Doubt less

“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”  ~Voltaire, French philosopher and author (1694-1778)

The conversation was not going well at all. The waitress was still refilling our coffee and its effect was making me jittery. “Why don’t you just admit that I’m right?” I was saying. “Because you’re not right,” my friend responded. “You just don’t want to admit I’m right,” I retorted. “Do you want me to admit you’re right, even if I don’t believe you are right?” he fired back.

My friend John liked to refer to himself as a pagan. “If I call myself an atheist, that would mean I have to admit to some higher power in order to dismiss him,” he would say. John’s initial question had been, “Why are you so sure there is a God?” “Why are you so sure there isn’t?” had been my clever response.

This had been the sum and substance of our conversation for the last hour or so. It had started innocently enough over the discussion of whether or not there was a God. 

At first, I had patiently tried all the “pat answers,” suggesting that we see God in nature and that the logic of the universe implied a higher intelligence at work. Finally, I bemoaned the possibility that if mankind were actually the highest authority, our world was really in trouble. 

Try as I might to remain calm, the conversation had quickly turned into a playground spat. Logic had left our table a while ago and now it was just a civilized argument, verbal arm-wrestling.

 “Why can’t you accept that I prefer to live with my doubt rather than accept your beliefs?” John concluded. My response was to ask the waitress for the check.

The great French philosopher and devoted Roman Catholic, Rene Descartes is credited with the statement: “I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am.”  One of the recent criticisms of the church is that we are “doubt-less.”  In other words, the church seems bent on eliminating doubt, rather than helping people process doubt.

Put another way, some people see wrestling with doubt as a good thing. At first blush this seems counter–intuitive.  Isn’t doubt an obstacle to faith?

I suggest that the strength of our faith rests as much on our doubts as it does upon our sureties. When we are sure of ourselves, we stop searching and therefore stop growing. As Descartes observed, doubt makes us think. 

Being in doubt  causes us to continue to process information, rather than discard it when it seems contradictory to what we want to believe.

Doubt opens us to new possibilities and forces us to continue to consider, to search, to look deeper… Shakespeare referred to doubt as the “beginning, not the end, of wisdom.”

Doubt is not the enemy of faith. Rather, it is a necessary ingredient in a strong and resilient faith, a faith that can weather the test of living it.  After all, if everything were assured, clear and without ambiguity, there would be no faith!

To rephrase Shakespeare: Doubt is the beginning of faith, not the end of it.

Dear God: Help me use my doubt to find you in new and deeper ways.

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.”  ~Paul Tillich, German born American theologian and philosopher (1886-1965)
©2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
“90 Second Stewardship”  All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward this e-mail to family and friends provided the”© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” is included along with this message. Organizations, whether for or non profit, are required to receive written approval before reproducing these reflections. If written approval is given the “© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” must be included along with this message.

Fruit of Our Labor

 

“It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.”  ~ Nick Hornby, English novelist, essayist and screenwriter (b 1957)

The cold arctic wind whipped across the cornfield creating whirling snow devils as it went. The temperature was plummeting and with winds gusting to 50 mph the wind chill factor would easily fall into the minus 60-degrees range. 

Outside our apartment building I could see traffic creeping up and down Annie Glidden Road, people just trying to get home so they could hunker down for the night.

The local markets would be busy with customers buying beer, chips and dip for their private “storm parties.” Based on what I saw out my window, they would need to get home soon before the roads became impassable.

When I accepted a teaching assistantship at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, I had no idea the weather could be this inhumane. It could be downright scary.

Nor had I intended to bring a new bride here to live. But that’s exactly what I had done. We had met in southwestern Pennsylvania, both from small towns. After a relatively short courtship, I had proposed over summer break and then returned to DeKalb for my second year of graduate school, leaving my betrothed behind to plan the wedding.

We were married just before Christmas in her family church and I brought her with me when I returned for second semester. Teresa promptly found a job as a social worker in a local sheltered living facility and workshop.

This evening she had gotten home before the storm broke, but in a previous storm, a few weeks earlier, I had nearly lost her. She had had to be rescued from a snow drift by two men on cross-country skis.

I turned from the window to look at her. Teresa was curled up on our fake leather JC Penney discount couch, sound asleep. She lay in front of our 13-inch black and white portable which illuminated her face with flickers of light. “Would she have agreed to marry me if she had known this would be her fate?” I wondered.

Returning to my vigil at the window, I pondered our first three months of marriage. Nobody had really expected our marriage to last, but so far so good – or not so good considering the weather. Was everyone right? Would our marriage fail, or would we beat the odds and prove our critics wrong?

Today, 35 years later I’ve stopped worrying. Except now we live in sunny southern California.

In today’s world everything is about convenience and efficiency. We want things easy, fast and simple, even when it comes to relationships. Speed and Internet dating, drive-through wedding chapels, and open and/or disposable marriages are fast becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Someone we meet once is referred to thereafter as a friend, and social media gives us the ability to “friend” anyone we want. Immediately!

But relationships are not as simple as picking up fresh fruit at the local grocery store. Relationships are more like growing the fruit tree in the first place. Trees produce fruit because we nurture them, giving them our time and attention.

Furthermore, it is not simply the fruit we produce, but the joy we experience in the growth and nurturing process.

In our tiny little one bedroom apartment in DeKalb, Illinois, Teresa and I were 900 miles from the nearest family member. As a result, we had only one another to rely on, and by a lot of trial and error, we grew together, learning to love one another and to trust one another.

Real, mature, relationships are grown, not manufactured. The fruit of those relationships are borne of time and effort; they are not simply and efficiently acquired.

As stewards of God’s time, growing relationships is time well spent.

Dear God: Teach me to grow and nurture my relationships with others.

“You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still …connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.” ~ C. Joybell C. , American author, poet, and essayist

©2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

“90 Second Stewardship” All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward this e-mail to family and friends provided the”© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” is included along with this message. Organizations, whether for or non profit, are required to receive written approval before reproducing these reflections. If written approval is given the “© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” must be included along with this message. 

Surrender

“The first step toward change is awareness. The second is acceptance.”  ~Nathaniel Branden, Canadian psychotherapist and writer (b 1930)

John woke up Monday morning and realized he no longer had a job. He had been laid off two weeks earlier, but this was the first day he had truly grasped his situation.

Mechanically he reached out and hit the snooze button, but try as he might he could not “snooze.” It was 6:00 am, the time John normally arose to get ready for work. His internal clock was resistant to any other schedule. Finally, he sat up.

Sitting on the edge of the bed for what seemed like a very long time, his hands splayed over the edge of the mattress, John contemplated his situation. What was he going to do?

He had worked for the same company for years. “I really don’t know anything else,” he thought to himself. They had enough money to get along for a while; but then what? Finally, he slipped into his flip-flops and shuffled downstairs.

Diana, his wife of 22 years, had already left for work. On the counter was a pot of fresh coffee and a hand-written note: “Love you, see you tonight.” John poured himself a cup and stood there sipping it, pondering the note. “How could she love an unemployed man?” His thoughts stung him, even before he finished them.

He took his cup of coffee to the kitchen table and slumped into his usual chair. Staring at the flowered table cloth he pondered his fate. He had never been without a job. How could he face anyone ever again? In his mind, he had just become a statistic.

As he was sitting there staring, first at his hands and then at his coffee, his eyes fell upon his wife’s well-worn prayer book. John had never much liked religion. He thought it a huge waste of time. His Sundays were more productively spent playing golf with clients or the boss, or getting chores done around the house.

Diane had patiently encouraged him to come to church with her, but he only begrudgingly went on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday. “I’m a CEO,” he used to say; “Christmas and Easter only.”

Now he had plenty of time, for anything, even God. He picked up the book and carefully examined the cover. Flipping through the pages he noticed Diana had marked various passages. “Wonder what she thought was so important.” Suddenly he closed the book and tossed it onto the table and started to get up. “I have better things to do right now, like look for a job,” he thought.

From deep within him came a quiet little voice. “Better things to do? Who looks for a job at 6:30 am? What are you really afraid of?”

John reached out tentatively and picked up the prayer book a second time. This time he actually opened it to a page somewhere in the middle of the book. His eyes stopped on a line covered with bright yellow highlighter.

“I am with you always until the end of time” it read. “Hope that’s true,” he thought.

“Surrender” is not a word most people find appealing. It evokes thoughts of giving up and giving in. It is a word for losers, because winners would never surrender. Ever! Only wimps surrender. And yet, within the Christian consciousness surrender can be a path to personal peace, happiness and enlightenment.

Case in point, “personal image management” is a difficult and time-consuming pastime in which many of us participate. We try to affix the “who we are” to some firm foundation, whether it is a career, a title or past successes in our lives. The problem is that none of those things are ever truly “firm”.

Many of us define “who we are” by our careers. If you ever want to test this idea ask someone: What do you do? More often than not they will respond with their job title, rather than an explanation. If our sense of self is tied to a job, and the job goes away, we experience the angst and disillusionment John experienced.

How can surrender help us? How can we find joy and serenity by just giving up?

Part of the answer is that “surrender” has several meanings. They are both subtle and beneficial meanings other than simply giving up. To surrender something can mean giving up the unnecessary things in our lives, like surrendering our weapons (our defense mechanisms). Perhaps the most significant meaning of surrender is to give ourselves to something, wholeheartedly, and without reservation.

The season of Lent is a time of surrender. It is a time to give up the false images of “who we are” in favor of “who we really are”, a time to stop relying on power, prestige or position to define what we are and a time to give ourselves over to our Lord and Creator. Lent calls us to surrender to Christ. He will always be with us - even until the end of time.

“Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are to what you could become.”  ~Author unknown

©2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
“90 Second Stewardship” is a reflection on being a Christian Steward in a secular and sometimes harsh world. This reflection is written by James E. Carper, of Simi Valley, California. All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward this e-mail to family and friends provided the”© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” is included along with this message. Organizations, whether for or non profit, are required to receive written approval before reproducing these reflections. If written approval is given the “© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” must be included along with this message.

Graven Images

 

“The image is one thing and the human being is another. It's very hard to live up to an image…” ~Elvis Presley, American singer and cultural icon (1935-1977)

We exited the Old City through the Zion Gate. The Church of the Dormition rose up to our right. Its unique circular structure and wide blue dome is hard to miss. The church commemorates the “falling asleep” of Mary, the mother of Jesus, before she was summoned to heaven for eternity, according to the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition.

The structure was impressive, but not our reason for coming to the top of Mount Zion. We were on our way to see David’s tomb, which is also the site of Cenacle, believed to be the location of the Last Supper.

The walkway was flanked by high stone walls. Near the entrance to the tomb we passed a large, bronze-colored statue of King David.

He was seated on a cloth-covered pedestal and was appropriately depicted holding a huge harp to his right side with both hands. The statue was also impressive, but our tour group rushed by, anxious to see the famous room of Christ’s last meal.

Forty-five minutes later, having visited “the room” and having stood in front of the purple, velvet-draped coffin, we were headed back along the same walkway.  The Statue of David loomed up to our left. This time we stopped to admire it.

The statue had been donated about three years earlier, by a Russian Christian, Andrei Bykov. It was intended as a gift to the Holy City. At Bykov’s request, his statue was located near the entrance to the site of the legendary king’s tomb, on Mount Zion.

The figure’s bearing was regal. He wore a crown and had a sculpted beard. The image was more like a Greek God than a Hebrew Monarch.

What was disturbing was David’s face. The nose of the statue had been broken off. The tour guide explained it had happened less than a month after it had first gone on display. Since that time, whenever it was repaired, within a few weeks it was broken again.

“Who’s doing it?” asked a man with a Bronx accent and wearing a Yankees baseball cap. “Arabs?”

“At first we thought it might be members of one of a couple of Muslim factions within the city,” the guide explained patiently. “But, this didn’t seem to make sense. Placing a statue of King David near the entrance to his tomb seems to make logical sense.” “And it wasn’t in a Muslim area or near a Mosque.”

“Finally, surveillance cameras were set up in hopes of catching some images of who was doing it.”

“Who was doing it?” someone else asked.

“A group of conservative Hebrew students.”

We all looked at each other in amazement. “Why?” someone finally asked. “Wouldn’t they be honored to have a beautiful statue of King David like this near the entrance to his tomb?”

“One would think so,” replied the guide. “except in Exodus it says, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’ According to their faith tradition, placing a graven image of the greatest Hebrew leader ever, near the entrance of his tomb isn’t a compliment, it amounts to sacrilege – an insult!”

Both the Hebrew and Islamic faith have prohibitions against statues and other such “graven” images. At first blush, this seems extreme in light of our modern culture in which we are deluged with images. To us, “image” is important, or so it seems. The question is: Which image?

One of the most common criticisms of the Barbie doll was that she promoted an unrealistic body image for young women, leading to a risk that girls who attempted to emulate her would become anorexic. Similar concerns have been leveled regarding the body of Lara Croft in the video game, “Tomb Raider.” Movies, the media and advertising all project similar unrealistic images of how we should look, act, and think. One could argue these are all “graven images.”

Where our image comes from is important. Our image of ourselves is often driven by our desires, rather than by who we really are. We try to become what we want to be, or what we think we should be, rather than who God made us to be.

This translates into our relationships as well. We often love people for who we want them to be, trying to “make them over” into what we desire. This image may simply be the distorted reflection of who we think we are or who we desire to be.

Think for example of the tremendous pressure brought to bear on self-image by gangs and cliques. These groups send a very clear message: “Adopt our image or be ostracized.” “Be like us or perish.”

    

Without question, defacing a statue is vandalism; but do we not, in some ways, “de-face” ourselves. By expending our efforts to become a someone or something other than the person God made us to be, we may be vandalizing ourselves.

God made us in His own image. It’s hard to improve on that.

Dear God: Help me to become the person you created me to be.

“Your life is shaped by the end you live for.” ~ Thomas Merton, Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. (1915-1968)

©2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

“90 Second Stewardship”  All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward this e-mail to family and friends provided the”© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” is included along with this message. Organizations, whether for or non profit, are required to receive written approval before reproducing these reflections. If written approval is given the “© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” must be included along with this message.

Running on Empty

“Carpe Diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.” ~Horace, Ancient Roman Poet (65 – 8BC)

It was early Thursday morning and I was sitting at my desk staring at the screen of my laptop. I wasn’t reading anything or even seeing what was on the screen. I was just staring.

Three days into the work week and I was already physically, mentally and emotionally spent. Why was I so tired? It wasn’t as if anything major had gone wrong. So what had brought me to this moment of “burned out” inactivity?

It had been the accumulation of many irritations, misfires, grievances, resentments and setbacks. “It’s the ants that getcha, not the elephants,” a friend of mine used to say. Well the ants were having their way with me this week. I had been staked to the ant hill and smeared with honey.

I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, eyes closed, wondering what to do about this stress-induced log jam of inactivity. My thoughts drifted back to a meditation class I had taken.

“It’s not the work, it’s the worry,” the instructor had said. “We spend so much time thinking about how much we have to do that we don’t do anything.”  The answer to the problem is to simply do something, start something, just put one foot in front of the other.

My eyes started to refocus on the screen. I leaned forward and began to tap away slowly at the keys. There was a letter which needed to go out in the morning mail.

There is an oft-told tale about a journalist who went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the journalist talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The man watched the overflowing cup with surprise. “Stop, It's overfull!” He blurted out. Calmly the master put down the pot. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I explain Zen to you unless you first empty your cup.”

The problem many of us experience in life is not that we “run on empty.” In point of fact, most of us “run on full” or overfull. We fill ourselves with worrying about what we need to do while at the same time trying to focus on what we are currently doing. 

Most of us have a bad case of the “Igotta’s”: I’ve gotta get this done and I’ve gotta get that done. By mentally and emotionally carrying around all the things we think are important and that we need to get done, we impair our emotional resilience. Minor inconveniences become major catastrophes because they put us “off schedule.”

Running on full also means having no room for anything or anyone else. When our lives become a laundry list of unnecessary things that we believe are necessary – things which must be done – we often miss the really important moments: the chance meeting with a friend, a meaningful conversation with a loved one, or even an encounter with our Creator.

Many of us see our Lenten practices as a throw-back to a bygone era without any practical application to today’s modern world. “What are you giving up for Lent?” we ask, expecting a clever answer in response. And yet, most of us desperately need to give some things up, before we just give up completely.

Lent, gives us the opportunity to empty ourselves; to make space for more important things.  What if, for example, we gave up technology one day a week and spent the time with loved ones like our children?  What if we spent one night a week with our spouse without television? What if we set aside quiet time in the morning for prayer or just quiet meditation?

When we empty ourselves, we give ourselves room for the important things: love, compassion, concern, and room for a loving God. This helps us regain the emotional resilience we all need.

My exhaustion that Thursday morning was not due to a lack of stamina (of figuratively running out of gas). Rather, my exhaustion arose out of my trying to manage everything at once; to be responsible for everything at once, to do everything at once.

This Lenten season, I plan on doing my best to try “running on empty” and I am inviting you along for the ride. Together, I’m sure we will find we can go a lot farther than we thought. 

Dear God: Help me remove the clutter of my life.

“Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.”  ~from Sister Joan Chittister's book, The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages

©2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

“90 Second Stewardship” is a reflection on being a Christian Steward in a secular and sometimes harsh world. This reflection is written by James E. Carper, Director of Development, Southeast Ventura County YMCA; Thousand Oaks, California. All rights are reserved. You are welcome and encouraged to forward this e-mail to family and friends provided the”© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.” is included along with this message. Organizations, whether for or non profit, are required to receive written approval before reproducing these reflections. If written approval is given the “© 2012 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.”