Month: January 2021

Last night, I picked up groceries from Walmart. I love it: my family and I can put things in the cart over the course of the week, and then place an order that I just pick up. The Walmart associates who do the shopping are pretty good about finding substitutions, and the ones who load the groceries in my car are always friendly and helpful. Walmart saw a need a few years ago, then ramped up their service as the pandemic restrictions further drove people to avoid in-person shopping.

There’s no doubt that my relationship with Walmart, though, is purely transactional. If they didn’t believe they were making just as much money with this system as they do with in-person shopping, I have no doubt that they would end it, setting aside all their platitudes about the safety of their customers.

I have used the same bank branch since we moved to Rolla, although they were previously Bank of America and are now First State Community Bank. When I walk in, Liz, the manager of their main operations, always welcomes me by name. (My beard makes me recognizable, even with a mask on.) Charlie, the loan officer that helped us with our new house construction, asks me how the house is, how my wife is doing, and so forth. I feel like the people there truly care about my well-being. When I need something that’s a bit out of the ordinary, they’re always helpful. I’ve seen the way they treat other customers, too—kind and caring. But at the end of the day, the services they provide are tied to the profit I produce for their branch. They care because they’re good people, but also because their relationship with me brought them additional business—the construction loan—that would otherwise have gone to a different bank.

My relationship with my employer is a bit different. Missouri S&T certainly has people for whom the entire relationship is transactional. For them, though, the relationship is always on the surface and always in jeopardy. One way to get a raise (here or elsewhere) is to get an offer from outside. Good department chairs, deans, and other administrators, though, will stay ahead of that, because once an employee starts seriously considering an offer from a different company or university, they already have one foot out the door. It’s much better to foster a deeper relationship, a feeling that the person is valued as a part of the campus community. Some administrators use that deeper relationship to exploit the vulnerable, but smart and successful campus leaders know that people will work harder and contribute more to the campus mission if they believe they are genuinely valued.

In some religious circles, an individual’s relationship with God is reduced to a transaction. One form that takes is the “sinner’s prayer”: say the right words that affirm your belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you’re saved. Done. Other religious groups believe in more of a works-based salvation. My limited understanding of LDS beliefs indicates that it falls into this category. Their third Article of Faith is, “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” (emphasis added)

One group of relationships that isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, transactional is family. No matter what I do or where I go, I know that I am unconditionally loved by my parents and my siblings. I hope that my kids know that they are also unconditionally loved. Familial bonds can be strained and even broken, as all human relationships are breakable. Still, they are not transactional in the way that my relationship with Missouri S&T is. My wife and I didn’t become parents so that our kids could give us something or do something for us; we became parents because our love for each other made us want to share that love. I have no illusions—neither of my kids has any intention of living in Rolla, or even in Missouri, where they could take care of us as we age. That’s OK. Loving someone means that you want the best for them, not that you want them to do something for you.

⁴⁶ While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. ⁴⁷ Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” ⁴⁸ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Matthew 12:46-50

Here, Jesus implies a works-based religion: do the will of God and you will be part of God’s family. However, we need to consider this in light of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. There, Jesus described a man who rejected his family. He asked for his inheritance early, essentially saying, “Father, you’re dead to me.” This is pretty much the essence of a transactional relationship. The son is saying that he doesn’t care about the father as a person, but only as a source of wealth. Later, though, he “came to himself” and returned to his father, fearing the worst and hoping only to be treated like a hired hand instead of as part of the family. But when he returned, his father welcomed him back as an honored son.

We are all welcome in God’s kingdom, or as some would have it, in God’s kin-dom, God’s family. When we do God’s will, we are a part of that family. When we don’t, well, we’re still part of the family, just a bit estranged. I once saw home defined as the place where they can’t turn you away. Some people don’t have that sort of home in their human family, but we all have that sort of home in our holy family. Come home.

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A few program notes. As you may know, I am an elder at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. I am spearheading an effort to resume our Fired Up! informal worship service in an online-only format. I post a video weekly on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and then encourage people to discuss the scripture in our Facebook Group. Come join us!

I am also an organizer of LGBTQ+ Rolla, which exists to advance the LGBTQ+ community in Rolla and Phelps county. We have a website and a Facebook Group. If you are LGBTQ+ or an ally and live around here, come join us!

According to a 2016 psychological study, an effective apology has six components:

1. an expression of regret for the offense
2. an explanation of why the violation occurred
3. an acknowledgment of responsibility for the offense
4. a declaration of repentance
5. an offer of trust repair
6. a request for forgiveness

The authors studied apologies that comprised just one of these six components, three of the six in various combinations, or all six. They found that all six components were needed for a truly effective apology. Three components were particularly important:

• An Explanation for why the violation may have occurred, which is an effort by the violator to affect the victim’s sense‐making about the violation in a way that might make the violation seem more understandable, less intentional, or less dissonance‐creating to the victim.
• An Offer of Repair, which may restore the tangible or economic damage that occurred as a result of the violation.
• An Acknowledgement of Responsibility, in which the violator assumes responsibility for having created the violation, hence limiting the number of alternative explanations for why the violation occurred.

Over the past ten days, many of us have been wondering what the path forward is. On January 6, 2021, a rally led by President Trump evolved into a riot, culminating in an attack on the US Capitol while Congress was debating challenges to the Electoral College votes from Arizona. Details are still coming into view, but a few facts are clear:

• There was a portion of the crowd who arrived at the rally intending to attack the Capitol. They had plans, weapons, and other equipment needed for such an attack.
• Prior to the rally, President Trump and his allies spent months saying first that the election would be stolen, then that the election had been stolen. They stated clearly that it was incumbent on Trump’s supporters to “STOP THE STEAL.”
• In encouraging people to attend the rally, Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
• Multiple speakers at the rally used language about violence. From the full transcript of Trump’s remarks, “We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” Rudy Giuliani said, “But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. Let’s have trial by combat.”

While Trump himself did not participate in the violence, he bears some culpability for encouraging his supporters. So do his allies like Giuliani, and so do members of Congress like Senator Josh Hawley (who unfortunately represents my state).

There have been calls from Republicans for “unity.” “It is past time for all of us to try to heal our country and move forward,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. The question is, how best to achieve this healing? For guidance, let’s look at the apology steps listed above. I have seen no indication from President Trump, or any of his close allies, of ANY of the six steps.

The two predominant approaches to wrongdoing are retributive and restorative justice. Retributive justice is most familiar to us, and comes down from the ancient law of Moses and Code of Hammurabi: an eye for an eye. In modern jurisprudence, crimes are committed against the state. Criminal cases are always brought on behalf of “the people.” Offenders are punished, both as retribution and deterrence. In restorative justice, the emphasis is on restoring what was lost, both the actual loss (e.g., the value of something stolen) and the loss of harmony in the community. Restorative justice is a relatively new concept in Western law, though it was prevalent in pre-modern societies such as among Native Americans.

The most widely known example of restorative justice is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, 1996-2003. This commission was instrumental in the transition from apartheid to legal equality for all races. I had the privilege of seeing F. W. de Klerk speak on campus a few years ago. He was the transition leader, the last white president of South Africa. He spoke at length about the importance of both aspects of the TRC: truth first, reconciliation second. There is no hope for peace without both. To the extent that the TRC failed to achieve all of its objectives, the failures were primarily in the lack of truth: offenders concealing some aspects of their crimes in order to receive unearned amnesty.

The second aspect of TRC, reconciliation, depends upon repentance, the fourth component of an apology listed above. “Repentance” is commonly taken to mean a confession of wrongdoing, but actually means a turning: turning away from wrong actions, turning towards right actions. Repentance is essential for a community.

¹⁵ “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. ¹⁶ But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 18:15-17

Jesus counsels us to first confront an offender in private, then with witnesses, and then before the whole community. If they still will not repent, they are to be expelled for the good of the community. The message doesn’t end there, though:

²¹ Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18:21-22

Jesus calls us to repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. If a person sins against the community, our goal is to restore them to full status, full membership in the kingdom of God. If the person truly repents, they are to be welcomed back with total forgiveness, no matter how often they sin. But if they will not repent, they are to be excluded for the good of the community.

So what are we to do with President Trump and his supporters? I am willing to forgive them, despite their attack on democratic norms and the very foundation of our republic. However, there must be true repentance first. There must be all six components of an apology: only after fulfilling all of their obligations to restore what they have broken are they to be welcomed back as full participants in society. As long as they continue to assert that the election was stolen, that they were right to threaten our political stability, and that their words were unrelated to the violent actions taken on January 6, they are not ready to be forgiven. Until they declare unequivocally that they support our duly-elected new president, Joe Biden, and take actions to prevent future undemocratic acts, their calls for unity are simply attempts to avoid the bright light of Truth that must precede Reconciliation.

Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher and author of the bestseller The Power of Now. In his work, he quotes from many traditions. Just as in Stillness Is the Key, a book I wrote about recently, Tolle makes the point that all traditions ultimately teach the same thing: live in the present.

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Mark 1:14-15

I often reference Jesus’s mission statement in Luke 4:18-19. That was his statement about what he would do, what we should do, and what the kingdom of God would be like. But Jesus’s fundamental message was this: The kingdom of God has come near, or is at hand. What is this kingdom?

At the time, the Jewish people were being brutally oppressed by the Roman Empire. A significant faction believed that a Messiah would come to vanquish the Romans and establish a new kingdom on earth similar to David’s kingdom. Israel would be restored to its ancient glory, with no sovereign but God.

That wasn’t Jesus’s message. Instead, he preached that the kingdom of God is here, right here, close to us, waiting for us to reach out and join it.

The kingdom of God is not in the past. What’s past is gone forever. Each moment flies by, never to be seen again. Some good and some bad happened in that past; we should learn from both and make ourselves, individually and collectively, better now because of our experiences. But we cannot change the past. No amount of wishing things had gone differently, or claiming “that’s not what I meant,” can make the past any better or any worse.

The kingdom of God is not in the future. It is not some promise that will only come true when we die, or when Jesus returns, or when the right politicians are elected. As Yogi Berra once said, “Making predictions is hard, especially about the future.” We cannot know what is coming. Remember when 2019 ended and we thought 2020 would be better? How wrong we were! Maybe we’ll be right about 2021 being better than 2020; I won’t make any predictions either way, after such a rocky start.

The kingdom of God is here and now. It is in what Tolle calls “the eternal Present.”

It’s in you. It’s in me.

It’s in us, when we come together with open hearts.

Our nation has had a rough year or so, what with the impeachment and COVID-19 and the failed insurrection. The days ahead are looking grim, too, with likely another impeachment and a pandemic that will get worse before it gets better and a growing number of believers in conspiracy theories. All we have is today; indeed, all we have is right now.

What will you do to experience God’s kingdom Now?

Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? I have, in a way. A few days ago, I went through an annual planning exercise from Monk Manual, You Are Here. The principle behind the Monk Manual is that who we are and what we do are intimately linked. If you are not intentional about what you do, it’s easy to look back on a day, a week, or a life wasted. The Monk Manual is a planner, but not in the conventional sense. Each day, you not only plan your most important tasks, but also identify what you are grateful for and ways you can give. Then at the end of the day, you identify your highlights, when you were at your best, and ways you can improve tomorrow. There is a weekly aspect to the process, and a monthly, and now an annual.

The Monk Manual is very much in the spirit of Atomic Habits, which I believe I have written about before. The principle of Atomic Habits is that goals are less important than the habits you develop that make you the kind of person who achieves those goals. Teams don’t win championships because they want to—every team wants to. They win because they develop the daily practices that turn them into a championship-caliber team.

In a similar vein, I am listening to an audiobook, Stillness Is the Key, by Ryan Holiday. Holiday writes that basically all philosophical and religious traditions—Buddhism, Christianity, Stoicism, etc.—emphasize stillness of mind, body, and spirit. Stillness is not the same as inaction. It is thinking deeply, loving deeply, and living simply.

As John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” If you don’t pay attention, your days slip away. Wisdom and joy come from living intentionally. Develop a routine that includes habits of mind, body, and spirit that will make you a better person.

The “You Are Here” exercise results in four “doing” goals and four “being” goals. That’s about right: achieving more than four things in a year requires too much division of focus. These are big goals; of course, there may be little tasks or goals along the way. For example, one of my “doing” goals is to re-start the grant-advise-publish cycle in my research program. That means I need to write multiple proposals, get one or more funded, advise several students through graduation, recruit one or more new graduate students, and get their work published. Lots of tasks, lots of intermediate goals, all building towards one overarching goal.

“Being” goals require attention to daily disciplines. For example, one of my goals is to be Spirit-led. That won’t just happen. I need to cultivate my mind and spirit to be attuned to the leading of the Holy Spirit. How? By introducing spiritual disciplines and by feeling for the Spirit’s feedback as I try things.

The challenge, as with all New Year’s resolutions, is to keep going. Starting is easy; maintaining is hard. A recent nugget of wisdom from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, was, “The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be. Don’t swim upstream.” Clear’s insight about developing a habit is to make it easy, make it obvious, and make it rewarding. I am working hard to identify not only what I will do, but when, where, and how. For example, I have started meditating, but not on my own—with Headspace, an app that has guided meditations and daily reminders. The why also matters. My larger goals will keep me motivated to stick with the habit on those hard days, when I’m tired, stressed, or busy.

I know that some of my new practices won’t stick, but I don’t know which ones. Part of the Monk Manual philosophy and approach is to be reflective, always evaluating what is working and what isn’t. We have just ended a year in which everyone’s daily routine changed, perhaps several times. I expect such changes to continue. My life is strongly driven by the academic calendar, so I know that what I’m able to do this week will be harder in a couple weeks when classes begin. So be it. The important thing is to “just keep swimming,” as Dory said. Some changes are beyond my control, so I’ll just adapt.

What are your plans for 2021? How will you end 2021 as a better person than you are today?