In Defense of Leisure

The first four weeks of my Sabbatical have reminded me of the absolute importance of leisure.

Let me state at the outset that I do not define leisure as laziness or inactivity.  Nor do I envision leisure as merely reclining on a cruise ship, drinking a Long Island Iced Tea and listening to sultry jazz standards (not that there's anything wrong with that).

No.  As originally conceived, leisure is a very profound concept that generally escapes most peoples' sensibilities.  The German philosopher Josef Pieper (taking his cue from ancient and medieval philosophers) offered this erudite definition of leisure:

Leisure is a way of looking at the world, born of an affirming oneness with the origin of all being and an authentically free, gracelike experience of the meaning of reality as a whole.

At the risk of seeming presumptuous, let me try to take that definition down a verbal notch or two:  

To be at leisure is to step beyond the daily grind of life, not to rest passively but to contemplate intentionally the deeper meaning of one's existence and one's place in the world.

Thus, leisure is a state of being that we must choose to enter.  It doesn't just happen when we "stop working."  It requires intentional thinking.  That's why it escapes many people.

In fact, most people exist in either one of these two states of being:

• Functional activity, in which we simply do what needs to be done, accomplish what needs to be accomplished, checking off all the tasks on our list.  In this state, we identify with whatever function we have at the moment.  I'm "at work."  I'm "parenting my child."  I'm "cleaning the house."  I'm "doing something productive."
  
  or...
• Mindless inactivity, which we often mistake for leisure.  In this state, we are often consuming something (media, sports, food, alcohol) to escape from "the real world" of nonstop demands, activity, and busyness.  But to consume is not the same as to receive, and while we may be feeding our bodies or our attention spans, we are not feeding our minds and souls.

Read that last sentence again:  To consume is not the same as to receive, and while we may be feeding our bodies or our attention spans, we are not feeding our minds and souls.

If you want to know why American culture is in jeopardy, I think it is because we are feeding our bodies and our attention spans but starving our minds and souls.  I think it is because many people spend their lives shifting back and forth between functional activity and mindless inactivity.

People need genuine leisure, and the sad part is that our cultural institutions that ought to be promoting and encouraging leisure, aren't.  Whether it's churches, schools, or the arts, quite often they seem to be promoting even more functional activity and mindless inactivity.  They offer few opportunities to step back (not escape) from the "real world" in order to ask deeper questions about what is our purpose, what is the good life, or what ultimate spiritual reality imbues our lives with wonder, majesty and grace.  In other words, they offer us little opportunity truly to be human.

If we cannot rely on our cultural institutions always to provide us with opportunities for leisure, then that means we must create opportunities for ourselves.  Here are just a few that I engage in and recommend:

Soul Friendship.  This is based on an ancient Celtic practice called the anamchara (Gaelic for "soul friend").  Schedule a regular meeting with a trusted friend.  No cell phones, I-pads, Kindles, or laptops allowed.  Don't just talk about what you're doing at work or what mutual hobbies you enjoy.  Talk about who you are.  Explore the deeper values that animate your life.  Ask each other why you do what you're doing.  Encourage one another, but ask deeper questions of each other about your motives and your choices.

Spiritual Disciplines.  The ancient and medieval Christians offer a treasury of disciplines that can be used to create space for leisurely contemplation and, indeed, transformation.  However, I recommend a brand new curriculum entitled Essential Practices of the Faith.  My wife and I are currently journeying through this material.  We love that it is simple without being simplistic; it is profound without requiring a degree in theology; and it requires commitment but not a great deal of time.  One thing it does require is that you study it with others...not on your own!

Contemplate Great Art.  I'm not talking about the "arts" that fill our popular culture and win Oscars, Emmys, or Grammys.  I'm talking about the "Classics."  Read a book with exalted language and heroic characters that embody great values (my favorites are Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces).  Listen to classical music that stirs deep emotion (my favorites are Copland's Symphony No. 3 and Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, Suite 2).  Look at great works of art that stylize great subjects (my favorite is Dali's Crucifixion).  Find your own favorites, but remember that great art is more than just entertainment.  It "incarnates" and enables you to experience profound ideas at the physical and emotional level.  That is food for the soul.

Kairos

In the Greek language, there are two words for time.  

First, there's chronos, which refers to linear time: the quantified units of seconds, minutes, hours, etc..., in which we measure and live out our daily lives.

Then there's kairos, which refers to something quite different.  Kairos is not about quantity but about quality.  It refers to opportunities or moments in time which seem to present themselves and of which we ought to take advantage.

When you look at your daily calendar to see what you've planned, you're thinking about chronos.  When you look at old photo albums to remember milestones or significant dates in your life, you're thinking about kairos.  

This morning, my family and I experienced kairos.

First, some background:  My son has been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and one of the many sensory issues with which he struggles is his utter fear of snow.  He hates it.  Hates feeling its coldness, hates getting it on his clothes.  Hates snow.  He'll walk on it only if we make him, and only in snow boots, but he will not play in it.  Ever.  And we live in West Michigan.

Second, we got a significant amount of snow overnight.  (We live in West Michigan.)  My wife and I had a ten o'clock appointment this morning, but due to the condition of the roads, the appointment was cancelled.

Now, I was already preparing to go outside and shovel the driveway, but my wife decided she wanted to turn this morning into an adventure.  She said, "Let's all go outside and build a snowman."  (Remember: My son hates snow.)

The next several minutes of chronos time witnessed Cyrus in total tantrum-mode as we struggled to help him put on his snow pants, winter coat, hat, gloves, and boots.  We assured Cyrus that he could merely stand in the garage and watch as mommy builds a snow man and daddy shovels the driveway.  He assured us that he was not going to let us win.  But Cherith wisely fought this battle.

We got Cyrus out into the garage.  Cherith started building the snowman.  I started shoveling the snow.  Occasionally we would throw snow at each other jokingly.  (At least, I think it was jokingly...)  Slowly but surely, possibly encouraged by the fun he saw his mommy and daddy have, Cyrus began walking out to the driveway.  He walked over to the snowman and insisted that he help mommy put on the finishing touches.

That was just the beginning.  Next, he offered to help clean off daddy's car.  He brushed all around the car, and even though some snow occasionally flew in his face or fell on his head, he pressed on undeterred by any discomfort he might have felt.

And then, just to show what a bad-ass he really is, he made snowballs and thew them at mommy, daddy, the snowman, and the big tree in our side yard that we lovingly named Treebeard (after the character from Lord of the Rings).  Long after I had finished shoveling and was ready to go inside, Cyrus wanted to stay outside and play in the snow.

Just to be clear, this was not our first venture along these lines.  Cherith and I routinely try to get Cyrus out of his comfort zone, and we've made previous attempts to acclimate him to the fun of snow play.  It never worked.  If it had been snowy a week ago and we had tried then, I don't think it would have worked.

But for some reason, this time was different.  It was the right time.  For most kids, this would be no big deal.  For my son, it was kairos.

Have you ever experienced those moments?  I mean those events when you knew, in the moment, that eternity was entering into time and offering you a unique gift?  And I don't necessarily mean something huge, like the birth of a child or a spiritual conversion.  Those huge events are unmistakeable and obviously life-changing.

However, I tend to think that life offers us many more kairos moments than we realize, and we don't realize them precisely because they're not huge and obvious.  They happen in the ordinary mess of everyday life, in the very mundane and predictable choices that we sometimes face.

We miss those events because we are a culture wired by chronos time.  Chronos time is orderly, predictable, and much more within our control...and oh, how we love to be in control.

Only if we relinquish some of that control will we have the eyes to see kairos time, which is much more random, much less predictable, but ultimately much more imbued with depth, meaning, and possibilities for growth.

Today, thank God, I had the eyes to see it when it happened.

So I'm grateful for my wife, who saw an opportunity and fought for it.

I'm proud of my son, who was brave and overcame a fear.

And I'm overwhelmed by the Creator, who showers us with snow, with grace, and with kairos.

Soul Music

If you look to the right column of this blog, right under the "About Me" section, you'll notice that "My Other Passion" is music...specifically, playing and composing pieces for piano.

I started taking lessons at age eight when, every Saturday morning at 10:30 am, my grandfather would take me to King's Music in Downtown Sharon, PA, where I would take a half-hour lesson with Jeff Wachter.  Jeff's lessons with me went beyond mere piano playing: he taught me music theory, he showed me how to read and interpret orchestral scores, and he patiently coached me through some of my early attempts at composing.

I took lessons faithfully for eight years, until my sixteen-year-old ego determined that I didn't need anyone to teach me anything anymore.  Of course I still played all the time.  I accompanied the high school choir, and when all my relatives converged upon my small home for various family get-togethers, they would bribe me into providing crowd-pleasing entertainment.  (I had to learn Sinatra songs and specific old Catholic hymns because certain Italian aunts demanded it...and one other relative insisted that I learn the theme to The Young and the Restless.)

In college I had the great blessing of studying under Elizabeth Pastor.  She was a total prodigy--she had studied with some of the greatest piano teachers herself (Beryl Rubenstein and Arthur Loesser), and performed with the Cleveland, Boston, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, just to name a few.  Although I didn't major in music, she graciously accepted me as a student, and from her I received a rigorous (that's putting it rather mildly) training in classical performance.

I know several individuals over the years who have asked me why I did not make music my vocation.  My answer is always that I view music more as an avocation: not something to earn money, but something to feed and edify my own soul.  In my time working with teenagers I gave piano lessons to some interested students, and I use my musical gifts in church when I'm able.  But the music I like to play and compose is more for my own personal expression...not to win fans.

Unfortunately, when the busyness of life overtakes me, I often find myself unable to make the time to use this gift.  Lately I was reminded of how empty my own soul can feel when that is the case.  Perhaps each of you has his or her own "avocation" that feeds your soul and you can relate.  If so, will you join me in promising ourselves that we will make time--whatever it takes--to keep that "soul music" in our lives?  To do that one thing about which we can say, "This gives me life"?

My personal commitment is that I will go back to composing.  On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to share with you a piece (click the title below) that I composed ten years ago for my wedding day.  My bride inspired it just by being her.  I hope it might inspire you too.  Blessings...................................

"Cherith" by Jeffrey M. Kahl

My Top Ten List

Near the end of his life, C. S. Lewis was asked by The Christian Century, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?"

Not surprisingly, the list of ten books offered by Lewis is an eclectic mixture of philosophy, theology, poetry, biography, and social commentary.  The authors are Catholics, Protestants, pre-Christian pagans and post-Christian humanists...and one or two in a class all to themselves.  Like some of the early Christian saints, Lewis affirmed that "all truth is God's truth," and he read widely and deeply in order to absorb as much truth as possible.  You can find Lewis' "top ten list" here. 

You'll notice that the Bible is not in Lewis' list.  Lewis never gave a reason for this "omission," but to my mind, the reason is perfectly clear.  For Lewis, the Bible is not a book to shape his philosophy of life; it is a book to shape him.  The Main Character of the Bible does not call us to come and think about His ideas...He calls us to "come, follow Me." 

At any rate, the past few weeks I've issued myself a similar challenge to discern the books that most sharpened me and helped me to define my personal sense of life.  It was much more difficult than I thought, but here I offer ten books, all published in the last one hundred years, that have been foundational for my journey through this mess we call life. 

Like Lewis, and for the same reason, the Bible is not listed.  And like Lewis, my list includes a hodgepodge of philosophy, theology, history, literature, and drama, written by believers and nonbelievers.

• Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes.  We live in a world full of causes that try to create Jesus in their own image...to co-opt Jesus into serving their own particular ideologies.  The result is today's Religious Right Jesus, Socialist Jesus, Anti-Church Jesus, and Hipster Jesus.  This book is a needed remedy.  Having lived for fifty years in traditional Middle Eastern villages, Dr. Bailey is in a unique position to interpret the life and teachings of Jesus as they would have been experienced by His original disciples.  The result is a fresh look at the stunning, scandalous Man whose words reached right into the heart of every person He met.
  
• C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces.  While his Chronicles of Narnia and his Space Trilogy are much more popular, this is by far his best work of fiction.  It is a reworking of the pagan myth of Cupid and Psyche, and it delves deeply into the nature of human love.
  
• Anne Holm, I Am David.  A children's book written in the 1960's, this is a poignantly heroic tale of one little boy's escape from a Soviet gulag and his quest to find his mother.  Along the way he learns about courage, friendship, and grace, and perhaps most importantly, he learns to affirm his own unique identity.
  
• Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture.  This is a work of dense Thomist philosophy, but its message really is quite practical.  In a world full of noise, busyness, and productivity at all costs, Pieper calls us to reclaim a spirit of "leisure."  However, leisure (far from being laziness or boredom) is an intentional quieting of our internal and external lives so we can observe and listen to the deeper truths of life.  Only in such leisure can human culture genuinely flourish.
  
• Ayn Rand, Anthem.  Being a liberty-lover, I am a huge fan of Rand's much more substantive works such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  However, this brief novella will always be my favorite.  It portrays one young man whose spirit cannot be crushed by the collectivist society in which he is held captive, and his quest to find the one word that will liberate him.
  
• T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party.  This thoroughly modern play illustrates the bungles of contemporary relationships...relationships defined by narcissism, half-truths, and manipulation.  Yet through a mixture of hilarious comedy and profound tragedy, Eliot adroitly hints at the kind of sacrificial love that is required for true reconciliation.
  
• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.  I'm a history buff, and I have a particular love for early American history...a love that was first kindled by my grandfather and then fanned into a steady flame by two college professors.  By examining the writings of philosophers who influenced the American patriots, and also dissecting the pamphlets that helped spread their ideology, we are given a thorough elucidation of the Revolutionary spirit that created our nation.
  
• Richard Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children.  Another work of history, this book examines the oft forgotten dialogue among Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages...a dialogue that centered on the writings of Ancient Greece's greatest philosopher.  Definitely relevant for today!
  
• Barry G. Webb, Five Festal Garments.  This work of biblical theology scrutinizes five books of the Old Testament known as the "Megilloth" (The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes).  While not often read today, these five books illuminate fundamental attitudes that every human being ought to cultivate in order to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.
  
• Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.  Not really deep or anything, but a well crafted murder mystery and a detective, Hercule Poirot, who uses the "little grey cells" in his brain to find the killer.  I just read this one for pure enjoyment.

So that's my top ten.  What books would be on your list?

Real Power (Part 2)

Imagine with me an adolescent kid, maybe late teens or early twenties, whose mind is so obsessed with death that he literally spends all his time wandering around the local cemetery. 

Imagine this man who, while in the care of professionals, was so volatile that he needed to be restrained with handcuffs or straight-jackets.

Imagine him so inwardly disturbed that his only method of expressing raw emotion is to emit high-pitched wails, like a groupie at a screamo rock concert.

Imagine him so devoid of self-worth, so unable to affirm his self-image, that he regularly cuts himself.

In this second part of my series on Real Power, this describes the subject of the Gospel narrative in Mark 5:1-20.  This young man, resident of a Syrian city east of the Sea of Galilee, was utterly rejected by his community and written off as hopeless.

However, this is also a description of far too many young people in our world today.  I have known and worked with teenagers like this, first in my seminary days as a shift-supervisor at a juvenile detention center, and later in professional youth ministry. 

The man in Mark 5 was labeled "demon-possessed."  So are many young people today.  They are deeply tormented, and they often express their torment in ways that offend the sensibilities of "normal" people.

This man comes into the presence of Jesus and, ironically, begs Jesus not to torment him.  A life of torment has become so normal for this man that the presence of the true Healer feels like torment.

But Jesus engages with this young man and, once again, reveals His real power.  He literally spared no expense to drive the source of the torment out of the young man: He used a whole herd of pigs (the villagers' main source of wealth) in order to destroy the demons.  When the villagers later found him, he was completely "in his right mind."  (With another twist of irony, the villagers were so often used to seeing him in his demonic state that when they found him healed, they were afraid!)

In our last post, Jesus displayed power to bring order out of chaos.  In today's lesson, we see Jesus with power to bring sanity to torment.

In the past one hundred years, our understanding of mental illness has grown exponentially.  Many human phenomena once attributed to demons are now known to have natural causes.  Without ruling out the existence of the demonic, I concur that there are so many factors that combine to create unhealthy and destructive patterns of thought and behavior in a person: body chemistry, family history, personal upbringing, childhood trauma, etc. 

Diagnosis is multifaceted, and healing is a long process.  Truly no human being can bring about the kind of instantaneous and miraculous healing Jesus did.  But we can follow Jesus' model in another way. 

Too many individuals--and especially in the Church--tend to mimic the example of the villagers.  We seek to control or exclude the mental illness, to keep it at the margins where it will not upset our carefully staged happiness, where it will not exert its disruptive effects on our much-loved status quo. 

But Jesus does not use His power to control and exclude.  He engages mental illness, even to the extent that it is allowed to disrupt other aspects of life.  He expresses unreserved value for the person, regardless of the mental torment experienced, regardless of what other secondary values might need to be sacrificed.

I, for one, am grateful that Jesus models for us a better, healthier way to explore the very rough terrain of mental illness, and that He indeed has the power to bring sanity to torment.

Real Power (Part 1)

Over the next four weeks, I will share some thoughts about a section of the Gospel of Mark that has become for me a very meaningful portion of Scripture.

In Mark's gospel, Jesus reveals His divine identity more by what He does than by what He says about Himself.  In Mark 4:35-5:43, His divinity is on full display through four acts of unique power.

The first incident is described in 4:35-41.  It is a well-known story.  One evening, Jesus convinced His disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee in their small fishing boats.  In their crossing, a great windstorm arose, bringing with it violent waves that began to fill the boats.  While the disciples immediately catastrophized, believing that they were "perishing," Jesus slept soundly on a pillow in the stern of the boat.  When the disciples woke Him to the danger, Jesus simply spoke His words, "Peace!  Be still!" and the wind and the waves were calmed.

Full disclosure: I affirm the historical veracity of the Gospel narratives, including incidents of the miraculous like this one.  But I don't think it's necessary to believe as I do in order to benefit from the narrative, and rather than picking apart the details of this story, I'd like to look at the broader principle that I believe it teaches.

In the ancient world, the sea was the symbol of chaos.  Unlike the firmness and stability of land, the sea was often unpredictable, temperamental, and turbulent.  At night, many people believed the sea was haunted by ghosts and demons hovering just above the surface. 

In the midst of the windstorm, surely the disciples' fear was exacerbated by their belief that demons and ghosts might be lingering about their ship, waiting to steal them away to the underworld.  And even though these guys were professional fishermen who knew how to navigate in the sea, the chaos of the moment caused them to doubt their own skills and their own judgment.

We should have empathy with them.  I'm sure each of us can remember a time when we allowed our own irrational beliefs--our own false narratives--to create additional stress, to bring greater turmoil to our lives?  I'm sure we all can remember a time when the unexpected chaos of life caused us to doubt our own abilities and our own judgment?

Yet there was Jesus, utterly calm in the midst of the chaos, to the point that He was able to sleep through it.  He had no fear of demonic forces haunting the waters.  He was unshaken by the turbid sea and the ferocious winds.  And to calm the fears of His friends, He exhibited His power to transform chaos into order.  That is indeed real power.

On a smaller (but no less real) scale, I believe we human beings possess that same power to transform chaos into order.  We can bring peace into situations of discord and disharmony.  But we can do it only when we, like Jesus, do two things:

We must first challenge all the irrational beliefs that immobilize us.

And we must learn to stand in the chaos of life without being shaken. 

I'm still learning this.  And I won't have it mastered this side of heaven.  But I am grateful that occasionally I am graced to be able to speak those words with authentic conviction:  "Peace!  Be still!"

"Enjoy the Silence"

After nearly three years of inaction on this blog, I've decided it's time once again for me to engage my creative self and my passion for writing, and hopefully bless a few people in the process.  Ironically, after these three years of "silence" in the blogosphere, my first post is about the significance of not saying anything.

Yesterday, the topic of the need for silence came up in three separate conversations: with my spiritual director, with a friend, and with my colleague.  In all three conversations, I was reminded of just how counterintuitive it is for me simply to be still--especially when others are present--and allow for silence to exist.

I'm sure part of this is due to the current state of our culture, in which chaos and noise rule.  Never mind radio, TV, and computers.  Smart phones (or I-phones) bring the constant distraction, the constant engagement with a cacophony of media, right to our fingertips. 

But I shouldn't blame our culture.  The reality is that when my life becomes overwhelmed with emotional triggers and internal noise, I feel a compulsive (or perhaps defensive) desire to speak when I really should be silent.  In those moments, what comes out of my mouth is rarely grace-filled and almost never edifying to others.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I should have bit my tongue...

Even when my own internal life is not turbulent and overwhelmed, I wonder if I give full credence to the role that silence plays in forming us as human beings.  Silence can bring amazing healing not only to our emotional lives but to our physical lives as well.  It can lower our heart rates, calm our nervous system, and ease tension in our muscles.  It can, if we allow it, bring a holistic sense of well-being that is absolutely essential for genuine human flourishing.

Years ago, Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel wrote a penetrating spiritual work entitled The Sabbath.  He highlights the fact that after six days of creation, Scripture tells us that "God rested on the seventh day." 

However, Heschel follows many ancient rabbis who maintain that God's rest does not mean that He was inactive on the seventh day.  He still created, and what he created was menuha -- a rich Hebrew word that means tranquility, peace, rest, and silence. 

What this profound thought says to me is that silence does not merely happen.  

Silence is something that must be created intentionally. 

Silence is not simply the absence of noise, chaos, and work. 

It is the presence of peace and tranquility.

In fact, I would go further and state that silence is Presence itself.  It is simply and solely the acknowledgement that you are who you are, and that you are receptive to whatever the world (and even Someone beyond the world) might offer to you. 

May we all have the wisdom to follow God's example and create menuha in our lives.  And as Depeche Mode once intoned, "Enjoy the silence..."