Aj Schwanz

Iíve been reading a book thatís been making its way around certain circles: Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. A very interesting read - itís able to keep my attention even though Iím reading it before I go to bed, a time when my intelligent thoughts are few and far between.

The first chapter talks about ìThe Theory of Thin Slicesî - the idea that our gut feelings or unconscious insights can be more accurate than decisions based on lots of quantified and qualified information. The author chronicled the work of John Gottman, a man who has used thin slicing in the realm of marriage: he videotapes a couple interacting (usually discussing something thatís meaningful - positive or negative), and by analyzing this short encounter, he can fairly accurately predict whether their marriage will last or end in divorce. Heís noticed ìthat all marriages have a distinctive pattern, a kind of marital DNA, that surfaces in any kind of meaningful interactionî (26) and that there are Four Horsemen to denote impending trouble: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt (32).

ìYou would think that criticism would be the worst,î Gottman says, ìbecause criticism is a global condemnation of a personís character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, ëYou never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.í Well, sheís going to respond defensively to that. Thatís not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, thatís far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of the time itís an insult: ëYou are a bitch. Youíre scum.í Itís trying to put that person on a lower plane than you. Itís hierarchicalî (33).

It got me to thinking: why is contempt so horrible? My immediate response was to do a ìthin sliceî of my marriage for areas of contempt that really and intentionally need to be worked on. But how could an eye roll or a sigh lead to divorce? Does the Bible come out and say what a destructive thing contempt is? I ingested what Gottman said, but it took a while to digest.

I realized the next day that the Bible does have something to say about contempt, and itís right off the bat ñ enter the serpent. Satanís name means ìaccuserî, and he always tries to convince folks that they could do stuff better than someone else: to Eve, he accuses God of ìholding outî on wisdom; to Job, he accuses God of abandoning him; to Christ, he accuses God of not giving Christ enough direction in his ministry. As heís accusing, he seems to be saying, ìYou know, you could do this a lot better than God can. In fact, maybe youíre better than God.î Putting ourselves on a higher plane than God, believing that we know better than our Creator = contempt. Interesting thoughts.

So, what does that say when we think we can ìdo churchî, or even ìbe churchî, better than other folks? Is it any surprise that our churches are in a state of divorce from each other? “You get to keep social justice, and we’ll keep Christ-centeredness, and we’ll share open worship every other month.” Ouch . . .

So now we can study the Bible “while avoiding legal and religious disputes”. I remember getting picked on because I was a pacifist, and that was at a *Christian* school. But I’m sure it would be much different at a public school. Heh heh: oh, it is to laugh.

From a friend and fellow Board of Ev-er:

Hey Folks,

We are looking for a new host couple for the Friends House of Hope. This house is an outreach to women coming out of prison and or addictions.
The responsibilites are fairly simple- making sure rules are followed, shopping, organizing the chore list, receiving guests, and communicating with the project leadership team.
While it isn’t neccessary that we have someone who attends our church, we do desire that the host couple be mature Christians who desire to help these women at a spiritual level, someone who will pray with these women, and someone who can point them towards Jesus.
The pay is room and board, plus a stipend of a few hundred dollars a month. The perfect scenario would be to have an energetic retired couple who could take this project on as their ministry. Although we would like a committment of at least a couple of years, we would be open to a one year commitment.
Feel free to ask questions as needed!
Thanks for your prayers! Gar

Gar Mickelson
Community Outreach Pastor
Hayden Lake Friends Church
Director, TWENTYFOUR-SEVEN
208.755.5440
251 W. Miles Ave.
Hayden, ID. 83835

How cool is this? Some high school libraries are taking after Borders and other book retailers by serving up the java to create a “studing/coffee house” atmosphere. They recognize that students enjoy going to their local coffee shop, that it’s a great place to study and engage other folks. I think I stepped foot in my high school library once a year, usually because my teachers made me. And I *like* libraries: so what does that say when a bibilophile won’t come near one?

The crux of the article is to warn against allowing students to have such easy access to caffeine, but it’s not as if Starbucks isn’t on every corner of the street in Anytown, U.S.A. I understand their worries, but look at the positives: students might actually use the library to study - to ask for help rather than go to shady resources - to learn how to become lifelong, self-motivated learners.

I’ve had some quality encounters with Christ in coffeeshops - taking my journal, a good book, watching other folks converse and engage with each other, looking out the window at the traffic, smelling the coffee and fresh baked scones, watching kids play with the heavily-drooled on toys, seeing friends come and go . . . . What’s so appealing about it? When I lived in Boise, I would often spend my Sunday mornings at a coffee shop of my own choosing depending on my mood (Starbucks if I was lazy, Flying M if I was feeling artsy-fartsy) - why did I feel like I engaged Christ more really, more authentically there than at my church?

With a library, the users usually need to go to the library to get full access to the wealth of materials and aid: true, there’s online reference people and online holds and the bookmobile, but generally folks have to go to the library. I’ve been hearing about how the church should be missional - should go out to people rather than have them come to the building/ministry. Are there cases, though, that it’d be best to have people come to the church, something need that can best be met or resources that are best used by coming to the church?

Libraries feel the effect of resources readily available on the internet: their patronage numbers are declining. But libraries are doing some really radical ways to set themselves apart from doing a google search, ways that brand their sort of assistance, to assist each person individually in assessing their personal needs. Does the church do this? Can they? What would that look like?

HT

Today’s teen are the first “totally wired generation” according to this article. Marketing in authentic ways is hard, particularly when teens know the internet playground better than most advertisers. What ways can the church connect with teens in this web of the wide world? Should the church try, or would it simply be forced, like in high school when our moms would pretend to be able to play hacky sack with us (just oh-so-painful to watch)?

One thing to keep in mind:

“Instead of pushing content at teens, sites should find ways to let teens have some say in the material,” Williamson says. “Giving teens a sense of ownership is a powerful draw.”

Have you reached out to teens online?

because I don’t know what to do with this, but I can bet you my Dad would. Skip the tie: think of how many comic strips you could rub off with five pounds of silly putty! And, if your father happens to be a former chemical engineer, I’m sure there’s a world of possibilities I couldn’t begin to describe (partly because I don’t know what they would be since I have not an ounce of an engineering mindset in me, and partly because they might not all be legally kosher).
What would you do with five pounds of silly putty?

HT

Pontificating has been light as of late: the realities of daily life (moving, adding a kitten to the mix, throwing an open house/first birthday party - Lord help us all), so I certainly wouldnít call myself ìsaturated in spiritualityî at the moment - my Quaker and Emergent readings have been traded for skimming Cooking Light for ìhealthyî cupcake recipes.

But there have been times Iíve inhaled spiritual readings - and by spiritual, I mean the kind that youíd find in the ìChristianî section at Powells. Iíve glimpsed aspects of Godís nature in books of all sorts, though I doubt A Wrinkle in Time, Alice in Wonderland, or The Traveler will end up anywhere near the Christian Mystics section.
When Iíve had the luxury of reading to my heartís content, I inhale books. If Iím taken with a specific topic, a decent amount of time is spent researching the subject, looking for *all* the authors and *all* the books so as to accrue all the information available.

But, in the words of Robert Smith, ìitís never enough.î I grasp and I try to control, but it feels as though it all slips through my fingers: the ache isnít relieved, but instead grows.

Today I read a great post by Alan Creech entitled ìof imperfections in respect to spiritual gluttony.î

Spiritual gluttony, as he calls it, is indeed still rampant in the Church. You’re not really allowed to call anyone on it, though. That would be to quell the zeal of your sibling. Of course you should devour every new spiritual book you can get hold of. Surely we should try every kind of spiritual exercise that will help us advance. The defense is heard, “there’s nothing wrong with wanting to experience God in fullness, to feel Him in your bones.” The trouble is, no one ever answers this objection. We always give in so as not to sound as if we’re saying that some desire for God is bad. Well, some ways of desiring God are bad. Some are unhealthy and will end up not leading you to God but to your idea of God and therefore, to yourself as god.

In Quake speak, this friend speaks to my condition (or perhaps my tendency). I also wonder if that could be some of my “disappointment” as a youth with the real life church experience; after coming back from camps and youth gatherings, I wanted and expected to maintain my spiritual high caloric intake, but it just made me fat and cranky.

What are your impressions, thoughts, experiences? Can we hunger for God in unhealthy ways? How do we differentiate between healthy hunger and gluttony?

What would “remonking the church” look like for you?

Initially, I struggled with this article - not that it was “wrong,” but that it’s not where I’m at: I just bought a house in the suburbs of a rather WASPy community. I don’t feel like I’m on the “cutting edge,” one of the “cool” kids, in the way the church is moving. I watch the cool kids, standing on the sidelines, throwing out my attempts to make contact, but my toys must not seem all that interesting.

But then I remembered that we’re not all called to be monks; we’re called to be where God wants us to be, to live lives attunded to His Spirit.

Currently, I’m not a PoMo monk: I’m called to be a wife and a mother of one, a writer, a reader, and a ponderer. It’s certainly not where I planned to be: Quaker nun was more my calling, I thought. And yet I’m here, trying to rest in faith, knowing this is where God has called me to be in this very place at this very moment.

So, are you “monking” it out? If not, where are you chillin with God?

This morning I spent a little time skimming a recent article from Newsweek (well, it was recent when a friend forwarded it to me; but according to Internet in which tastes and trends and viral messages keep up with my eleven-month oldís teeny tiny attention span, itís old school) regarding the state of spirituality in the U.S.

First, itís funny that a magazine thinks it can describe something like that: thank you for our Enlightenment belief that all can be observed, quantified, and classified.

Second, havenít I read this before? Pick a decade: for example, replace ìMadonnaî with ìShirley McLaineî and ìKaballahî with ìNew Ageî, and itís a story that couldíve come out in the 80’s.

The idealist in me gleefully bounds about at the title, hoping that America is truly aching to be more spiritual. The realist in me recognizes that we were created to be in a relationship with God, that we will be restless until we find our home with Him, and that this story is just like putting a new label on the Spam can - the outside may change, but you know the formula for Spam will always remain the same. The idealist wants to believe that things are changing, that the harvest is ripe, that things are different. The realist knows that publications have certain topics and themes they work in on an annual or bi-annual basis, but people donít want to read a repeat, so they make it sound ìnew, fresh, and re-formulated!î to sell mags.

Whatís your take on the current State of Spam . . . I mean, Spirituality?

Some friends and I are putting together small group materials that corrolate with the Sunday morning message as a tool to practice a more holistic church/worship/being in an intimate relationship with God life - you know, the good stuff.

We want to use music as one element of the centering down process, but personally, my mind’s drawing a blank. Well, not a complete blank: it’s playing the Mexican Hat Dance song from my son’s Leap Frog Learning Drum, but somehow that doesn’t draw me deeper into the Spirit.
What songs help you center down? What songs or music aids you in hearing the Spirit?