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.

Dueling with Words

"Because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to vomit you out of my mouth." - Revelation 3:16

Because of my last post (see Something More than Life, below), I became involved in a debate on Facebook with a self-described atheist/agnostic. This individual and I have been friends for a decade, and though we haven't really seen each other in a few years, our conversations always avoid the polite chit-chat or typical fluff about the weather, sports, or the past, and we engage in serious conversation about real ideas. In this latest debate, my friend once again displayed his razor-sharp intellect and quick wit. His weighty comments required of me more than the usual "pat answers" that Christians often give to skeptics; it was a genuine meeting of the minds, and I sensed a mutual respect even in the midst of our fervent disagreements.

This reminded me of a novel written nearly 100 years ago by G. K. Chesterton. Entitled The Ball and the Cross and set in Victorian England, it is the story of a fervent Christian Theist who challenges an equally fervent Modern Atheist to an illegal duel. They meet to fight to the death, but keep getting interrupted and end up dueling with words. Word of their saber fight gets out and they begin to be chased by interested commoners as well as the police. Over the course of their interaction, they begin to develop a liking for one another, and they slowly come to realize that they are not enemies. In fact, they are fighting the same battle: a battle against a world in which people no longer believe in anything enough to stand up and defend it no matter what the cost. I won't give away the ending, but let's just say that eventually, their swords do cross!

Not much has changed in the past century. We see few Christian Theists like the one in Chesterton's novel (or like Paul at Mars Hill and Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany). Most Christians prefer to believe in a bland, moralistic, therapeutic Deism (to steal the phrase originally coined by Christian Smith) in which religion is a matter of personal feelings and individual preferences, rather than a total devotion to a systematic worldview. Likewise, many modern atheists/agnostics hold views that are rooted in rebellious, nihilistic cynicism, rather than ones based on a rational appraisal of the facts of existence. They do not have the intellectual integrity of the atheist in the novel, or some modern unbelievers like Ayn Rand and others.

The majority of people today seem to be motivated by a desire to not say anything offensive, or to avoid being pinned down to any firm truth commitment. Even in churches, and (I'm sorry to say) in far too many pulpits, the motive to be popular and relevant seems to have eclipsed the motive to speak truth with conviction. Many Christians today are seeking after leaders with the look of a GQ model and the rhetorical flourish of a late-night talk show host, regardless of their intellectual seriousness or integrity. And what's worse, many Christians today seem to be getting what little theology they have from Christian rock music (which is annoyingly inferior to its secular counterparts) rather than from a serious wrestling with the truths of the faith. I'm not saying that every Christian ought to have the brain of a philosopher...but I do think that God is asking every Christian to use the brain he or she has to "support his or her faith with knowledge," to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," and to "always be prepared to give an answer for the hope we have within us."

If this comes off a bit judgmental, so be it. But I firmly believe that this is a telling symptom of the state of our culture, which has become so "lukewarm" about truth that it is literally making God hurl. I thank God for the many unbelievers He has led into my life, for whom I continue to pray and with whom I hope to continue to dialogue. They always engage me in honorable duels, sharpen my intellect...and we somehow manage to have fun in the process! En garde!

Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom

"God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

It has been over seventy years since that prayer was first penned by Neo-Orthodox theologian/ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr. Since then it has been adopted as the official prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous and is respected by individuals of different religious backgrounds...indeed, even by those of no religious background. The atheist philosopher Ayn Rand praised it as being "profoundly true, as a summary and a guideline: it names the mental attitude which a rational man must seek to achieve" (Philosophy: Who Needs It. New York: Penguin, 1984, p. 23).

Personally, this prayer ranks as #3 on my list of favorites, right behind The Lord's Prayer and The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. However, like all prayers (including the two aforementioned), The Serenity Prayer can take on the quality of a rote, formulaic mantra devoid of any personal meaning when uttered inattentively or without full understanding of its substance. Here is my humble attempt to shed light on the deep philosophical and theological meaning of the three separate statements in this prayer:

Serenity to accept the things we can not change. This seemingly simple statement involves the deepest issues of philosophy (specifically, the fundamental branch of metaphysics). For at its root is the acknowledgment that reality is what it is, that facts are what they are, independent of our own wishes or feelings. So much of the misery in human life comes from our psychological, emotional, or willful evasion of the plain facts of life, such as:

• God is quite willing to allow a great deal of suffering to take place out of respect for our own free will
  
• Human beings were made to be creative and productive, not to coast through life doing "as little as possible"
  
• Actions (and inactions) have consequences whether we like it or not


• No one else, and nothing else, can make us happy; we must choose happiness for ourselves and take responsibility to do those things which will make us truly happy


• We cannot force anyone to see things our way or to believe anything they don't want to believe

These are fairly commonsensical notions, yet people consistently contradict them in their daily lives when they question God and His will every time tragedy besets them, or when they make irresponsible decisions regularly and then wonder why "life" treats them so unfairly. This prayer challenges us to examine and confess every negative attitude we hold, discerning whether that attitude is a legitimate gripe or merely a spineless unwillingness to deal with hard truth.

Courage to change the things we can. If the first statement addresses the metaphysical issues of life (God and reality), then this statement addresses life's moral issues (personal responsibility). While there are certain fundamental facts about life in general that we can not change, God has granted each individual the freedom of choice concerning his or her own life for which each individual is personally responsible. In making these daily choices, most individuals resort to their "whims" or "feelings" as guides for what they will do, or they default to habits which may or may not be good ones. Then, when the undesired consequences of these choices are made manifest, rather than confess their responsibility, those same individuals assert that it was a situation "beyond my control," or they blame their bad choice on their upbringing or their brain chemistry, or they want the government to save them from the consequences, or - my favorite cop-out - acquiescently asserting that "shit happens."

It takes real moral courage to move beyond this victim mentality, to look at every moral situation we encounter, and then to face squarely the following questions:

1. Which aspects of this situation are directly within my power to choose and change, and which are not?


2. Based on my God-given reasoning ability (and the advice of others when available), what are the logical consequences of each option I have to choose, and am I personally willing to bear responsibility for those consequences?


3. Which option and which consequences seem most consistent with the teachings of Scripture?

This is truly the only way to effect significant "change" in our lives.

Wisdom to know the difference. This final statement addresses the practical issues of judgment and discernment. In many situations, knowing the difference between what we can and cannot change is merely a matter of common sense. But ultimately, wisdom in any situation comes to us when the chief emotion of our hearts is reverence (fear) of God. In other words, our ultimate focus should not be on the problem we face, but on the One who provides us with ultimate meaning and hope for our lives. Put another way, we should interpret the specifics of life through the lens of the general purpose of life, not the other way around. To give two specific examples:

• At this moment a major source of worry in my life are two individuals for whom I care a great deal, but who have been making a lot of unwise choices that are bringing upon them an immense amount of pain and depression. My worries impel me to rush head on to "save" them, to fix the situation and literally preach at them to make them see the folly of their ways. I confess that I have lost sleep over both of these dear people. Yet as I step back and allow wisdom to have her way, I see that both situations are things that I can not change and must accept with serenity. Both individuals are free agents who are responsible for their own lives and their own happiness: I can bring them to the throne of grace in my prayers, asking the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts. But I must let go of my worries, or my thoughts that I can do more than I actually can.
• Historically, I have not been very good at processing my own anger. I often allow it to become bottled up inside of me, and then it comes out all at once when one little thing sets me off. In the past, I have been good at blaming that one little thing for my outbursts. But as I have matured in wisdom, I have come to realize that this is an area of my life over which I alone am responsible. While I certainly need to rely on the graceful, sanctifying power of God, I acknowledge that this is an area in which I needed to make a change...I needed to process my negative emotions in a more godly way.

In a nutshell, my challenge to all of us is to pray the Serenity Prayer, but let us not pray it in the manner of a pious platitude. Let us pray it, rather, fully understanding the nature of the serenity, courage, and wisdom that we are asking God to grant us.

A Christian Horror Novel!

Recently, I re-read Descent into Hell by Charles Williams. Williams was an "Inkling," friend and colleague of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, whose work spans literary criticism (of Dante and other medieval writers), theology (specifically on the religious meaning of love), church history, and...believe it or not, popular thriller novels (of which Descent into Hell is perhaps his greatest).

C. S. Lewis was once asked to list the top ten books that influenced his own theological perspective. Lewis included Descent into Hell on that list, and one can discern clear influences from that work in many of Lewis' own books, including The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces, and The Problem of Pain (just to name a few).

The book is a thriller in that several of its characters experience supernatural visions or revelations which are indeed frightening. But in its basic theme, it asks and then attempts to answer a very deep philosophical problem: Can something be both frightening and good at the same time?

In the novel, the characters who most clearly "descend into hell" are those who live lives of utter detachment from the world and other people, and choose to love only the vanity of their own thoughts and ideals. Out of fear of an imperfect reality, they retreat into their own minds and neglect the need to be confronted with anything "other," thereby depriving themselves of redemptive relationship. Implicitly narcissistic, they love only their own musings and emotions and offer only bitter contempt for actual reality.

This reminds me of a quote from one of Williams' contemporaries, T. S. Eliot: "Hell is oneself, hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone." In their desire to protect themselves from the imperfection of this earth and of other people, lost people unwittingly secure their own damnation. For the first step to salvation is to love what is outside ourselves, frightening as that may be for us contemporary Americans who have made self-love, self-reliance, or self-esteem the summum bonum of life. Indeed, to love (and be loved by) a God who is wholly other than us requires that we deny ourselves all together and seek Christ.

While occasionally a cumbersome read, the book is filled with delightful humor, poignant moments of grace, and raw truthfulness about our predisposition to sinful self love. I won't give away any more of the plot, and thereby rob you of a great read. But I will offer you Williams' conclusion to the question raised above:

"Salvation is quite often a terrible thing--a frightening good."

[P.S. - Since Halloween is coming up, I plan on reading another of Williams' thrillers, All Hallow's Eve, and Lord willing I'll have a post on it before Oct. 31!]

Wise Words from a Pretty Boy

First of all, a point of clarification: I am not the "pretty boy" referenced in the title of this post. I use that title to describe a young Hollywood actor, Chace Crawford, recently voted "Hottest Bachelor" by People magazine. His wise words, which I will quote later in this post, are an oasis of rationality in the inchoate worldview propounded by the cultural elite (include Hollywood, which makes his words all the more oasis-like).

In a nutshell, for several decades (perhaps much longer) Western culture has posed doubt to be the summum bonum of life. Our current cultural quest, it seems, is to rid our minds and hearts of any attachment to "absolute truths" as foundational to existence. This is the ultimate end of Western "individualism" - ridding our lives of any external, transcendant standards so that each individual may "define his or herself" however he or she wants, without any risk of accountability or judgment.

This can be seen in two current postmodern philosophies. Neo-pragmatism avers that the only standard of value in life is "what works for me." Deconstructionism propounds the meaning-laden theory that nothing means anything, so I can make anything mean whatever I want.

This is seen also in international politics, in which our current President seems utterly unwilling to take a clear moral stance towards the evil regimes in the Middle East, but only expresses his doubt about American goodness. In fact, it seems that any sense of absolute morality has been ejected from political discourse.

Hollywood recently put forth two films that explicitly address this topic.

The film Doubt, featuring riveting performances by its four cast members, superficially deals with a case of child-molestation by a Catholic priest. But the deeper issue in the film is the utter inability of people to have absolute certainty about anything. An older nun (superlatively portrayed by Meryl Streep) is the only character in the film who displays a sense of firm conviction about her faith; yet the climax of the movie comes when she despairingly cries, "I have such doubts!"

Religulous is comedian Bill Maher's satirical attempt to poke holes in the very notion of religion itself. In the film, he interacts with individuals who represent only the most absurd elements of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other faiths. He does all of this to prove that religion is pointless, that those who endorse it are ignorant rubes, and that it is much better to live in perpetual doubt.

Sadly, this attitude is infecting the Church as well, with "Jesus Seminar" followers destroying the credibility of Scripture and with some (though not all) Emergent Christians expressing disdain for orthodox Christian teachings or for the exclusivity of Christ as the unique Savior of humankind. I still haven't decided whether these phenomena are the result of Christians' prideful unwillingness to submit to the authority of God's revelation, or the result of Christians' sad proclivity for desiring to be "with it" even more than they desire to be "with God."

In any case, it's my opinion that the following simple quote from pretty boy Chace Crawford ought to be seen as prophetic to all disciples of Jesus Christ:

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.

I called the quote simple but it is, in fact, quite profound. Think of it this way: When you are confronted with a proposition that claims to be an absolute truth, and your initial reaction is to doubt that truth, today's culture would say that you should go with your doubt not just about that particular absolute but about all absolutes.

Chace Crawford's words give us a different piece of advice. When we doubt a proposition that claims to be absolute, we should first ask ourselves why do we doubt it? Is it because we have thought carefully about the questions raised by the proposition, and have we looked at it logically? Or is it because there is something deep within us that doesn't want to acknowledge its truth?

If we reject a truth claim, is it because we have found a more logical proposition to answer the questions is raises? Or does the proposition so unsettle us that we'd rather dismiss it than deal honestly with its claims?

The ancient and medieval philosophers put it this way: We should not seek to conform the truth to my own mind and soul; rather, we should seek to conform my own mind and soul to the Truth. It is objective truth that critiques me, not I who critiques objective truth. When I am confronted with a proposition that claims to be absolute, like 2 + 2 = 4, I have only two options: I can conform my mind to that truth and accept it, or I can live in rebellion against its reality. There is no middle ground.

We Christians--indeed, all human beings--have been seeking to find middle ground in matters of faith for too long. In reality, we have only two options: we can doubt the Christian faith and reject it (as much of our culture is doing), or we can follow Chace Crawford's advice to doubt our doubts, and live boldly (not apologetically) in the truth of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Help My Unbelief!

The other day I had one of those deep theological conversations with one of my best friends. Even though he and I don't see each other as much as we'd like, the conversation immediately went past the superficial niceties of polite chit-chat, and we just shared our hearts and our thoughts about the deeper stuff of life. It was a blessed time and I'm grateful for it. One thing became apparent during our talk: both of us struggle with doubt. This is not to say that we're "closet atheists" or anything like that. We're both devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. It's just that the profound questions don't go away, and we're not completely satisfied with the simplistic answers that we often get from others within the Christian fold. Paul Tillich once wrote, "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." Looking at Scripture, I suppose I'll have to agree. John the Baptist, Jesus' mother Mary, Job, and the writer of Ecclesiastes all went through periods when their minds and hearts were plagued with doubt, although they wanted very much to believe. This sentiment is kind of crystalized in the one sentence spoken by the father of a demon-possessed boy: "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24) Yes, there are many times when I ask those deeper questions and my heart is unsettled with the answers. I have faith but not certainty. Call it a "Dark Night of the Soul." Call it a "Crisis of Faith." Call it whatever the hell you like. But I don't think I'm off the mark in saying that it is a reality that every human being faces, including the men and women in the pulpits. Yet we are so conditioned in the church to preach "certainty." Modernity, with its emphasis on objective truth and inerrant reason, has trained us to give people answers...rather than affirming and honoring questions. I don't claim to know the purposes of God. But Scripture does seem to indicate that when individuals go through bad times in their lives, God uses those times in positive ways in the lives of other people. I think of Joseph's words to his brothers after they recognized him as the Pharoah's steward: "What you meant for evil, God meant for good." Job went through the doubt of suffering, but it is now a testimony for all of those who suffer that God may have a greater purpose in suffering. Jesus went through the doubt of Gethsemane, perhaps even questioning God's plan for Him, but it led to salvation for the human race. Dietrich Bonhoeffer went through doubt while in a concentration camp and was ultimately executed: yet his life and martyrdom are modern prophetic witnesses against evil, against injustice, and against a Church that is more interested in compromising with the world than in redeeming it. So when we go through these periods of doubt....maybe the best thing to do is share it with others. Instead of maintaining the facade of absolute certainty (which we do more to impress our congregations than to truly glorify God), let's admit that even we need help with our unbelief. Is it possible that our authenticity, and our willingness to work through peoples' questions, might be more meaningful and helpful than the "pat answers" that they have come to expect from us? Of course, we can hope for certainty. But we will never have it this side of heaven, when "in our flesh we will see God." How my heart yearns within me!