Unity in Diversity

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a regular parish priest and a Jesuit priest? What does it mean to be a Franciscan Catholic instead of, say, just a regular Catholic?

Some assume that those different orders just pertain to different tasks. For example, a Maryknoll priest is usually off on missions, while Jesuits are known for their scholarship and social justice activism.

There is more than that, though--and it could be the key to the future of Christian unity of all denominations.

The word charism is usually thrown around to describe these differences. The people who follow these different orders would traditionally feel called to a different kind of spirituality. The Franciscans started out as mendicants (poor beggars) who sold what they owned, gave it to the poor (as expressed in the gospel), and lived a life of poetic simplicity in works of charity. Dominicans are equally mendicant, but more theological. Think St. Francis with his nature mysticism in contrast to a Dominican like St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote thousands of pages of intense, logical formulas. Yet, they are all part of the same Church. Two methods to the same destination, as Chesterton suggests in his books on Aquinas and Francis (now in one handy volume).

Hans Küng opened my eyes to this in The Catholic Church: A Short History. He argued that these could easily have been breakaway movements. Their practice and sometimes even their theology differed sharply with the established Church. However, flexible Church leadership at the time recognized that there was no reason that these movements should break away. The Dominicans and Franciscans could be within the Church and reflect a particular charism--a different style of practicing their Christianity with different emphases, but not out of communion with everyone else.

It would surprise a lot of Catholics today to realize that Francis could have been the first Protestant--the differences were strong enough to warrant it. But Pope Innocent III realized there was another approach: Unity in diversity.

The benefit to the whole Church is that we are all influenced by their wonderful example. It is a wild and crazy church where a poor, begging Franciscan can sit in the pews next to the persuasive Dominicans and the pomp and circumstance of the hierarchy. Francis is your crazy hippie uncle, not a bitter rival! Besides, you know deep down that Francis--like your hippie uncle--is really onto something. There is no need to break communion over this, but rather to learn from each other and balance each other out.

A Model of Christian Unity?

The concept of a charism will be a better way to describe denominational differences as the future unfolds. People simply do not split off into different denominations over minutiae of theology, like they used to do. The days when mutual shunning and restrictions on even attending the service of another denomination are winding down.

Are you really going to change your church affiliation based on whether you believe the Holy Spirit emanates from the Father and Son or just the Father? The theological arguments over each of those would leave most people scratching theirs heads wondering what the big deal is. It is hard to believe that at one time half of Europe went once way and half the other over this very issue--this being a key reason for the Catholic-Orthodox schism (the issue is naturally more complex than that, and has more to do with how the Church makes decisions as a body as well as other political differences, but it has been oversimplified as an argument over the nature of the Holy Spirit).

The truth is also that most theological differences between denominations have been largely reconciled. It's not that there aren't differences, it's that the differences probably wouldn't be enough to warrant a split in today's terms. Even among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and Orthodox, quite a bit has been ironed out. The splits remain largely over institutional tensions--most of these Churches are simply not going to submit to the authority of each other at this point.

I would guess that among Protestants, people don't really choose their denominational allegiance based on strict theological beliefs, anymore. I can't imagine a Presbyterian converting to the Methodist church because of some profound change in theology. Those kinds of conversions have more to do with an attraction to the tradition of the faith and the charism it manifests--the parts of the gospel it emphasizes and the way it does community. In Catholic terms, this wouldn't technically be a conversion--just a shift from one group with their own approach and style to another--like a Franciscan becoming a Dominican. Same Church, different order.

Church practices reflect this: You can be ordained a Presbyterian minister after attending a Methodist seminary, even with a modest smattering of Presbyterian professors. Then what does it mean to be Presbyterian? What is the essence of Presbyterianism in such an environment? Mainline Protestants aren't really separate religions--they are better understood as different charisms under the umbrella of Protestantism--or perhaps better said--under Christianity.

I apologize if I misrepresent how things work among Protestants, but my overall point is that I see a general movement away from denominational separation, which raises the question: What does denominational identity mean?

Even if all the denominations were 100% reconciled theologically, we would not necessarily lose the identity of our respective traditions. We can all come to table as Christians with different charisms--an approach to spirituality that respects our unity but also provides flexibility to interpret the Christian call in different ways. Protestants show us how to have a personal relationship with Scripture. The Orthodox remind us of our roots as a unified church that once made decisions more unilaterally. Anabaptists keep us from forgetting the gospel call of radical simplicity. Catholics remind us of the Passion of Christ, Protestants Pentecost.

The true power of these different charisms shows itself not when we stay apart, but when we come together. In other words, we need both unity as well as diversity at the same time. We can--and perhaps should--stay in our private orders, honing our spiritual gifts. Let the monks live in meditative contemplation and the Lutherans in scientific biblical scholarship. Just imagine the power in the room when these people come together so strongly rooted in one charism but tied together in Christian unity.

As a Catholic, let me tell you we have benefited from the diversity in our tradition. We aren't all monks who live in quiet meditation, but every time you enter a Catholic Church you can feel their influence on all of us. The Dominicans remind us that we need to get the details right. The Franciscans remind us to let some of the details go. They're both correct, and I'm glad they are both here. I wish you all were here, too.

While each of us may want to follow Christ's call in a particular way, we need to remember that we all share the same faith. A denominational identify should be more about the style of worship and the kinds of ministries practiced, not a matter of who's valid as a Christian and who isn't.


(In addition to the authors mentioned, thanks also to Jackie for contributions brought up in conversation.)

Orthodoxy

I just finished G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Easily one of the best books I have ever read. Chesterton is an incomparable genius, and I enjoyed soaking up his brilliant use of language as well as his tremendous British humor and insight.

As I was reading this book, I had the mental image of a train slowing down, like the brakes were on, and I could hear the squealing on the tracks. This book was stabilizing me. My mental train that barrels down through those logical systems and spiritual dead ends was stopping in its tracks, and I couldn't have been happier. I want off this train big time.

Chesterton exposes the fundamental errors of so many modern mental traps: The materialist. The pantheist. The optimist. The pessimist. The stoic. The nihilist. The maniac. And of course, the logician. I have been all of these people. And so has Chesterton. I have faced the cold dead ends of their terrible paths of logic but didn't know how to find another way or if even another way existed. I have stayed up late at night following these thought pattens to their logical conclusions and reeled in despair over the futility they unfolded. Yet something was unsettling about each of them. There had to be more, there must be another story to tell, but it has been hard to make a claim to that.

As my professor says, Chesterton shows a way through the fog. Not that his is the only way, but he suggests a method--a way of going about it.

Pet Peeve #37

You go to an event. It may be a lecture by some distinguished person or a panel discussion of experts. Perhaps it is a workshop and training. There is usually a question & answer session afterwards or even an open discussion.

I don't know if it's bad luck or what, but it seems every time I go to one of these things there is always somebody from the audience who gets up and proceeds to talk. And then talk. And talk. They go on and on and on. And on and on and on and on.

And I watch with both horror and intense curiosity, like watching an accident happen in slow motion. I just can't find it within me to understand how these people just don't know how inappropriate they are. We didn't all come to this event to listen to them. At one talk I attended recently, one of the keynote speakers was allotted 10 minutes for his piece, and yet an audience member later took at least 5 for his own "presentation"! I know I sound judgmental as hell, but how could they not know how unwelcome this is? The sheer rudeness leaves me dumbfounded. Often, these people are just rambling without a coherent thought, without taking a breath--no specific question or anything. And we all sit there prisoner to them.

The rest of us feel awkward as hell. Tell me how logical this is: It is rude to interrupt an event to give your own uninvited presentation. But yet the audience feels it is even more rude to interrupt that person! I just want to stand up and say, "You need to stop." This is where a good facilitator should step in and temper these folks.

This happens not just in lecture-type settings. I've also been in groups where this same phenomenon occurs: There is a round table discussion among equals, yet one person doesn't hesitate to absolutely dominate the discussion and go off on a 10-minute monologue. Do they not realize what they are doing? Or do they feel their opinions are so important in relation to everyone else's?

You can try to be sympathetic and say that maybe they just don't understand verbal cues or the phenomenon of taking turns in a conversation. Maybe they are innocently babbling. But I will assert that they are masters of these verbal cues. They speak in such a way as to never give anyone a chance to step in. They don't trail off, use concluding words or show hesitation in places where it would be natural for someone else to pick up the conversation. They aren't just naturally exuberant, they are planful to all get out, and they offer no quarter. The only way to step in is to forcibly interrupt them--which they know we won't do. Sheer obliviousness just does not apply. They work hard to maintain their place in the conversation. This is not an accident.

Tent Making, not the Pauline Kind

After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." (New American Bible Mark 9:2-5)

Jesus and his disciples definitely had a "peak" experience on this mountaintop. Jesus shone like a diamond and chatted with legends from the past. It was a total "wow" moment. Imagine getting a chance to hear the Beatles play together one last time or interviewing Thomas Jefferson--maybe even asking Socrates a few questions, for a change. The time-space continuum was shattered--it was truly a transcendent experience--literally.

When we have a soul stirring experience, one of our first instincts is to do what Peter suggests: Let's make a tent here. We want to create some kind of permanent structure in the hopes of keeping this experience going indefinitely. And why not?

The problem is that this was a living experience. Trying to set it in stone runs contrary to the very nature of the experience itself. It was a pure moment where everything came together at the right place and time.

I can relate. I have been on retreats and left absolutely stunned--People living in community, doing outreach work, praying together, bonding, supporting one another. Why would I want to be anywhere else? I have had similar experiences at music concerts or reunions of family and friends.

I have seen people get stuck in these moments. They become passive in life, dependent on the experience to provide them with the stimulation they need. They put their life on hold, waiting for the next concert or retreat. It is almost like a drug dependency. They sabotage their ability to experience something like that again because they have disabled the very traits that probably encouraged the experience to happen in the first place! In these moments, we are wide-eyed, receptive and purely in the moment. Maybe we are caught off guard so the experience creeps past our defenses of cynicism and logic. We don't want to be anywhere else.

We have all had times when everything came together just right. Maybe it was a road trip you had with a buddy. Yet, when you take some other friends there the next day to try to walk them through it or in hopes of experiencing it again, it often is flat. "We went to this restaurant and it was so fun." But yet, it is not quite so much fun the next day. Why is that?

This passage reminds us to live in the present.

Yet, one of the most fundamental things we do as Christians is remember. We remember one man who lived at a particular time and place who did marvelous things and touched our hearts. We carry on traditions begun in his own life 2,000 years ago.

So how do we distinguish the need to live in the present with the need to savor the past?

What does it mean to "move on"? It does not mean that we forget. On the contrary, we need to savor the past and continually draw strength and wisdom from it. It does not mean that we devalue it.

Moving on simply means that we are available to be present in the present. We can be right here, right now--neither caught up trying to artificially recreate something from the past nor living in a made-up future. It just means being able to be fully here in the moment. The life we have is right here, right now. To be anywhere else is to squander that gift.

Hebrew

I am taking a course in Biblical Hebrew at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio in nearby Delaware, OH. The people and atmosphere are very welcoming. It is amazing the way you can feel the denominational tradition of a place just by walking around. It feels very Protestant and very good. I am glad to be a guest on this campus and anxious to see how it looks as the Fall unfolds. I would love to linger longer, but after class I need to scurry away to work.

It is the second day of class and I already got the alphabet down pat, including the 5 final-ending letters. How's that for kicking ass and taking names . . . er, letters?

This class puts me in such a good mood. My peak creative hours are in the morning, and I get to put them to use in a meaningful way. Squandering them at work is no small sin.

I just love getting into languages. It is one thing to read a commentary that describes the Ancient Israelites as having a holistic understanding of themselves and the world/universe. It is quite another to experience that in their actual words and thought categories expressed in language.

While the Ancient Israelites would talk of the whole person, it was the Greeks who separated people into body, mind and soul. This fragmentation deepened in the western world through the Enlightenment, assisted by the increased specialization in the sciences in our modern day. It is only been recently that there has been a much-needed return to holistic understandings. I'm sure the tide will swing back someday, but as of right now we are still just beginning the trek to holism, in my opinion.

I'm a big believer in language study. In fact, you can count me among the folks who would bring back traditional Classics education*. If I had my way, Rhetoric, Philosophy, Theology and a rigorous education in classical languages (Greek and Latin) would be requirements of all undergraduates. These courses used to be standard but have since fallen by the wayside in favor of multiculturalism. While I appreciate a multicultural approach, as well, what I think really happened is that universities let go of the "western civ" pillars and didn't replace them with a whole heck of a lot.

As a side note, I would require a course in Shakespeare of all students, too.

ADDED LATER:

* I realize it may be very white-male of me to support the Classics. There are other stories to tell, as well, such as Africa-American and feminist voices. But I also think we lost something when we overlook the foundation of our own culture. We gained breadth but lost a lot of depth by trying to cover so many voices. I think there is something wrong if a person makes a reference to Shakespeare or throws out a Latin phrase in conversation and can't assume that other educated people will understand. It is also a problem when as citizens of a democracy even educated folks can't filter through the rhetoric and illogic of our political leaders and the BS of our religious leaders to make well-reasoned decisions of their own. An education in the Classics is/was designed to address this. Maybe an alternative would be that every undergrad would pick a libertal arts track and stick to it, such as the Classics tract or something else--that way, they could have the depth and breath in a particular approach, but it would not be a requirement for every student to study only the Greco-Roman tradition.

Motion

When most people talk about exercise, they usually hone in on two different types: Cardiovascular and strength conditioning. Health experts understand the need for both. Good cardio keeps your heart, lungs and circulatory system in shape. Strength conditioning boosts your metabolism and develops your tone and overall physique.

However, there is another important aspect to physical exercise, and it could be just as important as the other two: Motion.

The best forms of motion are the things we associate with young children: Bending, twisting, crawling, leaping, climbing, jumping, stretching and reaching. Anything that gets your body to use all of your joints in their full range of motion. Good posture is essential to this--Imagine trying to do this all hunched over with partially-frozen joints.

Take cycling, for example: It is a great cardio workout and helps condition some of your muscles. However, in terms of motion, it is actually rather poor. You do almost all of your work in a small "box." Your legs go round and round and your arms help provide support.

The good thing about cycling is that it forces you to use your muscles in their intended way. It is harder to get into bad habits and poor form. As a result, cycling has the ability to help your posture. I always get taller when I cycle on a regular basis. It stretches out my back and improves my posture by strengthening my legs in the right ways. So cycling is still helpful, because good posture enables proper motion, but by itself it does not provide adequate motion.

Our 21st century world limits motion. Even in jobs with a heavy component of manual labor, most of the work is done in a limited range. There are few chances to lift your arms over your head or do extreme bending. There are good reasons for this, because those extreme motions is where injuries often happen. But it is also those extreme motions that stimulate health, too.

I have to thank The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion for many of these ideas. Pete Egoscue is a trailblazer in this movement, and more and more I am finding out that other people are starting to understand the need for general motion in your overall health, too. Some of the healthiest people are not those who do extreme workouts, such as marathons or triathlons. The healthiest people are those who are able to have a regular range of motion in their lives--people who bend and twist and have short bursts of energy rather than long, monotonous workouts.

Some forms of exercise can make me feel stiff. Doing anything in a limited way for a long time can have this affect on you. Even jogging or walking can be poor motion exercises if you barely extend your legs or arms. When I used to run cross country, the best times were when I would loosen up and break out into long strides--my body was very nimble at those points, my legs whipping around and my arms and torso bending and twisting, too--not sprinting, but just a very healthy run. It is a wonderful stimulation for the body to use it this way.

Egoscue's method is very similar to Yoga, although it targets issues that are common in the modern American lifestyle. The goal is to get your body moving the way it was meant to move, and develop the form that will enable that to happen. If you have chronic bad posture, you can't simply change that on demand. Your body has years of habit, tight muscles and other underdeveloped muscles keeping yourself that way. It takes time to work that out, and something like yoga or the Egoscue Method can help you do that. Sometimes you can also improve your posture just by working out on a regular basis.

How often do you lift your arms above your head? Aside from washing your hair in the shower, you may be shocked at how rarely you actually do this. How many times a day do you bend and flex your joints to their fullest? Deep squats, bending and twisting and . . . leaping! When is the last time you crawled on the floor, or climbed some furniture from the ground up? When is the last time you stretched your body to its fullest in order to reach for something?

The Temperature and Outrageous Habits

It's 90 degrees and partially sunny today in Columbus, OH.

I don't think it's too much to ask this of my fellow Americans (and others worldwide): If you are able-bodied and have reasonable access to a clothesline (inside or outside), you should not be using a clothes dryer on a day like this.

You wanna know how hot it is? Lemme tell you:

It's so hot that a load of clothes has dried before the next load is ready to hang!

That's hot, folks.

There is no reason to burn dinosaur when the earth is positively throbbing to help you out.

I just did a few loads, and it really didn't take much more time and effort than if I had chucked them in the dryer. I was amazed how easy it was. I think it becomes harder when the air is cooler and you have to conserve line space and let things sit out longer. But in weather like this, they'd dry even rolled up in a ball in the bucket.

I'm not trying to guilt anyone, but let's be reasonable. Consider how outrageous it is to use a clothes dryer when just letting them hang out in the air for the same amount of time can accomplish the very same thing.

The sun is also a bleaching agent, and the smell of freshly dried clothes is wonderful!