Until this afternoon, I had no idea what tertium quid means. A friend of mine who is a philosophy student at the local seminary used the term in a blog post the other day, and it's been knocking around in my brain ever since. (I have two friends in seminary, and a lot of words get thrown around these days that sail right over my head. I spend a lot of time saying, "Huh?")
So I looked it up. According to my beat-up copy of Webster's from my college days (oh, so long ago), it's a late Latin phrase that translates literally as "third something." It has two definitions: (1) something that escapes a division into two groups supposed to be exhaustive; (2) a third party of ambiguous status.
Definition #2 is a pretty good description of me these days. In most of the discussions going on in the little corner of the blogosphere I frequent, I'm a third party of ambiguous status. Definition #1 decribes my view of the sometimes not-so-cordial conversation between Christian egalitarians and complimentarians.
Hardcore complimentarians like to portray egalitarianism as a radical stance that blurs or worse, denies, the distinctions based on gender, under the influence of "radical feminists." On the other side, I've heard hardcore Egalitarians portray complimentarianism as a mask for patriarchy, a pose of those who wish to preserve their hierarchical hegemony and flat-out misogyny. While I'm certain that there is, in some extreme cases, some truth to both of these extreme portrayals, neither is particularly fair or insightful about the majority of people who subscribe to either position. When it comes to these and other opposed sets of "isms," much of the public dialogue tends to be dominated by the loudest and most radical adherents, while more thoughtful voices (they're out there) tend to get out-shouted or ignored.
Tangent: (Sorry, this is the way I think. Stuff just bubbles up. It takes me hours to sort out all the weird stuff that pops up in my mind and arrange it into nice, neat essays — one reason I haven't been blogging much lately. I'm not a linear thinker. So you'll just have to wade through it. Sorry.) In the blogging economy, the number of posts one attracts — and therefore, the level of potential influence one has — is often proportional to the author's willingness to make a statement that will elicit an emotional response. This is the systemic downside of blogging: the medium can, just like other forms of media, be ill-used and manipulated. Unlike some, however, I don't propose that we abandon the medium because some give in, unconsciously or consciously, to the temptation to become blog celebrities and/or indulge in insulting, demeaning or outright picking fights with those with whom they disagree.
Tangent II: Such has been suggested about the medium of television. Some insist that Christians should avoid watching it altogether. But I wonder if the fact that Christians by and large have avoided involvement in television production is at least partly to blame for why it's gotten so far out of hand?
Back to E vs. C: Both sides claim their positions on theological grounds, with some appeals to philosophy, sociology, psychology. That brings me to -ologies. People involved in these disciplines, people far more well-read and more intellectually disciplined in their thinking than I am, disagree. That's all I have to say about that.
Tangent III: For some, that will label me as an anti-intellectual. For the record, I'm not (not that my denial will make any difference). But I also don't believe that being an intellectual (whatever that really means) has any intrinsic value. Intellectualism all-too-easily can become (has become?) just another banner over another stall in the already overcrowded religious marketplace.
Back to E vs. C: What all this has to do with egalitarianism vs. complimentarianism is this: I think the issue is tertium quid. It's become an either/or, the opposite sides of which both subscribe to the notion that they, together, constitute the only possible options, yet the issue really cannot be contained by these positions. I've pored over the biblical record (and literature writen about it) myself and I don't see where that record clearly and unequivocally defines the roles of men and women in the home, church or society. If it did, we wouldn't be arguing about what it said (though I dare say there would still be conflict). But what that says to me, anyway, is that a position that adequately addresses the issue must address the ambiguity of the record. For some time now I've thought that I'd like there to be a third option. I'm not sure what it would be. The truly Christian stance must acknowledge the ambiguity, give up its right to define and know (which is motivated as much by our desire for control and the comfort and security that would give us) and live with the paradox, the irritatingly irresolvable tension.
I think its important to do so on this issue not only because it has assumed great importance in the church and in our society as a whole, but also because doing so might shed light on so many other issues which similarly distract us from our mission. The Bible does not clearly define where we ought to stand on a number of either/or questions. Big church vs. small church, seeker-sensitive vs. well, everybody else, liturgical vs. extempore worship. Hymnody vs. worship to popular music (and all its permutations: loud vs. soft, contemplative vs. dancing in the aisles, organs vs. guitars & drums) ... oh and let's not forget creationism vs. evolutionism ... and on and on.
Lest you think I've fallen into tertium quid-ism let me assure you there are many things I think are unequivocally clear in scripture. That Jesus is fully God and fully human. That he came to rescue us from our sorry sin-sick history, which — as the Eden story illustrates, began with our attempts to trust in our own understanding. That Jesus died to set us from from the effects of sin and death. That we are to deliver the message of this great salvation to the ends of the earth. That we are to forgive and not judge.
I suspect that our pre-occupation with either/or issues tends to distract us from that mission. While we're arguing among ourselves, the world watches us bicker and wonders why it should listen to us. Who can blame them?
The world really is watching. When do we show them that love Jesus talked about in John 14? "The world will know that you are my disciples, because you love one another."
I don't know what the third option is, the one that can contain all the E vs. C ambiguity. But that option must be shot full of agape love. Love that seeks the other's best must be its foundation, its motivation and its outcome. On that I think we can — no, if we're Christians, we must — agree. Inserting a bit of love — and the respect, consideration and humility that accompany that kind of love — into the either/or debates might be a good start toward finding third options.
But where to from there? Why not prayer? Personally, I wish I had prayed about this subject for as many hours as I've studied and thought about it over the last 30 years. I'd also suggest a mantra (horrors!). How about "I could be wrong." Repeat thrice daily, and after every strong statement.
If I was one of those well-read bloggers, I'd suggest we all take a month to pray, suspending talk, study and writing. What might happen? I'd like to think that we'd reconvene, in tears and anguish of soul, to begin a real conversation. My guess is we'd end up with a third option full of ambiguity. But if we could do so and love each other, would that not be ... better?
And then we might be able to take that love that spills over for each other and give it away to the world — which I think was the whole idea in the first place.
But I could be wrong.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Odd Thomas
Story — especially in the form of the novel and the motion picture — is a fixture in my life. I savor it like several of my friends savor their favorite concoctions at Starbuck's.
Story mirrors my life back to me, in the most unusual and arresting ways. On the pages of a well-conceived novel and in the sounds and images of a well-directed film, I often see my lights and shadows play across a canvas not my own, and as a result, find it easier to look at them, and then, as the title of this blog suggests, embrace them. I see in a particular character, and sometimes in several who populate the same artistic work, aspects of me, my personality traits, my foibles, my hidden desires, my oddities.
It was the latter that had me weeping as I read the last 50 or so pages of Odd Thomas, a book written by Dean Koontz. He writes in the Stephen King vein, but manages to do so at the cost of about half as many trees. To call this book a horror story, or even a mystery/thriller, however, is to put it in a box that can't hold it.
Odd Thomas is named for its main character, a 20-year-old man who lives in a smallish town in the Mojave Desert. Odd Thomas (that's the name on his birth certificate: someone apparently left off the "T") has a gift.
He can see the dead.
As the book opens, you learn that he also can communicate with them (though they cannot speak) and they have learned to come to him to seek justice. In fact, the book opens with Odd Thomas confronting a child molester and murderer whose crime had been hidden for years. As the man is borne away to jail, the young girl he had killed stands (unseen by others, of course) at Odd Thomas's side. Finally at peace, she waves goodbye and walks away, fading into Rest.
Odd Thomas has an unusual relationship with the town's chief-of-police, who has come to believe not only that Thomas can communicate with the spirit world, but that Thomas' vision, though not complete, is always reliable. Together, he and Odd Thomas have solved a number of crimes, and prevented an even greater number. The Chief, in fact, has become the father figure Odd Thomas never had.
Odd Thomas' gift however, is also an affliction. It is not an easy thing to see the dead. It is no comfort to know — and this, only in part — the horrors the future holds if something isn't done. He has, at best, only hints about the future, and he is not, for that reason, always able to parlay his sight into action soon enough. He suffers the pain of "if only ..." If only I had said something sooner. If only I had paid more attention to that feeling, that sense that something wasn't right.
Because of the enormity of the gift's burden, Odd Thomas has unburdened his life in most other areas, so as not to clutter up his mental and emotional landscape: He works as a fry cook, lives in a one-room apartment, does not own a car, and has never set foot outside the provincial confines of his small town life. At one pivotal point in the story, when a disaster of unprecedented proportions — one that only Odd Thomas can see coming — threatens to destroy them both, his girlfriend — the only girl he's ever had and the only other person who knows everything about his gift — suggests that they run off to Vegas and get married. He says "No." She doesn't understand this from the young man who has proposed to her regularly for several years. In Vegas, he explains — that much larger desert burg where the dark underside of life is painted with bright colors — he would be mobbed by the dead, who live tormented, caught between two worlds, in the aftermath of lives steeped in greed, lust, loss and corruption. He knows it would be too big to handle alone. He has all he can handle.
In the end, Odd Thomas acts. But not soon enough. He foils, almost single-handedly, a sinister plot by members of a secret coven of satan worshippers (including, ironically, several members of the police department) who want to make the world forget all about Charles Manson and other home-grown American terrorists. An enormous killing spree in a shopping mail is cut short, but not until the Chief has been shot and lies near dead, and 19 others die, including the girl he loved — the girl who said yes when his gift demanded that he say no.
I cried because I saw in this darkly imaginative tale a parable of the "how much more" sort that Jesus often told. Odd Thomas acted. He risked all — alone — to save many. But it wasn't quite enough. And he lost everything in doing so. But — and this is the kicker — at least he made the sacrifice.
How much more, then, should we who claim The Christ be willing to act? How much more should we be willing to make sacrifices? We also see the dead. They are all around us. Though they cannot speak, millions of unborn children cry for justice, right here in our burg. Infanticide in China is epidemic. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Millions more, born but bereft of love, warmth, light, are dying as they walk through our increasingly Godless culture, as mom and dad (if they happen to have one of each) pursue demanding careers and seek recognition, position, influence, power, money. The drop-out rate in our schools is at an all-time high. Drug use, violence, casual — in fact, almost meaningless — sex are the hellish hallmarks of a youth culture that is burdened by -- no, that worships — darkness, hopelessness and death. Outside our burg, women and children in Africa are bought and sold daily (sorry, the report of the slave trade's demise was a bit premature). Slavery flourishes. And it takes more subtle forms. Sweat shops in Asia clothe us cheap and make the rich richer. The list could go on for pages.
Unlike Odd Thomas, we are not alone. We are legion. And we have — or so we claim — the promise of help from the very God of the Universe himself. So ... when do we divest ourselves of the things that clutter our mental and emotional landscapes and truly step into the breach? Why do we need so many toys? Do we really need a bigger house, a newer car, another pair of shoes? The next cruise? And what is it about American Idol anyway? Satan no longer needs to tempt Christians to sin. In America, all the devil needs is distractions. the list here, too, could go on for pages. He only needs to blind us to the hurting people all around us. Simply create a distraction for each breach of justice that stares us right in the face.
As it is, a lot of us don't even do church anymore, we mostly just talk about it. Argue about it. Define it and redefine it. Write books about it. More distractions.
When do we be the church?
Story mirrors my life back to me, in the most unusual and arresting ways. On the pages of a well-conceived novel and in the sounds and images of a well-directed film, I often see my lights and shadows play across a canvas not my own, and as a result, find it easier to look at them, and then, as the title of this blog suggests, embrace them. I see in a particular character, and sometimes in several who populate the same artistic work, aspects of me, my personality traits, my foibles, my hidden desires, my oddities.
It was the latter that had me weeping as I read the last 50 or so pages of Odd Thomas, a book written by Dean Koontz. He writes in the Stephen King vein, but manages to do so at the cost of about half as many trees. To call this book a horror story, or even a mystery/thriller, however, is to put it in a box that can't hold it.
Odd Thomas is named for its main character, a 20-year-old man who lives in a smallish town in the Mojave Desert. Odd Thomas (that's the name on his birth certificate: someone apparently left off the "T") has a gift.
He can see the dead.
As the book opens, you learn that he also can communicate with them (though they cannot speak) and they have learned to come to him to seek justice. In fact, the book opens with Odd Thomas confronting a child molester and murderer whose crime had been hidden for years. As the man is borne away to jail, the young girl he had killed stands (unseen by others, of course) at Odd Thomas's side. Finally at peace, she waves goodbye and walks away, fading into Rest.
Odd Thomas has an unusual relationship with the town's chief-of-police, who has come to believe not only that Thomas can communicate with the spirit world, but that Thomas' vision, though not complete, is always reliable. Together, he and Odd Thomas have solved a number of crimes, and prevented an even greater number. The Chief, in fact, has become the father figure Odd Thomas never had.
Odd Thomas' gift however, is also an affliction. It is not an easy thing to see the dead. It is no comfort to know — and this, only in part — the horrors the future holds if something isn't done. He has, at best, only hints about the future, and he is not, for that reason, always able to parlay his sight into action soon enough. He suffers the pain of "if only ..." If only I had said something sooner. If only I had paid more attention to that feeling, that sense that something wasn't right.
Because of the enormity of the gift's burden, Odd Thomas has unburdened his life in most other areas, so as not to clutter up his mental and emotional landscape: He works as a fry cook, lives in a one-room apartment, does not own a car, and has never set foot outside the provincial confines of his small town life. At one pivotal point in the story, when a disaster of unprecedented proportions — one that only Odd Thomas can see coming — threatens to destroy them both, his girlfriend — the only girl he's ever had and the only other person who knows everything about his gift — suggests that they run off to Vegas and get married. He says "No." She doesn't understand this from the young man who has proposed to her regularly for several years. In Vegas, he explains — that much larger desert burg where the dark underside of life is painted with bright colors — he would be mobbed by the dead, who live tormented, caught between two worlds, in the aftermath of lives steeped in greed, lust, loss and corruption. He knows it would be too big to handle alone. He has all he can handle.
In the end, Odd Thomas acts. But not soon enough. He foils, almost single-handedly, a sinister plot by members of a secret coven of satan worshippers (including, ironically, several members of the police department) who want to make the world forget all about Charles Manson and other home-grown American terrorists. An enormous killing spree in a shopping mail is cut short, but not until the Chief has been shot and lies near dead, and 19 others die, including the girl he loved — the girl who said yes when his gift demanded that he say no.
I cried because I saw in this darkly imaginative tale a parable of the "how much more" sort that Jesus often told. Odd Thomas acted. He risked all — alone — to save many. But it wasn't quite enough. And he lost everything in doing so. But — and this is the kicker — at least he made the sacrifice.
How much more, then, should we who claim The Christ be willing to act? How much more should we be willing to make sacrifices? We also see the dead. They are all around us. Though they cannot speak, millions of unborn children cry for justice, right here in our burg. Infanticide in China is epidemic. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Millions more, born but bereft of love, warmth, light, are dying as they walk through our increasingly Godless culture, as mom and dad (if they happen to have one of each) pursue demanding careers and seek recognition, position, influence, power, money. The drop-out rate in our schools is at an all-time high. Drug use, violence, casual — in fact, almost meaningless — sex are the hellish hallmarks of a youth culture that is burdened by -- no, that worships — darkness, hopelessness and death. Outside our burg, women and children in Africa are bought and sold daily (sorry, the report of the slave trade's demise was a bit premature). Slavery flourishes. And it takes more subtle forms. Sweat shops in Asia clothe us cheap and make the rich richer. The list could go on for pages.
Unlike Odd Thomas, we are not alone. We are legion. And we have — or so we claim — the promise of help from the very God of the Universe himself. So ... when do we divest ourselves of the things that clutter our mental and emotional landscapes and truly step into the breach? Why do we need so many toys? Do we really need a bigger house, a newer car, another pair of shoes? The next cruise? And what is it about American Idol anyway? Satan no longer needs to tempt Christians to sin. In America, all the devil needs is distractions. the list here, too, could go on for pages. He only needs to blind us to the hurting people all around us. Simply create a distraction for each breach of justice that stares us right in the face.
As it is, a lot of us don't even do church anymore, we mostly just talk about it. Argue about it. Define it and redefine it. Write books about it. More distractions.
When do we be the church?
Saturday, April 15, 2006
American in Paris
I've been away from the blog for a while.
No, I haven't been in Paris for a month. But I did spend a week there at the beginning of April. April in Paris is supposed to be beautiful, but based on my time there, I wouldn't know. It was a work-related trip.
There's a big trade show that happens in Paris each year, and I was there representing my publishing firm. I worked 17 hour days, walking the show floor all day, then sitting in the hotel lobby with my Powerbook (the only spot the Wi-Fi worked) until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, connected to my office back in Colorado, trying feverishly to meet the drop-dead deadline for our magazine's May issue. Aside from a very brief dinner with our staff at a cafe a few steps down the street my first night there (from which I excused myself early because I had to get back to the hotel to work), I thereafter saw the inside of my hotel room, the inside of the hotel lobby, the inside of the subway station (steps down to it were right outside the hotel front door), the inside of the subway train, and the inside of the Paris Expo exhibit hall.
While there, I received e-mails from friends back home, asking me about the Paris riots and strikes. Apparently the U.S. press was showing riot scenes in full color on the evening news. I neither saw nor heard a single word from anyone about the riots from any Parisians while in Paris. If it hadn't been for the e-mails, I might have passed the week without ever knowing that just a mile or so away, Parisians and the Paris police were doing battle. (Sorta says something about the way the media tend to shape our view of reality.)
I did get a glimpse of something else, however. The run up to the Paris trip, the trip itself, and its aftermath has provided a sort of squeaky-hinge turning point for my life. "Squeaky hinge" in the old black-and-white "B" movie sense of scary foreboding.
In the two weeks prior to the trip, I was the object of several prophecies, the substance of which was that I have for some time lived a sort of hermetic life, a life apart, a sort of monkish existence, but that time has drawn to a close. Paris was a sort of pinnacle point of that life — a sign — isolated and preoccupied by my work, unaware of either the delights or the riots in the fabled City of Lights. The last night I was there, I had the latest in a string of tornado dreams, which for me have always prophetically preceded periods of significant personal change that always involve what I guess you could call profound deconstruction. Last time around, six years ago, I had a series of six or seven dreams, during each of which I observed a single tornado. I lost my home, my job and my family. The recent dreams involved two and, in the Paris dream, six or seven tornados. Naturally, I'm a little nervous. I'm still waiting to see where all of this goes, which explains, at least in part, my prolonged absence from the blog.
But as I entered Holy Week, at least one thing of significance crystallized. Yesterday, is the day we now call Good Friday, the day that at the time seemed like the End, but actually proved to be the Beginning. The day that we — oh yes, I think most of us eventually must admit that we'd have been in that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" or at least slinking away in fear while it was done — condemned him to the cross. Tomorrow, we celebrate the day that Jesus walked away — alive forever — from Joseph of Arimethea's tomb, having defeated both sin and death.
I think The Church often misses the ultimate significance of that act, and gets lost in the details. For many years, I certainly have. But in that two-part act, Jesus became the Hinge of History. Prior to the cross, Jesus proclaimed the last days of God's dealing with a "special" group. His sayings, parables, teachings and healings progressively dismantled the idea of "ins" and "outs." Anyone willing to read the Gospel accounts guilelessly, in humility, can't miss it. The folks he was speaking to certainly didn't miss it: Jesus rebukes were not for "sinners" but primarily for those who presumed to draw the lines that separate sinners from God — always placing themselves safely on the God side of the line. Jesus crossed the line, and took a stance squarely on the other side, with the sinners — those whom he explicitly stated he was there to save. That's why they crucified him.
On Easter, Jesus greeted first Mary of Magdala — he didn't greet a man and certainly not one of the religious elite of the time, but a woman of questionable reputation, one the religious folks of the time would have placed far over on the wrong side of the line. Why Mary? I think the answer is simple. First, he loved her and she had returned his love. But second, how better to underscore his point?
During that three-day period, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, Jesus became the Door to the Eternal and proclaimed the Eternal Yes of God. And woe upon woe to us, the naysayers, the blind judges, the self-appointed dividers of sheep and goats — a group among whom I still, to my great dismay, so often find myself numbered.
As long as we attempt to be our own yes, by saying no to others, by continuing to insist that lines be drawn, we remain whitewashed tombs.
But Jesus left the tomb. If we chose to remain there, examining the empty grave clothes, then we cannot partake of His resurrection life. What possible hope is there for us?
Only to admit that we belong, with Mary of Magdala, on the wrong side of the line, stuck fast in the kingdom of darkness. We must admit it, because — hallelujah! Glory!! — Jesus is there with us, able to turn even our deepest darkness to incomparable Light.
No, I haven't been in Paris for a month. But I did spend a week there at the beginning of April. April in Paris is supposed to be beautiful, but based on my time there, I wouldn't know. It was a work-related trip.
There's a big trade show that happens in Paris each year, and I was there representing my publishing firm. I worked 17 hour days, walking the show floor all day, then sitting in the hotel lobby with my Powerbook (the only spot the Wi-Fi worked) until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, connected to my office back in Colorado, trying feverishly to meet the drop-dead deadline for our magazine's May issue. Aside from a very brief dinner with our staff at a cafe a few steps down the street my first night there (from which I excused myself early because I had to get back to the hotel to work), I thereafter saw the inside of my hotel room, the inside of the hotel lobby, the inside of the subway station (steps down to it were right outside the hotel front door), the inside of the subway train, and the inside of the Paris Expo exhibit hall.
While there, I received e-mails from friends back home, asking me about the Paris riots and strikes. Apparently the U.S. press was showing riot scenes in full color on the evening news. I neither saw nor heard a single word from anyone about the riots from any Parisians while in Paris. If it hadn't been for the e-mails, I might have passed the week without ever knowing that just a mile or so away, Parisians and the Paris police were doing battle. (Sorta says something about the way the media tend to shape our view of reality.)
I did get a glimpse of something else, however. The run up to the Paris trip, the trip itself, and its aftermath has provided a sort of squeaky-hinge turning point for my life. "Squeaky hinge" in the old black-and-white "B" movie sense of scary foreboding.
In the two weeks prior to the trip, I was the object of several prophecies, the substance of which was that I have for some time lived a sort of hermetic life, a life apart, a sort of monkish existence, but that time has drawn to a close. Paris was a sort of pinnacle point of that life — a sign — isolated and preoccupied by my work, unaware of either the delights or the riots in the fabled City of Lights. The last night I was there, I had the latest in a string of tornado dreams, which for me have always prophetically preceded periods of significant personal change that always involve what I guess you could call profound deconstruction. Last time around, six years ago, I had a series of six or seven dreams, during each of which I observed a single tornado. I lost my home, my job and my family. The recent dreams involved two and, in the Paris dream, six or seven tornados. Naturally, I'm a little nervous. I'm still waiting to see where all of this goes, which explains, at least in part, my prolonged absence from the blog.
But as I entered Holy Week, at least one thing of significance crystallized. Yesterday, is the day we now call Good Friday, the day that at the time seemed like the End, but actually proved to be the Beginning. The day that we — oh yes, I think most of us eventually must admit that we'd have been in that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" or at least slinking away in fear while it was done — condemned him to the cross. Tomorrow, we celebrate the day that Jesus walked away — alive forever — from Joseph of Arimethea's tomb, having defeated both sin and death.
I think The Church often misses the ultimate significance of that act, and gets lost in the details. For many years, I certainly have. But in that two-part act, Jesus became the Hinge of History. Prior to the cross, Jesus proclaimed the last days of God's dealing with a "special" group. His sayings, parables, teachings and healings progressively dismantled the idea of "ins" and "outs." Anyone willing to read the Gospel accounts guilelessly, in humility, can't miss it. The folks he was speaking to certainly didn't miss it: Jesus rebukes were not for "sinners" but primarily for those who presumed to draw the lines that separate sinners from God — always placing themselves safely on the God side of the line. Jesus crossed the line, and took a stance squarely on the other side, with the sinners — those whom he explicitly stated he was there to save. That's why they crucified him.
On Easter, Jesus greeted first Mary of Magdala — he didn't greet a man and certainly not one of the religious elite of the time, but a woman of questionable reputation, one the religious folks of the time would have placed far over on the wrong side of the line. Why Mary? I think the answer is simple. First, he loved her and she had returned his love. But second, how better to underscore his point?
During that three-day period, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, Jesus became the Door to the Eternal and proclaimed the Eternal Yes of God. And woe upon woe to us, the naysayers, the blind judges, the self-appointed dividers of sheep and goats — a group among whom I still, to my great dismay, so often find myself numbered.
As long as we attempt to be our own yes, by saying no to others, by continuing to insist that lines be drawn, we remain whitewashed tombs.
But Jesus left the tomb. If we chose to remain there, examining the empty grave clothes, then we cannot partake of His resurrection life. What possible hope is there for us?
Only to admit that we belong, with Mary of Magdala, on the wrong side of the line, stuck fast in the kingdom of darkness. We must admit it, because — hallelujah! Glory!! — Jesus is there with us, able to turn even our deepest darkness to incomparable Light.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
The Most Important Thing I Know about the Gospel, I Learned from Bill
I promised that in my "next post," I'd elaborate on the three needs churches need to hear and respond to. ("Pick me up. Don't drop me. Get me to my destination.") And I will. But I need to take an out-of-the-way excursion first. Hopefully, you'll bear with me, and it'll all make some sort of sense when I'm done.
I do some of my best thinking when I'm cleaning. Can't explain that, but that's the way it happens for me. Not to say that my best thinking is necessarily all that good, but only that its the best I do, when I do it. Anyway, I was scrubbing congealed cheese off last night's dinner plates this morning, and had a couple of thoughts that helped convince me, again, of the importance of "hearing" The Three. I had just finished reading 20 or so comments that were posted in response to a blog, which was, in turn, written in response to a recent postmodernist's book, which I haven't read.
Several of the folks who commented were students of or, in some cases, teachers or practitioners of philosophy or psychology. The majority seemed committed to the proposition that God was "knowable" by rational processes. Others weren't so sure it was that simple, but certainly affirmed that rational thought was the apex or linchpin of the thing. What struck me about the discussion was that the group quickly left the critique of the postmodernist's book and entered into a series of quibbles with one another about the accuracy or inaccuracy of each others' statements, logic, observations, etc. The discussion lapsed into sarcasm a couple of times, resulting in offenses taken and apologies offered followed by "what I meant was ...." Interesting.
There is a strain within Western Christianity that has elevated The Rational as the best means (for a few, the only means) to "know" the truth of the Gospel. At one time, I was quite enamored of this idea. I enjoyed the give and take of it, watching these brilliant thinkers construct their arguments. I was no match for them, of course, so as a young Christian, I sat at their feet for some time. I really got into the evolution/creation debate. And the atheist/theist thing, of course. The fact that few of these Christian philosophers were in agreement was something I ignored for a while. (I had taken a philosophy class in college (just one) where I was presented with a number of different "schools" of philosophy. So I knew the "godless" guys didn't agree on much. Some of them had "thought" themselves to a point where they weren't sure "knowledge" was even possible!)
While the good folks who constructed these rational Christian systems for me had the best of motives -- to give me a rational platform for certainty in my faith (who wouldn't want that?) and a sound apologetic, with which to convince my neighbor. But I have to confess that it is this group of rationalists, and not any postmodern writing, that first brought me to doubt the efficacy of The Rational -- primarily because I've spent years observing the kind of discourse I witnessed at the blog I was visiting today.
I was talking to my ex-wife the other day, and we were discussing the whole postmodern phenomenon, and she remarked how ironic it was that postmodern thinkers are saying things we had thought and discussed privately 20 years ago. While I don't agree with the postmodern conclusion -- that we, in fact, can't get at truth with a capital "T" -- I certainly think the questions they are asking deserve honest evaluation, and I agree with them that the rationalist approach to the Gospel leaves a lot to be desired.
Why question the rationalist approach? Besides the fact that rationalists (just like the rest of us) often fail to come to the same conclusions, I think we must do so on pragmatic grounds: First, I can count on the fingers of one hand, (and have a couple of fingers left over) the people I know who can track mentally with the philosophical discussion I was reading this morning. I can just barely follow it myself, after all these years. (For instance, early on, someone used the term ad hominem. Gulp, I thought. No clue. Someone later in the discussion actually made a stab at a definition for the term. But I was still not sure I understood it.) That doesn't make philosophical inquiry wrong. I'm still convinced that rational thought is valuable and useful. But my point is that because so few of us (you know, the cab drivers, fry cooks, waiters, art teachers, auto mechanics and all the regular folks who make up the real world we actually live in) can track with it, it has little practical value in terms of saving souls.
Second, and most important: I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough that, given enough time and some very patient teachers, I might be able to grasp most of what these philosophically inclined folks are saying. but truth is, I don't have time for it. I got a job. I got kids. Okay? But even if I did have the time and actually did get it, so what? Bill couldn't.
I met Bill at the height of my fascination with evangelical rationalism. Bill lived in a Group Home. He came to our church's College and Career Group meetings on Sunday afternoons -- although he wasn't likely to go to college or ever have a career. One Sunday, he was in my small group, and we were sharing around the circle in good "small group" fashion, the challenges that we were facing that week, so we could all pray for God's help to meet them. When it got to Bill, he said in his rather hesitant, halting way, that his challenge was getting his laundry done. Turns out it was a rather daunting, complex job, one the group home folks were after him to master and one he didn't like to face. As we prayed around the circle later for the expressed needs, his prayer, after a rather long, painful pause, was "Thank you, Jesus."
Thought was excruciatingly difficult for Bill. He was no philosopher. But he knew he couldn't get through this life by himself. He knew he needed help. And he knew, somehow,that Jesus loved him. Is that not the whole of the gospel? Over the course of a year, God used Bill to put to death forever The Rationalist in me.
You know what I think? Jesus never intended for our knowledge of Him to come through our own effort (rational or otherwise). When I read the Bible, I see story after story of God revealing Himself to people (from brilliant Apostles who has studied at the feet of the great Gamaliel to prostitutes and insane men who lived in graveyards) who would otherwise never get it. We must try to remember that the brilliant Paul had NO CLUE until Jesus Himself confronted him on the road to Damascus. And I don't recall Jesus sitting down with him and sharing a nice rational/logical proof. He knocked him off his horse and said, "Why are you kicking against the goads?"
The goads, of course, from God's Spirit.
I Cor. was written to a group of people who were in danger of exalting the Mind. The brilliant speaker Apollos was wowing them. Paul argues that, though he could probably match Apollos, brain for brain, educational pedigree for educational pedigree, he came rather in lowly humility, preaching, yes, but "not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power." In Chapter 2, Paul goes on at length about the fact that God has "chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise." In Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, Paul exalts not rational thought but faith, hope and love, with the greatest being love. He says that if I have all knowledge ...." but not love, "I am nothing." (And by knowledge, there, he meant not only human knowledge but that superior knowledge revealed by God, as well). He did not say (and I don't mean this sarcastically, please understand) that Love is rational. Or that Love is logical. Or that love delights in wrecking the godless -- and sometimes the godly -- opposition with a well-argued philosophical proof. He says instead that love is kind. Love is patient. Love is not rude. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Love never gives up. Love never fails. (All things Bill could grasp after a fashion, and seek to live out.)
Since God used Bill to knock me off my horse 30 years ago, I have come very slowly to appreciate The Story as one in which God's people are not primarily philosophers, but doers of loving deeds. I'm ashamed to think how long its taken. Before I finally gave up and bowed to God on the subject, the Rationalist in me became very angry with God at one point. "Why didn't you just write a decent Rule Book," I shouted, "instead of giving me this ... mess." Yes, I actually said that. Out loud. Afterward it dawned on me, by what I can only describe as a gracious bit of special revelation, that maybe the Bible's "mess" of difficult-to-decipher polemic, poetry, narrative, proverb and song indicated something about the nature of the message and the mission that it described. The Gospel, I began to suspect, was less about Propositional Truth than it was about a Real Relationship. We can wish all we want that the Bible is a science text, but it defies us. We can talk all day about the Bible as the Answer Book, but why, then, do we so deeply disagree about so many, many things? We are left to ponder God as both Knowable Father and Profound Mystery. If we're honest, we admit that's a very uncomfortable place to be. But I believe that it is exactly where God intended for us to be. We're left to consider the possibility that the Bible we have was not written to give us fodder wiht which to construct systematic theologies, but a wild, wooly, variegated, paradoxical epic, with a cast of thousands, that getts at the truth of the Gospel from a myriad of angles, leaving much for us to puzzle over on our knees before His Throne. Spiritual things, which, said Paul, are spiritually discerned.
Perhaps that's why Jesus did not say, "The world will know that you are my disciples when you can out-argue them in philosophical debate." Rather, he said, "the world will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." And that brings me to The Three.
About the same time I met Bill W., a guest speaker came to our College and Career Group. I wish I could remember his name. I'd like to find him and thank him. He's the one who came up with The Three. He prefaced his relatively short talk with the story of his own coming to faith in Christ. In the process, he used an illustration which, frankly, put off that church's leaders a bit, afterward, because it was an implied criticism of the "shepherding" movement with which they were flirting at the time (you know, the one where church leaders were your "covering" and that gave them license to basically tell you what to do with your life, while you submitted meekly to their "authority").
He said that when he came to faith, he was a smoker. Not cigarettes, but big, fat, smelly cigars. He loved them. There was nothing he liked better. When he came to Christ, he noted, no one bothered to tell him he should quit smoking. He also mentioned that no one told him he was supposed to have a daily "Quiet Time," which was pretty high on the "must" list back then at my church. (Most of us were privately horrified at this point.) He went on to say that in the weeks that followed, he adopted the practice, quite on his own, of going up to his attic, lighting up a cigar and reading the Bible. This went on for some time. One day, he was reading and smoking away and the thought just popped into his head that maybe smoking cigars wasn't such a good idea. The notion was not prompted by the passage he was reading. It was not prompted by any sermon he had heard. No one presented him a raft of medical evidence. It was just a quiet, unbidden thought. And it began to niggle at him. And it suddenly had a persuasive power. He looked at his cigar, stubbed it out, and went on reading. He never smoked another. It was his first encounter with the Holy Spirit, whose job, said Jesus, is to "convict the world of sin." And he went on to express gratitude to the group of Christians who had embraced him in his unbelief and loved him, and let God bring in His own way, in His own time. Where, he asked us, did we get the idea that it was our job?
He went on to explain his theory of church ministry, which was that when someone walked into a church, they came with three unspoken but heartfelt requests which we need to hear and respond to:
Pick me up. By this he meant many things: That people need friendship. Acceptance. Inclusion. Certainly. But more than that. They've often been knocked down, by grief, illness, failure. They need someone to pick them up and dust them off and encourage them. Affirm them. They need to belong. They already know they're a mess, that's why they came to your church. So they don't need to be convicted, they need convinced that they're likeable, lovable, worth saving.
Don't drop me. This was the most important one. Too often, he said, the church meets and greets the new (often, as part of a program) but then this week's newbies gets lost in the shuffle as we move on to meet and greet the newer new folks. He also pointed out that people often stumble after they "come in" and/or they wait to tell their worst secrets until they believe they might get a compassionate hearing. And if rejection comes, then its worse than if they'd never walked in the door. Unfortunately, what happens to most folks in not rejection but invisibility. How often have you looked up lately and realized you haven't seen so-and-so in church for a month? You ask around, and nobody has a clue. This, frankly, is one of the arguments used against big churches, but it happens just as much in small ones, too. The Great Shepherd left the 99 and sought the lost one. Why don't we?
Get me to my destination. The key here, he pointed out, is get me to MY destination. Too often, the church is interested in getting the newbie to a destination selected before they walked in the door. Got an empty slot in the so-and-so ministry? Plug them in. He argued that a failure here is usually tied to failures in 1 and 2. Do we ever really get to know people well enough to qualify as having "picked them up?" If we don't, how can we possibly know what God has in store for them? It takes a lot of listening to get to know someone well enough to help them find their destination as Christians.
At this same church, several years later, I went to the assistant pastor, who I worked with on the board, for some help in determining a career choice. I spent about two minutes trying to describe my dilemma before he interrupted (very kindly, of course) and launched into a long soliloquy about what he thought, based on his "sense" of who I was. Trouble was, the person he was describing bore no resemblance to me. He actually didn't know me at all. I was dumbfounded, but I shouldn't have been. Other than for purposes of church business, we really didn't talk. And he had no clue about how far off he really was. He went on in perfect confidence that he was giving me a wise word, fitting for the need. Truth was, I knew the cussing, dirty-story-telling people at my construction job better than I knew the people who had the care of my soul.
What about prophecy, you say? Can't people get "words" for other people, about their futures? Sure. Of course. I meet with a group of friends every week, several of whom have been left very confused by sincere, well-meaning strangers who popped off prophecies that popped into their heads. Prophecies unfulfilled, even after 20 years The jury's still out on whether that was helpful. The Bible doesn't have a lot of examples of that sort of thing, actually. What the Bible talks about is seeking wise counsel, and it says that there is much wisdom in a multitude of counselors. Maybe I'm nuts, but that tells me there needs to be a least a few people who know you through and through. That have picked you up and not dropped you. Somehow we can't wrap our minds and hearts around the idea that getting to know someone is "anointed ministry." But if that ain't anointed, then what is?
The real problem may be what we hear when he says "destination." When I first heard it, I assumed it meant some sort of ministry -- a position or job. But what if that isn't it at all? "Destination" is where you end up, not what you do on the way there. The Bible says we were predestined to be part of something he calls His Body. Our ultimate goal is to be in God's Presence. What we are to seek first is The Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We get there by following Jesus. Keeping our eye on His face. Being grafted into Him as the Vine, of which we are the branches and without which connection we can do nothing. These are destinations we can reach without a particular job description. These are destinations a Bill W. can find, with our love and support. Yes, yes, in Ephesians, Paul makes a short reference to a set of job descriptions to which some are appointed (apostles, pastors, teachers, etc.) One verse. Why do we focus so much on the content of a single verse?
Our destination is, primarily, a Relationship. In fact, a whole bunch of relationships with a whole bunch of people not many of whom are "wise by human standards" (I Cor. 1:26). Our destination is a community -- no, a Forever Community -- where love is our job description. Somewhere where Bill and I and the philosophers can stand on a reasonably level playing field. One that, if tipped, is tipped in favor of Bill.
I do some of my best thinking when I'm cleaning. Can't explain that, but that's the way it happens for me. Not to say that my best thinking is necessarily all that good, but only that its the best I do, when I do it. Anyway, I was scrubbing congealed cheese off last night's dinner plates this morning, and had a couple of thoughts that helped convince me, again, of the importance of "hearing" The Three. I had just finished reading 20 or so comments that were posted in response to a blog, which was, in turn, written in response to a recent postmodernist's book, which I haven't read.
Several of the folks who commented were students of or, in some cases, teachers or practitioners of philosophy or psychology. The majority seemed committed to the proposition that God was "knowable" by rational processes. Others weren't so sure it was that simple, but certainly affirmed that rational thought was the apex or linchpin of the thing. What struck me about the discussion was that the group quickly left the critique of the postmodernist's book and entered into a series of quibbles with one another about the accuracy or inaccuracy of each others' statements, logic, observations, etc. The discussion lapsed into sarcasm a couple of times, resulting in offenses taken and apologies offered followed by "what I meant was ...." Interesting.
There is a strain within Western Christianity that has elevated The Rational as the best means (for a few, the only means) to "know" the truth of the Gospel. At one time, I was quite enamored of this idea. I enjoyed the give and take of it, watching these brilliant thinkers construct their arguments. I was no match for them, of course, so as a young Christian, I sat at their feet for some time. I really got into the evolution/creation debate. And the atheist/theist thing, of course. The fact that few of these Christian philosophers were in agreement was something I ignored for a while. (I had taken a philosophy class in college (just one) where I was presented with a number of different "schools" of philosophy. So I knew the "godless" guys didn't agree on much. Some of them had "thought" themselves to a point where they weren't sure "knowledge" was even possible!)
While the good folks who constructed these rational Christian systems for me had the best of motives -- to give me a rational platform for certainty in my faith (who wouldn't want that?) and a sound apologetic, with which to convince my neighbor. But I have to confess that it is this group of rationalists, and not any postmodern writing, that first brought me to doubt the efficacy of The Rational -- primarily because I've spent years observing the kind of discourse I witnessed at the blog I was visiting today.
I was talking to my ex-wife the other day, and we were discussing the whole postmodern phenomenon, and she remarked how ironic it was that postmodern thinkers are saying things we had thought and discussed privately 20 years ago. While I don't agree with the postmodern conclusion -- that we, in fact, can't get at truth with a capital "T" -- I certainly think the questions they are asking deserve honest evaluation, and I agree with them that the rationalist approach to the Gospel leaves a lot to be desired.
Why question the rationalist approach? Besides the fact that rationalists (just like the rest of us) often fail to come to the same conclusions, I think we must do so on pragmatic grounds: First, I can count on the fingers of one hand, (and have a couple of fingers left over) the people I know who can track mentally with the philosophical discussion I was reading this morning. I can just barely follow it myself, after all these years. (For instance, early on, someone used the term ad hominem. Gulp, I thought. No clue. Someone later in the discussion actually made a stab at a definition for the term. But I was still not sure I understood it.) That doesn't make philosophical inquiry wrong. I'm still convinced that rational thought is valuable and useful. But my point is that because so few of us (you know, the cab drivers, fry cooks, waiters, art teachers, auto mechanics and all the regular folks who make up the real world we actually live in) can track with it, it has little practical value in terms of saving souls.
Second, and most important: I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough that, given enough time and some very patient teachers, I might be able to grasp most of what these philosophically inclined folks are saying. but truth is, I don't have time for it. I got a job. I got kids. Okay? But even if I did have the time and actually did get it, so what? Bill couldn't.
I met Bill at the height of my fascination with evangelical rationalism. Bill lived in a Group Home. He came to our church's College and Career Group meetings on Sunday afternoons -- although he wasn't likely to go to college or ever have a career. One Sunday, he was in my small group, and we were sharing around the circle in good "small group" fashion, the challenges that we were facing that week, so we could all pray for God's help to meet them. When it got to Bill, he said in his rather hesitant, halting way, that his challenge was getting his laundry done. Turns out it was a rather daunting, complex job, one the group home folks were after him to master and one he didn't like to face. As we prayed around the circle later for the expressed needs, his prayer, after a rather long, painful pause, was "Thank you, Jesus."
Thought was excruciatingly difficult for Bill. He was no philosopher. But he knew he couldn't get through this life by himself. He knew he needed help. And he knew, somehow,that Jesus loved him. Is that not the whole of the gospel? Over the course of a year, God used Bill to put to death forever The Rationalist in me.
You know what I think? Jesus never intended for our knowledge of Him to come through our own effort (rational or otherwise). When I read the Bible, I see story after story of God revealing Himself to people (from brilliant Apostles who has studied at the feet of the great Gamaliel to prostitutes and insane men who lived in graveyards) who would otherwise never get it. We must try to remember that the brilliant Paul had NO CLUE until Jesus Himself confronted him on the road to Damascus. And I don't recall Jesus sitting down with him and sharing a nice rational/logical proof. He knocked him off his horse and said, "Why are you kicking against the goads?"
The goads, of course, from God's Spirit.
I Cor. was written to a group of people who were in danger of exalting the Mind. The brilliant speaker Apollos was wowing them. Paul argues that, though he could probably match Apollos, brain for brain, educational pedigree for educational pedigree, he came rather in lowly humility, preaching, yes, but "not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power." In Chapter 2, Paul goes on at length about the fact that God has "chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise." In Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, Paul exalts not rational thought but faith, hope and love, with the greatest being love. He says that if I have all knowledge ...." but not love, "I am nothing." (And by knowledge, there, he meant not only human knowledge but that superior knowledge revealed by God, as well). He did not say (and I don't mean this sarcastically, please understand) that Love is rational. Or that Love is logical. Or that love delights in wrecking the godless -- and sometimes the godly -- opposition with a well-argued philosophical proof. He says instead that love is kind. Love is patient. Love is not rude. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Love never gives up. Love never fails. (All things Bill could grasp after a fashion, and seek to live out.)
Since God used Bill to knock me off my horse 30 years ago, I have come very slowly to appreciate The Story as one in which God's people are not primarily philosophers, but doers of loving deeds. I'm ashamed to think how long its taken. Before I finally gave up and bowed to God on the subject, the Rationalist in me became very angry with God at one point. "Why didn't you just write a decent Rule Book," I shouted, "instead of giving me this ... mess." Yes, I actually said that. Out loud. Afterward it dawned on me, by what I can only describe as a gracious bit of special revelation, that maybe the Bible's "mess" of difficult-to-decipher polemic, poetry, narrative, proverb and song indicated something about the nature of the message and the mission that it described. The Gospel, I began to suspect, was less about Propositional Truth than it was about a Real Relationship. We can wish all we want that the Bible is a science text, but it defies us. We can talk all day about the Bible as the Answer Book, but why, then, do we so deeply disagree about so many, many things? We are left to ponder God as both Knowable Father and Profound Mystery. If we're honest, we admit that's a very uncomfortable place to be. But I believe that it is exactly where God intended for us to be. We're left to consider the possibility that the Bible we have was not written to give us fodder wiht which to construct systematic theologies, but a wild, wooly, variegated, paradoxical epic, with a cast of thousands, that getts at the truth of the Gospel from a myriad of angles, leaving much for us to puzzle over on our knees before His Throne. Spiritual things, which, said Paul, are spiritually discerned.
Perhaps that's why Jesus did not say, "The world will know that you are my disciples when you can out-argue them in philosophical debate." Rather, he said, "the world will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." And that brings me to The Three.
About the same time I met Bill W., a guest speaker came to our College and Career Group. I wish I could remember his name. I'd like to find him and thank him. He's the one who came up with The Three. He prefaced his relatively short talk with the story of his own coming to faith in Christ. In the process, he used an illustration which, frankly, put off that church's leaders a bit, afterward, because it was an implied criticism of the "shepherding" movement with which they were flirting at the time (you know, the one where church leaders were your "covering" and that gave them license to basically tell you what to do with your life, while you submitted meekly to their "authority").
He said that when he came to faith, he was a smoker. Not cigarettes, but big, fat, smelly cigars. He loved them. There was nothing he liked better. When he came to Christ, he noted, no one bothered to tell him he should quit smoking. He also mentioned that no one told him he was supposed to have a daily "Quiet Time," which was pretty high on the "must" list back then at my church. (Most of us were privately horrified at this point.) He went on to say that in the weeks that followed, he adopted the practice, quite on his own, of going up to his attic, lighting up a cigar and reading the Bible. This went on for some time. One day, he was reading and smoking away and the thought just popped into his head that maybe smoking cigars wasn't such a good idea. The notion was not prompted by the passage he was reading. It was not prompted by any sermon he had heard. No one presented him a raft of medical evidence. It was just a quiet, unbidden thought. And it began to niggle at him. And it suddenly had a persuasive power. He looked at his cigar, stubbed it out, and went on reading. He never smoked another. It was his first encounter with the Holy Spirit, whose job, said Jesus, is to "convict the world of sin." And he went on to express gratitude to the group of Christians who had embraced him in his unbelief and loved him, and let God bring in His own way, in His own time. Where, he asked us, did we get the idea that it was our job?
He went on to explain his theory of church ministry, which was that when someone walked into a church, they came with three unspoken but heartfelt requests which we need to hear and respond to:
Pick me up. By this he meant many things: That people need friendship. Acceptance. Inclusion. Certainly. But more than that. They've often been knocked down, by grief, illness, failure. They need someone to pick them up and dust them off and encourage them. Affirm them. They need to belong. They already know they're a mess, that's why they came to your church. So they don't need to be convicted, they need convinced that they're likeable, lovable, worth saving.
Don't drop me. This was the most important one. Too often, he said, the church meets and greets the new (often, as part of a program) but then this week's newbies gets lost in the shuffle as we move on to meet and greet the newer new folks. He also pointed out that people often stumble after they "come in" and/or they wait to tell their worst secrets until they believe they might get a compassionate hearing. And if rejection comes, then its worse than if they'd never walked in the door. Unfortunately, what happens to most folks in not rejection but invisibility. How often have you looked up lately and realized you haven't seen so-and-so in church for a month? You ask around, and nobody has a clue. This, frankly, is one of the arguments used against big churches, but it happens just as much in small ones, too. The Great Shepherd left the 99 and sought the lost one. Why don't we?
Get me to my destination. The key here, he pointed out, is get me to MY destination. Too often, the church is interested in getting the newbie to a destination selected before they walked in the door. Got an empty slot in the so-and-so ministry? Plug them in. He argued that a failure here is usually tied to failures in 1 and 2. Do we ever really get to know people well enough to qualify as having "picked them up?" If we don't, how can we possibly know what God has in store for them? It takes a lot of listening to get to know someone well enough to help them find their destination as Christians.
At this same church, several years later, I went to the assistant pastor, who I worked with on the board, for some help in determining a career choice. I spent about two minutes trying to describe my dilemma before he interrupted (very kindly, of course) and launched into a long soliloquy about what he thought, based on his "sense" of who I was. Trouble was, the person he was describing bore no resemblance to me. He actually didn't know me at all. I was dumbfounded, but I shouldn't have been. Other than for purposes of church business, we really didn't talk. And he had no clue about how far off he really was. He went on in perfect confidence that he was giving me a wise word, fitting for the need. Truth was, I knew the cussing, dirty-story-telling people at my construction job better than I knew the people who had the care of my soul.
What about prophecy, you say? Can't people get "words" for other people, about their futures? Sure. Of course. I meet with a group of friends every week, several of whom have been left very confused by sincere, well-meaning strangers who popped off prophecies that popped into their heads. Prophecies unfulfilled, even after 20 years The jury's still out on whether that was helpful. The Bible doesn't have a lot of examples of that sort of thing, actually. What the Bible talks about is seeking wise counsel, and it says that there is much wisdom in a multitude of counselors. Maybe I'm nuts, but that tells me there needs to be a least a few people who know you through and through. That have picked you up and not dropped you. Somehow we can't wrap our minds and hearts around the idea that getting to know someone is "anointed ministry." But if that ain't anointed, then what is?
The real problem may be what we hear when he says "destination." When I first heard it, I assumed it meant some sort of ministry -- a position or job. But what if that isn't it at all? "Destination" is where you end up, not what you do on the way there. The Bible says we were predestined to be part of something he calls His Body. Our ultimate goal is to be in God's Presence. What we are to seek first is The Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We get there by following Jesus. Keeping our eye on His face. Being grafted into Him as the Vine, of which we are the branches and without which connection we can do nothing. These are destinations we can reach without a particular job description. These are destinations a Bill W. can find, with our love and support. Yes, yes, in Ephesians, Paul makes a short reference to a set of job descriptions to which some are appointed (apostles, pastors, teachers, etc.) One verse. Why do we focus so much on the content of a single verse?
Our destination is, primarily, a Relationship. In fact, a whole bunch of relationships with a whole bunch of people not many of whom are "wise by human standards" (I Cor. 1:26). Our destination is a community -- no, a Forever Community -- where love is our job description. Somewhere where Bill and I and the philosophers can stand on a reasonably level playing field. One that, if tipped, is tipped in favor of Bill.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
All Jumbled Up
The thing about being away from my blog for so many days is that there has been a whole bunch of stuff I'd like to write, but couldn't get to. And now some of it is no longer timely. (Like my thoughts on Valentine's day, for instance. The world has commented on it and moved on.)
So I've got this whole jumble of stuff that I could write about. (I typed "writhe" just now and had to correct it. Wonder if that means anything?) Its all clogged up in the writing orifice and in need of a plunger. So I'm going to plunge in as it were, and just see what happens.
First, I want to point out that the writers I mentioned in my last post are not my fellow bloggers. They are a group of far flung free-lancers I manage at work. (I use that word very loosely, since I'm not much of manager.) Those folks contribute technical articles to the two magazines I edit. We pay them pretty well, so we're supposed to get stuff we can print. But I spend a great deal of time rewriting what some of them submit these days, and I find it very frustrating. Its one of several reasons why I haven't had time to pursue my own writing, here.
Second, we had the largest group that we've had in a long time at our Thursday night unHome Group, on one of the wintery-est evenings in quite a while (two Weeks ago, now). There was a warm fire in the fireplace, and everyone was bundled up in sweaters, laughing, wise-cracking and horsing around. I took a place next to Keith in front of the fireplace and let the heat radiate into every inch of me. It was just so Norman Rockwell, I finally began to relax. I had been in a minor panic not a half-an-hour before, trying, for the nth time that week to come up with something for the group to do. It was my turn to lead and I had scoured the Bible, looking for an appropriate passage to for us to discuss. Nothing had jumped out. I had been reading in Hosea, but that seemed a bit bleak. Several times during the week I had seized upon a passage, briefly, then thought better of it.
All that was totally unnecessary, of course. No one in the unHome Group would care even if I showed up and said, "Sorry guys. Just couldn't come up with anything. Let's just do whatever." It's been done. And this group can do "whatever" till dawn like a symphony. But I wanted to find something. I wanted us to grasp some more of this thing we call the Christian life.
The reason? I think we've stumbled on to something, this crazy unHome Group. We began as an official Home Group at a local church five or six years ago. A number of people have come and gone over the years (one year we gathered to help someone move in or move out about once a month!) but there's a core group that has been together for the entire time.
We're no longer an "official" group at that church. It's a long story, but ultimately we got to the point where no one in the group wanted to have the job of the Official Home Group Leader and attend the Home Group Leaders Meetings at the church as our official representatives. So our status is now unofficial: Our little leaflet was taken off the church "Welcome" rack. No one is given a map to our place of meeting. We are no longer mentioned in the announcements or the bulletin on Sunday morning. In fact, less than half of us still attend there. Several of us have moved on to other churches or are looking, and some of us are, at least for now, what has come to be called post-congregational. Lest you think we're some kind of fringe group, let me just say that we count among us some of the most dedicated, hard-working church leaders and church members I've met in a lifetime of experience with the church. Several have sat on church boards multiple times. Two led a church for over a year as unpaid, lay leaders when the paid guy had to leave, handling all the "stuff," including preaching and counseling. Several helped lead a healing mission to the U.K. and have taught on healing for years. Most of us have led small groups and been on various core leadership teams of one kind or another. Several work for mission-sending agencies. Several others have recently returned from long-term missions work. All of them, without exception, love God and seriously want to follow Jesus. But in the sense that the institutional church tends to think about it, we're now officially leader-less.
No, we haven't quite gone the way of the Shakers and Quakers. We don't just sit and wait. Although, sitting silently and waiting is an important part of what we sometimes do. We have some rudimentary organization: Each week, someone has the task of leading our worship time, and someone else leads a discussion -- or rather, reads a passage of scripture and asks a provocative question or two. And then we dive in. And someone else brings some sort of snack. Rick keeps our calendar, so we know who's volunteered for what. Sometimes we don't get it right (see "whatever" above.) But if we don't, we don't freak out or wonder if we've Missed God's Will or we're Backsliding.
We've all been there and done that. Along the way, we've seen it all and got caught up in or dabbled in most of the Movements that have swept through The Church, including the stuff that's currently debated: Church Growth, Seeker Sensitive, Church-as-a-Business, Emergent. Truth is, that most of us are ... well, just a little tired of it all at the moment. Phyllis probably said it best. We're submergent. Off the map. Unplugged. Underground. We think we like it that way.
We're a church of refugees. We've accepted our status as strangers and sojourners on the earth. We're in recovery. Recovery from Churchianity: We still struggle with Getting it Right. We still worry that we're Not Good Enough. But less so. Grace is beginning to penetrate all that. The Holy Spirit still shows up. Healing is happening. And there is that camaraderie that one sees in soldiers who have been to war and know that it is hell. And know that what they fight for is each other.
In fact we were joking Thursday night about whether we were now a "cult." We can joke about it because, of all the groups any of us has ever been a part, I'll wager this one is the most unlikely to become a cult. Cults are all about defining you through conformity. Rules, written and (often) unwritten determine your beliefs and set the standard for your behavior. There are "ins" and "outs." About the only rule we've got is that one sacred commitment that now characterizes American Armed Forces units: "No one gets left behind."
We're fiercely committed to that idea precisely because The Church has left so many bodies in its wake. When you've been a church leader as long as some of us have, you know that's true. You see behind the veil. Phyllis the other day called it Collateral Damage. It's that high-sounding euphemism highly placed officials use when civilians get killed or maimed because they got caught in the cross-hairs as the guns are aimed at The Enemy. But its the wrong term, actually. What the Church has done for centuries is shoot its own soldiers.
That's not my opinion. It's an undeniable fact: Many of what some segments of The Church call "saints" were not martyred by the Roman Legions, or Emperors or mobs of pagan unbelievers. They were killed by the Church itself, while it was acting in its official capacity. Take for instance the folks who printed the Tyndale Bible in England -- the mighty prophetic visionaries who took the first steps to secure for us the right to have our own copy of the Scriptures in our own tongue? The Church executed them as heretics.
Yes, I know. The rack, garotte, burning stake and drowning stool are no longer part of the ecclesiastical tool set (thank the separation-of-church-and-state folks for that), but for every acknowledged martyr celebrated now for his or her holiness, there are thousands of ordinary folks in the pews, to this day, who suffer a silent death of the soul, unsung, unfed, uncared for, regaled with scripturally adorned admonitions that basically add up to "get healed by getting with it and getting to work," traded as commodities by pastors whose job has unfortunately become the building of the more attractive pens in which to corral the other guy's lost sheep. Success comes to him who invents or at least jumps in front of the newest fad (Prayer of Jabez, anyone? Health and Wealth Gospel? "Dream Teams" ... sorry folks, I just gotta be honest, here) or manages to wring the biggest building out of his parishioner's pocketbooks, or has the musicians with the hottest CD, or hosts the most spectacular trips to the Holy Land, or the biggest Prophecy Conference or Leadership Seminar or whatever it is that becomes a substitute for sitting and listening and crying with and helping and healing and nurturing, and praying for, and loving and laughing with INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE who need someone to be WITH THEM and NOT DESERT THEM and WALK WITH THEM and ENCOURAGE THEM and meet their practical needs if they can't, day after day after day, without giving up, and without all the fanfare and hoopla. Somewhere, somehow, that essential task so easily gets lost, all jumbled up in the mad dash to reach The Goal, to get in line with the New Teaching, to top the last Big Event.
What people really need from a church is as simple as one, two, three:
1) Pick me up.
2) Don't drop me.
3) Get me to my destination.
Something our little unsung unpublicized unHome Group is learning to do very well -- without programs, buildings, sound equipment, big budgets and, frankly, without paid staff.
Church is wherever you find it. More about the three next post.
So I've got this whole jumble of stuff that I could write about. (I typed "writhe" just now and had to correct it. Wonder if that means anything?) Its all clogged up in the writing orifice and in need of a plunger. So I'm going to plunge in as it were, and just see what happens.
First, I want to point out that the writers I mentioned in my last post are not my fellow bloggers. They are a group of far flung free-lancers I manage at work. (I use that word very loosely, since I'm not much of manager.) Those folks contribute technical articles to the two magazines I edit. We pay them pretty well, so we're supposed to get stuff we can print. But I spend a great deal of time rewriting what some of them submit these days, and I find it very frustrating. Its one of several reasons why I haven't had time to pursue my own writing, here.
Second, we had the largest group that we've had in a long time at our Thursday night unHome Group, on one of the wintery-est evenings in quite a while (two Weeks ago, now). There was a warm fire in the fireplace, and everyone was bundled up in sweaters, laughing, wise-cracking and horsing around. I took a place next to Keith in front of the fireplace and let the heat radiate into every inch of me. It was just so Norman Rockwell, I finally began to relax. I had been in a minor panic not a half-an-hour before, trying, for the nth time that week to come up with something for the group to do. It was my turn to lead and I had scoured the Bible, looking for an appropriate passage to for us to discuss. Nothing had jumped out. I had been reading in Hosea, but that seemed a bit bleak. Several times during the week I had seized upon a passage, briefly, then thought better of it.
All that was totally unnecessary, of course. No one in the unHome Group would care even if I showed up and said, "Sorry guys. Just couldn't come up with anything. Let's just do whatever." It's been done. And this group can do "whatever" till dawn like a symphony. But I wanted to find something. I wanted us to grasp some more of this thing we call the Christian life.
The reason? I think we've stumbled on to something, this crazy unHome Group. We began as an official Home Group at a local church five or six years ago. A number of people have come and gone over the years (one year we gathered to help someone move in or move out about once a month!) but there's a core group that has been together for the entire time.
We're no longer an "official" group at that church. It's a long story, but ultimately we got to the point where no one in the group wanted to have the job of the Official Home Group Leader and attend the Home Group Leaders Meetings at the church as our official representatives. So our status is now unofficial: Our little leaflet was taken off the church "Welcome" rack. No one is given a map to our place of meeting. We are no longer mentioned in the announcements or the bulletin on Sunday morning. In fact, less than half of us still attend there. Several of us have moved on to other churches or are looking, and some of us are, at least for now, what has come to be called post-congregational. Lest you think we're some kind of fringe group, let me just say that we count among us some of the most dedicated, hard-working church leaders and church members I've met in a lifetime of experience with the church. Several have sat on church boards multiple times. Two led a church for over a year as unpaid, lay leaders when the paid guy had to leave, handling all the "stuff," including preaching and counseling. Several helped lead a healing mission to the U.K. and have taught on healing for years. Most of us have led small groups and been on various core leadership teams of one kind or another. Several work for mission-sending agencies. Several others have recently returned from long-term missions work. All of them, without exception, love God and seriously want to follow Jesus. But in the sense that the institutional church tends to think about it, we're now officially leader-less.
No, we haven't quite gone the way of the Shakers and Quakers. We don't just sit and wait. Although, sitting silently and waiting is an important part of what we sometimes do. We have some rudimentary organization: Each week, someone has the task of leading our worship time, and someone else leads a discussion -- or rather, reads a passage of scripture and asks a provocative question or two. And then we dive in. And someone else brings some sort of snack. Rick keeps our calendar, so we know who's volunteered for what. Sometimes we don't get it right (see "whatever" above.) But if we don't, we don't freak out or wonder if we've Missed God's Will or we're Backsliding.
We've all been there and done that. Along the way, we've seen it all and got caught up in or dabbled in most of the Movements that have swept through The Church, including the stuff that's currently debated: Church Growth, Seeker Sensitive, Church-as-a-Business, Emergent. Truth is, that most of us are ... well, just a little tired of it all at the moment. Phyllis probably said it best. We're submergent. Off the map. Unplugged. Underground. We think we like it that way.
We're a church of refugees. We've accepted our status as strangers and sojourners on the earth. We're in recovery. Recovery from Churchianity: We still struggle with Getting it Right. We still worry that we're Not Good Enough. But less so. Grace is beginning to penetrate all that. The Holy Spirit still shows up. Healing is happening. And there is that camaraderie that one sees in soldiers who have been to war and know that it is hell. And know that what they fight for is each other.
In fact we were joking Thursday night about whether we were now a "cult." We can joke about it because, of all the groups any of us has ever been a part, I'll wager this one is the most unlikely to become a cult. Cults are all about defining you through conformity. Rules, written and (often) unwritten determine your beliefs and set the standard for your behavior. There are "ins" and "outs." About the only rule we've got is that one sacred commitment that now characterizes American Armed Forces units: "No one gets left behind."
We're fiercely committed to that idea precisely because The Church has left so many bodies in its wake. When you've been a church leader as long as some of us have, you know that's true. You see behind the veil. Phyllis the other day called it Collateral Damage. It's that high-sounding euphemism highly placed officials use when civilians get killed or maimed because they got caught in the cross-hairs as the guns are aimed at The Enemy. But its the wrong term, actually. What the Church has done for centuries is shoot its own soldiers.
That's not my opinion. It's an undeniable fact: Many of what some segments of The Church call "saints" were not martyred by the Roman Legions, or Emperors or mobs of pagan unbelievers. They were killed by the Church itself, while it was acting in its official capacity. Take for instance the folks who printed the Tyndale Bible in England -- the mighty prophetic visionaries who took the first steps to secure for us the right to have our own copy of the Scriptures in our own tongue? The Church executed them as heretics.
Yes, I know. The rack, garotte, burning stake and drowning stool are no longer part of the ecclesiastical tool set (thank the separation-of-church-and-state folks for that), but for every acknowledged martyr celebrated now for his or her holiness, there are thousands of ordinary folks in the pews, to this day, who suffer a silent death of the soul, unsung, unfed, uncared for, regaled with scripturally adorned admonitions that basically add up to "get healed by getting with it and getting to work," traded as commodities by pastors whose job has unfortunately become the building of the more attractive pens in which to corral the other guy's lost sheep. Success comes to him who invents or at least jumps in front of the newest fad (Prayer of Jabez, anyone? Health and Wealth Gospel? "Dream Teams" ... sorry folks, I just gotta be honest, here) or manages to wring the biggest building out of his parishioner's pocketbooks, or has the musicians with the hottest CD, or hosts the most spectacular trips to the Holy Land, or the biggest Prophecy Conference or Leadership Seminar or whatever it is that becomes a substitute for sitting and listening and crying with and helping and healing and nurturing, and praying for, and loving and laughing with INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE who need someone to be WITH THEM and NOT DESERT THEM and WALK WITH THEM and ENCOURAGE THEM and meet their practical needs if they can't, day after day after day, without giving up, and without all the fanfare and hoopla. Somewhere, somehow, that essential task so easily gets lost, all jumbled up in the mad dash to reach The Goal, to get in line with the New Teaching, to top the last Big Event.
What people really need from a church is as simple as one, two, three:
1) Pick me up.
2) Don't drop me.
3) Get me to my destination.
Something our little unsung unpublicized unHome Group is learning to do very well -- without programs, buildings, sound equipment, big budgets and, frankly, without paid staff.
Church is wherever you find it. More about the three next post.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Arrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!
Ever have one of those days?
I'm having one of those weeks, dealing with:
Writers who can't write.
Networks that don't network.
Programmers that can't get with the program.
A boss who's going through a bossy stage.
A budget that won't budge.
A printer that only prints yellow and cyan.
A 56-year-old mind that still wishes it was 19.
A 56-year-old body that has the gall to act like its 56.
A church that doesn't feel like church anymore.
A 24-hour day that seems to have lost the hours I used to give to me.
And consequently, a blog that sits idle.
I'm having one of those weeks, dealing with:
Writers who can't write.
Networks that don't network.
Programmers that can't get with the program.
A boss who's going through a bossy stage.
A budget that won't budge.
A printer that only prints yellow and cyan.
A 56-year-old mind that still wishes it was 19.
A 56-year-old body that has the gall to act like its 56.
A church that doesn't feel like church anymore.
A 24-hour day that seems to have lost the hours I used to give to me.
And consequently, a blog that sits idle.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Spidey Returns
A couple of posts back I wrote about a spider who spent the better part of an hour exploring my bedroom ceiling ("Spider Eyes" - 01/21). Last night, while I was cooking supper, my younger son, Mark, opened the refrigerator door and said, "Dad, there's a spider in the fridge."
I came to look. "Where?"
"In the back, between the milk and cranberry juice."
Yep. There it was, immobilized by the sudden flash of the refrigerator's light bulb. Although I had no idea, really, the romantic in me immediately assumed it was the same spider that had inspired my recent post. Because my hands were covered with beef fat (I was in the middle of patting out four huge lumps of ground beef that were soon to be the famous "Daddy Burgers" that Mark and I traditionally consume on Friday nights), I made a brief mental note to "do something" about the spider first chance I got.
Commercial break: Since bloggers I know have gotten into the habit of sharing recipes, especially for comfort food, here's mine for "Daddy Burgers":
Whole wheat buns
Ground beef (form into thick, bigger-than-bun patties)
Sharp cheddar cheese (five slices off the end of the brick per patty)
Cook briefly, flipping once, in George Foreman grill, then arrange cheese slices on meat in whatever patterns happen to suit the cook's whim of the moment. Microwave until cheese drools all over. Place on buns, add salt. Eat.
Yeah ... that's it. It's a guy thing, okay?
And now, back to our story: Anyway, I got distracted. I cooked. We ate. I remembered suddenly that I had an brief appointment to go to that evening. I returned tired and went to bed.
When I woke this morning and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes before crawling out from under the covers into the cold of my room ... I remembered.
The spider was still there, down in the corner behind the cranberry juice. I don't really know much about arachnids, but even I could tell it didn't look too good. The legs on the right side of its body were extended, but those on the left were sort of curled inward. And the spider's soft blackish grey color had faded to a sort of mottled, spotted beige.
Sheesh. How did you get in there, anyway. I chided, in my head. I immediately had this mental image of the spider shinnying down from the kitchen ceiling just as I opened the fridge door, and then getting trapped inside as I shut it. Oh, so it's my fault, I muttered mentally, suffering a wave of guilt. He could have been in there all night, in the cold and dark.
I know. I know. You arachnophobes out there are rolling your eyes. But you have to understand my situation. My oldest son, Tony, who is tough and fearless in many ways, is an arachnophobe of gigantic proportions. (You didn't sing "Itsy, bitsy spider, up the water pout," to this kid.) Worse, underneath that tough exterior beats the heart of a small child for whom the movie Bambi crystallized a life-long animal rights ethic. I kid you not. If a puppy and a mere adult human were both about to be struck down by a Mack truck and he could only save one? He would save the puppy, no contest. Although spiders scared him to the point of panic when young, he couldn't bear the thought that I would kill one.
When he was five years old, for instance, I once came home from work to what appeared to be an empty house. After Hullo-ing a few times, I heard a muffled, "We're in here." I found Tony and his mother locked away in a bedroom. "There's a spider in the living room," she said. "You have to get it," (By "get it," of course, his Mom intended some form of swift execution.) "But don't kill him," said a worried Tony. I adopted my best Joe Friday manner, asking where in the living room. How big is it. "Big," she said. "Really big," said Tony, eyes wide. Turns out they had been hiding away all afternoon. That spider could be long gone. So I had my work cut out for me.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Make some noise. Shout out dramatically, "Aha, there you are," open and close the front door and declare an "all clear." That's what you'd do. But these two were way too smart for that. They needed proof. The procedure was that I had to find and then trap the spider, show them that I had it, and then my son would follow me out to the front door and watch me set it free outside.
For years, I kept a small drinking glass and an old 3x5 card on the window sill in the kitchen for such emergencies. The glass had become the designated spider-trapping equipment when I inadvertently used it, one time, instead of a paper cup. After disposing of the spider, I placed the cup in the dishwasher only to be told by Tony's Mom that a glass that had touched a spider was never going to touch lips again, hers or anyone else's. Because it was transparent, it worked well. Tony could view the spider safely and it made my job easier. I took said equipment that day, dutifully searched for and finally found a rather smallish spider (God knows if it was the right one) and followed procedure.
Tony, now 20, is still wary of spiders (he won't admit to be scared.) On the other hand, Mark, who came along the following year, will suffer no qualms this morning. Spider in the fridge? Sucks for him. He thinks we're all idiots and finds the whole business hilarious.
So as I gazed at the spider curled up against the cold in the back corner of my fridge this morning, my training kicked in. I found a folded sheet of paper, and hoping to coax the spider out of the corner so I could trap him, went to work. As soon as the edge of the paper contacted his legs, he curled up into a ball, and rolled into its center. I wouldn't need a designated glass for this one. I gingerly bore the victim to my apartment door, and carefully rolled him off in the hallway, where the carpet met the wall. There the spider sat, immobile, still curled up. Not moving. I actually got down on my knees and breathed on him, to try to warm him up. Nothing
Bummer, I thought. Too late. Rest in peace, pal.
I came in and closed the door, but after a few minutes I couldn't resist having another look. Spidey was still there, backed tightly into the crevice between carpet and wall, but the legs on his right side were almost fully extended. Not dead. But not moving, either.
I came back out a second time a few minutes later. Still there, but this time, all eight legs were fully extended.
A few minutes ago, I took another look and ... gone! I looked along the wall, over the carpet, on the ceiling. Nowhere in sight. Awesome. I'll be able to look Tony in the eye.
And I thought of Psalm 139, hands down, my absolute favorite:
O Lord, You have searched me and You know me
You know when I sit down and when I rise
You perceive my thoughts for afar
You discern my going out and my lying down
You are familiar with all my ways
You hem me in -- behind and before ...
You have laid your hand upon me
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ...
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your Presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there
If I rise on the wings of the dawn
If I settle on the far side of the sea
Even there you right hand will hold me fast
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
And the light become night around me"
Even the darkness will not be dark to you
For darkness is as light to you
For you created my inmost being
You knit me in my mother's womb
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made ...
All the days ordained for me
Were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.
How unlike us is God. The Creator of the unsearchably vast Universe -- in comparison to whom we are far smaller than the itsy-est, bitsy-est spider -- always knows where and how we are. He never gets too busy and forgets. Though we enter this world stained with the sin of a thousand generations, God has no phobic fear of contact. He needs no glass and 3x5. And no matter how far we stray from the web of his care, he searches us out, casts light on our shadows, rescues us and breathes on us the Breath of Life.
I came to look. "Where?"
"In the back, between the milk and cranberry juice."
Yep. There it was, immobilized by the sudden flash of the refrigerator's light bulb. Although I had no idea, really, the romantic in me immediately assumed it was the same spider that had inspired my recent post. Because my hands were covered with beef fat (I was in the middle of patting out four huge lumps of ground beef that were soon to be the famous "Daddy Burgers" that Mark and I traditionally consume on Friday nights), I made a brief mental note to "do something" about the spider first chance I got.
Commercial break: Since bloggers I know have gotten into the habit of sharing recipes, especially for comfort food, here's mine for "Daddy Burgers":
Whole wheat buns
Ground beef (form into thick, bigger-than-bun patties)
Sharp cheddar cheese (five slices off the end of the brick per patty)
Cook briefly, flipping once, in George Foreman grill, then arrange cheese slices on meat in whatever patterns happen to suit the cook's whim of the moment. Microwave until cheese drools all over. Place on buns, add salt. Eat.
Yeah ... that's it. It's a guy thing, okay?
And now, back to our story: Anyway, I got distracted. I cooked. We ate. I remembered suddenly that I had an brief appointment to go to that evening. I returned tired and went to bed.
When I woke this morning and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes before crawling out from under the covers into the cold of my room ... I remembered.
The spider was still there, down in the corner behind the cranberry juice. I don't really know much about arachnids, but even I could tell it didn't look too good. The legs on the right side of its body were extended, but those on the left were sort of curled inward. And the spider's soft blackish grey color had faded to a sort of mottled, spotted beige.
Sheesh. How did you get in there, anyway. I chided, in my head. I immediately had this mental image of the spider shinnying down from the kitchen ceiling just as I opened the fridge door, and then getting trapped inside as I shut it. Oh, so it's my fault, I muttered mentally, suffering a wave of guilt. He could have been in there all night, in the cold and dark.
I know. I know. You arachnophobes out there are rolling your eyes. But you have to understand my situation. My oldest son, Tony, who is tough and fearless in many ways, is an arachnophobe of gigantic proportions. (You didn't sing "Itsy, bitsy spider, up the water pout," to this kid.) Worse, underneath that tough exterior beats the heart of a small child for whom the movie Bambi crystallized a life-long animal rights ethic. I kid you not. If a puppy and a mere adult human were both about to be struck down by a Mack truck and he could only save one? He would save the puppy, no contest. Although spiders scared him to the point of panic when young, he couldn't bear the thought that I would kill one.
When he was five years old, for instance, I once came home from work to what appeared to be an empty house. After Hullo-ing a few times, I heard a muffled, "We're in here." I found Tony and his mother locked away in a bedroom. "There's a spider in the living room," she said. "You have to get it," (By "get it," of course, his Mom intended some form of swift execution.) "But don't kill him," said a worried Tony. I adopted my best Joe Friday manner, asking where in the living room. How big is it. "Big," she said. "Really big," said Tony, eyes wide. Turns out they had been hiding away all afternoon. That spider could be long gone. So I had my work cut out for me.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Make some noise. Shout out dramatically, "Aha, there you are," open and close the front door and declare an "all clear." That's what you'd do. But these two were way too smart for that. They needed proof. The procedure was that I had to find and then trap the spider, show them that I had it, and then my son would follow me out to the front door and watch me set it free outside.
For years, I kept a small drinking glass and an old 3x5 card on the window sill in the kitchen for such emergencies. The glass had become the designated spider-trapping equipment when I inadvertently used it, one time, instead of a paper cup. After disposing of the spider, I placed the cup in the dishwasher only to be told by Tony's Mom that a glass that had touched a spider was never going to touch lips again, hers or anyone else's. Because it was transparent, it worked well. Tony could view the spider safely and it made my job easier. I took said equipment that day, dutifully searched for and finally found a rather smallish spider (God knows if it was the right one) and followed procedure.
Tony, now 20, is still wary of spiders (he won't admit to be scared.) On the other hand, Mark, who came along the following year, will suffer no qualms this morning. Spider in the fridge? Sucks for him. He thinks we're all idiots and finds the whole business hilarious.
So as I gazed at the spider curled up against the cold in the back corner of my fridge this morning, my training kicked in. I found a folded sheet of paper, and hoping to coax the spider out of the corner so I could trap him, went to work. As soon as the edge of the paper contacted his legs, he curled up into a ball, and rolled into its center. I wouldn't need a designated glass for this one. I gingerly bore the victim to my apartment door, and carefully rolled him off in the hallway, where the carpet met the wall. There the spider sat, immobile, still curled up. Not moving. I actually got down on my knees and breathed on him, to try to warm him up. Nothing
Bummer, I thought. Too late. Rest in peace, pal.
I came in and closed the door, but after a few minutes I couldn't resist having another look. Spidey was still there, backed tightly into the crevice between carpet and wall, but the legs on his right side were almost fully extended. Not dead. But not moving, either.
I came back out a second time a few minutes later. Still there, but this time, all eight legs were fully extended.
A few minutes ago, I took another look and ... gone! I looked along the wall, over the carpet, on the ceiling. Nowhere in sight. Awesome. I'll be able to look Tony in the eye.
And I thought of Psalm 139, hands down, my absolute favorite:
O Lord, You have searched me and You know me
You know when I sit down and when I rise
You perceive my thoughts for afar
You discern my going out and my lying down
You are familiar with all my ways
You hem me in -- behind and before ...
You have laid your hand upon me
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ...
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your Presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there
If I rise on the wings of the dawn
If I settle on the far side of the sea
Even there you right hand will hold me fast
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
And the light become night around me"
Even the darkness will not be dark to you
For darkness is as light to you
For you created my inmost being
You knit me in my mother's womb
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made ...
All the days ordained for me
Were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.
How unlike us is God. The Creator of the unsearchably vast Universe -- in comparison to whom we are far smaller than the itsy-est, bitsy-est spider -- always knows where and how we are. He never gets too busy and forgets. Though we enter this world stained with the sin of a thousand generations, God has no phobic fear of contact. He needs no glass and 3x5. And no matter how far we stray from the web of his care, he searches us out, casts light on our shadows, rescues us and breathes on us the Breath of Life.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
The "Authority" Thing
This week I read several posts at blogs I visit written by folks in various stages of recognizing or recovering from bad experiences with people who hold official positions of authority in the institutional church. After reading one that made me feel especially sad, I e-mailed a friend of mine a sketch of my practical philosophy (if it can be called that) for dealing with authorities of all types (in our out of church).
I had never written it down before, but in the few short minutes it took to write it, I managed to crystallize what I'd learned from my long, painful experience (26 years in five churches) into a couple of paragraphs. Since it was there and has served me fairly well, I figured it might be helpful to someone else. So I've cut-and-pasted it here, with a few modifications (that I couldn't resist making):
For some time, I've been on a sort of "provisional headship" track -- although I just now came up with that term as a way to describe it (and it even makes me nervous to have given it a technical-sounding name -- God forbid I should write a book entitled, "Provisional Headship.") What I mean by that is this: When asked by an authority to participate in some enterprise or other, basically, I'll agree to perform a single task, no strings, provided there are certain things understood (that's where the "provisional" comes from). Provisions are as follows:
First, I'll put myself under so-and-so's authority for that task only, and -- provided I'm not asked to do something illegal or clearly damaging to myself or others -- I'll do what I'm asked to do. I don't waste a lot of time trying to tell so-and-so how I would do it, or suggest a better idea, or get too creative. (Exception: Unless asked to comment or add creatively to the process, in which case I'm still careful, because I've been asked for input from leaders who really didn't want any input, but feel compelled for sake of projecting the PC image, that they should). I usually just ask them what they'd like, and I do my best to do it pretty much their way -- after all, it is their thing.
Second, I'll do it provided the leader understands that my saying yes once is no guarantee I'll ever say yes again. (And to be fair, I turn that around and say, over and over to myself, that I have no call to assume that if I'm asked once, I'll be asked again.)
Third, I don't make formal long-term commitments. Period. I just don't have that kind of control over my life right now. But I volunteer, on the spur of the moment, without being asked, whenever I can. That I can manage.
Fourth, and most important, I don't EVER agree to be flattered into anything, by anyone, no matter how attractive the ministry or the leader seems to be on the surface or how good the attention make me feel. (Many people who aspire to church service and/or positions of leadership do so to feel better about themselves, and it's always, always, always a train wreck. That was certainly true for me, although I was hardly in a position to recognize it at the time. As soon as you say "yes," of course, the flattery stops, and you find out too late how important the flattery was to the equation.) I also resist all appeals couched in "ought" or "should" language or anything that implies I might derive from the task a sense of importance or belonging:
"The church needs you."
No, it doesn't. It needs the power of God. It needs Jesus. It needs the Holy Spirit.
"But the church needs it."
If there's no one wildly excited about doing "it," (the ministry or task) then no, it really doesn't. A children's ministry, for instance, run by enlisted personnel rather than heartfelt volunteers is worse than not having one. Scratch an "unchurched" or an atheist, you often find a kid who grew up in a Sunday School run by conscripts.
Lest I'm accused of having a low view of authority, let me add that, in fact, I have a very high view. Always have. Always will. The Biblical character David, the apple of God's eye, had a high view of authority, and he's my model. Even after the prophet Samuel anointed him King of Israel, as Saul's replacement, David refused to take his rightful place by force, and twice refused to kill Saul when he had the chance, dangerous man though Saul was. David would not lay a hand on what he called "the Lord's anointed." On the other hand, David wasted no time staying in the presence of any authority at whose hands he could suffer harm. He got out, just as many of my friends have recently done.
David did what they had to do to keep himself safe, even though it twice cost him the very position for which he had been anointed. And he left to God the difficult business of dealing with anointed leadership gone wrong.
I had never written it down before, but in the few short minutes it took to write it, I managed to crystallize what I'd learned from my long, painful experience (26 years in five churches) into a couple of paragraphs. Since it was there and has served me fairly well, I figured it might be helpful to someone else. So I've cut-and-pasted it here, with a few modifications (that I couldn't resist making):
For some time, I've been on a sort of "provisional headship" track -- although I just now came up with that term as a way to describe it (and it even makes me nervous to have given it a technical-sounding name -- God forbid I should write a book entitled, "Provisional Headship.") What I mean by that is this: When asked by an authority to participate in some enterprise or other, basically, I'll agree to perform a single task, no strings, provided there are certain things understood (that's where the "provisional" comes from). Provisions are as follows:
First, I'll put myself under so-and-so's authority for that task only, and -- provided I'm not asked to do something illegal or clearly damaging to myself or others -- I'll do what I'm asked to do. I don't waste a lot of time trying to tell so-and-so how I would do it, or suggest a better idea, or get too creative. (Exception: Unless asked to comment or add creatively to the process, in which case I'm still careful, because I've been asked for input from leaders who really didn't want any input, but feel compelled for sake of projecting the PC image, that they should). I usually just ask them what they'd like, and I do my best to do it pretty much their way -- after all, it is their thing.
Second, I'll do it provided the leader understands that my saying yes once is no guarantee I'll ever say yes again. (And to be fair, I turn that around and say, over and over to myself, that I have no call to assume that if I'm asked once, I'll be asked again.)
Third, I don't make formal long-term commitments. Period. I just don't have that kind of control over my life right now. But I volunteer, on the spur of the moment, without being asked, whenever I can. That I can manage.
Fourth, and most important, I don't EVER agree to be flattered into anything, by anyone, no matter how attractive the ministry or the leader seems to be on the surface or how good the attention make me feel. (Many people who aspire to church service and/or positions of leadership do so to feel better about themselves, and it's always, always, always a train wreck. That was certainly true for me, although I was hardly in a position to recognize it at the time. As soon as you say "yes," of course, the flattery stops, and you find out too late how important the flattery was to the equation.) I also resist all appeals couched in "ought" or "should" language or anything that implies I might derive from the task a sense of importance or belonging:
"The church needs you."
No, it doesn't. It needs the power of God. It needs Jesus. It needs the Holy Spirit.
"But the church needs it."
If there's no one wildly excited about doing "it," (the ministry or task) then no, it really doesn't. A children's ministry, for instance, run by enlisted personnel rather than heartfelt volunteers is worse than not having one. Scratch an "unchurched" or an atheist, you often find a kid who grew up in a Sunday School run by conscripts.
Lest I'm accused of having a low view of authority, let me add that, in fact, I have a very high view. Always have. Always will. The Biblical character David, the apple of God's eye, had a high view of authority, and he's my model. Even after the prophet Samuel anointed him King of Israel, as Saul's replacement, David refused to take his rightful place by force, and twice refused to kill Saul when he had the chance, dangerous man though Saul was. David would not lay a hand on what he called "the Lord's anointed." On the other hand, David wasted no time staying in the presence of any authority at whose hands he could suffer harm. He got out, just as many of my friends have recently done.
David did what they had to do to keep himself safe, even though it twice cost him the very position for which he had been anointed. And he left to God the difficult business of dealing with anointed leadership gone wrong.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
I'm Done with the American Dream
I don't remember the first time I heard the term "American Dream," but this pithy little cultural descriptor has been batted around by social commentators for as long as I can remember. It's what drives us. It's why we climb out of bed at ungodly hours, drug ourselves with $3.50 coffee from Starbuck's, take our lives in our hands on the freeway and spend eight hours (and often more) fulfilling someone else's American Dream, in hopes that, somewhere along the line, we'll somehow find and realize ours.
We've heard it so often, we don't even think about it much. It's just there. Yeah. The American Dream. But ... what exactly is the American Dream, anyway?
If no definition quickly jumps to the forefront of your mind, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. I don't think it's supposed to. The fact that the "American Dream" is for most of us a rather vague thing is, I believe, the genius of its design. I can't prove this, of course, but I'm pretty sure this shadowy, nebulous catch-all for American aspirations is, like almost everything else "American," the creation of some advertising wizard.
Whatever it may have been, once upon a time, the American Dream today is mostly about money. And not about getting money or having it, but mostly about being able to spend it. Advertising agencies spend millions trying to convince us that something most of the rest of the world would consider an incredible luxury (or downright profligate) is something we can't live without.
Drive around the average middle-class neighborhood on a warm Saturday afternoon and count the number of two-car garages which do not have room for two cars because at least one stall is full of stuff. Note the number of RVs, and tarp-covered watercraft and snowmobiles that sit unused week after week in the driveways. The great American pastime is not Baseball, it's buying. And we're so jaded -- we already have so much stuff, that it's not the purchased thing itself, but the act of acquisition that we crave. Not convinced? Ever watched what people buy at garage sales? I rest my case.
Acquisition is at the core of the American Dream. It's all about getting something you don't yet have. In fact, it's an addiction. How else could so large a portion of the American populace have become so enamored of Donald and Ivana Trump? The Donald, who subsequently traded his trophy wife in for a newer model, Marla Maples, wrote "The Art of the Deal." I'm still amazed that a man could be so lionized for writing a book in which taking advantage of people financially is described as an art form. It was Trump's contention that the real fun wasn't the thing itself, but the getting of the thing. It was the Deal itself that he dreamed about.
One of his most talked about deals was one in which he got a large yacht for about 10 percent of its estimated value. He didn't even want the yacht. It wasn't even part of the deal he was there to negotiate. But at some point in the talks, it came up, and Trump saw a chance to take it for a fraction of its actual worth. He couldn't resist.
And poor Ivana? It says a lot about our country that "trophy wife" is a job description to which a significant number of women actually aspire. She spent a few years jet-setting around on Trump's credit card while he did his deals, then came away with a fortune in the settlement. Not to mention her Book Deal. In fact, you don't even need to be married to a Trump anymore, to cash in big. Palimony suits can net you everything you'd get from a divorce settlement, as long as you don't get foxed into a pre-nup. Such a deal.
Since Trump made his big splash, greed has become not only permissible but fashionable. Mergers and Acquisitions became the ultimate power occupation. People wore power ties, had power lunches. "Hostile takeover" now rivals golf as the most popular sport among the super-rich. Speaking of sports, somewhere along the line, those "old school" heroes that once played for love of the game stopped competing for the Stanley Cup, a Super Bowl ring or Olympic Gold and sought to become the Highest Paid Player or negotiate the Biggest Endorsement Contract.
When America got a little queasy with all this exercise of raw greed and threatened to go spiritual, scientologists such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise did their bit to give acquisition a religious underpinning. A "clear" Travolta, for example, went out and bought his own personal airliner. His lifestyle has been the subject of a number of respectful articles in popular magazines. And the arbiters of American culture (otherwise known as TV programming executives) gave us the soft, feminine side of avarice with Martha Stewart (whose employees might dispute that dear Martha has a "soft" side) and the pseudo-spiritual pop-psychology talk show Oprah! Oprah is Acquisitions Nice. She blows kisses while her agent plays hardball renegotiating her TV contract. She has her own magazine, which is primarily a forum for showcasing all the stuff she has acquired.
Not to be left out, the American Church has done it's best to keep pace. Robert Fuller's Crystal Cathedral in California became one of the most notable (but certainly not the only) monuments to a sort of Celestial Capitalism. Amway and other pyramid-style get-rich-quick sales schemes were started by ... yes, Christians. Around the same time, a number of charismata-oriented churches managed to find in the Bible the long hidden Prosperity Gospel. Hosanna! God Wants You Wealthy! Believe and Receive!!
Thanks to Oprah, shopping -- always a guilty pleasure for many American women, is now just good therapy. One popular Health and Wealth Gospel advocate, a few years back, made no bones about it: Having problems? Feeling blue? No need to kneel at the foot of the cross -- go get your nails done! Buy that new dress! Redecorate!!!
Well, I'm done. You can pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee -- and $350 for a new XBOX, $3,500 for the big screen TV, $35,000 for an SUV and $350,000 for that step-up townhome if you want. It is, after all, the patriotic thing to do. Can't let the Engine of American Commerce stall. But I'm joining the ranks of the unpatriotic. I'm done propping up the always just-out-of-reach American Dream.
Actually, I've been a secret member of Acquisitions Anonymous for sometime: I cancelled my cable contract and stopped watching broadcast TV six years ago. (I do have a smallish TV, however. It's a gift form my older son, given to me when he bought his 25-incher. On it, I watch movies, which I take seriously and consider a spiritual discipline. Really.) But now I'm coming out. I drive a 14-year-old car only because I still can't figure out how to entirely do without one, but I prefer to ride the bicycle I picked up at a garage sale 12 years ago for $25 dollars and would be thrilled to take the light rail to work if it went anywhere near my job. Most of my furniture is other people's cast offs. My nicest sweaters cost me under a dollar apiece. My favorite jacket -- real leather -- cost me $6 because the zipper didn't work. But the piece de la resistance was the house, a good-sized three-bedroom bi-level with two-car garage on a quiet street in a good neighborhood: Gave it to my ex-wife in the divorce settlement. Didn't see a dime. The most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. I honestly haven't missed it -- or the lawn mowing, cleaning, upkeep, house payment, insurance and utility bills -- not even for a single day. And I'm going through what little unused stuff I still have left and I'm divesting, down-sizing, streamlining, simplifying.
If that's not treasonous enough: I don't dream about winning the lottery. In fact, I've never even bought a lottery ticket. Never will. Not because I think the lottery is wrong, which I do, but because I really, honestly have absolutely no desire to be rich like The Donald and have my very own trophy wife and a yacht. Or a personal airliner. Or a Martha Stewart home that Oprah would want to picture on a spread in her magazine.
There, I've said it. Hang me for a traitor, but here I stand.
We've heard it so often, we don't even think about it much. It's just there. Yeah. The American Dream. But ... what exactly is the American Dream, anyway?
If no definition quickly jumps to the forefront of your mind, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. I don't think it's supposed to. The fact that the "American Dream" is for most of us a rather vague thing is, I believe, the genius of its design. I can't prove this, of course, but I'm pretty sure this shadowy, nebulous catch-all for American aspirations is, like almost everything else "American," the creation of some advertising wizard.
Whatever it may have been, once upon a time, the American Dream today is mostly about money. And not about getting money or having it, but mostly about being able to spend it. Advertising agencies spend millions trying to convince us that something most of the rest of the world would consider an incredible luxury (or downright profligate) is something we can't live without.
Drive around the average middle-class neighborhood on a warm Saturday afternoon and count the number of two-car garages which do not have room for two cars because at least one stall is full of stuff. Note the number of RVs, and tarp-covered watercraft and snowmobiles that sit unused week after week in the driveways. The great American pastime is not Baseball, it's buying. And we're so jaded -- we already have so much stuff, that it's not the purchased thing itself, but the act of acquisition that we crave. Not convinced? Ever watched what people buy at garage sales? I rest my case.
Acquisition is at the core of the American Dream. It's all about getting something you don't yet have. In fact, it's an addiction. How else could so large a portion of the American populace have become so enamored of Donald and Ivana Trump? The Donald, who subsequently traded his trophy wife in for a newer model, Marla Maples, wrote "The Art of the Deal." I'm still amazed that a man could be so lionized for writing a book in which taking advantage of people financially is described as an art form. It was Trump's contention that the real fun wasn't the thing itself, but the getting of the thing. It was the Deal itself that he dreamed about.
One of his most talked about deals was one in which he got a large yacht for about 10 percent of its estimated value. He didn't even want the yacht. It wasn't even part of the deal he was there to negotiate. But at some point in the talks, it came up, and Trump saw a chance to take it for a fraction of its actual worth. He couldn't resist.
And poor Ivana? It says a lot about our country that "trophy wife" is a job description to which a significant number of women actually aspire. She spent a few years jet-setting around on Trump's credit card while he did his deals, then came away with a fortune in the settlement. Not to mention her Book Deal. In fact, you don't even need to be married to a Trump anymore, to cash in big. Palimony suits can net you everything you'd get from a divorce settlement, as long as you don't get foxed into a pre-nup. Such a deal.
Since Trump made his big splash, greed has become not only permissible but fashionable. Mergers and Acquisitions became the ultimate power occupation. People wore power ties, had power lunches. "Hostile takeover" now rivals golf as the most popular sport among the super-rich. Speaking of sports, somewhere along the line, those "old school" heroes that once played for love of the game stopped competing for the Stanley Cup, a Super Bowl ring or Olympic Gold and sought to become the Highest Paid Player or negotiate the Biggest Endorsement Contract.
When America got a little queasy with all this exercise of raw greed and threatened to go spiritual, scientologists such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise did their bit to give acquisition a religious underpinning. A "clear" Travolta, for example, went out and bought his own personal airliner. His lifestyle has been the subject of a number of respectful articles in popular magazines. And the arbiters of American culture (otherwise known as TV programming executives) gave us the soft, feminine side of avarice with Martha Stewart (whose employees might dispute that dear Martha has a "soft" side) and the pseudo-spiritual pop-psychology talk show Oprah! Oprah is Acquisitions Nice. She blows kisses while her agent plays hardball renegotiating her TV contract. She has her own magazine, which is primarily a forum for showcasing all the stuff she has acquired.
Not to be left out, the American Church has done it's best to keep pace. Robert Fuller's Crystal Cathedral in California became one of the most notable (but certainly not the only) monuments to a sort of Celestial Capitalism. Amway and other pyramid-style get-rich-quick sales schemes were started by ... yes, Christians. Around the same time, a number of charismata-oriented churches managed to find in the Bible the long hidden Prosperity Gospel. Hosanna! God Wants You Wealthy! Believe and Receive!!
Thanks to Oprah, shopping -- always a guilty pleasure for many American women, is now just good therapy. One popular Health and Wealth Gospel advocate, a few years back, made no bones about it: Having problems? Feeling blue? No need to kneel at the foot of the cross -- go get your nails done! Buy that new dress! Redecorate!!!
Well, I'm done. You can pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee -- and $350 for a new XBOX, $3,500 for the big screen TV, $35,000 for an SUV and $350,000 for that step-up townhome if you want. It is, after all, the patriotic thing to do. Can't let the Engine of American Commerce stall. But I'm joining the ranks of the unpatriotic. I'm done propping up the always just-out-of-reach American Dream.
Actually, I've been a secret member of Acquisitions Anonymous for sometime: I cancelled my cable contract and stopped watching broadcast TV six years ago. (I do have a smallish TV, however. It's a gift form my older son, given to me when he bought his 25-incher. On it, I watch movies, which I take seriously and consider a spiritual discipline. Really.) But now I'm coming out. I drive a 14-year-old car only because I still can't figure out how to entirely do without one, but I prefer to ride the bicycle I picked up at a garage sale 12 years ago for $25 dollars and would be thrilled to take the light rail to work if it went anywhere near my job. Most of my furniture is other people's cast offs. My nicest sweaters cost me under a dollar apiece. My favorite jacket -- real leather -- cost me $6 because the zipper didn't work. But the piece de la resistance was the house, a good-sized three-bedroom bi-level with two-car garage on a quiet street in a good neighborhood: Gave it to my ex-wife in the divorce settlement. Didn't see a dime. The most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. I honestly haven't missed it -- or the lawn mowing, cleaning, upkeep, house payment, insurance and utility bills -- not even for a single day. And I'm going through what little unused stuff I still have left and I'm divesting, down-sizing, streamlining, simplifying.
If that's not treasonous enough: I don't dream about winning the lottery. In fact, I've never even bought a lottery ticket. Never will. Not because I think the lottery is wrong, which I do, but because I really, honestly have absolutely no desire to be rich like The Donald and have my very own trophy wife and a yacht. Or a personal airliner. Or a Martha Stewart home that Oprah would want to picture on a spread in her magazine.
There, I've said it. Hang me for a traitor, but here I stand.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Atheist Hies Priest into Court Under Italian Deception-for-Gain Law
At first I thought it was a joke, but apparently, it's for real. See this Associated Press news item. An atheist is asking an Italian court to rule on whether a Roman Catholic priest practiced a form of fraud under that country's law by asserting in a church publication that Jesus Christ was actually a real person.
Sheesh.
Sheesh.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Spider Eyes
I can't find the spider now. When I got out of the bathroom, it was gone. But for about an hour this morning, I lay in my bed and watched it on my bedroom ceiling.
I can't sleep past 7:00, but I've committed, for a time, to remaining in bed until 8:00 on Saturday mornings. There's a million things I could do. Many of them really need to be done -- the washing, a Christmas present that didn't wrapped and delivered, rousting my 14-year-old son for another crack at his undone homework, and on and on. But for a little while, between 7:00 and 8:00, I try not to do, as a sort of Sabbath discipline.
So, today, I just watched the spider. For a long time, it sat still, near the wall on my left. Then it started wandering along the wall moving in one general direction, but taking little diagonal left- and right-hand bunny trails, as if it was looking for something. What, I couldn't imagine. After a long while, the spider suddenly made a hard right turn and headed across the center of the ceiling -- crawling a ways, then stopping, doing a little slide to the left, to the right, then on again -- allllll thhhhheeeee waaaaaayyy to the other wall on my right.
I tried to imagine the spider's world. As I did so, my world inverted, and suddenly, I was on a vast, flat white expanse. In front of me nothing but what to me would look like two- or three-foot high bumps, likemoguls on a ski slope. As far as my spidery eyes could see, in every direction, nothing but bumpy road.
Back in my bed, I wondered if the spider is looking for something to eat. Somewhere, behind one of those bumps, some little bit of a fly or other miniscule bug-like breakfast tidbit might be cowering. Or maybe it's bored, and just looking for a change of scenery. But when the spider got all the way to the other wall, it stopped for a while, then made another right and started creeping along that wall. It continued its trek to the corner, then made another right and goes allllllll thhhhhheeeee waaaayyyyyy across to the other side. Then the spider abruptly struck out diagonally, and followed a rather erratic course across the middle again to the fourth wall across the way.
Well, you've seen it all, pal. Now what? I wondering if the spider's ... well, frustrated? Maybe looking for a way out?
I wondered if the spider could see me, with its little spider eyes, in my bed, watching and wondering. If only that spider knew what I know, I thought. In my head, I shout, Hey!! Look Up! All the cool stuff is up here!
Suddenly, the earth beneath my feet collapsed to nothing, and in a moment, I found myself in the deepest depths of the ocean of space. The universe lay before me, a stunningly, inconceivably vast expanse -- a glowing tapestry of stars and gaseous clouds and millions upon millions of galaxies. And the unseen Voice shouted, "Hey!! Look up ....'
And I began to pray, with fear and trembling -- hungry, desperately wanting a change of scenery, but most of all, holding on to my hope that there's really a Way Out, "Lord, I want to know what you know."
I can't sleep past 7:00, but I've committed, for a time, to remaining in bed until 8:00 on Saturday mornings. There's a million things I could do. Many of them really need to be done -- the washing, a Christmas present that didn't wrapped and delivered, rousting my 14-year-old son for another crack at his undone homework, and on and on. But for a little while, between 7:00 and 8:00, I try not to do, as a sort of Sabbath discipline.
So, today, I just watched the spider. For a long time, it sat still, near the wall on my left. Then it started wandering along the wall moving in one general direction, but taking little diagonal left- and right-hand bunny trails, as if it was looking for something. What, I couldn't imagine. After a long while, the spider suddenly made a hard right turn and headed across the center of the ceiling -- crawling a ways, then stopping, doing a little slide to the left, to the right, then on again -- allllll thhhhheeeee waaaaaayyy to the other wall on my right.
I tried to imagine the spider's world. As I did so, my world inverted, and suddenly, I was on a vast, flat white expanse. In front of me nothing but what to me would look like two- or three-foot high bumps, likemoguls on a ski slope. As far as my spidery eyes could see, in every direction, nothing but bumpy road.
Back in my bed, I wondered if the spider is looking for something to eat. Somewhere, behind one of those bumps, some little bit of a fly or other miniscule bug-like breakfast tidbit might be cowering. Or maybe it's bored, and just looking for a change of scenery. But when the spider got all the way to the other wall, it stopped for a while, then made another right and started creeping along that wall. It continued its trek to the corner, then made another right and goes allllllll thhhhhheeeee waaaayyyyyy across to the other side. Then the spider abruptly struck out diagonally, and followed a rather erratic course across the middle again to the fourth wall across the way.
Well, you've seen it all, pal. Now what? I wondering if the spider's ... well, frustrated? Maybe looking for a way out?
I wondered if the spider could see me, with its little spider eyes, in my bed, watching and wondering. If only that spider knew what I know, I thought. In my head, I shout, Hey!! Look Up! All the cool stuff is up here!
Suddenly, the earth beneath my feet collapsed to nothing, and in a moment, I found myself in the deepest depths of the ocean of space. The universe lay before me, a stunningly, inconceivably vast expanse -- a glowing tapestry of stars and gaseous clouds and millions upon millions of galaxies. And the unseen Voice shouted, "Hey!! Look up ....'
And I began to pray, with fear and trembling -- hungry, desperately wanting a change of scenery, but most of all, holding on to my hope that there's really a Way Out, "Lord, I want to know what you know."
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
A Good Shepherd
I received news this week that Joe Vitunic, pastor of Church of the Savior in Ambridge, Pa., was leaving the church he started more than 20 years ago. He was leaving, he wrote, because he did not think he was the right person to lead the church forward. It was sad news for me.
When I first walked in the door of Church of the Savior, in Ambridge, Pa., seven years ago, I was, frankly, sick of the institutional church, the Episcopalian variety in particular.
I had walked out of my Episcopal parish back in Denver about a year earlier and found respite for a time (too short a time) in a small Vineyard fellowship tucked away in a rented room at a local community center and run by a small group of lay people. But my then wife was accepted to Trinity Seminary in Ambridge that same year, so I had recently arrived with my family in the Pittsburgh area. My wife was expected to find a place to minister with an Episcopal Church during her two-year educational stint, but I had I doubted I could join her. After visiting a handful of them, I was moving beyond doubt to certainty. I was weary, angry, lonely, confused, defensive, depressed ... and desperate for a touch of the Holy Spirit.
We had dinner one night with another seminary family, and as we discussed the possibilities for church involvement and I whined about my misgivings, they suggested I try Joe Vitunic's curch. With great misgivings, I did, and oh, the difference, the difference to me.
In another life, Joe had been an engineer and had built a fairly comfortable life, but instead of reveling in his career prospects, he found himself restless, dissatisfied. He couldn't shake the idea that he was called to something more. At a time when most young families are remodeling that house they intend to raise the kids in and socking away that nest egg to retire comfortably on, Joe and Cindy began to pray about it, and not long afterward put every last penny they had into Joe's seminary education.
Joe had a soft spot for kids. While at seminary, he and a friend started a children's after-school ministry in what little time they had to spare from their studies. It was no big deal. By his own admission, Joe was no great shakes at organization and administration. He had no long range plan, no mission statement, no three-step program for growth of a future citywide youth program. Joe had some hand puppets and used them to tell the kids stories. That was pretty much it. But the little ministry grew. The word got around. Weary moms who dropped their kids off mostly to get a break began to realize there was more to Joe than a child care provider. After the first week of being dragged in the door, the kids were suddenly excited about going. (Hurry up Mom, we'll be late!")
Some of these awestruck moms started sticking around after, to find out who this guy was. He got to know them and soon spent time visiting their homes. People began asking him when he was going to start his church. This took Joe completely by surprise. It had never occurred to him. Besides, a seminarian walking out of school and just starting a church was ... well, the nicest way to put it was that it might be considered a bit presumptuous. There was a process. Things had to be done the way they had always been done. Graduating seminarians didn't start at the top. They became deacons, for at least a year, and then could be ordained and become lowly curates, and then, someday, if they behaved themselves and stayed on the good side of the local bishop, they might be called to a church as a rector. But Joe and Cindy prayed about it. And by the time Joe graduated, he and Cindy were hosting a fledgling, albeit unofficial, fellowship in their living room.
But it was time for the new graduate to take his place in the hierarchical pecking order. If he was to support his family (having exhausted all his resources to get through seminary) he'd have to get a job. But what was he to do with his little flock? He and Cindy began to pray and decidd to talk to the Bishop. Wonder of wonders, by very special arrangement, the Bishop took the unprecedented step of granting provisional recognition to his little group in Ambridge as an official Episcopal church.
At that time, churches on the cutting edge of church growth were checking in with George Barna, reading their Ralph Winter and were just about to start climbing on the "purpose driven" bandwagon with Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek "seeker-sensitive" movement. But Joe wasn't much of a theorist. He had no gift for marketing. Joe's concept of ministry was pretty simple. He thought he was the seeker. So he simply spent his days walking the streets of Ambridge, seeking the lost sheep. He'd hit all the cafes, coffee shops, donut emporiums, gas stations, pizza dives and other places people congregated, befriending anyone who'd return his "Hi, my name's Joe." In time, he led many of those he befriended to the Lord for the first time ... or back for a second or third try. Then he led in them worship and the Eucharist each Sunday. And his little flock quickly outgrew his living room and began to meet in the local armory.
Joe and Cindy had a novel approach to social action, too. Around the corner from the old home they lived in was a notorious Ambridge bar. Back when the steel mills had blackened the cityscape along the Ohio river, Ambridge had been the "company town" for the American Bridge Co., which had built many of the bridges in the Pittsburgh area. When the steel industry abandoned Steel Town USA, and bridge builders turned to concrete, Ambridge had plummeted into an economic depression from which it is still trying to recover. (The remains of American Bridge now sit rusting and silent in the middle of the town, right next to the seminary.) Steel workers, a hard drinking lot even when they were working, added brawling to the mix as the mills began to close down. And Ambridge became a sometimes dangerous place to be, especially at night.
One night, a brawl that started in the street almost engulfed several visiting family members as they tried to get past the bar, which stood in the path between the only available parking places and the Vitunic home. Joe and Cindy decided the bar had to go. Did they picket? Petition City Hall? Stand on the street corner and shout "Repent"? No, Joe wasn't much of a politician and hadn't the heart for confrontation. So he and Cindy decided to ... yep, pray. Everyday, they simply asked that God would shut the bar and open people's hearts to Himself. Long after anyone with sense would have given up, God answered their prayers: The bar closed, the brawling stopped and the neighborhood began to slowly brighten up.
Well, Joe walked around, met people, befriended them and the church kept getting bigger. When it outgrew the armory, the seminary graciously offered Joe the use of its chapel. Before long, they outgrew the chapel and, primarily because Joe was one of their own, the seminary permitted Church of the Savior to meet in the school's much larger Great Hall. Joe wasn't much of a CEO/manager or delegater. Until his first heart attack, he was there early each Sunday with the set up crew, coat off, tie loose, helping to take down tables and get 300 or so chairs set up on time for the service. Most everyone who placed a bottom in one of those chairs was either someone Joe had met walking around or someone who knew someone Joe had met.
Joe wasn't much of a recruiter, either. He wouldn't have dreamed of strong arming anyone into serving the church. But he really wanted to add some music to their times of worship. So Joe just began praying for some musicians. For a long year, their singing at the armory was accompanied by an accordionist whose skills were legendary (but not in a good way). But Joe continued to pray. When I got there, they had two almost complete eight or nine piece worship bands -- keyboards, drums, singers, guitars, the works, capable of an extraordinary range of musical styles. All they were missing was a second bass player, so Stan, the lone bassist, could have a bye week once in a while. When I walked in the door, the band had been ... yes, praying about that. I introduced myself to the drummer one morning, and mentioned that I played bass ... a little. I was greeted, for the first time in my life, as an Answer to Prayer. Turns out, Stan had been "prayed in" as well. First rehearsal was very unusual. They worked hard on the music, but, about halfway through the allotted rehearsal time, they stopped and gathered for prayer. The prayer time went on longer than the rehearsal. We prayed for the worship of the church. We prayed for healing for team members. We invited God's Holy Spirit to come, then reveled in His Presence. But I digress.
No, Joe wasn't a therapist. When you went in to his office with a problem, you talked, and he mostly listened. He often apologized for not knowing what to do about the problem (he wasn't too big on authority) and suggested that he simply pray for healing. But you left lighter, freer, affirmed, understood and encouraged. Never judged, demeaned, categorized, pigeon-holed, discounted or labeled.
That's because Joe wasn't into control. There was no long list of rules about what was proper in the services. If someone stood to give a prophecy or speak in tongues, Joe would stop and wait for them to finish, then he'd ask if there were others. He'd wait quietly and patiently -- no expectantly -- for an interpretation. He'd repeat a prophecy respectfully (even the kinda questionable stuff), just in case someone hadn't been able to hear and sometimes expand on it, or stop for a time to pray it in. Sometimes he'd jettison his notes for his message and go with the prophetic message instead. One time, he stopped in the middle of a sermon to talk about his need to repent of something. By the time he was done, half the church had crowded to the front for prayer for their own repentance, in a service that went on until three in the afternoon. He would sometimes ask the band to continue the worship, because we weren't done yet, or call them up later for more. Or to repeat a song. And those people worshipped! In part, they did so because Joe, right there on the front row, so obviously gave himself to Jesus in worship. The Holy Spirit was in charge, and Joe was very hesitant to quench anything that might prove to be His divine activity.
Joe was not big on ceremony. There were no "bells and smells." No crucifer, no acolyte procession. Just Joe, standing at a plain wooden table, breaking bread, lifting the cup, speaking the words of the liturgy he'd read a thousand times as if he'd never heard them before and could scarcely take in their staggering significance. He made God's Word out of man's poetry, like a man drinking deeply from wells of Living Water. I had been in the Episcopal church for a number of years, but the liturgy had never had that kind of life-changing power until I heard it from Joe. When I received the bread and wine from Joe and his ministry team, I received the very Body and Blood.
And, as you might imagine, Joe was not big on titles. He wouldn't answer to "Father" and was mighty uncomfortable with the title "priest." While he was OK with Pastor Joe, just plain "Joe" was what most people called him.
Joe was the rarest of rare things, a good shepherd.
But sometimes, apparently, that's not enough. Just before I returned to Denver, the seminary had come under new leadership and decided to reclaim its Great Hall, and Church of the Savior was given a deadline to find another meeting place. After several false starts, the church managed to acquire an older property in Ambridge and slowly began to transform it into its permanent home. Joe had suffered from time to time in his life from depression and made no secret of it (one more reason I loved him) so the planning, organizing, fundraising, squabbling and just plain hassle involved in the transition took its toll. Finally, Joe had a second heart attack, and had to take a sabbatical. But not too long ago, Church of the Savior cut the ribbon on its new sanctuary, and Joe was there to preside. It's incomprehensible that he's leaving the church he helped birth and nurtured through its youth and teenage years.
Frankly, I suspect that Joe's just too nice to say that he's been chased out.
Maybe a changing of the guard is in order. Maybe Church of the Savior needs a Strong Hand, a Planner, a Strategist, a CEO at the helm to give it a Vision and Purpose and Organize and Martial its Resources for the Future. That's the driving force these days. But it will be losing a true Prophet, Priest, Apostle, Teacher, Evangelist and Father.
That's not my idea of a good trade.
When I first walked in the door of Church of the Savior, in Ambridge, Pa., seven years ago, I was, frankly, sick of the institutional church, the Episcopalian variety in particular.
I had walked out of my Episcopal parish back in Denver about a year earlier and found respite for a time (too short a time) in a small Vineyard fellowship tucked away in a rented room at a local community center and run by a small group of lay people. But my then wife was accepted to Trinity Seminary in Ambridge that same year, so I had recently arrived with my family in the Pittsburgh area. My wife was expected to find a place to minister with an Episcopal Church during her two-year educational stint, but I had I doubted I could join her. After visiting a handful of them, I was moving beyond doubt to certainty. I was weary, angry, lonely, confused, defensive, depressed ... and desperate for a touch of the Holy Spirit.
We had dinner one night with another seminary family, and as we discussed the possibilities for church involvement and I whined about my misgivings, they suggested I try Joe Vitunic's curch. With great misgivings, I did, and oh, the difference, the difference to me.
In another life, Joe had been an engineer and had built a fairly comfortable life, but instead of reveling in his career prospects, he found himself restless, dissatisfied. He couldn't shake the idea that he was called to something more. At a time when most young families are remodeling that house they intend to raise the kids in and socking away that nest egg to retire comfortably on, Joe and Cindy began to pray about it, and not long afterward put every last penny they had into Joe's seminary education.
Joe had a soft spot for kids. While at seminary, he and a friend started a children's after-school ministry in what little time they had to spare from their studies. It was no big deal. By his own admission, Joe was no great shakes at organization and administration. He had no long range plan, no mission statement, no three-step program for growth of a future citywide youth program. Joe had some hand puppets and used them to tell the kids stories. That was pretty much it. But the little ministry grew. The word got around. Weary moms who dropped their kids off mostly to get a break began to realize there was more to Joe than a child care provider. After the first week of being dragged in the door, the kids were suddenly excited about going. (Hurry up Mom, we'll be late!")
Some of these awestruck moms started sticking around after, to find out who this guy was. He got to know them and soon spent time visiting their homes. People began asking him when he was going to start his church. This took Joe completely by surprise. It had never occurred to him. Besides, a seminarian walking out of school and just starting a church was ... well, the nicest way to put it was that it might be considered a bit presumptuous. There was a process. Things had to be done the way they had always been done. Graduating seminarians didn't start at the top. They became deacons, for at least a year, and then could be ordained and become lowly curates, and then, someday, if they behaved themselves and stayed on the good side of the local bishop, they might be called to a church as a rector. But Joe and Cindy prayed about it. And by the time Joe graduated, he and Cindy were hosting a fledgling, albeit unofficial, fellowship in their living room.
But it was time for the new graduate to take his place in the hierarchical pecking order. If he was to support his family (having exhausted all his resources to get through seminary) he'd have to get a job. But what was he to do with his little flock? He and Cindy began to pray and decidd to talk to the Bishop. Wonder of wonders, by very special arrangement, the Bishop took the unprecedented step of granting provisional recognition to his little group in Ambridge as an official Episcopal church.
At that time, churches on the cutting edge of church growth were checking in with George Barna, reading their Ralph Winter and were just about to start climbing on the "purpose driven" bandwagon with Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek "seeker-sensitive" movement. But Joe wasn't much of a theorist. He had no gift for marketing. Joe's concept of ministry was pretty simple. He thought he was the seeker. So he simply spent his days walking the streets of Ambridge, seeking the lost sheep. He'd hit all the cafes, coffee shops, donut emporiums, gas stations, pizza dives and other places people congregated, befriending anyone who'd return his "Hi, my name's Joe." In time, he led many of those he befriended to the Lord for the first time ... or back for a second or third try. Then he led in them worship and the Eucharist each Sunday. And his little flock quickly outgrew his living room and began to meet in the local armory.
Joe and Cindy had a novel approach to social action, too. Around the corner from the old home they lived in was a notorious Ambridge bar. Back when the steel mills had blackened the cityscape along the Ohio river, Ambridge had been the "company town" for the American Bridge Co., which had built many of the bridges in the Pittsburgh area. When the steel industry abandoned Steel Town USA, and bridge builders turned to concrete, Ambridge had plummeted into an economic depression from which it is still trying to recover. (The remains of American Bridge now sit rusting and silent in the middle of the town, right next to the seminary.) Steel workers, a hard drinking lot even when they were working, added brawling to the mix as the mills began to close down. And Ambridge became a sometimes dangerous place to be, especially at night.
One night, a brawl that started in the street almost engulfed several visiting family members as they tried to get past the bar, which stood in the path between the only available parking places and the Vitunic home. Joe and Cindy decided the bar had to go. Did they picket? Petition City Hall? Stand on the street corner and shout "Repent"? No, Joe wasn't much of a politician and hadn't the heart for confrontation. So he and Cindy decided to ... yep, pray. Everyday, they simply asked that God would shut the bar and open people's hearts to Himself. Long after anyone with sense would have given up, God answered their prayers: The bar closed, the brawling stopped and the neighborhood began to slowly brighten up.
Well, Joe walked around, met people, befriended them and the church kept getting bigger. When it outgrew the armory, the seminary graciously offered Joe the use of its chapel. Before long, they outgrew the chapel and, primarily because Joe was one of their own, the seminary permitted Church of the Savior to meet in the school's much larger Great Hall. Joe wasn't much of a CEO/manager or delegater. Until his first heart attack, he was there early each Sunday with the set up crew, coat off, tie loose, helping to take down tables and get 300 or so chairs set up on time for the service. Most everyone who placed a bottom in one of those chairs was either someone Joe had met walking around or someone who knew someone Joe had met.
Joe wasn't much of a recruiter, either. He wouldn't have dreamed of strong arming anyone into serving the church. But he really wanted to add some music to their times of worship. So Joe just began praying for some musicians. For a long year, their singing at the armory was accompanied by an accordionist whose skills were legendary (but not in a good way). But Joe continued to pray. When I got there, they had two almost complete eight or nine piece worship bands -- keyboards, drums, singers, guitars, the works, capable of an extraordinary range of musical styles. All they were missing was a second bass player, so Stan, the lone bassist, could have a bye week once in a while. When I walked in the door, the band had been ... yes, praying about that. I introduced myself to the drummer one morning, and mentioned that I played bass ... a little. I was greeted, for the first time in my life, as an Answer to Prayer. Turns out, Stan had been "prayed in" as well. First rehearsal was very unusual. They worked hard on the music, but, about halfway through the allotted rehearsal time, they stopped and gathered for prayer. The prayer time went on longer than the rehearsal. We prayed for the worship of the church. We prayed for healing for team members. We invited God's Holy Spirit to come, then reveled in His Presence. But I digress.
No, Joe wasn't a therapist. When you went in to his office with a problem, you talked, and he mostly listened. He often apologized for not knowing what to do about the problem (he wasn't too big on authority) and suggested that he simply pray for healing. But you left lighter, freer, affirmed, understood and encouraged. Never judged, demeaned, categorized, pigeon-holed, discounted or labeled.
That's because Joe wasn't into control. There was no long list of rules about what was proper in the services. If someone stood to give a prophecy or speak in tongues, Joe would stop and wait for them to finish, then he'd ask if there were others. He'd wait quietly and patiently -- no expectantly -- for an interpretation. He'd repeat a prophecy respectfully (even the kinda questionable stuff), just in case someone hadn't been able to hear and sometimes expand on it, or stop for a time to pray it in. Sometimes he'd jettison his notes for his message and go with the prophetic message instead. One time, he stopped in the middle of a sermon to talk about his need to repent of something. By the time he was done, half the church had crowded to the front for prayer for their own repentance, in a service that went on until three in the afternoon. He would sometimes ask the band to continue the worship, because we weren't done yet, or call them up later for more. Or to repeat a song. And those people worshipped! In part, they did so because Joe, right there on the front row, so obviously gave himself to Jesus in worship. The Holy Spirit was in charge, and Joe was very hesitant to quench anything that might prove to be His divine activity.
Joe was not big on ceremony. There were no "bells and smells." No crucifer, no acolyte procession. Just Joe, standing at a plain wooden table, breaking bread, lifting the cup, speaking the words of the liturgy he'd read a thousand times as if he'd never heard them before and could scarcely take in their staggering significance. He made God's Word out of man's poetry, like a man drinking deeply from wells of Living Water. I had been in the Episcopal church for a number of years, but the liturgy had never had that kind of life-changing power until I heard it from Joe. When I received the bread and wine from Joe and his ministry team, I received the very Body and Blood.
And, as you might imagine, Joe was not big on titles. He wouldn't answer to "Father" and was mighty uncomfortable with the title "priest." While he was OK with Pastor Joe, just plain "Joe" was what most people called him.
Joe was the rarest of rare things, a good shepherd.
But sometimes, apparently, that's not enough. Just before I returned to Denver, the seminary had come under new leadership and decided to reclaim its Great Hall, and Church of the Savior was given a deadline to find another meeting place. After several false starts, the church managed to acquire an older property in Ambridge and slowly began to transform it into its permanent home. Joe had suffered from time to time in his life from depression and made no secret of it (one more reason I loved him) so the planning, organizing, fundraising, squabbling and just plain hassle involved in the transition took its toll. Finally, Joe had a second heart attack, and had to take a sabbatical. But not too long ago, Church of the Savior cut the ribbon on its new sanctuary, and Joe was there to preside. It's incomprehensible that he's leaving the church he helped birth and nurtured through its youth and teenage years.
Frankly, I suspect that Joe's just too nice to say that he's been chased out.
Maybe a changing of the guard is in order. Maybe Church of the Savior needs a Strong Hand, a Planner, a Strategist, a CEO at the helm to give it a Vision and Purpose and Organize and Martial its Resources for the Future. That's the driving force these days. But it will be losing a true Prophet, Priest, Apostle, Teacher, Evangelist and Father.
That's not my idea of a good trade.
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