i was moved by chambers

i have always loved the gospel of mark because of its speed.

in mark's account of jesus and those who followed they always seem to be going somewhere and even the word 'immediately' appears often. it seems as if there are moments when the disciples are lagging and desperately trying to keep up with this Jesus, one so focused on a mission.

mark records a moment when Jesus turns to face jerusalem and everything that it will mean for him and for all of creation, including the past the present and the future. it mentions that there is a fear that passes through their hearts as they experience this moment with him. he heads toward his destiny and all they can see ahead is mystery.

oswald chambers says...

"There is an aspect of Jesus that chills the heart of a disciple to the core and makes the whole spiritual life gasp for breath. This strange Being with His face 'set like flint' and His striding determination, strikes terror into me. He is no longer the Counsellor and Comrade, He is taken up with a point of view I know nothing about, and I am amazed at Him. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off."

chambers goes on to say...

"If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and familiar are those who have never yet been introduced to Jesus Christ."

i am wondering in a way that chambers makes me rethink things. i don't have to agree with him to enjoy the places he takes me. i keep thinking about Jesus, mission, and trying to keep up as i run into a mystery and he leads me in his destiny.

i enjoy the way chambers keeps me off balance.

maybe christians ought to be known more for this...being a little off balance, surprised, feeling like the one we love is less predictable but we follow him anyway.

maybe we should see the back of his head more often.

maybe...

maverick

nouwen for devotions

i have been trying really hard to read really slow. when i read henri nouwen i have found that when i go really slow i see things he writes a few places deeper than the surface of the page. i think in my experience of reading nouwen some of the best thoughts excavated are by hanging out on a section, lingering over a few pages, or even stopping and refusing to go on past a sentence.

this may be true for other writers one chooses to read, but in this case it is very intentional. i am trying to read really slow. this is a discipline for me. the book i am reading is the journal 'gracias' and it is about nouwen's own search for 'calling.' calling is what seems to drive him and this work captures his prayers, learning, relearning, and discoveries as he attempts to find his way. there is a cool detour in his life. sometimes you think that you are called to something and find out it isn't what you expected--this is the adventure with God.

today i was reading something he wrote on thursday december 17th:

"In my preparation for my language classes I had to analyze a short story by the Spanish poet and novelist Carmen Corde. In this story a mother discovers shortly after the birth of her baby boy that the child is blind. She calls her family together and says, 'I do not want my child to know that he is blind!' She insists that from that point on everyone use a language in which words such as 'light,' 'color,' and 'sight' are avoided. The child grows up believing that he is like everyone else until a strange girl jumps over the fence of the garden and uses all the forbidden words."

nouwen has some further thoughts along the lines of relationships and challenges...

"I think that this story symbolizes much or our behavior. We all seek to hide what is strange and painful and to act as if things are as usual. We say, 'Let us act as if there were no problems, no abnormalities, no pains, no wounds, no failures, no illnesses.' In my own life I have experienced the power of this urge to hide, and urge that is often more harmful than what it tries to conceal.

Every time I have had the courage or gave others the courage to face the blindness, their mental anguish, or their spiritual agony and let others become part of the struggle, new creative energies became available and the basis of community was laid. Fear, shame, and guilt often make us stay in our isolation and prevent us from realizing that our handicap, whatever it is, can always become the way to an intimate and healing fellowship in which we come to know one another as humans."

so i have spent much time thinking today about community, and i am going to think about it for awhile.

slow.

slower.

my question today and for a few days will be where i might be in the story mentioned - am i like the parent....or, am i like the blind child....or, am i the little child who jumps the fence using the forbidden words...

you don't stop being a parent

parenting is growing more difficult as i grow older...

when i think of my kids i always smile on the inside and most of the time on the outside. but when i think of my kids (including a couple of son-in-laws) i feel like praying desperately. i immediately send up a few prayers that attempt to include them all.

they don't live at home with us anymore. they are all growing up and we are feeling blessed in these years just like the other years. as far as i know, most of the time everything is alright with them, but i keep thinking, remembering, smiling, and feeling the urge to desperately pray.

often this urge to pray just happens as i am going through the day and i wonder what they are up to.

i am not so sure that desperation is such a great thing. but i also know that there isn't anything i would not do on their behalf...i will be desperate if that is what is necessary. i will bargain, plead, cajole, push, pester, and beg God on their behalf and i will do it often...and even more often as i grow older.

is it some kind of impulse?

did abraham and sarah ever pray for isaac like this?

do i just miss them a lot and miss being a parent and having them near?

did hannah ever worry about samuel after she dropped him off at the temple?

is it okay for a 'christian' parent to lose some sleep over their kids?

is praying doing something when there is nothing a doing person can do?

did mary ever wonder what Jesus was up to?

sometimes i stand in a place where they stood.

sometimes i hold onto something that was theirs.

sometimes i look deeply into pictures as if it were yesterday.

sometimes i imagine being with them somewhere where they are.

sometimes i dream a future for them.

sometimes i hope they remember and pray for me and their mom.

sometimes i close my eyes and remember something only a parent remembers.

sometimes i smile and sometimes i feel a little desperate...but, always i pray.

this is a part of parenthood no one told me about before i got here.

reading the bible

i was looking at a book i have on the shelf by robert mulholland and he is writing about the differences and the need balance between informational reading and formational reading.

informational reading is: reading quickly as much as possible, getting to the real meat, moving from one piece of information to the next, motivated by the mastery of the text, seeing it in a very objective light separate from us, analytical, critical, with a supreme interest in finding something that works.

i get the information approach especially since i do this weekly for a message...

formational reading is: one is concerned with depth and quality not quantity, we don't master the text the text masters us, we are the object, we are not detached but humbly engaged, we even assume we may not be able to know everything and accept the mystery.

formational reading is less familiar.
i have tried to include this as a discipline for my exploration in preparing a message.

formational reading is the most dangerous, the most risky way to read the bible.

"To find self formation by means of scripture reading, I must be open in docility to what its text may eventually tell me about myself; I must abide with formative reading until it yields to me its treasure. Formative reading implies, moreover, my willingness to change my current self in light of the formative insight scripture may radiate to me. The word as formative has the power to transform me. It can give rise to a new self in Christ, permeating all dimensions of my life. The word as formative can lift me beyond the stirrings of my ego and vital life so that I may discover my graced life form in the Eternal Word." --adrian van kaam

maverick

the silence

it would have been my older brothers birthday recently...he died several years ago...but on the date of his birthday i was thinking about him.

i did not always think of his cerebral palsy because most of the time he was first my brother, and second someone who came to look like skinned knees on asphalt feels. he was a gift to my life that seemed to underline grace and gravity at the same time...all the good and all the difficulty occurring at the same time. there was never another choice.

there was a time when i was in grade school that i slipped out of my bed, down the hallway, to the doorway of the kitchen. i had heard a soft weeping sound when i was trying hard to listen into the night for the sound of a train whistle. the the train with its whistle usually happened way off in the distance when i was supposed to be going to sleep, and in the evening i would lay there waiting for that lonesome sound in the night. that was what i was listening for...

when i came down the hallway and up to the kitchen i carefully peaked around the corner. the three of them seemed interlocked or woven together as my mother held my brother, and my father bathed the leg filled with the poison of gangrene. his leg had progressively gotten worse and more discolored over time. there was a date to amputate this limb that was taking on the dark colors of something dying. i could see over my mothers shoulder as she held him tightly, it was my brother john who was suffering and crying - it was his anguish i had heard.

a moment later i was caught.

my dad looked up and i could see tears in his eyes for the first time in my life. i froze when he saw me. he then did something i did not expect. he gave me just the ever so slightly nod that gave me permission to stay in that place where i was very quiet and hovered from some distance. i was thinking too many things and there were so many things that i did not know what to think. his tears were as disturbing to me as my brothers suffering. i saw love and pain, grace and gravity...and the discovery i made that night and successive nights was that God was silent.

this is the very first time i can remember in my life that there was silence, that this is true and experienced. there were so many prayers for my brother that went unanswered. God was hard to figure out. he doesn't choose to answer all prayers. it seems he is not paying attention. how can i get his attention. this is not fair. i am not sure i like him. i don't understand his silence.

the other day i was reading something richard elliott friedman says about silence found in his book The Disappearance of God...he writes of 'divine recession'. as this hebrew scholar progresses through the old testament he creates a picture of God who 'fades as he goes.' he writes of how God can be very clear and present but that he often fades or withdraws, 'stepping back from human beings so they will have room and desire to step forward.'

i did not have a way to understand the silence when i was young and still wonder about it. can i trust this God? life was unsimplified early for me. the only thing that was bigger than the suffering i saw was the love enfleshed in my parents who held my brother with a desperate hope. they believed, they hoped, they cried, they served my brother in a way that would incarnate something i could not put my finger on then. it was a hope both immanent and transcendent, now and someday then. i put my faith in them while i was trying to figure out what God was up to.

silence became a part of my story.

maybe i understand something about God.

is this how trusting became such a big deal to me?

happy birthday john.

belonging and dreaming

belonging and dreaming are two things i am wondering about...

in this journey (where we sensed God's leadership) it brought us to redwood covenant church. we like the people we like the place, but we did not anticipate this experience in our pathway. this is the first time i have been a transitional pastor and this is the first time i have been among this tribe. it seemed the place to be at least for awhile (sense we are transitional).

i have often tried to guess what God is up to, and sometimes i have guessed correctly and sometimes it is the last thing i would have imagined. i find myself always learning something about trust. these have always been intriguing lessons. most of the time it seems i can barely keep up, but only if i stay engaged.

i often think of the story of abe and sarah and the way it is worded in hebrews that they followed God even though they did not know where they were going. keep trusting in a promise keeping God no matter what, no matter where, no matter when...it is just as spectacular, as mundane, as vibrant, and as monotonous as all of that and then some.

because my story seems more like a journey...so far...i am wondering what it feels like to experience a place--what belonging might feel like. does anyone really belong anymore? is this just a dream, or a dream that can be true, real, and experienced with others? i think there might be a part of me that is homesick but i am wondering what i am imagining.

as i have grown older there is an emerging sense of this that i have yet to put my finger on. it seems like something i cannot see without glasses. i wondered if it is a longing for something eternal. where might if find some of the eternal in this world. i think i could live with that tasting something partially, seeing in a mirror dimly, and enjoying something while waiting for everything.

right now it means be a transitional pastor.
what will it mean tomorrow?
where will it mean something?

brennan manning - love based on nothing

i open the book my wife has on a table where she spends time in devotion and there is brennan manning and a quote:

"God's love is based on nothing, and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure. Were it based on anything we do, and that 'anything' were to collapse, then God's love would crumble as well. But with the God of Jesus no such thing can possibly happen.

People who realize this can live freely and to the fullest.

Remember Atlas, who carries the whole world? We have Christian Atlases who mistakenly carry the burden of trying to deserve God's love. Even the mere watching of this lifestyle is depressing.

I'd like to say to Atlases: 'Put that globe down and dance on it. That's why God made it.' And to these weary Christian Atlases: 'Lay down your load and build your life on God's love.'

We don't have to earn this love; neither do we have to support it. It is a free gift. Jesus calls out: 'Come to me, all you Atlases who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.'

i love the dancing part...i love the thought of Jesus refreshing us...i have always loved the mission brennan is on. i remember hearing him speak at a christian college and enjoying his ministry and then walking into the parking lot to leave and all the cars were covered with flyers. the flyers were countering his focus and suggested that brennan was telling lies and half truths.

i cannot figure out how anyone could consider a message of grace as a lie and a half truth. it is a vital truth intended to be a reality at a very fundamental level of experience. it was as if it was assumed that a message about love and grace would undermine 'real' discipleship...

are we not all grateful for those in charge of real discipleship...are we not all grateful for the people who have felt responsible for determining who is an insider and who is an outsider...are we not all grateful for the experts who know exactly what to believe and what the rest of us are supposed to be doing???

why wouldn't gratitude for the grace be a good motivater to join into everything it means to be in the kingdom...why wouldn't love prompt me in a very pure way to seize every moment...why wouldn't the gospel oozing with so much unconditional reality make all the difference in our lives???!!!

i think i would rather dance with brennan and others in a parking lot than be caught passively, and under the cover of the dark attaching flyers to cars.

"We played the flute for you, and you did not dance" (Jesus)

gregory wolfe in image

from one of my favorite reads was an editorial by gregory wolfe on the issue of whether things are getting better or worse. he suggests that we lean toward 'declinism.' this idea means that most of us might be believing that the old days were better and we are headed "to hell in a handbasket."



i am reading along and he quotes annie dillard. her book (for the time being) is currently in a box in my garage with most of my other books, but i have to share what wolfe quoted in his great editorial. in the editorial he how we tend to see where we are as the reality and the place we figure everything out--and everything is coming to an end. then he quotes dillard who says:



"Is it not late? A late time to be living? Are not our heightened times the important ones? For we have nuclear bombs. Are we not especially significant because our century is?--our century and its unique Holocaust, its refugee populations, its serial totalitarian exterminations, our century and its anitbiotics, silicon chips, men on the moon, and spliced genes?"



wolfe points out that this was written in 2000 and was dated already. dillard is making fun of ourselves and our chronological point of reference and interpretation of how things are and where they are headed. if she wrote it today or someone wrote it a hundred years ago it would have different elements, but as wolfe says, "...history went rolling right along."



dillard says no to our interpretations:



"There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time--or even knew selflessness or courage or literature--but that it is too late for us. In fact the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age that ours, and never a less. There is no less holiness at this time--as you are reading this--than there was the day the Red Sea parted... In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you amy see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power of love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of a loss; or to endure torture. Purity's time is always now.

we live right here right now...it is a good time to be alive for all the best reasons.

i will fear no evil for thou art with me...

wendell berry passage

in berry's novel 'Jayber Crow' the central figure jayber has been thinking that he was called into pastoral ministry. he finds himself feeling a little undone by the loose ends he finds in his life and in faith. he has a lot of questions and a handful of answers.

he goes to speak with one of his teachers a man who was called Old Grit behind his back by the students.

"So," I said, "I reckon what it all comes down to is, how can I preach if I don't have any answers?"

"Yes, Mr. Crow," he said, "How can you?" He was not one of your frying size chickens.

"I don't believe I can," I said, and felt my skin turn cold, for I had not even thought that until then.

He said, "No I don't believe you can." And we sat there and looked at each other again while he waited for me to see the next thing, so he would not have to tell me: I oughtn't waste any time resigning my scholarship and leaving Pigeonville. I saw it soon enough.

I said, "Well," for now I was ashamed, "I had this feeling maybe I had been called."

"And you may have been right. But not to what you thought. Not to what you think. You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."

"That could be a long time."

"I will tell you a further mystery," he said, "it may take longer."

marcel proust eyes

marcel proust: the real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

i was thinking about paradigm, perpspective, frames and something i heard george lakoff say a weekend ago at a bookstore...in the studies about linguistics and how the mind works from a very physical understanding the perspective we maintain draw increasing power by the repitition. the more we hear what we believe the more we believe it.

his emphasis made me think of the physical and the spiritual...believers add the spiritual as just as real or maybe more real but just as real. in the kingdom both the spiritual and physical are real.

back to where i was going...this makes any kind of conversion seem ominous. who listens to the voice they don't agree with or the idea that seems so unusual or counterintuitive that it just doesn't seem right. what does it take for a paradigm to shift? what does it take to convert?

t. kuhn suggests that the shift might happen when the old perspective cannot answer the question for us. when the old paradigm cannot account for the evidence it is possible for something to change...something that better answers the questions.

i may be off base but i am wondering how anyone can believe in grace. why would anyone believe this when the evidence we can see would not reinforce? this idea of saved by grace, unconditional love, the sufficiency of a savior to create new life...how does conversion take place?

if the cross and empty tomb are more than legend do they answer the questions better than the latest self help book...

what door would we walk through in our journey to enter new life and find ourselves running into an adventure called faith?

do i have to experience any of it ahead of time to get it?

can it all be brand new?

can we really choose?

why do we believe what we believe?

do we have any idea of what we are getting into?

why do we risk faith?

what the heck is 'chasingdoxology' about?

so i am embarking on a pilgrimage...and thinking about life and faith and where that quest has brought me and what i hope the most.

i am thinking about the relentless pursuit of what is truer.

i am going to bring some friends with me who are intoxicated with grace. i have one friend in particular who will join me because i have asked him, and there will be others.

i was remembering a line from a movie about traveling at mach two with your hair on fire.

i am dreaming about tomorrow.

i am currently diving into galatians, an adventure where giants like martin luther seemed to live and breathe and find so much meaning. luther's hair was on fire.

i have no idea where this journey will lead to or how long it will last, but will be blogging while on the run.

i am a little mesmerized by the experience of doxology and wondering if in the end it will be all that matters...and if it matters then could it matter now on the pathway staying close to Jesus.

i wonder if doxology is something like the trees clapping their hands, job covering his mouth, isaiah coming undone, the heavens declaring, mary treasuring in her heart, a man saying i believe help my unbelief, a woman who touches the hem of a garment, paul kneeling before the Father, and john who shares that when he saw him, he fell at his feet though dead.

i would not pretend to know everything, but what i have discovered so far is that if there is a bottom line it probably has to do with doxology...a doxology born of things like trusting, hoping, and the faith to go like abraham even if we don't know where. Sometimes these choices are the only things we can do when we attempt believing, and pack only the most essential things for a journey.

as i have been reading galatians i keep thinking about grace, identity, and community. the apostle paul radically fights for the most essential things and they speak of a new life, a new way, a new quest with others.

adventure...discovery...risk...tenacity...and wonder.

i want to be on fire.

i prefer to be boldy modest with this blog. there is something to be said for humility, passion, and orthodoxy in contrast to how self-preoccupied, arrogant, and absolutely correct we think we are in life or cyber-life.

i just read that they dropped their nets and followed him. they followed before they knew all the answers, before they had it all together, before they could reasonably confess or explain, they dropped something and followed before they had a clue. this seemed okay to Jesus when following was just important as other things like believing and repenting.

i may, on the way to somewhere, admit that it may be enough to know this Jesus, and i keep thinking the more i know Jesus the more it will all be about doxology.