Authentic Living

My children are card-carrying members of Generation X, a group that has hung onto its desire for authentic living longer than most. We Baby Boomers had the 60s, with our Vietnam protests and flower child experiences and such, but it didn’t take long to turn into raw capitalists. After all, it was our generation that presided over the astronomical increase in CEO salaries, as the one percent got richer and everyone else started shopping at Wal-Mart.

Richard Rohr suggests that when we approach the second half of our lives, our hearts are drawn back toward the authenticity that enticed us during our college years. But I went to Bible College. Instead of following my heart to become a television newscaster, I devoted my college years to denying myself and taking up the cross. Unfortunately I had these pesky doubts. If I was going to be in the army of Jesus, I needed some proof. Night after night I placed empty Pepsi bottles outside my dorm window and prayed for God to fill them before morning. “Since I’m going to work for you, you’d better prove yourself,” I fervently demanded. But alas, morning came and the bottles were always empty. If I wanted more Pepsi, I was going to have to buy it like everyone else.

I missed the drive for authenticity the first time around. I was too busy being the obedient fundamentalist. Actually, you don’t have to be a fundamentalist to miss authenticity the first time around. During our formative years most of us trade authenticity for approval. Over the years, however, the desire for authenticity never goes away. It may go down into the basement and hide in the corner behind the furnace. It may wait a long time, but it never goes away.

There is a reason people avoid the pursuit of authenticity. It is not good for one’s retirement account, let alone reputation. There is a great line in the Wizard of Oz. “Hush, Dorothy whispered the tiger. You’ll ruin my reputation if you are not more discreet. It isn’t what we are, but what folks think we are, that counts in this world.” And so it is.

When you decide to live authentically, you not only change your own life, you bring a whole parcel of people with you. A number are kicking and screaming. Your authentic pursuit is their nightmare. I know of a man in Colorado whose wife decided to join the Peace Corps. They are both in their early 60s. He is a therapist who loves his practice and also loves his wife. Her search for a fulfilled life is his problem. He loves the Colorado mountains. He does not want to enter the Peace Corps. But he is closing down his practice and moving to Nicaragua. Maybe searching for authenticity would be better done before you get married.

But we do not know enough about authenticity when we are young and unmarried. We are unformed, amorphous. Through family and work and community and tribe we begin to discover both who we are and who we are not. Like learning to walk, this discovery process is always filled with scrapes and bruises. It is no wonder we are well into the second half of life before self-nurturing insights finally stream into our consciousness. Unfortunately, by then we are tired, very tired. It takes a lot of energy to keep up appearances. So we sometimes ignore those prompts, preferring instead the quiet lull of boredom and routine. After all, we are free creatures; we each get to decide who we will be.

I have decided to opt for authenticity.

No Safety Net

I hear the sound of water returning to itself.  It falls and swirls and sings its way over the cold hard stones.  The water is stuck in a never-ending cycle, falling downward only to be pushed back to its origins.  Like Sisyphus it rises and falls, going nowhere, signifying what?

I walk down to the river into unfamiliar places carved by a fall storm of biblical proportions.  The once familiar river, more a stream most seasons, now meanders through fields where Black Angus once grazed. The water makes its way into and out of its original bed, as per the fickle instructions of angry Mother Nature.

I find peace in the river, even in its altered state.  In spite of the new twists and turns the river still knows where it’s going.  It has begun its long journey from the majestic rockies to the sea. I sit on one of the few boulders I recognize, aspen leaves floating by. The river is moving. The river, she is not stuck.

I am.  Stuck, that is.  I’ve been through my own storm of biblical proportions and I feel more like the water feature in my backyard, cascading down and artificially pumped back to where I began. Anger and frustration intertwined.

The poet Mark Nepo knew a woodsman who said the reason people get lost in the forest is because they do not go far enough. They stop just before the way would have become clear, trying instead to return on a path no longer visible. “If we could only lean forward by what little light we are given,” Nepo says.  He is allowed such confidence, having beaten cancer twice. He asks, “Can you endure your uncertainty until it shows you another deeper way?”

For all of my adult life I traveled with a safety net.  I left home without it about six months ago.  I stuffed the net in an old trunk.  I was confident. But then the wind swirled around the tightrope I was walking, and the ground fell away beneath me. I straddled the wire and held on, swaying over the yawning abyss.  Go back? Go forward?  Both seemed impossible.

In March I visited friends in New England. The full moon cast its scattered shadow on fresh-fallen snow.  The husband was not feeling well.  His wife and I nestled by the fire.  She looked at the stuck me and said matter-of-fact, “You can’t go back.  You know that. You cannot go back. You have to let go.” She is a prophet. She tells the truth you do not want to hear, but must.  You hear it because you know you are loved.  All the way home I pondered her prophetic words.

I have to fill up the water feature every seven days.  The water, weary of its circular journey, just evaporates.  The babbling brook is not self-sustaining. It requires outside energy – electricity to run the pump and someone to fill the basin with unsuspecting fresh water, knowing nothing of the maddening journey on which it is about to embark.

The water feature has to be handled. The river does not have to be handled. In fact, if you have noticed, every time the Army Corps of Engineers tries to handle any river, it just makes things worse.  Rivers cannot be handled. They must be trusted. Raging floodwaters or meandering stream, the river simply flows.  It trusts its own flow.

I must trust the flow. I must let go of the rope, stand upright, and move forward through the swirling currents of air, one step at a time. I have no idea how I am going to stay upright.

It Means The Presence of God

In so many ways I have lived a charmed life. I was voted “Most Likely To Succeed” in my high school class, and although I have no idea how other classmates have done, I have mostly known success.

Planting churches in New York was not easy. It took over a decade to experience what others considered success.  Raising funds was rarely fun or easy, and there were lots of serious trials.  It wasn’t particularly fun having the buck stopped with me.  But still, I would not consider my years with the Orchard Group to have been years spent in the desert. Our four decades working in New York were rich and rewarding.

The front range of Colorado, the Denver area, is a high desert.  It rarely rains from October through March.  Summers can be brutal, with dry thunderstorms that bring lots of lightning but precious little rain.  Until you get into the mountains the predominant color is brown, not the green I love so well in the verdant east.  I suppose it is fitting then that as a resident of the high desert, I have had my first desert experience.

Desert experiences have been the stuff of spiritual writing for eons.  Most of the world’s abiding religions are desert religions, where scarcity, thirst, and hunger are common terms.

As I have written over the past several months, these times are a desert season for Cathy and me. We have had to remind ourselves of what Carlo Carretto writes in The Desert In The City: “And remember: the desert does not mean the absence of men, it means the presence of God.”

We lead busy lives. Work, school, children, grandchildren, counseling – all of these surround our desert experience. They are intertwined in it. We try to steal moments to go into a closet and pray.  We have only furtive opportunities to shed tears, or rail at God.  But we are discovering God is present even in the midst of our busy desert – a phone call here, a random visit there, a chance meeting with an old friend. God makes her presence known.

My spiritual director suggested I am in a period in which my ego is being defeated so my spirit might emerge. My sense of entitlement is being challenged so God might have access to the interior corners of my life, those hiding places previously known only by the carefully choreographed work of my ego.

In the midst of the craziness, God invites me to speak. “What do you ask of me?” I cry. And I listen for the still small whisper of the God who knows suffering, and who knows when it is time to speak.

Kindness and Holiness 

Over the past 30 years I have flown over two million miles with one airline.  As you might imagine, things have changed.  In my early days of flying it was not unusual for me to exchange addresses with a seatmate, or share a cab into town.  I regularly wrote letters to the airline extolling the exemplary service of this or that employee.  Back then people were, in a word, kind.

Frederick Buehner said kindness is not the same as holiness, but it is awfully close.  My father is an extraordinarily kind man.  Throughout my life I have heard others refer to him as a gentleman. Gentleness and kindness go hand in hand.

I was blessed to have two mentors, both of whom have moved on to the other side, where I imagine kindness is in abundance. I am confident they are at home there. Both were brilliant, both with doctorates in philosophy.  One was a Roman Catholic priest.  When a mutual friend, also a priest, told me my mentor had been considered for the role of bishop, but passed over, I asked why.  He said, “Because Jim isn’t mean enough.  He is far too kind.”

When I was younger I was a bit of an idealist.  Idealism can be dangerous. It can lead to a shortage of kindness. You become convinced that wrongs must be righted and justice must be done, no matter the cost. Eventually you learn that determining what is wrong and what is just are not nearly as easy to discern as you once imagined.

When I was in my late 30s I had to tell an older gentleman that his position no longer existed and we would have to let him go from the non-profit I directed.  As he walked out of the room he said, “Be nice Paul, be nice.” I had adopted a posture of clinical coolness as I informed him of his termination.  I did not want to “lose it.”  I wanted to “be a professional.”  Years later, when I had to let 21 people go in a single day, I cried with just about every one.  I did not care whether or not I was “professional.”

I do not have to tell you that the flying experience is no longer what it once was.  Civility is barely maintained.  A couple months ago I had to protect an airline employee from a verbal assault by a passenger.  I said, “Buddy, leave her alone.  A mechanical delay is hardly a gate agent’s fault.”  He started to push me and then thought better of it.  The gate agent was in tears.  When I returned to the airport the next week she said, “I am so glad you were there.  No one else would have protected me.”

Kindness is awfully close to holiness. I am grateful for my father’s example. I do not have much hope that the flying public will suddenly become kind, but I can still hope, right?

And so it goes.

The Value of Wise Mentors

I have found two groups enjoyable to be around until the subject turns to religion.  That is when both groups have a tendency to become overly confident, if not strident.  They are quite sure they are right and everyone else is wrong, especially me.  Ironically, these groups come from two different ends of the spectrum.

I once developed friendships with a two professors from a secular university.  One was a specialist in the history of 16th century India, while the other was an expert on the philosopher Richard Rorty.  Both were quick to tell me how utterly ridiculous it was that I should be a Christian.  Of course, it was New York, where Christians do not grow in abundance.  I took their criticisms in stride.

These friends were kind and generous and enjoyable to be around when the subject was not religion.  They were curious, open and thoughtful.  But when the subject turned to Christianity, they were intractable.  They were right.  I was wrong.

Because of my work with this magazine and Christian churches around the country, I also come in contact with church leaders who are equally convinced my religious beliefs are misguided.  If I encounter these folks in a restaurant or at a convention, our conversations are enjoyable, sometimes even delightful.  But when the subject is a matter of faith on which we hold different opinions, their rhetoric can condescending or patronizing.

Both groups make me think of Dr. Byron Lambert, my mentor in the faith.  Dr. Lambert was firing more neurons in his sleep than I do on my best days.  A student of philosophy, theology, ethics, and a plethora of other subjects, Byron was a walking encyclopedia.  He was also one of the most wise and humble men I have ever known.

When Byron disagreed with me, I never heard about it in public.  He waited until he had time to consider what I might have intended with my misguided thoughts.  Eventually he would kindly say, “I found your perspective interesting.”  Then Byron would gently and rightly direct me toward a new way of thinking.

Byron never questioned my intent.  He always treated my position with respect, even when he suspected I might have derived it from a bubble gum wrapper.  He taught me how to be gracious, as he graciously corrected me time and again.  In the process I became a better thinker.  I also learned to realize that an open mind is very close to a Godly mind.

I miss Byron a lot.  I wish more of my generation were like him.  I will never have his knowledge or wisdom, but I would love to have his spirit.

High Anxiety

I have always been an anxious person.  I arrive at the airport two days before my scheduled departure.  I want my taxes done by the end of January.  I know the circumstances under which I am likely to die.  I will have a heart attack while awaiting the results of a routine medical test.  The test will show I am fine, but my anxiety about the test will cause the heart attack.

My son seems to have inherited this tendency toward anxiety, his daughter too.  She gets extremely upset when they head into the subway, afraid they might miss their train.  He must remind her, “It’s all right.  Another train will come along soon.  They always do.”  I apologize to both.  Undue anxiety is a burden.

I used to think my anxiety was useful.  I believed it caused me to be cautious, prepared and appropriately conservative.  I was not likely to hike above the tree line if there was any possibility of a thunderstorm.  I always traveled with any medications I might need.  I took care.  Unfortunately, over the years I have learned it is possible to become dependent on your anxieties.

I have an anxious friend who is very sure there is no God.  He approaches each day as though he must find some independent meaning to the next 24 hours.  My friend takes pride in his unbelief.  He uses his confident atheism to feed his ongoing anxiety. There is a smug pride in his lack of expectation about any inherent goodness in the world.

I understand how my friend came to his position.  Better not get your hopes up, for surely they will be dashed.  We use our anxieties to manage our expectations, to stop us from looking at what might be possible, to stop us from aiming for the stars.  It is difficult to set aside these “useful” anxieties, primarily because of how completely dependent upon them we have become.

To let go of anxiety is to admit you are not in control.  It is to acknowledge you never were and you never will be the captain of your own ship.  To let go of anxiety is to fall into the arms of the Jesus you cannot see or hear, the one who is nothing if not subtle.

I know I must loosen this grip on thin air, this vain clutching.  I must trust God, the one who knew me before I was born and numbered every single hair upon my head.  I must give up these “useful” anxieties that provide nothing but false assurances.  I must leap and trust the God who will help me grow wings on the way down.  I must move beyond my anxieties.

The Keys To The Kingdom?

I know many Christians who live frightened lives.  They are afraid of being judged. They are afraid of disappointing others and disappointing God.  They live lives of fearful desperation.  The generosity of spirit they lack toward themselves is often projected onto others.  These poor souls become bitter and judgmental.  They do not exhibit the fruit of the gospel.  They exhibit a distortion of the gospel.

The scriptures are full of stories of broken and flawed people who were used by God.  Because they became followers of God did not mean they stopped doing stupid things.  They just recognized God’s grace was greater than their stupidity.  There is no shortage of examples.

Jesus chose Peter to preach the first gospel message, the same Peter who spoke at the transfiguration when he should have kept his mouth shut.  The same Peter who took his eyes off Jesus and fell into the water.  The same Peter who cut off the right ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest.  The same Peter who denied knowing Jesus.  One could arguably say Peter did the wrong thing only slightly less often than he did the right thing.  Yet he was given the keys to the kingdom.

How about David?  He had an affair, impregnated a woman, put her husband in a place where he was sure to be killed, and still managed to be called a man after God’s own heart.

Given their checkered pasts, neither of these men would be chosen to lead a prestigious church.  The search team would say, “We can’t choose David, there is infidelity in his background.”  “We can’t choose Peter, the guy is a loose cannon.  He’ll stick his foot in his mouth.”  How about Jacob?  “Ooh, we can’t consider him.  There are inappropriate financial dealings in his background.”

You get the idea.  I am not suggesting we take God’s grace and forgiveness for granted. Paul made that pretty clear in Romans 6.  But who decided to take it upon themselves to determine who was in and who was out?

I spoke at a church recently in which one of the elders told me I was pretty dangerous because I believed women should be allowed preach.  I certainly understand how he might disagree with me.  Lots of people disagree with me.  But to suggest that I am “pretty dangerous” seemed a bit of a stretch.  Maybe I am misguided, but “pretty dangerous?”

I am pleased God seems to have found a use for lots of flawed people.  It gives me hope – both for me and for the elder who thinks I am pretty dangerous.

And so it goes.

My Favorite Readers

When I was writing weekly for Christian Standard magazine, I would often ask myself, “For whom am I writing this column?”  What reader am I envisioning?  My readers were a hodgepodge of people ranging from seminary professors to small town Sunday School teachers.  All manner of folks seemed to read the column at least every now and again.

There was one group I heard from more than any other.  It was older women, mostly from small town and country churches – the kind of people who form the backbone of just about every church.  They come to me when I speak at their congregations, tug at my sport coat and pull me down to whisper, “I read your column every time it comes out.”  They write on pretty stationery, with impeccable penmanship.  They know all manner of things I do not know and cannot even begin to know.  I am warmly gratified by their encouragement.  I think of them as my “core” readers, the ones who nod with a knowing smile, or kindly dismiss a misguided column with gracious silence.

For some reason my preaching has always been appreciated more by women than men.  Based on the volume of my mail, so is my writing.  I am comfortable with that.  In fact, I am pleased so many women enjoy my column, women who lack agendas and are seldom in a hurry to “change things.”  You know who these women are.  They look a lot like Jesus.

Come to think of it, that might be why they appreciate my column, because these readers do look like Jesus.  Jesus spent a lot of time with wounded travelers and misguided zealots.  He probably would have read my column too, just like he would have read yours, pleased to see us giving it our best shot, resigned to the reality that we get it wrong more often than we get it right.

I love when I see a handwritten letter come in the mail, especially if it’s on stationery with cardinals and cherry blossoms.  I know I am going to appreciate the sentiments written inside.  I answer every letter, on my own stationery, with my own terrible handwriting.  It is one of the most enjoyable things I do.

And so it goes.

He Creates The Categories

If you listen to a preacher long enough you will begin to figure out his or her unresolved issues.  They keep coming up in sermons.  Some subjects are repeated so often you’d think the preacher was following the advertising adage, “It takes six to stick.”

A lot of us who grew up in the churches of Christ and Christian churches speak often about grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  During childhood we heard enough sermons about judgment to last several lifetimes.  The problem with our approach to choosing sermon topics is that we are out of balance.  The God of scripture is gracious and merciful and loving, but he can also be angry and elusive and rather particular about what he expects of us.  He will not be categorized.  He creates the categories.  He does not fit into them.

When God came to earth he was just as confounding as he was when communicating from heaven.  God was not liberal.  God was not conservative.  God made everyone angry.

I often use the DiSC test, a psychological tool that describes people by how they prefer to interact with others.  The four categories of the DiSC are Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.  Most people discover they have strengths in two of the four areas.  For instance many senior pastors score with a high “D” and “I” on the test, meaning they are dominant influencers.  On the other hand, many elementary school teachers score with a high “S” and “C” on the test, meaning they are conscientious and steady workers who prefer small groups.

Very few people question the findings of the test.  Most feel it is very accurate.  After we finish scoring the test I often ask what personality type various biblical figures had.  Mention Peter and everyone says, “High Influence and Dominance.”  Ask about Barnabas and they say, “High S and C – Steadiness and Conscientiousness.”  Paul has a high “D” and a high “C.”  He is dominant and focused on the details.  Once you understand the test you can pretty accurately pick the personality type of anyone in scripture – well, just about anyone.

I always ask about Jesus last.  Occasionally someone will suggest a specific personality type for Jesus- usually their own!  Most people sit in stunned silence.  Jesus is the only person I mention whose personality defies description.  He is the perfect balance of all four types.  And that would be my point.

We are made in God’s image, but we are not God.  Only Jesus was.  Only he was fully and perfectly human.  So when it is time for me to preach the word, I would be well advised to let God be God and not edit his material to my own liking.  I may not need to preach the 21st century version of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, but I don’t need to be Thomas Jefferson either, tearing out the pages of scripture I do not like.  A little balance will go a very long way.

And so it goes.

A Great Myth Written in the Material of History

I was speaking with an executive of the AMC channel about their wildly successful shows, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.  We were talking about the split season for many of their shows, ending a fall run in early December and not beginning a spring run until late winter.  The executive said their most popular shows had a storyline that focused on evil, and they wanted to give people a break from evil during the Christmas season.

The executive is a believer, and we began a conversation about the storylines of these wildly popular shows.  He said, “Yes, they are about good and evil, and especially about the consequences of evil.”  I agreed with him when he said a show that includes the consequences of moral decisions, is in the final analysis a show with spiritual values.  I thought of the flawed characters in the novels of Flannery O’Connor, a committed Christian.

An acquaintance of mine in New York City made a number of popular but violent movies.  On a visit to his home in the late 80s, I asked about his movies.  He said they were very spiritual.  He cited a scene he had shot that very day for a film he was making.  Over the passing of time, that specific scene has found a life of its own on You Tube, in university courses, and in conversations among Christian filmmakers.  The scene shows Harvey Keitel on the floor of a church in Manhattan, looking up at a homeless man, but seeing Jesus.  My friend was right.  His movies were spiritual.

All great stories have similar elements.  There is a protagonist and an antagonist.  There is something the protagonist wants that the antagonist does not want him to have.  The story builds to a dread/hope axis, in which the reader, hearer, or viewer dreads and hopes something for the protagonist.  He dreads that the protagonist does not reach his goals, and hopes that he does.

Many great stories are myths, stories that may or may not be historically true, but universally illustrate the human condition.  Think of Homer’s Odyssey, or other examples of Greek mythology.

One group who understood the importance of myth was an informal literary group of several writers affiliated with the University of Oxford in England.  The group was called the Inklings.  The group included J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and others who appreciated narrative fiction and fantasy.  We are blessed today with the fruit of their collaborative conversations.

On one occasion Tolkien suggested to Lewis a way Lewis might want to view scripture.  He said Lewis should view the gospel as “a great myth written by God in the material of history.”  Tolkien was right.  Never in the history of mankind has the dread/hope axis been any greater than in the three days between Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection.  Never has there been a more powerful protagonist and antagonist.  And never has so much hung on the outcome of a single story.