gospelmind http://www.gospelmind.org seeing life through the lens of the Gospel posterous.com Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:45:00 -0700 God's Goodness, part 1 http://www.gospelmind.org/gods-goodness-part-1 http://www.gospelmind.org/gods-goodness-part-1

Last night I reached a breaking point in my heart. We do this occasionally—only so long can we carry a burden of pain and sorrow before it spills out everywhere, one direction or another. Mine spilled out into prayer, and it took the form of unusually direct prayer: I asked for what I wanted, without apology. Generally speaking, when I do not know a desire is God's will, I try to add as many conditionals as possible to my prayers. "If it's your will... I might be wrong, so if this is good... This is my perspective, but if it's not yours..."

But last night I simply asked for what seemed good to me. No conditionals. Not that I was demanding; but it seemed right to lay out what seemed good to me as clearly as possible.

Now, here was the striking thing: I realized that I was asking with fear, not with faith. My deepest emotion, if you pulled it up and stated it as a proposition, was: "I want this very deeply, therefore God will take it away (for my good)." In fact, this belief has been operating quietly in my heart for as long as I can remember. I think a good many of the conditionals in my prayers have come from this place of fear—ask for what you want, but don't let God know just how badly you want something, because then he will surely deny it. After all, it has become an IDOL—and what better for you than to take away your idols?

There is a sort of logic here. We need to love God most of all; check. Things we want deeply can often become idols; check. We have a hard time letting go of idols; check. God loves us and wants us to love him; check. ERGO, God will seize and destroy all the things we want most deeply so that we can love him alone. QED.

But there is a hidden premise in this argument, and a hidden belief in many of our hearts: God prefers to teach us to love him by withholding things from us.

Really? Is this Biblical? Or is it more of the same lie that we heard so long ago in the Garden: "Did God really say you can't eat of any tree in the Garden?"

 

Part of what led me, last night, to question this, is the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1-2. This is a familiar story to anyone who grew up in Sunday School:

There's a man with two wives (never mind that, children, moving along): Hannah and Peninah. Peninah (who in my mind was always ugly, warped with bitterness) has many children, and mocks Hannah (young and pretty—I think I got these images from Disney, or flannelgraph) who has none. One year, as they go up to the Tabernacle to offer sacrifices, Hannah reaches her breaking point. She slips away to the presence of the LORD, and pours her heart out, asking for what she deeply desires: a son. After mistaking her for a drunken woman, Eli the priest prays that her desire be fulfilled. God hears and, sure enough, she has a son—Samuel.

There is an interesting detail in this story which I missed as a child. Elkanah, Hannah's husband, says to her in her grief, "Am I not more to you than ten sons?" Interesting. There is a way in which Hannah's desperate grief is all out of tune with her situation. She is deeply loved, regardless of her barrenness (very unusual in that culture). All she can see is her shame, even though the one whose love really counts treasures her. In her somewhat inappropriate grief, she cries out to God to take her inappropriate shame away through an unnecessary child.

And God says yes.

 

How does that fit in with our paradigm? Is this the act of a God who really prefers to teach us by withholding? It seems like God has concern for how Hannah actually feels and the language in which she will be able to receive love. She is broken; she can no longer hear her husband's love; she can only understand her value if she bears a child. And rather than make her suffer long into a realization that she doesn't need a child, God gives her one. And then many more.

This seems like the action of a God who is concerned for Hannah's joy, to the extent that he will give to her the deepest need of her heart. It seems like God is more interested in blessing Hannah tangibly than running her through the grinder. Now, yes, of course, Hannah had to wait and experience much pain before she received her son. But for goodness' sake, her son was Samuel. Her name is in the Bible, as an example of faith. Her name is known everywhere and she is remembered with honor. That's a bit better than getting your first child right when you wanted it.

We are taught that God is working everything for our good. But somehow our assumption is that he will do so by repeatedly beating us over the head. In our inner hearts, we believe that God prefers to grow us through pain. For example, how many times have you heard someone say, "We really only grow in the hard times!" Really? God has nothing to teach us in times of blessing and abundance? He only uses suffering? His entire sanctifying toolkit is torture devices?

I want to explore a different idea—one I think is more Biblical, and therefore more true. What if God prefers to teach us through kindness, abundance, generosity and mercy? What if using pain is something he does only when it is really necessary, but not by default? How would that change the way we see Him? How would that change the way we pray? How would it change our faith and hope in the midst of hardships?

My conviction—which I hope to demonstrate—is that we are better able to accept discipline from a God we believe would prefer not to have to administer it. We are more ready to believe He is doing good in our hardship, when we assume that His normal way is blessing and abundance.

 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:09:54 -0700 Homecoming and Withdrawal http://www.gospelmind.org/homecoming-and-withdrawal http://www.gospelmind.org/homecoming-and-withdrawal "What we lose in homecoming is not the objects of our attachment, nor even our care for them. In fact, our care grows toward true love, love that sees and appreciates all things in the world for what they are. What we lose is the attachment itself, the strength of our addictive behavior in relation to these objects, the way we make gods of them. But we feel no real consolation when we experience the inevitable withdrawal symptoms that accompany letting go our attachments. There is real pain here."

--Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 96

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:10:52 -0700 REVIEW: Convergence: Breaking the Ice http://www.gospelmind.org/review-convergence-breaking-the-ice-0 http://www.gospelmind.org/review-convergence-breaking-the-ice-0

Recently I had the chance to speak at a Christian high school for their spiritual emphasis week. It was a great experience. I chose to speak all week about Telling the Gospel Story to ourselves, each other, and the world. I wanted to convey that we need to read our lives through the lens of God's Story, to tell ourselves the True story. The principal kindly (but with some concern) asked me to clarify—what's with the emphasis on story? He was, understandably, concerned by that word.

There is a movement of Christians who call themselves emergent, emerging, new, (insert other trendy title here). It's very hard to give definitions about these groups because they eschew definitions and categories. But all of them are deeply influenced by post-modernism, a worldview which maintains (among other things) that we are so deeply entrenched in our particular context, so limited in our vision, that we cannot possibly get to Absolute Truth. Truth remains forever beyond our grasp, so we must content ourselves with CREATING meaning rather than discovering it. (That's a exceedingly brief introduction and washes over a lot of nuances, but it'll do for right now.)

So, post-modern Christians often end up focusing on story because there is no where else to go; we can't really know what God said, the Bible can't be fully true, it's more important to deal with our feelings and stories than theology, etc. (Again, too brief to do their position justice. I'm summarizing, not giving a complete critique. These people aren't stupid and deserve a fair hearing.)

Here's the thing—while I don't agree with their conclusions, the post-moderns are right about some things. We *are* largely trapped within our vision, our interpretations. We *are* constantly narrating our experience to ourselves. We do not come to life as a Given Set of Facts, which we know or don't. One of the key truths about humans is that we are story-tellers. We pick out facts, weave them together, and find meaning. We make metaphors, create order, find sense. Constantly.

But God made us this way, with an ability to tell TRUE stories, or FALSE ones. And He stepped into the story, and became the Lead Actor, so that the most true version of any person's story must be told as a chapter in the story of the Lamb Who Was Slain. If I am going to tell myself the truth, I have to tell myself the Gospel, and read the events in my life through that lens. I have to tell myself the story of the God Jesus reveals, the Life Jesus gives, the community He creates. My story is His story. I have access to Truth because Truth steps into my story and makes it His.

That is, essentially, the purpose of "Breaking the Ice," a DVD small group resource in the "Convergence" series. Hosted by Don Miller (author of "Blue Like Jazz" fame), each episode consists of a conversation between a theologian/pastor/writer and Miller. The conversations ramble, take tangents, flow—and along the way raise a lot of good questions.

In this entry, Miller talks with Phyllis Tickle, an author/theologian responsible for the recent "Ancient Practices" series. They tackle the topic of Story—do our stories matter? Why should we tell them? What effect do they have on us, on others?

If you are looking for a DVD that will provide answers in a systematic, clear way, don't bother. This will annoy you. But if you are looking to spark conversation about interesting, important topics, this could do the trick. While Miller and Tickle share bits of their stories, and wax philosophical about narrative and place and other literary devices, they touch on deeply important questions that people in community need to learn to ask one another.

For example, Tickle points out that even in the most bland of stories—"I got to the bus station and the bus had already gone"—we pick out *that* event, *those* details because they contain emotion. If the listener pushes a little bit ("What did that feel like? Why did that stick out for you?") they can unearth far deeper issues. And that is how we come to know one another—by listening to our stories with an ear tuned for the Story beneath the story.

It's also in story-telling that we unearth the unspoken value systems we inhabit. In story-telling we reveal who we believe ourselves to be, who we think God is, how we think life is supposed to run.

A skilled small group leader will be able to use this resource to prompt the community to go deeper, explore their narratives and ask important questions. Most importantly, the leader can easily take the discussions to the Gospel—given that we are creatures who tell ourselves stories, how can we tell ourselves and others the True story? How can we weave our narrative into God's larger narrative?

I'd recommend this resource to groups who feel ready to step into knowing one another better and learning to make distinctions between true and false narratives, learning to tell God's story. But groups should be aware that this is not a Bible study; this is not teaching, in the traditional sense. It can, however, prepare the group to more deeply engage Bible study when they get to it.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:02:13 -0700 ENGAGING WITH IDEAS: Thoughts on being a humble and discerning thinker http://www.gospelmind.org/engaging-with-ideas-thoughts-on-being-a-humbl http://www.gospelmind.org/engaging-with-ideas-thoughts-on-being-a-humbl
A friend of mine read a blog post I put up this morning, where I recommended a DVD with a conversation between Donald Miller and Phyllis Tickle. He gently pointed out to me that not all of Tickle’s work seems orthodox—at least on some topics, what she has to share is problematic at best.

I don’t disagree with that assessment. In fact, while we’re on the subject, not all of what Donald Miller says is easy to digest. He strays a bit outside of orthodoxy himself at times.

So why, then, did I recommend for small groups something that features both of them?

Because it’s good.

It’s important to remember that people are flawed and short-sighted. The best theologians miss things. People who reject truth vehemently get things right. When we’re on a quest to understand God’s truth, we need (among others) at least two character qualities: humility and discernment.

Humility prepares us to welcome truth wherever we find it. Rather than rejecting writers and teachers wholesale because they get (even important) things wrong, we have a willingness to understand their ideas with fairness before we evaluate them. We do them the favor of listening completely.

But that doesn’t mean we’re not careful. Discernment means that, once we have understood, we evaluate to the best of our ability whether the ideas cohere with God’s Word. Even if they seem not to, we don’t write the person off as stupid (humility!). But we are careful to build our lives only on foundations that we are able to see stemming from the Gospel. And this doesn’t just apply to people we suspect are off. It applies to everyone, including ourselves. The book of Acts commends the Bereans for searching Paul’s message by the Old Testament writings, thinking carefully to see if he was in accord with God’s truth. But they listened carefully, too.

In that vein, here are a few thoughts on what it means to be a humble and discerning reader:

  1. Everyone is wrong somewhere. Let’s just get that on the table. Anyone who tries to express truth, will miss something someplace.
  2.  That includes you. It’s really helpful, as a reader, to remember that you might be wrong. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find truth; it just means, don’t be arrogant.
  3. Listen/read the way you’d want others to treat you. If you were trying your best to speak the truth, and got something way wrong, how would you want your reader to respond? Your listener? Be honest. You’d want them to know you were wrong, but you’d want to be treated with grace. And you’d want them to keep listening to the stuff that is right.
  4. Expect to find truth in weird places. The writers who have most helped me in my Christian walk have often been deeply opposed to Christianity (Ayn Rand, Iris Murdoch, Plato) or [I believe] wrong in important ways (Annie Dillard, Marilynne Robinson, Simone Weil, Kathleen Norris, Charles Taylor). Where they are wrong, I try to learn from their mistakes. Where they are right, though, is in places that often evangelical Christianity doesn’t get to see.
  5. Expect to find lies in weird places. No writer gets it all right, as we said before. So that means, even with the pastors/teachers you like most, consider whether what they are saying is, in fact, in line with God’s Word. Don’t just take stuff on the fact that they’ve been good so far. Engage thoughtfully.
  6. Understand that communicating to a broad audience is really hard. Many times, the nuances of what we are trying to say get lost in the medium. Plato distrusted writing for this very reason: you can’t ask questions of the text and get clarification. What’s written/said is done, and unless you can find the author you can’t have them say it a different way. But lots of times we need people to say things a different way. Think of how many times you have to adjust in a conversation because someone isn’t quite getting what you’re saying. Many times, a pastor/teacher/writer is not wrong, they’re just talking to somebody else in a way that doesn’t sit well with you. If you could converse you might discover more agreement than you initially believed. Try to get to the intentions of the author, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
  7. Give it time. Even today I was reading a book and came across a Scriptural interpretation that I did not like—and an hour later I finally understood what the writer was saying and agreed. Sometimes it takes way longer. Years later I’ll return to a book and find that I can now understand the nuances of what the writer is saying.
  8. Try to augment, if possible. If someone is writing or speaking, it is because they have a message. But not the whole message. No one can say everything. And sometimes authors leave out very important qualifications or considerations, or fail to make connections that are crucial. Many times what looks wrong is just incomplete, and if you can supply the missing subtleties, you can unearth great truths. Give pastors and writers a break; they can’t see every angle.
  9. Ask other people how something strikes them. You might just not understand. It happens.
  10.  In the end, accept only what seems to mesh with the Gospel—but still try to understand the rest. That may mean that there are whole areas of thought that you cannot bring to complete conclusion. That’s alright. Many people, much smarter than you or I, couldn’t either. There is enough clear truth in the Bible to start building a life on; the rest will come as it does. But only if you have the humility to draw the line between what you do understand, and what you don’t. If you don’t fully understand, don’t be quick to write ideas off.


I hope that’s helpful. And, by the way, I’m wrong here somewhere.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:15:01 -0700 Spaciousness http://www.gospelmind.org/spaciousness http://www.gospelmind.org/spaciousness "If we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace. We can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. Then we may begin to appreciate our inherent, God-given lovableness."

--Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, 31

This, of course, only works if we preach the Gospel to ourselves. We can only avoid guilt and condemnation if we a) deny the weight of our wrongdoing and idolatry and claim that we have no sin ("it's not a big deal!"); or b) accept that God "made Him who knew no sin to become sin, in order that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor 5:21)

So to deal honestly with our defects/idolatries without hating ourselves, we need Christ.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:49:32 -0700 Addiction and Humility http://www.gospelmind.org/addiction-and-humility http://www.gospelmind.org/addiction-and-humility "Sooner or later, addiction will prove to us that we are not gods."

--Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 20

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:18:50 -0700 Rock Bottom http://www.gospelmind.org/rock-bottom-10 http://www.gospelmind.org/rock-bottom-10 "To state it quite simply, I had tried to run my life on the basis of my willpower alone. When my supply of success at this egoistic autonomy ran out, I became depressed. And with the depression, by means of grace, came a chance for spiritual openness."

--Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 10

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:34:41 -0700 Understanding and Addiction http://www.gospelmind.org/understanding-and-addiction http://www.gospelmind.org/understanding-and-addiction "Understanding will not deliver us from addiction, but it will, I hope, help us appreciate grace."

--Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, p. 4

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:32:07 -0700 Addiction and Grace http://www.gospelmind.org/addiction-and-grace http://www.gospelmind.org/addiction-and-grace I am reading Addiction and Grace by Gerald May, a leading Christian psychologist who passed away recently.

Some of these quotes are just too good not to share. So I'm going to post them... hope they provoke some good thought.

"I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being...

"We are all addicts in every sense of the word. Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains that are of our own making, yet paradoxically are virtually beyond our control.

"Addiction also makes idolaters of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another...

"Yet still, in another paradox, our addictions can lead us to a deep appreciation of grace. They can bring us to our knees."

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:39:00 -0700 Jesus is My Lover, #1 http://www.gospelmind.org/jesus-is-my-lover-1 http://www.gospelmind.org/jesus-is-my-lover-1

I have gotten a lot of feedback from my sermon on Revelation 19. It seems like God gave words to share that a lot of people needed to hear and process. Me too. Understanding (and feeling!) the passionate heart of Jesus for us is so important and so difficult. 

So I'm going to keep processing it here with you all. I want to be intentional about giving this attention regularly, because it seems we all need it quite a bit. 

To start, I want to share a verse from Song of Solomon that I am turning into a breath prayer.

 

Breath Prayer

We generally think of prayer as a way to ask God for things that we desire or need. Or, perhaps, a way to express our hearts to Him. While these are both certainly important components of a prayerful life, I think we need a fuller definition of prayer.

Simone Weil wrote that prayer is essentially paying attention to God. I think this comes closer to the mark. To attend to something means that we look on it, gaze on it, with our full energy and concentration, in order to see it as it really is. A good student will attend to the problem set before her—she will consider it carefully until she sees it clearly, rather than rushing forward and bungling it.

Prayer, then, is at least in part an effort to see and know God for who He is, rather than reducing Him to the size of our preconceptions. Prayerful attention to God most certainly will overflow into praise, adoration, as well as asking for His help. But it will also involve listening, waiting, beholding Him.

Breath Prayer is one form of prayer that focuses especially on waiting for the presence of God, listening to His words. In this prayer, we choose a short sentence, and repeat it over and over again with the rhythm of our breath. For example:

"Abba / I belong to you."

"Daddy / let me feel your love."

"I am yours / save me."

"You are worthy / of my praise."

We select the sentence based on what we need at the moment, as best we can tell. Then we find a quiet place to sit in God's presence, or go for a walk, and focus on the words with every breath.

After 10-15 minutes, I find that the prayer becomes a quiet background and I am ready to move on to whatever I need to do with my day. But as often as I can, I return my focus to the words of the prayer. In fact I often find myself repeating them quietly without realizing I was doing so.

Breath prayer reminds me of God's continual presence, that He is closer than my breath and just as necessary. It also allows truth to shape my mind, rather than lies—I find it easier to resist condemnation or temptation when I have been meditating on truth all day.

 

I am my Beloved's

Here, then, is the breath prayer I am drawing from Song of Solomon:

"I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me." (7:10) 

The church has long read Song of Solomon as, at least in part, representative of Christ and His Bride's love for one another. Here the Beloved sings that she belongs to her Beloved, and relishes the fact that His desire is for her. 

This is as good a place to start as any. Today (and as often as I can in the near future) I am going to pray these words, again and again: "I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.". Hard to feel? Yes. Hard to believe? Yes. But it is true. Nothing is more true. So I'm going to say it again and again, and underneath those words the prayer: Let me feel it. Let me know it. Let us all feel it, so deeply that everything in our lives finds its proper place. 

My prayers are with you all today, brothers and sisters, and in a special way with those who are hurting to feel God's love. 

You are your beloved's. And his passionate, matchless desire is for you. 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:24:40 -0800 Cognitive Therapy & Community http://www.gospelmind.org/cognitive-therapy-and-community http://www.gospelmind.org/cognitive-therapy-and-community I suspect the main shortcoming of cognitive therapy—the attempt to identify and replace false, harmful stories about ourselves and our lives with truth—is that it mostly is done independantly. I try to tell myself what is true, when I find myself believing lies.

But most—if not all—of the lies we believe are about ourselves as relational beings. And so they must be replaced, not with an abstract idea, but a concrete experience of love. I cannot just tell myself the truth. I need my community to tell me who I am.

This is why love is central to the church. Not sentimentality, but speaking the Gospel to one another clearly. When I have forgotten who I am in Christ, I cannot force myself to believe a Bible verse. Not usually. Nor, I think, does God prefer such autonomous devotion.

Instead, I need other Christians to look me in the eye and speak grace. I need them to remind me of the Cross and resurrection life, of my new identity as Beloved. They speak truth, and that is important—but with the speaking is the very experience of what is being spoken.

This is also why we must have chrurches where it is safe to struggle. If I cannot be honest about my fears and failures, my community can never speak the truth and restore me gently. They can never help me replace lies with truth if I must wear a mask in order to be accepted.

But a community where grace is the rule opens space for tremendous healing. Even in the knowledge that I can speak honestly about failure and doubt, I find the beginning of belief that I truly am accepted and welcomed by God.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:14:34 -0800 You know you're in San Francisco when... http://www.gospelmind.org/you-know-youre-in-san-francisco-when http://www.gospelmind.org/you-know-youre-in-san-francisco-when

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:20:17 -0800 On Self and Soul http://www.gospelmind.org/on-self-and-soul http://www.gospelmind.org/on-self-and-soul
"In our current culture, 'soul' has given way to 'self' as the term of choice to designate who and what we are. Self is the soul minus God. Self is what is left of soul with all the transcendence and intimacy squeezed out, the self with little or no reference to God (transcendence) or others (intimacy)."
—Eugene Peterson, "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places"

There is a startling shift in the way we see ourselves in relation to the world at the end of the medieval age. It is a complex process which writers like Charles Taylor have tried to trace (his magisterial "Sources of the Self" is a sprawling work with fingers working into every corner of Western civilization). However it came about, "soul" gave way to "self." And there is much more in that shift than a simple secularization, a step away from God.

As medieval philosophy gave way to Enlightenment thought, the individual human agent became the center of all meaning. The self—an isolated subject, a single mind looking out through the tunnel of his senses—gathered perceptions, made sense of them, constructed in his mind an image of the world, etc. He assigned words to the images, gave them meaning by identifying them.

It did not take long for an ugly problem to raise its head: how could the self ever be sure that he was seeing what was really there? The fact that we can make mistakes, be deceived, haunts modern philosophy. If we are selves—radically individual, alone in our minds looking out on a world that is entirely other—how can we "check" what we are perceiving with what is really there?

This gives rise to a pile of hypothetical situations which the self can't handle. What if you are, in fact, a brain in a vat, being stimulated by electrodes? What if this is, actually, the Matrix? A question which makes sophomore philosophy students wild with excitement.

The problem with the self is solipsism—the chance that you might, in fact, be the only real person, or at least you can never actually connect with others. You are radically, entirely, alone. Because you can never step out of your "self" to check, to know, that any one is really there at all.

The fact that this problem comes up is not a fault of our human existence. It is a signpost that we have articulate our experience badly. "Self" does not do the job. Rule one in philosophy: when your abstract hypothesis forces you to make silly conclusions that contradict everything you knew before you started doing philosophy, ditch the hypothesis. Start over.

"Soul," as Eugene Peterson points out, neatly sidesteps the problem of solipsism. "Our core identity comes out as persons-in-relationship... 'Soul is a word reverberating with relationships: God-relationships, human-relationships, earth-relationships."

To reclaim the term "soul" is not just to inject God back into our discourse. It is a sensible move, philosophically speaking. One cannot speak of "soul" without overtones of relationship to something Other than the self—something outside, which cannot be reduced away. A soul cannot be alone; its very breath is given by God.

I want to point out that the shift between "soul" and "self" is not neutral; it is morally charged. To be a "self" is an assertion of radical independence and freedom. The self is defined in contradistinction to an Other who would try to limit it; the self is the locus of Rights, and must be defended. It is inevitable that the self with eventually claim the ability to define what is right and what is wrong.

To be a "soul" is to admit, from the start, dependence. A soul receives life from the outside, and with it a responsibility. Souls must come to understand what has been given them and their place in a greater whole. They must accept the bounds drawn for them, because relationship always includes limitation. To be in relationship in, inescapably, to yield and let go of control.

There is something attractive to us in "selfhood"—that radical freedom and Right and independence. But it comes with a cost. The self can never enter true relationships; it remains forever bounded from the Other, protecting its precious freedom.

To be a soul comes at the price of self-definition and independence; but one gains intimacy, knowing and being known, harmonious engagement with the Other.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:58:38 -0800 Christmas is here—still http://www.gospelmind.org/christmas-is-herestill http://www.gospelmind.org/christmas-is-herestill

I stepped into one of our (many) local Starbucks today to enjoy a cup of coffee courtesy of my family. Giftcards for coffee are always a winner with me. It took me a moment to recognize why it looked sparse inside the cafe; after a pause I realized that nary a Christmas decoration remained to be seen.

Now, given that their religiously-neutral red-and-white snowy winterscapes had been up since Halloween, I understand. And anyway, this week America lies sprawling in the wake of buyer's remorse, sugar- headaches and the melancholy that accompanies getting your cake, eating it, and feeling rather ill afterwards. (My friend Steve commented today, "All I want to eat is fruit. No more chocolate!")

All the same, as far as the church calendar is concerned, Christmas is only started. For centuries, Christmas was a season. Lasting 12 days, from the Feast of the Nativity on the 25th (Christ's mass), until Epiphany on the 6th of January, the church recognized that meditating on the incarnation was too big a job for one day. Advent prepared us, turning our longing toward the presence of God—and now is the season to rejoice! Emmanuel—God with us—has indeed come.

So this year I am celebrating still. My advent wreath is lit each night (the first candle is getting perilously low), the tree is glittering in the window and I am unabashedly playing my Christmas music in the car. But more: I am trying to ponder the mystery of the entrance of God into this world as one of us.

Luke tells us of Mary's quiet pondering, treasuring up all the wonder surrounding the birth of her Son and meditating on them within her heart. She is our guide in this season—a time to continue on in quiet, rapt wonder of our God.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:35:32 -0800 Home for Christmas http://www.gospelmind.org/home-for-christmas-2 http://www.gospelmind.org/home-for-christmas-2

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:59:24 -0800 Advent, Sin and Attention http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-sin-and-attention http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-sin-and-attention Most forms of Christian practice devolve, over time, into a system of sin management. What begins with passion for the felt presence of Jesus, shifts. Generally we become aware of how our sin pulls us into guilt and shame, and makes us lose the sense of closeness to God we had so enjoyed. So, with the primary intent of drawing close to God, we buckle down against our sinfulness. But our eyes are now on us, and the self (to use Plato's imagery) is a burning fire, bright and attractive and even magnetic. Once we attend to ourselves it is very difficult to pry ourselves away. We find ourselves infinitely interesting—even if self-absorption is also stifling and reductive. Eyes on self, our desire for Jesus wanes and wanes and we are left at last win only a terror of sin and enslaved to our need to be better than we are.

Advent is a season to break out of this cycle. We are reminded of the many, many texts in the New Testament that promise freedom from sin ONLY at the return of Christ. It is inevitable; but we are to wait patiently, even with groaning. (See Phil 1:6, Romans 8, 1 John 3:1-3, Colossians 3:1-4.)

Essentially, Advent is a time to remember the other half of the Gospel —that Jesus is returning to restore and recreate and heal. And the effect of this, strangely, is to free us more from sin now. Because if our hope is certain that we are both forgiven AND made new, and that we await only the revealing of who we are NOW in Christ, then and only then can we get our eyes off ourselves. My sin or lack of it is no longer the issue. I am reconciled to God so that I can turn my eyes to Him, boldly and with joy—not so that I can leave them fixed on myself.

And this means we are free to love. So long as we remain obsessed with self, our "love" is only a reflection of self. We will treasure those people and things that make us feel worthwhile. But if we are assured of God's love and presence—as only the full Gospel can assure us— then we are fully free to begin paying attention to the things around us. We can look attentively at God, at the creation, at others, with loving regard.

It is a terrible shame when the Gospel is forgotten among Christians because it is then tha we become self-absorbed and ignore the needs around us; and our lives become as stuffy and stale as a room without windows or fresh air. The Gospel opens the door, airs out our lives with the Fresh breeze of the Spirit and love, draws back the curtains and lets us look outside. All because we need not be concerned with our selves. We are freed from the magnetic pull of self to the far greater pull toward God, who is not only a fire but a Sun.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:27:59 -0800 Advent week 3 http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-week-3 http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-week-3

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:47:17 -0800 Abby's birthday http://www.gospelmind.org/abbys-birthday-0 http://www.gospelmind.org/abbys-birthday-0

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:42:38 -0800 Advent and Idolatry http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-and-idolatry http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-and-idolatry A good post here about Advent—have we become idolatrous in our celebration of Christmas? Are we bowing down in worship and expectation of Christ, or before the throne of commercialism and empire?

I expect this is not an either-or for most Christians. It is not a matter of outright rejecting the giving of gifts or enjoying our American traditions associated with Christmas. But how can we recapture them as worship of Christ?

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:08:54 -0800 Advent songs http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-songs http://www.gospelmind.org/advent-songs

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Silent nights, chestnuts roasting on open fires, bleak midwinter and silver bells.

Trick is, it's not Christmas. It's Advent. Our culture has rushed us into a premature Christmas fixation, mostly because it sells things.

 

Real conversation between myself and Caleb Porter, Aaron's son, well before Thankgiving:

Caleb: Why does that store already have Christmas decorations? It's not even Thanksgiving!

Ben: Because they want your money, Caleb.

Caleb: Oh...

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against Christmas music, so long as it's played between the Friday after Thanksgiving and January 6 (Epiphany). But what does frustrate me is how we've forgotten Advent songs.

Why does this concern me? Well, mainly because Advent songs give voice to the longing and need for Christ that I've been discussing over the past few posts. Christmas songs rejoice in fulfillment; Advent songs look toward what is still unfulfilled. We need both.

So, in an effort to promote Advent celebration everywhere, here is a list of some of my favorite Advent hymns, and links to newer recordings of them. Enjoy!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/140384/n6408385_35117729_2721.jpg http://posterous.com/people/4aAXY7U7IRah Ben Barczi bbarczi Ben Barczi