Meaning and Authenticity

“Life batters and shapes us in all sorts of ways before it’s done, but those original selves still echo with the holiness of their origin. What Genesis suggests is that this original self, with God’s thumb-print still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are – buried deep down, it’s our source of wisdom, strength and healing. Our truest prayers come from there, the often unspoken, unbidden prayers that rise out of [the circumstances of our] lives. From there also come our best dreams and hopes, our times of gladdest playing, and all those moments when we find ourselves being better or braver or wiser than we otherwise may have been."

I spent my twenties making money. Out of college, my B.A. in journalism and political science got me nowhere practical, but three years working in Personnel right out of high school got me a job as a high-level clerk in the Personnel department at Pennzoil in Houston, where my parents had moved. I worked there two years. Got promoted. Managed the boredom of the job. Made several life-long friends. Quit Pennzoil to attend graduate school in government at UT in Austin. Made another life-long friend, but left after one semester when I realized I wasn't ready for graduate school. Moved to Dallas where I landed a job as a technical writer/editor at another oil company, ARCO. Within a year I was promoted to management, and my salary suddenly doubled overnight. I remember the feeling of my false-ego surging . You know that feeling? Ah, I'm somebody now. Somebody special. It was the same feeling when my father and mother bragged on me at the Christmas gathering of the extended family a...

To continue my faith story, rereading what I previously wrote I'm struck with how I glossed over the woundedness that I was yearning for religion to heal. Of course, it didn't. Not all at once, certainly. Religion did take me through the rest of high school and much of college. I'm grateful for that, and it gave me a foundation in religious studies, in a certain thin sense at that time. But the wounds of my childhood were deep. The deepest wound was shame, feeling unloveable near my core--not at my core, an important distinction, I've learned. All my years of therapy and spiritual formation never uncovered anything dramatic in my childhood; it was all the subtle sort of emotional stuff that comes from my very strong "NF" personality (Myers Briggs) living in an otherwise strong "ST," and alcoholic, household. Another wound was loneliness. So I learned to disregard my own needs and desires in order to please others and be the person I perceived others ...

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. And Christ is here with us on our way as surely as the way itself is here that has brought us to this place. Christ is with us, as subtle and pervasive as air." (Frederick Buechner)

Early in my seminary career I was fortunate enough to have Dr. T as my teacher of Christian social ethics. Oh, I learned so much from him. Sub-rosa morality, for one thing. He's African-American, and although I don't know this for sure, my impression was that he had a pretty low opinion of the administration of our seminary. Sub-rosa morality is about the morality of otherwise good folks who see themselves as liberal and progressive and on the right side of race and gender issues. Yet they refuse to ask themselves the really difficult questions about these issues--the questions that come up about themselves and their own institutions. It was through Dr. T that I learned that everyone is racist, to one degree or another. We can choose to not allow it to hurt others, but it's there, deep within just about all of us. Apparently the powers that be at our seminary had refused to ask themselves those painful questions, in Dr. T's opinion. Again, I don't know that for sure...

I guess we had about 700 people in worship this morning. Amazing. We normally have about 160. I read the first line of the Call to Worship, and when the people responded with the second line, it was so loud, I nearly fell over! The whole morning was just grand. Everyone was in a good mood. Excited and happy, and as I said in my stewardship meditation, spilling over with gratitude to God. Our guest preacher was fabulous. The title of his sermon was "Feast or Famine" and he spoke of how we sell ourselves short, and therefore offer others (and ourselves) so little. We actually have everything, but we refuse to see it, refuse to take the risk to see it, and so remain satisfied with our status quo, mediocre lives. We dream such small dreams. This really hit home with me. There's a line from a movie called "Shirley Valentine" when the title character says in a self-reflective voice-over, We live such small lives. When I heard that, I was maybe 28 years old and felt ...

One small gift of fear-perfectionism is that I'm usually well-prepared. Well- prepared. Days ahead of time. I did well in school because I looked at the syllabus and crossed out several days I would need to write papers well ahead of the deadlines, and then, usually, I took those days and actually wrote the papers, so I wasn't staying up the night before. Not me. Nope. Too much stress doing that. And Lord knows, I don't think well under stress. Proven time and again--I do NOT think well under stress. My denomination's General Assembly is in my town this year, starting tomorrow. I signed up to help, chairing the Guest Reception Committee. They told me long ago to gather a committee of about 10-12 people in preparation of meeting about 30 VIP's flights at the airport. And have a welcome basket for each of them. No problem. Earlier this year they told me, Oh, it's looking like only 20 VIPs. That's great, I thought. Really, no problem. So I went o...