Napa, Mars Rover and the UMC

I never thought my first personal experience with Napa California would be by calling a United Methodist pastor, but the phone was ringing and I was a bit nervous. I am also sure that Rev. Lee Neish had no clue what to make of it when he saw an unidentified number pop up on his cell phone with the location "Saginaw, Texas", but he answered. 

The course of the conversation moved from earthquakes, the hospitality of Seventh Day Adventist, ministry in California, Texas flooding and the Mars rover. You know just typical clergy meeting for the first time sort of conversation.

Rev. Neish shared a metaphor for his hope for the UMC as a church that is like the Mars rover. 

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He went on to say that the engineers did not know what sort of terrain the rover would encounter and so there was much talk about the different ways to design the wheels. The two axle and four wheel design was quickly ruled out because it was too unstable for an unknown terrain. Discarding wheels all together and using a track system like on a bulldozer was found to be inadequate since there would be no way to reset the track if it slipped off. 

As you can see in the above picture, they agreed on an independent axle system each with a single wheel. These six wheels were all able to move the rover forward to complete the mission even if several of the individual wheels were unable to move for some reason.

The United Methodist Church is facing a series of decisions around homosexuality, biblical authority, role of the support agencies, function of the bishop and what it means to be an poly-context denomination. Many have been thinking about these decisions and seem to be influenced by the metaphor of a two axle four wheel vehicle which needs all four wheels moving in order to be effective. Others are thinking of the denomination as like having two tracks, liberal on one side and conservative on the other. The idea that we can only move forward if we split and everyone have their own track. 

What the Mars rover metaphor offers is an alternative to these dominate ways of thinking. What if we approached the above problems and other unforeseen terrain, with the metaphor of independent structures that are bound together by mission and less by doctrine.

Is it possible to consider a denomination that can still continue in the mission even if some of the wheels are unable to move?   

Spirituality of Cake

The old joke is that some people love cake so much it was among the reasons they get married. Regardless of how you feel about cake, there is a spirituality of cake that many times is overlooked. 

If you see a pie or a plate of cookies you don't usually think there must be a celebratory reason for their presence. But cake is different. If you see a cake and don't know why it is there, you will wonder if you missed an memo or perhaps wonder if you are about to be the victim of a surprise party. Because cake = party. 

We seem to know that cake always points to something else every time we see a cake, but we quickly forget this fact when the cake is cut and served. Many times, for good reasons, we pass on cake. We just ate, we are watching our calories, we have a food allergy, we are not big on chocolate or fondant. For one reason or another, we pass on the cake.

Then it happens: the celebration which the cake was pointing us toward, is now split. There are those who are participating and sharing in the celebration and then there are others who are, in some small way, not. 

The spirituality of cake is one of connection. It is one of being a part of the whole and sharing in the goodness of the moment. It is a physical gift, a metaphor for life's sweetness, an extension of relationships. 

So regardless of how you feel about cake. Take the cake. You don't have to eat the whole thing. Take the cake, because what they are handing you is more than cake. Take the cake and be a full participant in the moment that is truly a gift.

Another difference in self-help and spiritual formation

The self help industry is a huge monster of a thing that is a weird mix of accurate and pseudo versions of different disciplines. One of those disciplines that is in the mixture of self help is the discipline of spirituality. 

I would like to point out Christian spiritual formation is different from many expressions of self help. This is not to say that the self help world is wrong or inaccurate in the many claims made. Rather, it is more of a philosophical difference that I would like to bring to the surface. For instance, the difference Christianity and self help has with cracks and imperfections. Still others have written on how each Christianity and self help understand happiness differently.

Another difference that in Christianity and self help is how each of these philosophies understand vision.

The self help world understands vision like much of the academic world I encountered, which says something like this: Everyone sees the world through a set of lenses. You were born with a set of lenses that you see the world through and as we grew our lenses changed some but we still had these lenses on our eyes that colored the world as we experienced it. Thus the goal of education and self help is to teach us to examine these lenses so that we might see how it is our vision is different from others who see the exact same world.

Now this is not an inaccurate metaphor for how we see the world. However, what makes Christian spirituality different is that we do not think that we have lenses, but in fact that we are blind and cannot see. This is why the spiritual life is one that embraces humility, because we cannot see. Paul said that we see through dark glass, but he only said this after he was literally blinded. It is only when we come to the reality that we cannot see that we then can take the steps to admit that all the lenses we wear are dark at best. 

Yes we have lenses we see the world through and it is important to examine those lenses. However, the first step in Christian formation is to have our eyes opened, then we can clean the lenses.