Zealot (Reza Aslan): Review

I had very high hopes when I purchased Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth the day after it came out.  It is well written and a fascinating read.  But as I read I got more and more uncomfortable with a number of Aslan's premises. 

He does not adequately deal with the "lost years," saying only that Jesus was a "woodworker" who probably worked, with his brothers, on building the city of Sepphoris, not far from Nazareth. 

And he insists, almost ad nauseum, on the illiteracy of Jesus and his disciples and the leaders of the early Jewish Christian movement. This seems central to his narrative.

Nor does he deal adequately with what might have changed Jesus from a laborer to a miracle worker and teacher.  The context he provides for the development of messianic movements is illuminating, but not adequate to account for such transformation.

I also disagree with his opinion that the prologue to the Gospel of John proves that the writer already pictures Jesus as the other-worldly, eternal, out of this world.  The rest of the Gospel of John is about an earthy, tactile, fully-human Jesus.  There is a necessary tension between the logos and the incarnation which is one of the central themes of Christian history.

I'm not saying this book isn't worth reading, it most certainly is.  And it got me to thinking.... (probably his purpose). The context Aslan elucidates for the historical Jesus calls into question quite a few of the understandings of Jesus on which centuries of Christians have based their lives.  I've become aware that each of the Gospels was written with an agenda other than "just the facts, please," (a desire rooted in the Enlightenment emphasis on empirical evidence). In the endnotes, Aslan provides some discussion of various scholarly opinions on his chapters, making it clear which position he takes. I see what he offers through this book as another of many perspectives on the historical Jesus. 

His narrative-making is not all that different from that of the Gospel writers and the many efforts throughout the millenia to "get a handle" on this Jesus.  The importance of this book, like so many of the narratives, is to offer a perspective that can add to how we think about Jesus.  The question which Bishop Spong asked as part of his musings on whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married (Born of a Woman) fits for me as I consider Zealot:  if it were true, how would it change the way we interpret Jesus? (His sexuality or his leadership.) This will be a question to live with for a while.  In the flurry of reactions and interviews (and non-interviews), this process will be interesting to observe and be part of.

In spite of the (failed, IMO) efforts of fundamentalist inerrantists over the past couple of centuries to arrive at certainty in the modern sense about the facts of the Bible, the primary insight I take from my first reading of Zealot is the recognition that no one, not the Gospel writers, not Paul, not the "church fathers," not the historical Jesus movement, not Aslan, can say "here is the definitive, once-and-for-all, explanation of Jesus."  All of the perspectives offer nuances and possibilities that may challenge or threaten or inspire...but "understanding Jesus" is an eternal process that requires (or should require) each of us to come, through critical thinking and through experience, to our own understanding of how the reality of Jesus shapes us. 

Hopefully we will find communities with and within which to undertake this exploration.  Hopefully (my hope) is that I will always grow and learn and live into the challenge of Jesus.  I think the day I stop being willing to change and grow "in the image of God" as part of my life task will be the day when the meaning which Jesus has for me begins to fade into a nice, comforting story, without much power to transform me or society, and the day on which  my hope for the realization of the Kingdom of God must die.

So, read the book, listen to or watch the interviews (Fresh Air, Huff Post Live, and others).  Join in the conversations.  Do your own thinking.  Let Aslan challenge you, but don't swallow his interpretation (or anyone else's) as the definitive word:  there is much more to Jesus than any one person or scholarly interpretation can define.  Enjoy the journey!

I highly recommend The Secrets of Leaven (review)

I’VE NEVER reviewed a novel, so I’ve been puzzling about how to convince you to read The Secrets of Leaven (Todd Wynward) without spoiling the story.  Would it help to hear that I read this twice in 48 hours?  (OK, I was still recuperating from an infection, so I had no energy to do much besides read.  But that doesn’t explain why I read it AGAIN, a couple of weeks later.)

Maybe the reason I love it so much is that I (like the third-year seminarian who is the protagonist) have had many of the same questions he has during his crisis of faith.  Maybe it’s because I struggle with the same tensions about the disconnections between the institutional church and the teachings of Jesus that he does.  Maybe it’s because I also long to live The Way exemplified by Jesus in ways not always supported by the institutional church.

But those reasons will only work for my fellow ministry geeks and spiritual questers.  Secrets has a lot to say to anyone who’s been on a quest for understanding the deeper questions of life.  And to anyone who has ever felt uncomfortable in a church setting (I know there are a LOT of you out there!). But I also recommend this because it’s a mystery, a quest story, a love story, and an outstanding read.  Some of it is also HILARIOUSLY funny.

I have to warn you that this is the first of at least two books.  This one is satisfying as a stand-alone read, but I did really want to dig into the next one to see what happens next.  I’m sure it will be surprising, because nothing about this first one ever followed any predictable path.  I also want to share with you that this has kept me thinking deeply since the first time I read it.  Richard Rohr is right when he calls this a “wild hope for a tame world.”

Please, go read this book! 

I received a review copy of The Secrets of Leaven from Speakeasy.com.

 

Hungering for God? Answering the Contemplative Call (review)

Many people are expressing hunger for a deeper connection with God or the Divine or Something that they are not finding in conventional ways of being Christian.  Many others experience that hunger even as they participate in all the ways that churches offer to be in community.  In Answering the Contemplative Call:  First Steps on the Mystical Path, Carl McColman offers wisdom from the millennia of Christian contemplative practice and experience.  I want to say he is “demystifying mysticism,” but it would be more accurate to say that he offers clear and practical ways to become more open to the mysteries of seeking intimacy with God.  Carl’s writing is, as always, amazingly clear and accessible to all who experience that yearning but aren’t quite sure what to do about it, while at the same time deeply grounded in his own spiritual practices and the wisdom received from other practitioners of contemplative praying.

Answering the Contemplative Call is both practical and profound, relying on the witness of so many who have tried to describe their own experiences of deepening intimacy with God.  And he avoids the temptation of so many who have sought to create a set of rules that are intended to guide but often become another “box” in which to contain the possibilities of transformation. The “promise and possibility of the mystical path [is] to hold and be held by God….that loving presence that truly, finally, makes all the difference in our lives—filling us with purpose, meaning and joy.” (p. 146)

As a contemplative and spiritual director, I recognize the value of what Carl offers here, as well as the gentle clarity with which he guides around some of the pitfalls inherent in seeking a deeper connection with God’s love.  I recommend this book for seekers, book study groups, students of contemplative tradition, teachers of spiritual formation, and those who serve as guides on the mystical path.

I received a review copy of this book from Speakeasy.com.

 

 

For trauma survivors and those who care for them: MUST READ BOOK

When I write a book review, I try to step back and evaluate it as writing and as it fits for the intended audience.  That entails a certain distance.  With mending broken: a personal journey through the stages of trauma + recovery (Teresa B. Pasquale, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, December 2, 2012), I began to read with that in mind, but I was quickly enticed into devouring it (in less than 8 hours).

As a trauma survivor myself, I heard Ms. Pasquale telling my story as well as her own.  As one who knows quite a bit about the recovery process (including how therapy helps or doesn't), as she shared her wisdom as a trauma survivor who is also a therapist specializing in working with trauma survivors, I heard her saying things I have thought for years, but have not heard others articulate.

"Many people (professionals included) still say trauma can't be mended and there is no recovery from PTSD.  I am someone who came out the other side of impossible.  There is a vacancy, it seems, of voices that have come out of darkness and can give the personal proof of healing....Considering many professionals and sufferers alike still thought--through a history of stigma and misunderstanding about the disorder--that there was no such thing as post-PTSD, it was no wonder no one was talking about what happened in this phase of recovery"

mending broken is a voice out of the darkness of the limitations that "they say" place on the recovery from trauma.  Yes, it IS possible to reclaim your life after trauma, and Ms. Pasquale shows the way through a combination of her trauma story, her healing journey, and her life after PTSD stopped being the driving force in her life.

She is an extraordinary writer, as well.  I have so many phrases and sentences underlined that I keep going back to (more than Band-Aid living is possible, obliteration therapy, magnets of codependency), such accurate descriptions of what I experienced that I laughed--and they convey images that I have not (yet) been able to articulate.

And she is a person of deep spirituality who shares how her relationship with God sustained her through brokenness, tremendous struggle, and the challenges of learning to live as a whole person.

This is a book I wish I had written!  But so far beyond how I have been wanting to articulate, and yet so inspiring a voice "out of the darkness" that I think I will have to write a very different book to add to the witness that no one HAS to live in the prison of trauma, that the pain DOES have limits.  It's very hard work, but Ms. Pasquale shows the way.

mending broken is an outstanding resource for those who care for trauma survivors, for therapists, ministers, spiritual directors, family members and friends.  It is an amazing witness for trauma survivors ourselves.  The only caveat I have is that this book should not be thrust at people who are still in the throes of the trauma cloud.  Be discerning in how and when you, as caregivers, "require" reading this of those on the journey.  For some trauma survivors who are just beginning to fight their way out, parts of this could be triggering.  But for all who care for and walk along side survivors, this is a MUST READ--go get it immediately.

http://www.amazon.com/mending-broken-personal-journey-recovery/dp/1480292745

Hearing Voices (Pretty Sure I'm not Crazy)

I hear voices a lot....no, I know they are not actually voices (sound waves communicating through the air from another mind to mine).  The voices I hear are competition among

old, internalized negative messages,
messages I have learned through years of trying to defeat the impact the old ones have on my self-worth,
and messages that come through prayer and loving conversations and spiritual reading (including scripture).

The negative messages are critical, full of nasty judgments:  "You can't do that, you're a failure."  "Why do you think you deserve ANY love?"  "Give up, you'll never be happy."  "Your needs don't matter, just take care of others."  Ugh.  That's more than enough of those here.  I know these come from my mother, from generations of women taught these things, from society which has many messages that tell me women are inferior, less worthy, useful IF I meet the needs of others (especially men).

The replacement messages include mantras such as "Yes, I can." "That's not true." "I am worthy of love." "My work is valuable."  "I'm worth the effort."  Sometimes these have helped, although it takes an awful lot of repeating these to sometimes, for a little while, drown out the negative messages.  But they have gotten me through, and I still use a number of them when the old messages warn me of failure, catastrophe (imagined but very vivid), reasons I should hate myself.  But they don't take me very far beyond argument between "parts of me" that are each convinced "they" know the truth.

I have been seeking God for many years, and over the past few years, increasingly I find healing through prayer, letting in the love of others, and wisdom from the ages.  The most important practices I am learning are: to Stay In The Moment, and in the moment to Accept Myself As I am.  I've been living into the first one for a long time, and it is still challenging in a world of distractions and pressures to do more, move faster, try harder.  But it has become one of my most important spiritual practices.  Accepting myself is MUCH harder, because both the expectations of the world around me and my own perfectionist standards(which feed the negative messages) clamor at me that I'm not enough, I'm failing no matter how hard I try.  And accepting myself in the moment means ceasing to berate myself for whatever "character flaw" or unwillingness to act or unhealthy attitude are getting in the way of being present to all that I am.

There are several ways I hear voices that are consistent with my (admittedly limited) understanding of God's love for me.  I have compulsively sought in the wisdom of the ages for permission to love myself, and found many stories that help me learn to believe in God's love.  I have begun to trust enough to believe people when they act or speak lovingly to me, and to love myself and others as a reflection of God's love for me.  The deepest messages, however, come in silence, when I stop (for a specific amount of time) trying to tell God how I need God to change me.  I release (as often as necessary) the thoughts that chase across the top of my brain.  In the depth of silence (even when it's not "perfect" because of brain chatter), I experience a Presence in what feels like the depth of my being, utterly loving, extraordinarily gentle, consistent with but stretching what I have learned about the enormity of how much God loves all of creation, including me.

Once, as a weekend was ending, I was lying in bed fussing at God for not accomplishing the changes I had demanded be accomplished between Friday night and Monday morning.  My fussing went on and on, and was very critical of what God was (not) doing in me.  I fussed for long enough that I could hear how ridiculous my demands were.  And then I got quiet and heard a deep, loving, even humorous "voice" say, "You know, it's MY job to create humans in My image." I'm still learning to get out of God's way and trust God to "do in me what is needed," rather than what I think God should be doing.  When I do, amazing insights and incremental transformations occur.  Maybe God knows what God is doing....

The article linked below, particularly this quote, brought this long-simmering trail of thoughts to a head:

In self-help programs that draw on religious or spiritual practices, the locus of control is largely externalized; the real power belongs to God (or a supreme being, a universal consciousness—whatever you care to call it). But these programs also posit a part of the self that is receptive to or one with that external force: an internal fragment of the divine that can triumph over human weakness.

http://nymag.com/health/self-help/2013/schulz-self-searching/index1.html#

Called to Go Beyond Our Limits

I have done ALL of these things, multiple times, and lived with these "yes, but....s."  I am posting this one on my wall! (I was especially struck by the last sentence, emphasis added)

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Called to Go Beyond Our Limits

Gregg Levoy

It makes perfect sense that we should be called to go beyond our limits, because the One that calls us is beyond all limits. I suspect that all the energy we have bound up in resisting our own potential is more energy than we'll need to reach it. It takes as much energy to fail as it does to succeed. The strategies are legion:

• Hiding behind the tasks of discernment. By analyzing a call to death and picking apart all its varying implications and by poring over calculations that would put an actuary into a coma, we lose all the heat from the heart through the head, as if we had been in the bitter cold without a hat.
• Waiting for the Perfect Moment. Waiting for just the right combination of time, money, energy, education, freedom and the ideal alignment of the planets....
• Telling ourselves lies. For instance, "I can't afford it...." [when] the truth was, "I won't afford it." I won't reprioritize my life, won't make sacrifices....
• Choosing a path parallel to the one we feel called to. One that's close enough to keep an eye on it but not so close we're tempted to jump tracks. We become an art critic rather than an artist, a school teacher rather than a parent, a reporter rather than a novelist.
• Attempting to replace one calling with another. Because we don't like it, our parents don't like it, it doesn't earn enough money or prestige.
• Immediately turning a call into a Big Project. Thereby intimidating ourselves into paralysis.
• Self-sabotage. We feel called to go to art or medical school but are so afraid of finding out we don't have what it takes that we "forget" to mail the application until after its deadline has passed.
• Distracting ourselves with other activities. We suddenly become inspired to finish old projects we haven't thought about in ages.
• Playing "sour grapes." We believe we won't succeed ... or will suffer unduly, so we try to convince ourselves we don't want it anyway.
• Trying to make ourselves unworthy of a calling. Hoping that God will decide we're not the person for the job and take it back.

The degree of resistance is probably proportionate to the amount of power waiting to be unleashed and the satisfaction to be experienced once the "no" breaks through to "yes" and the call is followed.

 

 

Source: Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life

"What if?" or Trusting God

For many years one of the clearest themes of my spiritual journey has been learning to trust God:  to guide me, to provide for me, to protect me (especially from myself).  Trust in anyone is not easy, since as a child my trust was betrayed in so many ways.  I struggle with trusting myself, too, because I have so many memories of my addictive coping strategies (devised in desperation to avoid the pain of betrayals and unmet needs) creating chaos and distracting me from knowing what I want.  I struggle with not feeling safe in a world where I see so many acts of violence (physical, spiritual, emotional, systemic).

One of the ways I have come to recognize when I am not trusting God is that my anxieties take the form of endless "what ifs"?  "What if I get sick (without insurance?"  What if I run completely out of money (and am homeless and unable to take care of myself)?"  "What if my car breaks down?"  I could go on ad infinitum, but I'm learning  to recognize and let go of the endless "what ifs" because they are never happening in the moment--and learning to live in the moment is a practice dating back to when I was using the 12 Steps of the Anonymous groups (over 25 years ago) to heal my wounded life.  At first I was learning to stay in each moment when I was obsessed with various addictive opportunities, to "make a decision [in each moment] to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God." (Step 3) Since I started practicing this, what it means to "turn over to the care of God" keeps evolving.

It's not about making God responsible for my behaviors or addictions; it's also not about not knowing what my will is; I am coming to understand more and more that I can trust the desires of my heart (and every other part of me) to point toward who God is creating me to be, in God's image.  (I once heard a quote that I have never been able to source:  "God works within us through the deep desires of our hearts.") Sometimes knowing what I desire means taking action (in the moment); sometimes it means recognizing and accepting THAT I want--to write, to do spiritual direction, to live in health, order and beauty, to love and be loved--and letting go of obstacles, old attitudes, rules, and expectations that are getting in the way.  As I let go of these obstacles, I am learning to pay attention to the steps I need to take (in each moment) toward being and doing what I say I want to be and do.

This triggers a lot of anxiety and "what ifs," because the old rules say "what I want doesn't matter"; "whatever I want is wrong" (especially if anyone "in my mind" doesn't want it); "there's no way I can have what I want, so don't bother wanting."  The "what ifs" are sometimes incredibly vivid (and sometimes ridiculous), and I am learning to say "that is not happening right now, I let it go."  I am also more and more aware that "what ifs" mean I am not trusting God with my hopes and dreams and desires in the moment: I cannot trust God AND focus on "what if?";  I cannot trust God and pay more attention to the rules and expectations of the world around me than to where God is active (in the moment) in my life;  I cannot trust God when I am constantly trying to figure out what is going to happen, how a certain sequence of events is going to turn out.  Trusting God is hard (impossible) when I am constantly projecting my certainty about "if this happens, then that will happen."

I am still learning, and probably always will be.  Trusting God is very countercultural.  I am trying to trust "for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.  Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.  When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord..." (Jeremiah 29:11-14a)  I am seeking with all my heart, Lord!