Embodied Spirituality

Listen: “Chandelier” by Sia

Tristan, the protagonist of the story “Legends of the Fall,” is said to have had “a good death.” Is there a good way to die and a bad way to die? Physically speaking, everybody has their opinion; but what about spiritually? All of the great faith traditions speak of the reality of an internal battle within us—a struggle between our best self and our false self, or “shadow boxing,” as some would call it. There is a part of our self, our ego, that is a “false self”—a persona built on a shaky foundation that needs to die or be transformed. There is also a “true self” that needs to emerge. The real you. (I opened with this paragraph in an earlier blog entitled, “False Self, True Self—A Good Death,” November 2, 2020, spiritualityadventures.com.)

Unfortunately, many of us adopted a form of disembodied spirituality, an approach which does not lead to “a good death.” This approach comes to us in large part from the Greek philosophical tradition. Most Greek philosophers viewed emotions (pathos), especially negative emotions, as something to be feared and conquered. For the Greeks, it was believed that God could not experience emotions and that emotions were dangerous for humans. Emotions, especially negative emotions, were incompatible with the dignity of the divine; likewise, humans should attempt to live a rational life over against an emotional life. Emotions pull us downward into the realm of evil spirits. Homer’s heroes interpreted negative emotions as a daemon who uses the human mind and body as its instrument. Xenocrates, a Stoic philosopher, taught that every emotion, especially sudden anger, is aroused by the evil spirits dwelling in the soul. (For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets, “The Philosophy of Pathos,” pp. 318-343.)

Emotions are experienced and stored in the body. All of our emotions, from joy to sadness, reside within our physical bodies. Learning to live with our emotions, listen to our emotions, experience all of our emotions, receive wisdom from our emotions, and heal from emotional pain, is the path of embodied spirituality.

If you grew up in the Christian tradition, you are aware of the Apostle Paul’s writings. He talks about dying to the “self” quite often. One of his classic discussions on this topic is Galatians 5. Paul writes, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions” (Gal. 5:17). Then he describes the fruit of the sinful nature: “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). Notice that the fruits of the sinful nature (or false self) are mostly a list of behaviors. According to Paul, these behaviors are symptomatic of the false self (sinful nature). They are not a list of core emotions (with the exception of anger, but the focus is on the outburst not the anger itself).

I think this is an important distinction that could lead to a good death or bad death of the false self. For decades I tried to “die to self” by suppressing, subduing, ignoring, or battling my negative emotions. I was thinking this was the way to “die” to bad behaviors. However, the opposite is true. One thing we have learned from psychologists like Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Suppressing negative emotions leads to a host of other issues like depression, anxiety, guilt, and shame. (See Hilary Jacobs Hendel, It’s Not Always Depression.)

Suppression is a form of disembodied spirituality, which does not result in emotional health or healing. This is not a good death spiritually or emotionally. Suppressing, ignoring, or fighting negative emotions does not work in the long run, and it causes a multitude of other problems. Numbing is another form of disembodied spirituality. People try to numb negative emotions while enhancing pleasurable emotions through substances. The problem is—you can’t selectively numb emotions with substances. A good death to the false self sets us free; it integrates and transforms us. A bad death just numbs us out and makes us more ill.

Paul in Galatians describes the struggle between the false self and the true self (something with which we intuitively identify), expounds on a list of symptomatic behaviors, and points to our resurrected true self as our hope. He does not provide a model for dealing with negative emotions. It’s possible that he was unduly influenced by the Stoics, or that he was focused on theology more than emotional healing.

For those who grew up in the Judeo/Christian traditions, the Psalms of lamentation are the best place in Scripture to learn how to deal with negative emotions (an approach which integrates well with modern psychology). There are about forty-two Psalms of lament in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). If you read through these Psalms you will see a pattern: invocation, complaint, request, hope, and praise. The complaints express every negative emotion in the human repertoire. (Hendel identifies core emotions as fear, anger, grief, excitement, disgust, and sexual excitement. The famous “Feeling Wheel” developed by Dr. Gloria Wilcox identifies core emotions as sad, mad, scared, peaceful, powerful, and joyful. Core emotions are hardwired in our brain and body. Hendel identifies inhibitory emotions as shame, guilt, and anxiety.) This pattern of expression of negative emotions is a healthy pattern. We need to learn to listen to our negative emotions and express them. We might share them with God, with our journal, with a friend or partner, with a support group, or with a therapist.

Mindfulness meditation is another resource for the practice of embodied spirituality. Through mindfulness meditation, I have learned to listen to my emotions with openness, curiosity, and self-compassion. It is important to hear and to understand our negative emotions. It’s also incredibly important to end up in a place of hope and gratitude as we express our negative emotions. That can take effort—even a daily gratitude list when we don’t feel grateful.

The Psalms of lament give us a healthy model for emotional expression. At times these psalms are messy and raw and vicious. They express doubt and anger towards God and others. They question God and challenge God. I have talked to many people who don’t like these psalms—they are too raw. But expressing emotions in appropriate contexts is so important for emotional, spiritual, and relational health. The individual and communal Psalms of lament make up almost a third of the book of Psalms. Jesus quoted from Psalm 22 on the cross. Even Jesus felt utterly abandoned by God and expressed it.

Healing comes by releasing negative emotions in a healthy way. Hendel gives a simple four step process which can be applied throughout the day: (1) pause and breath; (2) tune in and listen to your body; (3) Identify underlying core emotions and name each one; and (4) think through best actions. This is the work of embodied spirituality—processing emotions in a deep way through therapy, journaling, prayer, and meditation.

Our emotions will teach us important truths about ourselves. Even our negative emotions, if processed well, can lead us to positive change at work, at home, and at play. They have a purpose. I am learning how to live an embodied spirituality—but quite frankly—there are times in which I’d rather just beat up my negative emotions by suppressing, subduing, or conquering them. Sharing them makes me feel weak, but I’m telling myself that’s not a bad thing—feeling weak. It’s the beginning of “a good death.”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

9/11 Memorial

Listen: “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys

I visited the 9/11 Memorial Park and Museum for the first time this past weekend (August 19, 2022). I walked up to the South Tower Pool and looked down at the names which are inscribed upon the stone wall surrounding the fountain of water: the names of the people who died in the South Tower on 9/11. The first name I looked at was Richard Herron Woodwell. I did a double take. There are over a thousand names inscribed around the South Pool honoring the lives of those who died, and the first name I see is Richard Herron Woodwell. My dad is Richard Lee Herron and I am Frederick Lee Herron. What a strange coincidence.

I took a picture and sent a text to my dad. As I was walking through the museum, I went into the exhibit in which they display the pictures of all who died. I specifically looked for Richard Herron Woodwell. As I was standing and looking at Richard Herron Woodwell’s picture, a couple next to me was talking about Richard. As I overheard them talking, I realized the guy was a friend of Richard. I introduced myself to the couple and told them about seeing Richard’s name inscribed on the South Pool. I told them it was the first name I noticed and that my dad is named Richard Herron. We both stood there and puzzled over the chances of that scenario actually happening. What a strange synchronicity.

I am not assuming I am related to Richard Herron Woodwell, but both my dad and I looked him up online. Richard was a graduate of Dartmouth (1979) and an investment banker working on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center Tower Two on September 11, 2001. On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Jim Wasz, who was Dartmouth Class President of 1979, wrote a beautiful tribute to Richard Herron Woodwell (1979.Dartmouth.org). Maybe this blog will find its way to his surviving friends and family.

Seeing Richard Herron Woodwell’s name at the 9/11 memorial reminded me of how interconnected we are as humans. Sometimes it takes a tragedy like 9/11 to remind us of how connected we really are. Our nation feels so divided twenty-one years after 9/11, but the reality is that every human on the planet bears the image of God—we are touched with a divine spark. The nature of that divine spark is love. “God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them” (1 John 4:16).

I was reminded of this when I listened to the phone calls that were made from the passengers of hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11. The 9/11 Museum has a room in which you can listen to all the calls which were made from that flight. Every call was a call to a loved one. Knowing that death was immanent, each passenger made calls to the ones they loved in order to express their love verbally one last time. Love unites us.

The other experience I had while I toured the 9/11 Museum was my own memories of 9/11. Twenty-one years ago on Tuesday, September 11, I was preparing a message for the grand opening Sunday service of Vineyard Church at our then new location on 169 highway. I had started small groups in 1990, and then launched our first Sunday morning service at Lakeview Middle School in September 1992. We had grown to about 400 people at the middle school by September 2001.

I was preparing a new grand opening series of messages on the topic of God’s love and grace. I was gleaning from Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace.
I wanted the church to be founded on extravagant grace and love.

On that Tuesday morning twenty-one years ago, I remember going downstairs and turning on the TV and seeing the second plane hit the second tower. I fell to my knees and began to cry. I rethought my message for the Sunday after 9/11 and stuck with the theme of love and grace. I thought our world needed it. I heard so many pastors in America spewing hatred towards all Muslims in the world and LGBTQ peoples in America. All I could think of were the words of Jesus to love our neighbors and our enemies. Violence does not heal violence. Hatred does not dispel darkness—only love can do that. We had over 800 people attend that grand opening service, doubling our attendance in one week.

Twenty-one years later, I still think we need extravagant love and grace to heal our own lives, our nation, and our world. Jesus’ life and message was saturated in extravagant love and grace. Let’s immerse ourselves in that life-giving stream.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Liminal Space

Listen: “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid) by Arcade Fire

I was recently hiking through Parkville Nature Sanctuary with a new friend, and I was describing the last three years of my life to him. He commented, “It’s like you are in a ‘liminal space’ in your life.” It’s not a term which I had used to describe my life, but as we discussed the meaning of the term it certainly fit. In architectural terms, it’s a transitional space between two locations, like a hallway or a foyer. In horror movies, it’s the frightening, suspense-filled spaces which create emotional tension in the plot line. Used psychologically, it’s an uncomfortable space in life which feels like an empty void or even death, but it holds a person on the precipice of a new beginning.

Richard Rohr compares a liminal experience to “the sign of Jonah” (Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, pp. 43-55). Jonah was an ancient Hebrew prophet depicted in a fantastical ancient Hebrew story. The story is unusual in many respects, but two things stand out to me in relationship to this blog. Firstly, Jonah was called upon to deliver a message to the most vicious, bloodthirsty kingdom in the ancient Near Eastern world—The Assyrians. It would be comparable to a Jewish person called to deliver a moral message to the Nazi’s in Germany in 1936. Most Hebrew prophets were called to deliver messages to Jewish people. Jonah was called upon to deliver a message which held out hope for redemption and grace to one of Israel’s most despised enemies. The potential for grace and love for one’s enemies was an unusual message for a Hebrew prophet to deliver. Secondly, Jonah resisted the call to go to Nineveh (the capital of the ancient Assyrians) and ran in the opposite direction. This led Jonah to one of the most iconic liminal experiences contained in all of human literature—the belly of a whale.

That’s right. Jonah was so repulsed by the call that he hopped on a ship sailing in the opposite direction of Nineveh. A storm ensued—the imagery is magnificent—and the shipmates determined that Jonah was the cause so they threw him overboard and Jonah was swallowed by a whale. He spent three days in the belly of the whale before he was vomited up on the shore and called once again to go to Nineveh. Listen to the prayer which Jonah prayed from the belly of the whale:

I called out from my straits

   to the Lord, and He answered me.

From the belly of Sheol I cried out—

   you heard my voice.

You flung me into the deep, in the heart of the sea,

   and the current came round me.

All your breakers and waves

   streamed over me….

Water lapped about me to the neck,

   the deep came round me,

      weed was bound round my head (Jonah 2:3-6; Trans. by Robert Alter).

Liminal experiences create a void which only love and grace can fill. Liminal spaces in life can be created by our own choices (good or bad), the choices of others, or circumstances beyond our control. In these uncomfortable, painful experiences, our answers, our certainty, and our God seem to collapse around us—water is lapping around our neck, the deep is engulfing us, and we are adorned with rotting seaweed (paraphrase of Jonah’s prayer).

Richard Rohr gives some sage advice for the spiritual work to which we need to tend in liminal spaces:

1. We typically give answers too quickly, take away pain too easily, and too quickly stimulate and sooth ourselves. In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of pain before we have learned what it has to teach us.

2. Jonah (and Jesus) shows us the mysterious pattern of transformation through death and rising. We must go inside the belly of the whale for a while. Then and only then will we be spit upon a shore and understand our call.

3. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. When we avoid darkness, we avoid tension, spiritual creativity, and finally transformation. In essence, we avoid God, who works in the darkness—where we are not in control! Maybe that is the secret: relinquishing control.

4. Simone Weil said, “It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void.”

5. Everything belongs and everything can be received. We don’t have to deny, dismiss, defy, or ignore. What is, is okay. What is, is the great teacher.

I would not wish a lengthy, painful, liminal experience upon anyone. But, I have always desired to grow in love, to be transformed by love, and to be propelled by love. This motivates me to pause, to listen, and to learn all I can in this liminal, transitional experience of my life.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Old and New

Listen: “Brand New Sun” by Jason Lytle at SXSW 2009

Transitions in life are always challenging. They can be filled with childlike anticipation for a new adventure, or they can be laced with adult-like dread over a broken relationship. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both. Positive transitions include starting a new degree, a new relationship, a new job, a new geographical move, a new career, a new marriage, a new faith journey, a new child, or a new grandchild. Painful transitions may involve a debilitating injury, an illness, a death of a love one, a divorce, an addiction, a career loss, a financial loss, or a loss of faith and community.

Transitions always involve reflection on our past and anticipation of our future. Some transitional situations can lead us to question past assumptions, beliefs, and perspectives while leading us to embrace new beliefs, perspectives, and opportunities.

In transition, we hold on and we let go. We access treasures of wisdom which are old and new. We discard beliefs and perspectives which have been harmful, and we discover new beliefs and perspectives which inspire love and hope for the future.

When I started Vineyard Church of Kansas City, Missouri in 1990, it was a transitional time in my life—one that involved fear and excitement, pain and opportunity. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church and felt called to full-time Christian ministry as a sixteen year old within that context. I earned degrees from Baptists institutions in preparation for my ministry career (Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary). Over the course of my studies, I came to embrace some theological positions which were not considered mainstream in Southern Baptist circles. When I graduated from Seminary, I applied with the Baptist Home Mission Board to be a new church developer. I was rejected and turned down because of my “fringe” beliefs. It was painful at the time because I had developed a large network of friends and family in that faith community.

This rejection ultimately led me to the Vineyard church movement, which was more non-traditional and progressive than my Southern Baptist heritage (though still conservative in some ways). I remember when I was starting Vineyard Church in the Northland of Kansas City, Missouri that some of my old Southern Baptist friends thought I was starting a cult group. This was painful, but I pressed ahead—holding on to some of the old, letting go of some of the old, and embracing some new beliefs and practices. I remember one pastor from a neighboring church even preached a whole series of messages against my “heretical beliefs” (so amusing now).

As I founded, pastored, and developed Vineyard Church over the next twenty-nine years (1990-2019), Vineyard Church became one of the fastest growing churches in America. My Southern Baptist friends and colleagues stopped calling me a cult leader (thankfully), instead they called me a progressive Evangelical or a British Evangelical. (I guess because British Evangelicals are more progressive?) Depending on who was saying it, that was either a good thing or a bad thing. I was always growing and changing, but I was secure in who I was as a person.

Now I find myself in the midst of another transition in life. It’s easily the most difficult and challenging transition I have ever experienced. Like all transitions, I am evaluating my past and looking forward to my future. I am holding on to some of the old, letting go of some of the old, and embracing some new beliefs and practices. Here are some old and new treasures in my current transition:

Jesus (who is ever old and new). I started following Jesus when I was sixteen, and I have always found his life and teachings to be full of wisdom and insight. Jesus was a Torah teacher, and I have spent my life studying and gleaning from the Hebrew tradition of this radical rabbi from Galilee. Jesus understood the importance of renewing old traditions. Old traditions can become worn out, brittle, and even harmful. Jesus was a radical reformer of a beautiful, ancient Hebrew tradition. Jesus said, “Therefore every scribe [or student of Torah] who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52; ESV). Jesus taught that all of us are called upon to examine, question, and renew the traditions which have been handed down to us.

Grace. I have always approached life through a grace-based lens—affirming the essential dignity of humanity (imago dei), forgiving faults, and fostering grace-based, transformational communities. After what I have gone through the last few years, I am even more radically committed to grace-base living. Everyone needs to receive grace and forgiveness, and everyone needs to give grace and forgiveness to others. Most of our inherited religious traditions from around the world are full of shame-based and fear-based beliefs and practices. These need to be examined, questioned, and renewed. Grace-based living is the only way to fly.

Friends and Family. I am so thankful for true friends and family. They stick with you when you are down, when you have lost everything, when you are are questioning everything, and when you aren’t sure where to turn. You find out who truly loves and practices grace. I’m also grateful for new friends who have connected with me in my deepest valley.

Recovery. I can’t say enough about the recovery community. This community lives out the heart of Jesus better than most churches I have ever seen, read, or experienced. (The church has so much to learn!) I have been in the recovery community for almost three years. I have grown to love the honesty, vulnerability, humility, and spirituality of this community. My life will never be the same because of my experience, connection, and involvement with the Twelve Step Recovery community. I’m so grateful.

Core values. I think of core values as a guide for the kind of person we want to be and become. It’s not a set of doctrines about what we believe or don’t believe about God. It’s a set of values to which we aspire—like the pursuit and practice of love, beauty, goodness, peacemaking, forgiveness, community, and social justice. I revisit my top ten core values periodically, and they have remained consistent throughout much of my adult life.

Meditation. When I experienced my worst moments of depression and humiliation, I found help in a couple of therapy models—DBT and Family Systems. The DBT model introduced me to mindfulness meditation. I have been learning to practice mindfulness meditation for a couple of years. With my overactive brain and my inner critic, I have needed to learn some new approaches to meditation. Mindfulness meditation is a growing practice of awareness, radical acceptance, and embracing the moment.

Growth groups. I am grateful for people who desire to grow spiritually through in-person groups, zoom groups, and community events. I realize I am still a pastor at heart, and I am called to foster spiritual growth and transformation through groups and community. We need each other, and we are not alone in our struggles, pains, and transitions. I lead and participate in several types of growth groups, so please let me know if you would like to join me in a group for spiritual growth.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Love and the Rocky Mountains

Listen: “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver

I’ve had a forty-five year love affair with the Rocky Mountains. My parents drove me and my three sisters across I-70 from Kansas City to Colorado when I was fifteen years old. It was love at first sight. I have now driven (or flown) to Colorado every year since, at least once and sometimes as many as three times a year. It’s my home away from home, and the place where I find my most sacred communion with nature and God.

I have run (distance running), biked (road, mountain, gravel), fly fished, backpacked, hiked, rock climbed, snow shoed, cross-country skied, camped, mountain climbed, observed nature, four-wheeled, and observed nature in various parts of the Rocky Mountains—Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico—but Colorado is my go to. I have thousands of cherished memories from these trips with friends, family, and solo. I have always felt closest to God when I am in the Rocky Mountains.

People have asked me through the years: “Why don’t you move to the Rocky Mountains?” I’ve never had a great answer except to say: (1) I never felt led by God to move to the Rocky Mountains due to my sense of calling; and (2) I never wanted to lose the sense of romance I have when I go to the Rocky Mountains. I never wanted the beauty of the Rocky Mountains to become ordinary or to be taken for granted. Every time I see the mountains, my childlike wonder and endorphins kick into overdrive. It’s one of my “thin places,” where the veil between heaven and earth seems to disappear.

As I am writing this blog (July 2022), I am in the Rocky Mountains near Breckenridge, Colorado. During my morning meditation, I was reading a devotional book by Richard Rohr entitled, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. Richard opens chapter two, “Vision of Enchantment,” with a quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov:

Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

Wow! I love that. In fact, my new favorite Bible verse is 1 John 4:16: “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (NLT). It’s that simple. Love is the story. Everything else is footnotes.

Lean into what invokes love within you. Embrace what expands love in your heart. Hang out with people, visit places, and immerse yourself in experiences which enhance love.

A few days ago, I went on a hike with some friends on Peak Trail which meanders over the mountain between Frisco and Breckenridge, Colorado. Several mountain flowers were in full bloom. I took a few pictures of a lavender Arctic Lupine, a pastel purple Aspen Fleabane, and a pink Wood Rose. Mountain flowers have always intrigued me. These gorgeous flowers bloom in the high mountain country around the world, most of them never seen by a human eye. But the mountain bees see them, and so do the elk and moose grazing in a high mountain meadow. Creativity adorns itself with beauty. Love is woven in the tapestry of the Universe. It blooms and fades. Do you see it? Feel it? Smell it? Hear it? Taste it? Are you attentive to it? Do you embrace it and become of disseminator of it?

They have no speech, they use no words;

   no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

   their words to the ends of the world (Psalm 19:3-4; NIV).

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Church

Listen: “Take Me to Church” by Hozier

The “church” as a Christian, religious institution has been on decline in America for seven straight decades and the decline has accelerated in the last two decades. Even though the institutional church is in decline (and I was someone who helped start new churches in America and around the world), I have noticed that “church” as a metaphor is still used for experiences which people love or value—things like sex, hanging out with friends, going to a recovery meeting, or experiencing something transcendent. I celebrate the way in which “church” as a metaphor is emerging in our culture. Some of the metaphors are actually important aspects of what “church” was originally intended to be.

Take Me to Church. On September 13, 2013, Irish singer-songwriter Hozier release a debut single entitled “Take Me to Church.” When Hozier wrote and recorded the song in the attic of his parent’s home in County Wicklow, he was a struggling musician. The song eventually achieved widespread global popularity topping the charts in over twelve countries. In the U.S., the song spent 23 consecutive weeks at the top of the Hot Rock Songs chart and tied with Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” as the longest running number-one song in that chart’s history at the time. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award Song of the Year and was certified six-times platinum.

The first time I heard this song, I was intrigued by its lyrics and use of religious imagery for sexual love. Hozier sings:

My church offers no absolutes

She tells me, “Worship in the bedroom”

The only Heaven I’ll be sent to

Is when I’m alone with you

Take me to church

I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

Offer me that deathless death

Good God, let me give you my life

Hozier describes falling in love—both the sense in which you wonderfully die to yourself and give of yourself to another in sexual love—like an act of worship in church. This is not the first time “church” has been used as a metaphor for sexual love. Christian mystics have interpreted the Old Testament book of “Song of Songs,” which celebrates sexual love, as a metaphor for a spiritual union with God. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter five uses the union of marriage as a metaphor for the union of Christ and the church—Jesus is the groom and the church is the bride. Sex is sacred. It can be abused like all good gifts, but church should celebrate healthy sexual expression, instead of disseminating of shame-based sexual ethics.

My Church. In January of 2016 country music singer, Maren Morris, released the single “My Church,” co-written and co-produced by busbee. The song won Best Country Solo Performance and was nominated for a Grammy Award Best Country Song.

The song uses “church” as a metaphor for the transcendent experience Maren feels when she is driving down the road listening to her favorite country songs blasting on her Highway FM radio. Maren sings:

I’ve cussed on a Sunday

I’ve cheated and I’ve lied

I’ve fallen down from grace

A few too many times

But I find holy redemption

When I put this car in drive

Roll the windows down and turn up the dial

Can I get a hallelujah

Can I get an amen

Feels like the Holy Ghost running through ya

When I play the highway FM

I find my soul revival

Singing every single verse

Yeah I guess that’s my church

When Hank brings the sermon

And Cash leads the choir

It gets my cold cold heart burning

Hotter than a ring of fire

When this world gets heavy

And I need to find my escape

I just keep the wheels rolling, radio scrolling

‘Til my sins wash away

An experience with transcendence, the divine, or oneness with the universe can happen anywhere. Moses found holy ground at a burning bush. Jesus said that the location of worship wasn’t important, but the heart of the worshipper is: “For God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24; NLT). Any place can become a sacred space, like Parkville Nature Sanctuary, a Sigur Ros concert, or a ride in your car. Church is about experiencing the sacred and transcendent.

Starting Over. American rapper Macklemore has written about the struggles of addiction and recovery in his songs “Otherside” and “Starting Over.” In the song “Starting Over,” Macklemore writes about his relapse after three years of sobriety. Macklemore raps about attending a meeting and starting over:

Somebody stops me and says “Are you Macklemore?”

“Maybe this isn’t the place or time, I just wanted to say that

“If it wasn’t for ‘Otherside’ I wouldn’t have made it

I just looked down at the ground and say “Thank you”

She tells me she has 9 months and that she’s so grateful

Tears in her eyes lookin’ like she’s gonna cry, f***

I barely got forty-eight hours

There are over 100,000 AA groups around the world. That’s not counting the Twelve Step groups for other issues like narcotics, gambling, overeating, co-dependency, and sexual addiction. There are millions of people worldwide who have not felt comfortable going to church when they are in trouble. Many people view church as a “holier-than-thou, self-righteous, judgmental” place. When I was pastoring a church, I always encouraged people to come to church if they were struggling with a crisis or addiction. I had many people tell me that’s the last place they would go for fear they would be judged. However, people have found hope and healing in small meetings around the world which are based in rigorous honesty, humility, and vulnerability.

Why is this the case? People go to church for many different reasons. For some, it’s just a social club—full of fake smiles and plastic faces. No one shows up at an AA meeting (or any type of recovery meeting) with a fake smile. Their “ass is on fire” and they are close to losing everything. They are in desperate need of help, and they are looking for people who will love them, identify with them, and give them hope for a better life. The beginning point is utter brokenness, humility, honesty, and vulnerability. I am quite certain that this is the kind of “church” Jesus himself had in mind when he envisioned his church.

Crowded Table. In 2019, Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires formed The Highwoman. One of my favorite songs on their self-titled debut album is “Crowded Table.” It’s a song about loving, grace-based community:

You can hold my hand

When you need to let go

I can be your mountain

When you’re feeling valley-low

I can be your streetlight

Showing you the way home

You can hold my hand

When you need to let go

I want a house with a crowded table

And a place by the fire for everyone

Let us take on the world while we’re young and able

And bring us back together when the day is done

The door is always open

Your picture’s on my wall

Everyone’s a little broken

And everyone belongs

Yeah, everyone belongs

This is the kind of community in which Jesus himself participated and gathered. The ancient conception of “church” in both the Old (Hebrew word qahal) and New Testament (Greek word ecclesia) is not a building or an institution. It’s a gathering of people for the purpose of growing spiritually and supporting each other in loving, grace-based friendship. I think we all long for connection with our true self, connection with loving, grace-based community, and connection with something transcendent and greater than ourselves. This is “church” at its best.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Spirituality Adventures: At the Wild Goose

Listen: “Something to Believe In” by Young the Giant

This past weekend (July 14-17, 2022), I spent some time hanging out with people at the Wild Goose Festival (wildgoosefestival.org). It took place at Vanhoy Farm in North Carolina. Brian McLaren had encouraged me to attend the festival. (Check out my podcast interview with Brian at spiritualityadventures.com.) It’s not like the “Burning Man” festival, but wasn’t your typical Christian conference either. I met people and heard presentations from all walks of life and multiple faith traditions. I even bumped into a couple whom I pastored back in 2008. It reminded me of one of my early blogs I wrote in 2020 as I attempted to describe Spirituality Adventures. I thought I would republish the blog for those who may have missed it with some minor changes. I will be doing some future podcast interviews with people I met at the Wild Goose Festival.

In 2019, I found myself in a crises of faith, and I needed some community support for my own sanity and sobriety. In addition to attending a black church, I decided to connect with a few recovery groups in Kansas City for the support I needed. Day after day I sat in groups of people and listened to them tell their stories and talk about their struggles. I’ve listened to drunks, addicts, prostitutes, atheists, rabbis, pastors, pantheists, Buddhists, doctors, prisoners, homeless, and LGBTQ peoples. By listening to personal stories I’ve realized that everybody is spiritual, and I have been inspired by every type of person as they wrestle with addiction, honesty, spirituality, and the deep questions of life. I have found courage and hope in messy stories mixed with radical grace.

Spirituality is vital to recovery of all sorts. This truth can be challenging to the atheist, the agnostic, or the religious person who is angry at God. In 2019 as I was struggling with my own faith, I was asked to developed some content for just such a group of people. About fifty percent of the people who need recovery are atheist or agnostic and can’t tolerate religion. The course I developed was on “Spirituality and Recovery.” Since I have taught the Bible and focused on Jesus for over 40 years, the challenge for me was to teach spirituality without Jesus or the Bible as my foundational text. I enjoyed the challenge, and the AA tradition and nature itself provided plenty of resources. I feel like I learned as I prepared (most teachers learn more than their students). I discovered that regardless a person’s religious orientation or lack thereof, there are some universally recognized strategies for nurturing spirituality—a way forward, so to speak, for the doubters, the disillusioned, and the disappointed.

So first: What is spirituality and is it different from religion? If you look up these words in the dictionary you will find that they overlap. “Religion” means a reverence for and belief in a God or gods and something which serves to “bind or connect” us with the sacred. In this sense, all of the great traditions of faith would be a religion like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Religion can be used in a positive sense as representing devotion to God/gods and compassion for others. A passage in the New Testament says that true religion is caring for the widow and orphan (James 1:27). “Spirituality” means a concern for the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. It speaks of a journey to connect with the infinite, a higher power, or something beyond. It involves connection with self, others, ultimate reality, and values that arise out of this pursuit.

In popular American culture, “religion” has taken on a primarily negative connotation and “spirituality” has taken on a largely positive connotation. This is true in the recovery community and in the culture at large. I have asked the question in many group settings, “What is the difference between religion and spirituality?” Answers vary, but a pattern emerges: religion is depicted as an organized, rigid, dogmatic belief system which has injured and harmed people. In some cases, the offense comes from a rigid emphasis on ridiculous rules over against loving relationship. In many cases, religion is seen as an oppressive force for violence, hatred, exclusion, conformity, tribalism, rejection, condemnation, and unkindness. Every major religion has failed to live up to its best values at various times in history (so have individuals who represent them). Spirituality, on the other hand, is seen as a personal or communal pursuit of ultimate meaning and purpose. It subscribes to an orientation of life which affirms the deep longings of the heart for love, beauty, goodness, meaning, purpose, and connection with something greater than self.

The fastest growing demographic in the rapidly changing spiritual landscape of America is “spiritual but not religious.” Most people around the world embrace some form of spirituality. Open, curious, loving discussions with people about spirituality is a window to the soul. Most people love to talk about spirituality in a loving, nonjudgmental context. What’s interesting is that the person of Jesus and other historic spiritual leaders invariably come up in the conversation. Jesus is known and recognized as a spiritual teacher around the world—as are Moses, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Mohammed. These five teachers have influenced the spiritual and religious landscape of the world in which we live.

Spirituality Adventures serves to ignite spiritual growth and transformation through blogs, podcasts, events, pastoral care, and in-person groups. It is a nonjudgmental place to explore spirituality. I have always enjoyed interacting with people about faith, spirituality, and religion. My first earned degree was a BA in Religion at Baylor Univeristy.

I have been a follower of Jesus since my late teenage years and I am quite certain that if Jesus were walking around today, he would be hanging out with “spiritual but not religious people.” He would listen and ask great questions (just read the Gospels with a focus on the questions Jesus asked). Jesus would also tell many spiritual stories (parables) to ignite spiritual growth. He would hang out with people of high and low reputation and his heart would bend towards the most vulnerable and marginalized among us, regardless of their beliefs or lifestyles.

Thanks for reading and joining me on this spiritual adventure. I am truly excited about the journey and those who would walk with me. Stay in touch and thanks for your support.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Murder, Misfits, and Forgiveness

Listen: “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 my sister’s nephew, Taylor Hawkins, 31, was shot and killed in Platte County Missouri. Celeste Hawkins, Taylor’s mom, is my brother-in-law Lynn Hawkins’ sister. I grew up in Platte County with the Hawkins. We went to school and church together. Lynn Hawkins married my sister Shelly Herron-Hawkins over thirty years ago and I officiated their wedding. I have known Taylor Hawkins his whole life and had the privilege of baptizing Taylor several years ago. Celeste asked my to speak at Taylor’s Celebration of Life service which was held Saturday, July 9, 2022.

Taylor is remembered for his love of music and friends. When Taylor was a student in Platte City schools, he wore a skater-style haircut, dove into the skate scene, and avidly listened to music. He learned how to play drums and guitar and was passionate about Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Primus, and Tool.

Taylor also cared deeply for his friends and brought people together through music and his love for people. There were times when Taylor struggled with mental health issues and felt isolated, like he didn’t belong. It was beautiful to see his friends show up at his Celebration of Life service and express their love and sadness for Taylor’s sudden death.

I shared a couple of thoughts with friends and family who gathered at the Celebration of Life service. My first thought was expressed beautifully when Cassidy Sledd, Taylor’s cousin, performed the song “Hurt,” originally written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Many people are familiar with the cover that Johnny Cash performed on this song. The first time I heard this song I was moved to listen to it on repeat. It’s a song to which every person who has faced personal demons can related, especially those who have wrestled with addiction and mental health issues. But the song transcends those issues. The song becomes an emotional tribute to the hurt and pain which all people face as human beings. This world is full of hurt, suffering, and loss, and we need to support each other, especially in our darkest moments.

The second thought I shared was about the experience of feeling like a misfit. I know Taylor felt alone and isolated at times in his life, like he was an outsider, watching others live life but not feeling included himself. I can certainly relate to this feeling, especially the last three years of my life. Based on my pastoral counseling experience, I am guessing that most people have felt this way at some point in their lives.

Several weeks ago (Spiritualityadventures.com; March 28, 2022), I published a blog entitled “Misfits.” Because Taylor was baptized as a follower of Jesus, I found it comforting to acknowledge that one of the things we admire about Jesus was his love for the outsider, the marginalized, the outcast, and the misfit. Jesus went out of his way to connect, love, serve, befriend, and include the misfits of his day.

In Jesus’ day, religious people were focused on what was “clean” and “unclean” and tried to live a clean, pure life by not getting contaminated by people or things that were unclean. People were considered unclean if they had certain physical diseases, emotional illnesses, or physical disabilities. Gentiles (people who were not Jewish) were considered unclean as well. So, in order to be pure, you wouldn’t touch, hangout, or have a meal with anyone who was unclean. Even foods were categorized as “clean” or “unclean.” Odd animals, like fish without scales or birds which can’t fly, were considered “unclean.” No oddballs or misfits allowed! Jesus challenged this culture and believed that grace-based love and inclusion would cleanse and heal. In my blog, I wrote:

Jesus dismantled the ritual purity culture rung by rung. He taught that purity is a condition of the heart—a heart filled with love and grace—it’s not something unclean from outside the body which contaminates the body (Mark 7:20-23). According to Philip Yancey, “In essence, Jesus canceled the cherished principle of the Old Testament, No Oddballs Allowed, replacing it with a new rule of grace: ‘We’re all oddballs, but God loves us anyhow’” (What’s So Amazing About Grace, p. 153).

I resonate with that. We’re all oddballs, but God loves us anyhow. We need to practice the same love towards one another. We need each other. We are not alone.

Finally, I focused on the senseless violence that ended Taylor’s life much too soon. We live in a country in which senseless gun violence is escalating at a alarming rate. America is serving up a toxic cocktail of shocking violence. The violent cocktail is stirred with anger, hatred, rage, domestic violence, mental illness, and the availability assault weapons and guns. I am guessing that Taylor, at some point, would have considered the person who killed him to be a friend (just a guess on my part). As Kate Bush asks in her now classic and resurgent song, “Running Up That Hill,” “Is there so much hate for the ones we love? Oh, tell me, we both matter, don’t we?”

It’s here that I think about the way of Jesus again. Jesus was a pacifist. He advocated non-violent civil disobedience as a pathway for dealing with systemic injustice. He also taught forgiveness as the pathway for healing. Some of Jesus’ most famous and challenging teachings land in this category. “Turn the other cheek. Love your enemy.” This is never easy. It’s much harder than shouting an obscenity, saying vicious words, or pulling a trigger.

Violence will never heal violence. More violence only multiplies violence. Anger, hatred, and revenge only end up propagating more violence. Hatred can never heal a broken heart. Vengeance can never bring a body back to life. Resentment, bitterness, and hatred only poison and kill the heart of the person harboring it. We are made for love, not hate.

We long for truth and justice in the face of injustice. But that’s only part of the issue. The lingering issue even after justice is served: What will heal the human heart? I think Jesus was crystal clear on this point. Forgiveness will heal the human heart. Let’s remember that when Jesus was being tortured to death by crucifixion, he was an innocent victim. While hanging on the cross, Jesus uttered: “Father, forgive them.” We all need to give and receive forgiveness. Forgiveness can heal the human heart.

Forgiveness and grace-based community—we need each other.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Freedom

Listen: “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty

It’s Forth of July 2022. Americans are celebrating their national freedom from the tyranny of the colonizing Empire of Great Britain. We fought for our freedom and stated the philosophy of our freedom through the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Most people throughout human history have labored under the oppression of warlords, dictators, empires, and kingdoms which have stripped humanity of basic human rights. We should pause and reflect gratefully for the freedoms which our democracy has provided for us.

However, freedom is a gift which comes with enormous potential to bless and curse people. We can use our freedom to liberate ourselves and others, but we can also use our freedom to oppress and enslave ourselves and others. It’s one of the tragic ironies of American history that while we were crafting our philosophy of freedom—that all men are created equal—what we actually meant was “all-white-adult-men.” We didn’t include women, children, African-Americans, or Native Americans as equals. We are still awkwardly trying to make amends for these violations of human freedom as a nation. White men used their newly declared freedoms from the tyranny of oppressive Great Britain to oppress women, children, African-Americans, and Native Americans. The oppressed became the new oppressor. Unfortunately, this is the pattern throughout most of history. Once the oppressed defeat their oppressor, they typically use their new freedoms to become the new oppressor. Even democratic freedom is a fragile gift indeed.

Our personal freedoms are not so different. Sometimes in an effort to maintain or exercise our personal freedom, we simply place ourselves and others in bondage.

Freedom to be me. Each of us is influenced by our genetic history and our environmental history. Our histories provide us with opportunities and limitations. We can use our personal freedoms to heal and transcend our limitations while we enhance and advance our opportunities to create love, beauty, and grace for ourselves, others, and the planet. Discovering our true self is a spiritual journey which unfolds throughout life.

Freedom to love. Our personal freedoms flourish best in loving, supportive relationships and communities. This is challenging. Unhealthy relationships and communities can result in relational pain, disappointment, heartache, abusive authority, and even trauma. Breaking free from relational or community bondage can be critically important for our health and wellbeing. At the same time, we can end up isolated and alone if we don’t learn to develop and navigate healthy relationships and community. In Tom Petty’s classic song “Free Fallin,” he seems to celebrate his freedom to be a “bad boy” and break a girl’s heart, but then he seems to regret the subsequent loneliness of his independent freedom: “I wanna write her name in the sky; I wanna free fall out into nothin’; Gonna leave this world for awhile.” I’ve always resonated with C. S. Lewis’ quote from The Four Loves:

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. 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.

Freedom from bondage. Addiction is an example of freedom run awry. We all have the ability to pursue things we love. Many of the things we love are good gifts such as drink, food, sex, exercise, religion, work, dancing, cleaning, shopping, gaming, social media, caffeine, and other substances. Consumed and practiced in healthy portions and with healthy boundaries, these gifts can actually enhance beauty, love, relationships, and community. However, these good gifts can be used in selfish excess to numb out emotional pain, in effect, they become a substitute for nurturing, loving relationships and community.

Substance abuse disorder is an example of genetics, environment, and personal freedom which results in bondage. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous encourages its followers to pray for “freedom from self-will” (p. 87). It’s one of the paradoxes of freedom—“the ultimate paradox in free will is the surrender to spirit” (a comment on my Facebook page from Toni Jackson). It’s not a surrender to a religious system, but to your Higher Power, to love itself. In order to be free, we must surrender. Religious systems throughout history have propagated abuse of authority, oppression, and bondage, Christianity included. (Take a church history class if you are unaware of this, or read Do I Stay Christian: A Guide for The Doubters, The Disappointed, and The Disillusioned by Brain McLaren.) Which is ironic, because even The Apostle Paul recognized that some religious systems were really forms of bondage. His vision of Christ was one of freedom. Paul said, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1; NASB).

Free to be truly free. I’m grateful for freedom!

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Running Up That Hill

Listen: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” by Kate Bush

Cover by Meg Myers

In 2019, which was my darkest year on record, I was listening to Alt Nation on Sirius XM. A song was played called “Running Up That Hill” performed by Meg Myers which caught my attention. I vaguely recognized the song as something I had heard before, but the depth of Meg’s emotion communicated through her vocals really captured me. I started listening to the song on repeat, and it drew me into an emotional space which seemed to echo my own feelings of emotional pain, relational betrayal, and the struggle for hope and healing.

The song was originally written and recorded by English singer/songwriter Kate Bush in 1985. It’s original release reached number three on the UK Singles Chart and number thirty on the Billboard Hot 100. What’s so fascinating to me is its current resurgence. In May of 2022, the song gained renewed attention because it was prominently featured in the fourth season of Stranger Things. The song has re-entered the charts and sits at number one in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland. In the United States, it reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 (June 20, 2022).

After listening to Meg Myers’ cover on repeat in 2019, I revisited the original by Kate Bush. For me to listen to a song multiple times, I have to love the music; but it’s the lyrics which ultimately keep me returning to a song again and again. The lyrics of “Running Up That Hill” connected with me on multiple levels.

Emotional pain. Physical pain due to illness or injury can certainly lead to emotional pain. I have always done a lot of endurance exercise; it’s like therapy for me. When I injure myself and can’t do my endurance cycling, I can find myself feeling depressed. Chronic physical pain can impact our emotional well-being as well. However, there is nothing quite like the trauma associated with relational wreckage. Broken relationships with parents, partners, spouses, children, friends, and co-workers can be debilitating. In her song, Kate Bush expresses the depths of relational pain:

You don’t want to hurt me,

But see how deep the bullet lies.

Unaware I’m tearing you asunder,

Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts

Is there so much hate for the ones we love?

Tell me, we both matter, don’t we?

Changing places. Probably the phrase from the song which most captured my attention was from the chorus:

And if I could,

I’d make a deal with God,

And I’d get him to swap our places

Wow. Make a deal with God. I’ve always thought you can’t make deals with God, but I have often wished I could. Switching places with someone could be incredibly healing and insightful. Maybe all the hurts, divisions, judgments, and hatred could melt away if we could switch places. How much emotional pain could be healed if we could switch places with someone we have wounded or with someone who has wounded us? It’s so easy to get trapped in our own trauma and versions of the truth. We seldom have enough empathy or listening skills to see the world through someone else’s eyes or some else’s pain, especially when we are hurting.

Struggle for hope and healing. Hope, healing, and forgiveness don’t come easy. They are hard fought battles. Do you want to be a bitter, angry person? Or do you want to be a person who lives into beauty, love, forgiveness, and grace? I consistently choose against bitterness, which means I consistently choose to forgive both myself and others. When you go through deep relational pain and hardship, it’s easy to get trapped into the blame game of whose right, whose wrong, and who needs to pay. Vengeance is never the answer. More violence does not heal violence. More pain dished out to our abuser or to ourselves does not heal our pain, forgiveness does that. But it’s a battle. The struggle for hope and healing in the words of Kate Bush:

Be running up that road,

Be running up that hill,

Be running up that building,

Say, if I only could, oh…

If I only could

Be running up that hill

With no problems…

It calls to mind the closing paragraph of Alcoholics Anonymous on page 164:

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to God and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Leading with Vulnerability

Listen: “We Can Do Hard Things” by Tish Melton

Each time I speak publicly, I feel like I am ripping myself open, exposing my most shame-filled experiences, and offering a gift of honesty and vulnerability which hopefully gives people the permission to be honest and vulnerable about their own struggles. I have learned that honesty and vulnerability are not only crucial to emotional healing and recovery; they are also crucial to courageous leadership.

It’s not necessary for everyone to share their most shame-filled moments in a public fashion. Most people simply need to get honest and vulnerable with a trusted circle of friends, family, and therapists and transfer the healing they receive into grace-based living. I happened to be a person who was a semi-public figure (a mega-church pastor) whose most shame-filled failure was published on the front page of The Kansas City Star Sunday Edition and then broadcast around the world by religious news feeds (December 6, 2018).  After confessing to my wife in private in November 2018, certain people decided to broadcast my most shame-filled failures quickly and publicly without interviewing me. I was isolated in rehab for 120 days in Georgia while other people were telling my story publicly without my knowledge. Some were even slandering me privately. The public story? I was an Addict, an Alcoholic, and an Adulterer. In the words of sports announcer Dick Vitale—the Trifecta Baby!

I knew I would eventually have to tell my own story publicly, but I was buried in shame. After I returned home from 120 days in rehab, I felt like my world had exploded. (It had.) I felt like hiding or disappearing, but since I didn’t leave Kansas City I ran into people who knew me every day. In fact, I have run into a couple of thousand people over the last three years, and when appropriate, I have sought to make amends. After my divorce was finalized and my house was sold (July 2019), I decided to commit myself to attending a recovery group in September of 2019. For the next couple of years, I worked on my issues with groups, therapists, and friends (and still do).

In April of 2021, I spoke publicly for the first time since I resigned from Vineyard Church (February 2019). Since April of 2021, I have spoken at a few events, churches, a business men’s retreat, recovery groups, and done some podcast interviews. In each of these speaking engagements, I have been brutally honest about my forty year career as a pastor, the circumstances that led to my Xanax and alcohol abuse, the collapse of my marriage and ministry, and the process of recovery which I have undertaken. I recently spoke at the Healing House in Kansas City, Missouri (June 17, 2022), which is what sparked the reflections in this blog. There were about three hundred people in attendance who are courageously facing their own demons of addiction, living in a supportive community, turning their lives over to a Higher Power, and working the steps of recovery.

It’s not easy to tell my story because I still have a sense of shame about it. However, the shame is gradually healing and dissipating. The more I share it in public settings, the easier it gets. Every time I share my story in public, people are thankful for my courage. Oddly, many are inspired by my story. I have noticed the following responses from people:

1. Most people are grateful that I am being open and honest about my story, and they are more than willing to forgive me for my transgressions.

2. When I meet with people one-on-one, they are quick to open up and share their own struggles with me. People aren’t worried about me judging them. In fact, some people are strangely refreshed by my story. Not that they are delighting in the pain and shame I have gone through or the pain and disappointment I have caused others, but they are relieved to know that even “successful” pastors are human. No one is exempt from human frailties. They realize that they are not alone in their struggles.

3. When I share my story publicly, the atmosphere of the group changes. It gives people permission to get honest and vulnerable about their own struggles. Instead of putting on masks, faking plastic smiles, and posturing about their successful lives, people get real. The conversations change from impressing one another, to getting real with one another.

I think deep down, everyone wants to be loved and forgiven or loved and accepted for who they really are—beautiful flaws are a part of the human condition. However, most people are afraid they will be rejected and abandoned if people really knew them. So most people craft masks to wear, hiding their true self. Unfortunately, many family, church, and work cultures are shame-based. In shame-based cultures, people must hide their true self in order to keep their job or their standing in the community. Shame-based cultures promote hiding, posturing, backbiting, gossiping, judging, holier-than-thou hierarchies, and a cult of innocence. People get rejected and kicked to the curb when they get honest or fail to maintain the corporate image.

Brené Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability should be studied and implemented into every family, team, church, and organization on the planet. Seriously! Shame-based leadership, families, and organizations are devastating to humans and to our planet. In her book, Dare to Lead, Brené applies her research on shame and vulnerability to leadership. She believes that for any team or organization to be healthy, it must embrace: (1) rumbling with vulnerability; (2) living into our values; (3) braving trust; and (4) learning to rise. According to Brené, the heart of daring leadership is threefold:

1. You can’t get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck.

2. Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.

3. Courage is contagious. To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation, and armor [shame-based masks] is not necessary or rewarded (Dare to Lead, p. 10-12).

People must feel safe, seen, heard, and respected, if they are to show up with their whole, unarmored hearts. Hiding our shame-based secrets only creates more shame and sickness. Shame is intrenched in our cultures and human psyches. Some cultures, families, and organizations are more shame-base than others. Shame can only be healed through honesty, vulnerability, grace, and love. Our families and organizations need a revolution of grace-based leadership rooted in courageous vulnerability.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Kintsugi

Listen: “Kintsugi (You’re Never Gonna Leave It All Behind)” by The Way Way Back—Ben Wendt

Every morning I drink my coffee out of a broken, ceramic coffee mug which I repaired with superglue. You can see all the cracks and fractures, but it’s my favorite mug. In previous years, I would have thrown it away and gotten a new one, but the last three years I have been trying to fix the things which I break and keep using them. It’s a metaphor for my life. My life has been severely broken, but instead of throwing it away, I am healing, mending, and morphing into something beautiful, even though flawed and imperfect. The beauty is embedded in the brokenness. Every morning when I wake up and use my broken coffee mug, I am reminded of how every human being is a person of great worth and dignity, regardless of how broken or damaged they may feel. If they have breath, there is hope.

Kintsugi is a word I came across in 2021 when I was doing a podcast interview with Ben Wendt (podcast released on May 3, 2021 with Spirituality Adventures). Ben released a punk rock concept album in 2020 with his band The Way Way Back entitled “Baggage or You’re Never Going to Leave It All Behind.” One of his songs which caught my attention was Kintsugi. I had never heard this word so I did some quick research on Wikipedia.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powders like gold, silver, or platinum. It’s a philosophy which values breakage and repair as a part of the history of an object rather than something to be disguised or thrown away. The repair actually highlights the cracks and fractures in the pottery with metallic beauty.

Kintsugi is similar to the traditional Japanese aesthetics of wabi-sabi, which is a world-view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is an appreciation of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature. This Japanese concept reminds me of a similar concept in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible—hebel.

Ecclesiastes (or Qohelet) is the book from which The Byrds international hit folk-rock song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in 1965 was derived. Hebel is the key word in the book of Ecclesiastes which is translated “vanity” in the King James Version: “Vanity of vanities, saith, the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; KJV). Unfortunately, this is a misleading translation. It’s better translated “breath” or “vapor.” Hebel is not necessarily something vain, which implies worthless or morally inferior. Hebel is something temporal, transient, or imperfect. Most beautiful things in life are hebel. According to Qohelet, “All is mere breath [hebel]” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; translation by Robert Alter).

Finding beauty in broken things and broken people. Seeing beauty in the fractures. Repairing cracks with gold and silver. Recognizing that everything is temporal, transient, imperfect, changing, and beautiful. Learning to focus on the beauty in the moment. Breath. Mere breath. Life. The breath of life. It’s crazy beautiful.

I recently watched a new documentary on the story of Bobbi Jo Reed—“Bobbi Jo: Under the Influence.” Bobbi Jo is the Founder/CEO of Healing House in Kansas City, Missouri. Bobbi Jo started drinking at the age of 12, dropped out of school at 16, and lived for two decades under the abusive control of pimps or out on the streets by herself. She was an alcoholic for 22 years and ended up homeless, living under a boxcar next to a liquor store.

She miraculously sobered up in 1995 in an extremely toxic environment for women, and she immediately decided to help other women get off the streets and sober up. Today, Healing House shelters men, women, and children in beautiful, refurbished apartment complexes and houses in the Northeast section of Kansas City, Missouri. Men and women whose lives have been shattered, broken, and discarded due to pain, trauma, drugs, and alcohol are finding new life, new hope, new work, new sobriety, and new dreams. Healing House currently provides beds, homes, and a family environment for over 200 beautifully restored human lives in beautifully restored homes. Over 7,000 lives have been touched since 1995.

Kintsugi—It’s the art of restoring broken pottery by accentuating the broken cracks with gold, silver, and platinum. The art of seeing beauty in flaws and imperfection. Such a beautiful way of seeing the world in which we live and the people with whom we cross paths. In the words of Ben Wendt, “I’ll give attention to my repair using gold to fill the cracks….I might never be the same and I might never glow as bright, but I’m still here so I’m gonna make some light.” And in the words of Bobbi Jo Reed: “As long as a person with an addiction is still breathing, there’s still hope.”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

The Power of Story

Listen: “The Story” by Brandi Carlile

On the weekend of October 13/14, 2018–about three weeks before I went to rehab on November 10, 2018–I delivered one of my last messages at Vineyard Church in Kansas City, MO, a church I founded in 1990 and pastored for over twenty-eight years. The message was entitled: The Intrigue of Story. I was trying to encourage people with the idea that no matter where you’ve been or what you have done—God loves you and your story matters. I had four simple points in the message:

1. Everybody loves a good story.

2. Jesus was a great story-teller.

3. God wants to use your story to encourage others.

4. Learn to share your story.

You never know how your story may help someone else through a challenging time in their life. Your story may provide the experience, strength, and hope that someone else needs in their darkest moments. Your story could literally save someone’s life, giving them the hope to live for a better day. But, there is an art to sharing your story in life-giving ways.

Through the years, I have observed a few ways to go about telling your story. One way is to choose only your best moments in life—stories where you are most successful, most wise, most charitable, most victorious, most generous, most loving—and share only the stories where you shine brightest, stories in which you are the hero. People can learn from your success stories. This is not a bad approach. People may want to learn how you successfully navigated graduate school, raised a family, started a business, or completed an ultra-endurance event, but beware—a little of this goes a long way. And besides, the best success stories are peppered with challenges and setbacks.

Another approach to telling your story is to be open and honest about your struggles, even some of your deepest, darkest struggles. Everybody has them. After pastoring thousands of people over four decades on multiple continents, I have learned that everyone who has lived long enough has experienced pain and shame, insecurities and weaknesses, struggles and obsessions, anxieties and fears. Our greatest joys are punctuated with our greatest sorrows. So, a key to telling your story in a life-giving way may be a little counterintuitive to some, but it usually starts with getting honest and vulnerable. Here are three simple questions which can guide you in learning to share your story in a life-giving way:

1. What was your life like before you experienced one of your most difficult setbacks or challenges?

2. What experiences have given you hope in your darkest hours?

3. What have you learned and how are you growing through difficulties you have faced?

As a pastor, I was always trying to provide a grace-based community for people to experience spiritual hope and transformation in their darkest hours. I was always cultivating an atmosphere in which people shared their stories honestly, even featuring inspirational personal stories in my messages. I always encouraged people to share their stories in this fashion because it just might touch someone in a life-giving way at just the right moment.

Over the last three years, I have watched the power of story-telling literally save lives in the recovery community. In fact, it’s even more pronounced in the recovery community as compared to church. People show up at church for a variety of reasons, sometimes (but not always) sporting their Sunday best with plastic smiles. People never show up at a recovery meeting when everything is going well in life. No Sunday best. No plastic smiles. Usually, their “ass is on fire” (a phrase I heard in recovery meetings) and their life is crumbling around them. They may be close to losing their career, their family, or teetering on the edge of prison time or death itself.

The beautiful thing about recovery meetings is that everybody in the meeting showed up when their “ass was on fire,” and they keep coming to meetings to maintain their sobriety and encourage others with their story. The recovery community is life-giving through the stories of people who have been through hell, have had a spiritual awakening, have worked the Twelve Steps, and have continued in community sharing their experience, strength, and hope. It’s beautiful and transforming.

The Big Book of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) is divided into two sections: (1) the first 164 pages which lay out the philosophy of AA and the Twelve Steps; and (2) the next 388 pages of inspirational personal stories. Each story follows the simple outline I mentioned above: life circumstances which led to alcoholism (or gambling, overeating, etc.), finding hope in the recovery community, and walking out the steps to recovery. Inspirational stories are not only found in the Big Book. Every person in recovery has their own story of hope which they freely share with others. Over the last three years, I have heard hundreds of inspirational, personal stories of recovery. Some of them are truly miraculous.

I recently read a story in the Big Book entitled “My Bottle, My Resentments, and Me.” It’s a story about a boy who grew up in a small town in America whose mother was murdered when he was eleven years old. (I’ll call him Bill for clarity.) Bill started drinking. The trauma led to Bill drinking his way through high school, drinking his way through the marines to an honorable discharge, and drinking his way out of his family. He became a homeless drunk, living life as a hobo hopping freight trains between large cities for the next many years. He lost all contact with his father, siblings, and children. One day in a drunken stupor, he moaned, “Oh, God! Please help me.” Sometime later he was living with an alcoholic barmaid and ended up bumping into one of his old hobo friends who was clean and sober. He thought if his friend could sober up, so could he. He and his girlfriend started attending an AA meeting which led to years of recovery, service work, and leadership in AA.

One day a friend who wrote for a living asked if he could write up his story for a magazine article. Bill approved as long as he remained anonymous. It just so happened that his long-lost brother and sister-in-law in his small hometown happened to read the article in the magazine. Even though the article didn’t mention Bill’s name, it mentioned the city where he was living. His brother hunted him down and they finally connected. Bill had falsely assumed that his family would never want to see him again. Bill had not spoken to his family in thirty years. This led to a family reunion back in his hometown. His father had passed away, but he was joyfully reunited with his own children, with his siblings, and with his previously unknown nephews and nieces.

He called it a modern-day miracle. God had done for him what he could not do for himself. He said, “I believe that I am living proof of the A.A. saying ‘Don’t give up until the miracle happens’” (p. 445).

Your story matters.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Paying Attention

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

Paying attention is a cultivated habit which nurtures connection, healing and survival. It’s a spiritual practice which provides moments of beauty, serenity, and immersion. I can find myself captured with gratitude and delight for the life I have received, even when deep pain and disappointment are swirling in my body.

Recently, I am walking and hiking most days instead of riding my bike due to my rotator cuff surgery on April 14, 2022. Though I prefer to ride my bike for exercise, community, and mental health, walking through nature is a close second. It also has benefits that I don’t receive while cycling. When I am mountain biking or gravel riding, I cover distances of ten to thirty miles or more, and I experience the wind on my skin, the smell of fields, trees, and the occasional dead animals or skunks; I experience the extreme heat or cold and the woods, the dirt, the creeks, the lakes, the gravel dust, the landscapes, the dogs, the squirrels, the flocks of birds, and the occasional snake—all at relatively high speeds.

When I am walking, everything slows down and I only cover five miles or so in the same amount of time I would normally spend cycling. The slow speed of walking allows me to pay attention to more detail in nature. The only insects I notice while I am cycling are the ones that hit me in the face or manage to enter my open mouth and hit me in the back of my throat. (How do they do that?) I always try to cough them out, but I usually end up swallowing them.

When I am walking, I might stop and watch some industrious ants at work or a scampering lizard scoot across the rocks. I pay attention to soil, rocks, insects, wild flowers, fungi, animals, trees, plants, sunlight, color spectrums, snowflakes, icicles, moisture, textures, fragrances, breeze, and temperature. It allows me to feel more immersed in and connected to planet earth. I can pause, observe, reflect, and appreciate the gift of life on this third rock from the sun.

The other day I was walking in nature and I happened to spot a barred owl perched on a hackberry tree limb. I stopped and stared at it for a while, and then I noticed its partner perched about two trees away on a black locust tree limb. As I was watching and trying to get a picture with my phone—I saw them—in the hollow of a dead oak tree, I saw the heads of at least three small owlets. I was mesmerized with this family of barred owls. I rarely spot owls in the daylight hours, so this was exceptional. As I gazed, time paused; my racing thoughts slowed down to the point where they simply extinguished for the moment. I was connected and everything felt beautiful.

In her book, The Artists Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron writes about the importance of paying attention. She says, “The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention” (p. 53). And paying attention can provide healing and delight even in times of great pain. She tells the following story:

In a year when a long and rewarding love affair was lurching gracelessly away for the center of her life, the writer May Sarton kept A Journal of a Solitude. In it, she records coming home from a particularly painful weekend with her lover. Entering her empty house, “I was stopped by the threshold of my study by a ray on a Korean chrysanthemum, lighting it up like a spotlight, deep red petals and Chinese yellow center….Seeing it was like getting a transfusion of autumn light.”

It’s no accident that May Sarton uses the word transfusion. The loss of her lover was a wound, and in her responses to the chrysanthemum, in the act of paying attention, Sarton’s healing began (p. 53).

This spiritual practice of paying attention is, for me, a form of meditation. One aspect of the practice of meditation is about paying attention in the now, in the moment. It’s something we can cherish. This moment. Right now. I tend to furiously focus on my past or my future. It can be exhausting. Paying attention to my body, my breath, my emotions, my thoughts, and my surroundings—attending to the moment with curiosity and openness, not judgment—it helps connect me to myself and my surroundings. Often it’s when I pay attention in nature that I find some of my deepest moments of connection. I try to find time each day to move my body outdoors, in nature. I find it immensely nourishing for my soul and healing for all types of pain.

Julian Cameron continues her reflection on paying attention and the experience of pain:

It may be different for others, but pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. Each moment, taken alone, was always bearable. In the exact now, we are all, always, all right. Yesterday the marriage may have ended. Tomorrow the cat may die. The phone call from the lover, for all my waiting, may not ever come, but just at the moment, just now, that’s all right. I am breathing in and out. Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty (p. 54).

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

The Role of Doubt on the Journey of Faith

Listen: “I’ll Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is a valuable aspect of the faith journey. I have come to embrace this idea more deeply in the last three years, but it’s not new to me. I remember when I was a teenager struggling with issues of faith, and I came across an article in a teen Bible entitled, “Sometimes I Doubt.” Instead of condemning doubt, it normalized it. I came to realize that most of the characters in the Bible expressed various degrees of doubt on their faith journeys, like Abraham, Job, Moses, Thomas, and even Jesus. I realized it was okay to have doubts about what you believe and why you believe it. Not long after, I felt a calling to become a pastor and this launched my rigorous pursuit of understanding faith from primarily a Christian perspective, but I have always read broadly. My personal library contains over 6,000 books, and I have earned a plethora of degrees in the field of theology and religious studies.

The last three years of my life have taken me into a deeper level of doubt and unbelief. In 2019, I found myself in what felt like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. My world had collapsed around me in dramatic, public, humiliating fashion, and I was in a deep darkness—questioning everything I had ever believed, hating my life, and feeling a notch above suicidal thoughts. At this time (Fall of 2019), a friend mailed me a copy of a book by Richard Rohr, Falling Upward, and it got my faith off the ventilator, sparking a new journey of faith for me. I devoured many of Richard Rohr’s books and read many of the books he referenced. Some aspects of my faith journey have remained consistent—I still consider myself a follower of Jesus and a student of the Bible tradition—but I am rethinking everything and I have added some new practices like mindful meditation. I like to say “I am less certain and more open.”

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and a prolific, bestselling author on spirituality. I have a couple of friends who know Richard Rohr, so I thought I would try to meet Richard and maybe even do a podcast interview with him. I learned that he is struggling with some health issues and has curtailed his engagements. Brené  Brown released an interview with him recently (Unlocking Us with Brené  Brown, April 20, 2022), but I wasn’t able to reach him. However, I did meet one of Richard’s close colleagues, another bestselling author, speaker, and activists—Brian McLaren.

Brian McLaren was gracious enough to connect with me. I sent Brian a text on January 26, 2022 and asked if he would be willing to set up a phone conversation with me (he lives in Florida), and he responded immediately and said, “Anytime today is good, Fred. I’m free right now if you wanted to talk.” We talked, and I am so grateful for the relationship. I actually had three of Brian’s books in my library (he has published over 20 books), but I had not read his most recent book—Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What To Do About It. It’s a must read for all doubters, disappointed, and disillusioned who are on a faith journey in life.

Brian has a new companion book coming out as I write this blog (May 22, 2022) entitled, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for The Doubters, The Disappointed, and The Disillusioned. I had the privilege of doing a podcast interview with Brian on these two books (Spirituality Adventures, May 18, 2022). I would encourage you to listen, if you haven’t done so already.

Brian has helped me understand, in a deeper way, the importance of embracing doubt on the faith journey. In fact, I have come to see “certainty” as the opposite of faith because dogmatic certainty invariably leads to superiority, arrogance, self-righteousness, and exclusivity. All of the great spiritual leaders of the great faith traditions were reformers. They challenged long-held belief systems and upset the status quo, sometimes at the risk of their own lives. We admire them for their courage and insight. Jesus began his public ministry by saying, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15; NASB). Unfortunately, the word “repent” (Greek word is metanoia) has taken on a puritanical connotation. It’s better translated “change” or “rethink.” Jesus was going to challenge people to rethink Torah, rethink purity culture, rethink tribalism, rethink grace and compassion for the marginalized, the outcasts, and the morally impure, even rethink love for yourself, your neighbor, and your enemy. “Believe the gospel” is better translated “have faith in the good news.” So notice, Jesus was attaching the process of doubt, change, and rethinking to the process of discovering faith in a new reality.

Unfortunately, the conservative church in America has not often made room for doubters. She tends to double down on the dogma and become more shrill in her pronouncements. Some people are even attracted to authority figures who speak loudly with dogmatic certainty while speaking condescendingly towards those who disagree, question, or doubt. Rachel Held Evans (June 8, 1981-May 4, 2019) was an American Christian columnist, blogger, and bestselling author. In her book, Searching for Sunday, she writes:

There are recovery programs for people grieving the loss of a parent, sibling, or spouse. You can buy books on how to cope with the death of a beloved pet or work through the anguish of a miscarriage. We speak openly with one another about the bereavement that can  accompany a layoff, a move, a diagnosis, or a dream deferred. But no one really teaches you how to grieve the loss of your faith. You’re on your own for that…It became increasingly clear that my fellow Christians didn’t want to listen to me, or grieve with me, or walk down this frightening road with me. They wanted to fix me. They wanted to wind me up like an old-fashioned toy and send me back to the fold with a painted smile on my face and tiny cymbals in my hands.

In Brian McLaren’s book, Faith After Doubt, he has a beautiful chapter entitled, “You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone.” He ends the chapter with a benediction modeled after the beatitudes to remind us that our honest doubts are not a curses but, rather, a blessing:

Blessed are the curious, for their curiosity honours reality.

Blessed are the uncertain and those with second thoughts, for their minds are still open.

Blessed are the wonderers, for they shall find what is wonderful.

Blessed are those who question their answers, for their horizons will expand forever.

Blessed are the those who often feel foolish, for they are wiser than those who always think themselves wise.

Blessed are those who are scolded, suspected and labelled as heretics by the gatekeepers, for the prophets and mystics were treated in the same way by the gatekeepers of their day.

Blessed are those who know their unknowing, for they shall have the last laugh.

Blessed are the perplexed, for they have reached the frontiers of contemplation.

Blessed are they who become cynical about their cynicism and suspicious of their suspicion, for they will enter the second innocence.

Blessed are the doubters, for they shall see through false gods.

Blessed are the lovers, for they shall see God everywhere.

If this resonates with you or someone you know, let me know by responding to this blog by email. I am starting some Connection Groups in Kansas City for people who resonate with this experience of doubt. Connection Groups are designed to foster spiritual connection with yourself, others, and something transcendent. It’s for people who have encountered religious trauma, deconstruction, or spiritual awakenings, and where doubts, questions, and unbelief are valued as part of the spiritual journey.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Willpower

Listen: “Breaking the Habit” by Linkin Park

Willpower is a force that runs much of our life and society. In essence, it’s our freedom to choose and take specific actions in life. We wake up every morning and decide to do something: make coffee, make the bed, take a shower, take out the trash, go to work, go to school, do some exercise, make a “To Do” list, meet someone for coffee, take the kids to school, do homework, mow the lawn, or clean the house. We make decisions and we take action. Civilizations have been built through the collective engagement of human willpower.

Willpower works perfectly for mundane tasks. Some tasks in life become repetitive because they need to be done. Someone needs to pay the bills. Someone needs to clean the house and take out the trash. Someone needs to buy groceries, fill up the car with gas, and fix things that break. Someone needs to get the kids to school and put the kids to bed. Everyone needs to take a shower and brush their teeth. Some tasks are necessary, mundane, and repetitive.

Willpower works for accomplishing more complex goals in life. Individuals and organizations thrive by setting goals, building teams, designing action plans, and executing the plan. Goal setting combined with self-discipline and willpower has fueled the achievements of individuals, families, organizations, and governments throughout human history.

Willpower works well when people are called upon to make sacrifices and perform a duty for friends, family, co-workers, or fellow citizens of a nation. I am thinking of things like a single mom working two or three jobs to support her children. An employee working extra hours to meet a company deadline. A citizen of Ukraine mobilizing their skills in order to defend their country against Russian invasion. Humans can be extraordinarily inspirational when they sacrifice their own safety and personal goals for some altruistic cause which is greater than themselves.

Despite the enormous energy residing in the power of the human will, it has its limits. Sometimes “sacrificial willpower” can be a guise for selfishness. Richard Rohr has pointed out how “sacrifice” can go wrong. Rohr says, “You see, there is a love that sincerely seeks the spiritual good of others, and there is a love that is seeking superiority, admiration, and control for itself, even and most especially by doing ‘good’ and heroic things” (Breathing Under Water, p. 22). This can be tricky to see, but we see it when it becomes toxic, like a manipulative, abusive mother who is very sacrificial. Codependency is incredibly sacrificial, disguising itself as “sacrificial love,” but in reality it is not love at all. It’s a means to manipulate and control another person or take the moral high ground for themselves. People can be highly sacrificial, but not loving at all. They can be full of anger, even resenting their own sacrifices and the people they try to control.

Willpower can grind out dutiful behaviors long after the love and passion are gone. Julia Cameron points out how creative artists work best when their creativity flows out of passion, enthusiasm, and love. Artists can get trapped in habits of “dutiful discipline” instead of playful, childlike creativity. Cameron observes, “That part of us that creates best is not a driven, disciplined automaton, functioning from willpower, with a booster of pride to back it up. This is operating out of self-will” (The Artist’s Way, p. 153). Imagine the spouse who has fallen out of love, but still delivers roses on an anniversary—dutiful roses delivered out of obligation. How romantic! Willpower can grind it out in the short-term, but usually fails over the long haul. Love and passion win in the long run. Imagine someone going to worship at a mosque, temple, or church. They go through the ritual motions of repetitive prayers, songs, and chants, but their hearts and minds are far away.

Willpower, perhaps, is at its worst when it comes to addiction. Addictions usually start out as behaviors that bring us comfort in times of stress, distractions in times of turmoil, and numbing in times of pain. They start out as harmless activities that give us respite from the storm: watching the screen, playing a video game, shopping, cleaning, working out, engaging social media, drinking, eating, smoking, fixing, consuming, and plotting. Over time these substances and behaviors take on a power of their own. We obsessively return to these substances and behaviors, almost religiously, but instead of providing peace and comfort they morph into monsters. They turn into idols which control us. They destroy us, tearing apart our our bodies and our relationships.

Willpower, in the face of addiction, becomes our downfall. Our willpower wants to stay in control. Our willpower is absolutely confident that it can control the addiction; curb it; tame it. Willpower employs a thousand strategies to change, deny, and stay in control, but it fails again and again. Our willpower hates defeat. It’s one of the great ironies in life. Something that has served us so well—willpower, with all its rules, sacrifices, and duties—fails us so miserably. The Apostle Paul observed centuries ago, “These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires [destructive behaviors]” (Colossians 2:23; NLT). For the sake of sanity, we must admit we are powerless.

The Twelve Step book, Alcoholic Anonymous, puts it bluntly: “So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic [addict of any type] is an extreme example of self-will run riot…” (p. 62). It is in surrendering our willpower to a power greater than ourselves that is loving and caring that we find hope.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Not My Will—Radical Acceptance

Listen: “Everybody Hurts” by REM

On Thursday, April 14, 2022 I was having shoulder surgery on my torn rotator cuff. I was truly dreading the surgery. I was having a hard time accepting the reality of another painful event in my life. The last three years have been a series of painful events and experiences in my life—emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

My surgery occurred on Thursday of Holy Week 2022, a day when Christians around the world were remembering the events of Jesus’ life the night before he was crucified by the Roman government. The Holy Thursday events in Jesus’ life included the Last Supper, Washing of the Feet, Judas’ betrayal, and Jesus’ late night prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

Jesus was dreading his own crucifixion. While Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he uttered perhaps his second most famous prayer. His most famous prayer being the Lord’s Prayer also known as the Our Father Prayer. Both prayers make reference to God’s will, but they are in stark contrast to each other. The prayer Jesus uttered in the Garden of Gethsemane regarding God’s will was a prayer of surrender or radical acceptance. The prayer Jesus modeled in the Lord’s Prayer regarding God’s will was a prayer of action.

The prayer Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer regarding God’s will is: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Jesus did not intend for us to merely repeat these words, and then do nothing. Jesus intended us to pray and take action, actually partnering with God in the work of his kingdom. When we pray and take action to create a more loving world, we are bringing a touch of heaven to earth. When we practice a lifestyle which contributes love, grace, beauty, creativity, forgiveness, recovery, gratitude, healing, inclusion, generosity, and justice, we are, in effect, becoming a part of the answer to the prayer: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” It’s a prayer which calls for action and participation.

The prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane regarding God’s will is not a prayer of action, but a prayer of surrender or radical acceptance. Jesus was undergoing enormous stress. He was facing the brutal, almost assured, torturous end to his own life by Roman crucifixion. So Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42; NLT). Not my will. Not the way I want it. Not the way I wish it was, but the way it actually is. Ouch!

For those of you who might wrestle with the concept of “God” or “God’s will” (I certainly do), you might think in terms of accepting reality as it is. No one escapes painful experiences in this life. In order to recover, grow, and flourish with mental and emotional health, we must learn to stop fighting reality, stop throwing fits because reality is not the way we want it, and let go of anger and bitterness.

This is not easy work for anyone. We tend to go down a rabbit hole of “what ifs” and “if onlys,” wishing we could change something or someone. Blaming others. Blaming ourselves. Resisting our own reality. I remember one of my dad’s mantras which he said to me when I was young (And old! My dad just turned 87 and still gives good advice) and making “if only” excuses—“If a bullfrog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass every time he hopped.”

One of my favorite authors, Richard Rohr, wrote a book on the Twelve Steps of AA entitled Breathing Under Water. In his chapter on the third step of AA (“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God”), Rohr says:

How long it takes each of us to just accept—to accept what is, to accept ourselves, others, the past, our own mistakes, and the imperfection and idiosyncrasies of almost everything. It reveals our basic resistance to life, a terrible contraction at our core or, as Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and writer, told me personally once, “our endless capacity for self loathing.” Acceptance is not our mode nearly as much as aggression, resistance, fight, or flight.

Marsha Linehan, founder of the DBT therapy model, names seven reasons why we need to accept reality (from DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition):

1. Rejecting reality does not change reality.

2. Changing reality requires first accepting reality.

3. Pain can’t be avoided; it is nature’s way of signaling that something is wrong.

4. Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering.

5. Refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck in unhappiness, bitterness, anger, sadness, shame, or other painful emotions.

6. Acceptance may lead to sadness, but deep calmness usually follows.

7. The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell.

So we find in Jesus’ teaching and practice of prayer two kinds of prayers regarding God’s will which are in dialectical opposition—one involves action and one involves surrender. I think American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr captured this dialectical opposition beautifully in another famous prayer—The Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

Surgery and Recovery

It’s been hard to write blogs (typing is painful) and concentrate the last two weeks (May 1, 2022). I’ve experienced a great deal of pain and had to take short-term prescription pain meds due to shoulder surgery. Many people have extended thoughts, prayers, and concerns as I go through this new challenge. Some of the concerns have revolved around the prescription pain meds and my previous issues with substance abuse. This is actually the second time I’ve had to take short-term pain meds due to injury since I have been in recovery. Two years ago I broke my collar bone and was on short-term pain meds. Two weeks ago I went through rotator cuff surgery. The surgeon repaired three torn ligaments in my right shoulder with five anchors and removed a bone spur. The recovery has been painful and slow. As I think about the process of recovery from surgery, it can serve as a metaphor for recovery of all types.

In most ways, I feel like my life has been going through surgery and recovery for the last three years—emotionally, spiritually, relationally—and even physically. In general, emotional recovery from loss of friendship, loss of community, loss of faith, loss of a loved one, loss of employment, or emotional recovery from divorce, addiction, or illness has many parallels to physical recovery from surgery. Here are a few thoughts regarding the process of recovery.

Source of pain. For adults, before we begin a process of recovery, there is usually a large amount of pain. Two months ago I tore my rotator cuff due to a mountain biking crash while cycling on some frozen, icy trails. Over three years ago, I went through a personal crisis involving ministry burnout, insomnia, chronic marriage issues, and Xanax and alcohol abuse which resulted in a loss of community, marriage, friendships, career, stature, and faith. Pain can come suddenly due to unforeseen circumstances or it can build slowly over years until it hits a tipping point.

Surgery—More pain. At some point we may need surgery—emotionally or physically. The pain becomes too disruptive to our lives or the lives of those around us. If we desire healing and recovery, we must submit ourselves to more pain. It’s ironic. There is a pain that destroys and a pain that heals. Surgery is painful. Rehab is painful. But it’s a necessary pain for which we must volunteer, if we want to heal and recover. Emotional surgery is a painful process of humility and rigorous honesty with ourselves. We must also assemble a team of people to help us. Surgery is not something we can do in isolation by ourselves. We must find a surgical team—pre-op, op, and post-op.

Therapy—More pain. Therapy is painful. When I was going through physical therapy for a knee surgery in my late twenties, I had a sweet female therapist whom I lovingly called my torture therapist. She put me through a great deal of pain, but got me walking again. Emotional therapy can cause emotional pain as well. We must grapple with the hurts others have caused us and face the negative beliefs we have about ourselves, others, and God. We must dig deep, face our demons, and take responsibility for the pain we have caused ourselves and others. We must also commit to forgive those who have hurt or injured us. Therapy is not something we can do in isolation by ourselves. We need close friends, sponsors, pastors, therapists, and grace-based communities to help guide us on the road to recovery.

I have a therapist, a sponsor, close friends, family, doctors, and friends in recovery who truly know me. They know my past struggles. They know my current struggles. They also check in with me on a regular basis. This type of support is vital for recovery.

Recovery. My least favorite part of recovery is how slow it seems to go. Emotional recovery, depending on the circumstances, can be a process that takes years. Physical recovery can be a process that takes weeks, months, or years. I have been told that the type of shoulder surgery I have undergone can take at least three to six months to recover. So, even though I can be very impatient when it comes to the time-line of recovery (I want to speed everything up), I am grateful for the grace-based, recovery-oriented community of friends, family, and professionals that surround me. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

One Last Week—Why Did Jesus Strip?

Listen: “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2

During the Passover meal (aka The Last Supper) which Jesus shared with his disciples, he got up from the table, stripped off his outer clothing, picked up a towel and bowl, and began washing the feet of his disciples. Foot washing was considered one of the dirtiest jobs in the ancient Near East. It was reserved for only the lowliest of slaves. It was shocking behavior for Jesus to strip down to his underwear (the dress of a slave), take up a wash bowl and towel, and wash the feet of the disciples. Peter initially objected to the disgusting behavior before he understood the full implications of Jesus’ actions.

In the last week of Jesus’ life on earth—Holy Week—he traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish Passover festival. This was an annual remembrance of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Even today, Jewish families around the world remember the events of the Exodus by sharing a Passover meal in their home. The meal involves retelling the ancient story of the Exodus, singing hymns, and eating a meal of roasted lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and sharing four cups of wine. The elements of the meal commemorate the night of the Exodus when the blood of the lamb spared the Hebrew children from the death angel, and the Israelites hastily fled their Egyptian captors.

Jesus’ humble act of washing the disciples feet the night before he was crucified has become one of the most iconic episodes of his life. Jesus taught and demonstrated love of God, love of others, love of self, and servant leadership throughout his ministry. He said, “For even the Son of Man [Jesus’ self-title] came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; NLT).

Service is one of the core values in the recovery movement as well. Addiction usually spirals downward into self-focused, narcissistic living. Addicts don’t care who they hurt (and you don’t have to do drugs and alcohol to be an addict). They live for themselves. Recovery involves making amends to the people we have hurt and choosing a life of service to others.

Jesus was one of the great spiritual leaders in history who modeled the importance of service. Books have been written on the servant values which Jesus taught and practiced, but here is a short list. 

Visionary leadership. Jesus cast a vision for a better future for everyone, not just the wealthy, powerful elite. He called it the “kingdom of God.” He taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When Jesus demonstrated healing, forgiving, loving, serving, caring, feeding, including, and liberating people from oppression, injustice, and judgment, he would speak of his vision for the kingdom of God. His vision always depicted loving, grace-based community in which people were experiencing a touch of “heaven” on earth—a home for the sick, the outcasts, the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the misfits, and the forgiven.

Servant leadership. At the final Passover meal, before Jesus washed the feet, the disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest among them. Who is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)? Competitive men love to vie for this position and have these debates. Jesus turned the debate upside down: first, by a radical teaching, and, second, by a radical act. Jesus pointed out how most of the kings and great men of the world love to impress you and oppress with their greatness, but Jesus offered a new vision. “But among you it will be different. Those who are greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant” (Luke 22:26; NLT).

Sacrificial leadership. Jesus practiced non-violent resistance towards the oppressive powers of Rome and the corrupt religious leadership of his day. He practiced a lifestyle which he called others to follow and emulate. It was a lifestyle that valued the dignity of each person. Jesus sought to eliminate the obstacles which hindered people from thriving and being a vital contributor to the common good. He was willing to sacrifice himself for others and for the common good of the community. “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend” (John 15:12-13; NLT).

Grace-based leadership. Grace was at the heart of Jesus’ message. He envisioned a radically inclusive, grace-base community of people who were non-violently resisting injustice and oppression of the poor and vulnerable, while offering love and compassion for  everyone. Jesus challenged us to deal with our own resentments and prejudices by finding ways to love and forgive even our enemies. He called us to live a life in which we embrace mercy, compassion, forgiveness, vulnerability, and service as opposed to self-righteousness and judgment.

Why did Jesus strip down to his underwear and wash feet? He was modeling for us and calling us to new way of living. A way of caring. A way of loving. He elevated service to others as an honorable lifestyle, instead of a demeaning task. In fact, the recovery and survival of our planet depends on it.

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022

One Last Week—Is Jesus a Renegade?

Listen: “Renegades” by X Ambassadors

The first two days of Holy Week—Psalm Sunday and Monday—begins with Jesus acting out movie-style scripts in which he is critiquing the corrupt religious practices of his day. In essence, Jesus writes, directs, and acts in his own movie script in an effort to demonstrate the need for radical religious reform, if not the need to tear it down and rebuild it. Jesus was, in fact, a renegade. I’m quite sure if Jesus showed up again today, he would be quite shocked and dismayed at how “Christianity” (something that developed many years after the life and death of Jesus) turned into a corrupt religious system throughout much of its history. On the first two days of Holy Week, Jesus critiques leadership, power, money, sacrifice, and bigotry.

Over two billion people in the world will reflect on the last week of Jesus’ life in the next few weeks (April 2022)—Holy Week. From Psalm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday, the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) give us some details on what Jesus did on virtually every day of this famous last week.

Holy Week kicked off with Jesus entering Jerusalem for the last time. Most of Jesus’ ministry took place to the north of Jerusalem near the Sea of Galilee, but Jesus regularly went to Jerusalem to celebrate the holy holidays on the Hebrew calendar. His last trip into Jerusalem was no different; Jesus was going to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover Week.

During Jesus’ three years of public ministry, many Jewish people were beginning to believe that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah for which the Hebrew prophets foretold and the Jewish people anticipated. The Messiah was viewed as a political/religious leader who would free Israel from Roman oppression by military power and established a somewhat utopic vision of God’s kingdom on earth—a vision in which injustice and oppression was ended and peace and prosperity was established for Israel.

Two memorable, renegade acts occurred on Psalm Sunday and the following Monday. Each of these events, which were staged by Jesus, were intended as a critique of toxic religion. The first was Jesus’ donkey ride, and the second was Jesus turning over the money tables in the temple. 

The Donkey ride—Jesus’ critique on leadership and power. Messianic expectations swirled around Jesus his whole ministry. If Jesus were a Messiah in the traditional, ancient Hebrew sense of the idea, he would have been the new King of Israel with an army who led a victorious military campaign against the foreign oppressor, Rome. In the ancient Near East, a new king was coronated. Coronations involved a type of parade in which the new king rode into the capital city on a horse with his army as a part of the pageantry. Jesus was performing a mock-coronation parade by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey without an army. The pageantry began as a spontaneous parade crowd forms and people began to praise Jesus as the new Messiah and wave Palm branches.

Jesus’ donkey ride was an act of humility. Jesus was critiquing the powerful, male, machismo, dominate, oppressive, and corrupt leadership styles of his day (and every age, think Putin). Jesus always advocated for a style of leadership that was visionary, humble, and exercised for the common good (healing, caring, forgiving, compassionate, just, wholistic). We might call it “Servant Leadership.” Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man [Jesus’ self-title] came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; NLT).

Turning over the money tables—Jesus’ critique of money, sacrifice, and bigotry. On Monday after Psalm Sunday, Jesus entered into the temple in Jerusalem and began to attack the money business in the temple. This is a scene in which Jesus seems out of character, even angry and disruptive. In fact, Jesus is acting as a renegade as he critiques some religious practices in the temple.

First of all, it was Passover week and people were traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate. Once in Jerusalem, people would make various kinds of sacrifices in the temple as outlined by sacrificial laws. Most people traveling great distances would not travel with their own animals to sacrifice in the temple. Instead, they would purchase the animals at the temple to use for their sacrifices. The animals were sold at inflated prices (like buying a hotdog at a Royals game) in the temple. This enriched the pockets of the temple but hurt the poor people. Jesus was upset that the temple was, in effect, oppressing the poor.

Secondly, the area in the temple where the money tables were set up was called the “Court of the Gentiles.” It was the one place where “non-Jewish outsiders” could worship and connect with God in the Jewish temple. Instead, the temple authorities had, in effect, eliminated Gentiles from worshipping in the temple by setting up the money tables in their place of worship—bigotry in motion. As Jesus turned over the money tables, he quotes a Hebrew scripture: “‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations [Gentiles],’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves” (Mark 11:17; NLT).

Thirdly, it’s possible that Jesus was also critiquing the entire ancient, sacrificial system. Instead of an endless religious treadmill of various kinds of grain and animal sacrifices offered to worship God and experience forgiveness, Jesus seems to signal the importance of the self-sacrificial, self-giving nature of love, forgiveness, worship, and redemption. Jesus spoke of a God who loved the world so much that he gave of himself (John 3:16), and Jesus said of himself that he did not come to be served but to serve others and to give his life for others (Matthew 20:28). True worship is about love and devotion—loving ourselves, loving others, and loving God. God is also love—love poured out for all creation. In essence, Jesus was staging a call to sacrificial, non-violent, non-oppressive, self-giving love that can change the world. Let’s be renegades of this kind. As X Ambassador’s sing:

Long live the pioneers

Rebels and mutineers

Go forth and have no fear

Come close and lend an ear

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022