thoughtsofagyrovague.com

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

“There is nothing better for people than to eat and drink,and to find enjoyment in their work.I also perceived that this ability to find enjoyment comes from God. For no one can eat and drink or experience joy apart from him. For to the one who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner, he gives the task of amassing wealth –only to give it to the one who pleases God. This task of the wicked is futile – like chasing the wind!” 

(Eccl 2:24-26 NET Bible)

I have been increasingly convinced over the last few years that life is all about rhythm. Everything in nature has a rhythm. Sun up to sun down, sleeping to wakefulness, the four seasons; they all have their place. As humans we are no different. Rhythm in humans is expressed biologically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. There are whole new fields of medicine that are discovering that as much of our health fails it is because we are not taking heed of our bodies need to follow it’s natural rhythm.

Circadian rhythm is our body’s natural inflow and outflow of activity. It is regulated by hormones, light, temperature and other external factors. However, with the advent of artificial lighting, the drive for increased productivity, and the cultural need to be active all the time we have been overriding this natural faculty for generations. Our bodies are beginning to show it. Cancers, adrenal disorders, mental health issues; these all can be prevented, or at least mitigated, by following our bodies needs.

I believe this is just as much a spiritual disorder. I have watched countless friends and colleagues sacrifice so much to gain so little. Many have taken higher paying jobs or Pastoral roles in bigger churches only to find themselves emptied out and at a loss. Some of the biggest losses are of health, finances, family, emotional capital. I am calling this Spiritual Anhedonia. The writer of Ecclesiastes was one of the first to describe this disorder. Anhedonia is the inability to find pleasure in what we do. It has to do with overworking and overriding our body’s natural pleasure centers for so long that it just burns out. The neurotransmitter dopamine is responsible for the communication of pleasure and it just goes on the fritz. I believe that in part, this is why so many millions of Americans, Christians included, are on mood elevating drugs to enhance these neurotransmitters activity in the brain. Lest you think I am pointing outward at others let me be clear, I have been one of those Christians. It took a lot of life, and loss of health to make me realize it.

I want to be clear in one assertion here. The pursuit of wealth and capital is not all bad. Wealth is created by God, it is engineered for the usage of God’s people and we can use it for the kingdom. I do not advocate a position of being a poor pauper all the time. This is not God’s full intention for us. However, to make it the center goal of our economic life is bad. Money is a tool; it is not the be all and end all of our lives.

As Christians, we need to be living a life of prophetic engagement with the world around us. As the world continues to move to bigger, better, faster means of engagement and “globalization” becomes the norm in all the ways we engage we can do a few things to enter into the fray with the lives we live. We can:

1. Get a good night of sleep. Rest is God’s great gift to us. Spiritually, emotionally and physically. I believe that in a culture that values work and industriousness and the 24/7 work cycle that we do not want to rest because it means we are not being productive. However, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that when we rest, and rest properly, we are more productive. This leads me to number 2.
   
2. Honor the Sabbath. When we honor the Sabbath we are allowing our field to lay fallow metaphorically speaking. God is clear many times over again that we are to rest on the seventh day as He did. He abstained from the act of creation for a day, and He allowed Himself to see what he worked to create work together. Honoring the Sabbath does not necessarily mean we have to go to church on that day, or that we must do something “holy” with our time. It simply means resting and receiving.
   
3. Work 8 hours a day. I realize that not all work schedules are built this way. Some work four days a week for 10 hours, others do shift work. I understand this, and have done all of them at one time or another. However, what I mean is go to work, do your best work, and then come home. Work is for work, home is for home, play is for play. If you have one of those jobs that just sucks every waking moment of your life away, start shopping for a new job. Do not let work subsume everything you do to the point that you feel if you leave your Blackberry in the car while you are at the movies that your life will end. Your greatest prophetic engagement with the world may be the forgoing of some salary for the long term benefit of your health, your family life, and your ability to enjoy life.
   
4. Give of your time. I hesitate on how I put this because I do not want it to sounds like “in lieu of tithing, give your time”, but how about trying to tithe with your time? With the extra time that you are given by God, spend some of it on others. Get outside your family and spend it, spend it extravagantly on others. If you work 40 hours a week, how about spending another 4 hours a week on tasks that are not centered on your work or your needs? This can look very different to some than others. I am not saying spend 4 hours a week at a soup kitchen (but that may be you) every week, but just working on other centered things. Take a friend to a movie, host a Bible study in your home, and take the neighbor boy fishing with you next time you go. The list is endless, and it is all to the enjoyment of God our Father. I believe we can actually best show the face of Christ to those around us when we are at rest and at play.

The last thing that I want to come of sharing this here is for you to walk away with a legalistic prescription for how the life of a believer should be led. I simply want us, as a body of believers, to start to ask ourselves some of the deep questions about what we are doing with the resources God is giving us. It is easy to let the culture of the day overwhelm us to the point that we are living as if God is dead and we are just little gnats on the back of a camel buzzing around waiting to die. Life is so much more valuable than that. I love the words of Matthew, specifically here in The Message Version of the Bible. It says: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt 11:28-30 Emph mine)

The unforced rhythm of Grace sounds pretty awesome to me. Will you join me in finding the way to live in this unforced rhythm, this grace that God so richly lavishes on His children? No Christian walks alone. We have each other, and we have the Father to teach and to guide us. Oh what a day this shall be indeed.

~Selah

EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION

Jacob
and I love to watch the show Mythbusters. It is reasonably scientific, fun to watch, and in the end everything blows up. No matter what the outcome of the experiment, they find a way to blow what they are working on into smithereens.

Coming back from Haiti has been a bit of a Mythbusters kind of experience for me. I have had failure, and success. However, much of what I have done has caused me to blow up, metaphorically speaking of course.

The day after Amy and I came back we needed to go back to Denver in order to pick Jacob up from the airport. We were both reeling inside from the culture shock, the time change, and other such things that slap you in the face when you return home. However, we decided to go to Denver a little early and go to the most American of places. The place called IKEA!

If you have not experienced IKEA for yourself, you must. I believe it is a pilgrimage that all Americans should take, if only to be slapped in the head with the absurdity, the absolute absurdity, of it all.

The first thing I noticed upon entering IKEA is the size. It is a little overwhelming. Take your supermarket; attach it as a second story to your favorite mall and you will have an approximation of how big this place is. It is full of millions of dollars worth of inventory, it has its own food court, and it has a cult like following of those who believe it to be better than religion. It is the perfect set up for an American.

The most absurd thing I realized is that all this space is primarily dedicated to teaching you how to live with more things in less space. The space economizing kitchens, the items that serve a dual purpose and the space maximizing technology are all employed so you can live with your family in approximately 600 feet of space. I wonder why it takes 300,000 square feet to tell you how to live in 600 square feet of space? The message is “Live small so we can go BIG. More space for us to build!”

Some quick math in my foggy and jaded brain tells me that at 50 square feet per person (a number I extrapolated by just watching the way Haitians live) that 6000 people would be living in the same space IKEA takes up with their urban monstrosity. In that amount of space clean water would be sparse, disease rampant, and crimes against the helpless would be the norm. There would be nothing, and I mean nothing artistic, aesthetic, or pleasing about spending your days there. Oh, and add the fact that many people never leave this spot for their entire lives. To say I was crushed is an understatement of epic proportions.

So much of our daily lives are centered around ourselves, our needs, and what we are doing that we sometimes do not even realize how self centered we really are. Personal media, personal e-mail, personal work spaces, personal “time”, and the list is pretty much endless. This is so much so that we are actively working against anything that demands our patience and persistence. We are working against anything that means we do not have personal control of the situation.

It is an honor to work for an organization that is in it for the long haul. We enter into the hopeless situations declaring the hope of Jesus to all that will listen. However, we do not “hit and run”, we stay for the long term. Longevity and integrity are two bedrock parts of what we do. We know that lasting impact is created by creating lasting relationships with those in the communities we are privileged to serve. This humbles me deeply.

I explosively decompressed with God after my time at IKEA. He reminded me that it is bad, and that we need to continue to pray, to engage, and to do the things that we do to alleviate poverty, injustice, and oppression in every corner of the world. But, He reminded me that my being born in the U.S., in relative wealth, with prosperity and IKEA for all, is a gift. And James 1:17 reads “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” I am glad that the same God that is working in Haiti on behalf of the widow and the orphan is working on behalf of me. All good things come from Him, and for this I am eternally grateful.

~Selah

The Day Big Papi Came to Town

I recently returned from travelling to Haiti with Compassion International. After all the trouble that has been keeping Haiti in the news I wanted to go and see the people, and the devastation, for myself. I was challenged, amazed, aghast, and humbled, sometimes all in the same minute.

I am not a novice when it comes to visiting foreign cultures. I have been in several countries and done many different things. However, one of the hardest things for me is the way foreign cultures constantly pull out your worst insecurities, and how they seem to harp on the same insecurity again, and again, and again. It will continue until you 1) Deal with it, 2) Succumb to it or 3) Turn it into strength and move forward.

One day in Cap Hatien we visited The Citadel. It is an impressive 18th century castle that is, as the name implies, a fortress that is not meant to be reached easily. It is about 3000 feet of climbing in about 4 kilometers. It is not an easy climb by any stretch of the imagination. Our group of 30 individuals all rode horses to the top. I may be from Colorado, but I last rode a horse about 20 years ago. My first insecurity was dealing with the fact that I needed to ride one and that I really do not like them much. They are beautiful, but some people should just not be around horses. I am one of those people.

The second insecurity has to do with the fact that the horses are not well fed. They are more the size of donkeys. Add to this the fact that I am a large individual and the next problem is a bigger one. What “horse” will take me to the top? It took awhile, but we found one.

As I was mounting the horse we were all giggling at one another getting on the horses. As I was the last one to get on I realized the entire village where we were came out to watch me get on the horse. “Big Papi” was the chant and we were all laughing. The village was impoverished and I know God is close to the impoverished. This means, Jesus was laughing at me. I am O.K. with this. He was having a good time, and when was all said and done, so was I. It just took awhile for me to get there.

My infirmity has always been my body. I have dealt with neurological illness, cancer, and other illnesses over the last years and my body has the scars, and the stories to prove it. God has been incredibly faithful through the times, and continues to be. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12: 9-11 (NIV)

“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it…”

As I was riding up the mountain on my horse I realized that my weakness was being magnified so that it could be personified in the love of Jesus Christ. As I thought of that I began to weep, but I also begin to relax. I realized that I was where I was supposed to be at that time, at that place, and that what we were seeing going up the mountain was no less than absolute beauty. The land was lush and green, and the families we met along the side of the road were friendly. They continued to shout “Big Papi” as my horse and I stammered and stuttered our way up the hill. My French is lacking, but I knew I was being teased, but also called out. I was being called out to act like a “Big Papi”. What this means to them is a man, who is healthy, who has money, and who is kind and loving to those who are around him. In the west it can be seen as disdainful and “sinful” in our culture. But in a country where food is not plentiful, disease is rampant, and people die at 30 of diseases we “eradicated” generations ago, I am King because I have beat the odds.

I am sure that I am not the last “Big Papi” to come to town and ride up the mountain. But I think that the local village will be talking for days about the day Big Papi came to town, and how he laughed not only at himself getting on the horse, or laughing at others. I hope they will remember a Papi who came to the mountain, learned something about himself, and had a heart that grew about three sizes that day. Ultimately, I hope they remember the ultimate “Big Papi” who loves them, who came to this earth and beat the odds, and who still listens to their plight and who is not mocked in their pain.

I encourage anyone who is considering a trip with Compassion, or any organization for that matter to press on and go. It is easy to look at statistics and listen to the worst case scenarios and decide it is not for you. However, when you are ministering to “the least of these” you actually may find God is ministering to you. Growth can then begin, and we are all called to be active in growing in our relationship to God, to others, and to ourselves.

The Test of Rest

As many of you know I am in a season of rest. Rest from the business of being a Pastor, Chaplain, all around do it all kind of servant hood that I have been doing so much of. This has been painful for me because I am the one who is geared for action. When we sit in a prayer meeting and pray for a single mom to have help to move her house, I pray, and then I go do. God had to tell me three different times, in three different scenarios, that this had to be done. I may be contemplative, but I am stubborn.

Many things have tested my resolve to rest lately. Friday was spent in the Emergency Room, Wednesday was one of the worst days of work I have experienced in awhile, and with counting down to our Work trip to Haiti I had to make some decisions, and fast as to if we were still going or not. Every part of me wants to roar like a lion and start making things happen. This is especially true with me, as well as with the health of my family. So much of my illness was blown off, as was my wife’s for quite some time that I have learned to be “wise as a serpent and ROAR like a lion” (my translation) at the doctors to get them motivated to find an answer, not just deal with the pain.

As I was praying Friday and seeking the Lord on what to do peace just oozed out of every pore of my body. I had not felt so at peace in so long. It was a grace that I will live in the afterglow of for awhile. Very shortly after really seeking God on it the Doctor came in the room and said “I see what is going on” and “here is what we need to do”. When I asked about travel he said no restrictions. Praise the Lord Amy and I are still going to Haiti, and for this I am super thankful.

When God first told me to rest this summer it was in the course of a prayer time with a man who has a prophetic gifting in our church. He laid hands on me and said that I was “going to learn to rest and learn to go deeper within the father heart of God.” I did not know the two would be so intertwined. However, I am seeing it now.

Hebrews 4 has blown me to pieces and back again. This passage is about the disobedience of Israel, and how they never found rest in him. Hebrews 4: 1-3 (msg) says:

For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith. (emp mine) Remember that God said, 
  Exasperated, I vowed, 
      ”They’ll never get where they’re going, 
      never be able to sit down and rest.”

I am not an Old Testament scholar, but it does not take a scholar to read the story of Israel and realize there were many more corpses left in the wilderness in comparison to the amount of people who actually entered into the promised land.

The scripture I am working to memorize comes at the end of the same chapter:

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. (emp mine)

The Father heart of God is expressed in so many ways, in so many scriptures. I cannot even think to name them all. However, this one sums it up pretty well. Take the Mercy, Accept the Help. I accept his mercy today, and the help that I know He is providing is directly from his Father heart for me. Resting in that has given me great peace. Since intentionally resting in His heart I have felt favor in many ways, big and small.

My hope for my friends, family and loved ones is simply this: Take the Mercy, Accept the Help.

~Selah

The Gospel of WIFM

I love the church, and I love the people of the church. I love the gospel in all its crazy forms and functions, and I want to shout it from the rooftops to people all over the world. The church is awesome, but I am getting more and more bugged about something; in particular the personalization of the Gospel. Let me try and explain.

When Tim Tebow gives God the glory for his wins, and for his losses I am excited. Here is a manly voice saying he is man enough to share his love for God. But one of the things he says, and we all say it at times, is I want to thank Jesus Christ MY Lord and Savior. I am excited that you have a relationship with God, but God is a God in relationship with you, in the greater context of the entire community. I believe this is just another unfortunate byproduct of how we live today. We live in a fast paced, me driven, self centered world.

In the book of Jonah there is an intriguing passage I like to ponder from time to time. Here it is, in part:

When the king, an apparently evil, or at the least very misguided king, called for a communal repentance God listened. God redeemed every man, woman, child, and beast from the calamity he had planned for them. No one perished in the manner God had in mind. Everyone renewed their commitment to Christ, as a community, and they were redeemed.

What would happen if we, as believers, took our call to live in the community of the saints more seriously? What if we worked as vigorously, if not more so, for our local community as we do for foreign missions? See, it is easy to write a check to a foreign missionary because I do not have to get dirty, and I do not have to engage in the lives of the community the missionary is in. I can be myself, my personal self unchanged but feeling good about my giving and never impact my mission field I am called to. My personal space is unaffected by the giving I am doing.

Christianity as a calling into community, a holy calling. What if we got on the podium and said instead of “Me and my house, we will serve the Lord” and instead said “As for me and my community, we are serving the Lord?”

I work for an organization that reaches out to children in poverty around the world, but does so by strengthening the ministry of the local church. We partner with what is already going on and strengthen it. I can honestly say, of every other organization I know locally, or abroad, the ones that are having the greatest success are ones working in community driven, community focused endeavors.

I am not doing a PSA for any organization or church. But, in my time in foreign countries ( a negligible amount of time I admit) the ones I saw doing the most good were the ones that drew on the local leaders, village elders, fathers, mothers widows and so forth. They were taught how to draw on them, but then left to express, in the communal environment, the love of Christ.

When we serve in a communal setting it becomes less of what’s in it For Me (WIFM) and more of a “what can I do to help my neighbor…” We all know the greatest commandment God spoke, to love God with all your Heart Mind and Soul, and to love thy neighbor as thyself. I see no other way of sharing the gospel effectively. Do you?

Hic Sunt Dragones

In the Medieval ages cartographers were the penultimate scientist, explorers and engineers. Cartography was so important because as the world, and the awareness of it grew, so did the need for accurate navigation and understanding. However, even in the medieval ages our understanding of the world around us was capped at some point. There would be places that no one had gone on the map, or if they had they never returned. When a cartographer did not know what was there they would write Hic Sunt Dragones which means “Here be dragons.”

The statement, while emphatic and factual sounding, is really inaccurate. A Dragon represented the unknown or the fact that something of power was there but they did not know what. I am sure that looking at the map would deter anyone but the bravest of souls to wade into the unknown territory. I am pretty sure anyone who did told Momma they were just going to be gone a few weeks because she would definitely have something to say about it if she knew the truth.

As Christians today we do the same thing. So often we take a stance towards culture and people of Hic Sunt Dragones and we culturally disengage from the map. Instead of engaging with the culture around us, we disengage and create a culture of our own. We speak “Christianese” and listen to the same Rock music the “World” listens to, only once in awhile they use the name Jesus. It is no more edifying than just about anything else.

The verse that is so often quoted about why we should create or own culture is Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (NIV) However, we often do not look hard at the next verse; “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” Romans 12:3 (NIV) I am afraid we have become arrogant as a church and we have so disengaged from culture that we have honored the first verse while ditching the second one all together.

I have lived a lot of life over the last 10 years. Married life, Fatherhood, Missionary, Pastor, Chronically ill, employed, unemployed, underemployed…the list goes on and on. At each point in my journey though I can honestly say I have felt loved by my Christian friends, but even more so blessed by those who are at different points on the map. I love these people dearly. I appreciate each person for the gift that they are.

God calls us to engage in culture, not rewrite it. We have stories to tell, funds to be offered, grace to be administered and joy unspeakable to witness to the world about. We need to engage in the culture with a prophetic voice, not a political one. We need to exercise our talents not just in the church, but in the culture at large. We need to show the world Jesus in the eyes of the artist, the musician, the school teacher, the doctor and so forth. We are prophetic culture makers, not pathetic culture copiers.

As I engage in different activities and have conversations with other people of different persuasions I do not lose my faith, it is enlivened. If you honestly open your mind to look at the world and see the beauty in it you will not lose your faith, you will find it! As Christians we know that the world may be flawed, it may fall short and be sinful, but we also bear witness to the fact that the universe is fundamentally powered by the love of God for his creation.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (NIV)

The above verse is a tall order to fill without a doubt. But I believe it is attainable. As we work within the culture and create culture we bear witness to the power of mercy, we show that in all the failings of the world that justice is still a powerful thing and that even the most hardened person can experience justice and mercy. The last one, to walk humbly, is the greatest challenge any one of us will ever face. However, the Proverbs are full of statements about walking humbly being the beginning place for knowledge and wisdom from the Holy. I want that, and so should all believers.

~Selah

Losing Center

Several years ago, while in the throes of illness and the constant discord of conflicting streams of information I started to begin to lose track of time. What the date was, what was expected of me on that date, where I was supposed to go and so on. For a person such as myself, who usually prides himself on keeping it together in the toughest of circumstances it was very disconcerting. As a trained Paramedic I regularly was put in situations where I was the one cool and rational mind. When all is chaos, I would be expected to be the calm and collected one. To add to my frustrations, my wife was epileptic and on a “zombie drug” to keep her seizures at bay and we were quite a pair.

During this time my son was in first and second grade. He was just learning to tell time and develop his sense of place in it and he was being called upon to help his poor mom and dad keep it together. He is a marvelous boy for many reasons, but that was a blessing.

When we lose our sense of place in time and/or space it is disconcerting because the rationalistic side of who we are is left in the dark. The “I” and “me” meld into the “who” and “where” questions of life. In this way it is humbling, (and humiliating) to admit that you do not have the faculties to take care of yourself in the manner which you need to.

Now, three years later, I find myself in a similar space. I am not near as sick as I was, and Amy is doing remarkable in every sense of the word. Metaphorically speaking however we are in this space again. We have made a difficult decision to leave our former church home, many of our closest friends have moved, divorced, or are so busy with life that we do not have the friendship that we once had. It is easy to once again say I want… or I need… or I could… but I hope to not be so focused on the me, and more focused on the we.

Looking back on my illness has caused me to be grateful for many things. But I am learning to be even more grateful for “loosing center” for a time because I again must begin to rely upon others. Things such as; wisdom from friends, prayer, and a lot of silence and cultivated listening. I learned before to stop and give thanks for the small things, and then even the smaller things. Once I did the big things just fell into place.

Today, as I lose center for a time I give thanks. I give thanks for home hearth and health. But I also give thanks for the wind and the trees, the snow that I love to hate and the bugs that surely annoy. Without these things much of life would be different. I remember that those things which I do not understand are perfectly timed and understood in the hands of my Mighty Father who is faithful and just and who knows just what I need, just when I need it.

~Selah

The Tragedy of Arthur by William Shakespeare: The First Modern Edition of His Lost Play, with an Introduction and Notes by Arthur Phillips by Arthur Phillips

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is not for those who like the story to be tidy and everyone walks off into the sunset happy. This is a great story about a man trying to live out of the shadow of his father.



I enjoy Shakespeare and that is what got my attention in part. The rest of the story is what kept me reading. I read it slowly because the story hurts. It is reality, in all the hormone driven, fear driven glory.



I will not give away the ending. However, in an end befitting Shakespeare himself you find yourself hoping for closure and that the story does turn out all right.



I like redemptive story. I hope Arthur finds his redemption and that one day they will truly live a fairytale ending.





View all my reviews

“A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.” 
Truman Capote

The last few weeks have been filled with pyrrhic victories for me. I have had some nice recognition at work, and for a few other things going on and I must say they have been nice. However, if I am shamefully honest with myself about them I probably sought after the recognition just a little bit too much. This is a painful admission, but one I must come to terms with if I am to grow past it and through it. When I set my mind to mastering something at work, in school, or just about any other endeavor I want to master it to the full potential. When I feel that I am not getting noticed, or that people are apathetic about it I begin to languish. My Father knows my work, and it is in him I must find the rest and recognition.

In order to help set my mind back into a passive state I have been doing my best to have good conversations with people, but let them lead the conversation as much as possible. It is almost a form of spiritual direction, but more for the director than the directed. This is hard for me because often as I listen I have an opinion or idea formulating and I want to let it loose and see what people think. However, I quickly have learned that by setting myself, my ego if you wish to call it that, to the side that I have had some wonderful conversations. Some have been brief coffee talk conversations, and others have been four hour marathons with my wife. All have been enlightening.

One of the things I lack, and I believe society as a whole is very deficient in is the art of conversation. I know this might seem a little bit like a curmudgeon talking, but the more and more I am aware of what is being said, the more and more I believe we talk to engage in a transaction and not a mutual strengthening. I come to our conversation wanting something, you want something and we all negotiate for what we want. Our interests are first, and if we want to be Christ like we need to be last. Conversations should be a time when we are not doing a cost benefit analysis of our time and our efforts. Conversations should be to the mutual edification of those involved.

I work in a call center environment. Almost all of my conversations with those I serve are quick and concise and a financial transaction takes place and the job is done. While this may be the paragon of efficiency, it is not edifying, at least not much. However, in order to serve our growing needs as a ministry this is something that must be continually cultivated. The trick is to get out of that mindset when at home, at church, preaching, etcetera.

A book I recently read called The Lost Art of Reading by David Ulin has a wonderful statement in it. He says “We live in an era where everyone wants to tell his or her story, but there is no real sense of what story is anymore.” This quote resonates with me because it certainly applies to me. As long as I can not engage in conversation and communication with humility of mind, peace in my heart and without the intention of “winning the argument” I am at a loss, and we are at a loss as a society if we do not cultivate good conversation. I believe we are afraid that if we engage in conversation without a pre set criterion that we might not get our point across. This should not always be the point of conversation.

As I have put myself aside in these conversations I have found myself having interesting, and even fulfilling, conversations about all sorts of things. Lindsay, G.I. Joe and The Filioque. I have learned a little bit about each of them, and “knowing is half the battle”.

~Selah