You've had a chance to see some of my musings on the faith...but as my profile mentions, I also do a little writing--mainly science fiction and fantasy. Until now, I've written only for my own enjoyment, but now I am working on a story set in the near future that I hope to share. Its title is "Call Me Unto Heaven."
Imagine that an unstoppable viral juggernaut has ravaged the human race, leading to its imminent extinction in this world. What if there had been a chance to stop it before it made that fatal change in its structure?
And what if, from all the world's previous plagues and disasters, we had learned all the wrong lessons, and instead of caring for the least of these we turned the Great Pandemic into a cruel game of blame-and-shame?
Even the one who watches it all unfold from orbit in isolation...can never truly be isolated after all.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
The heart of worship is a very intense place.
Why do we as Christians worship? Why should we?
This is one of those subjects where I've seen misunderstandings from believers and nonbelievers both...and I deeply believe that how and why we approach can color our entire attitude towards our faith. I'm not talking about high-church/low-church divisions...I believe that the form worship takes is a very individual matter. What I refer to here is the reason for expressing our faith to God.
Criticisms from an atheistic perspective tend to take the form of attributing a vain ego or a toddler-like temper to God. God must be incredibly egotistical, they might say, to make worship a qualification of faith, and incredibly nasty to condemn people for failing to kowtow sufficiently. From a Christian perspective, it's not a criticism so much as a misunderstanding...God demands worship as a duty, something to do to show what good believers we are--and here's the checklist of what you MUST do when, or else you must be going to Hell for not doing enough and in the right way.
Both come from a fundamental misunderstanding, I believe, of the character and nature of God. The truth is, He is both incredibly human and incredibly unlike humanity as we currently know it. One thing the Bible makes very clear, both through His words through the person of the Father in the Old Testament and His actions, through the Persons of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, in the New Testament, is that God is deeply, deeply passionate. "Cold" is the last word we could possibly assign to our God.
I believe that emotionality frightens some people. And it's easy to understand why. Perhaps the atheist leveling the criticism that God must be vain or temperamental is thinking of what happens when humans' passions become the strongest: we lose control of ourselves. We make ill-advised decisions, we lash out in anger, and we make unreasonable demands. And we should indeed be concerned about the effects our untempered passions can have on ourselves and others. The idea of living with so, so much more than that is terrifying, considering how poorly we do with the paltry passions we have in comparison.
Yet with that extraordinary passion--emotion so strong it would overrun our defenses in a nanosecond, God is able to be both just and merciful. Sometimes I believe that when He speaks of His feelings...and He does it much more often than you might realize...we react badly because we either do not see the underlying logic, or we experience that fear of what would happen if we had to try and control it. I don't know about anyone else, but I get the distinct feeling sometimes that it was hard for God to reduce living a faithful life to an enumeration of laws, as happens in Leviticus. There was a reason for doing it, of course--because we weren't relating to Him in a mature fashion, for starters, and to get us to see how we were falling short and why we needed salvation--but God's words in the Psalms (paraphrased: I want your hearts, not just a burnt offering!) and Jesus' frustration with the coldness of the Pharisees' legalism, and by extension, Christian legalism, really leads me to believe that the separation imposed by such laws hurt Him, maybe even as much as open denials and betrayals (though I can't truly be sure about that one way or the other).
The way God reacted to that hurt, however, was to keep reaching out to us (even after the imposition of the law, the monarchy, and every other institution) to make the ultimate sacrifice for our benefit, to restore that right relationship and help us to draw closer. What wondrous love is this, indeed!
While I think it's always important to understand that God is so much more than we could possibly understand, we must also remember that He did create us in His image--that our spirits are intended to reflect His. What we feel, He drew from something of Himself. When someone we love turns their backs on us, doesn't it hurt? When someone tells us we are loved--even if we already are certain of their love--doesn't that warm our hearts?
God has far, far more emotional maturity than the two-year-old some people describe Him as. He does not "have" to be worshipped as an egotist "has" to have adulation. Rather, I believe that for Him, worship is part of the constant exchange that is LOVE. I'm sure it DOES feel good to be told that He is loved, and for us to express our thanks and our reliance upon Him, however imperfectly our worship is. But just because it feels good does not mean God will become rash or cruel because of it, as we might. I also believe that sincere worship opens us to be more receptive of His love, and that is what He wants--that He cares and wants to see us benefit from that openness. Certainly obedience is good; it denotes respect. And respect is a good place to start. But love...that's what God wants for us--to be a part of love.
And why should we not take care to respect God's feelings? Just because He is not prone to our excesses with His emotions doesn't give us an excuse, I believe, to trample all over Him. If we know we are hurting someone, shouldn't we stop doing what hurts that person? Just because a person is resilient, and heals from the wounds we inflict doesn't mean we should keep doing it. The hurt that person experiences, and what that does to our own spirits, is a terrible thing. God's may be the unquenchable flame, but what excuse do we have to hurt Him when we know full well that He does indeed feel that pain? How can we turn ourselves cold towards another Spirit?
And why shouldn't we do what we can to warm His heart as we would want done for us? If you read the Gospels, can you imagine the way Jesus' eyes would light up (figuratively, unless we're talking about the Transfiguration) when people treated Him with kindness and compassion? Yes, He still retained that emotional maturity in His incarnated state, but it's readily evident how much it meant to Him when someone was kind and loving. It feels good--and it opens the door to a relationship, a cycle of giving and receiving love that continually amplifies itself with each iteration. Even when someone gives a gift that is not needed--as we do when we worship, for God's survival does not depend on us as ours does on Him--it's still heartwarming to know that someone cared. It's the same, I believe, for God.
To sum up--for Christians who have gone into the rut of seeing worship as mere duty, something to check off the list, maybe spending some time reading the Bible to observe the depth of God's feeling would prove a comfort. His yoke is indeed light compared to the constant litany of rules we invent for ourselves and to share in His love is a salve to our souls and an exercise in kindness and compassion, not just obedience. For nonbelievers, I think that understanding the combination of emotion beyond our experience and control beyond our ability would be helpful--and the relational rather than unidirectional position of worship in the believer's life. Worship is not some appeasement of temper...it is an expression of love and a way of opening ourselves to God's voice. And that voice reminds us that we are loved.
This is one of those subjects where I've seen misunderstandings from believers and nonbelievers both...and I deeply believe that how and why we approach can color our entire attitude towards our faith. I'm not talking about high-church/low-church divisions...I believe that the form worship takes is a very individual matter. What I refer to here is the reason for expressing our faith to God.
Criticisms from an atheistic perspective tend to take the form of attributing a vain ego or a toddler-like temper to God. God must be incredibly egotistical, they might say, to make worship a qualification of faith, and incredibly nasty to condemn people for failing to kowtow sufficiently. From a Christian perspective, it's not a criticism so much as a misunderstanding...God demands worship as a duty, something to do to show what good believers we are--and here's the checklist of what you MUST do when, or else you must be going to Hell for not doing enough and in the right way.
Both come from a fundamental misunderstanding, I believe, of the character and nature of God. The truth is, He is both incredibly human and incredibly unlike humanity as we currently know it. One thing the Bible makes very clear, both through His words through the person of the Father in the Old Testament and His actions, through the Persons of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, in the New Testament, is that God is deeply, deeply passionate. "Cold" is the last word we could possibly assign to our God.
I believe that emotionality frightens some people. And it's easy to understand why. Perhaps the atheist leveling the criticism that God must be vain or temperamental is thinking of what happens when humans' passions become the strongest: we lose control of ourselves. We make ill-advised decisions, we lash out in anger, and we make unreasonable demands. And we should indeed be concerned about the effects our untempered passions can have on ourselves and others. The idea of living with so, so much more than that is terrifying, considering how poorly we do with the paltry passions we have in comparison.
Yet with that extraordinary passion--emotion so strong it would overrun our defenses in a nanosecond, God is able to be both just and merciful. Sometimes I believe that when He speaks of His feelings...and He does it much more often than you might realize...we react badly because we either do not see the underlying logic, or we experience that fear of what would happen if we had to try and control it. I don't know about anyone else, but I get the distinct feeling sometimes that it was hard for God to reduce living a faithful life to an enumeration of laws, as happens in Leviticus. There was a reason for doing it, of course--because we weren't relating to Him in a mature fashion, for starters, and to get us to see how we were falling short and why we needed salvation--but God's words in the Psalms (paraphrased: I want your hearts, not just a burnt offering!) and Jesus' frustration with the coldness of the Pharisees' legalism, and by extension, Christian legalism, really leads me to believe that the separation imposed by such laws hurt Him, maybe even as much as open denials and betrayals (though I can't truly be sure about that one way or the other).
The way God reacted to that hurt, however, was to keep reaching out to us (even after the imposition of the law, the monarchy, and every other institution) to make the ultimate sacrifice for our benefit, to restore that right relationship and help us to draw closer. What wondrous love is this, indeed!
While I think it's always important to understand that God is so much more than we could possibly understand, we must also remember that He did create us in His image--that our spirits are intended to reflect His. What we feel, He drew from something of Himself. When someone we love turns their backs on us, doesn't it hurt? When someone tells us we are loved--even if we already are certain of their love--doesn't that warm our hearts?
God has far, far more emotional maturity than the two-year-old some people describe Him as. He does not "have" to be worshipped as an egotist "has" to have adulation. Rather, I believe that for Him, worship is part of the constant exchange that is LOVE. I'm sure it DOES feel good to be told that He is loved, and for us to express our thanks and our reliance upon Him, however imperfectly our worship is. But just because it feels good does not mean God will become rash or cruel because of it, as we might. I also believe that sincere worship opens us to be more receptive of His love, and that is what He wants--that He cares and wants to see us benefit from that openness. Certainly obedience is good; it denotes respect. And respect is a good place to start. But love...that's what God wants for us--to be a part of love.
And why should we not take care to respect God's feelings? Just because He is not prone to our excesses with His emotions doesn't give us an excuse, I believe, to trample all over Him. If we know we are hurting someone, shouldn't we stop doing what hurts that person? Just because a person is resilient, and heals from the wounds we inflict doesn't mean we should keep doing it. The hurt that person experiences, and what that does to our own spirits, is a terrible thing. God's may be the unquenchable flame, but what excuse do we have to hurt Him when we know full well that He does indeed feel that pain? How can we turn ourselves cold towards another Spirit?
And why shouldn't we do what we can to warm His heart as we would want done for us? If you read the Gospels, can you imagine the way Jesus' eyes would light up (figuratively, unless we're talking about the Transfiguration) when people treated Him with kindness and compassion? Yes, He still retained that emotional maturity in His incarnated state, but it's readily evident how much it meant to Him when someone was kind and loving. It feels good--and it opens the door to a relationship, a cycle of giving and receiving love that continually amplifies itself with each iteration. Even when someone gives a gift that is not needed--as we do when we worship, for God's survival does not depend on us as ours does on Him--it's still heartwarming to know that someone cared. It's the same, I believe, for God.
To sum up--for Christians who have gone into the rut of seeing worship as mere duty, something to check off the list, maybe spending some time reading the Bible to observe the depth of God's feeling would prove a comfort. His yoke is indeed light compared to the constant litany of rules we invent for ourselves and to share in His love is a salve to our souls and an exercise in kindness and compassion, not just obedience. For nonbelievers, I think that understanding the combination of emotion beyond our experience and control beyond our ability would be helpful--and the relational rather than unidirectional position of worship in the believer's life. Worship is not some appeasement of temper...it is an expression of love and a way of opening ourselves to God's voice. And that voice reminds us that we are loved.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Memories of Another Place
C.S. Lewis has stated that much of our work in coming to know God is not so much one of learning a thing for the first time, but of remembering what in truth we have always known. (I paraphrase.) One of the criticisms I see leveled at such comments, though, is the idea that because human memory is imperfect, and sometimes our desires are imperfect and lead to further corruption of our memories, that very little in our minds can actually be trusted.
Some go so far as to suggest that nothing except that which is captured in a scientific experiment could be valid and that in essence, all that is not quantifiable data becomes meaningless (perhaps "vanity" would be another term for it, if we take a page out of Ecclesiastes?). Dr. Victor Reppert posts an excellent refutation by C.S. Lewis to that particular point today, on his blog.
I'll be taking on a different angle today than Dr. Reppert's post. What I take issue with is the idea that because our memory is imperfect that EVERY impression it receives is therefore untrustworthy and all of the data has to be thrown out. Yet I believe that very often, even though we don't always correctly make sense of our impressions, we must assume that there is something at the root of those impressions in most cases, excluding, of course, those who have experienced severe self-delusion, or a break with reality.
Now let me start off by saying that anyone who wants to claim that we who are all believers are all that severely self-deluded, or that we have all broken with reality, is leveling a very serious charge against a massive segment of the population--and is essentially claiming that we are all so incompetent (in the literal sense) that we ought not be in with the general population. And a massive self-delusion on that scale really ought to mean that nothing our society has come up with ought to be trusted, to include even the most basic moral precepts (and I would refer you again to C.S. Lewis for a discussion of the reality of moral law even before discussing God).
Instead, for so many of us to have reached the same conclusion about moral law, about meaning, and for those of us blessed to live in such nations, to hold the faith even in a society where the government cannot compel us to, suggests just as Lewis claimed that we are indeed remembering something essential, something shared--and even if we don't always get it right, our impressions and understandings truly do converge on something real, something outside of us and that we have all known.
Let me give you an example from my own travels.
Not that long ago, I returned to Little Rock for the first time in about a decade since having lived there for one year. As you can imagine, I was very rusty in finding my way after having been there for such a short time--and at that time not being a very experienced driver and not having very many routes I actually drove for myself--and had what seemed at first like very vague memories. Memories that by all rights shouldn't have been trustworthy.
But odd things started to happen as soon as I started moving from North Little Rock to the western part of the city, mirroring one of the routes I used to drive to go to Barnes and Noble (they didn't have the one on McCain Boulevard back then). There were certain impressions I had of the route, though I couldn't exactly get the picture to form in my mind.
I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to see, but I was convinced these fleeting impressions were going to help me somehow to know that my GPS was doing the right thing. I thought perhaps there was a bridge with a red structure and pavement of ochre. As I drove, I found I wasn't quite right about what my impressions meant...the bridge and the curve were right--one of the interchanges from interstate to interstate was indeed a curving flyover bridge that bent to the right. And the pavement of that interstate was indeed that shade of ochre.
But what about the red?
I figured that out very quickly as soon as I started getting closer to my destination--and there was a building sitting there on a hill overlooking the highway, with an incredibly bright shade of rust-red brick.
As I got even closer to my destination, some other rather interesting things started to happen. As the interstate ran out, my GPS started to give directions that made absolutely no sense for where I was going. Unsure of what to do to get to the place I was headed, I picked a lane that felt safe--and as it turned out, it took me right back to that Barnes and Noble I'd gone to all those years ago! Instinct just took over and guided me somewhere familiar even though I had only the haziest impressions of where I was going.
The interesting thing to note is that even though some of my attempts to reconstruct those memories before I actually ran the route weren't quite right, every single one of those clues was meaningful, and led to something real.
Another memory reasserted itself on the way to Fayetteville, and this one was even more striking to me given that most of the time when the family drove THAT route, I used to sleep in the car, and maybe only paid attention to where we were going half or a third of the time. And I certainly never drove the route myself (it would've been FAR too challenging for me at the time--drivers ought to have to take a special test before they go up 540, given some of the antics I saw this time around!). I had a vague memory that there was a tunnel somewhere on the route, but I had no idea where and had certainly never bothered to pay attention to any of the signs.
Yet after so little experience that should've applied, so few opportunities to form memories, I started getting this sense at one point on the route that I was perhaps only a few miles out from the tunnel. I couldn't explain why--it's pretty hard to tell one hill and one curve from another out there, and there were hardly any exits to remember things by, either. Yet I was convinced this was the area...
...and there it was as I came around the next curve, exactly according to this instinct that came from somewhere I simply shouldn't have remembered.
I think that our understandings of God can be like that, too. Yes, we are prone to misunderstanding--to misremembering sometimes, and trying to put the pieces together incorrectly.
Yet the pieces are there within us, and what they point to is real...and when you couple that to the experiences of so, so many fellow Christians who have also traveled down this road and found themselves beginning to feel the same fundamental memories stirring within them (anyone remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind?), it becomes very clear. We may not have the capacity to retain everything we should. We may confuse things. Yet somewhere in there, there is truth. There is a reality it all leads towards, and while our fallibility is grounds to tread very carefully, it ought not deter us from continuing on the path and trusting that the clues will eventually fall together into a shape we recognize, and we'll be able to look back and realize...
Though we saw through a glass darkly, this is how it was all along.
Some go so far as to suggest that nothing except that which is captured in a scientific experiment could be valid and that in essence, all that is not quantifiable data becomes meaningless (perhaps "vanity" would be another term for it, if we take a page out of Ecclesiastes?). Dr. Victor Reppert posts an excellent refutation by C.S. Lewis to that particular point today, on his blog.
I'll be taking on a different angle today than Dr. Reppert's post. What I take issue with is the idea that because our memory is imperfect that EVERY impression it receives is therefore untrustworthy and all of the data has to be thrown out. Yet I believe that very often, even though we don't always correctly make sense of our impressions, we must assume that there is something at the root of those impressions in most cases, excluding, of course, those who have experienced severe self-delusion, or a break with reality.
Now let me start off by saying that anyone who wants to claim that we who are all believers are all that severely self-deluded, or that we have all broken with reality, is leveling a very serious charge against a massive segment of the population--and is essentially claiming that we are all so incompetent (in the literal sense) that we ought not be in with the general population. And a massive self-delusion on that scale really ought to mean that nothing our society has come up with ought to be trusted, to include even the most basic moral precepts (and I would refer you again to C.S. Lewis for a discussion of the reality of moral law even before discussing God).
Instead, for so many of us to have reached the same conclusion about moral law, about meaning, and for those of us blessed to live in such nations, to hold the faith even in a society where the government cannot compel us to, suggests just as Lewis claimed that we are indeed remembering something essential, something shared--and even if we don't always get it right, our impressions and understandings truly do converge on something real, something outside of us and that we have all known.
Let me give you an example from my own travels.
Not that long ago, I returned to Little Rock for the first time in about a decade since having lived there for one year. As you can imagine, I was very rusty in finding my way after having been there for such a short time--and at that time not being a very experienced driver and not having very many routes I actually drove for myself--and had what seemed at first like very vague memories. Memories that by all rights shouldn't have been trustworthy.
But odd things started to happen as soon as I started moving from North Little Rock to the western part of the city, mirroring one of the routes I used to drive to go to Barnes and Noble (they didn't have the one on McCain Boulevard back then). There were certain impressions I had of the route, though I couldn't exactly get the picture to form in my mind.
- A bridge
- A curve to the right
- Strong impressions of being surrounded by yellow ochre
- The color red--and a very specific shade of rust/brick red
I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to see, but I was convinced these fleeting impressions were going to help me somehow to know that my GPS was doing the right thing. I thought perhaps there was a bridge with a red structure and pavement of ochre. As I drove, I found I wasn't quite right about what my impressions meant...the bridge and the curve were right--one of the interchanges from interstate to interstate was indeed a curving flyover bridge that bent to the right. And the pavement of that interstate was indeed that shade of ochre.
But what about the red?
I figured that out very quickly as soon as I started getting closer to my destination--and there was a building sitting there on a hill overlooking the highway, with an incredibly bright shade of rust-red brick.
As I got even closer to my destination, some other rather interesting things started to happen. As the interstate ran out, my GPS started to give directions that made absolutely no sense for where I was going. Unsure of what to do to get to the place I was headed, I picked a lane that felt safe--and as it turned out, it took me right back to that Barnes and Noble I'd gone to all those years ago! Instinct just took over and guided me somewhere familiar even though I had only the haziest impressions of where I was going.
The interesting thing to note is that even though some of my attempts to reconstruct those memories before I actually ran the route weren't quite right, every single one of those clues was meaningful, and led to something real.
Another memory reasserted itself on the way to Fayetteville, and this one was even more striking to me given that most of the time when the family drove THAT route, I used to sleep in the car, and maybe only paid attention to where we were going half or a third of the time. And I certainly never drove the route myself (it would've been FAR too challenging for me at the time--drivers ought to have to take a special test before they go up 540, given some of the antics I saw this time around!). I had a vague memory that there was a tunnel somewhere on the route, but I had no idea where and had certainly never bothered to pay attention to any of the signs.
Yet after so little experience that should've applied, so few opportunities to form memories, I started getting this sense at one point on the route that I was perhaps only a few miles out from the tunnel. I couldn't explain why--it's pretty hard to tell one hill and one curve from another out there, and there were hardly any exits to remember things by, either. Yet I was convinced this was the area...
...and there it was as I came around the next curve, exactly according to this instinct that came from somewhere I simply shouldn't have remembered.
I think that our understandings of God can be like that, too. Yes, we are prone to misunderstanding--to misremembering sometimes, and trying to put the pieces together incorrectly.
Yet the pieces are there within us, and what they point to is real...and when you couple that to the experiences of so, so many fellow Christians who have also traveled down this road and found themselves beginning to feel the same fundamental memories stirring within them (anyone remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind?), it becomes very clear. We may not have the capacity to retain everything we should. We may confuse things. Yet somewhere in there, there is truth. There is a reality it all leads towards, and while our fallibility is grounds to tread very carefully, it ought not deter us from continuing on the path and trusting that the clues will eventually fall together into a shape we recognize, and we'll be able to look back and realize...
Though we saw through a glass darkly, this is how it was all along.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Gracefulness, Gratefulness, and the Car Industry
One thing you'll learn about me is that I get a lot of insights on the road, or related to what I see on the road. That's one of the blessings of my job, which has me quite often putzing around the Memphis area. Today was no different.
Tonight a commercial caught my eye from GM. As you might have already heard, GM has just paid back the money it owed the government for its bailout, plus interest. What really amazed me was that the spokesman expressed a very graceful attitude towards his company's detractors, including those who were against government intervention. I won't be getting into that argument here.
But here's what he said: "A lot of Americans didn't agree with giving GM a second chance. Quite frankly, I can respect that." (Listen here.)
When was the last time you heard someone express real respect towards their opponents in other realms, like politics? Religion?
You might argue that this is a move intended to generate sales. And it certainly is. But here's the interesting thing. GM is a company that has had to learn the hard way what it means to be utterly, totally dependent on an outside source for its very survival. GM had a lot that needed forgiveness...and we as Christians know that the proper response to forgiveness is gratitude, and that to turn around and express an ungrateful attitude towards others after we have been forgiven is to spit upon the gift of grace Jesus extends to us.
That made me consider another car-related experience I had today. After a mishap in a parking garage, I had some scrapes on the side of my car I needed to repaint, and my car has a hard-to-get paint color. The first dealership I called for information about the paint was one that has found out they will be closed as a result of the recession. The paint was not in stock, but I got the impression they really didn't want to help me; they told me to go somewhere else.
The second dealership I called was Sunrise, a GM dealer. They also didn't have the paint on hand, but they didn't jump telling me to go somewhere else before I had a chance to get a word in edgewise. They were actually willing to have a conversation with me, and were glad to order what I need. That wasn't the first time in recent months I'd had a great experience at Sunrise after a not-so-great one at the other dealership. In the previous case, they had told me they would honor my warranty--and when they got on the phone with GM found out they couldn't. Even though they couldn't get GM to pay, even though they surely needed every dollar, they ate the loss without even being asked. They stood by their word, and that's not something I forget.
That brings up the other part of maintaining a graceful attitude, I think...understanding that we truly have something to be grateful for. God did not leave us adrift after our expulsion from Paradise--He dove into the dangerous waters of this world to save us.
I mean no insult to anyone affiliated with the dealership that's on the chopping block, but I think that maybe the issue there is that they've simply given up...and with nothing to hope for, what good is the present moment? Why worry about each customer interaction when there is no longer any long-term reputation to be concerned with? It's understandable, and very human...and I really do feel bad for the people working in that situation. Still, it's unfortunate to behold.
Sunrise, on the other hand, got the reprieve along with the rest of GM. They know they have something to hope for, and I believe they work out of gratitude for what truly was a gift extended towards their company even though many believed it to be undeserving. They are aware of grace. And that grace has prompted them to show respect and kindness to those who come through their doors.
I think this is a lesson that we as Christians should learn--we, just like GM, have gotten ourselves into such a state that we are utterly and totally dependent upon outside salvation for our survival. We do not stand upon our own two feet as we like to think we do...we must kneel. For we have that salvation--we have something to hope for...and just as we have been shown kindness and mercy, shouldn't we show that to others? What excuse do we have to be cold and unforgiving?
Tonight a commercial caught my eye from GM. As you might have already heard, GM has just paid back the money it owed the government for its bailout, plus interest. What really amazed me was that the spokesman expressed a very graceful attitude towards his company's detractors, including those who were against government intervention. I won't be getting into that argument here.
But here's what he said: "A lot of Americans didn't agree with giving GM a second chance. Quite frankly, I can respect that." (Listen here.)
When was the last time you heard someone express real respect towards their opponents in other realms, like politics? Religion?
You might argue that this is a move intended to generate sales. And it certainly is. But here's the interesting thing. GM is a company that has had to learn the hard way what it means to be utterly, totally dependent on an outside source for its very survival. GM had a lot that needed forgiveness...and we as Christians know that the proper response to forgiveness is gratitude, and that to turn around and express an ungrateful attitude towards others after we have been forgiven is to spit upon the gift of grace Jesus extends to us.
That made me consider another car-related experience I had today. After a mishap in a parking garage, I had some scrapes on the side of my car I needed to repaint, and my car has a hard-to-get paint color. The first dealership I called for information about the paint was one that has found out they will be closed as a result of the recession. The paint was not in stock, but I got the impression they really didn't want to help me; they told me to go somewhere else.
The second dealership I called was Sunrise, a GM dealer. They also didn't have the paint on hand, but they didn't jump telling me to go somewhere else before I had a chance to get a word in edgewise. They were actually willing to have a conversation with me, and were glad to order what I need. That wasn't the first time in recent months I'd had a great experience at Sunrise after a not-so-great one at the other dealership. In the previous case, they had told me they would honor my warranty--and when they got on the phone with GM found out they couldn't. Even though they couldn't get GM to pay, even though they surely needed every dollar, they ate the loss without even being asked. They stood by their word, and that's not something I forget.
That brings up the other part of maintaining a graceful attitude, I think...understanding that we truly have something to be grateful for. God did not leave us adrift after our expulsion from Paradise--He dove into the dangerous waters of this world to save us.
I mean no insult to anyone affiliated with the dealership that's on the chopping block, but I think that maybe the issue there is that they've simply given up...and with nothing to hope for, what good is the present moment? Why worry about each customer interaction when there is no longer any long-term reputation to be concerned with? It's understandable, and very human...and I really do feel bad for the people working in that situation. Still, it's unfortunate to behold.
Sunrise, on the other hand, got the reprieve along with the rest of GM. They know they have something to hope for, and I believe they work out of gratitude for what truly was a gift extended towards their company even though many believed it to be undeserving. They are aware of grace. And that grace has prompted them to show respect and kindness to those who come through their doors.
I think this is a lesson that we as Christians should learn--we, just like GM, have gotten ourselves into such a state that we are utterly and totally dependent upon outside salvation for our survival. We do not stand upon our own two feet as we like to think we do...we must kneel. For we have that salvation--we have something to hope for...and just as we have been shown kindness and mercy, shouldn't we show that to others? What excuse do we have to be cold and unforgiving?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
A Tale of Two Billboards
One of the opportunities I have in my day job is to do some traveling around the Mid-South. And everyone who is familiar with the area already knows, this is a part of the country where people are not afraid to express their belief in God.
Yet as deeply as I love this place, it's also an inescapable fact that we have become a microcosm, in the public eye, for all that is best and all that is worst in what we have become as Christians. Yes, believers are numerous here, and ardent in their passion for God. I find myself questioning, however, whether we have let our regional demographic power go to our heads--and a bunker mentality concerning the rest of the country--brew into a perfect storm of gracelessness.
In many ways, that was the situation faced by the Pharisees in first-century Israel before the destruction of the Temple. They lived in a precarious position: they enjoyed a majority close to home, and a great deal of local influence--but zoom out one degree and we see the fetters of Roman occupation. Perhaps this was at the root of some of the gracelessness Jesus condemned in the Pharisees: a need to maintain strength and identity in the face of the occupation. As we know, many Pharisees went the route of legalistic striving, and condemnation towards all those who were seen as not living up to the standard.
As I was driving through Arkansas on I-40, I saw a set of billboards that epitomized this very same attitude. Both bore verses of condemnation in stark black and white: "THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY." "IF YOU ARE ASHAMED OF ME AND MY WORDS, THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE ASHAMED OF YOU."
And there was not a word of grace or love or redemption anywhere in there.
Sometimes, yes...we need a kick in the complacency. But how can we expect to elicit any other response but anger unless we can truly see and feel that the message is delivered in love?
As I came back home, I saw another billboard. This one was a real study in simplicity...and I really find myself stopping and thinking every time I see it.
"FOR GOD SO LOVED MEMPHIS..."
That's it. That's all it says.
Think about it. God sent his only begotten Son to save not just the disciples around him, but all nations. Including us, here in Memphis, for yes...we are just as fallen as anyone else.
That is the truth: first we must know we are loved.
Before anyone accuses me of hiding from the harsh truth of our sins...I do not. As God's love and grace fill us, we come to understand the ways in which we need to repent--but this is a deeply personal journey that must be taken above all with God's love. It is one thing, I believe, if we ask someone else to help us be accountable, someone we can trust not to take the knife and twist it. It is another thing...and a cruel one...to simply heap on condemnation and then claim that if people recoil in disgust and crippling shame at this attitude, that this reaction must prove they are incorrigible reprobates and hey, that's the "offense of the Gospel."
No, that's the offense of someone's bad attitude. Let's not get the two confused.
Let me say it again: first we must know we are loved.
Which of those two billboard messages do you think really has the chance of drawing someone in? The one that simply condemns...or the one that reminds us, as the Bluetree song says, that our Lord is the God of this city, and His love extends to us, too?
Yet as deeply as I love this place, it's also an inescapable fact that we have become a microcosm, in the public eye, for all that is best and all that is worst in what we have become as Christians. Yes, believers are numerous here, and ardent in their passion for God. I find myself questioning, however, whether we have let our regional demographic power go to our heads--and a bunker mentality concerning the rest of the country--brew into a perfect storm of gracelessness.
In many ways, that was the situation faced by the Pharisees in first-century Israel before the destruction of the Temple. They lived in a precarious position: they enjoyed a majority close to home, and a great deal of local influence--but zoom out one degree and we see the fetters of Roman occupation. Perhaps this was at the root of some of the gracelessness Jesus condemned in the Pharisees: a need to maintain strength and identity in the face of the occupation. As we know, many Pharisees went the route of legalistic striving, and condemnation towards all those who were seen as not living up to the standard.
As I was driving through Arkansas on I-40, I saw a set of billboards that epitomized this very same attitude. Both bore verses of condemnation in stark black and white: "THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY." "IF YOU ARE ASHAMED OF ME AND MY WORDS, THE SON OF MAN SHALL BE ASHAMED OF YOU."
And there was not a word of grace or love or redemption anywhere in there.
Sometimes, yes...we need a kick in the complacency. But how can we expect to elicit any other response but anger unless we can truly see and feel that the message is delivered in love?
As I came back home, I saw another billboard. This one was a real study in simplicity...and I really find myself stopping and thinking every time I see it.
"FOR GOD SO LOVED MEMPHIS..."
That's it. That's all it says.
Think about it. God sent his only begotten Son to save not just the disciples around him, but all nations. Including us, here in Memphis, for yes...we are just as fallen as anyone else.
That is the truth: first we must know we are loved.
Before anyone accuses me of hiding from the harsh truth of our sins...I do not. As God's love and grace fill us, we come to understand the ways in which we need to repent--but this is a deeply personal journey that must be taken above all with God's love. It is one thing, I believe, if we ask someone else to help us be accountable, someone we can trust not to take the knife and twist it. It is another thing...and a cruel one...to simply heap on condemnation and then claim that if people recoil in disgust and crippling shame at this attitude, that this reaction must prove they are incorrigible reprobates and hey, that's the "offense of the Gospel."
No, that's the offense of someone's bad attitude. Let's not get the two confused.
Let me say it again: first we must know we are loved.
Which of those two billboard messages do you think really has the chance of drawing someone in? The one that simply condemns...or the one that reminds us, as the Bluetree song says, that our Lord is the God of this city, and His love extends to us, too?
Saturday, April 17, 2010
It's True, It's True, We Don't Exist!
One of the oddest experiences I ever had in the wild world of the Internet was to be told in the midst of a discussion on faith and Christianity that people of my kind did not exist.
How could one be a Christian and hold no fear of the works of His hands as revealed by science? But far more importantly than this one petty and false division...how could one be a Christian without cruelty and condemnation?
To the minds of many these days, this seems to be a contradiction of terms. Indeed, we have become a byword among the nations, just as the prophets warned long ago. Look at the popular portrayals of the faith these days, and what do you see? Not the works of God's hands, but the twisted works of our own.
It's easy, when you look at the preponderance of debates in the media, to understand why someone might come to this conclusion. Extremes grab attention. They sell. Those of us who are moderates, who try to follow Paul's admonition to gently instruct find ourselves being shouted down by voices to the right of us and voices to the left of us...and it's easy to simply give up in the face of such convergence of opposition. I should know--I very nearly left the faith, not because I lost my belief in God but rather my trust of those who claimed to serve Him.
When I returned, it was with not only a stronger understanding of why I believed--but a strong conviction that I do no good to heal our self-inflicted damage by running away from the problem. Instead, I believe my calling is one of healing...not of the body, but of the spirits we have damaged within and without. In the silence of contemplation is submission to God--in the silence of complacency, submission to the world.
And when someone can actually tell me to my online face--and mean it--that I don't exist...I see the steep price we have paid for our silence. This blog, and all of my other works, are ultimately an expression of this calling: to give boldness to the voice of moderation and above all to point the way to God's grace as best as I can.
How could one be a Christian and hold no fear of the works of His hands as revealed by science? But far more importantly than this one petty and false division...how could one be a Christian without cruelty and condemnation?
To the minds of many these days, this seems to be a contradiction of terms. Indeed, we have become a byword among the nations, just as the prophets warned long ago. Look at the popular portrayals of the faith these days, and what do you see? Not the works of God's hands, but the twisted works of our own.
It's easy, when you look at the preponderance of debates in the media, to understand why someone might come to this conclusion. Extremes grab attention. They sell. Those of us who are moderates, who try to follow Paul's admonition to gently instruct find ourselves being shouted down by voices to the right of us and voices to the left of us...and it's easy to simply give up in the face of such convergence of opposition. I should know--I very nearly left the faith, not because I lost my belief in God but rather my trust of those who claimed to serve Him.
When I returned, it was with not only a stronger understanding of why I believed--but a strong conviction that I do no good to heal our self-inflicted damage by running away from the problem. Instead, I believe my calling is one of healing...not of the body, but of the spirits we have damaged within and without. In the silence of contemplation is submission to God--in the silence of complacency, submission to the world.
And when someone can actually tell me to my online face--and mean it--that I don't exist...I see the steep price we have paid for our silence. This blog, and all of my other works, are ultimately an expression of this calling: to give boldness to the voice of moderation and above all to point the way to God's grace as best as I can.
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