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?
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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)
"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)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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...
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."
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."
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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?
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?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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.
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.
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