My echo is much better than yours

Not long ago my family went to a place where you could yell and hear the echos very well. It was a beautiful  place and it was also a place where I saw in my children something that exposed a dark side of myself. The love of my own voice. As we stood there taking turns yelling into the canyon, it did not take long until my kids were each yelling over one another in order to hear their echo. They each wanted the other one to shut up so that they could hear only their voice. A fight broke out and I am sure that everyone around that canyon heard the echos of two children yelling at each other while two parents were yelling at them to be quite. We are the best parents. 

A. W. Tozer said, "The world is waiting to hear an authentic voice, a voice from God—not an echo of what others are doing and saying, but an authentic voice."  I want to believe this is true,  however when I sit in contemplation and prayer I come to doubt that we desire for an authentic voice. In fact, the more I listen to the world around me and even my inner prayer life, it is more and more evident that I seek out the echo more than the authentic voice. 

And like my children at the canyon, I tend to find greater satisfaction with the sounds that are echos of my own thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Not only that, but I also tend to think that others will find the sound of my voice much better than they will find the sound of their voice. I tend to come back to the sources that I have already agreed with than to seek out a voice that is different and (dare I say it) may be closer to the desire of God? 

This is where I find politics interesting. Specifically when we say that we want a politician that represents us and our voice. We want echos in the chamber not authentic voices. When we say that a candidate "gets us" or "says what no one else will say" we may affirming an echo of ourselves.

And so, if we wonder why there is anxiety and fear in the political process it is not because of the candidates. More often than not, they echo back the voice of their base. We desire the sound of our own voice coming to us at different pitches and volumes, but in the end it is still our voice.

This is where I believe, the Church is helpful. The Church can be a place where we listen for the voice of Christ. Can we stop yelling long enough to let our own echo fade so we may hear the voice of Christ?

A Physical Bible Rejects Exclusivity

I just wanted to take a post and remind all of us of one very important, often cited fact that sometimes does not sink into Christian thinking. Approximately 2/3 of the Bible is sacred scripture of another tradition. 

Sit on that for a moment. The physical composition of the Bible has Christian sacred texts AND Jewish sacred texts. If Christianity was purely an exclusive religion, then why would we even allow any other tradition's sacred texted to co-mingle with ours? At it's inception, Christianity is a hybrid religion of the Jewish tradition and a new thing from the Holy Spirit. 

As far as I know, Christianity is one of the few religions that puts another's religion's text on same par with their own (I think Taoism and Confucianism use I Ching, and the LDS and Christianity use the Bible). There is a level of respect that Christianity has for other religions that is sometimes forgotten at best and ignored at worst. 

Regardless of your beliefs of other religions, the next time you hold a Bible know that you are holding in you hands two texts of two traditions and how incredible that really is they are in one book. A physical Bible rejects exclusivity and embraces covenant relationship, and so do I.

What bees can teach us: Self care is different from caring about yourself

St. John Chrysostom once said in his 12th homily, “The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.” It is a simple idea, one that we were taught while in kindergarten - the value of serving others. 

While the beehive is not a common image used in relation to the Church, it does make it's appearance in the Latter Day Saints community as well as a connection to St Ambrose, St Bartholomew, St Kharlamii, and St. Gobnait (aka Abigail) to name a few. Beekeeping and the monastic life have long been intertwined. 

I trust that you can discover many layers in the metaphor of bees and the Christian life but I wanted to highlight one specific aspect about bees and the Christian life. That is the work of self care. 

Sometimes we are prone to think that the bee is working to pollinate the other flowers that it comes across and this is what the bee is setting out to do. However, this is not what the bee is doing. The bee, as you know, is looking for nectar and it goes from flower to flower doing so. To put it another less poetic way, the bee is taking care of itself in a way that benefits the world around it. This reflective of what self care is within the Christian tradition. 

Christians are called to tend to our own souls but in a particular and specif way: our self care benefits those around us. Too often self care is thought of as something that one does in order to get away from people and the larger world. Ironically, self care cannot end with the self. Self care means we act in ways renew us while also pollinating the world. More inward forms of renewal is not self care, it is just caring about ourselves.