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Expecting Something Wonderful

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To help reduce this tension which seems to dominate our people everywhere, you can start by reducing your own pace. To do that you will need to slow down, quiet down. Do not fume. Do not fret. Practice being peaceful. Practice “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7) Then note the quiet power sense that wells up within you.

-Norman Vincent Peale
“Chapter 6: Stop Fuming and Fretting”
The Power of Positive Thinking

Up until Peale mentioned “quiet power sense,” he was actually saying just about the first thing that made any sort of sense to me in this entire book thus far.

Peace is a difficult concept to apply universally across a person’s life, mine or anyone else’s. We all want some sort of “peace” but we can’t be totally relaxed and at ease twenty-four hours a day. Frankly, there are times when we really need to be focused, or excited, or agitated, or even angry. But as I was reading this chapter over my lunch hour, I realized that I don’t allow myself a great deal of peace, even when I’m supposedly relaxing. More to the point, I don’t really allow myself the time and the luxury of being at peace in the presence of God.

However, as much as I can argue about the various circumstances in my life and the relative amount of control I do or don’t have over them, I do have some sort of control over finding the time and the place to be alone and uninterrupted with God so I can have a “peaceful” conversation with Him (I say this with the caveat that, living with other people doesn’t mean I can always guarantee I will be uninterrupted).

But I can try. I’ve said in previous blogs that I didn’t find Peale the sort of writer who matches my “style” or “metaphors,” but I’ve been trying to find ways of translating some of his more hokey stories and comments into a language I can relate to. He actually told a story (I don’t know if it’s about an actual, factual event or not) that I found brilliant.

Peale relates the tale of a baseball team who just couldn’t seem to do anything right. Although they were originally the favorites to carry the season, the team ended up losing 17 of their first 20 games. Naturally, team morale was at a low ebb and they weren’t expecting to score significantly and they absolutely didn’t expect to win any of their future games.

And they almost didn’t.

It so happened that a preacher named Schlater was popular in that neighborhood at that time. He claimed to be a faith healer and apparently was getting some astounding results. Throngs crowded to hear him and most everybody had confidence in him. Perhaps the fact that they did believe in his power enabled Schlater to achieve results.

O’Reilly (the team owner) asked each player to lend him his two best bats. Then he asked the members of the team to stay in the clubhouse until he returned. He put the bats in a wheelbarrow and went off with them. He was gone for an hour. He returned jubilantly to tell the players that Schlater, the preacher, had blessed the bats and that these bats now contained a power that could not be overcome. The players were astounded and delighted.

The next day they overwhelmed Dallas, getting 37 base hits and 20 runs. They hammered their way through the league to a championship, and Hugh Fullerton (a famous sports writer when Peale was a youth, according to the book) said that for years in the Southwest, a player would pay a large sum for a “Schlater bat.”

Actually, it’s O’Reilly who was brilliant for what he pulled off. Peale was only brilliant for relating the tale (unless he made the whole thing up, then Peale really was brilliant). The “faith healing powers” of Schlater were irrelevant. The team didn’t even have to meet him. All they knew is what O’Reilly told them…that Schlater blessed the bats with a special power. As long as the team believed the bats were powerful, then they would behave out of that belief. Nothing else had to change.

I know what you’re thinking and you’re right.

All I (or anyone) have to do is believe in my relationship with God and my own worth in God’s eyes and my own. Nothing else has to change in order for me to start rising up out of the bottom of the well. All I have to do is to believe that I don’t require a faith community in order to be free of the emotional requirement. The whole point of books like Peale’s is to convince their audience to believe in some sort of special power. That’s why Peale presents various passages from the Bible as he does. If his primary audience believes in Jesus or God, and they don’t mind taking Bible verses woefully out of context, then the book will have the desired effect.

Many years ago, I heard a teaching counselor use the phrase “the trickster healer.” It sounds a little suspicious, since you want people who are healers (doctors, psychologists, etc…) to be forthright and honest, but as we see in the story about O’Reilly and the “Schlater bats,” just telling someone what their problem is doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to “convince” them in other ways that don’t require them to make a conscious, rational decision. Sometimes they just have to believe.

Unfortunately, knowing about the “trick” robs it of its power, so in being aware of the “trick” and writing about it, I can’t also “con” myself into believing in the personal equivalent of a “Schlater bat.”

But I can try to believe in God.

I realize that, based on most of what I’ve said so far, it is practically beside the point whether or not God even exists as long as I believe He exists. This is probably why Peale’s book works even with atheists if they choose to believe in some other internal or external source of “power” instead of God.

I am convinced of the existence of the God of the Bible, however the presence of God isn’t always enough. If God didn’t require my cooperation or involvement in solving my little dilemma, He could just invoke some supernatural power and *poof* my perspective would be different and my paradigm would be shifted. End of story.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Maybe God doesn’t answer the majority of prayers using supernatural means. Maybe, most of the time, He just allows our faith and our trust in Him do most of the work. I’ll talk more about my journey in prayer while sitting at the bottom of my well in tomorrow’s “morning meditation.” In the meantime, the first lesson I’ll need to continue to learn is to be at peace right where I am, expecting nothing, before I can learn to believe and then expect something.

Heywood Floyd: What? What’s going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.

-from the film 2010 (1984)

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Fixing a Broken Connection

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How will you repair a soul?

Blind yourself to the shell of mud. Dig deeply and deeper yet, sift through the darkened embers, search for a spark that still shines. Fan that spark until a flame appears, fall in love with the flame and despise the evil that encrusts it. Until all is consumed in the warmth of that flame.

For empathy is the redeemer of love and the liberator of deeds that shine.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Soul Repair”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

This is part of my Finding My Metaphor project which I guess started when I wrote Learning Acceptance. I didn’t realize how difficult this would all be or rather, I didn’t realize when I started this line of questioning, that it would lead in such a difficult direction. Certainly starting to openly question whether or not I trust God is a difficult direction. So where do you go from the bottom of the well?

Actually, even before writing Acceptance, I wrote Waiting in a Minefield, which presents an image of trying to proceed on a spiritual journey but being afraid to move. Then I wrote Waiting for Hope in the Abyss, which is where I return to when I get stuck. If I just sit down at the bottom of the well, I can’t fall any further, can I?

So what now? I can just sit here and hope nothing falls on me, or hope that the bottom of the well doesn’t give way. Or I can try to get up and risk the walls of the well collapsing on top of me, burying me even deeper…or maybe actually getting out of here, but that’s a long shot. Actually, I kind of like it here in the dark. It’s quiet and peaceful and it’s easy on the eyes and nerves. I can just take deep, slow breaths and watch the dust swirling around in the air, caught in the beam of light filtering down from the top of the well.

But I can’t wait down here forever, can I?

Rabbi Freeman wrote in the introduction to A Multimedia guide to Jewish Prayer:

A mitzvah is an opportunity to act out your inner soul. A thought of Torah is an opportunity to hear it speaking. But when do you have an opportunity to experience that soul? When, other than at prayer?

To pray comes as naturally to the human being as breathing—where there is an openness to something greater, something beyond, naturally we cry out to it from within. Nevertheless, there is a ladder, a set of skills and techniques that can be learned. With knowledge, with practice and with persistence, we can all learn to excel at the art of dialogue between that breath of the divine within us and her Beloved Above.

So I’m sitting at the bottom of my well, and then I realize there is a ladder down here with me that leads to the “art of dialogue between that breath of the divine within us and her Beloved Above.” What have I got to lose?

Is prayer normal?

Anybody who has watched the standard morning minyan knows that Jewish prayer is not normal. It is not normal to wrap yourself in a white woolen sheet, strap leather boxes containing ancient scrolls on your arm and head, sway back and forth with your cohorts chanting Hebrew incantations and reading from a parchment scroll. It is not normal to stand before a wall and appear to be speaking to it. It is not normal in this day and age and may never have been normal in any era.

“Normal” is whatever you’re used to in your day-to-day life and, not being Jewish and certainly having never prayed in a minyan, the type of prayer Rabbi Freeman describes above is not “normal” for me. But I did say a few days ago that I would have to restructure the metaphors I feel closest to in order to derive a meaning that makes sense to me.

Even Rabbi Freeman admits that prayer is somewhat “absurd” in acknowledging that we believe God is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Beneficent. After all, God doesn’t need us to tell Him who and what He is. The classic answer to why we pray when God doesn’t need our prayers is because we need to pray. Prayer changes us, not God. God is God. He is immutable, unchangeable, eternal.

We’re not. I’m certainly not.

I mentioned previously that Freeman tells us the word “tefillah,” which we translate into English as “prayer,” “is etymologically related to the root word tofel—meaning reconnect or bond.” When Jews pray three times a day to God, they are reconnecting or “sticking” themselves back to their (our?) Original Source above. In this sense, “prayer” doesn’t mean beseeching, imploring, or appealing to God for something, but instead, it means reconnecting, reattaching, rebonding to the source of our lives and souls.

A fairly inaccurate but still apt analogy would be plugging your dead cell phone into the recharger to restore electricity to its drained battery…sort of.

But we don’t really do that when we pray, do we?

We do not suffice with standing there and acknowledging, “Yes, you are the Omnipotent King and we owe everything to you.” We continue by petitioning, pleading and begging that He change the situation. We repeat again and again, “Let it be Your will…”—directly implying that what we are requesting is not currently His will and we are out to change that.

We are quite frankly creating a revolution: Those at the bottom are dictating to the One Above. Our prayers are definitively not passive—we are taking a real nudnik, back-seat driver role.

And this is a mitzvah—He told us to do this!

The ideal is to reconnect to our source and to restore the Divine spark within us, but in any practical, real-life manner, we ask and plead and beg and implore God to help, help, help us with the mess of our lives.

And in Judaism, this is a mitzvah? Is it a “mitzvah”, an obedient act of righteousness and charity, if a Christian does this?

Judaism interprets the commandment, “You shall serve the LORD your God” (Exodus 23:25, Deuteronomy 6:13) as a positive commandment to pray daily. According to Maimonides:

…this commandment obligates each person to offer supplication and prayer every day and utter praises of the Holy One, blessed be He; then petition for all his needs with requests and supplications; and finally, give praise and thanks to God for the goodness that He has bestowed upon him; each one according to his own ability. (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer, 1:1)

The Apostolic Scriptures also frame prayer as a positive commandment, making it accessible to the Christian as well as to the Jew:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison – that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. –Colossians 4:2-4

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. –1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

That’s hardly a comprehensive list, but you get the idea. Continue praying. Pray without ceasing. Pray for others. Pray that the word declaring the “mystery of Christ” continues to be preached. Give thanks in all circumstances…even when sitting at the bottom of the well, because praying is “the will of God in Christ Jesus.”

When Paul writes, “for you” at the end of verse 18, I have to assume he’s referring to the non-Jewish believers, so that God’s will for me personally is to pray as I’ve described above.

Paul makes prayer sound so noble and selfless, but that’s hardly how most people pray. We pray asking for what we think we need and want. We pray when we’re upset or in pain. We pray with life isn’t going our way. And we have the audacity to ask God to change things around to the way we want them to be. Rabbi Freeman puts it this way:

The question returns: Why would the Ultimate Driver of the Universe want a nudnik, back seat driver?

So, when I pray, am I a pest? How is this repairing my soul? How does this help me relate to God?

Until after the final redeemer arrives, there is no person on earth without some fault. Where this person fails on one count, another fails elsewhere.

We don’t appreciate someone else prying into our faults and underlining each one with a red pencil. So we know it is not right to emphasize and magnify the faults of another.

This is the way all people should relate to one another.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Ignoring Faults”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

“To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

-Elbert Hubbard
American writer, artist and philosopher

I’m far from perfect God, but I want to trust you. Should I put my foot on the first rung of the ladder?

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Trust

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TrustFor the conductor, on Jeduthun, a song by David. For God alone my soul waits silently, from Him comes my salvation. He alone is my Rock and my Salvation; my Stronghold, I shall not falter greatly. Until when will you plot treacherously against a man? May you all be slain – like a leaning wail, a toppled fence. Only because of his loftiness have they plotted to topple [him], they delight in deceit; with his mouth each one blesses, but inwardly they curse, Selah! For God alone, waits silently, my soul, because my hope is from Him. He alone is my Rock and my Salvation; my Stronghold, I shall not falter. Upon God rests my salvation and my glory, the Rock of my strength, my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at every moment, O people! Pour out your hearts before Him; God is a refuge for us, Selah! Common people are but vanity! Distinguished people are but a deceit! Were they to be lifted up on scales, together they would be lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression, and in robbery place not vain hope; though wealth flourishes, set not your heart on it. One thing has God spoken, these two have I heard: that strength belongs to God; and Yours, O Lord, is kindness, for You repay each man according to his deeds.

–Psalm 62 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

I’m continuing my pursuit of restructuring the meaning of storytellers so that I can better understand and incorporate the lessons of God into my life. I have previously written about my need to find my own metaphor in the multitude of spiritual, religious, and psychological messages available so that I can better focus on what is important in life, and minimize or disregard all of the other “bothersome” minutiae.

It isn’t easy.

Life, or rather my approach to it, is a decades-long habit and like all “bad habits,” it’s difficult to break. It’s like quitting smoking (which I did decades ago). I know it’s good to break a bad habit, but I have to give up its secondary benefits and focus on what I’ll gain, even while “mourning” what I’ll be losing which, if nothing else, is the familiar. However, quitting smoking is child’s play compared to what some people call “making a paradigm shift“. This is a fundamental changing of perspective on how to approach and respond to not only circumstances, but to all aspects of existence.

Like I said, it isn’t easy.

There are a lot of elements involved but the first one is trying to find a starting point. There are all kinds of places that you might think to begin a journey of self discovery and self change. In yesterday’s morning meditation, I focused on prayer. That’s a good place to start since, for me, any shifting in paradigm also involves a change in my relationship with God.

Look back at the psalm I quoted from at the beginning of today’s blog. Look at what David’s saying.

For God alone, waits silently, my soul, because my hope is from Him…Trust in Him at every moment.

It’s not only hope and trust that belong to God, but salvation, strength, and kindness are His and His alone. In fact, David goes so far as to say that for “God alone my soul waits silently.” He is not depending on anyone else but God for hope, trust, strength, kindness, and salvation. David proclaims that even “distinguished people,” if you put them all on a scale, would still be “lighter than vanity.” Part of what I get out of this, is that there is no one to depend upon except God. Each person waits alone for His response.

I want to take all that and reduce it down even further to a single element: trust.

Churches talk an awful lot about having faith in God or having faith in Jesus, but they don’t mention the word “trust” at all. What’s the difference? I found an excellent metaphor comparing faith and trust, and I encourage you to read my wee missive on the difference before continuing here. It’s easy to have faith that God exists. It’s not so easy to actually trust God with everything that’s important to you…especially your life.

I know this sounds terrible, but I don’t think I trust God very much. Yes, I acknowledge and have faith in His existence and sovereignty over the universe and everything in it, including me, but I don’t trust Him to keep me safe in an absolute sense. After all, bad things happen to people all the time. Even people who have an amazing faith and trust in God suffer horribly. People get all kinds of hideous cancers, get in car wrecks. lose loved ones tragically, have heart attacks and strokes, are in hurricanes, have their homes wiped out by tornadoes, have their emotions utterly shattered, are reduced to nothing anyone wants to get close to.

They trusted God to keep them safe and look what happened.

Actually, the record of the “saints” in the Bible, the record of the lives of the Prophets, show that holy people who had faith and trust often came to rather “difficult” ends and in fact, their lives might have been a great deal more peaceful if they hadn’t been such significant servants of God.

So if I do or don’t trust God to protect me, I’m still vulnerable to everything. Anything could happen at any time. Any disaster could strike. Any illness or accident could occur at any moment. No one is safe, whether you have faith in God or not.

I realize that God “never promised me a rose garden” and that God doesn’t owe me (or anyone) a “safe” life. I know that life involves taking risks. All that is very rational. So then, is faith and trust in God all about the “afterlife” and our lives in the here and now are identical to those of our secular counterparts? Are both the saint and the sinner equally libel to get mugged, raped, or murdered?

But is being safe the point? God does what He does. In Romans 9:15, Paul quotes God’s conversation with Moses when He said, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” (Exodus 33:19 ESV) God grants mercy to or withholds mercy from people in accordance to His will. That makes God rather unpredictable. So is the only thing I can trust the fact that I can’t trust anything? Depending on how you translate Job 13:15 it can read Though he slay me, I will hope in him,” or it can be understood as, “Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope.”

So whether you trust in God or don’t trust in God, God will still do what God will do, so what’s the point?

But all of these “holy guys” seemed to think there was a point and they faced all kinds of horribly difficult situations depending on God to either get them out of it, as David did, or continuing to cling to God even if God chose to kill them.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” –Daniel 3:16-18 (ESV)

So how do you learn to trust God under these circumstances? If you are a child, you trust your parents, in part, because they keep you safe (I realize this is overly simplistic, since plenty of parents are untrustworthy for a lot of reasons, and plenty of children are hurt and even killed as a result). Children learn to trust their parents as their parents build a track record of keeping them safe and providing for their needs. Trust in any human relationship is based on experience. The longer we are in a relationship with a party who does not harm us physically or emotionally, and who provides for our needs, the more we tend to trust them and feel safe around them.

FallingBut how does that work in a relationship with God, who is so totally and completely alien to us and who, for any reason or for no reason at all (or for no reason we can understand), could allow us to be thrown under a bus (sometimes literally) at any moment and without warning?

It goes without saying that we cannot trust someone we don’t know, and therein lies the secret of learning to trust God. When someone says, “Trust me,” we have one of two reactions. Either we can say, “Ok, I’ll trust you,” or we can say, “Why should I?” In God’s case, trusting Him naturally follows when we understand why we should.

The main reason we should trust God is that He is worthy of our trust. Unlike men, He never lies and never fails to fulfill His promises. “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19; Psalm 89:34). Unlike men, He has the power to bring to pass what He plans and purposes to do. Isaiah 14:24 tells us, “The LORD Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.’” Furthermore, His plans are perfect, holy, and righteous, and He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His holy purpose (Romans 8:28). If we endeavor to know God through His Word, we will see that He is worthy of our trust, and our trust in Him will grow day by day. To know Him is to trust Him.

-quoted from GotQuestions.org

That works if everyone who ever trusted God remained safe and nothing bad ever happened to them, but the person who answered this question never got around to explaining why people who trust God still end up hurt and dead. The quote does say this, however:

A third reason to trust God is that we really have no sensible alternative. Should we trust in ourselves or in others who are sinful, unpredictable, unreliable, have limited wisdom, and who frequently make bad choices and decisions swayed by emotion? Or do we trust in the all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, gracious, merciful, loving God who has nothing but good intentions for us?

So, this person says we should trust God simply because we have no choice. But that comes back to God doing things to us (or allowing things to happen to us) whether we trust in Him or not.

But the person I just quoted did make one good point. You can’t trust someone you don’t know.

That goes back to yesterday’s “morning meditation” about prayer. Without an ongoing, continual “dialog” with God, how can you know Him? That’s the same for any human relationship. If you don’t communicate in a meaningful and frequent manner, how can you get to know someone and then maintain a relationship?

You can’t.

So prayer is just as good a starting point as any.

The GotQuestions.org person describes God as “all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, gracious, merciful, loving” and a God who “has nothing but good intentions for us.” Sorry, but I’m having a difficult time reconciling that statement with the reality of the world in which I live; a world where six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, a world where Christians have historically been tortured and executed for their faith, a world where people living in terror pray to God for them to be delivered and instead, are left to die alone in agony.

I know, I sound grim.

The supreme irony is that, at least as far as the Biblical record is concerned, people continued to trust in God, no matter what. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked into Nebuchadnezzer’s fiery furnace, believing that God either would save them or wouldn’t, and subsequently the King saw four men walking around inside of the flames unhurt, including someone who had the appearance “like a son of the gods.”

Sometimes trust works.

I remember sitting in church when the Pastor would say stuff like, “surrender all of your cares to Jesus and just let them go.” I heard similarly phrased “flowery speeches” like this time and again in various Christian venues and never had any idea how to accomplish such a feat. How does one simply “let go” of problems, worries, cares, sorrows, and so on? What is the mechanism of release? How can you simply and suddenly “stop worrying?” Where does the “worry” go?

I now realize what was really being said is to “trust Jesus to take care of your worries.” Jesus himself said something similar.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. –Matthew 6:25-33 (ESV)

But verse 34 is the kicker:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

And yet people die of starvation and thirst everyday somewhere in the world. People of faith do go without adequate clothing or sustenance. We do whither away like grass before a raging fire, and no one walks among the living and the dead who looks like a “son of the gods.”

But we’re supposed to trust anyway…I’m supposed to trust anyway. Peale’s book has the reader recite and repeat the various “promises of God” to empower believers and keep them safe…engendering trust in God, and supposedly, in spite of the long and difficult world history of men and God, it works. Rabbi Tzvi Freeman wrote a multi-part series on Jewish Meditation and Prayer which more or less says the same thing, in spite of the long and torturous history of the Jewish people and God.

(I suppose I should mention at this point that multitudes of secular people have also gained great benefits from following the advice in Peale’s book, substituting “higher power” or even their actualized selves for specific references to God. It’s astonishing then, that these people learned to shift their paradigms and improve their lives, not by trusting in God or any external source, but by trusting themselves! Does this mean that who or what you trust is irrelevant as long as you trust something? If a religious person and a non-religious person achieve the same self-improvement goals using identical processes but different targets [God vs. the self], is that saying God is actually doesn’t matter as long as you trust something? I know, these are horrible questions.)

The only thing I can get out of this is that, like Job, I am compelled to trust God, though He may slay me, just because I have no choice. Or rather, I have a choice: maintain my faith in God and learn to trust Him, or surrender my faith and trust no one, least of all me. Since the latter choice results in only despair, the former choice is my only real choice. It’s like allowing someone to tie me up, hand and foot, blindfold me and gag me, stand me at the edge of a mile-deep cliff. Then they say to me that even if they push me over, I’ll still be safe. I wonder if that’s how Isaac felt at the Akedah?

In that situation, I can’t even scream in terror or beg to be released. My mouth is stuffed with cotton and my throat is full of sand. All I can do is hang on and trust…or continually, moment-by-moment, be terrified. Like the title to Harlan Ellison’s classic science fiction tale, I have no mouth, but I must scream.

What would you do?

Torah Portion, Uncategorized

Waiting for Hope in the Abyss

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AbyssRav Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, zt”l, taught great inspiration from a statement on today’s daf.

“A person who has sinned and fallen to the lowest place, banished from God’s presence, should also never despair. A sacrifice that was fitting but then lost its status is no longer accepted even if afterward it regained its original status. But Rav holds that if the animal is still alive, it is not rejected absolutely. This fallen soul is no different. As long as he has some chiyus, some vitality, it is always possible to start again and attain forgiveness. This is the deeper meaning of the words, ‘Forgive our sins for they are many.’ This can be also be read, ‘Forgive our sins, because the halachah follows Rav—that ba’alei chaim are not rejected.'”

The Lechivitcher, zt”l, offered a parable to help understand this better. “A Jew is like a valuable coin. Even if it rusts and has mud crusted over it, it still retains its original value. The owner must clean the coin by removing the rust and the caked mud, but once he does so it shines just the same as it did when it was new.”

Rav Moshe of Kovrin, zt”l, was once encouraging some young chassidim who were struggling in spiritual matters. “Even if one falls again and again—even one hundred times—he must strengthen himself again and again. It is incumbent upon us to always find a way to encourage ourselves again and again, until we climb out of our spiritual rut!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Ba’alei Chaim”
Temurah 23

I always have to be careful when I generalize a Jewish commentary and try to apply it to Christianity. After all, the Rabbis didn’t produce these Dafs with Christians in mind and sometimes, the judgments and insights they generate are specifically not to be applied to non-Jews. However, when reading Derek Leman’s book review of Daniel Boyarin’s book The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, I found something interesting.

So, it might surprise you to know that Boyarin thinks Judaism and Christianity are compatible. His goal, stated on pages 6-7 is to help Christians and Jews to stop vilifying each other. He doesn’t follow Jesus and isn’t asking fellow Jews to do so. But he demolishes all ideas that Christian devotion to Jesus is contrary to Judaism or that Christianity is anything other than a Judaism to which mostly non-Jews have been drawn. Jews in the time of Jesus were looking, he says, for a divine messiah. And Jesus’ earliest followers were kosher Jews. The sad separation and enmity of Judaism and Christianity is something to get beyond, not something to perpetuate.

According to how I’m reading Leman (I haven’t read Boyarin’s book yet), Boyarin doesn’t see a severe “disconnect” between first century Jewish and Gentile worship of God through the “path” of “the Way”. But, as Boyarin declares, if Christianity is not directly contrary to Judaism, can I say the reverse, that Judaism is not directly contrary to Christianity? Further, can I stretch my metaphor to say that Jewish teachings are not directly contrary to Christianity?

You probably think I’m grasping at straws. On the other hand, let’s look at our “story off the Daf” again. What is the theme? That even the person who is most distanced from God because of their sin should not dispair and give up all hope of reconciliation. Doesn’t that sound like it could be a Christian theme as well?

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. –Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. –2 Timothy 4:6-8 (ESV)

I believe we who are Christians can take the same hope that, no matter how far we have fallen away from God, we can rise back up to Him, even as Rav Simcha Bunim teaches.

Yesterday, the Jewish world celebrated Purim, the commemoration of the victory of the Jewish people in ancient Persia over Haman’s plan of genocide. If you read the Book of Esther on Purim, you realized how desperate it was for the Jews and how hopeless everything seemed. Even after Esther revealed the evil Haman’s plot to King Achashverosh, it was not in his power to reverse his decree. The destruction of the Jews seemed inevitable. And yet, through the courage of Esther and Mordechai and the love of God for His people, the King granted the Jews the ability to fight back and to defend themselves.

Hopelessness was turned into hope and defeat was transformed into victory; a victory that is still commemorated many thousands of years later, for with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Although God is not explicitly mentioned in Esther, we know that He was there with Israel, defending them and encouraging them. It was a miracle that the Jews survived the enormous threat against them. It is always a miracle when the Jews survive, since often it is only God who is for them, and an entire world who desires that they perish. Remember this too, as you study the sin of the Golden Calf for this Shabbat’s Torah Reading. There is no failing or sin so great that you become irredeemable.

Yet most of God’s miracles are not in the realm of the supernatural. It was (seemingly) through very natural processes that the Jews were saved from the plan of Haman. Seas did not part. The earth did not stop rotating on its axis, Fire and destruction did not rain down from heaven upon the enemies of the Jews. So it is in our lives today, even in the most dire and hopeless of circumstances. You may not feel the hand of God touching you or see His finger writing in the dust, but He is there and while you live, there is hope, but only if you hope in Him.

The philosopher, when he sees a miracle, looks for a natural explanation. The Jew, when he sees nature, looks for the miracle.

-Rabbi Tsvi Freeman
“Unnatural Response”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Blessings and hope.

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Freeing Prisoners

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And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. –Luke 4:17-20 (ESV)

Visit the prisoners and bring them some happiness. Even if they are guilty; even if, in your eyes, they deserve whatever misery they have. Bring them joy.

G-d is always with the oppressed. Even if the oppressor is righteous and the oppressed is wicked, our sages tell us, G-d is with the oppressed.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“G-d with the Oppressed”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

He has been sent to proclaim liberty to the captives and to set free the oppressed. When we read these lines Jesus read, citing Isaiah 61:1,2 (see Septuagint) and Isaiah 58:6, we Christians think of ourselves, which I suppose is rather self-centered. We have been set free, if not from the world or our own human natures, at least from being slaves to the values of the world and the complete corruption of the human heart. It’s actually not that simple, since Christians often believe only they (we) can perform good while all of our secular counterparts can do only evil. Yet the just and the unjust can both feed the hungry, give to the poor, and shelter the homeless. Our freedom is to see that we do not serve only ourselves or only other human beings when we do what is good, but we serve God and acknowledge His Kingship over all the earth.

But we were not always free.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. –Romans 5:6-11 (ESV)

Please keep that in mind. Jesus didn’t die for you (or for me, or for anyone) because you were so cool, but because you were his enemy! I say that because many in the church continue to disdain “sinners” and hold themselves up higher than the human beings who are “unchurched” just because we Christians are “saved by grace.” And yet, many Christians don’t act like they were saved by grace, but rather, they act like they’ve been saved because they were loved by Jesus more than the unsaved (I know…the faulty “logic” confuses me, too).

Really, I’ve met Christians like this. It’s one of the reasons I left the church in which I became a Christian. Self-superiority among many believers is just rampant and it’s appalling.

If we could only look at ourselves as God sees us. What a horrible thing to wish upon anyone.

Oh, you think that you look really terrific to God? By His grace, perhaps, but He can see you, me, and everyone exactly as who we are and who we have been (and who we will be). He saw the good in us and the person He created us to be when we were still slaves to the sin in our hearts and the desire to serve only ourselves. Remember Rabbi Freeman’s advice? Visit the prisoners and bring them some happiness. Even if they are guilty; even if, in your eyes, they deserve whatever misery they have. Bring them joy.

Haven’t we all been guilty? Haven’t we all deserved whatever misery from which we suffered? Didn’t we cause Jesus to suffer and die because of our guilt? And yet God “visited” us when we were prisoners, guilty though we were and brought us the joy of the Good News. Now that we who were oppressed have been set free, and we who were poor in spirit have had the Gospel proclaimed to us, instead of condemning those who continue to be guilty, shouldn’t we proclaim freedom for them as well? And if you do and if you are rebuffed and ridiculed for your faith, should you then rebuff those who treat you poorly, or should you pity them? If you return bad for bad, are you not declaring that you are just as blind as those to whom you offer a lamp?

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. –Romans 12:14-21 (ESV)

Our righteous shepherd desires that we do kindness, mercy, and justice to those around us, as we have received it from him. Dr. Tsvi Sadan, in his soon to be released book The Concealed Light, shows us a different application of the name shepherd (ro’eh) for the Messiah (pp 222-23), particularly when we, who claim the name of Christ, treat his people Israel as if they are prisoners who will never be redeemed, and as if the Jews are no longer his own sheep.

It is Ezekiel who hears God speak of Messiah as the Shepherd (ro’eh): “I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them – My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:23). This Shepherd – “my servant David” – is seen by the Zohar as Shiloh, the “Faithful Shepherd,” who will deal decisively with Israel’s enemies (Zohar, Pinchas, 246b).

In his book “Em HaBanim Smechah,” Rabbi Issachar Shlomo Teichtal (murdered by the Nazis in 1944) had this to say about the religious leaders of the Jews of his day: “Who will accept responsibility for the innocent blood that has been spilled in our days? It seems to me that all the leaders who prevented the people of Israel from joining the builders [of the land of Israel] cannot cleanse their hands and say, ‘Our hands did not spill this blood!'” (21-22). Rabbi Teichtal wrote this book while hiding from the SS search parties for three years. The remarkable fact is that he cites from memory countless passages from Scripture and Jewish sources, some of which are aimed at explaining his bitter complaint about those Jewish leaders whose approach, “it is preferable to sit and do nothing,” discouraged Jews from immigrating to Israel, thus leaving them to die by the millions in hostile Europe.

In light of these sobering words, the Shepherd of Israel will do what generations of shepherds could not do; namely, he will gather the sheep from the nations to Israel. Then he “will compel them to do justice and righteousness and then he will become their shepherd, meaning that they will accept his reign and will learn from him until they willingly receive him as their shepherd” (Malbim to Ezekiel 34:23).

If this is true of Messiah, the Shepherd of Israel and his people the Jews, shouldn’t we, his Gentile disciples also “do justice and righteousness” to those in our midst and not reject the unsaved among us? And specifically, shouldn’t we support the in-gathering of the Jewish people to Israel from the nations and not disdain them or the mission of the Shepherd to restore the Jews to their land?

Learn to be at peace with others who are unlike you and be at peace with Israel, the Shepherd’s sheep, and the prisoner you will be freeing will be yourself.

This is the “morning meditation” that will be published on Purim (I’m writing this the day before), a celebration of freedom from certain death for the Jews. Certainly God has visited the “prisoner” and announced the good news of life to Israel, bringing great joy to His people. Let us rejoice with them on this day, and in anticipation of His bringing an even greater freedom to Israel and to the nations in the person of the Messiah.

“Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God.” -Anonymous

Chag Sameach Purim.

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Finding My Metaphor

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Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) (Stop reading and repeat them NOW slowly and confidently.)

Ten times each day, practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Philippians 4:13) Repeat those words NOW. That magic statement is the most powerful antidote on earth to inferiority thoughts.

Put yourself in God’s hands. To do that simply state, “I am in God’s hands.” Then believe you are NOW receiving all the power you need. “Feel” it flowing into you. Affirm that you are in God’s hands that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) in the form of adequate power to meet life’s demands.

Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you. Believe that you now RECEIVE power from him.

-Norman Vincent Peale
from his book The Power of Positive Thinking
Chapter 1 “Believe in Yourself” (pp 13-14)

This is a continuation of the themes introduced in my blog posts Learning Acceptance and Practicing Stillness. It has been suggested to me recently that I need to learn the difference between what’s important and what’s not important, and then let go of what doesn’t warrant my time, energy, and worry. I tend to make myself busy and then keep myself that way. I even look at relaxing as sort of a “task” and assign it a certain amount of time. Often, when I finally get to bed, I’m exhausted. Then I don’t get enough sleep, get up early, and start all over again.

Something’s got to give.

As part of this “suggestion,” I’ve been given a bit of “homework” (another task) to do. I’m supposed to read Norman Vincent Peale’s classic tome from which I quoted a few moments ago. Naturally, I’ll see this assignment through as I do all my obligations (sounds grim, doesn’t it?) but I have a problem. I hate inspirational books.

Reading Peale’s book isn’t much different than reading other material of a similar vein. There are no end of inspirational blogs on the web, such as morningcoach.com and Dumb Little Man and although I read them from time to time, they don’t do very much for me. I find them just too “fluffy” and “phony” sounding.

More to the point, I don’t find them very practical. Inspirational material almost never meets the person where they are starting from but rather, paints a sort of idealized picture of “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” just as “easy as pie.” Regardless of whether you’re trying to learn a sport or recovering from a horrible plane crash, these little “sound bytes” of enthusiasm approach the audience’s conflicts in fundamentally the same way. Worse, the comments written in response are almost always stuff (fluff) like, “this helped me so much” or “I tried your suggestion and it was amazing.” No one writes anything like, “I tried what you said and fell flat on my face, ending up a thousand times worse off than I was before.”

Am I being cynical?

Although Peale’s work has been criticized on a number of levels, the vast majority of reviews on “Positive Thinking” are…positive. But although I’ve only read chapter 1 so far, I have a problem with Peale’s approach, especially his use of scripture. Take a look at the quote from the beginning of this blog post again. Do you see my problem? What about the context of what’s being said in those passages from the Bible?

One of the issues I have with some Bible studies is that they tend to take one or two lines from the Bible and build an entire theology around them. It’s as if the words weren’t part of a conversation or an overall Biblical background, but instead, the cornerstone of a complete way of thinking and behaving. Did Paul intend for one sentence in his letter to the Romans to be the focus of his entire message? Was Philippians 4:13 supposed to be a Christian mantra? And when Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21 [ESV]), was he really saying that all Christians “are NOW receiving all the power” they need to accomplish their goals?

And yet, I can’t deny that a lot of people say that reading and studying his book has helped them. I also can’t deny (though I find it hard to grasp) that lots of people find inspirational blogs, books, tapes, and videos helpful in improving their day-to-day lives. There really is nothing new in this material from one source to another. It all seems to say the same things but in different ways (I feel that way about many of the blogs I write, too). It’s no secret that “you are what you think” and this philosophy is the basis for the “positive affirmations” you’ll find in Peale’s book as well as in many other inspirational materials. It all seems so easy, but for me, it’s also so hard to swallow.

Shifting scenes for a moment, most of you may not know that my Mom (Hi, Mom) is a periodic reader of this blog (no pressure). Having perused some recent posts that have expressed my usual angst, she responded in part, like this:

I have read quite a few of your blogs, but not nearly all of them. Although I enjoy reading them you make religion so hard.

Here is what I think not about what you write but about what I believe.

Re read John 3/16 and beyond. It says it all for me.

The church we belong to is like a family, Not to say we haven’t had our ups and downs like families do. Maybe were like a family because most of us are from somewhere else with no relatives near. When Dad had both knees done and I had my surgery. lots of our friends showed up and just sat in the waiting room. We have a prayer chain that prays for the persons who are having difficulties. Of course we know God answers prayers, but maybe not the way we want him too. I love the fellowship that I have with other Christians. It didn’t happen like a fire cracker going off. It came slowly like most good things do.

I send this e-mail with much love. Just wanted to get my two cents in, but do keep writing there are people you are helping. I’m one of them.

Love Mom.

Thanks, Mom.

Naturally, I was captured by the words, “you make religion so hard.” In a later email, Mom told me that:

My faith is so easy, I only have to trust and believe. Because of my faith I will try to do good, which at times I fail miserly and I’m happy that I have more. But I’m a firm believer in everyone has to do what they have to do.

I can’t argue against what Mom says, but as most of you know, it’s hard for me to view religion as easy. But then, is it religion or faith we’re talking about? Is faith easy?

Faith, in terms of accepting the existence of God and the Messiahship of Jesus, isn’t exactly “easy” but it’s quite a bit more approachable than some of the other issues I grapple with such as trust, which isn’t the same as faith, fellowship, and reconciling my Christianity within the context of intermarriage. Digging down into this mud-pie, I find that what I’m really afraid of is getting too comfortable. There are too many Christians (and I suppose too many people in other religious traditions) who just accept what they’re told, never question it, and set their spiritual journey on cruise control. When you take your hands off the wheel, you have no part in where you end up. I suppose letting God take control and “giving it all to Him” is a common refrain in many churches, but did God create us to be little Christian robots with no will of our own and no participation in our relationship with Him? Aren’t we supposed to struggle?

Maybe I don’t like inspirational books and blogs because they suggest that everything is easy and struggle free and that all problems have perfect solutions. If there’s no struggle with life and no struggle with God, where is the spark in that life? Yes, I want peace, and I want to let go of needless worries, but I don’t want to be in a coma. How am I supposed to approach the “peace beyond all understanding” without feeling as if I’ve completely dumbed down my life into a series of Biblical platitudes?

There is only one thing that can put you further ahead than success, and that is surviving failure.

When you are successful, you are whole and complete. That is wonderful, but you cannot break out beyond your own universe.

When you fail, you are broken. You look at the pieces of yourself lying on the ground and say, “This is worthless.”

Now you can escape. The shell is broken, the shell of a created being. Now you can grow to join the Infinite.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Getting Ahead with Failure”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

I’m not all that keen on being broken up in order to find freedom, but is Rabbi Freeman’s rendition of the teachings of the Rebbe really so different than the words of their Christian counterparts? It seems so to be, but I bet if I looked hard enough, I’d find a Pastor or Christian author who has said more or less the same thing. I just like how Rabbi Freeman frames his statements better.

One of the “secrets” to being a successful teacher (or salesperson or entertainer or…) is understanding your students (or audience). Once you get inside their heads, comprehend their language, and grasp the meaning of their internal metaphors, all you have to do is take your message and craft it in a compatible style. Maybe what I’ve been kvetching about isn’t the inappropriateness of the Peale’s message but the style in which it’s presented. He’s writing to an audience of which I do not belong. It’s not that I’m not a Christian, but how I conceptualize my Christianity is very different than most church goers. If I can set style aside or refactor his words into a style that fits me better, will I be able to listen to what he is trying to say?

The concept of tikkun olam or “repairing the world” requires that each person be able to see himself or herself as a junior partner in the task of making the world a better place in which to live. In that manner, Jews believe that every act of kindness and charity brings the Messiah just one step closer to arriving. We don’t have total control, but we have a part to play and without each of us, the Messiah will be delayed, perhaps indefinitely. However, in order for a person to participate in tikkun olam, they must first understand and acknowledge that they actually have a role with God, and then find out what that role is. The role in their partnership with God also has to “fit” who the person is and their relative skill sets, and they have to be able to really see themselves as being able to hold up their end of the bargain, so to speak.

How can you convince a mere mortal human being that they have a meaningful and even indispensable role to play in the plan of God? How do I define my relationship, as an individual, with the unimaginably infinite Creator of the Universe? In trying to make my own peace with God and finding out how to live out my indispensable role in tikkun olam, I need to find the message written in the right language…or be able to write it myself.