pick your run.

We can run one of three ways. 

Many people feel like they are running from something. The monster is chasing them. 

They are fleeing from Hell. From regret. From shame. From punishment. On and on the list goes, but whenever we are running from something, we are in living in a place of fear. 

Many people are running toward something. The reward is in front of them. 

Toward grace. Toward freedom. Toward reward. Toward enough. Toward love. On and on the list goes, but whenever we are running toward something, we are living in a place of love.

There’s not a scary, falling apart, going-to-Hell world out there that we need to run away from. There’s a big beautiful world full of humans that we are called to run full speed ahead into, anticipating big beautiful things. 

Many people are running in the moment. Just aware of what is happening around them.

We can still run to something and be aware of what’s around us. It's much more difficult to run from something and be aware of what’s around us. There’s too much fear and adrenaline and panic. 

Run to. See now. Run to.

you are.

When I made video games for a living, my boss gave me an Eeyore to hold my business cards. I was grumpy, pessimistic, negative... I was Eeyore. 

And then something happened, and that something had a lot to do with faith and God and Christianity. I don’t want to say it was solely responsible but it’s amazinghow often a bad faith story will affect the rest of someone’s life story and perspective. 

I found a faith that said to celebrate more. Be proud of myself more. Acknowledge that I’ve grown, evolved, that I’m learning, that I’ve failed - and learned from that - and that I am moving. At least a little. I know I have. And you have. Everyone has. But negative thoughts stick to our brain much more easily than positive. You have to work to make those positive thoughts stick.  

Instead of focusing on all the things that you have not done correctly, (often for which you think God is about to roast you) start focusing on the good things you are doing. Focus on how proud God is of you. Focus on how proud you are of yourself. Focus on how often you can relate to people trying to figure out life. 

Sometimes you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick. You reject money for something more important. You take time to rest and breathe and appreciate the moment. 

And on and on it goes. Religion is often just affirming that the things that feel like they bring you life, actually are. So be grateful, pat yourself on the back and smile.

enough is hard.

Yeah, yeah, we hear it and you’ve heard it. But seriously, this enough stuff. Can anyone actually live it?  Can anyone actually go through life believing and living "enough"?

This is so frustrating. We resist the most, that which makes us a better person. I know I do, at least. 

Not because we don’t want to be better people. I know I do. 

But because to be better we have to give up the struggle to be enough and we have to realize we are and we have to 

be naked and vulnerable
risk the most important thing we think we own - our own  merit and worth
give up control of the things we think we control
say no to the comforting, intoxicating whisper of the ego and its power and
acknowledge mystery and doubt and admit we don’t know more than we think we know. 

You have to lose your life to find it. 

enough more.

I’ll be honest, I struggle with these words and I don’t think I’m the only one. 

How do I be grateful for what I have? 
And still want more? 

How do I be content with the way things are?
And still push for better and bigger?

How do I live in the now? 
And dream about a brighter future?

How do I continue to evolve? 
And appreciate where I’m at.  

I’m always nervous to boil things down too much but, it seems, at the end of the day, there are two approaches we can take:

we can pursue more to get to enough. 
we can realize enough and pursue more out of that. 

The first is generally the way our economy and culture functions and it wants it that way because it makes a lot of money for a lot of people: Keep getting more and someday you will have enough. There is little talk about what “enough” actually looks like because, in that model, “enough” doesn’t actually exist. There is always more to get. And enough is always in the future meaning that more never stops... more shoes, more shirts, more apps, more knowledge, more songs, more articles... 

Not to get too political here, but in a capitalistic system there is never enough. Otherwise the system would crumble. 

There are also some religious cultures that prefers this way of living. Religious production and consumption benefits many people in religious power. You need to do more, to get to enough and the people who are providing more and determining enough are very powerful and in control. The never-ending desire to be enough (thus attaining more) is just where they want people. Religious capitalism. 

The second concept is different. 

How do I pursue an awareness that I am enough? 

How do you pursue an awareness that you are enough? 

How do we really live in a world of enough? 

Enough money, enough awards, enough prestige, enough power, enough worth, enough...

Once we have thoroughly understood enough, experienced enough, and lived enough… more appears and moves very differently. And when it does it’s usually more generosity, more joy, more patience, more color, more calm, more giving, more rest, more creativity, more diversity, more experiences, and more love.

The Jesuits call this the “magis”. The first time I heard about the “magis” I almost started crying because it was the first time I felt pursuing more was okay. Magis is Latin for “more”. 

James Martin writes that “the magis means doing the more, the greater, for God. When you work, give your all, When you make plans, plan boldly. And when you dream, dream big... Ultimately, ‘eliciting great desires’ and inviting people to think big is the seed for accomplishing great things for God.” 

There is a pursuit of more that is absolutely beautiful and inspiring... scientists say that Dark Energy - that thing that makes up a huge percentage of our universe that we don’t really know what it is - contains the universe and propels it forward. 

Contains and propels. 

We can’t propel to find containment. We have to realize we are contained and then propel as contained beings. 

Mixing up our pursuit of more and our pursuit of enough can be exhausting, debilitating, and even deadly. I see it constantly. I’ve lived it. 

Again, you are enough. Right now. 
Get that, and then get more. 
Don’t try to get more to get that. 

Seek first the Kingdom of God (and its perspective on the world) and everything else will come when it should, is how, I believe, Jesus worded it. 

silence.

I recently found myself on a long run in a time of a lot of stress. The run ended up feeling like I imagine Native American teenagers felt as they searched to find their spirit animal. I know I hadn’t smoked anything but, at times I felt like I had. 

My only goal in starting the run was to listen. I promised myself to simply listen to everything that came my way. 

Amazingly enough, as soon as I left my house a little girl (in the middle of the day - I’m still not sure what she was doing out there alone) said “hello” to me. It was as though the world was saying “Welcome, Ryan”. 

It was difficult at first. I wanted to think and solve and forecast the future so I could think and solve imaginary problems too. But then I kept saying “listen”. Listen to my feet, to birds, to cars, to my breathing. 

I found myself running my some lions in cages. (We have a zoo called Cat Tales not far from my house. It’s filled with lions, tigers, and other felines.) I noticed that the animals were making noises as they pranced around their cages and I noticed that the humans in their houses were making similar noises across the street as they pounced around in their caged yards. 

Where is all the promised freedom, I asked. I kept running and listening. Which I soon noticed I do a lot. I keep running. From whatever it is. 

So, I stopped running and listened more intently. After every stop I found myself running with more energy and inspiration. Another lesson. 

Then I realized I always run the same path. So I started running on different paths, on different roads, on hills. At one point I stopped at the top of a hill, listening for a while and raised my hands in the air as though I had just won a race. I was either crazy or symbolically expressing what stopping and listening is: it’s winning. 

I don’t know how far I ran or how I long. I know I kept listening. Whenever stress came, I listened. I ran by some cows and they all yelled at me. Maybe they were simply saying hi or maybe they were saying hey, we feel you man. It’s good to listen and we hope you’re enjoying it. Life is better when you do. 

By the time I came home, I was overwhelmed with silence. The overwhelming sense of stress and solving and planning and finding solutions and running was silenced by silence. 

By just listening. Literally and metaphorically and spiritually. 

It’s called noise pollution. It’s everywhere. Our machines alter environments not just visibly but audibly. Our noise, like the cars I heard, drastically affect animals and eco-systems. Our noise alone changes our world. 

John Cage wrote the song 4’33” in 1952. During the first performance of the song David Tudor opens his piano and sits there for 30 seconds. He then closes the piano, opens it again and sits there for 2 minutes and 23 seconds. He then closes and opens again for a final 1 minute and 40 seconds. The song is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. 

Of course there are all kinds of jokes and ridicule about the “song” and its ridiculousness and absurdity.

Yves Klein showcased an art exhibit of blank walls at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris in 1958. There was literally nothing there but blank white walls. The Pompideu in Paris recently duplicated the exhibit. 

Again the laughs of art history professors everywhere. (I’m hearing by art history professor brother right now and I know this kind of stuff drives him crazy.) 

But, let’s step back for a second. 

Elizabeth Gilbert says 4 words profoundly changed her life: “shut the fuck up.” She realized that her parents were not asking her for all of her great advice on their marriage and that, unless they asked, she should simply remain silent. 

Speaking wouldn’t change them anyway. 

This epiphany extended far beyond her parents. Why do we insist on speaking to people who are not asking for our opinion? 

Every time I go on Facebook now, I can’t help but think of that f in the logo as a giant symbol of shut the f up. Facebook is perhaps one of the greatest noise pollutants in our society (no offense Mark). 

What kind of things would your hear and notice if you had to sit still for 4 minutes and 33 seconds? 

What kind of things would you begin to think of if you entered into an empty room for a few moments? 

Be quiet. Just listen. Listen to God, the Universe, the Divine, or whatever other name you want to put on the power that is rolling through it and you and everyone around you. Listen to it. Pay attention. Paying attention is prayer. 

Listen to the Earth. To the birds, to water, to air rushing through your windows, to rain, to the leaves rustling and to the vastness of space. 

Listen to others. They have amazing stories. They are invaluable as contributors to this planet, humanity, and your own story. 

Listen to what they have to teach you. Even your biggest adversary. The one who disagrees with you the most. What do you learn about yourself when you stop and listen? 

Harriet Lerner, via Brené Brown says, “Change requires listening with the same level of passion that we feel when we speak.”

Listen to yourself. The divine dwells in you. Your body is speaking. Your mind is speaking. Your soul is speaking if you just listen. 

It’s a loud world. Find quiet and space to breathe, to contemplate and to just listen. 

If continued evolution, growth, adaptation is our point, listening might be one of the most powerful things on Earth. 

that power.

There is the power of dropping bombs
and there is the power of a painting. 

There is the power of a jet engine
and there is the power of a melody. 

What kind of all-powerful is your god? 

This seems like a very important question. 

One of my favorites stories might help with an answer.  

Many years ago, in a far away land, there had been a drought for a long time and, of course, the gods were being blamed, as they often were. And are. The king of the land worshiped a god of rain and he was convinced that his god was not the problem, this time...  but that another god was the problem. The god of a prophet. 

So, the prophet and the king agreed, in the only way that makes sense, to a battle of the gods to see which god was more powerful and to determine who was to blame for the drought and famine that was killing the land.

Was it the god of the king or the god of the prophet? 

The king had his own prophets - around 450 of them - show up at the event. I imagine flags and trumpets and spectacle. The goal of the competition was to bring down some fire - to prove which god was more powerful. (Again, if you’re going to have your gods do something - bringing down fire seems pretty cool.)

In the story, the 450 prophets of the king, after a lot of drama, aren’t able to get their god to do anything. No fire. No anything really. It’s not going well for them.  

The prophet of the other god, ever the performer and antagonizer, then asks everyone to make the challenge a little more difficult - just to prove a point - before asking his god to send down fire to consume a bull, now surrounded by water, that had been set up.

Fire comes from heaven. Drama. Power. Slam dunk. Home run. 

Drop the mic. Challenge over. The god of the prophet wins. 

The prophet looks at the king and says maybe my favorite line of any story, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of heavy rain.” 

Boom.

The prophet then finds himself on the run, scared for his life. 

I can’t say that’s what I was expecting the first time I read the story. Not the normal thing course of action after your god beats the other god. 

The prophet finds himself out in the wilderness for 40 days. (By the way, tons of stories have 40:  the Hebrew people were in the wilderness 40 years, Noah was on a boat while it rained for 40 days, Moses was on Mt. Sinai for 40 days, Jonah warned Ninevah for 40 days, and Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days and after the resurrection was on Earth for 40 days. According to the rabbis, 40 represents transition or change.) 

Apparently the challenge and battle of the gods didn’t really work. The “winner” is out in the desert, changing, while the “loser” is eating bread and drinking wine in his castle. Interesting.   

Around this 40 day (transition) point, the prophet’s god comes by and asks him what he is doing there. Interesting question. I would have answered “running for my life because of you.”  The prophet didn’t. 

The god then says go up to a mountain - I’m going to pass by. 

The story then says there were earthquakes, more fire, and wind. All very powerful things. But, the story tells us that the god was not in any of those powerful things. 

There was, however, a gentle whisper. That’s where God was, the story insists. In the whisper. After fire and earthquakes and wind. I wonder if those 40 days made the prophet change, transition or evolve his views on where the power of his god actually was.

Generations later, the disciples of Jesus were hanging out and getting really upset at a group of people that they already generally hated (and found to be ignorant and wrong and stupid). That same group had not welcomed them and accepted their message. So, obviously, they asked Jesus if they should call down fire on the village just like the prophet in the story had. (Before we get all high and mighty, most people still ask their god to send down fire on their enemies. Or at least bless the fire of their bombs and missiles.)

And Jesus turns and rebukes them, and says, quite astoundingly, you don’t know what spirit you are talking about here… 

There were not that many spirits to choose from in that worldview - spirits from god (the source of all good) and spirits from the devil (the source of all evil).

Which kind of all-powerful is the god of the Bible? 

It would seem to not be the power of bombs, of jet engines, of judges handing out verdicts, of fire, of earthquakes, of the things that rattle the windows of our souls with fear, but instead...

more like the power of paintings, songs, stories of grace and tenderness, laying down, resting, and quiet whispers that soften our souls with love. 

That’s the kind of power that changes humanity for the better.

That’s Godly power.

god is everywhere, except there.

This came from Dave, a friend I always have very deep, paradoxical, confusing and fun conversations with. I gave Dave the “best heretic” award at our church’s five year anniversary party because of our conversations. 

This, in a nutshell, is one of our conversations: 

God is everywhere, 
except in the places that we refuse to acknowledge God is. 

Of course, God is actually there
but if God is there and we don’t care, 
is God really there? 

God exists in the acknowledgment or awareness of God. 

In a sense, 
we control where God exists, 
because God (and love) allow us to.

So maybe the atheist and the theist are both correct in their reality. 

Maybe instead of trying to correct reality, we should seek to acknowledge another reality.

instead of hate the sin, love the sinner.

Love the God in every human
hate anything that blocks you, or them, 
from seeing God
and realizing who they are
and what they are capable of. 

That’s all sin is anyway. 

pride isn't about you.

Oh man, I was one of the most arrogant people around. I once had a co-worker tell me that it was a good thing that I wasn’t good at fighting, because I just had this look of arrogance on me all the time. The look was somewhat intimidating. I loved to argue and I loved to be right. 

What an act... Always out to prove something... to someone... mainly myself.

I don’t think most humans appreciate arrogance in another human.  

But, at the same time, there’s confidence. We see it in others and it’s so appealing and beautiful. It’s not arrogant - there’s nothing to prove -but it’s so... content with what exists. It’s free!

The balance of those is sometimes difficult, especially when we try to address them the wrong way. 

We’ve got to think better of ourselves. The reason I acted arrogant was because I wasn’t confident enough. We all know this. It always starts with enough. 

Once we think of ourselves as the center of the universe and properly loved and worthy, many will start to sound alarms of pride and/or arrogance, often in Christian circles. They always did to me. 

Don’t you know you’re supposed to give up your life and serve? You can’t think so highly of yourself! 

I don’t think that’s the problem. I never think that thinking the world of yourself is a problem. Unless you think you’re the only one in the world. 

I think the problem comes when we don’t view everyone else as the center of the universe and properly loved and worthy... the exact same as us. That was definitely my problem. 

Once we get the value of ourselves as amazing, powerful, incredible and awesome humans (confidence), we shouldn’t spend time trying to undo that or listen to any religion that tells us to. 

We need to spend time trying to get our worst enemy up to that same spot, not lowering ourselves to them. 

Really, once you realize how enough you are, pride has nothing to do with you and everything to do with everyone around you. (In more ways than one.)

at least look down.

An absence of any ladders/pyramids would be ideal. But before we get there, realistically, we should probably acknowledge we’re all on them. The ladders of success, of money, of rank, of whatever other word or label we want to put on it. 

And most of us are trying to climb. 

I’m suggesting we start looking down on our ladders. Actually moving down would be even better, but at least we can start looking down. 

Looking up has some serious issues. 

For one, we’re just looking at people’s backs. We just see asses. We start to think the world is filled with asses and we become an ass ourselves. No human can stand looking up at all those asses above us, without becoming one ourself.

You know, you’ve met that person. Or been that person. Bitter, cynical, sarcastic… muttering how the world is filled with a bunch of greedy, selfish, bastards… because it’s all we see as we struggle to push them aside and get higher. 

If, however, we decide to look down, it’s a very different view. We see faces. We see hands reaching out for our help. We start to realize that there are faces behind all those asses and we start to realize that we’ve come a lot further than we think and what’s the point of trying to climb higher when we can reach out our own hand and try to pull someone up instead. 

We’ll suddenly be grateful instead of jealous. 

We’ll suddenly be generous instead of anxious. 

We’ll suddenly find the world, and life, to generally be a better place. 

(Side note: If someone in your life is using you to get higher, they are not a friend. If they are jealous of your spot or anxious of their own, they are also not a friend. They are an equally valuable human, but not a friend.)

The more we look down and pull others up, the less we start to care about the ladders at all. They, conceivably, could even end up collapsing. 

I think when Jesus told the rich man to go and sell all his possessions, he was just saying this: go down the ladder. Life is better there. 

The man went away sad because he had so much. It’s hard to go down the ladder when we’re so high up it.

the angry god.

I used to really love the angry god, because I loved to be angry. I mean if god is angry and I’m supposed to be like God, well... that’s a great fit, right? Fun times. I get to be angry and I get to be like god… all at the same time. 

I think the angry god is generally the god of angry people.

Others call this god the lifeguard god or the mafia god or the bad parent god and those are not meant as compliments. But, again, if they permit - or, even better, demand - us to be the lifeguards, the mafia, or the parents of the world, well that feels pretty good. 

As long as the boss doesn’t come after you, of course. 

Others call this the god of justice and that is meant as a compliment although I don’t take it as one. I mean if someone asked a friend of mine what I was like and they said, “Ryan? Oh he’s, a man of justice.” I don’t think anyone would want to hang out with me. I wouldn’t want to. 

That god, or type of god, also seems to contradict everything I know about transformation and how it works. So, I don’t believe in that god anymore. I think god is always about transformation - the kind of transformation that happens when people realize that the love being offered by the god in question doesn’t depend on their transformation.

All of that said, I do think there are some things that get god upset or even angry. (Please remember when I use the word god, I might not be talking about the god you think.) I do think there are some things that get the divine force of good in the universe upset, sometimes even to the point of tears. There are quite a few anger inducing qualifications in the Bible and most of those that matter, can be boiled down to one ingredient: inequality.

When you start looking, it seems like just about all of the anger of God comes back to that word and concept.  Inequality, of course, can mean many things but I’m speaking about the perceived value of a human being. Seeing a human as not as worthy, or more worthy, in comparison to another human being is the root of inequality. 

Oppression, slavery, racism, sexism, unfair wages... or even viewing yourself as more human than ISIS or a pedophile... one can make a long list of things that center around inequality of one kind or another. 

Inequality has all kinds of ripples… and these are where the manifestations of a wrong view of the world start to make trouble. Inequality initiates ladders. If some people are worth more than others, there is a top. If there is a top to the ladder, top to the pyramid, top to whatever structure or system it is than we will all be fighting for that top. 

If we have pyramids/ladders/structures, we are going to need some people to make bricks for the pyramid. And, generally, since making bricks is terrible work (no offense masonry workers - I’m talking about historically) we get the slaves to make bricks. The less thans. 

No better way to get to the top than to start some people working on the very thing you are trying to climb. 

Once we have pyramids and ladder and brick makers, we have fear - fear I’ll never get to the top (or at least higher than my current location) and fear I’ll lose my spot if I do get up there, and someone else will take it from below - mainly those brick makers.

Once we have fear, we have violence… to cover and hide and protect… all those fears. We will do what it takes to get higher or protect our spot. (Violence doesn’t always mean blood and guns. The Big Short is one of the most violent movies ever and it’s about the housing collapse and big banks killing humanity in all kinds of metaphorical ways). 

All of this leads to a further commodification of people, of industry, of anything we need to get up or stay up or not go down. 

We have shame, we have ego, we have other gods, we have sacrifices to those gods, we have judgment, we have addiction, we have hypocrisy, we have all kinds of things to try to convince us that we matter more, and they matter less so that we can get higher and stop being lower. 

We have blessed and sacred mafia and police and parents and justice, in the name of a god.

The God I believe in isn’t down with some people being perceived as less worthy, valued, empowered, and loved than others. And most of the prophets could be summed up with that. I include Jesus with the prophets as well. 

I agree that God hates sin... God hates the barriers to equality. (Check out Jubilee, for example. Every 50 years, in Jewish culture, the Monopoly board was reset. Everything was re-distributed equally, debt erased.) 

I think this is why Jesus said that someone with lots of money will have a hard time perceiving the world as God does. Money tends to hi-light, enable, and value inequality. 

The Divine is never down with someone being seen as less than. And, in that case, God is all about justice. It's never just to view someone as less. 

The Divine in us shouldn’t be down with inequality either, in any form, no matter how good it makes our ego feel. As good as our ego feels, is as supressed as the Divine in us feels.

just paradox.

Alright, so none of this really makes sense. Not like that. 

And, I think, that makes perfect sense to me.

This kind of logic - or lack thereof - can drive people crazy... or to freedom. 

To be perfect, you have to stop trying to be perfect. 

To know anything, you have to admit you know nothing. 

From dust we have come and dust we go, and we are the center of the universe.

The most sacred things are the most ordinary because the sacred is most contained in the ordinary.

Only when we doubt can we have faith. 

The questions are more important than the answers.

In dying we live. 

In surrendering everything, we find everything. 

You yourself are not it. And yet, you are it. 

The most powerful thing in all the world is to give up power. 

Of course God can’t make sense either, right? 

And then we have freedom.

human matters.

This is a big one for me. A huge perspective shift. I’ve thought a lot about it. 

The way that I grew up, and the question that was usually the most important question to be able to answer, was the question around the divinity of Jesus. Was Jesus God? Is Jesus God? Fully God… A lot of things seemed to hinge on the answer to that question. 

I don’t think that’s the important question anymore. 

I think the important question is... Was Jesus fully human? 

Now I realize that many Christians have, for years, said that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. The problem with that for me, was that it was impossible given what I was taught that God and humans were. I was taught God knows everything and humans don’t. I was taught God was good and humans were evil. I was taught that God couldn’t be around sin and humans were “original sin”. 

So, for any creature to be both God and human didn’t really make sense. In fact, it was like saying a creature is a cat and a dog. And I’m all for things not making sense... but there is a line. 

Really to say that Jesus was God didn’t make much sense, because again, Jesus, for starters, said he didn’t know things that the “Father” did.  

And, of course, this all is determined by our definitions. Richard Rohr says that saying Jesus is God is heretical... because Jesus is a part of the trinity. 

Okay... at some point I learned a different way of looking at things. A more paradoxical, and yet coherent, way. 

The divine is in humanity. There isn’t this big separation of God over here, sacred over here, good over here, and then humans over here, secular over here, bad over here. That was, in fact, a thought that some of the letters of the Bible were written to try to correct. 

God is in the human. Always has been. 

This has all kinds of implications - way more than just some theological arguments (although those are definitely there as well)

1. Humans matter. A ton. Jesus told humans that they will do greater things than he did. Greater. Greater than Jesus. How would be that be possible? Because the divine is in them. 

2. Ceremonies, liturgies, rituals are not magical. They are human. They are your standard flesh and blood (and bread and wine). And that’s why they are powerful. We see the divine in the normal and ordinary, especially when we stop and look.

Marriage ceremonies, baptisms, eucharist... nothing happens... except the most powerful thing that can happen... if we see it.  

3. Everything is ordinary and yet, completely unordinary, because the Divine lives in the ordinary and the Divine is unordinary ordinary.

4. God will not take care of things. God needs a body. Jesus said this pretty explicitly. When we pray that our friend will somehow get groceries, we remember to go and get those groceries. When we pray for our enemies, we remember to go and be with our enemies and do good things for them. 

When we get mad that God is not solving the refugee crisis we remember that God says something to the effect of... you’re right, you have not done anything. 

5. The Bible is a human book. Soaked in humanity. And within its culture, context, language, and evolution, we find it soaked in the divine. 

This idea may be the biggest foundational reasons I have fallen in love with spirituality again. I began to trust people again, I began to have an optimism about people and God again, I began to see God, be aware of God, wake up to the divine, and I began to feel worthy and accepted and empowered. 

All of that just drinking a cup of coffee.

Because I matter. Because you matter. Because they matter. (Every single “they” I can come up with.) Because humans matter. 

Because this moment matters. 

Because God is all over all of us and it. 

Was Jesus fully human? Yes. And God is that. 

Leon Dufour a world renowned Jesuit said, “I have written in so many books on God, but after all that, what do I really know? I think, in the end, God is the person you’re talking to, the one right in front of you.”

If you know that, nothing will ever be the same. 

where?

It’s one of the most common questions I hear asked: where is God? 

Where are you God? What are you doing? Do you notice the crap pile down here? Want to step in? 

We can go on and on. 

I was recently in a conversation with a pretty depressed person who asked another version of the question to me: Why God doesn’t show up more often? 

I don’t know? 

I know there are all kinds of answers but, if I’m honest, I’ve found most of them to feel pretty empty. But, in that conversation, I realized a more important question that isn’t asked as often. 

What does it look like when God does show up? 

Is it powerful? What kind of power? Is it understood? Is it painting swatches of color across the sky? Is it fixing all the pain of theworld? 

Or is it mysterious. Is it weak? Is it vulnerability and love and does it live in all the places we don’t think it should? Is it evolving humans who live with suffering in order to evolve more? 

I don’t know. 

But I do think the reason many of us don’t see God is because many of us are too certain what, exactly, God looks like. Ironically enough, the main book about God, tried to make sure we never were too certain for just that reason. 

Whenever people became too certain, god turned into an idol and they stopped seeing God because they were too focused on the representation of God. 

I think God is always revealing God’s self. I don’t think that’s the main problem. I think the bigger problem might be what we’re expecting it to look like. As we all know, expectations make up a lot of our ability to see and experience. 

god?

I’ll never forget Penny. Not only does the name remind me of LOST but Penny and I had one of those moments. I met her outside of a hospital, sitting on a little bench in the sun. She did most of the talking for the 45 minutes I knew her and she smoked three or four cigarettes,while telling me about her husband Mel who was in the hospital. 

He had served in Vietnam and was living with the effects of Agent Orange. He was on dialysis and they’d just found cancer. Penny and Mel have been married for over 50 years. Penny told me about Mel’s inability to sleep, she told me about having kids while Mel was stationed away, she told me about stories that still haunt Mel, she told me about her own mom dying when she was just a teenager and she told me about meeting Mel at a Roller Skating Rink. 

I wish everyone could meet Penny. I wish I could accurately describe with words what it was like to hear her story. 

My wife and kids recently returned from our own local skating rink (where I’m sure future Penny and Mels are meeting every day). At our own rink, there is a fairly legendary skater in his 70’s who paints the floor with his wheels on a regular basis. The man is smooth like silk, he twists and twirls like no other on those brushes of motion. He’s a joy to look at. You can’t help but smile, those kind of smiles that only come out on rare moments. 

I found myself outside of a thrift store with a man from Iraq, a man from Sudan, a woman from Russia and a man from Uzbekistan. The Iraqi and Sudanese had just met and were speakingArabic to one another about finding a mechanic for a car. This was huge because the Iraqi was my friend and we were just trying to figure out what to do with his car that wasn’t working. And a man from Sudan was the answer? A man brought there by a woman from Russia and a man from Uzbekistan.  I almost broke down in tears of joy. 

There was this old man on a beach in Mexico. White hair and tanned skin and a little bulge of a belly. He enjoyed food. Probably a beer from time to time. I’m a person who stares anyway, but this gentleman, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. It was as though there was no one else on the beach - even though it was packed. He walked very slowly, stood directly in front of me, and took off his pants in order to enter the ocean. He had on some shorts underneath. Everything he did was slow. Appreciative. Warm. He swam for a while, put back on his pants and walked away. Again, smiles like the one I wore as he left, don’t come very often. I told everyone around to look at that man. I wondered if he was God. 

God? 

Of course not. Of course not. God isn’t that. God is... 

Well, what is God? 

We should at least look to the Bible. 

King/Judge/Shepherd/Rock/Lion/Fortress/Friend/Father/Co-worker/Potter/Wind/Breath/Vine/  Light/Farmer/Old woman/Mother hen/Bride-groom/Fountain/Gate/Water/Bread/Fire

Is God a rock any more than God is a smoker outside a hospital?  

Is God a vine any more than an elderly gentleman on skates? 

Is God water any more than a conversation between refugees? 

Is God bread any more than an old man on a beach? 

knowing god is not.

Augustine: “If you comprehend it, it is not God.”

Aquinas: “Since we cannot know what God is, but only what God is not, we cannot consider how God is but only how He is not.”

Rabbi Kushner: Literally [God] means nothing. But with a capital N.

Richard Rohr: “We can only come to know God as we let go of our ideas about God, and as what is not God is stripped away.”

If we come back to that birthing creation story, those humans sought more knowledge because their awareness of what already was, was not enough. 

They had enough experience. They were walking with God. But they didn’t think they had enough knowledge, and so they reached for more, and when we reach for more, it takes what we have.

Isn’t the point then, when we talk about “returning to the garden” to get back to what is true? To strip away? To remove? To realize?  

As they say, the more you think you know, the less you know, and the less you think you know, the more you know. 

Because knowing blocks knowing. 

Not knowing anything, is the most amazing way to know everything.

Not knowing is where evolution happens. Being uncertain is where truth is found. Admitting stupidity is where learning happens. Humility is the only place we can open ourselves up enough to receive. Realizing some of our fish friends are dying in the poisoned water is the only way we can adapt. 

And we are most free to not know because we realize we are enough. Suddenly, everything is alright. Knowing is free to become what it is supposed to be... not a way to get there, but a way to realize. 

I honestly think that everyone should be an agnostic of some kind or another. And I mean that. The only thing I know is that I don’t need to know anything in order to be loved by this God of love. 

And then I can start to change in freedom.

it's important to know. but not like that.

Most arguments or disagreements center around beliefs. I know this well. 

My brothers and I, like I said, all agree on nothing. 

I don’t believe that was a good movie.
I don’t believe he’s a good director.
I don’t believe he would make a good president or is a good president.
I don’t believe God is like that, or exists, or loves those people.

We, as humans (myself included) often worry about losing our beliefs. What does that mean? 

Some people feel the need to defend their beliefs, some people feel the need to attack and criticize beliefs. What does that mean? 

I suppose the great thing about beliefs is that they are certain. We can easily quantify them and measure them. Do you believe like me? Yes or no. Are you in my tribe or not? Do I trust you? Are you like me? Should I be around you? Are you smarter, dumber, more liberal, more conservative? 

What do you believe? 

The dangerous thing is that, sometimes, certainty can be a cage. Beliefs can be a trap.  

There is a saying, “Those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know.”

Carl Jung said his definition of reality is “that which affects you”. 

Apparently, if people believe that a wine is an expensive wine, their brain will tell them that the wine tastes better. Their belief affects experience. Researchers have seen it in MRI machines. (After talking with some Alaskan fisherman, I’m convinced Copper River Salmon is the same phenomenon - it’s all in my brain.)

So beliefs matter. 

Paul Coutinho says that if someone proved Jesus never existed, he would still die for the myth because in the East, “experience that affects life is truth”.

This is all pretty radical in the way that it forces us to confront what we believe, why we believe, and, maybe more importantly, what and why we experience. 

I enjoyed this wine can be a more intriguing conversation than this wine is better. 

I’ve found that conversations about beliefs are always much less interesting than conversations about experience. They are also much more uncertain, and thus, less argumentative and, thus, more instructive and helpful and unifying. 

A story, it seems, is always more moving than an explanation. 

A myth, it seems, is always more inspiring than a formula. 

Human experience, it seems, is more meaningful than religious beliefs. 

Making an effort to move conversations that center around beliefs to, at least, the beliefs that affect experience, if not the experiences themselves, seems to move conversations to more beneficial places. 

Sadly, we hear more explanations, formulas, and religious beliefs in terms of God, than we do stories, myths, and experience. I think that’s a problem.

to know or not to know.

The way I grew up, and generally most people who grew up with a Western mindset, is to believe that knowing amounts to acknowledging something in my brain. 

Knowing god, meant knowing things about god, although it was rarely explicitly said that way. 

In the East, from what I have learned, knowing amounts to experiencing something. 

So knowing god, means experiencing god. 

Who knew that the definition of what it means to “know” can change everything? 

Jean-Pierre de Caussade goes so far to say that some forms of knowledge, not only don’t mean very much but they make real knowledge even worse. 

When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirst by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition. The desire to know does but increase this thirst.

I think we generally know this. If you want to know how to ski, you don’t read books about skiing. If you want to know how to write, you don’t read books about writing.

If you want to know God, you don’t read books about God? 

When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirst by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition. The desire to know does but increase this thirst.

If one wants to know god, reading books about god, like the Bible, might be the worst way to do that... and only leave the reader more thirsty for something “real” (an experience).

Or going to seminary to gain a bunch of head knowledge, has the possibility of really pushing someone back from actually gaining the kind of knowledge that matters. (My dad, who went to seminary, calls this cementary, and the cement is not a good thing.)

If we bring the varying concepts of god into the definition of “know”, we get a whole bunch of really interesting things to think about what people might be referring to when they say that someone needs to “know god”. 

It could mean that someone should acknowledge a bunch of information in their brain that doesn’t really amount to much and actually might be preventing them from real knowledge or it could mean they should experience “the metaphor of the mystery that transcends all categories of human thought including being and non-being” to paraphrase Joseph Campbell. 

And, of course, a whole host of other things. 

God, as I define God, seemed pretty intent on constantly trying to remind humans that a knowledge of God is not nearly as powerful as an awareness of God because awareness of something is that different kind of knowledge that leads to experience.

a point.

For the first time in my life I have a spiritual director. I’m not always sure of the difference between a spiritual director/therapist/mentor/counselor/life coach, but either way I have a spiritual director: a Jesuit Priest whom I adore. 

The other day, while listening to his questions, I had an epiphany of sorts: I’ve never planned much of anything. It’s not my style. 

I generally don’t get real into vision statements, life statements, purpose statements, or goal-oriented-future-casts. I’m more run with the wind (sometimes literally) and go through doors that magically open for me. Or run by the doors that don’t open. 

I don’t think this makes me an especially great business person and I do think it leaves people who ask me things like, “Where do you want to be in five years?” really disappointed. I also think it drives me to spiritual direction to try and figure out if I should change that part of my personality or, at least, get better at discerning long-term future ideas. Or maybe not. But it’s worth asking. 

I have recently come up with some words, for now, that I hope broaden my present and drive me into my future: 

Help people (myself included) know the reality of who we are and what we are capable of.

That's Enough. 

the lie.

The creation myth is the first “story” in the Bible. 

I use myth purposefully: that story has so much truth that is way beyond whether or not it actually happened. No one ever asks if Little Red Riding Hood really did meet a talking wolf because no one needs to. We all know that’s not the point of the truth.  

The Bible’s “creation” myth is a poetic birthing story meant to inform us of greater truths of the deepest parts of humanity, and our own birthing. It’s not meant to throw out superficial scientific facts... and arguing for that appears as empty as arguing that the boy really did cry wolf because we have scientific evidence. 

That birthing poem/myth is one of my favorites because it is so layered. Like any good story, there are so many ways to come at it: Rest. Work. Creativity. Shame. Fear. 

The story, the myth, the tale, the poem, begins with all kinds of good. In fact, everything is good or very good as the story tells us. “Good” is sprinkled everywhere. Good is also a word that could mean a lot of things but it generally doesn’t mean perfect. Some people would even say that their pain has been good. (But more on that later.)

I think every human story begins with good. I have lots of theologians and scholars to back me up on this too. It’s known as Original Blessing. The stories start off good. But, because it’s always easier to sell a solution for something messed up than to sell that you’re good enough without me or my answers, the concept of Original Sin won the popularity battle.  

But even though the story is “all good” I can’t deny that there is something not good in that story of humanity, and in our stories. (Depending on our definition of “good”, “not good” could mean all kinds of things too.)   

Still, things go from good to not good. There is a trajectory that I don’t think most humans want. No matter definitions, when things go from good to not good in a story, I pay attention. Things go from good to not good in just about every story, and we call these things, conflict, tension, antagonists, and struggle. As much as we hate things going from good to not good, it’s what makes a story relevant and powerful, because it happens all the time.

And we also learn the most in that part of the story. That’s where the meat is. 

What brings about the “not good” in the birthing story of the Bible is a thought of the main characters: a perspective. A way of viewing themselves and the world. They didn’t think they were enough. They believed that there was more to be done to become “enough”.  

Of course, there is a “voice” telling them they are not enough. There always is and you can call the voice anything you like: the accuser, the ego, the “devil”, a snake, or just “evil”... it’s the voice that tells us that we aren’t enough. The voice keeps yelling that there is something missing and something better to get to in terms of our standings with the gods.

If either of those are true then we are not enough just where we are.  

Once we believe that lie, we generally make another error, at least according to the story. We think that a great way to get to “enough” is to have knowledge... of good and evil. To get more of something than we have, to become like something else. 

I don’t think the story is saying we shouldn’t learn. Although I do think there is a tremendous danger in learning so much that you become trapped in certainty. Still, not the point. 

If you ask me, one of the primary reasons we want knowledge of good and evil, especially when we need to make ourselves feel more worthy, is to use that new-found knowledge on someone else. We usually want to put head knowledge about good and evil in our brains so that we can use that information as a bullet to take down people around us. If they go down, we are up and when we are more up, we make ourselves feel worthy again... at least compared to them... to make up for that first mistake in thinking. Even if they aren’t down, at least we have learned something to get us up. 

This leads to a never ending cycle of work, pain, thorns, desire, jealousy and, of course, using our new-found knowledge to point out how bad others are, or at least how good we are. 

It’s his fault. He’s bad. It’s her fault. She’s bad. It’s that snake’s fault. That snake is bad. 

And since he’s bad, that means I’m better than him, right? 

Am I more than enough now? Or at least back to enough? 

It’s a dangerous path the story talks about. It can be a kind of hell when all humans do is look for brain knowledge to take down others to make themselves feel better. Or even when they look for certainty to make themselves feel better about uncertainty. 

Unfortunately, religion did more to exacerbate the problem than to diminish it and by the time Jesus got here he was telling some religious leaders (Pharisees) that they were traveling over land and sea to create Sons of Hell. (Or participants in a world where all you do is look for knowledge to take down others to make yourself feel better to be enough... a.k.a. judgmental)

But, of course, we still love stories because after they go from good to not good, we know there is better good coming if we can just get through that fall or pit or desert, learning what we are supposed to. 

I think Jesus came to stop all this madness and remind us that we’re okay, we’re enough, we’re powerful, we’re beautiful, we are love, and there is nothing we can do to be any more of those things. When we die to more, we find life. and if we don’t think we are enough already, well... we’ve lived this story before, right? 

I think the point is to change the story when we live it. To not believe the lie.