Today's Tuesday Men's Bible Study ranged far and wide from the passage from Romans, chapter 10.
A friend taught me a useful way to respond to upsets, irritations and frustrations, and all manner of surprise that causes a negative feeling. Rather than a knee-jerk reaction, far better to say, "thank you, Lord," as a way to acknowledge that good things may come after the bad ones. What at first seems to be an unwanted change in plans intended or expectations dashed sometimes turns out for the best in hindsight or even right at the time that reactions take place. By braking one's speedy life and frictionless pursuit of happiness, there comes a break in the routine, normal, taken-for-granted picture of the world. Outside forces may have caused your predicament and the "thank you, Lord" response, but it is possible to do something similar by deliberately shaking up your accustomed routines. For example, digital fasting is a way to stop spending time scrolling the Internet and endless headline news. Fasting from making complaints, from snacking after 7 p.m., from caffeine, from meat, and so on: all of these examples alter the accustomed habits of doing, being, seeing, and thinking.
A couple of reflections on pausing from ordinary routines come to mind. One is the determination and focus that sometimes comes from the fresh perspective glimpsed during the break from normal patterns. W.A. Mozart is credited with saying something like, "music is in the silences between the notes," which is to say both the sound and its absence work together; one without the other does not produce the experience of music. A parallel might be for Bible scripture: the translated ink on the pages alone is not where the full meaning is. The white space and the reverberations to read between the lines; the non-verbal surroundings for the text also is important to pay attention to.
Continuing on the theme of putting the brakes on ordinary doing and thinking in order to break the routinization of daily experience, several ideas come from stopping to scrutinize how much of God's creation is not about language and logical arguments. One is the statement that scripture is the breath of God: in Genesis God spoke, "let there be light." And Jesus as the flesh and blood form of God on planet Earth is called "the word made flesh," or "the Word of God." The making of Adam comes from breathing spirit into his mortal body. So this breath of God does double duty: breath for respiration and life, but also breath to form syllables and words (and worlds). Again, like the earlier paragraph, though, verbal things are only a small part of the larger creation. The scripture is one thing, but what is unspoken and can be felt between the lines is also important to see and hear. A curious property of words - ordinary conversation or scriptural passages - is that you can be the listener or the speaker: when you understand and agree with a statement you can "own it" (take responsibility or ownership for caring for it) but you are not the owner/author/Creator. So it is possible to embrace God's word (text of the Bible, but also Jesus, the Word of God) and to "own it" even though it does not fully belong to you.
Going further with this idea about holding onto a teaching (owning it) but not grabbing it in a vise-like death grip, that technique of "holding lightly" seems to work well for the scriptures and by extension for all the relationships to fellow believers, too. In other words, rather than to memorize the Bible or to cling to a set of rules or Biblical Laws, it is far healthier to hold lightly your Bible knowledge and your Life knowledge, too: be confident but at the same time be open to doubt and wider meaning (that one cannot know all). In terms of words and logic it sure does look like a contradiction, but "knowing" God's word really can be certain (one's unbroken relationship to the scriptures) AND uncertain at the same time (leaving open the possibility that there is more to it than first understood). You may feel you've arrived but somehow you're not there yet. This seeming paradox between owning and not being the owner; between being confident and also allowing doubt and vigilance does produce some cognitive tension. The saying from President Ronald Reagon springs to mind when he spoke of USSR agreements to reduce the nuclear warheads for both sides. He said, "trust but verify." In Christianity that might be "have faith but be always vigilant for false prophets.
Tension allows "productive discomfort" -- that is, things like irritation, hurtful words, careless actions (or neglected actions) may increase the tension in one's life, but having "thank you, Lord" moments may stir reflection and deliberation so that the ordinary way of seeing things can be viewed in a new light. With one's mind open to seeing things a new way a sequence of meanings can follow: to put on the brakes and pause your routine is to be present with the people and other living things around you. To be present is to pay better attention and to respect (literally re+spectate; to take a 2nd look) the people and other living things that you may have overlooked or somehow taken for granted. Pausing from one's busy routines allows you to be humble (less of Ego and more of everything around you) and from there to feel grateful for your connection to everything around you. In other words, fasting or another "thank you, Lord" pause from routines produces respect, humility, and gratitude for a change; less self-absorption and more other-attention. And by getting into the habit of encountering the people and places of one's days from this position of respect - humility - gratitude then the habit of "holding lightly" one's own place in the scheme of things comes to feel natural and desirable, too. There is no need to "let God take care of everything" or the opposite extreme, to "leave God to the Sabbath and oneself being in charge of everything." In-between these extremes of "God's in charge" and "I'm in charge" is this middle way of holding lightly: being in the driver's seat of one's life, but always listening for direction coming from God's Will to be done, too.
All in all, the six men on Zoom this morning covered a lot of ground. These reflections are just a fraction of the meanings woven together during the discussion.
