When Despair Turns to Rage

A few days ago we heard news of yet another senseless shooting. 

But this one was different. 

It wasn't a kid, tormented to irrational action by bullying. It wasn't street violence. It wasn't drug or gang-related. It was a man in his 70s, who freaked out in a movie theater because another man was texting during the trailers. And as my wife and I listened to the description, we both thought to ourselves, "We know this man."

No, we don't know this particular individual. But we know people just like him. 

Average people. Normal people. Good neighbors, good citizens. People who have always played by the rules and seemed to have their life under control. But then they reach a certain stage of life and they begin to realize they are losing control. Losing control of their career, their children, their health. Even the culture. Where once it all made sense to them, now it feels like it is all slipping away. More than that, it feels like it is being taken away. 

And this leads to a sense of despair. And every issue, every event, every incident, is one more drop in the bucket of this feeling of losing control of life. Perceived slights, folks not following the accepted rules of polite society - real or imaginary - become symbols of the loss of control. And this can be fueled by the constant narrative presented by certain elements within the media who feed the despair by presenting every issue as "us" vs. "them" in an all-encompassing culture war, and the resulting war will bring the end of life as we know it. The future is dark and full of suffering, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

And as the bucket gets full, for certain people, people who are not used to the passivity despair entails - that despair can give way to anger. And anger turns to rage, and rage responds not in proportion to the situation.  When someone doesn't follow the rules: not using their turn signal, not yielding, jumping in line, texting in the theater - rage responds all at once, to every drop in the bucket. After all, this is war.

Since my wife and I know people like this, we have been paying attention to the research concerning how people can guard against this overwhelming sense of despair as they (okay, we) get older. 

And two things we have learned:

1. The need for connection 
As folks get older, there is the need for more purposeful relational connection with others. Where once our jobs and our families provided this connection, retirement and other life circumstances may remove these daily interactions. Health issues may make it more difficult to stay connected. And the most direct antidote to a sense of despair concerning the future is healthy, mutually encouraging relationships across generations. This requires effort, but it is worth it. And the church can play a significant role in providing an environment for these healthy relationships. Unfortunately, sometimes the church purposely disconnects generations from one another, as well as sending the message that those of a certain age are no longer valued.

2. The need for disconnection
Just as there is the need for connection with others, there is the need to disconnect from the constant barrage of news and commentary that fuels the negative perspective on life and the future. When 24-hour news and commentary is allowed to be the soundtrack for life, constantly in the background via TV and radio, we may begin to believe the partisan hype and hyperbole.

Often, we see senior adults do exactly the opposite of what is healthy. Rather than investing time and energy into connecting in healthy, intergenerational relationships and disconnecting from a constant diet of negative news and commentary by turning off the TV, they drift away from relationships and eat an unhealthy diet of media. It is understandable how this happens, and it is not always the result of purposeful decisions on their part. But they can do something about it - with the help of their family and their church. 

Does this resonate with what you observe? Do you have any recommendations based upon your experience. Let's talk.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Reprising this blog from last December.

Advent Blessings!

Over the last several years, there has been quite a bit of consternation from Christians about what they perceive to be the "unChristianizing" of American culture. Now, I have quite a bit to say about that, and we could probably have a good time discussing it, but I'm not going to delve into that big picture conversation today. Rather, I am going to address just one small bite of it.

There are folks who get exercised because government entities, businesses, and media seem to avoid the traditional "Merry Christmas" greeting in favor of a more generic "Happy Holidays." Or, they are offended that some folks list out several other holiday greetings along with Christmas. Or public schools have "holiday" or "winter" programs rather than the explicitly Christmas programs of their youth.

I'm going to try and be kind here, and I mean this in all true love and affection:

CHILL!

There are many things to be offended about in our society that are explicitly anti-Christian, including the general coarsening of our culture. More importantly, there are aspects of our society that explicitly draw folks away from the love and grace of God and lead to idolatry, such as consumerism and idolatrous nationalism. If we were talking about those, I would be interested in participating.

But getting offended because someone greets you with "Happy Holidays!" Seriously?

The truth is, we cannot expect our local, state, or federal government - in all its manifestations, including public schools, and the public square - to explicitly tell the story of Jesus. We cannot expect businesses to go out of their way to remind folks of the true reason for the season. We cannot expect the media to get the Christian story correct. After all, every time I see a news article, TV report or internet story reporting on something about which I have a direct connection, the media gets it wrong.

It's not the government's job to declare the Incarnation. It's not the bottom-line mission of most businesses to  preach the gospel. And it's not the media's responsibility to bless us with the message of the birth of the Savior.

It's the job of the church.

And if my community is being inundated with the message of "BUY, BUY, BUY" but not hearing about a virgin with child who is the Messiah, then it is the fault of my church and the other churches in our community. And if our children are so busy learning "Jingle Bells" and other secular songs - and even songs that celebrate the holidays of other groups and traditions - and are not learning the songs of the real meaning of Christmas, that is not a failure of our schools, but a failure of our Christian homes.

The story of Christmas is our story to tell. We tell it first with our lives, with how we treat people all year long. And by building relationships, we earn the right to tell them about the Christ and how his birth changes everything.

And, to be honest, I would much prefer that people smile at me and say "Happy Holidays" then swear at me with a frown and a look that can kill. Although, I must admit, that doesn't happen as much in rural Pennsylvania as it used to in Boston.

Some of those folks could make "Merry Christmas" sound like a curse.

We're Not Dead Yet

Guest Writer - Carissa Schutz

September 20, 2013

We're not dead yet

I want to dedicate this post to some of my favorite people in the whole world: my cousins. Right now we are all in a state of transition, including starting a new school year, starting high school, celebrating a 1st birthday, turning 18, starting college, living off campus, starting a new internship, starting grad school, and beginning married life. I love you all and you inspire me: )

I also want to apologize for the overuse of parentheticals, caps, and exclamation points!

There is a concept in literacy education that students should be given materials that are at their level plus one. The idea is that reading should be challenging, yet within reach. I think this is also a theory in exercise, but I wouldn't know because I haven't exercised in a while.

Teachers should provide their students with appropriate material. Any objections? I didn't think so. We would all agree, I hope, that students should be challenged in a supportive, encouraging environment.

So why...and I mean WHY... do we sell ourselves short?

In an incredibly informal study of everyone I know, the majority of people said WOW, MONGOLIA.

80% of people said "YOU are so BRAVE." (And I don't think they were referencing my resemblance to the Disney character in the movie of the same name. I think they're under the mistaken impression that anything awesome about going abroad was somehow related to my personality. Nope.)

50% of people said "I could NEVER do that." And unfortunately I think they really meant it. People, and yeah I mean some of YOU, think that if they were called to a foreign place (or a crazy new job, etc...follow the metaphor...), they could not go. Not that they don't want to go. But that they are somehow incapable. So I wonder, what other things do you think you can not do? And what do you think our Father can not call you to? And do you think He will not call you because you say you are not able? Are you perhaps trying to pull a Moses, literally and metaphorically stuttering in disbelief? Huh? Huh?

I'm a little passionate about this. I know. But recently I've heard people my own age complain about how boring life is. (And how boring Christians are, but THAT'S a topic for another time!) And yeah, sure, there are times where work or school or life's responsibilities are not super thrilling. However, our Father is doing crazy stuff in your neighborhood, your town, and around the world. Shut up any voices that say you can't be a part of this exciting work. (And if you don't think it is exciting, you are not really seeing it, my friends.)

Our Father is the best TEACHER there is. He knows all about giving his students material that will challenge them. He knows exactly what each student needs to learn and grow. For example, He knows that on my own, I'll choose to reread Harry Potter instead of Steinbeck, and watch episodes of Fringe instead of reading, say, the newspaper. I don't really like to challenge myself.

I also don't have an accurate idea of what I'm capable of. I spent the first week of grad school being completely overwhelmed by all the super smart people around me. And then the professor said 90% of our grade is class participation, so now I have to talk in front of these people! But THEN a classmate asked me for advice because I seemed to know everything and she seemed overwhelmed! (I'm not kidding, that totally happened.) While I know this semester will be ridiculously difficult, I'm not out of my league here. I'm just being challenged. It's a "plus one" situation. (Or maybe if you saw my homework for this weekend a "plus three hundred" situation.)

The point is, who am I to tell my heavenly Father that He can't call me to certain things? I would never let a student tell me he wasn't smart enough for a class assignment. Let's stop underestimating what Love can do to, with, and through us. At the very least we need to be open to the possibility that there is an adventure around the corner.

For more blog posts by Carissa Schutz, visit http://beyondideas.blogspot.com/

A Different Perspective on "Plagiarism" in Preaching

I've been reading several books on the history of preaching, most recently Richard Lischner's excellent The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr and the Word That Moved America.

I am about to make some sweeping generalizations, in order to encourage discussion.

I think the concern some have expressed over plagiarism in preaching is misplaced. It seems that our concerns in this area come from a desire to make a connection between preaching and academic research - that the work of constructing a sermon is comparable to writing a term paper or essay. And this is not surprising. After all, most of us learned the means of constructing a sermon from our professors - academics at home in the world of research and necessarily obsessive about documentation.

However, preaching is not really like writing a research paper. It is the telling of a story. Really, it is the retelling of a story. And we pull as much from the "oral tradition," the years of hearing the same story told multiple times, as we do from any commentary or other secondary source.

An illustration: I suggest that it would be pedantic if we were to hold FDR accountable for failing to attribute his famous quote, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," because he neglected to document the quote as a paraphrase from Seneca the Younger. Of course, you would lose points on your high school paper if you did not do so - if your high school teacher knew enough to accurately translate Seneca, or even knew enough to look it up. However, we recognize that FDR had more important things to do in his first inaugural address than cite proper sources. Nor do we criticize MLKJr for misquoting FDR as "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." My point is - we don't care whether or not the statement is original to FDR. We only care that it was exactly the right thing to say to move a nation to action in the middle of the Great Depression.

The problem comes, it seems to me, when we are forced to suggest that anything we are saying is an original idea. Not only is what we are preaching not original, but we should not strive for it to be. If I am telling the story that has been told for thousands of years, if I have an original thought or perspective, that should serve as a red flag that I am not correctly telling the story. After all, my task as preacher is, in the words of C.S. Lewis (note the attribution) not so much to offer something new, as to remind the congregation of that which they have heard many times but seem to have forgotten. Possibly more accurately, we are called to be like the grandparent who, sitting on the front porch or around the campfire, is asked to "tell us the story again," the story that was told to me by my grandparents.

When I was a college chaplain, I had the opportunity to bring to our campus a gifted preacher and storyteller. Now I knew that some of the stories he told were not original to him, even though he presented them that way. (Truthfully, he did receive some flack for this from other well-known preachers, but he really didn't care.) All I know is that the students who heard him, some 20 years later, still speak of these moments in chapel as seminal to their walk with the Lord.

Now, this is not offered as an excuse for preachers not to do their homework, to reference the scholarly research in order to rightly divide the word. Nor am I suggesting it is appropriate for preachers to pull entire sermons off their shelves or off the internet and present them as their own. What I am suggesting is that we do a disservice to the preaching enterprise when we tie it to the rules and rigors of academic research, an activity that is meant to enlighten, but not meant to move people to passionate action, as preaching is called to do.

Do we really think anyone in our congregation wants to hear multiple citations?  Are we expecting every preacher should have the burden of writing "original" material every Sunday? I don't think so.

What do you think?

Hard and Holy Conversations

Over the last few weeks I have participated in some interesting conversations.

Should national flags be in the church sanctuary – and who gets to decide?

Is marriage a civil relationship the church blesses, or a sacred covenant of the church that the state chooses to recognize?

Is it possible for the church to have a reasonable conversation with and about believers who are homosexual and choosing abstinence, when we really don’t have a fully developed theology of human sexuality?

What is the role of the church in addressing unjust societal conditions, when the congregation disagrees on what would constitute justice?

Is it a legitimate kingdom response for the church to provide food and clothing assistance to those who are in the US illegally? What about for those who are citizens, but who have developed a generational lifestyle of reliance on handouts?

Is it appropriate for a Christian to share his opinion concerning what he considers to be the inappropriate actions of the government, knowing there are those in the congregation who have participated in similar activities, and will be highly offended by his words?

How can the church respond to those whose presentation of the gospel is diametrically opposed to what we believe to be Christian?

How should the church respond to someone who has violated the congregation’s trust?

Is the drinking or not drinking of alcohol a matter of personal preference, or evidence of Christian holiness, or an issue of creating a loving environment for those who struggle? How much should the church speak to such questions of personal behavior?

And the list just keeps going.

I have been involved in these conversations with members of my own congregation, with other pastors in our community, and with friends and colleagues from around the world. Spurred on by Dan Boone’s excellent book A Charitable Discourse, I have invited folks to "gather around the table” and discuss topics that the church tends to avoid. Some of them are essential for the Christian life, some not so much. But all of them produce strong opinions. As we have had these conversations, here is what I have found.

1.    A lot of folks assume that everyone else agrees with them. In fact, as you read the list, you might have thought, “Well, that’s obvious. Of course the answer is _____.” What do you say to those who don’t think in the same “obvious” way you do?

2.      Quite a few people consider conversation about these and other uncomfortable and potentially divisive issues as to not be worth the trouble. And I certainly understand. After all, we value relationships, and we don’t want to hurt feelings.  Except these conversations are important. You see, many of our young people are having these and even harder conversations outside the church. Shouldn’t we be able to talk about such things together.

3.      Pastors are no better at talking about these issues than anyone else. We might even be worse. We tend to be conflict-averse. We often feel like we are supposed to be the expert. We know that when we share our opinion, even when we try to clearly differentiate between our personal perspective and our pastoral conviction, it isn’t often heard that way.

After reading Dr. Boone’s book, and after participating in numerous hard and holy conversations, I am convinced of their importance for the health of the local church and for our denomination. Gathering around the table to have honest conversations about potentially divisive issues, we are able to live out the essential tension of our Wesleyan theological perspective – the via media  – the middle road. By this we do not mean muddled, sloppy thinking that refuses to define parameters of right belief in the name of pleasant relationships. Rather, we seek doctrinal clarity in an environment that demonstrates holy love and grace. Believing correctly should not be the adversary of loving one another. How we finish conversations – whether we still love one another and value one another’s perspective – is as important as the points argued.

The ability to have hard and holy conversations begins with a skill that seems to be lacking in our cultural discourse – the ability to listen. It is absolutely essential that we take time to hear one another’s story in order to frame each other’s opinion within the larger picture of their lives. For example, to use the illustrations stated above, children of alcoholics may have a very different perspective than those who were raised in an environment where alcohol was used but not abused. Those who have several gay friends or family members may have life experiences that dramatically color their picture of those issues. Can I sit with you, listen to your story, and take the time to hear?  Can I refuse to place you into the political, religious, and social categories we often use as a shorthand to define, minimize and even demonize one another?

It is important that we not gloss over how difficult some of these conversations can be. For some, they are the front line of reaching their generation with the gospel; for others they are the issues which indicate a loss of the faith of previous generations.

Last week, in the middle of one such conversation, I read the opinion of an articulate friend whose perspective differed from my own. She didn’t change my mind, but she helped me to see the value of the conversation. And in that moment, I realized that this was exactly the kind of issue that would have led some people to leave the church just a few years prior. And I thought – “Is this difference worth breaking fellowship?” “How can I, as a pastor, create an environment where we can talk of such things?”

What We're Not Having

Recently, I joined with three other adults and we took a trip. One of the things that become apparent right away was that stopping for a meal was not as easy as it used to be.

One is a vegetarian.
Two are gluten-intolerant.

We just couldn't pull up to the rest stop Mickey D's and order whatever sounded tempting. Did you know that McDonald's adds gluten to their fries? Did you know that many restaurants add pancake batter to their omelets?

And since the reason for the trip was a wedding, there was the reception. And the rehearsal dinner. Three of us don't drink alcohol. I've known for a long time that I would probably handle certain social situations better if I did drink. Doing life sober when you are an introvert should get me some extra points, don't you think?

Which brings me to my point.

There once was a time when certain folks understood holiness to be primarily about what folks didn't do. "No, I don't do that."
"No, I don't go there."
"No, I won't be having any of that."

(When I was in college and being introduced to this way of thinking, a girl turned me down for a date by informing me that good Christian girls don't go to the Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey Circus. It wasn't the first nor the last time I was turned down, but it certainly was the most unusual.)

The folks that believed holiness was primarily about what you didn't do also believed that this lifestyle would be attractive to those who did those things. That abstinence would encourage folks to ask about the Jesus who was supposedly behind all of this. (Yeah, I know -Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into wine. That requires some of the most creative biblical exegesis imaginable.)

Well, I don't drink. and I still think it is a pretty good choice. I don't consider myself better than those who do drink, but doing life sober - apart from the awkward social situations  - is the best choice for me. However, I would suggest that what we don't do is not near as attractive as what we do: things like loving our neighbor as ourself, showing compassion, and turning the other cheek.

You know - like Jesus did.

Remembering a Bad Time

On this week, 35 years ago, as a 22 year old, I traveled from my parents' home in the suburbs of Baltimore to Columbus, OH. A month earlier I graduated from college, and was now about to pursue my first graduate degree - a M.A. in counseling at The Ohio State University.

It was the worst year of my life.

While I had experienced anxiety in the past, and had even tried - and failed - at talking to a therapist, everything just got worse once I arrived in Columbus. I experienced panic attacks, followed by anticipatory anxiety. then free-floating anxiety. For a number of reasons, I lost connection with my college friends, and failed to develop new relationships. I was fairly competent in my coursework, but pretty much failed at the normal logistics of everyday life. I was okay at work (cataloging and shelving books in the OSU law library and working with junior high kids of divorced parents), but otherwise could not figure out how to do life.

You would think that, as the year drew to a close, I would have been excited to finish up and get out of that place. However, the anxiety just got worse. I was afraid to be alone, yet did not know how to relate to others. On one occasion, out of desperation, I asked some people I knew if I could just sleep on their couch. I needed to know that I was not losing my mind. They saw my heightened state of anxiety and stayed up with me. We sat up, talked philosophy (even though I was the only one interested in the subject), and played cards. And we prayed. They saw I needed the human contact, even though I seemed to have forgotten how to respond to it. Their ministry of presence was a saving grace to me that night.

Looking back, remembering that year, I am thankful for it.

I learned that I experience life differently from other people. I learned that I know little about the normal human interaction that most folks take for granted, and is the core of their relational life.I learned that I may never be very good at the daily, normal activities of life. However, I also learned that I have an acute awareness of the existential pain that is just under the surface for many of my fellow humans, and I can often see it in their eyes, and hear it in their voice.

Mostly, I learned that there is such a thing as a ministry of presence, and it is often the most helpful way to offer grace in the world. I can let others know that they are seen and heard, that they are not alone. I can let them know that they are not being judged, categorized or critiqued. I can let them know that I was once where they are, and am not there now. But I remember.