Charlie Dean’s Blog

I have this friend that I love to talk to.  We disagree about a lot of stuff when it comes to faith, God and church – but I’m so stimulated by our discussions, whether face-to-face or via email.  And the thing is, even though we disagree, I feel respected by him – and I hope he feels the same.

I have another friend who’s a proud political conservative.  I love nothing more than to pepper him with questions and argue politics.  But at the end of the day, we’re closest of friends – and we really respect each other.

I think I’m blessed to have these kinds of friendships, because I don’t think respectful discussions are the norm in our culture anymore.  In the religious worlds I’m a part of it too quickly degenerates into calling people “heretics,” or “liberals” or some other title meant to dismiss and belittle.

Is anybody seeking to understand people that think differently than them?  Does anyone have respect anymore for people that disagree?  Don’t followers of Jesus have a responsibility to temper all their speech – even disagreements – with an ethic of love?

I was having dinner with a couple friends a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about Lent.  He, grew up Catholic and has totally different associations with Lent than I do.  For him, he remembers all the legalism of it.  But, for me, its different.  It’s new.  In my as-far-from-liturgical-tradition-as-you-can-get, Lent was something that the Catholics did, which made it suspect, for sure.  So, for me, the past three years of exploring Lent has been exciting and new, and interesting.

One of the things I’ve learned, in the last three years, is that there is a rhythm to Lent.  Ash Wednesday is exciting.  It’s like starting a new workout regimen.  It’s new, you’ve psyched yourself up for it, the church is full of people who are ready to commit themselves to new disciplines, there’s an energy in the air.  That continues for the first week, and maybe into the next.

On the other side, as you near the end of Lent, you come up against Holy Week.  And that’s exciting as you know that Holy Thursday, Good Friday & Easter are coming.

But this week, we’re in the middle.  The excitement of the beginning is over, and Easter is still a long way off.  I really want to order a couple CD’s on iTunes, and I have a list of books that I really want to buy on Amazon.com.  And frankly, it’s just kind of hard, and blah.

But, I think this is maybe the most important time in the journey.  No one ever got healthier by only working out when it was easy.

So, if you’re like me, and you find yourself in the Lenten Doldrums, don’t give up.  (and come hang out with us “fellow journey-ers” at dinner on Wednesday night!)

I don’t know if it’s just me, or this is common to everyone, but I’m in a constant battle in my head with straw men.

One of them is a fundamentalist straw man.  He never smiles, hates everything new, is an arrogant jerk and thinks he’s right all the time about everything.  Man, do I love to punch him in the face.  Every time I have a glass of wine I laugh at him and his belief that in the Bible wine=grape juice.  And I feel so superior.

Another one is the one I call “fan boi.”  Whatever the fad of the day is, he’s there.  He never has the guts to stand up and say, “I know that everyone else likes this book/movie/song/idea, but not me.  I think it sucks.”  I like to slap him (He probably couldn’t take it anyway.)  When I take a real moral stand (like #ihatefigureskating), I poke him in the chest and show him how confident and sure I am.)

And while there may be a few people here and there who may look a lot like my straw men, I have to remind myself, that they are just caricatures.  And the reason that I win every argument with them is because they are my creation – one dimensional, illogical, lame, ill-intentioned, misguided – created to be a foil where I can work out my moral/cultural/philosophical/theological thoughts & ideas.  And it’s probably okay.  At least in my head.

The danger lies in those places where I move my straw man from just in my head, to projecting them upon real people.  So I look at real people, who are so much more complex than my straw man version, and I reduce their deeply held beliefs, ideas to a simple straw man caricature.