Drastic Change

The following comes from a book called The Ordeal of Change by Eric Hoffer. No words can express better what I am going through right now as I approach the end of Seminary and the dawning of what is next.

"It is my impression that no one really likes the new. We are afraid of it. It is not only as Dostoyevsky put it that "taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most." Even in the slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.

Back in 1936 I spent a good part of the year picking peas. I started out early in January in the Imperial Valley and drifted northward, picking peas as they ripened until I picked the last peas of the season, in June, around Tracy. Then I shifted all the way to Lake County, where for the first time I was going to pick string beans. And I still remember how hesitant I was that first morning as I was about to address myself to the string bean vines. Would I be able to pick string beans? Even the change from peas to string beans had in it elements of fear.

In the case of drastic change the uneasiness is of course deeper and more lasting. We can never be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: We undergo a test; we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling." Ordeal of Change, 3

When I read his experience of picking peas it reminded me of countless tasks that I have been confronted with while managing Swissaire. When I took this job I had no experience. Everything that I did was new to me. Every time that I took on a new task there was always that initial pause, the fear that maybe I could not do what I was attempting to do. The fear of not knowing whether I would be able to repair any subsequent damage if things did not go as I had planned. No matter how many times I had success, whenever I was again confronted with something new, the fear would return.

Hoffer writes that when facing the prospect of drastic change that the uneasiness is deeper and more lasting. That is where I am at now. Adjusting myself to what will come next, and every adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. Instead of being able to charge ahead with confidence, I find myself frozen, looking deep in to my heart, getting to know intimately again every wart and wrinkle, each one a potential cause for doubt that the future will be bright.

I can't help but think that my experience of countless mini-crises while managing Swissaire were meant somehow to prepare me for this moment.

Face to Face

I hope that you can catch the irony of my use of technology to share this quote. I read The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul today. A book that was recommended by an adjunct in the theology department whom I affectionately refer to as Dr. T (no longer at DTS). In a chapter titled The Problem With Communication we read:

"There never was a time when people have talked so much about man: there never was a time when so little has been said to man. The reason for this is that people know that it is futile to speak to him. Conditions are such that "man" has disappeared. He remains in the form of the consumer, the workman, the citizen, the reader, the partisan, the producer, or the bourgeois. Some people wave the flag and others are internationalists, but in all this, man as man has disappeared-- yet it is to him alone that one can really speak, it is with him alone that one can communicate.

Finally, we can no longer communicate with man, because the only intellectual method of expression is a technical one. The fact that the intelligence is obliged to use the technical channel breaks personal relations, because there is no possibility of contact between two human beings along this line. Communication transcends technics because it can only take place where to human beings are fully engaged in a real conversation. Now this is precisely what the intellectual technique of the present day both avoids and prevents...

It is impossible to rediscover man artificially and in the exceptional elements of life. Our whole civilization needs to be examined, and by each person, on the plane of his individual destiny, which may not be heroic, but which is certainly a human destiny, and cannot exist without genuine communication with the human beings that surround him...

The form of non-communication is particularly pernicious, particularly invisible: for the men of our day, when they want to meet one another, put their trust in the post office, the railway, or the newspaper (written 1967) that is to say, precisely in that which breaks and kills the very power of finding each other as human beings, in the reality of flesh and blood."
(Ellul, 96)

In a class with Dr. Barry Jones that I took this Spring we talked a lot about technology and communication. In particular the ways in which the use of technology in communication is not neutral but inherently evil (I was particularly vocal in this regard). In his book Ellul associates the dehumanizing influence of technology in communication with, "the 'will-to-death', one of the forms of universal suicide toward which Satan is gradually leading man." (Ibid.)

No use of any technological medium can ever improve communication between human beings. The highest form of communication will always be one human speaking (or signing) to another, face to face. Once technology is introduced, whether it be a pen, a qwerty keyboard, a phone call, or a skype session, the potential power in our communication has been irrevocably compromised.

That's why trends like this are troubling. In fact I would suggest (and you can disagree) that the church must reject the use of technology in communication. Particularly in worship, but also in its common life. Sermons should be spoken without amplification (no mics), video projection, digital recording, or hologramification. Our worship spaces, if they are to be power filled, should be technology free. The electrification of our worship is a poor substitute for dependence upon the Holy Spirit who alone can empower a sermon and communicate truth between persons. Pastors should visit their flock not email them. I'm not advocating technophobia. Our society is so thoroughly saturated by it that it is impossible/stupid to avoid it all together. I am just suggesting that we consider carefully when an where we allow technology to be used.

Profs vs. Preachers

I started seminary four years ago because I believed that God had called me to preach the word, endure hardship and do the work of an evangelist. At the time that belief was on life support after having been chewed up and spit out working for a church but it was still there none the less. When seminary began I was excited and was hungry to learn a much as I could so that I could be equipped and prepared for ministry.

What was not anticipated was that each year that I was in seminary my desire to go in to the ministry decreased. Fast forward to my final year. As I anticipated graduation the clear calling I had once felt to preaching had all but vanished and I was exploring either starting my own property investing company or a pursuing a PhD as my two options for life after seminary. What happened?

In their book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon suggest the following:

"Theology, to be Christian, is by definition practical. Either it serves the formation of the church or it is trivial and inconsequential. Preachers are the acid test of theology that would be Christian. Alas, too much theology today seems to have as its goal the convincing of preachers that they are too dumb to understand real theology. Before preachers buy into that assumption, we would like preachers to ask themselves if the problem lies with theologies that have become inconsequential.

Behind the disempowerment of the ministry through the seminary is the hidden agenda of convincing those in the ministry that they are not smart enough to teach in seminary. That is why those of us who take the trouble to get PhD's are paid to continue to teach in seminaries, where we then disempower new generations of ministers by bringing them to seminary in order to convince them that their vocation is not to be a professor!" (Resident Aliens, 165)

This quote may be difficult to relate to for those who have not gone to seminary with the intent of being equipped for ministry. But when I read this I felt that it put words to what I had experienced. Rather than clarifying and affirming my call to ministry my time in seminary taught me that preachers are second class citizens in the world of theology. The message that is not explicit but implicit on the seminary campus is, "If you have any brains at all they either should be used in pursuit of a PhD or in something challenging like business not wasted in something like being a pastor."

They are shepherds after all and everybody knows it doesn't take any brains to be a shepherd right? In fact the less brains the better because no clear thinking individual would dare to take up shepherding if they first thought carefully about it. Shepherds don't get no respect in academia. Nobody wants to read their books, their sermons are clamoring noise, and they can't possibly have anything to contribute that we have not thought about already. right?

Wrong. Either theology serves the formation of the church or it is not Christian. Since preachers are daily on the front lines of forming the church then it follows that they are theologians of the first order. It is time that they are acknowledged as such and empowered to live out their calling instead of lead to question and doubt its significance.

To be fair the above quote is acknowledged by the authors to be slightly hyperbolic. Seminary professors are as essential for doing theology as the preachers. Instead of fighting over who's calling is more significant both must be reminded that their calling ultimately is to build the church.

"As we said earlier, pastors are significant only because of what needs to happen in the church. Now we add that seminary professors like us are significant only because of who pastors need to be." (Ibid.)

June

At the apartment complex that I manage there is an elderly tenant named June. She moved in to her apartment August 1st 1969 and has lived there ever since. At 86 she is a strong independent woman who takes care of herself. Every day she walks through our neighborhood to buy her own groceries. It is a miracle that June can walk at all.

As a child she contracted Polio and the disease twisted her legs and spine. When she was diagnosed her doctor came in the room and said, "June you have Polio. You are never going to walk again. Don't worry. We will put you in a wheel chair and you will still be able to get around." The doctor then briskly left the room.

June was devastated. As a child the thought of being confined to a wheelchair was almost more than she could bear. Right after the doctor left the room one of the nurses came over to June and said, "June you listen to me. You are gonna walk. Tell me that you are gonna walk."

June: "I'm gonna walk."

Nurse: "louder"

June: "I'm gonna walk!"

Nurse: "June say it again. Like you believe it"

June: "I"M GONNA WALK!"

Nurse: "You will walk June. It will be hard at first. You're going to be like a baby, but you will walk."

Learning to walk again was hard. June first had to master standing without swaying. Then once she could stand on her own she had to learn to shuffle her feet. Slowly she did learn to walk again. As June says, "I may not be graceful but I can walk."

June has told me this story dozens of times. At first I thought to myself this woman is senile, she keeps telling me the same story as if I have never heard it before. To be fair there may be an element of senility but I think something deeper is going on. June's story has given meaning and purpose to her life. She has overcome a lot of adversity. She tells me that her goal now is to live to 100. Something tells me that she probably will. Especially as long as she remembers that story.

When I first took over at the Swiss I intentionally avoided June. Her aged crooked body repulsed me. Her cluttered apartment disgusted me. But as I have gotten to know June she has become one of my heroes. I thank God for her story.

The problem with thinking bi-vocationally

If you've ever done this you can smell this image

For summer reading I have been going through Creeds of the Churches, one of those books that you skim through while in seminary because you already know it all, but are finally capable of appreciating once your finished (almost in my case) and realize you didn't have a clue your first time through. While reading the Lutheran confessions this week I read the following definition while in the section titled Articles About Matters In Dispute, In Which Account Is Given Of The Abuses Which Have Been Corrected. Under the section regarding monastic vows Luther writes concerning the Christian life:

"For this is Christian perfection: that we fear God honestly with our whole hearts, and yet have sincere confidence, faith, and trust that for Christ's sake we have a gracious, merciful God; that we may and should ask and pray God for those things of which we have need, and confidently expect help from him in every affliction connected with our particular calling and station in life; and that meanwhile we do good works for others and diligently attend to our calling."
(Creeds, 96)

For whatever reason that quote led to the following thoughts. When considering my future in ministry I have generally come to accept that a season, if not a lifetime, of being bi-vocational will be necessary. The term bi-vocational means basically that I would take a "regular" job in addition to working in "ministry" mostly so that we can make ends meet while pursuing that which God has put in our hearts to do. While in seminary I have already been in a sense bi-vocational because I have worked full time while completing my degree. At first that meant cashiering at Whole Foods and for the past couple of years I have been property manager at the magical Swissaire Apartments.

One reason (among many) that Luther raged against monastic vows was that they had they effect in his day of leading the common man to believe that the religious life was beyond their grasp. Luther writes, "When the common man hears that only mendicants are perfect, he is uncertain whether he can keep his possessions and engage in business without sin" (Creeds, 97). As I read this I thought about how similar the culture of the monastery is to our modern culture of the ministry. Those called to the ministry are holy/religious, the one's with a vocation, while the common person simply exists in a necessarily inferior spiritual/religious state, and ultimately without a vocation.

This division between the ministry as the only truly sacred/religious life, and the experience of the common person as somehow profane/irreligious, is one reason behind talking about being bi-vocational, and for that reason I am increasingly convinced that all such talk is more harmful than helpful. (in the spirit of Luther I should probably say something more like..such talk is repugnant, utterly detestable, and of the most pernicious and damnable character fit only for the devils) If I am thinking bi-vocationally the inevitable result is that one vocation will ultimately be revered over the other. One will be considered a divine calling, while the other will be that particular suffering that I must endure to provide for my more profane needs such as food and shelter. In my experience such a dualism necessarily leads to discontent and stress while performing one's so-called profane vocation. Such discontent then leads to many other forms of vice because when I am on the clock at my profane vocation being spiritual or religious is perceived as not necessary or even possible.

So then what is the solution? The solution is to receive all that God has provided as one's spiritual vocation. Both the one called to the ministry and the common man have received their particular calling and station from God and therefore both have a "spiritual vocation". For me what that means is that clearing a clogged sink is as spiritual as studying/writing papers now, and preparing sermons and organizing ministry activities in the future. I don't want to be bi-vocational, I want to be vocational. I want to be as diligent with the mundane aspects of my life as I am with the sacred. I want to learn to receive everything as part of one glorious and beautiful whole. It's not a case of either or, either I am doing the work of the ministry or I am working to pay the bills. It's not a case balancing two distinct vocations, one sacred the other profane. It's about discovering the dignity and significance of all that God has given one to do and to receive it as a unified whole not creating any false separation between the sacred and profane.