it’s been a few weeks since i’ve posted a formation friday. this is a crazy month for us at the refuge & my kids home for spring break & getting moving on the book & all kinds of other typical chaos.  it’s been a really good lent at the refuge focused on “hunger.” one of the things so many of us hunger for is freedom and peace.  we want to feel less crazy brain & more peace. less burdened & more free.  less insecure & more loved.  less burdened & more light. one of the parts about lent that i really like is the introspection and examining what’s going on inside our hearts a little more intentionally. for all kinds of reasons, this passage has been rattling around in my head for the past few weeks (somewhere along the line, my kids had to memorize it when they were at christian school and i can still sing the jingle):  be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you (ephesians 4:32).

forgiveness is such a tricky thing for so many of us.

letting go of deep hurts is much more than saying a verse or praying a certain prayer. releasing resentment is an ongoing process in our spiritual journey that is easier said than done. i think that’s why we need God’s help with it so much. left on my own, i can always come up with a really strong case  why i am right, how i have been harmed, how deeply it hurts, and why i don’t want to let it go. some of my resentments are protections. they keep me safe & protected, my heart a little hardened; they guard me from vulnerability.

unforgiveness also robs us of so much life. i like what anne lamott says, “not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.”  we are the ones who suffer. oh, the hours i have spent harboring unforgiveness against myself & others that some never even knew existed.  they didn’t lose one wink of sleep about it and i was tortured. i think that’s why Jesus called us to forgiveness so clearly–it’s not so God will be satisfied somehow, it’s so we won’t live in so much torment.

it’s also quite true that forgiving does not mean forgetting. that is a false teaching that gets any of us right back into unsafe situations. to me, forgiveness means means letting go. releasing ties with the negative power it has over us. seeing our story through new eyes. acknowledging not only our humanness, but others, too. and respecting brokenness & evil & reality.  offering mercy.

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As a kid I ran from brokenness. Whenever a fight broke out at school while some excitedly gravitated toward it I’d subtely turn tail and literally walk away in the opposite direction. I remember doing this often. Whenever I found myself in proximity to deep hurt, sickness, or wreckage my sensitive psyche wanted nothing to do with it so in my fear I’d flee.

I grew up with a sister who was 3 years 4 months and 11 days older than me. When I was a boy there were two things I wanted more than anything else. One was to be an elephant. And the other was to be older than my sister. Maybe the two desires were really the same desire. It seemed in everything that mattered, like getting extra dessert and staying up late at weekends and becoming streetwise at primary school, I was always second. And there’s only so much coming second a man can take – especially a 7-year-old man.

What is it about siblings? We can’t live with them; we can’t live without them. If someone attacks them we’re first to step in, if they’re sick we can’t sleep for worry; but leave us alone in a room with them and in no time we find ourselves turning from wallflowers into fireworks. I once had Christmas dinner with a friend who had his 93-year-old and 91-year-old great aunts and his 89-year-old great uncle join us for the festive occasion. The great uncle said “Pass the roast potatoes, would you” – and proceeded to help himself to a generous portion. “Stop it – put those back” snapped his older sister, “Don’t be so greedy.” The younger sister pleaded, “But surely, it’s Christmas Day!” The older aunt was not to be deterred. Looking imperiously at her 89-year-old
brother, she said ‘He has to learn!”

This is the soil out of which the story of Cain and Abel becomes the story of everybody. A great many politicians and religious leaders talk about safeguarding or promoting or focusing on the family – but you wonder if these people have ever lived in one. The book of Genesis isn’t the slightest bit sentimental when it comes to the realities of growing up with a brother. Here are Cain and Abel; the first recorded sign of trouble and straightaway Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground.

Then a few chapters later we have Abraham and Lot, who were cousins but in one place are called brothers. We have this resonant sentence, “their possessions were so great that they could not live together.” Ouch. Feel the quality of that for a moment. “Their possessions were so great that they
could not live together.” My sister and I became the best of friends only when she went away to university. I didn’t realize we were living out the Abraham and Lot story.

And then there’s Isaac and Ishmael. Anyone here got a half brother? You going to tell me that’s a picnic? You’re the older one and you’re constantly told you should be nice to your little brother even though every time you look at him you think, “It was your mother that ruined my parents’ marriage.
How can I not hate you? Why should I love someone who’s taken away my dad’s attention that used to be all mine?” Or you’re the younger one and you think “I didn’t choose this domestic arrangement so why do I get blamed for it? What do I have to do to be taken seriously in this house and not treated as a toy?”

And we haven’t even spoken yet about Jacob and Esau, and what happens when one parent starts using a child in her maneuverings against the other. Boy does that make it yet more complicated, when you’re piggy in the middle between your parents! And finally there’s Joseph and his brothers, and it’s as if in that story that every element in all the previous stories comes together in a volcano of fratricide and parental favoritism and an over-inflated ego – and yet profound love. Kerboom. If there’s anyone here this morning who doesn’t recognize themselves in one of these stories I’d be mighty surprised. If your life is a chaos of thinly-veiled warfare, and a desperate struggle for recognition, and love you long for but daren’t ask for, and long-festering resentment, and freshly minted fury – welcome to Genesis. You’ll be quite at home.

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“From dust you were created; to dust you shall return.”

With those words, ashes were smeared on my forehead in the shape of a cross. For some reason the phrase startled me all over again. Maybe I just forgot exactly what gets said at the key moment this day?

The vertical thumb stroke: “From dust you were created.” The little bit of intimacy surprised me too. Brown eyes meeting mine, the press of another’s skin, the whispered voice. I felt myself flinch, before I relaxed into the word “created.” It is awkward but good, this alive created-ness, this being-touched.

Then the horizontal stroke: “To dust you shall return.” This last bit typically is the flinch-inducer. Not only the image of myself someday being sprinkled out of a tin can onto my favorite mountain meadow, but the word “shall.” That little word just kicks the phrase up a level of grave certainty. Whatever else will or will not be in store for me, my dusty endshall come.

Yes I remember this phrase well now, from many Ash Wednesdays. I didn’t grow up in a liturgical tradition, so I experienced it first as a young man in a church that nearly threw the pastor out for introducing the rite one spring. What were these dirty Catholic ashes doing in a Wesleyan church? Why this talk of death in the days leading to Easter, our great celebration of life? The scandal threw everything into a mess that spring, and some people left. It strikes me now that if liturgical folk were paying attention, the ashes of Lent might put us all into more of a scandalized mess than actually happens. We have just been told we shall die, and we file back into our chairs and fiddle with our programs? If the same message had just been delivered over the airplane intercom, would we quietly return to our seats, minds wandering to trivial stuff?

So it’s got my attention, this smear of ashes. But this spring, most surprising of all, the ashes mean for me freedom.

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I find that I have so much in common with those who are searching for Bigfoot, Mermaids, and Extra-Terrestrials. (I should end the post right there…) After my wife and I get the boys tucked in bed we occasionally peruse the channels for some high quality television. Recently, my favorite show has been Finding Bigfoot. After an episode, I’ve tried my best to incorporate my new found passion for Sasquatch into recent conversations with friends, none of whom seem to share a similar level of intrigue. Last week, Angie was caught up in an Animal Planet documentary about the newly discovered evidence for mermaids. I’m pretty sure the enthusiastic eye-witness accounts were compelling enough to convert her into a believer.

Lovers of these mysteries seem convinced that something more is out there and we need to act on our suspicions. The vast expanse of outer space, our oceans, or untamed forests are calling us to search for these elusive beings. Something or someone must be out there, right?! The enthusiasts who are desperately searching for something in the wilds out there are not altogether unlike the mystics throughout history who quietly search for Christ in the wilderness within. Really, who knows? Perhaps there is more out there. I am convinced, however, that there is more in here. The individual soul contains more mystery and unexplored territory than the deepest depths or farthest reaches of outer space. In 2013 my hope is to listen closer and dive deeper into the inner space which is said to be home to the very image of God. May we all experience more close encounters with our inner Squatch throughout this new year!

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts,
and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city
that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage
all it’s occasions shall dance for you.

Excerpt taken from WH Auden’s For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. Written during World War II, the poem is about 1500 lines long, or 52 pages. For comparison: Shakespeare’s Macbeth is about 2100 lines long.

Last Advent was unlike any other Advent before. I spent it on a three week solo intensive that was isolating and illuminating. This is one of many poems birthed during that time.

And here it begins
at the end of a remote island road
lit only by dusk,
the night held close by maritime air
crisp with its watery wind.

Here is a place that holds
inspiration without art;
inhabited by tokens of the primal child
screaming and weeping towards freedom.

Gone are the church and its city lights;
gone the table of remembrance,
the chapel lit by candlelight,
the piano playing pretty songs of longing
with a key that sticks.

Gone the floor that creeks,
replaced by stone steps into a forest,
lit by leaves colored in fire,
strewn upon soil, rich and dark,
like a woman’s blood.

This too is Advent.

Filled with rudimentary paths no better than another,
lost and found like all of us;
in a forest on the edge of death,
like all of us.
Tall enduring trees,
snapping, broken, laid bare to waste;
like all of us.

Shhh.
Here he comes,
the little boy with trembling fear
and sadness runs the gully deep.
And picking up the axe he swings
at every wretched word,
at every fist to harm.
he swings to kill,
he swings for freedom.

The heavy wood breaks.
The ground is strewn with all that remains.

Now with strong relentless hands,
buried in red dust and bark,
a man is kneeling in what is left,
I am holding what is left.

With what is left I will begin.

Tad Monroe works with college students at Seattle University, he’s a pastor, poet, storyteller, and football coach.                                                                      He agrees with Thoreau, “life is for living”. More reflections can be found on his website tadmonroe.com where this was first published on December 3.

 

i like christmas.  i am not crazy about the commercialism and try to avoid stores at all costs starting from thanksgiving on, but i do love the season.  i love the story of Jesus because of its upside-downness & the wild and wacky ways he entered into the world as God-in-the-flesh.  i love the intentional focus and celebrating each week of advent.

at the same time, i deeply respect that it is a time of year where things start to go haywire for a lot of people i know.  in fact, thanksgiving begins one of our darkest seasons at the refuge.  while other churches are getting geared up for the awesome christmas service ahead, ours is feeling the reality of depression-and-loneliness-for-many to start setting in.  it’s an interesting phenomenon and in talking to others who intersect with the margins, many say the same thing.  while the rest of the world is spinning toward the holidays singing christmas carols & going to fun parties, there are a whole bunch of people hanging on by a thread.

at the same time, regardless of life-struggles-in-general, throw in spiritual shifts and “i don’t even know what to make of Jesus anymore” and it’s even more complicated.  and lonely.  and a reminder sometimes of how much we’ve changed.  when i wrote when easter is hard earlier this year i had no idea it would stir up so many feelings far & wide.  my guess is that christmas isn’t quite as hard as a holiday as easter for a lot of people in the midst of changing faith, but it still can be tricky.  at christmas we sing more songs about peace on earth and good will to men and less songs about blood and the lamb so that might make it a little easier for some.

no matter what our circumstances are–practical or faith-based– i want to honor that these times in the year can be extra hard, extra weird, extra lonely.

the christmas season can remind us that:

we aren’t where we wish we were.  we don’t have money, partners, kids, health, security, friends, community, healing, sobriety, you-name-its that we thought we would at this point and that can feel so discouraging.

we feel alone.  some of us feel lonely in the relationships we are in, while others feel lonely because we don’t have them at all.

our families are tricky (or i am guessing you might have other words for it, ha ha!) or nonexistent.   no matter how we slice it, holidays are a time where we intersect with family.  for some, it is a happy time and you are happy to see each other while for others, families bring up feelings of dread and anxiety.  for many, there’s no home to go to and we are painfully reminded of our orphanness or the harsh realities of divorce and single parent-ness.

life is flying by.  another year has come and gone and here we are, one year older and one less year left to pursue some of our dreams. and then sometimes we wonder about our dreams.

we want more connection with God but we aren’t sure how to get it anymore.  we might not have a church or community that feeds us like before or feels safe enough to even walk into.  often, we can’t seem to muster it up on our own so our connection with God just feels…empty.

we are scared of hope.  this season is a time of hope & anticipation and for a lot of us, hope feels dangerous.

i am sure there are many others, but these are some of the top of my head today.  i promise no trite answers or simple advice but i do have a hope for those who struggle with christmas–that some how, some way, more light can seep in.  i have hope that all of us experience more slivers of joy & peace & love & hope & grace over the next month.  slivers of light are sometimes small miracles in and of themselves, God’s little revelations and reminders that we’re not alone, that he is with us.

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  ”All throughout the book of Mark, the disciples just don’t get it. They approach Jesus from a posture of hubris and show us that they don’t see straight. The literary counterpoint is the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who sees rightly. Bartimaeus is blind. The disciples try to mute him. But his sense of hearing is strong.”

I may be a bit late to what’s been happening in pop music culture worldwide because of my recent transition to Duke but I am catching up on it now and I’ve been hearing a lot about “Gangnam style,” which is the title of a musical single by South Korean rapper Psy. Gangnam style is a Korean neologism that refers to the hip and trendy lifestyle of the Gangnam district of Seoul, Korea, which is supposedly the Beverly Hills of Seoul. This song was released on July 15, 2012, as the lead single of this rapper’s sixth album. Just to give you some sense of the buzz it has created—“Gangnam Style” debuted at number one on the national record chart of South Korea and as of October 23, 2012, the music video has been viewed over 530 million times on YouTube and is the site’s third most watched video and most watched Korean pop video. Guinness World Records has indicated that is the most ‘liked’ video in YouTube history.

There’ve been numerous parodies and reaction videos to Psy’s initial music video. Psy has demonstrated Gangnam style on Saturday Night Live, at Dodger Stadium, on the Ellen Degeneres show, and I’m contemplating whether to invite him here to Duke Chapel for a demonstration with the Chapel choir (I’m just kidding!) What’s drawn some of the most attention is the song’s dance moves which have been performed by different kinds of people all over the world. This musical phenomenon has been drawing and calling people to try out its dance moves. Just last weekend I saw a young man at the Duke football game against UNC doing the “Gangnam style.” I did not realize what I’ve been missing these last few months! Even Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt, and the British Prime Minister David Cameron, and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have been seen dancing “gangnam style”!  Who would have thought?! What we expect is not always what we get.

We expect the disciples to have their religious act together with every i dotted and every t crossed, to have every hair in place and to know the exact time to do the sign of the cross. We expect them to do what is right and what is holy and what is just and what is Christ-like. But in last week’s passage in Mark, we find something else out about the disciples. They just don’t get it. When Jesus asks James and John the same question that rolls off his lips today, “what do you want me to do for you?” we might expect them, disciples of Jesus the Christ, to ask for something admirable and deeply pietistic. Instead, they try to control the boundaries of God’s answer by telling Jesus to give them whatever they ask for and what they ask for is to sit at his right and left hand in glory. They want the Trinity to take in two more members and become a Holy Pentagon. They seemed to have been mentored by Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now. They want glitz and glamor and prestige and power. Didn’t Jesus just predict for a third time his death and resurrection? And the only thing that James and John can worry about is their own glory? Little do they know what they are asking for because as Jesus implies, the irony is that God’s glory is gory and his imminent future entails a baptism in blood. The disciples, those who are supposed to be in the know, a part of the gnostic insider clan of Jesus, are actually spiritually blind, blinded by their own ambition. All throughout the book of Mark, the disciples just don’t get it. They approach Jesus from a posture of hubris and show us that they don’t see straight.

The literary counterpoint this week is the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who sees rightly. He approaches Jesus with a posture of humility. He asks for mercy as we do in many Sunday services in our communal prayer of confession (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy). His approach to Jesus is a correction to the distorted discipleship of James and John. Bartimaeus desires to be freed from an affliction; he’s not seeking authority or affluence. This man, an outsider in society, usually overlooked in the community of humanity, and whom people order to be quiet, like the disciples said to him, is the one who models Christian discipleship. The unlikely outsider understands over against the insider-information disciples. Two blind characters in Mark, the man on whose eyes Jesus puts saliva in Mark chapter 8 and Bartimaeus, frame the conversation about discipleship and the blindness of the disciples. These two blind men see with eyes of faith. This is the paradox of the gospel and it should always surprise us because what we expect is not always what we get.

Bartimaeus is blind. The disciples try to mute him. But his sense of hearing is strong. “When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out…” so that Jesus could hear him. I don’t know what he heard. I don’t know if someone said something to Bartimaeus. I don’t know if he heard the shuffle of Jesus’s feet or the tone of Jesus’s voice.  I don’t know if there was news coverage about Jesus. As far as I know Jesus was not one of the topics at the presidential debates. But Bartimaeus hears that it is Jesus without any mention of a sound in the biblical text. And because he knows who Jesus is, he cries out loudly for mercy on his misery.

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