Archive for the 'Thoughts about Life' Category

Hope!

January 1st, 2010

As this New Year gets a start I love listening to the pundits, the preachers, and just regular Joes at the coffee shop discuss this previous year and how they feel about the upcoming year. I have always been one who is inclined to people watching, but I am ever more so at New Years. What fascinates me so much is that at the beginning of a new year everyone is an optimist. Sure there are some who are not, but for the most part no matter how damaging of situation they have been in a person looks to the future with hope. Sometimes it is cynical, as in “well this year sucked. Lost my job, lost my wife, she took the dog so what could be worse?” But most of it is people doing the introspection for the last year and then deciding that the next year will be better. Karma will be on their side, the cosmos must owe them something because of the string of bad years.

One thing that I believe sets American’s apart from so many other nationalities is our audacious hope. When the writers of the Declaration of Independence sat down to begin what would be one of the greatest subversions in history, they had hope. I believe hope was inculcated into our national D.N.A. the moment those men set the pen to parchment. I am glad to see that it has not left. Times are tough for sure. People are losing jobs, losing cars, losing savings and retirement like crazy. More and more people are becoming bereft of the things that traditionally are seen as indicators of stability and safety. I am no exception to this, and boy it hurts, for awhile anyway.

The book of Lamentations is a great view of what happens when it all goes wrong. When God judges your sin, when the car is repossessed, your wife is drug through the streets and raped, when your children are sold into slavery and your fields are burned to the ground and turned into the Kings vineyard. Yet, in the midst of all of this there is Jeremiah reminding his people to hope:

“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, and the poison I’ve swallowed.

I remember it all –oh, how well I remember, the feeling of hitting the bottom.

But there’s one thing I remember. And remembering I keep a grip on hope.

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.

They are created new every morning. How great your faithfulness!”

Lam 3: 19-24 (msg)

America, we have an incurable and insatiable optimism and hope. Guess where it comes from? It is built into who you are by your creator and it is a gift. Optimism is a gift. We have been given the gift of foresight, hindsight, and the ability to reason rationally in the present with these things in mind. What sets us apart from animals is we are given these gifts, and we are given the ability to choose them over all else in times of great stress, trouble and pain. We do not have to fall back on doing what we have always done and wishing for another outcome. That is how animals go extinct. Some variable changes and they do not have the ability to cope. We have the ability to cope because we have hope. A hope that comes from a living and active God. Our trials are only for a time. Our time in the wilderness is for a season, and our Joy truly does come in the morning when God and his mercy and love are renewed upon us.

America, let’s turn our faces toward our heavenly father this year, let’s turn our minds towards the hope that is in us. I want to be like the church in 1 Thessalonians when Paul first speaks to them:

“Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love,

And your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much

But also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words.

Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions”

1 Thess 1:2 (msg, bold mine)

We are set apart by God. We are his workmanship and he has a plan and a purpose for us. Let’s all commit to look for it in 2010. Let’s let the steel in our convictions become evident before all this year and let’s watch and see what the Lord will do. I, for one, am excited to see it.

~Selah~

##Update## I saw this from Bono and found it fascinating and very hope filled. He believes this next century is going to be great, I agree.

Thankfulness on this Holiday

November 26th, 2009

” For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. “

NRSV Jer 7:5-7
This Thanksgiving, as ever Thanksgiving does, gives me an opportunity to pause and give thanks for so many things. My health, my family, a good job, great friends, an awesome church…you get the picture. And truly I am blessed and truly I take extra pause to thank God for those things today. But I have been a little bit stirred lately about the command of God to take care of the orphan and the needy and how God really just lays it out there that if you are rich, but do so by oppressing the poor or are not sharing with those who are in poverty among you that he is going to work against you.

I am not trying to be sappy and say “shame on you” for getting together with family and having an excellent meal and some time with your family. God is in the midst of such things without a doubt. But what aspects of our Thanksgiving holiday can be taken used as a way to bless the poor? Put another way, is there something that you and I do consistently in our celebration that might bring poverty to another person? This takes some thinking, but I think there is. In a lot of what our consumerist culture does there is an aspect of it that is potentially oppressive.

Today I give thanks that God has choosen to bless me and my family. But, in recognizing my blessing there is a mandate spoken again and again by God that can not be ignored to then bless the poor, the needy, the alien and widow in your midst.
Many of us know widows in our church or through our community. Do you know what they are doing for Thanksgiving? What is it that they might need done around the house or taken care of? What about an orphan? That is a little harder to define, but think of it in a way of a co-worker who just lost their last living parent and is now headed into the holidays without them. Can you minister to them? Can you maybe have what has often been called an “orphans dinner” at your home and invite him, as well as others in for a nice meal and a nice time of communion with your friends? Talk about loving your neighbor, and that is the greatest command of all.
I am just putting these thoughts out here because even I, the guy who works in a ministry that works with the impoverished and the poor and needy do not think often of these things. I am guilty of thinking that they are on the other side of the world, and then here I am and I am not exposed to people like that. I am “blessed to be a blessing” and all of that, even as my neighbor down the street does not have enough to eat.

I am thankful and greatful for so much. This year I want to take steps to let that grace “trickle down” from me unto others. I am not sure what that will mean specifically for my family. But, I bet God has a plan for it all!
~Selah!

Prayers for a Privileged People

April 8th, 2009

I recently took delivery of several books that I have wanted from Amazon.com. I was giddy with anticipation, watching the UPS tracker as it inched ever so closer to my house. I was happy it delivered at 10:55 A.M. on Monday and my apartment manager took delivery. I know it is nerdy to be so delighted with anticipation, but I have needed some good stimulating books. The Christian books I have wanted seem not to populate the shelves of my local Christian retailers or Borders, or Barnes and Noble. So I ordered, and I waited.

One book was called Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann. I have wanted it for awhile. It is a collection of prayers he has written or shared with congregations over his considerably productive lifetime. Prayers for all occasions, liturgical and responsive. It is not something you sit and read in one setting, but you move through in pieces, and you treasure the pieces and the come back for more. It is a cosmic buffet of prayed goodness of God. You get the picture.

I was amused, after being a little put out about it, that the copy I recieved from Amazon has several blank pages between prayers. At first I thought this was by design, but after looking for a few prayers that were in the index that are not there I realized my book is a misprint. URGG, I do not want to deal with a return to Amazon. I am not going to. I choose to see this as a metaphor of God today.

I, like so many others, have a schedule that gets crammed and cramped with the things of life. Missions meetings, work, parent teacher conferences, hospital visits, time with my son, etcetera etcetera. I carefully craft time for myself early in the morning so that I can enter into devotion and prayer with God. Lately, I have let those times get a little truncated in favor of getting more sleep, getting a jump on a new book, or just flat out laziness on my part. I admit it, I am unfaithful in my prayer life. And when I pray it is crammed between my reading the scripture and stepping into the shower. If I am late I cram the prayer in. I try and pray lectio divina style, but sometimes I just dont have the ability.

Staring at those blank pages God told me that he wants me to use those pages as a reminder to pause and reflect after I pray. I feel embarassed to admit it that I dont always do that because on this very blog I have shared how I go through my day devotionally. I am going to get back to that. Even if it means waking up before my customary 4:15 a.m.

I love when God uses the mundane, the unusual and the every day routine things of life to remind us of Himself. I am glad He does because it reminds me that I am highly favored in His sight and he sees me as being important enough to gently nudge, and sometimes all out do a WWF smack down on, towards seeing Him in greater measure.

Thank you God that you look at me, your imperfect creation with faults, cracks and broken promises and you look on me with love. Thank you God that you dance over me, that you favor me, and that you gently nudge me, your servant, into submission before you.

~Selah~

Out of the Box!

March 30th, 2009

I am totally encouraged by this story and how perfectly it illustrates what I have been pondering. How do you affect cultural change?

I have been thinking about this in relation to my previous post about naming our children in utero. What would it take to get the culture engaged in changing our view of abortion? In the case of the above mentioned article she did it. She had an idea, she explained it to the city and she implemented it. Result being less litter. I believe she is illustrating a very crucial idea. The idea of buy in.

American culture loves it’s mavericks. We love to hear stories about the men and women who went out and changed the world. Who stood up and started a revolution. I am no exception. I am enamored with stories about civil rights activists, pastors, teachers.. you name it; all who stepped out on principle and with an idea. What I do not often stop to think though is that even those who stepped out had to get the culture behind them. They had to transmit their intentions. By pulpit, by book, by political stumping, they all had to transmit their ideas to the culture and get the buy in.

I am only engaging in a thought experiment here, but using my previous post as an example, what would it take to change the culture? I think any person who steps out and tries to affect the culture around them has to ask themselves 5 very key questions. This works on the macro level, which is the example I am giving, but also on the micro level in such places as in the home, in our classrooms, in our churches. These 5 questions are:

What does my naming a child in utero assume about the world?

What does my naming a child in utero assume about the way the world should be?

What would naming a child in utero make possible?

What would naming a child in utero make more difficult?

What new culture would be created in response to naming our children in utero?

I am leaning heavily into the excellent book by Andy Crouch called Culture Making for those 5 questions. I strongly recommend this book to anyone, but especially anyone wanting to engage and change the culture today.

I want to add one more question we should ask ourselves, and it is the big one and it is implied in the previous 5 questions. But the question is:

What is my motivation?

Every good author, painter, poet teacher and so forth has to ask themselves that question regularly. So what is your source of motivation today? What affect can you or are you having on the culture around you?

I am learning to ask myself these very basic questions because at the heart of things I am a mixed motives guy. I think we all are. I want to please Jesus, I want to be the stud my wife thinks I am, I want to impress my son, the boss, the Pastor. I want to be the cool guy who has all the answers. I believe that by asking ourselves what our motives are, and the framing those motives in the framework of the first five questions will root out a lot of the background noise. If an idea passes through these filters and the motives genuine, the change needed, and the person with the idea can gain buy in then the world is but an open book.

Do you agree, disagree, think I am so far off base I am playing on a baseball field in North Dakota? Please share.

h/t to culture-making.com for the original story.

Thoughts on the # key

February 11th, 2009

I am a person who thinks if something does not have a purpose, then get rid of it. Maybe I am over utilitarian in my thinking on the subject, but there are things in life that are just not necessary. The pound sign on a phone key pad is one of those things. What purpose does it serve on my phone? My Blackberry can attest to my frustrations with the key, it is almost worn down completely, and I have not even had the phone a year.

I have never asked a person for a phone number and had them give me something like #45-4#29 as a phone number. It is a useless and lifeless key. The only time I hit the key is when I am on the phone with the utility company, or I am fighting with the insurance company, or because I lost in the hell that is the “computerized customer service” for any company anymore and I need help. I think that the name of the key is aptly named, because by the time I use it I am pounding the crud out of it trying to get to someone with some intelligence to tell me why, yet again, I must pay them. I get some sick satisfaction out of pressing the key as hard and long as possible. I have had to do this a lot lately. I have health insurance, but they seem to not want to pay many of my bills timely. As you can imagine after brain surgery there are more then a few bills that the insurance man has to pay. He pays with his money, I pay with my precious time.

As I grow older, and hopefully a little wiser, I realize that my salary of time draws at the same rate as everyone else. I am given a 24 hour day in which to accomplish as much as possible and to have the greatest impact for Christ. While I hate the pound key I realize that sometimes when I am on hold and listening the droaning elevator music that could put the walking dead to sleep I begin to dream and contemplate the things of life. It is one of those rare, or not so rare at times, moments of my life where I simply must hold still and wait. I can do nothing else. To put the phone down and walk away would be to risk someone finally answering while I am away. To begin to read is to risk not multitasking well enough and missing something important. And cooking, yeah, that is another concern all together. For the health of my family, and for the sake of preserving all my fingers and toes, cooking and waiting on the phone are not valid options. So I wait, I contemplate, and maybe walk away a little wiser then I did before.

As a “self appointed contemplative” I try and look at life and the things that are in it and bring them captive to Christ and to how I live. I am not always good at this, in fact I can not say I am very good at it at all. But maybe if I did not have the pound key and I had to wait every time I had to make those calls I would be just a little wiser. I think from now on I am going to ignore the pound key and pretend it was never invented. I will get the satisfaction mentally of not having one more piece of unwanted technology, and the soul satisfation that I slowed down a little, and that maybe God used that time to speak to me in the ways that He has choosen.

~Selah~

Living in the margins

January 31st, 2009

In recent months I have been working on trying to keep my soul in a quiet and contemplative stream of thought and belief. Before I had surgery in October my mind and heart and spirit were not quiet and it was hard to be at peace with God, let alone myself and others around me. Part of that was biological, I had several nerves in my brain being compressed and they were firing on all cylinders all hours of the day. But part of it, the greater part of it I believe was in my spirit. I was in spiritual warfare with myself, with fear, with doubt and disbelief. I could not imagine that God would allow me to be so sick, I could not believe that he was not providing financially like I hoped he would, and I could not believe my wife was ill also. The two edged sword of my mind had been whittled down into something resembling a butter knife, a dull, unobtrusive, plastic butter knife to be exact.

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Divine Word for 2009!

January 6th, 2009

I have bumped across a few people who are framing their 2009 in the context of a word. One given by God, or one they hope to achieve. I can not cram my whole thoughts and life into one word, but if it was 2008 I would say “schadenfreude” 2008 was a messy year, but a year of growth physically, mentally, and spiritually.

If I would use one divine word for 2009 it is “rest” Not just getting enough sleep rest, but divine rest. God has told me to breathe deep, partake in life and just know he is my forward and rear guard. I plan on taking him up on his word.

I am still going to be blogging, and I am still reading quite a bit. Right now I am reading through Scott McKnight’s latest book The Blue Parakeet and it is rocking much of my thoughts, and confirming many in me as well.

I am contemplating my next move in school. I have my BA in Theology, and I would like to expand on that. I might start a 2 year spiritual director program, much along the same lines as Christianne and Sarah. We have one that meets here and it is run from a Catholic world view, but many evangelicals and emergents have gone through it as well. It is in a monestary (which is uber cool to me) and teaches much from the contemplative stream of life. The stream I am swimming in much lately.

I am also considering a M Div  program that would better “equip” me in the professional realm for working as a pastor, counselor, or wherever the Lord finally leads me to. It is confusing, and tension between the two is building, but the answer will come with time.  Ideally I could be a contemplative pastor, and with time that would develop. I just need to go the route that prepares me best in my current stream.

So, in resting I am also preparing. Preparing myself for the next steps of life. Thank you for being with me on this journey of faith. I have been so blessed and encouraged by each and every reader. And I know I have readers who dont comment, I appreciate you as well. Feel free to dive in and share with me. I draw much spiritual strenth from sharing here, listening to you, and growing.

Prayer

October 23rd, 2008

Prayer is the lifeblood of the relationship we have with Christ. Prayer is the way we do warfare with those Satan and those who do evil. Prayer is the way we intercede for others. Those we love, those we have relationship with, and those who we know about but do not necessarily know. (think Christians underground in India etc.)

The prayers of the saints are so powerful, and I am a testament to it. Tomorrow marks two weeks since my surgery. It could have been big and dramatic, it could have been up to a 6 week recovery process, but then there is me. I am two weeks into recovery and honestly can say I am at 90 percent if not more. I have had no drugs for several days, I am only marginally stiff in the neck in the morning and I take a hot shower and even that goes away. God is so very good. I have a quick story to tell, then I will shut up.

When I was going under the anasthesia my prayer to God was to have an experience with him. Not some big dramatic thing, but some kind of memory or pleasant experience. God did that. I remember, at least briefly, floating on a cloud bank and just floating towards no where in general floating up and down over the terrain. I do not remember a voice, but I remember that I was told that the prayers of people were what was causing me to float. I remember being so relaxed, so at peace with things that I did not care if I ever came away from that place. I did not even remember that surgery was going on, I just wanted to stay in that place. I felt protected, I felt loved, I felt…prayed for. Seriously.

My prayer life is pretty anemic, I will be honest. I do not dedicate the time and resources towards it that I should. While I am continuing my recovery I am going to work hard at developing a better prayer habit. I want to contribute to someone elses visit on the cloudbank. I want to lift up others as I have felt lifted up. I might need to wake up a little earlier every morning, or go to bed a little later, but know that I am focusing on prayer and the power that is within it.

I have a few thoughts to blog about bouncing around, and I have the time to articulate them right now so you might see this blog get a little busy, or not. I am not sure. Sometimes it is good to be quiet, in fact I think it goes hand in hand with prayer.

Thank you, each and every one of you that took a few minutes to pray for my family and for my surgery. I truly feel the prayers. My anxiety level is pretty low, although I am looking at a very lead November (due to not being paid for this time off). I am not sure where the funds will come from for the bills, but I know they will come. If God had done so much to heal me, he will not stop now.

~Selah~

I am a Word Geek!

October 2nd, 2008

I admit it, I love good words. I do not get intimidated when I come across words that I do not understand. I try and put the pieces of the word together like a puzzle until I think I know the meaning, and then I look it up. Many times the meaning I think it has, it does not. But I try anyway. I am wading through Practical Christianity by William Wilberforce right now and I am having to use a dictionary alot.

All this is to say, that today I came across two excellent words that befuddled me in my normal blog cruising and I thought I would share. I get tired quickly of blogs that consistently rely on the OMG and WTF’s. These impressed me. So today, I am a Word Geek.

1) Jermiad.  A prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint. One could say that my prayer life has been a bit of a jermiad lately. But I know God wants to hear it, and he listens. I am glad about that. I found the word used here.

2) Internecine. Of or pertaining to conflict or struggle within a group. I could definitely say that the fight between the Emergents and my church right now is internecine (and assenine, but that is my opinion) I first found the word used here.

Enjoy the words for the day. I will try and post before I go for surgery next Thursday, but if you come to my blog and see silence, please pray for my recovery. I will be in touch soon.

Everyone is a Rugged Individualist…

September 13th, 2008

Until the Hurricane comes blowing in. Then, we call 911 and hope that someone will save our sorry ass and that they will not arrest me for stupidity.

I am watching the coverage of Hurricane Ike which by all means is a huge hurricane and can be expected to cause the state of Texas apoplexy for years to come. I am praying Texans and then I see that 911 is getting flooded with thousands of calls for rescue. As if you did not have days of notice, plenty of options to get out, you were told to get out, and you stay. In my mind you forfeit all rights to spend my tax dollars to get your butt out. But I digress, I do worry about people like that, and of course they need rescued, then put over Uncle Sam’s knee and reminded that stupidity like that is not cool, it is just you being a moron.

What is it that causes you and I to think we can be rugged individualists in everything? Do we really think that we are not dependent on so many people for so many things every day to keep ourselves safe, fed, clothed, loved? In America we love the stories of our heroes who struck out against all odds and fought the status quo and made a name for themselves. I applaud them, we need people to do that, but even they stayed within the societal norms set out for them at some time. Henry Ford did not make a cheap car by building it and then going out and driving the wrong way on the road against the other cars. He would have died, and we would be remiss without his genius.

Spiritually men and women get wake up calls when they are facing life altering circumstances, or facing the prospect of loosing their life. Hopefully those dumb butts who are staying behind in the hurricane are having a good one on one with their maker, and capitulating to him. A shotgun conversion is better then no conversion at all.

I have had the opportunity to counsel several other individuals who have the same brain condition I have. It is a story for another day on how it started, but I have been blessed. The surgery I am having October 9th has in it some inherent risks, and people have not woken up from the surgery before. (shh, don’t tell my wife) Any time man presumes to mess with the 3 pounds of gray matter that God created in all his greatness there is risk. But many of the people having the surgery are pondering their life, making sure that loose ends are wrapped up and that they are on a fast track to heaven above should they be one of the statistics. None of them are saying “I wish I were more of an individualist all these years”. instead they are saying things like “what will be my legacy?” “Will I be missed?” “Who will take care of my family?” All are questions that have an eternal impact.

If I am going to die, which one day I will die, I do not want my legacy to be the one known as “that dumb ass who would not evacuate from the hurricane” I want it  to be a legacy of love, joy, encouragement and peace. Hopefully I go peacefully, not watching myself taken out to sea never to be found again.

“God be with those who are bravely fighting this hurricane and taking care of people, take care of those who are unable to leave and grant your peace to those families that will be impacted by this horrific day.”

~Selah~

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