cairns

It is time for us to pray.

Brothers and sisters are being imprisoned, tortured, and killed in many places around the globe.  Some of them go by the name of Christian.  Folks in “safe” countries of the west are being tortured through disease, faithless friends and spouses, temptation in their own lives, and the worship of money and power.

The church is constantly doing the work of its enemies by criticizing, attacking, or refusing to fellowship with any other sect that hears the Word of God in a different key.

War continues rampant around the globe, often in the name of the “good” bringing “justice” to “the evil doers” in the form of death and destruction.  Some of the attackers are us.

We remain alienated from the earth we are made from, polluting and destroying the very stuff and sustenance of our physical being  (and since I am not a dualist, I would add that in ways we do not understand, our very souls).

We have given our minds over to trivial nonsense in entertainment, violent crimes against humanity as entertainment, and simple have-no-fears-you-can-understand-everything (what we do is right, what they do is wrong) theologies.

Our churches serve the same gods as our societies.  It is time to pray; for our neighbors far away and near, for our leaders (yes even from the opposition parties), for our world including the Earth herself, and for our very souls.  It is time to pray.

Thanksgiving week in the States is a good time for prayer.  Our work week is usually reduced.  Our minds are turned somewhat in the direction of gratitude and nostalgic images of people who lived closer to the Earth and to God.  Let us also shut up and sit silent in the presence of the mystery that gives us life and hope.  Let us listen.  Let us be grateful.  Let us realize how many brothers and sisters we have among people who have been labeled our enemies both near and far.  Let us take our eyes off the food, and the rest of our selfish desires, and pray.

May God answer our prayers with strength and wisdom to continue making small moves against the darkness, small steps toward finding ourselves home together.

peace

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Wife has gone to work.  Daughter is probably gone to church with her boyfriend.  I am sitting in the cool quiet with God and Tomlinson (via book).

I am remembering many friends past and present who form my true Church (many still at the campus I have left and being blessed by it) thankful to know that while I sit here, I know we are together even while spread literally around the city and the globe.

We stop together to be in the presence of God.  With my body’s low tolerance for the amount of work and stress I have been carrying the last several years, I also feel a debt of gratitude to those from Judaism who have reminded me over the years that the Sabbath is meant to be Shabbat, time to rest in the presence of the Holy.  I need that more than sermons right now.  May have to pack up the truck soon so I can go to the woods for just Saturday night after teaching for some real separation from the treadmill.  While I will never again become a legalist, I am also thankful to my friends from both Christian holiness churches and Islam who remind me that true worship leads to holy living.

But, today my mind, heart, soul, and gut — my whole being keeps turning toward the Pacific and the victims and survivors of the quakes, tsunamis, and cyclones.  I have friends in or from those areas.  Most of them I have yet to meet.  But, I just keep thinking the Church, the expression of the ongoing ministry of Jesus on Earth should be on its knees today.  Thankfully some are not because they are already there putting hands, feet, and labor into real and meaningful relief. Happy to read on Facebook this morning that Marty Caldwell is headed that way to be with Young Life folks from across the region.

I lift you my friends to the throne of Grace, Comfort, Healing, and Love.  I apologize for how much time we spend complaining about our very minor problems and arguments instead of remembering you in love.  I am convicted for every time I think of issues of poverty, global warming, or missions as academic questions of whose thoughts are superior instead of areas requiring action in love.  Here in my comfort and quiet as I sit with my Lord, my thoughts turn to you because His heart is already there.

You are not alone.  You are loved.  You are with me this morning in the Presence.  I am with you as fully as the mystery of unity across space allows.

peace, salaam alaikum

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All other body blow, knock you down obstacles this week have been met and overcome by the power of God’s collective family praying. Thank you my church, my friends, indeed my family. Grace abounds.
peace

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Today’s deal was mostly winds, lots of straight line wind. Power stayed out long enough for my daughter and I to go set up the generator. We were just getting it out of the garage when the lights came on for a second. Then from behind the house across the street one humongous explosion, a scream, lots of smoke.
Recent events have left my family and I very careful outside in the dark. But, we both took off running to make sure nobody was over there seriously hurt. Got far enough not to be able to see where lines might be in trees and neighbor’s house looked fine, no people hurt or otherwise and no signs of fire. So we retreated and set up the generator.
Power came back on about as soon as we settled down to watch TV. Think I will leave the cords and such all out since the rest of the night is supposed to be “breezy,” translated up to 45 miles per hour.
Lost even more limbs, but mostly another night of sleep last night as the conditions were too similar to the night of the ice storm and events we have only shared with some people.
Something has to give. Our stress load is off every chart ever made. Prayers of anyone who reads this blog (regardless of who or what you pray to!) are very welcome here right now.
Almost left out, the preacher’s wife from the tiny Saturday night start up church we visited actually called to check on us and to offer for the three of us to come and stay at their house if we didn’t get power back!  Nice little ray of light in the middle of much darkness.

peace

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I’m back to the boat again and thinking about the disciples and those who want the lesson to be fear vs faith.  I have to admit, I prefer faith to fear — not as a matter of doctrine, but practically speaking.  Fear (as in terror, not the holy sounding fear of the Lord) just is not pleasant.  If faith is an option that keeps it at bay, I have to agree that is a good thing.  So, I was looking back at what I have said, the comments, and the pastor’s email.

It seems to me that if we realize it is all about Jesus and that the natural world acts in harmony with His word, the result is faith that neutralizes fear .

I’m not opposed to the things like Bible study and such that the pastor put in his list.  But, if they are done because we were told to do it and do not lead to increased faith, then they do not reduce fear.  When it rears its ugly head again, the poor follower just gets to feel guilty AND scared!  If we engage in prayer and contemplation of scripture in a way which brings us to a better focus on and understanding of the Savior, then I think we will come to stronger faith and less fear.

But, I like the disciple method!  Get in the boat, sail out in the middle of life’s tempests, and watch Heaven at  work!   Hmm, I think that will preach!

peace

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I was planning to go camping this weekend since I could leave at noon on Friday due to parent conference week.  The conferences went very well and I got to talk with 27 of the 28 families!  After the events of the last several weeks, my dear wife was telling me I needed some restorative time in the woods.

But, part way through the week they started predicting rain, and I started thinking I wasn’t going camping. The university emailed needing an emergency sub for today, and I knew camping was gone…but had no idea what was coming.

1.  I found out Mom had some tests done and has some sort of mass inside her heart.  Additional tests on Thursday confirmed it, but no information yet on its nature.

2.  Also on Thursday, the power went out at my daughter’s high school.  Response plans were totally inadequate and the kids were left to fend for themselves in the dark hallways.  Fights and sexual assaults were the order of the day, but I didn’t know it in time to get her out.  She was assaulted four times and too upset to return to school on Friday.  It was bad enough that she and I both contacted the Superintendent’s office. So far the only result is that I got a phone call from the only remaining member of the administrative crew that destroyed my alternative school.  She is who he assigned to investigate the “parent complaint.”  If she tells the administration of the building who complained, their attacks on my daughter will be merciless.

3.  Just found out today that my oldest daughter got a letter at the end of the week telling her that her name change when she got married had caused one of her online courses to malfunction.  The prof did not get her work and withdrew her for non-attendance.  Her graduation is now in jeopardy.  She has worked so hard to make it this time and is so wonderful in the classroom when she subs.  The IM she sent made it obvious that while she has done what she can to show them she did the work and beg for a grade, she is devastated.  That’s a score of two daughters married and unemployed with one graduation now in serious doubt, one trying to make it on her own on slave wages with her teaching degree already trashed last spring, and one at home being destroyed by her school.

4.  Trivial by comparison, I have heard nothing from the church that was supposed to be contacting me.

We are full scale back into the mode of every moment is another body blow.  We need help beyond our understanding.

peace

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Tomorrow a new school year begins with a new principal, a new superintendent with big plans for improving education, a new group of students, and I feel like I’m looking down the green mile as much as starting a new adventure.

Is it because our practice is so far from our theory?  I think I am used to that by now and I’m only responsible for how it plays out in my one small corner.

Is it because our racist and classist policies are so harmful to children?  I see real hope the new leader is not like that, and with a self – contained class I have more control over making sure its no more true than it has to be for my little troop of learners.

Is it because I feel so called to openly minister under the Way of Jesus?  I know I am needed to do exactly that right where I am, even though there are troublesome rules about what can be said and done.  Still I do long for whatever it is that God keeps whispering is coming.

I think I just dread the exhaustion.  The everyday alarm at 5:30 to start again with my little ones, followed by advising for my Masters students, and consulting for my friends in community agencies all trying to make a difference.  Correspondence and support for mission friends across the globe keep me connected to that world.  I love it all.  But, there doesn’t seem to be enough summer in the world to provide the strength to begin again.  Maybe its age.  I’ve been riding this circuit since 1978 and there are a lot of miles behind me compared to what remains ahead.  I am just not sure I have the capacity for the exhaustion.

Please pray for strength that I may serve those who need me to serve, uplift those who need my ministry, and ignore those who are somebody else’s calling.  Please pray for discernment to walk in the Way, in the Power not my own, by the Wisdom not my my own, and for the purposes beyond my own.  Please pray for enough sense to find the times to rest, and enough energy to climb the rest.

peace

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We had a really good discussion (with precious few people attending) last night at church led by D.  She shared her experiences and struggles with the in-your-face poverty of Africa framed in Biblical context.  The best part of it all was her transparency in admitting there are no sure bet, do this every time, magic program answers  for either the macro-systems,  or the  micro-encounter with the individual beggar.

My paraphrase is that there is only the cross.  Looking suffering in the face, speaking and listening with the real people you encounter, and connecting where you can.  Listening to the promptings of the Spirit, following the example of Jesus to do “what the Father is doing,” and obeying as you are able.  These are the two axis of the cross — meaningful reconciliation both vertical and horizontal, divine and human, bringing yourself into the world’s needs large and small as you are called.

It was very interesting to hear the comments of the few others there. J continues to amaze me.  About the time I have him pegged and labeled in his conservative pastoral theology and politics, he reveals a heart open to God and  willing to wrestle with divine promptings outside his previous understandings.

Disturbing was how a discussion of “the least of these” turned to whether our own future tense salvation was threatened if we fell among the goats.  We so quickly make it about us.  Never mind that today we drove (our society prevents us from having to walk by and see or touch) past Him in need, turned up the MP3, hid behind our window tint, and hurried past His need to reach our temples.  To the credit of the friends there, I believe they were touched and deeply considered that interpretation when raised.  But, I am quite sure that today we all did it again.

Thank you again D for inviting and encouraging us to live in the discomfort of encountering without answers, loving as sisters and brothers (not parents to children), and daily struggling to walk in holy footprints.

peace

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was listening to a devotion on Luke 5 today and verse 4 jumped out at me. If you look it up, the words above have a comma after speaking and make normal sense in the context of the story. They still brought me up short and I am hoping to get to do my own devotion based on them as the group is interpreting the entire text as a call to “go deep.”

The implied oxymoron of the six words is not that unusual for us. We often say at least one more thing after we have really finished speaking!

But this is Jesus, and the words he says after speaking change the lives of this group of fisherman forever. Having finished teaching, he tells them what to do. It takes me to a contemplation of prayer.

After time we learn to stay in prayer beyond our own talking whether praise, request, or thanksgiving and then listen for what God has for us. But, I wonder how often we still jump up and run as soon as we think He speaks when we ought to be waiting for what He says after He speaks. Perhaps He has a personal word of direction for us beyond the teaching if we would linger.

But, we are busy. That is the usual excuse. I suspect it is something more. He might tell us to do something crazy like fish in the daytime where nothing was swimming at night. And obedience might change what we think we know and require us to act in new ways. He isn’t safe you know. Nobody who knows Him intimately ever said He was safe.

If we staid in holy silence beyond what we believe He is teaching, what might He call us to?

Would we finally understand the psalmist’s proclamation that “deep calls to deep” if we staid past the surface time of busy-ness, mind and words?

Would He call us anew to live out what He clearly already said — to function as the unified Church undivided by our countless petty doctrines and favorite positions, to serve the orphan and widow, to cling to nothing and follow Him?

Would He again lower Peter’s sheet and call us to new behavior that contradicts many things we have believed to be true — to love those we now condemn as he loves them already, to participate in His continuous miracle of creation instead of “ruling” it and using it up, to walk humbly in the world instead of being so sure of anything but Him?

I wonder what we would hear if we staid for what He says after He finishes speaking.

peace

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The following selection is from James Finley’s book, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere.  I keep losing the citation and going back to the shelf to rediscover it again and again when my soul needs its truth.  Enjoy.

            “Prayer understood as the distilled awareness of our entire life before God, is a journey forward, a response to a call from the Father to become perfectly like his Son through the power of the Holy Spirit.  But this journey forward can also be seen as a kind of journey backward, in which we seek to gain access to the relationship Adam had with God.

            In prayer, we journey forward to our origin.  We close our eyes in prayer and open them in the pristine moment of creation.  We open our eyes to find God, his hands still smeared with clay, hovering over us, breathing into us his own divine life, smiling to see in us a reflection of himself.  We go to our place of prayer confident that in prayer we transcend both place and time.

            In prayer, distinctions like outside and inside, past and future, no longer apply.  In prayer, we sit before the gates of Eden and the self of the Father created us to be appears, freed from layer upon layer of falsity and distortion in which we had become entangled and lost.  In prayer, we experience this going back to our origin as a going into the center of our self, where God holds both our origin and end in one eternal moment.”

peace

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