Blessed to Be A Blessing

"A church is an organization that exists for the benefit of nonmembers"
- Archbishop William Temple

"Blessings not just for the ones who kneel... Luckily."
- U2, "City of Blinding Lights"

I've been struck time and time again by the fact that the spirit of Christianity - at least its intention - is a deep concern for the Other. Over and over the Bible reminds us that we are not to be about ourselves, that the riches and goodness bestowed upon us by God are to be shared not hoarded, humbly given to others rather than proudly worn as a badge. When God "called" Abraham, he said, "All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you."

This calling to the Other is pronounced throughout the Bible in a variety of ways:

"When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." - Lev. 19:33-34

"But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.- Matt. 5:44

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." - Rom. 12:14

Abraham was blessed to be a blessing to others. Israel was blessed to be a blessing to others. The Church has been blessed to be a blessing to others.

This is what "calling" or "election" means. Too often, election is branded as an "us versus them" signification, a delimiter that lets everyone know who is on God's side and who is not. But that is not at all what it entails. Election is not a position of significance or special importance, but a position of service. Emmanuel Levinas, Jewish philosopher, writes:

"It is the Infinite that appoints me... in order to designate me the unique and the elected, in the face of the other... As a call of God, this does not found a relation between me and Him who spoke to me. It does not found that which, by some sort of right, would be a conjunction... In the call to me, I am referred to the other man through whom this call signifies."

This is how Jesus said the same thing: 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matt 25:40).

What would this look like if our organizations, churches, ministries, Christian companies, Christian lobbyists (which do exist!), and we ourselves as individuals took this message to heart? What would America look like if those who claimed to be Christians actually lived this message?

What would a church's budget look like if it committed to spend more of its money on people outside its walls than within?

What would a church mission look like if we were more concerned with blessing our world rather than shoring up our defenses and trying to add to our numbers?

What would happen if our country spent more money on humanitarian aid than homeland security and militarty expenses?

What would our friendships look like if we were more concerned with the person as such - their needs, dreams, pains, and life circumstances - than trying to convert them, or determining if their opinion on some political or theological issue was the same as ours, or making sure our opinion was known?

In Philippians 2, it says that Jesus "emptied himself." The Greek word for this is kenosis. He was not concerned about his own preservation. He lived by this strange irony that serves as a mysterious principle in the cosmos - that one must die in order to live. What if all of our lives were lived through a lens of kenosis?

If you think about it for a while, you realize how far the church has gotten away from this. The Church today is an empire, an institution, an organization. Churches construct massive buildings to preserve their identity in society. Don't get me wrong. I love going to Europe and seeing the beautiful cathedrals. But the paradox of Christianity is that its supposed to always be on its last breath, always on the point of extinction for the sake of the Other, always giving away to those who cannot give back so that it must desperately pray for "daily bread."

I admit, I fail miserably at blessing others. I am a scrooge when it comes to my money. I want to save and preserve my assets so I have them in the future for myself. I don't misunderstand election as a badge to be worn and proudly displayed, but neither do I readily take up the basin and the towel and serve as a conduit of God's favor, blessing, and grace.

I must ask myself, if God's self-emptying Spirit lives in me, why is this way of life so stinking difficult?

First Lullaby

The prospect of being a father has reinvigorated my creative juices,
leading to my first attempt at writing a lullaby for my son-to-be. Here
are the lyrics:

Do you know your mommy loves you
As she rocks you through the night
When she holds you to her side,
Do you know her love is true?

Do you know your daddy loves you
While he sings sweet lullabies
When he lifts you to the skies
Do you know his love is true?

Do you know your mommy loves you
Through her whispers as you cry
By her gaze into your eyes
Do you know her love is true?

Do you know your daddy loves you
When he keeps you snug and warm
He’ll protect you from all harm
Do you know his love true?

We hope you know our loves is true.

I had planned on providing a video of that included me singing the song for those of you who can't stand to know the lyrics without the tune, but alas, after dozens of tries in uploading the video with blogger rejecting it, I have given up. If for some reason, blogger decides to be nice in the future, I will post it then. Grr... This week has been one frustrating event after another. Hopefully I'll find the $20 of bus tickets I lost this morning too...

Anyways, speaking of the baby, Amber and I are driving to Lafayette this weekend for a baby shower with friends and relatives in our hometown. Should be a fun time, and a lot of people are excited about seeing us (if only we had more time for everyone!!), but its going to be a lot of driving. Amber took at job in Erie, PA for Friday, which means we'll be driving 2+ hrs to Erie on Thursday night and staying in a hotel (at least its being paid for!), then driving 8+ hrs on Friday night to Lafayette, and driving 6+ hrs on Sunday morning to get back to Pittsburgh. Ugh. But it will all be worth it, right!? For all of you who will be there, we look forward to seeing you!!

Why Write in Third Person?

For those who read my previous blog post regarding the "25 things about me" and noticed that I wrote the whole thing in third person, well here's my philosophical explanation for the supposed "creepiness" (here's hoping this makes sense to those who aren't in to philosophy!):

It begins with an analysis of time. We often perceive time as a series of sequential moments happening one right after another. Time is dissectible, one millisecond is completely distinguishable from the next millisecond. This commonsensical notion of time is a bit problematic, and does not accurately depict how we engage time in lived experience, for if each moment in time were completely separate from one another, if each present was an entity unto itself, we'd have no idea how to string a series of events together into a complete whole.

Take this sentence you're reading right now: if each moment in time were completely distinguishable, if each word you read were a completely new experience, you'd have a lot of difficulty making any sense out of what you read. In comes Edmund Husserl. Husserl formulated a way to speak about time to solve this "problem," basically stating that every present, every now, is "thick," containing what Husserl called "retention" and "protention." "Retention" is our ability to retain what has just preceded the now, while "protention" is our ability to anticipate what is going to happen in the immediate future. In other words, in every present moment, the immediate past and future are indistinguishable from the present. This is absolutely necessary or we'd have an incredible difficulty knowing how to comprehend the combination of syllables (which occur in different moments in time) into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and so forth.

Enter Jacques Derrida. Derrida studied this notion of retention and the now, how the living present is "always folding the recent past back into itself" [Lawlor]. In a sense, this now and this retention are indistinguishable, but they must also be differentiated - memory is different than perception. Thus, in every moment, there is difference, there is a momentary gap that occurs in the blink of an eye.

What does this have to do with my previous blog? Well think about when you talk to yourself, think to yourself, or even, the fact that when you read something (like this sentence) you are also saying the words "in your head." In these moments, you become both the subject and object of the action simultaneously. When you speak to yourself, you speak as if you are another person, you objectify yourself. "In other words," Leonard Lawlor states, "in the very moment, when silently I speak to myself, it must be the case that there is a miniscule hiatus differentiating me into the speaker and the hearer." When you talk to yourself, there is a kind of differentiation what goes on, a brief instant in which your brain distinguishes between you (the current thinking agent) and you (the thought being thought). You are yourself and someone else at the same time!

If this hasn't made any sense to you thus far, think about what often happens when you reflect on your past experiences or a past time period in your life. This happened to me recently as I was cleaning off my bookshelves and I was trying to find anything that could be cleaned out and recycled. I started going through the shelves and shelves of notes from classes in college, notebooks full of sermon notes, the original notes of songs I wrote (and other songs I started writing that the world is better off for never having heard!), prayer journals, and so forth. As I read who I was then, I was taking a step back, imagining someone else (my previous/past self) writing down those things, thinking those thoughts that were written on the page. And while taking this step back, while objectifying myself, I could say, "That's not me, that's somebody else!" (i.e., that's not who I am today). This is precisely how autobiographies are written (and how they are so easily embellished!) - the individual reflects back on who they were as if they were somebody else.

Translation - we do the exact same thing nearly every second of our lives as we talk to ourselves, think to ourselves, or even read something on a page and at the same time are telling ourselves what we're reading.

So, my "third person" blog was basically an experiment of this truth, to point out that when I wrote down 25 things about me, I was, in effect saying, "Hey Brock! Yeah you, you like this. You like this thing about you. You had this thing happen to you - what did/do you think about it? You prefer this. You are like..."

So now, the question is: How can we ever achieve an objective standpoint from which we view our subjective selves?