Reason Breeds Insanity

Lent has never seemed so long to me before. Could it be that the changes I am called to make this year drag the time out? Could it be that I am waiting for so many things: to celebrate Easter, to complete this research paper, to graduate, to simply work without having school as well, to start exercising again, to have time to just be, and to get summer started? I wait to see how it will all turn out.

Daniel 9:4-10
This morning I was startled awake by a noise from the general direction of the kitchen. It sounded like Becky had just heard horrible news on the radio or gotten a bad voicemail or something tragic. In reality, she she had simply cussed as the cat had knocked over the bottle of water she was filling. In my sleepy haze, it seemed much worse. A few minutes later, as I was finishing a book for class called A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America, which I highly recommend, she came into the bedroom and said, “Oh, great biblical scholar, *sarcasm* what does ‘confusion of face’ mean?” I had no clue, so I looked up this passage in Daniel in my bible. In her version, the red leatherbound RSV complete with pictures that she received at her confirmation or baptism, the word for shame or shameful thing is translated as confusion of face.

When I sat down here at the table to spend some time in the word (that sounds so evangelical), I sat here perplexed for a minute trying to figure out why the two translations would differ so greatly in their word choice. I then discovered that the Hebrew actually says that the shame is on our faces (boshet haphanim). When we carry shame on our faces, it confuses who we are. We are created in the image of God, but when we break that relationship with God, the shame, like the shame of Adam and Eve who sought to cover their beautifully naked bodies, confuses who we really are. We cannot see the image of God in each other because our faces are so confused by shame. I wonder if there isn’t some correlation to the practice of covering the body with sackcloth and ashes; if your face were covered in ashes to convey your shame at your sin, then your face would be confused. Twice in this prayer, Daniel talks about the shame on our faces, so I assume it was important to Daniel for the Lord to understand the extent of Daniel’s shame—although Daniel doesn’t say my shame, he says our shame, making the sin he is confessing communal not personal. Perhaps, we need to pray more communally, which goes back to my issue yesterday of bearing the shame for others. If our prayers are communal, the shame is communal. It takes a whole village to raise a child. It takes a whole people to confess a shared sin.

I am sure that the expression shame on our faces somehow evolved into saving face. Isn’t saving face trying to avoid being shamed in public?

Luke 6:36-50
What can I say? This is beautiful. A woman comes and transfers her shame and her guilt and her sin onto her savior. How much more beautiful does Scripture get? The beauty is in Jesus’ willingness to accept her shame while using it to teach the Pharisees about love and forgiveness. The beauty is in this “sinful woman’s” willingness to expose her own shame and desperation in a way that humbles all those in the room. She literally cries her sin and shame onto Jesus’ feet. I could go on for about twenty pages about this story, so I will stop and just ponder its beauty in my life.

My goal today is to begin to absorb the shame for others and to try to revel in the beauty of things.

Today was pretty much a weird and bad day—a strange spoke in my menstrual cycle. Have you ever tried so hard to live your life a certain way only to find out the people you care the most about don’t see you in the same way that you see yourself? That happened to me today.

So far, this Lenten season, I have focused on how I let the Scriptures shape me and what that looks like to others—my relationship with them and my treatment of them. I felt like I was getting closer to the person I am called to be, and I felt like I was letting God shape me into the woman [They] want me to be. Maybe I was evolving outside my home.

However, today I learned that for several days I have been alienating the person who means the most to me. I don’t realize how scathing, how cutting, how harsh my sense of humor can be. I can reduce my object of humor to nothing with a few simple words. In short, I have a biting wit. We had words about several things today and I realized through her carefully stated feelings that I do trample people with words, and the victim is usually someone close to me. It doesn’t make sense. I have belittled my brother (not recently that I know of); my best friends (Becs, Merideth, and Amy); and, several coworkers (probably too many to name). I was kindly told that I sometimes make people feel embarassed about things they have done, and that by using such humor I essentially cut people to their quick. This is not who I want to be. This is not who I should be. This is not who I am.

I assume this is the reason Jesus makes such a connection between murder and calling your brother a fool: you can murder someone’s soul with your words. I want to be the person that others want to be around because I build them up. I don’t want to be the one they shy away from because they don’t know what I may say to them—how I may cut them down to make a joke or build myself up. We are called to lift others burdens onto our own shoulders, to shoulder their guilt, not to expose it to others through jokes or teasing. I need to realize that by making a joke out of a painful moment, I am memorializing that moment of pain, of shame. I am heaping hot coals on the head of the person rather than funneling them onto myself, which is what we are called to do. We are called to bear the shame of other’s painful moments not to make them into jokes for the profit of everyone else. I need to work on this. I am going to change this about myself.

Today’s Readings:
Genesis 12:1-4
2 Timothy 1:8-10
Matthew 17:1-9

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
In verse 16 we read, “The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.” The next two verses contain a threefold explanation of our commitment to God. The Israelites declared that they were going: (1) to walk in the way, (2) to keep the decrees, and (3) to obey the Lord. In response the Lord promises that the Israelites are: (1) [Their] people, (2) going to be set in praise, fame and honor, and (3) a people holy to the Lord their God. For me, the challenge is not believing in God’s promises, the challenge is lving my life in a way that is worthy of God’s promises. To walk in the way of the Lord, to keep the Lord’s decrees, and to obey the Lord are no small tasks.

When ancient people were trying to implement a certain belief system into their lives, they would walk around chanting or mumbling the words of their holy stories to themselves. Because the stories or scriptures were passed down orally, the memorization of the texts was important. I think it is interesting that the scripture that informs my spiritual life and daily decisions are the passages of scripture that I know by heart. I may not know then verbatim, but I have meditated on them enough that the general gist of their text is firmly implanted in my heart and soul. One of the spiritual disciplines that intrigues me the most is saying the Jesus prayer. In the book The Way of the Pilgrim, a man is taught that his prayers should be constant and never ceasing. In Psalm 1 the text says, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” The word for meditate literally means to mumble or to recite to yourself. The Hebrew word hagah literally means to moan, growl, speak, or mutter. In the Jewish Publication Society’s translation of the Tanakh, the word is translated as study.

All this to say, that I think for me, part of upholding my end of the bargain with the Lord is to absorb the Scriptures so that I can’t help but be influenced by their meaning in my day to day life. This brings me closer to realizing my dream of living on Venice Beach, literally on Venice Beach. I could walk around mumbling Scripture to rhythm of the oceans lapping waves, the seagulls calling their praises, and the soft sand cradling my every step. Please, understand that I am being serious: I plan one day to live on Venice Beach. I only hope that when the time comes, I am stil sentient enough to hitch a ride across the country without too much problem. Despite its problems, what a free way to live, with none of the societal pressures, the only concerns are bodily and spiritual. Interesting to me that many of the booming spiritual revolutions are happening in homeless communities. Something to ponder.

Matthew 5:43-48
I can’t say anything better or more intelligent than some words from the Dalai Lama in his book, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus. He says in a chapter called “Love Your Enemy”:

If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience, and understanding. By developing greater tolerance and patience, it will be easier for you to develop your capacity for compassion and, through that, altruism. So even for the practice of your own spiritual path, the presence of an enemy is crucial. (49)

It is important to concentrate on the negativities of anger and hatred, which are the principal obstacles to enhancing one’s capacity for compassion and tolerance…God created you as an individual and gave you the freedom to act in a way that is compatible and in accordance with the Creator’s wishes—to act in an ethical way, in a moral way, and to live a life of an ethically disciplined, responsible individual. (50)

There is an idea in Buddhism of something called offering of practice (drupai chopa): of all the offerings you can make to someone that you revere—such as material offerings, singing songs of praise, or other gifts—the best offerieng you can make is to live a life according to the principles of that being…One of the great yogi’s of Tibetan Buddhism, Milarepa, states in one of his songs of spiritual experience, “As far as offerings of material gifts are concerned, I am destitute; I have nothing to offer. What I have to offer in abundance is the gift of my spiritual practice.” (51)

All is well. He looks good, and he is working a normal schedule. We are back to normal, which if you know my family, means abnormal.

Has anyone ever read Jude? What a weird book: 3 verses of greeting, 16 verses of talking about these particular men who come to destroy the church, 4 verses of encouragement, and 2 verses of a beautiful benediction. While containing one of the most beautiful greetings (2) and, in my opinion, the most beautiful doxology in the New Testament (24-25), I think it could possibly be the foremost text on gossip in the church and it even contains namecalling. The men are called dreamers, ungodly, unreasoning animals, blemishes, shepherds who feed themselves, clouds without rain, trees without fruit, uprroted and twice dead, wild waves, wondering stars, scoffers, near sighted gynocologists…wait I slipped into Hook there for a second. They are compared to unbelievers, angels who have been cast out of heaven, Cain, Balaam, Sodomites, Korah, and the Devil. They “pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings.” The online commentaries say that Jude is referring to men who were trying to infiltrate the church by disguising themselves as believers but then leading people astray from the true gospel. The biblical scholars are much kinder than I am to Jude. Still. Really? There are seven verses that are edifying; the rest seems to be hate speech about “certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago.” I think I could get the notes from a church staff meeting and possibly pass it off as Jude.

Ever wonder why some books are in the Bible? Jude, eh, anyone? Seriously. Jude is holy writ. Okay, I’ll stop.