Prof.John Stackhouse quotes 18th century spiritual writer William Law: "Be your own good friend." I'm attracted to this exhortation. It makes me ask:
What is a good friend?
Are or can you befriend yourself like that?
If you can't, what hinders you?
How can you work towards befriending yourself?
Might be good material to reflect on in Lent (begins Feb.17)!
Peace,
Lee
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Spiritual Affliction
At times of great spiritual affliction - attacks of feelings of guilt and unworthiness - Martin Luther would touch his head and cry out "Martin, you have been baptized!". Thus he resisted the assaults of the evil one - and so can we! May it please God that this be so for us this day.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Images of Church
Images of Church
North American Christianity/Missional
Museum/Mission Outpost
Memorial/Mental Health Center
Mausoleum/MASH Unit
Mall/Meeting Hall
Mystification/Mysticism
McDonalds/Monastery
Museum: Church is about the past, the ”good old days,” when things were supposedly better and God's presence and power more evident to all. The dominant dynamic is nostalgia, The primary Leadership posture is Curator. This person is responsible for preserving the relics and maintaining the memory which gives the people its identity.
Mission Outpost: Church is about the present in light of the future of God's coming Kingdom. It is forward/future oriented, honoring the past but moving on into the new and different future where God is already at work blazing trails and creating opportunities for his people. The dominant dynamic is hope. The primary Leadership posture is collegial, gift-based, and focuses on poetry – envisioning and discerning God's future, prophecy – declaring God's present will for a people on the move, and apostolicity – leading into the future without a set of maps.
Memorial: Church is about remembering Jesus, the Jesus who would set all things right . . . if he were only here! The church tries hard to do what Jesus would do and clings firmly to orthodox teaching about Jesus. The dominant dynamic here is the past. This is not the nostalgia of the Church as “Museum,” however; it is more of a confidence that if the church can get the earthly Jesus right historically, it will be able to forge ahead with confidence and strength. This is the churchly version of modernity's confidence in reason and history. The primary Leadership posture is Teacher/Scholar.
Mental Health Center: Church is indeed about the business of cognitive adjustment. But trusting in the presence of the living Jesus through his Spirit the church strives to discover what he is doing now in the world in order to join him in that work. There is a remembering of Jesus involved but it is in the Hebraic sense of re-encountering Jesus in his risen and living reality and thus being re-membered into his body. As one black preacher told Will Willimon, black worship takes so long because after a week in a world that routinely dismisses, demeans, and dehumanizes black people, it takes three hours for him to get their minds and heart reoriented and focused on Jesus and centered in the gospel affirmation of who they are in Christ. The dominant dynamic here is the present and the need to encounter the risen and living One. The primary Leadership posture is mentor.
Mausoleum: Church is the burial place of Jesus. He is dead and gone, a nobly tragic figure, a good example, perhaps the best person who ever lived, but that is all. Jesus is revered here, admired and acclaimed, but he is finally a human being. And like all human beings, death has claimed him. The church remembers Jesus as mourners. Low grade grief, lack of expectation, and even a silent despair like a fever runs through the life of these churches presenting as the dominant dynamic. The primary Leadership profile is that of therapist-caretaker.
M.A.S.H. Unit: the issue of health looms large here too. However, it is our health as followers of Jesus who bring to him our wounds, hurts, and struggles acquired in the journey. Jesus is the living One, the Great Physician, who will not the power of death and evil to reign over them. In the church he meets us with healing as we share with him all that ails us. Jesus heals us enough so that we may rejoin the fray and pick up with our journey of discipleship. Full healing and rest still await us but Jesus gives us the healing we need to continue on with the work. The dominant dynamic here is well-being. The primary Leadership posture is Spiritual Guide or Director.
Mall: Church is about meeting the “felt needs” of the congregation. Mega-churches have the resources to fully service their members and thus they illustrate this “Church as Mall” model well. They often identify themselves as “24/7” institutions which are “there” all day, every day, in every way for their people. The dominant dynamic is, to put it crassly, “Customer Service.” This becomes not only the programmatic baseline but the basis for its appeal to the community as well. “Join us and We Will Take Care of You and Your Family.” The primary Leadership posture is the C.E.O.
Meeting Hall: The Church here serves as a center for the community's missional deliberation. The Greek word for “church” means just that, a “town hall assembly” to take care of community business. The dominant dynamic is discernment – looking outward to discover where God is leading his people into ministry. The primary Leadership posture is facilitator.
Mystification: The end result of the models and methods embraced by most North American Christianity ends up by mystifying the church. That is, over its theology, worship, and work lies a pall of unreality and confusion. As Walker Percy puts it in The Thanatos Syndrome, the words of the church “no longer signify.” This mystification is the crisis of the North American church as we move on into the 21st century.
Mysticism: A missional church lives from its relation to its Lord. At the heart of this way of being church is a practical mysticism, that is, the ability to discern God's presence in daily life and come to experience life as prayer, that is, an ongoing conversation and companionship with God throughout their lives.
McDonalds: Church in North American has bought into the values of “McDonaldization” - efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. These values, central to North American culture, drive the sense of mystification that now pervades the church and allow the “mystery” at the heart of the church, the presence of the triune God, to atrophy.
Monastery: Missional church, by focusing on the relation to God in the midst of life, in other words, the Holy Spirit, takes the form of a monastery in the midst of the world. A “monastic” missional church seeks to reintegrate the experience of the living God at the heart of a people living and loving the world as God's missional people.
North American Christianity/Missional
Museum/Mission Outpost
Memorial/Mental Health Center
Mausoleum/MASH Unit
Mall/Meeting Hall
Mystification/Mysticism
McDonalds/Monastery
Museum: Church is about the past, the ”good old days,” when things were supposedly better and God's presence and power more evident to all. The dominant dynamic is nostalgia, The primary Leadership posture is Curator. This person is responsible for preserving the relics and maintaining the memory which gives the people its identity.
Mission Outpost: Church is about the present in light of the future of God's coming Kingdom. It is forward/future oriented, honoring the past but moving on into the new and different future where God is already at work blazing trails and creating opportunities for his people. The dominant dynamic is hope. The primary Leadership posture is collegial, gift-based, and focuses on poetry – envisioning and discerning God's future, prophecy – declaring God's present will for a people on the move, and apostolicity – leading into the future without a set of maps.
Memorial: Church is about remembering Jesus, the Jesus who would set all things right . . . if he were only here! The church tries hard to do what Jesus would do and clings firmly to orthodox teaching about Jesus. The dominant dynamic here is the past. This is not the nostalgia of the Church as “Museum,” however; it is more of a confidence that if the church can get the earthly Jesus right historically, it will be able to forge ahead with confidence and strength. This is the churchly version of modernity's confidence in reason and history. The primary Leadership posture is Teacher/Scholar.
Mental Health Center: Church is indeed about the business of cognitive adjustment. But trusting in the presence of the living Jesus through his Spirit the church strives to discover what he is doing now in the world in order to join him in that work. There is a remembering of Jesus involved but it is in the Hebraic sense of re-encountering Jesus in his risen and living reality and thus being re-membered into his body. As one black preacher told Will Willimon, black worship takes so long because after a week in a world that routinely dismisses, demeans, and dehumanizes black people, it takes three hours for him to get their minds and heart reoriented and focused on Jesus and centered in the gospel affirmation of who they are in Christ. The dominant dynamic here is the present and the need to encounter the risen and living One. The primary Leadership posture is mentor.
Mausoleum: Church is the burial place of Jesus. He is dead and gone, a nobly tragic figure, a good example, perhaps the best person who ever lived, but that is all. Jesus is revered here, admired and acclaimed, but he is finally a human being. And like all human beings, death has claimed him. The church remembers Jesus as mourners. Low grade grief, lack of expectation, and even a silent despair like a fever runs through the life of these churches presenting as the dominant dynamic. The primary Leadership profile is that of therapist-caretaker.
M.A.S.H. Unit: the issue of health looms large here too. However, it is our health as followers of Jesus who bring to him our wounds, hurts, and struggles acquired in the journey. Jesus is the living One, the Great Physician, who will not the power of death and evil to reign over them. In the church he meets us with healing as we share with him all that ails us. Jesus heals us enough so that we may rejoin the fray and pick up with our journey of discipleship. Full healing and rest still await us but Jesus gives us the healing we need to continue on with the work. The dominant dynamic here is well-being. The primary Leadership posture is Spiritual Guide or Director.
Mall: Church is about meeting the “felt needs” of the congregation. Mega-churches have the resources to fully service their members and thus they illustrate this “Church as Mall” model well. They often identify themselves as “24/7” institutions which are “there” all day, every day, in every way for their people. The dominant dynamic is, to put it crassly, “Customer Service.” This becomes not only the programmatic baseline but the basis for its appeal to the community as well. “Join us and We Will Take Care of You and Your Family.” The primary Leadership posture is the C.E.O.
Meeting Hall: The Church here serves as a center for the community's missional deliberation. The Greek word for “church” means just that, a “town hall assembly” to take care of community business. The dominant dynamic is discernment – looking outward to discover where God is leading his people into ministry. The primary Leadership posture is facilitator.
Mystification: The end result of the models and methods embraced by most North American Christianity ends up by mystifying the church. That is, over its theology, worship, and work lies a pall of unreality and confusion. As Walker Percy puts it in The Thanatos Syndrome, the words of the church “no longer signify.” This mystification is the crisis of the North American church as we move on into the 21st century.
Mysticism: A missional church lives from its relation to its Lord. At the heart of this way of being church is a practical mysticism, that is, the ability to discern God's presence in daily life and come to experience life as prayer, that is, an ongoing conversation and companionship with God throughout their lives.
McDonalds: Church in North American has bought into the values of “McDonaldization” - efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. These values, central to North American culture, drive the sense of mystification that now pervades the church and allow the “mystery” at the heart of the church, the presence of the triune God, to atrophy.
Monastery: Missional church, by focusing on the relation to God in the midst of life, in other words, the Holy Spirit, takes the form of a monastery in the midst of the world. A “monastic” missional church seeks to reintegrate the experience of the living God at the heart of a people living and loving the world as God's missional people.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Why "Our Words no Longer Signify"
As I was re-reading Walker Percy’s The Thanatos Syndrome this past fall I ran across this remarkable passage from which the name of this blog is taken. I will quote it at length. It is a conversation between Dr. Tom More and a presumably mad priest, Father Smith. The old priest is now a fire-spotter for the park service and the conversation takes place in the tower he lives in. We pick up the conversation with Father Smith speaking:
“Words are signs, aren’t they?”
“You could say so.”
“But unlike the signs out there (the trees on fire), words have been evacuated, haven’t they.?”
“Evacuated?”
“They don’t signify anymore.”
“How do you mean?” . . .
The two proceed to spar verbally until Father Smith proposes a word association exercise.
“Let me turn the tables on you and give you a couple of word signs and you give me your free associations.”
“Fine.”
“Clouds.”
“Sky, fleecy, puffy, floating, white –“
“Okay. Irish.”
“Bogs, Notre Dame, Pat O’Brien, begorra –“
“Okay. Blacks.”
“Blacks.”
“Negroes.”
“Blacks, Africa, niggers, minority, civil rights –“
“Okay. Jew.”
“Israel, Bible, Max, Sam, Julius, Hebrew, Hebe, Ben –“
“Right! You see!” . . .
“See what!”
“Jews!”
“What about Jews?” I say after a moment.
“Precisely!”
“Precisely what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about Jews?”
“What do you think about Jews?” he asks, cocking an eye.
“Nothing much one way or the other.”
“May I continue my demonstration, Doctor?” . . .
“May I ask who Max, Sam, Julius, and Ben are?”
“Max Gottlieb is my closest friend and personal physician. Sam Aronson was my roommate in medical school. Julius Freund was my training analyst at Hopkins. Ben Solomon was my fellow detainee and cellmate at Fort Pelham, Alabama.”
“Very interesting.”
“How’s that?”
“Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“Unlike the other test words, what you associated with the word Jew was Jews, Jews you have known. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Yes,” I say, pursing my mouth in a show of interest.
“What you associated with the word sign Irish were certain connotations, stereotypical Irish stuff in your head. Same for Negro. If I had said Spanish, you’d have said something like guitar, castanets, bullfights, and such. I have done the test on dozens. Thus, these word signs have been evacuated, deprived of meaning something real. Real persons. Not so with Jews” . . .
“That’s the only sign of God which has not been evacuated by an evacuator,” he says, moving his shoulders.
“What sign is that?”
“Jews.”
“Jews?”
“You got it, Doc” . . .
He leans close, eyes alight, “The Jews – cannot-be-subsumed.”
“Can’t be what?”
“Subsumed.”
“I see.”
“Since the Jews were the original chosen people of God, a tribe of people who are still here, they are a sign of God’s presence which cannot be evacuated. Try to find a hole in that proof!”
Debate continues but Tom More is unable to get around the old priest’s argument.
Neither can we! Father Smith diagnoses our present predicament with astonishing acuity. Words no longer signify. Especially Christian words. Nobody listens to us any more – nor should they! Our words no longer signify. And they no longer signify because there is no people, no community, no presence to give substance and reality to them. Our Greek and Western heritage has finally run us into a dead end! Our tendency to vest reality in what can be thought and linguistically expressed has run out of steam. Having bought into this way of doing things as the church, we now find ourselves bereft and unable to imagine any way forward but more and better of “the same old same old.”
Our words no longer signify! Thus is the peril and the opportunity the church faces today in our culture. Whether it be peril or whether it be opportunity is the crux we face. Can we find our way, through the Spirit, to a place where, again, our words signify the truth demonstrated by the incarnation of that truth in the lives of God’s people in this time and place? We shall see.
“Words are signs, aren’t they?”
“You could say so.”
“But unlike the signs out there (the trees on fire), words have been evacuated, haven’t they.?”
“Evacuated?”
“They don’t signify anymore.”
“How do you mean?” . . .
The two proceed to spar verbally until Father Smith proposes a word association exercise.
“Let me turn the tables on you and give you a couple of word signs and you give me your free associations.”
“Fine.”
“Clouds.”
“Sky, fleecy, puffy, floating, white –“
“Okay. Irish.”
“Bogs, Notre Dame, Pat O’Brien, begorra –“
“Okay. Blacks.”
“Blacks.”
“Negroes.”
“Blacks, Africa, niggers, minority, civil rights –“
“Okay. Jew.”
“Israel, Bible, Max, Sam, Julius, Hebrew, Hebe, Ben –“
“Right! You see!” . . .
“See what!”
“Jews!”
“What about Jews?” I say after a moment.
“Precisely!”
“Precisely what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about Jews?”
“What do you think about Jews?” he asks, cocking an eye.
“Nothing much one way or the other.”
“May I continue my demonstration, Doctor?” . . .
“May I ask who Max, Sam, Julius, and Ben are?”
“Max Gottlieb is my closest friend and personal physician. Sam Aronson was my roommate in medical school. Julius Freund was my training analyst at Hopkins. Ben Solomon was my fellow detainee and cellmate at Fort Pelham, Alabama.”
“Very interesting.”
“How’s that?”
“Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“Unlike the other test words, what you associated with the word Jew was Jews, Jews you have known. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Yes,” I say, pursing my mouth in a show of interest.
“What you associated with the word sign Irish were certain connotations, stereotypical Irish stuff in your head. Same for Negro. If I had said Spanish, you’d have said something like guitar, castanets, bullfights, and such. I have done the test on dozens. Thus, these word signs have been evacuated, deprived of meaning something real. Real persons. Not so with Jews” . . .
“That’s the only sign of God which has not been evacuated by an evacuator,” he says, moving his shoulders.
“What sign is that?”
“Jews.”
“Jews?”
“You got it, Doc” . . .
He leans close, eyes alight, “The Jews – cannot-be-subsumed.”
“Can’t be what?”
“Subsumed.”
“I see.”
“Since the Jews were the original chosen people of God, a tribe of people who are still here, they are a sign of God’s presence which cannot be evacuated. Try to find a hole in that proof!”
Debate continues but Tom More is unable to get around the old priest’s argument.
Neither can we! Father Smith diagnoses our present predicament with astonishing acuity. Words no longer signify. Especially Christian words. Nobody listens to us any more – nor should they! Our words no longer signify. And they no longer signify because there is no people, no community, no presence to give substance and reality to them. Our Greek and Western heritage has finally run us into a dead end! Our tendency to vest reality in what can be thought and linguistically expressed has run out of steam. Having bought into this way of doing things as the church, we now find ourselves bereft and unable to imagine any way forward but more and better of “the same old same old.”
Our words no longer signify! Thus is the peril and the opportunity the church faces today in our culture. Whether it be peril or whether it be opportunity is the crux we face. Can we find our way, through the Spirit, to a place where, again, our words signify the truth demonstrated by the incarnation of that truth in the lives of God’s people in this time and place? We shall see.
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