One gentle breeze at a time

Today is the first day that has felt like spring -- at least the afternoon has. I spotted a cat and a lizard sunning themselves ... while I was out sunning myself and catching a few deep breaths of air that didn't smell indoor-stale from a long winter. 

I cleaned out some unwanted plants, planted some seeds, and generally enjoyed the hope for new beginnings that comes with spring. 

I think there are more layers than I have appreciated when Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a seed that is planted, and compares faith to a mustard seed. Every year there is another chance. Every year there is more growth. Every year the harvest continues. "A harvest of righteousness," and first-fruits measured in terms of people. 

In the upcoming weeks I plan to post a Lenten series, as I do in many years. But for today, before the penitential season of Lent, my spiritual "Mardi Gras" is to love the milder world of spring, one gentle breeze at a time.

Is self-hatred a sin?

If you are one of those fortunate people who has never struggled with self-hatred, you may find this topic outside of your experience and might consider skipping it. But if you know the struggle, maybe take a walk with me through some thoughts on the topic. 

I think "Is it a sin?" can be the wrong question. First, if "too much self-condemnation" is the problem, then "even more self-condemnation" cannot be the answer. The question is more about how to exit the turmoil inside when thoughts of self-hatred come along -- and cling like burs in the spring-time. 

Because of the place of love and forgiveness in God's judgment, I see self-hatred as against God's will; and yet not everything that is against God's will falls under the category of "sin." If we look at the world to come as a guide to things that are fully God's will, then the world to come has no death or illness -- but these things are not sinful themselves; it is not a sin to be sick or die. Mourning has no place in the world to come, but for today, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

And there is a kind of intentional self-hatred that I expect is a sin. If I see a train of thought starting and turn my thoughts against myself by design, if I set about self-hatred willingly, I have no doubt this is wrong, and in a way for which I'm responsible. 

But self-hatred can also be a form of spiritual malnutrition: if we lack experience of acceptance and love, if we have not seen a mistake met with compassion and understanding, then we may need more spiritual tools and spiritual growth before we have the ability to respond with compassion and understanding. 

Condemnation and accusation are among the tools of evil. One of Satan's titles is "the accuser." So there are times when self-accusation and self-hatred are the front lines of a spiritual battle. (I'm not usually one to talk of "spiritual battles." That phrase has unfortunately picked up common usage in settings where every thought is dramatized in a way that loses my patience. Still, there are certain times where certain things feel like battles, and for me this is one of them.) So it may be more useful to think of self-hatred as something of a spiritual battle, one where nobody has handed me the spiritual tools or training to fend off that attack, and yet it can be done. It can be more helpful to think of arming up with the Lord's tools for the fight: truth, faith, righteousness and the like. 

Coming back to the point about spiritual malnutrition, it can be helpful for the spiritually starving to be guided to faith, hope, and love. These are found in Christ, found in the confidence that we have value in the eyes of God, which brought Christ to fight for us. The Scriptures are full of reminders of our value in the eyes of God, of the shepherd looking for the sheep, of the woman who would not stop looking til she found what she had lost, the father who would not give up hope that one day his lost son would return, ready to welcome and celebrate. 

Those who preach God's love for us, they feed the sheep.

Spiritual Wishlist: A generous and joyful humility

Sometimes I carelessly think of humility as something near to self-hatred, or (more mildly) at least something like self-forgetfulness. I suppose "self-forgetfulness" is closer to the mark, but whenever I define humility in terms of its relation to myself, I am sure that I have missed the point: humility is about a frame of reference that does not define everything by referring back to ourselves. 

Humility affirms our own lovability in the same breath that it affirms others' lovability. Humility makes room for others by a generous spirit:

• generosity in our thoughts about them, consideration and attention and thoughtfulness
• generosity in listening to them, rather than biding our time to talk
• generosity in recognizing their best actions 
• generosity in recognizing their contributions
• generosity in focus on others, and including them in my thoughts
• generosity in making sure they are heard and understood
• a willingness to delight in someone else's accomplishments

Humility is also lived out in compassion for their failures, as I've had my own too. 

For me, that's often a struggle. It takes deliberate effort: Loving the world, one kind thought at a time. 

"Love the Lord your God" -- making it accessible

When Jesus was asked what was the single greatest commandment, he said it was first to love the Lord our God, and that the second was like it: to love our neighbors as ourselves. And I am grateful that he followed up, because by myself I have no idea how to love God. The idea of loving God is not accessible to me, unless there is some help given. I have never seen God.

Jesus was only asked for one greatest commandment; he responded as though two are inseparable. His disciple John also spoke similarly: "If a man says, 'I love God' and hates his brother, he is a liar. For someone who does not love his brother that he has seen, how can he love God, who is unseen?" (1 John 4:20)

He was asked about commandments: ethics, morality, religion, law. These are things that we tend to imagine in the abstract. In Luke's account of such a conversation, the follow-up question was, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus' answer is what we now call the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus' answer shows that we don't get to evade loving our neighbor based on any of the usual excuses that we want to use to justify our divisions. But it shows it by re-contextualizing the whole conversation. The conversation is not about what looks good in a law book, or sounds good in a sermon or a philosophy text. The conversation is about what happens when we are going about our daily business and see someone in need. That's where we find a meaningful answer to loving our neighbor.

According to John, that's the first step in finding a meaningful answer to loving God, too.

Loving the world, one thing at a time

 "For God so loved the world ..." -- John 3:16

I know that there are times when the scriptures speak of the world in its corrupt state, where "loving the world" means "worldliness", in which the world has become an idol. In that sense, "Friendship with the world is enmity toward God." 

Because God loves the world, we know there is a right way to love the world, and a sense in which we are called to join in that love. When the world gets between us and God, then loving the world is idolatry. But when we are God's ambassadors to the world, then loving the world is an act of blessing and redemption. And when we are simply God's creatures, then loving the world is gratitude for what he has done.

My new year's resolution this year is to try to be mindful of these kinds of love of the world, to participate by loving the people, places, and things in front of me. "The world" is too big and too abstract for me. But I can love my family, one child at a time. I can love the world, one mockingbird at a time. I can love the world, one cat at a time. It is easier for me to take in small steps. Loving the world, one wildflower at a time. Loving the world, one apple at a time. Loving the world, one neighbor at a time. 

Eve and Pandora, and where the puzzle piece fits

This post is slightly off my usual topics, but Father Stephen's post this week touches on Pandora -- so this seems an opportune moment to explore some connections about ancient narratives and ancient worldviews. 

For anyone who wouldn't mind a refresher, Pandora is a character in Greek mythology who lets evil loose in the world. She does this by opening a box that is forbidden to open, desiring to know what is inside it. Though the details are different, the outline has similarities to the Bible's account of Eve bringing evil into the world by reaching out for knowledge that was forbidden. I am not planning to compare and contrast Eve and Pandora here. My point is that both the Greeks and Hebrews had either revelation or primal instinct that human misery was in part due to human pursuit of knowledge -- perhaps without enough wisdom. 

I know that there are some legitimate reasons why people might object to comparing Eve with Pandora. I do not intend to try to change anyone's thoughts. My own reason for the comparison is this: the Greek and Hebrew people shared a world, after a certain point in history -- though it may be that the Greek sense of national identity began later than the Hebrew one. Their worldviews had some things in common. Consider another aspect of the Biblical creation account: the wind / breath of God moved over the water, the man was made from the dust of the earth. We see the classical "elements" of earth, air, and water in that, with the Spirit of God consistently associated with air and water. As for humanity, "Dust you are, and to dust you will return" -- we are creatures of earth. It's not a story directly repeated in any Greek myth that I know, and still the ancient world's "elements" (which we tend to think of as Greek elements) are there in the background. Sure, their "elements" are more like what we now call "states of matter": solid, liquid, gas. While our knowledge of states of matter is more advanced than the ancient one, that original understanding still informs our own and is still taught as one of the early lessons in chemistry. 

A few years back I'd shared some thoughts on the ancient "element" of fire, contrasting the Greek myth of Prometheus -- in which a man stole the fire of the gods -- with Pentecost in its Christian meaning, in which the fire of God's Spirit is freely poured out on people. In the Bible, the holy fire is given as a gift to humanity. The breath of God is given as a gift to humanity. The purifying water is given as a gift to humanity. So all the other elements of fire, air, and water are given as gifts to the children of earth. 

Knowledge is not given as a gift. We value it: in every generation, a significant number of people devote time and focus to learning, to gaining understanding, to teaching. So it is easy to empathize with Eve. There is an old Jewish teaching that, when the time was right, Adam and Eve would have been given to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil -- that the problem was not with the knowledge itself, but with the (lack of) wisdom and maturity of the recipients, or their relationship with God, each other, and the world. On the view that God freely gives of himself to his people, that interpretation fits.

The Bible: One-line introduction

For those who weren't raised Christian, many people have heard nothing accurate about the Bible. I found myself wondering how I would introduce the Bible in one line, speaking to someone who knew nothing (or nothing honest) about it. I think I might start here: 

If a book ends with a wedding, it's a love story. 

The Bible ends with a wedding between God and his "bride" -- his people. Throughout, there's a wedding theme. Israel saw the Sinai covenant as something like wedding vows. The prophets spoke of their chasing after idols as a kind of unfaithfulness, again assuming the context of a wedding. Jesus spoke of himself as the bridegroom, and again spoke of the final celebration at the end of time as a wedding feast. Even in the tricky-to-interpret final book of the Bible, it's plain enough that it is a wedding celebration, and the husband has prepared a beautiful home for his bride. 

It's ultimately a story about how God loves the world, and gives us life. 

Regardless whether you see Genesis' creation scenes as mythical / symbolic or historical, it starts with God loving the world, giving it life, and giving people his blessing. Regardless whether you see Revelation as symbolic, metaphoric, or spoiler alerts to the future, it ends with God loving the world, giving it life, healing our hurts and giving people his blessing. It speaks of this in terms of a wedding: God is all-in. 

And it's something that would be good for me to remember about the Bible, too: It ends with a wedding; it's a love story.