“Be anything you want. Be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form. But at all costs avoid one thing: success.”
- Thomas Merton

In 1943, in the throes of World War II and one of the most fraught times in
contemporary human history, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published a paper
explaining, as he understood them, the five basic, motivating needs common to
all of humankind.

They are:

• Physiological
  (air, food, water, sleep, etc.)

• Safety

• Love/Belonging

• Esteem
  (confidence, achievement, respect of others and respect by others)

• Self-actualization
  (morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice,
  and acceptance of facts)

While Maslow’s theories are humanistic, they have a connection to religion
and spiritual life in what he called “peak experiences,” and what the religious
world might call epiphanies — moments of clarity or ecstasy when the enormity
of the wonder of the physical world, harmony with others, and relationship with
the transcendent, with God, are felt in powerful, transformational ways.

Maslow argued that those who are the healthiest — the most “self-actualized”
— had peak experiences more frequently than those who were not.

I’ve always found it compelling that Maslow developed his theories in a time
of war, division, and insecurity. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants to the
United States, Maslow looked at the world — battles raging in Europe and the
Pacific, the full scope of the Holocaust and its horrors coming to light — and
saw them not as struggles to be fought against but problems to be solved.

He sought positive solutions — through greater understanding of humankind on
its most basic and universal level — to bring about peace and, in a sense,
justice.

At the dawning of 2012, we find ourselves in nervous, troubling times not
unlike 1943. Wars and rumors of wars. Seemingly unbridgeable divisions at home
and abroad. Natural disasters, some of them of our own making, some not.

Economic insecurity on a massive scale. Political acrimony and ideological
polarization. Slavery still exists, AIDS remains a pandemic, humans are still
trafficked, and children and the most vulnerable continue to be exploited.

Surely, these are troubled times.

But, taking a cue from Maslow, how do we solve our problems and not just
survive them?

And how do we, as people of faith, help bring about the solutions?

As I look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I would humbly suggest that there
is something missing that may be the key for us today. We humans — all of us —
need, in a fundamental and profound sense, to be heard.

We need to be heard,
and not just listened to; we yearn to be understood, to be known.

At Christmas, we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the moment when
God reached God’s hands into human history and said, “Here I am with you. Let’s
take a walk and get to know each other better.”

A California vicar I know likes to describe the life of faith — the Church —
as “The Great Conversation.” It is a conversation to which we all (and what
part of all don’t
you understand?) are invited. When followers of Christ share their faith with
others, they are inviting them to join the sacred conversation.

This is evangelicalism in its truest sense. This is what we are called to
do. By the One, by Emmanuel, “God with us.”

My dear friend, (and most recently my boss), Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis, said recently
that the 2012 presidential election is expected to be the most mean-spirited
and vitriolic we’ve ever seen.

That may be true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it must be that way.

We can solve that problem one conversation at a time.

A conversation is an exchange of ideas between people. It’s not shouting our
opinions or beliefs at one another. A conversation requires listening, hearing,
and being heard. It does not require agreement with or even affinity for the
other parties in the dialogue.

But in order for conversation to take place, civility must be its guiding
principle. Civility is more than superficial politesse. It does not mean
saying, “excuse me” or “thank you” and then driving a metaphorical knife into
the other person’s back as soon as they are out of earshot.

Not only is civility necessary and right, it is also the loving thing to do.
(Jesus did say his followers would be known by their love, not by the
soundness of their arguments or their witty repartee.)

Civility means listening respectfully, hearing honestly and genuinely, and
creating a safe space where all may trust that they genuinely are being heard.

For Christians, it means recognizing that conversations are sacred
encounters and that God is literally present in them. This is the “Go-Between
God” that John V. Taylor describes in his beautiful 1967 book The Go-Between God,
God in the Holy Spirit who helps us make connections with others we’d never
make on our own. This is the God who is as powerfully present between people as in them.

In this New Year, may we Christians, together with all people of good faith,
work to find a solution to the discord that currently reigns in our society and
not simply mourn its presence.

In this season of Epiphany, may we honor the Go-Between God by creating a
safe space for all people to join the Great Conversation.

Vene, Sancte Spiritus…

From Sojourners (sojo.net)

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost — how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as
an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.         (G K Chesterton)

A foul stable with filthy animals, a pregnant and homeless teenager, our wild world. It’s in God’s own homelessness, says Chesterton, that we discover our own sense of home. And so, following the words of our Lord from this week’s gospel, we “keep watch” (Mark 13:35).

Sometimes you have to answer back to God.

Sometimes

you have to answer back to God.

Many consider it poor form,

say that we have no right

to question the Divine opinion.

We are mere worms, they say;

who are we to presume to know better

than the Omniscient One

whose ways are mysterious?

Better to put the doubts aside

and accept the Almighty’s

strange wisdom. Remember Job

and his unsuccessful contention?

Yes, but I am reckless enough

to doubt, curious enough

to question, and rude enough

to answer back.

There is much in this world

with which I disagree,

and God, they tell me,

is supposed to be in charge.

It seems to me that faith

requires me to keep asking;

a pesky dog yapping at God’s heels:

like the woman in the story

who would not let go until Jesus

changed his mind

and healed a gentile daughter.

© Ken Rookes

 Dreams and Nighmares  ( Prayers for a Privileged People(Nashville: Abingdon, 2008):

Last night as I lay sleeping,
I had a dream so fair . . .
I dreamed of the Holy City, well ordered and just.
I dreamed of a garden of paradise, well-being all around and a good water supply.
I dreamed of disarmament and forgiveness, and caring embrace for all those in need.
I dreamed of a coming time when death is no more.

Last night as I lay sleeping . . .
I had a nightmare of sins unforgiven.
I had a nightmare of land mines still exploding and maimed children.
I had a nightmare of the poor left unloved,
of the homeless left unnoticed,
of the dead left ungrieved.
I had a nightmare of quarrels and rages and wars great and small.

When I awoke, I found you still to be God,
presiding over the day and night
with serene sovereignty,
for dark and light are both alike to you.

At the break of day we submit to you
our best dreams
and our worst nightmares,
asking that your healing mercy should override threats,
that your goodness will make our
nightmares less toxic
and our dreams more real.

Thank you for visiting us with newness
that overrides what is old and deathly among us.
Come among us this day; dream us toward
health and peace,
we pray in the real name of Jesus
who exposes our fantasies.

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford (1914–1993)