nakedpastor

Pastors burn out. Communities of faith disintegrate.

So… pastors relax! It is wise for pastors to resist pressures to be something they are not. Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest! Pastors: rest! No longer comply to what others think you should be or what you yourself think you should be. You’ve been called just as you are to be exactly who you are. Relax. Rest in that.

Pastors, conversely: let your people relax. Let them rest. Do not ask them to be something they are not. Resist shaping them. Relieve them of all expectations. Let them come in and go out and find pasture. Do not make them more weary than they are. Do not lay one demand on their shoulders. They have divine permission to gather just as they are. Do not try to manipulate them into what you think they should be or what your tradition thinks they should be. Let them relax.

People, resist all pressures to become something you are not. Even if you are weary and heavy laden, still find the strength to be exactly who you are. Do not be condemned. Do not even judge yourself! You’ve been called just as you are to be exactly who you are. It is you that is loved, not the ideal you, but you… right now. Rest in that reality.

People, resist all temptations to wish your pastor to be something she is not. You’ve been brought together. Let your pastor rest. Do not try to shape him. Do not lay expectations or demands on her shoulders. Let him discover what it means for him to be a pastor in this particular situation. She may be weary or heavy laden. Do not pressure her. Enjoy the gift of each other’s company.

I am convinced that if we lift our expectations off of one another, our faith communities will become healthier places, composed of healthy pastors and healthy members. Burn out and disintegration will decrease.

Let me think out loud for a minute. When people gather together in community around a commonality*, the potential for it to be overtaken by the principalities and powers is immediate. This is what we must constantly wrestle against. There is the temptation for my community identified as Rothesay Vineyard identifying with the principality called “Rothesay Vineyard”, which is the composite of all human and angelic desires, wishes, agendas and expectations for Rothesay Vineyard. There is the even broader danger of us identifying with the principalities called “Vineyard”, “Church” and “Christian”. It is most difficult for a community to simply be a gathering of people without the pressure of ideals being pressed upon it. I consider it injurious to our community to imagine what this community should be. I regard it toxic to communal life to impose upon it my plans or goals. Vision corrupts the community that is. To even talk in passionately imaginative ways about what our community could be feels adulterous to me. It perverts love into fantasy. The principalities and powers, like in every other age, are presently in full swing. These things need to be discerned. Why? Because they appear brilliant and good to the contemporary mind. But they have one purpose, and that is first to oppress, then to possess, then to ultimately deliver death to the person and to the people.

*I realize this isn’t a word, but I invented it to describe something around which a community agrees, whether it be marriage, family, religion, belief, faith, politic, capitalism, etc., etc..

The other day I received an email from someone asking how I would recommend incorporating the arts into the church and what steps could be taken. While I believe the question is one motivated by genuine concern, the only intelligible answer that might satisfy is one that must be given within the programatic and institutional paradigm within which the question was asked. This is the problem. The question exposes the paradigm and presses for an answer that conforms to that paradigm. We must realize that the question rarely reaches beyond itself. The question normally asserts its present paradigm and is usually a dogmatic statement seeking confirmation disguised as intellectual interest. The questioner may be trapped inside a paradigm that the mind hasn’t dreamed must perish.

So the normal way to answer the question would be something like this:

First of all, get permission from the leadership to start encouraging the arts. Then maybe start an art appreciation class. Then maybe an art instruction class. Ask the pastor if creative elements can be added to the church service. This will involve some “creative types”. Request that the leaders allow art to be displayed in the lobby. Set up an editorial committee that determines which art is appropriate for church. Etc., etc..

Just shoot me! Let me show you a better way. The church is generally a censorious community. In this environment art is sanitized, tame and conformist. It is still art, but functions as a reinforcement of the system. Expression is controlled and edited from start to finish. This kills art because it kills creativity because it kills freedom. Instead, allow people to be free without scrutiny. (I even hate the word “allow” because it assumes it needs to be given when it is already ours.) In due time, after people begin to realize that they are loved and accepted unconditionally, the creative spirit will surface and artistic diversity will abound. This is the harder but more genuine way. It means taking care of the roots. If the root is unfettered freedom, then fruitful and artistic living happens. It is the diversity of human expression of personality that makes the artful life. Until this is nurtured art will be repressed.

The fine art photograph titled “Fusion” is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.

I take no credit or praise for my community. Any credit or praise belongs to the community itself. I have built nothing. I have constructed nothing. I have succeeded in doing nothing. I have grown nothing. In fact, I make it my purpose to not build anything with these people. What I have around me is a community of people who willingly and voluntarily desire to be in relationship with each other and to gather together. Ephesians 4: 3 says to “keep the unity of the Spirit“. Unity, or community, is not something we have to build, but keep. I therefore see my primary task as preventing obstacles and barriers from interfering in this reality. I’m a weeder. When I think of it, my activity as a pastor is negative, as non-activity. It is to prevent interference, remove obstacles, clear impediments and reject deterrents to unity and community. It is so popular now to have the excessive baggage of plans, visions, goals, renewal, and programmed growth, that true authenticity and true community is difficult if not impossible. What I try to nurture is an environment free of restrictions to the unity that is already ours. This means free people gathering freely in the reality of freedom. Why complicate it?

I am confident that as the weeds are kept at bay, fruit will grow in individuals and in the community. But this is not my doing. We could go further with the analogy to say that good teaching and life experience is fertilizer, but I wanted to try to communicate what my strategy is for pastoring a healthy community. It is anti-strategy. It is to not include, assimilate or integrate strategies to create, erect, build or grow something. It is free, I hope, of my ambitions, goals, visions or desires for these people and this community. My only desire is for them to be free, and free to experience the unity that is theirs. And in that freedom is their possibility for a fruitful life. This is not radical. It is anti-radical. Perhaps you can see this? It is difficult to articulate.

I’ve been wondering about the Dionysian elements of our religious phenomenological experience. I say Dionysian because ecstatic manifestations of prayer, worship and miracles were elements of this religion. Some biblical scholars and historians claim, in fact, that much of early Christianity was a response or reaction to or a borrowing from the religion of Dionysius. Emotional or ecstatic expressions of prayer, worship, spirituality and intercession are demonstrated across the religious spectrum. We see it not only in some Christian sects, but also in Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish, Voodoo, Shaman and Wican sects, to name a few. Mysticism is not Christian, but religious, and sweeps across all religious lines. Miracles are not the sole claim of Christianity, but of a segment of every religion and anti-religion in the world. Have you not heard about, not just the evangelists, but the shamans, gurus, sufis, rabbis, psychics, witch-doctors and new-age practitioners with healing and miraculous powers? As Barth would solemnly remind us, with the revelation of God came religion. The human involvement in religion and its expression is total, deep, wide, mysterious, archetypal, ancient and complex.

As Jacques Ellul would suggest:

If one would conform to a true prayer before God, one would need firmly to reject (the) seductive temptations which carry a sort of label of authenticity. Unfortunately it is the label of a false authenticity, one which man authenticates for himself when he confuses his own psychic phenomena with the hidden but solemn presence of the Lord of his life (Prayer and Modern Man, p. 24).

Are we even slightly aware of our own “psychic phenomena”? Are we even slightly aware of our unconscious powers? Are we at all cognizant of the enormous spiritual powers that are immediately accessible to us? Are we informed about the Dionysian spirit that courses its way through every faith community that gathers? Sometimes I wonder.

The fine art photo is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.

I’ve been thinking about miracles lately. In the Old Testament, we see a grand display of miracles in the life of Moses and the early exodus story. But once they are on their way beyond the Red Sea, miracles became, in a general sense, more of a immature demand of the people for their survival and something which God did with wrath. The Pentateuch seems to portray a general frustration with the people’s unwillingness to grow up and trust. Miracles, it has been noted, are totally absent from the entire life of David. Some of the prophets, especially Elijah and Elisha, did miracles. But they are scarce in the prophetical and poetical books. In the New Testament, the initiation of the ministry of Jesus is full of miracles and the amazed crowds. But it seems to me, especially in Mark, that the miracles become less prominent in the later part of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Indeed, the crowds start thinning out as the miracles become less frequent and Jesus’ teaching takes center stage. Truth just isn’t as attractive or interesting as miracles. The point seems to be that without relationship there is no miracle. By the time we get to the cross, devoid of miracle, nobody’s there. Then with Paul, his ministry begins with miracles too. The Acts highlights these significant events. But they too seem to fade the further into Paul’s ministry we go. Again, the truth becomes more central. By the time we find Paul under house-arrest in Rome, it is all about theological discussions. No miracle. I suggest he died pretty much alone too. The Pauline, Petrine and Johannine corpus, all shedding some light on the earliest church, are shy to speak about miracles. The Apostolic Fathers carry on this trait. Truth trumps miracles consistently.

So, I’m thinking of miracles. Tomorrow I hope to write about the Dionysian tendencies in our religious phenomenology.

I saw this pic on the friend of a friend’s facebook. Creepy Sheepy!

There are no shortcuts to maturity. Someone has an intense spiritual experience, insight, or revelation, and the impression is that this person suddenly will be more mature, responsible and exemplary. This is often not the case. How many men and women have we seen who set themselves up or are set up by others as spiritually advanced or insightful only to find, in due time, that they are just as human and fallible as the rest of us?

Take Ken Wilber’s article on “The Strange Case of Adi Da”, the Fiji guru who initially had Wilber’s support, only for it to be withdrawn later because of the intense controversy surrounding the “pathological” guru. In another article, Wilber writes:

Over the years I have made numerous very strong and sometimes contradictory statements about Adi Da, mostly because he is a very strong and sometimes contradictory personality. . . . I called attention to the fact that, even though Da might be highly spiritually realized, he seemed to have several problematic, perhaps even pathological, aspects to his personality and the way he was running his community. . . . Contradictory? Perhaps, but only because Da is contradictory. Contradictory and problematic — deeply problematic.

This applies to the Christian and church realm too. We see our youth go off to camp or missions or whatever and come back incredibly zealous and inspirational. We love this and encourage it, but we must not put the burden of expectation upon them that they are more mature, responsible or exemplary than they actually are. It is the same with tele-evangelists. It is also the same with the more visible and commendable members of our communities of faith. We must not allow their zeal, intelligence, influence, or vision to blind us to their frail humanity, their solidarity with the rest of the fallen human race. It is not fair to them to elevate them above the mundane work of personal development because of their extraordinary giftedness.

This does not mean we suppress the gifting of individuals. No matter how immature or mature anyone is, their contribution to the community and to the world is encouraged, nurtured, supported and valued. But not at the expense of their own personal growth, transformation and stability. It is possible, and indeed probable, that one can be “highly spiritually realized“, and yet have deep pathological issues that must be struggled with and healed, I think preferably in the context of a safe and healthy community.

I just read an article on Emily Carr, “How To Be A Woman“, by Lewis Desoto (MacLean’s, April 28, 2008). I love Carr and appreciated the article. But one section in particular stuck out for me:

Because she was a woman, and an unconventional one, Emily always struggled against the expectations and prejudice of men, as well as other women, both as an artist and an individual.

She had certain “bad” characteristics. She smoked cigarettes. She used strong language. She played cards. She rode a horse astride, like a man, instead of sidesaddle, like a polite young woman. Then there were her friends. She championed a Chinese artist who had been rejected by a local art society because of his race. She often visited a man confined to a lunatic asylum. She took a mentally handicapped boy along on a few of her local sketching excursions. She formed a friendship with a Native woman who was considered an alcoholic prostitute.

And then there were the Indians. It was bad enough that she painted images of what was considered a savage and primitive art form. But Emily went further than that; she actually went to live among the Native people on her trips and slept in their houses. Conventional observers saw this behavior as a betrayal of all the civilizing virtues for which their society stood.

Emily was independent, forthright in her views, and had a healthy disrespect for the established order. Some of her contemporaries considered her selfish, egotistical, and irritable, qualities accepted in a man but deemed unfeminine in a woman. We could also say that she was ambitious, dedicated, hardworking, and didn’t suffer fools gladly, but local society had already filed her away in the category of outsider and eccentric.

Male artists were allowed to be eccentric, bad-tempered, or sexually profligate. Such traits were often attributed to their creative temperament, and might even be seen as a sign of genius. A woman who exhibited the same traits was considered mentally unbalanced.

Now Emily Carr’s work is considered monumentally important, not just because of the daring advances she made in artistic expression, even pioneering ideas 10 years before the Group of Seven, but because of the necessary contributions she has made in our understanding of the early Indian culture on the West Coast. Now she’s “one of us”. Which is fine. This always happens. It even happened to Jesus… a wild, difficult and untamable man who later became the kind teacher in the gospels with a glowing halo, throbbing heart and surrounded by adorable children. Same with Paul, who, it has been said, didn’t always leave behind fond memories during his visits. Now he is the patron saint of the western church where most pastors want to be like him. Time has a way of appropriating what we used to reject.

Desoto points out that Carr’s work was met with silence early on:

All artists at some point ask themselves what use their work is to the world. If Emily thought she had found a use for herself and her talent, she was disappointed. An artist can fight against resistance; some even thrive on it. But to be ignored is the worst response of all.

Which is why I encourage you to explore the edges of the church and Christendom. Are you interested in the natives out there? Do you care about the world? You will get criticized frequently and severely. But mostly you will just be ignored. I went to bed the other night really upset because I was to attend a formal church gathering the next day. I don’t look forward to those events because I feel that we are so misunderstood as a community of faith. I find sitting in that milieu of misunderstanding really unnerving. In the night I had a dream where Lisa and I and our community was way out in the northern wilderness… like Into the Wild kind of wilderness. There was a main road. There were others just off the main road and they were respected because they seemed radical because they weren’t on the main road. But the only way people could make sense of their radicalism was because they were close enough to the main road to be understood. Their radicalism was recognizable because they were close enough to that which they rebelled against. It was a cool radicalism. But we were so far out there, among the natives, in the wild, so far off the main road, that we couldn’t be understood or absorbed. We weren’t cool. We were so far out there that no one even cared because we were so remote. I woke up from that dream  sobered: we are out there and nobody cares; and encouraged: maybe we are doing something necessary and important. It may look like we’ve “gone native“, and we have in a way. But I think this is the incarnational approach to the world. I think that we are not of it, but we are certainly in it. And this will be the source of your criticism, your being misunderstood and even your being ignored.

When I was down in the Dominican Republic this last week I got up early every morning and walked the beautiful sand beach as the sun rose. I’m an early riser, so it was always a pleasure. One morning I took my journal. When I finished my walk I wrote down exactly, verbatim, what you read here. I do not claim to be a theologian. But these thoughts tease me like certainties that, once grasped with violence, escape me. They are subtle, shy and full of adoration:

1. The love of all things. All beings. All life. My heart swells at the thought. My eyes get wet. The love. The benediction. Permeates all.
2. There is no god with substance, form, location, existence. Yet all is full of benediction, blessing. But even this confines. All-theism. A-theism.
3. Serve. Rescue. Liberate all! Faithful in little, faithful in much. There are none in, none out. All are. Rules divide. Faith expressed through love.
4. Impermanence and transitoriness of all things. All things pass. Nothing is permanent. Change. Urgency. Now!
5. Jesus is the historical event and undying incarnation of all the above. He IS, in whom all are and none aren’t. To speak of him is not to speak of him. To not speak of him is to speak of him.
6. The mind’s perception is the deception. The utter ego-centricity, self-serving, self-serving, self-protecting, self-seeking, narcissistic obsession of the brain. See this and be healed of blindness.

Well, there you have it. See what the sun, sand, and Cervezas can do to you?!

Hey everyone. I’m not sorry, but I’m going for a short but needed vacation. I’ll be back next week. All comments will still be moderated. Stay tuned!