Reflecting on Black Friday

Halloween was not over before I began receiving advertisements for "Black Friday" sales. They arrived daily – in email, social media feeds, and pop-up ads on web pages. Seemingly everyone was trying to get an early start on the biggest shopping day of the year. For some time, our "marketing-industrial" complex has placed a growing emphasis on this single commercial day as a bellwether for our nation’s economic success; but their stretching that day into a month-long buying orgy has surprised even my hard-boiled cynicism.

For years, I have fluctuated from bemusement to horror while reading the annual stories of Black Friday madness: people fighting with each other for a last TV on sale, or frenzied mobs trampling someone to death in the mad rush to get into a store. It is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying. And now – apparently – it's for a month.

There is an aggressive insistence to this ritual that should be a warning. "Act now!" "Buy before it's too late!" For me, as a contemplative, these words raise a red flag. Anyone pushing with that much insistence has no interest in the process of discernment. It is a naked appeal to our basest instincts of acquisitiveness and greed.

But there is also an opportunity here. This onslaught of urgency – where every message is in bold font, all caps, and followed by exclamation points – is an invitation to mindfully step back and slow down. It is a warning sign, like an engine revving too fast, to take our foot off the gas for a moment. The pinpoint accuracy of the advertising (“How did they know I was interested in that?”) presents us with an opportunity to ask ourselves what weakness or desire does this ad seek to exploit? Why is this attracting me? What do I really need?

The spiritual discipline of detachment involves learning to step back and observe the movements of our intellect. Rather than trying to control our monkey mind and force it into quiet submission, experienced contemplatives will watch their ideas, like clouds floating across an empty sky, noting where the thoughts come from and where they go, paying attention to the fears and anxieties from which they spring.

Likewise, watching experienced advertisers play on our dreams and desires can shed a helpful light on desires of which we may be unaware. They reveal the siren voices that call to us most urgently. They expose the psychological holes in our lives that those voices are trying to get us to fill. Pay attention. Watch without judgment. Know yourself.

It is, of course, a perverse irony that this frenzy of consumption is attached to a holiday that is about gratitude. The actual history of the first Thanksgiving is shrouded in uncertainty and is doubtlessly more complicated than the stories we recount. But the stories are important. They remember a tale of cross-cultural support in a time of great hardship. They remind us of the healing power of generosity: sharing scarce resources and knowledge. They rejoice at unexpected friendships and moments of celebration.

Maybe our stories about Thanksgiving provide us with some helpful counterbalance to the manic consumerism of our month-long "Black Friday": a reminder of those people around the globe and around the corner who may be fighting for survival in a hostile environment. A reminder that a simple act of friendship and generosity can save a life. A reminder that everything we have is a gift from a God of abundance who invites us to reflect our divine nature through our own acts of generosity.

On this Black Friday, rather than fight the manic crowds for an artificially discounted computer, why not use every advertisement as an opportunity for spiritual reflection. What emptiness am I trying to fill? What inner darkness am I seeking to avoid? What am I truly longing for? My guess is that what you seek cannot be purchased at a store sale. And ironically, that longing may be best satisfied by sharing something of yourself.

View from the Mantel

Like many authors, I often process by writing. A short story I wrote about my wife’s death last summer was recently picked up by the online journal Monologging. Here is the link:

View from the Mantel

Enlightenment through a single sound

Sometimes a small step can change the world.

There is a spiritual dimension to every musical instrument. I’m not entirely sure why this is, probably because all music is vibrational, and–according to a recent Scientific American article–synchronized vibration is at the heart of both human consciousness and physical reality itself. One of the wonderful things about studying the shakuhachi (an end-blown, vertical Japanese flute), is that this spiritual dimension is explicit: the instrument was used as a tool for meditation by a sect of Zen monks called the Fuke. 

The great Fuke teacher Kurosawa Kinko (1710-1771) is reputed to have coined the term Ichi On Jo Buttsu, or ”From one sound, enlightenment.” It is an interesting phrase, coming from a musician: there is no interest in melodic arc, phrasing, tempo–all the usual musical concerns. But coming from a Zen monk, it makes perfect sense. His point is that the focus and discipline that we bring to perfecting even one note, is exactly the kind of focus and discipline that will lead us to enlightenment. 

I am doing a lot of caregiving these days (more on that later, perhaps), and I am not a natural caregiver. I lack the patience and intuitive insight that a gifted caregiver brings to their work. I get too rushed, too focused on the next thing to be done. In the midst of that harried-ness recently, this phrase–ichi on jo buttsu–came back to me.

The invitation to seek “enlightenment through one sound,” is the promise that personal transformation happens when I focus on doing the thing immediately before me with intentionality and purpose. I don’t have to worry about being a “perfect” caregiver. I need to do perfectly this one thing in which I am engaged; or at least to the greatest level of my ability at the moment. That’s it; nothing more, nothing less. One thing: one meal, one bandaging, one moment of listening–one note.

Obviously, this realization is not simply a Buddhist insight; it is a rich element of the Christian contemplative tradition as well. The Carmelite mystic Brother Lawrence (1614-1691), noted that he was pleased when he could “perform the lowliest task, such as picking up a piece of straw from the ground, for no other reason except for the love of God, seeking only Him and nothing else.” The most simple, prosaic act can be a means of transformation.

What happens next, of course, is that those individual prosaic acts begin to grow together. The note lengthens and becomes a melody. The moment of quality listening, becomes the ability to actually hear another person. As Malcom Gladwell pointed out so brilliantly in The Tipping Point, there comes a moment when all the small incremental changes gather momentum and force, and dramatically change an entire situation (or person, or project, or community, or society).

This is a compelling and hopeful concept for me. It means that I do not need to try and change the world, or become a brilliant musician or author, or transform into a gifted caregiver. It means that I need to do the one thing in front of me with all of the gifts that I have. I need to bring all of myself into the current moment, to live and act with the best of myself.

One of Kurosawa Kinko’s distant spiritual disciples, the brilliant shakuhachi player and teacher Jin Nyodo (1891-1966), would tell his students that if they could play a single perfect note, it would bring about world peace. Looking about the world, apparently no one has played that perfect note yet. But making the attempt is a worthy goal.

A Long-Overdue Farewell

At some point in the next handful of years, I fully expect that a clever, enterprising grad student in economics or statistics will write a brilliant doctoral thesis on just how much a Donald Trump presidency has cost us.  It won’t be on the obvious costs — a decimated economy, hundreds of thousands of lost lives, the demise of our moral credibility as a nation — but on the small incremental costs to each of us in terms of our time and mental and spiritual health.

Over the past four years, I have observed how obsessively I watch the news and Twitter for the latest outrage perpetrated on vulnerable and marginalized people, the most recent instance of graft and corruption, the newest assault on the pillars of our democracy.   Obviously, those threats are real; but the reason for my obsessiveness has more to do with Trump’s manic need to dominate every news cycle.  Every. News. Cycle.  

Recently — undoubtedly long after it came into common parlance — I encountered the term “doom scrolling,” our propensity to lay in bed long after we should be asleep, continually updating our news and Twitter feeds looking for the latest signs of the apocalypse. I’m sure that this was a reality before a Trump presidency, but I certainly never experienced it.  Now, it feels like an addiction.

It is in the nature of Trump’s sociopathic narcissism to require the spotlight every single instant.  From the moment that the fragile Cheeto rode down the escalator to declare his candidacy, his inflammatory language and has been aimed at provoking outrage and attention.  Even his obvious graft has taken place in plain sight, where everyone could take notice. 

That’s the hallmark of a narcissist: it doesn’t really matter whether we adore or despise him, he just needs to be the center of the universe.  He needs the attention, and I know that; but somehow I cannot keep myself from giving it to him.  And in giving him my attention, I have impoverished my own life to an astonishing degree.

It isn’t simply about the loss of the value of my time — our time — although that is the element that may be the simplest to measure economically; it’s about the overall decay in the quality of our life.  Every hour that we spend obsessing about his latest outrage, is an hour we haven’t been uplifted by the soaring beauty of a novel or captivated by a clever, witty new television drama.  

Every time we get angry about his assault on our way of life, the world becomes a little darker.  Our ongoing frustration probably means that we barked at a spouse about a simple household need or were surly with the children at the dinner table.  Our sense of helplessness probably resulted in a needlessly aggressive response to a work colleague.  Our sense of despair undoubtedly seeped out as impatience with a grocery store clerk or gas station attendant. 

Tonight, after I returned from walking the dog, my wife Jeannine said, “Tell me if you read something funny; I need it.”  

“What’s wrong,” I inquired, worried that something upsetting had occurred while I was out.  We had just had a lovely dinner with Joshua, and everything had been fine.

“Oh, nothing, I was just looking at the news.” Of course.

A mood ruined, an evening bluer.  Not a crisis in itself, but the cumulative effect over four years on all of us — a nation, a world — is staggering.  How often did we come into work tired and depressed, unprepared to bring our best game?  How many times did we fail to clasp a beloved hand, too caught up in our own interior dismay?  How often did we let a creative spark blow out because we just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to nurture and explore it?

Donald Trump has made our world smaller, meaner, and bleaker.  Or we have let him do it.  But we don’t need to anymore.  Once he is dragged kicking and screaming from the Oval Office, his ability to dominate our national psyche will diminish significantly.  Oh, he will certainly try to continue to inject himself — through manic tweeting, perhaps his own talk show or even another presidential run — but they will be frantic, vain attempts.

We have an opportunity to evict him not only from office, but from our minds.  We can reclaim that mental and emotional space and use it to make our lives richer.  We can let go of the doom scrolling and reconnect with our better, saner, more hopeful selves.  It is time to bid him a long-overdue farewell.

The Price of Lying

One of the great delights of the last couple of years has been getting to watch a show with my family called “The Good Place.”  It is a funny, thought-provoking depiction of the afterlife in which one of the characters — Chidi Anagonye — is a professor of moral philosophy.  While it is always wonderful to sit and share time with our kids, I will acknowledge that I particularly enjoy doing that at the same time that the kids are being exposed to Aristotle and Kant — and laughing!

Kant has been much on my mind this week (how often does one get to say that?).  If you can throw your mind back to freshman philosophy class (or if you, too, are watching the Good Place), you will remember that the cornerstone of Kant’s moral philosophy is an idea called the “categorical imperative.”  The categorical imperative states that for an action to be moral, one must be able to envision it being universalized.  

So, for example, a lie is immoral because if we imagine it being universalized (everyone lying all the time), then any meaningful communication or social interaction ceases to exist.  We can only communicate effectively within a context of an assumption of truth telling.  Lying will of course always happen, but if it is an aberration, then social discourse goes on.

Which, of course, brings us to this week...

We are all aware that our President is a pathological liar; and, apparently that is not terribly troubling to some significant percentage of the population.  But watching the conversations on Capitol Hill this week is to watch the total breakdown of meaningful discourse.  People are looking at the same facts and some arguing that he has committed a treasonable, impeachable offense, and others, that he has done absolutely nothing wron

It’s discouraging, of course, when our leaders commit crimes and try to cover them up.  But our political system begins to unravel when they commit crimes and half of the population says no crime has been committed.  Or half of the Congress says that Kurt Volker’s testimony completely implicates the President in criminal behavior, and the other half says THAT SAME TESTIMONY completely exonerates the President. 

It is even more discouraging when the President caught in a clear violation of the law (soliciting a foreign government to interfere with our election), defends himself by simply openly asking other governments to interfere with the election, as if that were normal.  At that point our whole framework of normalcy  is turned on its head, and we find our selves asea with no bearings for what actions are appropriate or legitimate.  His lying has undermined our ability to engage meaningful social discourse.

Does our Congress even have the capacity to turn itself around and embrace any need for accountability?  It seems unlikely at this point, but miracles do happen.  Or we can hope for some correction in 2020, hoping to regain our moral footing as a nation, by choosing to make truth and the rule of law a priority.  I can only pray that will happen next year.  

For the moment, however, the President has won.  He has proved his point that he “could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose his voters.”  He could.  But that should not keep us from calling it murder.

A Modest Proposal

Once again, our nation is reeling from yet another horrific mass killing; or, as it happens, two in 24 hours.  No doubt, we will go through the -- now standard -- ritual of our leaders offering "thoughts and prayers" to the families of the victims; Democrats wringing their hands and calling for action; Republicans mumbling and try to be invisible; media talking endlessly about "reasonable" gun control laws.  And nothing at all changes. 

So instead, here's an idea: let's just repeal the 2nd Amendment to the constitution.  Not that the amendment itself is bad: it had a purpose and a time. But any rational reading of that amendment would conclude that it was never intended to support the ludicrous situation in which we find ourselves.  It is, to quote the late Justice John Paul Stevens, a “relic of the 18th century”. We no longer have a "well-regulated militia," nor is such an entity "necessary to the security of a free State."  We have a standing army to protect our state; and, in the event that our own government becomes the oppressor (an idea that was, frankly, unthinkable before our current administration), the idea that our small arms would help us against an trained army with planes, rockets, and nuclear warheads is laughable.

However, that legal ship has sailed.  For whatever its reasons, the court has ruled on a different meaning to the 2nd Amendment, and there is nothing that can be done about that now.  Even the conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger told PBS that the NRA's advocacy of an individual’s right to bear arms "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime (https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/590920670/from-fraud-to-individual-right-where-does-the-supreme-court-stand-on-guns?t=1565197923547)."

So where do we go from here?   Any legislation that will now pass constitutional muster amounts to nothing but shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.  We need to acknowledge that the 2nd Amendment has outlived its usefulness and repeal it. Yes, I know that America has a deeply rooted gun culture.  Yes, I know that there is a group of citizens who will never peacefully surrender their weapons. Yes, I know that there are a vast number of people who use guns recreationally and responsibly.  But sadly, the societal price for that particular recreation is just too high.  

As I write these words, I am in London, where no one really worries about being shot by a random crazy person.  Many of the police here don't even carry guns. And -- surprise, surprise -- crime is not rampant; law-abiding citizens are not at the mercy of gun-toting hoodlums; civilization goes on just the same.  The Brits, of course, are no less crazy than we Americans (as witnessed by their own recent political decompensation); but when they get upset, they don't have the option of shooting each other. That feels like a significant step forward in making a country livable.

So, while I appreciate all of the work in which countless gun control organizations around the US engage to create and enact "reasonable" gun control laws, I would like to make a pitch for an "unreasonable" approach:  let's just get rid of them. All of them. 

This will obviously not happen overnight.  It will hardly happen in a generation. But if right now we simply outlawed all firearms, except for use by governmental agencies, we would stop the arms race between law-enforcement and criminals in its tracks, and we could slowly begin the process of disarming our nation.  And everyone would be safer.

On Holy Conferencing

In the days since the end of this momentous, specially-called, much-anticipated, session of General Conference, I have found myself reflecting on John Wesley’s call to engage in the process of Holy Conferencing.  Wesley believed — as have I for most of my adult life -- that the movement of the Holy Spirit becomes known as Christians prayerfully and honestly engage one another in the process of discernment.  I have found myself doubting whether that is true.

This is not simply because I am so discouraged by the outcome of the Conference, and our denomination’s continued exclusion of our LGBTQI sisters and brothers (although I do acknowledge my deep sorrow and embarrassment about our actions).   I am also deeply discouraged by the process.  Everything I have heard and read, reinforces the experience I had at the last General Conference in 2016: political maneuvering, allegations of bribery, expressions of racism and colonialism, homophobia, self-righteousness, jockeying for position, rampant displays of ego.  

We can’t possibly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit because everyone has already made up their minds.  Watching General Conference feels no different than watching Congress work: gridlocked, self-interested, game-playing.  And maybe it shouldn’t be different: both bodies are filled with flawed, wounded, but redeemed children of God.

So I’ve been wondering about whether there is any truth in the idea of Holy Conferencing at all, and where I have seen it work.  Largely, I have seen it work in smaller bodies — bodies that have deeper relationships and history together to draw on.  I have seen it many times in the work of the local church, where people engage one another deeply and argue passionately, and see a possibility emerge from their debate that neither side had anticipated.  I have seen it in family conversations where difficult decisions had to be made together.  I have seen it in the work of non-profit Boards seeking to set a vision for their community or respond to a crisis.  I have seen it in the work of our Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference Board of Ordained Ministry, where a high degree of consensus is so valued that people have to be willing to risk honesty and trust each other.

Maybe the problem is breadth and size? Maybe a body like General Conference (or Congress!) is simply too big to allow for true Holy Conferencing to happen?  Maybe the differing cultural values are too great a barrier; maybe the vested financial interests are too significant; maybe the wounds are too deep? And maybe that argues for a governance model that is smaller and more decentralized, a denomination made up of a number of smaller affiliate bodies.  Can Holy Conferencing happen on an Annual Conference level, or is that too big as well?

I don’t have answers to these questions and would welcome insight from others.  But the last thing I have realized is that I — as an individual member of any discerning body — have a call (or invitation) to take a deep look at my own baggage and woundedness as I engage in the process of discernment.  If I am to be part of any Holy Conferencing, the place to start is with the spiritual grounding and openness that I bring to the table myself.   Of course, my openness and groundedness is no guarantee that that truly Holy Conferencing will happen -- I cannot control what anybody else brings to the table — but it is always the place where the work begins.

State of Emergency

Recently, I finished an interesting book by Mike Duncan called The Storm before the Storm; a history of the last years of the Roman Republic, before the Caesars turned it into an empire.  It is a fascinating period of history, with a number of cautionary messages for our own current political reality: a deep fear of the rising influence of immigrants, rapidly widening wealth disparity, and the disintegration of societal and political mores.  

Of particular note however, on this unusually temperate February night, is the issue of executive power.  The White House has just announced that President Trump will sign the federal budget without the monies for his border wall.  But they also announced that he would additionally sign a declaration of national emergency, which would — arguably illegally — give him the powers to siphon off other monies to pay for his pet project.

In the year 81 BCE, the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla also declared a national emergency (largely caused by himself), as he marched his army on his own capital.  At the point of a sword, he forced the Senate to declare him dictator — a role that the Roman constitution had instituted for national emergencies (and which was limited to a term of six months) — giving him the power to establish any laws he chose and free reign to massacre his enemies with impunity.  

After eliminating all those enemies, Sulla did eventually lay down his dictatorship after a year, and moved back into the traditional roles of Roman government, becoming consul in 80 BCE.  But the damage to the institutions of government had been done: and it was little more than 30 years later when Julius Caesar would again take up the title, eventually having himself declared dictator for life.

Throughout the past two years, we have seen the President chaffing at any limitations on his authority.  He undermines the judiciary (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/chief-justice-john-roberts-rebuts-trump-obama-judge/story?id=59344259), he misuses the military (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/troops-border-wall.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share), he bullies congress.  I do not really worry about Donald Trump becoming a dictator (though I have little doubt that it is a roll he would love): he lacks the intelligence and military support necessary.  But I do worry about the toll his actions will take on our balance of powers in the long run.  

The Roman historian Velleius Paterculus wrote, “precedents do not stop where they begin, but, however narrow the path upon which they enter, they create for themselves a highway whereon they may wander with the utmost latitude; and when once the path of right is abandoned, men are hurried into wrong in headlong haste, nor does anyone think a course is base for himself which has proven profitable to others.” 

My worry is that at some point in the not-too-distant future someone will become President who does have the intellect and power base to change the way that our republic operates.  And having seen the success of Donald Trump at undermining those institutions, he or she will follow in his footsteps, and our democracy will be at an end.

Unless Congress moves quickly to counter Mr. Trumps executive over-reach, the precedent will be set, and there will be no going back.  While the structures of our Republic are strong, I fear that we have become complacent in assuming that they will stand forever without needing defense.  The structures of the Roman Republic were also strong — lasting for nearly 500 years.  And then came Sulla.  And then came Caesar.

No Justice, No Unity

Recently, those of us who are United Methodists were introduced to a new national organization called the “Uniting Methodist Movement” (UMM).  The offspring of a number of  self-identified “centrist” Methodist leaders, the UMM represents an attempt to carve out a middle space in our denomination’s ongoing fight around LGBTQ inclusion; space that allows individual clergy, churches, and annual conferences to follow their own consciences as it pertains to the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of the church.

On the surface, this would appear to be a healthy middle ground in the midst of a highly polarized denominational debate.  And who could argue with a position that allows clergy to follow their consciences?  It crafts a via media in which our beloved United Methodist Church stays unified, but still makes progress on the current regressive language of our church law (the aptly-named Book of Discipline).

A year ago, I might have signed onto such a position with some enthusiasm. (It would certainly make my own life easier!)  Today, however, I find myself in a different place, acutely aware that such a compromise comes at the expense of the full inclusion of my LGBTQ sisters and brothers.  It includes them a little (a step in the right direction), but still willingly accepts their exclusion in other corners of our denominational life. 

As a foundational concept, the UMM position appeals to John Wesley’s commitment to creating a theologically “big tent,” in which differing theological positions can exist in dialogue.  While this idea is certainly a gift from John Wesley, encouraging dialogue and inclusion, it feels to me as though the concept is being misused in this context.  Wesley’s passionate abolitionism, for example, would never have tolerated reading Scripture to justify slavery (though many in his day did exactly that).

More importantly, we are not the church of John Wesley; we are the church of Jesus Christ.  We follow a savior who -- without exception -- placed himself among the marginalized and persecuted, and stood against the institutional status quo that perpetuated injustice.  Jesus was not moderate or centrist.  The Principalities and Powers don’t bother crucifying moderates and centrists.

Please understand that I have the deepest respect for the leaders of the UMM, many of whom I know well and love.  But I also note that nowhere among their ranks is there anyone who identifies as LGBTQ, which lends the unfortunate appearance that a lot of straight people (also largely white and male), are crafting a policy on LGBTQ inclusion.  That’s a problem.

If a group of male leaders drafted a position on the inclusion of women in the life of the church, we would be appropriately cynical; likewise, if a group of white people drafted a position paper on the inclusion of people of color.  Read the statements from the UMM and try substituting “women” or “people of color” where it speaks of sexual orientation, and ask yourself if their compromise would be acceptable.  It wouldn’t.

And this sacrifice of justice for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters is made on the altar of denominational unity.  Now I’m all for unity; there are a host of important ministries made possible by the size and scope of our denomination.  But I’m really not sure that unity should be our highest priority.  We can work together without being a single denomination.  When unity comes at the price of justice, the price is too high. 

I read an article today entitled “Don’t Settle for the Middle.”  At this moment in my own spiritual journey, I’m also not inclined to “settle for the middle.”  I’d like us to work for getting it all.  What would it look like to fully embrace God’s call for justice, to fully embrace Christ’s vision of the Kingdom of God, and then let the chips fall where they may?  Our denomination may end up with a centrist position, but I don’t need to facilitate that.  I’m going to be where I think Jesus would be.

Our denomination has split before, and it may split again.  We split over slavery in 1844 and reunited in 1939.  We may split over homosexuality, and we’ll reunite in 20 or 30 years when our children (who don’t understand why we were fighting over this) are in charge.  In the meantime, the call of the Kingdom of God is to work towards justice.

Presence

Joshua and I had a boys' day last week that he later described as "total awesomeness" -- major Dad win! 

This afternoon, I found myself tromping through a small wood with my children in Holland Park in London, where we're having a little vacation time.  There’s more to do in London, of course, than one could ever do.  As Samuel Johnson aptly noted, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."  However, what always strikes me when we go on vacation is that for my children, the primary activity of interest has nothing to do with all of the amazing things they can see in a new place; it is simply the ability to spend time with their parents.  Oh, don't get me wrong, they love many of the activities in London; but they would be just as happy, I think, simply going to the local park, or staying in the flat and playing cards.

It makes me remember what a powerful gift it is to give someone -- particularly a child – your focused time; and, under normal circumstances, how little -- in my own life -- that must actually happen.  I am blessed with a job that provides me with some flexibility, and I generally work from home a day or two a week; and, of course, my children are with me at church on Sunday, getting to watch me engage in one of my significant job responsibilities.  So in my mind, I am "around" my children a lot.  But for them, that's clearly a very different animal than the kind of focused time that happens on vacation. 

In church life, we talk regularly about a "ministry of presence."  In a culture that places an enormous value on "doing," it is very hard to appreciate the importance of simply "being" with someone.  To talk about a ministry of presence is to recognize that simply being physically present with a person is a gift.  In the context of church life, this is generally used to speak of being present with a person in some moment of crisis: an illness, a loss, a death.  In these settings, our instinctual response is to want to “do” something that will make the situation better -- to ease someone's pain, to offer someone a word of consolation.  And the reality, of course, is that often nothing we can say or do will make the situation better; but simply being with a person -- in the same space, attentive and caring -- can make all the difference in the world.

But the same is true in non-crisis situations: being truly present with a person validates and affirms them in ways that are profoundly important, and can be far more significant than anything we can do to show our love.  While I am a terrible model for this in general -- scurrying from one place to another throughout the day -- I am pretty intentional about trying to be better with my kids.  We place a high priority on being present (or at least ensuring that one of the parents are present) for all the school events and games.  I make sure that I'm always reading something with each child (even if it's reading along on one of their assigned school books with them); we generally have a Netflix show that we're watching together; and we all listen to a lot of the same music (which is -- mercifully -- fairly easy with my children right now).

These disciplines make me appreciate how simply being present makes a difference in someone's life.  They remind me that the mystery of the incarnation is about how God demonstrates God's own love for us by being present in the person of Jesus.  They invite me to extend that same ministry more broadly to the people around me.  They also make me appreciate vacation. 

The kids playing chess in Holland Park.