Lord...Lord!

"The path of spiritual transformation today lies through the illumination that we have ruined souls..." ~Dallas Willard

The last couple days I've been in Matthew 8:5-13. This afternoon I was really, really tired - that afternoon slump that makes you want to go to bed at 5:00. I stretched out on the bed, thinking Yeah, I am totally gonna fall asleep. I pulled out this passage, though...and felt strangely, deeply rested and energized.

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion answered, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it." When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, "Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And to the centurion he said, "Go; let it be done for you according to your faith." And the servant was healed in that hour.

You can sense the man's desperation. He is broken, conscious of his need, his frailty. And yet he is bold enough to approach Jesus. What really grabs my attention is that he calls Jesus Lord. Here's a guy who has some power. He can tell people what to do, manipulate circumstances in his favor....play God, in other words. Much like myself and most of the people I know. We have a great deal of say-so in the happenings of our lives...or we like to think we do, anyway. But the centurion lays it all aside and openly acknowledges his helplessness. But he is not hopeless. He calls this other Man....Lord. But as he does this, there is a churning hope within him...a knowing...that this Man will bring redemption.

When Jesus commends the centurion for his faith - I have typically heard this as referring to the man's understanding of authority, his boldness in coming to Jesus and making his desires clear. Faith is so often reduced to some abstract thing that obliges God to do whatever it is we apply it to.
But now I wonder....I wonder if Jesus is actually commending the man's humility...the beautiful and perfect blend of brokenness and boldness. Is this, then, what faith really means? To acknowledge my brokenness, my frailty, my utter helplessness....but not without hope. By admitting my weakness, I allow myself to accept the strength of One far greater than myself...One who can, who will, bring redemption. But the doorway...is surrender. Coming to know and act on the knowledge that I am not God.

"...we have become people so locked into our own self-worship and denial of God that we cannot want God. We cannot want God to be God. Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help us." ~Dallas Willard

The Shack

"God as you've never seen Him before!"

No kidding.

I'm two-thirds through the book right now...it's hard to put down! Without giving away the plot (because, quite simply, should read this book), I can say that I am finally getting a real taste of GOD...his personality, his character, his desires, his playfulness, his love. It's really quite remarkable. William Young (the author) had had quite a revelation of the Father. Last night I read through a scene that...helped me understand the idea of redemption through the Cross. It clarified the reasoning....the sheer, unspeakably deep love...behind the Cross. My mind keeps going back to it. What love!

Yesterday morning, in Renovation of the Heart (in daily practice), I was challenged to look more closely at one loving thing Jesus did...to put myself in the place of the person being loved...and to receive that image of God's love as a gift for the day. I chose Jesus' encounter with the leper in Matthew 8. I imagined the look in Jesus' eyes as he lovingly, emphatically said, "I do choose. Be whole!" Following this up with image after image of God's love found in The Shack, are there even words that come remotely close to describing the feeling in my heart?

It lends all new meaning to the song "Jesus loves me."

....when you're alone.

Mom and Dad went to an awards banquet for the school...I just dropped Sam off at work...and I'm at home. Dinner is warming up. I am so used to being around other people - even in my quiet times, I'm not alone in the house. There's a quality of reaching out to God when you're the only person around. It's born out of a feeling of loneliness....but rather than immediately reaching for the phone or the tv remote, I can sit here and know that I am not alone. Almost sounds cliche, doesn't it?
I used to have panic attacks when left alone someplace. So now when I'm left alone, there's still a hint of that - just a hint. Just enough to force me to search for something...Someone to hold me.

"You are a hiding place for me; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah." ~Psalm 32:7

Onward!!!!!

I just received an email from Spring Arbor University.....like, just received it. I've been accepted for the online graduate program in Spiritual Formation and Leadership! I start on August 25. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for this letter. Now I'm wondering, Oh, my God...am I really ready for this??? But if He's brought me to it, He will bring me through it. He is my hiding place.

By the way, thanks Abba. By Your grace, I will glorify you in this.

Do you ever feel homesick....while you're at home?

It's weird.

Loneliness vs. Solitude

Loneliness: Alone someplace. Restless for companionship.
Solitude: No longer pulled apart by elements in the environment. Able to percieve/understand this world from a quiet inner center.

Nouwen says that our lives constantly fluctuate between these two poles: loneliness and solitude. The elements that influence this fluctuation are largely beyond our power to control - "too many known and unknown factors play roles in the balance of our inner life" for us to be able to fully understand where we are on this continuum. But as we become incresingly aware of the existence of these two poles and attentive to the little fluctuations we experience from moment to moment...we are no longer lost and we can make conscious and intentional moves toward solitude.
A first step in the direction of solitude might be to watch for times when I seek to secure comfort in a person, job, hobby, movie, book....iPod. Coming to the realization that nothing can satisfy the loneliness I feel. As I turn to God to satisfy my loneliness, I find that inner center from which I can observe and engage with the world...with greater clarity and understanding.
Solitude is the key to right action flowing from a right heart - a heart made right by intensive communion with God's presence in that secret inner sanctuary.

Loneliness? (again)

"God uses those who can understand the times..." ~J. Kang

Henri Nouwen was a man who "understood the times"...and God did, and still does, use him in the transformation of people's hearts. In the beginning pages of Nouwen's "Reaching Out," he gives a slicing diagnosis of, particularly, American life (though much, I am sure, holds true in other cultures).

We have an innate loneliness inside...and we don't really know what to do with it! We carry a "false expectation that we are called to take each other's loneliness away." By operating on this premise, we enter relationships and "burden others with these divine expectations." The result? Our relationships are excurciating...tiring...suffocating. I think this pervades our culture more than most of us realize.

Nouwen notes that we in America are suspicious of closedness; yet our obsessive openness itself becomes superficial, fun of "empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities."

See what I meant by "a slicing analysis"?

He slices through the heart of our culture, giving a clear cutaway view of the contents.

Empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities...

How much of my talk, how many of our conversations, consist of these busy nothings? How often do we delight in open, "heart-exposing" conversations? --And we act in these conversations as though it is a beautiful and rare occurance, a seldom and meaningful treat....when in reality, we are only spouting off as we normally do.

Lord, give me grace today to be attentive...to notice empty chatter, easy confessions, hollowtalk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities. To see the pervasive loneliness around me and within myself. To be quiet...as a means of guarding my inner sanctuary and as a service to others, choosing not to contribute to pointless crusade of conquering lonliness by human means. Help me to stay attentive.

Loneliness?

"An impatient person is unwilling to wait upon God." ~J. Kang

Patience is key; a virtue that does not come easily or naturally to me. Yet if I had it...much of the pressure I feel to move ahead would dissolve. And it is a hot pressure. I feel it. I succumb to it--more often than I'd like to admit. A person who waits on God's timing will most likely not be moving, at least in certain ways, according to the unspoken and omnipresent timeline of society.

Think about it - what the reward of patience would be...

Less pressure now to move, move, move.

Greater peace.

A quieter heart - more able to know His heart.

The best long-term result

A better formed/forming heart.

Isn't this more attractive to me than always pushing ahead, pressured for the temporal pleasure of fitting in to the society that surrounds me? Like Juno, I find that normalcy just isn't really my thing. As far as major life transitions...I haven't been much for following the "timeline" that so many people seem to expect. And is there anything really wrong with that?

So why continue allowing that pressure to affect me?

"A waiting moment will never be a wasted moment." ~J. Kang

"If this entire universe is a desperate attempt of love to incarnate itself, then 'important duties' which keep us from helping little people are not duties but sins - or am I all the while trying to justify my own failure?" ~Frank Laubach

Everything in the surrounding culture would tell me that I am somehow failing because I am "behind" - meaning that I have not, at my age, accomplished the things "normally" accomplished by an individual at my age. But perhaps the duties of normalcy are, or can be, sins that keep me so busy with my own life/accomplishments that I have no time to do things that God would have me do.

Metamorpha.com

I have come across a website that is an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to explore and discuss a life of Christian spiritual formation. Metamorpha.com, stemming off Kyle Strobel's book
Metamorpha, has great forums and excellent articles and video resources regarding life in this way of Christ. If you haven't been there already, go check it out!

Ahhhhh....

Done. I graduated today. Feels good. I didn't want to walk at first, but I'm glad I did. It makes the accomplishment more meaningful. I also got to see Ms. Wills and Mr. McCullough -- my two greatest professors....I'm going to miss them.

I can't wait for Mom to finish up her degree and walk!

Swimming in God

Sitting quietly this morning, medidating on Psalm 41:6 -- "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble..." -- something occured to me. Everything...everything I think, say, and do....is thought, spoken, and done in the context of God. That sounds simplistic. But it's not, really! It's HUGE!
He is my refuge (around me, protecting me), my strength (surging up from deep within me), and a very present help (near me, as a friend, to assist and encourage and love). Every word that comes out of my mouth originates from, is formed in, and goes tumbling out into a sea of God's presence. Every thought. Every little motion of my body.

I've been playing around with Laubach's Game with Minutes, training my mind to settle more continually in God's presence. I have found it helpful today to remind myself as I type out emails, answer phone calls, trudge through tasks in Photoshop....that all is done in the context of God. Swimming in God. That gives all deeper meaning to the workd of the song: "In him we live and move and have our being..."

Jesus for...."President"?

I just watched a video yesterday that helped me grapple with this book a little better. I found it on Krista Tippet's Speaking of Faith website. It's an interview she conducted at the National Pastor's Convention....with (get this) Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne.

When I first heard about this book, Jesus for President, I felt a tinge of...you know that "Eeeks!" feeling you get when you know something might really tick you or someone you know off? Yeah, that's the feeling. I didn't give it much thought. I just knew that a book with that title, coming out in an election year could, uh...raise some hair. At one point during the interview, Greg Boyd said something about the title of the book....Calling Jesus "Lord" really doesn't mean much anymore. We don't have any lords...not in the same way they did way back when. But when you call Jesus President, you start stepping on toes and getting a feel for what a touchy phrase "Jesus is Lord" would have been at the time.

Jesus for President! Commitment to Christ and his Way...placed before any social or political allegiance. It makes total sense. Sounds great. But put into practice, it will mean giving up some sacred cows.

Check out the interview and related resources here.

What to do with a lazy mind?

"I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person.."

I don't know how often or for how long I turn my thoughts to God during an "average day," but I do know that the last two days I have done so even less. A lot of things going on and I guess my assumption is that I must be fully absorbed in all that's going on in order to deal with it effectively. But in Laubach's experience, the more effort he poured into this Game, the easier every other "outside" activity became. But it's hard work to change habitual patterns of thought. And I find that I am, like Laubach, "perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person..." I seem to lack the ability to articulate my thoughts or the small, seemingly insignificant things of my life in clear and creative ways. I envy those who can. What seems to come so naturally to them takes so much effort for me. But I feel this is a hurdle that I can overcome. Laubach's words are so fitting....

" The experiment which I am trying is the most strenuous discipline which any man ever attempted. I am not succeeding in keeping God in my mind very many hours of the day...
...The moment I turn to Him it is like turning on an electric current which I feel through my whole being. I find also that the effort to keep God in my mind does something to my mind which every mind needs to have done to it. I am given something difficult enough to keep my mind with a keen edge. The constant temptation of every man is to allow his mind to grow old and lose its edge. I feel that I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the average person, and I require the very mental discipline which this constant effort affords."

(Frank Laubach, June 15, 1930 - Letters by a Modern Mystic)

Intergenerational Worship

The idea of intergenerational worship is new to me. Having grown up in a church with a great kids ministry--having helped with that ministry for years...I have my doubts. Yet it is intriguing to me. There is something very...good about the idea of keeping families together to explore the Way. But how can ideas be communicated in a way so as to be appropriate for such a broad age range? How are behavioral issues addressed?
Emerging Parents offers some great thoughts. One person insightfully commented....

We could point out the fact that Sunday schools (in the UK) were a 19th Century invention, and that they were always separate from the main worship event, normally taking place on a Sunday afternoon. It’s only since perhaps the 1920s that the Sunday School class has taken place at the same time as Sunday morning adult worship. And yet our churches are unquestioningly locked into this pattern of doing church that is less than 100 years old.

We cannot be a whole community unless children play a full part, nor can children develop in their discipleship unless they participate and belong in a meaningful way to a community of people of all ages committed to one another on the pilgrim journey.

So we should stop asking “‘How can we keep the children from disturbing us as we worship in ways that are dear to us?’ but rather, ‘How can we invite children into real involvement with our worship of God?' 'What is the essence of our worship and what is merely adult habit and prejudice?' 'How can we make the whole liturgy accessible to children without losing the adults?’ ‘How can we help our children truly to take part in the whole liturgy, word and sacrament, not separately but with us?’ ‘How can we preach the Word so that all can hear it?’”

These are such great questions. I'd like to take them one at a time....really dig around for answers. Good answers to these questions, effectively implemented, would revolutionize the way we "do" church.

Jesus for President....further thoughts

Alright....so I started reading the book and got sidetracked with school. Now I'm back on it with a vengence!!!

My initial reaction to hearing that this book was going to be released was...a strange mixture of excitement and...angst. I had the same feelings as I read The Irresistible Revolution. Now, a couple months after finishing it, I find myself just hungry for more and yet...frustrated because I have no idea where to start changing my lifestyle! There are always "these here reasons." But maybe as I immerse my mind in these ideas...my heart in this truth...right action will be the result.


When I first opened Jesus for President, I was confronted with eight pages of...well, truth. Having grown up in a politically conservative pastor's family, I felt a tinge of defensiveness. But then I wondered why...and read on.
Where to begin, where to begin???
I love the way Shane and Chris open up the cultural/political context of the biblical narrative. It sets so many of the stories in a new and fresh light.
This book is similar to Irresistible Revolution in that the ideas (or is it one unified and strangely intricate-but-simple idea?)are so huge and...potent, yet small...very...well, small.
In that way, the book takes on the same characteristics as the Kingdom - the way Shane and Chris describe it.

The Kingdom of God... is like a mustard seed..." ~Luke 13

Busting out of the popular mold this parable is so often crammed into, the book sheds light on Jesus' inteded meaning...by looking at some matters of culture and context. I'd breeze over this and go on to my next great thought about the book...but I don't have one. As far as I've read in the book (I'm just starting Section Three), this idea is foundational. Much of what I've read so far can be taken back down to this essential truth....so I'm gonna hash it out.
First of all, this is more than the tiny-seed-turned-big-tree lesson we usually hear. Mustard actually grows like a wild bush...like kudzu. Small, pesky, but extrememly powerful. Jews weren't allowed to plant it in their gardens because it would take over the garden...and allow the growth of a "public nuisance." Folks back then were used to thinking of the Kingdom in terms of the huge "cedars of Lebanon." Jesus turned that upside-down! His view of kingdom was nothing like what we have come to associate. I can't beat the way Shane and Chris have put it:

"What Jesus had in mind was not a frontal attack on the empires of this world. His revolution is a subtle contagion - one little life, one little hospitality house at a time. Isn't it interesting that Saul of Tarsus went door-to-door trying to tear up the contagion, like it was a wild week? But the harder people tried to eradicate it, the faster it spread. When mustard is crushed, its potency is released....So there goes Jesus spinning power on its head again. His power was not in crushing but in being crushed, triumphing over the empire's sword with his cross." (p 104)

That all sounds well and good....from a distance. It's nice talk if I want to sound devout and pious. But He meant it to be lived. And not just within the "bounds" of religion.
Speaking of this in terms of faith, religion, belief - whatever you want to call it - I can handle that. It's when I try to translate these ideas to the realm of politics....that's when I start to squirm.

Later on....p 123..."This king rules with a towel, not a sword. In the kingdom of God, we descend into greatness." That's it. The upside-downness of God's kingdom. Christ said Follow me, then went to the cross. This is not a gospel of self-preservation. So much of what I do is absolutely, utterly soaked in preserving my own "well-being." So much of the political action taken in our country (and other countries, to be sure), is in self-defense. Damn the upside-down kingdom! Full speed ahead! And we drop bombs. We kill innocent people. We leave truly needy people in the dust.

"Sure my citizenship is ultimately in heaven, but I have to live in the 'real' world now." I can sooooo relate to this! Part of me sees the lie of redemptive violence. But part of me squirms and screams, But what about the terrorists? What about them? What's to be done with them? We can't just let them get away with it!! In the name of idolatrous self-preservation (call it whatever you want), I settle for a temporary fix. Like taking meds instead of addressing the root problem. Like bandaging a contagious infection. Like whitewashing a tomb.

Maybe this Kingdom of God...does work down deep...quiet...small...but with unspeakable power. Maybe His way won't lead to my idea of "well-being"...the preservation of the many comforts I love and depend on. Maybe....just maybe...the results will be more slow in coming. But they will be lasting. And real.

That's all for now. I'll write more when I've read further. So far.....there are lot and lots of questions. And that's good.