Abundance in a time of scarcity

I walked through Concord Mills the other day with long strides and deliberate blinders. My goal was exercise, not shopping, and I didn't want to be tempted.

The daily economic news is enough to make even spendthrifts put locks on their wallets.
Everyone I know is cutting back: eating out less, putting off purchases, making do.

Budgetary discipline is good. Less focus on material acquisitions is even better. But spending all your time thinking about what you can't buy or shouldn't buy makes you just as much a slave to money as if you were spending all your time shopping or scheming to become wealthy. Either way, you're not living the free, abundant life that religions tell us we were created to enjoy.

I tend to get less antsy about money than about time. There never seems to be enough time to do all that absolutely must be done. So I live in a state of perpetual scarcity despite each day's reliable gift of 24 hours.

I daydream, as most of us do, about what it would be like to have an inexhaustible supply of both money and time. But the truth is that I would not necessarily be more free. True freedom is owning without grasping, giving without resentment, appreciating without craving more.

Yes, I know: This attitude won't pay the mortgage when you've lost your job and your savings. But most of our fretting comes long before we reach that point. And who knows? If we're used to seeing abundance in every circumstance, we might see it even then, in unexpected ways.

How has your faith affected how you deal with the current economic troubles?

Gay bishop: 'Bless us with tears'

If a bishop spoke at a nationally televised event attended by 400,000, would anyone hear the prayer?

Not as many as you might think.

The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, delivered the invocation before Sunday's We Are One inaugural concert. But HBO started its live coverage after the prayer, and a problem with either the microphone or the speakers kept many in the audience from hearing his words.

I'm not among those who attribute this to a conspiracy to silence the controversial clergyman, whose election as bishop has stirred conflict and possible schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion. But I do think it's a shame, because the prayer is unusual in what it requests from God. How many of us would ask for the "blessings" of tears, anger and discomfort?

Here is what Bishop Robinson prayed:

“O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears – tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

"Bless this nation with anger – anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

"Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

"Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

"Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

"Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

"Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

"And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

"Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people.

"Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.

"Give him stirring words; we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

"Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

"Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

"Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

"And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen."

It is true, of course, that prayers need not be televised or amplified to reach the One to whom they are addressed. But I believe this particular prayer is worth reading, pondering and taking to heart. God save us from complacency!

What if you were asked to pray publicly for our incoming president? What would you say to God in earshot of a nation?

Mirth or madness

"Going deep sounds like an important thing to do," a friend told me after reading yesterday's post. "But it also sounds boring. Is it possible to take the spiritual life seriously without being so ... well ... serious?"

I laughed, as she knew I would. We've been friends long enough to have poked fun at most everything, from politicians to disasters to our families to death itself. But it's not the cynical sort of humor that sneers at the thought that anything has value. Instead, it is the kind of joke that helps us to take human fallibility lightly (especially our own).

Or as the always quotable G.K. Chesterton put it:

“Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness.”

Tread water or dive deep in '09?

Every Sunday at my church, we confess "things done and left undone." I've left this blog undone for far too long, more out of lack of time than lack of interest.

But one of the gifts of a new year is the motivation to reset priorities -- to make a conscious decision about what duties or passions we'll give the best of ourselves to in the coming months.

It's so easy to slip into the habit of treading water rather than diving deep. To flail about, fighting every wave, complaining that the sea ought to be still and calm. Life rarely is.

Over the years I've found, as perhaps you have as well, that when I give spiritual matters a higher priority in my life -- when, as Thomas R. Kelly wrote, I "live from the Center" -- it makes all the difference. For me, that higher priority will include an intentional increase in prayer, reading and writing, including this blog.

How do you intend to live differently in 2009?

Sure footing in slippery times

Stocks in a tailspin every other day. Jobs in jeopardy. Home values slipping.

Fear.

You can hear it in anxious conversations at the next table in the restaurant or around the coffee pot at work. It's not a hurricane of panic, just a rising tide of worry that relentlessly erodes our sense of security.

How can we stand? Where is the rock that provides stability in uncertain days? The Federal Reserve? A fat 401(k)? Family? Friends? Fate? Our own heroic efforts?

Those of us who walk the spiritual path are likely to respond that God is our foundation, our footing in slippery times. It's a matter of trust: We trust God to bring us through life's challenges. It's not that we expect to escape storms; we just rely on the promise that we don't navigate through them alone.

We trust. Or we try to, anyway. It's usually not long before we lose faith or patience and try to take matters into our own hands again ... with predictable results.

Much of our desperate grasping for security is an attempt to gain or maintain control over our circumstances. Ironically, giving up our illusion of control is the only real way to achieve peace in the chaos. It allows us appreciate the joys and opportunities of present circumstances, rather than living in fear of what lies ahead.

How do you cope with anxious times? What part does spirituality play?

Black holes and the gift of mortality

Have you heard the latest end-of-the-world scenario?

No, not another "Left Behind" book.

Think something more along the lines of Dr. Frankenstein's monster.

The world's most powerful atom smasher went into operation Wednesday, despite the fears of a few scientists that, when fully operational, it might create tiny black holes that could suck the entire planet into nonexistence.

Other scientists, including of course the more than 8,000 physicists across the globe who collaborated on the project, tell us to ignore the Chicken Littles. They appear to have science on their side, based on this article.

Still, it's hard to ignore doomsday predictions, however farfetched. So yesterday, when I became annoyed over a little matter, the Possibility of Imminent Planetary Annihilation crossed my mind. Then the microscopic black hole of "does this really matter if everything is about to go poof?" immediately sucked up the little matter, squeezing it into no matter.

Seeing the end -- even just a potential end -- tends to change your perspective.

And that, I think, is the gift of mortality. We know, if we dare to admit it, that our lives are short. They could end a week from now. Or tomorrow. Or today. If we keep this uncomfortable fact in mind, surely we are more likely to treat others lovingly, to forgive slights, to make the most of our time, to explore the big questions of meaning instead of sweating the small stuff.

The question remains the same whether the Large Hadron Collider destroys Earth in a few weeks or the planet gets a million-year reprieve: What will each of us do with the time we have left?

"The Devil ... no, my genes made me do it"

According to Study finds fidelity is in the genes, new scientific research shows that two of every five men lack the genetic aptitude for monogamy: "In other words, if a man's culture, religion and family background each have a seat at the conference table that determines his attitudes toward marital fidelity and monogamy, his genes might well sit at the head of the table."

I'm reminded of St. Paul's admonition to live according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh - although he had something other than gene variants in mind.

Does the study undermine the notion of moral choice? No, because inclination can't invalidate a promise. If someone vows to "forsake all others," then keeping that vow is the moral choice. The choice to remain faithful might be easier for some than others, but that doesn't make it morally optional.

Our genes -- like the culture and family we are born into -- are the building blocks of our life. What structure we build with those blocks depends on the choices we make.

So what do you think? Has "The Devil made me do it" been updated into "My genes made me do it"? Is biology destiny? How do you determine what is moral conduct?