(Belated) Spirituality Sunday
Tell Me Why.
“We are becoming who we will always be - forever.” -Dallas Willard
“Every action you take is a vote for the person you want to be.” -James Clear
Both of these principles have been on my mind lately. As a person who gears the day around action instead of reflection, it is important for me to circle back to this wisdom.
It is also important to write daily. Not just instrumental writing for work - which fills a good portion of my working hours and I am tempted to identify as my “daily” at times - but writing that helps me sort through detritus in an attempt to salvage some sense in this adventure we call life.
I am not feeling well right now.[1] Yesterday, near the end of a day full of meetings at 3:20 pm, I was overcome with body heat and began sweating bullets. I didn’t feel disoriented or nauseous. I just felt like my body was going to self-combust.
Fortunately, I was in an environment where a nurse was present and I had her take my temperature. Nothing. I think I registered 96.6 degrees. The sweating passed and I cooled off enough, albeit with my lambswool sweater shed, to take my final meeting of the day.
Shortly after the meeting I completed the 1.5-hour commute home. I had some lower back pain and felt less alert than usual. I survived the dinner making process - a sad pragmatic exercise if there ever was one - and was in bed by 8:30 am.
I would love to credit the sweat to COVID or the flu or something. I don’t feel great today either. But, as my wife pointed out, I think that stress is the more likely culprit.
I have had at least three stress or anxiety attacks in the last 25 years, the most recent being in the spring of 2023. I am aware that I overload my system on a regular basis - I’m up at 4:15 am and off to the gym by 4:50 most days only to return around 6 pm - but I am happiest while working. I also suspect that the flow state[2] that I often feel while working is an indication of alignment with my calling. For the latter reasons, I tend to write off the anxiety attacks as the cost of doing business.
Last night I received a promotional email for a new church plant on the Maine coast. The church has a squeamish name, Iron Coast Church, and the promotional photos were chock full of forced fun. I squeezed the buttons on my phone to capture evidence of such fun and sent it over to my friend. If I’m being honest, I also snapped a profile pic of the pastor’s man bun and sent that over too. I am a man of a certain age and some styles of youth attract my mockery. Sue me.
I receive these emails because I was once a part of the organization that now has a man bunned pastor in the vanguard. The initial reason for my move to New England was to do business for Jesus. Starting in the spring of ‘97 I was introduced to the evangelical mega-church movement. Books by Bill Hybels on prayer and Rick Warren on church planting featured prominently on my shelves, and I had enough experiences training in traditional Christian Church settings, in places as diverse as Decatur, Illinois[3] and Newtown, Connecticut[4] to decide that I wanted to be on the “cutting edge” of church development. If hearing one of my traditional pastor mentors, whom I loved and continue to respect even though he has now passed into blessed memory, explain to me how he studiously avoided questions about the veracity of literal seven day creationism posed by his flock did not persuade me that traditional church work would be professional suicide, then the church planter’s “assessment” conducted by lightly trained clinicians[5] that determined that I was best fit for a campus ministry position or an environment where the congregants were unusually open to ecclesiastical provocation most definitely did. I initially set out for New England to find my Iron Coast Church but fortunately got lost upon way.
My friend responded to one of my texts by saying that “a decade plus out” of evangelicalism now “it all just looks so exhausting.” His comment reminded me of previous conversations we have had about how evangelical men of our era were trained to follow Jesus’s pattern of ministering so feverishly in our youth that we were ready to die before age 34. I know that Kellie diagnosed that tendency in me very early on. She had to carefully explain to me on a number of occasions that the belief that I was “working for God” had a way of breaking through any reasonable time limitations or boundaries around labor that were reasonably set.
I’ve moved on from killing myself for Christ. I no longer believe that future transcendence is a solve for these present sufferings. On my better days, I would add that when Jesus says that the poor blessing, enemy loving, and economically inverted rule of God is among us, I believe him. Although I cannot join my friends from Iron Coast in overextending myself to welcome people into a magic kingdom, I am still fundamentally oriented towards kenosis, which is the theological term for leaving it all out on the field. At 47, I think this orientation is too deeply ingrained to pursue a great adjustment. I also realize that as a member of team ADHD my tendencies are likely driven as much by neurobiology as spirituality.
With orientation fixed, defining my why is all important. I could very well leave it all out on the field for my own glory, slightly higher earnings that increase the illusion of security, and the fulfillment of seeing my dreams become reality. Surely that is the path of the holy narcissist.
I am confident that my why clusters around serving the disability community, loving family and friends,[6] and awaiting a twelfth World Championship. But to narrow in on the nucleus requires further reflection.
[1] This was written on 3/5. I feel fine now.
[2] The DSM V probably calls this hyper focus.
[3] The deepest armpit of America that I ever visited.
[4] Which no one had heard of until everyone had heard of.
[5] One of whom desperately needed my approval or had a raging distaste for my refusal to reflexively comply.
[6] I’m tempted to add enemies, but I’m not there quite yet.
Good one, Jeff!