While America Fell Apart, the UMC Came Together

Here are the highlights from a CNN article talking about historic events happening in one year:

North Korea made overtures to war. Americans disputed the legitimacy of a war. Civil Rights abuses included key leaders being killed. The globe was pulled together by new technologies. Athletes protested during national anthems. Human sexuality was on the forefront of cultural changes. Humans expanded their capacity for space exploration.

Of course that article is entitled, "Eight Unforgettable Ways 1968 Made History".

It has been said there are many parallels to America today and America in 1968. Part of the overall feel between then and now is the feeling that everything is all falling apart. The wheels have come off. There is too much upheaval and unrest and we are not sure how long the lid can hold down the inevitable doom. 

I was not alive in 1968, so I trust the media, institutions, and individuals who tell the stories of that time. I trust that it was a "wheels off" time. I trust that this year may very well feel like 1968. I also trust that everyone I have spoken with says that while today fells like 1968, 1968 was much worse. Which is why I want to point out how, in 1968, the United Methodist Church did something so radical it was a statement for the ages. 

The same year that America was falling apart, the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church became the United Methodist Church.

While America was fractured and ripped apart by a number of things (a polarizing president, U.S. stance with U.S.S.R. (Russia), liberals and conservatives, "law and order" and civil rights, etc...) the church stood in the middle of all that division and Unified. 

Today we are in a time that feels just as divisive and polarizing in the USA. I wonder if my beloved UMC will look to her past and see how she bore witness to Christ in coming together while the "world fell apart." The courage of the 1968 Saints that created the UMC, those who decided to stand together in the face of pressure to divide, is the same courage I hope for in the 2017 Saints of the Church. 

History (AKA - our children) has its eye on us.

High School reunions and a walking Bible

Recently I attended a wedding of a friend that I met when I was in High School. This resulted in something of a mini-high school reunion without having all the awkwardness of facing someone that you cannot recall their name.

We did what I am sure all reunions of all sorts do - we told stories. "Do you remember when..." "Let me tell you about the time 'this guy' did..." "That was a blast, and so was..." 

Participating in this ritual of storytelling I was confronted with the reality of multi-truth in this world. I have a sense of who I am and it is that sense of self that informs my current action and thought. I tend to think that I am a rather cautious person - thus I don't have a motorcycle. I tend to think that I am a compassionate person who is sensitive to others - thus I don't ridicule people. 

I was reminded that while I may see myself in these ways, friends may see me differently. I have my truth about who I am, but when my friends tell stories about me, they remind me of other truths about myself. 

I am cautious, but I also started roman candle wars and ran face first into anothers knee. 

I am compassionate, but I also put up a poster all around school making fun of a teacher. 

The thing is, I am all of those things. We all are more complex than just the simple narrative we tell about ourselves. We are both sinner and saint. We have a wonderful mixture of blessing and cursing within us. We are more than one flat narrative, we are more than one Truth. We are each a walking collection of stories that tell all sorts of truths about who we are and what our nature is about. In this respect, we each are like walking Bibles - we are a collection of stories that are somewhat loosely connected, some of which we tell all the time and some of which we are very embarrassed of and try to forget and other stories we just don't know but others may. 

Why do we discount the voice of the dead?

There is this great little story on the TED Radio Hour where researcher Matt Killingsworth shares about a discovery in the area of happyness. Killingsworth created a way for people to answer a few questions, track happiness and get reports. Fittingly it is called Trackyourhappiness.org. 

One of the discoveries that Killingsworth made with all this data is that people are more likely to be unhappy when our minds are wandering or drifting away from what we are doing. Or put another way, if we want to be happy we need to practice being present in the moment. 

Killingsworth goes on to share in the podcast that people have debated what makes us happy for generations and his research give quantifiable data to the "true" answers. 

While this research is fascinating, it strikes me as another example where we value the voice of those who are living over the voice of those who have died. 

Killingsworth research depends on thousands of people in real time giving feedback to their happiness level, then his team crunches the data to discover trends. Brilliant, but if you listen to billions of people of the past, you can plainly see what Killingsworth "discovered". 

One of the significant drawbacks to our current addiction to the "new" and the "now" is that we discount the voice of the those who are "old" and "then". For all the great advances of the newest toys and ideas, should we be also concerned that we are putting a disproportionate amount of weight in the voices that happen to be alive right now?