The Magi—Non-Christian Followers of Jesus (Epiphany)

Listen: “Song of the Magi” by Anais Mitchell

There are people all over the world who follow Jesus but don’t call themselves Christians. This is sometimes surprising and even disconcerting to declarative Western Christians who like to think that they own Jesus. I have friends and acquaintances who call themselves Muslim followers of Jesus, Buddhist followers of Jesus, Hindu followers of Jesus, and Native American followers of Jesus. I’ve even met a few people who call themselves agnostic or atheist followers of Jesus.

While this might be alarming to some Christians, it is solidly grounded in scripture and the birth narrative of Matthew’s Christmas story. The term “Christian” did not exist until after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Twelve Disciples of Jesus would not have called themselves Christians. (See Luke 11:26.) They were Jewish followers of Jesus.

The Magi in Matthew’s gospel were not Jewish, and there is no evidence that they ever became Christians. Magi were magicians and sorcerers in the ancient Near Eastern world. They were known for their priestly wisdom and expertise in interpreting dreams, oriental wisdom, reading signs, and astrology—sometimes called “The Wise Men.”

The wise men (magi) who visited baby Jesus were “from the East.” This brief description has led commentators to speculate about their origin. The best guess is that the Magi were from ancient Arabia, Babylon, or Persia; however, it is possible that they were from India or China. Commentators also speculate about their religious orientation. The most popular guess is Zoroastrianism, but they could have also been polytheists, Hindu, Buddhist, or Taoist. Suffice it to say, they were definitely not Jewish.

Despite their non-Jewish background, the Magi are presented in Matthew’s gospel as devoted followers of Jesus. Matthew is most likely presenting the Magi as echoes of the gentile prophet Balaam in the Torah who prophesied about the coming Messiah as “a star who will rise from Jacob” (Numbers 24:17). There are many stories in scripture where the “outsider” or “anti-hero” becomes the example for true love, devotion, and heartfelt worship (like Balaam, Ruth, the Magi, and the Good Samaritan to name a few).

In Matthew’s gospel, the magicians and sorcerers “from the East” set the pattern for authentic devotion and worship—what we (today) might call the true “spirit of Christmas.” The Magi are excellent examples of “surrender to a Higher Power” to borrow language from the recovery world. They display three acts of devotion from which we can all learn.

The Magi recognize God’s unique presence in the world and respond with joy and devotion. The Magi recognized that God was doing something special through the unusual star over Bethlehem. (It was possibly a comet. See the research in The Great Christ Comet by Colin R. Nicholl.) Matthew says, “When they saw the star, they were filled with joy” (Matthew 2:10). We need to grow in our ability to see God’s unique presence in creation, in nature, in circumstances, and in people. We need to witness and experience what God is doing around us. It’s crucial to practice tuning into beauty, love, grace, and creativity—which is the nature of God.

The Magi humbly bow and surrender before the mystery of God’s presence. When the Magi arrived, Matthew’s gospel says, “They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11). The Magi recognized God’s presence first in the star and then in the baby Jesus. Astrologers like the Magi believed that a special or unique star (like a comet or meteor shower) in the sky was a sign that a special person with special significance in history was being born. They followed the star and bowed before Jesus as they would bow before a king. It was an act of surrender to bow before the mystery of God’s presence in the world through Jesus. Humility and surrender before God (Higher Power) are hallmarks of recovery from the brokenness of our lives and the world in which we live.

The Magi respond with generosity. The final act of devotion by the Magi was the giving of gifts. Matthew says, “Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Matthew 2:11). Stinginess is not the way to respond to God’s presence in creation, in nature, in circumstances, and in people. We must lean into beauty, love, grace, and creativity with cheerful generosity to expand the flow of these gifts in our lives and the world. Stinginess shuts us off from the flow of grace; it attempts to bottle up and hoard what can only be received and given. All life’s best gifts can only be given and accepted with grace. Generosity expands our capacity to do just that. Generosity is the service component of recovery (recovery, unity, service). We must give what we have received to enjoy it. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were gifts suited for a king in the ancient Near East. We all have time, talents, and money through which we can serve others and make the world a better place. We sow seeds of love, grace, beauty, and generosity for the sheer joy of it.

The Magi show us the true spirit of Christmas. Jesus came into the world not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a gift for us all (Epiphany 2025).

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2025

The Wonder of a Child

Listen: “Over the Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Christmas was always a magical time of year as a child—no school, sledding for hours, ice skating on ponds, presents, Santa, and the Christ child. In my teen years, I found a new enchantment—the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. I began taking annual trips to explore the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. I loved hiking, rock climbing, fly fishing, praying, dreaming, journaling, and meditating in the mountains. My annual trips were a time to reflect on my life—where I have been and where I was going—but mostly, it was a time of awe and wonder. Whether napping in the snow at a high mountain lake in Rawah Wilderness or hoping gale-force winds in the Collegiate Peaks wouldn’t shred my new tent. I always sensed a magical presence in the mountains—a connection with God and childlike wonder.

G. K. Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary art critic. In an essay entitled “The Ethics of Elfland,” he pointed out how you can learn the most essential things from children’s stories (Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith). Chesterton reflected on five truths contained in most children’s stories: (1) the world does not explain itself; it just exists; (2) wonder and beauty come from someone or something magical; (3) beauty connects to an original design, even though dragons exist; (4) humility and gratitude are appropriate responses; and (5) all goodness is a treasure.

Children are wired to see the wonder and magic in the world around them. I remember creating a swing with my arms and hands to rotate one of my nephews (two years old at the time) around in circles. He would giggle with all his might and then say, “Do it again.” After twenty minutes I was worn out, but he was ready for more—“Do it again!”

A child’s capacity to watch a cartoon repeatedly with the same sense of awe and wonder is amazing. Why do we as adults so quickly lose this childlike capacity to enjoy something so utterly spectacular again and again? Maybe there is something eternally childlike hardwired into the universe to which we need to stay connected. Perhaps the earth says to the rising sun, “Do it again!”

Our brains function so that negative emotions stick like glue (in the amygdala) and positive emotions slip away like Teflon. (See Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson.) To reacquire childlike wonder, we need to pause and focus on something good, lovely, beautiful, and awe- inspiring for fifteen seconds or more before it affects our experience and mood. Some people do this by keeping a gratitude list, participating in a creative outlet, enjoying nature, or meditating.

In my darkest days (2019), I was drowning in negative emotions. I had to consciously tune my awareness towards wonder, awe, and gratitude. Positive experiences and emotions I once had in abundance were in short supply in 2019. I found my most significant sources of inspiration in nature and people. Nature is a place where I find infinite enchantment. Before I felt called to be a pastor, I thought about a career in biology, forestry, or wildlife. I am endlessly fascinated with the universe, planet Earth, and its inhabitants. People’s stories are another favorite source of wonder and inspiration—the stories of love, courage, heartache, defeat, and recovery.

It’s no surprise to me that Jesus said we need to become more like children to enter into the experience of the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:1-6; Mark 10:13-16). Have a blessed Hanukkah and Christmas season.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Confused and Disturbed—A Christmas Story

Listen: “Blackbird” by The Beatles 

Christmas is not always easy. Our societal expectation is that Christmas should bring a steady, manageable stream of emotional joy as we celebrate with family and friends. But that’s not always the reality. For the past four decades I have pastored people through the holiday seasons, and every year, I am reminded of this reality. This year I have two friends and congregation members who tragically lost their adult children, and another who lost her husband. Just this month, I lost another friend and father of four to suicide.

The first Christmas was not easy. Mary was a young teenager engaged to be married. According to the Christmas story in Luke’s gospel, Mary was a virgin who received a visitation from the angel Gabriel: “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Mary’s response? “Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.” Confused and disturbed. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe dazed and confused, or some combination? Life does not consistently deliver good news.

Mary’s story is not an easy one. “Hey Joseph. Guess what? I have good news. I’m pregnant. I had a surprising visit from an angel and the Holy Spirit! Isn’t that wonderful?” Joseph doesn’t buy it. According to the Christmas story in Matthew’s gospel, Joseph decided to break off the engagement (Matthew 1:19). Joseph did not believe Mary’s story. It took another angelic visitation in a dream to convince Joseph to continue with the engagement and marriage to Mary. The suspicion of illegitimacy surrounded the first Christmas story. Life would be difficult for Mary, Joseph, and their new baby boy, Jesus.

What’s fascinating is that Mary found within herself a second response within herself despite her initial emotional response of confusion and turmoil. After some dialogue with Gabriel, Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” This is Mary’s “YES.” She consents to partner with God in extraordinary uncertainty. It is her radical acceptance of and existence within faith, hope, and love.

How does the story of a pregnant teenage mom in the remote town of Nazareth surrounded by the suspicion of illegitimacy rise from the historical ash heap to inspire the world? Maybe there’s a pattern here for all to hear. Victor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, says: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Perhaps this story is about seeing God or your Higher Power at work in the darkest circumstances. Christmas, Hanukkah, Jesus—a light in the darkness, a song which pierces the night sky, angels singing “Glory to God” in the dark, black night.

I was reminded of the Beatles’ song “Blackbird,” which reflects on the long, arduous struggle of the civil rights movement in America. Maybe it’s more of a Christmas song than we realize.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

And then there’s that other Beatles song about a mother.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to
me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of
me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be 

And when the broken hearted people living in the world
agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that
they will see
There will be an answer, let it be 

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines
on me
Shinin’ until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

 May you have a blessed Christmas/Hanukkah season!

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

The Practice of Gratitude

Listen: “Gratitude” by Earth, Wind, & Fire

The ten days leading up to Thanksgiving Day threatened my spiritual practice of daily gratitude. I woke up Tuesday morning (11/19/24) at four in the morning with a backache on my left side. By Tuesday afternoon, I was doubled over my toilet throwing up due to severe pain. After a doctor visit and a CT scan on Wednesday, I learned I had two kidney stones and three other issues (gall stones and hernias). Three weeks earlier I had my annual physical and thought my health was doing well.

Thursday, I had a wedding rehearsal. Friday, I had the wedding. Saturday, I had a funeral. For Sunday, I was preparing a message entitled “Gratitude and Generosity.” Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling incredibly grateful due to my pain and health issues.

Isn’t that life? One day were on top of the world celebrating a wedding, a birth, a graduation, a promotion, or a clean bill of health, and the next day we’re mourning at a funeral, a genocide, a financial setback, or an illness. People often ask me: “What are your biggest challenges in over forty years of pastoral ministry?” And I typically respond: “It’s the emotional challenge of being present with one family at a birth or wedding and then being present with another family at the death of a family member, sometimes within hours of each other.”

Can the spiritual practice of gratitude help us navigate all of life’s curveballs?

Reasons for gratitude. One of the spiritual practices emphasized in the recovery community is a gratitude list. Even in life’s darkest struggles (trauma, death, wars, elections, sickness, financial disaster, divorce…), there is always a morsel for which to be grateful—the breath of life, the beauty of nature, the benison of family and friendship, the balm of music, and the blessing of food and shelter.

We are all gifted with interconnections that make life possible. One of my fellow students in mindfulness meditation class, Samantha Case, brought this beautiful thought to my attention from Leo Babauta (“The Magic of Being Held By the World”):

You are reading an article written by me, sent across the Internet thanks to the work of thousands and thousands of engineers and power workers and workers in computer factories, using a computer device produced by thousands of people around the world. You are alive because you ate food and drink produced and delivered and served by thousands of people. You have shelter built by thousands of people (when you consider the manufacturing process), powered by a power system where thousands of people work every day, with water coming to you produced by thousands of people, cable (or Internet) entertainment streamed to you that was produced by millions of people. Your furniture, clothes, appliances, car, roads, work buildings, city were all built by millions of people.

Obstacles to gratitude. There is a strange interplay between toxic positivity and our negativity bias. The most ancient part of our human brain is the amygdala. It’s the flight, fight, freeze response built into our limbic system to protect us from danger. Negativity sticks like velcro to our amygdala. Positivity slips away like teflon (Rick Hanson’s words). According to studies in neuroscience, we need to meditate on positive thoughts and experiences at least fifteen seconds for those positive inputs to affect our mental health and wellbeing.

It’s a weird balance. We need to recognize and allow our negative emotions and thoughts to rise and fall within us instead of avoiding, numbing, or suppressing them (see RAIN meditation); and lean into the practice of gratitude to enhance our experiences of joy, wonder, and happiness. For example, one of the practices I have been doing for the last five years is journaling in the morning (what Julia Cameron calls “morning pages”). I start by dumping all my thoughts and emotions from the previous day onto the page, but then I always end my morning pages with gratitude.

Outflow of gratitude. In her breathtaking book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer encourages us to live life through the lens of a gift economy. From her Potawatomi family heritage, Robin learned to see all of life as a gift—receiving all gifts with gratitude and then giving back with generosity. Instead of owning and possessing with stinginess, Robin calls us to live in harmony with all creation—a symbiotic relationship with everything flowing in gratitude and generosity—receiving and giving with gratitude as a way of life.

Robin encourages the cultivation of ceremonies or rituals of gratitude and generosity. Reflecting on a coffee ceremony she learned from her father in which they poured a portion of the coffee grounds back into the earth with thanksgiving, Robin writes:

That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist.

What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.

May your Thanksgiving and holiday season serve as a gateway to the spiritual practice of gratitude.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Healing Hearts through Making Amends

Listen: “Purple Rain” by Prince & The Revolution

It seems like America is losing its soul. We seem to have arrived at a place where our leaders in positions of power and influence have lost their ability to humble themselves, admit when they have done harm to others, and make amends for the harm they have caused. Lies are doubled down on with more lies. Harm to other humans is excused, justified, ignored, or encouraged. Bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred, oppression, abuse, violence, cruelty, misogyny, genocide, and unkindness seem to be in vogue. But a brief review of history reminds us that nothing is new under sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

As a young follower of Jesus, I sensed a calling to full-time Christian service and attended Baylor University as a part of my preparation for ministry. Prior to attending Baylor, I was influenced by a pastor named Peter Lord who served Park Avenue Baptist Church in Florida for 54 years. Peter encouraged people to keep the main thing the main thing (a nod to Steven Covey) which for Peter was to love God and enjoy him forever. Peter encouraged people to develop a daily practice of prayer and meditation to nurture a loving relationship with God. He developed a practical tool called the “2959 Plan” for daily prayer which sold over 500,000 copies, and he wrote two bestselling books: Hearing God and Turkeys and Eagles.

Due to Peter’s influence, I developed a disciplined practice of early morning devotional time with God which I have maintained throughout most of my life since I was a teenager. One of Peter’s teachings centered on something similar to Step 4, 8, and 9 in the 12 Step program: a searching and fearless moral inventory (Step 4) and making a list of all persons we had harmed and making amends to them all (Step 8 & 9).

I remember going through a list of questions that Peter had designed for a thorough moral inventory, and it got me thinking about my friendships in junior high and high school before I started following Jesus when I was involved in recreational drugs (mostly weed, but I experimented with several). I started feeling like I needed to make amends to my friends with whom I had participated and encouraged to do drugs.

I wasn’t sure how to go about it. Most of my friends were scattered around the country attending college like me. (We were a smart, athletic bunch of drug users!) So, I decided to write a letter of apology and encourage my friends to follow Jesus like I was doing.

I had the best of intentions.

Unfortunately, I mailed over a dozen letters to the home addresses of their parents where they grew up, rather than chase down all the college dorm addresses. I addressed the letters to my friends, not their parents. The potential for unintended consequences never occurred to me.

I heard back from one of my friends. His mother had found the letter in her mailbox while her son was away at college. She didn’t open it, but she told my friend that he had received a letter from me. He told her to open it and read it to him. His mom learned some things about her son that day. Boom!

When I heard this story much later, I was horrified. Now I felt like I needed to make amends for the way I had tried to make amends. Let’s just say: making amends can be tricky.

What are the best ways to go about making amends in a hurt and broken world? With friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even enemies?

All humans have experienced hurt caused by other people and have caused hurt to others. Hurt people hurt people, and we all fall into that category to some degree or another. Making amends is an attempt to repair the hurt we have caused another person.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about the importance of making amends in a 1st Century Jewish context: “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God” (Matthew 5:23; NLT).

Apologizing. Many times, hurt can occur through misunderstandings, unfulfilled expectations, actions we did or didn’t do, or words we spoke. If you have hurt a friend, partner, co-worker, family member, or neighbor, a simple apology goes a long way. An admission and an apology is paramount: “I realize I spoke out of anger, and I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you.” This is the most basic way of making amends.

Making restitution. In some situations, making restitution is required. For example, if a crime has been committed, something has been stolen or damaged, a lie has been told, or someone has been a repeat offender/abuser, then restitution may be needed to make amends. The complexity of these circumstances is beyond the scope of this blog. I encourage you to seek wise counsel from a sponsor, therapist, or pastor.

Being right verses being love. This is one of the biggest obstacles to making amends. “The world is divided into people who think they are right.” End of quote. Early in my career as a young pastor, I was surprised by how easily people got offended at me for, what seemed to me, the silliest of things.

I remember one church member who waited to talk to me in the church foyer while I was talking to other people. They got offended when I had to leave to get the service started and didn’t have time to talk to them. I remember one church couple who called me on a Friday afternoon and wanted emergency marriage counseling on the same Friday night. I told them I couldn’t meet that night, but I could schedule an appointment in a few days. They got offended and left the church.

Unspoken expectations are resentments waiting to happen. As a young pastor, I could easily get defensive and try to point out the error of their expectations. But this rarely helped heal a broken heart. Eventually, I learned to just acknowledge the hurt they experienced and let them know I was sorry for the hurt they felt (without trying to counsel them or correct them). Just acknowledging their pain was helpful in the healing process. I let them know my intentions were not to harm, but I was sorry for the harm they felt. This approach opened up space to listen, heal, and dialogue. Our intentions and our impact are two different things.

Being love is always a priority over being right in many (most?) circumstances of interpersonal relationships. (For wisdom on the work of social justice and confronting systemic injustice, learn from Gandhi, MLK, non-violent civil disobedience, and restorative justice.)

Taking care of your side of the street. This is an important insight from the recovery community. All we can do is take care of our side of the street. Our focus is to change what we can change in ourselves and do all we can do to heal broken relationships. Most relational hurts are a two-way street, but we can only work on ourselves. Many people try to make amends by admitting to some minor infraction, but then focus on defending themselves and blaming the other person for what they did wrong. This approach usually leads to more harm and an endless cycle of blame and accusations towards each other. It bypasses listening skills, empathy, deep understanding, and usually never contributes to emotional healing.

Wounded healers. Most human beings on planet earth have the capacity to become wounded healers—to create out of their own wounds a vulnerable and healing connection with another wounded human. This is what our world needs more than ever. Making amends is central to healing wounds and trauma of the heart. “When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers,” says Henri Nouwen who is the author of The Wounded Healer.

Three years after my public meltdown as a megachurch pastor in Kansas City, Missouri, I was walking down Main Street in Frisco, Colorado. At this point in my post-meltdown life, I had already apologized to several thousand people (in-person, in-writing, and in-videos) for my downfall to addiction and adultery. Walking down Main Street in Frisco, I bumped into a couple that had met and married at my church in Kansas City. I was their pastor who had fallen.

We greeted each other with a hug, and I briefly caught up on their new marriage and life together. They asked how I was doing, and I let them know how difficult the last few years had been since my downfall. At one point, I paused and looked them in the eye and said: “I just want to apologize to you for my struggle with addiction and adultery. I was your pastor, and I am sorry for any hurt I may have caused you.” They both started crying on Main Street in Frisco. I cried with them as we hugged each other again.

I still have hope for healing a broken world, but we cannot heal if we cannot admit the harm we have caused—individually, collectively, systemically, historically, and internationally.

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
(“Imagine” by John Lennon)

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Forgiving Others

Listen: “The Heart of the Matter” by Don Henley

Many of you know that I have been a cyclist for decades. There have been years when I have ridden over 10,000 miles in the Northland of Kansas City, Missouri on my road bike in one year. In my peak competitive years, I would log more miles on my bike than my truck.

When I first started cycling on roads, people were not texting and driving. Yet, I still found riding thousands of miles on the road year after year was extremely dangerous. A significant percentage of people driving cars and trucks on the road display animosity towards cyclists who ride on the road. I have had people try to run me off the road, curse at me, flip me off, throw food at me, and throw beer cans at me. It’s truly shocking how much anger and road rage gets directed towards cyclists.

One time I was riding down a country road with a friend on Interurban Road south of Camden Point, Missouri. No cars were on the road going either direction. An elderly lady came up behind us, honked her horn at us, slowed her car down to our speed, rolled her window down, and proceeded to spew the F-bomb at us for ridding our bikes on the road. I looked her straight in the eye and said: “Great grandmas shouldn’t talk that way!” She flipped me off, dropped some more F-bombs, and sped away.

Another time I was doing a sixty-mile solo road ride in the winter. I was on a country road north of Trimble, Missouri when a cold front blew in and started sleeting on me. I was two hours from home, and I was a little irritated at myself for getting myself into this situation. In my mind, I was thinking: “Fred, you’re an idiot. This is so stupid.” A lonely truck pulled up behind me, slowed down to my speed, and rolled his window down. He looked at me and said: “You’re an idiot!” I said: “I was just thinking the same thing. Thanks for the encouragement!”

At the heart of Jesus’ message are some of the most challenging teachings in the history of Homo sapiens on planet earth—challenging yet vitally important for healing and thriving as humans. Love is central to Jesus. Love God. Love your neighbors. Love yourself. And love your enemies (most challenging), which always involves forgiveness and creative non-violent resistance towards oppressors.

At the heart of the Jesus’ Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer) is a calling to live in a spirit of forgiveness. In effect, we are called to adopt forgiveness as a way of life: “Forgive us our trespasses (sins/debts) as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12). Our capacity for love and joy and freedom are directly correlated to our capacity to forgive. The way of forgiveness is not always easy, and sometimes extremely difficult.

It’s normal to armor up with anger, bitterness, and revenge when we are hurt to protect ourselves. And yet, permanently armoring up with anger and bitterness erodes our capacity for flourishing. “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die,” according to Anne Lamott. What is forgiveness and how do we live into it?

Forgiveness is not…. Before we describe the way of forgiveness, let’s make sure we understand what it is not. Forgiveness is not condoning harmful behavior. By forgiving others, we are not condoning hatred, oppression, abuse, violence, racism, bigotry, sexism, cruelty, homophobia, murder, genocide, unkindness, or people cussing out cyclists! Forgiveness is not forgetting. We bear the scars of hurt emotionally and physically (read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk), but those wounds can heal over time. Forgiveness is not living without healthy boundaries. Some people are chronic abusers, manipulators, and offenders. We can learn to forgive, set healthy boundaries, and practice non-violent resistance towards oppressors at the same time.

The spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness as a lifestyle creates space in our lives so that we can move forward from the hurts of the past to thrive in love, joy, and freedom. Forgiveness is about letting go, letting go of the armor (bitterness and anger) that we put in place to protect ourselves from future hurt. It’s letting go of the debt that we feel someone owes us. We longed for a good parent, a good friend, or a good partner but instead we are reeling from the hurt inflicted by those who should have loved us. To quote Anne Lamott again, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having a better past.”

Deep down in our hearts, we long for love. We long for belonging. We long for connection. We long to be at peace with ourselves, others, and all living beings. That’s a part of our inherent dignity and worth as humans. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are “made in the image and likeness of God.” So, we long for love, beauty, creativity, and generosity which flourishes in the humus of forgiveness as it nurtures healing and post-traumatic growth.

Our gift to the world is to compost our hurts and suffering and give rise to wildflowers bedazzling the mountains of our grief and pain. French philosopher and author Albert Camus said, “We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.”

Forgiveness is a delicate process. In the end, prolonged anger, bitterness, revenge, and violence creates an endless cycle of pain and suffering. Trauma upon trauma. Hate in return for hate. Forgiveness is not an easy task, but it’s the only generative way forward. It takes time to grieve the losses caused by hurt, abuse, and violence. We remember and grieve. We long for justice and mercy. We recognized that everything is in a process of creation, death, and re-creation. Even our body is sloughing off billions of skin cells, organ cells, and blood cells everyday, while at the same time creating new cells to replace the old ones.

Our body is in a constant state of renewal. Why not our heart?

It’s risky for sure. Sometimes I want to escape it all, get off the grid, and move to an isolated mountain location and commune with nature until I die. But I often recall one of my favorite quotes from C. S. Lewis:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness [pain or sorrow]. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Self-Forgiveness

Listen: “Forgive Yourself” by Patrick Droney

One of the most challenging lines in The Lord’s Prayer is: “Forgive us our trespasses (debts/sins), as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12). This prayer focuses on one of the most powerful ways to heal ourselves, others, and the world—the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness moves in at least three directions: (1) forgiveness for ourselves; (2) forgiveness for others and the world for causing harm; and (3) making amends towards those whom we have harmed.

All three of these movements of forgiveness are uniquely challenging, but I have come to realize through my counseling of others and my personal experience that self-forgiveness can be the most challenging for many people. The human spirit is not built to carry the weight of resentment, bitterness, hatred, and revenge. These human emotions and experiences are frequent traveling partners, but our capacity for joy in life is directly related to our capacity to forgive.

Why is it so hard to forgive ourselves? There are many reasons, but I will list four of the more frequent struggles I have heard from people.

Some people who have a Christian background have heard that there is an unpardonable sin. In fact, this idea comes from a statement that Jesus himself made: “I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven” (Mark 3:29; NLT). The problem is that Jesus never spells out what blaspheming the Holy Spirit is. In the immediate context of the passage, some of the religious leaders were accusing Jesus of being possessed by a demon. The religious leaders said that Jesus healed and delivered people by the power of demons. They attributed the compassionate work of healing which Jesus did to an evil spirit because they rejected his message and ministry. According to the religious leaders, his ministry could not come from God.

It’s a first century argument that sounds a little weird to a twenty-first century audience. It’s similar to seeing true goodness and calling it evil. If you call acts of healing, love, beauty, creativity, and forgiveness evil, then it makes it hard to give and receive these good gifts. If we reject the forgiveness that is freely offered and available for us, then perhaps this is the unpardonable sin—rejecting love and forgiveness. We must accept and receive good gifts of love and forgiveness to appropriate them for ourselves and others.

This lines up with the rest of the stories in the Bible. Most of the well-known people in the Bible were very flawed individuals who received forgiveness from God. Abraham involved his wife in a deceptive lie. Moses murdered a man. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and was an accomplice to a plot to kill Bathsheba’s husband. Peter betrayed Jesus three times. Saul (whose name became Paul) persecuted Christians before he wrote most of the New Testament letters. Forgiveness is a gift that flows from the heart of God. There is no unpardonable sin unless we refuse to receive the forgiveness which is available.

Victims of abuse often blame themselves for the abuse. While I pastored Vineyard Church in Kansas City, Missouri, I helped organize a ministry called “Hope Ministries.” It was a ministry which focused on supporting women who were trapped in domestic violence and abusive relationships. It’s a strange psychology for people to understand who have not suffered abuse—children and adults who are victims of abuse often blame themselves. Victims of abuse often think there is something wrong with themselves instead of their abuser.

It’s a double arrow. The first arrow is the abuse. The second arrow is the blame. And many victims blame themselves. Thoughts run wild in the victim's head: “If only I wouldn’t have done this, said that, or felt a particular way, then my abuser wouldn’t have abused me.” This type of self-blame connected to victimization usually requires therapy for emotional healing so don’t hesitate to find a good therapist.

Some people feel like they are giving themselves a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. There’s an old SNL skit in which the actor says: “I decided to forgive myself today, and then I told myself to do whatever I want.” Some people think if they forgive themselves, then they will give themselves a license to become a worse version of themselves. They won’t have any restraint on their most destructive appetites. But love, forgiveness, and mercy flow together. Receiving love, forgiveness, and mercy frees one to walk in love, forgiveness, and mercy. You get released from the jail of bitterness and unforgiveness, and you are set free to love and serve.

Some people believe they need to punish themselves in order to improve their behavior in the future. If we punish ourselves enough, then maybe we’ll do better down the road. So, if we put ourselves in a timeout or some other form of self-punishment, then we can eventually move forward. This is the psychology of penance, which is different than making amends (which I will address in a future blog).

A movie came out in 1986 called The Mission which received seven nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Cinematography. It tells the true story of Jesuit priests who traveled to Paraguay in the 1700’s to convert indigenous peoples to Christianity. In one of the most moving scenes in the movie, a former slave trader named Mendoza played by Robert De Niro experiences repentance for his murderous and slave trading behaviors through the influence of Bishop Gabriel played by Jeremy Irons. In the scene, Mendoza wraps all his former armor and weapons that he used to murder and enslave into a big bundle and climbs up a mountain with the bundle on his back. He was doing penance—punishing himself for his sins. Bishop Gabriel cuts the load from him in an effort to symbolize his forgiveness, but Mendoza ties it back on his back. Once Mendoza gets to the top of the mountain trail, a group of indigenous people see the act of penance and cut the bundle loose from Mendoza.

The scene serves as a powerful metaphor for the burden of penance. So often we struggle with a heavy emotional load because we feel we need to punish ourselves to pay for the wrongs we have committed. In the end, receiving forgiveness is the only way to cut away the emotional burden of our own misdeeds.

Forgiveness on tap from God. Notice in Jesus’ model prayer that the prayer of forgiveness is a “we” prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive….” What does this mean? In my darkest days in 2019, I struggled to forgive myself. I would have preferred death instead of the public humiliation I endured. I hated myself. How could I forgive myself? How could I receive God’s forgiveness? I had preached God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ my whole life, but in 2019 I just wanted to die.

Thank God for “we.” We humans thrive best in community, especially loving communities which practice the art of forgiveness and transformation. I would share my deepest failures with my recovery group, my therapists, my true friends, and my sponsor. They modeled forgiveness for me. I was able to forgive myself and receive a sense of God’s forgiveness through the experience of love and forgiveness from others. Forgiveness is a “we” journey. We forgive together. We grow together. We love together.

“The essence of human bravery is refusing to give up on anyone or anything,” according to one wisdom teacher. That takes a lot of forgiveness and “a little help from our friends.” It’s progress, not perfection in the spiritual journey of life. Tara Brach says, “Perfection is not the prerequisite for anything but pain.” Perfection is a brutal task master, but spiritual progress is immersed in the way of love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Confronting Christian Nationalism

When I was in seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary working on my Master of Divinity degree, I studied with William R. Estep. Dr. Estep was a world renowned scholar in Reformation history, particularly the Anabaptist Reformation. As the dominance of the Catholic Church in Europe shattered in the Sixteenth Century due to the reforms of people like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli, the church fractured into denominations. Most of the reformation aligned with the old Catholic structure of the Union of Church and State (The Magisterial Reformation or Christian Imperialism/Nationalism)—like Calvin in France, Luther in Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland, and Cranmer and Cromwell in England.

This led to the Christian wars of the Reformation. Catholics killed Protestants. Protestants killed Catholics. Protestants killed Protestants. There was no religious freedom. There was no separation of church and state. If you disbelieved the doctrines of the church, then you were committing treason against the state. You could be punished by execution for disagreeing with Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinistic doctrines depending on which religious doctrines were established by law in a particular nation-state. Christians killing Christians in the name of Jesus for disagreeing on doctrinal beliefs. The opposite of Jesus’ teaching: Love God. Love your Neighbor. And love your enemy.

The Anabaptist Reformation was the only part of the reformation which advocated for religious freedom and separation of church and state. Students studying under Zwingli in Switzerland concluded that believer’s baptism was the New Testament mode for baptism instead of infant baptism. Among them were Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and George Blaurock. On January 21, 1525, these students baptized each other. Manz and Blaurock were executed by drowning and burning within a few years after practicing believer’s baptism. They were executed by Christian Imperialist/Nationalists (Union of Church and State/Magisterial Reformers) in the name of Jesus for practicing what they believed to be a New Testament practice.

It’s hard for Americans to understand the dangers of Christian Imperialism/Nationalism because we have lived in a democracy with a 1st Amendment protecting religious freedom and separation of church and state for over 200 years. I dare say, most people in American identifying as Christians don’t understand this aspect of church history.

I have always identified with the values of the Anabaptist Reformation, which are articulated in the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. Many people in Europe fled to America to escape religious persecution in Europe. Christians were killing Christians in Europe. I love religious freedom and the separation of church and state because of my commitment to follow the teachings of Jesus and my understanding of church history. I believe all Americans should continue to have religious freedom, whether they be Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, or any other religious doctrine or spiritual practice.

Today in America, there is a resurgence of a form of Christian Nationalism. Why should Christians be concerned about Christian Nationalism? Please join me Thursday, September 26 for an excellent training on Christian Nationalism organized by my friend Doug Pagitt of Vote Common Good. Click on the links below for more info and to RSVP. Hope to see you soon!

https://www.votecommongood.com/event/ccn-kansas-city-mo/

https://www.votecommongood.com/event/cgcr-kansas-city-mo/

Also, check out my podcast interview with David Gushee and his book—Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies.

Mindfulness Meditation: Self-Compassion & RAIN Meditation (Part 6 of 6)

Listen: “Moon” by Little People

A friend went on a six-day meditation retreat and experienced a gamut of human emotions including some intense feelings of anger, shame, fear, and anxiety. After the retreat was over, she reported her experience to the facilitator of the retreat: “You told me I would feel better.” With a chuckle, the facilitator said: “It sounds like you are feeling your feelings better instead of numbing or avoiding them.”

Processing difficult feelings is one of the reasons I was drawn to mindfulness meditation. Its been therapeutic for me. Most of us spend our lives bulldozing over our emotions, regretting the past and fearing the future, while staying extremely busy.

A hospice chaplain who spent hundreds of hours of listening to those who were dying found that one of the biggest regrets of people facing the end of their life was: “I didn’t live true to myself.” Mindfulness meditation encourages a deeper experience of awareness in the present moment while awakening to our authentic self.

When we encounter unpleasant and painful experiences, our survival brain kicks into gear. The fight, flight, freeze part of our brain is called the amygdala. Daniel Goleman coined the term “amygdala hijack” to describe an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. The amygdala hijacks our rational brain and can lead us into irrational responses to negative experiences.

When the amygdala takes over, we feel small, cut off, and stuck in negative thoughts and feelings. Our brain can fixate on thoughts and feelings which function like a trance of fear and unworthiness. The practice of RAIN meditation and self-compassion offers a healthy way to process negative emotions according to the best studies in the field of neuroscience. (See Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett.)

Instead of fighting, numbing, avoiding, or suppressing our negative feelings which always backfires, we can practice RAIN meditation. RAIN is an an acronym for a four-step process which can be practiced at home, at work, or in the car.

Recognize. When you feel the first arrow of a painful or unpleasant experience, hit pause. Name the experience, the thoughts, and the feelings which the moment stirs up. Naming the feeling is a crucial step in awareness.

Allow. What we resist persists. Most people resist by saying “no” to reality, pushing back against it. We want to ignore it, numb it, change it, or defeat it. Our amygdala is trying to help us survive but usually over-reacts and catches us in a trance of fear and unworthiness. Allowing our emotions and thoughts to flow with awareness, openness, curiosity, and non-judgment takes practice. Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Regular practice of RAIN meditation helps expand the space between stimulus and response. In affect, we are saying “yes” to reality.

Investigate. If we investigate with curiosity, openness, and non-judgment, we will learn to engage our wise brain with probing questions. Asking ourselves questions helps engage our wise, thinking self, instead of our reactionary self. What am I believing about myself, the situation, or the person? Is this true? How does it feel in my body? Our amygdala generates a bunch of fake news!

Nurture. As we reflect on questions during our investigation, we are contacting our vulnerability. We may feel anger, betrayal, abandonment, confusion, or hurt, and our inner critic often goes into action condemning and blaming ourselves. Instead, we want to nurture ourselves with love and self-compassion. Ask yourself, “what do I need?” Use your imagination and think of yourself as a therapist to yourself. Love and compassion are active responses, not passive. Practice giving yourself words of affirmation: “I’m here for you. You are loved. It’s not your fault. I hear your fear. You have the skill to navigate these experiences.” Give yourself nurturing touch like a hug or place your hand over your heart. Make a face that matches your feelings and hold your emotions with kindness.

This practice is simple, but powerful. You can take 5 or 10 minutes to hit pause and practice RAIN during the day. Daily meditation practice is like exercise for our brain. You can also practice RAIN with a partner where each person takes equal amounts of time to work through the steps. May your meditation practice increase your self-compassion in the days ahead.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Who am I? Where am I going?

Listen: “When It Don’t Come Easy” by Patty Griffin

I have been in a five-year process of…well, I’m not even sure how to describe it, maybe: (1) Meltdown—Darkness—Survival—Reorientation; (2) Collapse—Disassemble—Reassemble; (3) Addiction—Loss—Recovery; (4) Disillusionment—Deconstruction—Reconstruction; or (5) Simplicity—Complexity—Perplexity—Harmony, if I look at my whole life and use Brian McLaren’s stages of faith described in his book Faith after Doubt. All these compound modifiers describe distinct aspects of my life experiences over the last five years. 

This blog is an attempt to describe the process through which I continue to grow, evolve, explore, and connect with others through community. There are four communities which I have come to value over the course of my recovery which may help explain who I am becoming and how I am showing up in the world to do ministry and service. With each of these communities, my foundational core values are honesty, vulnerability, and humility.

Recovery Community. This community saved my life. In 2019, due to my two-and-a-half-year addiction to prescription Xanax and alcohol and the resulting infidelity, I lost my church community, my pastoral career, my marriage, my home, my finances, and my faith felt shattered. I was humiliated publicly and wanted to die or disappear from the planet.

In September of 2019, I decided to try the recovery community. I attended over ninety meetings in ninety days, found a sponsor, started working the twelve steps with my sponsor, and started making amends to the thousands of people whom I had pastored (starting with those who were closest to me). The recovery community has been my church, my saving grace. They welcomed me, forgave me, loved me, and believed in me at the lowest, darkest point of my life. They provided a safe place for me to question everything, including my concepts of God, and demonstrated lovingkindness every step of the way.

Today, I continue to go to meetings, lead meetings, and do twelve step work with people who reach out. Because I have been open and vulnerable about my own journey of recovery and because I pastored thousands of people over the course of thirty years, I have people who reach out to me who are struggling with addiction, depression, doubts, and uncertainty most weeks of my life. (I am grateful to the people who financially support Spirituality Adventures so that I have the flexibility to do this work.)

Meditation Community. In the rehab I attended in 2018, I was introduced to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT focuses on four skills which enhance healing and recovery from trauma: mindfulness, emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. I had never practiced mindfulness meditation, but as I learned more about the science of mindfulness, I knew it was a practice which I needed to incorporate into my recovery. Mindfulness meditation comes from ancient traditions like Buddhism but is practiced today by people of all faith traditions and people with no faith tradition. The benefits of the practice are not contingent upon converting to Buddhism or some other faith tradition (like the benefits of yoga or the Twelve Step program which focuses on a Higher Power without regard to a particular faith tradition).

I started attending a meditation group led by Pam Hausner in 2021, and I have benefited from the practice. Due to Pam’s influence, I started a two-year intensive training with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield (Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program or MMTCP). In 2023, I started facilitating in-person classes for people who want to practice yoga and meditation together. My goal is to offer 4–6-week classes once a quarter in the future. I may experiment with some online classes as well. I have had over fifty people attend meditation classes with me so far.

I am also participating in a Christian contemplative meditation group which is influenced by Richard Rohr. The ancient Christian contemplative/meditation tradition has much in common with the mindfulness meditation tradition, and I hope to offer some classes from this tradition in the future.

Deconstruction Community. As I have wrestled with questions, doubts, and disbelief about my own faith tradition (which has been a lifelong process for me, starting with my ordination as a Southern Baptist pastor, then moving to the more progressive evangelical Vineyard movement, and now the more progressive Christian Church Disciples of Christ denomination), I have found hope in healing communities outside the church. I have encountered thousands of people who have been hurt by the church and done a hard exit on the church. I have also met people who have never attended church and have no desire to start attending church for a multitude of reasons—reasons to which I can readily relate.

As I reflect on my previous years of ministry, I realize there is some continuity with my current heart for the deconstruction community. I started Vineyard Church in 1990 in Kansas City, Missouri to reach people outside the church. I was not trying to reshuffle the church deck which is what happens in most church plants in America. I tried a non-traditional style of rock and roll church, and we did reach thousands of people outside the church over the course of my thirty-year tenure. However, I had never gone through church hurt and religious trauma myself. I didn’t empathize with how traumatizing the church could be towards people.

Now I understand firsthand, plus I have heard thousands of stories of church hurt and religious trauma as I have participated in the recovery and meditation communities. (Sangas, temples, and mosques can hurt people too. I reference the church because most of my experience is with the church.) When the church is the abuser (for example, child molestation, discrimination, bigotry, homophobia, judgment, legalism, dogma, or abusive leaders), why would we think people would want to run back to their abuser for healing? People seek out safe people and communities in which to heal from their abusers.

I see it so clearly now. Previously, I just thought we needed better, kinder, more gracious churches (like the vision I had for the church I founded), but once I saw the church through the eyes of those abused by the church (sat with and listened to thousands of stories), I saw the need for healing communities outside the church. I needed it myself. That is not to say that people will not eventually make their way back to healthier, more loving versions of the church (or a sanga, temple, mosque). I have seen people come into AA as anti-Christians or anti-God atheists, and then years later find their way back into a church or find church for the first time (or sanga, temple, mosque). But for those who have experienced religious trauma from the church, they need safe, healing communities of honesty, vulnerability, and humility outside the church. The same would be true for people who have experienced hurt and trauma in their families of origin.

Because of what I have experienced, I feel deeply connected with people who have lost their faith or deconstructed their faith. I like to say that questions, doubts, and disbelief are a part of the faith journey. Most of the characters in the Bible experienced questions, doubts, and disbelief about their faith, including Jesus. I love connecting with those who are deconstructing their faith through communities outside of church whether it be a recovery group, a meditation group, a writer’s group (like KC Writer’s Workshop led by Francis Story) or an artistic, change makers group (like the Turn Community led by Samir Selmanovic). Two books I highly recommend from the Christian tradition for those on this journey are God After Deconstruction by Thomas Jay Oord and Tripp Fuller and Faith after Doubt by Brian McLaren.

Church Community. I started pastoring a church again in January of 2023 (part-time) after a four year “sabbatical” from pastoral ministry. I think this move has been confusing for two distinct groups of people: former people I pastored who attended Vineyard Church and newer people with whom I have connected in communities outside the church since 2019.

First, for my former church members, I have realized that many people hoped I would either return to Vineyard Church or else start a new church which was basically like Vineyard Church. Thousands of people loved my thirty-year ministry at Vineyard Church (and I loved it and them too!).

Second, for newer people who met me in recovery or meditation groups outside the church since 2019, I have realized that people were surprised that I returned to the church since I had deeply questioned everything I had ever believed.

Even though in my darkest moments I deeply questioned everything I had ever believed, including the existence of God, I still held onto a belief in a God of uncontrolling love (Open/Relational/Process theology), a love for Jesus, and a firm belief in the value of loving, safe communities in which people can heal, grow, and serve our world. (Yes, I still believe churches can do this as well as communities outside the church.)

I also wanted to pastor a church which was fully affirming of the LGBTQ+ community. For my thirty-year tenure at Vineyard Church, we always had people from the LGBTQ+ community participating and serving at Vineyard Church. We were welcoming, but not fully affirming. (In the Vineyard movement, a church could not ordain a gay person or do a gay wedding.) My views changed over the years as I pastored and loved people in my church who were in the LGBTQ+ community. I revisited the six “clobber” passages in the Bible, and I concluded that these passages were not talking about sexual orientation or whom you love. (See Colby Martin’s book UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality for an excellent resource.

When I started pastoring again, I wrote a brief description of our church’s values which is on our church website (livingwaterchristian.org which I now serve in full standing with the Christian Church Disciples of Christ). Here is the statement which I crafted for our church website which reflect my own desires and commitments:

We are a community of people who seek to discover, receive, and disseminate the extravagant grace and love of God. We find in the person of Jesus a beautiful incarnation of the grace and love of God, and we seek to embody the life of Jesus by following his example and living by his teachings. As followers of Jesus, we desire to:

-Love God, love our neighbors, love ourselves, and even love our enemies which always involves the grace of forgiveness

-Welcome everyone by practicing hospitality and inclusion for all people regardless of personal history, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or ethnicity

-Practice authenticity by embracing vulnerability and humility about our humanity, our weaknesses, and our true self

-Provide a community of love for prodigals and misfits who have honest struggles with questions, doubts, and disbelief on our journey of faith

-Value all faith traditions and perspectives in order to learn from all people of faith

-Integrate our faith and theology with insights gained from the fields of science including evolution, neuroscience, mental health, and psychology

-Serve others in all realms of life according to our gifts, talents, and skills

-Practice social justice on behalf of the poor, the planet, the marginalized, and the oppressed

We hope you will join us on this adventure of faith.

Activism. When I pastored Vineyard Church, I took seriously the teachings of Jesus around social justice issues which are rooted in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament for Christians; Deuteronomy 10:17-19). In Matthew 25, Jesus calls people to work for justice for the marginalized, vulnerable, and oppressed in every society [the least of these who are hungry, thirsty, strangers (immigrants and refugees), naked, sick, prisoners, orphans, and widows]. Jesus himself demonstrated the importance of building loving community with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and outcasts. He was a friend of “sinners.”

As our resources grew at Vineyard Church, I developed social justice ministries to serve our city and world in the following ways: one the largest food distributors in Kansas City, domestic violence ministries, refugee/immigrant ministries, racial justice partnerships with black/latino churches and MLK events, prison ministries, teen shelters, transitional housing partnerships, recovery ministries, Palestinian ministries, church planting ministries, and orphan work in Ethiopia and Ecuador to name a few.

As I continue to rebuild my life and ministry through these four communities, I will seek for ways to make impact in Kansas City and beyond with partnerships for social justice. For example, one of my board members, Rod Colburn, is putting together a Roof Top Alliance for change makers and people who “give a damn,” to borrow a phrase from my friend Nick Laparra who is the founder of “Let’s Give a Damn.”

Support. The blogs, podcasts, meditation events, MLK events, and the pastoral care and counseling I provide to hundreds of people is a labor of love. I am so grateful for the handful of people who support Spirituality Adventures financially, but I have a shrinking number of monthly financial supporters mostly due to my alliance with the LGBTQ+ community. Studies conducted on social media content providers like me reveal that only 0.05% of followers contribute financially to support the content which they consume.

Please consider supporting Spirituality Adventures in the following ways:

1.      Go to my website (spiritualityadventures.com) and become a monthly financial supporter. You will receive some great bonus content as a monthly supporter, and it will enable me to continue to grow and expand the work of Spirituality Adventures.

2.      Go to our YouTube channel and podcast platforms and subscribe (https://youtube.com/@spiritualityadventures?si=BZiL6KJOG1zcuxm-).

3.      Share blogs, podcasts, events, and posts that you like!

Thanks for reading, following, and supporting!

Fred Herron

 ©realfredherron, 2024 

Mindfulness Meditation: The Practice of Lovingkindness {part 5 of 6}

Listen: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson

No question about it: Our world needs an awakening, a revolution if you will, in the practice of lovingkindness. In the Christian tradition, lovingkindness is one of the nine fruits of the Spirit (chrestotes in Greek; Galatians 5:22-23); in the mindfulness meditation tradition, lovingkindness is one of the four virtues which are cultivated through meditation (metta in Pali). One of the ways we can stir ourselves to deeper expressions and practices of lovingkindness is through storytelling. It is one of the reasons I do podcast interviews with people whom I find inspiring. 

When our hearts are properly stirred, we long for the practice and experience of lovingkindness—for ourselves, others, and for all creation on our planet. It’s our true nature—the image of the uncontrolling love of God percolating in our hearts. I recently read a poem from Ellen Bass entitled “Gate C22” which swelled my heart with love:

At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching–
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after–if she beat you or left you or
you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

Some stories of lovingkindness emerge through much more difficult terrain. I am thinking of the remarkable work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in the aftermath of incidents like the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday morning September 15, 1963 in which four girls were murdered by four members of the Klu Klux Klan who planted nineteen sticks of dynamite:

We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force, with love. We will not hate you, but we cannot, in all good conscience, obey your unjust laws. And we will soon wear you down with our capacity to suffer and with our love. And winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win your freedom as well.

Or the inspirational work of Father Greg Boyle who founded Homeboys Industries in Los Angeles and wrote an amazing book called Tattoos on the Heart. One of the aspects of his work is to attend area churches, in the barrios, as a priest and share the vision of his work. He went to a church one morning and found the ugly words, “wetback church,” painted across the front of the church.

Greg was taken aback by the anti-immigrant fervor and made an apology to the church: “I feel so badly that we’ve been attacked in this way, that our sacred place has been desecrated.” He promised to have some of his kids coming out of gangs come over and remove the racist graffiti. As he was making this statement, one woman, Rosa Saldana, stood up and spoke. A quiet woman who usually never spoke, she said: “If there are people who are cast out, judged, despised, and rejected because they are mojados—wetbacks—then we shall be proud to call ourselves the wetback church.”

Despite our true nature, lovingkindness is not always easy. There are many blocks to its practice, including our own self-judgment, hurts, wounds, griefs, bitternesses, and biases. Hatred and bitterness are always lurking in the algorithms affecting our hearts and society (and social media and news feeds we consume). Once again, the words of MLK channeling the words of Jesus challenge me (Love your enemies): “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Take a few minutes and sit and meditate. Think of a pet or someone you love a lot, where love comes easily and is uncomplicated. Breathe gently and recite the following phrases directed toward their well-being:

May you be filled with lovingkindness.

May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.

May you be well in body and mind.

May you be at ease and happy. 

Repeat this practice as you bring to mind more people and living beings, eventually including everyone and everything in your sphere of influence: yourself, a “neutral person,” and a difficult difficult person or relationship. Finally, allow your awareness to open in all directions—in front of you, behind you, below you, and above you. As you expand your awareness around you, begin to include all beings, animals, trees, gardens, and flowers; children everywhere; humans living in poverty; those who are at war; those who are dying; and those who are newly born. Imagine that you can hold the whole earth in your heart and repeat this simple prayer of lovingkindness.

Our heart, our true nature, is love, which is woven into the fabric of all creation. “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (I John 4:16; NLT).

 Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Mindfulness Meditation: Thought Life {Part 4 of 6}

Listen: “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies

Our minds can be crazy places to live. When I landed in rehab at the end of 2018, I was immersed in the Twelve Step program of recovery. I had read the Big Book of AA as a pastor who wanted to support people in recovery, never dreaming I would need it myself. There was a saying I heard from the recovery community which I did not like: “Your best thinking got you here.” I had always had confidence in my ability to think well. I had earned the highest professional degrees in my field of theology and ministry, and I was working on a second doctorate degree when I went to rehab. (I was in the dissertation phase of a PhD in the Hebrew Bible.)

I thought I could think my way out of anything, but addiction plays havoc with our minds. Most humans wrestle, to various degrees, with hurts, habits, and hang ups, and you don’t have to be an addict to wrestle with racing thoughts, ruminating thoughts, and judging thoughts.

The emergence of human consciousness is one of the most surprising developments of evolution, even leaving the most ardent atheists with a mystery that is hard to understand apart from some metaphysical presupposition concerning “mind,” “spirit,” or a “higher power.”

“Who is your enemy?” said the Buddha. “Mind is your enemy. No one can harm you more than a mind untrained. Who is your friend? Mind is your friend. No one can assist you and care for you better than your mind well-trained.” The Apostle Paul challenged people: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

But how do we go about training our minds? Training my mind can feel much like herding cats!

Another challenge: most people have a muscular inner critic, especially those who have grown up in fundamentalist religious circles. We can judge ourselves for just about anything including normal humans thought processes. Judging, condemning, and shaming ourselves comes much easier than thoughts of self-compassion and self-care.

The most ancient part of our brain is called the amygdala. It’s the fight, flight, freeze part of our brain which is more attuned to focusing on negative experiences than positive experiences in order to enhance our chances of survival. Psychologist Rick Hanson famously stated: “The mind is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” American actor and filmmaker Dustin Hoffman said, “A good review from critics is just a stay of execution,” and many of us are our own best critics.

Approximately ninety percent of our anxious thoughts are reruns and fake news (at least for me). One of my meditation teachers, Jack Kornfield, recommends the following practices when you sit in meditation and focus your awareness on your thoughts. I would encourage you to sit in silence for 10 to 20 minutes a day and explore your thoughts with the following prompts.

Name your thoughts. As you sit in meditation, simply name the types of thoughts which you are experiencing: planning, remembering, judging, imagining, ruminating, and wondering are just a few of the possibilities.

Identify your top ten tunes. I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for over four years. My top three are planning, judging, and remembering. Notice how thoughts come and go, similar to the rise and fall of our emotions. The negative thoughts tend to stick, and the positive ones tend to slide away more quickly.

Normalize the thoughts. Everybody experiences a variety of thoughts which stream through our minds. We attempt to judge, condemn and resist our unwanted thoughts and cling to our pleasant thoughts. Try simply recognizing and allowing the thoughts with curiosity, openness, and self-compassion. Martin Luther stated: “We can’t keep the birds (thoughts) from flying over our heads.” They come and they go. Judging and resisting unwanted thoughts, ironically, empowers them; recognizing and allowing unwanted thoughts, ironically, disempowers them.

Hold thoughts lightly. I love a humorous quote I ran across years ago when I was reading G. K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. Seriousness is not a virtue. Satan fell by force of gravity.”

Don’t believe your thoughts too much. Relax and let go. Learn to have a sense of humor about yourself and your thought life. Clinging to thoughts and resisting thoughts comes more naturally, but try laughing at your unwanted thoughts.

Notice that many thoughts are insubstantial. As stated earlier, most of our thoughts are reruns or fake news. They don’t necessarily correspond to reality.

Notice how you can be an observer of your thoughts. In one guided meditation session I experienced I was asked to use my imagination and sit by one of my favorite streams. I thought of a crystal-clear mountain stream which I have sat next to in Copper Mountain, Colorado. Then I was asked to imagine writing my thoughts on leaves that were falling from the trees, and then picture them falling onto the stream and floating down stream. I found it very helpful. It helped me put some separation between me and my own thoughts. I could observe my thoughts almost like a counselor for myself.

Mindfulness meditation encourages a deep sense of self-compassion and self-care when it comes to our thought life. I have done pastoral counseling with thousands of people over the last forty-five years, and one thing I have noticed is how often people judge themselves harshly for having unwanted thoughts. They feel guilty for having normal human thoughts that come and go, like birds flying over our heads. Thoughts are just thoughts. We don’t have to act on them or believe them, but we can learn to live with them in a healthier way.

Try implementing these practices in a daily routine of meditation over a period of time, and don’t beat yourself up for being human. Happy meditating!

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Mindfulness meditation: Sweet Emotions {part 3 of 6}

Listen: “Head Above Water” by Avril Lavigne

We all live our lives on a rollercoaster of emotions. When we have pleasant emotions, we scheme of ways to get them to stay. When we have unpleasant emotions, we think of ways to get them to go away.

For decades I spent my life trying to battle, fight, conquer, suppress, and defeat my unpleasant emotions. Without my awareness, I had been unduly influenced by an ancient Greek perspective on emotions which taught that emotions can’t be trusted. Many of the ancient Greek philosophers and writers believed that powerful emotions were the direct working of evil spirits dwelling in the soul (Homer, Xenocrates, and Euripides, for example, see chapter three “The Philosophy of Pathos” in The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel). Even the Apostle Paul at times equates certain pleasant emotions to the “fruit of the Spirit” and unpleasant emotions like outbursts of anger to the “desires of your sinful nature” which need to be fought against (Galatians 5:19-23).

The best of modern psychology and studies in neuroscience reveal that suppressing emotions is not the best approach to human health and flourishing. Emotions are not evil; they are a part of the human experience. It’s important to normalize the entire spectrum of human emotions. We can easily slip into unhealthy attempts to avoid, numb, or suppress our unpleasant emotions in order to get rid of them. This approach is ineffective and backfires in the long run. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball under water indefinitely. It eventually explodes back to the surface. Marc Brackett is the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and I highly recommend his book Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Brackett’s research demonstrates the importance of learning how to recognize, name, and allow our emotions as an important beginning to understanding and regulating our emotions.

When it comes to unpleasant emotions and circumstances: What we resist persists. We all experience waves of emotions throughout our lives. Like waves in the ocean, our emotions rise and fall. They don’t last forever. If we constantly push away our emotions, we end up with an iceberg of emotions hidden beneath the surface of our consciousness. These buried emotions will often exert unwanted influences on our mental health and behaviors.

Sometimes our desire to push away our emotions was taught to us by our authority figures. You might take a moment and reflect on what range of emotions was allowed in your family while you were growing up. What emotions were allowed in your family? What emotions were not allowed? What range of emotions is okay with you today? Most people judge themselves when they have certain emotions which they perceive as unwanted or even evil. We tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel a certain way and judge ourselves for having normal human emotions. The best approach is to recognize and allow our emotions to rise and fall without judging. Instead, be curious, open, compassionate, and non-judgmental towards the whole spectrum of our emotions.

When you sit for a quiet meditation, learn to observe your emotions. Be curious about your own emotions. Recognize them and explore them. Notice how your emotions reside in your body. Where do you feel your emotions in your body? Then, be loving and kind to yourself. No feeling is final. Walter Mischel is known for the famous “Marshmallow Test” which he conducted with children. He would present a child with a marshmallow and give them a choice: Eat this marshmallow now or wait and enjoy two later. He would leave the room and then watch their response by video camera. It’s hilarious. Some children turn away and don’t look at it. Some smell it or lick it, but try not to eat it. Some nibble at the marshmallow, but don’t eat the whole thing. Some eat the marshmallow instantly.

Meditation can help us explore all the emotions we experience in life. Without being critical of our emotions, we can learn to explore them, smell them, and lick them like a kid with a marshmallow. Through daily practice in meditation, we can become skilled in emotional intelligence. American poet, Danna Faulds, credits the practice of meditation with giving her reliable access to a vivid inner life of creativity. Her poem “Allow” captures the essence of emotional intelligence:

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.

Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.

Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in letting it all in—

the wild and the weak—

fear, fantasies, failures, and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart

or sadness veils your vision with despair,

practice becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your known way of being,

the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Mindfulness Meditation: Breath & Body {part 2 of 6}

Listen: “Just Breathe” by Eddie Vedder

Many expressions of Western Christianity suffer from a disembodied spirituality, opting instead for intellectual debates centered around doctrinal purity. It’s most evident in the hundreds of Protestant denominations across the globe which have sprung up since the Reformation. Western Christianity features a spirituality that largely exists as an intellectual pursuit of “pure” doctrinal statements about everything from the nature of God, the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the number of sacraments or ordinances, the correct mode of baptism, the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, the second coming of Christ, and the list goes on, all of which have resulted in wars, divisions, and Christians fighting Christians (not to mention all the hatred towards other faith traditions). Apart from conversion and Pentecostal experiences, Western Christianity features many forms of doctrinal intellectual masturbation.

It’s a disembodied spirituality which occurs largely in the mind. Certainly, we are to love God with our mind, but also with our bodies and our whole being. We need a renaissance of embodied spirituality. Thank God we have the contemplative, mystical, and mindfulness meditation traditions to help us with this much needed course correction.

In his book Soulful Spirituality, David Benner describes a dialogue he had with a Taoist professor from Zhejang University named Zhang Xin Zhang concerning the importance of breath as the meeting of body, spirit, and soul. After hearing Zhang describe his meditation practice, Benner was struck by how important paying attention to his breath was in his practice.

Zhang: Am I not right that Christian’s understand their origins to lie in the infusion of divine breath into the dust of the earth? (Genesis 2:7)

Benner: Yes

Zhang: Am I not right that you understand each breath to be a gift from God?

Benner: Yes

Zhang: Am I not right that you understand that the Spirit of God is with you, moment by moment, breath by breath?

Benner: Yes

Zhang: Then how do you fail to see the immense spiritual value in attending to those moment-by-moment expressions of the presence of God?

Breath as an anchor to the body. Most humans regularly disassociate themselves from their bodies and get lost in thought—ruminating on past hurts and regrets, rehearsing future fears, and numbing emotional pain.

Breath is always with us and focusing on breath can help us connect with our bodies and pay attention to the present moment. Breath is a doorway to embodied spirituality which can foster awareness, help heal trauma, increase focus, lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and nurture gratitude.

Try sitting with a comfortable posture for five to fifteen minutes and focus on your breath. Notice how easy it is to lose focus on your breath and get lost in thoughts. Simply notice this and gently bring your thoughts back to your breath.

Ways to deepen breath practice. Start your meditation by taking three or four deep breaths. Then try some of the following ways to play with your breath and deepen your focus.

• Take deep breaths and hold your breath for thirty seconds or more, then exhale.

• Alternate breathing between your nose and mouth. Notice the feel of the breath entering and leaving your nose and mouth.

• Notice your breath on the back of your throat.

• Feel your breath above the lips.

• Expand your lungs and belly as you inhale, then collapse your lungs and belly.

• Focus on the space between your breaths.

• Focus on the beginning, middle, and end of your breath.

• Quiet your attention with your breath.

Some people may struggle with focus on breath. That’s ok. We always want to bring a kind, curious, non-judgmental attitude towards our meditation practice. Our inner critic will want to tell us we are doing it wrong. Be kind to yourself as you practice breath work.

Alternative anchors for the body. If breath is challenging, you might try some other ways to anchor yourself into your body.

• Do a full body scan. As you sit, scan your body from your head to your feet or from your feet to your head. Feel your feet contacting the ground. Wiggle your toes. Scan up your legs to your sit bones contacting your chair or the earth beneath you. Continue up your body to your stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, face, and head.

• Notice feelings in your body such as pain, warmth, cold, hot spots, tingling, tightness, tension, and pleasure.

• Use your five senses to feel your way into your body and notice your surroundings. What do you smell? What sounds are you hearing? What can you see? Gently touch, tap, stretch, or massage different parts of your body. Hold your hand to your chest and give yourself a hug.

The consequences of disassociating. Most humans have experienced pain and trauma to various degrees. We become skilled at numbing, avoiding, suppressing, and disassociating from emotional and physical pain. According to Brené Brown, “We cannot selectively numb emotion. If we numb the dark, we numb the light. If we take the edge off pain and discomfort, we are, by default, taking the edge off joy, love, belonging, and the other emotions that give meaning to our lives.”

By disassociating, we exacerbate our issues in the following ways:

1. We increase emotional fatigue and exhaustion by trying to suppress our emotions indefinitely, like holding a beach ball under water.

2. We increase our anxiety.

3. We develop unhealthy escape mechanisms.

4. We cut ourselves off from the wisdom of our body. For a classic treatment of the importance of the body in healing trauma, read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk.

Mindfulness meditation is an embodied spiritual practice with numerous benefits for mind, body, and spirit. For those in recovery (which is most people to one degree or another), it is an essential component of step eleven: “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” As Eddie Vedder sings: “Stay with me. Let’s just breathe.”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Mindfulness Meditation: An Introduction {part 1 of 6}

Listen: “Morning Has Broken” by Yusuf/Cat Stevens 

Most of my life I have begun my day with a morning devotion. I started a devotional practice while I was in high school which included prayers, scripture reading, occasional journaling, and meditation. My meditation practice was focused on deep reflection and memorization of my favorite scripture passages. I memorized thousands of scripture passages through the years including whole chapters of the Bible, select paragraphs and verses, and the Sermon on the Mount.

At the end of 2018 I went to rehab in Georgia to detox off of Xanax and alcohol which I had used every night for two years due to a thirty-year struggle with insomnia. While in rehab I was exposed to a therapy model called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) which has a mindfulness meditation component. I learned about the neuroscience of the brain, the science of addiction, and the science behind mindfulness meditation.

After I got out of rehab, I decided to pursue mindfulness meditation and incorporate the practice into my morning devotions. I found a meditation group and started practicing with the group. In 2023 I enrolled in a two-year mindfulness meditation teacher certification program (MMTCP) led by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.

There are many forms of meditation practice. What do we mean by mindfulness meditation?

What is meditation? Meditation involves training, directing, and focusing our attention in a deliberate way. It is the human capacity to open to perspectives larger than our ordinary consciousness or our small sense of separate self.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, caring attention to the here and now. Traditional components of mindfulness (Pali/Sanskrit traditions) include two wings: (1) Receptive—a spacious, kind, non-judging awareness of the present; and (2) Active—an appropriate response to the present situation rooted in lovingkindness.

Reactivity. The most ancient part of the human brain is called the amygdala. It’s the fight, flight, freeze part of the brain. Our amygdala wants to help us survive so it records experiences which could potentially kill us at a deep emotional level. Once an experience is embedded in the deep memory, our amygdala scans the horizon of our experiences looking for similar threats. Our amygdala is hypersensitive, and it can easily detect threats which do not exist.

Daniel Goleman coined the term “amygdala hijack” in his work on emotional intelligence. An amygdala hijack is “an immediate, overwhelming emotional response out of proportion to the stimulus because it has triggered a more significant emotional memory and threat from our past experiences.”

Most people struggle at times with a “racing brain” or “monkey mind.” My insomnia is rooted in my anxiety disorder which causes my brain to race with thoughts which I can’t turn off at night. Most people live their lives in reactivity due to this human phenomenon. Even mild forms of a “racing brain” result in disconnecting our bodies from our brains and make it extremely difficult to live into the present moment. Our brains are always regretting something from our past (a past behavior or conversation) or fearing something in the future. I have a strong planning brain which is goal oriented. My “to-do” lists which are connected to my future goals are on hyperdrive for fear I forget something or fail to foresee potential threats and opportunities.

Another uncomfortable intrusion is a harsh inner-critic. I know people who are extremely loving to other people, but they have a harsh inner critic of themselves (shame). We humans can be ten times harder on ourselves than we would be towards other people. All of this reactivity can cause a sense of foreboding joy even when things are going well. Our amygdala is always scanning the horizon looking for potential threats.

This constant reactivity in the brain (to ourselves, our circumstances, and other people) can cause us to search for ways to calm ourselves of the stress it creates. Resisting, suppressing, numbing, and disassociating become regular habits which we incorporate into our lives to survive the stress we feel.

Benefits. Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, said: “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in that space is your power and your freedom.” The science of mindfulness meditation reveals that the practice helps calm the mind, open the heart, and expand the space between stimulus and response. Mindfulness practice supports healing from anxiety, insomnia, ADHD, and PTSD, and fosters self-compassion, wisdom, and lovingkindness.

Four foundations. Mindfulness practice focuses on four foundations: (1) mindfulness of body; (2) mindfulness of feelings; (3) mindfulness of thoughts; and (4) mindfulness of experiences, relationships, and life processes. Its practices are found within all the great faith traditions, especially among the mystic and contemplative practitioners. It’s one of the cornerstones of the recovery tradition (Step Eleven): “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God….”

Poet T. S. Eliot wrote: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Waves Of Emotion

Listen: “Serotonin” by Girl in Red

As I was watching the Chiefs AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens on January 28, 2024, I experienced waves of emotions. I had a hard time sitting down. I was jumping out of my seat, at times yelling at the TV and pacing in the living room. In the three hours of viewing the game, my emotions went from the heights of joy and excitement to the depths of discouragement and frustration. All those emotions for a game that has little bearing on the day-to-day realities of my life.

Sunday, February 11, 2024, I watched Super Bowl LVIII as the Chiefs played the 49ers. I got so frustrated I turned off the game during the second half, but I was recording it. When the normal time length of the game ended, I didn’t hear any fireworks go off, so I assumed we lost. Then, well beyond the end of the normal game period, I heard fireworks going off in my neighborhood—I immediately thought: “We won in overtime!” So, I went back and watched the game knowing the outcome. It was glorious! I’ve been a Chiefs fan since we won Super Bowl IV.

The following Wednesday, February 14, I was watching the Chiefs parade from the comfort and safety of my own home. It was a proud moment for Kansas City, and I was soaking in the joy while I was preparing for my Ash Wednesday service amidst the Chiefs celebration, Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday.

Then, shots rang out. Chaos ensued. People started grabbing their kids and running for safety. KC police went into action. What started as a proud, showcase moment for Kansas City ended in trauma for many. The investigation is ongoing, and facts are coming in slowly, but, at the time of this writing, one person was killed, 22 others were injured, and two juveniles have been charged.

One of my close relatives was friends with the person who was killed (a DJ on a local radio station), and another friend had a nephew who was shot in the buttocks. This was a family event. Schools and businesses closed for the parade with an estimated 800,000 in attendance. In a matter of minutes, Kansas City went from the heights of collective joy and solidarity to the depths of collective trauma.

What are the healthiest ways of living with our emotions? All of us have experienced the roller coaster of emotions which we call life, and what CBS Wide World of Sports tagged years ago—The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.

Let’s set aside the social critique of gun violence in America and focus on living with our emotions in healthy ways. (Btw, I am in agreement with over 60% of Americans who want sensible gun control in America, and Missouri gun laws are abysmal. As a follower of Jesus, I have always tried to live by the Sermon on the Mount and take non-violence seriously.)

The importance of emotional intelligence. In 1995, Daniel Goleman published the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence (EI), which highlighted the importance of EI in leadership performance. EI is a better indicator of leadership success than IQ. Goleman defined EI as a set of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance: self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and relational management.

I was a big proponent of applying and teaching the insights of EI to my pastoral team at Vineyard Church in Kansas City, MO which I founded and pastored from 1990 to 2019. The problem that developed for me personally was that I tried to manage my personal emotions (particularly emotions which I considered negative like fear, anger, anxiety, and sexual energy) with some unhealthy strategies.

Unfortunately, as a young student of the Bible, I interpreted the Apostle Paul’s admonition in Galatians 5:16-23 as a prescription for managing my emotions. Paul talked about a battle between the flesh and the spirit. (It certainly feels like a battle at times, but we need healthy strategies for managing our emotions.) I wanted the fruit of the spirit which Paul described as things like love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and kindness. So, I tried to battle, suppress, avoid, and conquer my negative emotions in order to experience the fruit of the spirit.

The pathway to healthy emotional regulation. The problem is that battling and suppressing negative emotions does not work. A classic analogy: It’s like trying to push a big beach ball under the water and hold it under water indefinitely. It eventually pops up out of the water. Neuroscience and psychological insights have shown that “What We Resist Persists.”

Resisting negative emotions actually backfires and gives them more power and energy. A better, healthier technique was introduced by meditation teacher Michele McDonald about 25 years ago called RAIN Meditation. (Also see, Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN by Tara Brach.) The meditation practice of RAIN is a healthy way to process negative emotions.

R—Recognize what is happening. Research has shown that just taking time to pause, identify, and name an emotion is the first step for down regulating our sympathetic nervous system. (See Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett.)

A—Allow it. Whatever the emotion is, allow it. Receive it as a guest. “Hello fear and anxiety, my old traveling companions, how are you today?”

I—Investigate with a gentle, curious attention. As you investigate your emotions, don’t judge or be critical of your emotions, even if you don’t like it. Try to investigate the emotion with openness, curiosity, and non-judgment.

N—Nuture with kind presence. By practicing RAIN meditation, we can begin to observe our emotions without identifying with them and getting caught in them. Emotions will rise and fall like waves in the ocean.

This is also a practice which can begin a healing process for our individual and collective trauma. I wish you peace and lovingkindness on your journey towards well-being and wholeness.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Faith: Risk with Direction

Listen: “Shake It Out” by Florence + The Machine

How many of you love New Year’s resolutions? How many of you hate New Year’s resolutions? As we press into 2024, what new faith adventures will unfold for us? I know. Some of you dislike risk and adventure, but it’s actually impossible to live without it. The riskiest thing you do most every day is to get in your car and drive.

I had a spiritual mentor (John Wimber) in the 90’s who often said: “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” He was focusing on the adventure dynamics of faith. The word “faith” can mean different things. We can talk about faith traditions like Christianity or Buddhism, which focuses on belief systems. Faith can also mean “trust.” Trust in God. Trust in people. Trust in ourselves. And sometimes faith is closely related to “hope.” We take a risk and hope for a good outcome. A well-known passage in the Bible says: “Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:6).

I like to think of my spiritual journey through life as a faith adventure. I’ve always loved outdoor adventure, and I enjoy taking risks which relate to desired outcomes. You can’t grow spiritually without taking risks. You can’t grow a business or an organization without taking risks. A faith adventure always involves a potential for failure which is why many people are risk averse.

Several years ago (2018), I was attending a pastor conference. Pastors tend to talk shop, church shop, so I usually ask pastors what they do for fun. It gets the conversation off church, and I learn more about the person. On this particular occasion, I was having dinner with a pastor from Ireland (Andy Masters). When I asked him what he did for fun, he said: “I love to rock climb.” I was so excited. I have asked hundreds of pastors this question around the world for a few decades, and this was the first pastor who told me they liked rock climbing. I have been rock climbing since my late teens.

We talked rock climbing for the next hour, and then I asked him about his family. He said his wife was a singer. I asked what kind of singing, and he said: “She’s a jazz singer and tours with Van Morrison.” His wife, Dana Masters, is an African-American jazz singer whom he met in Los Angeles one year. They married and built their home in Ireland together, and Dana was recruited by Van when he heard her sing one night in Ireland. I was so surprised.

Andy had always dreamed of rock climbing in Colorado, so in the summer of 2018 we took his whole family to Colorado for a rock climbing adventure. Dana’s mother came along to watch the kids, and she shared her experiences of marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. So amazing!

Prior to traveling to Colorado with the Master’s family, I was on a vacation in Ireland with my sisters, and I met up with Andy in Ireland. I wanted to mountain bike and rock climb in Ireland. Andy set me up with one of his young friends who was a mountain bike pro in Ireland. His friend found an Irish mountain bike for me and before we began the ride, he said: “Oh, by the way, Irish mountain bikes are different than American mountain bikes. The brakes are reversed.” I’m glad he told me, but I didn’t think much of it. We hopped on the mountain bikes and started climbing up a mountain. It took us over an hour to climb up the mountain and then came the fast bomb down the mountain. He’s flying down the mountain, and I’m trying to keep up.

We come to the first big drop off a rock ledge, and I push the bike out in front of me to get behind my seat so I can land the drop on my rear wheel. For years I have used my right rear brake to control the rear wheel when it hits the ground. I do it automatically without thinking.

The problem this time is that I am hitting my right brake which in Ireland is my front brake. I unintentionally locked up my front wheel, and when it hit the ground it launched me over my handlebars. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to tuck and roll out of it. I’m flying through the air like Superman, and I’m thinking: “This is going to hurt.” I arched back so I wouldn’t face plant, but I landed in rocks and tore myself up. I was bleeding from my elbows, chest, and knees. Nothing was broken, so I got back on the bike and finished the ride. But I was more mindful of my brakes for the rest of the ride. Tough lesson.

Some risks don’t turn out well—a new relationship, a new job, a new company, a new adventure. Some risks can be very foolish. Some risks can be a little edgy, not foolish, but on the edge. But all of us take risks, even if it's driving our car to the grocery store. Faith adventures always involve risks, and nothing we do in life is risk free (except maybe watching television in your comfy chair but I knew a guy who died of a heart attack in his comfy chair).

So how do we navigate the risks inherent in this world in which we live? My whole life I have been very driven to accomplish goals. I have always had a 3–5-year plan, and I worked the plan year after year. I have failed many times, and I have succeeded many times. I loved being a visionary leader and leading my church to exciting growth year after year for almost three decades. Always taking calculated risks that usually paid off well.

Suddenly, while I was pastoring one of the fastest growing churches in America, not riding an Irish mountain bike, I crashed and burned spiritually. I found out I couldn’t fly and tore myself up emotionally and spiritually. I went through a massive meltdown and lost most everything—my career, my community, my marriage, and even my faith was shattered.

Everything went dark. Loss on top of loss. Darkness like I have never experienced. The only passage in the Bible to which I related was the one Jesus quoted from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1-2).

I had lost most everything, and I needed a safe place to fall apart. The recovery community was that safe place for me. In the midst of my darkness, I had no vision, no 3–5-year plan, no direction, no sense of guidance.

In fact, I didn’t care if I lived or died. But I was still breathing. Barely alive. Without any vision, my only mission was survival—One Day at A Time. I was talking to Brian McLaren processing some of my grief, and he said: “Sometimes survival is underrated.” Just survive and recover—One Day at A Time. That was never one of my ideas of a faith adventure, but in my case, that’s all I had in me—survival.

As I started stringing some days together just surviving, I started thinking about the rest of my life. I still have breath. I’m still alive. How do I want to live the rest of my life? I had no great vision, but how do I heal and move forward?

I started focusing on the kind of person I want to become. As I was questioning everything, even God’s existence, I thought: “Even if there is no God, there is love in the world. There is beauty in the world. There is creativity in the world. There is flourishing in the world along side darkness, suffering, destruction, and evil.” So, I decided I wanted to give myself to what is lovely and beautiful while focusing on becoming the kind of person who helps advance love and beauty in the world.

I boiled everything down to a few core values with the intention of becoming a more loving human being. For me, I latched onto some core values in the recovery community—rigorous honesty, vulnerability, humility, and gratitude—all of which are enveloped in love. I decided to be rigorously honest and vulnerable about who I am and what I am going through with a safe and loving group of people.

This was a new faith adventure of sorts—risk with direction. Could I trust God even in the darkness? Could I trust people again? Could I find a safe community in which I could fall apart and rebuild? Was I willing to take the risk with a clear focus on becoming, instead of my typical 3–5-year plan? I could crash and burn all over again. I knew I couldn’t fly. Already tried that.

Perhaps, if you don’t like making new year resolutions, maybe you can just focus on becoming. What’s interesting for me is after a few years of focusing on becoming, my vision is starting to percolate again. I guess I haven’t ventured too far from my roots. As I conclude this blog, I am reminded of one of the Apostle Paul’s most famous quotes from the love chapter: “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

Faith Adventures for 2024

Happy New Year to everyone!

As another year ends, we look forward to 2024 with hope and faith at Spirituality Adventures.

Join us in-person or by live stream Friday night January 12 for Martin, Music, and the Movement Now! Music by Calvin Arsenia, Kadesh Flow, and Just Angel. Keynote Speaker is Dr. Nicole Price. Panel Discussion with Pastor Michael Brooks, Pastor Greg Ealy, Pastor Anthony Mondaine, and Pastor Fred Herron.

I started a memoir last year and came close to finishing the rough draft over the holidays. I am working with an editor and hope to publish it in 2024!

Don’t miss our weekly podcasts which are released on YouTube and all the podcast platforms and be sure and subscribe and share all your favorite episodes.

Risk with Direction

Take a few minutes and listen to my new talk on faith, goal setting, and the art of becoming.

Wishing you a new year filled with fresh gratitude, awareness, love, beauty, and creativity.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2024

gift economy

Listen: “Kind & Generous” by Natalie Merchant

I was born in Wichita, Kansas, but moved to the Kansas City area in 1966. I was five years old living in Prairie Village, Kansas. My dad was hired by TWA when the airport was located downtown. While I was attending Prairie Elementary School, the YMCA put on a program called Indian Guides at the church across the street from my school. Indian Guides was an effort to teach white kids indigenous culture.

I was seven or eight years old when my dad enrolled me in Indian Guides. It was my first introduction to North American indigenous culture. By the way, the program was eventually critiqued, and the name was changed to Adventure Guides. But for me, as a seven-year-old, I didn't understand all the different perspectives which were contained in that critique. As I kid, I ended up loving indigenous culture. I started reading books about indigenous culture and started studying the history of all that happened with indigenous peoples: the broken treaties, the stealing of the land, and the indoctrination of European perspectives on land rights. I didn't know any of that when I started Indian Guides, but I developed a love for indigenous peoples because of the program.

And it was a love that continued throughout my whole life. I actually like the indigenous vision of seeing all of nature as living beings. It’s a healthy vision. There are passages in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures which reference mountains singing and trees clapping their hands (Isaiah 55:12). If you read Psalm 19, notice that the first Bible for all living beings is nature itself. The first Bible is nature. Psalm 19 observes how all creation speaks—the voice of nature speaks—and it sees all of nature as living beings from which we can learn. I have always loved nature, and I love that indigenous vision of nature.

I recently read a new favorite book on indigenous culture. As many of you know, I love bicycles, and I love books. If you hang out around me long enough, I'll encourage you to ride a bike, and I’ll recommend a book or two. The book is by Robin Wall Kimmerer entitled Braiding Sweetgrass. She published this book with a small press back in 2013, but it's one of those books that every artist dreams of. It basically became popular by word of mouth. Over the last 10 years, it's sold 1.6 million copies. Robin studied as a botanist, but her family background was of mixed descent with a strong indigenous heritage from the Algonquin tribes, particularly the Potawatomi tribe from the Great Lakes region. The subtitle of her book is Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

As we explore the topic of generosity, I think Robin Wall Kemmerer’s book, which integrates indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge, has some beautiful insights which need to be integrated with our Judeo-Christian tradition.

The first insight comes from the indigenous origin story of humanity. Robin opens her book with the origin story of how humans landed on this planet according to her Potawatomi tradition. It’s the story of “Skywoman Falling.” Skywoman existed in the sky before she fell to earth. Skywoman steps through a hole in the sky, falls through the sky, and plunges towards dark waters. As she's falling, geese see her and flock to her aid and catch her to soften her fall. As she falls, she hits the dark waters and begins to plunge into the depths of the dark water. Other animals see this and move to her rescue. A muskrat swims down, pulls her up, and gives his life for Skywoman. As the muskrat takes his last breath, he's got some mud in his hand.

A turtle offers her support for Skywoman and says: “Put the mud on my back.” Skywoman is rescued by the animals and the turtle. As Skywoman expresses her gratitude, she begins to spread the mud on the turtle's back and dance in gratitude on top of the mud, which then begins to expand. The whole earth expands out of this mud on the turtle's back. According to Potawatomi tradition, North Americans live on Turtle Island. That's the name of our homeland, Turtle Island, according to indigenous peoples.

What's beautiful about this story is that humanity is in harmony with nature, not at odds with nature. That's a big point—an origin story where humanity is in harmony with nature, not at odds with nature.

Now, if you think about the Christian origin story, and by the way, there are many origin stories from ancient cultures. The Judeo-Christian story starts in Genesis 1 &2. What you see is humanity made in the image of God, men and women, both fully made in the image of God. And they're placed in the garden, a beautiful garden sanctuary. The whole garden is like a garden temple. In Genesis 2:15 humanity is given responsibility to “tend and watch” the garden and all of creation. Humanity's task is to tend and watch, to care, to steward, to nurture, and to live in harmony with all creation. It's a vision of harmony with nature. It's a beautiful vision.

Unfortunately, what happens for many Christians in various Christian traditions, is that they start the Christian origin story in Genesis 3. Genesis 3 is a story of shame, cursedness, and banishment from the Garden of Eden. For some people in Christianity, Original Sin becomes the origin story. I think if you start with Genesis 3, you end up distorting the origin story. Shame is certainly a condition which humans experience. I experienced deep, dark shame in 2019, but shame is not our true identity. We need to be healed from shame. Genesis 1 & 2 describes our true nature and true calling—one of Original Blessing and Goodness. Genesis 1 & 2 calls us to live in harmony with nature—in sustainability, mutuality, and reciprocity with nature. Shame banishes us from the garden, and we live in enmity with ourselves, each other, and the planet. We need to learn from indigenous wisdom and restore a vision of Original Blessing from Genesis 1 & 2.

The second insight Robin gives us regards how indigenous culture values a gift economy versus a commodity economy. Kimmerer reminds us of how Europeans arrived on Turtle Island with a different view of the world. Europeans didn’t see nature as living beings with which to live in harmony and reciprocity. Rather, they viewed nature as a commodity—a commodity which could be conquered, owned, bought, and sold. Commodities can cease to be gifts. Gifts create harmonious relationships with the gift, the giver, the receiver, and the co-creator.

Think about it, we human beings can't live on our own when we're first born. The fact that you exist means that you have received gifts of nurture and support just to be living and breathing right now. You've received thousands of gifts which have been bestowed on your life in order for you to exist. Gifts of food, water, clothing, shelter, and love, all of which derive from nature, family, friends, and acquaintances.

We have to draw upon nature for living water and bread of life. We live in community, hopefully in loving community, and in harmony with nature. But if we view everything as a commodity, we begin to lose the relationship with nature and with each other. So, for example, how many of you have ever received a gift from somebody that was just a commodity, that was purchased at a store, maybe a big box store? They gave it to you as a gift, but it really didn't mean a whole lot. Anybody have some items laying around their house or in your closets or in your garage that were just simply a commodity? And the origin of that particular gift is almost meaningless, right?

On the other hand, how many of you have received a gift given with love which produces a loving relationship with the giver? Every Christmas my mother would decorate a Christmas tree, and on that Christmas tree she would hang the ugliest Christmas ornament that you could imagine—front and center. It was a Christmas angel I made for her when I was in the first grade. It was made out of something like flour and water. It was like a Play-Doh angel. Remember the Pillsbury Doughboy? It was a female version of that, a chubby little angel with wings, with little chubby, short legs, and with a big chubby belly. I shaped it with my hands and painted beautiful golden hair and blue wings. I think it’s one of the ugliest angels I’ve ever seen. Over the course of time, its wings fell off and then its legs fell off.

After a few decades, it was just a head and a body, but it still made its way onto the Christmas tree. And my mom cherishes that gift. You understand why it's not a commodity, right? There's a relationship with me, the gift, and my mom. But honestly, if we could learn to live like that with all of creation, with all of nature, if we could begin to restore the relationship with gift, giver, creator, and receiver, with what we eat, with how we live, and with how we love, then we would be living in the loving, uncontrolling, ever giving, ever creating heart of God.

There's a beautiful vision that Robin Wall Kimmerer is trying to reclaim by writing Braiding Sweetgrass. She's trying to restore this vision of generosity, of receiving and giving gifts, and of seeing all of life as a gift. We have a relationship with all living beings and nature and people who give into our lives. And then we give back with love and beauty and grace and generativity.

Proverbs 11:24-25 reads: “Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed” (NLT). I don't prefer the word “wealthy” because we all of a sudden think of bank accounts, but what we're talking about is a vision of generosity and reciprocity. If you want to reap what you sow, don't just sow one seed and check on it every day and pull it out of the ground just to see if it's working. That's sowing with stinginess. Sow everything generously. And then don't worry about how it comes back, but trust that it will come back. This is reciprocity, a karma of sorts—sowing and reaping. It's a gift type economy where we give and sow freely, generously out of a heart of love and gratitude because we've received so much. We keep those gifts in motion, and there's a flow and a relationship between the gift, the giver, and the receiver.

Indigenous peoples cherished a gift economy where everything's in motion. You give and you receive; and you receive and you give. But all of a sudden, European settlers didn’t see it that way. Indigenous peoples were stigmatized as “Indian Givers” because they wanted something back. But no, that wasn't the vision. It wasn't like giving a single seed and then expecting something back in return, but it was a vision of gifts in motion. One of scattering seed all over, and then it comes back. And there's a reciprocity of love with nature, with living beings, and with humans. That's the flow of generosity—the heart of God—a gift economy.

Think about Gollum in Lord of the Rings. When he got the ring, what did he say? “Precious” and “Mine.” “It's mine.” So that's the stingy version. But the generous will prosper, and those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. Think about the difference between homegrown, homemade versus store-bought commodities where there's no relationship. Our calling is to move into a gift economy.

Robin Wall Kimmerer also brings out is the difference between gift economy and private property. As you know, indigenous people didn't believe that someone could own the land. The land is the land. The land owns the land. Mother nature owns the land. The Great Spirit infuses the land. People don’t own the land. We simply live in reciprocity with the land and with nature. We receive gifts from it, and we give back to it. We live in sustainable ways with nature, with living beings, and with one another. But Europeans were more like Gollum when it came to the land: “It’s mine.”

I hope you’ve figured out by now that you don't take anything with you when you leave this planet, right? We can try. I mean, if you visit the Egyptian pyramids and some of the wealthy pharaohs, they buried a bunch of stuff with them for comforts in the afterlife. But really, we don't take it with us, right? You leave it all behind. You know, the old funny statement: “There's no U-Haul’s following a hearse.” I've done hundreds of funerals, and you don't take it with you. You leave it all behind. Who owns it? Who owns your stuff? Who owns your house? Who owns your car? Who owns your things? Robin Wall Kimmerer shows that in a gift economy, nobody really owns it. It's all just a gift in motion.

The land owns it. We can't own it. We can share; we can receive; and we can give. We can live in harmony. But if we try to own it and possess it, then we are moving off course. According to Psalm 24:1, who owns the earth? Psalm 24:1 says: “The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all its people belong to him for he laid the earth's foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths” (NLT). So God owns it. It's not ours. It's on loan, right? Everything that we have is on loan. And Robin Wall Kimmerer beautifully illustrates through her tradition how we desperately need to return to a vision of a gift economy—for our own well-being and the well-being of all living beings and the planet itself.

We keep everything in motion. Everything is in motion. God is always self-giving and co-creating with all of creation. And we live in that reciprocity with all living beings. And we recognize that it's not ours. It's a gift that we've received, and it's a gift to be shared. There's a responsibility that comes with the gifts that we receive, and there's a responsibility to share the gifts that we receive. There’s an interesting verse that most people have never read or noticed in the Torah. The first five books of the Old Testament (The Hebrew Bible) is called the Torah. One of the Torah passages, Leviticus 25:23 says: “The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me [God]. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me” (NLT).

So Israel doesn't own the land. We actually don’t own anything. It’s on loan. I think that's really what the Torah's pointing towards. The Torah is more in sync with the indigenous wisdom of a gift economy. There's a celebration every fifty years called Jubilee in the Torah. People who have lost land and fallen into debt are forgiven. Debts are forgiven and land is redistributed. Jubilee resets everything. And the land goes back to original ownership. You don't ever lose your land forever. There's a beautiful vision that everything we have is just on loan, and we don't really own it. We can steward resources with a new vision of gift economy.

With this vision of a gift economy, Robin Wall Kimmerer calls us to live in harmony and gratitude with nature, other living beings, one another, and the plant itself. Through ceremonies we can live with a new sense of gratitude and awareness. This is what mindfulness meditation does for me. And according to Robin, we can create our own ceremonies or rituals for gratitude, thanksgiving, and awareness. One of the things that her dad did, even though her dad had been separated from the Potawatomi tradition due to some of the European practices that separated indigenous peoples from their lands and from their native ways, was teach Robin the ways of indigenous wisdom.

Robin recalls how they would go on family camping and canoe trips in the Great Lakes area, and every morning they would get up her dad would make coffee. When he made coffee every morning, he would boil it and pour off the coffee grounds that rose to the top, similar to the ancient coffee ceremonies in Ethiopia. He would pour the coffee grounds into the land, and they would become one with the humus. He would give thanks to Tahawus, which was the indigenous name for Mount Marcy meaning cloud splitter, and the Great Spirit.

Robin often asked her dad how far back in history the coffee ceremony originated. She wanted to know the richness of that history because as a trained scientific botanist she had lost some of the magic of the indigenous teachings of plants and nature. She was thinking that there was some special, magical tradition that extended back in ancient indigenous practices.

However, Robin records her father’s response and her own:

“I’ve been thinking about the coffee and how we started giving it to the ground. You know, it was boiled coffee. There’s no filter and if it boils too hard the grounds foam up and get stuck in the spout. So the first cup you pour would get that plug of grounds and be spoiled. I think we first did it to clear the spout.” It was as if he’d told me that the water didn’t change into wine—the whole web of gratitude, the whole story of remembrance, was nothing more than the dumping of the grounds?

“But, you know,” he said, “there weren’t always grounds to clear. It started out that way, but it became something else. A thought. It was a kind of respect, a kind of thanks. On a beautiful summer morning, I suppose you could call it joy.”

That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist.

What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.

The first Bible is nature itself. Psalms 19 declares: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known” (Ps 19:1-2; NLT). It's a beautiful way to immerse ourselves in the loving, self-giving heart of God who co-creates a gift economy with all of creation.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2023

Negativity/Positivity Bias

Listen: “Creep” by Radio Head

 “Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones,” according to Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. One of the most ancient parts of the human brain is called the amygdala. It sits on top of the brain stem and regulates our fight, flight, freeze responses. These responses are ancient and hardwired into our brain in order to protect us. In the ancient world of hunting and gathering, one’s survival depended on a quick reaction to potential threats that could kill you.

The amygdala is not the thinking part of the brain; it’s the reactionary part of the brain. It scans the horizon of our human experience looking for threats and warning us by activating limbic system for fight, flight, and freeze. It stores threatening experiences by recording them emotionally. This is how PTSD occurs. 

Once a threatening emotional experience is stored deeply in our brain stem our amygdala continues to scan the horizons of our human experience to warn us of another potential threat. The more powerful and threatening the experience, the more deeply it is stored in our brain. It evolved this way to help us survive.

Unfortunately, in the modern world, our amygdala can overreact—an amygdala hijack. The term was coined by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Today, it is considered a formal academic term by affective neuroscientists. According to Goldman, an amygdala hijack is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat.

This is the source of our negativity bias. Negative emotional experiences stick like Velcro. Our minds quickly obsess on negative emotions, replaying past regrets and future fears. It’s the source of my long history with insomnia—my racing brain—which keeps me up at night.

How can we regulate an overactive amygdala? Certainly, some people need professional help (such as a psychiatrist, therapist, and group therapy, myself included), but we can also develop resources within ourselves. This is where mindfulness meditation can help.

Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, has famously stated: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Mindfulness meditation helps grow the space.

Rick Hanson has pointed out how we need to nurture and cultivate positivity. Negativity sticks like Velcro, without any effort on our part. Positivity is a different creature. Hanson says we need to reflect on positive experiences for at least fifteen seconds for these experiences to stick, otherwise they slide away like Teflon. We, in a very real sense, have to rewire our brain with spiritual practices like meditation and contemplation.

Here’s a simple practice for you to try. Find a quiet place to sit for five to ten minutes and follow this process for a guided meditation which will help you nurture positivity and happiness. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Find a comfortable posture. Sit and take three deep breaths. Relax and scan your body from head to toe. Focus on relaxing your muscles and places of tension in your body. Take three more deep breaths and allow a half-smile to form on your face.

Bring something to mind that brings you joy. It might be an experience in nature, in a forest or by a lake, stream, or ocean. It might be an experience of dancing with a loved one or a moment with a pet. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory elicits. Hold this memory for at least one minute.

Bring something to mind that is a blessing. Think of someone or something for whom you are grateful. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory recalls. Hold this memory for at least one minute.

Bring something to mind that makes you laugh with joy. Think of an experience with a person, a pet, or a circumstance which caused joyful laughter. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory contains. Hold this memory for at least one minute.

Express gratitude for these experiences. Verbalize your gratitude. Take a moment and journal (or voice memo) your gratitude for these experiences. Take a deep breath and sense the joy of being alive.

This is a simple exercise. It doesn’t take much time. And you will quickly feel the benefits of this mindfulness practice. If you incorporate regular meditation practice over a period of time, just like physical exercise, you will begin to rewire your brain with a greater capacity to experience and cultivate positivity, joy, and happiness.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2023