Monarch Butterflies, Paramecium, and the Mystery of Christmas

This time of year, we all beat each other about losing the true spirit of Christmas. I can't argue against our collective guilt. Awash in a world of decisions between where to shop, what to buy, and how to wrap the gifts. School vacations plan. Trees to light up. Meals to make. Friends to visit. Family to love and argue with...

It's hard hard to keep track of anything, much less the divinity of a baby born in in Israel over two thousand years ago. We can beat ourselves up over consumerism and loss of faith, but we should also be honest that it's hard to keep the focus on something beyond what our human brains to truly understand.

I can easily picture Mary and Joseph in a stable with Baby Jesus in a manger. Same thing with wise men following a really big star. Angels in the heavens are a little more difficult, but possible if  I mentally graft on some white wings.

That level of clarity doesn't extend to all the details. According to the Christian faith, Jesus fundamentally changed the relationship between God and humanity. As described in John 1:14, "[T]he Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the gory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." That concept is a lot more slippery. 

How can we grasp the nature of that massive spiritual inflection in human history when we can't figure out how to stop the cold virus or predict the weather with a higher degree of accuracy?

That doesn't mean we enough to form a connection with the Divine reality of Jesus; to sense and react to something deep, powerful and earth-changing. A Monarch Butterfly summering in southern Canada cannot perceive all of the details of its 2,500 mile migration to winter in Mexico, but it successfully makes the journey.

A paramecium doesn't need to understand everything about its environment to know that it needs to move towards warmth.

The physics of the Divinity of that child born in Bethlehem will always elude me, but there is something in my soul that knows that the son of God prophesy of Isaiah 7:14 was realized when Jesus was born to Mary. Matthew 1:18-25. It is the same voice that has spoken to other souls for over 2,000 years. In the same way that something in the Monarch Butterfly tells them it is time to begin flapping those little wings south and within the structure of the paramecium telling them to push and spin towards warmth.

That does not mean that Christmas is wrapped up in too much mystery to be celebrated and loved. There is a very basic concept that we can latch onto and treasure. The purpose of that child born in Israel was to help us each overcome our own personal battle between right and wrong.

Nothing is more obvious than the fact we cannot find the path to good on our own. We start out with the best of intentions and eventually slide off course. There is something incredibly good in us that knows that we can and should do better, but somehow we don't. Whether the fault lies on belief systems, brain functioning, or simply the human condition is up for debate; but the reality that we cannot find redemption on our own is self evident

In response, the Lord sent a child. I cannot understand exactly why, but I am eternally thankful that He did.

If you haven't heard it before, please take a few minutes to listen to Steve Earle's haunting Christmas song, "Nothing But a Child."

Merry Christmas.

1990's Magic Eye Posters and the Illusion of Ownership

Note: This post is dedicated to Joe Day. Joe was a regular at the NAMI Montana office before passing away this week. Joe courageously battled serious bipolar disorder and poverty. Despite these challenges, he really enjoyed life and helped make all of us better - even when we didn't want to.


Magic Eye hidden 3-D image posters were really popular when I was a teenager. Swirls of dots and shapes - an optical illusion that revealed itself to the trained eye. I'd helplessly stare at them on my friends' walls.

"Put your nose right on the poster, then slowly move back"

I followed their orders, but didn't see the hidden image.

"Relax your eyes."

Still nothing.

"Don't you see the ship?"

More nothing.

"Keep trying, eventually you'll see it."

I never did.


In my unqualified opinion, the greatest spiritual works are similar to those Magic Eye posters. There's more to them than you initially see. It might take multiple readings or even years of multiple readings for your mind to grasp the secondary meaning. Those strokes of insight are precious.

I recently grasped a deeper meaning in the Parable of the Tenants that I'd never seen before.The Parable of the Tenants is one of Jesus' teaching that he gave in Jerusalem under the fierce questioning of the chief priests, the scribes, and elders. Mark 12:1-12, Matthew 21: 33-46, Luke 20: 9-19.

Jesus described a landowner who built a vineyard on his land and then leased it to tenant farmers while he was away on a journey. The landowner later sent servants to collect some of the proceeds of the vineyard, but the farmers beat them and sent them away. Then the landlord sent his only son. The farmers killed him in hopes of having the vineyard for themselves.

Jesus finishes the parable with a quotation of Psalm 118 ("The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.") This powerful combination of ancient prophesy and a prophesy of Jesus's crucifixion delivers a powerful message on Jesus's divinity. That's the message that hits the Sunday sermons.

But, the secondary message is also valuable. The foundation of this parable is that human beings are the tenants of Creation. That is more than just a setup for the story.

We are tenant farmers of all that God has created. Everything that we've been entrusted with bears the expectation of that we will use it to serve the God of Love. The implications of this lesson are broad:

• Our talents, interest and abilities belong to God.
• Our property and resources belong to God.
• Our family members belong to God.
• The natural world and all of Creation belong to God.

This secondary meaning is so important that Jesus also describes it in the Parable of the Talents when God is described as a master who gives his servants gold coins in expectation that they will invest them and gain him a return. Matthew 25: 14-30. 

We are expected to care for and use the tools that we have been given to serve the Creator to the best of our ability, just like any tenant farmer would for the owner of the land. But, we must remember that they are not ours.

A river of personal suffering stems from misunderstanding this fundamental rule of Divine ownership. We cling to and try to dominate what was never ours to begin with and then blame God for taking it away.

As described by Dalai Lama, "Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering."

NOTE: This brings up the followup question of what does God expect us to put our time, efforts and resources towards. There are a lot of places to look for answers for that question, but Matthew 25: 31-46 which describes the process of Divine Judgment and the judgment of the Seven Churches in Revelation 2-3 is a great place to start.

*** Please use this link to book your hotel and airline tickets.  You get Expedia's great prices and they'll donate a portion of the sale to Uganda Rural Fund's critical services in the heart of Africa.  Thank you!***

The Bible’s Blueprint for Political Decisions in a Democracy

NOTE: This post is a lot drier than my usual posts, but I believe that the United States is at a critical stage in our democracy and it's important to seek guidance on how the government President Abraham Lincoln described as "of the people, by the people, for the people" should continue forward.


As an advocate for people who live with mental illness and their families, I work a lot in politics. Partisanship has no positive value in my job. I work with and against Democrats, Republicans, government workers, the military, government unions, government contractors, professional associations and anyone else remotely involved with the mental illness treatment system. We work together on one issue and disagree on the next. It's that way on the federal, state and local levels. Any other tactic or strategy is a disservice to the people that we're trying to help.

While there is a lot of general discussion of Christian values in politics, it's hard to distill how these values should guide complex policy decisions or even help determine we should vote for. The main reason for this is probably that Jesus was more concerned with saving souls than he was in establishing effective political mechanisms.

The New Testament offers the general guidance to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It is the clear duty of each person to care for the poor, the oppressed and the excluded. However, there is no clear statement on what the government's role should be in carrying out these and other responsibilities? If there is a role, how do we balance it with Saint Paul's message that society should limit free-loading? 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

We have to turn back to the Old Testament to find an answers those questions. All the way back to Psalm 72.

What was Psalm 72 and Why Look to It for Guidance?

Like a multifaceted prism, Psalm 72 is open to multiple views and interpretations. The main controversies in these interpretations regard whether the Psalm is David’s prayer for his son Solomon’s reign, a prophecy of the Messiah, or some combination of the two. I don't want to wade into a theological battle which has divided some of history’s brightest theological minds. I ask the reader to read Psalm 72 as King David’s prayer for his son Solomon’s reign as King. This is not to deny any of the Messianic overtones that Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, Pope John Paul II, Martin Bucer and other preeminent theologians agree are there. One does not exclude the other, but this seems to be the interpretation favored by King David’s son Solomon and in that light the interpretation still has value.

The evidence of this is that the Biblical depiction of King Solomon’s reign specifically describe events prayed for in Psalm 72. The details of these events are so specific in both accounts that their congruence could not be a coincidence. As an example, Line 10 of Psalm 72 prays that the Kings of Tarshish and the islands bring tribute to the king while the kings of Arabia and Seba offer gifts. In its description of Solomon's rule, 2 Chronicles 9:21 states that Tarshish did end up sending King Solomon tributes of gold, silver, ivory, apes and monkey every three years. Similarly, 2 Chronicles 9:14 describes how the kings of Arabia also brought gold and silver to King Solomon.

The specific examples of how Psalm 72 guided portions of King Solomon's reign make it clear that it is not simply a Messianic prophesy. It was prayerfully used to guide government's roles and functioning. While some of the specific military and diplomatic lessons passed with King Solomon and his time, the broader statements of what makes a government legitimate and righteous are still valuable.

[I've underlined the relevant portions of Psalm 72 below.]

Psalm 72

Of Solomon

I.

O God, give your judgment to the king; your justice to the son of kings;
That he may govern your people with justice, your oppressed with right judgment,
That the mountains may yield their bounty for the people, and the hills great abundance,
That he may defend the oppressed among the people, save the poor and crush the oppressor.

II.

May he live as long as the sun endures, like the moon, through all generations,
May he be like rain coming down upon the fields, like showers watering the earth,
That abundance may flourish in his days, great bounty, till the moon be no more.

III.

May he rule from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.
May his foes kneel before him, may his enemies lick the dust.
May the kings of Tarshish and the islands bring tribute, the kings of Arabia and Sebia offer gifts.
May all kings bow before him, all nations serve him.
For he rescues the poor when they cry out, the oppressed who have no one to help.
He shows pity to the needy and the poor and saves the lives of the poor.
From extortion and violence he frees them, for precious is their blood in his sight.

IV.

Long may he live, receiving gold from Arabia, prayed for without cease, blessed be the day.
May wheat abound in the land, flourish even on the mountain heights.
May his fruit increase like Lebanon’s, his wheat like the grasses of the land.
May his name be blessed forever; as long as the sun, may his name endure.
May the tribes of the earth give blessings with his name; may all nations regard him as favored.

***

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wonderful deeds. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with the LORD’s glory. Amen and amen.

The end of the psalms of David, son of Jesse.


Broad Roles of Government in Described Psalm 72

• Ensuring justice, especially for the oppressed.
• Stop the powerful from oppressing the weak through violence and extortion (this includes oppressors within the government).
• Effectively managing natural resources.
• Caring for the sick and injured who cannot care for themselves.
• Rescuing the poor and oppressed.
• Having a strong enough defense and police force to stop potentially oppressive forces from both outside and inside the governed region.
• Supporting the economy.

These roles can and should be interpreted prayerfully by each individual. The question of what level of government should complete these tasks, how the task should be completed and how to pay for them are up for debate and they should be debated. The answers to these questions and others probably will not fall directly on party lines.

Societies need both liberal and conservative view points in order to thrive and prosper. Brain scans reveal that the Creator purposefully imbued us each with different talents and insights into the interpretation of risk and other factors that help structure our political beliefs. These differences are just as essential in determining the means of justly governing a society as the differences between talents and insights in any other intellectual endeavor such as art, medicine, and science.

Yet, we need a basic foundation on which to build those political arguments. Psalm 72 is a great place to start.

Lesson From A Sermon So Long that It Killed One of the Faithful

Note: This post is dedicated to my friend and colleague Boyd Roth. Boyd was a long-time NAMI volunteer in Kalispell, Montana. He passed away last week. Boyd had a courageous battle with severe bipolar disorder and a number of physical issues, but he always focused on helping others rather than himself. He also had a missionary zeal that would have amazed even Saint Paul.


We super-size the men and women of the Bible until they become spiritual giants, almost unrelatable to our everyday lives, talents and predicaments. I don't know if there is a better antidote to this concern than a paragraph in Acts 20 about Saint Paul's missionary work in the town of Troas in ancient Turkey.

The roaming Saint Paul had set up his congregation on the third floor of a building. He was leaving the next day and knew that he had to pack a lot into the sermon. Saint Paul started preaching around dinner time and continued on until midnight.

A young man named Eutychus was sitting on a windowsill.  He'd listened to Saint Paul as the sun faded into dusk and then further into darkness. The sermon continued on by lamp light and Eutychus began to nod off.

Having been at more than one late night Mass, I easily picture Eutychus nodding forward, waking up, then nodding forward again. Leaning his head against the side of the window as the words droned on past into the starry sky.

Eutychus's sleeping body reset itself against the window and then leaned backwards. There was no screen, pane or other brace behind him. The fateful sleepy lean dropped Eutychus backwards into the night. He plunged three floors down, landed on his head, and apparently died. Acts 20:10. 

Saint Paul "threw himself" on the boy performing what was probably an ancient mix of physical and spiritual CPR, before announcing "Don't be alarmed; there is life in him." 

Saint Paul then went upstairs, had some bread to eat and continued the service until day break. The passage concludes with the statement that the faithful "took the boy away alive and were immeasurably comforted." Acts 20:12.

I image they were "immeasurably comforted" that the young man survived the sermon. Although I bet there was more than a little grumbling when the act of nearly killing a disciple through boredom didn't provide more of a break from that night's lesson.

This was the same Saint Paul so touched by the Holy Spirit and filled with Truth that he was able to seed Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Yet all of those divine gifts didn't prevent him from performing  what may be the only sermon in human history that actually killed a member of the congregation. 

Saint Paul was painfully human just like the rest of us. He had bad days. He had committed egregious sins. He had major conflicts with the people that were closest to him. Yet those flaws did not prevent him from bringing the light and love of Christ to an entire empire.

We too cannot allow our own flaws and weaknesses from preventing us from doing all of the good that the Divine intends for us. 

Lessons for Students Going Into High School

Note: Thanks to LeeAnn Berry for convincing me to share the outline for a speech that I gave to a group of middle school graduates a few years ago. Always a teacher, LeeAnn also convinced me to add another lesson to the list.


1. Be involved. Jump into high school life: academics, clubs, sports, work, and friends. The pace you set now will help guide the pace of the rest of your life. The world can be incredible and exciting, but only if you're willing to get up off the couch and participate in it.

2. Learn to fail. Don't be afraid to push yourself in school, athletics, and other activities to the point that you fail. It's the only way to improve yourself. When you do fail, confront your failure, learn from it and move on. In the words of leadership expert Zig Ziglar, "Remember that failure is an event, not a person."

3. Be nice to people. You are going to have some very real regrets from your high school years, but you'll never wish that you were meaner to someone. Your harsh words and actions will haunt you for years. Do your best to minimize them, so you don't have to carry that baggage around.

4. Be careful who you hang out with. Bad things happen more often to people who hang out with people who do bad things. You can lose opportunities or worse by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

5. Don't listen to people who tell you you can't achieve your dreams. There will be a lot of adults who tell you that you can't achieve your dreams. They aren't qualified to tell you that. The world is complex and changing everyday, no one can tell you with certainty that a dream is out of your reach.

6. Be humble. Humility is essential to success. Without it, you won't be able to judge how hard a task is and whether you need help to accomplish it. Every truly significant task requires a team to help complete it. Without humility, you won't have the support of friends, family, and colleagues when you need them. Arrogant people don't have a lot of supporters.

7. Identify your interests and talents. Finding out your personal interests and talents should be your major career-building objectives over the next four years. Those interests and talents will point the way to your future.Because of the broad nature of high school academics, you'll probably have a clearer view of your talents and interests now than you will again until you're in your mid-thirties. Don't waste this opportunity to understand yourself. You may discover some of your interests and talents in school, but many of them can only be fully explored outside of the classroom.

8. Continue working in the areas that you're not good at. It's okay to focus on your strengths, but you can't totally avoid the subjects and tasks that you're not good at. You'll have to be well-rounded in order to achieve your goals. For instance, it's hard to imagine a job that makes a living wage that doesn't require basic knowledge of higher math. Make sure you take at least one more year of math than you have to.

9. Realize that you live in an incredible and exotic place. No where else in the world is exactly like the place that you live in now. The people, culture, landscape, activities and shops are different in every place and community. Do your best to cut through teenage cynicism to enjoy the best of where you're growing up. You only get one chance to experience life as a teenager. Don't waste it wishing you were somewhere else.

10. Volunteer. I work in a nonprofit and I'm often amazed about how much good a single person can do for an organization. It may not be easy to find an organization that both has a cause that you care about and needs the skills that you can offer, but you will find something if you ask around. Volunteering is a great way to make difference in your community while building up valuable work experience that will help you in the future.

11. Take good care of your brain. Neuroscientists are just beginning to figure out the mysteries of the brain. If you do damage to your brain either by ingesting drugs, high levels of alcohol or through physical trauma; there is no guarantee that it will ever be the same again. I know that taking risks is part of growing up, but be careful. Everyone's brain is different. Some of the coolest brains are the most easily damaged.

12. Explore your faith and beliefs. The transition of a person's spiritual life in the teenage years is an incredible thing. Listen to your parents and spiritual leaders, but don't be afraid to question them or to look for the answers on your own. If you're not able to answer those critical questions or get comfortable with a certain level of doubt, your faith will not be there to support and guide you through the challenges of adulthood.

13. Give yourself a break. The world is a tough place, especially when your a teenager. Problems can seem huge and unresolvable. They almost never are. If life gets too overwhelming, slow down and let things settle out. You'll be amazed at how often they do.

____________________


Please support the fight against mental illness by donating to Montana’s NAMIWalk. You can make a donation at my Walk page at http://namiwalks.nami.org/mattkuntz. Thanks for supporting this critical cause!

When to Stop Pushing: Life Lesson from a Macebell

NOTE: The Macebell can be very dangerous without proper instruction. Do not attempt it without guidance from a fitness professional that can assure you're doing it safely.


In February of 2008, I received a Macebell for Valentine's Day. I try not to care to much about material things, but workout gear and sporting goods are my weakness. I'd been doing kettlebell-style workouts for about five years and the Macebell, a steel pipe with a massive weighted ball on the end, seemed like the obvious next step.

UPS dropped the Macebell off at the law firm. I carried it home through downtown Helena that night with a huge grin on my face, not bothered by the fact that I looked like Captain Caveman in a sports jacket. (A side benefit of living in the town that you grew up in is that no matter what you're doing, people have almost always seen you do something more ridiculous.)

[In case you haven't seen a Macebell, here's a video of professional wrestling legend Karl Gotch doing Macebell 360's.]

I went in the back yard that night and attacked my workout with the fervor of a lab rat running from an electric shock. I swung the Macebell up, down, and around. I spun it over my head and smashed it into the snow-covered ground. Sweat dripped and my muscles burned. There was only one problem: I couldn't do the signature Macebell exercise, the 360.

In the 360, the exerciser starts with the weighted ball vertical over their head, then swings it behind their back in a pendulum motion, and finishes by raising it back to vertical. I tried it over and over again. Cranking the weight down behind me and then heaving it back up again, but I couldn't get it to rise above my shoulders.

I dove back into Youtube research. I might have been a little overambitious in the size of Macebell I chose, but it was clear that I should have enough strength to complete the 360. There were some beasts slinging Macebells around on Youtube, but they weren't all beasts. The weirdest part was that the other exercisers didn't appear to be struggling at the part where I kept hitting the wall. The helpful realization that I should be able to do the 360 didn't translate into my workouts.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Each week, I completed a full-session of intervals with Macebell lifts combined with jumping rope.  I attempted the 360 after my warm-up while I was still fresh. I'd crank the weight downward behind my back and then heave it back up, but it would stop just before clearing the height of my shoulder. Then I would try it again, and again, and again...

A year passed. I switched jobs, built a house, became a father, published a book, but still couldn't complete a 360.It was becoming my nemesis.

One afternoon, I made another 360 attempt at the end of my workout. I was exhausted, but obsessed. I lifted the weighted bar high over my head and began to swing it behind my back. This time I was too tired to push the weight downward. I just let it flow under its own power and trajectory. The Macebell swung past the point where it usually stopped.The pull over gravity loading it up automatically for the final movement.

I was so surprised that I wasn't ready to make the final heave over my shoulder, but the next time I did. I completed it in one direction and then back the other way. Repetition after repetition. Over and over.

I never had another problem with that exercise. The simple, but essential trick was realizing that I had to let the weight work for itself. My efforts to increase momentum through the downward movement were only slowing the weight. I had to control it, but not force it. It was counter instinctive, but obviously true. No wonder the other exercisers weren't straining at that point, they were letting the Macebell rotate through the lift.

I learn the same lesson in life over and over again. When I am stuck with an impassable problem, it's often because it's not my turn to shoulder the burden. It's time to leave it to God, the goodness in other people, or to time to resolve. No amount of force, effort, or worrying on my part will make it any better. In fact, it often makes the situation worse.

Thomas Merton, the acclaimed Catholic mystic and author, spoke to this challenge. "It takes some doing, but if I do not insist on having everything exactly my own way, Our Lord will do most of the work. My biggest obstacle is my own tendency to decide beforehand how I want to serve Our Lord, instead of letting Him tell me what He wants."

Realizing the proper time to let go requires a careful balance of toil, observation, and prayer. It's a lot more difficult than swinging a Macebell. We'll never get our efforts aligned exactly right with the Divine will; but it's an essential part of our spiritual journey.



Note: Here's another Macebell video for the curious. Seriously, please be careful if you are going to try this lift. You really, really don't want to have that weight pendulum into your knee or torque your shoulder out of the socket.

Please also consider making a donation to Montana's NAMIWalk to help fight mental illness.  We're trying to raise $150,000 by Walk Day on September. You can donate at this link.  Thank you!

Running with the Current: Thomas Merton on Leaving Decisions to God

Another "Running with the Current" video.  A great lesson from the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton. I hope you like it.


Narrative - Letter from Thomas Merton to Abbot James Fox from 1950. Found in the book "Thomas Merton: School of Charity"

Background: Kootenai Creek near Stevensville, Montana

Read by Matt Kuntz

Montana G.I.: A Simple Act of Valor

My grandfather Jack O'Neill passed away this morning.  Please keep him and my Grandma Jeanne in your prayers. I remember  a conversation we had over a couple of beers on a spring night somewhere around 2005. We were talking about William Faulkner and that led to a broader conversation about race issues.

Grandpa Jack begin a story. "I remember when I went down to Texas after being drafted. It was a three-day trip by Army train. We got two meals a day; flapjacks for breakfast, a hotdog and a scoop of ice cream for dinner. The train was modern and went fast, but our car was old. It swayed back and forth the whole way, making everyone sick."

Welcome to the Army, I thought. I mentally tried to put myself in his Class B uniform. Riding away from Montana on a cramped train to Texas. Preparing to fight a war in the hot island jungles of the South Pacific.

He continued, "Our basic training was at Fort Wohlers, outside of Dallas. It was hot and I didn't like Texas. I remember one weekend they let us take a tour around Fort Worth. This was back before I drank, so it was more of a sight-seeing trip for me than anything. Most of the other guys went to the bars."

"At the end of the day, they picked us up in a bus, kind of a converted trailer. I went to get on and there was a sign right above the entrance, 'All negroes in the back.'" Grandpa pointed up from his recliner like the sign stood above the TV in front of us.

"It made me mad. I started to give the bus driver an earful. I guess he didn't know any better and was just doing his job; but I shook my head and him and went to the back of the bus to sit down. The black soldiers in the back thought I was crazy and was going to get myself killed. The white guys in the front were going  ballistic, saying that I was a 'know-nothing Northerner' and plenty of other things; but I stayed back there all the way back to camp."

I looked at Grandpa and saw him again as a young soldier with close cropped hair and press Class B's walking through the rows of hollering drunken men to sit in the back of the bus. A young soldier from Butte, Montana who didn't hesitate to do the right thing when confronted with racial bigotry even though the civil rights movement was barely in its infancy.

I can't describe how proud I am to share the same blood as that young soldier. Rest in peace Grandpa.


NOTE: Here is a picture of Grandpa meeting my son Bodie this Spring.

Running with the Current: Psalm 36's Description of Divine Providence

Another "Running with the Current" video.  I hope you enjoy it. I dedicate this one to my Grandfather Jack O'Neill who is really struggling right now. This video was taken at Kootenai Creek where it runs by their house in Stevensville, Montana.

Thank you,
matt



Text: Psalm 36: 6-11
Background: Kootenai Creek near Stevensville, MT
Read by Matt Kuntz

Hanging Clothes Between Storms: Accepting Adversity

June 2013

I pulled the shirt from the bundle of clothes in my left hand and placed it on the white line. I pulled the fabric apart and it expanded in the breeze.

Five minutes before, wind would've whipped the shirt to the ground. The rain hammered onto our roof well into the clothes' spin cycle. Thunder rumbled. It threatened to hail. Then the storm gave way to calm.

I looked up from the clothes line and watched the storm push over East Helena to the Spokane Hills. Rain drops poured down in sheets. Lightning rippled and danced between the ground and the clouds. A small rainbow struggled in the middle of the storm. Churning in the maelstrom. It could not build up any more colors beyond a red glow.

I placed another sheet on the line. Not sure whether it would have time to dry or share the same fate as the rain-soaked rainbow. The late spring storms came in legions over Montana's Rocky Mountains. Storm then calm, then storm, then calm.

Still the laundry had to be hung. Like the rainbow, we don't always get to decide between the storm and the calm. Both will come and there is limited purpose in questioning why.

Life is a constant learning process. While I'm at the midway point of life, I haven't proceeded anywhere near that far on the path of learning. I have gotten far enough to be able to identify some of my earlier beliefs that were completely wrong.

Those wrong ideas more than outnumber the spring storms. The most glaring example may be the belief that I held as a youth and as a young man that men and women could work hard for years and decades to reach a point where life wouldn't be a struggle.

Now I realize that life's struggles are guaranteed whether they be personal, physical, financial, spiritual, or a combination. Clearing one hurdle will lead to another. The struggle can be embraced, but it cannot be removed or overcome. For participating in struggle of is essential to our time on Earth, proving our faith and love for the Divine.

It's a lesson taught in the lives of Job and Abraham, but the clearest statement in the New Testament may be when the mother of James and John asked Jesus to have her sons sit beside Jesus in his kingdom. Jesus asked them point blank, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" Matthew 20:22.

This was not a question about experiencing peace, joy and happy times. Can you share in the struggle, suffering, and humiliation of the Cross?


It's the highest calling, but it can't be gained without the storm of adversity.


Note: Thanks to my sister-in-law Anastasia Gurinovich for taking this picture of the storm.

Cars Seat Spiritual Guides And Saint Paul: Conversing Between Beliefs and Faiths

Zen pilgrims traveled from monastery to monastery across ancient China to learn from spiritual masters who used puzzling, of paradoxical statements and stories, to prompt spiritual awakening. I undergo a similar process while driving my daughters around town.

The spiritual masters sit in their flower-print, front-facing cars eats and pepper me with theological questions, revelations, and absurdities.

"God is the sky!"

I hear the statement, think about it and then respond. The masters question me until I give them an appropriately tangible and well-reasoned response. Or, until a yellow car drives by. If a yellow car drives by, the spiritual masters chant "Banana!"

During a recent trip, my oldest daughter Fiona said that her best friend "doesn't know God."

My wife and I paused for a second and then asked to elaborate. It became clear that the issue wasn't due to any lack of sermoning from Fiona.

Fiona wanted to know what to do.

In other words, how can she balance the love and respect she has for people with different beliefs than she has while still fulfilling her duty to share her own spiritual vision with the world?

The relevance of that question is only going to grow. Fiona's immediate family is full of Catholic, Russian Orthodox, evangelical Christian, and "spiritual but not religious" people that she loves and depends upon. Her extended family is even more diverse. We've got dear friends that follow Islam, Hindu and Native American traditions.

My wife and I did our best to answer Fiona. It was a hard response and hardly guided by a grown up world filled with warring factions fighting over faith. The following night, I found guidance from Saint Paul in his second letter to Timothy.

"[P]ursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with purity of heart. Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, correcting opponents with kindness." 2 Timothy 2: 22-25.

It's a heavy challenge, but an essential one. To ensure that we honor the Lord not only in what we tell others about the Divine, but in how we tell them.


p.s. Let me know if you have a biblical quote or other spiritual guidance that you'd like included in the "Running with the Current" videos. Even better, post your own "Running with the Current" video on youtube and I'll add it to the playlist. Thanks again for reading.

Running with the Current: Psalm 103's Praise Of God's Love and Kindness

This is an amazing section on God's love and kindness from Psalm 103. I filmed the video on my way home to Helena from Billings. I hope you like it.

matt

Text: Psalm 103:11-17

Background: Yellowstone River near Reed Point, Montana.

Quantum Physics and Hootie: Navigating Concepts Beyond Understanding

My father-in-law is a quantum physicist from Russia. My mother is a mental health counselor from Butte, Montana. The conversations between those diverse backgrounds are always interesting, often deep and sometimes unintentionally hilarious.

This Sunday was my son's baptism. Each new memory brings back a dozen old ones and my mom asked my  inlaws about raising their children.  She asked my father-in-law whether it seemed like only a short time ago that he was a student at Moscow University with a young baby of his own.

My father-in-law looked at her a little quizzically and then stated, "I don't understand time."

From anyone else, this would have been a throwaway statement. If I'd said it, the most obvious response would be "Uhh, you messed up the words to that old Hootie and the Blowfish song - again."

[Gratuitous Hootie and the Blowfish Video]

However, it's a little different when a quantum physicist makes a statement about human beings' inability to understand the basic nature of time. Since Einstein, physicists have realized that time changes, speeding up or slowing down depending on how fast one thing is moving relative to something else. Scientists also know that time curves, the fabric of time-space to be more specific. But the most honest physicists, like my father-in-law, won't hesitate to state that human beings have only begun to understand the nature of time.Scratching the surface might even be overestimating how far we've come in unraveling those mysteries.

The Bible supports with the physicists' complex view of time. In Psalm 90, Moses wrote that "A thousand years... are merely a yesterday" in the eyes of the Lord. Saint Peter further described that "with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day." 2 Peter 3:8

Yet, the complex changing nature of time is not a valid excuse for me to pick my kids up from daycare after 5:30 p.m. Closing time is closing time and each minute after that costs a dollar. The obscurity of time does not prevent millions of people around the globe from tuning in at exactly the right moment to watch the opening kick off on Super Bowl Sunday.

Human beings have figured out how to navigate through the unknowable characteristics of time enough to rely on it to guide the tasks that we need. My alarm clock may not be reliable within a certain range of a massively dense cosmic black hole, but it does just fine on my night stand.

We are faced with a similar challenge in facing the complex, obscurity of the Divine. It is impossible for human beings to fully understand spiritual mysteries. It is an intellectual realm beyond our grasp - by design. We can see the outlines of the deeper truths, but the mind of God eludes our comprehension.

In our faith life, we come across Bible passages that grind against each other. Religious leaders more human than divine. Dogma that offends reason and reason that disappears in the face of the largest questions like dew under a rising sun.

• How can we prevent the complexities, obscurities and contradictions of our faith from becoming a barrier to our spiritual development?
• How can we take the complexities, obscurities and contradictions of our faith and use them as the foundation for our spiritual life?

 There are no easy answers to these spiritual questions. The beauty of faith depends upon that obscurity; but humility, prayer and love are powerful sign posts and no one becomes lost while following them.

Running With the Current: Trials of Serving the Lord

Here is another installment of "Running the with Currrent." It's a powerful piece in Sirach on the trials of serving the Lord. I recorded the video on my way to Bozeman from Helena. I hope you like it.

matt


Text: Sirach 2:1-6

Background: Headwaters of the Missouri River near Three Forks, Montana.

The End of One Journey and Beginning of Another

Last week, I was walking home for lunch when an ambulance passed me. It moved slowly over the dirt road, not an emergency. Still it’s always disconcerting to have an ambulance on your street. The other side of the spectrum from the old Publishers Sweepstakes commercials when Ed McMahon showed up at someone’s door with seven-foot long check for a million dollars.

The yellow sun was high in the Montana sky. The air was calm. A few slight wisps of clouds against the blue. The spring daffodils on the side of the road were drooping, giving way to summer’s bluebells. As I got closer to home, I watched the paramedics rolling my neighbor out of the ambulance and into his house. My neighbor is a kind, retired physician from Portland. He’d been battling serious illness for over a year. The last weeks were especially hard. It was clear that they were bringing him back to pass away in the comfort of his home surrounded by family.

As I passed their house, I heard a piercing cry. My two-month old son was telling the world that he was ready to be fed again. I pictured usually-smiling mouth stretched in a squall. All of the joy, love, anger, and sadness that life would require wrapped up in that little body.

The juxtaposition between birth and death was striking. Some ancient theologians described the process of life as going out from and then returning to the Divine. Plato and Aristotle both espoused versions of the concept. Christian theologians tied the theory to Jesus’s parable in Luke 19:12 and the King Solomon’s Song of Songs.

I’m writing this in the Salt Lake City airport. Travelers go past. Different races, faiths, and destinations. They recheck their itineraries. Contemplating the challenges and joys that they will face upon reaching their destination. I read the German mystic Meister Eckhart’s statement that “All created things have flowed out of God’s will.” Then imagine the travelers as souls departing the Divine for their time on Earth. Each going to their own personal destination to confront their own individual challenges and joys. Eventually to return, discuss their trip with the heavenly father, and be judged upon their actions.

• Did you remember the reason for your trip? 
• Did you stay true to that purpose? 
• Did you follow the signs and teachings that were sent to guide you? 
• How did you act when confronted with the adversities of life? 
• How did you serve your fellow human beings?

Anyone contemplating how they would respond to those questions should be filled with trepidation. Human existence is by definition cloaked in failings and sin. We do the best that we can, knowing it can never truly be enough.

However, the words of Psalm 145 give comfort. "The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to all, compassionate to every creature." Psalm 145:8-9

The return to the Divine may be terrifying, but it will be more filled with joy and love than anything we can imagine.

Running with the Current: Psalm 51

Here is the next piece of "Running with the Current." The text is Psalm 51, Verse 1-17. The background was filmed at the Missouri River Headwaters near Three Forks, Montana.

I hope you like it.

matt

The View From Close to the Source

Living in your hometown is like listening to a cassette tape that has been rerecorded. Memories blend with reality as 1988's Ton Lōc seeped into 1989's Aerosmith.

A few weeks ago, I went back to my old high school with my friend Ryan Ranalli. An English teacher was looking for a writer of combat stories to speak to her class, but was willing to settle for a combat vet (Ryan) and a writer (me). Ryan and I walked through the packed halls unable to decide whether it felt like we'd only been there last week or a hundred years ago.

The high school students' styles had shifted back  and the kids looked almost the same as we did in the 1990s. The world had moved forward, but it was impossible not to see the almost eerie similarities between these students and the people that we'd graduated with almost twenty years ago. Like when they replace actors for a character in a movie.

Their dreams were a little different, but not that much. Their talents were a little different, but again not by much. The world had turned, but not truly changed. I remembered the character Tyler Durden's words in Fight Club, "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."

It's humbling to look back on the assembly line you came off of, but it's also freeing. The world has so many problems, more than our generation or any of the ones before us could solve. The closer that we are to those problems, the more daunting they seem. The pace of progress being that of a glacier instead of a hawk.

In the face of a sea of tasks, it's nice to see the hands that will pick up the burdens that we are unable to move. Coming up with different and better solutions to the challenge that we all face.

It's easier to keep up the fight knowing that replacements are not far behind.

Running with the Current - Hans Küng's insights on God's Role in History

I've read a lot of theological and spiritual works over the years and especially since I started writing this blog.  I've tried to share some of their insights through my own writing, but wanted to try a little bit different medium.

The result is the experiment that I'm calling "Running with the Current." In a nutshell, I'll read a short excerpt from a spiritual writing accompanied by videos of some of my favorite rivers, creeks, or other bodies of water. It's a chance to blend some of my favorite things.

The first shot is of Hans Küng's insights on creation from Küng's book "Why I am Still a Christian." Printed in 1986 by Abingdon Press. The video is of Prickly Pear Creek outside of Helena, Montana.

I hope you like it.

Thanks,
matt

p.s. Please share your own favorite reading and waters on youtube. Make sure to add "Running with the Current" to the title so they're easy to find.

Finding a Lost Mentor in the Halls of the Capitol

I walked the hallway between the Montana Governor's Office and the Capitol Rotunda with the slow steps of someone who had been successful, but not successful enough. We'd just completed a bill signing for legislation that would help Montana's criminal justice system more effectively care and adjudicate offenders who live with serious mental illness.

It was a good win with results will help a lot of people; but I'd just spent the last hour with Michael Hendrix, one of the people whose story helped inspire the bill, and was reminded of how much more work there is to do. During the past few months, I'd attempted and failed at convincing the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole to grant him a pardon for the felony arson conviction he'd received after lighting himself on fire while under the grips of bipolar-induced hallucinations. While we'd been able to help others have a shot at achieving justice, I'd been unable to get Michael the justice he deserved.

I bumped into John Bohlinger, Montana's last Lieutenant Governor, in the hallway. We were catching up when another man came up to tell him hello.The guy looked familiar and he told me the same thing.

We searched through our collective memory banks and then hit me.

"You're Father Gregory. The priest who flunked me in Confirmation class back in high school."

"Flunked you?"

I smiled and said, "It wasn't your fault. I missed a couple of mandatory classes for court and community services. The second year was more than deserved, but I think I may be the only parishioner in the history of the Cathedral to fail Confirmation."

Gregory had left the priesthood and was now working as a mental health counselor with an AIDS Outreach program in Bozeman. We talked for a while and I promised to stop and see him the next time I was in Bozeman.


That night my wife and I took a class at the St. Helena Cathedral's education center to prepare for our son's baptism. I hadn't been in the education center more than a handful of times since taking Confirmation Class back in high school. The memories were still crisp as they played through my mind.

The second year of Confirmation Class, jokingly my red shirt year, was where my faith began to make the transition from the faith of a child to that of an adult. That spiritual development depended upon Father Greg's intelligent lectures that were never short on wit and sarcasm. He engaged everyone who listened and didn't hesitate from answering the hardest questions.

The following year, I would be halfway across the country at West Point - relying on that faith like never before. It's been almost two decades and, more often than I'd like to admit, I still feel like that teenage kid trying to grasp the basics of what this life is all about and what we are supposed to do in it.

Neither Greg or I ended up being quite the people we'd envisioned. The act of living, loving, and following our individual spiritual paths led to a reality both more complex and simple than what we could have imagined in the early 1990's. The winding path continues to wind. As the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton said, "Any vocation is a mystery, and juggling with words does not make it clearer. It is a contradiction and must remain a contradiction."

The mystery of our vocations may be unavoidable, but the clear burden remains to use that vocation and all of our time on earth to fulfill the test of righteousness that Jesus said must be fulfilled to enter Heaven in Matthew 25: 34-40.

"'Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you at the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me'

Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'"

Jesus will respond. "'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'"


NOTE: Please take a moment and send a message to Governor Steve Bullock asking him to pardon Michael Hendrix.  Michael was convicted of felony arson for lighting himself on fire while he was in the grip of mental illness-induced hallucinations of worms coming out of his skin. He's since recovered from his mental illness and is working as a peer specialist helping other. Unfortunately, he still bears the burden of the felony on his record.

The Importance of Obscurity

I don't know anything more powerful than seeing your image reflected in your newborn child's eyes. It's terrifying and wonderful to think how much of an impact you will have on that little being and a reminder of how much of an impact you are having on other beings all the time. There is no stronger call to be a better father, mother, husband, wife, friend, co-worker, etc.

Moments of insight can be far too fleeting. They are here and gone. Like dew dried up by the rising sun. A meteor blazing through the heavens before winking out forever.

We rightfully cherish and value these moments. Crafting our life around their insights, but we do not value the moments of obscurity when our true purpose and mission seem lost. They are two sides of the same coin, yet we pray for one side and curse the other.

The words of Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher, reveal the critical nature of the lost times. "If there were no obscurity, man would not feel his corruption: if there were no light[,] man could not hope for a cure."

We should all look for higher truth, the footprints of the Creator upon the Universe, both in sacred texts, prayer, charity, love and through science. However, it is critical to remember that the lack of certainty is essential for faith. Hebrews 11:1 ("Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.").

Without faith, is is impossible to please God, "for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." Hebrews 11:6.

Dr. Eben Alexander highlights the importance of the obscurity of the divine mission in his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Afterlife. Dr. Alexander uses his training as a neurosurgeon and a near death experience to argue that one function of the brain may be to act as a cloak for a broader spiritual reality - allowing us to demonstrate our faith in this realm without concrete proof.


There would be no glory in serving God if the evidence of his grandeur was so clear that it was impossible not to. Just as there is little glory in swearing one's loyalty to math or science when it easy to prove that one and one always makes two or that the Earth circles around the Sun.

Jesus's statement to the Apostle Thomas illuminates the core value of obscurity in demonstrating faith. "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." John: 20:29.

While we cannot wait to live completely in the light. The importance of the occasionally overwhelming darkness can't be understated while we remain as John Steinbeck wrote - "East of Eden." (Referencing Genesis 4:16).



NOTE: I couldn't resist adding a full passage from Blaise Pascal's Pensees.


“Let them at least learn the nature of the religion they are attacking, before they attack it. If this religion boasted of having a clear vision of God, and of possessing Him plain and unveiled, then to say that nothing we see in the world reveals Him with this degree of clarity would indeed be to attack it. But it says, on the contrary, that man is in darkness and far from God, that He has hidden Himself from man’s knowledge, and that the name He has given Himself in the Scriptures is in fact The Hidden God (Is 45:15). Therefore if it seeks to establish these two facts: that God has in the church erected visible signs by which those who sincerely seek Him may recognize Him, and that he has nevertheless so concealed them that He will only be perceived by those who seek Him with all their hearts, what advantage can the attackers gain when, while admitting that they neglect to seek for the truth, they yet cry that nothing reveals it? For the very darkness in which they lie, and for which they blame the Church, establishes one of her two claims, without invalidating the other, and also, far from destroying her doctrine, confirms it” (Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 194).

From Braiding Hair to the Tapestry of Human History

My five year old daughter, Fiona, recently decided that she was going to have to send me to hair-braiding school. This decision didn't come from out of the blue. Fiona and her sister have bore the brunt of all my struggles with tending little girls' hair. During my time as a single dad, they were regularly dropped off at preschool with huge knots on the top of their head. When I did manage to get the tangles straightened out, their pony tails usually pointed in the wrong direction and barely had the staying power to make it through the beginning of the morning.

Thankfully, my wife handles the majority of  the hair issues in our house now.  That is almost entirely a good thing, except for the fact that Fiona's hair expectations have increased dramatically. Where my little princess used to be happy with half-cocked pony tail, now she expect full braids. Unfortunately, my hair tying skills remain bleak, similar to my knot-tying skills in the military and tie-tying skills in the corporate world. I'm lucking to keep one out of two of my own shoes tied.

Despite my inadequacies, I do appreciate the physics of hair braiding. The over-and-through of a braid combines force against force. Using the power of one series of strands to secure and bind another series. The binders, become the bound, and then bind again. Each comes from a different direction, a different position, yet is essential to the creation of the whole. The combination of the series of strands working together to create something more strong and beautiful than they could be alone.

While hair braiding evades me, I've learned a lot of other lessons through the process of being a father. One of the most interesting lessons is how pre-programmed every human being is straight from the womb. Good parenting, a safe environment and schooling is important; but there's no denying that a certain amount of temperament is just born in. Dr. Jerome Kagan's research team at Harvard University developed some of the strongest research in this field, particularly as it applies to people with highly reactive anxious temperaments. Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts expands on Dr. Kagan's theories to explain how people with inborn introverted characters play essential roles in our society - roles traditionally can't be filled by people with a more outgoing and exuberant nature.

In a similar but different direction, Dr. Nassir Ghaemi's book, A First-Rate Madness, makes a strong argument that leaders who live with depression or bipolar disorder are essential during times of crisis because of the slightly different way that their brains perceive the world. Winston Churchill credited his depression with allowing him to understand the threat that Hitler posed when Neville Chamberlain did not. Dr. Ghaemi points to President Lincoln, Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. as other examples of leaders' with depressive viewpoints that changed the course of the world.

Each individual is born with our own temperament, intellect, strengths, and weaknesses. Like strands in a braid, we interact with each others observations and viewpoint. This mix of religions, cultures and philosophies forms the tapestry of human history. It's a exacerbating and sometimes painful process whether the interactions are occurring in our homes, at work, or half way across the world; but it essential to fulfilling Creation.

While I'm fascinated by the psychological, anthropological, and evolutionary descriptions of this process; my personal favorite overall description of the human condition, our interactions with each other, and the goal of those interactions will always be from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for their is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

Matthew 5:3-12.


Note: Check out Susan Cain's Ted Talk to learn more about about inborn temperament and the power of introverts.