Enough

 It was over eight years ago when I first picked up John Naish’s book Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More.  I got as far as the first chapter “ Enough Information,” and thought, well, that’s enough.  I lugged the book during various moves, stored it in a box when I was in England, and finally kept it on my shelf collecting dust.  I liked the concept of the book, but never seemed to have enough time, or enough motivation to crack it open again.  Well, as I’m off work to recover from long covid, I’ve had a lot of time to read.  I thought about getting more books, but decided it was time to read Enough.  As I read Naish’s concepts about information, I was challenged not just to read, but to interact with the text.  I got out my pencil to underline word and comment in the margins. I hope to share a few thoughts from each chapter here.

This is a Google Ngram of word usage over the years. One could speculate about how the patterns relate, but I just included it for fun.

*Naish, John. Enough : Breaking Free from the World of More. London, Hachette Livre, 2008.

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The Search

**5**

Invite Jesus into your heart, my Sunday school teacher says. I do. Over and over again I do, but if I never feel a change, how can I know it worked? What does it feel like to have a grown, bearded man, robed in blue and white, living inside my heart? Is he wearing a crown of thorns when he enters in?

**11**

Give your life to Jesus, the camp speaker says. Surrender all you are. Commit your life to him. I do. Over and over again, I pray, I read the Bible. I fast. I am baptised. What does it feel like to be dead to the natural man, alive in Christ? If I don’t feel different, am I doing it wrong?

**15**

I choose my story, the Christian author says, I choose what I want in my story, and I know what I don’t want. I don’t want sin. I don’t want attractions towards women. I don’t want to be gay. I make the choice solid. I commit fully to God’s plan, not my desires. I am happy, right? I may not know who I am. I write dark poetry about being alone. I think about hurting myself, a cry for attention, but surely God is attentive to me. I don’t need, nor deserve the attention of others. If God is with me, must I feel so alone?

**18**

I’ve been promised a personal relationship with God. I seek to know this being I follow. I plan to isolate myself from others. I don’t need human relationships, I need God. I imagine sitting on the floor, hiding beneath over-the-ear headphones on my first day of Bible college. I can’t afford the headphones that I imagine, so I settle for the earphones that come with the MP3 player I buy for this purpose. I sit and observe the other students. I am not here for them. I am here to know God. As the year passes, I do meet the other students, I write about the Trinity, but God never shows up. Where is he?

**19**

At Bible camp, I watch as parents show up with a cake for their son. No one knows it is my birthday too. No one celebrates me. Surely the God who formed me, who knit me together in my mother’s womb, surely he know. That ought to be enough. I can quote the scriptures, but I cry in the basement, alone. Does God see me? Can’t he send some one my way to cheer me up?

**20**

I head to Bible college again; different school, different city, new friends. I’m still seeking for that relationship with God. I still avoid getting too involved in social aspects, but I do enjoy community with my roommates. I attend a new church, but find only performance and noise. Is God in the textbooks? The hymnal? Can he really speak directly to me?

**23**

At work I share with youth this good news that I’ve been promised. There is a loving God who can help every youth overcome every challenge. God can help in all situations. In my secret thoughts I wonder why God helps some frantic wealthy woman find her car keys, when every day there are children dying of hunger in Chad. I wonder, if he doesn’t care about the children dying across the world, why would he care about my dad, dying of cancer? Why does God help others, but never me?

**24**

And why doesn’t God comfort me after my dad passes? Why do I try so hard to be righteous, but feel so alone? I’ve memorised scriptures, I’ve written papers, I’ve prayed, but it has made no difference. I wonder if I can find comfort somewhere else. I wonder if sinful living is the path to choose. Yet, as I list vices, none of them appeal much to me. I go through Christian motions, but my heart drifts from the hope it once held. God makes no difference in my life. My belief in him isn’t what makes me a good person, so why believe in him?

**25**

I’ve given up, and yet, I am drawn back by missionaries who once again promise a relational God. They are patient with my questions, sure in their answers. I want to believe. I want to believe in the hope they offer. I want to believe there is goodness and reason in the messiness of life. I desire again for evidence of this being, count every song that pops into my head as a sign. Get baptised, the missionaries say. I do. I participate in community. I accept who I am, a little bit. For the first time say the words, I’m gay. I wonder why God still wants me to marry a man. His plans seem to work great for everyone else, but are they really what is best for me? Why can’t God have a personal plan for me?

**27**

I go on a mission to put off thoughts of marriage. I go on a mission longing to connect with the spiritual, to hear God’s voice, to heed his direction. I go on a mission hoping my commitment to serve God will earn me a personal experience with him. I go on a mission believing that God, who has so often remained silent in my life, will speak into the lives of others. I learn again to hide my sexuality, to fake spirituality, to assume my thoughts are from God. I learn how dark anxiety feels. I remember how lonely I can feel in the presence of people. I don’t give up. The weight of responsibility presses on my shoulders, but I push against it. I choose to be joyful, I find life in music. At times I journey with others, at times I fight alone. Does God ever take my side, or does he just watch from the sideline? Why, after all my effort, don’t I see miracles?

**30**

I love her. I intend just to be her friend, but I love her. More importantly, she loves me. I feel that love. We could just be friends, but I know what I want. It is not the voice of my Sunday school teacher, the voice of the camp speaker, the voice of the missionaries, nor that of any other religious leader. It is a voice from within me. Our love is tangible, and I want to give my whole self to this woman. Do I love her more than I love God, my bishop asks me. Yes, and I’ve felt her love in ways I’ve never felt the love of God. We have a very personal relationship. She cares about me and validates me in ways I only hoped God would. The choice is easy. I abandon the religion which makes me choose, and we marry. Does God rejoice with me?

**31**

We don’t hate God, and we don’t hate religion, so we choose to explore churches willing to accept our relationship. Something within me always draws me back to churches. It isn’t the music nor the sermons. It isn’t the theology which I spent years studying. As I search for God, I asked, can a community be God to me? Can a church be Jesus? I had sought tirelessly for a relationship with God, but had I missed the point when I overlooked human relationships? Perhaps to feel love from God was to feel love from people. My wife and I searched for such a community until we found a place where I can believe that God is love, because it is a community of love. A place where I can believe that God cares, because they care. A place where I can believe that God accepts me, because they accept me. So, I have found the love, compassion and acceptance of God, without any certainty that there is a divine being. Perhaps I could have found this earlier, but it wasn’t what I’d been looking for. Promises of magical intervention, lofty visions, had my eyes focused away from the Christlike love of others. How can I spread this love?

On Motherhood

A Mother’s Day Post

It is a little atypical for me to post a seasonal post as such, and I don’t really mean to.  It is just that I’ve been thinking about mothers a lot, and it just so happens that tomorrow is mother’s day.  Really though it is an accident and a coincidence.

I’ve been living with a family and spending my time observing a four year old boy interact with his mother.  We’ll call him Wallace. 

Wallace love his mother, and his mother loves him.  She loves being able to say “yes” to him.  She loves chasing him around and getting down on the floor and playing with him.  She loves cuddling him and kissing him.  She wants to see him succeed, and tries to explain what is best for him.  However, she lets him use his freewill, make poor choices, but she still loves him.  She teaches him to do things on his own.  She loves to listen to him, and desires so much to understand what he is saying.  Wallace is loved.  He is given the best that his mom has to offer.  When he calls, his mother is quick to listen, to come to his aid.  I was likening their relationship to my relationship with God.  Meanwhile, I have been reading a book about the fatherhood of God.  But, I started wondering, what about heavenly mother.  While belief in a heavenly mother is upheld in LDS teachings, I’ve heard nothing about her.  I don’t have a problem believing in heavenly mother, but I haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for why she is not spoken about. 

But, I’ve been thinking about mothers.  Perhaps I’ve been wanting to be mothered, to be loved like Wallace is loved.  It doesn’t seem like heavenly mother loves us like that at all.  Rather it feels much more like we are forbidden to even much talk about her, let alone talk to her or have a relationship with her.  Like Wallace I want to cry out “mom, mom, MOM!” and have my heavenly mother answer calmly, “yes, bud?”  Then I could say “I want supper.” And she would ask, “what do you want?”  I’d think for a moment and then reply, “a peanut butter and jam sandwich.”  Then she would ask me to get the peanut butter and jam.  I’d do all I could and she’d make me a sandwich, and then another one if I was still hungry.

I could believe in mother earth, that she is our heavenly mother, the wind calling us, the vegetation serving us, forests playing with us.  I could believe in mother earth, selflessly giving resources to her children, laying herself down for them, allowing them to walk all over her and yet loving them the same.  I could believe in mother earth; a heavenly mother who gives everything for her kids, that we can know, tangibly interact with, lay down to rest with, simply be with her.  I could believe in mother earth; a mother who so loves her children that she gets down on their level, sings over them as a bird, plays with them as the mountains.  I could believe in mother earth, that she is our heavenly mother who has come down as the sunrise to be with her children, who, a bubbling stream rejoices in her children.

I could be wrong.  I can hear the counter arguments running through my head.  But don’t just crush this mosaic.  Doing so will leave me feeling abandoned, empty.  If you must take this picture away, leave me something even more beautiful in its stead. 

To contribute to a growing awareness of God's presence...

Christopher Hinkle, leaning on St. John of the Cross writes something in his article "A DELICATE KNOWLEDGE: EPISTEMOLOGY, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS" that I really like:
"Specifically, one must be prepared to leave behind homosexuality if it does not genuinely contribute to a growing awareness of God's presence. Of course the same standard is to be applied to all activities and convictions, particularly to the creation and enforcement of anti-gay doctrine."

Cookies and Biscuits

The table is set, the water hot for tea, my mess shoved into the closet.  I’m waiting for him to come.  He never gave me a time so I’m antsy, nervous.  I go into the kitchen once more, wipe off the counters and put the dry dishes away.  I glance at the beige table cloth I’ve chosen, is it too dull?  I look at my other choices –too childish. –too bright.  –stained.  I hold the one I think he’ll like best.  An olive green, simple but embroidered with leaves.  I glance at the clock.  It won’t take me long to change the table cloth, but what if he comes when I’m in the middle of the task?  I put the olive table cloth away.  I go flick the kettle on again.  Then I sit down with a book, with his book.  He’d be pleased if he sees me reading that when he comes.  I’m a little too anxious to focus on the words.  I go change my shirt, wash my face and brush my teeth.  I wonder if I should be wearing a dress.  I glance in my closet and shake my head.  He’ll have to be fine with me in a t-shirt and jeans.  I sit back down with his book.  Then I get up and change the table cloth.  I am just replacing the last tea cup when the doorbell rings.  My heart jumps.  I detour through the kitchen to turn the kettle back on.  I take a few deep breaths to try to calm my racing heart.  I unlock the door and creak it open.  There before me stands a boy with a silly smile on his face.  Maybe he is a man, I cannot tell.  The worst thing ever is happening.  I do not know if this is he.  Perhaps it is just a boy scout from the neighbourhood selling cookies standing at a loss for words, or maybe it is I who is at a loss for words.  I stare at him until I feel rude then I quickly turn away.  He stands there grinning.  It is as if he enjoys the misery he is putting me through.  Suddenly I feel that even if this is him, I am not sure I want him in my house.  Finally the silence, beating like a drum, forces me to act. 

“Come in” I say at last.

He steps inside the doorway and looks up at me, awaiting the next direction.  I’m still wondering, if this is him, wouldn’t he be more assertive?

“Come sit down for some tea”

“It is a pleasure to meet you” he says as we walk towards the table.

“You too,” I reply halfheartedly. “take a seat, I’ll just grab the tea.”  I think about asking him what kind of tea he likes, but I doubt he’s picky so I chose earl grey so I can use the same tea bag twice.  Then I wonder, what if he’s Mormon.  I don’t want to offend him, so I pull out my herbal teas.  Raspberry lemon drop?  Is that too girly for him?  I settle with apple cinnamon.  I stack my homemade biscuits on a plate.  I cannot wait to see his face when he bites into one.  He’ll be telling me I’m a good cook.  I know it.  I take out his tea and the plate of biscuits.  When I go back for my tea and the plate of cookies – I plan to impress him with the array of baked goods – I start to worry.  What will we talk about?  I try to look at my reflection in the microwave.  Nothing’s between my teeth; everything’s perfect.  I sit down across from him.  His face still dons a large smile.  I look away from him and focus my gaze on the cookies I just sat down.

“Try some,” I offer. “There are oatmeal, double chocolate chip and peanut butter.”

He reaches for a double chocolate chip cookie, “if I didn’t know you better” he smirks “I’d think you were trying to make me fat.”

I don’t know what to make of his comment so I decide to be offended.  I take a cookie and slouch back in my chair, diverting my eyes to my tea.  This isn’t him, I reason, he wouldn’t say that.

“What would you like to talk about” he asks after giving me a moment to sulk.

I thought he would know, but right now I just want to hear him say that the cookies are delicious, the table cloth is just right, and my house looks beautiful.  He takes another bite of the cookie, but I cannot tell if it is because he enjoys it, or if he is just trying to be polite.  I take a sip of my tea and it burns my tongue.  I bit my lip to avoid saying anything I’ll regret.  Of course he knows what I am thinking.  I look up to see him still smiling.  This time I want to curse at him.  I wonder if he knows, but his mannerism doesn’t change.  Of course, I think, he is supposed to love me even if I am not quite perfect.  My imperfection isn’t going to shock him, but I thought he might at least comment on my perfection.  His question still hangs, unforgotten in the air.  I think I am supposed to echo it back to him, but I’m afraid to hear what he wants to talk about.  I could ask him about the morality of homosexuality, but I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.  I could ask him why I am so lonely, but he’d probably answer with a confusing parable that would leave the blame on me.  I think about asking him why there is so much suffering in the world, but I am not sure I was to hear his answers.

Finally I reply, “Don’t you know.”

He nods, sets down his mostly unfinished tea and stands up.

“Where are you going?” I ask him frantically.  Had I offended him?

“I’ll come back when your heart is open to what I have to say.” He says as he slips on his shoes.

“But I thought that was part of your job!”  I protest as he slips out the door.

I stare longingly after him as he walks down the sidewalk, and turns, walking out of my sight.

Angrily I survey my tidy house.  I pick up his barely touched cup of tea and throw it against the wall swearing.  I rip the table cloth from the table and watch as the biscuits and cookies fly everywhere.  I stomp on the ones that land on the floor.  Cursing, stomping, pushing things over.  Then utterly exhausted I collapse on amidst the mess.  I lie there, steeped in misery, hoping he’ll come back.

Let me sleep a little longer.

Augustine of Hippo contemplated “what evil is there not in me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my word; or if not in my words, my will”.  While my deeds and my words may not obviously display evil, the evil within me is not without its vices.  I have stopped my “race of virtue [which] marks the beginning of the race of evil” (Gregory of Nyssa).  The former is a marathon (not merely the race, but all the training involved); the latter a walk in the park.

In my class we discussed the word spirituality.  I have held onto the idea that spirituality is made up of divine experiences that stimulate our emotions and leave us changed.  Not only did this concept of spirituality feel very foreign to me, but it also felt like something which I was unable to obtain.  If I could not make God show up, and I couldn’t, then I could not be spiritual.  When the definition shifted to be “theology lived,” suddenly the onus was on me.  I haven’t been living my theology.  I have not been racing towards virtue, but rather I’ve fallen away “from the perfection which is attainable” (Gregory of Nyssa).  I know many of the things I could, and should do, but I have no desire to participate in these things.  Gregory of Nyssa suggests that “those who know what is good by nature desire participation in it”.  Do I believe that God is good?  Do I see the value of reading my Bible?  Do I credit any merit to prayer?  Maybe not.  Reluctantly I sat through chapel on Wednesday.  I wanted to leave.  I wanted to escape.  Recently my escape has been story writing.  I wasn’t feeling close to God, and I knew that story writing wasn’t helping me feel any closer to him, but sitting in chapel wasn’t helping either.   I know it is not all about feelings, so I started to wonder how my beliefs would act themselves out at that moment.  I couldn’t justify writing.  I couldn’t justify running.  I reckoned that if I truly believed in community that I would stay around and be open with people.  If I believed that through others God works, then maybe I could find healing.  Chapel ended.

As I walked down the hall someone approached me

“Hey Patricia, how are you?”  She asked.

“I’m okay.”  I wasn’t okay. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” and with that we parted ways.  So much for living authentically.  So much for living my theology.

Reading the works of Basil the Great reinforces my theology of community.  I cannot go through life alone for we “require the help of one another”.  So frequently, however, I am unwilling to accept that help.  I am selfish, not seeing my gifts as “common possessions” of the community.  I also do not see the gifts of other in this way.  I feel bad being a burden to anyone.  While I may be willing to help someone carry their burden (as long as it is not too heavy and the journey not too far), I carry mine alone.

I do not know why I fear community when it is a gift from God.

I do not know why I escape to story writing when Christ alone is my refuge.

I do not know why I look to the blogosphere to fill my desires when I know that “the longing for Jesus is always underneath our every desire” (Michael Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality).

Though my brain is stuffed with knowledge I am not a spiritual being.  Over and over I fail to live my theology.  I do not know why.  With Augustine I ask “why [do] I find so much delight in doing this”?  When I believe that God is the “true and highest Sweetness”, “by what passion, then, [am] I animated” to do evil?  How easy it is to say that I will suffer with my Lord, but when the suffering is not glorious, when it is simply denying myself of my cravings, how quickly I am to give way.  While I have spoken now mostly of my deeds, often it is my evil will which threatens my theology.  My rebellious desires seek “nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself”.  How harsh are Augustine’s words, and yet how deeply they struck me as true.  “My sole gratification” is in the thought of “my own sin” and there is not much holding my back.   With Augustine I want to say to God “Presently; see, presently.  Leave me alone for a little while” and then I want to fall back into a deep sleep, and not walk up until the interesting dream is over and my responsibilities are left undone for so long that I cannot go back and do them.  Though I want to give myself fully to God eventually, I am “bound by the iron chain of my own will”. My current desires will only make this chain stronger, rather than fight against it.  Maybe I don’t live my theology because I don’t really believe it.  I know the right things to believe.  It is easy to say that God is love, but hard to live in such a way that would proclaim I believed it.  Who is this “sweeter than all pleasure” and how can I know him if not through my “flesh and blood”?

copy cat...

I was reading this post:

http://withoutjah-nothin.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-funny-that-i-consider-myself-artist.html

on my friend Kellen's blog, and realised how i feel very much the same as she does, though regarding a different thing. I copied her post almost completely, just changing a few (but significant) words:

It's funny that I consider myself a Christian. Faith is a constant mind-battle for me.
I do think that I have some measure of gifting to theologically reason and it's something that I love to do, but at the same time, I have never been really affected by a spiritual experience. I strive to fill my days with meaningful conversations that have the potential to move people, while I myself have never been moved (to any significant degree).
I feel like a hypocrite; that is my struggle.
Don't get me wrong, I know that it's possible for God to make an impact on someone. I just have a hard time believing that the impact could ever be huge, even though I know that it can. There is a small disconnect between my knowledge and my understanding...

Community

I love Moses! I love the story of God meeting with Moses. I’ve wished that I could have just a bit of what Moses had when he went up on the mountain and spoke with God for forty days. I have often thought to have an experience anything like that of Moses’ I would have I needed to spend time in silence and solitude. I still think those are great things, but I have been trying to understand what is meant by a “personal relationship with God”. I don’t think that it is a phrase that occurs in the scriptures anywhere, and I’ve been wondering if it leads me to have false expectations about how God should be interacting with me. I was flipping through my Bible with this question in mind, and bouncing some Ideas off of a friend. The letters in the New Testament are written to whole churches, so when it is written “you are the temple of God”, it means that we are the temple of God. That blows my mind. We were talking about how it seems that we should relate to God as a community. (Does that happen in church? Or do we all just relate to God individually while happening to be in the same place?) I thought if we are to relate to God as a community, maybe he will relate to us when we are in community. I wondered if that was true. My friend mentioned the letters to the churches in Revelation; they are to churches, not individuals. I find that to be interesting. I then thought about Moses. In Exodus 19 God has a message for his people, the commandments. He gathers them all together so that as a community they hear from God.

“Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.” (Ex 19:17-19)

I wonder what it was like to be among the Israelites that day?

“When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” (Ex 20:18-21)

In the end the Israelites back off, and Moses alone approaches God, but I can’t help but wonder if God desires to meet with us in community. I wonder if we’d be ready for that. I think it is time for me to focus on my communal relationship with God.