Grace comes when I quit trying

There is a story in horseman’s circles, a story that leads me to harmony and grace again and again.  Two great masters of American horsemanship, one mentor, and one student practiced the essential elements of aids, timing, feel, and all the important nitty-gritty.  After the session, when the mentor left, the student said, “I’m going to really try to get this.”  The teacher’s parting words, as he climbed into his truck to drive away, warned, “Don’t try too hard.”

I have been that student, more than once, and wondered, “What the hell does that mean?  I’m not going to get this if I don’t try really, really hard.  I’m going to work every day to do a good job.”  So, I mindfully, carefully, craft my technique, perform my exercises, school my movements, again and again.  I read.  I reflect.  I try and try.  I try so damn hard that my technique, my exercises and my movements obscure my feel.  I know it’s getting worse but I don’t know how to make it better.  Until one day, I finally lay down all my effort.  I give up, give up and just ride.  Suddenly, amazingly, my feel comes back and there is harmony.  My aids have meaning.  The horse follows my thoughts:  he relaxes his jaw, releases his back, and steps into the movement that had eluded us.  Nine times out of ten, harmony comes after I lay down my effort and quit trying.

Horsemanship is the lens through which I learn.  I relate most things in my life to it, particularly my relationship with God. Lent is my time to try, and I like trying.  I like extra devotions, I like mindfulness practices, I like service, I like mostly all of it (except giving up candy, that I can’t manage at all).  This Lent, I am trying for right speech.  I am trying to speak honestly and lovingly at all times.  Trust me, I’m not doing so hot, especially at home with two little kids, or after a rough day teaching middle school students.  God bless it, I’m trying my heart out.  It’s good for me, all of this trying.  But, I know I will try too hard. I will fall short and I will berate myself and I will give up and I will try again.  All of this trying will exhaust me, until I can’t try anymore.

The grace of God, like harmony between horse and rider, does not come in the moments of trying.  For me, it comes after I’ve layed down my effort and surrendered.    The grace of God cannot come from the correct kneeling, prayers, devotions, or Lenten practice.  All of those things are technique.  Technique is important, with horses and with religion.  Correct technique, position, knowledge, and mindset prepare me for the goal, they set me up to receive it.  We cannot have correct technique without trying, but eventually we have to quit trying and surrender to death.  No technique can save us from that reality; no technique can save us from pain, loss, and death.

Grace comes to life in the death of Good Friday.  On that day, I can lay down all my trying, all my failures, all my shortcomings.  I can admit I am a mess, and that I can’t do it alone.  I can rest in the presence of a God who admits the same thing, a God who meets me in death and despair.  I can sit in the darkened church, surrounded by the soft sounds of crying, led gently into death, grief, and loss with my community.  In this moment, I know that I am not alone, I am not unloved, I am not unworthy, no matter how much my trying falls short.  Jesus took it all into his death and love returned him to life.  I hear him saying, “Don’t try too hard.”  I can lay down my effort on the cross of Christ, and find grace.

I bring my kids to church--thanks for putting up with them

My name is Linda and I bring my children to church.  Lately, I’ve noticed a few blogs trending about this subject.  Some people are apparently ranting about mothers or fathers coming in late and leaving early for church, and, naturally, other mothers and fathers are ranting back.  Here is my rant, for what it’s worth (probably about 2 cents).

I bring my kids to church, because what is important to me should be important to them.  My little one runs back and forth between the nursery and my adult Christian formation class during our Sunday School hour.  The adult class just smiles at her and the priest acts like he doesn’t mind that she distracts us from the discussion. Then, if I’m lucky (and usually I am), someone will watch them both in the nursery during part of mass.  They come in during the Peace, and partake in communion.  It’s not easy to manage them during this time.  I bring snacks, which make a mess in the pew.  Sometimes I let them play games on my phone, but I’ve learned that is usually louder and more distracting than anything.  “Mommy, this game isn’t WORKING right!”  “Mommy, my little sister took the phone!”  Sometimes, they color.  Sometimes, they walk up and down the pew on the kneelers.  Sometimes they fall and bite their lips and wail hysterically (that’s when we go into the nursery for the rest of the time.)  Sometimes they rearrange the hymnals, bibles, and Books of Common Prayer, and draw all over the prayer request cards. Sometimes they play peekaboo with the choir.  

I am lucky that my congregation is extremely welcoming to my children.  People smile indulgently when they talk during the service, or when they try to run down the aisle during announcements.  My friends at church shake my kids’ hands, give them communion, and indulge them with cupcakes during the coffee hour.  Fellow parishioners sit beside my kids and some even bring them special toys during the service.  They kiss their booboos and compliment their art projects.  There are probably people who wish I didn’t have them there, when they’re loud, or people who are annoyed at the mess, or the lack of decorum that kids bring to the service.  But, no one ever voices those views to me.  I am glad that my church family welcomes my nuclear family; it makes my life much easier.  Even without all the support, I would still insist on bringing my children to worship, and here’s why.

I went to church as a child, every week, and I learned to sit.  In the Mennonite church we attended, children were expected to sit in worship services after the age of four.  In the spirit of good German discipline, my mom felt we should learn to sit and pay attention.  I ate candy, I played with little toys that my grandma brought, I colored, I rolled things down the backs of the pews, I poked my sister.  When I could read, I leafed through the hymnal and I looked for racy parts in the Bible.  In between all of those distractions, I learned how to listen.  I learned to sing the Doxology and say the Lord’s Prayer.  I learned what an offering meant.  I learned to pray, or at least to listen to others pray, which is not a bad start. I learned to hear the word of God and listen to people speak about it.  During a 20 year absence from a Christian church, those skills, ideas, and attitudes never left me.

I need my kids to go to church with me, and my kids need church.  It might not seem like they’re listening, but I assure you they’re absorbing it.  My oldest plays, “Body of Christ, Bread of Heaven” and gives communion to her dolls.  When the acolytes ring the bells as the priest prepares the Host, she says, “Mommy, it’s magic!”  She baptizes her bath toys.  She asks me questions, “Mommy, why do you say, ‘Our father, who aren’t in heaven’?  Isn’t God in heaven?”  (That one led to an interesting discussion about the language of the Lord’s Prayer).  I am continuously grateful that my church is welcoming to my little ones.   To those who might complain, thanks for sucking it up for the benefit of my children.

Evangelism without fear--how does that work?

Evangelism terrifies me.  I know that as a Christian, I am supposed to spread the Good News of the Gospel.  I enjoy theological and philosophical conversations, over cups of coffee or bottles of beer.  I am passionate about my church.  I should be comfortable sharing this, but, instead, the idea paralyzes me.  I cannot speak the words, “You should hear about the saving grace of Christ Jesus” or anything similar to that.

It calls to mind the classic, door-to-door evangelist, or those people who put flyers on your cars at county fairs proclaiming, “Are you Going to Heaven?”, or those people standing on street corners prophesizing the end times.  I’ve written before about how the question, “Have you taken Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” scared me out of church for about 20 years.

http://lindaloumiz.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-question-that-scared-me-out-of.html  

As much as I love my church and as much as my Christian faith sustains me, I cannot speak eloquently about it.  Maybe the fault is in my liberal, universal, grace-dependent theology.  If I believe with all my heart that Jesus came not to judge the world, but to save it, that he died for us ALL while we were still sinners, then I cannot threaten people with hellfire and brimstone if they do not come to church.  If I believe that we are saved by grace, unearned, free-flowing grace, not by our good works, then I cannot threaten people with hell if they do not follow the rules.  If I believe that the church is not a self-help organization, but rather is a where we build a relationship with God and his children, all of us flawed and failing, then I cannot promise that coming to church makes your life easier.  There is no carrot or stick in my belief system.

It’s a pretty sad marketing pitch:  You’re not going to go to hell if you don’t come, and showing up might not make your life easier.   As a matter of fact, it might make your life more challenging, more honest, and more real.  But no way will it get easier.  You will have to die to your selfishness in order to live, to lay down your ambitions in order to pick up a cross.  Oh, and everyone gets the same equal chance.  No matter how many times the other guy screws up and cuts you off in traffic, or screws you over at work, or fails to show up for you, he is just as loved by God as you are.  Not many sales made on that advertising!

Maybe this is why so many liberal Christians suck at evangelism, but conservative Christians  excel at it.  If a nice person honestly believes that he holds all the tickets to an eternity free from hell-fire, he's going to loudly persuade all his friends and neighbors to buy those tickets.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to save the world from eternal damnation? But, if you believe that God is actively pursuing a relationship with every living thing, that God will not stop until he reconciles everyone into the great love in which we live and move, you aren’t quite so worried about saving everyone.  So, how do you spread the Good News?  How do you invite people to the party?

Here’s my question: what should I say instead of “Come to church so you don’t go to hell”?  Maybe something like…

• You are already saved, so come join the party.  Come partake of the feast that God has prepared for you.  Why not start the celebration now?
• You will be have lots of company in eternity, so come to church and learn how to deal with other people in a culture of love.
• You are forgiven, so come to church to pray to be able to forgive others.
• God loves you, so come to church to learn to love others, even those who seem to be unloveable.
• Jesus Christ put you first, so come to church and learn how to put others first.  Come to church to learn how to take care of each other.
• God will envelop you in love someday, so come to church and get used to hanging out with him.  That way you won’t be so surprised when you meet him.
  
   I wonder how that sales pitch would work?

Amen, Bill Maher!

I think Bill Maher is hilarious, most of the time.  He’s really funny when he’s poking fun at my religion.  In a recent broadcast called “New Rule”, he lambasts the movie, Noah, (which personally seems pretty dreadful to me), and indulges in a clever riff about the ludicrousness of Christians who believe in a tyrant God who punishes the world.  Here are some quotes:

What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie."

"Hey, God, you know you're kind of a dick when you're in a movie with Russell Crowe and you're the one with anger issues."

"You know conservatives are always going on about how Americans are losing their values and their morality, well maybe it's because you worship a guy who drowns babies."

"If we were a dog and God owned us, the cops would come and take us away."

I'm reminded as we've just started Lent, that conservatives are always complaining about too much restraining regulation and how they love freedom, but they're the religious ones who voluntarily invent restrictions for themselves. On a hot summer day, Orthodox Jews wear black wool, on a cold winter night Mormons can't drink a hot chocolate... isn't life hard enough without making shit up out of thin air to fuck with yourself?"  

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/15/bill-maher-god-psychotic-mas-murderer_n_4970831.html)

Here’s what I think, listening to Bill Maher.  “Duh!”  Thanks for pointing out the obvious for us, that Noah’s ark is not literally true, and that a God that decides to kill innocent people is a tyrant.  Like those of us showing up to worship this morning at churches never thought of that.  Like we are honestly going to church so we’re on God’s good side, cowering from his wrath, and storing up our plywood for our future ark.  Like we never thought of a metaphorical meaning for our sacred literature.  “Duh! Captain Obvious!”

To be clear, I’m not interested in watching the Noah movie.  Personally, it looks melodramatic and dreadful--an unnecessary and unimaginative film adaptation of an ancient myth.  Maher is correct, the Noah story is a strange one, and the main character is an angry God.  Most educated people today realize that if there was an ancient flood, it was not because God sent the water to kill all the naughty people.  Most educated people, yes, even Christians, realize the story is a myth to illustrate a point. What is the point?  I'm not sure, except that maybe in the midst of a fantastic disaster like a horrific flood that seems to be punishing all the world, maybe in the midst of all that mess, there is still a moment when the love of God shines through.

Thanks, Bill Maher, for pointing out the ridiculousness of a God I do not believe in, a God that is not preached about in my church, a patriarchal, vengeful God that no person would actually worship.  Of course it is ridiculous!  Who in their right mind would worship such a God?  I left that God behind when I left the church.  I returned when I realized I was missing the point and missing God.  The point is not that an angry God sent the floods.  The point is that the love of God is like the rainbow, the covenant, the promise that, no matter messed up things are, love will triumph in the end.

The God I found in Christ is not the God that damns the entire world to death.  The God I found is the God that sends the rainbow after the flood, to show his promise.  The God who became human, lived with humans, loved humans, surrendered to human violence, and redeemed mankind through the resurrection.  It is the God who loved the world so greatly that he came to save it, not condemn it.  It is the God who saves people when we damn ourselves, who is with us as we suffer, and carries us through our hardships.  It is the God that held me in the palm of his hand through the death of my father, who continued to love me through challenges in my life, who wooed and cajoled me into a relationship with the Divine, with the Great Love in Which We Live and Move and Have our Being.

I do not go to church because I’m afraid of the wrath of God.  I go to church to celebrate being saved from the wrath of my own self-absorption and sin.  I do not go to church or impose restrictions on my life to get right with God or to get into heaven.  I go to church to join the party of universal, undeserved, unadulterated Grace.  I go to church to remind myself of my relationship with God and with my fellow man.

Thanks, Bill Maher for your always entertaining diatribe against a ridiculous god.  You are 100% right that it is silly to worship such an angry, patriarchal, vengeful god.  If we worshiped that god in my church, I would run like hell.  Thankfully, we do not; we worship a God of love.

Advice from the barn help

I am not really young anymore, but sometimes I read blogs and articles about young people and what is wrong with them today.  You know the ones:  the entitled, lazy, self-centered, whiny young people.  I don’t know many of those kind of young people.  That’s probably because most of the young people I know hang around in horse barns.  The young people that I know work several jobs, don't complain, start their days at 4:00 am to prepare for competitions, put their animals' needs before theirs, and support their friends with fierce loyalty.  I spent my 20s working in barns, too, and I honestly credit those days with building the success in my life.  Although I don’t make my living training and caring for horses anymore, I am what I am because of it.  Any work ethic, humility, patience, and demand for excellence I have in my come from lessons learned in barns.  Here are just a few of them.

• No one is above doing what needs to be done.  One day when I was a working student at a premier dressage barn, the morning stall guy didn’t come in.  We called around for someone else, but all of the other guys weren’t available.  So, the head trainer cleaned the stalls with us; a guy whose classical and competitive dressage credentials would stack up against anyone in the country, or maybe the world, showed up at 5:30 am to muck stalls. Horses poop and someone needs to clean it up.
• No fancy education makes up for hard work and quick study.  I had graduated from a respectable program with excellent references. When I showed up for my first apprenticeship, the director said, “Well, usually people with college degrees don’t last long.  At least you know how to read and write, I guess.”  Nothing I’d done before mattered unless it prepared me to meet future challenges.
• The world is fickle; focus on your practice. Judges, clients, and horses come and go.  You will be up one day and down the next.  Don’t let success or failure sway you from your core principles; don’t turn away from what you know is right in order to find a quick fix.
• “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but you can make a damn good sow’s ears purse out of a sow’s ear.”  (I believe this is a quote from the late horseman, Ray Hunt.)  Even without the best ingredients, take pride in your work and make a difference with what you have.
• Education is an opportunity.  Horse people pay more than they can afford for training with knowledgeable experts.  Do not turn down any opportunity to learn from someone with more experience. 
• Get over yourself.  One time a particular horse I was working was assigned to a different trainer, right before a big performance.  I had an entire temper tantrum, crying and carrying on like a four-year-old.  I felt passed over and I was pissed off.  One of the old trainers told me, “Kid, if you can’t take this, you might as well get out now.  You are in for a road of disappointments bigger than this one.  No one owes you anything and no one wants to hear you whine.”  It was the best advice I have ever received.  I never threw a fit like that again.

Lent: from punchlines to practice

Lent is a funny time in this world of convenient consumption.  The idea of “giving something up” seems forced, contrived.  It must be a little insulting or arrogant to give up things like sweets, fast food, meat, or Facebook, when many people in the world don’t have any of those things.  Wow--what a great model of following Christ!  That girl quit eating candy, during Easter season, no less!  She’s going to miss out on all those Cadbury Eggs!  The idea of sacrificing something so superficial is a little silly.  I say this, and I doubt I’ll be able to abstain from those delicious, creme-filled, chocolate delicacies.

    In college, Lent was a punch-line.  Most of my college pals were Catholics, ranging from moderately devout to non-practicing rebels.  We thought Lent was hilarious; we milked almost 40 days of jokes out of it.  Our favorite things to “give up” were:  being nice, being sober, vegetables, and cheap beer.  Once, we our answering machine message said, “We gave up the answering phone for Lent; call us back after Easter.”  Now, if you think a dorm full of 20 year-old girls are going to give up their phone, you’re crazy!

    So, twenty years later, I prepare for Lent again and this time, I consider it seriously (well, mostly seriously).  It still seems contrived to pick some luxury to deny myself for 40 days, or to take on a prayer practice or volunteer project, something I should do anyway.  I will probably fall “off the wagon” after a couple of weeks; then I’ll try again.  I think that’s the point--the practice, the mindfulness of it, even if it doesn’t matter to anyone else but me.  

It is a little silly to think there is anything I can do to prepare for the awesome and amazing gift of grace in the love of Christ.  It is ridiculous to think that my small sacrifice can mirror in any way the supreme sacrifice of God’s love for us.  But, still, we practice Lent.  We meditate, we pray, we sacrifice in our own small way.  The liturgy is practice at living in Christ.  I can feel pretty connected and spiritual on a Sunday morning when all is right with the world.  I can “get it” on a Tuesday evening when the kids are in bed, the house is quiet and I have the Book of Common Prayer.  I can contemplate sacrifice and service through the minor discomfort of fasting, or through the gift of my time in volunteering.  That how I practice for when times get tough.  

Because, let’s be honest, when the shit hits the fan in life, praying and trusting in Jesus is not my first reaction.  I get angry, anxious, obsessed, worried, and quite beside myself.  I lose sight of the big picture and start spinning in circles.  The last time that I lost my emotional balance, prayer brought me back to center.  Saying compline every night, whether I felt it or not, gave me some peace.  Reading C.S. Lewis or Madeleine L’Engle gave me some perspective.  And praying through the weirdness and nervousness gave me space to take a deep breath.  Rather than flying off the handle, I could slow down, see the situation for what it was and find gratitude instead of demands.  I could trust instead of try to control.  If I hadn’t prayed when times were easy, I could have never done it when times were tough.  There’s an expression, “You play like you practice.”  Maybe it could be, “You pray like you practice.”  Lent is time for practice.  When you’re sitting in the snowbank calling for your friend, Jesus, it helps that you just talked to him the other day.