An Instinctive Call

More often than not, we can learn more from watching the natural world in all of its complexity than we ever can among humans. We’re too invested in our own to often see clearly and freely. There appears, although there’s not, a separation providing us the space we need to look with a “third eye” and to assess our own ability, or even lack thereof, to lead in various ways through the multifaceted social structures of the natural world. In 1903, Jack London published Call of the Wild, now a major motion-picture starring Harrison Ford, depicting such a reality after spending time observing in the Yukon and writing a story around the Klondike goldrush, sending worldwide travelers to embark in search of riches in contrast with finding what matters most, his own inner voice, witnessed through the wild.

Like humans, dogs become domesticated once out of their natural habitat and begin to live an enclosed life. Buck, an overzealous and oversized dog not only has the issue of being enclosed, but also has the energy of a toddler, wreaking havoc wherever he goes. A nuisance, as he’s treated, Buck is stolen and sold only to find himself in the natural habit of Alaska and the Yukon, both of which more ideal for an animal of such presence and stature. Once free of the contained life he lived, something begins to change. Despite his unruly wild side, Buck begins to find a pack, a team, better suited for him in a dog-sled team delivering mail throughout the Yukon and matures beyond that of the humans whom he comes in contact.

In the story, and cinematic performance, Buck begins to reveal his natural leadership capability. Over time he no longer needs to run from his wild side, his risk-taking instincts in which he was punished in the enclosed and tamed life. He’s aware of the other members of the team and the lack of care given them by their supposed leader, Spitz. Spitz stands in contrast to Buck, one of greater servant leadership, putting the team before himself. Spitz, on the other hand, ego-driven and all about himself, fighting off hungry and thirsty dogs for his own nourishment, consistently slowing the team. Of course, like any great story, it culminates in conflict between the two only to find Spitz humiliated by Buck and the other dogs who once feared him. Shear jealousy on the part of Spitz reveals his own ability to lead, managing simply to keep the others of the group in line out of fear and by holding them back, wanting to be centerstage. The irony, they were never on-time.

If there is one element missing in our world it’s true leaders. We typically settle for the Spitz’s of the world because it’s all we really know, pushing demands on others rather than assisting in helping them find and pull out their own inner authority. It seems unfounded to us when a true leader steps up who doesn’t use fear to hold back the masses simply to make him or her-self look good. That, however, is not a leader. As a matter of fact, it’s antithetical to what makes a true leader, one who leans into the fear knowing how it obstructs. Buck does nothing extraordinary to step into the role as leader of the pack. If anything, he simply seems to be aware and care about the other dogs. He doesn’t do it to show off to Spitz. He does it in such an innate way that it comes from a place deep within himself, as if he can’t help himself but to put others first, making the pack, the team, successful. It’s what the other dogs admire. Yet, they don’t know what they’re missing until they experience it through Buck. In a single moment, we know things can be better and we can no longer settle for mediocrity at best when someone, a true servant leader, begins to reveal the deeper parts of ourselves.

I dare say, we starve for such leaders today. They are a rare commodity within our institutions. We settle for a mentality ingrained in us of needing to working harder and longer while often deeply rooted in fear of the loss of work, lack of trust, inability to please or keep up, or whatever reason resonating within us. All of which are good indicators we are operating in an environment that lacks real leadership. It’s an environment lacking a courageous leader who’s willing to deeply trust while being open to change in order for the good of the people. An environment leading to unhealthy behavior and mindset lacks real leadership. Period. When we’re so invested in the culture, though, we succumb to it, feeling we have no other choice, often out of fear of retribution for “Bucking” the system. Unfortunately, there are many out there who settle for such an environment. It’s a product-based environment rather than one rooted in value, most importantly, value of the human person.

Leaders know what they know but also know what they don’t know. They rely on the expertise of the team to shore up in the weaknesses of others in order for the whole team to succeed and avoids our reactionary nature to blame everyone else. When we have a need to believe we are the true expert in all, we suppress others for our own good, as Spitz does in contrast to Buck. When we fail to recognize our own limitations, we incur a debt in our lives and the places we are expected to lead. We see it incurring at rapid rates when we separate from that inner authority for the simple reason of trusting so many external authorities who may have positional power but are all but void of inner authority and lack real leadership ability. It’s a sad state of affairs in our institutional worlds, worlds which have become so consumed with holding on and control, power rather than the good of the people. The debt continues to incur and the price will be heavy.

We always have the option to change. It’s the way we break the cycle of insanity we’ve come to expect in our lives and workplaces. It begins, though, with learning to lead ourselves. It begins when we begin to expect more of ourselves than what any job or employment often demands of us. It must begin with our own examination of fear in our lives. Fear is a powerful factor and can be harnessed to invoke change rather than succumbing us to being backed into a constant corner, taming our own inner authority often squelched by so many who feel they know better for us than ourselves. It begins with us, each of us, wanting more out of our own life. When we find ourselves working ourselves to death, lacking balance and variety, having no sense of adventure out of shear exhaustion, we’re not leading ourselves in a healthy way and nor can we lead others. It all begins with one step, a seeming risk, one choice a day changing the trajectory to a healthier and effective life. We may fail and it’s ok. We won’t have the fearful regret and it becomes a learning experience enabling us to grow. Paradoxically, we’ll actually be able to work smarter and better simply by taking charge of our own lives and learning what it really means to be a leader, pulling the best out of others rather than pushing down. We need leaders now more than ever.

Should We?

For a couple months now I’ve had the opportunity to listen to Patrick Grach, pastor of Lifehouse Church in Hagerstown, preaching on a variety of topics. His current series, “Let’s Talk” may be one of the most intriguing and not sure I would have even thought of doing it when I was a preacher. Last week he spoke about politics and our citizenship of heaven and this week on Gender and Gender Identity. The whole series is on hot-button issues we face as a society and culture. You can find Lifehouse Church at http://www.lifehousechurch.org. His style, if you’re curious, is similar to what I had done, trying to make you think rather than, at least most of the time, spell things out. I call it a discerning and conversational style of preaching, rather than authoritative and “on high”. Something struck me as he spoke this weekend, pushing me to expand on a topic he mentioned when speaking about gender and related issues to roles, men and women play, in our society.

He spoke early on about the level of confusion and chaos we live with as cultural and society as a whole. On a side note, he spoke all of it while suffering with a kidney stone; yikes! The natural inclination when there is chaos and confusion is to try to control, to bring order, because none of us likes the feeling of being wrapped in the winds of a raging hurricane. We will do everything we can do avoid it in our lives, if at all possible. I dare say, and some would be critical of such a point, is the choice we have made to allow children to make choices for themselves, not wanting to box them. “I want them to decide.” Here’s the truth. Kids, no matter the time growing up, need to feel safe and secure, to know boundaries. It’s part of their development process, so when the time comes for them to begin to break away from parental thinking and beliefs, they actually have something to push and rebel against. It’s part of the natural stage of becoming a teenager and hopefully a mature adult.

Now, though, we are finding more and more young people living in that state of confusion and chaos and not knowing what to do with it, where anything goes. They don’t have the familiar pushbacks that most of us would have, such as values and religious beliefs, and so they simply keep pushing against a movable wall, making it increasingly difficult to establish themselves as individuals separate from the traditional family and societal role. Whether we want to believe it or not, teenagers are supposed to do stupid things. Everything about their neuro-wiring tells us they will, if they’ve been given a proper set of boundaries and something confining them in one way or another (safety and security) they will rebel. They literally can be neurotic at that age! We all know it; we were all there!

We mustn’t forget that we as a society have created this space of “where we used to be and this place of reckoning” in which we find ourselves, practically bouncing off and talking past one another. Rather than allowing ourselves to be in the uncomfortable space of unknown and confusion, we typically, as culture and society, have a way of sending the pendulum swinging hard right or left rather than trusting we will be moved to a place of legitimate change and growth. When it comes to the issue, I take a much more conservative approach, knowing full well the psychological world is inconclusive as to the attempts to changing pronouns, one’s gender, and identifying in ways other than male or female. Beyond that, I’m not even sure I could argue a point for or against knowing the other aspects, the nurturing side of development, young people have grown up in during this century. We’re still too close to it all and have not had the space to evaluate fully and with objectivity.

I would argue, though, the reading often cited, Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (NIV), can be interpreted in a variety of ways and for our own growth needs to be. There is the mainstream belief that God created two, male and female, of which there is great truth. We can see that with our own visible eyes. However, the creation stories are much more about creating a new world order out of chaos and confusion. There is a great separation taking place, between heavens and earth, and all the rest from the writer of the Genesis account, but then there’s the reconciliation of bringing what was separated, divided, and chaotic into one. It is, in the spiritual realm, the primary goal, two becoming one.

It’s short-sighted to limit it to marriage, although a legitimate interpretation. There are, though, many of us who are not married and do not enter into such union. Does it simply eliminate the rest of us and serve no purpose or value to our own lives? Does, somehow, the illusion of the other, complete us, resonate within us, even though it’s flawed thinking? In my experience, the healthiest of relationships are between two who have done their own hard work and sought that interior reconciliation within themselves. In other words, people who have learned to love themselves first. It certainly does not indicate perfection, though, since the work is never done and the other often does reveal blind spots as to what we need to confront about ourselves.

The marriage of male and female, on the surface is one thing. However, there is a deeper marriage we’re invited into, within our own spiritual journey, our own given gender of male and female and the masculine soul of the woman and the feminine soul of the man. It may be needed now more than ever! Patrick, the pastor, made a very necessary point and a reality we at times have witnessed in politics and religious life. Strong, authentic women who have done their work expose the insecure, boyish men who we have often settled for in many aspects of our life, boys in a man’s body, never having had to mature beyond teen years. It is one of the great crises of our time, and more often than not, we just accept it as normal simply because it is so predominant in our culture. It leads to immature and underdeveloped me in positions of leadership often leading to scandal and heartlessness. His simple point, men need to love and women need to honor. When both step up their game it creates a more whole person and society.

There is, though, the issue of confusion and chaos and the challenge we now face with gender identity, gender politics, and gender roles. Like most realities, we focus on our own need and forget to evaluate the long-term implications for not establishing boundaries for young people. As I said, safety and security are key for kids. As adults we hopefully outgrow it and recognize there is no guarantee of tomorrow, all while maintaining healthy boundaries ourselves, modeling and mentoring for younger people. Young people aren’t in a position to handle such gray areas and yet it’s what we have created for them. Life is full of gray, but for kids, it’s this or that, like it or not. I was recently filling out an application asking me what pronouns I refer to myself as. I simply shook my head even though I understand why. I by no means have it all together and have questioned many things about myself and who I am, but I also know that there is a deeper identity that defines me more than a gender. It is the marriage of masculine and feminine in my own life. It’s not like we don’t get into bitter battles at time, of course, the battle within myself. It is, though a marriage requiring constant work and the only one leading to greater wholeness.

At a time when safety and security are necessary, it would behoove us to teach the many facets of ourselves before we go through drastic measures of change, a more methodical approach to development. I by no means claim to have all the answers on such difficult subjects, but I do have the foresight necessary to recognize and ask the question, “Does just because we can mean we should?” Is it any wonder why some demand we put the skids to progress, not simply because of a lack of desire for change, but at times, because it feels like too much is being undone. If we do anything, we’d benefit society’s well-being by asking how what we do and don’t do impacts future generations, despite our reactionary nature as Americans. Living split lives has simply become the custom. We see it in the way people are abused, revealing more about ourselves than anything. We see it in the disdain towards people who are different than ourselves. We see it in the degree of immaturity existing in this moment of time.

We have, after all, forgotten the larger narrative of our lives and the deeper identity we share, in the Creator. It may be spoken in different forms and languages, but at the heart of who we are is love. When we first learn to love ourselves and be in relationship with ourselves, we find the complementarity we desire with people of other genders and find the deeper sense of safety and security in the love we really are, neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile. Simply, at the heart, we are love. It’s this perspective, to love and be love, we need in days of chaos and confusion in order to allow a new created order to be formed, not rooted in the here and now but for the generations yet unborn. Just because we can, by no means, means we should. Let’s dialogue…

Family Dis-Unity

“Does our party choose us?” This was a question posed by Ezra Klein on a recent On Being Podcast with Krista Tippett entitled, “How We Walked Into This and How We Can Walk Out”. It’s a conversation based on his new book, Why We’re Polarized. I highly recommend listening to the extended version of the interview for greater depth and clarity of the points he’s trying to make in the book. Ezra’s primary point is in regards to the volatility of the political parties as they stand, and in some ways, their undoing all at the same time. However, based on so many environmental factors, family, geographic location, urban or rural, socioeconomic background, and any other, it can be seen to be birth that chooses our political affiliation. I dare say, not much different than most religious backgrounds, we find ourselves “born” into a particular sect of religion, and, as it often goes, ours holds the undeniable truth, both religion and political party.

The current addiction to contempt and hysteria, as he points out, is due to the fact all this hurt being carried is currently stacked in an entire political party (all) and round-the-clock media coverage of national politics stoking flames, despite feeling powerless. He rightly makes the point, our greater focus of politics is best served local, despite being sucked into a national amoral, reality television program unfolding now for decades. Our entrenchment continues to solidify a Party ego, difficult to infiltrate and resulting in heartless politics. The political machine has found ways to manipulate “family” members into believing we’re needed for the good of the country as we know better than anyone. Any signs of disloyalty to the “family” begins to shake the party’s core, sensing dis-allegiance to orthodoxy as sin and quickly excommunicating any dissenters from the holy of holies and cast into the bowels of hell.

Sound familiar? “Crucify him, crucify him!” Despite all the talk, God has been all but crucified by the “families” long ago, and often to replace themselves, believing they know better. The immediate reaction is to blame and exaggerate a “family” victimhood, lost in our own blindness and pain as it feels as if we’re losing control. No one listens so we simply yell louder and louder, feeding the addiction to contempt and hysteria. The demand for reform is silenced by threats of doom and fear, less than patriotic, the demise of the family name and a threat, unfortunately, to something that is already dead. It’s so easy to point fingers at one another, talking past one another, because in the end, it’s about the family and protecting what the family holds dear, often an illusion of safety and security fed by an ego desiring to protect and hold tightly. It’s right there in front of our faces, plain as day, and yet fear runs deep. We know what it means to be cast aside by the family. The voices of the mob have a way of penetrating even the most solid of people.

There are some, though, who intentionally separate from the bickering parents, if that’s what you want to call them, still children themselves consumed by their own wants and needs, throwing tantrums. Separating, though, seems nearly impossible. Our identity is dependent on the “family” name. It is, after all, all we know. The thought of leaving and being without seems as if it means the end of our lives or at least the end of all we know. How will we manage? We are left with not much choice as we find ourselves suffocating by an identity outgrown and a fear no longer satisfying. Our affiliation needs to be shed for our own good, and once we do, we begin to see differently, acting more independently, seeing the dysfunction on new levels. After all, being born into something has deep impacts on our lives and when we choose to separate, our natural inclination is to run back into the darkened cave where we have felt comfortable, welcome, safe, and secure. It’s a place where everything has a place, including ourselves, and best to not ruffle feathers for fear of excommunication. The addiction to contempt and hysteria, upon separation, sparks a glimmer of light, begins to bring tears much more than anger, sadness more than hatred and a general grief for a world in pain.

Leaving is, though, a rare occurrence, to step away or speak up in such a way, in such a profound way, because it has been ingrained in us to believe we must fear what we do not know and we’re safer on the inside of the “family”. It has been ingrained in us to mistrust anyone who believes differently than us. It has been ingrained in us to believe that “father” knows best for everyone and to never question that authority even when we’re feeling pushed into a corner. “Father” seems to endlessly disappoint. He seems to not follow through with promises. Deep within the family members, anger and contempt loom large in the heart and the patriarch uses it to retain power. Loyalty and obedience are the name of the game and mustn’t be challenged in any way. Then you step away and you begin to become aware of a life unlived, confined by an authority no longer sufficing, an authority not your own. Stepping away only seems to elevate the yelling, the call to coerce and manipulate, all to maintain the codependent family dysfunction as to not to expose the hypocritical, bankrupt ethic holding it together by a thread.

Maybe in the day we live the political parties do choose us. We gravitate quite naturally towards people we want to think like or who feel like we do. We certainly know they do everything to pull in the masses with endless promises and rabid fear. Here are a few things we miss. The political family as we have known them are already dead. We just don’t know what they will look like in the years ahead. The natural inclination is to go to the extremes to retain control and power, holding onto what has already passed thinking it can return. As is typical, the family members most hurt are the vulnerable and both parties do all they can to manipulate the vulnerable to retain their power, hallow promises of better days. People, though, do not always know they are the vulnerable. I have seen it in both urban and rural areas I have lived. In reality, the vulnerable of both areas are looking for the same, this elusive American dream, promised for decades but never fulfilled. Is there any wonder there’s contempt and fear, anger and grief?

The systemic problems we are born into are hard to escape. They encompass all aspects of our lives. The easier way is simply to succumb to the status quo sold under the illusion of change and greatness. The pain exhibited in this country is hard for any of us to explain. Our environment is indicative of the pain running deep to our core. Highways collapsing, mountains shredded, turbulent seas and rivers, unruly weather, all being manifested by the crumbling infrastructures that have served us well and now have become self-serving. As we move towards being more driven by data and numbers via technology, the pain is only going to deepen. In self-serving systems we lose a sense of our humanity, now playing out on the national stage for the world to see. Here’s the other point, everyone else knows. The world knows we’re vulnerable and the more we try to project strength only weakens our viability. We can try all we want to band-aid crumbling infrastructures and cling to dissipating structures, but all it does is expose how disconnected we have become as a nation, disconnected from our humanity. More often than not “families” need to fall apart in order to be reordered, even if it means extreme amounts of chaos. It’s one thing to experience such a collapse in our own lives when we seek change but it’s another when it’s large institutions and structures. The “family” will do everything in its power to cling, especially the patriarchal figures who haven’t grown up themselves and still cling to the greatest fear, death and letting go.

There is no need to look very far to know the political landscape is going to face change. As older generations begin to fade and younger generations step forward, values change as well as the dynamics. At the core there is still that desire to serve and many will abuse it and simply seek power. It’s in our fragile human nature, especially an ill-informed and immature one. It is, and should be, sad to watch if there is any semblance of awareness in your life. I’m tired of being told what I should believe. I’m tired of being told I’m something I’m not. I’m tired of being judged if I believe differently. But I’m not tired of pushing forward, attempting to look it through a third lens, critiquing all sides which aren’t very different in the first place. Maybe we are born into a particular party, but I would challenge anyone, if you have never once found yourself questioning the “family” and seeking truth in a different way, well, none of this will make any sense in the first place or it will be quickly about blaming the other side while rationalizing your own. It’s what gets us into these problems. If we soon don’t return to a sense of decorum and dialogue, actively listening, the problems will only deepen. The most important point, though, is trust. There is very little. It is key to the healthy function of any system. The patriarchs clinging to power will always believe they know what’s best and many will always believe anything they say because it’s what they’ve been taught to do, don’t question. Yet, they are just as fragile and vulnerable as the rest of us, maybe even more so because they have much more to lose. When you’re whole identity and life has been wrapped up in one identity, one way of life, one area, one particular reality, it’s hard to change because everything depends on it and it’s hard to trust otherwise.

No one, and I mean no one, can claim to contain truth in its entirety because truth cannot be contained in such a way. Truth has become associated with facts and knowledge, but as we’ve learned, they don’t always stand the test of time. Truth reveals itself when there is openness and dialogue, when there is freedom and love, when there is understanding and reverence. When contempt and hysteria rule the day, there is very little room for truth and logic. The shouts of crucifixion and demise will only continue until we reach the utter darkness of Friday. It’s inevitable. None of us knows what it will look like but we can only hope for the glimmers of the repentant one or the one who’s eyes were opened in that very moment, recognizing that all the yelling led to the death of an innocent one because of blindness and leaders who cared more about power than the people they were to serve. All they could do was fill their pockets, have little remorse, and hope their “problem”, the one who threatened their “family” was finally out of their hair. Little did they know it was just the beginning…step away, allow your eyes to be opened, embrace the life yet unlived, the unknown, and cross the threshold from blame and victimhood to wounded healer. It is, after all, what the world needs now, is love, sweet love.

 

Courage to Wander

Since its inception in 2002, the top-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide. It has also been translated into more than thirty different languages yet transcends all languages by the asking of the most basic of questions, “Why am I here?” Now I’m not writing to explain how this book has answered the deepest questions in my life. As a matter of fact, I have never even read the book! My point is this, for a book to sell so many copies worldwide is a clear indicator of how many people have felt lost in their lives. That sense of feeling lost has a way of unnerving us on our deepest levels, despite the great Tolkien truth, “Not all those who wander are lost.” I suppose for some the feeling is mutual, wandering and lost. It comes with a sense of a lost purpose and meaning, precisely why a book like The Purpose Driven Life sells. It’s part of our human nature to be connected and to have purpose and meaning.

It’s not, though, the way many live their lives. Some feel as if the world, life, the government, whomever, is out to get them for one reason or another and have a sense of being trapped in life. It can be finances, relationships, or even a sense of duty that has a way of yanking freedom from our lives leaving us depressed and outright angry towards life. It comes in all walks of life, bitter men and women who have an axe to grind. I life less examined is a life unlived. It will certainly leave anyone feeling lost and alone, lonely despite the people that surround their lives day in and day out. In the end, we still lie down at night by ourselves and with the weight of a day and unexamined life, the darkness seems to hang just above the tip of the nose, weighing us down even in our moments of supposed rest. Rest becomes restlessness.

We have so access to so much at our fingertips. We have more information than our brains can even begin to process and understand. We look to win arguments rather than listen. We practically look for a fight simply to prove our rightness, a shadowed pride needing to be tamed. We resort to the lowest common denominator out of the shear fact that it’s the way we have lived our lives. The unexamined life has no other choice but to settle and to live in fear. We have convinced ourselves of being deserved nothing more out of life. Our sense of duty is incomparable to anyone else but the price leads us further consumed by our own pain that has left to often rot within our core. We have lost our sense of purpose and meaning and somehow it’s everyone else’s fault for the way I feel. The life of constant victimhood has no freedom because it has yet to take responsibility for the choices made. The life of victimhood and blame lacks meaning and purpose because it still chooses to trust the most ill-trusted voices, the voices of others who live an unexamined life.

Yes, we do have it all at our fingertips, but the desire for meaning and purpose will never be found in a book and nor will it come from some authority dictating life for you. If it is, they too have yet to examine their own life and are negligent in the landscape of the heart. We have become, at least by appearance, a heartless people. We are clueless in the matters of the heart because of the pain we carry with us as individuals and as people. Vengeance and bitterness, yelling, needing to prove rightness, are all matters of the ego, and a wounded one at that! Allowing ourselves to be consumed by pain moves us to a heartlessness separating us from our own humanity.

We settle for religious leaders who themselves are wolves in sheep’s clothing. We settle for political agendas to dictate how I am to think and what I am to believe. We settle for political leaders to be a moral compass, despite their own desire for power. We settle for lies over truth because we no longer know what truth is, a marked indicator of that separation from our humanity and a broken heart. We settle for duty, often to things we hate, simply because we lack the heart and passion to catapult is to a more fulfilling lived life. We are a hurting people who are trying to navigate the heart’s landscape with damaged ego’s leading us further into lostness and no longer wandering.

It would seem as if this is all gloom and doom and have the desire to simply throw our hands up and giving up. However, it is that passivity that leads us to that sense of powerlessness. Our natural inclination is to react to it and abuse that power against others, positions, taking advantage of others we have deemed less than ourselves. However, to live a life with purpose and meaning requires us to take control of our lives while at the same time surrendering it to the unknown. Quite frankly, it is what scares us the most. The unknown feels like “out of control” and feels like “falling” and feels like “lostness” and even like “hell”. It is, though, our ego that desires control and status quo, stability, safety, despite the very fact that none of it is true. The landscape of the heart, in some ways, requires us to go against the grain of what we have been told and taught. It’s an act of unlearning so much of what has been learned, for good or for ill. It’s an unlearning of thought patterns and beliefs of self. It hurts and is painful but no less than the silent pain we live with daily when we refuse to look into the arid landscape of the heart, an unexamined heart and life.

We all desire meaning and purpose. It’s at the heart of who we are. We may not always know what it looks like, but we know it evolves over the course of our lives. The way we parent or are friend are different from when we are 25 and when we are 50 and 70 and beyond. It not much has changed and we live with bitterness and resentment, then we have work to do. It doesn’t matter the age. As long as we have been given breath for another day we have the opportunity to live an examined life. It may come in the form of working with a therapist, coach, counselor, psychiatrist, or simply a loved one who understands and has done the hard work of an examined life and heart. If you’re unsure, a good indicator is the way they empathize. It’s not about sympathizing, as if they don’t have the ability to walk in your shoes. Rather, about empathy, walking with the other. They come with wisdom and the ability to simply listen without judgment. Their heart breaks with you as you wrestle with your life and what has been clung to over the years.

More often than not it is our pain we hold onto. We are a people that hurts and have been convinced of the only way of dealing with that hurt is to run and literally get lost. We have been convinced of consuming when we hurt, buy up all we have and yet resulting in a pain that only runs deeper, as if seeping from our toes. Meaning and purpose is possible for everyone and doesn’t require anyone else to change but you. It begins to change the way we see the world around us and most importantly, our own self. A life and heart examined reconnects us in ways, moving us to wanting more out of life and finding ways to seek it, no longer lost but wandering. Yet, no longer wandering through a lost world, but through a heart that we have yet to know. As if wandering through our favorite place but now with a sight that sees.

Do yourself a favor if you find yourself looking for meaning and purpose, don’t buy a book telling you to follow certain steps, and all of a sudden, it’s found. Rather, buy yourself time. It’s the cheapest thing you can buy for yourself and yet the most beneficial. Make the time for silence. Make the choice to seek out wisdom figures who can accompany you on your journey, who can listen to your pain without judgment or condemnation. Choose to turn off the television, especially while listening to the people you simply agree with; it feeds the ego like a rabid wolf. Find the time for you even if it means disappointing others. Care for something or someone beyond yourself, even if it means digging your hands in the dirt. Digging in this way can do more for the heart and soul than any book! In time, the fear of losing control, surrendering, and falling will become swallowed up by courage, not to conquer the world, but simply take a step to a new way of life. It’s not only that you should demand such a life but the world needs you now to live that life, one of purpose and meaning.

To Hell With Rodgers!

FYI:  Headlines can be misleading!  I’m really a fan of Aaron Rodgers!

“If our love of God does not directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time on this earth, I wonder what good religion is.” – Richard Rohr

About a week ago I did something that I often try to avoid. I commented on a Facebook page (Crosswalk.com). I mainly did it because the title of the article posted was misleading. The caption simply read, “NFL Quarterback Aaron Rodgers Questions How Anyone Can Believe in God.” Out of curiosity, I opened the link, listened to the actual interview, and followed by reading some of the comments (always a mistake) only to realize most, if not all, actually read the article or listened to the interview with his girlfriend and podcast host, Danica Patrick. This may come as a shock, but that’s actually not what Rodgers said in the interview.

So, I commented. It was within minutes before a gentleman replied, chastising me and “threatening” me to prove him wrong. He was so certain that it’s what Rodgers said, inferring Rodgers would pay the price eternally. Now, I’m smart enough to know there was nothing that pointed to a sense of “openness” to dialogue with this guy, signaling religion is very black and white, with very little gray in his thinking. If I could only be that certain! Now before I go further, what Rodger’s said was he didn’t know how anyone could believe in a God that would condemn most of whom and what was created by the same God. If you actually take the time to listen to the podcast, Rodgers exemplifies a rather mature understanding of God and faith, practically opposite of what I encountered with the gentleman who replied to me, and quite frankly, proving Rodgers’ point in the first place.

Spiritual writers agree, as Rohr does in the quote leading off this post, that the maturity and health of a society are often directly linked to the health, or even lack thereof, of religion. I am well aware that there are many ministers on the frontline who work tirelessly seeking transformed hearts. I was one of them myself. However, the general degree of healthiness is abysmal, seeming to be hanging by artificial means. Religion, all too often, comes down to dogmatic statements, moral truths, purity codes, and creeds, all fine in and of themselves. However, when religion remains at that level, around means of control, belief, and a fear of a God that Rodgers speaks of, few are challenged to go to the greater depths the gospels demand, you are lacking in one thing…go, then come, follow me. The “burden of proof” needed to be placed upon religion is not about the accumulation, but the degree it teaches in simplicity, letting go, and a radical interior poverty, the changed heart that is desperately needed in society.

When religion begins to fail, just as it is with a failure in leadership, a vacuum is created for other gods to be manifested, and most certainly in the way we want to see the world. We become masters at projecting that image onto God, as if the Divine somehow chooses sides and it’s always our side that stands on the higher ground, moral principle, etc. In other words, pride. Now if we view it in that way, we can see the gods we have created in our political system, seeking a savior that will give us all we want. I believe early on in Hebrew Scripture it’s called the golden calf, with shiny, glittering gold and shrouded in incessant noise. We have two parties (yes, both) who have established creeds, moral truths, dogmatic statements, but maybe most dangerous, purity codes built in as to who’s in and who’s out. It’s a natural codependency that comes from an addictive culture. One will lead to heaven, the other to hell. One will lead to salvation, the other eternal damnation. Of course, both believe they’re right and the way, the truth, and the light.

This is where religion has served so many wrong. Religion, as an American institution, continues to cling, in shameful ways, to an image of God that does not suffice. Too much has been studied to know of the relation between images of God and our own background. Purity codes, in whatever purpose they serve, serve only to maintain the people who want to somehow attain “eternal life” while watching the rest be damned, as if somehow this is God’s plan. The arrogance and ignorance associated with such thinking, in the form of pride, prevents our eyes from seeing others, let alone ourselves, as human beings, but rather winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, heaven-bound and hell-bound. The gods we create become attached to issues and agendas that serve the purpose of the gods and the religion they serve. These gods are not about serving the common good, rather, they are about serving themselves.

Religion has failed us and continues to do so while clinging to a autocratic god that is always out to get us or at times, even a god that has no grounding in truth, both of which are bankrupt of any moral compass to point to the real truth. There’s almost an expectation that politics will fail us. However, when religion fails us there are real consequences. The gods we ascribe to, of winners and losers, rich and poor, or any other way, are never the gods transforming hearts. As a matter of fact, they thrive on division, competition, comparison, so that there is never a level playing field of humans journeying towards the same truth. It’s about pride, a pride that never admits wrong-doing, a pride that shatters the soul.

If you want to work for change, do it first by demanding more out of religion. Whether it stings or not, Aaron Rodgers is correct. If religion is about fear, then consider yourself afraid. If your religion is about winners and losers, consider yourself lost. If your religion is about certainty, consider yourself missing the marrow of life. If your religion is about purity codes and who’s in and out, consider yourself out. If anything is learned of the gospels, it’s that God is much more in the paradox than what we believe to be pure and certain. In the end, it simply leads to blame and victimhood and never affording ourselves the opportunity to look at our lives through a new lens of a transformed heart. True religion moves us towards integration, not separation.

The days of blame and victimhood must come to an end. Both stand in direct opposition of the faith and trust that a mature religion teaches. If our religion is not leading us to freedom, courage, truth, life, then I dare say, as Rohr says, then what good is it? It’s time for each of us to pause and ask ourselves the deeper questions that plague us. It’s time to demand more from religion than the gods we have settled for, lacking real leaders and settling for authoritarians. If we continue to settle, we mustn’t ask why things never change for the change we really desire begins with us, a change of our own heart. For then their eyes were opened and their hearts burned within them…demand more.

Unthinkably Perfect Vision

“For our faith to evolve, we need to look at the old and original in order to build something new and novel.” Richard Rohr

It’s impossible to miss all the memes and jokes that have been circulating as one calendar year closes and a new one begins. There have been plenty about dressing for the roaring 20’s, Barbara Walters uttering 20/20 as she did for years (for those of us old enough to remember), but also plenty of jokes about perfect vision. I have no such thing. The closest I come are through the progressive lenses I wear to assist in seeing more clearly. Heck, I can’t even seem to hear correctly if I’m not wearing my lenses! We make a lot of these new beginnings, facing a new year, with great anticipation, often with the expectation that somehow everything of the past year will fade into the sunset. It may be true in some sense, but really only if we are willing to work on perfecting our own vision and sense of awareness of where we have come from and where we are being led at the ringing in of a new year. If we’re honest with ourselves, we never truly know where it will lead us!

In looking back, to say 2019 was anything but monumental would be an understatement. There have been times the past few days when I’ve looked back and wondered how I was able to come to this point, the threshold of 2020, not being totally destroyed and utterly depressed. It was early in the year, when resolutions and hopes still rang true, when out of necessity of my health and well-being I needed to step away from priestly ministry. Anyone who has stepped away from any type of life commitment knows, that, once you have been pushed so far off the edge, in those moments there isn’t much chance to return. Again, for those old enough, how many times did Wiley Coyote attempt to do such a thing only finding himself falling flat on his face! It feels as if the ground has dropped beneath you and there’s nothing left to stand on at a time when you need it the most. The questions swirl, especially of the critics, including my own inner critic, as to how this is going to look, degrees of shame, hurt, kicked while you’re down, and all the rest that causes great unrest. You quickly learn who cares about you as a person or simply a persona, role, or identity of which you are associated. Your heart screams out reminding you that your worth is in you as a person, a human, but institutionally, unfortunately, not always the same.

I’ve written before about the level of angst I have lived with over the years, an angst that was norm. The consistent message was to fit into the proper place, but because of my own lack of awareness and deeply-rooted fears, it was easier to not fit than to have to confront what I was running from myself. If the experience has given any glimmer of hope it’s that the angst of trying to fit into what’s not and the necessity to run is no longer the name of the game. They are, though, a part of the story of moving towards that more perfect vision, unexpected as it is. They are moments I will never forget and will even take a great deal of time to heal. I have lost people in my life but have also become much more aware of the people who really matter. If I can offer 2020 anything of myself and the vision that has become more fine-tuned over the past year, it would be a restoration of humanity. We’ve lost touch with our humanity as a society, including many proclaimed Christians who forget it’s the foundational message of Christmas. I suppose it’s easier to dispose of people when we see them as something less, whether some image, their political affiliation, their way of living rather than a part of the human family they are.

The irony in the whole situation, for me, was that I had to step away in order to understand what faith was really about. Taking that step, as for anyone facing change, is to take the first step without knowing where you’ll land or if life really will go on. We have a tendency to get stuck right there, on the cliff, but never willing to step for fear of falling. Of course, there is a fall! There’s a fall from grace and yet into grace. There’s a fall into fear and yet excitement at the same time. There’s a fall into deep sadness but one that leads to great joy! I’m not sure I’d be the man I am standing on the threshold between years and decades without that fall. I can sit and write and find gratitude for the fall because the fall allowed me to reconnect, or maybe simply connect, with my own humanity and no longer shadowed by a role or identity. There have been plenty of times in the past year where I have sat at Mass and wondered how I was able to keep it up for as long as I did. It was about pleasing, all while grumbling within. Of course, there have been plenty of times where I have sat there, left before it ended, and saw for the first time why people don’t return. It felt like I was being fed stones in a moment when, in my own poverty, I desperately needed bread. Vision. How easy it is to become clouded standing atop a sanctuary, looking down, but looking at the wrong thing (that will be the next blog).

After returning from a month-long retreat at Saint Meinrad, I realized that it would be impossible to return at that time; more time was needed more. It was then I was pointed to Catholic Volunteer Network and came across a place close enough, yet far enough way, Bethlehem Farm. It was going to be another act of trust, as much of this experience had been, to keep moving towards rather than running. I began to notice the difference. When they agreed to take me on, another piece of the story, which was unknown just a few weeks earlier, was my dad being hospitalized just four days prior to my arrival date, was also beginning to unfold. After leaving active ministry in January I had started spending more time back where I grew up, not knowing what was about to evolve or devolve for that matter. I hadn’t realized, of course, that the weekend before Easter would be the final time I’d see my dad at home, sitting at the head of the table where he often did.

While his life was unraveling, slowly and quickly at the same time, the farm was beginning to give me what I needed and what was missing in my life, connection to myself and a grounding in the real and in love. For the first two months there, when there was a break from groups, I’d drive up to visit my father in the hospital, slowly watching life escape him. Each time there seemed to be another machine or gadget that was keeping him going. We should have known then, that, when so many artificial means are necessary to live there’s not much longer. It too would be a test of faith. In all reality, death is the ultimate test of faith and trust, not only for the one passing but even more so for those who grieve, despite never leaving. I can only imagine what was going through his mind or anyone in his situation, possibly questions I was asking of myself in those moments. How will I be remembered? Will I be forgotten? Will it be as if I never existed? In the moments of great unraveling lie these existential questions and thoughts of regrets and given but this one life to address them, hopefully before our final breath.

The final breath eventually would come in 2019. It was something not on the radar screen when I had left in January. It was something not on the radar screen when a 50^th Anniversary was being planned, or for that matter, an impending wedding, all of which would fall during these months and days. The final breath is that moment of ultimate faith and has a way of perfecting our vision like nothing else. There it was, before our very eyes. After six months of my own tumultuous unraveling and grounding, and despite the sadness associated with death, all I could do was stand in awe. By the end of May I knew the moment would arrive. I could just tell that there was no recovering. Similar to my situation, once you are so far off the cliff, there’s nowhere to go but down. At some point in our lives, the only down is six feet but at others, seemingly a freefall. Little did I know that such an event would solidify that grounding that began at the farm a few months earlier. It was a grounding that would stand the test of the greatest of hurricanes and yet still remain tethered to the real. The vision became clearer and all I could do was continue to walk and walk forward.

It by no means diminishes the grief that needed to be felt; there’s always grief in life’s changes and unraveling. If the year has taught me anything it’s a constant reminder that I can’t think my way through everything, as much as I sometimes try. Some things about life just need to be felt. That’s not easy for a thinker. When the dust finally settled, I landed at one of the great spots for healing in my life, Acadia National Park, and would spend countless hours near the water. There was not only the grief of losing my dad, but the grief of losing relationships and a life once lived. The place which was my escape for so many years, in order to catch my breath, was once again a place of healing. We all have those places in our lives, where we can simply go and find solitude. They are not only the places to encounter the divine but also ourselves. I write these words sitting near the ocean once more, simply allowing myself to slow down and be with myself and hear the roar of the water that stands before me. It is the same roar that lies within me, a roar for life.

I sit here now as the sun begins to rise on a new day (preferred to midnight!). It would be easy to say it’s all behind me but I’m not sure a new year means simply dumping what was and starting new. Sure, there is a sentimentality that accompanies it but the year that now stands behind will be teaching me for the rest of my life. No one can experience life in such a way, and begin to see more clearly, without it being carried the rest of life. If anything, it has taught about what faith is really about. After studying about it and preaching it for years, it finally caught up in my own life and made me eat my own words. Life is all about trust and faith. Yet, nothing is desired more than integrity in an age when it is all but absent. Nothing is more desired than faith in a day when we put more trust in failing institutions than we do in ourselves and the eternal. Nothing is more desired than hope in a culture that demands instant gratification and the absence of death. Nothing is desired more than life when it’s what we fear the most that prevents it from happening.

As a new day dawns, with a morning chill still in the air, I sit, still, in awe of a year gone by. It is a year without regrets. It is a year when I connected and reconnected with the people that matter most. It is a year when I faced death in more ways than one. It is a year that taught me about faith in the absence of what was thought to have given it to me. It is a year that taught me all will be well and all will be well. It is a year of new birth, baby steps to a new way of living. It is a year where fear was taken head on and confronted. It is a year that allowed me to be me and experience the freedom associated with it. It is a year of which I will always be grateful for having the courage to take one step a year ago this month, taking that last breath in order to breathe again, cut from an umbilical cord that poisoned. It was a year when I closed my eyes, jumped, and yet saw more clearly than ever. It is a year that taught me to live without while recognizing I had it all. It is a year I can’t simply let go of, but as I stand now on this threshold, I continue to take very little with me for all I need I have. It is, after all, ending as it began and beginning as it ended, in a moment to trust and to have faith in my own birthright and that, in seeing more clearly, all really will be well. With that, I bid adieu to a year that was and welcome a year of possibility, filled with teachable moments of faith allowing the unthinkable to be seen more perfectly.

The Resistant Hero

In my years teaching I often joked, but with a lot of truth, that it’s more important to understand the “dark arts” than it is anything else. They were the days of Harry Potter! To understand the workings of the shadow and the numerous blind spots of our lives is the true pathway to the wholeness we desire. An obsession with light tends to simply blind all the more, and, well, with darkness it will ultimately take you down in one way or another. The obsession with light often puts us on the run, from ourselves, and over time, darkness becomes comfortable and a life of consistent turmoil and angst becomes the norm. On the exterior is the display of a virtuous life, per se, but quite the opposite interiorly.

There are many scenes in the new box-office smash, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but one in particular personifies the difficulty we face as humans in seeking that life of wholeness. Both Rey and Ren find themselves in a heated battle with pounding waves crashing around them, in, of all places, a destroyed Death Star. It seems almost inevitable that one will lose their life in the process as all the rest flee. The two of them stand on the edge of the world, battling it out. Of all the scenes in the Star Wars saga, this scene, in many ways, is symbolic of the interior struggle of the two characters playing out in their external environment as one learns to act with great courage and the other, love. Rey, resisting her own lineage to the darkness and fighting it with every ounce of strength she has. While Ren, the great resister of love hides behind the machismo, but what lies behind the mask is a little boy, Ben, desiring to be loved and doubting the worth of the Jedi heritage in which he comes. The two grappling with darkness in their own way, resisting what it is that will bring them wholeness.

The battle between the two is really a battle with themselves, her with the masculine and he with the feminine. As in our own lives, and certainly an unhealthy masculinity, of which we settle for as a society, and I’m only capable of speaking of, we’re tempted to do all we can to abolish the feminine, somehow making us more of a man. Ren, a heartless slab consumed by his own pain and anger, must confront the love of the other in order to let go and reclaim his birthright as Ben, manifested in the healing touch of Rey, but only when pushed to the edge himself. In an intimate moment of touch, Ren can do nothing but cry and be driven to silence. In time he finds himself surrendering to that love, of which he feared most and considered a form of weakness, allowing the mask to fall on his own hero’s journey.

Rey, though, has her own battle. She must confront a history from which she runs, embodied by the darkness she witnesses in Kylo Ren and Emperor Palpatine. Her desire to live the courageous life of a Jedi, as is her birthright, appears to stand in conflict with her lineage and like most of us, finds herself on the run from the darkness. Her history, as part of the Palpatine lineage, points to her demise and to be reduced to the seat of darkness itself. Her history stands in conflict with her heart and spirit, as pointed out by Luke, that she is more than her darkness. She was, like us, going to go to the place she feared the most and confront the Emperor face to face. There is no other way in the hero’s journey. The journey always takes us downward to the places we fear the most and to encounter the demons of our own lives that narrow our thinking and move us to succumbing to a destiny not our own.

The saga that has played out over these past forty years in the Star Wars series is much more than light and dark, good and bad, right and wrong. It wouldn’t have pulled in generations as it has if it were that simple. Granted, some of the movies are better than others, but all the characters have some kind of work to do in their own lives that throws them into the “and” of all the scenarios. They often stand in conflict, and like us, belief life is about getting rid of and keeping hidden what we have deemed as being insufficient, what we see as insufficient or flawed about ourselves. Rey saw that in her lineage and Ren in his own hurt and anger, all of which drove them down into the depths of their being. It’s why the battle takes place on rough seas, on a deteriorating Death Star, and fought alone. It’s their battle to fight and not to win or to kill, as the world often seems all to ready to do, but to find peace with one another and to learn to love all the parts of themselves.

Joseph Campbell, a Jedi in his own right when it comes to mythology writes, “Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the soul’s destination.” Rey would never become the Jedi she desired and believed to be in her heart and soul unless she did such a journey. It’s why so few choose such a journey of faith in their lives because it’s what we fear the most. He goes onto say that the tomb and womb are all but one. Something must die, such as Ren’s egoic persona, before the true self, the birthright, is revealed, Ben. Rey too carries that burden and must allow her own persona and expectation of Jedi and darkness, that she is somehow less than, in order to accept her true self.

It is the journey we are all invited into in our lives. We live in a world where all too many settle for something less or simply see it as a movie and irrelevant to our lives. It’s not Lucas’ intent. It’s his journey as much as it is ours. It’s what makes the series more than a series of movies but the unfolding of a story, a life, lives, who have accepted the call to the resistance of “that’s just the way it is” and sees not only themselves as more but the world as well. When the characters, and ourselves, tap into that reality within ourselves, now grounded in more than all the external authorities, there’s no stopping us. It’s why the world, political, and religious leaders fear it the most. It exposes the shallowness of their own authority, an authority that comes not from the deepest recesses of the soul, of one who has done their work. Rather, it comes from position and power.

To experience the wholeness of our lives, light and dark, right and wrong, and all the rest, then the invitation to the Star Wars saga is for us, a journey unique to each but universal in the nature of the timeless hero. In the end they are no longer naïve; it explains the change in facial expression. The hero, rather, learns to embrace and live the tension between what is and what can be, head and heart, and recognize the joy that comes even in the sadness of a life once lived. They are the people we need, now more than ever, to be the Jedi masters to future generations who seek more.

Undeliverable —>

Smack in the middle of Dante’s Circles of Hell is the sin of greed accompanied by the punishment of knocking rocks together for all eternity. It’s a spot often reserved for clergy (a blog for a different day), but one we certainly all participate in, a culture and society fully immersed in consumerism and the need to have, whether for a sense of security or even a sense of identity. Without a doubt, companies will do “whatever it takes to satisfy our customers,” without looking at the consequences of the employees and their own well-being, creating a hostile work environment. It is certainly something to reflect on during this time of gift buying and shipping as we go about the norm of accumulating more “stuff” this holiday season.

If you have read this blog regularly you know that I spent the better part of the past year living and working at Bethlehem Farm. To say that it has changed me profoundly would be an understatement. During the holiday season, though, I opted for a break to intentionally look at what’s next in life. Having a little time, I thought I’d do a side hustle to pass some time and so opted for a temp job with a worldwide shipping company which I began last week and quickly ended a few short days later. As I sit and write this, it was that image of Dante’s circles that came to mind about my experience of what it actually means to “satisfy our customers” at whatever cost.

When I told the supervisor that this was it for me, I explained to him that I have been a boss, a supervisor, worked in retail, delivered pizzas, and a whole other plethora of jobs over the years but none has been more inhumane than this one. There were two reasons I stopped myself from walking off the floor that morning. One, I feel for the people who rely on this for their survival. Second, because I felt for the people who were there, already short in number, who’d be left filling the hole I had left. As much as I often felt pain working on the farm, it was a pain that had meaning and purpose. The pain my body and soul has endured the past few days was empty. It was, as Dante describes, a living hell, and how quickly it left my body as I walked out of FedEx for the last time.

I couldn’t imagine, why, on the first day I had worked, people were cursing while they waited in line for a security check as they leaving the prison-like compound, and once through, running to their cars or to the bus. It didn’t take long to begin to understand the pain that went much deeper than the physical pain of moving boxes from a never-ending line along the conveyer. It was a pain of emptiness, a pain that lacked meaning and purpose. It’s a pain you can’t escape by simply taking a day off because it’s one that plagues the human condition. When it comes to doing anything to satisfy customers, bear in mind it comes at a great price, creating an environment of constant transaction, even when it comes to employees. As the driver approaches your house or business, remember there is a line of people out there somewhere moving all the packages, thousands upon thousands, to try to meet the “demands” and “expectations” of customers who await the perfect Christmas gift, the tree, dog food, heated toilet seats, an endless line of televisions, and anything else you could imagine.

If Dante was correct on anything, it was the placement of greed and gluttony next to one another in hell. They seem to feed off one another seen in the microcosm of that hub. The glutton experiences a personal degradation for overindulging. It comes blasted with selfishness and a coldness that runs deep, most certainly void of a humanity. In the deepest of human conditions there is a desire for more. It’s a “more” that we try to fill with countless possessions we “live to deliver”. We await with bated breath for the package arriving and overreact when it doesn’t, taking it out on another; our own form of transaction. However, what you may be unaware of is what happens prior to that package being delivered, hopefully with a smile, but without a doubt absent of meaning.

Behind all of our desires there are people who’s lives are impacted, lives that are treated more like animals or machines than they are humans, all to “satisfy our customers”. In these few days entering this compound and nearly unable to walk back to my car because of the pain, I’ve had the time to think and observe as boxes raced by me. I’ve had to think about the level of violence that is associated with our gift-giving and our incessant need to have more. Does any of it really satisfy? I have thought about my nieces and nephews a few times, giving me the incentive to work through the pain, especially for the ones that are still believers in the make-believe. I know their anticipation on Christmas morning. For the rest of us, though, there’s something wrong. There is something wrong with our values and priorities because this experience is a microcosm of the countless warehouses we pass driving along the highway, of the retail outlets with shelves bulging at the seams to satisfy our wants, jam-packed delivery trucks making deliveries with unrealistic expectations to satisfy customers but often at the price of an employees well-being. There’s a problem with the hell we have created.

The question I left with today as I limped to my car and sat gingerly behind the wheel, staring out the window as the rain fell was simply, when will it end? When will it change? If we maintain our own blinders as to how we participate in the madness, the price will continue to escalate as to what it does to our fellow human beings. Yet, if it doesn’t impact me directly and don’t see it with my own eyes, it must not exist and I can believe the blowhards that it’s all for the good. I’m not sure I could have believed any of it until I saw it with my own eyes and felt the pain myself.

I know the consistent response is that it offers people a job. That’s the conundrum that we face. It does provide a job, but it needn’t come at the price of violence against the dignity of the worker, where breaks are offered, free of grudge, putting the person along the line above “whatever it takes to satisfy”. I’ve been bullied, yelled at, not convinced I’ll actually receive my paycheck, given unrealistic expectations, witnessed the lack of fairness in the face of competition, lied to, and been the cog in the wheel of an eternal conveyer belt, watching package after package pass by and being sent to someone, somewhere to try to satisfy or maybe to try to take away the deeper longing for more in someone else’s life. You tell me if you’d ever work in such an environment? Will we ever get over our way of looking for more and trying to fill it with “stuff”? Will we ever value the worker, the human person, more than doing “whatever it takes to satisfy our customers”? Will we ever move beyond a simply transactional mentality to something more transformational?

All I know is, as much as I participate in it myself, I couldn’t, in good conscience, participate in this way. Almost every morning I wake up thinking about the other employees who are trapped, seemingly enslaved, in such a sick system. All I could do is feel for them, all who have worked next to me along the line, who stay, and hope for their sake that they too recognize they are worth more than “whatever it takes to satisfy our customers”. For all of us on the outside feeding this machine, just stop and at least remember how that package arrived and the people “on the bottom” who are responsible for getting it there. They, we, all deserve better than hell.

A Servant’s Heart

A stare into the camera, not for him to be noticed and seen, but to be aware of who’s on the other side watching, and better, feeling something within them that may be beyond words. Keenly aware of the negative feelings, as children, that tie in with self-worth; anger, sadness, hurt, pain, all of it there staring back into his eyes. They are the eyes of Mister Rogers, trying to understand all while carrying the burden of others on a daily basis. A man, a leader in his own right, who never forgot what it was like to be child, evident with the eclectic gathering of characters that engaged him, King Friday, Lady Aberlin, Daniel Striped Tiger, or the countless others that visited the land-of-make-believe, all a portion of the complex self of Mister Rogers that fascinated children and adults for decades.

The newest film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers, gives us a glimpse into a man who seems almost unbelievable. How could a man exhibit such kindness and authenticity without becoming jaded like often projected by the world around him? How could such a man survive in a “business” that loves to chew people up and spit them out? As is well known, the man that we all saw with our own eyes through a screen in some far-off neighborhood was no different than Fred off camera. He found a way to transcend the expectations of so much media and technology just by being himself, even while holding a disdain for television. This freed others to do the same, in particular, children, and even parents who had to sit through what, for an adult, can seem, today, like a rather mundane experience of television.

Now decades after the program first appeared, Mister Rogers still has a great deal to teach the world about the human condition and a cultural shift needed, certainly in positions of power, business, school, and so many other facets of life. What Rogers has to bring us back to is not a day gone by, but rather a reminder of who we are as human beings. He knew, undoubtedly from his own experience, that people tended to self-identify. We identify by our negative feelings, which he so often spoke of, but also by the countless labels that are thrust upon us that box us in. We’re classified as consumers and customers, we’re clients, even liabilities at times. All of which sells ourselves short from, as he pointed out, that we are special and unique.

When we think of great leaders my guess is Mister Rogers wouldn’t be the first to come to mind, even for those of us who grew up in his neighborhood. Some would write him off as silly or unrealistic, maybe too religious and living with expectations that are impossible, someone who represents the past. Nonetheless, Rogers points us to what matters most in leaders and what is needed now more than ever. More often than not, leaders are reduced to authority figures or someone who has all the answers, the money, even if a mere perception. If leadership is simply reduced to an authority figure there automatically sets up a hierarchy which in turn leads to a separation and gap that becomes difficult to overcome. We begin to believe more in our position being our identity and seeing others as such, sacrificing our deeper selves and the human connection that binds us. We begin to see customers, clients, consumers, competitors, affiliates of political parties and religions, the countless other ways we try to stroke one’s ego, and ourselves as something other than the “special” that Rogers speaks of, losing our greatest gift, as he points out, our humanity. We begin to believe and are often led to believe that it is that label that makes us special, and worse yet, right.

In the age of reality television, 24-hour news cycles, ever-expanding technology, all with the original intent to keep us informed and connected has done just the opposite, Rogers greatest concern about television and technology. It has fragmented us beyond imagination and separated us to a point where we no longer see ourselves in the other or honestly, only within the people we agree. I don’t know how many times I myself have said in the past few years, “I don’t even know that person anymore”. It is a society and media world that has become heartless in many ways, ego-driven to the point of fanaticism. Everyone becomes a specialist and expert and we become lulled into believing, while at the same time becoming more bankrupt of our humanity at the expense of deep pockets for others. Rogers warned of such a reality, a warning that still rings true to this day.

Our financial, institutional, political, ecclesiastical, and consumer-driven worlds are starving for leaders and leaders in the sense that Rogers not only spoke of but mirrored back to us. No, it’s not a sense of perfection or utopia, but rather leaders who never forget their own humanity, have the ability to empathize, to understand, to see people not first as the customer or consumer or anything else, but rather a brother and sister of the human family. When we lose sight of that we too become ego-driven and at times heartless. It’s not only the world that becomes fragmented, it’s our own hearts and souls as well. We move towards acceptance of manipulation, retaliation, narcissism, revenge, heartlessness, and write it off as, “well, that’s just the way it is.” We live in an age and culture that has separated from the heart of who we are, in Rogers’ words, special and are in dire need of such leaders.

He never says it’s about the elimination of pain and suffering but rather recognizes it in the faces of the people he encounters and how we often inflict it upon one another. Great leaders know how to speak below the surface of all and recognize the greater good that we all bear, sometimes seemingly heavier than the pain at times. Rogers, in his modeling of servant leadership, never lost sight of our essence and how we all fit within the larger family, even when we are at odds or disagree. Servant leadership is needed in all facets of our lives. It is the model of leadership that can redirect companies and institutions that have lost sight of who they are and their original intent. Servant leadership has a way of pulling us back into the tension of our own humanity as to not to lose sight of who we are either. I may, over the course of my day, act as a consumer, client, employee, customer, and even liability, but must never lose sight of being special, connected with head and heart, joy and pain, hurt and care, just as the person next to me. A servant leader, in other words, isn’t quick to avoid pain, suffering, challenges, difficulties, impossibilities, but rather steps back, puts them in perspective, and then faces it head on. This type of leadership is not about quick fixes to problems to try to avoid pain. Rather, it’s about playing the long game and consistently connecting us to our very essence, our specialness.

The world could stand a few more leaders like Rogers, the one who goes under the radar and yet is making a difference in people’s lives and not just because of position, power, or money. A leader may have them all, but leaders today need to respond through acts of service, being authentic and genuine, actively listening with the heart, and always remaining connected to the essence of who we are, recognizing our own commitment to change and grow. Servant leaders remain connected to the grittiness of their own life and the lives of others. Servant leaders strive for the best and yet always remain grounded in reality. Servant leaders serve with an iron fist while draped in a velvet glove. The land-of-make-believe was a world of puppets, cardigan sweaters, cardboard sets, and ringing trollies, but for Rogers it was reality. It pointed the way to a neighborhood that was safe to be who you are, where you felt what you felt, a place to love and to seek truth, and ultimately a place of service. No matter who walked through that door they were met where they were. Undoubtedly, we all arise and descend into varying positions in life; all of which are often necessary for order. Such positions, though, do not define us, especially as servant leaders. Rather, as was taught and is needed, it is our true specialness, our essence, that forms us and makes us the leaders the world needs today. When we embrace that, we will then understand what made it such a beautiful day in Rogers’ neighborhood and why we strive to do the same.

Welcome Home

Welcome home! They were the first words that I heard as I walked through the doors of Bethlehem Farm some seven months ago for what I thought was going to be a month. “I can do anything for a month,” I told myself. I needed something to do in transition and they were willing to take me in on short notice. Talk about trust, here I was, a middle-aged man who had walked away from the life I was living, not married, and they were willing to take me in! So on a Monday in late April I arrived on the front steps to that greeting, welcome home, only to find that there was something more to it than I could have imagined, a place that has not only been home over the months but a place that has aided me in finding the home within myself that seemed all but lost and relationships that surpass that of time. Better yet, had helped me in finding a home never had found.

It was just a few short days prior to arriving there that I had received word that my dad was hospitalized. I wasn’t sure if I should actually come to such a remote part of West Virginia, nearly eight hours from Burton Street, where I had grown up as a child. However, at the time my own life was out of sorts and rocky at best and I needed, as I had told them, some sense of stability. Not only was the life I had known been allowed to shatter, but I hadn’t realized at the time that the passing of my dad was just about two months from the time I walked up the front steps of B Farm. I needed stability, though, and so I went without really knowing what I was about to get myself into in the coming months. Some three hours later, dozens of high school students also arrived and the stability I was looking for was going to need to be put on hold. I was going to need to jump fully in to learn what the farm was all about along with the high school students who were arriving from around the country.

It was the beginning of an experience that words still fall short to describe. There is absolutely a sense of home, and the men and women I have lived and worked with during this time are more than just colleagues or some other formality, they are family and friends. It falls short on words because words often don’t come close to describing the home that has been discovered within myself during this time, literally getting my hands into the grittiness of the lives of others, the earth, chicken poop, bread and food, but not necessarily in that order, has broken me wide open! For someone who has a strong connection to the Christmas stories you’d think that the grittiness would have already been well-known. However, life’s circumstances and states in life often prevent us from finding that home, even more ironic since I had devoted so much of my time and life to such an endeavor. It was literally, though, digging in dung and dirt where I found that grittiness, at times moved to tears by it.

The progression of my dad’s health seemed to deteriorate daily. There didn’t seem to be an answer to anything. There was still hope, but over time, even that began to wane. I would travel back and forth when I could, often running out as soon as we sent off another group from the farm. There were moments, though, where I found myself out in the field by myself or with Shannon, who too came to the farm looking for something. By the afternoon we’d often work in different parts of the garden, leaving m alone with my thoughts, a farm tool, and the earth. Even as I write these words, I find tears coming to my eyes because it seemed like yesterday there was so much unraveling going on within and beyond me. It was all an act of trust, from the very beginning, not knowing where any of it would lead. At times I could look back and wonder how on earth I was able to venture through such turbulent times in my life.

There was something about the digging, and digging deeper. There was also something about the process of baking bread and kneading it. Both actions have similar qualities of digging and kneading, pushing and feeling, breaking through the surface which seemed so thick. It all has a way of grounding you in the process. The results are not immediately experienced, just like farming, but over time there is a gradual change and life begins to poke through. There’s something about that physical push that often broke me open and brought to the surface all that seemed buried within. There was a deterioration going on in my own life. No, the consequences are not the same as my dad, who lost the battle with cancer, but death has come this year in my life, both in the passing of him as well as in my own life, both of which stand in stark contrast to the perennial. Everything seemed to be passing, slipping through the fingers, like the crumbling of dirt in the field.

I now stand on the cusp of the longest time I will have spent away from the farm all year. After seven months of farming, cooking, canning, growing, learning, and becoming, more sound and grounded myself, it’s time to take home on the road for a while. Sure, there is some hesitation, but none like I had when first venturing to southern West Virginia back in April. Looking back, it was a cancer of sorts, that was also killing me from within, but mine had a cure. In some ways it feels as if the year has become full circle for me, back where I began, but moving forward from a very different place than when it felt like it was falling apart around me. Bethlehem Farm and welcome home has a deeper meaning than simply returning to a place. It’s about returning to a center. It didn’t take long to realize why so many returned to the farm, year after year, to this special place. Surrounded by a rather chaotic world, whirling around, it stands at the center of authenticity and the quest for wholeness in life, to grow into the life that had been intended from the beginning. Everyone arrives on those steps for very different reasons. Some simply for the act of service it provides, as for countless high school and college students; yet, even they leave different than when they arrived.

Others, like myself, though, come looking for something else because of our stage in life. The countless conversations with the college students have been one of the best parts of the time at the farm. Sometimes it was just the silence of working in the field or even the quiet of the kitchen when no words were needed. There was, here, no longer this sense of hierarchy I have had to live with, but rather a level playing field and equal grounding. There was no special clothing, unless you count work clothes, that differentiate one from another. There was no special title or expectations or anything else. As a matter of fact, there’s simply a nakedness that comes from the experience, a vulnerability that reminds we are all human and life really is passing, none of which needs to be taken all that seriously. As much as I have been a part of their journey, they have been of mine as well. They walked the journey of my dad’s death with me and kept me grounded even through my own. They could sympathize and empathize but at the same time, their lives weren’t destroyed by what was happening in mine. That’s the grounding I was looking for within myself, summed up and found through those simple words first uttered as I, and countless others, walk up those steps at Bethlehem Farm, “Welcome Home.”