Flitting and fluttering passions

My Confession, Psalm 131

¹ My heart is not proud, LORD,
   my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
   or things too wonderful for me.

Praying this Psalm this morning was a mirror showing me the condition of my heart.  Passions have been swirling around in me clamoring for change.  I have what I still consider God-given ideas and desires.  Passions to help people hungry for spiritual depth, to craft a new church that embraces the ancient symbols and experiences while living in a vibrancy of Pentecost.  I want to see a contemplative and experiential ministry to children and their families out of that church.  I want to minister to kids again.  I want to live in neo-monastic community with others hungry for the same things. All these things swirl around and my haughty eyes see no way that they can be done.  Not here. If these things are indeed from God they come from a depth of mystery.  They are too great for me.  They require patience to unfold in God's wonderful timing.  How I need God's peace to enter the troubled waters of my soul! The rest of Psalm 131 is my need and my goal.

² But I have calmed and quieted myself,
   I am like a weaned child with its mother;
   like a weaned child I am content.

 ³ Israel, put your hope in the LORD
   both now and forevermore.

Brother Leach, this week, told me that these frustrations will never leave.  In ministry there is always something more God is calling us to, stretching us to, stretching our communities to. I need the quieting.  Years ago talking about spiritual formation would send my soul a twitter with excitement.  Looking back at how my masters program in spiritual formation has changed me I see that those fluttering passions have settled into a deep well within me.  I need the same peace about church planting, about the future.

Falling apart

My heart is raw again today.  Kip distributed an email from M— about the lease for our coffeehouse.  She talks about feeling taken advantage of.  Father John said, “I’m only half way through and I’m steaming.”  That is how I felt too. We didn’t ask for any of the generous things she felt were to her disadvantage.  She keeps backpedaling on her verbal agreements and yet seems upset that we need a lease.  She is upset that the process is taking so long when she stalled in getting us assurances that she was up to date on her financial obligations in the building. It is frustrating.  It feels like everything is falling apart.

I know the frustration of trying strategy after strategy and nothing bearing fruit.  That is how I felt on staff at Faribault.  That is how my church feels about the parade of pastors over their 75-year history.   When the coffeehouse seems tenuous, I suspect that if it fails, it may be the cause of my leaving. Defeated.

I am listening to Fee sing Everything Falls.  “When everything falls apart, your arms hold me together.  When everything falls apart, you’re the only hope for this heart.”  God is my hope still.  I am powerless to bear fruit.  And God, at times I feel angry with you for not producing fruit in me.  Then I wonder if in some way I am less connected to the vine than I ought to be. Perhaps it is just a matter of holding on?   

Doing battle with myself

Yesterday I descended the steps to my basement office to do battle with demons. I did not know when I entered into undistracted solitude that I would be coming to grips with the darkness within me, though I knew no such endeavor is ever safe. The time since my experience has been avoiding solitude and silence, unwilling to engage the unfinished business I left in the basement of my heart.

I love solitude. Often it is a place for me to embrace and be embraced by Mystery. I touch eternity in those moments. This time, however, the Spirit of Christ was content to prod me, and poke at some uncomfortable places. In fact, I would call it a wrestling between us.