Dysfunction

Today I read about a new Lindsay Lohan film, "The Canyons." It's a microbudget film that's an attempt to aid in the recovery of just about everybody who's making it--director, writers, and, of course, Lohan . . . who has pretty much made herself a walking disaster, and frightened away just about anyone who thinks of working with her. The article paints a portrait of Lohan that compares her to notoriously difficult George C. Scott, the alcoholic actor who's made many a director shake in his boots. Only Lohan looks even more challenging than Scott.

"We don't have to save her," says director Shrader. "We just have to get her through three weeks in July."

There's a little of Lohan in each of us, more or less.

If you're struggling against dysfunction, some part of you that makes life difficult for you and those around you, you may be tempted to think things will never change. Never's a long time. But can you work with that part of you, give it some kind of container, a second (or third chance), a ton of patience . . . for just "three weeks in July"?

Three weeks of sane and sober living may not be enough to save Lohan. But then again, it could. It might be the footing she needs for a whole new beginning.

Intention: Today, I'll face that challenging actor within; the one that whines and roars, and drives me nearly insane. I won't walk away, nor will I let that part of me rule the set for the next 24 hours. I'll try it again tomorrow, and the day after that too. Maybe get a little help from someone who knows how to tame the craziness within. I'll give it a shot for a few weeks and see what kind of saving God's up to within.

Nakedness

This is an advanced teaching, but a goal toward which even the beginning disciple can aspire.  Thomas a'Kempis, in his book, The Imitation of Christ, says: "Desire to be stripped of all, and once naked you will be ready to follow the naked Jesus. All your foolish imaginings will disappear, as well as the evil thoughts and useless worries that plague you." He wrote that in the fifteenth century, but it so easily fits with today. Foolish imaginings? Useless worries? How many of those imaginings and worries crowd into my brain like fearful Americans lined up at the gun counter at Walmart?

Yet Jesus himself said: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. And do not be afraid, little flock. Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Luke 12.22-34).

We've got too much stuff to take care of, organize, and protect. It gets in the way of what you really crave: the Beloved.

Intention: Today, I'll let myself feel the weight of all I own. Not just my stuff, but my ambition, my hopes, my fears. And I'll choose to let one thing go, and as I do, draw nearer to Christ.

Mess

Most of us don't mean to make a mess of our lives.  But a mess is what most of our lives become from time to time: . . . sometimes for much longer than we'd like

. . . and occasionally without much hope of good coming from it.

If we're human, we can't avoid the mess.  In fact, as I testify here in a recent episode of the new podcast Parenting ReImagined, the mess of life is precisely where we work out a robust spirituality in the midst of daily life, where we find ourselves nearest to God, and God nearest to us.

Take a listen.  Dr. Sherry Walling is a winsome and warm interviewer (much like Krista Tippett of On Being fame, but wonderfully also her own person). In this podcast, Remembering to Breathe, she gets yours-truly talking about the darkness, brokenness, and mess of my own life, and the astonishing beauty that is emerging from it.  She helps me explore family life, parenting, spirituality, and concrete practices for living in the mess without getting sucked down into the mire.

It's not a bad Lenten meditation on humanity, divinity, death, and rebirth.

Intention: Today, I'll breathe.  And by breathing, I'll pray myself nearer to my own humanity.  And by paying attention to the life that's living in me, I'll stop trying to escape the mess and instead, let God meet me here.

Nonreligious

People are walking away from organized religion in droves. Why is it that young people have little interest in religion, and an increasing number of middle aged adults are losing their religion? I have a friend who's a pastor in Ashland, Oregon who hosts what he calls, Theology Pub. They talk about stuff that really matters to them.  Last week the subject was anxiety. An attender, who says he has no religion, told my friend that he'd never walk into a church to talk about things that matter. But a pub?  "Why not?"

Too often what passes for religion is tight, cold, serious. And religious organizations appear to many people to be concerned about who's in and who's out; they're hostile, narrow, suspicious of, or even hostile to, change, and are preoccupied with keeping their institutions afloat.

To outsiders, we religious people (as a whole) seem to be fearful, uptight, joyless, anything but playful.  We're viewed as terribly irrelevant people who have our heads mostly in the sand.

Jesus wasn't any of these things. He was condemned by the religious of his day as a glutton and a drunk (Matthew 11.19).

Intention: Do something today to change the perception of the nonreligious.

Conflict

So maybe you're in conflict with a family member, friend, or co-worker. You think they're wrong; they think you're wrong. Maybe they're being belligerent, aggressive, hostile. And you, not wanting to be a pushover, are preparing to push back.

You can push back, of course. But to what end? You're reciprocal act of self-assertion is a summons to a fight, and a fight is what you'll have. Part of you would like that. There's part of you that thinks at a very primitive level. "Eye for an eye." It's a trap and it'll make you part of the universal spiral of conflict and violence that's plagued us for millennia.

You must find another way. And that other way doesn't mean being passive, a pushover, a doormat.

No, it means letting go of your attachment to being right, proving the other wrong. It means learning how to see what is really true, sticking with the real facts--not your illusions, opinions, or perspective. And speaking that truth in a way that helps the other let go of their attachment too. If you need to be right, you're already in a trap. But a commitment to "the truth will set you (both) free" (John 8.32).

But that commitment to truth requires you let go of your petty opinions.

Intention: Today, when I'm drawn into conflict over this or that, I'll take a deep breath in prayer, step back, let go of my need to give someone a piece of my mind, and seek a way to move toward a truth that's bigger than both of us.