David Morris is an ordained elder in the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He is serving a 2 point rural charge in the central part of Iowa where he is finishing his second year there.
His 48th birthday is this coming Saturday (May 6). He is divorced 3 years ago and remarried 2 years ago. His wife is a Registered nurse who works doing case management for a nearby hospital as well as doing work with Hospice. He has three daughters a step-son and 2 step-daughters. His grandson will turn 3 the day after his birthday. He also has 6 step-grandchildren.
David didn’t grow up in the United Methodist Church, but grew up in different branches of the Free Church and the Baptist Church in Iowa (of different degrees of fundamentalism). During college he became involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and served on staff for almost 5 years before attending Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He was ordained in the Reformed Church in America (Dutch Calvinist) and served a church in Chicago for 2 years. Then he transferred his ordination over to the United Methodist Church in Iowa and became a full member of the conference in 1995. He is in the midst of a three year program to become a certified Spiritual Director so writes about different aspects of spirituality. He has made a couple labyrinths and uses one he made in his own back yard as a tool for prayer and meditation. In the last few months he has begun writing about his process of recovering from 25 years of dysthymic (chronic) depression.
Why do you blog?
I find three motivations for my blogging. The first one is that I enjoy writing, but haven’t yet developed the discipline to be able to get those couple books out of my head and heart. I do write monthly for our church, but wanted a more regular outlet for writing beyond just my private journal, so blogging is a way to work my way up to more writing (I write in order to write more). A second reason is that there are things in my head and heart that don’t belong in the pulpit, in my mind. Either they don’t belong because they detract from the message of Christ, or they don’t belong because they divide the body instead of building up the body, so some quirky things as well as some political things. There is a place for them, but not the pulpit. So blogging becomes a way for me to get those things out and to practice stating my response to issues and events in the world. The third reason is as a sort of therapy. This might seem paradoxical from the last reason, but one of the struggles with my dysthymic depression is to believe that I have things that are worth saying and that are worth other people reading. So in order to blog regularly, I need to reaffirm the idea that my ideas are worth putting out there in the world for others to agree and disagree with.
What has been your best blogging experience?
One day I was reading something that Pat Robertson had said that was way off base in my mind (I can’t even remember what it is now, he has said so many things like that) and I reacted to it from the perspective of a Christian pastor who did not appreciate the message he was presenting. I trackbacked to Joe Gandelman’s blog, The Moderate Voice and Joe kindly marked my entry as a must read for people.
What would be your main advice to a novice blogger?
Write original stuff regularly. It is okay from time to time to just put something up that is either a quote or a link to another blog, but I find myself gaining interest in someone who adds their own flavor to the blogosphere.
The other thing would be write respectfully. As a proclaimed Christian and a pastor on my blog, I know that many people who are neither will read that and will form their view of Christian’s and pastor’s from how I present myself. Satire can be present, but keep the focus on the issue without demonizing or dehumanizing the person no matter how much you might disagree with them. I write knowing that my daughters, my wife, my family, members of my church, and others that know me will be reading this.
If you only had time to read three blogs a day, what would they be?
•The Moderate Voice: One of the first blogs I began reading regularly and I still find the endeavor to present a balanced view of the world helpful.
•The Independent Christian Voice: Same basic reason but with a Christian tone and perspective.
•Locusts and Honey: It is through this site, especially John’s Methodist Weekly Review that I have connected with Methodist Blogging.
Who are your spiritual heroes?
Henri Nouwen, Ignatius of Loyola, Father Blackie Ryan (Andrew Greeley fictional character), Evagrius of Pontus, Fred Rogers
What are you reading at the moment?
Urban T. Holmes’ Spirituality for Ministry. This is one of the books I am reading for my class on Spiritual Direction.
What is your favorite hymn and why?
“How Great Thou Art” I find that whenever I get to the chorus that I have to let my heart soar to sing it right and that is always a good thing for me.
Can you name a major moral, political, or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind?
I find my view of God to still be in transition (in process, so to speak). I began life focusing on the “omni”s of God. I saw God as the all-powerful fully controlling presence in the universe. But the problem of evil and sin had to challenge that idea. If that view of God was true, then ultimately God was the source of evil and I can’t do that. My time in the Reformed Church switched that understanding to Sovereignty of God and predestination. But ultimately, that didn’t wash either because it too ended up being about power over and posited the idea that God was still responsible for evil. I am leaning much more lately to the idea of God’s sovereignty related to God’s freedom from control. God’s choices are made without coercion from any source. That has implications in prayer, which now becomes a relationship activity instead of a magical way to get God to do what we want done. It also has implications to the idea of being made in God’s image and how that relates to God’s choice to gift us with free will. Free will is not independent autonomy, but personal sovereignty, God inviting us to choose freely and God holding us responsible for the choices we make. My mind is still changing on this one.
What philosophical thesis do you think is most important to combat?
Linear causality. I am very much a process thinker in theology and counseling and in looking at life. Ed Friedman in Generation to Generation flipped my paradigm around with his interpretation of Murray Bowens family systems theory and the centrality of relationship process to understand what happens in families and communities. The post-modernism that I studied for a while also helped to expose the weakness of the modern view of causality in explaining what happens in the world.
If you could effect one major change in the governing of your country, what would it be?
It is impossible to do it, but the abolition of political parties. Or maybe the dilution of the US stranglehold on the two party system. Right now, accountability is virtually nonexistent and the two parties are stagnant in power and powerlessness (both paradoxically present in both parties).
If you could effect one major policy change in the United Methodist Church?
Having lived in churches that express the three major types of church organization (congregational, Presbyterian and Episcopal) I find it hard to see how any policy change would really do anything. The more those three types of styles are different, the more they operate the same. What is needed, I believe in the UMC is not a change in policy, but a change of heart. We need to set aside the political parties (yes they are and will continue to be there, too) and seek to work together to find an answer to the world’s issues and needs instead of creating adversarial relationships with one another.
What would be your most important piece of advice about life?
Open up to the fullness of abundance that God already provides in life, love, laughter, beauty for eyes and ears. Don’t be afraid of risking love even when previously hurt. That abundant healing of God’s is available.
What, if anything, do you worry about?
That I might give up the journey and accept simple existence (see 12 above)
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything that you'd do differently?
Wow, that is tough. At first I might name a few choices that I would have made differently, but that would mean my life now would not exist. True, my life is not perfect, but there are some people and things in my life now that are absolutely wonderful and exciting and if I had changed things in the past I wouldn’t have them. So, upon further consideration, I would say not really.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do now)?
Oh, this is easy. Owning and operating a retreat center/Bed and Breakfast in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We decided that last year while on a vacation there.
What do you like doing in your spare time?
I have been a computer geek for a long, long time. So that is what I do. It might be doing things on my linux box (which hosts my blog and a few other web sites I have made), it might be doing more with web site design, or even messing with Photoshop. I have done some simple programming for fun.
What is your most treasured possession?
Sad to say it would probably be my computer. I can’t say people because they are not possessions. I just walked around my house trying to see if there was anything else, and I couldn’t find anything. I’m sad to say that because it is just a thing, true a tool that can be used to do good things, but a treasure? I try to keep my relationship with my computer that of a tool instead of an idol, but that is a fine line.
What talent would you most like to have?
Painting and drawing. I am especially intrigued by watercolor.
If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner, who would they be?
•My Mom would be first. She died suddenly three years ago from a aneurysm as a complication of Polycystic Kidney disease the day after Christmas. I hadn’t talked to her for a month or two and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or to let her know what was going on in my life. I would love the opportunity.
•Ed Friedman would be second. His books really saved my ministry at a time when I needed his perspective most. I heard him at a conference just a couple months before he died. There are a couple things from his last book (dealing with leadership sabotage) that I would love to have him help me to understand.
•Thomas Merton. I have only read some of his writings, but I think I would love to sit with him and experience his spiritual presence.
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