Not-quite-right Christmas

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

Does Christmas not feel quite right to you?

Then you have something in common — in varying degrees — with self-absorbed Ebenezer Scrooge, bankrupted George Bailey, worried Charlie Brown, skeptical little Susan Walker, the jealous Grinch, questioning Cindy Lou Who, the doubtful nameless hero boy of “Polar Express,” disillusioned Betty Haynes, divorced Scott Calvin and any number of other major characters in classic holiday films.

And that commonality leads me to believe that “not quite right Christmas” is an experience shared by more people than might be willing to admit it.

After all, Christmas is supposed to be the season of hope; the hope of the world, right?

Yet the world just goes on being the world, and people go right on being people.

Things change; not always for the better.

Losses happen.

Jesus comes, but then He goes again.

The light of hope can become clouded and even obscured by the darkness of disappointment and even despair.

I think I get that. I’ve been there plenty of times in my life, and not always at Christmas.

But I’m learning to look for the light; in others, in giving, in kindness, in faith. I’m figuring out how to turn outward from inside myself, where it can get pretty dark. To reflect the light. Even to be the fuel that the light burns.

I’m trying to see opportunity in life; even if it’s the shadowy opportunity to learn empathy from sharing in the suffering of others, and seeing their strength, and attempting to lend some of my own.

If there’s anything in common with all the holidays of the season, I think it’s that we need light; there must be light in these days of longer darkness for us northern hemisphere dwellers:

  • Gratitude, for plentiful harvest and having enough.
  • Generosity in sharing the excess.
  • Grace toward others, because we all begin again — not just as each year ends — but as each outgrown season of life comes to a close.

Those things are what I see helping make the world a little more right when it doesn’t feel quite right.

At Christmas, or any other time.

Misidentified

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

It costs you absolutely nothing to respect another person’s identity and use the pronouns for them that they prefer.

Not one red cent.

You accommodate a woman who marries and tells you whether she wants to be addressed as “Ms.” or “Mrs.” or by her husband’s last name or her original last name or just her first name. It may be a little complex, but you do it.

You use the title “Dr.” when a person earns that degree.

You want people to use the correct way of addressing you, don’t you?

I bring it up because, once again today, I was misidentified. I’m an old straight dude with a beard and long hair who has always identified as male. But the Walmart supervisor behind me at the self checkout asked me, “Do you need any help, ma’am?”

And when I turned, smiling, and she saw my beard, she blushed and apologized. “Oh, it’s you!” she said. (We’ve chatted amiably many times.) “I’m so sleep-deprived I don’t even know who I am today!” she added.

“It’s the hair; it throws people off,” I grinned. “Not a problem.”

(By the way, her lovely white hair is worn in a crew cut.)

It didn’t cost her anything to want to address me correctly; not a penny. And her kind, self-effacing apology quickly communicated that she respected that.

We don’t lose anything by respecting others. In fact, we stand to gain something by getting to know people and respecting them, even if we’re unfamiliar with how they see themselves.

We stand to gain a friendship.

We learn by listening, and we stand to gain a deeper understanding of and respect toward others — as, I would venture to say, we would appreciate others respecting and getting to understand us better.

And it literally costs us nothing.

Confession time

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

I have not been to church for several years.

I went to church almost every time the doors were open from infancy on up. Until a few years ago.

I kinda stopped going during the pandemic and never really went back. Oh, I kept preaching online for my little home church here in Eureka Springs. And for a while after we decided to meet again.

Then I retired and stopped going.

I had no problems with anyone there. Sweet people, and I miss them.

But at some point, my longstanding questions about why we “do” church the way we “do” church had no satisfying answers.

I had been asking myself for years why we were there; why weren’t we out doing things together to help other people?

Feeding the hungry? Visiting the ill and injured? Housing the homeless? Helping the unemployed get jobs? Getting things fixed and painted for older people? Giving lost folks directions to the places they want to go? All kinds of things that just HELP?

Instead we sit for a lecture about what we should already have read and know. We sing and pray things that praise God who wants actions more than words, and supposedly encourage each other instead of asking what’s wrong or how-can-we-help or listening. We give to pay a staff to do some of these things for us instead of experiencing the joy of caring, and a building to do them in (and the utilities/maintenance for it). We have elders, deacons and boards to look after all that, often instead of each other, and then to deal with excluding people who weren’t included enough not to do something wrong that would embarrass the church. Does helping people go out really help them out?

Not once in scripture do I find a menu or even an example of the acts of worship we’ve all generally agreed upon in connection with a gathered church. Sometimes a visiting missionary would share a long mission report and some poor weary chap would fall asleep and out of a window, but I’m not sure that was supposed to be exemplary.

There were no examples of purchased buildings, on-site staff, performing choirs or bands or special effects or testimonies or much of anything else that was for us but not for Him.

I find in the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth many examples of people being fed, cared for, healed and taught by parable and thought-questions whether there was a crowd around or not.

Thing is, I think over the centuries, people came up with a formula for doing church themselves that often conveniently required the minimum development of character and involvement in the lives of others with the maximum expenditure of donated funds.

And while some may have greatly simplified and reduced the expenditure of that formula, it’s often the same old things being done in the same old ways. I’m not sure that’s for everyone. I’m not sure that it really helps anyone in their spiritual development to be more loving and caring outside that circle of fellowship — perhaps to the folks who feel the need for grace and inclusion the most.

In the end, it was not encouraging me. And I didn’t feel like I could go on trying to encourage people within it.

So I’ve outed myself as a believer in God now, but not particularly a believer in church as we “do” it. (That will save everyone else the trouble of outing me. 🙂)

I’m not exactly a cloistered monk though. Church is still all around me, because church is the kingdom of God in this world. I’m surrounded by His kids, whether they’ve known or accepted His paternity or not. I’m serving in my own way with my meager set of skills and resources; loving others no matter what, calling out dumb stuff that should be obvious, giving directions to sidewalkers who are befuddled by Eureka Springs maps, holding doors open, donating food cans when I can, smiling, giving out free compliments, always being available for hugs and a cup of coffee. There are civic groups willing to accept my help with bigger needs, so I try to support them. My cottage is a place of welcome.

I’m the church, 24/7, just like everyone else who wants to love and care and help when they can, whether individually or in a group. It’s just that our costs of doing business are lower.

And, perhaps, the reward of the joy of being part of it firsthand seems greater.

A Sound of Thunder

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

Butterfly Effect

In 1952, science fiction writer Ray Bradbury published a short story titled “A Sound of Thunder,” almost certainly inspiring the thought-problem term “butterfly effect” coined by meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz in the 1960s.

“Butterfly Effect” describes the phenomenon of a tiny event (the death of a butterfly under time-traveler Eckels’ boot, in Bradbury’s story) inexplicably causing a huge consequence later on.

In 9th grade I managed a paperback book shelf inside Perry East Junior High before school and spent most of my earnings there. I bought “R is for Rocket,” an anthology containing the short story by Bradbury and devoured every word.

This story stuck with me perhaps more than the others, and only partly because of the unintended consequence at the end involving the election of a strong man named Deutscher as president, “not that fool weakling Keith.”

At the beginning of the story, the “man behind the desk” at the time travel agency had been excited about the election of Keith.

For one thing, I resolved then and there not to run for public office.

But also my 9th-grade mind was sharp enough to realize that small actions can also, sometimes, yield big results.

Given time.

So I also resolved to engage in those small acts of kindness in the hope for better outcomes.

Yesterday, a little better than half our country’s voters elected what they perceive as a “strong man.” (He isn’t, but that’s irrelevant.)

Each vote cast contributed to that outcome, and it was overnight — even though the small events that led to his popularity took decades — against all odds, common sense, moral dignity and good taste — to have their cumulative effect.

What I want to advocate now is serious rebellion against that trend — in tiny, quiet, small ways. Acts of kindness. Words of support. Unashamed expressions of brotherly love. Showing grace. Being generous. Fostering unity.

It may take time — perhaps not millions of years, like Eckels’ journey — but that only means the best time to start is right now.

I might even end up running for public office as a result.

You might one day elect that fool weakling Keith.

(Below: 1. an excerpt from near the close of “A Sound of Thunder.” 2. The story’s earlier description of Deutscher.)

Here for you

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I am here for you.

Right here in my house.

Not out with you saying awkward things while you’re trying to meet new friends.

I am here for you.

The friend that you don’t really need but I’m glad you have.

The sirens and the chimes

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

Walking by Eureka Springs’ Crescent Spring at noon on Wednesday is a contemplative experience for me.

On one side, you hear the gentle carillon up the hill at St. Elizabeth’s; her chimes singing to you some hymn of goodness and light and all that heaven enfolds and humanity should aspire to.

On the other side, you hear the tornado/air raid sirens on East Mountain, warning and testifying to you of all the worst, most destructive capabilities that the heavens and mankind can mete out.

They swell against each other, and of course the sirens have the advantage in volume in spite of their distance from you, and for three to five minutes they overcome — drowning out the chimes.

The sirens win.

But the carillon continues gently singing its angelus prayer-songs for another ten minutes, reassuring you that there is still divine love and mercy and grace, and your world goes on turning while you continue your walk.

The carillon endures.

The Story of Easter, 2024

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I’m retired from preaching, but every once in a while I just feel a need to say something that I feel should be obvious … just in case it’s not.

Tomorrow is Easter, and Christendom will observe the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Sermons will recount how it brings hope and verifies the promise of life after death and testifies to divine power and love.

I don’t mean to diminish any of that, nor any of the other encouraging insights those messages may bring.

But I feel that if we fail to grasp that the promise of abundant life is just as much for the here and now as it is for the hereafter, we’ve still missed the point — even if we gladly accept all the other points made.

We fit this planet and it fits us. We fit with each other. We have a place in life, and a purpose, and a way to enrich life’s meaning.

The Man who left the tomb taught and lived and fulfilled a life of perfect love and harmony with all around himself who were willing to share in that vision.

He created; told simple stories to reveal how to love.

He walked and met people where they lived and worked, and told them how much they are worth.

He fed them when they were starving for hope and sometimes even for food or health or life itself.

He felt we deserved a perfect example, even if we could never perfectly imitate it.

He proved it could be done.

And even the way His life was ended — willingly, obediently, self-sacrificially — was a way to make and keep peace in such a troubled time.

So of course His life couldn’t be ended by hatred, jealousy, fear, anger, paranoia and all the other evil factors that conspired to end it.

Love never ends.

That’s the Story.

That’s the essence of the Story
I would want to preach if I still preached; that I would want to quietly post on a noisy social media tool; that I would want to live until I die, when only the loving parts of me are remembered here and become part of the hereafter.

Love never ends.

The Story of Easter.

A wrong turn

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I think Christianity took a wrong turn, and much farther back than you might think I’m going to say. I think it took a wrong turn when it became a religion instead of a way of life.

After three years of abstaining from scripture, I’m going back a little at a time to see if what is imprinted on my memory and mind and soul is accurate, reliable, valuable.

I’m trying to divorce it from what I’ve been taught it says and told it means and drilled about its characteristics. I’m trying to just read it.

I’m starting with the gospels. And there I find nothing about Jesus expressing a desire to begin a new religion, but rather to fulfill an old one. I find no pleas from Him to build structures and governances and hierarchies and rules about what to do and how. I find no support for worship or rituals or traditions that lose meaning through repetition because they may be periodically spoken or sung but not LIVED.

Instead I find prophecy about how the old ends and the new begins. I find stories about accepting and rejecting grace; about accepting and rejecting others; about accepting and rejecting Him. I find teaching about how to live, how to be fulfilled, how to show grace and love and compassion for others. All interspersed with His example of living and doing these things as well as teaching them.

I find medicine for broken relationships.

I find promises of His presence.

I find guarantees of His grace.

In fact, the words of judgment that I find are for the religious, the ones who judge, the ones who reject, the ones who make it hard for others to access grace. The ones who are in bed with government they do not trust and will conspire to take His life because it is politically expedient — and will justify their judgment and conspiracy and lies and murder.

What I remember of the story after that is that it goes all right for a while. The story of His life and teachings is told far and wide, and people gather to hear it and keep gathering to reinforce their belief in a life that’s good and noble and gracious — even to the point of ultimate self-sacrifice. A perfect example of it.

The people who originally told the story chose the wise and most caring to shepherd the rest and moved on to tell the story in other places.

But, people remain people. Just like we do. Even if changed in heart and soul, it’s never complete. Gatherings became churches; synagogues with rules about who’s in and who’s out, who’s in charge, what does this mean or can’t mean, what worship includes and doesn’t, and so on and on.

And the letters we read from the people who originally told the story to the people-having-problems-with-being-people keep pointing them back to the “how-to-live” teachings of Jesus, though they sometimes stray into making new rules.

I think it’s natural and human that another religion resulted from the teachings and example about how to live. I’m pretty sure Jesus saw it coming. I understand that a lot of people benefit from the fellowship of shared belief with others; are uplifted and encouraged with worship together; are strengthened by messages that urge them on and reinforce their faith. Some folks need the ritual and the repetition. Church has its place in faith.

Probably in most religions, not just Christianity.

But if the focus is on self — even on the community of faith that one’s self is surrounded with — rather than living that story, that grace, that Jesus … then it truly is just another religion. Perhaps His name is there, but … His presence?

It’s the way of life that gives meaning to the religion.

Christianity can’t just be another religion, and still be Christianity.

It has to be a way of life.

His life.

Church as we know it

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Yesterday, January 31, was the third anniversary of my retirement from preaching.

I mentioned it to a friend, who asked why, and I gave the same answer that I have given before: I never felt qualified as a preacher, or even qualified to play one on TV. (Because, as you know, preachers are supposed to be called to preach and never retire, even on the off-chance that they can afford to.)

That’s most of the answer. And the rest of it isn’t going to be any more popular:

I’ve stopped believing in church.

Church as we know it.

I haven’t been to church in those three years, except for taking a friend (and her mom, if her mom had felt up to it) to church while they were visiting the area, since neither of them drives.

I certainly don’t have anything against the congregation I left behind; wonderful people and I had no problems the three years and three months I preached there. I love them and miss them. And of all the churches I’ve attended and/or served over the years, I have the least difficulty with the way they operate and function as a church.

My problem is with the way we believers do church; with church as we know it.

Church didn’t seem to be a high priority in the teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the gospels. He mentioned it twice, as I recall; once while declaring to Peter that He would establish it on the rock-like faith that Peter had just displayed, and the second time when foreseeing problems within it and advising on how to handle them. If you follow the links, both of those references are only in Matthew’s gospel.

Nowhere in those gospels is there an account about how Jesus wanted the church to be structured or any authority hierarchies within it, how worship within it should take place, whether it should have a building or ministry staff of its own, whether collections should be taken to support all that, what doctrines might include or exclude your place in it … and so on.

People who came after Him established all those details, and they became the norm and the details fossilized — and rarely does anyone question them if they want to continue to remain welcome in church fellowship.

What Jesus seemed to spend most of His teaching time on is how to get along with others; how to love and respect and care for others; how to do that without judging them; how to find blessing in living that kind of life even though it can be really hard — and that doing so can even make others so ticked off that they’ll want to hurt or even kill you.

And He backed up every moment of His teaching time living out everything He taught. That, of course, is really the how. The verbal teaching was just a summary of how He was showing us to live.

But it seems like our focus in church is not so much on Jesus but on church. How to get in, how important it is to get in and be in and stay in, how to protect its purity and reputation, how bad it has to get before people are asked to leave, how to get rid of them, how to defend its doctrine, how right we are and how wrong others are, why we need to financially support it, etc.

And we wonder why people aren’t just crowding the door to get to the front seats every Sunday morning.

A lot of churches have just out-and-out chosen to become The Jesus Show and invested in worship bands and lights and lasers and smoke and screens and videos — to become more attractive, more entertaining. Sermons have become messages that people attending want to hear. Flags become as important as crosses. Coffee becomes as vital as communion.

Church doesn’t help the poor and the homeless and the hungry and the sick because a few undeserving souls might take advantage of Christian generosity and waste “the Lord’s money” in the effort — the money that is needed to support an impressively-sized ministry staff and their offices and the building. Most of which is used once, twice, maybe three times a week in most cases.

This is church as we know it. We are comfortable with it. We don’t question it. Hierarchy and authority solves the problems that are caused by the querulous or defiant. — Sinners, of course, who make church look bad.

Look, I don’t begin to think that there is anything wrong with gathering somewhere to worship with some songs of praise and encouragement, gratefully praying for folks and other needs, reading and discussing scripture as a common reminder. Not at all. Church just means “assembly;” it’s a gathering of people with a commonality. But it seems to me that it’s become what people came up with as a comfortable substitute for the hard work of daily communion with/concern for others inside and outside of that fellowship.

The come-late-to-the-game Apostle Paul writes to Rome that worship is more than songs, prayers and sermons; it’s the way we live our whole lives:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” — Romans 12:1

You see, I’m not sure that Jesus’ intention was ever to create a new religion out of teachings that shape a lifestyle. And even if He did, then the epistle of James (probably His very close relative) reminds us:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” — James 1:27

I’m just really not comfortable with the church as we know it. I’ve spent three years doing that internal analysis that church leaders dread and call “deconstruction.” I haven’t spent much time in scripture, because I wanted to get away from hearing it the way I’ve always heard it preached — with all the preconceptions and accumulated doctrines of the centuries in between — and start hearing it as it is.

I figured that if, after studying together and attending and listening and worshiping in church as we know it didn’t at least equip me to have a sense for God’s nature and Jesus’ character and the Spirit’s presence for 65 years, it would at least include a pretty good memory bank of scripture. And three years — probably the span of Jesus’ ministry here and Paul’s initial acquaintance with Him — would not erase the core knowledge of the previous 65. (I always double-checked my memory of wording and context to be sure I had recalled it correctly. Praying? I never stopped praying.)

If that makes me apostate, then I guess that puts me in the company of many in history who have lived a monastic lifestyle — some in seclusion — to meditate on the Word and left their own impressions to enrich those who followed them. Though I don’t know that I ever felt like that was something I needed to do.

Rather, I felt like I needed to be out in my little resort town, among people, helping and encouraging and being gracious to my neighbors and our visitors. Being comfortable around folks whom others aren’t comfortable being around. Offering to help people find things they were looking for. Picking up a little trash here and there. Giving rides. Giving bottles of Ozarka water to thirsty folks strolling in my neighborhood. Opening my home to those who needed a bathroom. Or sometimes, a place to sleep. Buying and sharing a meal together. Loving folks who don’t feel loved. Appreciating people who aren’t appreciated.

That, you see, is the religion that I feel like I can observe in good conscience.

And let me say I understand that church as we know it is a great comfort and boon to the spiritual lives of many folks within it who live gracious lives the rest of the time. It fills their need, and they are an encouragement to others there. I just don’t feel like I serve well there. At least, not while questioning everything about church as we know it.

I know a good part of it is me. I’m socially awkward. Crowds can make me antsy. I’ve pretty much lost my ability to sing with age. I’m not good at accepting the status quo. I have trouble believing in structures and doctrines and limitations that have their origin with people, and not explicitly with God, expressed clearly in scripture.

I can’t preach it if I don’t believe it. And in church as we know it, you’re expected to preach church as we know it.

So I’ve come to a (literally) unorthodox conclusion:

Church is more than people in a box on Sunday morning doing a liturgy. Church is all around us, all the time, everyone we know and meet and don’t — whether they have heard of Jesus; whether they believe or not — because everyone is God’s concern, and everyone ought to be our concern too.

It’s an assembly. A gathering of folks who have a commonality, and that commonality is how difficult it can be to live this life, and how it can be made easier by caring about each other and believing in others.

And every time I think about putting church back in the box, back in the us-and-them, back in the insider-and-outsider artifice, I feel like I’m in the wrong place to really, really worship.

Freedom to choose

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

What so many of my fellow Christians fail to understand is that freedom of religion and the separation of church from state in a democracy is the ideal environment for faith to grow.

Because our faith is based on choice.

Always has been. Always will be.

From the choice of fruit in Eden to “choose you this day whom you will serve” to the great and mudane daily choices we make to try and reflect the nature of Christ, it has been our freedom to choose that’s the key.

Not coercion. Not enforcement. Not Sharia-type law.

A choice that’s forced is no choice at all. It doesn’t create a change of heart, or compel a desire to live graciously, or inspire a devotion to truth or justice or kindness or respect.

And the attitude that Christians are somehow morally superior to make these choices for others through law or compulsion — simply because we’ve have been forgiven — is ludicrous on its face. No one should have that attitude because none of us has that moral authority.

Were we asleep when we read or were taught that we are not to judge, or do we just choose to ignore it in a consistently defiant way?

And how effective is that kind of arrogance in trying to attract people while we say we are imitating Christ? Surely that hypocrisy is transparent to the most casual observer!

Did we miss the fact that scripture teaches God gave law to a new and undisciplined nation emerging in a savage and primitive environment — but it wasn’t good enough long-term to draw people closer to His nature, so grace had to be brought by His own Son? How difficult is that to understand? Law can only do so much! It was the schoolmaster until the Master arrived.

We believers have inched away from who He is and what He taught until we are nearly as far away, savage and primitive as the early era of law was from its inevitable Successor.

I’m no preacher and not even qualified to play one on TV — but these truths ought to be taught and preached and insisted upon until they are so obvious that it’s an embarrassment to deny or ignore them.

Choice, not coercion.

Faith, not force.

Compassion, not control.

Grace, not governing.

Love. Not law.

Your neighbor. Yourself. Your enemies.

No exceptions. No excuses.

If we want others to live changed lives, we need to live lives that are changed, exemplary, gracious, forgiving, generous, lovely.

You can’t make that a law.

It has to be chosen.

And maybe we need to be looking into the faces and hearts and lives of people around us who don’t believe, but live that kind of life, and we need to see Jesus there instead of in the mirror and we need to ask ourselves why.