Orthopedics for a Grief Walk

After my husband Koz died, I went to see a very wise and dear psychological counselor. Dr. Bob told me he was shocked and very very sorry. But there was nothing he or psychology could do to help. As the gospel song goes, I would have to walk that lonesome valley by myself.

Michael "Koz" Kozlowski

Now, 13 years later, I understand why he said that, and am wondering if it was actually true.

Inspiring my thoughts is an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association about changes in the upcoming version of the DSM -- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- aka the Bible of psychiatric diagnosis. Writing in JAMA's Online First publication, Drs. David J. Kupfer, Emily A. Kuhl, and Darrel A. Regier summarize the most significant changes in the new DSM-5, compared to its predecessor, DSM-IV.

This is one of the major changes:

Removal of bereavement exclusion: In DSM-IV, individuals meeting criteria for a major depressive episode were excluded from a diagnosis of major depressive disorder if symptoms occurred within 2 months of the death of a loved one. However, the implication that bereavement ends in only 2 months or that major depression and bereavement cannot co-occur appears false. Depression related to bereavement can share many of the same symptoms as nonbereavement-related depression and can accordingly respond to treatment.

Similarly, major depression can share features with other forms of significant loss or stress, including job loss and natural disasters, and may be in need of intervention. To prevent the denial of diagnosis (and care) of individuals who meet full criteria for a major depressive disorder, even during bereavement or other significant loss, DSM-5 now permits such a diagnosis ...

I find it (painfully) funny that science is just coming around to these insights, and I'm pretty sure that my friends in The Group No One Ever Wants to Join would agree. This would be "Widowed Young," an online support group for people widowed at a young age. I stumbled across WY a few months after Koz died (and actually first "met" my Dear Husband Dave through this group when he joined after his wife, Pat, died.) Many folks from the original WY are still in touch, though the group has now migrated to Facebook (which didn't exist when WY started up).

My exchanges with people in this group, and indirectly with their wider circles of friends, have helped me to see several things about bereavement that I wouldn't have understood by observing only my own grief and that of close relatives (like my Dad).

First, and foremost, there are almost as many ways or styles of grieving as there are people. There's no right or wrong way -- and what helps one person might be emphatically UNhelpful for another. For this reason, it's important to be gentle with and listen to the bereaved -- not to force them into what you think is the "right way to grieve."

Second, there are definitely things that are very broadly UNhelpful that others can say or do in interacting with a bereaved person. And there are a few tricks and observations that our band of widows and widowers came upon that seem to be broadly helpful for dealing with grief -- and at worst innocuous.

In passing, I'll mention three of our group's helpful tricks and observations. I'm not sure which of our members deserves credit for first suggesting these, but I will mention here the ever-wise, eloquent, and helpful "Glo" -- one Gloria Comstock.

1. The Five-Minute Rule: When you think you can't possible stand the agony any longer, impose The 5-Minute Rule, which says you will just try to get through the next five minutes. If you can't handle five minutes, impose the 1-Minute Rule. Repeat as necessary.
2. Take care of yourself: Many people come to bereavement after years focused on caring for others, including the late spouse. The death can mean that even more duties of care fall upon the shoulders of the bereaved. It's pretty common to neglect oneself in these circumstances -- to have forgotten how to care for yourself or to feel that it's somehow not right to do so. But it is right. Have a warm bath -- with nice-smelling bath salts, then go to sleep in a freshly made bed complete with fragrant sheets. Treat yourself to a walk on a beautiful day. Permit yourself some time alone to feel exactly the way you feel. Buy that electric blanket you need to keep warm without your spouse beside you at night. If you have to justify the "luxury" of treating yourself nicely, remember what the airline stewards say in their preflight spiel: Always put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to assist others.
3. It does get better, but not necessarily quickly, consistently, or predictably: Someone in our group brought us the concept of the "Grief 'Gator" -- a vicious beast always lurking out there, ready to pop up unpredictably to chew the ass of the bereaved. He's a fairly constant companion at first, but then usually leaves you -- wanders away for longer and longer periods of time (no doubt in search of fresh meat). An amazing variety of cues can bring the Grief 'Gator scrambling back in an instant: Hearing that song they played at your wedding; a birthday; a major milestone for your child; or, in my case, being told it was impossible to recover the contacts on Koz's broken cell phone. This provoked a total meltdown in the phone company store. There was a long line of other customers who had to witness my tears. I still feel sorry for the poor person who was waiting on me.

Fortunately, at some point you realize the Grief 'Gator has been away for one entire day ... a week .... a month. And when he visits he doesn't chomp as hard, or at least you know you'll get through this latest assault. And of course you can always vent by telling your friends in WY -- they'll understand, and that helps.

Back to the DSM-IV and its successor: The blinding truth that has struck the committee drafting DSM-5 is as compassionate as it is self-serving. Disorders that are approved for treatment by the American Psychiatric Association -- and thus have a DSM code -- are likely to be covered by U.S. insurance providers (to whatever extent your policy happens to include psychiatric problems). Including  bereavement-associated depression as a DSM disorder means that some widows and widowers may be able to get some financial help covering the cost of psychological treatment of depression stemming from bereavement.

Psychiatry-skeptics (and I now live in a country full of them, but that's a whole 'nother story) are probably wondering if this is actually compassionate for the bereaved or just an additional income-stream for psychological service providers. After all--for the past decades the DSM-IV and my brilliant Dr. Bob said the major depression associated with grief was not a treatable disorder. There was nothing they could do to help.

(I should note that it is possible that even back then, Dr. Bob, who knew me well, was only saying my depression would not benefit from extended therapy. He might have found otherwise for someone less resilient or more vulnerable to unremitting depression.)

I expect the change in the DSM, superimposed on individual variation in styles of grief, will bring out the best and worst psychiatry has to offer. I'm sure there will be mental health providers who feel compelled to intervene in and capitalize on garden-variety, "healthy" grieving.  I'm not actually sure what "healthy grieving" means. But I do know that many folks living reasonably happy lives today--but with a major bereavement in their past -- have gotten to where they are without recourse to professional help. I'm sure "medicalizing" major depression associated with grief will mean some providers will throw drugs at a perceived problem when drugs aren't proven to be very helpful, compared to other, slower forms of treatment that insurance doesn't fully cover.

But I am also hopeful that the change in the DSM will encourage serious study of the process of grief. Exactly what is the spectrum of experiences and behaviors that constitute "healthy grief?" I am very sure I have seen in some members of the WY group (and their extended circles of friends and family) thoughts and actions that were not conducive to healing. Heck,  I  had many setbacks and false steps... and I was lucky--sometimes thanks to my friends on WY-- to avoid pitfalls that snared other widows.

Perhaps psychological study can make a science of the sort of collective wisdom we've derived informally on WY as we tried to help one another. Are there any shortcuts through that lonesome valley? Are particular ways of grieving more helpful to certain personality types? Or is it a cultural and generational thing? Do prior major life experiences prime us for more or less healthy grief? What is the time-course of grief and why and how does it vary between people? Are there measures that help at one point during bereavement, but hold a person back later on? Who is most likely to benefit from professional help? What sort of help should this be?

The APA's suggestion that treatment of depression associated with other major losses in life -- losing a job, marriage, or pregnancy, for example -- could inform the understanding of major depression associated with bereavement (and vice-versa) is also worth studying. I'm pretty sure some of my fellow WY-ers who have experienced multiple losses would have some profound insights -- and maybe a few choice words on the subject. (No, losing your pet does NOT feel the same as having your spouse die.)

I see myself standing on some middle ground with respect to psychology -- largely a supporter, but one who believes the science is maturing from its infancy. Forty years ago, as I was trying to come to terms with serious life-threatening illness in a loved one, I went to see a trainee-shrink at the University of Michigan's student health services. She recommended I read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's book, On Death and Dying. I now see, even from a cursory Wikipedia check, that Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief and the research that gave rise to her famous hypothesis have been roundly criticized.

Thirteen years ago psychology officially had no help for the depressed bereaved. But now? As of this minute, Pubmed lists 12,132 research papers on bereavement and 8,705 on grief. There are even 381 papers on Grief/Bereavement and Mindfulness. I would hope that emerging from somewhere amidst that research is useful knowledge for dealing with all sorts of grief and all sorts of losses.

The emerging science probably already goes beyond DSM-5's conversion with respect to depression following bereavement. One of the growth spurts in psychology springs from the emerging field of "positive psychology" --practices associated a happy, healthy, satisfying life. In contrast, traditional psychiatry, from whence comes the DSM, is rooted in identification and treatment of mental disorders.

Historians of science might identify other "fathers" of positive psychology. But I'd say the forebear of my own leanings toward positive psychology was M. Scott Peck,  who wrote his most famous book, The Road Less Travelled in 1978 -- 9 years after Kubler-Ross's Five Stages. Wikipedia describes Peck's book as "a description of the attributes that make for a fulfilled human being, based largely on his experiences as a psychiatrist and a person."

Because Peck trained as a traditional psychiatrist, and because his work, like Kubler-Ross's, comes from psychiatry's formative years, Peck's methods have the same problems as hers. They are scientifically dubious and rest on hypotheses and models that in large part haven't been tested or proven. But somehow, since I first read The Road Less Travelled -- probably in 1997 or 1998-- Peck's work has rung true for me, unlike Kubler-Ross's, which never did.

Maybe because he's rooted in gloomy old pathology-based psychiatry, Peck is not as uplifting somehow as recent authors of positive psychology. In fact, his book begins with a chapter headed "PROBLEMS AND PAIN" and the Eeyore-ish first line: "Life is difficult." He goes on to say, "What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one." Among those challenges is confronting grief. Peck continues:

"Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning... Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually."

I think many of my friends in WY would agree that, if we'd had any choice, we would have preferred NOT to have experienced the death of a spouse--whatever beneficial growth might have resulted. My hope is that a rigorously research-based understanding of "healthy bereavement" will someday help those who grieve obtain what comfort, courage, and wisdom there is to be found in mourning -- as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Two Young Adults' Views on Church, Christians & Gays

IS the battle over marriage equality and homosexuality the nail in the coffin of a dying church? In previous blogs I've discussed the decline of the church. Below are links to two different perspectives on attitudes toward gay marriage/homosexuals and reactions of the younger generation to the church.

First: One Young Person's Perspective on the Death of Church and a Complete Guide to Christian Perspectives on Homosexuality
This link-- http://dannikanash.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/an-open-letter-to-the-church-from-my-generation/ --   takes you to An Open Letter to The Church from my Generation. In it a young woman explains how attitudes toward homosexuality on the part of Christians she has encountered are driving her from the church. I found it a powerful testimony.

But the comments that followed were an education. Reactions cover the range of perspectives on the Bible, Christian faith, and homosexuality. Reading some of the comments made me want to turn away, but I slogged through. I reached the end with a better understanding of the mindset of people who view this differently than me; where the points of difference are; where there could be some room for discussion if people would stop shouting at (and start listening to) each other. But it also gave me confirmation and strengthened support for some of my opinions.

For Good Measure (in the interest of Equipoise): Another Young Person's Perspective that Even Evangelical Christians Show Tolerance and Love Sufficient to Embrace a Homosexual:
Being Gay at Jerry Falwell's University: http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/being-gay-at-jerry-falwells-university/274578/
I also found this very powerful. I wonder if reading this (which I did first) actually opened my heart and mind enough to make it through the comments on the other page. While the young author doesn't totally embrace the church, he does find love and acceptance there.

My late husband's nephew, Fr. Matthew Kozlowski, brought my attention to this article. I think it really does shed light on common ground that Christians will reach some day.

I'm still thinking about what I'll say in a review of Rob Bell's new book, What We Talk about When We Talk about God.  But for the moment and the purposes of this post, Bell seems to relegate the whole discussion of homosexuality to the general category of "people God doesn't love." His book would say that would be the null set. In other words, God loves everyone (therefore, homosexuals and any other group you can name are included.)

"I believe God is for every single one of us, regardless of our beliefs or perspectives or actions or failures or mistakes or sins or opinions about whether God exists or not. I believe that God wants us each to flourish and thrive in this world here and now as we become more and more everything we can possibly be. In talking about the forness of God, I want you to see how many of the dominant theological systems of thought that insist God is angry and hateful and just waiting to judge us unless we do or say or perform or believe the right things actually make people miserable and plague them with all kinds of new stresses and anxieties, never more so than when they actually start believing that God is really like that. I want you to see the radical, refreshing, revolutionary forness that is at the heart of Jesus' message about God as it informs and transforms your entire life.

"Then ahead, because when I talk about God, I'm not talking about a divine being who is behind, trying to drag us back to a primitive, barbaric, regressive, prescientific age when we believed Earth was flat and the center of the universe. I believe that God isn't backward-focused -- opposed to reason, liberation and progress -- but instead is pulling us and calling us and drawing all of humanity forward -- as God always has -- into greater and greater peace, love, justice, connection, honesty, compassion and joy"

 My impression is that in his earlier life as a pastor at Mars Hill church, (near Grand Rapids, Michigan) Bell's position on homosexuality was not inconsistent with this, but more non-committal. I recollect that he said something like, "get to know a gay/lesbian person as a close friend or family member. Then formulate your opinion."

The latter approach gets to the heart of what I like about the Atlantic article. When you attach a beloved  face, a beating human heart to that thing--that practice--that group you are rejecting, your whole viewpoint changes. Suddenly you're right there, looking at this one particular neighbor-woman, watching Jesus write something in the sand and then say to you and the assembled group, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Put Down your 2x4 and Give us a Hug

Every writer eventually gets stuck. That's where I'm at right now. I have started half a dozen entries for this blog over the last few months and then just not been able to finish them.

Right now my mind is disturbed. A young apologetics student, writing in our parish magazine, has published an article in each of the last two issues that portrays Christianity in ways that bother me deeply. The point of one her columns is, "It's not enough to be a good person. You won't go to heaven when you die unless you believe in God."

The second column is titled "Why are other faiths wrong." It cites that verse from John that Mark Sandlin, one of my favorite bloggers calls a  2" x 4" often used for whomping people of other faiths. You know the one... John 14:6-- “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Acrylic painting The Edge of Night by Sandra Hodder, 2002

I've dreamed up all sorts of protests in response -- self-immolation, quitting the local church, sending copies of Rob Bell's new book (What we Talk about when we Talk About God) to the offending persons, or making an appointment with the priest in charge of our benefice to complain about spiritual bullying, for example.

The Anglican church proclaims itself to be a broad church, with room for Christians of many different specific leanings. But the priest in charge of our benefice wrote in an e-mail to me:

"the article on page 25 came from a student at an Anglican theological college, and represents THE traditional, orthodox, Christian viewpoint. I asked Carolyn to include it... The policy of the Roundabout has been that it is not a debating ground, and I don’t propose changing that in the short term..." [emphasis is mine]

I would like to hope that the young person who wrote the articles will eventually come to see that, taken as a whole, Jesus's life and the body of his preaching speaks of a God who loves everyone, whether they deserve it or not. He takes his meals with the dregs of society. He deems the Samaritan--a person of another faith/tribe--to be a more loving neighbor than people of own-faith/tribe.

When talking about who will enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says it is extremely difficult for a rich person to get there -- but He immediately turns around and says that with God all things are possible.

This is key. It's in God's hands. Remember the three "Lost" parables -- the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son? No matter how perversely we're lost, God finds us! He sees each of us as inherently valuable, even if we completely mess up.

Maybe this is why Jesus doesn't spend a lot of time administering faith tests. He just gets on with the business of healing, loving, and teaching others how to to do the same. He says we should follow suit: feed his sheep --care for the least, lost, and last. What we do for or to them, we do for or to Him. Bash them over the head with your 2" x 4" and you bash our Lord. I just can't see Jesus using time or column inches --as I'm doing here, admittedly--showing that our spiritual bona fides are better than someone else's.

In that same (14th) chapter of John, Jesus goes on to say to his poor confused disciples, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing" and, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching." The commandments he gives them are to wash each other's feet -- love one another as Jesus loved them.

The emphasis throughout is on doing love and justice, not proclamations of belief. I could be wrong, but it seems to me like the truest way to do the "through-me-to-the-Father" bit is by trying to do what Jesus did. It's risible that a God who loves us so much would give a rat's ass whether the way, the truth, and the life of compassion comes from a card-carrying Christian, a saintly agnostic, or a mercy-loving Muslim. By my lights, anyone who does the work of love is by definition on His team. He told his disciples they were wrong to censure a competitor doing good deeds (casting out demons) -- "for whoever is not against us is for us."

I am not sure about life after death -- what it really means to inherit eternal life or to make one's home in the many-roomed house of God. I think Rob Bell is probably right that "Love Wins," rather than hell, after we die. Whatever that imponderable, Jesus makes a very compelling case that following His ways of compassion will nudge the world of here and now toward a more heavenly state -- "kingdom" or "shalom."

And conversely, NOT loving our neighbor -- bullying and devaluing others (and worse) -- nudges the world toward hell.

So my Easter message would be: Forget what they said. Ignore it if they kick your group out of their God club in the next issue of the parish magazine. Everyone belongs, so welcome back! The God that Jesus proclaimed loves us all. That includes homosexuals, atheists, non-Christians, and bad Christians. As angry as I am at the people who (I humbly suggest) have misapprehended the meaning of Christ's life,  I know God loves them, too. And asks me to do the same.

So have a hug.

A Mind like Georgia O'Keeffe

Miranda, my Mindfulness teacher, sent me an e-mail: Would I consider writing a 300-word article on Mindfulness that she and her partner could print in the newsletter for their practice--and possibly in  local newspapers to encourage business? Being a Mindfulness Evangelist, how could I refuse?

But at the same time as I'm trying to figure out how I can convey the multifaceted splendour of mindfulness in 300 words, there's another track playing, courtesy of my old friend, the Living Anachronism (LA) who writes in an e-mail,

     "...as for this mindfulness (which sounds to me as if it might as well be called bodyfulness, but never mind) I'd say if having a mindful mind is opposed to the imagination, then the hell with it.  And for what it's worth, if you ask me, regret about the past and anxiety about the future are hallmarks of human sanity, and neither one need detract in the slightest from appreciation and enjoyment of the present moment.

Georgia O'Keeffe's Pattern of Leaves

     "Indeed, I don't think you can experience a present moment at all except from the point of view of everything in the past that has shaped you and brought you to that moment.  Cf. Georgia O'Keefe's comment (in a recent Writer's Almanac) here: 'I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life — and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.' ..."

LA threatens further to excoriate "the idea that the past is a 'contamination' to be escaped from, and much else relating to your blog..." Possibly he didn't appreciate that I use the term "Living Anachronism" with great affection and respect.

In any case, when I think about Alzheimer's disease, I realize LA might have a point. Alzheimer's is a disease that frees you from the past. As the hippocampus of your brain becomes clogged with amyloid and tangled with tau protein, memories get progressively stripped away, working backwards in time. From the magazine article you just read, to forgetting the bacon sizzling on the burner. From the fact that your taxes were due last month, to losing track of an insurance policy purchased a year ago. From no longer knowing that you once rose to power in the Women's Institute over a decade, to the fact that your spouse has been dead for 20 years. Your daughter's name; recognition of her face; even awareness that you have a daughter. All gone--leaving only the present. An Alzheimer's researcher I interviewed once told me that families of Alzheimer's victims often say that in the late stages of the disease, their loved one may be alive, but the person is gone. If mindfulness meant effacing the past like Alzheimer's does, LA would be right. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, much less be fumbling around for a 300-word Mindfulness Paean.

I'm not a mindfulness expert, but I'd say mindfulness doesn't erase the past, it just helps the You of this moment wrest control over the nature and extent of the past's influence. Georgia O'Keeffe must have been a naturally mindful person, as she had such firm control over her anxieties that they never interfered with doing what she wanted to do. (In general I see artists as being people who can get "lost in the present"-- wrapped up in the "flow" of what they are doing -- and, at least at those times, accomplishing one goal of mindfulness.)

Similarly, mindfulness doesn't discourage intentional planning for the future  -- but rather pushes you to a perspective that affords more room for pleasant anticipation and less for fearful anxiety. Mindfulness doesn't -- nothing really can -- prevent feelings about either past or future. But in nudging your vantage point, it opens up a bit of breathing space in your brain (what I might call "equipause"). The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course encourages you to bring self-compassion into the space. But you could just as well invite other guests--distraction, inspiration, hope, rational thought, or other intentional responses. Any desired companion instead of automatic, sometimes disabling or pathological reactions. Mindfulness makes inclusion of regret or anxiety an intentional choice.

People in meltdown from the stress of fast-paced contemporary life, or immobilized by depression, PTSD, loss, or pain are not Georgia O'Keeffes. Thinking about these conditions, I would rewrite LA's phrase: Mindful, intentional incorporation of regret about the past and anxiety about the future are hallmarks of human sanity.

Or, as an article in the HuffPost Healthy Living column says,

"mindfulness meditation works by enabling a person to have better control over brain processing of pain and emotions."

Mindful meditation practices are indeed about bringing your mind back to the present. Over. And over. And over. A "Walking Meditation," for example, urges you to focus your brain for 10 minutes or so on each sensation of every excruciatingly slow step. This and the seated meditation's focus on breathing, or the "Body Scan" are indeed "bodyfulness."

I think these practices are directed to the body because it is the most convenient and physiologically conspicuous thing our minds can focus on. Other mindful practices direct your awareness to sound -- or silence--as it arrives; or to each passing thought. To the extent possible, you just notice these without engaging--maybe without even putting words around them.  If you fall asleep or follow your imagination off into the clouds and the practice doesn't go as planned, well, that's just what your experience was. You hold yourself in the same kindly regard you would a loved one.

That's what the practices, the mindfulness meditations entail. If you're diligent, it's 20 minutes of your day. The practices may bring a wonderful island of calm. But that's not actually the point. The meditations aren't an end in themselves. The point of the exercises, I think, is strengthening your ability to control your mind constructively.

The consequences, studies find, are not suppressed imagination, but the opposite -- improved imagination and creativity. Most famously, the high-stress workplace that is Google headquarters continuously offers its employees a mindfulness course, and there is always a waiting list for places in it. Google's "Search Inside Yourself" class improves productivity, relationships, creativity, and decreases stress, conflict, absenteeism, and employee turnover. The U.S. Marines are testing Mindfulness courses as a sort of brain fitness training or mental armour to help troops "react to high-stress situations and recover more quickly from those episodes."

Fortuitously, the current mindfulness craze coincides with the rise of neuroimaging and brian mapping. This has enabled researchers to document changes in the structure and function of the brain that accompany Mindfulness training. Extraordinary and marvelous, if you ask me. As I was writing this blog, the HuffPosting I quote above led me to  a research article that exemplifies the academic marriage of behavioral psychology and neurophysiology and imaging. One of the lead authors of the study is quoted:

"We think we're the first group to propose an underlying neurophysiological mechanism that directly links the actual practice of mindful awareness of breath and body sensations to the kinds of cognitive and emotional benefits that mindfulness confers," study researcher Catherine Kerr, an assistant professor of family medicine and director of translational neuroscience for the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown University, said..."

Using a brain mapping technique, the researchers identified changes in brain signals that develop as a person trains in Mindfulness™(or "Standardized Mindfulness,"ST-Mindfulness, as they write). Ultimately, the increased calming alpha-waves they detected may lead to changes in the structure of different parts of the brain and how and to what the brain pays attention. The abstract of the article concludes, "This enhanced regulation of somatic mind-wandering may be an important early stage of mindfulness training that leads to enhanced cognitive regulation and metacognition."

Or, in other words, the practice of bringing your mind back to the present--focused 'bodyfulness'--may ultimately improve your power to direct your thoughts, and perhaps rise above your emotions to choose how they will affect your life.

Irritating New Ways of Being Church

Saturday morning irritation prompted a wonderful young woman I know to post on Facebook:

[I] Hate how our bedroom's by the block's main door. Have heard someone buzz & ask every flat, "If you could ask god a question, what would it be?" Mine would be, "Why the hell are these people harassing everyone in their own homes before 11 am on a Saturday, or in fact, at all?"

My friend lives in Birmingham (UK), so this is not a local thing; I don't have a clue who would pull a stunt like this. Is it some nefarious, counterproductive new way of trying to get people interested in church? If so, I'd say it reflects a tin ear that some churches have when it comes to appealing to people today.

One of the first rules I learned (thanks to Kate Fox's wonderful book, Watching the English) when I moved to England was that a person's home is his/her castle. Incursions into that sacrosanct space are tolerated only for the most urgent causes. Even watching your neighbor's home through the blinds would be frowned upon. It's a small, old, densely populated country, after all. People like their space and usually keep themselves to themselves.

So why would anyone think it was okay to ring the buzzers of every flat in a block to ask theological questions? Didn't they read the rules? Such a provocation, especially early on a day of the week when many people are having a lie-in, could only embitter -- against the buzzing, against churches, against people who care about faith, and even against God.

How would I redesign this scenario if I were inclined to doorstep evangelism? Well, in my university days, I remember one Sunday morning when the dorm's exemplary breakfast chef, +Randy Wayne,  sent a crew around the halls delivering orange juice and hot breakfast to every room where people answered the door. No questions; no promotions, just breakfast. Probably a bit over-the-top for Birmingham in 2013, but it seemed like a good "random act of kindness" in the late 1970s UMass.

Close to home, Dear Irascible Husband has been irritated in previous years by the local benefice's Good Friday activity when the more demonstrative, fervent evangelicals took to the streets with a huge wooden cross and marched to the only supermarket in the area (Tesco) on their "walk of witness." Again, why would anyone think a march like this would accomplish anything positive? I appreciate that Jesus had to endure Good Friday for his followers to become Easter People, but celebrating his ancient, brutal torture and death with an in-your-face demonstration??? At Tesco??? Fortunately, I don't think they're doing this one any more. NEWS FLASH: They are. Doing this. Again. Nooooooo!!

Beyond single acts of evangelism are the ongoing experiments in new styles of church. An old friend of mine from America (who would probably recognize himself if I described him as a "living anachronism") sent me a link to a New York Times article about new ways of being church, as spotted by their reporter, Amy O'Leary. My friend went beyond irritation to weeping over "Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes." The rather jumbled article starts by looking at:

 "a cultural center built for the artistic, social, economic, and spiritual benefit of Deep Ellum and urban Dallas. Through its four pillars of Art, Music, Commerce, and Community, it strives to promote life and growth in our city through creative initiatives and strategic partnerships. Life in Deep Ellum is about a way of life, cultivating purpose, and guiding people into relationship with God."

The article didn't upset me like it did my friend, but it made me lose any confidence that I can hope to recognize IT, the ultimate solution to the Wicked Problem of what Jesus' community of followers should look like in the 21st Century. I did actually see some good things in what Life in Deep Ellum says about itself on its website, especially in their gentle response to the NYT article.

The website addresses my foremost concern--that they might be trying to hide the fact that they are a church...lure people in with the latte, then slip 'em the religion. LIDE says they are open about their religion, and strive to focus efforts on helping the community without roping people into church membership. Saying they are not some experimental project in new worship styles, LIDE insists the beneficiaries of their service are primarily non-members of the church.

I also liked the values they place at the top of statements about their faith:

Values: He answered: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27

But then I would fall for this -- it's where my faith, such as it is, begins. After that they say a lot of good stuff about relationships, personal growth, service, creativity, compassion, and cap off the summary of their beliefs with:

We hold to the Apostles’ Creed as a unifying statement of faith along with our commitment to the authority of the Holy Bible, which serves as our sacred Scripture.

I guess it wouldn't be church otherwise.

The NYT article goes on to lump LIDE in with what they see as a national movement to staunch the flow of people, especially younger people, away from church:

The “spiritual but not religious” category is an important audience that evangelical leaders hope to reach in a culture that many believers call “post-Christian." 

So they arrange meetings in movie theaters, schools, warehouses and downtown entertainment districts. They house exercise studios and coffee shops to draw more traffic. Many have even cast aside the words “church” and “church service” in favor of terms like “spiritual communities” and “gatherings,” with services that do not stick to any script.

Other churches mentioned in the article are "Relevant Church" -- a non-denominational evangelical church near Tampa FL (which affiliates itself with churches like Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County, California and Willow Creek Community church near Chicago); and National Community Church, with six locations in and around Washington, D.C. The article also tosses in a mention of "Emergent Church" -- which I see as quite remote from some of these churches. At this point the article becomes mishmash.

The churches mentioned do have in common large, not-like-your-father's-church spaces for their "gatherings." These look like places my son might go "clubbing" and house a variety of functions, like coffee shops, intimate theatre venues, or galleries (which help pay the bills). The churches all seem to have hip/edgy-looking young pastors and staff (replete with tattoos and half-inch-diameter holes in the ears). They all include house groups. They all welcome visitors dressed any way they choose. Services feature sophisticated sound and video equipment and contemporary music.

But beyond these features, and guessing only from their websites, the meatier aspects of the churches seem quite different. LIDE stresses its community service. Relevant Church follows the most traditional conservative evangelical party line. And National Community Church offers the least traditional

"Core values... the DNA of of who we are as a church:
*Expect the unexpected
*Irrelevance is irreverence
*Love people when they least expect it and least deserve it
*Playing it safe is risky
*Pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you
*Everyone is invaluable and irreplaceable
*Everything is an experiment
*You cannot out give God
*Maturity does not equal conformity
*Go the extra mile
*It's never too late to be who you might have been
*Do it right and do it big"

I again wondered if NCC is trying to disguise the fact that it's a church.

Locally, the central church of our benefice has started its own experimental project -- "The Angel," an old inn/pub converted to cafe, shop, and venue for community activities. These include computer classes, knitting-for-charity, scrabble, English-as-a-second-language conversation, and outings for elderly folks from nursing homes.

I find that all laudable, and several folks from our village and church are enthusiastic volunteers at The Angel. But others note that The Angel was initially planned as a local church project. Predictably, its needs overwhelmed the small host parish and The Angel now draws resources, including scarse volunteers and donations, away from the seven other parishes in the benefice, which can ill-afford the loss. The clergy -- who are supposed to divide their time among all seven churches in the benefice -- now spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy on The Angel. Will the birth of The Angel herald the death of the churches (some many hundreds of years old) in the benefice ?

Some locals love dropping in to The Angel for the warm welcome and acceptance they find from volunteers who sell and serve food and latte. But the project may be unwelcome competition for the numerous commercial coffeeshops in the area which actually pay their staff.

Doubts about some of these new ways of being church also primed the pump for my worries about Rob Bell, formerly my favorite (podcast) preacher. Bell left Mars Hill, the independent church he founded in southwest Michigan, and moved to California last year to create faith-infused television programs. But an article in The New Yorker says dissent at Mars Hill following Bell's publication of "Love Wins" contributed to his departure. Bell became persona non grata among evangelicals when he expressed doubt that his loving God would let non-believers burn eternally in Hell. The New Yorker article says

By affirming his evangelical identity, [Bell] could put people at ease. At Mars Hill, he cultivated a careful ambiguity, allowing worshippers to think that he was however evangelical they wanted him to be. He wanted to make a wide range of worshippers feel comfortable—until, after his crisis, he decided that he didn’t.

Evidently previous rancor at Mars Hill over inclusion of women in church leadership caused attendance at the megachurch to drop "by about two thousand." A series of sermons in 2006 saying churches "are called to fight poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation" was heard "as an announcement of political liberalism, and attendance dropped by another thousand."

These instances suggest to me that, unlike St. Paul's declaration at the original Mars Hill, there's no such thing as a universally acceptable Christian message, and certainly no one perfect way of conveying that message. It can be good; get better; get bigger; but sooner or later churches, gatherings, or just ill-considered Saturday morning evangelistic adventures get on someone's nerves.

What irritates one person about a new way of "being church" may be just the thing that someone else loves. What makes my friend weep may be what I see as a way forward. It's possible there may be numerous solutions to the Wicked Problem of how to "be church" in the 21st Century. Or no solutions. It may be humans, with their diverse sets of values, are fundamentally evolved to affiliate in smallish tribes, and nothing can ever bring us together as a global group -- or even a largish congregation surviving more than a generation or two. Maybe that's just who we are.

Losing an I; Finding my Raisin d'Etre

The list of books I'm part way through or 'spozed to read (e.g. for my book group or because I'm still borrowing that book... Sorry, Penny) seems to grow daily. The last thing I needed was to start another, but this one was short and called to me; it promised to satisfy a craving. It was also a 99 p download for my kindle, so what the heck?

The book was The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller. The Amazon blurb that tempted me:

...the Apostle Paul calls us to find true rest in blessed self forgetfulness. In this short and punchy book, best selling author Timothy Keller, shows that gospel humility means we can stop connecting every experience, every conversation with ourselves and can thus be free from self condemnation. A truly gospel humble person is not a self hating person or a self loving person, but a self forgetful person.

Now, I'm no great fan of Paul. And I'm no great fan of prescriptions for 21st Century life based on 1st Century sensibilities. But being self-forgetful sounds appealing. Probably like everyone else, at times in my life I have felt my world to be populated with self-preoccupied people. Children and teenagers, for example. Complainers. Egotists. Braggarts. The depressed--I know it's brain chemistry and the depressed can't help it--but what's most irritating about depression is its total self-preoccupation.

But enough about everyone else. My real beef is with my own self-preoccupation.

I long to shuck off self-focus in favor of the fuller, happier life that both spiritual experts and psychological experts say comes from caring less about self and more about the world and other people in it. I want to stop being status-conscious; stop fretting about whether I am wasting my life. I want to end my sulking and worry over perceived slights.  I would gladly give up comparison of myself with others in favor of vulnerable, honest friendship and understanding. So that was why I had high hopes for  The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness.

I would summarize Keller's essay -- or maybe long sermon: it's too short to be called a book, really -- with this quote from it:

the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.

Keller draws upon Apostle Paul's admonition about boasting and worrying about what others think of you or even what you think of yourself. Keller refers to the neverending, unsatisfying pursuit of success, wealth, prestige, beauty, popularity, etc.  as you try to fulfil the expectations of parents, family,  spouse, boss, society, or even yourself. He quotes Madonna's ongoing feeling that she's just one lazy day away from being a failure. He says that in Paul's times, people stressed the error of thinking too highly of themselves. In contrast, today society stresses the problem of low self-esteem.

Keller goes on to say that because Jesus came to Earth and died for us, however, we can give up both of the related problems--inflated self-esteem and low self-esteem. Christian believers have already been judged by God and found worthy of His love, thanks to Jesus' death on the cross. This means we can all stop being self-preoccupied and just get on with forgetting ourselves and giving up inflated egos, low self-esteem, and unhealthy responses to ever-rising expectations for the enhancement of our curriculum vitae.

Leaving aside my general incomprehension of how Jesus' death purchased God's love for believers, there's a problem with the book: Keller doesn't actually say how you go about forgetting yourself. It's like not thinking about a purple elephant. Keep telling yourself not to think about that elephant or yourself, and those are precisely the things you will stay focused on! The bottom line is that Keller's essay was not helpful to me. I already knew what I wanted to do, and why I wanted to do it, just not how to do it.

This blog retraces some of my thoughts from my June blog entry. I say there that it is understandable why it's so hard and so rare to forget yourself. I think it's our natural state, our animal nature. In the "Way of Nature vs Way of Grace" dichotomy that I wrote about on the first page of this blog, this would be the Way of Nature--human striving to maintain a place in the pecking order. Is there anything that pumps out the happy-brain neurotransmitters like respect from people we admire? Is there anything that makes us feel worse than being treated like dogdirt by people who count?

Research published last summer by Cameron Anderson of the Haas School of Business and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley supports this. Their abstract summarizes:

Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a local-ladder effect: Sociometric status [i.e. respect and admiration in your face-to-face groups, such as your friendship network, your neighborhood, your co-workers, or your athletic team] significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rose or fell, subjective well-being rose or fell accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals’ sociometric status matters more to their subjective well-being than does their socioeconomic status.

With happiness and satisfaction in life strongly linked to our social standing, how can we possibly forget ourselves, stop craving approval, stop caring about what others think of us? Keller doesn't tell us.

Years ago my partiality to Macintosh computers led to my being branded a "MacEvangelist." Now the world is coming around to Apples and I've moved on to a new cause: My Dear Husband accuses me of becoming a Mindfulness Evangelist. He says it seems like I prescribe Mindfulness as the cure-all for every problem and every person. I don't think I'm quite that bad, but I do think Mindfulness has been helpful to me and have seen the studies showing how it has helped others with a variety of problems (insomnia, PTSD, depression, and anxiety, for example.)

So if Keller's book can't tell me how to forget myself, could Mindfulness? Does it say how to replace concern over one's own status with a focus on the world from other people's perspectives?

Unfortunately my 8-week mindfulness course didn't specifically give any instruction on relationships. We covered dealing with stressful situations. And we learned techniques for reining in a rampaging, worried, anxious brain. This typically involves bringing your attention to heel over and over again, focusing and refocusing on the here and now -- on your breathing for example, or on observation of your thoughts in a gentle and compassionate way. "Those are just thoughts," you tell yourself as you imagine your thoughts drifting past like clouds.

I think these sorts of techniques could help in a general way -- for example, recovering from an upsetting encounter. But mindfulness at my beginner's level seems too clunky and indirect to help much in real-time relationships. In the midst of an intense face-to-face conversation, you can't really stop and say, "Excuse me while I do a 20 minute body scan meditation."

I expect the experts would say that with time and disciplined practice, the focus and compassion from  mindfulness spill over from Self to the rest of the world. Perhaps the best mindfulness exercise toward this end is the Raisin. As I described earlier in my blog, one of our first mindfulness exercises was focusing our attention on one raisin for maybe 10 minutes... how it looked, how it felt, what it sounded like when you squish it in your fingers, how it felt in your mouth, how it tasted...

With practice, could I start treating the people I meet like that raisin -- bringing "gentle, compassionate attention" to each encounter? Could that help me be more fully present to others, just as it helps me put my thoughts and feelings in perspective?

The roots of Mindfulness lie in ancient Buddhist practices, but I can see how Jesus' prescription -- the Way of Grace-- would tie in here. He said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." If the Mindful way to love myself is to via focused, compassionate attention, perhaps that would also be the way to love my neighbor. My image of Jesus is of a man with extraordinary -- maybe supernatural -- powers of perception of others. The Bible says he seemed to know everything about people he encountered, before they uttered a word.

What would life be like if I could forget my self in favor of  compassionate focus like that? Would it be the end of fun and games (as the zen-ish meme I found on facebook said)?

I'm not sure I'm yet ready, able, or willing to part permanently and completely with an I, but compassionate attention balanced between neighbor and self might be just the ticket.

Sin!

I have to admit that I have never fully comprehended the concept of sin. But two disparate sources have enlightened me. These are a young, Buddhist-flavored self-improvement guru and Francis Spufford, author of a recently published book, "Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense."

Possibly my problem comprehending sin was, as Spufford describes, reliance on the conventional  everyday-parlance version of "sin," conveyed hilariously in this Creme d'Or ice cream ad. Fussing about delicious naughtiness trivializes and prissifies. With so many other conspicuous sources of evil in the world, how could anyone, any institution worth attention, waste its time on peccadillo?

And then there's the judgmental side of sin, as  David Cain writes in his Raptitude blog:

The word got a bit loaded somewhere along the line though, and the S-word became a word to use almost exclusively in indictments of other people.... Sinners!

In more recent years, I tried on a definition of sin as referring to anything that separates us from God. But when you struggle to find God at all, this definition becomes pretty useless. And hidden within it is an assumed knowledge of realms that are "of God" versus remote from the Almighty. If you acknowledge that God is beyond human comprehension -- or, for that matter, if you start by saying that God is in all things, as far as the farthest corners of the universe and as close as your next breath--how can one ever be separated from God -- or actually know that this is the case?

Both Spufford and Cain, reject the conventional versions of sin and simply consider it as "the human propensity to fuck things up" (HPtFtu as Francis Spofford writes) or, as Cain raises (sorry):

...the word sin derives from a word that meant “to miss the mark.” Not to do something bad per se, but to make a mistake. In modern terms, maybe the closest phrase to the original meaning of sin is “to fuck up.”

From this redefined version of sin, Cain finds a footing for self-improvement:

once we drop all of its religious baggage, we can use the concept of sin in our own lives to recognize those instants when we’re about to do the dumb thing, the bad thing, the lazy thing, the self-defeating thing, and do something else instead.

Spufford does something a bit complex, but ultimately finds in the HPtFtu one (of several) emotional grounds compelling his belief in a God of unconditional love, as well as a foundation for his affiliation with the universally broken, defective companions who call themselves Christians.

I haven't finished Spufford's book yet, so I don't know whether I will buy his case for God based on human emotional needs. But I certainly can see in myself (and everyone I've ever known closely) the HPtFtu. I see the value in reflecting on and acknowledging one's individual HPtFtu -- both single acts of Ftu and our larger personal Ftu- tendencies. These have the potential to plague us with guilt, steal life and joy from our lives,  poison our relationships, cause us to lose face, undermine our communities -- and send dark ripples out from there to our society and the wider world.

I am also powerfully attracted to Spufford's concept of Christians as a society that confesses to its HPtFtu. It's kind of the opposite to the cartoon Christians -- self-righteous holier-than-thou's (thinking here of Ned Flanders on The Simpsons). It's more like a Dirty Dozen or Imperfects Anonymous. Hi. My name's Celia and I have a tendency to fuck things up.

One of the quotes that first got me back to church as an adult was: “A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints” (attributed to "Dear Abby," Abigail Van Buren). Anthropologists say forming groups is woven into our nature as a species. Even if the affiliative group is what  Spufford calls "a league of the guilty," I expect it can serve all the useful functions of a welcoming tribe.  And credentials for belonging to this hive are universal.

There's a pool of much-disputed, murky atonement theology surrounding Jesus' death and how he reconciled humankind to God through his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. All that arm-waving and windy philosophy are wasted on me. But I do appreciate, as Spufford argues, that the Christian faith has at its core the concept that humans are all flawed, all doomed to Ftu, but that there is a way to repent, or turn things around, wipe the slate clean, and start again on the path to a fuller, more joyous life. There's real hope, and probably some very good psychology, in that.

Spufford makes an interesting distinction between Christianity, on the one hand, and Judaism and Islam on the other. The latter he says, attempt to define a good, moral life through a series of rules laid down in sacred texts and updated by teachers and Talmudic rulings. Live by those rules and you'll be at one with God.

 Christianity's new Jesus-based approach is more pragmatic. Acknowledging the impossibility of rule-making to cover all human error (much less actually following such a complex, self-contradictory compendium of transgression in a changing world), Christianity indicates broad general areas of what to do (love God; love your neighbor as yourself) and not do. But it also sets an inhumanly high standard for us -- give up worldly goods and love our enemy, for example -- and says that messing-up begins in one's heart and mind. Even impulses can have dire consequences. Vile instincts are part of our animal nature.

But -- returning to the wonderful opening lines from Tree of Life-- beyond the way of Nature is the way of Grace. While I may never embrace philosophical atonement theology, I do believe -- yes, emotionally HAVE to believe -- that we can change course, wipe the slate clean, move on, repent and be "at-one" (atoned) with grace. That is the heart of Christianity.

In "How to be a Bad Christian... and a Better Human Being," Dave Tomlinson gives an upbeat description of what can be a very painful process of purging guilt and resuming the way of grace. The steps he lists are: 1.) Identify specifically what you feel guilty about. 2.) Accept responsibility by confessing or admitting your error, be it to priest, therapist, or friend, and, without self-justification, apologize to the person you have wronged. 3.) Take proportionate, appropriate steps to right the wrong. 4.) Accept God's forgiveness, forgive yourself, and move on. Tomlinson stresses the importance of fully forgiving ourselves, opening ourselves to God's love, and internalizing every day the gift of God's forgiveness. This is vital to returning to full life in the here and now, rather than continuing to be preoccupied with feelings of guilt.

So, the gem of a quote I will end with ultimately speaks to the guilty as well those they've hurt:

Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible,
hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek
that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather it is the
finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present,
free of contamination from the past.  (Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., neuroimmunologist)

---------------------------
Update: This is a lovely column on sin by Rob Bell:  http://robbellcom.tumblr.com/post/80913487032/what-is-the-bible-part-59-sin
Bell defines sin as disrupting the shalom -- the peace, health, wholeness and blessing -- that God intends for the world. He argues that this puts sin in a wider context of the harmony of God. It's maybe not so helpful for people who struggle with belief in God, but I think almost everyone has a sense of a wider goodness and peace that we know are just right -- inherently good -- for our immediate community and the world beyond. Think of the last time you said "It just felt right."

Bell says there's a tripartite Christian story to sin that starts with humans being born in God's image, with goodness, glory, and honor. Sin is the bit in the middle where, as imperfect beings, all of us disrupt the shalom of the universe in ways great and small. But being the bulls in God's china shop is not the end of the story. Part 3 says that the crucifixion of Christ "restored, redeemed, reconciled, and renewed. We are invited to live as if this is actually true, letting it shape us and mold us and transform us into grounded, centered people who increase the shalom in the world."

I still don't really get how that all works, but I wholeheartedly endorse the concept of living "as if this is actually true." I'm not sure I'd be able to face the mirror each morning if I didn't.

Voice of the Dollhouse God

It was "Listening to God," Class 2, and things moved into the garish pink zone on the weirdness scale. Thanksgiving and other obligations mean we won't be going back to the class, so it's time for summing up. The bottom line: I can't personally buy into the tiny, human-sized God the class has offered. But it has been very enlightening. Characterizing a God I can't believe in has helped me to start imagining a more astounding God that I could believe in.

The second class followed the same format as the first, beginning with singing. Couldn't help but recall the social psychology studies showing that activities performed in unison (think Marine boot-camp) subconsciously encourage people to form a cooperative group. Not to mention the endorphin-promotion from singing or the subtle suggestive influence of the lyrics: "I'm giving you my heart... I surrender all to you..." We had a few folks raising their opened hands.

This was followed by the sharing of "homework" -- to think about what God said to us during the week. Several people got up to describe how God had spoken to them, but no one described anything that had happened during the preceding week. One man said he'd once prayed to God for a job, and an hour later received a phone call, out of the blue, offering him a job he hadn't applied for. A woman discerned God's will in the fact that she had a smooth relocation to the UK from South Africa. "I prayed that if God didn't want us to move he would stop me," she said.

Another woman found comfort in her faith during her husband's cancer. Another testified she heard the voice of God in September, 1999, tell her to stop praying for her severely ill brother-in-law on October 1, when all would be well. That proved to be the date of his death. Rev Keith told us of a horrible abscessed tooth that had caused him great pain over a weekend when no dentist was available. "I asked the Lord to heal it." He did.

Then we were on to angels and other Signs. Rev Keith has never seen angels and was quite jealous that his son had seen one angel; his daughter-in-law saw TWO flying above his car. He recited a pile of Bible verses -- talking donkeys, burning bushes, and visions. "Our God can use any way to get our attention," Rev Keith said.

Rev Keith admitted he had not personally "heard the audible voice of God," but had received lots of messages from God. For example, a large dragonfly had flown through his house and into a bedroom THREE TIMES on the very day his grand-daughter showed him a picture of a dragonfly in her children's Bible notes book. A buzzard had appeared in Rev Keith's garden on two consecutive mornings, just before he relocated. As he was leaving the old place, he drove by buzzards perched on THREE CONSECUTIVE TELEPHONE POLES. As if that weren't enough, three buzzards again appeared when he was sworn in at his new church.

Dear Husband bravely raised his hand and said that at the Naval chaplaincy where he worked, he saw God revealed all the time in the lives of the young soldiers who came in to chat. DH said he worried that if people spent their time listening for the earth-shaking, jaw-dropping testimony-inspiring signs and wonders, they might well miss the amazing everyday reflections of God.

The duo of teachers were somewhat dismissive of DH's observation but gave us their own caveats. They reminded us again that as we start to listen for God, there are three possible voices we might hear: our own, God's, or The Enemy's. But not to worry, the Bible, and the Living Word (the Holy Spirit), would see us through. Later we were urged not to spend time trying to figure out good vs. evil, but just to accept that the Lord is with us. We shouldn't argue with the message. "If the Lord wants to tell you something, he'll go on. Relax and trust that the spirit will guide you." Rev Nigel also advised us to be judicious in repeating God experiences. "Repeat it over and over and it loses its power, really, REALLY. Don't tell these stories lightly, as it leads to disillusion."

(Somewhat snarky question in the proof-texting sort of way: Was this why Jesus told his followers to tell no one of the signs and wonders they'd observed? And, come to think of it, just why would our teachers be sharing, and encouraging us to share, stories of signs and wonders if Jesus himself advised against it? Especially after their own experience showed it saps the power from the stories and leads to disillusionment???)

Rev Nigel added that whilst he loved hearing people's stories, he was leery of testimony-escalation, where each story exceeds the last one in amazing signs. Audience members may feel let down if they haven't experienced such miracles. But he quickly reassured us, "If you haven't heard the Lord speak, you just haven't realized it." Near the end of the evening there was another step back: "We're not claiming the high ground, but rather say all are being confirmed into being the people God intends us to be, if we're integrous and authentic."

Tips for increasing hearing of God's voice included: Asking God to speak to you; expecting God to speak to you; writing down remembered dreams; praying with other people; praying to God to protect the space you are in from the Devil; tuning out your own problems; limiting your own talking; listening to beautiful music; listening to silence; fasting; journaling anything you think God has said;  and persevering.
-----------------------
What I hear from Revs Nigel and Keith is a version of God who, despite being the Almighty Creator, is still in a donnybrook with the Devil for the chance to manipulate us humans to play the role he has planned for us. If you're having trouble hearing this type of God--they recommend typical procedures (paragraph above) that psychiatrists would probably agree tend to encourage a change (at least to some extent and in the direction you are fervently seeking).

I still really don't understand the difference between "God Speaking To Us" and ordinary good ideas, insight, inspiration, keen observation, sense of well-being, psychological phenomena, etc. Maybe I just haven't been one of the ones chosen to hear the voice of Keith and Nigel's God. Maybe I haven't been listening right. Maybe not believing in that version of God makes it impossible.

Be it my blessing or my curse, and with thanks to discussions with DH, the only kind of God I can start to imagine is a Creator far beyond human imagining. More wonderful than a God who runs his Earth and its inhabitants like an elaborate dollhouse, I would see a God who made the Ultimate Awesome: Creation that keeps on creating through cosmic and atomic forces (increasingly understood by physics); geologic processes; evolution; human discovery, growth, societal change...  Made in His image, we humans have choices each day as to how we will play our creative role in life, for better or worse. We can choose what and how we will create; what words and sounds and patterns we'll notice, and what significance we'll attach to them. He gave us amazing brains that can discover, remember, learn, and convey information to others.

I do believe there are destructive forces and evil in the world--some that are part of creation (perhaps even necessary for the universe and life to exist) and some that stem from human choices and actions. I believe that all humans are born with "the human propensity to fuck things up"(HPtFtu as Francis Spofford says). But we also have help with that -- the lives of Jesus and others that can inspire us to better ways to live through love; the sense of a comforting, all-knowing, all-loving God; and the ordinary human love of friends and family, for example.

This God-Beyond-Imagining might well infuse every bit of the world. Between the Ultimate Awesome of creation and our neurons that perceive it, there is no end of "messages" we could be getting from God every minute, every place we look, every sound we hear, every breath we take. The only question is which messages, which signs, which instincts, which input we're going to take in, which we're going to ignore, and what significance we attach to them. This is the pallet from which we create our lives.

The sheer size and complexity of a Creation filled with ongoing creating and change means that it is  statistically likely that astonishing, odds-defying things -- seeming miracles -- will happen all the time. These become one's Testimony -- or just stories you dine out on. The unlikely events are fascinating -- our brains are evolved to detect patterns, strive to find meaning, and latch on to rewarding discoveries and thoughts. Sociobiologists say that pattern-recognition, making predictions and discoveries is part of humankind's evolutionary inheritance. This has informed and shaped our behavior since the dawn of history, fostering reproductive fitness (i.e. leaving more grandchildren) and survival. Amazing observations, inspiration, and "messages" are out there for everyone, everywhere, always, no matter what their beliefs in God or His powers of speech. They might be "of God" but probably not in the sense that he directly arranged them for you personally.

I don't think any particular caveats are needed for tuning in to a world full of potentially wonderful, every-day thoughts,  observations, and encounters that each of us use to create the opus that is our lives. No one is favored and anyone could be afflicted or blessed with an odds-defying event. Even without factoring in sharpening of skills to encourage detection of happy findings, by sheer force of statistics alone, some people will have disproportionate luck or misfortune. I suppose retelling your "miracle" might make it seem a little less amazing each time but that's just the way human minds desensitize -- the first bite of cupcake is always the tastiest. (I wonder if this is the reason our repertoire of amazing stories has a propensity for turning into fish-tales. Does the prize catch get bigger with each re-telling to compensate for desensitization?)

I see the opportunity for dishonesty, manipulation of others, a conceited sense of "chosen-ness,"  as well as the disillusionment Keith mentioned, when messages, signs, wonders, etc. are attributed directly to the Creator. If, instead, we appreciate the awesome but attribute it to everyday functioning of Creation -- including humans, and our own senses and brains -- we may avoid potentially harmful side-effects, yet still enjoy the best things about "Listening to God."

As Freud probably didn't say, sometimes three dragonflies in the bedroom are just three dragonflies in the bedroom -- amazing, wonderful, likely to make you pay attention to dragonflies -- but no more and no less a "message from God" than every other human observation.
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Bonus quote that just popped up on FaceBook, proving that when you're tuned in to looking for certain things, you're going to find them -- as if by magic or the work of God's hand, but more likely just because that's what your brain is locked into:

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle. -- Thich Nhat Hanh

God's Saying the Same Old Thing?

I missed the church service when the notice for an upcoming course was distributed, but a neighbor -- whom I love to bits -- kindly brought it over. She and her husband, in their seventh and eighth decades of life, have watched sadly as the village church declines. They are devout and long to see the church as it once was. They long to see young people flocking back to the church as they have always known it. They pray. They believe.

Looking at the notice, I could tell this course would come from a very different perspective than mine. But aren't I striving for Equipoise here?  So I decided I would go just to listen, to see what these other folks are really saying. "Don't bother," said Dear Husband, "I can tell you already, from the notice, what it's about. You just need to decode it." Here's the meeting notice:

The Listening to God Course Nov 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd -- 7:30 p.m. 

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say "I heard God say" or "I felt God told me"? If so then you may be interested in attending a course set over 4 weeks. This is one of a number of courses available and offered to support the renewing of the Christian church in this country. It is founded on the teaching of Jesus, that God loves, accepts and forgives us when we ask in His name. This country is facing many developing problems. We believe that God is calling out to us in UK to return to him, and that the Holy Spirit is moving amongst the people in this land.The "Listening to God course" covers the following:

• We have a God who speaks. Are we listening?
• How does God Speak?
• What hinders or helps our ability to listen? 
• What happens next? 
• Speaking out what God has said.

The course runs over 4 weekday eveinings and is delivered in an informal style with a mix of worship, teaching, story, discussion and prayer. It is interactive in a gentle and inclusive way. It is led and guided by the Holy Sprit, and there is time set apart to know His presence. 

Revd Keith Powell is Rector in Othery, is the Diocesan renewal advisor and has a prophetic, healing, and teaching ministry. Revd Nigel Rawlinson is a doctor, in self-supporting minstry and has a teaching, healing and evangelistic ministry. Both are members of the Bath and Wells Diocesan Renewal Group, committed to the encouragement of others in the Power of the Spirit and to the Glory of God. This course is open to everyone from any parish and any denomination. For more information please call...

DH predicted the meeting would be a charismatic thing, calling us to renew charismatic practices -- songs out of a certain hymn book, hands raised in praise during the singing, prayers made up on the spot, maybe a little speaking in tongues, righteous MMMmmmmm'ing and trembling hands thrown in, and pews thrown out for good measure.

Armed with these and other prejudices, we set out for the meeting. As it turned out, there was a bit of righteous Mmmm'ing, especially when prayers called on renewal of this troubled nation by the Holy Spirit. But by and large, the session was not wildly charismatic. The hymns were unfamiliar to me but had the standard lyrics... "My God's Great and He's more powerful than all those others..."

One thing that didn't sink in beforehand was that the presenters were the diocesan experts on church renewal. These are the guys who are supposed to reboot the church--handle the "Wicked Problem" of a dying church-- the problem my dear neighbor prays so much about; a problem I care a lot about, think a lot about, and am pretty sure requires different thinking, innovation, and the application of all human gifts -- adding to ancient knowledge and wisdom the latest discoveries and tools emerging from science, psychology, and economics, in hopes of gaining insight into the new forces, ideas, and cultural and social phenomena that touch our lives -- for better and for worse -- in 2012.

But we definitely didn't get anything different. It was the same, tired old evangelical message, expressed in the same old religionspeak. They basically just want to get people back to the Church-centered Church, circa 1900, I would guess. A large part of the evening consisted of the two Anglican priests' testimonies on how God had spoken to them.

Not too astonishingly, the Good Lord had told one or the other of them--very much to their surprise and inconvenience--that they should confess Jesus was their saviour, go to church, go to a home group, host a home group, become a church warden, come forward for an altar call, quit their job, leave their farm, take medical odd-jobs to pay the bills if necessary, become Anglican priests, and tell people the Good News.

They did start their preaching at the beginning of the Bible (as Rob Bell recommends) -- but only to point out that "God Speaks" numerous times in the first 22 verses of the Bible--proof that we have a God who speaks! They preached that there are three significant voices in our heads -- God's, our own, and the Devil's. But fortunately, we're given the gift of discernment, they said.

Rev Keith shared a poem about Adam and Eve blaming one another and discounting the voice of God. For him, this was not one of several "creation myths" in the Bible. This was the way it really is. Adam, Eve, the Devil... who is still at work in the world, subtle and sneaky. Mmmmmmmmm. (We were quite surprised to hear that there could actually be such a crafty devil left in the universe, given that the praise hymns we sang claimed an all-powerful God and King of Glory.)

At one point Rev Keith said "God calls us to be ourselves ... as we are... as he finds us." But the only examples that they gave of God's calling were their own. Evidently, Keith and Nigel have discerned that the way God speaks is by planting an idea in your head that you should pursue churchy things. Maybe they were just delivering the message that they thought the mostly-elderly audience of mostly evangelicals would understand and find inspiring. I do think my neighbor would have liked it. The concept of God's speaking to humans in the familiar way is comfortably straightforward to these priests -- and probably the other members of the audience. You just need to have a heart-to-heart conversation with God, Keith advised.

But as one who cannot claim to know with any certainty the sound of God's voice or what his will is for me (much less anyone else), the presentation was superficial, nothing new, and unresponsive to any of the profound challenges to being a person of faith in 2012. DH found the presentation simplistic to the point of condescension. The clincher was a skit the two vicars performed as "Jesus" and "a Traveller" laden with his life's baggage (good and bad), unsure of where he was going. Jesus told him he was on the easy route to Death. But if Traveller gave up his baggage and let Jesus be his guide and be responsible for everything needed for life's journey, he would carry it all and take him on the road to everlasting life. Cute dramatization of a metaphore. But how does it actually translate into real life?

DH was also quite grumpy that the course-- billed as an interactive discussion, and despite the speakers' avowed desire for dialogue, didn't really include any. The speakers were preachin' to the choir. I sort of expected that.

Revs Keith and Nigel evidently don't see a need to start with very basic questions like, "How do you know it's God speaking in the first place, and not just your own thoughts?" Or, "If God has this specific plan for us and is going to nag and boss us around, why did he bother giving us free will?" Or, "if God gives different messages to two people, how do you know which He really means?" Or, "if God is still speaking, why does the Anglican Church claim a 'closed canon'?" Revs Keith and Nigel -- and the sympathetic audience they attracted -- somehow have no trouble "hearing God." And they know confidently that His message is the standard evangelical revival stuff.

 It seems a particular waste that Nigel, the doctor, is not drawing on one of the great gifts in his life -- namely his medical education. Was God not speaking to him in that? Doesn't the way the brain works have some bearing on how God does (or doesn't) speak to us? Doesn't his medical training give him provocation to explore how objectivity and science challenge our understanding of religion today?

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps Revs Nigel and Keith will get around to these and other basic questions in the three remaining classes. Having given this extended introduction of themselves, perhaps the weeks ahead will afford time for genuine discussion and permit them to address their subject in greater depth, detail, and with novel insight.

But sadly, if this is what the renewal experts have to offer, I don't think there's much hope for the church. There's no "new" in this renewal. It's more like the library book you're "renewing" for the umpteenth time. You do that for books you really love -- or maybe have misplaced but don't yet want to admit are gone.
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Update: One of the things Evangelicals insist God says when He -- and the Bible -- speak to them is that human life begins at conception, and therefore all abortion is murder. Thus I was quite interested to read this article which documents that this reading of the Bible -- this version of what God's saying when he speaks -- is less than 30 years old, i.e. younger than the McDonald's Happy Meal!

Update #2: Another example of a conservative evangelical, Pat Robertson, mis-hearing a message from God:

In January of this year, televangelist Pat Robertson informed his “700 Club” audience that God had revealed the results of the 2012 election to him in a vision, implying broadly at the time that the Almighty was less than pleased with President Barack Obama. According to Right Wing Watch, Robertson recanted on Wednesday, responding to a viewer question about his false prediction, saying he “missed” God’s message about the election result.

“So many of us miss God, I won’t get into great detail about elections but I sure did miss it, I thought I heard from God, I thought I had heard clearly from God, what happened? What intervenes? Why?” Robertson said. “You ask God, how did I miss it? Well, we all do and I’ve had a lot of practice.”