Epiphanic Cacophony #2: A Preachy Post About Epiphany and Progressivism

If you read my Epiphany reflection from yesterday, you might be wondering, still, what’s the point of this season? Something about the color green and discipleship and stardust? I admit, I didn’t spell it out all that clearly. That’s partly because I’m overcoming a disrupted and out-of-sorts sleep schedule, it’s also because I’m trying to figure it out, myself. It’s worth noting that all the Christian seasons have a singular purpose in that they help us remember and participate in the life of Jesus Christ, so we don’t end up like those “foolish Galatians.” 

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and the season after Pentecost.

This liturgical rhythm, if you blog about it every evening, or observe it some other way, has a surprising energy about it. It’s got a poetic soul. It can change you. Your eyes and ears and other senses start to work a little different than before. Or maybe it’s not the liturgy. Maybe it’s just the commitment to something other than appetite and distraction (which could be the whole point of liturgy, I don’t know).

Like I mentioned in the previous post: Advent is the waiting, Christmas is the celebration of the coming, and Epiphany is the living, going out into the wilderness, squaring off with temptation. Why did God come to the planet in the first place? He’s going to show us (hint: it’s not about posting political memes). Epiphany means “to make manifest.” This is where we discover what it means that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Epiphany is an especially Anabaptist liturgical season. Theologically, Anabaptists emphasize the daily grind. Yes, yes, Christmas and Easter are important, but I get my high off not buying things and wearing black and fasting and eating roots and being constitutionally unsettled by empire and consumerism. January is buy nothing month for me. If a need comes up, I’ll see what I can borrow. I’m already off to a good start: I’m using my nephew’s old snow jacket for a family ski trip this week (thanks, sis!)

All this emphasis on Jesus can, if you’re not careful, reduce a man to parroting progressive talking points and sharing Democracy Now links and reading Sojourners op-eds and thinking that all this means he’s on the narrow way. I gave a sermon about this problem in early November, back when we all thought Hillary was going to win the election in an historic landslide. I get it, though. And I don’t pretend to know what does and doesn’t cross the line between Christianity and cultural progressivism. I just know that there is a line. It’s one of those questions we just have to feel out, through trial and error and prayer and honest reflection. But make no mistake, the gospel is calling the rich and the poor, conservative and liberal, employer and employee, white and black, to repentance.

Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!

If switching from Fox News to MSNBC is why God came to the planet, then we might as well give this whole thing up. If that’s all you’re getting from it, then you’d better open your Bible or take a fast or go on a pilgrimage. It’s not just the conservatives who get comfortable with fundamentalism. The progressives do, too. And too often they equate their heart for the poor with the policies they advocate, such that anyone who disagrees with their means becomes an opponent of their ends, which is caring for the “least of these,” which means if you oppose the ACA or a minimum wage bump you’re a Pharisee putting heavy burdens on the people Jesus loved the most. This is all part of the Rachel Held Evans system (or Rachel HELL Evans, as a pilgrim I know would say).

R - Run away from your past
A - Attract people with the same wounds as you
C - Create a space where you can monetize resentment
H - Hammer out blog posts that use all the buzzwords
E - Elicit social media disciples to spread your message
L - Let the virus spread

(Okay, this is very uncharitable. I promise I’m mostly kidding.)

Epiphany. To make manifest. I’m not saying we can’t have some idea of what Jesus was getting at. I’m saying that his words cut deeper than perhaps we’re willing to admit. I’m saying we’re never so clean as to not need baptism and fire and the Holy Spirit. I’m saying the moment we think we’ve got the Way, the Truth, and the Life figured out is the moment we need to change things up. Sometimes I tell people I’m looking for lowercase-t truth.

Lowercase-t truth ain’t a bore
That’s the thing I’m looking for
Cut a broad swath and shave close
Make room for the Holy Ghost

When I think I’m getting too partisan, too secure in my own views, I like to read philosophy and poetry. It keeps me unplugged. There are all kinds of peddlers out there trying to make a mark out of you, selling this and that, promising answers. Not that answers are a bad thing, but they’re more an apartment than a home. Don’t pay for a house when you’re renting a flat. Be ready to move when the Spirit calls. Don’t bury your intuition in certainty. This is getting a little preachy. But I think Epiphany is the right time for preachiness. Epiphany wouldn’t be worth its name if it didn’t have the potential for making a person say, “Oh! Of course! It’s obvious! How could I have been so blind!?”

Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!

Some folks say, “People don’t change.” Nah. People do change, and sometimes they change very quickly. The Christian faith puts a lot of stock in the power of change. Epiphany is all about change. Preaching and repenting and dropping your nets and following the shepherd-leader. I want to be comfortable with change; mind-altering, earth-shattering, divinely-inspired change. Someone once told me that with my long hair and scraggly beard, the only thing I’d be getting is change (spare change, he meant). I think he was giving me an Epiphany sermon.

If you think I’ve been too hard on progressives in this post, just wait for the reflection where I take a shot at conservatives; it’s coming, I just don’t know when. In the meantime, I hope you have an epiphanous 2nd day of Epiphany, and 3rd day, since this one’s almost over. And one more time, since I feel sort of bad about it, that RACHEL system thing is a joke, even if it’s a tiny bit true.

Epiphanic Cacophony #1: A Cosmological Pilgrimage

A painting called Epiphany by an internet anon named Art Enrico.
Stars and roots and stars as roots and three desert pilgrims. 

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of learning. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.” - Rumi

Welcome to Epiphany, which, according to my $15 liturgical calendar, means “to make manifest.” We’ve waited for Jesus (Advent), we’ve celebrated his birth (Christmas), and now we’re following him into new life (or being dragged, I don’t know). The color green is the color of Epiphany and it signifies growth, discipleship, and pilgrimage.

An Eastern star, a river baptism, bright lights on a mountain; this whole Word becoming flesh business involves a lot of earthy, material stuff. It starts with amniotic fluid and baby spit and ends with blood and burial robes. Then there’s the credit cookie, where the dead body gets up. It’s an epiphanic cacophony. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Since I skipped the end of Advent and the whole of Christmas with an impromptu trip to Hawaii, I reckon I’ve got a writing debt to pay, so I’m go keep this going with some Epiphany reflections. It’ll be a little rough since I don’t know what I’m doing, but I didn’t know what I was doing when I landed in Hawaii without a ride and without a place to stay. I’ve always learned best when I’m in over my head and getting blasted by waves and being dragged against rocks.

Today is January 6th. "Three Kings Day," according to Wikipedia. I don’t pretend to have anything close to a thorough understanding as to who these Magi were (from the sound of it, no one really does), but from what I can piece together, they’re a strange bunch. For starters, they dabbled in astrology and magic, which ‘round these parts is a big no-no (lots of church-goers can’t even handle Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings). The Wise Men let the universe speak; they offered it a listening ear. The planet wasn’t just a bunch of stuff for manipulation and consumption. The cosmos had a life about it, a spirit. Owen Barfield probably liked them (thanks, Edwin).

Also: take note, Indiana, of the enormous difference between kneeling at the crib of the infant Jesus and promoting theocratic political power in Jesus’ name. For kings, these men possessed an uncommon humility. In fact, the idea of men with political power kneeling before a baby is perhaps the most hard-to-believe part of the whole New Testament (though they may not have really been kings). But that’s the story. And they didn’t just kneel. They took a pilgrimage.

"Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth. We’re on pilgrimage to worship him."

I started a good thing in 2016, fasting, and I’m going to keep doing it 2017. It required fundamental shift in my diet and in my attitude towards eating, but it’s been worth it. I’ve learned a thing or two (though I’m going to keep those lessons to myself). I’ll just note that, in my experience, and in the story of the Magi, a good, earthy pilgrimage involves listening to the world around you. An important part of that world is your body. If it’s too much of a stretch to take life advice from a volcanic island, try a fast. The Magi were cosmological pilgrims, Jesus was a cosmological pilgrim, you’re a cosmological pilgrim, even if you don’t know it. We’re made of starstuff, right? Isn’t that what Carl Sagan said? Follow the stars.

A Post-Advent Ironic Advent Meditation: Waiting for Everyman

Jackson Browne

Hawaii took a lot longer than expected. I left on Dec. 19th and just got home tonight, Jan. 4th. I’m jet lagged and exhausted, so this won’t be long. I just wanted to check in and put down a few thoughts.

Advent is long past. Today is the 11th day of Christmas, somehow. I celebrated Christmas Day with the hostel I stayed at and it was good and we sang folk songs and I played the banjo, the uke, and the 6 string while I drank and smoked. Christmas with strangers. I recommend it. That was in the evening. On Christmas morning I took a boat ride along the coast of The Big Island, went swimming with dolphins and whale watching. Seeing that island from out there in the blue ocean, the mountain paradise shooting into the misty clouds above, the topical volcano looking down on me, it was a spiritual experience. The world felt so big, so impossible to understand, and I felt completely at peace with it. And yes, my long, sun-bleached hair, was blowing wildly in the wind, like Zaphod Beeblebrox speeding across the seas of Damogran.

Afterwards, I posted this on Facebook

Just took a boat around the island and swam with dolphins and the whole thing was spiritual and nothing is as it seems and the world is too big to understand. Advent is over. Merry Christmas.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the island. I'm still not sure how I wound up there. On the flight to Kona I wrote in my journal, “I don’t know when I’m coming home. I won’t know until I get there.” On the 26th of December, I went swimming and the waves threw me into some rocks, rocks which a little sea urchin called home, and he tore up my right hand and forearm with his spikes; the waves also blasted my prescription sunglasses off my face (they are forever lost at sea). The whole thing was my fault. I swam towards the closest shore instead of the shore I was more familiar with, the one I’d used to enter the water in the first place. I took it as a lesson to go home sooner rather than later (or never). I tell my chess students, “Don’t play hope chess. Don’t just move a piece and hope for the best. Know what you’re doing. Think about each move.” This advice has a broad application.

Let me take a second to plug My Hawaii Hostel. It’s wonderful. Clean, friendly, hospitable, and inexpensive. $45 per night for a bed, a shower, and access to the kitchen, which usually has community food available. I didn’t spend a dime on food until my fourth or fifth day on the island. I met people from all over: Germany, Austria, Australia, Canada, Alaska, Switzerland, France, and more (while I’m discussing world regions and such, I’d like to apologize for saying that Hawaii is in the South Pacific. It’s not. It’s in the North Pacific). If you ever decide to visit Kona, Hawaii, look up My Hawaii Hostel.

I went to a luau with a bunch of Europeans and we just about got kicked out during the show. The security guard told us he’d been getting complaints. Too much drinking, too much laughter. The Austrian was a little pissed. “Is this how Americans do holiday!? They just sit and watch shows and eat and never talk to anyone!?” “Yeah, a lot of them,” I said. He asked me if I was comfortable with the luau, which he compared to a Disney World production. “No, I’m not. I’m not even sure why Hawaii should be a state. I guess that’s imperialism. They get tourist dollars, we get shows, and we all lose a piece of ourselves.” The whole luau was a nightmare of colonialism and Americanism, like a Hawaiian version of the Lawrence Welk Show. God save us all.

One last thing. I was stuck in San Francisco for a couple nights before I made it to Hawaii. I was traveling with my friends Kevin and Sarah. We walked around the touristy places by the bay and for about an hour we split up. They went to a winery and I went to the street where Nicholas Cage chased Sean Connery. A Buddhist monk approached me and gave me a bracelet and a nod. “Peace.” That’s all he said. That’s what I’d like to leave you with tonight. Peace. Have peace with where you are. Hawaii’s okay. But warm weather and waves alone have nothing to offer humanity. Flowers aren’t better than bare trees and sandy beaches aren’t better than frozen grass. During my last few days in Hawaii and on the flights home I experienced an overwhelming sense of gratitude for where I come from. Stepping off the plane in Indianapolis, I’d never been so happy to feel cold. I suppose It’s easy to sit here and tell you this. Maybe you need a trip all your own to learn it. I did. So take one, if you can. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for. I’m not saying you won’t. Just don’t drive yourself crazy thinking the answers are out there.

Seems like I've always been
Looking for some other place
To get it together
Where with a few of my friends
I could give up the race
And maybe find something better
But all my fine dreams
Well thought out schemes
To gain the motherland
Have all eventually come down
To waiting for Everyman