National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: Social Satire

Though the more recent “National Lampoon’s” movies are obscene and generally void of anything resembling symbolism or depth, I came to an odd conclusion tonight about one of the original movies, Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase. The entire movie presents Clark, the overly-enthusiastic father, and his attempts to create the perfect Christmas: freshly cut tree, 25,000 lights, Santa Clause, family ’round the table…all of these things are humorously disrupted by his own problems and his odd family.

Three different things in the movie point towards an actual lampoon, an actual satire of the way American society just completely misses “what Christmas is all about” (as Linus says in Peanuts Christmas Special, whose presence on the airways this time of the year is utterly ironic given its anti-commercial message).

1) The movie begins with Clark and his wife singing “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”- as they conclude, she says, “Oh, that was so beautiful Clark!” But before she can finish her sentence, Clark yammers on with “Deck the Halls.” The contrast is too obvious to miss. Also, this hymn (which repeats at a couple key moments in the movie) is the only reference to anything spiritual or Christian. None of the characters ever talks about anything church-y in relation to Christmas, which I think is deliberate.

2) The whole family sits down to pray before the meal. Clark asks his aging, senile, aunt-in-law to give the blessing, and she proceeds to lead them in the Pledge of Allegiance.

3) End of the movie, through a series of hilarious events, there is an explosion outside, and this same senile aunt-in-law leads everyone in the Star Spangled Banner.

These last two events are what struck me as the most poignant. Right as dinner is to be served, the most obvious chance to remember Jesus is passed up for the Pledge. This strikes right at the heart of American civil religion-pledging to the flag is just another way of praying to it and most people’s family Christmas celebrations are more in line with a prayer to the god America than a prayer to Jesus. Christmas, for many Americans and others, is simply a way to pay homage to the all-mighty dollar, the compelling advertisement, and the slave-masters of greed, covetousness, and materialism.

The movie seems to affirm the spirit of Clark’s attempts; maybe Christmas is really not about the material stuff, but the sense of family and warmth and togetherness that all the material stuff helps to foster. But just as you start to believe that, senile aunt-in-law reminds us that, no, this too is merely an American mis-perception about Christmas. She bursts forth in the Star Spangled Banner, an appropriate tribute for the misguided emphasis on Christmas being about your forming tighter-knit bonds to the exclusion of neighbors and enemies (just take, for example, Clark’s miserly next-door neighbors). Couldn’t the over-emphasis on my personal, nuclear family be just another form of unhealthy patriotism? If so, then the National Anthem is amazingly appropriate for this scene in the movie; it reminds us that none of this is really “what Christmas is all about.”

Do I think that being with family is wrong? No. Or that it’s not one of the blessings of this time of year? Not at all. But, that’s not what Christmas is all about. In fact, Christmas is the ultimate spin on this kind of family love–God says, “Yes, I’m coming to be with my family, but it looks a lot different and a lot bigger than you imagine.” Look at the family God chose to come into the world through: a teenage mother who became pregnant before marriage, a (at first) reluctant husband, born into a dark cave where both rich and poor came to celebrate.  The first Christmas reminds us that our understanding of family is so much smaller than that of God’s.

I’m glad people spend a month of the year trying to be more loving to each other. You can’t complain about that. And sometimes without knowing it, people begin to embody the peace-bringing message of Christ’s birth. It usually happens in spite of our bumbling around not because of it. But Christ’s birth reminds us that the kingdom has begun to come on earth as it is in heaven, and that’s not a 25 days out of the year job.  I think movies like  Joyeux Noel do a wonderful job giving examples of what Christmas can be about–when warring armies can put down the sword and realize they don’t need to keep killing each other.

Movies like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation remind us that we are no where near that 99% of the time.

Advent-A Divine Conspiracy

Of all the language that surrounds Christianity and Jesus, the way we talk about the Gospels and our mission on earth, the language that I find most compelling is that of subversion and change from the underground. Revolution language has always been captivating.  It speaks of the common person, the low man on the totem pole who longs for a better life. Revolution always seems to emphasize the lifting up of the lowly, the downtrodden, the oppressed. The rich and in charge don’t revolt.

No wonder Jesus’ message attracted people who hoped for violent revolt against Roman rule.  Jesus’ first public message in Luke 4 has all the ingredients of revolution-liberation of the captive, good news for the poor. Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution does a beautiful job painting the picture of our non-violent lover and revolutionary Jesus. Conspire Magazine is doing the same thing, giving a sense of the dirty, smallness of our movement with Jesus.

The popular movement Advent Conspiracy speaks in the same language. Somehow, the story of Christmas is not just a cute story about a baby wrapped in Old Navy clothes, but about how a refugee infant challenged the political reign of the day. The story has all the makings of a good conspiracy-late night getaways, hiding out, even a violent reaction by Herod.

But what’s so revolutionary about Advent? What is so subversive about waiting?

As I learned last year around my expecting housemate, pregnancy is the most tangible way to understand what Advent tries to get us toward–a sense of impatient longing and desire for new creation, new life. The pain and urgency in the last weeks of carrying a child a remarkably visceral, I remember an embodied sense of frustration and expectancy. We needed that child to come. But again, what is so revolutionary about that?

Revolution is all about “power to the people.” But the Advent revolution teaches us to wait for divine power, which is weakness, to bring about the new creation. Waiting for the true king instead of giving in to the false power of the world is astounding, it is unbelievable, it has absolutely no sex appeal. Nobody is impressed by it. It’s slow, it doesn’t happen all at once, and rarely happens in large chunks. It’s revolutionary because its leader is the lowliest of all human beings–an infant.

God is conspiring, always conspiring, “plotting goodness” as some say, “holy mischief” as Shane says. It’s captivating. There’s a sense of mystery, especially when we realize that Jesus is the plot, the underground movement to save creation from its suffering.

I love Advent.

Autumn Leaves

A Classic (sung by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and many many others over the years-click on the Frank link to listen):

The falling leaves
Drift by my window
The falling leaves
Of red and gold

The song of course goes on, but I really like the tune. The music really matches the autumn theme in the words. I’ve been reflecting recently on the tree in our alley. If I say “the tree” there is no mistaking it for any other because it is the only tree in any direction in the alley. It’s striking to me to walk the length to the main road and not see a single leaf on the ground or on anyone else’s cars or driveways.  One of our residents is always outside sweeping up the millions of leaves that seem to accumulate each day.

I like our tree. There are other trees in our neighborhood, but this one is striking to me because it seems out of place. It grows right out of the cement and is the only thing resembling nature in the alley. Everything else seems so barren, but at our house, at Cornerstone Community, there is life. To me it has deep symbolism, the tension between death and life even in our own house. Men who deal with shedding their years of death and enslavement to drugs and alcohol are held together in love and community. A family, brotherhood, community; these are the branches of the tree of life whose roots are a God who calls each child Beloved. And like the tree, we have seasons of abundance, growth, budding, and beauty as well as seasons where death seems to prevail. But the beauty of spring is enhanced by the barrenness of winter–we know from what God has pulled us.

Maybe in the end I just like the tree because it’s at our house. If it grew a few houses away, I probably wouldn’t appreciate it quite as much (though I still find it odd that there are no other trees or patches of dirt). I like that something marks our house as different. You can’t really tell from the front, but if you come around back, you know which house we are. And that’s really how our community is too. You wouldn’t assume a lot about it from the way the house looks, or even from meeting the residents. We don’t look special. But we know our unique chosen-ness in God, that we are special and taken to be God’s Beloved, to embody some small part of new creation on earth now. Our little tree of life is representative of what is to come.

“On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.” Rev. 22

Power

I think I mentioned in a post before about wanting to work through a theological understanding of power. My current thoughts have revolved around the idea that if God’s power is most fully displayed on the cross, which is a sign of complete weakness and submission, how does that affect our notions of what Divine Power really is? How does the cross, the ultimate theophany (lit. revelation of God), affect our reading of other parts of the Bible?

I’ve wrestled through what most people mean when they say “X has a lot of power” or “X is a very powerful person.” I came to the conclusion that the core of what people mean by power is the ability to control or alter events. From this definition, it’s legitimate to say both that God has power and that people or things can have power. Along the same logic, power can be used for good and for evil. It fits in a certain understanding of God that says that God gives power to people and people (having free will and also sin) can corrupt that gift.

Here’s my problem with that definition: it leaves out the means of achieving change as a separate issue. In that logic, God is powerful because God can change/influence anything. But I think the cross shows us that God is powerful because of the means by which God changes the cosmos. God chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. The cross, by all worldly terms a failure and a sign of a weak God (a God who can be killed), is revealed as the means by which God does everything.

I think that with this understanding of God’s power, it significantly alters the way you read the entire Bible. It of course causes you to read the Bible backwards (the cross is the starting point through which we understand everything else). I’ve yet to work through all of the examples, but how does this understanding of God’s power change how you would read some of the violent wars of Israel’s past? I think there’s a way to read even the most difficult passages of the Bible through this lens; I daresay it might even help them make sense. Certainly all of Jesus’ talk about the Kingdom of God makes a lot more sense if we realize he’s not being metaphorical when he says the poor are blessed or that the widow’s offering of just a penny is more than all the rich people who gave out of their abundance.

The further implication (in my opinion) is a very modern, practical issue. It changes the way you talk and think about the “powers.” If I believe that true power is expressed through weakness, that automatically dismisses the government and the military (and many other things we call “powerful”) as holding any true power. It returns the notion of God as all powerful to God! God has all the power;  God’s power is expressed through God’s willing servants taking up the cross, assuming a cruciform existence. The rest is illusion. Ascribing power to human-made things and institutions which don’t have any power is, biblically-speaking, idolatry.

Have we made government, military, certain people, even social justice-oriented things, into idols? I would answer that with an unequivocal “yes” even without this understanding of power, but the way I’m beginning to view God’s way of working in the world further proves to me of how idolatrous we are. And if you read the OT, that’s really the thing that over and over again God warns against. Be careful, God says, that you don’t take on the gods and false practices of other cultures; don’t give homage and ascribe power to things other than me.

3 Things

Thing 1: A successful carving of an image I find really moving, in pumpkin form:

Thing 2: Delicious Butternut Squash Soup recipe, shared with friends at a party:

Ingredients:
2 medium Butternut squash
Curry Powder
Olive Oil
1 large Onion (a sweeter variety)
Salt and Pepper
4-5 cloves of garlic
Stock (vegetable or other)
1 Pint Heavy Whipping Cream
leeks (optional)
lemon grass (also optional). I didn’t use either of these optional.

Directions:
Cut the squash in half, scoop out seeds and stringy stuff. Drizzle in Olive Oil, put in oven for 90 minutes at 350 (or until soft). When done, scoop out the insides (they should come out really easily at this point), and puree them using either a hand blender or regular blender (The electric hand blender works best if you have one, makes it really smooth).

Sautee the onions and garlic. When transparent, add a bit of Cooking Sherry,2-3 tablespoons of curry, and some of the salt and pepper (you can add that to taste later). Add the pureed squash, and then add the Stock to thin it out. Stir continually, and then add 1 Pint of Heavy Whipping Cream. If the soup appears too thick, add more stock or water, and then salt and pepper to taste (probably need to add more salt. Serves about 10

Thing 3: Josh Garrels’ Over Oceans CD

These 3 things combined make being sick not such a bad thing.

Praying Through Creation

The final session of my class on prayer at New Leaf School for Christian Living was about learning how to pray through God’s creation. In the same way that St. Francis learned to see how connected we are to the rest of what God made, I think we can and should learn how to praise God through all that is around us. It seems kind of strange that creation can teach us to pray and that we could even join creation in its ongoing praise, but I think St. Francis begins to teach us how (See the “Canticle of the Creatures” at the bottom). Scripture teaches that even creation groans to be set free from bondage, so why not proclaim the good news of liberation and freedom to the birds and trees?

Most of us, I think, have been taught to view creation from above, as though it is beneath us. I agree that humans are created differently than the rest of creation, but we are still creatures and we need reminders that on the same day God made us, God also made cattle and creeping things. Creation helps us see the paradox of God’s love as creator, that God, who is love and whose love cannot be lessened or diminished or separated, loves each part of creation fully and at the same time uniquely and individually.

Part of our exercise on Saturday for the session was to spend some time in conversation, literally, with creation. The exercise invited us to introduce ourselves to our surroundings, to sit and listen and perceive what was around us, and finally to find a friendly tree or animal to sit and tell our own story to. I had a lovely chat with a spider sitting in her web. It seems kind of silly to some people, and I think a portion of our group was a bit skeptical of some parts of the exercise, and I know that people who weren’t there seemed a bit skeptical of trying to talk to animals and trees and learn from them how to pray to God. But, I offer the spider as a true example of prayer.

Sister Spider is created with a purpose that she knows only from God-given instinct. She is an artist. God has created her to create, and every day she spins a web, a new piece of artwork different from every one that came before it, as part of her trust in God’s provision, the quintessential starving artist. If something bad happens–a rainstorm, a large animal, a human being passing through– the spider’s web is destroyed and she starts over. It is only by the grace and provision of God that she is provided for. The spider’s movements in creating the web are contemplative, just like using a labyrinth or saying a prayer over and over, she moves at a slow, measured pace, knowing only her vocation in life. Her artwork exhibits the tension between life and death, that as she co-creates with God, her art means the death of another part of creation. I long for the day in new creation where spiders will spin their webs and not have to kill their prey, where examples of beauty won’t be instruments of death. It’s no different than the image of the lion and the lamb, or the viper and the young child; God is renewing all of creation and we can learn to worship God from our fellow creatures.

Take the trees. In Albuquerque, I remember marveling at the cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande because they bow low to the ground, thirsty for the living water, almost prostrate before their maker. Such humility and loyalty in worship is natural; only human beings have been given the gift of choosing that kind of worship, but how often we choose otherwise.

Check out what Brother Francis thought about the animals. Given that this past weekend was the Feast of St. Francis, it’s appropriate that we had our session outdoors.

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,

all praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.

No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all you have made,

and first my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and through whom you give us light.

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor;

Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon

and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, bright, and precious, and fair.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers wind and air, and fair and stormy,

all the weather’s moods,

by which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,

so useful, humble, precious and pure.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,

through whom you brighten up the night. How beautiful is he, how cheerful!

Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through our Sister

Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us,

and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord,

through those who grant pardon for love of you;

through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy are those who endure in peace,

By You, Most High, they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,

From whose embrace no mortal can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin!

Happy those she finds doing your will!

The second death can do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks

And serve him with great humility.

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,

all praise is yours, all glory, all honor,
and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.

No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord,

through all you have made,

and first my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day;

and through whom you give us light.

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor;

Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon

and the stars; in the heavens you have made them,

bright, and precious, and fair.

All praise be yours, my Lord,

through Brothers wind and air, and fair and stormy,

all the weather’s moods,

by which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,

so useful, humble, precious and pure.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,

through whom you brighten up the night.

How beautiful is he, how cheerful!

Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through our Sister

Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us,

and produces various fruits with colored flowers

and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord,

through those who grant pardon for love of you;

through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy are those who endure in peace,

By You, Most High, they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,

From whose embrace no mortal can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin!

Happy those she finds doing your will!

The second death can do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks

And serve him with great humility.

D.C. Metro Tensions

Riding the Metro later at night is always an interesting event. Everybody is always quiet. I think there is some unspoken rule, like at the library, the Metro at night is supposed to be quiet. There are fewer people, and instead of being in a hurry like at rush hour, people seem to just want to conk out until they arrive at their destination. In my experience, the silence of the Metro at night is broken mostly by the night club/bar crowds. Expensively dressed young women add a sharp contrast to the ugly brown and yellow seats which are so visible because the cars are so sparsley populated.

Yet inevitably, the late night Metro crowd brings out some of the worst qualities in people, I think. Tonight, while waiting at the College Park Metro, I watched 5 young white women, well dressed for a bar or club, experience the kind of harassment and treatment that makes me sick. A few young black men started talking to them, ludely complimenting the women, asking for their phone numbers, and even blocking the escalator so they had to talk to them. Our train took 30 minutes to arrive, so there was plenty of opportunity to watch the various interactions between the two crowds. Some of the women seemed to just play it off, and others were visibly afraid, but I could tell that none of the women were comfortable.

One guy in particular just wouldn’t leave the women alone. He’d walk over to them, sit on one girl’s lap, speak crudely. I guess something about the night, the lack of security guards, and some combination of testosterone and stupidity left very little inhibition for this guy. Once on the Metro, it continued, again sitting on a girl’s lap, getting a picture with the women, talking about them to his buddies as if they weren’t there.

I don’t like making generalizations about people of different races, but this scene is not unfamiliar. I’ve seen very similar situations, though certainly not always where the women have been white nor the men black. There’s a lot going on in that kind of situation, a good deal of it is just testosterone and masculine ego. At one point on the Metro the chief agitator started doing pull-ups, a not-so-subtle attempt to flex his strength. In some ways it was very biological, with the males flexing and strutting to show their ability to be a good mate, while the women fended off the shows of vanity.

But observing what was going on, there was another layer of tangible dissonance, and I’m pretty sure it was about race, on both sides. Again, not to generalize, but on the male side I think the combination of testosterone and ego with a subconcious negative energy towards white women creates a very dominating attitude and subsequent behavior. Women become “ho’s,” objects of male domination. I think white men objectify women similarly, but the hundreds of years of racial tension and history does something different. Obviously I don’t think that all black men behave this way or even think this way, but in such an overt instance of domination, I can’t help but think it is some sort of assertion against white supremacy. Subconcious or concious, I think it’s there.

For the part of the women, like many other young white women I’ve known, I think they’ve been raised to have a much more concious fear and dislike of especially young black men. They’re warned from childhood to avoid homeless people (like many of us) and strangers who will potentially rape and kill them. Another generalization, but from my experience that’s how many many white girls are trained. Obviously the women had a right to feel intimidated, and I don’t in any way blame them for feeling that, but I wonder about what else was going on. Most of my female friends would have been uncomfortable in that situation regardless of the color of the skin of the guys, but would there be a difference in the level of it?

I guess what I’m getting at is the notion that in addition to the other things going on in this situation, both parties were taking part in something that we are ingrained with from birth it seems. We are all guilty of racism or prejudice. I doubt either party was thinking racially charged thoughts, but I know it was there. And honestly (and I don’t know what this means), I think if asked about it directly, I think the white women would have been quicker to realize or admit that at least part of why they were uncomfortable was because the guys were black. Again, not to place blame, but I just think that especially in white women, racism is taught much more overtly in the name of safety than in other demographics.

Becoming a Prayer: First Session

Here are the notes from our first session at New Leaf School for Christian Living about prayer. I apologize if they’re not all in the most grammatically correct language, as they were my notes. I also apologize for any formatting issues.

1. Practical suggestions and cautions
   1. Contemplative Stance: Meditation is less about method than about outlook. You want to develop a contemplative stance, which ultimately leads to compassionate action.
   2. Amount: 20 minutes is the common suggested starting amount of time because at least half of that will inevitably be us just trying to get out of our thoughts. 

                                                             i.      Don’t try to put yourself on a “higher level,” because this is a journey inward. There are no shortcuts. If you’ve never even spent 10 minutes in silence, trying to do an hour will likely just result in anger and fatigue.

                                                             ii.      Imagine you’re on a river. You want to rest on the bank of the river and as your thoughts pop up, place them on a boat and watch it float down the river.

                                                            iii.      Resist the urge toward “mental prayer” and intercession (during specific times of silence, not always). If something arises that you feel you ought to pray for, notice it to intercede for at another time after silence.

1. Alone or in a group? I suggest doing it in a group when possible. Helps motivate us and discourage us from quitting early if we don’t “feel it.”

                                                               i.      Caution against always needing to “feel” good after or feel good to even begin. St. John of the Cross warns that praying this way may even discourage us at the beginning because it may not yield tangible results or uplift our spirits. Obviously we want to be careful of mistaking the means (silence) for the ends (experience of God) (some people can’t sit but need to do walking meditation), but generally the advice is to patiently keep returning to prayer.

1. Psalms: Read them as much as possible. Memorize a couple, or read the  same one or two every time you sit down to be silent, and listen for a word or phrase that sticks out. Use that as your mantra. Or just repeat the Psalm over and over (probably a short Psalm). The Rosary is common as well. Even if you’re not doing silence, always read at least one Psalm whenever you sit down to read the Bible. (Certain Psalms are appropriate for different parts of the day, i.e. Ps. 91 is night prayer, Ps. 148-150 are traditionally the Psalms used at the end of the Lauds (Morning) Office) (1st office of the day really).
2. Liturgy: If really interested and want more directed prayers, get a copy of the Short Breviary, which details the different Psalms and readings followed by some Benedictine abbeys.

                                                               i.      Caution about too much written prayer: don’t let it replace just being. Psalms are ideal, or even short prayers, but from experience don’t just let reading a Psalm once substitute for silence. The goal is to embody the Psalm/prayer, not just read it.

1. Breathing: Breathe “In” one word, phrase, or syllable, breathe out another, i.e. In: Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God Out: Have mercy on me a sinner. A simple, oft-used is the “Sacred Name” prayer, YHWH, because it matches the breathing of the human body. Or just repeat the name of Jesus, over and over, which was long thought to be the most immediate route to experiencing God.
2. Taize music is great also. Some people don’t like the use of music, thinking it can pull your mind and attention, but I think certain music is wonderful. Taize is simple, peaceful, and repetitive.
3. Lectio Divina: the simplest way to do this is have a someone read a Psalm or passage 3 or 4 times, slowly, and listen for a word or phrase and keep repeating it in silence.
4. Walking Meditation: Demonstrate. Very slowly, deliberate steps, each step either a breath or phrase. Again, repetition. Become aware of what is.
5. Fasting: My closest experience of God this summer came during a personal silent retreat in the desert while fasting. I’d taken Communion the morning I left to go on the retreat and prayed to let that sustain me. Disciplined fasting and prayer (on a regular basis) does something unique in us.
6. Jesus’ time in the wilderness begins with temptation and trial ends when the angels come and attend to him. This is a scary endeavor. Even as we progress and are able to be in silence, certain things will continue to pop up. It’s essential to notice these things, as they are the issues we need to deal with outside of our meditation. The recurring questions and boats we keep having to set sail are our core issues. But becoming aware of what is is how we move forward.

Prayer Plug

After many years of being told that I needed to pray, to talk to God, to intercede, to listen to God, to know God better, I spent the better part of this last year actually doing that. I didn’t live in a monastery, but I did spend nearly every day in some kind of community prayer or devoted special time to pray on my own. I did everything from recite pre-written prayers to sit in silence to standing outside at night conversing with God aloud to sitting next to Jesus on a bench and talking to him like a dear friend. I’m far from an expert on prayer (indeed, a healthy prayer life recognizes that we will never be anything but beginners), but I think I’ve had a pretty unique opportunity to explore prayer more deeply, the leisure to just pray a lot more than I ever have before.

I’m eager to share all that I’ve learned and experienced. I think I have begun to develop a multi-faceted understanding of prayer from spending time with everyone from conservative white evangelicals (college) to the black church (this year in Durham) to white community folks (also Durham) and most recently from the folks at the CAC, who combine probably a more “liberal” end of the spectrum than any of the others with a strong awareness and inclusion of the ancient prayer practices.

While I’ve mentioned my experiences with prayer several times on this blog, after this Friday, I’ll try and synthesize some of my thoughts on here. For all of you in the D.C. area, I really encourage you to think about coming out to New Leaf Church’s “School for Christian Living,” that begins this Friday and will have 3 sessions this month. I’ll be teaching the first “class” (3 sessions), entitled “Becoming a Prayer.” For the course description and directions/time and location click here.

My hope from the 3 sessions is to try and emphasize the absolutely vital role that prayer is in the life of a Christian. My friend Brother Dunstan, a Benedictine monk, said to me yesterday that he believes that we have been put on earth for the sole purpose of developing a prayer life. That statement sounds absurd to some ears, and is if you define prayer very narrowly as humans talking to God. We need to pray, not because of what it causes God to do, but because of what it does in us. St. Paul says that we are to pray without ceasing, and to put it the way my recent mentor Richard Rohr does, I don’t think he had in mind going around saying the Lord’s Prayer or Hail Marys or any number of other prayers.

The word “role,” above is also an imprecise word. Prayer cannot be merely a tool or an important thing we do. We are called to a deeper spirituality, where we become a prayer, where our very life breathes God in and out always. It’s not just a matter of 20 minutes of quiet time a day, but those kinds of practices are supposed to lead us to a constant practice of God’s presence, “thinking always of God,” is the way Brother Lawrence phrases it. This kind of prayer leads us to an affective (not Effective) relationship with the Creator and generally to a deeper experience of God.

I’ll stop there for now, hopefully to entice the small audience of this blog to come over to the West Hyattsville community on Friday night for my first class. The last two classes will be quite different from the first one, but the goal is to offer three ways/aspects that lead us into deeper knowledge and experience of God.

Pray always!

Recovery-ese

In my brief time so far here at Cornerstone, I’ve learned a lot from the other residents. It doesn’t take long to realize the completely different backgrounds and worldviews we have. I, a 23 year old white college educated male with no history of substance abuse,  and they, middle aged African American men with a combination of jail time, substance abuse/addiction, and homelessness, have very little in common on the surface. Some might look at our differing life circumstances and say that I’ve been lucky, blessed, or “privileged” economically and because I haven’t had the trauma of some of their life events.  On the one hand that’s true. I wouldn’t wish some of the horrors of their pasts on anyone and I have been blessed beyond my knowing to grow up in a loving, nurturing, and economically stable environment.

The great thinkers on prayer (and Jesus himself) recognize that there are roughly two types of people who easily recognize their complete dependence on God: the true mystics and the great sinners. Of the first category, there are very few people. The mystics are the sort of holy fools for Christ, who are gifted with an awareness of God, and with that awareness comes a deep recognition of weakness and how God alone provides.

The other group, the great sinners, are gifted with the same awareness as the mystics but it comes about through trial and shame and guilt and sin. Those affected by alcoholism and drug addiction especially have buried their souls deep in lies of their sin and trusted these tools of death to provide for their needs. Yet at a certain point, and I think this is the hinge point for 12 step programs, the addict reaches the bottom and the equivalent to a mystical experience occurs that makes the addict aware of just how in need of God he or she is. It’s amazing to me that even in the midst of the evil of addiction, God provides a special grace to those who recognize their great sin.

⁴¹“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,

and the other fifty. ⁴²Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the

debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³Simon replied, “I suppose the

one who had the bigger debt canceled.”  “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (Luke 7: 41-43)

This passage doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t make sense that people who have done bad things should somehow receive a greater revelation of God. And that’s what I love about it. It’s beautiful, unfair, absurd, but completely true; I think it is a sign of the coming kingdom of God because evil has already been defeated and we can even see that in the seemingly hopeless and dark life of the addict. You can read the above passage from Luke and find ways to say that Jesus is really saying that we all have a great debt and it’s a matter of recognizing it in order to receive from God, and that’s true. But “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” rings true especially in the lives of those who have experienced great sin. Yes, I am the greatest of all sinners and in need of God’s love and mercy, but I know that my housemates have experienced great sin in a way that I probably never will and therefore have experienced God in a profound way that, again, I probably never will. That is not to say that my experience of God is less valid or even less at all, but my capacity to recognize even my righteousness as but filthy rags is limited by the more or less ease of my life. I haven’t known the “bottom” in the same way my housemates have and therefore can’t realize how deep the hole I’m in actually is. I’m not afraid to admit that despite all my learning, praying, well-formed thoughts  and attempts to know God experientially, more than likely some of my housemates have a better intimate knowledge of who God is and that humbles me daily. God just isn’t fair and that’s why I keep going back for more, because “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

I think one of the things they teach you in addiction recovery is that you are an addict and will always be in recovery. You don’t stop being an addict. When I hear that, my instinct is to rebel and say, no of course an addict can be totally healed, because to me it sounds so hopeless that for the rest of your life this thing will not completely leave you. I would find that so depressing, so permanent, so futile. But yet there’s this part of me that knows the power such an awareness can have in bringing people into humble submission to God, this daily reminder that God is the only Source. Addiction recovery groups exist in part to remind people of their utter dependence on God and how that will never go away.

That’s what I like about the Church of the Savior. Gordon Cosby (founding pastor) said that church ought to be more like an AA recovery group, something that exists to bring us into a fuller realization of our addictions and our total need for God, without whom we are nothing. Church has the potential to be a place where we can share burdens, take responsibility for our sin (what has been called confession), and be brought over and over to the cross, the place where Christ gave himself over to the addiction of humanity to violence and a certain view of power.

We end our house meeting each week the following way:

One: “Who woke you up this morning?”

All: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.