The New Testament Book of James, Part 5

Us Two by A.A. Milne

Things are nicer with two.

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, "Where are you going today?" says Pooh: "Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too. Let's go together," says Pooh, says he. "Let's go together," says Pooh. - See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Us-Two#sthash.mPMbx1KU.dpuf

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.

Read the whole thing.

C.S. Lewis once wrote in a letter, "Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." It seems that all of us get to a point in our lives when we think that we're too old for fairy tales or other children's literature. We want hardness and cynicism. We want independence, self-sufficiency, and being "grown-up," whatever any of that really means. But the best children's literature has a way of drilling down to truth, not with innocence--because who, after all, is innocent, even at birth?--but with vulnerable honesty, showing us that life is best with others whom we love and who love us.

Little in adult literature is so honest as Milne's poem. Simply, he articulates the desire, the need, we all have for people who will share, really share, in our lives, not just our houses or our beds. We need people who are moving in the same direction as we are, who can face their fears and relish their triumphs along with us, and with whom we can share mutual love and respect even when we may be mad at each other, even when we struggle with the dragons.

Having been made in the image of the triune God--one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--I believe that we are meant to be we's and us'es. We are made for community. We are made to be together.

And when there is just one someone who is at least willing always to say, "Let's go together," we are blessed beyond measure.

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, "Where are you going today?" says Pooh: "Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too. Let's go together," says Pooh, says he. "Let's go together," says Pooh. - See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Us-Two#sthash.mPMbx1KU.dpuf

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, "Where are you going today?" says Pooh: "Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too. Let's go together," says Pooh, says he. "Let's go together," says Pooh. - See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Us-Two#sthash.mPMbx1KU.dpuf

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me. Whatever I do, he wants to do, "Where are you going today?" says Pooh: "Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too. Let's go together," says Pooh, says he. "Let's go together," says Pooh. - See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Us-Two#sthash.mPMbx1KU.dpuf

The Causes of Addiction May Not Be What We Think

This article from The Huffington Post suggests that we may not know what causes addiction.

Three different colleagues posted links to it on Facebook today and when I read the piece this morning, for me it confirmed a basic truth of the Bible: We are made for relationship with God and with others, made for community. When community is distorted, we look for comfort where we can find it. That often leads to addiction.

One interesting section of the article:

If you get run over today and you break your hip, you will probably be given diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. In the hospital around you, there will be plenty of people also given heroin for long periods, for pain relief. The heroin you will get from the doctor will have a much higher purity and potency than the heroin being used by street-addicts, who have to buy from criminals who adulterate it. So if the old theory of addiction is right -- it's the drugs that cause it; they make your body need them -- then it's obvious what should happen. Loads of people should leave the hospital and try to score smack on the streets to meet their habit.

But here's the strange thing: It virtually never happens. As the Canadian doctor Gabor Mate was the first to explain to me, medical users just stop, despite months of use. The same drug, used for the same length of time, turns street-users into desperate addicts and leaves medical patients unaffected.

If the patient has been discharged into a loving family and to a life that gives options, it appears, she's less likely to be addicted to the drug than a person in whose life there are few close relationships or in which opportunities for happiness are few.

Difficult environments and relationships, not the allure of a drug's buzz, seem to be breeding grounds for addiction.

To me, the article suggests the importance of churches being strong communities in which faith in and relationship with Christ is both taught and lived.

It also suggests to me that some addictions, even those often seen as harmless, such as overeating, may be seen, and I think, should be seen, as symptomatic of a need for deeper relationships with God and others.

Addiction entails filling voids with stuff that can only be filled by community with God and with others. The call of the Church is to share Jesus so that the world can be free of its "stuff" forever!

Read the whole thing.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for linking to this post.]

Risking Being Known

From today's installment of Our Daily Bread:

One reason we are unwilling to risk being known is that we fear rejection and ridicule. But when we discover that God knows us, loves us, and is willing to forgive even the worst thing we have done, our fear of being known by God begins to fade away. And when we find a community of believers who understands the dynamic relationship between forgiveness and confession, we feel safe confessing our sins to one another (James 5:16).

Read the whole thing.

"I'm spiritual, not religious"; not so much

On airplanes, Lillian Daniel, a pastor, says she dreads it when the passenger in the next seat learns what work she does. "I'm spiritual, not religious," the other passenger often says, in a line I myself have heard dozens of times from people explaining their spiritual disconnectedness.

It doesn't impress Daniel:

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself. 

Amen! As a Christian, I believe that Jesus Christ founded His Church as a community for those who follow Him not only to be comforted and reassured, but also challenged and set straight.

If you're not connected to a church community, there's little chance that you're spiritual. You're just someone with a few hobby horse ideas and nobody to tell you that you're full of it.

Read Daniel's short article.

[Thanks to Pastor Eric Swensson (@KinderEric) for turning me onto this article.]

Church: A Place Where the Lonely Find Community?

It should be. Pastor Jan Edmiston writes:

What gives Church a bad name is when people come searching for community and it's not that a particular congregation is a "bad match" as much as there is no authentic community to be found unless you have already been there for a generation, or already know people, or look/act a certain way. When people leave church lonelier than they were when they arrived, it's not good.

So who's lonely in your church?

Read the whole thing.

About the American Dream

[This is a column I wrote about seven years ago. It seems relevant today.]

Recently, my daughter's German pen pal, a fifteen year old named Sarah, wrote to her with an interesting question. "What," she asked, "is the American Dream?"

My daughter asked me to answer that question from my perspective. Here's part of what I wrote:

"Sarah: Today, when people talk about 'the American Dream,' it seems that they have the idea only of making lots of money and having possessions. But that isn't how I remember hearing the phrase used when I was growing up.

"I've done a little research recently, learning that the phrase was first used in the early part of the twentieth century. To the originator of the phrase and to me, the American Dream means two things. First, it means the dream of being free: free to worship as one wishes, free to speak one's mind and to effect what happens in government, free to choose the career path that seems best for us, free to get an education, free to marry who we wish to marry, and so on.

"But a second part of the American Dream is that our freedom is to be kept in tension with the responsibility that each of us bears to treat our neighbor with respect and consideration.

"Freedom within a community of caring. That's the American Dream.

"It's definitely true that the United States is flawed and there have been terrible things that have been done in this country. Slavery and the continued discrimination that African-Americans face here today is wrong. The mistreatment of Native Americans is a horrible blot on our country's history. During the Second World War, Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps for no reason, even as many of their sons were fighting and dying in the war. We are horribly materialistic and our wealth seems to make us insensitive to the needs of the poor within our own country and in the rest of the world. We've desecrated the environment.

"But when we're at our best, it's when we're living out the American Dream. We're letting each other enjoy the freedom this country was founded to bring and we're caring for each other.

"I think that the American Dream is best summarized by the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Written by Emma Lazarus, it says nothing about money or possessions:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she
With silent lips, 'Give me your tired, your poor,
'Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
'The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
'Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me,
'I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"

Obviously, Sarah's question was important to me. I'd very much like to see an end brought to our materialistic interpretation of the American Dream. I'd like to see it replaced by the dream of a society--and a world--in which every person is free to be all that God made them to be and where every person is committed to helping others fulfill that same destiny.

There is so much more to being human than how much stuff we possess. Time and again, I hear the penetrating question of Jesus Christ, "What does it profit them if they gain the whole, but lose...themselves?" We can have fat wallets and empty lives.

Through my forty-six years [now fifty-three!] on this planet, I've come to believe that the only way we can have a society characterized by freedom within a community of caring is if all of us turn to Jesus Christ, God-in-the-flesh. Jesus gives us the right relationships with God and neighbor we all need just to live good lives on this earth, not to mention in eternity.

But, lest you think I feel bleak, know this: I wake up with enthusiasm each morning because I can't wait to share Jesus Christ with more people. Jesus can change this world one person at a time! And I'm out to let everybody know that.

I'm not perfect. Far from it! But when I turn my life to Jesus Christ, I find that He gives me the confidence and security I need to be who God made me to be. He also gives me the confidence and security to let others be who God made them to be.

The surest route to the real American Dream--freedom in a community of caring--is through Jesus Christ. I hope you'll join me in following Him.