Wishful Thinking

Christianity is mainly wishful thinking....Sometimes wishing is the wings the truth comes in on. Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.  (Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

Now you (and I) know where the title of the book came from. Christianity is mainly wishful thinking.

It's the last sentence of the quote that stopped me. "Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it."

This is a great definition of prevenient grace.  We have a yearning - a wanting - dare I say a wishing - for a creator beyond ourselves. We look. We pray. We search. We study. We are hoping to catch a glimpse of that which is beyond ourselves.

Why would we spend so much effort and hope on looking for - wishing for - something we can't see and can't prove, and can only believe is present through faith?

Why? Because that for which we look and wish is God. And God is nudging us, through prevenient grace, to look. It is in the looking - in the desire to search for God - that we can find evidence of God. Because without God, we would not look.

Grace. It is amazing.

On Vocation

On Vocation: The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.  (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking).  

Yes, that means I'm in the V Chapter of this book. I will finish it this week.  Maybe tomorrow.

I had to stop and write about this particular quote that I read today. It is the very first quote I ever read from Frederick Buechner, back in 2005. I had been invited to preach for Laity Sunday, and I was looking for something like this - I didn't know who had said it or what exactly it was, so the Lay Leader at the time sent it to me. It became a part of my sermon, and then after the sermon, the Lay Leader gave me a thank you gift - a Frederick Buechner book called Beyond Words. It's still sitting on my bookshelf in my office, and I pull it often for devotional material.

There are sentences that follow you through life, don't you think? In music it's called a "lifesong." I don't know what it's called when it's a quote, but this one has stuck with me for over 10 years.  There are so many tenants of faith for me in this one sentence:

1. God calls - God calls you. God calls me. Don't forget that you are called to something. Everyone is.
2. It takes discernment to find that place of calling - you have to work with God to discover what you are to do. If that wasn't true, the sentence wouldn't exist - no one would need encouragement to look for their call; they would already know what it was. Finding it might not be easy.
3. We are called to deep gladness. We sometimes think that if we are suffering, then we are answering our call. I'm not saying there won't be suffering, but if you are not experiencing deep gladness, then you haven't found your calling. Underneath the hard work, the frustrations, and the muck of doing what you are called to do, there is deep gladness. 
4. It's not about self-gratification. There is a purpose to your service. There is a need the world has that God is calling you to meet. It's about giving of yourself, not to make yourself happy, but to fulfill a mission you have been given.

The place where your deep gladness and the world's deep need meet is a sacred place. It is the burning bush. It is where you throw off your shoes and say, "Here is where I meet God."  

In-spiring

How about this quote (remembering that the word "spirit," in Hebrew and Greek, means breath):

"...to speak of your spirit (or soul) is to speak of the power of life that is in you.  When your spirit is unusually strong, the life in your unusually alive, you can breathe it out into other lives, become literally in-spiring."  (Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner)

The have that kind of passion for life, to be that in-spiring, is wonderful. To feel alive, to be alive, to bring life to others might be the purpose of life. It might be what Jesus means when he says to love each other.

What about the church? Are we yet alive? I believe that the church can be in-spiring. The church can be so alive, so powerful with the spirit of God - the spirit of life - that it is unusal. It is amazing. It can bring life to others. The church, because of the work of God in the lives of those who make up the Body of Christ, can be in-spiring.

How can we be alive today? How can we invite God into our churches so that we feel SO ALIVE that life and love can't be contained, and have to pour out on those around us.

If we can allow God to do that, then we can stop worrying about numbers. 

Righteousness

I watch my son play and piano (or the trumpet) and I am amazed. I am amazed at his technical skill, but more than that, I am amazed by the emotion he pours into the art of music.

The composer of a piece creates a musical score that to me is black marks on lines. To my son (and other musicians, of course), it is a language that speaks art. The composer wrote the music to express emotions - or at least there are emotions that can be expressed through the playing of the music.

When I watch Josh play, I can hear the emotions in the playing. I can see the emotions in the movement of his body. I can watch the emotions play out in the speed of his hands. His playing interprets the language of the music to me.

There are musicians who play music with great technical skill. Every note is correct; the timing is impeccable. And yet, there is no feeling behind the sound. I don't hear the language of the music through their playing.

Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking compares the Pharisees to the technically correct player of music. Everything is correct, but it is not right. It is not righteous.

"Righteousness isn't getting it all right. If you play it the way it's supposed to be played, there shouldn't be a still foot in the house."

Righteousness - alignment with God - isn't about the rules. It's about grace. It's about interpreting the grace of God to the rest of us.

Look for Questions

One morning, I read this:

Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening to the questions it asks. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

And you can take heart that I am on the R chapter, and soon to finish this book and move onto another one - there just can't be that many more posts inspired by this great little book.

That statement stopped me. Think about it for a minute. Do you think it's good spiritual advice.

We want answers. We already have questions. Have do I live my life? What is right and what is wrong? Can I judge the actions of the person next to me? In the next town? In the next country? Does God support what I'm doing? What is my purpose? What is my call? 

I don't really want a book that just asks more questions. But think about the questions the Bible asks:

Who is my neighbor?

What is the greatest commandment?

Am I my brother's keeper?

What is truth?

Why is this horrible thing happening to me?

If we take the questions from the Bible and pray about them, it becomes a living book as God speaks into our lives. It's harder to do, it doesn't give us easy answers that we can use to beat each other up. But it does offer us the grace of sanctification.

On Principals

My thoughts a few weeks ago as I read a passage from Buechner's Wishful Thinking. These are words about Principles.

"Principles are what people have instead of God."

What? Think about that for just a moment. Do you agree with that? We've been raised to consider that principles are a good thing, and, honestly, I don't think Buechner is saying that's not true. So, let's keep reading.

To be a Christian means among other things to be wiling if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or you neighbor's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if three's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child.

Consider the Pharisees. Do you think they were holding onto - if not principles - then the law, above the love of neighbor? In the same way that a principled person is a good thing, a Pharisee was not a bad person. I think Jesus was trying to tell them that they were holding onto the law more than they were clinging to God.

Do we do that?  Do we hold on to our principles above our trust in God? 

"Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them."

He will bring you himself

What do we say about prayer? We say things like, "I prayed, but the answer was no." "I prayed, but God didn't answer me." "I'm not good at praying."

Do we think prayer is magic? Do we think that we ought to be able to say the prayer and then have the world change around us? Is that attitude enhanced when we pray and what we have prayed for happens? Sure it is.

But I would counter the ideas that our prayers are answered with a "no" or that our prayers are unanswered with this quote from Frederick Buechner:

...keep on beating the path to God's door,m because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer, the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself."

He will bring you himself.  How can we ever say that a prayer is unanswered or that the answer is no. He will bring you himself.

Emptiness

The devotional I read this morning was in Wishful Thinking (Frederick Buechner). Think about Matthew 11:28: "Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest."

Do you think it is true that all of us have an emptiness that we are trying to fill? We buy more things - better cars, better houses, better phones, wonderful vacations - in the hopes of filling in what is missing in our lives. I see people who call themselves "spiritual," and they are trying to fill emptiness with crystals or horoscopes or solitude. None of that is in and of itself evil or wrong.  But, I think, none of it fills the emptiness.

We who are not poor in material wealth have the ability to try things like this. Those who do not have the material wealth do not. 

Buechner's thesis around the Matthew scripture above is that those who are poor are desperate enough to hear the words Jesus speaks. We are all seeking to fill the emptiness - if we are unable to try to fill it with what won't work, we might just be willing to try what will work - God.

My prayer is that we will all reach for God first, and find the blessing of completeness that is real.

Doctor, Doctor

My devotional time today in Wishful Thinking started me wondering about calling Jesus the Great Physician:

When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Luke 2:17)

What comes to mind when you think of a physician? The most obvious answer is healer, and Jesus is certainly that. But think about it more.

Think about the relationship/dependence you have with your doctor.

1. When you visit the doctor, you are stripped (literally, usually) of your defenses, along with your clothes. You are vulnerable.
2. You visit the doctor because you believe she knows more than you do.
3. In a good doctor/patient relationship, you trust your doctor.
4. You place your life, literally, in her hands.
5. You wait, nervous and anticipating, for whatever news or words she brings.
6. You depend on your doctor for healing.
7. Your success as a patient depends on following the doctor's "advice."

Do we have a relationship with Jesus that mirrors the relationship we have with our doctor? Or is it less?

Just Do It

Why don't we speak to others about what God has done for us? It's hard, isn't it? We don't want to be rejected, we don't want to be thought of as "weird." We don't want to be pushy. We don't want to be disliked. We think we don't have the gifts for it, the calling for it, the skills for it. We would rather not do it. We just don't want to.

Regarding Paul, Frederick Buechner says, "As his own letters indicate, his contemporaries accused him of being insincere, crooked, yellow physically repulsive, unclean, bumbling and off his rocker." 

Paul wrote, "Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been adrift at sea. (from 2 Corinthians 11).

As Nike says, I should just do it. I have a story to tell, and so do you.

Mystery

I'm reading today in Wishful Thinking as Buechner speaks about mysteries. There are some mysteries which you can think through to a solution - a murder mystery novel, for example. There are other mysteries which you can't think your way through - you just have to live them.

"To say that God is a mystery is to say that you can never nail him down. Even on Christ the nails proved ultimately ineffective."

I love Bible Study. I love it because I love to know more. See more. Learn more. I want to understand. And there is nothing wrong with this. In fact, I think it is an excellent thing to do.

But - even with that, we can never let ourselves think that we have God nailed down. Figured out. God is a mystery that we cannot understand. God used Christ to help reveal himself to us - and knowing Christ certainly expands our understanding of God - but it doesn't complete it.

None of us should fool ourselves into thinking we have God nailed down. Figured out. And that we know all about him. It's just not true - and is in fact impossible for us.

Music

Whereas painters work with space - the croquet players on the lawn, behind them the dark foliage of the hedge, above them the sky - musicians work with time as one note follows another note the way tock follows tick.

Music both asks us and also enables us to listen to certain qualities of time - to the grandeur of time, says Bach, to the poignance of time, says Mozart, to the swing and shimmer of time, says Debussy, or however else you choose to put into words the richness and complexity of what each of them is wordlessly "saying."

We learn from music how to listen to the music of our own time - one moment of our lives following another moment the way the violin passage follows the flute, the way the sound of footsteps on the gravel follows the rustle of leaves in the wind which follows the barking of a dog almost too far away to hear.

Music helps us to "keep time" in the sense of keeping us in touch with time, not just time as an ever-flowing stream that bears us all away at last but time also as a stream that every once in a while slows down and becomes transparent enough for us to see down to the stream bed the way at a wedding, say, or watching the sun rise, past present future are so caught up in a single moment the we catch a glimpse of the mystery that at its deepest place time is timeless.  (Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

Have you had that experience - the experience where music brings you to a transparent place. For me, sometimes, that place offers glimpses of the holiness of God. Glimpses of the eternal, where time is timeless.

I have no musical talent of my own, so I am eternally grateful to those who bring music into my life - people like my son, Josh; our music director, Bruce; the choir, the bells, and even those who have written music that we are blessed to sing in worship.

That's how gifts are - when they are shared, God is seen more clearly.

Why is Lying Bad?

Why is lying bad for you?

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that lying is good, and I'm not asking why it is bad to lie. I know - and you know - that lying creates mistrust, it is unloving, and it breaks the relationships between people.

But, if I lie to help myself out of a bad situation, or to make something easier (for me or someone else), or whatever other reason we might use to justify lying - why is it bad for me?

Buechner says that nothing marks us as human as much as speech. Think how hard it is to learn to speak a language fluently. We take it for granted, but speech is incredibly complicated and is a gift that we have to enable us to communicate with each other. With speech we can build people up, we can express our love for them, we can teach, entertain, and connect through language - and so much more than I'm listing. Our speech helps to make us human - it is an incredible gift.

Think about the post I used yesterday. When we sin, we dehumanize ourselves. When we lie, we are using this incredible gift in a way that eats away at our humanity. You've seen it, and so have I. Tell one lie, and it is easier to tell another. Each lie degrades the integrity of our speech - and makes us less than we were before. Buechner says, "What makes lying an evil is less that the world is mischievously deceived by it than that we are sorely dehumanized by it."

On Law

On Law:  There are basically two kinds: (1) law as the way things ought to be, and (2) law as the way things are. (Beuchner, Wishful Thinking)

Yes, I'm still reading Wishful Thinking.  Yes, it's taking me a long time. But, I read a few paragraphs a day as my daily devotional, and his writing is so full of ideas that need to be savored and examined, that I wouldn't want to read it fast. 

Anyway, his paragraphs about law struck me. Think about the quote.  There is law that describes (and tries to enforce) things as they should be. We have laws against theft, because we should not steal. We have laws against pollution, because we should try to protect the creation we share. These try to describe the world as it should be - a world where we respect each other and God.

Then there are laws that describe the way things are. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can change form but is neither created nor destroyed. It's a law that describes the way things are. The law of gravity - drop an apple and it falls to the ground. Newton put it into words, but his words didn't attempt to make things the way they should be - his words described the way things are. E=mc² isn't guidance for the universe. 

So, when a prophet tells the people of Israel that if they continue acting the way they are, that something will happen to them, the prophet isn't forecasting what will happen if his words aren't obeyed. The prophet is explaining the way life is. When we learn that if we place money and possessions at the center of our life, our hearts will grow cold and we will be alone with our belongs, we aren't being told of what happens because we have disobeyed the commandment to have no other gods before God. We are being told of life as it is. Failure to love has consequences as certain as the law of gravity on an apple.

There is law that describe the way life is. The way things are. And sometimes the scripture is God's way of telling us the way life is, and through God's love, we are being instructed in the way to live life in this world. We are being given a heads up out of grace and love.

Kingship

I remember, years ago, when Steve and I flew to Portugal - the first leg of our flight arrived in Paris, and I watched steadily out the window of the plane, hoping to see the Eiffel Tower, just to say I had.  Of course, I didn't see it, but I remember the anticipation.

Years ago, before 9/11, you could go past security in an airport without a boarding pass, and you could greet your loved one who was arriving on a plane right at the gate.  Remember that? I remember standing at the window of the airport, watching for the plane to arrive.  Waiting in anticipation for a glimpse of its arrival.

Last month, our younger son marched with the Marshall University Marching Band in Rome on New Year's Day. That's half a world away, but through the magic of the internet, and Facebook Live, we were able to see the parade, and I watched in great anticipation, hoping to catch a view of Josh playing his trumpet in Rome.  I did - for just a moment, and it was thrilling.

Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like finding a pearl of great price, or a treasure in a field.  It's like catching a glimpse of the kingship of God (to paraphrase Beuchner).  In the broken world we live in, the kingdom is now, and the kingdom is not yet, but we catch wonderful, powerful glimpses of God's kingship, and we are in awe.

Judgment

On Judgment  The New Testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ  In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.

Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal  The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.  (Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

One day recently, in a meeting, someone was talking about the life to come, and hinting about the joy and rest in heaven. Another person in the room said, "Some people need to be worried about that." (I'm paraphrasing; I don't remember the exact quote). The second person was insinuating that there were those who would not be in heaven, and, by God, they deserved what they got. There seemed to be a gloating sound in the comment. This person was looking forward to the time when the unworthy got what was coming to them. God hadn't judged, but this person had.

And then there are those, I think, who worry about God's judgment. Who never feel worthy enough, and dread the wrath of God in the days to come (and in the present day). Who is worthy? No one; none us can measure up, and so the reaction, sometimes, is to fear God.

And then, I read the above quotes from Buechner's book. "the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully." Do we ever think of it that way? Do we ever consider that the one who will judge us, who judges us, is also the one who loves us most fully.  We are judged all the time by the people around us, and we judge others - but no one loves as Christ loves. Christ's judgment won't be an answer to the revenge the person in the meeting I was attending was looking for, and it won't be the judgment we fear. It will be the judgment of the one who loves us most fully.

We can trust the one who loves us most fully. And maybe we need to start imitating Christ in the way we judge others.

Creation

Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking): If you think you're seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you're crazy. Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again either.

I've mentioned before that there are times that my camera helps me to see God around me better than without it. A couple of months last year, I posted an image on Instagram and Facebook each day for thirty days - Images of the day.  I'm posting a collage of the October images here.  If you read the blog, you may recognize some of them, but not all.

I'm going to add a series to the blog called Perspective. I'll post an image and explain what I see in it - the questions it brings to mind. I think I'll do this once a week.

Look around you intentionally.  I think you will see evidence of God. You will certainly find that you will wake up to something new every day.

The Reality of Doctrine

St. Louis

In Wishful Thinking, Buechner says, "No matter how fancy and metaphysical a doctrine sounds, it was a human experience first."

I have yet to find anyone who can adequately explain the doctrine of the trinity. There are those who come close, but their analogies and descriptions always somehow fail. I don't find that to be evidence against the idea of God being three in one, but only confirmation that God is bigger than our words can ever describe and more complex than we can understand.

However, the belief that God is creator, sustainer and redeemer is part of my faith. It was articulated by others, long before I was born, but my experience supports it. I see the beauty of the creation of God all around me - in nature, in animals, and in the people who walk through life on this planet with me. I see the power of the grace of redemption through Christ - how impossible it is to forgive and love, and how, with the example of Christ, we do it anyway. I see the sustaining power of the holy spirit in the way people are able to survive the unsurvivable and in the beauty of worship.

I may not be able to explain how God is one and yet three at the same time, but human experience tells me it is so.

On Feet

On Feet:  Generally speaking, if you want to know who you really are, as distinct from who you like to think you are keep an eye on where your feet take you. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

As Christians, especially as Christians who participate in regular worship, we are often asked to proclaim what we believe. Stating a creed is helpful - there is something important about putting words to our faith - not only so that others will know what we believe, but so that we will remember. "I believe in the Father, maker of heaven and earth...."

And yet, we are often called hypocrites. Why is that? Because sometimes we are atheists in our actions. We proclaim a Christ, and that we believe in God, and yet sometimes we act as if we don't. We act as if we have no faith at all.

So, I like what Buechner says. Check where your feet are going. Do your action (do my actions) match what you say?

Abdication

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse, Maine

In Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner writes: :Religion has often been denounced as escapism, and it often is. To deny the prevalence of pain the world and the perennial popularity of evil.  To abdicate responsibility for them by assuming that God will take care of them very nicely on his own."

Do we do that? I think all of us do at one time or another. How often do we pray for something, and then refuse to listen to God when God leads us to a solution that will involve service on our part? Do we pray for the homeless and then do nothing to find them homes? Do we pray for the hungry and then fail to feed them? Do we pray that someone else's behavior will change without ever examining our own behavior and how it perpetuates the behavior in another?

There are those things we cannot change, and pray is a God-given gift we can use to accept that, and lift it to God for solutions or help; or to just get through it. But there are those things we can change, and instead, we sometimes place it in God's hands and walk away.

We can't do it all, but aren't there some things we can do, with God's direction and help?

"The best moments we any of us have as human beings are those moments when for a little while it is possible to escape the squirrel-cage of being me into the landscape of being us."