Blog Archives

Glimpsing

4/25/2015

It was 30 seconds that radically changed my life.

I was 15 years old and attending Christmas Eve Midnight Mass with my family at Corpus Christi Church near our home in Pacific Palisades, California.  I’d been to Midnight Masses here before along with hundreds of other services and although I’d had my moments with God nothing up to this point had uniquely resonated.

This Midnight Mass was a High Mass which meant priests beside the Presider were involved, and for no apparent reason I started looking at one who was sitting beside the altar.  Somehow the look of serenity on this priest’s face first caught my attention, then enthralled me, then consumed me.  Joy, uncontrollable joy, had somehow risen out of this moment, seemingly out of nowhere.

What the heck happened?  I didn’t really know and didn’t care: all I knew was that in that 30 seconds my life had changed.  The afterglow continued for several days, with me informing my family of a desire to become a priest.  And although that never materialized, this experience was a kick-start to a long adventure with God and Jesus, one that has lasted until this day.

What has also lasted is a desire to gain perspective on this 30 seconds that happened more than 40 years ago.  Was it truly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a visceral touch of God on my heart and life?  Was it merely the giddiness of a high-strung adolescent who was up past his bedtime?  Both? Neither?

If an experience can be known by its fruits I would say the Spirit was involved.  I can also say I naively expected to have more such experiences, to move from blessing to blessing, from high to high.

But to my chagrin this was more an isolated exception; throughout my life I can count similar occurrences on one hand.  This is true for most of us.   It has been noted that St. Theresa of Avila, considered one of the foremost practitioners and experts in mysticism, actually experienced periods of spiritual transcendence/ecstasy for only about 30 minutes in her life of 67 years.

Giving perspective to this reality, it is easy to focus on the “why so little?” side.  Does God not shower us with more overt blessing because of our lack of faith?  Our sin?  Is it a result of the Fall?  Or is it because God knows we couldn’t handle that much blessing, that much eternal in the temporal?

Conjecture aside, what God does give us is glimpses, little and sometimes larger looks into His existence and essence.   We may want trips to the seventh heaven, but what we usually get is an unexpected revelation, a too good to be true coincidence, even a parking spot that opens up mysteriously. These glimpses sometimes get us by, sometimes wake us up, sometimes pull us from the brink.

Some years ago I was the Executive Director of the Hollywood Urban Project, a ministry to the low-income immigrant community of South Hollywood where we used glimpsing strategies with our youth.  We took kids from our neighborhood to nearby colleges to give them a glimpse of what a college campus looked and felt like.  We took kids from the wealthier outside neighborhoods and gave them an Urban Plunge (spending the night in the community house), giving them a glimpse of life in the ‘hood.  Both groups were touched by these experiences.

God’s glimpsing gives us a taste, a bite without downing the whole enchilada.  This is partly because God also wants us to “walk by faith, and not by sight,” not just trusting in experiences but in Him.  He wants a relationship with us, a relationship based on faith and trust where seeking on the way to finding sharpens everything.

But God also knows we need our Midnight Masses along with our “lucky” parking spots.  God indeed knows what He’s doing, and knows when to leave us alone, throw us a bone, or blow us away.  And whether its 30 seconds of bliss or a lifetime of glimpse, God’s timing is always the fullness of time.

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To Med or Not to Med

4/15/2015

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Something was missing with the bank teller.

As I walked from the front of the line to her window, I noticed a certain bored look and slight reluctance to meet my every banking need. Was she being dismissive as she told me to “please swipe the card?” She must be, and so I came to the obvious conclusion she was dissing me, pure and simple. Is the manager around?

Regaining a bit of objectivity, I decided to lose the complaint and went straight to my car to have a little self conversation.

Self A: “Gee Rick, a little over-reaction here? She wasn’t gushing, but wasn’t exactly impolite either.

Self B: “ Nah–this was bad. These slights weren’t slight.

Self A: “Hold on. She was just doing her job.”

Self B: “She should lose her job. Customers don’t need condescension.”

Back and forth we went until Self A won the day. I know my selves and self, and this was more about me than her. Sure she wasn’t the quintessence of customer service, but my mood and perspective were out of proportion, more intense than it should of been. And since this didn’t seem like an isolated instance of irritability I was thinking something was amiss in my sometimes imbalanced brain chemistry.

But amiss isn’t necessarily askew, so I had to take stock of exactly what I was experiencing. Twice in my life I’ve had full blown Clinical Depression–couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, suicidal thoughts, consistently crying–and this wasn’t that. This was more subtle, a sense my system was off, a sense that I’d crossed the line from semi-normal to out of sorts. This was little “d” depression, but depression nonetheless.

Sensing I’m somehow “off,” I’m faced with a decision–to med or not to med? But just in considering this I’m behind the eight ball already, because my offness makes it hard to think clearly. But it seemed like I had to do something (or not do something), so I decided to have another self-conversation.

Self C: What decision? This is a brain chemistry no-brainer. You have diabetes you take insulin, you have depression you take an anti-depressant. Case closed.

Self D: Not so fast. Maybe when you had the full-on Black Dog medication made sense but you can get through a little irritability. What are you, a wimp?

Self C: Maybe you can tolerate being a jerk but what about those close to you? Playing Mr. Moody is just plain selfish, especially in this day and age when medication can seamlessly stabilize.

Self D: Isn’t that what’s wrong with today’s culture–we throw drugs at every problem? And don’t act like taking drugs is seamless–remember last time’s side effects? Dry mouth? Check. Dizziness? Check. Sexual malfunction? Checked out.

Round and round we/I went, getting nowhere. Finally Self D pulls out the ultimate trump card: Do you think God wants you to resort to some artificial means when He is sufficient for you?

Besides being manipulative, bringing God into the picture both muddles and clarifies: the former because God’s will can’t completely be known, the latter because I wants God’s input, even if I can’t be absolutely sure of the answer.

And Self D does have a point: Doesn’t God want me to face my fears and the challenges of growth without deadening the pain? Suffering as a way to salvation may sound a tad medieval, but suffering can be the wake up call C.S. Lewis discusses. To live out my part in God’s play I need to stay sensitive to the Spirit; how can I listen to the still small voice when a pill makes everything hunky-dory?

“How about the strong voices of grace and love?” counters Self C. “We don’t come to God by our sense of grooviness (or uber-awareness) but by grace, a grace where God ensures and enables our fruitfulness, not how attuned we are. And let’s not forget the Ultimate Trump card’s ultimate trump card: love. If some medication can bring some perspective and centeredness to help someone more easily love God, others, and themselves, let it be.

As it turned out, I decided (and am deciding) to take a small dosage of the medication Lexipro. The polarities my voices tend to emphasize were given perspective by a solid desire just to feel more centered and kind toward the people around me, especially during the Holidays. In general it doesn’t feel like I’ve sold my soul and does feel like I’m doing the right thing, at least for the time being.

Now if I can just find some medication for my multiple personality disorder.

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Mama's Boy

4/15/2015

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One of the most profound experiences of my life happened the day my mother died. An aortic aneurism had brought her to the hospital, and my whole family surrounded her bed monitoring her vital signs as she lay unconscious. Seeing her in this vulnerable state unleashed a torrent of emotion in me, as years of self-protective anger and ambivalence toward her vanished immediately. In the ensuing days I envisioned myself crawling up to my mother and grabbing her ankles, seeking her solace and forgiveness.

I was reminded of this experience recently when I walked into the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary inside St. James Cathedral. I entered on a quest, a desire to get some perspective on Mary, a polarizing person in some church circles who I just wanted to get to know better.

Mary stood serenely, holding the Baby Jesus and surrounded by a myriad of candles. I too was standing, observing from a distance, and what I saw in that pristine face wasn’t providing any answers.

But then I knelt down, and now her bowed head and face seemed to be looking right at me. I was now in the same humble position I had envisioned being in with my mother the days after her death.

Do you have something to say to me Mary? Is my ambivalence toward you also a protection that can be released?

For most of my life Mary has been a bit of a mystery to me. I know I’m not alone. Part of the challenge is how to approach her. Respect? Veneration? Adoration? Worship? Certainly few of us believe Mary is equated with God but the fact she was God’s mom means something. She is certainly worthy of our study, worthy of our respect and depending upon your belief system, worthy of much more.

Some lack of clarity in approaching Mary has led others to fill in the blanks for us, sometimes co-opting Mary for their own purposes. I’ve spent most of my life going to Protestant churches, and it seemed like Mary was the best kept secret in Christianity. Was this an objective ambivalence about Mary’s life and role or merely a centuries old sectarian holdover from the Reformation?

The Catholic Church has a fuller formed teaching on Mary, emphasizing the Immaculate Conception, Mary as “Mother of God”, and the Assumption of Mary into heaven. There is also an emphasis on Mary’s role as an intercessor with God on our behalf, a concept (along with the Assumption) which is a bit less palatable to Protestants. Objections over these views from various sources have put Catholics on the defensive, and defending a position is always more challenging than critiquing it.

That being said, it wasn’t the theological approach of Mary that was engaging me as I knelt at her feet–it was experiencing the mother of God and mine. Were the two one and the same–was my renewed interest in Mary merely a desire to re-connect with my mom? Some might think so, but I was looking for more, and looking for more than memories to a real presence of both.

Did I find it? Like many spiritual experiences, the end results were both baffling and enlightening as I left the Shrine with many questions but with a sense that something powerful had happened. And I also left with a renewed desire to find perspective on Mary, not wanting to wait to the end of my life to open my heart to her.

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Striving for Sainthood

4/15/2015

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FYI–I’ve decided to become great in God’s kingdom. Like St.Therese of Lisieux, “I don’t want to be a saint by halves,” I want it all. When I go to heaven, I want God to say “Well done, they good and faithful servant,” and then lead me to my rewarded place near the throne. And while on earth, I want to be on the absolute cutting edge of what God is doing in ministry and “perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” in my private life.

Sounds sacrilegious, doesn’t it? Or at least obnoxious. It was uncomfortable even writing about this much spiritual ambition, a phrase which often seems oxymoronic. Check out the Bible–isn’t it replete with verses extolling humility and putting down pride? At best we’re called to stumble onto greatness through grace; in fact, the more we want it, the less we’ll get it.

So I guess I was wrong–God must want me to settle. If I actually make it to heaven He’d like to greet me with “partially well done, my marginal at best servant,” no doubt wanting to be alone by the throne with the rest cowering by the Pearly Gates. And I imagine He’ll use His Whac-a-Mole method for my forays into ministry and growth–shoving my head back down whenever it assertively comes to the light.

That doesn’t sound or feel right either. So I guess balance is needed. Maybe we should adjust our lives like the climate system in a high rise building: when the temperature gets too warm (i.e. we start to get overly ambitious), the air conditioning kicks on to bring the heat down; when the temperature gets too cold (i.e. we start to underachieve), the heating kicks in to warm it back up.

But that sounds like a recipe for mediocrity. What’s the right perspective here?

“…..but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.”

Matthew 20:26

Many of us are well acquainted with this profound verse, which communicates the simple but radical idea that humbling yourself in service is a means to greatness. Not sticking out in the crowd, not looking better or sounding better or being better, not dominating or belittling or bloviating, no, the way to the top is from the bottom. It is part of Christ’s rhetoric of reversal (“the first shall be last”), a paradoxical communication of deeper truths.

But when focusing on the servant aspect of this verse, we sometimes miss the call to greatness, the end to which service is a means. Just as the verse extolling us to “love our neighbor as ourselves” also shows the importance of loving oneself, “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant” seems to lend credence to the idea that greatness is something to be sought, albeit by the path of service.

There are obvious caveats here. One is our looking to be great in God’s kingdom, which of course has its own priorities and value system based on humility and holiness. And this greatness isn’t to be competitive vis a vis others; Websters may define greatness as “markedly superior in character, quality or skill” but our superiority in Christ is only vis a vis the schlepper we could’ve been. And of course grace will play the defining part in how and where this greatness is manifest.

Where I think we get uncomfortable is the idea that God wants us to desire something, especially greatness. Does God want us to want to use the talents He’s given us, want to love others and make a difference in our world, want to help justice roll down? Well, yeah. Sure He wants us to have the humility to know where the power comes from, but as far as humility goes, he seems to condemn false humility along with the lack thereof.

So is the desire of being great and a saint in heaven and on earth a bad thing? I don’t think so, and we do our God, our world and ourselves an injustice by striving and desiring for too little. We may be nothing without God, but with Him we can join the “I don’t want to be a saint by halves” Saint Therese in saying “in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.”

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Being Ozzie

4/15/2015

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When I tried on that cardigan, I immediately thought of Ozzie.

Not Osbourne of course. Nelson. I grew up with Ozzie Nelson: my father Perry Grant had co-written every episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, whose 14-year run (1952-1966) was one of the longest in television history. One night a week for much of my childhood our family (Perry, Edie, Cheryl and Ricky) would watch the Nelson family (Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky). The show was in essence TV’s first reality show (Ozzie before Ozzy), featuring the actual Nelson family and a set duplicated from the Nelson’s actual home.

Ozzie often wore cardigans on the show, and when I recently tried on a speckled purple variety in a Palm Desert men’s store, I made the immediate association. But beyond association was connection, a kind of visceral portal for me to embrace or at least take a look at both my childhood and advancing age. And it seems I’m not the only one channeling Ozzie; our culture also uses him as an archetype for discussions of family and the essence of normality.

To some, Ozzie and his show symbolize the mindless fluff of the 50’s Eisenhower era where the perfect family was conflict-free and conversed in banalities (“Want to go to the malt shop Oz?” “Sure Thorny. Then we can drop off Harriet at the hairdresser.”). To others the show emphasized traditional family values and exuded normality when normal was still a virtue. Today to say a couple is “like Ozzie and Harriet” can either be a put down or a complement.

I sometimes wonder if my parents modeled their parenting on Ozzie and Harriet. Growing up in a “perfect” neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, California with my father head of the household and my mother a homemaker, they certainly patterned our family around a 50’s ideal and lived to have a marriage of almost 60 years before my father died. But there was much that wasn’t ideal about my family upbringing; we didn’t deal with conflict well and glossed over many challenging personal and societal issues when the 60‘s and 70‘s unfolded.

But when I tried on the cardigan earlier this year, I wasn’t thinking about family ideals or dysfunction: I was thinking about my age. I’m 58, and I have to admit most of my fashion choices (i.e. the tendency of wearing athletic attire) are made in attempts to look younger. On the other hand, cardigans speak gentility, staidness, old school, Ozzie. And something within me embraced this.

In my den at home I have a sarcastic photo Ozzie Nelson sent to my father “expressing the fondness we of the writing community have for each other.” Taken on the set of the show, there is a massive moose head on the mantle and Ozzie is wearing a smoking jacket and ascot with a smug look on his face. It’s nice to see Ozzie didn’t seem to take himself too seriously, and I imagine he might laugh at his current role as a cultural icon.

But I know he’s had a role in my life, and next time I’m at the men’s store I’ll see if they have any smoking jackets and ascots to try on.

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Stuck in Third

4/15/2015

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During a recent channel surfing engagement, I became intrigued by a young woman strutting around a stage holding forth on the values of atheism. Like many of the so-called “New” atheists–it wasn’t the originality of her arguments that was arresting but the sheer smarminess and gleefulness with which she presented them. In her mind she had obviously settled these questions of the ages about God’s existence and anyone who might disagree with her was a complete idiot.

Putting aside for a moment my initial disagreements and tendency to dismiss something that makes me feel uncomfortable, I started to conjecture about the motivations of this woman. Was she a truth seeker who had become an evangelist for a discovered lack of belief? Had she been a believer before who had lost her faith? Or was this just a postmodern rant, a way to cry out against tradition and tradition’s God?

Possibly all three, and in all three I began to think this woman was corresponding to the rock-ribbed belief in our culture that truth seeking and rebellion go hand in hand. All truth is contrarian truth. The historic society has a thesis, believe the antithesis. As Dallas Willard has written: “We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes.”

Something is missing here. The classic dialectic is not a dyad (thesis and antithesis) but a triad (thesis, antithesis, and synthesis). You don’t arrive at truth by merely doing the opposite, you weigh the opposing factors and try to find the balance. Of course it could be argued in today’s culture that there is no truth to seek, that rebellion for rebellion’s sake is permissible because no synthesis is sought.

And of course this spirit of rebellion is apparent beyond just the secular society. Spiritual seekers and those in the Church also love playing the devil’s advocate, and many aren’t just playing. I remember watching a video of the Jesus Seminar scholars years ago voting on the legitimacy of specific Bible verses (John 3:16? 8 yeas and 30 nays!) I wouldn’t say smarminess and gleefulness were apparent but a certain overall smugness was.

In my journey of faith I’ve certainly found myself gravitating towards taking contrarian positions. Like many Christians, my initial honeymoon period with my faith was followed by a sense of disillusionment, starting for me when I learned a fellow Christian had committed suicide (I thought God didn’t tempt us beyond what we were able!). In some ways I haven’t recovered from this disillusionment, which reveals itself in my constant questioning, critiquing, and carping about various “injustices” I see in my church and the Church.

For perspective, spiritual writers through the years have talked about the four stages of spiritual growth, which author Scott Peck had made popular in recent years. In an over-simplified nutshell, the stages include:

Stage 1–Living for yourself.

Stage 2–Letter of the Law, often after a salvation experience

Stage 3–Freedom from unnecessary constraints

Stage 4–Spirit of the Law, an integration of obedience and freedom

Within these stages it is important to note that stage 3 is considered a progression on the road to maturity, a step ahead of stage 2, where a strict adherence to all the rules can lead to a rigid fundamentalism. “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Peck suggests that for some believers on their journey playing golf on Sunday might be better than attending a service as they can experience a freedom in faith and get perspective on what truly motivates them.

But Stage 3 is seen as a means to an end–not an end to itself. And what is that end? The making of a mature believer, someone who has the law written on their hearts, someone who can go past seeking to finding. Stage 4 is where we go from freedom for freedom’s sake to freedom for the sake of the Gospel.

Certainly a lofty goal, a goal which many of us have trouble embracing with any consistency. But let’s a least know where we’re headed, and look for a balance that goes from “freedom from” to “freedom to.”

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B and OB

4/15/2015

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When the phone rang, the battle in my mind began. I was driving to work on the freeway without a headset or ear plugs, and my options were to answer the call (totally illegal) or let it ring (legal but totally frustrating). It was do the right thing vs. what if this is work calling? Following my conscience vs. I might be missing……something.

Not the world’s worst moral dilemma but it struck me how seamlessly I took the road most traveled (answering the phone). A haunting thought occurred to me: after all these years of Bible study, church attendance, and spiritual disciplines, was I still programmed to do the wrong thing?

For many of us older Christians, the ideal of becoming Christlike can seem challenging if not unattainable. However willing our spirits over the years, our flesh has been weaker, as the consistent battle with our lesser angels has worn us down. Not wanting to completely give up, we continue to assent to the possibility of Christlikeness, but the probability seems increasingly far-fetched.

And this far-fetchedness isn’t just with the agape love, turn the other cheek type of Christlikeness. Brendan Manning writes “I find myself threatened, challenged and exhilarated by Christ’s freedom from human respect, his extraordinary independence, indomitable courage, and unparalleled authenticity.” I’m also blown away, both by the existence of these attributes in the life of Christ and the almost total absence in mine.

Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this life of non-Christlikeness? Dallas Willard for one. In his soul-searching book “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard attacks the throw in the towel idea with a penetrating combination of wisdom and logic. “Surely the life God holds out for us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle!” My wife and I have gleaned many insights from this book and for both of us “Renovation of the Heart” has been a restoration of hope.

So let’s say for a moment that becoming Christlike (or at least more like Christ) is actually a possibility. What is the best means to that end? There have been various answers broached over the Christian millenniums, most of them having to do with either squelching or negotiating with our sinful nature. To me it has something to do with addressing the relationship between my faith and feelings, those pesky little human reactions which always seem to have a life of their own.

The Willard emphasis with challenging emotions is straightforward and simple: don’t deny them or dwell on them. Let’s say you’re feeling angry: don’t suppress the feeling but don’t cultivate it either, and certainly don’t embrace it as some kind of expression of your deepest self. Although emotions themselves aren’t sinful, there are actually such things as good emotions (i.e. fruits of the spirit) and bad emotions (anger, malice, resentment etc.), and through a lifetime of spiritual discipline and the grace of God a person can gravitate toward the good and extinguish the bad.

In the world of psychology emotions are often seen differently. Emotions aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just are, and are certainly a window to the inner world. A person’s shadow self and the concurrent feelings shouldn’t be run from but embraced; the way to the eye of the storm is not around it but through it. If I’m angry I start by recognizing the emotion, have a mindfulness about taking action, and then later ask myself what this anger is telling me about myself.

Taking a bit from both camps, I’ve developed my own little mantra on my voyage to Christlikeness: B and OB. B is to be, letting myself just be who I am (a humanbeing). OB is obedience, listening to God and attempting to do His will. Starting on the B side, I let my emotions surface–holy, unholy, or somewhere in the middle. Then on the OB side I take what surfaces and try to take action on the leading of the Spirit.

By doing so, somehow by the grace of God my character is starting to conform to the image of Christ. I can still be a saint and sinner in the same millisecond, but this aspect of my humanity can be embraced and put in perspective. Willing my way to Christlikeness never worked; what seems to help is finding a synthesis between my humanity and my faith and letting the Spirit forge that into something special.

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Hell

4/15/2015

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I recently came across a book entitled “My 5 Minutes in Hell,” a story of a near death experience where the author took a brief visit to the netherworld and lived to tell the tale. Much of what he saw surprised the author–there actually was weeping, gnashing of teeth, fire and even brimstone along with fast food and chocolate. Beside the scary stuff was some awkwardness–he inadvertently ran into one set of grandparents but tactfully didn’t mention which ones.

One interesting aspect of the story was the background music he heard in hell–the song Amazing Waste. As he remembers the lyrics of the 4th stanza:

“When we weren’t there 10,000 years

and wallowed in the dark;

We’ve no less days to feel the blaze

because we missed the mark.”

As you might have imagined by now, I’m lying about the existence of the book (lying and hell seem to go together). As far as I know there aren’t many people going south for their near death experience, and even if there was the telling probably isn’t coming to a bookstore near you. We like reassuring and soothing when we consider eternity: light and angels and other cool things (literally).

Who wants to talk about hell? Not many of us it seems–the secular world tends to disregard the subject or make fun of it, the religious world tends to minimize or downplay any reference. And whose to blame us: hell is just not a pleasant subject. We like talking about sports and dogs and food and fashion; somehow discussing damnation for several gazillion years can be less attractive.

It’s certainly never been my favorite subject. How a loving God can condemn a person to eternal separation from Him because they “missed the mark” during a 70 or so year window of opportunity seems anything but loving and forgiving. I’ve certainly heard and understood the arguments that a person somehow chooses his lot for eternity but it seems like God could do more to save this person from his or her poor decisions and actions.

But as my wife often reminds me, I am not God, and my job isn’t so much to dispute the mysterious and unfathomable but to trust and obey what I think is the truth. And is it true that hell exists? Like everything in the afterlife of course we can’t know for sure, but not knowing goes both ways. I can’t be sure that hell exists and can’t be sure it doesn’t, and neither can any of us.

What I know for myself is two things: Jesus seemed to believe in hell and evil is alive and well on planet earth. As a Christian, Jesus is my bellwether for everything, and he speaks several times about hell and the ramifications of a sinful life. Some scholars try to disavow or put in perspective these references of Christ to hell but it seems pretty clearcut to me that Christ (who refers to hell more often than heaven) took the subject seriously.

And no doubt anyone who thinks seriously about our world past and present would have to admit that evil exists. Despite all the advances in science and technology and even the social sciences the last 100 years can be described as a hell-a-thon, with hundreds of millions dying through wars and exterminations and other horrific events which can’t be naively explained away. Is it such a leap to think that demons (the personification of evil) exist and that theres’s a place where these creatures and their minions hold sway?

Many might say no and some would say yes but it’s impossible to skirt the fact that if hell does exist, it’s a gamechanger. For centuries other generations seemed to understood this, taking seriously (sometimes obsessively) the question of their eternal destiny. But these days for some reason we don’t tend to ask life’s big questions (Hell? Heaven? God? Truth?). Is this because we think we don’t know or can’t know the answers or are we just scared of where these questions may lead?

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Inspired

4/15/2015

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In September of 2013 I launched the book INSPIRED: Churches of Seattle, a coffee table book showcasing the architecture and ministry of 52 churches in the greater Seattle area. The book was greeted with enthusiasm, except by a few honest friends who pulled me aside and asked: why in the wide world of sports write a book about churches in unchurched Seattle?

When my wife Hattie and I moved to the Emerald City from Los Angeles in 2011, we naturally started comparing the cities on prices, friendliness, weather etc. We also started driving by and visiting some amazing churches and wondered why there is so little written about them. Take for instance the 1990’s book Seattle: World-Class City: A Contemporary Portrait, a 300-page coffee table book that documents in detail every possible cultural and civic institution of note. Except Seattle churches, where nary a word was spoken.

Hello? We soon discovered churches in Seattle are a dynamic part of the current and historical culture of Seattle, affecting and contributing to all elements of the society. If you wanted to find out who is doing good in this city–helping with housing, hunger, domestic violence, human trafficking, addiction/recovery, mental health, gang, prison and refugee work–look for church folk to be in the mix. And Seattle sure has a boatload of churching for an unchurched city; I soon estimated there were over 100,000 people attending services every Sunday in the area.

So my main motivation was telling what seemed to be an untold story. I have to admit to some anger along with the desire to educate: the media is dissing the brethren and I need to do something about it! A few other Christians I knew shared this “them’s fighting words” (or in this case the lack of words) mentality, engendering in both of us a bit of an us vs. them vibe.

Unfortunately as I found out, the vibe in town could also be us vs. us. Like many larger cities, Seattle’s churches polarize over various issues: gay marriage, women in ministry, the list goes on and on. When it came right down to it there didn’t seem to be a great deal of contact in Seattle between the Mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostals, Evangelicals and dozens of other denominations.

Which invites the question I always ask when I visit the churches to market the book: with all the polarizing between the churches, is there anything that pulls us together? Many answers center around what should be the relationship between the churches, emphasizing Christ’s call to unity among us. Other answers look at similarities with social justice outreach, emphasizing that although we may have a few differences in faith and hope we can (and have) come together in love.

So although my original motivations for writing Inspired were to tell a neglected story and address a diss, I’m now inspired to take a look at church unity in the area. No easy answers here, but worth taking a closer look.

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Glimpsing

To Med or Not to Med

Mama's Boy

Striving for Sainthood

Being Ozzie

Stuck in Third

B and OB

Hell

Inspired

RICK GRANT

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