spiritual formation based congregations.

Foster has some great thoughts on how to build a congregation that is centered on spiritual formation.

My second point is simple enough to say though exceedingly difficult to practice: Spiritual problems demand spiritual answers. We simply can never solve a spiritual problem with a programmatic answer. It is vital in any congregational setting to be working with God on the spiritual nature of the community. Is pride pervasive throughout? Then spiritual disciplines of Service are called for. Is nervous, anxious over commitment evident everywhere? Then disciplines of Solitude and Silence can help. Is there a lack of trust in God? Then experiences of Prayer and Fasting are needed. Are we taking ourselves too seriously? Then multiplied opportunities for Celebration need to break forth!

Times come in the life of any congregation that in order for us to be attentive to God we have to become firmly anti-programmatic; that is, we learn to stop doing things. At such times we are to discover ways, as a people together, to follow the counsel of François Fénelon, “Be silent, and listen to God. Let your heart be in such a state of preparation that his Spirit may impress upon you such virtues as will please him. Let all within you listen to him. This silence of all outward and earthly affection and of human thoughts within us is essential if we are to hear his voice.”

Masters Update

Things aren't looking good for beginning my masters in January. My search for grants has yielded nothing yet. I said that I wouldn't take out a loan, nor could I, and that if it was proper time, God would provide. I am not seeing his provision. I am facing the disappointment of putting this opportunity off.

It is particularly disappointing since Richard Foster would be speaking at the intensive seminar in January. I received the reading list and it looks so good.

• D. Bonhoeffer, Life Together
• D. Willard, Great Omission
• T. Ware, the Orthodox Church

It is my happy birthday!

Leave me a greeting today, and I'll be even happier!

Search for Augustine

I had my library get a few different translations through inter-library loan. I have looked so far at Oxford university Press, World's Classics translated by Henry Chadwick; Signet Classic translated by Rex Warner and my copy which is Modern Library translated by Edward Pusey. I like Chadwick the best so far. This line from book 7 will show you why:

Pusey: "What were the pangs of my teeming heart, what groans, O my God! yet even there were Thine ears open, and I knew it not: and when in silence vehemently sought, those silent contritions of my soul were strong cries unto thy mercy" (one sentance).

Warner: "What agonies I suffered, what graons, my God came from my heart in its labor! And you were listening, though I did not know it. When in silence I strongly urged my question, the quiet contrition of my soul was a great cry to you for mercy."

Chadwick: "What torments my heart suffered in mental pregnancy, what groans, my God! And though I did not know it, your ears were there.
"As in silence I vigorously pursued my quest, inarticulate sufferings of my heart were loudly pleading for your mercy" (2 paragraphs).

It is the poetry that Chadwick provides that originally atracted me to the mystical Augustine.

Strining Christmas Lights

Next year I have it all figured out. I will wind a string of white lights tight to the trunk of the tree, to light the insides. Then I will swirl flashing lights up the tree like a candy cane, so that no single flash will black out the color of that part of the tree, those lights will be back into the tree a ways too. Then around the whole thing I will wind another layer of white lights to give the tree a continual shapely glow.

A story about "The Confessions of St. Augustine"

The Confessions of St. Augustine

by Augustine

I am going to give this another go. I have the Modern Library version, translated by Pusey. I gave up a few years back because the sentance structure and syntax were at times challenging. I have been searching for a better translation, but in the mean time I thought I’d go back and see if I’d changed enough to handle this one.

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The Pastoral Life

Life as a pastor isn't always Arcaidian bliss. Sometimes the sheep smell like poo. Still a shepherd I am, and a shepherd I must be.

Graduate funding

My fafsa yielded nothing. I trust I can find some grants or scholarships, God willing. Or a generous benefactor perhaps.

Masters Degree

I have a renewed energy and joy, I found a graduate program I can do while pastoring here! It is an online masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership from Spring Arbor University. I have been looking for a good Spritual Formation Degree program since I came to Sebewaing (well at least since I found out that the U of M offers a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and not a Masters). I have applied for the program and filled out my FAFSA.

It all rests on God to provide the dough. My one-time mentor Nancy Eckstien told me once, in the midst of her doctoal work, not to do graduate work unless someone else pays for it. That bit of advice is a neccesity at this point. I am researching grants and the like, but the simple truth is that if God does not provide the finances I can't do it yet. The Spiritual Autobiography below is from my aplication proccess.

Spiritual Autobiography

I have often thought about the bends in my spiritual journey and the grace be hind them. One day I was having breakfast with Clint.  He was youth pastor and I was children’s pastor at what was our first church. I had been there a couple years when he came.  I was describing to him the frustration I had feeling like I was constantly failing in ministry and life.  I felt like I was working hard to meet people’s expectations, but was getting nowhere.  Fear and distraction dogged me, and sin beset me in ways I could not shake.
“I feel like I need discipline in my life,” I said to him.
“Let’s read Celebration of Discipline together,” he replied.
There God’s grace was at work.  He and I read Celebration of Discipline together a chapter at a time, taking a week or more to digest each one.  Each line held life to me. It resonated in my soul in such a way that there was no doubt the Holy Spirit was speaking the Holy Word of God to me.  Clint and I would talk about the depths and constantly speak of Foster in hushed and awe filled tones.  Foster became such a catch phrase for our experiencing of the depths of God, that I named my son Foster.
Another event that deepened the journey was the day a man from Clint’s old church in Nebraska stopped in to see him.  Dan Gruber also happened to be the brother of my friend and children’s ministry hero, Dick Gruber.  Over coffee he unfolded to us the greatest thing he had learned in his lifetime, which at that time spanned the sum of Clint’s and mine.  It was simply this, that the most important factor in ministry is the quality of your intimacy with Christ. That a tender and submitted heart created the tracks the train of the Spirit could run on.   At times I am blown away by the simplicity of that truth and equally that men twice my age haven’t grasped the truth. By God’s grace I came to understand that there is no higher goal in heaven or earth than to love God and enjoy Him forever.  And that grace came by Dan Gruber and the only conversation I had with him in my lifetime.
One other great turn on my journey came with the reading of Streams of Living Water.  I quickly devoured anything I could find by Richard J. Foster. Streams of Living water lifted my horizons.  Grew up the son of an Assembly of God preacher.  I was Pentecostal through and through, with little understanding of the other traditions.  I was even skeptical of their claims to the truth.  In exploring the other faith traditions with Foster, I began to hunger for a wider orthodoxy in my own faith.  I long to experience a whole Christianity, fed by all the streams and traditions that my rich faith has to offer.  The Social Justice tradition began intrigue me as well as the mystical and contemplative.  When I moved to Sebewaing, I became involved in the local ministerial. It has been a great experience.  I have changed. My father asked me if my colleagues were making me more liberal, but as I thought about it my concern for social justice as well as my respect for my friends from other denominations comes from the grace I experienced reading Streams of Living Water.  Now I have great examples in my circle of friends. Father John has taught me a great deal by his example of simplicity. My Lutheran friend and mentor Ray has taught me the value of expository preaching with the lectionary, and praying the hours.  My Presbyterian friend, Rich has taught me gentleness and his example fuels my desire to be a spiritual director.  My Moravian friend, and adoptive father, Glenn has taught me about hospitality and extending the boundaries of one’s family.  My Methodist brother Chuck acted as my spiritual director for over a year before he retired.  These dear brothers and others like them have made a great impact on my life.  All of this comes from the grace offered by becoming open to the other streams of our faith.

A good day of discipline for me begins with praying the Morning Prayer from the Liturgy Of The Hours. I began my journey with the Divine Office with a longing to experience a rhythm in prayer.  My prayer took on sweetness as I went from reading the psalms to really praying them.  I feel the loss of the intimacy I find in the Liturgy of the Hours if I go a day with out praying at least one of the offices. Along with that rhythm, I enjoy praying the Rosary.  The mantra of the Anglican prayer along with feeling beads worn by years of another’s devotion connects me with the richness of salvation history and the communion of the saints.
If it is Thursday I go to ministerial meetings and have a unique time of study, guidance and worship with other guys from a variety of faith traditions.  Those times a precious to me.
When I get to the office, I light seven pillar candles on a shelf and imagine the presence of the seven-fold spirit of God.  If I have some incense I’ll light that and picture the glory of the Lord filling the temple.  Then I sit on my couch in the little sacred space I’ve created in the corner of my office, and center.  Experiencing solitude and meditation makes my day so much more focused and productive.  
This summer I mowed a labyrinth in the lawn at the church. Most days it calls me over to walk. Any time I get too excited in my study, or have to think something through the labyrinth has been a good place to retreat.  My four-year-old daughter, Ella likes to walk it with me, in the center she thinks about Jesus.  Sometimes my two-year-old Foster sits on my shoulders and falls asleep as we walk.  
Every night, as part of Ella and Foster’s bedtime routine, we have family devotions.  We read a bible story from Ella’s children’s Bible, celebrate with traditions, art, and service. When I put the kids to bed, Ella likes to pray the Night Office with me.
At the end of the day I pray with my wife, Elaine.  I made a liturgy based on the night office.  In prayer we reaffirm our vows, confess to each other, give thanks, and pray for our family, church, community and world.
After we pray we like to lie in bed and read.  I try to keep four books going all the time, I read the one that fits the moment. Inspired by my brother, I’m trying to keep a well rounded study. So I try to keep at a book of poetry, literature, a spiritual classic and a practical or theological going. Right now I am reading The Grapes of Wrath. Then I fall asleep in the joy of a day full of the practice of the presence of God.  Perfect days of discipline are rare, but the disciplines that accent my day are dear to me where I find them.

This month I am celebrating my third anniversary as Pastor of Sebewaing Assembly of God.  The decision to become a senior pastor was itself a journey.  
When I was six, a children’s evangelist, Curt Zastro came to our church. I was impressed that he cared for children, and in that, I heard the voice of God calling me to do the same.  As a teenager I started to minister as a leader in our children’s church.  As I was growing spiritually, I wanted to offer the children the same experiences.  I was convinced that caring for children the way Curt Zastro did meant believing that they could experience the depths of Christ.  
I remember my own powerful experiences at kid’s camp.  When I was nine I first experienced the baptism in the Spirit so important in our Pentecostal tradition. I knew that if it was possible at camp then we could seek the depths of the Spirit in children’s church as well.
Then a new children’s pastor took over, and I fell into a period of doubt.  The same children who had been seeking the depths of Christ with me, responded to invitations make the first steps in their Christ-walk with her.  Couldn’t they understand that there was more to Christ than just the decision to follow him?  Could they experience the depths of Christ?  The answer seems so obvious now, but then I spent a year feeling I should opt for youth ministry.
About that time I went on a missions trip, with my youth group, to Panama.  I heard several times that the spiritual needs of the children were neglected there.  In the repetition I again heard the voice of God calling me back to ministry with children, perhaps in foreign lands.
After high school, I filled a staff position at my church directing the children’s ministry. As I grew to appreciate the disciplined life, largely thanks to Foster, I continued to explore ways to disciple children.  I came to the conclusion that the best discipleship for children happened in the context of the family.  Through my years as a staff pastor I came to the conclusion that the best way to disciple a whole family is to be the senior pastor, better yet to start a new church plant with family ministry built into its DNA.   So today my call to care for the spiritual formation of children is working itself out as the pastor of a small church in Sebewaing, and dream of planting churches and one day travel

How "The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)" changed my life

The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)

by John Steinbeck

I will never use the term “cotton-pickin’” in a negative context again! The way Steinbeck discribes the plight of the migrant workers in the depression, and the evil captitalist tactics made me wonder that there wasn’t a revolution.

Much like the Motor-cycle Diaries, I find myself wanting to effect change after reading it. O God, may we find ways to bring justice, equitability, sustainability and righteousness to something so mundane and so pervasive as economy!

I love the way Steinbeck alternates between the story of the Joads and the story of mankind as a whole in essays of essoteric discription. As much as I enjoyed following the story of the Joads, it was those essays between chapters that I most anticipated, and most shaped my feelings.

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A Bad Dream

The following is a chat I had with my good friend Clint about a bad dream I had as I was waking up this morning.

Hey there you.
Hey!
How is your morning?
Not bad.
I had a dream this morning that I was pastoring this huge church. It was my first day.
How did that feel?
We parked out on the street but the parking lot was like a sea. We had to swim to the church
Then when we got there we were late and it seemed like chaos, even though the associates and lay leaders should have had it under control.
Dag gum associates and lay leaders!
They asked if there were any kids who needed to go to the nursery and the whole section of people turned and pointed to us.
Then I thought if the ushers came to help us I could tell them I was the new pastor.
But they didn't come we just stood there.
Dag gum ushers!
When I finally got on the stage to give greeting it was weird the section right in front of us was just an empty hallway, no one could actually see the pastor.
Crazy.
I spent most of the morning in bed trying to figure out what it meant.
Come up with anything?
Oh yeah, besides that I was dressed like Colonel Sanders and accidentally had one of Elaine’s skirts under my slacks.
Rough first day.
It seems about the isolation of church people.
It was weird.
I didn't even get to preach.

My Uncle Ulrich and Aunt Ginney sang this German nursery rhyme to Ella, while bouncing her on their knee.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter (English below)

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt,
dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Teich,
find't ihn keiner gleich.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt,
dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Graben,
fressen ihn die Raben.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt, dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Sumpf,
dann macht der Reiter... Plumps!

(Kind "fallen lassen")

See alternative verses below.
ENGLISH Prose Translation

Bumpety bump, rider,
if he falls, then he cries out
should he fall into the pond,
no one will find him soon.

Bumpety bump, rider...
should he fall into the ditch,
then the ravens will eat him.

Should he fall into the swamp,
then the rider goes... splash!

("Drop" child)

An Epistle I Recieved from an old friend

christopher, an apostle of christ,

i firmly believe in the continuing grace of our Lord and have been inspired through prayer and constant meditation to dispatch countless messages over the passing years towards to end of reinstigating the tradition of letter-writing amongs the churches.

many times i have felt compelled to write you such letters but have felt fettered by my lack of knowledge concerning your current spiritual state of being.

a great Evil has spread itself upon this earth, as indicated by our scriptures.

false prophets are among us.

we live in a world, and specifically a nation, of christians, and yet, our Faith in our Lord has been twisted to suit the desires of those who we should rightfully call our enemies.

I speak not of other cultures and faiths.

I speak of men of great power who profess a devotion to Christ, but who also seem to have a tendency to drop high powered explosives on people they've NEVER WITNESSED TO or met face to face.

In light of the current events in this world, i have found myself entirely devoted to a reinterpretation of INTERPRETATION of scripture.

For far too long have the proponents of false doctrines been the gatekeepers of our Lord's compassion. Their love is weak and spread too thinly across too much unbroken bread. Their COMMUNION is mere ritual, NOT spiritual and communal experience.

The Promise of our Lord does not reside in the petty affiliations of secular rulers of modern nations, regardless of the extent to which they profess OUR faith for the sake of THEIR election to national privilege.

They profane the name of our Lord through their murder and conquest.

They dare to speak His name and recite his scripture in their speeches and public addresses.

The time has come for all true believers to separate themselves from the lesser, human aspects of spiritual history.

You and I, Christopher, as heralds of His Word, MUST feel obligated to speak the truth.

The so-called Christians of the present era are NOT sacrificing themselves for the sake of martyrdom before the eyes of Roman patricians.

They are NOT dying upon the sands of Coliseums.

They are hypnotized by glowing-machine-pictures to the point of believing the exact inversion of our Lord's sacred Word.

The most immoral and profane of rulers has defiled our faith by invoking Christ's name to further the greedy cause of conquest and invasion as prophesied in the texts that we share and value.

I for one will not stand by idly as the virtue of our Lord is desecrated by the rulers of this new pagan Rome.

I request that you pray and mediate ceaselessly, as I'm sure you are doing, concerning the matters that I have now addressed through the modern means made available by the progress afforded by the governance and glory of our Lord.

I do not hesitate in admitting that I have spent the past few years in service to my own devotion. My prayers and worship have been endless and strong, and yet they were self-directed.

The Lord has ripped me from this self-indulgence and charged me with confronting my fellow Christians with the message He has given me.

Please share this word with those you trust and with those you know to hold Christ's name and glory above present historical and cultural circumstances.

Our ranks have been infiltrated by machine-image Chaldeans, false prophets, and politicians eager to gain favor through adherence to the local imperial cult.

I have not known your company or voice for quite some time, but trust that we have remained united in Christ and remember that your mission is NEVER complete until your hair is grey, your belly is sagging, your voice is spent, and your body is destroyed-

your physical form ruined not through torture and tribulation as our former historical churches have experienced at the hands of mad imperial power,

but through the joyous proclamation of Christ's Love and Divinity!

I am not instructing you to do anything, for i acknowledge your senior knowledge in such affairs, but I would invite you to use whatever means available to spread this word that I have sent you.

Speak it to a single love you trust, or even go so far as to read these words to a small group of close friends.

Either way, it is of no concern.

Our union with Christ in Eternity is promised.

Considering this, all ventures yield value and spiritual profit, and yet are forced to stand in a relative awe before the absolute of the One and Only.

In closing i will say that if troubles come upon you, remember these words:

No imperial sword may pierce the breastplate of His righteousness, which adorns the body of all who profess.

No worldly affliction possesses the power necessary to invalidate OUR FAITH in Christ, regardless of the lies of conquerers and thieves.

In closing I can only say, in love and devotion to you through Christ, that I would gladly meet you upon Roman sands and contest the might of hungry lions, singing praises to our Lord before the mortal gaze of any earthly false emperor!

Let he who doubts these words meet us both in Eternity and present any and all objections!

May our deeds be deemed worthy upon His return. SELAH!

Jacob Eckstein

Why I gave up consuming "La Biblia en un Ano"

La Biblia en un Ano

Two reasons: 1. Kings is pretty confusing in Spanish. 2. If you miss a day its all over. No more Bible in one year. I think my solution will be to read whole books of the Bible in a sitting as much as is possible.

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“I wonder if you guys would read a story I’m writing.” I remember the awkwardness of my first words to Andrew and Kevin. They were regulars at the coffee shop where I had taken to hanging out. I had overheard their discussions of ideas well waxed with all things deep and philosophic.

Ella, in her way, had chosen their group to make friends with, so by extension I had become acquainted with them. Yet getting the courage to actually attempt that fearful task of relationship initiation – small talk, took too much caffeine and my near completion of a story about a pre-Socratic philosopher. I was so excited by the resonance of espresso and a good idea that I had to share it with someone. I paced back and forth a couple times and then, approaching them, gesticulated the awkward sentence. They agreed, but I didn’t know what to do next. I gave them the web address for the story and left it.

They were to become dear friends. I only realized how much I loved Kevin and his girlfriend, Liz the night before they left for Marquette. I talked with them late that night, long past closing, and then while I was still cleaning they came back and brought me a slice of pizza from the Atrium.

From the time I met Andrew he was already one with Amanda, a girl who worked at the coffee shop. We sometimes called them Amandrew. They too were my kind of people. Coffee culture, academic, bohemian. Tonight, I said goodbye to them. Over the past couple years they have become some of my dearest friends, more than that, they are a brother and a sister to me. Their farewell party was bittersweet. I will miss them, and I desperately hope and pray for the grace of sharing our lives again. But sweetly I also praise God that he allowed me to love them for the time I have. Even if my great desire for them is not met, it is enough that I have known people so pure and dear.

Andrew’s parting words to me were that he would email me his comments on a revision of the story I asked him to read when we met.

Naked Nihilism

I saw coke-bottle bespeckled Bill, today, riding his old-man bike downtown. He had his shirt draped over his handle bar. It struck me as significant. Looking at the wrinkled manflesh of a naked nihilist is too much for the human mind. For when nihilism is laid bare, it is like looking into the the dark abyss of nothingness.

I sit at a booth at a sidewalk sale during the Sugar Festival. It is the heat of early afternoon and people have already left off shopping the dwindling downtown. Up and down the sidewalks, elderly shop keepers and artisans are packing up their wares. The air is heavy with the humidity of resignation and happy disappointment. The Festival congers up nostalgic images of the community those elderly patrons and purveyors once knew.

The main source of traffic is the steady stream of young people cruising center. In defiance of the nostalgia, car after car vibrate by, the bass too strong for Detroit steel to handle: it buzzes rather than resonates. The urban beats and hip-hop expletives hit the farm town streets with a hard insurrection. Even I, perhaps the youngest curb sitter, nearly 30, am reproached for my age.

I recall a family vacation to Branson Missouri when I was a teen. The country music atmosphere and senior tour busses made me feel like I was in an assisted living twilight zone. We went to what, in retrospect, was a great concert by violinist Shoji Tabuchi. Shoji fiddled to just about any kind of music, jazz, bluegrass, and Broadway. Before intermission, he pointed this out and challenged the audience to try to stump him with another music style. My brother and I looked at each other with a crooked smile. There is no way, we thought, that a place like this could produce the music we were listening to. We were wrong, after the intermission he did a rap version of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

After the concert, my brother and I went to our van, thoroughly disgusted with the world’s lack of sensitivity to youth. We popped in a tape of, dare I admit it, gangster rap? We blasted it to the parking lot of smiling seniors, inflicting our fierce youth upon them.

Perhaps it is the way young people respond to a world that doesn’t understand them. Perhaps it is their way of saying that they don’t feel apart of the community. Hopefully we can smile like the seniors in the Branson parking lot and find ways to embrace their youth making them part of the community the Sugar Festival celebrates.

A story about "Quantum Theology, Revised Edition : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics"

Quantum Theology, Revised Edition : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

by Diarmuid O'Murchu

This is a mind tingling book. I find I have to be in a highly caffinated state to get into it. I love it when I am… into it. Glenn loaned it to me and he wants it back pretty bad. So I guess I’ll have to hit the coffee.

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Don't fence me in

Words have the power of construction. Steve said, as writers, we use just enough words to fence in an image so that it can't get away.

Other people, I have noticed, have the ability in anger to build walls, sometime whole box canyons. With their words, or the spiritual force behind them, they make me feel trapped. I try to escape with a witicism and something in their eyes or manor declares that it is futile.

An electric cage traps my heart in my throat. My face turns red with confusion adn humiliation. I regroup and quietly attempt to disarm or retreat. Either way the trapped feeling is not easy to shake and the injury to my soul stays with me, changing my being for a time.

What is ministry?

If it is not relational, it is not ministry.


True?

Rosary

“Would it be too much trouble to have you open this case? I’d like to see the rosaries.”
“That case?” the dealer asked. “Let me get the key.”
I stood wondering if I seemed foolish, if she thought I had a strange fetish or something. Perhaps it’s my upbringing, third generation Pentecostal, about as protestant as they come. When my family hears about my experiences with ancient Christian spirituality, they often wonder if I’m becoming Catholic. I bounced on the balls of my feet nervously looking at other items.
I had been agitated walking around the expansive Bay City Antique Center. Dueling goals prodded me. One – to get out of earshot of the loud woman at the front counter, forced me to move quickly, eyes flitting from case to case looking for my treasure. This time, my mood was not helped by booth after booth, room after room, floor after floor devoid of the object of my search. They were full of Americana, kitsch, and collectables.
Occasionally something would catch my eye. A deco counter that one day graced a thirties bar, or theater back wall struck me in one room. A pince-nez in a case turned out to be no where near my prescription. A set of golf clubs set me imagining myself on the course in knickerbockers and argyles. When I’d seen enough, and I’d had enough of my mood, I asked to see the rosaries.
“This case is the worst in the shop,” the dealer returned.
I apologized and pointed to the one I wanted to see. The tag said it was “well used,” that was what I valued: the experience, the sensual devotion, and the passion of another’s life for their God worn into wooden beads.
Gingerly, lovingly, I guided the beads from the case. As I touched a wooden bead, I felt connected spiritually to the heart and devotion of the Holy Church Universal. The emptiness that had marked my day – made me grumpy, agitated – was filled with joy, a rushing joy, a silent river. My heart began to thump. Through the emotion and vibration, I was able only to count to seven.
“Why are there so few beads between the stations of the cross?” the dealer asked.
I had only just processed the number and whispered, “It’s Anglican, they have weeks instead of decades.”
I’d never seen an Anglican rosary in person, though it is an Anglican prayer I pray with my rosary.
I left in a new spirit. I didn’t buy it.
“I can’t spend that much with out talking to my wife,” I said. Just touching it and the discovery was enough.

Childhood charm

Ella’s round wide face with bright large eyes catches the elders’ gaze. They watch, her child life appeals to them. The sparkle in her eyes is reflected at the corners of each mouth. The softness of her glowing cheeks echoed in the smiling lines on each face. Youth and old age kiss silently, spiritually. Vicarious dreams inter the souls of the honored elders as they look on the child.

We have found our children to be a point of entry in to the solitary lives of many individuals. A new unfamiliar place, a new church, restaurant or doctors office is soon overtaken by their childish charm. To be sure they are sometimes embarrassing and misbehaved, but at their best they are ambassadors of our families love for each other to those around us. Ella is so good at making friends there have been times that she will adopt a new, strange, family at a restaurant and sit with them until our food arrives. We smile and watch her wearily, and somehow have a silent connection with the new members of our family.

The God Machine

Deus ex machina comes to the rescue again. In ancient Greek plays, when the plot was too thick, and a resolution too hard, a god was lowered in a machine and solved all the problems: the god from the machine. The Greeks had it right. Our critics today look and say that you can’t tie up loose ends so neatly, or you can’t introduce new information or characters at the end to solve everything.

I know better. Come what may, Ella breaking a brand new DVD trying to get it out of its case, or pouring juice on the computer, come cranky spouse or dark day, come cold blooded evangelicals with eyebrows of judgment, the god machine comes to my rescue. Either the sculpture of boiler, tubes and steam is more loving and powerful than the God of my heart, or dear machina is his own instrument. For nothing cures the attitudes of the heart or the maladies of the mind than a well-timed espresso.

Resurrection comes in two-ounce shots.

Later that day...

Though perhaps more responsive than the almighty (a shot of espresso is pulled in thirty seconds), machina is also a fickle friend who’s company is enjoyed only a little at a time. Manic days of too much caffeine and my concentration floats and flits like butterfly on the wing. The molecules in my body vibrate at the resonance of espresso. All else is empty – hollow. Food, I think, may fill the void and calm my vibration. My thoughts and humors are as flighty as my liver and pancreas. Heavy and substantive ideas are solid food, and I hunger, not out of need, but emptiness, want of fullness – of balance – of solidity – of depth. Enter the almighty upstage left.

Our Search for community

I recently attended a community Lenten service at Unionville Moravian church. As we wait for the service to start, I look around with warmth at the community I have been apart of for nearly three years. I think about how important that sense of community has become to me.
We sit in rows, mostly with our own churches. Some chat happily with a friend behind them. Normally, the walls of another church separate them. Others pray, or like me, look around absorbing the common spirit of community. Even before we say holy words in unison – even in the silence – we are one.
Elderly resting in pews of social activity, children defying coral, men and women worn from work – by the generation we come, enjoying and strengthening each other. Across the street and a few blocks down another group of people, enjoy community around the bingo table. In still another place, the sportsmen’s club feels the spirit of community.
We live in small towns, but it seems we are all searching for a place in our community. We are in a time when the hard work of a hard economy splits our communities and commuters find their living far from home. When downtowns dwindle and our sense of community could be splintered by a sense of depression and the hardships of making a living, the church fills up back to front with people from every congregation to enjoy each other and remember what living is really about – in community.
I share a smile and a wave with the pastor of another church across the isle from me. What we share is more, though, than a profession, a smile or a wave. We share the warmth of friendship, eyes of care knowing we are parts of the same whole. So even with out words the bond is sure. The spirit of community binds us.
Our somber reflection is broken as Father John disappears into his seat behind the pulpit saying, “I’ll be back here.”
As a community, we share a laugh. Together.

Lost memories

It is strange the things you remember. The kids got a matchbox car with a launcher in a box of cheerios today. It reminds me of my first moving day.

I was six. I remember the parsonage being empty, and walking through the bare basement, making sure I didn’t forget anything. Of particular concern was a matchbox car. I lost it months earlier. I carried the red plastic key that launched it with me. Even with every thing cleaned out, I never found it.

disapointment

“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Why would he do that? Why? Are his gifts defective? He has given us three cars, all of them gifts made by his people. Why is it that all three do not run?

Why would he send loving visionary people to our church only to take them away? Why give the church momentum only to hit a wall? I am so disappointed today. Disappointed in what a few weeks ago were his marvelous blessings.

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

A story about "The Works of Anton Chekhov (One Volume Edition) 1929"

The Works of Anton Chekhov (One Volume Edition) 1929

by anton chekhov

I just read The Fish. I have never read a more disturbing story in my life. What is most disturbing isn’t the slightly dark humor of the one that got away, but the really dark humor that the fish was an Eel-pout. Who would fish for that?! In my extensive experience with Eel-pout, as they are the fish I have caught most, I know them to be the Anti-Chris.

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Toddler Ministry

Aged three years Ella already knows some of the key differences and similarities between the great church traditions.  She can tell a Methodist church from a Moravian church and ours she calls, “My Church.”  The one thing she knows every church has is a nursery.  To her it is a playroom. The haven of toys to get about the real business of being at church: play.  

We had our community Lenten service at Trinity UMC tonight.  We don’t know where the nursery is there.  Lo and behold! Ella actually sat with us and was good!  I wonder if there is a connection.  

I have long wondered about nurseries.  I hold to ideals that long to have my children next to me in worship.  I want them to know that they too are valuable members of the community of faith.  They minister as well as receive ministry in each service.  Or at least that is what I imagine.  In reality the last couple of Lenten services in particular have been extremely difficult.  Ella and Foster would not sit with us, and our attempts to rein them in resulted in tantrums.  

Have I been wrong these last few years?  When I would tell people that I think kids should be in the service with the adults, I got looks and comments to the effect of “just wait when you have kids you’ll feel differently.”

I do… Now I don’t know what to do.  How do I instill in Ella and Foster that they are to participate in the service when Elaine (or me when I’m not up front) can’t participate because they distract her.  

My jouney with Che

The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition)

by Walter Salles

Traveling with Ernesto Guevara through his America, seeing the injustice of the human experience through his eyes is enough to make a revolutionary out of any of us. I long to change… the world? Is that too pretentious? I ache to make the kingdom of God real on earth. Perhaps that is where Che and I depart. I hope that a change can be made without guns.

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Dualisms

Last night, after work, I had a great time of side splitting laughter with dear friends. We also had some interesting discussions before another strain of thought set in. Andrew condemns monotheists for their dualisms. I said, “I’m no dualist, I don’t want to be a dualist, I buck against dualism.” Orthodoxy claims no division between mater and spirit, heaven and earth, tangible and intangible, sacred and secular. Those are the distinctions of the heretics, Gnostics, Arians, Donatists, and Manachees.

May we never, sitting in our pews, living the lives of the Christian, compartmentalize our lives into dualisms of our own making. God is everything, in everything, and sustains all things through his will. What pantheist can claim such integration of the natural and divine?

A story about "BEST ERIC F RUSSELL"

BEST ERIC F RUSSELL

by Eric Frank Russell

I’ve been compelled to take a break from the dark comedy of Chekhov inticed away by the ingenious irony of Russell. We borrowed this book via inter-library loan because the forward was called “The Symbiote of Hooton, Alan Dean Foster.” I still don’t know why. But the si-fi is delightful and the irony satisfying.

I just read “Metamorphosite” and found the ending a feast for my longing soul. It echoed my feelings as I wrote the end to Anaximander’s Goggles Ah the Boundless! Ah eternity!

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My pirate name is:

Dirty Roger Bonney

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

books

I am working on writing three books simultaniously. Who'd've thunk? I am going back to working on the children's story that I started when I was unemployed in McCook. It has been sitting almost exactly as long as I have had gainful employment. ;/

I am also reworking the article that I have published on the web here. I am starting to conduct more interviews that I hope to use to weave a narrative through the theoretical and theological.

The third book I'm working on is the history of my church. I am particularly interested with the first years of its existance. Why was it planted? What did it feel like back then? What is our herritage. I have begun the research phase, looking through the list of former pastors, seeing who is still around to be contacted.

So many projects.... So very little time!

Other irons I am keeping to the fire now

• Directing the youth theatre production of Beauty and the Beast
• Working with local ministerial to help at USA school. I am working on a Coffee Shop/drop in center.
• Preaching and administrating a church
• Working at The Harvest a couple days a week.
• Cooking all family meals
• Watching the kids while Elaine is at work.
• Acting as treasurer/fund manager for Project Caritas, our ecumenical attempt at social justice.
• Substitute teaching
• and of course... blogging

A story about "The Cossack (Short Story)"

The Cossack (Short Story)

by Anton Chekhov

Maxim Torchakov meets a sick Cossack on the road from church Easter Morning. He and his wife have between them a cake blessed and consecrated at that eveinings vigil. Maxim is completly wrapped in the Easter spirit, the Spirit of the risen Lord. He would give a bit of that consecrated cake to a sick soldier trying to make it home. But is wife would not. She would not break the holy cake “uselessly”.

I think it is telling that Tochakov’s life enters a spiral after wronging that man. Surely the risen Christ was there before him asking for a piece of the Kulich, and Torchakov had to choose was he to obey the voice of Christ speaking through his heart and the lips of the poor cossack? or was he to obey the unkind religion of his wife? What a story!

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A story about "The Black Monk"

The Black Monk

by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Ah, Madness. The black monk is an agreeable fellow to me. There is something in quixotic madness that is pure and holy. Perhaps in all of us there is a longing to be quite mad, and thereby creative, joyful and at peace. May the black monk sweep into my life and leave me with mystical thoughts and a smile frozen to my chillng lips.

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A story about "Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics)"

Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics)

by Leo Tolstoy

Levin grabbed me at his first appearance. To me his character is as important as Anna and creates a wonderful contrast to her. Go Kostya!

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Comments

For some reason I really want validation for my writing. Even when I was getting paid for it, what I really craved were comments. I've sometimes questioned whether I should keep up my lectionary blog...the last few months the only comments I've garnered have pretty much been, "I'd rather die than look at this," and "MICHIGAN SUCKS."

Ulitmatly I figure even if its just for me-to organize my thoughts in a single place, its worth it. Even so, if you are struck by something please comment:}



note: my comment system utilizes a pop-up

Left-Right politics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I always picture left and right opposite where they should be. I always pictured the spectrum coinciding with the time line. That the right wing (in my mind right was on the left side) was closer to the past, ie. Reactionary; the left, closer to the future. When I discovered my mistake, I wondered where the terms came from. Well here it is:

Left-Right politics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Historical origin of the terms
The terms Left and Right to refer to political affiliation originated early in the French Revolutionary era, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France, specifically in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, when the moderate royalist Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber, while the radical Montagnards sat on the left.
Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was attitudes towards the ancien r�gime ('old order'). 'The Right' thus implied support for aristocratic, royal, or clerical interests, while 'The Left' implied opposition to the same. At that time, support for laissez-faire capitalism and free markets were regarded as being on the left whereas today in most Western countries these views would be characterized as being on the Right. But even during the French Revolution an extreme left wing called for government intervention in the economy on behalf of the poor."