Mark Scandrette

Here’s a little fable I’ve been working on in conjunction with our PLAY children’s story-writing exercise:

A man once began a very long journey. On the road, he stumbled upon a bag of gold. Though the bag was heavy, he hoisted it up over one shoulder and continued to walk. Down the road he goes, hunched over with the bag of gold over his shoulder, leaning to one side.

Walking past a town, he sees a beautiful young woman seated on a rounded stone. They talk and his heart skips a beat, but she soon turns away. The stone she sat upon reminds him of her beauty and his longing. He decides to take it with him. Bending forward with his free arm, he begins to roll the stone along. Down the road he goes hunched over with the bag of gold over one shoulder, stooping to roll the stone with an outstretched arm, and working up a furious sweat in the noonday sun.

At a desolate place along the road, he sees a pig wander past, oinking, and thinks to himself, “I should like to own a pig and eat its tasty bacon bits.” Since there is no one around to lay claim the pig, he catches it with a rope and leads it down the road. But the pig is slow, so he ties the other end of the rope to his own ankle and drags the pig behind him. Down the road he goes, hunched over with the bag of gold over one shoulder, stooping to roll the stone with an outstretched arm and dragging the pig behind by his ankle.

Soon he sees a blackberry bush. Because he is hungry he stops to eat, greedily picking and blackberries, scratching his face and hand on their thorny branches. Soon his teeth and mouth are stained purple by the fruits sweet juice. His hands become sticky and dark.  Down the road he goes, hunched over with the bag of gold over one shoulder, stooping to roll the stone with an outstretched arm, dragging the pig behind by his ankle, with his face and hands scratched, sticky and stained with blackberry juice.

The man continues to travel for many days, only stopping to pick more blackberries or to rest in the shadow of the noon day sun. One night he stops to sleep. He wakes up in the dark of night only to discover that all that he has–has been stolen: The bag of gold he carried on his shoulder, the stone he stooped to roll and the pig he dragged along behind by his ankle.

At daybreak he dusts himself off and continues his journey, now empty handed and free of his burdens. By force of habit, he continues to walk as if he still owns the bag of gold, the rolling stone and the pig on a rope. Down the road he goes, with a hunched shoulder, stooping forward with an outstretched arm and dragging a foot behind, his face and hands scratched, stained and sticky with sweat blackberry juice.

A young boy watches the man limp past, mesmerized by his peculiar appearance. The boy turns to his grandmother, standing nearby, and asks, “What makes this man look so strange and why does he walk so funny?” Looking up as the man passes by, the grandmother replies, “The road is straight, but the man is crooked, made that way by all he tried to carry and the hunger he could never satisfy.  One day you too, my child, will take on the shape of your journey, by what you wish for and what you carry.”

Here’s a on-line version of the print newsletter about our work with ReIMAGINE

Pilgrimage Landscapes 8-10

The first draft of my new book, Practicing the Way of Jesus, is completed and will be released by Intervarsity Press Summer of 2011. Stay tuned for more details.

When Damon and I met at the Woodside Café to prepare for our upcoming simplicity workshop, we were quite conscious of the irony. In this community that is home to movie stars and technology moguls, the cafe is regarded as the place where billion dollar deals are pitched over coffee and pastries.

“The collective net worth of the people in this cafe dropped significantly when we walked in,” quipped Damon as we searched for a table.

I laughed.  “True—most people here have more financial wealth than you or I will ever have, but there is a lot more to God’s abundance than houses, money, and stock options. What if we measured wealth in purposeful work, simple pleasures, and meaningful relationships?”

Overhearing us, a well-cultivated, middle-aged woman at the next table interjected, “You’re onto something. I’m living alone in a multi-million dollar home and my teenage daughter is on drugs and dating a man wanted for murder. I’d give anything to have a better relationship with my daughter and to see her making better choices.”

Even as we seek to live in an economy that mirrors God’s reign of abundance, it is hard to shed our sense of scarcity. Despite our values, we are tempted to maintain a materialist view of who is well off, and just what constitutes wealth.

Yet there are those moments which challenge our paradigms. Two years ago I stood in a mud-floor shanty in El Salvador, my hand in the hand of a mother who feeds her family of eight on two dollars a day. I still hear her whispered prayer of thanks for God’s provision. Her ability to see abundance in her poverty both instructs and haunts me.

Perhaps the huge disparities of wealth in our world are precisely why money, like sexuality, is one of those things we find easier to discuss in theory than personally and in practice. Money is one of the most difficult conversations we have in our intentional community.

Take  Kevin, one of the most vocal about his disdain for consumerism, corporate greed, and the evils of “the Man.” He wears the same (thrift-store) clothes every day. He and his wife Rebecca spent most of their twenties as activists, traveling, and volunteering in developing countries. When we decided as a community to disclose what we earn and spend and how much we owe or save, Kevin and Rebecca expressed both trepidation and excitement.

At their turn, Kevin held up a crumpled piece of paper. “This is the first time we’ve ever created a budget. I guess we’ve been scared to see our true situation. Basically, we are spending a thousand dollars more a month than we earn. At our current rate of payment, it will take us twenty-five years to pay off our student loans and consumer debt. I feel so dumb. I wish someone had taught me about money earlier in life.”

Rebecca chimed in, “You know we have a little one on the way. Someday we’d like to buy a home, and we hope to keep pursuing our dreams and ideals—but I don’t see how that is possible now. I wonder if we should just go out and get corporate jobs.”

Audrey, a woman who left college to deal with a childhood trauma, told us that her full-time service job (beginning every day at 4 a.m.) was only providing her enough money to pay rent with little left over for food. “When I have unanticipated expenses, I’ve been putting them on my credit card. I eventually want to go back to school, but I don’t know how I ever will.”

Richard, an MBA working for a local nonprofit, spoke last. “I’m hesitant to share because my situation is so different from many others. I’ve been trying to live simply for a long time. I don’t have any debts. I make six figures, and after maxing out my 401k and contributing 35 percent of my income to church and charity, I still have thousands of dollars left over that I’m not sure what to do with.”

My community disclosed our spending and earning as a means of discerning what the Spirit is inviting us into with our finances. It is clear that seeking the way of Jesus with our money requires a different prescription for each of us. Some of us needed to curb our spending and deal with debts and consumptive habits. Some of us needed financial help and prayer for better-paying work. And some of us needed to get more creative and daring about spending the resources God had given us.

Over the next few months we supported each other through various transitions. Audrey moved in with a family to save up for school. Kevin and Rebecca made a commitment to pay down their debts over a three-year period, took on more work, and learned to control their spending. We encouraged Richard to add a little pleasure and celebration to his acetic life. Being vulnerable with each other about our finances didn’t feel legalistic because we approached it with a sense of playfulness, and an understanding that we were each being invited to take the next step towards living in God’s abundance.

It is essential that we seek to live toward that abundance, for the practice of simplicity by itself has a significant shadow side. When we begin to judge others by the (voluntary) choices we’ve made, or when we make an idol of our own resourcefulness, simplicity ceases to give life and becomes a divisive burden.

Over the years I’ve prided myself in being radically frugal, fastidious with budgets, and careful with spending. I’ve mastered the art of thrift store shopping and the dumpster dive. But when I’m honest, I able to admit that my reluctance to spend money often hasn’t made me more content or generous. In fact, it’s only made me a more shrewd materialist; a guy with a fetish for the great deal, who gets his fix by getting things for free or on the cheap. You don’t need money to be obsessive or materialistic.

It is night in Tijuana, and I am sitting in a shanty apartment with twenty-five students. Outside, trucks full of soldiers with mounted machine guns patrol the restless streets, attempting to keep order amidst the drug cartel wars. These students are participating in a five-month discipleship training school at which I am teaching, and most are from the northern provinces of Mexico. This night, an unexpected guest joins our discussion— a young man from across the border in San Diego. Our visitor speaks first: “I’ve been reading a book called The Irresistible Revolution, and I’m convinced that we are called to poverty. Do you think all Christians are called to poverty?”

I watch the bewilderment and confusion on the faces of my students.  “You’ve picked an interesting place to ask this question,” I commented. “Let’s hear what your Mexican brothers and sisters have to say.”

Roberto responds first. “I don’t understand. How can God call us to poverty when we were born poor?”

“If you can choose to be poor, then you aren’t really poor,” adds Luisa.

The group decided to focus on what both rich and poor can learn from Jesus’ teachings on material possessions. We soon came up with this list:

• “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).
• “A person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions” (Luke 12:15).
• “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Mark 10:21).
• “Do not worry about your life . . . seek first the kingdom . . . and all these things will be given to you” (Matt. 6:31-33).

After an hour of lively discussion, we surmised that perhaps we aren’t all called to poverty, but are called instead to live into the reality of God’s reign with simplicity of purpose, gratefulness of heart, radical contentment, ruthless trust, and willing generosity—qualities that a person can pursue from within any economic situation. Together we have been given the reign of God and are being invited into risky generosity—leveraging our time, money, talents, and resources for the good of God’s world.

Derek sat across the table, and, with an astonishing lack of affect, commented, “I don’t know if I believe any of this stuff about God anymore. I’m so tired of the way Christians can be. I don’t even feel anything for the people I meet when I volunteer at the soup kitchen—I know I should be sympathetic, but more often I feel resentful. I’m utterly bored with church. . . and I can’t pray. ”

Derek remembers college as the high point of his spiritual life—questioning his childhood beliefs and discovering new paths for faith surrounded by good friends. “But I’m not feeling it anymore,” he confided, with a tinge of regret.

Derek is one of many people who in recent months have told me that they no longer believe as they once did, and that they now find it difficult (or impossible) to pray. The reasons are varied. One friend was deeply hurt by a spiritual leader. Another was shunned by her Bible-belt relatives when she began to question their once commonly held assumptions. Spiritual ambivalence is often related to painful life experiences: a baby dies; memories of early sexual trauma surface; or people grapple with a major disappointment, sickness, or depression. Sometimes in the struggle to witness love’s triumph over greed, we begin to lose hope. Or we find it easier to pray with our hands than in the heart. Whatever the reason, when you lose that sense of divine connection you can feel as if you no longer “fit in” with the devoted and “true” believers.

Listening to Derek took me back to a moment of crisis in my own faith journey. My wife and I had moved with our three young children to an inner-city neighborhood and spent a year renovating a crack house and learning to love our neighbors. It was our dream to start a beautiful intentional community. But nothing worked out like we expected. Our neighbors were slow to accept us. Living in community was full of drama. People we knew thought we were crazy. The year revealed wounds we didn’t even know we had. It was hard to trust that our dreams were good and that we hadn’t been misguided. I was brought to my limit mentally and physically.

At this point, I attended a conference in New Mexico and stayed an extra day, determined to reconnect with God. I rented a car and drove north among the pueblo villages on the winding road toward Taos. I drove all day, a heavy lump in my throat, waiting to hear God’s voice, or feel some sense of warmth, comfort or release. At the end of the day, I despondently checked into a run-down motel on the outskirts of Albuquerque and spent the evening flipping channels on the T.V. I felt nothing but my own loneliness.

The path is crooked and confusing. We often wander, take missteps, and wonder if we are utterly lost. Almost everyone goes through seasons of doubt or difficulty, and at these moments, it is almost impossible to pray.

When we feel confused, perplexed, or abandoned, we are in good company. Jesus went through a time when his whole family thought he was crazy. During his execution he cried out desperately, “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). A recently published collection of Mother Teresa’s correspondence revealed a dark night of the soul that lasted forty years. To one friend she confided, “Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness are so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”

What can we do when we feel alone or undone? Since that dark night in the motel room I’ve been learning to embrace the varied landscape that comes with being on pilgrimage.

We can risk complaining. Many of the ancient poems preserved in Scripture are laments and complaints directed towards the Creator. In one psalm, David pleads, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). In another he exclaims, “the darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:18) Elsewhere he expresses deepest despair with the phrase, “Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more.” (Psalm 39:13) Our subjective experiences can overwhelm us with sadness. Expressing these feelings can be the beginning of hope and change. The poets and prophets show us the path. Make art from your pain. Turn it into a song or a poem. Throw some paint. The very name God chose for God’s people is Israel, literally those who “wrestle with God.” When we exercise the tenacity to fight with God for a blessing, we join a faithful and feisty cloud of witnesses who have gone before us.

We can embrace surprise. Most of those whose journeys are recorded in Scripture were thrown curve balls in their understanding of God and God’s story. Jesus was not the Messiah that anyone expected, and many of his most ardent disciples didn’t grasp the deeper meaning of what he taught until much later. I’m sure they often felt like they were losing their faith.

Having your misconceptions and earlier ideas dashed or challenged is an important, if painful, part of maturing in your walk with the Creator. When we are experiencing this benevolent deconstruction, the danger is to blame parents, elders, or a particular religious tradition for our cognitive dissonance. U-turns and surprises remind us that we are being called into the greater mystery of the kingdom of love and to a ruthless trust in what is beyond our knowing.

We can celebrate the varieties of religious experience. Sometimes I find that I am jaded about a particular tradition, perspective, or practice that no longer personally speaks to me. I see myself and others being critical, negative, or reactionary about certain religious groups or traditions.

Defining ourselves by what we are against rather than what we are for is a seductive and often destructive practice. During the course of our lives, we experience many different “ah-has” and awakenings. Perhaps you have already had many “conversions”— to brokenness; grace; God’s mercy and justice; the power of the Spirit; the immediacy of God’s presence; the call to be a healer; the community of the saints; or the messiness of the journey. On the precipice of another conversion, it can feel like you are replacing one way with another. But at our best we see these shifts as part of the gradual awakening to reality and the rounding out of our spiritual path.

We can cultivate the generosity to celebrate another person’s “ah-has” even when they are different than our own. Catholic writer Paul Elie suggests that both Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day chose to be a part of the Catholic church even though some aspects of it offended their intellectual and urbane sensibilities because it was the place where the poor and huddled masses of new immigrants in their time gathered. We are invited to celebrate where the Spirit is at work in the world, especially among the poor and two-thirds world peoples.

We can get creative and experiment with new practices. Jessica confessed to a friend in our community, “I don’t really get anything out of reading the Bible or praying anymore.” The advice she got surprised her: “Well, maybe you should stop reading the Bible for at least a year!”

Each of us has a set of practices to connect with God which we were taught or adopted. These may be helpful for a while, but may become worn and threadbare. As we change, we need to discover new God-conscious practices that connect our longings with this stage of the journey. Christian practices across time and cultures are varied and rich. If you have grown tired of petitionary prayer, try journaling, drawing, or sitting still in the presence of God. If all you know is contemplative practice, try joining a raucous group of singing worshippers or healing intercessors. If you have only experienced God’s presence in gathered church meetings, seek God in the solitude and beauty of nature. If you tend to get stuck in your head considering theological questions or ideas, look for God by spending time with someone who lives on the margins. A spiritual practice is anything you do to seek intentional awareness and to surrender to your Maker. Get creative and experimental. When you get hungry for the staples that sustained you in the past, you can return to them as needed.

Life with God feels a lot like the practice of family life. My children are now teenagers, and as an intentional discipline, we eat together almost every night. There are a lot of evening meals when we are distracted or tired and the most exciting thing that happens is the small argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes. But every once in a while, something magical happens. We laugh or cry, have that important conversation, or feel like we really belong to one another. Those rare and cherished moments of family memory are made possible by the practice of showing up to the ordinary.

I’m not suggesting that we can address our struggles to believe or pray with simple answers or trite methodologies. But we can show up. We can be realistic about how complicated a life of faith can be. And we can still expect a bit of magic. Some people call this a second naiveté. It is something that I yearn for—for myself and for every person I know who lives in the questions.