Thursday, May 10, 2007

Contents



III. Further Reflections
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What God?

What God?

Reason’s taunt calls out in refrain, “But what if there is no God?” And more, “What if your beliefs or perceptions are all just some genetic predisposition, some biochemical, neurological or psychological phenomenon, some emotional or sociological need?” Intending to provoke, I usually respond that I would choose my life of faith anyway, that without knowing more, psychological and sociological health alone not only justify it, but often demand it. It makes me whole. Then reason’s self-righteousness challenges in response, “But how does a man of integrity risk basing his life on a lie?” Fair question.

First, allow me to respond with a question of my own: does a genetic predisposition or the involvement of biochemical, neurological or psychological processes—including necessarily, evolutionary processes—dictate that there is no greater purpose, no Author or Director Spirit, no spiritual Mystery, no God in control? How does that follow? How else might we have been ushered to this place and time, ready to ask the great questions, ready to search out the purposes for it all, ready to encounter the One who calls us?

You look askance at me, and I understand. But after all is said and seen, the work of science provides no more evidence for the absence of God than for His presence. Neuroscience, for example, struggles with the relationship between neurological processes and consciousness, whether that of everyday phenomena or spiritual experience. They even struggle with a useful, researchable definition of consciousness. And to the extent they approach questions of God at all, they are reduced to proxy questions of spiritual consciousness or experience, which in turn are approached only through proxy measures of attendant neurological activity. However important this basic research—and it is important—it appears to provide only another groping, attenuated and unavailing approach to scientifically answering questions about the existence of God, and adds but little to understanding the experience of God.

What is spiritual consciousness or experience, anyway? Many think it relates more to the occasional visions or messages perceived by some, the expressive, Spirit-filled worship experiences of others, or the ecstatic prayer experiences also reported. But most often, the presence and work of God has less to do with these sensory spiritual experiences, and everything to do with transcendent faith, hope and love shared through Him—and His quiet, imperceptible process of changing you. Spiritual experience is an awareness of God’s presence and love, how He has changed your understandings, behavior and your life, of your increasing identity in Him, and the greater peace and trust you know. If that can be neurologically or biochemically measured and studied, can it in that way also be meaningfully understood? And, again, what does it prove or disprove about the existence of God?

However you may prefer to approach or answer the questions of science, faith and God, it does not preclude the reality of an author, director God working through biochemical, neurological and evolutionary processes, or in concert with them. Although personal views and the reasons for them may provide a self-satisfying level of soft support for differing conclusions, whatever they may be, there is no proof to be had. And all the studies of human biology and neuroscience, of cognition and consciousness, are unlikely to provide more than better explanations of the neurological and biochemical processes that facilitate the genetic prescriptions for anatomy and bodily function, for health, sensory perception and existential behavior.

So it is with this ongoing tension that passes for dialogue about science, the faith phenomenon, and the transcendent experience of God.

And so I am left with my epiphanies, still asking, what could be more miraculous and awe-inspiring, more beautiful, more humbling, than the complexities and unfathomable realities of evolutionary mechanisms and the progress of life? How else than through these evolving genetic, biochemical, social and psychological processes might all of creation have moved continually upward toward sentience and cognition, curiosity and questioning, the pursuit of truth and identity? For what other purpose might we be brought face to face with the history of the development of creation, and those transcendent apprehensions that lead us, than to seek the sensed Author and understandings of who we are and why we are now here?

And about integrity: Is it living a lie to reach for the highest ideals, the highest reality and, in the process, the highest potential and conduct of man in community? And is there a sounder, more enduring basis for defining that potential or prescribing that conduct, something loftier or more sublime, more resonant with right and authority? Where could trust more reliably be placed?

Consider the uneven, often disappointing nature of human authority and its standard bearers. The authority of man is based more or less on his strength, intelligence, character and wisdom, his ideas and conceptual constructs, his created institutions. But man’s qualities and ideas have too often tarnished and disappointed—lights that glow, then dim or fail. And as the institutions that men have fashioned—both secular and religious—to pursue our potential, to encourage our best conduct, have also stumbled or failed, what testament is that to man’s nature and potential? Like Icarus, we would fly closer to the sun, but consumed by our virtuosity and vanity, we forget we have but waxen wings to carry us there. Alas, flawed men fashion flawed ideas and institutions, and even if the best of them, by acclamation, are “better than whatever is in second place,” they are not nearly good enough.

Secular leaders routinely, often disingenuously, invoke the name of God. That they would seek associative or derivative authority through Him is understandable, if too often cynical. After all, their individual or institutional authority is, at best, supported only by those flawed, temporal foundations—assuming, if we may, that it is based on anything higher-minded than brute political or military power and forced submission, still so often the case in our enlightened world. Where are the higher, more enduring authorities and ideals, the more credible exemplars?

But any appeal I may make here or elsewhere to your intellect cannot convince or comfort you about the legitimacy of a life of faith and seeking God--not unless you are in some sense ready or disposed, unless in some way you sense His active presence, His invitation to you, His Spirit of Love. To be sure, it depends in part on your understandings about the notion of God, your definitions and expectations of God. And yes, the intellect often plays a central role in what we know and believe, but only regarding the things it is equipped to know. In the end, it is about acknowledging that spiritual sense of God’s presence and His acts of creative relationship in your life--and giving expression to that disposition to being loved by God and loving Him.

As I continue my faith journey, I have available to me the breadth of today's considerable knowledge and understandings set side-by-side with the shared knowledge and understandings of the ages. To that I add my own existential and spiritual experiences, and it all contributes to what I know and understand. And as my mind, heart and soul are so informed--as it all continually changes me--it also informs what I believe. And it sets the occasion for my evolving relationship with God, and my understanding of Him. It all might seem to you epistemologically circular, but for me it forms the most important of my understandings.

So, I cannot work with the supposition that God does not exist. My experience and understandings will not allow it. I could no more deny or abandon the reality of my Spirit-of-God experience than my spirit-of-man experience—kin and connected as they inextricably seem to be, transcending our individual identities as they so often do. To do so would also render life too vain, and hope and the reasons to reach higher unacceptably less than my soul requires. Even though others seem able to deny or abandon the reality of one or both—and do—I cannot. We each must make our own choices, however informed they may be, and however they may be informed.

First written: January - June 2005


Theocratic Nightmares

But don’t misunderstand me. In my ardor to make a greater point, I don’t mean to critique uncharitably the best of secular ideas and institutions. I only wish to make clear that the way they are structured and operate—although sometimes with great wisdom—produce an unlikely basis for the most sublime statement or vision of the potential of man.

But let me also be clear about this: absent the constraints of secular government philosophies and institutions—and particularly the pluralism of representative democracy—man has shown a propensity across time and cultures to evolve his religious movements and institutions into brittle, often brutal, theocratic nightmares. Surely, the wisdom, the constitutional necessity, of the separation of government institutions and religious institutions—the protection of people of differing faiths and those of none at all—is also quite clear. It’s the only way to protect us all from the extremes of organized religion, and protect organized religion from itself.

First written: Fall 2005
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Being Found

Most people haven’t really been watching or listening, have they? And why should they? The people they’ve been trafficking with probably haven’t prepared them for it. They’ve had no expectation that the One who calls us may be trying to get their attention: waving His arms at them in the press of daily relationships and responsibilities, flashing His light in the soft, smiling eyes that pause and pass by, speaking in the voices of those who love and care, whispering to the heart that sighs, stirring in their very soul. They have not heard Him calling from all creation, the cycles of birth and death, change and renewal, nudging them to the questions of what is passing, what transcends, and what endures.

If He wants us to see, we’ll see; if He wants us to hear, we’ll hear, or so it is written and often said. For He implores, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” and yet for many concedes, “...while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Is that why, even when some people feel the stirring, hear that faint voice, see the light or feel the love, they turn with a heavy heart and move quietly away?

But maybe they just don’t want to see or hear. They can, but would rather tune it out or push past it. They haven’t the time or the will to entertain such a call to consuming relationship and pervasive change. Too much to give up; the cost too high. Besides, it’s a fool’s pastime in the eyes of the world. And, while some may not mind the idea of being counted a fool for God in the last reckoning of who we are, with whom we stand, and the direction we are going, they really don’t want to be seen as a fool in the world’s eyes. Not today. They choose to live accountably under worldly eyes and judgments today, and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Isn't that about it?

Or maybe they just can’t believe they deserve it. They’d like to, after all, but why should God call to them? They’re not that special or worthy, or even that good much of the time. Perhaps in some private way they are a disappointment to themselves—and therefore feel they must be to God as well. But maybe they just don’t understand what He does and why. Maybe they’ve failed to grasp that it’s all been about preparing us, making us ready to move on, that God loves us in a way they can’t understand, and wants us to grow closer to Him. And so they deny themselves His invitation. Is that a possibility?

If many have responded at all—and maybe they have—it has been to religiously avoid authentic identity with any faith at all, or perhaps move to the other extreme and identify with one narrow religious perspective only. Is that because they suppose that if God relates authentically to people at all, it’s either outside the strikingly flawed workings of organized religion altogether, or solely through one singularly self-anointed, exclusive and unbending element of one or another faith perspective—whether identified with Christianity, Judaism or Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other Ism? Do they suppose that God operates solely from any of our restrictive, self-absorbed, man-made religious or nonreligious boxes?

They should know He doesn’t, don’t you think? Even under a brittle cultural or religious veneer, they should know that He may call to them from any of those places or from a different place altogether, that they may find Him anywhere. And they can answer His call and draw closer to Him in any of those places as well. But many may find that some faith structures or values, faith environments or communities, some faith leaders or teachers, are more compatible with their place or circumstances, their identity or culture—or just more compatible with what God is saying to them or doing with them right now. They should move toward them, go with them, if they will.

As for me, I am a Christian, one kind of Christian: a pilgrim with Christ and Mystery, a seeker after God. I have studied various faiths and spiritualities, sojourned in Eastern and Western faith communities, and they led me back to Jesus. I try to accept and nurture an abiding relationship with Him, one that points me toward more intimacy with God and experience of His Love, that informs me more of His nature and who He wants me to become. But not in a Christian box, I pray, but through Him free of those boxes, too. And there I often find assurance, direction, even peace, but always I find the challenges of renewed identity in God and His creation, changed as I am by His Spirit and His Love (and God is Spirit and Love).

But regardless of your faith perspective, here’s a question for you: If you would go with God, would you become that new person He calls you to be in Him? Can you imagine sitting as comfortably and caringly with those so often shunned by the community, even your faith community, as Jesus did (and as those closest to God have always done)? And here’s another question: can you imagine finding comfortable, shared community with any person who seeks respectful understanding of faith or relationship with God, whatever his religion or faith orientation might be, if any? How do you feel about that? Here’s what I think: we cannot learn more about what God is saying to each of us, we cannot grow in our experience of God, if we do not share community—ideas, experience, relationship—with all the people that God calls, talks to, and talks through. And be assured, God is all and in all.

You can encounter and learn about God in the Scriptures of my faith. But you can also encounter Him in many other God-inspired writings. They must be God-inspired because I encounter God there, too: in the reverenced writings of other faiths; in the prose of writers about faith; in the poetry of the intimates of God, whatever their tradition. And God speaks to me through the poetry of some who would claim no articulated faith for themselves at all, just an inspired art, an inspiring muse. So do not be misled. This is the world that God has made—all of it—and He speaks through it all as He speaks to it all.

But you may not encounter God in all the Christian camps and communities. Nor will you encounter Him in all the camps and communities of other religions. For some have reduced God and relationship with Him to their own idea or ideal, an intellectual and cultural exercise of shaping and rationalizing an uncontainable, creating and revealing God into something defined, contained and managed—as is their faith, faith life, and faith community. It is shaped by them and for them. It’s what happens when more trust is placed in the vision of man and the ways of the world than in the leadership of His Love, the way and power of His Spirit.

For some, those embraced ideas are so broad and open that each person is invited to create his own accommodating concept of God—bereft as they so often are of any reliable body of knowledge, any teaching or direction, to find authentic relationship and prayerful intimacy with Him. Others have so narrowly defined God and the dictates of community that they have wrenched all of the love, forgiveness and compassion out of Him—and out of the life of the community. What is left is brittle, exclusionary condescension and self-righteousness. What is left is judgment. And the spiritual Companion, the Spirit of God, is just not there.

But if you do come closer to God, you may also come to understand that He does not call us to unwelcome, off-putting proselytizing. Neither does He call us to sharp-edged political advocacy. He calls us first to relationship with Him, then to a humble, prayerful, serving life increasingly filled by God’s Spirit and Love, that He may be seen and heard through it, however flawed the vessel. Yes, we are to be ready to give the reasons why, share our story and His, but beyond that to leave God’s work to God.

Allow yourself to be found by God. Watch for Him; listen for Him. And wherever, whenever your are found by Him, go with Him. Just take yourself along. His Peace He promises and His Peace He gives, but it is not easy to receive. Find, be with the people who know God and can accompany and direct you. Be ready to change and grow, continually. Be ready for challenge as well as joy. Be ready to see the world, its people and problems, your life and friends, with new, more understanding eyes. Be ready for a faith that transcends, but a life that is renewed, involved and serving. With Him, we are always growing and seeing things new—especially who He is, and our loving relationship with Him and each other. As much as you can, hold onto those caring and generous sentiments, those grateful and forgiving feelings. Hold onto Love, and let it show.

First written: January - June 2005
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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The Arts

You can encounter God through the arts as well. Whether it is the literary arts (poetry or prose), the visual arts (painting, sculpture, or photography), or the performing arts (theatre, music or dance), they can produce a singular, often transcendent experience or understanding in themselves. There is often no other way to communicate with quite the same effect. They speak to the poet’s soul in all of us. It is therefore understandable that classical literature, within the order of its deities, ascribes to the muses—and they transported on Pegasus' wings—the gifting and inspiration of artistic expression.

So much of all deistic worship and communication stands on the gifting of the arts for expression and transcendent understanding. To the extent that music, drama, poetry and prose, paintings, icons or sculptures are media used to make more meaningful our apprehension or worship of God, to the extent they mediate our understanding of His identity, His message or His work, they are truly the highest expression of the arts.

That is to say, there is an incarnational or sacramental aspect to the arts. Don’t we sense or feel some of what we know about God through them? Don’t you? They do seem to mediate in unique, effective ways the expression and our understanding of God's invitation to us and relationship with us. Much of the Bible is art in that sense, and certainly the psalms are. As the last few psalms relate to expressing our praise and worship with the joyful playing of cymbals, lyre and other instruments, and as others speak clearly of singing songs, dancing or dramatically crying out in our angst or our joy, so we should not be surprised that God uses those same expressions in those same ways today for some of our communication from Him and to Him.

I especially have that experience with poetry—and not just Christian poetry. Certainly, I love the psalms (as I’ve implied), and pray and meditate on them often. Of all the biblical genres, they speak most powerfully to me in that way. And the poetry and writings of an array of Christian intimates of God provide insight, epiphany, and assurance to me as well, and sometimes attend my personal prayer and contemplative time. But I also find the experience of God revealed in the Sufi poetry of Hafiz and Rumi, in the Diamond Sutra, as well as the poetry of those who claim no faith other than an undefined spirituality informed in large part by their inspiration and work. I have felt this in much of the work of Mary Oliver. (And in time, much later, she came to recognize and experience Him, too.)

If the totality of our experience in the world itself has an incarnational backdrop—and I believe it does—then our experiences with the arts often provide discrete insights or epiphanies that stop us in timeless reflection, that augment or complement the understandings revealed in Scripture, prayer, worship and community. In those times, in those places, your ears may also hear, your eyes may also see. You may hear the whisper, see the light, and feel the stirring.

First written: January - June 2005
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Love and Fear

So, you want to be loved. And you want to love others, too. You want something deeper, more meaningful, something more compassionate and selfless. And you want to know about God’s Love, how to receive it, and how to love Him, too. But as great is your joy about what could be gained, so is your fear about what it could cost. I do understand. Welcome to the walk with the One who calls us. But if we are to go on from here, we need definitions, something to work with. How about this:

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails...

The first-century Christian apostle Paul wrote that. If you are a Christian of biblical faith, God inspired it. It’s what is meant by agape love, God’s perfect love, a love He calls us to aspire to, a love so comprehensively perfect that we might be forgiven for the feeling that—for most of us at least—love is impossible. But a biblical distinction is made between romantic or sexual love, filial or brotherly love—notions of love we can relate to—and the pure love of God that He calls us to accept and reflect, the gift that He alone can give.

So intrinsic is the purity of this love to God that we are assured that it is the very nature and substance of His identity. Clearly, but sparingly, we are informed that God is spirit and God is light; but as if to trumpet it from the mountain tops, God’s inspired scribes also announce with clarion conviction and authority that, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” And more than that, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear…”

It appears clear, then, that we are to understand that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. What fills the void that is the absence of a love relationship with God is fear. What makes our lives less than what God wants them to be is fear. Reflecting that same understanding, the 14th-century Sufi poet, Hafiz, wrote,

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I’d like to see you living in better conditions…
God wants to see more love and playfulness in your eyes,
For that is your greatest witness to Him.

Jesus made clear that all of God’s teachings could be reduced to His desire that we should first love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and then to let that same love overflow to our relationships with others—all others, including even our enemies. We can love God and others in this way, we are assured, because He first loved us. And because in faith we can accept and abide in that love, we can let it overflow back to God and others.

But how do we really know? How can we be sure? How can we trust enough to give ourselves over to God in this way? William of St. Thierry, like other medieval Christian writers and contemplatives, had great respect for the intellect and knowledge. “He respected the fact that the intellect knows,” we are told, “however, he believed that love knows, too, and that finally the person knows God through loving him.” Love knows.

But walking this path of love leads inextricably to God’s love replacing more and more of what passes for ours, to our will, even our identity, being replaced more by His. For most, this renewal or transcendence of identity, this leaving much of who you were behind, can, in its own way, be a fearful path to walk. It is difficult enough (and often for good reason) to entrust our romantic or brotherly love to others who may not extend to it the care, respect and reciprocity that it deserves. But how much more difficult to comprehend and accept is His promised sense of freedom in surrendering more completely our love, our will and control to His, to trust more completely in the leadership of His Love and His way for our lives. Comprehending this truth, Meher Baba, a 20th-century Indian spiritual master, wrote:

True love is no game for the faint-hearted and weak,
It is born of strength and understanding.
[And quoting Hafiz,]
Only a person with his life up his sleeve
Dares kiss the threshold of love.


Love knows. But it is not an easy lesson to learn; it is not an easy path to walk.

First written: May 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Healer

Psychologists also tell us what we already know: we need love. We need to be loved and we need to love others. For that, we need relationships—close, caring relationships. And we need to feel forgiven for the traits or acts, the things we do that are unkind, unjust or hurtful to others, the things that disappoint us about who we are. We need to forgive others, too. We need these things for psychological and community health. We all need them.

But most of us are sadly and regrettably selfish and self-serving, even calculating and controlling, in how we share or withhold, receive or refuse these health-giving and health-sustaining aspects of identity, relationship and community. Too many cannot openly and selflessly give; too many cannot openly and gratefully receive. It’s not Heaven yet. And the frequency and depth of our unsatisfying relationships too often make that abundantly clear.

That is why a faith life and spiritual identity are so important to becoming who we have the potential to be, who we were meant to be, to finding the relationships that can take us there. And if kept in focus and balance, they will lead us to those healing, strengthening and sustaining relationships. And more so, if we find a spiritual guide or master who models and teaches these essential aspects of life and relationship. More so, if that person reflects singular and credible identity with the nature and life of God--a human example, but also a relationship and unassailable ideal still present with us through God’s Spirit. More so, if he calls us to that relationship and identity through Him.

Jesus, Annointed One, Healer. The One who divinely loves and wants to be loved, yesterday, today and forever. The compassionate, gentle One who always forgives and comforts. The One who opens our ears to hear, our eyes to see, and our hearts to love. The One who will lead us in our life with God. Jesus, the most important and healing relationship of all.

First written: November 2007
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Missing the Point About Jesus

People claim Jesus for many reasons. You know that, of course, and that their faith in Him can mean so many different things. And He may or may not change the way they consider and live their lives. But if they claim Him, or a faith related to Him, shouldn't it change them?

There are many who attend church—regularly, perhaps, on particular religious holidays, or just unpredictably. Regardless, they know the language and rituals of their Christian church community; they know the culture and the teaching. And yet I have not seen much change in so many of them—in what they do or say, in who they are. At the very least, shouldn’t they reflect some of His love and forgiveness, some of His humility and compassion toward others, both within and without their faith community?

Rather, too often, their faith and church appear a convenient front, and their Jesus claimed more a cloaking justification, an excuse, for culturally-biased, sometimes bigoted views and actions. Too often they claim this ersatz, reinterpreted Jesus—their distorted biblical teaching and Christian history, too—to support their public judgements and intolerance, their lack of public compassion and concern for the poor, their aggressive political agendas to legislate their cultural values on others. I recognize none of this in the Jesus I find in the Bible, the Jesus that abides also in my heart.

So, the first question that has to be asked is this: does God need or want us to aggressively pursue or support these “faith-based” political and legislative agendas?

Shall we start in the Gospels? Isn’t it clear that Jesus is engaged in an “in-house” discussion and corrective within the religious community of the Jews of the time, Roman-occupied Israel? He was addressing “the lost sheep of Israel.” But there is no biblical evidence He had anything to do with the Zealots and other activists and intriguers. He was not the expected Davidic, warrior Messiah, the restorer of Israel's sovereignty and culture. He was a different, misunderstood Messiah, a purely spiritual Messiah, a restorer of His people’s relationship with God.

He taught, admonished and challenged the faith community, but his righteous anger and condemnation were reserved for the dead, dry faith, the vain self-interest and self-serving practices of the Jewish religious leaders—but not the occupying Romans. He had nothing to say nor in any way judged the Romans or other secular authorities—with two exceptions:

o First, he said we are to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s--the required taxes, legal compliance, and respect of secular government—and unto God the things that are God’s.

o Then, in the Sermon on the Mount, He also made clear that we should respond to any authorities or others who would oppress us only by giving them more than they demanded: turning the other cheek, carrying an unwelcome load farther, or giving them the shirt or coat off our backs. We are to respond not with anger or opposition, but with love, forgiveness and humility. We are to love and help even our enemies. This is the teaching and example of Jesus—a radical, spiritual Messiah—and this is the challenging and humble way He would have us share with others an understanding of God’s heart.

Other than to claim the rights and legal process afforded a citizen of Rome when persecuted, the Apostle Paul conducted himself in much the same way toward secular authorities, whether in the many towns he visited or before the authorities of Rome. In all cases, his example was to present himself as loving, compassionate and humble, reflecting the nature of God’s leading Spirit and Jesus’ example. Then, yes, he would always be prepared to tell his story and the story of his Lord, and give the reasons why. But as important as his story was, it was equally important that the example of Jesus’ spirit of love and humility be reflected in him. That is, the Great Commandment of loving God and all others, as God loves you, must be well and authentically in place before you can expect to credibly, humbly, share your story or His.

We can only follow His example and trust in the work of His Spirit and love. And in His work, there is no place or basis for cultural, political or legislative coercion. If Christians or their churches need political activism and legislation to force themselves or others to live the life God calls them to, then they do not understand the call of Jesus at all. Where in the biblical accounts of Jesus or the Apostles are there any such examples? God’s faithful people have always humbly served Him by trusting that the presence and work of His Spirit is all the authority and power needed to transform hearts and move opinions. It's not about imposing interpretations of faith or faith culture on others; it's about living a transparent life as a medium for God's love.

And throughout Christian history, whenever the organized church gained sufficient power to impose legally—or by physical force—a profession of faith and compliance with their legalistic requirements for thought, speech and behavior, what has happened? Political, theocratic nightmares: brittle, brutally enforced religious compliance, reflecting nothing of the character of Jesus and nothing of the Spirit of God. And then there were the wars—“holy” wars, "just" wars, of course.

It is worth noting that the Apostle Paul made clear in His first letter to the Corinthians that he had no place or interest in judging those outside the faith community. And Jesus admonished us against judging all others. He made clear that only after challenging and being affirmed in our own maturity, humility, and Spirit-led behavior, should we consider counseling or guiding others even within the faith community. If this is something well understood—and likely it is—why isn’t it more often reflected in Christian attitudes and behavior toward others?

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting for a moment that Christians should decline to exercise their franchise or refuse to support political candidates that best represent their views. But only that they should not presume to represent Jesus or Christianity while doing it. Nor am I suggesting that as faithful Christians they should fail to live their lives by the tenets, disciplines, and values of their faith as they best understand them. But only that they should not presume to force them on others outside their faith community in the name of Jesus.


The second question that must be asked is this: when Christian political advocacy rails against groups of people outside their community of faith—often those most shunned by many in the religious community and, possibly, the secular community, as well—do those people, or anyone seeing and hearing, recognize in this "Christian mission" the example of Jesus, or sense God’s Spirit of love, forgiveness, compassion and humility? And as a result, are they drawn to be closer to Christians and know more about our faith and who we are? Can God in any way use these "Christian soldiers" to help those lost or hurting when they purport to represent Him like that? How can we be surprised that many of those people think we hate them, and so fear or hate us, too?

What answers do you think increasingly led Billy Graham’s ministry as he was welcomed as pastor by presidents and politicians of all parties, as he was looked upon as pastor and healer by the lost and broken of a nation for two generations? And now, looking back, he believes he was still too political, that the walk of faith—and anything resembling thoughtful, obedient evangelism—is about God’s love, mercy and compassion for all. If we consider at all the examples of Jesus, I think we’d know what Billy Graham clearly knows: those people we've alienated are the very ones who Jesus would be sitting at the table with today. They would be first in His healer’s heart and first offered the promises of new life through Him.


And I have a third question, one that revisits ground we’ve already walked, but bears revisiting. Why, among many who claim Jesus, His teachings and example, does the selfishness of their politics—like their fear of cultural change—still trump their faith and relationship with Him?

They oppose social programs that certainly help those people about whom God cares most, and they oppose the taxes necessary to fund them. If it’s all about distrust of government accountability, then by all means they should advocate and vote for more efficiency and accountability. But why would they have difficulty with Jesus’ clear admonition to render unto Caesar, especially when it is serving the Lord’s people and purposes? Isn’t that also part of their giving? If they would study the history of the different Old Testament tithes and their purposes, they would see clearly the commonalities with today’s system of taxes and uses for the public good, and especially the support of the poor. And if they believe that the best answers are all about private philanthropy and church missions, they must also recognize that, as important as these generous efforts are, they alone barely begin to provide the required support of people in need or solve their problems.

So, where do we go from here? If we would follow after Him, should we be surprised that Jesus calls us first to seek and experience the consuming love of God, and to learn to love Him in the same consuming way? Should we be surprised that in that process, Jesus calls us to move beyond our more limited sense of worldly identity, it’s addictive attachments and selfish strivings, and invite more of His Spirit and nature to abide in us. And, second, He calls us to allow that love to overflow in an expression of love and caring for all others.

Jesus, by His teaching and example, then makes clear his first priorities for our life of love and service. In the context and with the gravity of final judgment, He calls us to feed and clothe the poor; to visit and care for the ill, infirm and unable; to invite in the stranger, and visit the prisoner. He wants you and me to attend them, care for them, feed them. That is where we go from here. Those are the things that should fill and direct my life of faith and yours.

If you hear or sense anything of truth or right in what I say, then why not explore it all a little further? Why not test what I’ve said against the accounts of Jesus and Paul? Why not let His Spirit speak to your heart? Why not seek a more intimate, prayerful relationship with God through Jesus? Then, why not let it spill over to heart-felt concern and support for all God’s people, especially those at risk?

First written: June 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Christians & the Poor

Why is it that so many of us—Christians, that is—don't understand our relationship and obligations to the poor? And then there are those old friends on the Christian Right who indulge the notion that being against government social programs and against paying taxes—especially, taxes for programs to help the poor—is somehow consistent with the teaching of Jesus or living the Christian life. I do understand, in part, for there was a time when I lived half in and half out of that faith-life contradiction. But I now believe there is no reconciling those views with the example, teaching and life of Jesus.

So, now that I have your attention, allow me to expand on and substantiate these purposeful provocations. Jesus, in the Gospels, like Moses in the Pentateuch, makes clear that the Christian's most important relationship and obligation is to love God with all their being and then to let that love overflow to all mankind—even their enemies. And, arguably, the Christian's second most important is to provide for and serve the poor. This is not works theology, but rather recognizable fruit and a measure of our selfless faith and love of God. Do you doubt this? Then, let's look deeper at some Scriptural guidance.

A central teaching is in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew at verse 31, a section my NAS Bible informally titles, "The Judgment." And it is in the context of final judgment that Jesus offers the teaching on the separating of the sheep from the goats—and that the "sheep" are to "inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world." Why? Because the "sheep" are those who serve Him by serving the poor: giving them food and drink and clothing, visiting and helping the sick, and visiting the prisoner. The "goats" are those who do not serve the poor, and therefore do not serve Jesus. They will be judged "accursed" and sent "into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." However a faithful and thoughtful Christian may relate to the hellfire and brimstone imagery or metaphor, there can be little doubt how high a personal and community priority Jesus' teaching places on providing for the poor. If we do not follow this teaching, we do not follow him.

(Of course, 1Jn.1 makes clear that if we earnestly confess our errors or sins, God is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And earlier in Matt.12, Jesus makes clear that any sin or blasphemy shall be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, likely ascribing the good work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Read further on forgiveness, ours and God's, in my later post, "Forgiveness.")

And the Gospels and Epistles offer many other everyday examples and events that make clear the special relationship of the poor with Jesus and God, and highlight the attention and healing directed by Jesus and the Apostles to them. It is hard to miss the point, yet somehow so many of us do.

But there are also those who would cavalierly invoke Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 10, saying, "…if [I] confess with [my] mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in [my] heart that God raised him from the dead, [I] shall be saved." "So, I'm covered," they would say. For those folks, I would only note that Jesus is not Lord if they do not endeavor to follow his example and teaching, especially a teaching with such important implications as this one. They appear as those referred to in Matt. 7 who would say, "Lord, Lord," but follow Him only when it is convenient--and Jesus says he does not know them.

Yet, it is still so easy for some to take out of context and embrace Jesus' statement in Chapter 26 of Matthew's Gospel, that "... the poor will always be with us." It is easy to allow that phrase to serve as a rationale for diverting the bounty provided us to first acquire our finer things in life—and to pursue that consumption with a shrug of the shoulder that suggests there is no helping the poor anyway because, after all, they will always be with us. But it is clear, isn't it, that this phrase uttered by Jesus, and His broader teaching, is not a dismissal of the poor at all, but rather addresses a more important point about that exception that proves and affirms the rule?

In that unique circumstance, Jesus reminds the disciples that they are there and then dealing with that most important obligation and relationship: the love, reverence and adoration of Jesus and God. Implicitly, in other circumstances, providing for the poor would take priority. And this is affirmed by the instinctive response of Jesus' disciples that a thing of value—especially costly perfume or oil like that being applied to Jesus' hair—should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. And that was so even when they were living largely on the charity of others. Surely the old adage, "We are called [by God] to serve, not to succeed," would find appropriate context and application for us today to the extent we wring our hands over whether or not we can make a difference in the lives of the poor.

And what of the inclination of some to be distrustful of government or disinclined to give or increase their taxes owing, however understandable that may sometimes seem? Aren't we admonished in Paul's Epistle to the Romans,
...to be subject to the governing authorities...For there is no authority except from God...[And] because of this [and for "conscience sake"] you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due [government], custom to whom custom...
And when confronted about paying the Roman poll tax, didn’t Jesus simply, tersely, admonish the duplicitous Pharisees and the secular Herodians to "…render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's”? When these two teachings of Paul and Jesus are taken together, isn’t it hard not to conclude that we are to honor government and play a supportive role because it is God’s means of assuring civil order, public protection and supportive community? And when the taxes “rendered unto Caesar" so clearly serve the purposes of God, including providing for the poor, shouldn't there at least be a comfortable, affirmed sense of acceptance in the giving?
Further, isn't it clear that, however innovative and important their contribution, all the faith-based ministries and private charities together cannot come close to meeting the needs of the poor? Isn't it clear that only the scope, resources and authority of our government can meet that need? Don't we then have to view our taxes—in part, at least—as a tithe-like contribution to serving the poor and those in need and, in the process, serving our Lord?

Now, if only I could live this teaching as well as I understand it, and as passionately as I share it with you.

First written: June 2008
© Gregory E. Hudson 2008
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Some Good Questions

If you would walk that more difficult path of Love, then consider following His leadership of Love, His way of renewal for your life. Continually reach for new heights and plumb new depths following God into the unknown, gaining new understandings of old questions and answers. But when Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me,” where is He leading us? And then, when He adds, “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it,” what would He have us do?

Yet I can offer the possibility of better answers only in more questions: How can personal loss, permanent change or illness so often point to the gateway? How can the darkness enshroud cleansing light until you’re ready for light? How can despair cover consuming Love until you’re ready for Love? And what place and role the cross in all of this?

Consider also whether there are answers or better understandings of these questions in some of the Pauline reflections. The Apostle Paul poignantly shared his experience that through the failed promise of religious legalism, the misleading promises and unsatisfying attachments of the world, he died to it all that he might live to God. Then he could say, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in Me.”

Does that help clarify our understanding of these challenges? And is our understanding furthered by Paul’s corollary admonition that, “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is…For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”? What does that mean? Certainly, for most, He didn’t mean that we should disengage from the world, judge it, or see it as anything but God’s creation. What do you think, can we find a more transcendent recognition of God in all things and people, and in the process grow closer in character and identity to Him?

These questions and understandings, in context, provide meaning, direction, challenge and change to my walk with the One who calls me. They enrich and make more intimate my prayer and contemplative time with Him. They inform and animate my life, my thoughts, and my writing. They are now part of the stuff of a relationship that grows ever closer with Him. Perhaps you could use some good questions, too? Then you might more often look for God in all the places He takes you. And more often you might encounter Him there.

First written: May 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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God's Will

How can we presume to understand the will of God, when we can scarcely understand our own? It could seem an impossible quest. And the closer we come to God, the wider the chasm between His will and ours may surely seem. But there are some things that can be known about God’s will or inferred about it from the Scriptures, especially when seasoned and brought to fuller light in meditation and the quiet solitude, the intimacy, of contemplative prayer. And at the very least, we can know with confidence what is not God’s will:

  • My will is not God’s will; neither is yours;

  • It is not God’s will that His people war against each other, kill and torture each other, or hate each other; and

  • It is also not God’s will that His people should be unloving, unforgiving, self-righteous, judgmental, selfish, unkind, or lacking in compassion, generosity and gratitude.

And importantly, be assured that when you exhibit those behaviors or characteristics, God’s Spirit is not in you or leading you; you are not abiding in our Lord and He is not abiding in you. And from that place, you cannot even see or recognize the path that leads to deeper love and identity in God, which is God’s will. It is important to know these things, to be clear about what is not God’s will before walking into the deeper, sometimes darker waters seeking love and identity in Him, giving up more of our will that we might reflect more of His.

First written: December 2008
© Gregory E. Hudson 2008

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Markers of Christian Identity

  • What is the first and greatest commandment?

Love God with all that your are, and lose your identity in Him. Abide in Him and let His words abide in you. Then let that love flow over to your neighbor; love him as God loves you. (Matt. 22: 36-40; Matt. 16: 24-27; John 15; Gal.2: 19-20)

  • Who is my neighbor?
All the people of God's creation. Yes, even the foreigner and stranger, especially the foreigner or visitor in distress in a strange and threatening land. Yes, even your enemy. (Luke 10: 25-37; Matt. 5: 43-47; Col. 3: 10-17)

  • What does the New Testament make troublingly clear to us about how in the end God will judge us?
Have you served Christ by serving those in need: clothing the poor, feeding the hungry and and giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming with hospitality the stranger/foreigner, attending to and visiting the sick and the prisoner? If yes, you are the ones that Christ will claim for eternity. If no, then Christ will say to you, "Depart from me..." (Matt. 25: 31-46)

  • How should we judge others?

We shouldn't. Jesus was particularly intolerant of legalistic people, the self-righteous, and the judgmental. We are called to see others through His eyes and love them with His heart--and leave the judgment to God. The lost people that God would have us serve are not drawn to us or Him by self-righteous, legalistic judgement toward them. (Matt. 7: 1-5; Matt. 9: 10-13; Matt. 23; 1 Cor 5:9-13; Col. 3)

  • What are the characteristics we should bring to our relationships with all people if we would be disciples and ambassadors of Christ?

Unqualified love of all God's people and creation (1 Cor. 13; 1 John 4: 16-21; 1 John 2: 15-17; John 15; John 13: 34-35); unqualified, unlimited forgiveness (Matt. 6: 12, 14-15; Matt. 18: 21-35; Luke 7: 36-50); compassion (Matt. 5:7, 12-13; Matt. 9: 12-13; Matt.12: 7; John 8: 1-12); humility and gentleness (Matt. 5: 5; Matt. 11: 28-30; Matt. 21: 5; Eph. 4: 1-3; Col. 3: 12-15)

First written: April 2009

© Gregory E. Hudson 2009

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Choices

But if being found by God just doesn’t work for you right now, if it’s just not something you are open to, then you may find what remains to you less appealing still. Your freedom and choices, it appears, may be more limited than you think. What remains to you is the constant drumbeat of scholarly research that informs us we are each bound in our own Procrustean bed, genetically-defined, fixed more-or-less, and further limited by the environments we were reared and live in.

That unwelcome, deterministic reality is an earnest finger poked in our chest, demanding to be heard, attesting repeatedly to the inherited and conditioned qualities that characterize what we do, what we think, who we are. A more euphemistic sentiment might allude to the limits and conditions on the freedom of man. A more direct and fatalistic disposition might charge that what the genes don’t dictate, the environment will. And if the genetic brand of determinism is incomprehensible or unacceptable to you, don’t expect to find more comfort in the world of conditioned behavior and beliefs. Or do you believe that the realities of family and cultural conditioning are not that powerful in shaping who you are?

So do not deceive yourself or be deceived. The power of our genetic endowment and the behavioral conditioning of our environment are great indeed. With compelling research in hand, science would reasonably advise you that your very personality and many of your personal traits and predilections are influenced significantly by your genes. So is your predisposition to pursue certain types of vocations or interests, or fall prey to certain illnesses or diseases. And the ubiquitous power of the environment, the impact of family and culture as explained by the learning and conditioning sciences, has long been well understood.

Of course, many are simply in denial. They would wish it all away, dismiss it as exaggerated in impact and import. But that’s a fool’s errand, whether born of intellectual ignorance, emotional defensiveness, or worse, a stiff-necked, misguided mission to carry water for various ideological, religious or social agendas. They greatly underestimate the near uncontrollable, deterministic power of genetic inheritance and cultural conditioning. But operating under a self-constructed illusion of freedom—denying, distorting or reshaping the truth—has never been the right answer, or even a workable answer. Then you are working with a lie, and have no chance at all.

You might well conclude, then, that the natural condition of man is an utter lack of freedom, the absence of real, voluntary personal choices—or, put another way, that any sense of freedom exists only in ignorance.

Moving Toward Freedom

If all this is just too emotionally confining and personally limiting, too threatening to your notion of freedom and identity, potential and possibilities—it should be. Oh, it’s not that this is all bad science, a cruel, controlling hoax, a lie. No, in large part it is too true. And the only real uncertainty is how large a part each factor plays in influencing the understanding of our alternatives and the making of our choices. But it isn’t as bleak as it sounds.

In a real sense, you can enjoy and exercise more real freedom. Your freedom is first in knowing what has made you who you are, the way you are—and how. It is also in knowing what has made others the way they are, who they are. You can learn more about real alternatives, and the potential effect on you of different places and people, different thinking and ways of doing things. Your freedom is in that knowledge. You can also read what different people are reading, listen for what they are saying, watch for what they are doing. You can learn what you need to know, and better understand.

You can, then, see yourself and others in a different, more interdependent way, a more understanding and sympathetic way. And to the extent you know the ways you and others are a product of your circumstances—family, culture, your time and place, the box you are in—you have a blueprint for personal change.

You do have real alternatives and choices to make. And you can have better-informed reasons to believe in and make your choices. If there is anything more to your notion of freedom than a hollow log, you can know that there are choices you can make, actions you can take, to access better opportunities to grow—or not.

And the scope of the alternatives you entertain and the particular choices you make also define your freedom, don’t they? A choice to refrain from expanding your experience, knowledge or ability is, in effect, a choice to limit your future choices—and therefore the future scope of your freedom. So it is also with choices to indulge foolish, anti-social or base desires and emotions. They can threaten life or health, result in imprisonment or legal limitations, or compromise your honor, trustworthiness, or self-esteem in ways that limit your future relationships and opportunities. These acts, too, limit your future choices and freedom.

So, even if you are not open to the freedom of the One who calls you, you may be ready to plan the first steps out of your box. You may be ready to believe you can choose better alternatives and expand your possibilities, that they are real and waiting for you—even calling you.

Move, literally. Change the physical place you are in and the people around you. Seek people and situations that will expect more of what you want to expect of yourself. They can notably change your actions, what you do, change your thinking, and to some extent, who you are. And the more you know about yourself—about those influencing factors—the more readily, competently you will make choices for effective change in your life. And yes, that honest knowledge will also have to acknowledge your limitations as well as your potential. That’s important, too. But, most often, there will be some better alternatives, some better choices.

Please make some choices that work for other people, too—people you probably don’t know or don’t know well. To one extent or another, you share with them some of the same space, even if not the same experiential boxes. Make some choices for tolerance or, better still, acceptance and civility. Or, go crazy: think about respect and caring and serving.

Make some choices for community and your best contribution to it. Consider more charitably the poor, the immigrant, the stranger, the prisoner. Consider again issues of access to education and health care, and stewardship of our environment. Be part of solutions, not problems; building up, not tearing down; caring, not neglecting or, worse still, hating. You can do this. But you need to embrace a new sense of responsibility, some knowledge of the alternatives and possibilities—your possibilities. And you have to make some choices.

First written: January - June 2005
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Invitations

Where has it all taken you, this perplexing jumble of promises, contradictions and disappointments that life so often presents us? And where are you now being called? Do you still more often feel boxed in by the limitations of your place and circumstances and how they have defined you—and caused you to define yourself? When you look in the mirror, do you still see too much a stale, static existence staring back at you, your term to be served and your condition to be endured?

What you see is who you’ve become. It may be a reflection of where you feel fate has placed you, where you’re supposed to be and, regardless, where you feel resigned to remain. It’s just that I’ve had different experiences, been led to different places. I thought you should know. And even though it is not my invitation to give, I’ve felt compelled to tell my story, to share my understandings. And perhaps you’ve nonetheless heard an invitation in them.

You could see another picture of yourself, an identity changing and moving forward. You could recognize the constraining forces discussed in Choices, but also understand that you still have alternatives, you still have choices. And more, you could hear the quiet voice that encourages you to accept the invitations given and turn new corners. If so, Godspeed and safe travel. Reach. Extend. Push on. You’ll likely step onto a better path. And that is so even if you aren’t ready to acknowledge the One who calls you—even if you won’t. But if you are ready, if you do, better still.

As for me, I could not explore opportunities to realize who I might become or what I might contribute, and neglect to explore the most compelling opportunity of them all: the intriguing possibility of an intimate relationship with God, even an evolving, transcendent identity in Him. What I’ve found is that you can view these and other life questions through either the limited, often distorting window that existential life fashions for us, or the dimly-lit window into the spiritual life, the life with God—or, ideally, as your view is widened, through both. Changes in these two windows are mutually dependent and necessary for our personal growth and insight. As the view and understanding that comes through either becomes clearer, so does your need to better understand and view more clearly the other.

That is, your view of the world and its possibilities are at first distorted by the limits of your temporal identity and circumstances—and so is your ability to sense or see more clearly the invitation to a more spiritual life. The more you work through your choices for personal change and growth in everyday life, and the wiser you become about them, the more open you may also become to hearing the invitations, seeing the opportunities and choices for spiritual growth. And the more you work through your choices for change and growth on your spiritual path, the more you realize those choices are tied inextricably to the existential experiences and relationships in your everyday life. Then one day, there is granted an understanding that there is really only one merged life and reality: your spiritual life working its way to clarity of purpose and identity through everyday life in the world.

And the invitations continue.

First written: November 2006 - January 2007
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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To Move On or Stay

To move on or to stay—that is the essential question for you and for all of us from time to time. By now, it is doubtless clear to you the path I’ve walked and my prayer to continue forward with the One Who calls me. What may be less clear is your readiness to move forward—in life, but especially in your spiritual life. Are you ready to seek and say, yes, to the One who calls you, to opportunities for personal change, for personal growth? Or must you remain longer in your place and identity? If so, is that because there is still more growth for you there? Or do you find moving on, accepting His invitation, too challenging, too disquieting, even too threatening?

You could be understandably concerned that saying, yes, will only lead to a succession of changes and more difficult challenges. And, out of context, to be invited to deny yourself, to take up your cross and follow Jesus may seem a daunting, unwelcome invitation, indeed. Or, also out of context, you might find a little unnerving the notion that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Without knowing more, experiencing more, you might reasonably question whether you could ever accept those invitations and teachings in joy, in love, and without fear—the biblical assurances of Jesus and Paul notwithstanding.

But don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t let me or others distress you unnecessarily with matters taken out of the context of the appropriate time, spiritual foundation and understanding—pushing you out ahead of your Invitations. And please don’t distress yourself about such things. Remember what was said earlier: do not be concerned about places not yet traveled or invitations not yet received. God extends invitations only if that is your path to walk, and only when you are ready. At that time, you will feel invited, to be sure, but also assured that you are properly prepared—and that you can trust God and His faith community to walk with you and guide you. You can also trust God to complete the work He begins in you. Hold onto His love, hold onto your faith, hold onto hope and trust.

First written: November 2006 - January 2007
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Christian Community

There are two aspects to walking a Christian path following after God, both important. One is your personal relationship with Jesus, with God—and that is always your focus and first priority. The second is your relationship with people both within and without faith community. But there is a special and necessary relationship with the people within faith community.

So let’s speak more of Christian community, the Body of Christ—the church, if you will. I’ve certainly had my bills of particulars against some faith communities, some churches. In Being Found and elsewhere, I’ve spoken of their failings and the difficulty of finding authentic faith life and people through whom you can grow with God. But we have not spoken more substantively of what that faith or church community might look or act like. In other words, when is a faith community or church the Body of Christ? What essential role has church to play in who we are becoming in God? I think you should expect to find the following:

  • The Great Commandment is lived. Through Jesus, they are open to and receive God's unqualified love for them, and they return that same love to Him with all their hearts, minds, souls and strength, all that they are, and they allow that love to flow over to all people, everywhere—even those they dislike or who dislike them, even their enemies.

  • Through prayer, study and meditation on Jesus' life and teaching, they embrace God's invitation to be more like Jesus, to model their lives after His. They seek a deepening knowledge of Jesus and a singular relationship with Him as Lord and spiritual master, as a human revelation of the divine nature and teachings of God, and as a human example of how to live according to those teachings.

  • Through Jesus, and within His context of final judgment, they take into their hearts His teaching that we do not serve Him if we do not serve the poor, the sick, the stranger in our land, and the prisoner. The church community places its highest service priority on serving God by serving the least of our brethren: providing clothing, food and drink to the poor and unable; providing shelter and help to strangers in our land; attending, ministering to, and treating the sick; and visiting the prisoners.

  • The Spirit of God is acknowledged present and mediating all prayer, worship, teaching and study—and also in all work, planning and decision making. Christ’s spiritual presence and example are invoked to lead and mediate the nature of community interaction, outreach, and service within and without the faith community.

  • People are led to understand their spiritual gifts and abilities, and every person God brings into community is encouraged to take his or her place in the worship, prayer, ministry and work of the church, that God’s plan for each might be honored. To fail to do so is to deny the purposes and plans of God one person at a time.

  • Through Jesus, and with His compassion, humility and gentleness, they allow their lives and their walk with Him to be their statement of Christ and Christianity in the world, their weaknesses and failures notwithstanding. But, allowing humbly and generously for those human failings, the church community nonetheless earnestly desires and most often reflects the characteristics of Jesus.

  • Yet, they recognize as important that part of Jesus' ministry that was intolerant of self-righteousness, loveless legalism, and judgment lacking compassion and mercy. For all those reasons, Jesus assailed the Pharisees, priests and scribes as self-important religious leaders who had lost their way with God. The Christ-centered church community is vigilant to avoid identity with or indulgence of today's Christian Pharisees and legalists, but also the divisive political operatives and other Christians for whom greater identity in God through Christ is not their apparent motivation or the apparent basis for their leadership orientation.

  • There is a clear sense of real and full Christian community. Families and individuals share their lives together, affirming, caring for, supporting and helping one another.

It is in places like that where God can speak to you more broadly and clearly through the example and teaching of others, through the exercise of spiritual gifts, through shared faith-life together. It is there and through these people that you can grow in knowledge, in prayer life, and faith—and there that you will learn to keep faith life in balance. It is there that you are affirmed, supported or redirected, held, healed and restored. It is there that you become part of a living Body of Christ, and grow closer in identity with God.

Of course, these are ideals. And as with most biblical ideals, we—even those most faithful and prayerful among us—are not equipped to always live up to them. And as collections of such people, neither are our churches. We all fall short sometimes, in some ways. But some fall very short much of the time; it is their very identity. They are the ersatz faith communities, the cultural shelters for the self-righteous and those too often given to judging others, for the narrow-minded who cannot suffer different people or brook differing views. They subordinate the Great Commandment to their own definition of a great commission. They break God’s heart. They should be avoided, or left as soon as it is clear who they are.

Look for the better places, for God’s more humble, grateful and loving people. For you can still encounter God among and through His people in many authentic faith communities. And they remain the best place, the most reliable place, to encounter something of God’s love, forgiveness and compassion, even if shared imperfectly and inconsistently.

In fact, our faith communities are usually the only way to find and grow with God in an affirmed, accountable and serving way. But yes, there are times when we are called to the desert, the dark night experiences, or to a more solitary experience with God, sometimes for extended periods, even years. But for most of us, most of the time, our faith walk should include the company of others in faith community, in church life.

First written: November 2006 - January 2007
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007

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Hope

There should always be hope. And there can be. Hope can rest on you comfortably with promise and peace. It can be as natural, as reflexive, as the breath you take. It can attend your rising up and accompany you through the day, every day. And in the darker times, the times of loss, it can hold you up and sustain you. It is essential for your emotional health, the confident exercise of your talents and gifts, the excited reaching out for new horizons, for happiness and peace with who you are, where you are, and who you are becoming.

But I’m not speaking of the hope of everyday discourse, the stuff of good fortune, good luck or, at best, encouraging probabilities. The hope I speak of is a virtue, a spiritual virtue. And in a sublime and transcendent sense, it accepts, forgives, moves on, and places yesterday’s experiences and memories in their rightful place in the past. There they are not a barrier to the future, but wise counsel that informs and guides us. The spiritual virtue of hope overcomes the misleading and dispiriting experiences and memories; it transcends the burdens, disappointments, and limiting identities the world assigns us. Hope, in that sense, is part of a greater Purpose and process. It is, in the view of the faithful, a gift from God.

But let’s first explore more common notions of hope in the choices we make in everyday life. If your personal choices, and especially the human responsibilities and accountabilities you face, are some of the stuff of your hopes, then you must consider carefully where or with whom you can wisely, reliably entrust those hopes. For to place undue trust, blind or naïve trust, in yourself or others—including government and faith-based organizations or leaders—reduces your hope to a fickle companion. That is the stuff of misplaced everyday hope, waxing and waning hope at best, and sometimes of hope lost.

Of course, you will be helpless to avoid misplaced hopes in many everyday situations. It is part of our nature, but also part of our experience and journey. But experience and wisdom gained dictate that such hopes as these be entertained only in sober consideration of your abilities and the attendant circumstances, the things within and without your control. But the results are so often out of our control, and so much a matter of probability or pure chance that failure, loss and disappointment remain unavoidable aspects of life.

And it is also important to understand the circumstances and forces arrayed against you—not the least of which is that selfish, excluding, and calculating side of man himself, his foibles and also his darker side, the matter of evil. So remember that we are called to be loving, compassionate and innocent in serving God and humanity, but also worldly-wise so that we do not naively misplace, waste or dishonor God’s gifts, invitations and work offered through us.

Yet, in all these things, the spiritual virtue of hope can be your constant and comforting companion. But trust must be placed in a balanced, transcending faith in God, and acted upon consistent with that faith and the leadership of His Love. The hope of the spiritual seeker then becomes a well-placed hope and trust in the purposes and leadership of the Giver of hope, in His plan and guidance for the unfolding of your life.

It should be understandable, then, that you should make your choices and pursue your matters of conscience without unreasonable burdens or responsibilities for success or failure. In that spirit, there is an old adage among some faithful that says, “I am not called to succeed, but to serve.” I’m sure you appreciate the wisdom in this. It does not suggest in any way a lack of passion, determination, or gifted effort. It is merely a reminder that there are reasonable and differing limits to how much each of us can do, how much we can and should bear within the context of God’s plan and direction for each of us. And God often does not prescribe temporal success and fulfillment. It isn’t heaven yet. Therefore, a balanced understanding of your place in the world is important, but so is an understanding of your greater purpose and priorities, what is ultimately most important. All burdens beyond that are for God’s shoulders to bear.

I know you understand how the emotional need for everyday hope emerges from the harsher realities of the world: its passing, often failed nature, and the cries for help, healing, compassion and love, often including our own. And for many it is all the more frantically sought as they flee the disquieting image of a promised hole in the ground. But also understand that the spiritual virtue of hope finds reliable footing only on transcending faith-based foundations that inform and shape our identity and our lives. And the more we understand these lessons of hope, the more we also must come to understand humility: what it is, what it does, and why strengthening of that characteristic, too, necessarily attends our spiritual growth and fulfillment, our transcendent walk and peace with the world and the One who calls us.

Hope, then, joins faith and love as the three great spiritual virtues. These three virtues inform, lead and animate our spiritual journey, as well as our choices of conscience and service to others. And the humility that attends them allows us to keep our role, our path, and our hope in balance with the nature and ways of God as we navigate the nature and ways of the world. And that is the existential and spiritual point, isn’t it?

First written: September 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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Faith & Love

Innocence lost is where it begins. And innocence attends and holds open the door to childhood trust, which is likely lost soon after. But innocence does not take flight of its own volition. Neither does trust. These are changes brought about by early interactions with the world and its realities, and often associated with the first assaults on ideas or ideals thought immutable, or the loss of persons thought immortal. Then, too often shattered is the trust in some foundational, defining beliefs and values that the world so often refuses to honor or affirm. And too often among them is faith, hope or love. But my interest, my story, is about innocence and trust found again. And it is the rediscovery of hope, faith and love that carries you there.

Having already talked much of hope, let’s talk more of faith and love. But if the spiritual virtue of hope is our spiritual gift for dealing with the often deceiving, misdirecting and disappointing nature of the world, and the memories of our own failings in it, then how do the spiritual virtues of faith and love serve us?

Faith gives perspective and spiritual balance to our thinking and reasoning. It culls out specious, deceiving arguments about whom or what we are, arguments that rationalize worldly overindulgence in service of vain, temporal wants. Faith makes personal and sharpens the clarity of our encounters and experiences with the voice and path of God. It also neutralizes the power and effect of evil, and its ability to use our intellect, our reasoning, to subvert pursuit of our best interests in a life lived right and well. And with a balance of faith and reason comes something closer to wisdom in our walk with God in the world.

And then there is Love—charitable, unselfish love of God and mankind—the highest, most sublime virtue of all. It harnesses, reins in, and redirects rightly and honorably the selfish desires of our eyes and passions of our covetous hearts. Our will and willfulness are tamed and bent to a more unselfish attitude and service of what is right, good and helpful to others, as it is conformed more to the will and Love of God. And with love comes other good things: a heart that desires greater identity with God through Jesus, and also obedience to love, which includes forgiveness, compassion, unselfishness and, as a result, wholeness and peace. For, in some real and palpable sense, God is Love; it is His very substance and nature.

If you can find—or, find again—faith, hope and love, you will also find notably subdued and muted the worldly siren songs of power, money and sexual gratification. Subdued with them will be those personal expressions of spiritual failings that mark our distance from deeper relationship with God (and many people, too). Among them would be hubris, selfishness, greed, fear, jealousy, anger and resentment, the things which usually attend a life too centered on power, money and sexual life. But in a balanced, earnestly pursued life of faith, all three can represent necessary and responsible expressions of a life lived well and wisely, a life that honors God.

It is the addictive preoccupation with these three realities of life, making them ends and measures in themselves, which causes us to express ourselves in ways inconsistent with a life seeking and honoring God. And even in a balanced and measured life of faith, unwelcome temptations and responses to some extent remain. They become spiritual thorns in our side, nettlesome but humbling factors that persistently remind us of what we are and are not, of the limits of our abilities to transcend the less attractive, less worthy qualities of our humanity, of our need for a reference point in Jesus, in God.

But if the three great spiritual virtues are necessary to finding the more balanced, fulfilled life of peace with God, then how do we find them, or find them again?

The answer lies first in allowing yourself to be found by God, and prayerfully seeking an authentic relationship and identity in Him. And through that relationship, in that changing identity, you will encounter His invitations and His gifts of faith, hope and love. And under the protection and guidance of these virtues, you can again find and reflect innocence and trust, but now an informed innocence and mature trust born of associative identity with Him, and tempered by experiential and spiritual wisdom.

First written: October 2006
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
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