Category Archives: spirituality

Listening People Into Free Speech

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Listening might just be the best thing we can do to care for another. There are so few people in this world who are willing to listen. We all want to be heard but few of us want to hear. A phrase that emerged out of my schooling experience was “listening people into free speech”. Beautiful. That’s an experiment that many of us should step up to, listening people into free speech.

It’s important, I think, not simply to hear people but to truly listen to them. Listening first and foremost requires asking questions, shutting up, remembering what was said, and responding when appropriate. It’s often when we actively listen that we learn how and where to serve our neighbor.

I know I don’t do this perfectly. As a matter of fact I recently frustrated a neighbor due to my poor listening. But how great and how beautifully simple would it be to develop a community of people whose primary concern was listening those around them into free speech? This is what I hope becomes a defining characteristic of the Grassroots Conspiracy movement here in downtown Vancouver. Listening. It’s simple. It’s subtle. And it’s strangely transformational.

Creating Meaning from Creation

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Many people believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible’s creation story. There are whole conferences and lectures dedicated to defending this point of view. My position right now is that I don’t care.

Regardless of whether you take the Adam and Eve story literally, the point of the narrative is to create meaning. How would Christianity–or better yet, how would our neighborhoods look different if they embraced some of the significant meaning communicated in this story? How would things be different if we understood that…

  • …we were intended to be at peace with the earth, with plants, animals, and each other. The Garden of Eden was a space where all the creatures lived in a mutually beneficial peaceful existence. Adam was even created from the dust of the earth! Essentially the story communicates that if it weren’t for the earth we could not/would not exist! How different would our world be if we tried to lean into this intended reality?
  • …man and woman cannot be separated. I’m not making an “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” play here. What I am saying is that according to the story woman cannot exist apart from man (it took one of his ribs to make her) and man cannot be complete apart from woman (missing that damn rib). In a world filled with broken relationships would it change anything to know that apart from others we are incomplete? We were not created for isolation or complete individualism! The whole man-woman thing is not at all tied to superiority or control, rather it is about connectedness. We are forever and completely connected to each other.
  • …we are partners with God. God invited the humans to name the animals, he invited them to be a part of the creation process by actually giving the animal kingdom some of its identity. How would things change if we viewed ourselves as partners with God in the continued identity-giving process of life?
  • …not only were we intended to be at peace with the world around us, but originally there was a peace and casual relationship between the creator and his creation. It was normal for Adam and Eve to walk together with God in the dew of the morning! How would life be different if we knew that we were intended to be at peace and in relationship with God?
  • …Adam and Eve were naked…and I’m pretty sure they were dead sexy (though probably a bit freakish looking without a belly button). I don’t think this necessarily invites us all to come to a place where we can all be naked together (though some could argue that). Rather I think this reminds us of our intended innocence. We were intended for purity, innocence, and simplicity (don’t clothes bring heaps of complexity to our lives?!). What would our world look like if we embraced our original calling to simple, pure, and innocent living? Jesus invited his followers to be like children…seems strangely similar.
  • …we are good. God looked at his creation over and over again and mused to himself “wow, this is pretty good!” and regarding you and I he even thought “Wow, this is really ridiculously good!” So often Christians start the story with brokenness and sinfulness but the reality is that the story starts with goodness. How would our world be different if when we looked at people around us we saw (and believed) their inherent goodness. It’s not that we’re all good or that given the opportunity we’ll all make good choices, rather its that our starting place, our origin, or beginning is in perfect goodness…what a better place to find our identity than in our brokenness!
  • …destructive things are only bastardizations of the good stuff. The devil came in the form of a snake and tempted the humans to eat the fruit. What I love is that early on in the story we’re reminded that the best that evil can do is bastardize good things. Snakes aren’t evil, they’re kind of awesome. But the devil used it to bring about broken relationship. If we look at most everything that is destructive in our world it turns out to be a bastardization of something that was originally good. Evil doesn’t create. How would like and Christianity be different if we had the courage to own everything good?
  • …work is a gift from God. Work isn’t something we HAVE to do, it’s something we GET to do. God didn’t place humanity in a box, in an empty field, on a cement pad, or in a spa resort. He placed them in a garden with plants and animals to take care of. Work was part of the beauty of their existence–how would life be different if we understood labor as a beautiful part of being human? How would we choose our jobs differently? Hmm…I wonder.
There are so many other bullet points that could be included here! Again, regardless of whether you take this story literally or not the reality is that it is the the defining start to the Jesus-narrative. And I think we have a great opportunity to be shaped by the meaning that this story seeks to bring into our world. Peace, communion, relationship, enjoyable labor, partnership, goodness…this is who we are and what we were intended for…what if we tried to live THAT out?

It's All Spiritual

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We all love boxes. You love boxes, I love boxes, we all love boxes.

I’m not talking about moving, I’m talking about how we love to create boundaries around things. Even you weirdos that say you’re an ‘outside the box person’ still find your value as an ‘outside the box person’ based on an ‘outside the box’ box that you’ve created. Boxing things allows us to simplify the way we think and view the world around us. It makes life easier ’cause it reduces the amount of thinking I have to do. If I look at you and place you in a box (which we all do!) then I can move forward with a whole set of assumptions about you, about how I relate with you, about how I should treat you, etc. If we’re being honest, boxes are essential…maybe not beneficial…but generally pretty essential.

One box, though, that I’m sick of is the spiritual box. Ok, don’t let me lose you yet, let me explain first. We love to create boxes around things spiritual and things physical. It’s these boxes that allow some religious groups to pray and never seek medial help. It’s these boxes that cause many Christians to pray instead of going to counseling. It’s these kind of boxes that cause some people to look for answers everywhere BUT their identity in God. It’s these boxes that create an artificial dichotomy that is not beneficial for our health, our healing, and our future.

The reality, I believe, is that everything is spiritual. Everything. Why did I get cancer? Some say it’s spiritual warfare. Others say it’s a disruption in my energy flow because of childhood trauma. Others say it’s a fluke. Others say it’s because I shop too much at Costco. The reality, I believe, is that all those things are spiritual! (Ok, maybe not Costco) It’s not one or the other.

So did I get cancer because of spiritual warfare (I realize this is a really bad term to use that’s loaded with nasty baggage. Please forgive me for using it and take it in its most un-baggaged way)? Hell yes! Of course its spiritual warfare (define it how you will)! Did I get cancer because something got jacked up in my body? Yes! Are those two things mutually exclusive? Absolutely not. The distinctions we’ve created in our western world between the physical and the spiritual is a much bigger blog than what I’m able to write today–but if the reality of Jesus walking on earth tells us anything it’s that the spiritual and the physical are forever and always intimately connected. If the idea of God being a creator God tells us anything it’s that the spiritual and the physical are forever and always intimately connected. If the idea of promised resurrection and victory over death tells us anything it’s that the physical and the spiritual are intimately connected. “Intimately connected” might not even be a strong enough way to say it because the two cannot be separated.

We may spend lots of our time trying to create boxes in our lives around people, ideas, and ways of living–but the spiritual should not be one of them. Everything is spiritual–how we eat, how we heal, how we live, how we love. It all matters and it’s all connected.

When Do We Stop Listening

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On a recent blog post a person commented “how long should we listen?” This question was in regard to me suggesting that regardless of your theological position on homosexuality–whether it’s right or wrong or whether the answer is to embrace it or live celibate or whatever*, we should take a posture of listening and open dialog.

I think there is a major assumption that underlies many people’s questions regarding the idea of listening and dialoging with those who see things differently from us. That assumption is that the only reason we listen and dialog to others is in order to achieve our desired outcomes. The assumption is that if somehow I know ahead of time that you will never ‘come around’ to my point of view there is then no reason to dialog with you. What’s the point if you won’t ever agree with me? While it is obviously impossible to know if someone will ever agree with us I think it is important that we challenge this assumption head on and question it for what it is…

We all do it at times. We do. Don’t deny it. But to only engage in dialog and to only listen to others when we think it’ll achieve our goals is unkind and denies the dignity of the other person. It assumes that they’re ignorant. It assumes they’re wrong. It assumes that we have nothing to learn. It assumes a lot. It is also slightly deceitful. Am I really listening to you if I’m only doing it in order to make you think as I do? I may pretend like I value your opinion, but if my purpose is to invalidate that opinion then how honest am I being?

What if we listened to each other because we valued the other’s voice? Because we valued that their opinions and thoughts represent who they are, what they value, and how they’re creating meaning in the world. What if we lived out of a place that recognized that while we cannot walk in their shoes and experience the moments that have shaped them, we can honor those experiences by valuing their voice–not because we want to change them but because we value who they are and who they are becoming. We’re all becoming something, we’re all being changed and transformed, and none of us are truly certain of who we are becoming (though we all hope to be changing in some kind of intentional direction don’t we!). So to listen to others, to make space in our lives for a posture of openness to dialog to those who think differently and see the world differently does not require that try to change them but rather that we believe we’re both being changed–that life is not static, and that life is not done in a vacuum but in relationship with others!

So how long should we listen? We should listen until they’re done talking or until dinner time ’cause then it’s time to eat and everyone knows it’s rude to talk with your mouth full.

 

* Not to suggest these are the only two options…or even to suggest that ‘options’ is a word to be used in this context!

It's Simple But it's Good

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Six years of education centered around theology, eight years of college level education overall, working in Portugal as a missionary for two years, working for six years starting a new faith community, and beginning a new and different movement here in downtown Vancouver…and my greatest insight, the thing that has struck me the most, what I’ve learned most through my crisis with cancer is that the “good news” is…well…good. When it’s lived out (particularly when it is lived out radically) it is tangibly good to those who experience or observe it. For someone who considers themselves a follower of Jesus this should be common sense, “duh”, obviously, of course-type of information. And yet, and yet…AND YET it is not so commonly experienced! I see far too many people who are followers of Jesus and yet seem to not experience the goodness of it themselves! They equate following Jesus with going to church, they equate it with a system of rules, with a system of morality, etc. While I believe church is a part of the goodness of following Jesus, and while I believe that Jesus invites us to say “no” to certain things…the reality is that when those things are the core to your belief I think you’ve missed the boat! You’ve missed what’s so good about the “good news”.  Going to church isn’t good news–being a part of a community of people who love you no matter what, who will be honest with you, who care for you, and who invite you to learn to reciprocate–that’s good news! Understanding yourself by what you say no to is not good news to anyone (unless you’re a seeker of control)–but learning to say no to things that are destructive to self and others–that’s good news!

Simply put, good news is good. Its tangibly good. It’s noticeably good. It’s nearly irresistibly good. It’s attractively good. And it took me getting cancer to really believe, see, and experience this.

Jesus invites us into a life that the Bible refers to as gospel (good news) and I hope it doesn’t take you getting cancer to truly and honestly believe it in all its beautiful simplicity.