Viva Las Vegascissm

I think that there is something about preparing- more specifically, packing- for a trip that triggers most people's narcissism, especially a trip to the bright lights of Las Vegas. I noticed this today as I am gathering all of my glamorous Target discount t-shirts and hand-me-down patterned grandpa shorts into Lindsey's old Umbro hockey duffle sports bag. I hear Vegas sparkles with twinkling lights and slot machines and dammit, I must sparkle, too.

So begins the dialog in my head as I whip open my suitcase...
"1. Will wearing this previously worn Spam t-shirt (thanks Patrick!) make people think I'm the funniest man on the strip or at least be a conversation starter by the pool? and 2. Does the bagginess in it's size make me look like I have bigger muscles, even when I'm the only skinny guy swimming in a t-shirt" or...
"Will I be looked upon and respected as an old hand at the blackjack table if I groom my beard, cover my neck in sex panther cologne and wear some pleated slacks?"

Yes, this is me in the inner destructive narcissistic tornado of me. The desire to be impressive and loved by the masses spins me dizzy while the cows of my thoughts get tossed around my brain like a scene from Twister. In my world, it's about, well, my world: the world where I reign fashion mogul, archbishop to the Kingdom, Pope to my religion, leader of the masses, and Matthew McConaughey to all of the swooning women, including my wife.

I'm exhausted you know. To live up to the standards of being flawless every day is invigorating in the moment and depleting the rest of the time. This is a universe of controlling everything and to live in that illusion is to play with Barbie dolls yet be one at the same time. It's a galaxy of youthful fantasy of unrealistic expectations and never-ending play dates contained in a soul that feels so Mattel plastic and rigid. Everyday, I wake up and somehow believe that I am in some sort of beauty pageant. Yes, these analogies fit my world.

And so the opposite of me is you. Do I escape my narcissism by paying attention to others? Does that cure the cause or just avoid the symptoms? Do I do what Patch Adams did and create an outside world of helping the hurting or is this just a tool for avoiding my own hurt and expecting the wounds to heal in neglect?

In the same way, Jesus said to love others as you love yourself. The sermons of my childhood emphasized the first part of that commandment and completely avoided the latter. To love and even like myself was prideful and egotistical I was taught. Being a Christian is all about tending to others (those who are called "the lost" in evangelical terms). We want to model ourselves after Mother Theresa and really this just means we want to do her miraculous work noticed during the daytime and ignore the torment of thoughts she had before she went to sleep at night.

Here's the issue though: that philosophy looks glamorous and at the same time, ignores foundation. Religion wants to make people into redwood trees set in dense forests ("the world") filled with woodland creatures ("the lost") in order to reach out and be nutritious ("evangelism"). Yet it strives to be these enormous presences without becoming these fruitful creations. Notice the contradiction in that last sentence...

They want to be (arrived) these enormous presences (nouns) without becoming (growth) these fruitful creations (verbs).

Trees cannot survive without roots and for roots to become trees, they need to bloom. The bad news and the good news is that the blooming process is painful and the result is humiliating at the best of times and near death experiences at the worst of times. The dirt we grow in is the presence of wounds, anger, frustration, hopelessness, sadness, abuse, neglect and most of all, fear. Recovery is the process of moving through that dirt slowly and at mother nature's pace. It cannot be forced or manipulated. And to become a tree of any size is a continued road of recovery that doesn't seize. For trees to grow, they need to be faced with all forces of nature... destructive and stilling.

One problem to the neglect of growing roots through recovery is distraction. Mine is and has been video games, sexual stimulation, and over eating. Other's are busyness, greed, and exercise. And many other's- especially people of faith- is church. Church looks like spiritual growth because it has the name of God all over it. Faithfully attending Sunday services, creating Bible centered small groups, listening to powerful sermons, being baptized, and using God-given gifts in all spiritual outputs does not mean that one is spiritually growing. This is not to say that these things cannot inspire spiritual growth (as albums, movies, and sexual exploration have the ability to, as well), but they are not the heartbeat and life-line to the path of recovery (roots growing through the dirt). The temptation of thinking that Church equals spiritual growth results in huge Christian conferences being massively attended by church leaders and small meditative retreat centers hovering around the border of being ghost towns.

A tool counterintuitive to distractive Christianity is this practice called Centering Prayer that I have just been learning about this past year. And although it has been somewhat of an ancient practice, it is not something that many people of faith know about, are drawn to, or have even experienced. The goal of Centering Prayer as I have come to understand is to become present with the divine presence through silence, stillness, and meditation. Prayer that is taught in church is about talking, rationalizing, and thinking. This practice is not. Centering Prayer is the temporary abandonment of the outside world (the outer and inner noise) and going to the center of ourselves where the uncontrolled loving spirit of God exists. Many people- maybe even most- try it once and never do it again because it is not a "quick fix." It's a continued practice and like the road of recovery, it is not meant to be just a "season" of life. The practice does not invite you to spend the rest of your life in a monastery away from the world, but rather ultimately prepares you to love God, yourself, and others in the truest, most healthy sense in the world. If you have come this far in reading a rather long blog here, I would be shorting you for not giving you resources to at least research this powerful practice...

1. My parent's own an incredible and beautiful retreat center out in the country that among many things, invites people to experience/learn centering prayer. This is the website: www.lrretreats.com. Everyone is welcomed!

2. The greatest mentor of my life, a spiritual director named Maria Gullo, teaches Centering Prayer in many different ways. Check her out at www.mariagullo.com

Soooo... it is now about 14 hours until I check my baggage of glamorous cheap t-shirts, plaid shorts, Teva sandals, and medicine for the outbreak of acne that has spread across my back like the ebola virus. We're headed to Vegas, baby... where what happens in Vegas... stays... in the haunted thoughts for the rest of my life. I've prayed and pleaded to God to both help me love deeply and also win money abundantly (to give to the poor, of course). And I won't lie, I'm planning on having the best sex with my wife that we've ever had.

Life to be continued after this short message from our sponsors...




   

New Jersey Enlightenment

New Jersey

From my time spent in New Jersey, I know that glorious east coast nook for three things in particular: aggressiveness, having to turn right to turn left, and diners. I would add the jersey shore to the list, but unfortunately, that has a different meaning altogether these days.

My experience with diners- more specifically, 24 hour diners- in New Jersey had two purposes. One was for a midnight snack (choose diners or Dunkin’ Donuts, your choice of inevitable diabetes). The other was that it was the ideal hub for late night conversations with friends over some cheap greasy food.

Dave the Drummer

I had this really good friend, Dave, who I played music with while I was at a small community college during my east coast tenure. He was a brilliant drummer (and still is, I believe) and every so often we would hang out at diners, discussing everything from jazz to family to girls to more jazz and so on and so on, way into the late night. We’d also discuss religion and more specifically, the validity of it. Now Dave wasn’t religious and I was about as religious as it got, so of course, this made for some interesting conversation. And thus, this was the important function of New Jersey diners (that is, a place to have interesting conversations). But this blog isn’t about New Jersey diners.

Ok, where was I? Off topic. Taking my ritalin. Moving on…

Now I had the underlying pressure of my religious faith to bring Dave into believing in the same God that I believed. This was called, as many of you know, “evangelism.” I could not just have “interesting conversations” without a larger purpose of getting Dave saved. I wasn’t stupid enough to get into intellectual debates about theology (remember, I was going to a community college. Oh, chill out my community college friends… I’m just kidding!). So I had to figure out another way. And I did.

I decided that I would try to go to Dave’s level and completely abandon all of my beliefs in order to understand where Dave was coming from (as though, Dave had no beliefs and better yet, on a lower level) and inevitably, figure out a way for him to get to the place where I was (my spiritual utopia). This was a scary move because abandoning my beliefs was essentially playing the role of an atheist and that of course meant that I was going to be spending time with Hitler and Oprah after I die. But I knew I was supposed to sacrifice my ultimate knowledge of God for this greater purpose of salvation.

And… Scene!

And so it goes, we began having diner discussions as me- Rob the atheist thespian- and Dave, the soon to be converted drummer. But as I began to shed my religious beliefs, a funny thing started happening… I felt invigorated on the inside. Of course, Dave couldn’t know this was happening because it would ruin everything. But asking questions like, “Is there really a God?” was becoming less of a line in my Dave conversion play and actually a very real question to me. I hadn’t actually asked that question as an adult before. Is there really a God? And then the questions just began to roll out more and more, as though I was playing a John Coltrane melody in a complex jazz standard…

If there is a God, is this God a loving God?

And if this is a loving God, why does the world seem horrible?

And what about life after death?

Do people really go to hell? Is there a hell?

And is Oprah really the devil?

Ok, I admit I probably didn’t ask that last one. But I found myself caught in this unrecognized euphoria that came in asking the questions I always had to have answers to. It was like that feeling that you get when you take off a backpack with 4 thick textbooks crammed inside it after a two-mile walk from the bus stop to the house. It was an exhausted freedom to let go for even just one evening.

Well, so it goes… I put that backpack back on about as quickly as I took it off because I knew that I couldn’t abandon my religion (oh, I called it Christianity at the time, by the way). I functioned in a Christian environment and in this environment; there was no room to ask questions without getting quick answers. The greatest sin I knew of was walking away from God and the greatest fear I had was being eternally tormented. Those conversion driven conversations with Dave didn’t last long and soon enough, I had moved to a different state and tried to convert others.

Freedom in the Unbelief

It was only until the past two years as I stepped away from the evangelical church that I had room to explore the deepest questions that have ruminated in me since even before my diner days. I married an amazing woman who encourages me to let questions-rather than answers- move my compass needle. I climb less up the religious insurance and answer ladder and fall more into the bottomless ocean of mysticism (mystery of spirituality). And although it is terrifying to turn the answers into questions, there’s a deeper experience of peace that one cannot feel until doing so.

I do not believe that you have to abandon the evangelical church to go to the space of the mystic. I just believe that God is not contained in our little controlled ideas and answers that we have made of her. And not only that, I believe God is waiting for us on the other side of those prison walls we have built called religion; waiting to embrace us in the shedding off of religious garments. Unlike before, I no longer feel like I am with God but rather of God. It is now that I see God in those who do not profess to believe in God and I see God in those who do profess to believe in God. As a rabbi once said, when we believe that we are the divine, we no longer play the divine (religion).

My greatest understanding is knowing that I don’t actually know much at this point in my life. But I have never felt a deeper sense of peace in that belief and I believe that peace is waiting there for all of us. Even Oprah.  

Enter the Shadowlands

Here I am, at the gates to the shadowland, and it's my time to step in. I'm sick of covering up the pain with impulses, the busyness, a reaching for dreams, and the noise. It's time to heal and to heal I must rip off the band-aid and let the air meet the wound. Wounds can only heal with oxygen and now is the time to let the throbbing pain breathe a little.

Noise in the name of God is the headache of my soul. There are so many of us that are treading the trail away from church- church services in particular- because we are tired of the ordained noise...

The ruckus in the production, the immortal theology seductive to the mind of the weak, the worshipping of the gifted by the self deprecating, the manipulation brought on with charm and brilliant metaphors through podcast worthy sermons, the meaningless music with preconceived emotion, and the routine of doing over and over again every week. Much of it is authentic in intention, yet much of it is just more band-aids over the wound. Why is there so much fear of silence? Could silence in fact be the reflection of our shadowlands that we are scared to glimpse at?

And so I turn to the cosmic God as a mystic trying to find answers instead of giving them, trying to ask questions instead of answering them, and finally admitting that I may not know as much as I thought I knew. My skin is afflicted and I have afflicted many others. My sins are of many and many have sinned against me. And the shadowlands are somehow dimly lit- enough to find my way in.

I have twelve steps ahead to find whatever may meet me at my arrival.

The Acceptance of Reality

I put pressure on myself to say something new, fresh, and original when writing a blog. Though at times, it is best just to say what is needed. I read this today and couldn't help but post it...

"How do we find what is supposedly already there? How do we awaken our deepest and most profound selves? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all of the above, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our reality. This solution sounds so simple and innocuous that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross.

Living and accepting our own reality will not feel very spiritual. It will feel like we are on the edges rather than dealing with the essence. Thus most run toward more esoteric and dramatic postures instead of bearing the mystery of God’s suffering and joy inside themselves. But the edges of our lives—fully experienced, suffered, and enjoyed—lead us back to the center and the essence.

We do not find our own center; it finds us. Our own mind will not be able to figure it out. Our journeys around and through our realities, or “circumferences,” lead us to the core reality, where we meet both our truest self and our truest God. We do not really know what it means to be human unless we know God. And, in turn, we do not really know God except through our broken and rejoicing humanity." - Fr. Richard Rohr

The Big Black Forest

I've heard it said by people older than me that we spend our young adult lives tirelessly trying to survive. We, the young ones, are people of little peace, unreachable expectations, and habitually full of fear. We have been dropped into the big black forest (separation from our parents), attempting to hold onto anything that gives us some sense of security (relationships, education, a career, knowledge, theories), and running as fast as we can towards some open field of flowers and sunshine that we believe will greet us if we will ourselves out (success and for some, heaven).

The reality of the big black forest is inevitable. There are some that thrive there. They love the unknown, the spontaneous surprises that greet them at every turn, and the opportunity to dangerously swing on the vines between the trees. They are what we would call Adventurists.

Others are, well, uneasy at best living in the big black forest. They will try their hardest to grow up fast, find the most accessible way out, and if need be, figure out a way to become King of the Jungle so as not to be harmed (control). Of course, there are many folks who live in both worlds... the world of adventure and the world of uneasiness. I most likely fall into that category.

The reality of the big black forest is just that... it's big and black (yes, I know the jokes that come with those two words, too. Moving on!). But the reality is surely inevitable... it's bigger than us and more complex than we can comprehend.

The concept of the big black forest can be whatever you make it, but for the context of the rest of this blog, let's refer to it as the Higher Being or what some may call, God.

As I continue to journey into the deeper levels of healing within my present journey, I'm perplexed by the fact that almost everything I thought I had figured out about God was and is just a bunch of assumptions laced with ego and survival (or fear). This is what I refer to as my theology. Basically, I summed up a mystical presence with words and theories and created an easy explanation of something that cannot easily be explained.

At a deeper level, most of our theological declarations that we refuse to let go of are just ways to protect ourselves from exploring the big black forest. We are uncomfortable with the unknown and will feel a vulnerability that could leave us open to transformation if we let our stubborn theories go. This is the very reason why I get scared by churches that will cling lifelessly to their bylaws, theological stances and denominations instead while resisting the question marks in the grey.

Now hear me out when I say this... there is nothing wrong with having theology, bylaws, denominations, and knowledge and understanding. They are good. Belief is necessary and you cannot deny what you have come to understand. Let me give you an example of this...

Over the past two years, I have come to understand who my wife is more and more by being in a marriage with her; by struggling together, by how we have impacted each other, and by hope in all things- especially the unknown (i.e. will we have kids?). But if I was to box her in with my assumptions based on the limited knowledge and experience I have had with her- essentially, making her predictable- I will never see the full glory of who she is and I will habitually defend myself on being impacted and inspired by her essence. Thus, the same can be true about our journey with God.

See, we must realize that the things we believe in are unfinished paintings and paintings are expressions of interpretations and experience. Paintings should always be accessible to change, adjustment, movement, and even whiteouts. This is the very definition of transformation and healing. We are not designed to rely on our beliefs, but rather on the Spirit inside of us and around us. If beliefs are not being formed out of a communion with the Spirit, then we truly have no real beliefs at all.

My incomplete painting shows me that the big black forest is never ending. We have been equipped with a head lamp for light and though its beam is limited, that's a good thing. Why? Because with limited vision, we get to experience the present moment with the loving spirit in us and with others around us. As this love transforms us, we realize that all we really need is the next step.

Exposed

A couple of week ago, while attending my weekly recovery group, I heard this said... "We are only as sick as our secrets."

As I've said before, I've been a pastor or a leader in the church for many years, ever since high school. I learned along the way- set by example- to try and have the answers to all of the questions, try to have my ducks in a row, and try to always be the safe person people will come to no matter what. Most pastors know exactly what I'm talking about. There's this pressure to be flawless because it's only in flawlessness that one can be trusted. Of course, flawlessness is an illusion.

The issue is that when we try to present ourselves in the illusion of flawlessness, the dark secrets inside of us get darker and jam themselves deeper into our hidden wounds. The holier we look on the outside, the more infested with secrets we become on the inside. Shadows only exist with the presence of light.

This is the reason that Ted Haggard stories play themselves out. People like Ted are not bad people. They are just people who do not feel safe or secure enough to share their secrets with others. So the secrets manifest themselves into harmful behaviors, eventually ruining relationships and harming others, as well as themselves.

For years, I have quietly hauled around an addiction to sexual thoughts and pornography. It's been a war inside of me that has been laced in guilt, shame, confusion, and anger. It's manifested itself out in destructive dating relationships in the past as well as my marriage in the presence. It's encouraged me to fixate on beauty that is artificial and ignore beauty that is authentic. The voice of the addiction has haunted my thoughts, yelling at me even when I'm trying to put on the happy face. And more than anything, the addiction has been a lonely and isolated place to be.

After hearing that we are only as sick as our secrets, I decided that I needed to bring my secrets out into the light and expose them to my recovery group. So I mustered up enough courage to do so and I did it. I told them that I'm a hurting man who is living in a painful life in regards to sexuality. After telling them this, I immediately felt a weight lifted off of me because my inside was finally being illuminated. In doing so, I opened myself up to being loved and for the first time, I felt deep love. And that's just it... our hidden secrets take up our capacity to love and be loved.

I have a tough time hearing certain pastors give sermons these days because most of the time I feel like I'm hearing really good theology and interpretation and seeing very little transparency of their stories and struggles. It's not that sermons are bad, but they can be a great escape to hide our secrets behind. I have a hard time seeing so many people get addicted to their religion, so much so that they are under the belief that their religion is their surrender. They forget that theology cannot bring secrets into the light. Studying the Bible cannot bring secrets into the light. Attending church cannot bring secrets into the light. It's only a willingness to step into the light that can expose their secrets to the light.

Whether you are a pastor or not, I encourage you to come out into the light. Lay down the bible, cancel your activities for the night, and expose yourself to someone. Leave the lonely world behind and breathe. God's love is as real as your breath when you give yourself the capacity to breathe.

You are deeply loved.

The Beauty in Agnosticism

As I left the church a year and a half ago, I decided to learn how to become an agnostic. I wanted to know how agnostics may see the world and the unknown. I wanted to know their language. And overall, I just wanted to learn from them.

See, between the ages of 15 and my mid-twenties, I only knew how to think like a Christian and the problem with that without any other view, it inevitably leads to being a closet segregationist. When I operated only from the perspective of a Christian view point, I lost touch with understanding the world. I assumed a lot of things about those who wanted nothing to do with Christianity and I made judgements based on those assumptions. I learned to put simple labels upon that which is complex because against the Scriptures, they were all vain. Or so I thought.

In that time of my life, I took the depth and brilliancy of those who didn't think like me and perceived it through my eyes that only saw shallow puddles. Everything was black or white. Nothing was gray. You either fully believed that Jesus is God or you didn't. You either crossed the bridge of salvation or you wandered in the desert of unbelief. It was this or that. Everything was about the "or" and the "then" and no belief ended in a question mark.

I didn't see it at the time, but my relationship with others that didn't go to church had a habit of fading. If they were not willing to budge in order to follow the Jesus I knew, I didn't really see a point in investing time with them. I mean, my life was about getting people to accept Jesus and what other mission could there have been? That's what Jesus wanted me to do, I was sure of it. I was a door-to-door religion salesman and if the door shut on my face, I was on to the next house. I knew the ultimate truth and the ultimate truth had no patience. Soon, I began to realize that the ultimate truth had no understanding either.

I wasn't willing to try and understand a belief that wasn't mine because I was afraid that someone may convince me that the very thing that I would die for had grave errors in it. I didn't want to be embarrassed by my follies and I certainly didn't want to risk the chance of not believing in God (mainly because I was terrified of hell- the place where unbelievers are supposed to end up at). Besides, I felt an invigorating rush in knowing that I had the most important decision on earth (following God) figured out and others did not. I knew this to be true because at parties, I was the only person who didn't drink.

My evangelism madness finally hit rock bottom when I forcefully used it against my own flesh and blood. Several years back, my sister- the most genuine and honest person I know- was openly venturing through some questioning about her faith and about the church. I was absolutely devastated when I found out. I couldn't accept the fact that the person that held me when on the day I was born could actually be having doubts about the most important decision on earth. How could this be?! In my mind, she was a rock that had turned to sand and I needed to figure out how to save her from being swept into the ocean forever.

It was one afternoon and her and I went to a sandwich shop near where she was living. She had recently started dating a guy who I wasn't sure about and I had just about had it. Her crisis of faith had now moved her into making poor decisions and it was time that I confronted her on it. So I did so without reserve. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I was aggressive and unwilling to hear her out. Tears rolled down her face and I knew it was because I had hurt her with my stubbornness. For the first time, I finally saw the damage done by my evangelism.

How many others did I hurt like this but never realized it because I never took the time to see their point-of-view? Who did I steam roll over with my Jesus fury because they didn't believe like I did? And how many moments to share life and learn from others had I missed because I was trying to push people into the same dysfunctional journey that I was on? And all of this to save them.

One of the many things that people like my sister have taught me about is that there is so much beauty in the gray. The freedom of life is in the ability to say, "I don't have the answer" and furthermore, "I don't need the answer today." In the questioning of the most important things to us in life is where the purest oxygen to breathe is abundantly available. When you are running around trying to force people into seeing something one way or your way, you are constantly running out of breath. At least I was.

Though it is a slow process, I have learned how to love the unknown, sort of like an agnostic. I'm breathing deeper than I ever have before. It's weird because at the age of 31, I'm ok with saying that I'm not sure of something- even if it has to do with God- because if it is truth, it will let me know someway and somehow. I can't deny that which has shown itself to me and the God of love has changed my life enough... enough that I have the freedom to not fully understand why, how, or if it will sustain. But the greatest devastation to a human life is when we close our eyes to the world and refuse to receive or at least observe what is there.

By all means, ask questions.