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.