Midlife Meditation

Proof:  Some people gonna call you up Tell you something that you already know Proof:  Sane people go crazy on you Say ''No man, that was not t he deal we made I got to, I got to go'' Faith:  Faith is an island in the setting sun But proof, yes p roof is the bottom line for everyone --Paul Simon, "Proof," from Rhythm of the Saints , 1990. I wonder: when Donald Trump looks in the mirror, does he tell himself the same words he's used on audiences longing for someone, something, anything they can rely on to improve their lives: "Believe me!" And when he sees that huckster expression on his face, hears those words bouncing back off the glass, does he, in fact, believe whatever thoughts are bouncing around under his expensive meta-combover? Judging from the fallout of Saturday's Trumped-up "Obama wiretapped me" tweets, the answer to that rhetorical question is a very solid "yes." Here's White House spok...

It took me ten years to get here. June, 1995: a moment of victory, acclamation, as the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church finally welcomed me into full membership as an elder, a fully ordained minister, with all the rights and responsibilities thereunto appertaining. I had worked so hard to reach that point at which the Bishop, my District Superintendent, my father and one other elder of my choosing, and my daughter (in lieu of my soon-to-be-ex-wife) laid hands on me, I placed my hand on Jason Lee's Bible and took the vows of ministry, and my father's red stole was placed around my neck, that I should have felt overwhelming joy. I made it! A life of faithful service lies before me! I will never again have to worry about hunting for a job! The fact that the last celebration topped my list is a hint of where that career was headed. Before I get to that, though, I have to talk about several other things that made this moment far more bitter than...

Portrait of Faith: Victor, Elam Sr., Elam Jr., Colena, and Frances Anderson, c. 1932. Christianity was never meant to be a legacy faith. Reading the oldest portions of the New Testament, it becomes clear that the first generation of Jesus' followers never expected a second generation to arise. In Mark 9:1, Matthew 16:28, and Luke 9:27, Jesus says that "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power." In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul counsels the church to practice celibacy, so as not to be caught in flagrante delicto by the parousia . Of course, the Second Coming never happened, at least not in the way it was expected to, and every generation of Christians since has had to find a way to live eschatologically in a world that isn't going anywhere. The evangelical urgency of the gospels--of converting the entire world in fear of the wrath to come--lost much of its edge as churches had to shift their fo...

Freshly baptized, I begin my journey into doubt. "I want to believe." Those words sum up most of my adult life. It's an odd credo, indicative as it is of the lack  of a creed, but there really are no other words to describe my spiritual journey. I began wrestling with unbelief when I was in middle school. I idolized my father, the small-town minister, and even though my pubescent sensibilities wished there was more adventure in his sermons, I loved hearing him preach. The old church in Emmett, Idaho, was a safe, comforting place to me. Outside its walls, though, I was suffering the worst years of my childhood: merciless bullying; constant reminders that, as a non-Mormon, I was an outsider; and worst of all, the knowledge that, as much as I admired my father, most of the town looked down on him. Why, my young mind wondered, would God allow such storm and stress to fall on our family? Despite these growing doubts, I took confirmation classes from Dad, never t...

Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer. W.C. Fields It's that time of year again: the time when the thoughts of pious folk turn to the objects of their piety, and they engage in cultic rituals to observe that it is, indeed, that time of year. I'm speaking, of course, of baseball season. No, seriously, this is about Easter, and a little about Passover: religious festivals that happen to coincide with the beginning of spring (and baseball season, but that's really not relevant to this topic). A year ago, I started this blog with some of my long-festering objections to Easter. At the time, I muted my criticism in acknowledgment of my part-time employment as a church musician. Since then, I have left that position to concentrate my attention on full-time music teaching. I love my work, find it challenging and rewarding, and feel no desire to return to a church setting, despite having spent, prior to last November, ...

Faith is an island in the setting sun...proof is the bottom line for everyone. --Paul Simon, "Proof" In the past four years, Amy has seen, touched, heard, felt so many things she never knew were real. And so have I. There are things in heaven and earth that can only be dreamt of until they are experienced firsthand. Images, recordings, descriptions, artifacts can only hint at the thing in its fullness. Even once in its presence, one must be open to it, receptive to its essence, for it to permeate one's perception and alter one's being. I first visited the Craters of the Moon National Monument in 1970. I was nine years old. I found much to appreciate about it, but only at a superficial level. We passed through this volcanic blast zone many times during our years in Idaho. It was convenient and cheap, two essential criteria for us in our perpetually strapped condition. I quickly tired of it; it was not, after all, really the moon, but something wholly other, so...

  There's a polite knock on the door. I set aside the project I was working on, walk over to the door, and outside find two neatly dressed young men, nametags on their pockets, black books in their hands, eager to share the Good Word with me. The nametags clearly label them as Mormon missionaries, and I've seen them bicycling around the neighborhood for months, so I'm not surprised by this. They've probably had far lots of doors shut in their faces, many of them rudely, and it must be wearing on them; yet somehow they maintain their good humor and optimism. Before they can say anything more than "Hello," I tell them this really aren't going to want to talk with us. "Are you sure?" asks one of them, struggling to hide his disappointment. "Have you ever talked to someone about the Mormon faith?" "Yes, I have," I reply, "and really, this isn't a house you want to spend time on. But good luck." I smile and cl...