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.

the truth is in you. the darkness is fading. the light is already shining.

Many, when they hear or read things like “Christianity can be summed up with the two words, “you’re enough” will say “that’s not what the Bible says”. I get that. To a degree. 

But saying “that’s not what the Bible says” implies a certain understanding of the Bible. A more Google-like understanding. 

If you’ve ever been in an conversation about who won the 2012 Best Actor award, someone will eventually says “Google it”. Then the disagreement ends. Many view the Bible the same way. 

What is the definition of a Christian? Bible it. Disagreement over. 

Unfortunately, the Bible rarely works this way, even when asking facts... “How many stalls of horses did Solomon have?” (The Bible actually gives two answers for that one. Whoops.)

And this is not just a Christian problem. Everyone uses this thing as though it’s some database of answers. (We’ll get into all of that later but, for now, it’s not!)

That’s not to say it doesn’t have some amazing words in it. Like the name of this post. 

The first time I came across these words, I couldn’t stop reading them. They just jumped off the page. The optimism, the inspiration, the shouts of “enough”. 

I think they are true but I also want them to be true. They are empowering just to read. 

A guy named John wrote the words and they found their way into the Bible. The same Bible that says some pretty terrible things has phrases like the one above. 

Read them again, just for fun. 

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to cause certain things to happen. I’ve learned it’s more worthwhile spending my time trying to become more aware of what is already happening and I think the Bible has been trying to tell that story for a long time.  

You are valuable, your are worthy, you are beautiful, you are powerful. You are love. There is nothing more that needs to be done or can be done to make the authentic you any more of those things. 

the news.

My great friend Kent and I were having a beer in Michigan. Kent has a Doctorate of Ministry from Carey Theological Seminary and a Masters of Divinity from Gordon Conwell Seminary. Plenty of education. 

I was a pastor at the time. I was preaching on Sundays. I had been a “Christian” all my life although, admittedly, I have very little education (if education means Degrees). 

Our conversation was around “What is the good news (or gospel)?” or “What is Christianity?” We were trying to come up with a definition... which is pretty telling, since we would both call ourselves that word. 

It was astounding how hard it was for both of us to answer that question without going down all kinds of rabbit trails and complications. 

Good news seems pretty easy to define. It’s something you haven’t heard and it’s good. You just won the lottery! You just won a free trip to Australia! You won first place! (It’s telling how often our examples of good have to do with winning something...) 

Years later, I was in a college level class (taught by Kent) where students were trying to answer similar questions and they were watching YouTube videos, listening to lectures and trying to get it down to three minutes. 

This was in a class where everyone had the same definition, for the most part, of the words in the definition, and they were struggling to agree on the good news and get it down to three minutes. 

Three minutes? 

“You’re cancer free” takes 1 second and is pretty good (even fantastic) news. 

If Christianity is centered around the “good news” and the good news is as complicated as it seems, well... I mean... I know why I’m not sure I’m a Christian and I know why so many people feel like me. Or worse, disinterested. 

Do you want to be a Christian? 

Yes! 

What does that mean? 

I’m not sure. Agree to some words? 

Which has all made me think through this whole thing quite a bit, especially since I’m seen as some kind of spokesmen for this thing. And I’ve come up with my definition. 

Ready? 

You’re enough.

Yeah, that’s it. That’s my definition. I understand that’s it not really a definition but more of a statement but I think Christianity is more of a statement than a definition anyway. 

I do have a slightly longer version for those that need it: 

You are valuable, your are worthy, you are beautiful, you are powerful. You are love. There is nothing more that needs to be done or can be done to make the authentic you any more of those things. 

Believe it. Accept it. Have faith in it. 

Some might ask where Jesus is in that definition and that’s a very fair question since Jesus is pretty much the main character of Christianity. 

My response would be that Jesus is everywhere in it.

christianity is just a word.

Speaking of I don’t know... 

Christianity? What does that mean? 

I know I’m a Christian the way many Christians define it but I also know I’m not a Christian the way many Christians define it, which means that instead of knowing whether I’m a Christian, or not, I only know that no one really agrees on what a Christian even is. 

I’ve had many conversations with people who are worried they are no longer a “Christian” and by the time we’re done, I think it’s fantastic news.

I’ve had other conversations with people who tell me that they would never become a “Christian” and by the time we’re done, I think they are already more “Christian” than the majority of “Christians” that I know. 

Am I a Christian? Is this a Christian writing? I don’t know. 

There are many who say you can’t be a Catholic and be a Christian which is kinda like saying you can’t be a Tiger and be a Cat... but you won’t change their mind. (And there are probably some who would insist that a Tiger is not a Cat.)

I’ve spent some time thinking about why this even matters to me.  Who cares? Use the word or don’t. I’m not sure any of this would really matter if it weren’t for my own ego. Which might say something about the value I still place on the word and its ties to my ego. 

We can all relate. It’s frustrating when someone comes along claiming to be in our “tribe” whom we don’t think is in our tribe, or we don’t want in our tribe. They make us and our tribe look bad and so we get angry and defensive and afraid and then we worry about definitions.

We don’t need to look any further than “You’re not a real American.” Technicalities and definitions don’t matter. Perceptions do.  

To a small degree it’s how my Muslim friend feels when he hears someone talk about ISIS as an Islamic group. He gets angry. He gets upset. He tries to explain definitions and uses words like “true” and “real” which only illustrate how desperate we all our to define these things of which we see ourselves as a part. 

All of it, including myself and my anger is just religious tribal ego and it’s amazing how violent the religious tribal ego can get about defending definitions. 

Because, again, what does it mean to be a Christian? 

Words like follow, believe, Jesus, have all the same problems. Even the Bible speaks of “believing in Jesus” and yet “demons believing” and “faith without works” and “saved by grace”. 

And Jesus talks about wind and birth and tells stories to try and explain this “kingdom of God”… all of which is very vague and hard to pin down. 

All that to say that some will assume, people will criticize, people will reject, people will pay attention... and there isn’t any label I can use that won’t have a similar spectrum of responses. 

So, I do use Christian to describe myself and our church. It’s my culture, and the language I’m most comfortable with (even if some of it is toxic) 

But I also think that many people who use the word Christian should be using the word Pharisee. 

And I do have my own definition of the word Christian.

meanings.

Not too long ago I received an email that was pretty critical of me.  This, of course, has happened before, but it’s also not an every day event. Either way, it always stings - words hurt. 

This particular letter used words like agnosticism, atheism, humanism, belief and teachings, disprove, Christian, archaic text and imaginary savior. 

The gist was that I can’t be who I really am at church, or say what I really want to say - which is a humanist, agnostic, potential atheist - because my livelihood is tied up into trying to bring some credibility to my Christian biases. 

To sum up: someone considers me to be fake. 

No one likes to be called fake. But I really don’t. Especially as a pastor. Pastors have been known as fake for as long as water has been known as wet. I despise the connotation. But I tried to listen anyway. I read the email many times. 

To be honest, after thinking about it, the only way I could respond to the email was “What do you mean by all those words? You might be exactly right but I’m not sure.” I don’t think I’m fake, but depending on the author’s definition of the words used, I could potentially understand how he/she might think so. 

After some back and forth emails the person writing told me I had “big balls”. So, I went from “fake” ‘to “big balled” which, again, I’m not exactly sure what it all means. 

Or how about this one? A requirement for a foundation of Christian faith is “Faith in the divinity of the historic Christ (not only prophet and perfect man, but also object of love and worship).” 

Agree? Disagree? Depending on what we mean by divinity, faith, historic, and Christ I might agree. You might. 

But, I also might not. You might not. 

And this is so much of my life. Well... what does that word mean? I might agree. Or might not, depending on… This is so many of the conversations with my brothers... well what do you mean by beauty, by truth, by art, by good?  

I’ve fallen in love with the word polysemous. (Not a sentence I thought I would ever type.) My friend Matthew Roy (master of Russian Literature, piano, and many other things) introduced it to me in some emails we were sending back and forth. 

Polysemous refers to words with many meanings - like bank, crane, speaker, or bat (if it’s not immediately obvious read those words again). 

But there are many more words with multiple meanings than just the obvious. Here are a few I have found to be pretty important: 

God. 
Sin.
Hell.
Holy.
Salvation.
Justice. 
Heretic. 
Christian. 
Pastor.
Righteous.
Church.
Stupid.
Weird.
Art.
Safe.
Success. 
School.
Ready.
American.
Responsibility.
Love. 

We could go through the entire list but what if we just start with the word “god”? Every human being either believes in a god, doesn’t believe in a god, or isn’t sure if they believe in a god and the word “god” might be the most polysemous word ever spoken. 

What the hell does god mean? 

Zeus, Allah, or Mystery? 

How do we know what we do, don’t, or might believe in? We could probably tell an Atheist they do believe in a god and a Theist that they don’t, depending on how we define god. (Ignosticism might be on to something here with the claim that both Theists and Atheists are off until they define the concept of the word they are both using.)

Even if I think I’m using the right word, someone else may think something completely different than what I had hoped. When I use a word today, it might mean something different than when I used the same word a few years ago and I will probably mean something different in a few years from now. And that’s just for me and my perception of words via my culture, experience, and perspective. 

Which makes language and our use of words (and their power) even more fragile, and yet, powerful than we think. 

There is an aversion to some words, no matter how right a definition, because of past pain and trauma associated with them.  Others may say the same word has “saved” their life. They are in love with the word and will express bewilderment at anyone who “doesn’t know what they mean” or finds the definition offensive.

All of the words on the list above are prime examples of both of these experiences. There are words that we just don’t want to have a relationship with anymore and we can’t understand why anyone would. And there are words that we are so in love with that we can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t love them as much as we do. 

Put all of this together and you end up with some interesting combinations of words. How about this fine collection: “My pastor at church tells me that god loves me and has granted me salvation from hell if I repent of my sin and that I will be righteous and holy and go to heaven where there will be no heretics because god is full of justice. Jesus died for my sins. God Bless America...” 

I honestly have absolutely no idea what that means because it could, quite literally, mean anything… but I can also honestly tell you I have a strong distaste for everything about that paragraph. The words are stained and toxic. Still, if you gave me 10 minutes, I could agree with them with certain definitions of the words... definitions that not everyone might agree with. 

So, words matter, and yet, they can’t matter. Not to the extent that religion has made them matter. 

They are... just words. 

And often excuses. We sometimes throw them out like a flare hoping they will distract from the missile headed toward our deeper selves or ourperceived responsibilities - a distraction from the things we don’t understand or don’t really want to talk about. A perceived solution to our shame… that only make us feel more unworthy in the end because we’re faking what we’re even saying.  

Of course, I believe in Jesus! Now stop asking me any more questions about things that actually matter... like... what does it mean to believe in Jesus. 

We can speak so many words but what do we really know? 

And yet, I’m asking all of these questions... with words. 

I don’t know. 

It feels like the world gets a little lighter every time they are uttered by a human being.

I don’t know. 

Wait, what? You don’t know either? Thank God.

words.

I have three brothers. I an the youngest of four boys. My brothers and I are all very different and sometimes I wonder how we all grew up under the same parents. 

I have a brother who wears graphic tees, flannels, and hats and is one of the most talented artists I’m aware of. He’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. He’s also, last I checked, an Atheist. I recently had a discussion with him as to whether we, as humans, are anything more than brains. What about energy? What about those mysterious hidden realms? No, he thinks we are all brain. I love this brother an incredible amount. 

I have a brother who wears tweed jackets, and smokes a pipe. He as two Master's Degrees and and one PhD (more schooling than the rest of the brothers combined) and he enjoys all things British. I would say, last I checked, he’s on the conservative side of Christianity. I’ve had many conversations with him about art... and I usually run for the hills because I can’t keep up. He’s pretty black and white. I love this brother an incredible amount. 

I have a brother who is somewhere in the middle of these other brothers (if middle is between conservative Christianity and atheism) and he’s probably the closest to where I stand. (As chance would have it, we were also born on the same day.) He loves science, reason and logic but also goes with “feeling” as pretty important. I love this brother an incredible amount. 

So, I have 3 very different brothers. 

This means at least a couple of things: 

1. I’m rarely shocked that someone disagrees with me. Heck, I’m shocked if they don’t. I don’t know that there is one thing on this planet that the four of us brothers would all agree on in regards to politics, theology, art, sociology, culture, psychology, places to live, places to go, and definitely what a good movie is. We always disagree and we let each other know. 

2. They have made me. I respect Atheism and I respect a conservative form Christianity. I don’t agree with them but I recognize I’ve come from them. I learn from them. I appreciate them. 

I once fasted (from eating) so George W. Bush would be elected. I’ve fasted twice in my life and one of them was for the election of a politician. Unreal.  If you know me now, you find that astounding. 

At one time, I had a concealed weapons permit and carried a .45 caliber gun around town in a holster and in my car. I packed heat. If you know me now, you find that one of the most unbelievable statements on the planet.  

I once cheered that the “gay kid” was thrown through a window by someone in High School. I’ve said things about homosexuality that I won’t even tell you I said, just because saying it isn’t worth it and I’m more than embarrassed of what I used to say and how I used to treat certain people.
 
I once felt nervous about Catholics, let alone Muslims and Buddhists, who were going to Hell and could pull me along if I wasn’t careful. 

At best, I was a Republican, 2nd Amendment supporter, Protestant, proud heterosexual. At worst, I was a judgmental, arrogant, proud, bigot who knew the answer to everything in the world... or at least who to ask if I didn’t have the answer. And who not to ask for any answers. 

And then I became the one I was not supposed to ask. 

I have a cousin who brags to her friends that I’m one of the few people who has completely changed as an adult. It’s one of the coolest things anyone has ever said about me. (I don’t think I’m the only one by any stretch but it’s cool to be in that rare group.)

I don’t say all of this to say that I’m enlightened, or that I’ve arrived, or that if you are a supporter of the things I once was (besides being mean to any group of people) that I’m better than you. I don’t say this to say that my brothers are right or wrong or better or worse. 

I do say it all to say... what changed me? What changes any of us? What makes them who they are and me who I am? 

There are all kinds of factors, obviously, but at the end of the day, at some level, at a most basic level, it’s amazing to think the powerful part that some combination of words plays in all of this. 

Just words. Words spoken, words written, words thrown back and forth in conversation. But, still, just words. 

There is that little saying that sticks and stones can break bones but words can’t hurt anyone. It’s a pretty ironic statement: using words to help someone who has been hurt by words to feel better. The statement enforces the power of words even while trying to say they are meaningless. 

We all know they aren’t meaningless. Words are, in fact, one of the building blocks of who we are and what we are. They are as essential to the universe as electrons and protons. 

The first time that we officially started thinking about a new church, as a group of people, there were 10 of us in a living room and we all wrote down words on 3 x 5 cards. We wrote down words that we hoped would describe the new church-thing we were hoping to start. 

After merging together similar ideas, we ended up with 4 words: safe, simple, risky, and giving. (We added together later.) It’s not that the words themselves are that amazing, it’s that organizations start with words at all and those words formed a group of people and their culture for years to come. 

Just words. 

There is a fairly well-known story about Johnny Cash. His older brother died at the age of twelve in a terrible accident and Johnny’s father apparently blamed Johnny (who was ten at the time).  A father told a ten year-old that it should have been the ten year-old who had died instead of his brother. Many, including Johnny’s kids, say it was those words that never left Johnny and made him the artist he was. 

Just words. Haunted a man until his death. And formed him. 

I have a friend whose father told her repeatedly that the world would have been better off she had not been born and another friend whose mother told her, repeatedly, it was a mistake she had been born. 

Just words. 

There are stories that determine how I try to live, and I am not alone. More words. Myths, stories, fables have formed so much of our histories and progress it’s sometimes amazing to think what would exist if it were not for them. Anything? 

I only say all of this because I have met many people who have had prisons built around them because of words. I’ve also met people who have been freed from prisons because of words. 

Words - just words - are still affecting us. They are opening people up, making the world bigger, helping us all to be more aware, more optimistic, more inspired, and more creative.

Words - just words - are limiting people, making them feel small, creating wounds, and damaging societies and cultures and killing us all. 

Just words. Harmless little words with no power compared to sticks and stones. 

Humanity, often times in a religious nature, has used words in many of the wrong ways throughout its history. The words created a destructive and toxic environment to swim in. The effect of those words still lives everywhere in churches. And they are perhaps deadlier, longer, in those worlds than in other worlds. 

Those words bother me more than any others. Their effect haunts me because I’ve seen what they do to people, first hand. I’ve seen the prisons, the spiritual insane asylums, and the devastation they reap. They are the Nazgul, the Dementors, the monsters of the night, terrorizing human beings everywhere.  The Dark Words. 

This is a book (bloog/blost post), obviously, made of words. I love words. I love speaking them and listening to them. I love how they are born and how they live inside each of us and our unique perspectives of this world. 

I hope that wherever words have been used to trap you, haunt you, and cause you to be afraid, you can find some freedom, some inspiration and something new with other words, including the words that will appear here.

cave fish.

(This post was the first of many under the category of "Cleaning  Church Toilets" a new bloog experiment. A bloog is a blog and book somehow combined into one. At least, I'm calling it that. This post is a little longer than usual but it introduces the bloog. If you want to stay up-to-date, you can always find these specific posts - here. I'm really excited about this and I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to spread the word.

This was completed in August of 2016 and you can now read the entire thing starting here and clicking on the left arrows for additional chapters. Enjoy!

As of June 2017, you can purchase paperback and kindle versions! )

I think we humans are basically like these little cave fish I recently learned about that live in the cave Cueva del Azufre, in southern Mexico. The little guys have been subject to some fairly brutal treatment for hundreds of years. The Zoque, an indigenous people in the area, believe that the fish are a gift from the gods of the underworld. Gods of the underworld sound pretty terrifying, honeslty, but these gods of the underworld are also the gods that send rain to feed the crops the Zoque grow in southern Mexico. The crops that enable them to survive. 

So every year (before being banned by the Mexican government) the Zoque performed a small ceremony with these fish at the end of dry season, the week before Easter (interesting timing). 

Thought it’s not exactly what I expected someone to do with a gift from a god, the Zoque poison the water that the fish live in. They grind up the roots of the Barbasco plant to create a paste (with a touch of lime juice of course) and drop it into the dark pools of the cave. The fish end up interacting with the toxin - which paralyzes them - and the Zoque scoop them out of the poisoned water, kill them and eat them until their meals of fish can be replaced with the new line of crops that will eventually arrive- thanks to an abundance of rain from the gods of the underworld. 

Apparently, the fish don’t taste especially great - which makes sense since they were swimming in poison before being captured and eaten. 

Much more interesting than anything up this point (which is all very interesting), is what these fish have done with being poisoned for years by people who believe in primitive gods and a religious system that has caused them to suffer every year right before Easter... 

they have evolved. 

They’ve changed. They’ve adapted. They’re becoming immune to the toxins that paralyze them. 

Some researchers took fish from that particular cave and fish from another area and exposed them to the same Barbasco plant poison. They found that the fish from the cave were much more able to withstand the poisons than those from other locations. They were able to keep swimming 50% longer. Some predict that if the ritual hadn’t been banned, eventually the fish would have become immune to the poison. 

I sometimes feel like one of those fish, and I don’t think I’m the only one. It feels like I’ve been swimming in a world awash with religious, political, and economical systems and gods that have poisoned the environment. I don’t think the answer is throwing away religion, politics or economy but I do think the answer is to evolve. I think we have to do some major adapting in our understanding of how to make this world work for us and how to resist the, often toxic, religious, political and economic, affects. 

The philosopher Peter Rollins says something to the effect of “A letter always reaches its intended destination: the person who wrote it.” The author and thinker Seth Godin writes something similar “The most important book you’ll ever read, is the one you write.” 

(Tangent side note: this means you should probably start creating that thing you keep smothering in self-doubt and fear and anxiety. Your soul needs it. We need it too, but even if we didn’t, the amount you need it should outweigh any benefit from the world needing it. Which, by the way, if everyone lived that way, the world would definitely benefit.) 

Back to my main point: this bloog (book/blog) is about evolution and change and adaptation: my own evolution and change and adaptation. This medium and message has changed quite a bit in the time I started working on it and in the time I’m re-writing the introduction, and now posting it - which just enforces all the more, that change can go pretty fast sometimes. Sometimes we need to stop and appreciate the evolution. Think about the adaptation. Smell the change. Feel the growth. Say hello and get to know the new thing we’ve become so that we can continue to survive and get stronger. And continue to change. 

And probably ask some questions to confirm that all this change is for the better. 

At the time of this writing, almost 8 years ago, as chance would have it, I became a pastor. I had worked in video games and, to make a long story short, going from video games to preaching sermons was a fairly big change.

People change jobs all the time. But when you have to suddenly start talking to people about religion, spirituality, toxins, and gods... you find yourself thinking a lot about religion, spirituality and gods more than you did when making video games. Or at least in a certain... church(y) way, which I also wasn’t sure I liked. I generally don’t like church(y) things. 

I grew up in the church so the landscape was not too foreign. My dad was a pastor. My dad was a dad, first, then a pastor. My dad didn’t make me go to youth group even though it looked bad on him. But my dad was also a pastor and he had to sell his $1700 Porsche and buy a $2800 Geo Metro because the people at the church weren’t sure him driving a Porsche “looked good”. 

As a teenager that makes you think religion is fairly stupid, especially because that Porsche was really fun to drive and that Geo Metro... was not. 

People have much worse stories than that about church. I’ve heard about the trauma and tragedy and abuse repeatedly. I could write a very depressing book about it. 

But we all know the water is filled with poison. That conversation, to be honest, is boring at best and carries its own toxicity at worst.  

My parents, I’ve realized fairly recently, instilled in me a freedom to pursue change. They would never say it this way, but they taught me, and modeled, the pursuit of evolution, even spiritual evolution. I’m grateful to them for that. 

All kinds of words get thrown around when religious people begin to evolve or change… to find the narrow paths that branch off the wide path. Sometimes those words are heretic and false prophet. Sometimes they even kill the heretical, false prophet who talks about the life found on the narrow path and the destruction found on the wide. 

I wish we could find a way to use evolutionary instead of heretical and false. Revolutionary would work too. (Those words generally do work in the portions of life where change is expected and celebrated - like science.) If we go back to the story of those cave fish, the only other viable option to change is death. 

I think many forms of Christianity are dying. I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks this. But I also think that if cave fish who can’t deal with toxic religion are the forms of Christianity who are dying, well I wish they would die sooner. Of course, the form of Christianity that we currently think is the “correct” form once evolved from a worse form, dating back... well to the advent of humanity. Religious followers have thought many times throughout their history that they finally had it figured out... only to see some other generation come and figure it out again for the last time.

Evolution is a requirement for any kind of legitimate faith. 

People always start to ask the questions they aren’t supposed to ask, read the books they aren’t supposed to read, trust the people they aren’t supposed to trust, have thoughts they aren’t supposed to think, listen to people they aren’t supposed to listen to, find truth where they aren’t supposed to search, knock on doors they aren’t supposed to open... you get the picture. They keep asking, seeking, and knocking... and that’s always dangerous to some. 

That’s what I did. 

I bet those cave fish that started to adapt to toxins were told by all their fish friends to stop changing and to continue to be like everyone else... just before those old friends, who refused to change, passed out and were scooped up to be eaten. 

So these specific posts called “Cleaning Church Toilets” are a reflection on my changes, in a sense. I know I have all kinds of biases, blind spots, and prejudices and I’m trying to be more aware of them. I’ve learned that when we give space to thoughts and life and change, they grow and we grow in all the right ways. 

And so this is for me. Am I happy where I’m at? Where am I at? What do I think of all this? How have things changed? What have I learned? Am I evolving? What am I communicating? Who am I now?

These will be mostly concise ideas and experiences that have stood out to me over the past 8 years or so, that have infected me, transformed me, and, moved me as I’ve talked, listened, lead, and cleaned toilets. 

In fact, a few Sundays ago someone came up to me and said, “Ryan, the men’s bathroom…” 

I responded, with a smile, “Yeah, it’s right over there.” 

“No,” they smiled back. “The toilet is plugged and there’s water everywhere.” 

“Oh. Right.”

It’s always good that people can trust you with some of their deepest secrets… and to unplug their toilets. 

So, I unplugged the toilet, again. And I mopped the floor, again. And I thought why do I do this? Again. And I remember, why. Again. 

My hope, of course, is that my change syncs up with your change in one way or another. My hope is that it inspires you, challenges you, gets you mad, gets you glad, encourages, empowers and all of the other things that my evolution has done to me as I’ve looked back. 

We can’t just keep swimming in this pond and letting the poisons get to us, right? 

If it’s not obvious, let me say it outright: I don’t have it all figured out. 

Change doesn’t rest. Evolution doesn’t become satisfied. New never gives way to mediocre. The wineskins always get old at some point but fortunately this universe always has something new around its ever expanding corner. Even religiously speaking. 

So even as I take a second to ponder where I’ve come from and what it means for me now, I get excited about what is to come. I hope you do too.

cleaning church toilets

Tomorrow marks the start of a new experiment: Cleaning Church Toilets. I'm calling it a bloog. I don't know if that's a word or not but I'm going with it because this thing is somewhere between a book and a blog. It's finished. I've gone back and forth on the way to spread it and finally decided to just blog it a chapter at a time  - and maybe book it later. Or maybe it's already a book and I'm just blogging it. 

Either way...

I'm excited about this thing! I hope you'll follow along and please spread the word to anyone who might be interested. 

cookies and sunrises

The other night a little 2 year-old was at our house. I happened to give him a cookie and the smile that was on his face was one of those smiles you'll never forget. He just held the cookie, staring at it, with a smile filling up his whole face as well as the room. It was as though he simply could not believe that he was holding such a gift and he didn't want to let the moment go. 

This morning I was with a man who should be dead. He survived a car accident that he shouldn't have. He told me that once a week he wakes up at four in the morning to watch the sun rise and he cries every time he does. He began to cry to me. "I shouldn't be seeing anymore of those," he said. "I'm grateful for them."

Damn. 

It never ceases to amaze me what I learn from children and from people who have been through the pain. 

go rogue

There are no rules in art and creativity. Isn't that why we love it? 

The cages are finally gone  - don't let the voices bring them back. 

you're pregnant

Once a pregnancy appears, there's no use telling someone they shouldn't have had sex. Or berating them for having sex. We generally move on. We make things better, no matter what got us to this point. 

In that case, it's more obvious. In others, I wish it was. 

 We're here. Maybe we're here because of an affair, because of alcoholism, because of bad religion. 

But, why do we keep talking about what got you or me here? 

We move on. We make things better, no matter what got us to this point.

evaluation

The NFL Draft finished recently. I'm always amazed at how much time is spent analyzing, evaluating and determining an athlete's value and whether or not they will be successful. Grades are given for players and for teams on how well they evaluated the athletes being evaluated. 

Years later, they'll determine whether they were "correct" or not. There's pretty much a 50/50 chance. 

But, very rarely, do we talk about the setting to which the players will go. The team. The culture. The training. The encouragement or lack thereof. 

Isn't it possible that it's not the grade of the player as much as it's the grade of the place they are going? 

When the player fails, we blame the seed. But if there's no soil, water, and sunlight, the seed is doomed to fail. 

Obviously, this is much bigger than football. 

it already is

I hear something along these kinds of lines quite a bit: 

I don't know if that's my story. (Or if that will be my story.) 

To which I sometimes respond, 

Well, up to now, it is. 

Don't wait for a story. Start telling the one you already have.