Report from the morass

So I'm sick...a cold, flu....who knows. As usual not sure where I may have picked this up but I'm highly suspect of a Nat sneeze six days ago that was point blank into my open mouth. So what!...where it came from is irrelevant. But sure does blur my thinking and sets me up for negative conclusions. So why would I sit down to write in that frame of mind?  No good answer except to say that perhaps it will reveal something to me about me which may sound like a pretty dubious reason to plow ahead. Nonetheless, I plow ahead.

The division of the US populace is just so rampant now that the election is over. I see that I am tiptoeing around in my chats with others for fear of making a mortal enemy by saying the wrong thing.  Rationality has lost it's universal meaning altogether. It now seems to be defined as 'my position is obviously rational and so is yours if you agree with me. If you see it a different way, I am your eternal enemy and I will work tirelessly to bring you down'! Geesh! Social chaos is loose upon the land!

Being old provides me a perspective of past decades where this level of national animosity just didn't seem as extreme. Still, an age old maxim of not discussing religion or politics in public has been around forever so much of this rancor is not exactly a brand new phenomenon.  It's the severity of it, the all or nothing, good guys/very bad guys, the 'enemy within' dynamic that is being brandished as a sharp machete in a field of regular citizens who now come emotionally unhinged with little prompting.

So Santiago, are you proposing some kind of solution to all of this? Of course not, only trying to speak from my heart and begin to process the swirl of mental and emotional mayhem that is the water I find myself swimming in.

A two party system is still in operation today. You have your liberal/progressive camp and the conservative camp. Both sides operate within a spectrum ranging from moderate/centrist/extreme positions. It seems today's consensus is that both parties have taken on a voice that has become quite extreme. It's common to hear both moderates and centrists from both sides lament that they virtually don't recognize the current dynamics of their traditional party.

For some years now I have considered myself an independent. Each party has a wide-ranging platform that bundle the party positions together in a package they promote as the way to go. It's like cable TV packages. In order to get your favorite couple of channels, you are forced to sign up for a package containing 18 channels you have no interest in.  Today's voters with specific party allegiance are forced to do the same.

The current cultural clouds are further complicated with the fact that mainstream media has aligned themselves with one party or the other.  Truly 'independent', 'balanced' news today is as rare as hen's teeth. The American news viewers of today receive only the decidedly biased reports of the news agency affiliated with their party politics. Across the land, the average news watching citizen tunes into their officially approved news channel and suck from the bottle of pre-approved, party rhetoric that does a good job of promoting groupthink along party ideologies. Of course this is all done in a very subtle, well-worded manner guaranteed not to catch the attention of the eagerly nodding heads of the channel's viewers. 

And then there is the Hatfield/McCoy syndrome that keeps the respective animosity levels at fever pitch. The current election is over. My 96 year old aunt, who like me did not vote for the winner, uttered this comment (now suitable for the Smithsonian): " Well now its time to get over it and support the new President for the good of the country". Bless her heart but her comment now could be listed as an example of what is meant by the word anachronism. 

In the past, a brief episode of licking wounds and then coming back to do our individual part to support national sanity was more the coin of the realm. What about now?  Now it's time for the losing party to take to the mattresses, to organize a massive resistance movement and to utilize the courts to tie up the incoming party in an endless cloud of legal maneuverings designed to paralyze any and all efforts of the challengers. Impeachment anyone?

I wonder just how balanced good ol' Walther Cronkite actually was. Regardless, he signed off each  night with a phrase that seems appropriate here: "And that's the way it is." Or is that just how it seems to be to me and probably not to you? 

Specialness

This life stage inevitably finds me sorting through various shards of life I have been cobbling together. Sometimes consolidation of parts and pieces occur that once seemed random and unconnected. It is exciting when a direction or a pattern appears that seems to tie together several formerly invisible segments of my 70+ year-old story.

I remember in my youth I had definite feelings that I was headed for something good, something special. It was an inexplicable sense as nothing about me, my family or my life gave me any reason to have such a "feeling".  Mind you, this sense I had was not a constant presence in my life. It would only show itself to me occasionally, sporadically. I never mentioned it to anyone else. I think I felt like it was nothing I could adequately explain nor did I expect it would be well received by others...ie. "Well aren't you the special one!"

As my so-called career took shape, I sometimes saw victories or opportunities just over the horizon which made me wonder if this or that thing would usher in the 'specialness' for which I believed I was destined. But near misses, lack of confidence and some risk adverseness all ultimately contributed to keeping me squarely in my 'ordinary' lane.

Quite recently, a picture began to form that could only become clear after looking back at an arc that is decades old. This arc, as I now see it, began on my 11th birthday. Mom and dad threw a birthday party for me and a couple of my friends. The featured event was a movie in downtown St.Paul....'The Ten Commandments'. I remember being quite moved by that movie!  I distinctly recall  leaving the theater, walking in the spring air and feeling smitten by the film. I was not much of a prayer but I remember telling God that I wanted to somehow be a part of what I had just seen. That was it...quite simple really. I had no idea how that might occur but my emotion was real and it left an indelible memory.

Time went on and by late high school and early twenties my life was just too full of pleasure seeking, girl craziness and some friends that triggered and fueled the worst part of Jim (I totally own it was ultimately me and not my friends!). However, on May 19, 1975, at the age of 28, what I now know to be a cataclysmic event occurred. Without belaboring the background and circumstances, I found myself on a dock behind the Lake Harriet band shell at 2:00 AM. I was moved to have an honest state of the union, one-way talk with God about the emptiness of my life and feeling like a BB in a box car, endlessly ricocheting back and forth against the walls of life. Though I appeared to others to be doing well, I knew better. I was ungrounded, aimless and empty.

Miraculously (to me), God opened the eyes of my heart to the fact that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. I responded by giving him my life without any idea of what that really even meant or what to expect. I only remember walking off that dock with a sense of having just transacted a momentous agreement with God.  I was excited to go to church so as to worship the person I had just met and heard from for the very first time!

In the ensuing years, of course, a lot of life occurred. Duh!  There were my years at Campus Church where I gained my initial growth in becoming a follower of Jesus. Marriage, the birth of Jess and Jenna and my entry into a healthcare career all followed.  By the mid-eighties the little foxes in my garden had significantly chewed their way in and I crossed some lines. I ultimately reaped a very dark crop from the dark seeds I had sown.  A decade of wandering and being untethered followed. 

In 2000 an invitation from Jill H. at North Heights church ultimately brought Sandi into my life and a marriage I had not seen coming. A 2003 Colorado Wild at Heart boot camp led me to an opportunity to step up and into more of what God had for me. Learning about hearing and trusting the voice of Father followed over the next decade. Finally I approached what had never seemed possible...retirement. John 15:5b was opened to me and the desire to pursue a deeper union with the Trinity became my guiding light and life rudder. T.Merton and the mystics (sounds like a 70's rock band) enriched my study. I became a firm believer in getting busy with pursuing a deeper intimacy with Christ now rather than waiting for the sweet by and by. A Camino call came. Covid kicked it to the curb for 3 years but in August, 2023 it was revived and I departed for a solo pilgrimage across Spain. My eyes were further opened...

I sit here typing about the curved line of a 67 year arc which I now see with greater clarity. My loving, gentle, persistent Papa appropriated at least part of my heart early on in my journey. Throughout the years, my belief and commitment to Truth vied with the undisciplined aspects of my free will. With amazing patience and tenacity, Jesus stood by me through every one of my self-serving decisions and  their consequences. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, my eyes were opened to what I believe to be the heart of the Gospel and why I believe it is called the "good news". Yes, it is far more than mere salvation (as good as that is!). I was chosen, created in the image of God, to live in union with Him for all eternity. I don't have to wait for death to begin stepping into this destiny. I can pursue a deeper intimacy with Christ now, today, as I more fully surrender the self-centered orientation of my life for a more robust commitment to being a follower of, a disciple of, the Trinity, "...even as he chose us (me) in him before the foundation of the world..."  

My pursuit of all this feels so late-in-the-game and so incomplete. It is also not a subject that makes for good conversation with most people. It is difficult to effectively articulate and it is very easily misunderstood. In my experience, organized religion just doesn't adequately address union with Christ in their typical Sunday offerings. But then who could blame them. To preach 'come die to self and follow the mystical Christ' is hardly a message that mass markets well!

Regardless, I am now fully convinced that my early sense of being destined for something special couldn't have been more true. Granted, not in the worldly ways I often found myself looking for it. But now, as the ballgame of life moves toward its conclusion, I am convinced that the promise of eternal life with the Creator of the universe is my reality. I was created in God's image and what is the most true thing about me is my identity in Christ. Although death for me will be the end of my earthly sojourn, it will be the return of Santiago to the very source of my life. To fully step up and into what Father has prepared for me is nothing if not SPECIAL!

 

 

 

Ordinary mystic ... Rant #2 of ??

So part of my identity, how I operate, is that of an activator. I use the term as used in the Gallop Strength Finder book that identifies thirty-four basic strengths that human beings possess and utilize in their journey through life. One of my top five strengths was what Gallop terms 'Activator'. Essentially, how it manifests in me is that I am unable to live with myself with any kind of procrastination. I dislike lists of 'to-dos'. I seek to stay 'caught up'.  Too often Sandi has mentioned something she may have heard downstairs only to see me get up from the table right then and there to investigate and solve. It can be a strength but it sometimes causes me to go overboard. 

Regardless, when I retired from my career seven years ago I had been reading in John and was freshly smitten by the picture of the branch being connected to the vine. Jesus as my vine, who has all of the elixir of life needed to nourish my earthly pilgrimage.  To ever so slowly transform me into a closer alignment to the image of God in which I was created.

In Genesis we have the picture of a garden, God and Adam and Eve. There was a union that was so complete between these individuals that I believe they were essentially only one person. Until Chapter 3, Adam and Eve were in absolute oneness with God. They walked with him, talked with him, were nurtured by him, walked in nakedness and were unashamed. They did not have any agenda of their own but walked as one with the will of their Father. Of course, Chapter 3 brings us the scene of the pair ultimately buying the lie of the devil and results in the loss of their Godly union and the beginning of now two separate, self-referential lives, guided by their own separate free wills.  The manner of life that was part of the original plan was now broken. 

Within the sixty-six books of the Bible, we read the stories of God's plan and efforts to restore humankind's capacity for oneness with God. God's only begotten son ultimately becomes incarnate as man and is murdered on a cross. A deep mystery occurs...the "deep magic" Lewis describes in the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia. God becomes man that man might become like God. By Jesus surrendering to death, death is ultimately defeated and is no longer the only eternal conclusion of a human life. And amidst these spiritual transactions lies mystery, lots and lots of mystery.

As I understand it, what I have spoken of above was the common understanding of the church for 1500 years. The reformation and the renaissance ushered in some major changes in the way in which many believers approached their faith and how they interpreted the scriptures. But prior to this. all believing Christians believed in and pursued oneness with Christ as a normal part of their walk with God. 

Fast forwarding to today, the word mystic gives the average evangelical the yips. Sounds and feels too close to new age, eastern religion and other cultish expressions of truth. Today, many in the church are unable to embrace that God still speaks to his followers, that we can and will experience God in specific ways along our journey, that union with God can be pursued and experienced on this side of life as a normal part of being a Christian follower of Jesus.

Seven years ago, it made total sense to me to use the gift of time my retirement would provide and use it to intentionally pursue a deeper connectedness with Christ. That mysterious point where branch and vine join and are no longer separate but of one essence. I believe that I will experience this oneness fully when I graduate to the home prepared for me.  No use waiting! Seems to me I should be about positioning myself now for God to have full access to my inner being. To be about giving the Trinity the freedom/access to transform those parts of me that need their touch. That is my spiritual focus today.

Paul wrote to the Galatians:  "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with it's passions and desires".  I have been given the desire to be about that transformative process in the years I have left on earth. We are all being transformed daily. The question is by what or by whom. I want to be found to "be all in" as I relinquish my tight grip on controlling my life. I strongly believe Jesus meant what he said in John 15 ".....because apart from me you can do nothing". To me, that feels like my marching orders to take my focus off of me, me, me and onto Him, Him, Him.  And. as always, it's not about being religious....it's about relationship!

Ordinary mystic....Rant #1 of ??

 Hmmmm...I have wanted to spill out some words regarding things for a bit now. Today's walk in the rain seemed to unlock a door and I heard myself describing some positional/philosophical points that are in my present orbit. I am thinking of Paul Newman in The Hustler when he wanted to play some games of pool "fast and loose". So do I Paul...here, now. Seeking some flow-age, low in editing, ready-fire-aim kind of writing attitude.  Certainly not for the erudite. One caveat: could be some edges with a lack of velvet sheathing. The glint of sharp metal in the sun. Attitude-wise, I have been walking on some pretty constrained paths recently and am aware of a certain "pent-up" posture that I seek to provide some pressure relief in the fast and looseness of 500' Flyby!

So let us commence...

In this free age of self-identification with just about anything, I identify as an ordinary Christian mystic. You might as well give my address to the doctrinal gestapo because they are not going to be too pleased. I sit here writing as an exile from the protestant, evangelical expression of Western Christianity. For decades, I fed from their troughs of the weak gruel of mere belief in the right things. I was part of several strong 'teaching' bodies. They got part of it right but stopped woefully short of daring to preach the essence of the whole gospel truth. 

Belief was paramount...belief in the right things as determined by whichever of the 3000+ denominations I may have been a part of at the time. Belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Nothing wrong with that...it is absolutely true and I bow before him. But what else?  Perhaps a small group, a bit of service, some expeditions to 2 week missions, maybe a stint at Feed My Starving Children. Nothing is wrong with any of it. However, it is just not sufficient to significantly change peoples lives, to bring about interior transformation. To make them more Christ like. Barna has done the measurements... Christians are unidentifiable from the unbelieving population except for having a slightly higher divorce rate!  The Western church of today has just not delivered the disciples of Christ that Jesus indicated he was looking for before he returned to his heavenly home. 

But mere belief has never been a winning strategy. Why even the demons believe. What has it done for them?  What do they do with their belief?  They "shudder". Why? Because they believe Jesus is who he said he was and did what he said he was going to do. And yet, they have absolutely no intention of changing their lives in light of those beliefs. So, they shudder at the coming conclusion of their life's work. They expect it will be less than pleasant.

Jesus never merely said come believe in me. He said come, follow me. He had 12 inner-circle disciples who he did life with 24-7 for three years. He taught them by both teaching and by the example of how he lived his life. And oh my, he taught and preached some very radical things! Things that are just not something one would hear preached in the majority of today's post-modern churches. Take up your cross, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on Jesus' account, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart, in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, judge not that you may not be judged. 

But Jesus was a realist. He knew that man could never successfully undertake such directives through mere assent and willpower . He made it clear that we are the branches and he is the vine. He said to abide in him for "apart from me (him) you can do nothing". In Genesis we read that we were created in his image. But being transformed into that image cannot be accomplished by the mere willpower of man, by mere belief. It must be done by surrender to Jesus as our vine and trust in his Spirit within us to transform us each from the inside out.

It is common today to find hungry churches who offer an attractive serving of programs in the effort to build a congregation that is strong in number. The mega churches of today, with their multiple campuses throughout a metro area,  have huge budgets and depend on massive numbers of giving congregants in order to keep the growth fires burning. 

Marketing 101 dictates that a teaching program that includes frequent references to the inconvenient truth of 'come and die' is never going to play well to the masses. Thus, a tamed-down emphasis on just believing, participating and serving is considered sufficient content for the Sunday-centric gatherings. If, as the clock ticks down to the start of the exactly 60 minute service, the first words of the pastor were "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" the seeker-sensitive crowd would most likely not be inspired to return the next week.

Ok, ok, this might all be fine and good but what does it have to do with the title of this blog,  'ordinary mystic'? Well, let me take a breath or two and I will come back to just that.....

State of Union

 I sit here today with the desire to explore some of what I am currently thinking and where I currently perceive myself to be at this point of my spiritual journey. When I look into this arena it all seems a bit muddled and, if I am honest, I feel a bit disoriented and unsure of myself. Coming to this blog to get down some of what I am experiencing and wondering about is daunting. Why? Because my normal practice is not sitting down to write until I am quite pregnant with something that is just tugging to get out. That infers some degree of clarity.  I can then sit down and write somewhat effortlessly and what is inside of me easily pours out of my fingers through the keyboard and onto good ol' 500' Flyby.

Right now I give myself permission to thrash and use words inefficiently, to be ok with making statements that aren't quite right but maybe just kinda close. One physical impediment: just had surgery on right foot and really should have it elevated which is not possible while at my computer.....Pause....Duh!, I have a laptop sitting in docking station. Off I go with that little piece of tech to a more comfortable reclining position. There! That's better!

So some random pebbles that seem relevant to my path follow but in no particular order: 

I appreciate the mystics because, to me, they embrace not just the salvation Jesus won for us but also the transformation that is meant to be in operation now and not just after we die. I am created in God's image and his desire is to transform me into that version of me he had in mind from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1). He is doing this from the inside, through his power, as much as my surrender, my self-emptying and my obedience to his light will allow.

I do not find that many of my Christian brethren thinking quite like this. However, men like Merton and Finley, among others, have brought me language and encouragement in this direction toward greater union with Christ. "...apart from me you can do nothing,"" I am the vine, you are the branches"..... These words from Jn 15:5 are what got me started on this path about six years ago as I entered the amazing transition into retirement, the cessation of the work-a-day-world and the gift of huge chunks of time each day that were now freed up. But for what? In a somewhat glib/hubristic manner I landed on "pursuing union with Christ" based on the massive whack I received from the "apart from me you can do nothing" phrase in John. 

Now, after much intentional reading of contemplative writers who have managed to leave concrete breadcrumbs in matters mostly very difficult to articulate, I am humbled by all that I seemed to have found. Much of the 'death to self' days of Campus Church in the 70's and 80's largely eluded me...timing was just not right. And yet here I am, 40+ years later picking up some of the very same concepts but this time having a home for them in which to lodge. Timing is everything....

As for fellowship...well, that is a sticky wicket. Currently church-less. That sounds like it should trigger the sirens of a thousand Christian watch towers. And I wouldn't blame them for sounding an alarm. But here's the thing. I just don't trust the evangelical houses of religion, headed by men with clay feet who, in their struggle to remain relevant, have managed to produce outcomes in their membership that the Pew studies are unable to distinguish from the unbelieving public. I realize this sounds aloof but I don't trust myself into the company of parishioners who too often appear to be mostly just going through the motions, taking the form of religion but denying (or evading) the power of it. Now hear me here: It's not that I am better than them! Hell no!! But if I take my place among them I know that I, like water, will ultimately seek the level of that in which I am poured.

So where are my people? I could give a sermon on the need for being in community. Jesus didn't gather 12 disciples together for nothing. For three years he schooled this ragtag band of brothers and then sent them out to bring the good news of his message to the entire world. If the Kingdom of God could be lived out as a lone ranger he could have certainly saved himself the messiness of three years of molding this diverse, motley group who eventually became the first believers in Christ as Messiah. I get it! But where are my people? Is there a church somewhere named Serious House of Transformation?

I am blessed to have a small band of relatively like-minded brethren who are on somewhat similar trajectories. And yet they are not a homogenized body, meeting weekly in some location and available to pursue some level of actually doing life together. They represent what can only be called a very nontraditional, scattered body of Christ.

I recently watched a Carey Nieuwhof podcast with guest John Mark Comer that brought me what appears to be some light.That "so where are my people" line of mine above and the topic of fellowship I wrestle with... Comer and Nieuwhof were discussing some spiritual stage stuff and how the traditional Sunday service can cease to provide what it used to in the earlier days of a believer's journey. I breathed a bit of a sigh of some relief because a. I had never heard any teachers mention this before, b. it confirmed much of what I have been experiencing and c. it redirected my lament/guilt at not having or belonging to a traditional church. Perhaps 'my people' are not clustered in some denominational expression of Christianity. Perhaps my group of intimate friends who know me, all of me, are perfectly sufficient as a serviceable tool in the ongoing spiritual formation of my life in this 4th quarter of the game. Maybe my guilt/uneasiness is just mere anxiety at not looking quite like a basic Christian is supposed to look. Perhaps I just need to not care so much about making others nervous about what my practice looks like at the moment.

I see that what I am trying to talk about here is not of a conciseness that is handled well in the space typical of a blog. Might just have to come back another time to add parts and pieces that aren't percolating up at the moment. But before I stop there is a mental picture that has helped me conceptualize one aspect of my journey.  I seek to discover and eradicate the false self of Santiago and trust Jesus to bring me more deeply into the true self he ultimately created me to be. To be willing to die to self, to those independent, autonomous aspects of myself that stand in the way of the Holy Spirit having his transformative way with me.

And what all makes up this false self? The picture I have is of little Jimmy being born with a blank white canvas tied to my ankle. As I go through life I drag that canvas along with me. And as I go, life leaves its marks and impressions upon the canvas. I also leave my marks of various reactions and interpretations of what life doles out. Over the years the canvas fills up with more and more and when I look at the canvas it seems to mirror back to me the message that "This is you Santiago. This is what you look like, how you operate and what you believe." But it is all a lie! A giant deception! It does not depict the truest version of me. I can and must reject identifying this canvas as an accurate picture of who I am and turn back to my life's Author, seeking to be in agreement with and transformed into the image he created me to be.

Like the old pressure cooker my Mom used that had a heavy metal piece loosely sitting on top of a steam relief port, this post helped release a bit of the p.s.i. which has been building. I hope to come back soon to continue the Santiago thrash....