Author: Jeff

“The mystics would say whenever you stand apart and objectify anything you stop knowing it. You have to love, respect, and enter into relationship with what you desire to know…This is knowing by participation” (Knowing through Loving, Sunday, February 26, 2017; Father Richard Rohr, OFM).

We are quite messed up in our national political life with fighting about facts or alternative facts or truth or half-truths. We accuse each other of reporting fake news because we don’t agree with it or it challenges us to be responsible for our statements and actions. I am grateful for free press organizations that take time to study and learn about the subjects they report. I use a filter for the quality of news inversely related to the drama, anger, and disdain present in the story. In other words, news stories presented with entertaining drama, anger, and disdain for the people involved have less value for me and don’t serve the truth they want to report.

Comedians and artists gain popularity in times of arrogant, foolish, and outrageous communications and reporting. I like the use of humor to reveal our obsessive-compulsive behaviors and feel the pain of recognition when their commentary hits home. However, we don’t learn much about real news when we communicate combatively.

In late January, I posted this photo on Facebook with this comment: “Paused a moment to consider how this collection (my Evernote journal is on the bottom) on my reading table represents basic commitments in my life and ministry.” One of my colleagues commented in jest, “put the Holy Bible on the top.” I replied, “I notice it is in the middle.”

I love learning God’s Word and having it in the middle of my conversations, considerations, and commitments to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ. And I am blessed and energized by being with other people who love to learn. That’s why I appreciate Father Richard Rohr’s statement about the need to love, respect, and enter into relationship with what you desire to know. When news is shared from a perspective of love, respect, and relationship, we feel its truth. That is the best understanding of evangelism I have.

But this type of communication comes with great risk. Parker Palmer writes in Healing the Heart of Democracy:

If you hold your knowledge of self and world wholeheartedly, your heart will at times get broken by loss, failure, defeat, betrayal, or death. What happens next in you and the world around you depends on how your heart breaks. If it breaks apart into a thousand pieces, the result may be anger, depression, and disengagement. If it breaks open into greater capacity to hold the complexities and contradictions of human experience, the result may be new life (page 18; my emphasis).

At my dad’s funeral, I found comfort in these words about learning and wisdom:

My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:1-5).

Real, good news is found in the passionate pursuit of knowledge with an open heart.

I pray we enter the Holy Week and the Easter season with this spirit to learn what we need to know for abundant life with God and each other.

Psalm 40:2 – He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure (NRSV); He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip (The Message); He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along (NLT).

The “slippery slope” image is used as a rhetorical technique in arguments. It is a version of reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to absurdity”). If we allow this first thing to happen, then all these other things will happen and we will eventually be in an extreme position or condition that is bad or undesirable. It is similar to a domino effect. It also is good for creating fear and mistrust in another person’s or group’s statements or beliefs.

I got to thinking more about the image, slippery slope. It assumes we currently are elevated, holding the high ground, or standing in the beneficial position of dominance. It assumes we are in a good, right place NOW, so changing is bad and wrong.

But what if that’s not where we are? What came to me is that a contrasting image for a slippery slope (down which we may fall) is a miry bog (out of which we are lifted by God). The three versions of Psalm 40:2 highlight the power of this image. We are drawn up and lifted; our feet are placed on solid ground to take steady steps along God’s way.

Discerning and then accepting or changing our primary frame of reference is a powerful spiritual act. Are we about to fall down a slippery slope or be lifted up from a miry bog?

Knowing our primary frame of reference, or where we are coming from, helps us understand other dimensions of our life.

George Lakoff, in his book Moral Politics, presents the images of Strict Father or Nurturing Parent to describe the deeply different foundations we have for the political beliefs we hold. Another contrast is Nature or Nurture for how we describe the predominant influence on our human development.

Can we be in two places at once? Is there a slippery slope in the miry bog or a miry bog at the top of a slippery slope? How true are both of them at the same time?

One of my most influential seminary professors, Rev. Dr. Letty Russell, said that what you see depends on where you stand. We are challenged to learn from those who are standing in different places.

In my August 2019 post, “What Does Your Survey Say?” I wrote:

I know we feel the corrosive effects of violence from racism, menacing policies of leaders (and now laws of legislatures encouraging suspicion and accusation against our neighbors), threatening rhetoric, and grossly unjust differences of wealth. Jesus also was subject to these forces in his death on the cross.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
(When I Survey the Wondrous Cross)

Sorrow and love mingle for sure but so does anger at the humiliation and disregard for vulnerable people represented in the crown of thorns. We still live in a world that needs saving and healing and restoration and peace. And I am inspired to keep showing up for Church and ministry and life by the words of Adrienne Rich:

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power reconstitute the world (“Natural Resources” by Adrienne Rich in Household of Freedom by Rev. Dr. Letty Russell).

I pray that we might seek God’s help to be lifted out of the miry bog of violence and exploitation, regain our balance, and find ways to walk together along God’s way. And I am grateful for amazingly faithful people who reconstitute the world God has given us.

Good morning and God bless you! With this post, I move my blog, “Second Thoughts,” to WordPress and incorporate it into a new website. The previous location for my blog was here: https://grace-on-first.blogspot.com/.

I begin with good morning because it is a state of mind more than a time of day. I am a United Methodist pastor currently serving Wayland United Methodist Church in Wayland, Michigan.

I have named my blog, Second Thoughts, intentionally. Such a title may refer to doubt, like, “I’m having second thoughts about some decision/matter/question, etc.” However, I use second thoughts in the more positive light of giving further consideration to matters of faith and life. Second thoughts suggest that first thoughts and impressions may not convey the deepest meaning. Further contemplation can bring out better understanding and allow for meaning to emerge over time. The late Howard Thurman, a theologian/pastor/author, referred to the need to allow our decisions and questions to “simmer.” While I can respond to the immediate and urgent needs of a situation, I am a contemplative person at heart who is nourished in solitude, reflection, silence and conversation.

I am challenged and excited at now working with a website and blog. I love to write but I am a slow composer, so I will see how my energy flows into the frequency with which I write.  Here we go…