A USELESS WASTE

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: "Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?" The apprentice looked at his master and said: "No ... why?"

"Well," the carpenter said, "because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax."
—adapted from Chuang Tzu, The Inner Chapters. From Spiritual Formation by Henry Nouwen.

How our culture hates what is useless. I heard one of the radio blabber-mouths ranting on and on about the Army Corps of Engineers bringing a halt to paving a road because it would destroy three areas of wet lands. Can’t let that useless swamp stand in the way of progress. And National Parks? Why they are only useful as a source of timber and ore and oil. Rip it apart, tear it up, dig it out. The world is full of things to be used.

What is sadder is that so much of our culture sees people as things to be used as well. I have heard the tales of bosses who tell their underlings that they are nothing but costs, that monkeys could do their job, that the boss cares nothing about employee loyalty and in fact would rather get rid of the long-term employees.

I come to wonder sometimes if religion itself is only valued as a thing to be used. When I was studying personality theory for my doctoral dissertation I looked at the difference between who were intrinsically religious and those who were extrinsically religious, that is, those who were religious for its own sake and those who were religious because it was a means to some other end. The Agony Column Writers used to suggest that people join religious groups if they were seeking a spouse. Or insurance salesmen were encouraged to join churches because that was a good way to find clients.

And then comes the problem of prayer. I was taught in Sunday School about prayer–at least taught that I should pray. As I put it together prayer was about thanking and praising God, telling God you were sorry for doing bad things, and asking for a few things, mostly things for other people, but it would be all right to ask for yourself if it were something like doing well on a test. No praying for an ice cream cone or stuff like that.

This was typical Protestant prayer–talking to God. The notion that one listened to God in prayer was never hinted at. You listened to God in the Bible or in a sermon or perhaps in one’s conscience. Listening to God in prayer was not something we considered.

I have gotten beyond that limitation by learning other forms of prayer, particularly centering prayer. But that raises a whole new set of problems. I don’t mean the ones some fundamentalist Christians raise that if you do any form of contemplative or meditative prayer, you are opening yourself up to evil spirits. What nonsense. That attitude shows a real lack of trust in God as if the Holy Spirit could be overpowered by just any old evil spirit that comes floating around. The problem is that prayer still becomes a means to something else. There is a danger that I pray not just to pray but so that something else happens.

Here’s Henri Nouwen writing about this problem.

The world says, "If you are not making good use of your time, you are useless." Jesus says: "Come spend some useless time with me." If we think about prayer in terms of its usefulness to us—what prayer will do for us, what spiritual benefits we will gain, what insights we will gain, what divine presence we may feel from the idea of the usefulness of prayer and the results of prayer, we become free to "waste" a precious hour with God in prayer. Gradually, we may find, our "useless" time will transform us, and everything around us will be different.

There is the real purpose of prayer–wasting time with God. Being there with God. For a lot of people that is a silly thing. Religion ought to be accomplishing things–feeding the poor, saving the environment. Yes, these are good things we should work for, but they can’t be the sole purpose of religion, at least not of Christianity. There are a whole lot of organizations that do these sorts of things, but what other organization presses for a relationship with the living God? We need to waste time with God.

As you go on your journey may you pause from time to time to waste time with God and so blessed may you continue on until the Lord greets you on your arrival.

Wayne





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MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

O.K. That’s it. He’s taken leave of his senses. It’s January 7 and he’s still celebrating Christmas. We’ve heard of the 12 days of Christmas, but he’s up to 13 or 14 or something. Christmas is OVER!

No it’s not. If you belong to one of the Eastern Orthodox churches still using the Julian calendar, Christmas doesn’t arrive until January 7. What an great excuse for one more cup of egg nog.

It’s a lot more than egg nog with me. (Besides, the stores are out of it now.) I have been distressed for a long time that the Winter Festival our society calls “Christmas” gets under way just after Labor Day and is done around December 24, except for Christmas Day itself which is an anticlimax to what precedes it. I am not one of those cranky Christians who makes lists of stores who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”  In fact, I’d prefer they did say Happy Holidays, because whatever they are sell-ebrating (a new word I just coined) with holiday spirits (in 750 ml bottles), it sure isn’t The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.

I am not concerned so much with what the secular society does with the Winter Festival. I am concerned that so many Christians have bought (literally bought) into it. It has swamped the Christian celebration even in our churches. Of course people in liturgical churches have been griping for years about why we don’t have the Christmas tree up on December 1, and where are the Poinsettias the Sunday before Christmas, and why do we have to sing Advent hymns instead of Christmas carols. Of late I have noticed that some people are counting the twelve days of Christmas as the 12 days before Christmas Day. And there is this weird practice that has emerged of it being bad luck to have a Christmas tree up after New Years Day. All that isn’t really very important, however.

I am a bit disturbed that there are clergy of the Lutheran persuasion that have reduced Advent to three weeks so they can get three weeks of Christmas in. And I have even seen some of our churches advertize the last Sunday of Advent as Christmas Sunday.  It all adds to the destruction of Advent as a time of anticipation and awaiting that leads to a joyous celebration of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Everybody is so pooped from partying since Thanksgiving (or maybe since Halloween) that there is no energy left to contemplate the mystery of the Word made flesh.  They miss the message of the Magi: "We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him."

I love the celebration of Christmas, and it saddens me to see it die with a whimper by December 26 at the latest.

I’m running a one man campaign (is it all right in church circles to use the word “man” anymore? I’ve gotten the impression from the Powers-That-Be that “man” is a sexist term that simply seethes with privilege and patriarchy. Why, you can’t even sing “Hark! the Herald Angel Sings”  with out noticing “Pleased as man with man to dwell” has been corrected to “Pleased as man with us to dwell.”  And if they get to changing Jesus to Sophia as some so-called Christians are wont to do, they will be able to get rid of the first man in that line as well.” Now where was I? Oh yes,) a one man campaign to encourage the full celebration of Our Lord’s birth starting with first vespers on December 24 and not ending until the feast of the Epiphany on January 6. In fact, I may even go further and advocate for the continual celebration of Christmas until Candlemas (The Feast of the Presentation) on February 2.

To all who celebrated the whole twelve days of Christmas, a blessed new year. To those who only observed the Winter Festival from October 31 to December 24, Bah, Hum-Bug.

May the Lord born to us in Bethlehem, seen by the shepherds, visited by the Magi, bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

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