Be Still

Everybody’s talking about meditation (wait, is “talking about meditation” an oxymoron?). Well, not everybody—but I have been hearing about it from fairly

disparate sources.

Russell Simmons has a new book entitled Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple. Simmons is a very successful businessman who has found meditation helpful and believes that the practice can make anyone more successful. In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I have not read the book. I did, however, hear Simmons being interviewed about the book on Morning Joe and I read an article on Huffington Post that Simmons wrote about his book (he was also interviewed about it on FOX News, so it’s a bipartisan subject).

Simmons maintains that sitting quietly for twenty minutes twice each day will make you a better person. In the Huffington Post article, he said that meditation will make you better balanced, less anxious, more connected, more productive, and healthier. His points are all valid. While Simmons came to meditation through the practice of yoga and apparently comes at it from no particular religious perspective, he does say that an emphasis on stillness is found in all religions.

The irony in Russell Simmons promoting the stillness and quiet of meditation is that he made his professional mark promoting noise and activity; he was one of the founders of Def Jam Recordings, a record label that for thirty years has promoted and produced mainly hip hop music, most fans of which play it very loud, much like I do my beloved rock & roll. Who ever thought that self-inflicted deafness would promote inter-generational and cross-cultural cohesion?

While I have no doubt that meditation is of benefit to anyone who practices it, I want to advocate for a particularly Christian practice of meditation.

In the March 5, 2014 issue of Christian Century, pastor Peter Traben Haas has an article entitled “Contemplative Congregation: An Invitation to Silence” in which he writes about how he has been leading the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Waterloo, Iowa toward adopting contemplative practices. Haas sounds like Russell Simmons when he writes, “Pastors are apprehensive about how to ‘be Christian’ and ‘do church.’ I am certain that this apprehension dissipates with a twice-a-day meditative prayer practice”; mediation, then, will make pastors less anxious and more effective in their work. While Haas in those sentences focuses on the value of meditation for pastors, his article is really about its value for all Christians.

Haas’s approach to meditation differs from that of Simmons, which is not surprising given that Simmons writes to a general audience and Haas to a Christian one. The form of meditation recommended by Haas is centering prayer. While Simmons encourages us to focus on the silence, Haas says, “In other forms of meditation we focus on a word or on the silence, while in centering prayer we consent to God’s presence. Our goal is not to have no thoughts or to continuously say a certain word but to consent to the presence of the Spirit of God in the silence.” In centering prayer we still sit in silence but whenever our thoughts wander from God we repeat a chosen word such as “Jesus,” “grace,” “love,” or “Abba” until we are focused again.

As Haas points out, being alone, still, and silent in the presence of God is encouraged in the Bible: See, for examples, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) and “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6).

The point of Christian meditation in the form of centering prayer is not to give us an escape from the world; it is rather to cultivate within us a place where we are always aware of the presence of God as we go about living our lives. Writer Ronald Rolheiser puts it well:

Solitude … is a form of awareness. It’s a way of being present and perceptive within all of life. It’s having a dimension of reflectiveness in our daily lives that brings with it a sense of gratitude, appreciation, peacefulness, enjoyment, and prayer. It’s the sense, within ordinary life, that life is precious, sacred, and enough.
How do we foster solitude? How do we get a handle on life so it doesn’t just suck us through? How do we begin to lay a foundation for prayer in our lives?
The first step is to “put out into the deep” by remaining quietly in God’s presence in solitude, in silence, in prayer. [Prayer: Our Deepest Longing (Cincinnati: Franciscan Media, 2013)]

The goal of the Christian life is to walk humbly with our God. In preparing for last Sunday’s sermon, I rediscovered the fact that in the biblical story of Noah, the great ark-builder never says a word. Noah was the great person of faith that he was because he listened to God and, when he heard from God, he obeyed God.

Taking a couple of times a day to practice Christian meditation in the form of centering prayer is a wonderful way to learn to listen; as we learn to be still in God’s presence and to listen to God in those moments of silence, we will become more and more able to be still and to listen all the time …

The Bridge Called Lent

We are anticipating another blast of cold air here in Fitzgerald, Georgia this week; it’s supposed to get all the way down to 39° one morning. “Cold” is relative, though. One day during one of our really cold snaps I sent a text to our son in Madison, Wisconsin telling him that it was cold in Fitzgerald; the low here was 29° that day. His response to me was that I should not talk to him about cold, given that the high in Madison that day was 12° below zero.

How cold has it been in Madison, Wisconsin this year? Well, Madison had twenty-three consecutive days of sub-freezing weather this winter. Madison has had almost ninety consecutive days—from early December until now—with at least one inch of snow on the ground.

Joshua is right—I shouldn’t talk to him about cold.

Still, it has been winter here, one effect of which is that aside from the pines and the evergreens, everything outside has looked pretty dead. Not long ago, my Good Wife and I were sitting in the den sipping coffee on a “cold” Saturday morning when I said that I needed to do some yard work but really didn’t want to do it. She replied that she wasn’t surprised because in the winter, no matter how much work you do, things aren’t going to look good when you finish.

That’s a wise woman I have there.

I have managed, though, to get out there the past couple of Saturdays to do some pruning and weeding and preparing. After all, the daffodils are blooming and the hydrangeas are budding and everything else won’t be far behind. It’s time to trim things back to make way for new growth, to dig up and discard dead things, and to prepare the ground for fresh planting—which brings me to Lent.

Lent, the forty-day period leading to Easter, is a time to pay some attention to ourselves, to reflect on our humanness and to repent of our sins. It’s a time, personally and spiritually speaking, to prune, to dig, and to prepare. Lent very appropriately bridges the seasons of winter and spring, the seasons of death and new life. Lent gives us the chance to deal with what is dying in us in the natural way of things as we move toward everlasting life and with what needs to die in us as we grow in the newness of life we have in Christ.

During Lent we have special opportunities to reflect, to repent, and to respond. It is helpful to adopt a daily discipline of prayerful Bible reading and reflection during which we open our lives up to God, asking for insight into the ways in which the Spirit would like to help us grow.

Soon, all the plants and trees that have been dormant will spring back to life.

We might as well join them …

America Is Beautiful When America Embraces Diversity (Mainly in English)

I would like to state my two main points right up front.

Main point #1: I believe that all people living in these United States of America should learn to speak American, by which I mean, of course, our particular version(s) of English.

Main point #2: I believe that America is truly beautiful when we gladly embrace our diversity.

I am thinking about this because of—what else?—a Super Bowl commercial; this is America, after all. The commercial for Coca-Cola (“Coke” to its close friends) has, as you probably know, caused something of a kerfuffle (notice how I snuck in an English word that is mainly used in Great Britain to make a subtle point), at least in the Twitter-verse, a community in which many of us hold dual citizenship along with our American citizenship and whose truncated, abbreviated, hashtag-driven language we have had to learn in order to communicate clearly and irritate successfully.

When in Twitter-land, speak as the Twitter-dwellers speak.

I really do think that people living in the U.S.A. should learn to speak English. I think they should want to learn to speak English. My approach to this is admittedly simple: were I to move to Lithuania tomorrow I would start learning Lithuanian tomorrow because I would want to be able to converse with my new friends and neighbors and I would want to be able to conduct my business as smoothly as possible. However, I would not abandon my Southern dialect of American English because I appreciate my roots and my heritage. Even if I became a citizen of Lithuania I would likely continue to speak English at home because I would always be most at home with English.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 20% of Americans—around 60 million of us—don’t speak English at home; about two-thirds of those speak Spanish. And the percentage of Americans who don’t speak English at home has been rising; it was about 18% in 2000.

As I say, it seems to me that if someone lives in an English-speaking country, it is to their benefit to learn to speak the dominant language. Besides, there is national unity and strength to be found in a common language.

But there is also national unity and strength to be found in an open-minded and open-hearted embrace of the many and diverse cultures that exist in the United States. Indeed, I believe that the many cultures in our midst should be celebrated.

That brings me back to the Coke commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The ad featured shots of Americans from many different national backgrounds with “America the Beautiful” being sung in eight different languages: English, Tagalog (a major language of the Philippines), Hindi, Sengalese, Hebrew, Mandarin, Keres (a Pueblo language), and Arabic. I found it a very moving sixty second film on the beauty of the American melting pot and a nice visual representation of our de facto pre-1956 national motto of E Pluribus Unum (that’s Latin, y’all!). It also made me want to go buy a Coke.

Some folks have a different opinion than I do on this “issue,” which is fine, this being America and all. Hate is not fine, though, and some people’s comments have crossed that line, to their and our shame. Some commenters have opined that “America the Beautiful” should be sung only in English; I will avoid comment on those poor misguided and misinformed citizens who said after viewing the commercial that the National Anthem should only be sung in English, except to note that (1) “America the Beautiful” is not the National Anthem and (2) as I heard Chuck Todd say during a discussion of this matter, it should be.

By the way, you can go to YouTube and watch videos of the young ladies recording “America the Beautiful” in each of those non-English languages that are all spoken in households here in the U.S.A. Those videos also include the singers talking—in excellent English—about what singing that great celebration of America in their family’s native tongue meant to them.

In the book of Acts we read of the Holy Spirit falling on the earliest followers of Jesus in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost; when the Spirit came upon them, they were able to speak in foreign tongues which enabled the pilgrims who had come to the festival from all over the Mediterranean world to hear the good news of Jesus proclaimed in their own language. I know that America is not the church and that the Holy Spirit is not inspiring those in our nation who speak different languages to speak those languages. Still, there is this parallel: like the early Church included and the present Church includes people who come from many different cultures and who speak many different languages, America at her best not only tolerates but celebrates the many different languages and cultures that are present among us.

At the beginning of the Muppet Vision 3D show at Disney World, Sam the Eagle introduces the show as “A Salute to All Nations, But Mostly America.” Here in America, let’s speak all of our languages gladly and proudly.

But mostly English …

Lessons from a Winter-Time Yard

It’s winter in Georgia.

Now, granted, that’s not such a bad thing, even considering the snowpocalypse (Two inches in Atlanta! A dusting in Fitzgerald!) of recent days. After all, the temperature is predicted to hit 62 today and 75 tomorrow.

(On a side note, the temperature tomorrow will be in a range that makes it impossible to know how to set the environmental control systems in our sanctuary. We’ll probably have the heat on even though it will be marginally “cool” outside and that means that it’ll be 10 degrees warmer in the balcony than downstairs. Some upstairs will be fanning while some downstairs will be wearing coats; those hovering in mid-air will be comfortable.)

This morning while my Good Wife and I were sitting around sipping coffee (ah, blessed Saturdays!) and discussing the major issues of the day (a discussion which these days usually begins and ends with our daughter’s upcoming wedding) the conversation took an unexpected turn toward needed yard work.

Pine cones need to be picked up. Bushes need to be pruned. Limbs need to be gathered. And so on.

I don’t want to do any of it. I’m looking for excuses not to do any of it. I’m even writing about it to keep from doing any of it.

My Good Wife said, “It’s too bad it’s drizzling today. The temperature would have been just right to do some yard work.”

I said, “You know what’s strange? I’ll spend an entire Saturday in July when it’s 3000 degrees outside working in the yard; I’ll even want to do it. But in the winter I just can’t get motivated.”

In response to which my Good (and Wise) Wife observed, “That’s because in the summer you know that when you finish working the yard will look good while in the winter you know that no matter how hard you work, it’s not going to look good.”

And all the people said, “Boom!”

We don’t mind working when the results are going to be obvious but we do mind working when the results are not going to be obvious.

We don’t mind working when our work is going to make things (and us) look good but we do mind working when our work is not going to make things (and us) look good.

Meanwhile, the pine cones await.

So let’s see—what else can I write about?

Keep on Rockin'

Tonight my old hometown friend Wade and I plan to attend a Gregg Allman concert in Macon. Allman and his brother Duane, who died at age 24 in 1971 in a motorcycle accident in Macon, were the Allman Brothers of the Allman Brothers Band, one of the greatest and most enduring rock/blues acts of all time. Gregg has survived a lot, including much-documented drug issues and a liver transplant, to continue to perform both with the band and as a solo artist. Once, he made an album with his then-wife Cher. Really.

Gregg Allman is 66 now.

This will be the first time I have seen Gregory (as his friends call him and which I will call him after I see him tonight) in concert. It has been my privilege to see several of my musical heroes in their, shall we say, “mature” years.

Over the last few years my Good Wife and/or I have attended concerts by Paul Revere & the Raiders, Neil Diamond, Art Garfunkel, Michael Nesmith, James Taylor & Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger (whose Silver Bullet Band includes drummer Don Brewer, formerly of my favorite band of my teenage years, Grand Funk Railroad) and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. One glorious night we saw, on one stage, such ‘60s icons as the Buckinghams, Gary Puckett (without the Union Gap), Micky Dolenz, and the Turtles.

My favorite story of such attendance is of the time we (finally) got to see Gordon Lightfoot, whose many hits include “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we were living in Louisville, Kentucky where I was enrolled in seminary. It was the early 1980s and we had not yet been blessed with either children or money. A downtown theater called The Palace had just been renovated and re-opened; we heard on the radio that Gordon Lightfoot was going to perform there on our wedding anniversary. So we saved our pennies and nickels and sold some aluminum cans and at the moment the tickets went on sale I was standing at the box office saying, “I’d like the best seats I can get.” The fellow said, “Well, the first six rows are reserved for sponsors and radio stations, but I can put you in the middle of Row 7.”

We were so excited. And we were so disappointed when, just a few days before the show was scheduled to take place, it was, without explanation, cancelled.

But we got excited again when we learned that Gordon was going to appear in concert at the Macon City Auditorium in May of 2009. Again, I was at the box office (meaning in front of my computer) the moment that tickets went on sale—and I scored seats in the middle of the front row! So finally, some three decades after our first effort, we got to see Gordon Lightfoot in concert. Needless to say, he had aged a bit, but it was still a good show and a most rewarding experience.

When Mick Jagger was a young man he said, “I’d rather be dead than singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 45.” Mick’s 70 now. He still sings “Satisfaction.”

Why do they still do it? Why do they keep on performing? Maybe some of them need the money. Maybe some of them can’t live without the crowds. I think, though, that for most if not all of them, the music is such a part of their life that they cannot imagine living without expressing and sharing it. We their fans are the beneficiaries of their ongoing drive to sing and play.

I am grateful that so many of the artists I admire choose to stay active and to share their lives and music with us. Perhaps I can—perhaps we all could—learn from them about the value in embracing, developing, and sharing what we love for as long as we live …

I’ve Been Thinking #2

[Note: this is the second of an occasional series called I’ve Been Thinking; these posts will share some thoughts about what I’ve been—well, thinking about …]

I’ve been thinking about individual and public morality. Or maybe I’ve been thinking about national sovereignty and states’ rights. Or maybe I’ve been thinking about working from the bottom up as opposed to from the top down or vice-versa.

Or maybe I’ve been thinking about all of those things since they seem to me to be related.

While I am neither a historian nor a constitutional scholar nor a middle school civics teacher, it seems to me that we live with a pretty squirrelly (no offense to squirrels intended) situation here in the good old U.S.A.

I can use myself as an example of what I’m talking about: I am simultaneously an American and a Georgian. Got it? The national government has its laws and policies; the state government has its own.

Lately, there have been some high profile tensions between national laws/policies and those of the states. For example, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land but many states, including my own, have declined to participate fully in the implementation of the law by setting up a state health insurance exchange and/or by expanding Medicaid coverage (which they are permitted by the federal law to decline). For another example, while the use of marijuana is still a federal offense, its sale and use for medical purposes is now legal in twenty states and the District of Columbia and for recreational purposes in Colorado and Washington.

It strikes me as odd that something that is illegal on the national level can be legal on a state level. We also hear all the time the contention that certain matters should be left up to each state. While I understand that such is the approach of federalism, that there is value in having more local control over policies, and that there always has been concern about the power of the national government, such an approach still feels odd to me.

After all, somewhere along the way (many historians seem to trace the change to the War Between the States, although it’s not that simple), we moved from saying “The United States are” to saying “The United States is.”

I recently watched a documentary on the Pivot channel that had been produced by ABC News in 1963 about that year’s desegregation of the University of Alabama. Entitled Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, it mainly consisted of footage (in beloved black & white) of President Kennedy and his teams in Washington and in Alabama navigating the process of enforcing the federal court order allowing two black students to enroll at the university. There was also footage of Gov. Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door and reading a statement in which he interpreted the federal action as an intrusion of the national government at the expense of his state’s rights. While the central government prevailed in that matter, we still hear the matter of states’ rights raised quite often (although the term is not used much because it has become a synonym for an insistence on racial segregation).

Here’s an interesting question to ponder: had Gov. Wallace prevailed, how long would it have been until Alabama’s (or other Southern states’) public universities would have been integrated? Does anyone—can anyone—seriously believe that such progress would have been achieved without the intervention of the federal government? Does anyone—can anyone—believe that we would have made the advances we have made in civil rights had the federal government not acted to implement policies? Would we have come anywhere near as far as we have come in fostering racial equality had the states been left to their own devices?

Change, many people say, should begin in the individual heart and then at the grassroots level and should then move up the ladder until it becomes public policy. Perhaps that is best. But it seems to me that we can’t always wait that long …

Aunt Mary

We buried my Aunt Mary last Tuesday.

Aunt Mary was my late father’s eldest sibling; she was born on November 25, 1912 and so was just a few weeks past her 101st birthday when she died on December 28, 2013. She made her appearance just seven months after the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. The ship was supposed to be unsinkable but was not; we had about decided that Aunt Mary was.

Gratefully, when we last saw her at Thanksgiving, she was still herself; her eyes were bright and her mind was sharp. She could still walk with a little assistance. A few days later her body decided that enough was enough and she just died. It wasn’t a bad way to go.

Aunt Mary witnessed a lot of changes during her long life; as our son put it, she lived through “The Great Depression, two World Wars, and Little Richard.” She also experienced a lot of loss—she lived through the deaths not only of her parents, eight younger siblings, and her husband, but also both of her children, one of whom died following an accident when he was a youngster and the other who died of cancer at age 60 following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease.

Yet still she had joy. The last time we saw her, we saw her laugh and smile. In fact, every time we saw her, we saw her laugh and smile. Her smile was a knowing smile; it had a tinge of sadness to it. It wasn’t the kind of fake smile that pretends that everything is all right; it was rather a genuine smile that revealed a conviction that life is tough but you go on living it as best you can anyway. Perhaps such knowing, realistic joy is a gift from God. If so, she accepted it with as much grace as anyone I have ever known.

That’s not surprising because Aunt Mary had the ability to accept good gifts with great grace. There was something about her that called forth love; as our daughter put it, “How could you not love Aunt Mary?” And she gladly received love without giving the impression that she deserved it or that she expected anything more than the love itself. My experience with people tells me that the ability to receive love with such grace and humility must not be easy. Again, perhaps it is a gift from God.

Paul McCartney was thinking of a dream he had dreamed in which his mother Mary appeared to him when he wrote the words “When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let it be.’” When I remember Aunt Mary, I will think of her sad and knowing smile and of her acceptance of the joy and pain of life and love and I will hear her speaking to me those same words of wisdom: “Let it be” …