I suppose it is that such a thing exists and is so popular. Here we have a fake competition, a scripted, athletic event that is bathed in melodrama and the audience is in on it, but cheers like it’s a sporting competition, nonetheless. It is the fandom that is remarkable to me. Fans are committed. They are immersed. They give themselves wholly to the drama unfolding in front of them. When I investigate wrestling’s history and better understand its methods, I see that wrestling’s appeal is twofold: spectacle and story. And in the case of wrestling, story is the spectacle! Wrestling has tapped into the same human interest of drama and spectacle that religious observance has tapped into, but it seems to me that wrestling is taking itself more seriously than the church in its effort to offer a spectacular story that touches lives.

When I was growing up, wrestling made sense. It was the 1980’s, and giant, muscular men doing over the top feats of strength was part of the cultural aesthetic. See any number of blockbuster action stars and their many cinematic franchises, such as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme. And, at least as a child, people still argued about whether wrestling was real or fake. The whole spectacle was still shrouded by a secretive showman’s culture. “Babyfaces” were the good guys, “Heels,” the villains. They all had gimmicks to shape their character’s personality and story. They were committed to the storyline above all else. The term for this is “kayfabe.” Kayfabe might be concerned about the storyline’s insistence that one babyface is a sworn enemy of a particular heel, or that another babyface has a neck injury. Since those are elements of the storyline, and kayfabe means committing to the storyline at all cost, the wrestlers who are sworn enemies would never be seen fraternizing after the show at a restaurant, and the wrestler with the phony neck injury would never be caught alive without a neck brace on, even when they are off the clock. The wrestler’s sole commitment is to the storyline.

All these traditions and customs arose out of wrestling history with carnival sideshows and circuses. In an era when showmanship was everything, wrestlers learned to put on elaborate spectacles of strength and drama. Even the tradition of “selling” or acting like you are in intense pain by your opponent’s outlandish hold on your arm developed because early wrestlers tried to make their moves look real and dramatic to audience members sitting far away in some traveling circus tent. Being good at “selling” for another wrestler is a way you can help “put over” others, thus increasing their acclaim and popularity. All of these traditions arose out of devotion to the story being told in and around the ring.

Over time and evolution of the artform, new developments have taken place. In the old days, wrestling was dominated by regional fiefdoms, and stars represented those region’s sensibilities. But in the 1980’s a consolidation took place, and the top characters became known nationally. With WrestleMania, a spectacle meant to be the “sport’s” very own Superbowl, professional wrestling took on the character of having an annual season where stories can be shaped and told in a rhythm of annual high-water marks. Through the 1990’s the stories and characters reflected the darker and more cynical nature of the wider culture. And the stories told were added to with more pyrotechnics and technology. And throughout the decades, kayfabe has been declining. Wrestling being a rigged event used to be denied. Then it was ignored. At some point it was sold as real with a wink and a smile. By now, no one calls it a sport any longer. It has been rebranded as “sports entertainment.” And now the fans are in on the spectacle.

Recently, a docuseries has aired on Netflix called Unreal. It is the first ever behind the scenes, look at how the “sausage is made” production of its kind for professional wrestling. Now fans get to see how the “company,” as it is now referred, does all that they already knew it did: create the stories, promote the wrestlers, play on emotion, develop characters, honor legacies, and so much more. The thing that interests me is how many people it takes to put on the spectacle. The wrestlers are in the ring. They perform a pre-scripted and at times improvised match with the aid of producers. Then there are those producing the live show and the camera workers. To add to the spectacle and drama are the music, lighting, pyro-technic folks. The ring side announcers are there to act as narrators for the audience, and sometimes they are there to reflect the moods of the audience.

That is the most compelling fact I learned from the documentary. Those whose job it is to plan the drama feel it is necessary to take the audience’s feelings into account. If the crowd does not accept a character or storyline, the whole company can tell from the in-arena response. Yes, the producers will try to tell a story by manipulating emotions over time and story. But if such plans do not take, they will pivot in a new direction. Audience reaction is part of the storied spectacle. It is as if the mimetic desire that reverberates through the crowd is a character all unto itself. This makes the whole affair a living, breathing reality larger than those of the bookers and storytellers of the show.

As the documentary shows the wrestlers in their homes and in their training, and the bookers in the writer’s room, it even shows the pre-match gatherings of producers, you notice that the one thing that their shared efforts are in the service of is: story. It is the story being told that draws in the viewer. Even now, after realizing that the whole game is rigged, the crowds do not care. They appreciate the athleticism, and the showmanship, indeed. But what they turn up for in the whole affair is the spectacle of story. Like an outlandish daytime soap opera, viewers tune in and show up for living events en masse and freely give themselves over to the story. The stories, no matter how elaborate, far-fetched, or new, connect with audiences through their emotions, and doing so in the bespectacled fashion that it does grants a grandeur that surpasses the doldrums of the ordinary. In wrestling the characters and story-arcs are larger than life, everything is “more,” and vicariously fans feel a sense of their own lives being augmented for having taken the ride!

As a preacher I am enamored by the commitment to a story that shapes wrestling’s greatest gift. And as a curious person who has always been drawn to unique communities and identity formations – such as carnivals and its “carnies,” sideshows and the “barkers,” Hobos with their symbol systems, traveler communities and the like – the fact that professional wrestling is now a multi-billion-dollar industry built upon a spectacle makes me want to learn what we in the world of religion can replicate for our own ends. What is more, I think that the dual commitments to story and spectacle have everything to do with adding a little enchantment to another wise disenchanted world.

Part of our disenchantment is the loss of a story. When the world is seen as a space of brute fact, or to think of nature only as a set of stuff with no purpose, and there is no overarching story or purpose, then the sense of personal purpose, destiny, or higher end wanes. Into a world where our basic stories of good overcoming evil, or progress to the divine call have been eclipsed by materialistic and accidental causes and effects, having a story to live by can only come by the force of will—however one is discovered through family, culture, or religion, is simply made up to make us feel existentially meaningful. And in that story-less world wrestling offers stories that tend to fit into a grand overarching and somehow psychologically compelling story—good overcoming evil.

Spectacle too, rebuts the trends toward disenchantment. Spectacle, as its name suggests, is at least a visual display, or it is an eye-catching event, for public consumption. Spectacles can and do enchant the human mind through drawing the imagination away from mundane expectations, and they can overwhelm the senses as well as emotions to a feeling of sublime—too much to take in at any one moment. This evokes the further sense of “something more” in the world, which is just one step in charming us toward the delights of the world. It can also stir the heart toward connecting with world, and anything that humans want to connect with in personal ways is best spoken on of in the words of poetry much more so than reductive/materialist language. What could give us a more enchanted view than the words of poetry.

Of course, story-formed spectacles occur outside of professional wrestling. They have been successful in community harvest festivals, highly anticipated film releases (such as Hitchcock’s suspenseful marketing campaign prior to Psycho), mass gatherings for sport, etc. And a genealogy of such cultural expressions will no doubt discover that at the root of such phenomena one will, no doubt, discover humanity’s religious impulses, for example the ancient festivals of Dionysus, Jewish Passover, Carnivale, and Halloween.

My point is simple, and I suppose it’s rather obvious now. People who wish to share a sacred message in today’s milieu of disenchantment would do well to add storied spectacle to their communication to aid in proper re-enchantment. The good news is that the entirety of religious faith is built upon a story of profound purpose. And it is supported by many aspects of spectacle through its ritual, liturgy, and communal practice. The question for contemporary priests, pastors, liturgists, spiritual directors, retreat leaders, and so on is: are we telling the story well and are we honoring the “spectacles” at our disposal or are we cheapening them.

A clergy colleague of mine and I were at a denominational conference together. During a time of corporate worship, we participated as the liturgists over explained that as individuals we carry heaven burdens, and it is useful to have friends who can help us through all that weighs us down. Then, during corporate singing, we were instructed to an activity (I still do not know what we were to do, in actuality) where we all took knotted thread and tried to help the worshippers to our right and left in untying the knots. The whole point was to prove that we are capable of helping one another navigate problems. The congregation was a gathering of adult ministers, not children, I’d like to add.

Later in the same worship service, we were to receive the Eucharist. To add drama to the moment, we were led to communion stations around the sanctuary. In so doing, we ignored the central altarpiece of the sanctuary, and we favored make-shift stations around the sanctuary, where we were to gather as groups around tables – to mimic being at dinner tables with others – where we each got a loaf of bread and a personalized bottle of Welch’s grape juice. The stated intent was to decrease a sense of individualism in communion while evoking community and abundance. If that was the goal, I think the individual bottles of juice missed the mark, but I could see and understand the intent. Bottles were more ample and befitting of abundance than mini-shot glasses of juice, I suppose.

Toward the end of our worship together, I looked to my colleague, and I asked him, “why do you think we have to add to the liturgy of communion, don’t you think it is already dramatic, if we just take the liturgy seriously?” He agreed, “yeah it all feels a bit hokey. Like we are trying too hard.” “What did you think about the whole yarn thing,” he asked me. I did not respond with words; I just gave him a look of disinterest. Then he said, “I am not even sure I understand what that exercise was trying to communicate.” There was a lull in our conversation for a moment. He then broke the silence, “I don’t like arts and crafts worship.”

Arts and Crafts worship, now that is a funny!

I appreciate creativity. But here is an important question, will our creative additions improve the story we are telling? Will they add to or detract from the spectacle? This brings me back to professional wrestling. As much as the business has changed through time in terms of technology, humane working conditions, the addition of women to the roster, and so on, in the end nothing that is added will be accepted if it does not serve the story, and does not elevate its spectacle. Religious communicators will do well to take seriously the given story, stories, and spectacled liturgies/rituals given and received from of old for they have their own power to re-enchant the mind to God’s ever in-breaking into our midst. And then, think of other ways to add holy spectacles to communal expression such as festivals, expressions of art and performance, prophetic demonstrations, and so much more. But only if they elevate the spectacular story already being told.

People often lament that our world has become disenchanted. With the rise of modernity came a new map of reality—an enlightenment grid laid over the terrain of life, instructing us how to walk it. Where once people discerned gods in groves, fairies in fields, and holy places alive with presence, now there stretches only a mechanistic nature. The magic has drained away. The divinities have retreated. Holy places no longer thrum with transcendent spirit but are reduced, at best, to markers of history and memory.

The map we now use is guided by science and technology, with scientists and technologists serving as its new priests. As powerful and even thrilling as these tools can be, many quietly confess that the age of disenchantment has left them with a void—longing for meaning, weary of life’s monotony, and searching for some other form of enchantment. In truth, these modern maps have not only displaced but rivaled the church’s ancient vocation as the keeper of a sacred map of the world. And yet human yearning remains. Which is why the most compelling preaching in our day must be preaching that re-enchants—offering a vision of the world lit up with God’s presence, a sacred cartography that gives meaning to pilgrims on the journey.

New Models of enchantment

No matter how disenchanted our modern world has become, it appears that the yearning of most people is for some version of enchantment—a vision of something more than the material, mundane, and mechanistic. In what follows I offer an incomplete list of some examples (that have interested me) of modern attempts (knowingly and unknowingly) to reenchant the world or at least moments within the world to imbue existence with a sense of something—ietsism. I will break them apart into three categories: technological/digital, performative, and land based.

Techno/Digital:

-Pokemon GO- augmented reality game one could map onto the landscape of their daily lives.

-V.R. Headsets-immersive technology.

-Techno-Futurism

-Digital Avatars with Digital Identities/Crypto-currency.

Performative:

-Professional Wrestling

-Immersive Worlds and Theme Parks

-Dungeons and Dragons and other RPG’s

-Geocaching

Land-Based:

-Neo-Pagan and other Earth based Spiritualities

-Agrarianism and other alternative, place-based political visions.

-Culinary and food culture.

-Modern Day treasure hunting.

As I said, this is an incomplete list. The criteria for making the list were simple. First, I had to notice it, and two I found it compelling at one time or another. The main point that I would like to make is equally simple: the fact that we have so many means of re-enchanting everyday existence, or imbuing it with a sense of “something more” tells me those who are given to speaking sacred things need to restate and reframe the world in order to show that it is always, already enchanted. In what remains of this short essay, I will reflect on one way that religious speech, preaching, and spiritual leadership can extend sacred focus into mundane life to demonstrate the inseparability of the sacred from the so-called profane: liturgy in daily life.

Liturgy Everywhere

Over the last few decades, it has become vogue for some Christians to pattern their everyday lives more liturgically. Or at least the desire has been popular. And for good reason, this is one way to immerse oneself into the sacred narrative. Resources such as Every Moment Holy which is a collection of liturgies meant for each moment you can imagine: cooking dinner, decorating the Christmas tree, taking a walk, etc., and Salt of the Earth: A Christian Seasons Calendar which is a calendar not marked by months, but rather by liturgical seasons, marked with reflections, art, and seasonal colors are both designed to help communities mark time according to sacred rhythms as opposed to the mundane rhythms of our market culture. As challenging as it is to honestly pattern one’s life by a sacred calendar when all the world around you marks time differently, it is one way to show that one’s daily life intersects with the most holy and sacred truths.

By patterning one’s life-rhythms according to a sacred calendar, the holy is engaged through storytelling and ritual. It is a concrete way to allow one’s identity to be taken up into a story and shaped by its meaning. This is not merely done by placing a new calendar on your wall with different dates highlighted—it is rehearsing various stories each season as they are paired with personal and communal rituals, liturgies, and remembrances. This is what researcher Paul J. Zak would call immersion, which for him is the best way to cultivate happiness and has direct links to education, sales, and getting others to buy into your message.

In Zak’s book Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Sources of Happiness,⁴⁸ the author engages neuroscience to study what makes a message more memorable and meaningful. His team studied everything from commercials, films, superfans, churches, classrooms and board rooms. While noting that story, emotion, and a delicate balance of the novel with the comfortable or expected increase one’s chance of feeling “immersed” in a piece of communication, Zak points to the experience at a theme park as a high-water mark. At places like Disneyland, people line up for a ride. The story begins there. The line is never merely a line. Rather, it is a carefully curated experience of storytelling—it is atmospheric, and it helps to build the anticipation. There is also something added to the experience when you stand in line waiting with other people to share the same experience with. The total immersion of this experience raises its quality and its lasting impact on people’s memories.

Isn’t this exactly what religious communities aim do? We curate and tell stories as people enter a religious space. If we were as effective and technologically skilled as the theme parks, we would narrate and tell people what to expect on their way in, so as to prepare them and build their anticipation. The question for us always concerns the quality of how we use our tools for the sake of immersing our communities in the story.

The tools at hand include architecture, orders of worship, art, screens, incense, bells, and bands. Then, with a gathered community of souls, we participate in a story rehearsed together. At its best, worship becomes a multi-sensory experience—and that helps. The goal, of course, is that believers might experience a portion of the sacred story within the context of a larger season, one in which the same story is still being rehearsed but through a widening lens. Over the course of the year, these believers follow a narrative that weaves the seasons together into one great tapestry of meaning. All of it is designed to be so immersive that it becomes formational—helping believers live the sacred story not just on Sunday, but on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and beyond.

Corporate liturgical reflection can deepen the daily devotion of individuals. Likewise, when individuals and families shape their lives around the liturgical calendar, it can enrich their participation in corporate worship and help re-enchant the world around them. The priest-theologian Sergius Bulgakov reflected on the interplay of liturgy, the seasons, and daily living with remarkable insight. In his personal journal, he once wrote:

Holy Week and Christ’s Pascha are marvelous and manifest miracles of God that appear every year, like the stirring of waters at the pool of Siloam [John 9:7]. These are the highest mountains to which the long ascent of Great Lent leads, and their heights are not even felt once a person scales them. The soul is aflame and burns everything with a blazing fire in the marvelous days of Holy week, and in dying it experiences bliss, and in bliss the soul dies. And afterwards this flame suddenly and immediately transforms and turns into the paradisiacal, luminous, and gladdening white Paschal fire, neither scorching or burning. If people alien to the Church knew this, how they would be ignited, how their souls would begin to shine. And this manifest miracle of God’s grace is both salvific and merciful. Everything is transfigured, and this already just is the dawn of transfiguration; everything appears in a different light, full of grace and sanctified from within.⁴⁹

I suppose such an experience is there for the taking. The message has been shared. The table has been set. The priests and pastors have been praying, teaching, leading the hymns. Maybe everyone has bought their new calendars—alternatives to the workaday world. But are the people ready to receive the enchanting of our world by holy bursts of illumination? My guess is, sometimes. Just being liturgically sensitive is not enough.

Perhaps what stands in the way of sensing the enchantments that exist, even when we let liturgical life shape the mundane one, is preparation. Do preachers get up into the pulpit only having studied books, but having never prayed? Do lay people get out of bed and think about Christ only prior to the Eucharist, so busy are they with getting their kids out of the door, dressed, and to childcare? Training each of us to see and to expect an experience is paramount for moments of celebratory gathering, but it is also just as important for preparing oneself to begin the day. This is immersing oneself in grace. Bulgakov’s faith was intentional. Few had his life of piety. But hear from his own reflection on the way to church, found in his Spiritual Diary,

Today on my way to the liturgy, in the early morning, I walked through the streets of the city made fresh after the night. I thought: God provides this morning in His world. Everything within it lives in boundless breadth and depth. Innumerable creations: people and birds, fish in the deep and leeches on Everest, all creatures clean and unclean [cf. Lev. 11] -- everything sings praise to God this morning, and He fills everything and everywhere He is near... And He is near also to you, and you were created in this world as part of it, no less than the others were you counted worthy of existence; you are a citizen both of this earth and of these stars, and of all endless things, both great and small. And you can and therefore must attend to the song of the world bone to you from all sides, you must attend to the glory of God that fills heaven and earth [Isa. 6.3]. For here there is no other then or there; there is only the immovable here and now.⁵⁰

What preparatory contemplations! He is preparing his mind for the liturgy with the gifts of his theological mind. And preparation is part of an immersive experience. Recall waiting in line for a roller-coaster!

Bulgakov’s theological mind was shaped by his liturgical history/practice, and his practice was shaped by his theology. And these crosswinds worked on one another to help him experience the world as enchanted, sacred, and sacramental—where even a morning walk draws him into a divine experience.

All too often, our theologies are abstracted from our lived experience. And our liturgical reflections are cordoned off to the time set aside for corporate worship in the church sanctuary. It is easily forgotten that liturgy is a school for life and that theology touches everything. Through robust teaching on developing a contemplative practice that grants one the eyes to see a world teeming with sacred witness will the faithful notice once more that their day to day lives are not lived devoid of the sacred, but rather that their lives are made intelligible by the sacred. This is just one benefit of reframing liturgical drama within daily living. Once more, I am moved by the witness of Sergei Bulgakov

The Lord has given us a spiritual sword—prayer; yet how difficult it is for us to wield it when our hearts grow lazy and cold. Man hurries to quickly bypass prayer and to undertake the day’s work, he hurries away from prayer. And only when he overcomes this laziness of his heart, when his heart is ignited by prayer, does he see that he is hurrying to nowhere and for nothing, that there is nothing on earth more needful and sweet than prayer.⁵¹

Conclusion

If immersion in sacred story is indeed the key to re-enchantment, then the church must become a community that practices attention. Attention to time, to space, to story, and to one another. The sacred calendar, the Eucharistic table, and the gathered people are not static symbols but living tools of divine pedagogy—they train us to see differently. Yet to make this vision concrete, churches must teach, model, and structure communal life around these rhythms.

While this is typically practiced through holy days, seasons, liturgies, and lectionary readings, the church must act in ways that help individuals take these practices home with them. The church’s task, then, is not merely to preserve sacred stories but to help people inhabit them—to become living icons of the story they rehearse each week. In doing so, both church and world are re-enchanted, and the faithful learn to live, move, and breathe within the sacred drama that never ends. Allow me to conclude with three “off the wall” suggestions that will help advance the cause of immersion into the churches sacred practices:

1.) Like amusement park rides, perhaps the church should prepare material (digital, print, or audio) that narrates the journey from entering the church doors to the sanctuary, preparing people for what they are about to experience. Perhaps this video is sent out via email prior to worship, or it is playing on loop in gathering spaces outside of the sanctuary. How often are we prepared for worship? Most people contend with the busyness of life all the way through until the start of worship. Immersive preparation can pave the way for the liturgy to do its work.

2.) Churches could give liturgies and prayers to families to participate in before they leave their homes and go about their day. These can be patterned to the liturgical calendar and be one more way of establishing an alternative way of experiencing time.

Chapter 4 of this text is lovingly called “Barefoot,” and it begins with some rather fundamental theological notions, yet they are ones that everyone needs (constant) reminding about. “God is mystery—that should be the first and last sentence of any theology,” writes Halík. Whoever God is, God is the one that is always beyond the grasp of human thinking and possession—this is true by definition according to the likes of no less a figure than St. Anselm.

Halík goes on “take care not to think for even a moment that you have gained sufficient insight into His mystery; the most you can hope for is to touch Him lightly from behind, like the hemorrhaging woman touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak.” Indeed, Halík speaks of God as the psalmists do — “cloud and darkness surround him”— therefore, “faith and atheism are two views of that reality—the hiddenness of God, His transcendence, and His impenetrable mystery; they are two possible interpretations of the same reality, seen from two opposite sides.” For him, faith and unbelief share a close proximity—and that is one reason his approach to sharing Christian faith with those unbelievers who are curious, interested, open, and “on the margins” is so promising. To be plain, Halík’s approach is promising because, like Christ, it enters the world of people with grace, and through inhabiting the shared space it holds the possibility of transformation.

Again, Halík thinks of many who profess atheism, doubt, skepticism, and other affiliated words on the spectrum between the two opposing poles, disciple and “master of suspicion,” as Zacchaeus-types. Like Zacchaeus, many of us moderns who doubt are still curious, or maybe more, maybe we have a yearning or even a unexplainable attraction to the subject of belief. Modern Zacchaeus types are like their biblical namesake, they remain a bit distant and out of the fray. But make no mistake, they are watching and listening. The real question that Halík is asking of preachers, priests, theologians, and all people of belief is do we know how to call up to them and do we know how to walk with them in light of their searching hearts?

In this chapter, “Barefoot,” Halík reminds us that Christianity is in fact a religion of paradoxes, in part because the “the Bible is a book of paradoxes.” He writes, “the Bible’s paradoxes consists of two assertions that need to be treated with enormous caution, so that one gently counterbalances the other: ‘God is an impenetrable mystery’ (He dwells in un-approachable light)—but also: God and man are alike (God created man in his own image).”

The second assertion reminds us that any pilgrim searching for God can see something of God in another person, be they saint, sinner, believer, or atheist, etc. And it also reminds us that it is faithful to move toward others, to share space with them, and to walk humbly along their path. Doing so may be said to be “incarnational” or even merely graceful. But it is more than that, because it also deeply affirms the fact that human uncertainty is one way that we express our divine image. Here is how Halík puts it, “And so the question naturally arises: isn’t Zacchaeus (and I’m sure we’ve realized that he is our image, and if not of all of us, at least many of us)—that hidden, yet watchful human being—also in some way a mirror, a likeness, a picture of God—i.e., a hidden, yet watchful God?” What a fascinating observation to make! What is so helpful about all of this is that it reminds us of the truth we often do not share with the world: our belief is not so simple and constant, rather it waxes and wanes, grows and weakens, for we never and in no way can fully grasp God. And by being reminded of this, we can better speak to, and thus walk with those who appear far away from the comfort of the pews.

Halík’s first assertion, to remind us, is that God is mysterious and hidden, and though God makes Himself known to us in certain ways and means, we never have full access to God. He adds that we often tend to privatize God (albeit accidently) with the genitive case: our God! Over time I believe that such language reaches verbal satiation, and we no longer parse out the meaning—or maybe what happens is that we slip into the unstated (though felt) delusion that God belongs to us, rather than it being us who belongs to God. Halík suggests thinking along with a theologian Joseph Moingt who “urges us to let God go! That is to say: Let Him go to others! Let us discover that he is not simply ‘the God of our fathers,’ our inherited property, but also the ‘God of others.' Only then will we discover that he is the on universal God, and not a particular deity among the deities of the Chaldean Empire; precisely because He is the one universal God, He is not a God on which we could have a monopoly.”

Too much of Christian faith, according to Halík is an inherited “faith of our fathers” sort of thing, and sometimes it gets stuffed into a box of tradition, nation, and creed. Thus it becomes one object among other objects. He calls this “inherited property.” When faith is inherited it becomes something to safeguard to the ever unchanging dictates of traditionalism (we have always done it that way). Rather, Halík like Moingt see a NT faith that was never tied to a nation or even a family, rather it was a pilgrim faith. Ever on the move. learning new languages, devoid of arrogant certainty, Christian faith traditionally (not traditionalism) professed that “God is always greater, semper maior…God is also the God of others—including seekers and those who don’t know Him. Yes, Go dis above all the God of seekers, of people on the journey.” One of my favorite paragraphs from Halík reads as follows:

If we profess the God of Abraham—and not some abstract philosophical concept of a vague ‘supreme being’ who might appeal to everybody—we prove our faithfulness, not by clinging to a specific tradition of the past, but, like Abraham, by entering new territory. ‘Our’ God is a pilgrim God, the God of the eternal exodus, who leads us out of the homes and homelands even though we would prefer to settle in them and fortify them—and also enclose Him in our borders, in the confines of our notions, concepts, traditions, and creeds.

Given all that Halík has said theologically about God, and humanity, he offers a few poignant spiritual comments. He declares that God is watchful, and that He is open to our openness—in fact, God is in our openness. Therefore, Halík challenges us all to be in the attitude of watchful seeking, for in that openness we may not only find God, we might learn that we are becoming like God in the very act. Further:

our openness toward others is our openness toward God, because through Christ, God shows solidarity with others—and our openness toward God and our neighbor is God’s openness toward us and the world, because through Christ (through the mystery of the Incarnation) God shows solidarity with us and seeks to be present in the world through our testimony of love.

All of this means we as believers are required to sit down with unbelievers, and to truly enter their world. We need to have patience and care as we listen. We need to be bold not to have all the answers ready and at hand—if for no other reason than we do not have all the answers. In a world where God is not fully on display, we must learn solidarity with those who are still seeking God. This is not a place of weakness, but rather one of strength. How are we to walk with these Zacchaeus types, and in what matter will we share solidarity with them on their path of questing, seeking, and looking? For Halík the answer is simple, yet profound: Barefoot. We walk barefooted, because we walk humbly with them. For a world of seeking—there is nothing more traumatizing to the faith than a triumphalist, know it all, win at all cost gospel!

This substack is interested in how to speak the sacred in a seemingly secular milieu (tips, ideas, theories, strategies, inspirations, musings, etc.). I think much of what Rabbi Berg says addresses the contemporary world’s need for something more. When you listen, think of his language of “life curriculum,” “getting unstuck,” values, and meaning.

Enjoy:

Documentaries:

-Taylor Swift V. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood- These two documentaries made and presented side by side as companion pieces are meant to show two sides of an argument. Each argument is presented in a clear and compelling way. In fact, it is easy to take the perspective of each documentary thinking you agree with its conclusions completely, only to flip flop opinions when you watch its twin. This new artefact of the Taylor Swift Industrial Complex is a helpful exercise in thinking through how we engage arguments and points of view and just how easily swayed we may be. It is also an interesting insight into the current state of the music industry and the tip top reaches of global fame!

-Remembering Gene Wilder- This guy was as good a person as he was an entertainer. I was heartened by his journey and by his deep friendships.

-Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story- Tears. So many tears. This film moved me, challenged me, and forced me into news paradigms of thinking about disability. Plus there is so much there about his friendship with Robin Williams (his death actually got to me in a way I could not have anticipated), and it is all so brilliant.

-Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy- This and other such pieces are much needed for our contemporary conversation about faith, politics, and public witness. Pair this with another really great read from my 2024 reading, Baptizing America: How Mainline Christianity Helped Build Nationalism by Beau Underwood and Brian Kaylor. No, Christian Nationalism does not only belong to Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, or any other version of center-right Christianity!

-Greatest Night in Pop- We are the World, remember that one? Quincy Jones was a champ for wrangling all those egos! #Leadership! #Checkyouregoatthedoor

-Will and Harper- I cannot explain this one well enough to justify words. It strengthened my empathy muscle, and made me simply bear witness to another’s journey.

-Martha- Martha Stewart behind the scenes, behind the icon, behind it all! So interesting.

-Call Me Ted- I did not know I needed this docu series on Ted Turner, but I did. I needed to see an icon who I always imagine as “On TOP” going through his life and betting, losing, and risking everything along the way!

-Limitless- Chris Hemsworth focusing on how to age well—hmmm, well maybe. Chris Hemsworth working with doctors, “experts” on aging/vitality, and pop-science information to help us thinking about vitality—yea, maybe tomorrow. Chris Hemsworth putting these ideas together in extreme challenges that inspire, and oh yes, it is filmed by the great Darren Aronofsky (The Whale, Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain to name a few…)—YES PLEASE! When I was recovering from my liver transplant, this docu series inspired me and pushed me to push harder and in better ways for overall health. Yes, Peter Attia is involved and that means there is some possible critique with health/longevity claims and cost for care….but there’s some really great stuff in there too!

**There are more, no doubt. But as I sit in my study on the final nights of Christmastide, these are the ones that rise to the top—watch at your discretion, but in all things be open to letting stories broaden your ability to understand humanity, tell better stories, and expand your world.

Books:

-The End of Theological Education by Ted Smith- This book is a must read for theological educators, clergy, and scholars. Ted’s work pairs well next to Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and Andy Root’s application of Taylor in his incredible trilogy: Ministry in a Secular Age. Smith’s work is more data driven and less philosophical in tone than Taylor’s. His uses sociological reflection to think through the altering landscape of religiosity. It helps us to see what was, is, and where theological education is going; and broad church observance is focused upon as well.

-Camping With Kierkegaard: Faithfulness as a Way of Life by J. Aaron Simmons- This book takes a plain spoken approach to existential philosophy and shows that great ideas should be lived….especially given your finitude (surprise, you are going to die, so are you ok with how you are living?). It is moving especially after we all languished during a global pandemic, Simmons himself, used this book to exorcise some “get ahead,” workaday demons out of his philosophical life coming out of the pandemic….it is a refreshing read.

-The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride- Place-based storytelling at its best! Thinking through cultural dynamics, social conditions, compassion, and the mystery of humanity’s inner life. This is a book where I can hear the characters speak in my head as I read it!

-A Course Called Scotland: Searching the Home of Golf for the Secrets to Its Game by Tom Coyne- Golf, pilgrimage, memoir…good stuff for me!

-The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt- Think through data and Haidt’s ideas on technology, screen time, and phone usage for kids. There is good stuff here, but there is also a lot to ask deeper questions about.

-The Dark Night of the Soul by Gerald May- Spiritual Direction and Psychology meet ancient spirituality!

-The Lives We Actually Have by Kate Bowler- 100 honest blessings and prayers!

-The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America by: Jeffery Rosen- Self Government requires Self Mastery…need I say more?

-Enchiridion by Epictetus

-A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver

-The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom by L.S. Dugdale- Thinking with a hospice care chaplain about dying, acceptance, memento mori, and ancient wisdom.

-The Prophet by Khalil Gibran- the bits about sorrow and joy being held together are exceptionally poignant, true, and profound.

-The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism by Ben Myers

-The Apostles’ Creed: For Today by Justo Gonzalez

-Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness by Paul Zak- This will make you want to tell better stories, and think more about the experiences you curate for others!

-Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett- This book makes me want to ask, “what kind of world do we want to build together?” It also makes me ask how spirituality can be a tool for the common good…and actually, I have tried to follow that question into creating a podcast of my own: Complex Creatures.

-Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of the Torah and the Throne by Wilda C. Gafney- This text explodes open well known texts with deeper meaning. Simply put, it woke me up from many a familiar and dogmatic slumber!

-The Conquest of Cool: Business, Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism by: Thomas Frank- This is a practical look at the development of coolness and youth culture as it was exploited by advertising giants. Pairs well with the “age of authenticity” sections in Charles Taylor’s work on Secularity!

-Being the Body of Christ in the Age of Management by Lyndon Shakespeare- If you need deep theology and philosophy to expose you to the why the “church is a business” language and practice is itself bad theology, then read this.

-Having Nothing and Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places by Mike Mather

-The Way of Zen by Alan Watts

-Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan

-Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World by Serene Jones- I am currently obsessed with theological memoir and other examples of lived theology…as another theological memoirist, Stanley Hauerwas says, “we are story formed creatures” thus it makes sense to do theology within the bounds of a story, narrative, memory and experience.

…Check back later for other best of 24’ artefacts that have shaped my thinking, communicating, and ideas!

Halík’s central story for reading the ministry of Jesus is the story of Zacchaeus half-hidden away up a tree, apart from the crowds, and timid to step into the circle of attention. It is in the center of attention where “hangers on” and eager disciples (perhaps another way of calling them is: Johnny Come Lately, or something funnier) try to chum up next to Jesus. This is the shape of typically religiosity—people impressed by Jesus yet who are all too eager to simplify, codify, legalize, and institutionalize through exclusion the ways one is permitted to love and follow Jesus. But as Halík reminds us, “Jesus’s entire ministry. His teachings and His actions, could be characterized using Nietzsche’s expression ‘reevaluating values (15).” Thus the ENTRE sermon of the Mount, for which Halík puts one of its phrases in his own words, Blessed are you on the fringes, for you shall be at the center, at the heart! And according to Halík this is what Jesus did in summary! Another way of saying this is to simply say that Jesus included marginalized and unpredictable types at His table and there He, as host, sat amongst all!

Part of what concerns Halík is how we think about and thus how we treat those who are on the margins of faith. While he is open to discussing those on the fringes of society due to injustice, as he does with his glosses over liberation theology, his primary interest is in those who are on the margins because of doubt, perpetual seeking, uncertainty, or simply those who find faith challenging. Halík is concerned with what many call secularity. The first approach to all such folks is patterned by Jesus and introduced above: solidarity. There is no communication, teaching, service, nor is there any ministry, or even proper being human without first being with folks who are different than you! The second approach, and one which will serve pastors, priests, teachers, spiritual directors, evangelists, and indeed, every one of faith and good will is the approach of the spirit of seeking. And this does not simply mean that we are able to “notice” the spirit of seeking where it occurs—we must be and inhabit the act of seeking in our own lives.

Halík praises “the beginner’s mind” as it has been taught in Eastern traditions, which is akin to the many post-Ted Lasso meme’s that now suggest curiosity over judgment:

Let the people say: Amen! Halík writes further, “and our closeness to the seekers ought also to teach us openness; we don’t have to solely think about having to teach and edify them—we can also learn a great deal from them (18).” Such an approach pushes back against the temptations for what he calls “baroque triumphalism” which results in arrogance and ultimately a limit to our own growth and transformation. “If we can understand,” says Halík, “or distant God—including those who have been led to reject religion because of that experience—it can help us achieve a more mature form of faith than the naive and vulgar theism that is rightly criticized by atheists (20).”

Ultimately, solidarity with seekers, as Halík describes it can be an incredibly healthy thing for the faithful, spiritually! I write this reflection in the wake of a conversation with my wife. She told me a story about an interaction my daughter had with one of the faithful in our world. My daughter said she wanted to see the new film Wicked but we have not yet taken her. My wife overheard this dear one say to our daughter, “and your mom is right not to take you. You do not need wicked things in your life,” we are at this point unsure whether or not this person knew of the musical, film, or books, “as a Christian you need to be on guard about what ideas you put into your head,” this person asserted to our daughter. “Oh no,” my daughter replied, “Wicked is about,” and then she went on to explain the narrative’s meaning and her past engagement with it and so on. But her explanation fell on deaf ears. My daughter (and my wife) thankfully find themselves following Halík’s wisdom—they are not closed off to seekers, questions, expressions of the heart, or even those who are not firmly in the center of attention…sidling up to Christ! And that openness not only offers its own pedagogy in making their faith stronger, richer, more compelling, but it is also the best chance that they will be able to call those in the margins to find a seat at heart of the table, right next to Christ, the host!

That is his term — rooted and patterned after the character from St. Luke’s Gospel who hides up in a tree until addressed by Jesus — for those souls that are on the margins, or who as he says, “keeps their distance.” Halík muses, “most of those people did not choose their place ‘on the margins’ voluntarily. It could well be that some of them are also reticent because—like Zaccheus—they are all too aware that their own house is not in order, and they realize, or at least suspect, that changes need to be made in their own lives. Maybe, unlike the unfortunate person in one of Jesus’ parables, they realize they are not properly attired for the wedding for the wedding and therefore cannot take a seat among the guests of honor at the wedding feast (Patience with God, 5-6).” And, importantly, Halík notes that they are “still on the journey.”

That is very important to remember. It is an easy temptation for people of spiritual and religious conviction to assign labels when thinking of others: sheep over there and goats over here. Importantly this sorting has little to do with faithfulness, ethics, or issues of justice; no, all to often it has to do with belief as cognitive assent or at least verbal affirmation. But there are all sorts of modern Zacchaeus’s out there. They are on the margins because they have doubt and have not come to accept doubt as faith’s bedfellow. They keep their distance, because they have yet to accept themselves as they might have heard that God accepts them, so they still live under the weight of shame—they do not feel welcome. If they can’t accept themselves, then how is it that the community can accept them? This is an enormous existential fear. Sometimes these folks are still on their journey, intellectually. They understand many points of faith, and maybe are drawn to them, but have difficulty squaring them with other affirmations of belief. These modern day Zacchaeus’s live in the age of “authenticity,” secularity, cynicism, yet they are still looking for something more!

What Halík reminds us of, and what is so important to remember is that these souls are STILL ON A JOURNEY, and perhaps they are, like Zacchaeus, quietly watching and are waiting to be addressed. If it is your sense that you are called to preach, proclaim, teach, instruct, speak the sacred, direct spiritually, or what have you, then how will you go about addressing those who remain half in the shadows, on the margins, or who “stay back” while the faithful crowd around? There are a few ways to go about it:

1.) You must know those who need to be addressed. Hence, you must spend time with people, learning their stories, and sharing their life. Without this, you run the risk of addressing these modern Zacchaeus’s in overly confident ways that do damage. You can come off as arrogant. You can be dismissive of their questions. You might present answers to questions that NO ONE is asking—too much contemporary preaching does this, if I am frank. You can create new questions without ever having learned of the first ones. You could fumble over the emotional world’s of these soul’s inner lives and cause damage in the long run.

So, it is important to be patient with their doubt. It is important to address them on the journey as Jesus did. It is paramount to listen, engage, and share in the journey together. The point, after all, is transformation not verbal agreement.

2.) Embrace, do not eschew mystery. Halík writes, “truth happens in the course of dialogue. There is always a temptation to allow our answers to bring to an end the process of searching, as if the topic of the conversation was a problem that has now been solved. But when a fresh question arrives, the unexhausted depths of mystery who through once more. Let is be said over and over again: faith is not a question of problems but of mystery, so we must never abandon the ath of seeking and asking. Yes, in seeking Zacchaeus we must often shift from problems to mystery, from apparently final answers back to infinite questions (Patience with God, 7).” Doubt is not an enemy of faith, certainty is! Being a seeker is not something Jesus discourages, it is overly dogmatic and severe conviction. We must lean into mystery so we can learn into a message and life of perpetual seeking: for that is where the divine is encountered.

3.) Find new ways of sharing the message. The days of over-confident, triumphalist, authoritarian, and entertainment driven religious speech SHOULD be over. Let us not get into all of the abuses that have come about because of these sorts of approaches to the holy. But let’s remember that we are increasing in an age of secularity, and skepticism not to mention cynicism over religious institutions. Our speaking must be more creative as it invites people into an experience rather than merely transacts knowledge.

Be patient friends. Walk humbly and gently with others. And be a seeker for the seekers!

I agree with atheists on many things, often on almost everything— except for their belief that God doesn’t exist.

…With certain kinds of atheists I share a sense of God’s absence from the world. However, I regard their interpretation of this feeling as too hasty as an expression of impatience. I am also often oppress by God’s silence and sense of remoteness (From the Introduction of Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us).

How can you not be interested in that? I mean, Halík admits that he “gets” or understands, agrees even, with much that atheism asserts or at least feels. Simultaneously however, is his full-throated diagnosis that what separates people of un-belief from believers is an issue of patience. That, to me, sounds simple enough to be right, yet it calls us to read further to find out more fully what he means. And I intend to do that reflecting here. Over the next weeks, I will quote from, reflect on, and otherwise do my best to engage Halík’s ideas on faith, belief, doubt, atheism, and patience through the above quoted book, in particular. My purpose will be to exercise thinking in a Halík-ian sense, but more so to challenge my own thinking and better my own seeking as I too attempt to maintain faith in a world that appears to grow less believing all the time.

To begin this journey, I will quote Halík again from the introduction:

Hardly anything points toward God and calls as urgently for God as the experience of His absence. This experience is capable of leading some to “indict God” and eventually reject faith. There exist, however, particularly in the mystical tradition, many other interpretations of that absence, and other ways of coming to terms with it. Without the painful experience of a “world without God,” it is hard for us to grasp the meaning of religious seeking, as well as everything we want to say about “patience with God” and its three aspects—faith, hope, and love.

I’m convinced that a mature faith must incorporate those experiences that some call the “death of God” or —less dramatically—God’s silence, although it is necessary to subject such experiences to inner reflection, and also undergo and overcome them honestly, not in a superficial manner. I am not saying to atheists that they are wrong, but that they lack patience. I am saying to them that their truth is an incomplete truth.

Sometimes we forget that we are all seekers. Even for those who have been baptized, catechized, raised in the church, or those who have had dramatic conversion experiences, each in their own way is ever seeking God. For Halík, there is another assumption that many might overlook: everyone at one time or another will sense or feel or imagine that God is absent. While this is a painful experience, as evidence by how many reject God after such periods, they are also times that accelerate growth, for they produce in the seeker urgency, interest, sensitivity, and an ever watchfulness always on the lookout for God (James 4:8; Jer. 29:13; Matthew 6:33; Is 55:6).

What is the difference between a person who senses God’s absence and responds by leaving faith behind and another sensing the same absence yet responds by more ardent searching or perhaps more deeply become friends with the sense of absence through acceptance and embrace? For Halík it is patience. Perhaps it is as simple as that. Like most simple things, there is a complexity and subtlety that make the simplicity truthful or explanatory. Patience is nothing if not profound.

And in the mystical tradition that Halík briefly mentions there has been much ink spilled over the notions of divine absence (John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux) and the very raw experiences of saints in search for God who appears far off, quiet, and even the notion of abandonment. There’s also much work done on spiritual seeking and not knowing (The Cloud of Unknowing, De Docta Ignorantia “On Learned Ignorance,” and the examples of apophatic theology, etc.) or at least not knowing as though we can possess knowledge and fully explain things of God—indeed, there is much to be learned to accepting that God is beyond knowing, reason, experience, and so on. And as prevalent as these mystical approaches to God are throughout the great tradition, they do seem strange to many contemporary considerations of religious belief.

Contemporary religious belief is paired closely to propositional knowledge or truth claims. Further, it is the case, at least in much of American Christianity, that faith is made out to be equal to dogmatic confession more so than about holy living, communal celebration, or ecstatic worship. This is expressed when people are “de-fellowshiped” over differences in belief on doctrine or social issues rather than in examples of sin or misdeed. Simply, in some circles, if you do not say the “right” or accepted idea surrounding gay marriage, then you run the risk of being asked to leave, though you may not be asked to leave, and indeed you might even be forgiven if you are caught and appear repentant after having an extra-marital affair, etc. In this environment, Halík reminds us all that there is also a rich tradition in Christian faith that not only welcomes feelings of doubt, but also sees them as tools in one’s own journey of seeking—if you are patient enough to stay the course.

This all reminds me of a time I shared with my own spiritual director. I felt and had reported over the previous many months, that I have been undergoing a steady state of spiritual transformation and growth. I was grateful for sensing God’s presence in my life and I was even proud of my maturation. So, it was a shock, even to me, when he asked, “where have you noticed God recently,” and my answer to him was, “nowhere really.” I sat quietly. We sat quietly, together. And we made room for God to speak, or at least for my thoughts to flow. “I don’t know. I mean, I do not doubt God. I know God is around,” I said. “Maybe I even see a glimpse of God far away at times,” I imagined out loud. But then I continued, “I just don’t sense God with or even speaking to me.” I wondered if that sentiment was going to get me a scolding! Ah, you can take the boy out of the midwest but not the midwest out of the boy—we are always trying to be “good boys!” My director said, “that is ok, maybe the lesson is that you need to detach, or rather, maybe God is helping you to detach.”

I understood detaching from things like money, possessions, needing to be liked, and all that. But I could not quite square my mind with detaching from God. Isn’t God the one thing (person) you are to never let go of? But my soul friend continued, “you do not need to let go of God, you just need to learn to let go of your NEED to feel God at every moment. Do not let your feelings take the place of the ultimate in your mind…even your devotion can become an idol.”

The feeling of God’s absence can be a gift, if you are patient to stick with it. If you have that, it will lead you to deeper relationship with God. One way to be a person or remain a person of faith in an age of secularity, church decline, and many other options vying for your adoration is to remember that your feelings do not account for all of reality—at best they are data points. The best thing that data points do is help us make better and more informed choices. The choice I am trying to make whether I feel God’s radiance around me or not, is patience—and it in patience, even when touched by doubt, that I will develop a greater relationship with the divine! At least that is the lesson I am learning from my friend and the work of Tomáš Halík.

That is not the way I had hoped to wake up and begin the day. My first thought was a grumpy one. Don’t Trump supporters — who are supposed to be conservative — know that one of the most expensive costs in the world of reinsurance (insurers who insure the major insurance companies) is climate change related disasters: extreme draught, flooding, tornadic activity, hurricanes—all caused (as is accepted by the industry) by climate change. I doubled down in my pre-dawn shadow boxing, “don’t these people know that even the military considers climate change to be one of the leading national security risks?” I mean, the state department thinks along these lines, and as a result our armed forces have plans or deep thinking about climate change implications, national security, a porous border, mass migration, and so on. In my tired, barely waking brain, I thought, “are not conservatives supposed to be mindful and supportive of the military?” And perhaps among my less discerning questions—shouldn’t a conservative leadership wish to conserve things like natural resources…and life?

After my grumpy fog was lifted by the help of much needed caffeine and a few well timed hugs from my kids, I remembered that this Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. This all means that Thanksgiving is this week, which is a welcome and joyful distraction from what seems like a topsy-turvy world. It also means that Christmas is coming. Cue the bells, yay! I love to celebrate, so that is something I welcome too. Yet, I know all to well, that it is never good to skip over Advent. And Advent marks a time where we are collectively called to lean into the strangeness of our times. We are challenged to live amidst memory and expectation, as we wade in waters that don’t make sense with our highest ideals, dreams, wishes, and better—our hopes.

So, I looked at the Advent readings for this week. And there it was, looking back at me like red ink on a pop-quiz: Luke 21: 25-36. In the reading, there is no prophecy from the first testament. There is no angelic visitation. And there is certainly no pastoral image of expectation and longing. No, this week’s Gospel reading has a grown up Jesus telling his people to be on the lookout for a topsy-turvy, nay a violent and destructive world. This is hardly good news. Astute readers of the text will no doubt remind you that Jesus is speaking about things that will politically, and imperialistically take place in their lifetimes. Thus, his warning is a bit of grace or mercy extended to those whom Jesus loves. Yet, observers also note the context that there are bits and notes here about Jesus’ second coming, or the “second advent;” this is when Jesus will come in and finalize the ending of an old age, mark a new one, and usher in the finished product of the work of his ministry in Galilee. Some call this a Kingdom, others call it heaven, still some may just call it restoration. Whatever you call it, it is a time of hope.

It is hard to be hopeful when you wake up to the news everyday. And I really do not care who is in charge or what ideology has taken its sway over our culture. The world is topsy-turvy, it is violent and strange, and it is hard to imagine a second advent. It is tempting to simply memorialize and sentimentalize the first one. In light of this, I am thankful for the strange nature of Luke’s report in chapter 21—because it helps to make sense of these strange days that seem to make claim over my life’s narrative. Indeed, I like you, am a creature of these times, of this age! The message is hopeful, though. No matter how strange or incomprehensible, or even maddening the world appears, be on the lookout, for the object of our hope is still to come. The object of our hope is not in all of our legislating, voting, planning, coups, undermining, outflanking, saving, spending, branding, or bombing, it is in God’s ever in breaking into our midst. It is a light on the horizon. Hope comes at the unraveling of one age and the birth of the next.

We live in strange times, and Advent is a strange time. I guess we are right where we are supposed to be. Now what do you do with the times you have been given to live in?

There is a field of “monster theory” that takes this question seriously. It also asks a more fundamental question, “what is a monster?” The field of study is like any other—it is varied and complicated, and it is a mistake to over-generalize. Yet, I can at least assert some basic ideas for my seasonal machinations. Here are some noteworthy items we may note about monsters:

-In antiquity monsters were often signs of something worth noting: epochal change, a warning, fates being balanced, etc.

-Monsters were often composite creatures: a creature made of disparate other creatures, half man and half animal, etc.

-Monsters are symbols. They are personified fears or are at least the embodiment of universal human fears.

-We create the monsters we need to help us navigate our fear, understand our world, make sense of suffering, and so on.

Lately, I have not been sleeping well. Apparently, one of my medications has the penchant for waking me from my slumbers at around 3 am every night. Along with waking up, this medicine sends a jolt of energy through my body and tells my brain, “get to work!” When this nocturnal interruption occurred last night, I got up to do a bit of writing and in the background I decided to play the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic The Wolfman.

Aside from the anthropological evidence of cultural stories of shape-shifting like lycanthropy and other forms, I wondered as I half-way watched this old film—why do we tell stories like the wolfman? Upon first blush, it seems like werewolf stories raise a caution flag concerning the sort of monster that any human can become when they give themselves over to their anger or other unmitigated passions. I have heard famed director John Carpenter say several times and in various settings that there are two kinds of monsters:

1. The monster outside of us: ghosts, aliens, something supernatural.

2. The monster inside of us: deranged killer, malicious madman, my own self!

Characters like The Wolfman, David Kessler in An American Werewolf in London, and perhaps the Victorian character Mr Hyde all exist because they reflect human fears concerning anger, passion, lust/sexual desire, and the loss of self-control. We can be monstrous, as a species. One way to read these stories is to think about them in terms of social/personal subservience to the id without the ego’s mediation between it and the superego. Some commentators have even noted that many werewolf movies like The Wolfman were simple metaphors for puberty which is a time of human development that appears more tied to the id than perhaps other periods in development. This general read seems to be fair and reasonable—part of the human experience is learning to control oneself, make choices, and think with a social brain.

But as we continue to tell stories and as we continue to engage new ideas and anxieties throughout the generations, I think that the self-centered, id focused, loss of executive function in favor of immediate desire takes on a new concern. We live in a self-focused age, and perhaps it is more pronounced than in previous eras. It is commonplace to note with Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor that our age is best known as the age of authenticity. This means that the high watermark of this age is that individuals have the ability to self-express, define themselves, and seek their bliss. I can hear the voices and mottos ring aloud in my mind right now, “you do you,” “be yourself,” and “I was born this way!” The younger generations, I am told, are now the most labelled generations in all of human history (think of: sex, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, affiliations and more). And above all, it seems, we prize authenticity; indeed we want authentic leaders. I find it incredible how many people forgive a leader’s bad actions because, “well at least they are authentic…” What does that even mean?

I too, treasure authenticity. I want to live honestly. I seek integrity of my inner and outer world. I hope that my leaders are real and relatable to my life. But, if that is the high water mark for how we evaluate everything, then how is it much better than other forms of living obedient to me, myself, and I? How does the search for authenticity not lead me down the monstrous path of self-interest at all costs? Recently, I read a lovely piece by Luke Bretherton on the recent conversion of public intellectuals. I appreciate one simple point he reminded readers of in his piece, and it has to do with our age’s chief goal of authenticity. Bretherton notes,

As an aside, within this theology of conversion there is no “authentic” form of Christianity. Authenticity is a deeply modern sentiment alien to Christianity. Christianity is about being faithful, not authentic. All forms of Christianity—if they are being faithful—are subject to ongoing dynamics of continuity and change as they embody the paradoxical movement of restoration and new birth.

As I sat trying to write at 3 am last night, watching The Wolfman, while simultaneously wondering about monsters and what they say to us today, I thought: maybe the fear that werewolves touch on, in our current context, is a cautionary note about patterning ourselves solely on our wishes, self-definitions, chosen labels, service to our “inner truth” etc. at the expense of something more. What is that something more? For Bretherton it is faithfulness. In terms of life-change another term may be employed: conversion. Conversion is where we do not make up our identity, but it is given in grace. Authenticity is learning to live out that renewed identity habitually through virtue formation. Perhaps an antidote to the fear of the wolfman is a Christian one…conversion to a life of faithfulness…and perhaps if one devotes themselves well enough, others may even feel it is authentic?

In the Sarandos interview, you will hear the fascinating story of how Netflix went from a DVD shipping company to a pioneer in streaming content and industry disruption. The interview also follows the story of how show business once belonged to a studio system, but now, and because of Netflix, it is very much a hybridized business made up of studios, the tech industry, and an international/global market of consumers and producers. Lulu Garcia-Navarro, an insightful conversationalists, asks no small question, “has streaming been good for culture?” No surprise, for Sarandos, it most certainly has been. He explains,

Oh, I think it’s been great for culture. Not only great for culture; in a strange way, I think it’s been great to make the world a safer place. I think you’re exposed to cultures around the world in a way that makes you more understanding and empathetic. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie “A Separation” from Iran? It’s a story of a couple getting divorced in Iran, and you realize when you watch it how much we have in common with each other.

Not shying away, Garcia-Navarro inquires about the algorithm associated with streaming. The algorithm attempts to make suggestions based on your viewing preferences, so in a way, does the algorithm work to further “atomize” you by serving up, as she puts it, “more of the same…and the idea of communal culture gets sort of pushed away?” For Sarandos an example like the show Baby Reindeer demonstrates the opposite, because it is such a unique show, on the surface it would fit into a very niche market space. But, precisely because it was watched and liked, the algorithm pushed it up the queue and exposed unintended audiences to it. And apparently, according to the numbers, those audiences loved it as well. For Sarandos, streaming is a cultural gemstone, because it can widen an audience’s horizons by exposing them to stories and story-tellers they would have otherwise never had the chance to experience. And as the interview goes, Sarandos wants us all to stream much more than we do already.

That last bit startled me. I stream enough, to be sure. And I have no data or research to back it up, but my suspicion is that there is a sort of dopamine dump or at least some sort of addictive pleasure principle at play in the way streaming works. I assume it is not unlike what has come to be known as “doom scrolling” with social media. But it is also startling, because of the other interview, one that I view as a sort of companion to the Sarando’s piece, called Robert Putnam Knows Why You Are Lonely also conducted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Putnam is a Political Scientist who wrote a highly lauded book in 2000 called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. This book attracted the attention of so many thought leaders and politicians in that day, because there was the growing sense that Americans were becoming polarized and lonelier than they were in the mid-twentieth century. And maybe the reason for the loneliness of American’s bled into the reason for the rise in polarization.

One interesting aspect of this interview is that it takes place 24 years after the publications of Putnam’s data soaked book, and American’s are reporting higher levels of both loneliness and polarization than they did when it came out. This leads Putnam to tell Garcia-Navarro that perhaps he failed to do much to change that growing trend, and as a retrospective on a career and calling it is a fascinating conversation. Of particular interest to me as a theologian and clergy-person, thus someone who has an interest in spirituality, communal life, and virtue formation is that Putnam is still convinced of his thesis from Bowling Alone—we contemporary folk are lonely and more isolated, because we have stopped joining things like bowling leagues, churches, rotary, Boy Scouts, etc. Or, at least, membership in these voluntary associations has been on a steady decline for at least 50 years (for more on the decline of voluntary associations and the decline in church attendance see Ted Smith’s wonderful work The End of Theological Education. For my money it needs to be read alongside of Andy Root’s work on ministry in a secular age). In the interview Putnam says:

I think we’re in a really important turning point in American history. What I wrote in “Bowling Alone” is even more relevant now. Because what we’ve seen over the last 25 years is a deepening and intensifying of that trend. We’ve become more socially isolated, and we can see it in every facet in our lives. We can see it in the surgeon general’s talk about loneliness. He’s been talking recently about the psychological state of being lonely. Social isolation leads to lots of bad things. It’s bad for your health, but it’s really bad for the country, because people who are isolated, and especially young men who are isolated, are vulnerable to the appeals of some false community. I can cite chapter and verse on this: Eager recruits to the Nazi Party in the 1930s were lonely young German men, and it’s not an accident that the people who are attracted today to white nationalist groups are lonely young white men. Loneliness. It’s bad for your health, but it’s also bad for the health of the people around you.

For Putnam the community feature of what he calls “social capital” or the social connections and networks that one is imbedded are in some ways the cure for loneliness. And if this capital can ameliorate loneliness, then it can quell silohed and polarized thinking. Putnam wishes that people would join groups more often, and when he first started thinking about this as a solution to the problem there was no ill-effect of social media on society—which seems to be part of so many contemporary problems like anxiety, sectarian/tribalism, and polarization. Not to oversimplify, but Putnam thought that 25 years ago, we were increasingly isolated and lonely because we were staying in at home and watching television and other media on our own as opposed to being out in the community with others. And now, with social media, that has only increased exponentially—even when people are together, they are alone staring at screens etc. But as far as polarization goes and with it the way we tend to demonize others, what Putnam thinks is the problem is trends in morality. Or the decline in morality, to be specific. And he thinks this occurs because people are with others less, which lessens “a sense that we’re all in this together and that we have obligations to other people. Now, suddenly, I’m no longer the social scientist, I’m a preacher. I’m trying to say, we’re not going to fix polarization, inequality, social isolation until, first of all, we start feeling we have an obligation to care for other people. And that’s not easy, so don’t ask me how to do that,” he says.

As I re-read these two interviews that I initially listened to, I saw dovetailing connections. One of them presents a leader who wants us to stream more digital content at home. Not only will this grow his bottom line and produce better content, but it may just expose audiences to narrative and points of view they would otherwise never have contact with. And that is good, because it expands horizons, ethical considerations, and dare I say it opens the possibility for a more cosmopolitan consciousness. The other is from a thinker who is burdened by how digital offerings turn us away from groups, gatherings, communities and clubs. Those represent the social world’s opportunity for building relationship with other people. And by being brought into various relationships one’s consciousness about other people, points of view, and concerns broadens. The result is that people will be less alone as well as more committed to one another. Which one is more true?

Dualities make thinking easy, but they do not get to the depth of our human condition. Can watching shows open our minds? Yes, just as much as reading widely can expose you to world’s and points of view beyond your own, so can streaming content. But it is also true that streaming widely in no way requires you to build empathy or engage with other people in personal ways. Can joining a voluntary group connect you to others and expose you to a wider world? Certainly, but could you also join groups that are homogenous in ideology and experience? There is no panacea to our modern problems. But as I ask the question of how do we encounter the divine in ordinary life, I am forced to face the narratives above. And in so doing I am left with a few cautionary thoughts.

First, I think it wise to consume content (books, podcasts, television, film, news) from a wide array of backgrounds. In an algorithmic age that is driven to keep us on one platform or another, we have to force ourselves to curate the wider world, so that we engage in diversity of expression. And we must also be mindful of how much we consume. We are animals hungry for story, but if all we ever do is consume stories, then we will not be making many of our own. Secondly, I think it wise to heed Putnam’s concern about digital spaces and being alone while engaging them (or alone together, as Sherry Turkle called the phenomenon). If all we do is alone, then we will miss out on opportunities to have our lives transformed by the stories of others in our midst. If all we do is mediated by watching a screen, then we will miss out on the somatic reality we were designed for. These two cautionary thoughts are not novel or that interesting. What I am more compelled by is that Sarandos and Putnam want the same thing, but as their separate interviews go, my guess is that they would go about it in very different ways. I always find it interesting when the end goal is the same for two very approaches to a thing!

I do worry more about Sarandos’ hopes that we stream more than we do now. And while I think it is true that we can expand our understanding of the world by watching diverse stories, I believe this really requires mindful watching, not the mere passive viewing that streaming promotes. I am afraid that our culture’s addiction to streaming and scrolling harkens back to Nietzsche’s discussion about the “last man,” the lazy or passive life frittered away. And while I am more sympathetic to Putnam’s claims about belonging, I am afraid that the the age of voluntary associating is an age that is dying, as Ted Smith expertly shows in The End of Theological Education. As if just joining things would fix all our woes, it seems like the sorts of things we join today do not look like the same things we joined a half century ago. But I am interested in his more communitarian focus. In the end, for those of us who are thinking about theological, spiritual, ethical, or simply religious teaching and so on, these two articles help us to understand the cultural landscape, and they help us see some proposed aids for all that troubles us. There seems to be some truth in both, though they are not equal in measure. We live in a world of digital entertainment. How can we utilize that to help expand people’s experiences and thus train them in empathy? How can we speak of the concern of loneliness and offer communitarian helps in order to expand understanding and empathy? Can they, if framed rightly be seen as spiritual tools? I think so.

Perhaps, for our purposes, it is enough to raise the caution flag and heed the call of self-reflection. Instead of passive viewing and streaming can we watch with a more reflective eye? Instead of just joining things or going alone, can we reflective seek gatherings that may challenge us? It is all food for thought. One thing is for sure, if we are going to be more than idle, and more than lonely, then we will have to be intentional!

As a Christian theologian and as a member of the clergy, I often ask myself how am I to speak in such a world. Am I being of service to people by continuing to promote the institution of the church? Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the church. I believe in it because I believe that one thing God does in Jesus is asks us to be a human family, and so we need a place and community to be called to where we would not choose to belong if we were left up to our own interests, peccadilloes, prejudices, and voting patterns. I grieve the polls that report that religious people only wish to worship with people who share the same political beliefs or the ones that suggest that folks would rather their children marry outside of their faith over their political party! I also believe in the church, because I think we are supposed to be more human than we are. And I learn how to be more humane by being put into relationships with people who have a different story than my own, and with people that sometimes annoy me, or whom I annoy in return. If we don’t have something like that, then we tend to splinter off into homogeneous zones of social comfort. How banal. And to the extent that the church has operated in that same, banal and morally specious fashion, it is a sin that runs counter the church’s own mission, purpose, and calling.

The real question facing people today who believe in God, but struggle with the church is does it add anything to people’s lives. And to this I might add questions that are interrupted by kids in travel sports, specialized music programs, traveling work schedules, hobbies and interests that are life giving, and who can access content anywhere and find a group that fits their interests online, etc. Is there anything that a church that meets in an old building, that does some frustrating things at times, and is sometimes out of step, can offer to credibly add value to anyone’s daily life? Avoiding the obvious theological individualism and consumerism of the question, I do forgive many for feeling like they “get God” all over the place, why do they need to move their lives around to attend and be part of a church when their lives are so hectic?

I have theological answers to this question. But no one is buying. So let me sell something else, though in my cynicism I doubt that it will do the trick either. And I have already given the sales pitch: go to church, learn how to be a human being. We all need “strange friendships.” We all benefit from other stories, styles, and points of view. In our fragmented, highly mobilized, and fractious world, where else than in a place of deliberate intentional community like a church will you be firmly held in the thrall of a community not of one’s own choosing? A family! If you thought family, well maybe that makes sense for a good reason. Theologically, the church is a foretaste of a new human family where the peace is always passed, and a common cup is shared. It is where forgiveness is tried and practiced, and where confession is made. It is a place of affirmation and a place where one can be called to do better. And though people “church shop” and treat a church as a consumable item, really you are not supposed to be so choosey. And at the end of the day, no matter which one you choose you will be forced into relationships not of your own design—and you will be a better human being for it.

I believe that if Christians, and followers of other faith traditions were at least true to their communal calling, then maybe our polarized world would be aided. How can we hold such burning and divisive attitudes toward others when we are put into relationship with them in such an intimate and communal way? Much of our contemporary division stems for misunderstanding and otherizing. It is less easy to make an other out of someone that you regularly eat with. It is less easy to make hasty judgements about someone else’s intentions or motivations when you see them care deeply about others in service, comfort, and care. It is hard to keep up the illusions of our egos when we are faced with other people—people hold up mirrors to us, so that we can more easily see ourselves. So when we engage in real community, with people who we would not always choose left to ourselves, we will no doubt learn to see ourselves in new ways.

Of course going to church is no panacea. When there, we need to be real. We need to embody the words of the liturgies which are full of confession, forgiveness, peace, and transformation—in short we need to show up for transformational communal experiences, not simply to appease our individualistic or self-interested inclinations. But more on that for another day. I do see some value still in the church…whatever she looks like…for people today. Show up, maybe you’ll become more human.

This morning I listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s first podcast episode for season 11 of Revisionist History. The Episode in question is called “Hitler’s Olympics Part 1: The Blue-Eyed Tornado.” In the very interesting episode, Gladwell features content about American Journalist who saw who Hitler was before anyone else did. Her name is Dorothy Thompson. Apparently, she is quite the character, and one I will look into much more in the near future. The part of her bio that I found interesting for my purposes here is that she was the daughter of a minister, and a supposedly bad minister at that. Gladwell and his guest reflect on what such an upbringing would mean for a kid. They imagine it strange to be a child of a person who stands before people to proclaim things of divinity, meaning, and ethics. They are not wrong, this is strange, indeed. But, further, it must be strange to watch your own father do this sort of thing and then see him at home mowing the lawn, brushing his teeth, and wearing sweat pants. To do so would be like seeing behind the curtain, as Dorothy saw the Wizard of Oz. The implication, I think, is that there might be two realities of the one father: a public persona of holiness and insight and a private persona filled with quotidian idiosyncrasies and maybe even some inconsistencies.

Maybe this is true. This might be a reason that children of public proclaimers of morality, spirituality, and the transcendent sometimes reject their parents values, traditions, and beliefs, or maybe that is why they rebel. It sounds like a good theory to me, at least in part. But, I find the dual nature of this supposed preacher to be problematic. Certainly, it is a time when people are begging for authenticity. Culturally, people yearn for vulnerability, and openness. It is no longer in vogue to present as the “strong man” of history who has none of the problems of ordinary people. It seems that people want to know that their leaders, teachers, directors, clergy, etc. have similar struggles, or that they have at least encountered common trials that most people face.

Yet, when I look out at the world of spiritual leaders and civic leaders alike, I still see strong appeals to authority, power, and strength. Authority matters, but where does it come from? Does it come from speaking strongly, simply, and with clarity? Does authority come from moral superiority or a place of ideology? Or does it come from an authentic, genuine, engagement between a leader and a people? In my experience it makes sense to honestly share the truth of your journey with an audience. But it also helps to be real about how much you are uncertain about a direction or how to understand an issue. People want to follow someone who is real, yet has the courage to keep going. People will tend to listen to someone that is learning with them; and they will do so much more than they will follow someone who is unmovable, because the truth is that all of us change and we want to know that those who teach, share, and lead us change too. It is relatable, and in the relating comes the authority, which is not a top down power display, but an organic invitation to influence.

Perhaps, the assumption is that these reflective arts belong to the spiritual elite—monks, priests, hermits, and mystics. We can thin of figures such as Thomas Merton or Thich Naht Hanh here. Certainly no one with a mortgage and a house full of kids has time for the luxuries of such deep reflection? Not unless, like monks, their job description is: contemplation, prayer, silence, work, and repeat! It is true that mindfulness and meditation are quite vogue at the heights of technocentricism a la Silicon Valley, that is to say that it has reached a status of marketability in this time of late day capitalism. It is nothing to hear of a secular CEO of some tech giant or life-style guru/angel investor such as Tim Ferriss or Ryan Holiday talk of the lessons of stoic philosophers, their meditation practice, and other pseudo-spiritual and philosophical tools that appear to have the veneer of the category called “life hacks” about them! You would be forgiven for thinking that time for this level of reflection and contemplation is reserved for the privileged class that can also afford the financial resources and resources of time to devote a week to a peyote-filled, shaman-led, “phoneless” retreat in some high desert area in the US Southwest.

It is true, in a sort of “life hack” way, that the reflective arts are helpful for personal development. And for the spiritual, they are essential, no matter what religio-philosophical tradition. In this way, the reflective arts are part of the perennial tradition. But one thing that is often missing is the fact that the reflective arts are good and helpful for the state of the public good. That is to say, they are tools that benefit the social order, and relationships within communities and between communities. How so, is fairly straightforward. If there is to be a “common sphere” or any sense of society, then it is made up of human beings who all have the ability to be reflective, self critical, and curious as well as having the equal abilities to assume the worst, project fears, alienate and “other-ise,” and so on. And Anthony de Mello was right, “you see persons and things not as they are, but as you are.” For a society to uphold the common good as a goal, or for it to at least aim above the impoverishment of sheer polarization that we seem to be facing so much of today, it would do us all well to get a better handle of “things and people,” which we do not do so well, for we really see and experience the world through our own “stuff.” Reflective arts can help anyone cut through the illusions of self-righteousness and the persistent temptation to demonize someone else, sometimes anyone else. You have heard it so many times that it has become corny to you, no doubt, that you should “seek first to understand, then be understood.” Cliche, yes, but good advice. No less corny is the other bit of advice that goes like this, “in order to be interesting seek first to be interested,” or something along those lines. Again, it is a cliche, but in my experience it is true, because people do like to talk about themselves.

The ultimate point of these ideas however, is not to be effective by using these as manipulative tools to get ahead—even if the way we want to get ahead is not so self-centered as it could be if we were people of “lesser morals.” No, the point is that such thinking opens us up to the truth of other people and their stories. Another word for this is empathy, and there can be no doubt, there is no common good for anyone without an enlargement of empathy in a community. No, the aim of the reflective arts for the common good is not about compromise or agreement. It is about understanding, even amidst disagreement. It is about understanding others and their unique points of view that bring a sense of dignity. It validates their cares at a deep level. One practiced in the reflective arts is one that has a deep pool from which to draw on for listening, teaching, creative expression, and even policy-making! But today’s world seems to offer two constants stand in the way: 1.) the world is so full of distractions that it is hard to pull oneself away for true self-reflection and contemplation, and 2.) what we have on offer to distract us is often designed to drag us into ideological silos. I fear this is producing not only a contentious world that can hardly imagine a social good or a common good, but it is also making us homogenous bores.

Break free by doing nothing. Break free by turning off, tuning out, and turning inward. I will not prescribe any traditional form at this point. For now, it is enough just to ask myself to practice the reflective arts everyday. If I do not do this, I will have nothing to say that will be of any good to anyone, for I will not see the world as it is, beyond the way in which I am twisted up on the inside. I will only see myself projected outwardly—and that is not the whole world!

McCarthy met with folks who were associated, like he was, with a group of young actors in the 1980’s who were called the “Brat Pack,” a pun of sorts with reference to an older version of Show business populated with the likes of Bogart and Bacall, Sammy Davis Jr., and the “chairman” Frank Sinatra. The new name was given to a new Hollywood “it” crowd (or so it seemed to be cohesive crowd to audiences and the public) by journalist David Blum in an article in New York Magazine.

The documentary explores what the name meant, and why the author used it—was he taking a cheap shot on the young actors or was it a valid description? I found it interesting as McCarthy travels to actors with whom he once shared a screen (three decades before) on a quest to learn of their own experience being branded as amongst a pack of brats, that most of the actors never felt like they were in any such group. The reason is that there was no cohesive group to speak of. The association was almost all professional with many of the actors leading very different lives from their co-stars. Some of the actors felt pained by the article. To them, it was as if, the article by Blum pigeon-holed them into a sort of adolescent party, filled with entitled kids who had stardom handed to them. They felt slighted, as if their hard work and devotion to the craft of acting meant nothing to the public, or anyone else.

I will not go into speculation about any of this. I am sure it was painful for them when they were branded brats in their youth. I am sure it created insecurities and anxiety. I am certain that the journalist thought he was going to sell well with his cuteness and creativity. And I am certain that audiences love to look back at the past as we all do, so this sort of study is very welcome to audiences wishing for a bit of nostalgia. But what impressed me was Andrew McCarthy’s feelings. He once hated the article. He felt it unfair. It hurt him professionally to be associated with the Brat Pack, he believes. But in retrospect, gifted with time and life, he now looks back on this association with gratitude, and warmth. He even shares in a rather deep and insightful (psychologically speaking) conversation with fellow “Brat Packer,” Demi Moore. It was full of laughter, enlightenment, joy, and perspective…oh beautiful perspective! And for me, as a viewer I felt the pull of inspiration, the allure of this perspective—what hard time, experience, season of life will I look back on later and feel gratitude for, rather than angst or pain? Most certainly, I will look back on many hardships and see them not simply has hard or painful, but see them as having done something meaningful inside of me. But it is not only that hardship produces growth in us, or that it makes us more effective, or something like that. I imagine I will look back and see things I missed along the way, so busy was I with worry. Maybe I’ll look back and see a new that my life (when I thought it was tough) was not ALL hard; it is most certainly more than one thing!

Perhaps this is why there is the spiritual practice of memento mori—remember your death. To remind yourself that you will die, to call to mind how brief your experience is within cosmic time, to humbly admit how inconsequential to the whole your one experience is….is a practice that puts your life into a perspective for good living. For Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, memento mori helps you to keep things in perspective so you can more ably get through what seems hard; it also helps you to live life ethically. For the Christian tradition, recalling your death (thus reflecting on your being as finite, contingent, creaturely, and needy) spiritually tethers one to the source of life, ethically prepares you for a good funeral, psychologically aids in walking through anxiety and hard times, and experientially grounds you in the present in a positive/faithful way. With our minds evolutionarily biased toward negative things, so that we may protect ourselves from harm, it might seem strange to think of the very thing that is most harmful to our life—our death. But it is not a contradiction, it is just a paradox, revealing something profound about the sort of existence we have, of which death is but one part, yet it is a part that if we live faithfully toward, it can make life more meaningful.

I am thankful for McCarthy’s documentary today, because it reminded me of the power of perspective. It called me out of my quotidian worry and took me into the future when I will look back upon today with its very unique trials, and it told me, “one day you will look back on this time and smile for good days gone by!” It told me that maybe I should, presently, be thankful for those “prickly people” who seem to trouble my day, because I suspect one day I will tell stories of them with fondness in my heart. But the documentary pulled me beyond a future retrospective gaze, it took me to my body’s demise—my death. And I was reminded of this spiritual practice that has done so much good for me. Because, when I live in light of my future death I begin to review everything in my life: the messy room, opposing points of view, other people’s poor behavior, ignorance, the reading on my scale, my bank account, a diagnosis, and even missing garbage day.

Today, I take comfort in thinking that Christianity is about responding to the empty tomb. It makes room for differing experiences, and unique points of view that must be considered in table fellowship settings, or in councils, but a place of unity amidst the diversity nonetheless. So what is the work of theology? On this Holy Saturday, I am taking more comfort and direction from Fr. John Behr’s The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death. There he writes, “theology begins, rather, with the opening of the scriptures by the risen Lord, so that his disciples can see how they all speak of him and the necessity of his Passion, and so be prepared to share the meal to which he invites them, when he is recognized and disappears from sight (Lk 24.27-32), creating in them a desire for the Coming One. It is based on Peter’s acknowledgement that he had betrayed Christ, that he was complicit in his death, but is nevertheless, and as a forgiven sinner, called to be an apostle, proclaiming the forgiveness of Christ, his mercy and his love—a new creation (Behr, 141-12).”

I know by quoting Behr I am skipping past Holy Saturday to a Resurrection narrative. But it is appealing to think about, considering that one reason I write in this space is that it serves as a laboratory for thinking, preaching, and leading in an age of increasing secularity and church decline. Yes, I think one faithful NT understanding of Christianity is connected to “responding to the empty tomb” and I think it is also faithful to think that theology begins re-reading the scriptures in light of the empty tomb, but I also think these tonal notes make sense to a population that is not interested in the “institutionality” of church or anything else. Both are about relational practices, and both imply table fellowship. Neither are reducible to dogma, or tradition, but the real living experience of a church alive responding, discussing, reading and re-reading, and thus making new sense of something one could scarcely dare to imagine—death turned inside out.

Further, for Behr, theology begins with re-reading scriptures through Jesus in preparation for the Eucharistic meal or table fellowship. The driving thread here is not a statement of doctrine or proposition, but a practice—Eucharist. Christians are indeed people who practice a meal together. And I believe that NONES, the disaffiliated, people fed up with church abuse and hypocrisy will be more winsomely called not to an institution, but to a practice. On this Holy Saturday I am asking myself how my preaching can lead to a response to an empty tomb, a re-reading of scripture, and drive to the table which is our unifying practice.

Have a blessed saturday.

Behr utilizes St. Irenaeus and St. Ignatius, pulling on theological themes of martyrdom and humanity. Why? Because according to Behr’s reading of the church Father’s the project of humanity was not complete in Genesis, it is only when Christ hands his life over for the life of the world that the cosmos witnesses what humanity is meant for—self-giving love.

“Let us make mankind in our image” was being fulfilled or completed or brought to its climax when Pilate said “ecce homo” or “behold the man!” Christ is the meaning of not only God, but the fullest meaning of humanity.

Happy Good Friday

This all reminds me of a text that I love by Merold Westphal Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism. In the text, Westphal advocates reading atheism for lent. Though I know it sounds shocking and I have had more than one conversation with scholars who are wise beyond words that expressed concern for this, Westphal’s point is interesting to me. He claims that the masters of suspicion (Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and Feuerbach) tout an atheism that runs deeper than many late day atheists. What makes them masters of suspicion is not that they sit around debating facts, or historical reliabilities, or even issues of science vs religion. No, they are rather suspicious of what makes believers believe. Do you believe because it adds power to your life? Do you have faith because it serves your ends? Does piety serve as a sort of wish fulfillment or an opiate to numb you from the cold hard truth of reality. In short, theirs is a psychologically and existentially probing method of questioning—and it becomes personal. They aim to reveal when a religion is not truly an authentic faith response to a divine experience, but rather is an instrument for power, control, or self-aggrandizement.

I assume these masters of suspicion would be foaming at the mouth, champing at the bit to be let loose on a character such as Trump who is in bad financial shape, and needs to keep certain strands of Christian community happy, as he has now taken to selling something as blatantly idolatrous as a patriotic Bible. He has already used the Bible, at least once, in such an egregious show of instrumental religion. Remember that? Do you remember the fracas near the White House, when Trump marched across a street, stood in front of a church, and quite angrily held up the Bible (upside down, I believe) to signal something to his audience?

So many have been asking what I think of the patriotic Bible deal he is up to now. All I do is shake my head and say, “what else did we expect, this is who he is and who he has always been!” But it does call to mind a film I watched sometime ago, and I commend it to you all. It is called The Book Of Eli. It is a post-apocalyptic tale where a person played by Denzel Washington walks the world on a mission to carry a book toward an undeclared destination. Along the way he encounters warlords, and fiefs who wish to gain more power. One such leader is played by Gary Oldman, his name is Carnegie. Carnegie is literate whereas most of his fiefdom is illiterate. Still, he sends out war parties to collect books for him to look through. There is one book he wants. But how are they to know when they find it, they cannot read after all? He makes the sign of the cross with his fingers to show them what the book will look like.

As the clip reveals, Carnegie does not wish to find a Bible as a rule for his faith, or as a comfort for journeying with God in hard times. Nor is it to be a book of wisdom and instruction for virtue. Rather, the Bible has a certain power. It can elicit devotion, commitment, and allegiance (making it a strange bedfellow to wed with patriotism or worse…nationalism), and Carnegie knows this more than anyone else.

The reality is that the Bible has been used for good reasons and for bad ones. People of faith have danced with those in power, and we have been on the brutal end of other’s power. The Bible has been weaponized and it has been a source of others healing. This reality not to mention other ways we have instrumentalized religion/spirituality/faith/the church reminds me that today’s NONES, and today’s younger generations have well formed meters for power, abuse, and inauthenticity. Religious expression that is ripe for our moment and is ready to live and be deployed in a time of church decline must be free of instrumentality. It must be earnest (even for generations that enjoy aesthetic cynicism), honest about its motivations, and it must be aware of the ills of the world as well as the ills of the heart of the faithful.

What do I think of Trump’s desire to sell patriotic Bibles? Maybe this debacle is what we deserve? Maybe he is reflecting who we are? Maybe we should be better and thus expect better. Or maybe it is a lesson for us to always check our intentions. Let us ask ourselves: is our faith instrumental, or is it sincere movement in faith in response to what God has done?

The preacher (whom I do not know, but I have intimate knowledge of the congregation) went on a slowly paced invitation to imagination. He asked the congregation to imagine their heavenly father sitting in heaven watching down on us. Let me say that this sort of anthropomorphizing of God can either be rhetorically effective or it can conjure up some less than helpful theology. Offered in brief doses this sort of rhetoric can be humorous and it can make God approachable, offered as it was as a prolonged, humorless, and sincere point of view it reduced God to creaturely frustration, and possibly induces shame in the hearer. The preacher went on to say that God only ever asked us to love each other…which was supposed to be simple. He even said that God mused something like “hey, I even gave you an example” which was his reference to Christ. He plodded on and on in a slow rhythm which sort of gave the impression that his comments were deep—it was a sort of artificial gravitas on display.

I listened. I felt. I contemplated. Then I wondered, “why did this bother me?” Then I thought, am I to feel shame that loving is challenging for humans to do? I mean, it must be, because we do not do it so well or often enough. What about that, did his sermon probe or read the human experience enough to show how the Gospel helps me do what I am made to do? Well it did by showing me that God must be perplexed by us—that our inabilities or failings poses some confusion to God. At best I just felt ashamed that I was one of the dunces that could not figure out the most basic of teachings. I guess I am a confusion for God. What does that say about God? I get that it was a rhetoric device (thinly veiled as it was), but ultimately it makes God a very big, and smug version of the preachers identity.

A note on this church. It is large, and it was born out of the a mainline denomination. In fact the church is old, historic even. But over the years it has morphed into the most generic version of evangelicalism. The music is good. The social impact is energetic. And the spirit is very optimistic. But when I hear the preaching, I hear a carbon copy of a carbon copy. It seems like the sermon exist to make the Gospel simple and life changing. But what I miss is nuance, and real life. I feel no sense of how the holy texts can grapple with the reality of human nature and drama. I hear nothing of the challenging bits of scripture that can only be taught when a community wrestles through them. And I certainly never witness uncertain messaging or messages of struggle like: doubt, lament, sorrow, persistence and so on.

The world is hard. Maybe we should meet the world with a challenging message. Maybe we should elevate rather than tone down.

I still stand behind the notion: bad theology hurts. I think anthropomorphizing God for the sake of rhetoric better be done with great discretion and care—otherwise someone might walk away thinking that God is not able to understand us….and isnt the whole point of the incarnation that God radically identifies with us: “
God became mankind so that mankind could become God” is a line from our faith written so long ago!