Am I really “The Prodigal?”

Barack Obama just secured the most delegates for the Democratic Nomination for President.  Hillary Clinton hasn’t thrown in the towel as of yet.  But, Barack, the media is saying, will be the nominee.  Either one winning would have been historical.

This got me reading tonight and thinking about Obama’s life.  This is an excerpt from an article tonight.  It’s from Michael Powell in the New York Times from tomorrow’s edition.  A link is here:

One of the curiosities about Mr. Obama is his professed lack of interest in the writers who pore over that life, trying to deconstruct his fractured family and geography. He claims not to read profiles that pile high in his plane.

“It just encourages the narcissism that is already a congenital defect for a politician,” he says. “I find these essays more revealing about the author than about me.”

The same might be said of Mr. Obama’s autobiography, which is less a straightforward chronicle than a carefully framed coming-of-age narrative. He describes himself as a young man adrift, although few friends recall thinking him so lost. And he just might have overstated his youthful experimentation with marijuana.

I had read about this before, after his last book came out, about how he pictures himself “adrift,” concerned that he was going to end up becoming a crack addict, or something like that.  Yet, those around him never really thought things were that bad for him.  I don’t think people believed he made it up to sell books, but it seemed like his self-perception was different than what those around him perceived.

When I read the story of the Prodigal Son, I immediately am drawn to the Elder Brother — the one that stayed by the Father, doing all the responsible things that were expected, and yet feeling bitter when generosity is shown to the “black sheep” of the family, the younger son.  I, more or less, have been like that…responsible, played by the rules, obedient.  I never had a profound period of theological wandering.  I was raised in the church and stayed in the church.  And, I think most people who know me best would say that’s me.

And yet, there is some insecurity, some needing to find a grace I can’t seem to find on my own, some real sense of lostness in my life, there is some sense of wandering away — maybe if I never left home.  I remember a counselor I worked with at a Summer Camp for a week or less.  He had been through a rough patch and had gotten addicted to drugs and once, when high, he chewed on broken glass or something horrible and needed a whole lot of stitches to fix his tongue.  He would show his now-healed tongue to the kids as some graphic warning to not fall as far away from God as he had…and that if they did our God would welcome them back.  My wandering, my distant country, is, perhaps, more subtle.  Just like the Elder Son’s.  And yet the elder son still stands in need of the prodigal grace of the Father.

So, even if (like Obama) I may be overstating far off country, I do have times that I become acutely aware of just how far I’ve moved away from God’s will for my life.  Perhaps, in fancying myself The Prodigal Son, I remind myself of the grace and mercy that God offers me and that he longs for me to return.  When it comes down to it, aren’t we all The Prodigal Son?

Why I Am a United Methodist

Actually, there was a four-week sermon series I gave with that title before heading off to General Conference in Fort Worth.  I think it was pretty good.  The four reasons I gave were:

1. The United Methodist Church is where I found true Christian Community.  I talked about Sunday School and youth group and shared some of the high points of Christian community that I’ve found in the church.  And I talked about some of the low points.
2. The United Methodist Church taught me about the bigness of God’s Grace.  Prevenient grace.  A grace so amazingly big that it’s given to me without even waiting for a response.  The grace is prior to my response.  For someone who deals with some pride issues, this understanding of grace takes it all out of my hands and puts it in God’s hands.
3. The United Methodist Church taught me about practical divinity.  We believe that faith should be put into practice in the world.  Faith without works is dead.  Got to talk about some of the great ways the larger church is involved in mission around the world.
4. The United Methodist Church taught me about worship.  Here I shared some of the memorable worship experiences I’ve been a part of, even in my present congregation.  And I also shared about some of the challenges of conducting worship in a small congregation.

That’s kind of the long answer for why I am a United Methodist.  The shorter answer (and no less relevant) is that, when we moved from Massachusetts to New York in the mid 1970s, the United Methodist Church seemed more friendly than the Presbyterian one.  If the Presbyterian Church in Yorktown Heights, NY has seemed a little more friendly on the Sunday we showed up, perhaps this would be a very different story that you’d find on this blog.

Traveler Unknown (Why Jacob and the Jabbok, Pt. 4)

I would be remiss if I didn’t close out the story of this one “dark” week with the song that was sung on the Sunday morning I talked about below. It is Charles Wesley’s “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown.” I know I had sung it before that morning. But never before had I really seen me in the song. But, there I was, struggling with God and coming to the realization of his love for me.

Usually only four of the fourteen verses get sung — it’s just too long for contemporary folk. So, here are six verses for you.

Come, O Thou Traveler unknown,
Whom still I hold but cannot see;
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with Thee;
With Thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell Thee who I am,
My sin and misery declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name,
Look on Thy hands, and read it there;
But who, I ask Thee, who art Thou?
Tell me Thy name, and tell me now.

In vain Thou strugglest to get free;
I never will unloose my hold;
Art Thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of Thy love unfold;
Wrestling, I will not let Thee go,
Till I Thy name, Thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if Thy name be Love.

‘Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me,
I hear Thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure, universal Love Thou art;
To me, to all Thy mercies move;
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey;
Hell, earth and sin, with ease o’ercome.
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And, as a bounding hart, I run,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.

And that’s the end of the story about why I have a connection to Jacob wrestling at the Jabbok River.

Out of the Dark Night (Why Jacob and the Jabbok? Pt. 3)

My name is James. James is the English variant of Jacob, from Hebrew. It means “the one who supplants” or “the one who grabs the heel.” And while, in grade school, I never thought that was a cool definition like “king” or “awesome dude” it came with some nice stories of Jacob in the Bible, including Jacob and Esau and the following from Genesis 32:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

This was the Scripture read and preached on the Sunday after my Dark Night experience. This Scripture…this story…pulled me out of my dark night. It was like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. The previous week I had “wrestled” with God. I had been alone. I had been injured (more psychologically than my “hip”). I had a new identity — not Israel — as I felt like I could lay claim to the name “pastor” because I knew that it wasn’t about me at all, but about the living God that I had encountered in that hospital room, during that lonely week, and here in worship. I had wrestled and I was still hanging around, perhaps stronger than before. It was an amazingly wonderful Sunday for me.

Anyway, since God spoke to me at Resurrection United Methodist Church on that Sunday morning in 1993, I have believed it is good to spend some time wrestling with God — to ask the theological questions, to struggle. I can’t say I’ve done it as much as I should, shying away from introspection most of the time. But it has been helpful when it’s happened. And, at that time, I again see myself as Jacob.

(to be continued)

My Dark Night of the Soul (Why Jacob and the Jabbok? Pt. 2)

Wikipedia has this to say about the “Dark Night of the Soul”:

Dark Night of the Soul is a treatise written by Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross. It has become an expression used to describe a specific phase in a person’s spiritual life, a metaphor for a certain loneliness and desolation. Though typically associated with a crisis of faith in the Roman Catholic tradition, it is referenced by spiritual traditions throughout the world.

And, because I can’t describe it any other way, I had a Dark Night of the Soul after my experience in the ER at Duke.

I tried to go back to sleep after the family left the hospital, but my mind was racing. I had a meeting with the head chaplain to talk about my night and I had a group session. I couldn’t stop talking about my experience with that young boy’s family. Sometimes when I’m nervous or have a lot going on inside of me, I talk a lot. I find that, when the Spirit is really influencing my sermon writing, I get a little “jittery” and it’s like my fingers can’t keep up. That day, after that night, I was vocally doing this.

And life didn’t shut down. I still had more patients to see at the hospital. I still had a wife to go home to and dinner to make. We still took walks. But, I have to say, it all seemed very surreal to me. In my head I was questioning whether I was called to ministry at all. In my head I was trying to figure out what went wrong with me in that counseling room with the family I was trying to minister to. I wasn’t sure I should stay in seminary. I wasn’t sure I should go back to the hospital.

When I’ve tried to reflect on these 4 or 5 days in my life, I’ve kind of made sense of it in the following manner. Sometimes when children are misbehaving and disobeying, it is not enough to tell them to stop. It’s not about trying to spank them or give them a “time-out.” Sometimes you just need to say, “Fine, be that way” and leave them to wallow in whatever it is that they are wallowing in. (Did this with one of my daughters in the Children’s Museum in Indiana. Interesting story. Won’t get into it now.)

I make sense of this time-period in my life by saying that God knew that my pride was getting in the way of any potential ministry that I was going to get myself into — it still does in many ways. But, I do believe, earnestly, that God, during that one night in the ER showed me what it was like to rely upon myself for ministry (hell) and what it was like for him to come and rescue me (grace, relief). And then God wanted me to wallow in it for a while.

And so, God removed himself from me. I can’t describe it any other way. I don’t believe that God wasn’t there at all. I kind of get the sense that God removed himself from where I was — like a parent leaving their child throwing their self-centered temper tantrum, closing the door behind them, and then listening at the door as the child realizes they need the parent. God knew I needed to experience what ministry and life would be like we just me in the equation.

This was a rough time for me. I think I hid it pretty well from my wife and I’m sure she wonders why it is I didn’t share it with her. I’m not sure I could have because I’m not sure I could have explained it. And, frankly, I think I was meant to enter into that time alone — utterly alone, even while surrounded by persons and a very loving and lovely wife.

Again, the following quote from Wikipedia begins to describe what I think I went through (what is very interesting to me is that I was using a whole lot of this terminology before I had ever even heard of a “Dark Night of the Soul”:

The “dark night” might clinically or secularly be described as letting go of one’s egos as it holds back the psyche, thus making room for some form of transformation, perhaps in a person’s way of defining him or her self or his or her relationship to God. This interim period can be frightening, hence the perceived “darkness.”

In the Christian tradition, one who has developed a strong prayer life and consistent devotion to God suddenly finds traditional prayer extremely difficult and unrewarding for an extended period of time during this “dark night.” The individual may feel as though God has suddenly abandoned them or that his or her prayer life has collapsed.

Rather than resulting in devastation, however, the dark night is perceived by mystics and others to be a blessing in disguise, whereby the individual extends from a state of contemplative prayer to an inability to pray. It is this purgatory, a purgation of the soul, that brings purity and union with God. Such blessings cannot be perceived while the soul suffers this “night.” Thus, the Dark Night of the Soul is experienced as a severe test of one’s faith that leads to deeper understanding and greater love.

(To be continued)

One night in the ER (Why Jacob and the Jabbok? Pt. 1)

I’m not sure how many parts this story is going to have. But I want to explain why I have a connection to the story of Jacob wrestling at the Jabbok in Genesis 32.

This section is a story about doing Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE — Hospital Chaplaincy) at Duke Medical Center during the summer of 1993. I tell this story because it has bearing on what I want to say in my next post. It’s a formative story and has come up many times as I’ve shared my issues with pride and how God worked through that to get to me in a powerful way.

As stated, it was 1993. I was kind of full of myself at that time (just ask my parents or sister!) and I have to say that pride has always been something I’ve struggled with during my lifetime. But, CPE kind of breaks through the psychological and emotional barriers that we put up. There is lots of visitation with some very sick or hurting people. It’s intense. There are individual and group counseling sessions with someone who has clinical psychiatric training. And the participants are mostly persons who are seeking to be clergy or who want to go into some type of hospital chaplaincy full time.

While I tried not to show it, this was kind of a big struggle for me. I can’t say I’ve ever been one who wore his feelings on his sleeve. I “kept my emotional cards close to my chest.” And, here, I was having to deal with it all head on. What’s my identity as clergy? How do I see Christ working through me? Why do I wear a cross when doing hospital ministry (I don’t anymore)? How can God use my brokenness with persons who are physically and emotionally broken? Tough stuff.

Then I had my first night on call. I put in a full day of chaplaincy, my wife came for dinner at the hospital, and then it was time, eventually, to head off to the on-call room. It was basically a closet with a bed. And I knew as I entered that room that I was it in terms of pastoral staff in the hospital. Bad traffic accident? It was me. Heart attack? It was me. Domestic abuse? It was me. SIDs death? It was me. I was so nervous as I laid down to sleep that I slept in my tie and with my beeper right next to my head. I was paranoid that I wouldn’t here it go off and there would be someone, somewhere in the hospital who needed pastoral care and I would have failed them by not showing up (“fear of failure” is a theme with me as well.)

I fell asleep.

At 2 AM the beeper went off. It was the ER. I slid on my shoes. I threw on my coat. And I headed to the elevator to go down to the ER. My heart was racing. I was nervous. And yet I felt like I was the spiritual knight in shining armor as well. I was Super-chaplain. I was also scared and confused. Yet I was sure I could handle it.

When I got to the ER, a doctor said, “The boy is 13 and was under water in a swimming pool for 4 hours. We’re just trying to raise his body temperature so that we can declare him dead. The family’s in the counseling room. They’re waiting for you.” That was it. There was the room. I was on my own.

The boy who had been under water was an African American. And in that small room was his grandmother, his mother, his sisters, an uncle and aunt. And me. There was not enough room for us. It was hot. Other relatives were walking around outside of the room. And I was completely overwhelmed. I introduced myself to the grandmother, who clearly was the matriarch of that small room, and she said a sentence that I’ll never forget. She said, “Preacher, if we just pray hard enough our little boy is gonna’ be all right isn’t he?” Any confidence I had went out the window when she said this. I, who felt like he could handle everything, suddenly felt like he could handle nothing. Did I think the boy would be revived if we just prayed hard enough? Could I pray hard enough? What if he didn’t come back to life?”

I told the grandmother, as I held her hand, “Let’s just pray silently for a minute.” I may have said “let’s pray silently” but in my head I was yelling at God. I remember the emotion, the anger, the fear, the lostness as I yelled out “HELP ME!” to God. At this point, I don’t remember praying out loud at all at this time. Eventually the ER doctor came in and told us all that the boy had died. They had raised his body temperature but could not revive him.

At that point (for lack of a better term), all hell broke loose. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. One of the uncles in the hall threw something. The boy’s mother, in grief, was beating on the chest of a policeman. And I just watched.

My beeper went off at this time. And, while I was sure that the chances of me leaving this scene were slim, I was relieved to have a diversion. I find a phone and find that it’s the ER calling me, asking if I know what’s going on in the ER. I look around the corner and wave at the person at the desk who is calling me, letting them know that I not only know what’s going on, but that I’m in the thick of it. She had been sure that, with as out of hand as it was, there couldn’t have been the calming presence of a chaplain in this mess.

I went in with the family to see the boy after everyone, including myself, had calmed down some. One sister passed out into my arms and I had to use smelling salts on her. There was a lot of crying. We went back into the room and prayed, out loud. By 4:30 AM, the family was leaving, funeral arrangements being made. The mother and grandmother came up to me and thanked me for being there for them. They actually thanked God for my being there for them. And they meant it.

But I knew better; that God did not work in that ER because of me that night. No, God worked in spite of me. When a real crisis came, I had nothing to offer. I felt like I was completely useless. So much for that knight in shining armor that I thought I was…

(to be continued)

I’m No Intellectual Heavyweight

All through high school and even undergraduate school (Wabash College), I thought of myself as an intellectual heavyweight, someone who’s thinking would be appreciated. I’m not sure I pictured great things for myself, but, since I excelled in schoolwork, I thought I was a pretty strong thinker. I could hold my own with most people. I did “A” work. I tested well. I seemed to get the major concepts that were taught to me.

While in seminary at Duke, I think I came to the realization that I’m a very good student but I’m no intellectual heavyweight. Sitting in small seminar classes, it was clear that I had some persons around me who had great minds. They read the great books. They got the great concepts. And, frankly, I liked sitting around with them and talking and learning. Some of my best friends at the time were much more intelligent than myself — I’m not saying that they were better preachers or teachers or nicer or anything like that. But I was humbled by their intellect.

I hope, at some point, that there are some persons out there (beyond my children) who are “humbled by my intellect.” I’m not sure there are, but it would give my intellectual pride a few positive strokes. There is a lot of great thinking going on out there concerning the Scriptures and the Church and all. I’m not sure you’ll find any of that here. I’m just a good student — using this venue to come to a little better understanding of who I am.

Other Potential Names for this Blog

While I had started up a blog on Blogger, a couple of years ago, that was called “The Prodigal Blog,” this time around I really struggled with what to call this place. I knew I wanted the name to have some sense of “journey” or “struggle” to it. I wanted to make clear that it was a place for my perspectives and I wasn’t making any claim to speak “for” the church or maybe even “to” the church. I just wanted to be able to speak for myself. So here are some of the names that I rejected:

JIM’S SHOES — OK, this may sound a little cheesy. But I like the pun implied in the name. Get it! “Jim’s Shoes” / “Gym Shoes…” Funny, huh? Plus the title would lend itself to a nice picture of a pair of my shoes. Although I wasn’t sure if I’d go towards a pair of athletic shoes or a pair of my Keens. Didn’t use either. Didn’t use the name.

THE MIRROR DIMLY — This is obviously (I hope) an allusion to 1 Corinthians 13 and the verse, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Again, a nice image of mirror on the blog. And the name would express my sentiment of not seeing the whole picture down here on earth. “Glass Darkly” was also considered. Neither had the appeal I really wanted, though.

THE WRESTLING MAT — While this might be a better name if my name happened to be Matt or I liked wrestling, I liked this name because it’s a reference to one of my favorite Scriptures, one that has been formative in my life and one that has shaped a lot of understanding about myself and my God. (I’ll explain more at a later time.) The Scriptural reference is Genesis 32:22-31:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him ther

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Perhaps this could have been a place for me to “wrestle” a little with God and myself.

“When we all get to heaven”

I have a saying I use when confronted with some of the differences between and among Christians in the world. I use it, too, when trying to make sense of some theological construct (Trinity) or Biblical interpretation. What I say is “When we all get to heaven we’re going to say, ‘Oh, now I get it.’” And I do believe that those things that we don’t see now, because of our sinfulness or merely our limited human perspective, we will see, we will understand when we get to heaven. We’ll be enlightened and we’ll have our eyes opened to the truth of God…much of which was clearly visible to us but we could not see. I find peace in that — because it allows me to look forward to a day of divine understanding and because it frees me up to live in some of the mystery of life while on earth.

I now have Flickr photos to the right…look towards the bottom

This is in my quest to make this a place where I can talk theologically to myself (or to others who happen by, clearly making a wrong turn somewhere along the way). I’m going to have to think about how I want pics of my family online, even though you can see all of us at the church website anyway. I hope that it’s something I can continue because pictures, in a way, put a face on the blog. Whatever it is that I talk about or ponder, the pics, I think, show what’s really important in my life…church & family.