Positive Faith: How do we DO it?

Many traditions approach faith by starting with the negative: humanity is essentially bad unless God intervenes. A great deal of stress is put on the “humanity is essentially bad” part.

Now, I don’t fully disagree. I would just phrase it differently. Here’s a few options. Humanity is not naturally all that it can be. Humanity needs to rely on God in order to find its purpose and to achieve its full potential. We could say it a few different ways. We’re not naturally inclined to do God’s will, or to put his characteristics on display…/and/ God is perfectly happy to give us what we need so that we can get there. This isn’t really a theological difference, it’s a presentation difference.

The presentation matters because we don’t want to shut people down and push them into fight, flight, or freeze mode (aka survival mode). We want people to live as the best, most generous versions of themselves.

How do we do that?

We’ll spend a few days talking about this but I would suggest starting by looking for the good in others. If this whole conversation about positive faith is offensive to you, then think about it like this: Look for the God in others. In other words, look for the characteristics of God that are on display in that person’s life, knowing, believing, and trusting that some aspect of the image of God can be found in that person.

Go Enjoy Your Day!

I have about run out of material, for now, regarding all the gifts my breakdown has given me. But I do want to take a minute to return to the scene of the crime: my loss of joy. Joy is not the same as happiness. Today, I am unhappy that a grant proposal we turned in was not accepted. But I am still joyful.

Joy is a reflection of clarity about our purpose. Happiness usually involves getting our way. Joy is not an inside job. It comes from our shared experiences with others. Joy is the emotion that is best friends with the thought that we are "enough."

Our joy matters. Some days you are the one who reminds others; other days they remind you.

We do not have a moral obligation to give every drop of our humanity to support others ESPECIALLY people who treat us as if they are entitled to receive more from us than they would ever give in return.

Go enjoy your day!!

More on Suffering…

"Human suffering threatens all networks of meaning."

Bible Preaching on the Death of Jesus by William A. Beardslee et al.

Good old American know-how is a beautiful thing. But when we think our know-how should make us capable of out-running suffering, we are getting too big for our britches. As I alluded to in yesterday's blog, we need to be careful with how we define suffering.

We can turn pain into suffering if we are not careful. When I act as if a delayed shipment on a piece of eye candy furniture is a suffering, I'm perpetuating a myth. That is not suffering. But my whining and complaining causes me (and others who have to listen) suffering.

Simone Weil and others have written about their perspectives on suffering. Here is the gist of what I am learning from others, people who do not think waiting for a piece of furniture in a pandemic is a suffering because they actually know what suffering is all about.

Our faith does not and was not intended to alleviate suffering. There is not magic cure. There is no special way to believe that short circuits pain and suffering. According to Weil, our faith makes good use of our suffering.

She explains it something like this. Like Job, when we are able to continue to love God even when life is not good, that is a big deal. When we can love God in the midst of legitimate suffering - as a result of the limits of human living and its pain, grief, death and injustice for many - then we can turn our suffering into something that might benefit someone else.

I'm not suggesting we sign up for suffering. No, my friends, this is not necessary. Suffering will find us. But when it does, the question will be this, eventually, maybe years down the road: how does this suffering shape us? Are we more humane? Does our humanity reflect more the God who we have managed to love even when he does not meet our expectations and - gasp - demands?

Jesus Shows the Way

Jesus was a good man but he was not such a good god (according to Barbara Brown Taylor) if you compare him to all the gods that came before him. He was not big and strong and demanding that his followers feed his ego. He was like no other god before him - a suffering one.

So let's make a note of that right off the top: we have freedom which gives us liberty but it does not give us license to do whatever feels good. We have the freedom to choose but our choices are boundaried ones. And they cause suffering.

Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

1 Corinthians 6:12 The Message

Here's why: we are conditioned to think, feel and act in ways that are contrary to what John the Baptist came preaching and Jesus modeled. John the Baptist preached repentance - not out of guilt or shame, but his was a liberation theology - you can be saved from your old life and receive a new one. This assumes of course that our old lives are unsatisfactory. And I see no reason to think that has changed much.

Our survival instincts, long bred within us cry out for the same characteristics ancient mankind attributed to their gods - strength and power and domination. But Jesus did not come to appeal to our lowest instincts, he came to call us to our highest potential - a whole brain experience. He came to transform the world by loving it, not controlling it. Which, interestingly enough, models the same thing God modeled. Here's the thing I will never understand about God. He chose to enter into a partnership with humanity by inviting us to be part of running the world. He did not make us start at the bottom of the pyramid and work our way up into a position of worthiness. Straight after creating Adam and Eve, he says - "Here, run the place." (Genesis 1 - 3 gives us a good look at God's big idea and the rocky launch his concept endured.)

Most of the time it seems that it is more natural for us to run the world based on preferences, on finding a pattern that our brain can accept - us and them. This is our survival instinct - and it looks different for different people. At our house we play team game tag, which basically means Pops and Christian and Norah against Meme. Pops has a great self-preservation instinct, he's always ahead of the kids. Others among us think our survival depends on finding our one true love - who completes us - or finding a group we can belong to who will keep us safe. However our instincts define survival, we are well practiced at it; this has unintended consequences.

What happens when our fears and insecurities cause us to over-react in a frenzy for survival? What happens when we see danger lurking around every corner? Stay tuned.

There is No Cure For Being Human

“There are some things you can choose and some you can’t. And it’s ok that life isn’t always getting better... Life is a chronic condition and there is no cure for being human.”

Kate Bowler

There is no cure for being human. There is no cure for being you. Accepting this is not giving up, it’s learning how to live without illusion. I have had a variety of experiences in my life when people have shared with me the nature of my humanity. It has not always been pretty.

Evidently, I can be quite the disappointment. But here’s the thing and I hope we do not miss this point: this is the nature of being human. We are all human beings and we are all, at some point, disappointments.

That is in many ways beside the point.

The point, I think, is to find those people who are with us when we are our most disappointing. Find those people who say, “Yeah, yeah, but you are MY disappointment and I love you to pieces.”

Stop trying to NOT be a disappointment; really, stop it right now. It’s holding us all back from creating a kingdom where God wants to come hang out. (Although he’s God and he’s crazy about us, so even our most disappointing efforts are no match for his mercy.)

Instead, find people who can handle you warts and all. If we find those people? Oh boy - we are at least one foot inside the perimeter of heaven. And hopefully it will teach us how to be that kind of person for others.

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we really are.”

Brené Brown