to those of your spouse, and expect love to do its work. It won't. That's why you need so much to listen: to know the difference.
And while marriage is a cooperative venture, you cannot expect it to be "50-50" all the time. There will inevitably be times when one or the other of you will carry most of the load. Grief, depression, disability, illness and addiction can afflict any marriage. Inevitably, one or more of them will afflict yours. This is when your vows really begin to matter. The traditional vows pledge fidelity "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health" until you are parted by death. I expect you promised something similar. So when your beloved loses a parent and is lost in grief for months on end, you open your heart. It does not matter how painful it is or how lonely it makes you feel. When he is sucked down into the vortex of dementia, you open your heart. When she is facing breast cancer and possible disfigurement, you open your heart. You must expect it to be painful… but take courage: God will help you, because it is the work you have covenanted to do. It is how love is made real in a world of flesh and blood. It is how it is lived. The reason St. Paul compared marriage to the union of Christ and his Church is because husband and wife are called to be Christ to one another, to incarnate him by offering a deep, sacrificial love to each other.
If you are both true to this calling, in heart, mind, and action, however imperfectly, something mysterious begins to happen, something that truly is miraculous. The rough edges begin to wear smooth. Somehow that smelly old gym bag doesn't keep showing up in the closet the way it used to. You find yourself growing gentler, more compassionate, more hopeful, more at ease with yourself in the world, and more capable of courage. Both of you, together.
The Canadian writer Robertson Davies wrote a wonderful novel called The Lyre of Orpheus, much of which is spent contemplating how men and women love one another (or don't) and how their relationships fit into the grand scheme of things. At one point, the protagonist, the Rev. Simon Darcourt, turns to his psychiatrist friend and says, "Marriage isn't just domesticity, or the continuance of the race, or institutionalized sex, or a form of property right. And it damned well isn't happiness, as the word is generally used. I think it's a way of finding your soul." As a man married for 28 years, I couldn't agree more. When marriage does its work, it reveals a truer, deeper vision of the persons you were meant to be, and gives you the strength to live into that vision.
Of course, it is always a work in progress. And there is much stumbling and fumbling along the way. You will hurt one another… sometimes inadvertently; sometimes, sad to say, on purpose. It can't be helped, human beings being what they are. But if you are true to the struggle and work to live your vows daily, there will be healing… and, one day, unfathomable blessing, a sense of grace beyond deserving. You'll look back and wonder, how did it happen, that we should come to this place, so bright and beautiful, when all we did was try to love each other? And you'll but barely remember the tears that made it possible.
I promise you.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thriving in Hard Times
For many decades now, American society has emphasized individual striving and achievement as the path the self-betterment and abundant life. Thanks be to God, we seem, at last, to be waking up. We have discovered that such a philosophy lifts only a few boats, leaving the rest to flounder. The economic crisis has finally brought it home. With the middle-class shrinking, pensions disappearing, 50 million uninsured, and a record number of foreclosures and evictions, we can no longer bury our heads in the sand. Mutual responsibility for our social well-being became a recurrent theme in both presidential campaigns (even though Barack Obama proved far more effective in articulating it than John McCain). We are at last coming to grips with the truth that we truly are our brother’s keeper. His welfare is our concern because our welfare depends on his. As Martin Luther King observed, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Yet as the realization dawns, the specter of economic hardship frightens us into a defensive posture, clasping what we have to our chest, unwilling to let go. Even as we insist that government and other institutions show greater compassion and generosity of spirit, we as private individuals can turn parsimonious, contradicting with our actions the best hopes of our hearts. Succumbing to such fears only compounds the problem, forcing us to lean on our own devices for support.
Scripture provides ample guidance to direct us away from our fears, giving us a vision of abundance which, had it been heeded on a societal as well as an individual level, could well have spared us the mess we are now slogging through. Here are the biblical principles that should direct us in hard times:
2 Corinthians 8:13b-14: "…but it is a question of a fair balance between your abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance." The primary principle: share what you have. Redistribution of wealth is a basic Christian economic goal. Paul exhorts the rich congregation in Corinth to aid the suffering churches of Macedonia in the name of a fundamental fairness. He reminds them that there may well come a time when the shoe will be on the other foot and they will require the generosity of the churches in Macedonia for their own needs. Citing Exodus, he argues that it is appropriate that the rich not have too much, nor the poor too little.
Matthew 14:20: "And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full." Second principle: you have more to share than you think. At the feeding of the 5000, there were a lot of hungry people, but the disciples had only two fish and five loaves. They were convinced this was far too little, but Jesus told them they had enough. When they listened to Jesus and distributed the food, they discovered he was right. Amazing things happen when we give what little we have. No better illustration of this principle exists than the story of the El Paso church group that decided to take the injunction to feed the hungry to heart and brought a picnic across the border to the ragpickers of Juarez, Mexico. The gesture elicited outpourings of generosity from others and ended up transforming the desperately poor community into one of hope and dignity, as people were moved to address the deeper needs of the ragpickers, building schools, job-training and community centers, and cooperative businesses around the dump where they had once picked rags. There is an abundance hidden in the midst of what we perceive as scarcity, but it cannot be unleashed without action driven by a giving heart.
Matthew 25:25-26a: “'…so I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant!…'” Third principle: hoarding out of fear is squandering and leads to diminishment. In the parable of the talents, the steward who simply stashes away what his master gives him for safekeeping, because he is afraid of what might happen if he invested it, is the one the master condemns. We often see this as grossly unfair, since the steward’s intent was simply to preserve what he had been given, not to keep it for himself. Similarly, we tend to grow fearfully cautious with the resources God has given us, all in the name of prudence, when God is in fact calling us to use those resources for the betterment of his kingdom. It is the steward who makes use of those resources who is rewarded. An all-too-common illustration of this principle is the budget-slashing church that strips its ministries of their resources in difficult times, all in the name of fiscal responsibility, only to discover that the demise of the youth group or music program or young adult ministry has caused the church to shrink further. It is the church that places ministry over maintenance that grows.
Acts 2:44: "All who believed were together and had all things in common." Fourth principle: sharing builds community. The earliest Christians were communitarians. They used what wealth they possessed to make sure the basic needs of their poorest members were met. The church created a very different vision of human community that was radical and transformative. The governing metaphor was that of a family or a household. It transcended all barriers, including tribe, ethnicity, and language. No one prior to the disciples had ever conceived of family as based on anything but blood and marriage or a society as based on anything other than ethnicity or imperial power. Even one hundred years after the Church was born, Justin Martyr could assert that “we, who once coveted greedily the wealth and fortune of others, now place in common the goods we possess, dividing them with all the needy.” The communitarian spirit of giving would lead Origen to claim at an even later date that “the communities of God, to which Christ has become teacher and guide, are in comparison with communities of the pagan people, among whom they live as strangers, like heavenly lights in the world.”
How do we thrive in hard times? The biblical witness is as counter-intuitive as it is clear: share what little you have. Perhaps our churches are as anemic as they are because, in times of plenty, we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by the greed and acquisitiveness of the world simply because there was always enough for the individual to thrive on his or her own, and so we have become less connected, less willing to obey the law of Christ by bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). To those who would question how a church can survive by sharing when it struggles to make budget or pay its staff, I offer the words of one the Episcopal Church’s most noted preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor: “How can the church survive that keeps pouring itself into the world? I cannot possibly say. All I know is the gospel truth: those willing to give everything away are the ones with anything worth keeping; those willing to look death full in the face are the ones with the most abundant lives. Go figure.”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tending to the Temple of the Spirit
Years ago, at a diocesan presentation on the high cost of clergy health insurance, I remember hearing that clergy ranked just above coal miners in the actuarial risk tabulations used by insurance companies. Since the clergy of the diocese were grouped together by our insurance provider, the premiums necessarily reflected that risk. Clergy, the presenter explained, have higher rates of alcoholism and divorce than lay people, tend to be overweight, and, because the number of young seminarians has declined over the years, they are older as well. In addition, their profession has fallen over the past several decades from a high-status, low-stress vocation to a low-status, high-stress vocation. These factors make it difficult to provide reasonably priced health insurance to priests and deacons working in the church.
As a relatively young priest in his first rectorship, I found all this both bewildering and troubling. Why were we so unhealthy? What was it about the ordained ministry that made the profession so fraught with risk? Were we not called, according to our ordination vows, to pattern our lives so that we might be a “wholesome example” for our people? How come so many of us are unable, on one level or another, to fulfill the vow?
As I gained in experience, however, the answers became clear.
I had always been an active person. I loved to run, swim, and ride my bike. In college, I had run on the cross-country team for a time (until I figured out I had no business running with people whose mile splits were just above four minutes!) I had done the Marine Corps Marathon and the Philadelphia Half-Marathon. As a prep school track coach, I had always run with the team at practice. I considered myself fit and thought I had sufficiently integrated the right habits into my routines to keep me that way.
Then came parish ministry. At first, it had only minimal effect. I was an assistant with limited responsibilities. With a young son and another on the way, workouts had to be curtailed a bit. Visits to parishioners inevitably revolved around a plate of cookies or some other homemade treat and it felt ungrateful to refuse to sample at least one… or two. I put on a few pounds, but everything still felt quite manageable.
When I became a rector a couple of years later, however, everything changed. The parish was struggling and I desperately wanted to make a difference. Eager to leave my mark, I threw myself into the work, regularly logging 70-hour weeks. Workouts were limited to an occasional jog in the park. Goodies multiplied on all those pastoral calls I was making, not to mention all those notoriously caloric coffee hours and potluck luncheons.
The church grew and so did I. After five or six years, I had added almost four inches to my waistline and mushroomed to nearly 240 pounds. (At 6’1”, my ideal weight, according to the most commonly accepted measure, is supposed to be between 190 and 200 pounds.) I started having difficulty sleeping. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels spiked. At one point, my wife, anxious for my health, scolded me: “Can’t you see this job is killing you? I don’t want to spend my old age as a widow!” I knew there was a problem, but my habits had become entrenched and the success I had had in the parish only reinforced the habits. Still, I knew something had to change. I figured joining the local community fitness center might help. I started exercising a bit more, but with few fundamental changes to my lifestyle.
Then one day, while jogging on a treadmill, I suddenly grew dizzy. Pain radiated down my left arm. I immediately stopped the machine, convinced I was about to have a heart attack. Fortunately, I was wrong. The pain and dizziness quickly subsided. One thing was clear, however: this was my wake-up call. If I did not alter my lifestyle, I was headed for trouble.
With the help of a few fitness books, supplemented by knowledge accrued as a former coach and athlete, I devised a fitness program I thought could work. I knew it had to be something that was doable, that I could make into a lifetime habit, rather than a crash program. I realized from my reading that at the age of forty, I had to make diet as much a focus of the program as exercise. Metabolism slows as you age, making it progressively easier to gain weight. But I also love to eat, so I knew I had to develop something that I would enjoy.
I cut down the amount of meat I ate, especially fatty red meat, as well as the simple carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, and rice. I added more vegetables, replaced butter with a heart-friendly substitute, and stopped drinking alcohol with my regular meals. I paid more attention to the size of my portions and never took second helpings. As a rule of thumb, I made sure I had a serving of protein, a serving of fruit or vegetables, and a carbohydrate at each meal, with no helping ever being larger than the size of my fist. I turned away from the dairy-rich, meat-focused recipes of my northern European ancestors and turned to the healthier fare of the Mediterranean world and the American Southwest. I drank a glass of low-fat milk or a protein shake at mid-morning and mid-afternoon to boost my metabolism and stave of cravings. One day a week, I allowed myself an indulgence like wine with dinner or an ice cream for dessert, so I wouldn’t feel deprived.
For exercise, I started getting up early and heading for the gym five or six days out of the week. I knew that high-intensity workouts burned fat faster and were more effective in revving metabolism, but because I was out of shape, I had to start slowly. I began jogging twenty minutes on the treadmill, then lifting weights for another twenty, with an occasional swim in the pool. After about six weeks I felt strong enough to increase the intensity. I started doing speed intervals on the treadmill, gingerly at first, but pushing myself to do just a little more a little faster each week. Since increased muscle mass also speeds metabolism, I focused four days a week on weightlifting, alternating between lower body and upper body exercises, doing four sets of six different exercises each time. This also helped me to avoid the injuries that had often plagued me when I focused exclusively on running, especially after I passed the age of 35.
It worked. The weight started to peel off. I felt stronger and more energetic. I slept better as well. Since nothing motivates like success, my resolve strengthened as I went on. The approach was becoming habitual, a way of life. By the end of that year, I had dropped to 195 pounds, could run a mile in just over six minutes, and could do a chest press of 240 pounds, the first time ever in my life I could lift more than my weight.
My greatest struggle at this point was not maintaining the routine, but justifying the time commitment it required. I felt guilty that it took time away from work or my family. Somehow I felt like I was goofing off or indulging myself when I should have been visiting the sick or doing yard work at the rectory. I waged a constant internal battle to keep myself on track. A few years later I had the good fortune to attend a CREDO conference. CREDO, of course, was conceived by the leaders of the Church Pension Fund as a way of addressing the issue of clergy wellness. Physical health issues are discussed extensively at each conference. At the one I attended, Barbara Kempf, a nurse from St. Paul’s in Indianapolis, led the physical health portions of the program. She pointed out that clergy have more flexibility in their schedules than almost any other profession and most have little or no commute to factor in, so time really should not be an issue when devising a workout regimen. “Make it a part of your workday,” she urged us. “Treat it as something you are doing for the church, as well as for yourself and your family.” When I heard those words, I instantly felt liberated. No longer did I need to rationalize my workouts. They were as much a part of the work I did for the church as writing a sermon. They were acts of stewardship, preserving the body that is the temple of the Holy Spirit for the work God had given me to do. They contributed to my family’s wellness as well, giving my wife a husband with greater energy and less stress and my kids a dad who didn’t always feel so worn out he couldn’t throw a ball around or play a game of one-on-one basketball.
It has been eleven years since I had my wake-up call and, for the most part, I have managed to maintain my regimen and keep the weight off. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels have returned to normal and I have no more sleep issues. Every once in a while, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas, I add a few pounds and have to spend the spring working them back off. This past year was a bit more stressful than usual, since my parish had entered into merger discussions with another church, and I added a few more pounds than is typical, with my weight surpassing 210, but I managed to take them off again this summer. I still earn a “superior” rating from the periodic fitness tests I take at the gym. And I feel good, with plenty of energy to do what God has called me to do.
Given that health insurance costs for clergy remain one of the most difficult issues for the church, perhaps the single best thing we can do to improve things is to make a commitment to preventive self-care. Scientific studies have demonstrated time and time again that diet and vigorous exercise are the single most effective factors in preventing serious health problems as we age. By developing a doable fitness program and sticking to it, we will not only help the church we love, but the God we serve and the families we treasure as well. There are few better investments of time and energy. It is perhaps the single most basic act of stewardship we can perform. And one I personally have never regretted.
As a relatively young priest in his first rectorship, I found all this both bewildering and troubling. Why were we so unhealthy? What was it about the ordained ministry that made the profession so fraught with risk? Were we not called, according to our ordination vows, to pattern our lives so that we might be a “wholesome example” for our people? How come so many of us are unable, on one level or another, to fulfill the vow?
As I gained in experience, however, the answers became clear.
I had always been an active person. I loved to run, swim, and ride my bike. In college, I had run on the cross-country team for a time (until I figured out I had no business running with people whose mile splits were just above four minutes!) I had done the Marine Corps Marathon and the Philadelphia Half-Marathon. As a prep school track coach, I had always run with the team at practice. I considered myself fit and thought I had sufficiently integrated the right habits into my routines to keep me that way.
Then came parish ministry. At first, it had only minimal effect. I was an assistant with limited responsibilities. With a young son and another on the way, workouts had to be curtailed a bit. Visits to parishioners inevitably revolved around a plate of cookies or some other homemade treat and it felt ungrateful to refuse to sample at least one… or two. I put on a few pounds, but everything still felt quite manageable.
When I became a rector a couple of years later, however, everything changed. The parish was struggling and I desperately wanted to make a difference. Eager to leave my mark, I threw myself into the work, regularly logging 70-hour weeks. Workouts were limited to an occasional jog in the park. Goodies multiplied on all those pastoral calls I was making, not to mention all those notoriously caloric coffee hours and potluck luncheons.
The church grew and so did I. After five or six years, I had added almost four inches to my waistline and mushroomed to nearly 240 pounds. (At 6’1”, my ideal weight, according to the most commonly accepted measure, is supposed to be between 190 and 200 pounds.) I started having difficulty sleeping. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels spiked. At one point, my wife, anxious for my health, scolded me: “Can’t you see this job is killing you? I don’t want to spend my old age as a widow!” I knew there was a problem, but my habits had become entrenched and the success I had had in the parish only reinforced the habits. Still, I knew something had to change. I figured joining the local community fitness center might help. I started exercising a bit more, but with few fundamental changes to my lifestyle.
Then one day, while jogging on a treadmill, I suddenly grew dizzy. Pain radiated down my left arm. I immediately stopped the machine, convinced I was about to have a heart attack. Fortunately, I was wrong. The pain and dizziness quickly subsided. One thing was clear, however: this was my wake-up call. If I did not alter my lifestyle, I was headed for trouble.
With the help of a few fitness books, supplemented by knowledge accrued as a former coach and athlete, I devised a fitness program I thought could work. I knew it had to be something that was doable, that I could make into a lifetime habit, rather than a crash program. I realized from my reading that at the age of forty, I had to make diet as much a focus of the program as exercise. Metabolism slows as you age, making it progressively easier to gain weight. But I also love to eat, so I knew I had to develop something that I would enjoy.
I cut down the amount of meat I ate, especially fatty red meat, as well as the simple carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, and rice. I added more vegetables, replaced butter with a heart-friendly substitute, and stopped drinking alcohol with my regular meals. I paid more attention to the size of my portions and never took second helpings. As a rule of thumb, I made sure I had a serving of protein, a serving of fruit or vegetables, and a carbohydrate at each meal, with no helping ever being larger than the size of my fist. I turned away from the dairy-rich, meat-focused recipes of my northern European ancestors and turned to the healthier fare of the Mediterranean world and the American Southwest. I drank a glass of low-fat milk or a protein shake at mid-morning and mid-afternoon to boost my metabolism and stave of cravings. One day a week, I allowed myself an indulgence like wine with dinner or an ice cream for dessert, so I wouldn’t feel deprived.
For exercise, I started getting up early and heading for the gym five or six days out of the week. I knew that high-intensity workouts burned fat faster and were more effective in revving metabolism, but because I was out of shape, I had to start slowly. I began jogging twenty minutes on the treadmill, then lifting weights for another twenty, with an occasional swim in the pool. After about six weeks I felt strong enough to increase the intensity. I started doing speed intervals on the treadmill, gingerly at first, but pushing myself to do just a little more a little faster each week. Since increased muscle mass also speeds metabolism, I focused four days a week on weightlifting, alternating between lower body and upper body exercises, doing four sets of six different exercises each time. This also helped me to avoid the injuries that had often plagued me when I focused exclusively on running, especially after I passed the age of 35.
It worked. The weight started to peel off. I felt stronger and more energetic. I slept better as well. Since nothing motivates like success, my resolve strengthened as I went on. The approach was becoming habitual, a way of life. By the end of that year, I had dropped to 195 pounds, could run a mile in just over six minutes, and could do a chest press of 240 pounds, the first time ever in my life I could lift more than my weight.
My greatest struggle at this point was not maintaining the routine, but justifying the time commitment it required. I felt guilty that it took time away from work or my family. Somehow I felt like I was goofing off or indulging myself when I should have been visiting the sick or doing yard work at the rectory. I waged a constant internal battle to keep myself on track. A few years later I had the good fortune to attend a CREDO conference. CREDO, of course, was conceived by the leaders of the Church Pension Fund as a way of addressing the issue of clergy wellness. Physical health issues are discussed extensively at each conference. At the one I attended, Barbara Kempf, a nurse from St. Paul’s in Indianapolis, led the physical health portions of the program. She pointed out that clergy have more flexibility in their schedules than almost any other profession and most have little or no commute to factor in, so time really should not be an issue when devising a workout regimen. “Make it a part of your workday,” she urged us. “Treat it as something you are doing for the church, as well as for yourself and your family.” When I heard those words, I instantly felt liberated. No longer did I need to rationalize my workouts. They were as much a part of the work I did for the church as writing a sermon. They were acts of stewardship, preserving the body that is the temple of the Holy Spirit for the work God had given me to do. They contributed to my family’s wellness as well, giving my wife a husband with greater energy and less stress and my kids a dad who didn’t always feel so worn out he couldn’t throw a ball around or play a game of one-on-one basketball.
It has been eleven years since I had my wake-up call and, for the most part, I have managed to maintain my regimen and keep the weight off. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels have returned to normal and I have no more sleep issues. Every once in a while, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas, I add a few pounds and have to spend the spring working them back off. This past year was a bit more stressful than usual, since my parish had entered into merger discussions with another church, and I added a few more pounds than is typical, with my weight surpassing 210, but I managed to take them off again this summer. I still earn a “superior” rating from the periodic fitness tests I take at the gym. And I feel good, with plenty of energy to do what God has called me to do.
Given that health insurance costs for clergy remain one of the most difficult issues for the church, perhaps the single best thing we can do to improve things is to make a commitment to preventive self-care. Scientific studies have demonstrated time and time again that diet and vigorous exercise are the single most effective factors in preventing serious health problems as we age. By developing a doable fitness program and sticking to it, we will not only help the church we love, but the God we serve and the families we treasure as well. There are few better investments of time and energy. It is perhaps the single most basic act of stewardship we can perform. And one I personally have never regretted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)