Author / Michael

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Posts by Michael

I am a husband, father, minister, and writer.
by Michael

Soul Stuff: Learning, Abandoning Dreams

I’ve decided to try my hand at writing one post around some of the things I’m reading or thinking. It feels like this type of post will stand with but a little bit away from what I’ve been able to do weekly in my mishmash focus. We’ll see. We’ll try. I’ll try.

That said, I’m reading a book about liturgy and late modernity, two phrases I don’t immediately connect with the general way I blog. I am learning how, perhaps, to see a lot of what I write, think, and say as a liturgical expression and as a part of my relation to modernity, but that’s another post for a later time. In the early part of the book I’m reading (Worship As Meaning: A Liturgical Theology for Late Modernity), the writer outlines an historical intellectual summary as a way to build his main point.

In outlining that history, Graham points to how modernity–a period in history when philosophers began to question things in explicitly scientific ways–was a quest for understanding, a quest for knowledge, and a quest for purity. Purity was a way of discussing how things made sense. Purity meant that life was sensible and understandable, able to be collected and reduced to something that could be put into words.

With the shift in how people thought (and I do think that people were thinking critically before some of these sho-nuff smart people started thinking about how they were thinking) and as modernity turned, that quest for purity had to be abandoned. Hughes named it as “the abandonment of the dream of purity.”

By that, I think he means that the structures that people had for thinking–“This is how you learn this. This is how you show that you know things.”–had to be abandoned. Their dreams for certainty and assurance that they knew the answers that others didn’t. Their certainties with their conclusions. Their findings as the findings as opposed to someone else’s findings. Those dreams shifted.

The shift in thinking involved a corresponding shift in dreaming. In abandoning not only how those folks thought, they also relinquished aspects of their dream life. This grounds continuing education for me in a way I’m opening to because I’m learning that learning means shifting. Learning means movement and that movement is never, solely, intellectual. It’s psychic. It’s emotional.

When I learn, my dreams change. When how I think shifts, how I dream shifts too. I’m not sure a person can learn too much. I am an educator among the many names I’m called. What I do know is that whatever you learn has consequences. What you see and read and take in both informs you and, simply, forms you.

Graham makes this point in a quick fashion and for specific purposes to be sure, but what he says can relate so well to soul stuff. When one part of you turns, other parts do too. Be forewarned: thinking has consequences. Pursuing an understanding will open you up to both possessing new ideas and to abandoning old things. Take heart for what’s next.

by Michael

“…ponder the intimate immediacy…”

The issue is our tendency to get stuck focusing on what my father or mother, wife or ex-wife, children or friends, pastor or boss thinks of me. What if instead we could join God in knowing who God knows I am eternally in God, before the origins of the universe, and know ourselves hidden with Christ in God forever? …The pedagogy of the mystics slows us down enough to catch up with ourselves. How can we ponder the intimate immediacy of what matters most? How can we learn to not treat ourselves like someone we don’t want to spend time with? How can we settle into a quiet, prayerful pondering about who we deep down really are and are called to be? And how can we be more faithful to it?

James Finley in a recent meditation

by Michael

Men We Reaped

One of my favorite people saying things that matter at an event I couldn’t attend some time back. I come to her memoir each year in a different way since I’ve gotten it.

Jesmyn Ward possesses a joy that doesn’t come through in this, but so much does come through this. Her new book is out; she’s being celebrated having gotten a genius grant! Many blessings to Jesmyn. May the deep truths she discusses in this memoir, even as she launches into every next thing, abide with us.

May her tomorrows be blessed with all she needs to stay strong.

by Michael

Being an Observer

I was walking to work and saw on an upcoming corner a tall man wearing a sign. The kind of sign I’ve seen on workers who are striking. Or the signs that people wear to market a business. The sign the man on the corner wore said OBSERVER.

As I walked toward him to pass, I noticed his eyes were closed. The smaller print on his sign–I think they’re called sandwich boards–explained that he was part of a carpentry project. He was there, on the corner, identified as an observer, and his eyes wore closed. He was facing the sun, looking toward it or toward a project I couldn’t see.

It was ironic that he was an observer and that his eyes were closed. Not tight. Not shut. Not clenched. Just closed. I imagined he was observing something behind those eyes.

By the time I was passed him and turned to look again, he was walking down the block. I was about to cross, and the observer was on the move.

He taught me something. He taught me that observers can see when they’re not looking. He taught me that observers can close they’re eyes and enjoy the rising sun. He taught me to observe inside, on the other sides of my eyes. Thanks to the observer from this morning.

by Michael

Embedded and Inscribed Processes

Students are typically not taught about the complex nature of interpretation and the assumptions embedded in and power imprinted on all knowledge. Many political and educational leaders deem such profoundly important dimensions of learning unimportant. Indeed, many power wielders view such insights as downright frightening, as critical teachers begin to uncover the slippery base on which school knowledge rests. Knowledge production and curriculum development are always and forever historically embedded and culturally inscribed processes.

From Critical Pedagogy

by Michael

Healing Comes With Pain

It takes restraint to heal and it takes restraint to help. That means that healing and helping come with pain–for somebody. Somebody will always feel pain during the process of getting or being healed.

And helping a person pursue healing takes surrender to a process that looks miserable. Any empathic person wants healing to happen right away.

You want your wounds to close, scab over, and for those scabs to fall. You want the skin to recover it’s brightness and blend into the rest of you. You want to forget. And you want all that healing now.

But healing rarely acts like that. And it rarely comes without its own hurts, bruises, and pains.

For the persons being healed:

  • You won’t get the plan of care you want.
  • You have to do things that you wouldn’t choose to do.
  • Something you disagree with is required.
  • The best thing for you feels terrible for a while.
  • Nobody understands your pain.

For the persons helping:

  • Time slows all the way down.
  • You doubt your effectiveness.
  • The person you care for gets worse.
  • Your own pains come alive in a new way.

You get the picture.

It helps me to reframe the pain. It helps me to describe the pain as a part of the process. I’m sure this has been said better by many, but it’s the pain of recovery, the pain of returning, which is not the pain of the injury or the sickness. The former hurts but somehow it feels better than the latter.

 

by Michael

Wisdom, Major Deaths & Transformation

I was reading Fr. Rohr’s meditation the other day. I should say that when I read it, I was thinking about grief already, thinking about loss. It was the week prior to my final goodbye at New Community where I served for a touch over eleven years. Even though I made the change for good reasons, it was still a change.

That change was laced with loss and that loss meant grief. I am grieving that loss, grieving that change. Of course, there are other changes and losses, too. I, like you, am grieving more than one thing at a time. I try to stay in some touch with those losses to respect them, to hear them, and to learn from them.

Fr. Rohr was discussing Walter Brueggemann’s observation that the Torah, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Literature (three scriptural categories in the first testament of the Christian scriptures and the three parts of revelation making up the Hebrew Bible) represent the development of human consciousness. These three parts of biblical witness present what it means for humans to be, to become. Fr. Rohr was underlining the importance of these three types of witness in life.

We need to be reminded of our original createdness in God’s community (Torah is our instruction in that very truth). We need to live close to those voices that help us look beyond ourselves, our egos, and our small commitments (Prophets do that). We require for living well criticality that helps us see honestly how to live toward the self and others (Wisdom offers those guides).

It was in this brief reflection that Fr. Rohr said,

Wisdom literature reveals an ability to be patient with mystery and contradictions—and the soul itself. Wise people have always passed through a major death to their egocentricity. This is the core meaning of transformation.

I find it taxing, staying true to transformation. It’s hard to be faithful to transformation because in being faithful to that change, I’m signing up for continued self-noticing and continued self-growth. I’m setting myself in places where I plan to notice others and plan to grow others. I plan not to die in one sense. In another sense, this is absolute death. This is surrender. It’s scary. It’s major.

If you’re feeling your own grief, passing through a death (whether it’s minor or major to you), name it as a part of your transformation. The contradictions that scar your soul, the mystery that leaves your heart hungry for more than what’s in front of you, name them as sources of revelation about not only your death but your life. Your steps, your paths, and your journey are leading somewhere, and it’s called transformation.

Try your best to trust. Even the attempt is a death. It is also the emergence of life.

by Michael

Approaching the Eternal

I’m writing this a few weeks after your diagnosis. It wasn’t an intimate event at all, so public and so known. It started me to thinking about you, about the role of public service and how you might heal as a public servant. I’m considering you and the things you might be dealing with. I waited to send this to you, wondering whether it was worthy. And then I saw a story last night that pushed me to send.

I’ve thought about you in the moments after your exam, after your vote on the healthcare bill, and after your remark, now, about this considerable enemy. I can’t imagine what you’re experiencing or how you’ll change, how you’ll heal. Perhaps the parade of it all can be a picture of your healing. Of course, healing may not include a cure in your case. You knew once the team explained that this might be the thing that ushered you into the rest of life, the new life, the eternal side of life. You’ll die and this may, as far as we can tell, be how you die. And then there’s the other how in how you die, the nature of your dying rather than the medical cause.

I wonder how you will respond to that slow movement toward newness. It seems that death is a bad thing to most of us. As you see it, I hope you tell us about it as much as you can. I’ve seen spiritual leaders do this, taking the notes of their sufferings and writing them into the records of their followers. I wonder if you will do something like that. Political leaders are also, simply, leaders. There’s no reason why you can’t embrace how you might offer spiritual insights as a politician. You are more than one thing.

I encourage you to tutor us in the eternal’s approach. Before you go, whenever you go, leave us with as much as you can. You’ve served honorably in so many areas of your life that it would be consistent if you did. Of course, it’s completely understandable if you decide that this final approach is a more private one. Maybe all I’m reflecting on is the paradox of living as a servant in a public way all the way til the end. Maybe you’ve already shown us how to live and how to die.

Either way, thank you, Senator McCain.

by Michael

An Upward Cycle

I was reading Seth Godin’s post the other week and he was, as usual, encouraging me to look through a longer lens. He said that there is “an upward cycle, a slow one, a journey worth going on.” And in that comment, he captured so many things.

An image that came to mind was of bicycling. I used to do it. Haven’t for years because being a parent of small children meant, among other things, having some facility to arrive to the neighborhood more quickly than a 1.5 hour cycle commute allowed.

Chicago is flat but there is a hill or two on Lake Shore Drive’s bike path. I thought about that hill every time I headed to the path. I anticipated it, dreaded it. I looked forward to moving down that hill because it brought wind and speed. I hated the, for me, slow climb of going upward.

Consider the areas of your life. Where have you succeeded? And as importantly, where have you failed? Think about what you’re up to currently. Which journeys proved to be the ones worth going on? They were probably the slow ones, the ones that built your strength even when they didn’t seem to build your patience.

I think that the moments in life that build strength inevitably build patience. And it is cyclic. It’s upward and cyclic. Keep going upward, even if you’re moving slowly.

Read Seth’s post here.

by Michael

Accompanied

I left my building hearing my sons saying goodbye through the window. One does this daily because my sister hoists him to the window so he can wave. He’s adding sounds, some of which I can actually make out. He’s saying what I’m sure is “See you later” at this point. The other, older boy is home for the week doing nothing but play after spending the summer leaving in the mornings with me.

When I walked to the gate, I saw one of our known political servants who stays in the neighborhood. We greeted each other, reacquainted for the twelfth time, and started walking in the same direction. I was going to my car. She was heading to her daughter’s to walk her dogs. She herself is a dogs person, and me and Bryce have seen her a lot with her own dogs. I knew my car was near her daughter’s building and I said that so she wouldn’t think I was following her.

We walked together. I’m sure she thought she’d get around the block without being noticed. Or, at least, without being attached to another person. I thought the same thing. I like that block walk in the morning, when I don’t have to say anything meaningful, capture a summary of something someone’s said. Everyone needs space to be quiet. It’s freeing to walk alone sometimes.

And then, there are those moments like this morning where you think you’ll walk by yourself and the unexpected happens. Someone comes along and make the short journey with you.

I asked her how she had been holding up lately. She mentioned some things. She pointed out my badge, asked if I was a doctor, which made me smile. People can make worse assumptions.

I told her I was a chaplain. And that’s how the day continued.