The End of Mindfulness

The reason Mindfulness, a way of thinking and feeling, a consciousness, of being “present” and not living by remembering (past) or living by anticipating or hoping (future), is so popular is because we are trained, perhaps brain-wired now, in the Aristotelian “motion” where the state we are in is Possibility, not Actuality. And this state of motion is tiring and disconcerting. To rest, to be at peace, is to be present, stop the “what can be” and “what will be” and move to “what is.” Ok, that. But the Mindfulness, parlayed ubiquitously, is not “what is.” It never quite is “what is.” It never quite is what is when we strive, by being “mindful,” to make it so. By being Mindful we never quite get to Mindfulness.  Being Mindful is simply another motion, a working into the present by negating the past and the future. It is doing another Possibility, not living in an Actual time and place.

In Martin Luther’s language of Law and Gospel, this “mindfulness” is the tyranny of the Law. It is a living in the Demand. It is not relief or rescue from the Demand. It’s use of the Demand to bring on another Demand. It’s being Mindful to be Present instead of simply being Present (something, I would argue, that is not actually ours to attain, but is rather something only to be received, something only given. More on that when I finish this up).

This is all trying to get the Law, Demand, to do something it cannot do. The Law, the Demand, only demands and creates “should,” “must,” “need to” and worse. It only accuses, it never blesses or saves.

The Apostle Paul in the New Testament uses dramatic language to describe this tyrannical condition: “Who can save me from this body of death!?” (paraphrased/abbreviated Romans 7:24). Mindfulness, far from being any place of Peace, is a “body of death.” 

Paul’s answer to “who?”: Jesus Christ! Go ahead look it up in Romans 7.

Startling! Shocking! And all that because, most especially, of our inability to see Jesus as anything or anybody but another way of “mindfulness.” Jesus, in our Aristotelian “motion” way of living is simply another “motion,” and one who for most these days is old-fashioned and needs remodeling or, better, and less laborious, abandoned. Better to go with something new and flashy, something like “mindfulness.” And then there’s this: (here’s the real problem with American Christianity writ large) others who don’t want to improve Jesus or just give up on him, but rather restore him to his former glory, that place where the church historically (at least until Luther and his assault on the Demand of the Law by claiming Gospel as the end of the Law) has placed him as the New Law who demands allegiance (“when did you give your life to Christ?”). BTW, history repeats itself and the church, since Luther, including most Lutherans, has fallen back to God as Law, not Outlaw, in Jesus.

So, it seems we do a lot with Jesus. Remodel, Abandon, Restore. But, alas, we simply will not let him do anything to us. Namely, shut us up and stop all the mindfulnesses.

I’m aware that Paul urges the Philippians to have the “mind of Christ” (Philippians 2). It sounds as if Paul is saying what I am saying Jesus is not: another way of approaching life. But pay attention to the full story. Jesus’ way of self-giving got him nowhere but dead. And, yes, in Paul’s great “hymn” of Philippians 2 Jesus is raised to glory but watch out how and why that came to be. It was not, the Raising, because of his self-giving, it was in spite of it. I know Philippians 2:9 says “therefore” as in “it’s because Jesus was so mindful in self-giving that God decided to raise him up,” but let me say two things to that: 1) actual death is not virtual, not filled with possibility. It’s just dead as a doornail. 2) Resurrection is not a Resuscitation; it’s a new and different life.

So, God didn’t raise Jesus because Jesus was so mindful and self-giving. God raised Jesus because of the mind of God, which is Pure Mercy. When I say “pure” I mean unadulterated by any quid pro quo, any “I’ll do this for you if you do this for me,” any “I’ll forgive you when you are sorry enough (contrition!) or say enough (confession!) or have done enough to pay back or even pay forward (satisfaction!).” Mercy is forgiveness for God’s sake (or, as we Christians say, “for Jesus’ sake”). It’s God keeping a through line to the who and what God is and does. The mind of Christ quiets, shuts up, all our mindfulness, because the mind of Christ is the mind of God which is Mercy.

And what, Paul wants us too to have this “mind of Christ,” this “mind of God”? Well, why not? Once we are freed from the shackles of proving and maintaining our own self-worth, from trying to get a leg up on our own life both now and for eternity, living as if we are somebody we are not……once we are freed, in other words, by the sheer forgiveness that is ours in Christ Jesus, Mercy, why not also try it out on each other and see if it works there. It can’t hurt anything (except you…and you need to be prepared for this. I’m thinking of the many times Jesus said following him will get you in trouble) and it might even help.

Try this on for size: Today’s Israel and Hamas (or any other group of Palestinians that run the Palestinian order) both, without equivocation, give Pure Mercy (the “Mind of God”) to each other! Both say they will not remember the sins and atrocities of the other, will not forgive only if and when the other admits their own culpabilities, but rather both forgive for no reason at all but for Mercy.

Ok, back from International Affairs to getting on in our day to day. My Apple Watch has a Setting (“there must be a setting for that!”) for me to track and enter a time, numerous times a day, of “mindfulness,” I appreciate Cupertino, California working to take care of me. And who among us doesn’t need a regular reminder to just stop and take a deep breath?

I’m simply saying here that our practice of mindfulness is more commotion of the motion of creating possibilities where we could take instead what has been given to us from the beginning of time: the Mercy of God. I realize this means we will need to go and find a brick-and-mortar church and a real person who will give us this mercy in “word and sacrament.” And I realize this is not an easy thing because many (most?) churches are not in the business of giving Mercy but rather in the business of trying to be as relevant, not to say hip, as possible in giving us mindfulness tips. But nevertheless, there it is. Yes, you and I need to get this Mercy given to us by Someone Else because it simply is not self-manufactured or self-imposed.

So, let me put it quickly so you can get on with your day: mindfulness is dead. And Jesus Christ is Risen from the Dead! Alleluia!