I had a conversation with someone a number of weeks ago that has
stayed with me for these weeks. A
middle class suburbanite struggling with faith issues; how do you live your
faith in an environment like this? How
do you actually practice your faith in an environment where so many other things encroach on
your time and life?
Sound familiar?
Being a Christian isn’t the issue – it’s not that that this
person didn’t believe in God or Jesus. It’s
not that God wasn’t in this persons mind during the day. It’s not the remembering that’s the
issue. The problem is living that
faith… doing the practices that identify this person as a Christian; it’s the
little things like prayer, or meditation, or taking time to do good work in the
world – not the accidental stuff we all do here and there, but effort of concerted
discipleship… of taking time – the thing
we’re all in short supply of, the very thing we prize more than pretty much
anything else.
How do we do the things in life that distinguish us as disciples
of Christ from the rest of society? I
remember hearing a radio show where the speaker said others accused President
Obama of being Muslim… that he was a “closet Muslim”, hiding it so others
wouldn’t know his true faith. The
speaker said if one were a faithful and practicing Muslim, one could not hide
it. You can’t hide when you practice
prayers 5 times a day in a pretty not subtle manner. Whether you agree or not with Islam, you
know if someone is a practicing Muslim or not.
It’s SO easy to NOT have to do any of the practices that our
faith may call us to – from simple things like saying grace before eating, to
praying the “hours”. And that was the
basic question this person asked… how differently do we live as disciples because we believe? They asked – how do I live as a
Christian in an environment where God is pretty much irrelevant?
Well, it’s not that God is irrelevant – we all say God is
important. But God has become, for
many, vestigial. Sort of like an
appendix. We’re all born with an
appendix. But truth is we don’t need
it. We’re not sure what it’s for –
doesn’t seem to have a purpose… at least not anymore. But if some surgeon out there offered a
special deal where they would take out your appendix (even for free) – would
you agree to let them take it out?
Odds are that you’d say no.
“If it ain’t broke… don’t fix it!”
Appendix; you don’t need it, it has no purpose – it may be a vestige of
some earlier time on our history where we might
have needed it – but at this point in our history we don’t need it. But you don’t want to get rid of it,
either. You still want it. This person said… sort of like God.
Well, that’s not exactly how many of us in the suburbs think
about God. But this person made the
point that there are “tiers” of importance in our lives. In theory, we would like God to be in the
top tier. But in reality God seems to
rest on the second tier of importance in our lives. We’re not desperate enough that we have to
reach out to God for our daily bread, but neither do we often thank God for our
food either. We often don’t recognize our brokenness… and
fail to recognize that it’s often through brokenness that we are humble enough
to see God in a more meaningful way.
This conversation reminded me of what I’ve said before – imagine
all your “things” in life have a “box”… like the ones we have stored in our
garages or attics. And each box holds
things of the same kind – there’s the “home-life” box, the “work” box, there’s
a box for all our primary relationships, and other boxes with the other
different relationships we have. Then
there’s the “hobbies” box, the “life-style” box, etc. And of course the “God” box – it does have
its place in our world of important boxes.
So let’s say we pull our boxes out when we use them. And the ones we don’t use, we find they get
stuck behind the other boxes we use the most – sort of like actual boxes in
storage. So our “God” box, while it’s
there with all the other important boxes, it can often get shoved back behind
the others due to lack of use.
It’s not that we don’t pray, or think about God… or think about
ethics, or think about our lives as informed by our faith… it’s just that this
isn’t the first box we open when we plan to do things in life. The first questions we often ask have to do
with finances or practicality, logistics, etc. I’d venture to say that for most of us, the
God box is not the first box we look into when it comes to life issues.
Needless to say, this conversation has been banging around in my
head for many weeks so far.
How many of you struggle with the same thing? … Making God the most important… Keeping
God the most important… In a super busy
world and life? Living a life of Discipleship.
I read about and see other traditions- doing their practices of
faith, practices that help their adherents live a certain way. For example the Amish- well, pretty much
their whole lives are circumscribed by their faith- as it shows up in pretty
practical terms (maybe more practical than we
might like!). For example – what to
wear, how to wear your hair, mode of transport, how to worship, what modern
amenities to use or not use… and so on.
Now, we may agree with the way they live their
faith or not, but pretty much you know what to expect if you plan to be
Amish. And it seems to all revolve
around faith issues; what God may want or not want, and what that might mean
to/in your life, how to live a life of discipleship – how to live the
faith.
And what about the Mormons –
Again, you may agree or disagree with their theology, but their
lifestyle sure does seem to be centered around living the faith!
All these traditions with strong expressions of faith practices
in daily life help to create an environment where faith can grow. At the very least, they help the
practitioners stay tuned-in to God in daily life much more so than if one
didn’t have that constant reminder about God.
Islam has the five pillars of faith;
Belief – expressing
with your mouth the deeper faith that rests within you
Worship – also included
here is the five-fold daily prayer times.
Almsgiving (or Charitable
Giving) – helping remain mindful that those better off do in fact have a
responsibility to their less well-off brothers and sisters.
Pilgrimage – all
practicing Muslims, if economically practicable, ought to make a pilgrimage to
the holy city of Mecca
Fasting – a reminder
that many do not eat at all, and that there is more to life than that which we
consume
What does it mean to be a Muslim? Well, there’s certainly the theological
(what do Muslims believe? What do they
subscribe to theologically?), but there’s also the practical – there are
actions that practicing Muslims are called to do in their daily lives.
Judaism has three words for “prayer”; there’s the normal word for prayer that we all think
of – “Dear God, please be with my mother and father…” Then there’s the Study of scripture (a holy act in itself). Then there’s Service to others – which is also a prayer.
Mormons have a practice of wearing sacred undergarments. They’ve gotten a lot of ridicule about this
for sure, but I wonder how impactful it would be if the very first thing we put
on in the morning was something that reminded us of God in some pretty
practical way?
I’ve pointed out certain elements from other traditions, but the
truth is that Christianity has a lot of this as well. We, our Christian tradition, has a practice
of taking time out of our “normal” schedules to stop and pray as well. And some sub-sets of Christianity have a
practice of wearing certain articles of clothing; the monastics, friars, and
nuns all have what one could call ritual clothing… their tunics, cassocks, or
habits.
All the Orders like this (Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran!) have
“rules” they live by… a “rule” is a technical term for the spiritual pattern
they model their lives around – usually written in document form. It often describes daily practices that the
adherents agree to live by. I was part
of a Franciscan order of Lay-people that asked us to write our own “rule”. It asked us to address certain things like
“service/mission” and “prayer”, “simplicity” and other aspects of life-style…
which made us really think about what was important to us and what we could
commit to doing- practical things that helped create the environment for us to
live out our faith and discipleship.
There used to be an Order of lay people in the Lutheran Church, Order
of Saints Martin and Teresa, that had only three items in its rule; take a walk
daily – with no objective or distance other than to be present with God as best
one could. People were asked to wear a
paperclip somewhere on your person – something as ubiquitous as this can be
used to remind yourself of God. The
third had to do with journaling daily as a way to help make sense of the God-stuff. These were all designed to help live the faith-journey
in a busy suburban life!
AA/NA/ALANON all have practices people are encouraged to build
into their lives that help them to live as they need to live. They are encouraged to structure their lives
in a way that keeps in the forefront reminders of not only their brokenness,
but positive possibilities as well. I
wonder… what could we build around our lives that might create an environment
that helps us remember… that helps us fight back the encroachment of all the
daily stresses and temptations and push their way into our too-busy and
over-burdened life-styles?
Here are a few –
Daily bible readings, or devotional reading (if this is your
thing). I’ve heard people say “But the
bible is boring, with all the ‘begats’ and the laws in Leviticus” or “It has
too much killing and blood in it”.
Well, that may be true but there’s certainly more to it than just
that. I remember when Senator Barak
Obama was running for president back in ’08, a Black comedian said he heard of
White people saying they would not vote for him because he was a Black
man. So the comedian said, “You know
he’s half White… vote for the White half!”
We both know the bible has some boring and bloody stuff in it… but we
also both know the bible has some pretty deep stuff in it as well. So start by reading those!
Another thing to look at would be listing principles that might
help you live a more meaningful life.
For example, more and more people have become attracted to the principle
of Simplicity. In theory simplicity
helps to unclutter all the extraneous elements of life, paring down to a
comfortable core that gives us so much more room to live without so much
pressing down on us. I remember as a
Franciscan, simplicity had to do with how we dressed, what we owned, etc. And
keeping things simple helped us to stay spiritually focused.
For some, a change in diet can have spiritual ramifications as
well. What you choose to eat, or not eat, or how you choose to eat it, all can help create an environment towards
growing a life of meaning.
From the book “To Life! A
Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking” by Rabbi Harold Kushner:
“I once appeared on a
cable television show to debate my theology of tragedy with a professor of
theology from a Baptist seminary in the southwest. He defined his position as believing in the inerrancy
of scripture, that every word of the bible was of God, and he chided me for
being selective as to which verses I would accepted as of divine origin. I responded by asking him, ‘In that case, how
come you eat pork chops and I don’t when the eleventh chapter of Leviticus
specifically forbids it and you believe that those are God’s words?’ He answered, ‘Because I believe that our
Lord Jesus Christ came to liberate us from the ritual commandments and left
only the ethical ones as binding.’ I
challenged him again: ‘Even if that were the case, why do you define the
dietary laws of Leviticus as ritual, not ethical? What is more important in today’s world than
teaching people to control their appetites?’
He changed the subject.”
Appetite can be seen certainly in the literal sense – what we
actually eat! But it can also refer of
course to what we “consume” in the figurative sense… just look at all the things
in our lives, the things in our homes, the things boxed and put away in our basements
or attics. Add up all the “Stuff” we
have, and then ask if we really need all that.
Probably not.
Jesus sends out the 72… “Do these
things…” Proclaim peace, stay in homes, heal the sick, cast out demons,
etc. And “Don’t do these things…” Don’t take an
extra bag, don’t take money, don’t take extra shoes, etc. Do the things that are conducive to the path
you’ve chosen, and don’t do other things that may distract you from this path.
“I just want to live a life of faith… It’s just hard, because
the rest of life resists it!” This conversation made me think a lot about
discipleship. If you want to run a
marathon, you have to practice running… a lot!
If you want to get a degree, you have to go to school…. for a long time
usually! If you want a black belt in
Karate, you have to train… for many years!
If you want to be good at something, you have to put the time in. If we want to have a meaningful spiritual life
– in the world we live in – in this case busy middle-class suburbia – we have
to make a concerted effort to do the things needed in order to make it happen,
because no part of the government, no business, not even most people… will help set up the environment so we can
live a life like this. It takes
discipline to live a life of discipleship… seems sort of obvious, but hey- if
it were easy, everyone would do it.
The only organizations that can help with this would be
religious/spiritually based organizations – like churches. But churches are made up of people – who must
individually choose whether to live a life of meaning or not. Church leaders may offer other spiritual
resources for people besides just Sunday mornings…. but the people have to want
to access those resources.
And here in suburbia… although we may want to access other
resources to help us on our spiritual journeys, although we may want to add and/or
remove elements of our lives to make them more spiritually meaningful overall, we’re
still swimming upstream. The culture we’re
living in neither supports or encourages a more meaningful lifestyle. It more often than not cares little to what
degree you have chosen a particular spiritual discipline… or even if you’ve
chosen one at all.
Considering the dominant currents of our culture, it seems if we
want to live a spiritually meaningful life, we have to make choices to do those
things we need to do to get there. There are too many forces to prevent a spiritually
significant life like that from “just happening”. In our world, they don’t just happen… if
they are to be lived out, they have to be created.
The more I thought about this conversation, the more I realized –
again – how much so many of us really desire a life of faith… of Spirit – of
discipleship, and want to have a
pattern of practices that help us embrace a life like this. How difficult it is for us suburbanites to
have this life without tremendous effort.
And how many of us are not satisfied with the spiritual lives we
might have? Or with the condition of our
spiritual lives? It’s so easy for us to
put off (sometimes indefinitely) the hard work of developing a life like
this. How hard it is to resist the
routine of “normal life” filled with stuff and activity and business.
I think our biggest challenge – us middle class suburbanites – is
to practice those things – more often at odds with suburban life – that help
create an environment where our spiritual lives can grow! I think our biggest challenge is finding
and taking the time – more often at odds with suburban life – to do those
things that help create that environment!
It certainly is difficult for me!
So… I’m going to do something about it. It won’t be easy, but I find enough lacking
on my own spiritual life that I almost feel compelled to do something.
I think the areas I have to address are these:
Prayer – individually and with my family.
Lifestyle Change – Simplicity has always been attractive,
especially when things seem to be getting more and more complicated as life
goes on.
Mission – I also sense part of my journey is to express my faith
in the world through some form of mission work.
Physical – Doing exercise has become a part of my spiritual
journey- particularly running.
So, I’ll start with that.
And I’ll blog about it… and see how it goes.
Do you feel like I do – that this part of our lives is usually
the first to be jettisoned if things get too busy? Martin Luther used to say, “Take an hour to
pray… unless things get really stressful and busy… then take more time.” Do you
feel that, as much as you’d like a deeper spiritual life, it is very hard to
maintain an environment that allows for the development of this aspect of life?
Pick one thing this month – for the rest of July – that may
require you to take time
That may require you to do something that’s
not the norm
That may require a lifestyle change
An
activity, a change in diet, de-cluttering a little – maybe one thing every day,
maybe wearing something that reminds you that there’s more to life than what we
can buy, maybe adding a devotional reading once a day, or maybe something as
simple as a walk.
Do this one time per day – start small… you don’t want to bite
off something so big that it can’t be swallowed. It can only help us, right?!
Hey- if we don’t do
this – there’s no one out there that will make the time for us! There’s no one out there that will
re-schedule our calendars to make some space for this in our lives! Can you do this with others? I know our family will benefit if we all did
this together. Of course you have your
own free will, so no one will force you to do any of this… but I think the
practices we develop will do nothing but help us to live lives of faith better!
Living the faith, consciously, willfully, with intention…
attentive to God at every step… being mindful of God’s presence… doing God’s
work in the world with that same mindfulness and attentiveness… proclaiming God’s peace… creating a personal
lifestyle that helps us remember as much as possible that we share in God’s
ministry… all this is very difficult to do in the world we live in. But it’s worth doing, and growing into.
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