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...

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.