Author: mikeraburn

learn to unlearn

YodaLast night, Amy and I went to the Raleigh Vineyard to catch the last session by Peter and Mary Ellen Fitch, pastors of St. Croix Vineyard in New Brunswick, Canada. We fell in love with them when they came a year ago and were grateful to get to spend a little time with them again. Peter shared stories about how God regularly speaks to their community, not through a spokesperson, but through the community itself. Then we broke into small groups and practiced the method that they use, which is the same method we often use at Vineyard North. One key component is that we sit together in silence for several minutes, waiting on the Spirit to speak into our hearts/consciences/imaginations for the person and situation we’re praying for. And it’s not just audible silence, the goal is to quiet our minds, to clear away preconceived notions, not to strive to think anything in particular. Just wait and see what surfaces. Most people get something when we do it this way and even the things that seem most random often mean something to the person we’re focusing on. It’s a neat process and often very powerful.

Having a rare moment when I wasn’t leading, two things stood out to me last night. One, the part I enjoyed most was sitting silently together in the presence of God and each other. I’ve gotten pretty good at “clearing the mechanism” – a line I got from an old Kevin Costner baseball movie:

Sitting in extended, intentional silence with a group of people only sounded like a weird thing to do until I tried it. Experiencing the peace and quiet power of being present has become both more normal and enjoyable as I’ve practiced it.

The other thing that stood out to me last night was how far I’ve come from my Pentecostal upbringing in this regard. I grew up taught to expect the Holy Spirit to move but never in such a quiet, gentle way. Power and volume increased or decreased together. More than that, I was taught to distrust any form of spirituality that involved clearing the mind. That was Eastern, New Age stuff. Emptying my mind would just leave it vacant for demons to haunt. As I’ve learned, there are deep Christian roots to the practice of clearing the mind and waiting on the Spirit. As Peter explained to the group last night, we find this in Ignatian and Quaker spirituality. And as my own research has shown me, those forms of spirituality are more aligned with Pentecostal spirituality in other key ways. Pentecostals began by setting aside fear of theological and liturgical difference. It’s a shame that those crept back in. By the time I was coming up, we didn’t trust anyone but ourselves and I learned that mistrust dutifully along with the rest.

All this hit me as we were driving home last night, that I really have unlearned what I had learned. I know I’m not alone in going through this process. There is an anemic version of each Christian expression that gets taught as normative and superior to the rest. But there’s also a deep Christian spirituality to be experienced and lived into. It requires unlearning what we have learned. Not as a one time thing but as an ongoing process. Even now, the Spirit has much to teach me that I haven’t learned yet – even though I have thoughts and practices in place that will have to be unlearned if I am to grow into what God has for me. Deep Christian spirituality isn’t a normative position or a superior theology. Rather, it is the rejection of self-normativity and the embrace of theological humility, in other words, suspicious of claims to superiority, especially the ones I’m prone to make. We have a deep seeded desire to be right and there’s the root of what we have to learn to unlearn.

sacredness of small moments

My little post from yesterday about the meteorite struck a nerve. A number of people shared it, liked it, and commented on it. I appreciate the encouragement. I also had to laugh thinking about what the experience of writing it was like compared to how it came out and was received. As I wrote Monday, I’m committed to writing more this year, including daily blog posts. The idea is that by making myself post something everyday, I will get back into a writing mode and be more productive overall like I was in 2013. Putting that idea into action means finding time to actually sit down and write. With everything else I have going, I think the best time is early in the morning (which is also when I wrote many of my Red Letter Year posts). The only problem so far is that my boys, who are early risers anyway, are getting up earlier and earlier, nearly matching me. I’m writing this sitting on my couch and Isaac has just curled up beside me, arm in mine, watching the words appear as I type. He’s up a good 45 minutes earlier than usual. I’m not noisily waking them up or anything. Somehow, I think they just sense an opportunity for a few extra minutes with dad so they’re taking them.

Yesterday, I wrote the first few sentences before Isaac came downstairs. Unlike today, he was immediately hungry. So I paused and made his oatmeal and sat back down to write. Then I had that moment of enjoying watching him enjoy his breakfast. If I accomplished nothing else yesterday, I wanted to capture that moment, to preserve how special it felt in all its ordinariness. A few sentences later, Ian (my 3 year old) came downstairs heartbroken from a bad dream and missing grandpa (who visited us recently). A long hug on this same spot on the couch and a cup of orange juice made things better, though he wanted to play quietly before his breakfast. I managed a couple of sentences before he was ready for cereal and raisins. Soon, two boys were full of breakfast fueled energy and into their morning play. I had to bear down mentally at the end but that’s also when I cleaned up a few messy sentences and made the whole thing a good deal tighter.

Why am I giving you the play by play from yesterday? Because I suspect that you might be like me, trying to do creative things and have an actual life at the same time. It’s not easy to keep all the balls we’re juggling in the air. I used to think I had to get things just right (total quiet, clear desk) to write. But I have found in recent years that I do some of my best writing in far less sterile conditions. I can recoil from real life as a distraction from my creative work or I can find my inspiration for it in all those everyday moments. I can try to bend all of my life around my writing or my writing can take the shape of my actual life. I’m learning to revere the sacredness of the small moments.