The Gift of Not Belonging

I know the feeling of not belonging.

As an immigrant from Nicaragua, I feel like I don't fully belong to this place I call home. Through the 13 years I've been in this country, however, I have adopted some of its values and cultures, while at the same time not abandoning fully my own Nicaraguan values and culture.

Because of this, I feel like I don't fully belong in Nicaragua anymore. My Spanish accent has changed and it is no longer fully Nicaraguan, for example. My newly adopted western values are sometimes in conflict with my Nicaraguan ones.

I am stuck in the middle of two cultures.

A Progressive, But Not A Liberal
But the feeling of not belonging doesn't stop there.

Politically, I feel I don't belong to any of the polarized political positions in this country. I don't feel fully comfortable belonging to either the Republican or Democratic party. I have strong disagreements with both.

In many ways I am a progressive. I feel my calling as a Christian is to see the perspective of the poor first, not because they are somehow more "deserving" (how can we talk of someone being deserving or not in a religion that stands on Grace?), but because the world puts them last.

Jesus hanged out with sinners and tax collectors. He hanged out with the poor. In my imitation of Christ, I want to do likewise. This is what makes me a progressive, even if I don't fully buy into the liberal agenda.

It is for this reason that I support raising the minimum wage to a livable minimum wage. This aligns with my conviction that people are more than what they do, and that in an economy that needs the janitor as much as they need the CEO, they should both be afforded a wage that can sustain them and their families with dignity.

It is for this reason that I want to call this nation to show more hospitality to immigrants. When Paul proclaims that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek (one of the racial and spiritual divisions of the time) he is leaving issues of nationalistic values as secondary to our call of seeing the other as our brother and sister.

The way the world mistreats the "other," the foreigner around the world, is heartbreaking. It seems to me that we value more our nationalistic identity than our call to love our neighbor. When Jesus responded to the Pharisees' question of, "who is my neighbor?" He responded with a parable that highlighted a Samaritan, the hated 'other' in that context.

Our neighbors are not only people of our own kind but the "other" our culture fears and despises. Even if we are disposed to not include the foreigner as our neighbor but more as our enemy, the command from Jesus to love our enemies still applies and calls us to love.

Love, for the Christian, is inescapable.

It is for this reason that I feel uncomfortable supporting most Republican candidates, because they (at the current choices) don't strike me as being welcoming to the immigrant. In fact, many of them want to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country whom they see as not belonging here.

Not Pro-Choice and yet Not Pro-Life
Let my clarify this. Ethically speaking, I am Pro-Life in the fullest sense of the word, but I can't join the Pro-Life movement as it currently is, with all the political entanglement of a particular party. This is what I mean by not being Pro-Life. I don't wish to be identified with the Pro-Life movement in the US.

I see being Pro-Life as a holistic call against a culture of death. For this reason, I can in no good conscience get behind pro-gun rights (I don't see an issue in using guns for hunting, but open carry? I have an issue with that).

I can't get behind a Pro-Life movement so entangled with a particular party that encourages cuts in the budget towards health and education but never speaks of cutting the budget towards the military and security.

If we are truly Pro-Life, then the fact that as a nation we engage in wars every 30 years or so should be disturbing. If we are truly Pro-Life, we should by definition abolish the death penalty. A political platform that condemns abortion but upholds other forms of 'righteous' killing may be more accurately described as Pro-Birth, but never Pro-Life.

This doesn't mean I am Pro-Choice. Better said, I am not Pro-Abortion. I can't deny that abortion deals with the ending of a life. This alone disturbs me. We can argue all we want whether a fetus is a human being or not, but it would be disingenuous to deny that the fetus is alive.

I know that as a man, my opinions on this subject necessarily take the backseat. I recognize that I will never have to go through the excruciating experience of deciding whether to have an abortion or not. I want to acknowledge that my perspective is severely limited because of this, and I truly don't know fully what I'm talking about, nor will I ever.

At the same time, one forms opinions on matters whether one wants to or not, and my value of life prevents me from fully supporting abortion. I understand it is not always a black-and-white issue. I understand that in many situations there are subtleties that deserve our attention. But at the end of the day, after an abortion is performed, a life is lost.

Any loss of life should always grieve us.

As you can see, for these and many other reasons, I cannot fit into any particular conservative or liberal box. I don't belong to any of them.

The Gift of Not Belonging
I can take these realities and declare "woe is me!" but I won't. I want to embrace this reality as a gift from God.

This gift of perspective allows me to see blind spots that are ubiquitous in any given culture. It allows me to see from two different cultural lenses, and acknowledge the pros and cons of each position while not fully fitting into those boxes myself.

Not only that, but maybe this sensation of not belonging is the call of the Christian. Jesus declares that we are in the world and yet not of the world. He also proclaims that His Kingdom is not of this world, and yet the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, present in this world.

I am disturbed, therefore, at seeing the Church in the US being so shaped by culture wars and ideologies of our society. I see a church that conforms more and more with the polarizing views of our national politics, whether they be conservative or liberal.

I see a Church that mirrors the political polarization of this nation, instead of the unity we are called to in Christ. If the Church is so divided not only theologically, but also culturally and politically, can we truly say that it is living fully in Christ?

When we choose a side and defend it against the other side, we enter into a cultural bubble. Ideas formed in these bubbles will slowly develop apart from the perspective of the other. As time passes in this polarized nature and ideas on both sides continue to develop independently from each other, we are driven further and further apart.

Divisions are so aggravated that when the two opposing groups get to share their ideas with each other they are both met with disgust and disbelief. Polarization is a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. The two bubbles will grow in substantial size, and when they make contact with each other, they will burst into chaos.

Here is the thing: the Church is not called to be conservative or liberal. The Church is called to be Christ to the world. Christ did not belong to any particular party of His time. He was not a Pharisee. He was not a Sadducee. He was not a Zealot. He was not a Hellenistic Jew. Christ simply was and is.

I'm not saying that a Christian shouldn't belong to any particular party. What I am saying is that this belonging is only secondary to the call to belong to Christ. Belonging to a particular political party should never be seen as a prerequisite to belonging to Christ. To consider it otherwise would be pure idolatry. When we have denominations that identify first as either "traditional" or "affirming," and only secondly as Christ-centered, we have indeed allowed our faith to be shaped by our politics instead of the cross.

I believe that our root sin as a Church is nothing other than the idolatry of culture. Our call then, is not to be a conservative or a liberal Christ to the world. Our call is simply to be Christ to the world.

Looking for the Wilderness in an Age of Productivity

[Luke 5:15-16 ESV] 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

One of the greatest dangers for those of us who are in ministry and/or non-profit work is burning out. This is especially troublesome if you are doing this kind of work while raising a family.

Members of the clergy suffer higher rates of obesity and hypertension than the rest of Americans.

Working for non-profits over the past 5 years, I have personally experienced burnout. I have never been as tired in my life as when doing this work. I have noticed anger and resentment grow in me as I go through a grueling day of work and ministry, even as my body is asking me for rest.

Why is This?
I think there are two reasons for our tendency to overwork in ministry.

First, our obsession with productivity in our culture. We value 'doing' more than 'being.' We are what we do. Whatever value you give to the world through your work is the value you receive from this world. Our identity, confidence, and self-esteem is contingent on what we do and accomplish.

With this philosophy, or work ethic, if you want to be better, you have to do better.

Second, ministry and non-profit work are often fueled by our passions. We dedicate ourselves to a good cause, to changing unjust systems so that it benefits the greater number of people. Clergy and ministers are fueled by a passion to serve God and people. We may feel duty-bound to spend ourselves for a cause.

In an age where productivity and hard work are rewarded, and when our passion to serve God and others is fueling us, the result is a perfect storm for burnout.

What Can We Do?
In the reading from Luke, we see that as Jesus' ministry grows, He found more opportunities to withdraw to the wilderness.

For many of us, witnessing our work and ministry grow and attract more people can be an exhilarating experience. We can easily get caught up in the excitement of our work. We may experience a new high that can easily become obsessive. We may plunge even deeper into our work.

Jesus doesn't seem preoccupied about that. His joy and excitement seem unaffected by His popularity. In fact, in chapter 5 of Luke, after healing a man with leprosy, Jesus instructs him not to tell anyone. Jesus seems not in the least concerned with growing His popularity and thus growing His ministry.

As His ministry grew, Jesus began to withdraw to desolate places. His initial reaction, unlike many of ours, is not to plunge deeper into His work. His initial reaction is to withdraw. How radical this is! How contrary to our own logic of productivity! Imagine if, when things get busier in your work, instead of working more you looked for opportunities to withdraw. I'm sure many of us would get fired if we did this!

And we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus withdraws to desolate places. Desolate places in the New Testament can be synonymous with deserts, places with few people and resources. These are places where there seems to be little life. He withdraws from places that are full of worldly life to find a Greater Life.

Jesus does more than just withdraw. He doesn't withdraw simply to have a nap or a cup of tea while enjoying the sunlight (not that there is anything wrong with that). But the Scriptures tells us that He withdraws to pray.

While physical rest is good and necessary, spiritual rest is even better and more necessary. Hebrews 4:10-11a describes entering God's presence as entering into His rest: "for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his work as God did from His. Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest."

The Greek word for strive in verse eleven is spoudazo. This word can be translated as diligence, eagerness, and even labor.  In its counter-intuitive and paradoxical way, the Scriptures uses a word related to hard work and productivity to call us to rest!

Striving for God's Rest
I am not trying to discount hard work. It seems to me there are many instances where Jesus works hard for His ministry. But Jesus is also diligent in returning to the wilderness. When Jesus started His ministry, the Holy Spirit guided Him to 40 days and nights in the wilderness.

As His ministry grows, He strives to return to that wilderness in the presence of God. Jesus returns to the place where He found His calling. He returns to that place of intimacy where He found His name of Beloved.

During Lent, we are called to follow Jesus in the wilderness. During our hard labor, our ceaseless ministry, it is most necessary to respond to the call of the wilderness.

We are called to withdraw from the crowds, the merciless goals and checklists, and return to that place of intimacy. Many of us get inspired to start our work of ministry after a powerful, transformative, and personal encounter with God. His love propels us to do our work.

As the years pass by and our ministry grows, we may forget that experience of intimacy in the wilderness, where God came and gave us the name of Beloved.

Let us labor then to enter into that rest, to return to that place of intimacy and experience once again the depth of God's rest.

Media Fast: An Experiment in Digital Simplicity!

My wife and I took a solitude retreat this past weekend to one of our favorite retreat places by Point Reyes. We brought minimal entertainment supplies: two books each, and of them was the Bible.

A little apprehensive with the horrid expectation of being bored out of our minds, we went to our retreat place ready for some change of scenery.

And then Rest Happened
As life's frantic pace took a rest, and as the complexities of event and creative time management gave way to a simpler schedule (sleep, pray, eat, read, repeat) the restlessness gave way to a deep rest.

We started to enjoy more whatever we were doing, without thinking about the myriads of things we should be doing. We started to enjoy the present moment, without thinking of whatever big and exciting event was around the corner.

Despite my meager entertainment choices, I don't remember ever getting bored. I realized that my fear of getting bored is borderline paranoia. Boredom is not out to get me. There is no need to fight it off with an army of gadgets.

Media Fast!

After our retreat, my wife and I decided to make Tuesdays our media fast. This past Tuesday was a day when we didn't watch any TV. We missed not having our evenings filled with Parks & Rec, New Girl or Call the Midwife, but we enjoyed the conversations, the friends we had over for dinner, and just the quiet moments to reflect and meditate.

This is something that I encourage all of us to do: pick a day out of your week and fast from media. How this looks like may be different for all of us. Fasting from media may mean not watching any TV for that day. Maybe it is not checking any social media, phones, or (oh the horror!) the internet.

Experiment and adjust as necessary, but whatever you do, give yourself and your mind a break.

The Importance of Focus: The Inner-Life and Ministry

"But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" Mathew 6:33 ESV.

My wife and I just moved to a cozy  little apartment in the middle of East Oakland. The entrance to the apartment's parking lot at the back is anything but ideal.

It's very narrow, and our trusty old van Biscuit (yes, we name our cars, don't judge us) can barely fit through the entrance.

The first time we drove Biscuit through this narrow way was a very unnerving and intimidating experience. We drove through it at a snail pace, making sure we didn't leave our side mirrors at the gates.

There is no way we are doing this everyday I thought.

At one point, Biscuit got stuck in the stair's metal handrail, one of the many obstacles that you go through when you enter our parking lot. Poor old Biscuit got stuck in such a way, that no matter if you pulled back or kept going forward, she would endure permanent damage.

After a few months of practice we got very efficient in getting in and out of our parking lot. At this point, we don't really worry about scratching Biscuit.

The trick to getting out of our parking lot damage-free is easy: focus on one side, and the rest will take care of itself.

I eventually learned the exact distance the side mirror needs to be on my left side from the stair's handrails, and as long as I kept that distance (and kept my eyes focused on it) Biscuit would fit right in.

As it is with Biscuit, So it is with Everything Else
I believe Biscuit has taught me an important lesson in life: many times it just requires that we focus on one important thing, and everything else will fall into place.

Much has been said about our ability, or rather our inability to multitask. Despite what we millennials try to do with our laptops on our laps, phone on right hand, tablet on our left, while playing an episode of Parks & Recs on Netflix at the T.V., we suck at multitasking.

I think this is one of the reasons Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God, knowing full well our propensity to juggle many things at the same time, however benevolent they might be.

As Christians and as ministers, we are tempted to seek first our ministry, our service, our congregations and its growth, or whatever else occupies our mind and time, and we do so with a martyr mentality of sacrificing for the Kingdom of God.

I don't think that's what Jesus meant when He told us to seek first the Kingdom.

In the end, our pursuit of ministry, work or deeds, can keep us from being single minded on the Kingdom.

It is not as if we should focus on the Kingdom at the expense of our work. What Jesus is saying is this: focus on my Kingdom; on my saving and loving presence, in my life in you and in the world, and everything else, ministry, work, deeds, passions, dreams will be added to you.

Put Him at the center of your vehicle, and all the wheels will fall into balance.

Doing Vs. Being
I believe this is part of the same principle I described in the second lesson I learned in 2015.

Most of us (if not all of us) have a desire to do great things. Whether that be doing great things in our ministry, our work, or whatever our dreams and passions are, we desire to do something that we are proud of.

I'm starting to believe, however, that this is the wrong focus. This focus runs the danger of making us self-centered, or thinking that we are more important than we really are.

Like I shared in my last post, maybe God is not too impressed with our marvelous deeds.

By focusing on being, and shifting our focus from our deeds to the quality of our inner-life, then we are empowered to work alongside with God and others to do some serious Kingdom work.

This focus on being, or the quality of our-inner life should not be confused with self-focus or self centeredness. Paradoxically, I believe that focusing on our outer-life is what makes us self-centered.

If you are able to focus on your inner life, this should result in selflessness. It is only by knowing who you are in Christ, and in nurturing His life in you, and the constant renewal of your mind to the mind of Christ, that you can go out into the world and act from the quality of your being.

Ministry flows out of being, not the other way around.

Lessons Learned in 2015!

2015 was an amazing year.

2015 will be a year that I will always hold dear in my heart for many reasons, the biggest one being my marriage.

We are prone to look back, at the beginning of a new year, to remember the year that has passed us by. And so, before I look forward to what 2016 has in store for me, I want to look back at the biggest lessons 2015 taught me.

Lesson 1: We are Never Going to be Ready

At the beginning of 2015 I was a newly engaged man. My engagement came with a cocktail of emotions. Amid the highs and enthusiasm of my oncoming marriage, I was pierced by a fear: the fear of not being ready for marriage.

I was afraid of my own immaturity. This fear came with a healthy dose (or unhealthy?) of self-contempt. After many years and efforts of self-growth and character development, why am I still immature?

I hated when people told me something like "you have grown A LOT, but...". I hated it not because I was closed to criticism (at least I hope I wasn't) but because despite the "A LOT" of growth that I've done, I was still nowhere near the elusive goal of maturity. 

Not only that, if A LOT is not enough to get me close to where I need to be, what does that say about the place I was to begin with? Was I so incredibly immature, so immensely out of character, so hopelessly far behind that even after many years of A LOT of growth, I was nowhere near to where I was supposed to be?

I resented it, and I felt like crap. Either I haven't grown A LOT and people were just being nice to me, or I started with very poor material to being with.

With this incredible pressure over me, I tried to grow as much as I could. I felt like I was in a time bomb that will explode and destroy everything I wanted to accomplish unless I work my butt off and do some growing before my time is up.

The pressure, unfortunately, was also paralyzing. I started to resent myself and others. I never felt good enough. Many tears were shed in the name of incompetency. 

As the months passed by in this state, I came to the conclusion that I was never going to be ready, and that's OK.

A few days before the wedding, my fiancé and I visited the priest who was the pastor of the church where we'd get married. He was guiding us through the last preparations of the ceremony.

As we entered his office, we caught him in the middle of a fascinating conversation with his secretary. "Baptism is no sort of magical thing that instantaneously makes us holy" he was saying to her, "that's bad theology".

"Let me give you an example" he continued. "When I was ordained a priest, did I walk like a priest? Did I talk like a priest? Did I behave like a priest? No I didn't. And yet I was a priest, but I still had to grow in my role as a priest".

When I heard that it reinforced what I learned to accept: It's OK to not be ready.

This beloved priest, even after years of seminary, he still had to spend many years growing into his role as a priest. 

And so it is with us. With whatever project, job, ministry, or role that we take, we are never going to be completely ready for it, but it is by going into it with a humble and a beginner's mind that we'll be successful in it. More often than not, the person who is most confident in his readiness is the one who is not.

I'm not saying that preparations are irrelevant. The priest spent probably 5 years in seminary training to be a priest. I spent many years growing before marriage, and those years were necessary.

What I am saying is that after some considerable preparation, we should not be afraid of plunging into situations we may not feel completely ready for, for the situation itself will be the last stage of our preparation.

Marriage is the tool that will transform me into a husband.

Lesson 2: God is More Interesting on Being than on Doing.

What would Jesus do? We ask ourselves, in the pious hope of making the right choices and doing the right things in any given situation.

This apparently simple question seems to make sense. After all, as Christians, Jesus is supposed to be an example.

But Jesus is more than just an example. He is The Way. He is not a simple road sign. He is the road we need to walk on.

At the end of 2015, I became restless. I was entering into my Holiday break, and I intended to take advantage of it.

As the precious days of vacation passed, I became increasingly worried that I wasn't enjoying them enough. I felt like I was wasting time, and that I wasn't doing, or not doing, enough things to make this time meaningful.

The horrible restlessness continued in its merciless rage. I didn't know how to deal with it, or what to do (or not do) to shake off the nagging feeling.

Finally, I prayed. Always a good idea.

I simply asked God to tell me what to do about it. You are too concerned about doing, concentrate on being and the restlessness will go away I heard.

The answer seemed too simple, but maybe this was my way out of this horrible feeling. I started to concentrate more and more on how I could be the person God wanted me to be, despite what I did or did not do.

I noticed that whenever I concentrated on being, my restlessness seemed to disappear, and it would only reappear once I started thinking on what I had to do.

As westerners and achievers, our emphasis is on doing great things. I suspect that God is not too interested in our marvelous deeds.

He seems more interested in who we are. He is interested in relationships, and relationships is more than just doing things for each other.

Relationships is more about being with each other.

That's it for me! What are the biggest lessons you learned in 2015?