Someone once said that old wine skins can’t handle new wine. They’ll burst. It is a picture of convention’s inability to endure change.
Once in a while I notice that I’m feeling more tired than usual, sad, bored, unmotivated, and easily distracted. It takes something like a two-by-four over the head for me to realize what’s going on.
Almost always, it’s because I’ve begun serving the system rather than the people. It’s because the machine has asserted its supremacy and priority over my life. And this always numbs my heart, stuns my mind and kills my passion. There is no single person to blame. It is the subtle yet insidious domination of the powers, so beautifully embodied in our thought systems, networks, institutions and traditions. It is the gravitational pull of all powers and authorities toward the death of the human spirit. It is when, because of my inattention, these powers begin to hold sway in my life that I fall into a debilitating hopelessness. My work, as a result, becomes mundane, boring, spiritless, monotonous and lifeless.
At this point I realize: I must change! Be transformed! My number one job is for personal transformation. Change is urgent! A new creature! I must become new wine again. Then the dry, old, oppressive and constricting systems can’t contain me. They will burst. I must avoid their traps. And if I unwisely fall into one of their traps, then I must be changed to break those chains that would imprison me. The key is not to wait for the new wine, but to become the new wine! Only then will I live in the freedom I’ve been promised.
Check out my tees HERE. I’m growing my inventory all the time. And check out my art HERE.
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I’m feeling kind of quiet these days… again! I’m lying low. Or trying to. In spite of my attempts to be quiet, the is the never ending suffering of those around me. And I, to a degree, suffer myself.
Marriages of my friends are breaking up at an alarming rate. It is epidemic, shall we say. And, as usual, our own marriage is being stretched as Lisa and I try to learn to grow as individuals while staying in love and in close proximity. You see, this is always the problem: how to grow personally with complete liberty in the context of community. I read an excellent book and always recommend it to anyone interested in this complex dynamic. It is by David Schnarch and is called Passionate Marriage. His basic point is that when a couple enters into a relationship like marriage, they are entering a crucible of change. When one person grows, it automatically forces the other person to grow, and vice versa. I read it not only with my own marriage in mind, or the marriages of my friends, but for our community. It is dynamic and very intense, this process of moving into our own freedom while others move into theirs.
I don’t care about liturgy, sacraments, weddings, funerals, propriety, services, the organization… and all the order that comes with these. These aren’t the issue. They aren’t the point. Do them, fix them, reform them, change them, stop them… whatever. We are always and only left with ourselves and our own personal urgency of transformation. And this is why I am so silent these days.
The fine art photo is a cropped version of a photo of my UK friend Howard Nowlan
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It isn’t how you do church. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what tradition you follow. Your church expression can be anything from none to house-church to the highest liturgical expression. The fact is, none of these matter. Well, in fact, they all do matter. None of them are the solution. None of them are the problem. This is what I mean by “none of these matter”. I do not think that rearranging the order is going to change the root problem… that is the human mind. I am convinced that it is only by working energetically on the mind and its transformation that the structure is transformed genuinely and authentically.
Revolutions come and revolutions go. One revolution overturns one regime only to set up another which only sponsors the next revolution. This never ceases and endlessly fascinates humanity. But it leads nowhere. I don’t believe, in this context, in progress. It is only dolling up the corpse. Of course, any changes which further liberates the human being must occur. But to think that the appearance of liberty is actual liberty is foolish.
This is why I like things to be kept as simple as possible. Gather. Sing. Give. Study. Pray. Disperse. Keep in touch. Something like that. I don’t for a minute think that our community is any more advanced than the next one, or that our community is any more New Testamentish than the next one. This doesn’t concern me anymore. What concerns me is the freedom, the real freedom, of each individual person in the context of community. I think this is what provokes the transformation of the world that we desire.
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I was trying to explain something to someone the other day. He was upset that I seem to keep trashing the church. I’d told a story during my sermon last week that happened at a church conference years ago. He felt it was unfair to bring up the incident, that it puts the church in a bad light, and the church is getting trashed enough as it is. It gives the impression, he thought, that I believe our own church and my style of ministry has got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. I apologized and said that I wasn’t meaning to criticize that one incident, nor the Vineyard movement, nor conferences, nor Christianity, nor religion, but humanity in general. I may not have been clear enough on that.
I happen to believe that every little thing we think, say and do reveals something about our deepest selves. They are all little windows into our secret identities and darkest urges. So when I choose one incident and grab onto it and gnaw on it and won’t let it go, I’m like a dog with a bone. But it’s not the bone I really care about, but the larger issue it’s connected to. I ultimately don’t care about the bone, but the beast it’s attached to.
I do think politics, family, education, art, religion and so on, can be particularly pretentious manifestations of our darkest selves. I think it is important to dissect and analyze all that we think, say and do. It ought to expose our pretentions. It ought to reveal our hypocrisy. It ought to reveal the urgency of change. How else can we expect to be humble, to be transformed, or to find the love to help others?
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I have two fairly prominent inclinations. One is that I want to engage life and challenge it. In the church there’s so much to challenge. I want to take it on. I long for deep and residing change. Transformational! It is something deep and significant. It involves death… the death of what is. The Christian message is all about this: that we must die so that we might live. This is what I am truly interested in and I think passionate about.
But this is what creates the other urge within me, and that is to quit it all and go live in a hermitage way out in the proverbial desert. I am becoming more and more persuaded that the church is only interested in renovations, adjustments and tweaks. But it is because the church is made up of people, and this is all people are interested in. We refuse to die. We reject the cross. I include myself in this. This is why I’m always so tempted to quit and make a meagre living off my art. I won’t settle for rearrangements. But since we resist death, we continue on and on down through the centuries perpetuating the same old cycle of revolution-renewal-ritual, revolution-renewal-ritual, revolution-renewal-ritual… ARGH! And I’m tired of it. This, I think, pretty much defines my struggle.
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I seriously question the whole religious enterprise. If you’ve read my blog at all you should know that by now. Once in a while the realization that the human religious enterprise is seriously flawed comes crashing in on me. It doesn’t just come from a suspicion of institutions, but from a suspicion of the human heart and mind that contribute to the flourishing life of religion.
I hope I can honestly say I love people and want to pastor them. I care about the spiritual community aspect of human life. But I don’t for a second believe that if the individual human heart is deceptive and the individual human mind is blind, then it is better if we form a committee of these same hearts and minds to ensure that everything will be okay. In fact, it gets worse!
There is no getting around it. It is inevitable. It is also hopelessly necessary, this religious endeavor. What I’m insisting is that we admit it. I don’t think we can escape our religious impulses or the communal expression of these impulses. But we have to confess that for the most part we are the gathering of hypocrites. I sound severe, but I am only saying this because I know myself well enough to say it.
During this Christmas season it is good to applaud expressions of good will. However, we all know (please, don’t we?) that we only need to lightly scratch the righteous surface to find the dirt. We are prize specimens of the art of veneer. This can’t be helped. But let’s admit it! It’s like I told someone years ago who had committed a horrible, shall we say, “sin”. It wasn’t days after his confession and repentance that he was already back on his feet and ready to go again. I said he was like a cat! But we are all like cats. We all have learned how to land on our feet. It’s uncanny! Maybe it should be so. But can we at least admit it? That’s what I’m asking.
I truly think that if we could just admit our inevitable tendency towards hypocrisy and our finely-honed skill at readjusting that it would take the religious pretension out of our personal and corporate lives. Yesterday I came home from church reassured again that we are not interested in the renewal of the mind, but only in the rearranging of its thoughts. We will acquire new thoughts and toss old ones, only if it will serve our unconscious and hidden selfish agendas. We are only interested in renovation, not re-creation. Again, this is our human and religious tragedy. But can we at least admit it?
Merry Christmas!
This painting is a whimsical one I did a little while ago. Get the picture?
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Forgive me if I don’t make much sense today, but I’m struggling with some sort of bug that makes me want to crush my head and puke. But here goes anyway:
I remember when I was a young Christian and was fanatical and infantile in my beliefs. I was downright silly at times in my theology and practice. I remember when I was going through college where it was required that I not miss 5 Sunday church services a year, but I’d lie and sleep in anyway. I remember when I went through my seminary training and became very cynical and critical of the church and Christianity and couldn’t find a church anywhere that I was happy with or comfortable in. I remember when I discovered Reformed Theology and abandoned my pentecostal roots and totally submerged myself in the heady and heartless theology I studied at the time. I remember when the people I ministered to were more of a hassle and a hindrance, and I did everything I could to exclude them from my life so that I could pursue my own navel-gazing style of contemplative spirituality I embraced at the time. That lasted years! I remember long seasons of not only questioning the faith, but completely denying it. I remember exclaiming to my spiritual director at the time that I no longer believed in God and all I could see around me was complete and utter darkness. I remember times when I thought I’d discovered the secret and ultimate truths and would preach down to my people as though I had arrived and they had long distances to traverse before they could enjoy where I was at. I remember seasons, regrettable, when I completely gave up all effort and immersed myself in what could easily be called rebellious and sinful behavior. I remember times when I believed in miracles of faith and God’s supernatural involvement in our lives and times when I didn’t. I could go on and on.
So, when I encounter in the lives of my own people similar stages or seasons or attitudes, how do I respond? Should I chastise them? Should I whip them from behind to hurry them through these times? Should I criticize them, judge them, and maybe even condemn them? Should I kick them out? Should I treat them as though what they are going through is unusual and irregular and therefore inadmissible? Should I only allow people a voice who are on the same page as me at this present time and silence those who are not?
I think it is important, no, crucial, that we allow (and I even hate to use that word because it implies an authority figure permitting something) all levels or stages or seasons or attitudes. No one has arrived. No one has made it. And even if we think we have, then we certainly haven’t! We must always remember that there is no guaranteed progression in the spiritual life. The bible makes it very clear that at any time I can revert back to a completely rebellious and sinful place in one blow, just to start all over again. In fact, the bible teaches that my heart is always there. So it is necessary for us to question. In fact, I believe the question is always better than the answer. Everyone should be allowed a voice. I think the reason we restrict all voices other than our own is the sheer cowardice of not wanting to deal with the aftermath. The reason, for instance, we don’t allow one to speak and then the other (as Paul encourages in Corinth), is that we don’t have the guts to discern, challenge, question, affirm or accept what someone with different ideas has to say. I dare us all to give space for all voices, whether from the mouths of babes or from the stones themselves! Remember: we’ve all been where the other is now. Respect that and deal with it as it arises. That, I think, is the way of love and inclusion.
(here’s one caveat: The only time I do consider asking someone to leave the community is when they are explicitly abusive of others. I’ve done it before and will probably do it again.)
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings. I wonder what she has to say?
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I had joined adsense I think last spring. That is what explained all the ads on my site. I thought I might make it rich through advertising on my site. Adsense doesn’t send you a check until you’ve reached $100. The pennies started trickling in. Like Chinese water torture. I decided that as soon as I reach my first $100 I’m going to quit adsense advertising and get back to being totally naked again… to be reflected in the nakedness of my site. Finally, this morning, I woke up to find $100.03 in my adsense account, and keeping my promise to myself, I stripped off all the ads on my site. Now nakedpastor is completely naked. I only have my own art advertised on here now, which I think is fair… since I am an artist trapped in a pastor’s body!
Which got me thinking about something I’ve been thinking about: I’m hearing some people lately saying, “I don’t know if I can stay committed to this marriage!” Several, in fact. My reaction is: Okay. But can you stay committed to Jack? Or, can you stay committed to Jill? Or if someone says, “I don’t want to be committed to this friendship!” What? Do you mean that you don’t want to be my friend anymore? Or when someone says, “I’m no longer committed to this church!” What do you mean by that? Do you mean that you are no longer committed to me? Or Sally? Or Bill? Ever since I was young, I find these terms or labels disabling. They are often facades to the real. We use them as ways of avoiding relationship and withholding love. I don’t find them helpful, but hindering. Let’s strip the realities of the facades and call them what they are. You don’t want to love her anymore? You don’t want to love this group of people anymore? If that’s what it is, let’s be honest about it? To be honest, I’m not committed to marriage. I’m not committed to family. I’m not committed to church. But I am committed to Lisa. I am committed to our children and the benefits of us being in love together. I am committed to this strange and wonderful group of people that some call “church”.
This can be radical because if we are not living according to the label, then what does the time-honored and time-proven label mean anymore? If I refuse to act like a normal husband, or Lisa refuses to act like a wife is supposed to act, or if we refuse to look like a traditional family, or if we refuse to behave like an orthodox church, then we’ve found ourselves in a dangerous but necessary place. Why? Because the labels came along after the realities. They were created to define something that already existed. That’s why I refuse to agree with what conservationists would call “wife”, “husband”, “family”, or “church”. That’s why I endeavor to create contexts of liberty that explode labels and definitions. This is why I enjoy watching others obsessively trying to define who I am or what we are. Our clothes aren’t recognizable. In fact, do we even have clothes? Ah, there’s the rub!
This fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings and is from his Mannequin series. Let’ s not be fake dummies.
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I came across this video of Ken Robinson giving a short presentation at the TEDTalks. It is not only very informative, but very entertaining. His basic thesis is that our education is killing creativity, one of the most important things needed to face our uncertain future. At one point he says,
Unless you are prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.
He feels we are educating people out of creativity because mistakes are stigmatized. You can’t be wrong. Therefore there is nothing original encouraged. Picasso said that every child is an artist… the trick is staying an artist as you grow up.
I believe this to be true in religion as well. Creativity is not allowed because mistakes are not allowed. We are urged to become new creations, while the religious cultures we are a part of add on: “As long as you look like something we’ve seen before!” As one of my favorite artists, David Bazan, sings in “Selling Advertising“:
I know it’s hard to be original.
In fact, nothing scares me more.
Because Jesus only lets me do
what has been done before!
Man those lyrics get me because I’ve heard this used on people, including myself. It is true that as soon as you become unrecognizable, you are stigmatized. When you attempt to chart new territory, you are in for loneliness, alienation and rejection. History says so! Anyway, take a more light-hearted look and listen:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY]
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Over the last year I have received emails from different people suggesting that my critical approach to the organized church arises from my personal experience. In other words, my negative and sometimes traumatic experience with the church as tarnished my perspective. Although I don’t want to claim that I see clearly and that my experiences haven’t embittered me somewhat, I want to argue that I agree that my experiences have influenced the way I see things.
How else do we learn? Not very many other ways! Why, in almost every other sphere of existence, do we expect people to learn from their experiences, but when it comes to the church, people are supposed to ignore their negative religious and ecclesiastical experience and just blindly love the church? I know why! Because many people feel that the institution we call church is holy and therefore untouchable.
Many feel that to critique the church is to attack the church in order to destroy or eliminate her. I get this a lot… that the church is the bride of Christ whom he loves and it is cruel to criticize her. I agree, the church is the bride of Christ. But surely you don’t mean that, say, the church that cooperated with Hitler shouldn’t have been confronted! Ya ya, I could go on with more examples. Suffice to say that we shouldn’t confuse what we do as the church with the holy and unblemished bride of Christ.
Could you imagine the problems we would run into if we did that? In fact, that IS the problem when the institutional church equates itself with the bride of Christ. That IS the problem! So I will continue to challenge the institutional church precisely where it thinks it is authoritatively representing the bride of Christ. That’s what has happened to me in the past! I, along with many many others, have been the victim of religious people and institutions who think they are the very hand of God. I have the freedom to discern the spirits, whether they are good or evil. Which, by the way, I think is the number one spiritual gift sorely lacking in the church today. I see the temptation daily as a pastor and as a church: the temptation to assume we are THE church and that I am God to people. Until pastors and congregations get a hold of this, we’ll continue hurting people.
I did this painting over the weekend. It reminds me of the passage that says that even the trees of the field will clap their hands. It looks humanoid to me. It is available for sale HERE.
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David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
