Toilet Tissue and Forgiveness

Charles Lowery tells the story of a husband and wife who reached an impasse in their marriage. Years of resentment and hurt had piled up until it threatened to smother the relationship. They made an appointment with a therapist. The therapist came to their home and began the tedious work of unpacking this couple’s baggage. It took some time to dig through it all, but finally the husband admitted that he was especially angry that in all their years of marriage his wife had never changed the toilet tissue roll in the bathroom. The wife was incredulous. She protested and countered that she had in fact changed the toilet paper roll countless times. The husband exploded in anger and stormed from the room. Shortly, he returned with several large plastic garbage bags he had been storing in his closet. He ripped the bags open and began raining the contents all over the room. The bags were filled with hundreds of empty cardboard cylinders inscribed with a date and time. Through the years the husband had meticulously recorded and stockpiled every time he had changed the toilet paper roll.

It is easy to keep a record of offenses. We all do it. We may not do it with the same neurosis of the husband with his toilet paper rolls, but we keep score nonetheless. We know who has hurt us. We know how we were hurt, and we know where and when it all happened. We keep a mental list of those who deserve retaliation, and we can recall the date, time, and place of the wrongdoing against us. How can we rid ourselves of this kind of baggage, of this kind of heaviness? It may be easy for those of us who call ourselves Christians to speak flippantly of forgiveness, but it is another thing altogether to actually forgive. Forgiveness, while liberating and healing to both the forgiver and forgiven, is a costly enterprise.

The cost, the difficulty, lies in the fact that forgiveness is not natural. It is not fair. It deprives the one who has been offended from achieving justice. Forgiveness lets the offender off the hook. It sets the offender free without penalty and without punishment for the sin he or she has committed. The mere thought of this is enough to turn our stomachs. How can someone who has stolen from us, who has molested us, who has betrayed us, who has abused us – how can these people, these crimes, be forgiven? How can we open the door on the jail cell in which we hold them and simply allow them to walk away?

The answer is as complex as it is simple. Every time forgiveness takes place, the price for that offense is paid. But it is paid by the victim rather than the wrongdoer. When forgiveness is granted, the one who has been hurt is saying, “I will live with the consequences of what has happened without vengeance and without the demand of payment. I will pay the price myself. I will absorb the loss.”

Where does this ability to forgive come from? From God, and only God. Forgiveness is not natural – it is supernatural. It is otherworldly. Every time the words “I forgive you” are spoken, this is the unearthly act that takes place. Forgiveness is the proof that God has worked a miracle of grace in us. So rather than trying to muster up forgiveness on our own, which we are truly incapable of doing, it is the better choice to ask God to do it for us. When God does, it is obvious to a watching world that something Divine is at work; and we are all, offender and offended, better for it.

No More Fatalism

Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in summer 1991. The volcano had been considered dormant for hundreds of years. When it erupted unexpectedly, more than 200 people were killed and 200,000 were displaced. One people group, the Aetas, was especially devastated by the eruption and the days that followed. The Aeta tribe is a group of aboriginal people who live on the slopes of Mount Pinatubo. For them, Pinatubo is a place of destiny. They have no choice but to call this dangerous place home. After the eruption, the Filipino government planned to build new settlements and permanently relocate the Aetas. These plans were eventually frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the Aetas. Two years after the eruption, the Aetas became tired of waiting in camps and commenced the return to their homes on the volcano’s slopes – against the instructions of Western geologists and Filipino authorities. The Aetas are ruled by doom. They continue to refuse assistance and safe relocation due to mistrustfulness of modern conveniences and the conclusion that a divine fate dictates their future. Pinatubo is not merely a place they call home. It is the only place they feel they can live.

This kind of fatalism once played a prominent role in American life as well. One factor formerly identified in the surprisingly high rate of tornado fatalities in the Southern Bible Belt was the belief that all events are inevitable and people should submit to their fate without protest. Upon hearing a tornado warning, those in the Midwest, Great Plains, and other portions of the country responded with action. They sought shelter, went to the basement, or got out of the path of the storm. Southerners, steeped in a kind of Christian fatalism, understood the threat as an inescapable act of God.

They saw themselves as powerless to act. They huddled in their clapboard houses and prayed for deliverance. This type of fatalism has thankfully eroded due to maturity and education. Those in the South now respond to storm warnings as well as anyone. There was a time when this was not the case at all. Many of us maintain this same kind of blind fatalism in our personal and spiritual lives. When the world collapses around us, we resign ourselves to a life of misery, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We give up. This is our fate; our end; the only path destined for us.

But some people of faith are resilient. In fact, resiliency separates those who ultimately prevail from those who surrender to their circumstances. What does resiliency look like? It’s hard to say, but we recognize it when we see it. Scores of studies have been conducted in recent years analyzing the survival skills of prisoners of war, victims of prolonged sexual abuse, and other trauma survivors. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back in the face of great difficulty; the knack within a person to bend, but not break, under pressure.

Resiliency enables a person to face the crippling effects of adversity and to overcome. When disaster strikes, those with this kind of endurance adapt, persevere, and somehow even thrive. These hardy souls learn to keep living without the paralysis of fear and panic. Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.” That is resiliency.

I Don’t Care, I Still Hate The Dentist

Even if Jesus was this present with my dentist, I don’t think it would help.

Ken and Barbie; Homer and Marge

When Ruth and Elliot Handler’s baby girl was born, they knew she was destined for greatness. She blossomed into nothing less than a Madison Avenue sensation, and began a decades-long domination of the fashion and entertainment worlds. At ten years of age, she had already earned more than five hundred million dollars. Even today there seems to be no end to her popularity. She makes nearly two billion dollars a year. She is always beautiful, wearing one of the thousands of outfits from her closet. She’s deftly attuned to today’s fashion. She is forever the center of attention, surrounded by a smiling cluster of family and friends. She is absolutely perfect. She is Miss Barbie Millicent Roberts; better known as Barbie.

The only problem, of course, is that she is a fantasy. She is a toy – a mass of injected-molding vinyl. Yes, certain Barbies can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, but she more often than not, she ends up naked and dismembered on the floors of older brothers’ bedrooms. Barbie is a reflection of our desires. She has none of her own. This was Ruth Handler’s motivation in creating her. Ruth watched her real daughter playing as a child and saw the future. Her daughter needed more than a baby doll that did little more than arouse maternal desires. She needed a doll – a person – to inspire and challenge her to become something out of her wildest dreams. Thus Barbie was born.

As adults we learn that carefully crafted idealism and hardened reality don’t always meet. Most of us do not lead Ken and Barbie lives. We feel a lot more at home with Homer and Marge Simpson. Still, we sometimes bring those Ken and Barbie idealisms to the Bible and its characters. I grew up in the church with these Bible characters as my heroes. I was taught that I could slay the giant like David. I could have mountain-moving faith like Abraham. I could call down fire from heaven like Elijah. Much later, I learned that for all their glorious deeds, these heroes of mine had tons of baggage too. David the giant killer was also David the adulterer and accomplice to murder. Abraham, the father of faith for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike, could dissolve into a compulsive liar if the situation so demanded. Elijah, the defiant holy warrior, once became so emotionally despondent that he nearly committed suicide. All these champions of faith were inspirational, yes, but also very human. They were real people not unlike you or me.

These same idealistic projections have been laid alongside today’s families. Christians seem to have an obsession with the “biblical family.” But I don’t think this term means exactly what some think it does. I know what many people intend by the idea. By applying biblical principles, Christians could (and the implication is should) produce the ideal “biblical” family: A strong, spiritual father; a faithful, loving mother; and two-and-a-half obedient children. The word “biblical” is used synonymously with “traditional,” as many Christians pine for a return to the days of the Cleaver family. Again, the only problem is that this too is a fantasy, about as credible as a television sitcom.

We may be inspired to reach for such an ideal as the “traditional” family, but when we do we usually find frustration and failure. Sure, a few pull it off. Most of us do not. Further, the “biblical” family, as it is commonly referred to, is not a valid example toward which to aspire. My family may be a bit screwy, but I wouldn’t trade it for Adam and Eve’s where one brother killed the other. I wouldn’t switch places with Hosea whose wife was the village prostitute. Why swap my one set of in-laws for Solomon’s seven hundred?

Most of the families found in the Bible are more dysfunctional than my own. Maybe that is all the more reason to be drawn to these examples and to find in their failures and regrets the seeds of redemption and grace. And, by the way, after more than forty years together, in the throes of a midlife crisis, Barbie kicked Ken to the curb. Ken is determined to win her back. But it makes you think. Maybe even Barbie isn’t as perfect as we thought.

God’s Will and God’s Won’t

During World War Two the Nazis set up a camp where prisoners were forced to labor amid barbarous conditions. Prisoners were ordered to move a huge pile of garbage from one area of the camp to another. The next day they were ordered to move the pile back to its original location. So began a pattern. Day after day this scene repeated itself. It didn’t take long for the impact of this mindless, meaningless activity to surface. An elderly prisoner had an emotional breakdown. Another began screaming endlessly until he was beaten into silence. A third man, who had endured years of captivity, threw himself onto the camp’s electric fence and was electrocuted. In the subsequent days, dozens of prisoners went insane. Their captors did not care. These pitiful prisoners were lab animals in a sick experiment to determine what happened to people when they were subjected to leading a life without meaning. The obvious result was insanity and suicide. So “successful” was the camp, they no longer needed to use the gas chambers.

In a strange way, this story explains the success of so many books and personal guidance gurus in our country today. The Best Sellers List is laden with the themes of finding meaning and purpose in life. We are told, and it is true, that we must find meaning in life or we risk breakdown and self-destruction. We Christians are apt to talk about purpose and meaning under the broad umbrella of a single magical phrase: The “Will of God”. If I discover “the Will of God” for my life, if I can unlock that door, open that box, uncover that secret, then, armed with divine purpose and meaning, my life will be supremely satisfying. 

There is some truth to this. But be warned: God’s will doesn’t always end with a bulging bank account, a platinum charge card, and a million dollar smile, complete with ongoing teeth whitening treatments. Sometimes the “Will of God” ends in crucifixion. Sometimes the path of meaning and purpose leads to a cross. Just ask Jesus. Hours before the crucifixion, Jesus knelt to pray in an old olive grove called Gethsemane. It was a dark, secluded place, almost haunting. And the only thing more somber than the garden was Jesus. He had come to what A.T. Robertson calls the “supreme crisis of his life.”

If you read the account you hear Jesus’ struggle. He’s not praying, using trite, churchy language. He’s begging God for mercy. Jesus did not want to continue along this path toward Calvary. He did not want to do the “Will of God.” He hesitated and balked. But his prayer didn’t stop there. In sublime surrender he submitted to the path God had for him: “If there is no other way than this – going to the limit and then beyond – well, I’m ready. Do it your way.” 

In the end we all have a single choice between two things – only two. This choice is between who will be in charge of bringing purpose and meaning to our existence. Will it be us, the creations? Or will it be God, the Creator?  Jesus opted for the latter, even though the result was unequaled suffering. He modeled for us the life of purposeful, willing surrender when he said, “Not my will God, but your will be done.”

Roadblocks

A few years ago my wife and I took a long-awaited pilgrimage of sorts to the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. On our first morning there, I rose early for a walk, some of that desert stillness, and an exploration of my new surroundings. The red sandstone that gives Sedona its beauty, was glowing like a furnace as the sun began to rise. As I walked and uncoiled my mind with coffee in hand, I saw a small church in the distance. It sat there, steeple splitting the sky, nestled in the rocks. It was Sunday, and I thought, “I’ll go over there, sit down in the quiet and enjoy the sanctuary.” There was only one problem: I couldn’t get there.

I tried to walk in a straight line toward the little church but only met concrete and adobe walls, security fences and the like. I took to the local sidewalks. They led to no where. I walked down the road. Nothing but dead ends. Finally, I gave up, refilled my coffee cup in the hotel lobby, and sat down outside to enjoy God’s perfectly built house of worship. My inability to get to church got me thinking, though. Our communities – our world – is filled with people who desperately long to commune with God. They hunger and thirst for a spiritual relationship. They are wasting away, alone in their homes, with no real connection with God or even other human beings. They need faith. They need hope. They need good news. But they can’t get to it.

There are just too many barriers. Too many fences. Too many dead ends. And most of these are human-made. So, these seekers just go home, drink their coffee or Scotch or whatever, and try to relate to God alone, with varied levels of success. But I wonder what would happen if our churches and communities of faith became places that seekers of God could actually get to? Rather than shouting at and condemning people, what if we instead developed the skills of spiritual navigation – pointing people toward faith, not pointing at their faults, and helping those trying to connect with God, actually find him?

What if we began to recognize that Christianity can offer the world more than strong-armed morality or a list of dos and don’ts? Instead, what if we rediscovered the ambition of tearing down the barriers that keep people from God? What if we learned to invite people into the life-changing, life-forming story of what it means to be spiritually alive? I did an interview recently where the interviewer asked me questions for nearly an hour about what it means to be the church in today’s world. I spoke about my Sunday morning walk in Sedona and said, “I’m not very interested in being a part of a church or a religious organization per se; but I am interested in following a distinct way of life, the way of Christ.”

This is my hope for the church: To become a place where we can learn to watch, listen, imitate and live like Jesus – the Jesus who tore down all barriers and paved a highway to his Father.

“What Would You Have Done If Jesus Had Walked In?”

I struck up a conversation with a man at the coffee shop the other day. He was a nice chap. We talked about the usual neighborly dribble: The weather, the news, work. When he discovered I was a “Christian,” he could not have been more delighted. He too was a person of deep faith. And my perspective on beliefs and faith became the only topic to which he wanted to speak. This always makes me feel really weird. It is the reason I am sometimes slow to reveal my vocation. I’m not ashamed of my faith or what I do for a living; not in the least. But Christians are the most fixatedly suspicious people I know.

When a Christian discovers that someone else is also a Christian, they always want to square him or her up, to find out what “kind” of Christian he or she is. Are you a Methodist/Lutheran/Pentecostal/Liberal/Evangelical/Catholic? What label does this other person wear? And when they find out that someone is of the ministerial persuasion (a reverend, preacher, or super-spiritual-holy-man-or-woman), well, it becomes something like a press conference, as they pepper you with a million theological questions like “Where did Cain get his wife?”

Or, as with my new-found coffee companion, they squeeze you unmercifully into a preconceived, sanctimonious container. As a minister, they assume you spend all your time reading Old Testament Hebrew, watching the 700 Club, and polishing your halo. They cannot conceive that those of the ministerial guild would actually enjoy drinking a beer and talking about football instead of faith, and that some of us don’t like the 700 Club at all. So I turned the conversation, best I could, to a recent movie I had seen. That was a mistake.

First, it was a movie with an “R” rating, and I was informed that such a transgression did not promote “family values.” And second, in the course of our little chat I had revealed that I saw the movie on a Sunday afternoon: On the Lord’s Day. Here is where my friend moved from visions of my personal holiness to antagonistic, investigative reporter. My ministerial halo was slipping off its axis and obviously had some smudges on it. He could not understand how this was possible. In frustration he asked, “What if Jesus had returned while you were in that movie house on the Christian Sabbath; what would you have done if Jesus had walked in and sat down beside you?”

Really, that’s not a bad question when you think about it. I suppose if Jesus had actually walked in, I and everyone around me, would have shriveled into the floor like Dorothy’s Wicked Witch of the West or John the Disciple on the Island of Patmos. When John had a mind-numbing vision of the risen Christ he collapsed to the ground as if struck dead. But since my halo was hanging on by only the tip of a devil’s horn, I answered with more sarcasm than sanctity. “Well,” I said, “I believe I would have bought him a coke and a large popcorn.” Need I say that our conversation ended?

Why is it that Christians seem to be the most uptight people in the world? If someone seems to be enjoying life, this is almost always translated by the Christian establishment as some kind of misbehavior. Where did we get the idea that faith has to be so staid and somber, so legalistic and afraid? Recently, a friend asked me a weightier question than my hypothetical reaction to Jesus in a movie theater. She asked, “In your work, speaking and writing, what do you hope people will take away from it all?” I’ll answer her here.

My hope is that people will take spirituality – particularly Christ-centered spirituality – seriously, but not take themselves so seriously. My wish is that people of faith would be exactly that: People of faith. Then, they just might discover the ability to lighten up and live. Yes, Jesus could show up the next time I find myself in a movie theater. If so, I will probably melt down like so many discarded candy wrappers and popcorn buckets on the floor. But his words to me – his words to us all – would probably be the same he spoke to John on Patmos: “Don’t be afraid.” So enjoy the movies and save him a seat.