Evaluation without Litigation

When I was updating the list of sermons I've preached, I noticed a pattern: Almost all of my talks have been about spiritual practices, some corporate but mostly personal ones like praying the Psalms, spending time in nature, or offering hospitality. But what about the latest sermon, Intervention: Risk, Folly, and Inner Healing? What personal spiritual practice is involved in the process of intervening in another's life?

Pool at the Getty Villa in Malibu, CAI would like to nominate watching -- keeping watch over your intention, your tone of voice, and what that tone conveys about your intention. In his witty little book, Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That? A Modern Guide to Manners, Henry Alford dubs this sense of restrained caring "Evaluation without Litigation" and quizzes Project Runway's Tim Gunn about how to "make it work". I picked up these pointers from Henry and Tim: 

1. Know who you're criticizing -- both their background and their own intention. 
2. Talk only about things that the other person can change.
3. Prioritize your concerns, expressing the bigger ones before sharing the tiny annoyances.
4. Voice your concerns in a neutral tone. 

#1 calls for empathy practiced not at the emotional level, but in the sense of being able to see the world from another person's point of view.

#4 suggests that you suspend any inclination to pass judgment and instead transmit a certain indifference to the outcome. Alford explains that this is part of Gunn's "Make it work!" mantra that the budding designers on the show hear every episode. Gunn told him: 

I don't really care whether you 'like' your design or not. I want to know whether it's working or not, and how it can be made to work better. Like and dislike -- I don't want to sound disrespectful of either of those words, but they don't get you anywhere.

Here the inner watcher can help -- by keeping an eye on our ability to express such nonchalance and to deliver it in a non-anxious tone of voice. And this, in turn, can be a rare gift to the other person, making it possible for them to weigh your criticism or caution without fear of how it might affect you emotionally or impact your friendship.  

Inductive theology and the real world

I'm not an Episcopalian, but I feel at home in Episcopal and Anglican churches in America and Europe. Of all the articles coming out of the 2009 Episcopal General Convention, the one by Otis Gadding III -- from St. Mark's in Washington, DC -- is to me the most profound and potentially powerful in its description of how theology can evolve through action.

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Remarks for Ash Wednesday 2009

(Homily delivered in a shorter version at Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington, DC)

Traditionally, Lent has been that time of the year when people search the rhythm of their lives to discover something suitable that they can do without for six weeks. But what is the real object of giving up chocolate, alcohol, soap operas, Internet games, or something else dear for Lent? Is it to care for body and mind, soul and spirit more purposefully? To make ourselves more holy?

To find the answer, just look toward the end of Lent. What looms there is the crucifixion and the resurrection— in other words, death and new life.

Recently I have had the privilege of studying with Esther de Waal, a much beloved writer on Benedictine and Celtic spirituality. In her short book Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, she explains how death and rebirth are lessons so important that they are written in the very soil we walk upon:

The dying of the grain of wheat and the growth of the new has to happen to us all, and the ways in which it will happen will be secret, hidden certainly, and quite different for each of us. . . . Without ... separation, which is a small death, the new life cannot spring up. . . . In times of the deepest depression part of the pain of darkness is the feeling that it is utterly pointless and useless, and even worse than useless, that it is destroying, annihilating. Only later, perhaps months later, as the inner darkness starts to lighten do I begin to see that here too the pattern of death and new life is taking shape within. . . . (pp. 73-74)

The purpose of Lenten discipline is to give this pattern of death and rebirth an opportunity to work within and to create space for God to enter. On the one hand, we knock down the idols worshipped with our attention but empty of spiritual meaning. Yet on the other hand, we open ourselves up to failure, to the small daily deaths, because any attempt at discipline — whether it consists of giving up something or adopting a new spiritual practice — eventually comes face to face with temptation. It is not God who leads us into temptation, but ourselves, as we are bold enough to imagine that we can bypass it. What we think to avoid, we inevitably find ourselves confronting.

In that impasse, the only solution is not to exercise effort to become more holy or even more mindful, but simply to be who we are. That true Self that we may begin to see in the mirror of Lenten discipline is the one that comes from God and will return to God. I look again to Esther de Waal, who explains how such self-knowledge, with its recognition of shortcomings as well as gifts, is a necessary step toward transformation:

It is a sign of maturity to rejoice in what I have and not to weep for what I have lost or never had. . . . I must live in this moment, not looking either forward or back, or to right or left, but realizing that unless I am what I am, there cannot be any growth. If I promise myself that life will be better, that I shall be a more agreeable person, that I shall be closer to God on the next stage along the way, then I am failing to live as I am called to live because I go on dreaming of that ideal which does not exist. This past has brought me to this moment and if I begin today anew I can also begin tomorrow anew and the day after that, and so I shall be truly open to change. (pp. 74-75)

Lenten discipline is like an unwanted pebble in your shoe. Eventually, you will come to a place where you can stop, pause, and remove the pebble, but until then, you may be acutely aware of every step. You change your gait, shifting the weight on your foot in a way that you would not ordinarily do, experimenting to see whether there is a sweet spot that makes it more bearable. You become absorbed in the walking, allowing the destination to take care of itself. And so I invite you to walk with God for these 40 days, in whatever way you feel called to do. Accept that deaths — large and small — are fundamental to the growth of new life. Look to those little deaths as a way to understand how God is reaching out to you and seeking your collaboration in your own renewal.

Explore sacred spaces with me

I've just created a new Meetup group, the DC Metro Labyrinths & Sacred Spaces Exploration Group, to visit labyrinths and other spiritually renewing spaces, especially outdoor spaces, in the Washington, DC, area.

Our first Meetup will be indoors, though, on Tuesday, October 28, at the Washington National Cathedral, which has a monthly labyrinth evening.

Breath

The secret of breath is so simple. In that natural act, what is outside comes inside, and what is inside goes outside. The transfer sustains life and creates a liminal moment in which anything can happen.