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August Blog Index
The last few days I've been pondering on dreams and vision and the relationship of the two. The first thing that struck me was that in dreaming we partake of the same tension and paradox that is at the heart of the dance.. living in the now and the not-yet. We want to be fully present, but live in a visionary way toward a future that is yet unknown. We live in hope of a better world, and to see the future reign of God continually breaking into the present.
This does not mean we live in the hope of a purer, stronger church. We live in hope of a weaker and more broken church :) "In weakness we are strong."
It really is paradoxical. I want to learn to live fully in the present. If I live only in the future I am never where I am, and I cease being available in life giving ways to cooperate with God's purposes in bringing His kingdom rule now. If I live only in the present then I cease to believe and reach forward to what I have not seen, yet what exists in the mind and heart of God as already accomplished -- a perfected bride, a healed world.
I can't help but think that we will never live in this paradox unless we learn a certain detachment.. first, from the false self, and then secondly from the idols of this world. At this level the challenge becomes very personal, since most of live with a level of addiction and recovery from addiction to the things of this world, to status and rewards, structures and systems.
The transfer of this domain name is in process. There seems at least one wrinkle, but hopefully it will be smoothed out in the next few days...
"This website will self destruct in two days.." at least, unless I hear from the new web host by then. I signed up with 101HOSTING but haven't yet heard from them. If you get a blank page on September 1st, that will be why. Hopefully any absence will be short.
The movie is ostensibly about a self-made millionaire who is hit by personal tragedy, but slowly recovers, an underdog and undersized racehorse whom no one believed in, an angry young man who is a gifted jockey, and an overused cowboy who needed another chance. They all come together, learn to hope and dream together, and in their collective brokenness experience grace and healing.
Reminds me of something Richard Rohr said fifteen years ago in an attempt to define the church.. "The church is the gathered weakness of man which becomes the gathered power of God."
Review Seabiscuit Review
Wow.. TWO posts on the same day... see, it's good to take a break from writing :)
Rob McAlpine has posted some new articles in his DRYDOCK section, and his blog is worth checking out too. Ecclesiastical Anarchist
His August 23 rant has Rob complaining about the marketing of emerging church and even of community. It's not hard to be skeptical, sometimes a challenge not to be cynical, maybe because we know ourselves too well.
It's helpful to remember, as Rob points out in his DETOX article, that we are all in different places on the road of recovery. Some are still angry, some bitter and in pain.. others moving beyond anger to asking new questions. But for all of us the process of disillusionment was first with the system, and then with ourselves. That was the most painful part of the journey. We discovered that there was something inside US that was part of the problem. There was something in the dysfunctional system that appealed to us, or offered us a reward we needed.
So for all those we meet on the road, those of us who are getting past our anger can perhaps help others get past their own, and if they have not yet seen their own motivations, maybe we can help them to see. That is the only way forward.. personal transformation has to happen, or we will simply rebuild an offensive and oppressive system. Like Aslan said when Lucy asked about someone else, "I tell no one anyone's story but their own."
* * *
Ok, I've been up in my attic.. (How many of you have ever been up in yours?).. It is dark and dusty up there. You don't want to go, believe me.
But I had to find out just how much insulation I had. This home seems to get too warm on hot days.. and likely will get too cold on cold ones...
It turns out there is about R12 over the new den (now finishing drywall) and maybe R24 over the rest of the house. The current standard is R40.. yeh, needs some more, and guess who the lucky guy is who gets to do it? Heck, it's way too expensive to HIRE someone for this work.
Time to invest in some of those disposable face masks. Wish I had an easy way of getting some good lighting up there. I'll have to rig a hangar for my halogen lamp. Then it's off to fun and good times, crawling around on my knees in an enclosed space with fibreglass dust flying everywhere.
"In the passage I have just read from Tolstoy, the young second lieutenant Boris Dubretskoi discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book and anyone can easily read it up. It also remains constant. A general is always superior to a colonel and a colonel to a captain. The other is not printed anywhere. Nor is it even a formally organized secret society with officers and rules which you would be told after you had been admitted. You are never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it."
C.S. Lewis writes on the complexity of hidden hierarchies in relational systems: The Inner Ring. As I suspected, he concludes that hidden hierarchies aren't all bad. But the desire to be in one.. very bad...
Where things go well it is easy to believe that I am loved and accepted. Where things don't go so well the enemy comes as an Accuser. "See, if the Lord really cared for you this wouldn't have happened."
"Lord, help me to trust what I know to be true even when the circumstances press me. Help me to trust what you say about me even when my feelings disagree."
Listening to some old Stan Rogers tunes last night. This particular album was put together not long after Stan's death in an airplane crash while touring in the southern USA. One of my favorite cuts is called "45 Years" and was written by Stan to his wife. This has got to be one of the most beautiful love songs ever penned...
Where the earth shows its bones of wind-broken stone
The summer city lights will soften the night
(CHORUS)
If there is a Hell it will consist of an infinite wall, and we will all be assigned to drywall it.
* * *
The danger of interfering with natural systems is partly displayed in the huge Kelowna fire. For more than fifty years every small fire has been immediately extinguished, so that on the forest floor there was nearly a foot of pine needles. Other debris included both fallen and standing dead timber, all tinder dry after a summer of drought.
We had to endure an evacuation alert, while others had to actually evacuate from their homes. When Israel was from Egypt they left behind idolatry and a corrupt system. But it wasn't enough to leave the system behind; we take systems with us and attempt to rebuild what is familiar. It required forty years of wandering in the desert to learn to depend on God instead of trusting in the system.
I've been thinking the last few days how crisis tends to make or break a community. Crisis won't create community if you don't already have it.. but crisis reveals the quality of the community you have. Crisis does shake us out of our independence. It makes us weak and dependent on others, and in that sense can facilitate community.
Come let us return to the Lord,
After two days he will revive us;
Let us acknowledge the LORD ;
Hosea 6
I think the worst is over. On the radio the commentators won't admit this, because they are afraid of being wrong.
As we were praying for a couple this morning I found myself thinking about the exodus event, and I saw a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. I realized that those two things have dominated our vista for weeks now. We get up in the morning and see smoke, and in the evening we see the red glow in the sky (if the smoke isn't too thick.. see Castanet.net for fire images from Kelowna): smoke and flames. In Genesis the pillar of fire led Israel, and separated them from their enemies. By night.. flames.. and by day.. smoke. The fire and smoke symbolized God's presence and purity, but at the same time his judgment on the pagan nation of Egypt.
Here in Kelowna the dominant experience is affluence and security. But those things are illusory, and they are idols. Just as the Lord cast down the idols of Egypt and judged them, so he judges our local idols. We have all had our sense of security shaken by the flames, and hopefully our perspective on life and what is really important will be different from here forward.
* * *
Renovation is tiring. I've worked twelve hour days and more for two weeks now.. moving, building, tearing down, and cleaning and unpacking. I hope not to do this again for ten years or more.
Our social setting has changed significantly. Previously we were like an island to ourselves, and we didn't see people unless we invited them in. Now we are on an open, level and friendly street, and we see people every time we step our the door. But while everyone is friendly, the needs are acute, with many lives showing the ravages of life in the world: kids on drugs, broken families, and lots more we don't yet know about. The cool thing is that there seems to be openness to relationship. We'll host a neighborhood bbq as soon as we can move without tripping over boxes.
Around 4 PM yesterday 5000 people in our city were evacuated with the fire heading their way. At around 7:30 PM another 21,000 people were evacuated (almost quarter of the city) and many more (including us) were put on one hour alert.
It's a helpless feeling. We weren't too worried about staying, since we are at the bottom of the hill we used to live on, and the line of homes is separated from the likely fire line by a wide and open field. We were a bit worried about going anywhere, since our credit cards are almost full with the extra expenses incurred when we bought our home a few weeks ago. We also worried about vandalism, since streets of empty homes are a great temptation to thieves.
But.. when you are out of control, the best thing to do is acknowledge the fact and trust in the Lord.
The smoke was incredibly thick last night. We could only see six or seven streets across the valley. The fire looked too close for comfort. Around 11 PM the winds were dying and shifting away from us... good news. We decided to go to bed, knowing we could be wakened by a knock on the door at any time.
We got up to clear blue skies, the smoke and the fire now being pushed to the east. So far around 205 homes have been lost. Kelowna people have pulled together in powerful ways, offering open homes, clothes and blankets and pillows to evacuees. Thankfully, the prospects for tonight are very good, with winds forecast to blow away from the city...
This is my last blog from849 McKenzie Rd. This is no longer a secure location ;-)
My desk is almost bare.. haven't seen it this way since 1988. Where does all this stuff come from?
Ok, my chair is gone.. I am beginning to think a house is like an onion. You strip away one layer to discover another.. then another.. then another.. near the end you think you are .. near the end, then to your horror.. another!
In particular... the books are endless... I think I became a book junkie somewhere along the road. I repent!
I had intended to post some pictures of the renovations in progress.. but in the move we have lost track of the digital camera.
Tomorrow I move my office, so I may not be able to respond to email for a few days. My mailbox may also get overloaded.. the volume of junk mail, primarily autogenerated by various viruses.. has absolutely exploded in the past few days. I had over fifty junk messages today.
I also move the NextReformation server at month end. Hopefully that will be a smooth process but this site may become unavailable for a few days. Change, change, and more change...
It looks like I won't be pursuing a DMin this year after all. We had almost $4000 in unplanned expenses as we bought our home, and I simply can't afford to attend the program. Ah well... there will be future opportunities..
Active Fires in British Columbia
Too busy and too tired to post.. up at 7, working at 8 and home between 10 and 11 most days. I'm getting too old for moving.
The Okanagan valley is filled with smoke. When we moved in five years ago we moved during a record hot spell. This time it is a record fire season.
The move is going well though we have two days to vacate the old house and I have only started packing my office.
Bob Carlton has launched his blog
Renovation is messy and chaotic. Half the time I am responding to the unknown and unpredictable.
But after a wall comes down, the new one goes up clean and according to plan. Measure once, measure again.. fit and adjust, cut the lumber and hammer the nails. Small problems pop up that weren't expected, but one by one they are solved. Sometimes the plan has to be adjusted slightly to account for small variables.
For the first couple of days I thought a lot about mentoring. I found myself thinking about those who had taught me building skills: framing, basic wiring, insulating, sheeting... installing doors and windows. My first mentor was a high school instructor in electrical. My second was when I was 35 years old in Cranbrook. Chuck is an accomplished renovator and finish carpenter. We talked about church and the kingdom of God while we laid bricks, raised walls and installed glass.
Now it's my turn, as my fifteen year old daughter works alongside me. I show her the basics of running a wire through a wall and into a box. We set up some boxes together and she strips the wires. Then she helps me as I sheet the outside of the wall. So much of life is passed on in the doing; the instruction comes naturally as we work side by side, and attitudes are caught as much as skills.
One of the first items I brought with me to our new home (which is now a huge mess.. under renovation) was the Glamdring sword I bought earlier this year. It somehow seemed significant to me that it should be one of the first possessions that arrived there. I stood it in a corner of the family room I am building.
The next morning I noticed that a spider had woven a small web at the top near the hilt. I felt there was something to learn from that bit of work, which would normally be seen after a longer period of disuse.
But how quickly weapons laid aside can be forgotten. And how quickly we can lose the edge.
Particularly in this culture we can lose a sense that we are indeed in a battle. We can lose the awareness that there are life and death issues all around us.
When we lay aside our weapons, we may grow soft. We may say, like the sluggard, "a little more rest...." Don't misunderstand me.. there is a time for rest, and an ongoing need for retreat and relaxation, particularly when we are very busy servants. But in our culture, and in particular in an area like the one I live in .. a holiday culture.. it is very easy to set the weapons aside and grow hard to the needs of the world and the call to battle...
Perhaps my sword can be a reminder that I am called to the fight... and never to lay aside the weapons which the Lord has given me..
“The central reality of church is a group of people called to an ever-deepening personal belonging of friendship with Jesus of Nazareth. The command is to abide, to dwell in him as he dwelt in the Father. You have an image that Jesus used of total intimacy. But Jesus doesn’t give us a deeper relationship with him apart from his Body. Jesus does not come alone. He can’t because Jesus already has a people, he has a family. And when Jesus comes to us he always bring his family with him. Then we say, ‘No, I want just you. What I’ve heard about you is fairly good but what I’ve heard about your family is not so good.’ And Jesus says, ‘We come together.’
“So our first work, our primary call, is just to be a people. Lay people on fire with passion—a passion for Jesus, a passion for one another, a passion for ourselves. What we are talking about is a people among whom a supernatural life is flowing. We are talking about people who literally love each other as each has been loved by God as seen in Jesus. We’re not just talking about a general command, ‘Love one another’—we’re talking about a particular, concrete group of people where that is actually happening.
“At this point I can hear my friends objecting and I hear a part of me objecting. This all sounds like holy prattle. That kind of people would be great but we know they don’t exist. We know ourselves and we know one another. Which means each of us must make a choice. We must decide whether or not God can produce the people he claims to be able to produce in the new creation. Many people have surface longings and hunger to be a part of the people of God, and many wish they could find such a people.
"However, a deeper lack is the willingness to belong, a readiness to be bonded to them. To trust them even though under pressure they will betray me. The question comes whether I will let my weight down with them, whether I will cast my destiny with them. I will not try to exist alone though it will cause great pain at times. I will inwardly become part of the people. I will reveal ever deeper levels of myself. I will work on the deeper revelations that they may be ready to share with me, and accepting the responsibility that requires.” Gordon Cosby
David Trotter and Spencer Burke of TheOoze have noted that the postmodern earthquake has already occurred what we are now experiencing is the aftershocks:
1. Aftershock #1. From Duplication to Integration.
From duplicating the particular to bringing together a variety.
2. Aftershock #2. From Achievement to Learning.
Shifting focus from the end result to the process.
3. Aftershock #3. From Industry to Individuals.
Moving from the known to the new and experimental.
4. Aftershock #4. From Scarcity to Abundance.
From control to a posture of creating space for others.
5. Aftershock #5. From Vertical to Horizontal.
Moving from authoritarian leadership to collaboration and teamwork.
6. Aftershock #6. From Exclusion to Inclusion.
Focusing on what draws us together rather than on what separates us.
7. Aftershock #7. From Conquer to Experience.
From trying to change others to sharing with others wherever they live.
8. Aftershock #8. From Consumerism to Stewardship.
From unrestricted consumption to a desire to act responsibly.
9. Aftershock #9. From Building-Centered to Community-Centered.
Shifting focus from a particular location to networks of interdependent relationships.
Andrew Smith, Sherry Funk and Norm Strauss performed in a house concert last night here in Kelowna. This was the first concert of this type we have attended, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. With around ninety people in a fairly small space it wasn't terribly intimate, but everyone was close to the performers and it was mostly unplugged. Great music, lively banter, and a chance to catch up with friends.
At the end of the first set Norm sang one of his latest songs, "Where have all the dreamers gone." It was striking, because it's a theme I've heard repeatedly over the past few weeks. It started with a conversation with Nick and Andre, rose again on a mailing list, then popped up in a book I picked up at a garage sale (Shoeless Joe, later became the basis of Kevin Costner's "Field of Dreams").
I've just begun to puzzle about what the Lord is saying to me personally through this motif. Is he asking me about my own life? I've always been a dreamer.. no question about it. Many of my best friends are similar, and many of them have been deeply wounded as they pursued their dreams. Some are afraid to dream again; am I?
I have a feeling that the Lord loves this characteristic in me.. and in all dreamers. Maybe the Lord was the ultimate dreamer.. creating this splendid world out of nothing. It wasn't like he had a proven design to rely on, or years of observation to draw from.
Twenty years ago I read Pilgrim's Progress for the first time, and then wrote a song. The last part of the song pictured Pilgrim meeting the Lord like this:
"A dreamer meets a Dreamer, keeper
of his warrior's true;
As we get older it's harder to keep the dreams alive. But if I'm right that the Lord is the ultimate Dreamer, then there is something essentially human (we are in His image) about being visionary, and reaching out for something that is truly beyond our ability to achieve. Sometimes we call that quality faith... but it is something essentially human, not merely religious. It's a quality that calls to every explorer, every discoverer, every inventor.... "You are more than you are, and the world is meant to be more than it is...... don't rest, but rather press on from here!"
I've always loved the poetry of Robert Service, even with its often cheesy qualities.
"They have cradled you in custom,
May you find the call of the wild in your own heart... an echo of the voice of the Untamed God.
In his article Spirituality in the Next Millenium Mike Riddell points out that the church today is disregarded as a source of assistance in matters of spirituality. Christianity is perceived as old and tired, and past its use-by date. Mike observes that several hundred years of rationalism have produced a thin meal in soul food, particularly in the Evangelical tradition.
Mike identifies some of the contributing factors. Salvation has been treated as if it were a place of arrival, rather than the departure point for a long and exciting pilgrimage. An obsession with faith propositions has all but drained away mystery through relentless explanation. And the few remaining spiritual practices, those of scripture and prayer, have been strip-mined to exhaustion. Mike lists some suggestions for renewal:
Storytelling: The history of our faith has always been passed on through stories. Jesus used stories to communicate, scripture is a collection of stories, and the 'testimonies' of peoples' lives have always been powerful means of communication. We need to learn how to listen to stories and tell stories; indeed, how to live out a story.
The Sacrament of Eating: The most common setting for the teaching of Jesus was around the dinner table. Eating is the Christian context for fellowship, whether it is with fellow believers or with the very presence of Christ Himself.
Suffering: There is a need to focus once again on the mystery of suffering - to know Christ crucified and in the power of His resurrection. It was this mystery above all others that sustained the church in the face of enormous persecution.
Belonging: We have forgotten that we are the Body of Christ. Believers became known as "Christians" because they were identified as such not only with respect to their beliefs but also their lifestyle. Consequently, it created a sense of belonging, as well as a sense of bond and loyalty to fellow believers. Finally, there was a sense of sharing one's journey with others. Arguably, it was the nature of Christianity that was practiced in the first three centuries of the Christian church as much as what the Church believed that led to not only its survival but also its prosperity.
Celebrating: We have lost the joy and excitement of our faith. We are enjoined in the Scriptures to bless the Lord at all times, and to recognize that in His presence there is fullness of joy. Although we are told to not worry about tomorrow, and commanded to not look back but press on, we fail to celebrate - Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.
Spencer Burke's book is due out soon, titled Making Sense of Church.
From Prodigal..
"In the current era of church history there is much that is breaking up around us with the attendant anxiety and grief such loss entails. In all the efforts of the captains of the ship, and the soldiers of the Lord (to extend the metaphors of Acts 27) there is an energy and activism that subverts pastoral listening to organisational pain, and even panic. If we do have faith that death is not the end, can we face the possibility of organisational death, and in that very encounter discover renewed life in ways that we might never have dreamed? Such an encounter will require less activism and more quietness, fewer solutions and greater preparedness to live with powerlessness and impotence. It will require us to remain at our posts and continue in our callings, and finally, perhaps, even cling to the wreckage."
Stress.. that's the phenomenon that occurs when your banker tells you one thing, and your notary another.
We were told that we wouldn't have to pay the property transfer tax because we hadn't owned a home in the past five years. Wrong. In BC anyone who has previously owned property in Canada must pay that tax.
But we didn't find that out until 24 hours before the deal was supposed to close. The result was some wrangling with the bank, and coming very close to threatening them with their own liability should the sale fall through. Once the subjects are off, the buyer has to close the deal or risk a law suit.
In the end we placed another $2500 on Mastercard. That was a last resort, and one I hated to use. Once in a while it would be nice to be rich.
* * *
On the PM Theology list John recently asked what we all though of the possibility of a homosexual pastor. The question hits at two buttons: sexual morality, and qualifications for leadership. After a great deal of wrangling and discussion, Bob made this post: (simulated news item)
(2003-08-04) -- Bishops in the Episcopal Church today approved the
election of the first openly-Muslim bishop in the church's history.
The Islamic cleric, who rejects the deity of Jesus Christ, received
an overwhelming majority of the vote.
A spokesman for the Episcopal Church said the move demonstrates, "Our
church is open to all people, regardless of their beliefs, or whether
they accept the teachings of the Bible."
The election of the Muslim bishop comes as the church stands ready to
approve its first
"Learn from me, how difficult a thing it is to throw off errors confirmed by the example of all the world, and which, through long habit, have become a second nature to us." Martin Luther
"It was nearly 18 months ago that I was driving down Highway 33 and saw a sign on one of the large Mennonite buildings warning, "Don't wait for six strong men to bring you back to church." I groaned inside, wondering what that sign would communicate to the average reader in our community? "Church" is a place where we are married and buried, a place that offers religious "services" in exchange for a hefty monthly donation. Furthermore, it is a "building" and a location, not a living community."
Revised: The Language of the Kingdom
"Story is the design God picked to call us to our vocation: partnering with him in the redemption of his creation. The story of Scripture is a continual story beginning with creation and moving toward the new creation. This story has previous episodes to our present life and a brief glimpse of the future conclusion. We live in the present part of the story and are connected to the previous episodes of the story while moving toward its conclusion."
On Prophetic Vocation
Yesterday I shared a conversation on hospitality, and in the back of my mind I was reflecting on the use of language to call forth a new reality. When someone says to us, "Hospitality IS the gospel," it evokes images that we may not have previously connected with the reign of God. We see old truth in a new light. The blinders of familiarity are ripped from our eyes, our confining theological boxes burst open and we are re-imagining the gospel. This is powerful stuff, and it is God's work.
"Prophetic metaphor is incarnational language in the purest form. Though not reality itself, it becomes the most profound medium of reality. The future belongs to those who create and communicate prophetic metaphor." Thomas Hohstadt
I wonder if this isn't one of the more neglected aspects of the prophetic vocation. We call reality into being with our words, and "naming" is one of the most prophetic of occupations. Naming is a primary function of language, and it is really at the very root of language and the human vocation itself.
Naming was the first occupation given to mankind. The Lord gave Adam the task of naming the animals. By assigning names to them he was calling forth something of their deepest identity. He was also de facto making a statement about God and humanity. If it is "sheep" then it is not divine, and it is not human.
Names are so powerful in the Hebrew world that they are changed when an identity making event occurs. Abram becomes "Abraham," the father of nations. Names are so powerful that the name of God was never spoken. The Hebrews believed that if the true name of God was spoken the universe would cease to be.
For much of history the name was not lightly offered. To give your name to someone meant giving them something deep and precious; it meant exposing oneself, placing oneself under the power of another.
How does this relate to the prophetic task?
Wilfred Drath and Charles Paulus wrote about leadership and authority in a book titled "Making Common Sense: Leadership As Meaning-Making in a Community of Practice." (Publisher: The Center for Creative Leadership).
We constuct knowledge from our experience, and this constitutes our understanding. Understanding consists of "a process of using meaning-making to construct knowledge about experience so that one is able to interpret, anticipate, and plan. Meaning-making makes sense of an action by placing it within a larger frame, and this frame is seen by the person who makes sense as the way the world is and thus guides [them] in their way of being in the world." (page 3)
The traditional view of leadership not only unrealistically isolates certain behaviors from their context, but confuses authority and leadership, a confusion of means and ends. Those we term "inspired" leaders are often the people who are able to express formulations of meaning on behalf of a community -- they "name" what people have in their minds and hearts.
Meaning-making involves both naming and interpreting, as well as values and commitments. We commit ourselves to what we value and what we understand as worthwhile. We make commitments to the meaning we see, to ways of naming and ways of being in the world. The process of leadership also involves these commitments.
"This is our primary work in the real world... Words are the real work of the world - prayer words with God, parable words with men and women. The behind-the-scenes work of creativity by word and sacrament, by parable and prayer, subverts the seduced world. The pastor's real work is what Ivan Ilich calls "shadow work" - the work nobody gets paid for and few notice but that makes a world of salvation: meaning and value and purpose, a world of love and hope and faith - in short, the kingdom of God." Eugene Peterson, "The Contemplative Pastor."
In one of his books Henri Nouwen writes about hospitality. To Nouwen, "hospitality is not part of the gospel.. hospitality IS the gospel."
In a conversation this weekend we were exploring this framing of the gospel and of our call as the community of the crucified lover. Hospitality is an interesting word because its root connotes kindness to the stranger, and the word became representative of Christian charity with the rise of hospitals to care for the sick.
Nouwen writes about hospitality in "Reaching Out: the Three Movements of the Spiritual Life." The book is divided into three sections: Reaching Out to our Innermost Self; Reaching Out to Others; Reaching Out to God. The second section is subtitled, "From Hostility to Hospitality." Nouwen closes the first section with these words:
"The movement from loneliness to solitude allows us to perceive interruptions as occasions for a conversion of heart, which makes our responsibilities a vocation instead of a burden, and which creates the inner space where a compassionate solidarity with our fellow human beings becomes possible."
Midway through the first chapter of section two, Nouwen writes,
"Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where cange can take place...
"The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dance; free also to leave and to follow their own vocations..
"Creating space for the other is far from an easy task. It requires hard concentration and articulate work... more often than not rivalry and competition, desire for power and immediate results, impatience and anxiety dominate our lives. Empty space tends to create fear and "being busy" has become a status symbol. We have little toleration left for silence..
"Our preoccupations prevent us from having new experiences and keep us hanging on to familar ways. We often prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty.. Didn't Jesus say that our worries prevent us from letting the kingdom come?"
"The idea for Hollywood Jesus began with a conversation in the living room of one of the pre-eminent missiologists of our day, Don Richardson. Richardson's book "Eternity in their hearts," is the one that sparked our interest. In "Eternity in their Hearts," Richardson, advocates this simple truth: The belief systems and myths of each culture contain the story of God as told in the Bible."
Hollywood Jesus looks at Daredevil.
Last night at our gathering we talked about ownership. I realized after a few minutes that the word was partly a substitute for "commitment." It struck me as funny that the more "economic" language was safer than the religious language.
I've been re-reading an old book lately, "Call to Commitment" by Elizabeth O'Connor. It is almost impossible to talk about covenant community these days, but in the late fifties and early sixties it was necessary to do so. We may be rapidly approaching those days again.
"Ownership" is a useful word because it has some implications that commitment does not. Ownership places the onus on the individual, while commitment seems to place the advantage in the center of power. In the end both are good words, and both are complex because of our individual journeys. Commitment is never a one time act though there is a time of decision, and it occurs on many levels because of our personal understanding and individual ability to surrender our personal needs in favor of the greater good.
How do we come to "own" a group, or thing, or movement? It usually requires an investment on our part. In the case of a house, we ante up a small sum and then take on a huge mortgage and responsibility. In the case of a community and a dream, we step forward with our feet and then connect relationally, while also giving of our time, resources and energy. But usually that commitment will be the result of a journey that has already involved much time and energy and life. Generally it will be the result of a work that the Lord has already been doing in us.
Ultimately, community is about belonging. And belonging is for becoming.
"To live in community is to discover and love the secret of what is unique in ourselves. This is how we become free. Then we no longer live according to the desires of others, or by an image of ourselves; we become free, free to love others as they are and not as we would like them to be." Jean Vanier
Wednesday night I sat with Nick and Andre to chat about our journeys and our dreams. It struck me as we chatted together that this town has been a place of birth and death for many dreams and many dreamers. In particular, the artistic types have seen many dreams die.
We concluded that the Lord uses our dreams to wound us. Many dreams have to die, because at some point we become the center of our own dreams. How strange that it is our dreams that lead us to brokenness.
And that process in turn moves us beyond ourselves; our pain leads us first to run from community, and finally to embrace it, if we don't remain stuck in bitterness or cynicism.
The rebuilding process is hard, however. Almost as hard as death, rebirth comes slowly and the transition is long and painful. We dare not hope again, dare not dream again, for fear of another and greater death. Yet if we cease dreaming, we cease to live. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?" We sense this at a deep level, and so remain caught between the need to dream again, and the fear of further pain.
I believe the Lord had a specific dream for Kelowna as a place where the arts would flourish in the church, and somewhere along the way that purpose was aborted. Perhaps it had to die in order to be cleansed of fleshly motivations; artists tend to be even more egocentric than the average person. But I believe the Lord's purpose stands as an ongoing invitation, and it could be that the time for a new birth is near.
Funny, as we talked about these things we thought of Braveheart, Gladiator, and others. We think of the prominent representatives (heroes) of a particular dream, but the context is equally important. Leaders become great because they serve a dream and a community; the dream is always greater than they are, but the dream lifts them higher while they serve.
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• © 1999-2002 Len Hjalmarson.•
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My wife and I escaped for a rare date a few nights ago to see "Seabiscuit." Wow. What a blockbuster movie. Sorry, no sex, not much violence, but plenty of depth. I think I need to see it one more time before attempting some kind of review.
Buried in boxes, we scrambled to find the important items: family photos, a few videos, passports and birth certificates. We found almost all the things we wanted then went out on the street into the instant community that the crisis had created.
