Gorgeous Adirondacks

We just got back from the "Beaver Pond Lodge," about 11 miles off I-87 near Brant Lake, New York. It's beautiful up there -- lots of green, and various shades of green: the evergreen leaves are darker I think than the leaves that came out in the past few weeks. It's wet -- thunderstorms every day we stayed there and we got hail a few times too -- which I guess goes along with the green. The lodge is maybe a quarter-mile up an unpaved road. The stream setting at right is across the street from the lodge, no more than 50 yards up a trail. We went out in the evening and, in a tiny pool of water alongside the road, Jenny spotted the frog you see at left.

At the corner of Beaver Pond Road and North Beaver Pond Road is a path leading to a little floating dock with views of what I suppose is Beaver Pond, shown below.

These photos give an idea of how peaceful and quiet it is -- when the hail isn't falling and the thunder isn't thundering that is. One of these days I might match the exposures and stitch the photos together...

Dressing without vinegar (almost) and what to do with half an eggplant

It's not camping, but when you're vacationing in a cabin and a trip to the store is an expedition, it almost feels like it. So on our way here we stopped in town and bought eggs, lettuce, cucumbers, olive oil, egglant, tomato, peppers, zucchini, tofu, sausage, ice cream, oranges, grapefruit, bananas, chips, spaghetti sauce, garlic... We already had soy sauce and rice and pasta in the car -- and, we thought, balsamic vinegar.

The first surprise came when we realized that there was already a nearly-full bottle of olive oil in the house. No problem! But the second, that we had no vinegar (balsamic or otherwise) in the car or house, was not greeted with much enthusiasm; how would we make salad dressing? Fortunately, there was some spicy brown prepared mustard (which already had some vinegar in it -- yay!) so, remembering back some 30 years and adapting it, we had

Low-vinegar vinaigrette

Put into a small bowl (no larger than a cereal bowl and preferably smaller):

• 2 tsp spicy brown prepared mustard
• ½ clove garlic, minced (optional)

Add:

• 2 tsp olive oil

and beat with a small spoon. (I used a table teaspoon -- not a precise measuring teaspoon.) You could use a small wire whisk, but this house ("cabin" doesn't do it justice; the rental agent calls it "Beaver Pond Lodge") doesn't have one

When you have what looks like rather a soupy version of spicy brown mustard, add olive oil, a little (no more than ½ tsp) at a time, and each time stir until thoroughly mixed, nearly homogeneous. But add no more than 1 Tbsp of oil beyond the original 2 tsp.

If what you have turns into mustard-colored bubbles in clear oil, you've added too much oil. Don't fret, but try to remember how much you added, and add a little less next time. A little pepper and salt won't hurt.

Leftover Pseudo-Italian Eggplant &c

Today, I contemplated what to do with a package of chicken sausage and half an eggplant. Roasting eggplant cubes in the oven worked well before, so here's a serviceable lunch entree.

• Slice thinly:
  • ½ eggplant
  By "thinly" I mean maybe ¼ inch or so. 8mm wouldn't be too thick but I guess 1cm might be.
• Dump the slices onto a baking sheet or some ovenproof dish. The lodge has a glass pie-pan so I used it. If you like, you can drizzle it with
  • olive oil
  and/or sprinkle with
  • salt.
• Set oven for 450°F and insert the eggplant slices. (You can preheat the oven if you like but that seems overly diligent). Turn the slices every 5-10 minutes, and cook for about 30 minutes total.
• While the eggplant is baking, slice thinly (about ¼ inch):
  • some sausage
  We have sweet Italian sausage made from chicken, and I used two links from the package. These are fully cooked, so I added them to the eggplant slices for the last 10 minutes or so.

  If your sausage isn't pre-cooked, you might add them to the oven earlier -- e.g., slice and add as soon as you put the eggplant in.

• When done, top with
  • leftover marinara sauce
  if you have some. If you don't have any, no worries.

Forgiven, or just excused?

Have you ever known someone who was never wrong? "Henry" was an engineer I used to know. If his program didn't work, it was someone else's fault; if something he said wasn't true, it was because somebody mis-informed him. But he personally never made a mistake.

I'll now remove my tongue from cheek and recall that "we all stumble in various ways," as James tells us, and these failures aren't always private. When a failing obviously and undeniably injures someone, my initial reaction is often to make excuses -- whether I'm perpetrator, victim or observer.

But even when I'm the perpetrator, is that what I really want? Excuses for my screw-up, whether a moral failure (cold-heartedness, impatience, unkindness) or mental error (forgotten appointment, miscalculation) or manual slip-up (spilt milk, shattered glassware)? Excuses minimize either the magnitude of the failure or its impact on others; they're unsatisfying because they're false.

Oh, an excuse may be factually true: maybe I really was under a lot of stress when I snapped at someone, and it could very well be true that "worse things have happened" to the one I hurt by a thoughtless remark. But the intent, the import, of the excuse is wrong. My stress doesn't give me license to snap at my victim. And that "worse things have happened" to them doesn't make the damage I've inflicted any less real.

No, what I need in such a case is to be forgiven. Forgiveness doesn't minimize the perpetrator's failure or the victim's pain; it offers authentic grace and sincere truth where an excuse has only half-truths and counterfeit grace.

And if I'm the victim, I need to forgive, not make excuses or pretend I wasn't hurt. Now an excuse is more comfortable because it papers over inconvenient truths -- that the perpetrator did actually fail and the victim was actually hurt. I don't like thinking I was actually hurt, and I don't like thinking that people I trusted have failed—especially if it's someone in a position of leadership. It hurts less, at least in the short term, to just deny both the pain and the failure. Indeed, forgiveness is very uncomfortable precisely because it acknowledges real failure and real pain. Yet ultimately only forgiveness brings real growth and real healing.

If there's been a real failure and real hurt, pretending otherwise is just denying the truth, and no good will come from that. Forgiveness is costly, but it may bring reconciliation. On the other hand, no good thing comes from denying reality, as Jeremiah reminds us:

They dress the wound of my people 
     as though it were not serious. 
"Peace, peace," they say,
     when there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6:14

A scary thought

What if... you could only use one programming language for the rest of your life, and that language had to be either java or C++?

My future son-in-law asked me that. I think he has a future as a horror-film writer/director.

What is Spiritual Formation? Part 3: Intention and Method

The whole Vision/Intention/Method thing is better explained in Dallas Willard's own words at http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=119 (I stumbled upon it while looking for a concentric circle diagram). So the rest of this post will be a few things that stood out from our spiritual formation retreat.

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Some key assumptions behind Christian spiritual formation:

1. that we are "homesick for Eden" (to borrow the title of a book by Gary W. Moon); that is, deep inside we long for a state of open fellowship with God and authentic community with each other;
2. that God longs for us and weeps at the petty obsessions and distractions that take our attention away from him;
3. that salvation is our journey toward union with God.

Eden had two trees (among others): the tree of life (eating from that tree represents our willingness to engage with God and follow him) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (eating from that tree represents our willfulness to turn away from God and to live life on our own) -- the willingness/willfulness language apparently comes from Gerald May (Rollo's younger brother).

In looking at some practices to further our union of God, it may be useful to consider the progress of a romantic relationship, which may include:

• Conversation
  To advance our conversation with God, Premack's principle may be useful: pairing a desired action (e.g., prayer) with a frequent action (e.g., swallowing coffee). So if I can remember to thank God (or reflect upon him, or whatever) each time I enjoy a sip of coffee, then I'll tend to pray more than I currently do.
• Communion
  This has to do with being intentional about my willingness to engage with God and to follow him. To further this, I'll need to embrace the pain of withdrawal from my most cherished idols.
• Consummation
  I think this corresponds to the part where we go to heaven and are fully united with God after we leave this earth.

The fact that we have disciplines for spiritual formation (or "spiritual growth" or "discipleship"), and that they take effort on our part, doesn't contradict the fact that salvation (our journey toward union with God) is by grace. As Dallas Willard wrote in The Great Omission, grace is not opposed to effort, but only to earning... ah, or in a more complete version found here: "Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone."

Here's a story that may be useful in considering one's vision. Though neither God nor prayer is mentioned (Hello Esther!), I thought it terrific. Is this the kind of man I'd like to be?

The point of the disciplines is to bring us freedom to live in the right way, to enable me to receive power from God to live a holy life. For example, I'd love it if my careless words (Matthew 12:36-37) -- that is, the words that just pop out when I'm not thinking -- are words that bring life and encouragement and healing, rather than corrupted, useless words (Ephesians 4:29) that serve only to justify or defend myself.

By the way, this is the difference between magic vs following Christ; in magic or sorcery, we try to get power over others; in following Christ, we try to get the power to surrender ourselves to God.

A few disciplines

There are disciplines of engagement and disciplines of abstinence. This is a good thing: people who are sometimes rather manic and subject to sins of commission may need abstinence; those who tend toward sins of omission may need disciplines of engagement. Disciplines of abstinence include

• silence (this one is easy: just don't make any sounds and don't listen to any sounds and don't read or write anything. "You can't do it wrong")
• fasting
• solitude (this would be easier for extroverts if they could take a few friends along)
• slowing (e.g., spend 5 minutes to eat a raisin).

Disciplines of engagement include

• celebration because it's really good to remember the many blessings we receive;
• examen, enjoying God's presence, looking back on the day (or the morning) and considering my attitudes, those points where I was most/least grateful, etc. A fuller treatment is here
• confession
• study
• worship
• servanthood.

It's helpful (for me anyway) to think of these disciplines like training for a marathon or to work a ropes course (as described in another post) -- training being a set of activities which I can do, which will give me the power to do the things I cannot do by direct effort.

I hope that was helpful, and I hope you read Dallas's article, which is certainly more complete. My other posts on this topic are:

• Part 1: definitions and goals
  • Digression: Models of a Person
• Part 2: Vision

What Is Spiritual Formation? Part 2: Vision

So if Christian spiritual formation is the process of shaping one's character (spirit, will, heart) to be more like Christ, what does Joe or Jane Believer actually do to promote their own Christian spiritual formation? As previously noted, the will isn't very good at carrying out decisions like "I will not take another drink for the rest of the month" or "I'll run 26.2 miles tomorrow (though I've never run more than a 10K before)." But it is pretty good at decisions like, "I'll go to tonight's AA meeting" or "I'll jog a half-mile today."

In the same way, willpower alone isn't enough to transform someone like me (or you?) into the loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, benevolent, compassionate, steadfast, gentle, courageous honest person that I want to be. So what does it take? Three words:

1. Vision:
   a vision of God, yes, but also a vision of what life with God could be like for me;
2. Intention:
   a desire -- a decision -- to move toward that vision;
3. Method (or means):
   concrete actions, tools, practices to get us there.

So if I want to learn a language -- Italian, say -- then I'll need a vision: maybe a mental image of spending a month in Siena or Venice or Florence or Rome, seeing beautiful things, enjoying delicious food, chatting with the natives and so on.

Then I must form an intention to pursue that vision. Otherwise, like Walter Mitty, I can spend my life daydreaming and never realize the vision. I also need a method to progress toward the goal. I might take classes, buy a book with CDs, get some software for my computer, find a conversation partner. I need all three -- vision, intention, method -- to learn Italian.

But it all starts with a vision. Without a vision and intention, the books will sit on the shelf, the lessons will be skipped, the conversation partner will be abandoned.

It's the same way with spiritual formation, or discipleship, or growth: without a vision of life with God, without an intention to follow God all my life, the methods (means, disciplines, practices) are useless to me. Either I'll abandon them, or they'll turn me into a Pharisee.

So the vision is really important. What would I like my life with God to be like? How does God want my life to look? What aspects of that are attractive to me? I don't want to say "envision your future and God will give it to you," but if what God wants for your life doesn't attract you, it won't form a useful vision for your spiritual growth.

Please don't short-circuit this step! Otherwise you may find yourself, like me, doing some "spiritual" practices for the wrong reason, or for no reason. I suggest taking half an hour or more to write down what you'd like your life with God to be like. You may want to read through Matthew 5-7, John 14-17, or some other Scriptures to give you some confidence around the content of your vision. At a retreat we each took 15-20 minutes to write down "what I'd wish for in my life with God" -- after which I saw that I really want a lot of things in my life to be different, and that I had merely scratched the surface.

For my vision, I read through parts of Colossians 3 and came up with a few of the ways that I'm not there yet. For example, it says "As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience" (Col. 3:12) so I wrote down that I want always to be aware that I'm dearly loved by God. That I want to be less selfish, less self-absorbed, more compassionate. That I would remember that my worth is not measured by accomplishments, and to be more patient as a result.

By even just this one verse of Scripture, it's obvious that my current life with God is "not OK" -- but the other thing is to remember that that's OK! That is, God loves me as I am, even though he's still got more work to do on me. If, when I die some decades from now (Lord willing), I haven't grown or changed at all, then, well, that would be sad.

But it was exciting to me to think that one day I could actually be like what the Scriptures say. And for the people who know me, it's even more exciting because then I'd be a lot easier to work with and live with and be with.

A lot of what Jesus did in his preaching was to correct people's vision. "You have heard... but I tell you..." Jesus said over and over in Matthew 5:21-43. Jesus says in Matthew 13:44 that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure in a field, and in his joy went and sold all he had. So again, if the idea of life with god doesn't bring joy, it's not going to be very useful.

The problem with a life apart from Jesus is that any soul is damaged by sin. When Jesus talked about gaining the whole world but losing my soul (Mark 8:36), he wasn't saying primarily that I'd go to hell after I die; his point was that my spirit will be out of whack with my mind, my mind with my body with my social relationships, and so on. I'll be confused because I won't know why I do things, my feelings won't make any sense, my soul will be cast down and fragmented.

So that's "the vision thing." It's really important. I used to hang out with a group called The Navigators, and they gave me some really clear detailed explanations on the methods -- I learned a lot about how to do Bible study, how to memorize Scripture, and so on. But I think that many of us took the practices as something you just do.

Nobody said, "God will love you more if you memorize more verses," but some of us got to feeling that our worth was tied in somehow with how many verses we memorized, how accurately we could quote them, and so on.

So the vision must come before anything else. Can the practices reinforce the vision? Certainly! That's why I'm trying to memorize the first part of Colossians 3: to solidify the vision in my mind.

And may the Lord help us to be transformed, and not to lose sight of the vision for why we do all these things.

What is Spiritual Formation? Digression: Models of a Person

Dallas Willard's model of a whole person is diagrammed as a series of concentric circles, as shown below (from http://www.raycowan.org/Christian/Dallas_Willard/Healing_The_Heart_DVD_series_slides_v5.ppt).

In the center is the will (because it makes decisions) or the heart (i.e., the center of things) or spirit (non-physical).

Surrounding the will in this model is a concentric ring representing the mind -- this includes the thoughts and feelings. The spirit, or will, can decide to forgive someone, but when that person appears, unhappy memories, hurt feelings and vengeful thoughts may arise unbidden--thus the distinction between spirit/heart/will on one hand and the mind on the other.

Next is the body, which is one's own kingdom ("kingdom" being the range of one's effective will). The body has habits, not all of which are under the full control of the mind. For example, some youth camps have a "ropes course," which includes platforms 30' or more off the ground. When you go there, the kids running the course give you a safety lecture so your mind knows that you're safe: the ropes are strong enough, and all the hardware they put on you is secure enough to stop you from falling. But when you get up on that platform, your palms, your armpits, and your feet may not know this.

Surrounding the body in this model is the set of social interactions. I'm a little fuzzy on this, but the soul is the integration of all these human functions. The psalms have in more than one place "O my soul" e.g., "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" or "Bless the Lord O my soul" -- but the spirit isn't addressed in this way.

Someone has observed that the will is not very good at making decisions like "I will not drink the rest of the year" and following through on that. The will can, however, make a decision like "I will go to tonight's AA meeting" and get the body there. For most of us non-marathoners, the will can't carry out a decision to run 26.2 miles, but the will can decide to get up today and run a mile or two... and after some days to decide to run three or four....

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There is another model featuring circles -- this one due to Larry Crabb Jr. and diagrammed at left -- but as I recently figured out, it's more of a diagnostic model--focused on psychological (from the Greek ψυχὴ/psuche, soul) problems. Anyway, in this one, the innermost circle refers to a one's Personal needs; it's full to the extent that someone feels their needs for security and significance have been met. These are two crucial longings that every human being has.

The next circle, the Rational one, has to do with models and beliefs; it's full to the extent that those models and beliefs in fact match reality.

If my mental model of the world says I'd be happy if only he did more of this, or she did less of that--if I believe all my problems are somebody else's fault--I can be quite sure my rational circle isn't full.

The next circle, the "Volitional" one, is full to the extent that one's goals are acknowledged. Suppose my father built a multi-million dollar business, and as he lies dying he tells me, "I have no doubt you will drive my company into the ground and destroy all I've built" (none of which is true by the way). Do you think I might develop a desire to show him he was wrong? And if I did, how likely is it that I'd say that to anyone -- even myself? Lots of people have lots of unacknowledged goals -- many of them not as extreme as that -- and to the extent they're not acknowledged, the volitional circle is empty.

The last circle in this model is the Emotional one. When an event impinges upon me, my feelings depend not just upon the substance of the event, but upon my goals (acknowledged or unacknowledged) which in turn are based upon my beliefs (rational circle) about where Life with a capital L comes from. My emotional circle is full to the extent that I consciously experience my feelings.

Someone with a non-full emotional circle may habitually yell, “I'm not shouting!!” Or if you ask how they feel about something, might reply "You sound like my daughter. Do you mean, ‘What are my thoughts on that?&rsquo"

There are lots of reasons why any of these circles may not be full, but as you've probably surmised, a healthy person has all four circles close to full.