Merry Christmas From Suite 213A

          Merry Christmas to you and yours from my perch atop the mighty skyscraper known as the Graden Mercantile Building in downtown Durango, Colorado.  Yes, I am at the very top, in Suite 213A, pounding out a few thoughts as we close 2011.  (Note: We are a two story skyscraper – being at an altitude of 6,500 feet, we need not play ostentatious with our architectural projections inasmuch as we are already scraping the sky by merely walking around).

          I have no big theme upon which to build that requires of the reader an expenditure of effort to track my nubile thoughts; no, rather, I will dispense with a few odds and ends, Herb Caen style.

          Let’s start with that one: Who was Herb Caen? He was one of my favorite columnists I read while attending graduate school in San Francisco. After dreary lectures on Greek and Hebrew syntax, supra verses infra lapsarianism, sacerdotalism, philosophical axioms, hermeneutics, teaching pedagogues, etc. – I would retreat to the library and get my chuckles from the free copy of the San Francisco Chronicle. His column was a series of one paragraph insights of gossip, local happenings, political punditry and regional anecdotes. It was never hostile or ill-willed but always brilliant. When he passed away in 1997, his funeral was the best attended in San Francisco history.

          So, here we go…No man enjoys Christmas shopping. My father-in-law, O.D. may have set the bar so high that no mortal man will ever reach his stature. It seems that his wife, Betty, was heading into town a couple of days ago to pick up my wife, Jan, to do a little Christmas shopping. As Betty was leaving, O.D. grabbed his coat in what appeared to be an uncharacteristic eagerness to join in the shopping venture. As they got in the car, O.D. said, “Why don’t you drop me off at the E.R. while you and Jan run your errands.”  It seems that my father-in-law was manifesting the symptoms of a heart attack. A few hours later, with two new stints in his heart, he has become an iconic figure for all men to emulate. “O.D. – We are not worthy! We are not worthy…”

          We plan to spend a little more time at the hospital this Christmas season. My lovely daughter, Molly, timing the event of her first child with that of the Blessed Virgin, is due any moment with she and husband Erick’s first child. Every time my phone rings I jump a bit thinking that the moment has arrived. Molly herself is a Christmas baby. Our oldest son was born December 27^th. Our anniversary is on the 29^th.  Please send money…

          My daughter can now join that large sorority of “sistas” whose compassion and empathy for men’s whiny complaints effectively registers at the non-pulse state. From now on, her trump card shall always be: “Yes, yes…that looks painful…but I had a baby.”  As a good friend of mine noted, he could walk into the house with a screw-driver hanging from his eye and his wife would say: “Yep, I bet that smarts…but I had a baby.”

          Thus, it was with cool, unfeeling precision that my wife – who, by the way, had three babies – ordered me up a “procedure” that will take place over the holidays. While everyone else is gorging and feasting, I will be downing a lemony drink that will make me all shiny on the inside – from top to “literal” bottom. Nothing says “I love you” like a colonoscopy. By golly, she put the Merry in my Christmas. I guess I ain’t been “nuttin’ but bad.” Think of me – actually, scratch that…don’t - as I begin my lonely vigil. I will be reading A Tale(!) of Two Cities which begins with the famous line, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” Indeed.

          On the other hand, what a fantastic way to begin my New Year’s resolutions – which always has something to do with losing weight. This should help.

____

          Years ago I was the head counselor at a small Christian camp. During evening devotions, I asked one of the high school leaders to read something from the Bible to wind down our evening. He chose a passage from the Book of Psalms, which he pronounced, “Palms.”  He asked everyone to turn to the book of Palms.  It still makes me smile. He was the original Palm reader. Perhaps we could gin up a little business in this downtown office if we hung out a sign that said, “Psalms read here! Get your free Psalm reading!” Who knows?

          Anyway, back to the original sentiment…Merry Christmas! A little over two thousand years ago a few blue-collar workers attending to the night shift, pulling sheep-duty, were treated to a heavenly host of angels busting out the praise of the newborn King. According to Scripture, that number could have reflected a number as high as 100 million angels. I am not really sure who was more surprised, the angels or the shepherds. If I was an angel, I probably would have expected to show up to some famous earth location and sing for a King or an Emperor. They could have rocked the Colosseum . At the very least – the angels could have expected a booking at the temple in Jerusalem. After all, it was one of God's venues. Instead, they were directed to a lonely field where a few good old boys were passing around the wine-skin on a quiet evening.

          The great Oxford scholar, Alfred Edersheim, tells us that these particular shepherds, because of their geographical location, were most likely watching the sheep meant to be sold as ritual sacrificial lambs to folks who traveled to Jerusalem and didn’t own a pick-up to transport a homegrown animal. In other words, these were not just any sheep. They were sacrificial lambs. He goes on to note that although the sheep were considered holy, for ceremonial purposes, the shepherds themselves were considered unclean and thus banned from the religious life of the Jewish people. So, who gets the good news first???  I am not lying here – God is a class act.

Last Sunday our little Celtic band played the praise of the King at the Irish Embassy Pub for the third straight year as we put on, once again, A Celtic Christmas.  The fragrance and majesty of that first Christmas sorted itself out through our instruments and voices to the modern day shepherds  - to those who, for good reasons or not, have found themselves on the outskirts of religion…who don’t quite fit in …who, might feel unclean in the presence of our modern portrayal of Christianity.  To you dear hearts I say: “Fear not…for I bring to you good news today which shall be for all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

Labels, Part 2 "INFP vs. ESTJ"

I was chatting with an old friend this morning over a cup of coffee. It was one of those wonderful “accidents” that God is so generous to arrange. My young friend, who I met when he was a college student, happened to be passing through town.

He is now a college minister and I am so very proud of him. Looking back on our relationship, I marveled at the growth that had taken place in his life. A lot of it has to do of course with the natural process of maturing. And, the fact that he married a lovely, bright, and talented woman has not at all hurt his drift toward refinement. She is definitely sanding off the rough edges of her husband as is the common task of all lovely, bright and talented wives - which describes pretty much all wives by my book! (Shameless pandering, but it increases Blog-traffic). Their job is to “de-Neanderthal-ize” us nose-picking, knuckle-draggers.

As we chatted, he told me that a part of his leadership training that had been especially meaningful to him had been to work through the Myers-Briggs profiling test. This test is commonly used in the business world to help people better understand one another and to build group dynamics...allegedly. (More on that in a moment). I use this tool in pre-marital counseling quite often, thus, I had already formed a few educated guesses in regard to my friend's profile. Allow me a moment to recount a few memories…

When I first met my friend, he was a football player at Fort Lewis College. When we would get together to chat, he almost always had some topic, or someone, with which he was taking “serious” issue. Being an ESFJ (the J standing for Judging), he excelled nicely with the “J” portion. In other words, he suffered no fools, and the world, in his mind, was chock-full of them.

I remember many times that I sat and listened, slowly drumming my fingers on the table, wishing I had brought along just a fragment of duct-tape. Two or three inches of the magic adhesive would have come in quite handy. But, I did what my profile (INFP) does rather easily – I listened and sympathized. My “P” (perceiving) as opposed to his “J” (judging) offered him another way of looking at the people or the situations. I am not at all saying that my personality type is better than his. I, in fact, often put a lot of trust in people – especially in their unrealized potential – while overlooking the present realities of a person’s journey. That has bitten me on more than one occasion. The disappointment always circled back to my projection of what a person could be that was frequently at odds with who they really were. It is both an encouraging gift to many people and yet at times was wrought with wrongful expectations on my part. It took me awhile to figure this out.

What is my point? I am speaking here again, as I did in the previous blog, about labels. I hate them. I really do. Yet we seem to be incurably driven to find a place in our minds to categorize people: He is a banker; She is an accountant; He is a Baptist; She is a Homemaker; He is a jerk; She is a flake. On and on the labels go. We unfairly summarize an entire person’s life with meager amounts of data and impressions gathered by fleeting moments in their presence.

It is terribly unfair but also unsurprising. Psychologists tell us that our brains need a way to resolve what they call cognitive dissonance in our minds; thus, we merrily and unconsciously go about cataloging people as: friend, enemy, weirdo, attractive, not so much, etc. When I was in my doctoral studies, I had a professor describe cognitive dissonance as a bunch of untethered strings floating around in our brain. Categorizing people and subjects help tie these thoughts down and bring us a measure of peace.

It is right here where we can go off the tracks and where we can find help with the Christian celebration of the word “grace”. The word in the Greek: “charis”, when tracked down to its effectual usage in the Scriptures, means: “God’s empowering presence.” I have heard other definitions, but this one seems to work in all circumstances, so it is the one I prefer. Grace is God’s active goodness, influence and participation in our lives. Grace is God becoming a man, a human being, and experiencing the dust and disappointment of earth. Grace is the effort given to understanding every temptation and shortcoming and weakness common to the human race and enduring it all. Grace is placing oneself on a cross as a substitute to take the blame for all of our naughtiness. And grace is seeing within each human being the potential of what they might someday be. Yes, I like to fancy that God is a bit of an INFP Himself! But, that would be overly flattering to my profile type and it is simply less than honest. He is all of the personality types noted by the Myer-Briggs profilers and much more. His character is one of: holiness, mercy, kindness, matchless beauty, mystery, self-revelation, justice and judgment, downy-soft tenderness, transcendence and imminence. Try labeling God into one category and you will come away with a tiny, manageable God – but you will be missing the real thing. In a sense, Deity defies labels.

And this is the big point I wish to make…grace, when freely received, never allows us to remain the same. It is transforming. It is metamorphosing. But there is more…grace freely received is meant to be freely given. It is a pass-through gift. It is a river, not a reservoir.

Here is where we come to the limitations of personality profiling. I once worked through a Myers-Brigg facilitator to help me resolve some conflicts with a few business partners. Actually, I was in the middle of the conflict – a tormented peace-maker of sorts. The Myers-Briggs actually mapped it out quite accurately. One guy was in the upper right hand corner, a driver, and a controller. The other partner was down in the lower left corner – a very easy-going, “collie” type. My personality was in between the two. As our facilitator shared with us our personality types, the controlling fellow lit up and got excited. He said, “Yes, this is me!” And…then he used his newfound knowledge to define and defend his nastiness to the other guy. “This is me! This is me! This is me! You have to adjust to it because…This is me!” As retreats went, it wasn’t one of my more successful ones. He used his personality type as a sledge-hammer.

Grace never leaves us that way. Grace would never attempt to bend the entire universe to one’s own will and personality. Rather, grace fuels a love of others that cures such things – even if very slowly. Grace is always about the business of changing us from the inside out into something more beautiful. And, as it changes us, it makes us extremely sympathetic to other people’s struggles. We become the change we would hope for in other people.

Thanks for hanging out and completing this marathon of a blog. May God’s grace be yours in abundance…

-CJ

Labels

    The other day, I asked my wife to pick up some Fish Oil for me while she was out shopping. Fish oil is supposed to be good for the heart. So is garlic. It seems that everything that is good for the heart stinks. Everything that is bad for the heart smells savory.
    Now, for some time, the chemists that produce these supplements have heard the cry of fussy people with highly developed olfactory senses and have managed to remove the offensive smells that come with healthful choices. Yay!  So, imagine my surprise when I went to open my little bottle of heart health and wrapped proudly around the lid were these words: “Formerly Odorless.” 
    Hmm…I wasn’t sure what they were trying to say. Could it have been a labeling mistake? Did they mean: “Formerly Odorous?” Or perhaps someone complained about the lack of odor and wondered if popping these pills did any good, sans dead fish stench. So, maybe they meant this: “The stink is back!”  Curious, I opened the little jar and found the pills to be odor-free. So, yep, someone definitely screwed up the label. Their bad…
    I am always pimping life for some real-life scenario to help throw some light on a great spiritual truth and this one seemed as good as any. The great spiritual truth has to do with labels. The word Christian was not a self-proclaiming label marketed by the first generation of the church. No, the outside world, observing the behavior of believers, gave them the label, “Christ-like”, or “Christian.” It was a stunning recognition of the simple fact that these humble, first century followers of Christ were behaving in a fashion similar to the man who had recently been crucified. They prayed for people and they got better. They were ridiculously generous. They were fair. They were impartial in regard to the sex or ethnicity of a person. And, they were turning a brutal world right-side up with their gentle, Christ-like ways. In this instance, the label matched the product perfectly.
    Fast forward a few centuries to today. How is that label thing working out? I was chatting with a friend the other day who doesn’t claim to be a Christian but who, nevertheless, chooses to try to live her life according to the teachings of Christ. She called me from work and shared with me a story that I hear all too often, at least in spirit. It seemed that some Christian at work got extremely upset with her for borrowing a bowl to warm up some soup. It rocked her world because this angry Christian had often made a show of reading the Scriptures in the work room and was fairly vocal about her faith. However, her faith didn’t quite reach as far her personal soup bowl. I was saddened as my friend asked me this sweet, simple question: “Would Jesus care if I borrowed a soup bowl?” My response was this: “No, in fact, I think Jesus would have given you his soup bowl.”
    After that exchange, the obvious thing to do was to go and buy the best soup bowl I could find in order to show my friend how Jesus felt about soup bowls. Within minutes, my trustee assistant and I crossed Main Street of Durango and found the perfect soup bowl, the perfect card, and the perfect spoon. We signed the card: “From Jesus! – Bon Appétit!”, or something like that.
    Here’s the deal…the message of Jesus is still as relevant and as powerful today as it was when it was first launched into the world. He is still the most attractive person I know – and I have studied them all. I cannot get over His kindness and His mercy and His generous ways. He has wrecked me in a good way. I will never be just like Him and thus, I am not sure if I have even earned the moniker of “Christian.” Yet, He joyfully calls me His own even with my deeply flawed ways. But, having made these humble, self-deprecating admissions, I do know this – He cares more about precious souls than He does about an ordinary soup bowl! I have at least THAT much revelation!
    We live in a time where the labels are mightily screwed up. Some who proudly call themselves Christians are often the least Christ-like people to be around. Many are full of greed, avarice, pettiness, anger, and judgment. They are, to borrow my earlier example, still full of stink! While I am a little angry about that – God forgive me – I am mostly just sad. I am sad because these poorly labeled folks obscure the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rightfully so, a person outside of the Christian faith can look at us and say, “Well, if that is what it means to be a Christian, then no thanks!”  The message has gotten lost in the hands and lives of the messenger.  And you know what – “Christians” – we have absolutely no right to complain about their passivity to the Christian message. If the medicine has done us so little good, why would they be interested in taking it? They have too much regard for their own reputation to become like us!
    Here is my solution to the times in which we live…it is time for Christians to pipe-down. I know that doesn’t sound very Jesus-like and I am okay with that. I am okay with it because it is outstanding advice. Until our lives catch up to our theology, we have nothing to offer. The old English word for “belief” actually meant, “by-life.”  It is time for the church to reacquaint itself with the marriage of belief and life. A quote often attributed to St. Francis, but not known for certain if it was his, goes like this: "Preach the Gospel always: When necessary, use words. The Apostle Peter said it this way: "Keep your behavior excellent among the unbelievers, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation."  I Peter 2: 12  And, also, Jesus words in Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." One without the other is a sham. And, the world is much too clever in these days to sacrifice or change their lives to run with a bunch of grumpy, soup-bowl Nazis.

A New Christian Holiday Brought To You By Patrick Crossing!

Throughout a significant portion of Christendom, a couple of weeks ago marked the beginning of the Lenten Season with the starting point being, of course, Ash Wednesday. It is a tradition both rich in history, significance and not a little abuse - the most notable of the latter being the wild day of debauchery immediately preceding known as Fat Tuesday. While Ash Wednesday is supposed to replicate a period of forty days of spiritual reflection, fasting, repentance and sacrifice - Fat Tuesday is more like a bachelor party.

            The term Fat Tuesday is the anglicized translation of the French words, Marti Gras. So...is anyone surprised that getting glassy-eyed, drooly plastered and indulging in as much lewdness, leering, lust, lechery, lasciviousness, and leeching as possible – carries with it a French connection?  "Oui! I am about to embark on zee season of fasting, prayer, Almsgiving, and deep reflection regarding zee Passion of zee Christ. Come; let us get skunk-faced!"              

            Lest you think I am being overly harsh on the French, I will humbly acknowledge that just eight days after the beginning of the Lenten Season, when we are supposed to be thinking seriously about our personal wretchedness, the Irish offer us a Lenten "time-out" known as St. Patrick's Day. Last year, as our Celtic Band played at the local pub for St. Paddy’s, I felt as though I were sitting in the midst of the “end o’day” scene from the movie, The Matrix. It was sweaty, pulsating, malodorous, loud and confusing. I had to crowd surf to get to the bathroom. This year I decided to not wear my kilt. (Please contact me on Facebook for a list of reasons). St. Paddy’s Day has become Fat Tuesday on crack.

            There was a paucity of religious observances in the tradition in which I was raised. We said a few words about Christmas and Easter; but otherwise we were markedly, "low church". We had no affinity for such high church traditions as Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, Advent and such.  And, we sure the heck didn’t acknowledge any Saints, except for the St. Louis Cardinals.

            We really didn’t need a special season to feel bad about ourselves. Our preachers pretty much took up that issue every Sunday. As a child, I was raised with bromides. (Note: Bromides: The term "bromide" derives from the antiquated use of certain bromide salts in medicine - usually sodium bromide but also potassium bromide - as a mild tranquilizer or sedative). Brother Bill, as we called him, from a church in our area, loved to thunder: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  It was his favorite aphorism, which, because of consistent overuse, became a bromide. After awhile, it lost its ability to trouble, much less terrify. It made us sleepy.

            Most of the sermons could be broken down into three basic categories: “You don’t come enough! You don’t do enough! You don’t give enough!” If it was a really long sermon, the preacher could easily cover all three.  At one revival meeting I attended, the Preacher shouted: “John was called the Baptist! He baptized Jesus! Therefore - Jesus was a Baptist!” (It would be years later that I would become enamored of the discipline of philosophy where I studied, among other things, the area of logic. Within that broad category is the sub-category of deductive reasoning.  A decent example of good deductive reason would go like this: 1) All birds sing 2) A Robin is a bird 3) Therefore, Robins sing.  A flawed example of deductive reasoning would go something like this: 1) All birds sing 2) My daughter Molly sings 3) Molly is a bird. Or, see above: Jesus was a Baptist).

            Sadly, in the past, I have tried to motivate people, congregations, my wife and my kids through guilt. It only works until they are out of site. It also causes resentment.  There are three things I have learned about by trying to motivate people in this way: 1) Guilt-tripping is too much work – you always have to raise the bar. 2) It carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction – eventually people will flee because they already feel pretty poorly about themselves absent my input; and, 3) Guilty Christians are an oxymoron and therefore unattractive. Proselytizing becomes a non-issue – why would a stranger to the faith exchange one misery that they are accustomed to for one which requires missing pre-game during the football season?

            The announcement of strict religious observance seems instinctively to set off a rebellion of panic within most people. Whether it is a seasonal thing like Lent, or a steady dose such as I received in my formative years - there is a yin and yang, a good and an evil, a Luke & a Darth wandering about and at war within all of us. We can only take so much of rules, regulations, and sacrifices, before we explode. Every Ash Wednesday seems to demand its Fat Tuesday.

            But, is that point of Christianity – causing people to explode – or to always feel like exploding?  Are we promoting a schizophrenic religion that pushes for seasons of sorrow that is preceded by, interrupted and followed by Athenian decadence? Is that a good plan? I think not. You see, I do not feel any particular loyalty to either increased depravity or augmented religiosity. They can both be traps that leave us alienated from our true purpose.

            Jesus stared down this dichotomy in response to His critics with these words…

For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” Matthew 11:18,10

            Do you get that?  John the Baptist lived the life of Lent – every day of his life. And, without meaning to sound at all blasphemous or disrespectful of Jesus - the rap coming from his critics seemed to suggest that He represented a version of Fat Tuesday every day of His life.

            The larger point to be made is that neither life – one that appeared outwardly austere or one that appeared outwardly free, could please the expectations of established, organized religion. Why? - Because the rules always change and the goalposts are always on the move. One man’s spirituality is another man’s burden. One man’s freedom is another man’s sin.

            For the Christian – for the one who truly understands the freedom we have in Christ – the freedom for which it was His purpose to live and to die – every day is, if you would, both Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. It is "Fat Ash" if you would...

            Now, do we pay attention to holiness and goodness? Sure, but Jesus told us not to make a show of it. Do we celebrate freedom from rules and endless regulations? Yes, but we are not to make a show of that either. You see, for the Christian who is “getting it” – neither freedom nor holiness is calculated, nor are they separate issues. Freedom and holiness are cut from the same cloth. We are free because we are holy. We are holy because we have been made free. It is a beautiful spontaneity. “Planning” to be holy – to get your “holy on” say…next Wednesday…simply stirs the pot of rebellion in one’s own heart. It is the religious antithesis of the Fat Tuesday phrase: “Let’s go get wasted.” Both are dangerous. The first can make you feel spiritually superior – a very bad thing. The second usually fills you with some sort of regret – also a bad thing. Both are less than what Jesus has in mind for us.

            The last part of the above Scriptures has Jesus saying this: “But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” In reference to John the Baptist, his wisdom was proven by His austerity. John needed to behave the way he did in order to outduel the religious, judgmental elites of his day. In other words – no one could claim to “out-holy” John. Thus, you find even the Pharisees lining up to get baptized. With Jesus, it was just the opposite. Was He holy? - Absolutely. But where do we find Jesus? He is constantly hanging out with the wrong crowd – the I.R.S. agents, the whores, the hounds and the misfits.

            His first miracle was making about 300 gallons of wine. When a significant portion of your disciples are sailors, wine depletion can be a major problem. Was that a necessary miracle? Yes, especially if you’re out to prove that the popular conception of God has become all twisted up by organized religion. A sermon I heard as a youth  which declared that Jesus had actually made up big vats of grape-juice at the wedding do not take into account the astonishment and pleasure of the Jewish Maitre’d who announced that the best wine had been saved for last.  Who is to question a Jewish wine expert?

            The point is this – being a Christian is not so much pre-planned, as it is simply, lived. Jesus signed up to walk out and work through this life with us, side by side. He makes it up as He goes. Yes, there are some things that are wrong that will always be wrong. There are such things as absolutes and propositional truths. I get that. But there also is a wide-field of freedom where Jesus will take us where we somehow sustain the path of holiness and freedom in the midst of a dark and hurting world. When we once step into that freedom, we will find two things: 1) We will never – EVER – want to go back; and, 2) We will gain a lot of critics – just like Jesus and just like John.  But that won’t really matter. We are designed, as believers, to please only One. Life is good when that becomes our standard. As Jesus said, “Wisdom is proved right (over time) by her deeds.’

            So, with that freedom in mind, let me be the first to announce that our ministry, Patrick Crossing, is declaring a brand new observance for the liturgical calendar. I am going to borrow an insight from a few paragraphs ago and announce the commencement of: “Fat Ash Day.”  I like it. It blends the spontaneity of freedom and the responsibility of holiness. Be sure and tell all your friends so this thing can go viral.

Be well blessed…

-CJ