Author: krinvan

I recently gathered with some folks to discuss the concepts outlined in Neighborhood Church, Transforming Your Congregation into a Powerhouse for Mission, a book I coauthored with Rob Mueller. I crafted this video to set the stage for that conversation. Here is its text as well as a link to view the short film online.

We can’t be sure, but it seems that what we call religion is a uniquely human response to life. We are steeped in this mystery of our existence. We glimpse it in the eyes of a newborn child, we hear it in the intricate trills of a songbird, we view it in the unfolding of a flower, we sense its majesty while standing beneath the Milky Way as light from distant stars and galaxies that has traveled millions of light years reaches our eyes.

Thousands of years ago, a shepherd turned king named David, wrote these immortal words, addressed to his tribal God called Yahweh. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them?”

And there it is. That word. Mindful. No matter what faith we practice, billions of us across this fragile planet have sought to make sense of the mystery, to become more mindful of this presence we have called God, the Tao, Great Spirit, Holy of Holies. We have written what we consider sacred texts. We have crafted creeds and confessions whose truth we insist upon. We have fashioned elaborate houses of worship and filled them with statues, icons, and relics. We have devised sacraments to be practiced only by those adhere to our given version of the truth.

But aren’t love and unity among all people, all tribes, all faiths the most precious responses to the big questions of life? As we consider how many different communities of faith gather on the face of this earth to wrestle with the mystery, think of this. What if each of them was primarily concerned with expanding their love for all people, not just their own clans? What if they sought out partnerships in their communities that promote the common good for every child born of a human mother and father? What if justice and mercy were what motivated them, not self-preservation?

There are many proven ways to become more mindful of this higher purpose. And today we will look at a few of them together.

Years ago, a national magazine published my article entitled A Medal for Two, a glimpse into living with our intellectually disabled son, Kristoffer. It began with a quote from Pearl Buck, a diamond of wisdom forged by caring for her mentally disabled daughter. Buck said this.

There must be acceptance and the knowledge that sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.

Those words drilled into me, and the older I get, I see how acceptance does indeed have alchemical power, especially with events that elicit grief, sorrow, or regret. This transformation is necessary if we are to maximize our happiness and fulfillment.

But, as Hamlet said in his famous soliloquy, “ay, there’s the rub. Certain painful experiences are reluctant to relinquish their hold. They require long goodbyes as they recede further on the horizon. I spoke about this in a recent post entitled Those Wounds That Keep on Wounding.

I have some hopes for all of us. In the midst of these prolonged farewells, I hope we come to understand the wisdom they impart. I hope these gradual widenings of awareness reveal new insights and power for living.

Here are some examples of what I am still learning to accept.

Acceptance of past mistakes: We’ve all made errors, and sometimes the memories of those choices still hurt. Learning self-care includes extending grace to these earlier versions of our selves. As writer Stewart O’Nan says, “You can’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You have to accept it as a whole…” The wisdom that arises from this is a greater capacity to love both ourselves and others, despite every human flaw. We certainly need more of this ability in our fractured world!

Acceptance of limited relationships: How often have we longed for deeper connections in key relationships? There is nothing wrong with our desire for intimacy, but sometimes clear limitations keep us from breaking through. Our personality types, our worldviews, our emotional intelligence quotients, our cultural and racial backgrounds—all these can form barriers. It’s especially painful when we hit these walls in our families, even marriages. We see the differences and we want to assign blame, either to ourselves or others. We want to exert more control. But the real wisdom lies in a deeper awareness, summed up by writer Abhijit Naskar: “Acceptance is simply love in practice. When you love, you accept, when you lack love, you judge.” This kind of love enables long goodbyes to our expectations of others, our images of who we want them to be. It clears our vision for a beautiful refocusing of who they are in the present.

Acceptance of unrealized dreams: Motivational and self-help writers share a similar mantra. Our dreams, they say, will only die if we give up on them. Can you hear Steven Tyler belting out dream on, dream until your dreams come true? But what if we’re clinging to desires that are unrealistic and self-limiting? What if there will be no room for the next amazing chapter of our lives until we release them? We’ve been taught that hanging on tenaciously to our dreams is an emblem of strength, but sometimes it is far stronger to let go. The surprise is that often we discover new dreams that are truly in our reach!

In her book The Child That Never Grew, published in 1950, Buck shared her journey with her daughter Carol. It was a vulnerable “coming out” at a time when children with intellectual disabilities were often kept hidden, considered shameful to the family. Buck told how she found a home for Carol at the Vineland Training School in New Jersey, and though Carol would come home occasionally, she always returned to the institution for long-term care.

I cannot presume, I can only imagine what it was like when Buck said goodbye to Carol each time she dropped her off. She would look in the eyes of her precious child, seeing the obvious limitations, feeling once again that sorrow that was slowly being transmuted into acceptance, even happiness.

I often feel the same as I look into the eyes of Kristoffer.

It’s a long goodbye to the old sorrows and an embracing of the beautiful human being God has given us.

This is a true story. The family gave me permission, but I still changed their names to protect anonymity. My reason for sharing this will become clear by the end.

Bill was a member of a church I served, and I had grown close to him and his blended family. He had a daughter from his first marriage named Anna. One weekend, Anna stayed at his home for a scheduled custody visit. Early in the morning, a daughter by his current marriage found her stepsister hanging in the backyard, already dead for hours.

Adding another layer of damage to this inconceivable tragedy was the story of Anna’s final days. Her mother belongs to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. While invading her daughter’s privacy, she discovered that Anna had texted her boyfriend some explicit images. Her mother’s discipline included dragging Anna in front of the male elders and shaming her in public. That shame was one of the triggers for her suicide.

The so-called memorial service at the Kingdom Hall was no source of comfort. Bill said it was cold and impersonal, and that one of the church’s members intentionally whispered within his earshot, “The sins of the father are visited upon the child.”

Let the brutality of that comment sink in for a moment.

Suffering a bottomless grief no parent can even describe, Bill came to my office with his current wife, wondering if we could offer an alternative service at our church. I readily agreed, as did the elders of our congregation.

Anna was a student at a local charter high school specializing in creative arts. A talented artist in her own right, she had an array of friends who created in multimedia. I suggested that we open our sanctuary as a space to celebrate her life, letting others say goodbye to her with their own artistic flairs.

And so it happened, an event I dubbed Annapalooza. Friends, teachers, and administrators from the school packed our pews. For over two hours, they took turns sharing poems, paintings, videos, and songs. Some simply stood and gave short eulogies. Each one illuminated an aspect of Anna’s short life, and the uniqueness of this special young woman rose up palpably in our midst.

I simply acted as a host, offering prayers, my love for the family, and a short benediction. We had no illusions. We knew this tragedy would cast a lifelong shadow, but as we cried and laughed and began to process our collective grief, we hoped that we were reframing, even re-envisioning that pain at its outset.

So…why am I sharing this?

Because the degrading of those who are different or make mistakes continues in too many religious quarters. Even when people say, “we love the sinner but hate the sin,” the message is loud and clear. Your behavior or lifestyle falls outside the boundary of what we deem acceptable. We have judged you.

Gay and trans people will readily attest to this attempt at shaming. So can those who suffer from various addictive diseases. But the lifestyle judgers now go far beyond those favorite targets. They are now including politics, race awareness, even a person’s reading habits.

And let’s be clear. This venom is not just endemic to conservative American Christianity. It has been a poison spewed by many world religions and political movements. It is written into our history books, and this demonization of “the other” seems to be on the rise.

Today, I no longer align myself with any particular faith. As I look back on my 32 years spent laboring within organized Christianity, I—like many of my friends—can clearly see its institutional limitations and errors.

But when it comes to events like Annapalooza, I can say this with absolute certainty. There are communities of faith that practice grace and love, that stand with those on the margin, that labor for unity and inclusion. I blessedly found such a group early in my own life. That experience led me to say this in my book, Invitation to The Overview: “Giving people the space to connect to their own spiritual meanings without the pressure of conformity is a priceless gift. This is the real meaning of sanctuary.”

We offered that sanctuary to Anna and her family, and in the years since, I have seen what it meant for them.

Grace, which I define as a powerful, often unmerited offering of love and service for the healing of our world, is still a compelling message of my former faith. When I recall Annapalooza—a memory I will take to my grave—I know the clear difference this grace can make.

A Baptist church near my home spent a fortune on its digital billboard. The messages that flash across it are a testimony to proof texting—ancient verses plucked out of context, meant to inspire modern commuters. I usually disregard them.

But the other day, in strobing yellow, came these words: Do you know why you were created?

Wow! How’s that for a writing prompt?

Beyond the first patriarchal query of the Westminster Catechism, I thought of ways people might answer this question today.

• Learn to love and be loved.
• Serve the common good.
• Raise a family, leaving your legacy for the next generation.
• Do your duty without complaining.
• Be mindful of the present before it slips away.
• Realize your full potential.

That last one is dear to my heart. I have always encouraged people to discover their deepest purpose. My doctoral work focused on spiritual gifts, a Christian concept that I demystified and extrapolated far beyond the confines of religion. These gifts are talents, abilities, and inclinations that spring from the nexus of our genetics and personal history. They take myriad forms, but there is one thing they have in common. When we exercise them, we feel a quickening, a satisfaction, the joy of living in the center of our being.

In golf, tennis, and baseball, we us the term “hitting the sweet spot.” It’s that place on the club, racket, or bat that connects most cleanly with the ball. In golf it creates a ping, in tennis a resounding thwop, and in baseball a sharp snap that often results in a homerun. When we are utilizing our gifts, we are hitting our sweet spot!

Do you know what I mean? Do you have a vocation or advocation that gives you keen satisfaction? Have you been blessed enough to both know and exclaim, “This is my calling!”

Here’s an unfortunate truth. In a world that trains us to gauge our value against other people’s accomplishments, we too often feel we are lacking. Please don’t let this happen to you. As Wayne Dyer famously said, “Don’t die with your music still in you!”

Reflect on this quote from Deepak Chopra: “Everyone has a purpose in life… a unique gift or special talent to give to others. When we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.”

If you’re still not convinced that “little old you” has a gift to offer, let me share an illustration from my years of ministry.

I had a stole I wore on special occasions, a brightly colored weaving given to me by a woman who labored amongst the poor in Guatemala. I will always remember her and the vitality she radiated. I called it our “community stole,” not just the accouterment of a priestly class, but something each of us would wear at various times in serving each other.

Occasionally, I would interrupt our worship services and call people forward. I would place that stole around their necks and thank them for exercising their gifts in our midst. People like:

• Jack, an older gentleman who came early, turned on the lights, brewed the coffee, made sure the bulletins were ready. He relished doing small things behind the scenes.
• Deirdre, a young woman whose love for children was charismatic. She cared for my son, Kristoffer, and others with a patience and grace that amazed us.
• John, not only a consummate vocalist, but a director of music who encouraged others to overcome their timidity and find their own voices.
• Mike, a master numbers cruncher, who consistently found ways in our budget to serve the community.
• Melissa, a fiery prophet, whose passion for social justice awakened the consciences of countless people in our midst.

I could go on, but I’m sure you hear me.

I write these words because I long for you to actualize your own gifts, sing your own song, find your sweet spot, and let your unique createdness shine a light in our world.

Namaste! God bless you! As-salamu alaykum! Mitakuye oyasin! May the Force be with you! Keep on truckin’!

It’s a painful reality, frequently denied. Spiritual leaders avoid it; self-help books would rather serve up pablum. It’s similar to how we treat the aged in our culture. We shunt in away, glossing it over with cultural addictions to youth, beauty, and prosperity. We present our best faces on social media, like rouge on the cheeks of a caretaker’s subject.

It is this. Some wounds never heal. Certain emotional and psychic events leave lesions that reopen in both our waking and sleeping hours. I know this from my personal life, but also through connections with those I counseled throughout my career. Here are a few examples.

The Death of a Loved One. How many of us have experienced the loss of someone who was inextricably bound into our lives? Their absence is like a phantom limb, our jangling nerves reaching out for an unconsummated union. It may be the loss of a friend, a spouse, another family member, or (God forbid) a child. It is especially acute when the death is sudden through rapid disease, an accident, or especially suicide. Elizabeth Berrien, founder of Soul Widows, says, “We never truly get over a loss, but we can move forward and evolve from it.”

Trauma. It pains me to remember people I’ve walked alongside who experienced trauma, many of them in childhood. The causes are many: verbal, physical or sexual abuse; neglect; bullying; racism or discrimination. These experiences cast lifelong shadows, a form of PTSD that undermines our lives with multiple symptoms. Even after regimens of counseling, we find we cannot erase that radioactive source completely. As novelist Laurell Kaye Hamilton says, “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”

Betrayal.  Betrayal cuts us to the bone. Too often we cope by becoming emotionally reclusive, fooling ourselves that we are better off alone. These treacheries may convince us that we are not worthy of love and affirmation. We doubt the very core of our divine identities.

Some of us exacerbate our culture’s denial. When we encounter suffering people, we fan the pain through vacuous platitudes. Everything happens for a reason. Look on the positive side. Things will be better tomorrow. Be grateful for what you do have. During my decades of ministry, I trained caregivers to always avoid easy answers. Be a loving presence instead, even if it means total silence.

Is there hope, or is this post just an invitation to depression?

I have a guarded answer. Yes, there is hope, but I don’t believe we can base it on eradicating our pain. Rather, we find it as these wounds become sources of strength, leading us to engage the world in powerful new ways.

One of my heroes is Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest, writer, professor, and theologian who died in 1996. His book The Wounded Healer became a touchstone for my life, and I often quoted his words to others,

Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

Imbedded in Nouwen’s wisdom are three truths that help us forge new strength from these wounds that keep on wounding.

• Acceptance. There’s no shame in admitting that some pains won’t disappear. We are not inferior because we haven’t found spiritual disciplines to completely erase our grief, to “let go and let God” as the simplistic motto advises.
• Vulnerability. Learning to share our pain with others is healing. However, we need to be discerning in how we choose our confidants.  It is most beneficial with those who reciprocate by opening their own lives, allowing us to share our common humanity. We then need to respect this mutual transmission, emptying ourselves to be present for them the same way they are present for us. Avoiding self-absorption is critical.
• Service. Helping others who are hurting can lessen the sting of our injuries. It’s no wonder that those suffering from addiction hear the admonition to serve others as the Twelfth Step of their recovery process. Some people have founded entire movements from the wells of their personal trauma, leading them to missions with wide-ranging impact.

If you have read my words to this point, I have something I want to say to you. I love you, even with all your wounds, and even though we may never meet. I pray that you will turn your wounds into new sources of strength and inspiration. I hope that you will become a wounded healer in this world where so many people are crying out for compassion.

I arrived at the Las Vegas airport before dawn and decided to grab some food before my flight to San Antonio. A sign for breakfast burritos caught my eye. My order was steak, eggs, cheese, and green salsa, filled by a woman who wore a black COVID mask. She deftly browned the tortilla on a large skillet, ladled the ingredients inside, then folded it with a flourish, lifting it for me to see.

“Now that’s a perfect burrito,” she said with a laugh.

I looked at its round curvature and finely tucked edges.

“It is indeed,” I replied with a chuckle. “Fit for a promo video!”

She laughed again, bagged my prize, then handed it to me. I paid my bill and walked away, but her comment stuck with me.

Why? Let me explain.

Mindfulness of the here and now is beautiful, even necessary, and people use various techniques to increase their mental acuity. Meditation, yoga, walks in nature, even apps designed to interrupt our daily tasks and refocus our attention.

Whatever the method, may they help us pass the most enduring test—to find pleasure in the midst of the mundane. To become present as we mow our lawns, change our baby’s diapers, wait at stoplights, or load our dirty laundry. These are the moments that make up our lives.

The woman who served my breakfast may feel that she’s found her life’s calling, but I highly doubt it. Most likely she is performing a minimum wage job filled with a vastness of potential tedium.

And yet, the finely crafted burrito, brandished for me to see! A flash of humor and celebration! With gratitude, I let her enthusiasm enrich my own enjoyment of the moment.

As my plane lifted into a sky filled with clouds, my mind cast back to another person whose presence in his routine lifted the spirits of countless people. He was a toll booth operator on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, northernmost span across the San Francisco Bay. During a year of my seminary education, I used that passage to attend my internship. My return trips coincided with his evening shift.

I would pull up, offer my fare, and he would do two things EVERY TIME. First, he would make direct eye contact. Secondly, he would say, “You have a blessed evening.” Words like that sound hollow if offered superficially. From him they always seemed sincere. And their effect on me was like a tonic, turbocharging the rest of my drive across the bridge, a shining example of how small gestures offered in the crush of daily life can radiate positivity to others.

In one of my most popular posts from 2020, The Unspiritual Spirit, I quoted the late Thich Nhat Hanh about his fellow community members at the International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. These are words worth repeating.

“When we wash dishes…it is to live every minute of the washing. Wash each bowl…in such a way that joy, peace, and happiness are possible. Imagine you are giving a bath to the baby Buddha. It is a sacred act. I have arrived. I am home. Through these two phrases, you can experience a lot of joy and happiness.”

After my return to the Alamo City, I spent the next day planting spring flowers in my backyard. I always mix a blend of potting soils in a large container, running my fingers through the granular dirt, kneading it like a baker. This time, I lifted a handful, remembering the face of that woman at the Las Vegas airport.

I laughed and said, “Now that’s a perfect fistful of soil!”

It’s midnight in Marathon, Texas. I’m lying in the back of my truck, nestled in a sleeping bag, staring at the awe-inspiring night sky. The heavens in West Texas are always bright, but especially here in the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve.

The mission of the Reserve is “to protect the area from the spread of artificial light pollution and promote the use of night-sky friendly lighting practices.” It’s a cooperation between multiple communities, parks, and organizations spanning the US and Mexico. At over 15,000 square miles, it is the world’s largest dark sky reserve.

I needed this break. Call it my genetic makeup, generational trauma, or radioactive fallout from our culture, but I too easily get wrapped around my axle, gripped by a sense of urgency that is certainly self-induced.

Vitamin N (Nature) is a remedy for what ails me. I receive healing doses at beaches, mountains, forests, prairies, even my own backyard. But right now, it pours into me through the slowly revolving night sky.

It’s like setting my inner clock to eternal rather than temporal time. As I do this, the gift of my life’s moments—this miniscule allotment—becomes more precious.

It’s a universal human experience to gaze in wonder at the cosmos, to have our breath taken away by constellations, nebulae, and those distant points of light that represent galaxies far grander than our own.

What is your reaction to these mind-bending moments?

Some of us simply revel in the beauty. Some of us feel a chill down our spines, recognizing the tininess of our lives, a visceral pang of existential humility.

My father retells a childhood memory. Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, the summer nights were often insufferable indoors, so he would grab a blanket and go outside to sleep on the lawn. One night, the sky seemed more brilliant with stars than usual. He looked deeply into the pure expanse until he felt overwhelmed, almost scared. But then—even at 8 years old—a transcendent peace settled over him. He had the distinct feeling that whatever had created the universe was living within him as a benevolent presence. He just turned 94, and I swear I can still see that sense of wonder in his eyes.

The heavens have awed us since we first looked up from Oldulvai Gorge, and many great minds throughout the centuries have voiced their inspirations.

Somewhere around the 6th Century BCE, an Israelite wrote a beautiful song. Attributed to David, the shepherd who became a king, it shows how this wonder under the vault of night unites humanity through the ages. Tradition names it Psalm 8, and it contains these words:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Here are some other quotes, just a few out of thousands.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them. – Marcus Aurelius

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night. – Kahlil Gibran.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff. – Carl Sagan

If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day. – Bill Watterson

Those last words, from the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, are prophetic. Just think how a daily dose of stargazing could help us realign our priorities! It could awaken us to that state of mindfulness prescribed by so many spiritual teachers. It could help heal the tragic divisions that have always plagued humanity. Like astronauts who never see Earth the same after viewing it from orbit, we might develop that embracing vision of our shared destiny we so desperately need. I wrote about this in my book Invitation to The Overview.

But right now in Marathon, Texas, under this night sky that extends around the planet, I simply sigh and settle into that middle ground between the ever-expanding vastness above me and the uncharted atomic worlds within my own body.

I set myself to eternal, not just temporal, time.

Selah!