Doing Justice

Philosophy

Justice is the imperative of all Christians being formed into the image of Christ. It is at the very heart of God, one of the attributes that describes the entirety of God’s being - for God is just in love, just in transcendence, just in omnipotence, just in wrath, just in God’s relational nature. Micah reminds wayward Israel that she has been told what God desires; it is not extravagant sacrifice, holocaust or oblation (Micah 6:6,7). Instead, says the prophet,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8 NRSV)

Coffee Justice

Where do I begin?

Campolo and Bono do a great job expressing eloquently the social imperative the follower of Christ faces.  They resonate with me, much like the emotional growl of a great jazz singer or the funky bass of a hardcore band, they pound my chest with vibration.  After listening to a message by Campolo in the car on our way to Pizza Hut, I told my wife "I am converted all over again."

What to do then?  I cheer on Bono, calling on America to increase aid to poor countries by just %1 of the federal budget. I want to dive into the One campaign and see this through. But what authority have I?  How have I sacrificed (Campolo, Power and Authority)?

One place I can begin to implement justice ideas is in crafting the DNA of the coffeehouse that we are starting. We have written into our mission statement that "Live Wired Coffeehouse is committed to engaging in the local economy, doing business with organizations that show care and concern for people and the environment at all levels of production. We are committed to using best practices in business to value people and protect the environment." I warned the students on the board of the coffeehouse that this commitment will have far reaching implications in the way we do business. This will mean searching out the companies and suppliers to do business with who have strong ethical and compassionate practices. This will mean paying our workers what they are worth, and paying more for coffee that is harvested in sustainable ways and where the harvesters are being paid a living wage. I am happy about starting with these values, and look forward to educating our employees and patrons as to their importance.

Inner healing as tough work Part 2.

The work of inner healing sneaked up on me. Unlike last time when I had made a conscious effort to work things through, today I was caught off guard.  It began last night as memories of the pain I felt in my ministry in Faribault came flooding back, mercilessly.  Today, also out of the blue, God helped me understand why I was hurt.

I so desired their approval, that I went to great lengths, but their respect was not something I was going to receive.  God was gracious and was nearer to me then in more tangibility than ever.

Yoder and justification

Forgive the incoherence of these thoughts, they come from the cloud of a swine flu mind. I am captured by Yoder's thoughts on justification.  He asserts that Paul had the unification of Jew and Gentile as the stuff of justification.  Justified, the people groups have been made right in Christ.  The wrong of their separation has been replaced by one new body, that of Christ.  Here justification is also a work of God that makes us clean, but it is more than simply a judicial proclamation that we are clean, it is true because Christ in his work has actually worked the justice and removed our enmity between one another. To this evangelical Christian these thoughts are surprising, powerful and right.

I was praying the evening prayer with divineoffice.org one night this week and was struck by the reading of Romans 8:10. In the version they were using (perhaps the old Jerusalem Bible) it read differently than the multitude of English translations. Most like the NIV run something like this "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness."  This version ended "because of Justice."  Like Ruth Padilla DeBorst said, all the Spanish translations have justicia (The Grace Community). What does this mean for us? The body is dead because of sin, yet the justice worked in and through our body brings life to my spirit. I am alive because of the justice God has worked for me to bring me into one life with others from whom I had been separated. I am alive in my spirit more and more because of the work of justice being done through me.

My spiritual formation, no, even my spiritual life is predicated then on the extent of God's justice being alive in me. I am called to justice in ways of radical subordination. This is truly a work of transformation.  For here we have to lay down our expectations to effectiveness, and like the Israelites at the Red Sea, we must give ourselves to God to make the way. My limited expereinces with extended apophatic centering prayer have taught me this as well.  We stand in the dark staring at the naked God (The Cloud of Unknowing 80) without image or word and allow God to work in his terms. It is the way of powerlessness.

Thoughts on Amazing Grace: Contemplation in the dark

As Wilberforce grew in his contemplative desire, so too was he drawn to the dark places.  The mystic who wrote the Cloud of Unknowing calls the place of highest contemplation a dark cloud, where all that we think we see and know about God falls away. As Wilberforce sees the light of God in the beauty of spider webs and dandelions, so too does he see through them to the abyss of God's nature, where no image or thought is lofty enough to express God in who God is.

It is a similar cloud that captures Wilberforce as he gazes into the injustice around him. The film presents his explorations of the slave trade simultaneous to his exploration of God's creation.  The Spirit seems to be drawing him to contemplate human suffering and inhuman action of degradation at the same time.  William Pitt comes to him with abolitionists because he knows Wilberforce has already been touring the East India Docks and been staring at the injustice in the face. Even though he admits that for him "it's like arsenic.
Each new tiny dose doubles the effect," (Amazing Grace, 14:30) still he looks and suffers with God.  His body is wracked in sympathy with the pain of his soul.

It is suggested to Wilberforce that he can do both the work of God and the work politic.  From that time on the film demonstrates Wilberforce finding God through contemplation and action.  His passion for abolition provides him a window on the nature of God and his contemplation of God's nature fuels and refuels his commitment to action.

Prophetic voice

Meditation on Isaiah 58:1-6

Proclaim the injustice to the church. They act like their nation has been chosen by me. They act as if their going to church and their religiosity, their work ethic and moral certitude was what I desired. They sing their songs loudly to me. They quarrel over whose worship feels best. And they pray to me for revival. As if they could stand my Spirit's Holy presence! As if they actually wanted me to show up!

Is this what I desire? Merely a morning sitting bored in a pew? Merely their acquiescence to my word? Is this what I desire, while they consume the vast majority of the world's resources and ignore the cries of the hungry, the barren, the maimed by war? When their comfort is foremost in their thoughts and not my ways - my compassion, my justice, my loving kindness?

No first repent of your hubris. Face the dark plight of the world and your own part in it. Grieve with me the loss of life and dignity. Then you may rejoice in the reconciliation I have planned for you! Then you may participate in my justice.

Simulation and Simulacra

In other words there is a great danger in facile and thoughtless verbalizations of spiritual reality. All true spiritual disciplines recognize the peril of idolatry in the irresponsible fabrication of pseudo-spiritual concepts which serve only to delude man and to subject him once again to a deeper captivity just when he seems on the point of tasting the true bliss and the perfect poverty of liberation. (p. 114)

Twenty years before Jean Baudrillard wrote his philosophical treatise Simulacra and Simulation, and nearly forty years before the Wachowski brothers crafted the ideas into The Matrix, Merton, in his genius, was already there.

Janitor style leadership

Spirituality and work

How can I lead people to find the spirituality of work from the ivory tower of vocational church life?  How can my spiritual formation matter to people in the real world when I am seen as an oddity? Spirituality is my work. I am paid to pray, to study scripture and sit and think for long stretches.  How can I say anything of substance to Marv about finding Jesus in the oil and gears of the engine I barely understand?  How can I ask Jeff to find Jesus in the electricity flowing in the lines he is repairing at the sugar factory on a Sunday morning, keeping him from joining us at church?  What does my intimacy with Jesus do for the retiree struggling with meaning after putting in years of labor at the steering gear plant while I haven’t loaded my “sixteen tons?”

These are just the questions I live with in a blue-collar community. I’m not sure I would be any better equipped to minister to them if I were shackled to an industrial job – especially if I was thrown off balance and couldn’t manage to continue to explore my spiritual formation. No, a pastor is what they need, but how to make it real to them that work can be more than what we do? Spiritual direction would be a wonderful place to explore this.  Most of my working people aren’t seeking the spiritual let alone direction. Perhaps informally, doing direction with out them realizing I am – allowing my own deepening in grace to form questions and conversations that would get them thinking and looking for the presence of God at work.

What does God need?

In our ministerial group we have on occasion batted around the question: does God have real needs? Does God need us? Does God need companionship? Does God need our service?

In thinking so about God's nature the thought occurs to me that if God has a deep inner need, it is the need to reveal himself.  God's self-revelation is a gracious mystery.  We have no explanation for it.  Indeed by creating the universe and human beings to observe it, God has made a vehicle for communication of the Divine nature. God's self-revelation is also necessarily transformative.  One cannot gaze into the awful abyss of God's nature and not be changed - from glory to glory.

As a human being I am created to not only search out God's personhood but to proclaim it, to worship.  God invites me to participate in this revelation of the beauty of God's being, leading others (in the end all of creation) to transformation.  To me that is the spirituality of leadership - firmly rooted in the Boundless.

Reflections on In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen

The central question facing Christian leaders today, I think, is: Are we going to be led? Nouwen rightly points out that the cure to the temptation to relevance is mysticism. The Christian leader must be a mystic rooted in the reality of the living Christ to navigate the waters infested with sharks of ego, power, efficiency and world-success.

The central question for me as I face leadership in the coming future is how can I lead people into a desire for the mystic reality of Christ in the intimacy of the Lover. How can I be a part of the Spirits drawing them to the depths? Year after year, as a pastor, I feel like I am treading water. People seem to make little movement toward desperation and hunger for the transformed life. If they so successfully resist the wooing of the Spirit, what does my leadership stand to offer?

Eternal Summer

Anxiety threatened to steal my day
Oppressed me like the mourning
A freight train whistled
Delivering me to
The eternity of an Indian summer

Longing for eternity

Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee - St. Augustine

Last night as I was praying night prayer with divineoffice.org the beauty of the opening hymn sent me into reverie. I began to think, how often does a song, a scent, a landscape send me into a warm and fuzzy place. Call it nostalgia, call it idyllic dreaming, call it holy longing. What ever it is, it seems to me that these are glimpses of eternity. My soul resonates with these moments because they speak to me in my deepest longing for my home in God.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Biking

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Today, I didn't bike to Unionville as I would normally do. The espresso machine is disconnected at the coffeehouse until the health dept. finally comes through. In addition, Mary has requested that our drink cooler be turned off as well. So, what is there for me there now anyway? Mindless work, only.

No, instead, I took a ride to Kilmanagh, a little town to the east of Sebewaing. Not that there is anything there, but I didn't expect there to be. (Unlike Unionville and it's broken promises of espresso...)

On the ride I listened to a couple podcasts from "Interfaith Voices." One tidbit I gleaned from the April 15th show was from John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, authors of God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World. They said China created a perfect environment for the spread of Christianity with their policy that a group of more than 25 worshipers is illegal. As a result house churches must split and multiply at 25!

Spiritual Lessons from Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda offers some lessons for spiritual formation for those with eyes to see. Here are some things to look for:

• Indirection

In Kung Fu Panda, Shifu cannot train Po directly. Po is out of shape and has never studied kung fu. He is not quick to learn. Shifu however discovers that to reach food Po can do amaizing things. So instead of getting Po to concentrate on kung fu, he gets him to concentrate on getting the food.

As Dallas Willard says, the spiritual life burns grace like a jet burns fuel. Without grace we cannot address the things that need transformation in our lives. We cannot address these needs head on. Instead through Spiritual Disciplines we place ourselves in a position where God can pour grace through us transforming us into something new.

• Freedom through discipline

After training, Shifu tells Po that he is free to eat the dumpling. It can't be that easy can it? Po has to use all of his skills to get the dumpling from Shifu.

Richard Foster writes in Life With God,

Again, Spiritual Disciplines involve doing what we can do to receive from God the power to do what we cannot do. And God graciously uses this process to produce in us the kind of person who automatically will do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

This ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done is the true freedom in life. Freedom comes not from the absence of restraint but from the presence of discipline. Only the disciplined gymnast is free to score a perfect ten on the parallel bars. Only the disciplined violinist is free to play Pagannini's "Caprices." This, of course, is true in all of life, but it is never more true than in the spiritual life (18).

Wrecked for God

The Divine Conquest by A.W. Tozer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Are you sure you want to be filled with a Spirit who, though He is like Jesus in His gentleness and love, will nevertheless demand to be Lord of your life? Are you willing to let your personality be taken over by another, even if that other by the Spirit of God Himself? If the Spirit takes charge of your life He will expect unquestioning obedience in everything. He ill not tolerate in you the self-sins even though they are permitted and excused by most Christians. By the self-sins I mean self-love, self-pity, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, self-defense. You will find the spirit to be in sharp opposition to the easy ways of the wold and of the mixed multitude within the precincts of religion. He will be jealous over you for good. He will not allow you to boast or swagger or show off. He will take the direction of your life away from you. He will reserve the right to test you, to discipline you, to chasten you for your soul's sake. He may strip you of many of those borderline pleasures which other Christians enjoy but which are to you a source of refined evil..." (123).

Being so immersed in the world of espresso, I have been wrecked to inferior coffee. At times I ironically proclaim, usually to Elaine, that my coffee snobbery is my burden to bear. That is the way it is with the Spirit, says Tozer, He wrecks us. We no longer are satisfied with the "borderline pleasures," but long for something deeper and more real. The good and pleasurable Folgers or Maxwell House becomes "refined evil."

"Through it all He will enfold you in a love so vast, so mighty, so all-embracing, so wondrous that your very losses will seem like gains and your small pains like pleasures. Yet the flesh will whimper under His yoke and cry out against it as a burden too great to bear. And you will be permitted to enjoy the solemn privilege of suffering to 'fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ' in your flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church. Now, with the conditions before you, do you still want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?" (124).

Reading this my mind again wandered to a hot straight shot of espresso. Those of us who drink it, know that we don't do it for the fun of it. It is not a soft drink. No it is hard and rumbly. Its ultimate pleasure is through the suffering.

Dear God, wreck me for you. Bring me along the way of the cross!


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Biking from one town to another

Today I got in my head to ride my bike. We've been biking a lot as a family lately, but I wanted to go it alone and see how far I could get. I checked the tires and topped them off, the back one has been feeling a little squishy lately. Then, I shouldered the messenger bag, stuck my headphones in, started the Speaking of Faith podcast put on my helmet and struck out on my way.

I must have looked like a cross between a geezer and a geek. This year I am riding a Huffy Cranbrook, a throw back to bygone classics. I was wearing some hip plaid shorts, but with the blue socks Elaine found (the only pair around). This year I have also been wearing a helmet to be a good example for the kids. I am afraid it is not flattering. The overall impression must have been pretty laughable, which probably accounts for the guy on the motor cycle revving past me in mockery!

I stopped at the church, about half way between Sebewaing and Unionville. I drank a water, still listening to the podcast. Krista was interviewing Jon Kabat-Zinn about meditation. It was a welcome reminder as I slowly made my way past growing fields, trees, houses, being mindful of my own breath and the growing sense of power in my legs.

That power reminded me of scrambling up the Sierra Madre foothills at Mater Dolorosa. For a guy who is constitutionally opposed to work and excersize, these glimpses into how good it feels is remarkable and spiritual.

Inner-healing is tough work!

I created a list of the wounds that came to mind. They formed a chronological order tied to place and the church or school I was in at the time. After I finished I sighed heavily. The list spanned two pages. This was going to be difficult work.

Since I was sitting in an empty coffeehouse (some weeks from opening) I brewed myself some herbal tea, chamomile and hibiscus, to settle in with God.

The next hours were wrenching. I found I was able to get through only a couple hurts. The one that really got me surrounded the three years my family lived in Grand Rapids Minnesota pastoring the Assembly of God church there. The church chewed up and spit out my dad. He shielded us from all the things that happened, we never became bitter or angry about it, but tonight to my surprise I found there were a lot of pent up emotions about it. I must have perceived more than I realized at the time. Perhaps the night of fear and agony with stomach pain stemmed from being aware of it, or perhaps it was from the enemy. At any rate, God and I had a lot to go through tonight.

Breaking the power of the past

Tonight I asked God to examine me. “Search Me, know my heart and thoughts—see if there is any offensive way in me” Then I waited, listened and wrote down what came to mind. Then I prayed through each of them like this:

“Lord, I confess the sin of ___________. I ask you to forgive me for this sin, yielding to it, and the resulting pain that I have caused to others and myself. I renounce the sin of __________ and break its power over my life, the life of my descendants, through the power of the Cross of Jesus. I receive your freedom and grace God in the name of Jesus.“

One of the most meaningful aspects of this process was praying that the power of these sins be broken not only in my life but over my descendants. My desperation for freedom and forgiveness was heightened by the image of Ella and Foster struggling with my sinfulness. As I laid each item at the cross, I did so with authority and desperation, putting myself in Christ’s hands. The shame though, made me doubt my freedom.

As I rested with God and listened for him, I cried out, “Where is the spirit?!” At that moment my body shook. It was as if he was making his presence known. “OK Lord, you are here, what do you have to say?” I replied meekly. The words to Nothing But The Blood began to play in my head. I put the song on through my laptop and soaked in it for a while.

First, I was struck by the line, “Nothing can for sin atone, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” I was released from lingering thought that I had to earn my freedom, but working hard enough or even feeling hard enough.

The second thing that struck me was the ludicrous line, “How precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.” I was walking around the room and had stopped in front of a mirror at the time. I was struck that Jesus made me white as snow… this face that I was looking at, the soul behind those eyes, white as snow! I started to laugh. It was ridiculous and wonderful. His blood, on that cross that give the power I prayed for to give me freedom, his blood has made me white as snow.

Now I feel grateful to the point of sorrow and hopefully expectant for the freedom that comes from his hand.

Inner healing

Healing Care, Healing Prayer: Helping the Broken Find Wholeness in Christ by Terry H. Wardle

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars


In Healing Care, Healing Prayer, Terry Wardle offers Christian caregivers the neglected key to emotional health: spiritual transformation. The wisdom of this book is astounding and perhaps unnoticed by many.

For transformation to occur, Wardle insists that the caregiver be transformed first. The caregiver’s attention to intimacy with God is foremost in his or her responsibility. This is a truth that has been central to my own spiritual development. I must grow in intimacy with God, because he is the source, the power behind all transformation, and because those I lead will become as I am.

From there Wardle goes on to set up a framework for understanding inner healing. His visual of an onion with layers moving from the skin of our life situation, through our dysfunctional behaviors, deeper to our emotional upheavals and lies we embrace and finally through those to the underlying wounds, gave me some practical steps for dealing with what I saw as a frightening process. Like Scazzero(Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Unleash the Power of Authentic Life in Christ), Wardle calls us to face our strong emotions and wounds that we have hidden away in order to function. To my surprise, though I cannot identify any major trauma in my life, I found approaching the unfathomed water of my emotions daunting.

I resonated with Wardle’s use of scripture. I didn’t find him building arguments too many times by psychoanalyzing characters of the Bible, a practice that always strikes me a bit hollow (perhaps it is the approaching of the scripture through the lens of the helping discipline rather than finding the transforming power the stories have to offer in themselves). Rather what stuck out to me was the way Wardle took us to scripture for healing. He offers us the truth of scripture to combat the lies that bind us, but more impressive to me, he takes us to the psalms to find our voice to express our emotions in prayer. I love the psalms. I find myself weeping as I pray them, often. Indeed as I was resisting the work of entering into my emotions and having them out with God, I found I was staying away from the psalms as well, leaving me hollow, and searching for ways to deaden the pain I feared.

Over the past few weeks I have been seeing in many new ways the need for the healing Wardle talks about. I have found myself frustrated and overwhelmed. I found myself doubting that I had the strength to go through this myself let alone lead others through it. My experience has been twofold: I have faced resistance in entering into these waters for my inner healing and I have struggled watching a friend spiraling away.

Becky and her husband came to live with us a few months ago. We invited them for two reasons, one for them – so they would have a place to live, and one for us – so we would have another couple to share the journey of discipleship. Over time we realized both of these things were not working. They started spending their time – days and nights – at other people’s houses; obviously they didn’t need a place at our house. What was worse though, is that they no longer joined us for devotions or showed up a church. Becky went back to drugs, and had fits of anger. I am convinced that she is significantly demonized, and the wounds I am aware in her past are enough to break any heart. She left her husband and our house in the last couple weeks. As much as I have preached healing and deliverance the last few months, I am upset that things could fall apart in our own house so deeply. I am angry with those who have wounded her, and with Becky for her choices, and with God for not breaking through.

At the same time I recognize the pain in my own life. I see the dysfunction in my behavior: my relational fear and my seeking pain killers to avoid confrontation. I recognize lies that both Elaine and I have believed: that we are born to mediocrity, that we suck and are lazy. I recognize the emotional upheaval in my life, as I start to feel the despair and grief that lurks I back away from it, afraid of where the pain will take me. I have come to the place where I have asked God to reveal to me the wounds that have caused this. All the while this process has been difficult, I have resisted it at every step, and since my class work is bound up in this process, my grades have suffered as a result. All in all, Wardle has been right about each step. I hope he is right about the outcome as well.

The practicality of his model is a great strength in Wardle’s work. From giving the caregiver the well to draw from in intimacy with Christ in the beginning to leading the caregiver through the layers of pain to the root, he stands as a guide. My favorite part is when coming to dealing with the deep wounds. The wounded one explores the wound in the context of prayer and asks Jesus to reveal where he was in the scene when the wound happened. I want to go there.

Due to my resistance, I had to re-read the last few chapters to really comprehend what Wardle was getting at. The arguments make rational sense, but making the emotional connection to what he is saying has been surprisingly difficult.


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The Book Of The Dun Cow revisited

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had to reread this book after Peter Scazzero made reference to it in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Unleash the Power of Authentic Life in Christ. I love the rhythm of the Liturgy of the Hours as it is prayed in the monastic setting. The power of Chanticleer's Canonical Crows in the fight against evil was not something I saw the first time I read it. That was long before I began my journey with praying the psalms. The book took on a new and richer meaning for me this time around.


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relinquishment

Today didn't start off too well, except of course that it is our Anniversary! My beautiful wife of, now, eight years was an anchor to my soul through my trials and tribulations.

I arrived at the coffeehouse today to prepare for the Rotary Club coming over to see the place and have lunch and coffee. When I came in, Mary, the building's owner had rearranged all the furniture. She had all her stuff on the main floor and relegated mine to the stage. I felt betrayed after the last couple days of discussion with her had not prepared me for this, in fact she said she liked what we had done. I was angry and disappointed, a feeling that hung like sorrow in my throat all day - a day I was supposed to be celebrating!

My vastly romantic plans was to take Elaine to the Taize service in Saginaw. Well, it was out, and it was free, so Elaine agreed. One drawback to the evening was that we found no sitter. The kids held up admirably but still, not romantic. The service, however, was the cure I needed. God was gracious to me and extremely romantic. Wave after wave of his presence came over me. I couldn't help but tremble, then sheepishly look around to see if anyone had noticed my unseemly convusion. Elaine even asked me pointedly "What are you doing?!" What could I say? It wasn't I who was doing anything. It was like the Holy Spirit was tickling me. It was a great time with a great God, great friends, and the best wife ever.

Thanks God for all that, especially Elaine!

Sons of God

Sons of God by Rebecca Ellen Kurtz

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This story has an imaginative premise and action and romance, what more could you ask for? How about a decent editor? I feel bad for Rebecca Ellen Kurtz. She was let down by her editor on her debut work. The numerous errors in spelling, grammar and formatting became distracting.

One also has to really work to suspend disbelief when imagining the characters. Kurtz struggles to give them their distinctive voices. Whether Norse, Celtic, or European, the voices come off sounding like an American attempting a Scottish accent. Even her ancient Middle Eastern Heroine sounds more like a 21st century American girl.

If you can manage to muscle through the distractions, Kurtz’s exploration of Nephalim lore in various ancient traditions is intriguing. The defects of this novel are easily attributed to the author still trying to find her voice. The shallow theology also betrays her rawness. Kurtz is a diamond still in the rough. She needs a good editor to tease out her best.

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Patheways to healing

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash the Power of Authentic Life in Christ by Peter Scazzero

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Scazzero’s six healing pathways serve as a good summary of the way of contemplative spirituality that marks good spiritual formation. The value of his treatment isn’t in saying anything new but in providing a perspective on these practices through the lens of emotional health.

He picks up on elements of St. John of the Cross (the dark night of the soul), Ronald Rolheiser (the paschal mystery), and the rules of Ignatius and Benedict. He cast these ancient truths in language that is easy for a layperson. I can see using this book with someone new to the rich traditions of spiritual formation.

The path that has proved the most powerful to me over the last years is truly that of rhythm. The Divine Office and Sabbath have been anchors to me, and dear friends.

Recently I read over my rule of life again, a practice I ought to make part of my rule too (reading it over periodically), I was reminded of the practices that I find valuable and note the ones I have missed.

Right now I am exploring the healing path, Scazzero calls “Going back in order to go forward.” In a conversation with my mom I sensed the pain of hurts that go all the way back to her youth group. I could see how that pain would create the ongoing challenges she faces. I wonder how the pain I have felt as a wee lad is still influencing me. I am getting into the genogram, to see what I can see.




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The ways in which I suck

It is sad that so many Christians who are mature in age do not show maturity in emotion or Spirit. I have been in many a contentious church asking, “Where are the fruit of the Spirit?” Peter Scazzero attributes the lack of lasting change in people of faith to lack of growth in emotional maturity. I agree that it is impossible to be spiritually mature and emotionally immature. In deed is there even a difference? Are not emotions spiritual? Can one be emotionally mature with out being spiritually mature?

Of the ten symptoms of emotionally immature spirituality that Scazzero offers, the one I am feeling the most right now is standing in judgment of others' spiritual journeys. I was reflecting, this week, on the roll of worship in creating a healing atmosphere. I thought about how my congregation doesn’t really seem to get into worship. I was talking with the worship leader at Kalamazoo first about her roll; she described her passion that she and the others on the worship team are intimate with Jesus. She expressed the great truth that changed my life so many years ago, the worshipers will become like I am. It was at that moment I realized the truth. My worship sucks.

I began to search for the heart my problem with getting into worship and I think I found it in Scazzero’s symptom – judgmentalism. The times I freely enter into worship have been when I trust that those around me are also seeking the depth of Christ. When I worship with my classmates on our J-Term retreat, I know that we all have a passion for spiritual depth and I can enter in. Something inside me refuses to worship and instead stands in judgment of those around me. Perhaps it is insecurity as well. In either case I have some sort of lurking trust issue that is messing up my worship. God help me! I am working on a genogram of my family that is starting to shed some light on why I feel this way.

Scazzero offers contemplative spirituality coupled with emotional health as the “radical antidote” to spiritual immaturity. I was uncomfortably familiar with his litany of things that he tried hoping that it would be the breakthrough for his congregation; we need more community, more Bible study, more worship, more spiritual warfare etc… Still he saw little fruit. I know this frustration. For Scazzero the break through would come as he coupled emotional health with the contemplative life. Now I am left wondering, is this just something else to add to my litany of things I’ve tried or is it the key to bringing health to my body? It certainly sounds like a good place to begin in my quest to better my worship – and my heart is with out a doubt the place to start the change.

Power Healing by John Wimber

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
In, Power Healing, John Wimber seeks to place healing in the biblical and ongoing ministry of the church and offer a practical model for this ministry.

“By 1977 I believed God could heal the sick today. There were many factors that contributed to the evolution of my thinking and attitude about divine healing: new knowledge gained from Scripture study and prayer; my experience… and the Holy Spirit’s Continual prodding” (44).

Reflections on healing prayer

Over the last few weeks I have prayed for over 30 healings. So far we haven’t seen any results. The process of experimentation has done much in my soul. I feel frustrated that we haven’t seen a break through yet.

Elaine was feeling the pain of a sore throat coming on last night. Half joking she chided, “Why can’t you heal anybody?!”

“I don’t know!” I cried. Why doesn’t God answer? Didn’t he promise to? I stand even more amazed that John Wimber held out for so many months making healing ministry part of his services. I feel like I could throw in the towel. It takes such an investment and risk to make healing prayer a centerpiece of ministry when there are no results to point to.

One Sunday Morning I was praying for Don, he has hurt his hip and leg and has to use a walker until therapy pays off. We were praying fervently for him. I was standing over his shoulder as he sat at the end of a pew. I on hand his hand that was on his knee and my other hand, holding the bottle of anointing oil, was on his head. As we were winding up our prayer, Elaine saw a black circle roll across the floor and then Don reached up wiping something from his nose. The anointing oil was running down his head. Psalm 133:2 says:

“It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron's beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.”

Yeah, it was just like that. And even after the excess of anointing he wasn’t healed! If there was ever a time for someone to be healed, this was it! I apologized profusely and we have had a great laugh about it since.

The frustration has worked like a prayer of examen. I am on the search for blocks in my life that keep God from using me.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV).

Even with my renewed emphasis lately on healing ministry, I feel like I’m only going half way. I am still a little hesitant to spend a lot of time, perhaps the time it takes, to pray over a person. I still feel hesitant about taking authority, and I still have no experience with deliverance ministry, though there are some people I know who could sure use it!

All said, I have just started on this journey of healing exploration. I will not throw in the towel, God, if you will just tell me where to go from here. I long to see you move and people are so broken. I know you love them and want to move. I want to see what your ministry looks like, we’ve both

Acting out the story

Mark 9:14-29

I am captured by Jesus’ compassion. Even as he chides the people for lacking “God-sense” (as The Message puts it), his deep compassion shows through. “How long will I be with you? How long before you get it?” I feel his distress as I enter in, acting each part in my mind.

“He asked the boy's father, ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘Ever since he was a little boy. Many times it pitches him into fire or the river to do away with him. If you can do anything, do it. Have a heart and help us!’

“Jesus said, ‘If? There are no “ifs” among believers. Anything can happen.’”

Can you feel the gentle goading of Jesus? The desperation of the father?

“No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the father cried, ‘Then I believe. Help me with my doubts!’”

Tears come to my eyes and my voice shakes as I read for the part of the father. It touches the place in my soul that has been longing to see God show up in our services. “I beg for you to move. If my unbelief is standing in the way, help me!”

In the same way I could play the part of any of the disciples, “Why couldn’t we do it?” Why is it that when I pray for people on Sunday morning I have yet to see the miraculous?

“This kind only comes out by prayer.” Don’t I pray enough? Is my prayer life lacking? O God search me and know me. Help me to pray more effectively, give me your heart and eyes to see and love the hurting people around.

fame

^"But they went off and blazed and spread His fame abroad throughout that whole district." (Matthew 9:31 Amplified)

Two private healling result in Jesus' fame spreading through out the district. How I long for his fame to spread here. I long for him to be glorified - proved mighty in the eyes of his people. The people of our church need to see him shining and glorious, to see that he really reigns and moves in their lives.

To be sure, my high feelings for Jesus and desire for his glory are mingled with baser thoughts. There are thoughts of how I need to see him move to validate my ministry and build my own faith and experience.

Lord purify my motives.

"When He saw the throngs, He was moved with pity and sympathy for them, because they were bewildered (harassed and distressed and dejected and helpless), like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36 Amplified).

Fill me with your compassion. Give me eyes to see what you are doing and the readiness to be obediant. Increase my zeal for the glory of your name. Amen.

John Wimber and healing

Power Healing

I have to confess I had some reservations associated with Wimber’s name. I had heard of the excesses of the Toronto blessing, and some how associated Wimber with that – with crowds seeking after the manifestation of God’s glory (I have been one of those) and worse with other independent third wave charismatic churches who seemed to get such a kick out of how their bodies couldn’t handle the presence of God that those experiences became the bread and butter of a good worship time. I don’t disparage such experiences, but living for them seems to be a recipe for flakey half-baked Christianity.

Thankfully Foster’s introduction to the book stripped away these sentiments by unexpected shock. Foster to me has always been the quintessential symbol of spiritual depth. That he was all right with Wimber was incongruous with my preconceptions. (It was like the time I went into the coffeehouse of my youth, my favorite, to notice that they leave their portafilters out of the machine loosing precious heat between brew cycles –I just don’t know what to think about them any more!) So it was with Wimber. Not knowing what to think of him, I was open to the way he stumbled upon the Spirit reluctantly, (not with flakey enthusiasm) and found his story authentically refreshing.

I have always been taught that Christ was “wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we are healed.” I never before struggled with whether healing is a product of the atonement or the very stuff of the atonement. Wimber presents the arguments of theologians arguing both ways with fairness. If it is in the atonement, then why is healing not guaranteed in every case like salvation? Wimber and theologians who suggest that it is a product of the atonement find, there, room for healings not to happen. I guess I don’t need that room. Even salvation isn’t a done deal at conversion. I believe that we await the consummation of our salvation just as we may wait the consummation of our healing. Am I saved from sin? Not yet. But also yes already. I love this tension.

Another thing that caught my attention was Wimber’s treatment of various kinds of healings. I was reading some of this in the midst of a fight with my wife over my irrational fear of using the phone. It got me wondering weather this fear required inner healing (I racked my brain for memories of unresolved hurt), or if I need deliverance from demonic mischief.

Is healing a part of my church tradition?

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: A Former Dallas Seminary Professor Discovers That God Speaks and Heals Today by Jack Deere

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oh yes, Divine Healing is pretty big in my tradition. It is one of four cardinal doctrines, right up there with Salvation, The Baptism in the Spirit and the Second Coming of Christ. I fondly remember extended times of prayer on Sunday nights when I was little. I’d walk around helping my dad lay hands on people kneeling at the front pews, often my little hand on a polyester clad buttock. I don’t know how many were praying for healing but I remember the desperation with which these old saints prayed.

The next big memory that comes to mind was a chapel service in college. There students crowding the altar, and I saw one big guy who had braces on both his knees. At once I felt slightly repulsed by him (he struck me as a lonely socially awkward soul like myself) and compelled to pray for him. I made my way to the altar behind him and placed a hand on the shoulder of one raised arm. I don’t remember how I prayed, only that I sensed that it was what God had wanted.

The next day at chapel this same guy stood there on the platform giving testimony to a complete healing of his knees, bouncing up and down. I started to wonder if perhaps God had given me the gift of healing…. Oh it was small infant gift to be sure, but one I could perhaps fan into flame?

Over the last few weeks I have been praying again with increased expectation, even keeping track of what happens. I have started to wonder, after I prayed nearly 20 times for healings and seeing nothing, if something is wrong with me. I wondered if I wasn’t holy enough, or if I was some how praying the wrong way, or if I was just kidding myself with this gift idea.

This is where Jack Deere’s book hit home for me, especially chapter 12, Pursuing the Gifts with Diligence. “Almost as soon as I began to ask God to give me a healing ministry,” he writes, “I began to pray for sick people. Most of the sick people I prayed for at first did not get healed…. But there is no other way to grow in anything apart from constant practice and risking” (166).

He goes on to give practical ways to practice. His cautions about motives give me appropriate soul searching to do while cutting the chi of arguments with which Satan has been plying me.

The bulk of his book was a treatise against cessationism. I bristle against any theology or system of thought that defines itself by what it isn’t and what it is against so I have little sympathy with cessationism. And as I have never been positively influenced by either dispensational or cessasionist theology, I had no great battle with his augments. Instead I followed along with his journey, with morbid fascination, cringing at his background, and watching as he was irresistibly drawn to the moving of the Spirit today.

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Easter and Resurrection Power

As part of my responsibilities for class I have been keeping track of when I pray for healing and the results. So far we are 0 for 15 in immediate healing. There haven't been any signs that the Spirit has been moving aside from some warmth in my hand. I mean someone falling down - that would be a clue, or people being filled with the Spirit, or shouting hallelujah. Some times I'd take just about any feedback. The tears in a few eyes were cool yesterday, but I guess part of me wants some more evidence that God is working, because the Enemy is quick with the suggestion that he is not. Am I too sinful? How can God use me anyway? I should have spent more time this week praying for this moment. These are the thoughts going through my mind yesterday as I prayed for people.

One day Isaiah comes to King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:1-11) and tells him that he needed to get his house in order because he is going to die. As Isaiah is leaving, Hezekiah is praying. God changes his mind! He comes to Isaiah in the courtyard and tell Hezekiah that his prayer is heard and he will have another 15 years. You'd think that the word from the prophet would be convincing for Hezekiah, but he needs more proof. So Isaiah says OK, what should the Lord do? Make the shadow from the sun go forward or backward? Just to be sure Hezekiah asks for it to go back.

It strikes me that God would not only offer a sign but be pleased to do the harder of the two. Talk about putting the Lord your God to the test! Hezekiah got his sign that God was moving.

God I confess that I look for signs too, and that I feel the pressure from the enemy not to believe what you are doing, or in your resurrection power that lives within me, or the authority you have given me over sickness and the enemy. I'll take what you give me, and keep praying. Teach me, show me what you want to do like you told Isaiah. Like Jesus I only want to do what I see you doing, help me to see.

Where were the gifts of the Spirit between the New Testament and 1900?

The Healing Reawakening: Reclaiming Our Lost Inheritance by Francis MacNutt

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had the opportunity to speak with Beth on the phone last night (she was making sure that I wasn’t stranded in London as the hijacked email purported. Thanks). I realized that while she said she was struggling to square MacNutt’s use of scripture, I had glossed over it. Perhaps it was because I have heard similar arguments all my life, but I found when I came to a block quote of scripture I said to myself, “ah that one” and skimmed through it.

Nothing jumped out at me as being way off. There may have been some isogesis evident in his insistence that the open-endedness of Acts made implicit that early church ministry was expected to continue (73). Was that Luke’s intention, or was it simply that he could not yet comment on Paul’s death.

Also the case he built that healing on the Sabbath was specifically a cause of his death seemed a bit of a stretch (43). Surely it was part of it, but Jesus’ conflict with the religious authorities stretched well beyond that. Still the one-sidedness of this argument doesn’t detract from the conclusion that Jesus really valued healing. That is evident in every gospel.

Overall his use of scripture seemed fair, obviously used in service of his point, but not out of context, if without the benefit of higher biblical criticism.

For me, the greatest value in MacNutt’s book is answering the question I have always had, “what happened to the Baptism in the Spirit from the time of the New testament to 1900?” It is, I think, easy for classical Pentecostals to think that they disappeared from the church completely until we came along. That has always been a sad thought to me, and indeed, if it were true, it would lead me to question the validity of our Pentecostal experience.

I appreciate how MacNutt traces both the factors that lead to minimizing the charisms, particularly healing, as well as the remnant of the saints of God who kept the memory alive.

I think he made his case powerfully with me. I fell at times, into reverie, imagining myself praying for the healing of people in my church. I saw myself setting people free from demonic oppression and addictions. It seemed just the thing our village needs.

Repeatedly in the Masters in Spiritual Formation program, I have been faced with the irony that as we study the richness of the various streams of Christianity, God is, at the same time, drawing me deeper into my own.

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Healing

I watched a healing service conducted by Kenneth Haggin at a church in Sterling Heights, MI. He spent perhaps a half hour preaching about the woman with the issue of blood. Many of his phrases sounded like he had just read MacNutt (The Healing Reawakening: Reclaiming Our Lost Inheritance). The second half hour showed him praying for the people in need of healing in rapid fire. He explained that it worked better for him that way, when he felt he had the anointing, which presented itself as a burning in his hands, he had to use it quickly. I also found I interesting that he distinguished between the gift of healing (restoring what is already there, like bringing hearing to a damaged ear drum) and miracles (creating something that wasn’t there to begin with, like bringing hearing to someone born with out an ear drum). He had the gift of healing, he said, but he would believe with people for a miracle as well.

Many fell under the power of God as he prayed for them. I have been in these kinds of services and have no problem with people falling. I watched the people who didn’t fall when he prayed with some amusement. I watched their faces as they tried to figure out what to do next. I noticed that Hagin laid his hand on the top of their head with the heel of his palm resting on their forehead. He would push back as he proclaimed, “Receive!” I have had strong physical reactions to the Spirit as people have prayed for me, and I also know what it is like to loose your balance as a minister pushes on your head. I found myself trying to identify which ones just lost their balance and which were overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit (like the lady with the cane who started quaking before she fell.)

Even in the midst of my amusement and critical ogling, a curious thing happened. Toward the end of the video, the Spirit was working on me too! At times when he said, “Receive” my arm would have a strong reflexive twitch. It is weird I know, but that is a way my body has routinely reacted to being overcome by the Spirit. I wanted to find someone to pray for when I was done watching to see if I could share some of that “anointing.”

I have continued to experience this as well. As I read scholarly treatments of healing, the Spirit overtakes me and my shoulders quake. Tonight as Cliff was playing the part of the man born blind at our lenten service, I felt that same electric shock move through me when we described how he was healed.

That's what it is like too... just now I remembered the time that I leaned one hand on a cooler in the coffeehouse and the other hand on a display case with faulty wiring and had a nice jolt of 220 run through my arms. That same jerk reaction is what happens to me still when the Spirit is on me. Tears come to my eyes after it happens and a tenderness rests on me.

As I said this has happened several times now as I have been reading about reading, especially when I start daydreaming about God using me in that gift, strengthening the latent gift of healing I have identified might be in me. Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit dreaming along with me and encouraging me to go for it.

A Spiritual Rule in Espresso

Musings on the Parable of the Coffee Shop

The parts to a good espresso:

Roasting, Blending and Grinding

The first thing needed in preparing good espresso is a good blend of beans properly roasted and ground. As the espresso of God I too must be properly prepared and ground.

An espresso bean needs to be roasted darkly. As the roasting process deepens, the bean releases its essence, what we commonly call oils, and they form a dark luster on the outside of the bean. This is where the flavors reside.

I must submit to the fires of roasting. Following Christ means submitting to discomfort at times. I also must submit to those who God has placed in my life, like my wife and spiritual director, to bear God’s word to me.

A good complex espresso should contain a variety of beans to give it a round complex flavor. A single origin espresso can be fun to play with, but nothing has the well roundedness of a blend.

I have to attend to what goes into me. Physically I must attend to my eating. I have to make a
discipline of eating breakfast, that’s been a tough practice, but my metabolism requires it. I also need to eat whole grains and lots of veggies. Likewise there are times when I must refrain from the food I love so much. I need to fast, and Fridays, before our Sabbath begins is a good time for that.

Grinding is critical. The beans must be shaved into uniform particles, and the size of those particles control how long water is in contact with the beans and how well the extraction occurs. Too slow and the water will completely leach the oils and also some of the bitter substances in the bean. Too fast and the espresso will sour, lacking the oils to create a good crema. The grind needs to be adjusted several times throughout the day to respond to changing temperature and humidity.

I need to be adjusted throughout the day as well. I need to practice the presence of God. God is the Good Barista who is always fine-tuning the grind and watching the extractions. I will put myself back in his hand for adjustment through out the day, first by bringing him to mind moment by moment. Second, by praying the liturgy of the hours. The times set aside through out my day give me interaction with scripture, prayer, poetry and meditation.

The tamp

Another key element to a good shot of espresso is the tamp. To receive the high pressure of the espresso machine and still keep the water slow enough to be in contact with the beans for about 30 seconds, the ground coffee has to be packed tightly. It takes 40-50 pounds of pressure to pack the coffee into the filter basket.

Like the particles of coffee I have to be packed into my community. I need them around me. To this end part of my rule is to practice hospitality. For me this means conversations at the coffee shop and dinners at the table. At home it means being open and available to my children and wife. It means creating an atmosphere where it is easy to be good for anyone who comes through our doors. When possible it means extending the bounds of our family to others so that we can live in intentional community. Intentional community has its rules too, like praying the hours. At night we get together and have family devotions and pray the hours. I need to also get back into the habit of praying with Elaine every night, confessing our sins to each other.

Hospitality also means living with responsibility toward the Earth. Taking care of the world is also a way to create sacred space. I want to eliminate my carbon footprint and live the ‘r’s of reducing, reusing, and recycling. This is a part of the wider discipline of simplicity that affects our relationship in community.

As a part of a church, hospitality also means visiting other members and inviting them over.

Pulling the shot

The barista locks the portafilter into the group head and starts the hot water flowing. The pump starts to whir and forces water through tubes that wind through the boiler picking up heat and out to the group shower head where they form channels and saturate the puck. Then a small honey gold stream of espresso forms at the bottom of the portafilter. It runs out the size of a rat’s tail filling the demitasse with deep rust crema. Then after about 30 seconds when all the goodness of the bean is extracted, the barista observes a small pale dot form on the deep rust and stops the cycle.

I need the water of the Spirit flowing through my life. Here are some channels of study I recognize that I find the water of the Spirit to flowing: Poetry, Scripture, Art (both the appreciation and creation), Literature (I read a masterpiece of literature at bedtime) and Meditation (contemplation of people and nature top the practice).

Enjoy

The good barista appreciates the color variations as the shot is pulled. The shot goes from deep rust to blond in tiger stripes. Then the barista will enjoy the aroma and warmth of the espresso as he gives it to the person who needs it. The crema on a good espresso is the hallmark of quality and the celebration of the shot.

I need times of enjoyment and rest in my life too. I need to live in Sabbath rhythms. As a pastor, Sunday isn’t a very restful day, so we have purposed to make sundown Friday to sundown Saturday our Sabbath. We want to incorporate rituals like lighting candles and blessings and meals together.

I also need to take a retreat 4-6 times per year to rest in the presence of my beautiful Barista.

Sabbath also means celebration. Both during the Sabbath time and throughout the week we need to set aside time for romance, getting a sitter, and having time as a couple.

We worship. This is a no brainer for a pastor; I get paid to worship with my congregation. As part of my rule for life, I also want to make it a point to worship with other traditions as often as possible.

Celebration also means music and dancing with abandon, creating and painting, and enjoying good food and great espresso.

Ultimately I am not my own God pulled this espresso for someone, I must be made perfect for Christ who I find in the little ones around me. That is who he hands the hot demitasse off to
after all.

A paradigm for everyday spiritual life

The sun is the light of God found in the cyclical process of awakening, purgation, illumination and union. The swirls of light irradiating from the sun represent the integration of the spiritual life in all things and the breakdown of imposed compartments and dualities. They remind us that God doesn't want to be the biggest part of our lives but integrated in to all of them. God invades our work, relationships, personal and communal life making all of life sacred.

The door is my home with God. The stone by the door is my touchstone that brings me back to practicing the presence. The path from the door is reversed in perspective like an icon to draw the viewer in. God invites me down the path to him, and regardless of how far I wander away from home the mere thought of my touchstone puts me at my front door again.

Stone

Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions by Albert Haase

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Summary

Albert Hasse, lays out the spiritual life as coming home. He describes God as being at home and we returning to find him in the present moment. Using the imagery of the parable of the prodigal son, Hasse describes our need to leave the pigpen of our false self and come to the place of our true self.



Believe

Hasse quotes greats such as Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross. He builds his argument on the finding of God in the present moment where God communes with the imago dei in the true self. Meister Eckhart’s quote is central, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out on a walk.” If this is true then it follows that our work is to turn away from those tings that draw us to wander away from home and return to our house. Hasse calls these attention-drawing things the empty P’s according to his alliterative ordering.



Doubt

Hasse’s focus on the present moment can leave us unbalanced with reference to the future. At it’s worst we can spend the present moment lost in the false self, unconscious of the consequences of our actions. At it’s best such and imbalance fails to recognize the power of time to bring change. With out time change could not occur. The proper corrective to an unbalanced focus on the present moment is Hasse’s reference to the cyclical journey of awakening, illumination, purgation and union. One can also take issue with the true/false-self dichotomy as with out basis in scripture. However I find it does a good job in recognizing the imago dei is still within the midst of fallen humanity.



Synthesis

While I have had my fill of alliteration (after Kellemen) Hasse makes good sense in his empty P’s and escape from the pig pen. I found myself of thinking of Innocent Smith as I read about living with disciplined focus in the present moment with awe and wonder. The material is easy to balance and integrate into my spiritual journey.



Application

This book is rich with material, I can see myself returning to it as I teach my congregation about the spiritual life. The things that grab my attention right now are a couple practices Hasse mentions. One is the use of a word with little meat on it to return our attention to the presence of God. I found my mind immediately drawn to the word “stone.” Perhaps it is because of the stone’s lack of meat, or because I see it sitting at the side of the door to my home. I imagine it like some teleporter, that all I have to do is think about it and I am back at my door, ready to engage God in the present moment. The other thing that was very timely was Hasse’s treatment of lent (pp 96-110). His description of a feng shui reestablishing and preserving of relationships gave penance a needed focus to me.




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The Idiot A Novel in Four Parts By Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Black Garnett

The Idiot A Novel in Four Parts By Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Black Garnett: " I don't agree and in fact I'm indignant when somebody calls you well an idiot. You re too clever to be called that. But you re so strange that you re not like other people you must admit that yourself. I've made up my mind that what's at the bottom of all that's happened is your innate inexperience, mark that word innate prince, and your extraordinary simple-heartedness and then the phenomenal lack of all feeling for proportion (in you which you have several times recognised yourself) and finally the huge mass of intellectual convictions which you with your extraordinary honesty have hitherto taken for real innate intuitive convictions!" (538)

Slowed down in divine purpose

For those of us following the Revised Common Lectionary, this week Jesus commands us to take up our cross and follow him. I ran across this letter from Augustine, where he likens those things that weary us to the cross we carry. Take a look:

Augustine to Laetus

Turn, rather to these teachings, my very dear friend, take up your cross and follow the Lord. For, when I noticed that you were being slowed down in your divine purpose by your preoccupation with domestic cares, I felt that you were being carried and dragged along by your cross rather than that you were carrying it. What else does the cross mean than the mortality of this flesh? This is our very own cross which the Lord commands us to carry that we may be as well armed as possible in following him. We suffer momentarily until death is swallowed up in victory. Then this cross itself will be nailed to the fear of God. We would hardly be able to carry it now if it forever resisted us with free and unfettered limbs. There is no other way for you to follow the Lord except by carrying it, for how can you follow him if you are not his?

Acting as prayer

As I prayed psalm 88 tonight, I began to think about how praying the psalms is sometimes like acting. Psalm 88 is the psalm of a very sick person who feels God is angry. I am not that person, but praying with that person requires that I enter into that character.

Perhaps acting is a spiritual activity, as we enter into a character and feel with that character we touch new places in ourselves where that character has meaning. As we offer those places to God, it becomes prayer.

Ah the psalms my old friends...

So good to spend time with you again!

This week in the psalms, especially in connection with the liturgy of the hours, has been refreshing. How have they stayed with me? I think phrases do come back. It is like they become helium molecules in my head, bouncing around filling me. I can almost feel them now under my scalp. Each time I sat down with them, the psalms were a Sabbath retreat for me. Engaging Muller this week made that even more pointed. How has this changed the way in interact with people? Here is a story:

Just tonight the couple that is staying with us got some bad news. Becky's sister's recently ex-boyfriend committed suicide tonight. As they were on the phone dealing with their family, I turned to the office of the dead and prayed the evening prayer. I was quietly directing the prayers to the couple in the other room. I found that afterward for hours that I was mourning. The prayers were emotionally intense and continued that way. I was mourning with those who mourn thanks to the grace found in praying the psalms.

On the seventh day

Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Summary
Wayne Muller’s thesis is that Sabbath is good. He explores the fundamental need for rest, its origin in creation and its placement in major world religions. There is a fundamental rhythmicity to nature, Muller contends, and that is no accident. We are created to need rest; therefore Sabbath is created for us. As this is a natural truth, Muller finds much support from other faith traditions, with similar rest practices.

Believe
Muller rests heavily on the creation account for his assertion that Sabbath is fundamental to all of nature. God finished the Creative work on the seventh day; in taking his rest, God created peace and rest for the world (37). He also points out that there is an ongoing quality to the Hebrew grammar – that God began to create, an action that continues, as Muller asserts in a circular motion. He sees creation and recreation in cycle (36). Another key theme Muller draws throughout the book is the goodness of creation. From the creation account he echoes God’s declaration that all God made is good. In this Muller finds much in which to rest. There is a fundamental goodness in us; Muller contends that, traces back to the goodness of its Creator. Call it what you will, inner light, hidden wholeness, Buddha nature, imago dei, there is something there that if we slow down we will touch the divine.

Doubt
Muller’s view of the inherent goodness of man is difficult for me to believe. There is the fall, as we evangelicals understand it, which stands in the way of seeing all as good. (I still have much to engage with the Eastern Orthodox view of the fall.) Also in his unbending exhortation for us to enjoy the good around us now, he negates a fuller future rest to come. His “what if?” questioning (79) leaves one wondering if Muller has a belief in an afterlife at all. He seems to argue with Hebrews where it says “There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”

Synthesis
I have little problem with Muller’s references to other religions. I am in agreement with his premise that Sabbath finds its root in creation. If it is indeed that foundational I would expect to find expressions of it in all religions. Those expressions can be edifying to us, especially for a practice we have so thoroughly erased from our culture. I hold to the evangelical view of the fall and the eschatology of the biblical apocalyptic literature. This, however, does not restrict me from agreeing with Muller that the earth, and all creation bear the stamp of the divine, especially we who were created in God’s image. It is then possible (while perhaps paradoxical) to find the goodness and glory of God, even in marred creation.

Application
Muller joins a conspiracy this week to return me to a renewed joy of rhythm in prayer. This week my family and I enter into intentional community with a couple that will be moving in with us. This has given me pause to think about the structure of our community (which we call The Parsonage). Inspired by this and the praying of the psalms in our retreat in everyday life, I have made praying the Liturgy of the Hours part of our communal life. Today I had a chance to introduce the practice to these new Christians. I also have enjoyed the monastic tradition of rest period after lunch. Our twitter account reminds us of our need to rest!


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mojo or nojo?

Work is the engine that drives production. It is that labor of mind, body and will that gives birth to result. This engine needs fuel to run. As one classmate remarked recently, every action, word and deed burns a little life. The work-engine will run either on one of two substances.

Mojo
I define mojo (n.) in the following ways:

1. The energy to produce.
2. The desire to do.
3. The erotic vitality to create, the muse, the imago dei imitating the Creator’s activity.
Mojo is a spiritual substance. It is created by contact with the Holy and those things the Creator has built in as buttons to bring us to life. It is the genius that hears the bat qol the echoes of divine whisperings.

In absence of mojo
In absence of soul mojo the work-engine will burn naked soul, sucking the life from the working person and offering barriers to contact with the Holy.

Work maybe for profit or not. It may be professional or merely routine effort. Some kinds of work are more prone to sucking soul, as some engines burn oil. As this fuel is intrinsically spiritual – soulful – the worker can be employed even in soul sucking work if through contact with the Holy, discipline and formation, the worker substitutes mojo as the fuel for work. This requires constant attention to the presence of God, as the great engineer of work, Brother Lawrence demonstrated.

Bring me to life

I was looking over some journal entries from high school the other day and I quipped in one that I was an extrovert stuck in an introvert's body. That got me thinking, what ever lead me to think I was an extrovert? It was a perhaps over simplistic definition: extroverts are those who are energized by being around people. Introverts will be drained around people and energized by solitude.

I find I do need relationship - it brings me to life,
yet small talk deadens me.

A good Bible Study makes me feel alive
but breakfast with many of the same people is exhausting.

Elaine's smile, sultry eyes and affirming word make life well up behind my eyelids
failing to contemplate her personhood, taking her for granted, these things drain life from my face, turning my color to black and white.

Hitting the town alone or visiting my friend Steve is a needful escape
but I don't indulge in it because I feel I must be with my family and being stuck at home deadens me.

Like, I love having a day off,
but spending my day stuck at home with the kids with out the car so Elaine can make us money deadens me.

Great coffee brings me life and communion with God (you've all seen it!)
but then even coffee is a fickle friend.

Good sexy jazz ushers me into the very throne room of God,
while, of course, pop-country can drive me out of my skin (or smooth jazz for that matter, I like it rough!).

A worship service with friends can give me a buzz
while the same worship service with strangers makes me jealous.

The disciplines are bright and shining friends
but routine and duty kills my soul

I guess all these things are a strange dance of motive, intention and delight. I don't know what I am. Am I extrovert or introvert? I find there is so much coffee I can't enjoy any more I wonder, do I even like coffee? Am I a rural pastor a big city bohemian? I guess we all could have lists of what brings us to life and what deadens us and they would all be different. The real answer to what I am is: unique. I am one delighted in by God and he has built some buttons in me that when pushed bring light to my eyes and spring to my step. How wonderful!

Manalive

Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary
“The glory of God is man fully alive” –St. Irenaeus

This seems to be the thesis Chesterton is playing with as he introduces us to Innocent Smith, a man alive. Innocent takes great lengths to break out from the seduction of routine to forget what it means to be alive. From traveling around the world to greater appreciate his family; to dispensing life from the barrel of a revolver, he finds ways to remind himself and others that they are alive and that life is beautiful. Contrasted with modernity, is Smith a lunatic? a criminal?

Strength
As Palmer suggests in The Active Life, the roll of contemplation-in-action is to disillusion. His principles fit Smith’s modus operandi. Smith’s action of breaking out wipes away the illusions that hide his appreciation for life. Whether he is accessing an ability to covet his own possessions or his own wife, he is learning to be fully alive. Chesterton paints in broad strokes and stark contrasts to show the disparity between full life and the modern man. For a society so fully dulled to living, even questioning whether non-existence might be preferable, the reality of life in the way of Innocent Smith seems unreal. How could everything be available in the sovereign state of Beacon House? How could all that glitters really be gold (59-60). Chesterton offers a glimpse at a deeper reality that Smith has come to recognize. As Irenaeus completes the quote above, “moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God” (Against Heresies 4, 20, 7: PG 7/1, 1037)

Weakness
Does Chesterton go too far? Does he, in pointing to another reality, diminish this present one and our need to live in it? What if there was no other reality after all what if it is all material? After attending what for us was an odd atheist funeral for my wife’s uncle I began to contemplate how I would live this reality if I did not believe in God. I found it very likely I would have lived much like uncle Tom, and perhaps also died at my own hands.

In Dostoevsky’s dark satire, Demons, the nihilist, Kirillov believes that if one could completely disregard the other reality and the fear of death it engenders in people, one could become God and that other God will cease to hold sway over people. A man like Kirillov stands as opposite witness to Professor Eames, he would lay down his life to prove it doesn’t matter. He gladly would have had Smith make his mark, only better yet he would have snatched the gun from his hand and done it himself.

“Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that is how I understand it,” I observed, “and that is what nature tells us.”

Here the Dostoevsky’s narrator agrees with Innocent Smith, but Kirillov disagrees.

“That is base, that is the whole deceit!” his eyes began to flash. “Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That’s how they’ve made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be” (Dostoevsky 115).

Synthesis

In the words of a Switchfoot song, “Souls aren’t built of stone.” We are more than material and I believe Smith has it right; there is a deeper reality that should direct our actions. Actions built out of a reality that goes unobserved by many will seem insane. It takes dramatic events like coming to terms with terminal illness to disillusion us.

On Fresh Air today I heard Dennis Potter say a very Smith-like thing of his impending death in 1994.

“The fact is that if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it!”

Application
In my own pursuit of the spiritual in my everyday life, I do well to heed the example of Innocent Smith. I must live in the present, enjoying the things around me: the plumb blossoms Dennis Potter learned to appreciate, or the stuff I already have. I do well to live aware of life and God blazoned in living color around me.