The problem, of course, is identification. The reading suggested this week from the Hebrew scriptures listens in on a portion of the briefing given to the people of Israel about the days ahead of them. "Do this; don't do that. etc." It is cast as a sort of tutorial on how to live and what to expect when they eventually settle into their destination. And, in what strikes me as a prescient anticipation of the kind of eventual ambiguity that can lead either into mischief or paralysis, the people are told that "God will raise up for you a prophet...from among your own people. I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak...everything I command" (Deuteronomy 18:18).
Great! We can all relax now.
Except, wait! How will we know him? Or her? We are surrounded by people -- all kinds of people -- claiming the voice of truth. They only problem is that they don't seem to agree on what that "truth" is. Which helps explain how it is that we have been down this road countless times before -- listening to one after another of those "truths" that promised to lead us out of the woods, only to find ourselves deeper into the thicket. The current crop of Presidential contenders comes to mind; as does that bicameral brothel known as the United States Congress that seems unable to recognize a point of principal that isn't written on the back of a significant campaign contribution.
Authentic prophets, it turns out, don't wear fluorescent jump suits, carry indisputable credentials in their wallet, or garner the highest number of votes. Or poll ratings. And they usually don't seek out the camera...or votes.
In fact, if I read the record right they are usually the ones who find themselves, typically against their own wishes, telling us what we don't want to hear. This being a democratic society, we typically opt not to hear it, opting to drop another quarter in the jukebox and make a different selection. If we are in a church when we hear what we would rather not hear, we simply change churches. If we are listening to the radio or watching television we simply change the channel. "Fair and Balanced", after all, is really in the ear of the beholder; commonly defined as "does it agree with what I already believe."
That's the problem with voluntary associations: we typically choose to voluntarily associate with whatever it is or whoever it is that validates my previously held conceptions.
Which makes "speaking the word of the Lord" a pretty dicey business, unless God has previously taken a poll and determined in advance what the "truth" of the Lord ought to be. Alternatively, on the off-chance that people really would like to know the mind of God if only we could reliably identify the messenger, maybe God should consider that whole florescent jumpsuit idea.
As long as it isn't orange. I mean, you know how I feel about orange. How, after all, could you take seriously a prophet wearing a florescent orange jump suit?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Wind and Snow and Anticipated Embrace of Winter
That said, as much as I have enjoyed the unseasonable mildness and the outdoor walks it has beckoned; as much as I have appreciated the simplicity of movement sans heavy coats and extra time required to assemble and arrange the bundling, I have looked forward to days like this one -- cold, settling, almost paralyzing days viewed from inside the window looking out; appreciating the reassuring hum of the furnace through the duct work, heart beat synchronizing with the flickering in the fireplace; skin indulging the hugging softness of a neglected sweater excavated from the bottom of the drawer; spirit held by the companionable silence too melodic in its own way to violate with the stereo or TV.
I understand that others temporarily migrate out of these kinds of days -- east to Florida, south to Texas or west to Arizona. I even comprehend why. The season can take its toll. But I have looked forward to a day like this. The holidays and their particular magic are behind us; the decorations have been lovingly and finally stored and the house rearranged to its more typical order. It is time for the simple descent of winter -- else how would we know to appreciate spring?
And today, it is finally here.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Vocational Sipping and Spitting
Last summer, while in the Willamette Valley of Oregon exploring the concept of "terroir," three colleagues and I heard more than one farmer and winemaker exclaim that "these hills were made for pinot noir." Of course the hazelnut growers who had been there first might quibble with the assessment, but that clarity of discernment was striking. By that time we had come to the strong conviction that places are particular and best suited for certain things and not others. Agriculturally speaking, soil and climate, accumulating valleys and sunning slopes mean certain plants grow well while others flounder -- or require the vast amounts of artificial inputs that we now think of as "modern agriculture." The right crop in the right place, however, doesn't have to strong-armed. It simply flourishes and fruits. Pinot Noir in Oregon; apples in Washington; onions in Georgia; grapefruits in South Texas. Etc. Sure, a lot of places do pretty well with a lot of crops, but a few places accommodate a few things exceedingly well.
And people. This isn't ultimately about raw talent or innate ability, although those are relevant markers. I'm talking here more about "doing" than "being"; less about who we are and more about the particular things we are up to. In one of the most-quoted definitions of vocation, Frederick Buechner observes that “… The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC)
It is, in a way, finding the groove; cutting with the grain instead of against it. Admittedly, that "place" is not always that easy to locate, and I'm not sure that everyone would agree that a great pinot noir counts as one of the world's deep hungers. Those farmers' clarity about that soil's purpose, however, is animating. Unlike some of us who flounder around trying to figure out what we are supposed to do when we grow up, hoping it will simply hit us in the head one day, they, at least, have analyzed and experimented, taken notes and compared them with others who were trying to accomplish the same thing. They have noticed how the soil drained and where the daylight hours cast their shadows. They have watched and tasted and observed and been willing to fail. They have planted and uprooted, sipped and spat and above all been patient. And they have discerned, gleaning the insights observed and connected the dots. And it has all brought them to strong convictions about what those hills are for.
I think of those farmers as I read the Apostle Paul's reflections in Ephesians 3. He speaks forthrightly about the "commission that was given me...to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ..." Paul is not confused about what he needs to be up to. He has a particular job to do, and he is working it. It is his "groove" -- the intersection, he is convinced, of his deep gladness and the world's deep hunger.
In a way, of course, it almost feels like he cheated. He didn't have to nose around for grain like a blind hog; he was knocked off his horse one day and struck temporarily blind except for the vision that filled him in on the details. For most of us it doesn't happen that way. Our discernment process will bear more resemblance to the Oregon farmers than to Paul's blinding vision, but the clarity about the work we have to do is worth the patience.
That kind of sipping and spitting wouldn't be a bad way to spend this New Year just beginning to bud. If those hills were made for pinot noir, surely I have been made for something precious and needful as well.
And people. This isn't ultimately about raw talent or innate ability, although those are relevant markers. I'm talking here more about "doing" than "being"; less about who we are and more about the particular things we are up to. In one of the most-quoted definitions of vocation, Frederick Buechner observes that “… The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC)
It is, in a way, finding the groove; cutting with the grain instead of against it. Admittedly, that "place" is not always that easy to locate, and I'm not sure that everyone would agree that a great pinot noir counts as one of the world's deep hungers. Those farmers' clarity about that soil's purpose, however, is animating. Unlike some of us who flounder around trying to figure out what we are supposed to do when we grow up, hoping it will simply hit us in the head one day, they, at least, have analyzed and experimented, taken notes and compared them with others who were trying to accomplish the same thing. They have noticed how the soil drained and where the daylight hours cast their shadows. They have watched and tasted and observed and been willing to fail. They have planted and uprooted, sipped and spat and above all been patient. And they have discerned, gleaning the insights observed and connected the dots. And it has all brought them to strong convictions about what those hills are for.
I think of those farmers as I read the Apostle Paul's reflections in Ephesians 3. He speaks forthrightly about the "commission that was given me...to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ..." Paul is not confused about what he needs to be up to. He has a particular job to do, and he is working it. It is his "groove" -- the intersection, he is convinced, of his deep gladness and the world's deep hunger.
In a way, of course, it almost feels like he cheated. He didn't have to nose around for grain like a blind hog; he was knocked off his horse one day and struck temporarily blind except for the vision that filled him in on the details. For most of us it doesn't happen that way. Our discernment process will bear more resemblance to the Oregon farmers than to Paul's blinding vision, but the clarity about the work we have to do is worth the patience.
That kind of sipping and spitting wouldn't be a bad way to spend this New Year just beginning to bud. If those hills were made for pinot noir, surely I have been made for something precious and needful as well.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Just Call Me Back
The problem, it seems to me, is that we no longer have rubrics for triage.
While in college I worked at Cox's Department Store selling Men's Furnishings -- shirts, socks, ties and belts. We also sold underwear, but that didn't take a lot of "selling." During the training phase of my employment, I remember how insistently the manager told me that an actual customer in front of me took priority over a prospective customer on the phone. I thought he was right about that ordering, but the philosophy, I suppose, could be debated. The point, however, is that there was no mystery as to how I was to handle contests for my attention. Unfortunately for our culture, we don't have life managers who will provide the same service. As a result, we fall prey to the presumption that every knock on our figurative door is equally important. If the phone rings, we answer it even if we are already engaged in a conversation with someone else. If we receive a text, we read it -- and likely respond to it, never mind that we happen to be driving.
You get the idea. Gone is any concept of a hierarchy of importance -- those rubrics for triage to which I earlier referred.
Someone recently told me of being in the company of an individual whose cell phone began to ring. Worried that the recipient wasn't hearing the summons, my friend asked, "Aren't you going to answer that?" To which the other replied, "No; I carry that phone for my convenience, not everyone else's."
A recent article in the New York Times reported on the practice of some ultra wealthy to "...part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms." And then there are those, the writer goes on to observe, who "pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago."
We have become expert, the author ultimately hints, at sensing what is new, but not what is essential. Maybe we have lost the ordinary and common art of simply asking the question. Modern brain research refutes the much-beloved premise of "multi-tasking." Our brain, if the scientists know what they are talking about, can't ultimately attend to multiple things at once; it simply becomes speedier at shifting back and forth. That, it seems to me, is a sure recipe for superficiality. In the course of our multi-tasking dizzyness, careful assessment and thoughtful evaluation -- essential components of prioritization, along with basic life and relational values -- are abandoned in service to simple attendance. Stimuli come our way, and we duck and dodge or, as is more commonly the case, allow them all to strike us full in the face regardless of how trivial or secondary they may actually be.
By contrast, one of Stephen Covey's principles for enhancing effectiveness is expanding the gap between stimulus and response -- something our grandmothers taught us in their admonition to "count to ten" before reacting. Scripture uses the larger language of sabbath to beckon us off the merry-go-round, less for simple rest -- although that never hurts -- than to regain orienting perspective.
Some things are, after all, more important than others. Which brings me back to that ringing phone, why we carry it, and how we will ever figure out who the actual customer is in front of us. I'm not at all sure of the answer to that question, but on your way to figuring it out for yourself try this: next time yours begins to ring, check the caller ID. If the caller happens to be me, feel free to finish whatever it is that you were doing. You can, after all, always call me back.
While in college I worked at Cox's Department Store selling Men's Furnishings -- shirts, socks, ties and belts. We also sold underwear, but that didn't take a lot of "selling." During the training phase of my employment, I remember how insistently the manager told me that an actual customer in front of me took priority over a prospective customer on the phone. I thought he was right about that ordering, but the philosophy, I suppose, could be debated. The point, however, is that there was no mystery as to how I was to handle contests for my attention. Unfortunately for our culture, we don't have life managers who will provide the same service. As a result, we fall prey to the presumption that every knock on our figurative door is equally important. If the phone rings, we answer it even if we are already engaged in a conversation with someone else. If we receive a text, we read it -- and likely respond to it, never mind that we happen to be driving.
Someone recently told me of being in the company of an individual whose cell phone began to ring. Worried that the recipient wasn't hearing the summons, my friend asked, "Aren't you going to answer that?" To which the other replied, "No; I carry that phone for my convenience, not everyone else's."
A recent article in the New York Times reported on the practice of some ultra wealthy to "...part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms." And then there are those, the writer goes on to observe, who "pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago."
We have become expert, the author ultimately hints, at sensing what is new, but not what is essential. Maybe we have lost the ordinary and common art of simply asking the question. Modern brain research refutes the much-beloved premise of "multi-tasking." Our brain, if the scientists know what they are talking about, can't ultimately attend to multiple things at once; it simply becomes speedier at shifting back and forth. That, it seems to me, is a sure recipe for superficiality. In the course of our multi-tasking dizzyness, careful assessment and thoughtful evaluation -- essential components of prioritization, along with basic life and relational values -- are abandoned in service to simple attendance. Stimuli come our way, and we duck and dodge or, as is more commonly the case, allow them all to strike us full in the face regardless of how trivial or secondary they may actually be.
By contrast, one of Stephen Covey's principles for enhancing effectiveness is expanding the gap between stimulus and response -- something our grandmothers taught us in their admonition to "count to ten" before reacting. Scripture uses the larger language of sabbath to beckon us off the merry-go-round, less for simple rest -- although that never hurts -- than to regain orienting perspective.
Some things are, after all, more important than others. Which brings me back to that ringing phone, why we carry it, and how we will ever figure out who the actual customer is in front of us. I'm not at all sure of the answer to that question, but on your way to figuring it out for yourself try this: next time yours begins to ring, check the caller ID. If the caller happens to be me, feel free to finish whatever it is that you were doing. You can, after all, always call me back.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Looking Life in the Eyes
Waiting is not our long suit. At the very least I am speaking autobiographically, but I think I am not the only one. Speed is of the essence. I curse the minute or so it takes for my computer to boot up, and I gnash my teeth at the slower internet connection at our new house. I can't wait for Christmas, but then once it arrives I rue the endless months between now and the next one. Even though we apply the query to matters of lesser and lesser consequence, we have made the plaintive cry of Martin Luther King, jr. and the Hebrew prophets our own: "How long, O Lord, how long?"
I could blame our mounting impatience on technology. Horses gave way to trains which gave way to automobiles which gave way to propeller-driven airplanes, which in turn gave way to jets. Dial-up was consumed by DSL, and the U.S. Postal Service is being/has been replaced by e-mail. We have come to expect that wherever we need to go we can get there quicker; whatever needs to be accomplished can be checked off faster and faster. We have, in a sense, been trained that way. Even major life issues we see encountered and resolved within the span of a 30-minute sitcom or at worst an hour-long drama. Shouldn't our lives work that way as well?
And so the rub when we read one of the texts often scheduled for this Sunday of the year:
But isn't the reason we tell fulfillment stories is to reinforce the significance of the waiting still to be endured? Not even Simeon, after all, could claim with any honesty the waiting was really over. Moses, near the end of the Exodus through the wilderness, was finally able to see the Promised Land across the way, but there was still some distance to travel before their feet would actually land there, and that ultimate accomplishment would be beyond Moses' scope. Simeon looked into the baby's eyes and could see the salvation of his people, but it was looking through a telescope lens not a window. If it's possible for some to see a world in a grain of sand, it was apparently possible for Simeon to see the culmination of God's desire in a baby's eyes; but there is yet a vast difference between the "seeing" and the "arriving."
And we have not yet arrived. There is waiting still to be endured for the time when all hungry bellies are full, when all naked backs are clothed, when all lonely hearts are comforted, when all estrangements are reconciled, when every human being is honored, and when all of creation is recognized and revered for the fingerprint of God that it is.
We have a ways to go. And so we wait, taking inspiration from the likes of Simeon who somehow managed the suspense and the lengths of days while never ceasing to watch and listen. Eventually, after all, he recognized the sound and the sight he was after. If he can do it, well...
...perhaps we can, as well.
I could blame our mounting impatience on technology. Horses gave way to trains which gave way to automobiles which gave way to propeller-driven airplanes, which in turn gave way to jets. Dial-up was consumed by DSL, and the U.S. Postal Service is being/has been replaced by e-mail. We have come to expect that wherever we need to go we can get there quicker; whatever needs to be accomplished can be checked off faster and faster. We have, in a sense, been trained that way. Even major life issues we see encountered and resolved within the span of a 30-minute sitcom or at worst an hour-long drama. Shouldn't our lives work that way as well?
And so the rub when we read one of the texts often scheduled for this Sunday of the year:
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:25-34)Luke doesn't tell us how patiently Simeon had waited; only that he had done so -- presumably for a long, long time. He had waited. Day in and day out; watching and waiting. As a friend pointed out, this isn't really a "waiting" story but rather a "fulfillment" story -- Simeon is finally able to prayerfully exclaim, "OK, now I can die because I have finally seen what I was looking for." Fulfillment.
But isn't the reason we tell fulfillment stories is to reinforce the significance of the waiting still to be endured? Not even Simeon, after all, could claim with any honesty the waiting was really over. Moses, near the end of the Exodus through the wilderness, was finally able to see the Promised Land across the way, but there was still some distance to travel before their feet would actually land there, and that ultimate accomplishment would be beyond Moses' scope. Simeon looked into the baby's eyes and could see the salvation of his people, but it was looking through a telescope lens not a window. If it's possible for some to see a world in a grain of sand, it was apparently possible for Simeon to see the culmination of God's desire in a baby's eyes; but there is yet a vast difference between the "seeing" and the "arriving."
And we have not yet arrived. There is waiting still to be endured for the time when all hungry bellies are full, when all naked backs are clothed, when all lonely hearts are comforted, when all estrangements are reconciled, when every human being is honored, and when all of creation is recognized and revered for the fingerprint of God that it is.
We have a ways to go. And so we wait, taking inspiration from the likes of Simeon who somehow managed the suspense and the lengths of days while never ceasing to watch and listen. Eventually, after all, he recognized the sound and the sight he was after. If he can do it, well...
...perhaps we can, as well.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
It's the Taste That Finally Matters
Some number of years ago I heard a lecture by Jeremiah Wright, a now-retired African-American scholar and minister from Chicago who had the misfortune of being the pastor to a future President, and the impertinence to read scripture in general and the Hebrew prophets in particular under the delusion that the words might actually have some relevance beyond the ancient Hebrews -- maybe even for Americans, an unforgivable sin that challenged our sacrosanct notions of exceptionalism. But that's another story.
The lecture I heard, titled "Different, Not Deficient", described the physiological, evolutionary, linguistic and cultural particularities of people from African descent. It was a fascinating study, but what has stuck with me in the ensuing years is his observation that insiders can be critical of the "family", but outsiders had better steer clear. It's funny, he noted, when Eddie Murphy tells jokes about black people -- even employing with impunity words long-since scratched from the pages of decency dictionaries -- while the same jokes told by a white comedian would sound hurtful and racist. The same is true of deprecating Jewish humor voiced by Jewish comedians like Jackie Mason or Henny Youngman. Told from the inside, it's funny; from the outside, it is offensive.
That important pivot came to mind this morning as I finally got around to reading Stephen Bloom's "Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life" published earlier this month in The Atlantic Magazine. Bloom, a Professor of Journalism at the University of Iowa for the past two decades, has the advantage or the misfortune of being just such an outsider. Little wonder, then, that his observations have intruded on Iowans' own sense of exceptionalism; vilified in the state, as a result, because of his characterizations of the towns and traditions and demographics situated between, as he refers to them, the once-great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Indeed, an article in today's Des Moines Register reports that Bloom, on leave this year and teaching in Michigan, has essentially gone into hiding for the holidays because of the hate mail he has received.
Like Bloom I, too, am a transplant, having moved to Iowa about the same time just short of 20 years ago. My relocation brought me from the "mother of all" exceptionalists -- the great nation of Texas -- where I had been born and reared, and I'll admit that I unpacked with some sense of disoriented trepidation. Yards were small, houses had a conspicuous absence of brick, overages were stored in basements instead of attics, there seemed to be a notable shortage of jewelry, women's hairstyles were small -- even demur, and of course there was snow. But life as I have experienced it in this foreign land has been blessed and good. There have been opportunities along the way to move, but I have stayed -- not long enough to become an actual "Iowan", of course, but long enough to feel gratefully at home and appreciative of the people and places and sensibilities that surround me. I like it here. In fact, I have just sunk an even deeper set of roots here with the purchase of an acreage and a home "on the land."
All that said -- or perhaps because of those details -- I read Bloom's observations a good bit more charitably than most apparently have. As far as I can tell, he has his facts straight, and of the data essentially speaks the truth. We may not like having all these dingier details spotlighted for the world to see, but it is hard to argue with the assessment that they are, in fact, our details. Indeed, I have heard much the same data named and lamented in public and casual conversations as long as I have lived here -- the drying up of small rural towns, the forced consolidation of declining school districts, the declining population, the "brain-drain" that is the departure of our young for "sexier" locales, the deterioration of infrastructures, the departure of manufacturing jobs for cheaper labor south of the border, and of course an often-forbidding climate. Did Bloom write anything that even the governor himself has not decried, or for that matter virtually every mayor in the state? Not that I saw.
Bloom, I think, got the facts straight; it is the spirit -- the ethos and the pathos -- he got wrong. Iowans would contend, I suspect, that they are less defined or described by the data of our circumstances than by the essence of our community. Frankly, I'm not sure that's different from any other city or state. We are certainly not less than our demographics or economies or climates, but we are just as certainly more. Except for the most parochially delusional, Iowans look out across the landscape of their lives and see the same realities as those listed by Professor Bloom, but simply don't recognize themselves in his characterization. The two dimensions of his altogether dispassionate observation are, I would argue, unassailably accurate; they simply overlook the more revelatory third dimension of social and cultural intercourse that colors and animates the living of a people's life together. In culinary terms, Bloom accurately listed the ingredients of our cultural recipe; he simply botched the way the finished dish actually tastes.
The ingredients, to be sure, aren't unimportant; but it is, after all, the taste that one finally remembers.
The lecture I heard, titled "Different, Not Deficient", described the physiological, evolutionary, linguistic and cultural particularities of people from African descent. It was a fascinating study, but what has stuck with me in the ensuing years is his observation that insiders can be critical of the "family", but outsiders had better steer clear. It's funny, he noted, when Eddie Murphy tells jokes about black people -- even employing with impunity words long-since scratched from the pages of decency dictionaries -- while the same jokes told by a white comedian would sound hurtful and racist. The same is true of deprecating Jewish humor voiced by Jewish comedians like Jackie Mason or Henny Youngman. Told from the inside, it's funny; from the outside, it is offensive.
Like Bloom I, too, am a transplant, having moved to Iowa about the same time just short of 20 years ago. My relocation brought me from the "mother of all" exceptionalists -- the great nation of Texas -- where I had been born and reared, and I'll admit that I unpacked with some sense of disoriented trepidation. Yards were small, houses had a conspicuous absence of brick, overages were stored in basements instead of attics, there seemed to be a notable shortage of jewelry, women's hairstyles were small -- even demur, and of course there was snow. But life as I have experienced it in this foreign land has been blessed and good. There have been opportunities along the way to move, but I have stayed -- not long enough to become an actual "Iowan", of course, but long enough to feel gratefully at home and appreciative of the people and places and sensibilities that surround me. I like it here. In fact, I have just sunk an even deeper set of roots here with the purchase of an acreage and a home "on the land."
All that said -- or perhaps because of those details -- I read Bloom's observations a good bit more charitably than most apparently have. As far as I can tell, he has his facts straight, and of the data essentially speaks the truth. We may not like having all these dingier details spotlighted for the world to see, but it is hard to argue with the assessment that they are, in fact, our details. Indeed, I have heard much the same data named and lamented in public and casual conversations as long as I have lived here -- the drying up of small rural towns, the forced consolidation of declining school districts, the declining population, the "brain-drain" that is the departure of our young for "sexier" locales, the deterioration of infrastructures, the departure of manufacturing jobs for cheaper labor south of the border, and of course an often-forbidding climate. Did Bloom write anything that even the governor himself has not decried, or for that matter virtually every mayor in the state? Not that I saw.
Bloom, I think, got the facts straight; it is the spirit -- the ethos and the pathos -- he got wrong. Iowans would contend, I suspect, that they are less defined or described by the data of our circumstances than by the essence of our community. Frankly, I'm not sure that's different from any other city or state. We are certainly not less than our demographics or economies or climates, but we are just as certainly more. Except for the most parochially delusional, Iowans look out across the landscape of their lives and see the same realities as those listed by Professor Bloom, but simply don't recognize themselves in his characterization. The two dimensions of his altogether dispassionate observation are, I would argue, unassailably accurate; they simply overlook the more revelatory third dimension of social and cultural intercourse that colors and animates the living of a people's life together. In culinary terms, Bloom accurately listed the ingredients of our cultural recipe; he simply botched the way the finished dish actually tastes.
The ingredients, to be sure, aren't unimportant; but it is, after all, the taste that one finally remembers.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
In the Listening and the Speaking
It was a hospital story that dominated discussion this morning. Sometimes it is a recent trip or political commentary; recently we delved into the varied nuances of deer hunting regulations at the county level. Rarely, however, is there silence. For the past 16 years -- or perhaps 17 or 18, I forget -- most of my Wednesday mornings have begun at 6:30 a.m. with a group of men who have little in common apart from that sausage biscuit, banana, the weekly conversation and our gender. It isn't a religious group, nor is it therapy even though it was birthed by one of the staff at the Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center who had a particular interest in men's issues.
We read a book together from time to time -- about transitions, for example, or gender issues appropriately enough; we have read about soul work and parenting and currently happiness. But the books and their topics have become less important over the years. Indeed, a book may last us a year because weeks will go by with the upcoming chapter unacknowledged, sidelined by more important matters. In the course of our meeting together we have shared the trauma of devastating diagnoses and the physical and emotional swings of subsequent treatments, even singing at the funeral of one of our "members." We have patiently and presently listened until tears abated long enough to continue a telling about a marital separation or a breathtaking insight or a parental disappointment or a recent and still-stinging grief. We have buried spouses, been part of foreign adoptions, nurtured the blossoms of budding romance and eventual marriage, counseled retirements and waved goodbye.
We have held each other in our keeping. For some reason I have been reflecting on the miracle of this community. In this Twittering Facebook world, there is certainly no absence of information. We know all manner of detail about friends and family and virtual strangers alike. We are made privy to political views, personal and sometimes questionable photographs, the details of new tattoos, shopping frustrations and the color of the baby's vomit. But I'm not sure how much this tsunami of information creates real community.
Churches occasionally get it right, creating moments and spaces for sharing the substance of our joys and concerns. But just as often congregations are better at advocating for community than they are at building it, worshiping side by side but too easily going our separate ways having shared little more than an attendance register and a common pew.
Genuine community requires a double-edged vulnerability: we have to be willing to speak out loud about what we find in those nooks and crannies of our being moist enough for real life to germinate; and we have to be patient and available enough to listen as those around us are sharing it. Of the former, we need be cognizant enough about ourselves to trust in the significance of small and often quiet inner voices. Of the latter, we must keep in mind that "interesting" and "important" are not always the same. Community requires a reverence for both the mouth and the ear.
I'm grateful for this merry band of men who have long since been content to laugh together, cry together, mourn together, argue together, celebrate together, wait together and, above all -- or perhaps it is "through it all" -- to hold one another in our collective keeping.
We read a book together from time to time -- about transitions, for example, or gender issues appropriately enough; we have read about soul work and parenting and currently happiness. But the books and their topics have become less important over the years. Indeed, a book may last us a year because weeks will go by with the upcoming chapter unacknowledged, sidelined by more important matters. In the course of our meeting together we have shared the trauma of devastating diagnoses and the physical and emotional swings of subsequent treatments, even singing at the funeral of one of our "members." We have patiently and presently listened until tears abated long enough to continue a telling about a marital separation or a breathtaking insight or a parental disappointment or a recent and still-stinging grief. We have buried spouses, been part of foreign adoptions, nurtured the blossoms of budding romance and eventual marriage, counseled retirements and waved goodbye.
We have held each other in our keeping. For some reason I have been reflecting on the miracle of this community. In this Twittering Facebook world, there is certainly no absence of information. We know all manner of detail about friends and family and virtual strangers alike. We are made privy to political views, personal and sometimes questionable photographs, the details of new tattoos, shopping frustrations and the color of the baby's vomit. But I'm not sure how much this tsunami of information creates real community.
Churches occasionally get it right, creating moments and spaces for sharing the substance of our joys and concerns. But just as often congregations are better at advocating for community than they are at building it, worshiping side by side but too easily going our separate ways having shared little more than an attendance register and a common pew.
Genuine community requires a double-edged vulnerability: we have to be willing to speak out loud about what we find in those nooks and crannies of our being moist enough for real life to germinate; and we have to be patient and available enough to listen as those around us are sharing it. Of the former, we need be cognizant enough about ourselves to trust in the significance of small and often quiet inner voices. Of the latter, we must keep in mind that "interesting" and "important" are not always the same. Community requires a reverence for both the mouth and the ear.
I'm grateful for this merry band of men who have long since been content to laugh together, cry together, mourn together, argue together, celebrate together, wait together and, above all -- or perhaps it is "through it all" -- to hold one another in our collective keeping.
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