Year: 2012

It’s 6:32. The sky on the other side of the sliding glass doors is still dark. I left one of the doors open so the dogs could come and go. They were stuck inside all night, and the small one, Sparta, has a tiny bladder. People mistake her for a Jack Russell all the time, but she’s actually a miniature rat terrier.

The rest of the house is quiet and dark. The soft, yellow light from the kitchen track lights high up in the vaulted ceiling doesn’t turn the corner and creep down the short hallway very far. It certainly doesn’t reach the three small bedrooms and single bathroom at the end. There are five egg whites sizzling in a skillet on the stove. They have to be cooked slowly or they’ll stick to the pan; it’s time to start thinking about replacing some of our cheaper pieces of kitchenware.

There’s a decorative mirror hanging on the beige wall in the kitchen. The mirror is useful because I can get breakfast ready and work on the length of my tie at the same time. I’ve been wearing ties to work for over two years, but professional attire still doesn’t come natural.

My wife would love to get up and fix my omelet for me, but I can’t seem to make myself wake her up. She’ll get up on her own before I leave anyway. When she does she’ll complain with honest but mild irritation that I should get her up to help out in the early mornings. She loves to feel needed, but she works evenings at Starbucks. She’s also eight months pregnant. She needs to rest, and I’m not in a hurry.

When the eggs are finished and my tie looks right I sit down at the kitchen table to eat. I’ve stuffed the omelet with green peppers and mushrooms, and I have a piece of whole wheat toast with local honey smeared across it on the side. The coffee is black, pressed, and steaming.

Our table seats four. It’s a modern style – dark imitation wood, straight edges, rectangular, smooth. It might look expensive if the finish wasn’t so splotchy and chipped. Most of that is my fault. I can be absent minded about the objects I set directly on the tabletop. For instance, there are several faded spots exactly the size of our French press, but my wife is incredibly gracious about those sorts of things. She’s told me more than once I’m the dumbest smart person she knows, and she shakes her head and grins slightly out of the corner of her mouth when she says it. Some mutual friends of ours introduced us at a Super Bowl party, and the first remark she ever made to me was a sarcastic comment about how sparse my facial hair was. I knew immediately that I was going to marry her.

Of the four chairs at the table, I choose the spot that faces the sliding glass doors. The sun is beginning to rise on the front side of the house, so the backyard is lighting up gradually. There are large, overgrown knockout rose bushes just off the deck. Thistly branches with dark green foliage are twisting and curling around the railing. I know they need to be pruned, but even this late in the summer they are full of huge, blush colored blooms. I suppose I cannot trim back beauty anymore than I can wake it up.

Although I love the scenery, there is a much better reason to sit with my back to the large opening that leads out of the kitchen and into the rest of our home. A game is about to begin. It begins on time almost every morning, just a few minutes before I have to leave the house, and it will be one of the best moments of my entire day. So, I am patient and fully attentive.

As I work quietly on my omelet and coffee, I listen to a steady shhhhhhhhh coming across the baby monitor in the living room behind me. The other end of that monitor sits in our daughter’s room. She sleeps with a sound machine which creates a constant imitation of the wind. I continue listening. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh – – – it stops abruptly, and there is complete silence. The silence, however, is not empty. I know the room is actually full of activity, and I continue to wait.

By now, our larger dog has returned from the outdoors and is lying beside the table at my feet. He’s always patient, and he’s affectionate in the mornings. Tobie is a seven year old black lab mix. I notice his tail beginning to thump lightly against the laminate flooring. I glance down. His ears have perked up a bit, and his attention has been directed from my plate of food to something behind me. I turn slowly, like whatever is back there should be discovered gently, but before I am completely in position to follow his gaze there is a rapid pitter-patter down the hall and a short, choked off squeal of laughter.

I return to my breakfast, but only a moment later Tobie is alert again. Now his tale is in full swing, thwack, thwack, thwack. I rotate quickly this time and catch a pair of blue eyes peeking at me from around the hallway corner. They sit above a tiny little, flat nose and round cheeks with deep dimples. My daughter is grinning broadly, and this time she charges across the few feet between the two of us with unconcealed laughter, and I catch her up so she can’t escape back down the hallway again.

When I finally set her down she brushes long wisps of blond hair out of her face and holds out a package of baby wipes and a pair of clean underwear with girly cartoon figures on them. She loves getting into her dresser drawers to find a change of clothes for the day. She’s so proud to be three years old.

My little girl loves to eat too. She sits on my right knee while I finish breakfast, snacking on my eggs and vegetables. She loves mushrooms and green peppers. We chat about how pretty the backyard is and how we will exercise in the garage together when I get home from work. She asks if she can go outside on the back porch to see the pink sky and to look for the birds that are singing, and I encourage her to do so. On the way out she takes some time to embrace the dogs with overly aggressive hugs. She’s especially attached to Sparta, who looks like she’s going to pop when she’s squeezed too tightly. Our three year old may be a bit eccentric for such a small kid, but for me that’s such a relief.

I’m pouring the last of the French press into a travel mug and cleaning up the table when my wife wanders into the kitchen. Tobie beats me to the greeting, hopping up, swinging his tale back and forth, nestling his nose and face into the side of her leg. She walks straight to me, and I wrap my arms around her neck. She’s several inches shorter than I am, and normally she would stand on her tip toes to get her arms above my shoulders. Lately, though, she has also had to turn to the side to reach me since our son is in the way. She’s thin with elegant features, and pregnancy hasn’t changed that. Our son has created quite a bump, but it’s only obvious when someone sees her profile. I kiss her, and when she buries her head in my chest her hair tickles my nose. It’s wispy and blond like our daughter’s. The blue eyes are also hers, but the dimples are mine. She asks if there is anything I need her to do to help me finish getting ready. There isn’t. She makes a few comments about that, but lets it go quickly, as I knew she would.

Our daughter notices her mother has entered the kitchen and she comes in from outside to greet her as well. I finish up the morning routine while they sit and talk at the table. Some teachers are so organized and streamlined, but I’m not. I have a variety of bags slung over both shoulders: computer case, satchel for lesson plans and grade book, lunch bag, gym bag for Advanced P.E., and my left hand is clinging desperately to the travel mug of hot coffee, leaving my right hand free to operate door knobs and make it out to the truck. I look like I’m leaving for a two day trip. It’s a good thing I teach older students and my school promotes a lot of college level discussion. The younger grades would eat me for breakfast.

When I’m finally ready, I kiss my wife one more time and squat down awkwardly to hug my daughter, careful not to disrupt the chaos I’m carrying around. I scratch Tobie lightly with my foot, and head out the front door, banging all sorts of things against the wall and the door frame on the way out.

My 93 Ford Ranger is parked in front of the house on the street because it leaks oil. It was given to my brother in law, who eventually gave it to me when my wife and I needed a second vehicle. Its light green paint is faded, and the corner behind the driver’s side door is rusted away. It sits up a bit higher than other small trucks because the tires are slightly larger. I notice for the twentieth time the brake dust building up on the front wheels and make another mental note to repair them soon.

I hoist all my baggage into the passenger side and walk around to the driver side. Neither the heat nor the air works, but it doesn’t matter because the morning isn’t too warm. The radio also went out a few days ago when I hit a bump at my sister in law’s house; that does irritate me a little. I settle in and slam my door shut, brushing insulation off my dress shirt. There’s no upholstery in the roof, so bits and pieces of yellow fiberglass drift down from the ceiling every time the truck shakes.

I pull up to the red light just outside my neighborhood. I’ll be turning left onto the main road that will take me to work. The morning traffic is already beginning to pick up. Vehicles are whizzing through the intersection. I notice that there is relatively little variation in color, shape, and size. The blur ahead of me is mostly brown, tan, silver, white, and black, though I do see an occasional dark red or blue. There are cars and trucks, but little else, and most all of them still have their factory shine, reflecting the warm morning light off precise edges and darkened windows.

The sight induces the day’s agenda. There are still handouts to be printed because the computer wouldn’t cooperate with the copier yesterday; the network was a mess. There will be a faculty devotion at 7:45, and I’ve wandered in at the end too many times already. I glance down at my phone to check the time and then back at the light anxiously.

By 8:15 students will be asking about their paper grades in my first class. They aren’t finished yet, even though the mid quarter ends in a couple days and grades are due. I’ll lecture for two periods until chapel at 9:45. Then I’ll lecture in four more periods between 10 and 3. The faculty meeting will start at 3:20. Traffic will be heavy on the way home, and church starts at 7. My wife has worship team practice after the service, so she won’t be home until 9:30.

My right leg begins to twitch and bounce nervously. The monotony of the traffic is broken when a couple of semis with large advertisements stamped to their sides roll by, shaking the ground and filling the little cab of my truck with the noisy clamor of rushing wind. It’s the most empty thing I’ve ever heard.

The light turns green, and as I’m turning left the sunrise comes into full view directly ahead of me. It would be beautiful if I didn’t have to look directly at it. The sun has risen to the exact height of the next light, blinding me, and I’m struggling to see its color, nervous that I will be the cause of some serious collision, but I pass through that intersection and several others with no actual complications.

I sigh a bit. Once I’m clear of our small city the drive will be so much more enjoyable. I’ll take the back road so I can enjoy the scenery and mentally prepare myself for my classes. The road will be lined on both sides with large, old trees, curving and weaving around enormous horse farms.

Commuters are piling up at the last light heading out of town. The parkway ramp coming up on my right is full and it’s spilling into my lane. I notice that all those vehicles are shoving, muscling their way in and moving too fast. I look over my left shoulder so I can get over, but that lane is even more crowded and unyielding. I glance with a little desperation in my rear view mirror; all I can see is the front bumper and tinted windshield of something large, and it’s so close. In a moment I glance back to the ramp on my right, fully aware.

My world is turning, and the sun has blinded me again, but I still see blond hair and blue eyes squinting above broad smiles, quietly convincing me that I have never needed anything more.

Thomas Merton, one of the greatest spiritual writers of the twentieth century, put out a strong warning about authentic community. He believed that it is extremely common for individuals to be false, to live behind a facade. He even believed that this condition can be passed along from one person to another like a highly contagious disease. If the disease spreads unrestrained, he warned, it is like a terminal illness. It will ultimately result in nothing less than “the falsification of the whole religious life of the community.”^[1]

Merton’s warning may feel a bit dramatic. We might think it is simply the rhetoric of a writer and poet, but it should not be dismissed. After all, what should community focused individuals, even secular individuals, fear more deeply than falsification? And the weight of the question increases significantly for Christians, for those of us who have had some sort of personal experience with the Cornerstone of our faith who said, “I am the truth” (John 14). For us, Merton’s point simply cannot be overstated. Very little threatens Christian vitality and passion as severely as relationships based on facades.

We should be aware that religious facades have been problematic for folks as long as there have been religious folks, Christian or otherwise, but the fact that the disease is common in our history hardly diminishes its threat. The following symptoms are everywhere in plain sight, and they demonstrate that churches ought to suspect and fear the presence of falsification: (1) enormous amounts of material published on the topic (2) a plethora of leadership meetings to discuss the problem (3) a general sentiment among many folks that church is more life-draining than life-giving (4) extreme boredom in the congregation (5) extreme apathy in the congregation (6) lots of church advertisements boasting friendly environments and authentic community (to convince the public), and (7) constant discussion about the need to return to an “Acts 2” experience.      Admittedly, the disease is hard to nail down, but the detrimental effects, the mind numbing symptoms of false relationships can be seen running rampant in local churches and seem to point to the existence of a tremendous amount of infected individuals.

Many Christians who suffer from an advanced version of the disease have simply given up, succumbing to what they consider to be a monotonous church life. Their attendance is consistent, but mentally they have checked out. This, of course, frustrates pastors and teachers to no end, so they commit themselves to the search for a magical remedy. Unfortunately, most of their attempts to pull the congregants out of comatose end in failure, and the leaders go on wondering if anything can be done to cure the dull stares in their congregations.

Feeling defeated, the leadership finally tethers the poor souls to religious life support, repetitively drip feeding them Christianity in the smallest doses possible, and praying for the best. Sermons are watered down with political ideology and then sweetened with an intriguing historical concept here and a comical story there. Attendance at social gatherings is bribed with food, and the whole package is slapped with a label: “Fellowship.” Apparently, authenticity can be mass produced. Leaders are then baffled and distraught when they finally notice that attendance at these gatherings correlates directly with the number of courses they decide to serve. Still, if they were flies on the wall it might bless their tired ears to hear that honest, open conversations do in fact occur at these gatherings. But they don’t hear them because authentic discussions typically occur aside from the main group in hushed whispers, lest the daring conversationalists be judged and turned into pet projects by the arrogant who have unknowingly already been taken by the disease and buried in white-washed sepulchers.

There are, of course, Christians in the community who are not yet directly infected but highly affected by the onslaught of spreading symptoms. For these folks, religious survival is a continual struggle. Often, their health is maintained because circumstances allow them to discover like minded people. There is strength in numbers, and they may produce some sort of creative way to band together and keep the infection at a distance, a sort of self imposed religious quarantine. In these instances, life is more than a drip feed, but it is often still desperate, and it is mostly nourished by sources outside the local church. Religious food is dropped in by humanitarians and benevolent forces. Crates of medical supplies arrive in various forms: rogue small groups, reading material, media, entertainment, and ironically, even doctrines and practices from other religions.

Although these struggling Christians are vital enough to refuse the drip feed treatment, they still suffer from the tragic task of watching the disease run its course with the infected members of the congregation. Like an intensive care unit, the church works to keep the injured alive, meanwhile the healthy wait up all night in uncomfortable chairs and live on bags of trail mix and other random snacks visitors drop off. A midnight coffee run, an irritatingly generic magazine subscription set out by the office staff, or an occasional outburst from an annoying soap star on the outdated television in the corner of the room might be the only thing that keeps their blurry, red eyes from much needed rest. Yet they remain with the community because they hope that sometime in the near future a doctor will burst through the door and announce that a miracle has occurred. The sick have been made well! There is life and passion in the community again.

Infected or not, we evangelicals tend to reject the unsavory truth about the condition of our local churches. By the time we are finished attending the prescribed quota of services, fellowships, activities, discussions, meetings, conferences, Sunday school sessions, camps, and holiday picnics, the Truth goes down like an artificially flavored fruit juice. We have invested a tremendous amount of time, but the Gospel’s lasting positive effects are minimal. The sweet concoction may occasionally produce some temporary, hyper activity – a “mountain top experience” – but how many of us despair when the sugar high ends and we begin to crash? We are like spoiled children who stubbornly keep our mouths shut tight unless our medicine is presented in the preferable brand and mixed with strawberry syrup. Who would have guessed two millennia ago that a steady drip feed of politics, comedy, and history would be sustaining the life of so many churches today?

It would be a very serious mistake, however, for us to lay responsibility for a cure squarely on the shoulders of our church leaders. Most pastors and teachers are well intentioned, capable individuals. But falsification is like cancer, it is often too subtle to catch in the beginning and too large to manage once it has spread. Pastors, even the mature ones, are simply unable to perform enough preventative operations to ensure that everyone is guaranteed a healthy, long life. They are not dermatologists with quiet, suburban offices, carving out little religious moles before they become large problems. Congregational issues are usually already desperate. Church leaders are more like surgeons on a battle field using leftover bourbon to sterilize wounds and boot laces to sow up lacerations while bullets whiz by overhead. Their wisdom is real, but mostly defensive, and sometimes their best efforts are simply inadequate for the task.

Pastoral healing skills may also be inadequate if the pastors themselves are infected. Typically, leaders are oblivious to the presence of the disease in their own bodies. Their symptoms may be as subtle as persistent naggings from the Spirit in their contemplative moments, but they repeatedly swat those away for administrative responsibilities and the much louder naggings of irritable congregants. Solitude and inner peace seem more like luxuries than the necessities of a thriving Christian life. So, they really end up with nothing to offer their flocks but well organized services, nice power point videos, and a polite atmosphere. Meanwhile, all the passionate sheep are being torn to pieces by wolves so a couple stubborn, belligerent sheep can be wrestled back into the fold, bleating the whole time about how green the pasture used to be and how unhappy they are with Sunday’s worship set.

No, we simply cannot expect leaders to single handedly rid the world of our religious obesity. We have only the circumstances of history and our own individual efforts to blame for the differences between the New Testament community and our own local churches. When we are open and humble, leaders may guide us, but they cannot force change. Pastors and teachers are in the divine profession of healing, but they are not shamans. They do not heal by spells and incantations and certainly not by sheer act of will. Leaders simply cannot program, plan, organize, or magically create authenticity on our behalf.

For theological good or bad, there is a distinction being made these days between religion and spirituality, and the gap is widening as more and more Christians become frustrated with the former. It is becoming increasingly popular for all sorts of folks to claim that they are spiritual but not religious. The differences between the two terms are often vague and ambiguous, but can be incredibly useful nonetheless. We should think of religion as form, structure, repetition, organization, and tradition. It is appropriate that the term literally means “to bind.” Spirituality, on the other hand, is often understood as content, experience, a personal sense of something transcendent. It is often associated with other terms such as “intimacy,” “awareness,” and “vitality.” From this perspective life is not simply a beating heart, and religious life is certainly not church attendance. Life is not quantitative but qualitative, and our religious lives ought to be characterized by passion, hope, discovery, inner peace, personal progress, and meaning.

Merton’s use of the phrase “religious life” should be taken in this sense, and if his warning seems dramatic it is precisely because he understood that falsification is a subtle, sneaky disease that attacks the most fragile elements of that life. Unless attendance and tithes fall to economically intolerable lows, leadership can and will ensure that religion – services and traditions – continue, barely keeping everyone alive. Other issues like authentic community and intimate relationships, however, will suffer to no foreseeable end, and no amount of five step self-help books or Acts 2 campaigns will successfully stand in the gap and heal the diseased community. The cure must be developed and administered by individuals, by leaders and congregants alike. The mythical potion evangelical pop culture has been searching for is very much like the Gospel itself, intellectually simple but a difficult, humbling pursuit. The remedy is transparency in our congregations and responsibility in our pastoral leadership.

Transparency is difficult because we are frequently fooled by our own facades. Some of us have been living off the drip feed system so long we possess only vague memories of what a healthy, vibrant spiritual life feels like. What we actually need to do is pull out our Church’s feeding tubes, come to grips with our own ideas and behavior, and find out who we really are. And if, after some reflection, we need to admit that we are not sure who we are or whether we really line up with the rest of the saints in our denominations, then we are one step closer to a cure. The Kingdom of Heaven is for humbly confused children like us. We may just have to dodge some dogmatic disciples to get to our Healer.

It might be useful to point out two general forms of falsification that tend to threaten our transparency. Self-righteousness, a particularly vile disease, conceals our reality by making us look like an exact replica of our church’s culture. It’s the perfect camouflage. When we are self-righteous everyone thinks we are the picture perfect evangelicals, the enforcers of all things distinctive in our denominations, the living traditions or frightfully, the living dead – depending on the perspective. Some symptoms are quite obvious. When self-righteousness takes hold of us, honest advice and criticism makes us defensive, and we are certainly not open to theologically diverse conversations. Diversity threatens self-righteousness. We like to think of ourselves as the examples of spiritual health, the most holy cities set on the highest hills for all the unconverted and unconvinced to follow. Indeed, a self-righteous man is all of this and more – at least for the less perceptive members of the congregation.

False humility is another dangerous facade. This disease creates an obsession with the worst aspects of our human nature. For those of us who have contracted false humility our relationships are an emotional theme park full of group confession and a public invitation for everyone to stroll through the haunted house of our own souls. When we pray we stand on the street corner and cry out, “Blessed are those who mourn!” We shout with the Apostle, “All have sinned!” and “I boast only in my wickedness!” But no matter how many of these scriptures we quote, they never seem to culminate in the comfort and peace promised by the original Author of the sermon. We plagiarize and proof text in the worst way, and we fool ourselves into thinking the moral life is impossible. Like the self-righteous, we cannot take advice, but in this case it is because we think our souls are too dark to change. Improvement is simply not a practical goal. For the man suffering from false humility, grace is not a necessary aid or a redemptive shove. It’s a theological ventilation machine. We insist that our Teacher had no interest in personal responsibility, so we stand by and watch creation drown in its suffering, arguing that there is no point in effort. The whole thing will be burned and built anew one day anyway.

Of course, most of us don’t actually suffer from such extreme cases of these diseases, but we often do suffer from at least a mild version of one type or the other. Transparency is rare in religious communities. Whether Baptist, Pentecostal, or Methodist, the honest truth is most of us are not really perfect examples of our church’s culture. I know very few legitimate Pentecostal saints. On the other hand, most of us are also not as morally filthy and pitiful as we could be. I know even fewer wicked Lutherans.

I do know, however, a whole lot of evangelical Christians who show up at church and switch their relationship controls to auto pilot. They share their authentic friendships with folks from fishing trips, exercise facilities, work places, and athletic events. Those are the folks they really want to play cards with or meet at the mall. Those are the folks that don’t care what beverage wets the Christian whistle or whether Netflix has sent the latest rated R film to a Christian mailbox. They don’t care whether the Christian household is immaculate and smells like hazelnut every time they visit or whether the creation account in Genesis is completely literal. Our hazelnut candles are appropriate symbols for our Christian facades. They cover up the fact that most of us really do not live in an immaculate environment, spiritually or physically. But then again, we are not complete religious slobs either. Many of us do watch R rated movies selectively, drink beer safely, and play poker for entertainment, and our consciences remain clean.

On the theological side of things, many Presbyterians can’t really articulate their view of predestination, and most members of the Assembly of God have never even bothered to read 1 Corinthians. (Otherwise, we might rethink our lofty view of speaking in tongues.) Many Methodists don’t know what their method is, and a lot of Baptists are unaware that there are thousands of years of history between them and the New Testament. Still, our gray behavior and our intellectual failures have not yet resulted in deadly thunderbolts from the heavens. The Lord must know that we evangelicals heap plenty of torment and punishment onto one another!

The point here is not to excuse or debate what some folks might view as spiritual shortcomings; the point is that our real lives and thoughts consistently remain hidden. We refuse to be transparent, and this deprives other Christians of the opportunity to live out their calling to the Gospel in authentic fellowship with us. How can they love us as they love themselves if they don’t know who we are? How great is our sin if we steal their freedom to decide whether they want to love us or not? We continually live life with our left foot in the church and our right foot in the world. And it is extremely unfortunate for the spiritual health of our communities that it’s the life on the right foot that we really enjoy.

If authentic community is really important, maybe it’s time we practiced a little honesty. Perhaps we should put away the scented candles and leave the vacuum cleaner in the closet when it’s our turn to host a community group. There’s nothing wrong with scented candles, but it’s not how we typically live. Maybe we should invite more of our church acquaintances to our poker games, not because we want to bicker about gambling in the scripture, but because that is where they will really get to know us. Perhaps we should not frantically run and hide the fruit of the vine every time someone from the church stops by for a visit. After all, our visitors might be closet drinkers as well, afraid of what the church will say. Perhaps we should all stop abusing the Apostle’s advice to avoid offenses or to “be everything to everyone” just so we can maintain control over folks we disagree with. If we bring who we are to the Table we might be rejected, but at least we will have given our congregations the opportunity to follow the Savior into true humility, sacrifice, and service. Merton was right. Facades are highly contagious, but so is transparency. A little honesty would begin to heal this rampant disease.

Leaders do have their responsibilities as well, and they are heavy burdens to bear. If we begin dropping our facades all sorts of things will seep up to the surface. Leaders have to be prepared to shepherd their flocks and use relational leadership to guide individuals in the midst of their messes. They must be prepared to distinguish between wholesome behavior and legitimate pollution, the Spirit and the traditions of men. If authenticity is really a high priority -more than just lip service from the pulpit – pastors must be committed to its defense and preservation. They should be prepared to gird up their loins, provide some loud instructions, and protect the living from the dead, the healthy from the infected. The self righteous might need to be fought off tooth and nail, culture might have to shift, people may have to get upset, and the monthly tithes may have to suffer. Pastors will have to go looking for the homemade whip they put away in storage after the years in seminary and ministry killed all their enthusiasm. Moneylenders will definitely have to be run from the temple. But in spite of all this responsibility, leaders cannot even begin to shepherd, guard, and grow their people until their people show them who they really are. Iron does indeed sharpen iron, but not when it’s draped in velvet.

[1] Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation, The Liturgical Press 1960, 37.

Psalm 139 is a beautiful psalm, and it begins, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me” (NASB). The psalmist goes on to suggest that his entire life is intimately known to God, that he is, in some way, enveloped by God. Although the language of the entire psalm is poetic and the content is deep, what is most striking about this passage is that the very experience of being intimately known was an incredibly encouraging experience for this individual. Surely the psalmist, like the rest of us, had all sorts of vulnerabilities, sins to hide and gifts to stash away, yet the simple awareness that his creator could see right through him brought him a tremendous amount of comfort. I think there is something incredibly special and spiritually healthy about being transparent -that is to say, being open to being known.

It’s no secret that people find it difficult to be open with others. Phrases such as “intimacy issues” get thrown around a lot in our culture, and professionals have connected these types of issues with all sorts of other problems in society. Science, however, is not the only facet of our culture that is aware of the problem. This issue is repetitively used in the entertainment industry. Sitcoms and other comedies often place their characters in uncomfortable social situations where transparency, often between men, is a humorous theme. We laugh because we understand exactly how awkward those experiences can be. Sadly, what modern entertainment does not communicate very well is that they are in fact missed spiritual opportunities.

Religion has always had something to say about our natural tendency to be closed off. For 2500 years the Buddhists and the Hindus have philosophically and psychologically been trying to point humanity to the notion that humans are interconnected, and the healthiest way to live is aware of and open to that fact. For this reason, compassion for all other living things has always been a central religious tenant in the East. Compassion, of course, literally means “to suffer with,” and is an activity that requires a certain amount of intimacy, even if that intimacy is felt more than it is intellectually grasped. The religions of the Middle East also address the issue. Judaism, in particular, has maintained an intense focus on family, social life, and the theological notion of covenant that may be at least three to four thousand years old. Jewish theology and historical experience compels individuals to see themselves as part of an intimate community traveling through human history together. Generally speaking, open relationships with God and man, is one of the greatest goals of most all of the world’s religions.

For those of us who claim to be Christian there is a very clear calling to intimacy and openness. Jesus prayed to his father, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word; that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21). There are at least three very clear points in Jesus’ prayer: 1) Christians are called to be one with each other, 2) Christians are called to be one with the Father and Son, and 3) the Father’s chosen method of convincing the world of Jesus’ validity rests in the human demonstration of these relationships. It would seem that Christians who are generally closed off are hardly “Christian” at all.

A central question is: “What sorts of things would a spiritually healthy Christian open himself up to?” What does Jesus’ prayer look like in every day life? I believe that the scriptures point to several general types of intimate relationships that are the substance of spiritual health. I further believe that these relationships are frequently seen in individuals who have acquired deep spiritual lives which are evident throughout history.

Psalm 19 illustrates two of these relationships quite clearly. The entire psalm has two dominant themes. The first is the natural world, and the second is the “Law of the Lord.” In his introduction the psalmist claims, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” As the psalmist continues he points out that nature, the weather patterns, the seasonal cycles, the heat and the cold, truly does reveal God to human beings. Although most Christians would agree with this, the pace of modern culture has so distracted the majority of the population that people have almost no real experience of nature itself. In an intellectual way Christians are happy to point out that there must be a God because of the complexity of the created order, yet the closest these individuals will get to that complexity is observing it in a documentary. But this simply cannot be the type of knowledge the psalmist is talking about. He suggests that for such intimate knowledge, “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.” Relationship with nature is not an intellectual pursuit that can be described audibly or intellectually. It is an intimacy that comes from direct experience.

The second theme of Psalm 19 points us toward a relationship with the “Law of the Lord.” The psalmist states, “The Law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart” (7-8). What could be spiritually more healthy than a rejoicing heart and a restored soul? But there is a difficulty for many of us in this passage. For the psalmist, certainly an ancient Hebrew, the “Law of the Lord” must imply the whole religion of his day. It was not simply the sacred texts (Law of Moses) and the scrolls they were written on as modern people imagine the “Law of the Lord” to be. It included the practice of the ethical laws as they related to other people, the sacrificial laws that governed correct behavior at the temple, and purification laws that governed personal behavior and rituals. What the psalmist is pointing to is the fact that his “religion” restored his soul.

Many people today are weary of the term “religion,” and seem to prefer the pursuit of “spirituality” alone. The term “religion,” however, simply comes from a Latin root word that means “to tie, fasten, or restrain,” and it means this in a conscientious sense. The idea is that “religion” is repetitive behavior that is supposed to make people meticulously aware of their conscience, which in turn allows them to live in a proper way. This is why the psalmist is so content with his religion. Most people who believe they are living in the proper way are, in a spiritual sense, happier people. The challenge for modern Christians is to be open to religious environments. For those of us who would complain that Church is boring, theologically confused, or scientifically ignorant, it still remains a workhorse for spirituality and can truly be an incredible framework for the restoration of our souls.

Returning to John 17 and Jesus’ prayer, the most obvious relationships that create a healthy spiritual life are human relationships and relationship with God. As far as the former is concerned, on the surface it would appear as if most people are in a tremendous amount of relationships with other people. The majority of modern individuals are busy at work or school anywhere from forty to sixty hours a week, roughly at least one third of their lifetime. But those two places are hardly enriched with openness and intimate knowledge, which require a tremendous amount of qualitative communication.

One of my favorite statements about the nature of qualitative communication was made by an Irish poet who was asked what it was like to experience the beauty of God in daily life. He replied,

“One way, and I think this is a really lovely way, [is to ask yourself a question]. And the question is: ‘When is the last time that you had a great conversation?’ a conversation which wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture. But when did you have a great conversation in which you overheard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew. That you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you on to a different plane…. a conversation that continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards … I’ve had some of them recently, and it’s just absolutely amazing, as we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul, you know?”^[1]

If I were honest, I would admit that I am not sure if I have had a conversation recently that was “food and drink for the soul.” Culture has become inundated with social networks, cell phones, and emails, all intended to connect individuals, but instead has created a sort of watered down version of friendship. Current communication is industrial, fast, efficient, and cheap, and most folks would be hard pressed to remember even one conversation that served their soul in this way.

Our communication problem renders Jesus’ commandment to his disciples, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39), a nearly impossible task. We refuse to spend more energy communicating, and the forth coming generations will not even know how. Even if they want to love someone the way they know they would desire to be loved, they will not be equipped with enough experience to do so, or a long enough attention span to begin to touch the issues in a deep, personal way. Honest, open communication, whatever it may look like in the moment, must be safeguarded by modern Christians.

Finally, a brief word about intimacy with God: “O Lord you have searched me and known me.” All the other relationships in my life, nature, religion, and friendship, must culminate in and serve as indicators of knowing and being known by God. Depending on who is asked the question, the process of knowing God can seem complex, practically and intellectually, but it is most simply understood when it is viewed in light of the other three. An intimate relationship with God can spring from the awe and inspiration experienced in nature, the restraint and self control preached by religion, and the deep affection and selfless relationship of true friendship. In all three cases the famous statement made by John the Baptist before he was executed applies, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Nature, religion, and friendship should, in a positive sense, make us feel small. They are excellent preparation and paths for the experience of a God that is infinite love. Our ego must begin to shrink in order for us to experience Him. That is certainly why the psalmist’s experience of God was not just deep, but so enveloping that it seemed as if he was transparent before God, completely seen and known. He had the distinct feeling of being “closed in behind and before” (5), like a drop of water in the ocean.

There are many reasons why humans remain closed off to the most significant experiences in life, why they refuse to be transparent. Among those reasons pride always stands at the front, followed closely by time limitations. Transparency, however, dissolves pride and allows frailty and fault to be seen, and our time must simply be reprioritized. Whether we are aware of it or not, I think we all crave the peace and satisfaction that follow from intimacy with God. In our worst moments, we would love to be able to join the psalmist and proclaim with confidence, “If I say surely the darkness will overtake me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you… lead me in [this] everlasting way” (11-23).

[1] Krista Tippet, “The Inner Landscape of Beauty“, Interview with John O’Donahue, 2008.