Some of you know of Tim Keller. I expect I’ve quoted him at some point in these writings. I put him up there with C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard and a handful of others as especially wise and able to communicate complex concepts in relatively simple language.

I just finished reading a chapter in his most recent book, Making Sense of God, the concluding little section of that chapter entitled, “The Humble Will be Exalted.” It struck me that it fits in with this theme I’m exploring right now.

Keller writes,

Jesus contrasted the ordinary, exclusionary identify with that of a life based on grace. He told a parable “to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.” (Luke 18:9). There were “two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Tax collectors were despised in society as greedy and as collaborators with the Roman imperial power.

Jesus continues, “The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “(Luke 18:10-13).

Keller: Here is one identity based on moral self-effort and entailing exclusion to strengthen itself. The other man is seeking a wholly different route, one that acknowledges sin and need but also the reality of God’s free marcy and grace. Jesus’s conclusion: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14).

Keller: If you believe in Jesus’s message, you believe in truth, but not a truth that leads to exclusion. Many voices argue that it is exclusionary to claim that you have the truth, but as we have seen, that view itself sets up the dichotomy with you as the heroically tolerant and others as villainously or pathetically bigoted. You cannot avoid truth claims and binaries. The real issue is, then, which kind of truth – and which kind of identify that the truth produces – leads you to embrace people who are deeply different from you? Which truth claims lead you to scorn people who oppose you as fools? Which truth claims lead to community? Which truth claims both humble and affirm you so that you’re not afraid of people who are different than you are, nor can you despise them? If I build my identity on what Jesus Christ did for me and the fact I have an everlasting name in him by grace, I can’t, on the one hand, feel superior to anybody, nor do I have to fear anybody else. I don’t have to compare myself with them at all. My identity is based on somebody who was excluded for me, who was cast out for me, who loved his enemies, and that is going to turn me into someone who embraces the Different. (My bold emphasis)

Keller concludes: Christians, of course, so often fail to realize and live out of the resources they have. But the world needs millions of people who have the capacity to do what the Gospel compels and empowers us to do.

For the longest time, I thought I had a somewhat accurate picture of the Gospel message. I realize I did not even have the most basic clue. It is a radical view of reality, yet the most accurate depiction I’ve ever encountered … by leaps and bounds. Nothing else comes close to the fullness of both its message and challenge. As I try to come to grips with the polarizing forces surrounding us, I remind myself of truths expressed in Jesus’s teaching above and in the commentary by those like Tim Keller.

Without a doubt, there is such a thing as battle. While some of my friends who follow tenets of other faiths than mine might contest this, I believe battles are real, that there are casualties and that it’s important to find our place in that context.

I hope to write more about this and already have a lot of thoughts floating around.

I recall when the Berlin Wall came crashing down nearly abruptly and the terrible Soviet empire imploded, almost as an afterthought. Some hailed the moment, which one could say ended the Cold War, as a dawn of a new age. A foretaste of a glorious future where democracy would flower everywhere and humanity would finally launch as redeemed.

Well, the battles continue to rage, some as physical wars, some as deep conflicts of will. And, as I briefly touched upon recently in a post entitled, “Sadness,” we are increasingly faced with the traumas of a world and nation divided, polarity increasing its stake in our lives.

I have the luxury today of spending some quiet time indoors as a steady rain pours down outside, to write and read and think.

Earlier this afternoon, I came across an article by someone named Trevin Wax, entitled, “Do We Really Have to Politicize Everything?”  It proved to be fairly short (unlike my ponderous essays!) as he quickly got to the point.

After a brief introduction, he suggest this: “These days, the political realm has begun to infringe upon every other aspect of our common life together: sports, religion, retail, and art. We should resist this development, because this infringement flattens our ability to love our neighbors.”

As readers of these pages know, I grew up in politics. Lived part of my early life as someone who could be called an activist. I envisioned myself having a life with political issues always at the center. I ended up studying and teaching political science and political and economic philosophy. Rewind my life’s tape 40 years and you’d see someone who could not envision a life outside of the political realm. In fact, I still find it difficult, although I no longer view the political as the ultimately essential.

This runs contra to some of the greatest thinkers of the modern age, among them Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Interestingly, it also runs contra to many who have no use for causes and/or no real opinion on things beyond the immediate choices in life.

My point is that I am hardwired to pay attention to the political and all of the forces at work that become expressed in political language and behavior. But, at least in the west, in the traditional democracies, something interesting is increasingly at play. Whereas the political has always been the province of the few, while most others largely sat on the sidelines engaged in regular life, we’re seeing a distinct shift. More and more, we are resorting to political lenses through which we view all sorts of things and to political language to express what we believe is right and just. And, as we do this, we devolve into camps of like minded people, new tribes that are strengthened around causes requiring more and deeper commitments. On one level, this is not any kind of new phenomenon. On another level, though, I believe it is.

With that, we return to Mr. Wax’s piece

He says we are witnessing the convergence of two developments. The first, he say, is the lifting up of our consumer voices to the level of religion. He continues,

“In American society, we are more and more inclined to define ourselves by what and how we consume. We no longer buy things to meet our needs, but to become something, or to express who we are.

“Brands are the new religion,” says Douglas Atkin, writing about customer loyalty. People express their own identities through what they buy.

With an endless sea of choices, Skye Jethani says, “individuality is the new conformity.” Choice is a powerful factor in a consumer society, because more choices provide more ways for consumers to demonstrate their uniqueness.”

The second development, he says, is the lifting up of our political views to the level of religion. He continues,

“In American society, we are more likely to see political views as non-negotiable aspects of our true selves. This is why recent research shows families having a harder time with a son or daughter who wants to marry someone from an opposing political party than from a different religion!

In a secular age, people expect faith to stay at the margins of public life. It’s something private, something you can turn to for therapy but not for policy.

But something will take the place of religion as the ultimate loyalty. If not God, then government. If not religion, then politics. If not evangelism, then political activism.

I write about this development in This Is Our Time, because it is one of the most important things to note about our era. Columnist Peggy Noonan gets it right:

‘For more and more Americans, politics has become a religion. People find their meaning in it. They define themselves by their stands. . . . When politics becomes a religion, then simple disagreements become apostasies, heresies. And you know what we do with heretics.'”

Now, I have not taken the time to read his links so I cannot verify the data or explore the background to Mr. Wax’s points more deeply. However, I resonate with the basics.

He then goes on to observe what he terms a “Frightening Convergence.” He says,

“Put those two developments together: (1) the idea that your consumer choices express your identity and (2) the idea that your political views are the essence of who you are. What happens next?”

“Everything gets politicized.

More and more people invest their shopping or entertainment with political significance. Political evangelists believe they are helping their cause by sticking with this brand instead of that one, by boycotting this designer or that retailer because they associate with heretics.

People then look for ways to assert their political righteousness or press for their cause everywhere they can. You signal your virtue by your stances on social media. You show that you belong to the right church (ahem, party) by how you align with the celebrity, or the athlete, or the retailer who affirms your position. You signal your outrage by your boycott of the heretic.”

The author is a Christian and so entitles his summation, the “Gospel Effect.” In his words,

The gospel challenges this convergence. The announcement that a crucified Messiah is the king of the world must lift our eyes and our allegiance to something more ultimate than a policy proposal or a political party. The gospel, of course, has political implications, but it demotes “the political realm” to a lower place.

The gospel also demands that we see in others—even our political opponents—the image of God that dignifies all humanity. Understanding the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin and selfishness should engender a sense of humility in how we engage the world around us.

There’s no question that Christians have often been involved in helping create the two developments we now see converging. We recognize that our choices always have a moral dimension to them. Retail support or boycotts, protests and shows of support are appropriate from time to time.

But surely we must resist the tendency to flatten out the various spheres of life (retail, art, sports, and so on) by subjecting them all to political urgency. Politics is one sphere of life, not the ultimate.

“Not every wave of political enthusiasm deserves the attention of the church,” says British scholar Oliver O’Donovan:

‘The worship that the principalities and powers seek to exact from mankind is a kind of feverish excitement. The first business of the church is to refuse them that worship. There are many times . . . when the most pointed political criticism imaginable is to talk about something else.’

In a world that is increasingly polarized and politicized, we have an opportunity to show by our attitudes and actions a different way. If we, as Christians, don’t show the world that there is something bigger and more important than politics, who will?”(Emphasis mine)

These are his words, not mine. And, while I might quibble a little here and there, I cannot agree more with his statement that politics is one sphere of life, not the ultimate. And, with his concluding paragraph above. And, I return to his earlier statement that the infringement of consumerism/politics flattens our ability to love our neighbors. Surely.

In conclusion, I haven’t really dealt adequately here with how politics and the Gospel collide, nor to the nature of the battle(s) that rage. But, I felt Mr. Wax bit off a nice little chunk to get us started.

 

It’s a good day to write. Rain falling consistently. We returned from our wonderful trip and I finally finished my piece, posted a few minutes ago, on Integrity. While we were traveling, Diane shared a brief email she’d received, on grace.

Last year, I wrote a lot about grace and may end up writing more. After all, I think grace is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the Christian faith and perhaps the most difficult concept to grasp, in reality. I have for some time viewed grace as a gift, undeserved, but freely given. That sounds simple enough but when applied to things of ultimate meaning, it’s a rather deep and profound concept.

I recently heard grace distinguished from mercy, thusly: Mercy is not receiving what we deserve. Grace is receiving that which we don’t deserve.

Here is the emailed excerpt from a book by Kyle Idleman.

Numerous theological books teach the doctrine of grace, and some of them have helped me enormously. To be clear, though, this is not one of those. You’re still welcome to write a blog post or send me an email pointing this out, but it won’t be much fun because I’ll be quick to agree with you.

I’m less interested, and for that matter less qualified, to teach you about the doctrine of grace. I am much more interested in helping you experience grace. I tend to think grace is best and most fully understood not by way of explanation alone but through experience.

Think of it like romantic love. If you want to understand romantic love, you can open a scientific textbook and have romantic love explained in terms of neural and chemical reactions. And that might be helpful, but there’s really only one way to understand romantic love. It must be experienced.

And when something is best understood through experience, it’s best taught through stories. Stories bring you into an experience.

The Bible is full of narratives that teach us about grace. When Jesus wanted to help people understand the grace of God, he didn’t give a lengthy and detailed explanation. Instead he told the story of the prodigal son. 

Compare what we learn about grace from Paul with what we learn about grace from Jesus. Paul uses the word grace more than a hundred times in his letters as he helps the church understand grace. Jesus, on the other hand, never used the word grace. Instead he showed us what it looked like. Both approaches are helpful and needed, and certainly Paul’s explanations were motivated by his own experience of grace and his desire for others to experience it. But if grace is explained without being experienced, it really doesn’t have much effect.

I’ve sat through several seminary classes taking detailed notes on the subject of grace. I’ve memorized countless Bible verses that describe grace. I’ve read numerous books about grace. But do you know what has taught me the most about grace? My own story and the stories of others who have experienced grace.

God’s grace is compelling when explained but irresistible when experienced. (My emphasis)

It’s my prayer that you won’t miss grace but rather will powerfully experience the grace effect in your life—and no matter what you have done, no matter what has been done to you, you will personally experience the truth that grace is greater.

Grace is powerful enough to erase your guilt.

Grace is big enough to cover your shame.

Grace is real enough to heal your relationships.

Grace is strong enough to hold you up when you’re weak.

Grace is sweet enough to cure your bitterness. Grace is satisfying enough to deal with your disappointment.

Grace is beautiful enough to redeem your brokenness.

Grace explained is necessary, but grace experienced is essential.

Here are some follow up questions:

So, how have I experienced grace? Have I received it? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Has it been significant enough to dramatically affect my life? If so, in what way? Have I extended it to someone else? Was it hard? How was it received? The author of the passage above uses some pretty descriptive language at the end. He says grace is powerful, big, real, strong, sweet, beautiful, necessary and essential. Do I agree? Can I identify those elements of grace in my life?

Many of the major faith traditions teach love of one kind or another. Many teach justice of one kind or another. Many teach mercy of one kind or another. Many teach that salvation or its variants is achieved by those who work for it. Only one, to my knowledge, teaches grace anything like that taught by Jesus and experienced by many who follow him.

So, yes, I agree that grace is powerful, big, real, strong, sweet, beautiful, necessary and essential. I name it as the air I breathe and I can only aspire to grow into its presence as both receiver and giver. For that I need a lot of help. Thankfully, I’ve an idea where to find it. Amen.

 

Normally, when I write one of these things, I get the call to examine a particular topic and I mostly punch it out in one sitting. Well, occasionally, I take a break but come back to it pretty quickly. On two occasions, I believe, I started writing but had trouble with it, failing to get the traction to take me over the top. I’ve never completed one of them, although I still want to. The other is this one, which I started almost two months ago but it’s been dormant. I think the main reason is that I ran into unexpected stuff. What I had anticipated as a pretty straightforward line of thinking ended up having tentacles and I needed to step back and take stock.

Yesterday, dear friend and pastor, Mofid Wasef, our remarkable Egyptian immigrant and holy man, took on the subject at church in his sermon. Kind of inspired me to put my big boy pants on and see if I can pull it together. My rendering of the subject will be different from his and not nearly as good (or concise). But, fortunately, it’s not a competition! 🙂

So, here we go with Round Two.

* * *

We are here to talk about integrity, something that most people will acknowledge is a good thing. In fact, most people will say that it is a very good thing and that a lack of integrity is, at a minimum, a pretty bad thing. One of the things I got hung up on when I first went after the topic is the question of whether there is something more important than integrity that can really determine whether it is truly good. Let’s see.

Some six or seven months ago, I had the occasion to attend the memorial service for a high profile dad and parent of Mission Hills High School, the school I founded and where I served as principal for eight years. He died tragically at something like 58 years old, of a heart attack while running. I believe he and his wife had seven children, the six youngest of whom were exceptional athletes as well as very good students. (As an aside, the eldest and only non-athlete was the only one who chose teaching as a profession, serving in one of our middle schools.) As icing, they were also terrific young men (and one young woman) who demonstrated good character, were kind and respectful and well liked by their peers. At the memorial service, attended by well over 1000 people, each of the now-adult children spoke in turn, from youngest to eldest. I was pretty much mesmerized (as well as convicted) by their description of their father and their relationship with him. Now, no one is perfect. But they were right out of Norman Rockwell. As I knew them fairly well, I knew they were also humble and aware of their flaws. As they were an observant Mormon family, I was not surprised at how the family functioned. One night a week was family night. Church and bible study. Charitable work. The parent-initiated Family Vision Statement that was discussed and used constantly. I took a lot away from the nearly two hours that seemed like much less. Here were lives and heart-felt testimonies on display. Love from children and friends and colleagues who came to pay homage to someone so many held in the highest esteem.

Of the many topics covered … and there were many … none struck me greater than that of Integrity. Mr. Moore taught it, examined it, expected it and by all measures lived it. His children said his approach to integrity had the utmost impact on their lives and is a foundation of their own vision for a life well-lived.

I’ll mention another thing. One of the sons put it simply. He said his dad taught that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.

Hi. My name is Brad Lichtman and at times I have lacked integrity.

Doing the right thing when no one is looking. That’s a mouthful. It supposes that we not only conduct ourselves consistently and purposefully in accordance with our fundamental values, but that they are the “right” values. Which, of course, opens a loophole that we’ll get to eventually. But, for now, let’s move on.

If humility is thinking less of oneself, then it seems that integrity is a close first cousin. If one apt definition of integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking then it is certainly the absence of pride as one cannot hope to get credit for being good. And, I think this is another worthy topic to explore. I know I’ve been on a journey to understand it and see how my life can be better lived if done so with complete integrity.

My handy dandy little computer dictionary app says integrity is “being honest with high moral principles.” OK.

I’m going to toss out that it is knowing what is the right thing to do and doing it. Unequivocally. Only secondarily is it walking the walk as well as talking the talk. Before that occurs there must come the knowing. And that’s where I want to start.

This brings us back to the theme of the compass with a true North that acts as a magnet to call our vision and actions in that direction and no other. That place defines our set of principles. And principles give birth to values. I’ll say that again. The compass point defines our principles and principles are the foundation of our values, what we hold as important. Our values guide our thinking and behavior, thereby shaping us as human beings. All people have values even if the principles are fuzzy. In fact, fuzzy principles engender behavior that can appear chaotic. Twisting in the wind so to speak.

Mr. Moore taught his children that it’s important to have a vision … a call to a place … that is grounded and not subject to change. I imagine he would have cited the seven virtues we touched on recently as expressive of that place but I’m sure he went deeper and taught their source. Now, whatever one thinks about the faith commonly known as Mormonism, his teaching had authority and vitality. And the result is seven children, now all adults, who believe it’s important to know right from wrong, good from bad. It’s just as important to try to live a life consistent with that knowledge, not only expressing it but actually living it. Whether or not anyone is watching.

This is called honesty. This is called integrity.

And so it begins with knowing. And then it proceeds to implementing the knowing. That is called honesty. And then it proceeds to being honest, regardless of time or place or circumstance or consequence to self. And to align these consistently is to demonstrate a life of integrity. At least that’s basically how I see it.

There is a caveat: One can have great integrity and be completely evil. This happens when we have a different compass point, thereby choosing a different set of principles that result in a different determination of what is or is not moral.

(In the telling, the high angel Lucifer demonstrated integrity and lived with the consequence. In certain circles he is now referred to as the Satan, the embodiment of evil, who whispers falsehoods into our ears and life to distract us from the truth. He seduces and tempts, sometimes subtly and sometimes boldly. His most powerful temptation is that we do not need God but that we can be gods, defining what is right by what fulfills our own very important needs or the expression of our feelings. Needs that spring forth from instinct and desire, not from external standards. This concept of an embodied evil is a tough sell in the modern age and, especially, in this period we are now calling postmodern age. It’s a tough sell largely because we’ve already bought its truth. Its false truth.)

One of the easiest ways to determine if integrity is absent is to identify hypocrisy, perhaps its most obvious opposite. I say obvious because a lack of integrity is frequently not so visible and can live a hidden life. So the hypocrisy is not as evident.

As we know, hypocrisy is saying one thing or believing one thing and doing its opposite. 

I have to ask, is hypocrisy now normative?

Certainly, we’re surrounded and inundated by it via much of media and courtesy of many powerful politicians and entertainers of all stripes. I’d start a list but, aside from the fact that I might make some people unhappy, I’d only be depressed.

And then there’s the whole thing about people who live in glass houses, throwing the first stone, being aware of the log in my own eye before calling out the speck in another’s.

I know she REALLY won’t like this but my wife, Diane, is the most honest person I know. She won’t like me saying this for a number of reasons, including her self-awareness of her own shortcomings. But, to me, that only underscores how honest she is. And, she’s always been this way. I know that she’s led by an inner compass that keeps her on course, as difficult as that may be at some times. And I can testify as to “what you see is what you get.” In short, she has tremendous integrity.

How do we develop or improve our ability to live a life of integrity?

First, I think we have to do the simple thing of recognizing integrity as a good thing. Not purely in a theoretical sense but actually as an important practical dimension in our lives. We need to make it a priority. Which means we need to think about it. A lot. We think about all sorts of things. Our minds sift through a ton of stuff all the time. We are drawn to this or that … basically drinking out of a fire hose with a straw as the stuff pours in and our minds seek to categorize, evaluate and prioritize. Accordingly, we need filters. One of the filters is to examine the things over which we really have some kind of influence. The thing is not just a mere distraction.

Second, assuming we think that integrity is a good thing and assuming we conclude that it’s a fairly or really important thing, we need to consider what to do about it. And this is where it can begin to get tricky. Well, we need to clarify our foundational principles and their corresponding values … the means by which we can make judgments about how to think, act and behave. As I mentioned, we need to have a clear vision of right and wrong. It certainly helps to realize that some values are inherently better than others … something that could come as a surprise to those who live within a reality of moral relativism. Don’t get me going again.

Third, as we engage the issue and spend some time clarifying our principles and values and the source of these things, we need to ask the question of what our lives would be like if we lived these things all of the time. Many might think this is not that hard: “I have guiding principles and for the most part I believe I am true to them.” And, you’re probably right.

On the other hand, as someone who used to preach the value of life-long learning … which is another way of saying we are always growing, why not consider how we can refine our thinking and actions according to an established set of precepts. Honing and revising, wondering how life could flourish given a fuller integration of values and behavior.

Let’s take charity for an example. What is charity and how are we supposed to treat the value? Well, presumably the concept arises out of some sense that those of us who have more should help some of those who have less and are in need. Most people think that charity is a good thing. Certainly, most people in our culture would be taken aback by someone who argued that all charity is fundamentally a bad thing. There are all sorts of reasons underlying a sense of charity and two different people could be motivated by completely different objectives. Now, we should separate the kind of involuntary giving like taxes or such, even though most of us understand the need for some taxes. Let’s look at charity in the sense we should voluntarily give to others.

Of course, this sense might be something like a little nudge of guilt that “I don’t really like giving away any of my hard earned money to anyone else regardless of their circumstances. To be honest, I sort of feel it’s not my problem but I do sort of feel guilty … a little … when I think about it. After all, I don’t like that some people really suffer through no fault of their own and I am living pretty high off the hog, at least comparably.” Or, it might be something like “I really don’t like inequality and I think that government should take the lead on redistributing wealth. I’m OK with paying higher taxes to help take care of the problem.” Or, “I seem to be giving a lot. How much more am I supposed to give?”

We could probably come up with a gazillion variations of the way we look at helping people with less. But, I’d like to take a bit of a different tack without dismissing the importance of engaging the kind of thinking just described.

As much as something like the “amount” has relevance, I think it pulls us off the mark. The beginning is not quantity but motivation and here’s where we circle back to integrity.

Do we actually care that people suffer through want? Through privations we don’t experience? That they are hungry or ill-clothed? Victims of abuse? Of violence? Persecution?  That they suffer from loneliness? Mental illness?

If we just don’t care, then there is no question of integrity and charity is not a virtue we value. But what if our conscience sort of pings and we either do think about these things or think that we should think about these things? What to do about it and what does integrity look like here?

Do we refrain from giving because we don’t want to lose too much? Do we give because we think we’re going to get some kind of reward for giving, either in the respect of others or (in a sadly religious framework) a return benefit later on?

These kinds of calculations regarding connecting possible behavior with a guiding principle only tug us away from a life of integrity because they are artificially layered on, thereby separating us from the value we profess.

They are often adopted as a means of pleasing someone or something … a group or institution, for instance. And, therefore, they obstruct the thing most necessary for nourishing authentic integrity: A humble and very honest self-examination that can only come from dramatically reducing our inclination to judge others before inviting judgment on ourselves.

Of course, as I write this, we are drowning in all sorts of shouting from soap boxes, fists raised, tempers overflowing, vulgarity spewing, as leaders in government, the media, entertainment, academia, you name it, vie to be recognized as principled people who have integrity while their opponents are obvious examples of the opposite. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I really don’t feel called to do either but to shake my head and try to turn away.

I could write pages and pages on how power corrupts principle and that it’s as plain as day how that works. And, power is neither the province of the left or the right but of those who are self-righteous. And, self-righteousness is a cancer on integrity.

Self-righteousness is the victory of a mind bent upon domination over a heart bent upon love. It is the seduction of power in the guise of doing the right thing. Ultimately, it becomes the pursuit of power and attention that was originally born from a closely held value. I have seen it over and over. History is replete with it.

What to make of all of this?

First, integrity is a very, very good thing. It means that a person of integrity is firmly grounded in a set of guiding principles and that the person spends considerable time and energy adjusting behavior to those principles. Never an easy task as it requires constant attention, transparency to others, admission that hypocrisy is always a tug, sometimes in the most powerful of ways.

Second, we need to be aware of the pitfalls when it comes to examining our own integrity. Integrity (or consistency with fundamental principles, exercised in real life) is not enough on its own. If the point is to live the right kind of life, integrity needs to be cast alongside other important forces. Without the right fundamental set of standards that shape those principles, the allure of self-righteousness and the grip of power can lead us severely astray. This is a big deal.

Third, we need to peel away the layers to get to the core. The nugget at the center. The true North on our compass. This is very hard work but it is good and healthy work. Absent that work, we commit more hypocrisies than we can imagine. What starts out as a seemingly healthy consistency, withers under review. We can express all sorts of platitudes about this or that kind of good but the mirror that peers beneath the surface, exposing hardened hearts, is relentless. Which is a big reason why we constantly avoid that mirror.

Fourth, we need to name that compass point, that nugget. We need to name it and explore it and come to grips with it. This, also, is very hard. Just as we submit willingly to the need to peel away the layers to discover the foundation for our guiding principles, we need to live into that center, learning not to avoid it. Learning to explore its depths and surrendering to its truths. In this postmodern world where truth is relative and feelings falsely reign as permanent things, this is anathema. But, now well on my way into my seventh decade, I see no alternative.

Fifth, as hard as these things are to do, they are much easier in the end. We can give up our puffed chests that call attention to us as we seek recognition and reward for what we see as good behavior, correct viewpoints, righteous actions. It takes a lot of energy to keep those chests puffed, much more than it takes to surrender and look for that set of essential and eternal truths.

Finally, the mirror is incredibly liberating. It releases the power of deceit, the stories we make up to project prowess because we don’t want to admit frailty and failure. That power is binding and it is not a good thing. It is intoxicating and distracting. It feeds on itself and makes all sorts of promises. These are false promises. Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. What is the right thing, really? What is the right thing today? Does my puffed chest and the energy it takes to sustain it, distract me from something right in front of my face that I’ve been ignoring? In the end, what is right and true and permanent?

In the end, we may disagree what or who that right, true and permanent thing is, in fact. OK. In the meantime, we’ve engaged a journey that is healthy and one that Mr. Moore endeavored to teach his family. For me, and as Pastor Mofid so eloquently articulated, the thing involves a promise. It is a promise I actually heard and it is unlike any other promise. It is right and true and permanent. More so than anything I’d ever faced before or since. It’s a promise that takes us to our knees but then raises us up fully. A promise so profound that, as hard as voluntarily holding up the mirror is, it unleashes a love and grace that shatters the false powers that have exercised such control. It says, “I see you all of the time. I see and know everything about you and always have and always will. I know your thoughts, even as you might want to hide them. You can’t escape me, much as you might try. So, please turn towards me and receive a love you cannot have imagined. Learn to live in the reality of grace. A grace that offers freedom from caricature. A grace that is lavishing and can sustain you through the toughest of times. It’s a simple promise. But one you can take to the bank. Period.”

A journey towards integrity is always a good thing. A journey to that which is the source of integrity is nothing short of magnificent.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Balance is a big deal. It’s also a big problem. I’ve used the word a lot in these posts but haven’t taken it on specifically until now. I’ve also spent a whole lot of time over the past ten years or so trying to understand it, learn from it and apply it whenever possible. Which immediately raises several questions.

Let’s start with why and see where that leads.

My mind immediately goes to athletics where balance is always a key element in how we perform. While the image of a gymnast on a balance beam can quickly come to mind, I was never a gymnast but played enough sports to know that keeping one’s balance and how it was connected to coordination of everything else is not something to be ignored. We work very hard at it, although mostly subconsciously.

We are certainly aware when we lose a sense of balance. Think vertigo. Disorientation. Nausea. Stumbling and falling. The system is pulled this way and that by gravity or other forces and we lose our way. Uncomfortable and even dangerous.

So, balance is a means by which we can navigate through obstacles to get where we need to go. Simple enough.

When it comes to life, things may not reach the stage of vertigo although they may. But, they can certainly lead to the point where we stumble and fall or, at a minimum, are distracted from living the life we feel called to.

So, is a balanced life a good thing and if so, what would it look like and how would that change anything?

Some decades ago, I remember reading and hearing about how modern societies would lead to increased amounts of leisure as we mechanized and placed greater reliance on technologies. In other words, we would be able to decrease the amount of time we spent on labor as we shifted more and more to machines for the things we produced and the services we provided. Futurists (gotta love ‘em) predicted a dramatic reduction in the work weeks and the problems we would have filling all of that vacant time. Uh huh. Kind of like predicting in the late 60s that by 2001, we’d have HAL leading astronauts to Jupiter from a full colony on the moon.

Along the way, something happened. Technology has actually not created more leisure, it’s made us more driven and focused, filling in all the tiny little spaces and demanding more and more energy to keep up, more work to meet the demand.

Yes, the material standard of living has increased for many and there are great promises that that may continue. On the other hand, technology has not contributed an iota to happiness and the offices of counselors and therapists have never been so full in all of history.

I think it’s obvious. Therapy, for those who finally figure out they can’t manage on their own, is simply the process whereby we try to arrive at balance. It’s the process whereby we gain a healthier perspective on what’s really important and are released from the things that tug us in a different direction.

Or, we may think we don’t really need therapy but we do search for ways to gain healthier perspectives by organizing activities so that we’re not just focused on our jobs or parenting, for instance. But, that’s increasingly difficult as our time gets squeezed and many of us feel compelled to fill up those space because, you know, achievement is important.

Well, I’m all for achievement. I’m a teacher after all. But, and I’ve seen this in so many ways I can’t keep track … even upon self-reflection, achievement and balance can be at odds and the battle isn’t a pretty one.

Diane and I talk about this. My men’s group talks about this (and they’re a pretty high achieving group, to be honest) and my friend Gary and I talk about this. This isn’t surprising. None of us are spring chickens and collectively, we’ve lived a lot of life and have seen a lot of stuff. We’ve had plenty of time to succeed and fail and to observe the nature of successes and failures around us. And, with that comes wisdom, not a bad thing to have, although not particularly pleasant in the gaining of it.

In the years I’ve been thinking about all of this, I’ve come to think it’s about determining what a life well-lived is all about. This might seem so intuitive that it’s silly to waste one’s time. Sort of like staring at one’s navel. However, I’d object.

We can have many, many things we want to do or feel we need to do. We can have many, many objectives, some of which we can really even get very passionate about. Raising our children, making our way up the professional ladder, gaining financial independence, having a successful marriage, perfecting a hobby, becoming active in a political cause and so on.

But, we only have this one life and I’m convinced the thing we need to do is figure out how to live it well. That’s the singular objective that precedes all of the other objectives. Absent determining how to meet that one objective, we are pulled off kilter and can easily let other less important objectives dominate us to our own detriment and to the detriment of others who rely upon us.

I was sort of writing about this in my last several pieces and maybe this is the fourth in a series that began with Civil Disobedience and included The Main Thing and The Next Things. Each of those essays was my attempt to sift through all of the stuff demanding our attention … both in this crazy world and in our hearts and minds … so we could have perspective on how best to live our lives.

Balance is all about making room for the multiple things that are key to living the best kind of life. This is anything but easy. I can testify that it takes a heap of work and a whole lot of attention and dialogue with others. We are never our best doctor or therapist.

I have lived part of my life off-balance and part of my life much more in balance and there’s no contest.

So, what are the things I think are most important that we grapple with in something like equal measure?

Relationships. Now it’s easy to just go, yeah, of course. Not so easy to actually understand how this is important and what we need to do to focus heavily in this area. We are naturally relational beings. We are designed for community and for close interaction with others. Most of us wither when we lack strong relationships, especially when they are loving. We become isolated and we either suffer the loss consciously or we suppress the desire and layer on all sorts of other things to make up for the loss. In the former, the heart breaks and in the latter, the heart grows cold. I know both kinds of people.

Some of the hardest relationships to manage are with those closest to us: Our spouses, children, other family and dear friends. The expectations are high and there are often long and involved histories, which are ripe with peaks and valleys. We all know the problems when these relationships are not nurtured and are even broken and lost.

By the way, I don’t count social media as a real plus in this area and neither do those who professionally study it. Social media is a very poor substitute for actually engaging others face to face in a loving way. And, it can easily become an addiction that detracts from our ability to do the somewhat messy thing of actually growing deep and meaningful relationships.

Finally, all relationships need not be deep and meaningful. In fact, some relationships are very brief and spontaneous, even lasting a few seconds. But, I’d argue that it’s in these few seconds or minutes and how we connect with others however briefly, that we are touching deep places that make for a life well-lived. We daily interact with may others and what a blessing to see one another as alive and valued.

A focus on developing and nurturing deep, caring relationships is fundamental to a balanced and well-lived life. Absent the opportunity to go deep, quick but kind and considerate interactions with others is a really good thing.

Work. Here’s the thing about work. We were all designed for work and it’s a necessary thing for us to live. In fact, people who for whatever reason don’t have to work because of being independently wealthy, will often languish and become depressed because there is value in work. We are designed to be creative and productive. These two things create meaning and value and help us to flourish.

But, this is a particularly tough one, especially for those of us in wealthy societies. In very poor societies, people (including children) work because they have to in order to survive. They need to work for sustenance. In wealthy societies we are able to achieve sustenance with relatively little effort (or the state will provide) and so we work for something else. What is that?

Well, I’ll toss out that we work for one or more of three things. The first is material advantage or the accumulation of more stuff that doesn’t contribute to sustenance but to pleasure and comfort, to what we might say is a greater standard of living. By the way, this urge is never completely quenched. More in a moment. The second is status. We want to be recognized and rewarded as successful. I once asked every one of the 100+ teachers at my school to write down if they were above or below average in the job they did. I don’t remember the exact count because this was quite awhile ago but it was something like 90% saw themselves as above average. Aside from being amused by that, it shows how much emphasis we put on recognition and how hard many of us work to obtain it. The third reason we work is because we love what we do. We may love it so much we don’t really spend much energy worrying about the pay or the status. We just love the work, even if it’s hard.

There may be other reasons than these but I’d hazard these are the three big ones and they create some real problems. For starters, people who primarily labor to increase their material standard of living are almost never satisfied. It’s a never ending battle that is sometimes humorously depicted as “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” On the flip side is the saying, “You can’t take it with you,” which can either mean consume every thing you have before you die or material consumption is a hollow value.

And the drive for status also rings hollow at some point. As they say, we start life in diapers and end life in diapers. Not much status in wearing diapers. At what point do we realize that status is transitory and not permanent? We can burn brightly in our “15 minutes of fame” but that flame burns out. On a personal note, as a high profile high school principal, I was accorded considerable status. Most people respected my office and title while the fact that I was also considered pretty successful, in large respect, added to the status. Like other successful professionals in high profile positions (doctors, attorneys, politicians, etc…) we can easily come to identify ourselves with the position, even if we do our jobs with a large dose of humility. Fortunately, in my case, I made a conscious decision a few years before retiring to see myself as completely separate from this position that consumed the majority of my waking consciousness. I am not the position by which others define me but a man independent of that. Status or professional achievement always ends. It’s best when we integrate that into our thinking as a reality before it is forced by circumstance.

For those relative few of us who land in an area of life’s work where we feel drawn and it’s less about making a living or doing a job but about acting out an expression of who we are and the gifts we have, we are most fortunate.

Work is a fact of life and not a bad thing. How we place it into the context of a life well-lived without getting sucked into hollow traps of material wealth and status is a real challenge. We may have great difficulty completely escaping those traps and we may not have the opportunity for long periods of time to do work that doesn’t feel like work but we should try to understand what is happening here. There are all sorts of ways we can inject important values into our jobs to better align them to the main and next things.

Spirit.

While I’m no longer a fan of the term “spirituality” because it doesn’t tell me much, I understand the basic point. Most people think there’s something greater than their basic selves out there or in here. In a sense it’s the super-natural dimension. Most people believe that there’s some part of their being that is intrinsically connected to that dimension although it’s very hard to put your finger on it. Not all people but most people.

As a Christian, I call it soul and it’s the piece of me that is certainly created in God’s image and it’s also the piece of me that’s most important, not that the other pieces are unimportant at all.

I didn’t understand this for the longest time although I spent decades thinking about it and exploring all of the options. Well, maybe that’s not exactly true. I guess I had some understanding of it but couldn’t make it all fit. While it’s still not completely clear to me, I no longer struggle with it.

A balanced life requires that we are in touch with this place, this critically important piece that makes us us and is the direct line to God. And this is hard because it doesn’t typically show up on our time management checklist or daily calendar. But, to neglect attention to this part of us is to negatively impact the other elements of our life, including relationships and work.

There’s a reason God/Jesus taught the Sabbath. We need to pull back from all of the hectic demands for out attention and pay attention to the main thing and the important next things. For these things are the true nourishment, the living water, the bread of life. Without this, we wander and wither.

Different people pay attention in different ways. For me, it’s about quieting the noise which is sometimes very difficult for me to do. I tend to have a hyperactive mind that wants to learn, solve and do a lot. That creates a lot of clutter. On the other hand, I’m a fan of silence and have no problem sitting still for lengthy periods of time without speaking. In fact, it’s during some of these times that I’m actually listening patiently and in some of these times, I end up quite surprised. In a good way.

We Jesus followers also nourish the spirit through time spent in prayer, reading and reflecting on scripture and other texts (often called devotional time), dialoguing about deep stuff with one or more other people with whom we’ve established trust and practice transparency. Some of these things are certainly not unique to Christians and are common in some of the other major religions of the world. They seek to do the same thing.

There are times when it’s important for us to set aside our work and our many relationships and come humbly before God. Jesus modeled this repeatedly and it was central to his example of a life well-lived.

* * *

I just now realized I’ve basically been writing about the heart, head and soul. How we connect with others, how we think about work and how we see ourselves fitting in to the greater scheme of things. And, when we balance heart, head and soul, we are in balance and are leading a life well-led. Or, as a Jesus-follower, living the life for which we were designed in the first place.

In Dallas Willard’s brilliant sequel to his master work, The Divine Conspiracy, entitled Renovation of the Heart, he beautifully lays out what balance really looks like. I haven’t even scratched the surface in this simple essay. I have left much out and have treated the three elements pretty shabbily. However, I hope I have made a point that we should pay a lot of attention to the right kind of balance. For, in that state, we can better focus on True North and better embark on a life well-lived. Amen.

 

Our very good friend, Dawn, posted something a few days ago that caught my attention. She has that ability because she’s very well grounded and thoughtful, at times singularly honest and transparent, and pretty wise for someone who didn’t break through 30 all that long ago. She also happens to be one of our ministers at church.

In the post, she laments a bit about how we often settle for existence, consumed with practicalities (she’s a mother of two young children, a wife, a friend, and a church leader) and miss out on real life. She says, “I want to stop settling and start living.” She says, “I want life that’s messy and good and hard and awesome.” Of course, being a Jesus follower and all, she says, “he wants us to know that he has life … real, raw, good, true, hard, and beautiful to offer us.”

Dawn is not your basic rule-follower although I have no reason to believe she’s adverse to rules. I can identify.

In my last post, I tried to whittle away at a lot of the noise about what’s really important and get to the crux of things. Rules should always point to something greater than themselves. As a big fan of freedom, rules should have a point for limiting my ability to choose whatever I want. Too few rules and we can explode with our human inadequacies and, poof, there goes civilization and its many benefits. Think Lord of the Flies.

Too many rules and, poof, there goes our ability to flourish, experience joy and beauty and all of the wonderful things that give life color. Think Stalinist Soviet Union.

Practical circumstances require boundaries that are all well and good. But, Dawn touches on something that fits right into the follow up to my last piece.

As I see it, Jesus said we need to focus on the main thing first. Not second, but first, because everything issues from that main thing. It supports all of the other things. It’s the compass point of True North, that always pulls us back to the central reason we are here and it informs us what we should do about the fact we are here. Or, we can look at it as the rock solid foundation upon which we build our homes that are metaphors for our lives: All of the principles, values, and behaviors that make a life a life. Of course really embracing this main thing to the point that it’s not just recognized in theory but followed in practice is not something simple.

Regardless, it’s the rest of the stuff that Dawn is bringing up and that actually occupies most of our attention. And, it’s to there I turn now.

Of course, Jesus gave us the Part B which is to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Read “neighbors” as everyone else, including enemies. Which is a pretty preposterous statement, if we’re being honest. We have enough trouble loving our loved ones. That guy two doors down who is basically unlovable? That boss who learned her job from Attila the Hun? That creep who stole your identity? Thank you, Jesus. Great theory but let’s get real.

I imagine him sitting here and responding. I see him smiling knowingly and with understanding and then saying, “well, Brad, I have to tell you that it is real and I’m giving it to you straight. I know this is a lot to take in and it may appear impossible to you but I’m going to give you two clues to help you move forward. Are you ready?” I expect I’d say, “Sure, Lord, I’m ready.” To which I imagine he’d say, “The first thing to remember every day and all throughout your day is that I’m with you. I’m not somewhere else. My spirit is inside you and I’m right next to you. You are not alone and not without a whole pile of top notch resources. OK?” As I wrap my head around that, he’d go on: “And, the second thing is that it’s all about your heart. I’ll repeat that. It’s all about your heart.”

And, assuming the conversation continued (which, note to reader, it actually does on a constant basis), he would say that the key to all the next things lies in our hearts which the remarkable philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard said needs considerable renovation.

For the longest time, I just didn’t really get this. Well, actually, I did get good sized pieces of it but I really didn’t get it. I carried a bunch of baggage that included voices from my past that seemed to speak too frequently into my life regarding expectations and all of that. I carried a pretty strong intellect that would from time to time overwhelm heart things in the pursuit of reasonable objectives. I could go on and on and, actually, I did in those years of therapy.

I have learned so well that once we figure things out, the real battle is a heart battle.

It’s fair to ask what we mean by heart things as, literally, the heart is an organ that pumps life-giving blood while it’s in our brains we process thoughts and feelings and so forth. I’m not going to get into all of that but when we say heart, let us agree that that is how we identify our emotions and feelings that are so much of the substance of how we relate to the world around us and everything and everyone in it.

It is the place where we apprehend beauty, experience exquisite joy, grieve terribly, seethe with anger, swoon lovingly, and everything like this and so much more.

I read recently that nature is really about two things. Figure out what to eat and figure out how not to be eaten. I’d add a third. Figure out how and when to procreate so one’s progeny can figure out those other two things.

I think this is a little about what Dawn was trying to share. We can focus on all the “have to’s” and “should do’s” that fill up our minds and our days. But, we’d be missing the “get to’s” that really can burst forth all around us if we only open our hearts and let life in.

I think Jesus teaches the next things in many ways. He teaches that so many of our stresses and cares are ill-founded and they obscure our vision from taking in all that life has to offer. They set up barriers that diminish our relationships with others or even keep us from establishing relationships in the first place, no matter how brief.

As my friend, Ken, would say, the next things can make our hearts sing.

A next thing is embracing the concept of grace, both as a giver and receiver. Nothing liberates the heart from darkness like grace.

A next thing is learning to forgive and be forgiven. The failure to forgive is one of the most self-destructive behaviors we can imagine. It grabs ahold and fights for dear life not to let go. It spreads like a stain or cancer and can even be all consuming. It does very little to punish the offender and everything to punish us. And, the failure to forgive one’s self for past transgressions is to hold on to guilt and shame which similarly destroy life and do nothing to enhance it. This is why Jesus targeted so much of his ministry and teaching on forgiveness and why we say that the next things are of the heart.

A next thing is gazing upon others with kindness, compassion and empathy when circumstances, either of their own doing or of being thrust upon them, have bound or broken them. Such a gazing can then lead to action as we follow Jesus’ teaching to “set the captives free.” In this sense, others are held in bondage and we are called to know the nature of the binding and the means to loosen or discard them.

A next thing is being prepared all of the time to be lit up by all kinds of beauty that can seemingly burst out of nowhere, in nature or other people or in circumstance or any variety of things. Be ready to be Surprised by Joy as C.S. Lewis preached and entitled one of his books.

A next thing is recognizing our place in the scheme of things: A place that can only be described as realizing the world does not revolve around us or what we do or think (humility) while simultaneously realizing we are eternal beings who are eternally loved.

A next thing is the acceptance that we are always a work in progress, on a journey with a very specific destination … nothing really hazy about it. And, yes, that destination includes what happens to us after we die at the end of our lives but also what happens when we die to certain things in this life. Jesus says we have to give up our lives to have it. This is very true although I would have argued against the logic of that for decades.

A next thing is releasing the pride that says “don’t surrender” to the acceptance that in surrender is victory. The letting go of what the head screams out as the way things are in exchange for listening to the heart yearn for the way things could be.

A next thing is being slow to judge and quick to love. We need to have an ever present mirror through which we can gaze into our interior life to discover the places where we must admit things are pretty dark. And, as hard as that is, even modest attempts can result in pulling back from quick judgments of others that serve no ultimate purpose … other than to make us feel self-righteous and all puffed up. Self-righteousness is not a companion of love.

A next thing is to live with hope because there are not only a number of good reasons to justify it but it’s opposite, despair, is a pretty bad alternative. (This, in contradiction to prevailing post-modern and dystopian imagery flooding us from every corner.)

I could probably keep going for quite awhile but I’ll settle with these for now. Which brings us to the practical pieces.

For starters, Christianity gets a bad reputation (justifiably at times) for being a religion of don’ts. A long laundry list of the things we’re just not supposed to do and be. In defense of this perception are the widely cited Ten Commandments (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) and Jesus’ teaching we know as his Sermon on the Mount. In the former, Moses reportedly hears from God that these are the basic rules that should guide his people’s beliefs and behaviors, thereby setting them apart form all other peoples who follow other gods and belief systems. They are, collectively, the way people can insulate themselves from evil while focusing on what is really important. These rules became a cornerstone for western civilization. In the latter, Jesus covers a lot of ground, including a lengthy teaching on who and why certain groups or classes of people are “blessed.” There are eight and they are often referred to as The Beatitudes. These are virtues that can bring tremendous rewards. Following that, in his Sermon, Jesus touches on a behaviors and beliefs that separate us from God’s love and from the life he wants for us. They seem harsh because of an almost revolutionary point he makes.

One’s interior life is as important as the outward expression. Unbridled anger becomes indistinguishable from murder. Feelings of retribution or attempts to enact an eye for an eye are replaced with love and forgiveness. While we read his words and can throw up our hands in desperation of the impossibility of following these commands, we need to pull back and realize a couple of things.

First, he wants us to awake to the realization that none of us can earn our way into heaven by following the letter of the law. No. God wants our hearts. It is only through a renovated heart can we really grasp the beauty and reality of what he is saying. No externally-mandated rule will succeed in accomplishing such a massive objective. Only a humble and contrite heart has that possibility.

And, secondly, he lets us know through everything that happens in this life that he is there to make up the difference between our lack of success in these areas and the high bar that is being set. In other words, we need him.

So, we realize that the key to all of the next things that make life so rewarding is a heart tuned to the features we’ve been discussing. But, we remain uniquely unqualified to live these things out to their fullest potential. I could go off on all sorts of theological paths to explain this but we don’t need to. All we have to do is search our hearts honestly to find that the abundant life that is being offered requires a level of surrender that seems downright impossible. A heart filled with anger is entirely synonymous with murder? When brutally wronged, we are called to forgive completely? When struck, we are required just to take it? And so on.

But the thing about casting a vision … and that’s what Jesus is doing … is that it compels us to move forward. Fortunately, we are offered both the description and the destination, with the map and vehicle, to boot.

No, we don’t have to settle for less. We don’t have to settle for dour or morose or being bound by daily stresses and anxieties, as challenging as that is for many of us. We don’t have to be captive to the material or the emptiness of a prideful life. The way out is before us.

In my last post, I talked about the main thing and in this one I’m talking about the next tier of things … the things that come before all the other things in our life that follow and make up the volume of stuff we think about and do regularly.

It begins with a vision and from that vision we can ground the most fundamental principles that give shape to our values that, in turn, govern who we are, what we do and where we’re going. I believe it’s that simple. To avoid such an approach is to be a ship at sea without a compass and rudder and with a sputtering engine in a never ending storm.

At the top of this, I mentioned Dawn and her challenge to herself and others. I took the liberty of capturing that challenge and placing it into the context of this discussion. We need not settle in her words and we CAN live a life of abundance and vibrancy, whatever our circumstance.

In closing, do you know people like this? People who do what they can to embrace the main thing and the next things? People whose life, perhaps, is not at all easy but who manifest joy while suffering in the sorrows and griefs that are expressive of a renovated heart? I do. And they are proof of the glorious possibilities that God offers. Thank you Jesus. Amen.

I’ll get to the central point of this post in a bit but, first, I need to do some housekeeping. Bear with me if you have the patience.

I have written a lot about Jesus. He either existed or he didn’t. There is no middle ground. If some people want to contend that he actually did not exist but is a made up myth, that is their right but they’d come up with all sorts of reasonable scholarship to contend with. The same sort of scholarship that actually says that Julius Caesar or Nero or Aristotle or Plato existed.

And, then, we come to the problem of whether or not the Jesus that is presented by the four Gospels, all of the subsequent accounts of Paul, and many other chroniclers of the age actually existed. People are welcome to believe what they want.

And, then, we come up with the problem of actually believing what this itinerant Jewish rabbi claimed to be real. Or not.

People are free to make whatever judgments they want.

But, make no mistake about it. If he was a real historical figure and if all of the accounts have value, he leaves us no alternative.

You may take umbrage at the historical record. You may think that this or that was made up. But, I invite you to look at all of the evidence and make up your mind. (A) Did Jesus actually live? (B) Does his life and message resonate? And (C) What are you going to do about it?

I’m sorry. Maybe because it’s because I battled for so long. Unwilling to open my mind and heart to see the truth because it would cause me to reorient my thinking.

This is ironic because I had this long held belief in education that the key to leaping forward … to reaching higher and deeper levels of understanding … was to surrender to cognitive dissonance and accept a breakthrough.

Either Jesus is who he says he is or he is not. It’s that simple. If he’s not who he says he is then I give up. He’s crazy or a liar and he suffered the ignominious death that he may have deserved in the day when blasphemy was a mortal offense.

If he is who he says he is, then it’s worth paying a lot of attention. A whole lot.

I try to do this but often fall short. Especially when he makes me pay attention to the main thing.

You see, the thing about the main thing is that we often don’t like to think about the main thing. We want to go to the other things. We like to negotiate that other things are worth thinking about before going to the main thing. After all, the main thing may be just too big for us to handle at the moment.

We’re really good about working hard to distract us from the main thing because we don’t like going there. It’s uncomfortable. It’s a thing that can flip us over and cause all sorts of disruptions to an organized life. Or, as Dawn (one of our ministers) said last week, “God ruined my life.” The post script, of course, is that she couldn’t imagine it any other way.

If you’ve been reading all of these essays over the past year, you know that I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to figure out the main thing. Is the main thing that this reality we think is real is actually an illusion and that the sooner I come to grips with that the sooner I’ll merge with the great Emptiness and experience bliss? Is the main thing that this reality we think is real is the only thing and we’re all just particles in motion, with no overriding meaning beyond being part of nature? Is the main thing survival of the fittest? Is the main thing to accumulate wealth so as to live comfortably or enjoy material things? Is the main thing to do everything I can to be happy because happiness is the greatest good?

I could go on but you get the point. I have studied and/or lived with and even tried to live by some of these things, all to no avail. In the end, they all collapsed as credible main things. I could not resolve them with what I know and have experienced to be true. Others are welcome to disagree. I am just testifying to what I believe.

Here, I’m going to leap over all sorts of stuff because it’s easy to say that once one becomes a Christian, the main thing is obvious. Well, I’ve been at this committed Christian thing for twelve pretty concentrated years now and I’m comfortable in saying it’s not all that easy. Not at all.

As many Christians know (and non-Christians may imagine), trying to really understand Jesus and all of that theology and all of the interpretations by a few zillion experts and in the light of so much hypocrisy and noise, is more than a small challenge. So we study and talk and pray and commit and make our way in the world through joys and sorrows, both leaping and stumbling, hoping to grow closer to the one we call Savior and have him work transformational virtues into our lives while we seek to bless those around us. A tall order but we have someone up to the task.

Which brings me to the main thing.

I’m reminded of City Slickers, a really good and funny, although a pretty cheesy, movie. Billy Crystal’s character, Matt, asks the wizened and hardened old cowboy, Curly, what the secret of life is. Curly says, “You know what the secret of life is?” And he holds up one finger. Matt asks, “Your finger?” Curly replies, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s#@*.” To which, Matt responds, “What is the ‘one thing’?” Curly says, “That’s what you have to find out.”

Well, no, it’s not perfect but we get the point. People often look for that one thing. That one unifying principle that will allow us to make sense of everything, to give ultimate meaning be the glue that holds everything else together.

Jesus actually tells us. He cuts right to the chase and he doesn’t mince words, despite how fast we want to run away from his message.

In fact, he would say that nothing else in his life or teachings or ministry would really make any sense without being fully grounded in this one/main thing. And that’s a mouthful.

Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your your soul and with all of your mind. Matthew 22:37

Period.

Next question?

Of course there is a Part B about loving others and it’s really closely related but it isn’t actually the main thing because without the main thing, Part B is impossible. We may try to come close to Part B and, in fact, entire political and economic and social systems have been dreamed about, with even attempts to implement Part B, without the main thing. They are frequently called utopias and they are also a vision for some who believe in the perfectibility of man without God.

Sorry. Jesus would profoundly disagree and I now believe he’s telling the truth. If I’m not being clear, I think he’s telling the truth not only because he believes it but because he’s God and should know. Which means I need to pay very close attention. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t really believe in God or thought I could put God in a kind of parcel of my own making and avoid really taking him seriously. Well, I think that would be a mistake.

So, that brings us to this main thing and the thing about it is Jesus doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t equivocate. He says to his followers who are asking him to sift through all of the other things and to pick one and he gives it to them right between the eyes. There are a number of translations that try to pinpoint exactly what he said because he didn’t speak in English. But all translations basically say the same thing: Love God with everything you have. To make his point clear, he mentions things that are often translated as mind, heart and soul. He’s covering all of the bases unless someone were to say, “You mean, this part of me?” To which he’d reply, “You’re not hearing me. Your number one thing is to LOVE God with every bit and piece of who you are. Period. End of report. Hold nothing back. Don’t hide it away under a bushel or in the deep recesses of your psyche. Lay it on out there. Comprende? God comes first. Always and Forever. Don’t even think of jumping to thing two or three or seven or eight until you accept and live out number one.”

This presents us with more than a few dilemmas.

We can try walking through Door A which is basically, “nah, he can’t really mean that. It’s impossible.” Or, we can walk through Door B which is basically, “he really means it but it’s still impossible.” Or, we can walk through Door C which is basically, “he really means it and I need to pay attention because I have no clue as to how actually I can do that but I should not shove it aside because that would be a huge mistake.”

If it’s not clear, I’m a Door C kind of guy in this case. Having resolved that dilemma, a few dozen others pop open faster than we can imagine.

Chief among them is how to even know how to give every single piece of my mind, heart, and soul to anything or anyone? And right on the tail of that is how do I do that to some Thing or Being I can’t even see? And, right on the tail of that is what is meant by this kind of love in the first place and anyway? And, right on the tail of that may be that we have no idea where to begin, when you want the truth.

Well, maybe not. We may know where and how to begin and we may know what is meant by this kind of love and we may know who or what this Thing or Being is and we may have some clues how to give all that we have.

And, once we realize that, we may have a blueprint that’s not entirely hidden and we may be provided the tools with which to build this thing and we may have a lot of help along the way, we can crawl out of our fetal position, put our big boy and girl pants on and get after it.

Which is where I find myself.

Transparency Moment: I told my accountability partner and my wife that I had a goal in five years to love God with more of my mind, heart and soul than I do right now. Just laying it out there.

Along the way, I expect to discover metrics, methods, peaks and valleys as I pursue this goal. Admittedly and thankfully, I’m not starting at square one. And, here’s why.

I have actually experienced God’s overwhelming love. There is nothing like it. Nothing. It has poured through every nook and cranny of my being. It has showered and cleansed and permeated. It has filled my heart and mind and soul.

Granted, this is not an everyday occurrence. I have experienced this fully three times, in various forms and places. But, they are all the same thing. For a rational guy like me who is raised with logic and the scientific method and to be skeptical of all sorts of things, these are profoundly destabilizing and informative experiences. In fact, I believe God has graced me with these because I’ve been such a pain and a chore. A project, if you will. He tends to do this, I’ve discovered. Ask a fellow named Saul of Tarsus who was reborn as Paul. I have had a number of “spiritual” experiences long before and subsequent to these three but none come close to being completely enveloped in God’s love and in actually knowing what that love is and means.

It tends to get your attention.

For me, that’s a starting point but in some ways it makes following the main thing even harder. I know how deep and rich and eternal the whole thing is and I also know that I do not come close to having the capacity to respond in kind. That’s a problem.

But not a problem without a solution.

Because God (being God and all) knows this and he knows me infinitely better than I know myself. So, he is completely aware of both my gifts and my enormous shortcomings, the latter of which is especially sobering.

Which means he asks for the main thing and follows up with a very cool offer. It’s really that simple. He asks for that one thing and then gives me the keys to the kingdom. I could never believe it until it actually happened. I could have read a hundred books why this simple contract was pretty absurd (I probably did read those books) and have heard a hundred arguments that suggest I’m grasping at fantasies (well, Ok, Brad, that’s fine for you if you want to believe that, just don’t expect everyone to agree). But, as I’m breathing oxygen and have a loving family and dear friends and a life and all of that, it’s actually TRUE!

One contract. Keys to the Kingdom.

Not that all is roses and cherry blossoms and bliss and life lived happily ever after. Far from it. We experience sorrow and grief and suffering and temptation and struggle and sheer joy and indescribable beauty and everything else that is part of life lived on this side of eternity.

But, we are given the key and I know what it is and am told how to use it. In black and white and in full color. A beautiful blueprint that is both linear and mosaic.

So, I accept Jesus’ challenge and am on the pilgrim’s path, a bright star lighting the way, giving me direction and comfort, strength and hope. I try to give him the main thing he asks for and then he lets me in on the lesson plan of how to do it. Perhaps I will continue chronicling this journey on these pages. We’ll see.

Lord, none of this is easy but that was never a part of the deal. You offer us love and grace and eternity and give us the roadmap and tools to know what that means and how to get there. Please forgive us when we throw up so many obstacles and grant us the grace to see the whole thing through. We know you never promised it would be easy but you said the burden would be incomparably lighter that the alternative. I’m here to testify to the truth of that even though you don’t need me to say so. Just sayin’. Thank you. Amen.

I’m in an on again off again dialogue with someone I know who is very passionate about a lot of things going on in our country and world right now. This isn’t a surprise because he’s basically always been that way but the last few months leading up to and since the election have greatly invigorated him. While having had some experience with civil disobedience many decades ago, to my knowledge he has not engaged in any such action in more recent years. Apparently, that has changed. A line has been crossed and he has either committed himself to some form of civil disobedience again or is contemplating it. According to him, he is being forced into this as it is not his behavior of choice. He would rather work within a system that respects civility. But that line has been breached pretty much wholesale, as I would characterize his opinion, and he is left with little choice. He is not alone.

His potential decision to act in defiance of the civil structures designed to keep society as smoothly functioning as possible is understandable, especially given the long history of this kind of thing. Whereas many of us try to keep our lives organized within certain boundaries, there may come the moment when we can’t help claiming some form of “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

I not only understand this but have a lot of respect for it. After all, laws made by man are inherently fallible, which should be obvious. Even the original U.S. Constitution (which you may recall replaced the fallible formerly original constitution named the Articles of Confederation) only survived a few years until it was modified … and it has been modified literally or figuratively ever since. And, this is the foundation for many thousands upon thousands of laws in our country!

Most of us can point to all sorts of laws we deem inappropriate or even downright abhorrent. And, by extension, we deem those who support or enforce these laws as anywhere from misguided to evil.

Remarkably, we often hold the disobeyers in the highest regard, while vilifying those they disobeyed. On the flip side, most often we regard those who uphold the laws we like (and we probably like a whole lot of laws in actuality) as decent and good people who are doing their best to hold a society of very fallible people together so we can live in a functioning civilization. Of course, even anarchists have rules.

If you ask most high school kids these days, and give them a few moments to think, about who the most famous civil disobeyers were, they’d probably say Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Perhaps with some reminders and prompting, they’d remember Samuel Adams, John Hancock and a passel of colonial Americans in the latter 18^th century. Some more might think of groups like the abolitionists who did everything from write pamphlets, to shepherd escaping slaves to taking the British Parliament by storm to burning and killing. Some might mention events such as the race riots of the 1960s and the riots following events like that involving Rodney King or, recently at Ferguson, Missouri and in similar situations.

I would have probably given a semester A on the spot to a history student who raised his or her hand and cited the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great figures of the 20^th century who has had a profound impact on the notion of civil disobedience and on my thinking.

Interestingly, and I say this quite pointedly, I expect very, very few would say Jesus.

I say, interestingly, because he had such tremendous influence on everyone from many of those rebellious colonials who believed in unalienable rights derived from a creator, to the abolitionists who fought to destroy a practice that was so evil and widespread across multiple civilizations, to Gandhi, Bonhoeffer and, of course, the Reverend and Christian Martin Luther King.

Each one of these figures and groups stood up to a vastly superior power and said, “I’ve had enough.” They may have even thought or said something to the effect of, “I’ve tried to play nice but now it’s time to take off the gloves.” Or, something to that effect.

I remember studying something in graduate school as I pursued my Masters degree in Theology that was called the stage theory of moral development. Largely built upon the work of developmental psychologists such as Piaget and Erickson that called to our attention how our understanding of things matures as old constructs give way to better ones, a Harvard psychologist by the name of Lawrence Kohlberg said there are six stages, from pre-conventional through conventional to post conventional. Without getting overly technical, pre-conventional moral reasoning is really all based upon getting for me what I want … as most small children and some arrested adults do. Conventional is when we recognize that there are norms and rules that should govern how we look at good and bad and right and wrong and it’s actually a good thing to follow them, even if we sometimes don’t want to. Post-conventional moral reasoning is when we arrive at the place where we realize that norms and rules designed to govern civil society may not have ultimate meaning. We may be guided by a set of principles that are greater than our laws or customs. Kohlberg reserved the highest Stage 6 for Gandhi, King and Jesus and those who reason like they do.  Kohlberg was rightfully critiqued for a number of things (I saw and still see merit in much of his thinking but saw holes in his arguments) but I’m glad he gave us this kind of framework. It helps in understanding how and why people think certain ways and make certain moral choices. As an unfortunate aside, I learned some years later that he committed suicide, which gave me pause.

Bear with me for awhile. I bring this background up because I think we’re at an interesting point in America and around the world. Not that all points aren’t interesting, but this is a particularly profound era. As an historian of sorts and an observer and thinker of many things, there are tectonic shifts afoot. For starters, we are in the midst of the third true economic revolution in the history of our species. The first was 10,000 years ago when nomadic peoples began to coalesce around agriculture and they formed towns, cities and governments. We call it the Agrarian Revolution and it lasted a very, very long time. Many thousands of years. It changed many aspects of life deeply and fundamentally. The second one started in England in the 18^th century and, to varying degrees, lasted anywhere from 100-200 years, depending upon your metrics. It was called the Industrial Revolution. It was just as deeply disruptive as its predecessor but in a dramatically accelerated way. Political revolutions from France to the US to many of the European countries to the communist and fascist revolutions of the 20^th century were all byproducts. I remember coming to full realization in the early 1980s that we were now embarked in the third such total revolution and that it was bound to dramatically change so much again. But, knowing it would be just as dramatic held second fiddle to the realization that I would probably witness most of the whole thing in my lifetime. We call this revolution many things: The Technological Revolution, The Information Revolution, etc.. It really doesn’t matter. Because it’s here and we’re living in the middle of it and it’s a really big deal and it’s VERY disruptive. To everything. Or at least, almost everything.

All of this connected. Disruptions breed disruptions. Revolutions breed revolutions. While many rebellions or acts of civil disobedience are not at all tied to great worldwide forces as the three I’ve just mentioned, they are a common response by people who are fed up that the system, whatever it is, is no longer working, it’s no longer responsive to their needs, it does not understand their principles and they feel compelled to get off the sidelines and take a stand.

While I’m not really going to get into politics here and debate some of the issues, this is why the Tea Party rose up in the last decade and why outliers such as Trump and Sanders garnered so much support. This is also why people who oppose Trump and his people do so vigorously. Layer in all of the other forces at work in a world undergoing the third complete economic-based revolution in human history and we have quite the recipe for disruptive behavior.

Well all of that shouldn’t really tell us a ton but leaves us with the question of what would warrant our acting civilly disobedient? And, perhaps more importantly, what would that action look like and on what basis would we make our decisions?

After all, we can nod our heads in appreciation for people like King or the rebellious colonials or the abolitionists (ok, even the southern confederates who did a huge act of disobedience, only part of which was around the slavery issue but also very much because they were tired of the oppression of wealthy northern manufacturing interests). We often admire such people for laying their lives on the line as did Gandhi, King, Bonhoeffer, Jesus, etc… who were all murdered for their beliefs. But, what does this mean for us in any practical sense?

I think the first thing we need to do is to determine the principle that underscores the call to action. What is that principle? Do we really believe it? Have we or they really thought it through?

Unfortunately, much that might be characterized as civil disobedience (the principled opposition we’ve been talking about) is frequently just mob behavior. And, this is not to be underestimated. The mob is an interesting phenomenon: A thing that might have seen its gestation in principled opposition but develops a life of its own that is self-justifying, rather than the justification of a principle. I may talk about this a bit more in a little bit.

Once we make the decision to defy civil authority, how far are we willing to go? Will we choose to behave in ways that we might otherwise not support? In other words, will the ends justify new means?

Of course, most who choose this course have already at least broadly thought about the risks. And there are risks.

Many go to prison. Certainly, Gandhi and King did. Bonhoeffer even went back to Germany when he didn’t have to, penning a book entitled The Cost of Discipleship. Read it someday when you’re bored. And, of course, all three of these men were murdered, as I said.

And this brings us to the tools we use as we cross the line into civil disobedience. To me, this is a big deal and if we don’t think about it and pay attention, we can lose more than we know.

Some may say that nothing’s off the table. The classic question is would you have wanted a German citizen to assassinate Hitler? Most people would say yes. Even Bonhoeffer, a Christian pastor, finally crossed the line to support the attempt on Hitler’s life. Some will argue that violence does have its place when the conditions approximate a life and death struggle as in a full blown war.

I have asked myself this question many times. I have Jewish heritage and know of relatives who were exterminated, to put a fine point on it. I applaud the characters in WWII movies who portray the French underground, although this was clearly a war. The argument goes, however, that had many of these Europeans acted forcefully to oppose tyranny earlier than many tens of millions would not have died.

I have played this reel over and over in my head for as long as I can remember. I demonstrated in my youth. I faced off with my own high school principal and helped stage a small school walk out. I joined campaigns and decried injustice. I refused the requirement to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance in my 9^th grade second period science class in 1968 because I couldn’t truthfully say the final words, “and justice for all.” I got in big trouble and was sent to the principal’s office with my mother. Thankfully, we reached a compromise. I have worked with the farm workers on the fringes and walked precincts in the ghetto and barrio. On a very few occasions I ignored and did not enforce some particular part of the Education Code or district policy because I didn’t agree with it. While some of these and other actions were within the system and some outside of it, I tried to always act on principle but I am not perfect and I still struggle with where the line is and if and when I am called to cross it.

I remember thinking in my intensely activist days of late teens and early 20s that I would not survive to 30 because I would die or be killed for some cause. I really believed this and it did not trouble me greatly. This memory is not forever buried. From time to time it bubbles up and I reflect that it’s still possible, however unlikely, that this will still happen. I wonder about the form it would take. What would be the issue that would push me beyond simple opposition to active resistance that would likely result in jail or even death? Perhaps you don’t think of these things but I do. Not often, but sometimes. To me, it’s the healthy understanding that some things, some principles, carry more weight than my life and safety. I have an idea of what those things could be.

Which brings me to the final part of this and if you’ve been reading these things, you’ll probably know where it’s going. And, it’s the source of how I make judgments on the nature of civil disobedience and any possible role I would ever be called to play out.

There has been no greater or more significant act of civil disobedience in all of human history than the one conducted by Jesus. Honestly, I knew a lot of this before I decided to truly follow him but my comprehension of it has deepened by many orders of magnitude. In effect, as much as I knew before, I had no idea.

The evidence of his life before he launched his three year public ministry is extremely sketchy. But there is tremendous evidence of those three years, all of which served as a most powerful form of civil disobedience … a disruption so profound it turned empires upside down and still reverberates today.

And then, of course, there is his final act, an absolutely stunning demonstration, especially when fully comprehended.

There are many fascinating elements to this part of his story. People tend to cherry pick the parts they like while swiftly moving through the parts they don’t like. I believe that’s a mistake if we are to understand its significance with any depth or credibility.

Let’s get a couple of simple basics out of the way. For starters, the small part of broader Palestine which was the Jewish homeland and kingdom, and seat for the God they believed in, was in a backwater part of the world. The massive and all-powerful Roman Empire viewed it as a sore spot without much meaning. The Jews had largely occupied that space for a millennium and more but were often subject to the oppressive might of more powerful neighbors. Rome was the latest. They lamented and desperately hoped for the coming of God’s anointed one, their promised and prophesied Messiah, who would permanently release them from captivity, delivering them permanently as Moses had done temporarily long before … and usher in a whole new deal, with them at the top. There were all sorts of factions who wanted to get rid of Roman rule, including people called Zealots who sought to incite insurrection and violence. Into this mess, lands an itinerant preacher and rabbi from the most backwater part of this backwater region, a place called Nazareth. He preaches things that had never been heard before anywhere in not only that region or culture but anywhere in all of human history. This cannot be taken lightly. His words were unbelievably defiant and they upended the reality that everyone knew to be true. They were so threatening to a certain order of things that it’s no wonder those in immediate power (the religious leaders of the day) sought quickly for the means to kill him. Interestingly, the even more powerful rulers (the Romans) could not have cared less because his threat was not physical and he did nothing to oppose the massive oppressive system they used to control, terrify and even kill the people.

This is not to be missed. His disobedience was not towards the real center of power, the one that was the most brutal in history, regularly torturing people and keeping many of them impoverished. It was against the religious authorities because he preached an alternative view of reality to the one they so tightly held on to.

I could go on and on forever on this topic but I want to come to my final points.

First, Jesus always knew his message and life would result in his ultimate arrest and death and he was willing to go down that road, despite the pleas of so many of his followers. In other words, he had a line and knew that it must be crossed and that he would suffer mortally.

Second, he was incredibly calm and focused about all of it. He almost never showed anger and while he was overtly challenging the civil leaders at every turn, risking his life, he was calm and at times filled with great joy. On only a couple of occasions did he show a real temper, while by almost all accounts his behavior towards the rulers was very measured and peaceful. He openly challenged their system and worked hard to get others to similarly respond but he did not do so out of anger, but more out of a combination of specific direction and love. He offered them a different story and then moved on. This piece about anger is huge to me. It cuts to the core of how we should behave when we feel severely wronged. It even deserves some special attention here.

Anger is a natural emotion and I see nothing wrong with it. It’s a human thing and can be completely justified. The problem though, with this and other emotions is when they jump the banks and flood into areas that are destructive. Jesus taught this, actually. With anger, it can quickly turn to contempt which Jesus (and I, for that matter) decry. Contempt is something toxic. It’s a cancer and it hardens the heart and makes love (a very good thing … the thing) that much more difficult or even impossible. (For Star Wars fans, this is what Luke tried to get Darth Vader to understand in the end.)

And, this is what I see a tremendous amount of today. The shouting. The fist pumping. Veins popping. Incessant vitriol pointing righteous fingers at the opposition.

And it repels me.

Because anger given over to self-righteousness (the attention-grabbing and refusal to actually sit down and consider that the other side might have a reasonable point of view) is the most destructive force. It caused the Reign of Terror in France in their famous revolution just after ours. It caused the systematic destruction of those deemed in the opposition. It is very different from the dispassionate and focused direction of the warrior.

You may deal Jesus up as just a man who was primarily interested in social justice. That would be a big mistake. You may deal him up as just a loving shepherd. That would be a mistake. You may deal him up as a liar or a crazy man (both of which fold under reasonable scrutiny). Or you may accept he is who he says he is and that he’s giving us the only advice that really matters: From God.

In the end, he passively submitted to the soldiers sent from the religious leaders. This passivity was actually a remarkable action that was anything but passive. It was overtly defiant. He was tortured and then brought before the representative of the Emperor who gave him a chance to escape but he declined to take the bait. Pilate could find no fault but ended up acting for political reasons, not ones of justice, and Jesus was put to death.

The last hours of Jesus’ life and the way he lived them has challenged countless millions to confront deep dilemmas about how to live one’s life in a broken world. Like most of his teaching, we are required to peel away layers of assumptions to get at the kernel of truth that lies brightly at the center. Sometimes these kernels seem obvious before we realize we’ve only glanced across the surface, only much later arriving at astounding conclusions. Sometimes these truths seem bathed in contradictions that force us to confront complex realities. We may rush to conclusions and get caught up in the whirlwind of positions and frenzied action. With respect to Jesus, both believing Christians and those who do not believe Jesus is who he says he is but identify him as a model of social justice activism, can fall into traps by selectively making claims to his authority. Would he support any form of violence as he physically acted out near the end in the Temple? Or, does he oppose violence as a means of resolving disputes by teaching us to turn the other cheek and love one’s enemies? Or is it ambiguous as he tells Peter to put down his sword because he who lives by the sword dies by the sword?

All of this gets wrapped up in potentially competing principles. We may be called to act out in the interest of justice because not to do so would be to countenance evil. We may be called to resist violence because we know that violence, once unleashed, can take on a life of its own and destroy so much, including our souls.

In a purely secular sense, these moral decisions can sometimes be tied to the principle of utilitarianism, or doing what’s best for the greatest number. Or they can be tied to a socially-constructed context of what is right or wrong … some man-made set of precepts without an overarching narrative.

I was in conversation with a group of men early this morning that touched upon this topic. All are committed followers of Jesus who offer transparent windows into their lives as we struggle to know what is right and good. We have different life experiences and perspectives on certain things but are united in our willingness to take on the hard stuff, even though they may expose inadequacies and failures. I took a lot away from our meeting as I always do. For the purpose of helping bring this long essay to conclusion, I’ll mention two things. The first is that one man said that for the first time in his life recently he suddenly asked himself if he would be willing to go to jail and what might trigger that. The second is that another man, a retired Naval captain, teared up when he recounted how a dear friend was eulogized this weekend with the two words that he was both gentle and kind. A thoughtful professional businessman considering being jailed for his beliefs and actions. And a retired warrior who recognizes and lives a life himself with the principles of gentility and kindness. Both men are disciples (as were King, Bonhoeffer and even Gandhi), daily struggling with what a life well-led should look like. Both are doing an amazing job of identifying foundational principles, holding them up to the light, seeking advice and dialogue and doing so with tremendous humility, recognizing their many limitations and inadequacies. Neither is paralyzed by inaction because of potential complexities but they are galvanized each day to carry through on these principles.

So, I come to the end, for now. My questions remain. While I seem to know some things quite well, others remain somewhat masked and that’s ok. Because I think the important thing for me (and many others I know) is to listen for the call. Because it can come at any time as I have found from experience. And, when it comes, there is rarely ambiguity. It arrives as a prompt or question. Without God, of course, there is no need. It’s just “make up your mind.” With God, the equation completely changes. One moment, the solider is talking with his comrades, all of whom want to return home safely, and the next he inexplicably hurls himself in the line of fire or on the grenade so his friends can live.

Here is what I know.

It is right to oppose injustice. It is not right to accept it and leave aspects of the battle to someone else. It can be very confusing about what that looks like and a response can take many forms.

We cannot change the world and we can’t save humanity. But, we can find foundational principles and identify their source so we can be as firm as possible in our convictions. Then, we can affect change on smaller scales. We can affect lives and help make the world a better place.

It is sometimes not wrong to be angry but it is always wrong to let anger control us. Regardless of our actions or decisions, we should resist the seductive voice that starts out with a sense of righteousness but grabs ahold, puffs us up, and now it’s not the thing which is righteous but it’s us. The battle is not only out there over some issue or cause or threat but it is in here, in our hearts.

A life well-lived requires risk. It is not safe. We need to embrace this fact and be deliberate in trying to understand what that means for each of us.

Here is the account by a German doctor of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s last moments. It deserves a careful reading and meditation.

“On the morning of that day between five and six o’clock the prisoners were taken from their cells and the verdicts of the court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this unusually lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

We can look for guidance and wisdom in all sorts of places or we can choose to seek neither, relying upon the belief that we just inherently know the right thing to do. I have lived part of my life too attuned to the latter and not enough to the former. I once thought it was all about the search but as I’ve said before, that is just so much fluff. It’s actually about the find. Who or what is it that we find and can rely upon for guidance and wisdom? Isn’t that the great question?

I do not know whether I will be called to act again in defiance of authority in a way that may this time place my freedom and safety at risk. I understand that is possible and I believe it’s something every Christian should consider for obvious reasons. Non-Christians can have their own reasons.

I apologize for how long and wandering this is. Perhaps even sloppy. I know I left a lot out and I’ll probably regret later that I did not state something clearly or that I had not adequately thought things through. Thank you for your patience.

In the end, regardless of any path my life might take, I can only wish that someone would reflect upon me in a eulogy and say, “He was gentle and kind.” and “He died entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Amen.