PERICOPAE

An attempt at Sabbath keeping....

2009-10-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

It's been weeks since I have really rested. Work has been brutal, with it's long hours and unforeseen challenges. I promised myself a respite of sorts from all that has to do with work. I have longed for this day of retreat, a day of thankfulness and regeneration.

God says to me, "Enter my rest."

I got up early and went to a morning service at the church my parents attend regularly. The message title was "How needed is the Holy Spirit?" I was wondering how the Dallas Theological, Mdiv. would field this question. In this case, Pastor Jesse was not a disappointment. He is a young, passionate, Spirit empowered man, whom I also find to be gentle and humble.

God says to me, "Enter my rest."

I tried going outside on our back deck to enjoy the warmth of sunshine, but in spite of it being sunny, it's a blustery day. It was peaceful though, as I shared the moment with our cat at my feet. Just when I began noticing the clean smell of the breezes, I had a gnawing thought that I should be outside mowing down the weeds, that have taken over, what once was a well-groomed lawn. My wife knows me well and poked her head out the door and said, "If you are thinking thoughtful thoughts that's good, but if you're thinking about mowing the lawn come inside at once."

God says to me, "Enter my rest."

To attempt a complete day of ceasing from work does not mean that work is wrong. Marva Dawn insists that our work is worship when we do it to the glory of God, but that Sabbath keeping is about "the rhythm of the worshipful life, alternating between regular days of work and a special day of ceasing, resting, embracing, and feasting." Eugene Peterson has said, that the Sabbath is set apart to "pray and play" or was it "play and pray?" The order probably makes no difference in God's economy.

God says to me, "Enter my rest."

Blessed art thou, O Lord God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath lights. May the Sabbath-light which illumines our dwelling cause peace and happiness to shine in our home. Bless us, O God, on this holy Sabbath, and cause Thy divine glory to shine upon us. Enlighten our darkness and guide us and all mankind, Thy children, towards truth and eternal light. Amen

––opening prayer of the traditional home service for Sabbath eve

churched....

2008-11-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

Halloween night, my wife and I went out with two other couples for dinner and the movie, The Secret Life of Bees. It was a good time to get out and be with close friends. All our kids are beyond the age to make a big deal about the evening, so any excuse to avoid trick or treaters and staying home with the lights turned off appealed to me. The restaurant staff was in full costume though, including a Sarah Palin look alike.

I generally don't pray out loud in restaurants, believing that prayer is sacred and not to be done for show, but in private, where our Heavenly Father can see us. In this instance however, everyone else at the table joined hands to pray for the meal. Feeling awkward, I clasped hands with the others and J.T. thanked God for the food. My silent prayer was that he would be quick about it, because I didn't want to draw the attention of others. J.T. prayed and immediately after, realizing the discomfort, began singing Kum-Ba-Yah. We all chuckled with comic relief.
I bought a new memoir today, by author Matthew Paul Turner. The book is entitled, Churched: One Kid's Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess, and reading it reminded me of the antics many of us have encountered from being "churched." Like the author who finds the humor of his upbringing in the church, we still desire to love God and others regardless of all the nonsense we've been through in the past and even now, still sometimes experience. It's great to be able to laugh about our own fumblings toward being the people God wants us to be!

Prudence....

2008-10-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

Because of the economic troubles that many of us are sharing in at this time, we have been trying to cut back on our spending and look for ways in which we can save. This has required us to examine more closely how we live.

The weather has been getting colder, so I've been wearing my winter jacket lately. Today I happened to find an old folded invoice in the inside vest pocket. Scribbled on the front and back side of the paper were notes I had taken a couple years ago while listening to a lecture by Eugene Peterson. One of the quotes resonated with me.

"Prudence means taking what we have right now and using it intentionally for God. Everything you need to respond to God you have right now. You don't have to go looking for supplements. You don't have to take another course. You don't have to get your relationship tidied up, so you're ready. It's all there now! Exactly everything you need to respond to Jesus is there. And that's what prudence is__it's taking seriously what is given to us for the purposes of life and living. And for us, more specifically, living for God. Living intentionally with God."

2008-10-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday my wife and I were visiting with friends after church and P.F. recommended a book that she had been reading. Later that day I tried to look up the book online, but couldn't remember the authors name or the book title for that matter. I sent P.F. an email to ask her about the book and found her summary of the book very compelling. Most of the following is excerpts from our correspondence.

She said, "The name of the book is Addiction & Grace, by Gerald May, MD. Scott Peck called it exquisitely written, and it truly is. The point of the book is that our attachments keep us from loving God and our neighbor. It is these addictions that create other gods for us, and because of our addictions we will always be storing up treasures somewhere other than heaven, and these treasures will kidnap our hearts. The book calls us to basically accept our incompleteness (rather than trying to fill it) and states that we can't personally achieve the state of perfection, that we must state our condition of incompleteness. And that this incompleteness within us does not make us unacceptable in God's eyes. He says that our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward God and one another. He says that if we don't fill our minds with guilt and recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of Grace. He says that we can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. He covers the characteristics of addiction and how to heal. There are so many deeply profound thoughts in this book, I can't recommend it enough. It is a book of hope! Get it or borrow it!!!"

I commented, that what she was describing so well was the practice of "detachment." And that the teaching of detachment is found in many religious faiths, especially in the Buddhist faith. I remarked, that Scott Peck always did have a Buddhist bent. The first line in his book, The Road Less Traveled is the Buddhist sentiment, “Life is difficult.” Others have called it the "art of letting go." Also, Larry Crabb wrote an excellent book called, The Pressure's Off: There's a New Way to Live.

She said, "I think the one thing that is different between other spiritual tradition's idea of detachment and the one put forth in Dr. May's book is that human effort to detach is futile. We can't do it, no matter how spiritual we try to become! That we need Grace, God's holy intervention, along with our own actions, to succeed at letting go. The problem is that we choose attachments to fill up those spaces where Grace could have come in. My favorite definition of detachment is in Dr. May's book; he says it's "the liberation of desire" or freedom, and through freedom we can come ultimately to love."

....knowing God from an early age

2008-05-08T00:32:00.000-07:00

J.T. mentioned having had a real sense of knowing God from an early age. He related his experience of realization happened while serving as an alter boy in the Catholic Church. J.T. commented that after sharing this at a leadership conference, someone exclaimed that he had had a "John Wesley experience!"

I googled John Wesley and found that at the age of five, John was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind; and he regarded himself as providentially set apart, as a "brand plucked from the burning."

I would have to say that my parents and grandparents instilled in me an early faith in Jesus. I remember conversations about God and heaven that I had with my granddad as a young boy. One of these conversations was after I had had a fight with my older brother and he was giving me the silent treatment. I was mad because I knew that the only way to set things right with my brother was to apologize. I told my granddad that this situation made me angry because I always seemed to be the one who apologized first. My granddad empathized with my position, but proceeded to explain that Jesus had said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9). I've never since, struggled much against being the first one to say, "I'm sorry" in a conflict.

I have a vivid childhood memory of entertaining myself by singing "He's got the whole world in His hands" while running and jumping on the sidewalk out in front of my grandparents house. I spent that summer with granddad and grandmother. We attended the First Baptist Church across the street. I remember the sense of pride that I had because my granddad helped build that church and my grandmother taught Sunday school.

undiscipled disciples....

2008-03-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

I met a woman in Borders a few weeks ago. She was in the religious book section and looked like she needed assistance. I asked her if I could help her find a specific book and she volunteered in frustration that she had been going to church all her life but she didn’t know why she did anymore. She confessed that she was looking for a book, but didn’t have any idea what she wanted. Although this woman shared that she went to church it was obvious that she was disheartened about her Christian faith. I encouraged her to read Bruxy Cavey’s book, The End of Religion.

Unfortunately, many Christians never experience the “abundant life” promised by Jesus. Dallas Willard says this disparity has come about because of the “Great Omission.” Christ commanded Christians to go out into the world and make disciples of all peoples. Willard believes that discipleship is to often viewed as optional or for “Super Christians” rather than an imperative choice for all Christians. Yet Jesus called believers to follow him, to be disciples or apprentices. Being a disciple is more than just asking Christ in our life and heart, and goes far beyond baptism or our church membership. The Christian life is more than an “insurance policy” or “free ticket” to heaven or the eternal hereafter.

Others wrote about the “Great Omission” in the “Great Commission.” A.W. Tozer called it a “great heresy” and Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace.” The British preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say that in most Churches we hear only half the Gospel. We preach eternal salvation by grace but often fail to encourage the changed or sanctified life. A sanctified life is a life set apart as or declared holy, a consecrated life. The disciple is a student; one who follows or learns from a teacher. Discipleship is more than right thinking, it’s right living. The Christian who fails to see the value of their salvation beyond their eternal security has missed the point. Dallas Willard says, that this is like being a Christian Vampire, “I’ll have a little blood, but I want to live my life now and I’ll see you later in heaven.”

....in the Spirit

2008-01-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

I've been reconnecting with the joy of my salvation! I'm overwhelmed with gratitude towards God, in Christ Jesus for the grace that is continually showered on me. Dallas Willard says, the Kingdom of God (meaning: the reign, government, rule, leadership, control, administration, regulation, management, supervision of the Spirit) should be characterized by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit. This righteousness is more than goodness, it is God's transforming life working in me changing my very nature. This is an ongoing supernatural phenomenon! In the same way God's peace is pervasive, transcending even difficult times, when I give it to God in prayer. It is a peace that passes all understanding. The peace that comes from life in the Spirit gives me freedom. Allowing me to freely love my neighbor, family, coworker, house-mate, and even my "enemies," whoever they may be. The joy that should characterize every disciple of Jesus is rooted in our identity "in Christ." We love God because he first loved us. This love was not a one time thing. It is not pass tense or just something that happened once in the history of my conversion. God is always loving us. The Apostle John did not write that God was loving, he said, "God is Love."

....without distinctions.

2008-01-23T02:18:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, I decided to attend Saint Stephens Episcopal Church. I thought that I needed a different worship experience. I was feeling discouraged about my faith and thought a change in practice and place would help. Sometimes when people talk about their “spirituality” they speak about having the need to experience more of the sacred. Unhappy with my own tradition, I thought that the rituals and traditions in the Episcopal Church would possibly instill a sense of the sacred in me. I found the liturgy and celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday to be a solemn and sacred event, but it wasn’t what I was looking for, it eventually left me feeling hollow.

I worked at the Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center, located in the redwoods near Santa Cruz the summer after my freshman year of college. When people would come to the retreat center on pilgrimage to the redwoods, it was common, almost cliché to hear them ask, ”What’s it like to live in God’s country?” Is God especially present, more apprehensible or closer in some places more than others? “Taking their cues from the teaching of Jesus, the earliest followers finally came to realize that they didn’t need holy buildings or special places to meet with God. They saw themselves as living stones, built together into a new organic temple, made up of the people of God. They believed that the Spirit of God dwelled within this relational temple, this sanctuary-as-community (see 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Ephesians 2:19-22) and that their entire lives were altars upon which to offer sacrificial love to God and others (see Romans 12:1). Because of Jesus, they understood that all of life is holy and every relationship sacred.”

In a lecture series during the Missio Conference at Fuller Theological Seminary, speaker Alan Hirsch said, “What we’ve ended up with are vague reflections of what Jesus was in the gospels.” He points out that the reason for this is that we have built our religious systems over the top of it. In doing so we haveobscured the centrality of Jesus in our lives. Hirsch refers to the writings of Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity. He insists that one way we have subverted the Gospel is by the sacralization of time and space. The idea that some days are more holy than others and some places more sacred can be subversive when these things become important in themselves. The Scriptures point out that all of the earth is the Lord’s, without distinctions.

Bruxy Cavey says, “The Western practice of referring to church buildings as ‘churches’ (rather than the building where a church meets) can work against our ability to see this truth. Some Christians not only call the buildings they meet in ‘church’ but they also call a special room where they hold Sunday services the ‘sanctuary,’ a word that means the sacred place where God dwells. And, to confuse our minds just a little bit more, at the front of the sanctuary is often a big table called the ‘alter,’ a word that refers to animal sacrifice in the Old Testament ritual. But the only alter, the only place of sacrifice Christ-followers should need, is the alter of daily decisions of our lives, where we offer God our energies and agendas, our choices and our lives, where we offer God our desires as “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).

Like my hope in finding something more in the Episcopal Church or the sacral adoration of nature, I have often sought a “sense of the sacred” rather than the face of God. But on a positive note though, Leonard Sweet says, “Ritual is not the way, the truth, and life, but ritual is a reminder that there is a way, a truth, and a life. Rituals fix you in space and time. Change your rituals and you change your ‘fixings.’ Change your ‘fixings’ and you change your realities.” These limits and directions can help us frame our activities; fix a center, orient ourselves. All places are not the same; just as all days aren’t the same. Setting them apart establishes differences that can help provide order to life.

Dan Fogelberg....

2007-12-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I was sad to hear news that Dan Fogelberg died today. He was a great singer/songwriter. I still play his songs whenever I pull out my own guitar.

Dan Fogelberg said, "My grandfather gave me my first guitar, an old acoustic with palm trees and dancing girls painted on it." He's also quoted as saying, "My dad was vehemently opposed to electric guitars. He did not look on that kind of music as legitimate in any way." But luckily he ignored his father's distaste for electric guitars, having said,"Strats are my favorite electric guitars, and I've got quite a collection."

I remember seeing Dan Fogelberg in concert once. I went with Erin, Bill and Jenene. Bill used to visit my college dorm room with his guitar. He was a much better guitar player than I ever was, but we used to have a lot of fun playing together.

I sang or played Dan Fogelberg's "Longer Than" at more weddings than I can remember.

Check out the youtube video of Dan Fogelberg playing "The Leader of the band."

....with singleness of purpose

2007-12-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther dealt with the matter of simplicity in the most profoundly practical way in his book, The Freedom of a Christian. What he saw in acutely sharp focus was that the liberty of the gospel sets us free to serve our neighbor with singleness of purpose. If our salvation is by grace alone, we no longer need to keep juggling a myriad of religious duties to get right with God. We are free from constantly taking our own spiritual temperature. Our freedom from sin allows us to serve others. Before all our serving was for our benefit, a means to somehow get right with God. Only because the grace of God has been showered upon us are we enabled to give that same grace to others.

Luther expressed this thesis in his famous paradox, A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all subject to all. Through the grace of God alone and not by any work of righteousness of our part, we come into the glorious liberty of the gospel. We are all lords and kings, and priests, as Luther put it. We are set free from the law of sin and death. But this freedom is not for our sake alone, it is also a freedom to serve others. Until we are righteous we cannot really do righteous deeds, no matter how hard we try. Luther said, "Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works. Evil works don't make a wicked man, but a wicked man does evil works." Lets illustrate this matter in a simple way. A poor artist may paint many pictures, but he will not paint any good pictures. An inferior contractor may build many homes, but he will not construct any good homes.

The person who is still bound to sin and enslaved to others is not free to truly love his neighbor. A moments reflection on our part confirms the truth of Luther's insight. If we are still in bondage to sin our serving will flow out of that center. We will not have the single eye that gives light to all we do. Pride and fear and manipulation will control our actions. We will not be free to serve our neighbor in simplicity if we are still in bondage to others serving will flow out of that center. We will be controlled by a desire to impress them or receive their help. Without gospel liberty we will forever measure who we are by the yardstick of others. We will not be free to serve our neighbor in simplicity. But once the grace of God has broken into our lives we are free. When we are free from the control of our neighbor, we are able to obey God. And as we obey God with a single heart we are given a new power and desire to serve our neighbor from whom we are now free. We have become servants of our neighbors and yet lords of all. We know simplicity of life. Luther concludes, "A Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian."
(Excerpt from Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity)

....in all things and in all

2007-10-09T17:45:00.001-07:00

I find you, Lord, in all things and in all

I find you, Lord, in all things and in all
my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life,
as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small
and in the vast you vastly yield yourself.

The wondrous game that power plays with Things
is to move in such submission through the world:
groping in roots and growing thick in trunks
and in treetops like a rising from the dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Born in Prague, Austria

This poem is from The Book of Hours 1905. Rilke is said to have written these poems and a book of thirteen connected short stories called, Tales of God “out of his experience of Russia and Nietzsche and Lou.” Rilke was greatly influenced by “Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who had given a name to the yearning place that the young poet had already hollowed out in himself: the death of God. And Nietzsche had defined the task of art: God-making.” Lou Andreas-Salome was the woman who Nietzsche had fallen in love with and had proposed to at age eighteen. The story has it that her refusal led to Nietzsche’s derangement. At age thirty-four she took Rilke for a lover and had accompanied him to Russia on two trips. She later became an associate of Sigmund Freud. The poems are written through the persona of a Russian monk. Rilke later worked as a secretary in Paris for the sculptor Rodin.

Aligning my will to God's....

2007-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

E. Stanley Jones described the effect of prayer on us like this: "Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. Aligned to God's redemptive will, anything, everything can happen in character, conduct, and creativeness. The whole person is heightened by that prayer contact. In that contact I find health for my body, illumination for my mind, and moral and spiritual reinforcement for my soul. Prayer is a time exposure to God, so I expose myself to God for an hour and a half or two hours a day, asking less and less for things and more and more for Himself. For having Him, I have everything. He gives me what I need for character, conduct, and creativeness, so I'm rich with His riches, strong in His strength, pure in His purity, and able in His ability" (Kent Hughes: 1001 Great Stories and Quotes p. 326).

What the Light Was Like: Poems....

2007-09-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

THE SIMPLE DARK

Black birds slice their evening patterns—
long curves in the sky. Everything
is drawing down into shade.
But the dark, which is at first so simple
is not simple. Away from the farmhouse
with slits of yellow, the monochrome
develops like a print in the chemical bath.

The unbroken velvet swims
with complications so subtle that
seeing and hearing must take their time
to know. The shadow purples,
the dusk intricate with crickets. The sky
infested with pricks of light.
My whole body an ear, an eye.

Luci Shaw

A person standing alone....

2007-09-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

I was reminded by my son last night of the importance of family. Sometimes I need others to help me keep it together. Thank you D.

"Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.... A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).

join in the celebration....

2007-04-22T01:31:00.000-07:00

Two friends have sent me email reminders to join in the celebration of Earth Day weekend. One of these friends informed me that Lowe’s Hardware is having a special on energy efficient lights. My other friend shared that he was leading music Saturday night at All Saints Episcopal Church, because the congregants love Earth Day. He shared the lyrics of the old hymn, "Morning Has Broken," that Cat Stevens made popular years ago. He said, “The song still moves me, so I wanted to share it with you to experience anew this Earth Day.

Every year, with the coming of spring, my wife and I are faced with the perennial task of yard maintenance. This work consists of clearing fallen branches and pinecones from beneath our Monterey Pines, trimming the lawns, and the assiduous weed control. Pulling the intruders from the soil by hand, or hacking down the first assault with my “weed-whacker” is a job I have learned to enjoy. Of course, the power tool is effective on the higher weeds, but the new growth quickly reclaims our one acre property, in spite of the new bark we put down to bring the land to submission. The insidious growth of weeds in our vegetable and flowerbeds, grass and rose garden is difficult to stay ahead of in an earth safe way.

Poets and prophets have used flowers and weeds as metaphor in their sayings. They often ponder the difference between the two. Clearly, some analogies have reference to people, as does Jesus’ parable of “the wheat and the tares.” Jesus often uses weeds as instructive metaphors in many of his teachings. In the parable of the sower, he spoke about the “good seed” being “choked by the weeds” (Matthew 13:7). I recently read a contemporary story of "the wheat and the tares” in which “an enemy did this” (Matthew 13:28). Apparently, a disgruntled worker introduced the jimson weed to North America by scattering the seeds in the fields of a farmer who had fired him from his job.

I commented to my Mom the other day saying; the Gravenstein orchard across the road was infested with mistletoe. She told me that Luther Burbank had imported European Mistletoe into California in the 1900s. I read somewhere that since that time, it has spread to 24 tree species, including the willow, alder, poplar, elm, mountain ash, crabapple, pear and the Gravenstein apple. In fact, one of Burbank’s experimental gardens is a five-minute walk from my house. I doubt Luther Burbank meant to cause harm, as the disgruntled worker seeking revenge did, but the plant has proven to be harmful to trees where the infestations are thick.

In consideration of the earth, people, flowers and weeds I agree with the poet, Luci Shaw when she says, “How drab our world would seem without fields and mountainsides carpeted with wildflowers in spring––multicolored lupines, Indian paintbrush, Texas bluebonnets, California poppies, trilliums, snowdrops and buttercups, bunchberries, forget-me-nots, edelweiss. All of them, and many others, grow spontaneously, filling the air with fragrance and color. And they’re all weeds, every one of them….”

In her book, “The Crime of Living Cautiously, Luci Shaw quotes from a Richard Wilbur poem, “Two voices in a Meadow,” In About a Milkweed Pod:

Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.

What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.

Practice resurrection....

2007-04-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"
(Collected Poems: 1957-1982 by Wendell Berry)

So, friends, every day do something,
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing....
Love someone who does not deserve it....
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias...
Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered the facts....
Practice resurrection.

WAYTRUTHLIFE....

2007-04-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

In spite of the Evangelical emphasis on “personal evangelism,” “personal salvation,” and the need for a “personal relationship” with Jesus, much of the modern church experience has been depersonalized. In the face of the “God is dead” claims and the increasing secularization of culture, Evangelicals fearing that the authority of scripture and the influence of the church were quickly loosing ground, reduced Christianity to a “battle for the mind.”

Christian apologetics focused on the truth claims in scripture, believing that a logical appeal to those outside of faith was all that was necessary. Every thoughtful Christian had read Josh McDowell’s, Evidence that demands a Verdict, in an effort to honor the Apostle Peter’s admonition to “Always be prepared to give an answer…” The now infamous “Lord, lunatic or liar “ appeal was often delivered while ignoring the second part of Peter’s admonition, concerning, “gentleness and respect.”

The accusation that Evangelical Christians are more concerned about “thinking right, rather than living rightly” is evidenced in the many unchanged lives of believers. Ronald Sider’s question, “Why are Christians living just like the rest of the world?” should be obvious. We have to often insisted in presenting the truth claims about Christ, while giving spare attention to the call, “...in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.”

The modern understanding of what it means to “believe” or have “faith” in something or someone has clouded the true meaning of what it is to be Christian. In scripture “believing” concerns more than a mere “mental assent” that something is true. As my Pastor, today quoted from the book of James, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that –– and shudder.” Meaning that saying you believe something is true is not enough. Believing cannot be separated from what we do.

From what we can know about the first century followers of Jesus, the description “Christian” was mostly recorded as a derogatory designation. The idea of a “personal relationship” with Jesus may have been implied, but was not referred to in the New Testament. “Confessing that “Jesus is Lord” or believing in the “Lordship of Christ" was the preferred requirement for followers of the Way. This was a political statement and cost many their lives.

The Gospel of Mark gives us three imperatives as an invitation into the Jesus way. “Repent,’ requires a decision to leave one way of life for another. It commands a change of mind or heart that results in a change of direction. The second imperative, ‘Believe,’ requires a personal, trusting, relational involvement in this comprehensive reordering of reality. And the third imperative, ‘Follow,’ gets us moving obediently in a way of life that is visible and audible in Jesus, a way of speaking and thinking, imagining and praying, that is congruent with the present, immediate (“at hand”) kingdom realities” (Peterson, 21-22).

Eugene Peterson points out that of all the “I am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John, one is most often quoted, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” He says it is also the “most frequently dismissed.” Although Evangelical Christians have been quick to affirm that Jesus is the truth, we have mostly set aside the fact that Jesus is the way. Without “Way” and “Truth” operating together we never realize Jesus “the Life.”

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me" (John 14-23-24).

uncomfortable with ambiguity....

2007-03-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

When I was in High School, I remember being concerned about the low view of science a family friend had expressed. This had been quite confusing to me because I had grown up believing this person was very smart. I recall asking my Dad about this, he explained to me that the less someone knows about a given subject, the more opinionated they can be, but that his experience had taught him, that the more someone knows about a subject, the less opinionated they become. I don’t remember being satisfied with that answer until I understood him to be saying, the smartest people are often less sure about things in spite of knowing a lot about the subjects, because the more you learn about something the more questions, more options and more implications you will have. Knowledge is a vacuum. Often, when people know very little about something, they suck up the first thing they hear on the subject. If it ends there without further investigation they tend to “spout off“ about the only things they know.

It’s been a month or so since I read Tony Campolo's latest book, Letters to a Young Evangelical, but I have continued to consider my own experiences in evangelicalism. Compolo is certainly appropriate in the role of mentor; he is reasonably evenhanded in both the celebration of this heritage as well as its many pitfalls. But other writers have been less charitable when considering the anti-intellectualism associated with Evangelicals. In his cultural critique, Mark Noll, McManis Professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College argues, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."

Having grown up in conservative evangelicalism, I can remember being cautioned about trusting information from disciplines like psychology, anthropology and history for that matter. I think there was a fear that using information from other disciplines would lead people in error concerning the Scriptures and their faith. Certainly there is some truth in this, because Science has often postulated ideas that were in seeming conflict with the Christian worldview. But the “God said it, I believe it” literalist approach to the Bible that fails so often to consider grammatical forms, meanings of language or the contextual relevancy of Scripture points to what Noll and others would call the “disaster of fundamentalism.” Any effort to harmonize special revelation with general revelation from other fields of study is often viewed as giving into the world or secularism.

Many Evangelical Christians are overly uncomfortable with ambiguity. The tendency for many people is to reduce faith in God into something simple, formulaic, managed, safe. It's unfortunate, but often the need for safety in religion leads to dogmatic fanaticism. Evangelicals have spent a great amount of energy to determine how everything is going to turn out. The numerous end of world predictions and theories of Jesus' imminent return, the rapture (a term not found in scripture) and other eschatological confusion: postmillennialism, premillennialism, amillennialism and for those of us who just couldn't buy into any of this, panmillennialism (It will all pan out in the end!). The goal for some has been to figure out God and totally understand him, but as many thinking Christians have come to realize, "The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control" (Bell, 25).

"The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar terrritory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him" (Peterson, 18).

patterns, processes, and principles....

2007-03-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

While taking a coarse in business leadership I read Robert Clinton’s book, The Making of a Leader. In this book readers are encouraged to create a linear time-line of their life so that they can consider the “big picture” in terms of patterns, processes, and principles that are foundational to understanding the analysis of one’s life. The patterns are seen in long-term observations. To recognize these patterns you consider the “processes” or those providential events, people, circumstances, special interventions, and inner-life lessons. After analyzing these patterns and processes readers are encouraged to identify some of the foundational truths that have been gained though the analysis.

A few years ago, “life strategist” and TV personality Phillip C. McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, wrote a book entitled Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out. Although I’m not an avid fan of the self-help genre, I paused while flipping through channels to listen to him plug his book on Oprah. Like Robert Clinton, Dr. Phil enthusiastically explained the importance of recognizing some of the key external factors that have shaped everyone’s life. He encouraged people to trace ten defining moments, seven critical choices, and five pivotal people that influenced who they are today. Although I never read Dr. Phil’s book, I have been thinking about some of the pivotal people in my life.

When I worked on the Clinton/McGraw analysis of my life for the course I was taking, I realized that one of the patterns that can be observed is that there are constants that characterize most people’s lives. Some of these constants can be identified as those people who have nurtured and encouraged you all of your life, Most often these are family members, but having grown-up in a military family we were often stationed far from grandparents and cousins. For this reason many military families end up “adopting” other people into their own families. Many of these “family members” play a provisional role, but some become more influential than “blood relatives”. Keeping in touch with these “extended family” has been one of those life lessons. Foundational to the health of any person are the people who care and love you. Those are most often the people whom we have shared life experiences.

The iPod has changed my life....

2007-01-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

It was two weeks before Christmas and I still hadn’t purchased my wife’s big gift. I say big gift because I had already found some smaller gifts. You guessed it; by this I mean inexpensive gifts. Although she may have been satisfied with the Encyclopedia of North American Birds or the DVD version of the movie Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley, I wanted her to experience what I had, even if it was in a small way.

For a number of weeks before this, when we would go to the gym my wife would borrow my iPod while we exercised on the treadmills. It was at the gym I decided to get my wife an iPod of her own. Two years before, one of my employees had strongly urged that they should give me a 30GB Color iPod for my college graduation present. I knew that she probably wouldn’t be as excited about receiving an iPod as I had been, but thought it would be a fine gift anyway. At least she wouldn’t have to borrow mine.

We were trying to be more modest in our purchases that year and I had been cautioned not to spend a lot of money. I went to Costco in hopes of finding an iPod that would be affordable. Although I had every intention in buying an iPod, it was difficult to decide which one I should get. My quandary was that I had a 30GB iPod and that wasn’t enough media storage space for me. This expectation made purchasing the iPod shuffle out of the question, and the 30GB or 80GB iPods were just too expensive. This left me with the choice of the iPod nano with the capacity of 1000 or more songs, six different colors, and storage space of 2GB, 4GB or 8GB. I narrowed it down to a choice between the 2GB and 4GB models because the price of $249.00 for the 8GB iPod was the same list price of the 30GB iPod with 2.5-inch color video display. After some determined deliberation I left the store without my wife’s big gift. I was plagued with the feeling that 2GB was priced reasonable but would not be enough memory, and that the cost difference between the 4GB iPod and the 30GB video iPod were so close that I felt it made the 4GB iPod a bad choice.

A week later I was a bit disgusted with myself, not having purchased the gift yet. My indecisiveness had got the best of me and made me feel kind of silly for not making my mind up there and then to go back to the store and make the purchase. After all, what was the big deal! I expressed my disgust to a friend who in turn suggested that we look on craigslist to find an iPod that someone may be selling for a better price. In minutes we had found a 4GB iPod nano that was unopened in its original package for a little less than what it would cost to purchase a 2GB iPod at Costco. I made my mind up and after contacting the selling party I jumped in my car and drove to Mill Valley on one of the stormiest days of the year.

During the forty-five minute drive through torrential rainfall I began to question whether I had made the right decision. Eventually I did find the sellers home but not without getting lost on the winding roads up to their residence. I knocked on the door seeing the man I had spoken with on the phone, through a front widow working at a desk. I was welcomed in out of the rain and we made our transaction in his entree way. I tried to make small talk by asking him what he did for a living. He told me that he was a corporate business consultant. Looking at his home and artwork on the walls I imagined that he was very good at what he did. He asked me if I was buying the iPod for myself or for a Christmas gift. I told him that it was for my wife but I had a 30GB iPod myself. The man told me that he had got the iPod nano as a promotion gift when he bought a laptop for his daughter. After telling me that he had the 30GB iPod too, he paused for a moment and said, “The iPod has changed my life!”

On my drive home and since then I have been thinking about what this guy said. I realized that the reason I had gone to such lengths to purchase my wife an iPod was because my iPod had altered my life too. I know this may sound to some (those who don’t own an iPod) that I am a bit shallow or at the very least I have been swayed by consumerist exploitation, but the fact is that I do life differently since I was given the gift of an iPod. Proof of this is simple. Why else would I be taking it everywhere I go? Where else would I find so much of my growing music collection at my fingertips? How else would my treasured collection of hundreds of cds end up in my garage? How would I have listened to so many audio books, lectures and sermons? How could I be reading Soren Kierkegaard’s, Fear and Trembling while listening to insights and commentary given in lectures at UC Berkeley by renown philosopher Hubert Dreyfus? I could provide more examples and come up with the same conclusion. Why else would I have written this protracted post? “The iPod has changed my life!”

Read by the Author....

2007-01-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
Lecture by Eugene H. Peterson at Calvin College
(Reads the introduction to his book, see my April 2006 post)

Eugene H. Peterson, now retired, was for many years James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. In addition to his widely acclaimed paraphrase of the New Testament, "The Message," he has written many other books. His most recent book is entitled, "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places", a conversation in spiritual theology.

Listen to this lecture (Requires RealPlayer)

An ongoing conversation....

2007-01-12T23:05:00.000-08:00

I was talking with a colleague at work the other day. I was excited about a book I had just finished reading and was trying to articulate some of its main points. In the book, The Powers that Be, Walter Wink explains his theology of nonviolence; more specifically what he calls “the myth of redemptive violence.” In an effort to keep the conversation short and get back to work I hurried through some of the details of the book. I’m not sure I was very clear, so I will take this time to be more specific.

Walter Wink’s book reflects an “open view” of God’s ongoing role with humankind and creation. Believing that the “classical view” of God’s providence over the affairs of humankind does not explain the problem of evil in individuals, nations, institutions and other areas of social reality. Wink believes that the Powers are inherently fixed into God’s system, whose human face is Jesus, but that God has self-limited himself (herself) by giving us freewill. The author affirms the importance of the Apostle Paul’s words about Jesus, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15-17).

Wink believes power relationships between people, systems, institutions and structures are necessary and created for good; however he acknowledges that their authority or purposes can be perverted through the wrong choices of people. Ultimately, he says that we should resist the inducement to demonize those who do evil, believing that all Powers are salvageable or redeemable. He is particularly concerned about the invisible aspects of our institutions. “The Powers That Be are not then simply people and their institutions, as I had first thought; they also include the spirituality at the core of those institutions and structures” (4). Wink maintains that the Gospel must extend beyond individual liberation to the transformation of the Powers in our societies, enabling them to do good rather than evil, helping them recover and live out their unique calling from God.

The conversation shifted from thoughts about self-replicating systemic evil, national, and corporate violence to a discussion about individual evil. How do we learn to practice nonviolence in a culture that believes the myth of redemptive violence? My colleague said that his Buddhist teacher stressed the importance of guarding our words and thoughts, because our words always precede our actions. This reminded me of the now “bumper sticker” wisdom of postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida, “There is nothing outside the text.” This also relates to my understanding of the Buddhist teaching, “Life is illusion.” Without the text we would not know how to experience our world.

Philosopher James K.A. Smith says, “When Derrida claims that there is nothing outside the text, he means there is no reality that is not always already interpreted through the lens of language…Texts that require interpretation are not things that are inserted between me and the world; rather, the world is a kind of text requiring interpretation” (39).

All this makes the description of Christ as the “Logos” in the prologue to the Gospel of John more exciting, remembering that the Word is always previous. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:1-5).

Wonder can’t be packaged....

2007-01-11T02:01:00.000-08:00

I was sitting with a friend in a booth at Marie Callender's restaurant. We hadn’t seen each other for a while because he lives in Europe, so I had driven to San Jose in order to spend some time with him while he was in the States. My friend works with an agency that seeks to develop relationships with local church leaders, providing encouragement and training in the area of church growth. He has a heart to serve, but was expressing the emotional feelings of burnout.

Last year I read a book by Ted Dekker. In the book the author says that often it is new believers that are the most passionate about their faith but from the day of their confession they begin slipping into “the slumber of Christianity.” Many find that they have lost their passion and are only going through the motions. Somehow we lose our sense of gratitude, joy, and wonder.

This was one of those times for my friend, but I could not wait to tell him how my life had changed since I had reconnected to faith in Jesus. Leo Tolstoy marveled at how faith and conversion turns a person around when he said, “Everything that was on my right side is now on my left.” This is where I found myself. I was filled with joy and experiencing wonder in the anticipation of what God was doing. I had been awakened from sleep. I was like a new convert trying to express the inexpressible.

Eugene Peterson says, “It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.”

visionary leaders and managers....

2006-12-17T16:48:00.000-08:00

I was looking at my bookshelf and noticing how many books on management and leadership I have. In consideration of the difference between visionary leaders and managers I find it interesting that the books I've read only speak of it as an either or situation.

I think more attention should be given to the fact that leaders and managers are often the same person. In some cases doing one or the other poorly, but the point is that if you are going to be a significant leader of vision it is difficult to move forward without management and procedure in place. Without these things vision becomes a mere pep talk.

It's been my experience that some of the best partnerships are a combination of these skills and gifts.

Some of the most successful churches are those where the leaders have given administrative responsibilities to someone who is more capable.

A vision we give to others....

2006-11-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

I recently heard a speaker talk about the importance of a person’s name. Jesus was a vision caster; he impacted the lives of his disciples by renaming them based on the vision of who they could be. Larry Crabb says, “A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.”

Eugene Peterson tells a story about Martin Buber having said, "The greatest thing any person can do for another is to confirm the deepest thing in him, in her--to take the time and have the discernment to see what's most deeply there, most fully that person, and then confirm it by recognizing and encouraging it."

Peterson stresses the importance of looking beyond surface appearances. "We have dealings with hundreds of people who take one look at us, make a snap judgement, and then slot us into a category so that they won't have to deal with us as persons. They treat us something less than we are; and if we're in constant association with them, we become less."

....like country music

2006-10-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

About twenty years ago a business partner commented that my music choices were somewhat strange. At the time I think we were listening to Bruce Cockburn... I admitted that I had always had an eclectic taste in music, and he jokingly responded, "When you grow-up and mature you'll like country music!".

Honestly, I thought this idea was not likely, but today having listened to all 43 songs on the latest Vince Gill album, These Days (without a break I'd like to add), I am reminded of my friend's words.

truth telling....

2006-09-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

About two years ago, author James Fry published a book entitled, A Million Pieces that shot up the National Best Sellers List with the help of Oprah Winfrey's Book Club endorsements. He followed up with a sequel entitled, My Friend Leonard. I am a sucker for a good memoir and read both of these books with anticipated excitement. Upon finishing the last page of My Friend Leonard, I closed the book, put it on the nightstand, and turned out the light by my bed. Before my head hit the pillow I woke my wife up by saying aloud that James Fry must have embellished this story, it didn't ring true.

Later that week I realized that I had had a "BLINK" moment, because The Smoking Gun (a website that regularly posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots with the intent to bring to public light information that is damning, shocking, outrageous, or amazing, yet also somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources) exposed James Fry's best-selling nonfiction memoir as being "filled with fabrications, falsehoods, other fakery." After learning my suspicions about Fry's books were at very least embellished truths or at worst shameless fiction, I quickly removed the books from my "Recommends" list on this blog.

A storyteller is a person who invites others to enter into the experience of a story. Barbara Brown Taylor's latest book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith does just that. Unlike the James Fry books mentioned above, her words about truth telling, public and private give you a window into both. Taylor shares her story of leaving a 15-year career as an Episcopal priest. Her honesty is striking and at times her descriptions are comparable to other great writers like Annie Dillard or Frederick Buechner. The following excerpts are from an address given at the Washington National Cathedral, June 7, 2006.

"If there are other memoir writers sitting here this evening, then you can take a little nap now, because you already know how it goes. The book you meant to write is not the book you write. You turn out to be even more narcissistic, melodramatic, and self-pitiful than you had reasonably feared. People who love you are willing to tell you this, which makes you even more narcissistic, melodramatic and et cetera. Finally, after you have written the book three times, ruthlessly wringing the necks of chapters you raised from baby chicks, you find that the writing heals itself as it heals you. The language runs clear at last. The flaws you can still see are not the ones in the writing but the ones in the mirror. You can look at yourself now with something closer to forgiveness than shame, so that a mere five weeks after you have sworn on everything holy that you will never, ever put yourself or your family through anything like this again, you are already thinking about the next book. Am I right?"

"One thing I discovered over the years was that the people who put themselves at risk like that—telling their story out loud, taking responsibility for their lives, making their private truth public—they were the ones who seemed best able to move on, while those who concealed their damage carried it around with them like an IV drip."

rarely will a politician say anything....

2006-09-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I was listening to an interview on Public Radio with an Associated Press writer (don't quote me but I think it was Denis Gray or maybe James Fallows). He was commenting about how with so many political consultants and pollsters surrounding our Presidents these days that rarely will a politician say anything without considering the numbers.

He said that George W. Bush won the election on one sentence, "You may not agree with my policies, but I stand on my word." Of course as one would expect, this slogan was a calculated response to the accusations of John Kerry's "wishy-washy" stances.

The writer went on to say that Robert F. Kennedy's remarks to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination would never have been possible in today's age of sound bites, because to go "off book" can be a "political career disaster." I assume the writer was being ironic, although he did not mention that two months later, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down during a celebration following his victory in the California primary, June 5, 1968.

I finally got around to downloading an mp3 recording of Robert F. Kennedy's address and found it to be very moving.

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
~ Aeschylus

....like resurrection.... an invitation; it asked.

2006-07-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes someone to ask the right question or the same question. Over coffee I shared my vocational search with a local Pastor and friend. After hearing my story he asked me if I was pursuing my M.Div. to somehow "repay God for what he had done for me?" I would prefer to call it a "response" rather than payback, but the result is something "...like resurrection... an invitation; it asked."

I thought having come this far that bringing personal faith and pastoral vocation together would be the next step. But I find myself in a similar place as expressed by Nora Gallagher, "I was meant to remain in the middle for a while, between clergy and laity, a hybrid, a crossbreed, not the one and not the other. An inhabitant of the borderlands, in order to inform not only myself but the church, too. I needed to live out the "priesthood of the laity" to find out how far it could be taken inside the church, and what it might mean outside her walls" (207-208).

lose our life to find it....

2006-06-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

You said, God is in the business of transforming people right where they are, and that my business is as much "holy ground" as any other piece of real estate around. Last year "fulltime ministry” seemed the best thing to do, regardless of the Paul Stevens book you loaned me about Christian vocation and ministry in the workplace. I remember Stevens quoting George Bernard Shaw, that every profession is a conspiracy against the laity, insisting that professionalism robbed people of the greatest motivation to “turn ordinary work into a sacred ministry.” So why did I want to go to Seminary

Do you recall telling me that you loved reading Frederick Buechner? Right away this endeared me to you, because I highly regard this author and his insightful wisdom about life. Buechner says, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are kept moments, and life itself is a grace.”

I am reminded of this as I have been reading a new memoir by Barbara Brown Taylor entitled, Leaving Church. Her story has resonated with my own sense of vocation and calls attention to the words of Jesus saying that we need to lose our life to find it.

Eat this Book....

2006-04-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

I often experience when I read books and investigate different subjects that I regularly hit upon the same realities. I am more tempted to think that I am reading into these writings somehow, but I have come to understand that "spiritual reading" can be a matter of receiving.

From an early age I was taught to read like most people. I read for information and for comprehension. I learned to distill what I read to basic ideas or depersonalized facts. Reading for information only, I can distance myself from the facts; I can pick and choose what suits me. I may ask what can it do for me? How will I benefit from it or more specifically how can I use it? While admiring good writing, I learn to summarize, glean the main thesis and I make every effort to pack these facts into my brain falsely believing that just having more information will change my life.

Unless I internalize or take in what I have read it will never change me. I have always appreciated what the writer of the Book of James says about this concerning Scripture, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like” (1:23-24). In a modern day parable involving his grandson Eugene Peterson shows that Scripture “depersonalized into an object to be honored, …detached from precedence and consequence… perpetuates a lifetime of reading marked by devout indifference.”

In his latest book Peterson draws on the prophetic experience of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Apostle John. Eat this Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading reflects on the nature of our Holy Scriptures. He explains that Scripture is more than informational it is formational. The Spirit uses it to shape us into what God intends for us. In this way we present ourselves to become more like God’s Son. “The book, the Bible, reveals the self-revealing God and along with that the way the world is, the way life is, the way we are. We need to know the lay of the land that we are living in. We need to know what is involved in this country of the Trinity, the world of God’s creation and salvation and blessing.” (34).

Spiritual reading is personal and participatory, receiving the words in such a way that they become interior to our lives, the rhythms and images becoming practices of prayer, acts of obedience, ways of love (28). We depersonalize the text when we read for information or just what we can get from the text whether it be inspiration, instruction or comfort. We may be in danger of using the Word for our own ends and therefore miss the formative nature of the life revealing text.

"Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: 'Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.’ So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey" (NIV, Rev. 10:8-9).

Asking God-questions....

2006-01-30T20:37:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago we celebrated my father's seventieth birthday. There were many family and friends in attendance and I was feeling a little uncomfortable. I realize that my social discomfort was because I was tired of explaining why we had not moved to Pasadena. In fact I spent most of the time talking to those at the party I had not known previously, to avoid the issue altogether. However, I eventually sat down next to my Aunt to eat a piece of cake, giving her the opportunity to ask me about our plans to move. At this point I felt like a recording when I gave the details of the turn of events that had led us to postpone our move. When I explained that we had taken our house off the market after the third escrow had fallen through my Aunt said, “Maybe it is God’s will that you not move after all.”

I responded by saying, “I bristle a bit when people say that.” Feeling that I may have been rather abrupt, I explained I didn't want to assume to know the answers to God-questions like that. She paused a moment and then said, "I understand that, but sometimes we just need to feel sure about these things.” I agree with my Aunt that we all have a need for direction. Fredrick Schmidt says, “We want some indication that we are doing the right thing with our lives, and we are more comfortable having a set of ‘marching orders,' a to-do list.”

This author goes on to say, “The complexity of our lives also lends urgency to that quest. We live increasingly unreflective lives, consuming minutes, hours, and days without savoring them. We rush from encounter to encounter without asking how those experiences might modify or challenge the way in which we live. And we move reactively through the events of a day, making incremental and unrelated decisions that shape our lives without our being aware of it. Then one day we find ourselves saying, “This is not the life I intended” (xvi).

Questions of choice and God’s sovereignty tumble over each other. Os Guinness warns that there is a danger of conceit in view of one’s uniqueness, and that we should “not confuse calling with guidance.” In our culture we are saturated with choice and change and that leads to real fragmentation.

“Asking God-questions ushers us into another way of being, a new way of seeing the world. As important as the I-questions might be, it is necessary to set them aside initially. If we focus on the I-questions, our search for the will of God becomes myopic and self-centered. God becomes enslaved to our needs, our program, our concerns, and our vision. What we think we can or should be doing is fashioned with little or no awareness of what God is doing in the world” (Schmidt, 27).

I think in many of my own efforts to be sure or comfortable with what I should be doing I have often missed the point. What is God doing in the world and how can I align myself with that? Where is God working? How can I get in on it? Schmidt recommends that we trust and embrace the God-questions so we can move forward with a hope and expectation that the needs of our lives will take shape and significance from something larger; from activity that is no longer focused on us alone, but an enterprise that involves and serves others---whatever that looks like.

bound to one another....

2006-01-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about the importance of long-term friendships today, having received a beautiful email, filled with good news, wonder and joy from a close friend living somewhere in Croatia. It caused me to consider how often we track our lives with the lives of the people who are most dear to us.

I am reminded of a conversation I had while visiting another friend about fifteen years ago. We were on an evening walk through the neighborhoods near his home, enjoying Christmas decorations so many people had put out. I remember the lights and my excitement about so many things that had been going on in my life. At the time my friend was wrestling with some difficult issues and he responded by telling me that relationships were often like a wheel. Sometimes we ride it together to the top, while at other times we’re alone heading downward. We discover ourselves under the wheel with the weight of others trying their best to stay on top. Eventually something breaks and we find ourselves riding to the top again, while many of those we love and care for are still under the wheel. In these friendships there is no competition, only a desire for each other’s best. It’s a cycle of ups and downs, or the ebb and flow of our lives.

We had a guest staying with us this weekend. She is another “long-term” or “lifetime” friend. I always look forward to spending time with her; she fills me with gratitude. Her friendship, like those I mentioned above, is affirming, understanding and loving.

Eugene Peterson says, “In this resurrection-created world, we find ourselves as allies and companions to friends, bound to one another not out of need or liking or usefulness but because there are common operations taking place among and within us. We are part of something larger and other than ourselves that we cannot adequately be part of by ourselves” (110).

the mystery of vocation….

2006-01-01T23:50:00.000-08:00

On this first day of the New Year I want to look forward to new beginnings, new resolutions, new challenges, probable good fortune and hopeful life changes. My wife read her journal entry to me today and in it she expressed the same desires, but also stated the flipside of things in a most conspicuous way.

She said, “Putting aside the old, always brings to mind the coming winter depression and that everything is still the same; how we are in a rut and haven’t been to church for a month.” She goes on to reflect on more than a few events and discouragements of the past year, not the least of which is a failed business venture, illness, hindered plans to move (the sale of our house fell through three times), and this preventing us from following through with the sale of our business and me attending seminary fulltime.

That should sum things up, but standing out against these things my wife also recognized the countless celebrated and sacred moments of the past year. I ask, why have I allowed the difficulties and disappointments of the last twelve months to overshadow so many marvelous things? For me it has been the mystery of vocation…

About three years ago I had lunch with a friend. I had what seemed like a difficult decision to make about an issue at work and I thought I needed to ask for some business advice on the matter. Like a Rogerian therapist she listened to my complaints until I had exhausted the subject and then I asked her what I should do. She said, "Darren, do you hear what you've been saying?" She went on to inform me that I already knew the answer to my question. I just had to get beyond the obstacles and objections and make the only reasonable choice. She was right, and at that moment I made what has proven to be the best decision; I implemented the change when I returned to my office.

With the business question out of the way I surprised myself by telling this same friend about the dramatic change that had come over my life since I re-embraced the teachings of Christ. I tried to express how I feel; I am redirected, focused, experiencing a renewed joy for life and people. I am a new being, it is a new beginning, I am loved by the Creator and God has given me the Spirit of peace. She listened to what I had to say and with excitement she said, "Darren, do you hear what you've been saying?" I was startled by her reaction and asked her what she meant. My friend responded, “You’ve got the call!” I was stunned by her response and at the same time I was confronted with the truth of what she had said. What made this revelation feel like a bombshell is the fact that my friend claims to be an atheist.

About Peter Jennings, who died August 7, 2005, Julie Jensen reflected, “It is funny to feel impacted by this event -- someone I never met, but I have been thinking about it all day. I think it is because of the constants of my growing up is gone…. I always knew that when we turned on the news he would be there.”

In contrast, unless we have a loved one or family member who is in Iraq, the reported deaths seem somewhat removed or abstract. Death is abstract until we are faced with it. CNN reported October 26, 2005: “The U.S. military death toll in Iraq reached 2,000 Tuesday with the reports of three new deaths…” Updated: 4:26 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2005: “At least 2,104 U.S. military personnel have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The AP count is four lower than the Defense Department’s tally, which was last updated at 10 a.m. EST Wednesday.” The worldwide update of reported civilian deaths in the Iraq war and occupation: Reported Minimum 27115, Reported Maximum 30559.

I don’t want to start a trend on this blog by memorializing celebrities and famous people, but among the many who have passed away this year are Johnny Carson (TV host), Ossie Davis (actor/writer/activist), Keith Knudsen (drummer), Arthur Miller (playwright), Sandra Dee (actress), Hunter S. Thompson (writer), John DeLorean (entrepreneur), Andre Norton (writer), Johnnie Cochran (lawyer), Pope John Paul II (Leader of the Roman Catholic Church), Frank Gorshin (mimic/actor), Eddie Albert (actor), Anne Bancroft (actress), Luther Vandross (singer), Peter Jennings (TV news anchor), Bob Denver (Little Buddy), M. Scott Peck (writer/psychiatrist), Don Adams (actor), Nipsey Russell (comedian), Rosa Parks (long-time civil rights activist), and Peter Drucker (writer/management theorist).

But what really shook me up....

2005-11-23T23:38:00.001-08:00

This morning I woke up during a 2.7 magnitude microearthquake. According to the reports the epicenter was 2 miles NW of Santa Rosa and 7 miles from our house in Sebastopol. I wasn’t really sure why I woke up so early until I turned the radio on while making coffee in the kitchen.

But what really shook me up was hearing that Peter Drucker had passed away Friday, November 11, 2005. Drucker is survived by his wife, Doris, and four children. He was 95.

Even though I never sat in one of his classrooms I still consider him as one of my most respected teachers. Over the years I have read many articles and a number of books by Peter Drucker: The New Realities, Post-Capitalist Society, The Effective Executive and Managing for the Future. I admired his brilliance and that he placed the role of empowerment at the center of his work as an academic and leader. “At the heart of everything I have done has been the thought of enabling others, getting the roadblocks out of the way, out of their thinking and their systems, to enable them to become all that they can be.”

Some other books that I have read along the same lines are Alvin Toffler’s, Future Shock, Max Dublin’s, Futurehype and a collection of essays edited by Albert Teich, Technology and the Future.

Of course, Peter Drucker has long been called a business-guru, he was widely thought of as a management visionary for his recognition that devoted employees are the secret to the success of any corporation, and that concern for “marketing and innovation” should come before worries about finances.

Peter F. Drucker Memorial Service Announced:
In Memory of Peter Drucker, Saturday, December 10, 2005
The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University cordially invites you to a memorial service honoring the life of Peter Drucker on Saturday, December 10th at 3 p.m. at Little Bridges Auditorium (150 East 4th Street in Claremont). An informal reception will follow at 4 p.m. at which time attendees may capture their memories of Peter Drucker on video as part of the legacy project for the Drucker Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Research Library and Archive).

all that geometry....

2005-11-19T01:14:00.000-08:00

About five years ago, my daughter and I took the Tube to Paris from London. The anticipation of the day was a Total Solar Eclipse, so while we were traveling on the train many of the passengers were looking through special glasses or in our case we had poked a hole through a piece of paper to view the event. It was only later that I learned how unique this experience was; there will only be 18 solar eclipses from 1996-2020 for which the eclipse will be total on some part of the Earth's surface.

“The common perception that eclipses are infrequent is because the observation of a total eclipse from a given point on the surface of the Earth is not a common occurrence. For example, it will be two decades before the next total solar eclipse visible in North America occurs.”

In spite of the excitement, I found myself grateful for the harvest. Looking out the train window we past numerous fields with round hay bales by the hundreds geometrically spaced. All those curves but I just saw rows and right angles. Peaceful proportion and a much-needed equilibrium, all that geometry had a calming effect.

A friend of mine said, “Geometry does comfort, as you suggest, even as a lack of order frightens…. There's an optimal way to harvest, which results in curled up stacks of hay equally dispersed over a large field. All of that wild Life neatly brought to heel. We're under no threat, and consider the wonder of it beautiful.”

A while back I was wading through Albert Einstein’s, Relativity: The Special and General Theory and had found it to be surprisingly readable…

“Geometry sets out from certain conceptions such as ‘plane,’ ‘point,’ and ‘straight line,’ with which we are able to associate more or less definite ideas, and from certain simple propositions (axioms) which, in virtue of these ideas, we are inclined to accept as "true." Then, on the basis of a logical process, the justification of which we feel ourselves compelled to admit, all remaining propositions are shown to follow from those axioms, i.e. they are proven. A proposition is then correct (‘true’) when it has been derived in the recognized manner from the axioms. The question of ‘truth’ of the individual geometrical propositions is thus reduced to one of the "truth" of the axioms.”

“The concept "true" does not tally with the assertions of pure geometry, because by the word "true" we are eventually in the habit of designating always the correspondence with a ‘real’ object; geometry, however, is not concerned with the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical connection of these ideas among themselves.”

Einstein later illustrates this by description, “I stand at the window of a railway carriage which is traveling uniformly, and drop a stone on the embankment, without throwing it. Then, disregarding the influence of the air resistance, I see the stone descend in a straight line. A pedestrian who observes the misdeed from the footpath notices that the stone falls to earth in a parabolic curve. I now ask: Do the ‘positions’ traversed by the stone lie ‘in reality’ on a straight line or on a parabola?”

Similar to the consideration of the importance of position when viewing a solar eclipse, and like the illustration of the straight line or the parabolic curve, we tend to see what we look for, we reduce truth so it is manageable and our understanding is constrained to those axioms we believe. People often fail to grasp the influence or resistance of speed and motion inherent to living. Most of us don’t like change and we tend to resist “life’s wiggles” for the calming safety of order and predictability.

Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern SuperstitionWendell Berry says, “For quite a while it has been possible for a free and thoughtful person to see that to treat life as mechanical or predictable or understandable is to reduce it. Now, almost suddenly, it is becoming clear that to reduce life to the scope of our understanding (whatever ‘model’ we use) is inevitably to enslave it, make property of it, and put it up for sale. This is to give up on life, to carry it beyond change and redemption, and to increase the proximity of despair…. One of our problems is that we humans cannot live without acting; we have to act. Moreover, we have to act on the basis of what we know is incomplete. What we have come to know so far is demonstrably incomplete, since we keep on learning more, and there seems little reason to think that our knowledge will become significantly more complete. The mystery surrounding our life probably is not significantly reducible. And so the question of how to act in ignorance is paramount.”

In short Berry says, “To treat life as less than a miracle is to give up on it.”

In contrast Berry says, “I am by principle and often spontaneously, as if by nature, a man of faith. But my reading of the Gospels, comforting and clarifying and instructive as they frequently are, deeply moving or exhilarating as they frequently are, has caused me to understand them also as a burden, sometimes raising the hardest of personal questions, sometimes bewildering, sometimes contradictory, sometimes apparently outrageous in their demands.”

About a month ago a long time friend and I were doing some catching up on the phone. I was telling him how much I was enjoying the Gospels course that I was taking, when he told me that he had been reading the Gospel of Mark. He said that he was trying to read the text with a new perspective or in a fresh way. His comments about how the evangelist Mark presents Jesus have stuck with me. This Gospel does not present Jesus as being “gentle,” an image that characterizes much of the evangelical thought about Jesus. Rather, Jesus is referred to as the “Son of God“ and “Son of Man” who’s Kingdom breaks through with authority and power.

My professor points out that Mark frames his Gospel with the idea that God’s Kingdom is “breaking through.” She explains that the first time we hear this is at Jesus’ baptism, when John sees the heavens splitting apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.” The word used for parting the heavens is the same word used at the end of the Passion when in the Temple, the curtain is torn in the Holy of Holies. I have always considered this as a symbol of our access to God, when in fact it is another picture of God’s rule or Kingdom “breaking through.”

During the phone conversation my friend commented about the authority in which Jesus acted. I made a few comments about Jesus’ authority to teach, how he exercised his authority over evil spirits, healing the sick, silencing demons, rebuking the Pharisees and calming the wind and sea. My friend said that was not what he meant. He was talking about how Jesus used his authority and that it cost him his life. In a similar way we have seen people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa who have used their authority to save others.

N.T. Wright tells a story about a ship disaster in which a tour boat began to sink and the passengers were screaming frantically. “Suddenly one man - not a member of the crew - took charge. In a clear voice he gave orders, telling people what to do. Relief mixed with the panic as people realized someone at least was in charge, and many managed to reach lifeboats they would otherwise have missed in the dark and the rush. The man himself made his way down to the people trapped in the hold. There he formed a human bridge: holding on with one hand to a ladder and with the other to part of the ship that was nearly submerged, he enabled still more to cross to safety. When the nightmare was over, the man himself was found to have drowned. He had literally given his life in using the authority he had assumed – the authority by which many had been saved” (11).

Berry exclaims, “The Gospels, then, stand at the opening of a mystery in which our lives are deeply, dangerously and inescapably involved. This is a mystery that the Gospels can only partially reveal, for it could be fully revealed only by more books than the world could contain. It is a mystery that we are condemned but also are highly privileged to live our way into, trusting properly that to our little knowledge greater knowledge may be revealed. It is this privilege that should make us wary of any attempt to reduce faith to a rigmarole of judgments and explanations, or to any sort of familiar talk about God. Reductive religion is just as objectionable as reductive science, and for the same reason: Reality is large, and our minds are small.”

....towards peace

2005-10-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq the main intersection of our town has been a place for protest. Often, there are "Women in Black" waving black flags and signs that say, "No War" on one corner, while on the other side of the street people are waving American flags with signs saying "Support Our Troops."

Usually I drive through and honk at whoever I know on either side of the street, but last night I slowed down because there was a candlelight peace vigil taking place on both sides of Main Street. The beauty of the lights moved me to consider and appreciate the efforts of all those who were out that night. I was encouraged by their presence and my thoughts were drawn towards peace.

Today my company had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful painting. The portrait was painted by one of over fifty well-respected artists, representing more than 21 countries in a multi-media art exhibition, The Missing Peace: The Dalai Lama Portrait Project. With the Dalai Lama's life as its inspiration, the purpose of the collaborative effort is to turn the world's attention towards peace.

That prophetic vision....

2005-10-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

My daughter is visiting from Minneapolis where she has been working as an intern and now has been asked to be on staff with an intercity outreach called SOURCE. One evening I knocked on her bedroom door to see if she was awake; I found her reading an old book of mine, Ronald Sider’s Rich Christians in and Age of Hunger. I was surprised mostly because I had recently commented to a friend about the experience of reading the same book almost twenty years ago.Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger : Moving from Affluence to GenerosityRich Christians in and Age of Hunger, echoed the voice of the prophets, called believers to the age old message, before consumer Christendom and the prosperity teachings of Kenneth Hagin or Kenneth Copeland, the positive thinking of Norman Vincent Peale or Dr. Schuller’s, Hour of Power, before mega churches, that fishy symbol or tee-shirts and bumper stickers that told people that you were a Christian, “Not Perfect, but forgiven” or “God’s not through with me yet.” When gospel was more than “sin management” and “pearly gates,” before Gallop polls shouted hypocrisy! The gospel was to be lived out daily and we were called to serve those who are less auspicious…

SoulSalsaIn Leonard Sweet’s book, Soul Salsa I was reminded of the mistake of separating the issues of overpopulation and consumption. He points out that Americans seem to be conscious of the issue of overpopulation and are having fewer children, but that the average consumption of resources used to raise one child in the USA could provide for as many as twenty children in less affluent countries. That would translate into providing for forty children in comparison to the two children my wife and I have raised. Families with five children would be equal to one hundred and so forth.

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The reason for doing something....

2005-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

I am about a month into the 2005 fall quarter at Fuller Theological Seminary. I am currently taking two courses through the Distance Learning program in hope that this will be the beginning of my studies toward a Master of Divinity degree.

A number of those whom I have told about my academic plans have been puzzled as to why I would be doing this at this time in my life. The common questions have been, “Are you going to be a pastor?" “Do you want to have a church?” “Will you be selling your business?” Not surprisingly, living in the Wine Country of Sonoma, some people have asked, “Does that mean you won’t be able to drink alcohol?” I would say that these people probably don’t know me to well because I quit my “love affair” with drinking almost four years ago. Those closest to me, my family, friends and I hope those whom I work with on a daily basis have seen transformation or change since I reconnected with my faith.

Initially when I was asked questions like these I was uncomfortable. I was not then and I am not now completely convinced of my intentions for pursuing this path. I appreciate the statement Malcolm Muggeridge makes in the introduction of his book A Third Testament, “It often happens that the reason for doing something only emerges clearly after it has been done, conscious intent and all the various practicalities which go therewith being but the tip of an iceberg of unconscious intent. In any case, as has often been pointed out, time itself is a continuum, and not divisible into past, present and future tenses” (1).

I think at some level, the completion of this academic goal and my hope of anticipated growth as a follower of Christ will provide or lead me to a better understanding of my reasons for beginning this undertaking. On the other hand the more I have heard myself respond to the question about being a pastor with an affirmative yes, the more I can see myself in this sense. I think the implication of all this is that I am uncomfortable with predicting the outcome of my decisions. My experience is that things never happen exactly the way I first plan; it is usually during the process that I begin to refine and grasp the vision.

(1) Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright © 2004 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.

....a sage and a mentor

2005-10-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Eugene Peterson is probably best known for his modern translation of the Bible, The Message. Bono (U2) was asked about his favorite reading materials: "...there's a translation of Scriptures -- the New Testament and the Books of Wisdom -- that this guy Eugene Peterson has undertaken. It has been a great strength to me. He's a poet and a scholar, and he's brought the text back to the tone in which the books were written."

When asked about evangelicals telling people they can have a "personal relationship with God" and this suggesting a certain type of spiritual intimacy, he responded,

“All these words get so screwed up in our society. If intimacy means being open and honest and authentic, so I don't have veils, or I don't have to be defensive or in denial of who I am, that's wonderful. But in our culture, intimacy usually has sexual connotations, with some kind of completion. So I want intimacy because I want more out of life. Very seldom does it have the sense of sacrifice or giving or being vulnerable. Those are two different ways of being intimate. And in our American vocabulary intimacy usually has to do with getting something from the other. That just screws the whole thing up.”

“I don't want to suggest that those of us who are following Jesus don't have any fun, that there's no joy, no exuberance, no ecstasy. They're just not what the consumer thinks they are. When we advertise the gospel in terms of the world's values, we lie to people. We lie to them, because this is a new life. It involves following Jesus. It involves the Cross. It involves death, an acceptable sacrifice. We give up our lives. The Gospel of Mark is so graphic this way. The first half of the Gospel is Jesus showing people how to live. He's healing everybody. Then right in the middle, he shifts. He starts showing people how to die: "Now that you've got a life, I'm going to show you how to give it up." That's the whole spiritual life. It's learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love. It involves a kind of learned passivity, so that our primary mode of relationship is receiving, submitting, instead of giving and getting and doing. We don't do that very well. We're trained to be assertive, to get, to apply, or to consume and to perform.”

I love this man, he is a sage and a mentor. I am also reading his latest offering, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

Generous Orthodoxy....

2005-10-08T00:43:00.000-07:00

It was in the lives and dialogue with Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Daniel Berrigan and others that Thich Nhat Hanh saw some of what's "beautiful and meaningful" in the teachings of Christ. These teachings are living and transforming for those who embrace them and are empowered to do so by the Spirit. Thomas Merton is often spoken of as one of the most prominent Christian contemplatives of the twentieth century. He considered Thich Nhat Hanh as his spiritual brother. I have learned much from Merton and thought I would provide some quotes from his writings too.

Merton says, "Everyone of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy" (NS, 34).

Uncover what is covered up....

2005-10-07T01:08:00.000-07:00

Five months ago today, I was on the internet reviewing the educational options of seminaries across the country. Should I get an M. Div., or MA? Should I consider a pastoral or missions concentration and can I even get through a masters degree program? Can I learn Hebrew or Greek? Am I to old? How will I pay for it? Do I need more education? Will it lead to a new beginning? Eugene Peterson says, “Pastors are the persons in the church communities who repeat and insist on the kingdom realities against the world appearances, and who therefore must be apocalyptic.” Can I stand resolute in my own convictions? Can I communicate with “crimson urgency and purple crisis” a clear message of hope to others? Am I living in the Spirit? Am I being an example of this blessed life? I want to pastor and love people, but am I doing it now? All these self-doubts loom over me.

I was trying to envision where my wife and my lives might fit into God’s plan for ministry in the church, missions or the work place? I shared some thoughts with my wife. I told her I did not want to have the job description of a modern day pastor: “Someone who runs a church.” I have managed a couple of businesses now and my guess is that running a church would be even more frustrating. What I really want is to uncover what is covered up, “repeat and insist on the kingdom realities!” I want to be a greater man of prayer and make the time for reflection and study. I want to put self-importance behind me and make time for people. I want to listen and love people into the presence of God.

With the intention of being encouraging, she suggested that I can be doing these things now, and my inner critic said, “Yes… she’s right… you don’t do these things enough now, so how will you do them in the future. You are naive and foolish to think you could serve God and people. You just want to feel important, intelligent, enlightened! You really don’t like people, you can’t relate. Why didn’t you avoid that argument at work or with your partners for that matter? How much have you prayed and studied this week? What is your stance on salvation anyway? Would a God of love be so ambiguous? You are delusional and a failure! What do you have to offer?”

I left the room agreeing with my wife’s comment but secretly feeling overwhelmed with these self-doubts. It was then that I realized or possibly that God pulled the veil from my eyes and I saw that these accusations were malicious! They want to steal the gifts that the Father has given me! I am his offspring and his Spirit abides with me! God has given me all things with his Son. God displays his glory in my weakness if I rely on him. Through inner logic I know these things to be true. The Lord has brought me to this place of new decision. Listen to what the Spirit is saying… “I have put this desire in you. You are my child. You are a new creature. This is a reality, not just self-talk! I want you to uncover what is covered up, you are a light! The Spirit of God lives in you!”

How often do we let these accusations douse the fire that God has ignited in our souls. The apocalyptic pastor says, “But you belong. The Holy One anointed you, and you all know it. I haven't been writing this to tell you something you don't know, but to confirm the truth you do know, and to remind you that the truth doesn't breed lies” (1 John. 2:21).

Sabbath Keeping....

2005-10-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

My sister and I were recently talking about our lives and how it is important to make time for ourselves in spite of the continuing demands of work. The conversation reminded me of Israel being slaves in Egypt. One of the reasons God commanded the Sabbath was because slavery dehumanizes people. It treats them like machines or objects. People need rest, community and healthy relationships to feel human. We also need the downtime to reflect and consider our fortunate state. Eugene Peterson says that the Sabbath day of rest provides a needed rhythm for our lives. We work and rest, work and rest, work and rest… Without the rhythm we suffer anxiety and exhaustion.

We must pause from our work in order to consider our need for God. Overworking squeezes out any sense of praise and gratefulness to God, because after all we are more than competent to do the tasks required of us. That is what working is all about: my expertise, my abilities, my being self sufficient and up for the task. It is this confidence or competency in ourselves that causes us to ignore our need for God. The Sabbath repose can be a time of humility, refreshment, prayer, and fun.

The Sabbath day is for “praying and playing.” All work and no play can make us unhappy, unbalanced, unappreciated, and unappreciative of all that we have been given. Family, friends (if you have time for friends) good books (for me), dinning out with persons you love, taking in a movie, doing something just for the fun of it (even with our kids). Alternating between work and refreshment provides a certain rhythm that allows us to enjoy ourselves.

If we make time for ourselves and family, work and other responsibilities will not suffer. On the contrary, they will benefit from it! We will be better people (more human) having had the time to rest, reflect, pray and interact with others for the sake of just being with them. God is more recognizable in all we do when we realize it is not all up to us.

As it turns out....

2005-10-05T17:30:00.001-07:00

I have been sick for the last week and was checked into the hospital by my Doctor last Tuesday morning. I thought I had the flu... As it turns out I had a kidney infection and was experiencing the systemic effects of high fevers, chills, body aches, etc. After a day and a night in the hospital I begged for release to go home. In the hospital I was given heavy doses of antibiotics intravenously and at home I am continuing taking an oral antibiotic. Although I am still recovering I am feeling much better.

"It's remarkable how we think at such times about the people that we should not like to live without, and almost or entirely forget about ourselves. It is only then that we feel how closely our lives are bound up with other people's, and in fact how the centre of our own lives is outside ourselves, and how little we are separate entities" (p.105).

There are things that we know....

2005-09-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

"There are things that we know but cannot tell. This is strikingly true for our knowledge of skills. I can say that I know how to ride a bicycle or how to swim, but this does not mean that I can tell how I manage to keep my balance on a bicycle or keep afloat when swimming. I may not have the slightest idea of how I do this, or even an entirely wrong or grossly imperfect idea of it, and yet go on cycling or swimming merrily. Yet, it cannot be said that I know how to bicycle or swim and not know how to coordinate the complex pattern of muscular acts by which I do my cycling or swimming. It follows that I know how to carry out these performances as a whole and that I also know how to carry out the elementary acts which constitute them, but that, though I know these acts, I cannot tell what they are."

Polanyi M., Tacit Knowing: Its Bearing on Some Problems of Philosophy, Reviews of Modern Physics, 34 (4), Oct. 1962, 601-616.