No Audience

I'm rather relieved to discover that hardly anyone actually reads this blog.

I was talking to another blogger who has had remarkable success in developing a "following" in a short period of time - well deserved, but also fairly strategic in spreading the word about his writing.

I had strange sense that I did not want to be "on stage", at least, not yet. I worry about how an audience changes you. I remember Ravi Zacharias and Rob Bell both talking about how they refused to add a TV component to their teaching ministries because they recognized that the camera changes people.

Just being aware of the fact that others are watching (or reading what you write) changes you. It tunes you in, it shifts your attention to thinking about how they are perceiving you and what their reactions are. We may say (and really mean) that we don't care what others think, but humans are complicated messy creatures, and as soon as we're aware that others are noticing, it's hard to believe that it doesn't shape our behavior or our words somehow.

It just happened to me right now....who would want to read about post about the dangers of writing things to impress other people? "Better not publish this",  I thought, "just leave it in the drafts folder".

Now, some might say this isn't entirely negative, and having to revise and self-edit can be quite helpful. Indeed being entirely immersed in one's own world without the feedback of others is often quite unhealthy. But some good thinkers have wisely pointed out how dangerous an audience can be, how tempting it can be to entertain and move from authenticity to performance. How troubling a thought this is when we consider how many people now live their daily lives "performing" on platforms like facebook, twitter, and the like. Maybe it isn't so consequential to be selective in choosing which holiday photos you post on facebook, in a manner aimed at making others believe you live a perfect and happy existence. But maybe some of this performing ends up eroding the authentic intimacy of our lives when we spend more time being the person others expect us to be than the person we really are. And perhaps even more seriously for those who write or teach about spiritual truth, there is the risk that we will write to entertain more than we will be honest with the complex, vexing nature of truth-seeking. 

And... I think it is even more dangerous when someone is in a formative period of their lives. I know that we're all on journeys, and our formation is ongoing, but I think there might be something to be said for certain highly formative periods, that need to occur without the temptation to become what you think will earn the praise of others, or even to develop an inner sense of pride in what you have said, or written, or done.

Jonathan Martin, a profound pentacostal thinker and teacher, writes in his book Prototype, that desert experiences, those times when we are away from the crowd and alone with God, are the most crucial and vital times of our lives. To be obscure in Martin's view, is a blessing, one to be savoured and sought after, rather than considered failure, a loss, or avoided.

So thanks for not reading. (ahhh! Blogger suicide) I'm not trying to discourage you if you want to read this, but I also need some space to just write and reflect. To be formed and have my mind transformed, without any interference from stupid thoughts like, "what will people think if I write that?".

Letting Go...a little

I've been writing very little lately, but my self-reflection has been going on nonetheless. I'm still early in my thinking about these topics, so I invite feedback and critique even more than normal. Hopefully this is clear enough to make sense to most folks....

I've been thinking about why certain things bother me as much as they do.

I've told myself time after time that professional success, wealth, productivity, and personal achievement are really not so important. But it's like a little part of me doesn't believe it. When these things are threatened or attacked, or even lost, it evokes emotional responses more strong than I would care to admit. I can rationalize with myself endlessly, but it seems in spite of "knowing better", I really am holding on. You only defend the things you covet, and this year in the midst of some life changes, I've come to realize that I have a pretty strong attachment to things I wish I didn't.

Why can't I let go?

Ernest Becker, an under-appreciated psychologist and thinker, poses a thoughtful approach.

Becker suggests that many of us use "life projects", things like careers, accumulation of assets, children, development of reputation, and building a legacy as ways of dealing with the inherent anxiety of death that is hardwired in each of us as humans. Okay, now before you all check out from this article and tell yourselves that you don't fear death, just slow down for a moment and consider that perhaps you feel reassured by your beliefs about the afterlife, but that you haven't entirely managed to escape the most profound existential reality facing all of humanity, which is, that we are aware of our own impending deaths. It might even be true to say that the innate biological drive towards self-preservation, automatically creates a dilemma us as humans who are aware that we are going to die someday. I'm not suggesting that we can't transcend this, just like we transcend our selfish tendencies at times, by experiencing God's love....but most of us would have to admit even with selfishness, we're a work in progress. Perhaps too often in Christian circles, we've been quick to treat our fear of death as an either/or, rather than a work in progress. But I digress...

Assuming that deep down, mostly unconsciously, that we do fear death, it seems there might be things we will do to alleviate that anxiety. While we might simply deny our inevitable fate, humans seem to gravitate towards more complicated forms of denial, things that allow us to rationalize and fool ourselves into thinking that we're not denying anything at all. Becker suggests that these life projects give us a sense of life being meaningful and reassure us that something might exist beyond our death, whether it be offspring, or something we invented or created, or an inheritance we pass along to our heirs, or even just that vague sense of having "made a difference in the world", all of which take the sting out of death.

So, while we might not specifically think about death or dying when these things are threatened, they play the function in our lives and in our psyche of protecting us against the subconscious fear of death, and hence become infinitely more important than we would otherwise expect.

As psychologists, we're always on the look-out for disproportionate responses - reactions that conjure up greater emotional intensity than we might otherwise expect. When I notice it in myself, when I see that my emotional response to things changing against my will is bigger than the scope of the change, I cannot help but wonder if something deeper is feeling threatened. Maybe its because these "life projects" of mine that are threatened are more precious to me than I recognized. Maybe my identity as a professional, as a dad, as a multidimensional success, even as blogger are tied up in protecting me from these haunting realities. Some day I will die. I may or may not have much influence on when it happens. Someday all things I have worked so hard it will lose most of their value. Someday everyone who ever knew me will also be dead. Will I then cease to exist on earth entirely? Will producing something of enduring value or notoriety protect me against this? Is that what why I strive so hard?

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that motivation is a complicated thing, and that reducing human behavior to any one motivating factor is attractive, but faulty. The truth is, it's unlikely that unconscious death anxiety is the sole motivational force, just as it is unlikely that I do everything because of conditioning, social forces, repressed sexual urges, or attachment styles. The field of psychology has tended to trip over itself and lose credibility because it is inclined to posit comprehensive theories that reduce motivation to vast oversimplifications. But understanding how something like death anxiety might contribute, in a helpful, if not profound source of insight into this dilemma of how we so often love and cling to things that we intellectually renounce.

Beyond insight, I think I can begin to let go,...a little, if I connect on a daily basis to the reality that Jesus rescues us from the fear of death. Not by giving us a promise of an afterlife to cling to as another form of denial, but by transforming the very nature of reality, and the very meaning of our existence. In this reality of "the kingdom of God", we begin to experience a transcendence that allows us to move beyond our innate clinging to things, to preserving our life and denying the upcoming death. Perhaps those mysterious word of Jesus apply here, that as I lose my life, I gain it.

Carefree Summer

Lately I've been frustrated by all the things on my growing to-do list.

It seems we have a variety of responses to having too much on our plates, but for right now I'm frustrated. I don't mind so much having ten thousand things to do in the winter....but summer...it just seems like a crappy time to be preoccupied with a to-do list that's too long to get done.

I was trying to put my finger on why it irritates me so much to be overly busy in the summer...part of it is the short period of time of great weather, part of it is the fact that I've had a few overly busy summers in a row, but part of it seems related to this idyllic notion of summer that I have.

Summer to me is supposed to be carefree.

It's supposed to be that time where responsibilities and work and all the demands just get set aside for playing. I think this is a pattern most of us develop when we're young - work hard during the school year, but cut loose during the summer. Wake up and find a new adventure each day. No plans, no places you have to be...

I miss that. I miss the memory I have of it anyway...I realize that part of the glory may just be nostalgia, and its perfection may be a function of remembering.

But it makes me wonder about the heaviness I feel in my not-so-carefree life these days. I feel careworn instead.

Maybe some of it is self-imposed. Maybe I feel the weight of responsibility when I buy into illusions of life that make things heavier than they need to be. Illusions of permanence. Illusions about myself and my false sense of omnipotence and importance.

Maybe having my butt kicked to the curb by life lately is actually a gift. Maybe losing some battles in life can remind us that what we've been working so hard for, is actually not so important.

When things started to come apart in my professional life a few months ago, I had the wisdom (occasionally) of stopping and listening. Trying to sense the Spirit's voice in the midst of my sadness and anger. All I could hear was "don't get lost in the details". I wasn't exactly sure of what that meant. It seemed to be a reminder that the details weren't so important...but I neglected the first part..."don't get lost".

It's easy for us to "get lost"; to be emotionally and mentally far away from our true identity, the true sources of our value, the truly important and meaningful things in life.

In my desire to have a care-free summer, I've been hoping for a removal of difficult and pressing things. It's the typical North American mindset - that happiness is the absence of suffering or strain. But the truth is that to be carefree is not to have the demands of my life disappear, but rather, it requires me to re-orient my relationship to those demands, seeing them for what they really are, and not taking them at face value or getting sucked into their traps.

To be carefree (not careless) is perhaps ultimately about "not getting lost in the details", about re-aligning our perspective to the bigger realities of life. That we are valued because God has infused us with value as his creation, his children, his friends. That most of life is fleeting and temporary and that all that really matters is to love God and love the things God loves. That the world is ultimately a safe place, not a place where everything works out how we want it, or place that's free from suffering, but a place but a place where God will not be thwarted in his work of redeeming all of creation.

My carefree, or at least not careworn summer is available if I choose it. If I choose to believe and act as if I believe certain things about the world. If I refuse to get lost in the details.

Postscript:  ....and my anger about the people who did this to me? Well, I think I can avoid becoming bitter if I recognize that the things they've taken are not of ultimate importance, and that they can never take away the things that really matter in life.

Norman Wirzba Extended Interview

As part of my ongoing thinking about our relationships to food, I've been including the great thinking about this topic from Norman Wirzba.

I found a great clip here of him summarizing the body of work he's done in the theology of food.

Norman Wirzba Extended Interview

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
 

Members? or Consumers?

A few weeks ago I blogged about the journey I'm beginning in being attentive to food. I've started paying more deliberate attention to my relationship to food, where it comes from, how my food choices impact others, and where food fits in my life.

It's been enlightening to read Norman Wirzba's book:
Food and Faith; A Theology of Eating

Wirzba suggests that we require a fundamental reorientation of our relationships with the rest of the world. Rather than being consumers, we need to become aware of ourselves as members of a created order.

It seems that our primary way of relating to many things in life is now as consumers. In her thoughtful work Monoculture, F.S. Michaels suggests that the dominance of the economic worldview, has shaped us into people who relate and interact primarily in terms of consumption. For more on this see my most recent post "One Story".

But what could be problematic about interacting with food this way? Shouldn't we view food as a consumable? Isn't food just a fuel source to allow us, the pinnacle of evolved beings, the opportunity to live our lives according to our own consciences?

The problem according to Wirzba, is that relating to food solely as consumers, removes us from the complex web of interdependence we have with the rest of nature. Putting it bluntly, Wirzba reminds us that our eating requires the death of other organisms. We count on the death and birth cycles of life for our survival. We may have removed ourselves from our food so far that we only experience it coming from boxes. But this only perpetuates an illusion, an illusion that our eating has no impact. The illusion that we humans are independent and self-sufficient.

The reality is that we are members of a complex system of elements, of an ecology. Our ignorance or denial of this membership leads us to make many reckless and destructive choices. Our wealth insulates us from some of the consequences, for now.

But as Wirzba, and Wendell Berry, and many other important voices are reminding us, we live these detached lives, these lives which deny our interconnectedness with the rest of creation, not only at the peril of others who are more vulnerable in the world, but also at our own peril. Whenever we pretend to be self-sufficient and independent, we live an incomplete, false existence, one which stumbles into the realm of idolatry and ultimately self-destruction.

The word "whole" shares it's common Latin root with the word "holy". So when we relate to food as consumers only, and not as members of the created order, our lives become fragmented, detached, or "unholy". Whether you identify with the religious language of "holiness", or you prefer the popular culture's term of "holistic health", either way we must recognize the need to see ourselves as interconnected parts, rather than self-reliant individuals....members, not just consumers.

The value of a little liturgy

I didn't set out to be liturgical.

I had some exposure to liturgical worship growing up, but it never really resonated with me outside of brief stint I had with some lovely Lutherans in Ohio.

But the other day I realized I have somewhat stumbled upon it again in my own life.

Each night when I put my girls to bed, we sing the old spiritual, "His eye is on the sparrow".

And in a sense, after 5 years, it's become a small liturgical element in my life. A rhythym that draws my attention back to this important reality. The words (by Civilla Martin) are as follows:

Why should I feel discouraged?
Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart feel lonely, and long for heaven and home?
When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

I sing because I'm happy.
I sing because I'm free.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I've sung this song literally over a thousand times now - which probably means I've sung it more than any other song, even more than the Christmas carols or Happy Birthday.

I've sung it at some pretty hard times. I remember trying to sing it all the way through, just a couple of hours after my mother-in-law had died. I remember trying to sing it when my dad seemed on death's doorstep.  I remember singing it on nights when my failures as a parent were very evident to me.  I remember singing it to kids with high fevers that just wouldn't seem to go away.

And recently, in the midst of a bitter disappointment in my life, I sang it as per my nightly routine to my oldest daughter, who has now heard it over a thousand times. It's the kind of perspective I seem to need on a daily basis. I need the structure of an accidental liturgy to remind me that Jesus is present with us in the midst of our suffering, our failures, our losses, our disappointments, or our fears. He is not a distant God who is angry, or punitive, or far away from our circumstances. He is our "constant friend", and what I need are practices, or liturgies that remind of His constancy, constantly, or else I'm prone to lose track of this truth that changes everything.

One Story

I talk a lot with people about their stories. Personal narratives are crucial to the work I do in helping people find healing and redemption in their lives.

But we also have bigger, societal stories that we connect to, that we use to think about our lives, our world, our choices, our actions.

F.S. Michaels, in her brilliant book "Monoculture", describes how societies often have a story that dominates, and that this story changes over broad historical periods. She makes an awfully good case for the idea that the dominant story of our time and place is the economic story. It's a story about the world that filters how we think and relate to everything, through the role of consumers.

We relate to everything and everyone, primarily through a relationship of consumption.

Whereas education used to be about broadening minds, developing knowledge, creating beauty and ideas, it has now been reduced to an economic good or product to be consumed. We actively promote it as an investment for people to use on their path of career building (which of course, is also now purposed as accumulating things of value to be consumed, whether it be wealth or personal fulfillment)

Michaels compellingly points out how this is also true in areas of our life such as religious life - we treat church as an experience to be consumed, and even God as a product to be used and manipulated to our own ends.

Clothing, time, food, families, friendships, leisure, sport, volunteering, art... all of it... is being subtly transformed into products and services that we relate to as consumers, as part of this dominant economic story. Listen to the pundits who advise about "building your personal brand", and you'll see the most obvious expression of this. Look at Facebook and see how people are defining themselves in terms of a set of consumptive practices - assets, experiences, brand preferences, etc. and establishing status by associating with certain consumptive lifestyles.

Of great concern to me is that way we (I) have begun to treat each other from a consumption point of view. None of us would want to admit that we are shaped by this mindset in our friendships and relationships, but I'm afraid that few of us are likely exempt. It takes unusual honesty to admit that at times we view our spouses in terms of what they can do for us: make us happy, take care of us, compensate for other relationship disappointments in life, build our egos, meet our physical needs, meet our wants, upgrade our status, take away certain negative feelings, etc.  All of these, subtly become characteristics of a product we want to consume rather than a living, breathing, broken person who is with us in life.

And while it is probably fine for us to wish and hope that our partners will do some of these things at times, it is deeply flawed when we construe our partners primarily in terms of their success or failure to perform as products, and perform in the way we expect.

So even our personal stories become shaped by this economic story. It's as if the larger dominant societal story of consumerism, becomes the template in which all other stories are told. When it comes to each other as people, we're rarely so crass as to admit our commodification of other humans. We dress it up with words like "love"...which seems like a sacred term, but often what we mean by "love" is a personal experience of gratification, rather than persistent dedication to caring for the other. (Watch an episode of The Voice and notice how people use the word "love" - it almost always refers to the individuals own sense of enjoyment or how they are made to feel by the other)

But as Michaels points out, the issue is not about relinquishing consumption entirely, but becoming aware of how our minds are immersed in this story, and engaging in practices that reflect other stories, non-economic ones. She doesn't say it, but I think the logical extension is that the story of love, of sacrifice for another, is a story we must practice on a daily basis to escape the economic story becoming dominant in our lives.