Is A Puzzlement

Okay, enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me? So goes an old—what do you call it—a joke? Me, me, me. It’s been called a narcissism epidemic by some. “The farther east you go, the farther away from ‘I’ you get,” a friend commented to me earlier this year when I tried to explain my spiritual rumbling and rambling of late. Go east, young man. Retreat. Expand your horizons. Let’s talk about us.

Of course I thought about myself a few years ago when someone described a mother and son, new and eager to join in at his good-sized conservative, up tight church in a small east Texas town, as “church hoppers”. The term was new to me. I winced. Me, me, me? I cared then—about how others might perceive me, judge me, assess my worth. In truth, the mind picture I paint of myself probably has little to do with how others see me. I’ve been to a few different churches over the last few years, and each time I’ve felt something missing, and I’ve reminded myself each time that the something missing is in me, about me, and not something that I really want to advertise. That’s what I’ve judged about myself. I’ve measured myself and come up short.

Several years ago, I was asked to serve for a second time on a Cursillo team. My first experience—occurring around the time of the ordination of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church—had left a bitter taste from all of the ugliness that can be mustered when people take up the judgment throne. At the first team meeting, I guess I was loaded for bear—ready and looking to be offended. Not to be disappointed by my expectations—what I had intentioned, I guess—after the first meeting I told the spiritual advisor that my heart just wasn’t in the right place. As it turned out, it was easy enough to be put off by the behavior of some of the others who had been asked to be a part of this long weekend devoted to building Christian discipleship. She observed, “Harold, the problem with the people in church are the people in church”. I get it.

At lunch yesterday, a minister friend assessed, smiling, that the Church is filled with sinners, or something like that. My translation—we’re all in the same boat, and that’s why we are in church, seeking answers. It’s a conundrum—going to church to “change our ways” and yet acting out in the church community the very same behaviors that supposedly drive us into church to begin with. No doubt, we’re all in trouble at times, most times—dishonest (about ourselves to ourselves, at least), willful, selfish, jealous, angry, vindictive.

In the Christian tradition, the list of human behaviors—the Seven Deadly Sins they have been called—includes: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Ah, there’s Me again. What to do about atonement, redemption, salvation, indeed, about sin, we wonder. As the conflicted king opined lyrically about all the changes happening around him in “The King and I”—“Is a puzzlement.” One thing I know, I think, spare me the sin and guilt. During meditation a couple of weeks ago, our leader told the story of a minister’s reply to someone bemoaning how guilty she felt. It went something like this—we don’t do guilt here, but there’s a church down the street where you’ll feel right at home. A little cold, perhaps, but the message is clear. An icon of the crucified Christ that used to hang outside my front door now lies on a bench in my garden shed. I haven’t decided what to do with it. It’s not like I can deconsecrate this place.

I hadn’t thought too much about it until a friend in New Mexico reminded me in a phone conversation while I was on my winter retreat to Texas last February—we’re all on a path. It is our path. We have a right to it. We can own it, and we have to walk it. It’s really not about right or wrong. It’s about the journey. And even though any one of us might look at another’s journey, judging its course—let’s face it, we’re all under one another’s microscope—it’s not up to any one of us to tell someone how to live his life. Do we offer counsel? Has it been asked? Benevolence, compassion, joy and freedom—love, as defined by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. We can offer love. Or we can walk away. And there’s lots of room and choices in between.

“It’s a car wreck, and we’re in it!” I wonder how many times that has been said. People in glass houses—“let him who is without sin”—I am advised to remove the timber from my own eye before addressing the splinter in yours. Are you looking for a handout? Ah, there’s my inroad. Wait a minute, isn’t that me with my hand out? Love the sinner—hate the sin. Apparently that’s not found in the scriptures that those of the inerrant Word like to quote as Authority on how we are to live our lives—from the judgment seat of exclusion and elitism and self-satisfaction, while sporting a timber in the eye. “I’m not perfect, just saved,” say some. Saved from and for what? Oh Lord, save me from your worshippers, especially those who have forgotten to follow you. We’re in this boat together.

I don’t have any answers—just questions. I am a child struggling to be mindful, sometimes remembering to breathe to overcome my doubts—inhale, release—challenged to be in the moment. I’m schooled daily on forgiveness and compassion. I’m advised to forgive myself. That must happen first. I’m learning to ask myself to be fair and that I have a right to ask the same of others. But then, what’s fair? An eye for an eye (in the Hebrew scriptures, Exodus 21:23-27) actually means that if I take someone else’s eye, then I am obliged to give up my own eye—not that if someone challenges me, I have the right to beat the crap out of him—not that when you’re down, my foot should be on your neck. As the joyful little song proclaims—I am blessed, I am loved, I am free free free free free! I may stumble. Nonetheless, the journey continues. That’s our journey.

Is A Puzzlement—Normangee, Texas (July 19, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis