Are you essential or non-essential?
You can start a food fight with a question like that. Some businesses, charities, church, civic and commercial leaders have gotten unusually prickly with their answers. Being on the coveted list of essential goods and services connotes importance and worth. Fighting to stay on it does too. If you're not on the approved list then you and whatever you were busy doing two weeks ago aren't as important as what other people still get to do. By short extension that must mean you aren't as important either. Others may, you may not.
There's a lot about this virus nobody knows, but here's what's certain: we are dealing with something ugly enough to kill people. It's treacherous and cowardly and seems, predator-like to pick on the weakest and most vulnerable. If the softest of soft targets get caught by this viral jackal pack, say, your grandparents, the kindly older neighbors that wave as you're leaving for work, the co-worker who's been out on medical leave, the guy recovering from chemotherapy - they will die.
What's not well known is the transmission rate or where it's headed next. It might kill a lot of people you know who need to stay around a while longer. The best we can do for now is stay away from each other. That's it.
I'm noticing the businesses, non-profits, stores, drive-throughs, charities, churches, media outlets, government services and civic associations that are staying open when they don't really have to stay open. Switching to skeleton crews when dealing with a nasty, hyper-contagious virus is hardly a show of good faith either. Against good wisdom you're still mingling people who have been around different sets of people and will return to them - maybe with a very bad bug. Somebody in those unnecessarily interlocking chains might be sick.
I'm getting pretty good at quarantining and doing without lately and when this thing is over, I'm not going to have much to do with greedy outfits and tedious people who made a grab for the brass ring of importance by staying in business when they could have politely shuttered like we did and helped the rest of us out.
Jockeying for essential status is enough to make me sick.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Thursday, March 12, 2020
First Words Mean Something
What if I told you that the first public word from the mouth of Jesus
What if?
You would likely say it is a very important word. Historian J. Edwin Orr noted that the first word of the gospel - the first word spoken by Jesus and the rest - is repent. In scripture as well as in every human interaction with God, repenting has always been step one. It's how messed up humans initiate contact with a holy God.
It's weird that, in our day, repenting has almost vanished from the radar screen.
If we think of repenting at all, we imagine it as some kind of sorrow. Feeling very sorry for the bad things we've involved ourselves in: hurtful words, secret, disgusting thoughts and prejudices, selfish and destructive behaviors. Once we consider them, sorry tears can result. Repenting may bring joy as well as tears, but we associate it most often with feeling sorry about our sin and failure.
The history of repenting involves a Greek word - metanoia. From high school biology, we're familiar with another meta word, metamorphosis. Metamorphosis means to change form and nicely describes the familiar but startling transformation undergone by the wormy, earthbound caterpillar as it becomes the stunning, lighter than air butterfly. Our word metanoia involves dramatic change also: change of mind, change of heart and change of habits. It's a bigger deal even than butterflies.
"Your iniquities have put a barrier between you and your God, causing Him to turn His face away so that He does not hear you."
This Isaiah 59 passage is pretty rough on believers. Did you notice "your God"? It's directed to insiders, not outsiders. It's a reminder that our self-absorption, greed, jealousies, lusting after people, things and experiences that don't belong to us along with bad words, perceptions and prejudices have walled us off from God. No matter how much you want it or claim it, a meaningful, satisfying relationship with God is impossible while a pile of sins sits in the road. Repenting removes it all.
Maybe you were never caught, but the secret sins especially can't be ignored, excused or explained away. They have to be acknowledged for the ugly things they are - in front of God who saw it all and is the most offended party. Was the harsh word spoken yesterday? Maybe the rage, lie or other secret sin was 15 years ago. No matter when it happened, you have to come clean, face it and lay it out before God. Only with this level of cooperation can God do the work of changing your mind, heart and habits.
Because sin is our pattern, repenting has to be our pattern. A friend says it well, "I can stop repenting everyday when I stop sinning everyday."
Repenting is hard work. It's the last thing we want to do. We find it easier to work, serve, sing, give, worship or help the poor. It's even easier to feel sorry, filling a hundred sad hours with regret. But there's no substitute for getting gut-level honest with ourselves and God in genuine repenting.
Jeremiah was right in saying our hearts are deceitfully wicked and unknowable. We shield our inner self by "forgetting" sinful words, actions and thoughts. Accepting the challenge to pray the words of Psalm 139 will cause our inner phoniness and resistance to crumble:
"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me"
It's a dangerously bold prayer. If you dare pray it God will definitely find the ugliness in you that needs to be exposed. Even if the ugly thing has lain untouched in some secret, inner chamber for a long time, the disinfecting light of Christ's presence will do its job if you let it. Once you see it and confess it, the blood of Christ does it's good work and the barrier is removed. The joy of salvation, knowing you are protected, will return with force and you will be drawn to a God who hears you loud and clear. His presence becomes a growing awareness.
You get dirty each day, so repent each day and real prayer becomes easier. Get over yourself and your heart will find it's true home.
- Is the first word from the mouth of John the Baptist
- Is the first word from the mouth of the 12 apostles
- Is the first word from the mouth of the 70 disciples
- Is the first word from the mouth of Simon Peter at Pentecost
- Is the same first word spoken publicly from the mouth of Paul?
What if?
You would likely say it is a very important word. Historian J. Edwin Orr noted that the first word of the gospel - the first word spoken by Jesus and the rest - is repent. In scripture as well as in every human interaction with God, repenting has always been step one. It's how messed up humans initiate contact with a holy God.
It's weird that, in our day, repenting has almost vanished from the radar screen.
If we think of repenting at all, we imagine it as some kind of sorrow. Feeling very sorry for the bad things we've involved ourselves in: hurtful words, secret, disgusting thoughts and prejudices, selfish and destructive behaviors. Once we consider them, sorry tears can result. Repenting may bring joy as well as tears, but we associate it most often with feeling sorry about our sin and failure.
The history of repenting involves a Greek word - metanoia. From high school biology, we're familiar with another meta word, metamorphosis. Metamorphosis means to change form and nicely describes the familiar but startling transformation undergone by the wormy, earthbound caterpillar as it becomes the stunning, lighter than air butterfly. Our word metanoia involves dramatic change also: change of mind, change of heart and change of habits. It's a bigger deal even than butterflies.
"Your iniquities have put a barrier between you and your God, causing Him to turn His face away so that He does not hear you."
This Isaiah 59 passage is pretty rough on believers. Did you notice "your God"? It's directed to insiders, not outsiders. It's a reminder that our self-absorption, greed, jealousies, lusting after people, things and experiences that don't belong to us along with bad words, perceptions and prejudices have walled us off from God. No matter how much you want it or claim it, a meaningful, satisfying relationship with God is impossible while a pile of sins sits in the road. Repenting removes it all.
Maybe you were never caught, but the secret sins especially can't be ignored, excused or explained away. They have to be acknowledged for the ugly things they are - in front of God who saw it all and is the most offended party. Was the harsh word spoken yesterday? Maybe the rage, lie or other secret sin was 15 years ago. No matter when it happened, you have to come clean, face it and lay it out before God. Only with this level of cooperation can God do the work of changing your mind, heart and habits.
Because sin is our pattern, repenting has to be our pattern. A friend says it well, "I can stop repenting everyday when I stop sinning everyday."
Repenting is hard work. It's the last thing we want to do. We find it easier to work, serve, sing, give, worship or help the poor. It's even easier to feel sorry, filling a hundred sad hours with regret. But there's no substitute for getting gut-level honest with ourselves and God in genuine repenting.
Jeremiah was right in saying our hearts are deceitfully wicked and unknowable. We shield our inner self by "forgetting" sinful words, actions and thoughts. Accepting the challenge to pray the words of Psalm 139 will cause our inner phoniness and resistance to crumble:
"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me"
It's a dangerously bold prayer. If you dare pray it God will definitely find the ugliness in you that needs to be exposed. Even if the ugly thing has lain untouched in some secret, inner chamber for a long time, the disinfecting light of Christ's presence will do its job if you let it. Once you see it and confess it, the blood of Christ does it's good work and the barrier is removed. The joy of salvation, knowing you are protected, will return with force and you will be drawn to a God who hears you loud and clear. His presence becomes a growing awareness.
You get dirty each day, so repent each day and real prayer becomes easier. Get over yourself and your heart will find it's true home.
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Stop Poking My Chest Uncle Bud!
"He adopted us from slavery: it is a mercy to redeem a slave, but it is more to adopt him."
Thomas Watson - Body of Divinity
I find it very hard to argue with old Puritans like Watson. I don't care to debunk popular myths and "things everybody knows" about Puritans and this isn't an apologetic for their worldview - a view that is more broad minded than is commonly assumed. Plenty of able historians have shot fresh, disinfecting air through the predictable portrayals inflicted on us by deadly high school lit classes and over costumed, sepia toned witch trial movies.
Watson is always that welcome "one clear call for me". As with most Puritans, the main thing stays the main thing and precision nearly always marks what he has to say. I like Samuel Johnson, Addison, Steele, Swift and even Hemingway for the same reason: they don't almost say what they mean to say, they routinely hit the point squarely, forcefully and usually memorably.
It's sad that the Puritans and their descendants are known to most of us only from cartoony textbook portrayals of Jonathan Edwards and his very angry God, both of whom get their jollies seeing human souls dangling and shriveling like spiders over the flame. Sad. And inaccurate. Sadder still to think of scads of theological schools that never introduce ministerial students to such clear thinkers, most of whom wrote beautifully, preached powerfully and prayed still more powerfully. I could be wrong, but a quick look-around tells me modern church leaders could use healthy doses of what the Puritans are serving.
Without diminishing the time stopping miracle of redemption - being bought twice by the real time/space invasion of a God-Man - Watson quickly leads us to a room with zero wiggle space by contrasting it with the much less talked about but infinitely more remarkable God act of adopting humans.
Against our wills we've been trapped at a family reunion we didn't want to attend in the first place. Know-it-all uncles have pushed us against the wall with finger pokes and questions that sound like conclusions. Holding a wilting paper plate of three bean salad and devilled eggs (we just came for the food) we are endlessly harangued with questions, machine gun follow-ups about who is saved, how saved and for how long. We sweat and mumble unoriginal non-committal grunts and look around nervously for rescue.
It's been a 1500 year discussion about salvation when we should have been talking about the more amazing reality of adoption.
Statements, counter-statements, synods, church fights, councils, doctrine wars and books without number all dumb down the biblical declaration of redemption by a God of mercy to a take-it-or leave it insistence that salvation is where it's at and there's only a couple of ways to talk about it. Isn't it time to agree with Watson and end a 15 century exercise in missing the point?
Nobody but echo chamber trolls wants to hear another airtight exposition of salvation.
I'm begging you, no more arguments, please Uncle Bud! It's been hammered flat at this point and that's a real pity, because it was good a conversation at first, but that was a long time ago. It's time to pivot: there's a reality approaching fantastic that's light years beyond the salvation debates. Salvation is wonderful, but the real message of good has a quality beyond wonder and comprehension. The staggering, fairy tale truth for every human image bearer is that all of us have been included in the life of Father, Son and Spirit. Already! Our adoption is finished. It's the ultimate inclusion.
Here's the real kicker that can shut down all the tedious, time ragged arguments about who's saved, who isn't and who says so and at the same time splash the old world's sad face back to life with the bracing clarity of mountain fed living water: you're already included in the Relationship. They want you in the Dance! People everywhere are straining to hear the song of adoption by an ever inclusive Relationship of perfect harmony and love.
The adoption papers have been signed in the blood of Jesus. He really did pay it all! Now go tell somebody. Most importantly: go live it.
Thomas Watson - Body of Divinity
I find it very hard to argue with old Puritans like Watson. I don't care to debunk popular myths and "things everybody knows" about Puritans and this isn't an apologetic for their worldview - a view that is more broad minded than is commonly assumed. Plenty of able historians have shot fresh, disinfecting air through the predictable portrayals inflicted on us by deadly high school lit classes and over costumed, sepia toned witch trial movies.
Watson is always that welcome "one clear call for me". As with most Puritans, the main thing stays the main thing and precision nearly always marks what he has to say. I like Samuel Johnson, Addison, Steele, Swift and even Hemingway for the same reason: they don't almost say what they mean to say, they routinely hit the point squarely, forcefully and usually memorably.
It's sad that the Puritans and their descendants are known to most of us only from cartoony textbook portrayals of Jonathan Edwards and his very angry God, both of whom get their jollies seeing human souls dangling and shriveling like spiders over the flame. Sad. And inaccurate. Sadder still to think of scads of theological schools that never introduce ministerial students to such clear thinkers, most of whom wrote beautifully, preached powerfully and prayed still more powerfully. I could be wrong, but a quick look-around tells me modern church leaders could use healthy doses of what the Puritans are serving.
Without diminishing the time stopping miracle of redemption - being bought twice by the real time/space invasion of a God-Man - Watson quickly leads us to a room with zero wiggle space by contrasting it with the much less talked about but infinitely more remarkable God act of adopting humans.
Against our wills we've been trapped at a family reunion we didn't want to attend in the first place. Know-it-all uncles have pushed us against the wall with finger pokes and questions that sound like conclusions. Holding a wilting paper plate of three bean salad and devilled eggs (we just came for the food) we are endlessly harangued with questions, machine gun follow-ups about who is saved, how saved and for how long. We sweat and mumble unoriginal non-committal grunts and look around nervously for rescue.
It's been a 1500 year discussion about salvation when we should have been talking about the more amazing reality of adoption.
Statements, counter-statements, synods, church fights, councils, doctrine wars and books without number all dumb down the biblical declaration of redemption by a God of mercy to a take-it-or leave it insistence that salvation is where it's at and there's only a couple of ways to talk about it. Isn't it time to agree with Watson and end a 15 century exercise in missing the point?
Nobody but echo chamber trolls wants to hear another airtight exposition of salvation.
I'm begging you, no more arguments, please Uncle Bud! It's been hammered flat at this point and that's a real pity, because it was good a conversation at first, but that was a long time ago. It's time to pivot: there's a reality approaching fantastic that's light years beyond the salvation debates. Salvation is wonderful, but the real message of good has a quality beyond wonder and comprehension. The staggering, fairy tale truth for every human image bearer is that all of us have been included in the life of Father, Son and Spirit. Already! Our adoption is finished. It's the ultimate inclusion.
Here's the real kicker that can shut down all the tedious, time ragged arguments about who's saved, who isn't and who says so and at the same time splash the old world's sad face back to life with the bracing clarity of mountain fed living water: you're already included in the Relationship. They want you in the Dance! People everywhere are straining to hear the song of adoption by an ever inclusive Relationship of perfect harmony and love.
The adoption papers have been signed in the blood of Jesus. He really did pay it all! Now go tell somebody. Most importantly: go live it.
Friday, February 28, 2020
What Whittaker Chambers Taught Me (Originally posted on Friday, November 8, 2013)
One of the more engaging books I've read lately has been Whittaker Chamber's controversial autobiography Witness. The Foreword, written as a letter of explanation to his children for his life and failings, is a remarkable stand alone piece, being a surprisingly strong testimony to the power of historic, biblical Christianity. I didn't expect to find Jesus there.
The bulk of the book is the story of his initial infatuation with, immersion in and eventual messy extrication from mid-century American communism. Chambers went as deeply into the belly of the beast as any American could go and became intimate with the inner workings and many of the party's major players. Curiously, it was his almost complete absorption into the the party that caused him to leave it.
A local news anchor once told me, in lament form, that he had gotten into the news business because he enjoyed being informed of current happenings and world events. He very much liked being an informed news consumer. However, broadcasting demands and production of three daily news programs left him no time to be more than casually acquainted with the news he was reporting. The system required that in getting the story out, the object of his love had to be checked. His passion took a back seat to the program.
I may be off base and subject to good correction, but the same thing is happening with the gospel of Christ - the supreme message of good. That stunning fairy tale like message that there is a perfect, eternal Relationship of love called Father, Son and Spirit who improves love the only way it can be - by sharing it with us. In spite of all our brokenness we are invited into what God is. The beast dies, we are rescued and we really do live happily ever after.
It seems that for the serious lover of Christ, one of the easier places to lose sight of Him and this amazing invitation is within one of the multi-layered systems that has built up around the gospel. Lots of elaborate, encrusted, Byzantine structures - denominations and para-church - have been painstakingly developed by the well meaning to propagate the message of good. Agencies, associations, denominational offices, task forces, mega-churches, and campaigns of every description, all with Christian underpinnings are sustained with enormous outlays of emotional and creative energies and tons of cash. They move mountains for sure, but not nearly with the ease Jesus said we could.
Maybe the well logoed organizations and carefully crafted systems are missing the Presence. It could happen..
It's a happy fact that the local church is the only organization of believers mentioned in the New Testament. Maybe that's because it's the best and only essential one. It's in that messy place and not within the efficient, well lit offices of strategists, demographers, bishops, superintendents and sages that the Presence and power of the Triune God best displays what He's all about. It's in the sometimes comical, sometimes tragic foibles of the local church that the creator of the rivers of living water speaks His invitation to satisfaction the loudest. It's where the thirsty soul hears it most clearly. The strong but crazy notion that within the local church family, serious seekers and bruised saints alike have the best chance to respond to the still, small Voice has been around for a long time. For good reason.
Chambers left the party because the treasure it was designed to preserve and propagate was misspent and squandered. It can happen with any human structure I suppose, even very good ones that do Jesus stuff. Maybe the Pearl of Great Price is not to be found in Christian TV, the various Vaticans and pseudo-Vaticans, denominational offices or agencies. Oh, sure, they can talk about Him in those places and how much He's needed outside those gleaming but expendable think-tanks. Still, it seems to me the local church is where it's at.
Now, if I could only convince over half of Americans who claim to be Christian, all the local churches would be bursting this weekend and the smart girls and guys trying to save the world from their busy beehive of cubicles could go on vacation. Or go to church.
The bulk of the book is the story of his initial infatuation with, immersion in and eventual messy extrication from mid-century American communism. Chambers went as deeply into the belly of the beast as any American could go and became intimate with the inner workings and many of the party's major players. Curiously, it was his almost complete absorption into the the party that caused him to leave it.
A local news anchor once told me, in lament form, that he had gotten into the news business because he enjoyed being informed of current happenings and world events. He very much liked being an informed news consumer. However, broadcasting demands and production of three daily news programs left him no time to be more than casually acquainted with the news he was reporting. The system required that in getting the story out, the object of his love had to be checked. His passion took a back seat to the program.
I may be off base and subject to good correction, but the same thing is happening with the gospel of Christ - the supreme message of good. That stunning fairy tale like message that there is a perfect, eternal Relationship of love called Father, Son and Spirit who improves love the only way it can be - by sharing it with us. In spite of all our brokenness we are invited into what God is. The beast dies, we are rescued and we really do live happily ever after.
It seems that for the serious lover of Christ, one of the easier places to lose sight of Him and this amazing invitation is within one of the multi-layered systems that has built up around the gospel. Lots of elaborate, encrusted, Byzantine structures - denominations and para-church - have been painstakingly developed by the well meaning to propagate the message of good. Agencies, associations, denominational offices, task forces, mega-churches, and campaigns of every description, all with Christian underpinnings are sustained with enormous outlays of emotional and creative energies and tons of cash. They move mountains for sure, but not nearly with the ease Jesus said we could.
Maybe the well logoed organizations and carefully crafted systems are missing the Presence. It could happen..
It's a happy fact that the local church is the only organization of believers mentioned in the New Testament. Maybe that's because it's the best and only essential one. It's in that messy place and not within the efficient, well lit offices of strategists, demographers, bishops, superintendents and sages that the Presence and power of the Triune God best displays what He's all about. It's in the sometimes comical, sometimes tragic foibles of the local church that the creator of the rivers of living water speaks His invitation to satisfaction the loudest. It's where the thirsty soul hears it most clearly. The strong but crazy notion that within the local church family, serious seekers and bruised saints alike have the best chance to respond to the still, small Voice has been around for a long time. For good reason.
Chambers left the party because the treasure it was designed to preserve and propagate was misspent and squandered. It can happen with any human structure I suppose, even very good ones that do Jesus stuff. Maybe the Pearl of Great Price is not to be found in Christian TV, the various Vaticans and pseudo-Vaticans, denominational offices or agencies. Oh, sure, they can talk about Him in those places and how much He's needed outside those gleaming but expendable think-tanks. Still, it seems to me the local church is where it's at.
Now, if I could only convince over half of Americans who claim to be Christian, all the local churches would be bursting this weekend and the smart girls and guys trying to save the world from their busy beehive of cubicles could go on vacation. Or go to church.
Least Favorite things (Originally posted on Saturday, October 26, 2013)
In a recent reply to a denominational leader asking for money, I signed off saying, "Great to hear from you, even if it was about my second least favorite topic." Since inquiring minds want to know, the follow-up question may never come: "What is the least favorite topic?"
For me, it's a tie between church growth and golf. I've played golf twice and though my golf christening was handled by nice friends who took pains to make it a good first experience, I found it stupefyingly boring. Boredom was relieved only by predictable tedium. Lovers of the game talk about the skill, reserve and control that make it the ultimate challenge. Green guilt is heaped on with the 'but at least you're in a beautiful setting' argument designed to keep people coming back to nature who don't really care for the activity. At the end of the day though, it's still golf. I don't care for it on any level.
The ecclesiastical-industrial complex that is church growth runs neck and neck with golf. In the world that is my mind and along the uneven, rock strewn Sylla and Charybdis archipelagos that are my own mental synapses, it appears to me that a lot of church growth experts are simply social engineers advocating their new and improved brand of social engineering. It looks to me like packaging and re-packaging predictable tips on moving groups of people around. The brick and mortar boys, program advocates, whiz kids and success story guys may tout different approaches and strategies, but they are a genetically distinctive and clever breed with a dominant characteristic. All of them are from-the-womb indenticals in their faint, passing or absent mention of Jesus' claim "I will build My church."
As with golf, I'll skip the tedium and predictability found in most church growth strategies. I think I'll let Jesus do His job. In spite of centuries long opposition from some truly despicable people, corrosive ideologies and albatrossing herself with the bad ideas and behaviors from some of her strange friends and fellow travellers, the church has defied all odds and survived. Genuine ekklesias - assemblies of the called out ones - can still be found behind, within, next to or at some distance from the big box worship centers and the airless and aging orthodox bastions of a by-gone era.
The church will survive because Jesus does the building and He builds to last. Golf may be around awhile longer too, but I'll be doing something else.
For me, it's a tie between church growth and golf. I've played golf twice and though my golf christening was handled by nice friends who took pains to make it a good first experience, I found it stupefyingly boring. Boredom was relieved only by predictable tedium. Lovers of the game talk about the skill, reserve and control that make it the ultimate challenge. Green guilt is heaped on with the 'but at least you're in a beautiful setting' argument designed to keep people coming back to nature who don't really care for the activity. At the end of the day though, it's still golf. I don't care for it on any level.
The ecclesiastical-industrial complex that is church growth runs neck and neck with golf. In the world that is my mind and along the uneven, rock strewn Sylla and Charybdis archipelagos that are my own mental synapses, it appears to me that a lot of church growth experts are simply social engineers advocating their new and improved brand of social engineering. It looks to me like packaging and re-packaging predictable tips on moving groups of people around. The brick and mortar boys, program advocates, whiz kids and success story guys may tout different approaches and strategies, but they are a genetically distinctive and clever breed with a dominant characteristic. All of them are from-the-womb indenticals in their faint, passing or absent mention of Jesus' claim "I will build My church."
As with golf, I'll skip the tedium and predictability found in most church growth strategies. I think I'll let Jesus do His job. In spite of centuries long opposition from some truly despicable people, corrosive ideologies and albatrossing herself with the bad ideas and behaviors from some of her strange friends and fellow travellers, the church has defied all odds and survived. Genuine ekklesias - assemblies of the called out ones - can still be found behind, within, next to or at some distance from the big box worship centers and the airless and aging orthodox bastions of a by-gone era.
The church will survive because Jesus does the building and He builds to last. Golf may be around awhile longer too, but I'll be doing something else.
Why Is Writing Good Therapy? (Originally posted on Wednesday, August 14, 2013)
It's happened again. That weird collision of unrelated events that leaves me emotionally spent and wishing my brain would shut down or go into energy saver mode for awhile. Lousy sleep, lousy appetite. Just getting through is the goal with little fun along the way.
It's not a guaranteed thing, but writing works sometimes and it worked wonderfully for me this morning. Not this writing. Lock box stuff where I just pull my thumb out of the dike, step back and try not to get my good shoes wet. It gushes for several unrestrained paragraphs and then, like a miracle drug kicking in, I'm all better.
How's that work?
One reason may be that what needs to be said gets said. That's not the same thing as saying it to anybody in particular or being read by any eyes but mine. It just needed to get out of the narrow confines of my mind. Liking it to pent up autumn sap gushing from the bored hole in a tree trunk may be a descriptive and folksy analogy, but I don't see how it's helpful in this case.
Maybe writing is like a marker in time that says, "I passed this way once", adding some permanence. The permanence is followed by a sort of low level validity. Not real, tested validity. Not universal truth, just my truth and most of the time that's all that is needed. I suppose a lot of rubbish has been printed and passed on that was the kind of thing that is true within the very small arena of one mind and should have been kept there and at most, pulled out occasionally, hummed over and put back again.
Like the Trappists and other cloistered types, I think manual labor also helps the disordered mind. They say it clears the mind by diverting it. Like restocking the shelves when you aren't looking it's a kind of spiritual slight of hand. But it's hot out today, my yard looks just fine, the car is clean and, anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now.
It's not a guaranteed thing, but writing works sometimes and it worked wonderfully for me this morning. Not this writing. Lock box stuff where I just pull my thumb out of the dike, step back and try not to get my good shoes wet. It gushes for several unrestrained paragraphs and then, like a miracle drug kicking in, I'm all better.
How's that work?
One reason may be that what needs to be said gets said. That's not the same thing as saying it to anybody in particular or being read by any eyes but mine. It just needed to get out of the narrow confines of my mind. Liking it to pent up autumn sap gushing from the bored hole in a tree trunk may be a descriptive and folksy analogy, but I don't see how it's helpful in this case.
Maybe writing is like a marker in time that says, "I passed this way once", adding some permanence. The permanence is followed by a sort of low level validity. Not real, tested validity. Not universal truth, just my truth and most of the time that's all that is needed. I suppose a lot of rubbish has been printed and passed on that was the kind of thing that is true within the very small arena of one mind and should have been kept there and at most, pulled out occasionally, hummed over and put back again.
Like the Trappists and other cloistered types, I think manual labor also helps the disordered mind. They say it clears the mind by diverting it. Like restocking the shelves when you aren't looking it's a kind of spiritual slight of hand. But it's hot out today, my yard looks just fine, the car is clean and, anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now.
Is That Your Own Idea? (Originally posted on Tuesday, March 19, 2013)
Is That Your Own Idea?
Standing in the courtroom of Imperial Rome, the battered and badly mauled rabbi from Nazareth couldn't resist answering a question with a question. Governor Pilate's original inquiry, "Are you the king of the Jews?" is risky talk in an empire that tolerates no rival to Caesar. It's a dangerous discussion and Jesus' answer is potentially explosive. Depending on how it's retold and by whom, it might all be interpreted as a serious indictment that the governor himself is whispering treason. Delicate stuff.
Oddly enough, polar opposite responses like those can have a single motivation. Many attempts at self definition are based on what we reject. We often glance around to make sure we are dismissing things whose rejection will gain approval or make us appear to be a certain type of person - open-minded, tolerant, holy, devout, serious, smart, humble, not "one of those people". The pattern holds when we affirm things as well. In either case though, if the lines drawn in defining ourselves are copied off someone else's paper, they are no good.
"Is that your own idea?"
Jesus is supremely interested in what you think. Thinking - your own thinking, not copy-cat thinking - is very important to Him. In fact He came precisely because our thinking on big issues is scrambled, tortured and twisted. Sin, failure a deadly consequential missing of the mark, damages our minds and leaves us blinded about our own nature and God's. Unable to know what we don't know, we act from our own darkness, creating strange and almost mythological notions about God. It leaves us with the unpaid baggage of "I'm not good" and "God is angry." The first causes us to hide ourselves from significant people around us and the other causes us to hide from God, who is always closer than we imagine.
Your ideas are important. Do you know what they are?
- "I don't believe in organized religion."
- "I'm an agnostic."
- "Christianity is outdated.
- "I believe every word in the Bible is literally true."
- "If you aren't attached to the right religion, you can't go to heaven."
- "To be involved with Jesus, drastic religious adjustments must come first."
Oddly enough, polar opposite responses like those can have a single motivation. Many attempts at self definition are based on what we reject. We often glance around to make sure we are dismissing things whose rejection will gain approval or make us appear to be a certain type of person - open-minded, tolerant, holy, devout, serious, smart, humble, not "one of those people". The pattern holds when we affirm things as well. In either case though, if the lines drawn in defining ourselves are copied off someone else's paper, they are no good.
"Is that your own idea?"
Jesus is supremely interested in what you think. Thinking - your own thinking, not copy-cat thinking - is very important to Him. In fact He came precisely because our thinking on big issues is scrambled, tortured and twisted. Sin, failure a deadly consequential missing of the mark, damages our minds and leaves us blinded about our own nature and God's. Unable to know what we don't know, we act from our own darkness, creating strange and almost mythological notions about God. It leaves us with the unpaid baggage of "I'm not good" and "God is angry." The first causes us to hide ourselves from significant people around us and the other causes us to hide from God, who is always closer than we imagine.
Your ideas are important. Do you know what they are?
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