Meaning and Authenticity

When I was 8 or 9 years old, one of my little neighborhood friends was Charla. I remember one day at Charla's house, she and I were sitting on the floor by her bed. I don't remember exactly what we were doing -- maybe we were playing with dolls or some kind of game or something. I remember suddenly thinking something like: " Wait a minute. How do I know that what I mean by this doll is what Charla means? I'm seeing this doll and it's real to me, but how do I know whether the same thing is really real to Charla? I'm locked inside my body, and I can't look out and see the world from her eyes. " I didn't think about that experience again for 30 years--not until I took a philosophy class in seminary, and we read about epistemology. Whew! Suddenly that memory hit me like a ton of bricks! How do we know things? How do we know any thing? Modernist thinking would say that we can know what really exists -- the table is real. Scientifically I can tell you wh...

I am thoroughly enjoying this weekend~~it still feels like vacation. I guess that's because it IS still vacation! WooHoo! Yesterday around noon D said "Let's see if we can get tickets to the matinee performance of Man of LaMancha downtown." I was at that moment deeply involved in straightening and organizing my home office (I love doing that!), but am VERY glad that I agreed. I hadn't seen this musical since I was a teenager. I can sing parts of "The Impossible Dream" and "I am I, Don Quixote, the Man of LaMancha!" (who can't?), but I had forgotten the story. This particular production had its problems, but overall I just loved it! I'm such an idealist. The sermon I heard this morning has something to say about that, actually. The title was "Stewards of Life in the Realm of Death." Idealism, if it does not deny reality, is a good thing, I think. It's hope . If reality is denied, of course, idealism is only an empty exerc...

I saw four clients today for pastoral counseling or spiritual direction. One after another this afternoon, and then an amazing conversation with a parishioner at dinner. What a day. What incredible gifts I received from each of them. The parishioner at dinner tonight spoke of what being a Christian means to her--an aspect of it, that is. She was raised in the church, can quote Scripture with the best of 'em, was baptized and followed all the rules (well, most of them, anyway, she says). But one day she opened herself to a relationship with God, and suddenly everything was fresh . New and fresh . She said she comes out of a worship service and is so alive, so grateful for the amazing message and the deep meaning of the Lord's Supper, still singing the last hymn in her heart. (This made me laugh--She remarked that she comes out of this worship service and into the narthex and is always SO surprised when she hears someone else make some inane, negative, stupid remark, as she puts ...

I saw God at work today. Wow! A woman came in for her second appointment. She is working on perfectionism issues and how perfectionism pushes her to do, do, do--to the point of feeling totally stressed. As we talked, she began to see the connections, all those times in the last five years when fear of failure, which has plagued her for years, has dissipated. Each time that's happened, she's been doing a certain kind of work, work for which she is now being trained and educated. When she does this work, she is unafraid to ask for honest feedback. When she does this work, her ego seems to empty and she allows herself to float in the midst of God's surrounding grace (my words). When she does this work, she is energized and has a sense of joy, and the notion that "love must be earned" is no longer the dominant motivation. When she does this work, doing and being merge. I wish everyone could have seen her face when she 'saw' her true self emerge like t...

I've been feeling unsettled lately. I think there's a significant change on the horizon for me (more on that perhaps in another post), and it's thrown me off-center. Nothing I was doing on my own really helped more than a few hours...before I knew it, a vague sense of anxiety would creep back in. So I saw my wonderful therapist this morning. MR combines incredible life wisdom with a compassionate heart, not to mention amazing therapeutic knowledge and memory. Today she incarnated Christ for me. MR knows my history very well. She carries an image of me as a two or three-year old, standing in the middle of the room screaming--she's thinking of a photograph that I brought in a few years ago when I did group therapy with her. One has to wonder about my parents having a camera ready to catch me doing this, but my mother told me once that I was "always" doing it: I'd just suddenly stand up--arms at my side, hands in a fist--and scream at the top of my lungs. Tha...

Change is inevitable. That's one of the major tenets of the postmodern pastoral counseling methods I became familiar with in my Ph.D. program. People come in for counseling saying "I'm depressed," or "I'm anxious," or "I'm an alcoholic," or "my relationship is so dysfunctional." Diagnosing themselves like that or using that problem-soaked language, while it can help in emphasizing the seriousness of a problem, can also lock people into a way of thinking about themselves that is not helpful. Human beings are always more than the labels they place upon themselves. And God is always at work doing a new thing. I like to think of that as God's job --24/7/365, with no burnout possible, always hard at work changing our grief into joy and our fear into courage. Yes, change is inevitable. It's a matter both of God at work and our virtual encasement in temporality. As a narrative counselor I try not to label people or use problem-so...

(Google images. EmoryHealthCare.org) An artist friend of mine told me a beautiful story yesterday, a story of how she took "the narrow way" with her teenage son. The result was an opportunity for the Spirit to work in both their lives, creating deep connection and a strengthening love. Within this story, in order to say something about how much she loves her son (who is the fourth of her six children), she mentioned something a friend of hers, who was pregnant, had said to her once: "I have moments now when I'm aware of two souls within me." Moments when I'm aware of two souls within me . Wow. That just took my breath away. I've not had a lot of grief about being childless. I grew up thinking I'd never marry. Marriage was for my sister who was pretty . I was the smart one, so my appointed role was to get a good job, make money, and take care of my mother in her old age. My sister married young and had two children, so I was able to play at 'week...

John Cobb is one of my favorite theologians. It was through his book, Christ in a Pluralistic Age, that I resolved my inner dilemma regarding the divinity of Jesus. With that dilemma removed, I was, of course, able to both think of myself as a Christian with more integrity and to come to love Jesus with a passion that transformed me. Cobb is a process theologian, but his writings aren't limited to systematic theology. My brother, Daring Quiet Writer, has read Cobb's work regarding Buddhist-Christian dialogue. And in my Ph.D. program I ran across Cobb's book on pastoral counseling and pastoral theology. This is a quote from that book: "Growth is never the simple addition of something new to what is already present. If it were, it would not be resisted so strongly. Instead, to add the new is to change the old.... [The old] must receive, quite literally, a new form. Because we identify ourselves with what-is, with what we have achieved, with what we already are, th...

A Harvard psychologist is claiming that humanity is becoming less and less violent. His article was in the New Republic, and www.edge.org , where I found it at http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html Really interesting article. Toward the end he provides some possible reasons: 1. The decreasing sense that life is cheap. "As technology and economic efficiency lengthen and improve our lives, we place a higher value on life." 2. The more we realize that two people can come out ahead if they cooperate (trade, division of labor, sharing peace), the more we'll want the other person to stay alive. 3. Evolution bequeathed us a bit of empathy. Let me quote this part: "Through the centuries people's moral circles have expanded to encompass larger and larger polities: the clan, the tribe, the nation, both sexes, other races, and even animals. The circle may have been pushed outward by expanding networks of reciprocity,...but it might also be inflated by...

I was taught so WELL in my Ph.D. program. I'm thinking now especially of the emphasis that was always placed on the profound respect that we owe our clients. The postmodern emphasis on not-knowing, on allowing the human being sitting before us, trusting us, to teach us about who they are, and are becoming--it's just so right in so many ways. Although the temptation to play "expert" was and remains a temptation for me (arising mostly when I feel insecure), the program's postmodern emphasis on mutuality was a good fit for me overall. As a pastoral counselor, minister, and spiritual director, I'm reminded of this almost every week. I'm simply in partnership with people--a mirror for them--as God's Spirit does the work of nudging them toward health and abundant life. It's the most exciting thing to see that happening! And each time, I am changed for the better.