It's Time To Get Over Our Perfectionism: How To Take A Lesson From Baseball

Baseball's Lesson It's fascinating to look at the sport of baseball and notice the greatest hitters in the history of the game---you can't help but see something profound immediately.  The all-time best hitter, Ty Cobb, had a career batting average of .366.  No one has been able to reach that level in a career before or since.  That's .366 out of .1000.

What this means is that over 6 out of every 10 times Cobb got up to bat, he went out.  And he's considered the greatest.

Which begs the questions, why is it that our expectations for baseball are so radically different than our expectations for ourselves and everyone else in the rest of life?

The Commissioner of Baseball in 1991, Francis T. Vincent, Jr., made this astute observation:

"Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.  We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often---those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players.  I find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth."

Ironic--that errors are part of it's rigorous truth.  Almost oxymoronic.  But refreshing and true.

Institutionalized Perfectionism

I grew up in a Church that rigorously fights an ongoing war against failure.  Error is seen as a lack of spirituality and trust in God.  If you simply trusted God more, you would overcome your tendency to "strike out" when you stepped up to the plate of life.  With God's help, you can get better and better at hitting the ball whenever you're up to bat.  And before the world ends, God expects you to hit home runs or at least hit safely every time you're up.

There's a word for this view:  perfectionism.

For the most part in my life, I played the game pretty successfully.  I knew the rules inside and out and was quite accomplished at fulfilling and living up to them well.  I certainly received a lot of accolades for how successful I was, at least on the outside of my life--which is the only side of anyone people can really see, right?

So when you live in a perfectionist culture where mistakes and failures aren't accepted as the norm, there's intense pressure to measure up to the highest standard in order to feel good enough.  Self worth becomes built upon performance.

Without realizing it, my sense of self was being constructed on a shaky foundation.  I had to make sure I was successful and didn't fail; I had to constantly prove my worth by my performance.  So if you're one of those lucky ones, like I was, who is able to be really productive within the accepted measurements, you're rewarded---you get praise and positive attention from others and therefore you can give yourself the same.

Until the big failure and fall.  And I had it.  Epic.  My whole world collapsed around me.  And in one fell swoop I was on the outside, no longer seen as successful, all my past accomplishments wiped off the slate of institutional memory.

Unlike baseball's radical paradigm in which the player steps up to the plate and strikes out, still maintaining his beloved stature as the valued and famed hitter even though he goes out 6 out of every 10 times---in my world it was, one big strike and you're out, for good.

Identity and Self Acceptance

Beyond the pain of the institutional response to me, my biggest personal challenge suddenly became, Now that I've blown it big time, what is my identity, where do my feelings of worth and value come from without that great reputation?  Can I accept myself even in the midst of failure?  Or am I simply a loser forever from now on?

My road back to a sense of deep personal acceptance and worth was long and difficult.  But in the end, the opportunity to build my sense of self on a much more stable foundation, than the shaky one of performance and perfection, was the most important outcome that could have ever happened to me.  It has given me a sense of confidence, security, and acceptance of myself in powerfully authentic ways like never before.

Perhaps baseball has a lot to teach us about life.  Like the Commissioner observed, errors are part of the game and perfection is an impossible and unrealistic and not even expected goal.  No player ever bats .1000 in a career.  Ever.

So the ongoing questions for me in my life is that whenever I make mistakes (and I do, often), whenever I don't live up to my values in even small ways, whenever I try something and make a mess of it, whenever I feel the need to present myself to others as all together, whenever I am tempted not to feel good enough unless I do it all perfectly--whenever I'm faced with these moments, can I still feel a sense of value, acceptance, and okayness and refuse to place my worth in judgment?

A Spirituality of Imperfection

What would happen if we built our view and experience of spirituality on imperfection rather than perfection, that we would stop expecting no mistakes or failures and start expecting errors as a natural part of the game of life?

Would it mean that we would simply compromise away our values?  Would it mean we're simply trying to rationalize and justify our mistakes?  Would it mean that we would be embracing an "anything goes" philosophy, that it wouldn't matter any more if we failed or made mistakes, no matter how many people we hurt along the way?

That's certainly not the way it's worked with me.  Re-establishing my sense of self and building it on the foundation of the reality of imperfection, and learning how to embrace myself in the midst of failure, has in fact increased my value for healing and wholeness, for showing up in the world in ways that elicit deeper trust and joy in others.

But I have done this on the unshakable foundation of self acceptance, not for how successful I am or am not, but for who I am as a child of God---fully loved and deeply accepted as I am, not as I should be.

When I get clear on this truth, I am much more empowered to grow, to take risks on my journey of transformation, knowing that when I step up the plate and strike out or ground out or hit a fly ball and go out, I'm still a perfectly loved and valued person who belongs on the team of life. My place is secure.

That freedom motivates me to be my best, to know who I am in every situation and live it out with confidence and courage, even if I don't do it just right every time.  Because the fear of failure has been removed.  I even allow myself to expect it from myself.

"Errors, of course, are part of the game.  They are part of our truth as human beings.  To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, somehow error-prone.  To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt.  To be human is to embody a paradox, for according to that ancient vision, we are 'less than the gods, more than the beasts, yet somehow also both.'  Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is:  There is no one to 'blame' for our errors--neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else.  Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing."  (The Spirituality of Imperfection:  Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, p. 2)

What this means is that we stop theologizing and religionizing perfection and imperfection.  Instead, we learn to embrace our humanity without negative judgment, simply what is.  And we allow ourselves to go on the journey of life with patience as well as resolve to become more and more whole, while living with our cracks.  And we ramp up our courage to actually admit, "Nobody's perfect.  Neither am I.  And that's okay.  I'm still valued and loved and accepted as I learn to grow and develop into my healthiest self.  I belong on the Team."

If I can do this, I can then step up and, using all of my growing skill and wisdom, boldly and freely swing away.  I can let it rip more often because whether I hit it out of the park or into a fielder's waiting glove I am still loved and deeply accepted in who I am as a valued child of the universe, to myself and to God.  Period.  I'm on the Team.

Next time I'll talk about some of the significant implications of the spirituality of imperfection and building on this unshakeable foundation of Self.  Stay tuned.

Four Ways Spirituality is an Organism

The Power of Sacred Space One of the things I love about coaching is the opportunity to give people valuable space in time to think deeply about themselves and their lives, to reflect and evaluate and consider how life is going for them.  I find in every conversation that the person, given this intentional time for themselves, relishes the conversation and deeply values the privilege of having their lives witnessed by a trusted other.  After all, how often do we experience the affirmation and validation of being witnessed by someone else in a spirit of honor, respect, and caring?

I find this to be greatly true for myself.  For the last sixteen years I've had regular (almost weekly) conversations with my prayer partner and wonderful friend Paul.  In every phone call or at times in person when see each other, we listen deeply to each other as each one talks about what matters most these days.  There's incredible empowerment in having someone who cares bear witness to your life and express support, acceptance, and validation, including questions that stretch each other and clarify the struggles, questions, and life issues we're facing.

Life is Dynamic

Life is a dynamic organism.  It's not static or staid or one dimensional.  Life grows, morphs, evolves, changes, moves, stretches, transitions in multiple ways and directions.  As people we change and grow and develop.

Spirituality is no different.  In a book I'm reading, that's exactly the way the author, Dr. David Benner, describes it:

"Any genuinely soulful or healthy spirituality cannot simply be adopted from your family or acquired from your community or culture. It must arise as a personal response to your deepest longings and help you make sense of your actual life experiences. It will, therefore, be dynamic--evolving and changing. To turn it into something rigid and fixed is always to render it soulless, for that which is no longer evolving is either devolving or dead."  Soulful Spirituality, pp. 76-77.

Spirituality is an Organism that Living or Dying

Spirituality is an organism, too.  It's dynamic and evolving.  That's because spirituality is at the heart of what it means to be fully human (as Christian theology states, we're made in the image of God--so to center in that image is to step fully into our God-created humanity).  And since we humans change and morph and grow and evolve, so must our spirituality.

Which is why I'm more and more recognizing the absolute importance of carving out intentional time to do reflecting and evaluating of our spiritual lives and journeys.  It's far to easy for people to simply float along, staying in a default mode of habit and routine, never thinking about how it's going or where it needs to go or even how to grow more deeply and spiritually.

The Pitfall of Autopilot

For those of us who are attached to a regular church experience, this is a particular pitfall.  We never really evaluate our spiritual lives because we think that simply going to church as often as we do is enough.  We might engage in a few spiritual practices like prayer (at least at meals or bedtime).  But we never stop to reflect and evaluate:  am I growing more fully human, becoming a person of greater love and compassion? Am I showing up in my life with more confidence and contentment?  Am I manifesting more regularly the attributes of the highest and strongest form of life (Christian theology:  the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control)?  What is working in our spiritual lives and what isn't?  What is meaningful and empowering us to live with greater purpose, and what isn't?  Where are we in the stages of faith and spirituality?  What kind of spirituality fits us in the stage we're in?  How can we continue developing into the higher stages of spiritual growth?

As Dr. Benner reminds us, we can't simply inherit our spirituality from our family or community or culture.  It doesn't work that way!  The very nature of the spiritual life is that it comes from the deepest place inside each of us where God meets us and whispers to us and speaks truth to our souls and hearts.  If we're simply too busy and preoccupied to listen or hear those whispers, then we too easily remain on autopilot, thinking that we're doing all we need to do.

But truth is, we are either evolving and growing and transforming spiritually, or we're dying, and we'll ultimately pay the price in lack of meaningful living.

Just like plants have to be watered and nurtured to keep growing or they wilt and eventually die, so does our spiritual and personal life.  Development and growth must be carefully nurtured and intentionally paid attention to.

Spiritual Retreats

This is why I feel so passionate about offering spiritual retreats--a day and a half of sacred space and time for people to reflect upon and think deeply about life and the spiritual journey.  There's no substitute for it.

Here's a short video I made today about what I'm doing and why I'm doing this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRNME0Fp2Z4&w=560&h=315]

I want to invite you to seriously consider this opportunity.  Two locations:  Walla Walla, WA (March 22-23) and San Francisco, CA (April 5-6).  Click on either name to go to the web site for more details and registration information, including the significant Early Bird discounts available until March 10.

Spiritual Trapeze Artists: The Journey of Becoming

I remember when my kids were small taking them to a Ringling Bros. circus.  It was so much fun watching them be awed by all the commotion--roaring tigers, trumpeting elephants, fancy-suited bareback riders, brightly colored shouting clowns, comedic acrobats, ball and plate jugglers, jaw-dropping sword and fire swallowers.  And then the most dramatic of all--even I was looking forward to this act--the high-flying trapeze artists! There was always that moment (the one everyone goes to the circus for)--that moment of uncertainty and fear--when you could hear the collective breath being sucked in as the trapeze artist made one final swing and then let go of the bar.  We watched almost breathlessly as that woman soared through the air, wondering whether or not she would make it to the other bar at precisely the right time or whether she would fall precipitously to the net below.  What a collective sigh of relief that erupted into deafening applause when, sailing through that no-man's land of midair, she grabbed a hold of the opposite bar, swinging brilliantly and majestically up to the platform in the sky on the other side of the huge tent.

My kids were truly in awe.  I loved watching the expression of relief and delight on their faces.  I had the same look on mine.

Spirituality is a Journey of Becoming

Spirituality is essentially the journey of becoming.  In Christian terms we might speak of this as becoming our true self in God, becoming like Jesus, or merging and aligning our selves with the divine image in us.  In other spiritual traditions this concept is often presented in terms of becoming enlightened, awakening to what's true and highest, or becoming one with all that is.  In psychological language it is framed as becoming increasingly integrated, becoming free, or becoming all we can be, more whole and true to who we really are, more fully human and alive.

Early church father St. Irenaeus once wrote, "Man fully alive is the glory of God."

So the spiritual journey is about the process of becoming more fully human, more alive, more whole.  The two words "journey" and "becoming" signify two central elements of spirituality.  Both terms denote movement, dynamic process, stages of development.

And the reality is that the fulfillment of our God-given humanity doesn't happen automatically.  If it did, then the older people became, the more years they lived, the more fully developed and mature and whole they would be.  But we all know that isn't a given.  The becoming of spirituality is necessarily an intentional path.  It takes work, attention, practice, and persistence.

Spiritual Trapeze Artists

And this is where the trapeze metaphor comes in.  As in life, also in spirituality, every path has transition points.  So spirituality is a journey of learning the art of navigating transitions:  how and what to let go of, how to steer through the no man's zone of uncertainty before the new unfolds, and grabbing a hold of the new.  If we can't master these stages of transitions, our becoming is stunted.

That's exactly what happens when any one of the stages of metamorphosis for the butterfly is interrupted or messed with.  The egg becomes a larvae (a caterpillar which molts its skin 5-6 times) which becomes a pupa (during which it completely disintegrates in order to form a whole new body) which finally emerges in a rather violent and painful-looking process to become a beautiful adult butterfly with wings.  Tamper with any one of those transitions of becoming and the butterfly ultimately dies.

Developing healthy and effective spiritual lives are dependent upon our ability to navigate well the many transitions along the path of life.  Unfortunately, many people are living stunted spiritual lives because they get stuck in one of the stages of transition--locked up, paralyzed.

The Danger of Stunted Spirituality

I have conversations often with people who are experiencing this spiritual stalemate.

Some have allowed themselves to see this stuck place as their new normal.  They simply live with it, even though they're feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and a bit stale (when they're willing to look inside and admit what they're feeling).

Others are paralyzed by fear--fear of the unknown they see coming if they should let go of the bar and fly through the "neutral zone"; fear of conflict with others should they keep moving ahead spiritually which might lead to rejection or ridicule or other negative judgments by people; fear of disequilibrium, losing their balance and sense of normal; fear of giving up control over every aspect of their lives; fear of sliding backwards, losing ground, and feeling like a spiritual failure.  The list of fears I hear from people goes on and on.

But the truth is, the egg-larva-pupa never become the soaring butterfly without going through each stage successfully and willingly.

We have to face our fears.  We have to confront our sense of inadequacies.  We have to look our weaknesses squarely in the face.  We have to be willing to let go of that which is no longer serving us.  We have to face uncertainty and manage a sense of insecurity at times.  We have to dream of the new, envisioning what could be and who we could become more of, who we truly are.  And we have to chart a path for this becoming.  We have to want to be more fully alive.

"Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life"

These are some of the reasons why I am having my cycle of three retreats called "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."  Each retreat is centered on each of the three stages of spiritual transitions:  letting go (Winter), uncertainty and planting seeds (Spring), and harvesting and undergirding the new (Fall).  Participants will be guided through each of these stages in ways that honor who each person is and what it means to each one to become more fully human and alive.

And since this process of spiritual transition is challenging and sometimes difficult and anxious and uncertain, we're going on this journey in community with others who are hungering for a transformational spirituality, too.  We are not alone!  And we can reap the rewards of joy and greater contentment and empowerment with others.

I invite you to participate in this round which begins January 25-26.  There are four spots left.  Here is the link to more information and registration:  "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."

I Dare You to Trapeze!

My wife and I were walking on the Santa Monica Pier a few years ago when we came across a place where people were being given lessons on trapezing.  We stopped and watched.  A woman was doing a courageous job of trying to go from one swing to the other.  Bless her heart!  She encountered one fall after another.  I was glad there was a huge net below to catch her every time she fell.  But to her credit, and to our admiration, she kept trying.  Her instructor kept guiding her, giving suggestions, helping her.  And she kept trying.  I wasn't sure how long we wanted to stay.  But just about when we turned to leave, she swung way out on the right trajectory, let go of the bar, sailed through the air, and caught the next bar.  Grabbing tightly, she swung herself up to the next platform, beaming from ear to ear.  She had a look of extreme delight, satisfaction, and pure joy!  She made it ... and made it well!

That's what I wish for you and me on our spiritual journeys of becoming more human and fully alive.  Navigating our transitions will bring us the same exhilaration and satisfaction, too!  We just need to hang in there and keep going for it.  The egg-larva-pupa will become a butterfly.  You and I will become more deeply and fully ourselves in God's image.  So why not!

The Laws of Subtraction--Inserting Space Between the Notes of Your Life

When I went shopping last week for my wife's Christmas gift, I realized something important about me (and, it turns out, about a lot of us).  I walked into one clothing store and was immediately assaulted by the endless racks of clothes--they're hanging on the walls, standing on the floors, piles everywhere.  The picture on the right is what I see when I walk into any clothing store!

The way clothing stores are being set up these days, it reminds me of airplanes--more and more seats with less and less leg room and aisle width.  I stood there for a few moments glancing around the massive store with its seemingly infinite variety--and to be honest, I got overwhelmed.  Too many choices.  I just didn't have enough head space and bandwidth, not to mention patience, to start rummaging through every rack.  I didn't even know exactly what I was looking for, which made the variety of choices even more paralyzing.

So as a shopper in those moments, I always resort to the easy way:  looking for the mannequins--I have to see complete outfits.  As a visual person, mannequins are my best friends in navigating so many choices.  So I walked around surveying all of the mannequins and never saw anything I liked.  I left.

I went into a smaller store in the mall, and in a few minutes, I saw a complete outfit hanging out in plain view, and I liked it.  Very much.  And 40% off helped make the decision easier.  In a matter of minutes I was standing in the check out line, excited with my purchase and hardly able to wait Christmas Eve for my wife to try it all on.

We live in an age of excess and choice--an overabundance of both.  And spirituality isn't immune from this challenge.  There are so many options available to explore.  We're inundated with books, DVDs, CDs, seminars and workshops, religious organizations trumpeting their truths, nonprofits vying for our attention to support their good causes, all describing different ways of believing, thinking, and acting.  Our temptation is to either ignore all of these options (we're too overwhelmed, not enough bandwidth to consider everything) or to simply keep adding to our lives--after all, it's all good, right?  We can never have too much good in our lives, can we?

But the truth is, we cannot live our lives based only on the law of addition.  Effective spirituality is as much about subtraction as it is about addition.

In his book The Laws of Subtraction, author Matthew E. May makes the observation that "at the heart of every difficult decision lie three tough choices:  What to purse versus what to ignore.  What to leave in versus what to leave out.  What to do versus what to don't.  I have discovered that if you focus on the second half of each choice--what to ignore, what to leave out, what to don't--the decision becomes exponentially easier and simpler...This is the art of subtraction:  when you remove just the right thing in just the right way, something good usually happens."  (p. xii)

I think he's dead on!  All spiritual traditions consequently emphasize this significant principle and provide practices and ways to learn this art of subtraction.  The season of winter is often used as a time to reflect on this second half of the equation:  What do I need to let go of in my life?  What isn't serving me any more that I should release?  What do I need to de-clutter in order to make room for the new?  What am I holding on to too tightly that might be keeping me from spiritual growth and renewal?

We were not created with infinite head space or bandwidth.  We cannot be healthy spiritually or otherwise if we only live by the laws of addition or even attraction.  We are called to take the counter-intuitive approach from time to time to learn the art of subtraction.

So what space are you creating in your life to have this intentional reflection and self-evaluation?  The new year is a perfect time for this experience.

For these reasons, I have developed a cycle of three weekend retreats for 2013, starting January 25-26, to carve out this significant personal space for these reflections.  This first of the three weekends will be stepping into the law of subtraction.  Winter.  Letting go.  De-cluttering.  Making room for the new.  Healthy spirituality necessitates spiritual subtraction.

I invite you to consider participating in these retreats starting next month.  Here is the link for the details.  Feel free to pass it along to friends and family.  https://www.gregorypnelson.com/Retreats.php.  The deadline for the early bird discount is in 48 hours, and it's limited to just 20 people, so check it out soon.  I would love to have you experience this transformational journey.

One of my favorite classical composers is Claude Debussy.  I still enjoy playing "Claire de Lune" on the piano.  Debussy once wrote, "Music is the space between the notes."

If you know his music, you know that he is a master at spacing--intervals--when no sound exists--even if only briefly.  That silence and space between the notes serve to enhance the musicality and power of the notes.  Imagine listening to a pianist or vocalist (or even speaker, for that matter--I've endured too many of them) who never stops--they play/sing/speak incessantly--with no breaks--no silence--no pause.  How do you feel or react?  It's simply exhausting, isn't it?  Overwhelming.  Easy to ignore and tune out.  Our bandwidth gets used up before they're even done so we check out.  Effective composing is not just adding more notes to be played without rest or pause.  It's learning how to subtract strategically, thoughtfully, emotionally.

I encourage you as you face a new year to give yourself the profound and transforming gift of subtraction.  Carve out sacred space to reflect on what needs to be let go of, ignored, left out in your life.  Create more space between the notes of your life.  Engage in this difficult, counter-intuitive, but I guarantee you, rewarding work of making room for what is yet to come.

Dr. May has it right:  When you remove just the right things in just the right way, something good always happens."

Hurricane Sandy and Tribalism: How Crisis Impacts Our Sense of Humanity

Hurricane Sandy and Two Symbols The tragedy this week unfolding on the Eastern seaboard of our country has been heart-rending. Not only the property destruction but the human devastation is mindblowing (79 deaths so far, and an estimated $50 billion of cost).  Clearly this has been a storm of epic proportions.

In the midst of this tragedy, there has also been a shining light--a very bright light, my opinion.  Watching the news yesterday and seeing New Jersey Governor Christy and President Obama working so closely together, praising and thanking each other for significant leadership in providing meaningful assistance on multiple levels, was heartwarming.

Here are two powerful symbols of contrast in this country--political opponents in every way--idealogues on opposite poles--both having criticized the other during the political campaigns--Gov. Christy being one of the outspoken surrocates for Mitt Romney, and President Obama running against Romney on almost everything.  And yet, in spite of these profound differences that have manifested at times in vitriolic political spewing, these two men have come together, worked together, embraced a similar vision and goal, and untiringly are working to stem the chaos and bring restoration and peace to that region.  And deeply affirming each other in the process.

And then to hear the stories of neighbors and community people immediately reaching out to each other, working hard to help save and restore lives--cleaning up the mess from flooding and wind damage, giving food and blankets and clothing, inviting people into their homes for shelter and safety.  And thousands across the country have been donating money and blood to the Red Cross.  No one goes through a "What Do We Agree On" checklist to decide whether or not they should help these people--if there are too many disagreements then no help can be given.  That would be ridiculous!  We'd actually label that "inhumane."  [Note:  It's tragic that so many congregations use this approach when deciding to accept or include some people, like gays, into their churches.  They would never do this during a natural disaster.  But when a crisis of spirituality and faith occurs, they exclude rather than include based on their check list.  What a lesson here!]

There's something about crisis that has the potential of bringing people, even political foes, together.  People are willing to move beyond their deep and profound differences for the sake of a common need.  It's powerful to witness, isn't it.

The Potential of Crisis

All of this has me thinking, why is it that crisis brings people together so often but then when the crisis is over everyone goes back to allowing their differences to create deep, unbridgeable chasms between them?  During crisis we can somehow look at the Other differently than after the crisis?  We see more in common than different during than after?  The fact that crisis brings people together shows that it is humanly possible to work and live together even in the midst of deep differences and disagreements.

What allows this to happen?  Here's one of the reasons.  Crisis causes a re-recognition of common humanity.  We suddenly realize that we're all connected in the most basic, fundamental way:  we are human beings living on one planet facing similar challenges, and so we sense a renewed responsibility for each other.  We are compelled to put our differences beneath our desire reach out to one another in restorative ways.

Typical tribalism shifts during these crisis times.  Instead of focusing first and foremost on our smaller, more immediate tribe (like our nationalism, our political affiliation, our religious belief, our local neighborhood and community, our biological family, and so forth), we are brought to the awareness that our first and most significant tribal affiliation is actually humanity--we are human beings living on the same planet with the responsibility of caring for each other.  We become much more global in these moments.  We prioritize our tribalism more globally.

And what is the result?  People come together, pull together, work together, in order to bring restoration, transformation, and a new normal into their damaged world.  Do they throw out their disagreements and start believing everything similarly?  No.  Do they deny their differences?  No.  But their common humanity takes precedence.  And so they serve each other no matter the odds and difficulties.  And the sense of community that is established is transformational.

A Parallel to Stages of Faith

On a spiritual level, this parallels the stages of faith, the process people go through in spiritual development and how they manifest their spirituality in different stages.  Of the four stages, stage two is the formal, institutional, fundamental worldview.  This is where most people tend to live.  There is a need for structure, certainty, organization--all of this serves to delineate faith and life, to carve out boundaries to help us understand the complexities; all of which help to bring a sense of security to the chaos of life.  So in stage two there is an emphasis on what separates us--our disagreements and differences, a tendency toward an "us" versus "them," an inside and an outside.  This is how we develop a certain basic spiritual identity.

So stage two people can become very threatened by those who believe differently.  And the fundamentalist outcome of this stage is to actually fight against those who are different in order to minimize the insecurity of identity we might be feeling.

Stage four faith is known as the mystical, communal worldview.  Dr. Scott Peck, in his book The Different Drum, describes it this way:  "This awareness leads to a deeper appreciation of the whole, the ability to love and embrace a world community by transcending individual culture and religion and other dividing lines that tend to separate people.  There’s a growing appreciation for the connectedness of all humanity with each other and with God and the awareness that God communicates to all people in equally unique and special ways that are communicated by means of symbols and metaphors and then lived out in meaningful practices and rituals."

So it's fascinating to me, as I watch events like Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, how people respond to crisis.  On a spiritual level, people seem to move very quickly from a stage two kind of faith to a stage four faith.  In fact, experts tell us that we typically can only move from one spiritual stage to another as a result of crisis.  Without crisis to shake up our little worlds, we tend to be too comfortable to move forward.  Crisis suddenly upsets our spiritual equilibrium.  It often causes us to question our fundamental beliefs.  During and after crisis, we discover that the traditional spiritual answers seem too cliche and non-meaningful (like "God will protect you if you just believe in Him," or "This must be God's will," or "God is punishing the East because of gays," etc.--the point is that for people going through this crisis, those answers hold no meaning anymore, even those who held those beliefs cannot explain their current tragedies adequately through those cliche lens).  They don't seem to work anymore.

That whole series of thoughts and questions is actually a definition of stage three faith.  Says Dr. Peck:  "[These people] have gotten to a stage where the clearly defined paradigms and answers to questions given in stage two no longer satisfy and raise more doubts than can be satisfactorily answered.  They’re beginning to see that life is not as black and white as stage two thinks it is.  So they embark on a journey of dispensing with the orthodox, deconstructing previous beliefs, weighing everything by the scientific method, in order to search for 'truth' wherever it might lead."

So crisis has the ability to laser focus our lives quickly onto that which is most important.  And as I have seen in this week's tragedy, people almost automatically shift their worldview away from small tribalism to global connection.  And they can live and act this way in deeply satisfying ways to help mitigate the painful results of such tragedies.  And the result is that people are profoundly blessed and saved and empowered to keep on living and surviving and moving toward thriving again.

From t-ribalism to T-ribalism

I think this reality is hugely informative to us.  This week we've been reminded how important it is to live in a stage four kind of worldview (which I think is a deeply spiritual issue).  We've been shown how quickly we can get there.  Crisis motivates us and empowers us to almost immediately go global in our life lens.  We lay aside our more local tribalisms (the profound differences and disagreements between our politics, religion, family, community, even nationalisms) in order to step into our global tribe--the lens that reminds us we are first and foremost a part of one human family, all connected to each other, children of God no matter who we are.

We don't deny all our differences.  We don't compromise our beliefs.  We don't forget our smaller tribal identities.  Those are all still a part of each of us.  But we subsume them to a higher identity, a wider connection, a more fundamental relationship that is truly divine:  we are all children of God, family, intimately and eternally connected, heart to heart, body to body, soul to soul.  We have a divine responsibility to honor these connections to each other whenever and wherever we are.  We are called by God to be faithful stewards of our global human relationship.

This week our country has given evidence of this spiritual reality.  Thank you Gov. Christy and President Obama for being positive symbols of a faith that embraces our one human tribe.  Now may the rest of us manifest this stage of spiritual faith in our every day lives, within the circles we move and live--our congregations, temples, mosques, businesses, families, organizations.  Imagine what life could be like if we all pulled together (even in the midst of our disagreements and differences) and truly acted as one human family under God, brothers and sisters forever.

The Roar of Awakening: Are You Clear About Who You Are?

The Tiger/Goat Once upon a time* there was a tigress who was about to give birth. One day when she was out hunting she came upon a herd of goats. She gave chase, and even in her condition, managed to kill one of them, but the stress of the chase forced her into labor, and she died as she gave birth to a male cub. The goats, who had run away, returned when they sensed that the danger was over. Approaching the dead tigress, they discovered the newborn cub and adopted him into their herd.

The tiger cub grew up among the goats believing he, too, was a goat. He bleated as well as he could, he smelled like a goat, and ate only vegetation; in every respect he behaved like a goat. Yet within him beat the heart of a tiger.

All went well until the day that an older tiger approached the goat herd and attacked and killed one of the goats. The rest of the goats ran away as soon as they saw the old tiger, but our tiger/goat saw no reason to run away, of course, as he sensed no danger. The old tiger did not know what to make of this full-grown tiger who smelled like a goat, bleated like a goat, and in every other way acted like a goat. Not particularly sympathetic, the old tiger grabbed the young one by the scruff of the neck, dragged him to a nearby creek, and showed him his reflection in the water. But the young one was unimpressed with his own reflection; it meant nothing to him and he failed to see his similarity to the old tiger.

Frustrated by his lack of comprehension, the old tiger dragged the young one back to the place where he had made his kill. There he ripped a piece of meat from the dead goat and shoved it into the mouth of our young friend.

We can well imagine the young tiger’s shock and consternation. At first he gagged and tried spitting out the raw flesh, but the old tiger was determined to show the young one who he was, so he made sure the cub swallowed this new food, and this time there was a change.

Our young tiger now allowed himself to taste the raw flesh and the warm blood, and he ate this piece with gusto. When he finished chewing, the young tiger stretched, and then for the first time in his young life, he let out a powerful roar--the roar of a jungle cat. Then the two tigers disappeared together into the forest.

The young tiger’s roar is called the “roar of awakening."  This “roar of awakening” is the discovery that we are more than we think we are. It is the discovery that we have taken on identities that incorrectly or inadequately express our essential being. It is as though we awaken from the dream, look around, and become aware of a totally different reality.

* excerpted and adapted from the prologue of Embracing Ourselves, by Drs. Hal & Sidra Stone (1989)

Spirituality and Identity

Every major spiritual tradition has at the heart of its spirituality the process of coming to know your true self, who you really are, your divinely given identity.  I'm inspired in Jesus' story how many times God "roars" from heaven to affirm his true identity:  "You are my son, the one I love.  I'm so proud of you."

And in one of the more poignant vignettes, Jesus looks at his disciples and asks them an identity question:  "Who are people saying I am?"  And then driving it closer to home, "Who do you say I am?"

It's the "roar of awakening" to this truth about ourselves that empowers us to live like the tigers we are (not the goats we think we are).  When we're confused or in the dark about our spiritual identity, we get stuck, we live in the shadows of our truth, and false selves rise up to control us.  We become insecure, uncertain, anxious, fearful, allowing other people and circumstances to control our sense of value and worth and direction.  Our roaring turns to bleating.

In contrast, when you know who you are, you have an internal confidence and courage to live with deep compassion even when it looks like weakness.

Jesus' Radical Example

Jesus reveals this self-assurance and engages in his most radical and unselfish act in the upper room the night before he's executed:

³ "Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. ⁴ So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, ⁵ and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him."  (John 13)

Jesus lives in perfect alignment with his essence, his identity as Son of God.  He's completely clear about who he is, why he's here, and where he's going.  So he acts again and again in courage and boldness, even in the face of tremendous opposition which ultimately leads to his execution.

In the next few blogs, I'm going to talk about how we get back our "roar of awakening."  What tends to keep us from seeing ourselves as the tigers we are and instead thinking we're goats?  How can we wake up to our truth, to God's truth about us?  And how does that truth empower us to live boldly?  Stay tuned.

A Year of Awakening the Roar

What do you say you and I make the year 2012 "the Roar of Awakening."  Let's choose to step into all the power of our true essence not just some of it.  Let's do whatever it takes to clear away the obstacles keeping us from being our Truth.  Like Jesus, let's be so clear on who we are that we are radically empowered to live a world-transforming compassion.  Because that's who we really are!  It's time to awaken our roar!

The Advent Story and The Two Sides of Divine Spirituality

The Popular Side of Divine Spirituality This is the time of year I tend to love studying the Best Buy ads, the Apple Store manifestos, the Amazon, GroupOn, Living Social deals piling up in my Inbox.  There's simply so much I'd love to have that I know would make my life more effective and efficient and enjoyable.  Right?

After all, this is the season especially synonymous with abundance, even extravagance. It's what we like about Christmas--the picture of God giving the most extravagant Gift possible in the form of the divine son of God. Heaven poured out the very best and highest priced offering to the human race. God held nothing back--the sign of immeasurable love and compassion.

So at Christmastime, we take our cues from that Sacred modeling and give valuable gifts to those we love. We break open our piggy banks and spend to show our love.

And of course Madison Avenue, with it's own extravagant advertising budgets, continually reminds us that abundance is the order of the day--and naturally they have just what we need to buy from them to give evidence of our extravagant love to our friends and families. This time of year pays homage to this multiple-billion dollar industry and its success.

But ironically, there is an equally significant dimension to the Advent story that often gets ignored or downplayed. For sure Madison Avenue doesn't want this concept trumpeted this time of year. Yet this dimension is also at the epicenter of true spirituality and an accurate picture of what God values.

It first appears in the Advent story in the personage and the place God chooses for the Royal Divine Son to be born. Of all the "qualified" people on planet earth to be chosen as the surrogate parents for God's Son, God chooses a very young, humble, uneducated, poor teenage girl and an equally humble, peasant class working man who lives off the sweat of his brow to provide for his family.

And of all the birthing sites available on earth for this divine Son to make his grand entrance, God chooses a dank, dark cave where the farm animals are kept. Even Motel 6 is bypassed.

What's up with these divine choices? Is there a message and modeling of godly spirituality here? What's this other side of the "extravagance" coin for God?

The Less Popular Side of Divine Spirituality

This part of the Incarnation story hints at a word that we don't always associate with spirituality much less this time of year: frugality. Now this is an intriguing word in this context. But don't be fooled--this is not describing an attitude and approach similar to the miserly Scrooge in the other Christmas story who goes around grunting, "Bah, humbug!" as he pinches his pennies, refusing to give any more than he absolutely has to.

No. According to one author, "Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits." (Burke). Frugality is simply stewarding the resources we have in a way that acknowledges their limits. "You can't buy happiness is" one of the adages stemming from this paradigm.

I'm challenged by the way Elise Boulding puts it: "Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things."

Jesus' Countercultural Model

Jesus gets conceived by a poor, simple couple and birthed in a starkly frugal environment. For his early years he lives as an immigrant and refugee with his parents in Egypt. He's home schooled by his mother. He ends up taking over his dad's simple business as a carpenter and stone mason. And then when he finally begins his ministry-calling as an itinerant rabbi/preacher he doesn't even have a home to call his own, choosing to live with others along the paths of his travels.

Jesus' lifestyle wouldn't exactly be described today as extravagant by any means. He grew up in the midst of a profound frugality so he never developed an attitude of entitlement. He learned the happiness of not having things.

He was never encumbered by possessions--so much so that the only thing he ever really owned was a garment that was the most valuable thing the soldiers could find of his to roll the dice and bet each other for as he hung dying on the cross at the end of his life.  No physical assets other than the clothes on his back to include in a will after he died.

And yet he was happy as a human being. He laughed with his friends. He went to parties. Children loved being around him--which they don't tend to do with Scrooges. He sang songs, told stories, worked miracles. He found his greatest joy in surprising people with love and grace.

Frugality. He manifested it in a profound way by showing that riches have their limits and by teaching the happiness of not having things but choosing to live extravagantly in giving love to others.

Pay Attention To Both Sides of the Divine Coin

It's so easy to get seduced by the popular paradigms of our culture--that happiness comes most from what we possess, from an increase in our physical assets, from the gadgets and toys we have, the nice clothes we can wear.  This time of year we long for what so many advertisers hold in front of our eyes as those tools to possessing a better life.

But perhaps this Advent Season I would do well to remember both sides of the spirituality coin--not just extravagance but also frugality--the willingness to live life with an open hand, not grasping at things to hoard but giving and letting go, moving from a physical assets mentality to a relational assets mindset.  This is, like Jesus modeled, a very countercultural way to live. I'm learning that spiritual transformation and effectiveness involve both divine values, extravagance and frugality.

Spirituality and Focus: Are You A Fox Or A Hedgehog?

"What the country needs right now is a good hedgehog."  So begins Wednesday's insightful editorial by Arianna Huffington ("Why America Is Deeply in Need of a Good Hedgehog").  Which begs the question:  what is a hedgehog and why do we need one? Fox Or Hedgehog?

She references Isaiah Berlin, well-known British philosopher, who in 1953 laid out two opposing styles of leadership--foxes and hedgehogs--taking his cue from a line in an ancient Greek poem by Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

She notes:  "According to Berlin, the fox will 'pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way.' In contrast, the hedgehog offers an 'unchanging, all embracing... unitary inner vision.'"  The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

The Power of Focus

So why is this an important quality?  There's something very powerful about focus.  Recent brain science tells us that focus and attention on something you believe is possible actually prompt the brain to begin charting a path, called a motor map, toward the realization of that goal.  The brain acts on the power of your focus and begins setting into place (creating) what you imagine.  From your focus, it actually determines the best route that will take you to your goal.

Cultural Habits Work Against Us

So with this built-in tool to help us, why is it so difficult?  We live in a culture that demands our attention every time we turn around.  And we've given it 24/7 access to us through our smartphones, computers, iPads, laptops, radio, TV.  I notice that when I'm working on my computer, even though I'm deeply focused on the screen with what I'm doing, my eyes wander to the 20 other tabs I have open in my browser.  And before I know it, I'm browsing the latest news in those tabs.  Or I hear a text come to my iPhone so I immediately look at it.  Focus gone.  Attention lost.  And when I return to my document, I have to read again what I've already written in order to get back into focus.  Time lost.

Comparing Hedgehogs and Foxes

The power of the hedgehog is its focus on the one big thing important to it.  It drills down without distraction or dilution.  It focuses on what it knows it does best and does it again and again.

The fox is all over the place, going really fast here and there.  It's very busy and active--it has a million different ideas, scampering from one to the other.  It might look to an outside observer that it's sure getting 'er done and being really successful.

But busyness isn't synonymous with effectiveness.  Activity, activating, don't necessarily mean productively purposeful or purposefully productive.

So whenever the fox wants to grab the hedgehog for its next meal, attempting its million different strategies for stealth attacks, the hedgehog simply rolls into a spiky ball.  And the fox ends up the loser every time.

So what is that one big important thing to you?  What do you live for?  What do you work for?  What are you in relationships for?  Is there a common thread in those life areas that would help define your "one big important" thing?  What are you truly focused on?  What holds your attention?  What do you know you're better at than anything else?  What one thing do you wish you could do more than all others?  Answering those questions will help to identify your hedgehog.

Hedgehog Spirituality

All spiritual traditions through the centuries have reminded us that effective spirituality is about developing focus and attention.  You could call it Hedgehog Spirituality.

I'm reminded of one of the successful spiritual luminaries in the Bible who delivered a very hedgehog-like statement:  "¹³ I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."  (Philippians 3)

St. Paul expresses a very hedgehogian perspective.  "I focus on this one thing."  Remember, the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.  And St. Paul is choosing to stay focused on his one thing.

And to do this hedgehog-like experience, notice what he has to include:  forgetting the past, and pressing on to the end goal.  That's the power of focus.

Brain scientists tells us that when we focus on one thing thing (especially inspirational, positive things like hope, allowing our imaginations to hold it and savor it), our brains immediately go to work establishing neural pathways that short circuit our tendency to fear which as St. Paul describes it can keep us anchored in the past.  That positive focus engages our brain centers in charge of activating our behaviors to achieve that focus goal.  As St. Paul said in another place, "By beholding, we become changed."

St. Paul's choice to focus and give powerful attention empowers him to stay pressing on, even when the going gets rough and tough and discouraging.  Giving focus to our One Big Thing activates our brain to keep us pushing forward.

Runners all know that when you're running a fast race like the 100 yard dash you have to keep your face pointed forward.  Otherwise, the moment you look around or sneak a glance sideways or backwards, your body loses speed, easing up even a tiny bit.  And that tiny bit can cost you the win.

Notice the three runners in the picture at the right.  Where are they focusing?  Keep your focus forward.

St. Paul's Hedgehog

I'm inspired by St. Paul's One Big Thing--that which he kept his eyes upon, what he allowed his mind to savor and attend to.  God through Jesus Christ.  A few verses before this, Paul refers to the faithfulness of God.  Paul is motivated, his life propelled forward, by his focus on a God revealed through Jesus who is faithful, who loves him without condition, who breathes life and soul into his spirit freely and abundantly, who has a prize waiting for him at the end of his race whether he comes in first or last.  Faithfulness, compassion, relentless tenderness--the big L, Love.

Your Hedgehog

Imagine living your entire life with your One Big Thing as Love, the divine kind of love.  Imagine how that focus and attention would empower you to show up every where you go in Love--showing up at work in Love, showing up at home in Love, showing up at the grocery store in Love, showing up in your relationships in Love, showing up in your conflicts in Love, showing up in our world of need in Love.

What would it take to make Love your One Big Thing, your hedgehog, the one thing you do better than anything else, the one thing you are keeping your face forward focusing on, leaning into, savoring?  And then imagine receiving that heavenly reward from the hands of a God who has been there beside you every step of the way.

What the world needs right now is a good hedgehog!

Spirituality Is About Awakening To Your Identity

Sleepwalking Did you see this Coca Cola commercial that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl?  It's titled "Sleepwalking."

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkHA2pf1gvc]

Have you ever sleepwalked?  Maybe not literally—but perhaps you weren’t fully present in a situation or time of your life?

I remember years ago when my kids were very young visiting San Francisco and staying one night in a motel right down town.  We were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the door being opened.  I looked up to see my daughter trying to pull the door open but the chain was keeping it from opening all the way.  I called to her but she didn't respond.  I got up and pulled her from the door--still no response.  She was sleepwalking.  And I my heart started pounding with fear at the thought of what could have happened had she been able to open the door and sleepwalk outside!

There are two sides of the same coin of sleepwalking:  the potential of danger (the guy in the commercial walked through all kinds of situations with dangerous animals and didn’t even know it) and missing out on life (he was missing the beauty of the African Savannah).  Both sides of the coin are sad and unnecessary.

Sleepwalking is a metaphor that mirrors so much of what happens in our culture.  We are constantly being bombarded by ideas and concepts that burrow themselves into our brains and result in thought patterns, narratives, and stories we end up telling ourselves and then subconsciously acting upon.  Right?  Those paradigms and stories end up becoming second nature with us to the point of not even evaluating them anymore.  We simply drift through life without thought.  Analyze our culture’s evangelism:  wear this, look like this, drive this, act like this, own this, be like this … and if you do, you’ll be happy or powerful or popular or fulfilled or successful.  And the messages are endless of what is being promised to us to make us who we or "they" want us to be.

Ultimately we should be evaluating these messages:  Are they true?  Is this real?  Am I what I wear or possess or accomplish, or is there something more fundamental and foundational and true about who I am?  Or are they illusions, just dreams that I fantasize are true?  Am I asleep or am I awake in this reality?

Awakening

In fact, the concept of dreaming and waking have been used in spiritual traditions for thousands of years as a metaphor for spiritual consciousness and enlightenment. For example, the name “Buddha” translates as “the awakened one."  And what was Buddha awakened to?  He began to see with clarity what the causes of human suffering were.  His awareness led him to develop a path of enlightenment--the way to waking up--to being present in the world in such a way that one sees the truth about self, about others, about life and what it is that brings contentment and happiness.

In the Gnostic “Hymn of the Pearl” from the Acts of Thomas, the son of a King is sent on a mission to retrieve a treasure, but falls asleep and forgets who he is. His father sends a letter to remind him:

“Awake and arise from your sleep,

       and hear the words of our letter.

Remember that you are a son of kings,

       consider the slavery you are serving.”

The spiritual process of waking up is remembering who you are--being clear about your true identity as a son or daughter of royalty.  And then using that identity to measure all other messages and stories we're told by others or ourselves.

Jesus’ name means “Jehovah saves.”  And during his life Jesus was called “The Word”—the revelation of God, God’s voice in human flesh.  God saves us from ourselves by the inception of a new thought and idea lived out in his life—that we belong to God, God loves us with an eternal love no matter what, we are children of the King.  Jesus comes to wake us up to this truth and reality because we tend to sleepwalk and dream, becoming confused into thinking that our dream is reality.  So we’re not as aware and fully present as we could be in this life, always running after the wrong dreams.

It's significant to me that central to Jesus' life mission was the clarity he had of his identity.  God’s voice and message to him were very real--“This is my beloved son; I am pleased and proud of him.”  The Dark Side’s primary goal was to try to call into question that identity and Jesus’ awakened consciousness of it.  The Shadow’s continual temptation was to get Jesus to think his identity was a dream—that he wasn’t who he said he was—to keep him from being fully present.

Unenlightened consciousness is indeed very much like dreaming. Our stories we tell ourselves and others, our personal narratives, are often based upon untruth.  “I am what I wear or do or have or how others think of me.”  “I am my failures or my successes.”

We become entranced with the little details of our lives and the stories unfolding around us. We forget and become unconscious to a larger context around us. We forget our connection to our highest self and become attached to the particulars. Many enlightened teachers have confirmed that the process of enlightenment is like waking up from a deep and not very nice dream.

Our Truth

So the journey of spirituality is the process of waking up to our true reality about who we are.  We are daughters and sons of the King; we are containers of the Divine Presence, covered all over with the Divine Fingerprints on our souls, hearts, minds, and bodies.  We belong to a Higher Power.  We are called to a Higher Purpose.

Truth is, God is continually in us whether we’re awake to it or not.  God is continually working all around whether we’re awake to it or not.  That’s reality.  But how much more effective and transforming our lives become when we awaken to that truth—to be able to embrace it, accept it, know it, see it, be enveloped by it, bathe and bask in it is to really live life fully.

No wonder the Bible says, “As a person thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Our thinking, what we consider to be true and real, radically impacts our lives.

Parker Palmer once wrote:  “Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue.  It means a calling that I hear.  Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

Do you know who you really are?  Are you living the truth about you?  Would you consider yourself a fully awake person?  What tools do you have to help you remember your identity?

Spirituality is about awakening to the truth about who we are, who we belong to.  It’s becoming grounded in the Center of our Being by embracing who we are in God.  And from that grounding and centeredness, we live as awakened, enlightened, aware, fully present people boldly living out our identity as God's children.  We move from sleepwalking to awakening.

The King's Speech and the Importance of Finding Your Voice, Part 1: The Story

My wife and I recently watched the Academy Award-winning "The King's Speech."  It was research for the March series we're doing in our spiritual community Second Wind ("Looking at Life Through the Oscar Stories" in which we're using four of the Oscar-winning movies to  talk about life, spirituality, and transformation).  The King's Speech was one of the most inspiring movies I've seen in a long time.  I laughed, cried, cringed, hoped, committed - all in one movie.  I was pleased that it won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.  Well deserved!  If you haven't seen it yet, by all means do.  The implications from the story are profound. "The King's Speech" tells the story of a man compelled to speak to the world when he doesn’t feel like he’s ever found his voice his entire life – when he feels he doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say and whenever he does say something the words choke in his throat and emerge at times with a stammer.  To face a radio microphone and know the British Empire is listening must be terrifying. At the time of the speech mentioned in this title, a quarter of the Earth's population is in the Empire, and of course much of North America, Europe, Africa and Asia would be listening — and with particular attention, Germany with its charismatic and powerful speech maker Adolf Hitler.

The king is George VI (Colin Firth). The year is 1939. Britain is finally entering into war with Germany. His subjects long for reassurance and hope.  They require firmness, clarity and resolve, not stammers punctuated with tortured silences. This is a man who never wanted to be king. After the death of his father, the throne was to pass to his older brother Edward (Guy Pierce). But Edward ends up renouncing the throne in order to marry the woman he loves. The weight and duty of the royal throne suddenly fall on the lagging shoulders of Prince Albert, Bertie as his family calls him, who has struggled with his self-esteem and speech from an early age.

With England on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, the King’s wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall), the King has to face himself, his insecurities, his lack of confidence, his painful speech impediments, and claim his true voice in order to deliver a radio-address that will need to inspire the people of his empire and unite them in battle.

This is the true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.

As the red light in the King's broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, Lional notices how nervous the King is and  says to him,  "Forget everything else and just say it to me."

Over the next three posts, I'd like to unpack that statement in terms of the process of both finding your individual unique voice and expressing that voice with courage and effectiveness.

Coca Cola And A New Humanity: Drawing Circles Instead of Lines

Did you see this Coca Cola advertisement during the Super Bowl this year? It was definitely one of my favorites! "Coca Cola Border" tells the story of two soldiers from rival nations who are able to put aside their differences and, for the briefest of moments, see each other as individuals as they share an ice-cold bottle of Coke. Check it out. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-STkFCCrus]

The primary intent of the ad obviously is to promote Coke as a great tool to "open happiness" as the ending tag line says. Drink and share Coke to bring people together. I love the sentiment, even though I'm not a super Coke fan.

But the part of the ad that visually depicts the strongest message, in my opinion, is when the one soldier is trying to find a way to give an extra Coke bottle to his thirsty enemy without crossing the boundary between them. It appears that there's just no way to bridge this boundary without violating their national military and political rules and causing an international incident. Until the soldier, in a moment of creative desire to cross the gap, puts the bottle of Coke on the ground next to the boundary, takes his sword and redraws the line to encompass the Coke bottle within his enemy's territory. Mission accomplished. Cokes can now be enjoyed by both parties.

This powerful ad painfully reminds us how real life is filled with many boundaries that separate people, boundaries that keep people afraid of or wary of or angry with others and deprived of mutual blessings. These boundaries produce a kind of "I'm better than you" attitude or "You're not as good as me" belief or "You might contaminate me if I let you into my world" paradigm" or "I need to teach you what I know so you can be as spiritual and holy as I am" philosophy or "Giving to you might diminish me" fear. We draw lots of different kinds of boundaries to make sure the world is easy to define for us - there's an inside and an outside that helps us label people and behaviors and morals. It produces a check list religion so that we can chart our and other people's progress more easily, aids to making quick judgments about ourselves and others, ways to compartmentalize life so we can understand it more clearly.  And so, as the ad depicts, by George, if some of your trash floats into my space, I'm obligated to hurl it right back at you where it belongs!  I don't want your mess messing up my world!

But the sad truth is that living life by drawing clear lines in the sand separates us from others. It often keeps us from sharing what we have with others in life-giving ways. It denies our common humanity.  We can end up spending our whole lives like these two soldiers, walking back and forth beside the boundary between each other, guarding our side and never even acknowledging the other person meaningfully. Their only identity to us is "enemy."

Until one person finally gets the courage to change the "rules." The soldier stops his marching because he's thirsty. He starts drinking his Coke. And then he feels the gaze of the enemy on him, looks up, and notices the expression of extreme thirst and desire on his counterpart's face. So he takes courageous action by finding a way to share what he's enjoying with the Other. How? By drawing new lines that include rather than exclude.

I'm reminded of the powerful poem by Edwin Markham: "He drew a circle that shut me out, Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout; But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in."

True spirituality is about drawing circles of inclusion rather than exclusion. That was Jesus' approach, wasn't it? He courageously chose to confront the religious and political systems of his day by speaking and practicing a radical mission of inclusion into the Kingdom of God. Those who had been deemed "outsiders" (unholy sinners not worthy of equal life within the religious community; the poor and disadvantaged left behind by an empire of power and riches) Jesus deliberately encircled and blessed as special to God. Jesus redrew the lines, broke the accepted rules, turned the pyramid of righteousness upside down, and gave drinks of the water of Life to all who were thirsty.

Paul, the author of many of the books in the Christian testament, codified this radical theology by writing, "Messiah has erased the line that was used to designate insiders and outsiders and made us all one. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody." (Ephesians 2:14-15)

A new kind of humanity where we first and foremost embrace and acknowledge our common humanity with all others.  And then we use our differences to enhance our experience of each other rather than to separate and divide.

So what are the lines and boundaries you tend to use to separate people from your acceptance? What labels for people who are different from you do you use to keep them at a safe distance? Do you have the courage to draw circles instead of lines, circles of inclusion rather than lines of separation?

Sadly, the "Coca Cola Border" ad ends once the soldiers have enjoyed a short Coke reprieve together by the soldiers redrawing the original lines and going on with life as usual.  Jesus calls us to a higher standard of love than that.  After all, once you've had a Coke together, you can't go back to the way it's always been!  We must keep drawing the lines into bigger and bigger circles until everyone is included on the inside.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Freeing the Unique Song in Our Souls

Twentieth century Afrikaner author and political advisor Laurens Van der Post tells the story of two brothers who lived in South Africa.  The older brother was strong, tall, handsome, intelligent, an excellent athlete.  His parents sent him away to an exclusive private school where he soon became an admired leader of the student body. His younger brother, six years younger, was neither good looking nor capable, and was also a hunchback.  But he had one great gift.  He had a magnificent singing voice.

Eventually the younger brother joined the older at the same boarding school.  They were so different from each other no one knew they were related.  One day in a cruel outbreak of mob psychology, a group of students ganged up on the younger brother, started making fun of him, tore off his shirt to reveal his hunchback, and then taunted, jeered and laughed at him.

The older brother, as it turns out, was in the chemistry lab trying to complete an assignment when he heard the commotion outside and went to the window to see what was happening.  He saw the ugly scene with his brother in the middle of the gang being humiliated by those sadistic students.  He made a painful decision – afraid of losing his popularity with the student body, he chose to not go out and face the crowd and acknowledge that the strange hunchback was his brother to put an end to the whole sorry mess.  Staying in the lab and going back to his assignment, he left his brother to the mob and out of fear betrayed him by what he failed to do.

The younger brother was never the same again.  He returned home to his parents’ farm where he kept to himself and refused to sing, his humiliation and embarrassment locking the song in his soul .  After graduating, the older brother became a soldier in WWII, stationed in Palestine where every night his painful betrayal ate away at his heart.

One night, lying outdoors in the middle of Palestine in the midst of the war, and gazing up into the starlit sky, the older brother thought about his younger brother, how defeated and pained he had been when he went back home, and how he had refused to sing again – his heart and soul had been betrayed.  The older brother lay there night after night imagining the pain and suffering of his brother that he had caused.  He began to feel that hurt keenly.  And his heart told him that he would never have peace until he went home and asked his brother’s forgiveness.  And so he made the incredibly difficult, dangerous wartime journey from Palestine to South Africa.

The brothers talked long into the night, the older one confessing his guilt and remorse.  They cried together, embraced, and the breach between them began to heal.

Late that night, after the older brother had fallen asleep, he was startled awake by a sound.  He went to the window, and there out on the open lawn was his brother, face lifted toward the stars, singing again, the beautiful song soaring into the night sky.  An act of compassion had set the song in his younger brother’s soul free again and had unlocked his own soul, too.

Spirituality is the journey of being set free - free to sing the God-given, unique and personalized song that is often trapped in our souls, free to learn how to truly sing that song again unabashedly, shamelessly, courageously, truthfully, authentically.

And what tragic consequences, as the story reminds us, when we live in fear or judgment of others.  The song we have always been meant to sing to the world becomes trapped inside.

It continues to amaze me how much influence you and I have over each other in our journeys, for good or for ill, for freedom or for bondage, for expression or for suppression.  I'm in awe of the power of compassion, forgiveness, acceptance to free our songs.  It impresses me how people in my life have related to me in a way that has empowered me to sing my song in a way that's truly me and in a way that no one else on earth can sing just like me.  It hasn't been their criticism and judgment of me that has set my song free.  It has been their tender compassion, acceptance, and encouragement that have made the difference.  It has been their nonanxious presence to hold space for me in a spirit of unconditional support.  It has been their undying belief in me as a worthy human being and their confidence in my calling and purpose in the world.  These gifts have set my song free again and again.  And I've been empowered to sing with joy, courage, and more and more abandon.  And when I sing my song authentically, others are empowered and emboldened to sing their song, too.  The cycle of life.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Extending Tax Cuts For the Rich, On One Condition

I have a feeling that I'm not the only one who's so glad the election season is over!  Wow!  What an ugly process this time around - as some politicians and news commentators said, this is the nastiest campaign season they've seen in decades.  How sad that the very people who are suppose to put their own interests aside in order to hear and represent the people instead consider only their own party politics regardless of what's best for the constituents. One of the big questions among partisan lawmakers and politicians now is, should we let the Bush-era tax cuts die out at the end of 2010 or should we renew them, especially for the middle class?  If the tax cuts are continued, the big political debate is whether the tax cuts for the rich should be ended or continued.  I say, let the rich keep their tax cuts but on one condition.  Here it is.

A heartwarming story was reported in the New York Times last Sunday, "Kindness of a Stranger That Still Resonates." It seems that a suitcase full of letters was delivered in 2008 to a man named Ted Gup, who is an investigative journalist formerly with The Washington Post.  The letters were all addressed to a Mr. B. Virdot.  The letters were all Thank You's to B. Virdot for money given to the letter-writers.  Apparently, an advertisement appeared Dec. 17, 1933 (during the height of the Great Depression), in The Canton Repository newspaper. "A donor using the pseudonym B. Virdot offered modest cash gifts to families in need. His only request: Letters from the struggling people describing their financial troubles and how they hoped to spend the money. The donor promised to keep letter writers’ identities secret 'until the very end.'"  And the secret donor, it turns out, was Ted Gup's grandfather, Samuel Stone of Canton, Ohio, who had himself escaped poverty and persecution as a Jew in Romania to build a successful chain of clothing stores in the United States.

Ted Gup read through the 150 letters in that suitcase, tears streaming down his face from the poignant expressions of gratitude from these desperate people and families during such a desperate time in history, a time very much reflected in today's economic disasters for so many.  He was so moved he decided to write a book about these letters called "A Secret Gift."  And last week, 400 people gathered in the famed 84-year-old Palace Theater in Canton, Ohio, at a reunion for families of B. Virdot’s recipients planned by Ted Gup.

Helen Palm, 90 years old, the only living recipient of those anonymous checks, sat in her wheelchair on the stage of the Palace Theater and read her letter for help, the one she wrote 77 years ago in the depths of the Great Depression to an anonymous stranger who called himself B. Virdot.  “I am writing this because I need clothing ... And sometimes we run out of food.”

It was a profound and powerful evening for all those who attended and for the rest of the city who heard the story.  Honoring the memory of a man who during desperate times chose to give from his wealth to those who were fighting to survive.

"For the older people [that evening], it was a chance to remember the hard times. For relatives of the letter writers, it was a time to hear how the small gifts, in the bleakest winter of the Depression, meant more than money. They buoyed the spirits of an entire city that is beginning to lose hope."

So I say, let the tax cuts for the wealthy in this country be extended ... on one condition:  that every one of those in the upper tax brackets do what Samuel Stone did and give from their wealth to those who are struggling to survive in our cities all over this country.  B. Virdot lived out a model for generosity that could sure be used these days!

The growing divide in this country between the rich and the poor, along with the diminishing ranks of those in the middle, is at an all time high.  In a sobering column last Saturday called "Our Banana Republic," Nicholas Kristoff stated that "The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976.  The United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.  C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent."

This is a tragic state of reality!  If there's ever a time we need the moral courage and determination of B. Virdot it's in these desperate times.  Imagine what could happen if this 1 per cent in our country followed Samuel Stone's model of generosity.  It might actually inspire the rest of us to follow suit.  And then imagine where we could be in this depressed and hope-chasing economy.  How many anonymous checks or gift cards or cash gifts could be given away in every city in America out of the wealth that still exists in this country?  How many people - men, women, and children - could be given hope and love for this upcoming Holiday Season?

This value of the "haves" giving to the "have-nots" is a part of the core message of every enduring spiritual tradition.  Here are some representative admonitions:

From the Jewish Scriptures:  "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God."  (Leviticus 19:9-10)

From the Muslim Scriptures: "Let not those among you who are endued with grace and amplitude of means resolve by oath against helping their kinsmen, those in want, and those who have left their homes in Allah's cause."  (Qur'an 24:22)

From the Christian Scriptures: "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."  (James 2:14-17)

All sacred scriptures connect spirituality with how personal wealth is used.

Now I obviously realize that the Government can't do something like extend tax cuts to some people with conditions that they give to the needy.  But I have to admit it's getting wearisome hearing the endless debate over our economy with the primary determining issue being, "What's in it for me?"  I too want to have enough to live on.  I too want meaningful work and employment with commensurate remuneration.  I want to be paid what I'm worth.  I too want to survive in this difficult recession.  But believe me, most of us have more than we think.  Experts remind us, for example, that if we have the luxury right now of reading this blog in the format we're reading it in (e.g. computer, internet, hard copy even), we're in the top 5% of the world's wealthiest population.

As all the enduring spiritual traditions remind us, we are being called to rise to a higher level of life value than personal survival.  We are being called to be willing to think of others beyond simply thinking of ourselves.  We are being challenged to give of what we do have to help those who have less.

I don't know the extent of B. Virdot's (Samuel Stone) personal weath in the 1930s from his successful chain of clothing stores.  But I do know that what he did during those years for the 150 needy families in Canton, Ohio obviously reverberated down through the succeeding generations into the current climate of devastation from today's recession in that same city.  When the 400 people gathered in the old Palace Theatre several weeks ago to honor B. Virdot and his acts of kindness, they all talked about how Mr. Stone’s example of generosity resonates today.

“I think there’s a message here that people in Canton know how to get through the hard times by pulling together,” Mr. Gup said.

Days before Christmas 1933, with Mr. Stone’s gift in hand, Edith May took her 4-year-old daughter Felice to a five-and-dime store and bought her a wooden horse.  Seventy-seven years later, Felice May Dunn owns two farms and 17 Welsh ponies.  “In my life it made a big difference,” Ms. Dunn, 80, recalled. “It was my favorite toy.”

I wonder how that wooden horse gift has impacted her response to life these days?

Transformational Spirituality Pays Attention to Walls

Gordon MacDonald, author and speaker on spirituality, tells about one Christmas vacation when their son Mark flew home from college and greeted his parents with an unexpected gift – a cute little ferret named Bandit.  Unexpected, for sure.  And not exactly a gift they were hoping for. But in the following weeks, the cute little furry animal worked its way into their hearts – Bandit was cuddly, fun, funny.  They enjoyed him.

But enjoyment stopped after about four months.  Bandit began to grow up, and they started learning the hard way that adult ferrets can become nasty – they bite, they exert independence by neglecting simple hygiene producing a stinky house – it all overwhelmed their delicate senses.

Gordon and his wife Gail soon lost all affection for this Christmas gift critter.  Which led them to begin considering how they could get “rid” of Bandit.  The idea finally emerged:  Why don’t we take Bandit up to our cabin in the woods and give him his freedom.  After all, the acres of forest and woods will be perfect for him to live and roam and enjoy!  Nothing there will be bothered by his smelly habits!

Gail said she’d feel more comfortable if she could first go and talk to the pet store people to see what they thought.  Later that day, she came home and told Gordon:  “The pet store people explained that we shouldn’t release a tamed ferret (or any tamed animal for that matter) in the woods.  It would be dead within twenty-four hours because it wouldn’t know how to find its own food and it wouldn’t know who its enemies are or how to defend itself again them.”

The irony of the situation struck them both.  By taming this ferret, by taking it out of the real world and teaching it to live in the safety and seclusion of their nice home, they had destroyed its ability to live where it had been born to inhabit.  It could never be a free ferret.

Is it possible we do the same thing with our faith and our spirituality?  By trying to forge faith and spirituality within the exclusive confines of a personal, small, safe, isolated, and secluded world, we create a faith that doesn’t work in the real world – a limited faith and spirituality – a potentially timid, narrow, insecure, ineffective, unliberated spirituality.

I love the way Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it.  Bonhoeffer was the Protestant pastor in Germany during WWII who became convicted that he should preach and write against Hitler and the genocidal Nazi regime.  He boldly broke ranks with many Christian leaders of that time who were either silent or supportive of Nazism.  He ended up being arrested and jailed and then finally executed by Hitler just as the Allied Forces struck the final blow of liberation in Europe.  Here’s what he wrote:

“It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith … By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities.”

Effective spirituality, transformational spirituality, has to be forged and lived in the real world.  It has to work and make sense and produce positive effect in the WHOLE world, not just our safe, small worlds.

So in my spiritual community Second Wind, we’ve had a series during September called “APPLYING YOUR SPIRITUALITY TO THIS WEEK’S GLOCAL HOT SPOT."  Our goal is to inform our spirituality by means of seeing the rest of the world beyond our individual lives.  So each week, we focused in on a current issue taking place in the world (*GLOCAL = think global + act local).  What is the “crisis/need/situation” – what are the issues involved – who are the people involved – how is the situation being currently handled – how are we impacted?  And how does this situation inform and shape our spirituality?  What kind of spirituality does it take to work in this situation?

The whole attempt is to inform our spirituality and faith with the real world, opening ourselves up to a bigger picture than we would typically allow for ourselves.

This last Saturday we looked at the current plight of the Roma, Europe's largest minority group that originally migrated from Northwestern India back in the 11th century.  They traditionally held slave-type positions among the aristocracy and monasteries of Central and Western Europe.  And now they find themselves spread out all over the continent and beyond, often living in camps under squalid and marginalized conditions from the rest of society, barely able to eke out subsistence to stay alive and provide for themselves.  Last year, Amnesty International described current realities:  "The Roma community suffers massive discrimination throughout Europe. Denied their rights to housing, employment, health care and education, Roma are often victims of forced evictions, racist attacks and police ill-treatment."

The Roma have especially been in the news the last few months as France's President Nicolas Sarkozy moved to expel over 1,000 Roma from his country back to Romania and Bulgaria, creating quite a firestorm of controversy among the nations of the European Union.  It's forcing leaders to address this significant humanitarian crisis within their borders.

So how does our spirituality and faith inform our response to this contemporary situation?  How does this significant human need shape and inform our spirituality and faith?

Timothy Egan, in The New York Times last week said it well:  “Perhaps the best way to judge the health of a nation’s heart is by how it treats the shunned.”

He's certainly echoing the sentiments of historic sacred scriptures.  Jesus himself put it this way:  "If you've shown compassion to one of the least of these, you've shown it to me."

In other words, a Christlike heart (a healthy heart) manifests Christlike compassion, especially to the shunned and marginalized of our world (in Jesus' statement of what the final judgment is about, he refers to acts of compassion to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, and prisoner).  And the amazing thing about Jesus' statement - that reveals how important this issue is to Jesus and the values of God's Kingdom - is that when we show compassion to those in need, we are in reality showing compassion to Jesus - Jesus incarnates himself within the "shunned" person so that we're actually encountering and relating to Jesus himself.  And in the End, says Jesus, we are judged by our response to these people (and therefore to him).  Quite a different paradigm from the picture of Judgment so many religious groups paint of the End, where we're judged by what we believe, by our subscription to the doctrines of those religions and how closely we align with them.

Transformational spirituality is informed by a global view of the world, not just our narrow individual every day worlds.  Transformational spirituality, the kind that really works and makes a difference, chooses to actively engage with the "least of these," refusing to ignore the shunned, the strangers among us, the aliens and foreigners, the dispossessed, the refugees and immigrants, the sexual "other," all of those people groups who are too often labeled and judged as "less than" or wrong or unworthy for whatever reason.

This is a raw and honest kind of spirituality that refuses the easy way out, that allows itself to be confronted by those most unlike us, that chooses to look beyond the surface and in fact discover that we are one family under God, interconnected, interdependent, and intertwined in the life of this planet.  How we navigate this complex, complicated, and yet very human journey is how we are ultimately judged, says Jesus.  Sobering and yet exciting and brimming with possibility!

I'm reminded of Robert Frost's profound poem Mending Wall.  He pictures himself and his neighbor walking along the stone fence that separates their two properties, talking together about the purpose of the wall, the sections that need mending and how.  His neighbor's view is that "good fences make good neighbors."  He, however, doesn't see it that way.

"There where it is we do not need the wall: / He is all pine and I am apple orchard. / My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. / He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder / If I could put a notion in his head: / 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it / Where there are cows? / But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, / That wants it down.'"

Transformational spirituality is about taking down walls where there shouldn't be any.  It's about refusing to shut ourselves out from the "shunned."  It's about engaging the world of hurt, human suffering and pain.  It's about not allowing our sight to become mono-focused and narrow to our own little worlds.  It's about compassion for "the least of these."

Rarely easy to do.  I admit.  But, as Timothy Egan reminds us, it reveals the true health of our hearts.  And who among us doesn't want a healthy heart!

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Two Implications About Spirituality From Terry Jones' Qur'an Burning Frenzy

A Moment in the TV Studio Malcolm Muggeridge, the English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist, wrote about the time he escorted Mother Teresa into a New York television studio so that she could be interviewed on a network morning show, “a program,” he wrote, “which helps Americans from coast to coast to munch their breakfast cereal and gulp down their breakfast coffee.”  Her interviewer for this TV show was, as Muggeridge described him, a man “with a drooping green mustache, a purple nose and scarlet hair.”

Here’s the way Muggeridge told the story.  “It was the first time Mother Teresa had been in an American television studio, and so she was quite unprepared for the constant interruptions for commercials.  As it happened, surely as a result of divine intervention, all the commercials that particular morning were to do with different varieties of packaged food, recommended as being nonfattening and non-nourishing.  Mother Teresa looked at them with a kind of wonder, her own constant preoccupation being, of course, to find the wherewithal to nourish the starving and put some flesh on [the] human skeletons [in Calcutta where she served].  It took some little time for the irony of the situation to strike her.  When it did, she remarked in a perfect audible voice:  ‘I see that Christ is needed in television studios.’  A total silence descended on all present, and I fully expected the light to go out and the floor manager to drop dead.  Reality had momentarily intruded into one of the media’s mills of fantasy – an unprecedented occurrence.”  (quoted in Gordon MacDonald, Forging A Real World Faith, p. 42)

Both Malcolm Muggeridge and Mother Teresa certainly knew that this world they were in that day, this environment of the TV studio run and operated by real people with real lives facing real issues was a real world.  But it wasn’t the whole world.  It was a world that tended to be isolated from the starving and suffering people she served every day in India – the commercials and advertisements that day revealed that truth.  In contrast, her spirituality and faith were informed every day by the realities of a bigger world where the poor, suffering, and dying existed on dirty streets and faced daily injustices and inequalities.  A world beyond the sanitized TV studio – the world of the ghettos, where the color of your skin or the level of your economics or the place of your birth determined your opportunities or lack of opportunities in life.  Mother Teresa’s spirituality compelled her to point out the reality of their limited world that day in the studio.

Muggeridge had lived most of his life as an agnostic.  But his relationship with Mother Teresa, his up close and personal witness to her passion to live out a real-world spirituality and faith that made such a radical difference in the lives of so many suffering people through the years, ended up leading him to convert to Catholicism and Christianity.

One of our great temptations is to assume that the world we live and work in is the whole world.  When that happens, our spirituality and faith become narrow and small.  Our faith and spirituality become in fact unreal – divorced from the rest of the planet.  And the irony is that that is antithetical to the true nature of spirituality and faith.

True spirituality, having a faith that is genuine and that works, has to be connected with the whole world – it has to work in the rest of the world beyond the fences & studios of our own little lives.

So we’ve started a Saturday morning series at Second Wind this month called “APPLYING YOUR SPIRITUALITY TO THIS WEEK’S GLOCAL* HOT SPOT."  Our goal is to inform our spirituality by means of seeing the rest of the world beyond our individual lives.  So each week, we’re focusing on a current issue taking place in the world (*GLOCAL = think global + act local).  What is the crisis/need/situation – what are the issues involved – who are the people involved – how is the situation being currently handled – how are we impacted?  And how does this situation inform and shape our spirituality, and how does our spirituality inform our response?

Last Saturday we looked carefully at the stunning circus surrounding Pastor Terry Jones (of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida) and his threat to burn over 200 Qur'ans (Islam's holy scriptures) on the anniversary of 9/11.  I call it a "stunning circus" because Pastor Jones' hateful rhetoric and threats managed to provoke not just a local response but a global one, including personal statements to him by the leaders of our government including the President, the Pope, and governments across the world.  His YouTube sermons and Facebook pages went viral on the internet.  The media became obsessed and every other news story was obscured by their coverage of this one man and his tiny congregation.  In one month, he had become a global media celebrity.

The Spirituality of Interconnectedness

Let me suggest two implications for real-world spirituality from this major news event.  First, interconnectedness.  Genuine and transformational spirituality must embrace today's global reality:  nothing ever happens in isolation.  We no longer live and act in isolation – one action can cause a global stir.  We are first and foremost citizens of the world.  Which then embraces the truth that we have a responsibility to each other on a planetary scale.

Spirituality and faith are not just about me and God (or whatever label you put on your Life Source) and the rest of the world can go to hell.  Personal spirituality must include global interconnectedness and interdependence.  I must allow the "other side" of the world to help shape and inform my spiritual life.  And I must recognize that the way I live out my faith impacts the "other side" of the world, too.  Though John Donne wrote "no man is an island" several centuries ago, that paradigm is especially true today.

My sense of global citizenship profoundly shapes my spiritual life because I allow my mind and heart to open up to broader, wider, deeper possibilities and realities beyond my local world.  Mother Teresa comes into my personal studio - a place where my focus is on what cereal I'm going to have for breakfast in the morning - and interjects global reality - children and adults are dying from hunger on her streets of Calcutta.  And suddenly I'm forced to open up my spirituality by asking, What do my spirituality and faith do in response to that acute awareness and need?

The Spirituality of Honoring Others

Second, freedom and expediency.  We live in a country that honors and values religious freedom.  It's protected by our Constitution shaped by our founding fathers and mothers.  It protects the right for the Terry Jones in our midst to proclaim their message of personal and religious conviction.  Even though the city of Gainesville was refusing to give Terry Jones' congregation a fire permit to burn the Qur'ans on their property, his lawyers were reminding him that his right to burn those books was a guaranteed and protected right.  So go ahead if you are so convicted, they said.

Genuine spirituality acknowledges freedom.  Embraces it.  Celebrates it.  And it also willingly includes a caveat.  "All things are permissible," says the Christian New Testament, "but not all things are expedient.  You are allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial.  So don't think only of your good.  Think of others and what is best for them."  (1 Corinthians 10:23-24)

Manifesting the Divine Nature

Transformational spirituality embraces complete freedom with self-imposed limitations in order to show tangible honor and respect for the Other.  Terry Jones' worldview compels him to conquer the Other by putting his own convictions and even rights ahead of honor and respect.  Though he concludes that he is putting his honor for God ahead of all others and therefore is not compromising his faith, ironically his approach reveals a lack of understanding about the very God he feels he's honoring, "who though he [Jesus] was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.  He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form ...."  (Philippians 2:5-7)

That's profound!  The very nature of the divine life, the very nature of divine freedom, is expressed in the context of self-imposed limitations out of honor and respect for the Other.  Terry Jones missed that nonnegotiable center of Godly living.  Exercising the freedom of his convictions was more important to him than whether they were truly beneficial to the Other as perceived by the Other.  This tends to produce a very self-centered spirituality with minimal benefit and often destructiveness to the world.

The central and core principle at the heart of every enduring spiritual tradition is what has been called The Golden Rule:  do to others only what you would want them to do to you.  Transformational spirituality uses freedom to show honor and respect to the Other, just as you would want that same honor and respect shown to you.  What a profound contrast the two spiritualities of Mother Teresa and Rev. Terry Jones are!  This isn't about having to agree with everyone.  It is about honoring and showing care toward others even in the midst of our disagreements.  Which of the two spiritualities would you like someone in your world possessing?

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