Church of the Blessed Life

It's all well and good to guilt people into a more sustainable lifestyle; and perhaps it is even inspiring to discuss a way of life that is fulfilling and integrated. However, the realityis that it is extraordinarily frustrating and taxing to attempt to swim against the current of U.S. consumerism; it feels impossible for one individual to do it--like swimming against the rapids. And, after all, what difference can one individual really make, in the long run? The reality is that we need community. We need local support and networks of people committed to living the blessed life.

How about the church?

It's an intriguing time in the life of the church. Most churches are having a hard time maintaining enthusiasm among the young, particularly singles. The numbers I have seen show that young folks are leaving the churches in a mass exodus, of sorts, although most still describe themselves as spiritual or religious in some way.

Hhhhmmm....what about the church....

Here's the positive thing. Churches are already set up as support groups for local individuals. This is particularly true of "neighborhood churches" that are located in densely populated areas (where people actually live!), allowing people to be within walking distance of the building.

Furthermore, if churches want to imitate their founding member (and subsequent disciples and apostles), which seems to be a common theme among churches, then they will already have an interest in creating a supportive community for living an alternative lifestyle--this could be lifestyle in alternative to the consumeristic matrix within which the greater Western world now participates.

Just imagine it, my friend. (Personally, I have a difficult time not feeling some surge of optimism in writing about the possibility.) Just think of the revolutionary possibilities if churches dedicated themselves to the path of anti-consumerism, to integrity, and to the blessed life. These churches could create new, local markets for goods, for everything from locally produced food to locally made clothes, furniture, cookware, and art. What kind of new employment opportunities might this open up? Might more people be able to quit their jobs on the assembly lines and behind desks and follow their talents and creativity? Working the soil or creating beautiful and useful products?

Such a shift would also create strong relational bonds within a faith community--striving and struggling together for a crucial mission at a critical time. It would be a shift from surviving the world to working together for a new vision. Consumeristic thinking necessarily leads to objectification. Those of us who "work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" end up feeling a little bit like we've sold our souls to the devil. And maybe we have, but it isn't too late to change. Such a transformation would be about the blessed life--approaching the world in a life-giving manner. This is a shift about the way we interpret ourselves, no longer as "consumers" or "human resources" but as relational and responsible human beings--with an emphasis on "being," on being dynamic and alive. This kind of life and this new relational energy could then be used to reach out a hand to those on the margins of the consumeristic society: the disabled, the poor, the addicts, prisoners, prostitutes, undocumented immigrants, and others who are considered a burden by the wider society--but those to whom that Jesus dude tended to gravitate.

Structurally the church is set up to be the catalyst for the blessed life, to turn our attention from thoughtless Walmart, fast food, and strip-mall consumers to becoming informed people of integrity. The system can be changed, we could become spiritually, relationally, and environmentally sustainable people via the church.

So, what's stopping us?

Structurally, the church is set up to be

A Mass of Impersonal Human Beings

"When men are merely submerged in a mass of impersonal human beings pushed around by automatic forces, they lose their humanity, their integrity, their ability to love, their capacity for self-determination." - Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

This quote by Merton relates to my recent musings on the blessed life. A life of integrity means that our values and humanity are integrated into every element of our lives. When our work, recreation, religion, buying habits, addictions, or other activities of our lives cut us off from what is most human about us, then our lives become fragmented and frustrated.

Perhaps the awkward thing about our age is that we are being "pushed around by automatic forces," like advertising or other media, but many of us are okay with it. We know that advertisers are deliberately manipulating our psyche to get us to buy products, but we like it well enough that we don't protest. We understand that our favorite cable news channel program presents a very slanted spin on events, but it's what we want to hear (and after a while we forget that it's a slanted spin, and then we assume it's all more or less fact).

Merton points out the loss of humanity, integrity, ability to love, and the capacity for self-determination. I would say that these four losses are definite manifestations of a life of frustration that comes out of being objectified as a consumer within the spirit of a consumeristic society. Consumerism is the kind of "automatic force" that can drain us of very vital spiritual and human qualities.

The Blessed Life

It is often the case that our own ill-conceived strategies for life often make us the most unhappy. The world is a chaotic place, and we develop strategies to cope. These strategies evolve into habits, many of which we are not even aware of. There are times, though, when we run into problems in our lives that confuse us, that cause us to step back and reevaluate ourselves. The idea of reaping what we sow seems to have to do with this very thing—ill-conceived strategies for life, lifestyles and habits that come back to cause us grief and pain.

Here in the U.S., we are nearing nearly a decade of war, our economy is in the midst of “the Great Recession,” and we are in the process of dealing with an ecological catastrophe. It may be a critical time in the history of our nation, a time to ask the most basic of questions regarding our way of life: is it working for us?

Clearly our choices of lifestyle have had a devastating impact on the environment. From an economic perspective, it is a matter of debate whether we can continue to push for more growth. But more to the point: our economic push for expansion and growth is coming into conflict iwht our environment’s ability to sustain it. This is due in part to the fact that our deconomy depends so heavily on iol. Eventually the supply will run out. Additionally there is the concern about global warming. Can our environment sustain the impact of all of the world’s carbon emissions? In the meantime, we deal with the oil spills and the environmental destruction from drilling on land.

But let’s bracket these concerns for a moment. Let’s assume that these natural resources are unlimited and that extracting them is not a problem. (After all, most people continue to live as though there were no problems—even those who believe that our way of life is devastating to the planet.)Let’s assume global warming is not happening and that the resources are unlimited. Let’s ask a fundamental question: are we really happy? Do we live a blessed life?

The biblical texts speak a good deal about the blessed life.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” “Blessed are the merciful.” “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” “Blessed are the pure in heart.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

As I understand them, the basic premise is that if a person or society walks with integrity, then they will be blessed; conversely, those whose ways lack integrity can expect negative consequences to come their way. This is certainly not an absolute formula for success, and those who use it as such will find themselves disappointed. For example, there are those who walk with integrity but are exploited, abused, die of disease, are pushed off their land, etc. This is historical fact. Still, there is something important about living a blessed life, about being blessed, and it isn’t about living out a formula for a successful life.

What is the standard for a blessed life? Material possessions might be our first response. Or we might perhaps associate blessings with entertainment or other sensual stimulations. Further, we might define success (and blessedness) in terms of achievement—building a career, establishing a ministry, attaining personal goals, or having an accomplished family. Perhaps also we might define a blessed life as some mix of the above.

My understanding of the biblical texts, taken as a whole—the Hebrew scriptures along with the Christian New Testament—is that the blessed life is one that is lived with integrity. The word “integrity” having to do with an “integration”: that all of the activities and relationships of one’s life work together in a harmonious, beautiful, and virtuous way.

For example, we admire a business man or woman as a “person of integrity” if this person is consistently honest in all of his or her dealings, whether professional or personal. If a person is religious at church, but they are dishonest in their work life, we say that such a person lacks integrity, that they have not integrated their values into a harmony. Similarly, if a member of the clergy has a public persona of virtue but a private life of vice, we would say that this inconsistency is evidence of a lack of integrity.

If the blessed life is seen in this way, then we realize that success, achievement, or even survival is of secondary importance. Integrity has a profit all its own.

If the blessed life is a life of integrity, then how does the U.S. fair? The outlooks is certainly bleak. I would say that the reason for this does not necessarily have to do with evil intentions by the majority of average citizens, but more to do with a way of living and a system that promotes fragmentation. Fragmentation is the opposite of integration, or the reverse of integrity. For example, if we want to own a pair of running shoes, we go to Foot Locker or some other chain store and buy a pair. We do not usually think farther than this. But what if our shoes were made in an Asian sweatshop? What if our shoes were produces with exploited labor? Even children? “Well,” we might respond, “how should I know? I’m not deliberately trying to screw Asian workers, I just want a pair of shoes.” But you see, this response presumes that our behavior (buying a pair of shoes) can be an isolated event. We isolate this event and fragment it from any other considerations and from any of our life’s values. We live in a sort of willful ignorance of where our products come from. This is a breakdown of integrity because it is a failure to integrate our values (things like fairness, goodness, kindness, etc.) with our purchase of a pair of shoes.

This kind of thing, though, is a part of life in the U.S. We purchase most of our products without knowing their source, even our food. We work for companies and corporations that isolate us into departments, cubicles, and offices, to do isolated tasks without knowledge of whether our work is contributing to a virtuous cause or causing suffering in the world.

We live in a system that encourages fragmentation, that refuses to allow us to live integrated lives, lifestyles of integrity. And more and more we are seeing the impact of our lifestyle on other people, animals, and the environment. This means that the general public is being confronted with the fact that we have not been living the blessed life.

And are we even happy? Do we live fulfilled and satisfied lives? The advertising industry, which is the force behind so much of our drive for economic expansion, by definition creates dissatisfaction in consumers. If everyone were satisfied with their life, then there would be no reason to buy the latest ipod, purchase a larger television, invest in a larger house, get that second car, or keep one’s self dressed in the latest fashions. Who in the U.S. is truly content? Who is truly satisfied with what they have? It is almost true, by definition, that we are unhappy.

It is also my belief that living a fragmented life without integrity is itself dissatisfying on a deep spiritual level. We see this in the sarcastic and bitter cynicism that many people have toward working in isolated offices and cubicles. The Dilbert cartoon satirizes this approach to life. How can one feel satisfied working in a glorified assembly line that we call an office space? We are often bored and fragmented, and our entertainment industry is so wealthy because it serves to distract us from this deep spiritual discontent.

To live with integrity. To live a contented life. This is the blessed life. This is the life that can extend itself outside of self and engage the world in a meaningful way. A person who is content and lives with integrity does not need to be another consumer in the market to find happiness or some measure of peace, for peace is found within and as a result of one’s virtues put into action. There is an abiding strength of soul and spirit, a renewed “inner person,” and this transformed individual is free to integrate their values with their lifestyle. And it works in reverse: the person who has transformed their behavior in the world can experience an inward satisfaction and freedom from being bound within the consumeristic cycle of discontentment.

There is freedom in this life. This is a pilgrimage that is not of this world, and yet so deeply engaged in the world so as to challenge its deepest darkness. This is the blessed life.

Self, Pilgrimage, and Vocation: A short Sunday meditation

Here is a lengthy quote from Parker Palmer, a Quaker, writer, teacher, and activist. He has a good deal to say about vocation, particularly in his small book, Let Your Life Speak.

In this quote he equates the search for vocation with the search for self, which is the journey of a pilgrim. We've talked a good deal on this blog about self and pilgrimage. So, I thought I might share this quote:

"Most of us arrive at a sense of self and vocation only after a long journey through alien lands. But this journey bears no resemblance to the trouble-free 'travel packages' sold by the tourism industry. It is more akin to the ancient tradition of pilgrimage--'a transformative journey to a sacred center' full of hardships, darkness, and peril.

"In the tradition of the pilgrimage, those hardships are seen not as accidental but as integral to the journey itself. Treacherous terrain, bad weather, taking a fall, getting lost--challenges of that sort, largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in charge and make space for true self to emerge. If that happens, the pilgrim has a better chance to find the sacred center he or she seeks. Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now--in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts."

I like that he links the search for self with a pilgrimage. I appreciate the rather unromantic, realistic appraisal: the pilgrimage is hard. It's tough. It ain't easy going. Perhaps that's why so many of us fail to feel like we are doing something truly vocational, even though the U.S. affords us so many more job opportunities than others have. Most of us end up pushing paper for a living. It ain't all bad, of course, but it isn't a vocation, not a true sense of calling, not something a pilgrim has struggled to find.

I also like how Palmer mentions that these trials of the pilgrimage work something important in us, something we could get in no other way: striping the ego of the illusion that it is in charge. Can we get to this place without pain? Without failure?

Kinesthetic Prayers

As far as I understand, most contemporary theories of education understand that there are different learning styles and different learners. Some people learn by listening, these are audio learners; others are visual learners, so they best retain information that they read or see with their eyes; still others learn best through their body, by actively engaging in an activity, such as writing out information or putting together a puzzle.

Yesterday while conversating with Tamie, I began to wonder about the history of prayer. The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with very kinesthetic prayers; prayer is an experience of the body. People will weep and lament in loud voices, they will rip their clothing and sit in dust and ashes. They will dance to express prayers of joy and thanksgiving. They will set up physical representations of faith (such as digging a well or some form of a memorial). They bow and prostrate their bodies. They lift up their voices.

Somewhere along the way in the Christian tradition, prayer was turned into a mental/cognitive activity or into an inner emotional experience. This is why I wonder about the history of prayer. How did prayer get to be an exclusively inner experience? When did Christians decide that the physicality of prayer was no longer important?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I imagine it has to do with the modern Western obsession with the "inner life" of the mind. Descartes famously (or infamously) withdrew himself from the outer world to discover a more pure, foundational truth in the rationality of his mind.

There is also something intriguing in this discussion related to gender. Traditionally, the mind has been related to the male, while the body is feminine. Women have been the ones who bear the children and nurture them, a physical activity. Men are the decision makers, the masters of mental processing. Men are the educated ones. Women take care of the "practical," physical matters.

Body energy seems to be something that is related to all forms of Eastern religious expression. Buddhism and Hinduism developed yoga and trantric practices to bring the body and the inner person into proper alignment. Muslim practice dictates prostration in prayer, stopping five times a day to physically demonstrate devotion and surrender to God. And, as I mentioned earlier, the Hebrew scriptures use many words to illustrate the intense kinesthetic energy that goes into prayer.

I tend to be someone naturally inclined toward the inner life of the mind and the emotions, primarily focusing on the mental processes. For me, it has renewed me to incorporate physical motion and acts of devotion into my acts of prayer. It becomes a time for me to let go of my thoughts and feelings and engage my body in an act of faith. Physically bowing is a release; using prayer beads allows me to direct my energies of prayer into the world; and speaking my prayers also connects my inner life with the external world.

Let me make this perfectly unclear: the new words of Jesus

Of late, my faith, my pilgrimage, seems to have been taking me in the general direction of creativity and imagination. I am starting to awaken to the realization that much of the journey of faith absolutely must involve imagination. Without it, we dry up. We wither.

Creativity is not the artist’s luxury. Pilgrimage is about movement and courage, but it must also cultivate imagination, stimulate. If a pilgrim of faith only moves, only works, then the aches and pains of the journey become our pre-occupation, and it’s easy to become bitter or to just settle down and take it easy.

In my previous post, I discussed the creative writing class that Tamie and I co-teach. We want to coax and/or challenge our students to break out of conventional language (clichés, vague writing, the received stories about yourself/others/the world). We want them to write something new. We want them to break out of convention: use new words, explore new language, tell a new story. Last week a young woman broke down into tears while I was chatting with her at the end of class. She desperately wants out of her narrative, the story that she always screws things up. The guards comes to take her back to her cage. She has to quickly wipe away her tears.

I want to transition these ideas about imagination into a discussion regarding theology and faith. What happens when the language of theology becomes fossilized? What happens when the language we use to describe faith hardens? It’s like crusty old bread that has lost its soft, moist texture.

Jesus, as it so happens, was the just the sort of chap who used new language and challenged old, prevailing assumptions. (Something about new wineskins for new wine.) Of course he did. We all know this. Yet I am wondering if there isn’t something more fundamental to be learned. Is it Jesus’ message that we should be concerned about? Or should we be imitating Jesus’ approach? Put another way, should we be concerned that we get all of the details correct when it comes to “what-Jesus-taught,” or did Jesus pass on to us a way of being-in-the-world, a way of using new language to break out of the conventional clichés that lock us into cliché lives.

Put another way, in a more universal sense, is spiritual liberation found in repeating, reciting, and reusing the words of old? Or is liberation a freedom to create and imagine new possibilities?

There is an extended passage in the Gospel of John that has many words about words, and words about Jesus’ words, and words about the words that others worded about Jesus’ words. I am thinking specifically about chapter six.

Jesus is drawing crowds.
Jesus tells the crowds that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The crowd responds with a collective “Whoooooah!” “This is a difficult word, who is able to hear it?” (v. 60)
Jesus responds: “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” (v. 63)
Many split the scene. After all, cannibalism ain’t kosher.
Jesus turns to the twelve. His amigos. His homies. “Will you stay or will you go?”
Peter speaks for them all: “You have the words (rhemata) of eternal life” (v. 68)

The crowd responds that Jesus words were “hard/difficult” (skleyros) to understand. Some commentators suggest that the crowd understood Jesus, that is they comprehended him, they just couldn’t accept the word of Jesus. I agree with the commentator (Craig S. Keener) who agrees that the term here generally connotes something that is difficult to accept, “Nevertheless, it was hard to accept because they misunderstood it, as is characteristic of those who hear Jesus without faith…Even his disciples did not always understand initially, but they would in the end because they persevered.” (p. 693)

Jesus was of the tradition of those who throw a monkey wrench into convention language and disrupt our lives when our way of being becomes stale and stagnant. “Jewish sages, like other ancient Mediterranean sages, often spoke in riddles; the historical Jesus, like other Palestinian Jewish sages, employed parables.” (Keener, 692)

Jesus used words to do different kinds of things, to imagine new possibilities. But notice that Jesus forced his audience to engage their hearts/souls/minds to the point that they were baffled. He deliberately convoluted his message. This is very different from much of the contemporary creativity of the techno-savy church crowd. For so many, the lights, the cameras, the sound equipment, and the three point sermons are all meant to be as clear as possible about "the message." But Jesus' point was never primarily to deliver a message. It was to disturb our messages, it was to displace our conventional language so that we are pushed to the breaking point. Once we have come to the end of our selves, once our received paradigms completely fail, that's when we can start to engage our imagination. So much money is being invested to clarify. Jesus came to un-clarify, to challenge all that we thought was clear, and in doing this, Jesus seems to activate something deeper within.

But as I said, it is not in dispute that Jesus broke paradigms with his imaginative use of language. The real question for so many of his 21st century followers is whether his example should be followed. And this is no small question because so much of religion is built on Jesus’ language as the foundation. That is, Jesus’ words are used as the basis for doctrine or for practice, but Jesus’ use of imagination and creativity is often not the basis of faith. Jesus' methods of using language to break paradigms, well, this was just Jesus' crazy way. It was a means to an end. But should it be an end in itself?

Could following Jesus be construed along the lines of following our imagination? Can we hold to the words of Jesus and completely miss the point by failing to engage Jesus’ example of imagination?

Are we to follow the example of Christ and be creators of new language? Like Jesus, to create new language and push ourselves to the brink? Is that why Jesus never wrote his teachings down, because he expected those who came after him to build on his work of creativity? Why does the Gospel of John, in the famous and poetic prologue, allude to Genesis 1 and the creation? The Logos was creating with God in the beginning.

Jesus left the world, when presumably he could have stuck around for a while, but he handed on his work of imagination to his disciples and those who would follow them. Ah, but Jesus did leave a replacement….but a replacement who was even more tricky in her use of language: the paraclete (the comforter, or Holy Ghost), who contorts language even sometimes beyond recognition. The book of Acts describes the Spirit as moving people to speak in languages not their own, the languages of others.

My suggestion here is not that the words of Jesus are unimportant. I am merely speculating that if these words are not combined with imagination, then they can easily become lifeless. What is more, if we look closely we may see that our received interpretation of the words of Jesus, the interpretation handed down to us, may be unimaginative and uninspiring.

What seems to be missing in so much of faith and theology is creativity. We must not merely possess the words of Jesus, we must ignite our imaginative souls. Jesus not only passed along words, he also left us with an example of how to use language in a dynamic way, to retell our worn out stories, to challenge prevailing authorities who use religion and power to oppress, to break out of the conventional clichés that lock us into cliché lives.

“Ye must be born again.”

New words

Tamie and I teach a creative writing class at the county jail every Wednesday afternoon. In the last two classes, we discussed clichés, vague writing, and how we can challenge the standard stories we tell about ourselves. This all has to do with thinking carefully about the language we use.

If we use cliché language, then the reader is not going to be moved by our writing. Clichés are tired, overused words and phrases that become somewhat trite. Not only are clichés uninspiring to the reader, they can also create a cliché life for the writer. In other words, if our language is cliché than our lives can become cliché as well. It’s hard to avoid clichés, though. It can be damned difficult sometimes.

Vague writing is similar. Rather than being specific with our writing and language, we can just kind of generalize things. Too much generalization leaves the reader wanting more. Of course, vague writing can be very powerful when used properly. It can leave the reader with many diverse thoughts. It can put interpretation in the hands of the reader. It can create mystery. But it can also be an escape, a means of non-engagement. It’s hard to be specific in writing. Sometimes it’s damned hard.

In our last class we talked specifically about telling a different story about ourselves. We all have a personal narrative: a story about ourselves that describes me. This may not be one narrative, it can be as simple as a phrase or a few sentences that make sense of who we are, our identity. For example, many of our students in the jail write about their lives (particularly about the behavior that led to their incarceration) with language like this: “I made poor personal choices because I am a bad/broken person.” In our recent class, we tried to challenge our students. Is this the story you want to tell about yourself? In a paper I read recently, one of the students said that as soon as something good happened in his/her life, s/he did something to screw it up. That’s a story s/he is telling. It defines. It creates identity. What about the story a doctor tells himself: My father and grandfather were doctors and that’s what I was born to be. What about the little voice inside, deep down, that wanted something different?

What I said about clichés and vague writing, I say again about re-telling our stories: It’s hard. Damned hard. Most of us, regardless of class/status/gender/education/etc. don’t perceive that the story we tell ourselves about our lives is just a story. Most of us think of our story as fact. It isn’t a story. It’s just the way things are. Every time things are going good in my life, I do something to screw it up. We live with our stories, and they shape us. Our stories form us into their image.

On just about any dimension you can think of, humans tend to clump together. Go farther and farther away from the center and you see fewer and fewer people. It’s hard not to see evidence of some sort of force at work, pulling everybody toward the center. Maybe the force emanates from a particular point in the world, like gravity, pulling people in. Maybe it’s a force that’s embedded within individuals, impelling them to move toward each other. (John Doyle's novel The Stations)

What forces us into clichés? What is it that makes us pass over our vague notions and not explore things in greater depth? What fossilizes our stories, hardening them into “fact”? Over time, it can squeeze the life out of us, but knowing how this process occurs is almost an impossible task. This isn’t just about writing, per se—the act of scratching out words on paper or typing in letters on a keyboard. This is a commentary on life.

In our culture, marketing advertising has created a homogenous culture while convincing everyone that they are special and unique: you’re not just one of the millions who listen to an ipod, you “customized” yours by choosing a green one and by putting all of your favorite tunes onto it. Mass media contributes to our inability to get beyond cliché. We all listen and watch the same things. Mass production is creating a world in which we all buy the same products. The same Ikea tables in the same box houses in the same suburban neighborhood plan. These are strong forces, and yet there is more to this whole process of differentiation, more than just social and culture conditioning, as important as that is.

We are born, we grow, we learn, we adapt. We take on a received language, a received culture. We trust that our parents are telling us the truth. We trust that they love us. This naïveté is very human. We’ve got to start somewhere. So we work with what we have. But we can’t stop there. We can’t just let our lives be dictated to us, not without some resistance.

But how?

How to escape? How do we break out of clichés, vague descriptions, and

No easy answers. We have to use new language. It takes creativity, imagination, hard work, persistence, hope, joy, sacrifice, love, encouragement from others, community, and a good deal of faith. By “faith,” I simply mean that mysterious opening, the point at which we step out into the unknown. Sometimes something breaks in from the outside. Sometimes we break out, with a sheer force of the will.

Ultimately, this is a task that is beyond us, and yet for the survival of our souls, it’s a process we must engage with all of our hearts and minds. It is the pilgrimage for new language.

Life

"The most fatal thing of all is to satisfy a want which is not yet felt, so that without waiting till the want is present, one anticipates it, likely also uses stimulants to bring about something which is supposed to be a want, and then satisfies it. And this is shocking! And yet this is what they do in the religious sphere, whereby they really are cheating men out of what constitutes the significance of life, and helping people to waste life."
Soren Kierkegaard
The Attack Upon "Christendom"

This is an interesting commentary. My first instinct was to think of our hyper consumeristic society, a culture where advertising and marketing anticipates and generates our desires for corporate goods and services. But it is intriguing that Kierkegaard applies this idea to "the religious sphere."

As an existentialist, Kierkegaard believes in wrestling through our own inner worlds. Faith is a personal journey, not something that can be scripted by the church. Too often religion cheats us out of the significance of faith by averting us away from the struggle. This reminds me of what King David said: I will not sacrifice to my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.

The idea of sacrificing for anything is an obsolete notion in the U.S. Here we have our lives and faith scripted out. Marketing and advertising lines it all up for us: a meaningful life = these goods and services. Just sign the dotted line. Work a job that doesn't inspire you, or even one that you hate. Sign the dotted line. Take out as much credit as you can.

The system is artificial, though. And when it collapses, perhaps then we can struggle again. Then we can have a meaningful faith, something we have to really struggle for.

Being still

Be still and know that I am God

Since last spring, I have implemented a regular practice of meditation and silent prayer. The main focus of this practice is to simply be silent and still.

Silence and stillness is a tricky thing. In stillness and silence, any number of thoughts and feelings might arise. Ideally, when one is meditating, all attention is focussed on breath. This is also called "mindfulness." When one is mindful of nothing but one's own breathing, then there is a deep sense of stillness, silence, and peace.

This is the ideal.

As I have engage in a regular practice of stillness, I quite naturally want to become better or more skilled at the practice. I want there to be less noise from my heart and mind. I want to enter into that sense of peace.

Many spiritual practices are like this. We tend to look at "spiritual growth" in terms of mastery: are we mastering the our particular moral or spiritual skill/art/practice? We tend to be critics of ourselves, measuring ourselves by some standard that we hope to achieve.

James Finley, a spiritual teacher, says that good meditative practices tend to be messy. This is a wise approach.

The act of stillness, silent prayer, or meditation is not about achieving some state of peace. It is not in any way about becoming better. It is an end in itself. It is a practice of grace. As a practice of grace, the point is not to "grow" or "achieve." The point is to just be. Just as I am.

When grace is the foundation, then we can embrace everything that we experience during stillness. If we feel distracted, then we can become aware of our distracted heart/mind in a gracious way. If we are deeply hurt by others, then we can become aware of our pain in a gracious way. If our soul is restless, then we can become aware of our feeling of restlessness in a gracious way. If our minds are busy and excited, then we can become aware of this positive buzz in a gracious way.

This practice of grace is a "letting be." Whoever we are is okay. We become grounded in something that is deeper than merely the rising and falling of our thoughts and feelings. Whatever it is that we are "grounded in" is mysterious. It isn't something that we can define or ever capture. From the perspective of the Christian tradition, this is the sense of "Be still and know that I am God."

By letting ourselves be, just as we are, we become less clingy to life. We become less controlling of life. We realize how much is out of our control, and how necessary it is to extend grace in the same way that we have experienced grace.

The practice of stillness, silence, and meditation is about honestly engaging the feelings and thoughts that channel through us. We develop awareness of who we are and surrender ourselves into grace.

Slaves and Heirs

One of the key distinctions for most versions of Christianity is a stark distinction between "saved" and "unsaved." There are the B.C. days, meaning "before Christ," and there are the "I'm a new creation" days that come after salvation. The salvation experience, then, is a complete ontological change, a drastic transformation from one spiritual state-of-being to another.

This ontological transformation is clearly an important part of the theology of the Apostle Paul. "Behold, all things have become new." Those who are of the faith are "a new creation." The language of the Apostle Paul is clearly aimed at transforming our belief about ourselves, to conceive of ourselves as radically different. Holy. Chosen. Loved.

I have always been a bit suspicious of this stark dichotomy between "believer" and "unbeliever." Common experience shows that "believers" are not quite as perfect as they would like to be, and "unbelievers" are not quite as "depraved" as many Christians would like them to be.

Apart from common experience, though, my recent study of Galatians shows that in the writings of the Apostle Paul, himself, there may be reason to question this dichotomy. I would like to turn your attention to Galatians chapter 4.

In Galatians 4, Paul begins by talking about how an "heir" (kleronomos) is no different from a "slave" (doulos), at least while the heir is still "under age" (nepios). In one sense, the heir is still the "ruler of all," but in another sense the heir is like the slave; this is true, until the time is set for the heir to receive the inheritance and actually assume their position as the ruler and lord.

For Paul, this is an analogy for the Galatians. They were at one time "under the elemental spiritual forces of this world" (hupo ta stoichia tou kosmou). This time period, though, was the time period of being "under age" (nepios). Paul uses this same word, nepios, to describe the situation of the Galatians when they were not yet believers. If the analogy holds, then, it seems that the Galatians, although not yet believers were still heirs. They were just still nepios, they were under aged and had not yet discovered the fullness of who they are.

This passage lead me to consider that the believer/unbeliever dichotomy might not be as sound as many like to believe. Is it possible that those who are living "under the elemental spiritual forces of this world" are simply not yet of age? Not yet come into the fullness of who they are? And if we take this a step further, perhaps wisdom and humility would suggest that none of us have completely arrived in this regard. That we are all coming into our own as heirs. While there may be a specific time at which the "heir" becomes "master" and assumes the control of the inheritance and the position of lord, it is equally true that becoming a wise, discerning, and benevolent is a life-long process. Theologians sometimes speak of this as "already, not-yet."

While a person may have a spiritual conversion experience, this does not yet mean that a person has fully come into their own as a person of faith. In fact, observation often reveals that if someone believes themselves to have "arrived," then this is often indicative of pride and ego-assertiveness. When pride and ego become the dominant sources of motivation in life, then one can actually experience a good deal of personal and spiritual regress. In this sense, making a sharp dichotomy between "believer" (those who have arrived or are farther along) and "unbeliever" (those who still need a bit of work to get on down the road a bit) might be counter productive.

On surviving without faith

"If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it."
The Dalai Lama
From the Vancouver Sun, September 26, 2009

Exodus

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." --1 Corinthians 13

I receive regular email updates from a Christian organization that is dedicated to Christian apologetics and teaching "the Christian Worldview"....or at least their particular version of it!

A recent post by Brannon Howse, We Must Reclaim the Church Before We Can Even Begin to Reclaim the Culture, extols the virtues of a new book by Ken Ham, Britt Beemer and Todd Hillard entitled, Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it. The book takes note of the mass exodus from the traditional, evangelical church. The reaction to the "crisis" of young people leaving churches is not a matter of debate: "The answer to this crisis is Biblical worldview and apologetics training."

As one who has extensively studied Christian apologetics and a "biblical worldview," I would like to say a few words regarding modern fundamentalist Christian apologetic movements. It is a simple truth, but one that obviously still gets missed in some circles: you can't brainwash yourself into genuine faith. At least Brannon Howse is honest with us. He believes that all you have to do to keep people in churches is to give them the right "training." It actually sounds quite creepy, like the next step might be to fly the whole group down to South America and establish a paradise for Christians who have "the biblical Worldview."....my apologies as I digress a bit into sarcasm and satire, but there is an important point to be made. People cannot be "trained" to have genuine faith just by giving them the so-called "true worldview." I can testify from personal experience that it doesn't work. Several years back I found that the more I digested and devoured Christian apologetic books, the more I found a growing spiritual emptiness. In my soul I was sincere in my quest, and in the process I was learning. And I would even say that I was in some sort of process of spiritual growth. But there was something deeper that was telling me that it was time to move on, to expand and explore. Having a true "biblical worldview" wasn't The Answer or The Truth.

Then I found that the whole idea of one biblical worldview is itself a very disrespectful way to approach the Bible. The Bible does not present itself to us as a worldview textbook. It is true, that it is possible chop the Bible up, pull out verses here and there, and assemble a grand systematic approach to the world. But as I engaged the text itself, in its original languages and in some of its original settings, I found that Scripture is a collection of highly diverse texts, with a wide range of genres (some that are even original to the Bible itself), written by many different persons over a long period of time. Gradually I realized how un-systematic the Bible was, and I was able to relax, which opened up the Bible to me in a way that renewed my faith and pushed me forward.

This is not to undermine the process of thinking.

The life of the mind is important, critical even. What we think, the beliefs we hold, our philosophies and perspectives on what's going on in the world--all of these are crucial. We are not other-than our minds. Just like we are not other-than our bodies. And yet we can't bet the farm on one Absolute Truth, one so-called "biblical worldview." That's not the way our minds were meant to work. They were meant to be used to develop discernment for the perspectives of others, to learn to listen well, particularly to the voices of the poor and oppressed. To be truly wise.

I see an irony: "Training" the minds of the young to believe that only one perspective has all of the answers actually produces mind-less-ness. The healthy mind is active in engaging other perspectives, not for the purpose of proving one's own perspective but in order to learn and grow.

Let's bring this discussion back to the mass exodus.

"Training" the minds of the young is not the answer. But more modern, American methods of evangelical church aren't really working either: Churches are modeled to look like coffee houses, big bucks are spent on youth group pastors and youth group programs, nifty upbeat sermons are designed to be "relevant" by tying in a theme with the latest and most popular Hollywood film releases (I remember a sermon series about "being like Neo and getting out of the Matrix of 'the world'"), worship bands with pop worship sounds and smoke on stage, etc. But all of these cool and hip upgrades don't seem to be saving our souls. In addition, I have to agree with my fundamentalist brothers in their criticism of the contemporary church scene: it seems to be a watered down version of faith. High on hype, low on substance.

Even though the contemporary evangelical church manages to stay afloat during this mass exodus, there is still the sense that it isn't doing any real, substantial good--that it isn't producing genuine transformation. It starts to feel like spiritual fast food: do the drive thru and grab a snappy sermon with a side of Jesus music and slurp down a latte while you chat with a few folks in the lobby before you go. The contemporary church scene seems to be a spiritual support group to aid and abet the status quo culture of the white American middle class. In short, to me there is this pervasive feeling of spiritual narcissism. Church begins to exist as a therapeutic aid to our modern American lifestyles: the odd and remarkable blending of our puritanical work ethic with our superficial consumeristic drive to buy more and more cheap, disposable goods.

So, what of the mass exodus?

The post by Brannon Hows summarizes (from the book he is reviewing) the statistically-supported characteristics of this flight from Egypt:

A mass exodus is underway. Most youth of today will not be coming to church tomorrow. Nationwide polls and denominational reports are showing that the next generation is calling it quits on the traditional church. And it's not just happening on the nominal fringe; it's happening at the core of the faith.

Only 11 percent of those who have left the Church did so during the college years. Almost 90 percent of them were lost in middle school and high school. By the time they got to college they were already gone! About 40 percent are leaving the Church during elementary and middle school years!

If you look around in your church today, two-thirds of those who are sitting among us have already left in their hearts; it will only take a couple years before their bodies are absent as well.

The numbers indicate that Sunday school actually didn't do anything to help them develop a Christian worldview...The brutal conclusion is that, on the whole, the Sunday school programs of today are statistical failures.

Part of the concern is that the mere existence of youth ministry and Sunday school allows parents to shrug off their responsibility as the primary teachers, mentors, and pastors to their family.

A few things intrigue me. First, that the young are spiritually checking out at a very early stage. They will go through the motions, but they are only biding their time. Also of interest is that Hows used "heart" language. "If you look around in your church today, two-thirds of those who are sitting among us have already left in their hearts." Right. I agree. It's not a matter of "training" people's minds to think correctly. The problem is a spiritual problem, a lack of depth and meaning in the church itself. Like so many American made products and services in this disposable society, churches appeal to the superficial rather than engaging the deep and stirring something more fundamental than emotion, rationality, or social networking.

My general feeling is that the mass exodus is a good thing. There are those who wish to stay in traditional churches, and I certainly do not wish to disparage these efforts. Truly. I do not mean to suggest that there are not deep evangelicals. There are. But even they are often quite frustrated by what is going on around them. Kudos to those of you who are staying in traditional churches and trying to tap into something deeper. I support you.

However, for many of us, the call is to pack up our travel gear and head out, searching for something deeper and cultivating the calling that we see before us in our own souls.

This is the pilgrim's path.

The bottom line is transformation: are we tapping something genuine and life changing within us, a deeper encounter with self, God, and the world that leads us to make a real difference in the lives of others.

"You equip yourself for transport, then wait to see what happens. Use the things you find around you to assemble a rudimentary shelter. Experiment with ways of distinguishing food from poison. Allow yourself to become a gill-breather. Experience moods that have no names." (p. 73 of John Doyle's The Stations)

“On just about any dimension you can think of, humans tend to clump together. Go farther and farther away from the center and you see fewer and fewer people. It’s hard not to see evidence of some sort of force at work, pulling everybody toward the center. Maybe the force emanates from a particular point in the world, like gravity, pulling people in. Maybe it’s a force that’s embedded within individuals, impelling them to move toward each other....But what about the outliers, the people who resist the pull to the center? Do the outliers lack the normalizing force within themselves? Do they try to huddle with the masses, only to find themselves drifting away? Do they float effortlessly above the pull of gravity? Or do they exert a counterforce that drives them out of orbit? Maybe the outliers are already moving toward what’s destined to become the new center of gravity, and the rest of us will eventually find ourselves being drawn toward them. For good or for ill. (p. 47)

New Worlds: The Call of the Pilgrim

No really. The inner voice that’s telling you it wants six million dollars and a nice vacation villa in Tuscany – how do you know it’s really your true self, and not just another imposter taking his turn at the microphone? Besides, aren’t you a little suspicious that everyone’s true self wants pretty much the same things: chronic happiness, lots of money, good weather, universal admiration? Maybe everyone’s gone too deep. Maybe we’re all delving somewhere down below unique individuality into the universal subconscious, where everything is pure narcissism, will to power, and the longing for fabulousness. p. 34 of John Doyle’s novel The Stations

What is it that draws a pilgrim away from the gravity, the force that pulls everyone toward the same things, the same thoughts, the same ideas, the same life?

In our prior pilgrimage post, Conceived in the Restless, we saw that for the pilgrim, something stirs. It’s like the split personality of the main character in the film Fight Club: there is a violent break in the norm, Tyler is breaking through. It’s not just a purely “inner” compulsion. It’s more than just an urge to extract one’s self from all of humanity, take up residence in the nearest cave, and hang a sign at the front that says, “Local hermit, do not disturb.” No, there’s something in the air, there’s something that’s not right in the general atmosphere…..and it leaves the would-be pilgrim with deep frustration.

A pilgrim is conceived in the restless.



Ultimately, the task at hand is not to define pilgrim, or even to say “this is what a pilgrim looks like.”

“For me the pilgrimage constituted an assembly of various ideas and practices: the pieces could be taken apart, bundled with others extracted from apparently unrelated sources, then reconfigured in strange and unpredictable ways. For me the Salon’s signpost always pointed toward the unthought and the untried. No permanent trails would be laid down, because no one would come along behind to follow the pioneers. Each installation of the Salon sat at the crossroads of an infinite number of possible pathways, all leading into the unknown. The same point on a map can be the beginning of one journey and the end of another. Novices and journeymen require different gear, and the Salon would be outfitter to them all. Still, the Salon could never hope to fulfill itself. Of the road there are no masters.” Prop. Stephen Hanley, p. 100

In this series of posts, we just want to stir things up a bit. We want to explore the idea of pilgrimage but also let the idea of pilgrimage explore us. “Deep calls to deep.”

While exploring “pilgrimage” (and letting “pilgrimage” explore us), we are simultaneously engaging in a bit of exegesis. The text is John Doyle’s novel The Stations. In The Stations, Prop. (short for Proprietor) Stephen Hanley stirs things up. He’s the Prop. at the Salon. The Salon is about exploring “the unthought and the untried.” What it is will never be clear and should never be clear. What it is not is a bit easier. Despite the fact that the Salon seems to be going about the business of self-discovery and self-exploration, the Salon is not therapeutic. It is not self-improvement: “The people who walk through the Salon’s doors have been raised on self-improvement, so they’re ready to aim themselves toward other ends if someone plausible teaches them how.” p. 7

How does a pilgrim break free of the pull of gravity?

Or, why does a pilgrim break free?

What is this pull of gravity?

Nietzsche talked about the “herd” instinct. He criticized democracy as being an institution that silenced the voices of the few and muted the insights of the gifted. This put the state on the slow and senseless path of the herd.

Kierkegaard talks about “the crowd.”

“There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side. There is another view of life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that ‘the crowd’ received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.

“The crowd is untruth. Therefore was Christ crucified, because he, even though he addressed himself to all, would not have to do with the crowd…would not found a party, or allow balloting, but would be what he was, the truth….. For to win a crowd is not so great a trick; one only needs some talent, a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the human passions.

“And to honor every individual human being, unconditionally every human being, that is the truth and fear of God and love of ‘the neighbor’; but ethico-religiously viewed, to recognize ‘the crowd’ as the court of last resort in relation to ‘the truth,’ that is to deny God and cannot possibly be to love ‘the neighbor.’ And ‘the neighbor’ is the absolutely true expression for human equality; if everyone in truth loved the neighbor as himself, then would perfect human equality be unconditionally attained….But never have I read in the Holy Scriptures this command: You shall love the crowd….It is clear that to love the neighbor is self-denial, that to love the crowd or to act as if one loved it, to make it the court of last resort for ‘the truth’, that is the way to truly gain power, the way to all sorts of temporal and worldly advantage - yet it is untruth; for the crowd is untruth.” (from The Crowd is Untruth)

Martin Heidegger brings together the thoughts of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard in his philosophy. There are original thinkers and artists who can somehow see beyond their world. They can envision new worlds, or appreciate new worlds.

Heidegger talks a good deal about “worlds.”



Terrence Malick is a Heideggerian philosopher turned filmmaker. In his filmmaking, Malick often explores “worlds.” This is particularly the case in his recent work, The New World (2005, with Colin Farrell, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale). This stunning film shows the collision of two worlds at Jamestown: European conquerors and the native American peoples.

We cannot reduce pilgrimage to the drive for adventure.

The New World captures the Imperialistic drive of the Europeans. They arrive to explore new possibilities for humanity—their humanity, on their terms, for the sake of their religion, and without any regard for the native peoples. They will transplant their familiar, European world into the new American world, with a few upgrades. Call in Europe 2.0.

In the midst of this collision of cultures, the film creates two characters who rethink. One is a pilgrim, she is the Pocahontas character (unnamed in the film). She loves her people and her way of life, but she also loves John Smith, and she risks alienation by reaching out to the white Jamestown settlement. She is expelled from her people, held hostage by the whites, and abandoned by her love, John Smith.

A pilgrimage doesn’t always have a happy ending.

Smith is on the verge of pilgrimage. But he chooses adventure over the life of a pilgrim. He resigns his love for Pocahontas and her people to the world of “dream.” He takes on a commission from England to explore, to look for the West Indies. Malick, in his filmmaking genius, shows us that in looking for a new geographical space, Smith abandons the infinite spiritual possibilities that were opened before him if he would have explored the “world” of the native Americans. The world of the natives is more than just the land, it is a particular approach to the land. It is not just about transplanting humanity, it is a change of perception about being human.

Smith misses it. Deep calls to deep. But no one answers back.

A pilgrim answers the call and explores the new worlds--the new ideas, new perceptions, new possibilities.

“Entering an alternate reality is like going to a foreign country. You can visit as a tourist, always staying at the big American hotel chains, buffered from the foreignness of everything that surrounds you. You can march in as a conqueror, forcibly replacing the strange with the familiar. You can be a chameleon, at home anywhere, indistinguishable from the habitat. Or you can be a traveler. You equip yourself for transport, then wait to see what happens. Use the things you find around you to assemble a rudimentary shelter. Experiment with ways of distinguishing food from poison. Allow yourself to become a gill-breather. Experience moods that have no names. You become nonexistent; you become your own double.” p. 73 of The Stations

A pilgrim equips herself as a traveler, goes to the new worlds, and experiences “moods that have no names.”

How do we describe this force that draws us to “sameness”?

“On just about any dimension you can think of, humans tend to clump together. Go farther and farther away from the center and you see fewer and fewer people. It’s hard not to see evidence of some sort of force at work, pulling everybody toward the center. Maybe the force emanates from a particular point in the world, like gravity, pulling people in. Maybe it’s a force that’s embedded within individuals, impelling them to move toward each other.” p. 47

The force. It’s like gravity.

And then there are “the outliers.”

“But what about the outliers, the people who resist the pull to the center? Do the outliers lack the normalizing force within themselves? Do they try to huddle with the masses, only to find themselves drifting away? Do they float effortlessly above the pull of gravity? Or do they exert a counterforce that drives them out of orbit? Maybe the outliers are already moving toward what’s destined to become the new center of gravity, and the rest of us will eventually find ourselves being drawn toward them. For good or for ill.” p. 47

That’s a very Heideggerian thought: the outlier envisions new worlds, explores new worlds, and eventually their imagination and vision becomes the new center of gravity.

Let’s talk more about this.

What is it that is moving through the pilgrim?

The pilgrim is conceived in the restless. Gradually (or perhaps all at once!), the pilgrim begins to realize that something is moving through her. Or, as we have previously discussed, she is latching on to something outside of herself; it’s outside and inside. Inside out.

Doyle describes it simply, as difference.

When Stephen Hanley decides to become the Prop of the Salon, there are plenty of friends to question the point of pursuing difference.

“Among our friends the opinion was consistent: Why would anyone want to pursue difference as a goal? Happiness, yes, or at least relief from suffering. Adjustment, success, serenity, self-discovery, even self-discovery of prior lifetimes (‘Regression Therapy’ took up half a page in my progressive town’s yellow pages) – these were the things people looked for from a therapist. People wanted their lives to be better than they were, preferably better than other people’s lives too. They didn’t just want to ‘get different.’ No one would come to the Salon.” p. 39

So no one would come to the Salon. That’s the prediction. And it was true. No one came. So, he went back to the way the original Prop did things: just wait on difference.

“Of course my friends were right. No one came. No one called about the ads I placed in the local paper. No one attended the free discussion groups. So I stopped advertising, stopped reaching out. I decided to do it Prop Adamowicz’s way. The ratty sign by the doorbell stayed, and so did I. I didn’t replace the sign until a long time later, when the tape wouldn’t stick to it any more and half the words had become illegible.” p. 39

In Doyle’s novel, “difference” is what is moving around and through the pilgrim. The herd huddles together, people use “the crowd” as their measure of truth, and no one seems to be interested in venturing beyond the “world” of the familiar. The force of gravity pulls at the masses of humanity. But the pilgrim, conceived in the restless, must somehow begin to understand what difference means.

The philosopher Jaques Derrida created a term, différance. This term is a play on words, it combines “deferring” with “difference.” Try as we might, things just won’t stick. Words, ideology, definition, laws, and roles. They are never fixed in any absolute position. Things are always being deferred and differentiated.

“Différance is the nameless name of this open-ended, uncontainable, generalizable play of traces.” Nutshell p. 105

This is something undefinable, and yet it is more than being different for the sake of being different. It is the calling out of something new, the voice that said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.” Deep calls to deep. The unknown stretches out endlessly on the horizon of possibility.

Difference is the voice that cannot speak. It calls the pilgrim to new worlds.

“Perhaps Yahweh’s great concern is the preservation of differences. Humans from gods. Humans from animals. Kin from non-kin. Men from women. Perhaps, finally, individual from individual. We’re all naked and afraid. We want to merge into something that will protect us. To become one flesh. Even if it means losing the very thing that makes each of us unique.” p. 125 of The Stations

Conceived in the Restless

Two hundred years ago, poets and sages sought a back way out of the modern world through the wreckage of the Middle Ages. With the Postmodern Pilgrimage the medieval was revived again.
--p. 100 of John Doyle's The Stations

The Salon.

The Salon Postisme is an idea, was an idea; it was a vision and a dream. It was an opportunity to escape the reality of the mundane and trivial. The Salon became something different, entirely. In the end, it became an institution and a corporate entity. But in the beginning? In the beginning it was a portal into another dimension, a dimension of deeper humanness, consciousness. Something deeper, yes, but also an escape from the pull and the gravity of the deep.

John Doyle’s (aka ktismatics) novel The Stations is a discussion of pilgrimage. The Salon is the vision for the pilgrim. The Salon begins as a ratty sign on a door. There are no lights, no advertising media, no marketing, no distribution channels. Just a sign on a door. Stephen Hanley walks through the door. Something is restless. Something is unsettled. It isn’t just “an inner longing.” There’s something in the air, a mood, a collective sense. The sense that even though everything is efficient, secure, and “all is well with the world,” there is still an unrest in the atmosphere.

It is this unrest that moves the pilgrim. And yet before the pilgrim is moved, there is a connection with the unrest. The pilgrim senses something about the world that disturbs her sleep.

Stephen Hanley walks through the door and is handed the baton, he is the new Proprietor of The Salon, or you can just call him “Prop.” No training. Just the vision. Just ambiguity. There’s something that is not right with the world, something in the mood of the world. There will be pilgrims, those who begin to explore difference in a world of homogeneity and same-ness. That’s what Prop is here for, that’s what he wants to do:

“My job as I saw it was to enter into the client’s real strangeness; to have the client guide me into other ways of seeing, into exotic regions of the soul that we could then explore together. What I really wanted, of course, was to become the client. I didn’t want to pull them out into my normalcy; I wanted to climb with them into their madness. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.” p. 30

Prop is ready to climb into the madness. Their madness, their strangeness. Something is breaking through.

The film (1999) Fight Club opens with the line: “People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.” The character speaking is the main character, but he remains nameless through the film. So, some of us call him “Jack.” And Tyler Durden? Tyler Durden is Jack, Jack’s subconscious breaking through. At the beginning of the film we only see Jack’s life. It’s a pathetic life. It’s mundane and trivial. “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time,” says Jack to himself as he boards another plane for another business trip for another corporate gig so that he can feed his slavery to “the Ikea nesting instinct.” “What diamond set defines me as a person?”

A pilgrim finds something, connects to something. There is a mood.

Jack can’t sleep. Something is restless. Ironically, it is insomnia that begins his awakening.

“How often had someone come to me wanting to stop being something, to stop doing something? They wanted to get away from their jobs, from their friends and families, from the world, from themselves. The Salon Postisme offered a way out….People often come to the Salon equipped with a sophisticated ambivalence, an ironic self-awareness, and a vague general disdain that masks an intense and personal frustration with the way life was turning out." p. 7

The pilgrim is finding something deeper within, but in another more real sense, they are not going deeper within the self but rather connecting with something in the world. It’s vague and indefinable. It seems to manifest itself as “an intense and personal frustration” with the way life is panning out. And somehow, conventional remedies don’t work.

The first instinct is to run, to get away. The first instinct isn’t always the best instinct…..of course, it isn’t always the worst move, either…..But it’s hard to put a finger on just what a pilgrim feels when the overwhelming sense is that “this world is not my home.”

The frustration grapples to latch onto something, call it “sophisticated ambivalence,” or “ironic self-awareness,” or “a vague general disdain.” These are the “masks” that express that which cannot be defined, that which should not be defined.

But this is the beginning of pilgrimage.

This is where it is conceived, where the possibility of new life begins.

The pilgrim has not yet taken her first steps. She has not even yet been formed in the womb.

There are any number of possibilities.

But this is the beginning.

[This post follows the prior post and begins our exploration of pilgrimage]

From homeless to pilgrim

Last March I posted Spiritually Homeless, an honest reflection of my spiritual journey in and then out of organized religion. I didn't feel I had a place to lay my head, no "home church" or anything similar. But I embraced this reality and in the post from March, I reflected on how being spiritually homeless can truly be a positive and life-giving experience.

For one thing, Jesus was homeless.

I put the post up on my Facebook Notes. (You can try this link to get to it.) The result was more than a hundred comments: various questions, comments, and mostly support and appreciation for a sincere approach to the issue of church. It's no secret that many people are having a more and more difficult time connecting with organized religion in a meaningful and life-giving way.

In the process of all the feedback and discussion, I had an insightful observation made to me by Tamie: You are not spiritually homeless, you are a spiritual pilgrim.

Ah!

So simple.

And yet so true.

For a time period, after I exited the institutional church, I felt lost and homeless: scrambling on the streets to find a meal, take shelter for the night, and scrape up a little money for booze every once in a while.

It was survival mode.

And it was necessary.

And it was good.

"Homeless" is a derogatory term for many. But again, Jesus was homeless. And this sense of being homeless is still important for me. To feel too much like we are at home in the system of the world means that we will never challenge the system, never bring reform, and never be personally transformed into something more noble and beautiful.

Nonetheless, I feel like "pilgrim" is a better description of my current journey. It still carries with it a sense of restlessness and discontent with the status quo: this world is not my home, this system is not my identity. And yet there is a sense of purpose and calling to travel, to make a difference, to challenge the system.

Drumroll, please.......

In some of the upcoming posts, I will try to unravel what a pilgrim looks like in these days and in this system. Together we will dialog about the pilgrim metaphor. In conjunction with this dialog, I will be engaging John Doyle's unpublished novel The Stations. (John is a frequent commentator here at Theos Project, his blog and tag name are Ktismatics.) I have been interested in posting on this novel for quite sometime, but I've been holding off, with the sense that there was more in store for posting on The Stations than just straight exegesis.

The Stations tells the story of a movement of "Salons" that sweep across the nation and the world. These Salons are new approaches to being human that investigate new perceptions that human beings might have of themselves that "portal" them into alternative realities and spiritualities. It is an ambiguous and imaginative novel that stirs up some of the thoughts and questions of pilgrimage.

I would like to combine personal experiences, reflections, and an exegesis of The Salon, mix them together and see what we get.

I think we can generate some energy around the topic of what it might look like to explore this curious sense of displacement that seems inherent for those seeking to live a deeper life of faith, spirituality, or just humanness....to embrace the ambiguity and danger of homelessness while proceeding forward with a pilgrim's sense of calling.

Spiritually Homeless

Picking up in the middle of a recent conversation on my front porch, with a lady from down the street:
Her: ....Oh, and just what is your association with Grace College/Seminary?
Me: In 2000 I graduated from the college with an accounting and business degree and last May I graduated from the Seminary with a Master's degree in theology.
Her: Oh, really. Where do you go to church?
Me: I don't
Her: Really????
[suspicious look, eyebrow raised]
Me: Uhm. Well. I'm exploring what faith looks like outside of institutional Christianity.
Her: Do you think that's biblical.
Me: Hhhmmmm.....yes, I do, actually.
Her: Are you looking for a home church?
Me: No.
Her: I see. You know, I have a good author to recommend to you....he really helps get at hidden sins that hold us back in life....

Oh, and in the above dialog, you can fill in an awkward pause after just about each of my responses.

Ever since I terminated my church attendance a year or two ago, I have felt a certain internal pressure to "belong" to something that, while perhaps not a "church" in the traditional sense, is at least something of the church variety. That way, I can avoid the awkward kinds of dialogs listed above and be able to have something substantial to reply to family and friends: I may not be doing the institutional thing, but I've got something else that's just as good!

In this post, however, I hereby officially resign any concern with having to replace traditional church with something that is sort-of-churchy. This is probably of no major surprise to those of you who follow this blog and have read my posts. (See, most recently, Merging and Submerging and Pay-as-you-go Church.)

My thought here is that perhaps "the church" is best looked at as a way of life rather than a membership to a particular group, an inclusive embrace of the world rather than an exclusive commitment to a particular organization/institution or even a specific group.

I want to ask the question: What happens if I have no "core" membership into an exclusive group?

I wanted to write this post to discuss the pros and cons of simply leaving traditional church and not replacing it with anything. In order to do so, I thought, "Hhhmmmm....Jon, you do a few of the things that Christians and churches do. So, perhaps you should list these things for your blogging audience." Good suggestion, I thought. And then as I compiled my list, an intriguing thought came to my mind: I'm not entirely sure that I have time for church, because I'm busy enough doing things that churches usually do. I'm sure that sounds a bit condescending, thought I don't mean it to be.

Here is my list:

a) I have a small group of friends with whom I am very relationally close. For most of us, our faith is an important aspect of our lives, in one way or another. However, we do not meet for a traditional "service." We have no organized, regular meetings scheduled. Most are one-on-one or small group get togethers that we initiate in order to be involved with each other's lives.
b) I meet once a week with a friend for theological discussion. (Currently we are discussing Romans.)
c) I am considering attending liturgical services (only once in a while!) with my friend Tamie when she moves to Indiana.
d) I discuss spiritual issues with my friends, neighbors, and family in many different, informal settings.
e) I blog.....and as we have discussed, blogs are a form of communal gathering, albeit of the virtual variety. (And, yes, I know, I have been a very bad blogger this year, in 2009!)
f) I meet once every two weeks with some Pastor friends.....we are all kind of missionaries to each other: I am trying to help them see the errors of their institutional ways and they are trying to bring me back into the fold of the Christian sheep.
g) Many of the folks listed above know me very well and provide a sense of caring for my soul, and visa-versa

So, what are the ramifications of just dropping, altogether, the idea of "belonging" to any particular fellowship/church/church group?

A few potential positive outcomes:

First, it would seem to more closely resemble the spirit of the early Acts church, where people of faith just kind of got together at each other's houses to eat and talk about what was happnen' with the whole Jesus thing. There's no indication that the same groups met at each gathering (like the contemporary "small group" ministries or "house churches") or that they had to start a particular ministry for this purpose.

Second, and a follow up to the first: allowing fellowship to be spontaneous seems to relieve the pressure to maintain an organization. This means that organizations/institutions cease when the S/spirit ceases.

The third positive feature that I can see is that if we scrap the church thing altogether, it seems as though hierarchy is kept at a minimum. With institutions/organizations comes hierarchy. That makes the power dynamic more of a factor than it should be. Power is always at work, of course, but within institutions/organizations the power plays are normative, regulative, and from my experience they suck the freedom and life out of a person.

How about objections to my eclectic approach?

First, and most damning I think, is that this approach seems to facilitate fragmentation. It is difficult in America to have a whole self. Our self gets divided between a lot of different areas, making it quite easy to hide ourselves or to just allow ourselves to become neglected. There is work self, home self, hang-with-the-friends self, go-to-church self, online self, and sometimes several different versions of the self within each of the above. When one combines this with our fast-paced American lifestyle, the result is a psycho-spiritual multiple personality disorder and a lack of any sense of wholeness.

I don't know that belonging to one, core church group really solves this problem, though, quite honestly. This fragmentation is complex and related to the system within which we operate. It is one of the major human challenges we face as Americans. However, while a church probably won't fix this and often makes the matter worse, the fact is that it is difficult to live holistically on one's own. Community can help.

The other objection that comes to my mind is quite difficult to articulate. It comes from the sense and general feeling that we should have some sort of religious core group. Without it, we just get the feeling (many of us) that we lack a center or a foundation. This feeling is difficult to describe or define. It starts, perhaps, with those of us that are used to attending services every week and having a religious place and space that is our own. We belong to a group, and the presence of such a group provides a psychological stability to our lives. It becomes an identity thing. Leaving the church opens a void.

But what if we embraced the void? What if we gave up our foundationalist instinct to find a center and just let be?

I think that if we could do so, then we would be forced to live faith without being able to fall back on an institution/organization/membership for security. We could then allow sacred spaces to open up naturally and organically as the spirit moves.

Most importantly, without a center or foundation, the us-versus-them exclusivistic attitude becomes more difficult to maintain. "Having a home church" means that one is "in," right? And those who don't are out. What if we were all out? What if we were all in? What if that didn't matter so much, anymore?

NOT having a church makes one live faith each moment for the moment, it does not allow for a psychological religious stabilizer.

According to some, the American institutional church and its related educational establishments may be on the verge of complete collapse in the upcoming decades. No one can tell for certain, of course. But statistics are pointing in this direction, and many people of faith are just finding that the churches lack depth and soul. I don't say this to create another us-versus-them dynamic; I don't say this because I think all churches suck. I think churches do great things and have done great things. Seriously. I mean that. However, I am just finding spiritual homelessness to be the way that I roll these days, and I'm wondering if that doesn't have a lot of advantages. And I am wondering if there are others who do the same.....and I am wondering if there are others who should do the same.

Churches and Christian institutions tend to settle, and when they settle they tend to become complacent. Doesn't have to be that way, but that's just an observation that seems to hold in many cases. It seems that churches and Christian institutions established themselves in the 20th century as a place to settle and protect the faith. The spiritually homeless may find themselves a bit unsettled, but perhaps this only makes it all the more necessary for us to make faith real at all moments.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in working toward communities of freedom, as I have previously said: As human beings, we cannot flourish without each other, without being in community, but we cannot grow in community unless that same community sets us free. (Fellowship and the Freedom of the Self) It is a paradoxical situation. But perhaps the spiritual drifters like myself can be more open to allowing sacred spaces of freedom to open up where they may be least expected. Isn't this what Jesus did, at least to some degree?? What does it mean that "this world is not our home"? Often, church and religion seem to be investing much of their time, money, and energy into making a home for themselves. Is this the calling? Is this the Gospel that transforms?

So, in this post, I am declaring myself to be spiritually homeless, and I think that there is alot of potential for this to be a good thing. Furthermore, I am hereby giving up my sense--that nagging whisper that's kind of always in the back of my mind--that I need to be "doing something" in an established group.