Statement of Intent

Kinda hokey but ok right? for my grad school application

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Over the entrance to my current workplace, Richmond Hill, in bronze letters slightly greened, is a small portion of a famous verse from the prophet Jeremiah. “Seek the welfare of the city to which I have sent you” (Jer 29:7). Inspiring and challenging! That verse charges and re-charges us, seemingly inexhaustible in potential.

By truncating this verse we have found a strong and positive moto, but we’ve also dulled the jarring force and offensiveness of the full verse, which describes its social context. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah is exhorting his compatriots to seek the welfare of their captors’ community, to pray for their oppressors’ city! If I were in a similar situation, would I listen to Jeremiah? Or would I rather scream revenge like the psalmist (137)? “O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back...happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”

In pursuing this counseling program, I hope not only to seek the welfare of myself and community, but to learn the skills to help others help themselves and their community. I hope to learn and pass on the process of welfaring, not just the little welfare I might contribute.

And I realize, at least in a limited way, that the context of each person’s healing and whole-ing process is different. I have struggled with depression most of my adult life, and mental health challenges have dogged our family. Thanks to great counselors, doctors, good jobs, and health insurance we are all doing okay. In my social context, we had clear paths to getting help; I come from a white, middle-class, college educated, and fully employed context.

What if I’d been in a situation of economic or geographical confinement? Or if I didn’t trust mental health workers because I’d experienced racial discrimination in healthcare? Or if I couldn’t get people to take my health seriously because I was differently abled mentally or physically? “Seek the welfare” of myself and community might sound a lot different to me, then.

In short, I hope to become a counselor, to empower others as I’ve been empowered, and also to empower others as I haven’t been empowered. I hope to learn a variety of methods to support others dealing with a variety of challenges in a variety of social contexts.

I don’t have any specific experience working in mental health per say, but I feel like I have had very relevant jobs, the kinds of jobs that might give me a solid base to transition into counseling. For example I have “counseled” and encouraged youth in several different capacities.

As a camp counselor I learned about teamwork, communication, and the fine art of dancing around the campfire. Perhaps my most valuable lesson from working in the boarding school dormitory is that punitive-based motivational structures can work, but they are not the healthiest long-term strategy. At St. Joseph’s Villa, in the autism classroom I was introduced to an amazing group of students and staff, all working with Applied Behavioral Analysis (which would have helped me so much at the boarding school!).

For the better part of the last decade, I have worked at Richmond Hill, an outreach ministry and retreat center in Richmond. As I alluded to above, our mission is the “healing of the city,” healing in all senses and for all people, and since I first encountered the place I have been smitten with it. I have filled various roles in the organization, doing the best I can, but I’ve yet to find the “right fit.” Based on my current experience in the “Ruah” School at Richmond Hill - which is a class to train “spiritual directors” (one-on-one listening and open-ended questioning) - and my previous experience in the Pastoral Care training program, also at Richmond Hill - I believe I have the desire and ability to be a counselor.

Academically I have been fortunate to have great teachers every step of the way, beginning with my parents and grandparents, and my enthusiasm for reading and study hasn’t dimmed in the dozen years since college. I am not particularly smart or talented, but love to learn. I’m confident I will be able to keep up with the coursework. I’m excited to apply and hope this program is possible for me!

Work

Work: how to find joy and meaning in each hour of the day - Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm kinda resistant to fandom, personal heroes, wholeheartedly looking up to someone. Why is that?

But I sure would love to hang out with this guy. Not necessarily to talk about stuff. Just to follow him around for a month or two.

I bought this book for the Brother Lawrence retreat, but I didn't read it in time to incorporate it. I'm not sure how I would have anyways, and Bro Lawrence is good to go. No supplements needed.

My initial take-aways

• Gatha's for everthing! His gatha's are so awesome. He encourages using or creating them for key moments throughout your day, such as putting on your clothes, drinking your coffee, walking in the factory door, between projects, on the way home, etc. Predictable events or transition moments. Mostly I attempt to use the Jesus prayer and deep breathing, but I'd like to explore short scripture passages as gathas relevant to certain actions or times of day.
• "Conditions for happiness." He almost never says, "do this so that you will be joyful or peaceful or happy." Usually he says, "do this so that joy, peace, or happiness will become possible." This lines up so well with advice I've found in various depression books. Directly grasping for wholeness, happiness, or health often doesn't work out very well. Instead seek the conditions for happiness, which are slightly different for different people. Common conditions are: loving others and being loved, talking and deep listening, looking and listening to the world around you, useful work, some discipline. None of these guarantee happiness.
• He and his community rules clearly state that if you're in-the-moment-angry, you should not speak right away. It's ok to talk about your anger, but not ok to lash out in anger. Great advice! But is it always great advice? I mean, I know he's not trying to be legalistic and say you can't scream at a giant about to stomp on your house. I'd like to learn how to speak faithfully in the moment, when I'm seeing red. Likely that's unrealistic. Can you rage in a non-hurtful way?
• Build continuity, somehow, between home and work. Maybe it's a prayer or a song, maybe a purpose or mission, maybe a way of thinking about or structuring your day. He advises against falling into the trap of depending on home life too much or work life too much. Develop your practice at home and at work, then something deeper, something that includes home, work, and everywhere will become dependable for you.

Limited Infinite Meaning

Just a little analogy I use to calm myself...

I get anxious a lot.

You know how the set of all whole numbers (0,1,2,...) is infinite...
yet the set of all integers (...-2,-1,0,1,2,...) is larger...
and the rational numbers even larger?

But even the rational number set has certain limits, or bounds, or a definition. I guess that's what we mean by a "set."

Anyway, I like to think of literary and poetic meaning that way. Interpretive variations are endless (not really), yet they have limits (maybe not).

"How now brown cow" can mean lots of things to a single reader, to a group, or even to the author.

What are the limits? I guess the sound or light waves received and the body-brain receiving them are two limits. But socially, linguistically, how might we hypothesize the limits?

You might say that each word has a herd of meanings, rambling around but mostly staying in the herd, and the order of the words is like some cowpokes rounding up the herds into one bigger herd, and the context is like the contours of the pastureland. And the reader is out there in the middle of it, doing what? Who knows, throwing rocks at rattle snakes or some other bad idea.

Naked Gun

Pistols and Bazookas

    One of my all-time favorite movie scenes is from Naked Gun 2, when O.J. pulls out a pistol during a shoot-out and begins to upgrade it, pulling add-on after add-on out of nowhere. Leslie Nielson and the foes are firing away wildly, but O.J.'s no help because he's still assembling his gun. Eventually, as Nielson is trying to figure out how to get into a building, "boom!" O.J. fires what has become some kind of cannon and saves the day by blasting open the door.
   I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that, with regard to weapons, as with most aspects of life, we need a balance between personal freedom and public safety. Wouldn't most Americans agree that individuals have a right to use a gun to defend themselves from violence? And, at the same time, wouldn't most people agree that private citizens don't have a right to be driving around in tanks or carrying dirty bombs in their backpacks? If we can agree on the extremes, and establish the basic framework for the argument, perhaps we can compromise.
    Why does the NRA insist on drawing the line at assault rifles? It sounds like they're primarily using the slippery-slope argument, saying that any new restrictions will lead to more restrictions, which will eventually lead to a ban on guns, altogether. That argument is always available.


Why Ballistic Persistence?

   When did guns overtake other weapons as the most popular? I guess at different times in different places. 16th-17th century, colonial expansion mostly? Let's just say that by the beginning of the 19th century guns were far and away the most popular weapon.
   Think of how technological genres have changed and advanced since then. Transportation, communication, medicine, building, manufacturing. Unbelievable. What would a kid from 1800 Virginia recognize in today's world? Houses, crops, furniture. Guns, definitely. For at least 200 years, the world's weapon of choice has more or less been the same thing. A little explosion in a barrel that hurls and spins a piece of metal into an animal or a person, puncturing skin and blasting muscle, shattering bone, finding its home in flesh and blood or continuing its journey beyond the body.
   And if we include the bow-and-arrow, atlatl, sling-shots, and other hurled object technology, of course we're going way back thousands and thousands of years. They would count as ballistic weapons right?
   But back to the mystery. Why hasn't the basic design of hand-held attacking technology changed, when so many other things have changed? Is it just a really efficient design? Or has the economic success of relatively inexpensive guns decreased the allure of innovation and competition? Or have gun producers squashed potential replacements? Or do we just love guns like we love guitars and bricks? All of the above, right?
   Eventually guns will go the way of older weapons. For hobbying, hunting, or sports. Some other terrifying weapon, probably more precise in its effect, likely using some kind of artificial intelligence, will overtake it. 
  Can we re-direct this flow? Why must lethal-ness be the main design pressure? Are we incapable of developing effective, affordable, non-lethal self-defense technologies? Where's our ingenuity when we most need it?

"Guns Save Lives"

    That was the sticker the NRA gave out on the Jan 13th rally. I understand what they are trying to say - that guns are used to protect - but the way they phrased it is maddening, heart breaking. You might as well say that "killing saves lives." Yes, you can argue that the threat of killing-power has a deterrent effect and therefore saves lives, but you wouldn't put that on a bumper sticker would you?
   What happened to the NRA? It used to be a marksmanship club. Now it appears semi-religious, at least from the way its leaders talk. Honestly the tone is very John Calhoun-ish. I don't know, I just pulled that out of nowhere. But their statements sound anticipatory, like preemptive nostalgia or grief. I think they know that more and more guns isn't going to help our situation, but if they believe in it hard enough it will be true and righteous. An older friend of mine said that things started getting wacky in the NRA after JFK was assassinated.

Guns and White Supremacy

    The other day at work we had a brief but good debate about whether or not the VCDL rally on Jan 20th was an expression of white supremacy. Some related thoughts:
   1) It's really hard to be white-cultured without being white supremicist, at least a little bit. I say that based on my own experience and reflection as a white man who loves his heritage. I also say that based on good history. If I understand it correctly, whiteness developed in the process of western-european domination of non-european peoples. It was a during-and-after-the-fact rationalization, justification, and explanation (Kendi persuasively makes the case that most racist ideas follow this pattern - they develop during and after racist behavior, not before; the next question is, then, if there was no racist consciousness beforehand, how did the whites manage to behave racistly?). 
   Before colonialism, "race" in european languages meant "people group" or "ethnic group." Certainly race was associated with phenotypic features, and there was plenty of skin color bias, but nobody believed that all white skinned people were of the same race, or all black skinned people were of the same race, etc.
   All that to say - get a bunch of white dudes together who are excited about some part of their heritage (could be anything), there's gonna be white supremacy weaved into the fabric of the gathering. I know, that's so broad! That statement can apply to so many things in my life and most white people's life! It's unavoidable. It's just something we need to face up to as white folks - not so that we can wallow in shame and self-hatred - but to truly repent and create a better life.
   2) Me to me questions. Were guns used to help create whiteness? Yes. Did guns cause whiteness? No. Was the Constitution originally written from a racist perspective? Yes. Does that mean the 2nd Amendment is racist? Inherently, no. But contextually, yes. I think.
   Isn't it fair to say that the founding dudes wanted guns and militias around as much for "protecting" white power from "savage" Indians and "seditious" enslaved Africans as they did for fighting Spain or France or checking some future tyrannical government? In Virginia, at least, the militias and related patrols were mostly concerned with slave rebellions.
   That tradition of white men maintaining race-based power in armed groups continued after the civil war, helping to bring an end to reconstruction and establish Jim Crow. As white folks we can't just snap our fingers and dissolve all the these cultural patterns. "Heritage not hate" is a good idea but we're going to have to prove that it's possible. Gathering a large, well-armed group on MLK day, displacing other groups who had hoped to demonstrate, tolerating support from people you know are explicitly racist...come on VCDL. You can do better than that. Why not just coalesce with the NRA on the 13th? At least then they could have avoided dishonoring a day dedicated to a non-violent prophetic leader gunned downed by racism.
   I'm not trying to say that the NRA or VCDL has a secret racist agenda. I don't mean to say that legal structures like the 2nd amendment are inherently racist. But they are genealogically racist. I mean the arguments were created, at least in part, for racist ends, and then passed down relatively unaltered to people who no longer consciously intend to be racist. As white folks we can't just say "we've changed" and then keep walking the same way we've always walked.
  
  

Thinking with Cars and Guns

    I was driving home to R. Hill from band practice, riding north on 95 from Petersburg and had just crossed into Richmond when "wham," all-a-sudden my car decelerated. I can't remember exactly what the sound was like, but it was not a happy sound. Kind-of a mix between a growl and a screech. "Uh-oh."
    I'd been told several times that my little red bucket (a chevrolet metro) was leaking oil something fierce and that it need all manner of new gaskets. But, I'd hoped that by refilling the oil each week it might survive another year or two. No such luck.
   I pushed it along the shoulder for about half-an-hour, thinking that if I could top the little hill by the paper mill, perhaps I could roll down to Maury street. Yeah I didn't even get close, so I called a tow truck. Turns out some seal had burst and broken the camshaft. It was my last drive in the little red bucket, a great car.
   For the next year and a half I navigated life without my own car. Fortunately I was a very very lucky non-car owner: I lived where I worked, someone else (with a car) did all the grocery shopping, I had friends from whom I could occasionally borrow a car, Richmond had a consistent albeit very geographically constrained bus system, and my neighborhood was pedestrian friendly.
   Nevertheless, even with all these supports for life without a car, my life changed drastically. I had no idea how much our new-south cities and lives had been designed by and for car-driving adults. I had no idea how much my identity and sense of independent power was contingent on owning a car. I had no idea that, for all practical purposes, in most American cities and towns, car ownership is economic and social citizenship. If you don't have a car you are by default half a citizen, at the most.
   On the other hand - and this positivity was made possible by all the privileges listed above - I encountered a new sense of time and place. Honestly it felt more humane, more real somehow. When you're not thinking in terms of driving your car, your days are sized differently. The landscape is more and more alive. 
   Cars are great, fascinating works of art and engineering. And I love to drive. But, I think owning a car for personal use gives us a feeling of power that at the end of the day is false. It's a "worldly" power, yes, but not a spiritual power.
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   That ended up being a long intro! How can I transition now to guns? What I'm trying to say is: in America we collectively think with guns, as pervasively as we think with cars. The analogy doesn't line up perfectly, I know, but I've been trying to think of a way to compare the feelings of gun ownership to other common aspects of American life. Cell phones, maybe?
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   For many folks, at the individual level, owning a gun is part of who they are. It's as natural as starting up your car and driving to the grocery store. And the feelings of power, independence, identity, responsibility, and citizenship are similar to car ownership. Is that a fair comparison?
   The rational arguments for and against private gun ownership are very important, and I hope the "powers that be" will allow (I'm looking at you Congress with the CDC) honest studies of the variable relationship between gun ownership and personal safety, gun ownership and public health, so on and so forth.
   But based on my own experience with family and friends, I think most people who own a gun do so because of the feelings associated with it. Feelings of power-over-fear or strength-against-danger. Feelings of power to project into their daily lives, for better and for worse. Gun ownership is a social posture, like literacy or income or cars. If you own a gun, you know that you have the power of fire and metal, and you carry that knowledge when you're not carrying the gun.
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   At the collective level guns are also part of who we are. Historically, of course, you know the vital role ballistic weapons played in the invasion and occupation of the lands we now call the United States of America. They have been central to hunting and rural life. They have been the basic technology in our wars and battles, most of our oppressive endeavors and some of our liberative ones.
   If you're a citizen, even if you don't privately own a gun, you own guns. In fact if we counted up the number state-owned guns, and divided by the number of citizens, how many guns would each person own? I'm thinking at least a dozen, but that's a wild guess based on wild guesses from google. Ballistic weapons are the backbone of our national defense, our law enforcement strategies, our sense of ordering-power, right? Do we have any idea what life would be like without guns? 
   I'd like to find out. How do we get there from here!? I know that turning our swords into plowshares is not practical or safe or in our nation's best interest, but I agree with Walter Wink's interpretation of the "kingdom of God." It's a kingdom of power and weakness, destruction and regeneration, but it's not a kingdom of "domination," built by humans with horses and chariots. How do we trust God and not violent power? How? Help us Lord.

The Powers that Be

The Powers That Be: Theology For A New Millennium - Walter Wink

   One of our Ruah books from last month, another good one. I'm not smitten with the sociological analysis - like, the five basic worldviews, the 5000 year history of the Domination System and the Myth of Redemptive Violence. But his interaction with Scripture is lively. I especially appreciated his insights on the creativity of Jesus' non-violent actions and words, and on the necessary creativity in non-violent resistance generally.
    How bout the idea that all human groups or institutions have an individual spiritual power at their core? Good leaders and teachers in my life seem to have a knack for sensing or feeling out the particular spirit of the group. Whether or not they actually believe that this power or spirit is somehow separate, independent of human life, I'm not sure. 
   In any case, I think most folks would agree, based on their own experiences in groups and teams, that group dynamics is a "thing," objectifiable and approachable, as much as any social or psychological phenomenon can be. We are social and understand ourselves as parts. Identifying a group's behavior and feeling patterns as an operative "power" seems like it would be fruitful even for non-religious folks. Could we just call it the group's collective unconscious? On the other hand, "the powers that be" is an important bridge to the Scriptural concepts, so maybe that's unfair.
   Is group-sense stuff at the heart of the development of religion?

Brother Lawrence Intro

“Since by His mercy He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest…”





Who was Brother Lawrence?





Nicolas Herman was born in Herimesnil, in Lorraine, France, about 1611.


As a teenager (16 or 18?) he joined the army, but was soon wounded in battle.


He experience a conversion at the age of 18.


“That he had been a footman to M. Fieubert, the treasurer, and that he was a great awkward fellow who broke everything.”


He attempted to live the life a hermit, but became frustrated and discouraged.


Herman joined the Discalced Carmelites of Paris as a lay-brother and was given the name Lawrence of the Resurrection.


He was assigned work in the kitchen, “to which he had naturally a great aversion.”


He lived to 80 years of age, after about 40 years in the monastery.






The Conversion



“That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the providence and power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for God that he could not tell whether it had increased during the more than forty year he had lived since.”





The Resolution



“...at my entrance into religion, I took a resolution to give myself up to God, as the best return I could make for His love, and, for the love of Him, to renounce all besides…”


“...to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him…”


“...having resolved to make the love of God the end of all his actions…”











Early Troubles...











“That he had been long troubled in mind from a certain belief that he should be damned...this trouble of mind had lasted four years, during which time he had suffered much...”


“...I must tell you that for the first ten years I suffered much. The apprehension that I was not devoted to God as I wished to be, my past sins always present to mind, and the great unmerited favors which God did me, were the matter and source of my sufferings.”


Grace upon grace






“When I thought of nothing but to end my days in these troubles (which did not at all diminish the trust I had in God, and which served only to increase my faith), I found myself changed all at once; and my soul, which till that time was in trouble, felt a profound inward peace, as if she were in her center and place of rest.”






“Ever since that time I walk before God simply, in faith, with humility and with love…”






“That he had so often experienced the ready succors of divine grace upon all occasions…”






“That the greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon divine grace…”





The Practice of the Presence of God






“And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard for God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God…”


“Let him then think of God the most he can. Let him accustom himself, by degrees, to this small but holy exercise.”


“During our work and other activities...we ought to stop for a moment, as often as we can, in order to worship God in our hearts…”


“That we need only to recognize God intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance...praising, adoring, and loving Him incessantly…”


Discussion Questions






What most interests or excites you most about Brother Lawrence’s story?


Does anything disturb you or confound you?


Have you had any experiences similar to Brother Lawrence?


When do you most feel in the “actual presence” of God?


Are there any practices that help you live and work in God’s presence?


“...as persons sent from God and standing in God’s presence” (2 Cor 2:17)


In which parts of your life do you most need this practice? Job? Home? Traffic? Church? Family life? Morning? Evening? Etc.?


Is Brother Lawrence’s practice the same as “unceasing prayer?”


“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess 5:16-18)


What resolution would you like to make for your day tomorrow?