lent and nouwen

henri nouwen writes of the season of lent that begins tomorrow with this reflection:

"God's mercy is greater than our sins. There is an awareness of sin that does not lead to God but rather to self-preoccupation. Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says: 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."

knowing you need God's mercy is the place the journey often begins with Jesus, and it is also knowing you need God's mercy after you believed that will matter for the journey. One is uttered in desperation and the other one in praise. the mercy that saves is the mercy that sustains. lent is the season of crying out.

God is not in a hurry

one of my goals this week is to reread one book and read another...

gerhard lohfink has written a book that i connect with. i am picking it up again and rereading and through the review seeing things i saw before plus other things, the way you look at something a second time and are amazed you missed it the first time.

in the book he says that God is not in a hurry, and starts small, and begins new and special things in specific places. he works through specific places through specific people...so we know of people like abraham and places like jerusalem and an execution on a cross. and we can also read in the bible of the vast quantities of time in which his intentions happen, across generations, his purposes happen but at a different rate of change than most would accomodate.

"God begins with very small things, not by setting masses in motion. To change the whole world God has at first no one but Abraham...the description of how Abraham moves from one encampment to another reveals something else: God is not in a hurry. In light of the problems of the world the movements of a wandering Aramean and his concerns for tent and flock seem positively laughable, and yet the reader senses that something crucial is happening here: the very fact that someone relies entirely on God's promise will change the world. God takes time, but not empty time. In one place in the world now faith is being practiced; not an otherworldly, world-ignorant faith, but a faith that is at home in the daily events and economic necessities and yet lives out of an endless promise....It is the very opposite of the temporal urgency of revolutionaries....All this makes clear that from the point of view of terrible social affliction there is no time. From the standpoint of the world the hands of the clock are always close to twelve. And yet God continually provides humanity with more time, even exposing gigantic periods before them, because God does not use force like a revolutionary in a blind rage. God favors a 'silent revolution' hat has time to see, to understand, to learn, and to repent."

shadows in an old photograph

i received a picture of my dad in the mail in a publication where he went to college. it was an older black and white photo. i have seen that photo before but he almost seems unfamiliar. when i calculated the year of the photo i realized i would have been in second grade.

i tried real hard to remember life with him when i was that old. i looked at the picture trying to find the familiar things i remember with white knuckled determination. it is harder now. he died in 1976 and one of my greatest fears in losing him was that i would forget something i wanted to remember - the things i wanted to take with me the rest of my life. i think i wanted him to remain my dad and be with me in my life through the collection of experiences; so in the place of flesh and blood i would embrace memories and stories. this was a way death was defeated. this was a way i could fight to keep him with me when he was gone. death would not win. but i am afraid i am forgetting something.

i looked hard at the picture. it bothered me a little that he now seems so far away. what does it mean if i am not remembering things as well. i was wondering yesterday if i have collected enough memories to last the rest of my life. what will i remember in ten years and what will i forget. what will matter as i live into a future of being an old man, living into the years that he never reached. i can only imagine what kind of old man he would be...what kind of father, husband, grandpa or great-grandpa he would be.

i have more questions now than answers. would he have ever stopped preaching...would he still like the lakers and the cardinals...would he still sing robustly off-key...would he still want to play catch...would he still say he loved me or that he was proud of me...would he still care about changing the world...would he still leave notes for my mom to wake up to...would he still talk about the horses he trained or the farm he tilled...would he still grow tomatos and change his own oil in his car?

he has been gone so long. i survived without him. i can only imagine in a fictional way what he would be like now, and there is only a little pleasure in imagning how that might be. fictions can be useful but they are not satisfying. before i put the picture down i realized that i am even now older than he is in the picture, which feels odd. what is this feeling i have as i realize that i am living and doing things that he only got to hope for, even wondering what that would have meant to him.

the picture is still on the kitchen table. i have looked at it several times. i showed it to my wife and son and spoke of the feeling of him being a little unfamiliar after all these years. it is like i am remembering less than who he was. it makes me angry. it is like i am only hanging onto failing memories and thinner stories now, in these days. i don't know what to think if i am only remembering shadows and echoes of what was a real person, whose absence i grieved and whose presence shaped who i am. i don't know what i feel about this, but it must be more than anger.

prayers and a poem

i have always wondered what it would be like to be a contemplative sort of person, with a deep and rich spiritual interior connection and resonance with God. it has always been discipline for me, rather than a feature or a first impules of mine as my sort of person. my prayers are more often on the move attempting to do something, like change the world. praying is definitely doing something, i just tend to be on the move a part of the cause.

i was thinking about this the other day while reading a book of poems by wendell berry.
i like the part about the "thump" and the picture of passion at the end - when thinking about prayer.

AN EMBARRASSMENT

"Do you want to ask
the blessing?"

"No. If you do,
go ahead."

He went ahead:
his prayer dressed up

in Sunday clothes
rose a few feet

and dropped with a soft
thump.

If a lonely soul
did ever cry out

in company its true
outcry to God,

it would be as though
at a sedate party

a man suddenly
removed his clothes

and took his wife
passionately into his arms.

walk or fly

on a day when i feel uninspired i refuse not to be proactive.

being proactive means turning on music and probably the volume, it means digging through books, sometimes diving online, often it means coffee, maybe a used bookstore, or most recently it could mean going to the fuller seminary library.

it is difficult to be a pastor who feels uninspired when the masses expect and sometimes demand expertise, motivations, passion, high flying exegesis that feels like the trail of a narrative; someone who walks on water without being pretentious, someone who is eloquent, caring, steadfast, and can tell a good joke.

i had that commom frustrating sense of being uninspired so i proactively headed for fuller looking for something that touched on the wonder of God in the wondrous glow of a manger scene - when God became human flesh.

there is a point in john's gospel in chapter one where it speaks of those who believe in the "Word" that dwells among us (pitched his tent), as the children of God. and the story of a child in a christmas pageant provided the inspiration and made it into my message.

"A little girl dressed as an angel in a Christmas Pageant was told to come down the center aisle by the director. The child said, 'Do you want me to walk or fly?'"

her imagination caught my attention.
wonder added a dimension to her experience and might be able to add something into our experience. wonder has a capacity to transform.

christmas without wonder is a lonely, sad, commercialized experience.

wonder has a place in the life of a believer.

it is the wonder of God working in the world, in our hearts, and entering the world and our believing hearts that provides an inspirational truth. this is what the angels were singing about, what the shepherds believed, what mary treasured in her heart, and what amazed the people. God with skin on, born in a barn, and the whole scene is covered in wonder.

i want to fly.

i don't want to be someone who meets expectations.
i don't want to be the pastor everyone dreams of.
i don't want to be the buzz of a crowd.

i want to fly.

swanson

i recently attended some sessions at fuller seminary with a topic: the narrative of life, faith and visual art - that featured a speaker from vanderbilt university and an artist from here in l.a.

i found myself in a handful of conversations with the artist - john swanson. when i first encountered his work that was displayed it would have been difficult not to see the different influences he speaks of that makes his work what it is. the color is brillantly infused and the depictions are iconic. but the thing that most got my attention was the narrative text within his work. his art takes you into a story that must be told.

i have not seen anything quite like his work (or maybe also quite like him).

in the very first moment of a very first reaction to his serigraphs i found myself being physically drawn closer and closer. the work draws you into the story. it demands proximity in the encounter. i kept trying to step back for a different look at the work and it kept drawing me closer as the work spoke and the drama of it's value-laden narrative. like a fire it was warmer up close. up close one encounters the merging of voice, color, story, image, perspective, and word. but you have to get close to encounter the art that fills, collides, overlaps, and spills off the edges.

i felt like my eyes were dancing and dizzy the closer i stepped forward into the space between.

while i struggle with the point of the lecture about art in the service of an agenda - a practical, utilitarian focus on faith...i did enjoy the artist and the work that invited me into proximity. i am still thinking about the relationship to the art the same way i have felt while sitting in front of a room full of rothko at the tate modern...

?does God need the church

i have been reading too much lately and some of it is about the church and the role of the church in the world. i pulled a book off the shelf by gerhard lohfink. he is advocating that the salvation of God demands a concrete place in time and history. he values the work of God as a revolution that needs a place inside history, in the lives of people and cultures. the revolution of salvation is not an abstract ideal, it is a "radical alteration of the whole society..."

"It can only be that God begins in a small way, at one single place in the world. There must be a place, visible, tangible, where the salvation of the world can begin: that is, where the world becomes what it is supposed to be according to God's plan. Beginning in that place, the new thing can spread abroad, but not through persuasion, not through indoctrination, not through violence.

Everyone must have the opportunity to come and see. All must have the chance to behold and test this new thing. Then, if they want to, then can allow themselves to be drawn into the history of salvation that God is creating...."

with that quote i think of what God is up to. i think about the church. i think about living a dream to reach others with the message of salvation and the way it is lived and portrayed as salt and light. i think of incarnation. i think of how he uses people and uses communities who try to be Jesus in concrete places in tangible ways. i think of the word becoming flesh and a baby born in a barn.

with that quote i think of what God is up to and i still want to be a part of it all.

sayers' jesus

dorothy sayers was a writer i ran into years ago at a place where faith and creativity meet. i loved the way she awakens the familiar with a perspective that screams in the dark...so i paid attention and read her work and wondered what it means.

"The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore - on the contrary; they though Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him "meek and mild," recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies. To those who knew Him, however, He in no way suggested a milk-and-water person; they objected to Him as a dangerous firebrand.

True, He was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers, and humble before Heaven; but He insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; He referred to King Herod as 'that fox'; He went to parties in disreputable company and was looked upon as a 'gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners'; He assaulted indignant tradesmen and threw them and their belongings out of the Temple; He drove a coach and horses through a number of sacrosanct and hoary regulations; He cured diseases by any means that came handy, with a shocking casualness in the matter of other people's pigs and property; He showed no deference for wealth or social position; when confronted with neat dialectical traps he displayed a paradoxical humour that affronted serious-minded people, and He retorted by asking disagreeably searching questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb.

He was emphatically not a dull man in His human lifetime, and if He was God, there can be nothing dull about God either. But he had a 'daily beauty in His life that made us ugly,' and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without Him. So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness."

xmaspoem

we always put our tree up at the end of thanksgiving weekend. i like christmas. i was thinking about this poem a few weeks ago as we finished getting a tree selected and distingushed for the season.

the poem says something about simplicity, about the importance of place, about humility, and about the birth of a savior. these are some of the important themes of the season. it is a poem by wendell berry and it is from A Timbered Choir...


Our Christmas tree is

not electrified, is not

covered with little lights

calling attention to themselves

(we have had enough

of little lights calling attention

to themselves). Our tree

is a cedar cut here, one

of the fragrances of our place,

hung with painted cones

and paper stars folded

long ago to praise our tree,

Christ come into our world.

the questions of the world

anyone can feel pain, loneliness, joy, laughter, anger...

one does not have to have faith in God to experience what is true and real about this world. we are all alive. so often in various art forms one finds the artist able to share or represent certain features of life with great accuaracy and passion. in one sense it doesn't matter what you believe or don't believe, everyone can ask the questions of life if they will have the courage.

good art has often asked the right questions.
while reading a novel called Tinkers by paul harding i was thinking about this.

"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to your at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough."

then it goes on with a character reflecting...

"Howard resented the ache in his heart. He resented that it was there every morning when he woke up, that it remained at least until he had dressed and had some hot coffee, if not until he had taken stock of the goods in his brush cart, and fed and hitched Prince Edward, if not until his rounds were done, if his dreams were not tormented by it. He resented equally the ache and resentment itself. He resented his resentment because it was a sign of his own limitations of spirit and humility, no matter that he understood that such was each man's burden. He resented the ache because it was uninvited, seemed imposed, a sentence, and, despite the encouragement he gave himself every morning, it baffled him because it was there whether the day was good or bad, whether he witnessed major kindness or minor transgression, suffered sourceless grief or spontaneous joy."

i was thinking about this.
it felt a little familiar to me.

whatever is true and real in this world is connected to a God who created, according to believers. the only real difference between us and those who don't include God in the conversation is the particular hope we hang onto - hope that is filled with the answers and the reasons we possess. we spend our lives feeling the same things, having similiar experiences, and they include questions and doubts...and maybe an ache at times or sometimes more than others.

i remember an honest line from the bible, a man saying 'i believe, help my unbelief.'

i like to hear the stories of people with real questions.
i like art that is honest.
i like people who are honest.
i like having some answers to go with the questions.

nouwen

henri nouwen woke me up this morning with this...

"Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons. An important part of the spiritual life is to keep longing, waiting, hoping, expecting. In the long run, some voluntary penance becomes necessary to help us remember that we are not yet fulfilled. A good criticism, a frustrating day, an empty stomach, or tired eyes might help to reawaken our expectation and deepen our prayer: Come Lord Jesus, come."
(The Genesee Diary)

as i was writing in my journal i was thinking about 'longing, waiting, hoping, expecting' in a world where it is largely assumed i can get what i want - now. there is an assumption that we can be satisfied customers. we think we can have it all, including a guarantee.

nouwen reminded me that some of the best things are yet to come.
there is a part of me that must remain unsatisfied.
there is a part of me that must remain hungry.
there is a part of me that must anticipate on my tiptoes.
there is a part of me that lives in the now, but not yet, and that part needs to stop complaining and keep running.

in place of complaining i must see this as a promise...like a gift on xmas eve before the other gifts are received on xmas day when the best is shared.
no matter what needs to be done and can be done...no matter what is necessary for today...no matter where we must have unwavering commitment to as we make things happen on earth as they are in heaven...there is still heaven and all the other promises that will arrive like xmas when maranatha is realized.

open whatever you are given.
be grateful no matter what.
don't stop longing, waiting, hoping, expecting.

life will daily remind us.
life will wear on us like sandpaper on wood.
life at times can be a lot like heaven or a lot like hell, but it isn't.

after i read nouwen i thought of hebrews 12:1-3...keep running...

architecture

frank lloyd wright said:
"Architecture is born in the heart"

it makes me think of the buildings he has created.
it makes me think of cities and their constructed skylines.
it makes me think of realized dreams that began on a drawing board as the architect pencils the conceptions of a dream...a dream of so many possibilities.

as he speaks of the relationship of the internal and the external in regard to the creation of physical spaces, i was thinking about how grace creates new lives.

this is something i believe.
this is something i believe more real than concrete is hard.
i don't know how many things i know for sure, but this is one of them.

i believe in new creations because something new has happened in the heart.
i believe in resurrection, i believe in newness, i believe all the promise can come true, i believe in his power and presence, i believe in grace.

on my best days i know this is true.
on my worst days i believe, help my unbelief.
the external can be crafted skillfully from morality, evil, and everything in-between...but grace can work something that is seen that comes from the inside out when it happens right.

God may be the only one who knows that interior space well enough to judge what is constructed or seen by the world. he is familiar with the inmost places, that interior place, the heart of things...it becomes a drawing board where things are creatively conceived and come to life. he knows the inside well, he is creative, and it is a little sobering to admit that he can access the external.

on our best days the architecture of our lives is created by a heart that has experienced his grace...

a city on a hill cannot be hidden.

without words

i keep thinking about the experience of being without words - but so full of emotions.

is it saying something about me?
is it saying something about the moment?
is it someone else saying something to me?
is it the moment saying something to me?
is it something familiar?
is it something unfamiliar?
is it one of these things or maybe a couple?
is it possibly all of these things?

i remember toward the end of the book of job, he covers his mouth after spending time offering up question after question. when God shows up job speaks of 'things too wonderful for me to know.' he will be quiet and listen because he has seen and felt, and it brings humility.

as i held my new grandson max in my arms the words began to disappear, my vocabulary thinned out, my syntax vanished, adjectives felt impotent, participles dangled and everything fell into a space too full to understand. the one word i am hanging on with white-knuckles is the word 'humility.'

i don't know of everything that was happening emotionally as i held him, yet at the same time it seems recognizable. i know this...but in a different way. yet even if i could see the shape of things partially, or run my hand along the contoured edge of something, or make out what is focused and unfocused at the same time...i don't know if it can be said in words - even if it seems somehow familiar but also very different, at the same time.

what is the relationship of humility and paradox?
what is the relationship between grandson and grandpa?

i remember holding my own children - it was the first time i had held a baby. there was a part of me that wanted to reserve that space, those moments...so i actually tried not to hold other babies. that sounds odd but it is true. it is a strange preference or unusual conviction to reserve the actual physical space for my own children that mirrored something in my heart - just for them.

now i remember holding my grandchild, a boy named max.
now i anticipate holding my next grandchild who is arriving in september.

now i am struggling with the words as a imagine giving them a space in my arms and in my life...a space reserved just for them that no one else can have.

it seems to be a glorious, magnanimous, undoing in the heart that falls back into itself with such intensity and force and joy...it is all those things and more, more joy than my heart or my arms can hold.

grandpa

i don't know everything it means yet.
i am now a grandpa.
i have been a lot of things but this is a new thing and it looks like it will keep happening.

i held my new grandson max in my arms and i don't know all the words to say that i felt and thought - it was like the language belonged in a new category and there must be a new grandparents dictionary or encyclopedia to purcahse that would fill me in or describe what was going on...pictures would be nice. it seemed surreal. it was a miracle. i cannot really believe it has happened. my wife says something similiar, its something new - strange and beautiful at the same time. should i have taken my shoes off in that place.

i don't know everything it means yet.
i am now a grandpa.
there is another one, a girl arriving in the fall.

maybe it means some things without a doubt. it seems to mean something about my daughter and her husband for sure. it also surely means something about the miracle of new life. it probably means something about the past. it has to mean something about the future. it definitely means there is a young child whom i am now committed to in a way that will take shape for the rest of my days. i don't know everything it means but right now it means a lot even if there is a lot of white space in this new territory i find myself, with my wife off the map, and with this child in my arms at the hospital i am thinking this is an adventure.

when i held him i tried to hold him near my heart the way i held my children. there was a moment at the hospital when i whispered to him that i loved him the way i have always tried to tell my own children. i tried to imagine his future the way i did my own children. i am thinking there is a difference between being the grandparent and the parent - but some of these things are things that a grandpa needs to do. i will be glad to hold him, care for him, teach him to play basketball, read stories to him, wrestle with him, talk about faith with him, model a life before him - be the best grandpa i can be.

i don't know everything it means...yet.

i asked his parents if i could pray for him before i left to fly home. it was important to me to do this, something i do for others who are not even my family. i asked to God to bless him and when i said that i meant it the same way that Jesus blessed the children - asking intentionally for God's favor upon him. nothing less. i am asking for everything that grace can give, nothing less. i could not hardly talk out loud as the lump grew in my throat...and i hoped with everything i am, i was, or will be that he will be blessed...and that my heart spoke loud enough among the others, that it screamed as i grappled with words that i could not speak. in those prayerful spaces, in those pauses between my measured words and the difficult broken sentences, have no doubt that i demanded and begged the very best for my grandson with a furious hope accompanied by tears.

i have never been a grandpa before but i think these are important grandpa things to do.
i am looking forward to whatever is next max.

a new adventure

so right now i am sitting at my desk - a new desk, a new office, a new place to live, a new job, a new adventure.

it seems like i should be saying something about sidewalks and freeways...

we have arrived in so-cal for me to be the lead pastor of pasadena covenant church. this is our latest assignment and my newest job. we had hoped to be here in this place and do whatever needs to be done to make the kingdom happen. i am not sure of all the reasons this seemed like a good idea to God but when you throw together passions and gifts into a context it seemed it might be a good idea...though i am curious as to what it might end up being.

people say certain things about me and my work over the years and i am wondering what it means coming to this place. i never guarantee 'success' but i do work hard at trying to discern and make things happen. but it always seems like obedience - being wherever he wants me to be, being who i am created to be, doing what i do and whatever needs to be done. how does he want to use me here? what will that look like? how will faithfulness to a calling come to pass? what will i learn about him and about myself in the process? how can i share this with my wife? does our life here look familiar or completely new and different? can this become our home and we stay for awhile? can i be faithful no matter what happens?

over the years there are a number of things i know in my heart that are a part of who i am: a passion for people and reaching as many as possible with the gospel, a passion for integrity and refusing to compromise the uncompromising, a passion for learning and becoming more like him, a passion for creativity and innovation in methodology, a passion for leading and mentoring others, a passion for communicating and telling the truth, and a passion for my family that i will never minimize or be distracted from.

so i am sitting here at my new desk.
we now live in l.a. specifically pasadena...i have always loved southern california since i was a kid...now we are trying to call it home.

it is the smallest church i have led and i am wondering if my leadership is a good fit for what it is now or what it will be. it is the first lead pastor role in the evangelical covenant church denomination and i am wondering what that means after being non-denominational all these years. it is a church that has seen some better days and i am wondering if they really want to be more than they are now. it is a church connected to seminaries and bearing advanced degrees and i am wondering if they can become like children in the kingdom. it is a church that once capitalized on methodology that can remove barriers and i am wondering if it would take those risks again to do whatever to advance the kingdom. it is a church that we felt led to come to and i am wondering what is God up to and how can i be a part of it...

moltmann's theology of hope

i am finally getting to a book, actually the first of three books, by theologian jurgen moltmann...

a professor i enjoyed in seminary had studied with him in europe and there were different things that he mentioned that i found intriguing. years ago i made a promise to myself and i am finally getting around to 'really' reading 'theology of hope' but just for fun - no assignment or papers due...i have done the 'cliff notes' approach in the past but now i am going to dive deep.

in addition to the actual book i have been trying to read some biographical information mostly online and am enjoying how the life of the theologian and his writing are complimentary, contextual realities shaping the interest inside the text...the bio helps discern the angles of the theology - angles that i think i understand in my own experiences:

"In the Scottish labour camp, together with some other astonished prisoners, I was for the first time given a Bible by a well-meaning army chaplain...I read it without much comprehension, until I stumbled on the psalms of lament: '...I was dumb with silence...my lifetime is as nothing in thy sight...for I am a stranger...' They were the words of my own heart and they called my soul to God. Then I came to the story of the passion, and when I read Jesus' death cry, 'My God, why have you forsaken me?' I knew with certainty: this is someone who understands you...the divine brother in distress, who takes the prisoners with him on his way to resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope...This early fellowship with Jesus, the brother in suffering and the redeemer from guilt, has never left me since."

one writer geiko muller-fahrenholz says that moltmanns theology is born out of the question, "My God, where are you?...and remains a questioning theology, a theology of curiosity."

now indulge me a little or give me some space to go on with the writers summary as it continues...

"It comes into being in the night of an immediate and cruel proximity to death, and therefore in the end it is never about learned intellectual games but about questions of life and death. It does not arise out of the peaceful and cheerful awareness of an unshakeable certainty in God but out of the abysmal experience of the remoteness of God. Therefore it does not have any apologetic interest either, and does not assert that it should or could develop something like a closed 'system' of learning about God. No 'Dogmatics' has come from Moltmann's pen, no 'Summa' of theology."

if you are still reading - one last thing he said of himself (that explains his theological work that has been somewhat experimental, incomplete, existential, and in its contribution has been both significant and fragmentary):

"For me, from the start theology has been an adventure with an uncertain outcome, a voyage of discovery into an inviting mystery. My theological virtue has not been humility, but only curiosity and imagination for the kingdom of God."

i really like that part about curiosity and imagination for the kingdom...

thank you dr. james strauss for the introduction years ago, your teaching was like a large jumbo jet landing in my backyard and now i am finally reading the work of one of your mentors.

so back to something i mentioned earlier - that relationship between a biography and a theology is something i find fascinating and as i reflect on my own life it is illuminating...especially as i think about my sermons and the things that i get most passionate about...

ann lamott defines grace

a. lamott is always good on grace.

she defines grace this way: "Grace means you're in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own."

the older i get the more grace means to me. i liken it to seeing more clearly amid distractions. there are plenty of distractions inside me and outside me that hide the truth. the truth about grace needs to be experienced. a definition needs to become a description. a dogma needs to be translated into biography. theology must become experience or it is just a rumor.

there may be too many rumors and not enough stories being written.

there may be too many things we don't really know that someone else seems to know.

are we living too vicariously?

we are unstuck by the gospel.

we have a new universe to inhabit.

we are given a gift.

? a sign

noah saw a rainbow.

moses encountered a burning bush.

abraham packed his bags after a promise.

hannah discovered peace.

gideon keeps bargaining with fleece.

mary treasured the gift in her heart.

paul was knocked off his horse, blinded, with dust in his mouth.

and i saw tom waits...

i don't know if it was a 'sign' but it had been a point of laughter between my son and i. sometimes when we would talk about seeing the local rock icon, in the back of my head i quipped and laughed it would be a 'sign.' i was in the mood for one. who wouldn't like a sign from heaven when wrestling with a decision?

much to my chagrin during the christmas holidays we were out doing some gift buying and i looked up and within a few feet - there he was. our eyes met. as he passed i looked back at my son and my wife, and my son saw him also. he looked at me in disbelief. it had happened. we saw together at practically the same time something completely unexpected, even if we had laughed about it several times. we looped around, now following my wife, to see him again.

what did it mean?

was it a sign?

i have been preoccupied of late with discernment, and even more with direction. we have been wanting to know what to do next in our lives. i have gazed at rainbows, searched for bushes on fire, reread promises, coveted peace, tried some fleece, wondered what to carry in my heart, and have been hoping a message could come that would knock me off my horse. i am captivated by transcendence and immanence at the same time. a 'sign' would be nice.

can i be one of those people?

why can't i get a 'sign' that would inspire?

so we spend almost a year laughing and talking about seeing waits and finding him in sonoma county - the way the character waldo is found in the books i used to sit down with my kids. where's waldo? there he is. where's tom? there he is. and when i saw him i tried so hard to remain calm and still as if it were common to practically run into or over a legend while out shopping for the holidays.

did it mean anything?

do i want it to mean something?

i cannot believe it...i saw an icon.

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...