Free-Market Christianity?

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, has a book out about free-market small groups that someone showed me a few weeks ago. He also has one out entitled the Jerusalem Diet for how to reach your ideal weight . . . but I am trying to avoid my less-than-gracious urges to say more about that one.

Back to the first book: though I appreciate the desire to be relevant, I worry that we are too often treating Christianity like a belief system that can be communicated by any "effective" means. The idea is that Americans, who are people raised in and accustomed to a free-market society, must have their church small groups conform to that model . . . in order for the small groups to be effective. The belief is that the way to form our spiritual lives is along the lines of the economic models of our society. Economic theory becomes the guide for how to pursue spiritual formation.

I actually applaud the creativity, wholism, God-in-everything, and anything-can-be-holy concept that Ted is promoting, but I don't like the idea that we ought to pragmatically do life in whatever way our society endorses. Aren't there theological reasons for being creative, wholistic, seeing God in all of life, and reclaiming all sorts of activities as God-honoring? Do we do this only because it fits the free-market economics of our nation? Do we encourage creativity in forming small groups because our economy endorses the idea of a free-market, or because God is creative and our human diversity is by his design and ought to be encouraged?

Obviously, I think there are compelling out-of-the-nature-of-God reasons for what Ted talks about. But when we say we are encouraging people to be creative, to find God in everything because they live in a free-market society and like things that way . . . we put our economic system in the guiding role.

I know . . . we have to communicate the message in ways people can relate to. However, do I want to tie the message of the Kingdom of God to the principles of a free-market economy? Do I want to say that these two go together like hand-in-glove? Do I believe that these are wholly complementary? Is there nothing about our free-market economy that God's Reign questions?

This is actually a much bigger problem of the people of God losing their identity. It is the belief that all that is "good" about America is consistent with being the people of faith. Being a "good" American - supporting democracy, a free-market economy, free-trade, opposing big government, advocating low taxes, and such ("good American" as understood by the conversative right) - is part of being a good Christian.

The church that sells itself to people with the message of how appealing, satisfying, and relevant it is, and tries to build customer loyalty so expand marketshare is following the American ideal. The prevalent model of church in a free-market society where the competitive capitalistic values have become the norm for how the people of faith pursue a life of faith, has lost its identity. No longer can such a church call people to what is unpopular, uncomfortable, unaccustomed, or unlike the status quo. A free-market culls out whatever doesn't sell.

Don't assume that I am opposed to free-markets, or democracy, or that I like big government. I don't and I'm not. I just know that such things stand under the judgment of God, and are imperfect. I know that as the people of God we will never be completely comfortable nor in harmony with our society - whether we live in communist North Korea or in the Bible belt of the southern U.S.

If we stop being theologically-driven, and become pragmatically-driven, becoming the advocates of national political or economic policies and equating those with our faith, our identity in God is compromised.

I really don't want to take Ted to task, for I assume his motives are nothing but good. I want to offer a critique of an approach that his book perhaps exemplifies, in the hope that we might be formed by who God is rather than the ways of our culture.

Good blog post by Creech

I was reading Creech's blog today (http://www.alancreech.com/) and felt a kinship with him.

Though I was planted in different soil than him, I've think I've come to the place of not wanting to be stuffed into religious boxes anymore-which is what I see him saying. I don't want to choose a label, a flavor, a limited expression of faith and make it my norm. Of course, whatever I actually do will reflect some flavor or branch of the Christian Church . . . that's obvious.

I also don't want to try and be ahistorical, pretending I'm somehow able to transcend the realities of being a follower of Jesus in a time and place. I can't be a Christian without a context. In fact, only within a context (a real circumstance) can we be Christians.

Strangely enough, the heritage I grew up in once said things like "Christians only, but not the only Christians" and somehow lost that sentiment. Now trying to be "just a Christian" gets one in trouble with the very denomination that once sought to be only that.

Of course my own heritage has no monopoly on being denominationally-minded. It's the disease of denominationalism.

A short note . . .

To someone who is struggling and asked for my prayer, I wrote . . .

I certainly will be praying. Sounds, though, like a regular day for most people – that is, to struggle with all sorts of thoughts, impulses, and temptations. Sometimes we become more aware, and sometimes the struggle is greater. I do not say that to downplay what you’re feeling, but only to remind you that it may be more typical than atypical. In other words, of such is the nature of our journey.

For whatever reason the struggle is increased, or your awareness has been deepened, I pray that you will find the grace to practice simple obedience – following carefully the way of Jesus through submission to God, humility, full dependence, honest confession, and above all love. This I have great confidence you will continue under God’s strength and blessing, though the immediate difficulties may be apparent as beyond your abilities – as truly they are.

Perhaps such unsettledness of spirit is a nudge into healing those parts that still hurt, so it may be angels and not demons that stir these emotions. Either way, God’s goodness will be realized through your patient seeking.

Peace.

Birmingham Today

Despite what I said in the previous post - I just looked at the Birmngham News' newly published civil rights era photos. So I am posting after all.

I look at those images and think that the people working non-violently for rights, for opportunity, for justice . . . won technically, but I am afraid that looking at Birmingham today, they really lost.

Bigotry and prejudice are always inventive, and ways were found to comply with the changes in law but to keep the evil going. New legal ways were crafted to separate blacks and whites, for the whites to hold onto wealth, and to leave blacks in poverty.

Here in the great "Christian" south where some champion putting the ten commandments front and center, we still fail miserably to do right by our neighbors. Some southerners will resent my assertion, but then you only have to go outside this area to see what life is like where racial prejudice does not continue to profoundly shape society.

To be fair, prejudice exists everywhere -it was Polacks when I lived in Iowa, wogs and aborigines in Australia, wetbacks in Texas . . . but there is something more prevalent where the separation continues in systemic ways.

What the bigots don't realize is that when any of us are impoverished, it affects us all. We are all poorer. You don't get ahead by stepping on others . . . you only sink down by trying to push them down.

Reusing Posts

Because I have too much to do to write another post today, or at least I think I have too much to do, I am including part of a post from my other blog, Contemplations.

peace.
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Contemplation #111
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ . . .” Galatians 1:6

The grace of Christ tolerates no rivals and no exceptions. God’s grace is so all-consuming that it leaves no room for any other way of living. Therefore, any move to live by means other than grace is a desertion of God’s merciful action in Christ. This is why our abandonment of grace can come quickly. We do not slide gradually from living by grace, but at the first turn to something other we immediately abandon God and the way of grace. The nature of grace means, though, that my quick desertion of it is not the same of God’s removal of it. Paul instructs us to return to the grace that we so quickly leave, living intentionally once again in that which we left, though which did not leave us.

Another Voice . . .

Words from Ozzy Osbourne's Dreamer:

Gazing through the window at the world outside
Wondering will mother earth survive
Hoping that mankind will stop abusing her
sometime

After all there's only just the two of us
And here we are still fighting for our lives
Watching all of history repeat itself
Time after time

I'm just a dreamer
I dream my life away
I'm just a dreamer
Who dreams of better days

I watch the sun go down like everyone of us
I'm hoping that the dawn will bring a sign
A better place for those Who will come after us ...
This time

I'm just a dreamer
I dream my life away oh yeah
I'm just a dreamer
Who dreams of better days

Your higher power may be God or Jesus Christ
It doesn't really matter much to me
Without each others help there ain't no hope for us
I'm living in a dream of fantasy
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

Truth Telling

I think that I (and I cannot say to what degree this may or may not be true for others) am still only slowly coming to understand how Jesus dealt lovingly with others - to nurture them toward God. I am convicned that I have not known how to be first loving, and only "right" within that framework.

Too often in the past I said what was "right" or "correct" on a matter, believing that being truthful in telling others what was right was to be loving. It makes good logic, but in practice I think it is actually self-satisfying. What I mean is that when I tell someone else truth to unburden myself, I am telling them out of self-love, not love for others.

Surely you know the same Bible stories that made me tend to do this - the lepers who had to tell everyone that the enemy army was gone. The watchman who isn't guilty of the people's blood as long as he sounds the alarm; if they don't listen, their blood is on their heads.

Many times I think I was like Pilate, washing my hands of other people's blood, by making sure I told them the truth. Now it was up to them - not me anymore. I was off the hook eternally.

Now when I look at the gospels - I just don't see Jesus telling others "truth" so he wouldn't be responsible. He seemed to say what they needed, not what "truth" demanded.

If you don't know what I mean by "truth" here . . . this is going to be long enough without explaining it completely. Maybe I can say simply, "truth" is something that I believe to be "right" but may have nothing to do with helping anyone. It's sterile, laboratory truth. It's truth about what is sin. That kind of statement.

Contrast this with Jesus talking to the woman caught in adultery. When he says "I don't condemn you . . . go and sin no more" he tells her three things, only one of which is new. She knew what she was doing was sin, and that she shouldn't do it anymore. It had been 1200 years since Moses received the ten commandments. She knew this.

What Jesus told her that was new was that he didn't condemn her. What if Christians stopped being those who tell everyone the "truth" of how what they are doing is wrong, and shared the truth of how Jesus (and his followers) are not in the condemning business?

We'll all be roundly labelled as soft on sin, of simply being pc, of being tolerant and reflective of a permissive age, and not believing in absolutes.

Oh, well.

Order and Love

In part of our coffee conversation the idea was raised that in congregational life orderliness and love are at odds. Orderliness can have many forms such as to be nice and neat about beliefs and practices, about forms and structures, or about ways of simply doing community. Love is about acceptance.

Orderliness requires the exclusion of any who might not conform. When the dominant "order" is love, then there is the inclusion of diversity in belief and practice, forms and structure, and divergent ways of being a community.

The unavoidable reality is that there is a lack of orderliness in humanity, and in our spiritual condition. To love will mean not easing our discomfort concerning the orderliness of another that seems disorderly to me.

Catching the Wave

We are glad to begin sharing the building we lease with another church, Tapestry of Hope. For anyone who's been missing going to two services on Sundays . . . well now at our Lorna Road building Disciples' Fellowship meets in the mornings and Tapestry of Hope in the evenings.

The really cool thing is that this is just one in several ways in which God has mulitiplied our participation with His people in the last few weeks. In my missions experience, it takes 2-3 years for a movement to really get started, to work through the start-up process, and then begin really moving as God directs.

Realistically, many who began this journey did so with a considerable amount of extra luggage - more like great weights and chains which shackled everything. Thorugh God's grace we've are being brought to where we won't bind our burdens on others - and have been freed to lay much down that was needless and the dictates of men.

To me this is a sign of God moving us into an exciting and uncomfortable adventure (uncomfortable if you like knowing what is going to happen) of being and doing what will be to God's glory.

It seems that some of that is going to be practicing a unity with believers and an acceptance of anyone struggling to come to belief.

When our work in Africa reached this point I likened it to riding the crest of a wave of the Spirit's working . . . just trying to ride it and knowing there is no controlling it.

Way cool.

Out of A Continuing Thought

Yesterday the lectionary text that we looked at duirng our meditation was 1 Cor. 8. I find that this is a difficult text because we are so distant from the type of circumstances that it is discussing, and we tend to equate much lesser matters - like how I feel about what you're doing or how what you do makes me uncomfortable or offends me - with what was at stake in dining in the temples of idols.

Something that came to me this morning is that we are not just looking at how to form people to be moral, but we are forming them to be like Jesus. For sure, being like Jesus means being moral, but it is possible to form people to be moral without them being like Jesus.

One of the scariest parts of the this passage is the radical freedom that Paul talks about - where he has no problem, per se, with believers eating food off the altars of other gods. The temptation for us is to quash such freedom to make sure that we form people to moral. But if we form people to be moral through legalism (and it certainly can be done - as Paul knew as a pharisee) they are not moral out of the love of God, that is, moral as Jesus was moral.

Morality through legalism is not the same as morality born out of love. To form people in the image of Christ we must talk about radical freedom.

Yesterday's Lunch

I was blessed yesterday to share lunch with Father William Wilson. We immediately have struck up a closeness that can only be in God, and is fueled by the similar ways that we have been formed - though we started from very different places and have come through dissimilar traditions.

I have much to learn from Father Wilson: his focus on the love of God through Christ's Passion and the Eucharist, what he's learned about spiritual disciplines in 25 years as a Trappist monk and seven years in silence, and his theological training (he is quick to point out that our lives are not about religion and orthodoxy, though there is a place for doctrine, but rather about the love of God).

He is so transparent about his struggles, and we share some of the same. We talked about so much yesterday - the power of ego, of the way in which scripture informs our lives in Christ but must not take center stage in our faith, about being open to what the Spirit is doing and recognizing that movement in so many diverse gatherings of believers, and Christian mysticism.

As he remarked yesterday, this is what being Christians is about - people getting together and having discussions about Christ, and sharing the good news of God's love - that it is given completely and unconditionally to each person, without preference or degree, but fully to every individual. Talking to one another about this gift and learning to live within it, this is so much different than being religious.

Because we come from such different worlds in Christianity, when either one of us references a movement or discussion, the other is completely unaware of it - which shows me how the Spirit is doing much of the same work in all parts of the Church even when those parts aren't in regular dialogue.

I am looking forward to Father Wilson, as he prefers it, having some conversation and dialogue with the gathering of believers at Disciples' Fellowship. How amazing - he prefers communal conversation to one person lecturing! Who would've guessed????

A Gift of Grace

I am having way too much fun, and should be feeling more guilty for enjoying life so much. I have even stopped worrying that it's sure to end in utter catastrophe (it might, though).

Marsha and I enjoyed the show Thirtysomething before we left for Africa. I know that the series got panned by some as trite, but I thought, and still do, that it dealt with real issues in real ways. They were just the problems of a person living with oneself and others - and not issues of larger scale.

I remember the show where Michael Stedman is told that he can't enjoy the now because he's always waiting for the Cassocks to sweep down and destroy the village. Maybe I've always been a little that way. Always pushing to do, and not enjoying the being in the here and now enough. Didn't know the sacrament of the present moment.

By some mystery of God's grace, I am now in a place of peace and joy and am not even worrying about when it will end. The realization that it could all end tomorrow doesn't even fill me with anxiety, though I am in no way in denial about the fact that something will happen, sooner or later.

I don't think that I am to indulge in these gifts selfishly, though. Actually, being "in" these gifts helped me to truly "be" with a good friend, David Emerson, and his children as David's wife, Beth, passed away 10 days ago. Sitting in the waiting room, going into the ICU ward to pray with the family, and accompanying them when the end came . . . without the grace of these gifts I don't think I would have ever been able to truly "be" there . . . unselfishly, without self-conscious concerns, and open to letting God's grace touch them.

I say this not boastfully, but in true awe. I used to be a person who fled from emotional situations, was extremely uncomfortable around death and dying, and tried to ignore suffering. I confess that I "thought my way through" much of the suffering I encountered in Africa, often not acknowledging the real hurt - afraid it would be too crushing to think about. How astonishing that God could change me this much.

If I can see any design of God in my life, one clear pattern is that He moves me to a place of "being" which then becomes obvious as a means for some service of His planning.

Though I enjoy the peace and clarity I now have, I think I've be graced with this for a purpose . . . to share this grace. The hard part, at least right now, seems to be having something I believe i am supposed to share but not knowing exactly how to do it. In what way am I to impart this peace and grace? I interact constantly with so many who are in such turmoil and I don't know what I am supposed to be doing. What I do manage to offer, seems so little and ineffectual. This grace is not given to others easily.

Okay . . . time to stop writing. I've simply been thinking out loud in this post. No plan . . . just write whatever comes . . . and then have the guts to click the "Publish Post" button. Here goes . . .

Gift or Vice?

Steve raises a good question - is charisma (our choice for naming a personal attractiveness which draws others) a gift which is redeemable though also able to be abused? Or is it like being born hot-tempered or with addictive tendencies - always a source of personal struggle and what, if left unchecked by God's grace and strength, will lead to all sorts of problems.

If it is the latter, then the redeeming aspect is that it is a thorn in the flesh, something to be mortified and which constantly reminds one to be humble and how thoroughly sinful the human heart is.

For many, this human attractiveness is unquestionably a gift which we should cultivate and employ, because it is useful in 'bringing people to Christ'.

An innate self-assurredness may also tend to foster security and confidence in others, but it may be nothing more than pride. If people want someone to 'follow' who exudes competence, that might be more appealing than someone broken and humble, but that doesn't make personal competence a gift to be used to God's glory.

I am not convinced that charisma, the natural way some people can draw individuals to themselves, is good. If they have a 'natural' skill at this that could easily be used to draw people to anything - even that which has nothing to do with Christ - then I truly wonder if this is a gift to be turned to God's use, or a temptation to be avoided.

Paul was trained in rhetoric, but chose to keep his proclamation simple and free from such techniques. Why didn't he use his training to help 'advance' God's cause - redeeming all that schooling? Can't the wisdom of men be put to redeemed use in the Kingdom of God?

We are not told to draw people to Christ, but that God/Christ will draw people to the Son/Himself. The charisma of a person should not draw people, but if anything should draw others toward an individual, then it should be only and nothing more than Christ in that person. There should be nothing about the person that we should desire him/her - isn't that what was said of Jesus?

Just because people (some people, certainly not all) were drawn to Jesus, must we conclude that he had a personal or innate charisma? Maybe the scripture is right - there was NOTHING about him that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected. He couldn't be ignored because he was radical and thrust himself into the nation's debate, but were people drawn to a magnetic personally? Or did seekers find in this most unlikely of backwoods tradesman something of God, and that drew them because he was a teacher come from God?

I believe we want to think that what we find personally effective should be good - it's good if it gets results. But have we lost too much along the way?

Okay . . . I know . . . I'm outside the popular opinions on this type of stuff . . . and I irritate others by even raising such questions. I will try and mortify, and others may try and redeem . . . and we will all trust in God.

More on Charisma

During a recent lunch with a man who was a Trappist monk for 25 years, we were discussing charisma. He noted that priests are trained to restrain and diminsh themselves, to nurture public self-abasement so that they might allow the focus to be on the Eucharist that they administer.

Is personal charisma generally helpful - or does it tend to obscure Christ? I tend to think that the ancient traditions which seek to spiritually form their ministers to restrain themselves probably have the right idea.

Random Thought

Sometimes I think about something in a strange circumstance - when it doesn't seem to connect to what is going on. Usually those ideas just go away . . .

While loading my car in the Sam's parking lot (plates, cups, coffee, etc . . . all the "stuff" we consume in fellowship) this popped into my head:

Charisma wins out over integrity. People may admire integrity, but they often choose charisma.

Prayer for Starting the Year

We struggled last night through what to pray about for the coming year. No one suggested their own vision of prosperity - which was good and no less than I would expect.

Last week we listened to and talked about 'Peace of Mind' by Boston, and then tried to think of what would be our orientation for seeking God's life in ours through this next year - or at least how we understand that here at the beginning.

Every one had good thoughts, and were confident enough to be self-revealing about struggles and doubts. In some ways our small group sounded glum, but then surprizingly we were also confident.

Through the discussion I was thinking over what I had said to someone earlier in the week: that I am dangerously content.

So my prayer comes out as longing to be thirsty and hungry while enjoying being filled and satisfied. I guess I see some dangers in God's gifts - namely me and my ability to take something good and twist it to my own destruction.

Incarnational Unity

I've been thinking about Christian unity. One conclusion that I've been driven to by my experiences is that God's unity is beyond and more than human endeavors.

I say this because if the reality of godly unity were only known through experience, I would struggle to affirm its existence at all. The existence to which I could attest would only be that it is fleeting, easily disrupted by human agendas, and not very powerful in transforming our world. If unity has to do with the presence of God's reign, practical observation would lead me to question whether the Kingdom is near.

So I am convinced that unity does not exist only with our experience of it, but even when we fail to embrace it, live it, see it, or understand it. Christian unity is a spiritual reality despite our historical realities.

I also know the dangers of simply spiritualizing something, making it ethereal and intangible, so as to justify its non-existence in so much of our communal living out of faith. That is an easy path to take - excuse our failure by claiming unity has no Monday morning or Friday night meanings.

This is why I find myself wanting to talk about Christian unity as being incarnational - of God beyond history, and yet of God in history.

When I experience so little living out of unity in faith, I am reminded that the reality of unity is not proved by experience. However, I am called to relentlessly pursue the practice of particularized unity, historical unity, in everyday living unity . . . and so the unity which is beyond history is also historical. Our unity is a tension even as Jesus, God-as-man, is the tension of the beyond history and historical flesh and blood.

Advent

The first three Sundays of Advent have been particularly rich in our fellowship gatherings. Perhaps it is because many of us came from Christian traditions that would readily celebrate Christmas as a "Santa" focused holiday, with little or no emphasis on Christ.

There is a redeeming of the season going on in my heart . . . and I think in others as well.

A Constantinian Christmas

I am reading A Peculiar People by Rodney Clapp, which probably isn't good because it encourages the radical within me . . . and I generally don't need any encouragement in that area.


Put that together with the current blurring of lines between Christianity and politics in our country and the way Christmas has become anything but spiritual, and I'm in a radical mood.

Here's some of my beef:

That Christianity sacrifices its essence in trying to create a kingdom of this world is apparent in many ways. It wasn't long after Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world that his followers started to try and prove him wrong. "In, but not of" has been discarded for "over and of".

This continuing trend is seen in the conservative right's attempts to create a theocracy - or claim that America has always been one - and rewrite history in the process. This New York Times article gives one such example regarding the present season.

I noticed another indication in my recent visits to Kirklands. I have been looking for candlesticks and whatever we might use to create a more sacred place for where we gather to worship. Kirklands has a good selection of crosses, ones to hang on the wall, table crosses, nativity scenes, and all types of items symbolic of Christian faith.

But I don't like it.

The problem is, I think that Christian faith is now sinking into a sentimental and nostalgic part of our history, so it is "in" to decorate and accessorize with symbols of Christian faith. Turn faith into fashion and it ceases to be authentic.

But this is the end of trying to make Jesus' kingdom into a realm of this world. The path ends in quaint reminders of what has in reality lost all meaning. When it is not scandalous to wear a cross, it is not a sign that our culture is Christian, but that the meaning of the cross has been compromised.

Of course, I can take advantage of Kirklands' marketing and easily find symbols of the sacred . . . but for our community these aren't simply options for interior decoration. We have to be keepers of radical faith that is not of this world . . . which isn't easy in a world where faith is trivialized as a political agenda, a marketing strategy, a sentimental curio, or a national identity.

Reviewing the Journey

I keep thinking about this journey we've been on for almost three years. What I mean is that I reflect on where God has been leading us, how in general terms it is what we vaguely imagined, but how in specific ways we have moved along in ways I didn't imagine.

There are at least two reasons this keeps churning over in my mind: 1) as a congregation we continue to talk about what we are to be, reviewing and adjusting our sense of community and mission to hopefully tune our walk to the Spirit's rhythm, and 2) we've had and receive opportunities to discuss with others how they might embark on a similar trek through non-institutionalized Christian life.

Our general idea of being a congregation that does nothing to further its own existence but only seeks to be involved in God's Mission in the world has been an interesting goal. This value has led us to have no weekly contributions, to abolish any sort of church membership, to de-emphasize the Sunday gathering so as to not let it be the penultimate mark of faithfulness or Christian life, to remain largely unstructured and unorganized, and to choose to meet in a leased building.

This concept has also entered into our reluctance to do much with having signs. Anything that moves our focus off living for Christ daily and onto building up "our church" has been suspect. By implication all marketing is out. So is any proselyting of people to come to "our church."

This is not to suggest that sharing this vision has been all that easy. We've all had to struggle with tendencies to fall back into institutionally-focused ways of thinking and acting. It is easy to want to ensure our own existence by planning for our corporate future, and harder to allow God the freedom to do whatever He wants.

One leader of another church in town, on hearing of our original vision of being a church that welcomed and accepted marginalized people, remarked that one couldn't build a church with people like that. In other words, you need resources to build a church . . . and when you focus on the needy - they "consume" resources rather than provide them.

Interestingly enough, our congregation - which continues to try as best we can to simply do what God asks and not to think of our own institutional needs - is having no trouble finding resources to do whatever is needed. Obviously, God really is faithful even when we aren't planning our own path.

What I take away from my review is not a prideful "pat-on-the-back" for how well we are doing, but a gratefulness for God's faithfulness and a sober realization that we must continue on the difficult path of being willing to lose everything - even our community - for the sake of God.

A few weeks ago I came to the decision that my role is not to "defend" the journey we are on, but to simply be on that journey. A non-institutional community won't try and preserve its non-institutional character. Such defensiveness is an institutional trait. A truly non-institutional group will remain such by staying focused on life in God rather than the nature of its own existence. As soon as I start defending rather than simply being - I've become more concerned with how we exist in this world rather than how we participate in God's Reign.

So . . . when we lose it, we gain it. And if we try and keep it, we lose it. Imagine that!