Rosh Hashanah -- Happy New Year

Last night at sunset marked the first night of Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of the High Holy Days.  Now we are not a religious family, and truth be told my family grew up with such a blend of traditions that it was nothing short of confusion.  That being said, I like to mark some of the holidays in a special way, even if that special way is just making a particular food.

Obviously I'm not a very observant Jew --
but I did light a candle (of a sort) at sunset.

Most cultures have some sort of special food that they eat at the beginning of the new year to bring luck, fortune, or ward off the Evil Eye.  For Jews, on Rosh Hashanah we eat honey -- or better yet, some combination of honey and apples -- to symbolize hopes for a sweet year.  Most often, this consumption comes in the form of apples dipped in honey or a honey cake.  Now, I am allergic to raw apples, so the first option is out, and many honey cakes are actually really dry and not that appetizing, so I wondered what to do...until I found this recipe at Smitten Kitchen.  It is delicious.  I only modified two things -- all the sugar I used was brown sugar (I like that better than a combination) and I replaced half a cup of the oil with applesauce so that this recipe would contain honey and apples.  I cooked it in a bundt cake and it baked perfectly and was a huge hit with the family.

And so, dear reader, I would encourage you to try this.  After all, tonight's the second night of Rosh Hashanah and everyone wants a sweet new year.

If I'm burned at the stake, you'll know why.

Today I had to write a "testimony" for a job application.  This is common within Christian circles, but I have not had to write something like this for years because I was so firmly rooted in public education.  Now I am looking for a job and one opening is at a place that requires a testimony.  There were no detailed parameters regarding it, and my life has been so far removed from that way of thinking that it took me a while to write.

I had two goals when writing:

1) Use language that the job site would understand.
2) Be true to me so that they can't say I've deceived them.

My third goal, although not a writing goal, was to be okay with rejection.  It is something I get very used to -- it comes with the territory.  "Yes, we know you're perfectly qualified and the best candidate, but you just don't love Jesus enough/in the right way/go to church."  That's fine.  Each place needs to set its priorities, and often times even educational facilities don't have education as the highest priority.  I know that after years of experience.

I would not call myself a Christian by any stretch of the imagination, but after years of struggle I am finally okay with being spiritual.  In fact, I embrace my spiritual side.  And I think that it's closer to someone who might be religiously Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever than people might think.  A Dilbert comic from January of this year illustrates my point nicely:



Last week I met with a friend, an older woman whom I admire, and she shared that she stopped attending church, embraced her spirituality without box or boundaries or label, and she's been so much happier in these past few years than she ever was.  Growing up, I was told that people are only truly happy when they accept Jesus/go to church/"have a relationship" with Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit or whatever and I used to believe that, but my personal experiences have proved otherwise. I know the truth now: I am happier with my spiritual state than I ever was before.  And while I may choose to use words like God and Creator as I write this testimony for the job application, I want it to still show my true self, the part of me that embraces spirituality without religion or religious boundaries, without label or moniker.

And yes, they may burn me at the stake.  At the very least, I doubt that they will continue looking at my application after this (even though I've had good indicators up to this point that I would be the best candidate for the job).  But there is always the chance, the smallest chance, that they will embrace St. Augustine's All Truth is God's Truth and give me a chance.

Here's what I wrote for this "testimony":

Personal Testimony

March 2011

Some of my most profound learning experiences in recent years have come from courses I’ve taken on the philosophy of faith-learning integration.  While this may seem detached from a personal testimony, for me the  concept of testimony is inextricably bound with my beliefs regarding how faith and learning are bound. One of the first Christian scholars to broach the topic of faith-learning integration, albeit in sometimes more abstract ways, was St. Augustine, who was very clear that “all truth is God’s truth.”  If all things that are true come from God, then one can make the case that learning is a vehicle on which to build a greater faith in God through knowledge and discovery of the world.  Erasmus continued along these lines in the sixteenth century, writing about education with the assumption that one's faith will be visible in one's life and therefore “integration” (as we currently view it) is not necessary.  Melanchthon, a theologian, philosopher, teacher, and contemporary of Erasmus, believed that the Church and State were partners and that it was in the best interests of all involved to have citizens be well-educated spiritually and secularly.  As people of faith desire to know more about God, it makes sense to me to manifest faith through an innate curiosity about the world, a desire to learn and grow and through that develop spiritually.  And yet, for a good portion of my life, I felt like the concepts of “faith” and “learning” were separate, and my desire to meld the two would never come to fruition.

I was born into a house of conservative evangelicals with a bit of a “Jews for Jesus” vibe (from our heritage).  My parents were active in the local Calvary Chapel in XXXXX, and when we moved to XXXXX our family helped grow several churches over the years, sometimes Calvary Chapels, sometimes community churches, and all centers of conservative evangelical belief.  I accepted Christ at an early age, read the entire Bible through at least once by the time I was ten (and at least ten times by the time I left for college), was the model church-goer and Christian girl.  I took James 4:17 to heart and really believed that I had to always do my best and always do the right thing in every situation (even cleaning lint off the floor) because if I did not, if I was not doing everything I could to be good and do right, I was sinning.  I knew that God was forgiving, but in my experience people were not, and I did not want to give  myself or anyone else reason to be angry, disappointed, or stumble.  And so I became involved in as many evangelical pursuits as I could.  I studied and studied and studied to understand the Word of God, and for several years I seriously considered mission work as my post-college calling. 

As part of my education, I attended [a bible college that had a] Jewish Studies program.  I believed that this program would give me an even better idea of the scholarship behind biblical studies, it would integrate my Jewish and Christian heritage, and at the end I would have a better idea of whether I should pursue mission work.  I was naive.  The education was very thorough, an experience for which I am very grateful.  And while it did not provide all the answers I was looking for at the time, I can see now that my experiences started the seeds for my current beliefs about faith, learning, spirituality, and Christianity, although my life path’s results may not be what my professors intended.  I knew so much about the Bible, theology, and as I continued with my schooling and finished a bachelor’s degree I felt like what I knew about the world did not mesh with what I was told, growing up in evangelical circles, about God/Jesus/the Bible/Christianity.  Evangelicals, in my experience, wanted to be right: they didn’t want true knowledge.  They wanted to believe that people had to do certain things or behave a certain way or profess certain beliefs for God’s forgiveness.  They wanted to believe that some people, like Jews and Muslims who love God/HaShem/Allah and strive to be good and to gain fellowship with the Creator, are wrong and will thus go to this place called Hell because their vision of a relationship with God and religion is not the “right” one.  They want to believe in circular logic which says that the Bible (as we know it today) is the inerrant written Word of God because the Bible says so.  And, most damningly, they do not use their faith as a means of fueling curiosity to find the truth, even if that truth means reevaluating what one used to believe. 

It was for these reasons, and several other, more personal reasons, that I chose as an adult to stop attending church and to retreat for several years as I considered my personal beliefs regarding spirituality, Christianity, faith and learning.  For a time, I did not consider myself even a spiritual person, much less a member of any organized religion, because I could not reconcile my view of the Creator – loving, merciful, graceful – with the world around me.  This retreat turned into a period of renewal; I was happier out of the mainstream.  I could concentrate on learning Truth without always having to determine whether it was in conflict with what my education and upbringing told me was biblically true.  It was during this time that I started attending [my doctoral program].

My education at XXXXX created the opportunity for me to think critically about the concept of faith-learning integration and I was finally at the point in my life that I could embrace this concept – hesitantly at first, and then with excitement.  In my studies and personal reflection, I found that I could agree with St. Augustine’s assessment that “all truth is God's truth” and wish that more people currently could see things that way.  On a personal level, I find that I would describe my own “faith and learning” experiences and beliefs as “intellectual pursuits guided by moral beliefs.”  I love learning and my academic and spiritual sides are not separate.  Instead, I see my intellectual pursuits as a way to learn more about myself, my own moral code and compass, and deepen my awareness of life around me.  There is a purpose to pursuing and revealing truth in all its forms.  In the Bible, a passage in John 17 implies that Christians should “be in the world but not of it.”  I believe it’s our responsibility as moral agents to make wise choices about the world in which we live based on our knowledge and understanding; as we learn new information we should adjust our beliefs and practices accordingly, resulting in constant self-reflection.  As I learn more, it contributes to my sense of moral consciousness and responsibility; for me “faith” and “learning” are entirely intertwined and play a critical role in my daily thoughts and actions.  My conclusion now is much the same as when I started (although I believe I have a greater depth of understanding): if “all truth is God’s truth” then faith and learning by their very nature are intertwined concepts.  I believe that living a spiritual life is not about what one says, it’s about one’s actions.  If we function as whole individuals our learning and our personal moral code(s) should function in tandem.  If my actions are Christ-like, then I am living the moral principles I hold dear.

My spiritual quest brought me into contact with several books that helped shape my ability to express my beliefs.  Rather than giving me specific knowledge that transformed the way that I think, these books gave me the words to express some of my inner thoughts about a relationship with the Creator, God.  Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way helped me to reflect on my life’s experiences and what that means about what I want to do with life, and more importantly what I think that means about what God has for my life.  I embraced my creative side and realized that I don’t always fit inside a box – my spiritual self can be nurtured in many ways, from long quiet walks conversing with the Creator to times spent in fellowship conversations with like-minded individuals, and while we’ve been told that attending a church body is necessary on a regular basis, I’ve found that this is not the case for me.  I feel more spiritually whole, connected to God, when I am out talking with Him in nature, when I am learning about the world around me, when I am helping others.

One of my questions when working with many people in my life is why some seem so quick to put up walls when they reach a piece of learning or an idea that conflicts with what they’ve long held to be true.  Rather than jumping at the chance to see if this new idea or concept can make one grow or develop, it is quickly dismissed.  Why, then, do people who do this still claim to want to learn?  John Hull, in his book What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning?, writes that Abraham Maslow describes two motivations for learning: deficiency motivation and growth motivation.  If people feel a lack of something, they are motivated by deficiency.  If they feel healthy and enjoy discovery, they are motivated by growth.  This seems to aptly describe the environment I’ve observed my whole life: many Christians operate out of a feeling of deficiency.  “I have a need, God fills that need.”  The issue with this is that once a person feels that the need is met, the search to fill that need stops and so does the growth.  On the other hand, if one operates out of growth motivation, from the belief that “I love God not because I have a need, but because God is lovable,” then growth is continual.  The desire to learn, move forward, grow, reflect is continuous because it is not based in lack, it is based in love.

Richard Hughes’s book, The Vocation of a Christian Scholar, was one I was hesitant to read at first.  After all, what is the difference between a scholar, a Jewish scholar, a Muslim scholar, and a Christian scholar?  I was pleasantly surprised – especially when I heard Dr. Hughes speak at a gathering in January – that his treatise echos my beliefs: a belief in spirituality, moral order and a belief that God encourages true scholarship because it supports the life of the mind.  Supporting the life of the mind cannot happen if one is bound and confined within a particular box. Human beings are finite and cannot possibly know everything; our knowledge of the world, each other, and God changes century to century.  The Bible is not a scientific treatise, but it conveys two theological themes that are present in other religions as well: the unfailing love and grace of an infinite God, and if God loves us we should love one another.  The Bible is full of paradox and mystery conveying the Truth of infinite Love through symbols, metaphors, allegories.  The task of Christian scholars – the task of spiritual scholars – is to be faithful to infinite truths and to accept paradox, nurturing it through critical thinking and further exploration.  The themes for life, life driven by a passionate love of God/HaShem/Allah, are the same – love, justice, service, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. 

One of my most recent experiences with the concept of faith-learning integration came from a book I read last year.  Viktor Frankl, a psychologist, Holocaust-survivor, and creator of logotherapy, wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning.  This book is commonly assigned to psychology students (because of its obvious contribution to that field), but it is one that I found very valuable as an educator.  In the field of education we often have to use our understanding of people as individuals in order to make appropriate judgments or decisions.  Man's Search for Meaning is a clear thesis on why certain people survive difficult (or seemingly impossible) situations, while others do not.  Frankl's conclusion was that individuals need something to believe in that is outside themselves.  The belief in something greater than the individual is what helped people persevere through trying situations. I think that most people agree that they are living for something greater than themselves, and thus one's faith or belief in that greater thing (whatever it may be) and what one learns from life's trials meld into one's life and contribute to future thoughts and actions.  The way one's life is lived or exhibited is a demonstration of the faith and the learning working together.  With regards to my spiritual life impacting my practice, I take Matthew 25:34-40 to heart: my service to others is a service to God.  I realize that others may have a different way of looking at the world, at spirituality, at Christianity, and I accept that.  My job, my life, is to support others where they are in their journeys.  This is my calling and my service.

Christmas or Valentine's Day?

I don't believe in Valentine's Day. It always seemed like such a made-up holiday, at least the Valentine's Day that Americans know and love. Instead of seeing hearts and winged Cupids and hearing love songs, the history teacher in me thinks about the religious observance of St. Valentine's Day (even though the Roman Catholic Church removed its observance from the calendar of saints in the 1960s).  Who was St. Valentine? I'm not sure anyone really knows, since it seems that there were several early Christian martyrs who shared the name Valentine and it had nothing whatsoever to do with romantic love.  Who wants to get all lovey-dovey on a holiday based on martyrs?  If that were the case, in my mind's eye Fake Me and Fake Honey would end up with a conversation like this:

My dear, my love for you is as permanent as death.
Oh Honey, I bought you these red roses to symbolize my love...and the blood of martyrs.
May our passion be as spirited as the angry mobs who are responsible for the death of saints!

Not really my thing. And so I avoid Valentine's Day.

"But wait!" the English teacher in me screams. "Celebrating romantic love on Valentine's Day is still somewhat historical. After all, it was Geoffrey Chaucer in the 1300s who first wrote about Valentine's Day in connection to love."  True, English Teacher Me.  Score one point for you. (Even though History Teacher Me will point out that Chaucer was probably referring to Valentine's Day in the liturgical calendar, celebrated on May 2. But we'll just leave that aside for now.)

It is interesting how cultures around the world have adopted certain Valentine's Day traditions over the past few hundred years. But I will stick with my antivalentinism, my refusal to be told when Honey and I must commercialize our undying love and affection for one another.

My addictions to crafts and good deals, however, is unchanging. When in Joann's Fabrics the other day I saw Christmas items on 90% off clearance.  The white silk poinsettias and the red glass balls inspired me: what if I made one teensy-weensy concession to the dreaded St. V-Day  and put up the tiniest of decorations?  I rushed home and threw my idea together. 

The only problem?  Honey walked out and said "It's January. Christmas is over."  So I put it to you: is this Christmas or Valentine's Day?  Be honest...you won't hurt my feelings either way.

The Art of Language and Interpretation

Warning: This post is a bit long and rambling and has only a tenuous connection to my journey through The Artist's Way. You don't need to feel compelled to read it.
*************
Yesterday I had an all-day long meeting at work.  I work for a religious institution that employs somewhat more than 200 people (I don't know how many, exactly, but that's about how many people were at the mandatory employee meeting, the first I've attended and apparent the first that's ever taken place mid-year). I love my job, but the idea of spending a day in a meeting when I could be doing other, more productive, things did not sound too appealing. However, since my magical snow dance did not produce the desires effect of a snow day, off to the meeting I went bright and early that morning.

Confession: I did not read the book that was required reading before the meeting.
Confession #2: Only part of me felt guilty for not reading the book.
Confession #2-b: The title of the book offended me and gave me the excuse I was looking for to just skim a bit and not really read it.
Confession #3: After hearing the keynote speaker (the author of the book) I wish that I had read the book.

The keynote address electrified the room and made me start thinking about the art of language. I am perhaps only referring to this as art because of my recent encounters with The Artist's Way, but I was struck by how people use language.  I work at a religious institution. A Christian religious institution. And it was a push to get a job there because this place only hires Christians and that is not the way I would identify myself.  I used to use that term years ago, but growing up I always felt like an outsider, no matter how much I looked and sounded like the perfect Christian.  When I became an adult, I rejected anything religious. Sure, I had a degree in "that stuff," and I could talk with the best, but I was an avowed agnostic and proud of it.  My transformation to a spiritual person came along the time of my first venture into The Artist's Way in 2008.  It was that book, and the good friend who introduced me to it, that paved the way for other books and lectures on CD, most notably those of Dr. Wayne Dyer. While I don't necessarily agree with everything that this man says (and I'm okay with that, I don't believe that it's possible to 100% agree with someone 100% of the time), I felt drawn to his views on spirituality and found myself agreeing with things like  

• "My belief is that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then becomes a lie. I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don't be Christian, be Christ-like. Don't be Buddhist, be Buddha-like" 

and  

• "Religion is orthodoxy, rules and historical scriptures maintained by people over long periods of time. Generally people are raised to obey the customs and practices of that religion without question. These are customs and expectations from outside the person and do not fit my definition of spiritual." 

Then Anne Rice came out in 2010, saying "For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity." Okay. That's something I understand, too.

I also understand those who want to be part of a religion. I think that most people generally feel the need for a sense of belonging. Some people belong to a religion, some a book club, and some a bingo group that's met every Friday night for the past 40 years. All of these things, in my mind, offer a similar draw: like-minded people with rituals and language that give them a common history.  It makes sense.  It's appealing.

Of course we also want to be considered unique or at least a bit on the outside. This is where religious groups have the advantage: they can claim persecution in some form (real or perceived) and that gives the members a binding cause, something that keeps them together, something that draws on their protective natures. (Think about Mormons in the late 19th century: that interpretation of religion might've died with all the others that popped up around that time except for the fact that people started attacking them. Everyone loves an underdog. Now Mormons are one of the fastest-growing denominations in the world -- and it's not just because they tend to have large families!)  It was always amusing to me how Christians could still claim to be outsiders even when they are the largest religion in the world.  Then I came to the Persecution Realization and it all made sense.

Back to my job.  The me several years ago would have been very uncomfortable with the notion of prayer, the Jesus and God talk that happens all the time and is just a normal part of every day at Work. The new me, the one comfortable in my spirituality, the one who believes that all religions have the same basic premise and same desires, the one who is comfortable talking about the Universe and whatever binds all humanity together the same way that some people talk about God -- that me found a way to be real, be myself, and fit in at Work.  I looked for the commonalities and found them and feel that it means I can be honest with myself even as I work at Work.  Someone may discuss a "relationship with Jesus" (as in "I'm not a religious nutter, I just want a relationship with this non-physical being" as if merely tacking the word relationship on to something makes it better, more sophisticated).  I may have my own ideas about that that "relationship" entails, but the bottom line is that the person is doing something every day to connect with his/her spiritual self and is trying to grow and if he/she needs to call it a relationship and have certain rituals around that, so be it.  When someone asks me to pray, I no longer feel a panic or a hostility (two emotions quite common to my early adult self), and while my thoughts on prayer may be different than theirs, I think that the underlying point of it all is the same.  One person may be "talking to God" and the other may be meditating, and even though talking to someone who is not there sounds a bit more crazy than the quiet self-reflection that is meditation, I do believe the outcomes are actually pretty similar.


Which brings me back to the art of language. The author speaking yesterday was amazing. I found myself agreeing with him and thinking that if we had a personal conversation we would find a lot in common.  His premise was that religion (all religion, not just Christianity, but he focused on Christianity because of his audience) sustains the "life of the mind" because at its core it encourages empathy, it has an emphasis on relationships and understanding and that is useful when looking at various perspectives, its encouragement of creativity through a vision of a better world (peace, justice, etc.), and being open to mystery (because of its emphasis on faith). The explanations the author used to get us here made sense to me.  The problem, said the author, is that Christianity -- especially the American version and all its branches -- squashes the life of the mind. This is something that I've said for years, and so of course I perked up as the author started talking about this. He said that in the late 17th century some Age of Reason authors like John Locke (yes, the same one who inspired our Founding Fathers) were so tired of the religious crazies they saw that they wrote about how religion, specifically Christianity, was Reasonable.  Sounds good, right?  Wrong! The author yesterday traced how this belief in Reasonableness lead, eventually, to beliefs like:

• The Bible is full of facts.
• The Bible is unerringly true.
• The Bible is the direct Word of God.
• The Bible is scientific. (Creationists, this is you.)

When people claim these things and truly believe them, it bothers me. The Bible is a religious book that talks about spirituality.  It is not scientific. It is not reasonable. It was never meant to be.  It is, instead, filled with symbols and metaphors and paradox -- just like religion.  And that's okay. The paradoxes within spiritual beliefs should lead people to question and explore: that is how religion and the life of the mind are so well-suited. (No more of this mindless babble: "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it." garbage on bumper stickers. I get so mad when I read crap like that!) 

Of course the mind is stretched when there are differing perspectives that one must understand, wrestle with, etc., which is why having a Work that insists that everyone be Christian is a bit of a problem. If we are that insular, are we really nurturing the life of the mind?  Or are we self-limiting by imposing such boundaries?  I personally think that our hiring actions speak louder than words: we really care about your label more than we care about you and the underlying beliefs that drive you. Does it matter whether someone calls himself Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or just spiritual if the underlying themes for life -- equality, social justice, world peace, love for all, mercy and grace -- are the same?  I don't think that it matters what language one uses to describe one's self. 

And perhaps that's where I differ from my colleagues and from some friends and family.  I don't wrestle with the question "What does it mean to ___________ from a Christian perspective?"  I just operate in my job using the same principles that are important to my life.  And I do think that if we drilled down to look at what we all value, regardless of what terminology we use, we'd find plenty of common ground.

Isn't it funny that language, something that gives us tools by which we can communicate, also is responsible for the barriers that divide us? And for all my Christian friends out there, perhaps that is the true message of the metaphor of Babel -- a (non-historical) story to illustrate not what happens when people try to reach God, but a story that shows what happens when we let our words divide us: all of humanity is scattered.