Doug McMahon

Everything is a Gift

Yesterday, I read the following sentence:   Everything is a gift.  That is a beautiful thought and one that makes me feel better thinking about the reality of that statement.  It also strikes me as one of the most radical statements of faith.  If I believe that "Everything is a gift," than everything is changed--every relationship, every decision and every purchase.

Not only do I believe that everything is a gift, but, I also believe that God is the giver of every good gift. To believe that everything is a gift is a radical statement, but to believe that God is the giver of every good gift is to take that statement of faith much farther.  What are the implications of believing that God is the giver of every good gift?

One way of responding to that statement is to trust in God.  Psalm 23 is a prayer that affirms, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."  Last night, 20 friends, from Missio Dei and the Refuge, and I prepared about 100 meals and took to the streets giving away that food to those who were hungry, homeless or lonely.  We gave away food from our abundance.

Whenever I participate in an activity like this I always think, "Except for the grace of God, there go I."  I know that it could be me living in the streets tomorrow.  It could be me who will need a meal and bottle of water following a hurricane.  It could be me needing a few crumbs of conversation in a nursing home when I am old.

When I was much younger, I remember reacting negatively to older people who said, "Except for the grace of God, there go I."  I dismissed the statement as pious nonsense.  I didn't understand the sincerity of the comment.  I hadn't lived long enough or been through the pain that my elders had lived and seen.  I didn't understand how unfair life could be nor had I seen enough of the unrelenting difficulties of the human journey.

Now more than ever I have come to believe that everything is a gift.  This is good news.  It isn't just an acknowledgement of the limits of life, but also an affirmation of the abundance of God's grace.  When I turn to God I need not worry about tomorrow or fear any danger.  God is a like a shepherd that seeks me out when I am lost and leads me towards cool, cool water when I am thirsty.  God feeds me when I am hungry.

The dark side of this faith statement is the reality that thousands of children die of hunger each day.  A theology professor once told me this is the surd of Christian faith.  A surd he explained--if I remember correctly-- is something that doesn't fit into the equation.  Surd is related to the word absurd.  If God is all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing, why is there evil and suffering in the world?  If God is good, all the time, why do children die of hunger?  Everyday?

I don't know why God allows suffering and natural disasters.  I have wrestled with these questions and I still do.  Yet, I still believe that everything is a gift.  I still believe that God walks with me through the valley of the shadow of death and God takes delight in the beauty of life.  God, in so many ways, leads me towards cool, cool waters when I am thirsty.  I still believe that God is good, all the time.  God is good.  Everything is a gift.

A Definition of Spirituality

A number of years ago, while in my hometown of Ocean Grove, NJ, auditing a D.Min. course at Drew @ Ocean Grove, I heard this definition of spirituality: spirituality is a way of being in the world.  It was like a light going on for me.  This simple definition helped me to express my spirituality as something that is earthy and ordinary, and, therefore very real.  It is not something that is "so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good."

Spirituality is a way of being in the world.  It is not the only way. Some people live in the world and deny their spirituality.  But living a life in the spirit is lived in a body, on the earth and in very ordinary ways, every day.  During a sermon, I once told the congregation that the life of the spirit always involves the body.  I said, "if that doesn't make sense to you,then please feel free to attend worship next week without your body.  Just attend the worship service and leave your body at home!"  The life of the spirit is always a life that is an embodied life.

Some people tend to think of the life of the spirit as something beyond the body or away from the body.  But spirituality is holistic. It involves body, spirit, soul, mind and heart.  It is a life connected to God, people and all of creation.  In this world, one cannot be a spiritual person without a body.  We cannot be a spiritual person in isolation from other people. We need each other.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are connected to the beauty of the created world.   

Spirituality is a way of being in the world. Jesus taught us that the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, and, to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourself, requires us to take this earthly life seriously.

To define spirituality as a way of being in the world is to also acknowledge that how we live our lives in this world is important to God.  Spiritual practices cannot be disconnected from earthly practices of mercy, peace, and justice.  The Hebrew prophet Isaiah said that fasting, prayer and worship that does not result in sharing our bread with the hungry, providing shelter to the homeless and doing justice in the workplace is not the true worship of God. 

What I do--or don't do-- with my life is a spiritual matter.  The four gospels tell us how Jesus lived in the world.  When our way of being in the world is modeled after his way of being in the world, we experience peace and joy.  He has shown us the way. 

Enjoying God

I am still unpacking some of the lessons I learned during my trip to Pittsburgh last month.  I have written previously about the conference I attended at Pittsburgh Seminary.  One of the presenters was Pete Scazzero pastor of of New Life Fellowship in Queens, NYC.  One of the things he spoke about was Sabbath rest.

In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality he writes about the "Top Ten Symptoms of Unhealthy Spirituality."  One of the symptoms is "Doing for God instead of being with God."  One of the obvious results of this symptom is not taking a Sabbath day of rest.  One of the Ten Commandments is to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 

The Christian tradition has understood this day of rest to be the first day of the week in honor of the Resurrection of our Lord on the first day of the week, Easter Sunday.  Keeping-Sabbath--as I understand it--is not a legalistic requirement as much as it is finding our strength and purpose in God.  It is also simply enjoying God's presence in our lives.  In the Jewish tradition, the beginning of the day is evening at sundown.  That reminds us that we begin the day by resting in God and living out the rest of the day in the strength of God.  A whole day of rest and worship provides an important opportunity each week to enjoy God's presence.

Pete Scazzero says that when we don't rest in God we become human doings not human beings. He writes, "Our experiential sense of worth and validation gradually shifts from God's unconditional love for us in Christ to our works and performance.  The joy of Christ gradually disappears.  Our activity for God can only properly flow from a life with God."  (Page 32)

Desmond Tutu in his book, God Has a Dream, writes of the God centered life in this way:  "The Bible places human beings at the center of the divine enterprise as creatures of infinite worth and dignity independent of our work, our ability or our success.  We are each created by God, like God, for God.  St. Augustine, referring to this God capacity, this God hunger, this striving after transcendence, says of God, 'Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee."

To observe Sabbath is not to believe that human effort has no value, rather it is to find our value in God and to believe that all work can be done for God's honor and glory.  We do not earn God's favor. We can't earn God's favor, because God already loves us unconditionally.  We are creatures of infinite worth and dignity independent of our work, our ability or our success.  The grace of Jesus Christ is for us and our salvation.  It is a free gift of God.  

The inability to rest is a sign that we haven't fully appropriated the grace of Jesus Christ.  The refusal to keep Sabbath is to deny ourselves joy and the fullness of God's love.  Keeping Sabbath is one of God's many gifts to us.  Sundays are usually a busy day for me as a pastor, so for many years I have been in the habit of taking Mondays as my Sabbath day of rest.  In Romans 14:5-7, we read that what day we keep Sabbath isn't as important as finding our rest in God, for God.  

Jesus taught us that Sabbath was made for people not the other way around.  Sabbath is a gift. In our society, in our culture, it's not easy to keep Sabbath.  There can be many intrusions on a day of rest. Do you keep Sabbath?  What are the challenges you face while trying to keep Sabbath?  Do you enjoy a Sabbath day of rest?  Feel free to comment below if you would like to share your stories of Sabbath keeping. 

Remembering Those Green Reusable Bags!

About a year and a half ago, long before most people were carrying those little green bags into the grocery store my sister in law gave us four of those reusable grocery bags. The leaders of her congregation, Temple Kol Ami Emanu-El, were encouraging members to be a part of the Green Team.  The Green Team was working to help make their temple more green, finding ways to contribute to a more sustainable earth by using green products and practices throughout their temple.  On the side of the bags are the words, "It's a Mitzvah!"  The term mitzvah means commandment and has also come to express any act of human kindness.  Being a good steward of the earth, indeed, is an act of human kindness.

It has taken my family over a year to consistently remember to bring our reusable bags into the grocery store.  When we get into the grocery and realize we have forgotten the bags, we face a big decision: "Do we go all the way back out to the car and get the bags or do we just forget about it and use paper or plastic this time?"  Some times we decided to go out and get the bags and other times we just used paper or plastic. 

But now we have a better answer to this dilemma.  While my wife, Robin, was visiting a close friend, Davina, in Tennessee last month, they went to the grocery store having forgotten to carry in reusable bags.  But Davina had a third way to avoid the old dilemma of either going back to the car or using paper or plastic. Davina's answer to the question, "paper or plastic?" was "neither."  She asked the grocery clerk to just put the groceries back into the cart without bags after they were scanned.  "My bags are in the car," she said.  "I'll put the groceries into the bags when I get out to my car."

What a great idea! A small thing--but a great idea.  We've already done this a number of times since Robin has gotten back from Tennessee.  Good stewardship isn't just about sermons and lectures, its finding ways, daily, to live out simple practices of good stewardship.  It's a mitzvah!

Caring for God's Creation

Enjoying nature doesn't, always, come naturally to me.  I believe that a day at Wrigley Field, in Chicago's near North Side, is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, or, even a day at Tropicana Field where the air conditioning under the dome is always 72 degrees.  I do love the beach with a comfortable chair and book.  I enjoy swimming in the ocean and an occasional ride on a mountain bike through the woods.  As a teenager, playing basketball on the playground with no grass in sight didn't bother me.  No grass to mow? What could be better?  I'm very comfortable running on concrete and working in an urban coffee shop.  

But that doesn't excuse me from looking at the bigger picture and what we have done with God's good earth in the past 100 years or so.  I have always been supportive of environmental justice, protecting parks and forest preserves, recycling and other measures of caring for creation.  I would rather invest in more public transportation than pave more and wider Interstate Highways. But I've become convinced that caring for creation is a much bigger crisis which we must address.  It's not only a matter of survival, but the condition of planet earth is, also, the result of our spiritual crisis.  I'm seeing the environment with new eyes.

When I was a student-pastor in Chicago, many years ago, I helped organize a field trip for our church youth group.  We visited a pumpkin patch on a farm in Indiana about 2 hours drive from our inner city church.  It was amazing to see the new world of farming through the eyes of teenagers who had never traveled out of the city limits of Chicago.   Most adults--including me-- assume we really understand the world and other people.  We assume we understand the earth--the land we share together as a diverse and too often divided population.  Furthermore, we think we know God.  In the grand scheme of things, we really don't know much!  Aren't we all beginners in understanding our Creator and our life together on planet earth?

I am trying to see the earth, other people and God our Creator through new eyes.  God and God's creation are so much bigger and more diverse than I ever assumed.  The further I journey down the road, the more I understand how much I am a beginner in faith and in life itself.  As people of faith, caring for creation is one of the ways that we can participate in the reconciliation God is bringing to us and all of creation.  

In Romans 8, we read, "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

When the Bible speaks about salvation and reconciliation it speaks not of disembodied souls to save, but saving and reconciling whole people and the whole of creation.  Caring for creation is one important way to participate in this salvation and in this ministry of reconciliation.  How can we become better partners in this ministry of reconciliation?  How can we better care for creation?  God's gifts of faith, hope and love bring peace and reconciliation to our relationships with God, our neighbors and even planet earth itself.

 

Walking the Walk

I want to invite you to consider walking with me on a Peace Pilgrimage on March 27-29, Friday night to Sunday afternoon, called Walking the Walk, Peace and Justice, 2009.  Those of us who are organizing the event describe it this way:  The concept of a pilgrimage is rooted in both scripture and ancient Christian tradition.  Christian pilgrimages mark both the outward journey toward a physical place and an inward spiritual journey into one's own heart.  Through meaningful moments of meditation, contemplative prayer, fellowship, communal worship and silent reflection, the pilgrim journeys inwardly reflecting deeply upon what it means to live a life of love, justice and peace in our world today.  If you would like more information about Walking the Walk, you can find my email address on the About page of this blog.  Or, just comment below, by clicking "comments" and asking your questions there.

Spiritual Geography of Florida, Part Two

"Now skyscrapers and superhighways are carved through the heart of Florida, building subdivisions while the swamps are drained, making room for people and amusement parks. It's like watching someone you love die slow. They're killing her one piece at a time."  

These comments, about the state of Florida, were spoken by JJ Grey, leader of Mofro, a Jacksonville based rock band-- more specifically, a southern-fried swamp funk band.  You can read more about the band here. 

Why do we more frequently hear rock stars say things about caring for creation than church preachers?  Speaking of Florida, JJ says, "It's like watching someone you love die slow."  Why don't we hear more preachers lament our carelessness with the earth!  God gave us the planet earth as a gift.  What if we used the resources of the earth as if they really were a gift of God?  What does the condition of the planet earth say about the condition of our hearts and souls?  It seems that Rock stars like JJ, or Bono of U2, have a clearer understanding of social justice and stewardship than do many religious leaders.

Now I am the first to say that I enjoy living in they city.  I enjoy being in downtown St. Pete, and, I recognize that I use roads that have been paved and live and work in buildings that were built on Florida soil.  But I would hope that we could find more creative ways to care for creation while still providing places for people to live in urban areas and throughout our state of Florida.  It doesn't have to be either/or, but it could be both/and.  We can both build safe and enjoyable places to live and work and care for creation.

 

Florida: a Spiritual Geography

Today, I would like to ask you to comment below on the topic of the Spiritual Geography of Florida.  Now I know that you out of state readers are probably laughing and thinking of hanging chads, messed up elections and humidity.  But I am serious about the topic.  Many years ago, I was impressed with Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris, therefore, I would like to begin an on-line discussion of Florida.

The sub-title of my blog is "my spiritual journey in St. Petersburg."  While reading the new catalog for Ghost Ranch that recently arrived in my mail box, I thought about the spiritual geography of New Mexico and South Dakota.  And, then, I began thinking about the spiritual geography of the land where I have now lived since 1991, Florida.  What are the connections between the land where we dwell and our spirituality?

What I would like to propose is that you, my readers, write about the land of Florida with brief comments about the spiritual marks of our land. Once a week, I plan on inviting readers to respond to questions like the following:  What comes to mind when you think of Florida and spiritual geography?  Who do you think of when you think of Florida?  Who gets forgotten by most people?  What makes up the spiritual geography of our state?  What is the connection between caring for creation and your spiritual journey?  Whether you are a tourist or a resident, please click "comments" below and participate in the conversation.  Where do you see the Spirit in your journey through this land of Florida? 

God is Green

Today, Robin and I took our son, Patrick, to the Tampa/St. Pete Airport to catch his plane to Costa Rica.  I miss him already.  It has been great to have him home for 3 months, especially during the holidays.  He is returning to the Yoga Farm where he has lived and worked for 8 months and is returning for 6 months this time.  We visited him there last May and really enjoyed the beauty of Costa Rica as well as meeting his many new friends there.

We're also proud of both Patrick and his younger brother, Robert.  Our sons have taught us much about caring for creation.  "We need to clean up the earth, now!" Patrick recently said to me.   It seems like I'm learning more about caring for creation every day.  Last Sunday, a few of us gathered for Bible Study, prayer and discussion.  One of our participants brought his new copy of the Green Bible.  Following that discussion, Patrick and I talked more about the need for a community of faith that is a functioning community already living out simple practices of caring for creation.  I pray that our new congregation will be a community of faith that practices simple ways of caring for creation, for example using public transportation more often, recycling, and exploring possibilities for urban farming.

We welcome new friends who are, themselves, looking for practical support for actually caring for creation, daily.  We don't want to simply preach about being a green church or talk about a green society but we want to be a functioning community that practices these simple values daily.  Sometimes trying to do this alone leaves one discouraged or even cynical about the state of planet earth.  A community of like-minded friends provides support in order to help us be conscientious stewards of God's good earth.

Many church people say, "God is good-- All thing time!" And, that is true.  But, also, imagine a community of faith that says, "God is green--  All thing time!  All the time!  God is green."  And imagine that this liturgy isn't just a slogan but a celebration of how we live on God's good earth each day, every week.  This is a way of being in the world that we are living into at Transfiguration Faith Community.

My First Bus Ride in St. Pete

I have lived in St. Petersburg for over 11 years, and Wednesday, I rode a PSTA bus for the first time.  To some people this may not seem strange, while, to those who live in places like New York, Chicago or San Francisco, this may seem odd.  I have lived in Florida for over 17 years, and in my work as a pastor, I have never had a Presbyterian minister in Florida arrive for a meeting late and say, "sorry, I missed my bus."

Wednesday, at approximately 4:35 P.M., I stood on a busy corner by Chaing Mai Tai Restaurant across the street from my condo building in downtown St. Pete.  After being there a while, I felt a little self-conscious waiting by myself for a bus.  As I continued to wait, I called my wife, Robin, and spoke with her for a few minutes.  Waiting, still, I called my parents in New Jersey, but they weren't home.  I became more impatient, which was a little difficult for me to understand because no one was waiting for me at my destination, Panera Bread, where I planned to read and then do some writing on my laptop.

Finally, after waiting about 15 minutes, a bus appeared.  I waved the bus over like one waves a cab in Manhattan, but, to my surprise, it roared by me, stopping at the next corner.  There was, now, this moment, when I didn't know whether the bus driver was waiting for me or about to pull away.  I finally realized the driver was waiting for me, and I began running after the bus but doubting that the driver would actually wait for me.

I saw the doors of the bus open confirming that the driver was, indeed, waiting for me.  I ran with a heavy backpack on my back that included my computer and some books.  Charging up the stairs of the bus, balancing my heavy backpack, I reached into my pocket for change.  The driver said, "just sit down and pay when you get off."  As the bus accelerated, I nearly fell to the floor when the weight of my backpack shifted.  I sat down, but, after a few blocks, I realized that all of the seats in the front of the little trolley bus were reserved for handicapped persons and senior citizens.  I moved to the back of the bus where everyone else was and looked straight ahead.

After we came to a stop at Williams Park, all of the other passengers got off.  I moved to the front and asked the bus driver how much farther north this bus was going.  She said, "This is it."  I, then, attempted to put a quarter down the dollar bill slot of the fare box.  Finally, the bus driver patiently said, "That's where you put the dollars.  Coins go here."  When she saw that I only put a quarter in the box, she said, "Sir, this isn't the Downtown Looper Trolley.  The fare is $1.75."   Then, she said, "This time forget about it." 

After I walked north, up 4th Street for almost 15 minutes, a bus went by.  It occurred to me that the bus driver had asked me, in return, "how far north are you going?" and had been attempting to point me towards one of those parked buses at Williams Park which was now going towards the Panera.  I had impatiently walked off the bus following the wrong fare incident. 

I continued walking past old store fronts, cheap hotels and other businesses that I ordinarily saw for only a split second as I sped by in my car for the past eleven years.  Presently, I walked pass the Verizon Store where our family gets our cell phones.  I looked through the window from the street side, a viewpoint drivers rarely notice because the parking spaces are on the other side of the store.  Everything faces the other direction where the driving customers pull into the parking lot.  So I felt like an outsider walking on the street side looking through the store window at the back of the salesman's starched shirt while he waited on a customer. 

As I continued past the store, it was rush hour.  Cars and trucks flew by me at 45 miles an hour near my narrow piece of the sidewalk.  I finally arrived at the Panera about 40 minutes after I had left home.  I plan to ride the bus more frequently.  And, I hope to meet some people for whom I ordinarily don't have the time.