one car, dependence and slowing down

About 2 months ago our 1993 Saturn wagon died, in fact it died on Easter Saturday and there was no resurrection on Easter Sunday (maybe upon the return of Jesus). So for the past two months Katrina and I have made a conscious choice to go to one car. I have seen God's hand and grace in this and have been learning lots of things in moving to one car with a 6 person family.

First of all it has caused me to slow down. In order for me to get to meetings I need to give myself more time to get there either, by foot, bike or bus. In those journey times I have time to enjoy the day, listen to God, see others in my neighborhood, listen to music or a podcast and just BE. One day while walking a whole five blocks to work I was able to stop and have three conversation with people from my neighborhood that if driving I would not have seen or connected with.

Secondly i have been forced to be dependent. Today i had an appointment that felt a bit out of my biking range and it was raining so i called Chris Brown to ask to borrow his car. I am also borrowing friends car all next week while they are in Germany. It has never been easy for me to ask for help and assistance but i am seeing the glory of God in this. Recently i preached on the Holy Spirit's role in the the ministry and life of Christ. I made the statement that Jesus was fully dependent on the Holy Spirit to accomplish his work and mission. I then asked, "what if what it means to be fully human and Christ-like is to be one who is fully dependent on the Holy Spirit. I thank God for the opportunity to live into that reality.

Thirdly, i am catching a minuscule glimpse of what many of my lower income neighbors deal with every day. Every day, I see single moms, with four kids in two waiting in the rain at a bus top to go get groceries. Only having one car doe not compare but it has given me a glimpse of identification with the poor.

Finally we are saving money on gas and car insurance; I am getting regular exercise and we are contributing less to the pollution of the creation and therefore bringing liberation and freedom to the bondage and decay of the creation.

Here is a prayer about walking the sidewalk i wrote last year that captures a bit of all this.

Thank you for the sidewalk
That leads me today
Slow my hustle to a shuffle
That you might,
Lift my head;
Open my eyes;
Soften my heart;
Guide my steps;
Open my mouth;
Extend my hand;
To meet and greet you

"be the pose"

“Stop trying to do the pose, be the pose.” These words were spoken to my wife by her yoga instructor and they have been ringing in my head and my heart all week. They are very eastern, yogic and Hebraic words. Oh how I strive and struggle to do they things I know I am supposed to do or I sense God calling me to do. Over the past few months God has continued to place before me the vision for our church to become more committed and involved in racial reconciliation, economic redistribution, justice, and mercy for the poor, and multiculturalism. I have been striving and struggling to figure out how to do that; how to embody this vision; how to become all that God longs for us to be; how strategize, plan and implement these visions. This has stressed me out; at times I have doubted my call and my ability to accomplish these things. I have been smothered by and defeated by the pervasive principalities and powers of racism, class-ism and economic injustice that enslave us. I am powerless to change these things. Then throughout the week I have heard the words echoing in my head again, “Stop trying to do the pose, be the pose.” Stop trying to do church, be the church. Stop trying to do racial reconciliation, be racial reconciliation. Stop trying to do justice, be justice. Stop trying to do multicultural ministry, be it. I am not sure what that fully means but it at least means this: I must come to a place of need and dependency and realize that I am powerless to change and just be God's dependent son. I need God to do this work, I can only BE. Be available. Be willing. Be open. Be present. Otherwise I am paralyzed by the seemingly unattainable vision of the future. I want to be able to embrace what Common sings, “The present is a gift and I just wanna BE.” In being I am learning to wait............... on the Lord.

Is. 30:1; 15-22
Woe to the obstinate children," declares the LORD, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

my ordination, my dad

This past Sunday i was ordained as a minster of word and sacrament in the PCUSA and my dad, Rodger Woodworth gave me my charge and I share it with you:

Thousands of pastors are leaving the ministry each year and 80% of pastor’s wives wish their husbands were doing something else. Discouragement and despair come with the call. Even John the Baptist experienced this. Read Luke 7:18-23

From prison John sends a message to Jesus – are you the one or should we be looking for someone else. While this is surprising from the one who said of Jesus behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and I am not even worthy to carry his sandals – there will come a time (if not already) when from the prison of disappointment and despair you will cry out and ask Jesus are you the one or should I look elsewhere.

Understand John’s pain – pointed thousands to Jesus – given his life to that mission – willing to decrease so Jesus could increase so why the disappointment? He hears from his disciples – Jesus was giving sight to the blind, healing the sick, raising the dead and preaching to the poor (note – right next to giving life to the dead is giving the living a way to live). What bothered John was what Jesus was not doing. He was not fulfilling Johns’ expectations.

Disappointment comes when Jesus doesn’t fill our theological expectations – when he doesn’t act in a way we think God should act (or the way seminary taught us).

John had announced Jesus would come with a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire – expectations form the O.T. prophets. Pour out the Holy Spirit on God’s servants and fire on God’s enemies. Jesus would baptize the righteous with the Holy Spirit and the wicked with fire – baptize the good guys and burn up the bad guys and it would happen all at once. The separation of the wheat and chaff and the chaff would be burned up. But instead Jesus was hanging out with the chaff – the wicked - the bad guys. This didn’t fit John’s turn or burn theology.

BJ, there will come a time when Jesus acts in a way that just doesn’t fit into your theological framework and it will cause you to doubt such promises that his word never returns void or that the already of God’s Kingdom never seems to change into the promised not yet of His kingdom and you will ask with John are you really the one Jesus. This is normal – it comes with the call because you are called to spend most of your time helping people see the not yet of God’s Kingdom – to paint a picture of a preferable future – to give assurance that what is hoped for is going to happen – to provide evidence of things that cannot yet be seen – preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is near.

But John’s disappointment was not just theological it was also personal – disappointment also comes when Jesus doesn’t fill our personal expectations. John was lying in a cold prison cell because King Herod didn’t take kindly to being called an adulterer. And Herod is upstairs getting drunk and still having his affair and Jesus is having dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors. So John has got to be asking Jesus if you‘re King why am I sitting in prison.

The personal questions of faith are never more prevalent then in the pastorate. You and our family have already faced a big one – if you are Lord why did Matt (my brother-in-law) die? Why does someone’s spouse leave, why does a parishioner abuse drugs, why is there not enough money to support the ministry. Below the surface of most theological controversies lies a deep personal disappointment. We know God’s in charge but our personal experience differs. Jesus’ response on the surface wasn’t anything that John didn’t already know but Jesus ties together words and phrases from the prophet Isaiah to say “John I am fulfilling the role of the Messiah, I am just not doing it in the way or time you expected. God has stretched out the already and the not yet of His coming Kingdom.

The journey you will lead people on is like climbing a mountain. You stand at the base and see the peak you’re climbing to and it looks simple. But soon you realize that climbing is a series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, while often losing sight of the peak. It is a journey of joys and sorrows, of hope and disappointment accompanied by the Holy Spirit and the terrible tares - weeds in your field, people and circumstances that will reject you and hurt you, sin against you and let you down. Tares that you are called to tolerate and not root out because in our attempts to remove the bad we may harm the good. And as Bob Lupton says, “you don’t need to be concerned about how it appears to others that there are tares in your field; the Lord of the harvest can handle his own public relations. You don’t need herbicides that make the fruit appear bigger and the troubles benign.” BJ never let anyone question the validity of your ministry based on the tares in your field. Nor should you begin to ask Jesus if he is really the one when it appears there are more tares then wheat.

Jesus’ response to such a question is simple – he says I know you may be disappointed but I am asking you to trust me. You see even if Jesus had struck Herod with fire, freed John from prison and pulled up the other tares in John’s life, he would never have been truly free apart from a deep trusting relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are not offended by me – or stumbling over me”. We may be tempted to stumble over people and circumstances, pain and disappointment but we’re really stumbling over Jesus, offended by Jesus because he’s moving too slowly or because he hasn’t removed the tares in our life and the real temptations to look for something else – a better method, a new program, another seminar or a field with less tares – or even worse, tempted to join the thousands of pastors each year who give upon their call. My son – stay the course – have a burning patience – that quality of faith which keeps you living in the already and not yet – that will give meaning and strength to your ministry. Disappointments and even failures will come but you have a vision of the splendid city – you have hope – and just like the prophet Jeremiah, “before you were born God set you apart and appointed you to be his spokesman to the world.”

Lastly in order to stay the course and to continue knowing Jesus is the promised One:

• Build your identity on Christ and not on His church
• Pursue faithfulness and not success
• Always walk in repentance and faith

And know that you have both a heavenly Father and an earthly father that loves you unconditionally.

cannondale 500

For my graduation gift the Open Door got me money for a new bike which I picked up last week. Thanks be to God for a community who beleives in the holistic health of people. Although my butt is killing me!

daily faithfulness

I am a bachelor this week as my family is in Martha’s Vineyard with some friends. On my shabat today I read two things that really tied together.

I am reading Receiving the Day, Christian Practices of Receiving the Gift of Time, by Dorothy C. Bass. In the chapter I read today she was talking about receiving each day, just today as a gift from the Lord. Not being controlled by the failures of yesterday or the worries of tomorrow – ala Jesus in Matthew 6. And as a way of putting that on and practicing that developing rhythms and practices in your life that remind you of this day being a gift. She discussed Martin Luther who crossed himself as he woke each day to remind him of his baptism and that the sins of yesterday are forgiven in Christ and the worries of the future are not his concern but Gods. She then discussed Bohoeffer’s community formed around daily worship, prayer and work during the rise of Nazi Germany.

What struck me was Bonnoeffer’s question. “”Who can really be faithful in great things, if they have not learned ot be faithful in the things of daily life?” Then Bass comments, “Later, the great things required of him in the resistance movement would result in his martyrdom.” I want to be great. I want to se and live and lead the renewal of the church in our time. I so desire that. So much so that, that is what I pursue and not daily faithfulness so that when I am faced with greater more weighty decisions I am prepared, rooted, grounded, centered and oriented in Christ who is the Way.

Earlier that morning I was going through the daily prayer of the Irish Jesuits at www.sacredspace.ie and it had a reading from the Book of Tobit 2:3-8 which I have never read. It is an apocryphal book. Here are the comments about the book of Tobit:

“The story of Tobit is that of a just man living under an unjust civil law, and facing death for following his conscience: he risks his life by burying a fellow Jew. Am I ever placed in such a dilemma? Is my conscience up to the challenge if it comes?”

Hmmmm… May I (and we) be faithful today so that my heart, conscience, will, mind and spirit will be ready for the greater things!

It is finished

I am done with seminary. I have handed in all my papers (no finals). I went to my last class. I had my graduation party with 200 plus people and I officially walk on Thursday night. It is still surreal but I feel the margin in my life that is enabling me to relax, think, pray and reflect on my life, work and family. That is glorious. I actually took a Sabbath Monday, which was the first time in at least 2 years. And now I have time to blog once again. Sorry for my absence on the blogsphere although I am sure you found other blogs to read. But it is my hope to begin writing and reflecting on my blog once again. Peace out!

Beer is Better Than Religion

10 Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Religion

10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.

9. Beer doesn't tell you how to have sex.

8. Beer has never caused a major war.

7. They don't force Beer on minors who can't think for themselves.

6. When you have a Beer, you don't knock on people's doors trying to give it away.

5. Nobody's ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured over his brand of Beer.

4. You don't have to wait 2000+ years for a second Beer.

3. There are laws saying Beer labels can't lie to you.

2. You can prove you have a Beer.

1. If you've devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you stop.

sex, adultery, pornography, 12 steps, chastity and community

In the NY Times, May 19, 2006 Lauren F. Winner published an article entitled Saving Grace that was sent to me by my friend Jen and I thought you all should read it!

The recent Harvard study that found teenagers' virginity pledges to be ineffective should come as a surprise to no one. Several studies had already come to that conclusion. If we are truly to help our teenagers adopt the countercultural sexual ethic of abstinence until marriage, Christians concerned about the rampant premarital sex in our communities need to rethink, rather than simply defend, young people's abstinence pledges.

It is awfully easy for Christians to blame our community's sexual sins on the mores of post-sexual revolution America — to criticize Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs, to natter on about how "Grey's Anatomy" portrays sexual behavior that doesn't square with Christianity. But perhaps it's more important that we reconsider how we talk about sex in the church. For although the church devotes an immense amount of energy to teaching about sexuality — just go to the Christian inspiration section of your nearest Barnes & Noble and compare the number of books about chastity to books that challenge, say, consumerism — many Christians still "struggle with" (in that euphemistic evangelical phrase) premarital sex, adultery and pornography.

So why is the church's approach to teaching chastity falling short? Consider the popular "True Love Waits" virginity pledge: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

This pledge and others like it are well meaning but deeply flawed. For starters, there's something disturbing about the assumption that teenagers are passively waiting for their future mates and children, when the New Testament is quite clear that some Christians are called to lifelong celibacy. (Paul, for example, did not have a mate or children, and Dan Brown's fantasies notwithstanding, Jesus's only bride was the church.) Chastity is not merely about passive waiting; it is about actively conforming our bodies to the arc of the Gospel and receiving the Holy Spirit right now.

Pledgers promise to control intense bodily desires simply by exercising their wills. But Christian ethics recognizes that the broken, twisted will can do nothing without rehabilitation by God's grace. Perhaps the centrality of grace is recognized best not in a pledge but in a prayer that names chastity as a gift and beseeches God for the grace to receive it. The pledges are also cast in highly individualistic terms: I promise that I won't do this or that. As the Methodist bishop William Willimon once wrote: "Decisions are fine. But decisions that are not reinforced and reformed by the community tend to be short-lived."

During our first year of marriage, my husband and I lived in a small apartment inside a church. On Tuesdays, Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon met downstairs. As I got to know some of the regulars, I began to wonder if there wasn't something the church could learn from the 12-step groups in our midst. After all, what are 12-step groups but communities of people expecting transformation? People show up because they want to change, and they know that making a promise by themselves — I will stop drinking — won't cut it. Alcoholics Anonymous explicitly recognizes that transformation works best when a community comes alongside you and participates in your transformation. Christians, like 12-step group attendees, are people who are committed to becoming, to use the Apostle Paul's phrase, new creatures. Living sexual lives that comport with the Gospel is one part of that.

Perhaps pledges for chastity need to be made not only by the individual teenager. Perhaps we also need pledges made by the teenager's whole Christian community: we pledge to support you in this difficult, countercultural choice; we pledge that the church is a place where you can lay bare your brokenness and sin, where you don't have to dissemble; we pledge to cheer you on when chastity seems unbearably difficult, and we pledge to speak God's forgiveness to you if you falter. No retooled pledge will guarantee teenagers' chastity, but words of grace and communal commitment are perhaps a firmer basis for sexual ethics than simple assertions that true love waits.

Lauren F. Winner is the author of "Girl Meets God" and "Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity."

fix me

Over the past few days I have been painfully aware of my brokenness, my self-centeredness and my sin. Being selfish is hard to face up to. I found some comfort listening to Coldplay's new CD X&Y. They have a stark and honest realism about the brokenness of life and within themsleves and yet they always posess something more that seems to pull them through the difficulty, hurt and despair - HOPE. I was driving in my car and the song Fix You came on WYEP and it ministered to me. I see this song as a confession of sorts. It helped me acknowledge the stickiness and the deceptiveness of sin, the promises sin makes that it cannot fullfill. And I provided me a moment to cry out to God and ask him to guide me home, reignit my bones and fix me. Check it out...

When you try your best but you dont succeed

When you get what you want but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you cant sleep - Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you cant replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste - Could it be worse

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below

When youre too in love to let it go

But if you never try youll never know

Just what youre worth

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face

And I
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face

And I
Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Rochester, NY

I traveled to my childhood home today with my sister Brooke - Rochester, NY 274 Carling Rd. I had not been to the neighborhood I grew up in for at least 11 years. My sister and I rang the doorbell of our old home and no one answered so we snuk into the back yard. After looking at the tree we used to climb as kids we noticed someone in the back window. We discovered that an elderly woman lived there who is in a wheelchair and is homebound. We visited with her and reminisced about our childhood and the past nine years of her life in that home. She was glad to know that the home she was in had a history and was glad to hear of our families in Pittsburgh. Next on our journey was to East High School, our alma mater. We had heard stories of the growing deterioration of our school and the violence that continued to be a part of the daily lives of high school kids. We walked in and were greeted by the familiar aroma of our high school. It is funny the things you remember. So we wondered if it would be different or the same. We wandered down to the guidance counselors offices where both Brooke and I had incredibly fond memories of the secretary to this office - Ms. G. We were most certain that she would not be there but we were pleasantly surprised that she is only two years away from retirement and had just returned to work yesterday. We reminisced some more, told her of our children, our neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, the ministries we are involved in and then talked of old friends that we had not seen in some 12-15 years. We discovered that none of our teachers from high school were teaching any more due to retirement. That made us feel old. Well... onward and downward to our grade school, Hendrick Hudson School #28. Schools all have numbers in Rochester, I am not sure why? Here we wandered in and wondered out unnoticed. Then we swung up to the home of my childhood friend, David Dugan. I did not think his parents would still be there but we discovered that in their mid 70's they were still there and still very active, grooming their yard with the care they always did and Mrs. Dugan welcomed us in with her classic Irish Catholic hospitality. We got caught up on all of their children and shared the bitter sweet turns that life had offered each of us; we celebrated birth and new life and mourned and grieved the early death of my brother in-law and the brother of my childhood friend - Dave. We talked about the importance of hoping in God through difficult times and the importance of community and the church to help carry us through. It was a blessing to us and I hope to Mrs. Dugan. We then drove by some familiar locations such as "the short cut", The Winton Grille, the library, the old homes of high school friends, Ellison Park, Brighton Presbyterian Church, our dad's old store that is now a Calvary Chapel, and Capitan Tony's Pizza. Overall things seemed smaller - our house, the walk to school, the length of our street, our friends houses and the journey from one end of the neighborhood to the next. The trees were taller. Some things looked exactly as I remembered them and others looked totally different. Time is strange. The best part of these three hours was the time spent with my sister talking about our childhood, remembering all the crazy things we did together and with friends, discussing the difficulty of the death of Matt, the quirkiness of our families and seeing God's faithfulness in it all. Both of us had recently been having regular dreams about our old neighborhood and felt the strong pull to go and visit. I am not sure what that was all about, but regardless it was time well spent because it was time spent with my sister Brooke. I love you sis!

Homeless at home

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be "at home" with yourself, with others, with the world and with God. I just finished Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal and it talks a lot about being at home. It seems to me that their is a constant longing for home in my life. I experience moments of being at home yet never fully content and satisfied. There is an angst, a longing and a desire for more. I remember this in the movie Garden State (one of the best of the year in my opinion) when Zach Braff's character Andrew Largeman is talking with his Sam (Natalie Portman) about he feels homeless upon coming home to his childhood house after a long time away. He says,

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone... It just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

I think he captures the tension of being a sojourner, a pilgrim and living in exile where we are not completely at home. Family are those people longing for a place to call home. We all have a longing a homesickness to be at home with ourselves, others, the world and God.

I started looking into this idea of home and dwelling in the Bible. We were created at home in the garden where it was good (not perfect or complete, but good) and then we ran away from home. We in turn became homeless wanderers. The whole story of Israel is one of wandering and looking for home, being sojourners, living in exile... The promise of the prophets was that God would once again make his home with us (Ezekiel 37:27; Jeremiah 31:1). And finally God does make his home with us once again by moving into the neighborhood and dwelling among us in Jesus (John 1:14). Jesus not only makes his home among us he IS/WAS the home or dwelling place of God. Jesus then promises that once he leaves that he will send another to make His dwelling in all who follow after him. We become the home of God in and through his Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16; 6:19).

And yet we like those who have come before us, the communion of saints, are never fully at home; we are aliens and strangers looking for our home. Yet the promise is that this will be our home in the new heavens and the new EARTH. In fact God promises once again to make his home and dwelling place among his people (Revelation 21:3) which means that the glimpses of home we experience are just that - glimpses and that there is more to come. So we are stuck in between homes, in the here but not yet, at home but still homeless.

What if home is where the longing is. OR as Bono puts it, Home... I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home - that's where the hurt is. What if the longing for home is there intentionally. What if the longing for home is what drives closer to home? Didn't the prophets tell Israel while in exile to make their home in a land that was not their own? What if the homesickness and the hurt is to further the search for home? Can we be at home when we are homeless sojourners? Jesus was, wasn't he? What do you think?

I am becoming thankful that my home is in the city which is not quite home and it keeps me longing and striving for a better home. Iam thankfull that I am learning to be at home with myself with all the brokennessand allowingg that to create more space for God to live in me. I am thankful that Jesus said, anyone who loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home in him. I am thankful that I am God's home yet still longing for God to make his full dwelling in me and on earth as it is in heaven.

Books I Am reading

I thought I would let you know some of the books I am enjoying this summer that no professor is requiring me to read.

1. School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism Edited by the Rutba House
   
2. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
   
3. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
   
4. Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris (re-reading)
   
5. The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins
   
6. Mission In Acts: Ancient Narratives in Contemporary Context edited by Robert Gallagher and Paul Hertig
   

I do not really feel like commenting on them right now, they are all good! Happy reading!

S h h h h ...........

I just returned from 48 hours of almost complete silence and solitude in southern Michigan at a place called the Hermitage. Wow....

I have been having some re-entry issues, culture shock if you will. Meals in silence to meals with four children under 9 talking constantly and continually. Being alone all day in the woods in a cabin with no electricity or plumbing, with no agenda other than resting and reading and praying; to 10 voice mails; 75 emails a new cell phone to program, and grocery shopping at Giant Eagle.

Today my head is slowly lifting from the haze of noise that is all around me.

Have you ever eaten a meal with others in complete silence? It takes some getting used to. I realized that even in actual silence there is still noise in my head, thoughts racing at the speed of light. What is that guy thinking about? Is he thinking about me? I wonder if knows that I am thinking about him? I wonder what her story is? She looks like Maryl Streep. Is she looking at me? I wonder what she thinks about this buritto? Speaking of burittos these are really good. Then when your conscious mind seems to run out of random musings and questions there is this moment where you it becomes still and quiet. A place that is really hard to be in. It is a distant land, a far off country, uncharted waters, a place unfamiliar to me and most of us. In that moment you have to choose to stay or choose to go. It is a place that is uncomfortable and frightening and relaxing and free all at the same time.

We have so much clutter and noise in our lives, both literal noise and internal noise that make us deaf to our own heartbeat and most importantly the voice of God. The brothers at the Taize monastery in France say, maybe we sometimes avoid silence, preferring whatever noise, words or distraction, because inner peace is a risky thing: it makes us empty and poor, disintegrates bitterness and leads us to the gift of ourselves. Silent and poor, our hearts are overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, filled with an unconditional love.

Silence in that regard is dangerous practice. If we are still enough to actually listen then we might hear and if we hear we might actually follow and obey the path God has for us. We might discover something about ourselves that has been hidden within us for years. We may hear the voice of God calling us OUT or IN to someplace we have been avoiding. Silence is also a subversive practice. If we just STOP for long enough we might realize that our value and our worth is not tied up in what we do or produce or how much we own or what we got done today or last year. It is a willful act that subverts the values of activity, busyness, consumption, competition, production and achievement that drive like slave masters.

Maybe the reason that God calls, allures and leads his people(Moses, Elijah, Jesus, John, Paul, Hosea) into the dessert and the wilderness is because it is there where they will be still long enough to hear his voice. If they hear his voice they might actually follow Him. It is the unlikely place of restoration, redemption, reconciliation and revolution. In the dessert they (we) are forced to fully depend on him because they (we) are desperate. Maybe the revolution I signed up for will not come from my perpetual activity on behalf of the Kingdom but from silence, stillness, listening, hearing and THEN following after the Voice that cries in the wilderness.

Shhhh... Do you hear a voice crying in the wilderness? Stop, listen, hear and follow.

chillaxing

I am preparing to head out for three nights and two days of solitude at a retreat center/monastary in Michigan and coincidentally leading our community through a time of reflection meditation, silence, listening and communal discernment the Sunday I return to Pittsburgh. So I have been thinking about silence, listening and hearing God in the midst of a culture that moves at the speed of light. Psalm 131:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted upmy eyes are not raised too high
I do no occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me
But I have calmed and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
my soul is like the weaned child that is within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore. (NRSV)

Oh to be so satisfied, content and at peace in God's presence like a baby who has had its full at the breast of her mother. Words are not needed but silence speaks. I am mostly fussing in GOd's presence not like a contented and weaned child.

I also got on the Taize web site and found some profound stuff on prayer, silence and listening to God. "Silence means recognizing that my worries can’t do much. Silence means leaving to God what is beyond my reach and capacity. A moment of silence, even very short, is like a holy stop, a sabbatical rest, a truce of worries. Remaining silent, we trust and hope in God. Silence makes us ready for a new meeting with God. In silence, God’s word can reach the hidden corners of our hearts. In silence, we stop hiding before God, and the light of Christ can reach and heal and transform even what we are ashamed of. Maybe we sometimes avoid silence, preferring whatever noise, words or distraction, because inner peace is a risky thing: it makes us empty and poor, disintegrates bitterness and leads us to the gift of ourselves. Silent and poor, our hearts are overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, filled with an unconditional love" http://www.taize.fr/en_article12.html.

Sit down and do some holy chillaxing today!

creativity as imgo dei

A few years ago I would not have chosen to describe myself as creative. I think our educational systems give us creative labatomies at about the age of 12. We are not encouraged to think or draw outside the lines. I have been recently regaining some of my creative memory and imagination. I have been discovering in myself, in scripture and in community with others that all people are creative for that is one of the essential ways that we image God. God is creative and we are all therefore creative people due to the reality of us bearing and reflecting God's image, DNA and reflection. Francis Schaefer in his comments on art and the Bible said, "we never find an animal, non-human, making a work of art. On the other hand, we never find anyone anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who does not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between human and non-human. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our humanity."

I am not an artist but I am creative. I love to cook. Ask my wife I can make a sandwich out of anything left-over in the frig. As my kids I can make some incredibly tasty and creative smoothies. I love to write poetry and am getting better at that. I just got a new digital camera and am looking forward to playing with that. I like to take old, discarded things and make them new. I am turning an old door into a coffee table right now. And most of all I believe that my preaching is creative. The spoken word ought never be without imagination and creativity.

Once agiain from Francis Schaefer, "No work of art is more important than the Christian's own life, and every Christian is called upon to be an artist in this sense. She may have no gift of writing, no gift of composing or singing, but each person has the gift of creativity in terms of the way he lives his life. In this sense, the Christian's life is to be an art work. The Christian's life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world."

It is not a question of whether one is creative or not it is question of what you are doing to nurture and develop your creativity. Investing it burying it?