Saturday

There is no substitute for the experience of the journey.
There is no way to discipline myself into a perfection that will be worthy of the love of God.
A community of believers is not something I will be worthy of sometime in the future, when I sort myself out.
It is in the holy space held between two people that one can understand Christ.


WIld Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

Friday: Lent

Thank God it's nearly over.

Thurs. Distilled Lent

In sum, I say this:

Lent is teaching me to be still.



"Be still, and know..."
-King David



"Peace, be still..."
-Yeshua himself

Wednesday: A Non-summary

So a summary eh? When I think of writing a summary of my lent experiences I have a feeling of being overwhelmed that is much like the feeling that I’ve felt for the last week and a ½ that I finally admitted to today. In the past 40 days I’ve had nights filled with so much anxiety that I can’t sleep, I’ve seen my brother get married, I’ve seen several new beginnings and unfortunately some endings. There is no way that I know how to sum up the last 40 days, this journey through Lent with my community. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to not only share but to be shared with, for a new way to participate in community. When I thought about what I might write for my last entry however, there is something that I haven’t been able to shake from my mind that I’d like to share.

The topic I can’t get out of my mind is Pain.

A couple weeks ago I was riding the bus over the Aurora bridge, probably on my way to Fremont. I do this roughly once a week, sometimes two or three times depending on the week. For the first time on this bus ride I noticed that along the railing of the bridge there are several signs posted reading “Thinking of Suicide?” and then a phone number to call. As I looked at the sign and then looked out the window over the bridge toward docks and water, I was filled an intense sadness that is pretty hard to shake. What would it take for someone to look at the rough presence of the docks hundreds of yards below and feel that they were more inviting than the life they are currently living?

This sent my mind through a spiral of thoughts that led me to finally think about the pain of the cross. I found myself comparing the pain that a person who finds his or her only relief in suicide with the pain that Jesus felt as he was headed toward the crucifixion.

I’m not really sure why this makes sense to me, nor am I really sure how to explain it. But when I conceptualize the feeling of hopelessness in life that often leads to suicide I feel an overwhelming sense of compassion for Jesus, not because he was hopeless but because he embodies all that there is to be hopeful for in life, some much so that he died for it. How often do we find ourselves wandering through life feeling that there is no hope that things will change, no hope that one day what is causing us pain will cease to cause pain?

In the last week, I’ve seen 3 people lose their jobs. I’ve seen a community react to the loss as though they were losing a part of their body and in some cases a piece of their soul. People feel betrayed, let down and discouraged. I have heard more people than I can count express anger, frustration and sadness. Where do you begin to pick up the pieces when what you once viewed as your foundation is pulled from beneath you?

There is a time for grief. There is a time express loss. There is a time to give into pain and hopelessness, to be angry, to be sad, frustrated. But in the end what leads us to new life is hope. According to my belief, what led to Jesus death was hope, hope in our life, in our existence. Hope that we will rebuild. Hope that when we lose a part of the body that we have others there to carry us through, to depend on.

To help us live.

So I guess you could say this is what I take with me from Lent. It's generally what I always take with me from Lent. Nothing extremely profound, just a renewed sense that life is a good idea and there is something that makes it worth getting out of bed every morning to see what the day will bring. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share some of my disjointed thoughts and observations of what this life brings to me.

Tuesday: Unreality.

"God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking you."
--Thomas Merton

I have prayed that every morning of Lent as I put on what I can only consider some variant of a cross I once received from Karen. In the evening, I would generally pray, "Lord, be present with us in the nighttime" as I took the cross off for bed. It is the only consistent thing that I have ever maintained throughout this season.

The prompt is to give a summation of Lent. I think summaries are to be of the brief nature. My summation will not be such, so if you will indulge me in the length of a somewhat philosophico-metaphysical entry (or don't, I suppose you do have the option of exercising full autonomy in reading posts):

About halfway through the period of Lent, I came to realize that for all intents and purposes, I was no longer operating under the belief that God is real. This is only somewhat problematic to me because I still hold absolutely that God exists. The problem only arises in the disjunct between the theory in my head and the practice at church. It is more or less incompatible (as far as I can tell) to hold in one's head the belief of the possibility that God is not real (though existent, ontologically) and still engage in corporate prayer, and the consumption of body and blood.

There are many terms here that warrant definition before I continue, but for the sake of brevity: real is simply how I am describing the way in which God is tangibly impacting life, specifically mine (apologies for the phrasing - the definition does not imply that I think it to be God's job to necessarily make...God [someday, I will find an appropriate pronoun] known to me and for me to in fact know); and existence is simply that God is an ontological being. I am intentionally avoiding the phrase, "that God is really real" to describe my conception of existence, but it could be conceived in that manner.

I have no problem at all presupposing that God exists--for any level of my life. God's existence is both external and independent of however I may conceive of and interact with God. This is problematic in itself, but I do not have the capacity to engage this tonight. In other words, God's existence is safe and free from any sort of personal, convoluted, nonsensical doubt. But I am having a difficult time trying out work out what it means for God to be (un)real in the midst of said personal, convoluted, nonsensical doubt. And so Merton's prayer has been significant to me these past few weeks. There is blindness. There is a hope that I am seeking. And there is a great need of mercy in all of this.

I am anticipatory of Good Friday. It seems to be the most fitting day in which I can feel comfortable with God's lack of reality. I want that physical manifestation of...lack. And I really want to take that day to sort out what that has meant to me, currently means for me, and what it will mean to me for the season of Easter.

So ends my participation in this Lenten blog.
Gratia et Pax.

Monday: Summing It Up

This week we are supposed to sum up our experience of lent, since this will be the final week for the 40 blog. This is tough to do in some ways and in others is quite simple.

I'm a seminary student. I'm studying to become a more informed pastor. I was a youth pastor for five years. Christian: my whole life. How many times have I given up anything or practiced anything for lent? None. I've tried so many times. Sometimes I even got close to making it, but sure enough a stressful day would come and I just had to have a Mountain Dew. Fasting a meal? Couldn't do it. Reading a book? Didn't happen. So this year...I said screw it, I'm not doing anything.

Well, every Sunday night or Monday, I've blogged with and for my community. I didn't intend for this to happen, but I guess this 40 blog has successfully put me in a place spiritually I've been before during lent. Hooray for me right? Maybe.

You see, this came as more of a pain in the ass than anything else. I usually remembered to do this right before going to bed, thus prolonging my ability to sleep for at least 20 minutes. I didn't really do any preparation for this, so the struggle, and time, and energy just wasn't there. I simply didn't do much. I did reflect. I did read the other posts. I was inspired, relieved, curious, and amazed by them during this time. So does this count? I don't know, I probably won't even care after I click publish, but for me, I'm going to say yes.

Lent has been filled with pain, betrayal, hope, dreams, desire, frustration, and anger. I've lost a job and a place to live all at the same time. Found out my wife is going to get a pay cut in order to work on an internship so she can get certified for the state of Washington. I've also been part of planning and starting a new community house for COTA. I've seen that house one signature away from being ours, to being delayed another month by a greedy real estate agent and naive home owners.

This lent has been so different for me in so many ways, but the recurring theme in my life during lent is ambivalence, and this year is no different. It is the paradox of my life...I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thank you 40 blog writers for your stories, poems, thoughts, interpretations, time, effort, and truth.

Friday: Longing

She alone sits at his feet.

She alone understands.

As I scurry throught the house

envy fills my heart.

Oh! To just sit at his feet!

To hear his words. To touch his skin.

But in my restless nature,

there is much to be done.

So I breathe in the perfume

that fills the house

and pretend it is me

who has annoited his feet

then quickly shelve the thought

and return to duty.

Thursday- Where does the water go?

Water
tends
to
trickle
to the
lowest
place.

And
sometimes

to drink

one
must

kneel.

Wednesday: Frustration

It’s passages like Philippians 3 that drive me nuts.

I don’t tend to think of myself as having this whole Christian thing all figured out, I instead lean more towards thinking that there really isn’t anything in particular to figure out. Paul here however, sounds so sure, so clear of what he has to do, what will make him ‘right’ with God. My problem? First, I don’t get it. Second, I’m not really sure I agree with what I do get.

If I were to sit at the feet of Jesus, it’s not awe or wonder I would feel (though perhaps there would be some), it would be frustration. My response to Jesus walking into my house wouldn’t be, “Oh Jesus…it’s so nice to see you!” it would probably be more like “Where the hell have you been? Whatever did you mean by this?” The best part of the whole scene as it plays out in my head is that Jesus would be ok with that.

I’ve already gone through several periods in my life where I have been very frustrated with Christianity, the Church, religion in general, and most of all Christians. I, in general struggle with unquestioning faith. It’s not that I feel it’s bad, I have lots of respect for people who are able to approach their faith in a way that raises no questions, only acceptance. But I fear it. I’ve always had questions and it took me a long time realize that it was ok to be that way. I’m not going to hell for doubting God, a hole wouldn’t open up beneath me if I said to Jesus “you know, I’m not really sure what you meant by this whole death and new life thing.”

Over the last several years, I’ve sat with this question. In the last year something about my approach to questioning the things I don’t get at church or in the bible has changed. I still find myself questioning (often) anybody’s interpretation of anything “Christianity” related. However, I don’t find myself avoiding speaking those questions or doubts or for that matter feeling bad about them. I’m not exactly sure what brought about this change, perhaps the increasing number of safe spaces to ask these questions? Perhaps a greater number of things that I am sure about in my faith than before? Or maybe it’s because I believe that as a child of God I am somewhat entitled to ask these questions.

My Jesus, is ok with questions, with frustration.

Tuesday: She Pours.

At about midnight, I sat down to "pen" out this entry and when I had a fair amount of it completed, realized that I was writing about something that I don't actually know. At 1, I abandoned my web browser for some spoken word tracks instead. The sort of intellectual nonsense that I'm capable of pulling is really something that I'm trying to avoid if/when I catch myself. There is frailty to words. From philosophy to poetry - there is a frailty to words.

So I'm just going to put up a poem. Right here and now about this text. I'll put up the first "complete" draft I get. These are still words. I can't escape that, but at least there's no illusion of profundity.

[I wrote all of the above at about 2 in the morning]

As the timestamp will eventually indicate once I publish, it's now almost 4 in the morning.

Here is the poem:

She Pours

she knows
knows this night is important
that this man is important
so she goes
pulls herself down beneath the table
uncorks eleven ounces of pure blessing
and kisses not the man
...but his feet
because his feet connect with more people and places
than his hands will ever reach
and these feet
bless more land
than water can seep
so she pours
dumps on restoration
elevates the last two things anyone thinks about at dinner
and pours
out comes more than just perfume
more than just the worth of the liquid
being wasted on weary feet
more than wages meant to help the poor
she pours
pours on redemption
as preparation
for something greater
than even what happened
to the man across the table
she pours on smells
that tell the world
"he matters"
and then she dries it all up
soaks up the dust and dirt
so nothing remains but his new feet
the two things that will carry him places
no one's meant to go

Here too is an audio link. I just stuck a voice recorder onto my iPod, so the quality is far less than par. And I couldn't really speak at full volume because it is indeed three in the morning and normal people are asleep at this hour. Unlike me.
It's a .WAV so there shouldn't be any problem playing it but let me know in the comments if you have issues.

She Pours


Goodnight.

Monday: Presence

Matt Shedden should enjoy this one. You see Matt and I are students at Mars Hill Graduate School where we talk about presence and "being with" all the time. I like it, but Matt has some pretty strong reactions against it. You'll have to have him explain it to you sometime...

Here we have Jesus hanging out with his friends. But this can't be just a time of hanging out together, right? We've got Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead, Mary who dumps perfume on Jesus and cleans it with her hair, and Judas who is going to betray Jesus. Can you imagine anything more awkward? It makes me wonder, if Jesus had clued his disciples into a specific kind of plant that if rolled and burned might just change the way things are perceived. But I could be wrong and this could a completely normal experience for this group of friends.

Then again, looking at the narrative, it makes complete sense. John has written brilliantly here, because we are in the house of a dead and risen man, where because of Judas another man is going to be killed and then rise is present. If that isn't enough the symbol of perfume, which Jesus explains is for his burial is in the center of the story, because the house was filled with the perfume's fragrance. I wonder if it is anything like walking into a department store like Macy's and the fragrance section nearly kills you when you walk through it. Often it makes me dizzy and sometimes nauseous.

This just doesn't seem like a great situation to be in to me. Yet Jesus is able to keep his wits about him and Judas pops a good question. It is a question that I would likely ask to be quite honest. Why are you letting her do that? It's a waste of perfume! We could have sold that and given the money to the poor! There are probably many reasons why Jesus did what he did and said what he said here, but I think they all come back to being present in the moment. Jesus seems to know Judas's intentions with his line of questioning and that can only come through attentiveness to the relationship that they have together. By Judas making that statement he is also cutting himself off from Mary by excluding her and de-meaning her act of pouring perfume on Jesus feet. Jesus chooses to remain present to Mary and bring her back into the room as it were by validating what she is doing. My suspicion is that he didn't really think this was a precursor to his death, but used Judas' inability to be with Mary and Jesus in this moment as a way to teach them all something.

The question is how do we remain present with others? How are present with Jesus at his feet? What does it mean to be present with Christ, especially in the house of death, dizzying smells, tough questions, wrong motives, and new life simultaneously. People do crazy things. We all ask good questions, but sometimes with poor motives. What does it look like to really be present in the midst of this. Being with is very different than hanging out. Being attuned to the reality that we are in the midst of is probably one of the hardest things Jesus calls us to. I hope that this week of lent will be a week of being present in the realities that we find ourselves in. May we speak truth like prophets to the ignorant and arrogant. May we be the embrace of companionship and understanding to the lost and the ones who do the best they can.

Lent 5 - At the Feet of Jesus

Here's a link to this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent5.htm


I'm not really sure that I have any sort of story to tell about this week's theme. Or, at least, I don't have one that won't sound trite or cheap. Most of the time, the image I see of myself at the feet of Jesus looks a little too church-camp. And, to be honest, that isn't too appealing.

I want to shiver and shake a bit, wriggle myself out of that picture. I want to say something like: "I'm with Judas here. That stuff is expensive. Wouldn't water do the trick?"

But maybe I need to think in these terms for once. I should give John 12 a chance.

Last week we looked at the party, at how we react to other's receiving Christ's love. Now we enter the dinner, and we're at Christ's feet.

Who are we when we're at the feet of Jesus?

Saturday: grace and duty

I have been contemplating this story for much of the week in between studying and saying goodbye to friends leaving for spring. In the past I have always focused on the story of the son who left and returned, but this week I have realized how complex and rich the other characters of the story are, and I find myself resonating more with the dutiful/bitter brother who did what he was supposed to all along. These questions come to mind:

What is duty worth if it is full of have to's anger and bitterness? If it is a chasing after one's own merit then isn't it just as self seeking as the what the prodigal son did? What does God say when looking at someone ,who has let her sense of duty and right action, thwart her ability to celebrate with her brother who once was lost and now is found?

Who are you in the story?

Friday: Q & A

what do we do with the prodigal son?

the prodigal father?

the brother who stayed home and did what he was told?

what do we make of the one who lavished upon himself?

the one who lavished upon his son?

the one who wished to have been lavished upon?

we come home.

we embrace.

and we hold tightly to the father who has been with us from the start and welcome our brothers home.

Thursday: Exams or Party?

I know a physics professor who refuses to have exams.
Instead of exam days, he has party days.

Students are not required to study for physics exams.
But they are invited to prepare for physics parties.

This changes the tone of the traditional exam day.

No longer is the day about demonstrating achievement.
Instead, it is about celebrating the discipline.




One of this weeks texts is from 2 Corinthians

5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

When I read this verse, I might use it like an exam. I might use it as a question with which to examine my achievements; I might ask, am I acting like a new creation? Have I studied Christ enough to demonstrate this achievement?

But I am tired of exams. I want more parties.

I want to believe this verse, and I want to have a party that celebrates the discpline of learning what it means to be a new creation.

Wednesday: A Prodigal Tanka

reintroducing

itself to me today,

the warmth,

as I smile, welcoming him

as my prodigal son

.

.

"prodigal son"

Luke 15:11-32


J. Andrew Lockhart

Tuesday - The Duality of Prodigality.

Last Thursday as Ken, Kirsten, Ryan and I were standing in the rain talking about prodigality - Ken brought up the fact that he prefers to consider this story to be more about the prodigal father than the prodigal son. He immediately piqued my interest.

As I think about it now, I think the notion of prodigality applies to both parties involved (no pun intended). I am...really quite perplexed when I think about how prodigality spent in seemingly identical ways, albeit through completely contrary intents, manages to result in a feast. A lavish party for someone who for all logical reasons does not deserve it, given by someone who for all logical reasons need not do so. The son, as the general story goes, takes all he is given and squanders it in not-so-responsible ways. The father, as the general story goes, takes all he has and gives it away (again) as only a truly grateful person can. The older son seems to be the only person exercising any moderation at all. And he is the one who seems to get the short end of the stick in terms of offering whatever morals we're supposed to derive from this parable.

How is it that an all-out expenditure of the shit we own leaves one person wholly dejected and the other wholly rich?

This is where I would generally look to some theoretically brilliant philosopher for insight, but I got nothing.

I am reluctant, or maybe just unwilling, to chalk it up to a reconceptualization of "rich."

[So evidently, CTRL+S publishes your text as opposed to saving it. Riddle me that. Google should really change that shortcut. Or maybe I should stop using them. Regardless, my apologies to those who read this prematurely and felt that I just left my thoughts incomplete.]

I don't think it is enough to just say something along the lines of "well, the father is rich because he has his son back again" or "well, the son is poor because he was chasing after stuff that doesn't really amount to anything." Applying this parable to an explanation for why material gain is vanity is, in my opinion, too shallow. It misses the complex duality of this parable. Father and son both spent their stuff in equally prodigious ways. If the son is going to get docked for chasing after wind, the father too should lose points for throwing a lavish party. Any sort of explanation that appeals to personal intent seems to be found wanting because convincing yourself that you're spending for "good" does not actually exclude the fact that you are indeed spending.

But somehow, it really does work out to be that way. The son exercises prodigality and is unsatisfied. The father exercises prodigality and gains everything.

I don't get it.


Pax.

Monday...being late to the party

To begin a week about being at the party with an apology is a little strange, but that is what must happen. I hammered the end part of a project last night that was due today and then crashed. I just got the e-mail that I forgot to post. The reality is that I remembered, and then said I'd do it later after I finished my project, but then you know how it goes. I did then eventually forget, so I'm sorry to all of those who expected a post today and didn't get it until after work.

So some party this is turning out to be. Parties are tough for me personally. I do my best to find a nice quiet corner and just chill. I only had one birthday party growing up and it was a disaster. I find myself identifying with the one who the party is thrown for, but doesn't want it. All I want to do is whatever I need to in order to earn favor, or a paycheck, or whatever it is I need to earn. Even love. For me receiving love freely is very difficult, but when it is so lavish and celebratory. It is often oppresive to me. I don't want to be the center of attention. I don't want to be the guy with the drink who goes around and mingles with everyone. I don't want to dance. I don't want to see myself as the father sees me. I don't look at myself through God's lenses if you will.

What would it look if I did? What would it mean for you if you were able to see yourself as God sees you? Right now I see myself as a slacker who spent the day squandering time and am late in joining the 40 blog party. But, God says, "Hey you're here! Now let the party begin!" I'm not late, I'm just on time. This is too difficult for me. It's a party, and it scares me. That shouldn't be. I'll probably be ready to party by Wednesday night, when my midterm work is finished, but right now I just want the noise to stop and to go to bed and rest. It's been a long journey and I just want to sleep. But the party is for me and so I'm here. Let's eat, drink, and be merry! Let's dance!

Lent 4 - At the Party

Here's a link to this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent4.htm


When my younger brother turned one, I was upset.

Let's be honest: you don't get more attention on any birthday your entire life than when you're one year old. Your party is a chance to showcase to the world the talents you've been practicing for 365 days.

Aaron, my brother, made me pretty jealous. I was four at the time, the tender age at which I realized that the world should revolve around, well, me. As family and friends began to arrive for Aaron's party, I quickly found myself wanting what he had: attention.

So, as any good four year old would do, I laid out my case. Well, to be more precise, I cried, and cried, and after the second spell of sobbing had ceased I explained that I wanted a party for me, too.

I wanted to feel special.


That's what we see in this Gospel text. Imagine yourself as a character from Christ's story. Your younger brother returns, and the whole time, while he's done just about everything wrong, you've been taking care of dad and helping out to run things back home. And then, when your screw-up brother returns, dad throws a gigantic party.

Or, maybe you're walking down a long, dirty road with only one hope, that you're father will let you be one of his hired crew. And then you find that, despite how irrational it is, you're welcomed back with an embrace that makes you believe that you're the most important person in the world.

So, where are we at the party? How do we respond to God's love?

Saturday: Even the Sweetest Grapes Have Seeds

Ode on Melancholy

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globèd peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
-John Keats

We cannot escape suffering, because hidden in every burst of joy is the seed of sadness even if it is merely that the pleasure must cease. But does this mean that we run from the experience because we fear the ache we experience when it ends?

Friday: The Runner

As I was snug in my bed....wait, mattress on the floor, this morning, nestled in blankets and cherishing the fact of sleeping in, I jolted up, realizing I had totally forgotten to post my blog last night. So here it is......late.


She had been running for as long as she could remember. The endless stretch of highway had become her home. She didn’t know where she was running to. Nor where she was running from. But day after day and year after year she heard the sound of her footsteps hitting the pavement one after another.
Of course she would stop, now and again, but never for long. Folks would ask her where she was running. She’d smile and say she had to be on her way.
She focused on the road. The dotted yellow lines in front of her. The sound of her feet. She ran through the mountains, standing in glory. Through the plains, wide as the sky. Through the forest, where squirrels chased each other, up and up and round and round to the tops of the trees. She saw nothing but the road.
Sometimes, her thoughts would wander and she would wonder if there might be more. But those thoughts frightened her and she didn’t know what to do with them. So she’d focus on her steps, counting them.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five….

On a day like any other, she had stopped in a small town, sat on a park bench, ate some lunch. A frail, wrinkled man with the kindest eyes she’d ever known sat next to her and said not a word. As she rose to be on her way, he grabbed her hand. “Sometimes you’ll find where you’re running to is exactly what you’re running from.” Politely she smiled, pulled her hand away, and started down the road.
What could he mean?
She tried shoving the man’s words from her head.
She counted her steps.
One.
Two.
Who was this man?
Three.
Four.
What did he know anyway?
“Keep your eyes on the road,” she told herself.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
That was more like it.
She settled back into the rhythm of the road. This was what she knew. This is what she would continue to do.
“Excuse me.”
The sound of another’s voice startled her so, she nearly tripped over her own feet. But she kept running. She looked to her left, and saw a young man, running, step for step, right beside her.
“Follow me.” He said and he grabbed her hand. They ran faster than she had ever run before. Yet, as she ran, hand in hand with this stranger, she saw for the first time, the mountains standing in glory. The plains, wide as the sky. The forest, where squirrels chased each other up and up and round and round to the tops of the trees. And when she thought she could run no longer, she and the stranger burst through the door of the most amazing house she’d ever seen. She found herself in the most elegant of corridors, with a staircase wrapping round on either side.
“We’re here! We’ve made it!” Yelled the stranger.
There appeared at the top of the stairs, a man. Younger in appearance and with the smoothest of skin, but with the same unmistakable eyes of the man on the park bench. He made his way down the stairs, embraced her, kissed her head and said,
“Child, welcome home.”

Thursday: The best things in life are free...

But you can save em' for the birds and bees, I want money.


Isaiah 55:1-9

55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

I would really like to live in a place like this, a place in which I could have wine and milk, and not need to have money. But is wine and milk enough? What about a place to sleep?

What is the gospel saying? I am going to graduate this year, and I don't know what to do about money. Will the Messiah look after me?

We'll see. Who can come to the waters? Am I invited?

Wednesday: Who really suffers?

It’s hard for me to think of suffering this week. I just returned from a trip to Florida for my brother’s wedding. I’ve experienced almost nothing but joyful occasions for the last week, reunions, marriage, good weather, family, friends, parties.

Today I will wake up and return to work. Some people may say that this should give me a good basis for writing about suffering, sometimes there’s nothing worse than returning to work after a good trip to somewhere like Florida. I enjoy my job and the people that I work with, I support what my employer stands for and the work that comes out of that “Big Box on the Hill”.

The first thing I will see when I get into the office tomorrow, when I look out of my window over the city as I generally do, is a sea of blue tarps covering the roughly 15 tents that have taken residence in our parking lot. As of February 24^th and until roughly the end of April, Tent City3 will be there to greet me at work every morning. Tent City is a program that started several years ago in Seattle. It is operated by homeless people, for homeless people. It provides a safe and clean shelter for people who need it.

Often times people automatically associated being homeless with suffering, with a problem. Several weeks ago, in Missio Dei we talked about homelessness and the homeless. Something that really struck me in our conversation has to do with the view of homelessness as a problem to be solved; we’re all seeking an end to homelessness, aren’t we? I mean, no body should have to live without consistent food and shelter, right? While I don’t agree that homelessness should continue, nor do I think the conversations that work to understand how to live with homelessness should stop. One person made the point that some people choose to be homeless, to lead a nomadic lifestyle, free of the normal constraints of society. In many ways homeless people will always be with us.

If we think about it this way, where does the suffering actually lie? In the people who are homeless? Or in someone like me who wants them not to be homeless anymore, to enjoy the same or similar comforts that I enjoy?

I was talking to my mom yesterday morning as I was packing to come back to Seattle. I mentioned to her that I had to write about suffering this week and observing out loud how I was going to have trouble (coming from the experiences I just had) writing.

My mother in all her eminent wisdom affirmed that I was probably right. She added, however, that there is always suffering around me, even in joy. People often assume that things or people will make us happy, that without these things or people we would feel empty and alone. She reminded me that someone can be surrounded by a loving family, live in a beautiful house, drive a nice car and own all the latest fancy equipment and still lead a very unhappy life. Her point was that if someone refuses to see the joy in the surrounding world, he or she will never feel that joy personally. While there are many instances that life can be hard and unhappy and we may have little to no control over what is causing us to suffer, we are ultimately in control of how we deal with that suffering.

Now where does God come into all this? Well to me there’s not a lot of question about what God does to alleviate my suffering, for me God has already done everything. For me God does not bestow suffering upon me, only I can cause myself to suffer. When I begin to see God in everything around me, I cease to feel suffering, I feel joy, I can see the light, I can see the end and I move forward. God sent Jesus to show me (and millions of other people) a way to live without suffering, leading a life that is at the same time both simple and complex. Leading a life that is not about me, but about things that are outside of me: people, communities, my planet.

Going back to the Missio Dei conversation mentioned earlier, someone asked the question, what can we do for the homeless? How can we help them to stop suffering? The response was, “treat them like human beings”, don’t look at them as a problem, look at them as people, with feelings, with a future. If we see them on the street begging for money, whatever money we give them may help them to feed an addiction, it may help them to buy a warm meal. In any case, the loose change we share from our pockets is probably not going to have a significant impact on their lives. What will change their life is if we stop viewing them as “homeless people”.

What would result if we stopped looking at homeless people as “they” and started looking at them as “us”? What if my or his or her suffering ceased to be mine or his or hers and became ours?

Tuesday: A Solution Through Worship?

(Posted in loving stead for Theresa by Paul)

One crisp night in April, I find myself crunching through a crusty remnant of snow along the overgrown remains of a long abandoned logging road. My tennis shoes are wet and my stomach will not let me forget the promise of warm food with close friends I have failed to keep. The mountains here are my friends, but tonight they loom as ominous sentinels over a midnight trek laced with panic and fear.

With each step, my knees alternately cling to the wet cloth of my pants, reminding me of a belated supplication to God that convicted rather than relieved. My friend might be out there suffering in his own way, and my thoughts race at a dizzying pace, driving me on. One minute we were sharing our passion of flight, the next minute lives of those I had not yet been fortunate enough to meet changed forever. Many hours later, after a final, tortured decision at a dark crossroads in a mountain clear-cut, my own salvation results in tears instead of relief. The next day, one form of suffering is replaced by another as I learn the ugly fate of my friend.

The trappings of death are often the most vivid embodiment of suffering we have. There lies an ultimate and tangible finality for the mortal, an unknown quantity that can never be shared outside of the imagination. This cold night in April and the subsequent day was my novice experience with such penetrating emotion. A terrible accident occurred and my own life was threatened, my salvation just short of miraculous. Yet God and his provision did not enter my mind until my position was an embarrassing distance from where I started. The omnipotent, loving God I’ve known since a child was not paramount in my thoughts for reasons of spiritual bankruptcy. Yet, I sought him in prayer anyway, though it left me with emptiness.

The passages selected for this week did not bring these thoughts to the surface immediately, but I believe it was inevitable they turn in this direction. As I read Jon’s post from yesterday, I also wondered how the festering of my own recent experience is evidence of God’s oft hidden work. Sinking into the snow at a higher elevation and earlier hour that April evening, I had knelt and prayed to God seeking his protection for my friend and thanking him for such mercy in a time of my life noted for its deficiency of character and faith. Perhaps this was a kind of worship, but without satisfaction due to the context of my heart and mind.

What is the link between worship, suffering, and the condition of the heart? If the effort is made to preserve the condition of the heart in a way that honors God, how does an approach to suffering change? What if I had worshipped God in the context of the life of a seeker who stumbles but looks to God instead of the world for assistance during my prayer in the snow? Lately, I’ve been seeking to break down my old life and re-center around the search for a Christian identity separate from that which I was spoon-fed as a child. This experience seems to confirm my belief in worship - through whatever form seems appropriate – as the door to incredible strength from God. Perhaps worship in the midst of our suffering and trial is one method through which, “He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it”.

Monday: Manure

I was at a conference a few years ago learning about all the great things going on around the world within the emerging church conversation. I found myself gravitating to the most creative voices, which at that particular time were coming from Europe. I was in Jonny Baker's seminar and he was telling us about a worship gathering some friends created in St. Peter's Church in South London. This image was projected for reflection about the impurity of their lives and the meaning of the Incarnation.

The question looming over us this week is around suffering. Who are we in the midst of suffering? What is suffering, and why is it a present reality throughout history? What do we do in the midst of suffering? These questions are daunting and even terrifying, but we live with them every moment of our lives if we're honest with ourselves. Our text speaks of Galileans being executed, the questions that follow such a horrific event, Jesus' rebuttal, and a parable of a non-fruit bearing tree. It's quite an odd combination to read the first time through. And after reading it a few times something started coming together for me.

I got a phone call at the YMCA on a bright Saturday morning in August. I was 12 years old. My mom was making me come home. I stewed on the long, hot walk home in my quaint suburban neighborhood. As I approach my own house, my family is all waiting for me on the front porch. Still angry at them for making me leave my sacred place, I fail to notice the grief on their faces. They knew something I did not. My best friend was dead. My mom tries to tell me and explain to me, but fails. She hands me the front page of our town newspaper. The picture, the headline, the weight of the page in my hand tells me the story of my best friend was shot by his dad in the middle of the night and left for dead. My family's attempt to console me was met by my back turned, and a dead sprint upstairs to my bedroom where I would lay for the next few hours face down on my floor weeping uncontrollably.

My questions were the same as the crowds who told Jesus about the Galileans. Why did Tommy have to die? What did he do wrong? It should have been me, right? I'm a worse kid than Tommy was. Jesus response to this is that unless I repent, I will suffer and die as well. What? How does Jesus get off saying something like that? But then he tells the story and clarifies or muddles his theology depending on your take. The gardener wants to give this old, barren fig tree another chance. He says he'll dig around the tree and put manure in it's place. If the tree grows fruit, then that's great. If it doesn't, he'll cut it down. But give it some time.

How do we suffer? What does it mean to repent in response to suffering? Who are we, and who do we become in suffering? These are questions I don't have any good answers for, but this short parable makes a lot of sense to me right now. I suffer by digging into my story and sitting in the shit of it. In that place, God is doing something that I can only guess is like what fertilizer does to a dying tree. This is not easy to be sure. But the more I reflect on my best friend's death and all the surrounds that event, the more I grow. The pain is real and intense. Slowly I'm coming back to life, so maybe the owner of the vineyard won't cut me down.

Lent 3 - In the Midst of Suffering

Here's a link to this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent3.htm

I am nine. I am growing up in a bright, lime-green house near a field whose tall weeds stretch for acres. Behind my house, in the middle of the field, lives a boy my age named Paul. Paul is friendly and mischievous, and his father takes us for rides on a tan tracker that rumbles like an angry bobcat when it comes to life.

They have a barn, too, just on the edge of their property. It is run-down, with rotten wood spilling out around broken nails at the building's joints and seams. There is a thick, silver padlock on the double doors leading into the barn, as its disrepair prevents Paul's family from using it.

It is the middle of Fall, the leaves have turned, and Paul and I find that a recent storm has broken a window on the outside of the barn, and if we climb a nearby plum tree, we can just make it inside. I spend the afternoon in the barn with Paul, breaking damp boards and digging holes, holding the wood tight in our hands before it is smashed and then using the scattered pieces to shovel the loose earth at our feet.

Just as we are about to leave, Paul gives a low shout and points with two fingers up toward the rafters, where I can just make out the shape of a nest. I squint and stare for a few seconds, and when I turn back to Paul he has a slender stone in his left hand. He lets it fly. He laughs as the nest falls, and I laugh, too, because he has, but my stomach twists when I see the small home hit the ground.

I return later, alone, and sit next to four broken eggs whose fluids have commingled with the dirt. I stare at the small, partially-formed bodies near cracked shells, hints of wings and beaks on two or three. Reaching out my hands, I pick up a few shells and try to fit them back together. I stay in the barn until it is dark before going home.


In the city, we found that the oasis we expected from our safe places didn't provide the comfort we needed. Now we're smack-dab in the middle of it, in the midst of suffering. Our text examines difficult, painful situations, and we find resonance within our own world, within our own lives. How do we find Christ here? How do we live in this brokenness?

Saturday: Called to Community

"Jesus' feeling for the possessed man is different from his feeling for the beloved disciple; but the love is one. Feelings one "has"; love occurs. Feelings dwell in man, but man dwells in love. There is no metaphor but actuality: love does not cling to an I, as if the You were merely its "content" or object; it is between I and You." -Martin Buber

Often times the City is one of the hardest places to be. It is messy and confusing, busy and disfuctional. But Christians are called to community. For Martin Buber love occurs in the space between two reconciled individuals. We are meant to be in relationship with one another and part of growing in community is growing in our ability to serve eachother.

Friday: The city to which God has sent you

It's been nearly two months now since I've moved to Seattle, a city that has approximately the same population as the entire state I am from. Shortly after arriving here, I found myself living in an intentional community and at the same time began reading a book entitled The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. Ms. Norris grew up in Honolulu and spent many years living in New York City. She now lives in a town in Western South Dakota that is about 19 times smaller (by population) than the entire Fremont neighborhood . She has spent an exceptional amount of time living in an Abbey in Northern Minnesota as an oblate. While reading her book, this stuck out to me:

A city is a place where the worst and best about humanity come to the fore, where we're forced to be realistic enough to lock our doors even as we rejoice in being able to celebrate the greatest achievements of our culture. The Christian vision of heaven is of a city, the New Jerusalem, and Christian theology suggest that the Godhead itself is a kind of city, a community of three persons, or in the Benedictine Aidan Kavanagh's words, "a collective being, with unity." Kavanagh laments that in contemporary society the city's sacred potential as a symbol of community has been "invested in sovereign individualism, which allows us to retreat into a myopic unworldliness. "[Our] icon is not a city," he writes in On Liturgical Theology, "whether of man or God, but the lone jogger running through suburbia, in order, we are told, to feel good about himself."

Cities remind us that the desire to escape from the problems of other people by fleeing to the suburb, small town, or a monastery for that matter, is an unholy thing, and ultimately self-defeating. We can no more escape from other people than we can escape from ourselves. As Basil the Great wrote to a friend after leaving the city of Caesarea in the fourth century, "I have abandoned my life in the town as the occasion of endless troubles, but I have not managed to get rid of myself." Images of the city are impossible to avoid in the monastic choir, as scripture is full of them. You're reminded, over and over, that in fact you have come here to be a part of the city of the living God, and you're challenged to make something of it. Do you reflect Benedict's belief that "the divine presence is everywhere?" Do you work, as Jeremiah reminds us to do, for the welfare of the city to which God has sent you? Can you say, with Isaiah, "About Zion I will not be silent, about Jerusalem I will not rest, until her integrity shines out like the dawn, and her salvation flames like a torch?"

While I certainly don't think it unholy to live in suburbs, small towns, or monasteries, nor do I think that that the point, for me, Ms. Norris pretty much sums it up and I thought it should be shared.

Thursday: What does my voice sound like when I pray?

This is from the Lectionary

Psalm 59

Deliver Me from My Enemies
To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam [4] of David, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.

59:1 Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;
protect me from those who rise up against me;
2 deliver me from those who work evil,
and save me from bloodthirsty men.

3 For behold, they lie in wait for my life;
fierce men stir up strife against me.
For no transgression or sin of mine, O Lord,
4 for no fault of mine, they run and make ready.
Awake, come to meet me, and see!
5 You, Lord God of hosts, are God of Israel.
Rouse yourself to punish all the nations;
spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah

6 Each evening they come back,
howling like dogs
and prowling about the city.
7 There they are, bellowing with their mouths
with swords in their lips—
for “Who,” they think, [5] “will hear us?”

8 But you, O Lord, laugh at them;
you hold all the nations in derision.
9 O my Strength, I will watch for you,
for you, O God, are my fortress.

A REFLECTION:

I have been wondering what kinds of things to ask of God? And wondering what sorts of things are appropriate and good to ask for?

What does the content of this psalm say about the one writing it?

What strikes me when I read this Psalm is not just what the Psalmist asks of God, but rather, what kind of relation to God he must believe he has that he can ask the the things he asks. I can't imagine being this bold with God. To me, it feels odd, or inappropriate. But, I like it for some reason. It feels honest. Feels true.



What voice do I use when praying to God, and what does that say about how I feel about God?

Wednesday: Abandoned Prophets or Prophets Abandoning?

I’ve been thinking a lot about abandonment lately, abandonment and prophets.

We live in a world that is unjust. We live in a world that has yet to realize the fullness that it was created for. What is standing in the way? Abandonment.

I’ve grown up quite comfortably. I have a wonderful and supportive family, am blessed with a significant number of mentors and surrogate parents and have developed a number of fulfilling and real friendships that I can still cling to.

I’ve never had to worry about food. I’ve never had to worry about a warm bed in which to sleep. No body has ever threatened to take my possessions, my family, my life away from me. You’d think that I’d be able to go on with my life thinking that everyone was as happy as I am.

But I can’t.

When I was seven or eight years old, my family was visiting my dad in France, where he was working at the time. I remember that we walked a lot, and consequently, I complained a lot. It was my first time visiting anywhere other than Washington State where my parents were from, the first time I ever remember taking public transportation and obviously the first time I was ever surrounded by a significant number of people who did not speak my language. In more ways the one I was in a foreign land.

I remember one day walking out of the Metro to some museum or other educational destination that my mother was dragging us to (which I am grateful for by the way). As we were walking, I noticed a significant number of people sitting along the corridor with vessels for money and change. The first thought I remember having, is that Paris Metro stations were very dirty, and smelled bad.

The second and more significant has to do with a scene that has stuck in my mind ever since. There was a woman, sitting on a blanket, leaning against the wall. She wasn’t saying much that I can remember, although it was very noisy. What I can’t get out of my mind are her feet. They were deformed. She may or may not have had a child with her and she was more than likely starving. The thought I had: there is something seriously wrong here

I am still not sure today whether I imagined this scene, pieced it together from other scenes that I witnessed as a child in a foreign country or if it is indeed what it is. What I do know in whatever case is that the world had and has abandoned this woman. There were thousands of Parisians and visitors walking by, not giving her a moments notice. What of her hunger? What of her pain? What of her opportunity for life? Love? Happiness?

How many abandoned people and places do we walk by each day? What is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to these places of abandonment?

The definition of a prophet I most identify with describes a person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression. A brief glance though history and one may think that there is some sort of prophet clause. It may go something like this:

“All those who in anyway seek to bring light to truth, injustice and the world’s abandoned places will not be liked, in fact they will be hunted, hated and beaten until they are silent.”

Rules of History, clause 578 “The Prophet Clause”. (yes I made this up.)

Ok, so maybe not in every instance is the situation this violent, but there is I would say a significant amount of evidence to support that some such clause exists.

Jesus was, among other things, a prophet. He was constantly found doing things that “he should be doing” but knew he had to anyway. He was rejected by the religious leaders of the time for this, and was subsequently rejected by the political leaders.

If we are followers of Christ, what does this mean for us?

Two weeks ago the Federal Government invaded a United Parcel Service facility here in Seattle and arrested over 50 undocumented workers. These people have families, bills to pay and were busy making sure that thousands of Valentines Day presents made it to their recipients safely. A group of local leaders met with Immigration to express their concern and their willingness to offer undocumented immigrants a sanctuary from the Government. One of these leaders was the Dean of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral where I work. Late last week we received an email from a woman who was angry, angry that the Dean could find the nerve to speak on behalf of people who were breaking the law and angry that he would call himself a Christian for doing so.

My question is, if it is not our place to speak on behalf of those who have no voice, to be willing to break laws that don’t make sense in a world created by God, what is our place? To sit quietly and watch people suffer? Are we not called to be today’s prophets, providing “profound moral insight” to the world around us?

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Luke 13:34

I leave the desert renewed for love and I enter the city raw and open to the suffering that is around me, in the city I live in, in the city that I love. I am surrounded by people and places that have been abandoned and prophets, prophets who are as yet afraid to speak.

Tuesday: In the City

I love living in the city. I wouldn’t trade for anything the last 16 months that I’ve been fortunate enough to live in Wallingford, Seattle. Sometimes I can convince myself that it’s like living in a little town. Especially on the days when I’m running errands in the morning, and see familiar faces from Cota on the street. Or when I bump into my teacher at the grocery store. And, of course, the view of downtown is amazing.
Herein lies the dichotomy:

One morning, several months ago, I was taking my cockatiels to their vet appointment and I noticed a girl sitting next to her backpack, under the eaves of the Marco Polo hotel building, across the alley from my apartment. (On the other side is a Blue Video store.) I was in a hurry, and for some reason assumed she was a student because of the backpack. When I returned from Burien two hours later, she was still there. From over thirty feet away, I asked her if she was okay. She gave an empty ‘Yeah’ reply, and as I was about to take her comment at face value, I noticed that she was visibly upset, as if she had been crying most of the time that I had been gone. I went inside my cozy apartment, and stewed. I didn't feel comfortable inviting her in, but how does one extend hospitality outside of one’s home? By the time I made some phone calls and got a game plan together, she was gone. Now I always have a crisis phone number in my cell phone, just in case another opportunity comes along for contact, but of course none has presented itself. Yeah, I live just a few feet away from Aurora and I see working women fairly often, but most of the time they ask me where the closest gas station is, or something of that vein. Not for help. Nor would I expect it, I guess. That's probably not my role.

I could wax on about how my city ‘home’ doesn’t allow me to just sit and meditate on a blade of grass for hours on end, or to see my future spread out before me in the clouds. Traffic noise and the possibility for constant distraction, which always go in tandem with densely populated urban areas, make such activities (or lack thereof) nearly impossible. However, as compared to the stigma of being just a few feet away from people whose lives are so different from my own – so lacking in security – these gripes about not being able to commune with nature in its true form just fall like pebbles on a tin can. Hollow, empty, without resonance.

I don’t know how to tie these thoughts into the gospel passages for this week. Some of the OT references are about enemies, but as a friend and I discussed over a beer a few days ago, I can’t remember the last time I’ve truly yearned to have my enemy smoted. Or even when I last had an out-and-out enemy. And the passage about Christ chatting with Elijah’s specter just creeps me out. I don’t know what to make of that, or what it implies about the nature of the afterlife. But, these are my thoughts about the tension that lies within urban dwelling. And that’s all I’ve got.

Monday...another manic monday

Luke 13:31-35

There may be some of us reading this that remember that 80's song by the Bangles, I think it was call Manic Monday. I'm not really a big fan, but as I read this weeks gospel and the words that come before it and after it, I was left feeling manic.

Last week, the beginning of Lent, was about being in the desert. Part of the desert experience is the desire for an oasis, and this is where we are led in the lectionary. Well, Jerusalem isn't really an oasis though is it? In an e-mail, Matt called it the anti-oasis. We find Jesus in the city teaching about the least important people in society ending up ahead of the most important when all is said and done. The response by the Pharisees? The tell him to leave because Herod is going to kill him. It might seem that the Pharisees are trying to help Jesus, but with the end in mind, he tells him he wants to stay in the city known for killing prophets thus joining in that illustrious lineage.

Imagine the stress. Imagine the weariness. In some ways it isn't hard on a day like a Monday to identify with Jesus. Jesus learns that someone powerful is out for his head. He is reinforced with the desire of the Pharisees for him to get out of town. We are struck by Jesus' desire to do what he has to do even though he isn't wanted and even though people are actually making it hard for him to do his work.

My Monday doesn't seem so bad I guess. I have deadlines hanging over my head for work. I have a paper due that I didn't work hard enough on. I have to ride the bus into the city to go to class that I haven't done the reading for yet. I have phone calls to make to vendors to fix an apartment up so someone will be willing to live there for just under $900 a month. What is your Monday like? Was Jesus just having a case of the Monday's in our text for the week? It seems that Jesus life was just one big Monday. Did Jesus every get to enjoy the comforts I enjoy, even on what is often considered the worst day of the week? I mean I have work that pays for my rent. I get to ride a bus to take me where I need to go. I get to go to a middle class, white, seminary where I can solve the problems of my own heart along with that of the church and even the world.

Monday is a symbol of the urban anti-oasis that Jesus experienced. But Jerusalem isn't just a continuation of the desert either. In the desert, we have nothing. In the city there is an abundance of everything. Though the writers of this blog live in Seattle, not all of us identify with the city life Jesus is experiencing this week. We all have oasis's that we construct that are more like anti-oasis's. Think of your home, apartment, car, the internet or whatever oasis from the desert of your life and ask whether it provides the comfort and relief you need or if it offers the hostility and pain that Jesus experienced in Jerusalem? So what do we do with this hostility? What do we do with our illusions of relief? Is life comfortable or painful for you?

For me, it is both comfortable and painful, but if I'm honest my comfort is false and pain is always with me. The oasis that I create, just creates more hostility not relief. If this is true for you, then what are we to do? I'm going to follow Jesus and do what I do. I will go on my way, which if I'm at my best will be the way of Jesus as well. I'll just keep on keepin on as the saying goes. I mean what good is it to run away now? We're in it. This is Lent. This is the long journey to the Cross and the Grave. This is the journey of death. Feels like a Monday huh? We've got a long week to struggle and wrestle, but the Resurrection is also at the end of this journey through deserts and cities. Grace and Peace to you, to us all, on the journey this week.

Lent 2 - In the City

Here's a link to Luke 13:31-35, this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent2.htm

When I was in high school I played basketball with a kid named Jonathan Brooks. He was tall and quick, and his Slinky-like spiky hair would fall back and forth across his head as he ran up and down the court. He'd average something like 18 or 20 points per game, and when he'd shoot a jump shot, he'd expect to make it, and everyone else would expect him to make it, too.

In the early days of my high school basketball career, before I'd grown into my body and when I found simple tasks like jogging to be plagued with pitfalls of coordination, Jonathan took me under his proverbial wing and tried to teach me how to play the game. Though he had very limited success, Jonathan never gave up and, until he left our team, was more or less my teacher in a master/padawan sense.

When he was a senior and I was a sophomore, Jonathan left our team to attend a premiere prep-school in our league. I didn't hear much about him, except that he was captain and that he was thinking about going into the Air Force. But about halfway into the season, our teams met on the court.

I walked to the center of the floor right before tip-off, taking my position next to a referee. I hadn't talked to Jonathan yet, but he stepped across the circle to shake my hand. I reached out and moved to speak with him, to catch up for a few seconds about how he was doing, what he was up to, the usual long-time-no-see exchange. Instead of sticking around, however, he gave my extended hand a quick squeeze and muttered "good luck" before resuming focus on the tip-off. He probably figured he couldn't socialize with the enemy.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. A conversation, a hug, a few kind words - something familiar from someone I thought I knew well. But the familiar failed me, and I what I found instead was, well, hostility.

We've walked with Christ into the desert, and have wandered with him through temptation and reflection. Now we look to the city, to Jerusalem, to Seattle. There's a great sadness in our text, a deep regret for the "safe" that fails. What do we do when we come upon what we expect to be an oasis in our journey, but only find conflict? How do we live in the tension between comfort and hostility?

Saturday

A friend told me the other day that living a life of faith is like walking across a windy plain. It is neither comfortable nor certain, but it is possible. While the tendency might be to hunker down and stop moving altogether, once you stand up and walk, you realize that the wind pushes but does not push you down. I am struck by this image because the only power one has over the situation is to keep walking because the wind will not be tamed. I can’t control the wind and have no certainty of destination or that the wind will stop, but to walk in faith is to keep walking.

Today I realized that Lent has been a time for me to prove my piety by being in control, by being disciplined, but I think this is a terrible misunderstanding of the tradition on my part. The desert is a place of humility that is precious because it creates a space for us to be stripped of our comforts and our vices. It puts us in a place where are dependence is placed on God, that we would be able to see his provision.

For this season of Lent I want to learn to sit in a place where my dependence is placed on God and not on my own strength because how will I know that I can walk across the windy plain until I get up? What keeps me from experiencing God as my provider and in what ways have I truncated his power in my life?

Friday: My Desert (With a view of the Space Needle)

Just over a week ago, before I knew anything about this lent blog, I sent an email to my mom saying that my recent move to Seattle seemed to me to be the right thing, though as much as I love this city, I likened my time here to Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. Ironically, the first theme of our lent blog is “the desert.”
For many people, the desert is a hot, dry, god-forsaken, ugly bit of Earth. For me, at the moment, the desert is full of beauty. Every day I see snow-capped mountains on either side of me. Within minutes I can be on the beach, hearing waves lap upon the shore as seals bark just off the docks. (Coming from South Dakota, these are exciting sounds.) And while I am encompassed by beauty, both in nature and in the individuals by which I find myself surrounded, these last two weeks have been among the driest and harshest of my life.
I find it interesting that in the Scripture for this week, it was the Spirit that led Jesus into the desert, as that's kind of how it seemed I've ended up in Seattle. Jesus had just come from being baptized and hearing his father’s voice to suddenly being completely isolated. I do not mean to imply that I feel isolated since my move to Seattle, but rather challenged. I have been challenged to give up everything to Christ, like I never have been before. To die to myself. To wander in the wilderness after a time of plenty, as my time in Sioux Falls truly was. But while in the desert, there is nothing one seeks more than water. And while I wander in the desert, I will not go thirsty for Jesus is the living water. He is a much-welcomed oasis.
As we journey with Jesus during this Lenten season, we begin where He began: the desert. Yet dry as it may be, he is to be our refuge. He, too, has wandered in the desert and knows what it’s like to be hot, tired, hungry, and tempted. He has understood the need for refreshment. This is what he longs to be for me. Maybe eventually I will realize that is truly only in Him I will find a quenching of my thirst.

Thursday: I'm thinking about old guys. And about taking them for Lent.

Thoughts on old guys:

I've never seen an old guy get hassled by airport security.
I feel like security just waves them by.

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Thoughts on thoughts:

Sometimes, I feel like my negative thoughts are like the old guys at the airport, and my mind is the security guard who waves them by, unchecked.

For Lent, I want to be more thoughtful about my thoughts. I want to start patting down the old guys who slip through, unchecked. I want to halt them at the gate. I want to make them drop their bags and strip down to their socks. And I want to stare them down and interrogate them. "Excuse me, sir, where did you come from? And just where do you think you are going?" "What else is in your golf bag, Arnold Palmer?


Some questions I have this Lent:

1. What sorts of thoughts do I let slip by, unchecked?
--Who are the old guys in my airport?

2. What do these thoughts mean?
--What's in their bags?

3. Where do these thoughts come from?
--Whose bags are these, How did I get them?

Wednesday: Ashes in the Desert

4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness

Have you ever wondered if Jesus knew when he went to the Jordan to be baptized, that a voice would call down from the heavens and essentially call him to a life that would change the world?

Let’s say for conversation’s sake that he didn’t. Can you imagine how overwhelming a blatant call from God, “hey I like what you’re about, will you do this for me? Will you save my people, my children?”, would be? It’s no small task to change the mind and heart of one person, let alone an entire people. It’s not hard to figure out why Jesus would heed a call of the spirit to the wilderness to fast and meditate.

I can relate to this call, on some level. Whether it’s the spirit calling or my personality, I often feel the need to escape or retreat when overwhelming life situations come my way. The place I most often desire to go is the wilderness, where no one can reach me. In the wilderness I find strength.

Several years ago now, it was June and I was tired. It had been a hard year of many “growing pains”, changing career paths, changing friendships, two deaths and the threat of another, and I felt utterly alone.

A few months before I had come across an advertisement for a summer course in Southern Utah. It was an archeology field course, and having decided that I didn’t want to take a regular science to fulfill my lab science requirements for my degree, I convinced the school to let me count this class. Anthropology after all was one of my minors, and I’ve always loved the idea of digging in the dirt.

I was set to start the course (which was to be a month) in July. It couldn’t have been timed better. When it came time for me to go however, despite the need to leave where I was behind for a while, despite the deep desire I felt to be among things that were unfamiliar, for change, I was terrified. I remember turning to my parents at the airport and asking “What if everybody hates me?” I didn’t actually think this would be the case, but it was the first time I had gone anywhere alone and would be greeted by someone I had never met. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

People often associate the desert with barrenness and death. My experience in the desert of Southern Utah taught me something quite different. I spent a month with out a number of the “conveniences” of life, no cell phone, no email, no running water, no electricity. I lived in a platform tent and slept on a cot. I spent my days in the middle of a field digging in a 4x4 ft trench for pottery shards and storage rooms in 100 degree heat. I made several close friends that month and learned a lot of lessons about life and nature. I left the desert with new clarity and determination and a healing spirit.

There are many stories I could tell about this experience. But perhaps the most appropriate for this time has to do with a stretch of land about 50 feet from the camp that had been covered in a fire the previous month. I remember going to this area to sit for a while one evening. The ground was charred and black, but I don’t remember thinking that it looked dead. There is something very cleansing and healing about ashes in the desert. Yes, the fire brings pain and stress to the environment and the people who care for it, but in the end it allows for new life to grow and flourish.

Having lived in both metaphorical and real deserts, that Jesus would face the devil in the desert makes sense to me. In the desert there is only you and the spirit, nothing else seems to matter. Entering the desert can be terrifying; the threat of heat that is unbearable can be too much at times. But this heat, this fire can provide a cleansing, a healing that no other experience can match. Whether Jesus feels these same fears, I do not know. I go to the desert with ashes from fires that life throws my way, I sit with the ashes, I grow in the ashes. I leave with the strength of new life.

Lent 1 - In the Desert

Here's a link to Luke 4:1-13, this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent1.htm

I remember the first time I traveled through New Mexico. I had fallen asleep in my family's Toyota Previa, a frothy-white van with barely the hint of a front end. I awoke to the heat of the desert, my shirt suctioned gently to the top of my damp skin.

My father would refuse to turn on the air conditioning except in the most extreme of circumstances. He was of the mind that air conditioning wasted gas, or put us out of touch with our environment, or showed weakness. So, for the next two or three hours, as our vehicle pushed west-east through the heart of New Mexico's desert, I suffered in quiet surrender to the power of heat and desperation.

At long last, we pulled up to our hotel and moved our overstuffed suitcases into our rooms. I stepped outside and went to the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by ten or twelve differing license plates. I remember that I felt dry, my body's water supply given over to sweat during the day. And I thought to myself:

"This place is dead. Dirty roads, ugly brown weeds, life-draining sun. How could anyone ever find peace here?"


This week we're journeying with Christ into the desert, into a place of wandering and reflection. We're asked to take stock of our lives, to look at where we're at. We have quiet in the desert, and time. But how can we not feel lonely and barren? The question I asked in a warm parking lot in New Mexico could be asked of this Gospel text. How can we find ourselves in the desert?

Welcome to 40

Welcome to 40, a 2007 Lenten blog for Church of the Apostles.

In Epiphany we walked with Christ while he was among us on the earth, joining with him in establishing his kingdom. Now we retreat with Jesus into the wilderness to reflect.

Throughout Lent we'll be asking the question: "where are we at?" Answering this question will hopefully give us insight into ourselves and into our common life together.

One way of engaging with this question is through story. COTA is an eclectic community full of different-ness, people with all sorts of stories to tell. 40 will be blogged by the people of COTA, and there will be something new all 40 days of the season of Lent. Check back daily for words from someone in our community.

Read these stories, these meditations, these ideas, and use them to find "where you are at" in God's community this Lent.