I know I said last week that I'd be back this week, but then I got sick.
It has not been fun.
I'm feeling better though, which is good, and I've also decided to let my blog rest for a while. I'm not sure how long. At least the next couple of weeks. Maybe longer. We'll see.
I don't feel like my posts for the past few months have been worth your time to read. I don't like that. I think some things are best left undone rather than done poorly. I need to figure out a better rhythm and reason to continue writing in this venue. I appreciate your readership, and it is because I value you that I am unwilling to offer you something I deem of little value.
I'm also reevaluating what I want this blog to be. It isn't an easy thing to put one's deep thoughts and emotions into published prose for the world to read. I need to figure out how and if I want to continue to do that in this way.
Until next time, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always. He is always good. His love rages for you. He never fails. He is making all things new.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Where IAM
I am at the International Arts Movement (IAM) Encounter conference in New York City this week. I won't really have time to blog, but if you want to see my thoughts and a lot of pictures, click on over to my Twitter feed.
I'll be back next week.
I'll be back next week.
Wide Open
His skin felt too tight. It constricted him. It turned in on itself. He felt it drawing into his chest, pulling him closer and closer to collapsing like an old star. The gravity of his heart was destroying him.
When did this start? He couldn't remember. It happened slowly, so slowly in fact that he felt as if he had always felt this way. But that couldn't be. If that were true, he'd of imploded long ago. The pressure was too pressing. The tightness too tightening. It could not have always been this way. He couldn't stay this way much longer.
The happiest times were the worst, not while they were happy but almost immediately after they ended. They always ended. His friends would come along and take his hands and spread wide his arms and stall the strangling. They stretched him. They freed him. They gave him hope to live.
And then they left. It was not theirs to stay. No fault should be placed upon them. This is just the way of things. They good they did was better than he ever dared hope for, better than they needed to do. They left, but before they could leave, they had to come, and for coming they are to be praised.
And when they left, he turned back into himself. He closed back up, or rather, he felt the closing with more profundity.
Oh, how he longed to be free! How he ached to liberated from his own gravity! But he had not the strength within himself. Indeed, it was the strength within himself that was killing him. It drew him up. It pulled him in. He found himself on the floor on his knees, his chest to his thighs, his chin to his chest, his fists to his chin, and his elbows to his side.
He prayed.
Freedom. Grant me freedom. Help me, oh God. Help me. Please.
He opened his eyes. His limbs began to loosen. He crouched. He raised. He stood. He arched his back. His arms fell free at his side. He lifted them. He turned his face toward the sky. He spread wide his arms. He splayed all his fingers. He stretched, and he stretched, and he stretched. And his heart beat strong. And he filled his lungs. And his skin so tight began to tear right down the center of his chest. And his muscles parted. And his flesh slipped from his shoulders like an unbuttoned shirt and fell off his arms and to the ground where it dried up and blew away.
He stood there then, radiant, glimmering, shining, alive fully. He burned yellow and orange and red. White light streamed from his eyes and mouth. He lifted off the ground and spun slowly around and then suddenly flew into the wide open blue of the sky, singeing the wispy clouds as he burned through them.
Finally, he was free.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Urban Retreat
I don’t want to focus on the rain. That’s too easy. That takes little imagination, little thought. I’m not much for overused symbols and tired clichés. I want more challenge. I want to be able to see more than the falling water, to hear more than the splashes and wind.
I want to see the city. I want to hear the city. Better, I want to see and hear God in the midst of the city. As we walked through the terminal at Union Station, we prayed that our Father would fill our silence with His voice. I pray that prayer still as I sit here in the shelter of my apartment complex and watch the neighbors’ kids play beneath this balcony and reflect on my experience yesterday. Oh, God, give me insight. Help me to understand.
And still the rain pours. Still the wind blows. Even now, in my memory, the rain overwhelms everything just as it did during my retreat. I cannot escape it, and to try to focus elsewhere is false. Where is God present in the urban center? Where is God’s voice? God is in the rain. I saw Him in the storm. I heard Him in the falling water.
God quickened our steps. He would not let us linger. The rain drove us forward in search of shelter, and shelter was easy to find. We found it under trees and overpasses, in convenience stores and cathedrals, and on the steps of municipal buildings and market places.
And where there was shelter from the storm, there were people. God’s rain drove us together. We commiserated in the dry spots. “We” was more than my friend who accompanied me. “We” included the homeless, the single mother with her child, and the businessman on break for lunch. Because of the rain, each individual became a part of “we.” We retreated from the curb as the bus drove by splashing through the puddles lest we be soaked. We laughed about the fury of the weather and what a great day we’d all chosen to take a stroll. We went our separate ways as God’s rain abated and let us each leave the shelter a little less alone than we were when we walked in.
The easy thing to say is that the rain washed the city clean, but this is not true. We made our way to the municipal buildings, and the filth of the city became suddenly apparent. Etched above the doors of city hall were the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Let us have faith that right makes might,” and below that phrase the words of the Bible were inscribed, “The throne is established through righteousness.” Surely, the words were carved in the concrete face as a reproach to those who would dare use their power for evil. Surely. On this day, however, as the tower rose intimidatingly against the grey-clouded sky, I could only read the words as filthy justification for whatever happened within and in the shadow of those walls. No one congregated on the city hall steps. This was no place of refuge in the rain. This was a place of imposition and assault. This was a place where I was drawn to pray for true justice, for the justice not of law but of love.
Later, as we enjoyed Asian cuisine as the only two white people in the Central Market surrounded by people speaking the Spanish language, we discussed what God had spoken to each of us in our silence, we prayed together and thanked God for meeting with us, for allowing us into His heart in the heart of the city, and then we set off back out into the still falling rain.
I want to see the city. I want to hear the city. Better, I want to see and hear God in the midst of the city. As we walked through the terminal at Union Station, we prayed that our Father would fill our silence with His voice. I pray that prayer still as I sit here in the shelter of my apartment complex and watch the neighbors’ kids play beneath this balcony and reflect on my experience yesterday. Oh, God, give me insight. Help me to understand.
And still the rain pours. Still the wind blows. Even now, in my memory, the rain overwhelms everything just as it did during my retreat. I cannot escape it, and to try to focus elsewhere is false. Where is God present in the urban center? Where is God’s voice? God is in the rain. I saw Him in the storm. I heard Him in the falling water.
God quickened our steps. He would not let us linger. The rain drove us forward in search of shelter, and shelter was easy to find. We found it under trees and overpasses, in convenience stores and cathedrals, and on the steps of municipal buildings and market places.
And where there was shelter from the storm, there were people. God’s rain drove us together. We commiserated in the dry spots. “We” was more than my friend who accompanied me. “We” included the homeless, the single mother with her child, and the businessman on break for lunch. Because of the rain, each individual became a part of “we.” We retreated from the curb as the bus drove by splashing through the puddles lest we be soaked. We laughed about the fury of the weather and what a great day we’d all chosen to take a stroll. We went our separate ways as God’s rain abated and let us each leave the shelter a little less alone than we were when we walked in.
The easy thing to say is that the rain washed the city clean, but this is not true. We made our way to the municipal buildings, and the filth of the city became suddenly apparent. Etched above the doors of city hall were the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Let us have faith that right makes might,” and below that phrase the words of the Bible were inscribed, “The throne is established through righteousness.” Surely, the words were carved in the concrete face as a reproach to those who would dare use their power for evil. Surely. On this day, however, as the tower rose intimidatingly against the grey-clouded sky, I could only read the words as filthy justification for whatever happened within and in the shadow of those walls. No one congregated on the city hall steps. This was no place of refuge in the rain. This was a place of imposition and assault. This was a place where I was drawn to pray for true justice, for the justice not of law but of love.
Later, as we enjoyed Asian cuisine as the only two white people in the Central Market surrounded by people speaking the Spanish language, we discussed what God had spoken to each of us in our silence, we prayed together and thanked God for meeting with us, for allowing us into His heart in the heart of the city, and then we set off back out into the still falling rain.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
My Apologies
I am smack dab in the middle of a very busy week, and I have not had time to blog. I would like to extend my sincere apologies to you, my faithful readers, for disappearing without warning.
I will return.
I will return.
Friday, February 19, 2010
My Dad and Rob Bell
I need to tell you about my father.
But first I need to tell you about my seminary.
But even before that I need to tell you about myself.
And after all that, I need to tell you about last night.
Let's begin...
I tend to think a lot of myself. I'm constantly impressed with how open I am to new ideas and how accepting I am even of people whom I don't necessarily agree with.
My great humility is what makes me so hospitable to others and other ideas. I'm remarkable really, and I've become this way all on my own.
Yeah right.
If I am any of these things, it's certainly not my own doing. I do tend to lean to openness, but it's not because I'm so awesome. I've been formed to be that way.
Fuller is a seminary that exists to be in the middle. It strives in just about all things to live in the tension of two opposing ideas. I think that's why it has produced the likes of both Tony Jones and John Piper. Fuller is a place where it's kind of ok to fall on either side of most theological and sociological lines. Fuller walks the line.
But Fuller didn't make me what I am. I came to Fuller because I resonated with its attitude about... life. I've probably learned more about how to walk that line during my time here, but I was already there before I got here.
Which brings me to my father. I am amazed at my dad, and more so with every passing year. I've learned to be open from my father. He is a man who is comfortable with contradictions, not in everything, but in some things.
I'm speaking mainly about theological matters here. My dad can be doggedly stubborn about other things (I am like him in this as well), but when it comes to matters of God, my dad allows for mystery.
A good example - My dad teaches the adult Sunday school class at my church back home. He has for years. I always look forward to going home and seeing what material he is using now because I just never know what it's going to be.
My dad loves Rob Bell and the Nooma videos. In fact, my father introduced me to Rob Bell's teaching originally. He knew of Rob first and convinced me to pay attention. My dad is progressive like that.
However, last time I was home, my dad was using a teaching series from John Piper on the five points of Calvinism in his Sunday school class. I raised my eyebrows when I discovered this on our way to church that morning in December, and my dad explained how he didn't really agree much with Piper, but he appreciated some of what Piper had to say, and he was open to the possibility that some of the way Piper knows God might be valuable to him.
You see, one of the greatest things I've taken from my dad and mom is a deep trust in God. They really believe that God is good and that He is involved in our lives. They really believe that God loves us and is taking care of us. My father and mother live lives of real faith.
My dad knows that God is waaaaaaay bigger than anything he'll ever be able to fully understand. My dad knows that some people understand God differently than he does, and so he seeks to learn to see what they see.
My father is humble - humble enough to learn and, therefore, to teach. He has taught me with his life how to live in the tension, to accept the mystery, and to love others who I may not fully understand.
Last night, I would have given just about anything to have my father with me, because last night, I got to meet Rob Bell.
Riding the coattails of a Fuller professor and being blessed by his hospitality, I was able to go to the historic Wiltern theater in West L.A. to attend the L.A. stop of Rob's "Drops Like Stars" speaking tour.
I also received a backstage pass to meet Rob after the show.
I didn't have time to really talk to Rob. I just shook his hand and got him to quickly pose for a picture.
But had I had the time (and had it not been after midnight in Texas when the show was over), I would have told him about my father and asked him to make a quick phone call on my behalf.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Mission from Silence
Below is the conclusion of my Spirituality and Mission paper.
______________________________
•We live in a world that clamors for our attention making it extraordinarily difficult to remain in God’s presence
•Centering prayer is a historically established means of focusing ourselves on Christ.
•Centering prayer helps us enter into times of silence.
•In silence we truly encounter God.
•This silence looks different than we anticipate because it often feels at first like the absence of God.
•It is in this silence that we become like Christ as we are faithful to God.
Reflection for Mission
All mission comes out of identity, and my true identity is wrapped up in Christ. It is through the silence that I learn who I am. As I sit in God’s presence simply, without any other aim but being with God and resting in God’s presence, God speaks to me and directs me to action. God tells me who I am made to be.
I’ve found over the past few months of walking through this “dark night of the soul” that as I rest, my Father asks me to trust Him, and He asks me to move out of hiding and into whatever He is calling me to. I cannot trust God sitting in my room. Trust requires action. Faith is movement.
Currently, I am attending seminary and trying to discern God’s call on my life. I have hints and suspicions. God is confirming or rejecting those things daily, and God does this as I rest in God’s presence. How else can I know what God would have me do unless I learn to hear God’s voice? In the silence, I hear God speak.
In the future, as I continue in mission in the Western world to middle-class men and women my age, living a life of sought silence will become increasingly important. I hope to model a life of listening to God to all I have the honor of being in ministry with. I will no doubt need constant direction and refilling of God’s strength. I will find those things as I rest in God’s silence. Centering prayer and silence will continue to be integral parts of my spirituality.
My Rule of Life
Everyday, before I leave for work and before I lay down again at night, I will spend time in silence with God.
I will strive to learn to be content not with answers to my questions and doubts but with God’s presence. I will strive to sleep in the storm.
I will use centering prayer throughout my day to bring myself back into focus on Christ.
I will seek in all things in all moments to consider God.
I will rest with Christ.
______________________________
•We live in a world that clamors for our attention making it extraordinarily difficult to remain in God’s presence
•Centering prayer is a historically established means of focusing ourselves on Christ.
•Centering prayer helps us enter into times of silence.
•In silence we truly encounter God.
•This silence looks different than we anticipate because it often feels at first like the absence of God.
•It is in this silence that we become like Christ as we are faithful to God.
Reflection for Mission
All mission comes out of identity, and my true identity is wrapped up in Christ. It is through the silence that I learn who I am. As I sit in God’s presence simply, without any other aim but being with God and resting in God’s presence, God speaks to me and directs me to action. God tells me who I am made to be.
I’ve found over the past few months of walking through this “dark night of the soul” that as I rest, my Father asks me to trust Him, and He asks me to move out of hiding and into whatever He is calling me to. I cannot trust God sitting in my room. Trust requires action. Faith is movement.
Currently, I am attending seminary and trying to discern God’s call on my life. I have hints and suspicions. God is confirming or rejecting those things daily, and God does this as I rest in God’s presence. How else can I know what God would have me do unless I learn to hear God’s voice? In the silence, I hear God speak.
In the future, as I continue in mission in the Western world to middle-class men and women my age, living a life of sought silence will become increasingly important. I hope to model a life of listening to God to all I have the honor of being in ministry with. I will no doubt need constant direction and refilling of God’s strength. I will find those things as I rest in God’s silence. Centering prayer and silence will continue to be integral parts of my spirituality.
My Rule of Life
Everyday, before I leave for work and before I lay down again at night, I will spend time in silence with God.
I will strive to learn to be content not with answers to my questions and doubts but with God’s presence. I will strive to sleep in the storm.
I will use centering prayer throughout my day to bring myself back into focus on Christ.
I will seek in all things in all moments to consider God.
I will rest with Christ.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Silence
Here is part two of my Spiritual Practices Essay
___________________________
In Mark chapter four, the gospel writer retells the story of a stormy night upon the Sea of Galilee. The disciples and Jesus had left the crowd on the shore and were crossing over to the region of the Gerasenes. “A furious squall came up,” Mark records, and the boat begins to be flooded with water. The disciples - many of them experienced fishermen, I would add - fear for their lives. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep in the stern. Waking him, they ask Jesus if he cares whether or not they drown. Jesus calms the storm before turning to rebuke his disciples for their lack of faith. At this even more so than the waves, they are terrified and begin to question amongst themselves who this Jesus might be.
In the storm, Jesus is still. He is sleeping peacefully while the elements swirl around him. The disciples look to him, but they do not really see him, for they do not see his peace. Had they had the faith to dare to do so, they might have entered into his rest as the tempest raged. “Quiet! Be still,” Jesus commands, and I wonder if he wasn’t speaking as much to his disciples as he was to the waves.
Remaining in God’s presence without ulterior motive is the aim of spiritual practice. We are made to be not to do (Jones 42). It is only when we are satisfied in Christ alone that we are truly satisfied. When we can rest in silence, we can truly rest.
This modern generation yearns for silence (Jensen 217). We ache to disengage (Jones 38). Our lives are a consistent stream of status updates and text messages and email notifications. We are constantly connected, and while that can be a marvelous thing, it can also wear upon us because we never have a moment to contemplate who we are made to be. We are made to be loved by God. In silence, if we can find it, if we can be drawn up into it, we experience God’s love (Jones 41).
The practice of silence is simply that – it is being silent before and with God. It is moving into a place where all questions cease, where all complaints are surrendered, and where all requests are fulfilled by God’s presence. Centering prayer, as previously discussed, is a valuable tool in achieving silence, but the truth is, it will not take us all the way. Only God can truly bring us to a place where we are satisfied alone with God, but rest assured, God wants us there.
I have two main differences of opinion with other writers concerning silence. Most see silence as the entry point into the other disciplines (Tan 42, Jones 40). I see silence as the end goal of other disciplines. I hope to be satisfied wholly in being with Christ, not in being with him so that I can get direction for my life or answers to my questions. Silent communion with God is the goal.
Secondly, while twenty to thirty minutes of silence is a good goal (Jensen 278), setting measurable quotas of silence reveals a misunderstanding of what silence is. Silence is not simply an escape from external stimuli, and it is not a quieting of one’s internal monologue. Silence is coming face to face with all one’s doubts and stresses and looking past them to God. Silence is lying with Christ in the stern of the ship in the middle of the storm. Silence is coming up against “I don’t know,” and allowing God’s shear presence to be enough.
Silence is paramount for the Christian because silence is faithfulness in its purest form. As C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape writes to Wormwood, remaining in silence akin to “when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (39). Jesus knew this silence as he went into the wilderness and was tempted, emerging into his ministry (Mark 1:12-13). And of course, Christ greatest work was done in the silence of Gethsemane and in his forsakenness upon the cross (Mark 14:32-42, 15:34).
It is this silence we aspire to, not the simple quieting of our world. In this silence we become like Christ, and from this silence, I believe, we, like Christ, will be resurrected.
To be concluded...
___________________________
In Mark chapter four, the gospel writer retells the story of a stormy night upon the Sea of Galilee. The disciples and Jesus had left the crowd on the shore and were crossing over to the region of the Gerasenes. “A furious squall came up,” Mark records, and the boat begins to be flooded with water. The disciples - many of them experienced fishermen, I would add - fear for their lives. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep in the stern. Waking him, they ask Jesus if he cares whether or not they drown. Jesus calms the storm before turning to rebuke his disciples for their lack of faith. At this even more so than the waves, they are terrified and begin to question amongst themselves who this Jesus might be.
In the storm, Jesus is still. He is sleeping peacefully while the elements swirl around him. The disciples look to him, but they do not really see him, for they do not see his peace. Had they had the faith to dare to do so, they might have entered into his rest as the tempest raged. “Quiet! Be still,” Jesus commands, and I wonder if he wasn’t speaking as much to his disciples as he was to the waves.
Remaining in God’s presence without ulterior motive is the aim of spiritual practice. We are made to be not to do (Jones 42). It is only when we are satisfied in Christ alone that we are truly satisfied. When we can rest in silence, we can truly rest.
This modern generation yearns for silence (Jensen 217). We ache to disengage (Jones 38). Our lives are a consistent stream of status updates and text messages and email notifications. We are constantly connected, and while that can be a marvelous thing, it can also wear upon us because we never have a moment to contemplate who we are made to be. We are made to be loved by God. In silence, if we can find it, if we can be drawn up into it, we experience God’s love (Jones 41).
The practice of silence is simply that – it is being silent before and with God. It is moving into a place where all questions cease, where all complaints are surrendered, and where all requests are fulfilled by God’s presence. Centering prayer, as previously discussed, is a valuable tool in achieving silence, but the truth is, it will not take us all the way. Only God can truly bring us to a place where we are satisfied alone with God, but rest assured, God wants us there.
I have two main differences of opinion with other writers concerning silence. Most see silence as the entry point into the other disciplines (Tan 42, Jones 40). I see silence as the end goal of other disciplines. I hope to be satisfied wholly in being with Christ, not in being with him so that I can get direction for my life or answers to my questions. Silent communion with God is the goal.
Secondly, while twenty to thirty minutes of silence is a good goal (Jensen 278), setting measurable quotas of silence reveals a misunderstanding of what silence is. Silence is not simply an escape from external stimuli, and it is not a quieting of one’s internal monologue. Silence is coming face to face with all one’s doubts and stresses and looking past them to God. Silence is lying with Christ in the stern of the ship in the middle of the storm. Silence is coming up against “I don’t know,” and allowing God’s shear presence to be enough.
Silence is paramount for the Christian because silence is faithfulness in its purest form. As C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape writes to Wormwood, remaining in silence akin to “when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (39). Jesus knew this silence as he went into the wilderness and was tempted, emerging into his ministry (Mark 1:12-13). And of course, Christ greatest work was done in the silence of Gethsemane and in his forsakenness upon the cross (Mark 14:32-42, 15:34).
It is this silence we aspire to, not the simple quieting of our world. In this silence we become like Christ, and from this silence, I believe, we, like Christ, will be resurrected.
To be concluded...
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