Courage

I just read my Uncle John's post on courage, and it got me to thinking (It's worth the read!)

How am I being courageous? Is it courageous to stay where I am, trying to be faithful with what is put in front of me and doing what I can to be ready for the next adventure? Will it come in the guise of "normal, first world problems" that really can be challenging, but are laughable when compared with the struggles of many throughout the world and through history? I don't know if it's funny or sad that I've been struggling with this question at least since high school: what does God have for me? Where does He want me to focus my time, energy, and effort? The options are mind-boggling. Everywhere I look there are opportunities to engage, to help, to serve, to give. One thing I loved about being with my dad in the last two weeks of his life was the sense of peace and certainty that the time brought: in the midst of the sorrow and loss I was where I needed to be, and could fully focus on simply being there. I've had that feeling again when I've gone on work/mission trips with kids, and even to some extent on just regular ol' vacations. There's something so freeing about having the options pared down, and to know that there is nothing other required then simply being present to the folks around me and fully engaging in the opportunity at hand.
I just participated in a week-long class through work that's all about getting to know yourself better. In pursuit of becoming a more effective leader and better support to the people around you, you are asked to look frankly at your own weaknesses and "areas of opportunity" as well as areas you're already strong in.  So I look at all that and say, "now what?" Professionally I need to make some decisions about where to go next - do I aim for more formal leadership roles within the organization? Or continue to function primarily as an informal leader, focused on getting the work done and supporting the organization in becoming more efficient and better prepared for a challenging future? Personally, I need to make some decisions as well. Friendships, family relationships, location - all areas in which I face challenges and wonder if I'm on the right track.
I don't know if I have the courage I need for whatever may be ahead. 'Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. Joseph eventually found the courage needed for the situation. Maybe I will too. But it sure would be nice where exactly to point the bits I do have! Guess I'll just hope they're lined up in the right direction when they're needed.

hunger and thirst

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

A while ago a friend challenged me about listening to sermons: do I ever really learn anything truly new or behavior-changing from them? After a lifetime of listening, is there anything now I'm ever really taught - that I didn't know already? It sparked an interesting conversation, but also some longer term thought.

Lately I've been going back and listening to Mars Hill's (in Michigan - Rob Bell is their main teaching pastor) recent series on the Sermon on the Mount. It's been fun to see how one after the other they've brought up thoughts I've never considered before. One such thought was on the verse mentioned above. Rob was teaching on the passage, and he talked about this not being about those who are already "righteous" – those who have got it all figured out. No, it's talking about those who hunger and thirst for it. These thoughts came up again recently as I read the following from the book Following Jesus Through the Eye of a Needle. Kurt Annan writes about living in Haiti and how he feels about being asked for stuff because he’s from the ‘States.

I feel occasional resentment. Why do I have to fend off this daily assault of need and requests when rich people back in the States never have to deal with it so personally, so in-your-face, so real, so everywhere? "Hey, at least I'm making an effort," I want to say, pointing a finger into the aggressive asker's chest. "Go bother the people lounging on those cruise ships! Or bother the people who don't even try to help!" But of course there's a chain link fence to keep that from happening -- and the Coast Guard patrolling the warm sea between here and Florida.
Trying to give through this fence, across this sea, is complicated. On birthdays we gave colorful stickers to the kids, which were a hit. We had a whole pack, but we just gave one sheet at a time since any more would have outshone the little gifts from others in the family. At the same time, they know we have access to more resources, and we don't want to be cheap.
We don't want to be seen simply as foreign patrons, reinforcing an unhealthy historic paternalism (combined with exploitation) that can lead to unhelpful relationships of dependency. We don't want to be seen primarily as giver-outers-of-stuff (whether food aid or cheap toys). But we also want to give everything we have, everything we could possibly get our hands on.
How to convey how complicated this feels? The "foreign aid" dynamic here is charged. I do know that when we've asked other long-term foreigners here for counsel, they've responded with phrases like "Good luck" or "Let me know if you find the answer" (pp. 47-48)

He captures so well the challenge of living in the most affluent country in the world and in the history of the world, and from that place SO wanting to be conscious of the world’s needs and in some meaningful (even if small!) way to help meet them.
Here’s where I’m at right now. I want so to be thankful. To notice often that I’m in no pain, not hungry, that I have a hot shower, that I can drive myself to work every day, that I live in peace, health, and security. I have opportunities – because of where I was born, my education, my job – that such a small percentage of people in today’s world or throughout history have had. It would be terrible if I didn’t at some level simply acknowledge that and just wallow in gratefulness.
I also want to be generous. Pretty self explanatory, right? But I do want those things I’ve been given – money, time, whatever, to be things I freely appreciate, and freely give. I would like to be willing to give to the point of discomfort, even, if/as it’s called for. This can be as simple as the “giving up a cup of coffee a day to sponsor an orphan” or into the more challenging realm of living on a smaller income so that I have more to share.
Unfortunately, those two desires don’t mesh together all that well, at least for me. How do I know when “enjoying what I have” has sunk into self indulgence and self centeredness? How do I ever know when I’ve given “enough”? I’ve talked to several of you and know I’m not the only one to feel a continual tension between the two.
That’s where the Rob Bell sermon really did have something new to say to me. I guess I just felt encouragement that there is blessing in the struggle. Giving is complicated: to whom? how much? how often? how careful should I be about the integrity of the recipient? All the “Haiti” questions above. What with being human and all, I so want sometimes to just have things clearly laid out. What’s the amount I should give/do to help, so that I can just do that and then have the rest of my time/money/life to do with as I like and still feel good about myself? Oh so the wrong question! Hungering and thirsting after righteousness means a continual process of listening, paying attention, being open, trusting, and knowing I’m loved.  Before the sermon, I felt that if there was struggling, I was in the wrong place somehow. Now I’m learning to see the struggle, the hunger, as part of the deal. I’m so glad that it’s a promise: that there really is blessing for those who hunger and thirst for things in this messed up world to be somehow, some day, put to right. Guess I’ll keep listening to sermons!
Oh – and check out this NY Times Op Ed article on a related topic – interesting! Learning from the Sin of Sodom.

an american in christmas

Golly I like this season. And not just the story of the Nativity! I love celebrating Jesus' birth, but I also really like many of the things we've "customized" about this season. I know I should be lamenting the commercialism and the distraction from the Real Story (and I suppose I do, to some extent), but I really love finding just the right presents for people, sitting near a lit tree, hearing Christmas music of all sorts (well, everything except the Charlie Brown Christmas theme), and baking/cooking like crazy to get ready for the fun of just enjoying friends and family to the utmost. I'm goal oriented, so I also like the motivation to pull things together, get things done, make things ready and welcoming. I kind of feel like it's a dirty secret, but there you have it.

At church last week they were reading the story of the shepherds being visited by angels in the middle of the night and I got to thinking about just how crazy that had to have been. If you’re like me, the story’s been told so often now that it’s hard for it to feel any more noticeable than wallpaper. But I just had this picture in my head of shepherds: real, live, ordinary people going about their real, live, ordinary lives, when suddenly WHAM! a Real Live Other is right there too. How much would it jar you to have an angel show up right next to you, right where you are right now? What defenses would you have to shoot up around yourself, what questions would smash through your brain as you backpedalled and tried to align what you were seeing and feeling with everything else you’ve experienced in life so far? People in the Bible who saw angels felt anything BUT casual about them. Try terror, speechlessness, and a huge sense dirty-ness and smallness in the light of such beauty and perfection. And I’m guessing we’d add stuff like doubting one’s own sanity, suspecting a prank, and other forms of skepticism. Yet Christians believe that supernatural events really did happen, in history.

That kind of experience just doesn’t seem to fit within the Western understanding of the world. Am I the only one that can easily lapse into codifying, modifying, tweaking, dumbing down, watering down, and reinterpreting the Story and the Person until they fit within my boundaries, affirm my life, and don’t make things too awkward? I know I have to work pretty hard at stepping back to real awe and wonder about anything that “other.” I love that the season reminds me of that gap… that faith is relatively pointless unless it’s actually about believing something. And that I can’t just tweak what I believe till it works for me and makes me comfy… that if God is real, and if Jesus is Divine… well, I'd better be feeling some serious awe, sometimes. Otherwise - I’m missing a major something about Christmas even in the midst of the lovely presents and food and family.

So blessings and “awe” to each of you, this Christmas. May it be the best one yet!

intellect and emotion

I think I've mentioned before that I'm on a listserv on the life and writings of CS Lewis. I read this post by a man named Francisco a few weeks ago, and it's stuck with me, so I thought I'd dig it up and share. Good stuff!

I have been reading with interest the discussion of intellect v. emotion, head v. heart, and (shall we say?) faith v. reason, and how they are intertwined. As many of you have pointed out, both are necessary. But how they are conjoined so as to achieve a balance is where the problem lies. There's the rub, indeed. Yet it seems that unless such a balance is achieved there can be no true integrity. Unfortunately, for most of us, an imbalance exists, a disintegration as it were, which leaves us in a state much like that of a pendulum, now emphasising heart over head, now vice versa. Is integrity possible? Can it be achieved? I think it can. I think Lewis, to a certain degree, did achieve it. And most of his writings were an attempt at trying to pass on what he had learnt to others, to us. But the question remains, how did he do it? And how, in turn, can we go and do likewise?

I think one of his best clues is found in Mere Christianity. As far as he is able he attempts to enlighten his readers to help them arrive at that state in their spiritual growth as Christians where they can become those new men and women who "even now dot the landscape." He speaks of the new life is Christ as being an exponential leap beyond mere evolution. He speaks of the new birth in Christ, compares it with the birth of a child, but points out that a child born in the natural order has no choice whereas those who wish to be born into new life in Christ do. He also uses the analogy of an egg, which if it were to choose to remain an egg rather than hatching only succeeds in becoming a rotten egg. And here, and again in The Weight of Glory, he gives us the "secret" of making this exponential leap. He tells us that above all one thing is required, for in order to carry that weight of glory one must have humility, "and the backs of the proud will be broken." Elsewhere he speaks of how when we seek to grow in our faith we invite the Lord in, thinking He will make some nice, cosmetic changes to the house that is (what we think of as) ourselves: a new window here, a fresh paint job there, a bit of varnish. Then to our surprise and dismay, and at considerable cost to our comfort, we learn that He plans to tear down our house completely. He is not content to live in a shanty. Only a castle is fit for the King. So He proceeds to tear down all that we held so dear, to demolish everything we thought of as the persons that we are, to put the old man to death in order to raise the new one to life. But He will not do so without our permission. Unless we are willing to undergo this process, we remain natural, carnal men and women. We live the life of bios, a life we share with the animals and plants, but we will never attain to the life He wishes us to have, the zoe life, the eternal life which is to know the one true God and the Christ whom He has sent, and which can, in fact, begin here. We will never become fully integrated Christians.

In the end I think what Lewis is trying to drive home is the fact that we really do not save ourselves. Our intellect is not enough to bring about this change he speaks of, this making of the new man. Certainly our emotions are even less capable of doing so. In fact, both our intellects and emotions together cannot achieve it either. If they could, what need would we have of a Savior? The temptation is always there for us fallen human beings to think that somehow we can improve ourselves, become good, become holy, by our own efforts. This sort of thinking, if we were to really admit it, is exactly the kind of claims made by adherents of the New Age. The sad and (paradoxically) wonderful reality is that this is not so. We do not, cannot, save ourselves. What we can, and must, do, is allow ourselves to be saved. Easier said than done. Whether we are willing to admit it or not (and here again Lewis has much to say) pride gets in our way. To have the humility to relinquish control of our own lives, to submit to the divine will, to surrender totally to the new life our God so earnestly wants to give us, is no easy matter. But unless we are willing to do so, we, like Orual, will only have personas and never truly become the persons we were meant to be. We will always only be wearing a mask, and never truly have faces.

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and die...

My tuppeny-ha'penny on a Saturday evening on the eve of the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Happy Mother's Day, too, to all the moms in SpareOom, and to all the moms of all SpareOomers of whatever persuasion, male or female.

Francisco

love and focus(es)

ever have the experience where things/ideas/concepts from a variety of places all seem to converge and be related? you find out what the word "paradigm" means, and suddenly you're hearing it everywhere, and everyone you know is suddenly using it like they've been doing so all along? you get a ford focus, and suddenly everyone else has one too?

happens to me every now and then, and one thread lately has been about the concept of giving and receiving love

first, as I mentioned in my last post, my cousin abby's thoughts on unconditional love.

second, again as mentioned in my last post, rob bell's dec. 7 talk "who doesn't want in on that?". actually, overall the sermon wasn't the best i've ever heard, but some of the middle-ish bits were quite insightful: (these are from my rough translation of minutes 23-39 or so)

paul is articulating the difference between a transactional and a trinitarian understanding of love. Transaction is about debt, and obligation, owing, and repaying. It is possible to have a transactional understanding of relationships in life. Everything is run with a score card. They did this to me, I do this to them. Understand God as a God of the transaction. God is a divine accountant. Has a really big scoreboard in the sky, and wrong things are written in the left-hand column, and if you do something good, there's a chance it might offset the left. But you never really know. The Diving Accountant you will find everywhere, and deeply impacts the way we see the world. Think about if somebody invites you over for dinner, and then it's 2 or 3 months and you still haven't invited them back over. You start feeling more and more guilty. How did their act of generousity turn into a feeling of guilt? And so we're trapped in the world of the transaction. For Paul, the universe is not a transactional reality. For him, it's trinitarian. Trinitarian thought is mind blowing, you see traces of it in Philippians. For Paul, God is different from the scoreboard in the sky. Paul is saying, "you know the story of Creation... when you said yes to the grace and peace of God expressed in Christ, the same nuclear energy that was unleashed in the creation of the solar system was unleashed inside of you". So when Paul talks about salvation, for him it's about a new creation starting in you. For Paul, God is one, but God is this community of Father, Son and Spirit. God is this communal loving relationship, endlessly self-giving and receiving. It's a dance. This is what's at the base of the cosmos. Not someone waiting to show you how you've screwed things up. So when the Philippians helped Paul in his time of need, they were entering into the life of this kind of God. A tangent: marriages are in trouble when they move from trinitarian to transaction. Trinitarian relationships are when you lose track of who's giving and who's receiving. He's endlessly looking for ways to meet her needs. She's endlessly looking for ways to meet his needs. He's not keeping track. She doesn't have a scoreboard. No sense of owing. The moment it moves from trinitarian to transaction, "what have you done for me lately, baby", the relationship is in trouble. The moment in faith communities we move from trinitarian to transactional, we are in trouble. When you move to trinitarian, it's not always exactly clear who's giving, and who's receiving. Let's go back to marriages: when you think of the best marriages, and going to one of them and saying, "that's amazing how you give", the response, will be "give?! I get more than I ever give". Enough with the primal anxiety of not knowing you how stand with God: grace, and peace. Grace and peace. What I gave to you God gave to me. You gave to me, I gave to God, God gave to you. Take a great friendship and try to map who owes who. It's impossible.
There are a billion people in the world who don't have access to clean drinking water. We recently sent a team over to Rwanda training people how to build and use water filters. Look at these pictures - who's giving, who's receiving? The people with the technology and money to fly? Who's giving? Who's receiving? Is that the smile of someone who says, "you owe me". Is that the smile of someone thinking, "oh man, am I going to owe this guy". People come home saying, "I received far more than I ever gave". When you are trapped in a transactional understanding of the universe, then you have to get credit for all the good you do. When you find yourself desperate for the strokes of others to acknowledge the good you've done, that happens when you're beholden to a transactional view. Grace is different. . When you step into a triune relationship of endlessly giving peace and harmony and sacrifice, you're caught up in such joy the last thing you're thinking about is, "what am I getting out of this?".

and third, a cs lewis quote. i believe this is from The Four Loves (but it's been a while since I copied it down).

"On the natural level, we are full of the hunger to be loved, the hunger to receive family affection, erotic love, and friendship. And it might be expected that we had similarly a hunger to receive Agape. But this is untrue. There is that in the heart of every man which resists and resents Agape from his fellow creatures or even from his creator. We naturally want to be desired, to be found delightful: to satisfy worthily some hunger in others. To receive a Love which is purely a gift, which bears witness solely to the lovingness of the giver and not at all to our loveliness, is a severe mortification. We desperately need to receive such love from God, and even from our fellow creatures. But we don't naturally want to. Our necessities and our wishes are in conflict.... No sooner do we believe that God loves us, than there is an impulse to believe that He does so Not because of what He is, but because of what we are: because we are intrinsically Lovable. It is so easy to admit, but so hard really to believe that we are mirrors whose brightness is wholly derived from the sun that shines on them. Surely we think we must have a little inherent luminosity of our own."

i suppose none of this is rocket science; it's not all that far off from words i've heard since childhood. but somehow they've been resonating with me lately. i realize sometimes that God's love really isn't based on my performance, and then i forget it again. i slip into a transactional view of the world - mostly feeling guilty about all i owe to all the generous people around me - and then remember love is about both giving AND receiving. is it not funny how you can know something, and not know it, at the same time? i get it with my head, but in everyday life i find it continually elusive.

the world and I are restless

I went for a ski tonight after work. An illegal one. The park was closing just as I got there, but it was bright out with all the snow, so I just went for it. Somehow, the world matched my mood. Forgive the cosmic arrogance: I matched the world's mood. It was so cold that the snow was nearly silent; I would be within 20 feet before the deer would notice me and slip away. It was windy and great swirls of snow would arise and disappear in the woods as I passed. It was eerie and wild and breathtaking and achingly beautiful.

do - re - me - fa - sol - la - ti -

Do you ever feel as though you're a part of a story? That just around the edges of your awareness are all sorts of things pulling themselves together to show up at just the right time? That unfinished bits - relationships halted by graduation or moves or job changes, unfinished conversations, people dying with things not quite tidied all up, books lent out and not yet returned, strangers met at random that you feel you'll meet again, health issues that just need technology to advance a little further to be cured, and of course, socks dropped behind the dryer - really will wrap themselves up neatly before its all said and done? I do, and I usually tell myself that "unfinishedness" is just part of life... that whatever instinct that has a problem with it needs to be muffled, silenced, and that I need to be okay with life's messiness, brokenness, unresolved endings (and missing socks). Maybe I do.
In college, I had a bunch of music-major friends, and they would play this silly game with each other: one of them would solfege as I have it in the subject line, and wait to see how long it would take before the other music major would just have to finish the unfinished "do"! My music major sister tells me that is ridiculous; contemporary classical music is all about this kind of irresolution. (So me trying it on her had no effect whatsoever, unfortunately!).
In music as in life: I'm thinking there's been a "modern-era" trend toward finding meaning and beauty in the incomplete, rather than seeking completion itself. Perhaps there is something noble in this... but it's bugging me. Is it actually settling for less? Finding a way to be comfortable and happy in the midst of uncomfortable misery? Being content to (as Lewis puts it) play in the mud because we have no idea of what is meant by a seaside vacation? I think he's talking about "uncool" mud (pottery rocks!!); nothing to compare with the coast.
Sorry - this post will be incomplete, because I can argue both ways on it. Can't stand the thought of stagnating. Settling for less than what is possible. Being stuck in my ways. Missing opportunities. Inertia. But... also have major problems with: discontent, frenetic activity, constant, pushing restlessness. Drivenness.
Christianity (at least at the moment) isn't helping me on this one. There's the "beauty" (??) of the journey with all its dangers and difficulties, and the Someone the journey is pointed at. There's the shocking love of the Almighty for the miserable, helpless, wasted, and ugly. There's the abandoned pursuit of joy with the courageous fortitude of fighting that one sin this time. There's the classic verse about "being in but not of the world". What the dilly-yo is that supposed to mean?!! Will all unfinished stories someday come to a satisfying, page-turning, wrap?

DO(h)!

What about a Sensible Inerrancy?

Well, have you heard the term "inerrancy" before? (I get a red squiggly line under it when I type it, so apparently Firefox has NOT!). When used in reference to the Bible, it's the concept that there's something inspired about it; it goes beyond the level of being created by people, and is said to be without error in its original form. This is important because - if the Bible really is inerrant and inspired by God - it has something to say about really is and is not so in this world. Christians, however, have varying beliefs about the inerrancy of the Bible; I stumbled on a discussion of it this week. Because it's on a private discussion list, I'm going to copy out the messages in the comments section of this blog; I would love it if you'd read through them and add your own. You'll see a post or two of mine as you progress through them. (The posts come from Spare Oom, a Yahoo! Group that discusses the life and works of C.S. Lewis).