Matt W Cook

writer.former fundamentalist.christianly fellow

Tag: love

October 2, 2012

Heroes and Villains

John Calvin was a hero, they told me.  I didn’t argue.  It wasn’t my place to argue.  It was my place to listen.  And so John Calvin was a hero.

He was clever, you see.  A pioneer of sorts.  One of the first and brightest to read the Book the way they told me it was meant to be read.  He was a hero.  Like Martin Luther.

It bothered me that he killed a man, though.  Bothered me that he thought folks who disagreed with him ought to die.  But he was a product of his culture.  He can’t be fully blamed.  He just used worldly weapons in a spiritual war.  When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal.

Though I bet Michael Servitus thought it was a big deal.

And, sure, Martin Luther was a misogynist and anti-semite.  Well, he was a product of his culture, too.  Can’t be too harsh on him.  Or on Jonathan Edwards for his owning of slaves for that matter.  Products of their culture.  Innocent, in their own ways.  Heroes still, I suppose.

Mother Theresa, on the other hand, was not a hero, they said.  Sure she poured herself out for the ‘least of these’.  Sure she inspired millions and eased the sufferings of countless invisible people.  But she was the wrong kind of Christian.  Roman Catholic.  Damned.  In hell, despite her service.  That’s what they said.

Gandhi is another one who isn’t a hero.  Sure, he championed non-violent resistance against the forces of evil.  Sure, he fought against oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.  But, like Theresa, he was one of ‘them’, not ‘us’.  Hindu.  Blind.  Damned and in hell, despite his service.  That’s what they said.

Is it any wonder?

Is it any wonder they talk about us like they do?

Is it any wonder I felt the need to [………]?

We forgive the murderers and slave owners because they thought like we do.

We condemn the compassionate souls because of a rosary and a dash of vermillion upon the forehead.

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August 6, 2012

Sermons and Stuff

People often get surprised when they find out I’m a preacher.  They get even more surprised when they find out I mostly preach in evangelical fundamentalist churches.  I remember one man, when he found out I was a preacher, asked “So, you part of the Church of the Universe or something?”

Yes.  Yes, I am.

I enjoy preaching and the wicked-cool opportunity it gives me to throw ideas about love around.  And, since I didn’t have much else to say this morning, I figured I’d give you a link to the last two sermons I preached, both of them on the favourite passage of weddings: First Corinthians 13.  Love, baby.  It’s all about love.

What is Love? Pt. 1

What is Love? Pt. 2

Hope it makes you want to love more.  If it doesn’t, then one of us missed the point.

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July 6, 2012

Kids and the Raising Thereof

     I’m no expert. But that’s okay, because neither are you.
     You might disagree. You might think you’re an expert. Maybe because you’ve read all the guidebooks that other ‘experts’ have written. Maybe because of your devotion to your religion. Maybe because your kids do whatever you say or get great marks or have good careers. But you’re no expert. And those folks who wrote all those books? They’re no experts, either. No one is. In the end, parenting is a grand and glorious experiment.
     But I’ve learned stuff along the way. Some of it is obvious. But a lot of it is so counter-intuitive that it blows my mind.

  • Breaking your child’s will dangerous and stupid. I was always told that strong-willed kids need to be broken. But that’s about as dumb as saying a clever kid needs to be turned stupid because she is a smart-ass. My son is just about the strongest-willed child I know. And I love it. I want his will to be stronger, in fact. A strong-willed child grows up into a strong-willed adult. And strong-willed adults change the world. A broken child doesn’t. A broken child can only follow.
  • Defiance and rebellion is sometimes a good thing to nurture. Because authorities are often wrong. Kids need to know that and they need to learn how to spot it. I often tell my son that if I ever tell him to do something unkind, he ought to disobey. He’s seven and he’s clever enough to know the difference between what is kind and what is unkind. He has permission to disobey me when his conscience demands it. People often tell me that they are worried my son might abuse that idea, but he never has. Ever.
  • Punishment is easy. Nurturing is hard. And since punishment is easy, its benefits are severely limited. All parents have that primal urge to lash out at a child who lashes out. We yearn to throw a tantrum at the child who throws a tantrum. But it’s so much more effective and life-building to stop, breathe and talk. Children are not stupid. Anyone who says that has never really sat down to talk with their child. I haven’t ‘punished’ my children in ages. There’s no need. I cannot remember the last time I had a conflict with my children that could not be solved by a good, mindful conversation.
  • Internal motivation trumps external threats. I have no desire whatsoever to have a child who obeys me because he fears what I may do to him if he doesn’t. Frankly, I’d rather him disobey. If I want my children to act in a certain way, I convince them of its benefit. I trust that they both have the mental and moral capacity to see the attractiveness of a love-filled life. And it works. Every single time.
  • Physical coercion breaks things. I know, I know, we’ve all been hit by our parents and we’ve all turned out fine. That’s what we all say. And we’ve got our Bible verses to back it up. But my road has shown me that demanding obedience by threat of physical pain causes anger and confusion. There is no violence in my house. Not even the socially acceptable violence of corporal punishment.

     But I’m no expert. I don’t think you’re a bad parent if your experiments have led you to different conclusions. And I’d never try to tell you how you ought to raise your children. I’m just sharing what I’ve seen. What have you seen?

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July 4, 2012

A Stranger is a Friend You Haven’t Met

     I’m so sad that our culture demonizes strangers. We don’t talk to people on the bus, except to apologize for accidentally touching someone (because that’s a real big no-no I guess). We constantly encourage our children to be suspicious of every stranger, drilling the fear of them into their minds. And we’d never, ever, walk up to someone we didn’t know and start up a conversation.

     Thank God not everyone is like that.

     Some of my favorite people are folks I met because we and they were confident and loving enough to walk over and say “Hey there, what’s your name?”

     I love the word namaste. Literally, it means ‘bowing to you.’ But I’ve heard it said that the deeper meaning of the greeting is ‘The divine in me salutes the divine in you.’

     Everyone is divine. Everyone has a hunk of God in them. A shining, delicious hunk of God. A life full of hopes and stories and power. And we let the vast majority of these walking gods go their way without so much as a nod. For shame!

     We met some strangers in the park the other day. Within half an hour of saying hello we got an invitation to dinner. I’d never seen them before in my life. But we didn’t care and they didn’t care. We didn’t leave their house until the sun had set. We saw the divine in each other, and there was an instant spark of love. It was like an echo from Eden. A glimmer of the life humans were meant to live. A life where we stopped being suspicious of each other and, instead, put our hands together, bowed with a smile, and said ”Namaste.”

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June 20, 2012

Eighth Year

     The problem with expressing sentiment, especially romantic sentiment, is that it can so easily seem trite. Most folks wander on to Facebook on their anniversary, armed with dozens of exclamation points, and throw down one of many packaged statements about how happy they are that they married whoever they married. Everyone does it. And that’s what makes me approach this subject with trepidation.
     You see, my marriage is better than everyone else’s.
     I know, I know, that sounds arrogant and maybe even a bit offensive. But I really believe it. You know all those things that married people fight about? Money, sex, kids, events, family. We don’t. Like, ever.
     And you know how married people can’t wait to get away from each other and do the guy’s night out and the girl’s night out? We don’t really understand that.
     And you know how they say that your first year is the honeymoon and it all goes downhill from there? Well, to be completely frank and honest, that’s just bullshit. I have no other word for that destructive idea and if you ever find yourself uttering it, please jam your foot deep inside your mouth.
     Sure, I have problems in my life, just like everyone else. But my wife isn’t one of them. But how can I express that without blending into the crowds of people who can hardly stand their spouses most of the time but give them lip service on special days of the year?
     Maybe I can’t. Maybe there’s no way to sound unique and special. And, in the end, that’s fine.
     Because the second month of marriage to Ruth was better than the first. And the third was better than the second. And the ninety-fifth was better than the ninety-fourth. So every month seems to be the best month of my life. And that’s pretty cool. I may die of happy soon, and I can’t think of a better way to go.
     So here’s to you, Ruth. Here’s to the love we feast upon and the luminescent beings we are evolving into together. The ride’s been great so far and I feel like we have hardly even started yet. May our love continue to cast out all fear. May our hope always endure. May our faith in each other and in this radiant Universe in which the mystery of love happens grow and flourish.
     Amen.

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June 11, 2012

Joe and his Tuna

     A true story from the Cook household:

     The boy was eating his tuna casserole. He loved how it tasted. He was filling his mouth so full that it hurt to swallow. But it was worth it.

     Suddenly a thought came into his head.

     “Mommy, is this chicken?”

     “No,” his mother said.

     He sighed with relief and started filling his mouth again.

     “It’s tuna,” his mother continued.

     “Fhisofiadfs!” he said. Which, if his mouth had been empty, would have sounded like, “Fish?!”

     “Yes.”

     He looked down at the plate, covered in bits of animal corpse, and frowned. “These fish had to die so I could eat them…”

     He looked up at his mother. She shrugged. He looked back at the fish.

     “Fish,” he said. “I’m so sorry that I’m eating you. But I’m starving. You can go in my belly with the noodles and then you can play together.”

     And he continued eating, a little more sober and mindful than before.

     “Ha!” his sister cackled, pointing her finger. “You’re talking to dead chicken!”

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April 20, 2012

He Who Loves

     I read, many years ago, that real, lasting happiness is only found in the worship of God. John Piper calls it Christian hedonism. I latched onto this idea immediately. I had just become a Calvinist and Piper was one of my heroes. Not only that, but the concept looked sound, according to the Bible, which I viewed as a sort of instruction book for life at the time.

     So I set about trying to find happiness in the worship of God. I was told, and I believed, that the two most important ways of touching God were reading the Bible devotionally and praying.

     I gave it my all. I got up at six every morning to spend the first dark hour of the day ‘alone with God.’ I said prayers and wrote prayers and sang prayers. I tried all the spiritual disciplines. I fasted once every couple months. I preached in churches and on street corners. I studied old and new theological books. I did it all.

     None of it worked.

     Oh, I had some good times. Prayer would sometimes lift me into a deep level of connection with the divine. The Bible, especially the words of Jesus, would sometimes enrich my soul and wake up my spirit. But those times were exceptional. Rare. Adrenal, not coronary.

     It became hard, so I tried harder. I did street evangelism and vowed to become a missionary to a scary Muslim country. But that made things worse.

     I was not a hypocrite. I was honest. I honestly thought that true happiness could only be found in the ‘Christ centered’ life I was living. And that was my message as I preached in the churches and streets of Peterborough, Toronto, Welland, and, eventually, Pakistan. But I wasn’t experiencing it. I promised others that they would, and I made them believe I was. But I was mostly empty.

     I don’t know when it changed. I don’t know when I started drifting away from the evangelical Calvinism I had so loved. But I eventually came to a startling realization.

     He who loves, knows God.

     Connection to the joy-giving source of life does not come from reading holy books a certain number of times. Spirituality is not measured by how many prayers you utter in the dark mornings while the world sleeps so sinfully. It does not come through sermons or songs or having the right theology or going to the right churches or temples or mosques. It comes from love.

     And not just a general love. Not the effortless love that everyone has. Not the love that is willing to protect friends and family. It comes from the powerful, Christ-borne love that strives to protect enemies. The love that is never willing to punish, but to forgive and reconcile an infinite amount of times. The love that paves the narrow road that leads to life.

     And then what happened?

     When most people talk about their Christian journey, they usually emphasize their struggles. How they still fight against depression and sin and their commitment to live a Jesus life. How they still can’t seem to hold into the joy of God in a consistent way.

     I don’t talk like that anymore. Because my happiness is finally real. I found it buried in a field, and I went out and sold everything I had for it. I took it home and put it in my heart. I no longer experience long periods of darkness and depression punctuated by flashes of joy. Now it’s long, extended flashes of joy, once in a while punctuated with down-time. It wasn’t religion or Christianity or positive thinking that changed me. It was love. Just love. It makes many of the old songs I sang in my fundamentalist Sunday School so much more powerful than I could have ever imagined:

And I’m so happy,
So very happy,
I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart.

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April 7, 2012

The State-Sponsored Murder of Love

     Jesus was killed.

     My tradition has always looked at his execution from an abstract, theological point of view. We talk about God getting stuck in a sort of cosmic loop-hole where his previous promise to kill sinners works against his desire to let them live, so he works out a deal with his son in which killing his son makes it so he can let sinners who understand this theological concept off the hook.

     But I find myself looking at it from a different point of view this year.

     Jesus was a different sort of fellow. He refused to accept the conventions of who was ‘us’ and who was ‘them’. He would befriend hookers and foreigners and heretics. He undermined the religious and civil establishment by commanding people to call no one father or teacher or master. He starting knocking the legs out under the power of the empire by telling people to love their enemies and to never repay evil for evil. He upset the commercial establishment by clearing the businessmen from the temple and by telling folks to share everything they had until there were no poor people left. He told people that the Utopian Kingdom of God was within their grasp.

     They had to kill him, of course.

     Not only that, they had to break his message.

     So now, instead of a Jesus who was willing to die before kill, we have a Jesus who blesses our soldiers and weapons manufacturers while condemning bartenders. It’s an easy thing to do. Watch.

     First, we take the premise from Romans 13 that the government is established by God. Then we remember that, while Jesus made it abundantly clear that our only attitude and actions toward our enemies should be love and kindness, God is allowed killing anyone he wants. So when the government tells us to kill, it’s okay! So long as you do it without hating the people in ‘your heart’, as Luther says, “Soldiers, as Christians, should indeed love those enemies – not hate them, hold malice against them, or mistreat captives or civilians – but they have an authorization to do what soldiers have to do.”

     And all the other things that led Jesus to the cross, we steer away from. Instead of eating with hookers and heretics, we rail against them. Instead of turning over the tables of unjust businessmen who use religion as a means of profit and oppress their workers, we support Walmart and Wall Street while condemning the people trying to change the system. Instead of forgiveness, we call for punishment. Instead of rehabilitation, we call for death. Instead of freedom, we set certain men as higher than ourselves, call them ‘government’ and put on fancy clothes and ribbons while we go off killing their enemies.

     That sort of Jesus never would have gone to a cross. He would have started a profitable career in politics.

     But the real love of Jesus threatens everything. It threatens our wealth and safety. It’s risky. It’s full of uncertainties. It’ll kill half the people who sign up for it. But it’s also the only way to life. Jesus proved it.

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March 19, 2012

An Open Letter to the Makers of The Lorax

     Dear folks who made The Lorax,

     Thanks.

     Seriously, thanks.

     As I walked my son out from the cinema, he started talking. He said how sad it was that the boy lived in a place where a few people were rich and happy while the rest of the world was dead and grey. He thought it was stupid that everyone listened to the rich man and blindly bought his bottles of air. He asked me if something like that could ever happen in the real world.

     “It is happening, Joe,” I said.

     That made him sad. He asked how he could fix it. I asked him what the boy did in the movie.

     “He planted the tree, even when the boss told him not to,” Joe said.

     It led to a great talk about how we can be responsible for the planet and the resources we have. It led to a great series of questions that most kids don’t get to deal with.

     “What should you do when someone in charge tells you to do something that you think is evil or wrong?” I asked.

     “Don’t listen.”

     “What do you do if I tell you to do something wrong?”

     He paused. “I’m not going to listen to you.”

     That’s my boy.

     So thank you, folks who made The Lorax. Thank you for showing the dark future my son will inherit unless my generation starts caring and making changes. Thank you for encouraging my son to care. And thank you, most of all, for fostering a holy rebellious spirit in his heart. He’ll need it.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

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March 5, 2012

When Someone Leaves

I’ve never been that good at saying goodbye. I tend to watch those people who get all tearful in airports and wonder what it’d be like to feel that way. It’s not that I’m stone-cold or anything. I just feel the leaving of loved-ones in a different way, I guess.

When we’re at the airport, I’m still with them. As they walk away, I can still see them. When I get back into my car, I can trick myself into thinking I just dropped them off at work. Even the next day I can imagine they are still living in my house. Maybe they stepped out to get milk or take my kid to school, like they always were willing to do.

The loss grows over time. I’ve heard about amputees getting a ‘phantom limb’ sensation. It feels like it’s still there, until you try to grab something with it.

Ruth and I woke up pretty late Sunday morning. The kids were already up. I felt the first bit of phantomness. Jodi’s door was open and her room was dark, cold and empty. No one was making tea. I looked at the kettle for a bit before making the pot myself. I could not remember the last time I made my own pot of morning tea. It was weird.

Sunday was a busy day. Lots of moving. Lots of noise and activity. But it felt so quiet. Despite the fact that my house was filled with all the beautiful people I live with, there was something missing. I guess that’s what happens when you say goodbye to someone you love that’s been living with you for … almost two years? Wow. Doesn’t seem that long…

I’m not good at saying goodbye. But I’m good at being with people. I guess that’s what counts. Just like a man’s last words don’t matter nearly as much as all the words and deeds that came before them.

I found a message on my phone late last night. It was from Jodi. She’s home she says. That made me pause. Of course she’s home. Abu Dhabi is her home now, right? Right. It is. It’s where she lives.

But home is also where the heart is. So her real home’s in her chest. Te he.

But home is also where the heart is. So her real home will always be with me and Ruth and all those other people who love her. Welcome home, Jodi. We’ll see you again soon.

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