waiting with God

I've been working on a letter to send out, an update for those interested in the retreat work here. There's not a whole lot to report, except for the waiting. So that's what I'm writing about, which fits with the season of Advent pretty well; so far it looks like this:

O my God, in you I trust...
for you I wait all the day long. (Ps 25)


The poor wait.

I often find myself thinking about waiting during this time of year. Two years ago Heather and I were anxiously waiting to come to the farm and propose a retreat house for the poor here. Last year, we had just spent months on the road, while waiting for living space to become available that would work for retreats. This year we are waiting for ways that more retreat guests can come.

And I am reminded that the ones who wait the most are those who are lowest and weakest. They wait because they have to, because they have no other choice. Those who are proud, those who have other options, refuse to wait. The poor wait. Even in the ministries meant to serve the poor, where volunteers come to "wait on" the hungry or homeless, who are the ones that are actually standing out in line waiting?

I've struggled with the waiting we have had to do, felt oppressed by it at times. Waiting for God to provide or show the way, any way, and wondering why it is necessary to leave us in such helpless suspense.

But in our waiting I've been reminded that God also waits. Not because he has to, but because he chooses to wait. For us. For us to be ready, for us to give ourselves voluntarily, for us to consent to accept a gift as a gift. God waits for us.

So I've hoped to meet God in our waiting, to encounter God in our feelings of uncertain longing. To wait with God. I've sometimes wondered during Advent services, when we speak of our yearning for the coming Messiah, our longing for justice, our impatience for promises to be fulfilled, do we really now experience "God with us," who has already come? Are we waiting for God to show up? I hope we can learn to wait with God, while we wait for God to act. I hope we can encounter God in the waiting and gain some understanding of the reasons God delays, how his waiting is an act of patience and mercy for us and others. So we can wait more gently, and with confidence, that God will act and we will not be disappointed.

Please pray with us also for more opportunities to share this hope with the poor, with guests who come here for retreats. That their waiting not be an experience of abandonment, but a waiting with God, waiting close to God, waiting and depending on their God each day to provide for needs and show the next step. "O my God, in you I trust. For you I wait all the day long."

I noticed the Christmas specials are on already...

our darkness, part 2

The morning after I wrote that last entry, I had a hard time getting out of bed. Struggling with a feeling of despair. It may be true that we can find God in our experiences of rejection, but somehow it still left me feeling pretty depressed. I think it was recognizing that so much depends on the cooperation and help of others, and we so often let each other down. Sometimes due to our lack of love and sometimes just because we are limited and unable to do enough to meet all the needs presented to us. Facing that, it seemed like the work we are trying to do, the life we are trying to live, is hopeless. When others fail us, God may indeed be with us, feeling the frustration and disappointment along with us—but aren't we still left with failure?

I was reminded then of my belief that God's purposes, while they are often done through people, cannot be held back by people's faults or failings. Somehow God finds a way anyway. And our experience of the promised kingdom of God, while it certainly involves others and is usually given through our relationships with others, it is not dependent on them. Others can fall far short and God can still fulfill his promises to us. I don't understand how, but I do believe it.

That same afternoon, I got a note from one of the people we were waiting to hear from about a January retreat (trying one last time to still get the advent retreat group together, if a little late). And he said he could come, so we're going to do it after all. We're relieved and grateful. I had felt that this group had been an unexpected gift, and then had been so confused and disappointed when our weeks of trying seemed to fail; I really needed it not to fail completely.

I know this is such a small thing, and so many more unlikely steps have to happen before we actually have folks coming for retreats here regularly (and enough support to provide for their coming). I guess it still seems as impossible as it did that morning.

But perhaps not hopeless.

our darkness

For the last several weeks I've been struggling with feelings of confusion and darkness (due to our latest retreat attempts failing), and more recent apparent failures in relationships here have added to those feelings. I've noticed that these failures (when I thought I was doing what God wanted) have especially bothered me because they've left me feeling distant from God. Left alone. I tell myself that's not true, but I haven't been able to shake the feeling, which has scared me more.

This morning, though, I recalled my recent thoughts about finding God in grief. And I wondered if we could also encounter and unite with God in our feelings of failure and rejection. I guess I usually don't associate God with those feelings. Those feelings usually drive me to question my actions and beliefs, think that I have gone wrong somehow, or that what I am offering is of little or no worth. I have a hard time accepting that God would lead me to do something if it is just going to end in rejection or failure. But when I think of Jesus' life on earth, I imagine he experienced those feelings often. I imagine God must also often feel rejected now, though what he offers is true and good. Perhaps when we're trying to do the same thing and feel that rejection, we can actually be closer to God in that feeling, not separated from him. Our apparent darkness may be much closer to light.

Uniting with God in the middle of these feelings may also be the only way to find the energy and love to continue to be open and reach out to those who reject us. Their rejection need not make us feel worthless or cause us to reject them. Rather it could cause us to be and feel closer to the God who was rejected (and is still, again and again).

thanksgiving

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God
is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground,
and should sleep and rise night and day,
and the seed should sprout and grow,
he knows not how.

"The earth produces of itself,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle,
because the harvest has come."

Ps 36.7-9; Mk 4.26-29

"God helps those who..."

I liked that last line in the article yesterday. Once, on a walk, a woman I met on the street told me, "the bible says God helps those who help themselves." I asked her to show me where it says that.

At the time, I thought you might be able to find this message in the bible: "God helps those who help others." And perhaps that is true, to some extent. But I was thinking of that saying this morning and now I think you're more likely to find, "God helps those who cannot help themselves." (Maybe I should add, "...and look to him for help," but in any case it's much closer to the truth than the commonly used version.)

It made me think of the first of the "twelve steps": "We admitted we were powerless over our addiction...." When we realize we cannot help ourselves, we are more ready to be helped, and then it is clear that the help is a gift, and it builds our trust and dependence on God. I'm thinking of including these ideas in a teaching on the shepherds to whom the angels announced Jesus' birth. Why them? Why not someone already working for the salvation of Israel, religiously or politically?

God helps those who cannot help themselves.

"screw the meek"

Yesterday, while we were out spreading straw in the strawberry field, this old (satirical) Onion article came up in the conversation...

Vatican Rescinds 'Blessed' Status Of World's Meek

VATICAN CITY—In a historic reversal of its nearly 2,000-year-old pro-meek stance, the Catholic Church announced Tuesday that it is permanently rescinding the traditional "blessed" status of the world's meek.

"Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ once said, 'Blessed are the meek,'" said Pope John Paul II in a papal bull read before the College of Cardinals. "However, there has always been a tacit understanding between the Church and the meek that this 'blessed' status was conditional upon their inheritance of the earth, an event which seems unlikely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Our relationship, therefore, must be terminated."

"Screw the meek," the pope added.

Citing "two millennia of inaction and non-achievement" by the world's impoverished and downtrodden, the pope contended that the meek's historic inability to improve their worldly status constituted "bad faith" on their part.

"Twenty centuries should have been more than enough time for them to inherit the earth," the Supreme Pontiff said. "For years, the Catholic Church has made every effort to help them, but at some point, enough is enough. We are patient, but we are not saints."

..."Everything about the meek, from their simple garments to their quiet demeanors to their utter lack of can-do spirit, goes against Church philosophy," Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montréal said. "Sitting back and expecting the Lord to provide is not the type of behavior for which the Church should be rewarding its followers."

..."The Lord will provide, of course," the pope said. "But He also helps those who help themselves, if you know what I mean."

by feasts and prayers

It looks like we'll be having a good size group at our table for Thanksgiving dinner. Friends from here and some from Evanston, too. So I've been making arrangements with people and figuring out what we need (we'll probably get a couple young roosters from friends near here and Erin and Heather will slaughter them). Party planning is not a usual interest of mine. But somehow this has seemed more important, maybe because it's a way of building and strengthening relationships.

Next week we're also starting a new "small group" (sharing and prayer group). I've also put energy into this, though it's not the kind of thing I am naturally inclined to do, not the way I usually pray. When we first meet we'll probably discuss what we're looking for in the group and I'm not sure what I'll say. Maybe that I want to deepen our relationships. And I think this is best done on a more intimate level, in quiet conversations in living rooms, in smaller groups where each can get to know the others more completely. And in more naturally-occurring groups, where friendships have already begun to draw people together. That's how we decided who to gather in this small group.

Maybe this is my way of contributing to the health of the community here. On the low-profile level of personal relationships. I've become suspicious of organizational solutions and higher-level group decision-making, and basically dropped out of the church members meetings. I guess I think things will get better, not by the work of committees or the introduction of new structures, but by the growth of each individual and the deepening of love between them. So, rather than council meetings, feasts and prayers seem to be the way to go.

Deer burgers for us last night, from Heather's most recent roadkill recovery...

"Jesus did not come to rule, force, judge..."

We had a campfire last night with the teens and discussed the election and our participation in government. Talked a little about early Anabaptist history, how they were persecuted. And I read this passage from an Anabaptist pamphlet, written in 1528:

Those who think they possess their goods want the government to protect them. They think it necessary to use force to keep peace, to protect their own possessions and the possessions of others. In fact, all use of force comes from the possession of property. From the holding of property comes all government and force in the world. But the communities of Christ are not based on the holding of property, but on Christ.

...God only permits, he does not promote the use of worldly force. The use of force does not come from that which is good, but from that which is evil, and God only tolerates it out of necessity. God knows that if he would take the use of ungodly force out of the world, society would become totally chaotic. So, for the good of his children who must also live in the world, he lets it go.

For the sake of peace among the rebellious children of Israel, God gave the sword to Moses, to enforce his laws. Joshua, David and others were given the sword for the same reason—to keep an outward, temporary peace among unconverted men. But Christ and his followers have another calling. Christ does not bring the peace of Moses, nor an outward peace of the flesh. Rather, he calls his followers to have peace one with another and says: "I give you peace. I leave it with you, not as the world gives" (John 14)...

The Lord Most High, Christ Jesus, did not come to rule, force, judge, accuse, or have anyone accused before him. Rather he came to serve, and to allow himself to be ruled over, forced, accused, judged, condemned and mistreated. He is the mirror into which we must look if we want to see whether we resemble Christ or not. If we would do so, the question of whether we should take part in worldly government would soon be resolved!

That's quoted in Peter Hoover's The Secret of the Strength. We also talked about more recent Mennonite thought on political involvement, which they are more familiar with. But I wanted them to get a little exposure to their radical roots (which I think are much better than what we see now).