Is God ashamed to be called my God?

          The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews begins chapter eleven with words that have become very familiar to most people who identify as Christian: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (NRSV). The writer then proceeds to describe the faith of four notable characters from the Hebrew scriptures (which we Christians commonly call the Old Testament): Abel, who offered a sacrifice to God that was more acceptable than his brother Cain’s sacrifice and thus fell victim to fratricide; Enoch, who was rewarded for pleasing God by being taken directly into God’s presence without experiencing death; Noah, whose faith in God resulted in the almost universally known story of the ark and the flood; and Abraham, who followed God’s direction to leave his homeland and move himself and all he owned to an unfamiliar land and re-establish himself as the progenitor of a vast number of descendants.

          In verse sixteen, the writer continues: “But as it is, they [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others who act by faith] desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.”

          At this point, I have to re-emphasize that I do not adhere to a literalistic interpretation of scriptures. When I read verse sixteen, I do not assume that a heavenly country refers to a place somewhere in the distant cosmos to which dead souls ascend, nor do I envision a literal city with buildings and walls and streets and such. Actually, I’ve always thought of God as more of a nature-lover myself, but I digress. The intended audience of the writer of Hebrews would have understood “country” and “city” differently from me, not so much as geographic entities and feats of civil engineering, but perhaps instead as places of identity and refuge, of safety and provision—places to which they could relate in their here and now.

          Rather, I believe verse sixteen refers to a state of being—more in this life than the next, really—that results from a life of faith. And in my experience, faith often contradicts belief. Consider this: Do we know what belief system Abel, Enoch, Noah, or even Abraham adhered to? It certainly wasn’t Christianity or Judaism. Neither one of those existed in the time of the aforementioned individuals. Did they follow other religions? Were these men even monotheistic? I don’t know if monotheism even existed in the places and times of those men (ask a historian of ancient religions). It’s unclear to us how they understood God, if they even understood that the one with whom they were dealing was God. However, they must have been known in the time of the writer of Hebrews as icons of faith, otherwise why would the writer have chosen to use them as examples? Isn’t it interesting that the examples chosen were not notable contemporary Jewish or Christian leaders of the writer’s time? Hmmm…

          In my viewpoint, faith is not based on fast, hard evidence gathered through the senses, but rather it is discerned from within. Indeed, I experience the world with my senses—either directly with my own, or indirectly through the stories of others whom I trust as credible—but I process my experiences on an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual level. And then I act on my faith. It drives what I do and how I interact with the world in which I live. My actions are the evidence of my faith (James 2:14-26). Faith motivates from within, even perhaps when the one being motivated—the enactor of actions that result from faith—may not fully understand the source of that motivation. Consider Abram (whose name was later changed to Abraham). We’ve already discussed how we’re not sure what religion or belief system he adhered to, if any. All we know is God spoke to him, he listened, and responded. And thus began his epic relationship with God.

          Faith is not to be confused with beliefs. Beliefs are based on what one has experienced with the senses, either directly or indirectly: I believe XYZ because I have seen/heard/smelled/tasted/felt XYZ, or someone I trust has—or that someone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who… You get the picture. There’s not much internal processing that goes on with beliefs.

          While faith expresses itself in actions, belief expresses itself in doctrine, which leads to sets of rules—usually more don’ts than do’s—and demands conformity and obedience. This legalism tends to close minds and harden hearts, which doesn’t leave much room for faith to inhabit. It motivates from without because the rules are written by people and published in books, both of which can become objects of worship rather than tools for building faith.

Doctrine builds walls, creating an “us” vs “them” mentality, and throws up barriers, dividing and restricting and excluding people. Its goal becomes to correct what is wrong in people, setting them right, putting them on “the straight and narrow” and making sure they follow all the rules. The icons of faith described by the writer of Hebrews apparently had no doctrine that we know of. Only faith in a mysterious monotheistic deity who related to them all on a very personal level.

The writer of 1 John stated “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (4:8) If our faith is in God, and if God is love, and if our actions are driven by our faith, then shouldn’t our actions manifest in those things that are evidence of love? Compassion, mercy, tolerance, inclusivity, protection, acceptance—all those things that make us feel loved and wanted? But what if our actions do not demonstrate our faith? Are we not responsible to each other, as members of a community of faith, to hold each other accountable for such inconsistencies? Aren’t we, as Christians, to emulate the one whose name we adopt, who demonstrated for us what faith in God is really all about?

Yet how far we fall short of that emulation. Our words proclaim our faith, yet so often our actions don’t show it. We lionize politicians who advocate policies of violence, oppression, exclusion, and environmental destruction. We glorify the rich and vilify the poor. We most certainly do not treat the aliens among us as our own. We complain about sharing the burden to heal the sick, calling it socialism. We capitalize off of war and weapons when Jesus clearly said “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) We neglect children because they do not look or speak like us, or because their families do not make as much money as we do, when Jesus commanded “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Jesus identified his family as his disciples and those who do the will of God (Matthew 12:49-50), yet so many Christians want to legislate how individuals build their own families, even when those individuals feel that God has built that family through love.

Which brings us now to the title of this blog: Is God ashamed to be called my God? Are my actions congruent with my faith? Will others know God through what I do? Or am I obsessed with doctrine, with having the right set of beliefs? Am I motivated from within—by my own, personal experience of God—or from without, by rules and regulations and peer pressure and intellectual interpretations of words written on a page thousands of years ago in languages I do not understand and in places foreign to me?

The Christian belief system holds that one day I will stand before God—as if I don’t already every day?—and give an account of my life, and thereafter receive God’s judgment. If in the end it all comes down to that literal scenario, more than anything I can imagine, I would want to hear God say, “Mark, you may not have had the belief system worked out quite correctly, but you sure did your best to act nice and loving toward me, and toward others, and toward my creation. Welcome!” I don’t want God to be ashamed to be called my God. How about you?

Is God laughing at me?

          An old Yiddish proverb states “Man plans, God laughs.” While I don’t think this aphorism should be taken literally—I doubt if God takes our hopes and dreams that lightly—I do think there’s some truth to be found in its humor. One of the spiritual lessons I’ve learned time and time again throughout my life is that the timeline I create for myself isn’t always in sync with God’s timeline for me. And despite consistent evidence that God’s timeline for me is better than my own, I still have trouble resting in faith, knowing and believing that God will provide.

          As a child I learned in Sunday school about the manna from heaven, described in the Hebrew book of Exodus, chapter 16. The Israelites were only a couple of months free from their bondage in ancient Egypt, wandering the vast wasteland of the Sinai (I’ve been there, about twenty-six years ago; it’s not the kind of place one wants to be lost in). They were hungry, tired, and discouraged, and as most humans are inclined to do, they complained to the human in charge, Moses. Moses took their complaints to his boss, who told Moses he would provide sustenance for the people, with some conditions: first, he would provide only as much as they needed—no more, no less; and second, if they took more than they were allotted, it would spoil. So in the evenings, flocks of quail descended on their camps so they could have meat, and in the mornings, a flaky bread-like substance covered the ground. On the day before the Sabbath they were allowed to gather enough for two days, so that they could rest on the Sabbath. Still lost, yes, but hungry no more, the Israelites spent the next forty years forming their identity as a distinct ethnicity and culture in the ancient world.

          Later in the Hebrew Scriptures, in 1 Kings 17, we read the story of Elijah, a prophet of God visiting a town where a widow lived with her son during a time of intense drought. Elijah asked her for a cup of water and some bread, and the widow replied that she had only enough flour and oil to make one more loaf of bread for her and her son to have their last meal before they starved (there was no social welfare system in that age; widows and orphans were left to fend for themselves, and in a culture that treated women and children as chattel, the fending often wasn’t so good). Elijah assured her that her food would not run out before the drought ended, then he instructed her to make two loaves of bread, a small one for him and the rest for her and her son. The widow complied, and sure enough, there was enough oil and flour to last them until the rains came again.

          In both of these stories, God provided to the people in need just what they needed, and just when they needed it. Can you imagine, though, the anxiety the Israelites in the wilderness and the widow must have felt before they realized that God would, indeed, provide for them? I’ve never been on the verge of death by starvation, but I can imagine it’s not a good place to be. And I can also imagine that, being humans, the Israelites and the widow still experienced some anxiety after their needs were met, thinking to themselves, “OK, when will this run out? What will I do then?” It’s natural to feel anxious about our physical needs; that anxiety is one thing that helps us survive.

          In both stories, a little work was involved after God’s promise was made clear. The Israelites had to go out and gather the manna, and the widow had to go home and cook. Neither got breakfast in bed served by the angels.

          In another story, though, the people experiencing the anxiety were reprimanded for their lack of faith and pretty much told to just be still and quiet (I wanted to write “sit down and shut up,” but that’s not God’s way of communicating). Both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark give an account of Jesus on a boat with several of his disciples. A storm brews, and the boat is rocked violently enough to make the disciples fear for their lives. Jesus, however, was sound asleep. His panicked followers wake him and demand that he do something about the situation, at which point Jesus rouses himself, lectures his disciples on their lack of faith, then calms the storm. The disciples are amazed that even the winds and the sea obey this man they call Teacher.

          I feel sort of sorry for the disciples. I’ve never experienced stormy seas, but I’ve flown through storms that I thought might be the end of me at 35,000 feet. To feel anxiety is human; to feel calm in a storm is Divine. So being reprimanded for feeling anxious seems a little harsh to me. Then again, Jesus didn’t really reprimand them for what they felt, but rather for what they didn’t feel. And therein lies the lesson: It’s OK for us to feel anxious during stressful times—undesired change, natural disasters, economic downturns, whatever—but we can’t let our anxiety cloud our faith that God is in control and will provide for us. Our faith, no matter how small, has to be just a little bigger than our fear. Even if that difference is miniscule, faith will triumph, because faith even as small as a mustard seed can move mountains (Matthew 17:20).

          I am experiencing a time of big change in my life right now. It is a desired, welcomed change: I resigned a full-time, tenured position at a community college to pursue a new career. I’m giving myself the rest of this year to acquire new skills and knowledge, and half of next year to secure gainful employment—either working for myself or for someone else—before I look at my “fallbacks” (academic advising/counseling and teaching English as a second language). But as I wrote in the first paragraph, “Man [I] plans, God laughs.” I wonder sometimes if God is laughing at me for making such a definite timeline. Or, is God proud of me for listening to my heart and not my head, for seeking his words of wisdom for me and not the world’s (which would tell me I’m foolish to leave a tenured position to go independent)?

          While I’m enjoying my new path, learning things that engage parts of me that haven’t been engaged in a very long time, and feeling assurance that my decision was right for me, I do feel afraid from time to time. Today was my first day to not have health insurance, so I signed up on the California health care exchange. I’ve heard both good stories and bad about people’s experiences with that, so I’m nervous. And while I’m financially on solid ground for the time being, I wonder what will happen if an unexpected expense occurs that drains my savings.

          Then I remember the Israelites in the wilderness, gathering only as much manna as they needed every day. And the widow, who went from the verge of death by starvation to having just enough to eat until the drought ended. And the disciples on the boat, who got afraid when the storm came but ended up feeling amazed by the power of their rabbi. And all the times in the past fifty years (what I can remember of them, anyway) when God provided for me. I have never been hungry, never been destitute, never been homeless, never been without enough income—not an abundance, usually, but always enough—and never so sick or injured that I incurred outrageous medical expenses. I am blessed by overall good health right now; by access to learning opportunities to change my career; by a domestic arrangement that includes a loving, supportive, and nurturing partner; by a church family that accepts me just as I am; and by a four-legged psychologist who provides some of the best therapy ever in return for belly rubs, ear scratches, and long walks in the park.

          God might laugh at my plans, indeed. But the curious thing is, when God’s plan for me unfolds, I laugh, too. Not out of derision, but out of relief. For God’s plans have always—ALWAYS—been better than my plans for myself. To borrow a bumper sticker cliché: I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.  So bring it on, God. Make me laugh.

A Page in the Book

          Almost sixteen years ago to the day, I ended one of the most significant experiences of my adult life: I returned to the United States after having been an expatriate in the Republic of Korea for seven and a half years (eight and a half including a prior experience there). For the geographically challenged, the Republic of Korea is most commonly called South Korea here in the West, although citizens of the RoK do not call themselves South Koreans, for it is a reminder of the painfully ongoing separation that peninsula endures because of the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, on the 38^th parallel, drawn by national superpowers in the early 1950’s to separate the “communist” north from the (mostly) democratic south.

          It was surreal to live in a nation that was, and still is, technically at war with its only neighbor. Almost every month there were civil defense drills. When the air raid sirens sounded, vehicles were supposed to pull over, and pedestrians were required to take cover in buildings or beneath trees or bus stop canopies, or in subways and underground shopping arcades. Armed soldiers and police officers, and civilian volunteers wearing bright yellow vests, would blow a whistle and give you a citation if you did not comply. Many Koreans did not, so used to the drill were they, and so oblivious of the fear and suffering their elders had faced during the conflict in their homeland. I and other expatriates were urged to have an escape plan; indeed, I participated in a training on a US military base outlining an evacuation plan should expatriate civilians be required to leave the country at a moment’s notice. During my sojourn in Korea, a North Korean pilot defected to the South in his Russian-built jet plane. A North Korean mini-sub was found on the northeast shores of the South, its sailors missing. And on a mountaintop near the city where I lived, South Korean soldiers cornered and killed a North Korean infiltrator. All the while, my friends and I ate ice cream, met in coffee shops, watched K-pop music videos, played games in arcades, hiked to peaceful Buddhist temples, had picnics, and went about our business, fully aware of the events going on around us, yet fully confident that should the North ever break through the DMZ and invade the South, they would immediately drop their guns and fill their hungry bellies with the bounty found in South Korean markets, realizing that their Great Leader had been lying to them all along.

          Political demonstrations were commonplace in the 1990’s in Korea. Every time I came back to the US to visit, my friends and family asked me if I felt it was a dangerous place to live. The fact is that South Korea was probably one of the safest places to live. The demonstrators had no bone to pick with me, even if they were tromping on US flags, burning effigies of the US president, and shouting “Yankee, go home!” They were able to separate in their minds the individual American from the policies and policy-makers of our country. I lived amongst them; I worked at a Korean university; I made feeble yet sincere attempts at speaking their language; I ate their food and actually enjoyed it (after I got used to it). So no, I never felt I was in any danger. The only time during all the years I was there I ever had a negative encounter, it was from a man who was obviously drunk, and even then, the gestures were verbal only. The murder rate in South Korea at the time was extremely low. When a homicide occurred, it was most frequently by stabbing or poisoning, and most often the perpetrator knew the victim. Koreans were not allowed to own guns without meeting very stringent regulations (Imagine that! Strict gun control results in a low murder rate!).

          Living abroad made me both humbly proud and horribly ashamed to be an American. I saw the prosperity and security that the South enjoyed, due in part to the contributions of the US government and military. I witnessed the great good that generations of American missionaries and humanitarians had done there. Several times older Koreans thanked me for the sacrifices made by US military personnel during the Korean Conflict. But I also saw the ugliness of American military and economic imperialism. A huge chunk of prime real estate in Seoul, the capital city, is occupied by a US military base. I saw military personnel treating local people rudely. I heard stories from Korean young people about their parents and relatives, mostly poor farmers eking out a living in rice paddies, suffering due to trade negotiations manipulated by large American corporations. And I watched as Western materialism and individualism seeped into Korean culture, not by force, but by seduction. I will confess that sometimes, when asked where I was from, I deflected with the answer “Texas” and then pursued a conversation about cowboys and barbecue, because I did not want to acknowledge my citizenship.

          I’m not saying that Korea is full of pure-hearted innocents who have been corrupted by American blue-eyed devils. Some of the most racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, religiously bigoted people I have ever met were in Korea. I saw more public fistfights in Korea than anywhere else, and some of those fights involved women. The rape culture there is abominable, the result of a culture that has long treated women as chattel. Koreans consider the king, one’s father, and one’s teacher (historically only males) as equal. That’s rooted in the philosophy of Confucius, a Chinese man not known for being an equal rights champion. When I lived there, it was illegal for a doctor to tell a woman the sex of her unborn child. Too many women had been opting for abortions upon learning the fetus in their womb was female. Physical perfection was idealized; I seldom saw people with physical disabilities in public unless they were begging on the streets. Adopting children was unheard of because bloodlines were so important to Koreans. And if a couple divorced, the father usually got custody of the children, who most often had no further contact with their mothers. I know a young Korean man who learned after becoming an adult that his birth mother was not dead, as he had been told throughout his life, but that she and his father had divorced when he was only a baby and she had moved away.

          Those were sad realities in a nation that was extremely hospitable to me, a nation that made me feel welcomed and comfortable and treated me almost like a minor celebrity. A nation that never, ever would have accepted me fully into its ranks because I didn’t look like them, because Korean blood didn’t flow through my veins, because I couldn’t experience the han, the collective angst that all Koreans possess by virtue of simply being Korean. I found that reality to be both disturbing and relieving at the same time, for while I longed to feel a sense of identity when I was there, to belong, I knew that I personally could never feel comfortable calling Korea my permanent home. It was a lovely, wonderful, memorable stop on my journey, but it was not my destination.

          And I think that I would have had the same feeling, no matter where I had landed to spend the decade of the nineties. Take away our passports and our traditional clothing, strip away our political leanings and religious affiliations, feed us food not spiced by traditions and regional produce, and give us all a common language, and what you end up with is a planet swarming with nothing but simple humans who all have the same needs and wants: to feel safe, healthy, and not hungry or thirsty; to love and be loved; to be who we are and become all that we know we can be; and to belong to a family, no matter how we define it.

          Who I am today is in large part defined by my experience in Korea. I’m proud of the fact that I not only survived, but I thrived in a context where the language and culture were so different from what I’d known previously. Others who have lived abroad get this: missionaries, diplomats, some military personnel, international educators and business professionals, we all understand what it’s like to leave what we know for the unknown and integrate that experience into our being. People who have never lived abroad get it, and only those who have travelled extensively can relate. Saint Augustine of Hippo said it best: “The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read only a page.” Can you imagine, holding a wonderful book in your hands, and reading the same page over and over and over again? You’d never know the whole story, you’d miss out on all its characters and places, and you’d begin to think that the one page you know so well is the only page in the book. Yet how many people in our world, even right here in the US, are stuck on the one page they know, too afraid to keep reading and learning and knowing, afraid that what they will find will challenge all they know and strip away their identity.

          But it’s an unfounded fear. Tear one page out of a book, and the entire book is ruined. All of the pages are equally valid and necessary for the entire story to be told. For me, Texas had its page. And then Korea. And later, Tennessee and Southern California and Oregon. And now, Northern California. I don’t want to get stuck on any one page. I want to keep reading, to know how the story unfolds, to go back and reread some pages, and to leave some pages read only once. All of the pages are part of the story of who we are, both individually and collectively, and the great Author of the stories is still writing. Honor the Author’s work, and keep on reading!

A Theology of Love

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7 NRSV

          I grew up in a church that gave me a good foundation for my faith. Elder saints, including my parents, taught me the stories and verses from the Bible that helped me learn the history of the Jewish people and introduced me to the Jewish man upon whom my faith tradition is based. And they modeled the love and compassion that Jesus expressed to others. These were simple country folk, for the most part, without a sophisticated world view and a complicated theology. The church tended to have a fairly literal interpretation of the scriptures and a conservative approach to living out their faith. There were no female pastors or deacons; drinking alcohol, dancing, and gambling were strictly forbidden; and for the longest time, women were discouraged from wearing pants to church, if at all. And we never, ever openly discussed s-e-x. The emphasis seemed to be on having the right belief system, or orthodoxy. We believed that right actions would naturally result from espousing the “right” doctrine.

          The problem with such an approach to the Christian faith is that there are so many sets of “right” beliefs and doctrines within the Christian community. There are schisms created between Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox believers. There are divisions based on one’s eschatology, or one’s beliefs about the final events of human history. The issue of slavery divided the Christian church for hundreds of years. Interracial marriage created divisions in the mid-twentieth century. And today, churches are divided over the full inclusion of GLBT individuals and their right to marry the person of their choice, as well as the issue of a woman’s right to control her own body.

          If the twenty-first century church is to not just survive, but to thrive, we must overcome this fixation on orthodoxy and instead focus on orthopraxy, the right way of doing. When Jesus dwelt among us, he didn’t preach to others about right beliefs. Instead, he focused both his messages and his practices on doing right—right by others, right by self, and most importantly, right by God. Jesus didn’t try to convert Gentiles to Judaism, or one sect of Jews to another sect. He just said, “Follow me.” In other words, Do as I do. And what did Jesus do but feed the hungry, heal the sick, and embrace the outcast in peace and love. The writer of 1 John hit the nail on the head with one sentence: Love is from God, so we should love one another, and that’s how we’ll know who is “right” with God.

          But we all know how very, very difficult it is to love one another. Let’s face it: there are some very unlovable people out there. I myself have a very hard time loving mean people. It doesn’t matter who they are socio-economically; a mean rich person, a mean homeless person, a mean Democrat or a mean Republican, a mean man or a mean woman or a mean child, a mean white person or a mean person of color, a mean liberal or a mean conservative. I just have a hard time loving people who are mean toward others, whether in action or attitude. The flip side of this quandary is that I then have some very mean thoughts toward those mean people. And mean thoughts often result in mean actions. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, indeed (see John 8:7).

          My Christianity has changed considerably since my childhood church days. I don’t see God as an old white man anymore, but rather as a genderless spirit of pure light and love who inhabits all of his/her creation. I see Jesus as a Palestinian Jew and not a fair-haired, fair-skinned European man. I recognize that the Old Testament stories are based on hundreds of generations of oral history that was influenced by a number of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures and languages, and not eyewitness accounts recorded by ancient journalists. I acknowledge the fact that the New Testament scriptures were selected from a great collection of letters and accounts by men in power, and that the voices of women and minorities were greatly overlooked. I realize now that the interpretations of these scriptures must take into account their linguistic, cultural, and historical contexts in order to fully understand and bring them to life for our present day realities. And I fully believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a set of four books in the New Testament, but the Good News that Jesus proclaimed: that God loves us enough to give up everything for us, to overlook our shortcomings and imperfections and cover us with incomprehensible grace, and inspire us to love each other as God loves us, thereby resulting in “right” actions toward each other.

          In the Old Testament, God expressed God’s self to the world through God’s chosen people, the Jews. In the New Testament, God expressed God’s self to the world through God’s only son, Jesus. And now, God expresses God’s self in the world through the Christ-Spirit, the spirit of love and mercy and compassion and forgiveness and joy that permeates the world, every language, culture, place, and religion. The writer of 1 John didn’t say, “If you espouse this set of beliefs and hold these tenets of the doctrine dear, then you are born of God and you know God.” He (or she, who knows for sure?) said, “…everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”      

          The Apostle Paul is credited with writing that we are saved by grace, and not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet, also allegedly according to Paul, we will be judged by what we have done (2 Corinthians 5:10). The two statements seem contradictory, don’t they? Here’s my interpretation: grace is a gift, freely available to all who will open their minds and hearts to it. It is not a reward that can be earned (as many Christians seem to preach). But I see “Judgment Day” as the day we enter into the eternal presence of God, with those who have done good in their lives—loving others as God loves us—getting to sit a little closer to God at the metaphorical table, no matter who they are—Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, rich, poor, gay, straight, whoever—than those who were more focused on having the right belief systems and doctrines, and who were obsessed with being the “right” person before God based on their doctrinal affiliations. Obsessing about the right belief system leads to pride, which is a sin, which separates us from God. But those who possess the spirit of Christ—whether they are aware of it as such or not—will display the Spirit’s fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). There is no law against such things, so these must be what God is looking for in one who is born of God and knows God, right?

          The late writer and poet Maya Angelou, who passed away just this last week, wrote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” All people want to feel loved; when we feel judged, we don’t feel loved. That’s not to say we should refrain from discerning and calling out beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that are harmful towards others. Such discernment is what spurs Christians toward activism leading to social justice for the poor and the oppressed. But when Christians judge others through the lens of their own rigidly defined set of beliefs and doctrines to the point where the result is oppression and harm to the one being judged, it becomes clear that the motivation is not love at all, but rather fear—which is the opposite of love (see 1 John 4:18). Judgment and fear are most certainly not fruits of the spirit of Christ.

          Right actions don’t always result from right beliefs; just look at the abominable way some Christians treat women, the poor, and GLBT individuals. But might it be possible that right beliefs always result from right actions? That loving others unconditionally and unselfishly naturally results in bringing us closer to the heart of God? That actively pursuing the fruits of the spirit of Christ will bring us into fellowship with God and God’s people? And when we arrive at that point, might we then realize that God’s people—those who are born of God and know God—represent a much broader community of humanity than we originally believed? Those who know God are better able to see others as God sees them. This renewed perception makes loving others, as well as ourselves, a little bit easier.

          I suppose this theology of love can be summed up pretty simply: Do your best to love God, love yourself, love others, and love creation unconditionally. By doing so, you’ll be drawn closer to the mind and heart of God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:8 NRSV

Born to Wander

          I have long been an enthusiast of personality archetypes (see my post of July 8, 2013). While I believe they are useful tools for introspection, self-discovery, and personal development, I do not believe they should be used to typecast and pigeonhole other people; human beings are simply too complex to be lumped into one of a handful of descriptions. However, with greater self-awareness comes a deeper insight into the inclinations, motivations, and inherent worth of other people, thus leading to greater mutual understanding.

          Lately I’ve discovered the enneagram types, a system based on ancient wisdom that has been updated by many adherents to be relevant to our modern-day historical, cultural, and scientific contexts. I’ve taken several of the free online assessments, and gotten several different results. But after reading descriptions of the nine types and responding to statements that resonate strongly with me, I’ve decided that my dominant type is Seven, called by some the Adventurer and by others the Enthusiast. Sevens desire life to be fun and exciting, and they want to make it so for others. Sevens are often entertainers, storytellers, event planners, travel agents, and the like. For a Seven, the world is rich with the potential for wonder, excitement, discovery, and adventure, and we want to bring others along for the ride.

          Adventure often entails risk. While I’ve never been much of a risk-taker—I avoided engaging in physically risky activities such as contact sports, skiing, and the like—I have embraced risk in other ways: through travel, exploration, new hobbies and pursuits, academic challenges, relocation, and vicariously through reading, television, film, and the internet. We Sevens get bored easily. Just look at my resume, and you’ll see that staying in one place for too long is not my habit. The thought of working for decades for the same employer abhors me, especially because there’s so much else out there for me to discover and learn. I spent the first twenty years of my life in the same small town, in only three different houses, and remember often longing for the day when I could be free from that confined existence. Before I ever set foot in another country (I was in high school the first time I left the US—for a day trip into Canada—and in college the first time I flew in an airplane, to Mexico), I read about far-away places and their people and dreamed of experiencing those places and people for myself.

          In addition to craving adventure and excitement, many Sevens desire to be in the limelight. That’s what attracted me to drama club and band in high school, and theater classes in college. That’s why I like to write, not to create a critically-acclaimed work of great literature (Write to appeal to literati snobs? Not me!), but to inform, inspire, and entertain others with my storytelling. And I think for me, teaching was performing. I wasn’t as concerned about the psychological processes of the teaching-learning experience, or the positive impact I was making on future generations, as I was about bringing learning to life for my students and making the experience stimulating and exciting for them. As a professional educator, I recognize the value of curriculum design and learning assessment—but let’s not take the fun out of it, because if it ain’t fun, it ain’t worth doing…to a Seven, anyway.

          I’m convinced that had I been born hundreds of years ago, I would have been an explorer, setting sail for the New World or the South Pacific or the Far East, discovering for myself their mysterious, beautiful places and people. And if I were to be born hundreds of years from now, I would most likely be an interstellar traveler, just like the characters in the Star Trek television shows, films, and novels I love so much. Sometimes I fantasize about what role I would have on a starship such as the Enterprise: Would I be a ship’s historian, cataloging and categorizing the crews’ discoveries? A xenologist, studying alien cultures and specializing in first contact? Maybe I’d be in charge of crew training and development, equipping personnel to perform their duties as efficiently as possible. I’d certainly not be in command; I don’t enjoy being in charge and giving orders to others. Nor would I be in engineering; science was always too concrete and detail-oriented for me. And security? Not for me; I’m too sensitive to pain to inflict it on others or experience it myself. I wouldn’t be ship’s counselor, either. While I like helping people with their problems occasionally, doing so day in and day out is mentally, emotionally, and physically draining for me…not to mention just plain boring.

          The paragraph immediately preceding this one demonstrates one of my secondary enneagram types, number Four: The Romantic. Romantics tend to live in the past and/or the future, neglecting to fully live in the moment. That would be one of my weaknesses: Focusing too much on what could be and not enough on what is. As a goal for personal growth, I need to learn to live more in the moment, to see the excitement and adventure in life as it is now. One of my goals this year, now that I’ve left the confines of a full-time role as an academic counselor, is to focus on acquiring the skills and knowledge I need to achieve my next career goals and not let boredom or insecurity get in the way (it was insecurity, in part, that led me to climb the academic career ladder in the first place). The great voyages of discovery in the past required careful planning and patience, and so it is with my own, new voyage of discovery into online teaching and web design. Planning, patience, and perseverance are all part of the adventure, too.

          It has been said that the journey is more important than the destination. For me, there is adventure and excitement in both, for at the end of one journey lies the beginning of the next. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “…not all who wander are lost.” Perhaps I’m just one of those who was born to wander.

Reviewing my Statement of Faith

          This morning our church service honored and recognized five teenagers who completed the confirmation class last fall and who decided to continue their faith journeys by affirming their baptisms and joining the church as full members. Part of the process of confirmation was writing a personal faith statement. It was touching and inspiring to hear several of the faith statements read aloud, and it reminded me of the faith statement I wrote when I first joined St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in February 2008. So I looked up my statement, written almost six years ago, and examined it to see how it has changed over the years. Below is my original faith statement with additions and comments inserted in [brackets] and italics. I figure if those young people at my church are brave enough to share their faith statements with the congregation, I can be brave, too.

Mark Isham

Statement of Faith

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Pleasant Hill, California

February 2008

On God

I believe in God, creator of everything that was, is, and is to come. To me, that which I can experience with my five senses, both directly and indirectly, is evidence of God’s work and presence in this world and beyond.

I believe in God’s love and care for me as an individual. My own life history and its events, circumstances, and characters are evidence of God’s ever-present involvement with and concern for my life.

I believe in God’s love and care for others. The convictions and stirrings within my heart are evidence to me that God works within me to express love and care toward others, and I see events and circumstances in the lives of others that convince me of God’s love and concern for them.

On Jesus

I believe that Jesus is an actual historic figure, present on this earth some two thousand years ago in Judea, and that the reality of his existence is verified by Biblical accounts and other historic documents.

I believe that Jesus was the embodiment of the spirit of God to the world at that time, God’s representative to the world and known as God’s Son. I base this belief on the words of Jesus himself as we understand them through modern interpretations of the New Testament.

I believe that Jesus came to show us a better way to relate to God, a way through the acceptance of God’s love and grace toward us, and not through mere laws and rituals, and that this message of Jesus resulted in his crucifixion [at the hands of religious authorities who felt their power and control were threatened by Jesus’ message of love, grace, and inclusion]. I believe that Jesus died for all our sins, and that all sin is rooted in either fear, selfish ambition, or the desire to attain God’s grace by our own works. This belief is based on Scripture, church tradition and teachings, and my own meditations.

I believe Jesus did, indeed, rise from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, and that this miracle is a sign of the promise I have of eternal existence in fellowship with God and all others to whom God has extended the privilege of fellowship. [I believe that God has already extended the privilege to all persons in all times--past, present, and future--as a gift of grace, which is the Good News of the Gospel, and that many who claim to be followers of Christ would limit that gift only to those who adopt their own brand of Christianity. In my viewpoint, this is heresy.]

I believe that the world as we know it will, indeed, end someday by God’s decree, although I do not claim to know when or how it will occur [nor does any other human being know this now or ever].

On the Holy Spirit

I believe that the Holy Spirit is God’s continued presence in the world, and that the Holy Spirit’s primary vessels for the expression of God’s love and care to the world are the church, being the individuals who comprise the universal fellowship of believers in Jesus as Christ.

However, I believe the Holy Spirit works in the hearts and minds of various individuals in different ways with different manifestations, even in the hearts and minds of those who do not adhere to the Christian tradition.

I believe that the Holy Spirit is the guide on an individual’s journey of faith toward God, and that I may serve only as a companion-advisor in another person’s journey. I believe that individuals might be guided by the Holy Spirit even though those individuals are not aware that they are being guided by God’s Spirit.

On the Church

As Christ was the embodiment of God’s spirit in his time, so I believe the church is the embodiment of Christ in our time [as well as others whom God chooses to call and who choose Christ-like attitudes and actions]. As John said about Christ, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him,” so I believe that the church’s charge is not to condemn the world, but to continue the saving work of God begun by Jesus by expressing God’s love and care to others without condition, following Jesus’ example and extending grace to all, thereby building God’s kingdom on earth.

On my individual relationship with God through faith in Jesus

My own faith journey started from the beginning of my life. I was raised by Christian parents who were involved in the life of their church. I attended services and Sunday school all through my childhood and adolescence. Indeed, I have never stopped attending church throughout my life. I have been involved in various roles in churches of several different denominations, but primarily Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian. I even earned my undergraduate degree at a Christian university.

But as regularly flying in an airplane does not make one an airline pilot, neither does regular attendance and involvement in church mean one has a close relationship with God. I would say that the most meaningful moments I have spent with God were not in church, but rather in the quietness of my home or room, or in a beautiful natural setting such as a mountaintop or a forest glade or along a coastline or while watching a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. Those are the times when I have truly felt God’s presence both within me and outside of me.

The biggest challenge I have faced in my faith development is my personal identity and how others perceive me. Growing up gay in a small, conservative town in Texas in the 1970’s and 80’s was not easy, and for the longest time I believed that there was something in me that needed fixing, that I needed to first change myself in order to be worthy of God’s grace. To make a very long story as short as possible, I prayed and prayed for that change, and nothing happened. Then I prayed for God to help me accept myself with conditions, and nothing happened. Then I finally prayed for God to help me accept myself as I am, and the burden was finally lifted. I believe that was the first time in my life that I experienced God’s love and grace toward me in a very real and personal way. I respect the journeys that other Christian people have experienced and what they have come to understand about God through their journeys [as long as those understandings do not cause harm to others], and I expect them to respect my journey as evidence of God’s love and grace in my life.

On my role as a member at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

As a member of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, I will contribute of my time, talents, and finances as I am able. I will do my best to treat other members of the congregation with love and respect, and I expect the same of them in return. I will support the pastors, elders, deacons, and staff with my prayers and words of encouragement. I will seek to use my natural and spiritual gifts to contribute to the life of the church. I will prayerfully consider requests that are made of me, and either accommodate those requests, or respectfully decline them, as I am led by the Spirit. [NOTE: I will soon complete my first year as a deacon at St. Andrew’s. I have learned much about serving others…but especially about how to make coffee for large numbers of people. LOL].

Following the Glad Path

            Big news: I have officially become a mid-life career changer. Well, not exactly a career-changer. I’m staying within the field of education, but the path I’m about to travel is quite different from anything I’ve done as an educator yet.

The decision to leave my full-time counseling position at the end of this semester has been a long time coming. About four years ago I realized that counseling was not what I wanted to do for the long term. At the time, though, I didn’t know what I wanted to do instead. I toyed with the idea of voice acting, but after taking a few voice acting classes, I learned how competitive that industry is. Then I explored copyediting, even finishing a certificate in copyediting from the University of California San Diego Extension. By the end of the program, however, I had realized that working for the publishing industry probably wouldn’t be a good fit for me. Completing the certificate did help me improve my own writing skills, though, and it reminded me of how much I used to enjoy teaching English as a second language. So after taking a refresher course in teaching English to speakers of other languages, I decided that returning to teaching ESL was the route to go. After speaking privately with one of my supervisors, though, I decided to give counseling one more year.

          Then last summer, after unexpectedly finding extra time on my hands, I took another course through UCSD Extension, Introduction to Online Learning. It was very interesting, and immediately afterwards I took the second course in the six-course certificate program. Those courses introduced me to instructional design. I started reading some books and exploring websites on my own, and the more I discovered, the more right it felt for me.

          Instructional design synthesizes most of my interests and skills as an educator: theories and best practices in teaching and learning; audio and video production; writing and copyediting; and multimedia and educational technologies. It is more creative than counseling, more tactile and active, and it is more project- and product-based, resulting in a tangible outcome in the form of an online class or workshop. And it’s dynamic: learning is assessed and revisions are made on an ongoing basis, so the product and process don’t become stagnant.

          Instructional design also appeals to my inner geek. I’m fascinated by anything technological, even if I don’t have a clue as to how it works. But that’s OK, because instructional design isn’t about the technology; it’s about the teaching and learning that occur in digital environments and how human beings make virtual connections to construct learning collaboratively within those environments.

          So 2014 will be a year of transition for me. I’ve made a plan: By the end of the year, I will complete the certificate in online teaching through UCSD Extension. I will also take a couple of classes at the community college where I work now. I’ll investigate professional associations for instructional design, including the American Society for Training and Development, and maybe even find a conference to attend. And I’m considering looking for an internship in instructional design early next year.

          This will be the first time in my life that I will be using social media to explore job opportunities and promote myself. This blog connects with my Facebook account, and anyone interested can find me easily on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mjisham/. Another of my 2014 goals is to get a personal website up and running, which will offer another digital venue for self-promotion.

          Besides pursuing the certificate, training in instructional design, and creating my own website, I plan to give some attention to a couple of book projects that have been languishing in the cobwebs of my mind for far too long. The characters in those stories are clamoring to get out.

          And I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Obama and the supporters of the Affordable Care Act for helping to make this decision possible. The main reason I left teaching twelve years ago is because I felt pressure (mostly from myself) to find a full-time job with a retirement plan and health benefits, which were not offered in the term-to-term assignments I had as an ESL teacher. Thanks to the ACA, I can afford to pay for my own health insurance, and maybe even explore the “American dream” of being self-employed. Yes, I may have to work until I’m eighty before I can retire, but if I’m doing work that I find enjoyable and fulfilling--work that matches my skills, interests, values, and personality--then work will be a pleasure.

          In the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, there is a First Nations proverb on the wall in one exhibit that reads, “Follow the path that makes your heart feel glad.” As a person of faith, I believe that if we listen to our hearts as well as our heads, then we will be blessed and become all that we are meant to be. And who says we have to stay on the same path for the rest of our lives? For many, there is joy in following various paths to explore new avenues of self-discovery. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings that “…not all those who wander are lost…” Eighty is twenty-nine years away for me, so Lord willing, that’s a lot of paths to travel. As I begin my journey on this new path, I pray that my heart finds its song, along with the courage to go in directions that make it feel glad.