On Baseball and the Essential Truth of Each Moment

Grant Brisbee is my all time favorite baseball writer. But recently he wrote something that led me to a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) rumination on the nature of life and of baseball. Grant wrote, "Baseball isn’t meant to be decided over a best-of-seven series, but some jerk thought it made sense for some reason." I get where Grant is coming from.  In the world of baseball fans who believe that the data analytics are the actual substance of the game and not say, the actual catching, throwing, hitting, running and so forth of the game this has become somewhat axiomatic – there’s no way you can tell over a 7 game series which is the better team. Post-season baseball is a facade, a sham, a veil that hides the truth of baseball which is best discovered in decimals that become accurate only after thousands upon thousands of iterations.

But frankly, this is not true of baseball nor is it true of life. Philosophers have been wrestling with the limits of experience in the face of the overwhelming variety of possibility for millennia – the age old quandary of ‘the one and the many’ has long vexed us. But in baseball, as in life, there come rare moments that carry more weight than others. I have lived over 17,000 days. I can remember barely a hint of any of them. But there are some that matter. The day my first child was born. The day my first crush broke my heart. The day I came down with an incurable illness that for all practical purposes ended my life. Perhaps these things shouldn’t matter in the vast expanse of days – both those days I’ve lived and the billions of days other people have lived. But they do matter.

And so does a 7 game series. The idea that a 7 game series isn’t the way baseball should be played is as ignorant of the existential nature of life as is the idea that the death of a dearly beloved beloved friend doesn’t really matter because, hell, there’s 7 billion more people out there. The actual truth is that baseball has had 7 game series in the fall decide the champion for more than 100 years and more often than not the experience of it has been utterly thrilling and, in its own way, indicative of the truth that in moments of intensity everything that rises must converge. 7 games carry the imprint of eternity every bit as much as 162 games. Were the Giants in 2012 the better team than the Tigers? The question is absurd. The truth is when the moment arrived Romo threw a fastball straight down the middle and the best hitter and baseball just watched it like he were a statue. And much joy ensued in Giants land while tears were shed in Detroit. And every fall there’s another iteration of the 7 game microcosm and every fall it is glorious. Just the way it was meant to be.

Segundo Galilea: The Power of Christian Contemplation

"Authentic Christian contemplation, passing through the desert, transforms contemplatives into prophets and heroes of commitment, and militants into mystics. Christianity achieves the synthesis of the politician and the mystic, the militant and the contemplative, and abolishes the false antithesis between the religious contemplative and the militantly committed. Authentic contemplation, through the encounter of the absolute of God, leads to the absolute of one's neighbor." 

- Segundo Galilea, from Liberation as an Encounter with Politics and Contemplation

Non-Violence: It's Not What You Think It Is

I hear a lot of voices advocating for non-violence without understanding what non-violence is. Non-violence is not passivity or a willingness to tolerate evil. Non-violence is a type of warfare that is waged strategically with weapons of the spirit. Proponents of non-violence must be willing to die in battle just as any other soldier in warfare. The basic thought of non-violence is that the love-ethic modeled by Jesus is the most powerful force in the human sphere, and perhaps in the sphere of the known material universe. If our ultimate goal is social change in the direction of genuine shalom then non-violence is the best and, perhaps, only methodology. Non-violence rooted in the love-ethic of Jesus finds its antecedents in the mystical elements of radical protestant reformation and Catholic counter-reformation. American transcendentalists and abolitionists began to shape these thoughts but it was Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, who began to shape these strands into a genuine idea. The idea of non-violence rooted in Jesus' love-ethic moved from being an idea to an actual practice through the work and genius of Gandhi who studied Tolstoy deeply. The non-violent strategies of Gandhi were handed on to Howard Thurman and other black American pastors, mystics and theologians in the 1930's. It was this moment that brought the various strands for social justice together in what we now broadly understand to be the Civil Rights movement. Non-violence should be distinguished from pacifism which generally avoids provocations and conflict while non-violence seeks out strategic prophetic acts that deliberately provoke and unmask unjust power structures. Non-violence should also be distinguished from non-violent communication and consensus building. Non-violent communication and consensus building are methods of communication that seek to build community within a bonded social set. Non-violent communication and consensus building are essential building blocks of a non-violent community capable of living out a strategy of social change through non-violence. However, practitioners of non-violence understand that they cannot be shamed into silence and non-confrontation when supposed allies seek to quiet them with the need to use non-violent communication. It is worth noting that non-violence is not the only path serious leaders for social change have followed. The Civil Rights movement split over the nature and limits of non-violence. Malcolm X decided against non-violence but later in life softened in his stance towards it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer began as a pacifist, moved towards non-violence, but late in his life struggled with the limits of it and ultimately rejected it. In America the greatest practitioner and most widely known proponent of non-violence was Martin Luther King, Jr. However, it has become something of an American pastime (especially among white Christian folks) to throw out a quote or two about how "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that" without reckoning with how relentless MLK was in confronting hatred head on. If you listen to MLK's final sermons and speeches it is plain that he deliberately provoked and unmasked hatred to the point of his eventual martyrdom. King did not whitewash evil. He did not want everybody to get along while injustice and violence were the structures of society. He did not tell the marchers to stand down. Non-violence teaches us to keep getting up and keep getting our skulls cracked open while polite society shouts, "By confronting hate you are hateful. Hate can't drive out hate, only Love can do that!" Non-violence teaches us that through confrontation we unmask not only those who are filled with hate, but also those whose love has been stunted by cowardice, ignorance and selfishness. Non-violence teaches that through sacrifice and spirit-based combat there is a new humanity and a beloved community that is worth dying for.

For a deeper dive I recommend beginning where Gandhi started, Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You.

Get Radical

About 16 years ago my dear friend Jack Kooreman and I had a chance to ask our mentor and hero, civil rights leader Dr. John Perkins, what one piece of advice would he give as we were about to enter full time ordained ministry. I will never forget his answer, four words:
"Get radical. Get radical."

I have yet to truly get radical but I have been on a lifelong journey trying to get there since then. At any rate, if ever there was a time to get radical that time is now.
In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" MLK put it this way:

Shalom and Jesus' Tears

When Jesus looked at Jerusalem, the most religious city in the world at a time of high religious fervor, he wept. He wept because Jerusalem, steeped as it was in 'godliness', despised the work of shalom - an all-encompassing cosmic peace that comprehends and lives out the basic truth that everything and everyone is sacred because everything and everyone bears the imprint of God's love.

"But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. 'How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes.'" (Luke 19:41-42)

In both Hebrew and Christian scriptures (Old and New Testaments) the goal of all things is summarized with this word, 'shalom.' Justice and compassion are the tools of God's love that bring healing to a world 'sick unto death' with oppression and hard heartedness so that all things can be made new. Justice and compassion are the pathway to shalom.

Individual salvation is a whole-hearted participation in God's shalom, a welcoming of the process of justice and compassion into the center of one's own being. Individual salvation is not the goal of Christian faith so much as a byproduct. Any form of Christianity that isn't dismantling oppression and overcoming hard-heartedness is profoundly out of line with the teachings of the scriptures. Frankly, most of what passes for Christian faith in America today is simply old fashioned idolatry dressed up in a culture of religious mumbo-jumbo and self-righteousness.

I genuinely believe Christianity in America today needs reform more urgently than in the day of Luther, Calvin and the gang. I genuinely worry that the current religious posture in America is so blinded by the cult of individual salvation and so enmeshed with oppressive structures of racism, militarism and greed that we have become a serious threat to humanity. I genuinely worry that we have thrown shalom in a dungeon and grown so used to calling this state of affairs 'righteousness' that nothing short of a new dawn of the Holy Spirit outside the bounds of the church will bring new life.

The Blues

Listening to Muddy Waters sing, "I am the Blues" and feeling it deep inside. 

I am, ohh I am the blues.
I know the world knows ive been mistreated
And the whole world know ive been misused I am the moan of suffering women
I am the groan of dying men
I am the last one to start
But I am the first one to begin

Ohh I am, ohh I am the blues
Ooh world knows ive been mistreated
The whole world knows ive been misused
I am the blood of peoples wounds, who play and die
I am the the last one to hide
I am the first one to find

Ohh I am ohh I am the blues
The world knows ive been mistreated
The whole world knows ive been used
Well boys somebody help me.
I am the new generation
A prodigy of starvation
I am the arm beyond the door friend
For a new new night and nation

Yeah the world knows I been mistreated
The world knows ive been mistreated
The whole world knows ive been misused
I am the blues
Oh friends I am the blues
I am friends I am the blues
Yeah the world know I been mistreated
The whole world know I been used.

Dorothy Soelle's 'Credo'

I came across this poem/statement of faith early this morning from Dorothy Soelle, a wonderful mid 20th century Christian theologian shaped by the prophetic tradition.  After spending some time with it, I wanted to share it.
(hat-tip http://moltmanniac.com/ @moltmanniac)

CREDO
I believe in God
who created the world not ready made
like a thing that must forever stay what it is
who does not govern according to eternal laws
that have perpetual validity
nor according to natural orders
of poor and rich,
experts and ignoramuses,
people who dominate and people subjected.
I believe in God
who desires the counter-argument of the living
and the alteration of every condition
through our work
through our politics.

I believe in Jesus Christ
who was right when he
“as an individual who can’t do anything”
just like us
worked to alter every condition
and came to grief in so doing
Looking to him I discern
how our intelligence is crippled,
our imagination suffocates,
and our exertion is in vain
because we do not live as he did

Every day I am afraid
that he died for nothing
because he is buried in our churches,
because we have betrayed his revolution
in our obedience to and fear
of the authorities.
I believe in Jesus Christ
who is resurrected into our life
so that we shall be free
from prejudice and presumptuousness
from fear and hate
and push his revolution onward
and toward his reign

I believe in the Spirit
who came into the world with Jesus,
in the communion of all peoples
and our responsibility for what will become of our earth:
a valley of tears, hunger, and violence
or the city of God.
I believe in the just peace
that can be created,
in the possibility of meaningful life
for all humankind,
in the future of this world of God.
Amen.

Hope Beyond Hopelessness

About 10 months ago when much of the world was still optimistic I was undergoing a biological reaction, known as the Jarisch-Herxheimer Reaction, to some heavy anti-viral and antibiotic medications I had begun taking for my diagnosis of myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME.  The Herxheimer Reaction, or 'herxing' as it is known among the chronically ill, is the profoundly miserable response to having massive cellular and sub-cellular die off. My reaction was strong and lasted a couple of months. Among cancer survivors who have also experienced herxing the consensus is that herxing is comparable to and perhaps worse than chemotherapy treatments.  I am about to undertake a much stronger bout of anti-virals and antibiotics in the coming new year. I expect my herx to be pretty heavy as my most recent blood work looks damn nasty. Happy 2017! Open wide for a couple of months of pure physical misery while you try to resist an overtly racist tyrant-in-waiting in the White House!  
And this is what brings me to my discussion on hope. It was in February of last year that I got up the strength to take a walk and to meditate on hope. Here's what I wrote then: 

Today I am grateful that God has given me the strength to take walks the past few days.  It had been a couple of months, which was starting to really get me down.  

I am doubly grateful today as while walking I believe that I heard and felt God's presence and voice.  God guided me in meditating on true hope v. false confidence and on thinking about the false self we show on the outside v. the true work God is doing within us inwardly.  

I came to this thought about hope which may be helpful or may just be bunk, I think time will tell.  "Hope is living confidently within the sphere of power and authority of one who loves you."  

Grace and peace with all of you. 

Today I return to this thought: "Hope is living confidently within the sphere of power and authority of one who loves you" - but I do so with some context to help explain how I got there. Which is to say, I only came to a thought about hope because all of my previous hopes, hopes I believed I had the strength to grow, nurture and possess within myself, had been over the course of the previous 14 months systematically and utterly destroyed. 

Ask a healthy person, an optimistic person, a person who has yet to have their false hopes destroyed, "What is hope?" and that healthy person - that person I was 30 months ago - will likely think the question is, "What are your hopes?" Ask me in the summer of 2014, "What is hope?" and I would answer concretely with my plans for the future, my hopes. 
 - Hope is the backpacking trips I'll take with my sons on the Pacific Coast Trail in their coming teenage years.
- Hope is the trips I will take to Kenya, to India, to Cambodia as I learn the spiritual process of solidarity with the poor. 

- Hope is the classes I will teach, the conferences I will lead, the workshops I will develop, the books I will write.

- Hope is the better world I will help create. The friends I will visit. The life I will live. 

But what is hope when all this is taken away? In the first few months of my illness - December through March 2014/15 - I was cast into a type of darkness that I can only describe as hell. I could barely speak coherently. My brain ceased to function. I would spend days in a row, weeks in a row, in bed. Light hurt. (The lamps in our kitchen will forever be known as 'the retina burners' because of the time I couldn't figure out how to ask Jewel to turn off the lights when they were hurting me and so I said, instead, "Jewel, could you turn off the... retina burners.") Sounds hurt. I experienced near constant migraines in which it felt as though my forehead were in a vice or someone was drilling holes in the top of my head. I was so exhausted that lying down was more effort than I could muster. My body felt as though it was built from the heaviest matter in the universe.  

What is more, God completely and totally abandoned me. I know theologians and pastors who will tell me that God never abandons anyone, that God's love is more sure than the sunrise each morning, but I know better.  I stand with the Psalmist, with Job and with Jesus all whom cried in one way or another, "Father, why have you abandoned me?"  With this abandonment from God came also an abandonment of what I would call my 'self'.  That is to say, I experienced a complete tearing and transforming detachment from all that I was and all that I hoped to be. I lived without a past and without a future - not merely the existential angst of waking up to a mid-life crisis, but the utter crisis of actual existence. From one moment to the next nothing but agony. No memory. No expectation. Utter darkness. Stripped naked. Hopelessness.  

This hopelessness is what I now call the state of what remains when nothing's left. In hindsight it has been oddly and sometimes refreshingly liberating. Yes, I lament so much of what I have lost. But I have gained something that I am not sure that I could have gained in any other way, namely, the discovery that the hope that I possessed and manufactured from within was not hope at all, but part of the construct of my false self. I cannot possess my own hopes and simultaneously pray, "Your will be done, on earth as it is heaven." I have come to believe that perhaps the discovery of the hopelessness of my hopes is the pearl of great price that Jesus hinted at. 

And so then what does remain when there's nothing left? A voice. My voice. My self. And also my self somehow alive despite the utter rock hard reality that it was not my conscious effort to will myself into being. There is something beyond myself that is incontrovertibly real simply by the fact of my own existence.  And it is this 'beyond myself' that constitutes my being, or as Paul once put it by echoing the Athenian poets, "For in [God] we live and move and have our being." And this is hope - the actual substance and reality of hope.

  

Hope is not my dreams of a preferred future. Hope is not the collectivized dreams of humanity's preferred future as directed by me or some other wise, energetic, clever or powerful person. Hope is the reality of the one who lies beyond our being and constitutes the 'other' that makes being possible.  Hope is constituted by the reality God wills. 

It took the utter withdrawal of God's presence, the visceral experience of complete abandonment for me to realize the fullness of my humility. Not even one cell in my body that dies off as a part of my experience of suffering is actually owned by me. Not the slightest bit of dysfunctional sub-cellular matter in my body that starves my muscles of nutrients and forces my body into a state of partial hibernation actually belongs to me. I did not will them into being. I did not will them to function when I was in health. I cannot will them to return to health. I really am not my own but belong in my body and soul in my living and in my dying to something other than myself. This is what darkness has taught me. This is what hopelessness feels like and where the contours of hope begins. 

So, I took a walk. And on this walk a still small voice, a whisper, silence spoke to me and what the voice of silence said was this, "I love you. Walk in my love. At the edge of darkness, in the place where nothing's left, that's where you will realize the prayer I taught you, 'Not my will, but your will be done.'" This is boundary between despair, hopelessness, utter darkness, and hope. I die to my self. From somewhere beyond my self love speaks to me. I live again. Hope begins. But it is not mine other than to receive as a gift no more under my control than the wind, the flight of hummingbirds, or the advent of the cosmos. I am wounded by the concrete realization of my helplessness and the physical manifestation of darkness. I am wounded, broken, lost in darkness. I know hope. 

Moses with the Burning Bush, 1966 - Marc Chagall

Nativity - The Birth of Peace as Darkness Descends

Over the past year I have returned to the movie 'Of Gods and Men' in my meditations with some regularity. The movie recounts the true story of a group of French monks who were assassinated by Jihadists in Algeria in 1996. As our world edges ever closer to a war of ideologies - apocalyptic and nihilistic Christianism v. apocalyptic and nihilistic Islamism -  I return to the lives of these remarkable, humane, humble men who lived, not perfectly, but sincerely, in the Spirit and way of Jesus as neighbors and friends of Islam. We do not have to be at war. We can determine to live in the Shalom our Creator desires. In this spirit I want to share the farewell letter that their prior, Frere Christian, wrote just before the inevitable eventuality of his martyrdom.

"Should it ever befall me, and it could happen today, to be a victim of the terrorism swallowing up all foreigners here, I would like my community, my church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. That the Unique Master of all life was no stranger to this brutal departure. And that my death is the same as so many other violent ones, consigned to the apathy of oblivion. I’ve lived enough to know, I am complicit in the evil that, alas, prevails over the world and the evil that will smite me blindly.

I could never desire such a death. I could never feel gladdened that these people I love be accused randomly of my murder. I know the contempt felt for the people here, indiscriminately. And I know how Islam is distorted by a certain Islamism.

This country, and Islam, for me are something different. They’re a body and a soul.

My death, of course, will quickly vindicate those who call me naïve or idealistic, but they must know that I will be freed of a burning curiosity and, God willing, will immerse my gaze in the Father’s and contemplate with him his children of Islam as he sees them. This thank you which encompasses my entire life includes you, of course, friends of yesterday and today, and you too, friend of last minute, who knew not what you were doing. Yes, to you as well I address this thank you and this farewell which you envisaged. May we meet again, happy thieves in Paradise, if it pleases God the Father of us both. Amen. Insha’Allah."

These words from Frere Christian are a living Spirit-endowed word. My prayer is that this word will fall heavily on my heart today, and that it might fall heavily on the hearts of people of all faiths or of no faith throughout the world. As we struggle in this historical moment of darkness descending may we resist the call to arms, the howls of the dogs of war. Instead may the Prince of Peace reign in our hearts and minds. 

William Congdon - Nativita 1960

The Wind Is Howling

Today's song for meditation is Bob Dylan's 'All Along the Watchtower'.  Bob Dylan once said that every time he performed the song it it felt like a cover of Jimi Hendrix' version, so that's what I'm sharing. As you reflect on the lyrics keep in mind two passages from the Judeo/Christian prophetic tradition (Isaiah 21 and Luke 23) that served as Dylan's frame. Dylan's genius in this song is closing with "...the wind began to howl."  Dylan has framed the conversation between the joker and the thief within the dramatic context of the watchers of Isaiah who announce the collapse of Babylon. But the frame isn't closed. The ending of the song is a doorway that enters our reality, our time, and our frame of reference. Are we watching? Are we alert? Do we know what time it is? And if we do know what time it is have we reckoned with the coming storm?

Isaiah 21:5-9
They set the tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink! Get up, you officers, oil the shields! 

This is what the Lord says to me, "Go, post a lookout and let him report what he sees. When he sees chariots with teams of horses, riders on donkeys or riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert!"

And the lookout shouted:
"Day after day, my Lord, I stand on the watchtower; every night I stand at my post. Look, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer, 'Babylon has fallen! Babylon has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!"

Luke 23:39-43

One of the criminals (the joker) who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal (the thief) rebuked him, "Don't you fear God since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him, "Today you will be with me in paradise. Amen."  

Bob Dylan - All Along the Watchtower

"There must be some way out of here, " said the joker to the thief,

"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited, " the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Chagall - Isaiah

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - A Poem

ME

The wounds of so much lost

    Still

Knowing what we clutched
   were trinkets

Cherishing what we took for granted
    what remains
    now is all we have left

Life as a Window

There are so many aspects of a chronic illness that are painful to endure that it's hard to know where to begin when someone genuinely would like to be a listening ear.  I used to go hiking 3-5 miles in the hills around my hometown on a regular basis. This was the backbone of my spiritual life. To walk, pray, and contemplate for 2-3 hours a few times a week was the essence of my being.  Since being struck two years ago this has disappeared almost entirely.  I cannot remember the last time I walked for even 15 minutes - it's been six months or more.

But the point of this post isn't to complain about how my life has changed, but to simply explain why my blog posts will come in fits and starts. There are days, like today, where I am barely functional.  I have a dozen or more ideas for posts percolating.  I have an outline for a book that I am working on. I have books and articles that I would like to read.  But today I have nothing.  Even listening to Bach or Arvo Part for 5 minutes is more than I can do.  I cannot talk or hold a conversation.  Miraculously, I find that I can type thoughts. It's a form of communication that works even when spoken words fail me completely.  I am storing up my energy with the hope that I can be cheerful and encouraging when my boys get home from school. It's all I have to give today.

On days like today I remember that I am not actually, the captain of my own ship.  I am not the master of my own fate.  My mind, body, spirit is too frail for the lie of self-reliance that I used to live even while believing that I was, indeed, on a spiritual path of honest submission.  There is a submission that cannot be learned without outward intervention.  It is a submission that is different than resignation.  It is a humility of limits.  Today I remember I am nobody and nothing. I am an empty vessel. Today my hope is that there is a love beyond reasoning that fills empty vessels. This kind of hope was what I always was trying to teach back when I had health and strength and reckoned that I owned my body and my life - even though I really didn't know what it meant to go through that doorway of submission.  Now I am beginning to know what before I had merely intuited to grasp.  Now I experience life as though looking through a window.  But oddly, the glass is less dark.  It is the letting go brings me closer to being face to face with the love beyond reason. 

The Second Coming - W.B. Yeats

On Jesus' Teaching 'Love Your Enemies'

Jesus taught,  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[ and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."  (Matthew 5)

There's a couple of things worth noting here:

1. A basic presupposition Jesus has is that if we're following him correctly we should have enemies. 

2. Being a child of the heavenly Father in this world requires having enemies and being persecuted - and yes, then praying for and loving enemies and persecutors.  

MLK's Three-Fold Work of Social Change

When I think of MLK's project I break it down into three parts (I know it's not this neat in the historical narrative, but still helpful as far as distinctions go).

1. Prophetic Action.  This is the work of non-violent protest and direct action by which the injustice at hand was brought before the broad public consciousness. Naming truths and unmasking powers is essential.  I believe that the most radical prophetic actions in the years to come will be concrete acts of love: feed the hungry, house the homeless, welcome the stranger, befriend the powerless. Acts of love build trust, become the roots of beloved community, and make denying the humanity of others impossible.

2. Advocacy, Alliances, and Enactment of Power: This was the work of seeking out advocates, alliances and the building of constituencies for the work of precise legislative change.  This is the work of protecting the vulnerable, releasing the oppressed through the mechanics of law and social power. In the US nothing is more valuable here than the power of organized voting.

3. Radical Love - (Nonviolent love for one's enemies): This is the building of the Beloved Community in which each of us belongs to the other, where the first will be last and the last first. In the Beloved Community racial conciliation is possible.


In MLK's understanding each of these parts of social change required a deep commitment to radical love of one's enemies in submission to the divine will that we love one another with the same love that Jesus demonstrated in his life.