cairns

Man never fell from grace.

To believe the opposite requires believing that there is a depth which Grace does not reach.

It is a denial of the reach of Love.

We are both darkness and light, divine and flawed, transcendent and momentary.

Above all we are Loved.

And Love looked at us as a lump of clay and said, “Be.”

Love looked at us from a Roman torture tower and said, “Be.”

At every moment Love calls to us, “Be.”

No matter how far or deep we go, there is Love saying, “Be.”

It is enough.

The work was finished when it began.

The work was finished on a dark Friday and a bright Sunday.

The work was finished when we were formed and drew breath.

There is no work left, but to obey the voice of Love.

Be.

peace

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If I have a student who wants to learn, who is willing to do the work I give, who listens to the corrections I offer — and then at the end of our time gets a failing grade from me, who failed?

Did they fail as a student?  Or did I feel as their teacher, leader, mentor, friend, and guide?

Me.

It is plain, simple, obvious, and inescapable.   When they are placed under my care wanting to learn and I do not teach, I have failed them.  If they do not care, are already defeated as a child, are afraid to risk new challenge and growth and I do not re-inspire them, I fail to live out my calling.  They are required to show up bringing who they are.  I am there representing the God of all power and love and it is my responsibility to love courage and strength back into the reluctant, to design experiences that teach what they are to learn, and to offer opportunities to demonstrate mastery of knowledge which fit the learner and the content of the lessons.  I stand before the throne bathed in mercy and seek new wisdom for the next round, the next students, the next subject.  But, I stand before God knowing each one is entrusted to my care for a season and that God cares very much about seeing the best happen for the “least” of them.

But, I do not see it happening in church.

I have seen us use people up, chew them to pieces, cast them aside and expect them to be grateful for the experience.  If years of sitting under sermons, lessons and trainings leaves people unchanged, deemed unworthy of service, or unfazed at our holiness and spiritual guidance, then the failure must be theirs.  They have sin in their lives, unrepentant lifestyles, spiritual barriers, or defiant hearts.  Heaven forbid they should have the nerve to become ill and fail to respond to our faith filled prayers for healing!  God forbid that should tell the truth that they are seeking something deeper than we ourselves know, have pains we do not even want to hear of, or are open enough to consider Truth beyond our walls.  We have the Truth, the power, and the saving doctrine.  And it is; well to be Biblical, it is a pile of dung — stinking, rotten, nauseating dung.

I watch a supposed pastor have people under their leadership, training, and care for years with true hearts of love and service to God, and at the end of it hear only belittling and dismissive words from this supposed shepherd, and I want to vomit.  I have no softer words.  I am no longer capable of pleasantries in the presence of it.  The situation that prompted this purging, the neglect of a departing servant was only reported to me, I was not involved, it had nothing to do with me.  But I know the territory, the pain, and the damage and I want to go as postal as an Old Testament prophet or Jesus of Nazareth with a whip.  It is wrong.

I cannot participate in a system that allows the pampered stateside worker with the decorated air conditioned office to oversee a budget of 6 or 7 figures while requiring field workers to raise their own salaries, refuse to train those who deeply desire to serve God, act in belittling and dismissive ways towards those of his own flock who are going to serve while praising his self chosen few.  I cannot participate in a place that claims to represent the God of all love and treats people in ways which deny them both just treatment and the power to speak the truth about themselves, their treatment at the hands of the organization, and the real personal and spiritual damage that has been done to them.  I cannot give material or spiritual support to an organization which cannot separate the Sustainer of the universe from their own cultural gods of business, power, politics, and warfare.

I am the failed student.  No, make that the expelled student! I understand them.  I honor their honest fury.  I can no longer even entertain the idea of behaving as if you make sense while you heap dung on the heads of those who seek the Lord.

If a student of mine ever left with those words, I would be before the throne dissolved before my Lord and King.  I would kneel before the Presence knowing I had failed in my responsibilities and use of my gifts.  I would beg for the courage to go on, to seek healing, to renew the one I failed.  If anyone from my old church reads this they will shrug me off as a sore-headed, self centered, ungovernable maverick with questionable theology.

Go with your gods then.

I go with mine and I am content.

And I pray for you if the day ever comes that you see beyond your ego into the eyes of the One who made, loves, and follows after every one you have failed to love and nurture.  Keep worshiping yourselves. I tried to come back to be with dear friends in the membership and on the staff.

I can grant you your humanity as I expect you to admit mine.

But, I cannot sit silently in the presence of the hubris that allows you to dare to speak your opinions, ideas, and prejudices as the will and Word of God.  If I am present, I will have to rebuke you.  If I thought there was a shred of a chance of being heard, I would risk your anger and your wounds for the sake of both our souls.  But, I see no ears that hear and I will not sow discord in the body even if the body is cancer riddled and abusive.  I leave you to it.  May God have mercy on our souls.

peace,

really; through all my disappointment, human frailty and disgust, I send you peace.

Just stay away from me.

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There is another reason I decided against another term for a person of all people.  We already have the word disciple used by Jesus.  Or in the book of Genesis we are told that God originally called both the man and the woman Adam as they were given the command to be and to spread throughout the Earth.  Then the story is repeated in the family of Noah remembered by God and rescued from the chaos (represented by water again) and then sent forth with the animals to spread life throughout the Earth.  And again in the story of Babel we hear God demanding that mankind spread out and become all the peoples of the Earth for God’s glory rather than their own.  Man is to be everywhere on the planet in communion with the Creator and Creation (including each other).

When the covenant is made with Abraham, (even tough often applied to one half or the other of his descendants to the exclusion of all others), the narrative indicates that the blessing was already intended to be for all people.  The slaves in Egypt (the first of many Empires condemned for exploiting the other) cry out and are heard by God, rescued, blessed, and told again to welcome and bless all people.  Solomon built a great temple and dedicated it to the purpose of blessing all people with the knowledge of God.  Having reverted to Empire themselves, they fall and are carried of into exile where the new prophets, and recorders of much of what we call the Bible, emerge.  This time the prophecies are so obviously intended for all creation that gentile (non-Jewish, pagan, “other”) Christians have never doubted these beautiful passages apply to themselves.

(Sadly many chose a broken logic which said the promises no longer belonged to Israel, to whom they were spoken, or the rest of the world as is obvious in the passages.)

Jesus came and declared that God was in our midst, that we would now worship not in one place or another but everywhere in Spirit and in Truth.  And he directed his followers to take the news to the ends of the Earth.  Then John wrote a letter of amazing symbols, images, and poetry to some of the early churches (which many again stole and found a broken logic to apply only to themselves on some magic future day) declaring that after the times of suffering would come a world predicted by the prophets where all the people of the earth worship God in song completing the order intended since creation…

The term for a person who belongs to all people is Adam, human, Jesus.  The term for a person learning to follow this Way from Jesus is disciple.  It has always been intended as the Way for all — to walk humbly upon the Earth loving justice and helping the helpless.  It is what “human” should mean.

But we have twisted the narrative, cut and pasted the passages, stolen the heritage of others and applied them as solely our own.  In my own country we still cling to our pride of Empire claiming like the Romans that we bring peace to the world by conquest.  At times each street corner church seems to believe the descriptions of man in right relationship with God will come true in a special way for only those exactly like themselves.

And, my own country led the way in developing the capacity to destroy the world at one unspeakable command.  Now, we see that our excessive consumption and overuse of the ancient substances from deep within the Earth threatens to bring about nearly the same result more slowly and painfully.  And we, with hubris beyond any the world has yet seen, declare that we do not care as long as we can defend our borders, take other’s resources, and live our lifestyle as long as possible.  We choose ignorance of the facts as our claim of innocence while continuing to make war when and where we choose through both our military and our dollars.  But the fruit was eaten long ago and we are neither ignorant nor innocent.  We have placed all creation in peril by intentional acts of the will.

And still!!  There is a Spirit moving upon the face of the deep!  The voice of the oppressed is always heard and the time for revelation of Truth draws near.  People across the globe, many of them young, are waking up to the joy of each other, to a Spirit larger than their family, houses of worship, cultures or nations.  They are spreading the hope, truth, and love like fire.

Many of us have experienced the joy sung by the prophets in worship with those of other places, colors, and languages.  Join together with global friends in worship of the One beyond all the mind can comprehend and realize that difference makes no difference as voices raise in orchestral harmony, and you are forever changed.

We are outnumbered.

But, we are aligned with the power that holds the universe together.  It is time to unify with each other to pray, to hope, to sing, to dance until the walls again tremble and fall and people are free to be

HUMAN.

peace

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I already wrote about the day heavy rain was flooding my daughter’s neighborhood.  One of the things I left out was that the water was pushing up against the manhole covers hard enough to create tall fountains in the middle of the streets even as the water went down.  Walking around in water you cannot see through with enough pressure to potentially lift these covers out of place is the kind of thing I would warn kids makes playing in storm water hazardous!  What was I doing out there?

Another day was my granddaughter’s birthday party.  Birthday parties in our families are occasions for homemade ice cream.  So, there I was on the steps from the back deck running two electric ice cream makers in the rain.  I was trying to stay far enough under the roof edge or tree not to get soaked, add ice and salt, and not get shocked by the cords.  Crazy for an educated person considering the amazing ice creams that can be easily purchased at the local stores.  But is was her birthday party and nobody makes ice cream like you can make at home.

The third day it only rained enough to make me wish it would rain more.  I had finally rented a trailer and was at my mom’s house retrieving rocks (boulders actually) that I had purchased and had placed in her yard by bulldozer as a young man.  I didn’t have a bulldozer, but I did have my youngest daughter with me to help lift with levers.  And it was hot, way too hot for moving immovable objects.  But it will soon be time to sell the house, and these stones were valuable to me on several levels.  I don’t know how many times I fell; some just by tripping, some by blacking out in the heat.  I remember one fall that left me on my back in the driveway looking up into the pitiful excuse of a summer shower that might have made things cooler (I could not possibly have been any wetter by then!) and wishing for real rain.  It didn’t.  So, I put a wet rag on top of my head to try and cool down and kept working until my daughter recruited a friend and we got them all home.  I know better; I teach health and safety!  But there I was again — why?

It had already crossed my mind.  It became clear when I found out relatives in the house were laughing at how much I looked like my dad out there with a rag on my head doing the impossible.  All three days, I was doing what my father would be doing in the same circumstances.  I was being the me that is also my father.  My daughter was doing the same with me.

And, it occurs to me that is one of the things Jesus said about how He lived — not a list or an ethical code, but a simple method.  Whatever He saw the Father doing, He did.    I find it a mysterious but good way to live.  Rules would be so much simpler, but they wouldn’t keep us growing closer and closer to God.  This way calls us to break obvious rules of common sense sometimes.  But, we end up doing what Dad does.  And, there is a new closeness that is good, very, very good.

peace

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These three pictures were taken on a mountain top in China in 2009 under the slimmest  sliver of a moon showing in the first picture.  The second picture shows the way down with no flash turned on, and the last is the same view with a flash.  I know the camera stays open longer without a flash, but they still make a point to me, that I wanted to share.

It was dark up there!  But the middle picture shows that the easiest way down was using the available natural light.  With it we could see the entire area.  The last is the effect of a man made light — everything very close is completely lit and the rest of the world is invisible.  Many who have spent time away from cities know this trick of travel.

But, it takes me back to what I wrote last.  It sounds great to say the light is obvious when the situation is dark.  But life often just does not seem that way.  Dark times are dark or we would not call them that!  This is one of the places where “feel good” theology leaves people in touch with life’s realities  assuming we do not have a clue what we are talking about!  They know when it is dark no matter what we say!

But, I think there is a corollary that makes sense. When we cannot see past a few feet, perhaps we are using too much of our own light.  Better to stand still, remain open, and become aware of the Light that surrounds us.

peace

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I was meeting with my Masters students today and as we were finishing devotions we started sharing prayer concerns.  Several students shared situations were people were dealing with the loss caused by sudden deaths.  One had mused about the strength of one of the people involved to be able to declare even in the pain that, “God is good.”  We continued sharing and were talking about how families need our prayers, but also our presence for the long haul including knowing that you still remember their loved one, and a sharp visual image hit me which I shared with them.

So often in times of grief we go numbly through passages like Psalm 23.  We read words about passing through the “Valley of the Shadow” and we picture ourselves having strength to survive dark, desperate, frightening places.  But, we claim to live in the presence of the Light!  We claim to have a loving relationship with the Light that will not leave us or forsake us.  If you put the two together a whole new image appears.  When you have light, the darker the surroundings get the brighter your light appears.  Ever seen a match in a cave?

This has been a hard two years.  It has been a hard summer.  But, this image was powerfully healing.  Last school year with physical pain, and personal loss to endure, an important part of that light was my precious group of fourth graders at Hebron, but its source was even deeper.  When a believer walks through dark places, the Light is blazing.  It is time to notice and live.

peace

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Several things I have been reading lately caused me to check God’s first and last commands.  According to the narrative as we have it, God’s first command is not to obey or abstain, to toil or to behave in certain ways.  God’s first command to man, and all of creation is to be, period, to have life.  Then God enjoys fellowship with them.

Leaving alone for a moment all the things we muddle up in the middle, I turn to the final command.  Again it is none of the things we usually preach and teach.  It is also to come and share life.  To once again live in fellowship with creation and Creator.  Walter Brueggemann points out that one of the most obvious and overlooked predictions in the strange book of Revelation is that at the final full restoration of the Kingdom they are singing.  They are singing and God is saying, “Come in and share life with Me.”

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and life to the full!” And Jesus did NOT say we would only get the life God intends after a long life of woeful obedience to dogma when we finally die.  Jesus said that the Kingdom is here.   The church has long maintained that the Kingdom exists on Earth post-Easter.  If we believe it, really believe it, then I think these are the preeminent commands we should be declaring and living now!  And we have given them far too little attention!

In a world where people find the goodness of creation sullied by death, fear, uncertainty, and environmental destruction we have responded too long with platitudes and to do lists (mostly involving supporting the life of the corporate church!), dogma and damnation.  It is time to echo God’s primary commands.  Come and live!

Revelation 22:¹⁷The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”

Come, love, sing, live.

peace

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We had a nice soaking rain this evening.  Just enough at our house to revive the lawn.

Further into the city where my daughter lives it was more of a problem.  The pavement is above the drains so that they sit down in a hole at the side of the street and clog easily.  My daughter messaged that her husband was at work and she was in the basement bailing water hoping “they” cleared the street drains soon.  Knowing full well that the only “they” is “us,” I took off with a pump for her basement and a heavy rake.  (The rest may sound like bragging about everyday events if I don’t tell you I had selfish motives.  I didn’t want my pregnant daughter bailing dirty water; I didn’t want her things ruined; I didn’t want my granddaughter worried or playing in dirty water; I didn’t want to pay for new things either! Confession done.)

Neighbors a block from her house were trying to stop all traffic from going into the water, but didn’t seem to have much idea what else to do except wait for “the fire department to set up some saw horses or something.”  Got the pump to my daughter and waded down to the corner of her street.  There was one man already there with the drains freed up some.  So, I helped him get all four opened and headed down to the first group of people and started opening their drains.  Had a nice conversation with a young couple standing out watching the water and lamenting the soaking of the decorating they had just done in their downstairs.  The lights honestly seemed to go on as she turned to him and said, “We could do that next time!”  Got them going and went a block the other way to help folks there already working to clear their debris.

Soon the streets were clearing and I headed back toward my wonderful 96 Toyota pickup (water was too deep to reach my daughter’s house without it!) to head home.  Got stopped by a guy begging for a jump.  With obvious alcohol breath he told me he never even saw the water and now his car wouldn’t restart.  He was asking in a way that made it clear he expected to be rebuffed.  I told him it was OK, I would help him as much as I could; said good night to my daughter and headed back his way.  Of course his problem was water not a dead battery, but we tried until he was convinced he had to wait for it to dry out.  Helped him get his car out of the way and locked and gave him a ride home.

On the way he started telling me about how hard things are, working trying to make it, finally got this car on payments, then this.  He asked me, “So, why do these things happen to me?”

There was a time when I might have moralized about drinking and driving and how accidentally baptizing your car is one of the least horrific results a person might expect.  There was a time when I would have felt compelled to tell him about Jesus.  Tonight, I realized he just needed to know that good exists.  So, I simply reminded him that’s why we help each other when we are not the one with the problem.  He affirmed that he believed and practiced that too and that it was important to take care of each other, but still offered to pay me the couple of dollars he had.

I have friends who are experts at having convincing conversations with people about faith in almost every situation.  Tonight, I knew talking about Jesus would ruin the community of people just helping other people.  I wouldn’t be one of the several people helping each other the best they knew how.  I would be some guy taking advantage of misfortune to sell my beliefs.  That wasn’t what any of us needed.  We needed to just be neighbors.  This fellow just needed affirmation that good does happen when we remember to look out for each other.  That was enough, and his handshake when he left was of far more value than his dollars or a notch on my conversions gun!

We shared a little kingdom time in the rain, and it was good.

peace

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Whatever happened to sacraments?  Was it just the desire of Protestants to never sound Catholic that removed them from our lives?  Or was it more?  Was it the poison of modernity telling us that observable acts are what they appear to be and nothing more?  In fact late-modern science has taught us that they may be less because various observers cannot agree on even the exact nature of the physical act.  Perhaps it was the Age of Reason which led us rushing to a world which never spoke of magic or anything which might be considered ignorant and superstitious. Perhaps a lingering Gnostic heresy causes us to refuse to believe that bread and wine can be body and blood because we find the physical repulsive and separated from the spiritual.

But, somewhere along the line many of us lost the presence of sacrament in our lives.  According to Brueggemann, sacrament is “an invisible act wrought through a visible sign.”  How can we have sacrament when we live our lives by the rules of objectivity, even if we voice other beliefs when pressed?  And lately it has weighed on me more and more that we do not have the courage to speak of the glorious magical mystery of God’s unseen acts even when enacting the most basic practices of the church.

The elements of Holy Communion are held up and in my last place of worship consistently referred to as “emblems.”  No danger of Catholic theology of the literal body and blood there!  And, no power to save either.  What do the faithful understand to be happening when they eat small “emblems?”  What sense does it make, what power to transform does it bring to them — let alone the uninitiated seeker who still wanders in the door?

Baptism becomes “an act of crucial obedience” in order for the church to maintain its position that such an act must be performed, and at the same time avoid accusations of saying we are saved because of our acts rather than God’s.  What strange god is this who dies to find me, but demands that I be dipped in a fancy hot tub, or in places with less funds a decorated watering trough, to demonstrate that I am obedient enough for his love?  Why does he settle for my obedience to take a bath, but not demand my obedience to the more radical and subversive commands of Jesus?  What sense does this act have, and what transformation does it bring?

I hold that these acts are indeed sacraments, visible signs of very real but unobservable divine acts.  To argue about the exact nature of the bread and wine as they reach my lips is to fall into the trap of modern thought that an object can only be one thing and not two.  But, faith proclaims it to be true.  Jesus said they were His Body and Blood.  His Body and His Blood are the reality of the God who stops at absolutely nothing in order to bring about the redemption of creation.  I do not have the courage to call it less than Holy.  There is more going on in these moments than symbols invoking memory!  I come unworthy and undeserving to the alter of grace and participate in the redemption of all that is — including myself.

If baptism is nothing but proof of obedience, it is a silly ritual at best — better to ask the new believer to sell their earthly goods and give to the poor in obedience!  I embrace the belief that it also is a sacrament — that the alienated self is buried in the waters and the new self truly raised to live in the post-Easter Kingdom.  The properly instructed recipient experiences this transformation.  The properly led gathering of believers witnesses the miracle of rebirth.  To be clear, I agree that there is submission involved — the baptized have surrendered the humanistic hope of redeeming creation by human effort and agreed to die unto self and be raised into Christ.  At least, if the church dares to declare holy mystery, they do.

I believe that marriage is holy because the two become one in the unseen realm of the divine, not just in the state record books.  I believe that life is holy because the text tells me it was created by the speech and breath of God.  While I would not label conception as a sacrament, (it is always unseen under natural conditions), the text declares that the sacrament of marriage is the intended precursor to this creation of a new life.  God intends for life to be nurtured and has made it observable not only in human families, but in the animal kingdom as well.

There is no logical, scientific, objective speech for the same person dying and being reborn into a new holy kingdom.  Neither is there expression for receiving into my physical being the eternal gift of that deadly day we dare to call Good.  The every day life that surrounds us is shot through with Glory. Jesus declared that the Kingdom is all about us.  But, we have insufficient language to comprehend or share it.  Perhaps it is time again to live the poetry of sacraments which make the invisible tangible and unite us in praise and gratitude.

peace

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Friday morning I drove East through fog into the rising sun.  The air was a golden mist more real than the phantom possibility of trees and hillsides beyond.  Then, gradually, the light grew.  The mist became water for very real green hillsides and woodlands under blue sky and bright sun.  It is a divine gift to watch the world come to be.  peace

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