pilgrimage journal

being silent

2012-02-01T11:24:00.001-06:00

I came across Jesus' trial this morning while reading in Matthew. That version of the story really emphasizes Jesus' silence before the authorities.

I've thought a lot about that silence, and the more experience I have with institutional authorities the more wisdom I see in Jesus' refusal to speak. He undermines their claim to power by refusing to ask them for anything, not help, not mercy. Though most everyone else (including the authorities themselves) see them as important and powerful, Jesus practically ignores them. I think that's a much more powerful challenge than even denouncing them; it shows a complete lack of concern about what they can do.

At times I've responded with silence in similar situations, but I'm usually agitated and struggling inside, which I'm sure is apparent. I guess I need more practice.

what is low

2012-01-26T15:57:00.000-06:00

We're busy getting ready for a retreat this weekend, with a intern group from Emmaus Ministries. One morning we sing Taize prayer, and I thought the usual reading we use from 1 Corinthians would be appropriate for this retreat as well. It fits with the thoughts from my last entry.

For consider your call, brothers and sisters;
not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,
not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;

but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise,
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
God chose what is low and despised in the world,
even things that are not,
to bring to nothing things that are,

so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

giving little

2012-01-23T15:23:00.002-06:00

We're giving a retreat this weekend for interns from a ministry that has brought many groups of guys for retreats with us in past years. I think we'll use the story of the widow's mite again. But discuss it from a different perspective. The interns probably come from a background closer to mine, and likely won't identify with the poor widow. But I do think all our contributions are, ultimately, as small as the widow's two cents. Some of us just don't realize how small our contributions really are.

I'm also thinking of using a familiar scene from church, of a parent giving a child some money to put in the offering plate. How our giving is really like that. God gives to us so we have something to give to others.

Many of us tend to see ourselves and our contributions quite differently. What we produce or give becomes a sign of our self worth, a source of pride. To be able to only give little or to have our gifts unappreciated strikes at our self esteem. That may also be much of what drives overwork and leads to burnout, especially among "ministy" types.

That's one thing I think the poor (like the poor widow) can show us. How to give little. Being able to admit how little we really have to give, accepting that in the humble realization that we're not the Giver that others really need.

And being able to give all, because we also trust in the Giver.

snow day

2012-01-20T20:46:00.001-06:00

the womb

2012-01-18T14:41:00.003-06:00

I'm thinking of reading this story for our worship group this weekend. I called it "The Womb." It fits with my train of thought recently, in more ways than one...

She sat down heavily on the bed, holding the plastic wand in front of her, staring at it. These things weren't always accurate, she reminded herself. But her body also was telling her that something new was happening, the beginning of something that was so small, barely noticeable now, but something that would soon be very big. Bigger than she could contain. Bigger than herself even, much bigger. She fell back and laid there feeling horribly small and weak.

It seemed like she laid that way for hours, not wanting to look at the clock and see how late it was and he still wasn't home. But she knew it was time to get up and take off her clothes and crawl into bed again. It was the second night in a row she would go to sleep without her husband beside her. But, in a way, she was relieved he wasn't there. She couldn't bear to tell him what the pregnancy test had told her.

Losing his job had been hard enough, and with the economy the way it was there was no telling when he'd find another one. The idleness was tormenting him. And if it wasn't for her working, they would be in serious financial trouble as well. But he hadn't stayed out late drinking until she'd told him what her boss had said.

Maybe she shouldn't have. But she'd needed to tell someone, and it certainly affected him as well and he had a right to know. She'd also hoped a male perspective might help her figure it out. It wasn't the stereotypical case of sexual harassment. She had worked for Carl for years; she thought of him as a friend―and even after what he said she didn't hate or fear him so much as despise his weakness. He loved her, that's what he said. He'd always loved her. But now Carl's wife had found out how he felt and was demanding that he "get rid of the temptation." What could he do, he'd begged. He didn't want to lose his wife, who was adamant that she be immediately transferred or let go, and there just wasn't anywhere to transfer her. He said it would be easier for her to get another job if she quit rather than being fired. But she knew it would also be easier for him that way. Apparently Carl hadn't considered quitting himself―but she really didn't want him to lose his job either, did she? He was so pitiful in his helplessness. But his helplessness was crushing her. Especially coming right now, when John was out of a job. John's first reaction was to say he'd crush Carl with his own hands, then he'd wanted to call a lawyer and see if there was a case against the company. It had taken hours of arguing before he'd agreed to let her handle it.

And she still thought this was important, though she wasn't sure yet what she would do, what she could do. She didn't feel right about litigation. Or going over Carl's head. She didn't like to treat people that way, especially friends―even former friends. But now, with a child coming... it was like circumstances were closing in on her. Leaving her no options. And with John acting angry and hurt and vengeful, she felt more alone than ever. She could imagine his feelings of impotence: His inability to provide, and now her rejection of his attempts to protect her. But this was her job, her relationships, her situation, pressing her for a response. And she was in the best position to see and understand all that was involved and what the implications might be. Unfortunately, this also meant she saw clearer than anyone else the impossibility of her situation. God, what had she done to deserve this? She crawled under the covers and pulled herself into a ball. John still wasn't home.

Then she felt a strange stirring in the darkness. Movement. Something was happening. She tried to turn and look but the warm dark was close around her, and now it seemed to be pressing. She tried to push back. But she couldn't even make room to move and then everything around her was up against her fragile body, crushing her. The violence of the assault shocked her. She panicked. Then the pressure suddenly released, but her heart continued to race. What was that? She'd never experienced anything like it before. It was like reality itself was attacking her.

Silence, except for the pounding of her heart. Then movement again in the dark. And immediately her body was powerfully gripped and squeezed a second time, her head jammed against something hard so quickly and forcefully that she thought her neck might break. Then the crushing force was gone. She squirmed, trying to escape, but couldn't. She was held. She remembered being held in safety and comfort, as in a warm embrace, but now she felt held in a prison―all alone in a prison where the walls were caving in. Again the incredible pressure fell on her. Again and again, each time more violently and with shorter breaks in between. Until she no longer was expecting them to end. She was just bracing for the one that would crush the life out of her. Then it came. The thrust was so hard it compressed her skull, squeezing her brain, and then the dark wasn't just around her but behind her eyes and she let it rush over her and just went limp. Oh God...

And suddenly everything was light. And she could see. She'd been born.

Her last memory as she awoke was of her lying at her mother's soft, warm breast, listening to the steady heartbeat that had comforted her in the womb. That and the priest. She shut off the alarm clock. She remembered the priest because that was the strangest part of her dream. The priest from her church was in the delivery room for some reason; she recognized his deep, sonorous voice as he was reading, repeating... what was it? "In Him we live and move and have our being." Over and over.

She laid there for a while then slid out of bed, being careful not to wake John. He was snoring softly. She watched him for several minutes before going to get dressed for work. She wondered what he would say tonight.

"That's not love, Carl," she said, standing directly in front of his large desk. "That's not what love does. Love might make you give up your job, or maybe stand up to your wife. But love doesn't tell me I have to choose between quitting and getting fired. That has nothing to do with love." He didn't argue; she waited, but he didn't say anything at all. He couldn't even look at her. "I'm not going to quit. And if you fire me, I'm not going to sue or complain to anyone. Even you." Again she was tempted to mention John's unemployment and the child that was coming―then reminded herself why she was here. She wasn't here to beg. "I'm just going to tell you right now that it's wrong. Please don't do it. I'm not saying that for myself; I'm saying it for you. If you do this I know you'll regret it. Please don't." OK, maybe she was here to beg. "Carl," she said gently, and he looked up. "You don't have to do this. I know it seems to you like your only option, but there has to be another way. And I'll help if you let me. Because I do love you, Carl. And your wife. That's how I know this isn't the only way―because it's not love." She looked deep into his helpless eyes, trying to reach something. "I'm asking you to love, Carl."

As she turned and started for the door, the dark rushed in on her again, pressing. John's weakness, Carl's weakness, her child's weakness, her own weakness rushed over her, darkness behind her eyes, and the door seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. But an incredible force was behind her, pushing. She let it. And suddenly the door was opening and she was through.

And everything was light.

2012-01-16T15:01:00.001-06:00

Came across these lines this morning...

Because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end will be saved.
(Mt 24.12-13)

"the plans of the people"

2012-01-13T10:13:00.000-06:00

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the people.

The counsel of the Lord stands for ever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
Ps 33.10-11

children and choices

2012-01-12T16:58:00.000-06:00

I've been talking with people about having children, and paying attention to parents more. And I've noticed that many seem not to intentionally make the choice to have kids. It happens pretty naturally, after all. And for most there is the assumption going into marriage that children will follow. So the choice before them is more about what kind of parents they want to be. With some other friends, who have struggled more about the question of whether or not to have children, they wonder if issues like overpopulation and the condition of our society are good enough reasons to refrain from having children. When I consider what most children eventually become, the pain and lostness, I also have wondered whether it is good to bring another person into the world.

In my thoughts about it lately, though, the choice before us is starting to look quite different. I say I believe that it is God who creates each of us, who decides to bring each individual into being, who breathes life into each new person. And that it is ultimately for our existence with God that each of us is given life. From this perspective, each child is not the decision or project of a parent, but of God. They are always more truthfully God's children than ours. The choice set before us is not whether another child should be born or how children should be raised. The choice is how we will participate in God's work of bringing his children into his world.

I often do not understand God's ways, but it seems clear that God thinks it good to continue to bring new life among us. That is not a decision for me to make. People will continue to be born and grow up among us. The question put to me is in what way do I feel called to participate in that, and there are many different ways. But it seems important to remember that whether it is as parent or mentor or teacher or friend, the creation and nurturing of each human person is God's choice and God's work, in which I am invited to play a part.

watching eyes

2012-01-08T17:20:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking more about family and children lately. And I remembered a French movie I saw once that made an impression on me. Caché, directed by Michael Haneke. It begins with a family receiving anonymous video tapes that appear to be surveillance of their home. The tapes keep arriving and they start to get concerned. Who is watching them? As the story unfolds, several deep secrets about the parents emerge, and their child and the child of an old family acquaintance play important parts.

What was especially striking was the closing scene. (You can watch it here, starting about six minutes in.) The children characters appear, but they are not the focus, and you can't hear anything they say. What you see is the steps of a school with many children gathered there. Just a normal scene of school children, for maybe two minutes, then that's the end.

What I took away from this is the awareness of children as watchers. Who's watching us? Our children, always. It's really constant surveillance. And with eyes that have not been taught why things must be as they are. So they question and challenge and resist and often rebel. In any case, we are tested by the eyes of our children, and our lives are reflected back to us in those eyes.

This might seem unnerving, perhaps it should be. But I also see this as a way God uses to get through to us. A way to show us our own life, not as we see it, but as innocent eyes see it. I think it's a way God holds a mirror up to us, to help us see. Marriage can do this as well, I think, but a child's view is different from an adult's. So it's one more way for God to show us our life, and perhaps give us a chance to improve it.

jesus seems to like it

2011-12-29T16:04:00.000-06:00

I laughed at this one on Christmas but didn't get around to posting it until now. We had friends over for our traditional "chicken with forty cloves of garlic," fresh baguettes, and a French chocolate custard.

And a gift for us this year was hearing that that interns from Emmaus Ministries want to come for a retreat next month. That'll be our first winter retreat and our first specifically for staff, something we've been wanting to try for a few months now.

"to bring out the prisoners"

2011-12-24T15:43:00.002-06:00

From a discussion today:

This strikes me as a good example of a common assumption these days: that we are complicit in the evil (or violence) of our social system simply because of where we were born or the color of our skin or our gender. So that the only way we can be "nonviolent" (or not evil?) is by bringing down the system. As you suggest, the idea is that it is not possible to be nonviolent in our current context. Thus I see it argued more and more often that it is meaningless to try to stick with more "innocent" methods, because innocence is meaningless while we are part of this horrible system, and what's most important is the destruction of the system, sometimes even "by any means necessary." Only then might it be possible to be nonviolent.

The moral bondage implied by this theory of unavoidable complicity seems to me the obvious point where it diverges from the message of Jesus. Jesus offered freedom from bondage, and not a freedom only when the system had been brought down. He demonstrated that freedom (including the freedom to be nonviolent) in the midst of imperial domination. This strikes at the claim that our complicity is unavoidable, or that innocence is impossible in the midst of this system. For true freedom, what must be brought down is not the system but the lies, including the lie of unavoidable complicity. And Jesus offers us freedom from those lies.

That doesn't mean we won't continue to also challenge the lies that sustain oppression, sexism, racism, etc. Only that we can challenge them as Jesus did, from the position of the freedom of the kingdom of God, not as co-prisoners beating on the walls of the gulag we created. From the position of an alternative life, where we are not dominated by society or complicit in its evil, and don't have to resort to its methods. A position to offer hope to others that a different life exists. That's what Jesus showed us and offers us now.

Makes me think of Isaiah 42 from the other day, "to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness..."

2011-12-23T14:35:00.001-06:00

from Isaiah 42

2011-12-21T10:20:00.000-06:00

I think I'll use this as a meditation this Christmas:

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him,
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not fail or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.

Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread forth the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
"I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord, that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to graven images.
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth I tell you of them."

Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth!
Let the sea roar and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.

Cantate Domino "Sing to the Lord"

The Lord goes forth like a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his fury;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.

For a long time I have held my peace,
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in travail,
I will gasp and pant.
I will lay waste mountains and hills,
and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
and dry up the pools.

And I will lead the blind
in a way that they know not,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them.

Da Pacem Domine "Give peace, Lord"

more waiting

2011-12-19T10:25:00.000-06:00

Did you ever think about the fact that after the angels' momentous announcement to the shepherds—that a savior had arrived—they had to wait thirty years before anything actually happened?

2011-12-15T10:50:00.000-06:00

My traditional Christmas haiku is noticeably more hopeful this year (here's last year's, with links to earlier ones). The star as the symbol of God breaking through what we know, through the accepted limitations that our failures have taught us. The new wonder that we could neither imagine nor create.

That we can only be grateful for, and rejoice in.

"all are yours"

2011-12-14T16:17:00.001-06:00

the world
or life
or death
or the present
or the future, all are yours;

and you are Christ's;
and Christ is God's. (1 Cor 3.22-23)

In this season of waiting, this year I find myself feeling a bit impatient. I think I'm impatient because I'm seeing hints of good things coming and now I want them here right away. Maybe that's the best kind of impatience. But it still makes waiting hard.

I mentioned to Heather the other day that God didn't have to struggle with impatience. Because God isn't bound by time, past and future are all present to God (Heather looked a bit skeptical about that). But if that's true then those words of Paul to the Corinthians take on a deeper meaning. The future is not an unknown to God, God is not waiting for it like we are. Impatiently, like we are. My feeling was that I'd rather have God's experience. But maybe that experience is not so far off, just as God is not so far off.

"You are Christ's and Christ is God's," Paul wrote. And in that union with God we live in the eternal present like God does, in the eternal life that Jesus gave us. The future may not be known to us, but it is also not unknown. It is known. It is assured and it is a present reality to the God who is present with us. In that presence we need not be impatiently waiting, but can be grateful for future gifts and promises certainly fulfilled. "The world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours."

2011-12-09T11:28:00.001-06:00

st. nick

2011-12-07T10:04:00.001-06:00

Continuing Christmas commentary, from five years ago (and I still think it is important):

The inspiration for Christmas gift-giving (and for Santa Claus) is St. Nicolas of Myra. Not a whole lot is known about him, but this story seems to be the reason for his reputation:

A poor man had three daughters but could not afford a proper dowry for them. This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment, would have to become prostitutes. Hearing of their plight, Nicholas decided to help them but being too modest (or too shy) to help publicly, he went to their house under the cover of night and threw three purses filled with gold coins through the window. One version of the story has him throwing one purse for three consecutive nights. Another has him throw the purses over a period of three years, each time the night before one of the daughters comes "of age." Invariably the third time the father lies in wait, trying to discover their benefactor. In one version the father confronts the saint, only to have Nicholas say it is not him he should thank but God alone. In another version, Nicholas learns of the poor man's plan and drops the third bag down the chimney instead.

People soon began to suspect that Nicolas was behind a large number of other anonymous gifts to the poor, using the inheritance from his wealthy parents. After he died, people in the region continued to give to the poor anonymously, and such gifts were still often attributed to St. Nicholas.

A pretty inspiring example. But right away I notice that his giving was very different from our Christmas gift exchanges. Take each point I mentioned yesterday: Nicolas gives without expecting anything back; he gives to someone who most likely can't pay him back (as Jesus taught us). Nicolas gives quietly, anonymously, avoiding praise. And he didn't give for the sake of a holiday; he gave because he saw someone in need right then, and he responded to that need. That's real gift-giving. So very different from our Christmas distortion.

Where I'm living right now, in a Christian intentional community, Christmas gift-giving has been moved to Epiphany, or "Three Kings Day." To try to connect the traditional gifts with the wise men's gifts, something more meaningful than Santa. But the distortions of gift-giving are pretty much the same (a public, seasonal exchange, among people who don't really need anything).

And what of the wise men? Again, their gift-giving is very different. They give to someone in need, a poor family from Nazareth, who cannot repay. And it wasn't any holiday. They gave when God moved them to give. We made a holiday of it because their giving was truly beautiful.

But why don't we follow their example?

18 days, 6 hours, and 1 minute until Christmas

2011-12-06T17:59:00.001-06:00

I recently sent this entry (from five years ago) to a friend. He'd mentioned that he's enjoying Christmas less and less each year, "with the drive to shop, shop, shop and the stress of figuring out what presents to get people."

I stepped away from of Christmas gift-giving gradually. My first confused questions started when I was a teenager, wandering around a crowded mall trying to complete my gift list. And the questions persisted, growing more and more bold, until I finally stopped giving Christmas gifts altogether about ten years ago.

Ironically, during that same time it was becoming more apparent to me that gift-giving was central to the Christian life. I was coming to believe that everything we do should be a gift to others, just as it was in Jesus' life. When I could finally specify clearly what I disliked most about Christmas gift-giving, it was that what happens at Christmas is almost the opposite of what true gift-giving should be.

As Jesus taught, gifts should be given without expectation of anything in return. That's basically the definition of a gift. Yet at Christmas there is definitely an expectation of something in return—we don't give gifts, we exchange. Jesus also taught that, when we give, we shouldn't make a show of it or expect recognition. "Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." But what have we made of our Christmas gift exchange? The biggest show of the year, a show in every home ("OK, this one is from Aunt Lily..."), a parade of charity emblazoned on billboards and full-page newspaper ads.

Perhaps the part that confused me the most when I was younger was how to find the inspiration to give gifts suddenly at a certain time of the year. Now I think I understand love better. Love doesn't appear out of nowhere at Christmas like Santa Claus; it doesn't count the days until it can express itself. Love gives when the need arises. Love appears when we encounter someone that God wants to touch and we let that healing touch work through us. But this doesn't happen according to the calendar. And we don't have to scratch our heads trying to figure out what to give. When God shows us someone in need, and we're paying attention, God also shows us what to give.

This is all lost when we make gift-giving a seasonal event, and gifts become meaningless trinkets destined to clutter someone's closets and garage (and storage locker, etc)—because no one we know really needs anything. Such a show is not a beautiful celebration of gift-giving. It is a twisting, an undermining, of the true meaning of gift.

Tomorrow: But what about St. Nick?

hints of a path

2011-12-04T16:15:00.001-06:00

I haven't written anything personal in a while. I've been wondering about that. I thought about it out in the cabin this morning as I prayed and ate pancakes. At times I haven't written because things are going badly and I don't know what to say. But now I actually feel very encouraged and have been surprised by a clear sense of hope.

Maybe it's that I don't quite know how to explain that feeling. Many aspects of community life here seem to be hitting new low points. Maybe it seems to me that we're close to "hitting bottom" (as they say in AA). I do think I can start to see hints of a path rising on the far side of this deep valley. It does feel like the tide is turning.

I know one thing that's encouraging is that I'm feeling some resolution to my most heart-wrenching prayers and yearnings of the past couple years. I remember writing this almost two years ago:

I still feel like I want the hard consequences of some decisions here to make it very clear that those choices weren't the best or most loving for everyone involved. That the path that has been chosen is not the path of freedom and peace that Jesus showed us in his life. But I can also see that hoping and praying for mercy is right. Maybe praying that not all the hard consequences have to be borne, that our relationships and our connection here be preserved, and a way forward offered. That it be clear that God is not pleased, but also that God is merciful and still holds us in his love. And that we have a chance to choose differently in the future.

It seems to me that God has made this crystal clear through the many tumultuous experiences here since I wrote that. And now I'm finding it much easier to keep praying for mercy. That feels good.

I also see God bringing various surprising pieces together that could potentially provide what we need for a good community life, and real church, here in the future. Like real friendships. Organic community. Generosity instead of subsistence. And these pieces are coming together in ways that none of use could have managed (or even known what we really needed). So I'm encouraged that God is doing something, and has been all along. I think there is still much difficulty and pain to be faced yet, by many people here, but no matter what we choose or do, I believe and am beginning to actually see that God is doing something good.

God is merciful, and still holds all of us in his love.

umbrella

2011-11-27T15:22:00.001-06:00

Another by Chico, this one called "Umbrella." A better way to look at our current weather...

"O give thanks to the Lord"

2011-11-23T20:18:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd use Psalm 107 for Thanksgiving worship, maybe chant it. And I found the Grail version online. The Grail, a translation of the Psalms intended for prayer and singing, is traditionally used in the monastic Liturgy of the Hours. Here it is with one of the Gregorian tones:

"O give thanks to the Lord for he is good;
for his love endures for ever."

Let them say this, the Lord's redeemed,
whom he redeemed from the hand of the foe
and gathered from far-off lands,
from east and west, north and south.

Some wandered in the desert, in the wilderness,
finding no way to a city they could dwell in.
Hungry they were and thirsty;
their soul was fainting within them.

Then they cried to the Lord in their need
and he rescued them from their distress
and he led them along the right way,
to reach a city they could dwell in.

Let them thank the Lord for his love,
for the wonders he does for men:
for he satisfies the thirsty soul;
he fills the hungry with good things.

Some lay in darkness and in gloom,
prisoners in misery and chains,
having defied the words of God
and spurned the counsels of the Most High.
He crushed their spirit with toil;
they stumbled; there was no one to help.

Then they cried to the Lord in their need
and he rescued them from their distress.
He led them forth from darkness and gloom
and broke their chains to pieces.

Let them thank the Lord for his goodness,
for the wonders he does for men:
for he bursts the gates of bronze
and shatters the iron bars.

Some were sick on account of their sins
and afflicted on account of their guilt.
They had a loathing for every food;
they came close to the gates of death.

Then they cried to the Lord in their need
and he rescued them from their distress.
He sent forth his word to heal them
and saved their life from the grave.

Let them thank the Lord for his love,
for the wonders he does for men.
Let them offer a sacrifice of thanks
and tell of his deeds with rejoicing.

Some sailed to the sea in ships
to trade on the mighty waters.
These men have seen the Lord's deeds,
the wonders he does in the deep.

For he spoke; he summoned the gale,
tossing the waves of the sea
up to heaven and back into the deep;
their souls melted away in their distress.

They staggered, reeled like drunken men,
for all their skill was gone.
Then they cried to the Lord in their need
and he rescued them from their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper:
all the waves of the sea were hushed.
They rejoiced because of the calm
and he led them to the haven they desired.

Let them thank the Lord for his love,
for the wonders he does for men.
Let them exalt him in the gathering of the people
and praise him in the meeting of the elders.

He changes streams into a desert,
springs of water into thirsty ground,
fruitful land into a salty waste,
for the wickedness of those who live there.

But he changes desert into streams,
thirsty ground into springs of water.
There he settles the hungry
and they build a city to dwell in.

They sow fields and plant their vines;
these yield crops for the harvest.
He blesses them; they grow in numbers.
He does not let their herds decrease.

He pours contempt upon princes,
makes them wander in trackless wastes.
They diminish, are reduced to nothing
by oppression, evil and sorrow.

But he raises the needy from distress;
makes families numerous as a flock.
The upright see it and rejoice
but all who do wrong are silenced.

Whoever is wise, let him heed these things.
And consider the love of the Lord.

no good option?

2011-11-22T15:43:00.001-06:00

From a discussion on "tragic" situations, when it seems there are no good options:

I see Jesus showing us that we are always free to do good, to respond with God's uncompromising love in any situation, no matter how bad it looks. Isn't that the message of Jesus' response to his crucifiers? I agree that sometimes no good option seems available. But God can make the impossible a reality through us. The miracle is being shown the truly good option that we could not see for ourselves, and being given the strength to do it.

I'm inclined to say that the popularity of the idea of tragedy is itself tragic, a sign of our despair. But I suppose we gravitate to it because it does offer some comfort. Our "lesser evil" choices then appear not as our own failure or compromise, but merely the inevitable result of the broken world we have been placed in.

I can fully support saying that we cannot always know that we are responding in a truly good, Christlike way. And sometimes we will clearly fail. (If we keep trying, though, God will help us do the good that we seek.) But that is quite different than saying that sometimes we cannot respond in a truly good way, because there are no good options available to us.

From my reading of Bonhoeffer, though, I think he crossed the line to willingly doing the "lesser evil." He seemed to think there was some moral heroism in taking the "necessary" sin on himself (and then trusting in forgiveness) if it seemed that act would lessen the suffering of others. That seems to embrace the "no good option" idea, and adds Luther's "sin boldly" idea (both serious mistakes, in my opinion). From Bonhoeffer's Ethics:

When a man takes guilt upon himself in responsibility, and no responsible man can avoid this, he imputes this guilt to himself and no one else; he answers for it; he accepts responsibility for it... Before other men the man of free responsibility is justified by necessity; before himself he is acquitted by his conscience; but before God he hopes only for mercy.

I can see why this view is attractive in its heroism and apparent self-sacrifice (of the soul). But such a "responsibility" that demands our knowingly taking guilt on ourselves seems far from the teaching of Jesus. He said "follow me," and that did not include self-sacrificially doing any "lesser evil."

If we know it's not good, we should not do it, even if it seems a necessity. Jesus showed us to always and uncompromisingly do good, like he did, no matter what. That is what is most useful to God in lessening the suffering of others and making the kingdom of God apparent in our broken world.

Jesus called us to be like him, and promised that he would provide the wisdom and strength to do so. "He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do..." Of course it is a matter of faith whether we believe such promises enough to act on them, and try to respond in the way we see Jesus doing.

This is not an easy thing, as you well know. I appreciate and encourage your study of peacemaking models. But those won't always apply (or be sufficient) just as we don't have examples of Jesus responding to every situation that we might face. So we try to learn as much as we can from the examples we do have, and through prayer and practice and relationship with other followers of Jesus deepen our faith and intimacy with God. So that when we don't see the good option the Spirit of God can guide us in this new situation. Again, this is a matter of faith, trusting that the Spirit that Jesus spoke of will be with us to show us what we cannot see for ourselves. This may not be given in advance, we may have to wait in faith for the good answer right up until the moment when action is required. Like when Jesus told his disciples: "When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

God knows how much time we have, and when action is required. I'm just encouraging us to trust God's guidance and believe that God will be there to show us the good response. It seems to me that if we settle for the "lesser evil," concluding that sometimes "there is no good option," then we're giving up on the good that God could do through us in that situation.

We all struggle. There is no certainty, only faith. And if it is faith in Jesus (not faith in our ethic, or in our strategies, or even in our own imagination, but in Jesus), there is also hope.

2011-11-18T09:53:00.001-06:00

we can?

2011-11-16T12:57:00.001-06:00

Maybe I'll revive this "homily" from three years ago for worship group this weekend. It was originally preached the day after All Saints day and two days before Obama's election (the readings were Hebrews 12.1-2 and Psalm 146). This seems even more true to me now, after the experience of the last three years:

Barack Obama's campaign slogan is “Change you can believe in.” But he doesn't just want you to believe that he can bring change; he wants you to believe that you can. He wants you to believe that, together, we can change this country and change the world. He's even selling t-shirts with big letters that say, “Yes, we can!”

There are many differences in the policies of the two presidential candidates. But they clearly agree on one thing: They both believe in the power of the people. The power of people working together, combining their strength, their will, and their resources. That is the power they are seeking, that is why they want your vote. Without the power of the people, they are just men and can do very little. But with the support of the people, they will have great authority and power in the world, and great wealth that can accomplish great things. That is their hope. They believe in the power of the people.

Everyone's attention is on these men right now, but in our reading from Hebrews we are reminded to “look to Jesus.” And when we look to Jesus, we don't see someone who believed in the power of the people. We don't see someone who preached “together we are strong and can change the world.” We don't see someone who tried to get the support of the crowds. When they tried to make him king, he refused. He did not seek their power or their wealth to accomplish great things. Jesus accomplished great things not through the power of the people, but through the power of God. It was by the power of God that he fed the hungry and healed the sick and raised the dead. It was by the power of God that he spoke words from God, giving us real freedom and real hope. Jesus' life did not show that people working together can change the world, but that, through one poor, lowly, vulnerable man, God can change the world. It was the power of the people that crucified Jesus, the voice of the crowd, their leaders and their soldiers. It was the power of God that raised him up.

Today we also remember the saints, the many heroes of the faith. But, like Jesus, they did not encourage us to believe in the power of the people. They were the first to admit that the church is not great because of the people, because of them. They made it clear that all the good that we see in their lives was not their work, but God's. As we read in the psalm, it is God who gives food to the hungry, freedom to prisoners, justice to the oppressed. For all the good that the saints did, God gave the inspiration, the direction, the energy, the resources, everything. God once said to Paul, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” And it is in the saints' humility, their poverty, their vulnerability, their weakness, that we can see more clearly the greatness and the power of God. They are heroes to us because their lives pointed, not to the power of the people, but to the power of God.

That is also our mission: To point people to the power of God, to help people believe in the power of God. Let's not join our voices to those who preach the power of the people, those who rule by the authority and wealth that comes from people, those “princes, in whom there is no help.” Let's join our voices and our lives to those who proclaim the power of God, “the Lord who will reign forever.”

O bless the Lord

2011-11-13T12:02:00.001-06:00

Great worship time yesterday evening; a new couple came. And this morning I was down by the creek again, singing the "Canticle of Daniel," a traditional part of Sunday morning monastic prayer:

O all you works of the Lord, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, angels of the Lord, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, the heavens of the Lord, O bless the Lord.
And you, clouds of the sky, O bless the Lord.
And you, all armies of the Lord, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, sun and moon, O bless the Lord.
And you, the stars of the heav’ns, O bless the Lord.
And you, showers and rain, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, all you breezes and winds, O bless the Lord.
And you, fire and heat, O bless the Lord.
And you, cold and heat, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, showers and dew, O bless the Lord.
And you, frosts and cold, O bless the Lord.
And you, frost and snow, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, night-time and day, O bless the Lord.
And you, darkness and light, O bless the Lord.
And you, lightning and clouds, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

O let the earth bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, mountains and hills, O bless the Lord.
And you, all plants of the earth, O bless the Lord.
And you, fountains, rivers and seas, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, creatures of the sea, O bless the Lord.
Ad you, every bird in the sky, O bless the Lord.
And you, wild beasts and tame, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, children of men, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

O Israel, bless the Lord, O bless the Lord
And you, priests of the Lord, O less the Lord.
And you, servants of the Lord, O bless the Lord
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

And you, spirits and souls of the just, O bless the Lord
And you, holy and humble of heart, O bless the Lord.
Ananias, Azarias, Mizael, O bless the Lord.
To him be highest glory and praise for ever.

Let us praise the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
To you be highest glory and praise for ever.
May you be blessed, O Lord, in the heavens.
To you be highest glory and praise for ever.

father, son, and holy spirit

2011-11-11T11:07:00.001-06:00

I might also share some of my friend Chico's art at worship group. I just found some pictures he had put online years ago. This one is titled "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

holy fool

2011-11-09T09:49:00.002-06:00

I'm thinking of sharing this (very) short story with our worship group this weekend...

Climbing the winding stone steps that rose into the pulpit, he felt a peace come over him. As it almost always did. The pulpit was a secure place, solidly clinging to the huge pillar, raised above the crowd, wrapping close around him. And the elevation, along with the ornate carvings and the focused lighting, reinforced the authority of the words he spoke there. God's words. He held up the large, gilded book for all to see, then opened it and read. His voice, amplified, filled the grand old church, rising with emotion as he concluded. "...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." The words echoed and disappeared, leaving a powerful stillness. But then another voice piped up, from almost directly below the pulpit.

"Amen, brother! Preach it!"

An amused murmur rose from the people, and he smiled generously. Once in a while there were strange moments like this. Last week, a tall, gangly fellow had stepped into the aisle during the prayers and sprawled out face down on the stone floor. But the congregation was very understanding. There was a psychiatric care halfway house not far from the church, and people from there often showed up for services. Some of them regularly. So occasionally there were minor disturbances, but he'd learned to just smile and carry on, as he did now. Their presence added a little color to the church, he thought. And didn't Jesus try to be friendly with social misfits like these?

Two weeks later there was another incident, involving a man he had never seen there before. Probably a new resident at the halfway house. It was in the second or third row, right in the middle of his sermon; all of a sudden the man's head lolled back and snoring was heard. At first this was ignored. And he had continued to preach, just raising his voice a little and watching the scene out of the corner of his eye. But then the snoring got louder and people started looking and there were some laughs, so an usher approached the man. The sleeping eyes popped open and stared at the usher. Then a gruff voice. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath!" The volume of this proclamation, and the laughter that warmly welcomed it, sent the usher scurrying away.

It had been difficult enough to get back into the flow of his message after that; but the next week was even worse. The man―who he later found out was named John―showed up again, and again sat up front. This time, however, John did not fall asleep but listened intently. Throughout the sermon John stared at him. And there were no interruptions as he preached eloquently on the building block of society, the family, ordained by God as the fundamental human community. He finished with an Amen as usual, closed the large bible, and turned to descend the steps. That's when John spoke up.

"Who are my mother and my brothers?" John cried out. And spread both arms wide. "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother―amen, preacher?" He hesitated. So John answered himself, "Amen!" Then wrapped an arm around the person sitting on either side―a young man to the left and an elderly woman to the right―and gave each a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. "Amen!"

That scene inspired him to preach about peace the next Sunday. Specifically the passage that concludes, "For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace." About orderliness in worship. But he didn't limit himself to that; he also spoke about how Christians can spread their peace throughout the wider society. How Christians can be a calming influence in a world full of conflict. This time John listened without any outbursts. He was relieved. Perhaps his message had touched something deep in the man's troubled psyche. As he stepped from the pulpit, he thought he recognized a quiet, thoughtful look on John's face.

But when an usher approached to collect the offering, John suddenly jumped up and grabbed the usher's long pole with a basket on the end. Then leapt into the aisle, shouting. "Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth―I have not come to bring peace, but a sword!" And immediately John began swinging the pole-and-basket with both hands, like a longsword. A woman shrieked. The rest of the people were frozen. Then two ushers rushed over, and John took a wide swing at them. There were several dodges and lunges. Then the madman was subdued. From behind the altar, as he watched them drag John away down the aisle, he was pretty sure he heard John say, "Yeah―this is more like it!"

The following Sunday, he stationed an usher at each church entrance. If John returned, they were to tell him that those who did not respect the other worshippers' here were not welcome. But none of the ushers saw the man. And John's face was not among those in the first few rows. He climbed into the pulpit with the familiar sense of peace.

But he didn't even make it through the scripture reading. A loud slam silenced him and he jerked up to see the front doors flying open and John lunging through. The man was surprisingly fast. And completely naked. Streaking up the aisle, John wailed, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return!" Then the nude man was standing up front, by the altar, with eyes closed and both arms raised. "Blessed be the name of the Lord!"

He could take no more. He shouted from his perch in the pulpit, his angry voice booming through the church. "A God of peace, not confusion!"

John opened his eyes. Looked at him. Then smiled serenely and spread both arms wide. "Who's more at peace than this?"

As John strode towards the door, none of the ushers tried to grab the naked man. And no one made a sound. So even from way up in the pulpit he heard John say to a woman in the last row, "The kingdom of God has come near to you!" And with a laugh, the fool was gone.

"in our name"?

2011-11-07T08:40:00.003-06:00

Another discussion comment I want to remember, replying to the idea of "violence done in our name"...

I've heard that often an important part of gang initiation is committing some violent or criminal act. The initiate has to do it to be fully accepted. I suppose the reasoning is that once the new person engages in violence or crime with the gang, then they also are implicated and as guilty as the rest, and so are more closely bound, and less likely to resist or turn in other gang members in future occasions of violence. If any are guilty than all are guilty. They are one in a bond of violence.

Your words about complicity in state violence reminded me that more "legitimate" gangs use the same tactics as well. I always remembered Chesterton's description of it:

...In self-governing countries [the] coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy...

But is that true of each of us, simply because we happened to be born into a democracy? I think that's what those in power want us to believe, that their violence is our violence, that we are all guilty together. They want us to participate in the political system, even to try to change it, because then when they win, again, "fair and square," they can say they are our legitimate representatives, that their actions and their violence are ours. That if any are guilty then we are all guilty together.

This seems to me to be quite a vicious lie. One that seems to be accepted, though, without question by almost everyone (since we have all been indoctrinated into the myth of "democracy"?). I've made an effort to help free my friends of such a guilt-inducing ideology of complicity, by which you can be implicated in violence by the mere fact of your birth (or the color of your skin). And there's no possible way out.

That's not what Jesus taught or showed us. He showed us that there is real freedom, and that we can be nonviolent without hypocrisy (even as a male in a patriarchal society). Please don't believe the lies of unintentional complicity. And don't let it condemn you and turn you from the uncompromising path of nonviolence that Jesus showed us.

2011-11-05T10:19:00.004-05:00

the fire will test

2011-11-03T15:18:00.000-05:00

From Sunday's sharing time here...

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it.

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Cor 3.10-15)

demonic powers (bwaa ha ha!)

2011-11-02T14:48:00.000-05:00

Another comment from the discussion on my corporations article (following up this comment):

Yes, I do believe there are demonic powers, real evil spiritual entities (not created by people). And I do think they manifest themselves through our modern corporate idols, just as they did through the idols of biblical times. But that doesn't change anything I said above. Humanly built states and corporations are not spiritual entities any more than the little blocks of wood were spiritual entities: "They have eyes but they cannot see, ears but they cannot hear...." These idols are useful, though (to the demonic powers) in confusing people. They seem to substitute for God, claiming to be higher Powers we can depend on, that will provide for us, protect us, etc. Thus God hates them, hates the lies they are. (And God didn't tell us to try to "redeem" demonic powers either, but wholly reject them.)

My main critique is that the "power of the people" fighting against corporations does not really fight against this lie, but only proposes a different form of the same lie. "The corporation is not God... 'We, the People' is God!"

I think this is seen especially in the fact that uprisings and revolutions almost always soon result in a consolidation of power and domination just like that of the oppressors they threw off. The distribution of power is only temporary at best. If the power is "of the people," coming from the combined might of organized people, then the temptation will always be to consolidate and attempt to throw off our dependence on God. The tower of Babel story forever repeated.

I don't see primitivism offering any help against this (and I don't hear any helpful evidence from anyone who's actually tried to live that way). Neither do I see activist groups and movements avoiding the consolidation of power. Quite the opposite. They need to consolidate all the power they can in order to affect any real change in the system, so compromises are made, groups merge, politicians are brought on board, voters are mustered, money is raised, and the power of the people is seen in action. It's not enough to avoid the anthem. It's the actual power we use that matters, the nature of it, how it tempts and corrupts us.

The only real alternative I see is the one Jesus offered. Reject the power of the people and stay poor and humanly weak, that the power of God may appear in and through us more perfectly. It's quite a different power. It purifies rather than corrupts. It humbles rather than causing pride. And it is never controlled by us, but is always God's alone.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

2011-10-31T06:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the WWI Flying Ace escaping across the French countryside (for Heather),
from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

"we don't need them"?

2011-10-30T11:29:00.005-05:00

Another discussion comment to add to the article:

Okay here's an example relating to one of the core concerns of the Occupy movement. This isn't about what to do on Wall Street, because I honestly think that's not the place to go for answers to these problems. But I think this is directly relevant. I just read an article about the Oakland protests, and one of the organizers (who was threatening to "shut down the city") said, "The only thing they seem to care about is money and they don't understand that it's our money they need. We don't need them, they need us.''

That sounds good, but is it true? "We don't need them"? There was an article here on JR recently that confessed and lamented a dependence on products from the corporations. But even before we can decide what products to buy, where is our money coming from? I would bet a large portion of the protesters (and those reading this as well) get their income from corporations, large and small. And even those who do not now have jobs seem to think hope lies in the actions of government and the financiers of Wall Street. "Where's my bailout?" So, really, we don't need them?

Starting our own small businesses (being our own "job producers") isn't much of an answer either. I live on a small farm with a community that runs several cottage industries, and it's hard for them. You have to compete in the business world. And that means also competing with bigger businesses. But more importantly, you have to compete in the capitalist system, which means playing by the rules of capitalism that so many at OWS seem to hate (I do too). I've seen what running your own business can do to people. I try to encourage my friends to get out.

So what might "God's power" look like in this difficult situation? It wouldn't look like competing with corporations, or demanding anything from businessmen or politicians. Those are the struggles of human power. Struggles that Jesus didn't seem to engage in, though he also had needs for food and shelter and clothing. So what did God's power look like in his life, economically? Pretty much like this:

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. ...if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?

"Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well.

"Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."

That may sound idealistic, but Jesus lived it. He showed what a life like that looked like, and it wasn't one of abject poverty. Because our Father is generous. At the Passover, Jesus asked his disciples, "When I sent you out with no purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" They answered, "Nothing."

Now that's a life where we don't need the money of corporations, or government bailouts, or anything from the rich and (humanly) powerful. Because, though we remain weak and poor, God's power is far more than sufficient to provide everything we need, and much more.

Maybe this example seems too far in the past, though, so I'll just say a bit about my own experience trying to follow Jesus' example in this. I've lived for years without a job, doing only volunteer work and living on gifts given in various ways. I'm married now, living and working in a rural community, with food and income coming from a variety of sources, all gifts. No car or medical insurance, but those needs also have been met by gifts when they arise. And we very rarely even have to ask. Like Jesus said, "Your Father knows your needs." Our income is way below the poverty line, but we feel very generously provided for, and I think anyone who visited us would think so as well.

I suppose that's quite enough. There's more info here, if you're interested. But the journey this far has shown me quite clearly how God's miraculous power makes human power (even organized mass human efforts) seem like nothing in comparison.

they exist only on paper

2011-10-29T12:44:00.000-05:00

There's been some good little discussion about the article at Jesus Radicals. Here's one of my responses that I think adds to the article:

It sounds like you believe that "legal entities" have actual existence, that they're real things. People have real existence, their labor and the things they produce are real, buildings are real, but "legal entities" exist only on paper, and in the minds of those people who create them and enforce them and obey them.

The OWS protesters (and the movie makers) are right to object to a corporation being seen as a "person." Because that is a lie. Persons are created by God and honored by God; a "legal entity" is a creation in the minds of human beings only, and is infinitely less than a real person. A corporation has no soul to save.

I'm glad you mention Walter Wink's work; I almost included his theories in the article. I agree he has been quite influential in convincing people that corporations and other institutions are spiritual realities, "powers," with a real existence distinct from the people that make them up. But this also is false. Corporations are quite clearly created by human beings, and human beings cannot create real, living spiritual entities (only "legal entities"). Wink's institutional "powers" are certainly believed in by people, and treated as real, but only in the same way that people have always created false gods, idols that have no actual existence (except as a piece of wood or stone).

I think Wink's critiques in the Powers series are very good. But his theology of corporate entities (that can be redeemed) perpetuates and legitimizes the lie that corporations and states would have you believe, that they are real things, mighty entities, even spiritual entities. What Wink's theology does is keep us from completely rejecting the false and corrupting power of our human institutions and keep us committed to them, trying to "redeem" them. How convenient for the institutions. I'm not at all surprised that message was so well received and popular in our society.

There is real power in corporations and other human institutions, but it is just the power of organized human beings working together. A limited power, easily twisted and very tempting. The power of Babel. The power of "We, the People." But Jesus shows us that we can avoid the temptation of that power and instead wield the unlimited, incorruptible power of God.

the power of corporations... (part 3)

2011-10-28T08:06:00.000-05:00

Continuing "The Power of Corporations is the Power of the People":

When the religious leaders asked Jesus by what authority he cast the money changers out of the temple, he replied with a question of his own. “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” The leaders argued, worried about the possible reaction of the people, thus revealing that their power was “from men,” the power of the people that depends on the support of the people. They finally answered diplomatically, “We don't know.” And Jesus responded, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” If all they cared about was the power of the people, they would not recognize the source of Jesus' authority.

The authority and power that Jesus demonstrated came not “from men” but from God. It wasn't the power of gathered, organized people. It was the power that calmed storms and created bread and raised the dead, by the word of a single man, power greater than any mass of human beings can produce. This is also a power that cannot be abused. A power than cannot be used for anything but the will of God, since it is God's work, not ours, that produces its results. Thus it also does not tempt those who use it (or are used by it), because it cannot be bent to our will. God's power is and always remains, God's alone.

Jesus avoided using the power of the people, to more clearly demonstrate the power that can truly set us free, the power of God. So also should we, his followers, shun the power of the people, the power of the corporation and the state, but also the power of the union and the political activist, the power of the mass movement, the power of the crowd. And instead demonstrate a truly different power. The power that cannot be corrupted or corrupt us. The power that cannot make us dominators. The power before which no other can stand. The power not of the people, but of God.

the power of corporations... (part 2)

2011-10-27T06:51:00.000-05:00

Continuing "The Power of Corporations is the Power of the People":

It seems that what the makers of The Corporation and the OWS protesters are promoting is not a different power, but a redistribution of power. They want the power to be in different hands, more hands. Such a transfer of power is certainly possible. The power of the people has been transferred from the few to the many often throughout history, often after popular uprisings. It has been shifted from the aristocrats to the political parties of the noblemen, and even to the political parties of the “commoner” many times. The power has been shifted from business owners to unions of workers. Through demonstrations and voting, organized people have shifted power out of the hands of kings and CEOs and bankers and owners time and time again.

Yet the power of the people keeps ending up back in the hands of those who dominate. How is that? Why is that?

It's because “the power of the people” is precisely that: the power that comes from people. The power that people can give, that people can muster, the power of their work and their wealth. And people, as we all know from first hand experience, are quite malleable. They can be convinced in any number of ways to contribute their work and wealth, and that convincing doesn't have to be honest or upright to be effective. As we see throughout history, people can be quite effectively organized through deception or threats. The power of the people is available to whoever can gather it, to whoever can get enough people to cooperate or obey, for as long as they can keep that cooperation. That's always been quite tantalizing to those who wish to dominate, and overwhelmingly tempting to whoever has access to that malleable power. The power of the people can be used to dominate because it is the power of human beings, and human beings can be used by other human beings. And if it can be used to dominate, there will always be people who will use it to dominate.

What we need is not “the power of the people” fighting against the power of the corporations, for those powers come from the same source, and always end up looking almost indistinguishable. What we need is a power that is not “of the people.” A power that does not come from malleable people, a power that is not available to whoever can take it, a power that cannot be used to dominate. This is the only power that can truly oppose the power of corporations and nations and every human power.

Continued...

the power of corporations is the power of the people

2011-10-26T16:13:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking of writing up something for Jesus Radicals, and started it today. Probably called, "The Power of Corporations is the Power of the People." Here's the beginning:

“I learned, at that time, a very important lesson,
that one should never underestimate the power of the people.”
(from The Corporation)

In the news recently there have been images of large crowds of people, shouting at the financial towers that line Wall Street. The people, “the 99%,” have showed up to demand an end of the overwhelming influence of corporations in our political system, and the vast majority of wealth being controlled by the few at the top. It reminded me of the excellent documentary The Corporation, based on a book by the same name by Joel Bakan. It offers an in-depth analysis of the rising power of the corporation, and the nature of the beast (a legal “person,” yet with “no soul to save and no body to incarcerate”). But the movie concludes with a strong message of hope, perhaps the same message often heard among the Occupy protesters in cities across the country: “The people, united, will never be defeated.”

As the movie's theme music fades, however, and the shouts recede, I ask myself what is this “power of the people”? The power of united people, organized people, many hands working together, combining their resources and their ideas and their labor? But isn't that the same power that the corporations wield?

Aren't corporations basically large numbers of people, organized around a common purpose to produce impressive results, demonstrating the considerable power of “the people, united”?

Certainly, many of the means used by corporations to organize people and effectively utilize their resources and labor are far from fair or democratic. Workers are lured by needed wages, customers are convinced to give their money through the appeal of low prices (often at the expense of quality), and both are made more dependent on corporations by the intentional elimination of better alternatives. According to capitalist theory, corporate suppliers are supposed to be driven by the demands of the market, the demand of free consumers. But in our modern society, too often powerful corporations can manufacture demand for the product they want to sell, and influence economic forces to keep workers too dependent to make any demands. This power, when used in this way to dominate, is clearly seen to be an evil power. Yet is it not still the power of many hands working together, organized, the “power of the people”?

Continued...

pre-occupy

2011-10-22T13:14:00.000-05:00

Reading about the "Occupy Wall Street" protests going on right now, and the comparisons and contrasts with the Tea Party protests, I remembered this clip from the Daily Show. OWS is also having a little trouble focusing their message...

two coins

2011-10-17T12:32:00.000-05:00

Another really good retreat experience this past weekend, with a family this time. We used the story of the widow's mite again (I'm sure we'll use this one many times). Heather wrote such a good back story for it; our guests really liked it. Here's a piece:

God gave me a good life. Oh, you could say it was a bad one, people do say that; what do they know? I'm alive, not dead. I still have joy, in a cup of cold water, in the face of a young man. I have something to give to God, even if they say it's nothing. My husband is dead, and of my two daughters one died in childbirth and the other ran away. And yes, it hurts. It always has and it always will. God hurts, too. It doesn't help to have gold or stars or incense, I think, when you have children who've run away, who are living their own nightmares and still will not come home.

I wanted to give him something. I wanted to give him something, to tell him thank you, to tell him I know, to say please, please do all you can for my Johanna and I know you love her too. And this is all I have, and he knows that; if he allows it I should be getting a little more next week, but until then I don't know what I'll eat, and he knows that too. It was the only way I could do it. I tried and tried to save a little up, but I couldn't. So I had to, I had to do this for him. He'll take care of me, I thought. He's taken care of widows before.

But now I don't know. Now I feel ashamed. The temple shines with gold in the sun and I have come to give him two pennies. Two pennies, as if they were worth something. As if I was doing something important, as if me and my sweat-stained dress were something God wanted to see. What will they use my two pennies for, in this temple? To buy a rag to wipe the floors with? What will people think of me, seeing me drop them in the offering box?

The beautiful lady in her silk dress is still ahead of me, walking slowly between her servants under the colonnade, gracefully. She turns aside a little, to avoid a group of dusty men listening to some kind of teacher. They lean in, all eyes on him; his face is hard and angry as I pass by, and I hear him saying “they eat up widow's houses and then they pray long prayers in front of everyone—”

(The whole story can be found here: "Two Coins")

salsa fresca

2011-10-13T20:11:00.000-05:00

As the growing season comes to an end, we're enjoying fresh salsa a few more times while we can. Salsa fresca, also known as pico de gallo (beak of the rooster), was a revelation to me. The reason the salsa tasted so much better in Mexico is because it was fresh, not cooked like all the canned salsas we're used to. I tried it last summer and since then there's no going back.

Here's a recipe close to what I usually do. Lemon juice can substitute for the lime juice if you don't have any. And red pepper flakes fill in nicely if there's no jalapeños around. I haven't tried adding cumin, but I think I will.

I serve it at retreats, too, like the one this weekend. The guests are almost always surprised and really like it.

the corporation

2011-10-10T13:39:00.003-05:00

"A corporation has no soul to save and no body to incarcerate."

That's a line from this very interesting, in-depth documentary, The Corporation. It immediately reminded me of something I've said before about institutions, which include corporations, states, and all other kinds of humanly-created organizations: "Institutions are not persons, they have no soul. They cannot love."

Once the movie starts, there's is a little gray box you can click to select the different chapters.
(The pop-up ads are a bit ironic. I'd think companies wouldn't want to be popping up there...)

"the secular prophet"

2011-10-08T11:45:00.000-05:00

From a very insightful article about Steve Jobs' recent death, by Andy Crouch (in the Wall Street Journal):

Steve Jobs was extraordinary in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (demanding and occasionally ruthless) leader. But his most singular quality was his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple's early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and turned it into a sign of promise and progress.

That bitten apple was just one of Steve Jobs's many touches of genius, capturing the promise of technology in a single glance. The philosopher Albert Borgmann has observed that technology promises to relieve us of the burden of being merely human, of being finite creatures in a harsh and unyielding world. The biblical story of the Fall pronounced a curse upon human work—"cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." All technology implicitly promises to reverse the curse, easing the burden of creaturely existence. And technology is most celebrated when it is most invisible—when the machinery is completely hidden, combining godlike effortlessness with blissful ignorance about the mechanisms that deliver our disburdened lives.

...Politically, militarily, economically, the decade was defined by disappointment after disappointment—but technologically, it was defined by a series of elegantly produced events in which Steve Jobs, commanding more attention and publicity each time, strode on stage with a miracle in his pocket.

Steve Jobs was the evangelist of this particular kind of progress—and he was the perfect evangelist because he had no competing source of hope. He believed so sincerely in the "magical, revolutionary" promise of Apple precisely because he believed in no higher power. In his celebrated Stanford commencement address (which is itself an elegant, excellent model of the genre), he spoke frankly about his initial cancer diagnosis in 2003. It's worth pondering what Jobs did, and didn't, say:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

...Mr. Jobs's final leave of absence was announced this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, as it happened, Mr. Jobs died on the same day as one of Dr. King's companions, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, one of the last living co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Dr. King, too, had had a close encounter with his own mortality when he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a book signing in 1958. He told that story a decade later to a rally on the night of April 3, 1968, and then turned, with unsettling foresight, to the possibility of his own early death. His words, at the beginning, could easily have been a part of Steve Jobs's commencement address:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now."

But here Dr. King, the civic and religious leader, turned a corner that Mr. Jobs never did. "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

Is it possible to live a good, full, human life without that kind of hope? Steve Jobs would have said yes in a heartbeat. A convert to Zen Buddhism, he was convinced as anyone could be that this life is all there is. He hoped to put a "ding in the universe" by his own genius and vision in this life alone—and who can deny that he did?

But the rest of us, as grateful as we are for his legacy, still have to decide whether technology's promise is enough to take us to the promised land.

flocks

2011-10-02T10:08:00.002-05:00

I've been noticing the autumn flocking of birds (though not as spectacular as this, which looks like one of the Danish gatherings of starlings, called sort sol, or "black sun"). The movement is fascinating.

Much of it seems to be the simple behavior of each bird maintaining a certain proximity to those around it. But there's also a freedom or randomness of individual motion that sets off the unique patterns. I wonder why they do it. Flocking has clear benefits, but why the occasional mass displays like this?

organize?

2011-09-28T09:29:00.000-05:00

real alternatives

2011-09-25T15:49:00.000-05:00

A recent discussion comment...

It is helpful to point to the various real people throughout history who demonstrated some of the anarchistic aspects of following Jesus. But maybe even more helpful to demonstrate those aspect ourselves, showing how they can be lived in our time and place (or even simply that they can be lived here and now). Real, concrete, and practical examples are crucial. That's what we see in Jesus.

Anarchists, while often offering good critiques and well thought-out analyses, have often been weak in providing real, practical alternatives (from what I've seen, at least). The anarcho-primitivists are just the most recent and obvious example of this. Thus anarchists so often come across as merely critics, just throwing ideological bricks (if not real ones) at the real attempts others are making. Even if the critique is accurate, it's not much help if no concrete alternatives are offered, or if the proposed alternatives are not possible for people to live here and now.

Even if Jesus' teachings seem impossible to live by in this world, he showed it was possible (with a little divine intervention perhaps). That kind of lived example can really give people hope. It's hard for others to say it's not possible if we're doing it. And it's hard for others to say it's against God, if God seems to be supporting it in our lives, and our lives are beautiful.

2011-09-21T07:37:00.001-05:00

a satisfying resolution

2011-09-18T15:26:00.000-05:00

I attended our church here this morning, the first time in over a year. My extended absence had been weighing heavy on me lately. And I finally decided that I shouldn't wait any longer for changes that didn't seem to be coming, that what I was standing against was not the worshiping people of God but the poor leadership and exercise of communal power by the organization, and so what I should do is come back to worship and at the same time give up my membership in the church organization. I'll keep on visiting another nearby church, and also meeting with our little worship group, and probably spend some Sunday mornings by the creek. But I'll worship here again sometimes, too.

This feels like a satisfying resolution for the church struggles over the past couple years, and I feel like I'm in a better place now than I was when it began. The membership issue has been hard, as I recalled a week ago. I still wonder if I consented in order to fit in better initially. I know I've worried a bit about giving up membership, about whether it will be a problem for others now that I have no official connection here. Hopefully I've demonstrated by now that I'm committed to stay and help out in lots of real ways that people can depend on, member or not. But I feel much better having our connection based on lived experience together, and perhaps our shared membership in the one Body, rather than some frail and untrustworthy human organization.

Two things I think are important here: taking a clear stand in contrast with the status quo, and being present. Too often we feel pressured to choose one or another. Take a stand and leave, or compromise so we can stay and fit in. But Jesus showed us how to do both together.

I hope my choice of giving up membership can be seen as a way of laying down power, giving up rights. Putting myself at more risk. Because that's what is necessary to overcome the bondage of fear and be able to act in the freedom of love. And that's the path to new life, here or anywhere.

2011-09-12T15:44:00.001-05:00

I made jam for the first time today. Raspberry, from berries we picked yesterday. Too bad a picture can't capture the aroma of the steaming jam being poured into the jars.

We dribbled the last bit over a couple brownies. Raspberries on warm brownies are amazing.

a difficult journey

2011-09-10T10:16:00.000-05:00

I've been looking back over some journal entries from the past three years relating to my struggle with church membership...

Tomorrow Heather and I are going to "become members" of the church here. I've been a bit conflicted about it...

To make things as clear as possible, however (and perhaps make myself feel a little better), I'm making a few adjustments. In the commitments, instead of being asked, "Do you commit to...", we'll be asked, "Are you committed to...." To emphasize that we are not becoming members of the church, the body of Christ, tomorrow morning; we have been members of the body for some time. (3.15.08)

When Heather and I became official members back in March I had hesitations, but decided I was satisfied with the membership commitments. I still am, mostly. But the one about church decision-making has caused problems for me since then, bringing back all my objections to institutional membership. Finally I've decided I have to ask to be let off that one (though I should say that I don't think decision-making is worse here than in other churches; it's probably better).

My biggest disappointment is that I may have overlooked this before because church membership seemed necessary for us to be able to do the retreat work here. I might have overlooked the problem because I didn't want to see it, or was afraid of the consequences. (9.13.08)

[From a letter written to the church:]
For a number of years I've been troubled by how churches appear to operate so much like other human organizations, when the church, the body of Christ, is supposed to be so unique. Jesus seemed to offer so much to his followers when he gave the Holy Spirit. He promised we could always be connected to him like branches to the vine, and that he would unite us all as one and guide us all by the one Spirit. This seems very different from any human organization, since it offers what no amount of human effort or ingenuity could ever produce.

In my experience, churches seem most like other human organizations when they are gathered for church councils or members meetings. This is when I have seen most clearly the dependence on authority structures and the struggles to influence and make use of the power of the group. (Decision-making by vote is perhaps the clearest exercise of this power.) Fears of group power often appear then also. And these times of group decision-making seem to be when the temptation is greatest to follow and trust the will of the people, rather than the will of God.

When Jesus invited us into the kingdom of God, I believe he was offering us an experience of common life incredibly better than any human organization can accomplish. God himself would be our father and master, leading us not by any hierarchy but directly, through his Spirit within each of us, and not by group pressure but by our free acceptance of the Spirit's prompting. We could be parts of Jesus' own body, with him as head. This means we could experience a unity beyond our ability to achieve, and a power working through us much greater than “the power of the people,” the power of our organized groups. I believe this also means that we are not responsible to manage this common life that Jesus offered. We do not set the policy for this group or determine its membership or make the decisions that guide its course. We are not in charge of it. The weight of oversight and decision-making does not rest on us. In this family of God none of us are the parents, we are all the children. All that is asked of us is to obey our Father, trust in his care and oversight, and enjoy the miraculous common life that he gives us as a gift. (9.13.08)

I eventually realized that, whether or not the organization is much like the actual body of Christ, we ourselves can live as the actual body of Christ (the body he alone offers to us). And so experience all that Jesus promised for his followers. That is much more important than trying to get everyone else to live up to that ideal, especially when they don't seem to want to. (1.31.09)

I think I've been moving in the right direction here for a while, towards the margins, towards simple service and away from governance and positions of control. But I've felt conflicted about not attending the church lately. And when I think of the other options, other churches around here, I don't see them as much better in the areas that troubled me so much in this church. What to do? I don't want to reject them all, but neither do I want to affirm them wholeheartedly. Did Jesus show the way to respond to this situation, to the various religious establishments that certainly include many of God's people, but are also human organizations rebellious against God?

My most satisfying church experiences may have been when I was on the road, visiting different churches regularly. A perpetual visitor. And now that I think of it, that seems like what Jesus was, a perpetual visitor in the synagogues of his time. He didn't reject them, though he did challenge their ways (and got thrown out of at least one for telling of God's displeasure with them), but Jesus insisted that the most important thing was not where we worship but that we worship in spirit and truth. (Jn 4.19-24) He also compared that Spirit of truth to the wind that blows where it wills—not where people want it to. I'm thinking that I'd like to try to be a perpetual visitor, in several churches near here. Ready to worship with all of them, standing with God's people in all of them, but also a question mark, holding back from fully identifying with that institutional group. Because the organization is not the Spirit, and that's obvious in so many ways.

I find myself feeling much more satisfied with that as a long term response, even if I do eventually join worship here in the community again (every once in a while). It brings back thoughts on church membership from years ago: "I am a brother to all who are also part of Christ. I will recognize them, not by their official affiliation, but by their Christlike lives." (8.22.10)

I hope others can do the same.

2011-09-07T08:37:00.001-05:00

Lots of driving today, for my weekly vegetable delivery to Chicago...

for labor day

2011-09-04T13:28:00.000-05:00

Come to me, all ye heavy laden,
all ye weary from the road.
Rest your head upon my shoulder
and let me take your load.
For see, my yoke is easy,
my burden very light,
as the sunlight on the meadow,
as the south wind in the night.

Leave behind your anxious labor,
follow me, I will care for you.
For the name of my yoke is freedom
and all my words are true.
Oh leave behind your money,
your glory, let it pass,
as the rain upon the river,
as the dew upon the grass.

Come and drink of my still waters,
without money, without gold.
Of the light in my green valley
no tongue has ever told.
Oh turn and be like children
where my children's laughter runs free,
as the stream upon the mountain,
as the wind upon the sea.

That's a song Heather wrote, to the tune of the Irish folk song "Down by the Sally Gardens." And for a fuller commentary on Jesus' words, there's this: "Come to me, all ye who labor for a living"

"the Lord is not slow"

2011-09-03T09:07:00.003-05:00

"Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2 Pt 3.8-9)

I noticed these lines this morning. They reminded me of what I was saying before about bearing the tension: "In most cases, it takes people a long time to learn a hard truth. When we just make our objection and go, we relieve ourselves (and others) of discomfort, but we don't give much time for anything to actually sink in." Understanding that, I think, also helps us understand why God sometimes seems to take such a long time to respond, to bring justice, to fulfill his promises. He doesn't wish that any should be crushed, but that all should reach repentance.

So, Peter says, "count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation." Not the quickest salvation, but the most complete salvation, if we have the faith to wait for it.

the prophetic

2011-08-30T17:16:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking again about the prophetic. What it is to be prophetic. Maybe I'll try to put it together into a coherent whole eventually, but I just wanted to jot down a few notes. I've written about it before, in past years. Most of my thoughts have to do with the misinterpretation of the prophetic in recent years, confusing it with activism (Christian activists really like to claim the term).

One thing is that the prophets tended to speak alone, not in a crowd. Speaking boldly, but from a position of vulnerability. Speaking with the voice of God, not the voice of the people. And that's the biggest thing, that the prophet spoke for God. They weren't kicking off a social campaign against injustice, they were announcing God's judgment and prophesying what God would do. If God didn't actually make it happen, then they were shown to be false prophets. But it always depended on God, the initiative, the words (or actions), and the actualizing of the words. The prophet himself remained weak and often marginalized by the people. But God's power was evident through the prophetic words.

So the key aspect of the prophetic is not boldness or critique or the imaginative use of props. It's a deep awareness of what God is saying and doing.

plow creek

2011-08-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

Some pictures from the creek, where I pray some Sunday mornings. I think I'll bring these to our worship group tonight.

surprise

2011-08-23T09:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we threw a surprise birthday party for Heather (her first ever!). I made French bread and bruschetta, and a peach pie and blueberry pie, with berries we just picked.

And I also found some old pictures to make into a little slideshow. Here's the first one, a favorite of mine.

bearing the tension

2011-08-19T17:08:00.003-05:00

Over the years I've tended to favor some sort of conscientious objection when the group I'm a part of seems to be headed in the wrong direction. It probably started from my Navy experience. But I've found a similar refusal to cooperate or participate has often seemed like the best response when the majority of the group doesn't listen to my objections. It doesn't try to force them to relent. It just says I object enough to not want to be a part of what they are doing. And it leaves it for God to bring out the truth in the end.

One aspect of a conscientious objection, though, is tension between the objector and the majority of the group. That's hard to bear for long, in my experience. In that situation the tendency is to find a way to relieve the tension, either by leaving the group, or by somehow pressing the issue to a crisis, so that the group has to give in or expel the objector. Either way, the tension ends.

I can understand why people choose these tension relievers, and I've done it myself at times. It's very unsettling to be at odds with the community of people around us. But our inability to remain at tension usually leads to breaks in the community, and those usually do not benefit anyone very much. In most cases, it takes people a long time to learn a hard truth. When we just make our objection and go, we relieve ourselves (and others) of discomfort, but we don't give much time for anything to actually sink in.

So I think it's really important, not just to have the courage to conscientiously object, but to have the greater courage and patience to object and stay. To stay involved. To find other ways of showing we care, and that our relationships are about more than whatever we may be disagreeing about. To give people the time they need. To bear the tension until God relieves it, not by breaking but by mending.

2011-08-17T08:35:00.002-05:00

a little problem

2011-08-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

Things are finally settling back to normal around here. And I wanted to take the time to recall the little excitement we had just before the retreat a couple weeks ago.

We had been preparing all the week before, Heather had written a new story for the retreat, and we were very eager since it was our first retreat this summer. It genuinely felt like an opportunity again to have a group come out. And it had taken so long for us to come up with a date that worked for them, we were just grateful that they were finally coming.

The staff in Chicago had done a good job of arranging it on their end. The guys were signed up, even an extra in case someone dropped out at the last minute (as often happens). They had planned a lunch together, an extra incentive to show up, and would leave right after with plenty of time to get started before rush hour traffic. A good plan.

But at around 12:30 we got a phone call. A little problem. None of the guys had shown up for lunch.

The staff had managed to reach a couple of they guys who had signed up. One was in Indiana. But he thought he could get back in time for them to pick him up on the way here. One or two others had decided not to go. The others couldn't be reached. They would try to find a few others to come, but if they couldn't find at least three they would have to cancel the trip. They just wanted to let us know they might not be able to make it.

A big disappointment pressed in on us. Heather suggested that they would probably try again later if it fell through this time, but I wasn't so sure. We did some hard praying. I just couldn't believe it would be cancelled. A few weeks before, I had gotten to the point of begging God for a sign to keep up hope, and that same day they confirmed their date and then another woman called and asked to come for a personal retreat. I couldn't believe it would end up being a false hope. So we kept up with our final preparations and prayed.

It was a long hour and a half.

Then the phone rang again. I picked it up and was told that it looked like they had found enough guys to come. "God provides," he told me.

We actually ended up with a full retreat group, one of the best groups we've had. They had fun together and there was lots of music and laughing and everyone engaged and shared and made our time together good. Two of the guys had been with us before, it was great to see them again. And they all seemed eager to come again. We hope they do, soon.

Though maybe with a bit less pre-retreat drama next time.

the paths we walk

2011-08-09T21:18:00.000-05:00

Another song from the weekend gathering, this one by Heather and Katie, who sang it during communion. The lyrics of the first verse are changed a little from this early recording by Katie:

"The Paths We Walk"

We were not strong
We were not wise
We looked on your light and we closed our eyes
When for your love
Dying alone
You broke us and healed us and made us your own

Though the paths we walk may be dark indeed
Though the paths we walk may be dark
We trust you, we know you Lord

You hear our cry
You hear our call
When the storm is so raging and we are so small
The only reason
Our souls still stand
Is the wine and the bread we've been fed by your hands

In that dark valley
You know so well
You shielded us from the powers of hell
We have wept at the touch
Of death's hand in the night
We have danced at the dawning of your holy light

We wait for you
We wait for you
We wait for you and we will rise

be still, God'll fight your battle

2011-08-06T10:17:00.004-05:00

We're in the middle of the Shalom Mission Communities camp meeting here on the farm. Yesterday for worship, Heather's aunt Helen led this great "old time camp meeting" song (here sung by Rev. Timothy Fleming; it's his song I believe):

"one little clink, and then another"

2011-08-02T20:00:00.001-05:00

The retreat this past weekend went very well. One of our best experiences, I think. I'll write more about it when things quiet down a little around here, but here's the dramatic reading Heather wrote to get us into the story of the widow's two coins:

I have walked two miles today, and nowI am at the Temple. The house of God, the glorious place, where Iwill do what I have got to do.

But now I stand looking at it, thewhite marble pillars, the engraved gold on their tops, and I seem toshrink into myself. I'm sweating. It's so hot. The beautiful ladywalking ahead of me, with the gold woven into her veil, she has aservant with her, fanning her with a huge fan. I have my old browndress, and my sweat, and the two pennies clenched in my hand. Ifollow her in through the high gates, watch the heads turn towardher. Their eyes slide quickly over me, they don't see me, and whyshould they? People don't like to look at ugly things. Not here inthe Temple, where everything is beautiful, to honor God. Not herewhere you can hear the choirs singing, even from out in thecourtyard, the music rising like incense—incense and marble andgold, gleaming in the sunlight, what am I doing here? What did I everthink God wanted with me and my rough hands and my old clothes and myugly face? What did I ever think God wanted with my two pennies, himthat has marble and gold? I should turn around. I should turn and gohome. But I can't face it, the walk. Home under the beating sun, fornothing. I swore I would do this. I made a vow to God. You're notsupposed to break that. Even if you offered God something he didn'twant. You promised. That's all.

I promised. I go on.

God has everything. He made everything,all of it is his. Things more beautiful than gold or pillars—thethousands of stars in the night sky, the red poppies with theirpetals softer than the silk that woman ahead of me wears. Water. Isthere anything as beautiful as running water, the way it gleams likelive silver in the sun? A man gave me a cup of water on the wayhere—a water-carrier with two heavy buckets he'd probably carriedfor a mile, I knew he couldn't afford to be giving it away, but hedid, and smiled and called me “mother” for respect. I nevertasted anything so good. I tried to give him one of my coins—thoughI could hardly stand to let it go—but he wouldn't let me. Such akind young man, such openness in his face, it made me wish that myJohanna were still with me. A man like that, that was what sheneeded. Johanna. I pray for her every day, and every day I wonder.Where she is. If she's all right.

God gave me a good life. Oh, you couldsay it was a bad one, people do say that; what do they know? I'malive, not dead. I still have joy, in a cup of cold water, in theface of a young man. I have something to give to God, even if theysay it's nothing. My husband is dead, and of my two daughters onedied in childbirth and the other ran away. And yes, it hurts. Italways has and it always will. God hurts, too. It doesn't help tohave gold or stars or incense, I think, when you have children who'verun away, who are living their own nightmares and still will not comehome.

I wanted to give him something. Iwanted to give him something, to tell him thank you, to tell him Iknow, to say please, please do all you can for my Johanna and I knowyou love her too. And this is all I have, and he knows that; if heallows it I should be getting a little more next week, but until thenI don't know what I'll eat, and he knows that too. It was the onlyway I could do it. I tried and tried to save a little up, but Icouldn't. So I had to, I had to do this for him. He'll take care ofme, I thought. He's taken care of widows before.

But now I don't know. Now I feelashamed. The temple shines with gold in the sun and I have come togive him two pennies. Two pennies, as if they were worth something.As if I was doing something important, as if me and my sweat-staineddress were something God wanted to see. What will they use my twopennies for, in this temple? To buy a rag to wipe the floors with?What will people think of me, seeing me drop them in the offeringbox?

The beautiful lady in her silk dress isstill ahead of me, walking slowly between her servants under thecolonnade, gracefully. She turns aside a little, to avoid a group ofdusty men listening to some kind of teacher. They lean in, all eyeson him; his face is hard and angry as I pass by, and I hear himsaying “they eat up widow's houses and then they pray long prayersin front of everyone—”

And I stop for a moment; for a moment Iturn back towards them, because I am amazed. Because yes, they do.Because Simon, the man who now owns the house I birthed my babies in,he does, he prays long prayers in the synagogue and everyone thinkshe is holy, and when I went to the judge to say that Simon cheatedme the judge yawned and looked away. Because why should he listen?Simon is somebody and I am nobody. Nobody at all. And this teacher inthe temple, how does he know?

As I pause, as I look back at theteacher, he raises his eyes and meets mine. He sees me. His faceisn't hard, for a moment, it's like that young man's, the one whogave me water. But sadder. Tireder. Like he knows the weight of it,like me. And for that moment he sees me.

It's only a moment. One of the othermen opens his mouth to say something, and I turn away, hoping theydidn't see me, hoping they didn't see their teacher staring at anugly old woman, and her staring back. I go on. The beautiful lady isthere, a few steps ahead, at my destination. The offering box. She isuntying a purse from her belt; it's heavy. Other people are watchingher too. She tips it into the slot, holding it by the bottom; I hearthe heavy ring of the coins falling in, I see the glint of gold.Someone near me gasps. “All of it!” I hear someone murmur ablessing. I stand there, not moving, hoping no one sees me.

I am nobody. Nobody.

I stand there for a minute, trembling alittle, as one by one the well-dressed people put their money in.Silver, gold. I am nobody. I am ashamed.

But I promised.

I step forward, still shaking. There isno one by the offering box now, no one to shoulder me aside, this ismy chance. Oh God, take what I give, you know it can't be more. Youknow I would if I could. Oh God, have mercy on me, have mercy on myJohanna. I hear the tiny clink of my little copper coin falling onthe silver and gold in the box; one little clink, and then another,and my hands are empty. I have nothing left to give.

I turn away, quickly, hoping no onesaw.

2011-07-26T17:32:00.001-05:00

I used this for a birthday card a few days ago...

"more than all those"

2011-07-22T17:11:00.000-05:00

I stopped by Emmaus Ministries this week, to meet some more of the guys and maybe make it easier for them to feel comfortable coming on a retreat with us. They're planning to bring a group next weekend.

Heather and I are excited to be planning a retreat again. We're thinking of focusing on this little story for the weekend:

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.

And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. Jesus called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury."

"For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living." (Mk 12.41-44)

"permission to lead"?

2011-07-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

In a recent discussion, someone spoke of leaders needing to be "given permission to lead" by the community. That so clearly points to the reality that such leaders derive their position and authority in the group from the people themselves (as do leaders in all other human organizations). It reminded me of something I wrote when similar discussions were going on over three years ago:

It seems to me that voting someone into office directly reflects the understanding that the power and authority of a leader derives from the strength of the people. In our church meeting, someone even said that: "The elders have authority because we have chosen them." This is the basis of every human authority and power (it's a little different if the leader is appointed by someone in a higher office, but even then the whole authority structure depends on the people accepting it, participating in it, submitting to it—if they don't, there's no power there). Jesus was not chosen, not "empowered," in this way. Neither was Paul. And the earliest church didn't have an official authority structure by which leaders were chosen and their leadership enforced. Paul had to keep writing and preaching and offering his strong example to keep the Christians in the various churches following his teaching; and it's clear from some of his letters that not everyone saw his word as authoritative. But, like Jesus, he didn't have an office to appeal to, he just had to keep speaking the truth to them. With both of them, it was always clear that God (not some group of people) had chosen and empowered them.

Because of the reality of God empowering those he chooses to lead his people, there doesn't seem to be the need for granting them any human authority or backing up their decisions with human force. As I said before, Jesus led without these. And he taught his disciples not to rule over each other, that they had one Father and they were all brothers and sisters. When someone has been given special abilities or wisdom from God, we naturally follow them as "authorities" because we see they have what is good, what is from God. There is no need of human force to make us obey. If we choose not to obey, then our efforts flounder or fail and we suffer the consequences of our foolishness. God backs up the authority of those who he has chosen.

So, in the church at least, it seems to me that we should set aside human authority, offices of power, and the enforcement of leadership decisions through force or threats of force (social ostracism being also a form of force, by cutting people off from the support they need to survive). Set aside the human power that causes resentments and dissension, and tempts leaders to abuses. From situation to situation, let each one lead according to their gifts and abilities from God. Seek out those gifts in ourselves in others, because we need them as a church.

If God calls us, we don't need anyone else's permission.

against the flow

2011-07-17T14:47:00.003-05:00

Click to view it on Matt's blog (larger size available there)

Here's a sketch by our friend Matt that I'd like to see him share at our worship time tonight. It's of a little piece of Plow Creek. Drawn on pages in a daily planner.

What I found especially interesting is that the flow of the water is from the lower right to the upper left. Against the progression of days. Or maybe it's our daily planning that's going against the flow...

2011-07-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

"for him it is sin"

2011-07-10T13:49:00.002-05:00

"Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4.17)

I came across these words this morning. They reminded me of thoughts I'd been having over the past several months, wondering if God might expect more of us the more spiritually awake we are. Apparently so.

That shouldn't be a startling discovery, I suppose. We naturally expect more of children as they mature. And there's other similar biblical teachings, about teachers being judged more strictly, for example, and "to whom much is given, much will be required." But I guess it's one thing to accept that teaching and another to see "much will be required" actually happening. To see God's hand heavy on someone, even when that person is actually doing only what most people do, what most people seem to get away with, without God's resistance. The reality that God might actually insist on our living the truths that we have been shown, when others don't seem to be held to those same standards.

Perhaps this goes along with Jesus' harsh warnings about hypocrisy.

growing home

2011-07-07T17:05:00.004-05:00

Yesterday on my way home from Chicago I visited a small farm that provides vegetables for the Growing Home CSA (information here). It's part of an organization that helps people in various recovery programs to gain job experience working in their gardens, both in Chicago and out at their farm, about 50 miles from us. Friendly, interesting people there. It would be great if our farm could get some ideas from the things they are doing. They may also have some suggestions for people to contact and offer retreats. A pleasant discovery.

ol' glory

2011-07-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Ol' Glory (by the psalters)

The killing fields are striped with red, white lies in between
While on a placid blue they float like islands safe from all they sowed beneath
High above that poor man's toil they lay in sacred isolation
Safely placed in rows they are stars of self-preservation

And on good Friday, (and all that glory,) and on good Friday...

In that corner sea serene fifty stars line up against you
Flying high but they will sink with the weight of a heavy millstone

No man is an island, no one can run from all they've done
In that deep blue they'll sink, fifty stars never to see the sun

And on good Friday those red stripes are carved into your back
And on good Friday those stars spangled your body blue and black
And on good Friday the stars and stripes were torn in two
And all that glory, all that ol' glory belongs alone to You

another way

2011-07-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

One way we can show we are passionate about something is by pursuing it actively and relentlessly, pushing harder and harder until we achieve it.

Another way to demonstrate our passion is by holding on to our desire for something and waiting for it without wavering, though it take a long, long time and though it may look like we will never receive what we seek.

"the concealed war of nature"

2011-06-29T08:38:00.001-05:00

From a discussion about the widespread suffering of animals in nature, and what this might say about God:

I may be misunderstanding Darwin, but he seems to suggest that some good has come as a result of the "death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war of nature." And isn't that one of the tenets of evolutionary theory, that attacks and stresses on a species causes it to either become stronger or die out, with the result being "survival of the fittest," or a more highly evolved collection of species?

Your line about the "flourishing of the individual" makes me wonder. We humans think in terms of the individual and try to understand suffering in terms of the potential good of the individual sufferer. But doesn't this come from our beliefs about human beings, the eternal soul perhaps, the enduring identity and value of each individual? It seems to me that the rest of the natural world seems to operate more in terms of the value and preservation of the species, more like the flourishing of the whole rather than the flourishing of the individual. Isn't that what we have seen in our study of the natural world?

From that perspective, "bad things" happening in nature provide stresses on species that cause them to strengthen, evolve, or be displaced from ecosystems. Isn't this a good, for the whole?

As a parallel, I see it somewhat similarly to suffering in humans that is potentially a refining process. The stress or attack offers the opportunity for our strengthening or growth or purification, and of course we know of many people who claim that their endurance of great suffering contributed to their exemplary character and virtues. This isn't always the outcome of suffering, but doesn't it at least admit the possibility that suffering provides the occasion (perhaps even the necessary occasion) for our evolving into "higher animals"?

bounty

2011-06-26T09:30:00.003-05:00

The strawberry season is just about over, but we managed to gather these the other day. I made a strawberry rhubarb pie with some of them yesterday, just like Mom used to make (since it was her recipe). Really good.

A delicious homemade pie, made from fresh (and free) fruit, can do wonders for your outlook on life...

for example

2011-06-24T11:18:00.001-05:00

From one of the conversations I mentioned yesterday:

There's a big difference between being crucified and crucifying ourselves through endless work and burnout.

What about this?
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I don't quite see why you'd blame burnout on Jesus. I don't see him telling us "work, work, there's always more to do." That's the activist message, the message of "work as if it all depends on you." That's not Jesus' message. I think if we're actually (in humility) following what Jesus is asking of us, and not our own sense of what has to happen now, then we'll soon find his promise of rest and light burdens true. Persecutions, yes, but not the self-persecution of the endless "there's always more I can do."

That's not a criticism but hopefully an alternative to "pure exhaustion." Hopefully good news for many of us here.

...I do think offering a good example to others is often better than anything we can give to them or do for them. The primary "thing" Jesus offered was found in the words "follow me." But if the example we are setting is a life of endless work and exhaustion, I don't think that's the life of the kingdom of God that Jesus was inviting the poor into (who already have a life of endless work and exhaustion).

In Jesus' life, God did the heavy lifting. Jesus mostly just spoke a word.

opening the door a little wider?

2011-06-23T18:01:00.003-05:00

A couple recent conversations has we wondering if we should offer retreats to tired staff who work with the poor. As I heard some of their frustrations, and some bitterness, I did feel real compassion for what they're dealing with. And I can identify with some of the struggles, from our difficult days at the Catholic Worker. Maybe that's where the compassion comes from.

We actually have had staff come a number of times, and those retreats went well. But the idea was always to provide a one-time introduction so that they could send groups from their ministries in the future. I'd still want to focus on the retreats directly for the poor, but right now we could offer staff retreats and still have plenty of time for the few groups that have been coming so far. I suppose, indirectly, retreats for tired staff workers could also be a help for the people they serve.

I guess my main concern is that we might be straying from the vision that we started with. I reread the essay we wrote about what we were hoping to do here. Maybe one of the feelings I had that wasn't written there was that I was tired of challenging and critiquing people. I wanted to "proclaim good news to the poor." I wanted to focus on the anawim, and encourage them and reaffirm their importance to God. I still do. And I've been happy with the retreats we've had, and the opportunity to focus on Jesus' good news.

I'm sure, especially among workers in ministries to the poor, tired workers, I'll encounter the spirit of the anawim as well. That kind of work can really teach humility. But I know there's also a certain heroism among ministry workers that can get in the way, and the hardships of the work isn't always enough to break that down. I've heard people working with the poor that end up blaming God (even talking about "putting God on trial") because of the terrible things they've seen happen. Their well-developed sense of justice just rebels. It's strange, that this response seems to come much more from the helpers than the ones suffering, in my experience. So there's some lashing out at God, and at anyone who holds to more "traditional" religious views like omnipotence, or providence, or "Lo, I am with you always."

I don't know how I'll respond to that. I hope I can see it for what it is, an expression of frustration and pain. Maybe, though, a few words of challenge could be helpful (even hopeful) in that situation, when the person is really trying to live what they believe.

I'd still want to give priority to retreats directly with the poor, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to at least try some staff retreats if people are interested. And if they have a good experience, they might be more willing to bring groups from their ministries.

If we're screwing up, or wandering off, I expect God will let us know.

2011-06-19T09:01:00.001-05:00

the social network

2011-06-18T11:50:00.002-05:00

We watched "The Social Network" last night, about the beginnings of Facebook. Very well done. What struck me is how the developers of Facebook were able to capitalize on human social dynamics and the desire to be included, to feel like "one of us."

One of the main ideas in the beginning was that it would be for Harvard University only. That exclusivity was a selling point. Anyone can join now. But you have to join; if you haven't joined there's very little you can access on anyone's page. And there's also the dynamic of "friending," which gives you more access when people accept you as friends. It plays on the desire to be included and accepted, drawing you into more engagement with the site. And this has made the owners of Facebook billionaires.

I think this is ultimately appealing to our deepest desire to be a part of the one Body. We make endless attempts to be included, to belong, to be "part of something greater than myself." And organizations (including communal organizations) and businesses and nations all capitalize on that desire, promising to fulfill it. Of course they never can. They always disappoint, and eventually collapse or leave us disillusioned. There's only one corporate entity that satisfies our deepest desire for connection and acceptance.

And it's not at all exclusive.

on the big rock

2011-06-16T16:01:00.003-05:00

We had a picnic lunch down by the creek today. The fluttering damselflies were pretty (and a little frisky).

in remembrance

2011-06-14T15:18:00.000-05:00

I've started putting together a short communion liturgy for our little worship group. We might try to have it as the closing each week. I'd like to start by singing the Shema in Hebrew, followed by a time of silence to consider how we've loved God and one another lately. Then close that by singing this Taize Kyrie (Lord, have mercy):

After reading about Jesus' call for us to "do this in remembrance of me," we could bless the bread and wine with the traditional Hebrew blessings (in English this time):

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe,
who brings forth bread from the earth

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine

And as a closing prayer, as we finish serving one another, play the psalters' "Agnus Dei"

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace

the test

2011-06-12T16:30:00.004-05:00

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (James 1.22)

Seeing these words this morning reminded me of something a friend said to me this week. Someone had told him that a popular theology they were interested in was "primarily a thought experiment." That didn't impress him much. "If it's not practical, I have no interest," he told me.

I agree that theology or beliefs that cannot be put into practice aren't worth much. Except perhaps to distract us, or give us something to do when we're bored. Actually it's the practical living of our beliefs that tests them. To see if they have any validity, any reality, outside our heads. I read a line once about a philosophy that "didn't survive the test of a man's life." That's the test that matters.

For Christians, though, I think the test may be a little different than we expect. It's not just the test of whether our theory or belief "works." Whether or not we can survive living by it, or whether we can get many others to believe the same thing with us. The test should be whether this belief and action is a work of man, or a work of God. That's what a follower of Jesus should care about. And I think it can only be discerned in practice, in doing.

The work of God makes itself known in that it glorifies God's power, not our own. "My power is made perfect in weakness." This may appear in a life that seems miraculous, like Jesus' life was. This also means that it does not depend on our own strength, which actually takes the pressure and weight off us (unlike so many human-driven ministries that drive their workers into the ground). And the work of God is often not immediately successful; Jesus showed us on the cross that God's work usually takes us by the path of darkest failure. But God's work is always vindicated and successful in the end. The same cannot be said for the work of man.

But we don't find any of this out until we put aside our thought experiments and become doers.

2011-06-07T09:31:00.002-05:00

"despising the shame"

2011-06-05T14:47:00.000-05:00

One thing I'd add to yesterday's thoughts (from two years ago), about the importance of being able to be a "nobody," unnoticed, unappreciated. It's that I think we need to learn that in order to be able to wait for God's answer, God's saving act. Because if we're not able to be that low, that humbled, then we won't be able to wait without taking things into our own hands. Or despairing. Or compromising.

I read in Hebrews this morning about Jesus enduring the cross, "despising the shame." He needed to be able to do this to experience God's powerful saving act. But it's the shame that drives me crazy. Not only as a terrifying blow to my ego; it also feels like I'm failing God somehow. I'm trying to be this example of faith, showing what happens when you really trust God—and look what's happening! Like I'm letting God down by failing.

If we're going to be able to get through this, we have to learn to be failures in the eyes of others, unimpressive, nobodies. And then the salvation, the vindication, can be all God.

being reminded again

2011-06-04T08:59:00.001-05:00

I found this in a journal entry from two years ago; it's almost exactly what I've been thinking again this past week (I even recalled the Bloy quote):

Lately I've been discovering that I've had my own sense of greatness that may also be misguided and not a real possibility for most. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Leon Bloy's famous quote comes to mind (I quoted it journaling five years ago): "Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig." I'm not exactly sure what he meant by "hero," but it brings to mind people who perform great feats, reformers, prophets, recognized "saints." Admirable, inspiring people. I've felt like one of those people at times in my life, but I find I'm feeling less and less like that now. And I wonder if that makes me a pig. Then I think of talking with the poor people who might come on retreats here and wonder if I really expect them to become heroes of the faith. I still do believe that Jesus announced good news to the poor (the anawim, who look to God in their need) that they are favored by God, chosen by God, his people, through whom God reveals himself to the world. That sounds to me like they are great in Jesus' eyes. But is this greatness the heroism I've been describing? Martyrs? Reformers? Prophets?

These words of Jesus come to mind:

"Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Mt 11.11)

John is perhaps the epitome of the "spiritual hero": prophet, ascetic, martyr, all in one. Yet Jesus says the "least in the kingdom" is greater than John...

I can't help but think that this "least" must include the "nobodies" of the kingdom of God. And the "least of these" described later in Matthew (25.31-46). The faithful poor, sick, strangers, not known for any great feats. Greater than John the Baptist.

It takes me back to my belief that the main concern of Jesus, and the most important thing in life, is faith, our complete dependence on God in all things. I think living by faith has indeed resulted in great feats that we admire. But it is not always so, and there is much in the life of faith that is not recognized as great feats. Even in the life of Jesus, where we see so many miracles and amazing words and actions, that was only the last few years of his life. The other thirty years—though they were still a perfect life, God on earth—they were not considered great or noticeable enough to even record.

A different understanding of greatness. A greatness that doesn't necessarily include the things we honor as spiritual heroism. The greatness of the nobodies who have God's eye and special care. The greatness of the least in the kingdom of heaven, who depend on God for everything, and are not admired or praised for it.

thirty years

2011-05-31T16:58:00.000-05:00

Being reduced to nothing
is the most powerful means we have
of uniting ourselves to Jesus
and of doing good to others.
—Charles de Foucauld

I'm being reminded of so much recently. Today I thought of Charles de Foucauld, who made such a strong impression on me years ago. I remembered him today as I was thinking of Jesus' life, how we think of him as a kind of hero, with the crowds around him, with rulers feeling threatened by him, the center of attention. Yet so much of Jesus' preaching pointed to the small and poor and weak. The nobodies, who no one pays attention to. As an example he pointed to a child. Yet we have this image of Jesus himself as a hero or celebrity.

Brother Charles reminded me that Jesus' time in the limelight was actually very short, a small part of his life as "God with us." Most of Jesus' life, maybe thirty years, seems to have gone unnoticed. Like those little ones he pointed to.

2011-05-30T08:24:00.000-05:00

"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody." (J.D. Salinger)

remembering

2011-05-28T13:49:00.001-05:00

Learning is a big part of life, but so is remembering. Lately I've found myself reminded of some important things in my life that had seemed to fade into the background. Now I'm wondering if remembering gets more important as we get older, being reminded again and again of the most important things in life.

We think of our lives as a progression and talk of progress. But so much in life is cyclic. Days, seasons, generations, over and over. I've often thought that the act of faith is really the same movement of our spirit every time, over and over, just in different (perhaps more difficult) circumstances.

One of the values of religious practices is how they can remind us of what is important. Like when Jesus gave the bread and wine and said, "Do this in remembrance of me." Every morning I pray "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart" to be reminded. And at meals, "our hope is in you Father." Worship as a time of remembering.

That's one of the best parts of keeping a journal, too. Looking back and being reminded of what God has done.

"the world upside down"

2011-05-22T13:52:00.001-05:00

This morning I was enjoying some prayer time in the woods by the creek, and I began to recognize the deeper connections between the contemplative life and the physical experience of the poor who depend on God, the anawim. I found this from an old journal entry that seems helpful in describing this connection. It's from G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi, a contemplative who also lived a life as a poor man with the poor:

If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hung the world upon nothing.

If St. Francis had seen, in one of his strange dreams, the town of Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact.

St. Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head-downwards.

It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything."

It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them; and they are in themselves the best working example of the idea. For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset. But there is more than this involved, and more indeed than is easily to be expressed in words. It is not only true that the less a man thinks of himself, the more he thinks of his good luck and of all the gifts of God.

...This sense of the great gratitude and the sublime dependence was not a phrase or even a sentiment; it is the whole point that this was the very rock of reality. It was not a fancy but a fact; rather it is true that beside it all facts are fancies. That we all depend in every detail, at every instant, as a Christian would say upon God, as even an agnostic would say, upon existence and the nature of things, is not an illusion of imagination; on the contrary, it is the fundamental fact which we cover up, as with curtains, with the illusion of ordinary life. That ordinary life is an admirable thing in itself, just as imagination is an admirable thing in itself. But it is much more the ordinary life that is made of imagination than the contemplative life.

He who has seen the whole world hanging on a hair of the mercy of God has seen the truth...

2011-05-21T12:05:00.000-05:00

a follower

2011-05-18T14:40:00.001-05:00

"Come, follow me."

One of the most important images for me to visualize the life of Jesus is a child. "You must turn and become like a child," Jesus said. I remember writing in my journal years ago about Jesus giving us a child as our example. It's an important image.

But it may be that I'm getting to that age when it's harder to make that child image work. The analogy gets more abstract, and so it feels less powerful for me. I still want to be childlike, but most of the situations I find myself in are unquestionably adult. At a certain age, people start expecting you to take over the care of things, make sure the necessary things get done. And then there's parenthood. Seeing a parent with a real child makes it very difficult to see how envisioning myself as a child will be helpful in that situation. It is true we are all children before God, it's just that the image has its limits for us older folks, I think.

As I grapple more with taking care of things (and perhaps children) as an adult, I'm feeling drawn more to the image of follower. Like the relationship between the disciples and Jesus. It's clearly an adult relationship. But it puts us in the place of humility and dependence much like the child-parent relationship. In which we are not the one in charge, not the one responsible, not the one leading the way, we are just following. And, like with the disciples, it can certainly express our love for the one we forsake everything to follow. I can see myself as an adult, responding to adult situations, as a follower. I can see myself providing care for others as a follower.

That feels good to me. What is asked of me is not to take charge, but to follow the one I love.

hear, o israel

2011-05-17T14:05:00.003-05:00

At our little "experimental worship" this past weekend, our friends liked the Gregorian chant I shared from my daily prayer. Maybe next time I'll bring this (with the Hebrew pronunciation), and some thoughts on the love of God...

the great commandment

2011-05-13T16:17:00.000-05:00

And one of them, a lawyer, asked Jesus a question, to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22.35-39)

Among "radical" type Christians, usually we hear a lot more about this second commandment than the first. These last few days I've been contemplating the love of God.

Love is the most successful answer to the question of what we live for. Loving others, loving a woman, loving our child. And I do think those are close to the heart of it, even touching God inasmuch as all true love touches God. But I find myself at times even feeling a kind of despair in my love for others. Perhaps that it is so weak and selfish. And also that it is so often disappointed, by the loss of the other, or sometimes in disillusionment, when I realize that the person is not the ideal I made them out to be. I'm sure others have been similarly disappointed in their love for me.

Love is often spoken of as a duty, or as something we do for others, and I suppose that's true. But love also is a need, not just to be loved but to love. To have a love that's worth living for (or perhaps dying for). So often we try to attach that kind of love to a person, a friend, a spouse, a child. I don't think those can ultimately fill that need, though. We do not love them well, I think, if we try to make them our reason for living.

The love of God, though. The great and first commandment. A commandment to save us from despair. Love for Jesus has been spoken of so often and so tritely that it seems almost embarrassing to mention it. And maybe mentioning it is not what's most important. But if we have truly found a love worth living for (or dying for) then it will certainly be seen in our living.

to love you

2011-05-09T13:10:00.002-05:00

Heather and I spent the weekend in the cabin to celebrate our fourth anniversary. Beautiful. I think we both really feel good about where we are together right now. And today I found this to remind me of my wedding vow to her:

jesus and the problem of privilege

2011-05-05T17:33:00.002-05:00

"Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger.
Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets." (Lk 6.24-26)

I was thinking of these words yesterday and they mingled in my head with what I've heard about social privilege. White privilege, male privilege, class privilege, etc. I've seen a lot of people struggling with the realization that they enjoy opportunities and access to things that other people are denied, poorer people, women, people of color. There's a certain guilt stirred by that. And often unsatisfactory attempts to atone for their privileges in some way, perhaps by some level of solidarity with the unprivileged. While at the same time trying to secure for the unprivileged some of the same rights and access that the privileged have (which leads to an odd tension). And because this privilege is so ingrained in the social structure, it seems even the most committed prophets against privilege usually can't suggest a personal response that makes much difference for the unprivileged in society.

But if Jesus' words of woe are true, then the problem of privilege looks completely different. Not that privilege doesn't exist; it does. Social privilege means that certain people are more honored and powerful and have access to more of what society offers, and that's certainly exists. But what Jesus seems to be saying, here and elsewhere, is that such privilege is not a good thing. That social privilege is not a benefit but a detriment. And that actually makes sense, if our values and purposes are the same of Jesus', if what we want in life is to learn to trust God completely, rather than trusting ourselves or the power of society. To be honored by a society we do not respect, to be given the power that corrupts, to be tempted with the lures that can only enslave us, these are not benefits. "For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" And so we see Jesus born among the poor in an occupied country, rejecting the power he was offered, and dying despised as a criminal. We also see his message rejected by the privileged and embraced more readily among the unprivileged. The problem of privilege, as Jesus presents it, seems to be that privilege is a serious problem for the privileged.

As Jesus suggested to the rich young man, however, there is something that the privileged can do about this. To be born into an unfortunate situation is not our fault; what matters is what we do with our unfortunate situation. And unlike the socially unprivileged who do not have the access or resources to change their situation in relation to society, the socially privileged can change theirs.

Ironically, the complaints and protests against social structures that privilege only a select few actually reinforce the belief that it is desirable to be so privileged. Jesus showed us that such favors or honors or powers should simply be avoided. If we seek to live the good life that Jesus lived, then the only way society should be lifting us up is on a cross.

wonder

2011-05-01T19:21:00.001-05:00

Our first "experimental worship" went pretty well, I thought. Heather read her Easter story; I brought a Psalters song; lots of drumming and shaking things. And lots of enthusiasm and ideas for new things to do, too. Several artsy people in the group, which should make it interesting.

At the end, someone suggested doing some nature art as a group like Andy Goldsworthy does. We watched some of a documentary about his work, called "Rivers and Tides." It definitely stirs up wonder at God's creation. Here's a sample of some of his art.

april showers

2011-04-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

from psalm 44

2011-04-27T14:50:00.001-05:00

We have heard with our ears, O God,
our fathers have told us,
what deeds you did perform in their days,
in the days of old:
You with your own hand drove out the nations,
but them you planted;
you afflicted the peoples,
but them you set free;

For not by their own sword did they win the land,
nor did their own arm give them victory;
but by your right hand, and your arm,
and the light of your countenance...

life again

2011-04-24T10:14:00.001-05:00

Heather wrote a reading for the Easter service, called "Life Again." Here's an excerpt:

You know, I am sure, what happened in Jerusalem that year. Maybe you have heard that a great prophet came to Jerusalem, and was acclaimed with hosannas and palm branches, and that the Sanhedrin and the Romans conspired against him and killed him. Maybe you have heard that a rabble-rouser came, and all the poor and landless flocked to him and hailed him as king, and something had to be done. Though maybe it should have been done more quietly. I have heard heard that some of them thought that, afterwards.

We had followed him there, from Galilee. We were the poor and landless. I had farmed another man's land ever since I was old enough to put my hand to my plow; it was my father who got into debt and had to sell our farm. No fault of his. Three bad harvests, in a row. Three years just like this one was promising to be: thirsty, dusty, empty of the new life we were hoping for so hard.

And so we lost our land, although we lived on it and farmed it still. I married; my father died; I farmed. Every year struggling hard to meet the rent; every year hoping, trying, working from dawn to sundown with hardly a pause, hoping to keep enough back so that in three years, five years, ten years we could buy it back. Every year the hopes withering a little more, even as our hopes for a child withered also. After the last harvest was all gathered in and the storms began, I would calculate how much we could keep back. And then I would calculate whether we could make the rent at all. And then I would walk out into the field, in the rain, so that my wife would not have to see me crying. I didn't go there to cry; I went to pray; but I couldn't. I could only hear in my mind a line from the prophet Jeremiah, over and over again till I wept: “The harvest is over, the summer is gone, and we are not saved.”

So when I heard of this man Jesus, I had very little to lose. Very little. That year my wife fell ill, terribly ill, till it seemed certain she would die. When Jesus came to our town I came out to him and pushed through the crowds that were around him, the people begging him to heal their sick, and when I finally reached him I begged too. He came into my house. I couldn't carry her―she was hot with fever and gasping for breath―and so he walked with me and actually came into my little house, and he put his hand on her head, and for a moment he closed his eyes, and in his face I saw such weariness. It was as if all our hopeless, grinding struggle, all the years we had worked and worked and not been saved, were on his shoulders and in his face, and I felt a stab of fear, and thought: he cannot save her...

The whole reading appears here: "Life Again"

2011-04-22T09:03:00.000-05:00

Wishing you a healthy (and funny) year—Happy birthday Emily!

"a hymn, a lesson, a revelation"

2011-04-21T14:22:00.000-05:00

That action is good
which we are able to accomplish while keeping our attention and intention
totally directed towards pure and impossible goodness,
without veiling from ourselves by any falsehood
either the attraction or the impossibility of pure goodness.

That's by Simone Weil. A bit grand sounding. But I like the insistence on reaching out for the truly good thing, even if it appears (or actually is) impossible. Never settling for the lesser evil, and calling that "the best we can do."

I've tried to get into the habit of always looking for a really good solution when a problem arises, even when it seems like there are no good options. The more difficult the circumstances, the greater the challenge to see what possible good God could have in this situation, what unexpected better result could be found if we wait and reach for it, in faith. And that's really the key, I think. Not settling for the reasonable compromise that we can hammer out, but looking in faith for the good that is impossible for us, that has to be given to us by God. So far I haven't been disappointed in my waiting.

But there often is waiting; the unforeseen good usually does not appear immediately. For example, over the past year I've gotten into a difficult situation with the church here. Not wanting to be continually (and disruptively) challenging and yet also feeling strongly that God was trying to lead in a direction that the church was resisting, I decided to go elsewhere for a while. And I've felt pretty good about the new relationships with people in other churches near here. So much so, that I think I'll keep attending other churches, even when I eventually join the worship here again. That's part of the good, I think. But I've also been less than satisfied by the worship and expression of church in these other congregations, which has left me waiting still. Wondering for months if there isn't some better answer that I'm missing.

Then recently a new friend mentioned a simple idea, his desire for church. It comes from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation." Everyone bringing something to worship, and everyone having the chance to share what they bring. In a small house gathering, like they had in the early church, that's possible. So with some friends we're going to try this. In the evening, not as an alternative to other churches, but as an addition. I still believe things will get better in the church here, but it will take time, and in the meantime it's important that people have a good experience of worshiping God together. We need that. And maybe some of our experiences will also help inspire good things in what the church is becoming.

This unexpected answer to a prayer I didn't quite know how to pray is making this a joyful Easter for me. Truly a gift. And perhaps, like with the answer to the disciples' terrible circumstances after Jesus' death, a revelation of a good much better than they could have hoped for.

what does this community look like?

2011-04-19T16:53:00.000-05:00

A conversation with some new friends about the real nature of the church (the kingdom of God) reminded me of this journal entry from years ago. I still think it's pretty accurate.

What does this community look like?

I think it looks like Jesus and his disciples. They do not have a place that is “theirs,” controlled by them, but rather live and move among the places owned and controlled by those more powerful in society. (How could they have their own property if they will not fight to possess and defend it but instead give freely?) And they are mixed in with the rest of society, allowing any who wish to be among them, so the only way you can tell who is really a part of the community is to identify who really lives like Jesus. There are not clear boundaries of the community, neither property or membership boundaries. They are a scattered few, mingled with many unlike them. But isn’t that how Jesus described his community? He said that his people, his kingdom, would not be easily identified:
“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, “Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Lk 17.20-21)
Those who followed him could surely be recognized by their likeness to him, in their faith and in their active love. But they would not be recognized as a kingdom, with no clearly defined borders and no identifiable king. Because God would be their king. God would unify them and protect them and direct them through his Spirit. And so they would appear to be leaderless, landless, undefended and unconnected (at least lacking the kind of things that connected other people), yet with a common way of living and a common allegiance different from the kingdoms in which they mingled. “In the world but not of it.” As Jesus prayed:
“I am not praying for the world but for those whom you hast given me, for they are thine… The world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one.” (Jn 17. 9, 14-15)
They are hated because they do not identify themselves with the groups in which they mingle, so they are seen as outsiders, “not one of us.” They do not fight to defend their own borders or attack the trouble-makers among them, and neither will they do so for the cities and nations of “the world.” They do not need legal or authoritarian structures to unite or preserve their (God’s) community and so will not support or enforce those structures around them. So they are seen as subversive and hated. And excluded and attacked. And they do not resist this. If they suffer pain or loss they rejoice, and if they are driven away they wipe the dust from their feet and move on.

The reason for Jesus’ community being like this is that it is the perfect way to express faith, experiencing God’s care and encouraging others to look to God with faith as well. Their willingness to embrace weakness voluntarily and joyfully stands out, because no other human group acts in this way. Jesus’ community can be weak because of their faith in God who is strong. Who does (and will continue to) unite and guide and preserve them, just as he promised.

...They are God’s pilgrim people on earth.