What Words Can Make Holy

Ian Stavens wrote the book, "Dictionary Days," several years back. Like Maggie Jackson's book, "Distracted," it illuminates the journey of the spirit at least as brightly as it does its subject. Three points Stavens has made speak directly to the journey of the heart.

Language is not, first of all, about sounds. It is about the spaces between the sounds. What is so disorienting about computer speech is that it has no sense of the spaces. Like a paint by number painting, all the shadings are correct, but the spaces have it wrong. Languages have spaces. The neophyte and the native speaker are distinguished by their use of the spaces. A sentence has insight in relation to the openings it leaves between words. I am thinking that the public discourse in our time is increasingly hot, conducted without spaces. We are willing to sacrifice deep communication because we are worried about being interrupted.

Some clutures have supervisors for their language. Some grammar teachers of my youth tried to do that with English. They failed. English resists hegemony. Our greatest dictionary, the Oxford Etymological Dictionary, in a descriptive document. It tells us what has happened with language. It does not tell how language should be. It may be that the agendas of the language supervisors among the French and the Spanish are responsible for the poverty of expression of their tongues. In comparison, the English language spews out word forms at a riotous rate.

As any comedian knows, words and timing go together. The great punch line is a work of words and of counting. Jack Benny used to wait for a punch line. It was there that the laughing began. Steve Martin's genius was to never get to the punch line. He left us with our own laughs.

It seems to me that theologians can learn a lot from these three approaches to language. Dead faith talks too much. Dead faith is dominated by the agendas of supervisors. Dead faith has no sense of timing. I wonder what life in a congregation might be like were we to give attention to these dynamics of language. I wonder. . .

About Getting Well

"Good experience" was my father's euphemism for a "bad job." - Joseph Epstein

Going forward, accountability is a word that will be on the lips of most of us. To be accountable is, first of all, to understand about one's life direction.

There is an illusion that accountability is about "getting even." But that is an impossible demand. When a horrid injustice is done, its effects are indelible, like a tattoo. Schemes of retribution, revenge, deterrence all lead to the same dead end, a blindness to how the mistakes of others are now become a part of us. How can we repay the years an innocent has lived on death row? How can an IED injury be completely eradicated? How can we manage our ire as trickle down economics is revealed as a hoax?

Accountability is about getting well. Some call it forgiveness. Others call it restoration, rebuilding. Rebuilding begins in remembering what is real and who is involved. These recollections are like a pebble cast into a pond. They ripple and touch all of the other drops of water there. So it is with accountability. We affect one another for good or ill. My decisions and actions impinge on those around me. And when I have acted badly, they damage others. It is the sad illusion of retribution that the offender bears the weight of a mistake. The truth is that when an accounting comes, the actor and the victim are all involved. But there is still a distinction to be made. "Some are guilty, but all are responsible," Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us. Rebuilding happens when the guilty new direction, even as all participate in the search for new direction. And all, victims AND perpetrators are essential to a dialogue that gets to wholeness.

Getting well in our time, then, will focus on questions like these:
+ What is needed to heal all parties involved?
+ What is needed by the harmed?
+ Who can provide the solutions?

Whether it is the so called war on terror, the indifference around hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the housing and equity markets, or the old staples of gender and race discrimination; healing is not just for the guilty. Retribution against the offender, in the end, does not bring health. (Gandhi is reputed once to have said it this way, "An eye for an eye and soon we'll all be blind.") Punishment cannot be the core question of restoration. We will need to find a way to engage the guilty in ways that bring us all into the problem solving.

If you are like me, the past decade has left you tired, depleted. As one wag puts it, "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging." That is a great place to start. We need to prepare to face the accountability questions in the coming months. If we can stop digging, later we will find in restoration a wonderful source of energy. But for now, just to rest is a good place to be.

The Least of These

for I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,
naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.

I have been going door to door around neighborhoods encouraging folks to vote in the upcoming presidential election and, when asked, explaining the positions of the Obama Campaign for Change. I was assigned door to door canvassing in one of Battle Creek's affluent neighborhoods. The experience was quite an eye opener. I saw, unfolding before me, the surprising nexus of spirit and politics as clear as glass. I had expected that there might not be much enthusiasm for Barack in this very affluent neighborhood. One, after all, does not get to such affluence paying large tax bills and Barack has been painted as a "tax and spender." There was some of that. But there was a whole lot more gracious and welcoming folks of all sides of the political spectrum, grateful for one who cares enough to nourish the body politic with conversation. It is clear that grace and hospitality are not the property of one political party. A good and generous spirit is available in both.

I came across some other, rather disturbing conversations. A middle aged man railed against the distribution of "MY" wealth to the undeserving. "They ought to be left to starve," he exclaimed full of hyperbole. I was shaken by that encounter, wondering what was missing in his own life. There, poverty of spirit and brutal politics were partners. There were other stops. I came to houses that clearly were just keeping body and soul together. Shabby homes. Paint peeled on the outside. Holes in the porch shouted poverty. Inside was a free market economist. S/he worried about helping the poor while oblivious to the poverty into which s/he had fallen. "Let them make it on their own." I must say, I did not get it.


The climax of the Gospel of Matthew is in a vision of lasting things, concerns of ultimate importance. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me." The Gospel writer puts "concern for other" in the mouth of Jesus! It is the telltale sign of the faithful, or spiritual wholeness. I am left to ponder not that folks have political differences, but that those who seem to suffer most from their politics are those who are on the margin. . . the poor man who embraces the chance at ""hitting it big" or the overworked small businessman stretched to the limit and angry about it.

What comes first, the marginal lifestyle or the pinched and angry ideology? Who knows. In a great irony, it turns out that "the least of these" are those who hold the least of these in contempt, who are afraid to share what they have. Now that is the spiritual nexus of the Gospel. It was all I could do to recall that I was there to distribute political information to these tortured souls. There was a fertile field for Pastoral Care. That will be for another day and another time. For now, I bathe in the mystery of what it is to be human, grateful for its deep contradictions.

Door to door canvassing is a great way to take one's own spiritual pulse. There was that surprising generosity of the bulk of the affluent. There is hope for the "least of these." The sign in my yard this year asks, "Got hope?" Clearly there is a hunger for hope, some gracefully expressed, others in a brutal "cri de coeur."

Political and spiritual health are in such complex interrelationship. It is striking.

News from Florida

Wisdom consists partly in not pretending anymore, in discarding artifice. . . Showing off is part of ambition; but now that we are old, let us have the confidence to speak simply.
-Julian Barnes

Florida has a kind of smell, a pungent, "alive smell" of things that are always growing. It is the smell of a greenhouse. I have spent the past week in the Florida greenhouse with some 35 other retired or about to retire Episcopalians, considering what our future holds. Thanks to the forethought of the Church, most of us have adequate means to live in comfort. But we are looking at meaning. What will it mean to be among the elders of our Church and society? It would seem that the answer to that question might be quite simple. It is not. It turns out that playing an important role as a maintainer of the social/cultural fabric involves questions that face all retirees, questions of health and finances. But further, we have delved into questions of spirit and of continuing use of gifts we have developed over the years we have spent encouraging Christian congregations to grown and nourish their participants.

The substructure that supports those who have finished their gainful employment is rooted in Spirit. What sort of person am I called to become by the God who draws us into newness? How might the gifts I have used (and overused) over the past decades be translated into something helpful, even needed by those around me? In other words, "Where does my desire meet the world's needs?"

The answers are not in any one sized fits all format. The require a good deal of patient waiting, a clear sense of self and an ability to recognize in a chance encounter, an emerging vocation. One is reminded that the educated mind is not simply the one who can read and write, but one that can entertain a new idea, discern a new possibility and face limitation with humor and serenity.

A lot of what we are doing is letting go. We are loosening our grip on a role we each have worn for most of our adult life. We are finding that some of the abilities we have developed are no longer used or useful. We are preparing for life increasingly dependent on hope.

I was reminded that from God's standpoint nothing is ever lost. That may have been the most important learning of the entire 8 days. The smell of Florida is not the smell of rotting of decay. It is a greenhouse of a place, where plantings can come to fruit and to flower. Retirement may appear to be being put out to pasture. I can see that it might mean a glorious harvest. Thank God.

The Gospel Dog

But religious knowledge comes incrementally and slowly.
And religion is like any other activity.
It is not easy to do it well.
-Karen Armstrong

The wholesale pursuit of "life changing" experiences are a paradox of our time. In what is, perhaps, the most affluent nation in history, we seem hell bent of 'life change." It is a script being played out time and again in the media. It may be a measure of the "born again" staple of evangelical religion that we are so inhabited with this pursuit. "Remember whenever you're down and in, the only way is up and out," sings the lyric of Hey Look Me Over. But what of the up and outs. How do they change? It is a provocative question for our time. I want to suggest that the life changing promotions of everything from bromides and religion are so thoughtlessly applied as to have no meaning. They have become, rather than a source of inspiration, the tap root of dissatisfaction.

Bring on the dogs. The Bible, along with most of western civilization, have few kind words for our "best friend." Years back, when I looked into the status of dogs in the scriptures, I found universal disgust. Canines are panned in the pages of holy writ. If you want to deliver a put down, in biblical terms, call it a dog.

Were it not for the dog reference, I might have missed this little tale, buried in the Gospel of Matthew.

From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit." Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy." Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel." Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me." He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs." She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table." Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.

It is a tale of encounter. The Master meets a Canaanite woman. She is not only a foreigner. She represents the seductress whose marriage to good Israelite boys threatened the early life of the community in the promised land. It is also a tale of insult. Jesus, infers the common wisdom, "she is a pagan, then she is a dog." To that point Jesus' world was one made up of two teams; the children and the dogs.

Owing to the woman's persistence another world came into view. Jesus found what he was looking for in that conversation with the forbidden pagan. Isn't that usually the way it is when we meet the enemy as a human being? Matthew signals that Jesus' mission was transformed from that of a narrow slice of the Israelite camp to a universal world embracing Gospel. Even for Jesus, religious knowledge came incrementally and slowly, built on in depth conversation with the uppity Canaanite.

Now, those with close association with canines are not surprised by this story. It is always they way it is with dogs. They do not get their good habits not from a "born again" moment, but from the persistent careful training of a master. They may learn to bite in a moment of cruelty. But they learn loyalty in a lifetime of considerate treatment. And there is no better companion than a loyal dog. They are the teachers of the lessons of loyalty and empathy.

Maybe the metaphor of dog training as life in the Spirit is what it will take to build a deep running empathy in the human family. At least in this one story, the Bible gets dogs right. I am wondering how we might apply the lessons of life training in a world that lusts after just one more experience that "changed my life."

Let a dog teach you a thing or two.