Accepting or Affirming?

A few years ago I wrote an opinion piece for a local newspaper. I was asked to do this from my perspective as a faith leader in the area. At that time, there was a recent religious controversy in the area because of a new faith center built in the city for a world religion other than Christianity. Many citizens were angry that this center was allowed to be built. Some protested. Lawsuits were filed.
In the end, the center was built here.

Having this in the recent history of the city, I wrote my piece about tolerance. One of the things I was most concerned with was the ability for people to allow those who are different to be present. So many times we overtly or covertly ask people to be different than who they are so they can fit into our society. Maybe it is the way they dress, maybe it is the way they act, maybe it is the way they talk. It could be almost anything. As we judge people into the box we prefer for them, we are denying them the truth that Christians proclaim that humans are made in the image of God. It will not be the same image of God that I or you are made in, but it is the image of God just the same. When we define the image of God as looking like me or you instead of someone else, we are limiting God through our own lack of imagination.

So I wrote a piece about tolerance. I thought it was pretty good. I had written a piece for this newspaper a few times before, but this was the first time I received a response from a reader.

To be honest, I'm not certain what the writer wanted to convey. But I think it was something like, "Bless your heart, you're so young and naïve. If you just knew what I know, you'd realize we can't tolerate..." The end of that sentence was not clear, but the gist was there are some people out there we just can't allow around us.

As I have lived more of life, I hope I have become less naive. But my impulse to tolerate has grown from tolerance to acceptance and finally to affirming. Let me be clear, when I say this, I mean I am affirming of all people who live to seek the good that God created them to be. That goes for different world religions, adherents of which I do not feel it is my place to judge by the criteria of my own religion. That goes for people who are on the sexuality spectrum whose sexuality is different from mine, but who want love and desire companionship just as much as I do.

It was in a discussion group with friends on the spectrum that I learned about the difference between acceptance and affirming. Acceptance means that it's OK, but often has the implication that it isn't as good as whatever the norm is. Affirming means you are just right the way you are.

There is evil in this world. It should be called out and named. But people who are loving and working toward God, even if it is in a way different from our way, deserve more than tolerance or acceptance. They deserve to be affirmed.

How beautiful would our world be if we were able to affirm one another for the image of God within, not despite our differences, but through and because of those differences? Those differences may just be glimpses of God's image that we could never get another way.

That's the view from the limited vantage point of where I stand.

Interpretation is a Choice

During a class in Divinity School, one of my professors was trying to help the class to understand how we make meaning from the bible. She used a simple illustration that was perhaps so simple that it was profound. She took a copy of the bible, placed it on a table in the center of the room and said that if we wanted to know what the bible said about a certain subject, we could ask it. Of course, the bible itself wasn't going to speak back to us. That was the point.

The bible doesn't say anything. It is a book. The letters on the page are meaningless to anyone who doesn't read the language in which that bible was printed. And knowing that the bible was written in ancient forms of languages that most of us aren't able to read, we have to realize that whatever we get in our English language bibles has already been interpreted for us by the folks who translated it.

Those squiggles on the page that we call letters only have meaning when we give them meaning. So, the only way there is meaning in the printed words on the page of the bible, or any other book for that matter, is when we give those words meaning. Even with the same exact words on the page, with many of the same life experiences, we may come up with vastly different ways of reading a text.

Here's a silly example: what do you think of when you hear the word "car?" Most of us would probably think of those things that we drive around, but some might think of train cars or cars on roller coasters. There may be other different types of cars. But even those of us who think of those things we drive around, what type of car do we think of? Is it new? Old? Red? Small? All of the different types of cars can come to mind just with that one word. So even though we have the same word in the same context, there is no reason to think we would all be thinking of the same thing.

That is greatly multiplied when we read an ancient text that has been translated into our modern language. 

But there is one constant. Whatever meaning we make of the language, it is a meaning that we make. In other words, the words on the page don't mean anything until we create that meaning for them.

My point is this. We choose how we interpret words, paragraphs, whole books. We make meaning as we go along. That meaning isn't even fixed for us... How many times have we re-read something we read at a different time in our lives and found a completely different meaning?

The bible itself does not exclude anyone. It doesn't oppress anyone. It doesn't hurt anyone. Those things only happen because people choose that meaning from scripture. In short, the bible doesn't exclude, people do that.

We have much better tools to study scripture than were available just a few years ago. We have better understandings of culture, more examples of ancient languages, new theories of understanding. Those can all assist us in making meaning of the bible or any other writing. But ultimately we choose what those writings mean, for good for ourselves and others or for bad for ourselves and others.

I believe in a God who is good and loving to the world. I believe that the book inspired by that God would not be intended to harm people. That's how I choose to interpret the scripture.

Whatever you choose, recognize that the bible doesn't make meaning of itself, only we do that.

That's the view from where I stand...

Our Brains

I recently read a book written by Lauren Haynes, a member of the church I serve. The title of the book is A Different Road. This book details the struggles she and her family went through as they raised and continued to care for a man with very different brain function than what most people would consider normal. He is autistic and suffers from depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

One frustration she and her family would often face was that her son is extremely intelligent, but the autism symptoms affect the way he expresses himself. Since he grew up in the middle of the 20th century, that often led to people thinking he was unintelligent, and treating him like a child or even a lost cause. Several doctors encouraged the family to institutionalize the young man and forget that he was their son.

The book is available on Amazon, and it is a wonderful, heart-breaking read.

Haynes makes a point several times throughout the book, and it is something I have been reflecting on quite a bit since reading it. She mentions how much effort is put into healing diseases of the body, and then suggests that we should spend as much or maybe much more researching how to heal the brain. After all, the brain is much more complex than any of those other systems of the body.

My brain works strangely. At least, I think it does, in comparison to others. I have a mental illness called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. OCD is often presented in media as a kind of funny thing. Haha, that guy has to wash his hands all the time. Haha, that woman has to have all the cans lined up a certain way. OCD is a serious, debilitating disorder. At its heart, OCD is about uncertainty. It manifests itself in many different ways, but the result is a set of rituals, physical or mental, that are meant to eliminate the uncertainty. Sometimes they are logical, as in knowing that anti-bacterial soap kills germs, but maybe I missed one, so I ought to do it one more time. Another logical one might be checking the oven or the door, because maybe you just forgot that you really did leave it on, even though you just checked. Others are more mystical or even magical, like counting steps or making sure to balance the twitches of the face. Sometimes they are totally mental as in continually checking to make sure you aren't a bad person or going to do a bad thing.

There were times in my life when these compulsions were overwhelming. I realize to someone who doesn't suffer from OCD these things may sound ridiculous.

There are good things that come from OCD as well. Usually someone with OCD will do a project with excellence, partly because if something is short of perfection they will take it apart and do it again and again until they are satisfied. That makes some projects take a really long time for me. But the end result is that the project is done as well as I am capable of doing it.

Fortunately my OCD is under reasonable control now. I will always suffer with it to some extent, but when I have good habits and am sure to take medication that balances the chemicals in my brain, I am better.

I am writing all this because mental illness is still stigmatized. People are unwilling to seek treatment for something they want to simply think their way out of. Haynes' book reminded me that the brain is the most complex part of the body. We know so little about how it works. Why would we think it needs less medical intervention than the heart or the stomach?

For those of you who struggle with a form of mental illness, you are not alone. It's common, normal even, to have these struggles. Don't add to the struggles by shaming yourself for having an illness.

For those who do not struggle with mental illness, be grateful. Not only that, please recognize that those who do have mental illness aren't simply weak or lacking in any way. Our brains don't work the same way yours do. That doesn't keep us from being smart, helpful, inventive, or whatever other positive things you can add to that list.

Thanks, Lauren Haynes, for reminding me.

That's the view from where I stand today...

From Where I Stand: Challenges

The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, stated, "Change is the only constant. There is nothing permanent except change."

Well, that's what we think he meant. He actually said it in ancient Greek. So for us to understand it, it had to be translated from one language to another and from one time period and culture to another. I guess, proving its own point, the words had to be changed so modern people could understand their meaning.

Is there a time in life when it is appropriate to stop learning? Is there a time when things become settled and there is no need to continue to develop?

It is inspiring to see people in my life who late in their own lives continue to seek out new opportunities to grow, new opportunities to learn about people who are different from themselves, and new opportunities to expand their horizons. And I wonder about what motivates our change. What is it that makes some of us seek it out while others are so resistant? And what makes us willing to accept change on some issues, but not at all on other things?

There is a theory that a friend described to me that says we only experience real change through crisis. That applies to individuals and to institutions. Think about how resistant to change large companies or churches can be, until the point when they realize that they are in crisis. Many large brick and mortar stores who have been dominant in the past have gone out of business because they didn't understand how to adapt to the change in culture.

It is my hope that in my life it will not take crisis for me to continue to grow and change. In order to do that, my hope is to continue to change through challenge. If I am going to become someone new, if I am going to learn something new, it will happen because I am challenged.

Think of the difficulty of learning a new skill like a new musical instrument. It is uncomfortable. It is frustrating. Often you may feel like throwing up your hands and quitting. And yet, if you persevere, you learn something new. And you become different.

As a pastor I view so many things through the lens of the church. Sometimes people come into a church and want it to be what it has always been. That is comforting, but it isn't challenging. It isn't helping anyone to grow. It may simply be reinforcing an understanding that was appropriate at a different time, but may now need to be reexamined. But if those things are never challenged, there will never be growth.

Find a community that challenges you to become a better member of our society, a better follower of your tradition, a better human. Don't run from challenge, embrace it, because through challenge comes change. And change is good. It is the only constant.

Grace to you,
Pastor Chris