For the past six months I have been working on a personal project of spiritual growth and theological understanding. It has been on a personal sojourn to try an unlock some of the secrets of how we are made as human beings, the exact nature of God's relationship with us, some of the problems with what is going on in our American political context right now. More broadly, what I am interested in, is what is critically wrong with Christianity as we know it in the North American context today. And so, I have been writing a book.
The book is entitled, "With: The Transformative Power of Going With People Rather Than Against Them". Over the next 18 weeks, I will be writing blog posts that will flesh-out aspects of this book. I want to invite you into the conversation. I want to get your help in writing this book. If anything I write over the next several weeks strikes a chord with you in any way, please let me know. If you, like me, are as interested in unlocking the secrets of God's relationship with us, then perhaps we can embark on this journey together. What I am after is nothing short of, as Hemingway once said; "writing something true". And so now, if you are still WITH me...here is installment #4:
***
What Is “Going With”?
What It Means Exactly…
What does “going with” mean
exactly? According to Macmillan’s online
Dictionary[i]
of phrases and expressions, there are at least three different definitions of
the phrase “going with” in modern American parlance. The first definition is implies something
that is provided with another thing (as in; “Does this corner office go with
this job?”). This definition mostly
refers to objects rather than people, and so this usage doesn’t get to the meat
of what I am attempting to do with the phrase through this book. The second, and more common usage is general
acceptance or agreement with of an idea (as in; “I’m just going to go with
it”). If you live in California where I
live, you hear it all the time (“just go with it”!). This usage gets much closer to the meaning I
am attempting with this book. The
problem with this second usage is that it also carries with it the connotation
of moral relatively and of, perhaps, acquiescing one’s own moral principles
when one doesn’t feel comfortable doing a certain thing. So, this second usage is insufficient as
well. The third usage is a rather
antiquated term for a dating relationship (ie; “Who are you ‘going with’ this
semester?”). Even for those born of the
generation when “Going with another person” meant being that person’s
girlfriend or boyfriend, this final phrase usage won’t offer much help. And, this final phrase definitely bears no
meaning upon the general content of this book.
While the phrase “Go with” may seem
a bit clunky, the trouble is that there really is no other phrase in the
English lexicon which gets to the meaning and main concept of this book. Consider this list of alternatives:
· To
be in relationship with – seems to heavy
· To
be in covenant with – seems too religious
· To
agree with – simply isn’t often the case
· To
be in alliance with – seems overly political and strategic
· To
be in community with – seems too amorphous
· To
be in friendship with – may or may not be the case
· To
be in fellowship with – feels a little “churchy”
· To
resonate with – again, may or may not be the case
· To
be committed to – seems too antiseptic and cold
· To
love – seems too non-descript and also emotionally loaded
And so, at the
risk of sounding overly simplistic, we shall use the word formula “going with”
throughout this book. It is my hope as
an author, that for a generation of millennials, this term simply won’t need
any definition, but will be self-evident in its usage and application. A basic definition might be this:
Going
With
– Moving in the same general direction as another person (emotionally,
intellectually, philosophically, politically, theologically, or
interpersonally) in order to gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation
for that person - and to potentially have a positive transformative impact on
that person’s overall wellbeing, health and livelihood.
A Whole Book Which Is Based On One
Preposition?
It
would seem like an act of folly to base an entire book upon one single
preposition. With this in mind, I am
reminded of the young recently graduated seminarian who, being a bit
overzealous about his Greek training, said to his congregation one morning;
“The word for AND in the bible is KAI.
KAI is used 41 times in the text we are looking at this morning. So, over the next month, we will be analyzing
the various uses of the word KAI and how it impacts our faith in God.” On hearing this, an older gentleman turned to
his wife in the back pew and said, “And the word ‘Farewell’ occurs just once in
the text, and that is enough for me.
Come on honey, we are out of here!”
If
a case could be made for the composition of an entire book based on one single
preposition, there are, it might be argued, a lot of more interesting ones to
choose from than the ones that find themselves strewn throughout the pages of
this book (eg: “amongst”, “considering”).
According to the English Club: The world’s premier website for learners
and teacher of the English language, there are officially 150 prepositions in
the English language. Of this list there
officially 94 one word prepositions (behind, by, beneath), and 56 complex
prepositions (“on account of”, “along with.
Although this is the case, there is one quite unassuming preposition,
composed of one vowel and three consonants which is potentially the most
important word in the entire English language for understanding who God is –
and what exactly our relationship with God constitutes. That preposition is, of course, WITH.
Coupled
with the active verb – GO (of which there are over two-thousand examples to
choose from in the Bible[1]),
creating “Go with”, the two words combine to create an entirely new meaning.
Going With is Basically What It Means to
Be a Pastor
I was on a plane recently, traveling
to a foreign country to be a part of a mission trip. And the person sitting next to me engaged me
in a conversation about what I do for a living.
I always hate this question on an airplane, because my answer (that I am
a pastor), either ends up in halting the conversation altogether, or developing
the airplane relationship into a full blown four-hour extravaganza about faith,
God and everything else. But I gave my
usual blunt, and snipped answer – “Uh, I’m a pastor.” But then the person I was sitting next to
followed up with a question that I am rarely asked; “Wow! What is it REALLY like to be a pastor?”
I had to pause to answer this, but
upon a few moments of reflection, I told my friend that it is basically about
being WITH people, in God, through any number of life’s benchmarks. I told him that it is about being WITH brand
new couples as they are having a baby.
It is about being WITH who are exchanging vows at an altar, and it is
about being WITH people as the pass, on a hospital gurney, from one life to the
next. It is about celebrating the highs
in people’s lives with them (anniversaries, boat dedications, business
kickoffs, neighborhood block parties), and it is about holding their hand when
they experience the lows in life (divorces, the passing away of loved ones,
being terminated from jobs, losing a lot of money in a financial deal).
As I write this, I can already hear
the critics voice their opinions about that parsimonious definition of
ministry, and the an-affiliated religious people marveling at the all too
stultifying simplicity of that formula.
“What? You study for three years
at a seminary, learn Greek and Hebrew and history and theology, philosophy and
ethics simply to learn how to go WITH other people????” The short answer is YES. The long answer is that, as this book will
show, going with other people, especially during difficult times of life, or
through difficult inter-personal experiences (enemies) is extremely
hard. Also, more theologically conservative Christians might observe that it seems a little thin to simply go
with another person without offering some more didactic approach to life (some
life lesson, or doctrine or theological rubric). The more progressive voices will view
the act of going with as a bit, perhaps, presumptuous and interventionist. So, going with others will be an attempt at finding a "middle way" through all of our life challenges together.
All For Now,
GB
[1]
The fact remains that there are more incidents of the word “Go” in the Bible
than the words for “Love” and “Sin” combined – but that is a topic for a
different book entirely.
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